Podcast #55: Black Hats, Reframes, Violets and Lavender

Brain Software hypnosis podcastWelcome to Episode 55 of Brain Software with Mike Mandel and Chris Thompson! We’ve got a very full episode for you with lots of great content including some fun context free humour. If you want to learn hypnosis online make sure you check out the Mike Mandel Hypnosis Academy

Here are the show notes for this episode:

    • We discuss Mike’s last stage hypnosis show for the year, which took place last week. We brought a group of about 25 past hypnosis students with us and it was tremendous fun to have everyone able to see the structure of hypnosis in action.
    • The two of us have started using a strange and fun new way to refer to stupid behavior or stupid statements by others. It all started when Chris sent Mike an audio message, and Mike misheard the content, thinking Chris had referred to somone “Drinking from the bag of Pykthos.” So Mike crafted an entire Greek mythology back story included at the bottom of this post. Whenever you refer to the bag of Pykthos, or Lavender and Violets (or anything related to this), it now means you are referencing the stupidity of whoever you direct your reference towards.
    • The person who emails us with the funniest, most clever, or subtle use of this new context free humour mechanism wins a free download from our website of their choosing. Contest closes on December 24th, so you have just over a week. Have fun, and remember not to explain the reference! Let the recipient remain confused.
    • Getting back to serious business, we discuss the Black Hat, which comes from Edward de Bono’s book “Six Thinking Hats”. Mike explains that the “Black Hat”, which represents discernment, or applying logic to identify reasons to be cautious or conservative, should not be applied when you are in a creative phase. For example – if you feel stuck in your job and want to craft a new career, don’t hang around people who wear the black hat. They won’t be helpful to you in your brainstorming.
    • We also have a serious discussion about entering situations with the proper mental framing. Often times people will frame things as being very difficult, or requiring a lot of effort. This is not particularly useful if you are going into a business meeting where you need a new solution to a problem, or adopting a new lifestyle of healthy eating and exercise. We recommend reframing “I have to” into “I get to” whenever possible. Start noticing how other people around you frame things.

Empowering Question: What will it take for you to get off your butt and start transforming your life … NOW!

The Back Story to the Bag of Pykthos
King Menelaus of Ithaca hired his brother Pykthos who was skilled in the use of herbs, poisons and Pharmakeia. He filled a leather bag with various plants, including lavender and violets, and the witch, Circe, knitted a covering bag of the finest silver thread. The potion inside would cause abject stupidity, and would be given to all of Menelaus’ rivals, but he feared lest Pykthos might use it on him, so he threw it into the fire.

The leather burned away, but the silver remained, holding a sweet liquid, redolent of violets and lavender, a single drop of which would cause permanent stupidity.

Based on the above, here are the wonderful phrases at our disposal:

      • Your speech drips with the lavender fluid of Pykthos!
      • You have clearly dipped your straw in the silver bag of Pykthos…
      • Your tongue is redolent with the odour of lavender and violets…
      • Clearly, my friend, you have drunk deeply from the lavender bag of Pykthos!
      • Dined with Menelaus recently?
      • Is that a slight Ithacan accent I detect?

Please leave a rating for the show in iTunes, and send in your questions by emailing questions (at) MikeMandelHypnosis (dot) com.

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Raw Transcript

Chris: welcome fellow storm riders. You’re officially a rider on the hypnotic storm. This is session 55 of Brain Software with Mike Mandel and I’m Chris Thompson. He’s ready for Christmas as a new favorite delivery mechanism for context free humor and has done his final hypnosis show for 2014. Please welcome to the centre of the virtual hypnotic octagon, Mike Mandel.

