TheDailyBrag
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Mastering Confidence: Public Speaking and Career Growth
Unlock the secrets to overcoming personal challenges and achieving your true potential in this transformative episode with our special guest, Chris from Manchester, UK. Chris shares his compelling journey from struggling with dyslexia and a speech impediment in school to finding his passion for helping others. Through heartfelt stories, he reveals how volunteer work with youth and disabled adults led him to a fulfilling career in coaching and supporting others. Chris's empathy and listening skills, refined through his own hardships, are a testament to the power of resilience and determination.
Discover innovative techniques that helped Chris conquer his academic challenges and thrive despite dyslexia. By detailing his unique visualization practices, such as the "palace technique" and memory hacks, Chris demonstrates how anyone can leverage their strengths to overcome obstacles. Listen to how early experiences in manual labor jobs ignited a drive to excel in physical tasks and how his journey into hypnotherapy and life coaching provided powerful tools for personal growth. This episode is packed with actionable advice on using vivid visualization to create strong emotional attachments, aiding in both learning and personal development.
Gain invaluable insights into mastering job interviews and salary negotiations with Chris's practical strategies. He emphasizes the importance of thorough preparation, self-promotion, and effective communication to boost confidence and job success. Chris's advice on overcoming interview anxiety, improving public speaking skills, and negotiating better salaries will empower you to pursue career satisfaction. Additionally, hear about his experiences as an author and the significance of embracing fearlessness and action. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to elevate their personal and professional life.
all right, chris, how are you today? Thank you for coming to the show.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks for having me down here. I really appreciate you taking time, like me, coming to your show.
Speaker 1:We're looking forward to this interview yeah, yeah, you're welcome, uh, I appreciate it. So you are, uh, chris, so you're, you're from manchester from manchester in the uk. Yes, in the UK, yes, In the UK. Wow, that's awesome man. So how was it there? How was it growing up there?
Speaker 2:Well, it was pretty nice actually, because the thing I like about Manchester it's a big city so you can have the towns, the city, the shops, the theatres, all that sort of stuff. But then 45 minutes away you have the countryside so you can go hiking, biking, camping, I. You have the countryside you can go like hiking, biking camping.
Speaker 1:I think manchester's perfect because those two things come together. That's awesome. I so, I've, I've, I've had family in, uh, the uk. I've never been to the uk, but I would eventually love to go to the uk.
Speaker 2:I heard it's beautiful it's beautiful, as long as you don't mind the uh changing weather, like we're known for the making, aren't we?
Speaker 1:really so hot, like because I'm in new york and so you know we get the the really cold season, uh, winter season, uh, and then you have like the really hot summers this summer, which is like really hot, so um, yeah, but yeah, but I don't mind. So so how was it, uh, growing up there?
Speaker 2:it was really good. Actually, I really liked, uh, growing up in in the UK because I think I think in the UK, if you put your mind to anything, you can go and achieve it, can't you like?
Speaker 1:you got so many opportunities and about it's always about taking those opportunities and that's what I like about the UK okay, good, um, and so you, uh, clearly you went to school there and, uh, how far did you go in school? Because I looked at, I was checking out your one of your interviews and reading your bio and and one of the things you said, that you kind of left school a little bit early. So what happened there?
Speaker 2:So I'm dyslexic. I, my my sort of self-taught when I was young, was like you were dyslexic loser. Because I was dyslexic, which means I struggled with my reading and writing. I also had a list when I was younger as well. So initially I used to struggle speaking a little bit, but I got loads of speech therapy for that and I kind of went all the way through to high school, so that's up to age 16, and then left high school and I didn't go to college and I didn't go to like university or anything. But I left with no qualifications and these limiting beliefs, believing that I just always fail in, you know, academically and like in work, I'd never be successful, I'd never get a high paid job, I'd never do anything I was passionate about, and I was always passionate about wanting to help people. I wanted to make a difference in people's lives. So I kind of left with no qualifications and I thought what can I do? Right, I'm doing these low paid, low skilled jobs. Would you believe it? My first job was a pound an hour, that's like less than a dollar an hour wow
Speaker 2:crazy, isn't it crazy? So I was doing like low paid, low skilled jobs and I thought I'll volunteer. I'll volunteer and help like young people in scout groups and youth groups. I used to take disabled adults hiking and climbing as well, and because I wanted to help people, I got really interested in how to make people more confident and more motivated, and that led me to wanting to learn to like read a little bit more and wanted to like help overcome my dyslexia and become a better writer as well. So my um, my ability to sort of read and write, came from a passion, to wanting to help people okay.
Speaker 1:So I was going to ask you that where do you think your passion came from for helping people? So that just comes from you having dyslexia and trying to get over your own struggles. So you figured this would be a good way for me to give back and help other people.
Speaker 2:I think, because I struggled to speak when I was really young as well.
Speaker 2:I used to either talk really fast to end the conversation or I wouldn't talk as much.
Speaker 2:So I think people when I was really young thought this guy's a really good listener and it's just because I wouldn't talk. I didn't want to talk, and I remember listening to people and my friends would tell me personal situations and personal problems and I thought, oh, I just seem to have this natural empathy with people and I always wanted to try and support them, and I found that I used to ask the right questions, used to, I think, used to say, oh, like, what's up with you? Used to say, oh, like, what can you do to to like improve this or what can you do to overcome that? And I found that just this natural ability to coach people was something that was just inside of me. So I think being not being able to speak made me listen more, and then being able to listen helped me build like skills and empathy and to ask the right questions. I'm introvert, actually, so I often think about how to phrase things before I say it, rather than just saying things out loud, just saying things.
Speaker 1:I'm like that because I'm sort of an introvert as well.
Speaker 2:So how does an introvert become an extrovert? Well, I was doing these low-pay skilled jobs and I'm kind of doing quite. I'm on £2 an hour or £3 an hour or something. I've moved up in the world and this is three or four years after leaving school. Anyway, I end up working in this warehouse, which I really enjoy, the company I work for and I got a great opportunity to learn how to drive a Fartless truck. It's like this government-funded program.
Speaker 2:So I went on this course, uh, over the weekend and I'm on this truck and I'm driving through the chicane, lifting up the pallets, dropping them down, reversing back out. I am the king of the truck. There's no one better on that truck apart from me. I'm so good at it. But a couple of my colleagues was on the course and they were like really nervous and like really anxious and they was like crashing into the chicane, it was like nearly running over the instructor, reversing it into the walls of the building and stuff. It was like so terrified. It's a big beast of the truck. And the instructor says to me chris, you're going to pass. You thought this truck test. And I was like yes, and it turned out to my colleagues I went, but we think you're going to fail this guy was not a motivational speaker and I've seen like the look on the faces.
Speaker 2:So I went over to him and I did this visualization technique which I used to teach the disabled adults when there was rock climbing to make them a bit more confident about climbing the rock face. And actually when I became a hypnotherapist like 10 years later, it's a technique we use in hypnotherapy now to overcome, like lifelong fears and phobias. So I did this dead quick technique for like a minute and they get the truck, they drive it, drive it around the chicane, lift up the pallet, pull it down, reverse back out and they pass their test. So we're all like cheering, we're all like really excited, we've all passed our test. Anyway, 12 months later, the guy who taught me to drive to Falkland Truck comes to see me in the workplace and he says Chris, do you remember who I am? And I'm thinking why is this guy coming to see me now? And he goes no, no, no, no, chris, I'm the managing director of the organisation. The only reason I came down to teach you to drive the Fartless Truck is because the instructor rang uphill and we wanted to make sure you guys got your test booked in.
Speaker 2:And I always remember you whispering something to your colleagues. We call to your colleagues. We call you the magic whisperer because you whispered something. They got in the truck and was really confident. We have a team meeting every month and we always talk about you in each of the team meetings and I was like, wow, this is you know. Thanks, this is amazing feedback. And he goes no, no, I've got something else to tell you. We want to offer you a job to become a instructor. I was like, wow, something like this, like this lexic guy, still no qualifications done, my part of the truck course on a low paid skill job, thinking this is great.
