The Synthesis Effect - Live the Life of Your Dreams

0:01 This program is designed to provide general information with regards to the subject matters covered. This information is given with the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial, legal counseling, professional service, or any advice. You should seek the services of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas. At the end of the day, it's not about what you have or even what you've accomplished. It's about what you've done with those accomplishments. It's about who you've lifted up, who you've made better. It's about what you've given back. Denzel Washington, welcome to inspire Vision. Our sole purpose is to elevate the lives of others and to inspire you to do the same. John, how are you doing. I'm great, Doctor Doug, how are you hey, I'm doing wonderful. Thanks so much for being on the show. I really appreciate it. Well, I'm delighted to join you, you know. And what I find is it's just so fascinating to hear how someone reached the point in their lives that they're doing the type of things that you're doing now. So for what I'd love for you to do is share with the audience who you are, your background, your education and so forth, but also what brought you to this point of you know, doing what you're doing through hypnosis as well as writing the book. It's a bit of a long story. I'll

1:34 try to condense it as much as I can. First of all, my name is John mcgrail. I am the founder and president of a company called a Better You, Inc. And what I do is help people get rid of the blocks in their life, whatever they may be, usually quickly and profoundly, so they can learn to live their life the way they want to. My favorite quote in the world is from a guy named Christopher Morley who lived in the late eighteenth nineteenth century you're into the twentieth century, and he said, there's only one success, to be able to spend your life in your own way. And that's really how I've tried to live my life. As far as the background, this is certainly not my first career. I started in aviation, believe it or not, military than the airlines, and worked on a master's degree in mass communications, which really got me fascinated with radio television, film and video. So I left Flying because I kind of got bored with it after fifteen years and opened my own media production company in Massachusetts called to Creative Media Services. That led me eventually to Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting and screenwriting, and I actually made a living and taught test preparation on the side. That all led to a position as an executive with a production company that a lot of your listeners may not remember the dot com crash of two thousand, but there was this implosion of technology because of this dot com craze, and my little company was one of the victims of that. So I found myself at forty something wondering what I was going to do next. And the more I thought about it, the more I

3:07 realized that in all the jobs I'd ever had, what I loved most was coaching, teaching, mentoring, and I had always ended up as an instructor in aviation, in film TV, I always ended up teaching people. So I did a lot of soul searching and research, and hypnotherapy was an avenue that would allow me to start a career pretty quickly rather than eight or ten years in classical psychology or med school or all the other options I looked at, and there happened to be a school very close to me who was taking students at the time. I went up and talked to them, and I realized that this was something I was really fascinated in because it just tweaked all my natural interests in all the things that I had been interested for years and years. A year later, I was designated a clinical hypnotherapist, and I have not worked a day in twenty five years since that happened. Along the way, I got my PhD in clinical hypnotherapy. And here I am, doctor JOHNA. Wow, Wow, that's amazing. And then you've written this book called Synthesis. Well, I actually, what's the full name of it, The synthesis Effect, right, the synthesis Effect. And the subtitle is and this is a very clunky title, and I'll never do it again, your Direct Path to Personal Power and Transformation, which really aptly describes the book.

4:28 But it's a mouthful, and it's hard to say synthesis. It's hard for me to say it. And I can't tell you how many shows I've been on, or stages I've been on doing keynotes or motivational, and it's really tough, but it is a very apt title because it is about creating, through a variety of techniques and models and metaphors, a more powerful you or a better you, which is the name of my company. It's a synthesis, and so it is really apt well, and I love that. You know, as I was looking at your website, one of the things that you had in the content that you were writing about is how the world has gotten to the point where we're all experiencing. I can't remember the exact wording, but you know, I'm thinking we're all suffering. And you know, as you know, I'm here in Thailand right now, and so it's fascinating to study a little bit about Buddhism and one of his main focuses is the fact that we all suffer. And of course his goal is to help the people move from suffering to not suffering to completely eliminating suffering, and there's a step by step on that. So I found that fascinating as you were talking about that, because in this world, what have you observed about that?

