So in this episode we're talking to Benjamin Ryan, who's a hypnotherapist from Test Happy, we heard Benjamin talking at an industry conference a few weeks ago, and so we thought he'd make a great guest and we invited him on. So Benjamin, thanks for joining us.

No problem. Thank you for inviting me.

And welcome for me as well.

Thank you. Nice, nice to meet you. We've, we've spoken a couple of times, like over the phone and stuff, and this is the first time we've sort of actually spoke face to face, sort of, you know, over Zoom and, whatever. So yeah. Nice to meet you,

Hope I'm not too scary.

Well, likewise.

So, Ben, I, I'm a little bit, I know what hypnosis is, but for many people, They don't really understand what hypnosis is. They think people are gonna be put to sleep and that sort of thing. I would really like people to understand what hypnosis actually is.

Okay. It is, as you've sort of alluded to, it's not what people think it is. You see Darren Brown and, uh, Paul McKenna and people like that doing some sort of interesting things and, making it look like people are going to sleep. And it's, that's a way of doing hypnosis. That's a way of using hypnosis in a very showy sort of, uh, interesting stage kind of way. But that's just a very small slice of what it is really. Hypnosis is just a, a state of mind to get people in, and it doesn't have to be like a relaxed state of mind. It doesn't have to be a sleepy state of mind. You can do it that way, but it's just a way of, creating automatic responses in people to suggestion. Really all, all there is is suggestion and automatic response. And if you give suggestions and you get automatic responses, which happens all the time anyway, this is one of the. Conversations I have with my clients on a regular basis is that we're all doing hypnosis all the time. We're all suggesting things to people, and sometimes people respond automatically. That's exactly what happens with hypnosis. Except with hypnosis. You're doing it on purpose. You're making suggestions to generate those automatic responses. So whether it's, uh, a stage hypnotist telling people to forget their name or get stuck to something, or whether it's a hypnotherapist saying, you're not gonna be afraid of spiders or driving tests. In my case, Whatever it is. The idea is to make suggestions and have the person respond in a way that, sometimes it feels, uh, completely involuntary. Sometimes it feels like it's, it's not entirely involuntary, but it's not just them doing it. Like the suggestions feel very compelling and it, there's never a case where someone makes a suggestion that, that you can't resist. Someone suggested, you know, go and rob a bank or something like that. Unless, Predisposed or inclined to rob a bank in the first place, you're not gonna go and do it. You know, anything against your ethical or moral code is not gonna not gonna land, and you're gonna resist those suggestions. But when you go and see a therapist, obviously they're gonna be making suggestions that are to your benefit. They're all things. You are there to. Have these benefits and to have these suggestions made. So when a suggestion is made by the therapists that you are gonna have this ability or stop doing a thing or behave in a certain way, and that's why you're there in the first place. The compulsion is strong to follow that suggestion and a lot of the times that will feel entirely automatic. Does that, Does that make sense?

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And it's like you said, it's, it's not there. Showy bit that we've probably seen hypnosis we're more familiar with, but it, but it's about those suggestions and what you, what you.

Absolutely. And you know, the, it, it does work the same. You, you came along, uh, saw me talking at the, at the conference, and I did some of that stuff. Yeah. As you saw, you know, sticking people's hands together and all of that. But hopefully my demonstration was, was sort of framed in the right way. You could see this is exactly the same thing, sticking someone's hands together, exactly the same structure as telling someone you know, not to be nervous about something or to have more confidence. Or to stop telling themselves stories that are unhelpful, you know, which is a a, a lot of the time in a therapy room, that's what we're doing. We're getting people to change the stories they tell themselves and stop telling themselves the unhelpful ones, so,

Oh yeah. And that's brilliant because unhelpful thoughts, unhelpful stories is something that we talk about all the time. so, and they're always the most popular. Posts on our social media. So when I give examples of unhelpful thoughts, those are the, those are the posts that people react and they're, they're the ones that driving instructors share and they're the ones that nervous drivers say, That's me. That sounds like me.

