Session #136: Mid-America Hypnosis Conference 2017 Keynote

Disclaimer: Transcripts were generated automatically and may contain inaccuracies and errors.

---

First of all, of course I’d like to thank CAR and uh, as well as Karen Han for inviting me to be here this morning to speak to all of you. And the theme this morning is this mindset of changing at the speed of thought. So while there’s a lot of big picture themes I’m gonna be sharing with you at the same time, the goal is to actually give you some actionable strategies, some.

Actionable mindsets, you could actually fold into your work with your clients in terms of thinking differently about how we approach this change work that we do. Um, so my suggestion to you is this, from the start of it, to realize that we as the practitioner, we don’t have to have all the answers to what the client is coming in to address.

And indeed, there’s certain situations where a client would often come in, And my favorite phrase around this is that there only could be one expert in the room. So perhaps here’s an athlete who’s coming in and this is their specialty. I don’t have to know all the ins and outs of that thing that they’re addressing.

For some reason, years ago, suddenly a lot of gymnasts come to my office. And they have a fear of flipping backwards when they’re like eight feet up in the air on a three inch wide hi beam. I call that Darwinism. That’s called survival of the fittest. You’re supposed to be afraid of that . Yet. Here’s a person who has gone through the appropriate training to learn how to do that, and there’s a good reason she’s the one doing it and I’m not the one attempting it.

Mm-hmm. so. We don’t have to have the answers though. Our job is that facilitator of change. Our job as that practitioner of hypnosis is to use this as that mechanism to get them to the right place where they’re able to make that discovery for themselves. It, it’s where there’s some commonly held belief systems that I’d often hold true to, which are questionable at times, but they work for me, so let’s keep with them.

The mindset that you would often hear some people say it takes 30 days to install a new behavior. to which I would argue back, those people might not be using the right techniques. That when you look at major life changes, these are things that happen in an instant. When you look at major shifts in your life, whether it’s a moment where.

And I’ll generalize this for obvious purposes, moments where there was some sort of religious belief system and then you found a different path as it were that can occur very rapidly. Moments where you had some sort of political belief system and then you discovered some piece of information and couldn’t go back to the old way.

Moments where in a relationship new information was presented. That thing was over with. We have that capability to change extremely rapidly. There’s this dialogue at times behind the, uh, the instant gratification, the feeling better as they leave the office, as well as the permanent change. Yes, our goal is to create that change though at the same time, we’ve gotta get that foot in the door some.

So permanent change, of course is, is the goal. Many people know me for the work that I’ve done in terms of getting out and talking to hypnotists, talk about their business. The background behind this comes down to a premise that I, I love this mindset that I don’t buy into the premise that I should be nervous about this.

I don’t buy into the premise that I should be cautious around something at times. I grew up around Virginia Beach, Virginia. There’s a ton of traffic around there, and at 16 years old I figured out if I was speeding, if I was breaking the law, I got to sit at the traffic light longer than the car that I worked so hard to pass, which is how I didn’t get my first real traffic offense until I was like 33 years old.

And I’m discovering that if you know Northern Virginia, there’s 66, which all of it is ho for like these three magic hours. And I made the officer right on the ticket that I was driving in the right lane and going in the speed limit , and suddenly the morning is free. Well, I could pay the ticket. I was guilty though at the same time.

I’ve never been before. Let’s see what happens. Worst case scenario provided. I don’t say anything offensive to the judge. Hopefully, uh, I’m not going to get anything worse than paying the offense. So again, the mindset around, I don’t buy into the premise that I should be nervous around this. There I was already at the time, a full-time stage hypnotist as I was deciding to then launch what’s now Virginia Hypnosis, the office where I see clients, and I was at this local.

and the experience was, and this, I don’t believe this came from scarcity in any way whatsoever. It came about from the people in that local community looking at me and saying, Oh, it’s gonna be slow. Your first year as a hypnotist. People won’t come see a brand new hypnotist. You don’t have any referrals.

People are gonna be cautious around that. You don’t have any testimonials. And within the next month, I was back at that meeting again with a fully packed. . I was back at that meeting again about two months later, teaching what I had done, , to create that fully packed schedule. So as much as we are that law of attraction, all this wonderful abundance, there’s some thinking we need to start to address, which in my opinion comes back to that phrase.

I don’t buy into the premise that I should be nervous around this. There’s a framework that I’ve introduced of the practitioner of the person being branded as the hypnotic. , which is the person who is actively out there doing the work, sharing it with others, as well as continuing to grow in what they do.

That there’s a few too many that are out there who are simply teaching, yet they’re not actually there in the office with the client actually doing the work. There’s a little too much of, I’m repeating what my instructor told me. This is what I was told. This is what works as opposed to getting out there, field testing it, and again that mindset.

I don’t buy into that premise. What if we switch the model in this specific way? What if we play with the formulas inside of this in a slightly different way, which let’s take this moment and actually talk about hypnosis, which is a really good thing to do cuz we’re at a. Hypnosis conference. The definition that I subscribe to the most is the one from Dave Elman.

That hypnosis is that bypassing of the critical faculties of the conscious mind, followed by the acceptance of selectable thinking in the subconscious mind, which of course when our client calls us, we can explain that exact statement and they know exactly what we’re talking about, right? the hell does that mean?

Let’s unpack it. Hypnosis is that bypassing of that critical faculty of the mind? What is that? That is that automatic response. So the examples that all of us would often rattle off, but chances are we haven’t really thought about what these examples really mean. You’re driving in your car, you’re thinking about everything other than driving your.

and you still end up where you’d like to go. You’re bypassing that critical awareness because you’re thinking about everything else you wanna be doing. You’re thinking about where you’re going. You’re illegally texting and looking at your phone, and you still safely arrive provided you actually keep the eyes on the road.

