Session #235: Scott Sandland on Hypnosis for Teens

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

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This is the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast, session number 235, Scott Sandlin on Hypnosis for teens. Welcome to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast with Jason Lynette, your professional resource for hypnosis training and outstanding business success. Here’s your host, Jason Lynette. You took my light. You drained me down, but that was then, and this is now.

Now look at me. This is the part of me that you’re never, never gonna take away from me. Somehow, every time I have Scott Sandlin on the podcast, we end up quoting Katie Perry. So of course having to open with those words. Hey, Jason Lynette here. Welcoming you back to the program once again and welcoming frequent guests, Scott Sandlin back to the program to have a conversation, which was actually one that in some ways we’ve had over the years.

In other formats, but wanting to capture it, first of all for your benefit, but also quite openly for my benefit as well, to hear some of the nuances of, as we’ll come to call it in this conversation, the theatrical blocking about working with troubled teens, working in situations with high emotional risk, and also being aware of the fact that we are in very different times right now and we’re often the blame gets pointed to, in terms of social media and strategies around that.

The fact is this is just what our culture has become and to be mindful around how we build that environment for success. So you’re gonna hear some amazing nuances in terms of the use of hypnotic phenomenon in terms of getting that immediate buy-in. The fact that, as Scott puts it, let me show you how you can do some cool things with your brain.

Some nuances in terms of how I’ve done the work over the years too, though I may be modifying some of mine to match, uh, some of Scott’s phrasing. And then specifically, a big part of this conversation is on the setup, the layout of how it is that as we work with that teenager, how it is we deal with the parents, how it is, we deal with the dynamic of who’s around and just the best ways to really be that advocate.

For change, and what I love about this conversation is Scott talking about how he’s very often in that situation where his client technically is there against their will and how to turn that into a win, how to turn that into a strength and then get the session in motion to create some outstanding results to really, in many ways, if you’ve gone back through the library and listened to Scott’s previous appearances, helping to really hedge off some of those situations that very often we end up dealing with as they’re adults.

Let’s resolve these issues at a much earlier stage. So some real takeaways in this conversation that I know you’re gonna put into use, and even if these are some ways that are not quite the way that you’re currently working, look at the element of, again, the theatrical blocking. How do we set up that environment for change?

That I feel is one of the biggest takeaways in this conversation. So listen to this one. Once again, we’re gonna put some details in the show notes too. Also, we eventually make a rather abrupt transition just as we got talking about the original theme, also talking about the upcoming hypno Thoughts Platinum Event, which is happening the very last weekend of February into the first weekend of March.

It’s all the same days out in San Diego, which once again, easiest job in the world. San Diego weather. It’s going to be nice today, but the upcoming Hypno Thoughts, Platinum Event details [email protected] instead of being the big event with a whole bunch of speakers. This is three days deep diving with six speakers.

I’m one of them, as well as, uh, see if I can do this from memory while I frantically pull up the website along with David Snyder, Melissa Tier, Kelly T. Woods, Ken gso, again, myself, as well as Steve Ram. So deep diving into specific topics with actionable things you can put into. Right away. I’ll be talking specifically on search engine optimization.

Ken Guta will be talking about secrets behind a hundred percent referral practice Steve Ram, talking about the importance of unconscious communication. I love the title of this one, Kelly T. Woods on Living Hypnotically, A Hands on Workshop. David Snyder on Hypnotic Energy Secrets. Melissa Tears talking about a masterclass in brain change.

As I’m looking at the lineup, how have I gone this far and not yet had Steve Ram on the program? Stand by at least between now and the end of the year future work Smart Hypnosis guest Steve Ram, episode number. Coming soon. So check out the details of that event. It’s being held to a smaller audience than what is typical of the hypno thoughts.

Live convention, which is upwards of a thousand people. This one is a little bit more intimate this way. You’re gonna get that hands on time with all of us. Check out the [email protected]. And with that, let’s jump directly into this content packed conversation. Here we go. Episode number 235. Scott Sandlin on Hypnosis for teens.
So I started working with kids when I was a kid. Uh, I got certified in hypnosis when I was 18 and started seeing clients pretty much right away. So the idea of working with, you know, quote unquote grownups for grown up stuff. Mm-hmm. was trickier, you know, helping somebody through his divorce or working with people who were mad at their teenage kids was more difficult than working.

Teenagers and kids for the stuff that teenagers and kids have in terms of rapport, in terms of, you know, earning the right, in terms of all of those things. It just made a ton of sense. Mm-hmm. . So, and I, you know, I look young, I, I still look young, but back then I looked even younger. So working with young kids at a place called the Children’s Dental Center was actually really, So the Children’s Dental Center was a place that I worked at for maybe four years, maybe even a little longer.

And it was the idea that in inner city LA there’s a bunch of kids that need dental care that are like slipping through the cracks. And so, uh, USC and UCLA had schools of dentistry that had students that needed hours of working with real people and there were, you know, all of these kids that had real need.

And so it was an obvious pairing where the dental hygiene schools and the schools of dentistry would, you know, have different days of the weeks where USC would come in, UCLA would come in a different day, and so on and so forth. And they would have me. And, uh, everyone was really excited when an eye showed up, cuz I was hypnosis day to the students, to the USC and UCLA dental students.

It was hypnosis day, but to, uh, the kids and the parents who were the actual patients. I was just a guy. Like I know times that you’ve been on here before. We’ve, we’ve talked of that theme of, you know, being in residence. Drug treatment facility, being there in residence, working with the dental issues, did you find that there was an advantage of being that, oh, let’s call it this, the, the guest starring role as opposed to the one that they were specifically coming to see?