Yeah. It's almost always the case when we're finding it difficult to do things. At least an element of it is, uh, to is because we're telling ourselves stories. And those stories might be things we're not even aware, we're telling ourselves, you know, they're things based on past experiences or things that other people have told us in the past. It could be, you know, a simple thing like a, a. Parent or an authority figure or something once said a thing that was an idea and that idea's gone into your head. And again, that's a kind of hypnosis, they've made the suggestion that, passing your driving test is a really difficult thing to do or whatever, and you've taken that suggestion on board. And as you're doing your driving test, you're telling yourself this story. You don't even know you are telling yourself the story, yeah, a lot of these stories come from bad habits that, that we picked up. We can create our own stories, like I specialize in working with people that have failed at least a couple of tests. I work with all sorts of people. I work with people that have passed. I worked with people that have never driven before. But, um, a lot of the people that I work with, they've failed a couple of tests, and now they're telling themselves their own story. That they've been through this experience. They've found it traumatic. They've found it stressful, um, and now they're telling themselves. If I fail this test, I'm gonna have this whole nightmare again. I'm gonna have to spend all this extra money. I'm gonna have to do this, I'm gonna have to do that. And it's gonna take months to get a test. Especially at the moment, you know, the, the waiting lists for tests are horrendous. So it adds even more pressure to people to, to pass this time. And it's a vicious circle. You know, the, the more experiences they have of not passing their test, the bigger the story gets, the more pressure gets put on, the louder the story that they're telling themselves. You know?

And it becomes like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It does. Yeah.

And that's great. I've never thought about that before, that actually that process, which we hear all the time as well, is almost like somebody doing bad hypnotherapy to themselves,

is. Yeah, it

not that they're bad at hypnotherapy, but is a bad version. It's using it in an unhelpful way,

Yeah. I mean, what.

the same process.

One of my mentors, loves to say to people we don't hypnotize people, We de hypnotize people, you know, cuz nine times outta 10 we're undoing the programming that they've done to themselves or had done to them, or life has done to them. And we are using just the same mechanism that got them in this state in the first place to, to sort of undo that thought process and undo those behaviors. So it is, you're absolutely right. Yeah.

Oh, I love that. That's, that's a light bulb moment for me. I'm just bookmarking that as a light. So

Good. Good. Well, you know, please pleased to provide some value, you know,

Yeah.

and I'm, I'm very much, of the opinion that this stuff is for everyone, that we should share this stuff, and, and I like coming on podcasts or. Talking to people at the conference. I was speaking after talking, doing the talk. At that conference, I spoke to people for ages, people coming up, asking questions, and how does hypnosis work and how do you work with drivers and how do you do this? My attitude to it is, first of all, yeah, this is not secret knowledge. This is for everyone. This is stuff that everyone should know. You should learn this stuff in school really for psychological wellbeing, how to manage your own thoughts on that, So good. I'm pleased it was a light bulb moment for you. This is, one of my aims in life is to share this stuff,

And I think that's the case, isn't it? It's, it's about being open and I suppose that. I think me being the driving instructor, getting people to actually realize, well, yeah, I don't do this because of this. And actually coming out in the first place and saying, Look, this is, they class it as a problem. Don't really think it's a problem. I just think it's a, something that needs to be worked on. It's really interesting that. Some people, it takes them ages to actually realize, Oh yeah, it is. Yeah. I don't do that, do I?

Yeah. Yeah. I

that's where you would come in, wouldn't you? At that point?

Yeah. I mean, it's one of the, certainly one of the things that I do is to try and get people to examine their own, psychological processes. Everyone's unique, but there's certain frameworks that describe lots of different behavior that's very common, and sometimes put in that framework in front of people and saying, Look, this is like the stories thing. For instance, how people tell themselves stories. Sometimes it's just enough as, as we've just seen, you talk to people about how people tell stories to themselves and how they structure them and construct those stories, and that's enough for them to look at their own process and go, Yeah, that's what I'm doing. I never realized I thought what I was doing. Was, making myself nervous or, or messing it up or getting in a rut or whatever, whatever language they want to use for their anxiety and, and no, yeah, that's the result of what they're doing, but what they're actually doing is just telling themselves stories or, various other sort of psychological principles that they're, putting into practice that, that are undermining what they're actually trying to do. Understanding how we think is the first step to changing how we think, you know?

