https://www.listennotes.com/e/0296f21be4494b71a4c3621420f80531
12 Mar 2019 · 33 min
Gail Glassner, author of Reprogram Your Subconscious, talks with Cliff Jones about using hypnosis to overcome stage fright and public speaking anxiety. She explains how self-hypnosis techniques can help business leaders and entrepreneurs manage fear and improve their communication skills.
Thanks for joining us today on street smarts with Harvey MacKay, where the biggest room in the world is the room for improvement. And now here's your host, managing partner and co founder of harveymckayacademy.com Cliff Jones.
Hello everybody, I'm Cliff Jones, co founder, managing partner of Harvey McKay Academy. And I am really excited to bring to you today one of my favorite beings in the whole world, Gail Glassner. I'm going to tell you a little bit about Gail and the reason you should listen to this is if you're a business leader, a business owner, an author, a speaker, a human being with any fear, what I would call head trash whatsoever. Gail and I are going to talk through her best selling book Reprogram youm Subconscious how to use hypnosis to get what you really want. So hungry fighters, if you're listening to this on the Harvey McKay Street Smarts podcast or you're catching this on our website in the membership community, tune in if you like this material. Give us a little love at itunes because Gail Glassner is by far, in my humble opinion the leading expert in this field. And of all the books I've read on subconscious psychology, human performance, Gail's is my favorite. So let me tell you a little bit about Gail and we'll get right into the conversation. Gail Glassner, Twersky Ach, is a hypno counselor, hypnotherapist, motivational speaker and president of Glassner Associates Hypnosis for personal growth and wellness since 1999. Gail conducted her Hypno counseling practice in Montclair, New Jersey from 1999 to 2009. And then in 2009 Gail relocated to Southern California. And you have been there, Gail, practicing, working with all sorts of people, all walks of life. But as you know, our audience at Harvard McKay Academy is what we refer to as successful hungry fighter, business owners, business leaders, entrepreneurs, authors, speakers and what I want you to talk about today since many of our listeners may not have had the chance to read your book again. Top selling book on Amazon for a couple of years now and this was originally published by Nightingale and it's been a top seller for many years for them. Congratulations on your book. And what would you say to our listeners, our audience, about getting over this head trash so many of us have about speaking in public and communicating clearly.
Well, thank you so much for that introduction, Cliff. I am very appreciative and to answer your question, what I'd have to say to all your audience is it is possible to get over stage fright, fears of Public speaking, fears of all kinds of things. And I want everybody to know that and believe that, believe me, as part of making it happen. And there are specific things you can do that self empower you, things that you can learn that you will use beyond the actual speaking engagement that you have, or listening to my information today, you'll be able to use it the rest of your life. And I know because I've had going on 20 years experience working with over a thousand clients in person and many thousands who bought my products. So that's the good news.
Well, it is good news because I have used self hypnosis and worked with professionals like you for many, many years to work through the issues of life. My legacy of fear, the things I thought I knew about that I didn't know about, the things that crept up in my life as a business owner and leader. And I know what you do is universally applicable to people from all walks of life. But I want to say right up front, there is a common misnomer, an image of the stage hypnosis person. And this isn't a bunch of bunk. This for me has been profound. And when I read your book for the first time and since many times, and referenced it, you go into some powerful practices that people can use on their own and also how to work with a professional like you. So is there one particular thing that you would emphasize to our hungry fighters, our listeners, about getting over this stage fright, as you refer to it?
