The Tough Polish Smoking Client
Here is another addition of story time. This is a collection of videos, a series, where I share stories with you of real past clients that I have worked with at Stop Smoking Hypnosis Toronto, real stories, both successes and failures, in fact, for over 20 years of being a hypnotist now all around the world. Of course, we'll change the names of the clients, because I've seen literally thousands of people over close to 20 years now. So not breaching any client/doctor confidentiality rules here or anything like that. I will change certain things about the story so they can't be identified.
But I want to share a story with you, a real story from my time at Stop Smoking Hypnosis Toronto, in fact, in a past life, if you will, I also used to train people physically, like a personal trainer. I had gotten a new client, in fact, and he was an Eastern European fellow. We'll say his name was Steve, all right? There's a lot of Eastern Europeans called Steve. And we started our first fitness session, and he'd seen some of my fliers for stop smoking in one hour. And he said to me in a strong accent, and this was a middle-aged Eastern European fellow, very, very strong, very stoic if you will. He's like, "I see you do hypnosis. Can you help me quit smoking?" I'm like, "Sure, sure, I can," and so I was dreading it a little bit because I didn't think he'd be a great hypnotic candidate, because this was in my early days of being a hypnotist.
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So we booked a session in a for Stop Smoking Hypnosis Toronto session a few days later. So, he showed up to my office, and I spent about 30 minutes explaining what hypnosis was to him before we do the work together, as I do with most people. We just about came to a point where I was gonna induce hypnosis, if you will, with him, and just before the point I was gonna do it, he leans forward, stares at me and says, "I just want you to know, I don't believe in any of this hypnosis nonsense." So, I say, "Neither do I, but can you just close your eyes?" and he closes his eyes. We do the work, 35, 60 minutes later he emerges, tests it, he doesn't want to smoke a cigarette, goes really well.
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I was gonna see him a week later for a personal training session. Essentially the hypnosis is done, when it comes to smoking. Ninety-five percent of people are done within an hour, that's based on following up with people for up to two years after either by phone or potentially by e-mail. And he told me that he was going away to the cottage, it was the summer season, so he came back about a week later for his fitness session, and I was actually working myself out in a gym, getting my pump on, if you will.
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He comes in about 10 minutes early, and I just feel this tap on my shoulder and I look around and it's Steve. He goes, "I need to speak with you." I'm like, "Yeah, great. We're gonna meet up in 10 minutes at 12:00 and do our session," and he's like, "No, now!" So, I'm like, "Oh boy, he doesn't sound too happy. Maybe this hypnosis wasn't successful." He goes, "In your office." So, we go into my office, we close the door and he goes, "What did you do to me?" I'm like, "Excuse me?" He's like, "What the F did you do to me?" I'm like, "Pardon?" He's like, "Listen, I know none of this hypnosis stuff works. It's all nonsense, it's all make believe. I knew that when you were reading from scripts, I could hear you rustling with papers. I could hear you walking around the room. When you told me my eyelids were glued, I knew I could open them. I was just playing along."
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He goes, "So I want to prove that you are fake, that you are phony, that none of this was real." He says, "So, on Thursday, in my cottage, I lit up my first cigarette since your session and I started to bring my hands towards my lips, and before that cigarette touched my lips, I felt my hand throw that cigarette away. What the F did you do to me?" So I say, "So, are you smoking?" He's like, "No." I'm like, "Do you want to smoke?" He's like, "No." I'm like, "Well, there's no such thing as hypnosis, is there?"