Mm. And that goes back to everything starts from you, doesn't it?

Oh, totally. A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. That's true from beginning to end in a therapy session. The therapist can only tell you what they know and what their position on an idea is. Ultimately, the client has to engage with a therapist, listen to the ideas, think them through, apply them to their own thought processes and their own patterns, and then go and put them in action. Therapists can't do any of that stuff. That's, that's entirely on the client, it, it is a big thing when you first start working with people, doing therapy with people who not, you know, I'm sure the same is true for driving instructors and people in many industries. There's a, there's a kind of, uh, nervousness about what if this person doesn't get the result that they're after. You know, I've been working with this person and trying to help them out, and what if they go and try and do this thing and, and they don't get the result that we've been working on. And we kind of take it on ourselves, one of my good mentors, a chat called Bob Burns. Really interesting guy. If you're at all interested in therapy and especially hypnosis and hypnotherapy, you should check out Bob Burns, uh, and his technique, the swan. But it was working with Bob that I, I kind of came to the conclusion cuz Bob's absolutely upfront about it. He's like, that's not, that's on the client. You can do everything, everything you can to try and help the client, but ultimately they have to take on responsibility. And when you get clients through that, understand that the, it is their responsibility and that they're the ones that have to actually still take the action, then they really do go through these psych. Processes and examine their own behavior, and they're the ones that get the results that we're after.

It's really important that they don't think that they can pay their money, get given a magic wand

Yeah.

and not doing anything. It's, it's absolutely crucial to the process if you want to. Change something. You have to make some effort and you have to engage with it.

Absolutely. Yeah.

and, and really you are the person who has to do it. You can't pay someone else to do it for you.

Yeah, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. There's an old joke in therapy in general actually. My girlfriend's a social worker and, and she said, Oh, I heard a social worker joke today. And it was the, essentially the same joke, which is, how many therapists does it take to change your light bulb? Only one, but the light bulb really has to want to change, And it's, this is true. This is absolutely how it is. The client has to get involved and they have to really want to do what it is that you are trying to, trying to do with them.

Yeah. A big step in the process. I think that one, Yeah. That actual making a decision.

It is,

I think it's really relevant what we are talking about at this point, because it's one, we've started off by talking about what hypnosis is in the start, but then we've also gone on to look at some of the processes, but then it's a bit like a driving instructor. I can tell you how to do things. I've got all the tools and techniques to help you do those things. But at the end of the day, the only person that can really drive is yourself, and it, it always starts from you, doesn't it? I think that we live in a society where we're given things and everything's really quick to get, you know, And it's. Well, some things you're gonna have to work for

Yeah. Well, I mean, welcome to the life of a therapist. A stream of people walking through the door going, Where's your magic wand? What, you know, come and fix me? And it's like, uh, I'll help where I can, but you know, you are ultimately, you have to fix yourself. You are the one that has to actually go out and do it

Yeah. Putting the work, So sticking with stories.

Mm-hmm.

We have a lot of people that we work with who they're telling themselves stories about what other people are thinking. This happens a lot with learner drivers and a lot with nervous drivers, and they know they can drive. However, they're really worried about what the person driving behind them thinks, or somebody in front of them. They're worried about stalling and what other drivers are gonna think of them as a result. They're worried about getting in the way. They're worried about doing maneuvers when other people can see them. So they don't mind doing it when they're on their own, but they, So this constant. Telling themselves stories about the judgements and the thoughts of others, which are clearly made up some of it might be past experience because of what they've heard other people say or do. And most of the time it's a made up story in their head. And you mentioned that as that's something that you have people come to you for. So

totally. Yeah. I mean,

do, how can hypnotherapy help with.

