How Guided Visualization and Hypnosis Can Reprogram Your Subconscious for Success

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here another episode of High Velocity Radio and this is gonna be a good one. Today on the show, we have Karen Ross, who is with karenrossnow.com. Welcome, Karen.

Karen Ross: Hi, Lee. Happy to be here today. Thank you.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am so excited to get caught up with what you’re doing. For folks who aren’t familiar, do you mind sharing a little bit about your practice? How are you serving folks?

Karen Ross: Uh, through solution focused coaching and mindset work, helping them understand their conscious and subconscious mind. That’s where I start with people. I ask, what do you know about your conscious and your subconscious mind, and many don’t realize that they’ve got two different minds, if you will. So that’s kind of the starting point. And then we find out what the conscious mind is saying that does not serve the individual. And that can relate to anybody’s life experience. I work a lot with athletes. The same concepts carry over to executives, entrepreneurs, artists. But that’s kind of the starting point. What do you know about your conscious mind and your subconscious mind?

Lee Kantor: So what’s your backstory? How’d you get involved in this line of work?

Karen Ross: Oh, gosh. Well, let’s see, if I were to tell my whole story, we’d have to have another show, but I will. I’ll, I’ll back up and just kind of jump around to the high points. My dad was a psychologist, so early on I was exposed to Psychological topics, and he at one point incorporated hypnosis into his practice. So I learned a little bit about that at that time. But over the years, I have done a number of different things, and I’ve worked in executive search with my late husband. I had a radio show for about ten years here in Chicago, where I interviewed nonfiction authors, thought leaders, people like Doctor Wayne Dyer. Some of your listening audience may be familiar with his name. He certainly was a prolific author and and certainly a thought leader. And then when the radio career appeared to be coming to an end, no fault of mine. It’s the entertainment world. So it’s very fickle. But I was at my own crossroads. What do I do next? And personal coaching was becoming more widely accepted at the time. So I hired a coach to help me determine what’s my next step. Where do I go from here? And it ended up that she suggested I would be a great coach. And my my initial reaction was, oh, that doesn’t interest me at all. I don’t know why I reacted that way. But anyway, she encouraged me to ask people who knew me well what they thought of my moving in that career direction.

Karen Ross: Well, to the last one they all said, oh, that’s a no brainer. You’d be so good at that. That’s exactly what you should do. So that started 16, 17 years ago with very in depth year long training in coaching. And so I really learned from the best from one of the top companies that trained people to become life coaches. So that was quite a few years ago. But then I found as time went on, I’d be exposed to other ideas and methodologies and when they were attractive to me then. I would also study that, uh, that method. So, um, about five, six years ago, I was introduced to a program that was based on hypnosis. I thought, well, isn’t this interesting? Almost coming full circle, sort of with my father’s work. And, um, so I got certified in that ultimately became a board certified hypnotist, hypnotist, and, uh, incorporated that into my coaching. So we use, I use it a lot. I don’t always use it, but there again, I help people understand how, how beneficial hypnosis can be and that people can learn self-hypnosis. And, you know, if all they’ve seen is stage hypnosis, that’s a whole nother world and not one that I venture into. But, um, I think that’s kind of a thumbnail sketch that, uh, brings everything current and be happy to go from there with you.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. Early on, you, I think you mentioned the words solution focused coaching. Can you explain what that is?

Karen Ross: Yes, indeed. I’d like to, uh, a lot of people step into coaching or therapy, uh, with the idea that they need to talk about their problems and all the things going way back to childhood and, and so on that bring them to having this current problem. I’m not going to sit here and say that none of that is important, but we’re going when they work with me, we’re going to spend a very short period of time talking about what is and talking about the problem. I want to focus on the solution where, what what’s the solution here? They’re going to be telling me what they don’t like, what their, what they don’t want in their lives. I want to focus on what do they like, what do they want in their life? What? What is their life look like when it’s the way they want to be living it? And, um, so the focus is on the solution and not the problem.

