Persona Non Grata

Theo trained back in 1988, he has more status than Bill who trained last year, because Theo was there back in the early days and has been in the game a lot longer than Bill.

But Bill is more up to date than Theo and isn’t stuck at the level of someone else’s development. Bill is newer, hip and more up to date. So he actually has more status than Theo.

But Sally once had a one to one session on the stage with her celebrity trainer, so she has more status than anyone. She has been anointed personally and with that no one disagrees.

Michael has only attended a two-day diploma course with a trainer that no one else has heard of, so he isn’t important at all. But he hopes to save up the money to attend the practitioner course one day, but for now he thinks the course is a bit too expensive.

Theo asks him how much the course is actually worth to him and tries to investigate Michael’s limiting beliefs about money by asking empowering questions. Michael tries to duck this interrogation and is quickly diagnosed as a mismatcher who deliberately avoids rapport.

Sally suggests that Michael comes and does the training with her own personal celebrity trainer as the course is a bit cheaper, but Theo tells her that this particular trainer isn’t actually authentic. He’s in the wrong lineage, and besides, Theo’s own personal celebrity trainer had a bust-up with this allegedly non-authentic trainer a few years ago, so we shouldn’t like him at all, at all.

Andrew says he has read a few books on the subject and has tried a few techniques out on his friends with mixed success. Everyone agrees that he is a pitiable fool and should attend a live training or he will be damned for his ignorance. These are powerful techniques you see and live trainings are always the name of the game in this business. No other substitute will do. The others all nod knowingly.

Claire plays her trump card and says that she has done her “masters” course. Not a postgraduate degree, of course, just the essential few days “live training” but she gets demoted as soon as Barry announces that he did the same masters course not once, but twice, once each with two trainers from “opposing camps”, to get a balanced view, apparently.

John, Paul, and Luke all eye either suspiciously. Each are certified trainers of the subject matter. Whilst apparently on the same side and part of the same lineage, they are still competition to each other nonetheless. Each of them smiles as they inflate the stories of their own personal and business successes to intimidate the others, whilst the novices listen in a passive and believing awe.

Peter attended the practitioner, then did his “masters” and then “trainers” in rapid succession. He hopes to quit his day job and teach people like Michael, but Michael is nowhere to be found. He’s busy in the other room having a positive belief anchored to his upper arm by Theo. Theo hopes to cure him of that mismatching too.

Luke is an assistant to some celebrity trainers and has been for years. He cryptically only ever uses first names when talking about them. He’s on first name terms and makes sure everyone else knows it.

Rachel went on a course where she learned to read minds like Derren Brown. By looking at their eyes, apparently. John protests that Derren Brown does nothing of the sort, but everyone ignores him. Rachel quietly tells Luke that she’s seen the pictures that John makes in his imagination and that those pictures are obscene and indecent and sexual and just wrong. Luke starts to avoid Rachel after that. Soon after, Rachel then tells something similar about Luke’s mental pictures to Claire. Claire smiles and nods enthusiastically and says that she too hopes to do that course one day.

Kathy fondles her crystals, they have a powerful energy and with that everyone agrees. Sally tells everyone how she has to be careful when she enters crystal shops because she is unusually sensitive and sometimes is overcome with the conflicting energies. She has to see her Reiki therapist to get herself rebalanced. Nick has some purifying teabags that were sold to him by his own celebrity trainer, “You put them into your water and they purify it,” he explains to the others. He hands around some leaflets that explain further. The leaflets also explain how they can all be MLM franchisees for the product. Everyone starts to avoid Nick after that.

Charles arrives and is demonstrably quite angry. A few of the others start chanting, “State control, state control!” He ignores them and rants about how some idiot workshop attendee has just asked him that if this technology is so good, then why is Charles is so noticeably overweight? The chanting quickly stops and the others cautiously delay responding to Charles outburst as the appropriate party line is unclear. “Don’t they understand about personal choice?” says Luke, breaking the tension. Ahh, yes, personal choice. Everyone is relieved and the conversation quickly moves onto how stupid some of these workshop attendees are these days. On this point everyone agrees, workshop attendees are definitely pretty dumb these days.

“They don’t even know how to swish properly,” says Matthew, “one guy even thought it was called the ‘switch’ pattern,” the whole group laughs at this as a couple nod sagely. The nodding couple make a mental note to stop calling it “the switch” pattern as well.

“What happened to Catherine?” Paul asks the group. There is a pause, as a few glances get exchanged. “Oh, we don’t talk about Catherine anymore,” Richard says, breaking the tension that reared up again, “Why not?” asks Paul. Why not indeed. “It’s dangerous to do so,” explains Theo. “She’s persona non-grata. The trainer stopped liking her sometime last year, so we don’t talk to her anymore.”