Disclaimer: Transcripts were generated automatically and may contain inaccuracies and errors.
This is the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast, session number 408. Joshua Wagner, from Priest to hypnotist. 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. Now, it’s a bit of an interesting story, how I first became aware of.
Guest on the program this week on work smart Hypnosis. It’s that we are familiar perhaps with the science of the brain, a part of the brain called the particular activating cortex. It’s the part of the brain that basically organizes things that are familiar as well as things that are different. And it’s the reason that many of you as well as me, if suddenly there’s something in a movie or a television show that mentions hypnosis, we perk up and we go.
That’s us. Or suddenly you become aware of another hypnotist, maybe on social media or you see what they’re up to. And I’m scrolling, I believe, through TikTok, and suddenly, and you’re gonna hear this story in this conversation, there was this person who was looking me directly in the eyes, even though clearly he had recorded this video a while ago and sang so.
Directly to me and I identified immediately He was also a hypnotist, which is probably why that social media platform, the algorithm was then rewarding me and giving me more of what I was interested in. And just immediately I went, this guy gets it. And fast forward the story. It’s at Hypno Thoughts 2022, and it’s one of the talks that I was giving in Las Vegas.
And I look in the back left corner of the room and I go, oh, there he. Cool. To which we got to chat briefly and what you’re about to listen to is honestly our first actual conversation, which is the style of this program and how it’s played out over the years. Yet you are in for an incredible journey because Yes, the name of Joshua’s business.
At the time of this recording is inspiring Hypnosis, which the first draft of this episode was gonna be Joshua Wagner, inspiring Hypnosis, because that’s something that makes the search engine optimization stuff happy. And yet, as the conversation played out, we naturally had to then. Use a different title to make this episode number 408 Joshua Wagner from Priest to Hypnotist.
And you’re gonna hear this journey and the big through line of so many parts of Joshua’s story is not just about the words, not just about moving someone through a personal transformation journey, yet really is about reaching this place. I’ve gotta sit here and smile because it’s what I’ve been saying for years, and it’s my perspective of this work too.
And I love the way that he talks about the place where the lens needs to change, or as I would say, the place where the old belief system doesn’t work the same way. And what’s really fascinating in this conversation, Is a journey where faith and belief still plays a big part yet from basically a Roman Catholic priest to then leaving it behind.
Almost in the blink of an eye and all in a very respectful way. So the themes of religion and faith, the themes of how quickly something can establish as an issue in our lives and how trauma represents itself and how anxiety represents itself and how it is that we can use our abilities of hypnotic communication.
To speak directly to those people who need what we do and really create that relationship and amazing moments. Longtime listeners of this show be prepared amazing moments of, let’s call them appropriate tangents, where somehow in the journey of talking about growing up with hypnosis and then going into seminary school and becoming a priest and the time of then beginning to date coming out of celibacy, we have that conversation here in this and somehow also bringing in as we often.
Standup comedy, Taylor Swift and Nickelback because what else would you expect at this point? So I will point you over to the show [email protected] if you go over to that and throw in the extension slash 4 0 8. This is episode 408 of this series that we’ve been putting out for a number of years now, and that’s where you can find links to some of the books that Joshua and I mentioned throughout this conversation.
You can see links over to his website, his various social media platforms. I will say that this might be an audio recording. That might be dated in a bit of history. It’s recorded in the middle of March, 2023, releasing toward the end of March, 2023. And yes, we do talk about a social media platform that, let’s put it this way, the foundation.
Of what could actually get it banned in some countries is rather close it seems, and no specific commentary as to whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. So do not dismiss the themes of what Joshua and I talk about when we start to talk about the business side of things, because clearly. Here’s a platform that was a disruptor, perhaps still is a disruptor many years after this releases, assuming that the story fizzles out.
And even if it does, even if it doesn’t, and this platform disappears, it’s the fact that it’s changed a lot of communication and other things. So I share that because some of the topics that Joshua and I get onto here apply over to public. Apply over to Running Communities Online. Apply over to how we show up for our clients.
So one of my favorite trends is that of looking at the greater context and not necessarily just the content, and from the website of inspiring hypnosis. I’d say that’s one of the real inspiring elements of this conversation. Personally, my favorite episodes, Of this program in the eight plus years I’ve been doing this are the ones like this one where you get to hear me capture the first real conversation and every expectation I had of what I expected this to turn into.
When we connected reconnected on Facebook Messenger and I went, come on the podcast, I sent the link and we recorded, I think the next day and. This is one you’re gonna definitely wanna listen all the way through. So once again, the show notes available to you [email protected] slash 4 0 8.
And while you’re there, take a look over at Work Smart Hypnosis Live. Dot com. This topic of changing at the speed of thought, shifting beliefs is really one of the main tenets of how I think about and how I do hypnosis. It’s not just keep doing it till it sticks. It’s not just about compounding. It’s the statement that may sound like a little bit of a letdown to a few of you, that you should also realize that there are people who create incredible breakthroughs in their lives and they do it on their.
And it goes akin to what Joshua was speaking of there, that here’s the moment where suddenly you look at the world through a different set of lenses and you can’t go back to the old way of living. And as much science and as much data as we have to back up what we do, it comes around to either the.
Summation of the belief or the lack of belief that may be there otherwise. We can’t even get compliance to even begin the process from there. So this whole idea of looking at change from this idea of why I’m a big proponent of hypnotic phenomenon, why my co-host for this upcoming event, work Smart Hypnosis Live with Richard Nagar, joins me for this one, his work on evidence-based hypnosis and how to have the dialogue.
That creates those referral streams and creates just this amazing sense of conviction. It’s this narrative behind work Smart hypnosis live, which is part of why typically half the attendance. Yes, it is a certification program. Half the people may be brand new, and this is the first official training that they’re going through.
Meanwhile, the other half are people who are already trained, might already be working professionally, seeing clients, and yet maybe it’s breaking away from rigid protocols. Maybe it’s building the confidence to put down the scripted techniques. Maybe it’s this approach to evidence-based change. A business oriented approach that’s not just about the artistry of the process, but truly about bringing in clients and serving them, because what good are our wonderful hypnotic methods unless we have people in front of them?