Well, I will get to that point in a moment, but you, you hit on something really interesting, which is that you said about, one of the things people would come and see me for one of the things that, uh, people sort of talk to you about is concern about other people. There's three things really that. I see people for once they've passed their test cause a good percentage of people come to me, they pass their test and they're still still having issues and that's motorway driving. Is one of the things cuz there's not enough, unfortunately, opportunity for learner drivers to learn about this stuff. Town center driving, busy traffic and all that, which there is the opportunity for, uh, for learners, drivers to learn, but it's still intimidating. But the third one is exactly what you say. It's worrying about other people and, uh, specifically maneuvers, you know, parallel parking and manoevering, in and around car parks and that kind of thing. Usually the sort of approach I take with people is, to try and get them to think of it in terms of, they have a job to do and they need to focus on the job. And what other people think is none of their business, you know? And that's a, is a good principle in life, to be honest. I think it is a good psychological principle to sort of, uh, to help with confidence and to help with navigating your life in general. What other people think of you is none of your business. You can't do anything about it. You can't influence it, or you can, you can't change it. You can influence it by how you conduct your. the only way of conducting yourself is to act ethically, do the best job you can, and not worry about other people. Ironically, by not worrying about other people, their opinion improves of you. These people that we meet that are constantly trying to please other people and constantly trying to keep other people happy, they tend to be less popular than the people who go out and just do their own thing. They act as ethically as they can. They act in the best way they can. And if other people don't like it, other people don't like it, not everyone's gonna like us, who cares? So it's kind of instilling that kind of mentality specifically around driving that, I know I'm a good driver. I know I can do these maneuvers also, I know that everyone messes up sometimes, and everyone does mess up sometimes, and everyone makes mistakes and everyone does it in front of other people When you came and saw me at the conference recently, there's a bit of the sh uh, show. I use the word show. I'm not a stage hypnotist, but it is a structured performance, so to speak. And the first half of it is very structured and it's not quite scripted, but it's bullet pointed and I know the points I need to hit and all that we get to about halfway through, and it's based on what the audience are responding to. And I don't know which way it's gonna go, and I don't know. You know, if I've got a very responsive audience, then it's gonna go great and I'm gonna be able to demonstrate things like sticking people to stuff or getting them to forget their names or, some other sort of, interesting stuff But if I've got a, an unresponsive audience, either they're just not participating, sometimes the environment's just not right and they're not feeling comfortable in the auditorium for whatever reason. Or there's technical issues or the, If the audience is small, there's only, you know, half a dozen people in the audience, then they may feel very self-conscious. So sometimes we, you know, I get to that part and I've not got anyone that I can work with, And that's when I first. Started doing talks to groups. That was, that was a pretty terrifying thing. I get halfway, I get to the end of the structured bit that I can practice and now I'm kind of improvising. I'm kind of, I know what I'm gonna do if it all goes well. Cause it's similar to what I do in a therapy room, just adapted for being more visual. But if it all goes wrong, what am I gonna do? So far, touch wood, it's never gone so badly wrong that I have to, do a song and dance number or start a comedy routine or anything like that. But, um, but it's, you know, it's a pretty terrifying thing. The mentality is the same. Sometimes it's gonna go wrong sometimes, and inevitably, if I keep doing talks to groups of people, inevitably at some point I'm gonna get 15 minutes in. I've done the done the structured bit and there's just nothing left for me to do. And I'm gonna lucky for me, as you've probably, uh, gathered already, I can talk until the cows come home. So, so I'll just do a monologue for the rest of the thing about hypnosis and, all the things that I'm interested in. But the principal's the same. Is that, what other people think doesn't matter. And if I get up there and there's 50 people in the audience and they all think I'm an idiot, well, you know, the performance is gonna be over soon enough. Those people are gonna go away. I'm never gonna see them again. Who cares? Even more so when you're driving a car and there's one or two people around and you stall the car and you're never gonna see those people again. And even if you do see those people again, they're not gonna remember that it was you that stalled the car. So sort of getting people into that mentality, into that, frame of mind where, you know, it just doesn't matter what other people think, you know, it is, it's really of no importance. We all mess up sometimes and, take it on the chin move. Um, next thing. Sometimes, uh, people feel so mortified by these experiences and they feel so uncomfortable or so upset by them that the next time they're in one of those situations, the they start telling themselves these stories and. They're worrying about what is the consequence gonna be? But now they're not worried about doing the thing. They're worried about worrying about the thing. They're worried about the aftermath. They're worried about what's, So getting people out of that story, getting people out of that mindset, If I work with people for phobias, which is, fairly common, you tell people you're a hypnotherapist and they'll tell you what they're scared of and try and get you to sort it out for them. So, when I work with phobias, nine times out of 10, when we start breaking it down like that, they're not actually scared of spiders. They're scared of their reaction to spiders and how horrible it's been in the past. And if you can remove the fear of that reaction, All of a sudden they start examining what their reaction to spiders actually is, and they realize that as long as, you know, no one's trapping them in a dark room or uh, throwing a spider at them or any of these terrible things that people think might be funny. And that's what gives people phobias in the first place. As long as someone's not doing that, actually they're not bothered. If there's a spider on the wall, then I'll bothered if their hand's right next. Maybe they're not bothered if I get 'em to go and poke the spider and maybe they're not bothered if I get 'em to put a glass over the spider and all these things where, you know, they might have been terrified at the beginning of the session that the idea that they'd even be in a room with a spider. Once you remove that fear of the fear, so to speak, um, Now they can examine their feelings about it. And there's a similar, process going on with a lot of people who are afraid of maneuvering and afraid of other people around. It's not the other people they're afraid of. It's not the messing up, they're afraid of. It's their reaction to that situation, should it happen based on past experiences. So,

