EP 640: Unlocking Relationship Success with Julie Niles

The purpose of this show, the purpose of this show is to guide you to realign, realign with habits that get you to live the life, live the life.

Welcome back to the Habit Based Lifestyle podcast. I'm your host, Jesse Ewell. Today I got a very special guest, Julie Nice. She is the creator of Outcomes Only. It is a relationship and communication training business. Julie, I want to welcome you on the show today.

Thank you, it's a pleasure to be here. Can't wait to talk about this fun stuff with Habits with Couples.

Yeah, so super excited. Well, before we kind of get into that part of it, let's talk a little bit about your background. And it sounds like there's been a couple turns along the ways and changes, but what originally kind of got you started on this path of relationship and communication training?

Well, it actually started back in college. Long boring story. I ended up with a sort of an accidental double major in psychology. My original major was business administration, but I kept taking psych courses and really liking them. So my advisor said, hey, why don't you just get a second major? I'm like, okay. Anyway, I went into sales and marketing, ended up in high-tech medical sales for quite a few years, about 20 years. Did real well with that, uh, had a lot of fun, traveled around a lot, learned a lot of cool stuff working mostly in the OR with surgical stapling instrumentation, then later on with ambulatory infusion pumps and all kinds of cool stuff. So got a really good business background, then kind of poked my head up at one point, said, you know, I'm going to be 41 day anyway, and corporate America is not looking all that friendly, you know, in terms of later on in life, right? So I thought, well, I might as well get a master's degree and go do something, you know, that I like better and has a better future than what I'm looking at now. So that's what I did. And I sort of stumbled on— I couldn't stand the idea of taking more accounting classes or anything like that. So an MBA was not in my future. And so I ended up getting a master's in clinical psych. And then that led me to a really large revelation that there's really no money doing that. And even much worse, they don't know how to help change people. Therapists know how to label people. They know how to analyze the crap out of everything. They can talk you to death, but they actually do not most of the time fix anything. And if— and I think if they do, it's kind of accidental. So I don't have a real high opinion of that. And I knew that going through the master's program when I was stunned one day to learn they actually know that it doesn't work very well and they just keep on cranking out therapists. So that led me on the path to where I have become very happy, which is getting training. I don't really use anything, honestly, that I did in school. Yeah, really don't. I really don't. But I got trained for the last 20 years, very extensively in hypnosis and neurolinguistics and all sorts of great stuff that changes people beautifully. And to your point, really deals with people's habits, you know, their unconscious mind, their imagination, and how powerful that is. To create change and create success. So I'm thrilled to be doing things the way that I am. It's not traditional by any means, but that's how I got here.

Yeah, that's, that's amazing. Well, let's, let's kind of unpack just some of the things you said. You know, I think the, one of the big things is, you know, it sounds like early on psychology was something that kind of fascinated you a little bit.

It's interesting.

Yeah. And, uh, and, and I think it's cool that even though maybe a lot of the stuff you learned in college, you still kind of stuck with it and it led you down the path of just wanting to explore. Tell me kind of like, what was there like one incident that happened that it's like, you know what, I really want to do this for a living, or can you go back and say like—

Yeah, there was a defining moment. Okay, after I, after I got licensed, I have 3 licenses in 2 states for marriage and family therapy and licensed professional counselor and all that stuff. And shortly after doing that, I got introduced to hypnosis, which I thought was such a cool idea, never understanding really how powerful it was initially to help people stop smoking. So I kind of started there, and then I was introduced to my current business mentor and friend Scott McFall, who is the one that's been instrumental in teaching me most of what I know now in the business model and hypnosis and everything. So I was at his training 20 years ago one day, sitting in the front row of the class, absolutely fascinated by what he was doing. And I literally— I kind of was looking at him like, wow, that's amazing! Because what I was seeing right in front of my eyes was huge human change, effortlessly, without going into the crap of the past and getting people to, you know, blubber and snot bubbles and get all emotional, but beautiful, elegant human change work that I'd never seen before. And I was so blown away, I said, I don't know what he's doing, but I've got to do that. I want to do that right there. That's why.

So tell me, tell me a little bit about like hypnosis and like what it really is, especially for our listeners who, who don't understand it.

Yeah, well, you know, and most people don't, so thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain it because there's so many myths and misconceptions. It's really sad because it's such a great tool. So first of all, there are several— people always say, well, I don't know if I can be hypnotized. Well, yeah, okay, everybody can is the way it goes, but there are 4 exceptions to that. One exception is if you have an IQ less than about 90, because then your comprehension just, you know, isn't going to be there.

Okay.

The second one is if you are out of touch with reality, just, you know, not, not cognitively functioning because you can't understand what's going on, right? Third would be if you're drunk or high, because then you can't pay enough attention. You would not be a good candidate. But the biggest category of people who can't be hypnotized are people who do not want to be.

Okay, okay.

