EP11: I Was Fighting Myself - Ole Hill
I genuinely think a lot of the mental health out there is inadequate. Like, I think-
Why do we, like, sabotage ourselves and all that self-doubt?
Mm. The reason why we sabotage ourselves is 'cause our brain thinks it's positive. The brain never does anything to intentionally harm itself.
What's the biggest difference between successful people and non-successful people?
Mindset. It's not that you can't do it, it's that you don't know how to do it yet. What's,
what would you say the biggest misconception about hypnosis is?
I think the big misconception is the conscious mind controls and processes 150 to 250 bits of information per second. The subconscious mind controls and processes 150 million to 250 million bits of information per second.
You're picking up my accent. You're noticing when it goes to New Zealand or when it goes to English or when Aussie comes out, right? Everyone has a conscious mind, everyone has a subconscious mind. Most people's are working against them. That,
like, comfort zone.
Boom. Yeah. Comfort zone. In hypnosis, there's that gatekeeper.
That's the conscious critical faculty. In hypnosis, we occupy the gatekeeper's hands and push him to the side. We haven't developed that gatekeeper yet, so if someone calls a six-year-old a stinky poo-poo head, it's really easy for them to get offended by it 'cause their brain can't accept or reject information.
That's the gatekeeper's role.
Okay. Yeah.
So what
that gatekeeper's all about-
Mm-hmm ...
how would you get someone to get, like,
past that? So you can do a variety of different things, but basically-
Ollie Hill, welcome to Episodes of Life
Thank you for having me
No, thank you for coming on How's your Friday been?
It's been great so far. Good. I've been looking forward to this all
day. No, glad to hear it, glad to hear it. So let's, tell us a bit about y- little bit about yourself.
Yeah. I'm Australia's best hypnotist.
I help seven or eight figure business owners that are struggling with anxiety, self-doubt, or just limiting belief self-sabotage that have been holding them back from eight or nine figures, and just people that are struggling with their own thoughts, helping them get past the roadblocks that they've put in their own head, because I believe everything comes back to our subconscious.
Mm-hmm. And that's like code that we have written into this deepest layer of our brain, and it's not something that should permanently harm us, but, like, a significant negative event in our life can massively change our code, which changes the trajectory. And if we don't change that, if we don't pull ourselves out of that negative code, we can get stuck down that path- Mm-hmm
or the code can propel us to exactly where we wanna be.
Yeah. No, I agree. Like, for me, yeah, having that negative mindset for 47 years, obviously you get stuck in that and you just feel like, yeah, it's a nice start to pressure. I find it's, it's horrible. Mm-hmm. And like it's having to, like I'm learning now, just trying to sort of like rewire it, I suppose.
Yeah. Well, when you're stuck in it, you can't see any way out of it- No ... because it's real. Like, if you've got rose-tinted glasses, right? People talk about looking at the past through this beautiful lens. Well, a lot of people get stuck in, I call them shit-tinted glasses. All you can see is the negative, and it's because this part of you is only letting you view things a certain way.
Why did you wanna... How did you get into it and, like, why?
Oh, so when I was 16, I watched my dad have a heart attack. Okay. Right? So I, in that moment, he was, he had been running every single day, at least three kilometers, for 231 days in a row, and then all of a sudden he gets home on one day and he says, like, oh, he's thanking my little brother for cooking dinner, 'cause my little brother was a little shit back then.
And so he'd actually helped us for dinner, and he'd just finished thanking my little brother, and then he falls from, like, the kitchen counter onto the couch, and we're all a little bit confused, and he, like, flops from the couch onto the floor, and he's breathing heavy, his face is bright red, his ears going purple, and that's when we realized something was up.
Mm-hmm. I call emergency services. My mom's giving him CPR. And for eight minutes, 12 seconds, I was on that phone call, and luckily he's still here today.
Mm-hmm.
But out of nowhere, that could have been the end of everything. Yeah. So you never know how much time you have. And back then I was insecure. I couldn't talk to strangers.
I couldn't make eye contact with a bus driver. I was just shy, constantly anxious, and really worried in my own head. Mm-hmm. I was suffering 'cause of my own thoughts. But seeing something like that and realizing we don't know how much time you have, today could be your last day, so how are you going to let- yourself hold you back from your full potential
That's interesting.
I, I, I've took from that you remember the exact time you were on the phone
Yeah, exactly That's,
that's
crazy And I, I only just lost the phone recently Yeah But it was a black iPhone 8, and I had the call in the call logs as well, you know? And it's like, it stands out because we have these potent experiences, and for me, I didn't know this at the time, but what I realized much later is I had that, I would call it a negative and a positive potent experience.
But hypnosis, it's a catalyst moment. Just like that was a catalyst for me, hypnosis is, like, condensing these catalysts so that we positively move forwards. Because you can either get sabotaged by the events that go on- Mm ... or you can use them as your inspiration.
Yeah, and that's what I'm trying to- Yeah
find out. Yeah, yeah. You use, like, kind of using it to fuel you, I suppose.
Mm.
Yeah. That's interesting.
Yeah.
So you're a coach now? Coach with a... How did you, like, train, I suppose? Like- Cool.
Gotcha ...
so sort of like a Jedi master sort of mind train, I suppose. Isn't it? I,
I- It's weird, right? Yeah, yeah. And this, we don't know about it, and everyone thinks like, "Oh, is it this foreign alien thing?
It couldn't work on me. It, it doesn't work on me." People have sometimes tried stage hypnosis, and I like to clarify it's very different than that. Mm. So how I learned it was I was a personal trainer back in New Zealand, and I had this marketing coach. And he wasn't really a marketing coach, he was a guy I followed on Instagram, 'cause I couldn't afford a marketing coach back then.
Right. But I really trust him. I looked up to him quite a lot. And all of a sudden, he never talked about it, but all of a sudden he makes this post saying, "Oh yeah, my girlfriend has a fruit phobia." Like, she was scared of fruit. Couldn't look at blueberries, couldn't touch a banana. Like, bizarre, right? Yeah, I've never heard of it.
I'd never heard of it. No. Um, but he hired this hypnotist to come help her out with this fruit phobia because he was getting pissed off. He couldn't put his own fruit in his own fridge, 'cause if she would see it, she couldn't use the fridge. You know? That's how scared she was. And so this hypnotist comes over and while he's helping her with that, he does a bit of a session on my marketing coach, and my marketing coach is like, "Holy shit, it's like the ultimate personal development.
I'm so much more productive now. I've made $50,000 that I can tangibly prove I wouldn't have made without this hypnosis." And I was like, "Okay, well, I trust this marketing coach. I don't really know what hypnosis is, but let me investigate this a little bit more." Yeah. And diving deep into this rabbit hole, I studied under Marcel Klein, best hypnotist in America.
And he had this... helped me realize that personal development courses, podcasts, books, meditations, breathworks, yoga, reading, listening to all of this stuff, it's a slow form of hypnosis. It's slowly rewiring your thoughts, your subconscious mind. Hypnosis is just the direct path, the fastest way to do that.
We've all done it. We use these conscious tools that slowly shift the way we think. What if we can do it the most potent, the most impactful way?
How did you, like, train for it, I suppose? And-
Yeah. So I mean, to be honest, and this is why it's not a foreign thing, it's just something that's so misunderstood.
Yeah. And there's people that benefit off the misconception of it. I believe, like, drug companies in general It's a subscription to your self-doubt, a lot of personal development, right? They want you to feel slightly better and then lose that momentum so you come back for the next fix. Whereas hypnosis is something that's permanent.
So I think it's not known about because it actually takes a lot of business away from antidepressant companies- Mm ... stuff like that. But how I learned, an eight-minute YouTube video.
Really?
Yep. That was the first time. That was the first thing I learned, and then I... So I watch this eight-minute YouTube video, and I'm thinking, "This is crazy.
This can't be real." Yeah. "This is too good to be true." So I watch it, and I was trying to memorize it, and I didn't think I was good enough, and I was like, "Okay, well, well maybe I..." I, I test it on my little brother, and I kinda do the induction process. There's five different ways to induce hypnosis. I do one of them.