Yeah, cuz you know, they didn’t, no one made an appointment knowing that I was gonna be there. Or even considering what if they have a hypnotist, you know, that wasn’t on their agenda. You know, these are like, you know, working class English as a second language families that. Care about their kids. And so me showing up without the primary responsibility of dental care meant my entire job was about patient experience specifically.

A lot of the kids there had been traumatized in their previous dental experiences, and so they had understandable anxieties and fears and things like that. And that would only get made worse. Every once in a while they had to do a thing called pausing a kid, and a paus means they’re strapping a kid down to a board so that he, he or she doesn’t ry around so much so they can get actual important dental work done, which we like to call that an isc.

Yeah, that’s, it’s obviously traumatic and to their credit, you know, everyone involved hated doing it. And that’s why they brought me in. You know, the founder of the Children’s Dental Center said, Scott, we want this to be a thing that stops. And so we wanna make sure that every day you’re there, no kid ever gets.

PA post or strapped down and in four, four and a half years, something like that, no kid was ever strapped down. While, while uh, I was there or any of my students, they were really cool about letting me bring in my own students and having them get some time there too. And so anytime hypnosis was there, no kids were getting strapped down and that meant we were like breaking that, you know, that chain of trauma in dentistry in that kid’s life.

And so you’d get these kids. Normally on their chart, it would say, you know, this, this kid’s a real crier, this kid’s a real screamer. This kid’s, you know, a real problem. And we would target those, you know, I would target those kids to give them a new experience. And so all I’d do is just hang out in the waiting room really.

And I’d work with, you know, five or six or 10 kids at a time. And I would do like, I just. Talk to ’em about, Hey, I’m, I work with dentist, but I’m not a dentist. And going to your point on, you know, being the sort of the co-star, I could say, Look, I’m here to teach you tricks that makes going to the dentist easier.

And that’s all I do. And I was dressed down, so they believe that I wasn’t, you know, a professional. Yeah. Imagine in that situation too, you weren’t necessarily launching into a standard hypnosis pre. No, I mean, really the parents didn’t speak English, you know? And my Spanish is okay, but not, my Spanish is not good enough to give a pre-talk in Spanish.

So, no, I just, I, the word I kept using was brain. I was like, I’m just gonna teach you how your brain works. I’m gonna teach you how your brain works. And so I would do finger magnets and I would say, you can use your imagination so well. It makes it real. So we would do finger magnets and then we’d do the eye lock.

Right. You know, just gluing their eyes shut, you know, And I would be doing this, you know, in groups. So it was, you know, sort of like a stage show in that respect, where you’d have, you know, five or six or 10 kids all of a sudden there. I said, Okay, we’re all gonna glue our eyes shut. And the way I would do it is I would, I would first do the finger magnets, and then I would do eye closure.

I would do the eye closure twice, and the first time I would do it, I would do it with the, the trick that makes it have to work. And I’ll talk about that in a second. And then the second time I would do it, I would do it legit. So a lot of people know what I’m talking about when I say that, but just for the people who don’t, when you’re doing the eye closure and eye lock technique, if you get the person to roll their eyes up like they’re looking through the top of their head, Physiologically, it just holds your eyes shut.

You’ve gotta roll your eyes back down to be able to open them again. And so the first time I would have them glue their eyes shut, I would have them look up and I would tell them it’s an on off switch. I’d say in a minute, not yet, but in a minute I’m gonna have you close your eyes. We’re gonna glue ’em shut and you’re gonna be in charge.

Cuz the whole thing’s about empowering them. So I would say, I’m gonna show you that you’re in control of your brain. So the way we’re gonna do is you’re gonna close your eyes and when you look up, that’s gonna turn this on. You will glue your eyes shut, and when you wanna be able to open your eyes again, you’ll look down at the tip of your nose.

That’ll turn this off and you’ll be able to open your eyes. And so they would do it that way. And then we would, we would do it the legit way without looking up. And I would say, Now you can do it without doing that. You can just imagine looking up and it’ll work. And it would, And then from there, I would, when the kids went back into the treatment rooms and the operatories.

I would be able to just kind of walk around and say, Hey, show the dentist how you can glue your eyes shut. Hey, show the dentist how you can do this, do that. And then I would just roll that into pattern for either dissociation or empowerment or relaxation or whatever made sense with the kid. But that meant I was working with, you know, 25 kids a day.

Any day that I was there, minimum. And you know, there were days where it’d be a lot more than that. So that was, that was where I started doing a lot of, you know, kid and young teen work, sort of like junior high school levels. The oldest they would do. Yeah. And would you find that was something, I mean, I’d share a through line here that, you know, making use of some sort of quick win with anyone coming into the office, especially the teenagers, because very often it’s the fact that mom or dad is bringing them in for something that’s perhaps originally their goal.

And to get that buy in. That whole theme of, I love the phrasing of, show you how you can use your brain. Mine has always been, I’m gonna show you, you’ve got much more control over how you feel. Then you’ve thought possible, especially if you can give them that experience of thinking about something differently, using their phrasing of using your powers for good rather than for bad.

Well, yeah, I mean, that’s a, that’s a big part of what I do more with adolescents and I, I work with a lot of teenagers and teen anxiety’s a, a, a real important thing for me, and just that space has been something that I’ve, I’ve put a lot of effort into in part because of the drug rehabs I’ve worked in.

I’ve just seen so much of, you know, we’re spending all this time and energy cleaning up the mess, to be honest. And if we could get to these kids earlier and get in front of it, it’d be awesome. And so when I’m talking to those kids, whether they. At risk or not, especially kids with anxiety and stress, those are kids who tend to be kinesthetic.

