0:09

What's up everybody. Welcome to another episode of teach

0:12

to dumb dudes today. We're talking to Adam

0:14

Jones from Adam Jones hypnosis.

0:17

So Adam's a hypnotist. He does a variety

0:20

of hypnotic

0:22

things. So he does hypnotherapy

0:25

he does stage shows and

0:27

yeah, it was a pretty interesting

0:29

story. I'm not really one that believes in this stuff,

0:31

but you know, Bobby does.

0:34

What do you, what do you, what'd you think Bobby Bobby always

0:36

believes? No, it's really cool. I think that hypnotherapy

0:38

is actually a a pretty cool topic.

0:40

Something that I'm certainly interested in myself,

0:43

but I think you know, it

0:46

could serve a

0:46

purpose. Do you think he could fix your oral

0:48

fixation?

0:51

No. No. Honestly,

0:54

I still smoke. Right. And I honestly

0:56

think 100%. I want to talk about

0:58

smoking 100%.

1:01

He could replace smoking with something else

1:05

I want to quit. There are plenty of reasons that I want

1:07

to quit. We should do a special teach student

1:09

news episode where you get hypnotized.

1:11

Then we see the results.

1:13

I mean, I would. Hello.

1:15

Hey Adam, how are you? Good.

1:18

How you

1:18

doing? Good.

1:21

Oh, my God, look you, you can get a shirt. It's just hypnotist

1:23

on it. Is that so that's terrific.

1:26

That's terrific. I'm Rob by the way. Nice to meet you,

1:28

Adam.

1:30

Hey Joe.

1:31

Yeah,

1:32

so y'all doing good. I have

1:34

to do doing for you at

1:36

Alabama,

1:36

Alabama. Currently.

1:38

I am moving to Olympia Washington

1:41

next month.

1:43

Yeah.

1:45

I envy that. I got, I love the Northwest.

1:47

Like I've always wanted to live there.

1:49

Yeah. It's I went there for the first

1:51

time last summer and post COVID. It was just

1:53

kinda like if I'm ever going to live somewhere

1:56

else, that's not here. I might as well get to it. So

2:00

is it for business or just just moving out there.

2:03

It's a little bit of both Washington

2:07

and the Pacific Northwest is a bit more open

2:10

to things like hypnosis

2:11

then right. Then I try and

2:13

say,

2:13

Alabama's not open is,

2:16

you know, it's been way more open than

2:18

I thought it would be. Honestly, really. There

2:21

are a significantly

2:23

high number of people here who think I might be

2:25

possessed by Satan.

2:26

Yeah. Right. A couple of hundred, a

2:28

couple hundred years ago. They'd probably drown you or something

2:31

probably. Yeah, probably

2:34

more like 50 years ago.

2:36

Yeah, actually it's still

2:38

technically illegal on the books

2:41

to do hypnosis in

2:43

Alabama public schools. It

2:47

is against the teacher administrative

2:50

code. Wow.

2:52

Yeah. I wonder if there's any there's

2:54

ever been any attempts that led to that law.

2:58

Yeah. It's part of a law that also

3:00

ban things like yoga and

3:03

meditation and

3:05

all sorts of other things, because they got kind

3:07

of lumped in with like new agey,

3:10

a cultic type,

3:11

right?

3:13

Yeah. Yeah.

3:14

Meditation, yoga.

3:17

Yeah. Cool, man. Well, Hey, well, thanks so much

3:19

for coming on and talking to us, we really appreciate you

3:22

taking the time to come, which is something about

3:24

hypnosis, hypnosis and

3:26

hypnotherapy. So yeah, we're

3:28

really excited to have you on it's something

3:30

that you know, I've scratched the surface of

3:33

and, and learned a little bit about in my time.

3:35

But it's certainly one of those things I've never tried.

3:37

I'm interested kind of what you, what you

3:39

tell people as, you know, as

3:42

a hypnotherapist, like how do you get them involved?

3:44

Like how do you, you know, what's, what's the hook.

3:47

Yeah. Yeah. So with

3:50

the therapy side of things it, it

3:52

really is what is the goal

3:54

that you want to achieve? What is the obstacle

3:57

you want to overcome? And how

3:59

can we get you there? Essentially what we're doing

4:01

with a hypnotherapy type thing, we're

4:04

engaging in a rapid process

4:07

of self-directed neuroplasticity.

4:10

So all of the ways in which all of the neurons

4:13

in your brain connect to each other

4:15

to form patterns. So for a person

4:18

who, for example, has a spider. So

4:21

this person has neurons that are connected

4:23

between a panic response, which probably runs

4:25

through the amygdala and the

4:28

image of a spider

4:30

usually is that like the fight or

4:32

flight

4:32

response? Yeah, it can be. Yeah.

4:34

Yeah. So if I

4:36

can find a way to cause

4:38

those neurons to make new connections,

4:42

then I changed the way that

4:44

the brain experiences that stimulus.

4:47

Sure. Yeah. So that now

4:49

when the image of a spider comes

4:51

up, the person

4:53

no longer feels the fear, but

4:55

they're able to have a much more rational

4:58

response. So if we define a phobia, for example,

5:00

as an irrational fear we can

5:02

allow the unnecessary fear

5:04

and the irrationality of it to go

5:07

away by reconnecting those neurons

5:09

to new pathways that are

5:11

more useful for someone Then

5:13

the fear that they used to experience most

5:15

phobias start when someone

5:18

is really, really young, definitely

5:20

way before, like the age of seven. And

5:23

at the age of three, it's

5:26

probably a useful thing. When

5:28

you don't have a understanding of how

5:30

the differentiation between a black

5:32

widow and a jumping spider,

5:35

it may be a useful thing for you to have that

5:37

fear response. But by

5:39

the time you're 30, if you see a

5:41

jumping spider and you're having a panic attack over

5:43

it, that's no longer useful for you. Right?

5:46

So if we can redirect

5:48

the neuro-plasticity, if we can make use of the neuro-plasticity

5:51

to pick your brain, we can form these

5:53

new pathways that the more you go

5:55

down, then the more there's old pathways kind of

5:57

fade away, almost like a pathway through

6:00

woods and cutting a new trail

6:02

through a piece of wood. The other one that used

6:04

to get used by everybody. Eventually

6:06

we'll become overgrown and forgotten about, as

6:08

everybody starts to use this

6:09

new, could it go negative though? Could it make

6:11

you afraid of have a fear of something else, something

6:13

different?

