WCHS Transcript Manual.pdf

How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller Transcript Manual

By Igor Ledochowski & Robin Manuell

How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller Table of Contents DVD 1 – Hypnotic Storytelling Foundations & The “Johari Window” ............................. 4 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 4 Johari Window ........................................................................................................... 20 Exercise Debrief ......................................................................................................... 24 Storytelling Games ..................................................................................................... 31 DVD 2 – Provoking Emotions & The 5 Key Elements Of A Story That Impacts The Unconscious Mind......................................................................................................... 51 Emotional Stories ....................................................................................................... 51 Mnemonic Journey .................................................................................................... 55 5 Elements Of Story ................................................................................................... 62 DVD 3 – The 7 Most Influential Stories Revealed & How To Tell Your Own Version .... 77 Who Am I (Connection) Stories .................................................................................. 77 Why Am I Here (Trust) Stories.................................................................................... 79 Values In Action (Integrity) Stories ............................................................................. 81 Teaching Tales ........................................................................................................... 86 Mind Reading (Empathy) Stories ................................................................................ 90 Transformational Stories ........................................................................................... 91 DVD 4 – How To Turn Any Story Into A Truly Transformational Tale ......................... 102 Q&A Session ............................................................................................................ 102 Monastery & Cat Stories Part 1 ................................................................................ 107 Transformational Stories ......................................................................................... 113 DVD 5 – How To Combine Transformational Stories With Open & Nested Loops ...... 128 Monastery & Cat Stories 2 ....................................................................................... 128 Story Crafting Exercise ............................................................................................. 132 Exercise Debrief ....................................................................................................... 137 Monastery & Cat Stories 3 ....................................................................................... 145 Nested Loops ........................................................................................................... 148 DVD 6 – Creating “Picaresque Adventures” & How To Scale Stories Depending On Your Environment ............................................................................................................... 167 Monastery & Cat Stories 4 ....................................................................................... 167 How To Scale Your Stories ....................................................................................... 173 The Influence Formula ............................................................................................. 180 Group Double Induction .......................................................................................... 184 DVD 7 – How To Find Your Own Internal Metaphors And Make Them Into Stories That Others Love ................................................................................................................. 191 Q&A Session ............................................................................................................ 191 How To Make Stories Relevant ................................................................................ 197

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller DVD 8 – Symbolic Realities, Symbolic Influence & Putting Hypnotic Storytelling All Together...................................................................................................................... 215 Symbolic Realities .................................................................................................... 215 Practical Use Of Symbols ......................................................................................... 225 Symbolic Influence ................................................................................................... 233 Final Exercise ........................................................................................................... 238 Final Thoughts ......................................................................................................... 240

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller

DVD 1 – Hypnotic Storytelling Foundations & The “Johari Window”

Introduction Igor:

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Hypnotic Storytelling for influence seminar. Are you excited? I’m sitting here with my good friend and fellow hypnotist, Robin Manuell. You will come to adore him. He’s hands down one of the best storytellers I’ve ever met. Give him a round of applause.

Robin:

Thank you.

Igor:

Over the next three days, our job is going to be to show you how easy and how enjoyable it is to find powerful and persuasive stories inside yourself that you can share with your friends, family, work colleagues, clients and so on.

Robin:

It’s great being here. As I look around the sea of faces, I’ve spent the last week kind of going out and getting to meet some of you and I realize there are still so many more people that I haven’t had a chance to connect with properly. When I flew in – how long ago was it? It seems like a million years ago now.

Igor:

In your mind.

Robin:

Last Friday getting on that plane, as soon as I stepped on the plane and knew that I was leaving life behind, I just could feel my whole body start to relax, because I knew that I was going to be sitting with my friend Igor and spending time with a group of people who – if I don’t know any of you, one thing that I do know about all of you is that you’re dedicated to your own personal development and to your own learning and growth. Personally I find being in a room with people with that commitment always very inspiring. It’s been wonderful, I have to say, over the last week and a bit to see clearly just how dedicated Igor is to your learning and the complete focus and attention.

Igor:

You know what the next announcement will be, don’t you?

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller Robin:

He has.

Igor:

That’s right, all the way now.

Robin:

Over the week, I’ve been listening and watching you guys, and I’ve had a chance to connect with you, and I’ve heard so many amazing stories. I’ve laughed at stories of people’s mistakes turned into drama and comedy routines. I’ve had shivers sent down my spine over pictures of grizzly bears, stories of grizzly bears and kangaroos that can kill you with a single punch. I’ve seen the real passion and commitment that some of you have to ideas, to making connections out there with other people and to getting things happening in the world. I’ve seen the way that you’ve taken your own personal challenges and the lessons that you’ve learned, and not just stopped there but you’ve taken the next step and started to find ways in which you can begin to share what you’ve learned with other people and help them too. I’ve heard stories of the future, the sound of music and I’ve seen heroic journeys and demonstrations of courage over fear that have made me proud to know you. One master storyteller in this room told me a story that was so beautiful and resonated so directly with my own immediate experience and where I am in my own life. Standing out there in the lobby, I was moved to tears. I want to share that story with you because it’s very simple, very powerful and I think it encapsulates in it a really important lesson about how stories add value to the world, and how much of the world we live in right now is built out of those simple stories. It’s a really simple story. It’s about a wedding gift. It’s about the gift a mother gave to her son for his wedding. After I heard this story, it moved me really profoundly and deeply. That night as I dreamt, I remembered that I’d been to Holland before. Now I’ve been here a few times as an adult. About 10 years ago, I came to Amsterdam with my girlfriend and her family. That kind of turned into an extended shopping trip. I only have one shopping calorie, so I spent most of the time in a café.

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Then before that, when I was about 16, I came here with an orchestra playing trumpet in an orchestra. We went around Holland playing at different venues and places, and that was great. But then I remembered also when I was nine or 10 years old, I came here on a school trip. Back in those days – I don’t know whether it’s still true – but our parents and teachers believed that it was important for us to come out. We took a coach trip through Belgium and Holland, and they wanted us to see for ourselves and remember. They wanted us to stand in fields of blood and fire and witness stretching out as far as the eye could see rows and rows and rows of grave stones, each one a silent witness to a life cut short, young men and women from every country on Earth. We’re older and wiser now and we know that nobody wins that kind of war. Standing in those fields reflecting on those lives – the lives of people, heroes who came to these shores knowing they probably wouldn’t come back, but they came anyway. It’s a really powerful and important thing for us to do. That’s what I believe. But at age nine, I had more pressing worries. You see, before my mom sent me off on holiday, she took me aside and she gave me my pocket money – 13 pounds for the eight-day trip. She said there you go. Don’t spend it all at once. I remember she said don’t just think of yourself. Think of other people. So, I went off and joined everyone else. I went on the coach and everyone was really excited and chatting, but I soon realized that everyone else has about three times as much money as I have. When I get to Holland, I realize everything’s really expensive. I’m looking at my money and I don’t know how I’m going to make it through the week. The week becomes just a nightmare of anxiety. I’m looking in the gift shops and even back then at age nine I have to say I was quite cynical about consumer tact and tourist rubbish. I’m looking at stuff and how am I going to afford anything that’s worthwhile? That next seven or eight days was a torment because every time we’d go to a

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller shop, I’m having to find excuses why no I don’t want a pop, I don’t need an ice cream. I don’t need to buy a souvenir, some silly key ring. Every night I’m going back counting my money, checking in the gift shops – have I got enough money? Will I be able to buy something worthwhile and give everyone a gift that they’ll really appreciate when I get back? So, the end of the week comes and by this time I’ve spent a few pounds on a packet of crisps when I was really hungry. I bought a key chain or something for my brothers. I finally go into the gift shop. We’d been to see a windmill and I come out with one of those porcelain Dutch-style blue on white bits of tourist tat, but it’s the best I can afford. I’d managed to save nine pounds of my 13 pounds and I spent it all on this silly little windmill. I take it back and mom goes oh thanks a lot and sticks it on a shelf somewhere. I wanted to check before we go any further. How many of you here have actually heard the Master Class in Hypnotic Storytelling that Igor and I did about three years ago? Put your hands up. Okay, great. You can catch the hypnoticstorytelling.com master class. How many of you would consider that yourselves fairly competent storytellers? You’re confident telling stories and you’re happy doing that? Put your hands up. Take a look around everyone. We have models and inspiration in the room. Igor:

The interesting this is that some of those competent storytellers are a little bit shy. I used to tell some stories, I was going no yeah, I can tell stories.

Robin:

How many of you have ever felt like any kind of storytelling or let’s say public speaking is really a big cringe-making? Is it so cringe-making that you couldn’t even put your hands up?

Igor:

We’ve got one.

Robin:

How many of you would identify with being creative and would be happy to say yes I’m a creative person? Excellent. Good. You’re learning. How many of you wouldn’t? Okay, great. I’m going to prove you wrong. I hope you don’t mind.

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Igor:

How many of you have spent time with friends and just chatted about whatever? One or two of you are lying to me right now. The reason I say that is because when you’re feeling comfortable, when you know the person, they’re your friend, you hang out, you laugh, you share a glass of wine and sometimes one too many, after a while you can only talk about the news so often. There’s only so much gossip you can catch up on. What do you do with the rest of the time? (You just drink. I know a hypnotherapist that can help you.) If you really think about it, when we are feeling comfortable and we have that close connection with someone, when we get the chance to pause our day-today function in the world, every single one of you has very comfortably told stories. They’ve been funny sometimes. They’ve been sad sometimes. They’ve made you think sometimes. They’ve made you feel a lot of times. I doubt there’s a single person in this room who hasn’t told quite a fulfilling story at one point or another without even realizing it because you are all human beings, and I think storytelling is one of the most fundamental things that we do as people. We’ve seen it from cave paintings all the way through the Hollywood moviemaking machine. This is the reason why I really hope you’ll get a lot out of the next three days here because I think storytelling – hypnotic storytelling in particular – is fundamentally at the heart of that human interaction. It’s how we store knowledge. It’s how we ensure it doesn’t vanish long after we’ve gone. In fact, you go back in history when kind of Nordic Viking land area going towards Denmark and up further from here, and for the longest time of course the only thing that ensured your immorality was how long your story would be told, so you had to live a life worth telling. Of course, our attitudes have changed now but really the idea is still there. People talk about leaving a legacy behind and about doing things for future generations. What they’re really talking about is what stories will be told when I’m gone? Who will remember me? That memory is really tied into the whole idea of storytelling. It’s also one of the most efficient ways of providing information to someone. There have actually been studies on this that a five-minute story is not only more

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller memorable but the content of the story – the information – is more compact than just the pure data facts, and people actually use it more. You can tell someone what to do or you can tell them a story. The story will always have a much richer understanding. You’re more likely to get the result that you want from that. That’s really one of the things that we want to focus on here, which is how do you tell those stories already, which is something you do naturally, but even if you think that you’re not particularly creative and even if you think you’re not particularly good at telling stories, realize that if you are a human being – and I could be mistaken about that part, it’s true, but if you’re fooling me that way, well done. If you’re a human being, then you fundamentally tell stories. It’s just that you may not recognize the story that you tell as stories because they don’t begin with the phrase once upon a time. Robin:

Think of the first utterances that young children make. Think of a baby drinking milk from a bottle. It empties and she shakes it and goes all gone and then she burps. Is she satisfied? She may be satisfied – all gone – or she may be like angry, frustrated, she may want some more, but that is a story. Wrapped up in there is a fact. It’s gone. It’s wrapped in an emotion with a call to action. Come on mom, come on dad, because Plan B you will not like.

Igor:

Parents, is that not implied threat sometimes?

Robin:

Margaret Mead was an English anthropologist. She was married to Gregory Bateson for a while. She famously said never underestimate the power of a small group of people to accomplish great things. That’s the only way anything ever gets done. Everything around us came into being because somebody had an idea and they told a story with enough conviction and enthusiasm that a group of people decided to come together around that story and make it happen, to put their energy into building it.

Igor:

One of the things that we’re going to ask of you over the next few days to make the most out of this is that there are ways you can tell stories that will

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller be of great benefit to you, and there are ways that you’ll not realize all the stories that you have inside you. The first thing I’m going to ask you to do is to remember this is still an adult learning environment. It’s not school. You don’t have to ask permission for things. You get to experiment with things. Please treat it as such. That means you have both rights and responsibilities with that as an adult. You have the right to tell all kinds of stories about yourself, about the people around you and so on, but you also have the responsibility to make sure that you’re happy with the consequences of whatever stories you tell. Let me give you an example of what I mean by that. If you’re a very private person, you have the absolute right to keep that private, but the consequences of that may be that others will find it hard to warm up to you because they don’t know who you are. How can they know who you are unless they’ve either spent a long time with you – in which case they know your stories without being told them – or you compress all that time into a few stories that they really can understand about you. You absolutely have the right to keep as much private as you wish. Many of those things will be appropriate, absolutely, but just bear in mind are you happy with the consequence you’re getting? The flipside is also true. There are some who will basically be an open book, and that’s great up to a point, but there are some stories that you don’t want to be telling everyone because there are consequences you may not like. A police officer stops you on the road and says what are you doing sir? Well, I had an argument with my wife and I spent the last half hour really thinking I would murder that woman. You don’t mean it. You’re just expressing. You’re venting. Everyone’s done that, right? However, there are times to vent. There are people that are worth venting with and there are some where you’d think let’s test the relationship first. Over the course of today we’ll be talking more about that as we get into, but just bear the golden rule in mind.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller You’re an adult. You have a lifetime of experiences being with people, so you get to choose how much or how little about yourself you share. Just bear in mind that there are consequences for everything. If you share too little, you may not make the impact that you want. If you share too much – or should we say too much of the wrong things – again you may not get the impact that you want. Does that make sense to everyone? Robin:

Whether you are interested in learning to tell stories simply so you can kind of improve your conversational skills and meet people…

Igor:

Or if you want to do it because you want to use it as a tool in your own practice or business to actually influence people in a positive way…

Robin:

You’ll find that everything that you learn over the next few days will have an impact on your ability in therapy.

Igor:

And actually as a human being too because it’s something that’s so fundamental in terms of how people communicate.

Robin:

I know you are all hypnotists in this room. Is that correct?

Igor:

And I suspect most of you have been in a formal trance at one point or another.

Robin:

You may feel something…

Igor:

Of importance…

Robin:

Beginning now.

Igor:

And really it doesn’t matter how it starts or where it goes.

Robin:

Or whether you close your eyes straightaway.

Igor:

Because one way or the other, your unconscious will start to think about all the stories you’ve heard in your life.

Robin:

While you prepare now to make the most…

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller Igor:

And really consider…

Robin:

Of your learning…

Igor:

How you understood those things…

Robin:

Over the next three days…

Igor:

To be stories…

Robin:

Just take a moment…

Igor:

That you can respond to…

Robin:

To relax…

Igor:

Something to learn from…

Robin:

And to begin to enjoy…

Igor:

Or to take action on…

Robin:

Those feelings…

Igor:

And who hasn’t been inspired by a story?

Robin:

You know you can enjoy.

Igor:

Who hasn’t been outraged or charmed by one?

Robin:

It’s easy…

Igor:

Who has been comforted?

Robin:

To realize…

Igor:

Warmed…

Robin:

You can trust…

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By something heartfelt.

Robin:

Yourself now…

Igor:

And everyone has the experience…

Robin:

Noticing the changing…

Igor:

Of recalling events in their lives…

Robin:

Sensations…

Igor:

And those events…

Robin:

As you begin to attend…

Igor:

Have a certain significance…

Robin:

To only good feelings….

Igor:

Importance to you…

Robin:

And only those experiences…

Igor:

Some…

Robin:

Sensations…

Igor:

Are important enough…

Robin:

That will assist you now…

Igor:

To share with others…

Robin:

In making the best and really of your learning today…

Igor:

Allow them to experience something that you did.

Robin:

And if you have any challenges…

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We all have that drive…

Robin:

It’s time for you

Igor:

To share our inner world with others.

Robin:

To just realize, to let them, there’s plenty of time…

Igor:

Really enjoy the highlights…

Robin:

That you can just sit back…

Igor:

And have a really unique experience.

Robin:

There’s a path…

Igor:

That leads somewhere of importance…

Robin:

That you’ll be taking now…

Igor:

Because over the next few days there’s so much that you’ve experienced.

Robin:

Isn’t there?

Igor:

It’s important to know that. There’s an old tale…

Robin:

About Truth.

Igor:

And she’s standing outside a village…

Robin:

And she walks through the village…

Igor:

Naked as the day she was born.

Robin:

And half the villagers hide away in shame at her nakedness.

Igor:

And the other half look on at her beauty.

Robin:

And because the way of the world is as it is, some people throw stones and chase her from the village.

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Igor:

Shouting angry words – how dare you…

Robin:

Ashamed and afraid of her nakedness.

Igor:

Be this way.

Robin:

And in tears, Truth runs from the village. Exhausted she finds a place to sleep…

Igor:

And a person comes to her…

Robin:

And during the night…

Igor:

Discusses things.

Robin:

The forest weaves for her.

Igor:

And lets her realize…

Robin:

From her dreams…

Igor:

That there is another way…

Robin:

From the branches and the thinnest roots of the forest…

Igor:

To be yourself…

Robin:

From the dew-hung gossamer threads…

Igor:

And not be recognized…

Robin:

… that coats its branches, a cloak of story…

Igor:

In the same way.

Robin:

… And the next morning…

Igor:

Wearing that cloak…

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She walks unseen and unnoticed…

Igor:

Through the village. People do not recognize her but they all greet her like an old friend.

Robin:

Now it’s time…

Igor:

To really do something with all this because we can wax lyrical about why we like to tell stories, or we won’t.

Robin:

You might notice that.

Igor:

Yes, and there will be much more waxing as we go along. Wax on, wax off. That is not a story, is it? Really it’s not so much about what we do in terms of our storytelling or anything like that. What really matters is what you do when you leave here so that you appreciate that you can tell stories.

Robin:

I’m probably right in thinking that even though you’ve spent so much time together, would it be correct to say that there are probably people in this room who you still haven’t met? There are probably still people in this room who if you have met, you haven’t actually spent much time with them or done exercises with them.

Igor:

Of course, there are a whole bunch of new people who have arrived. If you look around you’ll notice that they weren’t here before. What’s this other person doing in this room? That’s because you’re right. There are new people in this room, it’s not a hallucination. What do we do when we meet people that we don’t know yet? You introduce yourselves, right? We ask questions like: hello, who are you? What do you do? Why are you here? This kind of standard stuff and these are important things to discuss with people. However…

Robin:

We don’t want you to do that.

Igor:

In this way.

Robin:

We want you to do it, but we want you to do it in a story.

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The gossamer veil of storytelling is something you can really share with people. So you can hear all this information in a short little anecdote that says to people, who are you? If that’s as simple as your name that’s fine.

Robin:

There’s an important element about this anecdote. We’d like you to lie quite a lot.

Igor:

Oh yeah. It doesn’t have to be the gospel truth it can just be a half truth or a complete lie.

Robin:

Shall we give them an example?

Igor:

This is a bad example, just because it’s actually more true than not, but I’ll use it. At the last seminar I was in the Bahamas teaching business skills to hypnotherapists. Of course Robin is a good friend of mine and I thought, you know, Robin really deserves a break. He’s a phenomenal hypnotic storyteller and he really should be able to build this massive business for himself. I think it will be good for him to come experience this business training, so I called him up and said come on over, join us there.

Robin:

Yes. What actually happened, I was at home and Igor called me from the Bahamas and he sounded a bit desperate. Maybe a little lonely and he said Robin, please, please come out to the Bahamas. I said you know well, I’m busy, there’s a crazy cat next door, the neighborhood cat. He’s going to be lonely without me. Those tomato plants don’t water themselves, you know. Eventually, he said please, please come I really need you. So I got on a plane and went out to the Bahamas and it was great to see him.

Igor:

It was fun seeing Robin. When he turned up he said, thank you so much Igor for this opportunity. I respect… Do you get the idea?

Robin:

Keep going.

Igor:

I’ll be there in a minute. I laugh, but it was a very sad time.

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[Laughter] So, I got to the Bahamas and it was wonderful to be there with everyone. We were having such a great time and I think Igor was just so pleased to see me, his little face lit up like a little boy’s, he was just so pleased.

Igor:

So, you know, we got towards the end of the training and clearly Robin was impressed. You could see himself using those wonderful skills we develop for people and really making a life for himself at last.

Robin:

But I just sensed that there was something missing and halfway through the seminar Igor came up to me and said Robin, I’ve missed training with you. It’s been 8-9 years now and I just can’t find a co-trainer who can cut the mustard. When you’ve have champagne, sparkling wine just doesn’t taste the same.

Igor:

So of course Robin comes up to me at the end and says, I really would love to do a storytelling event with you, you’re a clear and masterful trainer and there’s so much I could learn from you.

Robin:

So, I mean, I was really reluctant but in the end I said Igor get up, let go of my jacket you’re embarrassing yourself. Okay, I’ll do a training with you, all right.

Igor:

It was fortunate because my heart goes out to his daughter.

Robin:

Yeah, my poor daughter.

Igor:

Yeah. She should be proud of her father shouldn’t she? So I figured what better than to invite him on my stage and he can show the family a snap and say look, I did share a stage with Igor. I like to think of myself as being humble, enough to be able to help out a fellow human being who’s going through a rough patch.

Robin:

So yeah, basically I figured at least if I was here than he couldn’t steal my ideas and pass them off as his own, like he has before.

Igor:

I reminded Robin, because he got a bit nervous about this whole idea of being in front of 150 people, so I reminded him look, it doesn’t matter Robin, I’ve done this before and I’ll prepare it all. I’ll carry you. Just turn up and share a couple stories that’s all you have to do. Don’t think about it too much for now.

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It was so lucky that he had me over here for a week, because he was so busy with preparing the whole Ericksonian thing and he was a bit ill, so he really hasn’t had enough time to do anything and I’ve been obviously listening to you all and preparing so much stuff. I mean, I’m not really sure we’ll have time to get it all out. I just hope Igor shuts up for long enough to let me give you some of the best stuff. Hey, if he doesn’t then you can always go to HypnoticStorytelling.com.

Igor:

So, there are many ways you can answer those three questions aren’t there? We’ll do an exercise now where you’ll get up and you’ll have an opportunity to meet everyone in the room. However, I would like for none of you to ask a single question, and for all of you to get answers to all these three things, just in terms of the stories you’re being told. Does that make sense?

Guest:

No.

Igor:

Very good. We’re going to start that again are we? So tell a story, any story, as outrageous as you like, it doesn’t have to be true.

Robin:

It’s okay, you can make sense or you can make nonsense.

Igor:

The only thing the story has to revolve around is a sense of who you are, that could just be your name, like Robin saying Igor thank you so much for letting me come here this week.

Robin:

You are my inspiration.

Igor:

You’re welcome. What do you do? We teach seminars. What do you do? Why are you here? Clearly I’m helping out his daughter to have a father she can be proud of. What are you doing here, Robin?

Robin:

I’m rethinking that right now. I’ll get back to you.

Igor:

Do you understand the exercise? Keep the stories short, but outrageous. Let’s take 7 minutes, that should be enough time for everyone to meet everyone right? So you have 7 minutes and I’d like for you to gather the stories of every person in this room that you can get. The more stories you gather the more brownie points you get.

Guests:

Whoa.

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Igor:

I know, and brownie points means? Nothing at all. Everyone stand up and let’s start now. [Exercise starts]

Johari Window Robin:

Welcome back. I thought I’d use a diagram. It’s the only one you’ll see for the next three days.

Gabe:

What is it?

Robin:

It’s called the Johari Window, Gabe. Has anyone come across that before? I know Randy has. Rita. Dennis. On the vertical axis we have… known by others, what other people know about you and on the horizontal axis we have… what you know about yourself. On the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, there were three inscriptions in fact, and the first one said… Know thyself… It seems to me we’re all on a journey through our lives and part of that journey is discovering who we are. There are three ways, I think, that we come to know ourselves. First, through our behavior, through time. We find ourselves in new situations, we behave a certain way and we see ourselves behaving like that and make conclusions about ourselves from it. People tell us things about ourselves and we tell other people, we share things about ourselves with other people. This area in the quadrant here, the public arena is sometimes called the area of freedom, the area of choice, because it’s the space in which I know what you want, you know what I want. We’re free to play whatever rolls we’re playing. We know what the script is, there are no hidden agendas. The way information gets into that area is through these processes of feedback and disclosure. We hear things from other people and we tell people things about ourselves, and you always get to choose who. You’re responsible for that. In a really important way, who we choose to receive feedback from determines our reality.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller You’ve probably got friends who, of course nobody in this room, will hear some stories, they’ll hear some things about themselves and others they will block it out, to the extent sometimes that they’ll go choose other friends when they hear things they don’t want to hear. I’ve realized that those two arrows… see that blind spot, that area; I’ve called it the flaws. That’s the bad breath area. Nobody likes to hear that they have bad breath, but they probably want to know. If you think about the heroes that you’ve resonated with in fiction in movies, they have flaws. If they were perfect they’d be plastic. They’d have no struggle. We wouldn’t be able to identify with them. We need our flaws. Heroes need flaws. In that area, those things that you don’t know about yourself that other people know, other people always know in a really important way so much more about us than we do. They know things we’ll never know, and that’s not just our faults it’s our gifts too. Other people recognize the gifts we have. Sometimes it’s important that they tell us. Sometimes I think people like us because of our flaws, not in spite of them. In that hidden area, I’ve called that the mask. That’s the stuff I know about myself, but in order to play certain rolls in business, in our social lives think about it. Has anyone here been on a date? We all put on a mask. We show our best face. At work there are certain things we’re happy talking about and other things we hide behind. It’s important that we do that because you know what, there are some people we can’t trust. There are some people who won’t understand and aren’t ready to allow us to be fully authentically who they are, because that would challenge them to do the same thing. That’s okay That area in the other corner, I just called that the manifest, nobody knows that yet. I don’t know it. You don’t know it. In exploring doing some things differently over the next few days, some of that space will become manifest. You’ll discover something more about yourself. I wanted to present this to you simply because I think the reason that stops many people sharing and engaging with people on this level, is that fear of telling too much. How are people going to take this? What are they going to think about me?

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller There’s a story though that I think relates both to the process of feedback and disclosure that I’ll tell you quickly. It’s an absolutely true story. Most of the stories that I tell you about myself using the word ‘I’ will be true. Some of the stories that I tell you about other people will also be true, and about me. It’s amazing the freedom you can get from simply making the story about somebody else, changing the details, change the gender, the location and the name. Suddenly you’re free because it’s not about you anymore. You’ve put the cloak of story around yourself and you can talk freely and find the truth. You can convey the emotional truth of the story without compromising your safety. I was at the passionate meditation workshop, anybody ever heard of it, any kind of Buddhist meditation? This was like a noble silent retreat. For 10 days we’d get up at 5:00 o’clock in the morning meditate and have breakfast. Meditate some more, eat lunch, meditate, have a glass of juice, meditate some more and go to bed. Wake up at 5:00 the next morning, meditate, have some breakfast. Meditate have some lunch. Meditate some more, glass of water. Meditate sleep. Get the picture. It’s noble silent so you can’t talk to anyone. On the first day there’s this guy, this young man at this workshop and I immediately get a little bit of a thing, I don’t like him. There’s something about him that seems stuck up to me, a little bit arrogant. He’s also dating the best looking girl at the seminar. I don’t know that that had anything to do with it. I’m watching this guy and thinking, asshole. So we’re meditating and going through the week, all kinds of experiences, revelations and so on. About the middle of the seminar, I’m looking out over the exercise yard… this place is in the UK on the England/Welsh border and you can walk round this exercise yard and look out over the fields and hills into Wales one way and Shropshire the other… and there’s this guy standing in the center of the exercise yard. He’s doing some warm-ups. I’m standing there going… phone rings hi yeah I’m busy now can I call you back. Just joking, it’s an alarm… I’m thinking and then it hits me, sudden revelation. It’s me. He’s like I am. That’s the kind of thing I would do. Just do a bit of warm-up, stretches, it’s me. I’m looking at myself and getting annoyed.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller I’m looking at myself and thinking, what an a-hole. What an arrogant stuck up guy that is. I’m shaking my head, it’s a great epiphany. It’s fantastic. This is the reason you come to a course like this. This is the reason you do a 10 day noble silent retreat is to have these kinds of revelations. The great thing, the thing that made it for me was that on the last day guess who the first person to come up to me was? This guy. He comes up to me and says you know what, I really didn’t like you at first but then I realized you were me. On that note and before you do the next exercise, because there’s something I didn’t tell you. I went home with that windmill, put it on the shelf and didn’t really think about it since. This was how long ago? Thirty some years. I forgot about it really. It wasn’t until that master of storytelling whose in this room right now, told me a story about the gift she gave to her son that I remembered something important. I realized something important and probably wouldn’t have realized it actually, if I hadn’t, in the last couple of years become a dad. If you go to my mom and dad’s house my mom has got to where she’s collected all kinds of China plates, thimble collection worth thousands of pounds, China teapots and all kinds of things. There in the cabinet in the living room in pride of place with her thimble collection, is that windmill. So, the story I was told was about a wedding gift that a mother gave to her son. If you’d see that gift it doesn’t have any intrinsic value it’s a simple print, framed, don’t know how much the frame was worth but if you saw it in a thrift sale or charity shop you’d probably pass it over, but when you hear the story attached to it you’ll realize why that gift was priceless, where it was worth all the Mona Lisa’s and Rodin’s and all the famous paintings in the galleries in all the world put together. It was a print of her son’s hand at age 5. She’d been playing when her son when he was five years old. She’s taken a print of his hand and told him she was going to save it for him. She’d kept it as he grew up, went to school all the way through exams and education and when he got married she gave it back to him. Something that has very little material value can be made infinitely precious by the story you wrap around it. This is what brands like Nike and Coca Cola

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller do. They do not sell you fizzy sugary water, they sell you a dream and when you buy their product you buy into their dream. Now, a quick exercise. What I’d like you to do is to consider when you have heard stories from people it might have been a personal story or that you heard something from a leader at work or a great speaker, or it might be a more personal thing. When you heard a story where somebody disclosed something about themselves that made you feel more connected to them, that made you feel motivated to help them, to respond, that helped you buy into their story and conversely when somebody told you something that put you off. That made you think you know what, I’m not playing, because the power of vulnerability is incredible. Being prepared to take a risk, to reveal something about yourself is one of the most powerful things you can do as a storyteller. It’s a risky strategy but guess what, people like heroes who take a risk and get through. People like to know that you are a human being. Before they do business with you in any way they need to connect with you as a human being. So you know what you have to do? Again, mingle and try to talk with three or four people. Share some experiences. I’ll tell you to come back in 5-10 minutes. Thank you. Go. [Exercise started]

Exercise Debrief Igor:

All right guys, how did that go? Did you enjoy it? Are you enjoying the stories that are coming out? Here’s a question for you. What kinds of things did you experience or did they tell you about that were off-pudding, in terms of people sharing too much or the wrong sort of things? What kinds of experiences were coming out?

Student: I just love this story and I never really knew what it was an example of, but it was my biology teacher in fifth grade when he started to tell us, I didn’t know he was making a reference to something, he said and you know this is just like that when you are a young boy and you’re laying on your bed and trying to piss so hard that it reaches the ceiling.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller [Great laughter] I couldn’t really connect with that. Igor:

That would do it. There are whole levels of wrong on that one.

Student: I can’t make such a nice story, but the experiences that when you try to be agitated at first in the exercise that you try to get irritated by what the others are saying, but nevertheless you try to find connections. That’s what I noticed and that you’re feeling what they feel and your experience and nevertheless relate to them. Igor:

The exercise wasn’t so much to try and irritate someone else although I guess we could go down that road if we want to. The point of the exercise is this. You can clearly tell the difference between the kinds of stories that people have told you when you’ve warmed up to them. And you can tell the kinds of stories that people have told you that made you take a second look and go yeah, maybe I’ll start keeping my distance now. I think biology may not be the most important thing in my academic career. To see that there are some common themes there, there’s something about a social context isn’t there? There’s something about the violation of a social contract in this particular example that was unpleasant and on the flip side on the warmer stories, there is something that fits that social context. Or, it brings an expectation, if you expect someone to be cold or less pleasant that somehow they were willing to be vulnerable, there is something which was very charming about that.

Robin:

Who would like to share some examples of those kinds of stories, those that warm people up?

Arthur:

I would just say that I found the exercise difficult and I couldn’t think of anything to say. I couldn’t think of any story except, I could have given a litany of things, but I couldn’t really think of any stories and I tend to listen.

Robin:

I’m a little confused because you said you could have given a litany of stories and you couldn’t think of anything to say.

Arthur:

I couldn’t give a litany of stories, I could have given a litany of things I’ve done in my past but I couldn’t really give any stories that would introduce me.

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Igor:

The first thing I would say is that’s actually a very nice story. That honesty, refreshed honesty… I was trying to get a story but I couldn’t quite get one that would say anything… I’d rather listen. Doesn’t that help you understand who Arthur is a bit more?

Robin:

I was running a training a while back and I asked people to go away and come up with five stories from their past that they could use in the exercise. This guy comes up to me and says, do you know what it’s like when somebody puts you on the spot like that and you can’t think of anything to say? I said great, now what’s your second story? I think also it’s important to note that some of you do prefer to listen and watch.

Igor:

That’s going to be an important skill we will be developing. In fact, you’ll find stories you didn’t know you had by doing exactly that, but we’ll refine that as we get across that segment.

Robin:

Each of you has a particular style, a particular kind of presence that you’ve developed over the years and that’s who you are. That’s great. We want you to keep that. Put your hands together like this… this isn’t the first stage in a stage hypnosis show…

Igor:

… but if you really want to glue them together, glue them together.

Robin:

Now just swap the thumbs around so they’re intertwined the other way. Does that feel weird? It should feel strange, because it’s different. Now if you do that a few times over the course of the day you’ll find it starts to feel normal. So expect to feel a little bit of that strangeness over the next few days and remember that you can always go back to holding your hands like this.

Igor:

The reason I say of importance really goes back to the very charming story Arthur just shared with us. The reason that’s important is because like many other things in life we undervalue things we’re good at. There’ll be a lot of stories that you’re telling naturally and there are great stories and people will be charmed by them. It’s just they’re so natural to you; you don’t realize that they’re there. One of our jobs will be to find them and how to appreciate those stories that are

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller there, because it may feel odd at first but that’s where your natural storyteller lives. Until you can appreciate that, something as simple as saying, I was doing this exercise and I was meant to tell a story and I found it difficult. They give me all these things I could do and I prefer to listen, you know what I mean? In how many cocktail parties would someone get a sense of like yeah, I like this guy Arthur he’s nice. I hang out with him. In fact, if nothing else I can vent. So thank you for that Arthur, I appreciate that. A couple more feedbacks now. Student: I found while doing the exercise that one of the stories I had to tell was about a fellow who I know and he’s very big on stories himself. He always has stories of everything, his childhood and all these things. You really warm up to him and feel quite comfortable with him, and feel you can tell him anything because he’s told you all sorts of things. Then you realize that that’s a different story for the scar on his hand and that wrecks it. Igor:

That’s something we will also be addressing which is, very importantly, there’s a cloak of story which allows you to reveal very personal things in a way that won’t be harmful to yourself. But there’s a balancing act which is, how much truth is in your stories? Let’s put it this way, there are two kinds of stories. 1. Stories that are clearly just a story that people get entertained by, but actually have a lot of you in them. 2. Stories that are supposed to be about you, but if they didn’t actually occur to you people get upset by it. There’s a famous storyteller, Doug Lipman, who tells a story about a story that he told. He gets hired by storytelling events at schools or talks or whatever and he tells a story about how he’ll sit there and he knows what kind of event it is so he’ll tell different stories at a bar mitzvah than he will at a social place or whatever. He’ll start the story saying, these are just stories this didn’t happen to me, but I’m taking some artistic license to present it in a particular way for the story. He says it up front as clearly and lucidly as this. Then he tells the story like,

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller when I was a boy this happened and that and people get so sucked into the story, they get so emotional about the story that at the end they come up and say I’m so sorry this happened to you. That was a terrible thing and something similar happened to me once as well. He has to apologize and say look I’m sorry, but I need to remind you that this wasn’t something that happened to me it’s just a story I made up and presented in a particular way for the artistry of it. People get so annoyed with him. Because, whilst you can vale some things about yourself in a particular story, if they think it’s about you or if you presented it as though it’s about you and you get them too emotional about it. This is one of the fundamental ways we get to know people and if you tell a story about yourself, a scar where the story changes then you don’t know the person and you don’t know if you can trust them. So it’s an important lesson to figure out. When do you double wrap a cloak or story so it has a lot of personal stuff, but is presented in a way that’s safe for you and when don’t you? Does that make sense? So thank you for that that’s a very important thing. We’ll have a couple quick ones still and then do an exercise. Student: I found that some of my stories, even if it was the same story when I shared it with different people, it didn’t feel the same. Some of them actually enthused and excited me, so I’m feeding off their feedback and I get more details into it and then other times it’s just like I think I’m telling the wrong story. How do I get out of this? Igor:

You know what, imagine the story… we will come onto that so thank you for sharing.

Robin:

I think that’s really important and we will be showing you ways in which you can encourage other people to tell their stories.

Pamela: What I noticed about the storytelling was that, for example, when Robin started to tell his story and I was sitting in my chair. Before he got to the lady and what she did, something about frames, I was seeing an image in my mind of a round plaster thing that I had for 55 years that sits beside my bed. I tell

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller myself a story in France if my house was on fire what would I take from the house. It’s only that that I would take. It’s a handprint that I did in Vacation Bible School that I have of me. That’s nice and what I noticed in each of the stories that I listened to, was that there would come a moment and someone would say something and for me it’s like a gear shifting, tumblers tumbling together. My sister was getting ready to be homeless on the verge of my arrival here and someone told me they were homeless. I was sharing a room and someone told me they were sharing a room. It was very nice, very interesting. Igor:

That’s a powerful way for people to bond, over stories like that, isn’t it? We have a lifetime and in that lifetime you have something called a human experience, unless you’re a cyborg from 2048 who’s come here to destroy me. But Robin… we collect these stories and because we’re all human beings we all have similar things. They may not be the exact same story but we have loss, grief, happiness and we get stuck at a point when we don’t know what to do. That’s one of the levels in which we fundamentally bond with each other. Thank you for sharing that because that’s going to be an important thing.

Robin:

Pamela, that tumbler moment, what was it can you say a little more about that?

Pamela: I don’t know exactly how to tell it. It happens to me a lot. It’s some kind of experience I have where everything is whole or something is connected. It happens to me a lot. Robin:

Okay. So it’s the feeling of suddenly feeling connected.

Pamela: Yes, it goes together. Like the gears are not grinding. Robin:

Thank you. Before you go can I ask you one more question? The handprint that you keep with you. Why?

Pamela: Well, the actual reason I keep it is because I think it’s a 5-year old who’s still talking to me. Robin:

Thank you very much for sharing.

Igor:

Thank you.

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Robin:

I’d like to suggest just how such a simple thing contains within it the seeds of so many different stories and ways of connecting to other people on a heart to heart level.

Igor:

We have an exercise, in three parts. I’ll describe all three parts and then we’ll do it is that okay? The first part will be very easy. It will involve you standing up and moving all the chairs to one side. The second part will be quite enjoyable because it involves taking a 15 minute break. The third part is what occurs during that 15 minute break. You will tell each other some stories. Now, bear in mind all the things we’ve heard here, the challenge is this. I would like you to include within those stories, one that’s about someone else that actually was really you or about generally someone else or maybe about someone that is a figment of your imagination.

Robin:

We’re asking you to draw the veil and use the cloak of story.

Igor:

The thing is, they’ll never know if you’re telling a story about your friend, John or Jane, whether you’re talking about yourself or you’re talking about your friend or something…

Robin:

They won’t know whether that was a real person, male or female.

Igor:

It could be a figment of your imagination that actually just conveys some important information, something that you find important even though it never occurred in the world you’ve lived in. Does the exercise make sense to you all?

Robin:

And just one final thing, if you think back to that Johari window that I mentioned earlier, that the people you choose to listen to and seek out help to determine your reality. One of the things I did for myself this week, because I started to notice early on that I have preferences. There are certain people I’m attracted to first, that I go speak to. If I’m not careful I get locked into that group of people and that click, so I’ve been trying to stretch myself over the last few days and actually go reach out to those people I haven’t connected with to see what happens.

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Let’s be back in 15 minutes. [break]

Storytelling Games Igor:

All right, a very quick exercise.

Robin:

Yes. We’re going to mingle and do something really simple, step-by-step. You can all clap can’t you?

Igor:

Off you go.

Robin:

Find a partner. I’m going to tell you to change partners while you’re doing it, but go and find somebody now. That’s great, and you can all say a random word out of the top of your head can’t you? Fish.

Igor:

Fingers.

Robin:

Cheese.

Igor:

Toast.

Robin:

Purple.

Igor:

Milton.

Robin:

Great, it’s coming back. Now what I’d like you to do is fish clap…

Igor:

Fingers clap…

Robin:

Loopy clap…

Igor:

Dog clap…

Robin:

Cat clap…

Igor:

Eight clap…

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Nine clap…

Igor:

Ten clap…

Robin:

That one can run and run.

