August 1, 2025 • 40 mins
Ever wonder why some people consistently sabotage their own success? In this eye-opening conversation with psychologist Dr. Albert Bramante, author of "Rise Above the Script," we dive deep into the hidden mental patterns that keep talented people stuck in cycles of underperformance.
Dr. Bramante shares fascinating insights from his journey working with actors and performers, revealing how the psychology of self-sabotage manifests in everyday behaviors like chronic lateness, procrastination, and the "I'm too busy" narrative. You'll discover how these patterns form and—more importantly—practical techniques to break free from them.
Whether you're a trainer looking to enhance your toolkit, a manager working with underperforming team members, or someone seeking to overcome your own self-defeating patterns, this episode provides practical strategies you can implement immediately. Connect with Dr. Albert Bramante at www.albertbramante.com or find him on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook to continue your journey of psychological transformation.
Meet the Host
Jay Johnson works with people and organizations to empower teams, grow profits, and elevate leadership. He is a Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements®, a two-time TEDx speaker, and a designated Master Trainer by the Association for Talent Development. With a focus on behavioral intelligence, Jay has delivered transformational workshops to accelerate high-performance teams and cultures in more than 30 countries across four continents. For inquiries, contact jay@behavioralelements.com or connect below!
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayjohnsonccg/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jayjohnsonccg/
Speaker Website - https://jayjohnsonspeaks.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jay Johnson (00:01):
Welcome to this episode of the Talent Forge
where, together, we are shapingthe future of training and
development.
Today I have special guest, Dr.
Albert Bramante, author of thebook Rise Above the Script, a
psychologist and someone who hasbeen dipping into some AI in
terms of talent development.
Welcome to the show, albert.
(00:21):
Thank you, jay.
Thank you for inviting me.
Albert Bramante (00:24):
I'm really happy to be here.
Jay Johnson (00:25):
I'm happy to have you.
So tell me, what is it that gotyou into this talent
development space, coaching,training, helping people kind of
make those navigational changes?
Albert Bramante (00:35):
So as a child there was always a book for them
.
To give you a really quickintro, I always loved books
about psychology, the brain,neuroscience, communication, so
that led me to study psychology.
I was also very interested inthe arts so I was in the drama
club in high school.
I took some acting classes aselectives in my undergraduate
(00:57):
studies, so I enjoyed thecreativity side of things.
When I received my master'sdegree, my final internship was
at a new york city talk show,working more in the counseling
side of things, and that led meto study at working with actors.
And because I worked withactors not directly but but kind
(01:19):
of like adjacent so I startedoff kind of in pursuing a little
bit of my own acting andrealized for for me I enjoyed
working behind the scenes.
I worked better with advisingactors, so I started my first
talent representation ormanagement company in 2004 and
(01:40):
then I become a licensed talentagent, which is so pretty much
as a talent agent I work as anemployment agent for actors.
Now while I was studyingpsychology, I was noticing a lot
of patterns that were coming upwith actors Self-sabotage, fear
of success, self-doubt, issuesof self-doubt and imposter
syndrome were coming in.
So I did my PhD dissertation onself-defeating behavior of
(02:03):
performing artists, which turnedinto my book, you know, which
really is on the edge of my book, rise of the Script.
So that kind of led me tocoaching more down the coaching
space.
And then I initially was goingto be a clinical psychologist.
That was going to be my naturalprogression.
(02:24):
Psychologist, that was going tobe my natural progression.
But there were some things thatwere becoming more and more of
a question for me, or maybe evena little bit of disillusionment
in my area.
So I became more interested inmore rapid forms of coaching,
you know, hypnosis, nlp,rewiring the subconscious belief
systems and patterns.
So that kind of led me down tothis kind of like that rabbit
(02:47):
hole of coaching, a personaldevelopment.
So that's kind of the space thatI'm in today and being, you
know, somewhat of a mild techenthusiast.
I'm not entirely like intoprogramming and coding, but I do
enjoy technology and so thatkind of led me to kind of
discovering and writing the AI.
Jay Johnson (03:09):
I love this All right.
So there's a lot to unpackthere.
I'm going to start withself-defeating behaviors, and
what I'd love is can you givethe audience maybe just a quick
definition of what is aself-defeating behavior, what is
a self-defeating mindset?
And then, how do I notice this?
Because I guarantee they'vebeen in audiences where that
(03:33):
type of archetype has come up.
So what would be some of thesigns that somebody is
exhibiting self-defeatingbehaviors or maybe that sort of
fear of success?
Albert Bramante (03:44):
It would be sort of like doing certain
behaviors that are holdingthemselves back, maybe being
late to a point, it's notpreparing fully for what they
could do or not really living upto their fullest potential.
So it's like you could do somuch but you're only doing so
little.
And even the language that theytalk a lot of times I'm not
(04:04):
good enough or I'm just unluckyin life and what's really going
on here is just self-imposedlimitations more of a fixed
mindset, if you will yes,exactly, exactly.
And rather than looking at evenif they make a mistake or they
(04:25):
fail at something, a person witha fixed mindset that said I
told you I'm not successful, Itold you I'm not lucky, whereas
someone with a growth mindset islike, okay, well, this happened
, what can I learn from this andwhat can I do differently next
time.
And so a person who isself-sabotaging is what makes
this a very sneaky behavior is aperson doesn't even realize
(04:47):
they're doing it, sure, and theyjust think they may just work
and say I can't catch a break,life is unfair, or I just can't
do it.
