Mind Mysteries: Exploring Hypnotherapy with Michelle Walters

This week I sat down with Michelle Walters, a marketing coach turned clinical hypnotherapist, to dive into the fascinating world of hypnotherapy. We talk about what hypnosis really is, how it compares to meditation and traditional therapy, and why it’s not just movie magic.

Michelle shares how a novel inspired her to completely change careers and how she now helps people uncover the power of their subconscious. We even get into the big questions like past lives, the afterlife, and how AI is shaping the future of mental wellness.

You can find her content via her website michellewalters.net

Transcript

Intro Song

Rob Valincius: We are live on another beautiful, thirsty Thursday, one of my favorite days of the week. You know, Thursday's really underrated in my opinion. That's all I'm saying. There's, there's the excitement for Friday's, obviously the most exciting. Um, but there's something about, it's almost like the Christmas Eve of the week, and I, I think people need to appreciate Thursday more.

I'll just throw my hat in the ring there for appreciating Thursday. But listen, this is the Drink O'clock podcast. I'm yours, Vallencia, and I have the pleasure of having with me Michelle Walters. Now Michelle, you're a marketing coach and clinical hypnotherapist. Welcome to the show.

Michelle Walters: Thank you. I'm super happy to be here today.

Rob Valincius: That's good. I don't know if you're drinking. Uh, it's been a long week for me, so, uh, I'll be having an old fashioned, and it's not a requirement to drink on my show. Um, but I'm just gonna do a little nibble here because Loose Lips Sink ships is, uh, is a, is a classic one there, right? Um, but. Listen, I've had, um, I, I have had a, at least one, maybe two hypnotherapist on my show.

I'm fascinated by it. Um, and I do think it's, uh, it's a pretty cool thing, um, what you're doing and, and, uh, you had a cool spin on it. So we, we'll get to that. Um, because I, I want to, I'm a tech nerd too, so I,

Michelle Walters: Oh, good. Okay, fun. That'll be fun.

Rob Valincius: yeah, I definitely wanna jump into that. 'cause I think that's a, a good portion of, um, you know, kind of what you're bringing to the table in today's climate.

Right. But look, uh, I just met you technically, uh, four minutes ago, so these conversations are always funny. But I don't know anything about your backstory and neither does my listeners. So, do me a favor, uh, bring us up to speed on Michelle Walters growing up to kind of where you got to, uh, where we are today.

Michelle Walters: Sure. So I am actually speaking to you about two or three miles away from where I grew up, uh, which is the East Bay of California. Uh, grew up here in the suburbs. After I finished my primary education, I went off to school. I have an undergraduate degree in biology and I have a bachelor or a master's in business.

Worked in digital marketing for over 20 years, um, mostly in California. I had some stints in Dallas and um, few other places. And then I decided, I read a book, uh, in the, in about 20 18, 20 19, by one of my favorite authors called the Hypnotist Love Story. And it was about a hypnotist who lived in. Sydney Australian.

She solved all these people's problems. And I was like, wow, this is so cool. I wanna do that. And so in what is probably not the most common way of changing one's career, a novel led me to hypnotherapy school, got a degree on the weekends, and when the pandemic hit, my life kind of went, wha like so many other people's lives.

And it seemed like a good time that if I was gonna walk away from what had been a full-time career in digital marketing for big, big companies, you know, Clorox and Schwab and Nestle, and companies like that, I. Decided to do something completely different. And I rented this little office and I put up my recliner chair and started seeing clients.

And I have been working primarily in hypnotherapy with some amount of marketing work, mostly for very small businesses right now. And absolutely love it. It's been a complete change of gears from my old life. Uh, but now I get to help people with all kinds of, um, I mean, some are common, but some are kind of unusual, uh, problems and finding out what's in people's subconscious and helping them to, to come up with new solutions.

It's, it's, it's beautiful work.

Rob Valincius: Look, I was gonna be a psychologist, I've said a million times on this show, so I, I'm fascinated with the mind and the psyche and, and what brings people to do the things that they do. So I appreciate your work. Um, let's start with the basics here, because I'm sure I, I have, I've picked up new listeners since the last time I've, I've interviewed a, a hypnotherapist.

What is hypnotherapy? Um, how does it differ from, we'll say, um, your traditional psychology or psychotherapy? Um, and how does it differ from someone doing, uh, meditation and mindfulness? You know, I guess that's like the three pillars there, you know, if you're comparing

Michelle Walters: those are kind of the, those are the three that that tend to get, kinda like how do they all work together, work differently, that kind of thing. So to take your first question, what is hypnosis? Right? Hypnosis is a state of trance. It is a state where certain parts of your brain have dialed down. And kind of like gotten more quiet, kind of gotten outta your own way.

And when a person is in a state of hypnosis, they are more suggestible, meaning you can convince them to do things, you can suggest things to them that they're more willing to try. They are super focused 'cause their attention is not on 20 things. Their attention is on whatever it is you're working on.

And they are more dissociated, meaning that they are not as connected to their body. They can imagine doing things with their body that maybe would be hard to do if they were in a fully waking state. Everybody in the world goes through, uh, what's called a hypnogogic state, which is a transitional state between wake and sleep every day.

So even if you don't really think, oh, I've never been in a state of hypnosis, your brain goes through this state at least twice a day when you fall asleep and when you wake up. Hypnosis versus hypnotherapy. Hypnosis is the practice of putting, putting yourself, or, or guiding other people into this state of trance.

Hypnotherapy is when you're using it for a hyp or when you're using it for a therapeutic purpose. So like there are stage hypnotists that get people up on the stage and put people in a state of hypnosis and they're quacking like ducks or rubbing their tummies and patting their heads and, and doing all

Rob Valincius: The stuff you see in the movies,

Michelle Walters: The stuff, well, the stuff you often see in the movies, but you can see it live on stage too. Um, that people should know that the people on stage are not chosen ahead of time. That in a big group of people, there will be some number of people who are willing to do this, um, that is hypnosis, but not for the purpose of therapy. So that's kinda my explanation as to what is, what is hypnosis. Oh, and people should know that hypnosis is entirely consensual. Like you can't be in a state of hypnosis if you don't wanna be. If you, if you just are like, no, I'm not gonna go along with that. But you don't go along with that. I don't have any particular power as a hypnotist.

