Conversational Mastery and the Art of Change with Steve Roehm

In this episode of AWAKEN, Ryan DeJonghe sits down with Steve Roehm, a master hypnotist and coach widely recognized in the professional community (including a massive following on Reddit) for his "no-nonsense," conversational approach to transformation. Steve shares his philosophy on why the best hypnosis doesn't look like "hypnosis" at all—it looks like two people having a profound, life-changing conversation. They discuss how to strip away the clinical fluff and get straight to the heart of what drives human behavior and change.

Key Discussion Points
The Reddit Legend: Steve reacts to his reputation as the "hypnotist's hypnotist" and explains how his style evolved from complex techniques to simple, powerful conversation.

Conversational Alchemy: Discover how Steve uses everyday language to induce deep trance states and facilitate breakthroughs without the need for formal "eyes-closed" inductions.

The Power of "Just Talking": Why some of the most profound shifts happen when the client doesn't even realize they are "doing hypnosis," and how to maintain that level of natural engagement.

Removing the Friction: Steve breaks down how to identify the specific mental blocks that stop people from succeeding and how to "unstick" them through strategic questioning.

Authenticity in Practice: A deep dive into why being a "real human" in the room is more effective than playing the role of a stiff, clinical professional.

Memorable Quotes
"The most powerful trance isn't the one where you're asleep; it's the one where you're finally awake to who you actually are."

"I don't 'do' hypnosis to people. I have conversations that allow people to stop doing the things that aren't working for them."

Special Segment: Hypnotic Gift
Stay tuned until the very end for a special hypnotic gift from Steve Roehm. He leads a masterful conversational journey designed to help you shift your perspective on a current challenge and step into a more resourceful version of yourself.

(Note: While this segment is conversational, the shifts can be deep. Please listen when you can safely focus on the internal experience.)

Episode Timestamps
00:00:15 – Introduction: How Reddit led Ryan to Steve Roehm

00:06:50 – Beyond the Certification: Finding your true voice as a hypnotist

00:14:30 – The Art of the Informal Induction: Why "Just Talking" works

00:26:45 – Identifying the "Glitch" in the client's narrative

00:40:20 – The Mechanics of Conversational Change

00:55:10 – Steve’s advice for practitioners: Stop trying so hard

01:04:15 – Hypnotic Gift: The Conversational Shift Session

01:07:30 – Final thoughts and where to find Steve’s training

Connect with Steve Roehm
Official Website: steveroehm.com

Mastery Training: Check out Steve’s programs for advanced conversational hypnosis.

Connect with Ryan DeJonghe
If you want to experience a "magic conversation" that helps you move past your own limits, reach out to me:

Website: trancewell.help

Email: ryan@trancewell.help

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

All right. Welcome everyone. We got Steve Rain here with us. He is uh a little backstory. When I went on to when I went on Reddit looking to further my skills in hypnosis, I got all these different certifications. And I was like, who should I study? Who's your ideal hypnotist, the guy that's working magic with his clients? And without doubt, everyone from Reddit is saying, go to Steve Rain. He is awesome. He's just he just talks to people and things happen. So welcome, Steve. Thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Hey, Ryan. Honestly, I didn't even know I was on Reddit until you told me that. So uh You're not, you're not.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

People, people are uh mentioning you. That's what it is. Like the hit hypnosis community, the hypnotherapist, they're all looking at your videos, your trainings, and they're like, this guy knows his stuff, and we want to know how he does it. What do you call it? It's like conversational alchemy or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Yeah, that's kind of what I kind of what I've termed it now. Yeah. Um, it's it's really just a culmination of all kinds of things that I've put together over the years and things that I've discovered. Oh, uh, because I really like the the conversational approach. Right. It's it's much more fun to me than good than shut up and close your eyes. Uh let me let me read this thing at you. Uh yeah. Uh, I'm not a fan of scripts, by the way. So uh yeah, I've had a tendency to offend people over the years because of that. Um, but but I think there's a huge disservice if you're not paying attention to your clients because things can happen really quickly if you're paying attention. And if you're trying to decide what you're gonna say next to tell them what they need to change, then you're you're really missing the whole point of of helping somebody make a real transformation, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Spot on. And that reminds me of what Erickson was really good at and doing that, being able to calibrate and read the person's cue. So the question for you though is who are your heroes and change work and hypnosis?

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Uh well, I mean, Uncle Milton, of course. Uh Uncle Milton, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, it all starts right there, doesn't it? It's uh, but you know, Richard Bandler, of course. Uh we had a conversation about that a couple of days ago.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Um yeah, let's rewind it for the people that weren't weren't there. Let's bring them into let's let's go into the time machine and go back and go to that conversation. So, you younger, how did you come upon Bandler?

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Uh probably some bootleg VHS tape.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Uh I mean what made you what made you where in yeah, of course, and where in your life were you when you said, Okay, I need this?

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Um well I I I think I found out about NLP in the mid-90s, but I had no idea what the hell it was. Uh, you know, I really didn't pay much attention to it. Uh, I was a bit I was a mess in the late 90s personally, and used hypnosis to quit smoking, and got really intrigued by the whole personal development idea. And and I I was reading all this stuff and watching these videos about reading scripts at people and memorizing things and go do this and do this and they'll do that. I'm like, that's all great, but I just feel like there's something bigger than this. And I discovered some book on Ericsson, and I'm like, this is really pretty incredible that he's just kind of talking to people. And uh, and of course, then somewhere along the line came that uh that VHS tape of Richard Bandler. And I I think it was some course that he was teaching back in the late 80s, and he said something that really it just kind of stuck. Well, it didn't stick with me in time because I didn't know what the hell he said. Uh what the fuck was that? Uh I hope it's okay if I uh if I if I'm me on your podcast.

SPEAKER_02 3:53

Yes, please be you.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

I don't know what the fuck did he say. Uh and I had to rewind it and rewind it and rewind it, and it just blew my mind. This one sentence, uh I realized when I heard it that that's exactly the missing piece, not this, not the statement itself, but what the the the idea that constructed it. And what he said was, your unconscious can forget to remember what isn't important about what it is that you don't know that we didn't do. And I went, what the fuck did you say? And I rewound it and I went, okay, I what what?