6:15

Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. I

6:17

always tell people, you know, tell

6:20

me what you want, not what you don't want,

6:23

because the list of things that you don't want is

6:26

infinite. I don't want to be afraid of

6:28

spiders. Okay. How about I make

6:30

you afraid of butterflies? You know, like that, what,

6:32

what is it that you want? So the more we can

6:34

frame it in positive terms, as

6:36

opposed to negative the easier it becomes

6:39

for it to be a better

6:43

outcome for you in the future.

6:45

If we can frame the goal around,

6:47

here's the ideal that I want to get to,

6:51

then we can start moving

6:54

the focus of your mind towards

6:57

that. And I

6:59

mean, you can, you can, I can do a phobia

7:01

cure and have someone, you know, they

7:03

can walk out of my session

7:06

and see a spider and not

7:08

have a panic response. The

7:10

more they act on that, the

7:15

further that, that new group, that

7:18

new pathway is going to get carpet.

7:20

Right.

7:20

But that doesn't mean they have to go, right.

7:23

That doesn't mean they have to go like pick up spiders and

7:25

hang out with them. But like the more they,

7:27

you know, get used to it and the more they act

7:29

on that, the easier it's going to be. But

7:32

yeah, changing

7:33

that automatic response. Yeah,

7:35

exactly. Exactly. I come

7:37

at it from the perspective of everybody is

7:39

already in some

7:42

kind of trends. If you have a phobia, for example,

7:45

you are in a phobia trend. My

7:47

job is really to de hypnotize

7:49

you from that one and put

7:52

you into a better one. Yeah,

7:54

it gives you the freedom you need.

7:56

If you don't mind talk to us for a minute about that state

7:58

of trends. Right. Cause I think that that's like a

8:00

really interesting concept. Right. And so

8:02

if I may, I'll take a crack at it.

8:04

Right. You're driving to work

8:07

and when you're driving,

8:09

you're consciously, all right. I'm leaving

8:11

my house. I get on the road and

8:13

the way I go, and then before, you know,

8:15

it you're at work and

8:18

technically, you know, you drove to work,

8:20

but you don't really know

8:23

point a to point B as much

8:25

as you in what's called a trans yes.

8:28

Yes. So we even call that highway hypnosis.

8:31

Right. And then you, you

8:33

sit there and all of a sudden, you kind of

8:35

realize, you know, for the last. Five

8:37

10 minutes. I've been driving an incredibly

8:40

heavy piece of machinery and have

8:42

no idea what's happened. I

8:45

speed in the world. Hopefully

8:47

I have not broken any laws or, you know,

8:50

hit an acute for animals. And it's a perfectly

8:52

safe way to drive because essentially what happens

8:54

is your conscious mind takes a

8:56

break and your

8:58

unconscious mind comes to the fore

9:01

and it takes over. So if we define

9:03

the unconscious mind, has all

9:05

of the things that you are not actively

9:08

thinking about, right? Like breathing,

9:11

like breathing, your heart valve, synchronization,

9:14

your liver, enzymes, even simple things

9:16

like reading, writing, talking, walking

9:18

and your conscious mind is all of your

9:20

conscious mind can handle about seven pieces

9:23

of information at once. So right now

9:25

it's only four.

9:29

Yeah, man. I'm a little, I'm going to be like three.

9:35

So right now y'all are thinking about what you're thinking

9:37

about. Right. But you can

9:39

suddenly be aware of the color of the walls

9:41

and the room that you're in, right. Or

9:44

the feeling of the chair that you're sitting. And

9:47

you were always aware of those things at

9:49

an unconscious level, you could be aware

9:51

of it. So immediately because your unconscious

9:54

mind was monitoring everything. And

9:56

your unconscious mind is capable of handling

9:58

somewhere between three and 30 million

10:00

pieces of information at any given

10:02

time. Yeah.

10:05

So what happens in hypnosis is

10:07

essentially your conscious

10:10

mind kind of gets bypassed by

10:13

your unconscious mind. And

10:15

some of these natural processes start

10:17

to take over. So, again, let's

10:19

stick with the spider phobia. Someone sees a

10:21

spider, they don't

10:23

think it's a spider. It's now

10:25

time for me to raise my heart rate and

10:27

be afraid. Right. It's just

10:30

an automatic response if you're driving

10:32

and all of a sudden, even if you're kind of zoned out

10:34

you're driving, but your unconscious mind is monitoring

10:37

everything. So the light changes

10:39

from green to yellow. You

10:41

automatically go to

10:43

put the brake on, right. Or

10:45

the gas down or the gas.

10:48

Yeah. And in Rhode Island, it's always the gas

10:52

lights, yellow. Shit's going to turn around. Let's go. We're

10:54

awful

10:55

fair. But

10:58

that automatic response is

11:00

an unconscious. And,

11:02

and that is an example of hypnosis.

11:05

So this is where in, in some

11:08

hypnotic, you know, communities

11:10

there there's always an ongoing debate over

11:13

is hypnosis or trance. I use them

11:15

interchangeably. Is it a state or

11:17

is it a

11:18

process? Yeah. And so that's something

11:20

I was really interested in too, because when you look

11:22

at you know, some sort of Eastern cultures

11:25

or religions and the whole idea of enlightenment,

11:28

and I always think that that's, at

11:30

least in my mind, I think the two are

11:32

almost similar in a sense of, of

11:34

it is a place where you can let go

11:37

of those conscious judgments

11:39

and weird thoughts and, and,

11:41

you know, kind of depressive states or something like

11:43

that. And, and just be

11:47

like, you know what I mean? Like

11:49

a state of being of having a clear mind. Yeah,

11:53

yeah, yeah, yeah. One

11:56

of the things that happened and, you know, kind of one of

11:58

the myths of trance that we

12:01

get in society because of

12:03

I call it the Scooby doo effect, right? Like hypnosis

12:05

is this zoned out zombie, like

12:07

state of mind control where

12:10

the Hypnos villain creep of the week

12:12

is using his nefarious power

12:14

to force people to do his bidding. And so

12:16

a lot of people that are, that are work with me you

12:18

know, whether on a stage show or

12:20

in a therapy thing, and

12:23

they assume that they're going to be completely

12:26

just like often LA LA land,

12:28

not aware of anything that's happening. Yeah.

