Ep. 53 Ghostwriting, Hypnosis, & Hypno-writing with Joshua Lisec

[00:00:03] I'm Michele Simms and this is The Beauty in the Mess, a community where people who crave

[00:00:11] a shift in mindset, personal growth and connection to like-minded people come together to start

[00:00:16] rewriting their stories.

[00:00:18] Through engaging, honest and insightful conversations, the show will help you embrace the mess to

[00:00:23] recognize the meanings and the lessons it holds and discover its hidden treasures

[00:00:27] to help you start making a mindset shift.

[00:00:29] Let's listen, learn and reclaim who we were meant to be.

[00:00:33] Hi friend, welcome to The Beauty in the Mess.

[00:00:36] For this episode I'm very excited to welcome Joshua Lysik to the show.

[00:00:41] Joshua is a Wall Street Journal best-selling ghostwriter and the number one Amazon best-selling

[00:00:46] author of So Good They Call You a Fake.

[00:00:49] He earns more than 1 million ghostwriting per year.

[00:00:53] Joshua has ghostwritten more than 80 non-fiction books for celebrities, executives and entrepreneurs

[00:00:59] and for experts asserting authority in their industries for the first time.

[00:01:03] Joshua is the only certified professional ghostwriter through the California State University

[00:01:09] Long Beach and certified hypnotist through National Guild of Hypnotists in the world

[00:01:15] and more than 2,800 people have taken his persuasive writing courses thus far.

[00:01:20] Hi, I'm Michelle Sims, your host.

[00:01:22] I'm just a regular person who along with my family have had our share of messes that we too have had to overcome.

[00:01:28] Along the way I got curious as to how others get through their messes and even triumph over them.

[00:01:34] Maybe there's a better way, a faster way, maybe we can accelerate our journeys by learning from someone else.

[00:01:40] That started my pursuit.

[00:01:42] I think we can all learn from each other through the sharing of our experiences, lessons and knowledge.

[00:01:47] So join me for episode 53 of The Beauty and the Mess

[00:01:51] called Ghostwriting Hypnosis and Hypnot writing with Joshua Lysik.

[00:01:56] So without further ado, let's dive right into today's conversation.

[00:02:00] Hi Joshua, welcome to The Beauty and the Mess. I'm so glad you could join me today.

[00:02:05] Thanks Michelle, it's my pleasure.

[00:02:07] Now I know you're a coach, an author, a certified hypnotist among many other things

[00:02:11] but I was wondering if you could tell us what led you down that path to become who you are today?

[00:02:16] Yes, it happened all completely by accident and the accident went like this.

[00:02:20] My lifelong ambition since being a youngster was to be a professional storyteller

[00:02:25] and at the time that meant novels.

[00:02:28] And so I completed this lifelong ambition Michelle by the right age of 20

[00:02:32] when I had a two book publishing deal

[00:02:35] and as I'm going out signing copies and meeting fans and whatnot

[00:02:39] and taking selfies on flip phones back when you had to turn the phone around

[00:02:44] and it would be off-centered because that's just how it was in those ancient days.

[00:02:48] Something strange happened during that season of my life.

[00:02:51] Two of my readers reached out to me and said, Joshua,

[00:02:54] I've wanted to write a book longer than you've even been alive.

[00:02:57] Can you help me out here?

[00:02:58] And I said, okay fine, sure, I'll help you with your book.

[00:03:01] And I've been saying, okay fine, sure, I'll help you with your book ever since.

[00:03:05] That's pretty amazing.

[00:03:06] I was wondering if you could tell us real quickly what ghostwriting is

[00:03:10] and how much of it is the actual person and how much of it is you as a ghostwriter?

[00:03:17] Yes, so ghostwriting is named because the ghost is the person who is writing the book

[00:03:24] and that their name doesn't usually appear on the cover.

[00:03:27] They're usually mentioned in the acknowledgments as the writing partner

[00:03:31] or maybe the writing coach or the editor or special thanks to sort of thing.

[00:03:37] It's a bit like how when a CPA prepares a tax return for a business,

[00:03:42] if the business is tax return, it's the author's book.

[00:03:45] But often the tax preparer will be mentioned somewhere in the documentation

[00:03:49] and somewhere the ghostwriter's name will be mentioned usually in the acknowledgments,

[00:03:53] maybe in the dedication or special thank you, that sort of thing.

[00:03:56] But it's the author's stories and experiences.

[00:03:59] We're just being brought into properly documented structure,

[00:04:03] make sure it's industry standard and commercially viable

[00:04:06] in much the same way that let's say an IP attorney is brought into

[00:04:10] draw up contracts to make sure they have all the necessary legal clauses and that sort of thing.

[00:04:14] And funny enough, the same people who hire IP attorneys and tax preparers

[00:04:19] and CPAs also hire ghostwriters.

[00:04:22] That's amazing. I would have never made that correlation.

[00:04:25] So it's not just wordsmithing, right?

[00:04:28] I mean you're actually structuring how their book goes along.

[00:04:32] Does it matter if it's fiction, nonfiction, their life story?

[00:04:37] Does any of that matter?

[00:04:39] I've done a little bit of everything over the years.

[00:04:42] Memoirs, occasionally fiction for clients.

[00:04:44] But the vast majority of my clientele are business people

[00:04:48] who have business interests and the success of the book.

[00:04:52] That doesn't necessarily mean I wanted to sell up several hundred thousand copies.