5:49 Fantastic point? And I too am a student of native and indigenous philosophies, and I don't like to use the word religion because I think there's a difference between philosophy, doctrines, and ethos and necessarily a religion which is more about ceremonies, rights and whatnot. But the Buddha defined enlightenment as the end of suffering, and I love that. And what I find is that in modern society we are so energetically imbalanced as a culture, in modern technology driven Western culture, that we are suffering. We focus on the negative side of life, lack contrast, fear, and wherever we go we're bombarded with this information twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. They never say, and I believe there should be a law that if you turn on a newscasp whether it's radio, television, streaming, it doesn't matter whoever is delivering the news, should be required by law to say, listen, everybody, I'm here to scare the hell out of you, because that's what they pay me a lot of money to do. But before we start telling you what's wrong with the world, let me just remind you that most of the people and most of the planet right now are perfectly fine. We don't think about that part. We think about what's not going well, and it becomes sort of a behavioral program. We are hypnotized to think that we should live in fear, anger, obesity, addiction, and that's just the nature of the beast, and it doesn't have to be that way. Well, and you're interested, you know, you talk about we're hypnotized, and I love that

7:24 word, and I love the description because you know, as I've listened to other people talk about this in different ways, the reality is is that we have created our own film. We have created our own movie of our life, and so often that creation has everything to do with those subconscious experiences that we've had that we don't remember, and yet that is what we create as our perception of life and then create that movie. What what have you found is happening to all of us as we experience all of this challenge that we hear on the news and everywhere else, to where even as we're struggling really hard not to quote suffer and to have that affect us, what have you found that it has done to people in general? Well, in general, I find that many, if not most, of us are overstressed, physically ill, and there's a lot of anxiety in the world. Ninety five percent of the people I see in my clinical practice. And I've would have lit down these years because I'm working on other things. I only see people or clients a few days a week because I'm doing talks and whatnot. But what I find ninety five percent, and this is before COVID when it all blew up, ninety five percent of the people that seek my services are stressed and anxious and fearful. And that is not how we're supposed to lose our lives,

8:58 but that is the ethos that this culture has developed. Unfortunately, and again I say, you know you mentioned it. There was an interesting word in the lead up to that question, Doug. You said, we're struggling. We're not supposed to struggle. You know, where did we come up with this? You know, no pain, no gain. Life is supposed to be painful. And if it's really really painful and I suffer a lot, maybe I'll be one of those people who gets a statue erected in my honor. Where did that come from? You know, life is not supposed to be painful. We can learn to live virtually, it's never perfect, virtually free of suffering, and that's what the synthesis effect is all about to teach people to flip the coin, if you will, you know, think of you know, we have contrast and we have abundance. It's a two edged coin. Any time we want, if we want, we can flip that coin. Unfortunately, we've learned not to even think about it. Our glass is always half empty. And what I like to teach my clients and students is that let's talk about the glass being full well, and so let's talk about the synthesis effect. What is that exactly? Well? The effect, which is the title of the book, is learning just what I described, how to live your life virtually for you suffering. What it requires is changing your mindset. Obviously, as you so aptly mentioned, we are programmed, if you will, and I hate to use that word, but at least from a metaphorical perspective, the subconscious part of our mind which controls most

10:28 of our behavior, our attitudes, our values, our beliefs, our personality. That's all imprinted very early in life. Usually by the age of eight, we are pretty much formed. Now it takes a few years for us to become the people we've been programmed to become. But we learn all of these negativities, and that becomes the adult human being, and so to change it you have to reprogram it. Think of the subconscious mind. This is how I like to describe it, as a three year old child that never grows up, doesn't really have much sophistication, can tell good from bad, or happy from sad. That's all happening at a conscious level, and that's very subjective. The subconscious mind is like a little kid. Two plus two is five, okay, Santa Claus is coming, okay great? Or two plus two is four. Oh, that's fine too, It doesn't matter.

