So welcome back to the Rhonda Swan Show, season 10, episode three, New York City Big Apple edition. Well, today I'm really pretty excited. Like, have you ever been in that space where you're like going into a deep meditation, you are getting sleepy? Have you ever been hypnotist, hypnotized? Well, today we've got a really special guest. In fact, he has not only conducted 15,000 sessions, hypnosis sessions, but he works with executive dads. In fact, he's the author of the best-selling book called The Executive Dads Playbook. He's also called the heartbreak hypnotist and the founder of Pure Hypnosis. So, my guest today, get ready to be tranced, is Shawn Wheeler. Welcome to the show.

Thank you, Rhonda. Good to be

here. So good to see you. All right, so of course I was being goofy about hypnosis, but I think it's really intriguing, you know? You know, often people are like, you think of, you know, who's the guys that come into Vegas and they're doing their magical stuff, right. Tell us about how you got involved, not only in hypnosis, but then we're going to tap into the book and what you're doing with Heartbreak Hypnotist, like all these fun things, like, oh, can you hypnotize me to having a date or the right partner?

If I had a nickel for every time I had those questions, but you know, the silly side of hypnosis is something that it's kind of the bane of your existence, if you're a hypnotherapist and you want to be taken seriously, but it's also the thing that gets people to think about it, meaning I actually saw two shows when I was in college, long before I ever decided to do hypnosis or even thought about it as a profession, and it was just like mind-blowingly crazy, and I couldn't quite know what to believe, but I knew people that were in the show, and I knew they weren't faking it, so I knew there had to be something to it. So, I don't know, many fast forward half a decade, and I was working for CNN, and I was doing some of this in front of the camera kind of stuff, and, but I'd get nervous every time the cameras would roll, and so I went to see a hypnotherapist to help with performance anxiety, and it helped tremendously, but it helped even more than performance anxiety. It helped me with life, you know, because I was kind of anxious, not really a very happy person. I was kind of a negative guy at that point, and I was heartbroken, which I added the heartbreak,

right?

And so, but I mean, a session literally changed my life. Wow, and this became a way of life for me, and it worked so well that a couple years later when I got laid off from CNN, it was one of those good things, one of those bad things, it's a good thing, that's when I decided to study this, and I went all in.

Okay, so let's talk about the science behind hypnosis, right? What actually happens, and how does it happen? Because I was sharing with you last night, I remember, I think I was like 17, and I was hypnotized, and I was like, bored across two chairs, and literally they were pressing and standing. I think they put a young child, I don't think the man did it, but I was like, this is real, I didn't do this.

Yeah, that's called full body catalepsy, by the way. So it's a very popular stage hypnosis trick. I don't say it's not a trick, but it's a demonstration that they do, because it seems to, it's a convincer for the audience, they go, something interesting, something different is happening here. They're not just acting goofy, they're not just dancing with the broom, but this woman has a man standing on her and she's put between two chairs. Yeah, so I've seen that. I've actually helped people to do that at times. I don't like walking on top of people's bodies, I don't think that's my safest thing in the world, but yeah, there is a science behind it, you know, the science behind it. If you're looking at, you know, what's happening in the brain when you're being hypnotized, it's a change in your brain wave functioning. So, we have beta, alpha, theta, and delta brain waves. If you hook up electrodes to your head and you go into a hypnotic state, you'll see beta change into alpha, and then if you go deeper, then you'll see alpha change into theta, and then if you go deeper than that, you're asleep. That's delta, right? So, you know, in hypnosis, we're keeping people in between these two, between alpha and theta. So, alpha and theta is where the magic happens. So, there have been literally 1000s of university studies on hypnosis, and what they show is that when people are in the alpha or theta state, they're more receptive to suggestions, so the layman's terms way that I tell people that is it means that it makes you a better listener.

Is it like your unconscious is kind of more open to suggestions?

So normally your conscious mind is all over the place, people are thinking about this, they think about that, their mind wanders, even when you're in school or you're at work, and your mind goes to 20 different things. When you're hypnotized, that part of your mind goes on a vacation. Sometimes we send it to the beach, sometimes we go to a pleasant memory, but it's like, go off and play for a little while, and we're going to talk to the boss, and the boss is the subconscious, or what we call the unconscious mind. So that when that part of you is listening with its undivided attention, and it gets good advice, it sticks, and that's why. People can have really powerful changes, like, you know, they can smoke for 30 years, have one session of hypnosis, and never touch a cigarette again. And it's literally because you're in that state where you're receiving good information and you're not distracted, and it stays with you.