Igor:

Easy.

Group:

Yes.

Igor/ Robin:

Go. [Exercise starts]

Igor:

Excellent. Very good. Was that fun?

Group:

Yes.

Igor:

Was that easy?

Group:

Yes.

Igor:

The next one is going to be at an even faster pace. You’ll be moving around all the different people in the room. It’s like a mingling exercise, you’re going to meet them and all you’re going to do is, as soon as you meet someone you’ll ask them… what do you see?

Robin:

I see a blue dolphin.

Igor:

Done. Then he’ll ask me.

Robin:

What do you see?

Igor:

An orange. Off you go [exercise started] Who’s having fun, anyone?

Group:

Yes.

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Which hands haven’t been up yet? A very simple thing. Now, all we’re going to do is the same exercise but essentially you’ll come up to someone and say, I have a box, you pour something out, ask them what is this?

Robin:

Oh my God, thank you just what I’ve always wanted, a little puppy.

Igor:

Now, so far that’s pretty much you’ve done but you’re going to add something. You’re going to take the puppy from him. The key is you present something and they’ll tell you what it is and you’ll take it from them and say that’s right it is a puppy, where does it belong?

Robin:

There.

Igor:

Thank you very much, and that’s where I put it. Then he will do the same to me.

Robin:

Look a magic box.

Igor:

Oh it’s a book. It’s a wonderful book of magic.

Robin:

It is it’s a magic book. Where does it belong?

Igor:

On the table. Easy?

Group:

Yes.

Igor:

Off you go. [Exercise begins]

Robin:

You can all spin round can’t you?

Igor:

Everyone can turn in a circle, show me? Just once will do you don’t have to go crazy on this one.

Robin:

So that nobody comes to any physical harm I’d just like to give you a little bit of coaching. Find a spot on the wall in front of you, spin round and look at it again. [Go] I know you’re thinking, how could this possibly help? Believe me it’s a mind/body thing.

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It is.

Robin:

Your unconscious mind and your body are spinning into strange worlds.

Igor:

Strange new worlds.

Robin:

What I’d like you to do is to get with a partner and taking turns, spin round, open your eyes and begin describing a place that has never existed before you imagined it. Understand?

Igor:

Importantly, as the coach is doing the spinning, when they describe it, acknowledge it and start seeing it with them. Would you like to have a quick demonstration of that?

Group:

Yes.

Igor:

Do you want to be the coach?

Robin:

Let’s do both.

Igor:

Fine, be that way.

Robin:

Spins.

Igor:

What do you see?

Robin:

Oh, I see a corn field stretching out in front of me.

Igor:

There is a corn field, what else happens?

Robin:

There’s a sun, it’s like blood red. It’s coming up above the corn.

Igor:

So there’s a sun and a corn field, what else do you see?

Robin:

I see crows flying across.

Igor:

Where are they going?

Robin:

They’re going to that castle on the hill over there.

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Wonderful. One way around. [Spins]

Robin:

What do you see?

Igor:

I see a tall mountain with a castle on top.

Robin:

Yes, I see it too. What else do you see?

Igor:

I see a fire signal on the top of the mountain, it’s a castle thing and there are people with bows and arrows.

Robin:

Wow, there is a fire signaling and there’s people with bows and arrows. Who are they signaling to?

Igor:

They were shooting you.

Robin:

Why thank you, you saved my life. [Exercise starts]

Robin:

So, a simple exercise right? Don’t get attached to things. When we ask you to change partners, even if you’re in the middle of a story, let it go and move on to the next one.

Igor:

You see, you have an immense capacity for creativity, so why on earth would you get stuck on something that’s already passé?

Robin:

So, a few extra little questions. What were we using, the word?

Igor:

Coach and imagineer.

Robin:

An imagineer, what a fantastic word. We’re all imagineers… fantastic.

Igor:

Unless we’re coaches.

Robin:

Some coaching questions. → What can you see?

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller → What else can you see? → What can you hear? → What can you feel? Think about sensory modalities from your hypnotic and NLP background. Some of you will understand that. We want to build some rich sensory descriptions. → → → → →

What about the details what colors can they see? What textures can they see? What shapes can they see? What temperature is it? Is there a wind?

Some other questions… → What’s that like? Go [Exercise starts] Igor:

All right, good. So, a strange new world. Now what you’re going to do as a coach, you’re going to do something into that scene that is totally irrelevant and random that’s going to throw them for a loop. Would you like to see an example?

Robin:

Incongruence.

Igor:

Okay Mr. Imagineer turn, turn and tell me about the world you see.

Robin:

I see a little puddle.

Igor:

What is the puddle like?

Robin:

It’s kind of, oh there’s a little puppy.

Igor:

There’s a puppy in the puddle.

Robin:

I think the puppy made the puddle.

Igor:

There is a tank in here, where is it?

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Robin:

Oh my God, there’s a tank coming around the corner just there and it’s bearing…

Igor:

What’s happening?

Robin:

… it’s bearing down towards the puppy.

Igor:

Do you get it?

Group:

Yes.

Igor: --Robin:

Go [Exercise starts] As you’re doing these exercises you may be noticing that some things make it easier and some things make it harder. Some experiences feel one way and some feel the other. Keep those in mind as we’re going along. What I’d like you to do this time we’re looking the coach and imagineer distinction here. Now, you’re both imagineers.

Igor:

On a voyage of discovery.

Robin:

Taking it in turns.

Igor:

To find things inside each other’s minds.

Robin:

So, for example…

Igor:

Oh my God it’s beautiful. It’s a crystal palace. There are icicles hanging down, but they look like jewels.

Robin:

That’s right, I can see a crystal palace full of jewels and there in front of us is an orchestra.

Igor:

And it’s playing the most beautiful Viennese waltz. There are people dancing in long slow lazy circles.

Robin:

And suddenly over there, through the door walks the most beautiful puppy I’ve ever seen.

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Get the idea? Igor: --Robin:

Go [Exercise started] So you can see we’re moving into co-creation now, and we’re going to continue with this phase. What I’d like you to work on is maintaining relevance. I broke the frame there with the puppy didn’t I? Maintain relevance and see how small you can make each move and each offering. An improvisation, we call each of your moves a gift. When you imagine something in front of you and share it with someone, you’re offering them a gift and I’d like you to see how small you can make the gift, and it still be relevant and logical within the frame of the world you’re creating together.

Igor:

So as an example, if Robin were to spin in a circle, he might describe a particular scene.

Robin:

It’s an office.

Igor:

Yes it is an office and I see a secretary sitting by a telephone over there.

Robin:

I can see the secretary with the telephone and she’s just about to make a call.

Igor:

She picks up the phone and has a very unhappy expression on her face.

Robin:

She pauses…

Igor:

Thank you. … to compose herself as a little tear starts in the corner of her eye. I think she might be talking to an ex-lover. Do you get the exercise?

Robin:

She puts the phone down.

Igor:

Oh of course, how silly, I apologize I forgot that it wasn’t the end yet because…

Robin:

She puts the phone down…

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Igor:

She puts the phone down and she grabs her stuff and hangs her head as she slowly walks out of the office.

Robin: --Igor:

Take it away. [Exercise starts]

Group:

Yes.

Igor:

Good. Who’s finding themselves getting more creative they’re not having to really think about it too much, it’s just enjoyable? This is the essence of their creativity in storytelling. For example, A…

Robin:

Woman.

Igor:

Leaves her office.

Robin:

And…

Igor:

Her….

Robin:

Desk…

Igor:

Is bare. The…

Robin:

Puppy…

Igor:

She…

Robin:

Rescued…

Igor:

From…

Robin:

In front…

Igor:

Of…

Robin:

The…

Who’s having fun, yes?

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Office…

Robin:

Comes…

Igor:

And…

Robin:

Comforts…

Igor:

Her… (My go?)

Robin:

They know what to do don’t they?

Group:

Yes.

Igor:

One cycle that satisfies and move on to someone else please. Off you go. [Exercise starts]

---Robin:

Igor:

---Robin:

Igor: ----

Same exercise… one word at a time, except this time I’d like you to get into groups of three and one extra rule, if at any point you don’t like, for whatever reason, the way it’s going your next word is ‘discard’ and the next person starts again. With a fresh story that has nothing to do with the one that came before. One warning folks, when we say you don’t like the way it’s going. In other words, something about the story isn’t pleasing to you, if you merely don’t know what to say next that is not a reason for it. [Exercise starts] Very good. Some of you are already doing this I notice. Same exercise except this time make sure you’re actually looking at your partners and seeing whether they’re pleased, whether it’s working. Off you go. [Exercise starts] Who’s having fun? Is it good?

Group:

Yes.

Igor:

Excellent. All right. So this time I’d like you to get into groups of between three and five people. Same exercise, you’re still going around on the same stories and you really want to see how the other people are responding,

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller because that will determine how well the story is going to go. For this next exercise, do not change partners once you’re in the group. You can change stories by discarding them, but not partners. Off you go. [Exercise starts] --Stay in the groups you’re in and you’ll carry on the same exercise, only all of you need to be twice as fast. Off you go [Exercise starts] --Robin:

So, what I’d like you to do now is get back into pairs and, you know, essentially what the exercise is except you have three words at a time or more.

Igor:

The main idea is you present about half a sentence but do not complete the sentence, that’s their job.

Robin:

So, for example, you could…

Igor:

Begin in the middle of a story where there’s a puppy.

Robin:

And that little puppy…

Igor:

Likes to pee on floors, because…

Robin:

He hasn’t been trained properly.

Igor:

But, his owner has a plan. You see,

Robin:

She knows that if…

Igor:

She gets the treats out and then she lays them…

Robin:

Down in a trail all the way…

Igor:

To the backdoor…

Robin:

Than…

Igor:

The puppy will follow it and…

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Take it outside.

Igor: ---

Off you go. [Exercise starts] For the next exercise.

Robin:

What we’d like you to do.

Igor:

Is get into groups of five.

Robin:

And each of you.

Igor:

Will take a turn to stand in the middle of that group.

Robin:

And spin round.

Igor:

And describe the strange new world that you’ve discovered.

Robin:

For one minute.

Igor:

Exactly 60 seconds.

Robin:

And

Igor:

Then.

Robin:

You’re

Igor:

Please…

Robin:

And your job as you’re listening.

Igor:

Is to just give loud enthusiastic approval.

Robin:

To everything

Igor:

That they say. (Groups of five, off you go) We’ll tell you when the minute is up. [Exercise starts]

----

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller Okay guys so, it’s a fun place to be in the middle isn’t it, when people are cheering, clapping and so on? So this time we’ll have the same kind of energy, the same kind of enthusiasm only, stay in the same groups because it’ll be easier for you this time. The person in the middle will carry on in describing the strange new world, except the people around you, if they like what you’re saying will be over enthusiastic. If it’s not pleasing to them they’ll look sad. It’s important that you don’t get stirred up, just really sad. Everyone show me a sad face. Some of you are way too happy people, be sad. Whenever you see the awe thing going on, best change track quickly, because you only have 60 seconds in this game. Do you understand the exercise? Same groups. [Exercise starts] ---Robin:

Okay, how are you doing? Right. For this next exercise and this is the final one in this series. It’s the same exercise, strange worlds. Stay in your group. Pull up a chair in your groups.

Igor:

So bring the chairs now and we’ll add the second bit in a moment. Are you sitting comfortably?

Robin:

We’re still doing strange worlds and before we take this round I would like you to take a moment, close your eyes. Take a nice deep breath in and breathe out and relax. Allow your mind to drift for a moment. Before you open your eyes, something will occur to you, some experience, some feeling or event. Something that has happened to you in the last week, month or year.

Igor:

It doesn’t matter what it is

Robin:

Or how long ago it was

Igor:

Doesn’t matter how trivial or profound

Robin:

Just that some memory

Igor:

A genuine element from your personal history

Robin:

Arises

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Igor:

And once you have something like that, no matter how small, large, significant or insignificant that it may be.

Robin:

Then simply take a deep breath in, open those eyes and return to the room.

Igor:

Please keep that little piece of memory stored in the back of your mind until it’s your turn to be in the middle, so to speak.

Robin:

You’re still doing strange worlds. It’s still just using your imagination.

Igor:

It’ll still be a world no one has seen before; however,

Robin:

and as you take your turn this time, what I’d like you to do as an audience is simply listen genuinely.

Igor:

And when you are being the presenter of a strange new world, simply contemplate in the back of your mind the memory that arose, trivial or profound the matter, whilst you’re busy describing a new world that you’ve never seen before.

Robin:

Is everyone clear?

Igor:

It will be a minute each. We’ll call your timing, so we’ll ask you to rotate. Whenever you’re ready.

Robin: ----

Take it away folks. [Exercise starts] I’d just like to say well done. That was amazing.

Igor:

Give yourself a round of applause. [Applause] First of all, who surprised themselves with the stuff coming out of your mouth? What kinds of things did you notice over the course of the last session or so? What kinds of things were happening? What kinds of things did you learn from, surprised you?

Student: We have a much better flow.

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Robin:

You have a much better flow. Can you expand on that? Do you mean you personally feel you have a better flow?

Student: I mean in order to tell stories, at the beginning maybe I was like searching for things, events and connecting to tell a story and now everything is going much easier. Things are flowing better. Robin:

Fantastic.

Igor:

So you’re finding the content you want more easily, the words and descriptions are there? It seems more natural to you right?

Student: Exactly. Igor:

Why do you think that is?

Student: Because of the exercises we did. Igor:

Because you’re warming up your mind to get into the storytelling frame of mind. Very good.

Student: We noticed that the rapport went up massively. So basically, whereas you might start off as four or five individuals at some level, as they quickly start to tell their story, especially when they added sensory richness, color, a particular feeling what have you, that really built a connection within the group, a dynamic. The group also started to develop a little bit of energy of its own. Igor:

So, are you suggesting that the more you can experience the story that your storyteller is telling the more you can get involved in their world, the more rapport you build, is that what you’re suggestion?

Student: Yes, and another step, which is the more you can include then in terms of whatever they’re responding to in your story, the more they will get sucked in, involved and dynamically… Igor:

Very powerful. Thank you.

Robin:

Thank you.

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Student: I just noticed there’s a lot more plausibility in the stories. They may not be real but they could be and you’re bound to lose the difference between made up and reality. Igor:

This is an important point. Who noticed how you started off random and not really thinking about it, but your stories shaped themselves more and more towards possible reality, as opposed to strange unreality. Anyone notice that sort of thing happening? What other things did you notice?

Student: There came a point when I was feeling so exhausted from the high energy and from rapidly not having time to think that it almost like compounded the exhaustion, not having time to think, until you’re in an unconscious state of you’re not aware of what’s coming out of your mouth. You’re completely relaxed and in the zone. Robin:

A little hint… that was deliberate.

Igor:

Well done by the way.

Robin:

Thank you. Well done.

Student: I notice I’m now paying more attention to how the person is looking at me when I’m talking to them. Igor: Thank you. Student: I notice that the slower I talk the more aware I can be of how they’re looking at me. Igor:

It’s similar to what you’re saying here, are you noticing that overall you’re starting to incorporate your audience into your story more? Not necessarily to say you’re in the story with me, but more okay, I see where they are and how they’re reacting. Maybe I’ve gone too far in the description maybe I should step back a little and give them more background before I can do that step. Are you getting a nuance of that? Yeah.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller Student: I find it much easier to put emotions into the story when there is something I can relate to. Igor:

You mean this last exercise? How was that by the way, because this is important? You had a particular memory an experience that happened to you, big or small is irrelevant. Do you notice how the story just told now was different somehow than the other stuff we were making up throughout the day, as a result? Yeah.

Student: It’s back to do with the 80/20 stuff, which is basically 80% is non-verbal and 20% is verbal. So whatever you’re telling them at that 20% level with words, that 80% intent in energy of your personal experience, colors effectively the flow of the story. Igor:

So in some ways you could say that last exercise really taught you the value of wearing the cloak of story? Because they all have shared your memory, whatever it was, small trivial or large and important, but they still have no idea what it was. For lack of a better word they have a felt sense of that, would that be fair to say?

Robin:

I think my experience when we do this kind of training and these exercises, and by the way, did anyone notice that certain themes tend to crop up when you do this kind of work? You tend to go through basically scatological humor, a phase. Shitting, peeing things like that and references to bodily parts, they just come up. Then it’s often sex and death, God, spiritual themes come up and then it gets interesting, but there’s kind of a phase of garbage that we go through, because our minds are pathological. When you dream at night it’s not always fluffy puppies.

Igor:

Clearly.

Robin:

Our dreams can be disturbing, because our unconscious mind obviously contains both pleasurable and painful experiences.

Igor:

In fact, there’s research on this very matter. Did you know that most of the dreams that people have are actually unpleasant? The mind is just trying to process things whilst your consciousness is a little more absent or more open.

47 WCHS


How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller And really, the bigger the taboo is on something, the less you’re allowed to consciously engaged with it; hence, scatology, death, sex, things like that, the more likely it’s going to merge in other places before we get to feel the creativity. Robin:

But the purpose of doing this kind of quick work and just getting you into the flow like this, I think, is that your senses start to come down. You stop resisting consciously and that puts you naturally into a state that’s more responsive.

Igor:

Which is key as a storyteller, you don’t memorize a story and then repeat it word-for-word. In some ways books have done us a great service, but in some ways a great disservice because people think I have to read a book or novel to them to make it interesting and you do not.

Robin:

Any other questions, feedback or comments?

Student: I guess the next question is, how do we create that state very easily? Igor:

That’s a very good question.

Robin:

I would ask, how do you not create that state?

Student: I don’t know. Robin:

If you don’t know how you don’t not create it, than that sounds good to me, because if you forget how you didn’t, than you can continue to do it, right.

Igor:

Isn’t that my line? Just bear this possibility in mind, this idea. The person you wake up as in the morning and the person you think you should be. For example, when you’re telling stories and you’re on fire and it’s all going well, are usually different people just because you’re in different psychological states of energy, arousal and so on. There’s nothing to say that you have to be that more charismatic person straight away. All you need consciously is to know how to begin. That’s the important part. Everything else flows from that point.

48 WCHS


How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller Student: I found that I forgot the memory immediately and when I started telling the story I made an interesting emphasis on exactly how the feeling was portrayed. I didn’t actually plan that out at all. Igor:

That’s why it works.

Student: It came out very, it fit the story perfectly but it was portraying so many other meanings beyond that. It was interesting. Robin:

Thank you.

Igor:

Thank you. So some interesting things happening, no?

Robin:

I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the creation of stories, the creation of any kind of artwork and perhaps, I would say the essential element of that word artistry, wherever it’s used and in whatever context is fundamentally about the interplay between consciousness and unconsciousness and the dance of those two things in your experience. Sometimes, when you’re just conversing with people, when you’re meeting them. When I’ve been talking to you all out there and the opportunities that we’ve had to connect, we just throw stories at each other. One story reminds you of another one and another one and we give each other strokes by sharing these stories with each other. Sometimes, in a therapeutic context. Sometimes in a sales or persuasion context, we have a deliberate intention that we want to set. There’s something we want to set and my experience is that often time is required for these two things to begin to play together properly. For example, I’ve got this crazy cat that lives next door and I had to leave it for a while, because obviously I had to go to the Bahamas to see Igor.

Igor:

You needed to come, really.

Robin:

Something happened with this cat which is so funny. I got into that state where this was happening in my life, and I’ll tell you the story, eventually. I knew, I was thinking this will make a good story, so as I’m going through my life I’m thinking about it and trying it out on different people and playing with it and just developing the material.

49 WCHS


How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller Because the story in itself was fun. It was fun to think about. It seemed like it would go somewhere, but I didn’t know what it was for at all, until a while later somebody, a friend came and presented a problem to me and I suddenly realized what the story was for. So be aware that those processes, those unconscious and conscious processes are dancing together and will be for the next three days. I hope that at the very least, you’ll realize over the course of the next three days, just how easy it is to stay in that flow, and that you are all naturally gifted storytellers right from the beginning. I looked around and didn’t see anyone in the middle there, all I saw was people getting excited, animated and in the experience. I didn’t see anyone going… Igor:

I see a great tree and nothing else.

Robin:

… no, nothing.

Igor:

Gray, really gray.

Robin:

No. So yeah, bear in mind you already have this in you, we’re just going to give you some frameworks and hopefully show you how good you are.

Igor:

The key thing to the whole process, and think about this as you share over lunch, is can you enjoy your own stories? Be back at 2, we’ll start at 10 past 2.

Robin:

Please, before you go, give yourself a clap. You’ve done a lot of work this morning. Well done. Thank you.

Igor:

Thank you.

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DVD 2 – Provoking Emotions & The 5 Key Elements Of A Story That Impacts The Unconscious Mind

Emotional Stories Igor:

If everyone could just make sure that you have lots of stories to tell please, that will make life easier for everyone. The simplest way of doing that particular thing is to realize that you’ve had a life. You haven’t just popped out of a box this instant, and that means you have a lifetime of very rich and rewarding experiences.

Robin:

And if frankly every time you open your mouth you tell a story, unless you’re giving a list of facts and that’s not much of a conversation, right?

Igor:

Right.

Robin:

Has anyone, do you have any follow up from this morning? Anything just to…?

Igor:

I think the basic rules from this morning were… Stop thinking and let the stuff come out. Be aware of the layer of muck you have to go through and be willing to go through that initially, and know that your stories clean up very well afterwards. Hopefully you’ll notice, a lot of you are starting to mention things like, it starts getting easier, the story starts getting better and so on. That’s basically you warming up that storytelling muscle, which is pretty much what we’ll be doing for the rest of the day isn’t it?

Robin:

That’s right. We’re going to be focusing on personal stories. On the stories we tell. Can I give an example?

Igor:

I think that would be nice.

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My friend Steve, when I first met him it was at a networking event. I asked him what he did and he said, I’m an accountant and the way he said it, his whole demeanor, told me that he wasn’t very thrilled about that aspect. He didn’t feel that what his work was; was particularly exciting or interesting. Over time I got to talk to him a bit more and asked him a few questions about it. I said who are your clients? He’s based in Brighton which is a very creative town and it turns out that quite a few of his clients are musicians and bands. So I asked him, have you got some famous named clients? He said yes, there are a couple bands who you’ve heard of, but you know what really excites me? The new bands, the guys who have been putting the effort in for years and finally they have a break, a recording contract and record on the charts. Then suddenly they start getting offers and the money starts coming in and unless they’re prepared for that, they can spend it all at once on the wrong things. I said Steve, so what you’re telling me is that you help future rock stars prepare for financial success. He smiled and laughed at that. He’s like yeah I know what you did just then. There’s a way of framing what we do and finding the positive in it. Finding the passion, the excitement and spin, and there’s a thin line between spinning and spinning.

Igor:

One of the things we want you all to get used to now is how to appreciate the stories you don’t think you have, more, so that when you start recognizing the value in what you have then others can see that more clearly also. I think the best way to do that is to start with an exercise, don’t you?

Robin:

Yes, and you can help each other in this context. Because as you’re hearing each other’s stories it might help the person who’s telling the story. If you reflect back to them, only that which works…

Igor:

Only…

Robin:

Do you enjoy…

Igor:

… that which you enjoy.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller That’s a very important point, because whatever we repeat back, you know where attention goes energy flows. So do you want to feed back what you want to have more of or the things you want to have less of? Unfortunately now, especially in school, what do they do? They feed back on all the things you didn’t do well, red mark, red mark, change this, do this, do the other. That really worked for you didn’t it? Right now we’re only interested in putting attention on those elements of what people are already doing that are already working, so we can build on that foundation. Robin:

So if you find an element of somebody’s story that particularly moves you or something in the way they perform it engages you or makes you laugh or just stands out for you. Then give them the feedback and let them know.

Igor:

I really enjoyed hearing Steve’s story about how he went from boring accountant to preparing rock stars for success. That was a really nice way of seeing the whole thing differently.

Robin:

It’s kind of an example of what I call the ‘who I am’ story. If you think about the story I told in the beginning, that’s a who I am story. I wanted to share something with you and in doing so you learned a whole load of things about me, some of which I have no clue what they were. But, there were other things that were intentional. I often tell stories about my family, because my family is really important to me and I want people to know that.

Igor:

There are many different types of stories you can tell. We will explore what we’ve come to think are some of the more important ones.

Robin:

We’re going to start with probably the easiest category and one which you will be familiar with, many of you who have been here the last eight days.

Igor:

The stories we’ll focus on now are very simple ones. They are the ones that have some sort of strong emotion involved. They can be strong negative emotions as well as positive ones. For a moment though, just for the fun of it. Let’s stick to relatively positive events. It will help you to find the gold in it more easily, although both will be valuable to you in time.

53 WCHS



We’re thinking about, when were you most excited?

Igor:

Did you ever fall in love?

Robin:

When were you most scared, in a good way?

Igor:

What sort of charmed you in a way that you still haven’t forgotten?

Robin:

There are a whole bunch of emotions and experiences, states of mind, that are useful for you to be able to elicit in the people you speak to.

Igor:

The secret is not to say, you know when you’ve been really excited, you get really excited and it’s a really exciting story for you, which is the way the conscious mind tells stories. But more, to recall being very excited and sharing the events so that inviting those people into your brave new world, they get to feel the excitement that you did, to some degree anyway. That makes sense doesn’t it?

Robin:

So the way we’re going to do this is to start off, you’ve already practiced mingling today, and I’d like you to take a minute or two in pairs to each share a story about some experience you had in which you felt a strong emotion.

Igor:

Once you’ve told that story for your minute and of course heard yours in return from the other person, you’ll probably notice something interesting happening. Have you ever noticed when someone tells you a story, especially one that’s meaningful to them, it makes you think of another story. It’s like oh, that reminds me of a story. Have you ever noticed that? Whatever that story is that you’ve been reminded of…

Robin:

... it will just make it easier for you to think of the next one that you’ll share when you change partners, right?

Igor:

So you’ll use each partner as a sounding board so you realize what the next story will be without having told it yet.

Robin:

Our intention over the course of the week this weekend is that you generate lots and lots and lots of different stories and experiences. This is why we’ve been practicing the whole discarding, remembering discarding.

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And when we say discarding that doesn’t mean you forget about them forever, it just means you don’t get attached to them. You can have one story, another story and another story, and just find them wherever they happen to arise.

Robin:

One of the things that I find handy as I’m working on stories, and in order to remember them, is that I give the story a name. So like the crazy cat story is something easy to remember.

Igor:

It’s funny you say that because I do something completely different. For me the stories always revolve around some person, object, thing or event and just by seeing that in my mind’s eye I remember the whole story. If you want to think of Snow White you could have Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs or you can think of an apple with a piece missing. That to me reminds you of the whole story.

Robin:

It’s kind of like you could create a house or a room in a house and have a whole set of drawers and just store those pictures and images.

Igor:

Something we might actually explore at some point. So, for the moment, that’s just us waxing lyrical about all kinds of crazy events. Really, all that’s required right now is if you were to stand up and start chatting with each other. Spend about a minute each, telling an emotional story and then moving on to someone else. Off you go [Exercise starts] Hands up if you told at least one story in that round of exercises. At least one, one plus. Hands up if you told at least two stories in the whole exercise. Three. Four. Not a single hand for four, wow okay. That will be the new goal, the Olympic storytelling championships are here. We have silver and bronze lining up, but gold, I think we need at least four for gold, don’t we?

Mnemonic Journey Igor:

What I’d like to invite you to do for a moment is to put things down so that you can close your eyes. I would like you to begin to think about a place that’s very familiar to you. The easiest one to take up would be your home. You have many different locations in your home. You have a kitchen, bathroom, some kind of hallway and you probably have some kind of living area and

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller bedroom. There may be many more rooms in this particular home, but those are the typical things that you’d expect to find. I’d like for you to choose, of all those rooms, one particular room that you are quite familiar with. Could be the kitchen, bedroom, the bathroom, and I would like for you to take a mental inventory of this room. For example, if this were a kitchen you’d probably have a refrigerator, an area to cook in, a sink with a tap and you no doubt would have a set of pots and pans in a drawer somewhere or maybe standing out. You’d have utensils. Maybe you have a drawer full of knives. Maybe the knives are in a special board that you can move them in and out of. Most people have a cutlery drawer. They’ll have drawers where the dishes go and glasses, different kinds of glasses. Some people, who enjoy drinking wine for example, might have a wine rack. You might have something different. I’d like for you to take inventory of the space you’re thinking about, whether it’s the kitchen or somewhere else and find 10 such locations that are easy for you to recall. Then walk around them in sequence. If you start at the fridge, of course, right next to the fridge may be the freezer or the dryer. Right next to that might be a table top and next to that might be a sink, next to that might be something else. Just mentally take a tour from one logical step to the other until you’ve collected 10 locations that are quite distinct from each other. Try to get some variety into this. Once you’ve chosen your 10 locations and you’ve taken a little tour of all those 10 in a particular sequence, repeat the sequence maybe two or three times, just so you’re sure you’ve taken the same path around this particular room each and every time. You can take your time doing that there’s no hurry. We’ll wait here quite comfortably until you’ve completed that sequence and found 10 locations that look at little different each time. Run through them three or four times. I know you’re ready to continue for the next step because your eyes will open once you’ve done all that, but there’s no hurry for it right now, just enjoy recalling the features of this particular room in this particular way. Once you’ve gone through it three or four times then you can open your eyes and look up front.

56 WCHS


How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller We have most of you back now with one or two still rehearsing. As the last few people make their way back, who wants to share a little about the room they were in and the different locations they found and the journey they took, anyone? This is the interactive portion. Robin:

Thank you Pamela.

Pamela: I was using your bedroom. It’s just one big room with walls completely like this with stuff everywhere. Igor:

Excellent. So, lots of different stuff on the walls, yes?

Pamela: Yes, but it’s extremely well organized. Igor:

Oh, we like that.

Pamela: In increments. Igor:

Well organized is good for this.

Pamela: So it’s a lamp and then ESL books. Igor:

Wonderful.

Pamela: Then it’s a section of papers, because papers stick to me like magnets. Igor:

Right.

Pamela: Then it’s a piece of plywood with computers on sawhorses and then more genealogy notebooks and things. Igor:

Very good.

Pamela: Then a TV set. Igor:

May I pause you there for a second?

Pamela: Yes.

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If you’re not actually looking at Pamela right now you’re probably missing it. Can you carry on describing this? I apologize for the attention but you’ll enjoy this.

Pamela: I know what you’re talking about. Igor:

I know. You can start from the beginning if you want or you can start from the middle.

Pamela: Next is a TV set and all the things to hear, to make the TV set louder and stuff. Then it’s journals, 50 journals that I wrote and then it’s jewelry boxes, because I don’t have a special place for them they’re just on the floor on a thing that slides. Then it’s a pantry, a chrome closet because there are no closets in my house. Igor:

Wonderful.

Pamela: So there are clothes and too many shoes. Igor:

Would you say that Pamela is in her memory right now?

Group:

Yes.

Igor:

Very firmly located. One of the things our brains do the best is store locations. That’s one of the things that we’ve been predisposed to do, because otherwise we’d get lost in next to no time everywhere. Pamela, you did an excellent job of demonstrating that, so thank you for that Pamela. Does anyone else want to talk about their location?

Student: One thing that I found as I went around the room once or twice is I remembered things that I didn’t remember the first time. Igor:

You started getting extra details as you go along right?

Student: Yes. Igor:

And you can add them in or skip them it doesn’t matter. The point is at the end of the whole process do you have a clear root of some 10 locations that you can go round.

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Student: We call it our sitting or music room, because it’s used for both purposes. Igor:

Sure.

Student: There’s an upright piano. Igor:

Yes, very nice.

Student: There are some bookends on top of the piano, some pieces of music. Igor:

Once again let me pause you briefly, once again do you hear how she’s stepping into her memory very fully there? This will be very important in a moment, carry on.

Student: On the other side of the doorway there’s a nice stand with some drawers in it with a television on top of that and in front of that there’s a storage cabinet where my son used to keep his video games, and he would sit watching the video and TV. Then there’s a window with a bench beneath it. You come around the room and there’s a bookcase with glass doors and on top of the bookcase I have my Hummel collection and Arthur has his collection of special signed books inside. As you come around the room we have a table and a lamp. Then another sitting chair. One thing I did forget coming around the room is that there’s a fireplace with a fireplace insert. I forgot that fireplace was there. Igor:

But you remembered now right?

Student: There’s a music stand and there are some guitars hanging on the wall. Igor:

Wonderful.

Student: Coming around there, there’s a magazine rack and another sitting area. Igor:

So you have the makings of an incredible storyteller right now, because you have so many locations. That’s excellent. Does everyone have one room with a similar sort of familiarity as these two people have just talked about, yes? Here’s what we’re going to do and Verna,

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller I’ll give you some special instructions in a moment. In a moment we’ll do the same thing again, we’ll sit down and mentally go through that room, but before we do that I would like for you to think about the two, three or so stories that you told just now during the exercise. I’d like you to select from those two or three stories one element that encapsulates it for you. It could be the title as Robin was saying. For me it would usually be something I could see. For example, a person that may be dressed in a particular way. Maybe it’s located somewhere. For example, if I think of a story about in my law firm I might just think of the front doors of the law firm to remind me this is what this story is about. Verna, for you, I would recommend however you remember things, whether it’s through sounds that are familiar to you or feelings, a sense of touch in feeling a particular object that you select something like that, just one simple sense that encapsulates the story for you. If you think of one you instantly think of the other. Can you all do that now? Go through the three stories you told and select some portion of that that epitomizes that particular story, something unique about it. So when you think of that particular object, event, person or whatever, that story comes to mind. Is that easy to do? As soon as you’ve done that you might as well close your eyes again. The following journey will be really easy for you because you want to locate yourself back in the room you thought about a moment ago. Take a few moments to reorient yourself and quickly zip through those 10 locations, where you start, where was the second or third, fourth, fifth, sixth point? You don’t have to remember the number you just remember they’re in a sequence. Eventually you get to the 10th location and when you’ve done that I would like to come back to the first location and really think about that place, have a look at it. Then consider your first story and that item, person or icon that really reminds you of that first story. If someone were to take a photograph of it or a cardboard cutout and stick it to that first location, what would that look like? It’s an odd image to have in your bedroom, living room, kitchen wherever, but consider that. Then move on to the second location, the one right after and

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller do the same with your second story, whatever the thought, image, idea, person, whatever icon really symbolizes that story for you and again create a mental cardboard cutout that you would stick there and have a look at that scene being a little odd. You can superimpose on top of each other, some way to connect the two so they’re touching. If you had a third story you can do that a third time with the third location. That’s simple is it not? As soon as you’ve had all your stories covered this way I’d like you to mentally review them again. Go to the first location and notice how that picture is there is it not? Second location, third location… Just be sure and go to the first location, oh there it is again. Second location, yep that’s odd but there it is. Third location, one more time. When you’re ready come on back. Who found that relatively easy to do? Very quickly, mentally scan the room right now and see if you can list the three stories like that in their right order. Can you do that? Easy right? We’re going to go through the process of generating many stories over the next hour or so. Each time a story comes out we may ask you to put it to one side, discard it or go to another story and so on, but what we’re really saying is, find something within that story that is unique, a picture, item or some type of icon, and stick it on the next location. Then mentally rehearse all the ones that came before it up to that point and when the chain is complete go great, forget about it, new story. Can you all do that? Any questions? You simply need to repeat the same process that you did. Right now you mentally walk through your room. Go to the first location and have a thought about whatever the icon was there. Then go to the second location and put an icon there. Then go to the third location if you have one, do the same. You have at least seven other locations if not more, so as you’re telling stories now as we go into some storytelling exercises, as soon as you finish that particular story take a moment, find some icon in that story that reminds you of the story.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller Let’s say you only have three stories in your room there, stick the fourth icon on the fourth location, same as you did a moment ago. Then when you go into your fifth story get another icon, go to your fifth location and stick it there. From time to time mentally walk through the room again to make sure everything is where it’s supposed to be and that’s it. Simple, straightforward? I think it’s time they collected some things to decorate their rooms with, don’t you? Robin:

Absolutely. Whichever way you choose to remember, this is a good process to begin that. You’ll find, because it happens anyway, that when you need a story it will be there. They tend to pop up when you need them.

Igor:

Yep.

Robin:

It’s like that crazy cat story I was telling you about.

Igor:

The crazy cat.

5 Elements Of Story Robin:

Have you guys noticed, by the way, that films always have the title and they have a nice tagline and then there’ll be another bit of text that kind of describes and summarizes what the plot is? Then there’s the movie itself. One of the things we’re going to be practicing over the next couple of days is how you tell the same story in 30 seconds and how you tell it in 30 minutes. The key for that is working out what’s the tagline of this. If this was a movie what would the tagline be? That’s how I do it. One of the simplest examples of a title that’s also the tagline is ‘Snakes on a Plane’.

Igor:

Anyone hear the cross talk? We’re going fishing I think.

Robin:

So just have a thought about it as you’re working on your stories. What’s the tagline for this story? How could I tell this in a sentence or two sentences? There are so many different kinds of stories and structures to the stories we tell, what I’d like you to do for the next couple of exercises is to choose one or two, let’s say two, of the stories that you’ve just generated, to work on them and to refine.

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I’m going to introduce a couple ideas to you about how stories are structured and the important elements they have, so that over the next few hours and days as you continue to tell stories you can begin to focus and pull out essential elements of what you’re telling. You’ll also find this really helps you to remember them. Have any of you heard of Joseph Campbell? Okay. He wrote a book called The Hero with a Thousand Faces. He looked at stories throughout history, mythologies of different cultures and more modern literature and films, TV programs, all the different ways we receive stories. He showed that basically they’re all the same. They all have an essential element. It’s the struggle of the hero through adversity to victory and triumph. I should say in advance that Joseph Campbell isn’t a personal inspiration of mine. I love his stuff. He has lots of ideas, but in my own history of learning this stuff he’s not someone who had a great impact on my particular way of working. If you look at his model there are loads of different kinds of stages and people have refined that. So, if you want to follow up and read more on the Internet about this kind of thing then do. I’ll give you the simple version, one that you can remember with five fingers or three. What’s the essential element of a story that allows us to connect with it? Group:

The hero.

Robin:

The character, the hero, thank you. Here’s a question for you.

Pamela: Or heroine. Robin:

Yes, thank you. I’ll ask you a little aside. Think about the story of your life. Are you the hero? When you watch a movie, like a James Bond movie, you know the henchman that gets bumped off in the first act? Guess what? He was the hero of his own story too. Nobody thinks about the henchman’s family. Everyone is the hero of their own stories and if you read a lot and watch movies, you often find that the believable characters, the believable stories, are the ones in which even though, we’re being fed a line of this guy is the

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller hero and this guy is the villain, the best stories recognize the fact that that villain is the hero in his own story. 1. Your story needs a hero or heroine. That hero doesn’t always have to be a human being. It can be an animal. Igor:

Like a puppy.

Robin:

Like a puppy. It could be a community or tribe or a nation. It could be a car.

Igor:

Or a tank.

Robin:

Your hero is that character with which we identify and relate. Aristotle wrote 2500 years ago the purpose of drama, of tragedy, was that the audience experienced a catharsis by seeing their story told through on the stage. By identifying with the hero they got to have a release and catharsis through that experience. So, number one your thumb hero. Second element I’ll introduce is perhaps not quite as obvious so I won’t ask you what it is. 2. Passion More specifically, where is your passion for this story or in this story. What’s the thing about this story that touches your heart and makes you feel? What else do we need?

Igor:

Ooh.

Group:

A challenge or problem.

Robin:

Yes. A challenge or a problem, the journey, the struggle. 3. The antagonist Again, the antagonist can be a person, a situation or the weather or a mountain or your own internal blockage or barrier. There has to be something for the hero to strive against.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller What do you think is next? Group:

Redemption, struggle, some sort of routine… tri-tagonist… right the best friend, yeah. A turning moment. This is all great stuff. Thank you. An outcome. A learning. A mentor. A woman.

Igor:

Spoken like a true Frenchman.

Robin:

I like the tri-tagonist, I hadn’t heard that before, but it reminds me of a story.

Igor:

No.

Robin:

My friend and I were… I used to be an actor and gave it up a while ago, but all my friends are still actors… standing around outside a pub one night and my friend is a big chap with scars on his cheeks because he’s a rugby player. He looks beefy. He was basically moaning that he only got cast as thugs or the cuddly chap. Our other friend was standing there and he has dark hair, basically looks like either an Italian gangster or a policeman and that’s how he gets cast. They started going Robin, what would you be? Oh I know. They decided I wasn’t good looking enough to be the hero, so I would be best friend of hero, gets killed halfway through movie. Thanks. All of those are great ideas and to sum them up, I propose in this simple model we have the first three and the fourth should be… 4. Awareness This would be the epiphany, the moment of change, the realization; the discovery of this is how I’m going to solve this problem. It’s the light that gets turned on. It’s that aha moment that leads to five. 5. Transformation How the person, the situation or the issue is resolved as a result of that moment of awareness. So, we have our own personal passion for the story. We have the hero in the story with whom we identify with. We have the antagonist/struggle we’re

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller faced with. We have the realization, epiphany and awareness that enables us to transform and move through the situation. Is that clear? I’d like you to take two of the stories you were telling earlier, and bear in mind these are generalizations, boxes we’re fitting reality into and not the other way around. Have a moment in pairs to reflect on what are the five different elements and how do they map into those two stories. Make sense? Igor:

So you’re not telling the story yet you’re just going to discuss with them that if you were to tell the story who or what would you make the hero? Where would be the antagonist? How do you feel about this story that makes you want to tell it in the first place? At what point does the awareness come that lets the story come to an end? How have things changed as a result of everything? The transformation. Discuss those things a little so we can take the next step in a moment’s time.

