Brain Software Podcast 41: Generating Your Own Hypnotic Language

Chris: Welcome fellow storm riders, you are officially a rider on the hypnotic storm. This is Chris Thompson and welcome to session number 41 of Brain Software with Mike Mandel. He’s been called a human library, the worst underachiever in the Toronto school system’s history and he once spent a night in a bomb shelter.

Mike: All true of course, Chris. Welcome everybody once again from the very epicentre of the verve of the nexus of the… well, we’re in Toronto anyway and we’re glad to be here. we have another course coming up in the end of November Chris will be telling you about but this is us broadcasting podcasting to the entire planet and beyond if the aliens are listening to us and we are the riders to the hypnotic storm that is raging worldwide for dominance of battle that we are winning.

Chris: Yes! Now I have to interrupt you because you totally screwed up my script and you came in before I had a chance to say please welcome to our program, the world’s most glanitive hypnotic storm rider, Mike Mandel.

Mike: Yes, riding the very gland of this storm. Glad to be here Chris.

Chris: Out of order in shows.

Mike: Out of order, it doesn’t matter. Welcome to the Chris and Jeff show.

Chris:  We’ll change the order in editing.

Mike: You will change it in the editing studio. So talk to me buddy.

Chris:  Oh man, there’s so much going on. You and I had a really good conversation about people and their priorities in life and how oftentimes people get stuck into this… I’ll call it a trap because I think that’s an accurate way to portray it where their job defines their persona.

Mike: Now language police. Is it an accurate way to portray it or is it an accurate representation or is it an accurate description of their situation?

Chris: I have no idea which one’s correct.

Mike: I think it’s an accurate description.

Chris: Okay accurate description. So what is the issue? What are people falling into the trap of? Maybe put it in your own words. Let’s talk a bit about how we can help people save this major problem in this satisfaction.

Mike: It is a major problem. I’ve been asked to do a corporate keynote on work and life balance by one of my agents and this is something I spoke on fairly extensively when I was the relationship guy on CBC Television for a couple of seasons on the Stephen and Chris Show and what we’re running into more and more is people who have lost the focus of the point of their life and some of you need to really hear this and I know Chris, this is something that’s near and dear to your heart because you made the big jump from the corporate world, the banking world and have now dropped something on your desk as I’m talking to you.

Chris: It’s okay. Keep going.

Mike: Okay, we’ll edit that out and Chris has made the transition to doing pretty well what he wants. Now, we have sort of fallen and fell a couple of people by talking about similar things in a previous podcast where it almost sounded as though we were saying go out there and quit your job. That’s what we should all do. No, of course not. The problem is lack of balance in a lot of people’s lives where they have lost track of the fact that your work is so you can have a good life. It is when you confuse them and make your work the point of your life that you’ll begin to get in some sort of trouble here.

Chris: Right, I mean the big question everyone needs to ask himself is what is it that you enjoy doing in life? What is it that you would if you had all of the resources to do those things?

Mike: I just work Chris. I just work all the time. There’s nothing I like as much as work and the mark of a successful man is to die in the performance of your job for someone else at a corporation because then your success.

Chris: I guess one of the popular expressions I’ve often heard is instead of living to work, you should work to live.

Mike: It’s one of those wonderful community properties, isn’t it? It’s back to eating to live instead of living to eat.

Chris: Yes.

Mike: And all of the above and unfortunately, a lot of people have this backwards and you really got to do a personal inventory every now and then and recognize. There was a university study done a number of years ago. it was like 137 people were given this test and they all had the luxury of knowing they would be dead within three to six months most of them and the test was administered by sociology and psychology students in multiple question test about 400 questions but concealed within the test was the real test. So ostensibly, it was just about things they have accomplished and what they have done in their life but the reality was it was designed to detect what their regrets were as they approach the end of their life and you know 100% of them, not 90%, not 2%… 100% their regrets were relational. I wish I told my wife I loved her more often. I wish I spent more time with my kids. I wish I had recognized the importance of my extended family and how much we could still do together. And people instead tend to focus on the most important thing is you know I need a jet ski. If I could only have that extra cottage, if I could only buy a small plane but nobody had those as their regrets. They were all relational. All of them and if we know in advance that at the end of the day, our regrets will be essentially relational, we can ensure now that that is not the case.