Speaker 2:And then he says to me but the course costs £3,000, £3,000 so this is a guy with £30 in his bank on a low paid job I think minimum wage hasn't even come in at that time eating beans and toast from a tea that's how poor I am. And this guy wants to pay three thousand pound for a course. Then at the end I bet it's not even a job there. That's what I'm thinking. It's not even a job. That's a big con, this. And he read that whole story on my face and goes no, no, no, chris, we're gonna pay for your course. We're gonna pay for the three thousand pound. If you fail or pass, we're gonna pay for that course. Once you pass the course, because we know you're going to pass, we're going to mentor you, we're going to support you, we're going to give you this opportunity to help change your life.
Speaker 2:And I think for me, I think success comes from being passionate about something. So we've got passionate about helping people. That made me read books about getting people to be confident. And I struggled to read. It took like a year to read my first book because I had to check the dictionary every 10 minutes for what the word was. I couldn't understand the words because I was dyslexic and I worked to learn to write a little bit better. But that passion and then that like motivated me to take more action, came alongside this great opportunity and I thought don't say no to opportunities, always say yes. So having a lucky opportunity and a passion, I think, creates success oh, got it.
Speaker 1:Um, awesome story. So, as a, as a learning disability, some people only think of dyslexia as a word or reading issue. Right, but what are some of the other, um things that come with having dyslexia? Uh, that you've, you've, you've learned as you, as you, you know, on your way to success? What are some of the other things you picked up that you were able to use in your own?
Speaker 2:uh, in in, for good yeah, yeah, definitely, yeah, no, exactly what you're saying. I think two things really like one because I kind of in my head, I failed at school. I just thought I was a failure at school, not academic. So when I, when I my first job actually was when I was in school, like I got a part-time job, uh, in a warehouse in a mini market and then I left school, I got a part-time job in a warehouse in a mini market and then I left school and got a full-time job in a different warehouse and I always thought, right, I'm stupid, so what I'll do, I will be the best worker, so I'll be the fastest person to unload the lorries, I'll be the fastest person to stack the pallets. And I always wanted to prove myself in terms of like me doing, being good at these manual handling job roles, and I was I always like really pushed myself to like be the best at rolling up posters and stick them into a box. You know, I was like, yes, I'm the best at that minimal, random piece of skill that I have. And then the second thing, um, about being dyslexic is especially when I got offered that thoughtless truck job because I had to start writing a lot more in my career in the warehouses never had to write.
Speaker 2:When I started becoming an instructor, I had to write. I also got trained to be an mvq assessor as well, which was writing reports out. I remember like really struggling to spell any word over four letters wrong. I just the letters would mix up in my head and I'd really struggle and then I would be so nervous because of what I didn't press my that that increased my anxiety which makes my dyslexia worse. So when I'm stressed my dyslexia is just like it's premium. So I really struggled. So I remember one day thinking, right, I need to learn how to spell stuff. One of the most miscommon spelt words in the world is separate, so you either spell it S-E-P-A-R-A-T-E or S-E-P-E-R-A-T-E, so people have it spelled one way or the other.
Speaker 1:And I had to spell this word and I thought I need to learn how to spell it.
Speaker 2:So I used a visualisation technique and I remember visualising being in an aeroplane and the aeroplane is flying through the air like 300 miles an hour and the door opens and I'm stood in the doorway and the wind is blowing into my face and my eyes are watering and I jump out of the plane and I'm falling to my death. On this plane. I can see the small cows getting bigger and bigger and bigger as I'm plummeting towards the earth and then all of a sudden I put a card and my parachute opens up and I float slowly and safely down to earth. And the reason I visualised that because separate is spelled s-e-p-a-r-a-t-e, so para for parachute. So I used to use these techniques to help me with my dyslexia and that taught me a technique. It taught me well on how to spell, but also taught me like there's different ways to be successful. There's different ways to learn things. There's different ways to achieve your goal. So I wasn't academic at school, so I'll learn in a different way got it.
Speaker 1:um, and so one of the abilities now you're talking about that, you're visualizing one of the abilities for people with dyslexia is that they see photographically, like they see in pictures, right? Um, and so is that, and I listened to one of the interviews that you were doing where you were actually going through it with the gentleman and hypnotizing him in a way. He didn't say what his fear was, but you were helping him get over whatever fear that was, and part of that was the visualizing part of it, right, and you talked about like I'll say so, close your eyes and you see this picture and it's getting smaller and smaller, almost like a postcard. So do you think having dyslexia is part of what helps you with the hypnotherapy?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, I think mainly with dyslexia, to generalize people with dyslexia. I think you're more kinesthetic learning and stroke visualization, so you sort of feel things a lot more and then see things. So I think the reason I was really good on the thoughtless truck is because I was physically on it and I was moving around. I remember in school kind of being more into like art and drama and sports and stuff like that all that physical, hands-on stuff. But I definitely learned like using my visualization, because when you visualize something vividly, you have an emotional attachment to that. So if you visualize yourself going to a party and having loads of fun, you'll feel really happy, compared to when you visualize yourself going to a funeral, as an example, where it will make you feel sad. So what you see, you often feel. And that's why the parachute visualization is really powerful, because I remember like feeling scared, jumping out the plane, plummeting to my death and then floating gently down.
Speaker 2:I had this emotional attachment so you can use that to help recreate memories quite quickly. There's a really famous technique that magicians use, called the um, called the palace technique, where you imagine certain things in like a room you know really well, like your bedroom or your school or your place of work and you attach these pictures around this room, but you also attach emotional emotions to it as well, so you can end up remembering like hundreds of thousands of things, using this uh visualization palace technique so I, I went to uh I I'm terrible with names, chris so, uh, a long time ago when I was much younger, I went to uh.
Speaker 1:It was a I forgot what it was. It was like a class in new york about uh, developing a mental uh strength, right. And it was like the one of new york about uh, developing a mental uh strength, right. And it was like one of the things I remember from that class is to remember people's name. Think of something really funny, visualize something funny, like, let's just say, a guy's name is edgar and you don't remember his name. When you say edgar, think of popping an egg over his head. You'll always remember his name is edgar. So anyway, that's a skill that I picked up is I associate things when I think of people's names with something physical or something funny or something like that, and that that's actually very helpful yeah, it's so.
Speaker 2:It's so good because we have two parts of our mind. Don't we sort of generalize the brain? You have the logical side and then the emotional side, don't you? And the emotional side is our, like ancestral brain, and that is that side of it is instinctive and it fear, pleasure that sort of stuff and react. So if you can associate emotions to anything, it becomes a vivid memory that you can access whenever you want to yeah, so how did you get into hypnotherapy?
Speaker 2:so kind of like done the faultless truck stuff, done the mbq assessor stuff, and the company comes back to and goes chris, and we have the managing director to come back to and goes chris, we're moving to, moving to Australia. Now, like we kind of want to move country, live a different life. We're getting rid of the company and I'm like, oh my god, I'm gonna have to go back to manual handling packing boxes, but I am the best at packing boxes, so maybe it's not too bad. But I remember thinking, no, don't take a step back. Like, use this now as an opportunity to do something else.
Speaker 2:So I ended up applying for employability training courses where we'd help unemployed people get jobs. So we'd talk about CV writing, resume writing, interviews, that sort of stuff. But what I noticed in there is people who struggled to get jobs often struggled because they had low self-esteem or high levels of anxiety. And it's the same with job interviews. Now, isn't it? People who are successful at job interviews are generally quite confident. People who fail are often very anxious in those situations. Same with public speaking, being on podcasts, taking opportunities. You're either confident or you're nervous about that. And that really got me into reading more about how to get people to be more confident and overcome the anxiety.
Speaker 2:So I initially got into life coaching books and and did life coaching courses, which is all about questioning people. In certain ways, that led me onto this thing called NLP, which is where I use a lot of the visualization techniques you talked about before, when I moved the negative picture into a postcard and into a stamp, which is one way to help people with phobias and fears. And then that led me down the line for hitting a fair, because I kept thinking what's the quickest way to help someone? I want to meet someone and in 10 seconds, click my fingers and cure that person or whatever fear or where you know, 10, 20 years ago it took 15 sessions to do that, where you have to talk about your fear and stuff, but you can do it a lot quicker now. So everything I did was to lean me down, to help people in a really quick way, to help people have a better life good, good.
