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The Amazing Authorities Podcast
The Storytelling Advantage: How Doug Brien Uses NLP, Metaphors & Skill-Building to Transform Learning
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- [00:02]
A
Welcome to the Amazing Authorities podcast, where game changers, visionaries and category leaders share how they built their brands, platforms and global influence. Your host is Mitch Carson, international speaker, media strategist, and creator of the Instant Authority system. If you're ready to learn from those who've done it and want to become the go to expert in your space, you're in the right place.
- [00:31]
B
I have an amazing guest, an Amazing Authority today on the Amazing Authorities podcast. Now, I've been a student of many masters of NLP and hypnosis in my 65 years on this planet. There are few that I would tip my hat to. And today's guest, Doug o', Brien, has been there, done that, and then some. Doug, welcome to the show today.
- [00:58]
C
Thank you for having me. It's my pleasure. Thanks, Mitch.
- [01:01]
B
Yeah, and I want to give a little bit of validation. We did a little bit of name dropping before we began this interview today. We have quite a few friends in common, acquaintances, friends, business associates, however you want to categorize it. And with that validation, I know without question you're the real deal and you solidified your position. And because you've written books and a person that takes the time, energy and commitment to put it in print now, it's easier with AI, but let's go. Old school has earned their stripes. So what book have you written, Doug? Or what book?
- [01:42]
C
Yeah, I've written two, actually. I'm working on my third one right now. But the two that I've written, can I show them to you? Absolutely.
- [01:48]
B
Please do. Yeah.
- [01:49]
C
One of them is called the User's Guide to Sleight of Mouth.
- [01:53]
B
I love that title. Comes from Sleight of Hand. From the Magicians, right?
- [01:56]
C
Well, it comes from Sleight of Mouth. From nlp. Neuro Linguistic Programming. Yeah, it's a subset. I don't know. It was developed out of NLP by Robert Diltz, who is a co developer of NLP with Richard Bound there and John Grinder. But he developed sleight of mouth on his own. And then he wrote a book that for many people was fascinating. But what do I do? How do I use this? So I wrote the User's Guide to Sleight of Mouth to basically kind of show people how to use it. Which is ironic because I learned it from Robert Diltz. I took my master practitioner training in NLP from Robert Diltz and learned sleight of mouth from him. And the way that I wrote about it in the book is how he taught it to me. But he didn't put that in his book. So when his book was published, I thought, oh, goodness gracious, I must write this book to explain it to people, how to actually use it. So it's the user's guide to sleight of mouth for very good reason. That's what it literally is. It's like a. An owner's manual. Like, how do you make this tractor Right now, by the way, we might hear in the background from, from time to time internal combustion engines starting up. Because I have a 1953 Farmall Super C tractor out in my yard and I have a mechanic over trying to fix the points and he just get a crank, but he might come back and he might start up that thing. So he needed a user's manual, right? He needed to figure out how to figure out this complex energy engine and make it run. So that's what this is, it's thing. A few years later, my second book, I was teaching storytelling for a variety of purposes. I was teaching storytelling for Ericksonian Hypnosis. How to use Ericksonian Hypnosis. Tells a lot of stories, Teaching tales, learning metaphors, you know, for patients, for clients who want to learn things. So I was teaching it in that aspect, but also just for fun. And as I started to teach these seminars, people loved the seminars. So I said, well, gosh, I need to make this into a book. So that's where this came from, the User's Guide to Storytelling. And I just. As I got closer and closer to publishing it, I figured, well, I've got the User's Guide to Sleight of Mouth. I might as well call this the User's Guide as well. So it's a storytelling book, but it's. I love this book. It's.
- [04:14]
B
Are they both available on Amazon or are they available through your site? Doug, where, where can.
- [04:19]
C
They're both available through both of those places. Yeah, you can get them through Amazon. Easy peasy. You can also get them through my site. One thing I will tell you about this book, if I, If I may. I don't want to take. This isn't a commercial. Go ahead. Yeah, but go ahead. What's interesting about this second book, the User's Guide to Storytelling, is every page has illustrations on it. Every. It's full color, everything. So the book itself is beautiful, I think, and a lot of people agree. And it is also, you know, your. This caption is meant to go with this photograph. You know, it's. It's all laid out. When you do Kindle on Amazon, it kind of messes all that up. They. We literally had to take about 80% of the images out of the book so that Kindle could work because it's all word based. So you want to change the fonts. If you change the font from a 12 point font to a 16 point font to a 20 point font so you can read it easily, it changes the layout of everything. So the illustrations didn't make any sense whatsoever. So we had to take it out. So if people want to not spend as much money as the book costs, but get it as a, you know, an enhanced PDF, they can get that at my website so they get all the pictures, all the layout. So that's not, that's not available at Amazon. It's only available at my website.