I can't make you do things. You know

Rob Valincius: it's like the old sixties movies, but like the black and the white spinning thing, and they're like, you're going to go kill your neighbor, you know?

Michelle Walters: Guess what? It doesn't work if, if I tell somebody who's in a state of, of hypnosis something that they wouldn't believe, they just pop out of hypnosis. That's all that happens. You just kind of like wake up and like, oh, you're gonna open your eyes and discover the world is upside down. But people are like, that's ridiculous.

And they wake up. So it doesn't work like that. Hypnosis versus meditation. First off, it's really hard to try and explain what is meditation, because there's like,

Rob Valincius: true.

Michelle Walters: like, like how do you even describe that? But what folks usually say is that hypnosis is like meditation, but with a goal. Like we are doing something for a purpose in, in hypnotherapy, but in meditation you might have a goal, but you might not have a goal.

Right. And then in terms of the difference between hypnotherapy and psychotherapy, in psychotherapy, it, it, you can work on the same problems in, in either, in either system, but in psychotherapy it tends to take a really long time. 'cause you gotta talk about everything. And your psychotherapist is gonna ask about how does that relate to your mother and your first grade school teacher?

And these conversations go on and on and on and on and on. Hypnotherapy

Rob Valincius: get paid somehow, right?

Michelle Walters: Well, therapists probably aren't as good on the whole getting paid side because we tend to take a down, dirty and deep approach. And so many of my clients I'm not working with for that long. Um, we tend to go deep and hard to figure out what is lodged in the subconscious that needs to be shuffled out and something new shuffled in.

But it's a, so it's a different, it's a different approach. Often I work with clients who are also seeing a therapist, a psychotherapist, um, because my work can be in conjunction, we're just approaching maybe the same question, maybe slightly different questions in, in different modalities.

Rob Valincius: Yeah. Interesting. Now, let me ask you this. 'cause I don't know if I've ever asked a hypnotherapist that I've interviewed this, which is just coming to me. I always have a lists of like a hundred questions and, uh, I then I, I find ones that I'm like, Ooh, you know, that interests me. And I hopefully it, it

Michelle Walters: I think that's good. I think it's good to kind of go with what's live right

Rob Valincius: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, have you ever run into someone that can't be hypnotized? Is it something that's, that's inert with, with people that everyone can, or can, can people just be like, nah, that's not working.

Michelle Walters: There

Rob Valincius: is that awkward

Michelle Walters: well, okay. First off, most people who cannot be hypnotized don't come anywhere near a hypnotherapist. So I really kind of don't need to deal with them because they, they usually kind of bow out before they ever would come to me.

Rob Valincius: Yeah.

Michelle Walters: Technically, uh, there is a very small fraction of the population who has a mental disorder, and I'm forgetting what it's called right now, but it is an inability to imagine if you have an, a mental disorder where you cannot imagine anything.

Hypnosis is not really gonna work.

Rob Valincius: We call those psychopaths.

Michelle Walters: yeah, I mean like, I didn't really believe there were people like that, but now, like I've heard these people interviewed, like there are people like that. Um, there is a degree of something called hypnotizability and people can be, uh, graded essentially on how hypnotizable you are.

Some people are more hypnotizable than others. The more you play with hypnosis, the more you spend time doing hypnosis, the, the sort of more quickly you'll drop into hypnosis. Um, in my work, I've had one or two people come to see me who were very low on the hypnotizability scale. And so our progress was pretty limited.

But like I said, um, most people, I mean it's probably 80, 90% of people are hypnotizable.

Rob Valincius: Interesting. So how would you know? Like how, like as a, as a human, I guess I'm, for me, yeah. I guess you don't know until you know type thing.

Michelle Walters: you dunno. Uh, you need to, uh, meet with a clinical hypnotherapist who's been taught how to assess that, to determine if you are hypnotizable or not hypnotizable. Most people are, most people are, but there are some people who really don't do it that well. And you know, I mean, that's okay.

There's people who are good at dancing and people who aren't, you know, it's.

Rob Valincius: Well, it's the same thing like I, I saw online and I don't know, uh, how many people are affected by this or if there's a specific word for it. Uh, but there's a lot of people that, uh, it was news to me that don't have an inside voice that like, they don't talk to themselves. And that kind of threw me for a loop because I talk to myself all the time.

So either I'm super fucking crazy or it's just like, it's, it's like one of those weird things. You don't, I guess you don't think about it 'cause you're always like in your own head, like, oh, you know what? I should have made a left here. Like, you know, like little things like that,

Michelle Walters: I think our interpretations of what goes on inside of ourselves is all fascinating. Um, and there's a wide range of it. There are people who talk to themselves. There are people who talk to themselves out loud. There are people who talk in their sleep. There are people who don't really think of what they're doing as talking to themselves, but I would say most people in our society have some way of, um, noticing things about themselves.

You know, hey, if I, uh, if I have my cocktail at five as opposed to nine, then I don't pee as much in the middle of the night. Like, people notice things about themselves, right?

Rob Valincius: That that's true. Now walk me through what a typical hypnotherapy session for you would look like. It could just be something very generic. Um, because I'm interested, like, I guess I, when I think of therapy, I think. You know, I'm sitting on this couch, this person's sitting on this couch. Like, how does that look for a, a hypnotherapy session?

Michelle Walters: Well, it looks one way. If you come into my office, it looks slightly different if you're at home on Zoom. Um, it, the session would usually start off with us having a, a conversation and me asking quite a few questions, uh, trying to understand who is this person and why is this bothering them, and how long has it been going on?

And. What, what can this person tell me about their fear of heights or their, um, extreme, extreme anxiety or their sleep problem or whatever it is they've got going on? I'm gonna ask a, a bunch of questions and then I'm going to have that person get into a comfortable place and get them very, very relaxed.

That's really all it feels like is, it just feels like you're getting so relaxed. It feels like you're on the brink of sleep, really. And I'm talking and talking and helping them just get relaxed and maybe helping them visualize, I don't know, a, a bubbling brook or an ocean beach or whatever makes them feel like they're in the kind of their happy place.