And so they become just stuckin these patterns and these
cycles of what we might considerbad luck.
(05:11):
So that would be the firstthing If someone has a victim
mindset or a mindset of bad luck, that might be the first clue
to start looking at what's goingon here.
Jay Johnson (05:28):
Are they their own worst enemy?
Well, and you see that behaviorevery day in the office, right?
You see people who are comingin late that have all the
potential in the world and a lotof times you know the stories
we tell ourselves or that I'veheard a lot of leaders or
managers say is oh, it's becausethis person's young, or oh,
it's because they're lazy, or oh, it's.
It's almost like whoever it isis coming up with their own
(05:50):
interpretation of what thosefacts are.
Uh, how do we get to the coreof, like, maybe what it is
that's actually that person'sstory.
So the person who comes in lateobviously doesn't go yeah, I'm
lazy, I just come in late allthe time, or, you know, I really
don't want to be successful.
I I don't think they're feelingthat way.
How do we draw that out of them?
Albert Bramante (06:11):
well, we notice patterns, as I always.
If they're coming in late allthe time, I mean versus okay,
one day there could beconstruction on the way to work,
okay fine.
Or something happened at home,emergency happened at home.
But if it's a consistentpattern where they're late week
after week or day, that may be apattern that we need to look
deeper into this.
(06:31):
Why is that person not leavingearlier enough?
Why is that person not makingsure that they're on time?
What's really going on here?
And then we have to look attheir overall happiness level.
Maybe they're just not happywith their job or they're not
happy at that company, and wemay not be able to change their
(06:52):
jobs, obviously with the way theeconomy is.
But what we can do is startworking at some core feelings
about their job.
So you have to start looking atbehaviors of what's happening
on a consistent level again.
Are they always underperforming?
Are they always, you know, notdoing what they can do?
Because?
(07:12):
So, with self-sabotage, no onewalks around saying hey, I'm
self-sabotaging today right.
Jay Johnson (07:20):
it'd be nice if people had that level of
awareness and honesty in likewhat it is that's creating their
behavior.
Albert Bramante (07:26):
Yeah, If you had that level of awareness or
honesty, you wouldn't be doingit, frankly, you would not be
self-sabotaging because it's youknow differently, right?
So a lot of times it's helpingpeople become aware of this,
like look, ok, what's reallygoing on here?
(07:46):
Always late, you know you'realways doing things and I know
you can do it.
Yeah, I know you can becauseyou're smart and you're
intelligent, you're resourceful.
So it's looking at certainbehaviors, another habit a lot
of people say I don don't haveany time today, I'm so busy, but
yet you see them on socialmedia, scrolling on their phone
(08:07):
for moments even hours at a time.
Jay Johnson (08:13):
Yep, I've always made that.
I've always made thatrelevation of uh, whenever I see
somebody that says I don't haveany time and so like, oh, you
have no time, you're so busy.
Well, if you've got a phonecall that said, hey, my garage
is on fire, um, are you going tobe like, oh, I'm sorry, I don't
have time to deal with that.
Give me a call in two weeks andI'll definitely take that on?
(08:34):
Or are you going to shift?
And usually time is a lack ofprioritization, that's, that's
one of the things that we seeyeah, exactly, and that.
Albert Bramante (08:45):
Another mindset I think that we have to kind of
get out of is that, oh, I'm toobusy.
I hear the people say this Iwish I could do this.
I'm so, so busy, albert, do you?
Jay Johnson (08:58):
do you?
Do you think that it's almostbecause we is that a defense
mechanism?
Or is it because we've, like,glorified being busy, like, oh,
if you're busy you must beproductive, and those two things
do not necessarily line up witheach other.
Or if you're successful andthat doesn't always line up with
each other, uh, or if you'rebusy, you're successful, and
that doesn't always line upeither.
(09:18):
So what?
What creates the condition thatwe want to be busy or that we
say that we're busy?
Is there something that you'veseen?
Albert Bramante (09:27):
I think it could be distraction.
I think it could be, you know,trying not to face whatever.
We're feeling, insecurities,we're facing, so, or things in
our life.
Well, by just keeping ourselvesbusy, because I can keep myself
busy, but that doesn't mean I'mgoing to be productive, that
doesn't mean I'm beingsuccessful, right I keep myself
busy doing tasks that are notimportant to me or that are
(09:48):
harmful.
Jay Johnson (09:49):
For that matter, you know, scrolling on social
media I truly do not believe isthe best use of four and a half
hours of our time.
Albert Bramante (09:58):
So right and well, that could be busy.
I could be busy scrolling onsocial media, but that doesn't
mean that that be successful orproductive yeah.
Jay Johnson (10:08):
So let's, let's dig in, because I think now, uh,
I've studied psychology but I amby no means a licensed
hypnotist.
I never went for the clinicalside of things.
I wasn't interested in actuallydoing any kind of clinical.
I utilize more of an industrialorganizational psychology and
really help people navigate someforms of behaviors which, for
(10:38):
those in the audience that donot know what that is,
neuro-linguistic programming,and I'll ask you, albert, give
us a working definition that wecan play with.
But let's talk about hypnosisfirst, because I'm not a
hypnotist and I know that, likeyou know, if you look on TV you
see the illusionist or somebodyelse, or you know the, the sort
of like magical incantations ofwhat hypnosis is spin the
(11:01):
circles, swing the clock andsomebody magically falls asleep,
right, I think I just watcheduh, now you see me the the magic
.