Mike: Yes Christopher, here we go again and this podcast is a lively one. We have a lot of interesting information for you and we especially are looking forward to one of the things that chris has addressed already in the internal. Yes, let’s look at all of this very, very briefly. I am ready for Christmas. My shopping has been done for some time now which ought to let all of you know that I am not Jewish despite the confusion on this. Also, what was the second one? oh the context free humor. We’re going to be spending considerable amount of time on that. You are blessed to be listening ton this podcast because you’re in the inner circle, the very first people to apprehend this brilliant form of comedy that only people…

Chris: [laughs]

Mike: he’s laughing already. Only people who are listening to our podcast or checking on our website will have a clue as to what it is.

Chris: We’ll detail in…

Mike:  This is going to be something let’s say that later in the podcast we’ll tell you you can use on your friends, you can use on people around you and it’s thoroughly enjoyable to see the bafflement and the consternation on their faces. Now the third point was I’ve done my final hypnosis show for 2014.

Chris: What a show it was.

Mike: What a show it was.

Chris: After what two years of talking about arranging a big group of our students to come up and see the show, we finally…

Mike: We got three of them together.

Chris: We made it happen. I think we have a 25 total students in and around the Toronto area who came out to see your show. It was fantastic. It was so much fun and great because everyone who’s learned this stuff in the classroom has now watched you apply it and they are able to understand the mechanics and the dynamics and all of the ways that it works. With the rest of the audience essentially thinking you haven’t started yet.

Mike: The rest of the audience isn’t catching it. They might as well be sipping from the lavender bag as it were chris.

Chris: That’s right.

Mike: But our students watch the show and they see the structure. They see the yes sets, they comply and sets the formulation of heteroaction and homoaction and so on and they know that hypnosis has a structure so it’s always a blast to do a show with hypnotists in the audience who really know what’s going on.

Chris: Yes it is so let’s begin and before we get into our context free humor, let’s start with some hypnosis in the news and over the last – I think it was over the last week or two, there was an article and a video, an accompanying video from security footage. I believe it was in the UK somewhere in a liquor store and a fellow walks in a liquor store and seems to be – there’s no audio so you have to imagine what you think might be happening.

Mike: Yeah

Chris: So you’re making it up – anyway, this young man apparently approaches the owner of the liquor store and seems to engage him in some sort of conversation, taps him in the shoulder, gestures towards the belly region and then the guy sort of seems – the owner of the store I suppose, not the so-called the hypnotist-thief but the owner of the liquor store standing there frozen it seems, not really moving. I assumed he had his eyes closed, his back is to us so we cant tell but the thief seems to at some point reach into his pocket, pull out a big wad of money and walk out but four seconds later, the liquor store owner awakens from this frozen state.

Mike: Emerges from his…

Chris: And immediately realizes something has gone wrong and goes to chase the guy but it was probably not even four seconds of a delay but it was enough for the guy to get away. And so, this made the rounds of…

Mike: Oh hypnosis in the news, the hypnotic thief is robbing people, putting them in trances. My gut sense Chris is there’s a lot here we didn’t see right here. he might be saying to him ihave a gun in my pocket out of sight. You don’t know.

Chris: We don’t know.

Mike: I watched the video. I found it inconclusive.

Chris: There was some interesting physical gesture – no, not gestures physical touching going on. He was using his fingers and touching.

Mike: Don’t touch with your fingers.

Chris: He was touching the guy on the shoulder and he was gesturing towards his own belly and then I think at some point pointed towards the shop owner’s belly.

Mike: It’s like saying I have a gun. Do you prefer to be shot here on the shoulder or in your belly?

Chris: [laughs]

Mike: I don’t know. like I said, you nailed it. There is no audio. So we really don’t know. I think it’s extremely unlikely Darren brown for the contrary. Remember, when you see it on a television show and see a lot of these wonderful things, you can’t be really sure it’s happening. When you see it on a security camera and don’t even have any audio, we are just limited to guess what’s going on by looking over his shoulder. It makes a great story. There’s no question about that.

Chris: I mean the headline of course you know hypnotist robs liquor store owner. It’s going to get a whole lot more clicks.