So I talk to ’em about that. You know, once you calibrate it and you realize that they are kinesthetic, you can say, Okay, here’s the deal. School is mostly about, you know, see the words on the whiteboard, sound out the words. So that’s mostly seeing and hearing, but feeling isn’t taught that much. And so you are a feeler.

And if you are a feeler, that means. You’re not being taught how to use your superpower, the thing that’s best about you, you don’t know how to use. And I, I tell kids all the time and, and teenagers, you know, that part in the superhero movie where the person in the beginning doesn’t know how to use their superpower.

So it’s making their life worse. And then they get to that, you know, that, you know, trainer or master who gives them. The skills and helps them refine their superpower so that it can make their life better. That’s what we’ve gotta do with you, because right now you’ve got this pointed at all the bad stuff, and if we can get you to point this at the better stuff, you’re gonna be more empathetic, more emotionally connected, more excited, more adventurous, more loving person.

And right now, uh, all you’re feeling is pointed at stress, anxiety, problems, et cetera. I’m laughing just cuz I’m imagining the way that such a thing usually plays out, that suddenly they’re sitting there nodding their head already going, Oh yeah, that is what I need to do. As opposed to, you know, we’re gonna come in and work on your problem, which is what they’ve been hearing a lot of up until that point.

Yeah, and a lot of who I’m, you know, I get kids against their will in my office all the time, and I, I would say I probably have a higher percentage of clients who have come against their will than probably almost any hypnotist who’s working today. A large percentage of my clientele does not want to be there, and so getting that buy-in in the first 10 minutes, Is a really important part of my job.

You know, cuz either it’s a kid who’s got in trouble in school or you know, it’s a teenager who’s there because a judge is making them be there or a physician is making them be there. And they are, they aren’t just skeptical, they’re. You know, they’re bordering on willfully disobedient. Mm-hmm. . And, you know, last week on Friday, I had a client in my office and he and his mom sat down and he goes, Well, I’m just here cuz she’s making me so she can do all the talking.

Hmm. And converting that into an engaged client is, and that, that partnership and buy-in is the, Yeah. Because without that, there is no job to do. Right, Right. So, yeah, I mean, for me, that’s that age group that, I mean, like I said, I’ve done a lot with the, you know, the, the kids, like the Children’s Dental Center.

I was working with five year olds mm-hmm. , um, and up to junior high school. And now I’m working with a ton of kids who are in the, really, in the 15 to 22 range. Like that window of time I think is. Underrepresented and underserved, and it’s just, it’s disproportionately going through a lot of challenge and trauma right now.

So I’m, you know, I’m working with kids who are dropping out of Stanford and Harvard because the stress is getting to ’em. Yeah. And so these are high functioning, you know, brilliant, hard working people that. Something’s. Getting the best of them and getting them back on track is super rewarding. I love doing it.

Yeah, so there’s some questions that I just generally had myself because that’s a situation, you know, the high performer, I’ve phrased it for years, that the person, and let’s. Build some unfortunate stereotypes here. The person who perhaps is maybe 350 pounds overweight, the person who is self-medicating with ridiculous amounts of alcohol or upwards of three, four packs a day of cigarettes, those are not necessarily the folks that are generally calling us.

They perhaps should be, but like most of my weight loss clients, That lasts 20 to 30 pounds. The couple who came in the day to quit smoking used to be two packs a day, and in the last couple of years on their own, they’ve went down to like a half pack a day. So I, Is there something that you’re doing? So these people that are those high performers, but it’s that one thing, and especially nowadays, I mean you’ve described all the teens that I’m seeing that it’s not the Billy wants to play baseball better.

No. He’s being scouted as the, so. Yeah, and you hear the stories of just the amount of stress that builds up from the initial phone call, I’m assuming. Mom is coming in, and whether it’s you or someone else screening on your behalf, are there things that you’re doing in that initial interaction that are setting the stage for how the process is gonna go?

Yeah, there’s a lot that you have to do right there. Um, especially when you’re working with minors, you know, uh, the college age students. Are technically not minors, but they’re there. You know, because a parent wants them to be there. Even if they’ve said, Mom and dad, I need help. The parent is usually the person finding me.

Yeah. But especially when you’re working with minors, I think it’s critical to set up a number of relationship boundaries and parameters right away. So one of the things I do is I make sure that everyone hears me say, Look, you know the son. Is my client, mom or dad, or whoever’s in the room, you may be paying for this, but let me be very clear.

You are not my client and everything that your son or daughter says to me is 100% confidential. Unless they very specifically ask me to talk to you about things. And the only sentence you’ll ever hear me say about your kid is this sentence . You know, you got a really great kid and I’m really happy with our progress and that is the only thing I will ever say.

Nice. Uh, so what’s going to happen is in three weeks you are going to forget, I have said this, and mom or dad is going, Because they care, because they love you, and because they, they want to make sure things are going well. They’ll just sincerely ask me, like during scheduling or during drop off or pickup or something, they’ll just say, Hey, how’s it going with Mikey?

And in that moment as a reflex, I will say, you know, You got a really great kid there and I’m really happy with our progress. And they look at me, they’re like, Oh yeah, that’s right. Oh, it’s the thing. He said, Yes. Yeah. And, and they do ask and, and it’s not cuz they’re prying, but. The parents will try to get more information out of you.

