How to Talk Yourself into Almost Anything

hello i’m jonathan chase hypnotist on

and off stage

in this ted talk i’ll show you the

really useful subconscious skill

hypnotist called suggestion

and how you can use that to talk

yourself into almost anything

people know we evil stage hypnotists use

suggestion especially when doing the

dark deeds like

seduction and divesting people of their

life savings

no don’t laugh seriously some people do

think that’s what we do

and i’m not saying we couldn’t i’m

saying that usually

we don’t well i haven’t

obviously that’s because of people like

me hypnotizing thousands on stage and

turning them

into well basically children playing

i remember at a business lunch where i

was speaking being

asked if i thought it was ethical to

manipulate people and force them to do

things they wouldn’t naturally do

i had to say no i wouldn’t think that

was ethical or for that matter

entirely necessary actually what i do is

discover people’s true nature

and allow them to be that wonderfully

imaginative creative

experimental person they actually are

experiencing the moment i’m not having

anything and i certainly don’t need to

force anyone i’m just giving them

permission

to do what they really want to do

experiencing their imagination

usually although certainly not always in

a sleep-like trance state but always

using the tool of hypnotists and mind

manipulators that we call

suggestion now a suggestion is the

induction of an idea

action or feeling in your mind without

you noticing or maybe you do notice

but you don’t stop the idea taking root

induction means to bring around to

create

in subconscious terms we create the

state where our imaginative mind is in

full control without the interference of

our

intellect or brain for example

close your eyes and just imagine a

little tiny money spider running about

on the cheek of your face and it’s

running about and it’s tickling and it’s

moving the little peach hairs on your

face

and you can feel it moving up towards

your nose okay

open your eyes the suggestionist knows

that because your subconscious is always

listening

what we say matters so does how we say

and the conscious brain will be unable

to resist the induction

especially if it doesn’t notice it being

done

so when you touched your face although

it’s likely you have already

i certainly know you wanted to even if

you’re resisting

well in that case you’ve accepted the

spider suggestion

back in the 1980s working in the showbiz

background i

was a roadie a stagehand even serving

behind the bar

one summer season on jersey in the

channel islands i was

at an after show wind down in the hotel

de france

bar and there i had my first close-up

experience of stage hypnotism

i’ve seen a lot of stage hypnotists from

the audience the

the great robert halpen in glasgow

martin st

james on the tv and of course the

imagine

kreskin the first of my heroes that

stated

all hypnosis is suggestion and the

acceptance of suggestion

on this evening in jersey the hypnotist

was robbing caldwell robin was and still

is a comedian

a comedian and a hobby hypnotist and was

inducing that’s giving suggestions to

one of the rudy’s girlfriends in the bar

she was deeply entranced and he

suggested that posthypnotically

a small electronic toy dog a child was

playing with

would bark and instantly turned into a

full-grown male lion

he bought the girlfriend trance pointed

to the dog

and the little boy press the back button

now i had no idea what you would do if

you totally believed a fully grown lion

that appeared in a hotel bar just inches

away from where you’re sitting

but i suspect it may be something

similar to what she did it took robin

about 15 minutes shouting suggestions

had her through the locked lift door

on the top floor to get his gum out

now i was frustrated star and i’ve been

in love with show business since the age

of 10.