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Yeah, even today is that even like today, seeing that statement, hearing it over and over, reading it, it's still I still get lost about two words in. I'm like, I try to break it down and diagram it, and it's just a bright sentence, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

Well, it's but that's the point of what's happening here. It's not about the sentence, it's about what it does because it creates a short circuit, right? Right? Your brain goes and you go, what the hell's going on? And it creates this level of confusion that that gets you out of the way for a moment, where we can actually introduce a suggestion or an idea or something that we want the mind to connect to. Um, I heard Chase Hughes mention this on a short video. He's talking about uh L. Run Hubbard, uh, and and it was called the the Alice in Wonderland effect, where you create enough confusion that that people don't know what's going on, and then you give them something to grasp that makes a little more sense. So basically, I'm using the same technique that created Scientology. I don't know if that's good or not. Uh I have good intention though. Uh, there is a difference.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

Uh yeah, I came from just a little back history. I came, I used to be a preacher in white sera cult. So yeah, using some of these techniques, now I'm using them for good.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Yeah, well, it was uh what was it? Uh the patterns, uh patterns one and two. Uh Banler Grinder that wrote uh well, I can't remember the full name of the books now, uh the hypnotic language patterns of Dr. Milton H. Erickson or something like that. Um, those books were supposedly sold by the case to Oral Roberts University. And they denounced hypnosis. Uh right. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But but that that statement that Bandler said really just kind of it not only did it twist my head, it changed my direction. Yeah. And and I started to recognize that there's something really important within what that was, and I didn't know I didn't know how to structure it because I didn't know what was going on at the time. And um, I ran across uh Igor Lidahovsky. Uh Igor is a good friend of mine now. I I became a student of his, met him in 2007 or 8, I can't remember now, in Palm Springs, uh, at a training he was doing out there. And uh and he he he put a title to it called Mind-Bending Language. I'm like, oh, that's interesting. And I started playing around with it and got good at it, and that's really been the foundation of kind of what I do now is get people the hell out of their way for a moment so they can get some new perspective on where they are and what's going on, and break down the ideation of the way they're holding on to their problem. So if we can restructure the problem and the way they're thinking about it, then the problem doesn't exist the way it did. And now, even when they try to consider it, it doesn't make sense anymore. Right?

SPEAKER_01 7:44

And I'm I'm soaking it in because you naturally do this type of language now. It just comes out of you. It does. And to go back to before you're talking about like, okay, Erickson's just talking to people, and then a lot of people they see my videos and they're like, okay, well, you're just talking. How does just talking help? And then they compare it naturally to therapy. You could go to therapy for 10 years and be the same person. So, how is this different than therapy?

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Uh, well, with therapy, all they're doing is focusing on the problem, primarily. And I think that's a great way to perpetuate a business if you're a therapist. All you do is focus on the problem. That's all you're gonna get. In fact, it's gonna amplify it typically. Yeah, because you know, most people go into a traditional therapist office and they talk about their problem for 50 minutes and they're like, sorry, your time's up, I'll see you next week. And their their neurons are lit up like freaking Christmas trees now, like shitty Christmas trees. Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Like the Charlie Brad tree with all the lights wrapped up. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Right. But but we have these these amazing association-making machines between our ears, and our minds, our brains will associate the experience we're having with the experience we're having. So when you walk out into the world, all of a sudden you have this massive anxiety because you've been talking all about your problem for an hour, and now you walk outside and you wonder why six months later you have a generalized anxiety, right? Because it's triggered by everything at this point, right? Right? So, but but if you're always focused on the problem, that's all you're ever gonna get. So I'm solution focused. I want P I need to figure out where people want to go before I even get to the problem, honestly. When I start a conversation with somebody, where do you what do you want on the other side of this? When this has already changed, assuming everything we've done is already done, and you're on the other side of this looking back at you. What will be different then when you think about it now?

SPEAKER_01 9:44

And what's the main answer you get? Because like what I found is they yeah, they they and then and it seems like when I'm asking people similar questions, they don't really know. They've been living in this anxiety or whatever you want to call it for so long, they have no idea. So then I start rewinding. Okay, so when's the last time you can remember where you didn't have this?

SPEAKER_00 10:06

What did you go back to that yet? I don't even think about that yet. Yeah, so how because the thing is, if you're thinking about not thinking about it, you're still thinking about it.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

True. So then how do you get them to not think about it and and start to envision what they actually want?

SPEAKER_00 10:21

Uh well, almost every time I get the same response. I don't want, I don't want to feel, I don't want to do, I'm not going to be, you know, all the same, it's all rear view mirror shit.

SPEAKER_02 10:31

I'm like, okay, yeah, it really is.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

Yeah, you know, and if you're driving through life doing 90 miles an hour, staring in the rear view mirror, you're gonna hit something. Uh because you have no design of where you're headed, and when people say, Well, I don't know what I want, like the fantastic. This is a perfect place to start. So now the field is blank. So when you think about that out there, now what do you want to create for yourself? Oh, yes. If if everything that we do today changes that trajectory just enough, so now you're starting to think about it. Yep. I'm planting seeds the whole time. I don't know if you're beware of this. You'll have to go back and watch this later.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Uh it's like that movie Tenet where it's like it goes forward one way, but the whole movie is going backward at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

I've already finished the podcast. I know exactly what you're gonna say. Oh no, um, but but it kind of like that really, because we want to start with the end result, right? I I want to start to expand their imagination because people are like, Well, I can't I can't think about that. I'm like, it's your imagination. All you do is imagine, it can be anything you want, make it as grandiose as you would like it to be, right? Because why not? It's just your imagination, right? And if you're limiting your imagination, you're limiting everything else in your life. Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Do you get them to embody that? Like, let's say they they say, I just want freedom or whatever they label it.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

Well, first off, what is freedom?

SPEAKER_01 12:00

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

See, people do it.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

Exactly. Yeah, and so people that do clean language are like, you know, to each person, yeah. So do you start asking questions? Like, what is that freedom? Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

So what so what does freedom even mean? Yeah. Well, I want to be able to do what I want, which is what? What would you like to do? I mean, if you got complete freedom, what would you really like to be doing? Well, I just want to spend my time with people I enjoy, like who? Oh, okay, so fantastic. What will you be doing? And I want to get into some details of some things because I want their mind to attach to those positive outcomes. People say, I want to be healthy. What the hell what does healthy mean? Right. You know, it it's healthy, healthy has has different meanings to many people. I want to be rich. What does that mean? You know, people who live in a box, 20 bucks would be make them rich today, right? Right, right. You know, but but start to define what those things are for for themselves, yeah. So they understand their a direction to go and get more specific with it. You know, I kind of think about it like going on a vacation. You know, if I ask you where you're gonna go on vacation, it's not like you're gonna go, well, I'm not gonna be here and I'm not gonna be doing this.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

Yeah, I'm not gonna be doing that vacation until 20 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

Yeah, I'm not gonna be here sweeping the house, or you know, I'm not gonna be out here doing this. I'm not gonna be what the hell does that mean?

unknown 13:23

Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

So, well, okay, well, I'm gonna go to Florida. Well, fantastic. Florida's a big state. Where are you going? You going inland? You're gonna hit a beach. I'm gonna hit a beach. Well, there are a lot of them. Which one do you want to go to? Yeah. You get more and more and more specific because I want to start to drill their mind into some outcomes that they can possibly achieve and start to open up the possibilities of everything they haven't been considering.

SPEAKER_01 13:45

So I'm wondering, you as a person that comes, you came in to quit smoking. So then what was your dream? What was your future that you wanted after you stopped that?