[00:04:55] I have had clients who have put up impressive sales numbers

[00:04:59] and have been mainstream international bestsellers including books on real bestseller lists.

[00:05:06] Right?

[00:05:07] But that's not what their metric of success is.

[00:05:09] Their metric is revenue per reader.

[00:05:13] What do we mean by revenue per reader?

[00:05:15] Imagine someone is a founder of a tech company.

[00:05:18] They're a software company.

[00:05:20] And the way that their company makes money is through selling software as a service subscriptions

[00:05:25] where there's a monthly $200, $2,000 for the enterprise version of their software.

[00:05:31] But they're in a crowded space because software companies are frankly fast to iterate on buildup

[00:05:38] and you can get thousands of customers in just a few months.

[00:05:41] There's not a whole lot of moat there or rather like competitive edge and differentiation.

[00:05:47] So what the founder will often do is author a book or hire a ghostwriter to write their book

[00:05:52] and they will use that book to generate leads for their subscription

[00:05:58] because their competitors are all saying free trial, seven day free trial,

[00:06:02] try out a demo of our software.

[00:06:04] Whereas the founder who has a book says something along the lines of

[00:06:10] solve all of the most expensive problems in your business by reading this book.

[00:06:15] And it just so happens our software does that

[00:06:17] but our book will teach you how to do that step by step with no steps skipped

[00:06:21] and by the way it's only 99 cents on Amazon

[00:06:24] or it's free plus shipping and handling inside of our funnel that we're running on LinkedIn, for example.

[00:06:29] Or they will send it off the copy of the book with a nice little handwritten note to CEOs who they want as clients.

[00:06:37] And so it's a way with just as one example of the software company to generate sales qualified leads

[00:06:43] in a way they would not have been able to otherwise while demonstrating their superior value to their market.

[00:06:49] And so revenue per reader is not just, hey, we sold a 99 cent book.

[00:06:54] It's okay for every thousand one dollar per ebook books that we sell 250 of them become free trials for our software and 200 of them convert

[00:07:08] and 100 of them stay for more than a year, which is $2,400 per year for the annual subscription 2400 times.

[00:07:16] And you begin to see, oh, that revenue per reader divided out is pretty good.

[00:07:21] And so that's what my clientele are looking for is the revenue per reader metric converting readers into clients in some way

[00:07:29] that they would not have been able to otherwise without their book just doing like webinar or marketing on social media or whatnot.

[00:07:37] The book is the thing that generates those sales qualified leads.

[00:07:40] That's the type of book I've kind of honed in on.

[00:07:43] That's amazing how much it spends into something far greater.

[00:07:47] I have to ask you this is probably an odd question, but do you ever feel, I don't know what the word would be disappointed perhaps that you see one of the books that you have ghostwritten is excelling

[00:07:59] and won a medal or one Amazon bestseller of the last five years.

[00:08:05] Does that ever equate into your feelings like you wish your name would have been associated to it or on the cover?

[00:08:14] That is an issue with a lot of ghost writers, you're correct because for the most part they stay ghosts.

[00:08:20] Right.

[00:08:21] And in that they have no online presence, no brands just like well I use this one freelancer who writes for this local newspaper.

[00:08:27] He or she did a pretty good job a few years ago and they do one book every two or three years.

[00:08:32] That's the typical ghostwriter.

[00:08:34] I'm a little unusual and that I was an author before I became a ghostwriter.

[00:08:39] So my lifelong dream came true when I was 20.

[00:08:42] So I don't need the egoistic satisfaction of having my name on the cover.

[00:08:47] I've offered four books myself including a nonfiction one recently, which is the compendium of my experiences as a ghostwriter and everything I've learned about writing commercially successful books, and then spending those books off and do courses and coaching services

[00:09:02] and consulting and the higher value services to maximize that revenue per reader number.

[00:09:08] This is a, I think this is a useful analogy to explain it.

[00:09:12] It's a bit like a professional midwife who has her own children already.

[00:09:17] It's a bit like that where you've been there done that and now you're helping new and expecting mothers give birth to their creation into the world.

[00:09:27] Right.

[00:09:28] So you know what to expect? You know all the emotions are versus I never done this myself. I don't really know. I don't know what to expect.

[00:09:35] I can't speak from that lived experience, which I do have and so that's one of the reasons why people will want to work with me is because I have my own journey as an author.

[00:09:46] And so I've grappled with both the emotional and practical difficulties of successful authorship already.

[00:09:53] So if you don't mind me asking is having a ghostwriter something that the average Joe, so to speak could afford or is it something more for like a CEO of a software company?

[00:10:04] It's more so the same individual who has someone who does their quarterly business taxes, who does their bookkeeping for their company.

[00:10:17] Basically, if they're used to hiring professional services for one reason or another, be it for their own business or maybe they're self employed and have teams of people that they work with.

[00:10:28] It would make sense for them. And they are used to paying for marketing, but the trouble is, is that marketing has a very short expiration date and that okay if we're doing marketing for 10 months you get 10 months of marketing and if you spent 10K a month over 10 months and

[00:10:49] you generated precisely two qualified leads and only one of them converted and that was a $3,000 sale. That wasn't so smart there or at least it wasn't a wise investment.

[00:11:00] Whereas with a book, the book is done. And now you can use it for the next 20 years. So as a very long shelf life. So in fact, even though it's an expensive business to business service, it's quite a bit cheaper.