Um, you know, they’ll say like, Look, I know he’s smoking pot. I just wanna make sure he’s not getting into trouble and you can’t respond to that. Mm-hmm. , right? Like, you, you have to be able to say like, Look, I’m not gonna take the bait on you telling me your kid’s smoking pot. Like, like his confidentiality, her confidentiality is too important for me to be, you know, fast and loose with that and, You want me to be great at my job, and that’s predicated on your son or daughter trusting me, and I have to honor that.

And I mean, this is a great place where I think the last time you were on here, we talked about the theme of owning your words and recognizing what’s within your character and what’s not within your character. That in the last conversation when you’re on here, we, we talked about someone who kind of found themselves in a corner by using the phrase.

Oh yeah. Well, how’s that working out for you when they did not yet have the rapport to pull that off? And this is kind of my preamble to say that you’re a little nicer than I am. Uh, , which is the, the attitude of, and I chair, there’s. Project in the works right now that over the years there was originally the first set of Virginia hypnosis videos, which were all put together professionally, tightly edited suit and tie in every single video.

And over the years with work smart hypnosis, the more I wore a black T-shirt and probably dropped the F word here and there people responded better. So there’s been a blending of styles over the years. We’ll say it more comfort as to who I actually am. Sure. So the, the parent would sometimes call up and say, And we get to be in the room.

And I immediately smile so they can hear that. But I then say, Well, I mean you could, but would you accept on some level you might be part of what’s going on? I’m just curious. And consistently now I don’t get slapped, but I get the, Yeah, that makes sense. , Oh. My polite phrase is, I’ll give you a guest wifi code if you wanna bring a computer,

And they go, Oh, that’d be great. And I’m now the hero. So having that moment of going, you know, Well, why don’t you kind of respectfully stay out of it for a couple of days? Because I’ll be teaching them things that they can do. And some of them are things that they can be doing while you’re. Not even aware of it, and I’ll make fun of this as soon as we’re all together, but to set that boundary that again, the kid is the client and by kid, in my case, it’s probably like you, most of them are teenagers, if not 13 and.

Yeah, and I actually want the parent in there for the pre-talk. Yeah. Because I want to make a scene of kicking them out of the room. I love that. Yeah. And so I don’t really care if the parent understands, you know, how hypnosis really works or what are, you know, benchmarks are gonna be moving forward. I just want to see, or I want the kid to see that in this room.

I’m in charge and I’m having the parent leave so that the kid gets to have privacy in this space, which the beauty of the, let’s call it the theatrical blocking of that, that here’s a moment where there is a very clear exit and this is where the process begins. I mean, I’ve got multiple rooms in the office.

So we do that pre-talk, we do that opening preamble in the lobby, and it becomes a big moment of, great, you follow me back. And we’re having that, that. Yeah, and having, having, like you said, theatrical blocking, right? The staging of that. People who are new to hypnosis probably won’t fully appreciate how much these little things make the actual client work so much easier.

If you do all this stuff, it means the amount of. Effort that goes into the, the scripting and phrasing and all that. You don’t have to do any of that as much to get great results because you’ve generated so much expectation and choreography around everything that it just stacks the deck in your favor.

And when you’re like me and you know, you’re seeing a lot of clients against their will, so their belief and expectation is not high. You’ve, you’ve gotta do things to shift that in your favor. So, Whether it’s like you, Jason, you know, like doing the pre-talk in the, in the waiting room, and then, all right, now you’re ready to come into the actual room.

Or with me, you know, like I get up and I open the door and I kick the parent out nicely, but I, I open the door and close the door behind the, the parent and then I sit down and I say, Okay, so now that they’re gone, is there anything you wanna start talking about? Right? Is there anything that matters?

Because there are things that. The parent might bring up something in the room that I can utilize. That’s something, you know, generic like, well, you know, Billy’s not getting his homework done and I know he’s smarter than he’s, than his grades show. And you know, most parents would say that about their kids because that’s part of being a teenager.

Mm-hmm. . Is not living up to your potential cause you’re still figuring out what your potential is. And you know, us history’s probably not the most important thing in your life that year. I’m flashing back to having to say to parents and having to use this more for the little ones that, Well, I bet your nine year old doesn’t know what the word intervention means, but they know what it feels like.

Yeah, it’s a good line. So I know, right? So we’re gonna, so we’re gonna use the environment to talk about the results that we want to create, the, you know, the abilities we want to help him to build rather than bring him in and tear him down, versus the, you know, here’s what he’s doing wrong, here’s why he’s too angry about things at school.

So the conversation in the room all altogether is about what he can help himself to do. Right, and bringing that back to something you said a minute ago, and if in those first few minutes you can drop an F bomb, that’s probably a good thing, , because if in that moment you can say, Look, I don’t know what they said.

I don’t know what they said. I’m not looking for any of that. Cuz to be honest, I think it’s bullshit. I only want to hear from you giving them that moment is, and I mean it too, like I, I sincerely mean that like I. Do not care what any previous clinicians have written down about this kid. I want to have it.

I fresh start and I want them to give me what they want to be because this is their opportunity to start over and, and that’s really instructive. Right. To be able to say, Right now you tell me what’s important. Instead of they’re telling me this is important. Like I said, it’s a fresh start. It’s an opportunity for them to think about things in that way, and I think that’s useful.

Yeah. Which I love. Again, back to the, you know, the theatricality of it, the, the blocking of how. Show is always better than Tell. Yeah. Rather than sitting there and phrasing that to have that clear line, which is absolutely in support and in the best interest of that teenager. That, I mean, there’s a category that I’ve followed into because I had really great success with one of all the detachment, all the abandonment issues of this one was adopted and as soon as they learned that the.