You know the magic movie andit's a Woody Harrelson's
character and I know that that'sobviously there is a very
powerful set of evidence ofclinical hypnosis and how that
(11:21):
can really help people sort ofnavigate some of the unconscious
, the underlying beliefs, year.
What are some things that I, asa trainer, could take from the
idea of hypnosis, or anunderstanding that hypnosis
helps us better understand thatI could bring into my practice.
(11:43):
What are your thoughts?
Well, it's.
Albert Bramante (11:46):
There's different levels of hypnosis.
You know the obviously puttingsomeone to the trance, but then
there's also waking hypnosis,conversational hypnosis.
When you change, get someone tochange their limiting beliefs.
You kind of um, you know, helpthem go from one thought to
another.
That could be a form ofhypnosis.
Advertising is hypnosis.
(12:07):
How many times are you going toa store with wanting to buy
something and then walk out andsay, how did I just buy this?
Jay Johnson (12:16):
so, almost like some of the heuristic systematic
processing, can that beconsidered?
Albert Bramante (12:23):
100 combination bias um influence and sales
people, I think are the besthypnotists available because a
lot of times they can convinceyou you need something you don't
really need but, the thing thatwhat makes it really powerful
is it it's you don't evenrealize they're doing it.
(12:44):
It it's really helping you knowhelp.
You know giving convincingsomebody to do something, but
making them think it's their ownidea okay, so it's almost a
subconscious inception concept,yeah all right.
So it's like you know I think Ineed to buy this product and you
really take a step back.
I'm like, no, you were.
(13:04):
Someone suggested that youneeded to buy the product, but
you it went to your subconscious.
Now you believe you need it,and that's where hypnosis is so,
like if I'm working withsomeone, let's say, to stop
smoking, which is really whathypnosis is great for with
addictions.
It's not like I should stopsmoking because this person told
me to.
It's getting someone to say Ishould stop smoking because I
(13:26):
want to.
Jay Johnson (13:27):
Okay, so now, what is the process of that?
And obviously I'm sure thatit's a very complex or it could
be a very complex process, butif you were to just give me the
highlights, or give the audiencethe highlights, what?
What does that process looklike and how would you?
Albert Bramante (13:47):
help somebody.
It's really just, you know,helping someone bypass the
critical factor, which can bemild distraction, okay.
Which is why sometimes if yougo, if you do a formal hypnosis
process, we might have you relaxa little bit in your mind, calm
your mind, clear your mind,focus on something else.
(14:09):
Why I tell you you know it'slike I'll distract you with
point A and why I'm telling youpoint B, where you're not aware
of things, and it could besomething again subtle as
advertising.
Look at a lot of commercials.
They may be interacting with apuppy or kitten and you're
consciously like, oh, look atthat.
And then in the backgroundyou're hearing this message
(14:31):
about buy this product, yeah.
And next thing, you know, whenyou're out in the store or out
wanting to do something, hey, Iwant, I should buy this.
This brand sounds great to me.
Not realizing, you were primed.
Um, I'll give you anotherexample.
There was this used car and acompany, a car lot in florida,
(14:52):
did a really brilliant campaignand brought them a lot of money
and in the commercial they hadobviously the salesman telling
you buy all these cars.
But they also had a seven footnba player dressed in a chicken
suit doing these crazy dances.
Because what are you doing whenyou're folk?
(15:12):
You're focusing on that the guydoing this silly and you're're
like, oh, this is so cute.
Now your mind is open, yourears are open, and so now the
announcer is telling you aboutall these discounts that come to
this car lot.
And now, all of a sudden,you're thinking on the weekend,
you know, I need to go check outa car.
Jay Johnson (15:54):
Let me go check out this lot.
For some reason, this lot istwo different paths to
persuasion, one being thecentral route, ie, I'm focused,
I'm putting my energy intothinking about it, I'm looking
at it logically, I'm looking atthe logical structure and it
makes sense.
And then there's the secondary,which is the peripheral route.
Processing, ie is all of thosesub cues that are either
(16:18):
contextual, environmental,happening essentially below the
conscious focus.
So, if I'm taking that and kindof hearing what you're saying,
albert, hypnosis can bedescribed as unconscious
influence that avoids some ofthe defense mechanisms that we
may be doing either consciouslyor subconsciously.
(16:41):
Would that be accurate?
Albert Bramante (16:43):
yes, and it's really something what really
speaks to the subconscious,which is very strong, okay, and
and are guiding our behavior.
So if I can change yoursubconscious beliefs, that's
where I can, that's where allthe power comes in sure, because
those are the ones that areusually overriding our conscious
(17:05):
and or logical thinking.
Jay Johnson (17:06):
So if I'm a trainer and a coach, what are some of
the things that maybe I couldthink about to be able to
essentially access that aspectof the subconscious you know in
a training session or in acoaching session.
Albert Bramante (17:22):
Yeah, I would watch the language that you use.
You know, the language is very,very powerful.
I think that's one of the moststrongest hypnotic processes is
language.
So watching the language thatwe use, not only to ourselves,
but even helping our clientscome to that by.
You know, even if I'm going towork with actors, I always say
(17:45):
don't you know?
The words that you should getrid of out of your vocabulary is
the word starving, struggling,poor, right and the mindset
essentially is start thestarving artist.
We start to live into thosedifferent identification markers
reality it's like okay, well,I'm starving, so therefore I
must be poor and I must be umI've got you know limited,
(18:11):
nothing to do, I'm poor andtherefore I'm not going to be
successful.