Speaker 1:So so you chose hypnotherapy as opposed to like some other form of therapy. Why is that? Did you like you said? You just found it easier, or yeah?
Speaker 2:well. So yeah, like the like the alternatives would go and study something, uh, you know, like a degree level counseling course or psychotherapy course or something like that, which would have took a long time in turn to study. And I was still struggling with my dyslexia you know, it never goes away. I've got techniques to help me, but I always it always takes me a long time to to learn high levels of information, where the hypnotherapy was a very hands-on course. So you go in there, they teach you the concepts and then you practice, you deliver it. You're, you know you have to do a lot of reading, a lot of writing, but really the course is hands-on. Kinesthetic, getting there and, you know, help people by, by practicing those techniques, and I thought that's how I learned best is being hands-on.
Speaker 1:So I wanted to do a course where I could physically test the techniques for people yeah, uh, one of the things you mentioned earlier too is that, um, people who, um, have low self-esteem have more anxiety when it comes to either public speaking or interviewing or any sort of public interaction. Right, uh, when you have low self-esteem. So how, how are? What are some things that they can do if they don't have a chris? What are some of the things that they can do to help them get over that fear?
Speaker 2:it's so funny. All the polls say that people are more scared of public speaking or being a center of attention so job interviews and stuff like that than dying. Can you believe that you people are more scared of speaking than they are of dying? That's absolutely ridiculous. We speak that's crazy every single day. So it should be something you're confident about, and when you're on stage or in a job interview and in most situations, you're talking about you and you're the expert of yourself. So you should always be confident about just talking about your own experiences, giving your own opinions and sharing your own expertise or your own advice. The reason we don't do that is because we're tribal animals, aren't we? You know we're group people, we're team people. We survive by being together, not on our own, and the only way you fit into a team, a group or a tribe is by not being rejected. And whenever you put yourself out there, so you're in front of a group of people, you're giving your opinion or at a job interview, you're putting yourself on the line because you're sharing your knowledge, expertise and ideas, but people can reject that and we fear being rejected. So what you need to learn is to be confident within yourself. When you believe in yourself, then you're more likely to express your own thoughts and your own opinions.
Speaker 2:I remember a couple of years ago about 10 or 15 years ago I was running this, a teen parent course, where we had a lot of young mums who come onto the course and the idea was to get them back into education and give support with bringing up a new baby. And a lot of these mums were single mums as well. So we had all these experts coming in about, you know, baby player and reading stories and all this stuff. But what we noticed really early on was the anxiety levels were just like massive. Some of them had gone from some personal stuff and people was really scared about going back to education. And, you know, some of them had a couple of kids and was quite young as well, and but the anxiety levels were really high.
Speaker 2:So I did this game where halfway through the course, I said right, we're going to do a little bit of musical chairs. So musical chairs, when you turn on the music, you move around the room. When you turn off the music, you normally sit on a chair and if you're not in that chair, you're out. But instead of the chairs I put a piece of A4 paper sellotape to each of the mum's backs and I said when the music stops, whoever you're stood next to or nearest to you have to write down something you like about that person. So we played, play, we stopped it, we did this like five or six times and then at the end you read off this sheet that, like you know, 10 or 12 different other people have wrote on it and it's really nice because people write dead similar things that are like oh, you're dead friendly, are you dead chatty, are you dead this, that and the other. And people was crying about it because they didn't realize that they had all these nice qualities and all these nice skills and how much people liked and admired them until they read it on this sheet.
Speaker 2:So it's about looking at what are you good at, what are you proud of what? What is your natural ability? How are you personally motivated? How does your personality traits affect other people positively around you? We can focus on the negative if you want to, but what you see, you feel. So focus on the negative and you'll feel negative when? If you focus on the confidence and what you're good at, then you'll feel good about yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I find that people uh hard to do, right. They they can do it for a little while. And one of the things that that that worked for me is cause I'm also an introvert and I've always been afraid of speaking. So I don't know if you've heard of this thing called clubhouse, Um, so I started, I started a room on clubhouse and then and eventually I just said, you know, I'm going to do it and I'm going to go out and just speak and I just did it Right. But one of the things that I find that work for me is to just stay connected to that belief is watching videos, reading books and just consistently doing it. I find that when I step back from it, I start to get that same feeling again. So what are some of the things that may work for people to kind of stick to that positive mindset, because I feel like sometimes that's easier to say than it is to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, especially as a coach or whatever you're like. Yeah, just do this thing, it's great, it's that easy. The reason people take action is because we're all motivated by two things. We're motivated by pain or pleasure. We want to either get away from pain or we kind of want to achieve the pleasure in our outcomes. So, as an example, you'll read bios of really successful people and you'll often find that they've lived on the streets or they've had a business that's gone bankrupt or this terrible thing happened to them, and it was often this horrible event that gave them enough pain that they wanted to get away from to help them to be successful, because if you don't want that thing, you'll do anything to get away from it.
Speaker 2:The problem is most people live in a life where it's between that level of motivational pain and pleasure. So there might be a little bit of pain in the life or you know, they might have these goals and desires but it's not strong enough for them to take action. They just sit in the middle, you know, to get comfortable with their normal routine. Weight loss is just sit in the middle, you know, to get comfortable with their normal routine. Weight loss is a great example with this, you know, after christmas I was like, right at christmas time I drank, I ate the turkey, you know. I had all these cakes and stuff and I put on a couple of pounds. So what I'll do on the first of january is I will diet for two months and I will exercise for two months and have these big, these big dreams, and at the time they're really motivated because the pain of seeing their belly expand over the Christmas period is like enough pain to go like. You know, my pants don't fit me now I need to do something about this. And then the opposite you just kind of go and if I did lose weight, you know, if summer's coming up, I can go on a beach wearing a beautiful bikini or shorts or whatever, and people will see my attractive, you know, healthy body or something. So you have this pain or pleasure which motivates them. So the first of january they don't eat anything unhealthy and they go for a walk or they go for a run. The second of january, they don't eat anything unhealthy, but this time they don't go for a walk or run. By the fourth, fifth or the tenth of january they're eating unhealthy and not going for a walk and a run because the pain and pleasure is not big enough, it's not strong enough an emotion to keep and consistent.
Speaker 2:So what you need to be doing is focusing on, like, what is my goal? My goal is to be rich, to get a new job, to start a business, to lose weight or whatever it is. And if I achieve that goal, how will that affect my life? Will it? How will that affect my finances? How will that affect that? How will that affect, uh, my um, my um, family, my friends? Uh, how will that affect my career, my life and my work? Like balance, like, how does it affect all the different parts of my life? And this is like the pleasure, like, if I get this thing, I love this, all this pleasure, but they remain mainly motivated by pain.
Speaker 2:So you need to be thinking about, right, if I don't lose weight, or if I don't make this change in my life, or if I don't apply for that new job, what's what's going to happen? I'm going to be unhappy, I'm going to depression. If you don't lose weight, you might be having medical conditions or health conditions. Like you might die. You know that detail and how would that affect your kids if you passed away?
Speaker 2:And what you really need to do is build up the pain to keep you motivated and focus on that until your new actions, that new routine like you, like you just said, your new like you're doing it constantly, all the time and that becomes routine, that's automatic. So you wake up and just do those things. So I'm a runner. I wake up and go right, I need to run today. I didn't run yesterday, so I'll be running today. And I don't really it. I just put on my shorts and go when. If you're not that motivated, you'll be like oh surely go for a run. It's too, maybe it's too cold, or where did I put my running shoes? And you ask too many questions. You need to just do things straight away.
Speaker 1:So thank you for that. And so for people who because I've seen both sides of it, where you have people who they're motivated, they get it done, they don't want to be in that pain, they want to get to the pleasure part, whether that be having a new job or, you know, making money, doing whatever it is they do. But then I've seen people who say it, who say they want to get away from the pain, and you can see the pain, that there's pain there, but for some reason they cannot break through. So those people, how, how would you approach them with hypnotherapy to get over whatever it is in their consciousness that's holding them back? Because I don't want to say the pain isn't enough, because you can see they're struggling through life, but just for some reason they can't get past that struggle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's weighing up how strong that pain is. So, um, I get a lot of women coming to me to get rid of their spider phobias. I'm going to find out. The reason for getting their spider phobias is because their children are starting to conform as well through observational learning. So they've had a spider phobia for like years and years and years and they kind of want to get rid of it. You know it's annoying, it's really scared of spiders, so they hate it and it's stopping them sometimes going to people's houses because they know they potentially have a spider there but they never took action. They never come and got hypnotherapy for that or never done enough to take action. But when their children become phobic they can say, oh my god, this is terrible. That's where the pain becomes really intense and they want to get motivated. And I always wondered about that, like why? Why is their pain level not being strong enough, when you know, when they told me how terrified they were of spiders and it's because they also got pleasure from being a phobic.