11:16 And once these inputs, if you will, our experiences become reinforced through years of repetition and or significance. That becomes the database, if you will, that this internal three year old uses to get itself through life. And it can be programmed negatively or it can be programmed positively. And unfortunately, in our society we have forgotten the positive side of life. So very often you see glimpses and glimmers of it. But most of what we hear, most of what we read, and most of what we then produce as our own reality is about negativity and what I call lack lack black, black, black lack well. And you know, it's fascinating as I've observed different situations, and I really do find this fascinating that I watch people who I know fairly well that literally create a life that that subconscious has programmed them to do.

12:18 And so for those and you know, to get into just a little bit of the negative part of it, I see people constantly suffering and experiencing this and experiencing that, and they can't understand why and so forth, and for some reason, they do not understand that they are creating the very life that they're experiencing, and they don't want to take responsibility for that. You know, it'll be always this is what someone did to me, or this is what someone else did to me, rather than being able to take that responsibility. So, first of all, and obviously as you're working with your clients, as they come to you, there has to have been some degree of awareness that they've had that, you know what, this is not a life that I want. So that's certainly the case. Yeah, So the question that I'm going to have is going a little bit deeper before that, how do you how would you help people to get to the point or what would be the suggestions that they would look at what are the signs that they could observe that would let them know that, hey, you know what, this is not the life that I want and get to the point where there becomes a sense of awareness that there's something they can do about it. That's an excellent question, and your point is so well taken. One of the first things that I do with every new client is explain exactly what you just explained that, whether we like it or not. And of course, when we're suffering and in pain in life's not working well, whether we like it or

13:50 not, we are creating that reality. And I have a model that I call the quantum reality equation which, in very simple, oversimplified terms, explain how we do that through our energetic exchanges. And one of the first steps in changing well. First of all, the awareness that they're in pain is pretty simple. I'm not happy, I'm not I don't have what I want. I mean, you know, and it's my mother's fault, my father's fault, whoever. And it's really easy to blame people. And I suppose when we're very little they are sort of responsible because we are powerless. But I remind them that you know, you're thirty five, you're forty, you're fifty, you're twenty three years old. Now you are responsible for your own outcomes. So the second you decide to take that responsibility, we can get something done. And that's the first step in the synthesis process. We have to admit and own the fact that we create our own reality. Good, bad, happy, sad. We created ourselves. Do other people help?

14:52 Sure, they're more than happy to help our misery. Not too many people are happy to see us happy, because you know, misery loves company. But when we take that responsibility and then apply these tools, we can change that internal programming if you will. I know behavioral scientists hate the word computer when you describe the mind, but metaphorically, it works a lot like a computer. Once it's programmed, it just plays its programs. It doesn't know what it's doing. And once we say, okay, I made these programs, whether I like it or not, I want to change them. Now, we have some powerful tools to make that happen quickly and profoundly. So your point is absolutely spot on. You must take responsibility for your outcomes, and when you do, you can produce incredible outcomes. Well, and you know, it's interesting so many times, and I'm really guilty of this.

15:43 You know, when I do that self introspection and I look at those things and it's like, Okay, I'm going to handle this, and so on and so forth. But what I've found is that one of the most important things, initially at least, is to realize that you need somebody there. You need somebody to help you, You need somebody to guide you. You need someone I don't like the word coach, but you know that's why it is. But you really need someone that's going to be there to encourage you, to help you, because it can get very difficult, it can get very discouraging, and trying to do it on our own sometimes is really tough.