But if you start the, I'm aprofessional working actor, so
you start to then develop thosehabits and then even a lot of
times, a lot of things arerepetition.
So even rehearsal andrepetition is important.
(18:35):
So, even if you're working withpeople as a coach, get them to
use a more empowering languageand over and over again
repetition, well, and I'm.
Jay Johnson (18:43):
So I'm even thinking about, like some of the
affirmation work that dr ellenlanger did in the mindfulness
versus mind mindlessness typeapproach you know the
identification of, oh, I'mgetting older and all of a
sudden we adopt that mentality,we start behaving as such.
So this is, you know, kind ofreframing.
Maybe identity politics or, youknow, identification markers
(19:06):
for the audience is maybe one ofthe first ways we're, we will
hold on to any identity we adopt.
Albert Bramante (19:15):
Yeah, and so again, going with the older
mindset, that because we, wehear the society, we hear
doctors, we, everyone doubt thatthe older we get, the more
limitations we're going toexperience, the more pain we're
going to experience, right, andtherefore create conditions.
Yeah, and we need theseconditions.
(19:37):
And because I can tell you, Iknow a lot of people that are in
their 80s and 90s that defythose expectations, that are
probably healthier than most 20and 30 year olds out there well,
you know, and it's really funnyand, albert, I'll share this.
Jay Johnson (19:53):
This you know from my from my childhood at one in
time a teacher told me that Iwas not good at mathematics and
for some reason it was early.
It was like, oh, this reallyisn't your subject, is it honey?
And I think I was like insecond, third or something great
.
I carried that identity all theway up until high school,
(20:14):
underperforming in mathematics.
But here's the funny thing, andit definitely had an impact on
my behavior.
I deferred my graduation from myundergraduate degree two full
years because I was afraid totake the math proficiency exam.
Ironically, I'm actually quitegood at math.
That was the highest sectionthat I got on the ACT when I
(20:38):
took the entry exam.
Uh, I was very good at physicsand chemistry and I now do
probabilistic uh, you know,statistical modeling for some of
the research that I do.
I wasn't bad at math, but Iwore that label and it had a
huge impact on how I showed upand performed all the way
through school until,essentially, I felt like that
(20:58):
label was no longer fitting andkind of dropped that and a lot
of students are older than himand what I was and I can relate
to this too I feared math.
Albert Bramante (21:09):
But what was ironic was I did very well in
chemistry in high school when Itook statistics for psychology,
both advanced and basic, Iscored high marks in.
I remember my professor saidyou must have been brilliant in
algebra, which, whoa.
That was a new thing to me.
I struggled and it was becauseI had that belief and that's
(21:31):
where and even I tell mystudents there that I teach that
when they say, oh, I don't likemath, I'm not good at math, I'm
like that's not true.
Yep, that's not true at all.
Because if you, you know whatis true?
Yeah, that when we utilize math, we're utilizing it in our
brain.
So, but it requires training inthat.
(21:55):
So it's not that you're notgood at it, you just need more
training in that area, you needmore practice and more of that
muscle.
Jay Johnson (22:04):
And maybe you know, as we're talking here, I think
about it.
Is that sort of one of thoseself-sabotage protection
gestures, like I say, oh, I'mjust not good at math because of
a potential fear of failure?
Or like, oh, this is hardbecause I haven't practiced it,
I'm not working on it you know,I'm not doing it every single
day or whatever it is, versussomething that we are maybe more
(22:27):
passionate about, where we putour energy into it, that we see
progress and we see ourselvesmoving forward.
Is that a form of theself-sabotage that we spoke
about?
Albert Bramante (22:37):
Absolutely about self-protection, because,
therefore, when you felt like,because if, when you do fail,
that's all I would say, when ifyou adopted I'm not good math,
you're not going to be good mathand that, but then you could
use an excuse.
See, I told you I wasn'tgetting that, yeah, but right,
right.
And and I thought, because Italked to a lot of even math
professors in my field and mathtutors in my field and what I
(23:01):
found was that the tutoringcenters at colleges and high
schools are so underutilized inmath.
Most of the people that reallygo to the tutoring are the ones
that are good in math, nosurprise.
And it's like the ones thatreally need it are not never
there, and it's like sometimesno interest, no motivation and
(23:26):
probably a little bit of thatfear.
Yeah and it's like well, how canyou be good in math if you're
not making effort to be good atmath?
Jay Johnson (23:34):
that's fascinating.
So, all right, let's and Ithink this is really good
because we've talked a littlebit about hypnosis and I, ego or
that you know really helpingthem sort of explore some of
this.
That's really practical, albert, and I like that.
(24:07):
Let's talk a little bit aboutneurolinguistic programming.
So NLP you had mentionedearlier because you had
mentioned hypnosis and NLPneurolinguistic programming.
You had mentioned hypnosis andnlp neurolinguistic programming.
Um, could you?
Albert Bramante (24:23):
give us maybe a working definition that we can
operate from for this?
yeah, it's using the power ofmind, your neurology in a sense,
and using a language to kind ofrewire neurology, because when
you change your language, whatstarts happening is your brain
will, your neurology will startto rewire itself.
So it's using thosecombinations though it could be
using our imagination more, butalso the power of language, and
(24:49):
combining those two together.
So a process could be likevisualization, one of the things
we do know, and there's been alot of studies that if you
visualize something and you knowon a consistent basis, you're
more likely to be successful.