but i told myself i can’t sing condoms

can’t play musical instruments and i’m

not funny or fit enough

to do stand-up but mentalism and

hypnotism had

always intrigued me so i asked robin how

did hypnosis work and he replied it’s

just suggestion

and he told me the very simple

suggestions he used

a few minutes later i came back and said

okay i’ve got the barman on the floor of

sleep what do i do now

also there was jay roughly a nice

throwing gaff from liverpool

awesome hypnotist who agreed to mentor

me and teach me the stagecraft

it was at that point the dream pilot

jonathan chase

was born now the important thing here

was

my self-suggestion had not always been

that i would find a way to get my own

act and get on stage

in fact far from it myself suggestions

the insidious inside voice that you and

i both have

the voice that can be your best friend

and your worst enemy

had always told me that the wings were

the closest

i don’t get to be in the name on stage

and for years those

unproductive suggestions had held me

where i was

however hypnosis helped change that and

the

i can’t do that litany became my of

course i can epiphany

and since then a few decades of

subconscious

study show business ciu a best-selling

book of six

shows in the west end in las vegas have

strengthened my

of course i can sell suggestions so what

is self-suggestion

well every day you talk to yourself more

importantly about yourself

you affirm your beliefs you explain your

behaviors you predict your future

you persuade cajole order and suggest

behaviors good and bad constantly and

consistently

to yourself and you’re very good at

being you

for this reason alone you can be very

good at being the

you you really want to be

and all you need to do is to use the

techniques of self-suggestion that

you’re using

right now to be who you currently are as

i’m about to show you

how often do you think you talk to

yourself 70 times a day a hundred

hundred thousand actually you talk to

yourself so much

there aren’t any individual bits we can

count

if you really pay attention for a moment

you’ll notice your

rationalizing voice your bodily

functions voice your last conversation i

had was

it’s a real party in there just imagine

what could happen

if all of them are on your side for a

change

this internal conversation goes on

constantly

and with as much effect as a master

hypnotist can have

even if it’s not as fast self-suggestion

is about talking to yourself

deliberately when you need it most

and it doesn’t take a huge leap of

imagination and intellect

to figure out that if giving yourself

bad suggestions you can

can keep you where you don’t want to be

then giving yourself

good suggestions can get you to the good

place

let’s begin by fixing what’s broken

anytime and every time you say or think

anything bad about you

immediately correct it out loud

especially when you’re in conversation

with other people like this

i have a terrible memory for names no

actually

i have a brilliant memory for names and

i’ll never forget yours

who are you here’s laughter here because

then you’re emulating that emotional

state

where your inner mind starts producing

in your brain

a substance called dopamine that’s a

neural transmitter which helps your

brain actually

create connections our intellectual

conscious logic system doesn’t

understand humor

it runs away from embarrassment and so

gives over control to your

emotional subconscious and don’t worry

about what the other person in the

conversation thinks

just see this as an opportunity to

program yourself to be better

actually this is an ideal opportunity to

help the person or people you’re with

because

if they ask you why you’re doing this

just tell them

chances are they’re using unproductive

self-suggestion anyway and telling them

how to repair that

has to be good now i can’t stress how

important it

is to correct unproductive

self-suggestion and to do that

out loud and right away do this enough

and your brain will start to run the

good suggestions automatically

when that happens you’ve changed your

mind

okay so we can repair

but can we also create something that

isn’t there and confirm the stuff that

should be part of us yes we can

to do this we use the process of

speaking aloud to ourselves and we

combine that

with the deliberate routine and ritual

using the technique of mine which

once you’ve got it in place will do a

lot of suggestive work for you

without any effort in the early nineteen

hundreds

emil cui a french psychologist coined

the phrase that

even made it into a john lennon song

every day in every way i’m getting

better

and better to make this suggestion work

courage suggests that you repeat the

phrase aloud

10 times in the morning on waking up and

10 at night just before you drop off to

sleep

this use of habitual ritual has sadly

been

pushed aside by much more complicated

routines

so let’s learn to do this fast and then

effectively

but before we do there are one or two

common mistakes that have led to this

style of auto suggestion not working

and so becoming discarded so let’s avoid

the following

flooding your brain obviously the more

you practice the better you

get then the less you feel you need to

do

to do more but work on one thing at a

time and give yourself time to

appreciate the effects

giving yourself unbelievable and

impossible suggestions

some of your goals could be remarkable

and fantastic even though you may

never get there that’s fun and fun is

vital

however even with quantum abounding the

universe has laws and that means it has

limits for instance

you can’t levitate i know you can’t

to prove this after this talk stand up

lift one foot off the floor

now lift the other foot up at the same

time

now as you get up off the floor under

the limits of gravity

it’s a fact you can’t fly live

underwater or in space unaided and you

can’t grow the odd

extra arm or eye no matter how useful

that would be

no stem cells don’t do that at least not

yet

in saying all that obviously you can be

confident

wealthy happy and probably more healthy

than you are now

you can be more popular better at

relationships and free of the emotional

limits you’ve gathered and the last

thing to avoid is giving up

when things appear to be taking too long

tests nasa conducted with its astronauts

in the early days of the space race

discovered that the optimum time for the

brain

to turn a routine into a reality was

around

30 days so stick with it

don’t give up too soon i’ve known six

weeks to go past name

why you suddenly realize that you’re

behaving differently you’re noticing

more opportunities for you

and have a lot more of everything than

you did before

however i did say we’d make this work

faster

and we can certainly make it work more

easily

and to do that we’ll use my rapid

repetition routine let’s make it a game

take the courierism every day in every

way i’m getting better and better

shorten that down to the important

phrase better and better

and then shorten that down to a single

word in this case

better is probably the best keyword

now say better out loud to yourself and

repeat it so fast and so often

it stops making sense follow me

better better better better

better better better better better

better better better

did you notice how it stops being a word

and just

becomes a sound and your subconscious

mind is still

running the whole phrase you’ll sound

and maybe feel a little demented doing

this so pick somewhere you won’t get

arrested in or thrown out of

if that’s not possible shove in a couple

of earphone buds and

sing it under your breath bear the bed

about the bed about a bit but

who knows when your mind your

subconscious is saying your keyword then

it’s just like your other self

suggestions autonomic

happens without thought and it likewise

is extremely effective now this works to

get the thing into your imaginative mind

like a steam train

it’ll even get to the point where you’re

just thinking about your keyword

and that will run the whole routine

automatically then you’re really firing

on all cylinders

now you may be thinking so all i have to

do to resolve all those life

limiting issues i have hanging around

and put into place

self-propelling success drives all i

have to do is say the opposite of what i

don’t want to be seeing

really yes let’s finally fine-tune your

suggestion skills and really make them

work for you

sadly it’s not possible for me to use a

talk like this to explain

all the possibilities but i can give you

some examples of the sort of

self-suggestion correction you should be

using for the most common things i get

asked about

as with all things there’s a little

known trick or secret if you like

that makes the way something is done by

a professional

look easy and get better results

the trick here is used by stage

performers all the time i call it

emotive emphasis

that weakens and strengthens yourself

self suggestions in awesome ways for

example

bad might be don’t matter what i do i

can’t lose weight

good my body’s getting fit and fantastic

bad would be nothing i do ever work so

just

the way i want it to good would be every

day i achieve

amazing success bad would be i feel

really anxious about

exams but good would be i get

wonderfully excited

in the examination room bad emotive

emphasis

words are in english of course which

might maybe try

but should don’t can’t hope neither hard

goody is or have do when can will now

easy awesome amazing fantastic and of

course whatever words are in current

culture

you use to emphasize good emotions even

sick and dope

so remember always repair unproductive

thoughts and suggestions as they happen

make rapid repetition one of your habits

think of a productive phrase about

yourself and reduce

that down to one word repeat the word

over and over as fast as you can until

it just becomes a

meaningless sound carry on for 60

seconds or so

continue till change happens you know

you can change your mind and if you do

that

you can change your life