16:25 Trying to do it on our own is almost impossible for most people. And that's one of the reasons I wrote the book to provide so assistance. But the truth of the matter is, and you know, I talk about this all the time with my clients, with my audiences. When I'm doing a motivational or a keynote, I say, look, folks, if your car gets banged up, do you fix it yourself? You take it to a mechanic. If you have a toothache, do you pull your own tooth? You go to the dentist. But God forbid, in our society you have an emotional or shall I say, mental issue, You're feeling badly and it's in your mind. We have this ethos in our culture that we're supposed to suck it up. I think it's a leftover from the Puritan ethic, you know, suck it up and get through it. God forbid I tell anybody that I'm having problems. The truth of the matter is the mind is so powerful. If you could change it yourself, you would, and you probably tried. Most people do, and then fail. I hate the word fail. But you try and it doesn't happen. You try and it doesn't happen. Then you get you know, and then you say, okay, well this is it. This is all I've got. You do need help.

17:32 We all need help. And when we get that help, that's when things can happen so powerfully and quickly. Well, and as we look at as we look at the synthesis effect, I have two questions that we'll get into. Number one, what how does hypnosis really fall into that? As people are reading the book. Is this something that they need to go through hypnosis in order to accomplish? Or as you talk about the synthesis effect, is it something that is they're reading it can be really a guide to some degree of helping them to overcome some of these things. How does that all come together? Okay, let me see if I can answer that. First of all, hypnosis is not necessary, but and it is an incredibly powerful tool to facilitate making change quickly because and it's simply a natural state of consciousness.

18:27 Let's talk about that for just a second. Everybody, every one of us experiences hypnosis several times every day throughout our lives. Anytime you watch a good movie or a TV show, you have an emotional response to it. You've been hypnotized. You are responding to suggestion. The subconscious mind doesn't know the difference between reality and illusion. So when we shift that consciousness. Daydreaming is another form of hypnosis. You know, Reverie, Oh I remember that summer, and you create this emotional feeling inside of you just by thinking thoughts. So is it necess No, does it accelerate the process for most people? Absolutely, because when we allow ourselves to go into that state of consciousness, and it's very similar to another state of consciousness that is a really forbidden term in our culture. Meditation. Oh boy, we don't like meditation.

19:18 But the truth of the matter is they go so well together. And those are two of the main tools in the synthesis process. But when we give the mind appropriate instructions and it's open and receptive to change, that's when the reprogramming. That's when the relearning, unlearning the habits, the patterns, the fears, the phobias, whatever it is, the limiting beliefs that aren't working, and reteaching that little three year old. What we wanted to know to really is for do most people need help in that? Yes, the book is designed to help people do as much on their own as they can. And part of it and I say this, listen, if this isn't enough for you, I have a whole appendix that guides readers to finding the appropriate assistance. And it doesn't have to be me glad it is if it is.

20:08 But listen, if this isn't working for you, if it's not enough on your own, and it may well not be, because most of us need more help. Here's how to find it. Here's where to go. Here are the questions to ask. I have three appendencies in the book that is all about helping people go further than the book does. Okay, then, so I'm really smiling because as you talk about hypnosis and meditation, you know, it's fascinating that there's a lot of people out there now that are meditating, and as I observe here in Thailand, obviously with Buddhism being so strong that it is, there are so many people that are that really meditate. But I also noticed that those that are meditating a lot sometimes there are still creating a life that they really don't want to have. And so you know, with hypnosis, I would I would guess that you are able to guide them in a very specific way to focus on those areas that they need to focus on. How does an individual that wants to be able to meditate and do the same similar type of thing, how do they meditate in a way that actually is effective in focusing on and eliminating some of those subconscious issues that are creating the life that they're experiencing. There are so many ways to meditate, and all of them can be very effective, and that's part of

21:38 the reason I think people get so discouraged because they try it, And okay, let's take a step back. First of all, we are a society, due to the miracle of technology, that wants instant fixes. We want instant gratification. We want what we want, and we want it now. Unfortunately, when we're changing our lives and changing the way our mind works, it's not instant. So the big thing with meditation, and most people get discouraged by it is that they think they're going to have some otherworldly experience. They don't. They try it for a few days, maybe a week or two, nothing happens. That didn't work. I'm no good at it. I'm no good at it. Well, you don't get good at it, you just do it consistently. And I've developed I shouldn't say I've developed.

