Session #418: Evan Baumgardner on SITUATIONS, not PROBLEMS

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This is The Work Smart Hypnosis podcast session Number 418, Evan Baumgardner on situations, not problems.

Welcome to The Work Smart Hypnosis podcast with Jason Linett, your professional resource for Hypnosis training and outstanding business success. Here’s your host, Jason Linett.

Hey there. I’m going to do something I normally don’t do here, and it’s that I’m going to talk about not only this episode, but also give you a preview of next week’s episode. And I’ll tell you a big part of the reason why, which is that you could listen to this podcast program that I’ve put out now for well over nine years, more than 400 episodes. And it’s that you might expect that sometimes. And this is not to put anyone down in any way. This is not to minimize anything yet clearly, some of the industry leaders that are out there, like, I’ve had Melissa Tears on the program many times over the years. I’ve had the Elmans. I’ve had Scott Sandland.

We had Anthony Galeon about a week ago of this episode’s airing. However, as much as you would think those types of episodes would be the ones that get the most interaction, it’s the ones like what you’re about to listen to now and holy crap as well. The episode next week. So let me kind of take this moment here and say this is as well as next week, and also looking at my calendar the week after, oh, three in a row, people that you might not yet know of or names you may have come across in passing and it’s because these are the people that are out there truly doing the work, seeing clients and changing not only the stories of their clients lives, but truly changing their own lives as well. And it’s where inside of these three upcoming conversations, three in a row, you’re going to really dive into this sort of dialogue, this perspective here of what it really takes to rise up at times above our own stories and truly dive in and create something awesome.

So let’s kick this off with this week it’s a session with Evan Baumgardner. Now, Evan’s been making the circuit, speaking at a number of conferences, and I’ve known him for a while now. And with that, I was like, hey. You’re getting the Thursday episode while many oOf us are at Hypno Thoughts live the next three days. So if you’re at Hypnothoughts, go find. Evan and say, hey, I listened to you.

Cool.

Good to meet you, if you haven’t yet met him, because awesome, awesome guy. And the title of this episode on Situations Not Problems is one that really approaches his perspective and philosophy of hypnotic change work. And what’s really interesting is, like so many of us, how a chance encounter suddenly becomes that introduction into something brand new and that ability to look at something that we might be personally going through and see that as the chance to then go, let me practice what I preach, let me apply hypnosis to this specific situation. And I’m keeping this all very generic so you can hear the story more so in Evan’s words, though. Also, and here’s the part that I was the most fascinated by, how as much as I would say that when you’re the person who does the thing. You’re the person who does the thing. We kind of come around to this discovery that our specialties may not just be the things that we choose, but, instead may be the things that we discover along our journeys. So it might have been easy for Evan to approach this hypnotic change work and go, I’m going to be the guy for this one category, yet it’s the breakthroughs he had with that on his own and clearly also helping others that then began to spill over to other things that then had a much wider reach.

So this whole theme of situations become the reality that their only problems, if we label them as problems, is one to truly dive into and find a ton of value inside of.

So, bit of a split invite for this week’s episode, which would be if you’re at Hypnothoughts live with us right now. Find Evan, find me, come say hello.

Good to hang out in person.

And for those of you that want to keep going with this week’s episode, this is session number 418. You can head over to worksmarthypnosis.com/418 that will bring you over to the show notes page that has all the links, all the resources, all the references that we’ve made collected in one convenient place. And if you’re struggling inside of your own hypnotic client work, I would say that it’s not often an issue of not having enough techniques. What it really comes around to is understanding how to take those techniques and truly become world class with the methods.

And I say that never in some sort of an egotistical perspective, but instead how we can look at what are the things in our hypnotic toolbox and truly become even more effective putting the men to use that I can remember along my journey. And I think this is one of themes that Evan and I got into in this conversation of what’s kind of that shiny object syndrome of training.

Which is, oh, everybody’s talking about this technique now. Oh, wait, everybody’s talking about that technique now. And to suddenly realize that here’s our core skill set and the artistry is then how we customize to the person in front of us and truly make each and every session unique and be what they actually need and the greatest thing about this is that’s what prevents for you burnout two.