And then I'm going to talk to them. I'm gonna talk to them. I might ask them questions. It kind of depends on what. What stage we're at and what problem we're solving. So we might go back in time to imagine what things were like as a child. We might remember a time when you conquered this problem before and figure out how can you visualize yourself conquering it again.

You know, it kind of depends on the, we might visualize going, walking through what the problem is, like I've helped people with driving anxiety and so we're imagining driving the car. What does, what does that look like? How do we build that visualization and confidence to be able to tackle the problem?

You know, hip hypnosis, hypnotherapy is used a lot in sports. It's used by Olympic athletes to imagine skiing down the mountain. Because your brain has a very hard time distinguishing what is real versus what is imagined. And so it can help build your, your strength, your confidence, your, your actual ability to ski down the hill by imagining skiing down the hill.

Rob Valincius: Yeah, it gets people outta funks, right? I think, I think in sports they call it the yips is when you were good at something and you knew what you were doing, and then all of a sudden you couldn't do it anymore. And you have no reason, no reason why. It's all psychological.

Michelle Walters: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Rob Valincius: Um, so you know. You went to school, right?

For this and you got certified, I think, uh, what was the, uh, American, I, I had it written down,

Michelle Walters: I went to a school called the, um, hypnotherapy Training Institute. Uh, it's a school that's been around over 40 years, maybe 45 years now, uh, based in Marin, California.

Rob Valincius: So how does that training look? It's, it's gotta be relatively similar to like, if you were to be trained to be a psychologist, right? Because you have to know,

Michelle Walters: It's not as much training. Yeah, it's, it's fewer hours of training and it's fewer hours of, um, what do you call it? Uh, like when you train to be a psychotherapist, you have to work for other psychotherapists for years and years and years before you can

Rob Valincius: Oh, yeah,

Michelle Walters: up your own shing.

Rob Valincius: uh, what do they call that? Uh, residency,

Michelle Walters: It's like, yeah, there's like a residency. Hypnotherapy typically does not have that kind of residency. So my hypnotherapy school, like I said, I went mostly on the weekends. Uh, I think towards the end there were some weekdays, but it's learning about the powers of the mind, learning about related techniques, um, and related concepts.

We learned about something called EFT Tapping. We learned about neurolinguistic programming, which is a related topic. We learned about some of the other traditions from other parts of the world that have to do with kind of entering similar states. Huna states from, uh, Hawaii and, uh, native American states from South America.

And we practiced a lot, um, on one another, on friends and family outside the

Rob Valincius: I was gonna ask if you were part, if you've been hypnotized, and I

Michelle Walters: Oh yeah.

Rob Valincius: you

Michelle Walters: hypnotherapy school over and over and over again. Yeah. Yeah. And it, it's one of these things, you know, sometimes people don't realize, but when you, you would go, you can do something called self hypnosis, which we'll probably talk more about.

But when you're having a, a problem and it's a pretty deep seated problem, it's gonna be helpful to go to another hypnotherapist who's really asking or acting as a guide. So, for example, I have a friend of mine from hypnotherapy school, and she was having trouble sleeping. Um, what do you do when you're having trouble?

You go to another hypnotherapist who can help you with these things because you need somebody outside of yourself to be a guide and ask you the right questions and help you figure out how you're going to, how you're, what's going on, and how to conquer it.

Rob Valincius: Yeah. I'd hate to see a schizophrenic psychotherapist because, uh, or psycho. Well,

Michelle Walters: Yeah. I don't, I, it's hard even quite imagine how that would work. So I do get questions a lot sort of a, I have a DHD would this work for me? Absolutely. Uh, another good friend of mine who's a hypnotherapist has a DHD in a bad way, but can she be a hypnotherapist? Absolutely. It's a, it's a focusing thing and your brain knows how to do it.

You just have to find the, the person and the technique to help you get into that zone.

Rob Valincius: So what are, you know, and then this will, we'll, we'll head back to you, but what are some common misconceptions about what you do? Maybe it's with hypnosis, uh, or hypnotherapy. What are some common misconceptions and how can we, um, how can you debunk that or think about it differently?

Michelle Walters: I think the biggest one is just that I'm gonna get people to do something they don't wanna do.

Rob Valincius: Yeah. I wanna stop smoking. Well, you know.

Michelle Walters: I, I can help people smoke, stop smoking. I've, I've done that. Um, I've done a lot of things, but I think the biggest one is that people are afraid that, um, they're gonna come to me and I don't know, I'm gonna make 'em trip and fall or something, or I'm going to, they're gonna reveal secrets about their mother that they never wanted to reveal.

I, I, I don't know. I, I. I think that's maybe the biggest one. And, and maybe the other big one is just that it, it doesn't work. And I will say it does not work every single time. It doesn't, but it works most of the time for my clients and that's why they come to see me.

Rob Valincius: Yeah. I mean, look, it's, um, in, in, in our world, um, I think that there's this. And, and, and look, we've just been born and bred at this point to believe that modern medicine is here to help us. And I think that there's, I'm not saying most doctors are trying to hurt you, you know, but what they learn in school and what they've been bred to do is to just give you medicines, you know?

And, um, I like that in, in your work, you're doing something that's, that you're not prescribing them pills and saying, okay, get outta my office. Right. You are helping them work through their problems. So even if they're skeptical, right, you can still break through that and potentially help them with their problems with, with today's medicine, and I've, I've interviewed, um, psychiatrists on the show 'cause I've, you know, like I've had issues with psychiatrists because, uh, I grew up with people bipolar in my family.

And, and that is something you have to be medicated for. But they, they didn't talk things out. They didn't try to help. These people through, they just gave them pills and said, try this and see if it, and it just turns you into a zombie. Right. And that's that. And you move on. And, um, I, I think today's medicine is, it's, it's, a lot of it's being fronted.

I'm a, I'm, I'm a bit of a conspiracy theorist on the show in some aspects, but I think a lot of it's fronted by the drug companies. And I work, my, my main job, I work in Medicare. I deal with the elderly. I see what they do to these people. I, I mean, I have, I have patient, I've, you know, I'm an agent, so I've, I have clients that are on 20 medications and three of them for the same thing.