Now, does someone have to be.. you can't just do it to someone and it works like they have to actually want it to work, you know, because it's like you can't just force it, right? So

I would, I would say, you know, I'm sure the government has done experiments with hypnosis. I've heard things. I think if you have somebody in a controlled environment and you have poor ethics, then you could probably use it to someone's detriment. Yeah, that's right. For the average person out there is looking at hypnosis, hypnotherapy, no, you have to, you have to be cooperative. Yeah, like if I have a client and I go, okay, now close your eyes and take a deep breath, and they, they stare at me and keep their eyes open, there's not a whole lot I can do there, right? So hypnosis takes place through the cooperation of the hypnotist and the individual, and that's that's the same in therapy as it is in a stage show, yeah, and a comedy show, you have to want it, you know, and when you were, when you did the body catalepsy, yeah, you chose to do that,

right?

Yeah.

Okay. Very interesting. Well, let's, let's talk a little bit about the executive dad's playbook, because I know that's just, you know, knowing personally, being not only in corporate and business, the stress levels of parents have a detriment, and there's a, there's a big cost of not actually, you know, being stress-free or being able to be present, share about the book, and why is that work so important for you.

So, it was years ago, before I was a dad. I have a daughter who's 11, and long ago I've been doing this since I was 28 and I might have been 30 years old, and I had a client who was in his, I think, his early 60s, and he was a successful businessman, and I remember him sitting in my office and telling me, you know, this he was, he was experiencing depression and that sort of thing, and he told me, you know, just very straightforward, I wish I spent more time with my kids, because, you know, the kids are grown and they're out of the house, and you can't get that time back. Now, when I've talked to my clients about this in sessions, and they come to me for stress, they come to me because they're drinking too much, they're smoking too much, they're eating too much, all this kind of stuff, and so, but when I, when I ask them the questions, the truth comes out, which is that this drive to work, work, work, work, work, and there's never enough money, and they could be multi millionaires, and they're still anxious all the time, and it's like, so stress and anxiety are the core of this problem, it's like, it's, you know, when I'm calling it the executive dads playbook, it could apply to all kinds of dads, but the executives, in particular, are the ones who have the most excuses to never stop working. They have more demands in their time, people are expecting things out of them, the desire to be productive is super high, and so for them, there's always some stuff to do for work, and their kids, and their wife, and their health sometimes get the scraps that are left over, you know, because they can't, you know, it's like they can't turn the work brain off, and so they seek out alcohol, and they seek out food, and they seek out drugs, sometimes, and other unhealthy things as a means to try to reduce the stress,

and they think that it's making them more present, but in reality it's detaching them even more to their, they're

just, they're just distracting and zoning out, right? So they're not, they're not balancing their lives properly, and they don't, you know, and frankly, in their defense, it's not like these are bad dudes, it's like these are men who are trying to do the right thing in most cases, and they think that earning a ton of money and giving the, you know, the family a nice house, and you can send the kids to a good college. They're kind of conditioned to think that that's the right thing to do. However, what I've seen is that when you throw tons of money at kids and they grew up with it, they don't really appreciate it much, and what they really want is the attention from their father and the attention from their parents. And I've seen too many clients who are, you know, people in their 20s and 30s or over, who had this dad, and they all say the same thing. I go, you know, what was your dad like? And they'll say, well, he was really nice, I just didn't see him very much, you know. So they grew up feeling like they're not worth his time, right? He's got more important stuff to do, is the narrative they have in their head, and that makes them depressed, that makes them seek out drug addiction, it causes them to have bad relationships in adulthood. So I saw all that in advance before my daughter was born, and so I literally made a choice, like I was more of a stay-at-home dad than I think any other man who runs a business that I've ever known, and that was because I knew that that time was an investment that would pay off in her self-confidence, that would pay off in her being happy and well-adjusted as an adult.