It’s these various points is also why the attendance tends to be a 50 50 half are brand new, the other half are there to either fill in the gaps or refine their process and get more consistent results. So there’s a giant video. Over at work smart hypnosis live.com that’ll walk you through exactly what the program is.
That way you’re best informed. And we are capable of growth because finally we put two events. On the page. It’s one part hybrid learning, where you’re going through VI videos on your own pace, and then learning and then putting it into motion. Then we’re meeting together in real time for the practice.
And at the time of this release, we have two events coming up, both of which are on the page. I’ll put it simple. Go there. Work smart hypnosis live.com. You’ll see one of. Is a great time zone for those in North America. US, Canada, even Central America as well as great for those in Europe, yet it’s the middle of the night for those in Asia and Australia and New Zealand, which is why we have a second event also posted there.
So pick the one that’s the best fit for you. One of them starts early afternoon in the New York City time zone. One of them starts in the evening. This way we keep everyone around the world happy as I was just mailing out certificate. For the class that recently graduated, mailing documents to folks from Michigan to Indonesia and then having to figure out for some of those countries that they make it hard to mail stuff to.
But then again, if I went through a training, I’d want the physical thing with the actual signature sent to me as well. And I keep stamps.com happy. So there you go. Check out the details over at Work Smart Hypnosis live dot. Check out some of the success stories, some of the faces you might recognize.
And with that, let’s dive directly into this phenomenal conversation. I know you’re gonna find a lot of value in and follow what this man is doing. I think it is outstanding. Here we go. This is session number 408 Joshua Wagner from priest to hypnotist. Actually, hypnosis goes back to my childhood. For me.
My mom used to play hypnosis tracks for me when I. Going to sleep at night. And so there was a guy named Barry something. He became a congressman and then he was arrested for something and he’s dead Barry something. And he always started his hypnosis with Hello greetings and welcome. And that was my beginning into hypnosis was that.
And then I fiddled with it a little bit as a teenager, not successfully tried to hypnotize one of my friends and it was a terrible. Failure. So I didn’t really touch it again for years in which I came across N L P about in 2009 and just learned a couple things via N L P.
But my real touchstone with it was in December, about November of 2019 I had left. I was a Roman Catholic priest for most of my career, and I had left in late 2018 and I’d been working a marketing job. I knew I was gonna leave, so I developed some skills in market. I was working a marketing job with Ohio Council for Home Care and Hospice, doing their website and stuff like that, and I was miserable and I saw this guy on a Facebook ad.
His name was Tyler, and I ended up paying a lot of money for one session with him, more than I had in my bank account. And it changed my life so drastically that I decided to go. So my story with hypnosis is long. It goes back to when I was four or five years old, but the real love of it happened when I was just a few years ago.
Yeah I love that. And let’s go back a bit further because I’m always. Intrigued by, I go back to James Hazelrigg who revealed that basically he was a hypnobirthing baby. People like Mark Andreas when he was on the show, which he comes from a whole lineage of the origins of so much of this, and it’s how many of us would go through a training and say things like, oh, I wish I grew up with this and Joshua, you’re someone who grew up with it.
Do you remember what those audios. Were focused on, I believe they were insomnia. If I re recall. He had a bunch of stuff back in the eighties and I remember having this radio shack pillow speaker. You tucked it underneath your pillow and it was connected to whatever was connected to.
Yeah. And listening to this on a nightly basis, I believe it was insomnia. But the one thing I remember about it, I remember it very well, I listened to it a bunch of times, is you filled your body with this one of the images you filled your body with this liquid. And it was all full of all the junk, and then it drained outta your feet, and then you filled it with this light colored liquid from the sun.
And it, and by that point I was asleep. I don’t remember too much after that, but I believe it was insomnia. But these did a bunch of stuff. Yeah. And as you interact with your clients these days, and for many of the people who would then find us and discover what we do, this is a, it’s a thing that they’re familiar with by way of the word, yet they then have to be, and let me carefully, politely use the word of, they have to be indoctrinated into here’s what it is, here’s what it’s not.
What kind of advantage would you say you had, if any, of growing up? And this was a given, this was a thing that was. I’ve always been a man of words. I’ve always been interested in words ever since I was a little kid. My mom tells stories of me practicing my RS and learning Spanish when I was four or five years old.
I think hypnosis really for me, gave me the advantage of words without even knowing it, like how powerful words really can be and really are. I’ve always been very verbose and talkative. But I think I appreciated because of hypnosis early. Unconsciously, I wouldn’t say this is a conscious thing, but looking back how powerful, saying the right thing at the right time and the right way, really truly is.
And I think that’s the advantage that hypnosis gave to me was the importance of words, the importance of correct usage of words, and the power of the correct usage of words. And I would say that, I speak multiple languages and all this, I’m. Brag here. But if I were, I would say I speak multiple languages and things and 12 people are laughing cuz they caught that.
Yeah. Because because of hypnosis. I think that’s the thing it gave me, and I will tell you, I’ve been a motivational speaker. I’ve done standup comedy. Like I think that my love of words goes back to hearing just how powerful words can be. And they put me to sleep every night. I think that was a big advantage.
This is where the rest of this episode, and let’s try to resist this. Try. What would be the fascination around comedy and even how so much of it? The poetry that’s in the writing, the specificity of the words, and the part that I can get caught up with is the hear the stories. Of Here’s this one little way that, who was it?
Michael Ian Black, who goes back to the state talking about a George Carlin routine about something that was then flying over a hedge, and it was just very specific words which created this image, which made the joke even better. I go to John Elaney who has this thing about, they’re expecting to see.
They’re expecting to see a 99 year old blind dog driving, and instead they see a normal, healthy 24 year old man trying his best. And, but it’s this specificity which, we even looking at when we’re ever producing content for the promotion of our business. So let’s go to, tell me more about the marketing job.
