Session #175: Scott Sandland on Scriptnosis or Hypnosis

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This is the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast, session number 175. Scott Sandlin on osis or Hypnosis. Welcome to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast with Jason Linett, your professional resource for hypnosis training and outstanding business success. Here’s your host, Jason Linett. Hey there and welcome. It’s Jason Linett and I’m excited to have Scott Sale back on the program for technically the third visit.

But fourth session was Scott, and this was motivated by the fact that there’s a question that keeps popping up in different dialogues I have with various guests here on this program about things you believe now that you need believe differently before, or things you used to believe, but now you’ve changed your opinion on.

And specifically you’re gonna see, we end up in the dialogue around. Hypnotic scripts and Scott’s a guy who trains a lot of people. I’m a guy who trains a lot of people and there’s a polarizing conversation around rather scripts are a good thing or a bad thing, and you’re gonna see we go off in different directions in terms of the craft or the artistry or the crafty, if that’s a word, uh, of the process.

And more importantly, how it is. We adapt our own style, how it is we adapt the work of others that we’ve learned from to fit our unique approach. And as a bit of a preview, I’d invite you to head over to the website script nosis.com, so that’s the word script, S C R I P T, and then nosis like H Hypnosis, N O S I S.

So script nosis.com, and there’s a rather interesting preview of something coming your way rather soon, which is gonna help solve many of the problems that are associated. With why people say scripts may be a bad thing, what if we can change that dialogue? What if we can change the approach to how hypnotic scripts are addressed to help practitioners to really build their confidence, help even more clients and produce outstanding results?

And as I like to say, the more overall successful, the more we’re all success. How’s that for a cryptic introduction? Check it out osis.com. And with that, let’s jump directly into this content here. This is session number 175 Scott Sandlin on osis. Or hypnosis.

Scott, the reason I reached out to you to be on here, I believe either the third or fourth time, if we count the fact that the first time you were on was a two part session back in the day when I used to do those, uh, was that there’s a dialogue that keeps popping up here as I talk with other people around the world, even where, you know, what’s something you believe now that you didn’t believe before?

Or what’s something you used to believe, but now you’re looking at and going that’s that’s not for. . Yeah. So for me it’s, it’s interesting cuz I’ve been doing this 20 years now. 20 something years, and, uh, I used to go to all these conferences and I saw the, you know, these big names or, you know, I’d go to trainings or get the books or, or whatever.

And, you know, reading Roy Hunter’s work or Al Krasner’s work or you know, Elman or Erickson or whatever. And I would see stuff that was so different from each other, um, or, or different from what I had been exposed to and seeing new trainings. And I would try to incorporate everything into who I am. And there is some stuff that just isn’t a fit and that’s okay.

And I. From a learning perspective, being okay with the fact that there are great techniques that I will never use is fine, and there are great techniques that aren’t a fit for me, doesn’t diminish who I am as a practitioner and what my ability to help people is. And I think there’s a lot of practitioners out there who still haven’t learned that piece the hard way like I did.

And so they’re trying to force stuff that doesn’t make sense. And so graduating from. I would say is, is a big development for me. Well, I think it’s the recognition of your own style and your own approach, that it’s not necessarily the technique, it’s how it’s put into use and how it’s communicated. And, you know, I, I can think of the classic kind of phrasing of, you know, someone explains their problem and the sort of, uh, hacky way of responding as well.

How’s that working out for you? And I can think of times I’ve heard people deliver that phrase and it landed. And I can also think of one specific time where I witnessed someone say it and you could see the regret on their face the moment they said it cuz they were realizing that’s not a fit for this dialogue.

Yeah. And, and some of that’s just context. Some of that’s persona, some of that’s expectation, uh, on behalf of the, uh, let’s call it a client, uh, There are so many little details that add up to making something successful that don’t show up just in a script, right? Don’t show up in a training manual, uh, that are finer points and understanding which of those factors you are in control of is a big, uh, leap in your ability to.

what lever to pull, right? What sentences you can get away with. I can get away with a lot of sentences that other hypnotists can’t get away with when I’m in a room full of hypnotists. Right. Like when, when we go to hypno thoughts live, if I’m on stage talking to people, I’ve earned the right to say things that are, let’s call it controversial.

And people will hear me say something controversial and they’ll give me an opportunity to defend that. Right? So if I say something provocative, People go, Well, where is he going with that? But if somebody who’s brand new or unknown says something provocative, it would turn people off. And so part of it is earning the right to say things that are effective.

I mean, to look at the, the catchphrase that’s come out of some of the trainings I’ve done recently has been, uh, either quote, depending on the rapport with the client or , which I think is a massive statement, or just the disclaimer of, it’s my responsibility to sometimes give you the insane level of thinking into the detail as to what I do.

That way you can make the decision if that’s a fit for you. So like, for example, Working with a client for fear of flying and when the timing is right is the key phrase. There’s a point in the session where I’m grabbing the chair and shaking it during a future pacing moment and saying, And now there’s turbulence, and I’m only doing that at the point where they’re gonna laugh at it.