Speaker 2:Just imagine that you've been in a relationship for 20 years and hopefully you know most people are still in love, but some people, after being in a long-term relationship, that love isn't as strong as it was when they first met. And what's the one time where people cuddle, love and support each other? It's when someone is afraid or ill, isn't it? So if someone's ill, you go over and pat their head and wipe their sweat from their brow. If someone's got a spider phobia and they go, oh there's a spider, you, you put your arms around and don't you give them some care and love. So they've got this thing where they're scared of one thing. But actually every time they become scared, they get the thing they desire more than anything, which is love, isn't it? Yeah, so sometimes it's like a secondary game to the reasons, uh, why people aren't taking action.
Speaker 2:Let's go back to the weight loss person. Some people just love the ease of going to the kitchen putting in a microwave meal. Two minutes later, the ding they can eat that food, which is full of chemicals, so it's really tasty, because the chemicals make it really tasty and tasty and addictive. So part of them wants to lose weight, because they kind of want to be healthy and live a long life. But that pain is strong enough. Where the pleasure just having a two minute ding and then they got this lovely, tasty meal is really easy because now they can get on with the rest of their life rather than having to make a healthy meal from scratch. So sometimes people want to get away from the pain or want to make a change, but it's something actually that makes uh makes them want to keep it. Some additional gain, some additional pleasure that they get from that thing I'm staying in the struggle.
Speaker 1:Uh, pretty much yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2:I've worked, uh recently actually with um someone who was abused by her partner, uh, which is which is horrible and it's absolutely horrible and and she was in that relationship for a long time and she explained that she thought she'd never have any love if she let that person do like loads of fear as well about leaving that person that's fair too yeah, and so they had the fear of leaving, and which was a big thing.
Speaker 2:But the thing that she that was a big motivator that made her stay was she was afraid she'd never be with someone else who would show her any kind of love before. So all these things are in our head and some people will um, you know, we'll speak to their friend who's like who wants to lose weight, and they're like why they're not just taking action on losing weight? And it's because we don't really know what's going on in someone's head, what motivates that individual person, what they're thinking, what their values are, what their beliefs are, what's important to that particular person?
Speaker 1:yeah, how do you overwrite those things, those thoughts through, through hypnotherapy? Yes because that's the thing, go ahead yeah so.
Speaker 2:So the first one we definitely focus on like what's up, what is this pain and pleasure? Like what? What's the pain of keeping that thing and what's the pleasure of keeping that thing and what's the pain of getting rid of it and what's the what? So we have a big conversation around that and when someone's motivated to make change, it's dead easy then to use hypnotherapy as a therapy tool to help someone. So, generally speaking, uh, what we often do is get someone into like a deep sense of relaxation.
Speaker 2:So the in the olden days, in the 1940s, someone might have got their stopwatch out and swung it from side to side, but we don't really do that anymore. More recently, people do stuff like getting people to walk down and imagine every set of steps, which every time you go down one step you become more relaxed, and the next step you become even more relaxed. Or maybe getting someone to visualize themselves on a beach or in a beautiful place in nature, anywhere, to get someone to relax, I even easier just get someone to focus on the breathing, because if you breathe in through your nose deeply and hold that breath, because if you breathe in through your nose deeply and hold that breath and then force that breath out in a cycle, in a routine, for a couple of minutes. You naturally become more relaxed anyway, because your breathing takes you from that fight and flight stage, where you don't know what you're really doing, into the rest and digest stage, where it's easier to implant ideas into people.
Speaker 2:And if you're scared of something like a spider, what we often do in that state of relaxation is getting to imagine the spider really far away and walk towards it, feeling calm and confident. And as they get nearer and nearer to it they can recognize the spider and the spider becomes its normal size. But you're feeling calm and confident and your brain is registering all this all the time. So it's becoming like the new pattern. So when you see a spider you have an automatic emotional reaction, like we talked at the beginning beginning of this podcast. You see something, you feel it. So you see a spider, you used to run away, but now you see a spider you feel calm and relaxed instead got it.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, and going back to the breathing part, that's that's really important. Only because, um, as uh, you know someone that worked in the music business. I've met a lot of coaches who help people develop their singing abilities, I guess, or vocal coaches, and part of the big thing that they do is really help them. The first thing is really help them with their breathing and how to breathe, taking deep breath and breathing out. I think you breathe in through your mouth and out through your nose. That really helps, relaxes you and, you know, help you die firm or whatever.
Speaker 1:So, um, but I think there's other things with that as well, uh, with with the breathing part, uh, but I want to ask you so, when it comes to, like interviewing, uh, when people go for that dream job and they, they, you go to interview because you know, uh, it's it, that part of getting over your struggle, of course, is financially, you need to be able to. So you go for a dream job. What are some of the techniques that they should be uh using in there, uh, to get over that fear, uh, and that anxiety of not getting the job?
Speaker 2:yeah. So there's two things with job interviews. One you can't. You know you're really anxious about a job interview. You kind of have to use the breathing techniques or the visualization techniques to reduce that fear and phobia. But the second one is that you need to prepare for the job interview as well. So it just sounds like dead simple advice, but my research shows that people who are constantly unsuccessful in job interviews will spend about 45 minutes preparing for that interview, where people who are generally quite good spend four to five hours and the people who are consistently good and get most job offers, they spend like four to five days preparing for it.
Speaker 2:And it's because they follow the three rules of a successful job interview, which is rule number one identify the job criteria. So that's like the job role, the job duties, the culture of the organisation, the values and the mission of the company as well. Like what questions are they going to be asking you in the job interview? Because then you can prepare your interview answers rule number two be a self promoter. In england especially, we're so reserved. We hate saying how great and wonderful and fantastic we are, but in a job interview, not only do they allow you to talk about yourself in a positive way. They expect you to be a self-promoter, to self-praise, to talk about the best situations and give the best example. So you have to. You have to have to have to be a self-promoter.
Speaker 2:And then the third and final rule for a successful job interview is communicate with confidence. So that's not just about like talking and giving these well-rehearsed answers, it's like varying your tonality, it's having what you you talked about this a second ago like breathing, posture and stuff like that. This all helps you communicate verbally and non-verbally to the interview. So they're not only listening to what you're saying, but interesting you as an, as a person. If someone likes you, they want you to work for me, they want they. If they want you to work for them. They will then search for evidence that proves that you're the right person for that job. Where, if you're nervous and anxious and thinking, oh, maybe they're not the right fit or maybe for some reason I don't like that person subconsciously, we start searching for evidence why they're not suitable. So, communicating with confidence, one gets the answer to be understood by the employer, but it builds rapport and gets them to like you as an individual as well.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's awesome. So, of all the things you could have focused on when it comes to helping people using hypnotherapy, why job interviewing?
Speaker 2:well. I just love it because I think a job interview is one of those little situations that you, that you know you don't really think about until it comes up, because you're in a job, you lie and you most people stay in jobs for three to five years. These days you kind of do an okay and then you start that it's time to look for another job and then you get really panicky. You got this like one situation coming up and then most people just do the job interview, do quite well and get off of the job, but your anxiety is so much that it stops you applying for jobs. Or I know people who don't attend job interviews because they're so nervous so they like miss out on these great opportunities.
Speaker 2:This has a massive effect on your life because just imagine you're in a job where you're thinking it's time to move. I'm not, you know I've had enough of this, but I'm yeah, I'm not this happy, but I'm not happy either. Then you you're so nervous of a job that you see you don't go to it. So then you start hating your job a little bit more two or three years later, or then five years later, like you're really stressed about your job. And when you start getting stressed in your work, you often take that home, don't you? You often take that home, so your relationships can sometimes break down, can't you? Or you might argue a little bit more Some people get really depressed as well, and it stops them going out and enjoying life. Work-life balance is terrible, and you often as well get more money when your job hops. So when you jump from one job to another, your pay rises are a lot higher than if you stay in one company often and generally speaking.