Robin:

Take about five minutes, coach each other through that so you’re clear on how it works and then we’ll do a Q&A.

Igor:

Off you go [Exercise started] Some useful food for thought there right? Enjoying the conversations you’re having. Now that you’ve had some ideas around these five elements of a story, it’s time you actually did them. So find someone you haven’t spoken to yet or shared a story with and retell the same story. This time we’ll give you 3 minutes apiece, so you have three times as long to tell the same story, but you get to dwell a little more on each of these five points. Make sense? Off you go. [Exercise starts] How did that go? How did the story go the second time around?

Glen:

Hey. As you were explaining what you needed with the five elements I was thinking, the stories I just told didn’t have any of those, apart from a hero and some passion, they didn’t seem to have the other points in it. When I was retelling it I surprised myself in finding that they were there after all.

Robin:

Great. Thank you. Can I ask a further question? When you had your little coaching thing, did that help to find where those elements were?

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller Glen:

Yes. They became more apparent about what the antagonist actually was in the story that I didn’t think existed beforehand.

Igor:

Right.

Robin:

Often we tell stories unconsciously all the time and often they don’t have simple things like a beginning, middle and end because we’re just starting and we’re relating an experience. Some of our stories have those things explicitly, but they’re always there implicitly and part of the idea of giving you these simple structures is to tighten and focus your storytelling ability, so they pack that extra punch. Thank you.

Glen:

One other thing. The awareness and transformation part was probably missing the first time I told it, but the story kind of petered out, but having that in the picture meant there could have been a conclusion to draw from and there was the second time around.

Igor:

As a storyteller, how much more satisfying was it telling the story a second time around with the conclusion that the awareness and transformation brings. Then fading it out and going yeah, um.

Glen:

That was it. It worked better.

Igor:

Excellent, thank you.

Robin:

Often stories have a point and we’ll get onto that in a minute. You have a choice about when you’re explicit about that. You’ll notice quite often that I tell stories and I don’t tell you what the point is.

Igor:

That’s the point.

Robin:

There is one.

Student: When I was telling my story before doing the exercise, I had a clear picture in my mind who the hero was, what the passion was, the antagonist all that and when I retold it the second time, I had a hard time figuring out, am I the hero or is the other person the hero? It was kind of ambiguous at that point. I felt it was fun, now that I had to rethink it, that it could have been either way and how those lines are blurred.

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And you just found one of the secrets of storytelling. The great storytellers don’t have a grab bag of a thousand stories, and even Robin knows more because if you hang out with these people they may only have like 5-10 stories, but they retell them differently each time depending on what is necessary at the time. People used to accuse Erickson of making up his case studies, because every time he told the same story it would be different, so they would say he’s obviously making it up. All he was doing was taking a little bit of artistic license to emphasize elements of a story that would be applicable to the particular audience he’s talking to. That was a very nice bit of realization.

Robin:

I’d just like to respond and elaborate on that a little bit. There are some situations in which it’s really useful to change who the hero is and to frame it differently. For example, I put a few videos on my website HypnoticStorytelling.com recently about David Niven, who was one of my favorite storytellers. He was an English actor and gentleman. He would always make himself the butt of the joke. Quite often if you’re telling a story for comic effect, the hero is actually the butt of the joke and it’s very useful sometimes, if that’s you. Like, sometimes if I want to deliver some feedback to someone about what they’re doing then I will describe a situation in the story but I’ll make sure I’m the loser or I’m the guy who had to learn the lesson, because that means I’m not preaching I’m learning the lesson and they can choose to learn the lesson or not.

Student: We made an interesting discovery, that the story that was told had two heroes, each with their own passion but the antagonist was where the two heroes met. They had the same antagonist and then they went away again. The awareness and transformation were different but that was interesting too. The person who told the story said I don’t know who the hero is and so from the story we got that there were two heroes. Igor:

And you’ve seen lots of stories where that happens. It gets more complex then, but remember, everything we’re putting up here isn’t so much that you must do it this way it’s just food for thought to assist you in making what you

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller have become richer and more pertinent to the situation. Then, in time as we go to the other stories in a moment, to allow you to use the stories that will have the effect and impact that you want. It will be almost artificial. There are some unconscious rules we have and by tweaking the emphasis points we get to have a different effect, which is really where you are right now and what you’re exploring at this point. Robin:

Thank you, it sounds like a fascinating story.

Student: It was very fascinating. Student: The thing that I found was it gives you, as well as a set of coordinates if you like within the story and allows you to change the emotion within the story. Obviously at certain points you may be going through different experiences in terms of what you’re engendering in that person. So, dare I say it’s sort of fractionation. Robin:

Interesting. Thank you.

Igor:

Okay. Yeah.

Student: I just need some clarification regarding passion. What I heard said was, what is your passion for telling the story, but what I heard just now is what is the passion of the hero? Would you clarify that? Robin:

Sometimes they’ll be the same thing. I’d like you to consider though that if a story is a bunch of facts wrapped up in emotion you have to have the emotion that will carry it, the connection. The heart to heart connection that you make with people when you tell a story depends on you having heart and passion. I could tell the story of Tom Cruise in ‘Top Gun’, for example, and there would be conflict and the hero would have passion and all of that, but I don’t have passion for that story. It doesn’t move me or touch my heart. That’s what I’m thinking about when I ask you to consider the passion. It’s how are you going to be moved by this story so that you can emotionally connect with other people, so you can move other people. If you’re moved by it than other people will be. Does that make sense? Does it help clarify?

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Student: Yes. Robin:

Thank you.

Student: So basically, the second time I said the story the partner and me realized that my story was actually broken up into two different stories, so I could have very well made it more concise and ended one story at a certain point and then started another topic all together. That’s when I realized that it’s testing if you have these five coordinates, you can extend and make two stories into one entire thing with having that as a final transformation or, you can leave it to that much. I was wondering, how do you decide when is a good time to end your story and keep it as it is? Igor:

Well, one idea is thinking about when your story has had the impact you need it to that’s the point you end it. So, if you could extend it to another story on top of that, will that second story just detract or add to it? Sometimes telling one pithy story initiated in just a few seconds and going on is the perfect thing to do, whereas, other times you may tell story after story after story and all on a similar theme. It depends on how much time you have, context and so on, but for me the main thing is, has it done its job and you have lots of choices about that.

Robin:

I’d like to suggest you reflect on what I said earlier about artistry. You have a conscious tool.

Student: I find that when I told my story there’s more than one hero and more than one passion and more than one antagonist, it’s the whole thing but not just one of each and maybe there’s more than one transformation. Igor:

Yes.

Robin:

If your story is consistent and powerful than chances are that those individuals, those different heroes, antagonists and heroines have something that unites them, so they’re representative of a higher element in the story. Does that make sense? Does it make sense for the story you’re thinking about?

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller Student: Not just the story I told but also the stories I heard. They all had more than one hero. Robin:

Did they have more than one character?

Student: They had more than one character. Robin:

Without knowing anymore detail that’s great. There are so many stories I want to hear now.

Igor:

Consider one other thing. If you have lots of characters in a story, you can always focus on you may actually have five stories there, like if you have five heroes then you can tell the same story from five different perspectives, having a different story, different emotion and different transformation each time. It’s the same story but it’s not the same story. Of course, I could tell you about being in the Bahamas and inviting an impoverished friend of mine who really needs my help.

Robin:

And I can tell a story about what it’s like to have a desperate and lonely friend who needs some company on stage.

Igor:

It’s the same story isn’t it? It’s just told from two different points of view. There’s different antagonists. There are different points of transformation. There are different heroes. Robin is quite rightly the hero of his story. I am of course, absolutely correctly the hero of my story. Did that help?

Student: Yes. Just wonder where the cat fits in. Igor:

That cat is its own hero.

Robin:

Well, it’s a funny thing about the cat, because I’ve lived in this garden flat for a while now and I’ve actually lived in this neighborhood and in this building for about 5-6 years. The last couple of years I started noticing this cat around and in the last six months it had been hanging around in my back garden basically and shitting there. It doesn’t help that I have white gravel in a large part of my garden, so it looks like an extended cat litter tray. I love cats as much as I love puppies, but I also

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller love songbirds, frogs and hedgehogs, not compatible with cats. But anyway this cat was hanging around right, and it doesn’t have a collar. It’s really skinny and a bit mangy. One of my friends was round and started stroking the cat and she was like this thing is so skinny it’s practically starving, did you not notice that? What are you doing? How come you’re not feeding this cat was how the story started? Arthur:

I have a different kind of question. I must have had lots of stories in the past and I don’t seem to be able to remember them as well as others who can easily call upon many stories before. Of the stories that I have lots would be interesting, but I tend to forget them and move on to the future, forgetting what’s happened in the past. Some years ago I wrote a book of stories…

Igor:

Nice.

Arthur:

I was able to remember some of those stories so I could tell those, but just to call up experiences… there must be some way, people are different in how they can remember what’s happened to them.

Igor:

Here are a couple things. The first is those “natural storytellers” tell a lot of stories and part of their social skills and how they interact with the world is through storytelling. Because that’s how their minds have adapted to connecting with people, because it’s important to them they’re doing it constantly than they’re constantly looking for more stories, so it’s keeping it fresh. Every time you tell a story it reinforces it so you’ll have it again. Every time you tell a story as well and you allow it to change, evolve and stuff like that, then you’re basically telling your mind, I need more of this stuff and then it starts becoming more sensitive to remembering it. The exercise we did at the start of this session is a way for you to start collecting some stories and follow that as a model for you to be able to have a long list of stories that will be around whenever you need them. Really, the simplest way to remember a story is to become a storyteller. Here’s a promise I’ll make and it’s an absolute promise. Most of those stories that you wrote in the book that you should probably call, memories from the

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller forgotten realm, will easily come back to you once you start telling different stories without thinking about it. Just by enjoying them. So the fact that you’re enjoying telling stories tells you you’re in that storytelling stage and when you’re in a storytelling state your mind goes hunting for more because that’s part of its job. Where is it going to look? Among the stories you already have. Robin:

The experience you’re having right now or until you got here is an effective future orientation. It’s a useful orientation to have for someone who wants to get things done in the world. That’s important. The other side of things is it’s probably those offline moments when you’re just daydreaming and as you sleep and dream important things happen. Keep the future focus it’s good.

Student: Something about what I’m hearing, hearing several things that seem, that I relate to a lot. An example is that I find a lot of musicians that I tend to work with in my hometown will start feeling the music as they’re singing it, but the more they sing it the more they focus on the technical side and the technique, they slowly diminish the emotional content of the song bit by bit. I actually notice this a lot in myself too, so part of my journey now is learning how to play and bring that emotion back as I’m playing. I’m also hearing some echoes of that in what I hear others saying where they’re talking about… you were saying it’s your emotional content that you currently are in that you initiate the story from, because without that emotional continuity the story is empty. Robin:

As a musician, when the music works it’s because it becomes a vehicle for the emotional content right?

Student: Right. Robin:

In the process of getting there you practice scales and all this stuff, and what we’re doing with these five different elements is scales, and over the rest of the afternoon and tomorrow you’ll be playing scales on those themes. And yes absolutely, the power and artistry comes when you get that balance of conscious/unconscious. When you let go of having structure… I probably go too far the other way. My conscious mind has nothing to do with much of what happens in my life.

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Student: The only thing I wanted to bring out was basically that, just to remind because of my own mistakes I know how easy it is to get trapped in that technical place. I’m hearing technical questions, so I’m offering a reminder based on my own experience focus on the emotional state first because everything else will come after. We’re in hypnotic storytelling and that’s what it’s all about isn’t it? Robin:

That’s a great lesson thank you.

Igor:

Yes, it is.

Robin:

Let’s take one more question.

Student: I just realized that in my story the transformation was really hard to put my finger on. It’s a story that easily connects with someone who had that kind of experience and I would have a lot of trouble describing all the different layers of transformations that happened when I went through the birth of my child. Would that be a good story to tell someone who has not had that kind of experience or would it be a better vehicle to connect with someone who already has? Igor:

Yes.

Student: Thank you. Igor:

The longer, unconscious version of course is…

Robin:

I chose to tell you two stories to introduce myself, one of which was about this master storyteller here, Mercedes, who told me the story of the frame she gave to her son. I told you a story about a present that I gave to my mom. I really wouldn’t have understood what that windmill sitting in the living room meant until I had a daughter. It meant that she really cared about the fact that I bought her a windmill.

Igor:

Remember also, some of the stories you tell may be for the future.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller Student: I would like some reflection on two things please. The first is something that just came to me when someone else was talking. It was two lines… a song is not a song until you sing it. A story is not a story until you tell it… Robin:

Yes, thank you.

Student: The second thing I want to say is, how about journalists like my sister, who is a journalist, but when she writes her stories I don’t think she looks for these kinds of things, I think she looks for something completely different. Robin:

That would depend on what kind of journalist or paper she’s writing for, partly. Are there any journalists in the room? Quite often the formula is like, say what happened in one sentence at the beginning, say the same thing again in five sentences and then say it all again at the end.

Igor:

The thing to bear in mind with journalists, and you have two kinds who could be the same person, there are the pieces that are there just to inform and you make up your own mind and there are the pieces that are designed to influence you to vote one way or the other, to choose one path or another and so on. The ones that are designed to try and influence you will follow this much more than those who are designed just to inform you and you can make of it what you will.

Randy:

That’s an important point. I was a journalist in the military. There’s a distinction as you mentioned, between fact giving which is journalism in a way and making a commentary, which is a narrative. What we’re talking about is narrative stories. It occurs to me that the elements or structure of a narrative story like what we’re talking about, typically has the two points, plot point one and plot point two. So in the beginning of the story, a very small part we introduce the hero or protagonist, we make him rootable, which means we like him and we establish rapport. There’s something about him we like. We see his flaw which makes him more likable and then as he’s going along we see a little bit of his life and then something happens where he’s going one way and in one way he’s going down a different way much faster.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller Then two or three things happen where he’s challenged, his success or survival and he uses his strengths to overcome them and then the last challenge which would be plot point two, he’s overcome by the antagonist, who is his foil either an individual or challenge. That foil then brings him to the ultimate where his/her survival is threatened which creates the dynamic tension. Then, through developing the flaw which is what Ericksonian hypnosis teaches us, through using the weakness becomes the strength and then he overcomes the foil and the story is resolved. That structure, plot point one introduction to plot point two, eventually the threat and in the end resolution. That seems to be the structure you’re teaching us and that would be the distinction between a journalistic point of view and the other. Igor:

Okay.

Robin:

What Randy has given you there… that in itself is a concise and condensed version of the very elaborate set of journey points that Joseph Campbell talks about. Thank you. Let’s take a break and as you go for your break I’d like you to mingle as you will, and we’re looking at another classic story. We’ve done emotional and elicitation stories, I want you to think about your ‘who I am’ stories. You heard the examples I gave at the beginning. To make it simple I’ll give you a simple process… think of something that’s important to you, family, hobby, career, place, anything.

Igor:

And talk about that.

Robin:

Tell a story about it.

Igor:

Let’s be back in 15. Thank you.

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DVD 3 – The 7 Most Influential Stories Revealed & How To Tell Your Own Version

Who Am I (Connection) Stories Igor:

Welcome back, everyone. Did you have an interesting break? Did you share some stories about who you are? I think a starting point for us right now is to start to collect lots of stories. Everyone please stand up. Here’s how this is going to work. You’re going to do a regular mingling exercise like we’ve done before. This time as you meet someone, you’ll tell your story as quickly as you can. You’ll hear their story and it might remind you of some other who are you stories. Then you’ll move onto someone else. By the time we come on and say change partners, move to someone else and tell a different story again about who you are, something that you like, something that you enjoy doing, something that is important to you. Just keep doing that as we change partners. Once we’ve done that for a little while, we’ll come back and see if we can tease out some useful versions of their stories.

Robin: To be clear, the ‘who I am’ story is the story that establishes human contact, that lets the other person know you’re a human being. Igor:

Which means you are a person that has motivation. You have things that you aspire to, things that you enjoy and things that your life is about. It can be small moments like watching your children sleep, it can be large moments like watching them being born, and it can be all kinds of things in between. → Do you have a rough idea of what I mean? It will get better as you talk to people, so you may as well start now. → How did that go? → Did you have fun with that? → Who had at least one story? It should be all of you. → Who had two stories? → Who had three? That’s good. Still no gold winner but we’re getting close.

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What I want you to do is quickly review the two or three stories that you had, and I’d like you to pull out some little event within it, an icon, a person or something that will remind you of it. When you have it, just close your eyes, think of the room, start at the beginning and review the first story you told today. There’s the second story. If you had a third one, of course you go to the third location and there it is. Then go onto whichever your fourth location was. Go to the next location and place the icon for the first of your stories just now, your first ‘who am I’ story. Just place like a cardboard cutout of it or just imagine a version of that touching on the object – whatever it is. Then go onto the next location and do the same with the second icon, with your second story. Just see the icon and the location just touching it in some way, creating a shape. If you had a third story of course repeat it one more time to the next location and the final story. When you’ve finished all that, you can go right back to the beginning again and just review all four or five stories or however many you had, so you can review them in a sequence. Just think about the icon and the location, and say oh yeah that’s the one. I remember that story. Oh yeah the story where this happened. Just quickly go through. Go through that routine three or four times just so that you can remember oh yeah that’s it, that’s it and you just recognize it. When you’re finished, open your eyes. Just do a quick mental review, and when you’re finished just open your eyes. How many of you remember all of the stories you’ve been telling so far? It’s pretty easy when you place them in certain locations. It’s probably worth putting a few more stories in here, isn’t it? What shall I do for that? Robin: Influence – that’s kind of what we’re working on here, the ways in which what we tell people about ourselves, the kind of picture that that gives people. Imagine the sales situation, which is probably the most focused example of influence and the situation in which we have the most distrust. Human connection is the first thing. People do business with other human beings and if you can demonstrate that, you’re halfway there.

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Why Am I Here (Trust) Stories Robin: The second thing people want to know is why are you here? What are you getting out of this? Can they trust you? What’s your motivation? Igor:

If they don’t know what you want, if they don’t know what your angle is, how can they possibly trust you, because they can’t predict how you’ll respond to whatever situation the two of you might get into?

Robin: Why are you here? What’s your motivation? Right now that’s our context. For example, for those of you who are hypnotherapists or hypnotists who see clients formally, how did you get into it? Why are you doing that? For many people it’s because they experienced the benefits of hypnosis in their own life and were motivated by that to help others. In a sales situation, you can be honest. You’re getting a commission on what you sell. Say you’re making a pitch for building a big retail park or something like that. You could be honest about your motivation. You can say look, I want to make as much money as possible in this situation. If you say I want to make money, what’s the message you’re sending? I want to make money and I don’t care what happens to you. If you can demonstrate why you’re there and be honest about it, people don’t mind that you need stuff and that you want something for yourself. That is an accepted part of human nature and human transactions. Igor:

Provided it doesn’t clash with what they need.

Robin: Absolutely. Particularly if you can demonstrate to people why you’re here and how you can both win in the situation, that’s a very powerful thing. Igor:

For example, take two police officers. One is there because they want to serve and they genuinely want to keep the streets a safe place in the neighborhood. The other one is there because it’s a good job, they get a good pension at the end of it all and it’s a respectable job. You will interact with the two officers, who actually have the same role or function, differently would you not?

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller Robin: Take two trainers. One of them is there to genuinely serve and help other people. The other just wants to be on a pedestal and have everyone worship him. Igor:

The other one is humble enough to realize that someone must sit on the pedestal.

Robin: And to have observed that it’s clearly working for loads of people. Igor:

There you go, quite right. Do you understand the nature of the next ‘why am I here’ stories. Once again, please stand up and spend a minute each just telling stories about your purpose. To give you a context – because that’s going to make it a lot easier for you to find motivation because you’ll be motivated differently in different scenarios – you have a choice of two things. The first context, which I would recommend most, is think about some part of your life where you would like to have some influence over others, maybe as parents of children, maybe as a teacher teaching, maybe whatever your career is. Of course if you’re a hypnotherapist, why are you a hypnotherapist? That’s really the simplest place to put yourself into and to tell a story about. The alternative, which will be more immediate but not as universal or as useful to you, is simply to think why are you here literally in this room taking this training? Those are two viable options. I prefer the first just because it fits your life more practically, but you have a choice. With that idea stand up, find a partner and off you go. Hopefully all of you had one story. Who had two stories? Three? Four?

Robin: Yes, a winner. Igor:

Four? That’s fantastic. Give him a round of applause. Congratulations. Very quickly review your two, three or four stories and just assign it an icon, something that happened within that story that will remind you of that particular story. Once you have two, three or four icons for it, just close your eyes and begin with a mental review. Start with the first story that you told today. Look at the

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller first location and say oh yeah I remember that. Then look at the second location, then the third, then the fourth. If you had more, of course you can go to the fifth and sixth as well if that was relevant to you. Whenever you get to the final location, the one just before the one that was empty, just take your first icon and go to the next location and place that one there. Make sure it touches and alters the shape of the object so that it’s a carbon cutout or an image on top of it. Really think about it there. Then move onto the next location and put your second icon there. By now you’ve collected anywhere between six and eight stories. If you have another story, then of course go to the next location and do that too. Some of you will have six stories. Some of you will have eight or nine stories, maybe even 10 stories, but just fill in the spaces. When those spaces have been filled up with these icons, then just go back to the beginning again and just quickly mentally review them – first location, second, third, fourth. Just a flash of an image is enough. You don’t need to make sense of it yet. It just lets you know that oh yeah with that drawer comes that image, with that desk comes that image, with the knives comes another image and so on and so forth. Just go all the way through all the locations, and then repeat it again. Just do it two or three times just to lock that little journey inside your mind. Whenever you’re ready just open your eyes again. Out of curiosity, how many here have at least six stories located there? That should hopefully be all of you. How many of you have seven? Eight? Nine? Okay eight it is.

Values In Action (Integrity) Stories Igor:

Let’s do some more filling, shall we? What should we usefully put into the next one?

Robin: We’ve made a human connection. We’ve addressed the issue of trust – why am I here? Those of you who follow my blog at HypnoticStorytelling.com will have

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller already heard the Bee Story, the story about the bee. I’m strong and kind and I look after things that are weaker than me. Igor:

There, there. It’s okay.

Robin: If I tell you that straight out, you may or may not believe me. You may think I’m a little conceited, or you may have a reaction to such a blatant statement about my values and what’s important to me. This summer has been a terrible summer in the U.K. It’s been really, really rainy and the bees are really confused and they keep turning up. Like early on in the summer this little bee came buzzing by and landed on the stairs. I saw this bee on the stairs. I was just walking up the stairs and I thought oh that’s a bit sad. I went into the kitchen and got a bit of cardboard. I ripped off a bit of cardboard from a cereal packet, dipped it in some water and soaked it, and then I dipped it in some honey. I took it out, picked up the bee on the bit of cardboard and put it on the windowsill. I just left it there and I watched it. If you check out the blog at HypnoticStorytelling.com, you’ll see there’s a picture of the bee with its little tongue coming out. They love it. He sits there and first he’s like buzzing, and then he starts to wake up. Have you seen a bee’s tongue? They’re huge. He sits there for ages sucking up the honey, sitting in the windowsill. After a bit, he’s like this. Windowsill, freedom. He zooms off into the distance and crashes straight into a wall on the opposite side. He picks himself up again and flies into freedom. It’s a funny story about a bee, but without saying anything I’ve just told you that I think it’s worth taking the effort to save a little bee. I’m demonstrating values in action. The classic example of this in the sales context for example is hey listen, this car is alright and it’s great for the price, but I had another customer come in here the other day and she was looking at this, and I said to her for what you want you probably need a bigger boot size, so I suggest you go and get that car over there. (Why am I looking at you? Who knows?) I suggest you go and get that car over there from that dealer.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller What have I just demonstrated? Integrity. I’ve demonstrated that I’m prepared to lose the sale to do the right thing for the customer. Do you understand values in action? I don’t have to do the bee thing again? Igor:

Just wait until you hear the monkey story. Do you get the idea of the values in action? Put yourself in a context where the stories will be of use to you. In other words, you’re interacting with someone specific. Imagine the people you’re meeting here are going to be those people, and then just present them with a story where you are living embodying whatever values you hold in that context. Let’s put it this way. You can all think of a context where you want to be more influential. Is that correct? You can think of a specific context where you want to influence someone else – be it selling cars, be it influencing your kids, being a salesperson, a manager, a teacher, a trainer or hypnotherapist. You all have that, right? People coming into that context – whether it’s your children, your students, your customers or clients – will have some kind of concern about whether or not you will be ethical. So, consider a story where you were ethical, where you did something that was important although not necessarily easy, or where it would be easier to not do it but you made the effort anyway, and then tell that story. Does that become easier now? Stand up, a minute each, find a partner, off you go.

Robin: That is quiet. Igor:

Yes, that’s nice. How did that go? It seemed like you had a lot more to say than you realized, didn’t it? Who had one story? Two? Three? Four? Fantastic. Once again, you know the drill. Review your three or four stories and see if you can find something within each story that is an icon that represents the whole story for you. Whenever you’re ready, just close your eyes. Some of you have already started doing so. For those of you who are about to run out of locations, that’s okay. You can either choose a few extra things in the room that you hadn’t focused on before, or in a minute we’ll actually add an extension.

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For now just review whatever you did in the previous sessions. You’ve got about six to eight different stories there. Just review the locations, see the icon and say oh I remember. Two, oh yeah I remember. Three, oh yeah I remember, and then four and five. Work your way through all the locations until you get to your first free location, at which point just insert your first icon from this last set of stories. You already know how. Once you get it set there, go to the next location and insert another icon. If you run out of places, just find something else in that room that you’d not focused on before and add it on that. It could be something like the middle of the room, just the carpet in the middle of the room. You can place something there. You can put something on the ceiling if you need extra space. You won’t need that many extra slots. Of course when you’ve put it there, if you have any stories left put one more in there, again on the next location. If you haven’t got a next location, just find something that’s easy to find, like the floor or the ceiling or a particular corner. Make sure that all the stories you told – whether it’s two, three or four – have somewhere in that room to go. Then do a fast mental review. Literally just look at each item in turn and recall the icon that comes with it – first location, second location, third location and all the way through to the end. Do that two or three times and then come back with your eyes open. When you’ve reviewed them two or three times, come back with your eyes open. Just make sure that you recall all the stories you’ve been collecting today. They’ll be of use to you tomorrow. As the last few people finish their mental review, put your hands up if you got between six and 10 stories collected so far. Hands up if you’ve got more than 10 stories collected so far. That’s impressive. That’s very good. Give yourselves a round of applause. Would it be fair to say it’s easy to recall them all at the moment? These stories will continue to develop and you can use the same method to recall more stories.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller The point right now is that you get to have a stable amount of stories to begin with, and they will function as your seven key stories of influence, so you’ll have that at your beck and call, at your disposal whenever you want. What I’d like to do now is help you to build that extension I promised you. It’s going to be exactly the same process you did a moment ago. Just treat it as a different room in your house. You’ve chosen one room – bedroom, living room, kitchen or whichever it is. Mentally just choose another room. Then close your eyes, locate yourself there and then mentally just do an initial scouting. Just look around the room very quickly and just remember all the things that are there. You don’t have to do it in any particular order. If you’re in the bedroom, it will be things like the bed, cupboards, desk, windows, curtains, carpet and stuff like that. In the kitchen, it will be a fridge, oven, sink, cabinets and stuff like that. If you’re a minimalist and things aren’t really out on display that much, feel free to look inside the drawers. You might have your sock drawer. You may have your videotape drawer. You may have a drawer with other things in it. You can just open the drawers mentally and say oh yeah I remember the stuff that goes in this one. Again, once you’ve got a mental review of what’s available to you, just choose a simple path. Start somewhere obvious. Choose a simple path and find at least 10 locations in that room, 10 distinct things that look different. Then trace that path – first one, then two, then three, all the way through to 10. Just take a mental tour as if you were pointing it out to a friend. This is my sock drawer. This is my shirt drawer. This is my DVD drawer. Once you’ve found all 10 locations, repeat the same circuit two or three times just to make sure you clearly recall the path that you took. First you start in this place, then the second location and then the third and so on. Take all the time you need to review that inside your mind. Whenever you’re ready, just open your eyes. There’s no hurry. Make sure you’ve reviewed it two or three times. We have about three-quarters of you back. The last few are just doing a quick mental review. It’s a simple process, is it not, to build your extensions? It’s a

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller very simple process and it’s a really simple process to recall relatively large amounts of information because you have your first six to 10 stories or more and you can recall them very easily. You can expand those stories and you can contract those stories. You’ve told them in short versions and longer versions. Tomorrow we’ll really play with that idea. For now you have an extension, a second room. Some of you haven’t entirely filled the first room. That’s fine. You can finish doing that. Some of you need extra space. You need to have a mental living room, so let’s find some things to put in there. What would you put in the extension? Robin: One of my friends and clients is a composer, a musician. She’s actually one of the top 10 biggest selling artists of the 1990’s in her genre, which is dance music. She has more than 350 published songs. Igor:

That’s a lot.

Robin: Yes, and something like 17 of those make 80% of her income, but she has to create a lot of stuff and she never knows which particular song is going to be successful, and when one song is successful she never knows why, but it’s a numbers game. She says she just keeps churning them out.

Teaching Tales Robin: Which brings us onto our next category of teaching tales. That story was a teaching tale with an implicit unconscious teaching related to your current situation and why we’re getting you to tell all of these stories. You saw that. How many people got that? Thank you. Igor:

If you were to spell it out for them at the end of the story, the implicit or the unconscious part of the teaching tale becomes explicit or conscious, and there are times when that’s also useful.

Robin: Obviously Milton Erickson had lots of teaching tales, and you can read all about them. Zen Cohen and Sufi stories and Christian parables are all examples of kinds of teaching tales.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller One of my favorites – simply because it illustrates this in a very simple way – is the tale of two monks who are traveling to get to their night hostile. It’s raining and they come to a river. Waiting by the side of the river is a beautiful maiden with a nice kimono on, and she doesn’t want to get the kimono wet. So, one of the monks say here you go, love. He picks her up in his arms, wades through the river to the other side and puts her on the side of the bank. Then the two monks carry on the rest of their journey to the hostile. The other monk is sulking a bit. He’s a bit irritated and just as they’re getting ready to go to bed, he bursts out to the first monk how could you do that? You know we’re not meant to associate with women. They encourage us in wicked ways. The first monk says I left her behind at the river, but you still seem to be carrying her. There’s a clear sense there in which the metaphor of carrying something physically is also a metaphor for carrying something emotionally or mentally. Igor:

A man comes out of a bar and stumbles across his friend. His friend is a little worse for wear. He’s just crawling on his hands and knees around the lamp post, just desperately scrapping around. The man says hey George, what are you doing? What’s up? George is a little worse for wear having been in the bar a bit too long, and he says it’s terrible. I’ve lost my house door keys. I can’t get in the house. The man gets down on all fours to help his friend and they start scrapping around for 20 or 30 minutes. They’re looking everywhere. Eventually, in frustration he turns to his friend and says George, are you sure you dropped your keys here? George says oh no, I dropped them in that dark alley over there, but there’s not enough light there to look. For whom might these sorts of stories be useful? Clients? Have you ever tried to give someone advice and they won’t listen? Just let it go, man. Let it go.

Robin: One of the simplest ways of coming up with a teaching tale is to consider something that happened to you, a mistake you made or something that you had a struggle with and the experience you went through to solve or resolve that issue.

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So, do you understand the idea of a teaching tale? It either presents the situation – and humor is kind of useful. You have two humorous examples of people being stuck in one way or another. It can be a personal example – yes, I went through that same experience essentially and I got bitten because I didn’t change, or I did change and therefore I managed to draw a victory. I think most cultures have stories that include the jester, the fool, the clown or something like that. They’re wonderful stories because they poke fun at society when society gets too rigid, and it makes fun of those things to show us that it’s good to have some rules, but sometimes it’s good to be able to go beyond them as well. At this point, it’s useful for you again to think of a specific context. If you’re a salesperson, for example, and you come across the same kind of objection over and over again – I’ll give you a hint, the one that a lot of people always get frustrated by is that it costs too much – what story could you tell to teach the clients that it doesn’t cost too much? It might cost them too much to get something cheaper. If you’re a hypnotherapist or a therapist, what kinds of stories can you tell that will help the problems that you will be facing? What are some of the things? I don’t know if I can do this? I don’t know if I’ve got it in me to change this way. Already I suspect you’re thinking of some things. If you’re a teacher or a parent and your kids aren’t doing so well in school, what kind of teaching tale will help them to persevere despite possible frustrations so that they can triumph? What is a specific context in which you want to influence? Think of a story within that. Once you start the storytelling, you’ll hear others, which you can borrow or adapt to fit your own circumstances and tell the next person in line. That’s one of the ways that stories grow. We hear them and either we share those stories or we adapt them to fit ourselves, and then share the spirit of the story in a different cloak. Are you ready for the exercise? I guess the only thing left to do is to stand up. A minute each, off you go. How did that go? Did you enjoy that? Too short? You start off saying I’ve got no stories to tell. Now it’s like stop interrupting me, I’m telling a story. By this

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller stage, you’ve collected somewhere between 10 to 15 stories, which is pretty impressive, isn’t it? Make sure that we have them at our beck and call, especially tomorrow when we start doing some refinement with these things in terms of how to use them in different ways. Let’s get some icons. Just take a few minutes to think about three or so stories that you just told. Tease out an icon that will represent each one. This time rather than me guiding you through it, you know what to do. Begin by reviewing all the other stories and the locations you’ve placed them in, and then carry on by placing one item at a time until you can go for a full mental review of everything, all 10 to 15 of them. Make sure you review them three or four times so that you’re sure that they’re all set nice and simply. When you’ve done all of that, feel free to come back with your eyes open. Seeing as we have most of you back, you have five categories of stories and you know how to use them. Is that correct? You have a decent idea of where to use them or what their purpose is. The next category is interesting. We could do it the same way we did a moment ago, which creates more stories, but actually we’d like to do something slightly differently. We’d like to show you how every story actually has multiple purposes and can be used in many different ways. For the next category of stories, we’re not going to ask you to make up any new stories. You have quite a nice repertoire – 10 to 15 is a decent number. All we’re going to ask you to do is to reuse the stories that you already have in a way that will fit the constraints that we’re about to give you. What would those constraints be? Robin: We have stories that introduce you and tell people who you are, why you’re here, that demonstrate your values in action, that provide metaphors and teaching tales that help people to reframe their experience.

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Mind Reading (Empathy) Stories Robin: I know that you’ve covered a lot of information since the beginning of today, so you’re probably tired and probably feeling a little bit overloaded. That’s okay because we’ll be finishing up soon and we’ll be giving you a chance to integrate properly and to get a chance to process everything that we’ve done today. The last category of stories that we’re going to be talking about is mindreading stories, stories that let other people know you understand their situation, that you feel their pain, that you understand the difficulty of a particular context or situation or challenge that they face, that you’re able to put yourself in their shoes and understand how the world looks from their point of view. Before you begin to tell a story, you may think there’s a mismatch. Something’s missing. Don’t worry about it. Just choose one of those stories that you’ve already come up with and start to tell it and see what happens. The way that we’d like you to do this is again in pairs. One of you is going to present a problem or situation. Igor:

It could be a child refusing to do homework. It could be a potential buyer objecting about the price. It could be real or imagined. It could be anything you want, just something that could be considered a communication problem or a block.

Robin: What we’d like you to do is simply respond by saying I know what you mean because [story], or I know how you feel because [story]. Igor:

Use one of the stories you’ve already told today, one of the 10 to 15 that you’ve collected. All you’ll do is you’ll review your memory route and say for some reason that one appeals. Start telling it. Even if you don’t quite know why it fits, just notice what comes out. It’s a little ambiguous, I know, but you’ll enjoy it. Stand up and find a partner. And you thought you didn’t have any stories in you. Now you’ve got a lot of stories. You’ve got 10 to 15 stories, and really the usefulness of those 10 to 15 stories is beyond just the five or six categories that we’ve talked about so far because that sixth category – mindreading – shows you how one story can serve many functions depending on what you emphasize and so on. You’ve had an experience of that, haven’t you?

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller There’s a seventh story, which we’ll come onto in a little bit, but before we do that I’d like for you to get an experience of just cementing in the stories you’ve got already. Of course you’ve heard Robin tell stories about the accountant, the rock star, the little bee that could. You’ve heard him tell you about a cat, although you’re not quite sure what the cat story is all about yet because it’s not finished yet. Notice these little titles that instantly summarize each of those stories and you can recollect them. I’d like you to sit next to a partner and over the next minute or so – no more than that – just rattle through all 10 or 15 stories you have in the same format. I have a story about the accountant, the rock star. I have a story about the little bee that could. I have a story about the cat. I have a story about windmills. I have a story about the monk and the woman at the water. They don’t need to understand your story. You do, but I want you to verbalize all the stories and just literally go through your rooms reciting them with a little headline for each one. Does that make sense to you? You have one minute to go through all 10 or 15 stories, and then they’ll have one minute to go back, and then we’ll come back and do something. Off you go. Did you enjoy that? Did you enjoy speaking about your 10 or 15 stories? Were you curious about everyone else’s stories? We’ll be doing more of that tomorrow.

Transformational Stories Igor:

For now there’s a seventh story that we haven’t covered yet. The seventh story in some ways touches a little bit on all of them, but actually goes beyond them all at the same time.

Robin: It’s a story that’s the kind of thing you find in dreams. Igor:

It’s the kind of thing that you will have experienced many times in your life often without realizing.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller Robin: And myths and your personal heroic journey. Igor:

You’ll have been moved by it in other people’s experiences, their lives, and it has a lot to do with going inside.

Robin: And just taking the time... Igor:

To really appreciate…

Robin: You know what comes next… Igor:

That there are many ways to…

Robin: Make yourself feel comfortable now. Put your feet together on the floor… Igor:

And really everyone has the capacity…

Robin: To make yourself comfortable… Igor:

And focus inside…

Robin: Take a deep breath in… Igor:

And allow the mind to just drift, roll, float.

Robin: You’re aware of the room around you, even as your eyes are closed. Igor:

And there are many thoughts only you do not need to think them all.

Robin: Today has stirred up feelings. Igor:

It’s stirred up ideas.

Robin: Begun the process… Igor:

Experiences…

Robin: Of creating within you… Igor:

A real sense…

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Robin: Of your own innate ability… Igor:

A purpose for being here…

Robin: To simply create. Igor:

And there’s a feeling that goes with that.

Robin: A feeling that brought you here. Igor:

It’s much like…

Robin: The feeling that will take you forward… Igor:

The way you fall asleep at night.

Robin: That’s right. Igor:

And the thoughts of the day just lazily drift around.

Robin: I don’t know if you remember the last thing you remember just before you go to sleep. Igor:

Become part of your dreams landscape.

Robin: You do, don’t you? Igor:

Things occur…

Robin: Just dream… Igor:

Experiences…

Robin: Sometimes as you lie there… Igor:

Coming together…

Robin: Preparing for sleep…

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So nice.

Robin: Images, sensations… Igor:

And there’s no particular thought or idea or image to attach to it.

Robin: It’s just that as you… Igor:

Drift and go to sleep…

Robin: Sitting there… Igor:

And simply have the experience of…

Robin: You’ve been on a journey, haven’t you? Igor:

Being in that dream. In a dream you could be walking on a path.

Robin: You could open a door… Igor:

You could be in a lovely place with flowers and nature.

Robin: Into another world… Igor:

And stand and appreciate the sights around you…

Robin: As you stand… Igor:

The sense, the sounds…

Robin: You begin to feel lighter. Igor:

A place like this would be marvelous to walk in.

Robin: It’s almost like you begin to drift. Igor:

A path…

Robin: Up and up…

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Would suggest a direction in which to go.

Robin: So that you can take wing… Igor:

Forwards…

Robin: Looking down… Igor:

Surrounded by those pleasant…

Robin: Landscapes stretching out… Igor:

Natural scenes…

Robin: Around you… Igor:

A plant, a rock…

Robin: The wind catches under your wings. Igor:

An animal…

Robin: Rising higher… Igor:

And the ease with which you can travel this path.

Robin: You begin to simply… Igor:

Going deeper and deeper…

Robin: Feel yourself guided… Igor:

Finding over there in the distance…

Robin: Towards a special place… Igor:

A green dense area…

Robin: You see in the distance a forest…

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Like a forest, a wood…

Robin: Looking down the clearing… Igor:

Trees upon trees upon trees…

Robin: Whether you drift on a wind or… Igor:

And the curious thing is…

Robin: Simply feel yourself drawn there… Igor:

The path leads straight through that.