I’m only doing at that point where I know I’ve already got the change and we just need to compound it with every appropriate and inappropriate strategy possible. Which the catch phrase is there is like, now remember, this is not how I started the session. This is not the first thing that I did. And there are so many people who could, uh, misunderstand that or get a transcript somehow and think what you’re doing is some sort of future pacing a giant problem and, and.

Do it incorrectly and scare the crap out of that poor client if they didn’t understand what you were really doing. Well, I think that’s the flexible nature of this where, you know, I, this was, I, I share my biggest, uh, you know, sort of shift in years has been to, uh, never, ever, ever use absolutes. Which that statement itself is, is an absolute, which is that just makes it more fun, you know?

So here’s a place where a client was in the office, and I loved his phrasing, and I’ve since, uh, borrowed it for myself that he was talking about his goal, and he goes, Well, there’s a specific timeline to this goal. So I think for the next nine months, I need to become responsibly obsessed with this. and I heard that went, Oh, that’s good.

Good sort of phrase, . Yeah. Which, I mean, it’s him reclaiming the word for his own. And someone else could look at that from another perspective and say, No, that’s a bad word. He’s gonna create a problem. And no, no, it fits for him. And that’s his model of the world. It may, it turned out to be mine cuz I used the same story modeling excellence in the session or stealing from your clients when they have great breakthroughs.

But to look at it in terms of this is how he made it his own and it, it had a different feel by the time it was done rather than, No, no, no. That’s a negative word. You can’t use that in the session. Yeah, I think, I think there’s a lot of people who. come to a hypnotist to stop smoking and the hypnotist tries to correct them.

Oh no, we’re not gonna say Stop smoking. You have to be a fresh air breather. And you get so caught in the weeds of semantics that you’re, you’re getting away from the intention. And this is something, uh, when you look at sort of styles and schools of hypnosis, you get the. You’re sort of the Eric Sonian is the, the name that’s associated with linguistic, uh, permissive patterns, uh, and, and metaphor based stuff.

And Elman’s name is connected to process driven stuff. And, and there’s a few other names that are sort of, you know, whether it’s Gilligan or over dof, um, or, or people like that, that their names go on these lists. . But I think, uh, Michael Elner actually had a, a very different style, uh, and, and he was a mentor to me for many years.

And Elner had this style that wasn’t about following rules, and it wasn’t about telling metaphors. It was very much, uh, intent based. Mm-hmm. . And so he could just create this intentionality. And his skill was so good that he just needed to be aware of intentionality and he could create the environment. In which the client created the change.

And so intention based, uh, session work is something that I’ve been playing with a lot these days and it creates a lot more flexibility. Uh, I think it, it requires a lot more, uh, technique background and a lot more experience. So that sentences like, and depending on rapport or, and when the client is ready, those sentences have to be assumed.

But when you. I think just the number of reps to be able to do this intent based client work is very liberating. And to look at him, I mean, even as a business perspective, there’s a whole, my, my catchphrase for years has been as much as I spent time with the hypnosis communities, I’m looking at information marketing training, I’m going to marketing conventions.

And the realization in the years has been, oh wait, they’re teaching the same stuff we. They’re just calling it something else. The journey from Curious shopper to here’s my credit card, is practically identical to here I am stuck in this problem and the revelation of, Oh, it’s gone now. I don’t have to feel that way anymore.

So, to, to take the dynamic of how I do my videos on my website, how I do that dialogue on the phone. I, I live by the statement that I’m not using, you know, Um, a whole list of, you know, the top 10 objection, crushers and all these. Clever turns a phrase. Now I want them when they’re ready. Uh, my favorite clients are the ones who call me and then six months later go, Yeah, this is the time to do it.

I love, I love, love, love that dynamic. And there, there’s something to be said about that intention. I mean, yes, we all like to use the catch phrase that the entire process is hypnosis. And yet, I don’t know if we live. Enough of, Well, when you’re in the office, this is what you’re gonna find is happening in the first session and this is gonna be the result of that.

You know where I, there, there’s a dialogue that came out of a call yesterday. that we just had some renovations done in our home, some minor things. We wanted to, uh, have attic storage and we had this contractor come in and change out our little, uh, trap door ceiling in the attic to be a dropdown set of stairs and then go up there and put down plywood for a floor.

And there never was a dialogue of will the floor. No, the floor is just the floor. And to look at everything in our hypnotic process as a tool, and the tools only as good as we put it to use together. And that goes both ways. The client’s interaction with the process and the way that we put the tool to use as well.

Yeah, I, I think, and the preposition of, of course this is gonna work. I’m a professional, right. Is. is something that I think a lot of hypnotists are so nervous with when they’re getting started and they don’t know that a technique’s gonna work and they don’t know their voice and their style, and so they’re just trying to be Jerry kind or whatever.

And I remember trying to be Jerry Kind in my office. And, uh, I, I’m know Jerry, like the guy’s great or was great, uh, wonderful stuff, but I’m not Jerry Kind or I’m not Saul Lewis. Uh, I’m not Kelly Woods. Right. You know, I mean, there’s all the sorts of amazing people out there that I’m not gonna work their way.