It is the actual definition of client centered hypnosis and it’s also the ultimate sort of antidote to the problem of someone’s coming for this. And I don’t know what to do. Do you have a script for this? Do you have a process for that. And this is what I share inside of a program called Hypnotic Workers. And you can watch the video tour by heading over to Hypnoticworkers.com. Once you head over there, watch that video, check that out. Because rather than being the guy who publishes, here’s my stop smoking stuff, here’s my weight loss stuff, here’s my fear of chasing cars stuff, which you should.

Be afraid of that apparently.

Instead, here’s where we can teach it from the ground up.

Now, I’m going to point you to two places to check this out, which would be if you’re more of a self paced learner, check out hypnoticworkers.com. Easy to track down if you happen to be in the United States, Canada or Europe. More predominantly the areas in those time zones, you should instead check out worksmarthypnosislive.com.

Here’s the way of explaining this.

Work Smart Hypnosis Live includes access to hypnotic workers. So if you’re looking for more of a self paced digital journey, hypnoticworkers.com. And if you can make an event that’s going to be in the New York City time zones, completely online, live and interactive in an online space, kicking off in September, and it’s going to be on Tuesdays from twelve noon until 03:00 P.M., again in the New York City time zone, you can find all the details at worksmarthypnosislive.com. Again, that does include access to Hypnotic Workers as part of that event.

And even for those of you, let’s say in Australia, New Zealand and Asia. We tend to alternate when we offer these in terms of the schedule. So even if you’re listening to this after September 2023, still head to worksmarthypnosislive.com anyway or look at hypnoticworkers.com, I point to that because so often it’s the, oh, what do you do for this issue? What do you do for that issue? And the issue really needs to be addressed from the ground up.

And with that, let’s dive directly into this week’s phenomenal conversation. We’ve got a triple Whammy coming your way with the next two episodes after this one, too.

Yet here we go.

Today.

It’s releasing July 20. Good to see everyone in Vegas if you’re here with us.

Here we go, session number 418, Evan Baumgardner on situations not problems.

Going back. About eight years ago, I had Bell’s Palsy that developed into synchinesis and that was when the nerve healed things didn’t go back to place the way they were.

I kind of look at it as like if you break a lamp and you glue it back together and you’ve got it back, or if you like the Goonies. Right. So you think of that mom’s favorite piece. Yeah, back on.

And that was really hard for me to accept, which briefly, for those that aren’t familiar, I’m not going to attempt to give a bad description for those that aren’t familiar with Bell’s Palsy and the other condition, could you give just a quick description?

Yeah.

Bell’s palsy is a facial paralysis will happen to about 1.5% of the population and usually it’s in one side, and it’s when there’s damage to a nerve in the face, it connects to five points causes facial paralysis usually goes away.

In about two or three weeks, and most people recover completely from it in.

That time, but sometimes you don’t, and it develops into where it’s like you’ll get movement back. But when it goes okay system is coming back online.

It’s kind of in the wrong place. So I ended up just becoming super anxious. It affects the way we look at ourselves, obviously, the way we notice other people looking at us, but it also can’t really this is what really got to me, was it takes away our ability to communicate nonverbally the way we had been doing it our entire lives. So it’s like, I can’t emote the way I used to, just with facial expressions, which has led to some funny things, but that’s now, then it was just this bombardment and anxiety went through the roof. I’m just like, you know what, that’s it. I had a job where I was writing, so I was home anyway, and I’m like, you know what, that’s it. And became agoraphobic. And then at some point, I’m like, this isn’t who I am. I’m going to get my life back and the doctors were no help, and so I went to a hypnotist, and that actually helped me with my anxiety. So then flash forward a few years.

Later when it was let me pause you there for a quick moment, only for the reason that this is not exactly in the category of, oh, I’ve got this issue, well, obviously I need to go to and then hypnotist is the next word.

So can you walk us through whatm that decision process was and how hypnosis presented itself as an option?

So I went to the doctor because I had, years before, kind of dealt with anxiety that I thought was kind of under control because, let’s see, this was 2014 or so when I was dealing with this at the doctor. And then it was like 2007 was like the last time I had panic attack or anything like that, and they came back with a vengeance.