So, common misconception: I cannot make anybody do a damn thing. I wish I could. I would be the queen of the universe if I could make people do— my job would be so much more fun, you you know what I'm saying? But I can't. So it has to be something you want. And habits were what I ended up having two very successful hypnosis practices, one in Houston and another one here in Pensacola when we, when we retired. My husband retired here, and it dealt almost exclusively with bad habits like smoking and overeating and biting your fingernails and all sorts of stuff. So it is in my view, the very best thing in the world to change people's habits because it works effortlessly. It's actually fun and it's very, very successful. But again, the key is you have to want to do it. People coming in all the time going, I need to quit smoking. I'm like, well, shit, you've needed to quit smoking since the first day you lit it up, you know?

Right.

I can't help you if you need to quit smoking. Everybody needs to quit smoking. If you want to quit smoking, then I'll teach you how to use hypnosis to fix that. So that's what I did.

That's, that's amazing. I actually chewed tobacco for 24 years and, and I quit. Believe it or not, I quit by— I read the book Power of Habit. I don't know if you ever read that.

No. Sounds good though.

But it really just talked about, you know, replacing— one is you kind of have to replace a bad habit with a new habit. Which oftentimes I'm sure you see people stop drinking and then they start eating sugar or they stop smoking.

Exactly.

So it kind of taught me how to replace an old habit. But what I didn't understand when I first started doing it is a lot of times people think, you know, changing a habit is like cold turkey. You got to stop, you know, and that's—

well, it could be. It isn't always that way, but it could be. The thing is, with things like over— there's, there's a whole pile of things people do to change how they feel. And overdrinking, overeating, smoking, biting your fingernails, eating candy, blah, blah, blah. All of those are sort of in that pile. And it's all for one reason. See, those are all symptoms of the problem, not really the problem itself.

Right.

And the problem is stress, slash anxiety, slash tension, something. They do not feel the way they want to feel. And all of those things give them a temporary way to feel better. So if you're gonna exchange one habit you don't like for another habit you do like, that can often be done right away.

Right. Yeah, no, that's good. So what I did is I replaced 20 pushups with every time I would crave a chew, I would do 20 pushups. The craving would go away. And I remember after about a week, You know, I'm like, man, 4, I'm doing like 300, 400 pushups a day. And I'm like, whoa, what, what the heck is like going on? And so I started to kind of like tap into this like other world where I'm like, oh wow, like I'm actually stressed.

And that's right.

It's easier. It was easier for me to take a chew than it was to actually deal with the stress. Once I kind of recognized that, I'm like, Okay, so now all of a sudden my push-ups went from 200, 300, or down to like 200. And then I started kind of recognizing, hey, I think there's like a lie I'm telling myself that I need this chew in order to feel better instead of just dealing with the problem. And so I started dealing with the problem and then the craving kind of went away. I, I realized after about 3 weeks I didn't even need chew anymore at that point. And I haven't had it since.

Great.

But it really helped me kind of understand people's patterns and their ways of how they operate. And oftentimes, you know, somebody might quit smoking, but they immediately go to eating candy.

Very common.

And it's like, okay, so basically you just traded in one addiction for another. And instead of it being healthy, we've kind of rationalized that it's better than at least smoking. Even though, you know, you put on 20 pounds. So I'm curious how, like, you see that same thing, because it sounds like we're on a very similar thing. It's like, hey, some stressful situation happens and it's easier to smoke, eat, drink, snort than it is to actually deal with the real problem. And so we just figure out how to, like, mask it, you know? So I'm curious, like, how your process kind of works with that.

Well, when I had the hypnosis clinics, and certainly when I do hypnosis currently, it's, it's never like a one-session thing. Yeah, that's actually unethical, I think. You never get a chance to follow up. So a lot of times, in fact, we like to think most of the times in the, in the smoking cessation hypnosis programs, or the weight— especially the weight loss, that's a little bit bigger deal— we would follow people over time. And it's not just simply, you know, you start with exchanging one habit, right? Then with hypnosis, you get a beautiful opportunity to help people change their perspective on how they feel about themselves. So we get into a lot of self-acceptance sort of topics and success-oriented topics and changing focus. And I wonder if you realize one of the clever things you did when you did your stopping dipping— in NLP, we have a saying: if you want to change your mood or your state of mind, change physiology first. And that could be as simple as standing up and just, you know, waving your hands around or like you did, knocking out some push-ups or whatever. But changing your physiology actually helps shift your perspective and your mood. So that kind of is the first thing you want to do if you're trying to break a habit like that. So that was very clever.

And that's, that's kind of, you know, Tony Robbins, change your state. Yes.

Yeah. Everything Tony Robbins does is NLP. And, and that's what I do as well.

That's a, that's great. And you know, I always look at like, I think that was the first thing that helped me recognize that I could change. The second thing it helped me recognize is like, okay, I'm doing all these pushups, but what am I really learning from it? And what's going on to make me, you know, crave this thing? And so I started kind of equating that every time I craved a chew, it, it was actually stress. Related, and then that stress was actually attached to a lie. And once I started to kind of like connect the dots, I was like, okay, so really I'm lying in the moment about how I feel or something going on. And instead of just dealing with it, it was easier just to kind of COVID it up with the chew and never actually deal with it. And so that was probably my biggest takeaway from the whole thing was The push-ups helped get me out of that state, but what really helped was recognizing the lie I was telling myself.