They do this with athletes, soI actually there's a.
Jay Johnson (25:11):
There's an incredible story about Tiger
Woods when he was, when he wasactually in his prime, his dad
was recounting a story andbasically what would happen is
they would go out onto thecourse pre-A tournament, pre-a
tour, and he would practicephysically and what ended up
(25:34):
happening is, after he would goback, they'd go back to the
hotel room, he'd shower, he'deat and then he would lay down
and play that entire round overvisually in his brain while
laying in the bed.
And his dad actually timed himLike how long did it take you to
physically play that round, youto physically play that round,
(26:00):
and how long did it take you tomentally and visually go back
through and play that roundagain, fixing the things that
you wanted to fix?
And it was interesting becauseit was almost exactly the same
amount of time.
It was like three hours andwhatever amount of minutes, but
I mean it was like within sevento eight minutes of each other.
And I was thinking to myselflike I have never been able,
like I couldn't visualize a 15minute conversation to that
(26:21):
level.
That's such a powerful aspect,but I mean I guess that's why he
was tiger when he was tiger,right.
So that visualization has beendemonstrated to show a lot of
impact on our development.
How do you get people to taketheir visualization to that next
level, though?
Because when I tell somebody,you know, if I say, hey, I want
(26:43):
you to visualize success, a lotof people go and the first thing
they're going to think ofAlbert is money, or they're
going to think about a time, oryou know, like wearing a crown.
It's going to be somethingthat's like not going to
necessarily really representwhat the visualization exercise
is.
Can you walk us through whatthat might look like?
Albert Bramante (27:01):
sure well it's going to be.
You're going to take aparticular situation.
Success can mean anything toanybody.
So pick a situation and whetherwhether it's an upcoming test,
an and I'm going to imagineupcoming performance and not
just visualize it beingsuccessful, but visualize the
(27:23):
steps that you're going throughit.
You know each step in theprocess and not only just
imagining each step at a time.
It's visualizing it going verywell, like everything working so
smoothly together, because theinteresting thing about the
brain is it does not know thedifference between reality and
fiction.
Jay Johnson (27:55):
Our subconscious does not know the difference
between history, present andfuture in the concepts of like
the neuroscientific studies ofgrief.
It doesn't understand that thatperson will no longer be there.
The brain itself, it's our mindand our, you know, sort of that
subconscious that actuallybrings the context to the
(28:15):
logical hey, they're missing.
That actually brings thecontext to the logical.
Hey, they're missing.
They're not going to be theretomorrow, but I can remember
their history and their past andour experiences in the past and
relive those momentarily, youknow, through different thoughts
or through differentvisualizations.
I think that's such afascinating area of brain
science.
Albert Bramante (28:32):
Yeah, and that's very empowering when you
know how to use it, because thenyou can, okay, change.
So, but I would say you know,even going back to the old
science or pseudoscience thatthey call manifestation, which I
there's nothing we'revisualizing, but I think what
(28:54):
the traditional manifestationlimits is what's the methodology
you're going to get there.
Yeah, I can manifest being rich, but how am I going to become
rich?
Because if I sit here and tellyou I'm going to be rich, I
might as well stay here forever.
What steps are you going totake?
And that's when you start tovisualize, not necessarily the
end action, but the actions inbetween.
(29:15):
So, even if it's like helpingstudents with test anxiety,
imagine taking that test butgoing through question by
question and being able toanswer it.
Jay Johnson (29:27):
I think that's really insightful because I
think a lot of times, if youwere to tell somebody visualize
your success on this test,they're going to think about the
graded paper with the a on itrather than the process of
showing up to the classroom orthe studying that was occurring
beforehand or the writing thatwas done before the studying or
the sitting in class, and likethe logical steps of behavior
(29:52):
that would essentially get us tothe outcome, ie an A on the
test.
And I really like the way thatyou framed that is that
systematic process of and what'snext step?
And how is that?
You know what?
What is that success?
What does that feeling looklike?
How does that play out?
What's the next step?
And really walking through that.
So, from the neuro-linguisticprogramming perspective, we know
(30:14):
that language is powerful andit does end up creating our
reality.
And it also is something thatyou know.
It is something that when wethink about the entire world,
the only way that we canunderstand it is through the
language.
And that's how is theprogramming function of
neuro-linguistic programming andyou know, again, breaking the
(30:43):
name down, neuro, which is ourcognitive linguistic language
programming, is essentiallyrewriting the script which is
above, you know, rise above thescript, your book.
What is it about thatprogramming that does help us
really kind of find change.
Albert Bramante (31:04):
Well, it's a repetition, number one and
rehearsal repetition, andeventually it changes again at
Limiting Belief.
Going back to math, I'm notgood at math too.
I'm learning math.
I can do this.
And now, when you start toadopt that I can do this, watch
(31:25):
how your performance in math isgoing to improve.
So you now just reprogram yourviewpoint about math, or even
just about luck, by sayingbecause a lot people ask me,
what's my secret about luck?
How do I become lucky?
I said start feeling lucky.
Jay Johnson (31:48):
Start feeling that and adopting an identity as
being lucky.
See what happens and see whathappens?
Yeah, so, albert, here we'regoing to play.
We're going to play a littledevil's advocate debate here,
because I know that there arepeople out there that
immediately go.
It can't be that easy.
That doesn't work.
Hypnosis wouldn't work on me,neuro-linguistic programming
(32:09):
none of those Okay.
So I'm going to play and I wantyou to help me.
Help me navigate the question.