Chris: Yeah and you know, it’s really interesting to mention here that it does not cost any money to spend time with your kids or spend time with your wife or whatever it is. Go and play hockey with your buddies more if that’s what’s important to you. They’re not material things. They’re relational things like you said. And so, I think one way around it for those people who feel that they’re trapped in let’s say a job that requires so much of their time. Time is a finite resource right? You know that you have only a limited amount of it and you have to divide it among what you want to do appropriately. And so, if you just apply Pareto’s law. Sorry, Pareto’s principle I believe it is.

Mike: It is.

Chris: Whichever one it is, that’s a principle I suppose not a law. Pareto’s law otherwise known as the 80/20 rule figure out what is the 20% of the time that you spend doing related to let’s say work, the things you’re trying to do less of that give you the 80% of the results that you get then the other 80% of the time that you spend on let’s say again work. The thing you’re trying to avoid is probably only giving you 20% of your results which you can them find things to cut out. You can find tons of things that you can just simply not do or find other people to do or change the way they’re going to automate them and the one way you can force yourself to do this is actually to just start doing with your time more of what you want to do and you will be forced to find ways to fit the important stuff into the remaining time.

Mike: Right, that’s very good Chris.

Chris: It’s also Parkinson’s Law that things will take exactly as long as you give them.

Mike: Yeah a task will require the amount of time allocated to complete it. So if you give it an hour, it will take an hour. You give it six weeks and it takes six weeks and I think it’s really important and if you really simplify Pareto’s principle and just say put 20% of your time on the most important things.

Chris: Yes.

Mike: And if you do that, the 80% of the other stuff will take care of itself pretty well.

Chris: Pretty much.

Mike: Most of the stuff that you need to do will only occupy about 20% of your time. That will be the most important stuff. You don’t have to try to balance everything. Focus on the most important things like the relationships and the interaction with other people because that’s what’s going to give your life quality and depth. I was talking to Chris about and you’ll verify this about culture today and the importance of culture whether it’s art or music, museums, whatever because that is our history as human beings, literature that gives us depth, that gives us something to live for beyond the superficial things in life and we have to focus on things that provide depth and meaning to our lives. You can sit in a ballpoint pen factory not that there’s anything wrong with that and put together ballpoint pens you know 200 an hour for the next 60 years but would you find that to be a fulfilling life? Probably not.

Chris:  No probably not and  that said, if it’s fulfilling enough in terms of providing you with the financial means to be stable financially and then you really do fulfilling things with the rest of your time, wonderful! Maybe that fulfills you.

Mike: And we’re back to prioritization. You have to prioritize. If you think of everything in your list as being the same priority, you’re missing the point.

Chris: The only way to guarantee that you are going to enjoy your life is to start doing the things that you enjoy and let everything else fall into place.

Mike: Don’t wait to live.

Chris: Yeah you can’t. I’ll give you a simple example Mike. I don’t even know if we’ve talked about this but I was lately feeling overwhelmed about a lot of the videos that we’re shooting and I had a lot of editing to do and I was doing writing and I was at the same time saying, gee! We’ve been working on this website redesign for a long time you know and the website redesign was just dragging on. It was something I know was priority because if you look at as of the date we’re recording this, MikeMandelHypnosis.com is in my opinion horrendously ugly and we need to fix it.

Mike: That’s right.

Chris: And we have most of the work done for the redesign and I just needed to get around to writing some fresh content, fixing a few things and there was just never enough time and so, you know, I just decided forget it. You know what? What’s really important here is I still need to get out and play with my kids and you know, put my phone down and take them to the park without having a Smartphone in my pocket in temptation to check email or something. Go and have dinner with my family, go and have nice walks in the morning and have coffee or go for a run and do my work out and you know what? I found the time. The important stuff still had to be done. It was still important that I do it and I found the time to get the website redesign done and we’re on the verge of hitting the switch.

Mike: Right Chris. I agree in principle with what you’re saying but isn’t the real issue here that there’s people out there who aren’t walking their kids, they aren’t working on websites and they loved to have sheets of paper to write prioritized lists on but they haven’t even got the time to go out and buy the list paper because their lives are so overwhelmed and my question to you is what are you prepared to do about it right now so that they can get list paper?

Chris: I am prepared continue this podcast and deliver those people the free and excellent information that we so glanitively deliver.

Mike: Bang on Chris. Well spoken. What’s next?

Chris: All right. Let’s move on from that topic but think about… maybe we can have an empowering question around it. Okay we got to talk about the upcoming Architecture of Hypnosis class in November so very quick commercial break.