Robin: Looking down, you move over the landscape, seeing the path… Igor:

The rolling hills or the flat plains…

Robin: From that place, you can see so far. Igor:

Can be walked with comfort and ease.

Robin: Just float and drift until that feeling of being drawn seems to grow… Igor:

A person finds themselves at the edge of a forest…

Robin: More and more you’re drawing to that forest… Igor:

And knowing that stepping through the limits that delineate the outside world and the forest path…

Robin: Or floating above… Igor:

There will be some changes that occur…

Robin: Drifting down until a clearing… Igor:

It’s cooler in the forest, darker, the sounds more intimate.

Robin: You sense the forest around you breathing…

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Igor:

The sound of the trees with a slight breeze…

Robin: And you come to stand again… Igor:

And there a clearing in the middle of it all…

Robin: A clearing in the middle of it all. Igor:

And a house…

Robin: Waits for you there… Igor:

With a step…

Robin: You step up… Igor:

And a door…

Robin: And open the door moving… Igor:

Inside…

Robin: Deep inside… Igor:

The house…

Robin: Welcomes you… Igor:

Friendly…

Robin: With that familiar feeling… Igor:

Something important here…

Robin: Is waiting for you… Igor:

Find the right room…

Robin: And in that room what waits for you…

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Igor:

Is a person…

Robin: A storyteller… Igor:

Of great renown…

Robin: And great importance for you… Igor:

There’s a comfortable chair…

Robin: Because they have… Igor:

Right over there.

Robin: A story for you now as you sit down comfortably in that chair… Igor:

And really listen…

Robin: To the story… Igor:

Really listen…

Robin: The storyteller has to tell you. Igor:

And understand…

Robin: And whether you hear the story completely… Igor:

Sense it…

Robin: Or drift into a dream in which you see it… Igor:

Or just know…

Robin: And feel that you’re… Igor:

And experience this…

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller Robin: Receiving the gift of the seed, the beginning of something that can continue to grow… Igor:

So rest comfortably…

Robin: In that place… Igor:

And as we’re silent for a while, really experience that story…

Robin: You’re told… Igor:

In the right way…

Robin: By the right person… Igor:

Now. And you can experience anything you wish with great comfort.

Robin: And whether you know what you’ve heard, or whether you forget for now to remember… Igor:

Like a dream…

Robin: The message the storyteller tells… Igor:

Things can fade…

Robin: Will continue to resonate within you… Igor:

Or be clear, a comfortable chair in a room…

Robin: To work inside… Igor:

To remind you of an experience…

Robin: As you begin to hear the call… Igor:

The fading memory of a dream…

Robin: You know the way home, don’t you?

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Out the door, down the steps, a clearing in a forest…

Robin: And all the way back home Igor:

Path or….

Robin: A flight… Igor:

Because you’ve had…

Robin: Just as much time as you need… Igor:

To realize that every night you dream…

Robin: And sleep… Igor:

And in those dreams, things of importance happen.

Robin: And everything you’ve learned today… Igor:

Gets to be reviewed…

Robin: And repeated… Igor:

Integrated…

Robin: In new and starling ways… Igor:

So that each morning when you awaken…

Robin: You won’t know how… Igor:

Something important did occur…

Robin: And you won’t know when… Igor:

You’ll realize what that was…

Robin: But you can…

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As a person awakens…

Robin: Imagine just how good you’ll feel… Igor:

When those eyes finally do open…

Robin: And you begin to realize that you can… Igor:

Come back and awaken all over now…

Robin: In the satisfaction of having done a great job of getting through a lot of work today. I don’t know about you, but we thought we had a lot of material to cover today and we weren’t sure whether we were going to be able to deal with all of that. I know that you’re all going to have questions, and there are some things that won’t be clear for you yet, but as you process over the next 12 hours, you can ask us tomorrow when you return. Igor:

Thank you very much everyone. See you in the morning.

Robin: Give yourselves a round of applause. Well done. I’m very impressed.

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DVD 4 – How To Turn Any Story Into A Truly Transformational Tale

Q&A Session Robin:

Good morning. I was just going to stay asleep until you poked me.

Igor:

Now that we’ve woken the beast, can we have some assistance with microphones? As we promised you yesterday, we want to start off today with a Q&A session. You can reflect on the experiences you had yesterday or any questions you have about it, realizing of course we’re just starting the second day of a three day training. What have noticed?

Student: I noticed that as I was reflecting on the stories this morning and last night that my memories that I turned into stories, the stories all have a different point of view, a different narrative than it was when it was just a memory. That’s very interesting because now I can see my parents’ views on some things or my friends’ views or whatever. Igor:

There are a couple of things to address there, which I think are of great importance. The first one is now you really understand what we mean by remembering something. That’s really what a memory is. You remember it. You’re pulling it together out of constitutional parts. However you are as a person when you recall something or actually remember it, you’ll alter the memory to fit that. That also brings up the second part of it, which is as you remember stories, both tragedies and comedies – in the technical sense, comedies being happy stories and tragedies being sad ones – you’ll alter them. They’ll change for you and that’s a very useful thing. Doug Lipman, the storyteller, has a very wise comment that there are essentially two or three kinds of stories you will tell.

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1. You tell stories that you need to hear. You know those are stories you need to hear because when you tell them – and it doesn’t matter if you tell it to one friend or to a group – you’ll find strong emotions coming out of you. At times you may even have to pause the story to be able to complete it. 2. Then there are the stories that they need to hear. You never quite know why you know they need to hear it but you do. Recall Doug Lipman is a great storyteller. He’s not a therapist and he has no therapeutic training experience or anything like that. Whenever he tells a story to a group, invariably he either changes something he had already planned – either the story or the way he defines a story – and invariably at the end of the evening someone comes up to him and says how did you know that I needed to hear that story, or how did you know that story was about me – or words to that effect. I have no idea how that works. I’ve had lots of examples of that in my own therapeutic practice, although of course I try to get to the point where they say how did you know? I know that Robin has had the same kind of experiences, but those are the two most important stories you’ll tell – the ones you tell for yourself because you grow, and the ones you tell for other people because somehow you have a sense that this is an important story to tell at this point. You won’t always know which type of story it is until you’ve finished. Robin:

I hear quite a few examples of people saying I had this experience, but it’s not really a story, like the most exciting thing that happened to me was I jumped off a really high cliff and it was just an amazing experience to feel that fear and then to jump and hit the water 80 feet below, not knowing what I was going to feel like. That’s an experience. As an emotional elicitation story, you can imagine eliciting fear and anticipation and all of those things through that story. However, in the sense that we’re talking about stories here – stories that have

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller a beginning, a middle and an end, having a hero and an antagonist, etc. – it doesn’t have those. Not immediately obviously. The tool that we gave you yesterday and the tools that we’ll give you today are ways of taking that memory and transforming it and giving it a different shape. If I just relate that experience, then it’s just an experience. If I frame it like I was always afraid of heights until XYZ, and then showing me how ABC – as Igor said, it’s not what happened. It’s what we make of it and how we use it. The act of storytelling is lying. Memory is lying because we can never capture the whole truth of an experience. Even if we could capture our whole truth, that would still only be one perspective on it and other people would see and hear it differently. Like for some psychotic reason, Igor has no ability to see the truth of the Bahamas. Igor:

It saddens me that Robin really doesn’t understand what a dire position I helped him out of.

Robin:

It’s like he just has a mental block that stops him from seeing...

Igor:

I’m a good friend. And as long as I see him succeed after all the efforts I put into it.

Robin:

… what he really needs. There you go.

Igor:

I can accept that. Thank you. Who’s next?

Student: When we were anchoring stories into the roots, I tried it before and it was very hard to visualize, but this time it was much easier to visualize and really play with these concepts. Why was it easier this time? Igor:

I have one word for you – hypnosis. You have become a very capable hypnotic subject. You’ve done a lot of training in that sense, and your unconscious mind is going oh I get it, sure I’ll do this. Memory is fundamentally an unconscious process. Even if you use memory tricks, all those memory tricks are designed to do is to stimulate the

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller unconscious mind into recalling it by a mechanism that it’s predisposed to recall. For example for survival reasons, all human beings – and some will challenge this to some degree – but as a rule people have an excellent spatial memory so that you can go running around in the forest and understand that this tree and that tree are different and orient because of it. Otherwise we would just be lost and saying all right I went for a pee, and where the heck is everyone now. I don’t know. We have a very strong memory for locations, and by using locations to attach things to, we’re just basically going into a sub-routine, a program that the unconscious already runs and says okay you’re running this show anyway, so let’s just put something useful there too. As a rule, the more you develop that relationship with your unconscious mind, the more powerful your memory will be. At some point, I may actually do a whole week seminar just on memory stuff, but if you really want to see that you have to send lots of emails in because the more people ask for stuff, the more likely I can get it through my conscious filter called Cliff. Robin:

And also he’ll remember to do it.

Igor:

Yes, my memory is terrible.

Robin:

Just as a follow-on from that, if you really want to make these memories something that’s automatic for you that you can just bring to life as you’re inspired to do so by people, and then it’s about translation between sense systems. Take the visual memory and talk about it. Take what you can tell and see it. Make sure you feel both of those things.

Igor:

And tell the stories. As a rule of thumb in terms of how to go from short-term memory to medium-term memory to long-term memory, right now all the stories you did yesterday are medium-term memory, so they’re not locked in there yet. Those stories that you wish to lock in there follow a simple reset schedule. When you add a memory, 10 minutes later you review it. An hour later you review it and a day later, a week later, a month later, six months later and a year later.

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By the six-month to a year mark, that will become a permanent memory. In other words, it will no longer erase. You have to do a lot of distraction to erase those kinds of memories. That’s a very useful way of doing it. By reviewing it, I don’t mean you have to spend hours looking at it. It’s just literally mentally you can spend about five seconds just going yes, yes, yes and that little pause I had, that tells me that’s the one that I have to reinforce slightly. Then that’s it. You’re good to go. That’s the beauty of using the visual system as a starting point because it’s the fastest one. Then you add all the layers like Robin was talking about to enrich it. Are there any other questions or comments? Student: As you were talking this morning, we were talking about telling stories to one another. What occurred to me was a story that I told myself in the early 1990’s because I had a situation. My mother killed herself. She shot herself in the head in a closet, and after that happened people always say if a child died – which I thank you for the child dying story – that you don’t have a future. You can’t imagine a future. In my case it was the same feeling, so I’ve told myself a story. We didn’t talk too much about the stories you tell yourself, but I told a story that I couldn’t see the future, but I was sure there were all these people with pinstripes shirts and white shirts with these really cool collars wearing jeans and loafers. They were like totally clear about the future. They were going to do the future. So I said what I’ll do is I’m just going to grab a hold of the back of one of their shirts and in five years I’ll wake up and I’ll be in a future. I didn’t know which one it was going to be or what it would look like, but the story worked really well and I did wake up. Igor:

Thank you for sharing that. It’s a very powerful story. In fact, the story you just shared with us is probably one of the most powerful that you can tell. It’s the kind of story that shape the very fabric of our reality, and you’ve actually foreshadowed something that we’ll be coming onto tomorrow, which is these stories that we tell ourselves and these stories that people tell each other in groups and so on that fundamentally shape the fabric of our lives and the societies that we live in.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller That’s something that we’ll come onto tomorrow, so thank you for sharing that. Just for everyone else, of course you can appreciate the story that you just heard is literally a life-changing one. It’s literally life and death for many people. Storytelling can be chit-chat, storytelling can be influential and storytelling can be something that starts and stops wars. It can be a very powerful thing, so thank you for sharing that. Are there any other questions?

Monastery & Cat Stories Part 1 Igor:

In that case, let’s do some storytelling. There’s a man. He’s an advertising executive. He’s very busy and very good. He’s easily the top-ranking sales guy in the advertising agency. By that I mean clients are always lining up to work with this guy. People really love him. As things happen, he ends up becoming very busy. There’s a lot of work. For whatever reason, he gets consumed by working. He really loves it and he’s passionate about it, but then work starts developing a life of its own and sucking him further and further into it. At one point in time, he starts to get to the point where he starts burning out. He’s just feeling like something’s missing in his life. Years have passed and he’s lost touch with his friends. He’s been through two marriages. Something is missing here. His boss, who’s actually a good friend now because he’s the only person he’s been hanging out with really, comes in one day and says you’re a great advertising executive. You really are good at what you do, and I can tell that of late your work has been suffering. It’s still genius compared to everyone else we’ve got, but I can see that you’re not in a good place right now. He says I think as a friend I’m going to do something that is going to be useful to you, but you’re not going to like it very much. I’m going to force you to take a sabbatical. You’re going to take off three or four weeks. You may not come to work. You may not take anything from work. You’re just going to go and live life. Go crazy. Go on a world tour. Go join a rock band. Do something.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller Of course the man doesn’t like this idea at all. He’s lost. He’s like one of these prisoners who spend their entire life in prison and when they get released they don’t know how to make sense of the world. He’s a little frightened but his boss being true to his word as a security guard standing by his desk so that he can’t collect any work. The security guard escorts him out and he drives home. The first night he’s sitting at home thinking what the heck do I do with myself? First he does all the things he told himself he would do. He watches late night TV. He drinks beer. He watches some more TV and drinks some more beer. He wakes up the next day with hangover saying what the heck do I do with myself? Somewhere along the lines he gets the idea that he ought to just get in his car and just drive and just see where he ends up. So, he gets into his car and he starts driving. He’s got a big bottle of water and a sandwich in case something happens. He has a tank full of gas and he’s got a little sports bag in the back with some clothing and that’s it – no phone, no laptop, nothing. He just drives. He’s playing music on the radio and he’s starting to enjoy himself. He’s driving all day and it starts getting towards evening and the sun is starting to set. He’s starting to get really tired because he’s been driving all day. He’s having a good time but now the adventure is starting to wear a bit thin. He can’t turn back – although he wants to – because it would take just as long to get back. So, he starts to look out for a motel or a town where he can stay, but there’s nothing. He’s in the middle of open country and there’s really nothing around. As the sun starts to set, he starts to get a little desperate because he really needs to stay somewhere and the last thing he wants to do is sleep in a cramped car in the middle of nowhere. As he’s driving, he sees a little hillside, like a small mountain or a tall hill – take you pick of what you call it – and on top of this there’s this old ramshackled building, kind of like a monastery or something. There’s a light sparkling because now it’s starting to get towards nighttime.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller He thinks to himself, maybe it’s a hotel. Maybe it’s one of those freaky retreat type places. I’ll take a risk. At the very least, they’ll have a parking lot I can stay in. So, he drives around all the winding roads and gets lost a few times, but there’s that light up on the hill. Luckily it’s right at the top of the hill, so he backtracks and goes around the other side. He’s a little bit lost and after about an hour or so, he gets to this monastery and it’s now pitch black. The stars are out. There’s no moon. It’s dark. It’s probably around 10:00 or 11:00 o’clock at night. He gets out of his car and goes up to this huge wooden gate. You know those gates with a little gate inside of it, a little door like mansized and then the other one is for very big people? He knocks on this door and there’s no response, so he bangs on the door and you can hear the booming sound of the wood going through what is obviously a very large corridor or a hallway behind it. There’s no reply, so he bangs again. He’s just about to turn around to get back in his car and just crash in the back seat, when he hears a little shuffling coming along and some clanking of keys. It takes a while but eventually there’s the clanking of keys and the door clicks open, and there’s a little old monk in his brown habit. He looks up with kindly eyes and says yes my son, what can I do for you? The man explains his situation and says I’ve been driving all day and I’m trying to look for a place to stay. There’s nothing around here. The monk is nodding his head and he’s very sympathetic. The man says can I just stay for one night here? I’m sorry to intrude but I’ll pay you lots of cash. The monk says oh no, payment is not important to us, but really it’s not the way of our order to allow strangers to stay here. The man says oh please just one night, I’ll be gone tomorrow and you won’t even know I’ve been here. The old man says all right but I have to talk to the father abbot first, so please give me a moment. He shuts the door and there’s this loud noise. Slowly he shuffles off again.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller The man’s waiting for ages and thinking maybe the old man has fallen asleep somewhere, but eventually he hears the shuffling again and the keys start clinking again and he gets a little excited. The door clicks open and the old man opens the door again and next to him is standing another man who’s also old – not quite as old as the doorkeeper. He’s kind of that age that is dignified. There’s strength to it. He introduces himself as the abbot of this Abbey. He says I understand that you want to stay here for the night. I know that Father Gregory here explained to you that we don’t normally let strangers into our order. We’re a very special order and we have a very unique task in this world, and really it’s not for most people but we can’t turn people away in need, that’s part of our mandate is to help those in need. So, you may stay here for one night but there is a condition and you must accept this condition without reserve; otherwise, you may as well just turn around, get in your car and drive somewhere else. The man’s a little desperate now, so he says anything, whatever you say. The abbot says all right, we’ll give a room. It will be a simple room. It will just be a monk’s room, with a palette, a bed and a pitcher of water. You must promise that when you get into this room, you will not leave it until the sun rises. You may not leave this room for any reason until the sun rises. The man says of course, I’ll happily do that. The abbot says there’s one other thing. No matter what you hear tonight, no matter what it is, no matter what you think it is, you need to know two things. The first thing is you will always be safe. No matter what you hear and no matter what happens, you are 100% safe. Do not leave your room, and please do not ask us about that because not being part of our order and not being a monk like us, I cannot tell you. The man says okay that’s no problem, that’s fine, whatever you say. So, he gets led to his sleeping quarters. It’s a simple palette. There’s a little table with a pitcher of water and an old-fashioned bed pan underneath the bed in case he has to go to the loo in the middle in the night. The man is exhausted and falls asleep. Just as he’s falling asleep he hears a little click locking the door that he’s just come in, which he thinks is very

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller strange. At one minute past midnight, there is the most disturbing sound. It’s impossible to describe. It’s as though a soul is being tortured. It sounds sad and mad. It sounds like all the grief in the world combined with all the terror. The man sits bolt upright in spite of how tired he is and he’s sweating. The sound continues for six hours until just when the first rays of sun peek over the hill and kind of crack over the monastery. Literally the moment that first little crack of sunlight strikes the monastery, it just turns off like someone switched off a light switch. The man is exhausted and terrified. He’s shaking in his bed but eventually fatigue takes over and he falls asleep. Robin:

That’s funny. That reminds me of something.

Igor:

I thought it would.

Robin:

We’ll get started on the seventh category of story. Actually, what it reminds me of is that feeling of being trapped in a room. I had that just a couple of weeks ago. How it started was there was this cat and it’s been hanging out in my back garden for ages. I was kind of ignoring it because I was hoping it would stop pooping in my garden and stop killing the birds and stuff like that. Are there any cat lovers in the room?

Igor:

No puppies were harmed in the making of this video. Cats I don’t know about.

Robin:

I like cats. To be honest I’ve started to feel quite affectionate towards this cat because it was always around my house. It kept coming in. But at the same time I was putting down chili powder and throwing catnip into the neighbor’s garden just to try to get the cat to move on. Anyway my upstairs neighbor comes down to visit and we’re sitting out in the garden. She’s stroking this cat and she says oh my God this cat is starving. Have you noticed how thin it is? She said you can feel its bones through its fur. It’s all fur basically and the fur isn’t in good condition. It was obviously a black cat at some point, that kind of dark, very brown, almost black color but it’s kind of gone ginger, which is apparently a sign of bad nutrition.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller It hasn’t got a collar on. I know that it’s been hanging around the back garden for at least the last couple of years. My neighbor, Anna, was going you have to feed this cat. Why aren’t you feeding it? It’s clearly starving. I said no because then it will just keep coming back. In the end, I think about it for a couple of days and decide to buy it a tin of Kit-Kat, oh no Whiska’s, cat food. You can tell I’m a big animal lover. I like the wild ones. So I opened the can of cat food and lay it out for it. It’s straight there wolfing it down, clearly starving, the poor thing. I thought obviously it’s a starving cat. I was passing a pet shop a bit later and I don’t know why but I found myself back home with a hair brush and a little mouse for it to play with. Anyway I suppose I’m adjusting to the new life. It seems like I’ve adopted this cat now. The next day there’s a knocking on my door. I go to the front door and there’s this huge guy dressed in motorcycle leathers standing there saying did you feed my cat? Are you trying to steal my cat? That cat has got diabetes. You could kill it. Oops. You really don’t want to feed diabetic cats food that is rich in sugar and carbohydrates because for one thing they can’t digest it, and secondly their blood sugar levels start going up and down and they could die. I’m not feeling too bad about this to be honest because I fed a starving cat that looked like a stray. I subtly suggest that perhaps a collar that says don’t feed me because I’m diabetic might be useful. But his attitude is we’ve never had any problems around here. That cat’s 19 years old, I’ve looked after it for 19 years. Don’t you understand? Would you like me to bring my vet bills round for you is that what you want? Maybe you want to share them with me? I’m thinking I’m really sorry I fed your cat. I didn’t understand the situation. I won’t do it again. So, I get back to work but now I’ve got this really uncomfortable feeling because the cat’s not going away. It’s still sitting in my back garden and now I’m thinking oh my God, now this big motorcycle guy is attached to the cat. If I reach out to stroke the cat, he’ll say did you stroke my cat? Did you? Now I’m starting to feel a bit tense in my own place about using my back garden. This is really unfair. We really don’t have time for this now, do we? That was just indulgent of me. Please forgive me.

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Transformational Stories Robin:

So, you were asking about the seventh category of stories. The seventh category that we’re going to look at today is: → Transformational stories, stories about transformation, stories that inspire transformation. You may have noticed that these categories that we’re giving you are not clear cut and obviously, as Milton Erickson demonstrated so effectively, one story can serve many purposes. The situations and the events that you’ve been describing in your stories, when you apply that model of five elements to them, that’s one way that that memory kind of gets shaped and morphed and changed more towards that shape that we recognize unconsciously as the shape of the story. Today I’m going to give you another model. It’s really simple. There are three phases: 1. Beginning 2. Middle 3. End In the beginning was the word. The word made flesh. Oh, that’s a different story. In the beginning section, you clearly articulate the problem or challenge or question. In the middle section, you demonstrate or explain the struggle. You get them feeling the struggle, the journey. In the end, you present the moment of awareness that leads to transformation. Someone was asking me about this yesterday. Somebody was pointing out that if you look at a film, what typically happens is somewhere in the beginning section they will outline the hero’s flaw, what it is that the hero

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller needs to overcome. Then they’ll leave it and there will all kinds of other things going on, other elements, and they play jeopardy right until the end. Then right at the end, you’ll have a success against the antagonist, and then the big villain will come back and Spider Man will be just about to get it and then suddenly right at the end there will be the moment where the hero overcomes his flaw and that’s the strength, the awareness that enables him then to be the victor, to triumph, to transform. Any story that you have can become that kind of story ultimately. It’s in the passion that you tell it, in the way that you tell it and in the way that you draw people in. It’s in the relevance of the story you choose to the audience that you tell. Do you have an example of one of those? Igor:

Well, I never used to be very good at telling stories. I didn’t think I was. Of course going through things like hypnosis, NLP, my own trance training and so on, stories are kind of demanded of you. It’s part of what you’re supposed to do. I remember before I chose this sort of thing as a career, believe it or not if you take every possible element of uselessness as far as public speaking goes and put it in one person, that pretty much defines me. I recall as a junior lawyer I was sent to the Frankfurt office. They had a thing with a time at a local university where one of the lawyers would go in every year and present two segments on English law. Of course the office gets very busy and there’s a lot of stuff going on, so invariably it gets delegated to the most junior member who can’t really say no, because you can see the ball tumbling- no, no, no you do it. All right. Of course, they said it should be very easy because the lecture’s already been outline by a previous lawyer who’d been there a few years ago. They said don’t worry. He’s written the two lectures out for you already word for word. He’s even put the jokes in, so you’ve just got to turn up and read. You can see where this is going, right? So, I turn up and there’s this room full of students and they have an open-ended square, boardroom style, and they’re all very serious sitting there looking at me. In Germany, of course, students tend to be a lot older than in England because their law program gets extended. So, they’re all pretty much my age

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller and some are actually a little older than me because they’re all doing their Master’s and stuff like that. They’re very serious about understanding British law because they’ll have to deal with international at some point, right? So, here I am reading my notes and going through it and trying my best, because this was the first time I’d actually read this stuff and I’m doing my best to actually make sense of the sentence. Okay, there’s a joke and there’s the punch line. Then I carry on reading. I’m sweating profusely. At the end of the seminar, they’re polite enough to knock on the table. That’s the way they applaud goes – I hope. Maybe it’s just get out. Robin:

Did they put a black cat on at the same time?

Igor:

Yes, they got the sticks and started dipping them in pitch.

Robin:

Grab the feathers.

Igor:

It wasn’t my proudest moment. Really, my career as a presenter pretty much ended there. Something happened. I started doing hypnosis trainings and NLP, training to be a professional presenter. Somewhere along the lines, I heard many different hypnotic stories, training stories and all kinds of stuff, and they kind of seeped in. I used to love just hearing them. I could sit there for hours. In fact I did. As part of my learning process – this will date me a little bit – I would get the audio tapes of my favorite instructors or the people I was admiring, and I would listen to those audio tapes. Some of them actually wore out. This also dates me. This is when mini discs became the hot new thing. I was one of the first people to actually have a mini disc player. I’d transcribe these fading tapes onto mini discs. They’ve long since died in case anyone’s wondering. I would listen to them and my favorite part would always be the stories, which is ironic because it’s the bit that I didn’t think I could do. I did my trainer’s training and of course part of it is you’ve got to create lots of stories to prepare people for whatever training segments you’re doing and so on, and I always thought my stories were a bit weak.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller I kind of did them perfunctorily. I just say yeah they’re on the checklist that they’re looking for, so I’ll just throw them out. I won’t really think much of it. People were very nice, but then of course they’re taught to be nice in terms of feedback, so I didn’t think much of it. I still didn’t think I was doing much in terms of storytelling. Anyway I did pretty well in the trainer’s training. I enjoyed it and got my certificate. I’m actually allowed to stand on a stage now. I have permission. Then at some point not long after this, I got it into my head that maybe this would be an alternative career that I’d like to get into, the idea of teaching people things – either as a hypnotherapist, a coach or a trainer. They were all kind of tumbling around in my mind, so I experimented with all sorts of approach. The very first thing that I did after coming back to the U.K. was I arranged for one of these practice groups. You know how they have hypnosis practice groups and NLP practice groups? I arranged to go there and teach an evening class, like an hour and a half hour class for free, just to get my training skills going. Of course part of those training skills is telling stories and whatnot. I figured I’d invite my father down so that he could see what I was planning to do because he already knew I’d handed my resignation in, so he knew I was in my notice period. He was very concerned but also very supportive. He always said go for it, do it if you really need to. Of course I suspect the fact that my law firm said that my job is open to me if I ever needed to come back did help matters. It definitely helped me. So, I turned up and I started doing this thing. It was a very simple seminar on flow states and states of peak performance. Of course to bring it all out, I had to tell lots of stories to get people into the mood and to really understand what it would feel like. It went pretty well. People clapped. There were about 20 people in the room, including my dad. They clapped and they were very nice. They shook my hand afterwards and said thank you very much. I thought that’s nice. It was better than the last time I’d stood on a stage.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller That night I went to dinner with my father. It was a simple dinner, and he said something to me that really charmed me and that really actually made me feel very good. He said Igor, when you told me that you were leaving the law firm to find another career, I’ve always supported you but I’ll tell you right now that I was a little concerned. I thought you were a little bit nuts but after seeing the looks on those people’s face tonight, I have no more doubts. I don’t think it was until then that I realized I could tell stories. Did you mean something like that? Robin:

Yes, fantastic. Thank you. It was not bad for a beginner. One of the things that I’m really clear on in my coaching is that if you want to tell extraordinary stories that touch people’s lives, then you have to be extraordinary. You have to go out and do extraordinary things. Put yourself in situations where you take risks, where you allow the universe to present you with the opportunities to transform. Many of the stories that I tell are moments like that. However, they’re not all. We don’t always go through life having those moments every day, and it’s useful to be able to construct a story because you know you want to say something, and you have something to say that will be useful. You think how can I tell this? How can I explain this journey that I’m going on, and make it into a transformational story? I’ve had a running joke with Randy, who’s just left the building, so let’s talk about him while he’s gone. Basically I started a few days ago telling a story. It was the one about my mate ringing me up just before he went to the poker game. This was a genuine thing that happened. He came to see me before he went to a poker game. I had a conversation with him. I did a little bit of messing. He’s a friend and it’s what I do for a living. He came back the next week and he said I won 50 quid. I haven’t won anything for two years and I won 50 quid that night. Please can I come round again before I go play poker tonight? I told that story to the assistants. That’s right, I told it to you first a while back? I did the one sentence version of the story and it got a laugh from Igor because he’s quick enough to get it straightaway.

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I wanted to illustrate that it goes back to this idea of artistry, the interplay between conscious mind and unconscious mind. What I will do a lot with stories is tell them and fail and not worry about it. I just say oh well that one didn’t work, so I’ll try it again on somebody else or maybe if I tried this. I’ll just try it and see what responses I get. Sometimes I get a laugh, and sometimes I don’t and then I never talk to them again. Not really. That’s just part of the process of refining and telling stories. What I’m going to do is I’m going to very quickly see if I can create one of these live from something that I’ve never thought about before. Igor:

Let’s give him a round of applause for that, folks.

Robin:

I have a sense of something that I want to articulate, and it’s actually about being on stage and going out there and training and being successful. That’s the general area, and I’ve got some thoughts about the journey but it’s not very clear. The beginning is when Igor finally persuaded me after much cajoling and frankly bribery and flattery, and blackmail at one point – you did delete those images, didn’t you?

Igor:

Maybe.

Robin:

I better make this a good story. So, I flew into the Bahamas and the thing is for the last three or four years I’ve very much been kind of just running my little private clinic, seeing clients who were referred to me, and keeping a low profile. The thing is back when I was in my 20’s when I was much younger, I ran a theater company that was very successful doing what it did. It wasn’t nationally successful or anything like that, but in the town where I live it was the biggest thing going and hundreds of people came through that theater company and got their start in theater, and I realized that what I was good at was creating a safe space for people to learn from each other and from their mistakes, and have a good time going it. But there were elements of my success that I really didn’t like. While I love it when you laugh and I love it when you clap and come up and tell me how

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller great I am, at the same time I was Mr. Shakespeare in the park in those days and that meant that everyone and anyone involved in the town thought they could say what they liked about me. They thought that they knew me because I had a public face, and that meant that I attracted all kinds of weirdo’s. It meant that I attracted stories that were inspired by jealousy and envy. Oh he’s this and he’s that. That’s all this kind of dark. My friend calls it an egregore. It’s like a dark spirit made up of all the gossip and the bad rumors that people spread about you and these can kind of follow you around. You’ve notice that, right Igor? Igor:

It comes with the territory.

Robin:

Then there was the other thing, whenever I would start a relationship with somebody; I never knew whether it was me they really liked or whether it was because I was that guy and could help them in their career or something like that. Those things bothered me because I’m actually quite a private person in lots of ways. I like my family. I like spending time in my garden, hanging out with my daughter and going for walks. I didn’t really have the energy or the motivation to want to go out there and do that. As Igor said, I spent a lot of time just saving the world one person at a time, and this was a real struggle for me. Check. I spent a lot of time practicing Buddhist meditation and trying to become unattached from my ego, and I always thought that you needed a lot of ego to be that guy who stands up on that pedestal and says look at me, I’m great, I can teach you all what to do.

Igor:

No bearing on me.

Robin:

In the Bahamas, I talked to Igor. I talked to the guys who were there. I was still really struggling with this and struggling just for a way to see my way clear to being able to go out there and be more energetic and productive in my work because I have a daughter now, so that’s extra motivation. It wasn’t until coming here actually that things really changed. It wasn’t anything that Igor said or did, although seeing just how focused he was the entire time on your learning and just how dedicated he keeps his state of H++

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller when dealing not just one-on-one but with the whole aspect the way he runs his training. Well, that might have given me a little idea that you could do these things without being too egotistical, but what really transformed it for me actually was listening to you guys and your stories and hearing not just the skills that you’ve learned, but hearing from so many people how what you’d learned had touched your lives individually in a deeply personal way and helped you to make transformations in your lives. And that had come about through learning this stuff and through doing it. It wasn’t because Igor sat you down and did a session with you or anything like that. It was because he introduced you to some ideas and some ways of thinking that you were then able to take and apply in your own lives. I suddenly realized that there was a way that you can affect people really deeply by the message that you share with people. There is a teacher called Ramdas, who was originally a college professor at Harvard or MIT. Anyway he was Timothy Leary’s boss when Timothy Leary was still an acceptable established member of the scientific community, rather than the most dangerous man in the world. Ramdas went off to India and became a guru, and I’ve got a tape of him in 1979 standing up in front of a group of people. He says it’s my karma to do this. What you make of it, that’s your karma. So, transformational stories – beginning, middle and end – it’s time for an exercise, wouldn’t you say? I think so. Igor:

Do you get the idea?

Robin:

Find a partner and either come up with a new experience, something that’s happened to you, or take one of the stories that you’ve already come up with, and see how just pulling out those five elements and looking at that structure there helps to just really shape that into a transformational story.

Igor:

If it helps you to do this, you may find it easier if you think of a specific context. In particular think of a specific person that you would like to transform or inspire in some way and think about your own experiences in

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller life. What have you been through that if they had gone through something similar might give them a sense of where to take things next in their own life? The more specific you make it, the easier it is to actually attach content to it. If you want to just see where your mind takes you, then that’s fine too. Does everyone understand what to do? Let’s give you five minutes apiece, so 10 minutes in total, to explore the idea a little bit. Just note one thing. It doesn’t matter where it ends up. It doesn’t matter if you make it through this whole structure. At this point the journey’s more important than the destination. We’ll play with the destination more in due course. Off you go. How did the exercise go? Was it interesting? Who had a little more to say than they thought they would? Are there any comments or questions in terms of the exercise? Student: Gwen was giving me an amazing story and we got to the point where there was the struggle and it was a very long struggle. Igor:

Sometimes they really are, aren’t they?

Student: Yes, and it was struggling to the point where she basically said – if you don’t mind me sharing – she had a friend that was closed off and didn’t want to keep walking going to a restaurant. She couldn’t find one and she wanted to turn back, and she said wouldn’t it have been nice if she just made the decision and turned away but she didn’t? It felt like it was a huge hang and I let her know that. Then she closed it up with they found the restaurant and everything was okay. Igor:

What you just experienced is your unconscious storyteller in action. It’s saying it’s not complete yet. There’s something missing here. That’s one of the reasons we tell stories out loud because they sound very different once we actually open our mouths and put them out there than they sound in our heads. I’ve told some phenomenal stories in my head. They don’t really work so well in real life. This is a useful thing. By the way, it’s not that the actual story

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller doesn’t work so well. It’s just that you need to adapt it to fit other people as well along the way. Well done. That’s really how you build stories from just events into something more powerful. Thank you. Robin:

I have a follow-up question about that actually. It’s to you, Gwen. It’s your story, if you don’t mind. There was a moment there where you were faced with a decision. Do I turn my back and walk away and just say this isn’t worth the effort, or do you keep going? What is in there that makes her keep going? What is her process?

Student: The process was that she wasn’t really aware of having a choice about it at that moment, and so she kept going but unwillingly. Robin:

Did she have a good time at the end of it? Was it a happy story?

Student: She had a hard time but it was totally unnecessarily so because the positive solution came at the end. Robin:

Is the awareness and the realization, the fact that she has a choice about who she hangs out with?

Student: Yes. Robin:

When you’re clear about that, it makes it much easier to structure the story. Thank you.

Igor:

Who else? Suddenly there are no stories left in the room.

Robin:

You’re all so good.

Student: I’d just like a bit of clarification. Yesterday you presented a model with five steps. This is another version. Is it just a simplification of yesterday’s model? Robin:

Yesterday’s model had five elements, which I believe exist in most stories or certainly you can find them when you go looking. This is more time-based. This is more a time structure, so it’s different to that extent.

Student: Would you modify it to do the three steps?

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Igor:

They can occur at any and all three of those steps. Some will of course lend themselves more to the five elements. For example, awareness and transformation fit awareness and transformation quite nicely, but the hero will go throughout.

Robin:

And will be introduced in the beginning. The first step beginning hero creates empathy for…

Igor:

Yes, think of these as overlapping structures that you can put together and there will elements that will be one-to-one and there will be elements that just go across.

Robin:

They’re heuristics. They’re tools designed to get you thinking about the structure, but just go out and watch some movies and listen to some stories. People break the structure all the time, but it’s like with a great work of art. If Picasso had turned up at his first art class and said look, eyes on the side of their heads, people would have said oh dear no, be a lawyer. The famous lawyer Picasso.

Igor:

Or Gandhi.

Robin:

Yes. You can master some rules and then break them.

Igor:

Is everyone good with that exercise? What we want to do now is take this essence and help you to scale things. You’ve told your transformation story and it took about five minutes to get it out. Sometimes you rambled a bit more and sometimes it was relatively easy to get out and you just chitchatted afterwards. What we’d like you to do is tell the same story again to the same person, only do it in 30 seconds. We’re going to use this to help you to scale it down.

Robin:

One sentence.

Igor:

One sentence per beginning, middle and end. For example, I used to think that I as a terrible storyteller. (That’s my preframe.) I actually taught a law seminar to German students and it didn’t go very well. I used to listen to my

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller teachers and my trainers tell their stories. I loved them and felt totally inadequate that I couldn’t actually copy them and do the same thing as them. I went to a training and eventually I taught my very first live seminar to the paying public. My father turned up and he said some very nice things about me afterwards. Simple, 30 seconds, maybe an extra sentence or two. Robin:

When I was younger, I experienced the downside of fame. I struggled to find a way to reach out to more people. Listening to your stories convinced me there was a way that I could do it that would be worth it.

Igor:

That was almost like Haiku. Do you get the idea? Just spend 30 seconds apiece. What we’d like you to do is with the same partner tell your story in 30 seconds. Give them a chance to tell their story in 30 seconds. Then spend no more than a minute or so talking about what you just did, and then do it again based on the feedback you just got from the other person. So, that’s another 30 seconds to do the refined version. You’ll basically have three minutes in total. Off you go. Welcome back, everyone. How did that go? Was it easy? Who understands their story better now that you’ve been able to give a 30-second or a threesentence version, but you also have a five-minute or a longer version, right? Excellent. This idea of scaling up and down is another tool that you have to actually understand your stories, as well as being a tool for you to be able to fit the stories to the context that you’re in. Do you have a question?

Student: I found out that both of us had the same experience, trying to squeeze it down into a 30-second sound bite, we just completely missed the emotional pull in the story. Igor:

Yes it does. You’re right.

Student: We just really couldn’t relate to each other’s story as well without some crucial details.

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There are ways that you can scale down and still maintain that. There’s a famous story. Was it Hemmingway who did the three-word stories or something like that? I’ll have to paraphrase because I forget the actual version, but there was a competition amongst writers for who could write the shortest story. It was something like an ad in the paper – baby shoes, never worn.

Robin:

Yes, it was Hemmingway.

Igor:

There is strong emotion in that story, isn’t there? But it requires an immense amount of skill to bring that out. We don’t expect that of you at this level. All we expect you to be able to do is to be able to scale it up and down. Yes, the more you scale it down, the more the emotional components start eroding, but then you get other advantages like speed and timing, so you can throw a nice little pithy thing out there. If you really focus on it and really want to play with scaling stories up and down, you may well be able to create things like Hemmingway did, but it takes a lot of effort. I’m sure it took him a lot of effort to be able to create that very pithy little story, but yes it was a good thing to realize.

Robin:

Blaise Pascal originally wrote the famous quote that has been attributed to many people. “I’m sorry I didn’t have time to write you a shorter letter.” What we’ll be doing for the rest of the day after the morning session is looking at what you identified there. It’s all the hypnotic elements that create connection that help to build powerful sensory representations in your audience. Yes, by scaling down the structure, you’re losing all of that but what you’re creating and what you’re getting is the through line. Actors and writers talk about this a lot. What’s the through line of a character? What’s their narrative? What’s their drive? When you have that in place, then you’ve got that energy in the story and it’s a lot easier to then add in those elements that add emotional connection. Thank you for your question.

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Really it’s having that clarity that allows you to realize which points to emphasize.

Student: The young man here, I just love the way he took his story and brought it down, but it reminded me that when I was younger I had a minister who taught how to be able to take an idea or a story and bring it down to a minute to three minutes. He used to say I may never have another chance to impact our life, so you had to learn how to do those stories and to have the emotion in it. I was just so happy that it’s being taught here. Igor:

It’s an important step.

Robin:

Listen to what this woman has to say. She’s a phenomenal storyteller.

Student: I’m finding that with some people that I’ve spoke to, when they tell their stories they’re accessing the state and they’re in it while they’re telling it, whereas some people aren’t. How do you begin to enter the state? Igor:

That is a great question. If you want to know the answer to that, then come back after the break. We’re going to do an exercise first, but that’s what we’ll be addressing after the break. That was a very important question. Let’s do this last exercise we promised you before the break. You’ve taken your transformational story and you’ve condensed it down into a 30-second sound bite or an overview. What I’d like you to do now is to choose one or two of the stories you told yesterday. Just scan them through your mind quickly. Select one or two of those and again put them through this structure and see if you can condense it down to about 30 seconds, three sentences each. Just present it very quickly. They’ll present theirs. You’ll present another one and they’ll present another one. Then we’ll take a break and then we’ll look at the performance elements that will allow you to take that and build it back up again with a glorious impact.