[00:11:12] That's not to say I haven't done books for individuals before memoirs and autobiographies. I have. It's just that from their perspective, the ROI is more like ROI, not return on investment but return on experience where they've already bought the second vacation home.

[00:11:28] They've already bought the cottage by the lake. They've already bought the second yacht. And then thinking, well, gee, what do I want to leave behind to my progeny here besides just stuff as an inheritance?

[00:11:41] What about the values and the experiences? And so they will want to write a legacy book. And given that they used to hiring professional services providers for themselves, they will contract with or work with a ghostwriter for that.

[00:11:52] Yeah, it's pretty awesome. Something I hadn't really thought about much until I came across you. Now, I know you also teach people and I was curious as whether you teach them to become persuasive writers or you teach them to actually become ghostwriters.

[00:12:07] I don't teach people to become ghostwriters in as much as I'm teaching persuasive writing and someone might apply that to ghostwriting. Now, we use this funny little adjective persuasive in front of writing.

[00:12:21] And I think it would be useful to everyone watching or listening right now to what is persuasive writing? So writing is of course communicating in print or and maybe that print is something that's going to be read online or on the phone.

[00:12:36] Print is not literally being printed anymore. And that's also really, but what are you my persuasive writing? So writing is writing persuasive writing is writing that cultivates desire and motivates action, cultivates desire and motivates action.

[00:12:52] It's reading something that makes a person go, Oh, I should do that. I'm going to do that. I will do that now. That's persuasive writing.

[00:13:02] Persuasive writing is rather useful in a marketing or sales context to market your business or to sell your book or to sell your ideas inside of the book so that people adopt them and then act on them.

[00:13:17] This is where we call back to the revenue per reader concept. Those book readers who bought the ebook for 99 cents are not going to go sign up for the seven day free trial and then pay $2,400 a year for the enterprise software.

[00:13:30] If their desire for working with the app hasn't been cultivated. And if they haven't been inspired, moved, motivated, driven, triggered into taking some sort of decisive action now and go sign up for that.

[00:13:43] And so writing has to be structured in such a way as to move people from a state of I don't know what that product is yet and I'm not going to buy it to I know what it is now and I have to have it.

[00:13:56] And there's specific structures techniques and frameworks that result in persuasion happening. So that's how persuasion persuasive writing is different from regular writing where it's like Wikipedia Wikipedia is not persuasive.

[00:14:09] In fact, I would say Wikipedia level writing is anti persuasive. It's the opposite of persuasive because it invites disagreement and you see that with various Wikipedia editors disagreeing with one another.

[00:14:21] Going back and forth and saying no the details should be this no they should say this no they should say this.

[00:14:26] And we can all think of probably any number of be they public health campaigns or government writing or legal ease that can often happen among attorneys in which the writing is anti persuasive and results in the person thinking.

[00:14:40] Now that I've read this I'm even more certain I was right all along and they're wrong. That's not what you want if you want to sell your stuff.

[00:14:47] And do you had did you study marketing somewhere along the way or is this just something that came naturally to you as you progressed as an author.

[00:14:56] I learned marketing, the best way you can, which is having to do it.

[00:15:04] Right around the time I started taking on ghostwriting clients. I also was approached by several local and even international companies who'd seen me posting about my books and my stuff and they said Josh you're pretty good at promoting yourself or terrible at it.

[00:15:18] Can you help us out here can you write stuff to promote our business.

[00:15:21] Now, in my mind, they were paying me to write marketing copy that would be on their website that would be for their brochures that would appear on social media. This is even the early social media days.

[00:15:33] That was my perspective. The deliverable they are paying for was writing right.

[00:15:37] Right.

[00:15:38] That was not their perspective. Their perspective was, we're paying for leads.

[00:15:44] Oh wow.

[00:15:45] Words leads.

[00:15:47] How many leads your words generated.

[00:15:50] Yes. Now freelance writers are used to charging per word or per project.

[00:15:56] And the business owners were used to hiring advertisers and paying them per click. If you've heard of like cost per click or CPC advertising.

[00:16:05] I have that's where you only get charged if a potential customer clicks on your ad.

[00:16:12] So it has to have motivated them to action. And there's some marketing companies that are paid per qualified lead generated or appointment set with a prospect.

[00:16:23] That was the line of reasoning my original clients and many clients since then have kind of been on.

[00:16:30] And so they wanted me to join that line of reasoning too.

[00:16:34] If you talk to a typical professional writer, they have no concept of this. They say my rate is this I charge as much per word.

[00:16:41] And it's in my opinion as anti persuasive as they can get. So they're not persuasive writers or anti persuasive writers and their entire let's say brand identity and pricing structure is built around what they want as writers.

[00:16:54] Not what the client wants. The client doesn't want words. They don't care if the spelling errors or if it's typo free. They don't care if it's proper grammar.

[00:17:01] They don't care what you say. They don't care if you make stuff up or leave the good stuff out or go against everything that they think is important in their business.

[00:17:10] What they want are sales qualified leads or what they know as SQLs.

[00:17:15] And so the more of those you can provide the more successful you will be as a professional writer this particular type of writing is sometimes called copywriting.

[00:17:26] Where you're writing marketing copy or sales copy or direct response copywriting where you're writing an ad that you want to be directly responded to.

[00:17:36] And I learned that because in order to make it as a self employed solopreneur without an eight to five job and I gave a Ted talk a number of years ago about my experience in the eight to five workforce and saying yeah I'm not doing this.

