Many years back an early mentor advised “never write your professional biography in the first person, because you’ll always sound like a big-head when you’re selling yourself from there”.
This may be so, and certainly seemed to make a good deal of sense at the time, but a deeper look reveals its origins in a pernicious piece of underlying cultural hypnosis (that we will visit in a paragraph or two from now).
The 'Professional Bio' section of this website used to contain a well-crafted attempt to define ‘who I am’ professionally, but I've decided to burn it. Why?
Because it was bullshit.
A narrative that came from that insidious tendril of cultural hypnosis expressed in the idea that...
...in order to survive, we must constantly advertise and prove ourselves in life.
Look and you'll see that this is an organisation of reality where the power is ‘out there’, and we must ingratiate ourselves to it or otherwise be outcast and marginalised. For many this idea just seems true without question, but it is not. It is an idea, not a fact. And an idea that silently undermines those who unconsciously orient to it by disconnecting them from their own power and creative potential.
And it goes in early - mainstream education inculcates it with its series of hoops and standards we are trained to jump and meet. Culture rehearses it with its obsession with personality and ‘coming across well’.
It will be evident from this website that I teach/coach/mentor people… predominantly in and from the principles of non-linear, generative engagement. I do this because I love it and have the particular set of skills and understandings to do it.
I do not, however, have any desire to sit inside of the box of coach, teacher or mentor. My preference here is to teach/coach/mentor from a place of congruence as a first-hand explorer of life and the effective, creative engagement with it.
I would say I have walked an eclectic path in life. From a young age I felt the strong desire to carve out my own way with things beyond ‘the mainstream’, and to either a small degree or a great degree have done so… with the tendrils of cultural hypnosis and social conditioning dragging at me the whole time.
Today I am (through exploration and personal re-creation) much freer than I have ever been… but am still learning much about that the magic that lays beyond those tendril’s grasp.
This website going forward will be 100% about ‘living as a creative force’ - which means going beyond the cultural hypnosis and social conditioning to connect with your innate capacities to generatively engage with the rich and infinitely complex unfolding of life; connecting with a way of being and doing that is not only generative in terms of creating positive difference in the world but is also inherently rewarding and fulfilling.
My hope is that the information you find here will serve you greatly.
The Burned Bio (recorded for posterity)
"James Tripp is an internationally recognised and respected coach, people developer and teacher of self-mastery and influential communication. James has been proactively involved with self-transformation and developing personal adaptedness and personal performance via various paths since 1992 (beginning at age 19 with a resolution to increase his own levels of impact and influence). He has been working professionally as a skills trainer and people developer since 2003 and coaching one-on-one since 2007.
Coming from a diverse background in philosophy, martial arts, transformative hypnosis and NLP, James is also the developer of the critically acclaimed Hypnosis Without Trance approach to hypnosis - a pragmatic approach that focuses on the use of language and communication to direct attention and seed ideas, for the purpose of assisting a person in altering their experience and perception.
As a result of his reputation for skill with hypnotic language influential communication, James has been sought out to consult in the fields of sales, changework, transformative coaching, teaching and business leadership. As a trainer, he has been invited to teach all over the world from Europe to Australia to the US, and his London and UK workshops typically draw students from around the world who come specifically to learn his unique approaches.
James also teaches 'mind tech' and communication skills/strategies privately and provides ongoing professional development mentoring for coaches, changework practitioners and other professional communicators."