Mike: The only way to be sure other than interviewing the guy who I presumed got away still and we offer to let him come on our show and tell us what happened and we’ll put that in the offering. And also, you hypnotists out there, maybe you should go out and see if you can rob a couple of stores or banks and see how good your hypnosis really is. I’m kidding.

Chris: [laughs]Hypnosis or not, I’m sure it’;s possible for this guy to have done something weird that confused the man and then essentially took money out of his pocket and ran away because itwasnt like the guy was standing there frozen for a long time.

Mike: No.

Chris: When I said four seconds, I was probably even wrong. It was probably 2 seconds. So is that possible? sure. And then the guy is going, what the hell’s going on? hey that guy just took money out of my pocket.

Mike: Yeah confused him to death. Remember too, there may be something beforehand. I don’t know if he set it up with some other test or whatever to begin to build heteroaction. I have no idea.

Chris: Right.

Mike: So it’s a good question, it’s a great story and naturally, I was kidding when I said go out there and try it on your friends.

Chris: [laughs] of course.

Mike: don’t try it in a store.

Chris: Sure. Steal their wallet and give it back to them after.

Mike: Let’s talk about. You giving back is not stealing but let’s – we’ll edit that out. Let’s talk about context free humor. You want to preframe what context free humor is…

Chris: Okay so this is something I have really come to enjoy learning this from mike but context free humor is when you’re saying things that don’t appear to make any sense at all in the context that you’re saying them.

Mike: And it’s done purely for your own amusement which is a wonderful thing.

Chris: Right and so for example… let’s use an example of past context free humor that we;’ve talked about. We’d refer to something like the Branson protocol in the past.

Mike: Right and there is no Branson protocol. We just told everybody to get quick and get ready and quickly run the Branson protocol and I just go back and start doing this. they all look at each other with blank expressions.

Chris: Right and since it had no meaning, it’s completely made up phrase.

Mike: And even saying things like glanitive or dursative or gavis or whatever. I mean all of those are coined terms that mean absolutely nothing really but to see people’s faces blaze over when we use them is quite a wonderful thing. We’ve gone way beyond that now folks.

Chris: We’re boiling it all down though. Context free humor – let’s see if you agree with this definition or not. It’s generally saying something that appears to not make any sense to those listening but you’re so serious about how you deliver it that you’re communicating… there’s a meaning here, there’s a message and you know they’re not going to get it but you don’t let on that and they’re wondering what the heck is this really, what does this mean and they’re just left confused.

Mike: and if you’re confused, you’re going to leave the podcast and just going to get some serious bleaching done.

Chris: That’s right. Absolutely. [laughs]

Mike: Doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Chris: [laughs] It doesn’t make any sense at all. And so, especially if the words are chosen in such a way that there’s this insinuation that it’s somehow dirty or offensive…

Mike: [laughs]

Chris: Or like it’s really hilarious.

Mike: I’m going to say jerry is so right about you.

Chris: Yeah.

Mike: Jerry who? the jerry you know. remember when we were doing the email thing where we’d send bizarre emails to people and one guy got really mad at me for doing it remember? he thought I was taking shots at him personally and I said, look, this is something   Chris and I have been working out.

Chris: Oh yes I remember.

Mike: he took it all weirdly.

Chris: Yeah we had to basically go out and prove that this was really a joke and this wasn’t about him at all.

Mike: It was all about mathos and copocoline and he couldn’t get his head around it.

Chris: There he is, he’s doing it again. He’s making it up. So context free humor, that’s it. so in this particular case, should I… How it happened is I received an email from somebody who I won’t name and the email was just so absurdly stupid that it really started making me wonder you know just how bad someone’s brain function can be to write this kind of email so…

Mike: [laughs]

Chris: It was horrible. I just… I remember so I went in Voxer which is a walkie-talkie app that mike and I…

Mike: To me.

Chris: Between iPhones or android phones. Voxer – look it up. It’s really fun. And so I pushed a button, started talking to Mike and I start ranting about this email and I used an expression which I won’t repeat here because it wasn’t family friendly.