And so I go, hey, all right, this is happening. Can I get a prescription for Xanax so I can go outside without having a panic attack? And the doctor is like, no. I’m like, why not? Well, it’s habit forming.

Well, I have no history of any sort of substance abuse, and that was what worked for me before. In 2007, the last time I ever needed anything and the doctor said, Well, I mean, you sound depressed. We’ll give you antidepressants and those will start to kick in like three to four weeks. I’m like, well, yeah, I mean, I was depressed about the situation I was in, but I wasn’t a depressive.

Yeah, I’ve heard a doctor one time.

Refer to it as, this is an appropriate response it’s not the clinical definition. It’s situational.

Yeah. Didn’t care about that.

It’s like, we’re going to give this okay, so you won’t give me the thing that I know works that I could take short term and then stop because it potentially habit forming but you want me to start taking these pills that would take three to four weeks before I notice anything, have all these side effects that would affect my work, my ability to work? Potentially.

And then if I wanted to quit taking them, I would have to step down over a period of time that got longer for the longer amount of time I was taking them. But that’s okay. That’s not habit for me. I was so frustrated.

Flash to the time that a doctor looked at my wife and I and said to her, I don’t know how to assist natural childbirth. I only do medically assisted. I need to get you another doctor.

Oh, wow.

It was thank you. As opposed to which, again, it’s no complaint. It’s no criticism. It’s just that if you have a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. And I’m hearing that there was this journey of frustration with that and going well, there’s got to be a better way.

Exactly. And I’m like, okay, this clearly isn’t going to work for me. What are my alternatives?

And okay. Hypnosis that sounds like it could be. Something I will give that a try. Not knowing what to expect. Here’s why I wanted you to elaborate on that, which is that so often. I mean, there are so many categories. Out there that are waiting for solutions.

And what we do is something that can very much help. And I’m sure we’re going to get around to some of the changes that many of us have also seen that you’ve been successfully creating over time too and it’s that if we can’t yet speak to that audience’s journey, otherwise, we’re just crossing our fingers and hoping that they’re already at that place of going, oh, I need a hypnotist for this, versus bringing it into that journey and hearing that, well, if this is the route that hasn’t been working, here’s another.

Let’s put phrase this way, another possible pathway.

Yeah.

I think a lot of times we go to hypnotist as kind of like the last resort when nothing else has worked, when we could save ourselves a lot of problem if people knew to, Hey, maybe go there first and you could bypass a lot of that. So then going to the hypnotist, what was kind of the result of that of now applying this work specifically to that situation.

I had a nice little anchor that allowed me to go to soccer games. Again without being super stressed the entire time and just waiting to leave and generally feeling better.

I still had that kind of tension. It was that story I’d been telling myself that, oh, this is a problem. And that took some more time to completely let go of. That was the start of the road for me. And I remember having lunch with a friend of mine, and at this point. I’m like, okay, things had improved. They weren’t like it was before with my anxiety, but was definitely like a world of difference, and I was in need of a career change. And I’m just like, I can’t keep doing this.

Especially because it was keeping me isolated, and that wasn’t helping me.

Move past my anxiety the way I wanted to either. She says, you’d be good as a therapist. I’m like, yeah, maybe. I’m not going to go back to grad school, though, because I went for education instead of psychology, and clearly I wasn’t doing that.

And then she goes, well, what about hypnotherapists? You need to go back to grad school for that. I’m like, Wait a minute. I’m like, yeah, that worked for me.

And then I looked into it, and I’m like, this ticks all the boxes of everything I would want. I still get to be my own boss. I would get to help people.

If I could do anything to prevent somebody from going through what I went through or help them climb out of that hole, that’s something that I could feel really good about at the end of the day, which were chatting before we started here. That here’s where that’s what started the journey. This is still something that you work on, but it kind of lent itself eventually to other things. And I’d love to get to that in a little bit here. Let’s get specific, though, as talk about some of the physical changes.

Physical changes.

So since I started working on it myself as a hypnotist, when I started.

I learned about how Milton Erickson came back from Polio using hypnosis.

I’m like, if he can do that, I can do that with the synchinesis.