Speaker 2:So if you stay in one company that you're not happy with you, you wouldn't like to get promoted anyway, because the employers can see that you're not that you know not happy.
Speaker 2:Your workload isn't as good as it used to be, and if you do get promoted, you don't often get the pay rise that you will do by job hopping as well. So if you've got a low income, that definitely affects your life in terms of what you can buy where you live your holidays, your holidays and that sort of stuff. But if you do become confident in a job interview, you can have a great work-life balance. You can be in a job that you love, and when you're really happy in your job, you tend to be just a happier person, so your relationships are better. You're getting more money, so you're going on more holidays, so you're even more happy. So I feel like this 45-minute thing that we do once every three to five years is so pivotal for you to have a really strong and positive life. So that's why I love it, because I love that I can make one change in one area of someone's life and that will expand into loads of different areas so what is interview?
Speaker 1:when you say interview identity, what is that? What is your interview identity?
Speaker 2:so over covid, I was like covid came, the lockdown came and I thought like what, what am I going to do during this time? And I I'm because I'm into interviewing and I'm a, I'm a careers advisor, I trade as well. I've got like loads of careers qualifications now and I thought, well, I'll read more academic research on job interviews. I've read a lot of books, but I want to read the academic stuff, like get a proper understanding of what works. And when I read these hundred different papers, it was all designed for the employer. So what can the employer do to predict the job performance of each applicant, to help them pick a strong performing team? And everything was designed around the employer.
Speaker 2:So I read all these papers and thought how can I flip that and make it suitable for the applicant so they can be seen as someone who's valuable and suitable? And basically what I worked out is that employers look at two things. So it's your level of perceived knowledge and experience in the job interview. So you might be a great worker once in the workplace, you might be fantastic and suitable and really skilled, but it's how you'll perceive your level of knowledge and experience in the interview. How is that perceived? Do they see you as someone with loads of experience, loads of skills and loads of knowledge. Are you coming across that you're not got that experience, skills and knowledge? And the other axis is your level of confidence.
Speaker 2:So the research shows that confident people will give longer, more descriptive answers. The word count per answer is higher for people who get offered jobs on a more consistent basis than people who don't get offered jobs. They often use more varied language. They use more power and emotive words as well and they'll exchange words like I try to I can, as an example. So the answers are longer. They communicate more. They have more vocal variety, more gestures, more hand movements, stronger eye contact all this non-verbal communication just comes across.
Speaker 2:So your level of confidence, your level, level of knowledge, experience creates one of 16 job interview identities and you kind of break that down.
Speaker 2:You kind of have the ones that are kind of like, um, incompetent, because they've got no confidence and no experience and skills, so it's very hard for them to get a job. You also get people who are like great talkers because they're so confident, their self-esteem is so high, but maybe they're fresh out of school or something, or they've got nowhere, or it's a new job role that they're never applying for, so they haven't really got the experience. And these people, because it's so confident, can sometimes come across like they've got the experience, but if an expert interviewer like challenges them, they can't really answer the questions because they're kind of just doing it off the hoof and they're kind of making it up, or the opposite as well. You might be so knowledgeable and experienced, but if you're not confident, you're not going to express that and the interviewers are marking you against an interview scorecard so they're ticking off what you're saying. If you don't say I have A, b and C, you literally can't get the job interview because they can't tick that you have those skills.
Speaker 1:But the main ones, the main people who are unemployable, are the ones who are self-assured, the optimistic people, the so I go for my dream job, but it's not a job that I'm necessarily highly skilled in, it's just an industry I like to be in. When I go for that interview, how should I play it off as if, hey, I kind of know what I'm talking about? What advice would you have for someone like that?
Speaker 2:So most job interviews are structured job interviews. So I'll ask the same six applicants, the same eight questions over a 45 minute period and we can compare answers and mark them against the interview scorecard. The structured job interviews brought down into two types of interviews behavioral interviews. So give me an example of when you've done this, and the idea is that past behaviors predict future performance and zebra can never change its stripes. Or you get situational job interviews, as in like what would you do in this situation? So if you're asked situational job interviews and you've got no experience, it's great because what you can say is once I'm employed, I will do a, b and c. You might explain a model or an industry theory, or you might take a process you used in one job set to make it relevant to this new job set that you're applying for. So that's quite a natural process if you're applying for a job with no experience and they have you behavioral questions. So let's just pick something random like I don't know retail and you've never done retail before, and they're like give me an example of when you had great customer service.
Speaker 2:What you need to do is find something relevant from one of your past job roles and make it relevant for that. But. But what you can do is still flip that on a little bit more. So you can kind of say well, while working in this organisation, we had to work with a range of stakeholders, and give me an example of working with the stakeholders and at the end you can say but what I learned from that experience is that whenever I need to deal with customers in the future, I would and then explain what you would do.
Speaker 2:So you give them a past experience which is relevant enough but not relevant not that relevant that you're going to get the high score marks and then saying but what I would do once working for you, I would do a, b and c, which will help increase that scoring, because now they can visualize you in their organization. And that's what a behavioral job interview question is all about. I need you to do this skill. So that's why I'm asking do you have experience in that? Because I want to see you. I want to imagine you working as part of my team to achieve our goals and our objectives, and I think the best way to do that is to get you to explain a past behavior. But you're not got that. You need to get them to think about you in their team, in their organization being successful got it.
Speaker 1:Um, and so what about the guy on the other side of the fence? So the guy that's coming in for the interview versus the person that's doing the interview and they sometimes have anxieties as well um, and I must think they can apply some of these same uh techniques oh, definitely, it's really funny because, um, when I speak to because I generally help people who are, who are applying for the jobs and they go I'm really nervous and really anxious.
Speaker 2:And I say to them nine out of ten interviewers will also be nervous and anxious, because if you get interviewed by a large organization like google, microsoft, you know these sort of big companies they'll have a global hr team who are trained in job interviewing. They're training strength-based interviewing, structured interviews, unconscious bias, all these sort of techniques. So because they've got loads of knowledge of job interviewing, they're often quite confident and they do it every single week. But most people actually get interviewed by their potential line manager. So you get interviewed by your potential line manager and this is a random activity for them because they only need to recruit once a year or once every two years as an example. Yeah, so they're not experienced, they're not trained and they're just as nervous as you.
Speaker 2:So if you're an employer who's nervous and anxious, it's kind of like the same process, because if you can prepare your interview questions that you're going to ask someone and practice them and then think you know. If someone doesn't get the question, how can I rephrase that in a way to make them understand it, or if someone says something ambiguous, what can I do to get a more specific answer out of that person? They can also work on their communication skills. You can go to improv classes, public speaking workshops, you can go and podcast and just talk a lot. The more you talk, the more confident you are at talking, aren't you? So you can, so you can learn these skills quite easily as well. And stuff like the visualization technique, which is imagining yourself failing in a job interview, which is why you're nervous, but making that picture smaller and smaller and smaller, and the breathing techniques you know, hypnotherapy techniques as well will all help them become more confident as well.
Speaker 2:The main thing, though, really is the more you do something, the more confident you are at it. So the more you do something, the more confident you are at it. So the more you do something, the more confident you are at it. So if you need to be talking about selling yourself, you need to be selling yourself a lot. If you want to be asking questions in job interviews, you want to become more confident at that. Ask lots of questions in the workplace. Just be the person who asks questions all the time, so you become good at questioning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what. Let me ask you this. It's related to what we're talking about in a sense, because right now you're going to have a lot of people who may to be at work, whatever the opinion is, but let's just say, this person decides you know what, I'm just not ready to get vaccinated. I think you're going to have a whole lot of people now that's going to have to be doing a lot of interviewing because they now have to go look for work outside of that. So for the guy that hasn't interviewed for many years because he's been with this company for a long time, who decides you know, I'm just not ready to take that risk yet and I don't know, take a vaccine. That I'm just. I have legitimate questions about and I'm going to start interviewing. So what? What did those people do? I'm I'm I'm assuming apply some of these same skills that we're we're talking about.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, generally speaking, you've got loads of years of experience in one company. You're not interviewed before, so you're nervous and you're anxious. So the research shows that if you're nervous in answers, you'll give short, snappy answers. You'll self-declose weaknesses constantly, even when you ask like, tell me a time when you've been successful, you kind of start off by going because you're kind of thinking out loud. You kind of go well, you know I'm not very good at working on my own and I didn't really do well on that project, but oh yeah, my strength is. So you start to close in weaknesses, which is a terrible, uh, a terrible thing to do. And because you're kind of like sat in a very like stiff wake, you're nervous and anxious. You're not breathing properly, so you're breathing from the top of your chest, which just makes you want to kind of end that interview really quickly. So you, uh, you don't talk enough. So a great way to talk more.