Oh, you wanna know about the market? Oh, again, this sort of goes back into my whole job was writing the right words. So I knew that I, like I said, I was a priest for a very long time. And again, in, in like the Catholic faith words are extremely important. You have to say the right words for the sacraments.
So again, in, in the scripture and all that kind of stuff. So words were always very important. I knew that I was gonna go and actually went once before I left once in 2007, and then I came back. I wasn’t quite ready to be done. But between the 10 years when I left the first time and I left the second time in 2018, I always knew that I was gonna I was probably gonna leave again.
Like I always had one foot in, one foot out. And I really tried, like I was getting nationally known as a motivational speaker within the church. I was about right before I left, I was about to make the national radio e w t n station. And I just I couldn’t resolve, we can talk about that later, but I just couldn’t resolve something.
And so I’m, I developed this marketing. And I actually had a I actually had three side businesses as a priest. I had a as I mentioned the motivational speaking. I had a bus touring business where I put people on buses and showed them churches. It was called the catholic church tour.com. I don’t own the.com anymore, but that’s okay.
And then the the last one is I had a website called Roman Catholic Retreats, and those were where I cut my teeth on and I had a live broadcast. I was, I’ve been doing live broadcast too. That was the other thing. I’ve been doing live broadcast since 20. Way before everybody else could do it, because I would go to Google Hangouts on air, which was the only place you could do it and embed it into my website and that.
And I had three cameras set up to three different hangouts on air accounts and that’s how I could switch cameras. It was crazy, but like all of those things where I was cutting my teeth on that, when I did leave, it was very easy for me to get that job with the Ohio Council for Home Care and Hospice, and I was their marketing guy and it was easy cause I knew how to run websites and knew how to do social.
I knew how to turn a phrase. I knew exactly how to emphasize what I needed to emphasize. Marketing is hypnosis and comedy. By the way, just get back to our previous conversation. Comedy is hypnosis. That’s what people are doing is they’re being hypnotized in a comedy set, cuz I’ve done it before.
You call their attention, you get you, and again, you turn those phrases. Marketing is really no different. The whole point of marketing is to call somebody’s attention, keep somebody’s attention, and point it. Where you want. So it was a breeze for me to, this is before I got into hypnosis, obviously as a official thing, but it was a breeze for me to do that because I was using so what I would call hypnotic principles now in that job to get open rates up past 35% and our open rates were past 35% when I had that job.
And it wasn’t fulfilling though, like even though I was working for the hospice Association, that itself had a great mission. I missed working directly with people. So I’ve taken all those marketing skills into my into this business as well. And although it’s not my favorite part of running my own business it’s a necessary part of running my own business.
Like I just wanna work with people all day and them getting to that point where the clients are coming in on their own right now on a pretty regular basis. But I still do a lot of marketing, just. Just in case, just in case the well dries up. But I enjoyed the job. I sometimes miss being in an office, but not too much.
And I do not miss working for another person. As I have always mentioned for the last year I’ve been on in my own for, doing this for the last year and some change. The only moron that I’m gonna work for the rest of my life is me. That is not an aspersion on my previous boss necessarily.
And but I will say the only moron I’ll ever work for again is me. I love. It’s also, it does create some nice, humor around the workspace to go my primary employee’s been slacking off today and had to write ’em up and just inappropriate stuff in the office and just, we’ll deal with that later.
I’d. Be in the marketing term, bearing the lead. If we didn’t talk about some of the other history here, which is, I’d be curious just to hear the story because let’s start it from this angle that I’m convinced. You mentioned before we started recording that part of your family were hillbillies.
I have both hillbillies and rednecks in my family on one side and to know the difference is extremely, I. We all know, yet I’m convinced everyone says they live in the Bible Belt. Depending on where they are, they still say they do. And it’s this interesting intersection that some would fight up against.
Some would heavily lean into. B. Let’s kinda have that conversation around faith and religion and hypnosis, and I’ll let you take it from here to see where we go. As you mentioned, part of my family were hillbilly Protestants from Southeastern Kentucky. They were in the hills.
So some might find that a pejorative term, but I don’t, I visited those folks and I got to know some of them. I was down in Pineville, Kentucky where my whole. Mom’s side of the family’s from the other side. Were German immigrants. I’m the third generation born here from Germany.
So it’s, I have a kind of, the, my mom’s side of the family’s been here forever, and my dad’s side of the family has only been here a couple generations, including myself. My dad was second born and my great-grandfather came over. In fact, I went over to Germany to visit my relatives in Germany. So I’ve gone back and seen both of my roots and we were very heavily Catholic.
It was, my mom was a convert to Catholic. It was a big part of my life growing up at 16 years old. The short story is that we moved from tech. We moved, I’m from Ohio. We moved to Texas for a few years and back to Ohio at 16. We’re back in Ohio and I asked God, I was thinking about the priesthood because of a priest I knew back in Texas.
And I asked God for a sign. And the short story is I got a sign the next day, a sign that was irrefutable. I got this whole package of information the next day that I asked for the sign in the. All about being a priest. It was this huge manila envelope full of all these voca, what we call vocation materials.
So from that moment on, I thought, I’m I guess God wants me to be a priest. I guess that’s what it is. And so I ended up going to seminary at 18. I did four years here in the United States and four years in Rome, Italy, where I studied at a couple universities over there. I lived about, I could see the Pope’s window from my window.
That’s how close I lived to the Pope. And it was only, it was a seven minute walk to his house. He never let me in because those guys with pointing sticks. Yeah. Never let me pass the, yeah, I, I did get in there a couple times. I got in there with my mom once and got my mom to meet Pope John Paul the second.
Oh wow. So I was all in I was all in with that. And I was ordained a priest. I was ordained there at St. Peter’s. And then I was ordained. There’s two ordinations and I was ordained here in Ohio again. So I was ordained a deacon there and a priest. I was assigned to the largest wealthiest parish in the Diocese of Columbus, which is St.
