June 4, 2013
Podcast from: https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/podcast/brain-podcasts/what-is-nlp/
[00:00] About Andy Murphy
[07:13] What is NLP?
[14:58] Learning More About NLP
[17:25] On Hypnosis
[28:43] Structures of Thought
[31:41] Andy's Journey for Triathletes
[52:23] End of the Podcast
Ben: Welcome to this special episode of The Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast. This is Ben, and at the time this podcast is hitting iTunes or wherever you happen to grab it, I am on a plane high above the ocean, on my way over to Japan to compete in an Ironman in Japan. So I'm bringing you a special episode today, and in this episode, you're going to learn how to rewire your body and your brain using something called Neurolinguistic Programming. Now it gets a little bit heady and science-y and geeky and all that jazz until about 30 minutes into this podcast, when a real action happens. So if you want the basis, listen in until about the 30-minute mark. If you just want to scroll forward and learn how to get program, then scroll forward to 30 minutes. But either way, we'll be back with regular programming next week, and in the meantime, enjoy this episode on NLP.
Hey folks, it's Ben Greenfield, and it was about a week ago in a podcast that I mentioned to you something called neurolinguistic programming also known as NLP, and when I mentioned that to you, it was in response to someone who called into the podcast and wanted to know how to block out pain while they were running a marathon. And in my response to that question, I mentioned a guy named Andy Murphy, and I mention him because he is the one person I'm aware of who's really a good expert in this stuff. From what I understand, the field of NLP can be fraught with subpar consultants and practitioners, but Andy works with a lot of really big name celebrities and athletes and I believe even the royal family, and what I wanted to do was get Andy on the call for you guys, so that you could get a better understanding, be able to wrap your head around what NLP actually is, because it can seem kind of airy fairy, pie-in-the-sky kind of stuff until you really delve into the nitty gritty of it. And then also, a real treat for you on this call, Andy's also going to walk through a sample NLP session with me, so you're going to get to listen in real time as we go through this whole process, so you can see how it works and the value that's in it. So Andy, thanks for coming on the call today.
Andy: Oh my pleasure, Ben. Thank you so much, that's a beautiful little introduction there. I love it, and thank you. Nice to be on here, and welcome to all the listeners. I'll certainly do my best to help any way which I can.
Ben: Well you obviously aren't from America.
Andy: I'm from Texas, born and bred.
Ben: That's a nice Texan accent. So tell me a little bit about where you're from, where you're at, and even more importantly, how you got into all this 'cause it is, pardon the expression, but a little bit of a fringe field?
Andy: It's an interesting one, isn't it? I'm actually from Liverpool originally, in the U.K., and I lived in New Zealand and Australia for five to so years, and I've been in California for the past five to six really. How did I get into it all? Well that's an interesting thing because I knew nothing about this field, and then it seems to be over that. I've been away eleven years now, and I've been doing this in this industry all over the world, as I say, for that for that amount of time. How I got into it was interesting. I was working in IT, computers in the U.K. which was far, far from a passion, but I left for Australia, and I didn't know anyone, didn't have a job and somehow fell into sales, and I was very, very lucky who I got trained by because it was American guys, and it was actually neurolinguistics. And that's how I felt into it, and so from a sales and marketing perspective, that's why I did for the first five years. So I learned how to develop in the states and basically close deals and build rapport with over 2,000 people. That's what I did for the first five years, and basically how I got into performance, performance-based specialist with neurolinguistics is basically my whole life crashed and crumbled after building, put together a hundred million-dollar results in Fiji, a business partner stole a lot of money from me, and my life went pop. And then I've used it basically to rebuild my own life. I've never used in that context, I'd always used it for sales, and so basically traveled between L.A. and London and all over the place, and yet, it's study in and taking this to the next level.
My first clients, we ended up taking them to become Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu world champions, and yeah, the rest is history. Making like you said, buddy. I've worked with, somehow some way over the last 11 years, all around the world from the Saudi Arabian royal family to world champion athletes to professional mixed martial artists to multi-millionaire business owners to trauma victims to everyone you can imagine. When I was first getting involved in this, as you say, looking more into it, 11 years ago, yeah, it's just like what you said, it is seemed very airy fairy, but it's absolutely totally the opposite. It is an absolute science of understanding the neurological structure and how cycles and thought patterns are integrated and how they build up and then how to release them and unlock them and then design exactly what you're specifically trying to achieve and then install it in your brain, so you’re thinking and feeling and acting a very specific way. So your body and your brain is in unison, it's congruent, and that's how I'm able to literally just accelerate anyone's performance to do with anything across the world. Yeah that's why, somehow, someway, I work with a type of clients that I do, and I pride myself on being one of the best in the world at this industry. It's a little bit, I just love it.