- [05:34]
B
Let me, let me bring up a distinction here for the people that don't understand this because I help people write books and publish them and become bestsellers. That's a mine. You brought up an important point. The size of your file matters when you come to pricing on Kindle because if you are less than 5 megs, you, you can sell your book for 99 cents as a lead magnet to get people drawn in. If you're above that, they have limitations because it forces the file size dictates what your price can be or made available on their platform and then it gets. Yeah. So even if you compress the file, it doesn't look the same. So you have to be aware of that when using Kindle. That's great. You have a complimentary PDF so people can really see it.
- [06:24]
C
It's, it's, it's meant to be that way, frankly. So, you know, if you have to.
- [06:28]
B
Buy it through your site, then. Because I want the complimentary PDF and I love metaphors. I have several books on metaphors and oh yeah, I'm a big storyteller story seller. I have been known as Metaphor Mitch. So I love it and my NLP training.
- [06:44]
C
There you go. You know, it's funny, a few years ago, this is like the, one of the first seminars I ever was paid to, to present. Back in the early 90s, I was, I was, I was hired to teach this seminar to business people by this guy in New Jersey. And as soon as I walked in, you know, he, we'd set this up for weeks, but like 10 minutes before I'm supposed to go out on the stage, he says, okay, now listen, these are serious business people. Don't you go telling stories like Tony Robbins do. I don't want to hear any stories. As you can easily imagine, that was the worst seminar I ever. It was a disaster.
- [07:26]
B
It was don't tell stories. People relate to stories they live.
- [07:32]
C
But I tried. I tried to leave the stories out, but it was just absolutely ineffective.
- [07:37]
B
I would imagine it was totally ineffective. How do you get people drawn in, then mentally take them down the path?
- [07:44]
C
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, they need that. People think in stories. That's the way the brain works, for heaven's sakes. So, yeah, it was.
- [07:52]
B
It was a disaster.
- [07:54]
C
It was a disaster. And I'm not at all surprised that you, being who you are, have steeped yourself in the art of metaphors and storytelling.
- [08:02]
B
Have to. How could I survive? I don't know. I mean, I don't know about you, but the people I have found in my years of traveling 63 countries on stages, the best speakers in the world, the ones that have any longevity, they've been doing it more than getting in there one off. Maybe their friend hired them or brought them in. But the people of longevity have at least one book, if not a series of books, incorporate metaphor throughout and know the art of engaging the mind and drawing people in. Without it, you're. You're an amateur. You're not going to be a pro. The pros know the game and it's a roadmap. And I think stories are very important. But you just. So people understand because you and I know this because we're both students of it and gone in there. Who's Eric Erickson? Okay, Ericksonian. Because I think he's the grandfather of a lot of this.
- [08:59]
C
He is, in fact, the grandfather of a lot of this. You know, if it weren't for him, NLP would not be what NLP is. Nlp, Neuro Linguistic Programming. Richard Bandler and John Grinder, who created nlp, modeled lots of different experts. They copied them. They tried to emulate them. They did figure out what they were doing and tried to make it understandable. They tried to create a model of various therapists. Virginia Satir of Family Therapy, Fritz Perls of Gestalt Therapy. But then they were introduced to Milton Erickson, who was a hypnotherapist. And they said, if you really want to know how therapy works, go see this guy, Milton Erickson. So they traveled to Phoenix, Arizona, where Erickson lived. And they were so blown away by what Milton Erickson was able to do with hypnotherapy that they just sort of stopped any other modeling projects. They just focused on him. So much of NLP is derived from Ericksonian hypnosis. So Erickson was A psychiatrist. He's a medical doctor, M.D.
- [09:58]
B
Oh, okay. But.