Mike: What are the dates on that?

Chris: So it is November 23^rd and 24^th which is a Saturday Sunday followed by the following Friday Saturday Sunday which is November 29, 30 and December 1^st. Five days of hypnosis with Mike in Toronto. It is going to be amazing. We’ve got a bunch of people already coming out. We want you on board. This is…

Mike: We’re at our usual location which is the senior common room, in Toronto. It’s a great classroom.

Chris: It’s just the best small hypnosis training with the best hypnosis trainer in the world and you’ve got to come out for it. Enough said. All right mikemandelhypnosis.com/class. Be there.

Since now officially talking about hypnosis, let’s talk about scripts and changing the label. So here’s what I’ve noticed.

Mike:  before you say it, I’ve noticed people are now quoting me saying that scripts are training wheels.

Chris: Junk food, yeah. I know it’s hilarious because yeah, we’ve been saying this for awhile and now people are adapting the expression.

Mike: Everything we say becomes mainstream in 18 months,

Chris: They are scripts. They are junk food. Now let’s just take a step back and let’s take the label script away from it. So, a piece of paper with a bunch of words on it that represent an example hypnotic session.

Mike: All right.

Chris: Now if you call it a script then just by way of what it means to people they think you pick it up.

Mike: We’ve got to define our terms.

Chris: You pick it up and you read it as written like a newscaster would read a teleprompter or whatever or an audio book recording artist would record an audio book. It’s the way it was written and you don’t change it.

Mike: That’s the way you deliver it.

Chris: And so we say scripts, that’s what we mean. Oftentimes as I’m noticing, people you have different definitions for things and people will say scripts can be really helpful when you’re first learning hypnosis because they serve as good material for you to read in the privacy of your own home when you’re not working with a client or you can start by reading them directly and then ad lib as you go which I don’t agree with by the way. I don’t think you should ever, ever read a script at a subject and I know you agree on that.

Mike: I agree.

Chris: But there is a usefulness of … let’s call it a transcript even. Having an example session and going through it and saying wow, there’s some good ideas here.

Mike: That’s the only place that I think they should be used. If you have these as examples, as transcripts and we’re saying TRANCE-scripts then you have a model that you can look at to design your own language patterns on the fly and it’s okay if you want to read these things and saturate your brain with them so that you’re still generating language on the fly because if you’re reading a script as written you are no longer interacting with a human being in a psychotherapeutic or other psychodynamic relational loop. Instead you have become the old style 40s hypnosis test phonograph record that you turn on and play. You know hit play on a tape and watch it do its magic work or not. No, you’re in a relationship with someone and the very nature of scripts, it goes against that and it forces you to go by something written despite what you’re getting in by a feedback from the person in front of you. So as an example Chris, as something to learn from, I think that’s a great idea but you would never read it at someone and in fact, Dr Corydon Hammond has an excellent book on hypnotic scripts or metaphors. I think it’s called the big red book. The big red book we call it and it’s got great ideas and there are people addicted to chocolate or want to quit smoking or had migraines whatever and really world class hypnotherapists including Milton Erickson. There’s excerpts from them in how they would treat these various things. Now if you read this paragraph or two or page or whatever on that subject, it will give you the means to handle that specific intervention by generating your own language on the fly around that model but they are not designed that you sit and open the book and say close your eyes, I’m just going to read this thing at you.

Chris: If life was really like that then this podcast would be a bunch of snippets of previously written material on hypnosis and NLP and we would just say, today we’re going to read from… you know such and such website.com. Nothing changes right? You make everything your own. How does this relate to the podcast where you talk about building your schema?

Mike: Schema is base knowledge that is required for a specific task. So if you want to design an airplane, you have to have the schema to do so. You have to have studied the subject, understand aerodynamics, and all of these different things in order to design an airplane if you want it to fly. You need schema for different subjects. if you want to write poetry, sure you might be able to just write it on the fly up the top of your head and do something amazing with it but if you study the ins and outs of poetry and all the things you have to learn that’s even better because by learning all of these things, you build your schema in poetry, the poetic skills you will develop will be far better because you have something to draw from. Likewise with hypnosis transcripts, scripts, etc. The more you study, the more you build your schema as a human being. The more you attend art galleries and go to music festivals and read poetry and literature and turn off the TV, the more you will create a schema that you can draw from so that your hypnotic work will be glanative beyond belief whether or not you’re generating words on the fly and all of the components will unite beneath the surface to enable you to do work with clients that is phenomenal and effortless as they continue to go into the depth of trance that is concomitant with all the information you have put in your brain in the first place… that’s right.