Bridget of Kil, second largest. But the wealthiest St. Bridge of Kilda. We had billionaires in that parish, there was a lot of money going on there. I loved the work. I loved it. I was good at what I did, cuz I really believed in what I did. And then I had a faith crisis like in a.
And, looking back, I would almost call it a threshold moment. I don’t know how else to describe it. But after the Easter vigil one night, it was May 16th or April 16th 2006, I walked back into the church after the Easter vigil, which is the night before Easter. It’s the Super Bowl of the Catholic church.
And it was like my faith switched off for a second. In one second, like it switched off just like totally changed. And I spent the next year very much suffering like with that. And we had this thing in the church called the Dark Night of the Soul. And that’s what I figured that it was, this sort of absence of God, mother Teresa had it, but it never got better.
And I tried and I did all the things I was supposed to do, all the promises that I made, obedience, celibacy, and praying the prayers of the church. And it never got better. And by May of 2007 I was in deep psychological. And when I say that, I mean my life was probably in danger from myself.
And so I had a classmate of mine who was a priest, end his own life about three or four months before that down in Alabama. And he was a high school teacher. And I thought to myself if I’m gonna do something, like I got to the point where I was so depressed and upset and anxious, I was having anxiety attacks twice two every day for an hour at 2:00 PM It was terrible.
And I went to the bishop and I said, I’m in. So I went on a 30 day, 40 day silent retreat. I was 40 days of silence, which was the best experience of my whole life. Even though I had, again, words are so important and the lack of words are so important, I deci, I opted to take a year off at that point and that’s when I started the motivational speaking.
But I decided to do that in 2007 and eight, which was a terrible time to start a business as you well kissed. It was a terrible time. Most of, I was one of the motivational speaking and most of my motivational speaking friends that had good businesses. Doing well. So I ended up going back into the priesthood for about 10 more years and I struggled.
I’d never really resolved that faith crisis in a way that was satisfactory. I did a lot of exploring and that’s how I came upon N L P at that at one point. And when another priest friend of mine tragically ended his own life in 2017, I thought, gosh, I’m really. This is not really where I’m supposed to be.
Like I have nothing against the church. I think it’s a wonderful place. It educated me, it nurtured me. It formed me, but at the same time, like my heart wasn’t completely in it. There was an incongruence and an inauthenticity in what I was saying. Even though I was nationally known public speaker and doing all this stuff, I was always exploring for some way to, to get out of.
Whether it was business investment in 12 or becoming a motivational speaker or doing standup comedy or starting website businesses, I was always looking for kind of a way out. And after the second thing that happened, and it doesn’t happen very often where priests get into that situation where they, they end their life.
But I thought to myself, I wasn’t at that point, but I thought to myself, I’m really not in this. To really be involved with this. So I had already bought a house at that point, cuz again I had this escape plan unconsciously in the back of my mind. And in late 2018 I took another 30 day retreat and I left it in December of 18.
And it’s funny because, again I have nothing against the church at all, but the church uses hypnotic principles when you walk. To a Catholic church. There’s crucifixes, there’s an anchor, there’s sting glass windows. Those are anchors. The seven sacraments are anchors. And of course, the thing that I understood back then, which is, this is the funny, this is the funniest thing I think about being a hypno hypnotherapist and hypnotist.
Everything is about faith. Everything is about what you believe. If you have faith in all of its fullness to move mountains even I was reading the power of Your Subconscious Mind by Murphy on my TikTok live right before I came on here. And he says the same thing. Literally changes what feel here, taste, smell it literally changes everything.
And I the funny part is that it, as a hypnotist, I’m still working in the realm of belief. I think that’s the thing is I think that whatever lens that I saw things through ended on. And by no choice of my own. And ended in, in April of 20 2006, and I had to find another lens in order to make sense of the world.
And this is the lens that this stoicism is the lens that through which I make sense of the world. It’s what you believe. And I got this from Darren Brown. There’s a great Darren Brown. Documentary on Luck, and I highly recommend it. It’s on YouTube. Yes. It’s, 10 years old and the ending is stupid.
I think the, I know he had to do this sensational ending, but the point is that the guy who thought he was unlucky, literally did not see opportunities in front of him. His understanding that I’m unlucky, his belief I’m unlucky, made it so that he did not see opportunities, even literally when they put his name on a sign and told him to call a number because he won, he said, I don’t think that’s for me, literally what you believe.
Determines what feel here, taste, smell, and all that stuff. And I think that’s my greater understanding of going into this world. From that one, is it still about belief? It’s still about what do you believe? And I think that’s, whether your belief is helpful or unhelpful, it will determine everything.
And I’ll say one last thing. After I got out and I started dating people cuz I was miserable. When you don’t have the fullness of, both feed into that world, celibacy becomes very hard and pointless, right? Because I wasn’t in it with my whole heart. And I think when you are in it with your whole heart, celibacy can make sense.
But when I started dating, when I got out, like I, I went to the, I remember going to this girl’s house to pick her up for a date and I was sitting there waiting for her to get ready. And she says, she comes out and she says, what do you think of the flowers? And I said, what flowers? And I look over and there was this huge bouquet of flowers, huge.
As I could put my arms around it and hugging a person. That’s how big. And I’m like, who gave you those? And she says, blah, blah, blah. She ended up marrying that guy by the way. I literally canceled those flowers out. They, I, the second she pointed ’em out, they were huge. They were probably four feet tall and as big around as a child.
And it was this just crazy smell that hit my face and it hit my head and it was like I did not want to believe that she was seeing another guy. And so I canceled out those. What you believe determines what you see here. Taste, smell, feel, all of those kind of things. And I think that it’s just as true when I was a priest, and it’s just as true now as a hypnotist, as a hypnotherapist.
Thank you for all of that. I wrote down the question and what were the takeaways and what were the things that follow over and you already went there, so outstanding. I’m just making your job easier, Jason. That’s all that’s how we do this. That’s all. That’s how we do this. Yeah, and no, I, what I love about that.