I'd be happy to, and I want to really tell the whole world about this. So please spread the word for me. Fear comes from your subconscious. And when there's a battle between your subconscious mind and your conscious mind, 99% of the time your subconscious is going to win. So you're battling something that's so powerful. So if you felt guilty about it, if you felt like you weren't good enough, if you felt like this will never change, wipe that all out, because it's not true. What I can tell you is you can learn how to reach into that subconscious mind through the modality we call hypnosis, which is used for therapy versus entertainment. Completely different. And you can actually make changes in your subconscious. So it is on board with you, actually your subconscious. If you think about the word subconscious, there's no physical place where we can put our hand and point. This is where your subconscious is. It's something that operates our whole body. So our autonomic system works perfectly well. Our stomach knows when to digest. You don't have to tell yourself it's time to blink now, because it happens automatically. That is all part of your subconscious too. It's our friend and our advocate. It wants to help you. It wants to give you pleasure. It wants to help you to feel protected. Now, this is where fear comes in. Fear is actually your subconscious protecting you, Protecting you from ever re experiencing something that doesn't feel good. Maybe you had an incident where you had to speak in front of people, even as a youngster. And what happened? Maybe you froze, or maybe you felt stumbling or something like that, and you felt you failed. Well, that is programmed in your subconscious as though it's a computer. Like all the experiences of everything you've seen, smelled, tasted, thought, felt physically. All of that is put into your subconscious like a database. So what happens when there's something that's very strong? Emotions such as feeling, oh, my God, I did something horrible, or I failed terribly, that's programmed immediately. And the subconscious chooses a way to stop you from ever re experiencing that bad experience. Well, you still want to do public speaking. You're business women and men, and you want to get out there to everybody. But back in your subconscious, there's a program that says, we got to protect you. We've got to stop you from those bad feelings. So it gives you this fear. What does fear do? It keeps you away from doing something that you might really want to do, such as public speaking. So this is the logic. This is what's stopping you. I don't mention the word ego. Ego to me, is outdated for the 21st century. What it really is, it's your subconscious programming that's stopping you. And you can learn how to change that subconscious programming. Free yourself from fear. Get through unlimited amount of things. I've worked on over 80 categories of issues, so you can't mention anything where the mind is connected that I probably haven't already worked on. That's how powerful this is.
I'm glad you began with fear because as I openly write about and talk about as an entrepreneur, I came from a legacy of fear. My father had a business that he lost in the 70s when I was a boy. My father was my hero. And I'm by no means an expert in this, but I really studied it a lot and I'm fascinated by your field. Is it true that humans are born with pretty much two basic fears? The fear of loud noises, the fear of falling, and then everything else as you alluded to earlier. For example, I used to hear, Clifford, children are to be seen, not heard. Okay, so my limited understanding of your field Is that until we're six or seven, we're running around as children in this make believe, what you would refer to as an alpha state, which is why we make mud pies and see children putting them in their mouths. We actually are making believe and pretending in that. In that relaxed alpha state. And isn't that how we develop all the other fears, beyond the fears, the two with which we were born?
You're absolutely right. Fear of falling is definitely one that I have heard about. I would think also that the loud sounds, because babies react extreme to those loud sounds, but you can again get over those. Now, what you said, Cliff, was that we can from the time we're born to the time we're about, it's 12 or so, 13, we are in the alpha state of consciousness, which is a more relaxed state than the beta state that we're in right now. And if you saw a graph, you'd see beta going like this in frenzy. And then alpha is more curved and slowed down. And then if you go deeper, it's theta, which slows down even more and there's less bumps. And then if you're in delta, there's very, very little ups and downs. It's almost like a straight line. And that is sleep. And when you're in delta, by the way, and when you're in theta and alpha, your subconscious is open to being programmed. And that's why children are so programmable. People say they're like sponges. Well, they are really like sponges. They're taking in everything and they take it literally. So they don't understand sarcasm the way that we do as adults. If you say to a child, you're such a troublemaker, guess what? It goes into their subconscious mind. I'm a troublemaker. And what does a troublemaker do? It causes trouble.
And that really means when we're in that relaxed state as a child or an adult, our meditators out there, you know very well, we can put ourselves in a relaxed state. We can visualize a relaxed state. So what you're talking about is in that relaxed state, we actually get programmed. Meaning, correct me if I'm wrong, but if we look at the whole mind, there is the conscious mind to which you referred maybe 10% of our operating system, for lack of a better way to put it. But isn't it true that everything else is essentially operating at an unconscious level? Which is why the big seminar gurus basically take us to the state of exhaustion till 10, 12 at night to sell us stuff at the back of the room. I mean, I put it in a business context, but isn't that how the programming works, through that relaxed state of mind?
It does. And you also can compare the alpha state and beta state to when you're in deep meditation or when you're in deep prayer. One of the differences with hypnosis, as I've discovered, is that we have certain protocols to, to actually assist us in speaking to our subconscious and getting it to change what's already there. So if you have fears, there's a way that you can speak with your subconscious in words that understands and motivate it to make the changes. That's really good news to your point.