Chris: Excellent. I want to also add that instead of attempting to memorize some script or reading a script, you can read them… in reading them at a client I mean, you can read them to get ideas of how linguistic bridges can be used, how you can unroll that infinite canvas of language.

Mike: I’d like you to explain the infinite canvas Chris. This is your metaphor and I really like it. It’s a good one.

Chris: And I don’t know if we used it on a podcast. I think we might’ve done it in a Q&A session.

Mike: In a class yeah.

Chris: In the Mike Mandel Hypnosis Academy. I think what Mike’s saying here is that I created this metaphor on a spur of the moment in recording the Q&A session for our online hypnosis students and it goes like this, when you’re learning Ericksonian language, when you’re learning  to begin to speak in such a way that you can relax deeply and just continue to relax in a way that’s appropriate for you to continue going all the way down insofar as you can remember times when you were very relaxed in the past, can you not… continue? Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Anyway, the whole idea here is you’re speaking in a never ending sentence right and what you’re doing is you’re using words to like and, or and as and causes you to.

Mike: All linkages.

Chris: And you’re unrolling what I described as this white sheet of canvas that just gets… imagine you’re standing on a floor and you have this huge white roll of canvas or paper whatever and you just unroll it and it just keeps unrolling into infinity and it gives you this canvas on which to speak, to draw, to paint, whatever it is. You’re putting something there. I’m going to sneeze here in a moment so we’ll have to edit that out.

Mike: I’ll take over for you. And Chris is sneezing as I speak.

Chris: There we go. So you’re speaking and you’re causing the other person to try to attach meaning to what you’re saying and since you keep unrolling the canvas and putting something down on it, they keep having to chase you and that forces them to wrap their mind around that idea, what you’re saying.

Mike: So always following the shifting meaning and the unrolling canvas. I like your view about a huge roll of paper like you see in the old newspaper offices unrolling in front of you and you’re continuously painting a linguistic pattern on this canvas that results in shifting internalized meaning so the person who is listening is drawing from their own experience throughout the course of their entire life and attaching meaning and feelings and thoughts to everything you are saying to them so that they go into it further and faster

Chris: and since you already know how to speak flawlessly do you not… know how to speak flawlessly? And wouldn’t it be easier to just makeup your own never ending sentences and hypnotic language patterns as you go rather than memorizing a horrendously long example of somebody else’s hypnotic work.

Mike: Which continues to roll in front of you regardless so if you are the one generating it and you are the one putting the meaning and meaning everything that you say then their unconscious minds will draw from the sense of that meaning and they will lean into what you are saying is entirely appropriate for them or anyone who happens to be listening or viewing the complexity of the reel of canvas or the roll of paper as it unfurls in front of you and they continuously go even deeper.

Chris: Into trance because trance is a learning state.

Mike: That’s right.

Chris: And as a learner…

Mike: And you are one.

Chris: You can really begin to learn.

Mike: You can begin to really learn.

Chris: Lean now… all right [laughs]

Mike: Whoa let it all out.

Chris: We didn’t really plan that out so that was hilarious. The whole idea, the reason I brought this up is just to say that memorizing somebody else’s script, reading somebody else’s script is not going to be useful in an actual client interaction just like you wouldn’t playback some previous conversation you had with someone in another conversation.

Mike: Yeah right.

Chris: I mean oh Mike you know that reminds me of let me pullout my iPhone here and play out for your this joke that I told my friend last week that worked out really well. It was hilarious. So I’m just going to hit play.

Mike: I go hear Bramwell Tovey play the French horn and then the next, you go to his concert again and he says, “I’m just going to play the CD of last year’s concert.” I’ll sit there and I’ll sit and listen to it with you.

Chris:  Actually that’s kind of a funny example because….

Mike: Because I said “Bramwell Tovey”

Chris: It’s just if a joke is funny and I record it myself telling the joke, why wouldn’t I just play that recording, would that be funny all over again? No because I have to calibrate to you the listener. If there’s very much a hypnotic overlap…

Mike: There’s dynamics yeah. There are dynamics that cannot just be thrown out the window for the sake of expediency.