Ben: Yeah, I know that everybody's on the edge of their seats or they're running shoes, their bikes, whatever they're out doing right now, to kind of hear how this stuff works, but before we even delve into that, tell me a little bit about the science and theory behind NLP? In case people want to wrap their heads around that.
Andy: Yeah absolutely, actually it stems from the 1970s, so it's not a new thing, but the challenge, what it was, is a classical psychology comes through what? It comes through the normal schooling system, and unfortunately, the psychology is being developed from that, and new linguistic came about, the guy who invented, gentleman called Richard Bandler, and he actually was a psychologist and a technician in many different ways. But he basically was designed to look and study how somebody does something and then how can you replicate that? So first of all they looked at their family therapist then they took him to the U.S. Army, and they helped sharpshooters increase their performance, and it started to develop that. So new linguistic now is just used in every single field you can possibly imagine, through business, in sales to performance to everything. It's extremely recognized now.
It was funny even six years ago, this is how much it's accelerating. I was probably one of the first people to bring neurolinguistics into mixed martial arts, and no one had heard of this stuff and now everybody uses it. So the science behind it really is you have two parts of your brain, not your brain, your mind. You have your conscious and your unconscious mind. Your conscious mind, that's generally what psychologists deal in. Not just because they have other areas that they're starting to use now, but you have your conscious-unconscious. Conscious is the bit of the mind that me and you just chat into right now and everyone's listening out there. Your unconscious mind, the best way I describe is a view… If you imagine this, the software that plays in the background of your computer that ruins your computer. It makes your computer behave a certain way and perform a certain way, and it gets outdated. Well we have a very similar thing in our brain, well computers were designed after humans after all, so it's the software that plays in the background of our heads. Well this is exactly the same thing, ever since you were born, if you imagine that every single time we have an experience, whether it's good or bad, a piece of software is installed, a program. Well you have billions of experiences, so you have billions of software that's running in the background of your mind. All of this is automatic, and it makes you automatically behave and think, feel and act to everything, and it predetermines in an automatic way. So it's like what does that really mean? Well that's generally how it works.
So what happens is, with neurolinguistics, yes there's lots of visualization and stuff go in. It's very easy for the clients. I've done tens of thousands of thousands of hours of study and practice around this stuff to know exactly what I'm doing from the other side. It's a very logical process for me, and whether I'm working with whatever type of client, I am able to go into specific memories, and we pull out the best bits of those memories, and I link them all together. So the beautiful thing about our brain is there's two things about this neurology that you've got to understand, and I'll cut a very long story short, Ben, but literally, neurology worked like a muscle. It genuinely does, and walk fires together, wires together. So if looking at an external muscle, if I was lifting weights on my right arm and thought for 20 years it means it's big and easy and strong, then I can use it real simple, but if you start if lifting out on your left arm that you've never done before, that's a new behavior if you want to look at it like that. Then what happens is it feels awkward, it feels unusual, and what happens is you go back to your old arm. But the thing is about that, it's we design muscles to perform a certain way.
A powerlifter uses his muscles in an extremely different way to a triathlete or a gymnast. The explosive muscle is very different to the power muscle, but this is the same thing with our brain. We can design on neurology any which way we want it to perform, but you've got to remember is it's not your conscious mind that you're designing. It's your own conscious mind, and this is where you have a beautiful little device in our brain called a reticular activating system or a RAS. Some of you guys out there might have heard this before, but this is the beautiful little thing. It's the dirty little secret that people don't tell you because how it works is that why I'm able to create really instant responses in people and instant, instant, instant results and is that it's due to this filter system. Give people conscious sets of tools. Sure, so they can catch themselves in the moment and then readjust how they're behaving mentally and that internal dialogue and all of that stuff. But your unconscious mind, if you look at this way, we take in over two billion bits of information every single second to our five senses, that overloads our mind completely.
So what we have is, as I say, this filter system, and this filter system, we have our beliefs, our attitudes and our language and message programs, lots of other stuff in that. But we literally take in all this information, and what we see in our external world is set to what our filter system is set to. Best way I describe that again, going back to computers. Well your Gmail account or your e-mail account, we get sent so many e-mails a day. But again, the only thing that's in our inbox is what our filter system is set to. The rest of it goes into a spam folder or gets deleted. It's is the same with our brain, so the way that looks for performance enhancing and things like that, I'll describe it very, very simply. You might have bought a new car, for example. Well you might not see in that car many times before, but I promise you, as soon as you get it, the thing is everywhere. Does that mean the car didn't exist before? No, it means your filter system wasn't set to see it.