Robin:

Remember, these are scales. These are drills that help to train a way of thinking. It’s a conscious tool that you let go of as you gain more artistry.

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Igor:

Let’s take two minutes apiece, four minutes in total. Off you go. How did that go? Who understands some of the stories you told yesterday a bit better now? The value of scaling is

1. When you only have a minute, you can tell it in a minute. 2. It allows you to really understand the essence of what you’re trying to communicate so that when you start building it up again, you can actually build it up in the right direction rather than just foundering around and getting confused by your own facts. Unless there’s something you want to add, I think it’s time for a break. Robin:

You have a whole bunch of stories now. You probably understand the mechanism of creating them. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself remembering stories, other relevant situations. Remember, this is an artificial situation. We’re asking you to generate stuff for no reason and in life that’s not how it works. We tell stories that are directly relevant to our immediate ongoing experience. Don’t be surprised if the stories that you’ve come up with become relevant somewhere along the line.

Igor:

That reminds me of something.

Robin:

Oh really?

Igor:

It’s time for a break. Let’s take 15 minutes. Thank you very much.

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DVD 5 – How To Combine Transformational Stories With Open & Nested Loops

Monastery & Cat Stories 2 Igor:

For my next story, there’s a man who’s sitting in a monastery and he’s exhausted, falling asleep. When he wakes up it’s probably about mid-day now because he’s a nervous wreck. The door is unlocked. He finds it’s a beautiful sunny day and he’s walking through this monastery, and there’s a very peaceful vibe to the place. I don’t know if you’ve ever walked through a building that has that sort of experience, but he gets into this mood and he hears the sounds of monks outside where there’s a little patch of garden where they’re growing herbs and simple foods and so on. There are some monks working there while others are dealing with normal day-to-day routines like mopping the floors and cleaning up and so on. They all smile and are very friendly, and it feels like such a contrast to the craziness from the night before, but he made a promise to the father abbot, so he contains himself. Curiosity gets him and he can’t help it. The morning stretches out, actually the afternoon stretches out and it starts getting towards evening and the father abbot comes out and starts making the polite noises that it’s time to go now son. Of course the man full of awareness decides to ignore all the polite noises that are being made and pretends he’s not getting the hint. After a while the abbot comes out and says look son, you’ve been here now it’s time for you to move on we’re not a hotel. Get your stuff and peace be with you, enjoy your journey and enjoy your life. The man is desperate to find out and is using any angle he can get. He says look, I’ve told you my story I’ve been an executive and was close to burning out. My life is falling apart. My boss kicked me out for a month and I’m not even allowed back to work and not even allowed to touch anything related to

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller work. He said I should go out and find inner peace again and I have to say this place is so peaceful. This is healing to me. This is the best therapy I could have. Please, please let me stay just a little bit longer. This is good for my spirit. Of course the father abbot gets the saddest eyes and expression on his face. He looks at the man and knows what’s going on. He says it seems like you’ve thought about it my son, but remember our rules. You do not leave the room you’ve been assigned and no matter what you hear, no matter what happens, just remember you’re always safe. Please don’t ask us what’s happening because I can’t tell you, you’re not a monk. You’re not one of us. So the man makes his absolute promise, it’s fine and he’s allowed to stay. He’s excited now. Terrified but excited. He watches the sun lights sliding down the wall in the refectory window as it heads towards sunset and there’s a little ray of sunshine, which is when the monks go to bed. Notice there’s a curious thing that as the sunshine starts setting there’s a scurrying like people are in a hurry to get somewhere. The first monk, the old man who met him at the door, father Gregory, approaches him and says son the sun is setting it’s time for you to return to your chambers for contemplation and sleep. It is our way in this monastery. He goes okay, gets back to his cell and tries to go to sleep but he can’t. He can’t do it. Sure enough night carries on and he forgets and starts dozing a little bit away and catching himself. He needn’t have worried because at exactly one minute past midnight the craziest sound reverberates through the entire monastery. It sounds like agony and pain. It sounds like grief and despair. The man is terrorized. There are shivers going down his spine, a cold sweat breaks out on him and figments of his imagination start to rise and take life of their own. He’s wondering what the heck this thing could be. It reverberates he feels it in his bones. Six hours of this. Eventually the craziness ends and the first crack of dawn lifts above the mountainside and just as soon as it strikes the side of the monastery, silence. Complete peace.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller The man is still shaking and terrified, burning with curiosity but terrified. It takes him an hour to calm down and then of course he’s so exhausted he falls asleep. Robin:

I had a nice sleep once. I woke up the next day and I was making my coffee in the kitchen and what do I hear outside my backdoor?

Group:

Meow.

Robin:

Thank you.

Igor:

Integrated storytelling.

Robin:

Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. This cat is back for more. He’s outside the door in the garden. I’m feeling a bit nervous to go in my own back garden, because not only have I got the cat now but then I’m frightened that if I stroke the cat that guy will get jealous basically, is what it amounts too. I’m in two minds. On the one hand this guy has managed to keep his cat alive for 19 years, which if you know cats is quite a result, especially a diabetic cat. On the other hand it’s an underweight cat, I’ve done the research. The first thing I hear this I go on the Internet and I’m typing away, cat diabetes, finding out and making sure I’m treating the cat right. I realize I can actually give it some water because they get very thirsty and he’s always licking water from the plant parts and things like that. It’s a bit of a quandary and I don’t quite know what to do. Every time I go back to the kitchen, meow. So this goes on for a bit and it gets quite intense because for a start, at the time, my kitchen ventilator was broken. So whenever I cooked, which is daily because I like good wholesome food every day, I had to open the kitchen door. I’d open the kitchen door, stick my chicken in the oven and the smells of roasting chicken would start to waft out through the neighborhood, and sure enough it was like I was inviting the cat round for dinner. If you were a cat that’s what you would assume, right? He’s clearly cooking chicken. He’s opened the door for me. So the cat comes in every time.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller This guy and his visit round he’s going it’s very simple, you shouldn’t have fed it for a start. Anything you get from now on is your fault, because you shouldn’t have fed it. All you have to do is lift it up, put it out the door and he’ll soon get the message he’s not getting fed again. I’m like okay fine. After 15 times a day I’m thinking, this cats just not getting the message right? Maybe I’m not communicating with it right, I don’t know. That evening I’m in my house sitting in my living room doing a bit of work. The kitchen is off to the side and I hear a noise. I have a cat flap in my backdoor and I’ve taped it up. I keep hearing the noise. Meow. The cat is poking its head around the corner in the living. Hi cat, how you doing? I quite like this cat you know. It’s touched my affections. I’m feeling like there’s a little bit of a telepathic connection between us. He knows I like it. He knows I like it really and that I don’t want it to go. I just turn to it and say I’m sorry but you’re going to have to leave. The cat looks up at me, turns around and heads out of the kitchen out the cat flap. Great result! I’m communicating with this cat, we’re getting somewhere. I go back to the kitchen and tape up the cat flap multiple times. I just lost myself again, I’m sorry I’m being so indulgent. We have to do some… Igor:

Exercises.

Robin:

… exercises. Sorry about that. We need to change the energy, change the mood.

Igor:

We do.

Robin:

You guys don’t want to sit here and listen to us tell stories all day. You have work to do.

Igor:

No, we’re in a workshop here. We have to do some work.

Robin:

Things to change. Have to get moving. Active.

Igor:

What’s all this wasted time telling stories?

Robin:

Get some energy there.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller Gabe:

What happened?

Robin:

Nice one Gabe.

Igor:

I think what we need to do now is to have everyone stand up and move their chairs to one side and then we’ll come back again.

Story Crafting Exercise Robin:

Let’s move those chairs. Storytelling is a performance skill, like hypnosis. I noticed watching some of you during the week that it was great, even though your subject or client had their eyes closed. Some of you were being really dramatic with your gestures and emphasizing those physical aspects of your communication, which is what we want to do now. Give your hands a little shake out to warm up a bit. Let your arms come into it. Roll your shoulders a bit. Do you know that sketch on The Big Bang Theory? There’s a bit in that where one of the actresses says to one of the geeks, no just move about, go in the flow, do what comes naturally and the guy is standing there. I am doing what comes naturally. This feels good. That feels weird. Arms shake a bit. Roll your shoulders. Just give your hips a bit of a wiggle. Come on bloaks, having some flexibility in your spine does not make you gay. Believe me the women in the audience will approve. Nicely warmed up. We’re going to do the first exercise that takes some of the games that we were playing yesterday but approaching it in a different way. What I’d like you to do; you remember the magic box right? You were taking things out of it, if I just passed Igor some thing and if he passed it back to me, some thing back to me. Meow. You get it? So, find a partner, start taking turns. I will interrupt you and ask you to change partners as you’re doing it, go.

Igor:

I think we need a bit more energy in the room so what we’re going to do now is to please walk around the room, point at things and in a loud and magical voice make them exist by telling them what they are. This is a carpet. This is a stage. This is a light. As fast, furious and as loud as you can be, go.

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Robin:

And stop. This time walk around the room pointing at things and saying what they are not. That’s a lobster. That’s a potato.

Igor:

Quick and speedy.

Robin:

That’s the sky. As fast as possible folks. Now, this time I’d like you to get into a group of three or four and take it in turns to mime out some action. One of you might begin… very simple. I want the next person to then come in and add something to it. That’s fine. That’s all. Go.

Igor:

Off you go. [Exercise starts] The next one will be quite a lot of fun. In this one you’re going to stay in the same groups, but you’re going to imagine that you’re a cat burglar in the most bizarre and unique museum in the world. There’s stuff in there that you would never expect to see in a museum or in a collectible store or whatever. You have to somehow clamor over the furniture, the obstacles in the way and the death rays which are very important to miss. From time to time you’ll find an interesting object that you can pass to someone else in the group, who is of course your fellow cat burglar, that has to first get to you to be able to take the object and re-appreciate it.

Robin:

You may add in an iteration.

Igor:

In other words, you can talk.

Robin:

If it helps.

Igor:

Off you go. [Exercise starts]

Robin:

Okay, so now what we’d like for you to do is to choose one of the stories, preferably one that you’ve gone through that process with and in a minute.

Igor:

Sixty seconds is crazy long.

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Tell that story and simply be aware of your physical gestures as you’re telling it. Whatever you do, simply do it bigger and with more exaggeration and force than you usually would. Yes! Go. [Exercise starts]

Igor:

Very good. Who enjoyed doing that, hands up? Good. For the next exercise, again get into small groups of two or three people.

Robin:

Different people.

Igor:

Choose a different story. Whether you’ve put it through this simplification process or not doesn’t matter, you can put it through that now or you can choose one you’ve already done so. A different story than the one you’ve just told. The only thing you’re going to add there now is you let your mannerisms come out normally, maybe accentuate them a little bit not doubling them a bit more than you would normally do. The thing to focus on is stretching the story out a little bit by giving descriptions of things you can see within it, anything visual. The sunlight glittering on a leaf. Watching someone’s facial expressions. You can make it as well, but describe how the eyebrows came down, their jaw dropped and their fist came flying towards your nose and you didn’t see it coming, until an explosion of stars.

Robin:

Colors, textures, shapes…

Igor:

Get the idea. Anything visual. Verna, of course, use whatever your primary experience is to create the same experience with other people so use whatever comes to you as the stronger sense. Do you all understand the exercise? Let’s take a minute and a half each to do that and we’ll come back for another exercise. Different story, different partners. [Exercise starts]

Robin:

Fantastic. I’m seeing some great things. I can see the story from way over here. It’s fantastic. What we’d like to add in now is… you can use the same story or a different one, you’re going to change partners and this time we’d like you to focus on auditory descriptions, descriptions of what you can hear.

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You get to include everything you’ve done so far, so you can still use gestures and accentuate a bit more. You still describe things that you’re seeing visual experiences and you can de-emphasize them in terms of putting all the emphasis on auditory, but still have them in there as part of that story. Then lavish yourself on the sound of their voice, barking, the sound of flesh striking flesh. For some reason I’m stuck on that one and don’t know why.

Robin:

Meow.

Igor:

Get the idea. Let’s give them another 30 seconds… so 2 minutes apiece. [Exercise starts] Off you go. Having fun yes? Good. Are your stories getting better yet? Have you noticed how putting stuff into it starts enriching them? Again, you’re going to change partners or groups again.

Robin:

That bits important.

Igor:

It is important.

Robin:

You need to have an experience of doing this with many different kinds of people.

Igor:

Switch your story out again. Have one of the other stories in your repertoire and you still have the body language and visual and auditory descriptions. Now I want you to include the kinesthetic, which basically means emotions, things you’ve felt inside and physical touch the textural things. Is everyone clear? We’ll give you an extra 30 seconds, so 2 ½ minutes apiece. Enjoy that. Off you go. [Exercise starts]

Robin:

That’s great, how was that are you enjoying that still? Some great stories coming out.

Igor:

Are you noticing you’re breathing new life into your stories now that you’re putting fluff, filler, but somehow the stories are coming more to life and you start thinking of different things of reference and presentations that are more powerful. Would that be fair to say?

Group:

Yes.

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Robin:

For the next exercise I’m sure you will have discovered that you’ll have been doing this anyway naturally and we’d just like to round off this part of the exercise by emphasizing it and what we’d like you to do is what we call in hypnosis and NLP as synesthesia switches, so you begin with a visual description, then move to touch, then move to sound and then back to visual. Begin to move and glide between the different sense systems and notice sometimes the change in sense system will take you away to another part of the story. Sometimes it will focus you in on building a rich representation of something that’s right in front of you. We will add another 30 seconds.

Igor:

So three minutes apiece.

Robin:

You may choose a story you’re working up or use a different one. Change partners again. Fresh partners and off you go. [Exercise starts]

Igor: --Robin:

Off you go. So, you’ll have probably noticed how, when you change the content you’ll already have noticed the non-verbal elements of your communication are popping out naturally anyway. Just to round off this section we want to add in the final element. You’ll probably have noticed when you’re talking to people and listening to stories that there’s one really important element of how they talk. Because, you can use your voice.

Igor:

In some ways they’re very incongruent and in other ways that have a different kind of experience as well.

Robin:

You can use speed to punch energy into the situation and zip people up.

Igor:

And you can use something else to get energy into them also. Sometimes it sounds like one of these and sometimes it’s just one of these.

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And you can draw people in closer. And you can also use deep voice or high pitched voice. Sometimes I’ve noticed that when you really play around with being completely silly and taking things to the furthest and strangest extreme, when you rein things back in it gives you more choices in just how you use your voice.

Igor:

Do you all understand the exercise? Different partners, same or different stories. Three minutes apiece. Off you go. [Exercise starts]

Exercise Debrief Igor:

Welcome back, how did that go?

Group:

Brilliantly.

Igor:

Who had fun with that, hands up? Lots of enthusiasm. What did you learn from all these things? What did you experience? What surprised you?

Robin:

Questions/comments/observations.

Igor:

Praise.

Student: I found that even if I told the same story to different people there were different elements that I emphasized for the different people. It felt like they connected and resonated with that more and then I took, like some of the stories I started one way and ended it completely different just because of the people around me. Igor:

Absolutely. Now you understand why Erickson told the same story differently each time. How did you know to do that?

Student: It’s mostly unconscious but I think what I’m doing is that I’m looking at their responses and calibrating it and then feeding it. Igor:

Exactly. That helps right? If you just say I’m going to tell you a story and I don’t care if you like it or not. That’s not useful. If you get a sense of reaction what points to tense, to lean in and what points are like starting to look around the room for a desperate escape, they start padding their pockets for a pocket

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller knife so they can cut their arms off and leave. Then you know your story needs working on. Well done. Thank you for that. Student: This is a quick one. I notice when I add in all these different elements my personality changed. Igor:

Yes, or rather you’re getting more of your personality out there.

Student: I’m not myself when I tell the story, so if I have this new personality when I tell the story and then the others see me, then they haven’t met the real me. Robin:

A really simple question. If you’re not yourself when you tell that story who do you think you are?

Student: I’m a storyteller. Igor:

Very good.

Robin:

You’re a storyteller and who is that storyteller?

Student: That’s me. Because I’ve already improved the caliber of my story, now I use more hand signals, movements and I’m so much more aware of modalities and so on. Whereas previously I didn’t use them and I thought that was me, that’s how I talk and people accept me. Robin:

So you’re actually saying you’ve expanded your flexibility and choice and you have new ways of… you have a bigger personality now.

Student: Yes I have a bigger personality, a changed personality now. When I go back I think my wife can’t recognize me. Robin:

There’s a very important point there as well which relates back to something we were talking about before the course began wasn’t it, which is that often our personalities, what we choose to express about ourselves are very much constrained by our environment, our choices, our cultural upbringing and things like this. We all develop a particular style within that environment. Knowing that you have more choices and that you can be a bigger personality. You can be more flexible in your behavior is a wonderful thing, and there’ll be a process of

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller relating that back to how you are in everyday life as well. As you say, if you suddenly come back and your wife doesn’t recognize you. Igor:

Have an affair with your wife.

Robin:

Yeah. Hopefully she’ll enjoy discovering you all over again. And, there are certain environments that you work in, for example, corporate environments and things like that, traditional family gatherings where people have an expectation of you. I’m confident that you’re all smart and subtle enough to find a way to begin to integrate those new choices into that environment. Respectfully enough that you don’t scare other people off and that they have time to absorb the new changes. Also bear in mind that if you’re used to being a certain way. For example, if you’re used to not using gestures a lot or voice a lot, than introducing those elements at the right moment can be very powerful.

Student: I just wanted to say I’m curious about the form of feedback while the stories are being told, something feeling like the urge to provide verbal responses as the story was being told. Igor:

So, as you’re listening to the story as the audience member you actually want to encourage the storyteller by saying oh yes that’s cool. Really? Well do it, that’s what a normal conversation is like isn’t it? You don’t just have someone telling you in a theater you have a person up front talking. In all conversations there are usually signs of encouragement like, no you don’t say. I do say. You don’t say. I do say. And then you carry on with the story a little further and they’ll go really. They go yes really. Yes. These are parts of a normal conversation, so by all means feedback.

Student: I guess it’s also possible to really trance people out when you’re telling the story. Igor:

Well, that would be the idea. This is hypnotic storytelling for influence, so yes after lunch we’ll add the more overt hypnotic elements.

Student: I’m finding that I have a great time telling good stories to people who want to hear them, but if they’re not responding the way I’d like them to I fail in having the right tools to get that kind of response.

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Igor:

Right. So is your question more about how to get responses of people or more about how to warm them up to give you permission to tell the stories you want to?

Student: Probably the latter. Igor:

I suspect too and we’ll be covering this evening a whole influence formula using storytelling to get the kind of permission we’re talking about and always work at the level of the audience. Sometimes you just start at the first step of the formula and it may not be until later meetings when they allow you to take it further. That’s a relationship and like every relationship you don’t just walk up into a bar and go oh, you look nice let’s go home and have sex. It’s not a normal relationship and hopefully you realize that right?

Student: It took me some time. Igor:

Like other relationships…

Robin:

That strategy works but it’s a numbers game.

Igor:

It is a numbers game exactly, which is kind of what you’re describing in some ways. So there is a warm-up act required before that conversation is had and the same is true in business, therapy and all kinds of things. There is a warmup act. Some people need a longer warm-up act, some people need less but we’ll get into that.

Robin:

I have a very simple answer. 1. Don’t tell stories to people who don’t want to hear them 2. That damn crazy cat…

Igor:

What?

Robin:

Nothing.

Student: Got it.

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Robin:

Hook. That’s one of the reasons why I like coming up with nice simple catchy little titles, because you can refer to something and then you can just leave it and people will be… in one of the videos on my blog David Nivens does that, he goes oh yeah no, I kind of got thrown out of the army and well I went to a fancy dress ball dressed as a goat.

Igor:

Makes you curious right?

Student: Yes, I’m curious. Robin:

Elicit curiosity.

Igor:

Thank you for the question, we’ll talk more about that as we go on.

Student: I was describing a swimming experience and I noticed my heartbeat increased from 65 to 79. Igor:

That’s very precise. So there I was doing the backstroke… no, no, no… that’s it…

Robin:

Do you have like a little LED in your eye?

Student: I’m good. I was wondering can you use a story to change your state? Basically, in this situation everybody can stop drinking coffee by just remembering their sport activities. Igor:

First of all, I suspect you’ve already answered your own question. Secondly, there are people, have you ever noticed there are some people whose heartbeat never goes below 100? It doesn’t take caffeine, they’re just nervous and tense all the time, like oh my gosh what if this happens or that happens? They’re high strung. It’s because of all the stories they’re telling themselves constantly. How is the world? Is the world a safe or not a safe place? What has happened to them constantly? How do they perceive it?

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller They put themselves in that state through the personal stories they tell themselves, something again we’ll engage in and then finally the hypnotic answer is to recall that Milton Erickson after he had polio at the age of 17 or so, he taught himself how to walk. He was paralyzed from the neck down. He taught himself to move his arms, his legs, his fingers and toes, everything from scratch from zero. First they thought he was going to die and then they said he would never walk again and now he’s running around walking with a cane and canoeing up and down the Mississippi like a healthy young man. He started all that by the stories he told himself, by remembering climbing a tree and jumping from branch to branch and noticing that there was a response his body was making. So yes nicely done. Robin:

You’ve demonstrated that you change your state as a storyteller, particularly as you associate into the story right? You’re revivifying the memory in hypnotic terms and if you’re not doing it than why not, because that’s the whole point right, is to make the emotional heart to heart connection, body to body connection and that’s what you’re doing. Well done.

Igor:

Very nice. Anymore?

Robin:

If there are no more questions or comments specifically I’d like to ask if anyone has some feedback that they’d like to share about what they saw that they really enjoyed.

Igor:

In other words, you as an audience member, listening or watching a story being told, what is it about those that you went yeah I like that? Get the idea.

Student: I already gave that storyteller the feedback but I would like to give it to all of you. He’s telling a story about going back to the country where he used to live and meeting his old friends. It was all animated and beyond the words I could already see all those friends and everything. Then he said that his focus shifted inside and he did this with his voice much more, so the next little while he was going on about the reflections. Then his voice changed and for me it was like okay, now he’s back with the group again. I could really follow that with the voice and then in the end he

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller did the loop back again and he said, I had this moment and that was really amazing. Robin:

That’s great. He’s doing something naturally which we’ll return to in the next session.

Igor:

Excellent. You are ahead of the game, very nice. I like that. For the rest of you, you can puzzle as to what all that means.

Robin:

Did no one else see anything they enjoyed?

Gabe:

I noticed that people who use less uhs and ums and who are able to have more of a flow in their story it’s easier for me to go with that story. It’s the flow that I find and a bit of a logical build-up that helps in captivating my attention.

Igor:

Would you like to have a simple trick to cut out the uhs, ums, and so ons, from your story?

Gabe:

Yes.

Igor:

It’s a very simple trick.

Robin:

Deep inhale/exhale.

Igor:

That was it. Two versions… so the man was in the monastery on the bed and he’s sleeping soundly kind of, you know… as opposed to so there’s a man and he’s in the monastery. And he’s on his bed. He’s terrified. Does that help?

Robin:

It’s okay to pause. An um just means I’m still talking but I haven’t got there yet.

Igor:

It’s basically filling sound so that people, because all the ums, you knows, ah and stuff like that is telling people, please don’t walk away yet because I haven’t finished. Have the courage to know they aren’t going to walk away because they’re hanging on a thread going what? Your mannerisms will tell them. If I go so there’s a man in a monastery, I’m done. It’s strange to end there but I’m done. If I make eye contact and say so there’s a man in a monastery, and

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller you know, he’s got something on his mind. Do I give you any signals that I’m finished yet? So why on earth would you leave? It’s okay to pause. Is that helpful? Gabe:

Yes.

Student: One piece of feedback. I enjoyed it when people looked at me. Some people I found would look all around me as they’re telling their story, but some people looked right at me and when they looked at me I felt more connected to it. The other thing that I enjoyed more was when I got a sense that some people were telling their story and some were feeling their story. Igor:

Yes.

Student: The people who were feeling their story, I got a much better connection to. Robin:

Thank you.

Pamela: I noticed that I was the most engaged by the stories when people were talking to me about something they loved, either a hobby was frequent and then also, people who spoke about their children. Then I would just like to say in opposition to James’ remark that actually one of the things I missed most greatly with my mother was someone who tells me stories who’s not looking at me. I really like being told stories in a dark room, from one end of the house to the other where a story commences and then a bunch of things happen in the middle and then it continues. All of those are exciting for me, so I don’t necessarily have to have someone looking at me. Robin:

This is down to… if a storyteller is looking all around, chances are they’re associated into it and they’re telling you what they see if you think back to the strange world exercise. If you’re doing that and if you find yourself looking out, like creating the space around you, keep checking back with the person you’re talking to that they’re either sharing that with you or keeping eye contact with you. Maintain some eye contact always and some people prefer to process things differently, so some people if they’re processing what you’re saying, visually

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller they aren’t going to be looking at what you’re describing they’re going inside and making pictures. Does that make sense? People will respond differently in these situations. Eye contact is essential to bring people in and be aware that people have different thinking and processing styles, so just because they aren’t looking at you doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not listening. Quite often, if I’m listening to someone I’ll actually put my head down and get my ear closer and I’m making pictures and feeling my response to what I’m hearing. Igor:

The way to tell these things is just through experience. You do glance at them even if it’s from the corner of your eye to see that they’re still there. There should be a felt sense, a sense of yeah, I’ve got this audience interested versus something isn’t quite right and I don’t know what it is. So play around with it and you’ll get the varieties.

Robin:

I’d like to invite you for the rest of the course, if you haven’t begun to do this already, whenever you’ve heard someone telling you a story simply feedback to them just anything that you noticed you enjoyed or liked about what they did.

Igor:

And only what you enjoyed and liked about what they did, because we’re watering plants and where attention goes energy flows. Let’s only water the plants we actually want to come up. Otherwise you will get choked by weeds and that’s not useful. With that happy little story let’s take 90 min for lunch…

Robin:

Meow.

Igor: Let’s do lunch and be back here to start at 10 till 2. Thank you. [Lunch break]

Monastery & Cat Stories 3 Robin:

Meow. So I wake up the next morning and I was still thinking about this guy coming round and feeling a bit intimidated about going into my back garden and there’s the cat again meowing at the door. Now my door has gotten really attached to it as well.

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Igor:

So there’s this man waking up in the middle of the afternoon because he fell asleep exhausted, second time in a row. He is beside himself with curiosity as to what’s happening here, what is this thing. He tries his best to keep his promise because he’s going round and digging in the garden with the monks and he’s helping prepare the meals and so on. This question is burning inside his mind. What is going on? His curiosity gets the better of him so he starts dropping heavy hints. Tell me how was your night, sleep well? He’s keeping his promise but all the monks can look at him and shut up very quickly. Suddenly all the chatty ones become concerned, so that’s not working very well. The day draws to an end and he’s locked back in his cell, his cubicle and lies down in bed. He’s been working hard all day so of course he falls asleep very quickly. He wakes up to this intense crazy sad noise that sounds like all the grief in the world, the terror and panic in the same place. It really shakes the foundation of the monastery. The man is lying in bed and he’s terrified. He tries to get to sleep...

Robin:

You know what that reminds me… because that day the cat meowed outside the door and I’m getting ready and eventually I look out the back door and the cat’s gone I can’t see it anywhere, so I think great. I have the chicken I roasted the day before. I really enjoy cooking and I think I’ll get the bones on the boil to make a nice chicken stock to have chicken soup later in the day. So I start the pan going, start it boiling and check out the window and there’s no cat so I open the door so the kitchen doesn’t get too steamed up. It’s still morning and I have to start work so I have to think right quick jump in the shower. There I am in the shower. Isn’t this what you do in the shower? Oh no wait a minute, this is the Ericksonian hypnosis, go into trance… Yes I’m taking a shower and having a great time and suddenly there’s knocking on my door. It’s a bit rude and loud, what’s going on? What’s that? Oh it’s a loofah, and it starts off again, knocking on the door. Okay I get the message I’m wrapping a towel around me and getting out the door. I don’t go to answer the door I just look out the front window.

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So there’s this guy, middle of the night and he’s terrified. He’s thinking what’s going on? He starts looking out the window to see if he can pick something out. He looks through the keyhole. He looks through the gap in the door to see if there are any shadows and there’s nothing going on. This insane noise is going on and it lasts all night. Once again the crack of dawn, that first little finger of sunlight rising up over the hillside and when it touches the cornerstone of the abbey silence, peace, tranquility like nothing ever happened.

Robin:

And that’s exactly the opposite of what was going on in my house, because I was standing there in front of the bay windows, and you know who it is right, it’s the bloody guy in the motorcycle gear whose cat keeps coming into my house. He’s standing there going, have you got my cat again? I’m like no of course I haven’t got your cat. Meow. I think oh shit. Yes it is here but it’s just here. Do I have to tell you again? Am I going to have to bring you my vet bills? That cat has an owner you know. You can’t just steal it. I don’t want your cat. Why are you coming with this attitude? I’m trying to help you. I’ve given you my phone number so you can call me if the cat is ill. I’ll just get rid of the cat but if you don’t mind I need to put some clothes on.

Igor:

Meanwhile, the man wakes up the next afternoon and is still shaken. He works the grounds and tries to corner the odd monk or two and this happens for two or three days. Each time they turn pale as a sheet. You couldn’t have seen people paler than this and they scurry off and try to avoid eye contact. After a week or so of doing this, trying to corner people and talk to them, he’s got no friends left. No one wants to talk to him anymore because they know what’s going to come. One day the father abbot sits down with him and says I understand you’ve been working hard in the fields. The man says yes. You’ve done good work in the refectory. The man says yes. I hope you’ve been feeling the peace and tranquility of this place. The man says yes. You’ve been asking some rather curious questions of our brethren here, the monks. The man gets sheepish and says yes. I understand your curiosity but you made us a promise and I’m going to have to ask you to keep it. The man

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller can’t contain himself he just starts grabbing him by the shirt like he’s wearing a motorbike jacket and he says you have to tell me, it’s driving me crazy. Each night I go to sleep when the sun goes down and after a few hours sleep suddenly this crazy noise comes, it’s terrifying. It’s sad. It’s all the pain in the world. Robin:

I know exactly what you mean I do. By now you can imagine, I’m just like getting ready, the cat snuck in while I was taking a shower. This guy doesn’t realize that I’ve been chucking the cat out 15 times a day and it’s not learning the lesson. He’s gone off angry at me. He probably thinks I have a little bowl of cream laid out for the cat and a nice little home for it and we’re going around stroking it and kidnapping it, saying no come play with us, not with him. I’m just so frustrated, because he keeps coming round with all this bad energy. I’ve tried to be nice to him and tried to explain to him that I understand about his cat. He’s anxious about his cat because it’s old and has diabetes. He might have mentioned that earlier.

Igor:

So the man of course, is almost frantic at this point. He grabbed the father by the coat and said please, please tell me…

Robin:

And I’m frantic, I’m completely frantic by this point. I’m wondering around my house…

Igor:

… and the father is saying what the hell are you talking about you made a promise, the only reason you stayed here was because you promised you wouldn’t ask anything. Please stop asking I cannot tell you, you’re not a monk. The man shuts up in frustration.

Robin:

Yeah you know what, should we get on with the next exercise? Yes, probably best.

Nested Loops Igor:

So there’s a particular thing you do with your stories that can create a tremendous amount of curiosity for starters. It’s like a man leaving an office in a monastery, shaking his head at the frustration of… anyway, it’s a way of

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller using a story so people really basically sit around and ask you more please, tell me more. Robin:

There’s a wonderful example of this that I remember from Tanzania, because I was born there and I go back there as often as I can. There’s a traditional of oral storytelling in the Sakuma culture. At night by a full moon in front of a fire people gather round and the old lady who makes the cassava whiskey, the local legal brew, she keeps it hidden in the leaves of the banana tree. Whenever you go round her house, my friend is a doctor and when we go from his surgery to his farm we’re going up the hill and he always goes, shall we do a lefty? We go visit the old lady who sells the cassava whiskey. She always has to drink some of it first to prove it’s not poison.

Igor:

It would be rude not to.

Robin:

She’s always off her trolley. I remember one night one of the storytellers, Juma, a witch doctor, did the absolute classic. He went that reminds me… no you don’t want to hear me and everyone goes…

Igor:

Oh but please tell us.

Robin:

He’s like well, oh no you don’t want to hear this.

Igor:

You really should tell us. Please. I would really like to hear.

Robin:

Really? Okay. Well, then he gets up and starts his story and there’s a lovely way they have, a certain rhythm to the way they talk. The audience is listening and getting into the rhythm as well because they’ll be sitting there and they’ll go, dao which means it is so… they’ve heard the story before so they’re all like yes, that’s the way it goes, dao. So you get this marvelous kind of counter pointful rhythm between the storytellers speech and the response of the audience. Yeah.

Igor:

So there’s a skill in here that might be of use to you. The easiest way of getting it is experiencing it for yourself. You have a stock of stories, whether or not you wish to change them out over time that’s your call. What I’d like you to do is to get in pairs and then tell three of your stories. When it starts getting interesting move onto the next one without actually finishing it.

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Robin:

When you start seeing interest and they start going oh really, go, that’s where the most important part, there’s this other one where this happened.

Igor:

All you’re looking for is the cue of when to switch. It’s very simple. They’ll give it to you and you’ll go yeah that’s the one, oh yeah because on another time I had this other experience and off you go on the other one. They’ll be like what, hello. First they’ll think this must have something to do with the first story so they’ll listen carefully and then they’ll go what, I’m confused and then they’ll forget one and go really, and that’s when you go on to the third one. It’s a simple process, you just observe your partner for your cues of when to move on. It should only take you about three minutes but I’ll give you five minutes apiece so you should have more than plenty of time. Of course everything you’ve done so far still counts.

Robin:

By the way, there are some simple phrases you can use to switch stories, like by the way, that reminds me, while I’m thinking about it, oh yeah it’s just like when…

Igor:

There’s another time… it’s a little bit like or well, the best one is if you don’t even make a transition and you just start telling the other story and they’ll think you’re talking about one story and it takes them about 30 minutes to figure out it’s the other. That’s called the hard loop and they’re lots of fun to do. We’ll let you experiment with that for now, just to have the different affects and experiences. Five minutes apiece, ten total, find a new partner, off you go. [Exercise starts]

Robin:

By the way, this would be the worst marriage guidance counseling service in the world wouldn’t it? Change partners. Change partners.

Igor:

Welcome back from the exercise, how did you enjoy that, good?

Group:

Yes.

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Who here is sitting at the edge of their seats going I need them to finish, don’t leave me hanging? What do you think might be one use for these nested or open loops? What might be a use for keeping loops open?

Student: With the nested loops your conscious mind only focuses on one story but the other story is still simmering just below the surface. Igor:

Exactly, so there’s a lot of unconscious stuff going on which creates a lot of curiosity. How do you feel right now when you have to suddenly leave halfway through the stories? Who feels like they want me to shut up so they can get back to finishing the story? In psychology this is known as the zygarnick effect, which is when you leave an unfinished task or open question and the unconscious mind keeps running until that connection is made and is closed. So sometimes it’s useful to leave the loop open because they’ll keep looking for a better answer maybe for the rest of their life.

Robin:

Another thing that zygarnick noticed, because she actually started researching this because she noticed the waiters at her local restaurant had a phenomenal memory for open tickets. As soon as the bill had been paid they couldn’t remember a thing.

Igor:

No face, no name, nothing.

Robin:

Unless they went through a transdurivational search where they went through a trance experience and returned to state. It’s also a useful way of embedding post hypnotic suggestions.

Igor:

That’s something we’ll play with later today. Meanwhile, what were other experiences?

Student: What was the question again? It does that too. It makes you forget. Robin:

It overloads conscious attention, like seven plus or minus two.

Student: Yes. As a storyteller I noticed that if you just allow the states to carry your stories unplanned it just flowed naturally to go from one to the next. Igor: Exactly. Don’t make it a mechanical process it’s an organic process. A lot of people learn about nested loops and they start going okay, I shall pause

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller precisely at 5 minutes 34 seconds, good, now we go to the next story. Whereas actually what you’re doing is looking for the signals from the person going gotcha, time to go on. Robin:

I’d like to point out also that the nested loop effect is also the same technique that people use to bore you to death with the stories you don’t want to hear. Bear that in mind. Actually, the interview that Igor and I did together, the Master Class and Hypnotic Storytelling…

Igor:

Is one big loop.

Robin:

Yes. There are quite a few loops in there. My favorite quote from a guy I met in the Bahamas, he said he trained himself to listen to trance tapes while he was driving a car. He has one of those tractors that he mows lawn with and he crashed it listening to my tapes.

Igor:

Gotcha. Thank you for mentioning that.

Student: I was just going to mention that this sounds eerily similar to hypnotic fractionation. Igor:

Exactly. That’s exactly what’s going on, you’re getting people experiences and they’re popping out and back in and back out. This is one of the ways that Erickson used to do a lot of his trance work. He would tell story after story. He tended to complete his stories more, but I think he was also aware of leaving things dangling so people would keep grasping whilst another thing is coming in this way.

Robin:

By the way, all these hypnotic techniques are used throughout literature and movie making as a matter of course.

Igor:

Meanwhile, at the other end of town…

Robin:

Just think of all those stories that begin with… I discovered a secret book and in that book was… the story. Here’s the adventure that happened to me. There’s a book called Cloud 9 in the last few years by David Mitchell. It’s six stories, the first starting in the past, the one in the middle in the future and it’s a perfect set of six nested loops. The movie ‘Inception’.

Igor:

Beautiful.

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Robin:

This is also the works of Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea, the Illuminati’s Trilogy. They used what’s called a Sufi Scatter Technique, because this technique is also used in Sufi teachings a lot. I use it in workshops as well because it confuses the hell out of people.

Igor:

No, surely not.

Robin:

Just moving from one thing to another and back to this one and over to that one and back to that one.

Igor:

Did any of you experiment with the idea of not actually telling them when you transitioned to the other story and just telling the other story? Wasn’t that impact a little mind warping, where at first you go yeah that makes it… doesn’t make sense anymore and suddenly you realize you’re in a completely different story so you have to back track the whole start of the story to figure out what this new story is about. Did you notice that sort of thing happening?

Group:

Yes.

Igor:

That’s a great point at which, if you want to do anything hypnotic to begin.

Student: I just noticed as you’re telling the story and the person is getting in and in, you keep switching and if you were to say embed a lesson just about there they are in a yes set. They don’t even remember they’re doing it. Robin:

Excellent thank you.

Igor:

That’s an excellent realization, you’ll probably teach the rest of the day for us. I think we should take a break. Anyone else?

Robin:

I’ve just wet myself.

Igor:

Is your drinking problem coming back?

Student: That reminds me of a story.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller Student: It’s not related directly to the exercise here, but it’s an observation because some time ago I just told a story to a neighbor. That is I started to tell the story and we had to stop because my family went away. We didn’t meet for about half a year and after that half a year he said, I’m so glad to see you again, I was wondering how the story ends. Igor:

Fantastic! That’s a great example of that. I think Amir was asking how to get someone interested in his stories. Imagine you open loops like that and then you walk away.

Student: Perhaps a question about something you discussed previously. It seems that some people are on a mission, not here, but to sabotage your story and that it’s like the pause as you mentioned, sometimes you need half a second and they start pushing through their story. Igor:

It can happen.

Student: Again the story is very hard. Perhaps you all met those kinds of people. How do you win the authority to get your pauses right? Igor:

There are a couple ideas, one being just to recognize that most people aren’t that way, which helps. Second is to ask yourself which kind of conversation do you have? Is it a one to one conversation or are you in a group? If you’re in a group you can basically carry on with your conversation anyway and if they’re hooked into your story they’ll ignore his, it’s an unwelcome interruption. If it’s one to one than you have to ask yourself whether it’s appropriate for you to force your story on him as he’s forcing it on you, if you see what I mean. There’s a social context there and of course there are social cues. For example, if I heard Robin do a cat-like noise like meow, I can always add something to remind him that there’s a monastery and the man has to get back to his room because it’s getting late. No one is allowed out after dark because stuff happens, right?

Robin:

Yeah, I know what you mean because I was really worried about this cat it was keeping me up all night.

Igor:

So… So… So… there he is going to sleep. You have other mechanisms to take control of the conversation, but before you use them ask yourself if it’s

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller appropriate. Maybe he desperately needs to get this story out and then his ears will be open enough to listen some more. Don’t be in a rush to block them just because they’re blocking you. Get a sense of where the context is at. Robin:

I suspect that your experience with men and women in that kind of environment would be different and let’s face it, often when we meet people your experience with men and women would also be different in a different way, I wasn’t making comment about gender. I’m making a comment about competition and ego and space, and a lot of time when we meet people when we’re in social groups, there’s a competition for the alpha position, whether male or female.

Igor:

Of course, there is the… people do this don’t they?