Or it's, it was about stacking three, right? Kind of like you stack the deck in your favor to help them change as easily as possible, and I do it to my little brother, and he kind of like slumps over in front of me. And at the time, I had been really nervous to even ask him, like, "Hey, do you wanna be hypnotized?"
I thought he was gonna laugh at me- Yeah ... think I'm crazy or something. And then I do it, and he flops over, and I'm like, I got pissed off. I thought he was mocking me. I thought he was joking about it. And then he slumped over, and the thought goes, "Ah, that's not cool, bro," like in my head. I was trying to take this seriously, and then he still slumped over, and I'm like, "Oh."
And the next thought was Well, what do I do now? And then I was so surprised that it had worked that I actually, like, came back out of trance by the time I got myself together. And that eight-minute YouTube video, it taught me how to, like, put someone in hypnosis or help them get into hypnosis, 'cause I'm not taking control of someone's mind.
Mm. Like, it's- that's a negative frame that doesn't serve people. But I did it, and then I went, "Oh, I know how to do it, but not what do I do once someone is h- Yeah ... in hypnosis." So eight-minute YouTube video, then I studied a bunch of courses, right? Because you can induce a trance, but then how do you help change someone's life?
I'd studied psychology since I was, like, 15. Oh, okay. 'Cause I used to say, like, I couldn't talk to people, right? Right. And so I wanted to be able to, and I'd watched all these YouTube videos on how to do it, and it wasn't until I had that catalyst moment where I said, "I've wasted too much time. Today might be my last day."
It was nearly my dad's last day.
Mm.
This has cost me potential relationships, potential friendships. This is gonna cost me at work. And I had this one moment, right? So I'm probably 15. I had a f- my first girlfriend. So I, I could have a girlfriend, but strangers was still this weird thing for me. Mm. So we're at the cinema, and back then you couldn't buy tickets online.
You used to have to queue up through that- ... zigzag thing. And we get to the front, and I gave her the cash, and I pushed her forwards 'cause I couldn't even talk to a cashier. I couldn't talk to someone that was paid to talk to me, you know?
Yeah,
yeah. It was embarrassing enough to do it with my girlfriend, but I played it off like, "Oh, you go do it," you know?
I played it off like I was being cool, but I was just shit scared to talk to a stranger.
Where do you think that come from, like?
I-
And it's interesting you, like, you've studied psychology since you were 15. That is-
Yeah ... wow. Because, 'cause I needed to, right? Yeah. 'Cause I just couldn't talk to people. Like, and for me, even having this conversation right now, it's very natural now.
Yeah.
But I had to deliberately learn how to do it, how to be comfortable. In the past, I would've walked in today, like, sweating, and there's a camera guy setting things up. I would've been so nervous to talk to him. But now we can just get into that flow- Yeah ... and it feels good because that's freedom rather than my own thoughts trapping me.
Mm.
So I realized I was already struggling with that. But what I didn't ever want to happen, and I realized the cost was okay if it's affected me in this way, it's going to keep getting bigger. What if it gets to the point where I have a son, I take him to the movies, and I push him forwards to talk to the cashier?
I didn't want my future son's dad- To be an insecure, weak- Mm ... weak man, you know?
Oh, yeah. It's interesting.
Mm.
And it kind of all... Because you've that flip, your dad having a heart attack was kind of the, the switch that-
The realization, right? Yeah Like, okay, if I'm f- tomorrow's my last day, did I waste my life- Mm
up until this point? I love very wholeheartedly right now. Like, I have a partner that I haven't been with for very long, but I won't let that hold me back- Mm ... from making the relationship as good as it could be right now. And I have a very high standard in that of what I do and do not accept. But if we're together, I'm not gonna reserve myself because you can't reserve if you don't know how much time you have.
Like, people that are wanting to jump into a new industry, or they're wanting to step into their next business, but they're waiting to feel confident enough, you might be waiting to feel confident for so long that your heart attack comes around or your accident or someone passes or the business opportunity changes.
Every day we don't change is another day where we could have just wasted the last few seconds of our life
How long have you been... How was, like, the f- how'd you reach out to someone and say, "Let me..." I don't know, like sort of- Yeah ... how was the first person you sort of reached out to and then-
So I did it on my little brother, right?
Yeah. And then it works, but I couldn't use anything. So then I was like, "Okay, well, I got him in trance, but I didn't produce an effect from hypnosis." So it was kind of cool, kind of like, "Well, what's the next step?" Take this first online course. I actually don't know if I bought it yet or if I... No, I think I went straight to trying it on some friends.
So I go over to this friend's place. I put a suit on so that I looked proper, you know? Like, oh, it's gonna work. And then I, um, I try it on my first mate round his house, and like, didn't, didn't get anything, you know? And then I, I do it on his little brother, and then didn't... Nothing fucking happens. And then, um, we had another friend over at the house who really didn't wanna try it, but it had gone so miserably with the first two that he was like, "Oh, okay.
I guess I'll help you out." Mm-hmm. Nothing. And so then it was probably, like, six months where I didn't try again. I didn't do any- Right ... hypnosis. I think I took a course. I was umming and ahhing, like, "Oh, should I maybe try it on my mate at a run club or something?" But I just stuck to my personal training, and I knew...
I was coaching people with personal training. When they came to me for PT, they always got bigger life benefits. Like, the physical was cool, but if you're working with a teenager and their posture's like this, you have to help them on the mental side of things 'cause if they don't wanna be seen-
Mm
they're never gonna step up into their full posture.
Yeah.
So I always helped them. I didn't do any hypnosis, and it wasn't until I was filming regular content every Thursday with my mate up in Brisbane, and one day I was like, "I'm doing it." Like, we used to film videos for each other, so I was like, "This is perfect.
I can get it on camera. I'm doing it." And this is, like, elite psychology that genuinely if you can understand and apply this kind of tool, it propels you so far ahead in business negotiations, in relationships, the subtlety of it. But we filmed videos for each other And I said to him, "Hey, do you mind if I film a quick tutorial on how to hypnotize someone using you as the subject?"
I'd never successfully done it. Wow. I'd never successfully hypnotized someone, but I said, "Can I use you as the demonstration subject? I'm gonna make a tutorial." Not only can I do hypnosis, but the assumption is I'm so good at it that I'm filming a tutorial. Nobody films a tutorial for something that they can't do.
No, yeah. So straightaway it puts the suggestion in his head, "Oh, this guy knows how to hypnotize people." Mm. And so I did it, and I make, make his eyes stuck closed, and I make his feet stuck to the ground, and he was like, "Oh my God, bro, like, I, I've never had that. I wasn't expecting that." And in the back of my head I'm thinking, "Yeah, I wasn't expecting that either."
Like, I've never done this before, but hell yeah. Mm-hmm. Best, best rush ever. I'm like, "I did it." 'Cause I stepped into the unknown. I had no clue if it was gonna work, but then, well, I've got that on camera. Okay, now I can post that. And then I, um... There's a guy from New Zealand, Amon Kong, he's this magician, crazy, crazy guy.
I bump into him on the street. Back then I had 3,000, uh, fitness followers on Instagram.
Yeah.
And he had 300,000 followers on his magic account. I was making more off my 3,000 than he was off his 300,000, but he got way more followers- Mm ... way more views. And I said to him, I was like, "Hey, I wanna get into hypnosis and do content for this."
He said, "I wanna make my money off my magic followers." So we kind of did a value exchange where I would film with him, and then we would talk business back and forth, and I just made content. We'd start on the street. Back then he... He's insane. Mm. Like, if you bump into an Asian guy, little Asian guy- ... who offers you a magic trick, say yes.
Say yes. He's insane. But he would just go up to people on the street, he would finish his tricks, and then he would say, "Oh, by the way, my mate's a hypnotist." And I got a few videos like that, and I'd always coached people personal training. Mm. So I'd been helping people's lives for a long, long time. It's coming up on, uh, over five years now that I've been helping people, but hypnosis wasn't always a thing that I did until I got videos, and I had...
