Confessions Of A Hypnotist

Patter, Intent, Flexibility, and Calibration are what makes a great hypnotist great.

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Patter smoothness comes with practice. This is what is meant when you hear some hypnotists say, “I’ve hypnotized my pillow hundreds of times.” This is the ‘linking language’ that takes you from each successful step to the next, as well as ‘thinking language’ that gives you a moment to decide on the next successful step.

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Intent means partly that you have a clear outcome in mind for each action you take. If you don’t know what you want, then you’ll never know if you’ve got it. Many mistakes are made regarding intent. Perhaps even most mistakes fall under this heading. The technique you use to get someone to the goal is not even slightly important, as long as you’re getting them to the goal.

Split Intent covers many issues, from confidence issues to ulterior motive issues. Your hypnotee WILL feel your intent, whether they realize it or not. Singlemindedness makes for EXCELLENT hypnotists.

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Calibration comes from watching the right things carefully. You must not be inside your head, thinking about everything if you are to calibrate well. You must be focused on the hypnotee, noticing their breathing, their eyes, their facial movements, their body language in general.

One of the biggest reasons that practicing Patter is crucial is because if you are focused on your own thoughts, you cannot focus on the hypnotee. Get the Patter down pat, so you can place your focus squarely where it will be most effective.

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Flexibility is what Calibration, Patter and Intent allow you to have: when you keep your goal in mind, and notice if things are going differently than your expectation, Flexibility lets you change things swiftly to correct course/change course. The most common need for Flexibility arises as an issue of speed. Some hypnotees process instructions very quickly, others process very slowly. The operator must Calibrate to this, and Flex as needed.

Vocabulary is another big spot where the operator needs to be Flexible. I hear lots of hypnotists trying to sound ‘smart’ (myself occasionally included!) when it’s not necessary. Big words get in the way of some hypnotees’ thinking processes.

Preferred senses are also important – if you hear a hypnotee talking about feelings forever, it’s a good bet you’ll get through to them better by using ‘feeling’ words, instead of ‘seeing’ or ‘hearing’ words.

Phenomena production (everything from locked eyelids to hallucinations) is the other spot where Flexibility is vital. When something isn’t going the way you expect, a large repertoire lets you change things up mid-stream and use a technique easier for the hypnotee to understand.

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Anyway, that’s my opinion, and it works for me so far. What works for you?

Every week brings me lots of new ideas. Some are related to existing concepts, some are for other people, some are ridiculous, and some are completely new.

I love the line from Hook when Smee says to Captain Hook, “Sir, I’ve just had an apostrophe!”

“I believe you mean an epiphany.”

“Lightning has struck my brain!”

“That must have hurt.” (Note: He is only correct if you sit up in, and fall out of, bed.)

I find I use creativity in several ways. One way is helping others enhance their own ideas. The second way is enhancing my ideas. The third way is coming up with totally new ideas (New to me, that is.)

Here’s the tricky part for me: There’s no way to force creativity! I’ve wanted to be a creative problem-solver for years, but there were certain conditions that had to be met in each realm I wanted to operate before that could happen.

Here are the conditions as I understand them today.

A.) Desire and Clarity: For a long time now, one of my goals has been to run my own business. Trouble was, I hated marketing. I mean, I didn’t get bloody-eyed and screamy about it, but was distasteful, a pain in the neck, and I wanted nothing more than to ignore it and focus on what my business was REALLY about. Riiiiight. It took WAY longer than it ‘should have’ for me to realize that Business Is Marketing, and longer still to accept that truth emotionally.

Once it clicked (what Havi Brooks on her blog calls ‘hot buttered insights’), I was able to dive in to the necessary learning with gusto. It was only at that point that I made the switch from a ‘technician’ mindset (per E-Myth Revisited) to a ‘business owner’ mindset. I’m sure I have many more lessons to learn on these lines.

B.) Expertise/Experience: Having gusto didn’t make me magically good at anything, unfortunately! I recently tallied up the cost of my marketing education, and I’ve now spent over $45,000 learning marketing. WHEW. And it’s been strung out over more years than it needed to be, due to my refusal to get with the program. I was spending money on marketing even before I liked it, but the money wasn’t nearly as well spent as my marketing money is now.

I realized that I wanted to be great at creating deals, joint venture ideas, and marketing campaigns. So I started looking for mentors who amazed my with their skill in these areas. I found one in my long-time friend Mark Buckman, and went to work for him part-time so I could get in his head. I learned SO MUCH from him in the 9 months I worked at his building company. I found that by the end of that period, my brain was firing in cool new ways.