[00:17:50] And I decided self employment is for me so I got it. I guess I had to figure this out. So it's a bit of hunter gatherer mindset eat when you kill so to speak.

[00:17:59] And if I wasn't my words weren't selling my clients products.

[00:18:03] I was gonna have that client Mary along right.

[00:18:07] And so if I wanted to build a living for myself, eventually afford home.

[00:18:12] A family.

[00:18:13] I had to figure this stuff out so it was out of necessity that I learned marketing which you might say is the best way to learn any profession is by you have no choice but to figure this out.

[00:18:24] Yeah, it's awesome that you did figure it out.

[00:18:27] The one thing that's unique about you that I wanted to definitely touch on today was, you're a certified professional ghost writer but you're also a certified hypnotist.

[00:18:37] And I read where you're the only one in the world that has both of those certifications.

[00:18:42] That's right. Yes, yes.

[00:18:44] That's pretty impressive.

[00:18:46] Yes, there are two lines of work that seem entirely unrelated it would be like someone saying, yes I'm a licensed bonded and insured plumber.

[00:18:55] And I'm also a professional bodybuilder.

[00:18:58] And you might say, that's interesting but why how what or let's say I'm a professional circus clown.

[00:19:09] And they also teach English as a second language.

[00:19:12] Like okay that's some interesting side hustles you got going on there very disparate kind of portfolio skill set you got going on there.

[00:19:19] And that's not a competition whatsoever to each other. But what's interesting is that hypnosis and ghost writing or persuasive writing for others have a one to one match their overlap is perfect.

[00:19:34] It's like a synthesis of color just the same way that yellow and red make orange and let's say blue and yellow make green.

[00:19:46] And then create something profound. It goes like this hypnosis is not this stage art of mysticism and mimicry where you're tricking people or manipulating people into doing something silly with the pocket watch waving in front of their face.

[00:20:01] That's more like illusionist sort of stage craft performance where people want to be entertained and be made fun of. So it's more like a comedy actor like a magical show.

[00:20:11] I would call that pseudo hypnosis because hypnosis is more so the art of subconscious belief change which results in new behaviors.

[00:20:23] Now, hypnosis is a therapy to type of therapy right and most people go to therapy for number one. How do I sleep better. How do I eat better.

[00:20:34] And how do I feel better. We're dealing with stress or that stress or relationship trouble or what have you. So people are going to hypnotist to feel better and to do better.

[00:20:45] A traditional therapist says, tell me about your childhood. Let's talk it out. And then several thousand billable hours later they have themselves recurring revenue engine.

[00:20:56] Hypnosis asks this. How are you feeling right now? Okay, okay, now we got that. How do you want to feel?

[00:21:04] No, but my childhood don't care. How do you want to feel? No, but this terrible thing don't care. How do you want to feel? No, but my trauma, my trauma don't care. How do you want to feel?

[00:21:12] So therapy talk therapy is usually a past oriented experience where it's like a continual digging up digging up into gross.

[00:21:22] Hypnosis says don't care. The past is the past. We can change the past and change your future. What you can. Yes, there's a particular type of hypnosis called timeline therapy that allows the person to alter how certain memories affect the person.

[00:21:37] If they are in fact traumatic events that happen, it's possible to alter those memories in such a way as to neutralize the negative emotion. So that if those are brought up.

[00:21:48] Reframing it in a way. Yes, so that if it's brought up, you're still aware that the thing happened, but there's not an emotional rise anymore. It's just oh that's thing that happened like it happened to somebody else like you saw in the movie once.

[00:22:01] Oh yeah, that was terrible. Okay, what was I doing? And then you go back to life. It becomes like a third person that's profound for someone who is endured a psychologically traumatic experience whenever it was right.

[00:22:13] But the hypnosis perspective is forward thinking. How do we alter beliefs, change behaviors to get the person what they want? The trouble with hypnosis is that it's not for most hypnotists a viable business.

[00:22:28] The reason it's not a viable business is it works too well. The therapist can charge hundreds of thousands of dollars for years because there's always a new childhood trauma. There's always a new memory to dig up.

[00:22:39] There's always that one person said that one thing at one time. But if the person goes from feeling how they were feeling to how they want to feel, to thinking about what they were thinking about, to thinking about what they want to be thinking about and getting the results they want after two or three sessions, they need hypnotists to stay more.

[00:22:54] So hypnotists, the good ones, they have a difficult time making a living strangely enough. But when you take that skill set, that talent stack, that knowledge base of how to alter someone's beliefs to create a new reality for them, and you apply that to how to structure a book, how to structure a sales page for your product,

[00:23:15] how to even write advertisements. Then it becomes extraordinarily profitable and useful as a skill set because if someone is reading a book, their beliefs are changed in such a way that the book is transformational for them in a way they didn't expect, especially of a business book, or like a health and wellness book or a technical book or even a text book.

[00:23:38] They had no idea they were going to have such a profound sense of life improvement, having so many things refrained. I never thought about it that way. I never thought about it that way before.

[00:23:48] And just realize this reading this book right now. They have all these amazing breakthroughs just reading a book. What's going to happen? They're going to be endeared to the author and want to get on their email list, follow them on social media, purchase a session with them or multiple sessions with them.

[00:24:02] And that's assuming they're not even hypnotists. That's assuming they're a B2B consultant or a wealth coach or an IP lawyer or the tax attorney we were talking about earlier. I hear so often from my clients and they send me pictures of the checks, the five figure and six figure checks they get from their clients who found them because of their book.

