Become Who You Want!
In the May 25th 2017 edition of the Wall Street Journal appeared an article on Mike Tyson entitled “Lessons from Mike Tyson’s Trainer” written by Brenda Cronin. Yes, that Mike Tyson – hugely and justifiably vilified, and yet arguably the fiercest boxer ever. I remember frequently watching Tyson box in the early 80’s. It wasn’t so much ‘boxing’ he did as ‘mauling.’ I really watched, not to see his boxing technique, but to see whether his opponent would last the first round. Mike would routinely knock out opponents within seconds. In fact, he won his first 19 professional fights by knockout, 12 of them in the first round, all between 30 and 52 seconds! I was amazed at his sheer ferocity!
I get that Tyson was not, and likely never will be, the model of comportment. In fact, some of his behavior was criminal; behavior which landed him in prison. I would argue given the circumstances of his youth, he was odds-on to end up behaving badly, if not criminally. But that is not why he is the subject of this post. In fact, it is exactly the opposite.
In his newest book, Tyson recounts lessons from his trainer and surrogate father, Cus D’Amato, who took in Tyson as a youth and eventually adopted Tyson when 16-year-old Tyson’s mother died. According to Tyson, D’Amato “went from taking me, a guy with no self-esteem, to a megalomaniac. ” Argue all you want about the healthiness of instilling an excess amount of confidence in anyone, but the fact remains that D’Amato got Tyson to exactly where he wanted – the Heavyweight Champion of the World. As the article relays, “For Mr. D’Amato, psychological training was more important than physical conditioning. To build his fighters’ confidence, he bombarded them with encouragement and had them recite mantras.” Tyson continued “As a 13-year-old and 14-year-old kid, he would sit me down and put me under hypnosis and he would tell me that I’m the most ferocious fighter that God ever created. I’d go through all those affirmations: Day by day, in every way, I’m getting better and better.”
If you’ve ever read my past blogs or attended one of my lectures or classes, you have heard me use virtually those exact words. In fact, I always explain how each night I say the words “Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better” ten times before going to sleep. Is it coincidental that I am saying the same words as D’Amato had Tyson say? Absolutely not! Those words were first coined by Emile Coue’, a French psychologist, pharmacist and early pioneer in the use of hypnosis from the late 19th and early 20th centuries and were meant as optimistic autosuggestion. (You can read more about Coue’ here.)
Cronin’s article goes on to say that “today, many athletes swear by picturing themselves winning – a habit D’Amato drilled into his boxers decades ago.” Indeed athletes and celebrities alike have used hypnosis for professional and/or personal improvement. People like Tiger Woods, Julia Roberts, Matt Damon, Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison, Kevin Costner, Sir Winston Churchill, and on and on are well-known for having used hypnosis. The fact that famous people are known to gravitate toward something is usually reason enough for me to run the other way (call it the “nut-job” factor!), but in this case, I cannot. I have personally guided so many people to make life-improving changes through hypnosis that it is for me, undeniably powerful.
Whether you are looking to stem a bad habit, make a change to some behavioral aspect, improve a skill, eliminate a fear, discover and reframe the cause of lifelong internal mental pain, etc., please consider the power that hypnosis can have on your life. It is no accident that so many of my clients tell me afterwards that they wish they would have discovered hypnosis years or decades earlier. It was just that life-altering for them; many of whom tried years of ‘traditional’ therapies and counselling beforehand with little to no success.
If you or someone you care about is looking to make life-improving changes, or for more information about hypnosis and hypnotherapy, please visit my website at www.skipnotherapy.com.