And I just have to figure out how. But I was more focused on the thing that I absolutely knew I could get results with, and that was the emotional part, and that was regaining my confidence, regaining inner strength that I felt was more of a loss than whatever function didn’t return to my face so I was doing that. I was doing that, and I’m like, okay, what’s my way in physically, where I can start doing this?

I would do self hypnosis with the visualizations and everything, but I didn’t really focus on it. And it wasn’t until I learned kinetic shift and hypnosis, and it was like, wait, the AC was on. The muscles in your face will tense up and contract.

It gets really uncomfortable because, I mean, it’s cold. They’re trying to keep us warm.

It’s that shiver effect. But when the nerves already are in the wrong place and it does it more. It’s not a very pleasant experience. Great if you’re doing Popeye Cosplay, but in general, not something I recommend and using kinetic shift, I was able to actually in the moment, have the muscles loosen back up again. And I’m like, this is the way in.

Yeah.

So then from that, what’s that next step of the journey of having your own outcomes, your own changes. And I really appreciate one aspect of this just to highlight for everybody.

It’s that you are talking about.

Yes, this physical thing, clearly, but at the same time, here’s the emotional component.

That I had a client one time that it was a physical condition, but the bigger challenge it was creating, it was being dismissed by the doctor and the language was, well, it’s just in your head. And I had to respond. It’s like, well, yeah, obviously it’s in your head, otherwise you wouldn’t be thinking about it.

And that’s just as real.

Well, I’ve told the story of the surgery I had around May last year and it was this one little moment that hypnotists hate this part of the story, that if I knew what the pain was shooting up my back, I would have slept that week.

Like, oh no, I’m ripping the stitches, I’m undoing everything and I finally get the doctor on the phone and he goes, you can’t rip what I did. It’s like, one, I like this kind of guy and two, how so he goes, that’s just the nerves figuring out how to reconnect that’ll go in a way in a week.

I’m like, if you told me that and it was that reaction to the feeling. It wasn’t the feeling itself.

The feeling itself was easily managed and wasn’t debilitating, but it was more the thought.

So it’s never just one or the other, it’s going to be this balance of the two.

Yeah. And especially with those thoughts, you were reactive to what you were feeling at that time. It was the feeling was attached to an emotion which then drove a reaction.

Well, I’d ask you this question, which is when someone was calling around something that was more, let’s say, medically related or something of sort of a physiological nature, the N that I was looking for always is, does this happen more if you’re stressed? And was that or is that part of the scenario?

Absolutely, yeah. And it’s funny, when the Bell’s Palsy happened to me, I was under a lot of stress at that point.

I had a ton of deadlines I was trying to make. Holidays were coming up, which was always stressful. So deadlines plus holidays plus family coming to visit and hosting everyone.

There was a lot and that was when it happened.

And I’m like, clearly to me it was stress related. And then talking to other people and noticing a lot of people that had it were pregnant, where there is a lot of stress on the body, both physically and emotionally.

But there was no scientific link to it at that time. So doctors would completely dismiss the stress part. And it wasn’t until late 2019, right.

Before the pandemic, that Harvard Medical discovered the actual link between stress and Bell’s Palsy. So I’m like vindication.

Well, here’s why. If I can kind of reveal what I’ve been seeing, if we can go towards here, which is that disclaimer yes.

You have noticed a physiological change. High five. Atta boy. Thumbs up check plus smiley face.

You’re doing great. And in some situations, there might be a medical reason that fill in the blank. Whatever other condition or diagnosis, there might be a very legitimate reason why there’s no amount of hypnotic suggestion and we can throw at something that would create the movement. And if all we did was change that emotional story, in this case, take down the anxiety, there still is a noticeable benefit to the client.

Yes.

Everybody benefits.

Yeah, it’s that there’s a clear wind to that. And it may not be the intended.

And, quote, best case scenario yet. It is that difference between it’s something that now is no longer the thing holding everything back, as you said, becoming agoraphobic at one point, not wanting to go out, and you could go to the soccer game because you had a thing that could then help you to then get back into the track of things.

Exactly.