Model of the world crumbled and now we’re having to rebuild what was there before, which because of that one category, with that one person, that’s now something I’ve seen on a regular basis, which I is as much as the parents can say, Well, this is how we feel. We still love you the same way, which. You know, left out of the story is the obvious decision as to whether or not they raised the kid.

Knowing that, which I’ve clearly got my strong, we have opinions on based on what I’ve seen. But to see how we can set that environment up, that it’s really you’re, that you’re that advocate for that one person, right. And you know who your responsibility and loyalty is. Two mm. And to keep everything I’m doing, reminding me and them and demonstrating to both of us that that teenager in my office is the only thing that matters right now.

And like I work with, you know, high end athletes, sometimes professional athletes. And so I’m talking to people who are being, you know, recruited by professional teams and college teams and all that. And so I’ve got coaches and managers and sponsors that want to call and talk to me and I’ll say, Look, we need to talk to you about, you know, How, how Mike’s doing, how Tom’s doing, because he’s got blank coming up and we’ve gotta make sure he’s in a good place.

And Tom’s doing really great and I’m so proud to be a part of his process. Yeah. Yeah. You gotta, you got a really great first baseman there, . And I do, I just, I, I just leave it just like that. Yeah, I was about to ask how much of this translates over to those situations? Oh, completely. Because, um, I mean, it, well, when you’re dealing with these, you know, early twenties, high end athletes, they are a little bit used to having, let’s call it a treatment team, but it’s, it’s a staff, right?

So a personal trainer, a weight coach, a nutritionist, a drills coach. So there’s, they’re used to having a, a coordinated effort helping them. . And so there are times where they’ll want me to be part of that communication and you know, in those cases I’m having, you know, real specific conversations with them about what’s inbounds and out of bounds.

Mm-hmm. . But I mean, that’s, that’s few and far between compared to, you know, kids who are, you know, I, I, I’ve worked with. Dozens of kids who are upset because one of their friends has committed suicide. And so when you’re working with that population, when you’re working with, you know, teen suicide is the second leading cause of death in people under 24, and no one is talking about this.

And it is shocking to me. You know, everyone’s talking about school shootings, which are obviously a terrible thing. The number of kids that are dying from school shootings is nothing compared to the number of kids who are killing themselves on purpose every single day in America and in just high schools.

So forget junior high school and forget college in just high schools in America. 3000 students attempt suicide every single day. And of that number, 80% of them showed obvious signs that they were contemplating. And so you’re, you’re dealing with this population of kids who is seeing teen crisis, who is seeing this anxiety, who is afraid for a bunch of right reasons.

You know, kids actually in schools now learn active shooter drills before they learn to read sometimes. Yeah. This morning we were getting the messages about, Oh, another successful lockdown drill. I’m like, That’s an interesting choice of words. Yeah. Yeah. They, they have lockdown drills and when, you know, I was touring schools for my son, you know, preschools, they emphasized safety and security above.

Teaching the kids. Yeah. And, and so when you think about growing up in that space, which these kids are doing, you know, when you talk to ’em and they say sentences like, Well, I remember nine 11, and then nothing’s gotten better since then, You can understand their, their stresses and their anxieties and there’s a ton of other stuff.

And it’s a very complicated thing. It’s not, you know, it’s. Rap music that’s making them upset . Um, but it, and it is not video games that’s making them upset. There’s a lot happening and uh, I mean, I give the reference back to, and this is probably why I’m not working with as many high schools as I used to, and it’s something, and then again, from the same token, it could be every reason why I should have doubled down dead more of them.

But I found it more rewarding to be in the room working with people one to one that, you know, here would be the school. There’s one school that I booked five times. I never did it because without fail, I’d get the phone call. He goes, Well, we need to reschedule. Why? And he explained same conversation we’re having.

I go, Okay, well how about next month? He goes, No, unfortunately. And again, we could look at this from our hypnotic language perspective, but the disclaimer is he was not saying this to the students. He goes, Well, we need to pick like in the springtime, because unfortunately because we’ve had one, odds are we’re gonna have at least two more in the next two.

Yeah, that, that becomes the pattern. And the second, the third year was the most eye opening cuz he goes, We had another Romeo in Julie. where the parents found out and now two were gone. And he goes, This is even worse because we’re gonna have it again. So to hear this, and I look at how now, of course we, as the practitioners, we set the way that we work, and I know there’s some people who will listen to this and I can think of some who have even been on here that parents always in the room if they’re under 18, which the dynamic of, I think how we set up that situ.

Is what makes it the make or break that, you know, the same phrasing could work for someone else if they’re in the room. But I think we’re in very different times right now where that slightly, let’s use the word provocative moment of going, Okay, wait. In the lobby, having that exit point, I mean, I’ve got someone coming, I’ll be generic for obvious reasons, but I’ve got someone coming in the next, let’s say, month that it’s probably gonna be the first time I actually say to the parent, Yeah, there’s a shopping mall down the road.

Because I just need them out of the space for everything I’ve, I’ve learned going into it. Yeah, yeah. I get that. Yeah. And it is, this is a different, the landscape of high school right now is different than it’s ever been. And you know, Penn, Gillette talked about this better than anybody. You know, you, you look at people who are like, Man, these millennials, man.

These kids who don’t understand and participation trophies and all that stuff, pendulum talked about, we have to stop hating these kids for living in the world we created and gave them. Mm. And they are a product of our environment, not theirs. We are, they are a product of our environment that we created.

And so to that extent, you know, creating a new environ. For them and a space where they believe that, you know, they’re, they’re respected, their privacy’s respected, that they can be candid, that, you know, we can be in control of this and that we’re gonna teach them how to do things better. And just to keep giving them a little bit of perspective and to dole out that perspective.