Robin:

In our civilized world, typically the alpha controls the group not through physical force but by controlling the ongoing story of the group. Another little element is a book called Games People Play by Eric Byrne. He also wrote I’m Okay You’re Okay. He was a transactional analyst. He talks about strokes. The way I approach those kinds of situations with a new group is every communication I give is like a stroke. If it’s about me, if I’m talking about myself, my audience is giving me a stroke. It’s like okay there you go some attention for you. When I’m listening to them it’s like oh yeah, here’s some attention for you and we trade strokes. If I’m telling a story that’s actually about you that’s reversed because I’m stroking you. Please don’t get this the wrong way it’s not that kind of seminar. So there’s an interplay of strokes and as we reveal things about ourselves we give permission for others to do the same and vice versa, it’s a tradeoff. If I find myself in a situation where that’s not happening, I leave. I don’t want to be around people who are self obsessed. Well, not all the time anyway.

Igor:

Does that help?

Rita:

My storyteller was giving me five or six nested loops. I was really interested in all of them and suddenly I went berserk, like stop it I’m going to strangle you

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller now, because I want to hear one of them. It put my conscious mind back because it was like a blowout or something. Igor:

There is something called too much of a good thing. It’s true. People have come up to me and said so how many nested loops do I have to tell before someone goes totally unconscious? If you take this seven plus minus two thing, what if I tell like nine stories will that totally blow out consciousness? Quite possibly. What about 15 or 25? It reminds me of when I was a kid and with my dad arguing in the car scene, who would win a bear or a wolf? A bear. What about three wolves and a bear? Maybe the wolves. What about five wolves and five bears and a jaguar? It’s one of those stories that have no ending to it. How much is enough? You look and when that frown or frustrations comes in a little crinkle there and a fist starts forming, that’s why I was thinking about it earlier. That’s the sign that you’ve had enough. Does that help?

Rita:

It helps me not strangling him.

Robin:

It really depends on context. You can get away with much more in a hypnotic environment. In the Master Class I think we got up to 10-11 loops.

Igor:

But we do close them as well in the middle.

Robin:

Some of them. Some of them are still open.

Igor:

I know. It’s a good learning to have because it’s all context dependent and if you observe your partner you’ll get a sense when good things start deteriorating, at which point you want to close some loops or do something else.

Robin:

Bear in mind, you’ll possibly get the reaction that I imagine. I’m imagining Rita wasn’t probably actually expressing like that but was actually getting more tense and more frozen, would that be accurate?

Rita:

No, I really went for the neck.

Robin:

Up until that point?

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller Rita:

I got more tense.

Robin:

You were getting tense but you weren’t actually expressing it…

Igor:

It’s a show of attention immobility, pulling back, looking away…

Robin:

People will go into that response rather than an active one, so watch out for paralysis.

Igor:

No always a good thing.

Student: When you were talking about the alpha person who was speaking when you’re a storyteller, sometimes I’ve learned that you allow the alpha person to tell their story that way they can do their marking, and when you can see where the point is that you want to enter the story and support their story and learn how you can intertwine their story with yours and sometimes you also find out, maybe I don’t want to be in part of his/her story. Igor:

Exactly.

Robin:

That’s the beater strategy. If you’ve seen the rutting stags or whatever it is and there’ll be a couple fighting it out and while they’re having a fight, one of the other stags will zip round and take her away.

Igor:

I call it the Colombo approach. Remember the TV show who was like a bumbling idiot. Just one more question and everyone thinks he’s an idiot but of course he’s a genius who solves it all. That’s a good way to work with alpha’s if you have to, which is to make it seem as though it’s all to their credit and of course they’ll go sure you can tell your story. It’s all about how good I am. Then of course, everyone is going great story well done and by then it’s too late. Thank you for sharing that.

Student: I was just going to say that I was the stranglee and I’m not sure, but she did have a definite fixation of attention and I think I might have gotten beyond the attention part of ABS. Igor:

Did you go into stimulating unconscious response. Not a necessarily useful one although I guess it can be converted. It just shows the value of paying attention to people and see how they’re responding.

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In public and social situations, I rarely nest more than two or three deep.

Student: In this room people are predisposed to listening to you as an active event. I noticed in your Power of Conversational Hypnosis when you talked about waiting for the metro or something and trying to talk with an individual and you had to go first and give them the time to get there with you. Igor:

Yes, this is a slightly different strategy. This is talking more about how do you warm people up to have a conversation if they’re strangers?

Student: Exactly, but they could be in your own house and be far away. Igor:

Absolutely. You could have a shy person at a party but then this works even better because they basically don’t know what to say so they wish you’d keep talking because they’re too embarrassed to add. It’s actually the opposite problem which now is a no-brainer for us because we can be polite enough to keep the conversation going until they have warmed up enough to contribute. This stuff helps, especially with the open loops. They’ll go oh tell me more about this and suddenly they feel like they’re contributing because they have something to talk about. Let’s do something useful with what we’ve been doing so far. Let’s add an extra element.

Robin:

A couple of examples. I was called in by a company I hadn’t actually worked with before. In fact, I hadn’t even met the guy but a mutual colleague put us in touch. He rang me up and said I’m going to do this pitch for an away day, a training weekend, can you come help us? I had some skills that they were looking for, for that pitch and experience. I turned up and shook hands with the guy I’d never met before. We sat down in the room and the interview panel started off and said tell us about yourself. I was completely in the dark. I had a rough idea of what we were doing, but was in the dark about what this guy was going to say. So I start with the truth. I said do you know what, we’ve only just met, but I have this friend Pamela and she’s one of those women who, she’ll turn around a company, develop a new product line and then have breakfast.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller She’s so on top of her game and she said to me, you have to work with these guys, so here I am. Igor:

Do you get a hint of what this might be about?

Robin:

It’s a personal pronoun switch. The story is using the word you, she is saying you to me, in that you have to work with these guys. I am turning that around so you have to work with these guys. That’s one way of doing it.

Igor:

At the end of the whole desert island survival thing you get tested. We get picked up by helicopter and it flies out to the islands and is beautiful oceans and so on, lots of little picturesque islands that are hell holes when you actually get there. Then halfway through the flight is an announcement over the intercom. There are just two of you in the back with the pilot in the front and it’s like when the intercom things coming through flashing, mayday mayday, abandon ship. The helicopter hovers a bit lower so we don’t die, but you have to jump out and swim to shore. I don’t know whether you have a thing for heights or not but you can imagine standing at the edge of a helicopter with a rail just outside the helicopter that you put your feet onto. You shouldn’t jump from inside because all kinds of unpleasant things can happen. So you actually stand on the rail and you have to time it with the other person because if you jump too soon, as a commercial helicopter it has less balance and weighs less. If one of you jumps too soon it’s like a food blender. So you’re standing there looking down, you’re looking at your partner and looking down and the call comes, go-go-go, so you have to look at your partner and time it just right…

Robin:

So you’re looking down there and you know what it’s like when, so I’m just about to jump off the cliff and you know what it’s like when you’re looking down.

Igor:

You’re looking down. Get the idea. I’d like you to find a new partner. Tell your nested loops again. You can make new ones if you want or use the ones you’ve already used. Only within them I would like for you to pause within moments and actually switch those referential indexes. Go to the second

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller person and stop talking about you when you’re talking about yourself or whoever the story is about. Let’s do it relatively quickly, 3-4 minutes apiece and we’ll come back and add something to it to make the whole thing a lot of fun. New partner. Same story or new stories it’s up to you. Off you go Robin:

That company said they were going to call us back next week but we didn’t make it to the car park. They called us up and said we want to work with you.

Igor:

So how did you experience that, the switching of indexes?

Student: I think they… Igor:

They probably confused each other with who they are.

Amir:

As a storyteller I found it quite difficult to start, going from one thing to the other.

Igor:

Once the doors are open you just keep rolling right?

Amir:

Yes, and I was looking for ways to close the loop.

Igor:

To close the story loops themselves? We’ll come onto that, it’s actually straightforward. How do you get on switching to the you’s and so on?

Amir:

That was easy.

Igor:

How do you experience it as the listener, having someone switch? Let me ask you this, did they pull you into the story more or push you out of it more? It pulled you in overall right? Did anyone lose sense of a little bit of reality of where you were, it’s like yeah I’m actually much more I’m there in the experience now?

Amir:

As a storyteller it was very easy to do. I added more characters into the story and then it got really confusing. Not only did I confuse the person in front of me but I confused myself and then I did something I didn’t think I was going to do, where I was not just making positive suggestions to the person in front of me but I also played being that person and saying thank you so much for you saying…

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Giving them reaction right back.

Amir:

I thanked myself for suggesting they set it and it was interesting.

Igor:

A very warped reality. Would it be fair to say that what Amir just did there, could you call that a transformational story?

Group:

Yes.

Igor:

He’s presenting suggestions. He’s giving the reactions to suggestions and the kinds of gratitude that’s presupposing the work so the other person gets a sense of oh, well here’s a method of resolving the problem I have.

Student: He does it in a natural way. Igor:

Yes. Absolutely right, he’s just a nice chatty sort of person so he can do that naturally, but all of you did it to a certain degree already, so what we’re going to do now is formalize that.

Robin:

I usually keep track of stories. Igor knows occasionally I’ve been mid-story and wondering where I was going with it.

Igor:

Oh yes.

Robin:

Although usually my unconscious usually takes over at that point and goes here’s where you are, oh yeah.

Igor:

Except when he says here’s where you want to go, in which case a new story comes out, but it’s engaging.

Student: Just as a joke in the last loop I got a completely unrelated suggestion, that this is because you’re going to buy this insurance or feel protected. It was a joke but even now I can feel there is a jolt in my brain of just the way that my mind immediately rejected the idea. I can feel it was a kick. Igor:

Of course, because your unconscious recognizes the vulnerable state you put someone else in, in terms of you’ve opened the mind up and there are ethical considerations in play. There’s nothing wrong with making an offer for something. There’s nothing wrong with presenting people a transformational

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller moment where they can get a sense of oh, if I do follow these steps this is the kinds of outcome I can expect, but really the choice has to be theirs. That’s what we’re getting into now. You’ve opened a bunch of loops. This morning we started off telling transformational stories, correct? So why don’t you put this together. Tell your three opening stories, do your transformational story… Robin:

With a referential index shift.

Igor:

Which you switch to the, you rather than the, I’ll person or whatever. When you finish your transformational story and there’s that catharsis then whilst in that afterglow go straight back to the end of the third story, second story, first story, so you close them in reverse order. Tell your transformational story, my dad told me something pretty amazing and looking back and then you have your other story. It makes me think of the man in the monastery who we haven’t finished with yet so I won’t close it. Do you see how simple it is to just go flipping right back at the end of it once you have that moment of oh yeah this is good and then you close one-two-three, done? The key here though for looping is if you tell stories one-two-three, you’ll close them in reverse order three-two-one, just because they neatly connect to each other in time. Simple?

Student: What’s the maximum time you leave a story unfinished before the person forgets you’ve told the unfinished story? Igor:

Life. Some people forget sooner, some later. I had one seminar person come up two years later and say do you know that story you told please, it’s been bugging me for two years, tell me what happened. I forgot the story and I was like no. I have to watch the DVDs to figure what the story was. Some people just forget and move on but others just can’t.

Robin:

I once worked with a drug addict who, we did some trance work and he remembered this memory popped into his mind and it was the cover of his chemistry exercise book from when he was 13 years old. He’d written a poem

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller on it. Something like, the end is nigh, I’m going to die, heroine’s all I’ve got. The only way I spend my day is sitting smoking pot. He’d written that as some type of joke when he was a teen, but every time he sat down to a typewriter or keyboard to test it out that’s the poem he’d write. He was completely unconscious of the connection between the two things. Chances are you told yourself a story when you were very young and a powerful storyteller and that storyteller is still going on. Igor:

In fact, the story you told yourself when you were very young is your current life. It can be powerful things that happen.

Student: I understand… how to make a connection between two opposite kinds of stories, like laugh and to fail. How to make connection from one to another when they are totally opposite. What’s the easiest way? Igor:

Well, the simple version of that is that you shift your own emotions with it. Let’s say everyone is sitting here laughing and going this is so crazy, you’re a funny guy and you’re like yes I’m a funny guy. It’s not always laughter. I remember working with one guy who had gone through some really difficult times, and now my second story, so you have to make the transition yourself and that becomes an emotional bridge they can follow into the next story. The people that excel at this are in theater. In fact, Shakespeare was a genius at this. He’d create a comic moment, followed seconds later by one with absolute tragedy. That’s the way to do it.

Robin:

When you get into this a bit more, there are a number of different ways of structuring the kinds of stories you tell, the emotions you elicit from each story and how you chain those together with anchors. This is an NLP term, have you heard of sliding anchors?

Igor:

Or chaining anchors.

Robin:

Right. Yes, it’s possible to chain your story so you actually lead people through a series of useful states. So you lead them for example, from frustration and overwhelm to confidence and safety.

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And there are steps you take in between.

Robin:

So you start with the first storey in your external loop. You talk about the problem state, the state in the middle is your resourceful state and the states in the way are steps to that goal. Is that clear?

Student: What’s the effect of closing in the wrong order? Igor:

It’s not that it’s bad it’s just that the opposite question is more interesting, which is what is the effect of closing the loops in the reverse vs the correct order. That is that let’s do it with recency and primacy. We remember most easily the first and last thing that you experience. The things in between tend to fall out of memory. If you started your first story and you end with the first story you remember one story and it’s ending, so they’ll tend to connect and the things in the middle drop out and then the same thing happens with the second layer and if they have enough memory for that then the second layer is fully connected as well, which what’s underneath that drops out. So you create those layers so the things inside end up dropping out the middle. I like to call it the donut technique, because you have your donut and it’s very boring until you inject the jam in the middle. No one knows where it is but when you bite in that’s where you’ll find it.

Arthur:

Could you go over again the way and reason for switching a referential index in the middle of a story?

Igor:

Sure, happy to do that. Can we take this question first because it seems to be related to what we just talked about? I don’t want to keep the loops too open.

Student: You explained how to lead someone out of a state through a more resourceful state and resolve it through three stories. Would you do a nested loop with that? Because at the same time the nested loop wouldn’t that run the risk to reconnect that to the problem? Igor:

The endings don’t have to have the same emotions.

Student: Okay.

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It’s complicated. The simplest structure is that you start the outside with frustration with the problem state, which means you will also finish talking about the problem state. In the middle is the resource state. I would usually use five or so stories so you have five steps along the way. For it to work effectively you need to elicit and anchor each emotional state on each step of the journey and I usually throw in a confusion pattern before the resource state and I will also trigger the problem state using whatever anchor I’ve setup just before the solution state as well. Those are finesses.

Igor:

Keep it simple. As long as your endings are clean. All stories don’t have the same emotion entirely so you can have a happy ending to all three stories so the states become simplified. There’s a much simpler way of dealing with it. Now, going back to Arthur’s question. The simplest version are the words, you know what it’s like when you’re or another one might be, just imagine you’re and typically this happens at some type of climax. You know when you’ve been trying really hard to achieve something and you just get on top and look back on your life and go this is it? It’s like that. I got on the top most pillars of the rock you can stand on and was looking out and thought you’ve really made it. You just switch. You do it 100 times when you’re in stories you just don’t realize it.

Robin:

The effect is to associate the person into the story.

Igor:

It makes it their story then, at some level. The transformational story you start and finish in one block it’s its own thing.

Robin:

Can you remember what the exercise was?

Igor:

Very simply you’ll tell a story one, story two, story three, not completing it. Then tell your transformational story, all the way through until the happy ending. Finish story three, finish two and then finish story one, it’s that simple. Especially at this transformational stage you will switch to, you will switch to you will switch. I won’t switch you will switch. It can be the third or fifth story it’s just the one in the middle that will be the transformational story like we did this morning. It’s much easier to do than to

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller talk about. How about we just try that. Let’s take 6 minutes apiece, different partners, start with the three loops you opened up and tell your full transformational story from this morning and then close the loops in reverse order. [Exercise starts] You had a good sense of what loops do and how they open minds. Then you notice how when you put the transformational story in the middle of the open loops the impact is different, more profound and more personal, especially if you switch that index point that we talked about. Anything else before the break? Robin:

Meow.

Igor:

That’s a good point. Let’s take a break.

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DVD 6 – Creating “Picaresque Adventures” & How To Scale Stories Depending On Your Environment

Monastery & Cat Stories 4 Igor:

Meow.

Robin:

Meow. I think I need to warn you, the story doesn’t end well, for those of you who have a sensitive nature. I’m getting myself in a little bit of a state now because on the one hand I really like this cat, my daughter likes this cat and it keeps coming in the house and I keep putting it out again. This big motorcycle guy who keeps coming round to me and being angry at me, accusing me of somehow trying to steal his cat or kill it by feeding it or whatever. He won’t believe me. I told him, I fed your cat once and he keeps going on, you’ve been feeding my cat. I’m like no I haven’t and now he’s found me, found the cat in my house when I said it wasn’t there, so he thinks I’m trying to keep it a secret that I have the cat in here. I just don’t understand because I keep putting the cat out and it’s not learning. I noticed a funny thing which is that the cat keeps coming to the same place in the house. It keeps walking, walks around, says hellos and then it goes and sits under this one particular chair. I thought that’s a bit weird because there are plenty of places for it to sit why does it sit under that chair? Anyway, by now I’m like I’m afraid to open my back door. It’s summer and I have a lovely back garden. I need to water my tomatoes, I mean after all I left them to go to the Bahamas and they didn’t like that. Since then I’ve been a bit more attentive to them. So, I’m afraid to go into my, now cat litter tray, of a back garden. I’m nervous about cooking in case it will attract the cat. It’s hot, I want to leave my windows and doors open and I should be able to do that, right? I have a right to live in my house the way I want, to use my garden the way I want. I shouldn’t feel terrorized by a cat stalking me,

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller bringing its evil aggressive accusatory owner with it, projecting all his problems and anxiety. It’s because he’s not looking after the cat properly that’s why it’s coming to see me. It prefers me, basically. That night sitting in the living room, it’s a warm balmy evening so I had the windows open at the front of the house. I’m sitting doing some work and I hear this noise. The cat is scratching the hell out of my backdoor. It’s just sitting in the back scratching, won’t stop and give in. It’s freaky. I don’t know what to do. I walked to the backdoor to look at it. It’s just sitting there, meow. Meow. I opened the door a little bit and tried shooing it away. Go back to your owner. Your owner loves you, go back to him. I’m sorry I can’t, I just can’t, it’s not fair. It’s like I’m having an affair with the cat. Shoo, go. I slammed the door and go back to the living and bloody hell, the cat is coming in through the front window. I throw it out quickly and close the door. How did it get round the front? Wait, there’s traffic around the front. Oh no, now wait a minute I’m supposed to be friendly with its owner and now I’ve thrown it out in the front. How it got round to the front in the first place I don’t know. I’m sure it’s not supposed to be round the front because it might get run over, but do I ring up the guy now and tell him that I just saw the cat at the front or do I pretend that I don’t know? Maybe he’s going to come round now. I hear from the outside, rumble- rumble where are you? I thought oh my God he’s looking for his cat. He’s perched outside my front living room window looking in. I swear I actually went into my bedroom and closed the door and the curtains and hid. I’m a grown man this is ridiculous. It’s funny how we can get ourselves worked up into a state about things. I’m being stalked by a cat and its owner, feeling anxious in my own home. Now I have this text exchange going back and forth with the owner, where he’s accusing me of this and I’m going no, I’m trying to help I’ve given you my phone number so you can call me whenever. He’s like yeah but you shouldn’t be feeding him. I’m not feeding him your bloody cat. I explain to him the details. I’m like okay, you found the cat round my house the other day I admit it its true, but I’ve been doing what you said and threw the cat out like 15 times in one day and it’s still coming back in. I was in the

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller shower. I cannot remove the cat straightaway all the time. What if I’m taking a shit? What if I’m busy with a client or looking after my daughter? I was getting a bit too stressed. I remembered something about cats and what they do and why they start to go and hide places. If anyone’s had cats you know what they do don’t you? When they’re ready to die they go find somewhere to hide and curl up. The cat has been coming to my house and sitting under the same chair. I start feeling a bit different towards the cat. Now I’ve explained that the cats actually managed to break into my house through the cat flap that it’s been sitting there scratching away, the owner has calmed down a bit and I think he realizes the cat needs something he’s not getting right now and he’s coming looking. What we did, and this was just the week before coming out here, we made sure that cat had a really nice last week. Igor:

So there’s this man walking out of the abbot office and it’s getting nighttime so he knows he has to go back to his quarters, but all he can hear is this voice ringing in his head sorry son I can’t tell you you’re not a monk. I can’t tell you you’re not a monk. It was ringing from ear to ear. The guy goes to bed and tries to sleep, but that voice, I can’t tell you you’re not a monk. He wakes up of course at one minute past midnight as he’s done for the entire stay so far. All the sadness of the world, the grief, terror and pain, he’s terrified and burning with curiosity and in the back of his mind is always the sound of that voice, sorry I can’t tell you you’re not a monk. So he devises a plan. In the morning he doesn’t fall asleep, the first thing he does is he gets up at the crack of dawn with all the other monks who somehow manage to sleep through the crazy nights. He looks up at the Father Abbot and lays out his plan to him. He says look, I’ve been here for two weeks now and I’ve worked in your gardens and kitchen. I’ve prayed with the monks in the abbey and studied and I’ve had a great time. I think I might enjoy this lifestyle. I think I might like to enjoy becoming a monk. Of course the abbot knows the game and he looks at him with sadness in his eyes and says son, are you sure? With a burning fever he says yes I’m sure. He says, you know, becoming a monk isn’t easy it takes time and dedication and practice. The man says I have all that. He sells his car, his

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller apartment and his possessions. He tells his boss he’s not coming back and of course the boss thinks he’s nuts. He gives it all to charity and spends 1-2 years living with the monks and each night whenever he feels like this is it I’ve had too much and don’t want this lifestyle anymore, that night he gets a reminder and that burning curiosity comes back and those words echo in his head, I’m sorry I can’t tell you you’re not a monk. Eventually enough time has passed and the Father Abbot grabs him from the refectory one day and says you’ve been with us some years now and have shown your dedication, showed your spirit, you’ve prayed with us, you’ve meditated and your mind is strong now, I think you’re ready to become one of us. The man is excited, terrified, elated and petrified. There’s a ceremony where he gets divested of his normal clothes and gets a lovely brown robe like all the other monks. His hair is shaved. He’s anointed and that night when all the other monks go to sleep he has to stand vigil in the abbey. At 10:00 o’clock, 11:00 o’clock… round about 11:30, 11:45 the abbot turns up with the old gatekeeper only the gatekeeper is no longer wearing his brown robes; he’s garbed in what can only be described as full plate mail armor. There’s a plate on his chest. He has chain mail coming down one side and has a long sword in one hand and a big evil looking dagger on the other. He has a round thing that looks like a shield with a big spike thing in the middle, a big cross on his chest and he looks like a man ready for death. He looks grim and resolved. Of course the man is now really worried and elated, excited and doesn’t know what to do with himself. The Father Abbot turns to him and says are you sure you want to know the secret of the monastery, of this abbey? He goes yes I’m ready to be one of you. Father Abbot looks at him with the saddest eyes and says follow me. They open the doors to the crypt and they descend the Father Abbot, the man and the keeper of the gates. They walk through this maze underground where hundreds of monks have been buried in the past. It’s dark and frightening but the anticipation is building. He can almost feel it and it’s getting closer now to midnight. Just before midnight strikes they reach a small wooden door and it’s been

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller reinforced with steel bolts that have been thrown in. In front of the wooden door is a portcullis, which is one of these iron gates like you’d find in castles. It’s only a small door. It’s very strange but his heart starts thumping. Midnight passes, not yet one minute past, then the keeper of the gate comes forward and with surprising strength for such an old man he pulls the chain and the portcullis lifts. With a trembling hand he pulls out a set of keys that fits in the lock. Just as the minute ticks past midnight he opens the door. Do you know what he saw? I’m afraid I can’t tell you you’re not a monk. [Applause] You are fortunate that I haven’t spent a month telling you that story, and really this takes us into what we want to cover now, which is that we’ve scaled the stories down but how do we scale them up? In particular I would like to introduce you to a vehicle that makes the practice of scaling your stories very easy because there’s no risk involved. You’ve already heard mine. Robin’s version is actually a more elegant version, because it’s a true story and it has a point, it has poignancy to it. Mine is just a bad joke, although as a storyteller it’s very amusing. If you can duck. Now you understand that one right. Robin:

Shaggy cat story.

Igor:

The kind of story I told is a shaggy dog story, which is a very long story that really has no point. A shaggy dog story is a long, a legend as to how it got its name which probably isn’t a shaggy dog story come to think of it now. We don’t have enough time for that one. You’ll have to come to the next seminar to hear that one. There’s another kind of story which relates to this and is actually a little of what Robin and I have been doing. It’s called the picaresque adventure. Does anyone know that term? It’s an old style of story that was very popular in the medieval times. Essentially it’s a simple story A to B. I have to go on a pilgrimage for example and the story isn’t about going from A to B it’s about everything that happens on the way from A to B, it’s lots of little adventures. If you remember those old black and white serials like Zorro or whatever where every week something happened and it’s a little mini adventure. That’s

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller sort of a picaresque adventure. It’s a tremendous way for you to build your storytelling skills. I could have told my story very simply. Man gets kicked out of his office, finds a monastery, hears a crazy noise, asks what it is, won’t find out. He gets so frustrated that he becomes a monk, goes to the place where the noise is, can’t tell you you’re not a monk. That’s the short version of the story. Not quite as amusing I admit, but that’s the essence of the story. Everything else in between is just pure storytelling and did you notice something happening whilst you were listening to the story? Did anyone here feel a little curious? Did anyone here feel a little nervous? Did anyone here feel like their fantasy was running round inside the mind, what is it? Is it a beast or a ghost, a devil, what is it? The story that Robin told could also be told in a two minute version. How would you put that one? Robin:

I fed the neighbors cat. It started stalking me. It died.

Igor:

Here’s why this is interesting. Apart from that you’ve now gone back to where we started the day, which is a very basic structure for a story. You’ve been thinking about a lot of stories that you’ve told but weren’t really stories to know how to shape them. Aren’t they like that? Yeah, went to the shops, a gunman shot someone, went home, it was really terrible. It’s just a sequence of events that have nothing connecting it. What makes a story is the picaresque adventure that comes with it. It’s the emotional rollercoaster that comes with it.

Robin:

Has anyone heard of the Epic of Gilgamesh? One of the oldest stories. There is a narrative that constitutes the main thrust of the story that you could summarize very quickly and then there’s a whole load of things on the way. Adisis, The Odyssey.

Igor:

The Iliad, which is Cesar of Troy.

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Chalsa, he’s a bit clever because he puts a load of people together who are going on a journey and then each of them tells a story about something else.

Igor:

You mean like a nested loop?

Robin:

A little bit. A succession of them.

Igor:

It’s a well known literary device.

Robin:

The Adventures of Tom Jones, one of the earliest English novels.

How To Scale Your Stories Igor:

We’d like for you to use this vehicle to explore the craft part of storytelling, the artistic omen, the bit that draws people in. You’ve seen two versions of pretty much the same thing, a real story with a point and a fake story with none. I’d like you to start with that fake story with no point, the shaggy dog story and you can happily use mine. A man finds a monastery, mystery noise, can’t find out what it is because he’s not a monk. He becomes a monk, find out what it is but you don’t. That’s the short version. So, we’d like you to spend a minute telling that shaggy dog story or any story you think doesn’t really have a point, it could be a personal story without a point, to someone in literally just one minute or less and then give them a chance to do the same. Then we’ll come back and reset it and see if we can get some mileage out of the story that really isn’t one and then we’ll move on to actually making it real. Do you understand the idea? Find a partner, spend one minute, feel free to repeat my story in that one minute or come up with another pointless story that has no real meaning and then we’ll come back and see if we can build that into something useful. [Exercise starts – one minute apiece, two minutes total, off you go] We had someone come up and say he knows what was in the monastery on the other side of the door. It was his cat.

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You told a relatively pointless story in about a minute or so and you got quite animated about that. What I want you to do now is to tell the same point of story in five minutes, but see how much you can fit in on those five minutes in terms of the little side adventures, other things that are happening, like the man is driving, then there’s the monastery, then there’s a noise and then there’s a reaction to the noise and he’s trying to get to the faster stuff. See how much you can fill into that in five minutes, to build curiosity, engagement, and any other emotion you may want, something may be charming or funny. Something may be bizarre. It doesn’t matter too much what it is, just try to build in two or three of these moments around that story and really go to town on it, because you know the story is absolutely pointless, you’re free to not try and make sense or come to some dramatic conclusion and that freedom then allows you to invest all your energies into the storytelling elements on the journey to the pointless end. Does that make sense? This is just the vehicle for you to practice it. It’s also a very nice practical joke for all your friends and enemies. For enemies I recommend the one-two-three month version. For friends stick to about an hour. I find that after that you create frenemies. So you get the idea of the exercise? Same story again, five minutes and really, you’re putting attention on the development of the story elements rather than on the end which is what most people think about. Robin:

How I met your mother, the TV series.

Igor: ---

Yes, that’s another picaresque adventure. [Exercise starts] It appears that you all are becoming such charismatic storytellers that you are missing all the social cues. Stop talking now. It’s very dangerous for us at this point isn’t it?

Robin:

Yes, it’s almost like they don’t need us anymore.

Igor:

Oh no, go home.

Robin:

You probably realize that this kind of story press is great training wheels for developing your ideas and pushing with them. If you’re interested in storytelling out of performance that’s the most obvious situation in which you

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller can go on and on with a story and create a big arc, journey for your hero and then segue off into little incidents along the way. Having said that, I’ve used this technique in a similar way that we’ve used it today, across an extended period of time teaching. Giving people a little story at the beginning and end of a teaching seminar over the course of six months. That’s something I did when I taught those personal development courses on the NBA program. It’s just fun and people know what you’re doing by the time you get there. Its just with learning, people have something that locks them in and if you think this through a little more and you have a lot of content, facts and things like that that you need to teach to people, than you might consider how the method of locai, which Igor showed you yesterday, where you place objects and symbols in different locations and how you might be able to use that in a similar way. I had a guy from India actually call me up about this very issue because he was teaching people the bones of the body, so we worked together on what’s the story you can tell that places all those bones from the cranium to the toe bones. Student: Metatarsal. Robin:

Nice one.

Igor:

Will you tell us the story now?

Robin:

Well done. No. I gave him a starting point and told him some ideas and then he went off and to be honest I was going yeah great, because he’d run with it and made it his own and he knew he didn’t need me anymore. What we’d like you to do with this next one is to take one of your stories and add in two elements. How can you take those stories off on a tangent?

Igor:

Those picaresque adventures we talked about. How can you add sidelines into your story that were very interesting but really just amp up the ultimate end of the story?

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Robin:

So, I’m out in the garden with my neighbor from upstairs. She’s stroking the cat and she says it’s really skinny. Oh, there’s something really funny about my neighbor upstairs, because she was in a film a few months back and what happened was… suddenly segued into a whole new area now and you can fill in the details about her story. There’s a second element to introduce and when you look into the oral traditions of storytelling you’ll notice that there are two elements they interplay with each other. There’s the element of consistency.

Igor:

It is so.

Robin:

There’s the element of improvisation or spontaneity.

Igor:

It is so.

Robin:

So, some parts of the story remain fixed.

Igor:

It is so.

Robin:

Some phrases or images

Igor:

It is so.

Robin:

Or gestures

Igor:

It is so.

Robin:

Remain fixed and are returned to repeatedly over the course of the story, while other bits are extemporized and are made up on the spot. And you might have noticed in my story, meow…

Igor:

It is so.

Robin:

It was repeatedly returned to and it anchors a laugh. It anchored a laugh for you early on and then every time I brought it in and when you started responding to it… In Igor’s story he repeated the phrase…

Igor:

I’m sorry I can’t tell you because you’re not a monk.

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Robin:

And he actually repeated that a number of different times, so it became…

Igor:

It became a curiosity thing where every time you hear it you’d wonder what it was. Consider if I told you the same story over the same length of time or even longer, but the only time I ever mentioned that phrase, I’m sorry I can’t tell you you’re not a monk was right at the start of the story. It wouldn’t have had nearly the same impact at the end. That’s if you really don’t like someone, you can leave it totally flat and disinteresting. At that point there’s no continuity in the story. The fact that I kept repeating it at the peak of emotion that you applauded rather than punching me, because I’ve had both versions.

Robin:

If you return to certain particular things like the Iliad, which are a written record of an oral story, there are phrases in there, like the wine dark see, the incomparable Achilles, which he repeats.

Igor:

I just want to say they do that to identify certain characters, because people can’t necessarily remember all the names and which person is which. But, by creating a strong vivid image, like Achilles with his tree-like spear, that’s an image that’s strong in someone’s mind and every time they come back to the same image they know who the players are, how they relate to each other and it sets a strong connection inside the mind.

Robin:

For those of you who are familiar with NLP and the term anchoring, you’ll also recognize that there’s an equivalence here between those consistent and repeated elements and anchors. If you can setup strong anchors in terms of your location…

Igor:

That’s where Robin takes a shower over there. Isn’t that where he’s naked, washing off soil.

Robin:

There’s my door.

Igor:

You missed a bit.

Robin:

In terms of your gestures and locations can be just like here by the way. I once had a guy give me a… no, I won’t go there.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller Student: Tell me. Robin:

No. You can setup locations just in front of you, like this. Certain gestures, certain phrases and certain sounds, tones or qualities serve as anchors for specific things, so how can you be specific? Think about setting up. When you first introduce an element in your story, what are you doing when you say it, because quite often naturally you’ll be going…? So, he’s traveling across the whole world, and you’ll find yourself doing something naturally often. Repeat it. So he’s traveling through the world, whatever it is repeat the gesture, repeat the same phrases. You’ll do that in the context of telling one of your stories to another person. Get up and move around. I suggest for this exercise that you do it standing up, because then you’ll have a better range of space and gesture that you can use. I want to add one little element which you won’t get to practice here, but I think what happens or what would happen if you used the same anchor in different stories and why you might do that. [Take it away. How long are we giving them?]

Igor:

Let’s give them five minutes apiece. For those who need to simplify, just do the same as you did a moment ago which is to embellish your stories. Whenever you have a peak of emotion, that’s when you repeat your key phrase or gesture. As Robin was saying, let your key gesture be something that emerges spontaneously that’s the best one, otherwise choose something. Stick to one for now just because it makes life easier. In time you can get more complex.

Robin:

I reckon these guys are advanced by now. It’s easy.

Igor:

Either one of us will be right. You get to choose.

Robin:

Listen to him or me, either.

Igor:

Either way is better right?

Robin:

Or both will do.

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Igor:

Find a partner, five minutes apiece, tell your story. Off you go. Wait one second we have a question.

Student: Can you use time for this to amplify something, for example, referring to do the same sort of thing like refer to the past, the future and then something about the present. Robin:

Absolutely.

Student: To amplify a particular… Igor:

Yeah, so there I was and I was thinking about…

Robin:

Tomorrow… we’ve very much been talking about creating stuff personally and tomorrow we’ll be looking much more of reading other people and helping them to pull their stories out and in those situations it behooves you to notice how they arrange their internal space around you.

Igor:

More on that tomorrow.

Robin:

I’ll answer your question tomorrow.

Igor:

Right now we’ll go to the exercise to reset it so people don’t get confused. Tell one of your own personal stories which you collected yesterday. Spend five minutes telling that story, in the style you told the last one with the picaresque adventures, embellishments, sense of adventure in the middle and whenever you get to a peak of emotion you’ll use your key phrase or key gesture and repeat that as often as possible throughout the story when it hits highlights, so you can pick some emotional or symbolic momentum.

Student: Are we driving to the same conclusion that the whole story is going to have? Igor:

For the moment I don’t care it doesn’t matter so much right now. We’ll talk about functionality afterwards. Five minutes apiece. Off you go. [Exercise starts]

--How did you enjoy those stories everyone? Who is starting to feel that they’re really getting to be a storyteller and are really owning these stories?

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller [Applause] Robin:

The rest of you what have you been doing for the last few days?

Igor:

Listening.

The Influence Formula Igor:

We’ve spent all this time building up your storytelling skills in order to be able to do something with it. You have one little model already and that’s loops with a transformational story in the middle that’s a nice model for stories that influence. I’d like to give you another one that’s a little more linear but actually fits a lot of natural conversations more fully. This is called the influence formula and it’s very straightforward and includes the stories you’ve already been telling. What I’d like to do is to build this up with you bit by bit so you focus on each stage at a time and then let the natural conversation evolve. So, for this I think the easiest thing to do is start by finding a new partner, someone you haven’t worked with today, that might make it most interesting. All you need to do is spending a minute or so socially chit-chatting about anything. The course, wine, cars, weather, whatever, just socializing where they say something you say something. If in that time you can introduce a little story, like your who am I story or your value story so much the better. In fact, why don’t I give you two minutes each and at the 2 minute mark you move from chit-chat into story. It’s very simple, because every chit-chat will end up having people ask you a question or you make a comment like, oh I had something like that happen and off you go into your little who am I story. Does that make sense? So, two minutes apiece, find a new partner and stay with them because then we’ll add some layers on top of that as you go along. Off you go. [Exercise starts] Now first question, do you notice how it’s relatively simple to transition from socially vibing type stuff into a, who I am type story, which is a very acceptable social thing to do. You probably also noticed that what happens is a trade-off where you tell one of yours and they tell one of theirs, is that fair to say? It’s a very natural transition.

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We’ll take that transition and imagine that you were in the same point when we broke off, and pick up the theme again back to the little social chit-chat and then tell your second story, which is your value story or why am I here story, either is fine. So you’ve basically told two personal stories to get a sense of who you are. So far it’s easy right. We’re really in the same category, where you’re talking about personal stories that introduce yourself to someone else and they fit the social context. What we want to do at that point is to transition from personal stories that are about understanding who you are, being able to predict you and so on, into stories that will allow you to start influencing others. It will be stories about them in some way or other, and we have two vehicles you can play with for this. The first is the story we talked about yesterday the mind reading. Do you recall? I know you’re experiencing this or that and I have a story about that sort of thing. The other is a much simpler version which is essentially, you just preframe it. Tell your value story or they tell theirs and then you might say something along the lines of it’s interesting you should say that. Let’s put it into context because that’s always more useful. Let’s say you’re at a teachers conference and you want to influence on the teacher to change teaching styles and they talked about their values and some kids they helped out in some desperate situation. It’s interesting you should say that because there are so many different ways I’ve found you can reach kids. Some of them work okay and some work really well. For example… and now you’ve opened the door to allow your influence stories to step in. Make sense? It’s a very simple preframe preamble or, you can go for the whole mind read, like you’re probably feeling this, this and this. I was as frustrated when I experienced these things with my students. That opens the door wide for an open loop for the next story to occur and we’ll talk about that afterwards. Make sense? Do you all understand the exercise? Go back to the same partner, pick the conversation up where you left off so you both introduce each other with stories, so now you’re going to vibe a little more and then go straight into your value story or your why am I here story. They’ll do a similar

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller thing about giving a sense of your motivation and sense of where your boundaries lie, and segue from that story into a preframe and then pause it there or your mind reading story which again leaves an open loop to do something else. At that point you’ll back track to social vibing and they’ll do the same thing for their own. It’s a little bit of an odd situation after that point because the other person has to have a go to, but hopefully you’ll see pretty much the same patterning run. Do you understand? Easy. Take three minutes apiece to do that. [Exercise starts] Off you go. How did that go, interesting? Who found it relatively natural to vibe a bit, tell their personal story, vibe a bit and tell a more personal story in terms of your values and so on, vibe a bit more and tell a transitional story like a mind reading thing or just set a simple preframe that would lead into you being able to tell another story? Relatively easy. Of course you realize you can do any of these things here with open or closed loops. The more you open the loops the more curiosity you build. If you create more certainty you’ll close those loops, it just depends on how the conversation goes. Sometimes people force an open loop by presenting their story before you’re done. My rule of thumb is if I’m interrupted I tend not to go back to the story unless I really need to, unless they ask for it. For example, when telling something like the shaggy dog story I introduced you to, I will happily be interrupted. You go on a shopping trip and do this or whatever, you get interrupted and I’m actually just waiting for the person to go no, tell me more. What happens in the story? Tell more. That’s how I know I have a nice intensity in terms of the permission from my audience to actually carry on telling the story. So far so easy. So we set the context that will allow us to tell our main stories for influence. These ones build relationship and open the door. Now it’s time to actually do some influencing. That is hidden, somehow. So really, once you’ve open the preframe or mind reading than you can tell your teaching tale or your transformational story. Of course you realize we’ve given one example of this in a longer conversation, you might go through

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller loops where you tell a couple transformational ones and go back to social vibing and back to some personal stories, back to social vibing, back to some transformational stories and so on. This is a linear thing for a more non-linear conversation. The important point is that at some point when you finish your teaching tale or transformational story or emotional state stories, you want to distract them away. The simplest thing is to go back to social vibing, get them to tell a story. Be curious about their stories. Tomorrow we’ll bring in tools to let them evolve their own stories so they can feel like they’re contributing and it gives you more fuel for further influence as well. Sometimes, not always, but sometimes it’s useful once you’ve told the story is to summarize the point that you’re trying to make for them. So often if someone finds something perplexing I’ll illustrate with a story and then rather than saying just do this and this, I’ll tell a story to illustrate the principle and then I’ll say so, really you want to try these things, do you get what I mean? They’ll go oh yeah and then we’ll move on. A story has already told them what they need to know and I just pulled out the essence of that story in a point, if it’s relevant for that situation. Sometimes you’ll do it sometimes you won’t, it depends on how much conscious attention you want to have on the information you presented to them. Do you understand the seven steps of the influence formula? It’s a simple process and very easy. You have the tools for it already it’s just a question of putting them all together in a simple structure. So now take another three minutes apiece, same partner, pick up where you left off, you just opened that preframe up, tell your teaching tale or transformational story and at the end you may or may not want to pull it together into a simple point. If you do make it and then just vibe again. If you don’t than just start vibing. As soon as you go back to normal social conversation chit-chat type of stuff that means it’s the other person’s go now to reintroduce their preframe or mind read and tell their transformational tale. That shows you how a balanced conversation goes anyways. Do you all understand the exercise? Go back to your partner, three minutes apiece and finish up your persuasion formula. Off you go.

