Erika Flint, BA, BCH, A+CPHI
Cal Banyan, MA, BCH, CI, DNGH, OB, MCPHI
It's always great to be working with our clients on a second or third session and have them remark how well things are working, and how much they have changed.
And it's also common for our clients to try and give us all the credit.
I've heard hundreds of times 'Thank you Erika, you changed my life', or 'Thank you Erika, you saved my life'.
And I appreciate that they are changing and getting the results they came in for (and usually a lot more).
Yet if I left it at that, it would be a disservice to my clients.
Because, when our clients have the perception that something has changed, we want to give them the credit for the change.
Mostly, because it's true! Excellent hypnosis can not force any of our clients to change.
They truly are making the change themselves, but even more importantly, when your client perceives the change, feels differently, then tries to give you the credit, you have a very powerful opportunity to help facilitate even more effective and rapid transformation.
What we want to do instead, is give our clients the credit for the work they've done, then use some powerful linguistic future pacing to open their mind for even broader transformation.
First, listen to what they have shared. Be gracious and sincere about their sentiment. For many of our clients, they have finally made progress in an area that they had not (perceivably) made any progress in in years - maybe decades of their life.
The only logical conclusion for many of our clients, is that it must have been something that you - they hypnotist, or the hypnosis has done which is outside of themselves. And we want to flip this so our clients know that the change they made is NOT outside of them - that they did it.
This can be accomplished by simply saying 'Oh, thank you. I am so happy that you're feeling better. Tell me more about it."
By asking your client to tell you more about the positive change, it keeps them and their brain in that state of mind and the longer they are in that state of mind, the stronger the neurons supporting this positive shift become.
Continue with, "I want you to know that I think this is really spectacular. This is what I hoped and expected to have happen, and I can't take the credit - YOU did that! I just helped facilitate the change. So great job!"
After you say this to your client, pause. Let them reflect. Fill in any details to support what you've shared so they really believe that they were the ones making the change. You set it up, they knocked it out of the park so to speak.
A final add-on element to add to your clients success is to further help them understand that they made the change, and do a bit of linguistic future-pacing by asking your client "Wow, now that you've done this (now that you remain calm around your X), I wonder what else you can do? "
"Now that you're sleeping better at night, I wonder what else you can do ?"
"Now that you can be around your X and remain clear headed, I wonder what else you can do?"
"Now that you're losing weight every week and are in control of food, I wonder what else you can do?"
Use this change as a powerful catalyst and momentum for additional change. We want to give our clients more than what they came in for.
The meta message of this episode, is that while it's nice to know that the work we do is effective, it's much more powerful to transform our clients by shifting the "win" back on them! Help them to notice how they made those changes. This allows our clients to experience a sense of control over their own life and livelihood.