Chris: So use scripts or transcripts or whatever you want to understand examples of hypnotic language and then…

Mike: Learn from them and make up your own.

Chris: Make up your own. Practice them in the shower, practice when you’re walking down the street, having a cup of coffee.

Mike: Practice when you’re driving in your car.

Chris: Practice, practice, practice and then you won’t have to say well, I don’t know how to formulate my own hypnotic language on the fly.

Mike: You know how to talk. You know how to speak and so, language is an unconscious task. Install the language generator through practice, you’ll find that you will learn very quickly and apply it.

Chris: And if you really want to learn this stuff fast, go to mikemandelhypnosis.com/academy. Learn from the best.

Mike: Yep.  I don’t know why I did this one.

Chris: Yeah I don’t know why you did that either. I want to talk about pricing hypnosis sessions. So, for those of you who are hypnotists, I think this will be useful and for those of you who are just learning about marketing, this is just a general marketing comment I want to make. So I saw some people asking questions in the online forum about how to price hypnosis sessions and some people use the gold, silver and bronze pricing model

Mike: What’s that? I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Chris: Well you can buy the gold hypnosis package or the silver hypnosis package or the bronze hypnosis package.

Mike: Okay now if you’re talking about buying a package of sessions if you want to deal with a number of particular issues that makes some sort of sense. If you mean anything beyond that…

Chris: It’s bizarre.

Mike: Yeah. Come on, elaborate on this for me.

Chris: And it’s totally screwed up. It’s not just bizarre. It’s freaking wrong.

Mike: It’s dursative.

Chris: It’s horrible. So yes, I agree with you. If you’re quantifying it in terms of here’s what you get, we’re going to do a weight management package and the gold weight management package is you’re going to do four sessions in four weeks that we’re going to hit these metabolism, self-confidence, diet, exercise or whatever it is.

Mike: Right.

Chris: Whatever you’re going to do. And then we’re going to revisit once a week for the next two months to reinforce all the events that happens.

Mike: To reevaluate where you are.

Chris: Sure you’re buying more of my time therefore, you’re charging more money or you’re being [laughs] you’re charging [laughs]

Mike: You’re being charged more money.

Chris: Yeah thank you for correcting my…

Mike: Stop talking about it. I’m staying with this gold silver bronze model. Tell me more.

Chris: But still, I don’t like the idea of calling it gold and kept calling it gold, silver and bronze. It still seems like it attaches a quality appeal.

Mike: Well of course that’s exactly what it sounds like to me.

Chris: That’s the problem.

Mike: Is that what it is so? Is someone saying you can buy a silver session with me or if you really want a really good session, I’ll pull out the plug and do better hypnotic work for you or if you who got much money, I’ll do sort of a half fast hypnotic sessions for you and we’ll call that a bronze one. What about lead? Let’s go even lower. This old lead can let you come in my office and talk about your problem. I won’t do anything.

Chris: [laughs] Oh lead or the dust model which is dust.

Mike: Well I was sticking with metals.

Chris: Yes I know you were and I was just calling you Jeff basically. [laughs] just take it to the other end of the spectrum. Even if you have genuinely good intentions in labeling your sessions gold and silver and bronze and you’ve got your uber-platinum or whatever, the risk here is that your subjects are going to misinterpret your intentions and they’re going to see it “as oh bronze, that’s crap quality” and they’re going to wonder why would he offer me poorer quality hypnosis? Is it poor or more poor?

Mike: More poor.

Chris: Yeah or lesser quality let’s just say that. Why would you offer me with lesser quality hypnotic session for less money?

Mike: But are you telling me Chris that this is actually what it is. You’re getting a high quality session. Do you think that’s the perception or the possible perception?

Chris: I don’t know. The risk is that when you say gold and silver and bronze, people think about athletic events, the Olympics. The gold medal finish is better. He’s a better athlete. You know better gymnast, better diver, better equestrian whatever, the better golfer like that’s a sport. It’s better like gold is better. So if you’re selling it at the context of better and worse, I think you’re doing yourself a disservice by potentially leading a client to believe that you’re not always doing your best work.

Mike: You’re holding something back.

Chris: We come from a world where we believe that most things can be fixed in one session therefore, why would you ever do anything but your best and I think people should be just selling their time. here’s how much it costs to occupy my calendar for a fixed amount of time.