SPEAKER_00 13:56

Oh, back then I had no idea, man. Not a clue. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think what what happened when uh when I got into hypnosis, I decided I want to be the best at what I do. And even then, I was still looking at Florida. I had no idea what that meant yet. You know, I just knew that's the direction I'm headed.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

You know, that's fascinating. And that's where you met Igor.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

Uh well, I actually uh I met Cliff, his his marketing guy first. Okay. Because when I first started this, I had no idea how to build a business. Right. I barely knew how to hypnotize people, but but I knew if I was gonna hypnotize people, I needed people to hypnotize. Right. And internet marketing was really kind of just getting going. Uh, I bought some product and I got a a uh got a membership to the internet marketing club, which Clifford me ran. Cliff Cliff is Igor's marketing guy.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

So and it was actually pretty decent for for 2004, early 2004-ish uh information on marketing. It was it, it was it was a big library stuff, so it was it was kind of cool. I learned a lot in there, but he ended up connecting with this guy named Igor, and and uh and and finally talked him into working with him. Oh, that's that's a whole story I'm not gonna get into right now. But uh, but they offered some some hypnosis product, and we're like, Well, I'm a hypnotist and you're a marketer, I'm gonna buy your product. Yeah, so I got the product, I'm like, this is actually pretty cool stuff because he was starting to get into the conversational hypnosis, and he hadn't I hadn't really gotten into mind-bending language yet at that point, but I knew that he was doing some interesting stuff with it. So I got another one of his products and another one of his products, and he offered a really cheap training in Palm Springs. And at the time I was broke, so it was perfect. Uh so I went to went to Palm Springs and stayed a holiday in Express so I could be great. Uh, and uh and I learned a lot and met Igor while I was there, and uh walked away from there and had no idea what the hell I was doing. It was like I walked out, and what it's like I walked out of a dream. Right. And I'm like, what the hell just happened over the past six days? But I noticed as I got back to Nashville that my skills had changed. Something interesting had shifted in the way I was working and the way I was speaking to people.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

How did you know that your skills had changed?

SPEAKER_00 16:31

Oh, I could feel it. I can I can the results that I was getting with my clients, the connection I had with my clients, because that that's that's where all this begins, anyway. Right. In fact, I've got a training coming up in two weeks from today, uh, probably about the time you're gonna release this, everybody. So sorry you missed it. Um but there'll be more to come. Oh, yeah, yeah, most likely. But but the thing is the first thing I teach is how to connect with people. Because if you don't have a connection, you have nothing with hypnosis. You're basically just you're you're reading at people, which is the problem with most 90% of the hypnotist out there.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

Uh I like the quotation marks for those just listening. He put up these big quotation marks that took up like half the screen.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

For those of you who are watching, uh, maybe call me. Uh if you're offended by that. If you are offended, then yes, I mean you.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

Uh I hear that dog yelping that got hit by the shoe. So that's fascinating. I I like how you're talking about how you felt the difference. And it makes me wonder how much is it, how much do you buy into the conscious mind versus the unconscious mind? Because there's some different schools of thought in that.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

You know, I I I I think there is a separation, yes. Uh the way I look at the conscious mind, it's it's really it's really our attention. Honestly, we we think we make choices through our conscious mind, but it's still based on unconscious processes, stories, beliefs, programs. You know, we're not really making choices. Uh those choices are made for you when you were four. Uh some of them. I'm not gonna say everything. Uh but um I I I believe that the unconscious, subconscious, other than conscious mind, if you will, what if you want to call it that, is is just the programs. It's the beliefs, it's the stories we've created, it's who we think we are. It's the operating system behind the screen.

unknown 18:35

Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

Got it. We think we we think we're the screen. We actually we think we're we think we're the whole computer, right? But we're really just aware of the screen.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

So they when you went to Igor, did he update your operating system? Is that what happened?

SPEAKER_00 18:51

Uh I yeah, well, yeah, yeah, I'm sure he did. Yeah, and and and taught me how to do it.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

Um taught you how they do it, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:59

I I think I think Igor's real real um real skill sits in his ability to to see and recognize systems and put them together in a way that fits. Uh what I do is a bit more organic than that. I've taken what he's seen as principles and I've turned them into functional approaches that are weird and organic, honestly. Honestly, if you go through my training, you're not gonna have any idea what the hell is happening about midweek. Uh and and there is a very specific reason for that.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

Fascinating. And that's probably why Reddit kept saying your name, because there's no one else doing what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

I don't think there is.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

Yeah. Um so the people that take your training, are they able to do what you do?

SPEAKER_00 19:50

If they stick with it.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

You know, I I look at it like music. Yeah, yeah. I can teach you three chords on a guitar this afternoon. Right. Easily. Easily here's three chords, right? And you can go play ACDC, and if you play it a lot, you can actually get on a stage somewhere. Right. But you can spend the rest of your life learning the nuances of music and how those six strings fit and how those octaves go together, and how how everything that becomes music, and that's what I look at here, you know. Uh I but the problem is that most people are reading it, people, so I I you know they're kind of like cover bands. Uh yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, here's here's let me read you somebody else's shit that didn't work before.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

The Milly Vanilla of hypnotists, kind of, yeah, really.

SPEAKER_00 20:48

I mean, you're just you're lip-syncing some shit that doesn't even mean anything to you. I mean, contextually, you may have something to do with your client's problem, but does it have anything to do with your with your client?

SPEAKER_02 20:59

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

Right. And and again, we have to have a connection, and if we pay enough attention to what's really going on in front of us, we can adjust our approach in the moment, create enough confusion to change the way somebody's holding on to an idea. Yes, offer them a new way of experiencing it, test it to see if anything has changed. If it hasn't, that's fantastic. We do it again. And it's just this ongoing flow of organic movement that's just a lot of fun, I think.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

You nailed it, the fun. And that's why I love working with clients in real time, because like I might go in there and be like, okay, we want to do XYZ, and 99.9% of the time, that never happens.

SPEAKER_00 21:47

Oh, I don't I don't expect anything. After working with as many clients as I have, I whatever's gonna happen is gonna happen next. Right. I didn't even go go ahead. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

No, I I I love what you're saying. And you're talking about so you know the three chords. How do you practice and learn the nuances of move one finger and see what happens?

SPEAKER_00 22:11

And see what happens. Yeah. Maybe it'll come out great. Maybe it'll be dissonant and it doesn't feel right. You just don't do it again. Right. But but the thing is to be able to do this, you need iterations, multiple, multiple, multiple iterations. You know, when I was first starting mind-bending language, I would sit down with a problem and just change the syntax. And one of the examples, I'll give you one example that Igor used in his training. So if I say the dog chases the cat under the table, you get a picture in your mind, right? Right. Okay. If I say the cat chases the dog under the table, again, a whole different set of circumstances here, but it's exactly the same words. Okay. Now, if I say the table chases the cat under the dog, now we've stepped into this surreal world that doesn't really make sense, but it's it's still exactly the same words.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

Right. Back to Wonderland.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

Exactly. We're just changing syntax around and moving things around and doing it in a way that guides somebody through this kind of odd little experience. Because when you stop thinking about who you've been being and you just realize now that you're only more of everything that you want to be now that isn't what you weren't, so you can focus more now in the future, aren't you? Starting to think about what it's like when you've already changed something inside. Because that's where real that's where life is really happening, right?

SPEAKER_01 23:34

Okay, Battler.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

But but the way I practice this is just practice it over and over. And then I honestly I couldn't even tell you what I just said. I have no idea.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

Do you think the subconscious or the unconscious, my whatever you want to call it, picks up on that and knows what you said?

SPEAKER_00 23:55

Uh I whether it does or doesn't is irrelevant. I'm trying to get you the hell out of the way. But but I'm also introducing ideas in there. Yeah. So so they're embedded suggestions that I'm throwing in in the middle of it that I may pause for a moment and let you really uh kind of wallow in it for a second before I even move on from there.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

Yeah. I love that. And it it brings to mind what about intention? So yeah, is that an energetic thing, or is that a purposeful like design word?