So, how I'm able to create rapid results in people is that we adjust their beliefs, their attitudes and the language sure, but we do this through designing new fresh neurology inside their mind. So if I asked you what is exactly going to happen in three months on this date, most people out there are going to go, I have no idea? Well imagine if we were able to design exactly what is going to happen, in the most vivid detail, give you with the ability to be able to fire that neurology, so it pumps and builds that muscle and then lock it into your time encoding in your brain. It means your own conscious mind's going, you want that? In that state and on that event and that date? Got you, why didn't you say? So that starts just in your attitude, the language you use inside our brain and all the rest. As I say, I could go on for a long, long time about this stuff, Ben, as you can gather.
Ben: Yeah, it's fascinating. So first of all, before we actually go in and show and give people the real time example right of what this actually looks like. If people want to go in and study this more, learn a little bit more about NLP, I've read books like “The Inner Game of Tennis”, “The Inner Game of Golf” or even the book “Psycho Cybernetics” by Maxwell Maltz was another I read. Are those the kind of books that teach you this kind of stuff, or are there better resources for people if they want to learn more?
Andy: They do, but I tell you something. Like you said at the start, it’s NLP is like saying the word triathlete. Well there's different levels of triathlete, it's also saying there's a million different cars, and also what I found with a lot of books out there, regurgitating the same thing again and again and again, and some you guys might have the explanation I just gave. Sure, that's also just me regurgitating a tiny little portion so you can understand it. The only real way to get this is to do this, and it genuinely is. The books are going to help, it's going to give you what? It's going to give you conscious knowledge, but unless you've gone through it as an experience, Ben, and then it's very hard to tweak it and fine tune it. Yeah, all those books are all going to help. Everything's going to help, but as I say, the best way to do learn this is to just do this. A lot of people I work with who are natural, natural performers and accelerate in and they win naturally, well they do a lot of this stuff organically, innately. But what happens is that's very good, and those are the people who I have to work with. It makes my life easier, but if you're doing that, then what neurolinguistics is, it's about putting a scientific breakdown structure of what that person does, so we're able to create a blueprint and then tweak all the fine details of that. So if I'm still learning after doing this for 11 years and working with thousands of clients, then we've always got something to learn more about this.
Ben: Gotcha, okay cool, well let's take the deep dive, man. How do we do this?
Andy: Well, I hope you guys out there have got headphones.
Ben: I've got the biggest, geekiest headphones on you've ever seen right now.
Andy: Have you got the Beat ones or are you even better?
Ben: They're not Dr. Dre, but they're just as big.
Andy: That's the main thing, and so yeah, there's a couple of things I'm going to do. I mean if we want to jump into it right now, we can certainly jump in. I think that's probably a good thing, but yeah, you guys go out there and get some headphones ‘cause it's really what I'm going to do now, guys. It's just the quick integration, just a quick example of what we can go in, just so you get an idea. And even if you don't get in contact with me or work with me, at least you can start practicing this. So at least this is valuable for you, at least. Awareness is a huge thing and even if you went away just practiced this, it's going to help. But if you want to become world class then, you notice people like myself are around the world, but how do we do this with you guys, the most simplest, simplest way? Well the best way I can describe this is if you've ever listened to an audiobook, it's very simple, and part of this is people might say out there oh, this is just hypnosis. Well I am also hypnosis practitioner.
Ben: I got to warn you, by the way, people have tried to hypnotize me before, and it's never happened. I even recorded a video, I think I mentioned this on the podcast last week where someone tried to hypnotize me for the podcast for a video, and it didn't work. So is that something I should warn you?
Andy: It doesn't mean, I don't even care. Close your eyes, your eyes off, then that's all it is because the problem is that I'm glad you brought that up, buddy. I'm glad you brought that up because what you have to understand, there's a big difference between NLP and hypnosis, but also they overlap quite well. And also you got to understand that when I was just doing neurolinguistics in sales, for me to learn hypnosis, I didn't know anything about it, and I thought you were going to run around as a chicken on stage or do something crazy. But it's not like that, let me understand exactly what it is. If I was to say to you that you go into trance every single day, many, many, many times, but you just don't know what it is. When you wake up in the mid morning, you got that groggy feeling. That strand, how many times have you drove somewhere that you used to drive in and you just get then you're like oh my gosh, I'm here. What does that mean? All it is, is we're dropping brain wave frequencies. That's exactly what we're doing when we're putting someone into that daydream state. Why do we want to do that? Well we want to get out of your conscious mind into your own unconscious mind. How do we do that? Well we literally put you into that relaxed state and we drop you down. Why? Well we have to bypass something called the critical faculty.
