LAST week we set singleton Sheila Brown a dating challenge. We asked Sheila, a 58-year-old secretary from Canvey, to go out and experience the local singles scene and report back on her findings. She bravely agreed.

Before she takes the plunge however, we booked her an appointment with neuro linguistic programmer John Chiva. John who runs Pure Elation in Shoebury, believes there are easy steps we can take to train our minds to improve how we think, behave and feel. Using these he did his best to get Sheila feeling confident and ready for her dating experiences.

JOHN'S VERDICT:

Sheila has a slender elegance. She came across as really confident and at times introverted. She also had a nervous energy.

Sheila's eye contact is good and she had no problems intelligently holding a conversation. Her body language indicated an interest and engagement with the topics and her relation to them.

Shelia's attention was on how others saw her, whether she was attractive or funny; this perception can be bent to best project you.

Going into a situation with a negative self belief inevitably leads to a perpetual downward spiral. People have a funny knack of reading your projections, so if you go into a situation, any situation, and believe you should be there people respond to that and visa versa.

We have all met people who, at first, are not that good looking, but project something that is attractive; look at Kiefer Sutherland. All you have to do is absolutely believe it and act in the way you expect to be treated, something happens. A good tip is to imagine that someone has just whispered a really funny joke in your ear and your holding back a laugh to yourself.

Sheila was concerned about her small talk and whether she contributing to the conversation adequately. I have friends that can talk for England, if there was such an event. They're not mad - if people weren't listening they would stop. These are the kind of people that would interrupt in order to get their point in. The role of the listener is just as important as the talker and Sheila listened so that when she had something to add, it was relevant.

SHEILA'S VERDICT:

We talked a lot about getting and maintaining rapport with people - body language and mirroring and matching the other person's physiology (stance, posture, arm and leg and hand movements) and also matching their voice patterns (speed of delivery, volume and so on) and even trying to match their breathing patterns. Maintaining eye contact and lots of smiling.

We also talked about conversation and he made me feel that my role as predominantly the listener in any conversation, is equally as important as those that are delivering the stories and anecdotes. He convinced me that the comments I make during the conversation, and the interest I take in the other speakers, is a major part of the proceedings and contributes greatly to the whole conversation.

He also convinced me that my view of the world is only realistic and pertinent to me. Everyone's view of the world and its circumstances is different and individual to them, and no-one's view is either right or wrong. Therefore we can choose how we view things for our own peace of mind and benefit. This again has helped me greatly as I do tend to see the negative side of things and have always assumed that my view is the realistic one and that everyone else sees things through rose-coloured glasses, but I've got a pair myself now and it's great!

All in all, I seem to be a lot more smiley and not so easily depressed about things now. And as I am also getting quite good at thinking that I'm attractive and projecting that thought to others (thanks to John), I just need a good-looking, unattached, articulate, baggage-free, local, tall, 55ish, smiley man to be in my eye-line and Bob's your uncle! Not much to ask is it?

*Next week Sheila puts what she's learnt into practice when she goes speed dating.