Speaker 2:I got two techniques for this is one when you first meet the employer, do a little bit of research, because you always get told now who's interviewing. It's, you know, it's mrs dennis, or it's mr dennis or whatever from this company. Yeah, go on linkedin or the social media and just have a quick check of what they're interested in outside of work. And when they meet you in reception, they always walk you upstairs and they always say, oh, how's your day been? Or how's your week been? Just imagine they're a tennis player and you're like a little bit of tennis. Just say, oh, I was playing tennis last, last week. And if they're into anything, they'll start talking about it. So I'm a rock climber. So if I'm interviewing you and we're walking upstairs and I say, oh, like what you've been up to recently, just to get you talking, just like, oh, you know, I'm interested in going rock climbing, I'd be like, right, I'm a rock climber, let's start talking about rock climbing and then we'll have like a little bit of rapport and likeability.
Speaker 2:And then once you're um, once you know you're light, it's easier for you to talk then because you think, oh, this person likes me, your barriers come down and you're more open, which is the reason why good, good interviews ask loads of non-interview questions.
Speaker 2:At the beginning Did you get here, okay, what did you do at weekend? You know, blah, blah, blah. They just want you to talk to help relax you. If you go to a job interview, though, and that's not happened, or the interview is like right, we've got 10 interviews today, we need to crack on. I'm going to just start. I'm going to jump in and start asking you questions, and you're thinking, oh my god, oh my god, I'm really really nervous. When you're nervous, uh, you're in fight or flight and your body changes like the blood goes to different parts of your body, you stop digesting food, your stress, your brain physically shrinks as well, your short-term memory and, um, and your long-term memory just kind of like start fizzing around and you can't remember uh answers because we're so, we're so nervous, uh in there. Once you start talking, though, you'll start relaxing and things will come back. So one way to do this is to first talk about a model and a theory and then give the example. So they might say to us, give me an example of when you created an algorithm that's been able to do this SEO technique for a marketing company, and you think, oh, I've done that, but I can't remember the algorithm, I can't remember what I've done. Talk about the process first. So the process I follow when I'm first creating an algorithm is and then just talk about a basic three-step process, because that's a logical thing, that you do a, you do b, you do c and you do d, and most people in your industry will know that and we'll be kind of not along on yet. That's kind of the basic stuff. So you kind of get half the marks for that. But that is enough for you to relax a little bit, because you're seeing this process that you do every single day for 20 years. So it's just natural, it'll just come out of you. It's the thing you do, business as usual, all the time, and because you're talking, you'll just start to relax a little bit more and then your situation, your ideas will then pop into your head and then you can say as an example and then you give the example the time that you've done that before.
Speaker 2:A great example of this is when people talk about time management. You always ask this question don't you give me an example of doing time management? And people always go. Well, I use microsoft diaries, I have updates on my phone and you know I have a to-do list and I take that it's such a basic, weak answer. So a a good way to talk about it is saying well, do you know about the time management matrix?
Speaker 2:And I often teach nervous people to ask the interviewers a question. So tell me about a time, give me an example of when you manage your time affectionately. So I get them to say do you know about the time management matrix model? And most people go oh, and it doesn't matter if they yes or no, but because the interview has been asked a question, they'll be like oh, um, oh, yes, I do know that. Oh, no, I don't know that.
Speaker 2:One that changes the power balance because now you feel a bit more confident because they you can tell they're nervous and anxious because you asked them a question. Two, because you've asked them a question and it takes them two or three seconds to reply. That's enough time to take, take a deep breath, relax your body and let that answer come to you. And when they say yes or no, say well, the time management model. And then explain the model. And basically it's about organising tasks based on their urgency and importance. You can have four boxes, a little bit like the interview identity model with the two axes.
Speaker 2:So you explain that model and then give them an example. So you've done three things there. You one ask the question, so the interview goes, changing the power balance, but it also gives you time to take a deep breath. Second, you describe a model and there's models for everything in there for time management, risk assessments, setting algorithms, everything we do. There's a model or a theory for that thing and it's and the model and theory might be a professional, academic model and theory, or it might be just be the process you use at work. So you do a, b, c and d, explain that step by step. It's a logical thing. People understand what you're doing and it's easy for you to say that because it's just what you do all the time. That gives you so much time to relax and then to think of a real good example to make yourself shine.
Speaker 1:Speaking of example, Chris, give me an example of one of the clients that you've helped to get that dream job.
Speaker 2:One of my best examples is it must have been when I first started doing interview coaching. So I did the life coaching first, got into careers advice, did all the careers advice and careers coaching and then I kind of moved into the interview coaching. And I remember this client coming to me in the first couple of years and he was like this, uh, ceo of an organization, and it was like it came across you know, you get someone you think god, they're charismatic, aren't they like this something? You know I want to be this guy. He looks sharp, you know. It was like well spoken, it's just there's like this awe about this, like power about, and I was like god, yeah, why is he coming to little old me like, this guy's amazing and right. But he said like in meetings, when he's chairing board, when he's speaking to stakeout all this stuff, he said you know, I'm on it, I just do it.
Speaker 2:But for some reason, when I go to a job interview, uh, I really I just struggle, I just climb over. And it's because we often put all our eggs in one basket. We think about a job we want to go to, like I need that job more than anything. If I don't get that job my life's over and it's like that's ridiculous, like there's so many companies out there, so many jobs out there. You don't need to to make make this into a life or death situation anyway. So I do a couple of techniques in one session, like this is one session and at the time I must have been charging like 20 or 30 dollars or something, maybe 50 dollars tops, like it's early on in my career, so I'm charging this like minimal, minimal amount of money. Uh, do these techniques.
Speaker 2:And in this one hour session two weeks later, this guy comes back to me. He goes chris, I've had three interviews passed them all, got offered all three jobs. I'm like, oh, wow, that's, I'm so happy for you, that's so amazing. He goes. I can't believe it, I can't believe that I got, I think he said, a hundred thousand pound pay rise. I was like what a hundred thousand pound? I tried like thirty dollars, man, like what the hell I should have took ten percent, yeah you should have done a percentage base like that attorney said five percent off of everything you make.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, awesome, great story. So now, like I don't, let's just say I'm okay, I'm an entrepreneur, but I've got to do some form of public speaking. I want to be a coach, like you, chris, and I've got to do some form of public speaking. So what are some tips for someone who has fear of public speaking? To get up on stage or, as an entrepreneur, host meetings with a new team that you know that they're putting together what, what, what are some advice you have from for entrepreneur?
Speaker 2:two techniques. The first one's so quick join an improv class. Improv classes are great. You get on stage to give you a banana and say pretend you're rubbing a bank, and you just have to act that thing out. Once you've done that five or ten times like you're confident you can deal with anything. So improv classes are absolutely great.
Speaker 2:But generally speaking, to be a strong public speaker, I talked about like you've just got to do it a lot, because that it is key. You know, the more you talk, the more skilled you'll be at it. But what you want to learn is how to control your audience. So you can control your audience in so many different ways. You can create intrigue. I could come onto this show and say something very shocking, or or say something that sounds really exciting, but I'm not going to give you all the detail, because intrigue we want to listen to someone that we're intrigued by. We want to know more about that person. Imagine going to a job interview and they say, like tell me a little bit about yourself. You say, well, my experience proves that I can turn companies on the brink of bankruptcy and make them into multi-million pound organisations. I'd be thinking God, if we're in that situation. How does this guy do that? I'm going to want to know more about that person.