Mike: Good thing too.

Chris: But mike thought I said that the fellow was drinking from a bag of Pykthos and I had said something entirely different but I could see how it sounded that way.

Mike: [laughs] We laughed at the sound of this. it sounded vaguely a Greek mythological so I created what is really…

Chris: A back story. It’s Greek mythology because all the Greek mythology’s mythological and this is also mythological. It’s just more modern Greek mythology.

Mike: But this is an iconoplastic – a neo-iconoplastic myth meaning I’m creating this and there s no back story. It’s real but here is a story we created that you now need to know to use this humor on people so listen carefully.

Chris: are you going to read it?

Mike: And you’ll be able to read it on our website too. King Menelaus of Ithaca hired his brother Pykthos who was skilled in the use of herbs, poisons and Pharmakeia. He filled a leather bag with various plants, including lavender and violets, and the witch, Circe, knitted a covering bag of the finest silver thread. The potion inside would cause abject stupidity, and would be given to all of Menelaus’ rivals, but he feared lest Pykthos might use it on him, so he threw it into the fire hoping to destroy it. The leather burned away, but the silver remained, and the leather burning had created increased heat and it had concentrated the content into a sweet liquid, redolent of the scent of violets and lavender, a single drop of which would cause permanent stupidity. So that’s the back story you know. so whenever someone’s acting stupid around us and we want to tell each other or someone else in the know like one of our storm riders out there who is you for instance that the person with us is acting stupidly, we just make reference to the bag of Pykthos.

 

Chris: Right.

Mike: For example…

Chris: Or lavender.

Mike: Or lavender or violets. You can give one.

Chris: Your speech drips with the lavender fluid of Pykthos!

Mike: That’s wonderful. Your speech drips with the lavender fluid of Pykthos! You say that to someone and see them kind of cope with it. it sounds vaguely Shakespearean which is nice. You can even go further and say, You have clearly my friend dipped your straw in the silver bag of Pykthos…

Chris:  Right. [laughs]

Mike: What?

Chris: Your tongue is redolent with the odor of lavender and violets…

Mike:  Yes and now you get more and more subtle. Clearly, my friend, you have drunk deeply from the lavender bag of Pykthos! And moving into subtlety. [laughs]

Chris: The extreme subtlety, this is yours mike. So…

Mike: Let me..

Chris: I’ll read it, you explain it. did you visit the Smithsonian on your trip?

Mike: That is so freaking subtle it’s hilarious. Did you visit the Smithsonian on your trip?

Chris: Which is – why is this relative?

Mike: Because the Smithsonian is where?

Chris: Washington DC.

Mike: And what else is in Washington DC? The national art gallery where they also have the famed Jackson Pollock painting of lavender mist.

Chris: [laughs]

Mike: So you’re making an obscure reference to lavender implication the person’s been drinking from the bag of Pykthos.

Chris: Which is so hilarious that no one will even…

Mike: And then we came up with is that in your aftershave you’re wearing?

Chris: Would you use that on an email?

Mike: YES, SNIFF THE AIR.

Chris: Mike CCed me on this to reply someone.

Mike: someone sent me an email and I just answered it and just said, is that in your aftershave that you’re wearing? implication you smell like violets and lavender. He hadn’t got a clue. He resends his email.

Chris: Or how this one that you came up with, have you dine with Menelaus recently?

Mike: Because if you’ve dined with Menelaus, he has clearly put some of the lavender and violet fluid in your food and you’re stupid now.

Chris: I love this. this is the point here. I think I detect and Ithican accent.

Mike: Yes when someone says so. Do I detect a faint Ithican accent in your speech my friend? and if you’re hanging out with a bunch of your friends, you arrive at a bar and they’re all blasted out of their minds and boisterous and idiots and they’ve all been clearly been drinking from the bag of Pykthos. You say to them, I’ll sit here in the Ithican section.