Lee Kantor: So what does that look like when they’re working with you? How do you kind of, um, tease out the solution when they’re sharing what’s kind of, um, blocking them?

Karen Ross: Well, I, I very pointedly ask, uh, how do you want your life to be? Uh, it may be very different from what they are currently living, but I ask them describe first of all, I’m going to be curious about what, what is a day in their life like now? And they’ve already shared with me what their problem is. So I want to know how does that problem factor into their daily life. So we get a picture of that. And then I want to know, what would you want to be different? What do you want to not look that way? What do you not want to be? Uh uh what? What do you want to be different? And there again, focusing, um, on what they do want versus what they don’t want. So focusing on what’s different. Paint a day in your life when everything is the way you would like it to be. And, um, that that would be relative to the problem they have stated.

Lee Kantor: Now you mentioned also the word mindset. Um, how important is kind of getting your mindset right when it comes to solving some of these problems and also ultimately helping your clients get the outcome they desire.

Karen Ross: Gosh, I think mindset is critical. Uh, if you’ve got the wrong mindset. Okay, let me give I’ll give you an example. I think that’s the better, better way to approach it. I work a lot with athletes, young athletes, college age, uh, high school, and, um, and I’ve worked with some who have graduated from college, moved on to a pro team or ready to move into another part of their life. Um, and, but let’s, let’s stick with their, their sport. And typically the ones I work with are already peak performers. They’re already working or manifesting good performance. They’ve reached the top. If they go into a game or a competition with the attitude, their mindset says, I really can’t do this. I’m not as good as people say I am. Well, I’m really not as good as I think I am. So I, I don’t know if I can make that shot or not. I doubt if I can make that is going to have a tremendous impact on their performance. If they go into the game and they say, I am the best basketball player on the on the on the field, I hit every basket. I, I throw up. I’m just stating things differently to their mind just makes a huge difference. Now, they may not be the best basketball player in the world, but if they go into a game or a competition with that belief, with that mindset, they’re going to be more likely to function from that place than if they say, well, I’m really, you know, I’m not really all that good after all.

Lee Kantor: Now, when they come to you, are they typically at a peak position where they’re just trying to get better, or are they kind of at a plateau? Or maybe they’re struggling and they want to kind of get back on track.

Karen Ross: Well, Interesting. Well, it can vary. Um, there can be a situation where injury has factored in and coming back from injury can be a particular situation. And we work with that because they, they will probably come back with a lot of doubt and fear that maybe they didn’t even expect. But generally speaking, what I have found, the people coming to me sticking with that athlete, um, scenario is they are a peak performer. They’ve reached the top, they may be captain of their team, they’re really doing well. But if they lose a game, if they throw a bad pass, do something on in the game that is not their best. When they come away, they focus on it rather than saying rather than looking at it, what did I learn? And next time I’ll do this. They start to Um, bad mouth themselves. And especially if they get that kind of feedback from their teammates, which they may or may not, but they start focusing on the fact, what did I do wrong? How could I possibly do that? Oh my God, I can’t believe I did something like that. And the word that they seem to almost all use is I start to spiral down and once it gets started, it’s like I can’t stop it. And when you allow that to take place, whether you’re an athlete or, or an executive, an aunt or whatever, and you start to just beat yourself up about something you’d think you could have or should have done better and start to spiral down. It takes you deeper and deeper and deeper. And, um, what I do is help people catch those thought processes quickly. We can’t always stop them from coming up, but we can stop them in their tracks. And, uh, in fact, thought stomping stopping is a process that I use. We stopped that thought. And we shift not always to the opposite, but to something different. It may be totally unrelated, but it gives the message to the brain. We’re not going to that spiral down. We’re not going to do that. Does that does that make sense? Does that answer the question?

Lee Kantor: Absolutely. Is there any advice you can give right now to the listener that might be, um, have these issues when it comes to spiraling? Is there some things they could do today? Um, or in the short term, when it comes to stopping a spiral before it really gets going?