That's why there's a wall that's in between your conscious and unconscious mind, so the end of the day, you can say affirmations to yourself all day long, but they don't last. Why? Because you're just dealing with a conscious mind. That's also the part of the mind that generally, psychologists deal with. Because, let me explain, just to back up, just before we jump into it if that's okay, Ben. I just want to think of all bits of information that we need to clarify here. I found a psychologist anyway. Well someone was dealing with CBT or something like that but the standard psychologist. They'll say someone was depressed, just use it as a total example. A psychologist will want to know why you're depressed. They'll take you through all of the reasons in your life that led you up to that moment right there, why you are depressed, then they'll sit you in that root cause, and they'll spin you around in that root cause until you gain a different perspective and you move on with your life.
Well, if you would suggest on this down one simple thing I've just explained about neurology, it's a muscle. Then if you keep lifting the same muscle, it grows bigger. So if you're sitting in a room close of something, then what you think happens? That muscle gain grows bigger, and it becomes easier and easier to do. That's why you have a lot of psychologists that people go into with the same issue and their there for months, if not years. What I do is the opposite. Well to be honest, I don't really care why you're depressed, for example, I want to know so we can tick those things off, so you get an understanding. But I want to know how you do depression or how you do something, what does that mean? Well this leads on to the exercise I'm going to take you through. I want to know how you do that, meaning what's the trigger points, what's playing through your mind? Is that a black and white movie? Is it a color movie? Is it close used or far away? What's the perspective? And we're going to show you all that stuff in a few minutes, but then I want to know how you do the future. So how you do happiness, how you do the perfect you, how you do whatever it is. Then I want you to lift those muscles, so I give you the ability using anchoring to fire those neurology which releases those chemicals, which creates that attitude and that ripple effect. But then we start winding all the future and those performance-based stuff together, which creates a nice neural net, a nice ball, which means that we're able to put that in inside different events, and so we start lining your own conscious mind up and start growing the right neurology. So that's two totally different things, right?
Ben: Gotcha, so this idea behind anchoring is we create this anchor, and I'm able to use that and draw on that when I'm in that situation where I need to access it.
Andy: Exactly, what anchor is it goes back, guys out there might have heard this, and it’s a common thing now. But most people use it incorrectly, they don't really know what it is and don't understand why they use it. When I work with a client, I pull out very certain memories, and I can pull out breathing rates or heart rate or eye movements and everything, and I start layering those things all together to create a very specific anchor for various specific reasons, and anchor is a stimulus response. Originally going back to Pavlov's dog's experiments, but what we use this isn't a performance-enhancing way. So the way I'll describe an anchor is ever remember a song that comes up, a song that plays and it takes you right back to that memory. You're in that high school dance or whatever, right? Well, the same thing. So once I design and create a peak mental state, but using neurology when it's stacked or fired at the very peak moment, then the neurology is able to be fired at that peak state.
So that means that neurology is fired in the chemicals and the peptides are released, which also, it goes back. So there's been the many, many studies, especially by the government, 'cause the government. The armies and the military because they're all over this. They're all over neurolinguistics for a long, long time because that's how they do that. It's a conversation for another time, but yes. So a neurology is fired when you fire the specific anchors, but let me explain about states 'cause that's very important before we get into this. States basically is what I specialize in, and I'm a performance state specialist, that's what I describe myself as. And what that means is that say, I was working with a professional fighter for example, using an extreme version. That person's stepping into the ring or the cage. If you imagine them in a bubble, that's a performance bubble. They're thinking, fighting, feeling and acting in a very specific way. Their posture, their physiology, their breathing, their internal dialogue is all very, very specific. Micro muscles in the face are fired in a certain way. They're about to step in and perform at a very unique way. We designed those things, and that's a performance state. Imagine that as a bubble. Well that's a very different bubble or a state to when they're going on a date or their talking to their mom or they're trying to relax because whatever is firing in the brain is going to create those chemicals and create that physiology, which is going to create that state. So if you're trying to relax, then why is your mind spinning around at the future events or something that happened in the past because it's open to triathletes, right?