I, I love that because it's the cause and effect that, you know, what they're doing is affecting them in different ways and it's how does that affect them?

Yeah. Yeah.

we control that part?

Yeah. And it's a vicious circle. It is a vicious circle. You have a bad experience, now you're afraid of having another bad experience. Now you've had two bad experiences. And it builds up, So breaking that cycle, turning the vicious cycle into a virtuous cycle, you know, that's, That's kind of my, my aim with it. And when they, when they do then have some good experiences, testing with spiders is, is actually not that difficult because most people can go in the garden and find one, go in the shed and find one testing with a driving concern, phobia, whatever it is, is a lot harder cuz they have to actually go out in the car and, have somewhat, if they're a learner, have someone with them. And the, you know, there's, there's a lot more involved. So, sometimes we just have to say, Okay, you know, that's the end of the session. We feel like we've done some good, go out in the world and see what happens and, we'll find out and we'll have a session next week and we'll find out how good our work was between now and then. If you can create this situation where they go out and have that sit, have that experience, and. Yeah, actually that wasn't so bad and I did stall the car and I didn't freak out and I didn't panic about it. Now you're creating a virtuous cycle, and the more of those experiences they have, the easier it becomes for them. So eventually they, they forget. They forget. They used to be afraid of that. They forget that they used to be bothered by, it becomes just no. Like for most of us as drivers, it's no big deal. So I stalled the car. So there was, someone stood there and they laughed. So what? You know, So I was in busy traffic and I, I didn't mean to, I was in the wrong lane and I cut someone up and well, you know, it happens, I make it made a mistake, no one died. It's all fine,

yeah, and it's trying to get the positive experiences to start over writing the negative

Yeah, it is, if people can have enough positive experiences, it will do exactly that. It will wipe over the negative experiences. One of the suggestions that I, um, give people when, when we are doing a. Session on specifically this, but there's a load of other stuff. It's, it's useful for, uh, one of the suggestions that I give people is to sort of imagine what it's gonna be like in six months, in a year, in five years time, when you suddenly have that thought of, ah, I used to be afraid of that. You know, I, I, I haven't been afraid of that in years now, that's, remembering back to when I had a hypnotherapy session and, and I did that thing and I. That in itself is quite a positive, uh, quite a powerful suggestion. If you can get someone to imagine, what it's gonna be like in the future, it sort of gives the subconscious brain this, uh, subconscious mind, this, um, experience. It gives it that opportunity to kind of store that away as a memory. Common knowledge, common wisdom amongst hypnotherapist. I don't entirely believe this, but there's a, there's a truth about it, is that the subconscious mind can't tell the difference between an actual experience and a vividly imagined one. And I think actually it can tell the difference. But still there's a power to a vividly imagined experience, you know? Um, and a lot of the time vividly imagined experiences are what gives us phobias or what builds up these stories, but we can just use the same mechanism to undo that and give them a vividly imagined experience of everything being great and everything, six months down the road, or even, even next week, you know, even tomorrow have a vividly imagined experience. If you go out in the car tomorrow and all of a sudden you're not afraid of this thing that you were yesterday, what's that like,

I'm just fascinated just listening and it's so interesting and I just love the fact of being a driving instructor, but some of the things that we do now, over the last, or I dunno, probably about 10 years, we've changed the way we teach and we, you know, we've gone to a more client centered approach and we've tapping into people's thoughts and feelings and we are more aware of them now. Just listening to you there going, this is, their experience, their vision experience is this, but we can actually change it round and go, Well, what would happen if

Yeah.

this way? And it's, there is some similarities. I know you, you do a lot more, but it's, it's quite interesting from a, a driving instructor's point of view how we teach people.