And it's like, I wish, and I, I think it's changing a little bit, uh, with maybe the younger generations, but it's like the holistic approach. Like some of these medicines, like you, you see the epidemic with dementia. And a lot of it is because of these medicines that we've been pedaling since the seventies and they're just now coming out like, oh.

This one definitely causes dementia. We think, you know, and, um, I, I, the holistic approach, and that's why I like, you know, the things that you are doing. It's a, it's a holistic approach to helping people, right.

Michelle Walters: Well, and there are, there are, there are things that you can get yourself through that you might not need a pill for. You know, and, and I, I, on the range of hypnotherapist, there are hypnotherapist who are like, oh, never take a pill for anything. I, I, I'm not that person. I do think. I have a, I have an undergraduate degree in biology.

I mean, like, I'm a, I'm a fan of lots of science and the things that work, but we have gotten to a place, I think in our culture, in our society where greed and the power of the pharmaceuticals and that kind of a thing is awfully big and awfully massive and may not be what somebody needs. You know? Uh, have you ruled out hypnotherapy to help you go to sleep?

Or are you just taking a sleeping pill? Right. Um, it, it, uh, maybe, maybe you need the sleeping pill, but if you haven't tried hypnotherapy, you don't know. And the wonderful thing about hypnotherapy is that there are no side effects. It is either helpful or nothing happens. So why wouldn't you wanna, why wouldn't you wanna try this in advance of some of those other things?

It just makes sense.

Rob Valincius: yeah. Because you, you never know. I mean, you watch these, these freaking drug commercials, it's like, oh, this is gonna help you in two to three weeks, but it might kill you. You never have kids. And you're like, what did you have to like, rewind? You know? And, uh, I, they've gotten a

Michelle Walters: I, I, I, I, I've worked in pharmaceutical marketing before. I mean, I worked in digital marketing for over 20 years, including for, for pharmaceutical products. And I just think it says a lot, most, a lot of Americans don't realize this, but there are two countries in the world that allow pharmaceutical marketing like we have US and New Zealand.

Nobody else does, and I think there's some good reasons not to have lots and lots of pharmaceutical marketing. It has created demand for products that I'm not sure were really necessary.

Rob Valincius: Well, I'll tell you, um, you know, we have to do a lot of lobby lobbying with the government, uh, in what I do because they make a lot of changes that look great on the outside. And then when you dig into things, it's horrible for the seniors, which is a community that is highly underserved, uh, and I think needs all the help that they can get.

I mean, you're living off of 12, $1,500 a month in social security and some people, that's all they get, you know? Um, and I, I think that, you know, you have these drug companies and they're the biggest lobbyists of the government. And I don't think that that's okay, but I mean, you're, we're not gonna change the world that we're in, um, without just, you know, systematic changes.

Um, we'll see, we'll see. Um, you know,

Michelle Walters: We'll see. The world is in a highly uncertain place and lots of changes are happening and some will be great and some will be a step backwards. Right.

Rob Valincius: yeah, yeah. And I, I don't think there's anything we can do as, as us humans living in the United States, we can really do about it. We just gotta roll with the punches, but we can certainly talk about it, which is why I love podcasting. Right. Um, you know, you know, it's something, uh, I do always like to ask about.

Um, are you familiar with some of the people that have done hypnotherapy to discover past lives and things like that? Is that something you've ever run into? Do, uh, doing what you do?

Michelle Walters: So my school taught different hypnotherapy schools teach past life, work differently. Uh, just start there. My school teaches past life work where you connect to the problem the client is trying to solve. So maybe they're. I don't know, afraid of bumblebees or they're afraid of heights, or they're biting their fingernails.

You connect to whatever that is that objective is, and then you go back to wherever that came from. And oftentimes it comes from something in childhood. Sometimes it comes from something in your teens or twenties. Sometimes it's something you remember. Sometimes it's something you have no previous conscious memory of at all.

And every now and then it goes back to a memory that is unrelatable to your present life experience. So I had a woman who came to see me, and I'm not remembering right now what her, what we were working on. Um, but we connected to that, that whatever was bothering her feeling and went back and she's in a state of trance and she says, I'm in jail. Okay, well, my client in this lifetime had never been in jail. So is that. Is that a past life? Is that a fantasy? Is that a, oh, I don't know what it is, that it's not my job to know where it comes from or why it's there. My job is to heal it. My job is to, that's where you go. That's what's going on with you.

Let's investigate it. Let's reframe it. Let's find a way of creating some meaning out of it and, and, and sending it away. Letting it be a past thing, letting it go so that you can move on and have a new perspective on things.

Rob Valincius: Yeah, I, I, I only mention it 'cause I, I read a book, uh, that the, the wifey through her friend group, uh, they were talking about it, and it's called Many Lives, many Masters. It's by Brian Weiss. I don't know if you've ever heard of

Michelle Walters: Very famous guy of a friend of mine from hypnotherapy school went to go see Brian Weiss. And I love telling his story. So this friend of mine was an Indian guy, and so he had a culture of believing in past lives, and he had been terrified of heights like forever. He didn't know where it came from, why, but he was terrified of heights.

So he went to go see Brian Weiss, 'cause he'd read probably the same book. And Brian Weiss put him into a trance. And my friend saw himself standing on a cliff wearing like old time clothes. And he was like, oh, okay, so this is me in a past life from history sometime, and I'm here on this cliff. And then the next thing was that a woman appeared next to him and she was also in old time clothes.

And he said, oh, I recognize her. She's my wife. Okay. So he and the wife are standing there on the cliff, and then in the vision, the wife pushes him off the cliff and he falls off the cliff and he dies. And so in the, in the pattern of how you look at this and reframe this. The story becomes you had a past life.

In your past life. Your wife pushed you off the cliff. She's not here. You don't have to be afraid of her anymore. She is gone. And then my friend was like instantly cured of his fear of heights. Now that is kind of a remarkable story and it's not how it works for everybody all the time, but it is an illustration where sometimes when someone can help you find, find something that explains it, that kind of appeases your subconscious, it allows you to move on.