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Just out of interest, is there anyone here who didn’t think they were creative on Sunday who would now put their hands up and say I feel like I’m creative now?

Igor:

Puts your hands up. Very nice.

Robin:

Anyone who didn’t think they could tell stories and now you can?

Igor:

Now they can.

Group Double Induction Robin:

Anyone really tired? Yes. So, you’ve been on a long journey.

Igor:

A long journey.

Robin:

Sometimes on that journey it’s time to rest. That’s right.

Igor:

And there are many ways to do that.

Robin:

That’s right.

Igor:

Oh, the penny’s dropping.

Robin:

It is. And how quickly it drops into a trance.

Igor:

When those eyes close.

Robin:

Will discover…

Igor:

That going inside

Robin:

Is a great way of…

Igor:

Really recollecting all the experiences you’ve had.

Robin:

Starting back at the beginning.

Igor:

The very first set of exercises just warming up

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Robin:

On Sunday morning

Igor:

All the crazy stuff you did to

Robin:

As you pay attention

Igor:

Develop your creativity

Robin:

To your body

Igor:

And evolve that into telling stories

Robin:

And then just enjoy breathing

Igor:

Just normal stories

Robin:

You can connect more and more

Igor:

That became very important stories

Robin:

To those memories

Igor:

And you developed a room

Robin:

To those experiences

Igor:

Inside your mind

Robin:

You know you can remember

Igor:

A simple tour of it

Robin:

Can’t you?

Igor:

Can remind you.

Robin:

And the more you focus

Igor:

Of all the stories you’ve collected

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Robin:

On those memories

Igor:

Location one

Robin:

And the last

Igor:

Location two

Robin:

Two days

Igor:

Location three

Robin:

Simply reviewing in your mind

Igor:

Location four

Robin:

And allowing yourself unconsciously

Igor:

Location five

Robin:

To begin to prepare

Igor:

Location six

Robin:

Because as you sleep and dream

Igor:

Location seven

Robin:

This evening

Igor:

Location eight

Robin:

And as you prepare

Igor:

Location nine

Robin:

Going around this evening

Igor:

Location… all the way

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Robin:

You’ll notice

Igor:

So many things

Robin:

And

Igor:

Have occurred inside

Robin:

When you

Igor:

And you can take those

Robin:

Find yourself

Igor:

Re-experience them

Robin:

Behaving in a new way

Igor:

Re-evaluate them

Robin:

In conversations

Igor:

Re-develop

Robin:

And naturally

Igor:

Your own

Robin:

As you make

Igor:

Conversational style

Robin:

New acquaintances, and

Igor:

Which will

Robin:

Go out into the world

Igor:

Allow you to

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Robin:

Spreading your message

Igor:

Really make a difference

Robin:

Making your ideas and passions

Igor:

In the way that you influence others

Robin:

Available to people through

Igor:

So many things you’ve learned

Robin:

The stories you communicate with

Igor:

So many things you’ve discovered about yourself

Robin:

And

Igor:

You can use these skills

Robin:

While you sleep and dream

Igor:

To interact with others

Robin:

To allow yourself the space

Igor:

In a more rich and encouraging way

Robin:

To really enjoy that fully now

Igor:

Ahh, what a day

Robin:

So that when you are ready to open eyes

Igor:

To a wonderful set of experiences

Robin:

You can do so, looking forward

Igor:

All the way until

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Robin:

To how

Igor:

You’re going to use these skills

Robin:

Much more you’ll enjoy

Igor:

When you get back

Robin:

Learning

Igor:

Into your normal environment

Robin:

Tomorrow

Igor:

Tomorrow of course is another day

Robin:

And when we start the day tomorrow we’ll be looking at

Igor:

Other stories

Robin:

Yes, particularly considering how you can discover the stories that other people have and encourage them to tell them. And how you can look for those secret words, those little code words

Igor:

Secret

Robin:

That people give you… that’s right they’re secret

Igor:

Secret

Robin:

You’ll only find out what they are if you come tomorrow

Igor:

Yes, if you’re late you might miss the secret

Robin:

If you don’t come tomorrow you won’t find out

Igor:

Maybe it was inside that door inside the monastery

Robin:

Maybe be

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Igor:

The secret was

Robin:

That allow you to unlock other people’s inner metaphors, the stories that they organize their life by. To understand their world view, so that rather than telling just your stories, your stories become your insight, your cue to the universal human experience that you adapt and share with people in a way that matches their world view.

Igor:

Think of it this way. What if you could shape your stories so it seems like they happened inside their mind already?

Robin:

It’s just a thought for you to dwell on tonight. And come back tomorrow

Igor:

Tomorrow is breezy; because you don’t want to miss that do you now.

Robin:

Awake, alive and ready to go.

Igor:

Thank you very much.

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DVD 7 – How To Find Your Own Internal Metaphors And Make Them Into Stories That Others Love

Q&A Session Igor:

Good morning everyone how are you?

Robin:

We’re great.

Igor:

I think it would be good to start with a Q&A session in terms of your experiences over the last few days. The good, the bad, the ugly, the questions, the answers, the epiphany’s…

Mia:

You said yesterday that there are stories that have no point.

Igor:

I did. Was there a point in the question?

Mia:

Yes. That has not been my experience, that even stories without a point there’s something happening.

Igor:

The stories that I say have no point, it means when they come to an end it’s an anticlimax. It’s like you expect a big final clash of heroes and so on, but nothing really happens. Those are the stories where all the fun of them is really in the telling of it, their journey. Hence, the monastery story the ending of which is pointless, it has no meaning, but actually the fun of the story is how you get engaged in the excitement the drama and all the things that happen in between. That’s what I mean by pointless, not that the storytelling itself is pointless. It’s that you’re free from the tyranny of having to make a dramatic ending.

Robin:

Once upon a time I used to believe that my NLP trainers, who shall remain nameless, told really purposeful stories and that they thought it out really carefully and they were so clever to create these elaborate tapestries of

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller stories. In some ways that was a bit of a problem for me, because I heard stories about all the things they’d gone and done and I thought if they can do it I can too. I went out and tried it and did it. Whew! I learned quickly… Igor:

It’s called artistic license.

Robin:

Then I realized that if you put enough complexity together, enough stuff out there, then you naturally get interesting resonances occurring between the different stories you’re telling, that come because of the connections you make. More importantly, every single person in the audience takes their own specific lesson from a particular part. They go oh I know what he was trying to do there. That’s very clever. How did he know? Then they come up to you and say, that’s amazing how did you know that? You say hmm yes. If you want to encourage mystic. If you want to be honest you go, I don’t know. Well done, thank you for getting that lesson.

Glen:

I was reminded of something that was from something said yesterday about the notion that if you ask someone what their favorite book was from early childhood you often get a sense of what their life is like. Have you come across that before?

Robin:

That’s priceless, thank you Glen.

Igor:

It kind of goes into what we’re talking about today.

Robin:

Can you give an example, like for example I remember, because my name is Robin Manuell, the guy before me when they called registration was called Christopher Lee, so when they called the register it was always Christopher, Robin and we’d both go yes. Now, my life is strangely like wondering through the woods with little piglet by my side. When they remember that and it has made a powerful impact on them and it’s not funny, like when I first came to England the earliest images of fiction that I have in my mind are a little poem or nursery rhyme, Who Killed Cock Robin and another is about the Robin hiding his head under his wing when winter comes, and Robin Hood. I identified with all those books and I’ve been hiding in the woods stealing from the rich to give to the poor ever since.

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Igor:

Watch your wallets to see if you have any money today. You’re on notice.

Robin:

Yes or if there are bandits outside to mug you, they’re my men in green.

Igor:

Any other questions or comments?

Michael: Yesterday we were sharing stories and it was like my partner shared a story which triggered another story within me and bounced back and forth between the two of us really getting a close connection. Igor:

That’s exactly how it works. Thank you for sharing that.

Robin:

If there’s one thing I hope you will take away from this weekend is that this is how we communicate. It’s naturally what we do and the process of becoming better as a storyteller and better at presenting yourself in a way which is congruent with your true values and effective at influencing and persuading people in the world to simply becoming more conscious of what you’re doing and then handing it back over to your natural sense of what works.

Igor:

Anymore?

Student: I was just wondering a little about how humor gets into the stories? Do they have to be a humorous story from the beginning or is it just like when you see a completely composed person and then they go I don’t know. That’s when you relax a person, just like hitting them in the head, the brain with a brick and acting like it never happened, so it just pops out? Igor:

Here’s my take on humor in general. First, things that make things really funny is if you go first. In other words, if you find it hysterical than people get pulled into that. You have to be able to appreciate the humor of the situation. As a rule I think that a lot of humor comes from a part of the brain called the amygdala which deals in novelty. When something new happens it just kind of pays attention to figure out if it’s dangerous and whether it should be afraid and run or fight. If it’s not dangerous than all that psychological energy has to go somewhere and I think it usually gets dissipated in humor, so if you get surprised by something… have you ever noticed how when people get really surprised they start

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller laughing. Occasionally if they get really surprised they start crying and laughing and aren’t quite sure whether they’re happy or unhappy about it. We aren’t here doing a standup comedy shop or anything like that, but if you lead the mind down a particular path and suddenly switch directions unexpected, which is where puns come in, where they think they hear one thing but are actually saying another. Then that surprise could be where the humor comes in. So you don’t have to have humor all the way through. In fact, you can tell a serious story and then a pun at the end which is when people start laughing. If you think about it, the monastery story was pretty serious throughout, not a huge amount of humor in it and it wasn’t until right at the end that you had a choice of either lynching me as a mob or laughing, and I’m very happy you chose laughter, because I wasn’t entirely sure to be honest which way it would go. Robin:

We had actually arranged an escape plan.

Igor:

The reason for this curtain is that there’s a big door back there and some big men with guns.

Robin:

Car, engine running.

Igor:

Then on the other side of course there are stories like the one Robin told, which was in itself was actually quite tragic, but all the action within it was humorous. It was characterized in many ways as exaggerations that took you different places and you can clearly see Robin enjoyed telling the story, whilst doing it. I think it’s more complex than just saying you have to start with a joke from the beginning. There are lots of different ways of doing it. Really, just go with what’s there for you. If you have a quiet more sedate character than you can be the straight person who tells quiet sedated stories and at the end of it people go, wait, no. Then suddenly and slowly the penny drops and they’re rolling on the floor laughing. If you’re more of a comic character, joking, jumping around, teasing people and so on then that’s more the kind of story you’ll tell as well. You want to also stretch yourself at some point, but then if you’re really telling a story for

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller influence for the humor value of it, tell it within your own character and what amuses you. It tends to amuse others as well. Does that help? Robin:

The strategy Igor mentions, if you find something funny yourself… there’s a Scottish comedian named Billy Connelly. I think that’s his style of comedy very much is that he gets into telling a story and he finds it funny. He thinks nothing of cracking up to himself on stage about the joke. To get practical the cat story, for example, I’d never told that story before. It literally happened last week and I could see it had potential. I had this central idea because I did actually end up in my bedroom with the curtains and door closed, thinking oh my gosh I’m being stalked by a cat. Is this guy going to come round? At the time I thought this is ridiculous, so there has to be some mileage in this. As I started telling the story I had no idea which bits you’d find funny and which you wouldn’t. It’s simply when you did laugh I noticed it, sometimes repeated what I was doing and reincorporated it later. It’s in the rapport and relationship that you build up with the audience. Until about 2001/2002, I did the trainers training with Bandler. Oh no that was the master track I’d already done the trainers training before then. I got the whole modeling thing down pat. I never thought I was funny. I thought I told good stories, but I didn’t experience myself as a funny person on stage. I didn’t think I could make people laugh, particularly. I went out and got a whole load of videos by Billy Connelly, Bill Hicks, Eddie Izzard, just a bunch of comedians. I sat down and put myself in a modeling trance state and watched the videos through. I gave myself hypnotic suggestions to learn and identify with those role models. I actually locked myself away for a week with those videos every day, so it was an intense learning. Then for the next month or so, I was coming out with routines, practicing some of the things that I’d heard them do. Finding myself coming out with their voices, mannerisms and things like this, as I was experimenting in public. Over the course of two-three months people started laughing at me, in a good way. I don’t think I was very funny until about 2002 and now I think I’m quite funny.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller You’ll notice if you watch, I mean, Eddie Izzard is a master of anchoring and reincorporation. He tells a fantastic… he’ll do a whole load of routines and each routine he’ll come up with a little mime or something random and at the end he’ll tell a story and put all those mimes into the story. So he’s basically retriggering all of those anchors. If you watch Ken Dodd with his tickle stick, again he’s doing this waving at the sections of the audience that are laughing to his responses. He’s anchoring that laughter. You’ll see some comedians doing it with tapping the mic. You’ll also see a favorite thing which is they’ll steal something from the previous comedian’s mannerisms or set and step into the laughter and appreciation that the previous comedian has got. If you want to be funny look at that and try some deep trance identification. I’m glad that our teaching is so complete that you don’t feel you need to learn anything more. Igor:

If there are no more questions, let’s move forward because there’s more that can be learned despite all the things they have.

Student: Will we be doing something called trance words today or is this a premature question? The query specifically is, when you’re listening to somebody and you’re developing that deep rapport, there are certain keywords that they’re dropping in their subconscious, activation words if you like. Things like, it felt amazing or it was such a wonderful feeling, for example, those words will slip right through if I understand correctly into their subconscious when you repeat that story or echo that story back. Will we cover that today? Igor:

One of the things we’re about to come onto is, in fact it’s taking that idea even a step further and how we can take the actual raw material that’s inside their mind, their unconscious territory that they’re responding to without realizing and work that into your story so that the story actually feels more like their story. The language is part of it but really it’s about the whole metaphor behind it. It’s kind of more coming to the question asked, if you can recall the stories you told yourself as a child you’re probably living them right now.

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Yes, we’ll be doing a lot more of that today.

Igor:

Let’s begin.

Robin:

Before we step off with some content can I suggest just a little exercise to warm us up a bit and get us started. Everyone get on your feet. Shake it out a little bit.

Igor:

Here we go again.

Robin:

Remember those hips. We’re not going the whole Tony Robbins way, but I’d like for you to turn to the person on your left and say hi, good morning.

Igor:

If there’s no one on your left go to the one behind you.

Robin:

Share just one piece of learning that you can take away and use from this weekend.

How To Make Stories Relevant Igor:

All right. Now that you’re nicely warmed up. Yesterday you told a bunch of stories is that correct? Did you notice that some of the stories really hit home and you went oh yeah, I can tell a story? And some stories were like yeah, there’s something missing here because they’re not really getting engaged or interested. What do you think might be happening there?

Student: The content of the story isn’t resonating with the audience. Igor:

That’s a very nice word resonating. Why do you think that might be?

Student: It doesn’t match their experience. Igor:

Right, because it’s your story not their story.

Student: Yes.

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Not only does it not match their experience but it may not be relevant right now to their immediate needs, like the nested loop patterns that we used where Rita was getting to a strangulation point by how many were getting layered on there. I don’t know whether you’ve noticed but I used to have this magical ability that I could sit down anywhere and attract some crazy person to sit next to me. It would be like the tramp and they’d sit down and start rambling away and telling me one story and then segue into another one and then another and I’m losing the plot and wondering why I’m here, but I’m still listening. Actually, I discovered that you could learn some really interesting things about people by actually paying attention and listening. So you get to that sense of frustration of, I have to go now but I can’t go because you’re in the middle of a story and it would be rude to interrupt you, so I hadn’t learned to that point to just go I’m really sorry I just have to go or something. Plan your escape route in advance. There’s actually a video on my blog about this. I think there are four elements to ensuring that your story is congruent with that other person’s experience and draws them in. 1. Passion The same passion that I mentioned in the earlier five elements model. It’s your passion. If you have passion for something that is often enough to engage people because they’re thinking where does that come from and where is this going? We have a kind of box that we put around ourselves that limits what we’re prepared to express, how far we’re prepared to go and if you can step outside that box, one of the most powerful things that you can do as a storyteller, I think, is going somewhere vulnerable. Whether it’s tears, laughter or anger, by going far enough out there you give other people permission to follow you and that’s a very powerful thing. 2. At the same time you have to keep the ongoing rapport, which is the second element.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller By rapport I mean everything you know from your NLP and hypnosis training, the unconscious interplay of posture, gesture and non-verbal communication that goes on between you as you work together. 3. The third element is jeopardy. Anybody know what I mean by that? Jeopardy, danger, how much have I got to lose? Risk. What’s at stake? The more there is at stake, which is why movies are typically about the end of the world or saving someone from being murdered. It’s what’s the jeopardy? I don’t know if you are fans of Dr. Who. That was always one of my favorites when I was a kid. Maybe I still watch a few episodes now and then. Maybe I get there on a Saturday and sit down, turn it on and there’s a new episode. Every episode the end of the world is at stake. Dr. Who has to save the universe from the invasion of aliens. I don’t know how they managed to save the universe for 40 years every week. Thank heaven he’s around. Igor:

Thank God for Dr. Who. Let’s us go home and eat ice cream and know that we’re safe.

Robin:

Stories about, I was present when a volcano erupted. I was hanging by my fingernails from the edge of a cliff looking down wondering what was going to happen next and how I’d get out of this situation. I was told I had an incurable illness. Jeopardy, what’s at risk, what’s to lose? 4. The fourth element is relevance. How is this relevant to the person I’m talking to? We’re all human beings aren’t we? So we share a certain set of universal experiences. We were all born. Most of us had parents at one time or other, certainly primary caregivers of one kind or other. We all had some kind of experience with the education system. We’ve all fallen in love. We’ve all been afraid. These are universal human experiences.

Igor:

I’ve not.

Robin:

No. Fear.

Igor:

No.

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Robin:

Sorry I just imagined my daughter then, she chases me down the street saying I’m blind daddy… Of course you are darling… argh… If you can get all of those elements into your story than you’re away. The question is relevant, how do you know what’s relevant? People tell you.

Igor:

Without telling you directly.

Robin:

In some situations they’ll tell you because they want you to help solve a problem. In other situations you’re playing a more active role in wanting to be able to influence them, whether because you’re leading a change process and want to get a team together or sell something. In those situations it’s really important to consider what the world view is, what the weltanschauung of your audience is.

Igor:

Or our German audience.

Robin:

That’s good he knows how to spell it.

Igor:

I also know how to say it.

Robin:

Think about an example that may relate directly. How many of you do stop smoking or weight loss?

Igor:

Any kind of hypnotherapy?

Robin:

Your client when they come in will be telling themselves a particular story about…

Igor:

I’ve tried five times already and I just can’t quit. It’s so hard. It’s a constant battle against these cigarettes. I fight it and fight it and I always lose.

Robin:

Okay. There are some keywords in there; can anyone tell me what they are? Battle and fight. What’s the underlying world view there? It’s battle, struggle, fight…

Igor:

It’s a war.

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It’s a war. I know it’s been hard for you hasn’t it? You’ve probably had opportunities, all these battles to stop and yet you haven’t given up yet you still want to win the war?

Igor:

I do but I keep getting defeated. It’s painful. I’m ready to give up almost.

Robin:

I’m really glad you’ve come here today because this is going to be an opportunity to rally your forces together, get the supplies you need in place and set things up so you have a well coordinated plan of attack. You may or may not choose to use that particular approach. You might choose to reframe that story in the first place, but you get where I’m coming from. People will drop certain keywords that give you clues to their entire metaphorical landscape. It’s also affected in that it will come out in terms of their motivation and why they’re here. Do they want to stop smoking because it’s their health and they’re concerned about their health? Is it because they see themselves as family is really important to them and they’re doing it for their kids.

Igor:

Very common.

Robin:

You really want to be able to find and address what that world view is. Clear. Cool.

Igor:

Robin, how do we do that?

Robin:

Well, let’s start with a simple exercise. Let’s consider, have a quick minute each way in pairs, situations where you’ve missed it.

Igor:

Where you’ve talked to people and thinking about it now, looking back on it, they probably offered you on a plate what the perception was, their world view or was it on a journey, were they fighting a war or nurturing a garden or family of some sort. They presented to you their perception of the metaphor on the line, whatever the situation was but you missed it and maybe ran with your own. So there was a clash of some sort.

Robin:

Consider the alternative as well where someone has said something to you and missed your world view.

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Igor:

Yes. Easy. Spend a minute, find a partner and off you go.

Robin:

With the same partner, just to keep it simple for now, what I’d like to do is take in turns for one of you to come up with a problem area. It may be a genuine problem or something you make up.

Igor:

If you make it up just think of a specific person who generally has that problem, just so you can channel it more effectively, so you get more of a sense of the kinds of answers they would give.

Robin:

So your person with a problem, coach for now. As a coach I want you to ask one simple question. So this whole problem in your life, the reason that’s brought you here, what’s that like?

Igor:

And learn how he’s taking the whole problem, to encompass the whole situation which goes through more of a global view and he’s not asking for any content or details, what do you do or what happens?

Robin:

Let’s find out what comes out when you ask that question. Go.

Igor:

Easy. Two minutes apiece. Off you go. [Exercise starts] How did that go? What kinds of interesting symbols did you get? Of course some of you are still getting… what kinds of things came out? This is the interactive portion.

Student: I thought it was a great question, what’s the whole thing like. It was a great question to find out what modalities… Robin:

Thank you. What answer did you get?

Student: What answer did I get specifically? Robin:

Yes.

Student: Inner feelings. Igor:

So you got like an emotion thing.

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Okay, that’s not what we’re looking for. That’s okay this is the purpose of the exercise is because people will typically respond in certain ways that aren’t what we’re looking for so thank you for giving us one of those examples.

Igor:

Let me ask you this. At any point, whilst they were talking about the feeling and so on, did something symbolic at any point slip out?

Student: No. Igor:

Okay. That’s what we’re hunting for. We’ll get more examples so we can get as a group an idea of what we’re talking about.

Oresztesz: For me, I had a tough time even understanding the exercise to begin with, because they’re saying okay, how do you feel about that or what’s your view about that? It’s like I have no context in which to put it in. Robin:

This whole problem or area that you chose to focus in, in this exercise whether it’s real or imagined we don’t need to know, what’s that like for you?

Oresztesz: I told him it’s frustrating because I don’t know what’s expected. Robin:

Okay. Thank you for that, you’re telling me about your feelings. I didn’t ask you that. What I asked you is what’s it like?

Oresztesz: What’s what like? Robin:

What’s this whole situation in your life like?

Igor:

The problem situation.

Oresztesz: I’m still not understanding. Robin:

Okay thank you very much, let’s get the next question.

Igor:

Let me do something. Just to help you out, there are many ways you can think of something being like. You can feel it, talk about other situations that are similar and so on. What we’re interested right now is if you were going to give us an analogy what would it be? What scenario or scene or world would best represent what the problem would be like?

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller For example, you know the film ‘Forest Gump’, life is like a box of chocolates. It can be like a lot of other things too. Oresztesz: Okay. Igor:

So what’s your problem like?

Oresztesz: Oh, so you’re… Igor:

That’s it.

Oresztesz: I think you mean to extrapolate and say some sort of analogy about my world view. Igor: Robin: Igor:

So what is the problem you’re thinking about, that you were talking about with your partner, what would that be like if it were like anything? Let’s move on. Ponder that and we’ll move on. Thank you. This is an important step right now because we’re getting past the normal social interaction element into somewhat more unconscious territory, which is why sometimes it can be a little difficult to get there. The story is classically there because otherwise you wouldn’t have the problem. It’s important to make that next step because that’s where you really connect to the kind of stuff that was being asked about early on which is the really unconscious material.

Student: I would like to share something that was in the first exercise, when we were thinking about what’s not happening, what’s not helping and it made me realize something that may be of importance to you and I’m willing to share it even though it’s kind of a bad thing for me. My stop smoking clients weren’t very successful, I would say, just about 50%. Now that I realize it happened ever since I read a very famous Englishman that has been successful in this area with logical arguments, breaking down how the smoking thing goes consciously. Ever since I read that book I started to apply some of it but it ended up being a fight. I’m finding the client in their own world they would end up like this, looking at me and it was like okay now I’ve got myself into some trouble. That was

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller something I think that broke down a little bit, a lot of rapport with many people and trying to force them into my way of helping them. Igor:

This is such an important point, which goes to the heart of what we’re talking about here which is never disagree with their conscious mind, because all you’ll do is trigger a defense mechanism, as you have noticed. What we’re looking for here is to figure out what the unconscious mind is actually attached to. What is the metaphor it’s working from? Because in doing so you bypass the resistance because you go oh great, now we know what country we’re in.

Robin:

So this whole problem/situation that’s brought you here today, whether it’s imaginary or real we don’t need to know, what’s that like?

Student: Oh that part went fantastic. It’s like walking in a bubble, not paying attention, just floating through the day. Robin:

Okay thank you that’s enough. So it’s like you’re walking in a bubble. Fantastic. Thank you that’s enough for now.

Student: We talked about a problem. It was insomnia. He told me that he was willing to stay awake and the other day he was tired. So the image was he was trying to get the last drop of the orange but the next day the orange was completely dry. That’s the image. Igor:

That’s a nice image.

Robin:

Can I just ask again, this problem or situation that has brought you here today, what’s it like?

Student: That’s how I explain the situation. Robin:

What’s it like?

Student: I don’t feel any frustration about that, because actually I tried to optimize. Robin:

Thank you for telling me about your feelings and behavior. I’m asking you what it’s like. It’s like an orange being squeezed dry every day?

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller Student: To the last drop. Mia:

My problem was like being in a strange house trying to find the door out. There are many doors that lead to other rooms.

Robin:

So it’s like you’re in a strange house, you’re trying to find your way out and there are lots of doors leading to different rooms.

Igor:

Very nice.

Glen:

The catch phrase I got was a pain in the ass.

Igor:

Thank you.

Robin:

So it’s like a pain in the ass.

Leonard: We got one I think many can associate with. The problem we came up with at first is it’s like facing a wall of tasks. Robin:

Are you beginning to get clear about this now?

Igor:

We’ll do two more and then we’ll do another exercise so you get experience with this.

Student: It’s like a very difficult knot that we are trying to untie. Igor:

Thank you.

Robin:

It’s like I’m trying to untie a really difficult knot.

Pamela: With my partner, oddly enough it was like, I think for both of us, being in a silent movie and making all these pantomiming gestures and stuff and no one is hearing you. Robin:

It’s like I’m in a silent movie and I can’t hear anything anyone is saying.

Pamela: No, like they can’t hear you. Robin:

It’s like I’m in a silent movie… I suspect if you explored that a little more you’d find you were actually in a bubble, but we’ll come onto that at another time.

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Igor:

Okay. Let’s do a quick exercise on this now. So you get the idea of the kind of things we’re not really looking for and it’s the kinds of things people normally talk about. Have another chat with your partner. Any problem, including the one you might be frustrated about and not being able to figure out how to do the exercise, that’s a useful one too.

Robin:

What’s that like?

Igor:

The question is, when we ask what’s that like, you’re looking for anything that’s like an analogy, a simile, a metaphor whatever these words mean to you. You’re looking for some other situation that somehow describes how this particular event feels to them or how they perceive it in some ways.

Robin:

I’d just like to point out, notice how Pamela reacted there, when I tried to give her something that wasn’t right. Very strong. That’s important, because you don’t always get it right so it’s important to notice and test, because people are often much clearer about what it’s not like than they are what it is like. You see how people are… it’s quite difficult to get through our conscious reactions like behaviors, feelings and vision. You’ll see people processing as they try and answer the question.

Student: I just want to make sure I understand the point of the exercise. Is it to understand the subconscious map coordinates so that as they’re experiencing something in their view of the world you’re able to match that and understand how that terrain works? Igor:

For the moment don’t worry too much about how you’re going to use it, we’ll get onto that. The main thing you’re looking for more unconscious content than conscious. Beyond that we’ll come back to more later.

Robin:

All the fluff or usual stuff they would give you in this situation that you might choose to work with is left brain stuff. This like question maps straight onto what their right brain representation is going to be.

Igor:

Spend two minutes doing that again and we’ll come back to see if we can make it easier for the next round after this one. [Exercise starts]

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller Hands up if you want to talk about what you got the second time round and if it was any easier or different. We’ll do another round to see if we can make it even easier. Student: It was a lot easier this time round. The answers that we both got were much more interesting as well. Igor:

Excellent. Do you want to give us an example?

Student: Yes. The problem was like being on a bicycle and pedaling and the foot keeps slipping off the pedal. Igor:

Beautiful. You can see a nice simple metaphor there right and already some material that might be useful somehow to merge, even though we don’t know how yet. Thank you, very nice.

Student: Like walking in a maze. Igor:

Again, do you see now the more symbolic elements of underlying stuff that’s coming out. Anyone else?

Student: All right. The metaphor I got was, like sleeping in the morning and the alarm clock starts ringing and you push the snooze button and again and again and again… when you eventually wake up and get up it’s too late to have breakfast. Igor:

Very nice. He’s given us the whole story. I presume one or two of you had slight difficulty in coming up with a metaphor or simile. Something you can do, a slightly more risky strategy with a stranger, but if you have enough rapport that they’re willing to engage there’s a simple way that you can get the unconscious material the symbol to come out and basically you needle them politely. You misunderstand them. Would someone that had a problem with this like to have an example so we can have a real thing? What’s the general problem area?

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller Student: I have to go to a meeting to present results on the problem I’m working on and I feel nervous even though there’s no need to feel that. Igor:

Okay. What’s that like? We get the problem coming out. I don’t know. It sounds a bit like you’re a Mexican bandit about to jump into a bar and shoot everyone. Is that what it’s like?

Student: No. Igor:

Okay. Am I surprised? What is it like? What’s it more like?

Student: Afraid of what’s going to happen. So going into a room and not knowing how they’re going to react. Igor:

Oh great, so it’s like going into a room and not knowing how the people inside are going to react.

Student: Yes. Igor:

So is it like jumping into a shark tank and wrestling the big fish?

Student: Yes, perhaps. Igor:

You tell me. I have a sense it’s more like something else.

Student: Maybe they’re not sharks but they certainly give me a very uneasy feeling. Igor:

So if I understand you correctly, you know there’s a room you have to go into and you think you’re going to get a hard time from the people in that room. Is that right?

Student: Yes and thinking they’re not going to be satisfied. Igor:

They’re not going to be satisfied. So what are those people like?

Student: Those kinds of people are like salespeople, big mouth, always criticizing. Igor:

All right. So it’s like walking into a room with big mouth criticizing people that aren’t going to be satisfied with what you have to say, is that right?

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller Student: Yes. Igor:

Thank you. Do you see how simple it is when you poke them a little bit? Of course we can elaborate on that and get an even richer metaphor. The point is if you get stuck on one level don’t necessarily loop around it too much. You could force it a bit more. Did you feel like I was being unfair or did you dislike me for misunderstanding your situation or was it more like he’s trying to understand me but he’s not getting it?

Student: Not at all. Igor:

Which one?

Student: I meant to say that you were not intruding. You were polite. Igor:

The attitude on one side is respectful in terms of an inquiry, but you can still prod a little in terms of what is this really like and by presenting the false analogy, false symbol and false metaphor it forces them out a little bit. Your preference as far as the exercise should be, not to actually present your symbol to get a reaction, because you’d rather it just be pure coming out of their mind. He almost bought into the whole shark metaphor which would have been unfortunate because that’s my fish in his dream, literally. However, if you’re getting stuck on one level just prod a little bit and see what comes out and then you get a much nicer, smoother process going on. Does that make sense? I’d like you to spend two minutes again, find a different partner and different problem so it’s a fresh thing, sit and have a normal chat and just ask them what is that like? If they don’t understand it at first feel free to misunderstand it sometimes. You have plan B and C, give an analogy, ask for an analogy and then give a false example. The more extremely false it is the less likely you are going to interfere with their symbol. [Exercise starts – off you go] At the risk of punning, what was that like? Who’s getting more of a sense that they’re getting to more symbolic stuff?

Student: She gave me a good symbol straight off and I sat there thinking, oh shit, she’s answered the question already. I needled her by deliberately giving a slightly

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller ridiculous symbol and she responded with something that was much better than the first and we both agreed that touched on the matter. Igor:

So you got some tools for exploring and getting richer things back. Excellent.

Student: I think it’s very important too when the person has problem to work with symbol to bring him in another state. Igor:

Yes. Part of the advantage of symbols is you don’t get so stuck in the content and ‘logic’ or ‘reasonableness’ of the problem, you work in a more symbolic realm where symbolic solutions can work too, right?

Student: Let’s say for that story what he was thinking I immediately get in mind Bloody Mary drink. Igor:

That’s a nice metaphor. I’m not quite sure I understand it, but it’s interesting.

Student: Talking about juice, vodka and very hot stuff. Igor:

And that fit the context your partner was talking about.

Student: Yes with the story he was talking about. Igor:

The key here is you want to make sure you get as much or as close to get their symbols out rather than introducing yours, oh I know what it’s like it’s like when Robin was misunderstanding Pamela earlier on. You want to make sure you get what is actually going on inside them because that’s going to be the material that will be useful for our stories when we get round to that point later.

Student: When I presented my metaphor I got another one. That took me off my metaphor but it didn’t really help me because I was thrown away, like that’s not how it feels. For me I would have appreciated it if he would say how is it like to be in? Igor:

So, when the person asked you, you gave them a symbol and metaphor and then he misunderstood you on purpose and that took you further away is that what you’re saying? This is important. If you’re already getting to the symbolic stuff there’s no need to prod them anymore. The last question wasn’t

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller necessarily something you need to do all the time it’s more to help you when you get into a position where you’re not quite getting the symbolic bit. In fact, in time where we want to get to is where you can conversationally draw these metaphors without even realizing you’re doing anything. Robin:

Yes, these are training wheels. This is an exercise to help you establish exactly what it is you’re looking and listening for. We wouldn’t expect you to actually do this straight conversation.

Igor:

Because then what will happen is you’ll have a conversation like, let’s say Robin and I are chatting… hey how’s it going?

Robin:

Good thanks it’s all right.

Igor:

What’s up, you sound like something happened?

Robin:

I feel like I’m a little bit stuck.

Igor:

Do you hear it? What do you mean? Stuck in what way?

Robin:

Well, it’s like I’m walking through treacle all the time.

Igor:

All right. So it’s like walking through treacle and getting stuck in there.

Robin:

Yes.

Igor:

There’s a conversation you might have with a friend in a restaurant, café, bar or wherever. If you don’t know what to look out for then that becomes a throwaway line that you can ignore. Then you go oh, I get you. I get like that sometimes too. For me it’s like walking through the snow and it’s heavy and stuff. Now we’re totally talking about different things. We do that naturally. I’m sympathizing. I understand his metaphor. I’m searching for similar experiences in my life. I give him my metaphor which means I’m putting my fish in his dream and he’s going what are these fish doing here? Does that help?

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller These are literally training wheels to get passed being aware of it and the nice thing is that as you become more aware of it, you’ll hear these things popping out constantly anyway. Student: That’s the point of conversational hypnosis, to get on with it. Igor:

Exactly. We’ll get into more conversational stuff as we get on with it. Shall we add more?

Robin:

Sure. To move this to the next stage we’ll give you some more choices and more questions to ask, as well as variations on this theme. We’d like you to consider some situation, some area where you have a victory, a triumph and a positive experience.

Igor:

Where you did great. Where you were proud of. Where you feel happy about. A wonderful moment you’ve experienced. A touching moment. Something wildly positive. Then have a chat with them again to see if you can get their symbols to come out, but now you have some more questions around that like what is that like? What kind of stuck is that? It’s like walking through treacle. Is there anything else about that treacle that is about that stuckness in that treacle?

Robin:

It kind of clings onto my feet and every time I try to take a next step it’s really hard.

Igor:

Are we getting clear in terms of how you’re starting to feel about this? Importantly folks, at this stage start feeding back exactly what they’re saying. It’s like you’re in treacle and you’re stuck and every time you try to move your feet the treacle is stuck to your feet and it’s hard to lift them up. That stickiness of the treacle, what is that like?

Robin:

It’s like it kind of goes on forever.

Igor:

So you’re stuck in this treacle and every time you try and take a step…

Robin:

Yes it’s like an ocean of treacle. It’s actually like Western soup in there at low tide.

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Igor:

That’s a lot of treacle. Do you see how you naturally start pulling out the bigger metaphor? Again, right now we’re doing it mechanically just to get sensitive to these things whereas, in time you’ll be able to do it little more conversationally. Let’s take two minutes apiece, different partner and this time ask them about something positive, happy and vibrant in their life. Off you go. [Exercise starts] Okay, so is it getting easier yet?

Group:

Yes.

Igor:

Are you starting to get a sense of the symbols coming out and so on? Any questions so far? We’ll have a break in a minute. First of all, when you go into break you will chit-chat that’s what happens, so I want to invite you to listen out for the hints that there’s a metaphor on the line for the conversations you’re having. If you should be moved to ask a question like what’s that like or no, that pigeon you were talking about, what kind of pigeon is that exactly? Then I really can’t you prevent you from doing that on a break that’s your own time, you can do whatever you want. Off you go.

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DVD 8 – Symbolic Realities, Symbolic Influence & Putting Hypnotic Storytelling All Together

Symbolic Realities Igor:

Before the break you had a chance to investigate people’s symbolic realities with the unconscious mind how it symbolizes the highs and lows of life, shall we say.

Robin:

We’d like to give you some more questions, more ways of extending that.

Igor:

But to make it more fun, rather than focusing on a specific life issue the person’s had or an event like that, let’s just use some training wheels that we had back on day one just for the fun of it. Do you remember that strange new world exercise we did, spinning people around and a whole new world comes out? We’ll play with that a bit and to do that we’ll need you to move all the chairs to one side again. If you begin with that we’ll get into the exercise.

Robin:

So, you remember the exercise right? You find a partner and spin round and you’re all really fluid already right now in doing this exercise. You’ve done it before a number of different times and when you open your eyes you can look around and start creating this whole landscape. How do you help people develop that if they haven’t had a nice creative warm-up? These questions are a variation on something called clean language. Anyone heard of clean language? It’s a therapy model, based on the work of a guy named David Grove. It’s very much about exploring people’s symbolic landscape, but that symbolic landscape that represents their problems is also their creative symbolic landscape. By asking the right kinds of questions, you can help them to step through and around in that model of the world. So go find a partner, two minutes apiece to begin with. One of you spins round, the other is the coach and I’d like you to take them through these kinds of questions.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller You can start with what’s that like, what do you see? Is there anything else there? Where are they standing? What’s to the left or to their right and what’s right in front of them? What’s behind them? What happens next? You’re exploring the dimensions of space and time, in which they move in their symbolic landscape. What you’ll find is that asking those questions once before, what happens next, starts to pull out the elements of the story and introduces different elements. So, on your mark get set go. Igor:

Was that fun? All the stuff, getting pepped up? Good. Let’s do something interesting as an experiment. I’d like you to find a new partner, which means you have at least two more tasks. The second thing I want you to do is to have a little chat with them about some wonderful moment in their life, some happy event, positive event, some victory, something that makes them feel proud, etc. Talk about that and it can be as simple as, what makes you feel proud? When was the last time something really interesting or positive happened to you? All you can do is chat about that, normal chit-chat sort of stuff for a minute or two. You may hear some of these symbols start to come out and if you do note them, there’s nothing you need to do with them right now. Once you’ve talked for a minute or so, what I want you to do then is to say great, let me stop you there for a second, spin around and see a strange new world you’ve never seen before, start describing it and use these questions to populate it to bring it to life. So you’re going to have normal chit-chat about something positive. Then you’ll do the same exercise again and notice what happens. Then you’ll switch around and we’ll come back and talk about that. Sound good. Different partner. Four minutes apiece. Off you go. [Exercise starts] How did that go for you guys was that interesting? How did the first and second exercises compare to each other, the first strange new world and the second where you talked about something positive first? Were there any nice little differences there?

Student: It was much more involved.

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The second one was much more involved right?

