We humans are a fascinating bunch…
A few months ago I was sitting in Koerner Hall in Toronto, listening to Vikingur Olafsson play piano. It was his encore, and he was playing Philip Glass Etude No. 6. It hardly matters in one sense, and yet in another it does, because what stayed with me was not just the music but the experience of being there and what it revealed.
I found myself completely absorbed, not in a dramatic or emotional way, but in that quiet, unmistakable way where your mind settles and your attention narrows of its own accord. There was no analysis running, no internal commentary, just a steady engagement with what was unfolding in front of me, as if everything else had simply fallen away.
It was one of those rare moments where you become aware that you are witnessing something beyond skill alone. Of course there was extraordinary technique, years of disciplined practice, and deep familiarity with the music, but there was also something else present, something harder to define and yet immediately recognizable.
What we call genius.
And as I sat there watching him, what struck me most was not simply how good he was, but how completely aligned he seemed with what he was doing. There was no sense that he was trying to compensate for weaknesses or stretch himself into areas that did not belong to him. Everything about his playing suggested a man who had gone deeply into a domain that suited him, and had stayed there long enough to become exceptional.
He was not trying to be everything, he had chosen something, and committed to it at a very high level.
That observation connects very directly to something I care deeply about, and that is hypnosis.
Because when you really understand hypnosis, you begin to see that it is not simply a method for change in a general sense. It is a way of directing attention with precision. It is about shaping perception, narrowing focus, and creating the internal conditions where certain abilities can expand much more rapidly than they otherwise would.
In that sense, hypnosis becomes a way of developing and expanding your own areas of genius.
Most people, unfortunately, take the opposite approach. They spend years trying to repair weaknesses, trying to become competent in areas that do not interest them, hoping that being well rounded will somehow lead to something meaningful. In my experience, that rarely produces anything remarkable.
At this stage of my life, heading into my seventy fourth year, I can say quite comfortably that I have no mechanical ability whatsoever. If something breaks, I am not the person you call, and I have no interest in becoming that person. It does not engage me, and it is not an area where I am likely to develop anything exceptional.
So the question becomes, why would I invest time there at all?
Why take energy away from the things that naturally draw me in, the things I enjoy studying, thinking about, and refining, and redirect it toward something that will never truly hold my attention?
For me, that makes very little sense.
Instead, I would much rather take the areas where there is already some natural inclination, some curiosity, and some level of existing ability, and go deeper into them. Those are the areas that sustain attention, that generate energy rather than drain it, and that allow for continued growth over time.
This is precisely where hypnosis becomes such a powerful tool.
When you enter a focused and receptive state, your attention sharpens, distractions fade into the background, and your mind becomes more responsive to learning, pattern recognition, and creative insight. You are able to strengthen neural pathways around the things that matter to you, rehearse and refine patterns internally, and gradually become more of what you already are at your best.
Over time, this compounds in a very real way.
What begins as interest can develop into real capability, and in some cases into something much closer to mastery.
Everyone has areas where this is possible. In some people those areas are obvious and have been encouraged for years. In others they are less visible, sometimes buried under expectations about what one is supposed to do rather than what one is naturally drawn toward.
If you are not entirely sure where your own areas lie, that is not a problem, it is simply a place to begin paying attention.
You might notice what consistently captures your attention, what you return to without effort, and what feels engaging even when it is challenging. Those are usually reliable indicators that you are moving in the right direction.
From there, the task is not to divide your attention across multiple unrelated pursuits, but to concentrate it, to allow yourself to go further into what already resonates, and to use tools like hypnosis to deepen that engagement and accelerate the learning process.
And just as important, to let go of the idea that you need to be competent at everything. In my experience, people who achieve anything truly remarkable are not well rounded in the conventional sense. They are focused, selective, and deeply immersed in a particular domain.
That is exactly what I saw that evening at Koerner Hall, someone completely inside the music, working within a space that suited him, and doing so at an extraordinary level.
That kind of alignment is not accidental. It is a direction.
And it is available to you, once you begin to take your attention seriously.
- Mike Mandel
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