Yeah, my husband always says it's like making deposits into the bank, right? Because the more you do that, in such a young, young girls, they say I believe it's the age between 10 and 15 is when they're actually watching how their dad treats the mother and them, that's how they're going to look and who they're going to look for in a relationship,

that's it. You know, I had a client once, I'll never forget a woman in her early 50s, always dating losers in her own words, and you know, came to tell me that, you know, I said, did you ever date a nice guy, and she said, well, once, but. It felt weird, you know, because her whole childhood her dad was telling her you're no good and no one's ever going to want you, and I mean, because you can either be an absentee parent or you can be abusive, right? And you know, abuse is obviously worse than not being there, but those are the messages that screw people up. They grew up with the belief that they're not worth dad's time, a belief that they're not good enough, and, and then that's what they put up with in their own relationships, because it's familiar, you know. So, you have to, as a parent, you, you know, I get 15,000 hours of therapy has taught me a lot about how people get their problems, and so I'm like, you know, this is like me going, like, doing back to the future stuff. It's like, I want to, I want to heal people, so that 20 years from now their kids don't need therapy, you know, because if they don't fix this, then their kids are going to get screwed up, and their kids are going to have problems when they're adults, and so I just.. I'm tired, you know? I say I'm tired. I kind of got tired of picking up the pieces of people who've been screwed up by bad childhoods,

right? So, like, don't come to me first, or after, come to me first if you need to clean it.

Yes, now, so that you can be a good parent to your kids, and your kids won't need therapy the rest of their lives.

Wow, okay, I.. that's, you know, and it's something that's so.. I think present right now, especially in society, with, you know, keeping up with the Joneses, right? All the things that are shifting and changing. However, the one, and the most important piece that we, and that kids are looking for is just time, so what is the process that you actually take these men through, so that you know our audience, especially as our audience is awesome, and they're really always looking for, like, you know, what's the most healthy, right, the biohacking, if you will, way to cure, to heal, to reduce, you know, any long-term effects that you've got on your, you know, your body, and then how to cut patterns.

Yeah, the greatest thing about hypnotherapy that I've always loved is it's the least invasive form of intervention, meaning you're not having to take a drug. There's no side effects that are negative. The worst thing that happens is nothing, typically. But you know, when a client comes in to see me, whether they're an executive dad or anyone else, I mean, it's always a very personalized process. It's not like I've got a serious script of suggestions I read off every

year. No,

no, I mean, they're all different, and it's my job to ask the right questions to find out what's going on in their head that's causing them the problem. So, typically we find the root, the root of a lot of them is like they're trying to prove their value, they're trying to prove their self-worth, and they're stressed out and afraid about not having enough money, of not being seen and respected in the right way by certain people, so they're trying to keep up with the Joneses, they're trying to conquer the world, right, and that's such a huge priority that health and relationships are left in the dust, so I've got to help them to first heal that part inside that says my value is attached to my income, my value is attached to my job title, you know, all that kind of stuff. And when we heal that, then then we do some work that's really on well, how do you help them to actually relax, you know? Because you can actually be a very, like, sort of like well-rounded person, and have your, you know, have your, your stuff together, so to speak, like you can be, you know, you don't have to be dysfunctional to be stressed, so some of it's just on a practical level, how to focus your attention on the present, right? Because no matter how crazy someone's life is, they're, you know, and we're running around New York today, I know different stuff,

this is perfect for our New York audience

thing, is the thing is I don't get stressed when I'm running around doing stuff like this, because I'm typically focused just on what I'm doing in the moment, and that's always something that you can handle. So, for the dads, what I do is I help them to slow down, so that literally their perception of time changes, so that in the moment they could be doing something really important, but they're just focused on that one thing and not thinking of 30 different things that are coming up next, and then when they're at home with their kids, the feedback that I get is they're like, yeah, you know, I've been able to play with my kids, and I'm not looking at my phone every five seconds, you know. So being able to just be there, trust that the work will be there when you need it to be, and some of the discipline with technology, like not checking the phone, not scrolling so much. So we do work on changing some of those habits, but also the deeper thing is like helping them to be at peace with the way things,

that's huge. Actually, just something like that alone could shift a relationship in a family. And speaking of relationships, what about the relationship with their spouse?