My first video is that first guy that I filmed the tutorial on. But I had, like, about, like, nine videos on my profile, and then I was just getting followers. And it, I did this on my fitness page, I do it on my hypnosis page. Everyone that follows, I say, "Hey mate, thanks for the follow." Yeah. "What's got you interested in hypnosis?"
And then we take the conversation from there, see what they've got going on. Yeah. And then it just accumulates. Yeah. Like, change is very easy. Like, things can change rapidly. It's easier to change quickly than it is to change slowly. 'Cause all of a sudden I had this evidence that I could do hypnosis. I used to charge people $40 a week for knee pain fitness coaching.
That's what I used to do.
Okay.
Now I charge people tens of thousands- Right ... hundreds of thousands to work with me, but I used to- charge $40 a week, you know? And then I went, "Oh, I can go down this path and make a way bigger impact on their lives, so why would I not-
Mm ...
go do
that?" Yeah,
yeah, yeah. Mm.
What happens to the brain, like, during hypnosis?
So basically, our day-to-day brainwave state is called beta brainwaves, and that's, like, your conscious mind. That's your thinking. But realize that the conscious mind... Have you heard the expression you're only using 10% of your brain's true potential?
Yeah, 'cause I've got, I've got a coach now. I only recently just started-
Nice
and talked about that, yeah.
Yeah, cool. So that's a great saying. For me, what's, what's true is you are using 10% of your brain's true potential, but it's not that that other 90% isn't getting used. It's that it's getting used negatively or on distractions and bullshit. So there's insane studies on this. Like, I only just found a new one recently.
I used to say the conscious mind controls and processes 150 to 250 bits of information per second. The subconscious mind controls and processes 150 million to 250 million bits of information per second. New research says the subconscious mind might be closer to 10 billion bits of information per second.
So unfathomable, right? Yeah. Think about every thought you have in a day from wake up to bedtime. Realize in the background while that's happening, your subconscious is doing at least a billion times more than that. All of your thoughts, your brain is doing a billion times more than that in the background, right?
So you're picking up my accent. You're noticing when it goes to New Zealand or when it goes to English or when Aussie comes out, right? If you think about the conscious mind, 150, 250 bits of information, that's about a license plate while you're driving. So the letters, the color contrast, the distance away it is from your car, that's about all the conscious mind can hold at one time.
Hypnosis, we so thoroughly occupy the conscious mind, it's basically, its job is the gatekeeper. But if you fill the gatekeeper's hands and distract him and push him in the wrong direction, he can't stop us from getting to your deeper programs where we can help change things for you. Everyone has a conscious mind.
Everyone has a subconscious mind. Most peoples' are working against them. Mm. You're only using 10% of your brain's true potential because most people have a subconscious that's programmed against them.
So a lot of negative-
Yeah, fear.
Yeah. Oh, yeah, fear's a big thing, isn't it, I think. Mm. Yeah. Holds a lot of people back.
Mm. That's got them For me as well, like, well, I've used to, like, just care what everyone else thought. Do you know what I mean? That's probably a lot of
people think that, that fear of what they're gonna say- Mm
what do people think of me, da, da, da. And it probably, like, keeps a lot of people back, doesn't it? Just that-
Mm ...
like you said, the word fear is
just- 100%. So the brain's a surviving machine- Yeah ... not a thriving machine. No. It doesn't wanna see you winning. No. It wants to see you alive. And so familiar means alive.
Even if, if you've had a shit life your entire life, you survived.
Mm.
The brain's like, "100% survival rate, we're winning." And it knows, "Okay, well, I was familiar with that. I know how to handle that." This is crazy part. I used to help a lot of people in pretty negative situations, and domestic abuse is one common situation, but the brain becomes familiar with it, and it's a known threat instead of an unknown threat.
The known threat of coming home to your partner beating you is actually more comfortable to the brain than the unknown threat of a loving relationship. People genuinely have never had that before.
Mm.
Like, um, my partner at the moment never had physical affection from her parents and never had them say, like, "I love you" to her or to each other.
And so that's a very foreign concept for her. Mm. And she's done a lot of work to be capable of receiving that because otherwise that comes in and the brain goes, "We don't know what this means, and if we don't know what it means, we're not safe from it." 'Cause if we're familiar with it, I'm safe.
Feel like comfort zone.
Boom. Yeah. Comfort zone. And so it's a survival zone- Mm ... is what it really is. And so what we have to do, consciously you might want love, subconsciously your brain is afraid of it. Now, not to overreach here, and I don't mind, like, we c- totally- No ... cut this, whatever, but for example, with the pain in your life associated with a past relationship-
Mm
to a certain extent, the subconscious can fear love.
Mm.
So if a relationship issue pops up, sometimes I have to look at a client and say, "Is there actually an issue in the relationship, or is this your brain sabotaging to protect itself from- Mm ... something negative, from more loss," right?
Yeah,
yeah. This often happens- No,
yeah.
I, I work with millionaires, right? And a lot of the times they'll have made their first million- And they lost a business or something went wrong and they got fucked over out of a deal. And all of a sudden in their second s- business when they have more experience, more knowledge, and a better business vehicle, they just can't seem to make it work because their brain is actively holding them back 'cause it still remembers the pain of losing the first one.
It doesn't want to build a second one just to lose it all over again, you know?
Yeah. It's interesting. How, well, how did you get into, like, the business side of it?
Well, basically the, money is a reflection of our internal standing, right? And I believe that money is a reflection of the value that you provide to others in the world.
And so if we can provide more value, we'll be more compensated by the markets, by the universe, whatever. And so a lot of business owners realize the only thing between them and millions or billions is their mindset. They've seen themselves succeed to a certain extent when their friends and family didn't because they have a better mindset.
But if they're capped at seven or eight figures, they realize, "Okay, well, my friends are struggling to get by. I'm at seven or eight because I've got a better mindset than that. The guys that are at, at eight or nine, money all comes down to mindset, so I just need a better mindset in order to get there."
Day trading is a great example. Whether you're day trading $100 trades or $100,000 trades, it's the same skill. It just comes back down to what amount you can handle. Everyone has a subconscious success setting. Mm-hmm. An amount that we feel programmed for in income, relationships, health, and happiness. And if your subconscious success setting is set for 25, it's like air conditioning.
If you turn it up to 28, if you make a little bit more, if you randomly have some money come through, you'll blow it all. If you're programmed for 28, the subconscious dampeners kick in to bring you back to what you were programmed for.
That's interesting.
Mm. It's the same way, like, when you and I, we're in good f- shape, right?
And same with footballers. They go to off-season Their body's usually set for 25 degrees. They slip and they're down at 20, they're like, "Oh, I'm looking a bit chubby." But then they kick their arse in, and they're always ready for, like, that third game of the season. Maybe not the first game, they realize, "Oh, I've let myself slip."
But then once they realize, "Wait, I'm beneath what I'm programmed for," we kick in. Our arse gets into gear, and all of a sudden we're back to what our normal is.
What's, what would you say the biggest misconception about hypnosis is?
I think the bastardization of using it for stage shows, right? When it's the most powerful personal development tool in the world, it seems a shame and a tad silly to leave it as turning someone into a chicken.
Mm.
Which is totally valid, right? But all we're doing, I think the big misconception is thinking that those are separate things. It's actually the same tool used in a pointless way or a life-changing way. So there's a cool video on my Instagram, maybe I'll repost it so it's more top of feed. But I tell... I hypnotize a girl that I'm invisible.
What actually happens there, right? 'Cause I'm like, "No way this works." I'm, I'm thinking, "No way hypnosis actually works," right? Like, what the hell's going on? So I was like, "I have to know how this works." And to explain it, in hypnosis, there's that gatekeeper. That's the conscious critical faculty. In hypnosis, we occupy the gatekeeper's hands and push him to the side.