You’re watching a movie and you know, all that stuff up there is fiction. You know, it’s all make believe and they’re all actors playing. Pretend. And yet we still get swept up in the. So if our definition goes back to that Dave Elman phrase around, it’s that bypassing of the critical faculties of the mind and the acceptance of selectable thinking.

It becomes a moment that if it’s the initial call that’s coming in from a client, I’ll share that. I’ll basically call it out. Yeah, that’s a lot of weird jargon. Let me explain that. But it becomes this moment where suddenly now we’re shifting that belief system because. Well, which is exactly what you’re doing right now and why you’re calling me.

You know you want to quit smoking. and yet there you’ve been continuing to smoke. You know that you are fully qualified to be in front of this group of people and speak about what you’re gonna speak about. And yet you’re up there shaking and feeling nervous. You know you’re safer up in that airplane than you were driving to the airport.

I don’t tell them that cuz I don’t wanna work on two issues in that session. But you know, you’re safer up there than you were driving to the airport. And yet the key is that phrase and. And yet there you are nervous. So the simple phrase is, Congratulations, you’re already doing hypnosis. Let me show you how to do it better.

So it’s that mindset as superhero movies are now the big thing. Let’s use these powers for good rather than for evil, which at that point, what have I now accomplished? By the way, at that point, the, I’m not gonna make you bark like a dog or cluck like a chicken. I’m not. The standard pre-talk stuff we would typically say is, in my opinion and in my experience, negated because here’s this moment where, let’s call it out.

What we do is kind of. to the outside people. Then again, it’s weird when they come in as well, You’re gonna come into my office, you’re gonna close your eyes, you’re gonna follow my instructions. Sounds good, right? And you’re gonna pay me for it. Wait, what? . So it’s this experience where we’re normalizing what we do yet still holding onto that magic of it.

Where again, that framework that you’re already doing this, I’m gonna show you how to do it. To begin the process from that mindset. Now that foot is already in the door, that again, we’re utilizing skills and abilities that they absolutely have. So to even take advanced strategies and recognize that sometimes there are pre talks behind all these individual techniques, this concept of the opening frame, that if you explain to the client, Here’s what we’re about to do, and you’re getting.

Subconscious Full body knot. Ah-huh. Yeah. This is gonna work for me. It’s where there’s a commonly held belief that you don’t say, Hey Rick, today in the session I’m going to regress you to figure out why you have this issue sound. , which he may turn and run , or he may start to problem solve for himself. Oh, it’s probably this.

It’s probably that. But we can apply a pre-talk towards any of our strategies. So Rick, today’s process is a little different than what you may have done before. It’s not quite the magnifying glass, inspecting the past and looking for meaning and insight. A better metaphor as it’s the slingshot. We’re only pulling back with the intention of letting go, and we’re gonna use that as that momentum to move you in the direction you.

Sound good? Sounds good. Yeah. Which, what did I just say? We’re gonna go there, , but I use language that was much more familiar. I give you that frame because there’s a common pre-talk behind, uh, and I, and I rename it not for the sake of, I love the aspect of so many of us will try to retitle things and claim it’s our own when really we’re talking the same concepts.

That being said, the fast phobia cure includes two words that most of us are not qualified and legally allowed to use. So let’s call it the fast fear. It’s the same technique. Don’t be fooled. Uh, trademark pending, no . So to take that experience, there’s commonly two pre talks, two pre-frames we would give behind that fast fear release.

The first is this methodology of single trial learning. It only took you a moment to learn this fear. It may have been compounded over time, but at its core it only took a moment to learn this issue. And if your mind is so gifted and talented, it can learn something that strongly, that quickly. , it can learn something new, just the same.

Smiling, nodding, sound good? And I’m getting that contract from the start. The second part of it is, call it a little bit of a parts therapy variation. Here’s this part of you that’s working really, really hard to protect you, and we just need to go in and give that part of you better information so that part of you can work for you rather than you work for it as it’s been so.

Sound good. Which even at that point, you’re taking this big massive problem that they’ve had up until now, putting it in an entirely different frame, and that’s getting that foot in the door of that change process as well. So at its core, this methodology of single trial learning, there’s a, there’s a technique in hypnosis and NLP that I’d say comfortably.

I, I use quite a. Though to use it is one thing to live. It is another, which is this whole category of slide of mouth where in the principles of slide of mouth, it’s this linguistic strategy where you’re taking someone’s belief system and there’s a couple of dozen different strategies to listen to their belief system and then respectfully, there’s the keyword.

Respectfully feed that belief system back in such a way that the belief system no longer works. . So to take this into the process, to have this mindset that, as I’d phrase it, the same map into the problem is very often the same map out of the problem for all the reasons that someone is coming in and saying, This is why I can’t do this.

This is what my challenge has been. It’s the same mindset I would use within business. It’s the same mindset I would use in terms of working with my. Everything is an asset. It’s where if you and I are working together in this office, of course the natural statement is, we only can affect you. You’re the one here in this office.

There may be other players and other triggers in your environment. Yet it’s your reaction to them is what is gonna change this? So let’s use that catalyst that used to be every reason why this was a problem, and instead use this as the catalyst. Why? Every reason why, as my phrasing is I’ve got this. This is gonna be.

So there’s this woman who comes into my office. I love the aspect where sometimes those of you that see a lot of clients would also, aside with this one, that when they pose an issue, there’s often the need to defend. Well, it’s not that bad. Well, you know, I have a drink every now and then, but I’m not a Yeah, you get the idea.

Mm-hmm. in her case, she goes, well, I’m definitely not in the categories of anorexic or bulimic. I’ve even went to doctors to discuss that and they said, No, you’re not that because I’m still eating an appropriate diet, keeping in a good physical shape. My issue is this, eating in public. Eating in public. I don’t eat in public.

I will eat something, you know, in private. I’ll eat at home, I’ll go out to dinner with friends and, Oh, I already ate something at home. I’ll just get something to drink. I just always had this aversion to eating in public. And as we’re in this process, it becomes a beautiful moment where mother did everything she possibly could to suggest this disorder rather than work to create a solution every meal with mother.