22:25 I introduce and teach my clients a form of meditation that I call dynamic meditation. And it's so very simple. I teach my clients how to sit quietly, just be mindful of the moment, because that's all we really have. Not worry about the past, not worry about the future. Just let's be here now, close your eyes, learn how to relax your body. Let's say practice. Most people aren't very good at it. Learn how to breathe properly. The breath is an incredibly powerful tool that takes a little practice. And then imagine what you want. Say it's I want better job, I want that raise. Put yourself in that situation and in whatever way works for you, visualize it, imagine it, think about it, and create the energy as if you're already there. Ah, I got that job. I feel so good now I am doing what I want to do. I've made that change, I got that raise. Oh man, that feels good.

23:26 And sit with that energy for as long as you can. Just be with it, feel it. Don't just think about it, feel it. It's already happened. I call that dynamic meditation because you are focusing an enormous amount of energy on what you want rather than what you don't have. With consistent practice, and that's the trick. You have to be consistent. You do that once or twice a day, every day. What happens is, after a fairly short period of time, you find your energy changing, you find you're making better choices, you find you're actually taking the steps you needed to take to get what you want. Because it's not instant and that is a really powerful way, and it's one of the key parts of the synthesis process along with hypnotherapy. The way I like to describe it is, hypnosis helps us create these changes quickly, meditation helps us maintain them systemically over a long period of time. So they work so beautifully together. They're a perfect compliment, you know. And what's fascinating it. You know, it sounds interesting that, you know, you've got your vision board up there or whatever that happens to be, but what you're talking about, literally is to create in your mind the vision of who you want to be, what you want to accomplish, and so forth, and then actually experience it. And what I find fascinating is, you know, we hear so many stories about people who have done that, and literally, you know, depending on how they want

24:56 to experience it, either God bless them in that way or the universe brought about those effects. Its interesting the power and the energy that an individual can achieve to create the life that they truly want. There are so many old saws that say something along the lines of what the mind can conceive, we can I can't exactly come up with it right now, but our mind controls our experience. Our mind is the processor of life, and I like to think in one of my models is about how this all works. We are nothing more than energy machines. We don't like to think of ourselves that way, but we are miraculous energy processors. Energy comes in in the form of experiences, the form of suggestions. Good, bad are indifferent. Once that energy is inside, our brain processes it, or the mind processes it, and we create thoughts. We don't think of thoughts as energy, but they are. And if we think a thought over and over and over again, it turns in to a very powerful energy called belief. And once beliefs exist, and they're nothing more than thoughts that we have thought so many times, they become ingrained and automatic and unquestioned. That's a little tricky, but once a belief exists, it produces our perception operative word, their perception of truth.

26:18 And once we believe something is true, it defines our reality. And as corny as this sounds, what I use all the time because it's so obvious, is the fact that about six thousand years ago, every person on this planet believed without doubt that the Earth was a pizza, a flat and they developed or that defined a very insular, fear based reality. They were afraid to go out to sea, they were afraid to climb mountains, they would fall off the earth. The monsters out there would eat them. And then someone said, you know, let's take a look at this. And of course it didn't take very long to mathematically prove the Earth is around. And of course now today we can see it from outer space. But once we got the new belief, a new truth that was based in actual fact and not just perception, it defined an incredibly expansive, abundant reality. Hey, I can go out to see, we can explore, we can do whatever we want. Yay all because we changed our limiting beliefs, and our beliefs frame our perception of truth, which defines our reality. We are creating it. And that is the crux of making the changes. Once you know you're creating your reality. If you don't like it, you can change it.