Between the ages of zero and seven, we haven't developed that gatekeeper yet. So if someone calls a six-year-old a stinky poo-poo head, it's really easy for them to get offended by it, 'cause their brain can't accept or reject information. That's the gatekeeper's role. And so in hypnosis, we put that gatekeeper to the side so that we can get into the subconscious.
Whatever's in your subconscious must be believed as true. Every guy has had this. A girl, friend, who didn't believe she was beautiful. Doesn't matter how many times you say it and you fucking mean it, if she doesn't believe it, she won't hear it- Mm ... and accept it. If it's not in her subconscious, she rejects it.
"You're just trying to get in my pants, so you don't actually mean it. You don't, uh, your standards are too low." Whatever. She'll come up with a million different ways to convince herself that your genuine compliment isn't genuine and isn't real. So in hypnosis, what we do occupy the conscious critical faculty, the gatekeeper, plant the suggestion, "Ollie is invisible"- And now what her brain does is it filters information based on what she believes is true.
So the visual information, her eyes are still seeing me. You know your nose is in your field of vision 24/7? Come
on, is it?
But, well everyone's is. But the brain realizes it's not useful information, so it trims it out 99% of the time. Now, what the brain does in hypnosis is the same thing. Her eyes see me, it passes the visual information to the brain, the brain says, "No, no, no.
Based off our beliefs, that's not useful information. Discard it." Throws out the visual information that comes in, and all of a sudden she then has the reaction, "Oh my God, I can't see him," because her subconscious has told her she cannot accept and have that visual information. Mm. Does that make sense?
Yeah.
Yeah. So what, that gatekeeper you talk about-
Mm-hmm ...
how would you get, sort of get that, that-
So there's five different mechanisms, five different inductions. I'll share a few. So one is a confusion, another one is overwhelm, another one is an eye fascination, another one is a shock induction. So you can do a variety of different things, but basically the gatekeeper is when the conscious mind is so overwhelmed- Mm
that it kind of goes, "What? What do we do next?" So if I say cheesecake elephant turd, your brain's like, "What? That, that's not a sentence." A little bit like it doesn't make sense. Mm. And so immediately you can sort of play with someone, right? If you give someone a handshake and just hold the hand afterwards- Mm
they're actually in a moment of suggestibility. If you capture that right, you can take their attention wherever. So mess with your friends with it. Go in for a handshake, but then hold onto it and start walking around. And then share an opinion that they might not believe in as well. So there's a moment of suggestibility.
Okay. And so hypnosis is getting the brain in a foreign situation that it does not recognize, and therefore lets go in. Mm. So you'll often see this, um, when someone's a race car passenger. There's a moment where it's so out of their control that they have to just completely let go, surrender to the experience, but in that moment the brain can be taken anywhere.
It's almost like if you look at a math question or a writing test that's way too hard, and so for a minute you just go I don't even know. Let me just make up some rubbish. Oh, wait, this is turning into a decent answer. It's like it's so too much- Mm ... that your brain surrenders and relaxes into it, and there's a lot of freedom.
That's how we get into the subconscious.
How would... 'Cause I've never done... What would, like, the first session look like if someone come, come
to you? So I have a four-phase process. We call it the hypnotic personality reset- Mm ... to make a permanent change for someone. Now, um, there's a couple different techniques that we use, breath holds, the amygdala, that's the fear capital of the brain.
All of our limiting beliefs come from the fear center. Have you heard of Project MKUltra? No. Cool. Okay. So C- CIA mind control experiments and stuff- Okay ... like that. Project Artichoke, which came just before that, but basically in the '70s. Do you know, um, Charles Manson, famous serial killer?
Yeah, yeah, give us a-
Yeah, exactly
the name rings a bell.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So he was a serial killer during the psychedelic hippie era over in the States, right? But back then, uh, Manson was actually a hypnotist. He was actually hypnotized by a CIA hypnotist, which is all documented as well. Wow. Insane. Mm. But they were testing how could we control the mind and stuff like that.
So they, um, used negative forms, right? And drug dosed people that didn't even know that they were getting dosed and, and mucked around with that kind of thing. But they also found that someone in fear is much more easily to control, and it's our fears that are controlling us. And people talk about having a goal and a dream and a vision, but there's a great quote from Paul Czech which is, "People either need a crisis big enough to change"...
No. "A crisis or a dream big enough to change." People either need a dream big enough or a crisis to change. Mm. But what I actually do in hypnosis is instead of making your brain fear success by future pacing and doing a few other techniques, we actually make your brain afraid of not being successful. And not afraid in an anxiety way, but afraid in a Your brain goes, "Okay, we have to be at that level now."
Rather than your brain being afraid of that level being too much, it goes, "Oh, that's our standard? Anything beneath that is not good enough." So for example, I had a client, Ben, he works with former drug addicts as well, and so he, he's an Instagram coach, business owner, and he was doing consistently, like, 100K months in his business.
But coming from a background where he didn't have much money or a background where money meant bad things, uh, it caused him problems in the past, his brain had a fear-
Hmm ...
of success. And so he would make 100 grand a month in his business, but he would spend 110 on his credit card, and it would always be something like, "Oh, the kids just needed that for school.
They need a new laptop, so I just had to go on this holiday or this business trip, or, like, buy something for the partner. It's, it's the birthday season, it's wedding season," whatever, and he would always end up pulling himself backwards. The more he made, the more he spent- Hmm ... 'cause his brain had a fear of that abundance.
And so removing the fear, helping his brain realize, "Wait, I'm afraid of wasting that. Wait, I'm afraid of not being at that level now. I, I'm not having that freedom. I want that capacity. I'm capable of holding that now," all of a sudden his best Well, I mean, he was doing 100K months. By our third week of working together, he did 100K week.
Wow.
You know? Yeah. And, and can hold it and can handle it, not by working harder, but by removing the code that was making him see himself as less valuable and less capable than he actually was.
Why do we, like, sabotage ourselves and all that self-doubt and-
Mm.
Why?
The reason why we sabotage ourselves is 'cause our brain thinks it's positive.
The brain never does anything to intentionally harm itself. And when we do these self-harming habits or literal self-harm, it's 'cause the brain has a positive expectation. And to get really deep, self-harm, like literal cutting or suicide attempts, leads to the positive of attention and love and support from people around them when these people have clearly never felt real support.
Mm.
They don't know how to get it in any other way than to do the negative thing. We shoot ourself in the foot business-wise because our brain is afraid of another business loss. We self-sabotage in a relationship 'cause our subconscious remembers the pain of the last heartbreak and doesn't think we're ready to handle a second one.
In hypnosis, we go in and say, "Whoa, our standard is higher. We are more capable. We are more than strong enough. We are good enough." And it's not affirmations.
Mm.
It's not bullshit in the mirror. Right. It's helping your brain actually not fear these things so it never has to self-sabotage again.
What's one, one mindset s- shift almost everyone needs?
To raise their subconscious success setting. Basically, your self-worth determines the quality of what you'll be able to hold in your life, your relationships, your income, your health. If you don't value yourself, other people won't ever value you, but also your brain won't let the positive things in. I see these reels on Instagram all the time, and they make me laugh, where someone's giving away money, and then the person on the receiving end turns it down or says, "No, no, no, that's too much.
I can't accept that. I could never handle that," right? Their brain doesn't believe they're worthy of receiving a gift. So even when a stranger gives them a cash, no strings attached, they don't accept it. They literally like, like, "No." They can't even let themselves be helped. One thing I had to work on with my partner was like, "I'm gonna pay the bill when we go out, and just accept it."
Mm. "Like, you don't have to offer to pay, you know? You're worth that to me." And it's not even a question of being worth it. Like, it's just normal. But if someone doesn't view themself as that valuable, they will literally get bitter to it. And a girl who's trying to s- protect- Or self-sabotage. It's almost the exact same thing.
She'll go, "Oh no, he's just trying to sleep with me." Like, that's a manipulative tactic
Mm.