Chris: Yes, I’ll sit here in the Ithican section.

Mike: So we urge all of our listeners, all of our storm riders to go on to the website which will be posted with this podcast at mikemandelhypnosis.com. learn the back story and we’re going to offer a prize.

Chris: we need to think of what our prize will be.

Mike: We offer a prize to any one of our products that you want, we’ll give you free. Not our trainings but any one of our products, any digital download, you can have a single one free to the person who sends us, reads all the back story and sends us the funniest or most subtle application of the bag of Pykthos.

Chris: Right. an actual application, not an imaginary one. Go out and actually use it on someone.

Mike: Oh that will be nice and send us the results.

Chris: Yeah tell us what happens because that will confuse people. It’s – I mean I’ve explained it to my wife and you’ve explained it to yours and… we don’t get your humor at all.

Mike: I’ve [unclear 14;08] professor friend of mine but he hasn’t responded. I think he didn’t like the backs story because Menelaus wasn’t Ithican. Odysseus was. I think he’s a purist.

Chris: Right so we have built in inaccuracies here.

Mike: That’s alright because like I said, it’s neo-iconoplastic. It’s a new design. Newly designed one and sometimes, when someone is saying something stupid, I get what I haven’t told you Chris.

Chris: Okay go for it.

Mike: They say something idiotic and you just shake your head and you sigh and you say sometimes, the leather just burns away. [laughs]

Chris: [laughs] That’s really good. okay and just for the spelling Pykthos. The bag of Pykthos.

Mike: When you’re referring to the Pykthosian bag. A bag with the Confessor. [laughs]

Chris: Sticking with our stupid topics here Mike, let’s talk about the idea of Black Hat or…

Mike: Well this isn’t stupid. This isn’t even a boring concept.

Chris: No, when I say stupid, I mean when you are looking to be creative to people and they are shutting down that creativity. Right, when you’re dealing with those Ithicans…

Mike: Yes, those Menelauian dinner compatriots. Yeah, here’s the thing, I get asked about creativity all the time. I do a keynote on it and the corporations are paying me a lot of money to teach them this and all y storm riders in our academy know about this because you have access free to our webinar where I taught the system to you. so black hat is an Edward de Bono term that basically comes from his six thinking hats method of organizing your thoughts and to black hat something, to black hat it is to shut it down to bury the idea to not give it any chance. It’s to be abjectly negative, the exact opposite of what yellow hat is which is sunny optimism. Black hat is pessimistic set, oh this will ever work in any circumstance whatever. There is a place for black hat thinking and I’m saying hat, not cat. When you have designed a new product and you’re like yeah, whatever, it has gone through the generation of ideas phase, it’s been trimmed, sorted, figured out, refined and you are about to implement it. that’s when you can black hat to find ways that it could screw up that something might go wrong with the implementation.

Chris: In other words, problem solving.

Mike: Trouble shooting yes before they occur when you don’t want to use black hat thinking is during the green hat phase. The green hat is the creative hat and this speaks of freshness, of plants, seeds, the idea that one throws ideas out in the green hat phase without judging them at all because a lot of great ideas come from stupid ideas. Stupid ideas can be reworked and lead to something brilliant, creative and wonderful. If you black hat during the green hat phase, you are shutting down the very creativity you need and someone I know routinely black hats any idea when it is still in the green hat phase. The rationale behind this chris is well of course I’m stomping all over it. if it’s not a good idea, it should be stomped out. If it’s a good idea, it will be able to take it which is idiotic because basically, you’re attempting to grow a plant, a firm timberous tree and to stomp on it while it is still in the seedling phase will even bring a giant redwood to not. It’s then amounts to sipping violets at the same time.

Chris: Are you going to grow lavender and violets and there’s elephants running around the field.

