This is part of a series called ‘The Conversational Hypnosis Diary’ based on my experiences learning and applying the techniques and skills taught in ‘The Power of Conversational Hypnosis’ by Igor Ledochowski.

I’ve noticed more and more people becoming interested in learning conversational hypnosis over the last few years. People like Derren Brown and Paul Mckenna are bringing this skill into the main stream consciousness and people are realizing that hypnosis is something that they can apply in their every day life, whether it’s to get better at sales, improve their relationships or even to get an edge while playing poker.

There’s no dispute as to which resource is the best for learning this skill (Igor Ledochowski’s The Power of Conversational Hypnosis in case you didn’t). But the problem is that there is almost too much information contained in that course. Some people feel a little bit overwhelmed when they see just how much they can learn and how much is possible.

That’s why I’ve decided to start this conversational hypnosis diary. Every week I’ll read and listen to a section of the course and go out and apply it in real life. Now I’ve already studied the course before, but that was a few years ago and with this kind of material you’ll always discover new things when you go over it again.

Today I’ve read up to page 41 of the main e-book (which 631 pages long) and listened to the first MP3. In this section Igor introduces the 3 most important things that we need to be aware of in order to learn conversational hypnosis elegantly and the 4 stage protocol which is the basic structure for all hypnosis. After this there are 2 exercises to do. The first of which is to observe how people go in and out of different states throughout the day. This is really interesting because it makes you aware that people are always focusing on different things, inside and outside of themselves with different intensities. It really illustrates the idea that people are naturally in various kinds of trances throughout the day.

In the second exercise we are asked to see if we can grab someone’s attention and hold it for as long as possible. I did this in several ways, once by talking a bit louder than I would usually, the other time by actually speaking softer. The only problem with talking loud is that you tend to grab the attention of several people at a time, and not always of those you want! At the end of this section Igor provides a little trick that really helps with grabbing and holding another persons attention.

Lesson learned today: People are going into different states all the time and there are many ways in which you can get a hold of another persons attention.