Yeah. Oh, there, there's a lot of similarities. I'm a big advocate of, um, going off on a tangent, so do bring me back to, to driving and human therapy. I'm a big fan of like, memory systems, like mnemonic memory systems. I dunno if you know about how, uh, mnemonic memory systems work and there's the mnemonics that we all know, like, how to remember, the order of the colors of the rainbow or the order of the planets or things like that. But that's the tip of the iceberg. And there's a lot of ways we can use pneumonics for learning all sorts of things. Learning, things for the theory test. I, I help people. Something I don't really advertise because I don't do that much of it, but it's, the thing I have done is helping people to learn, um, sets of, uh, sets of statistics or sets, breaking distances and things that they might need for the theory test. And we break it down into a mnemonic system so that instead of having to remember it, all they need to remember is the pneumonic. And then I can figure out the answer to, uh, to questions. But this is, you know, again, this is a thing that's sort of coming into teaching across the board really is, you don't have to just learn everything by, sit in front of a blackboard, teacher write something down, you write it down a hundred times. There's a very old fashioned way doing things that has certain applications that it works for, but there's much better ways of learning lots of different things,

I don't think we did go off on a tangent cause it was, you dunno how relevant that was to our conversation 10 minutes before we started talking.

Yeah.

I think it's fantastic, but I suppose my next question is, is how do we then deal with, how would someone like yourself deal with someone? I don't know. Um, think of something. I think mirrors was the thing you mentioned at the show. How would you deal with someone that just, just doesn't check their mirrors?

Okay. Um, I mean, there's a few approaches and obviously everyone is unique and individual and not everything's gonna work for everyone, but the most basic thing, If you can do it without being patronizing, is to do a kind of, like a, a queue system. Um, uh, Pavlo, that's the name I was trying to think of, Pavlov's dogs, that the thing about they, ring a bell where you get the dog to salivate. I mean, you could literally do the same thing. You could have a clicker or, um, a noise that you make, or a word that you say, and you could, through a gradual process, get them to automatically respond to the, to the noise that you are making or the action that you are doing. And then tie that action to the thing that you want to actually cue them cuz you're not gonna be sitting in the car with them. Maybe not on the test. Maybe on the test, you're certainly not gonna be sitting in the car with them as they drive around town. And, you know, once they've passed their test, that's it. They're on their own. They've got to remember to do this stuff. Um, so you could, it's totally plausible to set up a Pavlovian, kind of response to, uh, if I'm changing gears for instance, you know that one of the times you might want to or always check mirrors if you're changing your speed. So it could, you could tie that to every time you change gear or every time you go into second gear, whether that's from first to second or fourth to second. However you are, where whatever direction you are moving, every time you go into second gear, you check your mirrors. So you could build up cues like that, and it could be done at entirely as a hypnotic thing. Obviously I have the advantage of, sitting in a therapy room with someone and, much as I've said, hypnosis is not about closing your eyes and being relaxed necessarily. It's just a way of doing it. If I've got someone sat with me and their eyes are closed and they're in a very relaxed, very responsive state, I can give them post hypnotic suggestions, you know, and the post hypnotic suggestion is, every time X happens, Y is going to be your response. And. Again, just to reassure people, if I said it every time X happens, you're gonna go and rob a bank. They're not gonna do that because they're, they're still gonna go, No, I'm not a bank robber. That's against my moral ethical codes. But nonetheless, if, if every time X happens, they have the thought, Oh, check your mirrors. Why would they not? And if they're sitting there saying, Oh, I remember that. I'm supposed to check my mirrors, but I'm gonna be bloody minded about it and I'm just not gonna do it. Well, again, that's not on you. That's on them. They're choosing not to do that, and there's nothing we can do about it. So there is that sort of extra layer in a session that you can do, but that's, It's not necessary, it can be done, It can absolutely be done with other ways. And I certainly class that as hypnosis, again, suggestion and response. If you can create a situation where your clicker is the suggestion or the word you say is the suggestion or whatever, that's the suggestion. The automatic response is that they remember to check their mirrors. Well then we've, we've done hypnosis with them, so, so we're all good.