And I’m looking around to make sure no one’s eating as I tell the story. You’re really gonna finish all of that. Are you serious? Oh, you’re gonna get huge if you eat. All of that is the dialogue that mother’s giving from like three years old all the way up to mid thirties. I love the moment where something shifts rapidly because it’s a moment where I get a phone call, uh, after hours, and I take it.

And she’s in the bathroom of an Applebee’s, which there’s a wonderful way to continue a story. Uh, , she’s in the bathroom of an applebee. She’s going, I have to thank you. What? I am laughing so hard. My mother’s pulling all the same routines and this time it’s hilarious. I excused myself to the bathroom just because I had to call you.

This is amazing. Thank you. Uh, I wasn’t gonna tell this story, but I have to fold it in. My favorite feedback ever from a client came just a few months ago. She’s issues with like social anxieties. Being out in public, people judging and critiquing her was the issue that came in. It’s our second appointment.

I just had the worst date of my life. That was incredible. Thank you. It’s like, wait, what? ? No, seriously, it was horrible. I mean, every stereotype, Oh, I forgot my wallet. Uh, and just the guy, he goes, he’s hitting on the waitress in front of me and she goes, And previously I would’ve been in my head thinking, Oh, is it something I said, He doesn’t like me.

Oh, I’m gonna die this lonely old spinster, I have to make this work. This one might be the one. And for the first time ever, I could go to the place of this guy’s. Fill in the language yourself. This guy’s an A-hole. This is incredible. I gotta see where this goes, . And she followed through with the date, the rest of the night.

Of course, at the end of it, no, I don’t think this is a match. But to get that experience where yes, we wanna aim for that permanent change, but to have that moment where just clearly the old model of the world just doesn’t quite. It’s where I’m gonna talk about getting some magic into the process.

There’s a ton of traffic in the Northern Virginia area. So here’s this woman with this issue with nail biting, and the entire process hinged around the phrase, if the hands ever move towards the face with the intention of harm, they’ll immediately find something else to do. , she’s driving. She hits traffic around Arlington.

The hand immediately does one of these, cuz the traffic, the trigger used to be, I’m sitting in traffic. This is when this happened. The hand did the full 360 , which for her in that moment, it’s that Oh wow. That actually worked. Which again, it may just be that foot in the door, but we gotta get that foot in the door somewhere.

Which it’s the story of a. a, a man who I worked with for issues with, uh, fear of small spaces, issues with elevators, and other people have told this story. Then finally it happened to me. So it’s my story now too where I’m at this, uh, event and I’m in the elevator to get this frantic voicemail. You need to call me.

I don’t know if this is working. I don’t know if I was deep enough in hypnosis there. I don’t know if it was this or if it was that. I get ’em on the phone. Yeah, I was in the elevator and I was. I don’t think this worked. It’s like that’s how everybody else feels in elevators, . Congratulations. Um, , which again, getting that foot in the door utilizing whatever is there, it’s.

It’s a moment where, uh, as I work with kids very often and I, I see very little pushback from this. I, I say it, there’s a place in my brain that I sometimes dip into in a respectful way, which is called Nothing to Lose , which is where the mother’s saying, Oh, can I be in this session with my son? Well, you absolutely.

you know, you’re my employer. It may look as if I’m self-employed and I’m this entrepreneur. Yet throughout the day, I’ve got five different bosses coming into my office. Because without you, I don’t have a job. However, I’ll tell you comfortably, it typically slows down the process. We can still get the same result, though it may take an extra session or two.

It’s up to you. Okay, I’ll wait in the lobby. So, which has been my finding over the years I’ve been working with this girl again, flipping backwards on a high beam. Mom’s in the room chiming in. Oh no, you’re not that. And slowing down the process. So this boy had this fear of bees, which what became that foot in the door.

What’s the first thing you’re aware of that triggers this concern? The sound. Now I did not fill in the humor of a 10 year old boy, even though I have a four year old one at home, as the simple suggestion was, As you hear that sound, you can imagine it’s something you would find to be more comfortable.

And the mother calls me up and says, Did you tell my son that the bees are farting ? It’s like, Oh, dear , No. What I said was, You can hear the sound and decide it’s something else. And of course, 10 year old boy brain, that’s where it. Yet they’re out at like a Six Flags amusement park and a Beland zip. And he goes, Ha.

And he just sets it down. The mom’s going, . Which again, getting that foot in the door, we’re looking for these moments, looking for these magical moments where something then changes though, to rewind all this back here, uh, the whole process here begins with where does the actual hypnotic experience begin?

In my opinion, it’s not just the pre-talk. Many of us say from the initial phone, It’s even going back to before they’re aware of us, before they’re even aware of who we are. Um, in the aspect of what I’ve done for building out Virginia Hypnosis, I’ve built a very specific avatar of who my ideal client is.

And I want you to hear exactly what this one is from the confidence builder, that these are people who exist and we can start to think bigger and better about what we do as hypnotists, because my ideal client is a person who has already decided. That they want to do hypnosis. They’ve already made that decision that they’re looking for a hypnotist and now they’re doing their research to track down well in this area who’s the most qualified person to help me.

So it’s where I am letting the hypnotic process be this presupposition in terms of our dialogue that, yeah, you’re already gonna do hypnosis, so let’s talk about how you and I are gonna work. . So it’s where we’d often have this little bit of a self-limiting belief that, oh no, people think it’s weird.

People think it’s strange. And for those of you that were in Scott’s talk yesterday, it’s the same phrase that I’d live by from Steve Martin. Just find that moment to become so good they can’t ignore you. So to do that work, to bring that passion into what you do. So it’s where the actual process of hypnosis, the mindset that I would give to this is that of planting seed.