Mike: And that’s how I do it Chris. I don’t charge per change as some people like Richard Bandler recommends. There’s nothing wrong with that. I don’t charge per change to get rid of this phobia or this fibromyalgia pain relief or whatever it is, I charge entirely for my time because I’m not a therapist, I’m an unconscious coach, I’m an agent of unconscious change, I’m an educator.

Chris: Yeah.

Mike: And I teach people how to walk out of the maze, the labyrinth where they’re trapped whether it’s pain, or anxiety or stress or they just want to be a better person and have a better life. So they are buying my time based on my nearly 40 years experience and that’s what it comes from. They’re paying for my time.

Chris: I remember now another little aspect of this. So some of the gold type of packages might also include a recording of the session on MP3 or CD that they could have the subject and listen to it then.

Mike: Use your iPhone. Record it yourself.

Chris: I mean honestly if you believe and I’m not going to argue whether it’s good or not good to offer a client a recording of the session. I’m sure in some cases it can be quite helpful. In other cases you don’t want.

Mike: Of course being another term for bad.

Chris: You don’t want to do it. I mean if there’s hypnotic work that involves amnesia for a certain suggestion, you certainly don’t want them listening to it again later.

Mike: Yeah listen to it again. Oh that’s what he did. Oh forgot it again.

Chris: So if you believe that the work you’re doing with a client in that particular session is going to be helped by having them take home a recording, give them the recording. That’s part of the job.

Mike: Yeah.

Chris: It shouldn’t cost extra.

Mike: The bottom line should be you should be paid for your time in accord with your skill set. I mean that’s completely fair. The worker is worthy and is higher. Even the scripture say that. So pay someone what they’re worth. You’re going to pay more for someone who’s greatly experienced than someone who’s just on a weekend course and they’ve started doing hypnosis but having said that, it is incumbent upon the therapist/counselor/hypnotist whatever to give them your best. Give them your best work, don’t hold something back. If you’re able to give them a bonus, give them a bonus. If you can record and they want that, do that. Don’t charge them extra. Help people. If you help people, it comes back on you.

Chris: When we launched the Mike Mandel Hypnosis Academy, the online training, somebody left us as a really awesome testimonial and I didn’t mean to bring this up. This isn’t intended as a commercial but just to show you how important this is, the testimonial went something along the lines of “Wow I can’t believe that you know everything is in one monthly price. You know there is no up sell. I didn’t sign up and then get offered. Oh would you like to also buy these extra bonus sessions.”

Mike: Click and now for only $39 more you can have this.

Chris: It was all there. And would you-

Mike: We honestly put everything into it. All our products everything into it.

Chris: Mike, would you take your cat to a vet that offered you a gold, silver and bronze package?

Mike: No I’d take my Bengal cats to Paul McCutcheon Canada’s first holistic vet. He’s in his 70s and he’s probably the best veterinarian on the planet. He’s expensive as hell and he’s a phenomenal vet. That’s why I’d take them there.

Chris: Yeah not because you think, “Oh I’ll save some money and buy the bronze package from Paul.”

Mike: Yeah. [laughs] if he’s listening, it’d be funny if he instituted that now.

Chris: Yeah it would be really funny. I’d be really curious if you have an opinion on this, let us know. We want to know what you think. You can head on over to https://mikemandelhypnosis.com and you can use the voice messaging feature or you can go to http://speakpipe.com/hypnosis which will take you to the same tool. You can leave us a voice message and we’d love to hear your opinion on professionals offering you various levels of quality gold, silver or bronze or should you just be paying for time from an expert?

Mike: Imagine if lawyers did that.

Chris: Yeah that’s right. I’m going to be selling-

Mike: Police. You know your house is broken and they say which level of service do you want? We can give you bronze service and pretty guarantee we’re never going to catch the guy. [Laughs]

Chris: I just don’t like what it represents.

Mike: I can see that Chris.

Chris: These metals are anchored in our culture as representing quality.

Mike: And remember what silver metal is Chris.  First of the losers

Chris: [laughs] Call them the basic package, call them the full service package, call them whatever it is. Don’t differentiate them based on something that seems quality, it can be quantitatively differentiated or something like that. I think it comes across better. All right let’s-

Mike: Thank you Ken Sweatman.

Chris: We’re going to go into the closing metaphor and stuff soon. Before we do, since this has been a really good heavy on hypnosis podcast, let’s talk about a couple of quick book suggestions that people could read if they want to get started learning around this topic.

Mike: Great books I still recommend “Introducing NLP” by Seymour and O’Connor.