Rob Valincius: Interesting. Yeah, I, I was fascinated with that book because he gets into some crazy shit, you know? And. Uh, who knows? Right? Uh, I, I talk about this on my podcast a lot because I'm, I like, like you, I'm, I, I'm, you know, I have a degree in it. I'm, I'm a techie, but, um, I'm mean, I, I, I, I, I'm science first, so it's, it's hard for me to believe that stuff.

But when you read it in a book by a doctor, kind of throws you for a loop a little bit, um, hey, you know, let me ask your thoughts. What, what do you, what do you, and I, I, and you don't have to answer this if you're not comfortable, alright. I've interviewed a couple people that's, that's fucked me up a little bit.

When it comes to thoughts about the afterlife, what do you think happens when we die? You know, you're, you're a hypnotherapist, right? So you, you've, I'm sure you've listened to some interesting things in doing what you've been doing for the past couple years. What, what do you think.

Michelle Walters: I, how do I say this? I think that we are all spirits that are incarnated on earth to have an InBody experience and that this is. Just one iteration of kind of where that spirit could be embodied. I think that that spirit is, uh, what's the word, immortal. And that spirit might've spent a lot of time in spirit realms before it might've spent time in other bodies before it might spend time in other bodies after that.

It's a, I just think of it as kind of a going in and out of spirit realm and body realm in whatever pattern is serving that, that soul. So, I mean, that sounds a little goofy and crazy. Um, but, but yeah, that's kind of how I think it works. And I, I mean, I also think. Maybe our scientists will get even more figured out about this.

Like, we perceive time as an arrow, right? As always going at a certain pace in one direction. Science is looking at that and going, yeah, but why? Like, there's not a lot of science to explain or figure out why it, why it works that way. Maybe it doesn't work that way. Maybe things that are in the past, I mean, I'm not saying that, you know, Napoleon wasn't Napoleon and didn't conquer who he conquered.

Like I don't think that's gonna change anything. But, um, there may be things that, that, um, I don't know. We, we may have all kinds of discoveries coming up. I love it. I think it's fascinating.

Rob Valincius: I agree with you. And I think, uh, in talking to people, in doing this podcast, and I mean, books like that have made me rethink, you know, in my, in the past, right? I was, I'm a Catholic, that's what I was baptized as. And I went to Sunday school back in the day and it was like, you know, there's a, there's God and Jesus.

And I'm not saying that, that that's not a thing. I'm sure Jesus existed, right? But there's heaven and hell, there's no in-between. And you know, if you, if you do any of these sins, you go to hell and that's where you live for eternity. I think I had to rethink that. Um, and I, I don't know if, uh, you know, in a lot of the readings I've done, I think that, that, like we as souls, I agree with you.

I think we're immortal. I think that we come back, I mean, it would explain a lot of these kids that are like, oh, I remember dying right here. I, you know, or like

Michelle Walters: Yeah. And like how did you, how did you know that was the name of the dog of the last family who lived in this house in remote Scotland? Like there are too many weird synchronicities like that to not believe that there's something going on that we don't understand yet.

Rob Valincius: Yeah. And I mean, who knows who's not to say that there is a God? And I mean, I, I don't think, I don't know if, look, religion is great for people because it gives you a guideline to be a good person, right? Whether that's Christianity, uh, Hinduism, whatever it is, right? It's your guideline to be a good person.

I think it, it, it's good there. Uh, I think the extremes can be a little crazy 'cause that causes harm for some people, right? Um, but I do think that we as souls, we, I think we have a debt. I think that what you consider hell is, is your debt because maybe you killed somebody in your past life, right? And

Michelle Walters: Maybe you were the wife who did the pushing off the cliff. Yeah.

Rob Valincius: May, maybe you're her and maybe instead of, uh, you know, being a, just a middle class person, living a normal life, maybe you are in jail because you know that's what you, you did some messed up suffer. Maybe you are, uh, someone super poor and you don't have a house and you have to live in the street. Or I, you never know.

But I'm beginning to think that that's, that is kind of who we are. 'cause there's just weird occurrences in, in the world that we live in. I don't think we're a simulation. I don't, I think, I think that's kind of, uh, bs You hear Elon Musk and, and those guys talk about, I don't think we're, I'm a tech guy. I don't think it's a simulation.

I mean, you never know, but I don't believe that. I think that's a little, little more

Michelle Walters: I, I, I kind of think that we are spirits or souls that are incarnated and connected to kind of sowed into our body, right? And, and there's not a whole lot of like freaky Friday stuff going on, right? Where if we can split, split jump into somebody else, no, no, no, no. This doesn't really work. I don't see that.

The other thing though that I think is really interesting about hypnosis and hypnotherapy is that while you don't need to believe in some of these concepts for hypnotherapy to work, being open-minded about not just a physical realm and a subconscious emotional, mental realm, but. But being open-minded that there might also be some kind of super conscious or cosmic mind or one mind, uh, as you spend more time in hypnosis it, it kind of increases your ability to connect to that, which some people find really lovely and fascinating.

Um, some people I think are a little freaked out by it, but you know, I think I hear more, more glimpses of that inner wisdom or that kind of thing because I'm more in tune with this kind of work, and some people really love that.

Rob Valincius: Yeah. I mean, and uh, I do also believe, you know, from a science perspective too, I think that our, look, we're homo sapiens, right? And, and I think that, I do believe that as a species you do also have DNA memories, you know, things that like you can't necessarily explain, but it's ingrained in us because we learned, hey, stay away from that large rock.

It could crush you. Right? Um, and that's just ingrained. I know it's, uh, also a mentality thing 'cause it has to do with your, you being smart or not. But in, I think it's just, there's certain things that are built into our DNA that is also things you can remember because of. All of our past ancestors doing either dumb things or learning about those things, um, as

Michelle Walters: Well, and I think some things are inherited that we don't really think of normally as being inherited. I, I have two friends, they're a couple, and the wife I think was telling me the story that, that they're from Mexico. They'd gone down to Mexico to have their wedding and it went down to Mexico to have their wedding and.

She saw her father-in-law taking a nap on the sofa, uh, a couple of days before the wedding and looked at him and saw that the position that the father-in-law had that he was sleeping on the sofa is exactly the same position that her fiance slept in at night. And she was like, oh my god, my, my husband to be, they'd been together a long time.