12:31

And So then, you know, I, I always

12:33

tell them, I know, you're, you're going to be aware of

12:35

everything that's happening around you. You're

12:37

aware of everything I'm saying to you. You're going to remember

12:40

when you leave this conversation and this the session

12:43

you remember as much as you would from any normal

12:45

conversation. But what you will

12:47

have during this time is this heightened

12:50

state of focus in

12:52

particular on what I'm saying to you and

12:54

on the things you want to achieve, whether that's

12:57

losing weight, overcoming a phobia, or

12:59

if you're onstage, you know, potentially

13:01

becoming the star of the show that night by

13:03

doing whatever.

13:06

So let's take one step back because I'm

13:08

really fascinated about the process of

13:10

hypnosis, right? Because when somebody says

13:13

hypnotist, obviously they immediately think

13:15

of the clock,

13:16

this swings and magician, the

13:18

swirling, our work, and like putting

13:21

this trance. What is the process of, of

13:23

getting hypnotized.

13:25

There are almost

13:28

an infinite number of ways of doing

13:30

what's called an induction. That is the process

13:33

where we take you from normal, everyday

13:35

waking state into a hypnotic

13:38

trance that there's, there's

13:40

a more direct method of

13:42

doing it. And then there is a

13:44

much more indirect method of

13:47

doing it. And these are sort of typified

13:49

by some some of the giants

13:51

of the hypnosis community. So there's

13:54

a therapist who lives

13:56

throughout the 20th century. His name is Milton Erickson

14:00

and Erickson was a fascinating guy. There's a

14:02

great documentary on Amazon

14:04

called wizard of the desert. All

14:06

about military. And

14:08

Erickson was a psychotherapist and

14:12

he was inflicted with polio

14:14

twice. Two different strains of polio was

14:16

in a wheelchair the first time he was,

14:18

he was afflicted with it. He he was

14:20

in a wheelchair. Then he taught himself to walk again.

14:22

Then he got it a second time and

14:25

was paralyzed. Yeah.

14:28

Was paralyzed on his right side. Had

14:30

this really gravelly voice he's tone deaf.

14:32

He he lost all of his teeth. He wore dentures

14:35

and his false teeth would kind of click

14:37

around in his mouth. He was color blind. The only

14:39

color he could see was purple, but

14:41

he would just like sit in his wheelchair

14:45

and just like talk to people.

14:48

And before they knew it, they

14:50

had experienced total and complete

14:53

change in their lives. And

14:56

what he did is he would just string

14:58

together. These

15:01

long and winding, almost

15:04

word salad, nonsensical

15:06

type sentences that cause

15:08

people to continue to move their focus

15:10

further and further and work. And

15:13

so it would, you know,

15:15

it would be like, and as you sit

15:17

there in that chair and notice all

15:20

of the different sensations of the

15:22

ways in which your body is interacting

15:24

with the outside world and think about

15:26

the concept of time he would just go on

15:28

and on and on. And

15:30

all of a sudden you're walking out of his office,

15:32

you know, an hour later and

15:35

you're going, what was that crazy old

15:37

man talking about? And three weeks later you realize,

15:40

you know, I haven't

15:41

had a cigarette in like three weeks.

15:44

Yeah. Then there is the more

15:46

direct method which was more

15:48

typified by a guy named Dave Elman who was

15:50

another giant and element actually started

15:52

as a performer in vaudeville, learned

15:55

hypnosis as a performer, and

15:57

then figured out, you know, we

15:59

can use this. He looked at a lot of practitioners

16:02

from the past who had used hypnosis

16:04

for things like anesthesia

16:06

replacement during surgery. Wow.

16:10

Wow. You can really go that deep in a trans

16:15

a guy named James as Dale who was

16:17

a British medical doctor in India

16:20

was so good at

16:22

using hypnosis for anesthesia

16:24

that he actually, at one point performed

16:26

a surgery on an 87

16:29

pound tumor using

16:32

only hypnosis as the answer statement. Wow.

16:34

Wow. Yeah. So

16:37

Elman starts teaching medical doctors

16:39

how to do hypnosis. And

16:43

he uses a much more direct approach.

16:45

He's going to go in and he's going to do a

16:47

couple of tests to see how you're responding.

16:49

He's going to say, all right, I'm going to take three

16:51

puffs on my cigarette on the third puff. You're

16:54

gonna close your eyes and go into hypnosis and that's going to be

16:56

it. And so it's a much more direct way

16:58

of doing it. You can get somebody into trance

17:01

in a matter of seconds.

17:03

Wow. But not unknowingly,

17:06

not unloading.

17:07

No. That's, that's the big trick

17:09

too. I think people, one of the big misconceptions

17:12

that you have to be a willing participant.

17:14

Yes.

17:16

Yes. So when you watch like YouTube

17:18

videos and you see people who,

17:20

you know, they walk up to somebody and they grab him by the arm,

17:22

they pull it and they all sleep.

17:24

There's been a lot of setup. That's actually

17:26

happened before. That

17:29

moment that gets shown at the start

17:31

of the video. Sure. Okay. Yeah,

17:33

if you just go grab somebody and pull

17:35

their arm and you'll sleep, you know, they're, they're

17:38

not just gonna drop

17:40

into a transition phase probably

17:44

rightfully so. Yeah. I mean,

17:46

are there people that cannot be hypnotized?

17:48

No, there are people

17:50

that can be hypnotized more easily than others,

17:54

but anybody that is capable

17:56

of using their focus,

17:59

their imagination, anybody that's

18:01

capable of doing that can experience

18:03

a hypnotic

18:04

trance. So, I mean, it's a lot like meditation, right?

18:06

Cause sometimes like you sit down and listen, those YouTube videos

18:08

and somebody talking to you and telling you to focus

18:10

on your breathing and let this out. I mean, is

18:12

it kind of the same thing? Cause if you

18:15

do that long enough, you can't feel that. Yeah.

18:17

It's like almost like tantric.

18:20

Yeah. The it's it's very similar.