Someone's generosity out of their heart... Look, there's bad guys for sure. Yeah But these protecting people use the negative bad guy example as their code that influences the way that they move forwards, and actually stifles and blocks what could've been correct for them from coming in.
What's the biggest difference between successful people and non-successful people?
Mindset. Mm. That's the only thing that it comes down to. Yeah. And so bigger people know that they have bigger ambitions, and therefore they will continue to move forwards until they've reached that goal. So unsuccessful person is going, "I hope I can achieve this."
Successful person is going, "I will continue to learn until I know how to achieve this."
Mm. If our thoughts create our reality How do we know which thoughts to believe?
It's your choice. Mm. So life is meaningless, and that's exactly why it has meaning. If you woke up with a predetermined choice, you would be an animal.
You would literally be a bee, right? Okay, bee has to wake up, hunt for honey, go to sleep. Wake up, hunt for honey, give it to the queen, go to sleep. We don't have a predefined task as humans, therefore we get to choose. We get to set the meaning of our own life, therefore it has meaning 'cause we chose that meaning.
So the thoughts that we believe come back to what do we want to give significance to. I think I have big ears, bro, and so I'm like, "Oh, I could give those thoughts a lot of significance." I used to have really bad pimples as well. I gave those thoughts heaps of significance. Mm. But thinking about it didn't change the situation.
It didn't make me any happier. And Joe Rogan talks about this, where he was learning a taekwondo kick, and in taekwondo you gotta put in tens of thousands of reps to get the kick down to the quality that you want. And one day he, he goes to training, he has this real negative training, and he just beats himself up the whole time, and he's so harsh on himself that he's...
almost quits training. Then he comes back to the gym and he's like, "Well, if I'm gonna be like that every single day, I can't do it. I wanna quit. So what if I just don't do that?" And the realization was, okay, well, I have to do 10,000 reps to get this kick down. I can do 10,000 while beating myself up and feeling like absolute shit while doing it, or I can do 10,000 while just not paying attention to those thoughts.
Mm. Not repeating them to myself in my head. And the Buddha talks about his definition of enlightenment was just the end of suffering. And to me, with my clients, I say there's a difference between struggle and suffering. Struggle is the obstacles we need to overcome in order to become the best version of ourself.
Suffering is the stories that we attach to those obstacles along the way that convince us something negative about ourself. Mm. Struggling, that's mandatory part of life.
Yeah.
Suffering is optional. We don't have to beat ourselves up about that. Even though I'm not at where I want to be right now, I don't have suffering 'cause I don't beat myself up about it.
I know that I'm moving forwards. I take action towards my dreams every day, even if it's o- excuse me, only one little thing every day, I know that I'm continually moving towards where I wanna be, and therefore I'm not suffering. And if the Buddha's definition of enlightenment is just not suffering, you can live an enlightened life where you're peaceful, certain, calm, confident, happy, and just enjoying the beauty of life.
Right. It's fucking crazy. We live in the most beautiful spot in the world. I don't care if you're not in Gold Coast, maybe you're somewhere that is. Maybe you're back home in England, right? You haven't upgraded and moved here yet. But you have life. Mm. You've breathed and been breathed into. It's magnificent.
This is the ultimate blessing, and you don't know when it could go.
No.
And if you're not grateful for it, yet you don't realize how quickly it could slip away, and you're not using it correctly because there's no rules about how you can use it. Catch a train, catch a plane to somewhere else and experience a different life in a moment, in a choice.
Life is not predetermined, it's choice- Choice ... by choice- Mm ... by choice every second of every day. That's the ultimate power, that's the ultimate pressure, that's the ultimate freedom And if you don't like where your life has ended up, then you don't like the choices that you've been making up until this point.
Right. That's all that it comes down to. But realize, oh, I'm the issue, and therefore I can be the solution.
No, I agree. That's what, for me, everything I went through last seven and a bit years, just all the,
we talk about the negative thoughts and the self-doubt. I kind of pretty much hate, like, hate myself- Mm ... and, uh, created just things in me head that just you start to believe when you overthink and overthink them. And it took me about seven and a half years to realize I was looking for everyone else to have the answer, but they haven't got the fucking answers.
Like that I haven't even got them myself. You got to find it. It's, uh, I just say to myself, "It's you versus you, innit?" Like it's if you don't wanna get out of that hole, you're not going to.
You give away your power- Mm ... by waiting for the answer from someone else. Mm. And it's actually disempowering, and it's kind of like a sad position to be in because if they have the answer, then it means you don't.
Mm.
And it means you're at the mercy of these external things changing. You have to wait for life to get better rather than making it. Mm. And then you're neglecting the fact that we have the choice. Like, oh, no, it's a decision that I can get a better life. Mm. Whereas most people don't believe that it is, so that they never experience that.
No. They're always like, "Oh, it's just the way that it is." You just gave away so much power. You're an infinite being, all right? Created in the divine creator's image. And so you've got all this infinite potential within you, and you're gonna say, "Oh, nah, my parents were kind of like, they made me go to uni, so then I went down that path, and you know how it goes."
What? You're just gonna hand away all of life's beauty to, "Yeah, my parents told me to."
Mm.
Fuck. Wow. Insane.
So the, yeah, to the, the, uh, Gold Coast Marathon.
Mm.
Running it barefoot. What was it, 42 Ks barefoot?
42.2, yeah.
Why?
So-
What was going through your head when you kind of... Did you train barefoot and stuff like that?
Yeah. Mm. When I was a personal trainer back in Auckland, uh, it was holistic personal training. So moving, but also breathing, thinking, eating, drinking, and sleeping. And a lot of the modern conveniences that we have actually mess us up in other ways. For example, shoes. An elevated heel shortens the hamstring, pushes the hips forwards, weakening the glutes, throwing off the abdominal muscles as well.
So in the gym, we always made people train barefoot or in barefoot shoes. A barefoot shoe is just a shoe with a really thin sole and very flexible, so it almost feels like you're barefoot.
Mm.
And then one day I was like, "Well, getting these people to train in the gym barefoot- And I had barefoot gym shoes.
I didn't have money for another pair of shoes, so my gym shoes were my running shoes. So I started running in these and I was like, "Wow, my calves are really tight," because there's no bounce. Mm. Like that cushion, that's a foreign thing. We never had springs underneath our feet for our evolution. So I went, "Oh, that's cool."
And then I was like, "Well, I might as well try barefoot barefoot." And it was basically the same, apart from dog poo and sharp stuff. You gotta look out for that.
Yeah.
So the, for the last three years, I've done 5Ks barefoot. Uh, just before I left for Australia, I did a half-marathon with my dad. My dad runs a lot, and I did a half-marathon with him.
I, I'd never done, like, a long r- I'd never run much with him since I was a kid. So we did a half-marathon together. I did that barefoot. I don't like long running.
Nah.
Dude, I do running to meet girls at run clubs. I... That's the only reason I run. Only reason. And now I've got a partner, so It worked out. But, um, moving forwards, like, when I was doing these, I just went, "I wanna raise money.
I wanna help people out. I wanna do..." I was looking at doing one backwards. Um, backwards walking is actually really good for knees. I had knee pain a lot as a kid, and I was like, "Oh, that's kind of relevant to my story." And then, yeah, backwards would've been- Yeah ... hard. Um, but I, I then went, "Oh." And a lot of the times we don't realize what's significant about us, 'cause to us it's just normal.
I was thinking about, "Oh, how do I do something significant and cool?" I was like, "Wait, I already run barefoot." And people freak out about that all the time, you know? So I'd never done a marathon before, but I started training for it. S- the training runs were brutal. I
bet.
Yeah. Because you, you don't have anyone, like, no one's seeing you doing it.
Maybe someone saw me shuffling down. And I'm used to running fast, like four-minute Ks. Well, it's not even that fast, but I was doing seven-minute Ks in my training, so I'm just plodding. People are almost overtaking me walking. I'm just plodding along for hours on end. But that's the thing, struggle verse suffering.
Mm.