Is the way that there’s something inside of that story, which you reiterated a few times there, which is that nothing against it, and it served a specific purpose in that window of life. And then when it no longer lined up, that was then how can I use this skillset elsewhere? How can I. Continue to serve, and especially this direction now of working with the clients along the way.
And I thought you were going to the direction of, whenever I, my parents growing up were wedding photographers, so I was in Greek Orthodox churches, Roman Catholic churches, every mix in every flavor, constantly. I’m like this is a guy I was used to seeing a lot of flowers. It’s oh, that’s where he’s going with this.
But it’s to say that as much as we can lean on, The research and the evidence-based data that we now have. So much of it comes around to, I, I’m careful to bring up even the word placebo because that brings in a specific connotation. But here’s the example of that luck, feature that Darren Brown did, and it’s where Noci.
Becomes a part of this. And even in the running of our businesses, I can think of a time where here were two clients that came in on the same day and nearly identical stories. And for one, the backstory was every reason this is gonna be easy and failure. One. The backstory was every reason why this is going to be impossible as we do consulting, here’s the day that two people had these incredible wins in our community, and it’s the same day.
Someone who had just disappeared on us then popped up five months later complaining. It’s we gave you these things and like we’re here and here’s what we’ve got. And it comes around to. That personal responsibility side of things and that personal connections and what you said about what you said threshold there, right?
I did, yeah. It was like a, it was like the lens broke in my glasses. That’s exactly what it was like on, on April of 2006, and I never really saw the same thing the same way again, that’s the story that we’re helping our clients to achieve. And that’s right. I’ve just recently read a book called Recreating Your Life by Mordy.
Lek. I dunno if you’ve ever heard of it, but it’s not exactly hypnosis, but it is. Because the whole thing is where did you get that belief and what is, that belief that’s been holding you back, you came by it, honestly. What are different interpretations of that belief? It’s very elegant and I’ve been using it in a hyp, in a conversational, hypnotic context.
And it’s really powerful because once you start to change the lenses to keep with the meta. And you take the lens that people have been seeing through that makes things blurry and distorted, and you give them a lens that makes it clear. Boy, their whole life changes. And the lens here in this metaphor is the belief.
Sometimes we have beliefs that we’ve been seeing through our whole lives that are not really that helpful or they’re no longer helpful. It’s like our eyes get worse. We have to get new glasses and the glasses that we’ve had are no longer helpful and you have to go to the optometrist and get new glasses.
The same thing happens with beliefs. Sometimes the beliefs that we. Have had that served us no longer do and makes things blurry and difficult. And we, when we get the new lenses, which is what we do as hypnotherapist hypnotists we allow people to see clearly again. So then as you made this transition into hypnosis, was there a specific focus that was the clients you wanted to work with at the beginning?
No I, I I just did whatever I could at that point and. It was fine for the time. Again, it was fine for the time because I was feeling out like what I wanted to do and, I settled on a target market. It’s trauma and anxiety, which, a lot of us do that work, but.
When I help people with trauma, I, or anxiety, I also help them with the habits that flow from that. So once I figured that out, and I’ve been nicheing myself toward that for the last not seven, eight months. So for the first two years I was general generalized, but I’m getting specifically into, I’m, I’ve always been able to help.
Traumatic situations. Even when I was a priest, it was something that I did very well. And it’s just natural for me to get into that again. And I think it takes a special kind of person to work with folks that have undergone a lot of trauma. Cuz you can really mess things up very quickly if you say or do the wrong thing.
And I don’t ever take on anybody that you know, that I can’t handle. I have a couple therapists psych Ds and things that I refer people onto, but I also have people that, counselors and therapists that refer people to me, which is a, is a. It’s really a great compliment when a therapist will send people my direction.
So that’s where I’ve niched down. It’s, I have a program called Recover from Trauma and Anxiety, which is where I’m branding all my stuff. I’m keeping the Inspiring Hypnosis brand, no doubt. But underneath that, as I have a program called Recover from Trauma and Anxiety. I have a Facebook group.
I have a small hybrid group that only has 10 people in it. That’s my higher ticket thing, and I have a me. I have three levels of membership. I have a membership with three private sessions. I have a membership that gives you weekly group hypnosis sessions, and I have a membership that gives you recordings of those sessions.
And then I have a kind of an anxiety stopper pro, so that’s where I’m going. I know that a lot of hypnosis do anxiety, but I think that it’s a, I niche myself there because from there I can work on weight loss. From there, I can work on smoking. From there, I can work. P T S D. From there, I can work on all sorts of different things.
You hit on something there that I think is what the missing element is for a lot of people, which I’ll tell my version of the story to set the stage for this chat, which was the person who called me up and she goes, I’m on your website, and any sort of condescending tone that you hear in me retelling the story, I’ll just say it was like 10 times worse.
Okay. I’m on your website and I see you work with these people for silly little habits. Quitting smoking or wanting to lose weight. I have real fears and anxieties and I’ve gone through things that people shouldn’t have to go through. So I have real serious issues and I’m looking at your website.
Jason, I see you work on these trivial habits. How do I know you’re qualified and the divine intervention kicked in to respond? The only reason I get results with those silly little habits is it’s got nothing to do with the habits. It’s got everything to do with what’s the emotion that then the behavior is distracting away from.
That’s right. So cool. We agree. Next topic. Now, so let’s in this and that’s the thing is, I think that trauma and anxiety is a, is still a generalized term, but then I can niche down in my. Am I marketing and say, Hey, if you’re, if you are having trouble with smoking, it’s probably cuz of anxiety and perhaps you’re having anxiety cuz of the trauma.
Once I niche down and I really I’ve found that I’m getting a different kind of client now. I was getting all kinds of clients before, but I’ve really niched down and I’m really getting the people that, that most need my as. And it’s really nice. It’s really nice.
Tell me if you’d agree with this read on it that yes, it may be something related to anxiety. Yes. It may be something related to an experience they went through, and at some point, it’s not that they’re reliving the trauma every single time that they’re then lighting up the cigarette or reaching for the food or reaching for the drink.