Mike: Travelling through there right. so just keep in mind that black hat thinking is the shut down creativity. It’s okay to be negative and pessimistic when you’re implementing an idea to see problems in advance but never, never shut down the creative process . you have to nurture the seeds before they grow into something useful?

Chris: I think it’s interesting to know that those who are successful entrepreneurs don’t tend to be the ins who gets overly negative and slam ideas before you’ve had a chance to grow them into something wonderful.

Mike: Absolutely. People who are entrepreneurs who are doing really well aren’t afraid to dream and dream big. Imagine what’s possible, make it possible and look at the huge pictures of what you could do. In fact, one of the things we use in our hypnosis training is something called a mythos deck and I know you’re well familiar with that chris.

Chris: More references from Greek.

Mike: Not even thinking because clearly resonating with the lavender level there.

Chris: [laughs]

Mike: What happened with Mythos cards. I bought this deck and there are 55 different cards. 5 paintings if you will that are small playing cards size paintings reproductions and they all have some archetypal powerful image on them and they’re all completely different. One might be a unicorn lying on its side in the forest. Another might be a man firing arrows at the sun or whatever it is and the way this works is when you have a problem or a burning question. you shuffle a Mythos cards, you take one out, turn it over and stare at it believing in advance with your intention that this is going to contain an answer to the problem or the question you’re dealing with. Now, we don’t for one moment mean that we are causing some sort of shift in the fabric of the universe at the level of charm corps and strange corps to make somehow this card match which is what some people think and they have clearly the…

Chris: Drinking…

Mike: Ithica.

Chris: Pykthosian bag.

Mike: So the Pykthosian bag. What we think is happening is what most experts in the field believe by looking at the                 Mythos card with a question strongly and intently in mind. Your brain will map across what you see on the card and somehow apply it to your problem to get you a new starting place and a new way of creating a wonderful solution. So it’s an amazing way of getting the unconscious mind working and get that ball rolling.

Chris: Right, it’s just a way of getting the unconscious mind into it because if you’re looking at a problem consciously analyze and going well you know, how can I solve this problem and you’re not coming up with great ideas. You bring something out a left field like a strange painting and you go, how does this apply? presuppose that it does right?

Mike: Right and you can’t say well, I don’t like this. let’s just try another one.

Chris: Unicorn, that horn it reminds me of the one thing I have been focusing on and it’s the wrong thing and I need to focus on something else. Whatever.

Mike: In your case chris, that’s all strangely applicable. [laughs]

Chris: [laughs] See that’s context free humor right there.

Mike: Humor. It’s not context free for anyone who’s listening. I’m sure if they replay it they’ll get my brilliant comedic line there. I clearly have kept the Pykthosian bag in arm’s length. Talk about this, you and I were discussing what we did in live webinar today. This whole thing about the quality of a preframe is going to affect the quality of the work you do.

Chris: I think we spent a good 10 minutes talking about this in our webinar today for our Mike Mandel Hypnosis Academy students and we do the webinars once a month and they’re purely Q and A open frame and then so we got on to this topic and we’re talking about how some people are overly negative let’s say and they will frame everything as it’s going to be difficult. This is going to be hard. This is going to be a lot of work.

Mike: It’s going to take so much effort.

Chris: But we need to do it anyway and we sort of laughing going on, yeah why wouldn’t you     want to automatically hear stuff like that and program yourself to reframe it in a more useful way and if you can teach them how to do the same thing too. This is going to be worth all of the effort we put into it. this is going to be such an enjoyable effort. We’re going to go into this with creativity in mind and we’re going to look forward to developing some incredible, useful solutions for that problem. Whatever it is.