SPEAKER_00 24:26

And call it whatever you want to. Uh is it energetic? Yeah, I think so. Maybe I don't know. Uh I I think we're energetic beings, is what I've been told, and I can see you know things like this when I'm in certain situations in my life.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

Uh certain situations, certain uh certain medicines, yeah, certain states of mind. Certain plant matter.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

Um so yeah, is it energetic? Yeah, I think so. Uh is it intentional? Absolutely. Because when I sit down with a client, I want to understand what the end result is, so I have the full intention of getting them there as quickly as possible. I don't like working on things, I like working through them. Right. Let's get past the bullshit. Let's get to the other side. It doesn't mean life isn't gonna be shitty down the road because it's life. Guaranteed you're gonna have terrible days. Okay, but the thing is you've survived everything you've done already. Right. Congratulations.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

I love that line. Like, you got this far, you made it past all those obstacles.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

Yeah, but you're still holding on to the shit back there that hurt you at some point that really doesn't even matter now because you survived it, and it made you stronger because you did. Right. Unless you feel so damaged inside that you just want to carry it with you for the rest of your life, and that's entirely up to you. You know, there are ways of letting stuff go when you find the right person to help you do it. And that's you can you can carry your own problems for the rest of your life if you want to, though.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

If you want, yeah. I I love that through the power of language and whatever that that certain ingredient is that convinces people to finally just let go of what's what they've been holding on that's hurting them.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

People want to feel safe and they have to stop. You know, it's like being in a dream. You jump off the cliff, you're gonna fly. You're gonna be fine, but you gotta trust it enough to let go. People get their their problems become their identity sometimes. Who who am I gonna be if I don't have this pain that I could wallow around in and show everybody? Right. You know, they go through life and they step in a pile of dog shit and go, hey, did you see the shit of my shoe? Look, look at the shit I stepped, it was way back, it's all over my shoe. Like, get a fucking stick.

SPEAKER_01 26:53

Yeah, I um again, it reminded of a Reddit post where this guy put a hot dog into this epoxy, and he just had it for like, I'm going to post what it looks like after a month. So I can imagine people stepping and shit over their life and then pouring epoxy in it. So I always have this to show off. Right. This is my trophy on my shelf. Look at it.

SPEAKER_00 27:14

Man, people call me with this stuff every day. Yeah. Oh, this thing happened to me 10 years ago. Yeah. Oh, somebody was mean to me in second grade. Oh, you know, and I get it because at that point, especially as kids, we have nothing but emotional lenses to look through. We don't have perspective.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

Right. And perspective, and you mentioned that analogy of you're on the cliff, maybe you're you know in the dream, you know you can fly. How do you know you can fly in real life?

SPEAKER_00 27:46

You're not gonna die.

SPEAKER_01 27:48

Well, I mean, if you literally step off a cliff, maybe if you literally step off a cliff, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

And if you get to that point, you should call me first. Okay. Yeah, you know, if you're standing on the cliff and you need some help, I've been there, I get it. I understand what it's like to want to walk off a cliff. I've I've literally been there twice in my life.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

Yeah, we're going to loop back to that. Don't you worry. I'm just wondering, how do you it's a little like we'll put do a teaser trailer for your story? Uh there's an otter involved, folks. Everyone loves otters, everyone loves otters. All right, so so you're taught you you're working with a client, they want whatever it is for their future selves. And sometimes there's just that belief that it's possible. What do you do, or how do you help them get that belief to know that it's possible?

SPEAKER_00 28:43

Man, that's a that's a question I don't know that I can answer right now because it's so in the moment. You know, because it depends on everybody, it depends on on every individual because I never know how they're gonna take in information, how they're experiencing the problem they're having. Where is it rooted in their neuroogy? Uh, you know, uh there's so many factors that can play into this. That's why I said, you know, I can I can teach you how to do I can teach you how to play three chords in six days. You know, that's that's my basic training. You know, I'm gonna I'm gonna teach you how to play some cool stuff and you can go off and jam. If you want to get into the nuances, man, it's gonna take you years. You know, I I've got a year-long mentoring program, uh and and it gets pretty deep. So, you know, because I I I think that's important because you you need to understand the little nuances and how to approach things. And when somebody shows up, what do you do? Fuck, I don't know, try something. I mean, a lot of times that's what it is, right? But but it's based on a on a full box of a full toolbox that I have of things that I've played with over the years, and sometimes just these intuitive thoughts that come up, like I'll give that a shot to see what happens.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

Yeah, and you mentioned try something, and I've heard this quote somewhere like sometimes the worst decision is no decision, yeah. And maybe they're holding on to that pile of shit they stepped on and they're like staring at it, and they're like, they're stuck, they're stuck in the show. Oh, it's terrible. Oh my god, it stinks. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

Oh yeah, so I mean, we really I I I think as as hypnotherapist, therapist coaches, if you're not curious and willing to step off the ledge yourself in the moment, how can you expect anybody else to be adventurous?

SPEAKER_01 30:37

That's a great quote. I I could see that on Instagram now, have your face on it, have that little quote there.

SPEAKER_00 30:45

But I mean the thing, well, the problem is that people get stuck in these ideas they've been told by somebody else. Right. They go through some through some shitty training by somebody who barely knows what they're doing, or somebody who's been doing the same things for decades and still think they're doing it right, which I'm gonna get into that, but that's a great point because I've asked that recently how do you know if you're not doing something right? Results. Are you getting them? If you're great at if you're getting great results, keep doing what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

Some people think they're getting great results with these scripts. They're like, they feel good. They're like, I read a script, that person paid me so much money, and they walked away.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

I read them the same script 12 different times every week. And I gave them a recording of it so they can listen to it at home, too. So three months later, problem isn't there anymore now. Uh right.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

How do I because that's one of my fears is that I don't want to turn into that. I don't think I'm that way. Exactly. So, what do you want? Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

Do you want to be a magician? Do you want to be a wizard in the moment? If that's what you want, then focus on finding every tool that will help you get there and mix things together and see what comes out of it. Do it backwards and see what happens. You know, uh, just start playing with things. That's really what I've done. Man, I've made my whole career out of play. Because your clients don't have a clue what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 32:18

I love that. I love the thing that I went on this men's retreat and they did this whole like visualization to find your essence. They used to call it a spirit animal, but now they call it your inner essence. And mine came up as playfully, yeah. Playful curiosity, and that fits me so well because you mentioned being playful and also being curious. Like, what happens if and you mentioned that I the three chords, what happens if I do this? Oh, that doesn't sound good. Or oh, that sounds good.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

All of a sudden I have a seventh. Yeah, well, that's great. I can add it to this. Oh, there's a minor. Oh, fantastic, yeah. And and you start learning new little things. Yeah. So yeah, go ahead. Yeah. Well, I was gonna say, even within that playfulness, you have to be able to balance yourself between maternal and paternal, too, if you're gonna help somebody move through a problem. Or at least I do. I mean, I say say more for those that are unfamiliar with the differences between paternal and I'm I'm very nurturing sometimes, uh, but I will also hold up the mirror and smack somebody physically metaphorically across the face. Oh, I'm gonna smack your ass now because you're not paying attention.