Karen Ross: Well, recognizing it first, that’s the first step. And often, uh, an individual doesn’t always know when it’s starting. They, it’s kind of, uh, like they look back on it and say, this is what I tend to do. So the the first step is recognition. Becoming aware of, oh my God, there’s that, that thought that kind of gets me caught in a, in a spiral, a negative spiral. I, I want to think something different. And then to learn, here’s, here’s where I think working with someone like me or, or somebody else helps someone develop those tools, change that habit, you know, if they’ve been going down the rabbit hole, so to speak, for years, changing that is not going to always be that easy or that quick, and working with a professional to help them know when the thoughts are starting, know what to do with their thought process. When they do acknowledge it, uh, can just Accelerate healing, if you will, from that kind of a condition.

Lee Kantor: Now, when folks are working with you, is this something that they that takes, you know, months or years of time, or is it something that you’ve been able to work and solve some of these issues in a short period of time?

Karen Ross: Oh, gosh, we can solve many issues in a short period of time. Um, I, I don’t, I should say what I do, do I like to start people with a package of five sessions. And at the end of those sessions, it’s really up to them. Uh, we talk about it together, but they make the decision. They like this kind of support. They want to apply it in other areas. And so they want to continue. So I, I do have a handful of clients that I’ve worked with for, for many months. And that’s where the coaching factors in a little bit more. Um, and then on the other hand, I had a young man, a 15 year old, not too long ago, and his. One of his parents had contacted me and said, you know, can you help him with such and such? He was he was a track star. And um, he too would just get caught in this negative mindset when he couldn’t run fast, didn’t think he could run fast enough and his legs would get tired, and then he would focus on the fact that his legs were tired. And so we worked with that. And after five sessions, he said, you know, I these words coming from a 15 year old I thought was kind of cool. He said, you know, I see I think I feel very complete and that, you know, you hear adults use that phrase and I, I was very impressed by this very mature, uh, 15 year old saying that. And he did, um, I worked with another member of his family. Different story. He wanted he wasn’t it’s not a sign of weakness or strength or anything like that, but, uh, worked with another member of his family who really wanted the ongoing support because, excuse me, wanted to apply the techniques that he was learning into various portions of his life and academics in addition to athletics.

Lee Kantor: Now, um, how do you handle the individual that maybe is struggling with some self sabotage? Is that an area you see? Um, and if it is, can you share some ways that you can help a person maybe prevent it from kind of permeating more of their life?

Karen Ross: Um, I don’t know that it’s that different from what we’re talking about because when, when the conscious mind starts delivering those negative messages, that is a form of self-sabotage. Um, it, it, it’s a way of, for whatever reason, you know, keeping us from achieving our best, um, reaching our goals. You know how however the individual wants to state it? Um, but I think it all kind of works together. I think that is a form of self-sabotage.

Lee Kantor: So do you work? It sounds like you work a lot with individuals. Do organizations ever kind of contact you, maybe sports teams or schools or things like that to help them so you can impact, uh, you know, more of the folks on their teams.

Karen Ross: Well, it’s interesting that you asked that because right now is the time where I’m talking to, uh, one is a very large, um, sports club in the city of Chicago, and another is, uh, a good sized private school. And so I’ll be working with them. Um, more from a team perspective. To date, I’ve worked more one on one. Um, but I like the idea of working with teams, and I always like to throw out the historical fact that in 1983, the Chicago White Sox hired a personal hypnotist to work with all of their team members, and they made the playoffs that year for the first time in 25 years. So that’s just an example of how it can impact a team and how a how sports professionals can view in that case, just the topic of hypnosis. And, um, I’ve gotten. So I’m, rather than using the word hypnosis because some people still kind of clutch with that word, but I’ve gotten more so that I’m referring to doing Dynamic. Um, I just just drew a blank. I’m getting ready to say it. And then drew drew a blank, but dynamic guided visualization. And that’s what I do with hypnosis. Um, is the, uh, maybe can we touch on hypnosis for just.