Mike: Well I was just thinking chris, a perfect example for that is if you’re going for a medical procedure, this doesn’t have to be a business meeting. It could be anything. Going in for a medical procedure and you’re not looking forward to it because it might involve you know  why you’re going up the urethra or something like that which is seldom a pleasant experience unless one is into that sort of thing. and so, you’re going in for a medical procedure and the doctor says to you, okay this will just take a few minutes and we’ve done about five of them today. Everybody just whistled through him and it’s not going to be a big deal at all. You’ll be home before you know it. oh okay, if the doctors say to you, okay I got to warn you, this is going to hurt. And if you’ve got to scream or something, I want you to cover your mouth because you don’t know what pain is yet. Now, if he said that to you…

Chris: What if he said, this is going to hurt and I have bad news for you, we [unclear 22;38] anesthetic.

Mike: That’s right. Even though they don’t normally give it with every procedure whatever this nebulous urethral procedure.

Chris: Proceed to even worse frame.

Mike: So if the doctor does the identical procedure with the two different pre-frames, which one would you want? you’d want the first one that minimizes discomfort, minimizes problems and the second one does the exact opposite even though it’s the same procedure because what people don’t realize is pain and suffering are not the same thing. two people can have identical levels of pain and completely different levels of suffering so they can suffer from a hang nail like you wouldn’t believe and somebody else can have their leg blown off and be thrilled that it means they’re out of the army now and they’re going home.

Chris: Which doctor do you think wears a lavender lab coat mike?

Mike: You just looked at me and said which doctor. [laughs]

Chris: [laughs]

Mike: I’m not sure chris. I’d say the stupid one, the lavender colored lab coat. Nice pykthosian reference.

Chris: A lavender stripe under your lab coat.

Mike: Nice so the bottom line is whenever you have to do something, preframe it as useful, interesting. Say you got to bring a bunch of people into a business meeting and deal with some really heavy stuff like firings or something, do you really want to frame it as okay, we’re going to have a meeting and it’s probably going to turn into a slug fest because somebody’s going to lose their job today. Terrific1 whereas if you’re going to say we’re all going to get together around the table and just chat for a few minutes about a few changes that we got to make. It softens everything even though the process is the same. So find ways to make a quality preframe whenever you’re doing anything that takes the edge off even though the process is the same. You don’t want to say it’s going to be a big effort because there’s a nonsensical mindset out there that does not deal with results. It deals with the amount of effort putting and so, focus on results, focus on what you’re getting, not how hard it is to get it.

Chris: An example that we talked about is well since we’ve been spending quite a lot of time on the topic wellness both physical and mental wellness and a big part of that is eating differently than what we think was healthy say a few years ago and one of the things that will do is really enjoy deliciously healthy, fatty meals and for example omelets in the morning and if you’re going to make an omelet for yourself in the morning, its going to take considerably more time than pouring a bowl of cheerios or sticking some..

Mike: Brand name, we’ll edit that out.

Chris: Quick oatmeal in the microwave with some water or whatever else you happen to be putting alongside it. anyway, you have to spend more time. so you can frame this as it’s so much more effort to you know have to spend like 10 minutes making my breakfast and then I have dishes that I have to clean and then I got [unclear 25;27]. Yeah and instead you’re going to say to yourself, how much more enjoyable will my life be when I invest a few extra minutes and just preparing these healthy meals while I sit across from the counter and my children who are eating breakfast. Now, I have more time to talk with them as I prepare this breakfast for everyone. I mean whatever you want to say to yourself but if you frame it as a big effort, this is going to be such a [unclear 25;26] instead of framing it as something you will enjoy not only the process of doing but the result.

Mike: But really enjoy.

Chris: The result of having done it and what it’s going to do to change your life over the long run. Investing actually we were talking about Tony Robins’ new book money. What it’s called? money master the game.

Mike: I started reading it. chris has an N. I highly recommend this book.

Chris: Well I recommend it. I haven’t started reading it yet.

Mike: But the thing that’s great about it, you’re going to like chris…

Chris: I’m going to love it.

Mike: Is the way he frames everything. He frames it but you’re going to make all these changes in  your financial situation this and this and this. he says but its not difficult, its going to be easy, it’s going to be simple, its straightforward and you get so wound up reading. I got so wound up reading the first couple of chapters, I’m really excited what else he’s going to say in it. he’s done his homework.