[00:24:23] And they'll transform their worldview. And I said, I have to work with this person. And then now that's how they have their business. So that's the power of a hypnotic book. But I open with persuasive writing because the type of persuasion that we're doing is a subconscious persuasion.

[00:24:40] It's not manipulation manipulation is trickery. It's when lose it's all lie to you so you'll buy from me and I'll get out of here before you figure out I scammed you. That's manipulation.

[00:24:51] Transformation is win-win. You're paying $20 for a permanent life change. That's a pretty good trade. That's a pretty good trade.

[00:24:59] It makes me think of the books I've read that were transformational to me and I never really thought about it as persuasive. I always think that man they just introduced it to me in a different way. I thought of it a whole new way.

[00:25:12] And that's what brought about the transformation. So that's interesting to hear. Very interesting. So you call this hypno writing, is that correct?

[00:25:21] Yes, that's one way to think about it because it's like applied hypnosis to writing and one hypno writing practice that I incorporate into my client's books is this concept called the chain of beliefs.

[00:25:33] The chain of beliefs. And by the way, this is done in a hypnosis session as well.

[00:25:38] And kind of the prompt for this is something like, remember we talked about the present state and desired state?

[00:25:45] Right.

[00:25:46] In order for someone to believe the desired state is theirs, it's inevitable. They're already there and they have the identity of someone who is already in that desired state, who already has achieved those things, who is attained and able to keep those things.

[00:26:06] What does that person need to believe before they can believe that?

[00:26:11] Well, what do they need to believe before they can believe that? But before they believe that, what do they need to believe before that?

[00:26:18] In order to believe that, what do they currently believe we need to show them is false, misleading and unhelpful?

[00:26:26] Let's start there. That's the chain of beliefs concept.

[00:26:30] So it's like a row of dominoes knocking down one after the next so that their conclusion is, wow, I need to hire this person.

[00:26:38] That's the last belief that is desired for as many readers as possible for my client's books.

[00:26:43] But of course, the belief before that is I'd never met someone who has been so helpful to me in this area of my life.

[00:26:50] How else can I work with them? How else can I get more material?

[00:26:53] The next belief is, oh, wow, they have a service. They have a company. I think I'll reach out to them.

[00:26:57] But the belief before that is I never thought of it that way and my life has transformed. I haven't even finished the book yet.

[00:27:03] The belief before that is I need to keep reading this book because what I'm learning, I've never learned anywhere else about this and it's not been this useful.

[00:27:11] Before that is I really need to actually read this book.

[00:27:15] Before that is I believe this book is a superior solution amongst all the other potential solutions I've tried or could try.

[00:27:22] Before that, I believe that I have a problem and that it's such a problem right now. I need to address it.

[00:27:28] Before you believe that is you see how all the chain of beliefs work together that results in someone going from not buying a book and never having heard of you as an author to buying your book,

[00:27:39] reading it and being in love with the ideas and wanting to work with you in some way based on the material, based on the services that are discussed inside of the book.

[00:27:47] So the chain of beliefs is a technique that is embedded into books that have high revenue per reader revenue rates.

[00:27:57] Wow, that is fascinating.

[00:27:59] I'd like to share one more applied hypnosis concept that I find is helpful.

[00:28:02] This comes from Bandler and Grinner who are the co-creators of what's called neurolinguistic programming or NLP.

[00:28:08] I'm sure many of your listeners will have heard of NLP before.

[00:28:12] Yeah.

[00:28:13] It is an expansion and extension and also a deepening of hypnosis principles for a therapeutic context.

[00:28:20] One thing that Bandler and Grinner identified was that we as humans, we have a model of ourselves and of our world.

[00:28:30] Each of us is running a simulation inside of our heads.

[00:28:34] And this is true from a sensory perspective because the brain processes input to create an output and that is personalized, it's perception.

[00:28:42] We don't see things as they are, we see things as we perceive they are.

[00:28:46] Exactly.

[00:28:47] Each of our simulations that we're running in each of our own heads, they call it the deep structure of your own reality.

[00:28:53] It's the things that you believe to be true.

[00:28:56] The things that you see as the way they are what you expect to happen, feedback loops cause and effect.

[00:29:02] In all of your relationships and your own life, your memories, your future, all aspects of what your worldview is, your model of reality, your simulation, the rules of your simulation, they call the deep structure.

[00:29:16] When you're talking to someone and Bandler are going to talk about this in a therapeutic concept.

[00:29:21] When the therapist is listening to the patient, the client or whenever we're talking to someone, what we're getting from them through their words is their surface structure.

[00:29:31] Meaning they are giving bits and pieces, hints and breadcrumbs in the surface structure of their words to the deep structure.

[00:29:41] And often going from my here's my model of reality to here is my opinion on this matter.

[00:29:49] What the therapist does with hymns is does in this case what the professional persuader for hire does is tried to figure out now I'm when I do market research.

[00:29:58] I'm doing semi hypnosis on potential customers and customers as I'm listening for these things.

[00:30:04] And so the surface structure often has distortions deletions and generalizations, and they have to do with the words themselves like the actual words.

[00:30:16] So if someone says for example, like let's take the example of book writing, if someone says it's really important to write books like that's super important.

[00:30:26] That's surface structure of their deep structure.

[00:30:30] So they have a model of reality that results in them saying it's super important to write books.