SPEAKER_01 33:29

Um it reminds me of Erickson with the guy that uh he just insulted, insulted, insulted until he got up and walked again.

SPEAKER_00 33:38

You just have to know when to play the right cards. Um, you know, I I don't put up with my clients' bullshit. They put up with their shit a long enough. That you know, they don't want it anymore, so why should I put up with it? Uh so yeah, it really depends on the moment and where what they need. You know, I'm not gonna be a jackass when they're crying in the middle of something. Oh right, but I might be a jackass at some point, and they may not like what I say to them. And uh, you know, we don't always like the mirror when it's held up in front of us. But my clients don't pay me to be nice, they don't pay me to be their best friend, they pay me because they want to experience something different in their life, and I get them there. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 34:25

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

I'm just like me on the other side, you know.

SPEAKER_01 34:29

Well, you know, it's like um what's that guy from Shark Tank? Kevin Leary, he goes by Mr. Millionaire, whatever his name is, Mr. Fantastic. But he's like, he worked for Steve Jobs. He's like, Steve Jobs was not a nice man, you know.

SPEAKER_00 34:43

I'm not gonna be I'm not gonna be like that.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:46

It's like I'm not gonna be a dick.

SPEAKER_01 34:49

It's like a balance getting shit done and then yeah, being so like a wet noodle and so soft, you know, somewhere in the middle.

SPEAKER_00 34:57

I want to be fatherly, I don't want to be stepfatherly.

SPEAKER_01 35:00

Oh that's a good as a stepfather here, I'm like, oh you know, but you know, I no, I just I want to show up for my clients fully. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:11

And whatever they need to help them get through whatever the problem they have.

SPEAKER_01 35:14

And it goes back to what you're saying at the very beginning, is you called it something else, but in my mind I I labeled it as rapport.

SPEAKER_00 35:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:23

And you're you you're showing them, and people pick up on that in like what milliseconds that you have the best interest, you actually care for that person.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

Yeah. I th I think my clients would tell you that.

SPEAKER_01 35:34

And that comes from somewhere, and that goes back to the otter story because you've been there yourself.

SPEAKER_00 35:41

Indeed, I have.

SPEAKER_01 35:43

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:44

Yeah. Yeah. That guy back there that I used to be, yeah. I really respect him for the the shit he went through and the fact that he survived it and made uh made the right choices along the way. Even though even after all the wrong choices.

SPEAKER_01 35:59

And we mentioned about not holding on to the past, and yet sometimes sharing a story. So, what's the difference between saying I did you know this was horrible and holding on to that versus sharing a story that can help people?

SPEAKER_00 36:15

I don't live in it. Yeah, I'm not that guy.

SPEAKER_01 36:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:19

That guy was decades ago at this point, even yesterday. You know, hell, I can't even be the guy I was yesterday. I can only be the guy that I am now. So I don't see any point in holding on to his pain.

unknown 36:30

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:32

Yeah, okay. He had a he had a bad week. All right, so it's not gonna mean no, I'm fine. I God had a terrible week. I'm just gonna hold on to this for now.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

Uh I think we suspended people's curiosity enough. Do you mind sharing the the I don't know if I want to go there yet? Okay, that's fine.

SPEAKER_00 36:47

Yeah, we'll we'll keep playing with it. Yeah, yeah, just just hang out, you gotta watch the whole podcast. The whole thing or listen. Um, but no, I I think that it's important for people to recognize and have perspective on where they've come from. You know, uh the the the scared kid that I was because my dad was always angry, and I never knew what was gonna set him off. And even if it wasn't about me, it didn't matter because my little emotional lens picked it up as me. You know, so but but he survived it. That's right. And and and it made him me, so I can't really complain. I feel like I'm doing okay, you know?

SPEAKER_01 37:29

Yeah, it goes back to some of Ericsson's, even like talking to Bill Hannelin, he's talking about too how Bill's a friend of mine. You you take a person's what they may see as their largest liability, and it becomes their greatest strength. And so that story of being afraid as a kid or whatever shit you went through. Oh, yeah, gives you your greatest strength to move forward.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

I was I was terrified when I was uh I was afraid of being at home, honestly, which made me a good runner.

SPEAKER_01 38:04

There you go.

SPEAKER_00 38:06

I would get up every morning at five o'clock and go run until my dad went to work and uh then come home and get ready for school. And uh then after school, I would stay after school and run with a cross-country team. So I used to run like a hundred miles a week.

SPEAKER_01 38:18

So we'll just call you for a scump. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 38:20

Um, until I found other things in my life that slowed me down some. Um we don't need to get into all that. Uh there, yeah. Um but then I kind of fell into some depression, and uh yeah, it led me to really have some some bad have a bad perspective on myself and the world. And uh to the point where I really was damn near suicide. Oh I was right on the edge of suicide. Yeah, yeah. Uh in fact, literally twice in my life, I was a choice away. And uh, and yes, an otter saved my life one night. Uh it was um, uh, I'll go ahead and tell the story. So it really was a terrible, terrible, terrible night, man. It was it was like sideways rain. I was I had reached the end of my rope, and I don't, I couldn't even, I can't honestly right now I can't even tell you why. I don't remember why. Uh, but I was dealing with a lot of depression and I had for several years. People thought I was a happy guy, uh, because I wore the facade, and uh, but inside I was just not a happy person at all. And uh decided I was done. Like, all right, fuck this life sucks. I'm I'm gonna see what the next one's like. Uh, if there is one, I hope there's the next one. Uh and uh decided I was gonna jump in the Ohio River. And uh because I swim like a rock, I'm still not a strong swimmer, it's not my thing, but um yeah, I hear it's a fairly peaceful way to go, so I decided that's the way I'm gonna go. And um you're gonna say something.

SPEAKER_01 39:58

Well, two things popped up on my head. You said swim like a rock, and of course I think a Virginia Wolf who walked into the water with a pocket full of rocks. Yeah, and then yeah, it's just it's fascinating how your story resonates with me, and I don't want to like take away from it, but it's so true. Like, they're just that wondering, you know, that pain. You might not know where it comes. I imagine a lot of your clients come to you not knowing where their pain is coming from as well.

SPEAKER_00 40:30

Yeah, yeah, many times.

SPEAKER_01 40:31

Yeah, so back to the river.

SPEAKER_00 40:33

Yeah, I had no idea, man. I was I was uh I think I was engaged at the time uh in a bad relationship. Uh all we did was fight because that's all I knew was anger. You know, that's where I came from. So that that's what I saw is love was anger. And um, but yeah, I I actually rode my bike down to the river and uh I was standing next to the river and said, okay, and looking up to the sky for those of you who were listening. Uh I'm about to come home. If you want me to stay here, you better let me know. And an otter popped out of the water and it looked at me, and I don't know if it was shaking its head or whatever, just whatever it was doing. To me, it looked like nope. And I'm like, okay. And I got back on my bicycle and I rode home. And I lived to see another day. Um whether that was coincidence, whether that was God, whatever you want to call it, it was uh it was a moment of my life that was uh perfect timing. And uh, had that otter not popped up out of that water, I don't know that I would have saved thousands of lives.

SPEAKER_01 41:47

Just pausing, letting that sink in for everyone.