And ladies and gentlemen, if you're just tuning in, I'm visiting with Gail Glassner, leading hypnotherapist on the planet Earth, author of the book Reprogram youm Subconscious. And if you haven't bought this book, read this book. You need to go to Amazon and buy a copy. Because what I love. One thing I love about your book, Gail, is you really empower us to learn this in ways mere mortals can learn this because you have thousands of hours of study and certification and, and practice at this. But when I read your book for the first time, I thought, wow, I can develop my own scripts. I can put myself in a relaxed state through a guided music that we can get on YouTube these days, shut my eyes. And then I can basically develop new scripts of sort of talk to my subconscious, the parts of me that would be afraid or needs to visualize the successful outcome or when I go to deliver a keynote speech. So take us through some of the things in your book that you help people learn and do on their own. Because I'm guessing if people are like me, they may have some existing head trash, for lack of a better way to put it, about seeing a professional like you.
Well, I will tell you that everyone can learn hypnosis. I teach self hypnosis within 10 minutes. And then it's a question of people just practicing and feeling comfortable with it. And it can be done at any time. And I will tell you a story what happened to me personally. I had to give a speech and I had to learn a language that was unfamiliar to me if another foreign language. And it all of a sudden dawned on me as I'm sitting right in front of the platform where I was to speak. All of a sudden this fear came over me and I immediately, without thinking twice, lowered my head slightly and you do something. There are certain things you do they call idiomotor. Techniques where you actually touch your thumb to your index finger or make some other kind of physical motion that's a cue to your subconscious. I'm going deeper into this relaxed state and I reminded myself how I knew everything, how I was excited about it, how I felt so good about doing this speech. And I did this in one and a half minutes. And then I brought myself out from as fast as you can count from 10 to 1 or 1 to 10, whichever way you want to go. And I was back to my fully conscious state. I went up within another moment onto the stage and it was a really good performance. And I was another person before I felt like I was an ice cube. I hardly could remember my name. And then I got up there and it just turned out fantastic. I got all kinds of compliments, and that's how I tell people how valuable it is to know these skills. But it's also valuable to understand yourself. And something Cliff, I'd like people to know is I have a background in teaching. I actually taught English and composition and speech arts, had a speech team, taught radio speaking, etc. Impromptu speaking, all kinds of speaking. And my whole heart is being a teacher. So I want my students, my audience to learn from me because it's so valuable. And I put it in terms that as a teacher, I've learned how to give instruction so that people can understand. And, and that's what's so important. This is really all about self empowerment, which is so important. But in addition to self empowerment, it's about self esteem and we all need more self esteem. We've all had these times when we fail. We've had these bad experiences or scary experiences, whatever they are, we all have them. And it's okay because you can overcome them and feel even stronger now, more self empowered because of that.
I love the fact you shared that story because it tees up for me a way for you to leave our hungry fighters, our audience, with some massive takeaway value. You referenced that you being the guru at this, had some fear. I believe you mentioned what you refer to as an anchor that you developed that brought you back to knowing the. Knowing that you had at a subconscious level how good you really were. And within a matter of a minute and a half or so, you're able to snap back into a high performance mode, which is really what our business owners and leaders looking for. They're looking for high performance, scaling their companies, getting the audience to stand up and give them accolades. So let's visit today. Even if we go a little bit Over. Because if you're willing to do this. And ladies and gentlemen, buy Gail's book, Reprogram youm Subconscious. It's on Amazon. It's a best seller for a reason. I'm not blowing smoke. This is one of my favorite books of all time. But Gayle, in case people don't go buy the book, let's spend the last few minutes together, walk people through that 10 minute exercise that you referenced so they can leave here knowing how to empower themselves and break through whatever their fears might be.