Um, and his father sleep the same. Like,

Rob Valincius: funny.

Michelle Walters: what's with that? You know? And I mean, parents don't teach children to sleep in a certain position. That's just, you're comfortable how you're comfortable, you know? Um, so I think there are things connected in all kinds of ways that we don't. We have so much more to learn about.

Rob Valincius: the, the human brain is just fascinating. It really is. And, um, in our lifetime, I mean, maybe Michelle, with ai, we will know certain things before we are long gone. I mean, I heard within the next 10 years it's very likely AI will help, um, come up with, um, I don't wanna say medicine, but, um, something you can take that will actually.

Un age your cells because, um, there's certain things that happens to the body that they haven't been able to figure out. But with ai, it, you know, if you have a strong enough, um, you know, uh, uh, with LLM, right, uh, which is the language model, right? If you have a strong enough language model that runs all the time, it's gonna be to crunch all computations.

That would've taken us a billion years as one person or even a couple people to do. Um, they're gonna be able to solve a, a lot of things potentially just by doing this all the time.

Michelle Walters: AI brings so much opportunity and, uh, craziness to the world that who knows what will happen. Yes. It would not surprise me if AI starts saying, well, just like, um, I mean, it happened a long time ago, but when the, the first AI. Uh, game came up that it figured out how to play, go and beat somebody at the game of go when, when it took a move that no human had ever taken or would've ever thought of.

And yet that move then led to the, to the AI winning the game of Go. Um, it it, it's exciting in terms of its opportunities. It's also terrifying. Uh, this week I was fortunate enough to be a guest at like an AI think take networking kind of thing. And just listening to the conversations of all of the new opportunities, but also potential, you know, uh, holes and traps.

Um, we have a lot of territory to navigate moving forward with ai and some will work out great and some will be a little weird.

Rob Valincius: Look, I mean, they said a lot of the same stuff they say about ai, they said about the internet, right? When the internet came out, it's gonna do this. People are gonna, it. There's always, we always, as humans adapt. I think AI will get rid of a lot of jobs. Uh, I'm glad I, you know, I, in my IT degree, decided to not do coding because, uh, that would've been a terrible choice.

Um, but I think you'll always need. Um, people that know how to talk to an ai, which I think is gonna be what an AI interpreter or whatever you wanna call it. Um, tho being able to speak to, uh, an LLM and get the desired outcome because, you know, um, a lot of people don't realize this, but AI tells you what you want to hear.

You know, it's, it's primary function is to give you an answer. And, you know, if it has to make up some shit to give you that answer, it will. So you have to be, uh, very smart and efficient in what you ask an AI model to get back what you want it, because if not, it'll give you whatever answer you want. Um, and, and I think the most, uh, do you use chat cbt, Michelle?

Michelle Walters: I do use chat, GPT. I also use OpenAI

Rob Valincius: Okay.

Michelle Walters: with

Rob Valincius: So. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, agents are great. Agents are great. Um, but the, one of the things that annoys me the most that chat GBT does, and it's how, you know instantly if a novice person is using chat, GBT is the long lines that it puts.

Michelle Walters: yeah.

Rob Valincius: And as soon as I see that, or that are

Michelle Walters: Or all the little emojis,

Rob Valincius: yes, I know immediately that person just used AI very quickly and put it up.

And I, you know, I have gotten to the point where I have to ask it, please, when you're giving me this output, do not put this line, you know, now I know there's ways around it. You can actually go into the model and, and you can kind of tailor it in the settings. Uh, I'm a little lazy. I just, I'll just give an output and I'll say, don't give me this because I

Michelle Walters: Yeah. No, that's the easiest way to, easiest way to adjust that. Adjust that happening. Yeah, no, I got, I, I had a big upskilling this year in, uh, AI because I realized a few months ago, I was like, so I make recordings for my clients, um, because recordings for clients are really, really helpful. Uh, it enables me to give them something to use to do sort of supportive re repetition work between sessions, and you can get recordings.

I sell them on Etsy. Lots of other people do. They're on YouTube. You can buy an app. There are recordings all over the place. But what I realized is that all those recordings, they're recordings, they were made in general for people in general. They weren't made for Rob, who really likes to imagine himself on, I don't know, uh, tropical Beach at midnight, uh, drinking whiskey.

I don't know. Um. They're not, they're not custom. And I realized earlier this year, Hmm, I could take AI and teach AI how to sound like me, how to write a script like me and be able to take inputs from a, a person who wanted, uh, an audio script to get rid of imposter syndrome or to, uh, go to sleep faster or to address social anxiety and get AI to make this script for somebody.

Really fast at a very reasonable price and send it to them so that they could listen to it over and over again. And I kind of went out on a limb, 'cause I was, I didn't even do any research. I was like, I just know this is a need, uh, and nobody else is doing it. And so I built an app and my app uses an AI agent, um, and a bunch of other tools that we needed to hook together to make happen.

But it's just amazing to me that in the span of a couple of months, I have an app that does all this stuff. And you couldn't have done that with coders and people and at a price point that I would've never been able to afford. You know, even a couple of years ago, but now I have this great app. I get wonderful reviews on the recordings.

Uh, some people see quick results. Some people need a little bit more time for their subconscious to onboard that they're gonna now start exercising or they're gonna change their food or they're gonna, um, be more confident at work or whatever it is they're looking to do. But it's very exciting.

Rob Valincius: That is really cool. So what was the process like, um, from start to finish? And I'm sure you're not fin I feel like you're never finished with an nap

Michelle Walters: Oh, no, no, I'm, no, I'm not finished. I, I'm, I'm at a point where now I'm adding in new features and, and expanding in different ways. The process was, I kind of had this vision for what it was gonna do, and then it was, um, how do I say, kind of some simultaneous testing. 'cause I asked Chad, GPT, can I do this? Oh, of course you can do this.

Well, like you said, sometimes it's really true and sometimes it's not really quite true. So, you know, I would have to go through and say, okay, you know, what does the. The duplicate Michelle voice sound like, is that good enough? Is there a way I need to fix that? Um, what are these scripts coming out? Like, are they good?