SPEAKER_00 41:50

You know, it's uh but the thing is, everybody here, everybody listening right now can be a catalyst for change. That's right. All you have to be is one step further than somebody else. The first person I helped quit smoking, and my life was still a disaster. Man, I was a mess. But I'd quit smoking. I was one step ahead of him.

unknown 42:13

That's it.

SPEAKER_00 42:14

And he asked me if I could help him quit smoking. I said, I don't know, let's find out. And he did. I'm like, that's pretty cool. And then a mutual friend of ours approached me and said, Man, you helped Jeffrey, can you help me? I'm like, I don't know, let's find out. And he did, and that was cool. And then a friend of his approached me and I didn't know him, so I charged him, and that's how the business started. And that was 7,000 plus smokers ago, plus you know, everybody else on top of that now.

SPEAKER_01 42:40

After you went home on your bike after seeing the otter. Then what? How did you man?

SPEAKER_00 42:47

I probably drank a beer, smoked a joint, sat back for a few minutes, went, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, you got my attention. Um yeah, no, from there I was still depressed, man. I I was still a mess. That was my early 20s, you know. Oh, yeah, I was still a disaster back then. In fact, I didn't even find hypnosis until I was uh 29. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:09

Interesting. So there's a path, like so you went from almost jumping into the river, yeah, nine years later finding hypnosis. Yeah, how much is it what do you put into like divine ordinance? Like, is there a path for us? Man, I we we create it on our own.

SPEAKER_00 43:30

I I think that we I think I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 43:37

That's a great answer.

SPEAKER_00 43:39

I I I could sit here and I could make some stuff up and I could tell you some things that I think is true, but really when it comes down to it, I'm not sure. Yeah, you know, I I know there's something bigger than us because I've seen it. Uh because certain substances will help you see beyond what you think you know. Oh, and I've I've I've communicated with something bigger than me. Many times I've had intuitive moments many times working with my clients. I've had intuitive moments being out of my motorcycle in various places that saved my life in different ways. Um so is it divine intervention? I man, I don't know. I think it's maybe it's all a dream and it's all a simulation anyway. Uh, you know, I really, yeah. I'm just I'm along for the ride.

SPEAKER_01 44:22

And you mentioned working with the clients, and that's interesting because I'm looking at Carl Jung and he's talking about the collective consciousness.

SPEAKER_02 44:30

Right.

SPEAKER_01 44:30

And you're in a session, not reading scripts, but when you're actually don't do that, when you're actually engaging with the other person, you enter this what we call a psychodynamic loop, or Jesus said where two or three are gathered together in my name. I'll be there in the presence of so whatever you want to call it, something's happening.

SPEAKER_00 44:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:54

Yeah. And so as the guide, you're the guide, you're the one step ahead of the person.

SPEAKER_00 45:01

The Sherpa.

SPEAKER_01 45:02

The Sherpa, you're right.

SPEAKER_00 45:04

I've been up and down this mountains several times at this point for many of them.

SPEAKER_01 45:07

And it feels like a game where you you kind of know where to lead them. Yeah. And at the same time, they're influencing you. So how do you and it does it go back to what you know? Like, how do you manage not to let them influence you with their pain?

SPEAKER_00 45:23

I don't know. Their pain doesn't exist. Most people are flailing around in three feet of water, they just don't know they can stand up. Right. I mean, you know, I they're I don't I don't need to get stuck in their story because that's all it is. They made it, they're here. Right. They can flail around for a little bit. I'll throw them a life preserver in a minute and grab a hold of that and see if that works out for you. Nope, that doesn't. Well, stand the fuck up then. Uh obviously, I'm not like quite like that. But um, yeah, I'm I'm just here to kind of honestly, I'm just playful with it, man. I have fun, I don't know where it's gonna go. I I I look for the best possible outcome that we can get. Hopefully, it all changes the first time we meet, which is true for most of my clients. Uh, I worked with a guy a few weeks ago with a with a problem, it took us seven minutes to get through it. Uh, we had a 90-minute session schedule now. He's like, What are we gonna do now? I'm like, Oh, shoot the shit. Uh to know the guy, signed up my other business.

SPEAKER_01 46:25

Uh that's amazing, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:29

So um, yeah, and and the thing is, it really comes down to being that connected with somebody and and and being curious enough and playful enough to see what's going to come out of whatever I say. Uh, and if what I use doesn't work, then I'll change change gears and we'll go a different direction.

SPEAKER_01 46:49

Do you consider what you do hypnosis or something else?

SPEAKER_00 46:53

Everything's hypnosis.

SPEAKER_01 46:54

Everything, right? So that's the thing that really, really pisses me off. Because like Fieberman met Spiegel or whatever the dude's name, some scientists in California, and then he goes on Joe Rogan, and he's like, Okay, Joe, lift up your eyes and then close them. Oh, your eyes didn't flutter, so you can't be hypnotized.

SPEAKER_00 47:15

Who hypnotized him to believe that shit?

SPEAKER_01 47:17

Uh but yeah, everything is hypnosis.

SPEAKER_00 47:21

I think that I think really what hypnosis is it's the act of your unconscious accepting a truth. It could be a relative or an absolute truth. So, you know, we we've got friends who do stage hypnosis, right? People get on stage, it's 95 degrees outside, they're freezing, right? It's a relative truth they're accepting for a moment of time. Kids, parents tell them shit all the time, boom, it becomes their truth. They just got hypnotized. Right. Every one of us has is ongoing. Hypnosis happens all the time. Right. If it changes your direction in life, I think we've you've been hypnotized.

SPEAKER_01 48:06

And you mentioned the stage stuff. I that's how I kind of got into this, is I used to, well, I talked about being a preacher, and I went to stand-up comedy.

SPEAKER_00 48:16

And I even I even had that you and Sam Kinison, huh?

SPEAKER_01 48:20

Um even Roseanne Barr. She was a preacher at one time.

SPEAKER_00 48:24

But then um I'm an ordained minister, but I there you go.

SPEAKER_01 48:29

And I had that thought as a comedian. I was like, okay, so people are in a trance on coming in. They're like, okay, I had to find parking, I just got in a fight, or they had these beliefs, you know, like whatever. And then they come into the comedy show and they're like stuck in those loops. So I was like, okay, how can I interrupt that pattern? Right.

SPEAKER_00 48:50

You you you get them moving through a scenario and then you change the the outcome to something they don't expect.

SPEAKER_01 48:55

Right. And then of course I went into stage hypnosis, and then so my thought is this these things like if their fingers get I use this as like James Stripped does this with uh the card, like the business card. I do street work, and then like, okay, if your fingers get stuck, if your mind can get your fingers stuck, imagine what your mind could get unstuck now. Right? And then but then I'm thinking, okay, so yeah, their stuckness was only temporary. How do we make the unstuckness permanent?

SPEAKER_00 49:28

Uh well, it has to be attached to something that means something to them. If there's no value attached to the future and what that can bring them, then it's not gonna be something that's gonna last. Now the value may be uh may be unconscious because people do all kinds of stupid shit. But there's value attached to it in some way, yeah. Every behavior has a benefit. I don't care what it is.

SPEAKER_01 49:59

That's fascinating. So to me, I I'm thinking of my you said the stepdad thing. So my you know, my fiance's kid, you know, he does some pretty stupid shit. So how old is he? 12, right?