So we’re planting all these little bits of evidence along the way. So it’s the videos that are on the website, which again, it’s that moment of connecting with that little red dot and talking to that little lens as if that’s that one person who is absolutely at this point of needing to make this decision and carry on that conversation.

Every piece of testimonial, every piece of feedback, every news article, these all become seeds that further compound that belief system that they are going to make that change and they’re gonna move things forward. So the entire process is hypnosis. We’re always making that suggestion, always leading towards the next step.

The same way that as with our clients. Start with the end in. I would hear the dialogue sometimes that, uh oh, I can’t see, but so many clients in a week because they come in with their problems and it can be a really emotional experience and it kind of wears you down respectfully. If that is your belief system, you gotta change that.

Mm-hmm. . Because that means you are connecting with the client’s problem, and if you’re associating with their problem, congratulations. The two of you’re likely gonna hang out there for a while, as opposed to as you walk in my door, I’m already associating with you as your outcome. Let’s bring you along for the ride.

And with that mindset, it’s where you could have gone through some of the darkest things possible. I see a lot of veterans, I work with, a lot of people who have to say it politely, have gone through things that people don’t have to go through, but you’re here. And you’re doing something about it, and that’s that success story that this is all gonna hinge off of.

See them as that result. Bring ’em along for the ride though. Remember I said that you as the practitioner, you don’t have to have all the answers. It’s your job to help guide them there. Although I’d give you a little bit of a commentary on some of our dialogue that we would use around teaching techniques, there’s an amazing trend that’s really more popular I’D in the last 15, 20 years of teaching techniques.

Oh, when you feel this way, you can do that. And that is amazing, and especially my sort of branding on this is self hypnosis strategies you can do anytime, anywhere, and nobody knows you’re doing. and I politely make fun of the alternate, which is, uh, rather than I don’t feel good, I need a dark room and a CD player for 45 minutes.

even. Give my clients a audio program to listen to in a dark room at home. Though , it works though, What I’d give you though is a little bit of an adjustment because very often, and I have to go back to, uh, Dr. John Harlan’s, Medical and Dental, Hypnosis, hypnotherapy, whatever the name of the book is, Man Behind Most of the Ego Strengthening Work.

There’s an amazing chapter in that book, if you can track it down most often, it’s like 50, 60 bucks on Amazon, where in that book he’s giving. Effective suggestion management. And in that book, it’s actually, I think written better than anywhere I’ve ever seen it behind a hypnotic suggestion. There’s basically one or two formulas when X happens, Y happens, or when A happens, B happens more and more.

And inside of most hypnotic suggestions, that’s the template. Though in the examples back to Heartland, uh, recognizing that he was a psychologist working with a lot of medical issues, there’s some interesting examples, including the one around, uh, issues of exhibitionism. That, and again, there’s often a question sometimes in terms of hypnosis that if you’re going to be working with your client, do you say their name during the session?

Well, if you do it with meaning and in purpose at the right time, it has value. If you overuse it, Bad salesman. It’s tacky. So whenever you feel that urge to expose yourself in public, Sean, you find and sit now

Nevermind. As you go back to that book, there’s actually the example in there, and I, and I love reading this because it’s only there from the perspective of I did that a couple of months ago to you, uh, There’s the example where you just have to look at this one simple hypnotic suggestion and wonder what was the rest of that process.

Whenever you feel the urge to expose yourself in public, that terrible scene comes back to your mind. Okay, so we understand our principle of safe place in hypnosis. Oh, he must have done some horrible place and trying to connect. Whenever you feel the urge to go, ha with the trench jacket, uh, suddenly this horrible image.

I’m not gonna fill in the blanks. , uh, comes to your mind. Set aside the content of that example as best as you can because to look at that, and we would often say to our client, when you feel the urge for a cigarette, when you feel that sense of anxiety, when you notice that feeling of fear, there’s a problem with that.

You’re suggesting there’s still going to have the problem. You’re suggesting there’s still gonna be inside of the issue. Instead, the simple mechanism of distance and dissociate, because even if there is the slightest moment where you might find some trace of that old feeling, whatever it happened to be, which I didn’t even label it, instead, now you do this and it’s where I would often, as I teach a technique to a.

The framework is that I want you to understand this is kind of mission impossible and style. This technique will self-destruct, and I don’t mean that it’s not going to continue to work. I mean, at some point you’re gonna reach the place that the more you make use of this thing, the better it’s gonna work for you, and the better it’s going to work for you, the less you’re going to need it.

So the best feedback you can give me the next time that you’re here is I’ve had a great week. I haven’t had to use that strategy at all. Thank. It’s the Get Outta Jail free card in a Monopoly game. It’s where as I structure even the audio programs that I give my clients, the advice I give them is that this is not the, listen to this every single day for 30 days.

If you miss a day, start over again. Because after you’ve heard my audio program, like three or four times, you’re going to find it annoying. Why? Because it’s now micromanaging a thing that you know how to. and it’s that moment where I was away at a convention like this one and my daughter Claire, learned how to not quite ride a bicycle, but push the bicycle to the top of the sidewalk.

It’s at an incline and just kind of balance her way down. And meanwhile, this was this, of course, uh, Elsa from Frozen bicycle, we got from toys us that the training wheels kept falling off. We kept having to tighten them back up. I come home from out of town, Oh, the training wheels fell off. Let me put them back
.
and the horror that was unleashed as daddy put the training wheels back in the bicycle that she now knows how to learn and drive. No, she doesn’t, Uh, , She’s getting there. So it’s where as we give strategies to not build this dependency upon it, but again, to build that mechanism that they can move forward.

It’s about getting that foot in the door for change. Now there’s a story. that was often shared by the late great Jerry kind, that no matter what the person calls you for on the phone, you give the response. Oh yeah, we work with that all the time. That’s easy, and I love that for the reason of it’s instilling confidence.

It’s instilling that expectation that, Oh, this is someone who can handle this. What I liked about that was, again, it built that credibility. What I didn’t like about it was that I didn’t wanna lie to. So those of you actively seeing a bunch of clients, you know those moments where people do the slow reveal on the phone where they don’t quite outwardly say, Yeah, fear flying.