The first one is is hypnosisjust doesn't work on me?
Albert Bramante (32:21):
let's play with that so I would then turn
around and say, well, what, whatmakes you think that?
Okay, what, what?
Why is that?
And if somebody says, well,because I just know what it's so
, and then I'll be like, well,you're kind of hypnotizing
yourself to already say that, no, this doesn't work on me.
So you just gave me there yougo, it works, see right.
Jay Johnson (32:47):
Well, and and it is kind of funny, because when we
do have something that we sortof lock in on without the
ability to be adaptive or theability to be open, it's more
than likely some kind of as yousaid limiting belief that has,
somehow or another, beenembedded there over and over and
over again.
So being able to sort of openand crack that open is, I think,
(33:09):
a powerful practice.
Let's play with the, yeah, butit can't be that fast.
There's no way that you canturn me from one to the other
this quickly.
How would we respond to that?
Albert Bramante (33:24):
So I would then turn around and say have you
ever went to a store and spentimpulsively on something you
didn't need?
Or look how fast the phobia is.
Let's say somebody's beenattacked by a dog.
That one five ten-secondincident can now create someone
(33:48):
to have a dog phobia for life.
So if that can happen thatquickly, then there, why can't
it happen in a few minutes?
Jay Johnson (33:58):
I really like that.
Well, and ironically enough,even thinking about kind of what
you said, you could have atraumatic experience that
creates the conditions for fearor anxiety or anything else.
But even if you went to theMichigan Humane Society where
I'm, you know and Michigan andbought a dog immediately, your
identity has shifted.
You're now a dog parent, younow have to feed the dog.
(34:20):
Your behaviors are going toshift from that very moment
forward because of a newidentity that you've essentially
purchased in a short amount oftime.
And if we can do that, veryquickly why can't we do other?
Albert Bramante (34:35):
stuff.
Jay Johnson (34:36):
Yeah, no, I like that.
All right.
My last one, albert, you'resaying that I can just visualize
that I can fly and this is onethat I always hear right, like
something that's way out there.
I can't just visualize that I'mgoing to fly and then all of a
sudden grow wings and fly Right.
And I hear this in a lot ofcases when people push back on
(34:59):
something, because when they seea pathway forward or a
potential pathway forward, theyblock it off, right.
So you know, I can't justvisualize it and it'll occur.
What's the response there,albert?
Albert Bramante (35:14):
Well, I would say, first of all, you know
what's the evidence.
I mean, yeah, obviously, beingable to fly is not a realistic
thing, but what is realistic inyour life Now?
I can't visualize I'm going tobe a multimillionaire tomorrow,
but I can visualize that I'mgoing to make good steps to
become even more wealthier thanI am today.
(35:35):
So start small.
What are some small goals?
And if you're already saying itcan't happen, you're already
visualizing.
You're already visualizing.
You can think about it bysaying you can't and then it's
not going to happen.
So you're using visualizationalready.
That's what I would tell people.
(35:55):
Yeah, so just switch it, flipit on its head and do the
opposite.
Well, I can become morewealthier today than tomorrow,
than I had to, and this is whatI'm going to do.
So it's not just the end result, but what's the steps in
between?
So when we're visualizing let'ssay again, tiger Woods or
(36:19):
anybody else doing a match it'snot just the end result I won
the match but the process,visualizing stuff, rehearsing
for that match, practicing forthat match and then doing a blow
by blow every you know round inthat game, rather than just
saying, okay, I'm visualizingmyself winning the game, no it's
(36:42):
, it's a lengthy process I'll.
Jay Johnson (36:45):
I'll share a cool study with.
For those of you that arelistening that don't think
visualization works, there wasan actually a really fascinating
study, and you don't have to beTiger Woods.
They took a bunch of golfersthat have been playing at least
five years.
Okay, all different scores,some were talented, some not so
talented, and what they did wasthey divided them into three
(37:06):
groups.
Group A did no practice for twoweeks.
Group B did practicephysiological, went to the
course every day, shot for twohours, two hours of physical
practice.
Group C did two hours ofpractice every day, but it was
only visualization and it wasonly just in their mind that
(37:30):
they were coached through it, etcetera, two hours a day.
At the end of the two weeksthey measured them.
They measured before, theymeasured afterwards.
Group A actually deteriorated.
They got worse because theydidn't play, they didn't
practice, they didn't doanything.
Group B, who practicedphysiologically and went out to
the course and swung a club.
They improved by about 50%.
(37:52):
It was Group C, though.
That was super fascinating noswinging club, no going out, no
practice, no physiologicalpractice, just the visualization
38% improvement in their shotspre and post.
So works.
It's well documented, it's wellstudied and albert, I just want
(38:14):
to say thank you for bringingthis topic into our space,
because it's such a powerfultopic it really is, I would
wonder.
Albert Bramante (38:21):
I would love to see a future sound study when
they maybe combine both it'slike the two-hour practice and
two-hour visualization, imaginewhat that can do.
Jay Johnson (38:32):
Turn you into Tiger Woods much faster.
Yeah, exactly so, albert.
If the audience wanted to reachout and get in touch with you,
how might they be able to findyou?
Albert Bramante (38:41):
So you can find me on my website,
albertpermonticom.
You can also find me onLinkedIn and Instagram and
Facebook Just search for AlbertPermonti.
I'm there, love to haveconversations with you.
Feel free to reach out.
Jay Johnson (38:57):
I love it and I really appreciate this
conversation.