Chris: It’s such a…

Mike: If you preframed it as financial information as appallingly difficult… And actually write this down so somebody as pykthosian as you can even understand it.

Chris: That’s right.

Mike: I would’ve found it really difficult.

Chris: Yeah, can you imagine if people framed saving for your – investing for your future as you know, you have to make sure that that 2 dollars a day that you were spending at Starbucks you have to invest that you can’t enjoy the luxury of a nice cup of coffee once in awhile because it’s really important that you make the effort to save that money instead. Yeah, now you’ve just depressed us all. I mean what the hell do I want to even be around for. Not that far out.

Mike: Chris, its back to things you have to do or things you’ve got to do. You have to do it or got to do it. if it’s oh I have to go downstairs and do 200 Hindu squats and you know strengthen my heart and lungs and everything and you say that to somebody who’s paralyzed on the wheelchair and they’ll say it’s not that you have to. it’s that you get to.

Chris: that’s it. So use – when we talk about empowering questions on this podcast before, what can you do knowing what we just said and create yourself some empowering questions that use the word like get to instead of a phrase like have to.

Mike:    nice, very nice.

Chris: I mean there’s so much you can do like ask yourself better questions . In f act, speaking of tony Robbins and his new book, wasn’t it him that said quality of your life is determined by the quality of the questions you ask.

Mike: Yeah it’s a wonderful, wonderful book.

Chris: I think that’s his line and it’s a freaking awesome line.

Mike: I think it is too and the whole thing have to and get to is a really empowering thing. I have to remember getting to a corporate show at downtown Toronto in one of the high end hotels a number of years ago. I was tired and I didn’t feel like doing it and it was getting close to Christmas and by the time Christmas rolls around like now, I finished all my gigs for the year and I started can we do this fun stuff and sometimes they can be a task trying to get volunteers in a corporate setting if I’m doing hypnosis and I remember sitting there and thinking oh have to go on stage in an hour and I’m here too early and all this stuff. I have to do a show and wait a minute, wait a minute.

Chris: Wrong statement.

Mike: Shook it all off. I get to perform on this stage at one of the best hotels in the city for an amazing corporate group that’s paying me a whack of money and I’m not a freaking telephone operator anymore making 90 bucks a weeks and it’s I get to do that, it’s not I have to.

Chris: Shook off the lavender mist and walked away from the violent cloud.

Mike: I did chris and I left the bag of Edward the confessor  behind me.

Chris: I love how we brought Edward the confessor.

Mike: oh by the way if you’ve listened to the previous ones…

Chris: I think it’s 54.

Mike: yeah 54 where we talked about the bag man and Edward the confessor which of course is completely made up. fraudulent, spacious and spurious. If your guy or if not, if you see a friend come out of a public washroom and he’s inadvertently first to zip up his pants, you can use some context free humor there and just say I perceive you’re considering joining the bag man of Edward the confessor. [laughs]

Chris: [laughs] Absolutely. Okay so let’s  leave you with an empowering question.

Mike: Okay ill do this one chris.

Chris: Yeah you do this one.

Mike: Based on what you heard, what will it take for you to get off your butt and start transforming your life now and when is it going to happen? what will it take for you to get off your butt and start transforming your life now and when is it going to happen.

Chris:  Thanks everybody for tuning in again. This has been episode 55 of Brain Software with Mike Mandel and I’m Chris Thompson. Remember to head over to our website mikemandelhypnosis.com because you will be able to opt in with your email address and get the brain software eBook which is an incredible life changing resource mike has written., it’s the same content that he levers in keynote speeches that corporations are paying thousands of dollars to have him show up in person and you get it for free in the form of an eBook and if you like this podcast, please visit iTunes and leave a rating and write a review of the podcast we want to get it out to the world. You heard me, that’s right.

Mike: Thanks a lot and good night.

Chris: Good night.