18:22

The difference, I would say from at least

18:24

my perspective as a practitioner is

18:27

the difference between what I do and

18:29

what someone who does guided meditation

18:31

does is I'm going

18:33

to make sure you experienced some kind of

18:35

hypnotic phenomena before you

18:38

leave the session

18:40

with me as a way of ensuring

18:42

you that you haven't just been sitting there

18:45

listening to me talking. So I'm going to stick

18:47

your hand to something, or I'm going to glue

18:50

your eyelid shut, or, you know,

18:53

stick your feet through the floor or whatever I'm going to do something

18:55

so that you understand you are having

18:58

inexperienced. That is not.

19:02

Typical

19:04

for you to have, and

19:06

as a result, that's going to help to reinforce

19:08

the change work that we're doing in

19:10

your own mind to say, okay, something actually is

19:12

happening there and that's going to give you further motivation

19:15

to act on.

19:17

That's incredible. And so, and so part

19:19

of your practice, you're actually keeping

19:22

people's eyelids closed or things like that. They're

19:24

getting in that deep enough of a trends.

19:26

Is there levels

19:29

in a sense to how deep people

19:31

can go in that trans, like you said, it's easier with some

19:33

people than not. It is. I

19:35

mean, like, you know, I, in my mind I'm

19:37

thinking like, all right, quitting smoking, right.

19:40

That's probably something that you got to go pretty deep

19:43

because it's such like a, like a,

19:46

you know, physical addiction or something.

19:48

Yeah. Less so than you would think. Running's

19:51

a really interesting spoke is a really interesting

19:53

category because For the most part,

19:56

you know, we

19:58

have been, we

20:02

have been told that smoking is an addiction,

20:05

but the interesting thing about it is people

20:07

smoke the exact same number of cigarettes

20:09

every day for 30 years, without

20:12

ever increasing that dosage or increasing

20:14

the frequency. Right. Which is

20:17

not quite so what a lot of people have is a

20:19

smoking habit. Yes. More

20:22

so than

20:22

an addiction, because it's about where they call

20:24

it. It's like the, the, are there specific

20:26

events throughout the

20:27

day, right? Like I get in the car, light

20:29

a cigarette. I I've,

20:32

I've heard this in the past. They say that the nicotine addiction

20:35

is only three days after that it's habit. I don't know how

20:37

true that is. Very,

20:38

yeah. I felt, I found when I stopped

20:41

smoking real cigarettes like that first three

20:43

days, it was really the only three days that you think

20:45

about it. If you get some sort

20:47

of. Something to alleviate

20:49

the oral fixation of bringing a cigarette

20:52

to your mouth and actually smoking

20:54

that's the harder part to break.

20:57

Yeah. Yeah. So

21:00

in terms of, of depth, I

21:02

always try and take people, you know, as,

21:05

as deep into

21:07

it, as I can. The, the working

21:09

level of hypnosis is what we call some nationalism.

21:12

Which is just a, it's similar

21:14

to insomnia, right? The

21:16

it's, it's a sleep like state,

21:19

it's an oscillate, but it is a sleep like state.

21:21

And so my goal is to always take my clients

21:24

there. Now there is below that something called the Esdaile

21:26

level, which is named after John says

21:28

Dale, who we mentioned earlier. And

21:30

that one, that one's

21:33

a fun one to go to, but you're not

21:35

going to get a lot of like, I'm

21:37

not going to have you. And I don't make people like

21:39

squawk, like a chicken in my office when I'm doing therapy,

21:41

but I'm not, you're not gonna spark like a chicken because you're

21:44

two ways zoned out

21:46

at that point. It's a lovely place to be.

21:48

But you're, you're not going to get a lot of phenomenon

21:51

like that. So, but in the, in the

21:53

somnambulistic stance, then I

21:55

will be able to get phenomenon pretty

21:58

easily. Now some phenomena is

22:00

right from the very start, you know, at a very,

22:03

very light state. And you can get that causing

22:05

someone's eyes to. Be

22:08

unable to open, not

22:11

that hard to do. You can do that very lightly.

22:13

Could you do it, could you do it to bento right

22:15

now? Well, I say, well, why don't we do that?

22:17

Why don't we do this? Take, take your hands. Both

22:19

of you can do this, put your hands, put them out in front of you like this.

22:23

All right. Put your hands together. Which prompts,

22:25

touch each other. Interlock your fingers. All

22:27

right. Not yet, but in a moment, I'm

22:29

going to have you stick your first two fingers up in the air,

22:32

stare at the gap between them. And imagine

22:34

there are two high powered magnets on them

22:36

because they will touch. All right. That's

22:39

on the count of three. Ready? 1, 2,

22:41

3, stick your fingers up in the air.

22:44

Imagine two high powered magnets, pulling

22:46

those fingers together and

22:48

feel the force, pulling them

22:50

further there.

22:53

It really is.

22:55

Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's

22:57

your mind, you know, when you put

22:59

your focus on experiencing.

23:03

That experience your

23:05

mind will help create it happen. Your mind

23:07

unconsciously will send the messages to

23:10

the muscles and nerves in your body to cause

23:12

the response to happen. Right?

23:15

What you're focused on it right now, that's, that's

23:17

fairly easy to get in

23:19

a, in a light state of trance. So when I'm doing

23:22

a stage shift one of the things that I

23:24

do early on in the stage show is I do

23:26

a series of things like

23:28

just like that, that are kind of escalating

23:32

in difficulty. And

23:34

then as we progress through the opening stages

23:36

of the show, I'm weeding out

23:38

people who are not responding as quickly on

23:40

that particular night and another night, they might

23:42

be the star of the show. Right. But

23:44

for whatever reason that night, it's just not,

23:46

they're not. So I'm waiting out those

23:48

people, I'm keeping the people who are responding

23:51

really well. And then by the time we

23:53

get to the point that I'm actually doing an induction.

23:57

They're already gone. I've

23:59

already gotten, you know,

24:01

I'm taking them through, through,

24:04

through all the steps.

24:06

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

24:09

And so in your show, how many people are you?