- [09:59]
C
But he used, he used storytelling in his craft, in his, in his therapy and in his ability to do hypnosis was unmatched. You know, some people said, oh, some people's hypnotizable, other people aren't hypnotizable. For Milton Erickson, it was like, is the person breathing then? I can hypnotize them.
- [10:19]
B
Well, let me bring back, Let me go back a little bit further than Milton Erickson because there's also a. An earlier Maryland. Who was a. You're going to probably know who this is. I'm going to almost make you guess because you'll get this. Being a student of it. He was a plastic surgeon. Came up with. Yes, there you go. I knew you'd get it. Psycho cyber. Yes, psycho cybernetics. How did, did he. Who came first, Erickson or Maxwell Maltz?
- [10:51]
C
You know what? I think Erickson came first, at least chronologically.
- [10:56]
B
Or are they in two different silos?
- [10:58]
C
Yeah, they're totally different silos. Yeah, for sure. Fascinating stuff. Maxwell Maltz. So psycho cybernetics is absolutely fascinating. You know, he did a, he did a study once where people were, you know, had undergone. Undergone. Underwent plastic surgery.
- [11:14]
B
Had undergone. I think. Yes, both are correct. All right.
- [11:18]
C
Yeah, they had plastic surgery and then when they came out and everyone else looked at them and said, oh, my God, you look fantastic. You're like 30 years younger. You look so great. And they would look at themselves and not see the difference. They'd look in the mirror and go, like, I look exactly the same as I did before. It's like, wow, that's very interesting.
- [11:41]
B
Self perception. Yeah.
- [11:44]
C
Being broadcast or put onto the actual reality. But the filters that they put on are so strong that they can't even see the actual reality. And we all do that, of course. And that's the point of cybernetics is how do we get ahead of that? How do we take advantage of the fact that we do that? And how do we clean up it if we're doing it with inappropriate response results?
- [12:09]
B
Well, he, he was, he was groundbreaking. A lot of people related to that because then it was okay. It's all about an inside job. The outward beauty is secondary, but that's what draws people in. But if you don't believe it and act on it, you're still ugly. Right. You still have all these, these blemishes that are not going away unless you heal the inside, I think was his message. From what I read. It's a long Time ago, you know, and then there was another modality and, and I, I'm happy to find somebody who's a kindred spirit in this regard. I was a trainer for a company called Silva Mind Control. Oh yeah, Yeah. I, I went through their eight day training and used to conduct that was a, their, you know, workshops. That was a whole different methodology. All about the alpha state, beta state, going all in the same family. What would we call that is mental science?
- [13:05]
C
Yeah, mental science. It is. People would argue that it is hypnosis. It's just a different way of getting to a different name. Hypnosis is just a name. It's just a word somebody made up and put on this state that we go into. And we're doing that sort of thing. We're going into altered states, visualizing what we want to have be happening. You know, tell ourselves affirmational sorts of words to ourselves. And that's, that's all the same thing whether it's psycho cybernetics or the silver mind control or hypnosis or NLP or creative visualization. I used to work at a hospital in New York City and I was doing pre surgical hypnosis for heart patients primarily. And we couldn't use the word hypnosis because it has so many attachments.
- [13:51]
B
Quackery, quackery and all these.
- [13:55]
C
So we used guided imagery and you know, mental imagery and healing imagery, you know, sort of stuff, words like that. People could, they could allow for that. Oh yeah, I can do that. Just none of that hypnosis stuff. Don't do anything.
- [14:07]
B
Oh yeah, don't, don't. Well, because the first image of hypnosis. Let's think about this. When we were boys was the Twilight Zone and Rod Serling's voice smoking on screen. Back then it was so inappropriate. But he was this guy with a gravelly voice. And you think of a, a watch on a pendulum. If we're going back to the, to Britain where they would use the watch and you're getting sleepy. And how valid is that?
- [14:35]
C
Well, you know the man that let me. I have a prop if you don't mind me just stepping.
- [14:41]
B
Grab it, grab it.
- [14:44]
C
This, this thing is called the Braid fascination device.
- [14:49]
B
Oh, I love it. I remember that from in like Flint movies.
- [14:53]
C
In like Flint and Psycho or something. And James Braid, English, Scottish physician, invented this. He's the guy that named hypnosis. Hypnosis. He, it was his name. He made up that word. Hypnos means sleep in Greek.