And you took an interesting path to do that, which was very cool because obviously you're very smart and you kind of figured it out logically. One of the beauties of hypnosis is you don't have to figure out anything logical because you're not using the intellect part of the brain, you're using the imagination part.

Got it.

So as— and that's perfectly fine what you did, obviously it worked. So instead of diving deep into the intellectual or the logic part and kind of figuring out, which you ended up doing, my experience is going more general where you were specific, but going more general in an altered state of consciousness like a trance and giving very— getting very general suggestions like, you know, you're, you're a good man, you're born the exact person you're supposed to be, you have nothing to prove, your unconscious mind now knows that you can find other things, whatever they might be, to satisfy your need for stress reduction. And, you know, blah, blah, all these wonderful suggestions. Because the beauty is your unconscious mind figures out so much stuff on its own. It doesn't need to be told specifically. That's one of the real cool things about it.

Yeah, that's, that's amazing. So basically, I hear that maybe I'm a little more fact-driven.

That's what there's, there's the intellect part of the brain, which is great. In fact, people rely on that quite a bit. And then there's the unconscious mind. So it's, you know, intellect and logic versus imagination. The thing is, your imagination, our imagination is always more powerful than, powerful than.

Yeah, that was the next thing I was gonna say is I think imagination is a little bit, you know, are better to tap into for something like that, because you don't really have to try to figure it out. It just kind of figured— you kind of figure it out on your own, right?

Right. Well, your unconscious mind is directly responsible for most of the habits we have.

Yeah.

So it only makes sense. Humans, humans do not change things by logic, really. They change things in their imagination. Even in your situation, when you were trying to figure things out, I'll bet at some point you had to imagine what it would be like, for example, to do push-ups instead of take a chew. And whether that was a visualization or you just imagined a feeling of some kind, either which way, it's an imagination.

I think in the beginning I kind of convinced myself, I wonder if I could just make it through my next craving and if it would just go away. And, you know, I would say in sports I was very— used my imagination a lot and visualization. Yes. And so, I find myself at times not being able to tap into that as much as I used to be able to, but I can see how—

That's right. We can fix that.

Okay. Okay.

We can fix that. Yeah. Your imagination is more fun and it's more powerful.

Yeah.

Always.

Well, tell me what this outcomes-only approach, like what does that mean?

Well, it's kind of the distillation of everything I've learned up to this point, which is a fair amount really. So, um, I believe everything is about your outcome. That's why I called it that. Everything we do and everything we say, or don't do or don't say, should be pointed toward one of our goals. Okay? And so we have— we might have financial goals, parenting goals, relationship goals, health goals. We've got a lot of goals, but everything you do and say should be pointed toward getting you there. Otherwise, what you're doing is either irrelevant or it might be damaging. So I'm kind of drawing a big line in the sand that it really needs to be about your outcomes, your goals, which are all in the future. So people's terrible predisposition to be thinking about the past, ruminating about the past, reflecting on the past, remembering the past, going over and over the past, that's mostly a waste of time.

Right.

And it prevents people— successful people— well, I'll steal from Tony Robbins again. Successful people spend 95% of their time focused on what's next in the future, 5% on the past. So, I would just challenge your listeners, if you're not in that category, we may need to talk.

Well, I mean, I think at the end of the day, what resonates with me is that an outcome is a filter to everything that we're doing. And then the habit is the vehicle that ultimately gets us there. And so, is the habit keeping you in the past? Is it driving you towards the outcome you want? And I think when you actually know your outcomes, you can answer that very clearly and that can filter decisions down. But I think when, you know, I talk to business owners or it's like, well, what is your actual outcome? And they don't know.

That's so important. If actually what I teach people is that your outcomes have to be well-formed exactly to your point. Yeah. It's like, it's like say you never would say, well, I'm going on vacation. I'm just gonna get in the car and drive. Nobody does that. You know, you've gotta have a well-formed outcome. Here's what I want, when I want it, how I want it. And most importantly, 'cause that gets to one of the two most important habits I teach people that you would ask me about, is you have to be in sensory imagery or feelings in your head when you imagine your outcome. It can't just be, I would like to make, you know, so many thousands of dollars, right? It has to be very specific what you will see, what you will hear, and what you will feel internally in your body if you actually achieve that goal. Like, what actually— so you kind of play a movie in your head. And, and absolutely, then you have to build habits. But you know, the, the second habit that I was going to mention that would be really great is to be always in that filter of forward thinking, which I call— we call genius thinking. Genius is not about intellect or being smart. Genius thinking is noticing only what could be.

Got it. Okay.

Intellect is noticing and analyzing what is or what was. So again, a big distinction. There are times when being in analytical thinking is great. It's a wonderful skill. But I like to teach being behaviorally flexible so that you can be in logic and intellect when that would be a good thing to do and notice distinctions in things. And then on the other hand, be able to go into genius thinking, which is a more general and futuristic approach where that would be useful. And most everything we do in life is better in genius thinking, actually.

Right. There's a book that kind of made me think of what you said, and I think it was by Neville Goddard. He talks about like feeling is the secret, right? And if we can feel it, like oftentimes, like we can see it and we can, you know, smell it. But that kind of reminded me of that when you I think you said— I don't remember what 3 things you said, but the last thing was like, feel it, think it, see it.