24:11

Are you doing this in front of

24:13

how's that? Oh, in terms

24:15

of crowds? It depends on where I'm performing,

24:18

you know, at a high school or college, it can be several

24:20

hundred at a corporate show. It can be,

24:22

you know, 50, 75,

24:24

something like that. I

24:25

it says a hundred people. How many

24:27

people do you think, you know, you're getting

24:30

fully fully inducted

24:31

at all those people. If I have

24:33

a hundred people, I'll probably have 20 to

24:35

30 volunteers on my stage. And

24:38

out of those 15 to 20,

24:40

I will keep on stage and

24:43

anywhere between. Three

24:47

to six will be the

24:49

big stars of the night. Just because

24:52

it's, it's the level of depth

24:54

that they're able to achieve that quickly. And

24:56

also their, their own personality

24:58

will play into it. Right. That

25:01

having been said I have

25:04

the way I got into this in the first place

25:07

in college, I saw

25:10

a hypnotist whose name is Michael

25:12

C. Anthony. I

25:14

had never seen a hypnosis show before, went

25:16

into it, really skeptically. Michael comes

25:18

on stage and one of my friends, volunteers

25:21

for the show and he was a

25:23

relatively quiet, reserved

25:25

guy. And he becomes the star of

25:27

the show that night. And

25:30

he was doing things that I knew this

25:32

man would never, ever do on

25:34

his own. And I'm sitting in the audience going,

25:37

not only have I become a believer in this,

25:39

but this is the coolest thing I've ever seen

25:41

in my life. Right. How quickly can I learn

25:44

this? And, and ultimately I did I wound

25:46

up studying with Michael through

25:48

stage hypnosis university, and that's how I formally

25:50

got on the path of learning hypnosis. Hmm

25:54

that's terrific. And so you started with this stage

25:57

hypnosis, I'm

25:59

sorry, what was the academy?

26:01

His program is called stage of gnosis university,

26:04

university. Excuse me. Yeah. And so that's

26:06

terrific. And then, so in terms of, you

26:08

know, now you're not

26:10

just doing the shows, right. You also are working

26:12

with patients and so you had to go get further credentials

26:15

for that. I'm assuming.

26:16

Yeah. So I, I Threw him

26:18

a friend of his, his name and Mike Mendell and

26:21

Mike and his business partner, Chris Thompson out

26:23

of Toronto, Canada, I did a,

26:25

a full year course with them

26:27

online that culminated in a 40

26:30

hour live certification course

26:33

in, in Toronto. And

26:35

that's how I got certified on that end

26:37

of things. So, you know, for

26:40

the last two years or so

26:42

since around March 13th, 2020

26:45

the business has primarily been

26:48

the, the coaching side of things, seeing clients

26:50

and helping people, you know, overcome

26:52

their, their problems. And I love doing

26:54

that. I love doing the state side of things more

26:57

quite honestly,

26:57

you know, it's obviously more

26:59

fun and that yeah. And it's,

27:01

it's starting to come back, fortunately.

27:03

Yeah. Good. But but yeah,

27:05

so I've gotten a lot of, a lot

27:07

of the therapy side of things and more in the

27:09

last year or so two

27:11

years,

27:14

I assume this isn't like medically recognized, like the

27:16

insurance won't pay for this or things like that. Right. Because

27:18

it all out of

27:19

pocket, I'm not dealing with insurance

27:21

now. It is actually the,

27:23

the American medalist medical association has

27:25

recognized hypnosis as

27:27

a valid mode of therapy.

27:30

Oh really? And a useful mode of therapy. Yeah, absolutely.

27:32

But I, I personally do not deal

27:35

with insurance companies. No.

27:38

Okay. Sorry. We're going to say Bobby.

27:40

I was going to ask about the coaching. What do you think that

27:42

people come to the most. Yeah.

27:46

What have you seen the most success

27:48

with in terms of helping people, you know,

27:50

that you would recommend is, is it, you know,

27:52

I I've heard before, you know, a couple

27:54

of friends I know who have done

27:56

hypnotherapist first quitting smoking and

27:59

it's worked for all of them. Is there anything that

28:01

you would particularly recommend?

28:03

Yeah, I have a lot of success with

28:06

my stop smoking clients. Weight loss

28:08

is it's very good for, in terms

28:10

of getting your mind focused. One of the things

28:12

that people struggle with when they're trying

28:15

to lose weight is just the mindset

28:17

of the whole thing. Right. I can tell

28:19

myself I'm not gonna eat

28:21

this thing. I'm going to exercise, but then. When

28:24

it comes time to get up off the couch and go exercise.

28:27

That's where I really need the help Crohn's because once

28:29

I get started, yeah. Once I get started, I'm

28:31

good. But until then, yeah.

28:34

So hypnosis.

28:37

Yep. I was actually, we were talking before you came on

28:39

and I said, I want to ask them about if, if

28:41

hypnotherapy could work for someone like myself who like,

28:44

you know, I just cannot make it to the gym.

28:46

Like when I go to the gym, I feel good.

28:48

I know, I feel great afterwards. I know I need to do

28:50

it, like all these things, but for me just to get

28:52

out of the house and like do it, I

28:56

can't even, I can't even explain the mental block that

28:58

I have to do it because it's, it's, I, I'm a very

29:00

logical person. It's completely irrational to me. And

29:02

I just thought I still do it anyways.

29:04

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's

29:07

the type of thing that I

29:09

think hypnosis is great for when it comes to weight

29:11

loss, you know, I can't hypnotically,

29:16

you know, Remove

29:18

weight from you wish that I could,

29:20

Medical degree. Right,

29:22

right. It's interesting though. Just about removing

29:24

that block. I mean, that block exists

29:27

for so many people for so many things.

29:29

Whether it's you hate work, you

29:31

hate going to the gym, like you

29:34

hate senior. In-laws like that block

29:37

exists for a ton of

29:39

things. Yeah. And so

29:41

one of the things, you know, we can, we can get

29:43

to is what

29:45

is your unconscious mind trying to do

29:47

for you by creating

29:49

that, you know, think about let's, let's

29:51

go back to somebody that smokes for a minute, for

29:54

somebody that smoked. Their

29:57

unconscious mind has created a part of

29:59

them that has told them every day for

30:01

30 years, you need to smoke this

30:03

number of cigarettes per day. At these

30:05

exact times, that is

30:07

an incredibly powerful thing right

30:11

now. Why has their unconscious

30:13

mind done that? Well, maybe because they thought it was cool

30:15

when they a kid, whatever, maybe, but

30:17

for some reason, the unconscious mind is trying

30:20

to either protect them or give them pleasure.