27:29 Does it take help, as we've mentioned, absolutely for most people. But is it doable? Also? Absolutely? And it's amazing to me and one of the most satisfying parts of this career that I've had for the last twenty five or so years. Is watching people literally in a matter of weeks, change a lifetime of negativity, fear, limiting beliefs about themselves, low self esteem, confidence, you name it. In a matter of weeks. They're new human beings and they're creating that new reality. And that's why I do what I do. You know, it's fascinating. I've been focusing a little bit recently on bullying, and I think to some degree, we all get bullied in one way or the other. But what's fascinating is we talk about perception. You know, you and I could be standing on this street and see an event and literally you would perceive it one way and I might perceive it another way. Or if someone is being unkind to us, you know, we can perceive that as Okay, what did I do so forth?

28:33 Or we can look at it from the perspective of they have their perception, and based on their perception, they are bringing about this behavior and has nothing to do with me. Yes, absolutely. One of the key lessons we have to learn what anybody else thinks, does, or says about you has nothing to do with you. That's their stuff, that's their reality. Who knows where that came from. What's important is how I feel about myself. And another one of the key ingredients, and you're right, we all perceive things differently. Reality is based on perception. None of us are seeing what's really going on because we have these filters, if you will, that have been in our minds for years and years and years, the product of the early programming. And like I said, if you think of the subconscious as a computer that's three years old, all it knows how to do is play its realities through its perceptions. But one of the key things is we have to learn, Hey, what he said or she said is what they said. How I respond to it is up to me. And so I try to teach my clients and students that life doesn't necessarily have to be reacting the way we've been programmed to react. We can learn to respond in a way that's powerful for us. That's loving, honoring, and respecting to ourselves and that is often the launch pad for an incredible transform formative growth. Well, and you know, you talk about you talk about synthesis effect, and

30:07 we haven't really got into that step by step, and I would imagine that would be a long conversation to get into. But what makes that different than you know. I mean, we've been talking about meditation, We've been talking about all of these different things. What makes the synthesis effect different than all of these other methodologies that we obviously have heard about. I'm not sure that anything is absolutely different, because human beings have been behaving the way we've been behaving for centuries, millennia. What may be different is that I set out to help people understand some basic facts. One, I'm responsible for my own outcomes. I create my own reality, and I have the power to change it. I tried as hard as possible to demystify all of this stuff and make it simple and understandable through some very basic, simple metaphorical models. And contrary to what you just said, we have talked a lot about the synthesis process in the last half hour, where you've hit on all the key points we have. We put it in a progression. No, it's not really linear. It's linear in the book because it has to be, but in real life it's three dimensional. But I think it's the perspective that I presented it from, and it was based on years and years of suffering myself.

31:30 I was a really unhappy camper for quite a long time in my life and having gone through my own process with help by the way, and hypnotherapy was a big part of that. I learned a lot of this stuff, So I think it's not so much that anything's different, it's just that I made it practical, I made it simple, and I did introduce sort of a step wise process for getting from point A to point Z. Part of that is realizing that you have to go to be two C tw D D. You can't go from A to Z, which is what everybody wants now. Point doesn't work that way. But when you learn how to do it and you use the tools, you can get down that path very very quickly. So different, no, practical and usable, yes, apparently because it seems to work really really well. Any stories about some of your clients that you could share without revealing names and so forth, But any stories you could share with the audience about how this literally changed their lives. Oh, I have more than I could possibly even think of, and there are many in the book. By the way. One of the things I wanted to do when I wrote it and was to share actual case studies of real people just like the people who are reading the book. Just like you and me. And I say all the time when I do a keynote or a motivational seminar, you know, people think, oh, doctor John, I'm no guru.

32:51 I'm just like you. I had my stuff, I got the help I needed to get over it. Now I'm sharing what I learned. But yeah, I can think of so many. A couple that are particularly striking. I had a young woman who came to me with a phobic fear of commitment. She just couldn't get into a committed relationship. Consciously, she wanted to find a guy, get married, have kids in his family, lived the American dream. But every time a relationship got close to serius, she'd find a way to sabotage it. And I think it took about four or five sessions, but she had a n Aha moment, realized where all of this was coming from, this irrational fear, and left with a whole different set of expectations about herself and what it was all about. And within six months she met a really nice guy. They ended up getting married a year later.