Um, and when you’re, when you’re not aware of who you are and what you’re doing, your second guessing yourself in front of the client and that’s apparent and you just, you, you come across. and I see a lot of hypnotist doing this, uh, where they come across like they’re about to ask their client to prom, right?

Like they’re so nervous about is this thing gonna work? Um, and there’s really a stage before that where they’re certain it’s going to work and they were wrong, , and uh, and they didn’t understand the nuances. They didn’t understand. Should happen. And so they, it was like the, the hacky thing, you know, like, Well, how’s that working out for you when that’s delivered poorly?

And now all of a sudden that sentence. Isn’t bulletproof and isn’t invincible anymore, and their belief that’s externalized in that process has been shattered. And now the second time, they only have themselves to believe in and they don’t have it yet. And so that process of believing and externalizing their ability in the process to internalizing it in themselves and the relationship with the client, that process, you see them at that stage where they’re like, you’re, you’re gonna.

You’re, you’re gonna see yourself in the future now. Right? Right. You know, they’re, they’re so nervous about that moment and it’s, it’s a stage that I think holds up a lot of hypnotists and when they’re learning something new, whether it be a language pattern, whether it be a, a future pacing script, whether it be a process, whether it be a full protocol with multiple sessions, whatever it might be, you see them.

Not really internalize and understand why they’re doing the things they’re doing and what they’re doing. They just know they were told to, but they know that what they’ve been told to do isn’t invincible anymore. And so they’re, they’re in this no man’s land. And that’s actually a big space for me right now.

Uh, you know, with H P T I, now that, you know, we’ve transferred. Basically all of it, all the operations of H P T I are now non guard. You know, I’m still teaching classes there and there’s videos of me and I talk to students and things like that. But overwhelmingly it’s non guard. But over the last five years, um, and, uh, with hypno thoughts live and, and the internship classes and all that is helping guide young hypnotists or new hypnotists through that stage and really shepherding them through that process of external to internal, uh, confidence.

Well, I mean, we keep coming back to the word process and there there’s value in learning the process, learning the rules of the process so that we can break the rules and change it up. I mean, here’s a session yesterday with a 15 year old improving confidence in baseball, and the session structure was something that I’ve never.

Been taught to do this and just felt right in the moment that I started the session in a standard way, emerged him. We went into a circle of excellence as he’s stepping into the batter’s box. We then sat back down to the chair and because I’ve been playing with gadgets, um, I’ve got a full headphones set up and I put the headphones on him with the music.

In a very different feel and, you know, hit the session from a different angle. And it basically became three sessions and one, and the willingness to experiment and play. Before we hopped on here, uh, we were chatting briefly and I brought up, um, you know, virtual gastric band, Sheila Grainger. And there’s some people who would look at that and say, Yeah, but that’s just a collection of scripts.

And that’s clearly a person who hasn’t gone through that training either with her or I, I train it for her too, where. Yes, it will work as a business in a box. Just read the words. Yet in the training, it’s the, Okay, so here’s how you modify it for this issue. If they’re coming in and this is a consideration, here’s how you modify it for that.

And even Sheila would say, if you’re a regress to cause heist, you can do that, and that might be a good fit in this specific session. If you want to teach some NLP strategies, you can do it at this part of the process. Or if you see entirely, you need to go in this other direct. It’s okay. So to see that, you know, to, to look at any script and see the flexible framework, that these are chunks that we can put to use, these are little segments that we can pull out when necessary.

And that’s where the magic of it comes in to look at in terms of the flexible nature, rather than, Nope, this is, this is the one way to. . Yeah. So for me, looking at that, I, the metaphor I use a lot with my students and just other colleagues is, uh, cooking. Because cooking is a, a very visual medium as compared to hypnosis.

And so it’s on TV a lot. Right. You know, there’s all these cooking shows and cooking channels. And there’s competitions and you can see stylistically different approaches and different professionals who have respect for each other. And now that there’s 4K tv, for some reason, Netflix has decided what they need to do is make 40 like really high production value.

Documentaries on chefs and food. Um, the best one is called Nailed It, where people have to replicate these amazing recipes. And of course they all fail and it’s wonderfully entertaining. That is wonderfully entertaining. It’s like the first episode of American Idol every time . Um, but so, so you get these people who, um, You know, have the ability to make this food and they can, they don’t have to measure anymore, right?

They’re just pouring and they’re mixing and they’re doing all this stuff, but it’s because they have spent the time, you know, chopping vegetables the right way. It is because they’ve gone through and earned their stripes that you don’t see on the show, but they did. Um, and that’s how they got there. And I think hypnotists really have a, a very similar journey where you have to learn recipes, you have to understand how the ingredients work, and you have to understand what the different ingredients are and how adding one ingredient to a recipe changes.

The, the, the profile of that dish or how pairings work, right? Where, you know, you can’t pair this vegetable with this protein, it just is weird, um, or whatever. As you start understanding all of that, as a chef, you get good at your craft. And I use the word craft, not skill, I don’t believe, uh, an. You know, I, I actually had this conversation with Roy.