You're a professional or semi-professional amateur athlete. You will have good experiences and bad experiences, so to be able to step into that peak state and be able to fire it at exactly the right time, what does that do for you? That creates consistency, and consistency, you're anxious or you haven't slept the night before is the difference that makes a difference, it's the difference between world class or winning or losing or becoming second. It's all of these things. The amounts of athletes that I worked with that, honestly, get injured before the events, or get sick or don't sleep the night before, is absolutely amazing because it's your own conscious mind. It works with options, so you're only giving it one option. So your option is it doesn't know how to handle this stress, so I'm not joking. Somehow, you will get injured or you'll get sick because you have to understand what the unconscious mind is. It's also called the body mind, what does that mean? Well it's the bane of mind that stays automatic, sure, but it's the busier mind that briefs you, it blinks you, it affects your lymp system, your adrenal glands. All of these things, so using neurolinguistics and hypnosis, we're able to control these things. Well, my clients and you guys out there are able to start learning to control all these things. So when we start pulling these out, all these things out and start developing states and performance states, that's how we're able to really take people. I've taken clients that have lost four or five events in a row, and then they work with me, and then suddenly, they win and constantly, constantly win and then become a champion at things. Same with sale states, yeah it works right across the board with CEOs and everything, but I think I had to go into that a little bit more deeper before we jump into this.
Ben: Cool, no I appreciate it. I think it lays down a good understanding for folks. Alright, well cool, so what do we do now?
Andy: My point is, Ben, you don't need to be in transmit. As long as you can close it.
Ben: Got it.
Andy: And so what we're going to do, headphones in, and what I'm first going to do, very, very quickly just for two minutes, I'm going to actually show you, actually the structure of the thought. And then I'm going to take you on just a quick little journey, and all you guys out there, we're going to keep it to triathletes or athletes in general. So then what I'll do is we'll go back, we'll put out a very, very specific memory a very general memory, and then we'll link that to a future event for you, and then when I say, guys, stack your anchor, and that just brought me up to a very good point. You guys don't even understand what an anchor is. Okay, well let's make a physical anchor. Let's use that one. So if you guys out there are very, very simply, you could be squeezing your ear lobe. You're squeezing your earlobe which what that'll do that will directly link this, the emotional and peak mental state to your ear lobes. You could tap it and squeeze it like ten times, okay? When I say stack your anchor.
Another one I like to use for my clients is if you imagine making a fist, and you can tell of with quite a lot of faces, can't you. So you're making a fist and your thumb is on the outside of that fist. I want you to put the thumb side, thumb on the inside of that fist and squeeze. What that means is that we want to create an anchor that isn't easily fireable or replicable.
Ben: Put the thumb on the outside of the fist and squeeze?
Andy: I put the thumb on the inside of the fist.
Ben: On the inside, and both hands or just one?
Andy: Usually right or left hand, whichever works easier for you, whatever feels right. But the reason why I say that, because if we installed into a handshake, what does that mean? Well you'll be firing all day by shaking people's hands, and an anchor works like a bank account. Oh what happened? At the end of your week, there's nothing left in it, so with these anchors, when you're feeling good or you've won, then that's the time that you fire your anchor and stack more of those good feelings and that neurology and all that winning in there, and it's also used when you want it, when you need it. So using both of those things, firing it and stacking it is going to pump that muscle which is going to keep growing. It's going to affect your filter system and your thumb on the inside, and that's not going to be for a few minutes. When I say stacking your anchor, I just want you to pump it, with that full intention behind it, so let's get into this, eh? Let's go and have some fun. So all I want you to do, guys, is just close your eyes.
Ben: You may hear a little shuffling here, I'm going to shift just so folks know I'm recording from, actually, a bed because I'm not in my home office right now, so that's why you may have heard the microphone for a couple of times.. Okay, now I'm in a state where I can follow instructions.
Andy: Good, beautiful. And this is actually a technique that you can start using when you want to chill out. So what you do is you just close your eyes, and the reason why I do that, Ben, is to simply shut off that sense. So you can stow inside yourself and start visualizing, and it's just like listening to an audio book. That's all it is, and you're able to visualize, and you just have to listen to the sound of my voice. So what I want you to do guys is just take three big, deep breaths. That's right, take it right from your stomach. And I'm not going to take you into trance right now or anything like that.
What I wanted to do after taking those three big, deep breath is just circulate them one more time for me. That's right, and just begin to relax and just calm yourself down because the thing is you just sitting where you're sitting, thinking the things that you're thinking, listen it's the sound of my voice which you should start to notice your breathing and just notice noticing your breathing and able to just relax, just a little bit more easily now. That's right, good.