It's all your senses, visual, auditory, and kinesthetic.

Got it.

In fact, in fact, most people don't know, but in terms of communication, then especially in a primary relationship, it's super important, Jesse, to know which one, which of those 3 senses you use most often when you communicate and which one your partner does.

For example, break that down. Yeah, break that down.

Sure. So let's say that we naturally— and this really doesn't change over time— we naturally have one primary. It's not that we never use the other two, but we have one that's usually primary, and it is contextual. So sometimes we would use one and not use the other. You know, it's flexible. But let's say you have one primary sense that you use. Normally it's visual, auditory, or kinesthetic. I have known people that were gustatory in their primary sense, which is really funny. And this was a beautiful guy, really nice guy, husband of a friend of mine. Every time he ordered an iced tea, he would literally ask the waitress for a bottle of Tabasco, and half the bottle of Tabasco would go in his iced tea. Everything for him was about taste.

Wow.

Yeah, but anyway, let's go with the normal stuff. So I'll just— we'll find out which one you are. Wouldn't that be fun?

Yeah, let's do it.

Let's do.

Okay.

All right. So I'm going to give you 3 options. They're all fabulous and wonderful, but one should kind of bubble to the top as your favorite. So if you were going to be shown love and care in the best possible way that was most meaningful to you, would your partner, number 1, say nice things to you, be complimentary, have great conversations, be a really good listener? Love to chat. 2, would they be physically close, like great hugs, love to snuggle and cuddle, you know, hand-holding, all that stuff, be physically close? And number 3, would they do nice things for you, like bring you a cup of coffee, leave a little note on your car?

Probably the—

the physical one.

Yeah.

Yes. Okay, that means you're kinesthetic.

Which I would have guessed that in the beginning.

So now, and there are times when you'd be visual or sometimes you'd be auditory, but so here's the fun thing about kinesthetic people. Touch to you equals love, right? So let's say you were sideways with your partner, girlfriend, wife. I think you have a wife.

Yeah, wife.

Yeah, your wife. Yes, better not have a girlfriend. Okay, sideways with your wife, just when she gets her hair straightened. Yeah, I know, I know how that works. So I look different when I straighten my hair. Um, All right, so you're sideways and it's totally her fault. Okay, she needs to make it up to you. So based on your sensory need in your love style and romantic communication, she doesn't have to necessarily talk to you. I mean, if she said I'm sorry, it'd be nice, but really she could just come up and give you a big old sensitive, lovely, warm hug and you'd be fine.

Yeah, I mean, right, it would probably work.

That's because you're kinesthetic. Not that you wouldn't do the other things, but that would have the most meaning to you. Conversely, you see, if you sideways, and it was all her fault, and she needed to make it up to you, she couldn't just walk up to you and start talking about it. You'd be like, no, not working.

Makes sense. Yeah, I think the, I think the biggest thing on that is it doesn't really matter what you say. It's what you do.

Well, it's what you feel. Yeah.

Well, yeah. But that's what I'm saying is like, so I think a lot of times that's what I look for is like, well, you say—

that's a little bit different than say visual. Now for a visual person, It's all about what they see you do.

Okay.

Right.

Yeah.

So the real funny combination is you and a visual wife, let's say. Okay. So if the visual wife did something wrong, she— see, we all use our preferred sense when we're showing love. And it's sort of like the chocolate ice cream, strawberry ice cream. If what you really, really, really love is beautiful chocolate ice cream, and I keep giving you strawberry, strawberries are wonderful, but it's not what you want.

Right.

So if a visual wife was trying to show love and care, she's gonna run around, you know, maybe straightening up the living room, making you a little dinner, getting laundry done, you know, stuff you can see around, and you're sitting on the couch going, what are you doing? Just come here and sit with me.

Yeah.

You ever had that happen?

Yeah, a little bit. I would say my wife's more the auditory, like, So she's more, you know, likes the conversation, like that type of thing. And but I know the feeling of like, hey, I'm like right here, you know, sit down, you know, what are you doing all this stuff for?

Just sit down.

Yeah, right.

Well, she's showing you love now. So if she's auditory, I happen to be auditory, so I understand this. So what she's doing is she's trying to show you love in the way that is most important and valuable to her through talk. Okay. And if she is auditory, then you will have noticed as her husband that she has, let's say, a very highly dialed up radar for tone of voice, volume, words that are used. This making sense? Yeah? Yeah. And I'm saying it is too dialed up. I recognize this. There's not a lot we can do about it. But that is the world in which we live. So another tell, by the way, is visual people are actually seeing pictures in their head when they talk and communicate. So consequently, they kind of talk very fast because it takes a lot of words to describe all the pictures going on. Your head. That's a tell that you're visual. Auditory people tend to talk kind of like I do, sort of medium pace, medium tone, medium volume, sort of a medium stuff. Kinesthetic people usually speak slower like you do. That's another tell because you're literally feeling what you're saying. Now, the really interesting thing is there's a whole list of words and phrases that correspond to whether you're visual, auditory, or kinesthetic. And so if your partner really wants to communicate really really well with you, they'll learn those words and start using them. For example, if I wanted to teach you something, I'd say, Jesse Ewell— first of all, I'd slow down my speech. Jesse Ewell, what I'm going to teach you is so easy for you. It's going to feel like it has substance. You know, it's going to be very smooth. It's not going to be rough, and it will have some weight to it. So when you take it in, it's like you can really digest it feel it. So you feel grounded and settled when you learn it. Now see, to you that probably made a lot of sense. To all your auditory and visual people, they're going, huh, what's she talking about? But I could do the same for visual or auditory. So it's really interesting what these sensory communication styles are.