And I think another kind of crucial part of that, and this was something as I started making progress with my own physical changes and kind of recovering, was I still had to deal with a lot of emotional stuff before and doing it, I had no idea what kind of results I would see. I had no idea if it would work or not. And it’s like, well, I have bell’s palsy group hypnosis sessions. I can’t guarantee any changes there, but I know I can make people feel better about the situation, that’s what I focus on is the emotional part. But for me, there was this idea of I had a lot of resistance.

For a while before I did that because I didn’t want to identify into it and I felt like if I did, that would impact or slow down my own ability to recover but what I didn’t realize I was actually doing, and it wasn’t until I just said, you know what?

I’m doing this because I know there’s a way I can help people. Maybe not me, but somebody out there. And that was a form of acceptance that I didn’t have before. So where I was worried about, if I identified too much into it as, oh, I’m the Bell’s Palsy guy then I wouldn’t recover myself.

But then when I accepted, wait, I am the Bell’s Palsy guy, I can do this, I moved up that emotional scale and I think that was really one of the big keys, more than any technique I used on myself or anything else, to allow me to get the ability to whistle back for the first time. In eight years.

Yeah.

That is so cool.

So definitely, I think the emotions are massive thing. I mean, that’s the core of what we do and I know that step one of this.

Of course.

Thank you for sharing that sometimes.

We do go through those things and go, I don’t want this to become the big focus. I don’t want this to be the big feature. And for any one person who’s willing to share that kind of story, there’s hundreds of others that are keeping it to themselves and need to hear that type of thing, which is where, overtime correct me on this. You kind of took what you were figuring out and found that there were applications to things beyond this specific category.

Yeah.

And ties into things I didn’t think would relate to it that did such as what?

I was still viewing the emotional and the physical changes as separate things instead of how they would work together. And it’s funny because we think of how an emotion feels in the body, that kind of charge to it, that weight when we’re experiencing fear, when we’re experiencing anxiety or apathy. And it’s that heavy emotion, and we feel that physically in the body, if we feel angry, there are physical feelings. I mean, those are the feelings that come with it.

And to think of, oh, yeah, working with these things as separate than an actual physical thing that I was trying to change for myself, I’m like, wow.

They really are connected in a way we talk about, but I don’t think I fully understood until then. I don’t want to oversimplify, but it kind of comes around to that classic, the way you are one place is the way you are somewhere else.

And I know curious to chat about some of the work you do around goal setting and how it’s not just the go to the comedian example. Maria Bamford, if you’re familiar with her, we named our dog Blossom because of her stand up, and she has this bit in her standup around overconfident people and her setup is that I’m a comedian and people find out about what I do, they’re like, oh, tell me a joke. And I’m like it’s. Not exactly that. It’s more extended stories and funny perspectives. And the response sometimes is, oh, I get that. But if I was a comedian, I wouldn’t do these small alternative clubs and other things like you’re doing. I’d be like Jerry Seinfeld and get, like, a TV show and just coast. There’s more to it than that. There’s a lot of single people out know, just pair up.

Who are these people? What are they doing? Yeah, you don’t get on the car. You get in the Uber anyway, you call it Uber. I love that one. Yet it’s that awareness that it’s so easy to put the emphasis on just do the thing.

Oh, you want to do that?

Well, okay.

There’s a shoe company that even says “Just do it”, but I’m not going to say them because they have good lawyers. Do you find it’s that same story, it’s that emotional story that’s inside, that’s holding back that goal setting?

Absolutely.

Not just goal setting, but also the goal achievement.

Yeah, everything I think goes back to this kind of emotional scale and this was something picked up from David Hawkins in his Letting Go book and then kind of took that and modified that really changed how I was doing my own self hypnosis, how I was looking at things.

Could you get a little bit more specific on that?

Emotions have a kind of weight to them.

We can put them on a scale.

From heaviest to lightest. And I like to throw out value judgments.

Like there are no good, there are no bad, there’s no positive or negative.

They just are.

These are things that hardwired to feel.

For a certain reason. So down the lower ones, the heaviest ones, we have apathy, grief and fear and then all of the things that make that up so that, oh, I can’t what’s the point?

That’s down in apathy, that’s like the heaviest feeling, right?

And those are inward kind of things and then we have lust, anger and pride.