Brilliant. Thank you for that. Yes, hopefully, hopefully some of my learners will watch you. Yeah,

Hopefully, yeah, I mean, if, if you come up with any techniques, I'm, I'm fascinated by this stuff as well, so

Oh God.

come up with

Do you want, me to tell you one?

Yeah, go for it.

the the funniest thing ever. Sorry. I'm gonna, I'm going off in one now. That's

go for it.

so this young lad, um, wouldn't check his mirrors. He just didn't see the reason to check him at all. Um, and we spoke about it. He, he knew why you should check him. But Kev, every time I check my mirror, it, there's nothing.

Right,

Why do I check him? So conversation is like, ok. So anyway, we had the little conversations with driving around and he was into Love Island at the time. And we had a chat about love and I wasn't into Love Island at all. And I said, ok, well tell me what you enjoy about it. He said, Well, okay, it's got be the girls, isn't it? And I said, what, what I want you to do is put a picture on each of those mirrors so when you, you know, we're coming up to something, what I'm gonna do is ask you to, you know, just look up Amber or look up Crystal,

Yeah. Yeah.

And he. If that's a bit weird, isn't it? I said, Well, let's try, Let's see what happens. Just give it a go if it works.

Yeah.

And we came up to a, I says, So how's, how's the girls doing? He went, Yeah, Amber's doing right. Crystal's doing fine. Oh, Crystal's got a motorbike.

Brilliant. That's perfect. That's absolutely perfect, because that will become ingrained. He'll do that enough times that eventually he'll start looking, even though he's taking the pictures off, he'll just be in the habit of doing it. And I think there's an, there's an extra layer to that that we didn't mention, which is that, you know, there's an emotion there. He likes these girls. They make him feel something. And anytime you can tie a suggestion to an emotion, you amplify it. If you can, create an emotion of like, in, in driving lessons, uh, It People turn up for driving lessons. They turn up for their driving tests. They turn up for, learning these things. They're very important things, and their emotions are heightened anyway. They're already in emotional state. They're, which means they're already very suggestible. If you can direct those emotions and you can, uh, tie those emotions specifically to an action, specifically to a suggestion, then you're gonna amplify that suggestion that's that's gonna go in. You know, even quicker, even deeper to the subconscious mind to just be an automatic response to the situation. So, yeah. Brilliant. I'm gonna remember that. I'm gonna, I'm gonna try and find, try and find parallels to that next time I get someone who can't remember to check the mirrors.

So Benjamin, how do people find you? Where can people find you if they want some help from you?

Well, the easiest way is to visit my website, test happy.co.uk. On there you can find my phone number. There's a form to send me a message. If people want to, email me, just Benjamin app test happy.co.uk. That's fine. Get in touch and, I'm happy to, I don't do hard, so I'm happy when people just throw me up and ask a few questions and then, they can go away and think about it. Is, is what I do of interest to them, is what I do of used to them. I'm always happy to hear from people and, talk to 'em for five, 10 minutes, see if this is something that might be useful. Book a consultation if this is something that's gonna, uh, that they think is gonna help them. So, yeah, I think that's probably the easiest way is through my website.

Fantastic, and we'll make sure that we've got the link for that in the show notes. And so you work over Zoom and you can help with driving nerves. Confidence test nerves, but also remembering things for your theory test

Yeah. Yeah, I mean the whole lot basically, I, I summarize what I do is anything you think you should be able to do but can't or anything you think you should be able to stop doing but can't, then that sort of falls within my remit of, uh, and that goes for other things as well. Driving, you know, is what I kind of specialize in. But, I see people for all sorts of things. So, someone phones me up and says, Oh, I've got this interesting issue that I wanna work on. Let's book a session. Let's do it.