Um, the art of hypnosis and the art of hypnotherapy I thought were excellent books until I realized their titles are terrible. Um, and I thought they were excellent. I really, truly believed deeply that hypnosis was an art until I realized it’s a craft. . And the difference is, uh, the subjective nature of time.

And so like if you take art, right, like if we go to the louv, like we go to a museum and we sit down and we’re looking at a beautiful sculpture or a beautiful painting, right? That’s art. It’s objectively art and you can take as much time as you want to appreciate it, right? And it might grow on you. Uh, you might like different things about it over time.

And. and a craft can’t work that way. A craft has a utilitarian function. It has to have utility, it has to do the thing. And if you have a beautiful chair that breaks, if you try to sit in it, you don’t have a chair. Right? And so for our the, for all the artful qualities that are part of hypnosis, the craft component of, and it has to work, it always has to come back.

It has to work. And so you look at the hypnotists who are doing stuff that are just flashy for the sake of being flashy hypnotists who tell me that they need to do a rapid induction so that they have more time in their session, I think are wasting a lot of time in their session because the difference between a eight second shock induction and a three minute, um, you know, semi progressive relaxation induction, if that two minutes and 50 seconds.

needed in your session. You’re doing a lot of other stuff wrong, right? Like just the premise of that direction. Now, I’m not saying you can’t use rapid inductions, I’m saying you have to give me a good reason. And if people don’t know why they’re doing things and don’t understand how the ingredients work, uh, and, and how to start playing with the ingredients, it’s difficult to graduate and become.

Which does bring in the mindset that really, again, all the, to all the techniques are tools and they’re only as good as they’re put into use. Yeah. I think to people who, you know, would share, it’s like, well, here’s the induction I like using in my sessions, cuz it’s the first one that I learned and it works for me.

To which I hear that and go, Awesome. Keep it up . Yeah. A as opposed to having to have. You know, the, the, I came from a hobby background in, in magic, and there were people who, uh, toured for years with just a single 12 minute act, right? And that’s what they did best, as opposed to, you know, there I was in the early days is the hobby of going, I’ve got a whole stack of index cards with all the routines that I know and all these things, which does bring into mind.

I mean, uh, I know I can flash into random movie references with you, which makes this even more dangerous of the scene and waiting for go. Where, um, you know, written by, not written outlined by Christopher, guess the same quote, People who did Best in Show and Spinal Tap and, um, many others too. So there’s the scene where the musical directors played by the actor Bob Balland, and he’s telling the actors, Look, you’re gonna eventually know the song so well that you’re gonna forget it and you’re just gonna know it.

So rather than take the time for you to learn it, let’s just start singing it. And he starts playing the music. And of course, no one takes off. Right. Right. And by the way, anything by Christopher Guest is by definition Gold. Yes. Um, he is a national treasure. And the six fingered man in the Princess Bride.

Exactly. Um, the man disappears into everything. It’s amazing. He really does. He’s like, he’s like the Gary Oldman of Funny , but Gary for Gary Oldman. Everyone googled the movie Tiptoes. You’re welcome. So this Rose, I know. Yeah. This does bring to mind though, the question of how does the new hypnotist, uh, we’ll phrase it two ways.

How does the new hypnotist. Expand those skills. What are the tools and resources necessary, or even how is it that, you know, the ongoing professional? Cuz I’m sure the way that you’re even doing the work today is different from how you did it two years ago. Yeah. Oh, it totally is. It’s, it’s very, very different.

Um, and, and so the answer is actually Christopher Guest, um, like you said, it was written by Christopher Guest. Oh wait, no. It was outlined by Christopher Guest. Um, and so the more you can look at sessions as outlines instead of scripts, but you have to start with scripts, right? And so great actors, uh, in the moment might change the lines a little bit.

Great actors in the moment will change their delivery, and the, and the way you change the delivery is, Really important. I, I look at, uh, Ethan Hawk as an actor who, uh, was a young Shakespearean actor. Uh, and there’s this wonderful interview he did with Stephen Colbert a while back, where it was, uh, it was the anniversary of Shakespeare and all these great actors were at the Globe Theater doing stuff, and they asked him to do, uh, two B or not to b uh, from Hamlet.

And he was furious because he thought everyone was making fun of him because they wanted him to fail because why would you give the American that one? Um, and, and where they put him in the lineup and all that stuff. And then he had to get into how do I give one of the most famous monologues in the history of the English language in a way that’s compelling to an audience who’s heard it a thousand times?

And, and going through that and. What’s interesting is he had to go from trying to impress actors just to doing it sincerely, right? Because there was this competition feeling of all these great actors in the room during rehearsals together, and he was trying to, there was a part of him that just competitively wanted to impress them and he had to get away from that.

Um, and so it’s a long answer I know, but. Uh, the answer is I’m not trying to impress hypnotists with my stories. Um, and there’s all these hypnotists who want to talk about their most impressive client or the five lives they’ve changed this month, or the cool revolutionary thing that they’ve done, and I’ve really graduated from that.