Are they too short? Are they too long? Is the audio too loud or too quiet? Um, you know, tweaking these various pieces to, to come together. So, uh, and I worked, I started building the app myself and then I decided that I would hire some help 'cause that would be more efficient use of my time. And so I got some help.

Uh, an overseas team helped me and I launched my app a couple of months ago. It has been quite a journey. Um, you know, I worked in digital marketing, so I helped other clients build apps, but I never did it for myself and I never did it with agents and, um, web hooks and all of this stuff

Rob Valincius: APIs. Oh yeah.

Michelle Walters: APIs Exactly.

Security, all these things. Um. You know, I mean, but it's crazy. Now I can go to, to the, the solution, the primary solution I use to build my app and be like, oh, I need a new webpage and it needs to have a form with these fields on it, and please include a graphic at the top and a this and a that. And it just generates what the HTML should look like for this.

And then I just edit it. It's freaking amazing. I, I, I needed emails, right? It needs to send out an email. And I was like, well, I don't really know how, like, how, how am I gonna get an email? And then I was like, oh, wait, take an email, take a picture, screenshot it, give it to Chad GPT and say, create me the HTML to make an email that looks like this.

Boom. Done. Put it in the engine, do a couple tweaks. Done. It's, um, it, it, it's hard to explain just how revolutionary these tools are to someone who. Who, uh, isn't using them right now, it's just bulls. As somebody who, you know, was building websites and putting code in HTML in the nineties, this is just shocking.

Rob Valincius: Yeah. I mean, the fact that you can literally just type a conversation to something and have it output. Like I, I, I, uh, I wanted to build out a trading thing, um, to help me make better traits with the stock market because I, I was thinking about getting into it. I haven't done it in a while. All my money's in crypto.

I took it outta stock market years ago, put it in crypto, and, uh, it's, it's had its ups and downs. This week has not been good. Uh, but it's okay. It's okay. Um, but I created a trading bot that I used Python. It was just Python code. And I had Python on my computer already that I, 'cause I used it for other things and, uh, it drafted me up something.

I had to download a couple things internally to my laptop, and before I know it, I could plug in a crypto or stock and it would tell me, uh, this is the range you should buy. This is the range you should sell. And it gave me indicators and everything it was, and it, it took me just a day of think of just.

Finagling and telling it what I want it to look like. And sometimes you have to start over some, I had to start over at one point because it just was getting to a point where it was just looking weird. And, um, really, I think it just goes back to, uh, people just need to get familiar with ai. I think you need to get comfortable with, it's not going anywhere.

Um, it's gonna be more and more ingrained in everything that we do and. I, I think the only downside is you might see people lose their jobs, right? Cer people that have been doing things a certain way for a long time. But the internet did that in the nineties, right? Uh, you know, when it got to its peak, you know, in the beginning, right?

The, the.com boom, people lost their jobs because the internet, right? And I, I think as we evolve as a species, that's just gonna happen. Technologically speaking, there's gonna be things, I mean, the printing press, and, you know, I mean, you go back in time, it's always happened. And we as people always say, oh, well people are gonna lose their jobs.

Yes. Uh, innovation unfortunately does that, but it creates new jobs and new opportunities and it gives people who, you know, you could take 20 bucks outta your, your money if you have any money, buy a chat GBT subscription, which you don't even really need. Right? But you could, and you could create a business solely through chat, GPT.

And launch that business for a little to no money utilizing just an AI model. And, um, you know, you, you talk about agents and I think agents are the future of what we do because, you know, you can have an agent scour the internet for you every day, every minute, even while you're sleeping. And have it analyze whatever the hell you want.

Maybe it's look for, look for, uh, crypto coins that were newly minted. Find it, tell me what it is and then I'll invest in it the next day or when, you know, whenever it's minted. I wanna make sure that I, or buy me a thousand coins as soon as something's created. And then you can have an AI agents are gonna be, a lot of people don't know what they are, I think is the problem.

'cause they're, they're still new. It takes a little bit to grasp what, what they can do for you.

Michelle Walters: It, it does take a while to grasp what they can do and I, I think I, I think as they, as they proliferate, I mean, one of the things I think is amazing about AI is it's very much a, um, well, I don't know that this is totally true, but it definitely has the potential to be a very much a democratizer of technology.

Like you do not have to have a computer science degree to be able to build an app and do things. You know, you can do some of these things with a lot less. Technique. Uh, the other day I had a need to take a, a whole bunch of, of files. They were, um, tables, they were CSV files and put 'em all together. And when I, I was like, how am I gonna do this?

I didn't wanna do it by hand. That seemed like a really bad idea. So I asked Chad, GPT, can you do this for me? Oh, I tried to do it, tried to do it a couple times, and I'm like, you're having trouble. Can you find another way to do this? Oh, well you could do this by writing Python. I really don't wanna write Python.

What else can you come up with? Oh, try this website. Oh, the website doesn't work. And I was like, what else have you got? Well create a new chat. Go to chat gpt five and change these variables. And then ask me again if I can do it. But did it fine. Like I did need to be persistent and not accept several answers, but I thought it was pretty hysterical that when I absolutely said no, I will not write Python, figure it out.

It figured out another way for me to do it. So,

Rob Valincius: likes to default to Python

Michelle Walters: it does like to default to Python and I am not defaulting to Python right now. So, um, I got, I got other fish to fry. Python is not, I, I, um, I braved going to a Python meetup once and I was, after I walked outta there, I was like, you are not doing that.

That is not my ticket forward.

Rob Valincius: I didn't learn to code in Python,

Michelle Walters: way. So

Rob Valincius: I did CSS or Cs plus I did HTML in school. I didn't learn Python and it probably should have, 'cause it probably would've helped me more. I feel like Python's used a little bit more than a lot of the other stuff. Um.

Michelle Walters: a very popular language, but I'm gonna make the case right now that you can achieve enormous goals, like you said, with the $20 subscription. Um, you might need a few things, you might need some help. You might need to know when to delegate. You might need a little shot of confidence to be able to keep going and be persistent.

Uh, 'cause people who quit don't succeed. But it's, it's just enormous what the opportunity is in front of us right now.