It’s that at some point it just became. Part of that core thing that they do that. That’s right. And yeah, when I was a priest, I noticed that in here, I think I, this is what I used to say as a priest, people would come to see me at 35, 45, 55 when I was a priest. And they kinda still do with this, in this work here too.
That’s because the coping mechanisms that they learn when they were 12 to deal with their crappy environments, no longer worked at 35, 45, 55. Again, it’s that same kind of analogy with the. That they saw things through no longer work. And so now they’re stuck with this habit that was designed to cope with something that no longer works.
And so they’re stuck with the habit. Even though the habit may have nothing to do directly with the trauma anymore, they’re stuck with this habit that no longer works with dealing with anxiety cuz that’s the way that they learn to self-sooth or that’s the way that they learn to cope. And now they’re looking for a better way to do it.
So the trauma may actually be resolved. The habit that formed. The trauma or the difficulty or the inab or the inability to cope or self-sooth when they were 12 or 15, cuz maybe they didn’t have a good teacher is still with them. I’m sure the same answer, the same filter that I’m about to say you’d agree with, which is that yes, it’s no longer about that old story.
So then what’s that balance for you? And yes, every client is gonna be a different experience in their own ways. What’s that balance between dealing with, let’s say cause versus here’s current set of behaviors. Yeah, absolutely. I absolutely agree with that. And so we can, I think that you can eliminate those kind of behaviors in two ways.
One is to go back to the original, cause, obviously do some timeline therapy or some of the, some of those kind of things. Or you can just deal with the habit as it stands right now. It may not, again, be related to something that’s currently going on in your life, but you’re stuck with something because, What happened 30 years ago and you can deep potentiate that, that habit and replace it with something else.
So I think there’s a couple ways to skin a cat there. You mentioned a book here a moment ago, something about perception. What was that? It’s Morty Lefty’s book. Recreating Your Life. Yeah, because it’s where for one person, that story could become every reason why. Again, I can’t, but at the same time, the story could become every reason.
Let’s bring luck back into it. Oh, that could’ve been me. That could’ve been a whole lot worse. And it. Yes. It’s belief, it’s also perception and it’s also, what’s the story that they keep letting become that habituated pattern along the way too well, and that’s what he talks about in that book.
I, I think it’s one of the best books I’ve read, and again, it’s not expressly hypnosis, but he mentions hypnosis in the book. But it’s basically hypnosis. Let’s just talk about, it’s a reframe. It’s, it is basically what his method is. And it’s a really great method because it, he talks about the fact that you put stories around, That then lead you to beliefs that get ingrained, and then you have no reason why you have those beliefs, but you have them.
So let’s go back and let’s figure out why you got those beliefs, how else you could interpret it. I’ve had a ton of success doing conversational hypnosis using that, and then I reinforce it all with the deep dive formal hypnosis, and I highly recommend the lefty method to anybody.
It’s pretty solid stuff. I’ve been using it for about the last six months and, Really solid. The book is great. He’s got some online trainings. I have not taken any online trainings. I think the book is frankly sufficient, but I tell you, when you can undercut those old beliefs and let people see something differently.
They start to feel better immediately by the end of the session. Speaking of shifting beliefs, let’s now shift over to talking about something. That’s how I first came to know you, which is I’m hopping online, different social media platform. And let me kick this off with a thing. I love to call out.
You were looking directly at the camera lens and talking as if it was just to me, and I’m like, this man gets it. So talk us through some of what you are doing and what you have been doing to then bring people into your world. That is something I learned when I was doing motivational speaking as a priest.
I could be, my crowds as a priest were, if the church seated, 2000, I had 2000 people that, that’s how my crowds were as a priest when I would, I’ve been, I’ve traveled from San Diego to Oklahoma City, to, to South Carolina or Florida, all places. I was just looking at some memories from Little Shoot Wisconsin.
I’ve been all over the place doing that and it was a, it was something I figured out and I’m not sure how I. I had a really great speech teacher when I was in eighth and ninth grade. Mr. Mi Michael Irving, not the Cowboys guy, but the, he was just the teacher in Texas. And he taught me how to speak so that it felt like I was only speaking to you.
It was a great gift that he gave me, and that’s what people want if they’re in a crowd of people. And I, and it was the best compliment that I could get after a talk. And I used to have this. Called the four phrases that will change your life. I’m sorry. I forgive you. I thank you and I love you. Those are the, and I took that from something else, but I, I can’t say that it’s a completely original idea, although I did modify it for my purposes there and people would come up to me and they would say, it felt like you were talking directly to me and I knew that I was doing the right thing.
So when I do social media, when I do and TikTok has been my. My big winner, although I’m now expanding my YouTube and my Facebook back just in case TikTok doesn’t make it because of the government stuff. But it’s that week right now. Yeah. Yeah. It’s that week. Because who knows?
And so I just think that the more people. I have this saying, Jason and I still hold it to be true and it’s, it applies to me as much as it applies to anybody else. Everybody’s the center of their own universe. Yes. Everybody’s the center of their own universe. And when you do, when I create social media, I want people to think that I am only talking to them that they are the center of my universe.
There’s a great, there was a great, there’s a great cardinal. He’s still alive. His name is Cardinal Dolan. He is the Cardinal Archbishop of New York. And big personality. Big personality. Like he, like just, there’s a reason he’s cardinal and this is something I learned from him. A thousand people come up to him and I knew him 25 years ago when I was first in Rome, and he was Monsignor Dolan.
He had this superpower. It’s another place I learned it as I’m thinking about it, he had a superpower that when you were talking to him, you were the most important person in his life for that 30. And he would talk to you for 30 seconds to give you his absolute complete and total. I hear Bill Clinton did the same thing.
Total undivided attention. Yes, I was. I was about to mention working in backstage production in times that we were around politicians and. That was the consistent story and being in the room. It’s the, you were zoomed in. It’s I get it. That, yeah. That is so powerful. It is so powerful. And if you can do that on social media, and you can do that obviously in a one-on-one session with somebody.