33:45 They now have three kids and she's living happily. Ever after she did that change, she was maybe thirty three or thirty four when she came to see me in four weeks and now she's living a life of her dreams. And I just recently worked with a with a gentleman in his mid fifties because this, you know, there's no age limit for being unhappy and not living the life you want. This poor gentleman had been suffering from what's called derealization, which is where you're in a situation and you don't feel like it's real and you're not really sure who you are. And this did require a psychological referral from his therapist because it's a diagnosed condition. But he would get into situations, usually what we would associate with agoraphobia of wide open spaces. He'd get into a big store like a k Mart or a Walmart. Camart doesn't exist anyonere a Walmart or a parking lot. Or he'd be with people and he'd have this feeling that he wasn't real and you know, this is not the brag. I think maybe three weeks, three weekly sessions and one follow up session, it's gone. And he wrote me a really nice review on Yelp and this psych called Thumbtack, where I'm listed and his life is change completely. And he lived with this for years and years and years, and now it's gone. And that's the power of the mind if it's given the right directions. And again I don't take credit for this, it's a gift that was given to me to help people and I'm just sharing what I know.

35:16 You know, as one of my Native American teachers said, any healer at any capacity, has to remember that all we really are, and I think you mentioned this earlier, are hollow bones through which the energy of change flows. You're getting done to it, that's exactly right, and the conduit that's managed to tap into that energy exactly once we understand that, realize that energy is something beyond each of us, that it's there to tap into if we choose to. That's it perfect if we choose to. So for anybody out there who is suffering, and unfortunately that's so many people and who may have become desperate, just understand that you have everything within you to make the changes you want. You can live the life of your dreams. You can learn to live virtually free of suffering. We all can do it. Will you need some help? Probably? Is the help out there? Absolutely?

36:13 Please, you deserve it. You deserve to live the life of your dreams, go get it. So I'm curious you live. We're in southern California. No, actually, I was in southern California for many years. My wife and I with my mother in law, moved back to the East Coast last year where we all grew up. I've now lived in southern New Hampshire, which is anything but southern California. As a look at the six instages of snow we got yesterday, but it was trying for us to get home. We wanted to be close to family. I was in LA for thirty three years and now back in New England where I grew up. I grew up in Connecticut. We're living in southern Hampshire near Boston and just absolutely love it. Okay, so here we are using zoom and we're having an incredible conversation. And I'm here Lan, you're there in the East Coast. Yes, when we talk about you know a lot of people that are doing some type of coaching or that type of process, they're doing it via zoom and so forth with hypnotherapy. And here's the question I've always had, because you have a lot of hypnotherapists that are doing it one to one. You have hypnotherapists that are doing it via Zoom or some other type of technology. What has been your experience and how do you do it? I would assume you probably do both. But do you find that being able to do it long distance via zoom or some other type of technology works as effectively as doing it in person? Yes? Excuse me. First of all, before Zoom,

37:45 before we had the video technology, we could actually do hypnotherapy on the phone, much more challenging, but with training and experience, it's very doable. Certainly not my preferred methodology. I used to have a mixed practice of both in and online. Of course, with COVID, we were forced to perfect us. There was no way we couldn't get together. It wasn't allowed. We were locked down. And you know, COVID, in many ways, as horrible as it was for a lot of people, was sort of an epiphanous moment because we were locked down, and all the distractions that we normally that they or most folks go to to repress the stuff were not available.