Yeah, so this is

where you're coming from, this relationship hypnosis,

well, I've said, like, again, most of the most people come to me too late, they come to me when things are breaking down. Sure, so I've had a number of men who've come to me when they're literally on the verge of divorce, like I've literally had conversations with their wives a couple times where their wives are like, pissed, they're like, "I'm over this, he's not helping out, you know, there are different expectations now than there used to be for men as well, and for women, you know, women were supposed to run to have a career and also be moms, but men are supposed to like slay the world financially and also come home and do the dishes, you know, and so some of these men, they're like so lost in work and so absorbed with work, they go home and they're, you know, they're slouching around on the couch while mom is cleaning the dishes. Taking care of the kids, so this resentment broods right, because it's like the women are, you know, resentful of these men who are never around, they're not helping out anything around the house, the money's coming in, but the women are running around doing everything on their own and dealing with the kids, and so the men, if they ignore that too long, it gets to a point where it's, it's not going to last,

yeah,

and so they're on the verge of divorce, and that cost them 1000s and 1000s of dollars, is incredibly stressful and painful. It's terrible for when we go

to the kids, right? Like, really think about, we're trying to help them be with the kids, and then all of a sudden this is already happening, so it's a double, double whammy in the family. Correct, costs are really high,

and worse is another one of those things that so many of my clients have told me about, how you know just how impactful that is, in a negative sense, on their childhood development. The parents get divorced, and there's, there's animosity, and it's really tense, and they go through court. It's just a horrible thing for the kids. So, you know, they're coming to me sometimes too late, when things are about to break, and they're like, oh yeah, for the past 10 or 15 years, I've been working 70 hours a week, and I, you know, because everything in life you have to invest time in, you know, there's health, wealth, and there's relationships, and so a lot of these dudes are just putting too much time into the wealth, you know, pot, and they're not doing anything for the relationships and none for their health, and then these things break down, your health breaks down, your relationships break down, and then you're not very happy,

yeah,

you know, you can't have happiness if you don't have good relationships, and you can't have good relationships if you don't invest time and hanging out with your wife and taking her on date nights and spending time with the kids and letting them know that you care.

Yeah, well, I can assume then that you probably have a pretty great relationship with your wife.

Well, I, you know,

did you always..

well, it's no marriage is always awesome, but my wife, but my wife and I actively work on, we plan date nights, we do things together, we go on trips, we go, we met at a concert, you know, well, we, it's a long story, but we initially met at CNN, the fun story, and this kind of segues into the heartbreak, hypnosis thing, but when I first met my wife, I actually was pre hypnosis on, I was kind of a different guy. I had no self-confidence. Wow, I was very negative. I couldn't talk to women. So she was there at the sports department at CNN, and she's this cute girl doing graphics, and I'd go over there and try to talk to her, but I was too nervous to actually ask her out. So I never asked her out, and so she set me up with her friend, and so I go to an REM concert with my wife's friend. It's funny when you say, "Oh my goodness, when you say my wife set me up with her friend, it's kind of funny. She wasn't my wife at the time, but she set me up with her friend. I went to a concert with the friend. I wasn't really into the friend, and then.. and then I went to a different department. She went to a different department, and I didn't see her for 10 years.

Wow, really.

And in that window I got hypnotized, changed careers, became a hypnotist, and then I met her again in 2010 at a little concert in Atlanta.

Perfect fan,

I was the new Sean, and because I was the new Sean, and I had confidence, and I could talk to women, and I felt very, you know, good about myself. We started dating right away, and we've been together ever since.

And how long?

That's been 15 years now.

Unbelievable.

Yeah,

well, that's perfect. That's how fate truly works, right? Yeah, my husband and I actually met surfing in the water in San Diego. We both moved from Midwest to California in the water, surfing, and spent 26 years.

Wow,

they were like,

what are the odds?

Yeah, what are the odds? Chicago and Detroit move to San Diego and start surfing. We meet each other. I love this story, and I - I'm always really intrigued on these type of modalities, and how, like, the audience tends to perceive them, because often, right before, oh, that's that's airy fairy or hokey pokey, like that stuff doesn't work. However, you're proven that it really does work.

Yeah, so the thing about hypnotherapy is, I think that there's been a dearth, you know, really of people who are good spokesmen for it. Yeah, to be honest with you, I think it has a bad rep, has a bad sort of image. It's got the Schlocky stage hypnosis image, and then it's got sort of that, you know, that alternative kind of thing. Yeah, and a lot of the websites for hypnotherapists are kind of outdated, they have weird imagery, exactly. So, so I was able to get through this barrier back in 2010 That's when I went on the radio in Atlanta, did it's called The Burt Show, very popular morning show, hypnotized their host to quit smoking, but I went in the air and I basically just talked about hypnosis in a down-to-earth way, and when I did, and she quit smoking, my phone ran off, rang off the hook for months, and I mean it was just like a tidal wave of people who were like, I want this, and all they really needed to know was that this was real, like they needed to hear someone talk about it in a way that was down to earth and believable, and that's what I did, and that's what I'm trying to spread the word, go, hey, it's not BS, it's also not magic, but it's extremely powerful, and if used by the right person with the right skill, can do very, very powerful things quickly.