I have found that I have a lot of, I have almost as much success if not as much. I really can’t tell you with groups as I do with individuals because I can make it feel like I’m talking to each person in that group hypnosis session, which I do on Zoom and they feel like I’m just talking to them.
It’s something I just picked up along the way, man. It’s something I picked up from Dolan and Mr. Irvin and just doing motivational speaking for 15 years, and preaching for 15 years. It’s something I learned. It’s that thing that I keep having to remind that people do business with people and here’s all the narratives that all the way back to, I started by hypnosis business during that financial crisis when you were starting other businesses.
You were, and it. This push away from the corporate, this push away from the conglomerate. And I even have to, clarify some of what I say because I’m the one who goes, stop using the royal we, don’t present it as trying to make it seem it’s something bigger than it actually is. Meanwhile, my sort of other company attract pre-sold clients that is a team-based coaching effort and there’s other faces in the company.
So that’s an intentional we, because it’s when you’re realizing in that side of the. Oh, I want to work with Jason’s people. Yet my first step is to talk to that person. We’re not having to then go, but wait, no, this person instead it’s this pivot that as soon as people get into that, and if we want to go I love the phrase you used earlier.
It’s not a hypnosis book, which I always hear that and go, that means it is right as to that camera lens. Is that one person you know who needs to hear the message more than anyone. And it’s connecting with something. For that reason, I have I have this big 36 inch monitor in front of me right now which I see most of my clients.
So that, first of all, it feels like I can look them in the eye, but I also have a center cam. I bought the center cam about two years ago. Yep. And it drops the camera right in the center of my, now they have better ones now, but I have one of the original ones. Drops the camera right in the middle of.
Screen so I can put it right between their eyes. Cuz it is so important to make that eye contact, to make them feel and not just cuz of hypnosis reasons, but it makes them feel like you’re paying attention to them. Builds that rapport. May it just, people wanna know that they’re important.
People wanna know that they’re important, that they mean something. I, and I’ve known that for a long time. People just want to know that they’re worth it. And when you create content with the intention of telling people you’re worth it, they will respond to that every time. And let’s talk about the pattern interrupt, especially with a platform like TikTok and they’ve been a disruptor and assuming they stick around, the effect of what they did has already spilled over to Facebook stories, Instagram reels mixing up these names, YouTube, shorts, and this style.
Where for every reason that people would say, oh, I’m not doing that. Every reason someone would go, oh, I’m not gonna go on there. It’s where, okay, this is the week that my wife made fun of me. Cuz I go, Hey, is your TikTok feed like nothing. But this will date when we recorded this, like the world premier of the new Taylor Swift concert and she’s no, that’s just yours.
I’m like, you know the music I listened to when I’m at the gym lifting weights, it’s just, I’m gonna. The comedian Paul f Tompkins, he was talking about Prince. My version of that is seeing the Singer Pink in concert. Every song was the best concert I’ve ever been to, right? Enough of that thread.
But it’s this thing where, here’s the funny video. Here’s the person doing the, share of another audio and doing their take on it. And it’s where when I first came to know of you and then I was speaking at hypno thoughts and in the back of the room I go, I know you. It was, Looking directly into my eyes and having a conversation.
And that right there is disruptive. And I share that. Over the years doing what I do, I’d always break one of the cardinal rules of sales, which is stop selling after you’ve got the sale. And my version of it would be that sort of Peter Faulk Colombo. One more thing kind of moment. Which, Hey, one more thing.
Do you have two minutes? Okay, great. You’ve got the confirmation. Check your phone. You got it. Okay, good. That’s the link to connect or here’s the instructions. If it was when I had the physical office. One last question. There’s a lot of people who do what I do. Why me? And the feedback was always, I already know.
And I’d go that what do That’s right. You mean by that? They go, I watched your videos. I’d go, which one? They go all of them. And it’s that person to person communication that really I’d ask you, you mentioned, here’s some sources where it came from, yet, would you say that’s one of, not necessarily the only, one of the antidotes towards anyone who’s uncom?
Speaking on camera, speaking in front of a group to recognize that connect with people and we can do that more directly. I just imagine there’s one person on the other side of the camera. Yes. That’s it. I think that’s one of the innovations of TikTok though I’ve been doing live video for a long time.
I’ve been doing video for a long time. I remember Google Hangouts live, they still have it. I believe they’ve changed the name, but it’s still there. And I’ve been doing it for a long time and always making eye contact. I, I bought teleprompters and Yep. Things to make that happen and I will say that I think that what exponentially brought that to the forefront was.
TikTok is about that one-on-one enga, that feeling one-on-one engagement. I think that they, while it has always been around, I think that they are the ones that really capitalized on that feeling like you are here with one other person. It amplified that. Yeah, it amplified it. Yeah. I think it’s always been around, like I, I saw a Facebook ad that I did.
I saw one of my priest pages up on Facebook, and I saw an old ad that I did for four phrases many years because I had a web version of it as well. And I’m making eye contact with the camera, but I, the way that I do it now is I’m a lot closer to the camera. I think that’s probably the thing that TikTok has for has encouraged me to do is I, I was more of a chest up shot, more like a stomach up shot and from the diaphragm and stuff.
And I, I would say that TikTok has made me get really close to the camera because it, you want it to be very personal and people want the people. It’s so funny cuz the studies have shown that social media isolates more than it brings together. I think that the studies are pretty clear on that, but I think the people still really thirst for that connection.
And the closer you get, the more eye contact you make when you make it sound like you’re talking directly to one person. You gotta have that in your mind when you’re doing these videos is it, you’re talking to that one? That needs your help. And let me just add one more thing. And I think that this is the trap that, and maybe you’ve fall into this trap, but I certainly have, but I’m over it.
I’ve been over it for about a year and a half. Is that we get locked into these number games. Like where I ha if I don’t get 5 billion views on my TikTok video, then I didn’t do something right. And I saw this creator on TikTok and she said something really smart. She says, you gotta think of your TikTok feed like a Facebook group.