38:30 So the stuff comes bubbling up. That's the activity, whatever it is. And now I got to deal with it. So it forced many people to say, you know what, I need some help because this doesn't feel good. But yes, it's every bit as effective remotely and quite frankly right now, I haven't been back in New England very long. I have not opened a physical office here. I close my in LA. I'm working exclusively via Zoom and the other video channel so those Zoom is the best. It's hypno compliant and the results are every bit is effective. There are a very few issues that I probably wouldn't take in a remote session. But what's much more important about hypnotherapy, and I'm so glad you brought this up is who you're working with. It's become very popular and very vogue. Now you see on Facebook all these these incredible ads. In three days, you can be a hypnotherapist, well you can. Anybody can call themselves a hypnotherapist. It's not a regulated profession yet. I think at some point it will be, and I hope that happens because there should be some minimum requirements for training, competence, experience, which right now there aren't. Very few states require licensure or any experience. So you get a lot of folks that may be very well meaning or maybe just want to make a lot of money, because you can make a very nice living doing this, and they don't have very much training, they don't have very much experience, and unfortunately they're not any good.

40:00 So it's not so much whether it's remote or in person. It's who you're working with. And I tell everybody that calls me, please do your due diligence. Talk to a whole bunch of people, find out about their training, find out about their experience, read the reviews on Yelp and Google and see what they're about. And you'll find somebody that you feel the best about in here in your gut, and that's the person you should work with. But if anybody makes promises like it's magic, and they do, like God, I see some of these ads on Facebook. Now you know you can lose fifty pounds after two weeks. No, you can lose fifty pounds after changing your mindset, which is probably going to take a little bit longer than two weeks. And and so you know, if it seems too good to be true, it is too good to be true. But yes, remote sessions work absolutely fine. I have clients all over the world I just last year had a client in Thailand. Believe it or not. The time zone thing was a little tricky. But it's about the practitioner, their knowledge, their expertise, their training, their competence, and their desires. You know, are they here to really help you? Are they here to take your money? And unfortunately, there's a lot of folks out there that are just you know, they can read a script, it'll take in your money, unfortunately. So all right, as we close up here, Number one, how do people find your book? I Am? The book is available on Amazon and Barnes Andnoble dot com in both paperback and ebook. There unfortunately isn't an audio version. That's a long story, but it's available online. It's

41:30 not in bookstores anymore. I'm hoping for a second edition and then we'll have another run in bookstores. But as you probably know, books don't stay in bookstores very long, just because of the nature of the beast, because there's so many new ones coming out. But it is available and as far as finding it, it's pretty simple. Okay, great, And how do they find you? Thank you? I Am easy to find. You can just google doctor John mcgrail hypnotherapy or better you ink, and you'll find that I have a pretty big online presence after all these years, and on my sites Hypnotherapy Los Angeles it's still called that because I couldn't change it after twenty years. You have to keep your website there or else it disappears. Hypnotherapy los Angeles dot com One Big Word is my hypnotherapy site, and for those who might be interested in a motivational presentation or a keynote, Doctor John mcgrail dot com is my other site which covers that part of the practice, and my phone numbers are listed, my email address is listed. If anybody does have curiosity and reaches out to me, I promise a personal response. I don't have my people answer emails or phone calls. I call back and I answer emails personally. But I'm easy to find, and you know, I'm really proud of the work that I've done and what I've been helped to accomplish over these years. So I hope people do reach out and if nothing else, I can help guide them to finding the help they need wherever they are.

42:53 If for whatever reason, I'm not a good fit, right And thanks you so much for being on the show. As we close, in a minute or less, what would be the message you want to share with the audience. It's been a delight to be with you, and I hope we do this again because we've just scratched the surface. This has been fantastic, so much fun. In a minute or less, Okay, take responsibility for creating your reality, whether you think it is that way, whether it feels that way or not, that's the truth. It feels like life is happening to us, it's not. We are creating it. Once you understand that and take responsibility for it, I promise you you have within you all the resources you need with the right assistance, whatever that looks like, to create the life of your dreams, and I encourage you to do that. Going back to where we start at, Christopher Morley, there is only one success, to be able to spend your life in your own way. I believe that, and I believe everybody has the ability to do that if they get the help they need. That's it. Amen, Amen, thank you so much, and folks, thanks for listening to Hope you really enjoyed this, and John, I look forward to having you back on the show. Well, I look forward to joining you. Doug thank you, thank you, and folks take care, have a great week. Look forward to having to join us again soon