Breakthrough to Success with Chris Howard (Seminar)

Another weekend seminar with the title Breakthrough… Where is the individuality these days? It seems the marketability of the name counts more!

I am not one to judge the book by it’s cover, or the seminar by it’s name, so I turn up. Although it’s already Friday and the seminar is already in full throw, none of the ladies helping with the registration seem surprised. Later I find out that only half of those who registered actually turned up over the three days, which is explained by the fact that most attendants got their tickets for free (me included).

As I’m entering the seminar at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre, everyone is filling in the page “Where am I most stuck in my life and why?” This seems to be the basic theme for the first day, with the following days exploring everything from negative emotions, to limiting decisions, to goal setting and strategic visioning.

Chris Howard claims strategies like affirmations and visionboarding are old-fashioned and only engage a small part of our conscience and subconscious. His explanations make sense, and instead Chris banks on more modern concepts, mainly neuro-linguistic programming (NLP). NLP techniques and qualifications are quite common among professionals like coaches, trainers and presenters all over the world. NLP aims to engage all senses, including feeling, smelling, hearing and seeing and thus is better positioned to effect long-term change in person. The concept is based on the assumption that the brain makes connections and associations which form habits that continue to affect our lives.

As a general (or should I say personal) example, we may associate chocolate with pleasure and relaxation. If we can rewire our brain to see the empty calories, the fat and sugar or even the exploitation of cocoa growers instead, we may be able to kick the choccy addiction for good. We wouldn’t want to chocolate anymore because of our negative associations.

Back at the seminar, we are busily writing down `where-we-are`s and `where-we-want-to-be`s in relation to health, family and career and analysing our values.

After a quick dinner break, in which the food court is so swamped it is nearly impossible to find a salad (did we just review our health?), we return to find the Australian version of Chris, Peter Shaw (Lead Trainer and Master Coach in Australia), on stage presenting for the rest of the night. This swap continues throughout the seminar and Chris is noticeably absent in the early mornings and late evenings….
Many people are unimpressed with Peter at first, but I warm to him throughout the weekend and by the end I am even looking forward to hearing him.

The main content of the seminar is similar to most personal development content: How can I perform at my best as often as possible, or even all of the time? How can I create wealth? How can I build better relationships?
The techniques used are slightly different. Chris has been heavily influenced by Hypnosis and similar techniques that engage the subconscious. At times I feel like I have landed in Little Britain a la ‘Look into my, look into my eyes. Don’t look around the eyes, look into my eyes!’

But it’s not nearly as scary as it sounds: Chris addresses everybody as a group and people can be as involved or detached as they like. But, as Chris constantly reminds us, only if we ‘play full out’ will we get the best from the seminar.

One technique in particular resonates with me: getting rid of limiting decisions.
Limiting decisions are decisions, or life circumstances that prevent us from moving forward. Mostly, we are unaware of these decisions and in some instances they indeed seem like the true life circumstances to us. Basic examples which were volunteered by seminar participants were themes like “I’m poor”, “I’m not deserving of wealth” or “I’m not good enough”. We discuss with a partner what that particular decision has cost us in our life so far and why we are absolutely committed to releasing and changing it.

The release process that follows guides us back in time to the moment we made the respective decision and we eliminate it. We envision colours, sounds, and smells, as we eliminate the decision from our life as if it never happened. Then we move back into the present noticing all the opportunities that we missed and the many that are to come. We conclude with a new empowering decision.

This process is repeated after later on and while the first process absolutely changed my way of thinking about a particular issue, the second one looses me along the way. It may have been the mood, the particular issue I was contemplating or the time of day.

In any case, I can see and feel the powerful results that can happen if you ‘play full out’. I feel happy and relieved; tears are streaming down my face uncontrollably while I am laughing out loud. The feeling is fantastic and I am bubbling with new ideas.

In the rest of the seminar we use similar imaginary journeys to set goals (by venturing into the future and dropping a certain image in the future time stream) and to rid ourselves of negative emotions.

Since Friday night, we keep hearing, from both Chris and Peter, that the best is yet to come. By Sunday (also dubbed Transformation Day) I am beginning to wonder whether there was any point in turning up to the previous sessions at all if we are still waiting for the best.
As the day goes on this reference leads to Chris’s sales pitch of his continued programs (for the special price of X for seminar participants only). This is pretty annoying for participants who don’t intend to sign up for additional courses particularly since we have had to endure continuous pitching of other courses and programs since we started the seminar.

Although I find the end of the seminar to be a let-down, it was well worth investing the time to come here. Particularly memorable are my personal little breakthrough, the new techniques and information and some interesting new people.

As for my choccy addiction, I still enjoy a good piece every now and then. And if all the hypnosis techniques should fail, I just brush my teeth. That does the trick every time…