It's always fun to dig in withsomebody who is also in the
applied psychology or thebehavioral sciences and to just
kind of wax poetic.
So thank you so much for beinghere with us, albert, it's been
my absolute pleasure.
Thank you again and thank you,audience, for tuning into this
(39:18):
episode of the talent forge.
We're together.
We're shaping the future oftraining and development.
Welcome to this episode of the Talent Forge
where, together, we are shapingthe future of training and
development.
Today I have special guest, Dr.
Albert Bramante, author of thebook Rise Above the Script, a
psychologist and someone who hasbeen dipping into some AI in
terms of talent development.
Welcome to the show, albert.
(00:21):
Thank you, jay.
Thank you for inviting me.
Albert Bramante (00:24):
I'm really happy to be here.
Jay Johnson (00:25):
I'm happy to have you.
So tell me, what is it that gotyou into this talent
development space, coaching,training, helping people kind of
make those navigational changes?
Albert Bramante (00:35):
So as a child there was always a book for them
.
To give you a really quickintro, I always loved books
about psychology, the brain,neuroscience, communication, so
that led me to study psychology.
I was also very interested inthe arts so I was in the drama
club in high school.
I took some acting classes aselectives in my undergraduate
(00:57):
studies, so I enjoyed thecreativity side of things.
When I received my master'sdegree, my final internship was
at a new york city talk show,working more in the counseling
side of things, and that led meto study at working with actors.
And because I worked withactors not directly but but kind
(01:19):
of like adjacent so I startedoff kind of in pursuing a little
bit of my own acting andrealized for for me I enjoyed
working behind the scenes.
I worked better with advisingactors, so I started my first
talent representation ormanagement company in 2004 and
(01:40):
then I become a licensed talentagent, which is so pretty much
as a talent agent I work as anemployment agent for actors.
Now while I was studyingpsychology, I was noticing a lot
of patterns that were coming upwith actors Self-sabotage, fear
of success, self-doubt, issuesof self-doubt and imposter
syndrome were coming in.
So I did my PhD dissertation onself-defeating behavior of
(02:03):
performing artists, which turnedinto my book, you know, which
really is on the edge of my book, rise of the Script.
So that kind of led me tocoaching more down the coaching
space.
And then I initially was goingto be a clinical psychologist.
That was going to be my naturalprogression.
(02:24):
Psychologist, that was going tobe my natural progression.
But there were some things thatwere becoming more and more of
a question for me, or maybe evena little bit of disillusionment
in my area.
So I became more interested inmore rapid forms of coaching,
you know, hypnosis, nlp,rewiring the subconscious belief
systems and patterns.
So that kind of led me down tothis kind of like that rabbit
(02:47):
hole of coaching, a personaldevelopment.
So that's kind of the space thatI'm in today and being, you
know, somewhat of a mild techenthusiast.
I'm not entirely like intoprogramming and coding, but I do
enjoy technology and so thatkind of led me to kind of
discovering and writing the AI.
Jay Johnson (03:09):
I love this All right.
So there's a lot to unpackthere.
I'm going to start withself-defeating behaviors, and
what I'd love is can you givethe audience maybe just a quick
definition of what is aself-defeating behavior, what is
a self-defeating mindset?
And then, how do I notice this?
Because I guarantee they'vebeen in audiences where that
(03:33):
type of archetype has come up.
So what would be some of thesigns that somebody is
exhibiting self-defeatingbehaviors or maybe that sort of
fear of success?
Albert Bramante (03:44):
It would be sort of like doing certain
behaviors that are holdingthemselves back, maybe being
late to a point, it's notpreparing fully for what they
could do or not really living upto their fullest potential.
So it's like you could do somuch but you're only doing so
little.
And even the language that theytalk a lot of times I'm not
(04:04):
good enough or I'm just unluckyin life and what's really going
on here is just self-imposedlimitations more of a fixed
mindset, if you will yes,exactly, exactly.
And rather than looking at evenif they make a mistake or they
(04:25):
fail at something, a person witha fixed mindset that said I
told you I'm not successful, Itold you I'm not lucky, whereas
someone with a growth mindset islike, okay, well, this happened
, what can I learn from this andwhat can I do differently next
time.
And so a person who isself-sabotaging is what makes
this a very sneaky behavior is aperson doesn't even realize
(04:47):
they're doing it, sure, and theyjust think they may just work
and say I can't catch a break,life is unfair, or I just can't
do it.
And so they become just stuckin these patterns and these
cycles of what we might considerbad luck.
(05:11):
So that would be the firstthing If someone has a victim
mindset or a mindset of bad luck, that might be the first clue
to start looking at what's goingon here.
Jay Johnson (05:28):
Are they their own worst enemy?
Well, and you see that behaviorevery day in the office, right?
You see people who are comingin late that have all the
potential in the world and a lotof times you know the stories
we tell ourselves or that I'veheard a lot of leaders or
managers say is oh, it's becausethis person's young, or oh,
it's because they're lazy, or oh, it's.
It's almost like whoever it isis coming up with their own
(05:50):
interpretation of what thosefacts are.
Uh, how do we get to the coreof, like, maybe what it is
that's actually that person'sstory.
So the person who comes in lateobviously doesn't go yeah, I'm
lazy, I just come in late allthe time, or, you know, I really
don't want to be successful.
I I don't think they're feelingthat way.
How do we draw that out of them?
Albert Bramante (06:11):
well, we notice patterns, as I always.