So I just going to want to show you something first of all. So I would say remember a time, Ben, and you guys out there. Just remember a time, a specific time, maybe a specific time but a time you were just happy. It could have been from when you were a kid, it could have been when you growing up. It just could have been yesterday or last week or even today, but just remember a time for me, and what you see and hear what you hear, really feel what it feels like, just to be in that moment now, and it might be easy for you or not easy for you to do this, but I promise you the more and more you practice just remembering the times the easier and easier it is going to become for you so just remember that time, that’s right, good. I'm going to ask you a quick series of questions, and I just want you to answer them in your own head and start becoming very aware of what starts to play in your head now. So remember in that time, seen what you've seen, hearing what you hear and really feeling and what it feels like now, that's right. Is it a movie or is it a still picture, is it black and white or is it color, is it close to you or is it far away? That's right.
Is it bright or is it dim, is it focused or de-focused, is the focus steady or changing? Are you seeing it through your own eyes or you've seen yourself in it? On a scale of zero to ten, imagine if you got a dial, how colorful is it? What would happen if you just turn that color up, imagine turning that color from six to seven to eight, right up to nine? What would happen if you did the same with the brightness? Just turn up from six to seven to eight to nine. That's right. Now you've got a feeling, and that feels good 'cause we remember the happy feeling, right? So I just want you to remember that feeling and see if you can find that feeling in your body. Is it in your head, your chest, your legs or your arms? See if you can find that feeling for me now. That’s right, and again, the more and more practice, the easier and easier it will become.
So see if you can notice which way this feeling floats to, because when I feel happy, if those are from my chest up to my face and comes and spins back around. So where does it move to for you? That's right, and we can go even a little stage further. We can say which way does it spin? Double that feeling and double that feeling, which way does it spin that if you spin it that way, it makes you more and more happy? Does it spin to the left or the right, forwards or backwards? Well spin it that way. That's right, beautiful, and we can even go a little bit further if you guys are flowing with this. You might want to rewind this and do it again, but if not, let's keep going. So as you've seen yourself, you've seen these image through your own eyes. That’s right. I want to look around, where are you, who's around you? I want you to notice how you're standing, how your posture is. That’s right. I want you to see if you could rewind this movie and play all the way forwards. That’s right.
Good, open your eyes, guys and Ben. Okay well, that was just a little understanding. There's actually 64 or more components that make up all of this neurological structure that called sub modalities, and you have a very unique structure to every single thing about your memory, about the future, past or present to every single event that has ever been. And each of the structure is very unique and each of the structure means a lot to me, and I can change the structure and pull very specific things out. So how did you get on, Ben, anyway?
Ben: Yeah, it was good. I have no clue if this is in line, but for me, it was literally just like me a couple of days ago. I was sitting with my kids on the couch and it was 6:30 a.m. in the morning, and they'd gotten up, and we were just sitting there, just staring at the wall, just snuggling for a half hour. I don't know if that will help me much during a triathlon, visualizing that, but that certainly was the first thing that came into my mind, in terms of the happiest state.
Andy: Beautiful, that was an example. We're going to fly into the actual thing now to show you, but you know what? It would actually help you because the chemicals that are firing, the serotonin levels and certain things you were saying to yourself and your posture and how you're leaning and how you're speaking to your kids? All of those things can be pulled out which can be put into an event or what you're thinking about. An event which would help you produce those chemicals and think that way, so everything's replicable and everything is usable. But let's get into it, buddy.
So any of you guys out there understand what this is? Let's go and play. So close your eyes again for me, and let's go just a little bit deeper now and I will go a little bit further into this. So close your eyes for me, Ben, and close your eyes, guys out there, and take those three big, deep breaths for me. And again, the only reason why we do this is so you're able to just relax and again, I just want to talk to that part of your own unconscious mind that is going to remember the sound of my voice, and already, you're going to start to feel happy and relaxed, that’s right, but just take those three big, deep breaths one more time for me. And just by you, sitting the way you're sitting, thinking the things that you're thinking now, you're just able to go just a little bit deeper inside because this really is where we're going to go now, it's going to help you. It's going to help you in your performance, so I want you now to remember a time, a time that you were totally confidence, about whatever it was that you were totally confident about, and I want you to step in there now. See what you see and hear what you hear and feel what it feels like to be back in that moment now, and again, it could be something when you were a kid, it could be a business deal, and it could be an athletic performance or just something that makes you feel totally confident. Maybe it was something else that somebody else said that you can't do that, but yet, you were so confident about it and you went and achieved it now. Good, so see what you see, step in there, see through own eyes. That’s right.