[00:30:36] There are deletions present in that surface structure description of their simulation their model of reality.

[00:30:43] And so you probably many of you listening and watching right now how to figure it out.

[00:30:48] It's super important super important to whom more important than what less important than what.

[00:30:55] To write books how many books who writes these books who reads these books.

[00:31:01] And so the market researcher, the hypnotist, the therapist, the NLP practitioner would ask the person is super important for who to write books.

[00:31:11] Well, how important is it relative to what what's it more important than and then you begin to get these insights which it's almost like you have a few puzzle pieces in their surface structure.

[00:31:23] It's super important to write books.

[00:31:25] Super important to whom more important than what less important than what else or how many books who's writing these books at what time period what kind of books with genre books.

[00:31:34] And as the person answers these questions, they're filling out this puzzle piece to go from a few pieces like five pieces to 100 pieces and you see their picture their frame their simulation their model of reality their world view,

[00:31:48] and then I'm going to call it the deep structure.

[00:31:50] So those listening to us right now.

[00:31:52] Next time you have a conversation with someone, listen for deletions.

[00:31:57] Listen when they say things like it's really important or people should just stop.

[00:32:04] One of the cues is the word should.

[00:32:07] And you wonder just ask, should you say people should vote that way on the issue?

[00:32:11] Why should they?

[00:32:12] What happens if they don't interrogate friendly, the word should next time you hear it.

[00:32:17] Because that indicates there is a deletion in their description to you of their model of reality.

[00:32:26] And this is the way it's going to be so fascinating to understand people and allow people to reveal their worldview, their simulation, because again, each of us is not seeing here and touching tasting feeling the world.

[00:32:38] We're perceiving the world. And there's what Scott Adams calls a two movies on one screen effect where any two people can watch one same movie on one same screen in one same theater and come away with two different opinions on it.

[00:32:55] That it's almost as if you watched entirely different movies during that session how could it have possibly happened, right? And yet that's our model of reality.

[00:33:04] So the more we understand other people's models of reality, the more we can come inside of it and alter the person's behaviors and beliefs for their benefit for everyone's benefit, but operating within the rules of their reality, the rules of their simulation.

[00:33:20] So to speak, to take them from present state to desired state. The concept about the deletions, distortions and generalizations are really useful from a market research perspective and also from belief transformation perspective.

[00:33:35] By deletions, do you mean this that they're omitting it? I mean, they're just not telling you.

[00:33:40] That's right. When they describe their model of reality, they delete what would otherwise be a full representation of it. That's like the deep structure is everything that could have said that would describe their worldview and the surface structure is that which gets filtered up to the top.

[00:33:55] That's only a few things here. So if you ask questions about this, okay, every CEO should write a book.

[00:34:04] So that was like, okay, what is your worldview such as that you would say every CEO should write a book? Why every CEO? What about and you can be getting to interrogate that to try to get a broader understanding of what that person's worldview is.

[00:34:21] Now, every CEO would be generalization, right? So every CEO, can you think of a CEO who shouldn't write a book? Okay, then not every CEO should.

[00:34:30] So what type of CEO? Just CEO, what about Chief Finance Officers or Chief Operating Officers, Chief Marketing Officers. So we have there is a generalization and a deletion of the deep structure that has found its way up to the surface structure and what the person has said.

[00:34:45] So what is your worldview and maybe the accurate worldview is not every CEO should write a book. It's every C-suite member of publicly traded companies as well as the 500 largest companies as tracked by the S&P 500.

[00:35:02] In my opinion, ought to write a book so that they can share what their perspective, their insights, their understandings and their stories about their industry is so that they can leave a legacy to the next generation and have maximum authenticity and visibility and transparency with shareholders and stakeholders.

[00:35:20] And that's their deep structure.

[00:35:22] Wow.

[00:35:23] But that was, that would only be revealed through conversation and through reflection.

[00:35:28] Well, part of the surface structure is that we want to give off a perception too, right? So we keep it how we wish it was maybe or what we hope we're going to become and that's at the surface level.

[00:35:40] Yes. And people are good at lying to themselves and others when they're asked about their deep structure and that's why the trans work of hypnosis is so helpful because they drop the barriers when they're in that suggestible state.

[00:35:50] And if I have a much more honest conversation. No psychological traumas of the past digging up required.

[00:35:57] That's amazing really because I studied hypnosis to but the version I studied you kind of do dig into their past. And then you reframe it for them.

[00:36:08] So it's very interesting to hear another method for sure.

[00:36:13] I get into the applied hypnosis and future pacing. My applied hypnosis is what do they want to attain that they don't have? So it's a future, it's a forward.

[00:36:26] And sometimes we have to go into the past beliefs of what they believe and why they believe it. We have to reframe like someone like me can't achieve that kind of successful let's say weight loss or body image or physical transformation.

[00:36:39] That's been my entire life and you're right sometimes you need to adjust that belief. We talked about chain of beliefs, right? You need to fix those broken beliefs. And after you fix that the next thing you believe is this and then this and then this and then this.

[00:36:51] We just don't want to keep digging up from the past and digging and digging and digging because then we're not necessarily going forwards until they get the transformation and it's entirely consistent with your new world view and the new identity that they have.

[00:37:03] Otherwise, they'll be like that lottery winner stereotype character we've all heard of where they go from poverty to untold wealth to poverty in 18 months, which is a typical sort. It's because the person was the same at both places and so they had to return to their comfort level to what they were used to.