Okay, I'd be happy to. Self hypnosis, I think that's what you're talking about, right? We have three different things that you want to do before you start self hypnosis. Because first of all, you don't do it when you're driving your car or operating machinery. It's dangerous. And one of my clients, by the way, put in his CD at that time, so. Cd. And he went around the block four times before he realized what he was doing because he was listening. And your mind is so captured by what is being said and you're so deeply relaxed that it takes you away from what you're actually physically in your past beta state doing. So you have to do a self hypnosis as well as listen to any hypnosis records, you know, like the audios or CDs. You have to do that where you can close your eyes. You can be very peaceful and uninterrupted. So knowing that when you are relaxed and you can be quiet, you can put two fingers together. I usually suggest touching your thumb and index finger together. Or else two fingers, one right next to each other. Your index finger next to your middle finger. And that's one of the signs to your subconscious. Okay, she's getting ready for hypnosis. The other thing is to pick a special number you want. Any number can be your birthday number, your favorite number. Pick one from 1 to 10 if you're not sure, and use that as again, another anchor, as Cliff would say. And the third thing is you close your eyes and take two deep breaths. When you close your eyes, you're already in a light alpha state. You're on your way, same way you go to sleep. As soon as you close your eyes, you're ready to relax. At least most of us. And the other thing you do is with those deep breaths, that in itself is relaxing. Hypnosis is deep relaxation. It's revitalizing relaxation. And one thing I want to say also is 10 minutes in hypnosis is equal to one hour of sleep. So if you've had sleepless nights, whatever, and you can take time during the day, 10 minutes to give yourself deep relaxation and say that you're revitalizing it. It's just like you're in REM sleep or whatever, that will definitely help you. Okay, Once you have those three things that you can do, closing your eyes is really. That's one. And taking the two deep breaths, two fingers together, either your index finger and your thumb, or two fingers on again, the same hand. And then thinking of your special number, then your subconscious knows. Okay, this is time for hypnosis. And what you can do is count yourself with each number, going deeper from 10 to 1, deeper, relaxed. And you just say, deeper, deeper, relaxed, more deeply relaxed than before, going way down deeply relaxed with each number. You would say something like that. And when you reach that number, I go from 10 to 1. You know that you are in hypnosis, you're in the relaxed state, and you've achieved that programmable state of self hypnosis. I also add a safe and healing place where you can go. So you might imagine a place you can make it up in your mind. It can be up on a cloud. One client wanted to be up in the clouds. It can be in the mountains and you're under a tree, or it can be in your room. It can be anywhere where you feel relaxed. Nothing bittersweet, only good feelings there. And that's where you can actually communicate with your subconscious. And by the way, if you need to change your safe and healing place at any time, you can, on the other hand, if you like it, keep it, it's good for that consistency. Then when it's time to come back to your fully aware conscious state, you would begin counting backwards again. And that would be, you'd start at 1 and go up to 10. And when you reach 10, you're fully awake and alert. You put your hands over your head and say, I did it. I did it. You might want to get up, walk around a little bit and make sure that you're fully aware and back to your beta state of consciousness. So that's the shortened version of self hypnosis.
That's wonderful. Okay, so let me see if I can recap this. And for you skeptics and cynics out there, if you don't believe this is true, all you need to do is understand what it's like when you feel you're most relaxed, probably before you're going to sleep, if you can actually sleep. A lot of our People in this community have high performance sleep issues. If you are able to find yourself and believe in a relaxed state, you can hypnotize yourself, you can visualize, you can focus on your breath, you can learn to meditate. I know because I used to be one of the biggest skeptics in the world. But as an athlete and as a business leader and owner, managing stress, dealing with sleeplessness, anxiety, things like that, you touched on a huge point, which is I get up very early in the morning, which means I'm the worst dinner company after 6 or 7pm and sometimes my batteries run out. And I can tell you in profound ways, my relaxation techniques, my meditation techniques keep me supercharged. Let me see if I got this right. You're saying, okay, ladies and gentlemen, don't do this while you're operating heavy equipment, while you're driving a car where you're anywhere but in a safe place where you can basically use your anchor. Pick a number, take a couple of deep breaths or more, and then begin visualizing yourself. Maybe you could be in a chair, in a bed, in a comfortable seated position, whatever is most comfortable for you. And then you visualize and count from 10 down to one. Now I have a couple of my favorite happy places. Lake Havasu Pie is one of them. And then another is a room, kind of like my man cave, where I have complete, you know, complete me and nobody can bug me. So you go into that visualized state and then you're really talking about just being relaxed and being in that moment. Talk a little bit though, about, let's just say one of our hungry fighters has a sphere of speaking, or they have anxiety about an upcoming event or a big sales presentation they're about to do, or a job interview. How can they use that relaxed state to develop kind of that reprogramming script that you talk about and you provide to your client? Because you will actually write those scripts for anybody that engages you that you not willing to do it. So talk about that element. You're in the relaxed state. We're in our happy place. What would you tell our speakers, authors and high performance communicators that they could do to enhance their performance?