Student: Yes, more fun. I got the feeling that she was really feeling and experiencing this and having fun with it. Igor:

Right, she was having fun with it and feeling it. Can I ask you, in terms of the experience you talked about beforehand, we don’t need to know what it was, was there a similar emotion in the positive experience to the one she experienced later on in the strange new world?

Student: Yes it was similar, but the second one was much more intense. Igor:

Absolutely and that makes sense. Thank you for that.

Student: The second time around I ended up in an amusement park, and I’m still a teeny bit nauseas. Robin:

Thank you.

Igor:

Very good, I think. So much for the interactive part. Here’s one of the reasons we wanted to start doing this. You probably noticed like you said, did you in general notice that the second set of strange new worlds were overall more engaging, more emotional and more vivid to people? Would that be fair to say?

Group:

Yes.

Igor:

The reason for that is because they’ve been primed ahead of time. By talking about some positive event it starts accessing all the memories and all the associations with that, including symbols. So you’ll probably find that within these strange new worlds that popped out of nowhere was actually very relevant to the symbolic elements that related to the positive experience we were talking about and so on. Get the idea? Hence the emotions were stronger, because a lot more stuff was happening. I think I want to talk now about the kinds of metaphors to look out for, the similes that people come out with, because you’ll be able to hear them happening. There are some patterns that repeat frequently.

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Some people found themselves face to face with a brick wall. This is a common one, obstacles. You’ll hear various metaphors come up because they are universal. If you think about that, if you have an obstacle right in front of you than it’s really difficult to move forward in life isn’t it? You might find that you’re pushing and pushing against things and not making any progress. You might be banging your head against a brick wall. You might not be able to get over, over it. But maybe you need to explore what’s underneath that or find a way round it. Another common one that people come up with is edges. It’s like I’m on the edge of a cliff. Again, they can’t move forward. It feels like they’re looking down at people or they’re above people. Pedestals is another one. They find they’re standing on a pedestal and everyone is looking up at them, they’re looking down at everyone else, they still can’t move forward unless they step down from the pedestal and come down to earth. Containers, I’m depressed. People who are depressed are often in a pit of despair. They’re in a pit. So what’s it like when you’re in a pit? Again, it’s probably dark down there. You’re sick of looking up at everyone around you. Maybe you feel like you can’t move in any direction, you’re walking around in circles. You really just need to climb out, but who’s going to help you get a leg up and pull you out? Do you understand?

Group:

Yes.

Robin:

Does anyone not understand? Great. So, there are certain kinds of metaphors that you’ll find. For containers by the way, we can also be containers. I’m full of sadness. He’s full of joy. What kind of container is that? He’s just letting off steam. When you find these key metaphors that people are using about where they are… I’m stuck. Again, if someone is stuck, it might be because they’re on a pedestal. It might be because they’re moving through treacle. You need to find out enough about that particular stuckness, because when they’ve considered all the options, there’ll be some that are left. They might not be able to move forward but perhaps they can take the right path to a solution.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller When you begin to understand somebody’s symbolic environment in that way, you can begin to coop their experience. To give you an example, I was doing this exercise on myself recently and it was like I was in a cave. That cave was halfway up a cliff. Sometimes in that cave it’s difficult to see, it’s dark in there and you have the pressure of the rocks bearing down on you. If you can’t go to the edge of the cave you can actually see forward. I can see the sun in front and the wonderful world in front of me, but I can’t move towards it because I’m on edge. So again I have to either, climb down to earth and just join everyone else, but maybe as I climb down I also need to grow up so I can still see what’s ahead of me, the bright future ahead of me. If you’re in a pit of despair, quite often that’s a good one because people don’t climb out of a pit they grow up and up out of it. So the whole purpose of this little section, and we can only cover it briefly, is to just start to tune your ears to listen out for these kinds of metaphors because once you’ve found them you can coop them and effectively mind read a whole part of their life. Do you understand? As you begin to explore, as we’ve already touched on earlier, there are whole sets of metaphors that we use about the organizations we work in, about the countries and towns we live in, about life, about what is our life like. What is life like? Is it a battle? Is it a garden? Igor:

Is it a box of chocolates?

Robin:

Is it a box of chocolates? Is it a game?

Igor:

To add something here, the interesting thing is every group or sub-culture tends to have one or a handful of similar metaphors or symbols they operate by. This will be of importance to you if there’s a particular group you wish to influence, your customers for example. Your children also for example, in an area they will all have similar metaphors which they’re picking up from each other from the language, the way they talk about each other’s frustrations and so on. To the extent that you can get a sense of what your subcultures metaphors are, you’ll have a much stronger line into…

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller A- Understanding their behavior, how they feel and why they act certain ways, and B- To create the kinds of stories that fit them, that will either take them out of this dark hole or actually use the dark hole as the starting point for whatever influence you need to have in that place. Robin:

Let me give you an example of how powerful this can be. I worked with a company in media technology, who were involved and trying to engage their supply chain, because they understood if they got everyone in the room together, basically engaged their supply chain more and shared their market research and ideas of where they were going forward, found out what the suppliers plans were for the future then they would be able to coordinate their activities a lot better. They could then anticipate what was coming up and eliminate a whole load of wasted effort. They’d been doing this for six to eight months and they kept sending out emails inviting their supply chain, suppliers along to meetings. They were getting hardly any response at all. A couple people turning up weren’t getting it. They changed two words, supply chain to delivery partner. The metaphor, the way they explained to me what the change was, was the supply chain is like this where people are handing things on and moving like this and it’s very much being led by what’s needed at the end. Then the person over here is really far away from there. With that one change of expression, delivery partners, the delivery, they were all suddenly handing, it was like they were standing in a circle delivering what they were producing, to the end customer. So they were all a lot closer together, they were partners. Their intention and outcome was focused on the end customer and how their relationship supported that. It worked completely. Within another four months they built up enough of momentum there that all the other suppliers who were still hesitating knew they had to get on board now.

Igor:

There’s another example from General Motors. Some years ago in the 60s/70s, General Motors seem to be going through periods of struggle quite often and this particular instance there was a congressional hearing where

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller basically it was an unpopular thing and they were going to ask for a bailout, some money to help them and it was a politically hot potato. People were saying no, no more bailouts you sink or swim on your own. That was really the general attitude of the day. It was either the COO or CFO, he walks up to this hearing and really it’s supposed to be a massacre because everyone had made up their mind, but instead of talking about a bailout or handout to help them struggle to get through he just changed the metaphor. He said this isn’t a bailout it’s a safety net. Just by switching those two words around from bailout to safety net everyone went that’s all right, we can give them a safety net, yeah that makes sense. We’re talking about at a time when billion dollar investments, which now would be trillion dollar investments, but regardless we’re talking about a lot of money being handed out because a metaphor changed. So begin to appreciate a little bit of why we spend so much time doing this right now, because if you want to influence others, whether it’s therapeutically, business-wise, socially and so on, if you don’t appreciate the metaphors from which they’re operating unconsciously, they themselves don’t know. Notice how we started the exercises quite harshly this morning and it was difficult right, and now it’s getting easier because you have more of a sense what we’re trying to do with it. Consciously we’re not used to thinking these ways and yet unconsciously it’s still happening anyways, and to the extent that you can get to the symbolic level and understand where they’re operating from, you can have a sense of okay, do we coop the story they’re telling and then infuse characters that fit or do you help them transform the story they’re telling so that a better metaphor emerges that will help them more and of course serve you more as well? Robin:

In order to illustrate this further and give you some examples we’re going to run quickly through some of the simple images we’ve come across in organizations. There’s actually a book called Images of Organizations by Gareth Morgan. It’s very handy. It’s a bit out of date now but is still useful for the insights it gives. My work as a consultant and working for companies, and when you go in there one of the first things we look to establish, because often we’re going in

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller as part of a change management program. There’s always a change going on, somebody is buying somebody, some merger is happening or a market is changing. They have to find something for all these managers to do, basically. Am I being cynical? Sorry. One of the most common metaphors we find is that change occurs because we tell you what’s going to happen. Igor:

We’re going to lay down the law.

Robin:

Interesting. There are two ways we can go with that. There’s the law, well it’s command and control. Basically it’s rules and regulations, command and control, often military metaphors. In that kind of organization you’ll find battle, fight, people are going to work with their armor on and they’re coming home at the end of the day bruised and battered.

Igor:

And they’ll look for ways to attack whatever’s coming, they’ll want to get their preemptive attack in otherwise they feel they’ll be attacked, their positioned gets weakened.

Robin:

And unfortunately because of the way organizations work, often they’re involved in friendly fire skirmishes going off all the time.

Igor:

Do you see how these things will naturally evolve? Anyone here work at a senior managerial level or been in that situation? This is not uncommon is it? These metaphors actually get literally talked out like that you don’t even have to search for them, they get thrust upon you.

Robin:

The second most common metaphor we come across is it’s a marketplace. We’re going to sell the change. We have to get our employees to buy into this new way of working together. They might give you a menu of choices. It’s still actually a very much top down approach there. There’s a central supplier of items for the marketplace. The metaphor is all about this buy-in, how do we message them? How do we brand this change effectively? Another frequent metaphor is, we’re going to roll out some ideas but we’re going to test them first. This is the organization is the science project or experiment. It’s coming towards the machine metaphor. This is a system we

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller can understand, we’re going to test and gather results and we’re going to do some experiments. It’s still very much a top down approach and when you get into the whole scientific world view of an organization it will be about optimizing performance. Igor:

If you think about some of these metaphors you’ve heard so far, just think about the two different positions. You have the management structure on one end and the employee structure at the other. How do the managers feel? Well, I’m in control. I’m the experimenter and you’re my lab rat. Essentially that’s the idea isn’t it? Or, I’m the vendor and the only place you can buy is from me, so it’s red, red or red which do you want? Maybe it’s I’m the commander, do as you’re told or you’ll be fired. How do you think the lab rats feel about that? They’re going to be really enthusiastic about the change that’s going to come aren’t they? Oh great, we get to choose between red and red again, yay! So you begin to see how misunderstanding the symbolic landscape can create all kinds of issues, and of course, the manager is going to be like I don’t understand this, we’re selling them change it’s good stuff. Of course it is if you’re the one with the goods. If you’re the one running the experiment it’s great. We should do that sometimes right, go into university, get all the experimenters and stick them in a maze and make them hunt the cheese. It’s not so much fun then is it? It’s important that you understand what these symbols are implying for everyone involved, because you can probably predict all kinds of problems that arise and also places where influence will be easy based on that particular model.

Robin:

As a consultant going into an organization, what am I doing? I’m consulting. I’m having a consultation. What am I a doctor? Is the organization my patient? I’m the expert still, still this top down approach, I’m the expert. I’m going in and consulting with people. I’m asking them what they think. Hmm. They’re telling me their problems. I’m going away and creating a solution. I can fix this. The way we always tried to work, because we were a big bunch of hippies was co-creation. With consultation, ultimately you end up going in there, ask the questions, gather the information and then you go back to the center and move to either, tell, sell or test mode.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller Co-creation is more like a… Igor:

A village.

Robin:

A village working together.

Igor:

You’ve heard the expression a global village? That’s because the big players are going oh, well you’re the CEO and I’m a CEO, I can’t look down on you because that would be looking down on me, so we’re in part of a global village. We work together.

Robin:

That’s right. We’re in it together.

Igor:

But of course, with our village not the lab rats. Do you understand how a lot of the issues can start coming out this way?

Robin:

Some very simple obvious ones, organizations is machines. In that situation it’s easy to throw a spanner in the works or for those non-English, a wrench in the machine. Some of those organizations will be well oiled.

Igor:

Some will get a little rusty.

Robin:

This machine, we only really need to tinker with it a little bit and it will run fine for ages. It’s running smoothly, why change things. Organizations can also be creatures, organisms, you know, there’s the head and the heart, the kidneys, the liver. They’ll all be mapped onto different parts of the organization. Brains is another one. Organizations is brains. Interconnected networks of neurons cooperating with each other. That’s a little image and insight to get you noticing.

Igor:

For those of you thinking, what does this have to do with me I don’t work in an organization and have no desire to? It’s a simple way of looking at any collection or group of people that identify with each other. If you’re working with troubled teenagers they’ll have their own symbols. They might be the Lost Boys, the rejects.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller I know many of you are hypnotherapists, so you’re community that you’re serving, if it’s blue collar workers, white collar workers, if it’s very affluent or middle class, each one of those areas will have a different mindset, a different set of symbols they aspire to. You already know this right? In America they keep talking about this is an Italian community or AfricanAmerican community. What they’re really saying is that there are certain metaphors and symbols that these people believe in that will shape the story of their lives and your interactions with them. If you’re an influencer with people, understanding what those are will be very useful and having a tool to get what those symbols are will help you. For example, if you were to just chat with the client you have or the people you’re going to influence and you talk to enough people, you’ll notice that there is a general pattern, a lot of people who run similar things. Now, to use for example the military metaphor, some will see it more as a struggle. Some will see it about being in control. Some will see it more about authority figures, but they’re really saying the same thing just from a slightly different point of view. By understanding that you will be able to influence them and do something with your stories to help along with that too. Get the idea? Useful stuff? Shall we do something practical with it?

Practical Use Of Symbols Igor:

Let’s do an exercise. Let’s do this in pairs and talk to your partner the same way you did this morning about a particular issue that you could help them with. Let’s orient them towards something. You can even role play if you like. So, for example, what kinds of people do you want to influence? Give me some ideas so we can use something that fits your metaphor. Let’s grab the kinds of people you need to influence so you get an idea of what we’re talking about and then we’ll start pulling out the symbols so we can start using them practically.

Pamela: My French in-laws.

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So your in-laws who happen to be French. If anyone here knows the French very well you can start role playing them or you could even role play for them because you’ll have some instincts about how they think. You might actually want to be your in-laws and have someone else pull the metaphors out so you can see them, because you’ll have a lot of instincts about them. What other groups of people might you want to influence?

Student: People that need help with chronic pain. Igor:

People in chronic pain. What area are you?

Student: In my case it’ll be pain for sickle cell anemia, which creates a lot of pain around the body. Igor:

So people with sickle cell anemia sure, so with a disease or certain condition and there’ll be some ideas around that. Who else has a specific idea in mind?

Stefan:

Colleagues and co-workers at your place of work.

Igor:

Fantastic. You can look out for a lot of the metaphors you’ve already heard because there’ll be in there somewhere. You get the general idea of what we’re talking about right?

Student: Teenagers. Robin:

The Lost Boys and Lord of the Flies.

Igor:

Everyone’s going oh yeah. Exactly. I think the easiest way to do this exercise, and actually a fun way of doing it is to reverse roles. If you play the audience you want to influence. Have your partner talk to you about what it’s like and see if you can map it out around you. There’s a hole here and a wall there and a gun over here and all together I’m really in a bad place. Have them pull out, because you know those people already you’ve already talked to them and have some instincts about it, so chances are you already know more about their symbols and metaphors than you realize, so this might be a nice useful way for you to get at that. What we’re looking for is… you

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller don’t have to get the whole story right now you just need enough that we can use it usefully when we get back to the idea of storytelling. Do you understand the idea of the exercise everyone? Robin:

They’re looking for their weltanschauung.

Igor:

Yes. Let’s take five minutes apiece, 10 minutes total, really think about a context where you want to be influential and then place someone you already know who is in that context so you can let those symbols emerge in a relatively close proximity to reality. Off you go. [Exercise starts] Are you beginning to have more fun now playing with these symbols? I know it’s a bit of a slower start this morning, but are you getting into this whole gear of it? Judging by the volume of the room, some bigger stuff is coming out now right? Did anyone surprise themselves that you were channeling the group, either teenagers, colleagues or so on and someone would go yeah, this is probably what they would say and stuff starts coming out where you were almost surprised? What kind of groups and symbols did you discover just now?

Arthur:

I didn’t particularly discover any symbols, but what I did, I wanted to see how I could influence my employees better so we got down to one group of employees and as I began thinking what they had to go through by putting myself in their place, I was thinking boy they really do have a hard job.

Igor:

It’s useful to understand that right?

Arthur:

Yes.

Igor:

So if you were one of your employees, one of your nurses, what would that be like?

Arthur:

There’s lots going on, lots of responsibility and people coming at you from every direction.

Igor:

Right, so when there’s lots of stuff going on and lots of responsibility…

Robin:

People are coming at you from every direction…

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Igor:

What’s that like?

Arthur:

A pressure cooker.

Igor:

It’s like a pressure cooker and the pressure just mounts over the course of the day right?

Arthur:

Yes.

Robin:

And unless they need some way of releasing that it might explode.

Igor:

Yes.

Robin:

It’s probably a good idea if sometimes they get to let off steam a little.

Arthur:

Not in the office.

Igor:

Well, you do realize that steam drives steam engines. That’s one of the ways… you can see by looking at Arthur’s face… there are locks I didn’t even know I had tumbling into place right now. It’s not the complete intervention now but it’s a great big door it’s like explain further. Well, let me illustrate with a story and suddenly we’re into a transformational story with a teaching tale. Do you see how useful this stuff can be now? A very simple snapshot can take someone from no, they can’t explode in the office to, oh maybe I can harness that energy to be something useful. But I could tell that to them logically and say yes let’s take all their pent up frustrations and harness it to something useful and productive in the office and it’s going to go are you crazy? Are you nuts? As opposed to, now you’re thinking how could I harness the pressure that’s building up? Do you understand the value of this now? We haven’t even gotten into how to build this into your stories yet, we just want you to go to lunch with an appreciation that you actually have a very potent tool here when applied with a little wisdom. Thank you for doing that Arthur.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller Student: I was thinking about a potential client of mine who would not really believe hypnosis would help him. It was like being in a crowd watching a magician up on stage and suddenly everything falls apart and he becomes ridiculed. Igor:

Would you be the magician for this client?

Student: Yes. Igor:

Again, there are many ways you can play with that and say well, what makes you think this is not a comedy magician. Would you not be entertained? Really, as long as you’re entertained does it matter whether or not you see through the trick? Again, do you see how they’re giving you the reframe there? Another version might be, so why on earth are you coming to see a magician if you don’t think the trick will work, if you expect it to fall apart?

Student: Right. Igor:

That will tell you more about the metaphor. So again I’m not giving you solutions as much as giving you some food for thought about the metaphors you discovered or the symbols.

Student: I was thinking about trying to influence a lawyer on how to solve the underlying disputes that might be a mediator or using negotiation techniques… Igor:

Great.

Student: ... Instead of going through the legal motions. When we spoke I go the feeling this is a big box I’m carrying and people try to steal stuff out of my box. Igor:

It’s almost like a kid, I’ve got my toys, don’t take my toys.

Student: Exactly. Then the next thing, Ollie asked the question, what if you want to change the content how would you do that? My solution was, actually I can become a mediator myself and let’s make a legal profession out of it and that’s what’s happening in real life. It was very insightful.

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Right. So now you understand. Of course, the more people you talk to in terms of the legal field the more you’ll understand what the global metaphor is, but you now have some ideas and people are doing this constantly. Great salespeople are constantly talking in symbols and metaphors. Sometimes they impose their own, but the wise ones just understand the ones everyone else is thinking about. It’s probably like, think of a child with their box and they’ve been protecting their toys and so on. After a while it’s the same old toy it gets boring. How about figuring out how you can change these toys and get a brand new set of toys in there so every day is like Christmas. Have you heard me change the metaphor? I’ve gone from a kid being possessive about toys to Christmas, which is about receiving more. Of course, the underlying implication being is that there are ways to get more business by doing something where you think you might get less. Are you beginning to see some value here folks? Anyone else want to share theirs?

Student: I found the metaphor of a smoker going into hypnosis like being prodded by the world to go into a dark forest. This dark forest has the reputation of creating zombies. My coach was kind enough to point out that zombies aren’t so good because it’s like dying but sometimes there are parts of you that just need to die, like cancer. Igor:

That’s a very powerful metaphor. I love that because you’re doing my job for me. We’re thinking about, let’s give them some reframes and things like that, and you’re going no we’ve got them already. Thank you for doing our job for us.

Student: I’m a business consultant. I’ve always gotten the impression/feeling that I’m an adult and my clients are like kids playing in the sandbox. They are sometimes fighting, grabbing from each other, and just looking from the highest perspective down. I’m trying to teach them. Now I realize that I should go down to be together with those kids and play with them, than the results will occur. Igor:

Because you won’t have the same kind of resistance with authority and that stuff. You won’t have naughty two-year olds you’ll have cooperative ventures. Thank you.

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Those kids can only grow up when you set them free to do so.

Rita:

So tomorrow I’ll be working with a group of managers who have asked me to think with them about a change management process in the company, so I put myself in the shoes of their employees and George was very good at pointing out what they would be thinking, so I was going we’ve done this before, we’ve traveled down this road so nothing new is going to happen.

Igor:

That’s one symbol there, traveled down this road before.

Rita:

That was the one I was still hooked on and thinking, how could I reframe that one so they can appreciate the new road they’re going down?

Igor:

Right. People who live in the same place and same town have basically walked every single road at least once. The question is not whether you go down the same road it’s how far you keep going. Unless you keep going, how will you ever get anywhere else?

Robin:

You’ll never leave town.

Igor:

Right. Your choice.

Robin:

Sometimes of course we can go down the same road everyday on the way to work in a kind of trance and then something happens that jars us and wakes it up and it might be that we suddenly see something beautiful or…

Igor:

For example…

Robin:

… if we’re lucky. If we’re unlucky we might crash before we notice what’s going on.

Igor:

… I used to take the same bus to school every single day. Do you see where we’re going with this right now? I think that’s enough food for thought. I think you get the hint about the metaphor and what this matter is for.

Robin:

I want to reassure you because I know you’ve been very busy for the last 11 days.

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You worked hard.

Robin:

It’s a long road.

Igor:

In this seminar and others as well.

Robin:

And some of you are probably thinking, looking for to opening the front door and going into the other room

Igor:

Ah, my goodness, so much stuff.

Robin:

And really have you got what it takes

Igor:

Where do I put it all?

Robin:

To absorb any more information

Igor:

The fact is

Robin:

We’d like to reassure you

Igor:

That it is simple

Robin:

This afternoon

Igor:

Will get easier

Robin:

We’ll just be doing a few short and easy

Igor:

Fun exercises

Robin:

To give you the opportunity to consolidate what you’ve learned

Igor:

And realize it’s quite powerful

Robin:

And go away with a bit of a bang

Igor:

Right.

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Symbolic Influence Igor:

Welcome back everyone, how are you feeling? We’re in the last run, the final run of the day. This is the time to pull out of the bag, get those stories ready, get your engines running and do something. Are you ready? Dress yourself. I think he went to the coffee shop today. Don’t hold it against him he can’t handle his drugs. Let’s start again. How is everyone doing?

Group:

Yay!

Igor:

Hope you had a nice lunch. Before lunch we talked about symbolism in terms of people’s personal metaphors and how those apply to cultures and so on. You can understand that you have personal metaphors and we have cultural metaphors that we can buy into unconsciously within the groups or social groups we engage in. They can be useful and helpful for the influence process. Many of you already started to play with the idea of taking the metaphor that’s emerged and basically hijacking it. So, where they’re getting stuck with something, Arthur’s example was great with the idea of the pressure cooker and you can let off some steam. The concerns come out metaphorically but not in the office. Then you’re asking yourself, how can I use this metaphor to actually turn things to a positive event, whether it’s how far down the known path do you have to tread before you find new ground, the kind you’re looking for? Or, it’s reminding them that steam powers railway engines and get lots of work done.

Robin:

Because you need to keep a lid on things for the steam pressure to build up, to have enough pressure to actually get the thing moving. But then steam engines have a governor, that little device that spins out as it gets faster and faster which lets out steam gradually and just at the right pace, so you get the ideal pressure.

Igor:

So nothing else, they can all start whistling and work. (whistling) What I’d like you to do is a simple exercise just now and that is getting together with a partner and now that we’re used to this kind of language, see

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller if you can start drawing the metaphors out a little more conversationally. Get a new partner. Let’s focus on simple issues, something light we don’t want to get too heavy right now. Your main job is that once you’ve got a little bit of the symbolism out is can you somehow hijack the symbol to make it something more pleasant so it can become a useful metaphor for change. Does that make sense? The same way we had here with the pathway and so on. Does anyone have a question about it? Again, this is simpler to do than to talk about, so unless these looks are those of eager anticipation, go for it. Let’s take that as a sign that it’s time to do an exercise. Please find a partner you haven’t talked with yet. A simple small problem. Spend a minute or so just chit-chatting to see what symbols pop out. When you get a nice symbol like I’m stuck or there’s a lot of pressure then just zero in on it, what’s that like? Is it like a banana peel and you slip on it? No, it’s like a pressure cooker with pressure building up. Once you get that out, reframe it back to them and see the impact it has. You don’t have to go anywhere with it you just have to see the impact it has. We’ll show you right after this how to use it in a more storytelling context. Robin:

Please do change partners.

Igor:

Change partners, change problems and change everything else you want to change. Five minutes apiece. Off you go. [Exercise starts] How’d that go guys? Who enjoyed that? Who is starting to see and experience the value of this symbolic way of working with stories as well?

Student: It’s interesting. We were talking about problems dealing with teenagers. Basically, you want to chunk the crap out of them and shake them loose. What do you shake loose? Then we said if you look at a fruit tree, you shake it and you get fruit out. Then he says what if you get the fruit and give it to her. So if I say something nice first and… Igor:

Then you shake the tree. Isn’t that nice. How does that make you feel, given that situation when someone says oh, that’s another way of looking at it?

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller Student: It’s interesting. It showed me that maybe the problem is more mine than someone else’s. Robin:

It’s interesting often, if you remember the mirror story I told earlier about the guy and the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree does it?

Student: Guess not. Igor:

Do you see the mileage you can get out of these things? Thank you for sharing. Let’s take the next step now. I know someone who’s a friend of mine who’s a salesman and he had a terrible time working. He was metaphorically constantly battered and bruised, because going on a sales trip was like going to war zone for him. He would turn up battle a client, sometimes he’d win sometimes he’d lose, but whether he won or lost there’s always going to be a scar for the interaction. He would come back exhausted, exhausted being exhilarated from the sale or exhausted and depressed at the humiliating defeat. One day his boss came in and said look Brian, I understand why you’re making life so hard for yourself. He said what you don’t realize is that all the people we’re sending out to see these potential clients, they need what we have. You’re both sitting in the same boat and someone has to be willing to pick up the oars and row. So it’s up to you, you can fight each other or you can start rowing. What are you going to start doing?

Robin:

Because the thing is we can’t all steer the boat.

Igor:

Too many cooks spoil the roast… So you get the idea that you can take those very metaphors that are underlying and start weaving them into your stories so that the transformational moment is actually presented in a story metaphorically and symbolically at the same time. See how that works? If someone wants to be really clever here’s what you can do with this. Do you remember the picaresque adventure from yesterday, where you tell like a shaggy dog story or you have a genuine story with lots of little things? Well

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller you have your loops and your little adventures, what if a side adventure was Brian’s sales problem or whatever the story is you want to throw in there, but then you go back to the main adventure of figuring out what’s going on in this monastery. You’ve just created a very simple, very covert bit of transformation haven’t you? The idea sinks but before they think of it too much, you carry on the story and they’re like tell me more about that and it sits in the backs of their mind where it belongs. Because it addresses the very question that someone over here was asking at the start of the day, which is, if you look at the stories children read and you look at your life, aren’t you really living out the same story? Group:

Yes.

Igor:

The reason you’re living it out is because you forgot to think about it. It just became an assumption you made about life, a symbolic assumption that you recreated. So now we give them a symbolic way of transforming that. Do you understand the idea of this?

Robin:

Can I tell a little story?

Igor:

It’s a storytelling seminar so be my guest.

Robin:

Just on that issue of overt and covert, because you can use these things directly and also be a bit more subtle. I did one piece of work with a client who was working in a very rural bound IT department. He wanted to encourage creativity and to shake things up a bit, get people to realize they could step outside the rules they’d created for themselves and be a little more adventurous. He didn’t think that the direct approach would work, so what we ended up doing was to collect together newspaper articles, magazines, stories, the kinds of things that were lying around the office that you could point out and say read this story, the kinds of things you could leave on a bulletin board and not comment on. To give you an example of the kind of story we were looking for, there was a newspaper article about a fireman who was being punished, reprimanded in front of a work tribunal because he’d disobeyed his line manager during a fire

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller fight. This huge building was on fire and he’d disobeyed and obviously in that kind of situation that’s a very dangerous thing to do. He was reprimanded and fined. The tribunal pointed out in their judgment that they’d taken into account the fact that going into the building enabled him to save the life of two young children who were trapped there. So it was an example of a situation in which breaking the rules was the right thing to do. Igor:

Do you get the idea?

Student: Your example of converting the war metaphor into a boat seemed rather juxtaposition to me. Is that still okay? Igor:

Remember, you’re doing this in story form right now. You can do it more smoothly if you want as well. Because you’re doing it in story form you’re not necessarily going straight like now, now you told me that your relationship feels like a war zone great. Now, let me tell you a story about someone else who had a relationship that resembled a war zone. That’s exactly what I’m not suggesting. So you have a little longer to do this exercise precisely because you’ll tell a little value story, maybe a mind reading story and then a teaching tale and one of those may become your picaresque adventure. Inside of that you don’t even talk about necessarily a relationship being like a war zone, you’ll talk about some other event being like a war zone. The fact that you’re using the metaphor, in this case a relationship that’s like a war zone and in the story it’s the salesperson treats it like a war zone, that’s the bit where you catch their attention. If you want you can put in a resolution where you thought about it and maybe it pops out later on in another picaresque adventure much happier. That creates that transition point.

Robin:

There are a number of ways to go also. Navy’s take part in wars and during the First World War, horses had to pull together to pull the canons and guns forward to the front lines.

Igor:

There are many ways you can take it, we’ve just illustrated how you can take what you just did very directly as a reframe and put it inside a story. Let’s put

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller it this way, recall yesterday you were sitting there at the edge of your seat really listening to people’s stories and getting all excited by them. And you probably weren’t thinking too much about them other than they were very entertaining. Once you have someone there, that’s when you tell the story and it becomes a smoother transition. Then you move on to other parts of the story. Remember the open and closed loops once again, that becomes a useful thing to do there. It’s just another way of using a transformational story now that you have tools to build it in a different way. Does that help? Any other questions? All right. Let’s spend five minutes apiece with the same partner that you’ve already talked to a little bit about the metaphors so you’ll know where it’s going. You don’t necessarily have to elicit it now, just start talking to each other telling a personal or value story, some other thing and somewhere in the third or fourth story embed your reframe story, your transformational story and then finish up your stories in whatever way you want. So a five minute simple set of stories that you’re throwing in, one of which somewhere in the middle will be the one which handles the actual symbol they gave to you, like the fruit tree, pressure cooker and so on. Do you understand the exercise? All right then, off you go. [Exercise starts]

Final Exercise Robin:

In a moment we’re going to do another mingling exercise and we’re going to ask you to move from partner to partner and exchange a little bit of information.

Igor:

Shall we move the chairs first?

Robin:

Make sure you move around. Go up to people who you’ve worked with, who you’ve spent time with during the last three days, last 11 for some of you and get a chance for those people to really connect and share this information. The kind of information we would like you to share is simply like this… what I liked about what you did. What I enjoyed about working with you. I loved it when you did that.

Igor:

And if you want to add a simile along the way, it’s a bit like…

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Robin:

You’re some kind of storytelling ninja.

Igor:

Now, the important thing here is you will probably, in your journey around the room, bump into one or two people you haven’t really had interaction with in terms of stories and so on. You know what you do then? You tell a lie. You pretend you’ve had this amazing time because let’s face it, there is no contradictory evidence.

Robin:

I’m sure there will be universal principles, universal experiences that you can draw out. Igor, what I’ve really enjoyed about working with you is re-igniting our rapport on stage and I love that we can be a little competitive and banter and neither of us feel sulky or upset about it. I admire your ability to stay absolutely focused on these guys learning for 11 days in a row, working 10 hour days. I love it when you show your human side, when you laugh I think you can be really funny.

[Applause] Igor:

My thoughts Robin I have to say and it’s very true. What I really enjoyed is the way that we can interweave stories and pick up where the other person left off. There aren’t a lot of people who actually have that kind of flow so that’s a real pleasure. As always I adore your stories. I’m sure these guys will agree with me when I say that just sitting here watching you perform them is like theater. It’s like wow, sit back I haven’t paid for this I’ll just watch. It’s phenomenal and every time I see you perform like that and every time I see you train I actually learn more of myself. It’s like going into the smoothie bar and having all the worst things in one drink only they’re not being good for you and I like that. It’s a private moment.

[Applause] Do you get the idea? Robin:

So, 10 minutes.

Igor:

Off you go.

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller --How are you doing, did you enjoy that exercise? Group:

Yes.

Igor:

Did you hear some nice things? Dare I say did a few little stories start coming out just because you couldn’t help it?

Robin:

Did anyone get feedback that surprised them in a nice way?

Group:

Yes.

Robin:

Excellent.

Igor:

Very good.

Robin:

Just that exercise I’ve run on four different continents in corporations and I always get the same feedback at the end of a session, which is, that was the best thing we’ve done all day. We never get a chance to do that in our work. That’s a tip for the consultants in the room.

Final Thoughts Igor:

We’re coming to the tail end of the day now. You have worked hard. I know you’ve worked a lot of things. As we know when you come to the end of an important journey usually people like to leave you with a last thought, idea or image. I’d like to do the latter. I’d like to leave you with one very important idea that hopefully you’ll take with you when we finish here. The idea comes more in the form of an image. If you imagine a monastery or abbey on top of a hill and inside there somewhere is a crypt, and if you follow a long series of tunnels you’ll get to a door. Behind that door lie all the stories you never told. I think it’s time to open that door don’t you?

Robin:

I started off talking about a windmill I bought for my mom. When I came over here I was wondering how I could keep in touch with my daughter while away and just relay how do I get her to relate to the experience that’s going on? So Paddington Bear smuggled himself into my suitcase and I have photos of him

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How To Be A World Class Hypnotic Storyteller peeking his head out of the suitcase, looking out the airplane window. Me, being surprised to find him in the hotel room. Us cuddled up in bed together. Him on a bicycle in Amsterdam by the canal. Sipping a bear by a famous bridge. Training with Igor Ledochowski. Igor:

Why thank you for…

Robin:

I also told you a story about a picture frame. For me that story really encapsulated very simply, the real power of story. It’s just a picture frame right? It’s just a few dollars. But the story attached to it makes it priceless. So, on that note it’s time to close your book and close the book on this training.

Igor:

It’s usually easiest to do with flat feet on the floor

Robin:

And with your hands positioned comfortably, perhaps on your laps

Igor:

Eyes closed usually enhances an experience

Robin:

It doesn’t matter whether you take a deep breath in right now

Igor:

Or simply relax

Robin:

And allow your breathing to happen naturally

Igor:

As your thoughts circulates naturally, one

Robin:

The ones you feel

Igor:

Lazy idea to another

Robin:

Your breathing changing now

Igor:

And there are so many things you’ve experienced

Robin:

Let your attention play

Igor:

So many stories you’ve told

Robin:

Only on those most pleasant sensations

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Igor:

So many stories you’ve heard

Robin:

Those feelings of relaxation and comfort

Igor:

You’ve been touched

Robin:

In a deep way

Igor:

And moved

Robin:

And you can still feel the weight of your body on the chair

Igor:

By all the experiences

Robin:

And you can feel the temperature

Igor:

That others have shared with you

Robin:

On your skin

Igor:

In the form of stories

Robin:

You can hear the sounds in the room

Igor:

And there’s that woman’s story and truth

Robin:

And you can review the experience of the last three days

Igor:

Making one more palatable to the general population

Robin:

And you can imagine

Igor:

Important truths

Robin:

Whether you’re sitting in that chair

Igor:

Coming from your story

Robin:

Of who you are or another chair

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Igor:

What you value. And there are so many different ways to experience comfort

Robin:

That chair

Igor:

Could be any chair in the world

Robin:

Could be an armchair

Igor:

It could be a rocking chair

Robin:

It could be a throne

Igor:

It could be something you’ve sat in many times before

Robin:

Or it could be a chair you’ve only sat in once

Igor:

If you sat in a chair

Robin:

In a house

Igor:

In a clearing

Robin:

In a wood

Igor:

And waited comfortably

Robin:

Waiting for somebody to come visit you

Igor:

An important task

Robin:

A story to tell

Igor:

Something that only that individual needs to hear

Robin:

And they’ve traveled on a long journey

Igor:

A long way to be here

Robin:

To find you waiting for them

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Igor:

And there they are by the doorstep

Robin:

Here

Igor:

Walking in the room. Sitting down and looking at you expectantly

Robin:

As you begin

Igor:

The story

Robin:

To tell them

Igor:

What they need to hear

Robin:

Right now

Igor:

In the cloak of story

Robin:

And whether it’s a long story or a short story

Igor:

You have all the time you need

Robin:

Whether it’s the seed of the story

Igor:

In the next few moments

Robin:

Or the completion

Igor:

To expand time inside

Robin:

Of something left open

Igor:

To make it fit

Robin:

It’s a story that’s really important for you to hear

Igor:

The exact you’re telling. And notice the emotion. Feel how your words touch that person

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Hear the sound of your own voice

Igor:

Change them

Robin:

As you tell that story

Igor:

Frees their own voice

Robin:

Using all the new skills you’ve learned

Igor:

Frees their own movements

Robin:

See the impact it has on them

Igor:

Releases the stories trapped inside

Robin:

Feel that connection between you both growing there together

Igor:

And you’ve done so many things now

Robin:

Have you not

Igor:

You’ve achieved so much now

Robin:

And you’ve learned

Igor:

And you can achieve even more. As the story finishes, a bigger one begins

Robin:

And it’s a story you may know the beginning

Igor:

Far away from a house and a clearing and a forest, there is another life

Robin:

Another place

Igor:

That awaits someone

Robin:

And you all know the way home don’t you

Igor:

There are so many things that await you and the stories you have to tell

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And as you travel

Igor:

Will you experience it on a plane or a train

Robin:

On a car or a boat

Igor:

A bus or a bicycle

Robin:

As you continue on your journey

Igor:

Collecting stories and sharing them

Robin:

What diversions and detours will you take

Igor:

Who will you meet

Robin:

In the airport

Igor:

Who will you tell a story too

Robin:

In a café

Igor:

How will you know what story needs to be told next

Robin:

At work

Igor:

When something occurs

Robin:

At home

Igor:

And a person simply has a need to hear a story

Robin:

You’ll know

Igor:

That you have

Robin:

Just the story

Igor:

To share now

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That they need

Igor:

A lifetime awaits you

Robin:

A lifetime and we don’t know how it ends

Igor:

We don’t know where it’s going to go

Robin:

We only know the journey continues

Igor:

It’s full of stories

Robin:

And that story unfolds forever

Igor:

Every moment

Robin:

Each of our individual stories

Igor:

Every beat of your heart

Robin:

Interweaving and intertwining

Igor:

Every dream you have

Robin:

Each of us

Igor:

Every obstacle you confront

Robin:

Each person you meet is the hero in their own story

Igor:

Every person you meet

Robin:

And make sure you’re the hero in your own story

Igor:

Every river you cross. Every goal you achieve

Robin:

Because if you’re not taking

Igor:

Every person you help

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Authority for that journey

Igor:

Or simply sharing a good moment

Robin:

Than who is

Igor:

With another human being

Robin:

And now you know so much more

Igor:

You can sit in any chair in the world

Robin:

You could be sitting in an armchair

Igor:

You could be sitting on a throne

Robin:

You could be sitting on a chair in a training room

Igor:

You could be sitting right at home

Robin:

Or you could be sitting right there in that chair

Igor:

In an office or a plane

Robin:

Feeling the weight of your body on that chair

Igor:

And knowing that there’s a story to be told

Robin:

And getting ready now to return

Igor:

To bring it all together

Robin:

Only as quickly

Igor:

As all that rest insides you now

Robin:

And as you take a nice deep breath

Igor:

Your eyes can open

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Enjoying taking that feeling with you and knowing

Igor:

And you can look on the world

Robin:

As you open your eyes

Igor:

As a true storyteller now

Robin:

When you’re ready to do so

Igor:

Doesn’t the world look a little different like this

Robin:

You’ll have a new view and a new perspective

Igor:

That’s really where stories come from isn’t it?

Robin:

It’s been fascinating to share this journey over the last three days. I’ve had a wonderful time.

Igor:

I have too. Thank you Robin.

Robin:

You rock mate.

Igor:

You too.

[Applause] As with most things, neither of us could have done any of this if this room was empty. I want to thank each of you for participating and throwing yourself in. I know it hasn’t been easy at times and it’s been a lot of energy required of you. We’ve seen you really transform and your stories have become fantastic. I want you to appreciate yourselves and each other for becoming the storytellers you’ve become. Give yourself a round of applause. [Applause] Robin:

And just in case we forget, the assistants at the back.

Igor:

All these fine people without whom…

Robin:

Thanking especially our camera crew who has captured every word for you.

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Igor:

We have our all important sound engineers without whom you would have heard nothing. I think the last clap should be to all the people you will be telling stories too to thank them in advance for listening and sharing moments with you. This story is over, now go home and find some new ones.

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