Cuz you can’t just say, Oh, that doesn’t matter. Oh, that doesn’t matter. Oh, you know, Oh, who cares what grade you got when you’re 40? No one’s gonna remember that. They’re not gonna be 40 for a long time, so they have to wait until they’re 40 before they stop caring. And so figuring out how to work with them in the realities of their space is hugely rewarding to me right now.

And I’m, I’m loving the work maybe more than ever because of it, I’m flashing back to an extremely. Specific reference here, which was that one of the last plays I worked in the theater career was a play by the Name of Hearts, by the playwright Willie Holtzman. And the play was interesting because it’s one of these plays where there’s four actors and one actor is on stage the entire time he’s the lead character.

And the other three actors then play the other like 75 roles. Sure. And the play was interesting, just for what it’s worth, it was originally written for like guys in their early twenties to play the full range. and the playwright had reached out to our theater to have us do it again this time with actors who were in their sixties as he put it this way.

It would be more of a memory piece rather than the actors showing. And the basic scenario was that these were the guys who were all veterans back to World War ii, and they got together and they played cards. Thus the name of the Play Hearts. Sure. And whole premise was. Here’s what Grandpa’s dealing with, and suddenly he reads the magazine about PTSD and goes, Oh shit.

Is that what I’ve been dealing with all these years? So finally, there’s a name to what he’s been dealing with, rather than just, you know, leave it as it is. Oh, you’re fine. This is what happens to people. But we find ourselves in a culture we’re now. The opportunity to speak about it. I mean, I flash back to, you know, my first month at college and we’re taking a few days off because it was nine 11, and just to have these places where people can go and talk things through, which not to say just talking about the problem resolves the entire issue, but in that description of how you’re building that space, you’re giving them that as well as, now let’s bring in the hypnotic tools to get them through it and leave them stronger as a result of.

Yeah. And you know, one of the things I talk about a lot actually is when you think about what a cell phone is, and I am pro-technology. I’m the biggest pro-technology person I think I know on earth. I really, really am. I love it. And a cell phone is two thirds of the definition of God. It is all knowing cuz it’s connected to Google and Wikipedia.

It is all present cuz you can FaceTime anyone or you know, drop into a whole bunch of Instagram live stream. But it is not all powerful, so that means we’re taking two thirds of the definition of. And giving it to a 14 year old with no instructions, and just hoping that works out on its own, which is the story of IOUs, right?

And you have this amazing technology and this powerful tool, and then the kids fly too high and crash because of it. So if we can teach these kids how to use this tech, right, and how to use this tech well, instead of just saying, Oh, social media and Facebook are the devil, but understanding that these kids actually have a sixth sense that you and I don’t have, I mean, Jason and I are.

Among the most social network heavy hit just around and we’ve got nothing. You know, I used to call Facebook. Yeah. What did I call Facebook, The Jason Lynette Vanity Project. Something like that, right? Yeah. Have you seen Jason Lynette’s new website? It’s Facebook. Oh, that’s what I called it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, I mean, Jason and I are on there and we’re doing a lot, and we got nothing on these kids. They genuinely came up in a time where they have instant. Global connection to everyone they care about, which is amazing. And the only problem with that is the bullies and people who are mean have no boundaries either.

They can always get into your bedroom no matter where you are. The bullies can follow you. And I mean, I just had this, I mean, this is crazy. My babysitter. For my kid was late the other day because she was being cyber bullied so aggressively that there were people outside her. Wow. And it’s just a completely different world.

And so helping these people, these young people, develop the right skills and resources to succeed in that space is, is complex. And it’s not just they need to unplug or I’m gonna take their phone away because that’s torture. If I said, you know, If you don’t get an A on your next Mac test, I’m going to remove one of your five senses for an hour.

I’m just going to blindfold you for an hour because you didn’t get a good grade. That sounds pretty messed up. And when you look at the withdrawal symptoms of kids when they get their phones taken away, it is a profound disruption in their dopamine systems. And so, When you are messing with their dopamine indiscriminately, you need to be really mindful of unintended consequences.

And you know, cell phones are amazing. Dopamine machines and YouTube and Facebook have some of the most advanced artificial intelligence systems on the planet that are designed to generate dopamine in its users. and they’re great at it. They’re billion dollar companies because of that. Mm-hmm. . And we need to figure out how to, you know, utilize that to help these kids.

I put up a video, by the way, earlier today, and you haven’t liked it. . Yeah. See, like that’s the thing is like that, that again, it’s not going anywhere. It’s, it’s just gonna get even stronger. Which to, to pull some strategy outta this, I love the nuance of the, the theatrical blocking of how to, how to, you know, build that environment where now we’ve got the place where we can actually get in and address some of these anxieties, some of these traumatic triggers.

What would be your recommendation for folks who want to work with more, more teenagers of this? Well, so number one, anybody who’s wearing a tie or dressed formally, No, just, just punch yourself for a little while. I already thank you. Yeah, I mean, like genuinely I wear jeans and tennis shoes when I’m seeing clients now.

And, and no shirt at all.

No. You know, I wear, I wear a collared shirt and jeans and tennis shoes and I’m really laid back. I’m reclined in a chair and everything I’m demonstrating is look. I’m serious, I care, but I’m not gonna take any of this too seriously because I wanna, I have confidence that we’re gonna get there together.

And so if you want to work in this space, the first thing is you’ve gotta re really understand and respect the different landscape these kids have than you had. And it is different and it’s not their fault. And I mean, that’s step one. is just doing that. And then I would say step two is something that’s much more painful than that, which is watch some of these YouTube videos of influencer marketing.