- [15:08]
B
What's that called again? Doug? I want to get One of those. That's a great prop.
- [15:13]
C
Yeah. I'm sure it's available under lots of different names, but officially it's the Braid because of James Braid. B R A I D. Braid Fascination device. That's what he called it.
- [15:23]
B
Oh, I love it.
- [15:24]
C
Probably marketed these days under things like hypno disc. I'm sure you can find it.
- [15:31]
B
I got to take a note on that because I wrote a book on props in speaking, so I use rubber chickens and things like this as pattern interrupts. So this is. So it's called the Braid braid method.
- [15:49]
C
It's called the Braid Fascination device. The idea was that you needed to get eye fixation. You needed to capture the attention. So the swinging watch would do the one thing, you know, so keep your eyes on the watch, watch the watch, you know, so that was one way. This was his way of doing it. But the same idea was there that you kept. You got the visual attention. You captured their attention through the visual.
- [16:10]
B
I love it. I love those things. There was a speaker friend of mine that use that as a. In a video format from his PowerPoint.
- [16:20]
C
Huh.
- [16:21]
B
He said, I'm going to get you. And he would use it as. I don't know if it worked or it put people off. This guy's a shyster. I don't know the effect it might have.
- [16:34]
C
That's why we didn't use the word hypnosis in the hospital. People go like, oh, that's silly stuff. That doesn't work. But the guided imagery. Okay, I can do that. That's legit. Yeah.
- [16:43]
B
It's just a matter of reframing it, isn't it?
- [16:45]
C
Yeah, it is.
- [16:47]
B
So you're also a piano player? I mean, I am observatory man, dude. And do you use that in any of your trainings? Does music factor or sound.
- [17:02]
C
Well? Yes. I mean, yes, sort of. I. I allude to music a lot in my trainings of hypnosis and Ericksonian hypnosis and nlp. I teach sleight of mouth. I teach all these things online. So I definitely allude to it. One of the things I talked about recently as an example is that when you learn a piece of music, you've got to sort of break it down to its most elemental parts and practice those elemental parts. Just like my tractor's being worked on right now. It's all in pieces, you know, the carburetors over here. And so you had to break it down into the component parts and practice those little parts. So I'd show people how I did that with A piece of piano music. And then we would tell them we're going to be doing the same thing with sleight of mouth here. You're going to break it down to the parts. So you learn this part and then you learn this part and then you put them together. Then you learn this part and you put those together. You know, it's step by step by step. You can learn anything if you break it down into those bite sized steps. That's one of the things that NLP has taught us that we can actually do that we can teach anything if we break it down in the component parts and do it, you know, step by step, at the learner's pace.
- [18:13]
B
What did you learn today at your young age that you wish you had known 30 years ago?
- [18:22]
C
What I just said. Okay, okay, so that's, Let me rephrase it. I don't know if it's. Say that question again. What did I.
- [18:29]
B
What do you know today?
- [18:31]
C
I know today.
- [18:32]
B
Okay, okay. What do you know today that you wish you knew 30 years ago? And what kind of impact would that have had on your life today?
- [18:40]
C
30. 30 years ago. 30 years ago I was 40.
- [18:45]
B
Okay.
- [18:45]
C
So pretty much knew what I know then now. So. But if we go back a few more years.
- [18:52]
B
Okay, well then you pick the time frame. It's just, it's a context question.
- [18:58]
C
Yeah. You know, when I was a kid, I loved playing basketball. I was very athletic. I didn't play, learn playing the piano until I was like 13, which is late if you want to be a pianist. I discovered that unfortunately. Yeah, but, but you know, in my athletics, nobody ever taught me how to do it. I was a kid, I just was like, let's go play basketball. And you just sort of threw it up and did your best you could. And you know, I got good enough to be on the high school team, which was a pretty good accomplishment. But you know, I see kids these days getting coaching when they're, you know, eight, and there's probably drawbacks to that, but boy, they become really good basketball players by the time, you know, they're in their high school, their high school team. My nephew's like that. He's phenomenal. He's like so much better than I ever was. And he's 14 years old, you know, so. But I wish I had learned to be able to, you know, have the patience and pull things apart and just, you know, have the faith and the knowledge that by doing that slow practice you get better. I remember. Do you know who Tarzan, who was the actor that played Tarzan back in the day.