Do you work on that? Hey, I smoke a lot, I wanna stop. No, she calls me up. Well, my husband and I were very traditional. We come from very religious families and we didn’t live together until we got married. And there are some things about him that I didn’t discover until. We moved in together and I’m listening and going, Well, if it’s something he wants to work on, the best thing would be to have him give me a call and we can discuss.

No, no, it’s something more, I think with me it’s a really personal issue that I’m not even sure how to address this. I’m not even sure if, if, well, what is it? And I mean, the imagination is going to some deep, dark, fascinating places. And suddenly she hits me with, well, his jaw clicks when he eats and he refuses to go to the dentist.

And his clicking jaw is driving me crazy. And for her, I just felt it coming right out of my mouth automatically. Oh yeah, we work with that all the time. That’s easy. Wait, what? No, that’s weird. However, here’s how we can work on it. And she laughed at, at the moment that I said it as well was the key. And that’s where we’re going in this in a moment.

Because I work with people with, there’s different pronunciations in different communities, tes, tinnitus, ringing in the ears. I had a job at one point working backstage in theaters and having to wear, uh, 50 year old headset systems that could not be modulated volume. And I used to have issues with that until they did a procedure to resolve that.

But we can work with those people to drown out those sounds. Northern Virginia, DC Metro area, Here’s the transplant that was working with this company in Fargo, North Dakota, and suddenly now they’re right in the middle of Arlington where you’ve got three major airports in an Air force base and traffic and noise, and they can’t sleep and to drown away those sounds.

So the same things I would do with them, that’s what we could do with you building the case. Sound good? You’ve really never worked with this before. No, of course I haven’t. so to call out is that moment of honesty, though. It’s that place to find that moment of appropriate humor. that when that humor is there, it kind of just shifts that neurology, that the issue is not as solid, is not as concrete as it used to be.

So the, uh, disclaimer to some of these stories is that the magic phrase is often depending on the rapport with the client, is I think the best way to really, uh, highlight this. So it’s where this woman’s in my office and she’s this high powered lawyer. Who’s having to the cases, I don’t know the specific details on this, but they move the case from Virginia to Boston, something of a criminal nature.

You’ll get a fair trial if we move it out the area she’s having to fly back and forth, which you can fly to Boston faster that you could drive from where I live in Burke, Virginia to Arlington issue with fear of flying. She’s never backed outta the. But it’s not comfortable for her. And she’s sitting there, uh, in the session and I just find we’ve gone through the pre-talk, we’ve gone the whole intake interview, we’ve talked about everything.

We’re at that point of transition. We’re about to go into the session and something suddenly clicks to go. And I’m five foot four. Uh, with all the travel I’ve done in recent years, United upgraded me to economy Plus where you get extra leg room, I’m five foot four. That means I can’t reach my laptop. And I actually fought them to get rid of that upgrade because if I’m in the back, in the cheaper seats, now I can actually reach my stuff.

Yes, it means if I’m an economy plus I don’t have to give the person next to me the stranger, a lap dance if I wanna go to the bathroom. But I’d rather just have the standard seat. She’s four foot 11. Yeah, and you know what the great thing is is that you and I are the ones who can actually be comfortable on this flight.

You know everybody else you’ll watch, you’ll see someone hit their head on the overhead cabin and probably laugh at them and realize, Oh yeah, this is gonna be easy flight. And she snaps on me. I am not here for jokes. Okay? We’re not going there today. carry through the process. It’s the second week. She’s back in front of me again.

I am so sorry I snapped at you last. Oh, don’t worry about it. No problem. How’d the flight go? Well, that was the thing. I got on the flight with my priority with my credit card. I get priority boarding and I got on the plane followed by a high school basketball team, , and one after the other. Bang, bang, bang.

You were wrong. I didn’t laugh. I cackled, uh, her language. I slept on the flight. Your dumb ass joke. Fix the issue. So, To find these places where, again, depending on the report, I didn’t have the report with the client, depending on the rapport with the client, which I will censor this next story as best as I possibly can because it’s a man who’s in my office.

Who, let’s phrase it this way with some intimacy issues. Um, the event is wrapping up a little too soon is the most polite way I can say that now. We’ve worked together several times and the issue as he described it as being this like 70, 80% of the time issue at this point now is like maybe 10% of it.

And he goes, You know what? I think I could handle the rest with the self hypnosis. By the way, I also have issues with public speaking. Can we work on. So we’re a couple of sessions and we’ve been together for a little while, and it’s like the sixth time we’re meeting, we’re now onto another issue, and I had to fold in the commentary at just the right moment that for a guy whose issue used to be fill in the blank, I would think you’d at least show up to your sessions on time.

And he stands there for a moment and goes, That’s hilarious. I just can’t laugh at it because I’m amazed. , he’s back again. The next week. The issue is completely gone, and I’ve kept up with this guy. He’s referred a bunch of people. The, the joke is usually that’s a category that doesn’t send referrals . But again, he came in for something else.

He goes, Oh yeah, Jason, help me with my public speaking and nothing else. No, he doesn’t say the last part. But it was that moment of just interjecting that, as I’d phrase it, one of my favorite things about hypnosis. Is in many ways the great thing about good storytelling, a good movie, there’s texture to it.

These different transitions, these different places where clearly the work has now begun. Now we’re into this moment, and it’s the same mechanism as what’s at play behind an instant hand drop induction, whatever’s behind a handshake, interrupt whatever’s behind a pattern interrupt where sometimes. Given your style, given your approach, we’re just this little bit of a jot in a different direction sets that change process in motion.

So it’s where, again, to take control of your process from the start and set the tone. I often would hear this feedback that, oh, someone comes into my office and we just derail talking about their issue, and suddenly now we’re towards the end of the session and we’ve run out of. set the opening frame.