Got it. Okay, cool.

So, so your wife, for an example, she feels love when you talk to her. Literally, love is what comes in through her ears. That's what she perceives it. So yeah, she might like to hold hands or snuggle or cuddle or have you do, you know, take the dishes out of the dishwasher. She might like to watch you do stuff. But really, love to her is when you talk to her or listen to her, that you're a good audience.

And then usually if I'm mad about something, the last thing I want to do is talk to my wife.

Right. Which for her is, you know, like—

And then the last thing she wants to do is touch me.

Touch you. That's right.

Got it.

That's right. So you guys could correct me.

20 years I've I figured that part out. Now it's kind of working your way out of that, you know.

It's easy. Just don't do it.

Yeah. Well, okay. So this kind of goes to like limiting beliefs or like patterns. Like, what do you think is the one of the biggest things you see holding people back in relationships? What are like maybe, I don't know, the top 2 things you see?

Resentment is number 1. Okay, and a focus on the past is number 2. Okay, which really correlates to number 1 in most cases, right?

And you mean resentment by like things that happened in the past that haven't been dealt with or have kind of been swept under the rug?

Or, well, might not have been resolved. They've usually dealt with it, but not necessarily in a great way. And they're unresolved. Okay, so the thing is, one of the first things I have to figure out is whether or not somebody is in there to get revenge. Where they actually want to fix it.

Got it.

Because we are at the moment, sadly, sadly saying, we are in a victim-centric society, right? It's weirdly, it's cool to be a victim. Oftentimes, even when you're the perpetrator, which is certainly true in relationships. So I have to— not everybody that comes in for relationship help is sincere. About wanting to change.

Okay. Shockingly, but even if they are sincere about changing, like they, they think they want to change, but they don't actually want to do the work.

That happens too. But I'm talking about people who actually like doing harm. So keeping the resentment is their actual goal, the secondary benefit of, of having a problem.

It sounds like a miserable way to live.

That would be true. But you know, to each his own. I can't make everybody— I can't make anybody do anything. They have to want to do whatever they're being trained.

Can you explain, can you explain like a victim-centric society, like what that means?

Oh, all you have to do is watch the TV now.

Yeah.

And I'm going to show my bias here. I realize that. Apologies for those that are offended. Right now, it's very cool to be a victim. There is a victim mentality, mentality in the ideology of a great many people. That's extremely unfortunate because even if you are legitimately a victim of something, you do not want to be a victim, right? You do not. You know, I talk to people all the time who sadly have had some really genuinely awful, horrible things happen in their past or childhood or whatnot. And they were a victim of a perpetrator that was doing harm and all that sort of stuff. I get that. I'm not diminishing that at all. But the point is, how do you want it to go next? Because you either carry this shame or guilt or burden or I'm less than forward with you, or you say, that's not going to define who I am. So a limiting belief is actually thinking in any way you're a victim, even if you actually are, right?

What was the— I can't remember the saying. It was about something like, even, even if it's true, like What do you, you know, what are you going to do about it?

Like, how do you want it to go next? Yeah, that's another example of genius thinking. So given that we are, we are the net of all of our experiences, whether they're good or bad or up or down or whatever they are, we can't change that. Now, from a faith perspective, everything that's happened to us is part of the bigger plan. That's my belief. So, you know, faith doesn't say everything that happens to you is going to be good or easy or fair. Doesn't say that. So whatever struggles— and we've all gone through something, you know. Yeah, whatever struggles you've gone through are there to teach you something. So in the big picture umbrella, everything does happen for a reason. Every— so that's why I believe there's no mistakes in life. There's only feedback and learning you get.

Got it.

Which is a very cool way to look at your past.

Yeah, no, I mean—

And be really self-accepting.

Yeah, I think that's, you know, really powerful because one of the things I see a lot on social media is I kind of call it like toxic vulnerability. It's like we're so stuck on this word vulnerability that we almost stay stuck in victim mode and it becomes very toxic versus actually like working through it. It's almost like people are celebrating it now. But it's almost like a disease, right? That like keeps us where we're at versus like actually working through things.

Right. So all, whatever happens to you in life, it should be that you pick yourself up and just keep moving forward.

Yeah.

Because to do less than that, you're cheating yourself.

You know who you kind of remind me of a little bit?

I give up.

As you like talk about this is Byron Katie. I don't know if you— I mean, I think you probably know her based off your reaction, but like some of the stuff you're saying kind of reminds me of that.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, great thinkers are all alike, Jesse.

Yeah. No, that's good. So let me ask you—

We'll call all of them friends of the mind.

