Alexander Technique Career Success

I used to do insane things when I was young. I have an image of my self at 23 - running naked into a teaching room, dripping water while yelling at the bemused and stunned participants of a residential I led: “Hey! Come swim and live a little you guys!!!” and then shot off out of the room, a small pool of water left in my wake. Australia, like England, has a poetic tolerance for eccentrics, particularly drunken ones, so the moment passed with no more than gentle amusement. I was, after all, a rather attractive naked young man - who could really object? I cringe now as I disclose what was then a mere minor infringement in a string of indiscretions. Today I do wonder - whatever possessed me at the time? And the surprising answer is: precisely nothing. That is the point - at that moment I had no future. I had no image of “what might happen” from my outrageous behaviour. I often lived that way, and discovered I got a great deal done from this do-or-die daredevil mind. I...

When my daughter Angelica was very little, around 4 years old, one day she solemnly declared to me that she liked “soft boys.” In her little world at the time, boys were divided into “hard boys” and “soft boys” and she liked the soft ones. That’s probably because she had a bit of a hard boy in her - but let’s not go there. This concept of “hard boys/soft boys” was forgotten until years later when I was getting advice from my first business consultant, the one who actually named us BodyChance. He told me that small, young companies like ours did better when at least one of the staff was abrasive, aggressive and often disliked by other staff. At the time, my new manager had generated such a scandal in the way he was dealing with the staff that one of my lead teachers was threatening to walk out of BodyChance! Ahhhh, I thought. My manager’s a hard boy! This hard boy converted 20% of our studio visitors into members of BodyChance’s one year public learning program. That was qui...

In yesterday’s blog I posed a cliff hanger question: what jeopardizes my ability to sell Alexander Technique? This “something” demotivates your ability to advocate the work in the presence of a reluctant buyer. What is this “something”? Let’s consider it… My reluctant buyer is usually a “Yes, but…” person. Something like: “Yes Alexander Technique is great but I am not sure if I can…” or “Yes, it did help my back pain but I don’t have enough money for lessons.” Our reluctant buyer is going towards and going away at the same time. Towards you (the work and what they actually came wanting) AND going away from you (by their fear of losing money, time, safety). This “yes/no” mind is conflicted - it is uncomfortable and tense. No-one seeks out this state. This moment calls for your decisive advocacy of “yes” to what they came seeking. Instead, as I have often witnessed in my Self, I begin bowing to the person’s “no.” … An empathetic nod accompanied with “Oh, I see, money is diffi...

Here’s a question for reluctant sellers of Alexander's discoveries: When you offer Alexander Technique sessions to a person who has demonstrated an interest, what is your primary task? Here’s an answer I am guessing will be coming in some form or other to many teachers… “to be compassionate, to listen, to explain, to assist the person in making a decision…” All good. Nothing there that is overtly difficult, so if you find it difficult to sell, maybe you are doing something else too? So here’s the answer that I am guessing is not coming to so many teachers: “To get that person to yes or no.” Of course the conventional view of a seller is to “Get the person to yes.” but in Alexander Technique terms that has to be incomplete. Choice is not choice when there is no space for no. So your job is to engineer clarity in your prospect's thinking.  How do you do that? Years ago, I was first alerted to this subtle distinction by guess who? You got it - my t...

A long while back, when I was in the midst of (yet another) crisis of confidence, I asked my Self a simple question: “Does Alexander Technique actually work or not?” As I cast my mind over my previous lessons, I noticed that I was equivocating my reply - oh sometimes Alexander Technique works, sometimes it doesn’t. Then a thunderbolt hit me: my being was electrified by a startling admission of truth: I was lying about my question. I was not asking if Alexander Technique worked - although I thought that was what I was asking - what I was really asking was: “Does Jeremy Chance actually work or not?” Jeremy Chance working properly or not was based on the results of his experiences with his students. I had this crazy idea - that the Alexander Technique only worked when my lessons worked. Unless my students had lost their pain, had break-throughs and aha moments, the Alexander Technique did not work that day! But Jeremy Chance, like all human beings, is si...

Newsweek is running a fascinating article on Abraham Lincoln this week. Lincoln was a gutsy politician who’s attained almost saint like status in the world today - but the point of the Newsweek article is to bring people back to earth about the means whereby he effected the changes he wanted - and Alexander Technique teachers would do well to study his approach. Lincoln sold himself ruthlessly, tirelessly - shaping his message delicately into the listening of those surrounding him. He was clear that you can not introduce an idea to an audience not ready to hear it. He said in a speech in 1856: "Our government rests in public opinion. Whoever can change public opinion, can change the government, practically just so much.
" December 10, 1856 Speech at Chicago. My teacher, Marj Barstow, expressed it differently, but essentially agreed with Lincoln, when she taught me: "You have to begin with your pupil’s thinking."  Jan, 1989 in Lincoln, Nebraska...

I had a long, passionate letter from a teacher in Europe last week, and I promised to comment on it in a blog post. (BTW - Please write and tell me your story - your concerns, needs & wonderings. I promise to answer you personally, as well offering further advice here. Take advantage - it’s all for free! You can message me in FaceBook ). My correspondent took time to establish credentials as a top tier salesperson, with years of experience in marketing and sales, handling multi-million dollar, international deals. So you would think this person a natural to move into being a professional teacher and utilize those skills marketing and selling Alexander Technique, right? No. That was the point of the letter. Although selling objects and “things” came easily, selling Alexander Technique seemed impossible. Why? Fundamentally I think it is a misconception: you think you are selling your self. How do I know? Because for years I fell for just that. At first glance it seems obv...