Uh, I, I am not, uh, you know, penis measuring with anybody. Uh, there, there, there’s no. There’s, there’s no ego in it, uh, in this really freeing way. Um, You know, I , I just watched Star Wars the other day and it was really embarrassing cuz I felt more connected to OB won than Luke Skywalker. Like for the first time, like, I felt like the old guy who was like patient and knows, like I’m, I’m more like Mr.

Miyagi than I am Daniel son these days. And I’m okay with, uh, this, uh, a sloppy forgiving process where I can see things coming a mile away and so I can let them. Kind of go fluidly rather than forcing things. Um, and, and so the way I’m approaching the work and the way I’m practicing now is understanding the outline, understanding the big moments that need to happen.

And sometimes I need to make a moment happen and sometimes the client can make the moment happen and, and so I can just kind of choreograph that and then let improvisation happen. Um, like Christopher Guest bringing it back. Um, I can, I can. Create a big meta structure and, and see where all the things are gonna go, and then be able to just very gently guide a process.

Uh, through that, which is actually much less work than it sounds, which I mean, to expand that metaphor that, you know, the dialogue is often be the hypnotist, not the script. Nist though we have to have the foundation. Ethan Hawk, you know, you mentioned the actor can change the words in the, uh, energy of the scene, but No, no, no.

He cannot change the words of two tobe or not to be, you know, that’s the, when I worked in professional theater, if you’re working on a classical piece, the catch phrase was always trust the words. That, and e especially working with a new play, there were union rules that the, the playwright could not produce new script pages during the rehearsal day.

Me, as the stage manager, had to receive the documents by a certain timeframe to then put into the actor’s hands so it wasn’t middle of the day. Oh yeah. The thing we rehearsed this morning that’s been cut. Right. You know, there were specific rules to protect the process and the nightmare was the the playwright slash direct.

because you’d have to play the card of going trust the words. Why? Because the words we have in process right now are the words we need to use today, but we have to get the words from somewhere. So, you know, Ethan Hawk on stage at the globe had to say the actual Shakespearean dialect, the actual words, when we, we have to start somewhere.

And it’s the, the mindset. As I would look at a script that’s been shared, you know, to look at it in terms of this is what I need to say with everybody, I, I think is another absolute, which I don’t think any of us really are doing. It’s to look at it instead of, if you approach it from the mindset that, Here is, um, you know, here’s a transcript of what someone said with one specific client on that specific day.

Right? But to pull out of it the modeling where I’m flashing to a story of woman in the office and. She is the one, um, person of a, uh, different ethnicity than the family she’s married into, to massively generalize the story, and she’s staying up at night anxiety around her baby who’s gonna be raised in this environment where the in-laws are saying these atrocious things, yet outta nowhere.

She mentions. Well, in the newer Twilight movie, the Girl’s Now of Vampire and she puts this protective shield around the baby when they’re fighting with the wolverines. You know, like you do and Sure. Yeah. And she goes, If I could do that with my baby, in my mind, you know, I know that I can protect her and I can raise her.

Right. Even in spite of what she’s around. And I’m hearing this and I’m going, That’s a raw slinger nail biting script I read 10 years. Right. Right. But, but even if you can’t place it to, this is a raw ing or nail biting script. The client just told you the process they need to get the resolution right.

Yeah. And, uh, Uh, the first thing a hypnotist does is go, Okay, what script is this? Right? And, and the fact that you can just go, Okay, all I need to do is take that whatever magic baby thing happened in the movie. I haven’t seen movie. I only read the books Team, Jacob . Um, no. Whatever magic, you know, just say, All I have to do is take that piece and plug it into this process, this script that I got from Ron Eslinger or, or whoever.

Um, and that is, the client has told me everything I need to. That’s the game. Right. Which it comes back to, uh, you know, again, our common through line here of the comedian doing crowd work and you know, here he suddenly approaches the lawyer and suddenly he looks like the improvisational genius because he is got eight minutes of jokes about lawyers.

Yeah. And meanwhile, you’re in Phoenix, Arizona with this guy the next night and another lawyer in the audience. It’s gonna be a little. , Yeah. Yeah. To recognize that we have chunks, we have strategies. You’re coming into my office to quit smoking because you want to get in better shape and your wife is pregnant and the baby’s two months away.

Yeah. Here’s my six minutes on that. Yeah. And, and, and you’ll have six minutes on that. And that’s the thing, is just being able to build up that. That cookbook of recipes, right, That you can go back to when you’re on Iron Chef. And you have to think at the moment, you’ve made this dish before, you’ve used these ingredients before.

And so you can go to them, you know, in your mind or whatever, or into a literal cookbook, uh, and and, and put this together and, and understand how these parts are gonna work and how these flavors are gonna taste. So here’s a question that I’m realizing has never popped. And I’m having to, uh, do the math really quick before I say the number specifically cuz I think it’s a dangerous question that I want to have a specific number to.

Cuz again, there’s certain. Dialogues that would pop up on a regular basis. In terms of things we talk about, uh, I don’t have the number, we’re gonna call it one seventy five ish. Um, but you do have certain chunks that you know you can fall back on, which I hesitate to use the phrasing that yes, we ought to be completely in the moment, completely in the zone with the client.