Well, the way we tend to work today is we’ll chat a little bit about what you’ve come here to address, your goals and what you want to accomplish. We’ll talk about hypnosis, what it is, what it’s not, and then we’ll get to work very shortly. Sound good? Yes. And at that point I’ve set the expectation of, we’re gonna talk about this, we’re gonna talk about hypnosis, and we’re gonna transition into the work, though even inside of my pre-talk.

I am setting the stage for that successful session. Um, I’ll demo this and I’ll make the, uh, teaching of this available to you as a resource, but it’s where in the classic hypnosis pre-talk, very often we’re talking about what’s not gonna happen. You’re not gonna be made to tell secrets. You’re not gonna have a loss of control.

You’re not gonna do this, you’re not gonna do that. When instead I wanted to talk about what is going to happen. And by doing so, set the stage for that successful session. So briefly, The process today, your mind is active and alert The entire time you’re gonna hear everything I say. You’re gonna remember as much as you would from any normal conversation.

You know, it’s from movies and television. Imagine by the way, these are the office forms, uh, from movies and television. We get the idea that this might be some sort of loss of control when really said it’s the opposite of this. Um, here’s all the stuff that feels out of control today. I’m gonna help you to take back control of these things.

Sound good? Yeah. The question that people will get hung up on sometimes though, is, How do I know when I’m hypnotized? What does it feel like when I’m there? And understand there’s different textures to what we’ll do today, and everything is subjective. You may find some moments where you’re so deeply relaxed.

It’s as if you’re sinking into that chair. There might be other moments where you feel there’s almost kind of disconnected light and floating sensations. Or you know what? Sometimes you may discover this almost miraculous feeling. That you’re just sitting in a chair and I’m talking to you. Whatever you feel is what you’re supposed to feel.

There’s not one specific hypnotized feeling. However, that’s why I’m going to layer into the session today, moments of what we call hypnotic phenomenon. They’re kind of magical for you, but they’re also there for me. So when you’re responding to this series of hypnotic suggestions, That tells me I can use this series of hypnotic techniques, and then a few moments later, when you’re much deeper in hypnosis, that now tells me I can use those techniques.

So it’s a calibrated process the whole way through. There might be some moments where you find yourself so deeply interested in every single word that I say. some moments, which means there’s other moments where your mind wanders off to who the heck knows what let it. We describe this as already being that bypassing of that critical part of your mind, the same way that you’re already using this skill.

So when you notice the mind kind of ebbing and flowing, take it as anot of just how well you’re doing. That being said, I always have to tell a quick story. This guy came into my office a few years ago, session was textbook. It went exactly as it should, though at the end of it, he’s nervous. I don’t know if that worked like halfway through my nose was itching.

If I scratch my nose, does that pop me out of hypnosis? So because of Frank, I have to tell you today, you’re allowed to scratch your nose, cough, sneeze, adjust whatever. You have to adjust. I don’t judge. I really have to say that. Otherwise people think if I move, it’s not gonna work. Get comfortable. Do you have any questions before I hypnotize?

And in that pre-talk I have addressed all the common fears and misconceptions without calling them out, without saying, I’m gonna not make you tell secrets. Cuz if that’s not your fear, congratulations. It is now , which for the sake of time, there’s a lot of psychology, there’s a lot of embedded commands inside of that.

This will be one of the few presentations where I tell you to actually pull out your phones. Um, there’s a whole teaching of that that I have online. If you send a text message to the phone number, four, four, two, two. And in the body of the message, send the message hypno 17. That’ll send you some resources, including that whole teaching of that, uh, all positive pre-talk as I’ve shared that.

So again, the phone number would be as if it’s 4, 4, 2, 2, 2. And then the body of it, shoot that message Hypno 2017. Uh, for the sake of time, that’ll give you the entire unpacking of that strategy, though back to our actual change process. The same map into the problem is the same map out of the. This is only a couple of months ago that my 10:00 AM and my 12:00 PM client came in with the same story.

Now that I’m retired was the intro and for client number one. Now that I’m retired, it’s gonna be ridiculously easy to lose weight. I’m gonna have time to cook for myself. I’m gonna time to go to the gym. This is gonna be wonderful. Here came the 12 o’clock. Now that I’m retired, it’s going to be impossible to lose.

I’m gonna wanna stay home. I’m gonna want to eat out more. This is gonna be difficult and I almost resisted. But finally, when you know what’s interesting, earlier this morning, and I saw the gears began to shift of taking that model of the world and changing it back in an instant place. So it’s where, Yes, a lot of the strategies that I’m talking about here are ones that come down to a simple, let’s call it out, direct suggestion statement.

Realizing that a prestige suggestion, which we would often talk about is hypnotist, thank you as being a negative thing. The uh, mother says, You’re just like your father. You’re always going to be a loser. The coach says, Uh, well, you have a small frame. You’re never gonna get stronger in this exercise.

That’s a prestige suggestion. And in many ways in our hypnotic process, we’re getting into that place where we can facilitate that prestige suggestion. Now, of course, along the way, all of our amazing emotional release strategies are at our disposal. Whatever your models are, whether it’s timeline, whether it’s regression, whether it’s parts, whether it’s reparenting, though, we can use these incredible emotional release strategies.

Those, I like to say, sometimes you just have to hypnotize the person. . A student of mine calls up, I’m working with this woman for a sugar addiction and we’re stalled on our fourth session. She won’t forgive her father for this event that happened when they were 12. When she was 12. What do you think I should do?

Well, have you gotten to the sugar yet? No. We’re still kind of stuck on this event. Why don’t you hypnotize her and address the sugar? Oh, you think that’ll work? I, I think that’s where you should have started . And they went into the session. They did a moment similar to a story about to share here, and the issue was resolved.