Yeah, I agree with you, and in fact, I was sharing this with you last night, is you know, in my 20s I was a, you know, perfectionist and, you know, athlete, and you shared, you said, "How was it really short with your dad? and I said, "Horrible, right? My biological father, drug addict, in and out. I haven't spoken to him in about 17 years. My stepdad was pretty strict, and I went to one hypnosis session. They ended up being one or two, and I had - I was had an eating disorder, you know, and I was, because it was my control system. If I, my world was felt chaotic, I had no support, so I was creating my own support, and I realized that it more came down to understanding what my self-worth was and my safety, and removing that pattern that I thought I needed to stay safe,

right? And that happened very quickly,

very quickly.

You think about this, is a big deal, because traditional therapy people go to therapists for 2030 years, and they talk about the same crap every week, and they kind of get a little insight, but nothing changes, you know. You and I go in, and we have one or two sessions with somebody who's, you know, using a good skill, and it's like your life changes, you know. And that's what's so exciting about this. People, again, it gives the perception a little bit. Oh, it's too good to be true. Nothing really works that well. It does work that well when used properly. Yeah, that's the thing. There is no kind of silver bullet, but if you have a hypnotherapist who knows what they're doing and you're receptive to that method, then yeah, I mean, it can change. Like, I've had people who said to me, literally, I got more out of two sessions with you than I got out of 20 years of traditional therapy, and it's because the focus is different. It's not about understanding, yeah, it's about changing you. It's about creating an outcome.

Yeah, I love that, Sean. I'm really excited because your book is out. It's april 2. The book is out. Where are they going to find

it? They're going to find it on Amazon.

Okay, great. And they serve, they search up executive executive dad playbook, playbook,

yep, and they can find the book, and it's got great information, and it's endorsed by NBA player Clint Capella, who was a client of mine. He wrote me a wonderful testimonial for the book cover. He's a dude who's like, he really decided that he wanted to be the opposite of Shaq, you know, and Shaquille O'Neal is famous for saying being a lonely giant at 50 in a big ass house, because he was neglecting his wife and his kids when he was an NBA star for all those years, and that's a thing I think a lot of men are starting to shift away from. You don't want to be a lonely giant or a lonely rich guy in a big ass house, you want to be surrounded by family and people that you love and create a legacy of love that lasts.

Wow, I'm really excited to read that book. And I know you're in Atlanta. However, if the audience wants to tune in to you, where do they find you? Is there a way for them to work with you directly? Do you do anything virtually?

I do still work with clients one on one, although I'm shifting a little more to the executive dads and different things, but I have a team of people I've trained now, so I have people working with me at Pure Hypnosis. So, we've got several hypnotherapists, and I've got more waiting. So, right now, it's like you can come to Pure Hypnosis for anything that you need, virtual or in person. And then I got a whole suite of products, and all kinds of different ways. So, just, just look up Pure Hypnosis, and yeah, and we'll, we'll find stuff that helps.

Yeah, I love that, because you know, the world is shifting. You know, I live in Bali, and people go for many holidays to Bali. They go to Thailand. Now they come to Atlanta for pure hypnosis. I love it. Thank you, Sean, so much for the work that you do, and for sharing, because I know the audience can really get a lot out of it. So, what do you think? Imagine thinking about your relationship that you had with your dad, maybe it wasn't so great, maybe you found yourself struggling or finding yourself in a tight form of control, or having patterns that are not serving your relationship, they're causing problems in your family and your relationship with your children. Well, today Sean Wheeler showed us that that doesn't have to be, and we can shift that, and I want to encourage everyone to not only get the Executive Dad's Playbook on Amazon, and make sure you give them a review. It matters, truly it does. As authors, we love getting those reviews, especially after you read them, and reach out to Sean Wheeler, go to Pure Hypnosis, and find out more what they've got going on. So, I hope you enjoyed today's episode of Live from New York City. We will see you next time, and we will be in Beverly Hills studio with our next amazing guest. So, guys, we'll see you next time. Don't forget to be unstoppable. Stay wild,