Rob Valincius: Yeah, I mean, like you said, um, I think the democratization, um, is a very key aspect. Anyone can use it. Um, and it doesn't take much and it can do so much for you. Um, and I mean, it's just the start. I don't, did you see the stuff with, was it uh, one x the AI robots that everyone was freaking out about last week?

Michelle Walters: No, I haven't seen that. Tell me.

Rob Valincius: Oh, they, so they have humanoid robots that they created, uh, that they took pre-orders on, so it was $20,000 or $500 a month. Um, to just loan it. Right? Um, and eventually, um, it'll have an AI model built in that will be able to do all of your chores for you, cook, clean, do you fold your laundry, greet your guests, basically do everything for you.

Uh, right now though, and I think it's gonna be the main key here that's gonna mess with people, is that currently the only way for it to, uh, function without the AI to be done, 'cause it's not done yet, is that a tele person has to log in and they have a quest with remotes that they use and they can, but they're in your house now.

This robot's 65 pounds. I mean, it's, I don't think it could kill you unless it, yeah. You know, it's sta I, I don't know. I don't think it could kill you. It might, I don't know. Um, but it, the internet, I'm surprised you didn't see it. The internet was on fire last week from it because they're like, holy crap, this is revolutionary.

However. The company didn't tell everybody right away, Hey, the AI's not done. So someone has to literally like tele log in, but it opens up a whole bunch of jobs. All you need is a quest and you could log into this person's robot. You don't even need to leave you house and you could fold laundry and do this other stuff and get paid for it.

Think about the market that opens.

Michelle Walters: It, it is, it is hard to imagine where all of this is going. You know, I, I am, I'm in my fifties. I have a 21-year-old son, and what he has seen happen in his lifetime. What a. I've seen happen in mine. Like who knows what is happening next. It's, it's scary and awesome and exciting all at the same time.

Rob Valincius: Yeah, I think it's because it's accelerating tenfold, right? Um, uh, it's gonna bother me now what's the, the scientist? Um, that came up with the concept of, um, technology right at 10 x is eventually

Michelle Walters: yeah. Yeah. That guy, he wasn't Murphy's Law, but I know what you're talking about.

Rob Valincius: it's, so we're gonna I'm sure get to a

Michelle Walters: That's like an exponential curve. Yeah.

Rob Valincius: yeah, with ai, I mean, that's gotta break the barrier for a lot of that stuff.

And, and I am really excited to see the trajectory where that takes us, even within the next three to five years. Because I think AI's changed fundamentally what we do now. And I mean, it's, it's an exciting time to, to be alive really at the end

Michelle Walters: It is an exciting time to be alive.

Rob Valincius: Um, especially if you have an app, right? That's got AI built in.

So, uh, Michelle, this was a pleasure. I had a lot of fun talking to you, but I need you plug away. Tell us where we could find your app, where we could find all of your other content. I know you have some books as well. Um, hit us with all.

Michelle Walters: So my website is michelle walters.net, uh, spelled just like it sounds. M-I-C-H-E-L-L-E-W-A-L-T-E-R s.net. And that's where

Rob Valincius: website, by the way.

Michelle Walters: sorry.

Rob Valincius: Great website by the way.

Michelle Walters: Oh, thank you. Uh, you'll find all kinds of stuff there. I have information about my two books. I have a book called An Alignment of Spirit, finding Work You Love. It's kind of a law of attraction manifesting book.

And I also have a leadership book that I published earlier this year called The ABCs of Conscious Leadership. If you like leadership books and want one that's quick and easy and light to read. It's a great read. My hypnosis services are described on there and there's a big button that you can set up a call with me if you have questions or wanna know if, if I help with the kind of issue that you're working on, which I very likely might, but if I don't, I probably know a hip.

Therapist who does, and the other website that I have is called Make my hypno.com, and that's where you'll find my app. My app is technically a web app, so you won't find it in the Play Store or on your iPhone app store. It's actually a website, MAKE. M-Y-H-Y-P-N o.com, and it's a very simple little website.

There's a form there. You can check out the 19 things it works for right now. I'm gonna expand the list to work for even more things and put in your name and where you like to relax and maybe your favorite affirmation or some details about what you want in your script. You create an account, verify your email, and it is emailed to you in about five minutes.

Pretty genius. And I have for your listeners, Rob, a special, uh, link that goes to a discount code, uh, that you can share with your listeners who can get 25% off using the discount code.

Rob Valincius: awesome. That is so cool. Thank you so much. We, you know, we

Michelle Walters: Happy to, happy to do it. Happy to reward people for being, uh, active listeners to your show and our episode.

Rob Valincius: Now I noticed you didn't have an audio book. Do you have plans on that? 'cause I'm an audio book guy.

Michelle Walters: I. I'm about halfway done with producing the ABCs of Leadership as an audiobook, and there's just some steps around trying to get, get the audio files right to be put into a CX to make that happen. But yeah, I'm a huge audiobook fan too, so hopefully I'll be able to publish that sometime next year.

Rob Valincius: Will you let me know? 'cause I always

Michelle Walters: I'll

Rob Valincius: purchase the books of people that I interview. All right. I was, I was gonna buy it right now. If, if you had on audio

Michelle Walters: well for good reason to work this Christmas and make it happen.

Rob Valincius: You let me know. Also, if you ever need cheap labor for a male voice, I'm happy to help.

Michelle Walters: Okay. Very good. How's your, how's your hypnosis voice? You been working on that?

Rob Valincius: I don't know. You tell me.

Michelle Walters: There you go.

Rob Valincius: It's pretty good, right? I

Michelle Walters: It begins.

Rob Valincius: off the cuff. Off the cuff now. Um, listen.

Michelle Walters: This has been a delight.

Rob Valincius: Yeah, it's been a pleasure. My podcast is drink o clock po on all socials. Drink o Clock podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. My website is Drink o Clock Beer. I thought it was funny when I bought that. Uh, but it turns out it's more expensive than the.com, so it was a terrible decision.

Uh, but listen, it was pleasure having you on and, uh, let's do this again soon.

Michelle Walters: Thank you. Bye-bye.

Rob Valincius: Thanks. 

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