C.) Natural Opportunity: Creativity works best when you don’t hamper it or force it into a box. My creativity loves to come out and play when I lie down to sleep, so I just try to make sure I have a little extra time for the “Brain Lightning.” If I’m in a period when I need lots of new insights, that means “Think Naps.” A Think Nap is restful, yes, but the point isn’t to fall asleep. The point is to relax my brain and let the Brain Lightning happen, so I don’t stay up waaaay too late writing stuff down (or worse yet, ignoring the Brain Lightning entirely!)

D.) Effective Action Levers: My creativity gets pouty and childish when I don’t indulge it and show it the results of its hard work. If I don’t actually write down the ideas I get, the Brain Lightning refuses to show up again until I’ve done penance. Writing down ideas is important, because it’s a form of action. I get confused, depressed, and annoyed when I stay on the same idea for a long period of time. If I don’t actually take action on my ideas, I start feeling useless!

I use a few tools to collect ideas:

1.) Notebook. Simple enough, I keep it by the bed and in my carry-on, and transfer everything to the PC once I’m back ‘at work’. I also put diagrams in the notebook.

2.) Smartphone. I use this the same way, minus diagrams.

3. www.rememberthemilk.com – this is great for any idea that has pre-defined action steps. I type them up and don’t bother putting priorities or due dates on them. I’ll get around to them once it’s time, and they’ll never get lost.

4. Google Docs – I have one big file with all my business-related ideas. No real formatting, no real order to it, all this has going for it is thoroughness. As long as I describe each idea adequately, I can search for it even if the document is too big to glance over.

Anyway, that’s how I keep my Brain Lightning at a steady 5,000 kilovolts!

Jeremy

Confession: I love hanging out with entrepreneurs more than any other single group of people. Entrepreneurs excite me, motivate me, inspire me, get me fired up!

This is something I just recently realized when relaxing with a few distant acquaintances.

“Brain, why am I disengaged from these people I am sitting with?”

“Jeremy, these people are BORING PLEASE LEAVE NOW LET’S GET ICE CREAM”

“Well, OK.”

Thing is, I was talking to people with whom I had very little in common, and I had refused to admit that to myself.

I like to be liked. Everyone does, to a degree. For me, this occasionally turns into, “Oh, look, a person. I like people, and all people should like me. I will waste my time now with this person.”

Can you say unproductive?

So here’s a few people I feel no obligation to hang out with in my personal time:

1. People that are always talking about the same thing, and never doing anything about it. I think this bothers me largely because I’ve been one of those people, and I know how unpleasant it is. Trying, failing, learning, starting over, improving? Now -that’s- attractive.

2. People whose values are antithetical to mine in active ways. For instance, I don’t feel the need to tolerate a vocal racist, nor do I bother with fanatical (fanatical= constantly harping) vegans. They annoy me, why should I spend my time being annoyed?

3.  I don’t need three reasons. Number 3 can go play in traffic. (Naw, 3, you know I don’t really mean that. I need you. I love you, baby. C’mon. Don’t be that way. I promise I’ll use you later.)

OH! That’s what was going to be number 3. (See, 3, I told you it wouldn’t be long!)

3. People who make me feel crummy. This group was typically comprised of people I felt I needed something from, but wasn’t being honest about that with myself. Realizing no one but me is responsible for my success (and my feelings) allowed me to be honest about these people.

BONUS 4. (Bonus because I thought of this after I’d written the whole post. See? Bonus.) People who don’t really have conversations. I mean the ones you can tell aren’t listening, they’re just waiting for others to stop talking so they can refocus the conversation on themselves. This is boring, and I see no reason to seek these people out. They are generally uninterested in growing, changing, learning. (Note: this doesn’t include people who are watching body language. Watching in the right ways counts at least as much as listening, in my book.)

5. Man, I can’t stop! DRAMA QUEENS! Yes, that should be all-caps. You know the people I’m talking about. Everything can be a catastrophe, everything an insult, an excuse to get angry, to be offended, to cry, etc. I don’t have the energy to deal with this stuff, or the people that create it. So, I don’t. I just avoid drama queens. I want to enjoy the people in my life, not endure them.

I’ve started going to a local entrepreneurs group here in St. Louis (www.meetup.com is awesome, by the way) to hang out with like-minded folks. The folks in this group give me GREAT new ideas, cool new ways to implement old ideas, a peek into other industries (hypnotists are boring marketers by-and-large), and new friends. As a bonus, I sometimes meet people with businesses that tie-in nicely to my own! I’m going to be playing business games with several friends I met at the last lunch.

Of course, there are a few in every bunch that are completely disconnected from reality – pitch-monsters, idea-baiters, and glad-handers, but I don’t waste any time with them. I am polite, friendly, and I move right along without feeling the slightest twinge of guilt. (Note: 3 years ago I would have listened ‘politely’ to their entire spiel and walked away from the event wondering why it was so boring…)

Why be bored? Why be offended? Why be anything but engaged, interested, and alive? I’m sure I can’t think of a reason. So choose your friends intentionally – you’ll be happier and more relaxed for it!