SPEAKER_00 50:15

Oh well now that that and that that's there you go.

SPEAKER_01 50:18

And and yet there's some kind of value he gets off of it. We're like, don't don't ram your head into the wall. Boom, boom, boom. He rams his head into the wall.

SPEAKER_00 50:26

Could be attention, ongoing attention. Uh it could be moving his attention away from something he doesn't want to think about. You know, there's uh that that's what I'm always curious about. What are the what are those behaviors? What are the what do they mean to you? What are they doing for you? I understand what the hell they're doing to you. Yeah, what are they doing for you that you haven't thought about?

SPEAKER_01 50:49

Oh man. There's another Instagram post with your picture.

SPEAKER_00 50:58

But they all have a be they all have some benefit.

SPEAKER_01 51:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:01

And and if the benefit that they're serving doesn't benefit you anymore, it's time to change the behavior. You know, some behaviors are anchored in their 15-year-old mind, and now they're 45 and they've been doing the same shit for 30 years, and wonder why their life isn't where they wanted to be. Yeah, because you're 15 inside. Uh, at least your actions are moving in that direction constantly. Maybe it's safety, maybe it's security. You know, there's uh there's all kinds of things that behaviors do for people.

SPEAKER_01 51:33

It's interesting, you say that stuckness. So maybe a 45-year-old might be behaving in this 15-year-old pattern. I had a guy message me the other day saying 70, he's 70 years old. He's like, I don't know if it's worth it, you know, to change now. And what would you say to a person like that?

SPEAKER_00 51:53

Well, what if you got another 30 years left in you? Is it still not worth it? If you're gonna die tomorrow, man, go go go smoke some cigarettes. Uh I mean, why not? You know, shoot up some heroin, drop some ass, and see what it's all about. Uh you know, uh, at that point, who cares? Uh you don't know. What what if you what if you are gonna make it to 100 to five and you got 35 years ahead of you, is it worth changing it now? You know, I I think anything that's gonna improve your life is worth trying.

SPEAKER_01 52:26

Right.

SPEAKER_00 52:27

It doesn't matter how old you are.

SPEAKER_01 52:29

I love the fact that you keep going back to curiosity. That's a powerful lever.

SPEAKER_00 52:35

I talk about it a lot in my training too. Are you curious about my training now?

SPEAKER_01 52:42

Um, I know I am, I know, I am. Yeah, we'll we'll so you mentioned a one-day training, or you had something that's coming up in two weeks, but we've got a six-day training coming up. A six-day training, but you're you you had other trainings, and then we'll put this on the link.

SPEAKER_00 52:58

I do some workshops here and there. I've got I've got an ongoing uh one-year coaching program right now that may turn into more than that. We'll see. Uh, because you know, this thing just keeps getting deeper and deeper and deeper.

SPEAKER_01 53:12

Uh you got the voice down. Do you do you still do regular what we call trance hypnosis? And sure.

SPEAKER_00 53:21

I got I've got a toolbox full of tools, man. Sometimes I just want people to shut up, you know. Uh I'm tired, I'm tired of talking to you. Close your eyes. Uh it's a lot easier if you're not talking now.

unknown 53:32

Shh.

SPEAKER_00 53:35

Uh just get out of the way for a while. Uh, I need a break from you. Uh you do too. Oh, no, it really depends on what I'm doing. I mean, like my smoking program, I do a guided experience with that. Uh, but the first hour is all conversational hypnosis. They don't smoke by the time we get to that thing anyway. Uh it's really because they kind of expect it. Uh but I get 95% success in my smoking program in the first session, you know.

SPEAKER_01 54:05

That's amazing. I know a lot of people. That's that's gonna be my follow-up question. One was my mind instantly started comparing you to other people that do these tapes for smoking cessation, and I know their rates are not 95% like yours.

SPEAKER_00 54:22

Well, they're not paying attention to their clients, right? That's a different thing. Yeah, and again, I don't take everybody who calls me. If somebody calls me and says, make me quit smoking, it is unlikely we're gonna finish that conversation, or it's gonna be a very long conversation anyway. We're gonna finish it. Uh pretty shortly. Uh, when somebody calls me and says I'm ready to quit smoking, then now we're gonna have a conversation, we can discuss it. I'm like, I can't make you do anything. Hell, you've been doing it for 40 years. How can you you couldn't even make you stop doing it? How am I gonna make you just called me?

SPEAKER_01 54:57

Do you see there uh quitting smoking? Do you see there like a doorway that's something in front of the smoking? Like, for instance, anxiety.

SPEAKER_00 55:07

Do you work on the anxiety first and then the smoking, or do you uh well one clarification I don't work on anything, I work through problems.

SPEAKER_01 55:15

Uh work through I love the words. Well, we can look back to that's working through problems. That's that's key too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:23

Uh first off, cigarettes are an adult pacifier. That's all they are. It's they're just an adult pacifier. I I don't think the nicotine has anything to do with it. I don't think the chemicals have anything to do with it. I'm not saying they're not affecting the body by any means. They are, obviously. I don't think it's the problem. So, yeah, I'm curious what is this doing for you? Going back to the behavior. How is this benefiting you? Okay, great. So it's it's it's helping you think it's it's you think it's helping you relax, which physically we we don't need to go into all that right now, but it's not. So great, let's find a new way that you can do that. So I don't want people to just walk away from cigarettes that day. I want that to be a day they jump into that new future. So because if they they leave they leave the problem behind and they just leave a hole there, what's gonna fit that time? Yeah, you know, if because most people most people smoke a pack a day on average, right? Roughly two hours a day smoking, just cigarette in hand. Takes about six minutes to smoke a cigarette. Okay, so it that doesn't include the time that it takes them to convey themselves from the couch to their their back deck and back in the house and go wash their hands and brush their teeth and go to the convenience store and go back because they lost the lighter and and whatever it is that you know that's attached to their smoking problem. It can be two plus it is two plus hours a day for an average smoker. So I also want them to think about where do you want to invest that time now? Because you think at two two hours a day, uh it's what 730 hours a year that they're devoting to killing themselves. And I bring it like that. Yep, yep. Gotta hold that mirror up sometimes. And and where do you how do what how do you want to use that time? Again, who do you want to be a year, five years from now? How do you want to feel five years from now? So if you want to be that, then you have to do things that get you there. If you want to be healthy, you have to do things that create health. Because quitting smoking doesn't make you healthy, it just stops killing you faster. So you have to invest your time in the things that are going to get you the outcomes that you want. If you want to be rich, you have to do things that are gonna bring you money, multiply your money. Right. Right? So, again, what do you want for the future here? So I'm always moving back to this stuff. This shit back here, we'll wipe it out later. Right. We'll get back to that.

SPEAKER_01 57:57

And you mentioned walking through the problem too. Yeah, so say more on that.