[00:37:26] We see this with diets and people who diet they have a yo-yo diet. And by the way, this is funny statistic we learned in the weight loss industry is that the more someone goes on a diet, the higher their body mass index is.

[00:37:41] So dieting is consistent with going the opposite direction of what you want as a dieter, which is interesting, which is very interesting because they lose muscle.

[00:37:52] It's because of the belief changing, resisting the new behavior because the identity hasn't been changed.

[00:38:03] If like I really need to go on a diet that means I need to change who I am as a person you change my habits and I don't want to. And so when they do that thing, you know that seven day crash diet or six months South Beach Diet or whatever.

[00:38:17] And then it's like, okay, it's done now. I can go back. They have a tendency to pendulum swing in the other direction. And so a year later after the diet, they're worse off than before they started it because they had to return.

[00:38:29] They had to go back to their average because they've done it this way. It's like if the law of averages takes effect. Whereas what hypnosis does, a hypnosis for weight loss is about identity changing and you become the type of person who eats in this way.

[00:38:46] You become the type of person who exercises this many times per week. It's who you are. And so the identity is given to the person without any habit change.

[00:38:58] We don't focus on habits we focus on identity. I become the person who does this because it's who I am.

[00:39:06] And then they just start doing it because it's who they are. And so the identity comes first and then the behaviors become habits. And it's not like you're even on a diet anymore. It's just, well, this is just what I do. This is just who I am.

[00:39:22] And then are we able to rationalize why we're doing that? Well, I eat that way because it's healthiest and blah, blah, blah. Lai, lai, lai, coke, coke, coke.

[00:39:30] Right. We're rationalizing the identity. And this is why hypnosis works so well is that identity can be given to someone in two or three sessions for a couple hundred dollars each and they never need it ever again because they completely changed who they are.

[00:39:43] And that's okay. But it's not a great business model, unfortunately for the hypnotist because they produce miracles for less than a thousand dollars. And that's not great from a business perspective.

[00:39:55] Unless you have excellent word of mouth, I guess.

[00:39:58] Yeah, which is how most hypnotists make their money. It's word of mouth recommendations, but that's not always reliable because sometimes they come in, sometimes not. And it's not like you can optimize or scale that.

[00:40:09] So it's like a hobby business for most hypnotists where they'll do it and like on weekends or a couple of weeknights, that sort of thing, because they enjoy it. They love helping people and they have the heart of a helper rather than I'm going to get rich as much as possible off these people.

[00:40:23] Folks like that will not reveal that what they're doing is hypnosis and LP or any of those practices. They will go into like personal development or the success industry where they realize if they can open enough loops and trigger enough childhood traumas, they can keep the person coming back for more.

[00:40:43] And so they will twist hypnosis, they will use it just enough to get people to keep coming back and their identity. They will give them is you're a self-improver. You're always buying courses and videos and workshops and cassette tapes that learn about improvement.

[00:40:57] So they will actually train them to become customers for life. It's hideous. But that's the best way to get rich as a hypnotist is by manipulating people into thinking they need more of your stuff. They just possible to do that. I don't recommend it for ethics reasons obviously.

[00:41:10] That's bad. I wouldn't recommend that either. I have to ask real quick, do you think the lottery winner that loses all their money, the diet or that keeps on dieting? Do you feel like these people have a core belief that they're not worthy of what it is that they want or like the lottery winner?

[00:41:29] I'm not a rich person and that's that core belief takes them back to where they were before. Or do you think it's just habits or beliefs?

[00:41:37] Habits are based on beliefs.

[00:41:39] Right.

[00:41:40] So if I believe I am wise with fortune, I'm a good steward of money, I'm going to act like it.

[00:41:47] If I believe rich people are evil and trying to rip us off and I find myself rich, I'm going to experience extreme cognitive dissonance.

[00:41:57] Right.

[00:41:59] So I'm probably going to act like a jerk with the money. I'm going to waste it, I'm going to blow up, I'm going to spend it, I'm going to get rid of it as fast as possible because my new reality is inconsistent with my beliefs.

[00:42:11] If I'm dieting and I have these habits that are based on belief that maybe, and this might be helpful to talk about where those beliefs come from.

[00:42:21] Well, when I was six years old, my mom told me that our family just can't lose weight.

[00:42:27] And so her belief is no matter what I do, I'm not going to be able to lose weight because of genetics or the bone density or body structure or BMI or whatever it's outside of my control.

[00:42:36] And then that person starts taking steps to try to control their appearance, their health and get their blood sugar and whatnot where they want it to be for longevity and quality of life.

[00:42:48] Their identity says this is not me, this is not who I am. It's like there's a craving to go back to the person you are.

[00:42:55] So when they complete the diet, maybe they lost five pounds, then they go and gain 10 to really reassert their identity as someone who believes that no matter what I do, I can't seem to lose weight.

[00:43:08] And so it's a self fulfilling prophecy but if you talk to people and have a conversation, this often won't be revealed through one on one conversation because it's the subconscious that's in control of the memories, the opinions, the beliefs, the values, the behaviors.

[00:43:22] So what one might need to do is reframe what you can control, what you can't control to neutralize that memory from the past that has given them the identity.

[00:43:31] People like me can't lose weight, no matter what I do, I won't lose weight.

[00:43:34] And then they try to do something to lose weight, but their belief is no matter what I do, I can't lose weight.

[00:43:39] And then they go off the diet, they gain back more than they lost. See, my worldview is entirely consistent with my reality and my simulation, my deep structure with people like me can't lose weight.