Yet there are little chunks of information that you can go on autopilot while part of your mind is going, Where am I going? Yeah. And, and that’s not necessarily the same thing as not being present, right? Right. Like, because you’re, you’re taking a moment to think strategically about, you know, some sort of like meta program about what you want to do with this client.

And there are absolutely moments of autopilot, uh, you know, an induction, a deepener, things like that. Um, setting a scene, uh, where, you know, you’re taking them through this process and it’s a, it’s a metaphor construct you’ve used a lot of times. And so you can just kind of do that blind while. Paying attention to the client.

You’re not paying attention to your words. Your words are just flowing while you’re watching. You know how relaxed they are or what their breathing rate is, or did they just clear their throat and you’re making sure they’re relaxing all the way back down before you continue without disrupting flow.

There’s all these little moments where having, having, call it 175, you know, phrase. It is 170 before I check, uh, . Yeah, you, you’ve got those right. You, whatever you have sort of preloaded that you can go to, um, means you’re not gonna be caught flat footed when you need to do something else. And so having those is part of the reps part of the experience.

And part of that is, um, just hypnotizing teddy bears in your room, uh, until you have enough clients and just saying stuff. Part of it is going to as many meetups, um, practice groups, conferences, trainings, online practice via Skypes as you can. Part of it’s just reading as many scripts and transcripts, um, as possible and just getting the versatility any way you.

Which is a much better way of phrasing it than how I introduce the idea. So in post, we’re gonna edit that and make it sound like it was my idea. Uh, well, most of my great ideas came from you later. Wow. . So, to look at it, I mean, we keep coming back to the concept of that continued learning, and it’s where I, I think the more advanced the student becomes, the less they need the entire training, the entire resource to become revolutionary.

I’ve, I, I. I, I’ve kept it quiet, but there are several trainings, not just one. There’s several trainings I’ve been to in recent years where I gave the feedback of, it’s one of the best trainings I ever went to of content I don’t use. , right? Yet I didn’t need the entire content. Here’s this little metaphor.

Here’s this one line that I heard Tom Nicole say about eight years ago, and that’s practically in every session that I’ll do with anything involving the past. And it’s just that one little nuance of a word, a turn of phrase, a little twist on some metaphor around some specific issue where the more deeper we go into this, the more we just need those little nuggets, these chunks here and there.

That punch up the work that we do, compound advanced strategies a little bit further, which even the labeling of advanced or basic, you know, it’s where the, the right basic technique at the right time is gonna be often better. I, I keep coming back to the term prestige suggestion, that we’re a community that uses that as a bad term sometimes.

That, you know, the mm-hmm. , the parent says something negative, the coach says something. Limiting yet prestige suggestions can also be extremely good things. Yeah. I mean, the most fundamental stuff, right? The, the cliches are cliche for a reason, and going back to, you know, if you’re talking about comedians and Christopher Guest and all that stuff, sometimes a good fart joke is funny.

And if you’re talking about an amazing chef, sometimes a chocolate chip cookie is just delicious, right? Mm-hmm. , they don’t have to be amazingly original every time to be wonderful for what they’re trying to be. The number of high class restaurants that have meatloaf on the. ? Well, I mean, just the, the number of high class restaurants that just have steak and potatoes on the menu.

Right, Right. I mean, there are, there are some world class restaurants that just serve meat and potatoes. Mm-hmm. and they just do it well. And so you can go to Outback Steakhouse or you can go to, you know, Flemings or Ruth Chris or something like that, and you’re gonna get a. And mashed potatoes and I, I, I’m not a food critic, but if you put Outback Steakhouse next to Flemings next to me, I can tell you pretty fast, which is which.

Mm-hmm. . And, and, and you can do the same thing with hypnotist. You can take the same script and just execute it differently. Right. You know, change the words. Uh, a little but also change the process. Change the delivery. Again, going back to Ethan Hawk to B, or not to be that, that Hamlet, uh, soliloquy, right?

So that’s a great question. So, well, here’s the best part. Here’s a great question about to b or not to be. What’s the first line of that monologue? . It’s not to be or not to be. Mm-hmm. , that’s what I love. Everyone starts with that and you can’t, if you start with that, you’re wrong. Uh, there is a line that comes before that.

That is the second line. The first line is him saying, Now I am alone. Right. Hamlet starts with, Now I am alone, and that sets a whole different. Uh, path for that, uh, conversation. And it changes the audience because he’s starting with a sentence that they haven’t heard or that they forgot as part of it. Um, so doing the same thing.

It’s these little phrases, right? A little turn of phrase from whoever, you know. The one that I, I like to give as an example was when Mark Cunningham said at a training, You know, it was a five day training and the thing I took away from his five days was I never waste a doorway in my scripts. And anytime he’s doing a process with a client, anytime they walk through the doorway, that is a threshold through which they walk through and they are transformed by going through that doorway and they’ll never go back.