Well, you can actually set up your own, like a computer program. We call it a subconscious program. What do I do or how do I want my subconscious to help me remember? It always wants to please you and help you as well as protect you. How can I program those instructions? First of all, what are those instructions going to be? And then I program them into my subconscious so that automatically, just like you set your alarm on your phone automatically, it happens because you programmed it ahead of time. So anytime that you need more relaxation and you're up there even doing your speech, you can have your thumb and index finger, finger touching and nobody knows. I mean, it's very natural. No one would be able to detect it. And yet that will be that extra support. And if you did that now, if you're able to put your thumb against your index finger right now, feel that support, it's like you've got support there. You can press gently, but it feels like you're getting that extra support. And that's to remind you, getting your support of your subconscious that wants to help you. And you did mention something else too, about sleep. You can use this for sleep. Also, you can program better sleep. And one thing I didn't mention that's so valuable is we call them a faulty program. If your subconscious puts something into the programming, thinking it was the right thing. Let's say you had an experience where something frightened you at night when you were sleeping and there was a fire outside and your subconscious knew that you needed to stay alert, well, maybe then that program's not working for you because it keeps you vigilant. Like it's difficult to fall asleep or to stay asleep because of that program. Well, you can actually detect that program and have your subconscious release it, delete it just like as easily as deleting on your keyboard. You can delete a program. It's that fast and it's that effective. So that's something else to be aware of. Did I answer what? Did I answer your questions?
You did a great job. But here's the thing, Gail. I think this could be foreign to a lot of people. Even though meditation, yoga, exercise, a lot of our communities out there, you know, as Harry McKay has, loves to exercise. And we know that is a powerful way to stay in high performance mode. But I think you did a great job and I think we're going to have to have you come back, if you're willing, because I'd like to have you teach much more of this. We have so many wonderful people in our community. The academy is growing all the time. And these are people, as we say, they want to make a difference. If anybody, if anybody listening knows Harvey McKay personally, they know he is an incredibly caring man and also one of the most high performance, hungry fighters I've ever met in my life. I have a hard time as a younger man keeping up with Harvey McKay. How does he do it? He has People like you, Gail. He has fitness coaches, he has social right, he has coaches for everything because that's what high performance leaders do. So would you come back and visit with us in the near future?
I would love to. Thank you. Sure.
All right. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I have been talking with and you have been hearing the one and only Gail Glassner, author of the book Reprogram your How to use Hypnosis and Self Hypnosis really to get what you really want. One of the reasons I love this book, ladies and gentlemen, is you can learn to do this on your own. You can practice it. And Gail, if people do want to reach out and connect with you personally, how do you suggest that they do that?
Well, the best way is to go to my website, which is Gale G A L E Glassner, G l a s s n-e r.com and the contact page makes it available that I receive an email from you right away.
So.
So that's probably the best way. And one thing I do want to mention, some people are not as visual, they're more auditory learners. So the audiobook is also very good. And there you actually get the experience of going into hypnosis. There are three guided hypnotic imagery audios that are part of the audiobook. And if you are really curious about how you respond, that has helped thousands of people already. So I would suggest that. And for some people, they love to do both because there's so much information in the book that it's hard to remember all those epiphanies you have. So to go just to listen to it, but rather to go back to the book and reread it. As Cliff has mentioned, he has read it several times. Each time new things will pop up and it's really good to have both of them. But depending on what is your preference, either one would be great. And of course it also has the ebook edition.
Gail, thanks again for being with us again. Ladies and gentlemen, if you're new to the Harry McKay Street Smarts podcast, please leave us a five star rating at itunes. It helps us bring you amazing people like Gail Glassner on a weekly basis, if not more, and spread the word about Street Smarts and Harvey McKay Academy. Get your free membership@harveymckacademy.com and that's where you can see this particular show with Gail Glassner. If you're not catching it on the Street Smarts podcast. Gail, thanks again for being with us today. You're amazing.
Thank you so much. It's my pleasure. And it's also my soul's purpose, I should say, to be here. This is what I love doing. I absolutely love teaching and enlightening and helping people.
It shows so much. Gail, thanks again. We're gonna have you back. Take care.
Thank you. You too.
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