- [20:07]
B
Johnny Weissmuller.
- [20:08]
C
Johnny Weissmiller, yeah. You remember Johnny Weissmuller?
- [20:10]
B
Yes.
- [20:11]
C
Yes, you do. You just came up with his name. Johnny Weissmiller was a swimmer. He was an Olympic swimmer.
- [20:16]
B
Yes.
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C
And this is a story I'm just pulling out of my hat. I haven't told this story in probably 40 years. But Johnny Weissmiller, when he was a kid, he was a very sickly kid. He had like, I don't know what disease he had, but he was very sickly kid, little scrawny kid on the block kind of thing. And his doctor told his parents, you know, you got to build this kid's muscles up. I think you should give him some swimming lessons or something. So they said, okay, well, our next door neighbor is a swimming coach, so let's hire him and have him give him some lessons. So he started taking swimming lessons from the next door neighbor. This is California. And, you know, being a kid like I was with basketball, it's like, let's just do it. And Johnny was. Let's just swim. And the coach was able to stop him and say, no, no, no, no. One thing at a time. Focus on the form and the speed will come.
- [21:07]
B
Focus on the form and the speed will come. That's a good nugget and a squeeze for that one.
- [21:15]
C
That's, of course, what he did. Johnny Weissmiller, as an Olympic swimmer, never lost a race. That's one of his. I mean, I don't. He didn't win as many golds as other people these days.
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B
But Mark Spitz, I think, starts. He had the. He had the record until. What was his name? The. The. The next one. The tall one.
- [21:33]
C
The tall one. The tall one with the big feet. Yeah.
- [21:35]
B
Came around.
- [21:36]
C
Yeah. I usually can remember his name, but today I'm remembering Johnny Weissmiller instead. But, yeah, so it's a pretty amazing thing. So I would. I would give myself that. That advice. And I'd learned to probably be a much better basketball player, a much better piano player. I'd probably be much better at most things if I had had that knowledge when I was a kid.
- [21:58]
B
Very true. I taught martial arts for you. I'm a taekwondo master. And. And I went through a very disciplined, structured regimen in order to earn my black belt. Took about five years. And I would be interesting to think how well I would have competed and fought. But there are rules. Or if I would have just been thrown in a ring and go fight, kid.
- [22:27]
C
Yeah.
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B
Versus having good fundamentals, sound fundamentals. Before I ever stepped in the ring. We didn't spar for the first eight, nine months. Which means get in the ring and have contact is all mock until you learn about control, until you learn technique, until you learn the right way to do things. And then when you do enter and get punched, it's a wake up call. It's like, oh, that works or that doesn't work. I wonder how different the, the result would have been. If you go back long enough to think about people who were bar room brawler fighters, I guess they learned, excuse me, directly through pain. I better doc. And then there's some instinct that comes into play. How easy you, you were given instruction for piano or did you just get thrown in front of it?
- [23:23]
C
Well, no, I took lessons from the, from the get go. We moved to a new house when I was 13 and my dad, my sister, actually my older sister said, dad, let's get a piano. And he said, well, we'll get a piano on one condition, that you have to take piano lessons. And our church organist came over on Thursdays, gave all three kids lessons and I was the youngest, but I really, you know, really took to it. So I, from the, from the very get go, I learned from a teacher.
- [23:52]
B
And did your siblings also become competent piano players or was it just you?
- [23:58]
C
Just me.
- [23:59]
B
Okay. So they played and that was it.
- [24:02]
C
My brother plays trombone and flute. Older brother, he took to it quite well, but he was almost college age by then. He was a few years older than me. So by the time, you know, he was starting to get good, it was off to college for him. So, so I was the last one left and then my sister was, was okay, but she didn't like the fact that I was, you know, just taken to it like flies to shit. So she said, yeah, you do that, I'm going to do something else. So she just abandoned it because she didn't want to compete with her younger brother.
- [24:32]
B
Oh, interesting. Well, you know, like everybody has got their, their leanings. I wasn't necessarily good at football, but martial I took to, I think, and it was easy for me. I loved it and was passionate about it. What do you find are the keys to success now that you can look back finally, because we're getting up there, we've had a lot of experiences. Do you think passion and skill is necessary or can you get to be successful without a passion? You took the piano. I'm using that as an example.