Speaker 2:So you can control your audience by different types of hooks. You can also control your audience by asking questions, where you'll know you'll get certain replies. So you might do in public speaking like a hands up or a hands down, can't you? Or you might ask questions or get the audience to move. You can do it in job interviews as well. When I said with the example, do you know what the time management matrix is, you'll know that eight out of ten people will say no to that particular question. So when you do things where you can control the answers or the interactions of your audience, it gives you a bit of confidence, because you say something and they respond in the way you want them to respond.
Speaker 2:A little bit like using humour at the beginning of a speech, you can do a joke which is so bad that they'll laugh because the joke is so bad, and then you can laugh about how bad your joke was, which gets the second laugh, and I've done that before and it works every single time, and that gives you loads of confidence. But what you really want after that hook, though, is to have a strong structure that you can follow. So you kind of want to have three things in your speech. So maybe a story, maybe a quote, maybe some facts or something like that. Or if you're doing a long story, maybe you know some, something exciting at the beginning, the journey and then the positive outcome. But if you have a structure in your head, it's easy for you to follow that structure, to deliver that strong speech.
Speaker 2:And then the final thing is a little bit like a job interview. You kind of want to communicate confidently and that really means about your volume, your tonality, speaking from an emotive point of view. So if you're talking about something that's sad, be sad. When you're talking about that thing, oh, you're happy. You know, be really happy when you're saying that thing, because people get drawn into your stories, into your message, through your emotive words yeah, so like add some emotions to it yeah, and it doesn't, like, you know, in a workplace presentation you might, you know, not turn that up a notch.
Speaker 2:In a public speaking, like when I do public speaking, I turn it up. Really. You know you can feel the pain on my face when I'm, when I'm upset. You can see my body shaking when I'm angry, uh, when I'm on stage. But in a job interview, you know, I might turn that down a little bit more. Or at a board meeting, you know, you turn that down a little bit, just enough for the meeting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and again like like in meetings.
Speaker 2:People really struggle meetings. It's so similar to a job interview. Like you go to a meeting, read the agenda. You can kind of get an idea of what sort of things the chair is going to be asking the rest of the room so you can prepare your answers, can't you? You can prepare your answers well in advance and you can prepare questions to ask other people, can't you? If you know you're going to be asked really awkward questions? Like you're going to be asked really awkward questions. Like you're not hitting your sales figures and they're going to say like you know, why haven't you hit your sales figures? You can prepare like a strength and weakness answer where you can kind of say well, this is what's the current problem this time, but next month we've got this thing that's going to happen and you can frame it in a way that makes you seem really confident and really skilled.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's awesome. So, um, one question I didn't ask curse is how long have you been a hypnotherapist?
Speaker 2:I haven't always asked me this and I always forget, because I kind of done coaching, hypnotherapy, nlp and careers advice for like 20 years, but I used to get what all of it was. So I think I've probably been a coach and all that for 20 years and probably hypnotherapist for 15 15 years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, so is there, is there, let's. Is there any questions that I didn't ask you that you would like to be asking in an interview?
Speaker 2:Well, one question that a lot of people want to know about is a salary negotiation. We always want to get the best out of that job interview, generally speaking as well. If you want a low-skilled job like when I worked in warehousing or working in working in retail and stuff you can't really negotiate your salary. You get that set wage and that's kind of what it is medium skilled jobs. Companies often offer salary bands. You start on x amount and it goes up to like the highest band amount and you can normally negotiate within that band. So if they offer you 30 000 and it's between 25 and 35 and kind of say, well, because I've done this, that and the other, I feel that I'm at this, this level, and if they offered you a job, they kind of like you, so they're quite likely maybe to go up one extra, one extra little bit. But the main time to negotiate your salary is when you're applying for, like, high level positions, senior management positions or positions where you know you would stop broken. It's kind of all worked on commission. You can really negotiate your salary there.
Speaker 2:And what you should always, always do when negotiating the salary is you need to start off by setting the baseline figure. So, as an example, if an employee comes and goes right, you're so good, we really want you for our team. You're seeing, perfect, we're going to offer you £80,000 a year. What you do when you're negotiating your salary you go right, and this is our subconscious. You go right, they've offered me 80 000, so I want a little bit more. So I'll ask for 90 000, and you negotiate that and you end up at 85 000, as an example. Or you negotiate up to 100 and you know you end up with 90 000. So you, you tend to meet in the middle somewhere, right, but it's all based on that first initial figure, whoever says it. So if you go in first and you say, right, because my skills experience blah, blah, I want 110 or 120 000, the employee goes, uh, okay, well, we're gonna offer you 90 or 100, and then you meet in there. So you end up getting like an extra 10 20 grand, depending on your salary and what your negotiation skills are, but it goes off the baseline figure.
Speaker 2:The first person to set that price and the psychology around this is, if I don't know if you're dating at the moment, but if you were going to buy your partner some jewelry, as an example and you went into a shop and you're seeing this, I don't know, necklace, ring or a watch that you really like, but there's no price tag next to it. You have no idea the cost of that piece of that item of jewelry until the person at the end goes it's a hundred pound or it's a thousand pound. You have no idea. And then if you're negotiating with that person, you'll do it based off whatever they say. So you go oh, would you take 900 or would you take 90? But it's based off that first one all the time got it, so okay, makes sense.
Speaker 1:So it's, it's, it's your starting point, that that that really makes the difference in the negotiation process.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the only time it doesn't is if the employer's got a very set figure. So it's like like we can only do it in this. You know, we've got this, we've got this band that we can do it, uh, do it with. If it's an open negotiation, you can really use that baseline technique to get an extra 20, 30, or 50 grand, depending on your salary.
Speaker 1:It's got to be realistic as well. You can't work for McDonald's and be like I want 80,000 pounds.
Speaker 2:You're doing a job where you never get that. It's got to be realistic, hasn't it?
Speaker 1:More like give me $21. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah more like give me $21. All right, Uh, so, Chris, tell us about your books. So I know, um, uh, uh, I interview. Identities is your most recent book, but I know you've written all the books as well. Um and I, they're on Amazon and you could get uh, was it three books? That's your third book? Um, so tell us about those books. And I have a question to ask you about the next book that you're writing yeah.
Speaker 2:So I've got two books. So one's uh influence the interview. So two job interview books, one's influence the interview and then the new one that's just come out, uh, this month actually is what is your interview identity? And that's the one that's kind of based on the research. It's all about unconscious bias, how the interviewer acts in the interview, which affects you and your, your identities. And then the one that I did between that I kind of done one every four years is called uh evolve the mind, and it's loads of little stories about how how your mind evolves so you can be more confident. But the idea is that you read all these stories and it's subconscious, you start becoming more confident without actually realizing it got it now and are you?
Speaker 1:are you working on another book? Because you said every four years, so is there another one coming? And what you? What is that one going to be about?
Speaker 2:well. So, of all these books I don't know why it's every four years, because that's just been like a natural thing. I realized, like two days ago, I was like, every four years, a book, a book's come out. One of the things I did two years ago, though, is I'm a massive theater fan. I loved, I loved the theater. I've always gone to the theater and I've always loved the theater. Since being, uh, this kinesthetic, dyslexic kid, I was like, oh, he's still into the theater there.
Speaker 2:So two years ago, I wrote and directed a play for like a local fringe festival, and it's one of the best experiences of my life I have. Like the actors were people that I knew as well, who my friends of actors, and we put this thing on. We had two nights sold out. It was like amazing experience. Loads of things went wrong in the night, like the lighting, the sound effects, but you know, generally people loved it.
Speaker 2:But there was a critic in the audience on the second night, and I remember thinking, oh, there's a critic. I can't wait to, like, read the review because everyone's laughing, everyone's copying along. After the performances people are coming out and saying, oh, you're the director, aren't you? That's so good, all this praise. I was like, great, now I'm going to see the praise in writing. Got open to critics review the next day and it's the worst review I've ever had about a play or ever read about a play in my life. He hated that play. It was like the directing's rubbish. The script is rubbish, everything was rubbish from his opinion. But you can't let other people's opinions put you down. You can sometimes use that to reflect and improve, but generally you have to be believing yourself and kind of go for your goals. So I think the next thing I'm going to do is write a second play, because I just loved, uh, that experience, the creative process of playwriting. So I think I'm gonna write a play and then maybe a book a couple years later got it.