I have a reason. I have a obstacle. I have a mission. So when I was doing those, I wasn't beating myself up. I was living it. I was living the pain. I was living the runner's high afterwards. I was living in the sun. I was living in the sweat crystallizing and turning salty on my skin. I was living in the sunburn from being out there for hours.
But you just accept it, 'cause I don't attach a negative story to it. I know this is what I'm doing right now. It will be over. This pain is here now, but this too shall pass
So the i- where does all the idea just come from that gym, working in the gym barefoot?
Yeah. B- I, I think it's better for you. Like, I encourage people to run barefoot.
Mm. And the fact that a lot of people say, "I could never," yeah, 'cause you're not optimized. Mm. You're so reliant on convenience that your body has come out of disharmony. And so your beliefs around I couldn't run a business, I couldn't leave that relationship, I couldn't start something new, I couldn't have a higher standard all comes from the fact that you've gotten comfortable in the convenience of living in a shorter ambition, a lower ambition.
Whereas if you just raise your ambition, you'd go, "Oh, I was capable of it the whole time." This is why I say set big goals. If you want a 10% pay rise, your brain goes, "Hmm We're gonna have to work really hard for maybe a couple hundred extra bucks a week. The brain's not an idiot.
Mm.
It's not worth it. But if you go, "I'm starting a new business, I'm gonna make an extra 100,000 a month.
I'm gonna make way more," the brain goes, "Hmm, still effort, but now there's a worthwhile reward." Your brain won't tap into resources unless it's a worthwhile process. The brain's a calorie conservation machine. It wants you to use as little energy as possible. So if the reward isn't gonna be worthwhile, it won't move forwards.
Mm. So we actually need a big, ambitious goal in order to get our brain to accept, yes, I will work for that. That is worthy of my effort.
Did you ever think like about quitting when you were doing the marathon? That, that's the thing.
Yeah. Yeah. So from 30... No, from 27 to 32 kilometers, I was absolutely in runner's high.
I was crying out of joy. I was, you know, um, David Goggins', "They don't know me, son." Like, I'm just repeating that in my head- ... and, and I'm chopping people down. So I didn't stop. So like especially at the pace I was doing, some... It's not quite run walk, so I did like 5 hours 20, 5 hours 30. They were like, the pacers- Yeah
were run walking it, you know? So I, I was almost at run walk tempo. But from 27 to 32, I didn't stop for water, I didn't stop for anything. I was just like, "I'm gonna fucking smash this. I am the man." Mm. And like I'm saying that in my head. I'm literally like tears of just joy and pride, and then all of a sudden, like I think it was when I saw the 32 sign and realized like, oh-
10K more? Yeah. I've only done 5K smashing it out. Like, when I was at 27, I was like, "I'm not stopping till it's finished. I'm not stopping, I don't need water. I'm, I'm going all the way to the end right now." "Let's, let's go." I'm like, "I'm taking souls. I'm trimming people down." I'm like, "I'm cutting the field right now.
You guys are walking." And I was take- overtaking heaps. Like 5K continuous puts you quite a lot ahead at that pace. I was overtaking hundreds of... And then 32, all of a sudden I was like, "Oh my God, I'm shuffling. People are overtaking me walking right now." And- I can't even remember, but from 32 to 40, I probably walked a large chunk of that.
Mm. And, like, it's very interesting. Um, so between 20 and 30K, I lost feeling of my big toe. So like I couldn't feel my right toe, and it w- and it was kinda creeping up my foot and into my shin, and it was like... I've had it happen ages ago, long story, but basically where you lose feeling of a something and you can't control it- Mm
anymore. And so from 20 to 30, I was having to look down at my foot to remind my brain that that's- Interesting ... the position my foot is in, and then it could control it when it can see it. And it's... But as soon as I look up, it doesn't know what it's doing. Like, I was just landing on stumps. I wasn't landing on a foot.
Yeah. I was landing on, that was just a stump each time. And then I, I was, yeah, got whatever, got to like 32, and I completely lost... I couldn't, like, I had started walking, and I was thinking about, "Okay, start running again"- And I just wouldn't No, no I would start running again. I was just like, "Mm, I'm not getting anything here."
Like, I was just, I'm walking. Okay, let's walk a little fast. I can't even walk faster, you know? And I, um, and I got to 10 ar- Uh, it was because at 32K, you run past the finish line.
Ah, yeah. Yeah. That's cruel.
It's brutal. That
is cruel.
You've got 10K left. But I knew I was coming up to the finish line- Mm ... so I was like, "Oh, I must have missed a few signs.
I must be close." And then you realize you've got 10K more. Mm. And then it's like, and because of the way the loop works, it was like seven K past it, and then you kinda shortcut back so it's only three K on the way back. But you go, like, so far past it, and it just kept going. I was like, "Where's the turnaround?"
Mm. "Where's the turnaround?" I finally get to the turnaround, and I was like, I knew I had 2K left. And then, um, and again, bro, like, you gotta dig deep and do whatever's right, and you gotta use it. Mm. And don't be... Like, be open about the fuel. Like, when I was the man, I was the man. I was all in. I was crying tears of joy.
I was like, "Yeah, they don't know me. Like, I'm going." "I'm not stopping. I will not stop till the end." I was all in. And then, um, I got to 40, and then I hadn't seen my girl the whole time. Like, she hadn't managed to find me yet. There was a lot of crowd, but the last, first 20K, thousands of people are spectating- Mm
'cause all the fast people are there. I was slow, right? Last 20K, there's not that much- No ... of a crowd. It, it's getting a little bit quieter, you know? 'Cause people are like, "Oh my God, he's running barefoot." I was getting so much attention for the whole first, like- Mm ... 25K. It was just great the whole time, and then it fades.
You're running along by yourself. Plod, plod, plod. But I get to 40K, and then I hear my girl and her friend yell out, and I'd... I was walking. I went straight back to running, bro. Mm. I was like, "Yep, not struggling at all." Like, run up to her, just cruising. I'm just smiling and I'm just like... And then I ran from 40 to 42 'cause I was like, "I'm not letting her see me walk," you know?
No. And I just got it done. But yeah, hell yeah. Like- Was
it five and a half hours you say?
Five, five minutes, 21 seconds, I think. Mm. Yeah, I mean, tw- five hours, 21 minutes- Mm ... something seconds.
That's still impressive though, innit, for effort.
Yeah. But it's like, it's fine to wanna quit.
Yeah,
yeah. Just don't listen to it.
No, no. It's
like, it's fine to have those thoughts. Don't give them significance.
Mm.
Like in business, okay, yeah, it's frustrating day. I wanna quit. Not going to. Sure, it might pop up, but people give significance to the wrong thoughts. Like, you can have a thought and not think it. You can have a thought and just go, "Oh, okay, cool."
Like, I still go like, "Oh, this shirt looks stupid on me. I'm gonna..." Yeah. Like, that's just me being mean to myself, you know? Mm. I don't, I don't need to. No. You know? I'm gonna move forwards. Does that help me? And again, like content as well, we think we look stupid in videos, but if we don't, then people aren't gonna receive the message that we have to share.
Mm.
And so I know now- The way to overcome my insecurities is to have a why big enough giving to it. So it's like, okay, I might think that I look ugly in this video, but I know that there's someone's life that's gonna be changed by this video. Mm. If I don't post it, their life does not get better.
Mm.
Therefore, I've deprived them of healing. That is a sin. I took something away from them. They could have had a much better life if it wasn't for my insecurity. How insane, how wrong and cruel- Mm ... is that? All my fears about my pimples are gonna hold someone's life back from changing, from me putting more money on the table for my family, you know?
Yeah, yeah. So it's like, it's cruel to hold ourself back because of our own insecurities. To me, the ultimate sin is wasted potential.
Yeah. Why, why, uh, Beyond Blue?
Because I want ... So, uh, I wanted a free ticket into the marathon. And then if you raise $2,000, they secure your entry. I actually missed an entry into the marathon.