[00:43:50] I can't lose weight, I can't lose weight.

[00:43:52] And so I've been working with myself and it's the same with many other addictions, many other issues. I'm just not a type of person to get eight hours of sleep and then they stay up till two o'clock in the morning every night because I'm not the first half person who gets eight hours of sleep.

[00:44:08] I don't need that, I can't do that.

[00:44:10] My mind is always racing, that's their identity because they have said it to themselves and to other people so many times out loud and guess what?

[00:44:17] And I'm not so broken and written or so powerful is because their belief changes. If you say, for example, I'm Michelle Sims am right. You write that 15 times a day that affirmation statement, your brain's reading that enough time maybe six months of doing that 15 times a day

[00:44:33] writing it out that gets programmed into your brain in your brain says, Oh, I guess I'm that type of person.

[00:44:39] And I'm just saying that keep writing it.

[00:44:41] I need to go make that happen to be consistent with the identity that I have.

[00:44:45] And so the mind, the brain and perhaps beyond that will then start to almost alter your simulation of reality to make your belief as you've been telling yourself conscious consistent with what you see.

[00:44:58] And that's the experience happening. So people call that manifestation, or the law of attraction.

[00:45:03] But hypnosis explains why it happens the way that it does is because we have to return to what's consistent with our beliefs.

[00:45:09] So if you want different outcomes in life you have to believe different things. And that's hard. That's really hard.

[00:45:15] Hypnosis makes it easier.

[00:45:17] It is hard.

[00:45:19] Yeah, that's why I started pursuing hypnosis myself but yeah, it is fascinating.

[00:45:24] I'll ask you real quick. Do you practice self hypnosis at all? I mean, it doesn't sound like you need it but at some point in your life.

[00:45:30] Yeah, for different things. Yes.

[00:45:32] That's awesome. I was curious.

[00:45:34] Yeah, I tested different things to see if it can see how fast it could work how well it could work and I'm always surprised.

[00:45:40] And then I realized that I forget how well it works because it works so fast.

[00:45:45] So it's like it's not hard so I will forget to use it because it all had to put in so much effort for it to work.

[00:45:50] It's just a strange paradox where the brain assigns something is valuable effect to work really hard at it for it to work.

[00:45:57] So you get results that quick from self hypnosis?

[00:46:00] Yeah, so so quick that I forget to do it because it didn't have to put in much effort.

[00:46:03] Wow, that's amazing.

[00:46:05] But it also becomes a problem because I don't use I forget because part of my deep structure is if I work really hard at it and it finally works, it was valuable.

[00:46:15] And if I don't have to work really hard at it for a long time, it's probably not viable.

[00:46:20] Right.

[00:46:21] Even though that is a demonstrably false worldview.

[00:46:23] That's not true.

[00:46:25] I at least have that sense of awareness of self at least have that.

[00:46:30] Right.

[00:46:31] Yes.

[00:46:32] And a lot of us have that too.

[00:46:34] If you don't work hard then the outcome is not going to be good.

[00:46:39] Well, I thank you so much.

[00:46:41] I appreciate it.

[00:46:42] How can people find you if they've been listening and are like man I want to get a hold of Joshua.

[00:46:46] What's the best way?

[00:46:48] Yes.

[00:46:49] So I have quite a few fun shenanigans over on Twitter now called the X platform at Joshua Lysik.

[00:46:54] I have over 300 videos on book writing persuasive writing and of course hypnosis and hypno writing on my YouTube channel.

[00:47:01] I'm on Instagram at Joshua Lysik, but my business website is Lysik ghost writing and you can read a number of books that I've written experiences of the authors that have worked with me and some of their case studies of what their books were able to achieve for them and unlock opportunities that they would not have otherwise been able to achieve without me writing a book for them.

[00:47:19] That's wonderful.

[00:47:21] Truly thank you.

[00:47:22] It's been fascinating listening to you.

[00:47:24] I love hearing all this stuff.

[00:47:25] I would like to dig more, but I know you've got to go and I don't want to hold you up.

[00:47:30] So thank you so much.

[00:47:31] Thank you for your wisdom and sharing it with us.

[00:47:34] My pleasure.

[00:47:35] Thank you.

[00:47:36] As we wrap up today's episode, I hope Joshua sharing his knowledge experience and wisdom has helped you in some way.

[00:47:43] I think the main takeaway for me was how intertwined ghost writing and hypnosis can be.

[00:47:48] And I had never really heard of hypno writing before, but after Joshua explained it, it was kind of eye-opening.

[00:47:54] If you think about that book you read that literally changed how you think of things and just blew you away, it made a lot of sense.

[00:48:01] I also thought Joshua did an excellent job explaining the difference between pseudo-hypnosis that we all think about.

[00:48:08] You know, someone barking like a dog on stage and being embarrassed versus the real therapeutic hypnosis is completely different.

[00:48:16] I also like how he explained the chain of beliefs that you sort of work your way backwards to arrive at where you want to be.

[00:48:23] And this is a technique that he teaches in persuasive writing, but as he mentioned it sort of works that way with hypnotherapy too.

[00:48:30] So what stood out to you?

[00:48:32] I'd love to hear from you.

[00:48:34] As always, I hope this episode helps at least one person and with that, I hope you have a blessed week, my friends.

[00:49:03] Please watch me directly at thebeautyandthemess.com. Thanks for listening.