Brilliant. So yeah, I just wanna say thank you. It was, it's been a pleasure. I like, just love listening to the stories and yeah. Brilliant. Thank

Excellent. Well, thanks for having me on. It's been an absolute pleasure. Lovely to meet you. And, I'm sure we'll speak again soon.

I'm sure that we'll speak again soon.

Excellent, excellent. Thanks very much.

a lot Benjamin. Thank you.

So I really enjoyed that conversation with Benjamin and I'm really grateful to him for. Coming on and giving up his time to talk to us like that. Yeah, I found it brilliant. I found it. So enthraulling and I just loved listening to him Well, I guess that's a good thing for hypnotherapist. But he didn't put me to sleep. And we found out what hypnosis was all about. So that's, that's good. Yeah. And. And that idea that actually when you bring it down to its simplest form, It's suggestion. And suggestions are around us. All the time. Other people are suggesting things But also we suggest things to ourselves. Exactly and, you know, that's the. What they try to do is to reverse the thoughts that people have I can't pass my test Well let's change that thought and thought may well have been going around in your head. I can't pass my test. I can't pass my test. I can't pass my test. But changing that to I can pass my test may take a little longer but you know just changing that thought process Yeah definitely And that Light bulb I'd say that that really was a light bulb for me that idea that actually people are using Exactly the same process when they're telling themselves those stories again and again and again And every time you tell the story it becomes stronger It becomes more embedded And that's a form of hypnosis In a really unhelpful way And so what Benjamin saying that he's doing is just reversing all of that That made so much sense to me It sounded quite simple Didn't it He did make it sound quite simple But then you think about it and it's like Well yeah That is isn't it You have those Unhelpful thoughts Well what is the helpful thought that's opposite to Then have that more often. Yeah. And we often say when you know anybody who works with us, we'll say all over the place, thoughts are not facts. And, you know, those stories that you tell yourself so often they get embellished. They get added to, they become more entertaining almost. They're not always true. They're not factual very often. Her and look at the process as well That's one thing I'm going to take away from that is I'm going to start looking at the process that people have, you know, what is their process for dealing with a situation, whatever that may be, It's a maneuver or. Um, driving on a motorway. Um, yeah, what's the process that, they've that going along with? I think that'd be really interesting too. Unravel. Yeah. Maybe find out a bit more about that would be a good thing. Detective. comes back to detective work and reflection. This is both of those things. One of the other points that Benjamin made, which really resonated with me was that when somebody has got a phobia, it's often. Their reaction. That they're trying to avoid is often not. So he used the example of a spider, so somebody sees a spider and actually when it really boils down to it, Somebody is more scared of their reaction to the spider. Then they are of the spider itself. And that rings true for do maneuvers. That rings true for driving tests. But the other thing that, that. Reminded me It's people who have panic attacks. And it's really clear that actually people will do anything to, Having a panic attack is a horrible experience. and people become more scared of the panic attack. Than anything else. Yeah. And so that's exactly the same thing that trying to avoid having those really uncomfortable unpleasant feelings, physical feelings and emotions. Recognizing that, being able to unpick that and recognizing that it is the response, that actually is what people are most scared of. And just remember as well, you. It's not a magic wand. You have to put some of the work in yourself. And we got all these tools tricks and whatever we can But it's down to the individual at the end of the day to go away and practice and put them into operation, I suppose. Yeah. And it doesn't matter who you're seeking help from when it comes to. Well, when it comes to nerves, anxiety, phobias, not just in driving in anything, it doesn't matter who you're seeking help from actually it's you who has to do the work. So somebody else can introduce you to the tools. They can help you see some patterns in your stories or your processes. But in the end, it's you, who has to put that effort and engagement in? Yeah, like you say, there is no magic We love it. If that was, yeah, it would be really good. So we hope that you found that episode is as interesting as we did. We really enjoyed it. All of Benjamin's details are in the show notes, along with our contact details as well. If you enjoyed the episode. Then don't forget to leave us a review. And share the episode with others. And so all that leaves us to do is until next time, have a great day, whatever you're