Lee Kantor: Sure. I was going to bring that up in terms of how do you know when it’s the right time to bring that up with your clients?

Karen Ross: Okay. Um, that’s going to vary from client to client, and I’m going to have already determined what their thought process is or their, their beliefs about hypnosis so that we’re clear on that. Um, and, and then, um, I will just ask them, you know, we may be in a certain subject and I’ll ask them if they’d like to do a little bit of hypnosis or guided visualization. And um, once they experience it, they realize what a wonderful experience it is. I almost without fail, people at the end of that session will say, I don’t know that I’ve ever been that relaxed. Well, when we can really relax both our body and more specifically, our conscious mind, um, that’s like a new experience for many people. And it’s by quieting the conscious mind that we’re able to access the power of the subconscious mind. And that’s where beliefs live. That’s, uh, we, and we can go in and change those beliefs. I had one client that I worked with and, um, he wanted to solve a relatively simple situation. And we worked together, I, I think, just for a few sessions. And when we determined that he had a particular belief. We always hoped the client would do this. And we don’t have to. We hope they will recognize. And he did. He said, well, my God, I don’t need to believe that anymore. That’s ridiculous. And it was a belief that he had formed as a child, as a toddler, but it had impacted a particular behavior for well, he was in his 60s. So for 60 years, 60 some years. And, um, so that’s one of the things that we work with is what does somebody believe about the behavior that’s causing them concern? And that’s often a surprise to the individual.

Lee Kantor: Now how do you kind of differentiate um, self-hypnosis from meditation.

Karen Ross: Well, um, it’s a good question. And a lot of people ask that with meditation. We’re quieting the, the conscious mind and we, you know, we talk about there are so many different approaches to meditation, but the, the idea being that you just want to quiet everything, quiet your body and so on and so forth. We certainly do that with hypnosis, but meditation does not necessarily well, it doesn’t access the subconscious mind. So in hypnosis or the kind of coaching and visualization I do with people, we quiet that conscious mind, but then we activate the subconscious mind and make it more alert. Um, the, the nice thing about the subconscious when we haven’t talked that much about that. The difference between the conscious and subconscious mind. But the conscious mind is the one that talks to us all the time. It never shuts up. And often what it says is not very kind. It’s where the self-sabotage comes in. And, uh, but that conscious mind is just active all the time. Our subconscious mind, though, just kind of sits there waiting for direction. It doesn’t ask questions. It doesn’t second guess us. It doesn’t argue with us. It is there to serve us. In fact, one of the things I like to point out to people is that the subconscious mind is the most powerful creative instrument in the universe, and it can access complete fields of knowledge.

Karen Ross: Everything we’ve learned is in our subconscious mind, and we all have a subconscious mind. Fine. We just don’t know how to distinguish between the two. The conscious and the subconscious. Um, when I talk about knowledge, um, I don’t want to get off on a whole nother track, but I’ve worked with people who are taking very critical exams like Lsats and Mcats and, and sometimes it’s the last time they can take it, you know, for another year or two years, whatever. They all had different rules. But what I work with them before taking the test, and they’re amazed at some of the stuff that comes back up for them because I help them understand, you know, all the answers. This isn’t something you have to figure out, and you just I help them learn how to open their subconscious mind and just know the answers in there. And when you need it, it’ll come up for you. So that’s an oversimplification, but it can be that simple if you allow it to be that simple. So I got a little off track there.