30:22

Right. So if we can

30:24

figure out what the

30:27

reason is, the unconscious mind has

30:29

created this part that runs this process.

30:33

Then if we can work

30:35

with that and negotiate with that and find

30:37

it something else to do. So let's take somebody who does

30:39

smoke. What if we take that part?

30:41

That's reminded them to smoke 30

30:44

cigarettes a day, and then we

30:46

say, okay, what if. To,

30:49

to keep this person safe while and protected to

30:51

give them a good life. We can now have

30:53

this part, remind them and motivate

30:55

them. They need to exercise every day. Well,

30:59

now all of a sudden we've transitioned

31:02

this incredibly powerful part

31:04

from something that in the long run was trying

31:06

to do something good for them, but was creating

31:08

a net negative effect to now

31:11

this is really helping them

31:13

and benefiting them in a, in a huge, huge way.

31:15

Have you seen a working, have you seen it work for

31:17

you know, like other drug addictions, like opiod addiction, for

31:19

example, has anybody ever tried something like this?

31:22

I have not personally worked with opioid

31:24

or other addictions, but I know people who have,

31:27

and who have seen great successes. There's a guy

31:29

named Scott Sandlands who, and

31:31

a woman named Melissa tears who work

31:33

a lot with drug

31:36

addiction and they're phenomenal and

31:38

they've achieved a lot of successful path. Yeah,

31:40

that's

31:40

awesome. Yeah. I assume

31:43

alcohol would be a little more common, correct?

31:45

Alcohol is fairly common. Yeah. I

31:48

know there, there are some hypnotherapists

31:51

who take the approach with alcohol that, you know,

31:53

instead of turning someone into a complete and total lawn

31:55

drinker, it's better to turn them into a social

31:57

drinker. Because the moment you say

31:59

never again, you're essentially starting a pressure

32:02

cooker. Okay. Think about

32:04

like the person who goes on the diet and they're like,

32:06

I am not going to eat pizza and

32:08

chocolate and. Something

32:11

happens. They have no other time, all they have

32:14

to eat as a slice of pizza and all of a sudden they're

32:16

bingeing pizza for the next week. Right.

32:18

So, you know, that's the whole theory too

32:20

about, you know, not biting off more than you can chew

32:22

when you're trying to make those big changes. Yeah,

32:24

exactly.

32:25

Incremental change.

32:26

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah,

32:29

that's terrific. And so I think it's so crazy too, that

32:31

you can just switch somebody's habits like that.

32:33

Like, you know, like there are literally

32:38

thousands of books written every couple

32:40

of years about changing your habits

32:42

and like,

32:44

you know, doing it slow and, you know, 1%

32:47

of it, like there are just so many books on it.

32:49

And so you're saying though, that you can

32:52

just replace those habits with something

32:54

positive.

32:55

I, it, with the

32:57

smoking clients that I work with, it's

32:59

a, it's a two session protocol

33:02

and,

33:03

That's it. Wow. That's incredible.

33:05

I figured it would take

33:06

me. It's a no,

33:08

because you, you know, you look at it like this way and

33:10

I approach it from a lot of different angles

33:12

when I'm doing a smoking cessation thing,

33:15

but I approach it from

33:17

first of all, all you have to do

33:19

to be a non-smoker is nothing. Right.

33:24

You literally have to do nothing. It takes no

33:26

effort. Right?

33:27

There's more.

33:30

Yeah. And I approach it from

33:32

an emotional angle too, you know

33:34

if you talk to someone and they

33:36

say, you know, you asked them, you know, if a doctor

33:38

told you, if you had another cigarette tomorrow, you

33:40

would die. Would, would that be enough for you to

33:43

stop smoking? And for almost everybody, it's not

33:45

because they've already been told more or less. That same

33:47

time

33:47

both of my parents were walked out of that doctor's office

33:50

rolled down the window and light up a mob,

33:52

right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

33:54

It's like the old dentist Larry bit, you know, you can put

33:56

a skull and crossbones on the pack and colon cancer

33:59

sticks and people be lining up around the block to smoke them.

34:01

Exactly. It's

34:04

amazing. But if you take

34:06

the person that

34:08

that person loves most of the world, and

34:11

you say, if your doctor told you that

34:13

if you had another cigarette. You

34:16

have any doubt in your mind that you could quit? And

34:20

all of a sudden the answer is I have no doubt

34:22

in my mind whatsoever,

34:23

but Bobby would kill me for a cigarette. Hell

34:25

yeah.

34:29

You'd be like, you got a lighter. Yeah.

34:32

They'll send me a letter over here before. Yeah.

34:38

God, that's so

34:38

crazy though, because the power of that emotion can

34:40

produce really strong

34:43

change in people.

34:44

And so if we take smoking out of the example though

34:46

and say use it, you know, a

34:48

different type of behavior change. If

34:50

we were looking at, you know, like

34:52

work, right. I think about office,

34:54

the movie office space, right. Where the guy goes

34:56

to the hypnotherapist and then all of a sudden he and

34:59

Stan going to work. I mean, can you really

35:01

change how people perceive

35:04

their

35:04

emotions? Yeah.

35:08

Yeah. By doing really simple things

35:11

to really take,

35:13

take someone who really hates

35:15

their job. Right. And

35:18

have them say, all right. Now, when you

35:21

think about going into work, what

35:25

is the what's the feeling that comes up for

35:27

you and they'll say,

35:29

you know, dread or anger

35:31

or whatever. And then, so

35:33

let's say they say, you know, dread, okay.

35:36

Close your eyes. Now, where in your body are

35:39

you experiencing that dread?

35:42

Find it physically where it is in your body.

35:45

Okay. What color is

35:48

that dread? Right.

35:50

And they're immediately like, wait, wait, wait, wait. But

35:53

the confusion gets

35:55

them going. And as long as I

35:57

can get them to give an answer, I can

35:59

change it. Okay. And even if they say something

36:01

like dread doesn't have a color. Well, if it did have

36:03

a comfort and if yours had a color, what

36:06

color would it be? Red.

36:09

Okay. What kind of, would you rather

36:11

it be right. And just by

36:13

changing that

36:15

I have now stretched their brain in

36:17

the way that it experiences that

36:19

particular emotion. And it'll never experience

36:22

it quite the same way. Again, if I stack other

36:24

stuff on top of that, if I say, all right, what

36:26

is the picture that comes into your mind when you think about

36:28

going into work and you used to experience

36:31

that dread, what is the picture that comes into your mind? And

36:33

they start describing it. And then I start changing.