- [25:10]
C
Okay. Honestly, I don't think there's a set rule for that. I think there's There's. There are factors that most people need, but there are people that are frankly lucky and gets to be successful because of luck. You know, it doesn't sound good, but that's true. Some people are just lucky, but that's okay. God bless them, you know, good for them. But the rest of us, it does. It requires a passion, requires a commitment, and it requires the ability that you experience in Taekwondo to say, get hit in the face but don't quit.
- [25:44]
B
Yeah.
- [25:45]
C
Keep getting back up again.
- [25:46]
B
Yeah. If you get knocked down, you have to do that. I mean, I. I would imagine you went through some challenges being the pianist that you are, the concert level pianist, the professional pianist that you are. I'm sure you had some sore fingers or sore wrists or different ailments that you had to push through.
- [26:05]
C
I definitely did. And, you know, my first college piano teacher was a brilliant musician. She herself started playing piano when she was three, but she was a prodigy. She took to it really amazingly well. Became a concert pianist by the time she was 8. She played at Town hall in New York City.
- [26:23]
B
Wow.
- [26:24]
C
Amazing, amazing thing. So I started playing piano when I was 13. I auditioned for college when I was 17. That's not much time. Especially when I didn't very short window. Especially when they didn't hit the ground running, thinking, okay, here I go. I'm gonna practice eight hours a day. It took me a couple years to say, you know, I kind of like this, you know, So I really had maybe two years of like, dedicated practice, but even then it wasn't much. I was still on the basketball team, you know, so when I got to college, there were lots of things I couldn't do. So that piano teacher, and I thought, okay, I'm going to really learn from the best now. She said, why are you here? You should go into art. You're much better at art than you are at piano. You should just quit. And I was like, I need a new piano teacher.
- [27:11]
B
Ah, okay.
- [27:12]
C
Yeah, I had to, I had to survive that. I want, I proved, I tried desperately to prove her wrong. I stuck it out with her. I said, I'm not quitting. I'm not quitting for a long time. And I worked so hard and I got my grades up from a C to a B minus or something for a couple of years. But finally I just.
- [27:32]
B
I love the honesty. Yeah.
- [27:34]
C
Finally I had enough sense to just switch piano teachers. And this new guy was fantastic. His name was T. Richard Patterson. And he was just brilliant teacher. He was a teacher, you know.
- [27:43]
B
Got it. Yeah, yeah. Some people are who embrace it and have passion. I see. I think passion matters other than raw skill. For longevity, maybe.
- [27:53]
C
For longevity. For sure.
- [27:55]
B
For longevity. So you could be lucky and. Or naturally gifted for a period of time, but for the long game, I think you have to have a little bit of passion and truant.
- [28:04]
C
I saw people come and go in my short four years at college that were much more talented than I was and quit. They just. They just couldn't. They couldn't handle the pressure. They couldn't handle many things. There's a lot of factors that go in, certainly, to musical success, but I think in anybody's success, but I think the passion is critical. Talent for sure, has to. As an element, but you got to develop that talent. You've got to work at it. You know, anybody can learn anything if you work at it. You know, it's funny. I had a. During my. After my senior recital, one of my mother's friends who had attended the recital came up to me. She said, oh, my God, that was so beautiful. That was so beautiful. I would give anything to play like you. And I said, really? You'd give anything? She said, yes, I would give any. Anything. And I said, well, okay. Well, here's what you do. Get yourself a piano. Get yourself a good piano teacher, and then practice your ass off for the next eight years. Because that's all I did, you know?
- [29:05]
B
Then what she say?
- [29:07]
C
She said, you're an asshole. I said, yeah, you're right. I am. And I'm so sorry. That was not very polite of me. Mom. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to insult your friend, but, yeah, I was probably more polite than I was just now. But that is what I said. And it is true. You know, people think it's just like, you're so talented, but it's work.
- [29:27]
B
It's total work. Even as a professional speaker, I sucked in the beginning.
- [29:34]
C
Really? Tell me.
- [29:36]
B
It's terrible. I didn't know. I. I lacked confidence. I lacked. I sought coaches. So that's why I asked. What is it? I paid big money for people to coach me to become a better speaker.
- [29:49]
C
Seriously, I did not know that. That's amazing. Wow.