SPEAKER_00 58:03

Well, who wants to carry the shit around with them? Yeah, you know, most most people when they show up, they've they've well well, I'm not gonna say most, but a lot of people they they've been through therapy for years. You know, uh well, I'll use an example. I had a had a uh uh an assistant one time, she was awesome, loved her, miss her. Uh she came to see me. We she had been working on this problem for working on the problem, knows my language, for five years. She's like, I'm tired of working on this thing. I'm gonna go see this freaking hypnosis hypnotherapist and see what this guy can do. 90 minutes later, her problem didn't exist anymore. She's like, There's no fucking way that just happened. I've been trying to get through this thing for for five years, and we just did this in 90 minutes, there's no way that just happened. So she booked another appointment with me to work through something else. She'd been trying to, of course, we took care of that. Yeah. Then she came to my training, and then she realized I was overwhelmed, and she's like, You need some help. I'm like, bingo. Uh so she became my assistant for a while. Right.

SPEAKER_01 59:06

Um, I forgot how the conversation were the question with the well, we talked about going through, and I guess part of the way I was phrasing that is sometimes people on their own try to like push the problem aside.

SPEAKER_00 59:19

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:20

But I like the idea of you take the problem and let's go through it.

SPEAKER_00 59:24

Yeah. Well, they've been trying to circumvent the, you know, since the beginning.

unknown 59:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:30

They're wandering around, they're looking at it. They're you know, it's over here, they're looking at it up here, down here. You know, they've examined it their whole life. Yeah. Fucking go through it, be done with it. Okay, is are you gonna cry for a minute? You might. Oh no. Uh you've been crying for years because you've been dragging along with you. Yeah. You know, let's let's face it head on. Go through it, be done with it. Get some perspective on it, recognize that it's not yours anymore. It doesn't have to be yours anymore. You can let it go and leave it back there. I love that. And then you get to be free or healthy or whatever the hell you want.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:08

Whatever it is. So we go back to the beginning where we started.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:11

We start with always starting, always start with the future.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:15

Then they can remember the future they're headed into, right? Because if you're gonna remember something, it might as well be the future that you want.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:21

I love the idea of remembering the future. That's a great little way to say it.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:26

That kind of stuck with me several years ago. I don't even know where I got that, but but yeah, if they if they if they don't have any idea where they're headed, then where are they gonna end up? You know, people will spend weeks, months sometimes deciding on a vacation they're gonna take. It's gonna last them two weeks. Right. And they're gonna come back to the same shit they were doing before they left.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:48

Right? Sometimes they take that shit with them on vacation.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:52

Well, yeah, exactly. Well, they do. The problems don't stay at home typically, they're all in here. But the problem is they're gonna spend all that time deciding what they're gonna do with a very short part of their life, but they won't spend a short part of their life trying to figure out what they want the rest to be like.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:10

That's right. So, in a moment, we'll go to a little like hypnotic gift or a little language pattern, however, you want to do it for the listeners and people. But I wonder before you get there, and you've had lots of great messages for people listening. Is there one thing that you want the whole world to know?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:29

Come to my training. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:32

Well, let's talk about that as you as your unconscious mind packs in that message, the other message you want to give, but let's talk about what would they expect for your training?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:42

What would they expect from training? Uh a six-day mind fuck. Um well, not take that back.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:48

It's only how come you're not making a million, no, a million, how come you're not making a billion? I know you're already past a million mark. How come you're not making a billion dollars? Because I know there's at least 10 billion people out there, even though there's eight billion in the world, but I know so many people want that.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:05

Well, if I think everybody should just give me a dollar, we'll be okay. Uh yeah, no, I you know, well, go back to my training. Uh, what can you expect? You can expect me to start hypnotizing you from the time I start talking. I'm gonna fractionate you for a week. And at the end of it, you're gonna have well, in the beginning of it, you're not gonna have any idea what's going on. I'm gonna be running you through exercises, and it's not gonna seem to make a whole lot of sense to you. By the end of the week, everything gels. I'm gonna bring you back to the back to ground again. So you're gonna have a pretty good idea of everything that I taught you, but you're going to experience that as you go out and you work with your clients. Because what I'm gonna do to you for a week is start implant unconscious skills that are just gonna come out of your language. You're gonna find yourself working with a client, and all of a sudden something's gonna come out of your mouth. You go, oh yeah, thanks, Steve.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:05

Uh just like you did with Igor.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:07

With Igor, exactly. Yeah, I mean, six months later, I'm like, where the hell did that come from? That was awesome. Should have recorded that. So that's that's kind of what I expect. I'm gonna take you through a crazy fun journey. We're gonna have a blast. You're probably gonna cry some too. Uh somebody will, everybody, somebody cries in training, every training I do. Um, but it's a lot of fun. And oh and and be willing to just let go of some stuff, come in and have fun. Yeah, it's uh, you know, people are afraid sometimes because they think I'm gonna do some crazy stuff to them. I'm not gonna do anything that isn't gonna be a blast for you and teach you something that's gonna change the rest of your life. That's all I'm after. I I think this stuff is amazing. I I wish everybody would be as nerdy about it as I am and and dig into all the details so they could become just even better than beyond everything that I've been doing. I I wish my students would blow past me. Uh, because I think the world needs it.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:12

That's a sign of a great teacher. Having that wish. And the training, is it in person or uh online?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:19

Yeah, well, it's it's in person now. I've taught it online for the past five years. I uh back conversational alchemy, the first four times I taught it was online. And uh the first time I taught it live was last June, and the next time is uh February, so in two weeks, February 2nd through the 7th. So again, most likely you're missing it, sorry, folks. Uh but if you go to steverame.com, you can sign up and leave uh leave your info there, and I'll let you know when the next one is or where it's gonna be.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:46

And yeah, yeah, we'll have the links to that. I got the websites and we'll put that on there. Yeah. And then did you besides come to your conference, is there another message you want to send out?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:59

Be curious, have fun, and learn everything you can, and don't believe anything I've told you. Go prove it to yourself. Because that's how you're gonna learn. I think I can only teach. You have to learn it.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:21

Great stuff, man. All right, that's awesome. Okay, so for everyone listening, how do you want to do this, Steve? Do you wanna do you wanna do some just a little mindfuck with words, or do you want to do uh a little induction? How do you want to do it? You're the um you're the guy that's conducting the orchestra right now.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:45

Well, okay, so um so whoever's listening right now think about how you want to be different. I mean, you know, in the future. A year from now. Let's say it's one year already in the future, and you've become everything you've wanted to be, having had everything you wanted different already changed. And you're looking back to who you're being today, recognizing that you had that moment and that choice and that time to do something different that can change the rest of your life right now. How is that part of you that you're becoming becoming more proud of you today? Knowing that the choices you're making is only based on everything you've already overcome. Because when you look back at the past and you realize everything you've already let go has only made you who you get to be now, that when you get new perspectives on that and you realize the strength that you've gained in yourself, that you get to be everything that you didn't know you could. So even when you think farther into the future and realize who you think you want to be then, you can only realize that you're going to be more than that when you get there, because you can only see yourself in that future from the perspective you're experiencing right now. And just imagine what your perspective is going to be different then. So when you look even farther into the future and who you think you get to be then, and the person you were today gets to make that choice, you might as well do something different now and recognize that you're more than you thought you were.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:21

That's awesome. That's what I got for you. That's awesome. A master in his craft. Yeah, that's what my Tony Robins sounds the way he does.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:41

My whole life has been building my voice. It's gotten me in and out of a lot of trouble.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:48

Ready, right? In trouble in and out of the trouble. All right, thank you so much for being here. Thanks, Ryan. I appreciate it, brother.