I’m constantly cutting and pasting, going back and forth from program to program. Not only am I doing that, I also frequently re-use items from 2-3 ‘clips’ back.

Because of this, the normal Windows clipboard is frustrating to me. I have to go back and forth twice as much to get ‘old’ clips, instead of having them right there where I need them. I also used to have to leave all kinds of programs and web pages open, for no reason except that I was going to have to use a clip from it in 5- 10 minutes.

It was cluttered, distracting, and unproductive.

That’s why I love this tool: www.bluemars.org/clipx – it’s a great clipboard program that sits in your system tray, and saves EVERY CUT AND COPY! I currently have over 600 saved in mine.

Here’s how I use it. “Clip!” and the item goes to the (modified) clipboard. I use it, and go on to the next item, without worrying about keeping a web page open, or leaving a document up on my screen. I can close all that stuff and get it out of my face. Then, 10 minutes later or 10 days later, when I need it again, I don’t have to remember where I found it – NOR do I have to go back to the original source. I just click on the icon in my system tray, and it’s right there. I click it, and “Paste!”

It’s beautiful.

PS when I went to the download page for this little program, I saw a plugin I’m about to download as well – this plugin lets you put your ‘common clips’ down at the bottom, without them migrating down the list. Brilliant!

PPS I just remembered, one thing I just started doing is using the ‘edit clipboard’ function – I clip a LOT of links, and many of them aren’t very descriptive – I can go to the ‘manage’ menu and look at things I’ve ALREADY PUT IN THE CLIPBOARD, and append notes to them. For instance, http://bit.ly/R0mrL is the shortened permalink to this blog post – you can’t tell what it’s about, can you? So you can go to the ‘manage’ menu, and add a note: “Boring blog post on clipx tool”. Enjoy!

Just read about a cool term for something I’ve been doing for years now that’s really kept me going during some tough times.

Via http://marcishimoffblog.com/2009/03/31/the-happiness-hall-of-famer/

“My mom’s fantastic attitude is the perfect example of a new phenomenon I heard about this week called “brightsiding.” It’s based on the belief that although you can’t control the outer events of your life, you can control your outlook. The main components of brightsiding are expressing gratitude, maintaining a sense of humor, and enjoying time with the people you love.

Here’s how you can start brightsiding today:

1. Identify the most difficult situation you are facing right now.

2. List 3 things that you are grateful for about that situation.

3. Find one thing, no matter how small, that is humorous about what’s happening.”

On reading this I realized it’s almost -exactly- how I keep my cool about almost anything from ‘difficult’ people, to losing lots of money, to feeling less-than-optimal.

I’d add two things to this in order to round out my personal strategy:

1. Ask what I can learn from this experience, so it’s less likely to happen again, and

2. Call a friend if I’m having trouble maintaining my emotional balance – I’m always able to focus better when I can say things out loud to someone and have them laugh with me.

I vividly recall the first time this way of thinking was automatic – it was back when I was selling insurance, and was driving in an unfamiliar rural county. I got to the ‘bridge’ that showed up clearly on google maps, and there was (just as clearly) no bridge. Turns out some maps have a bridge because the state had -planned- on putting a bridge there, but never got around to it. I was suddenly late for my next appointment across the river, and lost to boot! As I drove around the lake, I remember laughing at how silly the whole problem was, and being so grateful that I got to drive around with my windows down in such beautiful countryside on such a glorious spring day. I never was able to re-set that appointment with the annoyed prospect, but it certainly hasn’t hurt me in the long run, and that memory is one of those ‘small treasures’ I’m glad to have with me.

Everyone’s heard the (somewhat fatalist) saying, “If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry.”

I like my way better!

So I’m a neurotic mess, apparently.

Or at least, I can convince myself of this whenever I choose, by thinking about it and analyzing everything until my brain turns to bubble gum.

I found this out a couple of months ago when on the phone with a friend, and was trying to figure out why I was having so much trouble with some issue I don’t even remember now. I’m sure something to do with motivation. Anyway, at some point in the conversation, I realized that any further analysis was useless.

See, the day before, I’d gone through and taken a mental inventory of ‘things that work for me’. (Luckily these things do exist.)

It hit me, like a rain of frogs – there’s no point in ever peeling that ‘onion’ again. I -already know- what works for me! So that’s been quite liberating for me over the past few weeks. Now whenever I get bogged down, I don’t start analyzing and worrying that nothing will ever improve, I just get back with the program of things I know work to keep me motivated.

Here, I’ll share the list.