- [29:51]
B
Yes. I sucked. Nobody was worse than me. Yeah. Oh, God, I was terrible. I didn't know what I was doing, and I fumbled and stumbled and didn't. Wow. I studied it because I had a passion and I had a stick to itiveness. To where, okay, I need to do this to get better, better and better, and I'm not going to Give up. I went through the pain of embarrassment, humiliation, self doubt to get through that to where I became pretty good. And now I would consider myself highly competent. I teach others. So I became a teacher because I went through the pain and nobody was worse than me. I was rock bottom terrible.
- [30:32]
C
Wow.
- [30:33]
B
So from there, all you can do is go up.
- [30:36]
C
That's a great attitude.
- [30:38]
B
Yeah. I had to. I mean, it was because I was passionate about it.
- [30:41]
C
Yeah.
- [30:42]
B
I could have given up. Believe me, could have given up and. But I wouldn't stop because I had the commitment to it. And there are other things that I've done in life, though. Doug, I would imagine you may have this experience. I might have done competently, but I just didn't have passion.
- [31:00]
C
I wasn't.
- [31:01]
B
I was. Okay. I took wood shop in college, in high school as an example wood shop. And it was enjoyable. I took auto mechanic class in high school because that's what guys did, you know, in the 70s, I took. So I know how to change oil. I had no aspirations to be a mechanic.
- [31:18]
C
Sure.
- [31:19]
B
None. And I had no aspirations to be a carpenter. It was cool. I respect the craft, but the p word of passion was not there for either of them. It's good. I have a working understanding of it and appreciation. Some did really well. I mean, their woodwork was beautiful. Mine was average. And I didn't want to put in the time to become as good as Bill, who was my. My shotmate.
- [31:47]
C
You know, that's a great example because, you know, you might have actually been a more, you know, naturally talented carpenter or mechanic than you were a public speaker. But where's the passion for it? The passion was in for the public speaking, not those other two things. So you spent the time to practice and get the coaching, get the teaching that you needed to. To grow and get better and better and better as a public speaker. And look at you now.
- [32:12]
B
Well, as a hypnotist and as an NLP practitioner and master trainer. How good were you the first time you got out? Exactly. Hence my point. You had to put in. And you. Because of the discipline of being a pianist at a high level, you knew about commitment. You've got to put in the hard yards. Yeah. It's. You don't become. No actor gets it. There are very few actors that don't go through dress rehearsal. You just can't come out and wing it.
- [32:45]
C
No. I'm like, true. Yeah.
- [32:48]
B
And that's it. So how do people get in touch with you, Doug?
- [32:51]
C
Well, I have a few different ways people get a hold of me. You know, probably if they just google Doug o', Brien, they'll find me. As long as they don't make mistake me for the hockey player.
- [32:59]
B
Okay.
- [33:01]
C
But my main website is called Essential coaching skills. So essentialcoachingskills.com and that's where I teach the NLP. That's where I teach the sleight of mouth, that's where I teach the hypnosis. But it's also where you can get hold of my book. And just by the way, one other thing about this book, however you buy it, whatever form you get it in, all of them have at the back of the book a coupon that you can take a free online course with me that's pretty darn good on storytelling. So there's.
- [33:31]
B
Well, I gotta take it because I love learning.
- [33:34]
C
I'll send you a link.
- [33:35]
B
Oh, I, I would love it because I'm a big fan of this and then I can reference you in future episodes.
- [33:43]
C
I would be thrilled to hear your feedback. It's a brilliant course. I think we've had person edit it down and recorded extra sessions for it. It's really a very, very, very good course on storytelling and it's free when you.
- [33:55]
B
I would love it, Doug. Well, thank you for your time today, Doug. Brian, either Google them I would imagine you're available on LinkedIn as well is.
- [34:05]
C
Not as much but you can find me. I am there.
- [34:07]
B
Okay. I mean I. I send up a flare on occasion that works whatever it is to get to be found. So Doug, you've been a great guest on Amazing Authorities. We'll see you in the next episode. Thank you.
- [34:20]
A
Thanks for tuning in to the Amazing Authorities podcast. If today's episode inspired you, take a moment to subscribe, rate and leave a review. It helps more experts like you rise to the top for behind the scenes access and free resources to boost your authority. Head to MitchCarson.com until next time, stay amazing.