So it’s, again, all of these strategies. It’s where I’d often say all these techniques work, we just gotta put ’em to use. We’ve just gotta put them in, in the right order and looking for these places where we can get that immediate change. So with fears, with aversions, with apprehensions. The magic of the double bind.

Here’s this girl that I was working with, a picky eater, and of course that doesn’t matter whether you try new foods here while you’re with me in this office, or if you wait till later this evening and do it whenever you feel like it is perfectly fine. Foot’s in the door. She saw the snack bowl in the office and goes, I think I wanna try a couple of those.

Oh, what’s in trail mix? Everything. Okay, I’ll try that. And she had a little bit of everything. The change was in motion by the time she left the office, rather than, Oh, wait and see how it goes. So to get that change in motion as soon as possible though, it brings about a story, which was the entire catalyst for this presentation.

That the intro to the story is usually the intro to why I would not take on this client for stop smoking. As on the phone, she says, I know I need to quit smoking. I don’t know if I want. Which again, typically that’s the red flag and I already see a lot of people making judgements and assessments based on that though.

Back to our little green Bible, Dave Elman hypnotherapy, and back to the recordings. Hearing Dave in the back of my head, going, As long as you understand the rules of hypnosis, there’s not a person in the world. You cannot hypnotize in a moment where there was a bit of dialogue. If you follow my instructions, I know I can help you.

If you’re not willing to follow my instructions, I don’t know a thing in the world that will help. and I said that to her, So what would you like to do? What do you have on Thursday? She’s coming in already. I know this is going to be a very different process from what the standard routine would typically be.

It’s flexible, it’s creative to the individual, but we’re going somewhere else today. And it becomes a moment where, I mean, I got my start in all this by doing stage hypnosis. That was the origin story behind all of this, and then transitioned mostly over to seeing clients. And this became more of a stage hypnosis event than any show I had ever done.

Every bit of phenomenon, the eyes are stuck, Figure out and linking the motivation to it. If we’re gonna make use of the phenomenon, don’t let it just be this little magic party trick that now stands on its own. Link it to the change. Finally culminating a moment of, as I count forward, it’s not that your hand is stuck, glued tight to that chair, it’s more as if your hand to that chair have always been.

Compounding that suggestion. Try it. Try it. It gets tighter, which is a beautiful strategy I learned from this lovely gentleman over here. Thank you, Sean. Though the payoff at the end of it was she’s got her eyes open. She’s looking at that hand. What’s my premise? At this point, she is stuck in the trance of being the smoker.

And almost back to, if you’ve read Frank Farley Provocative Therapy, Stepping inside of her trance state and introducing a better one because the payoff simply became in the words of my good friend here, once you stick him to one thing, you could stick him to somebody else. , the hand is stuck to the chair.

You know what? Change the name. You know what? Kelly was really interesting. I haven’t said anything about your left hand. Check out your left hand. It’s even more. to which there’s a dialogue in my head in terms of working with phenomenon, which is that I don’t want to be the all powerful hypnotist commanding this thing to happen.

No. I wanna be sitting in that movie theater seat next to you watching this and going, Isn’t that cool? Isn’t that amazing? Commenting on that with you being a part of that experience with you, kind of weird, Right? And we sat there and talked for like a minute while she’s interesting, right? Yeah. You’re doing great by the way, having a little bit of dialogue.

And the magical moment simply became, and go ahead now and close your eyes. We don’t have to have the solutions. We’re helping them get to the place where they find that solution for themself. So decide for yourself exactly what this experience truly means for you in terms of making this change. And only as you are convinced that you have no use for a cigarette in any form whatsoever for the rest of your.

Notice only then how easily it is for your hands to relax into your lap. This became a moment of what we like to call, fingers crossed hypnosis of going, Please do this, please do this, please do this. And the hands then migrated to the lap, and that was seven years ago. Hasn’t smoked since. So places where we can get into our routines of what feels natural, what feels normal, what feels to be the accepted way of doing things, but at the same times just to open up that calibrate.

what is that story that we’re bringing in and how do we bend that story in such a way that, again, slight of mouth style, the old model of the world just simply doesn’t. , it’s where we can talk about business inside of this. And, um, I run two online communities. One is hypnotic business systems, where it’s all the strategies, all the craziness of Facebook marketing, even down to getting out and giving live talks.

And the hypnotic worker side is all around thinking differently about the actual hypnotic process, which we can talk about Motivat. And to recognize towards motivation as well as away from motivation that these can be positive in either direction. So again, back to that phrase, I don’t buy into the premise, fill in the blank.

It’s years ago and I’m running a local meetup event and it’s a great event. It’s a great group. I’m looking around at, only one person was here from that group, and it’s not you, Tim, so I can say this , but the fun moment of going the usual suspects, Wow. It’s the same people every single week, every single.

it’s the same thing every single month. And I had a hobby doing magic back as a teenager, and the phrase was, The amateur changes their act, the professional changes their audience. And from that event of seeing the same familiar faces, which was great, they were all my friends, realizing we’ve gotta think bigger.

and to just take that little bit of a leap. And that’s what then launched, which now called the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast, which this is a program that goes out every single Thursday as I’m scanning the room, featuring outstanding guests like James Hazelrigg, Michael Desal, uh, Joanne, Edie. So I’m Michael Andrews.

Uh, bunch of people in here as well. Some people, so great. They’ve been on there twice and didn’t remember they were on there the first time. Not saying any names, James Hazel Rigg, uh, the early formative years. So, but again, thinking differently about. Just that little bit of a seed of thought, just this little moment of going rather than, Oh, this is how it always is.

It’s a dialogue. I think our profession needs to hear. It’s years ago, I’m at another event and I’m hearing, Well, you know, you do the pre and post conference because you’re there to be passionate about the information, though it really doesn’t drive your business. You don’t get a lot of people signing up.