Yeah, there you go. Let me ask you this. What's, you know, what's maybe one habit that somebody could work on that's listening to this? Maybe they are stuck a little bit in like that victim mode. Like, what is, you know, something they could do to kind of help them work themselves out of it?

Well, I tell people all the time that one of the single best skills you can have— I used to say relationship skills, but everything's a relationship at the end of the day— that you can have is the ability to come outside your head, notice what's going on in front of you, and respond only to that. Okay, and that's as opposed to what people usually do is have a feeling, go up in their head and tell themselves a story about it. And that story can take a direction all of its own. But that's very different than having a feeling and then deciding or choosing to do something about it.

Got it. Okay.

So if you challenge yourself to just come outside your head, my good friend Heather puts it this way, she goes, everything you need to see in life, is in front of your eyeballs. All the information you need is in front of your eyeballs. Behind your eyeballs is a bad neighborhood. Don't go there.

Okay.

So again, that future thinking, that genius thinking, that focus on the future, how you want it to go next, that's kind of a way of saying all of that. But the ability to come outside your head, not analyze the crap out of everything, and choose to move forward, even if it's a little step, You know, well, today I'll do this, or I'll change this little part of it now. Any of that is good. But staying inside and telling yourself a story about it just creates a giant excuse machine for why you don't get anything done.

Got it. Okay, good. Okay, and how often, you know, do you tell someone to do that, like daily, or every time?

Every minute you can. Okay, so here's the thing. People make the assumption that what's in our head is reality.

Right.

And truly, it is reality to us. But the fact is, it's not.

Yeah.

So, one of the first things we have to wrap our head around is the fact that the accuracy of your perceptions is wildly off.

Right.

Wildly off, which is why, by the way, I believe so much in feedback and mentoring and coaching. Because as you know, that's like gold. If all you have is what you have going on inside your head, you are missing a big, big piece of information on a lot of topics, I'm sure. So this notion that, you know, your brain is not a video camera— what's the least accurate testimony in a court of law? Do you know? Eyewitness.

Got it.

And why is that? Because let's say you have an intersection and 10 people are standing around the intersection watching as 2 cars have an accident. The police come, they take 10 different statements from people who physically saw it happen, and they all are 10 different things. Exactly.

So it's all based off the perception of what we see.

Yes, which is determined, by the way, by how your brain filters information. So there's— in actuality, there's so many bits of information hitting your brain at any one time, it can't possibly absorb them all. So what it does is it goes through a filtering process. It either deletes, distorts, or generalizes whatever's coming in. And whatever information makes it past those little filters is what we think of as reality. But it's also random. It can't ever be.

Which is why outcomes are so important, because are you getting closer to the outcome or farther away? And that kind of filters everything else out.

That's right. So it's not your opinions, it's not your damn perception, it's not your damn feelings. It's your outcome.

Yeah. What do you— okay, so we kind of talked a little bit about, you know, maybe a little bit more of the things you see in relationship. What about in business? What are like— what's maybe like something you see oftentimes when you're working with a business person?

Well, of course, a lot of the same things. The problem is with a business person, particularly if they've had a lot of success or they have a lot of money, they are very insulated in having to make change. That's a real— anybody who has fame, wealth, notoriety, they kind of have a pass for actually learning things, because they don't have to.

Got it. Okay.

People who have to learn or have to change tend to get pretty good at it. But if you don't have to, because you have resources, or you have wealth or you have success, it makes it very hard to train. So that, that's one aspect. The other aspect is in businesses, I am often quite shocked at how bad the sales training is, like legitimately bad.

Okay.

And so that's sort of a pet peeve of mine, but—

Well, you're, you're a natural closer, right? 20 years of it.

Well, yeah, I guess I could agree with that, but also sort by distinction and say that I disagree with part of that because most people think of closing as making somebody do a forced choice, right? Or manipulation. Now, sales for sure is manipulation, but so is your relationship with your wife and your kids and everybody else. The problem I see with most people's business approach to sales is they look at it from sort of the used car salesman sort of basic stuff. And that's as opposed to being very, very other-centered with your clients, to be on the same— to be a literally a problem solver, not a closer, right? Because a closer sort of— and I'm sure you didn't mean it that way, but it sort of insinuates you'd close at any, you know, get the sale at any cost. No, there are times when you walk away from a sale. There's times when you have you talk them into a smaller sale if it's in their best interest. So it's whose interest are you looking after? I'm looking after the customer's interest. And if I can't serve the customer's interest, best interest and highest good, I have no business doing business with them.

Got it. Yeah. And I mean, yeah, of course, what I meant by that is obviously, you know, I kind of think of like a salesperson as a guide to helping them make the best decision for where they're at.

Not even a problem solver, pure, plain, and simple. And the biggest mistake most salespeople don't make is the very first few sentences or questions in the very first conversation you have with a new customer should be, what's causing you pain? What are you not getting? Where's the problem?

Yeah.

I have had to train them out of having gobs of conversation, giving gobs of information when they don't even know what the need is.

Right.

It's actually stunning to me. The first question I ask people coming in to see me, like in couples or relationship work, is, you know, what, what are your goals? What do you want to achieve? And where are you stuck? If I don't know where they're stuck, how can I get them to the goal?