And he always uses his doorways as an opportunity for change, whatever. That’s five days of training. I got all the money’s worth out of that one sentence. I could have just packed up and left right then. . Yeah. Anything interactive, anything. Getting the client speaking. It’s the Tom Nicole line of you’ve been waiting your whole life to have the last word in this.

And just that, that’s a good one little, that one little segment, which the entire training itself was, was great. Take his classes when he offers them, and it’s where we just need these little chunks, these little segments. And you know, the way that you’re probably not going into session and playing Mark Cunningham for a full hour.

You’re an induction of this style. You’re bringing in this other person’s strategy. You’re doing something that, uh, here, here the catchphrase of, I did the class with Sean Michael Andrews in Vegas last year, and I went at one point to go, Uh, yeah, I learned this from you back in 2008. And he goes, No, you didn’t.

And I’ve never seen that before. And it turned to, well, here’s a Jason Tta original right . So we, we, we develop our own work over time yet. There’s something to be said positively about finding that derivative nature where this came from here, and then I morphed it this way for that person, and I combined it with a little bit of this school of thought, and I just felt like emerging the kid and doing a circle of excellence in the middle of the session today.

Right. And, and you can, because he doesn’t know. Mm-hmm. , he’s, he’s not a trained hypnotist who’s No, no, no. He read, uh, he, he read that book and the book said that you’re supposed to do two deepeners, and then from there you’re supposed to take him to a safe. Uh, yeah. And if you don’t do too deepeners and take ’em to a safe place, you’re not doing real hypnosis pretty much.

Yeah. Yeah. If you’re not doing regression to, Cause you’re not really helping people. And don’t mention the stream in the woods because when they meditate, they’re seen in the woods doesn’t have a stream. Oh no, I listen to down that one. That was your story, right? No, that’s not mine. Oh, well here’s Jason went I it home

I thought this was yours. Well, I’ve quoted you for it, so maybe it is now I do have, I, I mean stream in the woods. A lot of people do stream in the woods thing. I thought I heard it from you years ago of, uh, you know, doing the stuff that we would all nerd out over of, you know, you’re carrying the weight on your back and you’re letting it go, setting it down and there’s a stream.

That’s me. That’s. Yeah. Okay. You finish it then? Well, I mean, I don’t remember where we went with it, but that’s definitely me cuz I do this whole thing where you’ve got a backpack and all the heavy stuff and then you wanna take the backpack off and then there’s a stream and you dump and then you watch leaves go by on the stream and the, you know, the leaves used to be connected to the trees and those are good things that are resources.

But the tree knows to let go of the leaves because somehow that creates balance, uh, internally and externally with its environment. So you have to do the same thing. You have to let go of the. Whether they were good or bad, doesn’t matter. It’s just time to let ’em go. So you can have internal and external balance and you dump the leaves out and you let ’em go downstream.

Um, so that’s, that’s that construct. But then if you, if you set it up wrong, you could have ’em go to a relaxing, comfortable place where there is no stream. And then you’ve been setting things up, uh, where you just told ’em to go to a relaxing, comfortable place and they went to the mountains or the beach or, uh, you know, An indoor trampoline facility,

And you didn’t set them up to have a stream, but I don’t know if that’s where you were going with it. No. There was a story of someone going, I meditate every day and I imagine I’m in the woods, but my scene doesn’t have a stream. And you ruined it. Oh God. That’s great. That might, I know that might be something that’s happened to me, although it does bring up the fact that, you know, the, i I one of the greatest lessons in, in years, and I think this is essential for not just the new hypnotist.

I think a lot of practicing hypnotist, uh, the hypnotic state is not as delicate as we would think it to be. That, you know, here’s a moment that I’m getting torrential downpours, and I’ve just said, Hey, open your eyes. Wow, that’s loud. Let’s move to another. And close your eyes, go back to where we were before.

And the session just continued easily or places where I’ve said the wrong thing based on something that they shared with me. I mean, I’ve sure, I’ve told the story before of the grandmother mentioning, uh, not being able to keep up with her little granddaughter and wanting to lose weight. And come to find out little granddaughters in her, uh, early twenties.

And there’s a whole extended story about little granddaughters stealing, uh, grandma’s car and getting arrested and the car being in an impounded lot and thinking this is the most badass five year old I’ve ever heard of. Yeah. Which the most important thing of that story though is she’s in front of me the second time pointing out what I said incorrectly, and she’s down like six or seven pounds.

So she was able to make the judgment call around my assumption and still be effective. So you don’t have to get every single word right. And it’s where, uh, the more I’ve been at this, the more I let my language become intentionally vague to let them fill in the details. A and that requires confidence. Uh, that goes back to, you know, the first thing we were talking about where you, you start with a, a script that you have supreme confidence in, or a technique that you’ve just gone to a training for, and you have supreme confidence that that is a bulletproof thing that’s going to change everything.

Um, and then as soon as it doesn’t work perfectly the first time, now you have to put the confidence into yourself and into the client and that relationship. And, and that is, uh, Tentative at first, but once you have that, you can be artfully vague and you can, you can be comfortable with long pauses in the room, during the intake or during the session where you’re okay with it just being quiet.