Speaker 1:Do you know what the play is going to be about?
Speaker 2:or, or well, I feel like a geek now because I'm doing all this interview stuff, but my, my current idea is that four people walk onto stage being interviewed, but the audience, you know, as they look at the audience, but they're looking at the employer. So the audience is the employer in their eyes and they're gonna have like one's gonna be a bit dark, one's gonna be a bit academic and one's gonna be a bit like kind of like doesn't really want the job. So it's gonna be a comedy play about how, uh, how they use their own experiences to answer the questions, uh, where. So one time was like doing their like sensible, self-promoting answers and they were like well, I just go to the pub every week or whatever, whatever, uh.
Speaker 2:So yeah, that's kind of it's just an idea at the moment, but we'll you know, ideas bloom into big things, aren't they?
Speaker 1:so, chris, when you're writing your books or you're writing the play, um, because you know I I've always wanted to, to write, all right, I've never done it, uh, it's not something I'm skilled in, but how do you get started? What is your method for, for writing?
Speaker 2:well, you already know this because you're from the music industry. So if you want to be a musician, you play your musical instrument. If you want to be a runner, you run. If you want to write, you just need to write so many people like think they need to have this masterpiece, uh, created straight away. You get it with musicians. Don't like my friends learning trumpet at the moment, and then it's great because it's not like I want to be the best trump, I want to, you know, release an album or whatever. He just wants to enjoy the process of learning, learning the trumpet.
Speaker 2:The same in writing, you start writing things down. Like when you write, it evolves into all this stuff. You have an idea, but you know it goes into this direction, into that direction. Right, right, right, right, right. Just keep writing and, like you know, make mistakes and get it wrong and reflect on stuff and then, once you do it, it a lot. That's when you can start producing something that you might want to put out there to the public. So just do it. You know life is about taking action.
Speaker 1:That's true. I haven't taken action in that area, listen, because it took me a long time to do this podcast. I wanted to do it for I'm not going to say how long, but for a long time I wanted to do podcasting. And the fear of judgment right, thinking oh, what will someone think about it? I hate my voice, I hate this, I hate that. Oh, you know, everything got to be right, but what I realized was there was really one thing holding me back, and again it was mostly just fear and anxiety, you know, the fear of speaking, um and putting myself out there. So I decided you know what, who cares? I'm just gonna do it. Yeah, you know what? And it's.
Speaker 2:That is the advice, like, and it's so easy for us to say that, but it is the advice, because the way we perceive ourselves is completely different to how the world perceives you. So, as an example, you said you're a little bit nervous. You're like, oh, what's my voice gonna sound like? How am I coming across all this sort of stuff where you know, we had a pre-interview meeting and we had this live podcast session today and I like I have like massive, like rapport with you straight away. I think your voice is really good, like you have this natural laugh when you're talking, just even though we're in two different countries, like the atmosphere is like really good, the questions are really natural, so it's such a good podcast interview.
Speaker 2:But all this stuff that you had like a couple of years ago, all this negative self-talk, like kills us, don't it? I had it when I was dyslexic. People have it when they want to go to job interviews. Everyone has it and you have to kill that devil in your head, that voice in your head. I actually got a technique I'll do it on you and I'll just do a very quick version of this of getting rid of negative self-talk. So I'm going to use this with my hypnosis. So can you think of a time when you gave yourself negative self-talk, where you criticize yourself? Yeah, absolutely. And when you think of that, where's the voice? Is it in the front of your head, the back of your head or at the side?
Speaker 1:I feel like it's mostly in the front in the front of my head and it your voice.
Speaker 2:Is it you giving yourself negative thoughts? Yeah, yeah. So this is most of the time. Most of the time we give ourselves our own voice. If you've been bullied when you were younger, you sometimes hear your bully's voice. Or if you had a very strict parent, you sometimes hear their voice, but most of it is our own voice saying you rubbish you. When you think that voice, if you could turn that voice into a shape, what shape is it? I feel like a circle, circle. And what color is your circle?
Speaker 1:what color orange?
Speaker 2:orange, and everyone will have their own shape and their own colour. So what I want you all to do right now is focus on your shape. So focus on your orange circle. I want you to imagine you can move it from the front of your head all the way down onto your shoulder.
Speaker 2:Okay, and as you move it from your shoulder, let it roll all the way down towards your elbow and then allow it to continue to move all the way down to the palm of your hand and then let it drop onto your leg and visualize and imagine that shape going all the way down your leg towards your knee, all the way down your foot as it falls off your foot onto the floor. You're going to get an urge to do something to that shape. What do you want to do to your shape? Step on it, so imagine, step on it and stamping and stamping, and stamping. And how do you feel now?
Speaker 1:Feels great Feels great, doesn't it? And that's a very simple technique.
Speaker 2:So whenever you give yourself negative self-talk, turn that voice into a shape and move it down your body. When I do this on the hypnosis, I get turn that voice into a shape and move it down your body. When I do this on the hypnosis, I get someone to do it down the body at that speed and then I do it 10 or 15 more times, but quicker and quicker and quicker. So in the end it's like voice shape all the way down, stamp. Voice shape all the way down, stamp. And we repeat it 10 or 15 times and often when they try and re-hear that old voice, it's gone. Oh, it's a lot weaker, it it's gone.
Speaker 1:That made me feel good. I felt like I was like imagine myself jumping on that negative self-talk. Yeah, it's a great feeling.
Speaker 2:And then when you get to some people want to stamp, some people want to kick it into the atmosphere, some people want to like rip it into thousands of shreds, but go with whatever urge.
Speaker 2:imagine that happening and then take a deep breath and then repeat the process again. Yeah, so so can. Can someone? Um, self-hypnotize? Yeah, so a lot of the stuff we do is we use the hypnosis or the hypnotherapy to get get something to a deep, relaxed, uh, trance. So really, it's just that you, you know, it's a bit like mindfulness, or if you do yoga, you're kind of just in this relaxed state and then you use these different visualization techniques.
Speaker 2:A lot of it is visualized visualization techniques because what you see, you feel there's an association. You see something. It's an automatic emotional reaction and we're just changing that to a new positive emotion. I sometimes do this technique where I get people to focus on the fear that they're feeling and I get them to realize what color it is, what direction it is, how it moves, if it's warm or cold, fast or slow, and then we get them to describe it in a different way and we're just embedding it. So it becomes their new process. Their new process because the way your mind works, you see something, these neurons in your brain fire and you just get an emotional reaction to that and that emotional reaction tells you how to act. So fight or fly, or rest and digest yeah, awesome, chris.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. So where can people find you?
Speaker 2:and so you can find my website for job interviews, which is employmentkingcouk. My interview identity book is on all good bookshops and I'm on linkedin. A lot, a lot of people, uh, send me private messages to ask about particular situations, and I'm always happy to answer them as well.
Speaker 1:Okay and the easiest way to get in touch. So I didn't find you on social media. I always look for people on social media. Are you just not using social media?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just use LinkedIn. Really it's Christopher Delaney Coach on LinkedIn, but yeah, I don't really use the other ones too much.
Speaker 1:Delaney Coach on LinkedIn. But yeah, I don't want to use the other ones too much. Got it Okay? Well, make sure you guys follow Chris on LinkedIn and get the book Interview Identity. I'm actually going to be reading it too, Chris, so I'll let you know once I do that. All right, and I'll reach out to you if I ever have to do another job interview. I'll make sure I get some tips. I'll make sure.
Speaker 2:I, I, uh, I get some tips.
Speaker 1:I'll make sure I reach out to get some tips. All right, chris? Thank you so much. Do you want to leave us with anything else?
Speaker 2:just remember that every single person, in every town, in every country across the globe, always fear something. It's not the fear that stops you doing it, it's how you perceive, uh, the outcome of that fear. The bottom line is always take action.
Speaker 1:Always take action. Thank you so much, Chris. Appreciate you stopping by again and I'll look forward to reading the book Interview Identity. So again, guys, make sure you go out and get the book, All right, Chris? Thanks again. Thank you, All right.