Yeah. Watch these teenage, you know, and the pew pie and like all these people that are hugely popular with 15 year olds. Just watch. An hour of it and just understand how dramatically different your processing is from theirs. Have you seen, of course it was Bo Burnham, but have you seen eighth grade? Yeah.

Bo Burnham. Watch that. That’s a great, great idea. , Yeah. Won a ton of awards and yeah, if, if you guys wanna work in this space, go watch eighth Grade by Bo Barnham. It’s really, 13 was another movie a couple years ago that was a similar kind of thing. There’s also another movie called Kids Before that, and there’s this reoccurring theme every 10 years or every generation, there’s a movie that comes out that, you know, Personifies that group and eighth grade is came out last year and it’s doing a perfect job of it.

Yeah. I have no transition to this, but we’re coming up on time, but we gotta spend some time chatting about hypno thoughts, Platinum. Oh, yeah. Why do we need, you know, speak ? Speaking of uncomfortable transition, . Yeah. Yeah, so, Hyp Methos Platinum is coming up in February. I’m, I’m really excited about this.

This is something that we’ve talked internally about off and on for a while. I wanted to do it sooner, but Richard Clark said, Look, let’s just get one. Let’s get the biggest before we get the second. And so we did that and the idea really is around getting six voices, six commentaries, and six topics that blend well together so that we’re curating.

For the attendees, what they’re going to learn. Because when we, when we do hypno thoughts live, the whole point is let’s get as diverse a speaker list and topic set as possible. And so this is intentionally going in the opposite direction because there’s so many people who come up just and say, Well, what, what do you think I should go do?

What do you think I should go take? What do you think I should? What class should I go see now? And you know, I, people ask me that a hundred times every year. And so the answer to that is this. Here’s a list of one weekend, six present. and just sit in the room and it’s, it’s all gonna point towards outcomes that are designed for people who actually wanna see clients and really do the.

Yeah. Which I, what I love about this, and there’s a dialogue in a, in a Facebook group, uh, hey, back to the old conversation, dialogue in a Facebook group about, you know, what should I submit for this event? For that event? And, you know, the, the common feedback is always, I don’t want to go to a one hour that’s just an infomercial to attend the two hour, right?

Or something that’s someone’s just selling the product. But to get four hours of each speaker. Of just deep diving into something. So you are leaving with something tangible. You’re leaving with something actionable that as I’m looking through the lineup, I mean there’s things that uh, I mean here’s what I’m teaching on, you know, search engine strategy for the hypnotist, which is basically gonna deliver your entire business plan at least for the next couple of years.

And that would be enough cuz it’s gonna hit all different multimedia markets. But looking at the number of people who are a little bit more, you know, I’m the only one really talking. Full business, but looking at how, you know, there’s hands on practice, there’s actual time to integrate the information.

And a good chunk of what Ken’s gonna teach about is gonna Yes. Blend really well with you. Yeah. In terms of business stuff. Yeah. And it’s really cool cuz you know the six presenters, number one, we had real conversations with them about, look, we wanna make sure you’re speaking to an elevated audience from the average conference.

And we really want this to be, I hate the expression, but like an advanced class and anyone’s welcome. I just think that there are people who don’t normally come to conferences cuz they don’t want to be, you know, average and they like, Look, I’ve been doing this long enough. That’s exactly who this is for, is people who are like in process seeing clients doing real work.

Not just people who one day want to, Although, you know, if, if somebody’s a one day I want to, you know, they’re obviously welcome to. But the other cool thing that all six of you that I, I’m really happy to have heard is that all six of you guys have said you are going to be hanging out in the room.

You’ll be helping facilitate, you know, when there’s breaking up into groups, you know, you guys will all be around so you can hear, you know, each person’s stuff in slightly different voices. Cuz we’re gonna have just an awesome like, Room full of people. Yeah, absolutely. Which, looking through the lineup, you know, David Snyder, Melissa Tier, Kelly T.

Woods, Ken Guta, myself, Steve Ram, and looking at the range of information, whether it’s, I love this masterclass in brain change, subtle communication, the importance of unconscious communication. Rather intrigued by Kelly’s presentation on Living Hypnotically in some of the practice strategies she’s already referenced inside of that, but seeing a nice range of stuff that.

How, This is something I found. I did a podcast a couple of months ago about student responsibility for learning, which I did that almost a little tongue in cheek because I had an event that I had hosted that 25 in the room were going. That was amazing. That’s one of the best classes I went to and one person was going, That’s the worst thing I ever been, went, went to.

And looking at it from, Okay, so the numbers, the statistics are there to say, Okay, it was a good class. Yet, what was different with that one individual that, you know, as we get more refined in our skills, I love the nuance you mentioned about, you know, the people who are already out there working. We don’t necessarily need every training to be.

Life changing. How sometimes it is just a few little nuances, the little bit better way of delivering something. Part of the reason why I specifically wanted to have you on this call before I had that session that I’ve got in a couple of weeks, which is the, I’m gonna send them mom to the mall, . Right? But to have that aspect of how.

You know, we can get hands on, we can learn some new strategies, create more flexibility working with our clients, and not just get the one hour sampler where at the end of it, maybe they do a demo. But in the course of four hours of content, let’s really di dive into this thing. Yeah. And you know, with these six and what they’re talking about, like the opportunities for each one of those presenters to drop one or two gems that could change anyone’s perspective on the work is really high.

Like, I, I’ve used this example before, but I, I just like it a lot. I don’t know, maybe eight years ago, maybe 10 years ago, You know, I’ve been, I’ve been doing this work for 20 years now, so eight or 10 years ago I was, Pretty seasoned. You know, I was still a decade or more into this, and I went to a training with Mark Cunning.