And those are like the outward pushing energies and we can still get a lot done up in those.

But what we really want to get into, the lighter ones at the top.

That’s courage, acceptance, love, and peace. And that’s when we’re in that flow state and everything just kind of happens and just seems magical.

Right.

We’re not thinking we’re being at that point.

So when it comes to goals, there’s a lot of like, I want we’re down in that lust, whereas I want this, I’m going to push for it. But when we let go of that.

And if we can be okay with the outcome, either way, we quit wanting it, we just choose it.

And that’s when we start doing it and we start moving up and then we end up being. And that’s when we really start achieving.

Our goals and seeing that. And we also try to do too much at once. I’d like to encourage people, go by the 1% rule, just do 1% a day and let compounding interest take over and then we can see radical changes from there.

You just mentioned David Hawkings.

Is that the name of the book?

Letting Go?

Letting Go, yeah, which let me spite my nerdy notes here. This is session number 418. So worksmarthypnosis.com/418, we’ll bring you over to the show notes and that’s where anything that we’re referencing here will also be there. So you can track that down.

I’m one of those people who’s always.

Like, oh, add that to the Amazon list and that’s now officially on there.

Which from this perspective then looking at the work around goal. Setting, looking at that approach, the whole 1% rule, as well as clearly connecting those emotions but also disconnecting the emotions that aren’t serving us in the goal setting process.

Is that kind of what you’re referring to?

Yeah, and I mean listening to what.

We’re feeling, what our body’s telling us is a part of it.

If we have a goal, we need to be excited for it.

It needs to feel good in our body. If we’re like, oh, I have to do this and it feels heavy, then we need to rethink how we’re approaching it.

And that’s when we can start doing like a releasing process on that where it’s welcoming in that feeling and sitting with it and then letting it go.

Without trying to turn this into diagnostic, what would you say is often that thing that’s underneath that, whether it’s a specific emotion, whether it’s belief system that is presenting that idea that this thing is now very heavy and holds us back a goal.

Let’s see, it could be a few things depending on what our stories are what our perspective is.

Because if we’re telling our we might have something that’s just like one thing.

Where it is just that feeling that comes up. Or we could have a lot of things where we’ve told ourselves these limiting beliefs, these limiting stories over and over again and it’s become a program that’s gotten embedded into our subconscious and that’s the program that’s running.

And then we have to start uninstalling.

That, but we have to go like kind of piece by piece, one at a time as we work through that.

And then start moving up that scale.

That makes sense.

Yeah, it’s looking at it more from the inside out as opposed to this is the outcome that I want.

Yes.

I run a scenario by you just to get your thoughts on this one.

Here, which if it’s the that’s crap, I got a better way, bring it on.

Which is I’ve always talked around how you would think, let’s say we’re in process, a couple of appointments around weight loss and there’s this little side quirky dialogue I get into. You surprised at all? No, of course not.

But this quirky dialogue around how you would think that I’d love to have you here next week, big surprise look on your face. Oh my God, everything is different. I’ve been eating right, I’ve been exercising. And while that’s the goal here, obviously it’s that if you’re responding to it that way, you’re still looking at it as being novel. You’re looking at it as being unique versus the person who I had a client one time that had lost a substantial amount of weight. We moved on to working on something else and it was the neighbor going.

Hey, when are you going to go back to eating normally now that you’re skinny? He’s looking at his plate and he goes, I actually like this food.

This is the stuff I’m drawn to now.

Enjoy this. This is normal to me now.

And what I used to do is.

Really the abnormal of all that drive through stuff and unhealthy things. Just curious to hear your thoughts on that, of looking at it from the place of if we’re putting it up on that pedestal, if we’re observing it as being unique. It’s where we’re putting a lot of.

Weight on that versus the you say.

Let that shit go, I go. We’ve just kind of figured this shit.

Out, and I just know what to do.

Yeah, a lot of that’s the same thing, because when we let it go.

We figure it out.

And in that point, yeah, he just.

Went to being it’s like, this was.

My goal, and he’s being that goal at that point.

And there was no need for fast.

Food or normal person things that’s barely even food. What’s the percentage of sawdust in that?