And if they don't know where they're stuck, then, you know, probably don't know where they want to go either.

Right. And so then it just evolves into, well, he did this and she said that, and you can't pay me enough to listen to that.

No. That's pickleball, right? At that point?

Well, that's traditional therapy. If you go into traditional therapy, the therapist is likely to let you argue in front of them.

Who's the biggest victim is usually what it comes down to.

Who's, who's at fault? Who's got the most blame? Who's the biggest victim? All horrifyingly bad.

Okay, so, all right, let's do some practical stuff here if you—

Sure.

Go from there. What Yeah, I'll let you kind of guide it from there or whatever, but what's some way we can demonstrate some of the work we kind of talked about today?

Was that a bark?

Yeah, that was my dog.

I'm just waiting for mine to bark if the UPS guy comes, so good. I won't feel bad then. Cute. It sounds like a little dog. Yeah.

Yep.

I've got bigger ones. They're Border Collies. Okay, so, well, we kind of already did one sort of quasi-demo because we figured out you were kinesthetic, which is an important thing to know about yourself. And if you're accurate, then your wife is auditory. So now you can have a lot better conversation with her. Did you have something specific in mind?

No, I was just kind of thinking of like, you know, stuff. I think a lot of times we hear things, right? But it's like, okay, how do we actually like put this into play? But I'm game for whatever.

So, you know, well, why don't we do a little hypnosis?

Okay.

Don't look into my eyes. I'm just kidding. Okay. So you got to get, get comfortable.

Okay.

Are you able to sit down and kind of lean back so you don't have to have a whole lot of muscles working?

Yeah.

I can still see you've been doing some push-ups. Those are pretty good-sized guns you got there.

Yeah. So got to, got to keep up with that every once in a while.

Okay. All right. So tell me something you would like to I don't know, feel about yourself change? Some, some general thing you'd like to accomplish.

Maybe, maybe like get, get a new client. How about that?

To see yourself being more successful getting new clients.

Yeah.

Okay. Close your eyes. Start by taking a nice deep breath in and let it out slowly. That's right. And as you take the next deep calming breath in, I'd like you to imagine letting loose of your neck and shoulder muscles, your stomach muscles, and just kind of— that's right. Just kind of settle in. And we're going to start this the easy way. I'm going to count from 3 to 1, and as I do, all I want you to do is relax your body from head to toe and toe to head. Is it all right with you to relax your body from head to toe and toe to head? Yeah. Yes. Good. 3. Begin to relax your body. Imagine you could do a little scan of all your muscles and find any that are holding on to any tightness or tension at all. Just notice where they are, and then imagine them releasing that tension and tightness, sort of like they just can't hold on anymore. That's right. 2, feeling your body press down in the chair as you let go now. Let go. Really let go. That's right. And 1, relaxing. Now, with your eyelids comfortably closed and relaxed, I'd like you to notice, as you relax your facial muscles as well, letting your jaw part slightly. Notice that your eyelids are comfortably closed. Soon notice that your eyelids feel— beginning to feel stuck and heavy. In fact, the more you tug on your eyelids, the heavier they're going to seem. You'll notice your eyebrows move up and down very easily and your eyelids remain heavy and stuck. Notice that sensation now. Notice you can kind of tug twice as hard and they kind of feel twice as stuck. I know, it's funny. And that means you've already entered the calm, beautiful trance of hypnosis. Now, since we're in touch with your unconscious mind now, and you are kinesthetic, I'd like you to vividly imagine, Jesse Ewell, we could zoom you forward in time, and in that time what you've asked for has happened, that you're actually surprisingly easily getting clients. People are contacting you, things are moving along at the rate and pace that you would like. So I want you to tell me what that feels like in your body when that's happening, also what you see Just play a movie of that working beautifully. Imagine yourself already there and tell me what that movie is.

I see, I mean, I see kind of like almost like a wave.

Mm-hmm.

It is ridden and like being on top of the wave and what it feels like.

So it's easy, like you're surfing a nice wave. Yeah.

It's almost like you're kind of catching a wave and like just riding along.

Very easy and smooth, isn't it?

Yeah.

So tell me a little bit more about what you see. So imagine, you know, coming into your office or checking your voicemail.

I see like green, but I also see like kind of like a yellow and like red fire of like almost like a sunset that looks like kind of beautiful off into the distance.

And how does it feel in your body when you imagine having all these clients coming in and this beautiful sunset and the colors?

I mean, it feels warm. Hmm. It feels light.

Hmm.

And it feels kind of relaxing.

Now, when you— you must work with a calendar of some sort, right? Yeah, on your computer. Okay, so I want you to vividly imagine that calendar is full of exactly the way you want it to be with all these extra people. Can you visualize that?

Yeah.

And you can look out, you know, if you click, you can look out several weeks or several months and see all the, all the appointments and people scheduled, right? How does that feel?

Feels, feels a little heavy in some, in some.

Okay. In what way does it feel heavy?

Like, like there's no breaks or too much.

Okay. All right, great. Then let's make that adjustment because see, your unconscious mind's already telling you there's there's a number or a pace or it has a definite picture in your head. So let's, let's make it a little bit less. Let's give you a day off every now and then that you can see.