Good, so take two steps forward. Look at your hands, look at your feet, look up, look down, look left, and look right. Beautiful. Turn the core up, the sound up, the contrast up, the brightness up, and notice where you are, guys, who's around you, what it feels like to be in this moment now? Good, rewind the movie and play it all the way through to this end step, this moment in time where you would just know you were totally confident. So I want you to notice now how you standing, how you're breathing, how does this confidence person stand? What did they say to themselves? That's right, beautiful, and I want you to find this feeling in your body. Where is it? Your head, your chest, your legs or your arms. Find it and spin this feeling around. Spin it faster and faster. Which direction does it spin in? Beautiful, now I just want you to notice those words that you're saying in your head. Maybe you can't remember exactly what you say that made you so confident now, but I want you to notice the pace, the pitch, the tonality, what it feels like to say those words that you remembered now will make you say and feel this thing more and more. And just by remembering this scene and feeling this confidence just pumping through you now, you're able to remember this easily and easily now.
So I just want to keep your eyes closed guys and remember in this feeling and where you were and who's around you and how you're standing. I just want you to keep your eyes closed and flick your eyes down, bottom right, bottom right, and bottom right. Beautiful, now double in this feeling, looking at all the things around you. On the count of five, I want you to put it into your thumb, and you could see your thumbs on the inside, and you're going to pump it in there. So that's right, double this feeling one more time for me, and see all of this color. Make it big and bright, and draw it closer to you. Beautiful, how you stand and your posture. On the count of five, we're going to put it in there, guys. Double this feeling, one, two then get excited. Get excited, three and now pull your thumb anchor now. One, two, three, four, five, one more time. One, two, three, four, five, one more time, put it in there. One, two, three, four, five, one more time. Put it in there, one, two, three, four, and five. Beautiful, so keep in that, lock it into place, locking that deep into a place into your unconscious mind. Beautiful.
So now, just keeping that confidence feeling, just keeping that confidence feeling just pumping through you now, and now firing your thumb anchor, and I want you to step out to an indefinite time in the future where you know you're going to have this confidence to perform. So for Ben, he knows he's going to be in this for a triathlon in very soon, so I just want you to, in a nut moment, not yet, but step out to that time and feel this confidence feeling and feel what it feels like to just be in that moment. Step into that scene, so let's do that in the count of three. One, two, step in that scene, firing that anchor. Step in there right now. Step in there, seeing what you see, hearing what you hear, and feeling what you feel. Feel what it feels like to be in that moment now, that's right. And I want you to imagine seeing this image on a big movie screen, and I want you to imagine you sitting in the movie scene, the movie seats. Sitting in the movie seats and watching you perform your very best on this movie screen, and I just want you to cross that and watch yourself in big bright color as you fire in your thumb anchor right now, with that confidence and that happiness now just swelling through you, and I just want you to imagine and watch yourself just crossing the finish line, and just seeing yourself crossing that finish line and winning, what it feels like to win.
I just want you wind that movie and play it all the way through. Rewind it and play it all the way through, so you just see yourself stepping out as that winner that you know you are, maybe on the podiums, maybe the ribbons breaking your chest, whatever it is for you to make it so real and then feel that confidence inside of you now. So you are sitting in the movie screen and you're just watching this movie just loop. Rewind it, just seeing they race, and you're just pumping and pumping and pumping and then running and just crossing the finish line, and maybe you've been awarded that award, but just that feeling now just starts to loop around and around, making that image bigger and brighter and bolder. Turn the color and the sound and the contrast up. That's right, and you just see yourself just looping and winning, looping and winning and what it feels like to push through, how your posture is, how you stand and how you breathe in, what you're saying to yourself just running and pushing. On the count of three, I'm going to have you imagine just snapping, stepping inside until you're seeing this image of you running this actual race and just crossing that finish line or holding that award, knowing what it feels like to be able to win now. So on the count of three, you blast your thumb anchor, and you step in this image, in this movie you see through your own eyes, and you run through that finish line. So do this on the count of three, one, getting excited, two, three, step in there, blast in then. So one, two, three, four, five, blast in your thumb anchor. You've seen it right through your own eyes, you feel what it feels like, maybe you're feeling your feet hit the floor, the sweat running down your face as you just bust through that end image. You feel that band break across your chest, you dip your head, you feel what it feels like to just be first to win, and this confidence feeling just doubles inside of you now, doubles and spins inside of you.