Um, and so then I, like, I needed a charity place or I didn't have a place, and then- I ended up paying 700 to my own fundraiser- Yeah ... to make sure that I got the ticket. So I paid, like, triple for a ticket. Um, but mental health, man. Mm. Like, I, I genuinely think a lot of the mental health out there is inadequate.
Like, I think men are told to talk, not change. Mm. Like, if you feel like you're in pain, it's probably 'cause you are in pain, and if you're getting stabbed and you feel that pain, don't just talk about it. Let's help you remove the knife.
Mm.
I understand a lot of people feel that that knife is never gonna leave.
Talking about it can distract you, but actually, let's figure out how we can get this knife out of your leg, you know? So I feel mental health i- in general is inadequate. Um, I knew as a personal trainer that physical rehabilitation was very inadequate and is based off outdated principles. Yeah. I realized moving into hypnosis that mental health rehabilitation is actually very inadequate as well in a lot of ways, so I just wanna help people that could do more.
Mm. Like, if someone has more potential, they deserve to experience and express that potential.
Then why do you think so many people sort of suffer silently, like that talk and the removing that knife you were talking about? Like, a lot of people are just too scared to talk at first, aren't they?
Mm.
Why do you think that is?
A lot of people don't realize that it's valid, and they do try help, but because our help means aren't the best, they actually think that they're broken. I work with a lot of people that have been to psychologists privately for years-
Mm ...
maybe decades. They've tried meditations. They tried therapy. They tried communicating.
They tried telling a friend. But we're so uneducated in these fields that when the first attempt doesn't work, someone goes, "Ah, it's all a load of rubbish."
Mm. "
It's all a bunch of nonsense," and they lose hope. They lose hope that trying to speak is going to be worth it. You have that first conversation, and you go, "They wouldn't understand me anyway.
They didn't get it." When I talked to my mum, and she's like, "Oh, just think better. Try not to think about it, you know? It'll pass." Mm. What are we doing? How, like, what? And you tell that to someone in pain, and they go, "Oh my God, no one understands me, so it's not worth having the conversation. I'd rather not be here."
How do you think things could improve
and- Cause, not symptoms. If you have an empty fuel tank light on in your car- And you just put a piece of duct tape over it. Doesn't hide the fact that the tank is empty. So what we need to do is stop using these things that hide. Alcohol, drugs, medication, prostitutes, that's huge in Australia.
Um, less so in New Zealand. But it's just like all these, all these foreign ways that we hide ourselves from our true feelings. Like, I have this concept, and I've always lived by it. I've only recently started sharing and coaching on it, but it's admit when you fart. So in high school, like there's always, you know, boys farting, whatever.
But I didn't want to be fals- falsely accused of farting, especially if there's girls around. Yeah. I was like, "Don't you dare, like, try to put me down right now. Don't even try to embarrass me." So I always said Like when I fart, I tell you. And so then if my guys, my friends were like, "Oh, bro, did you just fart?"
I'd be like, "No." And they could believe it-
Mm ... '
cause I'll admit it when I do. And so by admitting the negative, we're able to move forwards because we can believe it. If you own the flaws, well, then you can move forwards, right? I have an ego, and I actually like the sound of my own voice.
Mm.
Definitely. And so I'm honest about it, but I learned how to make my voice useful and productive for others.
I actually really like getting validation. I used to get validation from stupid, messed up jokes. We would do as dark of a joke as we possibly could, and that gave value to a certain level, to a certain bunch of people. But it's like, oh, okay, if I want my ego stroked, which I have to be open and say, "Yeah, I do."
Mm.
And say, yeah, I get validation from the likes on my social media. I get validation when people view me as someone worthy of being a podcast guest. But because I know that about myself, I make myself an interesting podcast guest. Mm. I give you value. I give the listeners value. So instead of hiding our flaws, when we all own them, all of a sudden we can all move forwards together.
Taking out accountability for the- Yeah ... yeah, that's what I'm trying to do with this, I suppose, is-
Yeah, bro ... all
the fucking mistakes and-
Mm ...
regrets I have over the past seven years of things I've done, just kind of-
Yeah, bro ...
got fucked up. Move on. Yeah.
Exactly. And share it, bro.
That's it, yeah. Share the story and hopefully help fathers that are- Yeah
have fucked up and- Dude ... not the one.
You did wrong in the past.
Yeah.
I did wrong in the past.
Every- every- when you realize everyone's done wrong.
Yeah. Like, we both hurt people.
Mm.
And that's wrong.
Yeah. And
that's messed up, and that's unfortunate. But we're doing our best now. And to a certain extent, if those people allow us to apologize, we will.
Mm. If they don't allow us, we'll move on.
Yeah.
Like, I have relationships from when I was 14. I was a little idiot. And even my last high school relationship, I should have said that I loved her. I should have been more loving. I kept everything inside. And one of the big pains that made me wake up to myself is the fact that when we broke up, I realized how much I had reserved and held back from her, when I could have given so much more.
And so rather than saying, "I was so wrong. I, I didn't give her enough. I'm such a bad person," I now go, "Well, that happened, and I'm using that experience to make sure I do move forwards positively." You gotta, you gotta
learn, you gotta learn from the-
Exactly ...
mistakes and the fuck ups.
I'm so much more giving now- Yeah
because I went through the era of not giving at all.
Yeah.
Mm.
What's one habit that made the, the biggest difference in your own life?
My mom's a teacher. She teaches in primary school. And I used to get a lot of attention. I was the first child, so they, they would put a lot of work into my homework and stuff.
And the biggest thing that they installed in me, 'cause my mom was a teacher, was it's not that you can't do it- It's that you don't know how to do it yet. When I was 16, I had this girlfriend, we were talking about long division. She's like, "Oh, yeah, I can't do that." I was like, "What?" Like, "You mean you, you haven't learned it yet?"
She's like, "No, I can't do it." I was like, "It's long division. It's a process."
Mm.
A successful relationship is a process. A business is a process. Income is a process. Health is a process. It's not that you can't do these things, you haven't found the process that works for you yet. So I feel bad for people, 'cause they've been given all these conscious tools and processes when they have a subconscious issue.
That's like using a pair of scissors to mow the lawn. It's like it's this tiny little tool for a way bigger thing. So it's not that you are broken and unable to change and unable to pull out of your despair, you just need to find the right tool for the job. '
Cause that... Someone said to me, oh, what did they say?
"We're taught to think, not what to think."
Taught what to think- Yeah ... not how to think. Yeah.
Yeah.
Exactly.
That's the, that's the way to- Exactly ...
yeah. It's like, oh, follow this instruction- Mm ... believe this thing, don't question it.
Yeah.
Hold on. Like, the proce- learning how to think is beautiful. Learning how to learn, right?
Like, I know for me, I learned jujitsu, right? I went and did six months of jujitsu, and I was taking these classes with two of my best mates at the time. This instructor would do the demonstration in front of us, then he would tell us to do it. My two friends shot ahead of me, and then I was like, "Why am I so bad at this?"
It took six months, then I moved to an MMA class, and they taught it slightly differently. And what I realized was, for me, I need demonstration.
Mm.
I need to write down a numbered list of instructions. I then need to watch it back, apply it, memorize that list in my head, I've got the move for the rest of my life.
But I had to learn how to learn for myself. So I'm a little bit a kinesthetic learner, I'm a little bit visual learner. Mm. I definitely need it written down. Reading doesn't do much for me, but writing it down, then reading, and putting my instructions in my own terms, I know how I learn. Mm. I learn things very quickly.
Yeah. I always absorb, right? But because I learned how to learn. So until you learn about yourself, until you learn how to harness your own flaws and weaknesses, I have an ego. I like making jokes. Sometimes I'm a bit egotistical, but I have to learn how to work with and harness my flaws and my weaknesses.
Like, whoa, I've learned sometimes, like, don't be- like, don't give in to the child feelings. Mm. Like, I still know, like, oh, okay, your inner child wants to be the center of attention right now. Pause for a second. Like, let yourself just be okay for a minute, and just go with it rather than too much. But if you don't know yourself, you don't know how to get the best results for yourself.