Was the instructor and I had seen a lot of his work before and all that, and he was teaching something and doesn’t matter what, I don’t even remember, but he said one throw away sentence that I loved and he said, Anytime I’m doing script work, I never waste a doorway. And I said, Wait, what’s that mean? And he said, Anytime a client ever walks through any doorway in any session, I do, that doorway is a threshold of change.

And once you go through, you’ll never go back. You are transformed by walking through this doorway and every doorway in every script. I’m not gonna waste one. Every doorway is a portal to another stage of something. And when I heard that, I, I just started thinking about how many. Little things I could refine and how many doorways I’ve wasted in client sessions and, you know, metaphorically, you know, maybe, maybe literally using doorways, but, but all the other, you know, intricacies of that.

So just that one sentence changed the way I did session works from then on. Just that sentence. I’ve, I’ve, I’ve lived by the phrase that we do things differently here being the undertone of the office and kind of being playfully, not necessarily called out, but calling myself out on my own from something I saw Ken Gso talk about years ago, and this is a part of his presentation.

I know that if you’re looking for the experience to be transformative, don’t greet them with small. Hey, how was traffic? How was parking ? That’s not what they’re there for. You know, kick hit the ground running as soon as they’re in the door, and that was something that I was kind of already doing, but to hear someone else’s take on it, just completely refined how the greeting is now part of the process even stronger than it was before, and giving them some sort of experience that, again, back to the theatrical blocking.

We’re not going to graduate into the hypnosis room until I know you’re ready to do. And going back to something theatrical that you and I have actually talked about before in a different interview. This is gonna be the episode where we just like do the, uh, show notes and reference every episode. Right, Right.

Stanovsky thing, right? The, yeah. The method acting where everything your character does has to be pointed towards their ultimate outcome of success. And you do the same thing with the session where making. Everything is pointed towards that client’s betterment, let’s just call it, you know, whatever that means.

And so making sure that your, you’re not taking 10 minutes off and you’re not, you know, Jesus, Oh, well, who cares about that? Because all that really matters is this. But realizing that when you stack everything in your favor and. I, I think it’s fair to say ethically, you could argue that you owe it to your clients to do the best you can to stack everything in their favor, not just figure out what you can get away with to get the change work done that they asked for.

Beautiful. Which of course when you gave your talk on Santa Slosky at the MidAmerica Hypnosis Conference the next morning I was giving the keynote, telling the exact same story, but through the filter of the bio of Katie Perry. It’s a solid, solid bio. I mean, it’s not as good as Jules. Well, I mean, Jules.

Oh, it’s not, Let’s not open up that . So, so, uh, sorry. Very, very specific joke. So where can people learn more about hyp thoughts? HT platinum.net. We are owning the dot. You know, internet, so ht live.net and ht platinum.net are where you go to find out about everything we’re doing. And, you know, it’s, it’s really, really fun and it’s intentionally different from hypno thoughts live.

There’s a lot of hanging out. Outside small talking with your mentors, and that’s an important part of the conference. Lunch will be outside lots of fresh air, lots of palm trees, you know, lots of bonfires, and just a fun, beautiful event where people are gonna get much, much better at doing the real work.

Jason Lynette here once again, and as always, thank you so much for interacting with this program, leaving your reviews online, sharing it on your social media streams. I’d share a little bit of a personal nuance that I love, which this was not the intention of this program, but when it happens, man, it’s awesome.

So if you, my schedule, I was just off in Brisbane. I was just off in Australia. For the first time ever, uh, I got to do the closing keynote at the Australian Hypnotherapist Association World Conference, An amazing event. They only do it once every five years, so in five years time you gotta be there. It’s an international event.

It was amazing. And there’s some really cool people that I met. Who are gonna be coming on this program rather soon. So over in the world of the M H A Facebook group, that’s the Mike Mandel Hypnosis Academy group, there were suddenly a bunch of conversations that popped up and people’s responses to the questions were to post various episodes of this podcast.

Not necessarily just the ones that are just. Talking and sharing my stuff, but people chiming in and sharing specific interviews and conversations. There was a dialogue about selective eating disorder at one point and unprompted, someone was then posting the Felix Econom Mockus episode, which to look at.

Now. We are five years into this, more than 500,000 downloads in more than 80 plus countries. The fact that this is a free resource I put out every week, and not even free, because I’ll openly tell you it runs. About 250 bucks a week to produce this program. From the designers, to the editors, to everything.

And I’m doing this program right when it’s conversations that I want to have, kinda like this week’s that you all happen to get the ability to listen to the opportunity that we had a bit of a bump effect this year at Hypno. Thoughts live. That a lot of folks were going, Oh, I’m in Joni’s class cuz I heard her on your podcast.

I’m in Martin’s class cuz I heard him on your podcast and to look at this resource. So again, your best feedback to me is not just going online and leaving reviews or joining my online communities, though of course you’re welcome to. It’s the fact that this has become this ongoing resource. For this incredible community.

So feel free to leave review online if you haven’t yet done so. But go back into the library, find an episode that you learned something specific from the way that Scott told the story of one specific phrase from Mark Cunningham, who again, someday you. We need to get ’em on the program and share that to one of the Facebook groups.

Share it somewhere. Of course that’s appropriate to do so because that’s why we keep this thing running. So thanks for listening. Join us all at hypno Thoughts Platinum details online, [email protected]. We’ve got that all set up for you, and we’ll see you soon. Thanks so much. Thanks for listening to the Work Smart Hypnosis [email protected].