Um, and, and that. Comfort, that comfortability, that comfort in that sense is, uh, earned people. People don’t start with it. Like you said, you know, with the Christopher Guest thing, right? Like, there’s gonna be a time where you’ve already forgotten this, so just go, um, You, you gotta earn that, uh, confidence, which I flashback to the reference earlier of, uh, you know, is the floor gonna work?

Well, of course it’s gonna work. It’s a floor. Right? But even the, the, the guy whose company did that work for us, I first met him like maybe 15 years ago in this area. And at that time he was a landscaping guy. And then as he was doing the landscaping, people were, Hey, can you repair this thing in our house?

And because he had done the work in his own home, he goes, Yes, I can. It was kind of operating as a handyman. Eventually went off, took the appropriate training to get licensed as a contractor, to get licensed for both commercial as well as residential, and then building an entire team of people. So, you know, 15 years ago, he was the guy doing everything himself.

Now he’s the. Wizard behind the curtain running this entire, you know, home services company. And that came from the experience of training, putting tools into use. And it’s how, while they were there doing everything was more, you know, sort of basic, you know, handyman style task. We just had the whole list of, hey, this shower is dripping this light in the, uh, laundry room is too dark and all these little things.

And to suddenly pop up and. Hey, we just bought these smart light switches cuz we wanna talk to our lights rather than hit a thing with our fingers cuz that’s way too much effort in 2018. And can you do that? And because they’ve got the tools ready to go out there in the van, it was an easy add on service and this is where that ongoing training and.

You know, looking at resources that are out there, whether it’s scripts, whether it’s where it’s amazing renaissance of online training that we’ve got and looking at it again as what is, what are the chunks that I can put to use? What are the elements I can pick and choose from? Yeah, exactly. And, and so it’s about finding those chunks now and that’s, and with the online, uh, training and.

You know, the hypno thoughts.com, the Facebook groups, the, all these different online resources for finding, uh, chunks, curating them in a responsible way and, and making it easier for clients to make that, uh, progression is a, is a big part of really what I find interesting right now. Yeah. So in terms of curating content, I mean looking at whether it’s trainings, whether it’s going to conventions, um, I, I give a quick example before I really ask the question.

That first time I went to a convention, I sent somebody a list. Who was in the profession more than I was at that point to say, This is what I’m going to go to the convention for. What do you think? And it wasn’t that he ever said, This one’s bad, this one’s good. He helped to clarify, Well, this person’s workshop is more on the terminology you should be aware of.

Yeah. In working with sleep problems. But this person’s gonna teach you the techniques to actually help those people. So what’s your. I was like, Oh, okay, why? What techniques? He goes, Well then by the audio of the other one and attend this one. Cuz that’s gonna be hands on practice. So how, how would you recommend, you know, we’re all still learning at this.

How do you go about that curating process? Yeah. Okay. Well, there’s, uh, it depends on your stage, right? So it depends on where you are in your career. So I, I think you, you want to start by. When you’re going to conferences, using that as an example, uh, you want to be able to. Look to create mentors. At one stage you wanna look to create, uh, just find technique at another stage.

You wanna look to create friendships and peers, uh, that can keep you in check at one stage. And I think that one’s skipped a lot in our profession where people don’t want others to call them out. Um, and finding those, uh, are, are useful resources when you’re talking about. Um, in person, what should your goals for a conference?

And I did a, a, a whole interview with somebody else about how to make the most out of a conference, and I won’t, I won’t repeat it here. Um, but so the other part of it for me is looking at scripts in a new way. And, and, uh, at H P T I, we had students break down scripts into different parts and teaching them how to look at them and like, like Legos or ingredients or things like that.

Um, and so that’s a, that’s really where we’re at these days is, is helping. , Really the techniquey stuff in breaking it down, demystifying it, and curating it all into one big place. So we keep coming back to the S word and there’s so much chatter one way or the other. Are scripts a good or a bad thing?

Scripts are a wonderful thing. Scripts are absolutely a wonderful thing. And that’s, uh, you know, You don’t want your surgeon to come up with a new way of doing surgery on you , right? Like, he’s like, Oh, I’m an artist. Like, no, like do the way, That’s good, right? Like we, like you don’t want an ax made out of jello, right?

Like just because it’s unique doesn’t mean it’s better. Like there are tried and true things that we should learn from and we should be integrating. And so scripts are a good thing. Now, reading a script word for word where you’re face in a book, not paying attention to your client is obviously far from ideal.

Uh, I understand it’s a learning stage, but no, the goal is to learn from scripts to read, scripts, to be influenced by scripts, to be inspired by scripts, and, and then. Through that to be able to be more dynamic with your clients.

Jason Linett here once again, and as always, thank you so much for interacting with this program, for sharing it on your social media streams, for leaving your positive reviews online. And once again, I’d invite you to head over to osis.com. It’s a project in the works with some rather interesting things inside of it and an amazing community.

People contributing as well. So head over now. Check it out. Learn more. osis.com. See you on the inside. Thanks for listening to the Work Smart Hypnosis podcast and work smart hypnosis.com.