Like you want to just one or two people. And that’s. We can have 5,000 people watch, but what we really want is that person that we can help the most. And that’s a person that’s gonna connect with us. And maybe you connect to 5,000 people and that’s great. And I’ve done that. I’ve had videos go viral and stuff.
But at the end of the day I want people to feel like I’m with them. And when you have that mentality, While you’re recording that I’m doing this for the one person that I can help. And when I was a ministry I said the same thing. If my whole life is for is to help one person, then it’s been worth it.
And I really believe that’s not a cliche, it is a cliche, but it’s a cliche that I actually believe in that it, if I can make a video and it connects with one person and helps them, and then maybe they come and they work with. Then I’ve done my job. My phrase on that is when you’re the person who does the thing, you’re the person who does the thing.
And as esoteric as it sounds, it’s that if, here’s the moment, we gotta bring Taylor Swift back into the conversation clearly where the trolls come out from under the bridge. And then here’s the comments. Here’s the someone saying something just to try to get a rise. We can filter that through the client whose life is dramatically different as a result of what we shared with them.
We can filter that through if it’s the business training that I do. Here’s the person who stepped away from the unsatisfying careers, able to support their family and. It’s wish you the best really becomes that dialogue. And I’d be amiss by not asking the question and I’m gonna resist predicting the answer here because there’s some out there going, okay, connect with the camera.
Connect as a person. What can you share in terms of what to say? The content. First of all, I will confess that I, one of my favorite concerts was Nickelback, so I’m just gonna confess that right now. Hey, you know what? They put on a great show and they put on a great show. I went to see, I went to see Papa Roach, and they were the, they opened for Nickelback and I, frankly, it was one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to.
Yeah, I understand getting some trolls because of a band that I like. Hey, I saw a smash mouth and concert this past Sunday night, and the person next to me, I read the tabloid stories at the time, they snapped on the audience, and I’ve never seen someone so appreciative of the audience and so happy to have everyone here.
And he goes, did you see him tearing up when he held the mic out in the audience? Sang that part of the song. Yeah. I’m like, that’s a person who cares. Right now. Get this one second. Like the, I remember that when that happened. It’s just really unfortunate. Best concert I’ve ever been to Bobby Boris Pickett, who sings the Monster Mesh.
Oh, because he get this though. He opened with the Monster Mesh and then he sat there for a moment and goes, he’s 90 years old at the time. What else am I gonna sing? Audience first into it? Laughter. He goes, but I know you only came here for one thing. Because of that. Here it is. Now I’m gonna sing some of my favorite songs and stick around because in about 40 minutes I’ll close with Monster Mash again, if you want.
Yeah. And like that he gets it, Chris. That’s what they wanted. Yeah. So back to clearly Bo, Bobby, Boris Pickett, Nickelback content. We’re on track here. Yeah. Yeah. Eagles. I also saw The Eagles once. That was really awesome. Nice. I gotta see the Eagles once. Anyway, I think that what you need to do is I, I made most of my videos to be very short form videos.
I, I tend to be like I, I’ve mentioned earlier in the broadcast here or the podcast, I tend to be verbose. I have found that short and very, precise, I think precis. Is actually what is necessary for you to get attention on social media right now. It’s precision when I do like a Facebook Live and I can just blah, blah, blah, that kind of thing.
I feel like we’re being pretty precise here actually in this podcast. I think we’re actually doing pretty well here. We got a little off track with the Eagles and Table Swift. It’s right on track if, yeah, long time listeners now. Yeah. I think we’re doing pretty well, but I think that the precision is just what they want.
They don’t want a bunch of fat on. Message. They want to, they want something that goes straight into their heart. And that’s always been the thing I’ve noticed is that even when I was doing ministries that is that people don’t, people want things that make them feel things. There’s that cliche, that they won’t remember what you said, but how you made them feel, which is absolutely true.
And, we know from the jack ones that when make people feel something and they’re suggestible higher, higher suggestible. But I think that when it comes to video the shorter the. The more pithy, the better, the more streamlined, the better, because they aren’t there to hear your voice a bunch of for five minutes.
I can’t stand that, by the way. Like when somebody goes on and on, on a TikTok, you want that precision. I think that’s the key. Absolutely. Joshua, this has been fantastic and really looking forward to hearing this. How can people get in contact with you? How can they find more? I have a website, inspiring Hypnosis dot.
Inspiring Hypnosis is my handle on TikTok and Instagram. I would highly recommend two things when you go to inspiring hypnosis.com. All my socials are there. Follow my YouTube and go to my trauma and anxiety group on Facebook. Those are the, my, those are my best offerings of TikTok goes away. My shorts will all go over to YouTube and my trauma and anxiety group.
The content there is hand curated. I spend a lot of time. It’s different. It’s the, it’s all unique content in there. That’s really my best offering is in there. I do a lot of great stuff and a lot of great work with people. Outstanding. And we’ll put links to everything in the show notes over at work.
Smartt hypnosis.com. This is session number. I’ve got it in front of me. 408. Wow. So the shortcut is, It’s done a couple of times. Go to work smart hypnosis.com/ 4 0 8. That’ll bring you over to the show notes where you can listen to the thing you’re already listening to, as well as find all those links, references, the books, and so forth.
Joshua, before we wrap this up, any final thoughts for the listeners out there? Oh, I feel I feel like I should say something profound here. I think that keeping your focus and really understanding what you believe and. Is really the key to so much success, really finding that congruence. And that authenticity.
Cleaning the lens of the glasses, which you look through is very important, and I think that’s what we do as hypnotists, is help people to figure that out. Jason Linett here once again, as always, thank you so much for engaging with our guests, for keeping this conversation going inside of our work smart hypnosis community, as well as keeping the dialogue going.
These episodes become an asset to the rest of the industry. Head over to the show notes for this specific episode, work Smart hypnosis.com/ 4 0 8. That’ll take you directly to where to go to find the show notes, the references, the resources, and see exactly how to connect with Joshua Wagner from those references there.
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