This is where I already know that I’m holding back because you and I have a very similar sense of humor.

No, it’s fruit by the foot. And Mountain is basically Earth.

That’s basically vegetables. So, Mountain Dew, we’re off to a great start here.

Plants, crave.

Hold me back. That was not supposed to become a documentary.

Do you know the side plot around the crocs in that movie?

Can’t remember.

Okay, so this is the movie Idiocracy that was put on by Mike Judge. The same person who did Beavis and Butthead, the same person who did Office Space, which every hypnotist that’s required viewing.

And the line was, we need to have some sort of futuristic shoe that these people have to wear that’s just so ridiculous that people would just laugh at it. And they just chose crocs.

And then crocs became a thing which.

Wow, you never know where our goals will take us, which somehow I’m forcing myself to make this fit into the context of this conversation, which we can start with one specific goal.

And then that brings us to, well, goal setting.

When we start with one goal, we end up creating and achieving a lot of different goals along the way.

I’m thinking of someone who’s in a group that we run, and you’re there, and someone named Rachel who was posting the other day about she’s launching an online course. And suddenly I nicknamed this the oh, more stuff I get to become an expert at of this first time frustration of, oh, the way that the video was embedded was wrong.

I’m like, at the end of the day, though, we can relax because you created this problem, and it’s this silly.

Thing that I do inside of a hypnosis training.

That the benefit of the practice, is it lets you get the mistakes out of the way here, where it doesn’t matter as much as it would with a real you know, if it’s an online event, let’s break you out into the breakups.

And then as we bring everyone back.

How did that go? We don’t just want the that was amazing. I did wonderful. Wow. Jerry was really great at this. If you completely just botched that exercise, I want you to hold your hand up.

The biggest hit the raise hand feature.

On Zoom and go, I just screwed that up. And tell us the entire story, because now we’re all going to hear what happened.

And not out of judgment, but it means that we’re getting to mentally rehearse what someone else went through. The physical interaction that may sometimes be in some people’s hypnotic work, which tonality.

And intention is everything. Sometimes it’s just the, hey, I might tap in the back of your hand like that. Is that okay? And it’s very nonchalant versus the client who only once the student who only once had to say to a client and she got permission to record it, then she got permission to share it with me, and it was okay. Now, during the session, when your eyes are closed, could I have your consent.

To physically interact with you? And that’s just kind of creepy.

The way it was phrased, I’m like, well, don’t say it that way, is.

What it comes around to, which it’s not just the thing, it’s how we look at the thing. And I wanted to give you some time here to talk about something that.

I’ve heard you reference, which is that there’s not problems.

What’s the phrasing?

There are no such thing as problems. There are only situations.

Yeah, that’s my core belief, and I really try not to say that because I could say, oh, yeah, that’s a problem.

But is it? It’s a situation that I’m in. It’s a situation that you’re in. It’s a situation that anybody’s in. The great thing about situations is they always change.

Well, again, it’s kind of back to what we’ve talked about here already as to it’s more of what we do with it and how we respond to it, that perspective, and how we’re reactive to the emotions that situation brings up got to bring in our stand up comedy subtext here of Emo Phillips’s line that one man’s pet stained carpet is.

Another man’s organic twister game.

Exactly.

We help people, everybody.

We are healers anyway.

So kind of go into that dialogue for a moment because there are certain things that, let’s phrase it this way, sound easy in concept.

Back to the joke around single people just pair up. Yet to say that to somebody who, at the time they’re reaching out to you, everything is a problem, and that’s why they’re in front of you.

How does that dialogue is that even a dialogue that comes into the change process? Is that more of a subtext that’s kind of motivating the style of work that you do?

Or just how does that appear?

Yes.

Thank you for that.

So, hey, Evan, where can people find you online?

No, we’ll get there in a moment.

Yeah, explain.

I mean, it’s something I definitely try to get them to look at things from a different perspective.

And when they start looking at things that way and especially when they start looking at kind of like the scale of emotions and seeing where they’re at.

And noticing how they feel, learn that they can shift that they can change that and then that problem, it doesn’t seem like as big of a thing anymore.

It brings it down as they move up the scale. And I think that when people start.