36:35

I say, well, is it full color or black and white?

36:38

Oh, it's full color. Well, what happens if we make it black and white?

36:41

What happens if we do that? What happens to, what if we make

36:43

it like really grainy, like an old

36:45

school TV set that starting to go on

36:47

like the staticky type thing? What if we

36:49

shrink it down really small? And

36:52

so I can play with, with the submodalities

36:55

and completely changed the perspective

36:58

that. People

37:01

look at their emotions or their experiences

37:04

from I've used it to fix headaches. I've

37:06

been around people that are like, I've got a headache. Really?

37:09

What color is it? And

37:11

30 seconds later I go. And

37:14

where's that headache gone? And they're like,

37:16

it's not there.

37:19

So just to get their mind off it

37:23

it's. Yeah, well, yeah, because

37:25

we've changed the way they're experiencing right.

37:28

Where we're now taking them out

37:30

of the moment we go to color,

37:33

we've moved them out of the kinesthetic system.

37:36

And now we brought in the visual system as

37:38

the primary way. They're experiencing this thing for

37:40

a while. And so

37:43

by the. Does

37:50

the headache have a sound? What does it sound like? That's

37:53

interesting for, for people with

37:55

anxiety, you know, usually they'll have

37:57

like some, maybe some kind of voice that's playing in their head.

37:59

So I can say, okay, tell me the direction that

38:02

voice is coming from. And

38:04

then I'll say, who does that voice sound like

38:06

by the way? And

38:08

it might be a parent. It might be a teacher from

38:10

when they're school, you know? Well, what happens

38:12

if that voice that's telling you to

38:15

be anxious about all of those things? What

38:17

if it now sounds like miss piggy, how

38:21

does that change your experience of it? And

38:23

what if we just like moved it from here to back

38:25

over here and made it miss Peggy? What's

38:27

it like now when you try and experience that

38:29

anxiety and so. You,

38:32

you are kind of taking their mind

38:34

off of it, but it's more that you're changing the

38:36

approach that they take to experience.

38:39

Hmm. If it works for anxiety, I assume

38:42

it's got application with PTSD as well.

38:46

Yeah. There's a guy named Carl Smith out of Britain

38:48

who he wrote a book called there's no D

38:50

and PTSD. And

38:53

he's got a really

38:56

great protocol that he uses called

38:58

kinetic shift that he, he is

39:00

a former police officer who

39:03

had his own and military

39:05

officer, but he had his own really traumatic

39:07

experience that led him to hypnosis.

39:09

And that is in large part. What he works

39:11

with now is, is working with post trauma, posttraumatic

39:14

stress. Wow.

39:16

That's terrific. How many applications. Right.

39:18

Oh, it was incredible. I mean, the fact that like,

39:21

you know, any behavior trauma,

39:23

like addictions have, it's

39:25

like, it seems like, you know, technically,

39:27

like you said, at the very beginning of this, if you have a

39:29

need and desire

39:32

for change, it's worth giving

39:34

it a shot, at least. Right. So

39:36

you were saying too, like smoking, for instance, like,

39:38

you know, two sessions and you know that

39:41

you can, you can kind of change that for

39:43

them. And I know you don't, because you said it's establishing

39:45

a new neuro pathway that it's hard

39:48

for people to fall back

39:50

into those previous patterns, but does

39:53

it happen and is there a certain reason

39:55

maybe that people would fall off that

39:57

wagon or is it just too hard to fall off

39:59

and people don't

40:01

oh, sure. People, people could.

40:03

Absolutely. Because ultimately,

40:05

you know, the, and that goes

40:07

back to kind of the misconception

40:09

that. I am the, in the

40:11

system, I have this power and I'm using this power

40:14

on you. I make it very clear to my clients

40:16

from the beginning that

40:18

when you're working with me, we are in a partnership

40:21

with each other, you know, I

40:23

can show you how to get into a deep state

40:25

of trance and I can show you how to make these changes.

40:27

I can't force you to do it right. You've

40:30

got to work with it. You've got to follow my instructions. You've got

40:32

to follow my directions when I give you homework to do

40:35

between now and the next session. You know,

40:37

I want you to do that. One of the things that all

40:39

of my clients get is a, is a

40:41

10 minute stress relief audio program

40:43

that I recorded. And I tell

40:45

them, I want you to listen to this

40:47

every single day. I don't care

40:49

when you listen to it, as long as you're not driving

40:52

at the moment or operating heavy machinery, but

40:55

whenever you listen to it, I don't care, but I want you to listen

40:57

to it every single day, because that's

40:59

helping hypnosis is a skill, just like

41:01

anything else, all hypnosis

41:03

is ultimately selfishness. So

41:05

the more you practice using it, the

41:07

better you're going to get. So I send them that

41:10

very early in the process and

41:12

I say, use this every day between now and

41:14

our first session. And

41:16

then I teach them in either the first

41:18

or second session, depending on how many I'm going to have

41:21

with them. I teach them how to do self-hypnosis

41:23

on their. And I say, practice it every

41:25

day for this issue. So

41:27

I'm reinforcing, not just

41:29

in the 90 minutes, they spend with

41:32

me 60 to 90 minutes, but every

41:34

day I want them going home and building these skills

41:36

and practicing them. And that is further increasing

41:39

that group. If you come in

41:41

to a session and it's, you know,

41:44

yeah, I guess I'm going to try this out and

41:47

I'm going to be one and done, and then you never

41:49

go do the things I tell you to do. And you just kind of sit

41:51

there and half heartedly. Yeah.

41:53

It's not going to work. Right.

41:54

But

41:57

if you will do

42:00

the work and you're, you really want to make the change,

42:02

if you're willing to make the change, it'll work brilliant. Like

42:04

it'll work as well or better than. A

42:07

lot of other options that you have out there.