1. Regularly connecting with like-minded people. I need sounding boards, as I’m an extroverted thinker. I think best in the company of others. So at least once a week, I get together (in person or by phone) with my ‘creative partners’.

2. Regular (near-daily) review of books that have changed the way I see life. Currently the list includes:

a.) The Four Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss

b.) Getting Things Done by David Allen

c.) The Now Habit by Neil Fiore

d. Secrets of Power Negotiating by Roger Dawson (actually most of the book is online at www.rdawson.com/articles.html)

e.) The Power Of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz

3. Making plans and lists I can see at-a-glance. Currently I use www.mindmeister.com for project planning, and www.rememberthemilk.com for task management. Remember The Milk integrates very nicely with Gmail, which is wonderful in its own right. Add Google Docs and Google Calendar to the mix, and I’m unstoppable.

4. Focusing on my strengths, and ignoring my weaknesses to some extent. There are some things I’m just not good at, and don’t want to ever spend the time on to become good at. So I’ll farm those things out, if for no other reason than to stave off procrastination over something I don’t want to do. I’ve got a fantastic assistant named Julie for many things, and for very specialized issues I can find great help on www.getafreelancer.com or www.guru.com or www.elance.com if nobody I know can pull off the job.

Anyway, these four things have made an enormous difference for me. You should find systems that work for you, by reviewing what’s worked to get you going before, and finding how to create a system based on that.

Enjoy!

2-6-09

I wrote this tonight as an email joke in about 15 minutes to cheer up a friend who’d been bombarded with multi-level-marketers/network marketers (amway, arbonne, ytb, mon a vie, xango, noni, melaleuca, etc.) who just couldn’t take a hint. She and I have both been in MLMs before, but some people… She thought it was funny, maybe you will too.
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<strong>NEW MLM – TAKE THIS ONE TO THE TOP – I’M IN, ARE YOU???!!!</strong>

This one’s only for the serious people out there – there’s some amazing people backing this – how would you like to be in directly under the Pope??!!!

QUAZILLION DOLLAR INCOME OPPORTUNITY

THERE ARE SUCH GOOD PEOPLE IN THIS NEW ORGANIZATION, MONEY IS BEING MADE

Think about it: What’s the biggest emerging market today?

-It’s not automotive (Rust belt, anyone?)
-It’s not the dot-coms (SO 2000)
-It’s not the retirement market (HOW many banks are we bailing out???)
-It’s not the Real Estate Industry (Not just honest crooks, they’re overflowing with LAWYERS too!!!)

Here’s what’s going to dictate the next few centuries:

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BABY BOOMERS!!!!!

As baby boomers age, they stop needing real estate, they stop needing retirement toys, they stop needing the nursing homes – they’re going to be in the hospital practically ALL THE TIME!!!

This new company, Final Solution, gives you a simple, easy way to deal with all the hassle of the frustrating hospital visits, the inconvenient incontinence, the dribbly drooling, and the incessant mumbled nagging.

I’M GOING TO THE TOP!!! COME WITH ME IN 2009!!!

This is a product that EVERYONE needs sooner or later

-NO STOCKPILING
-NO BOTHERING FRIENDS – YOU CAN SIGN THEM UP WITHOUT THEM EVEN KNOWING
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Euthanazix! Final Solution Cleanse

Is the answer you’ve been looking for! Finally, an income stream that will last you the rest of your life!

This cleanse goes beyond ALL the so-called ‘nutritional cleanses’ on the market – this is a TOTALLY NEW CONCEPT. Euthanazix! not only cleanses your gastrointestinal system, but scrubs your amygdala, your limbic system, and EVERY NEURON of all those NASTY FREE RADICAL electrical impulses. NO MORE stray electrical stuff slowly wearing out your body – that’s over almost the INSTANT you take your first dose. (Right now it only comes in delicious grape, but they’re coming out with new flavors almost every month.)

We have easy financing for those on fixed incomes, but own their own homes. It’s called a ‘reverse mortgage’ and the founders got the idea from the insurance industry – it’s NEVER BEEN AVAILABLE  from a supplement company before!

Think about that! They’re bringing in talent from totally different industries to call on fresh ideas and new strategies! They really care about us, you have:

-TOTAL UPLINE GUARANTEE – ALL THE SUPPORT YOU ASK FOR (for customers of the main product)
-GUARANTEED INCOME – it will last you the rest of your life, or your money back! NO OTHER COMPANY DOES THIS
-YOUR OWN “USER REAL NETWORK” (URN) when you buy the metabolism accelerator upgrade pkg (discount code ‘crem8′ on the signup page)

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Look, it’s not every day that an opportunity like this one comes along. I’m getting on with this while they’re still taking new reps – no telling how long the opportunity will be this jaw-dropping.

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2-10-09