James Lawson (Performance Coach)

From helping people get over panic attacks, anxiety, depression & crappy self talk to coaching people to perform at their best James Lawson is a high performance coach that gets long lasting results in a brief space of time. As a Master Practitioner of New Code NLP and a Hypnotherapist he is particularly grateful for the careful mentoring and coaching he has received from Peter Salisbury, Zach Pol

anski and Toby Poulsum. These exceptional trainers have themselves been mentored by the co-creator of NLP, Dr John Grinder and it is via Peter that James eventually gained access to being trained by Dr John Grinder and Carmen Bostic St Clair (the co-creators of New Code NLP). This combined set of experiences came together to further solidify his place amoung the limited number of practitioners in the world that have been trained to work with an individuals unconscious. Something that ensures that change happens quickly and is entirely congruent with what you want to happen today. James is continually moving on his path towards further mastery by attending other trainings lead by people such as Richard Bandler (co-creator of NLP) and Michael Carroll and he is an assistant coach on training courses teaching New Code NLP and advanced hypnosis. This hasn't always been his main focus, yet the all important attitude has always been present. Having finished university with a BA(Hons) Marketing, Retail & Distribution he decided he wanted to become a DJ and Producer (for James this means actually writing, playing, recording and performing the music). Although he had learnt to play guitar and piano from an early age James had no real experience of music production in a studio, but that wasn't about to stop him achieving his goal. A few years later he was running a record label, had played in 20 countires world wide, hit the top 40 twice, released over 100 records and had been featured on over 50 compilation albums. The success story continued with residencies at clubs such as Ministry of Sound, writing for the UK music press, headlining stages at some of the biggest festivals in the world (such as Creamfields & Global Gathering), and strutting the same boards that artists such as Madonna, AC/DC and The Prodigy had perfomed on. He was in his element, but felt that there was more he could be doing. Soon he was to find out what that is. In 2007 James attended a motivational seminar with some friends, almost by accident. He wasn't originally going to go along, afterall he had shown himself to be very "motivated" already, but as the husband of a friend couldn't attend he went in his place. When he talks of this experience, James speaks of both of having a huge amount of skeptism (a heathly trait) and then approaching the seminar with an open mind. As he puts it "What's the point in just being a skeptic. The true skeptic is curious enough to actually let go and do something outside of their default way of being. If a person doesn't do something different they'll just end up doing the same things they always have, and there's so much more available than just a bit of extra motivation!"

During those 3 days he experienced some profound changes in himself. He also noticed that the tools and techniques that were being used were very simliar to what he did naturally, but were much more refined, more efficient and got the results much more quickly. At the same time he also recognised that a couple of changes didn't last that long and that some of his friends hadn't actually experienced anything worth writing home about. This fascinated him and he wanted to know how this could be. This drove him to search out the very best trainers with the intention of eventually joining their ranks. He has since discovered the answers to those original questions and very much enjoys continually keeping his skills up to date with the latest advances in the field. In doing so James has found that while his love of music production remains he has found a new passion that compliments the music beautifully. As he says "Helping others and being a part of something larger than yourself is always so much more rewarding."

5 years on and James has coached in a number of different environments. From helping sales, marketing & HR teams achieve more, to showing musicians and other creatives how to break their "writing blocks", to helping people put things like depression and panic attacks so far out of their mind that they hardly believe they once had the "issue". While musing on this subject James says "at it's most simple, and the most effective things are, it all comes down to the state of mind someone is in. Anyone can be taught to manipulate their own state in any direction they choose. When they do this all of a sudden a necessary something that seemed like an arduous task becomes something enjoyable, and things that were completely wasting someones energy, like crappy self talk, become irrelevant. People just do something more productive instead." While he admits that people do go to him expecting him to magically change them he says that they always leave realising, that in the end, they did the changing themselves. "It's all a question of guidence" he says "who am I to tell someone that they should be this way or that? I learned very early on that if you try that BS everyone gets nowhere very quickly. The person that actually knows what they want to be doing is the client. That might have seemed strange at first to the person that thinks they're lost or not quite there, but by connecting with a deeper part of themselves which is just waiting for them to take action they'll have ended up getting out of their own way. A blessing that reaps huge rewards." James is currently developing an App for the iPhone that induces a high performance state in those that use it. This is a prelude to his next big project which will be working with the top music engineers and producers in the world, modelling what they do and then teach that it to others. If you happen to be one of those people, or know someone who is, it's almost a foregone conclusion that it will have been a hugely beneficial partnership for all involved.