Realizing, oh, yeah, this is just like anything else I’ve ever done. And they bring that moment of success that they’ve had in the past.

And whatever it is or like that 1% of courage that they felt or just even like the 1% of courage it takes to look at their situation.

Something needs changed and they have to do it. It opens that door up.

Is that something that I’d ask it this way?

That there’s ever been any pushback on.

Looking at it as the perspective?

I’m sure somewhere along the line there has been. It’s not something I’ve run into. Well, maybe at first what is an.

Appropriate false bias that they’re clearly there in front of you because that’s what they want.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Or else they wouldn’t be there.

Right.

But yeah, one of the things I always look back on is whenever I feel stuck in some sort of way, I go back, okay, this is the situation, this is what’s in front of me, these are obstacles. But what resources do I have?

What have I done in the past that’s worked?

And I don’t even need any clear.

Examples and it doesn’t even have to.

Be something completely can be something completely unrelated to what I’m looking at.

But I’m bringing those same higher feelings back into it. One of the examples I always go to is when I was in college, me and Buddy of mine did a comic book and it was just indie comic slice of life kind of thing and this was in the everybody was doing mini comics at Kinko’s Xerox and everything and I wasn’t going to do that. I’m like, no, our comic is going to be an actual comic. I want to see it on the shelves, full size, fully printed.

We’re just going to do this ourselves. I had no idea what I was doing. We had no idea what were doing. But there was never any thought of failure.

There was never any, oh, how do we do it? We just did it.

We just made the choice. This is what’s happening. And then we did it.

And somehow if you talk to my Budy and even man, it’s definitely not our best work.

I mean we’re 1819.

It was not very good but it was a success. We did this stupid little self published comic book ourselves, and we either made money or broke even on every issue we did except for one.

And that was the first collar cover.

We did where we absolutely didn’t know what were doing, but we made that back with the next one. And weren’t even thinking about financial. We were just making this thing. And a lot of that was letting go of that attachment to Outcome, where it’s like the only thing were doing was making this comic book and we chose that. We didn’t want it. We chose it, and then were being it. And I think with any change work that we do as hypnotists, that’s the same process that our clients are going through, whether it’s getting control of their anxiety, whether it’s figuring out how to actually start achieving their goals. And breaking free of the limiting beliefs.

And that old programming that they’ve been telling themselves all the reasons why they can’t, it’s shifting that into that place of doing.

I love that.

This has been great to have you on and hear not only the personal story, but as well as the application of how, again, part of the journey. Here is how. We can start with one idea and then realize that, oh, wait, this could expand to other categories, other people who have specific needs or know oftentimes we start with the goal of here’s the outcome that I want, and then classic hero’s journey.

We then discover something else along the pathway. Evan, where can people track you down?

How can they find you? How can they get in contact?

They can find me at ebhypno.com online on TikTok Hypnosis with Evan and Facebook Evan Baumgardner.

And say hi, awesome.

Which we’ll link to everything over in the Show Notes at worksmarthypnosis.com. This is session number 418, so worksmarthypnosis.com/418. This has been great to have you on. Before we wrap up, any final thoughts.

For the listeners out there, thank you.

Very much for having me. And, yeah, I just want everybody to remember that there are no problems.

There are only situations, and we can change that situations always change.

So when we let go of that attachment to Outcome, we can get whatever we want. And I said the 1% rule is so powerful, and when we start looking at that, we can do anything and go to ebhypno.com. I would love to see some people.

In my next workshop hey, it’s Jason Linett once again.

And to see exactly how to connect with Evan and learn more about the work that he’s up to, you can head over to the Show Notes that are easy to find at worksmarthypnosis.com/418, the number 418 that’ll bring you right over there.

Check out the details, reach out, say hello, and while you’re there, I’ll give you two pathways. If you’re more of the self directed self learner, check out hypnoticworkers.com. If you want the guided, hands on interactive tour in an interactive live online training, well, similar name, slightly different worksmarthypnosislive.com. Either way, you’ll find all the details on the show notes for this page and look forward to hanging out with you soon. Thanks for listening.

Thanks for listening to the Work Smart Hypnosis podcast at worksmarthypnosis.com.