Chris: I like that one.

Mike: I think that’s a really good starting book. If you want to start on entry level NLP, that’s still extremely powerful. I’d go with “Unlimited Power”, Tony Robbins’s first book.

Chris: Great book. Even though he calls it neuroassociative condition.

Mike: No he doesn’t. He calls it that in his second book, “Awaken the Giant Within.”

Chris: Was it?

Mike: Not in the first book.

Chris: Oh seriously? So I stand corrected.

Mike: he talks about NLP in Bandler and Grinder in the first one. That’s a good book. It’s a really good book. So I recommend the collective papers of Milton Erickson, MD, four volumes. If you can get a hold of those for anything less than a couple hundred bucks, buy them. That’s Erickson on Erickson and it’s why he’s still the best there ever was. It’s become de riguer to rip Erickson apart now and rip Dave Elman apart and say they weren’t that good and all this new breed of hypnotist are basically throwing everything out  the window and we don’t need any of that anymore. Well, they’re wrong.

Chris: I also like “Training Trances”.

Mike: “Training Trances”, yeah that’s Overdurf.

Chris: I think so yes.

Mike: And I can’t remember the young lady’s name but it’s a very good book. It’s basically a transcript of a hypnosis training. I think Igor studied with them and that’s where he got his certification.

Chris: There you go.

Mike: But it’s a very good book, “Training Trances.”You know another one I love Chris is “Monsters and Magical Sticks: There is No Such Thing as Hypnosis.”

Chris: Yeah let’s just repeat that.

Mike: “Monsters and Magical Sticks: There is No Such Thing as Hypnosis.”I think it’s Terry Steele.

Chris: I think that the sub headline is everything is hypnosis. [laughs]

Mike: Yeah something like that. Rob Anton Wilson wrote the foreword to that and he’s one of my favorites as you know. In fact, if you want to know a lot about things that are related to hypnosis and NLP, Psychology without actually being in those things, buy any of the books by Robert Anton Wilson. Not so much fiction but if you pick up his books like “Prometheus Rising” or “Quantum Psychology”, they are amazing books. Wilson was just a phenomenal thinker and raised a lot of interesting questions. I believe it’s in “Quantum Psychology”. He proves in one chapter that you have two heads. [laughs]

Chris: Prooves.

Mike: Yeah undeniably proves.

Chris: Very weird. If I knew that I think it would freak me out. Where’s my other head? I’d be waking up thinking I lost my other.

Mike: He’s the one who gave me my quarter game as well which I came up with and started using all the time. I didn’t come up with it. I copied it from him. Those are great books I mentioned. If you wanted to get some methodologies for writing your own not scripts but transcripts, get Corydon Hammond’s book on Hypnotic Metaphors and Suggestions. Just Hammond. First name is Corydon. It looks like Croydon but it’s not.

Chris: Okay so I think that’s probably enough book suggestions for this one but I do want to say for those of you listening, if you have other questions on books or book suggestions that you want our opinion on, send us a voice message, send us an email. We love getting the voice messages.

Mike: We love getting them.

Chris: The speakpipe tool. I have to show that to those guys at speakpipe.com. It’s a fantastic tool. Cool tool.

Mike: It’s a great tool and our very first speakpipe message remember? It came from Ray in Scotland and it was-

Chris: We were at a jujitsu class and I played it for you on my phone.

Mike: “Doctor Mike … it’s Ray in Scotland and …good work”

Chris: It was awesome.

Mike: We’re going to have a student in Scotland.

Chris: Yeah I love getting that message from Ray.

Mike: Very nice guy.

Chris: So send us messages with your computer’s microphone. It’s just totally awesome. Speakpipe.com   questions.

Mike: Let’s do the empowering question Chris. I see Mickey’s little hand is pointed towards his navel so the empowering question, let this resonate with you. What is the next skill you are going to learn? And how are you going to master it in record time? What is the next skill you are going to learn? And how are you going to master it in record time?

Chris: You heard me. So Mike’s going to deliver a closing metaphor as always but before he does, I want to make sure that you had a chance to head on over to iTunes and leave a rating and possibly even write a review for this podcast. It is absolutely important to us to get this episode to as many people as possible around the world. We want more of you to be hypnotic storm riders along with us. Mike is the wizard of the hypnotic storm.

Mike: Well thank you Chris.

Chris: Thanks to John. I won’t use his last name but for coming up with that wizard comment. It’s brilliant.