What would you say to someone that's, like, struggling with a lot of waking up with self-doubt every day? Mm-hmm. Where would they start to try and switch that?
Mm. So it's beliefs, right? And you can't use conscious tools to change a subconscious belief. You can very slowly start to shift the way you think, but hypnotic reconditioning is the only way to rewrite what your brain believes.
Now, you only have these doubts because your brain believes you need to have these doubts. The brain only does positive things. It only does what it thinks is serving itself. So if you're waking up with those every single day consistently, realize the body's cells turn over- Like every single day. So I think it's, I, I'm not sure if it's seven months, every seven months you're an entirely new human being in terms of the fibre- Mm
composition of who you literally are. So if your brain cells are new, if your body cells are new, but you've still got the same old pattern, it's 'cause your brain has programmed to reinstall self-doubt. It's literally actively choosing this. So we need to change the code that's telling your brain to keep re-downloading this every single day.
So change that code, all of a sudden you can move forwards because you don't have the belief that you must keep these things in your life.
How, you know a lot of people nowadays, especially with like social media and stuff, compare themselves to others, and that probably affects a lot of people. Mm. How, how would you say like people could stop doing that and improving that?
So comparison to others is self-inadequacy, and it's a distraction. So it's actually always everyone is a mirror of your own self. If you feel shit when you look at someone else, it's because they reflect a part of you that you aren't proud of. And so moving forwards into that, it's like, okay, well, I need to take action on my things.
And this is the same with gambling. Gambling is a substitute for a boring life. If you do not have enough excitement in your life, you gamble to compensate for the excitement that you don't have. And comparing ourselves to others is to compensate for the parts of ourself that we know we want but aren't moving towards.
As soon as you're moving towards those things- Consistently and honestly, not just going like, "Oh yeah, I, I worked out once last week. Why do I still feel self-doubt?" No, you know what your true potential is. Your brain won't let you hide from that. Until you are acknowledging your actual dream and working on it every single day, of course you will compare and doubt, because you know what you could be doing, and you know you're not doing it.
Mm. If you didn't start this podcast, you would've known, this would've eaten you up on s- inside, that you have more that you could be sharing and you aren't. There's no hiding from that. Mm. Our brain's not an idiot.
Mm. I kn- if I wasn't doing like this, like preparing episodes or reaching out, w- well, I don't know.
It gives me something to do. Do you know what I mean? I need-
And if you didn't have that time filled- Mm ... that's where the doubt creeps in.
Yeah.
I don't have time for doubt. Yeah. I don't have time for comparison. Yeah. Genuinely, like-
Got like, ke- for me, it's like keeping the mind busy, 'cause if it's not busy focusing on this or other stuff, then- Yeah
it creeps off to the doubt- Well- ... and negative thoughts and-
Mm ... yeah. My, my best mate is a, a Navy diver for the New Zealand Navy, like elite, elite Navy diver. Mm. We haven't spoken in like four months. He's my best mate. We've both got stuff going on.
Mm.
And we're both living great, incredible lives. Soon as we talk again, it's gonna be amazing.
Yeah. It's gonna be incredible, but neither of us have time for the self-doubt and self-hatre- Mm ... self-hatred. We're moving forwards.
Mm.
We're getting incredible things done because we set our ambitions high enough. He used to be a drug addict. He used to be doing nothing with his life.
Mm. Well, that's interesting.
Yeah.
If he could guess me.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I told him I g- would get him on a podcast. Yeah. So you should, 100%. Oh, hell
yeah. What's the biggest lesson you've learned from coaching?
That you can continue to grow every single day, and you don't have to know the right answer. Mm. I started that sentence without knowing where it was gonna go just then, genuinely, and like I don't hold myself back when I speak.
Because holding ourself back, everything in my life that's positive has come from being honest. Mm. Every pain in my life has come from holding back.
Yeah.
So if I bite my tongue, if I hold back and say, "Oh, I don't know what the right answer to this question is," no, I just let it come, and that's real self-belief.
When I speak on stage, right, I've spoken in front of funny, right? Immediately my brain went, "Oh, that's not that many." You know? Mm. I just, you can still have those thoughts pop up. Mm-hmm. But here I'm admitting the fact, right? Yeah. I'm saying, "Oh, I don't wanna say the number 'cause it's not that many yet," right?
But I've spoken in front of 50 people- Mm ... and I did it with no script at all.
Yeah.
Because I trust at a subconscious level, if you write a script, that's saying I'm not good enough, so I need to consciously manufacture everything to make it correct. I'm not good enough, but maybe these words and these sentences are good enough.
I get on this podcast knowing I'm good enough. You will in your future podcasts go, "Oh, I don't need an outline."
Mm. "
I know that I can handle this podcast." Yeah. "I'm good enough." It's not those words and those questions are good enough. You're here, bro.
Mm.
You've got incredible energy. You set this up. You didn't quit.
A lot of people do, bro.
Yeah, yeah. No.
There's people in your situation that would be dead.
Mm.
Genuinely.
No, yeah.
And you kept going, man. It's-
For what, for me, it's like, it's like that support network with the people I didn't have around, around me. I don't know. I don't think I'd be here today, to be honest.
Mm.
I think it's very important, yeah.
And now you're educating yourself. Your podcast is part of a support network for a stranger on the other side of the world that you've never even met.
That's the
goal. And that's- Yeah ... the beautiful thing about, um- Social media and online. The yin and yang. There's pros and cons to everything.
There's the negative of the internet, there's the positive of the internet. I've had people, when I was doing my personal training stuff, I had a podcast back then. A guy from Denmark messages me overnight while I'm asleep and says, "Hey bro, listening from the other side of the world. Big thanks." And I was like, "Oh, I've never met him."
Mm. "I never will meet him. That's gonna impact his family, who I've never met. It's gonna impact their friends." I was asleep while I was helping someone. So for me, how much of a sin is it to be afraid of my own voice- Mm ... and not post that podcast when a man in Denmark might have just had a big impact on his life- Yeah
by being willing to say it.
I appreciate it.
Mm.
That's the thing. I've only, what, is gotta get your c- for me, is out of that comfort zone again. Get out of the comfort zone. I've still, you, you l- you, I'm learning, like you're saying, the energy. I feel from my first episode to now, you just, you learn every time you get out your comfort zone and push yourself, you learn something new about yourself and get more confident doing it.
That's what I've learned from coaching-
Mm ...
as well, is you go, "Oh, I do this every time. I do it every rep," and there's always something new to be discovered. Mm. And in every conversation, like some analogies that I've used today, I've, I've done, like, seven podcasts on hypnosis. I've never shared these things before, right?
And so, and I've filmed hundreds of hours of content. I've done thousands of hours of sessions, and still there's new things every single day. Yeah. And you can learn so much that you forget what you learned and then come back to it a year later and go, "Damn, that was a useful piece of information." And someone can listen to this forever.
Mm. And imagine in 10 years' time when we're both massive and they look back on your first few episodes and they're like, "Oh my God." And they can hear a little bit in your voice where it's like, okay, maybe there's some moments of uncertainty between each of us.
Mm.
But then they compare that to where we were.
I just had a guy, Russell Brunson, he's a well, well-known business coach, uh, ClickFunnels founder, and I just watched a video of his where he posted the first ever seminar that he gave, and he's horrendous. It's so bad. I was like, oh my God, I did- didn't believe he would ever have been that bad because I've seen where he is now.
Mm. But when you can show them the contrast, when you can coach in the early stage, it's so much more meaningful when you get to be a better coach later on.
Yeah. No, I appreciate you coming on.
Thank you heaps for having me, brother. Uh, good luck with everything. Thank you. No, I appreciate it. Likewise, man.
That
was, it's been a great conversation. I've learned a lot, to be honest with you. Yeah. It's been very interesting.
I loved
it, brother. And hopefully, uh, people listening-
You're a great host, man ...
thank you. Appreciate it.