Then I’ll just be open and honest and say, I closed a webinar training event that week that generated about $35,000. And it became a moment of realizing, Oh, we gotta think differently about this. So the moment of the same audience over and over and over realizing, Well, let’s take the same message and bring it out to a bigger audience, which to date, that Work Smart Hypnosis Program, it’s now upwards of, I think, releasing session number 136 next week, and it’s been downloaded more than 150,000 times.

All around the world and continues to grow and get several thousand new downloads every week. Uh, it’s on every podcasting platform, or just simply go to work smart hypnosis.com. That’ll give you the updates or do that text thing and I’ll send you updates. As they come out there, they’ll begin thinking differently.

There’s a moment where, given the platforms that I’ve built, The mechanism to broadcast a message to so many people. There’s a moment where someone shared an opinion that, Hey, it’d be great if you did a bit around how virtual hypnosis is not good. You know, Skype sessions, recordings, programs online. If you could fold in something about that would be great, which at the time I wasn’t doing those things well wait a minute, which I wasn’t doing them because I loved being in the room with the client.

I loved the interaction. though again, there’s an anecdote in history in terms of pop culture. I’m not gonna sign the Beatles because guitar groups are going out of style. . I don’t wanna position myself on the wrong side of history. And that moment of this belief system, something that was said, it’s where oftentimes you would hear, Oh, children are in a state of hypnosis because they will believe something really quickly.

Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, and so forth. I can remember four years old, a family member hearing an ambulance and. Oh, it’s someone’s worst day of their life. Yeah, and I heard that and called BS on that right away. going, No, it might be a birth. It might be someone getting an organ transplant. It might be the best day of their life.

I don’t buy into that premise. So the virtual hypnosis is not good, but instead it’s the same mechanism that we’re a culture that sometimes plays the game of that technique is good, that technique is bad. Oh, that’s the technique you need to use. Oh, never use that strategy. All this stuff works. You just have to use it, which that moment of hearing that belief system so strongly held, I don’t buy into that premise change the nature of my business, to which now, even as I’m here with you, there’s thousands of people watching videos of mine, listening to the podcast, interacting inside of my communities, where there’s like 80 hours of stuff in each one of them, and other things as well.

Challenging the model and just simply thinking, Differe. So it’s that place of please, someone challenged me in some way at some point this weekend, cuz I got some new ideas coming , the place of, again, getting to that place of that challenge inside of it. So just to simply think differently about it, which to bring it back to our hypnosis perspectives as I’ve got about four or five minutes left here.

Yes. The goal is to get that permanent change though again, do not dismiss that instant gratification. It’s where one of the. Beneficial things I’ve simply folded into my work in the last couple of years is to look at my client and say, Hey, Edward, you’re in front of me back again next week. What’s that story you wanna be telling me as early as next week that’s gonna give you that full validation that things are different and moving better, and the client’s writing the script.

For me, the favorite one was a God. Well, I’m a stereotypical British gentleman that I go home from work, I hit the pub, have a couple of beers, go out and smoke with my friends. Have one more walk home. What do I want to happen? I wanna hit the pub, have my beers go outside with them. They’re gonna smoke. I’m not going to, It’s going to bother them.

It’s not going to bother me. . And then we’ll go inside one more drink and go home. He had that experience. Exactly. So these are the moments where immediately upon emerging hypnosis, how long is the hypnotic suggestion permanent? How long is the hypnotic suggestion effective? This is where we get into a game of seman.

because I’ve seen in one school of thought, oh, 30 days is the maximum. After that it becomes habit. We’re just arguing semantics at that point. My favorite answer, I think it was an anecdote where Cheryl Elman, uh, was in a class one time and they asked this question and her response, if I remember the story, right, Well, it’s gotta be at least 27 years and all heads turned Y 27.

Well, I quit smoking with hypnosis 27 years ago. It’s gotta be at least 27 years that a hypnotic suggestion is effecti. It’s like, what’s the population of the us? Well, there’s like 110 people here. It’s at least 110, right? Yeah. . So to look at, again, thinking differently about this, um, my phrasing is as long as the hypnotic change is congruent to the individual, and as long as there is some sort of reinforcement mechanism at.

Then we’ve got the change. Now, reinforcement mechanism doesn’t have to be, I can run this technique, I can listen to this audio, I can form this series of actions. Just simply being healthy, alive, and happy is a reinforcement mechanism. It’s why I believe in the system of being a multiple session practitioner, because as the process continues, it’s less and less about the problem that you brought in and more and more about the direction you’re.

So to be there a couple of sessions in and we’re no longer addressing the issue, that was the symptom that brought you in, becomes an amazing confidence builder for that client. Some calls to action as we wrap this all up here, it comes down to a couple of simple phrases here. There were some stories here with some humor that matches the style that I bring into my process.

It’s where as I teach classes, the framework is it’s not to have you go off and become the Jason Lynette. It’s my job at times to give you the insane level of thinking behind what I have done to better give you the strategies to go in and make the decisions for yourself to develop your own style. So it’s where we’re stepping into this heightened version of ourselves when we’re in that session, aren’t we?

It’s already a hypnotic experience for everybody involved. Um, Scott Sandlin yesterday told an amazing story of Slosky. I’m gonna have to tell the quick story of Katie. Who changed her name from Catherine Hudson, cuz that was also already taken to instead become Katie Perry because she goes, This was this heightened version of who I was and what I wanted to be, Which is not to say I have a lot of Katie Perry music playing in my office at all times though, , why not though?

The experience of, again, recognizing what is your style, what is your approach, and let that continue to refine over time, though at the same time, we can have all these strategies, but think of them like the tool. The, uh, shop van that the handyman has in the, out in the parking lot. Because with that, these are the things we can reach in and grab a hold of.

Though it all comes down to being in the moment with your client. It all comes down to being present in the experience and listening, and not just running process, not just running patterns. Listen to what’s going on. Calibrate. I’m preaching to the choir on the final statement, which is that continue to learn because it’s where we, the snowball going downhill.

We’re gathering more and more stuff along the way because these changes can really occur in just a moment.