Beautiful, and maybe you want to forward this image to the end step, the end moment when just know that you're holding that award or you're being interviewed or just what it feels like to win, and you're doubling this confidence now. Keep your eyes closed, flick your eyes down. Bottom right, bottom right, top left, top left, locking that deep into the unconscious mind. So I'm going to count you back up, guys, from five to one. When you come back into the room, you are just full of excitement, and you remember this moment forever. That's right, good, so five, locking that deep into place in the unconscious mind. Four, aligning your conscious and unconscious mind to make sure that you know exactly what you're headed. Three, imagine a dial of zero to a hundred. I just want you to turn that dial up all the way to 90, so you got energy in your fingers and your toes. Two, just remember me always going through this with you and getting excited about that now, every sing time you perform. I'm going to count to one in a moment. Not yet, but when I do, you open your eyes with a big grin on your face and you know what's up. One, when you're ready, Ben, you guys can talk to me.
Ben: Cool, you're good at that, man. That was pretty cool, and I don't know what the listeners felt as they were going through this, but for me, I kind of left behind that whole sitting with my kids on the couch thing, and that confidence day was for me, a couple years ago when I was winning the ITU Long Course World Championship Gold Medal and that supreme feeling, that last mile as you cross the finish line. It's just like nobody's going to catch me. I got this, it's wrapped up. I mean, I'd never thought about taking that feeling and planting it in my subconscious and creating an anchor for it like as you just showed us how to do. Damn, man, it's a cool feeling.
Andy: See, Ben? That is just hanging. I mean we can literally break down anything, and for you to go and make a coffee in the morning or anything, there's a hundred steps to do that I can break down and create blueprints. So anyone who's won at anything, we can break it down into such vivid blueprints that we record, and you've always got that to go back. I'm going to taste there of what I do, but you can see how even that it's just able to make you feel a certain way and think a certain way about anything, and then that's my passion. That's exactly it.
Ben: Cool, I like it. Well I mean I'm sure that people probably have a ton more questions about this and the process, and maybe they want to learn more. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to, of course, publish this I've bengreenfieldfitness.com for you to listen in, and I'm going to open up the comments section. I'll link to Andy's website so you can go check that out. Do you have a podcast, is that correct?
Andy: Yeah, I've got the Andy Murphy Podcast on iTunes. I've had some fantastic guests on there, and we can talk about that, too, Ben. Anywhere from world champion athletes to multi-million dollar CEOs and internet marketers, everyone on there. I've got lots of different sites out there, so if you google “Andy Murphy NLP”, you're going to find me for consulting work which I had class work with athletes. It's just andymuphyconsulting.com, but I've got lots of things out there for you guys. Any questions anyway, yeah I'd love the feedback. I know you've got a lot of listeners, so any way I can help you guys, honestly, I'd absolutely love to. It's more than a pleasure.
Ben: Awesome, well, Andy, I know that this is the kind of stuff that you usually do with folks who pay you for your time, and I really appreciate you doing this for me and giving the podcast listeners a taste of NLP. I think this is really going to answer a lot of questions for people, and again, head over to bengreenfieldfitness.com if you want more info on this stuff. I have absolutely no financial affiliation or anything like that with Andy. I just think that this is really cool stuff that I wanted you, the listeners, to know about. So, Andy, thank you so much for coming on the call today.
Andy: My pleasure, really my pleasure, and thank you guys out there for listening. You've listened to my funny acts for close to an hour.
Ben: They made it through. Alright, folks, well this is Ben Greenfield and Andy Murphy, signing out from this special episode of the bengreenfieldfitness.com podcast. Stay tuned next week when we'll be back to our regular programming, and for now, I hope that was a real treat for you. All right. Later, Andy.
Andy: See you later, buddy. See you later, guys. Bye.
About the time this post goes live, I'll be on a plane over the ocean on my way to race a triathlon in Japan.
Needless to say, that means we've got a quick break from the usual podcast programming, and instead, a super special episode for you.
In today's episode, you're going to discover how to rewire your brain and body with something called “neurolinguistic programming”, or NLP.
I got one of the world's leading NLP experts on the show. His name is Andy Murphy, and we take a dive off the deep end in the audio – walking you through an actual NLP session.
The real action starts at about 30 minutes in. Feel free to leave your questions, comments and feedback below. Keep reading to listen to the audio now or download for later.