Mike: Very nice. Here’s the metaphor. This is the story of Albert Davies. Albert Davies although as a kid ewe always pronounced it Albert Davis. Davies is a Welch name. Albert Davies came and lived with my mom and dad and sister and I. he boarded in our home for a number of years when he emigrated to Canada from England. Albert was a confirmed bachelor. Looking back he may have been gay. I have no idea but he was this charming elderly man and he taught interior decorating and painting and design and had a real skill but he was a perfectionist and he was wreck loose and he had the first typewriter I ever saw and also made vegetable juice with the first juicer I’ve ever heard of anyone owning and made carrot juice which I thought was amazing. Well, he lived with us and ate his meals with us and was a quiet elderly man who wore perfect suits and ties and was always immaculately groomed.

When he had his first typewriter, he brought me up to see it in the room upstairs and this Underwood typewriter was there and he said the key is you have to tap a key quickly as though it’s red hot and move your hand away rather than push it. So I was about a 7-year-old boy. I hammered the keys with my fist. Naturally, they all jammed together causing some degree of trepidation and he had to free them but Albert had some interesting character traits. He was the Englishman who was unflappable.

I recall one day, our house caught fire. 58 Woodington Avenue, we had an oil furnace and one day, the residue in the chimney burst into flames, caused an internal fire with smoke everywhere and flames pouring out the chimney. We all called the fire department or as my dad said, “Get on the telephone. Call the fire brigade.” He still calls them the fire brigade after living in Canada for almost ever and he banged on Albert’s door and said, “Albert, the house is on fire. We’ve got to get outside.” He said, “Righto Ken. Just finishing up a couple of things.” So we grabbed our belongings, went outside and stood in the front lawn and waited for the fire brigade to show and Albert did not come out. At which point, my sister remembered the cat was still in the house and we started panicking and crying and my mom and dad rushed back in and located Honey, our cat and brought him out in a basket and a few moments later, my dad yelled up to the window, “Albert! Come out! The bloody house is on fire!” the flames were growing by now. He opened the window and he said, “Righto. Be down in a minute. Just finishing some things up.” And I remember my sisters budgie, Cindy, was still in the cage in house and I said, “The budgie’s going to burn to death.” My dad ran back in into the smoke, came out with a budgie in a cage which was still conscious and quite fine. And by now, the flames were growing. Now we could hear the distant sirens of the fire brigade approaching and my dad yelled, “Albert!” and I said, “Mr. Davies is going to burn to death!” and he said, “Albert come out of the house!” he opened the window and my dad said, “The house is on fire! Come out!” and Albert looked around and he said, “Am I to assume this is conflagration of a serious nature?” My dad said, “Albert we vacated the house 10 minutes ago. we got the budgie, the goldfish and the cat. You’re the last living soul in there.” He said, “Right, I’ll be down in a moment.” In about five minutes later, he came downstairs just as the firemen arrived.

He was one of the most extreme people I ever met and my mom got him to wallpaper our living room once with the help of my father and Albert taught interior decorating. The wallpaper was not pre-pasted Chris like today. It had to be pasted with a brush and he got it on the walls. It looked fantastic. It took a couple of hours. My dad went, “It’s great Albert. Thanks!” and he stood there looking at it. Albert staring. My dad said, “Albert?” he just kept looking at it and he said, “No, I don’t like it.” my dad said, “What do you mean?” “No, the whole bloody lots coming down.” And just grabbed the sheets of paper and started ripping them off the wall again. It spent ages putting them up again, tore it down again, put it up again as the 3^rd time. Ken said, “Albert, this has got to be right.” he said, “No. it’s not straight. The bloody lot’s coming down.” He tore it down again. My mom said, “I don’t care this time if it’s upside down or pasted the wrong way to the wall. It’s staying up.” So Albert gave in to my mother and the wallpaper stayed up after the fourth application. True story.

Chris: All right everybody. This has been Brain Software with Mike Mandel episode number 41. I’m Chris Thompson and I want to invite you to head on over to mikemandelhypnosis.com/class to check out the November hypnosis class that’s coming up here in Toronto. You can always join the online hypnosis academy, the Mike Mandel Hypnosis Academy from visiting mikemandelhypnosis.com/academy and as always, enjoy future podcasts, recommend them to your friends, head on over to iTunes, leave a rating, write a review and we will see you or you’ll hear from us on podcast 42.