42:09

So you obviously have to be open to it and want

42:11

to do it. Cause like personally someone like myself, I

42:13

just don't really believe in it. You know, I've attempted

42:16

to been hypnotized before at, you know, at a state

42:18

show, we had this guy, I forget his name. He was

42:20

really well known around here for awhile. I was the RA to hypnosis,

42:22

you know, and who was at a work party. And

42:24

you know, I went up on stage and I just played along because

42:27

I've always been the class clown. So I was just about making everybody

42:29

laugh. But I mean, you know,

42:31

there's gotta be some level of willingness I assume,

42:33

and, and open-mindedness going into it.

42:35

Absolutely. Yeah.

42:37

Yeah. I totally think that like

42:39

myself, like I'm a perfect candidate for this

42:41

because I enjoy meditation and

42:43

I liked that, like that state of relaxation

42:46

already. And so I feel like. Yeah.

42:50

Yeah, yeah. Whatever

42:52

to show a

42:52

mine. So I guess the big question,

42:55

sorry. I said, if you're ever in a show of mine,

42:57

we

42:57

yeah,

42:58

for sure. Oh God, let's see him go up on stage. So

43:01

the big question, right. If there's a lot of applications

43:04

to this and you know, they all sound amazing.

43:06

You know, why is this super

43:07

popular? Why

43:09

is it not? Yeah. Yeah.

43:11

It was very

43:14

much used after both world war one

43:16

and world war two for soldiers,

43:18

since we were talking about post-traumatic stress earlier, it

43:20

was used a whole lot. During

43:23

that timeframe, it kind of

43:25

just fell out of use. Like a lot of other

43:28

therapies tend to fall out of use. You know,

43:30

they, they go through phases, right? Cognitive

43:32

behavioral therapy is really big and then we're moving

43:34

into psychotherapy and, you know forayed

43:37

who began to be more predominant during his

43:39

life. Comes up with sort of what we think of is,

43:41

is basic psychotherapy talk therapy.

43:43

And he was a really awful hypnotist.

43:46

And so he saw no value in it will

43:49

Freud starts to become a big thing. So everybody

43:51

starts moving in that direction. What

43:53

we're one comes along, these soldiers

43:55

are coming back. People don't know what to do with

43:57

them. Doctors start

43:59

using hypnosis again with them. They start experiencing

44:02

all of these issues, but you still have

44:04

the concept of the connection

44:07

that hypnosis has in popular media,

44:09

because at the same time you have you

44:11

know, the therapists that are not a therapist, the, the

44:13

stage hypnotist that are going around

44:15

and they're wearing the big turbines and there's not going to

44:18

learn all these secrets from the east. And so hypnosis

44:20

is still getting lumped in with all of this

44:22

very like mystical,

44:25

you know, stereotypically

44:27

reading, all this kind of stuff. And they're not

44:29

looking at the scientific aspect

44:31

of it, which is what Eric said, an element and as

44:33

Dale and all these other guys are. Looking

44:37

at and using within these

44:39

medical context because at

44:41

the time when you were doing magic and mentalism and

44:43

things like that, like that's what you want

44:45

to, you know, we've all seen the press stage where

44:49

yeah. Right. And what

44:51

it is he's using, like Tesla's

44:54

stuff, but

44:56

he's out there saying it's, you know, known

44:58

only to ancient only men or whatever. And that was,

45:00

that was what it was at the time, because that was what

45:03

audiences wanted to see.

45:05

I'm sure it didn't help, like, you know, the Christianity part of it, you know,

45:07

like you said, down in the south and in Alabama

45:09

where that's, it's looked upon as

45:11

witchcraft or voodoo, whatever, you

45:13

know, I'm sure that kind of a damper on it to,

45:15

but interestingly enough, like the Roman Catholic

45:17

church has recognized it as a

45:20

valid medical therapy with no

45:22

connection to, you know,

45:25

evil or darkness or demons or anything

45:27

like that. And that's the problem.

45:29

There is very few. Even

45:33

within the Christian religion, there are very few denominations

45:35

that actually prohibit, oh,

45:37

well they use of hypnosis, but

45:40

it again, because popular culture

45:43

says that it's this other thing. People

45:45

just assume that it is. So as soon as they hear

45:47

it, you know, I knew people. I tell them

45:49

I'm a hypnotist and they develop this sudden immediate,

45:52

inability to look me in the eye. Oh

45:56

yeah. That's so strange. I

45:59

find it hilarious. I

46:00

think, oh yeah. Right. I would start, I would try looking

46:02

at them harder, you know, kind of freak them

46:04

out, like stare at their chest.

46:06

Like what are you doing to me? Yeah. I use

46:08

that in public next time. I'm just want to be left alone

46:11

and you gotta tell people I'm a hypnotist. So this, yeah.

46:14

Introducing you guys to hypnosis

46:16

the the others will want to

46:18

ask you hundreds of questions, which is

46:21

fun. Yeah.

46:23

Yeah, that's terrific.

46:24

That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah.

46:27

So that was cool. Really appreciate your time and coming on

46:29

and teaching a couple of dumb dudes about getting hypnotized.

46:32

I

46:32

check it out

46:33

a whole lot about, it's very

46:35

fascinating. You're actually the second

46:37

hypnotherapist I've met in like two weeks

46:39

now. And yeah. And

46:41

so I I'm going to give it a shot. There's a local woman

46:43

here who I was talking to and I'm

46:45

like, I'm going to give it a shot just cause I hate work

46:48

and so why not?

46:52

Awesome. We'll see.

46:54

We'll see. But yeah. Thanks. Thanks a lot,

46:56

Adam. I appreciate you for having me. This has been so much fun

46:59

and of course we always, you know, we always want

47:01

to give our guests the opportunity to get your, you know, get

47:03

your name out there, your website if there's anything you want

47:05

to shamelessly plug, now's your opportunity.

47:08

Yeah, so you can find my website

47:11

at Adam Jones, hypnosis.com.

47:13

And that is the coaching side of things.

47:16

If you're interested in that, if you're interested

47:18

in the stage performance side of things, my website

47:20

is squawk like a chicken.com,

47:23

a great website,

47:26

and you can find me on Instagram

47:29

at Adam Jones hypnosis.

47:30

Awesome. Awesome. Perfect. Thanks. Thanks

47:33

again, Adam. That was fun.

47:34

Thank you.

47:35

Thanks. Thanks man. Have a good night. All right, you

47:37

too. Bye.

47:53

I'm going to hypnotize. You say every time I fire you go, oh,

47:55

that's delicious.