Okay.

Or maybe an early Friday or go pick up the kids, you know, whatever you have to do. So let's say your count, your schedule is as full as you would like it to be and give you the opportunity to live your normal life besides work. What does that feel like?

Free.

Like it's maximized. It's maximized, but you're not like over—

Like I have freedom and That's right. Flexibility.

That's right. So where do you feel— how do you feel that in your body?

I feel it kind of in my chest and sternum.

Good. Does that feeling take pressure off of you or put pressure on you?

Now it's like taking pressure off.

Perfect. And does that seem balanced and centered to you?

Yeah.

And it has some weight to it, like, but it's a comfortable weight.

Yes. Stable.

Stable and solid. That's right. That's right. Now, the last piece of this is I want you to imagine interacting with your wife and your kids with all these extra clients. Okay, so you're going to be obviously dealing with the clients, but then you get to come home from work or interact with them, take them places, do stuff with them in your role as husband and father. How does that feel?

It feels fun. It feels like joyful.

Where do you feel joy in your body?

A little bit in my stomach and a little bit, a little bit in my throat, in my throat.

Does that just the way you picture that and feel that? Does that make you feel stronger or weaker?

Definitely stronger.

Definitely stronger. And does it feel like it that also puts pressure, takes pressure off of you? Yeah. And you feel more free and joyful.

Yeah.

And so what I want you to do now, Jesse Ewell, is I want you to vividly imagine all those feelings we talked about, the joy you feel in your stomach, the freedom and, and success and comfort that you feel in the chest area, knowing you have all these clients. And that it's a very— I want you to see it as a very short path. I want you to feel like it's easy to get from where you are now to there. It's just like stepping into it. In fact, it feels so easy to step into that vision and feeling of how you want the future to go so that you really want to be there. It's fun to imagine. So as you intensify all those feelings that you felt, the relaxation, the calmness, the joy, the success, the happiness, the comfort, when it's really true for you that it feels like you could just step into that feeling anytime you wanted to, and that it's out there waiting for you, then and only then your eyes will open easily. Until then, they'll stay closed to let your unconscious mind do whatever it is it needs to do to make all those things happen in the way that you've seen them and felt them. So you take all the time you need. I'll wait. There you go. Now, keeping your head where it is and looking up slightly, like sort of at the ceiling— there you go— I want you to tell me, what color is your car?

Gray.

Gray. Okay. And what's your shoe size?

11.

11. Okay. Now look at me and I want you to tell me if you can, I want you to go inside yourself and I want you to see if you can recreate that feeling of, let's say, doubt or concern about getting clients. And if that's any different now or you can't find it or you don't want to, or what's that like?

Kind of hard to do it.

Double check. Really try. Give it some effort. Now you gotta look up when you do it, and I'll teach you something else. So look up when you do it.

Uh, to create the doubt.

See if you can create that same feeling of doubt and concern about clients. It's different, isn't it?

Yeah, I feel like I'm having a really hard time doing it.

Then that's legitimate.

Okay.

That's legit. Good job, you did awesome. I'm very proud of you. Now let me, let me tell you something else that's kind of cool. Kinesthetic people, so there's eye accessing cues. That we pay attention to. So the reason I had you look up is that when you're looking up, that's putting you in the visual plane in your head, in your brain. So you're actually— it's easier to picture things and not get your emotions involved. If you are looking just sort of straight ahead, you're in the talking part of your brain, verbal part of your brain. And if you're looking down, which was what you were trying to do, you're in the emotional part of your brain. Okay, so it's always easy. That's another tip for your Listeners, if you're trying to change a habit, it's a really great technique to do just what we did, to vividly imagine in sight. For me, it would be more sound-oriented or kinesthetically what it is your goal is, what it looks like when it's the way you want it. And you look up when you picture it.

Got it. Okay. I've kept myself on podcasts looking up. Like what I'm doing by myself.

I've noticed, I've noticed you doing that a couple of times when that's what we do is when we're searching for something, we tend to be looking up. Yeah, it's a normal thing to do. But it was really cool in your situation because as soon as you went visual, that was more real. And it's okay if you go into the emotions of it because you did have emotions of it and the feeling of it. But I think it's better for you to stay in the, in the visual. And connect to the kinesthetic that way, because that was very real to you, those feelings in your body.

Yeah. Okay. So I need to look up—

it just keeps you out of negative emotion.

Yeah, no, that's good. All right. So tell me, like, if my audience wants to work with you, they want to find out more about how to work with you, tell me how they would, would do that.

Okay. Very simple. For your listeners, I'm just going to give them my cell phone. Just easier to call me directly, although you can go through the website if you want. Which is outcomesonly.com. But if you want to have— what I do is I have everybody has to attend a free 30 or 45 minute screening to determine if they can be accepted into one of my programs. It's programs only. There are several of them, and whether that's for corporate or individual or couples doesn't matter. I usually end up doing sort of all of them simultaneously, uh, but anyway, they can call me at 281-620-5677. 655. And yes, that's a Houston area code. I used to live—

nice. And if you guys, if you want access to this and you're listening to it, go ahead