Karen Ross: Forgive me, but, um, the subconscious mind is just so powerful, so creative. And when people learn how to use. You asked about self-hypnosis. My apologies. Um, I can teach people how to just take themselves into even a momentary peace of quiet and, uh, quiet. That subconscious mind. I could picture somebody in the dugout, you know, in the middle of a game, and you’ve got all this activity around you. And if they can just step away for a moment, close their eyes, take a deep breath, and they learn how to say certain things to themselves. And that’s something we create together. What can you develop or create as a trigger word that when you say that word, your whole body just kind of gives way. Maybe you can only do that for 10s and it can work. But if you can step away for two minutes, five minutes, 20 minutes, all the better that you people can learn those techniques. It’s still a lot easier when you have someone guide you, but you can absolutely learn how to do it. I feel like I’m using the same words a lot, but access quiet your conscious mind and access your subconscious mind.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a story you can share that can illustrate maybe the power of the work that you’re doing? Um, maybe share a rewarding story or somebody who came a long way where they were able to, uh, either get out of their own way or achieve a new level because of the work you did together. Don’t name the name, but maybe share the challenge that came to you with and how you were able to help them overcome it.

Karen Ross: You worked. Sure. Yeah. There are many. Uh, there is one that, um, that I particularly enjoy telling. And I’ve already mentioned that I’ve worked with, you know, a 15 year old and 20 year olds and, and that seems to be more the, the age group that I work with. But I had a man come to me who is a retired physician, very successful, uh, medical practice. And now he was writing books and, um, you know, a very active individual. And he said, what I really want to do is improve my golf game. He said, I’m not going to become a pro at this time of my life, but I play with the same guys every Friday, and I want to keep playing with them as long as I possibly can, and I just want to play a better golf game. So I asked him at one point what would be a dream score for him, and he gave me a number. And then he laughed and I said, well, why are you laughing? He said, there is no way I will ever golf that score. It’s absolutely impossible. And I said, well, let’s just use that number anyway as just kind of a guiding light, if you will. And he was a very creative person. So he took that number and he used AI, and he created like an emblem with that number in the middle.

Karen Ross: And I suggested that he make several copies of that and put it everywhere, put it on your bathroom mirror, the inside and outside of your office door. When you open your laptop, it’s the first thing you see. Put it on the dash of your car, put it on the bedside table. It’s the first thing you see when you get up and don’t give it any more thought. Just put it out there. And so he, he did. And he and he loved doing that. He loved playing around with AI and all that kind of thing. So, um, he found that he was making some gradual changes. He changed his stroke a little bit. He changed his stance. Um, he was using a different club for certain shots. He said there’s subtle things he said, but I’m just finding I’m more comfortable. So it was very gradual. Well, we stopped working together and he felt good about where he was. About six months later, I get a text from him with a picture of him holding his golf score for that day, and it was the score that he said absolutely was impossible to golf. Wow.

Lee Kantor: And that that must have been such a great moment for him and for you.

Karen Ross: Absolutely. And I, uh, heard from him later. He said, what I didn’t tell you is he said, I golfed that score again the next day. So it was not a fluke. And, uh, you know, you might have said, oh, boy, you know, once, once in a lifetime golf score. But he did it again. Um, but yeah, that, oh, that made me very happy. And it certainly did him also.

Lee Kantor: Well, Karen, if there’s somebody out there listening that wants to learn more about your practice or get on your calendar, is there a website? What’s the best way to connect?

Karen Ross: Absolutely. Um, if they would just email me at info at Karen Ross now.com or they can go to the website and they have more than enough opportunities to click to schedule and, uh, just get on my calendar. I have a brief complimentary call and just find out if it’s a good match. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but it’s worth a conversation, whatever issue somebody might be dealing with. It’s, uh, it’s worth a 30 minute or however long we been talking, but it’s worth that conversation to find out. Could this be a fit? You know, what have you tried that hasn’t worked? And that’s what a lot of people, come to me in that situation. So yeah, just info at Karen Ross now.com. That’s my direct email. Or they can go to the website and, um, all kinds of places to click schedule.

Lee Kantor: So and the website is Karen Ross now.com.

Karen Ross: That’s it. Thank you. Yes.

Lee Kantor: Well, Karen, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Karen Ross: Well thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to be on here. Again, I think I mentioned it’s been a couple of years, but, um, I, uh, was on with Stone and now I get to meet you. So thank you for this opportunity. It’s very meaningful to me. Appreciate it.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.