Listen to maverick share his personal story about how he discovered the magical power of hypnosis and eventually became a Certified Hypnotist.
When people first meet me, they think I am a quirky technical geek type who enjoys talking bits and bytes or going down deep analytical rabbit hole discussion about machine learning algorithms or programming techniques. And then, when I tell them I am a certified hypnotist, they are shocked at first, but then they are intrigued and want to know how someone like me got in hypnotism and eventually became a hypnotist.
Well, the truth is, I was exposed to hypnosis at a very early age. We were living in the midwest are of the United States and my dad worked for IBM and was always at his office or traveling around the world on business and, so, my sister and I were primarily raised during those early years by my mother. When I was about nine or ten years old, my mom started having issues dealing with some situations in her life and decided to seek expert help from a doctor. The doctor, of course, prescribed some medicine to help her cope with her situations and also referred her to a therapist as well.
After a few years, she began to cope with her situations and eventually got better. I could tell because when it all started, my mom was usually sad and depressed and after all these therapy sessions, she seemed happy again. In some ways, it was like a miracle transformation and I remember I was about 13 or so and I asked her how all those session worked. How did therapy help her change from being sad to being happy again. I wanted to know because I suppose in some ways I was starting to feel sad myself as a pre-teen and I wanted to be happy again, too.
I remember her pulling out this old shoe box full of cassette tapes, each marked with a date of the session. She told me her doctor had recorded every therapy session and let her have them. He also told her to re-listen to any of them whenever she started feeling sad again. Then she told me I could listen to one, if I wanted. So I took one of the cassettes and placed it into my portable tape player and pressed play.
What I heard changed my life.
The doctor on the tape started instructing my mom to relax and to breathe and then told her that she said she would soon by going into a deep sleep. As I listened, I started to connect the dots and realized I had seen this before in a movie once. A man was waving a gold watch in front of this person while asking them to stare at the watch as it swung back and forth, back and forth, while he told them they were "getting sleepy, getting very sleepy".
This was my introduction to hypnosis and from that very moment I was intrigued and wanted to know more. So I studied and read about hypnosis anywhere and anyway I could. Back then, we did not have amazon to order a book online, but we did have a public library. So I would check out books on hypnosis and learned as much as I could about it because if it could help transform a sad person into a happy person, well then that was a skill I wanted to have.
A few years past and now I was in high school. I remember being in math class meeting this kid who's father was a psychologist who often used hypnosis in his practice as well. I became friends with him and he showed me how his dad had taught him how to hypnotize people to help them change their bad habits, like smoking cessation, or over-eating, etc. He also showed me a hypnotic script that he used to help him study better and remember things for test, such as formulas and geometry concepts. I was was like "Duh!" I should be doing this, too!" So i did. I start writing my own hypnotic scripts to help me with my own studying habits and memorizing habits and I so became a straight-A student.
As luck would have it, the next year, our high school had a guest stage hypnotist come and demonstrate the power of hypnosis to our whole school. We all assembled in the gymnasium and watched as this normal-looking man in a suit picked out a few people from the audience, brought them on-stage, gave them some commands, and started having them act out some strangely unusual and hilarious situations. It was at this point I knew I wanted to be on stage too, but not as one of the kids who were clutching like chickens. No. I wanted to be the hypnotist.
And I did.
I practiced and practiced and practiced. Then, while attending a huge party at a friend's house, I asked if anyone wanted to be hypnotized. Six fellow classmates raised their hands. I took them to a back bedroom of my friends house and induced them all into a trance, which took about 30 minutes. I gave them each and action command and a keyword to trigger their action and another keyword to stop their action and return them back to normal.
For example, I told one of them that when I said "Peanut Butter" their tongue would become stuck to the roof of their mouth and they would not be able to unstick it until I said the word "Unstick". I told another kid that when I said the word "Hot" his seat would become so hot that he would not be able to sit in that spot anymore until I said the word "Cool".
So then I brought them back to the party and throughout the night I say a keyword during normal conversation and kept the fun going.
Of course, after high school I got a normal job working for a large corporation as a programmer and never pursued the life of a professional stage hypnotist.
However, I never stopped practicing hypnosis or learning about hypnotism and a few years ago I finally got my certification and as some of you are aware, I still occasionally help others stop smoking, over-eating, stay focused, have more confidence, etc., because it feels good to help others with vocational issues.
So that is my story, I hope it was enlightening and I hope it paints clear picture to help explain why I started using hypnotic language in my meetings with clients and customers, or with my managers or friends and family. I use it everywhere. And so do you because....
I believe we are all hypnotists, but most of us just don't know it yet.
And a few of us are really good at it.
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