If they're coming in late allthe time, I mean versus okay,
one day there could beconstruction on the way to work,
okay fine.
Or something happened at home,emergency happened at home.
But if it's a consistentpattern where they're late week
after week or day, that may be apattern that we need to look
deeper into this.
(06:31):
Why is that person not leavingearlier enough?
Why is that person not makingsure that they're on time?
What's really going on here?
And then we have to look attheir overall happiness level.
Maybe they're just not happywith their job or they're not
happy at that company, and wemay not be able to change their
(06:52):
jobs, obviously with the way theeconomy is.
But what we can do is startworking at some core feelings
about their job.
So you have to start looking atbehaviors of what's happening
on a consistent level again.
Are they always underperforming?
Are they always, you know, notdoing what they can do?
Because?
(07:12):
So, with self-sabotage, no onewalks around saying hey, I'm
self-sabotaging today right.
Jay Johnson (07:20):
it'd be nice if people had that level of
awareness and honesty in likewhat it is that's creating their
behavior.
Albert Bramante (07:26):
Yeah, If you had that level of awareness or
honesty, you wouldn't be doingit, frankly, you would not be
self-sabotaging because it's youknow differently, right?
So a lot of times it's helpingpeople become aware of this,
like look, ok, what's reallygoing on here?
(07:46):
Always late, you know you'realways doing things and I know
you can do it.
Yeah, I know you can becauseyou're smart and you're
intelligent, you're resourceful.
So it's looking at certainbehaviors, another habit a lot
of people say I don don't haveany time today, I'm so busy, but
yet you see them on socialmedia, scrolling on their phone
(08:07):
for moments even hours at a time.
Jay Johnson (08:13):
Yep, I've always made that.
I've always made thatrelevation of uh, whenever I see
somebody that says I don't haveany time and so like, oh, you
have no time, you're so busy.
Well, if you've got a phonecall that said, hey, my garage
is on fire, um, are you going tobe like, oh, I'm sorry, I don't
have time to deal with that.
Give me a call in two weeks andI'll definitely take that on?
(08:34):
Or are you going to shift?
And usually time is a lack ofprioritization, that's, that's
one of the things that we seeyeah, exactly, and that.
Albert Bramante (08:45):
Another mindset I think that we have to kind of
get out of is that, oh, I'm toobusy.
I hear the people say this Iwish I could do this.
I'm so, so busy, albert, do you?
Jay Johnson (08:58):
do you?
Do you think that it's almostbecause we is that a defense
mechanism?
Or is it because we've, like,glorified being busy, like, oh,
if you're busy you must beproductive, and those two things
do not necessarily line up witheach other.
Or if you're successful andthat doesn't always line up with
each other, uh, or if you'rebusy, you're successful, and
that doesn't always line upeither.
(09:18):
So what?
What creates the condition thatwe want to be busy or that we
say that we're busy?
Is there something that you'veseen?
Albert Bramante (09:27):
I think it could be distraction.
I think it could be, you know,trying not to face whatever.
We're feeling, insecurities,we're facing, so, or things in
our life.
Well, by just keeping ourselvesbusy, because I can keep myself
busy, but that doesn't mean I'mgoing to be productive, that
doesn't mean I'm beingsuccessful, right I keep myself
busy doing tasks that are notimportant to me or that are
(09:48):
harmful.
Jay Johnson (09:49):
For that matter, you know, scrolling on social
media I truly do not believe isthe best use of four and a half
hours of our time.
Albert Bramante (09:58):
So right and well, that could be busy.
I could be busy scrolling onsocial media, but that doesn't
mean that that be successful orproductive yeah.
Jay Johnson (10:08):
So let's, let's dig in, because I think now, uh,
I've studied psychology but I amby no means a licensed
hypnotist.
I never went for the clinicalside of things.
I wasn't interested in actuallydoing any kind of clinical.
I utilize more of an industrialorganizational psychology and
really help people navigate someforms of behaviors which, for
(10:38):
those in the audience that donot know what that is,
neuro-linguistic programming,and I'll ask you, albert, give
us a working definition that wecan play with.
But let's talk about hypnosisfirst, because I'm not a
hypnotist and I know that, likeyou know, if you look on TV you
see the illusionist or somebodyelse, or you know the, the sort
of like magical incantations ofwhat hypnosis is spin the
(11:01):
circles, swing the clock andsomebody magically falls asleep,
right, I think I just watcheduh, now you see me the the magic
.
You know the magic movie andit's a Woody Harrelson's
character and I know that that'sobviously there is a very
powerful set of evidence ofclinical hypnosis and how that
(11:21):
can really help people sort ofnavigate some of the unconscious
, the underlying beliefs, year.
What are some things that I, asa trainer, could take from the
idea of hypnosis, or anunderstanding that hypnosis
helps us better understand thatI could bring into my practice.
(11:43):
What are your thoughts?
Well, it's.
Albert Bramante (11:46):
There's different levels of hypnosis.
You know the obviously puttingsomeone to the trance, but then
there's also waking hypnosis,conversational hypnosis.
When you change, get someone tochange their limiting beliefs.
You kind of um, you know, helpthem go from one thought to
another.
That could be a form ofhypnosis.
Advertising is hypnosis.
(12:07):
How many times are you going toa store with wanting to buy
something and then walk out andsay, how did I just buy this?
Jay Johnson (12:16):
so, almost like some of the heuristic systematic
processing, can that beconsidered?
Albert Bramante (12:23):
100 combination bias um influence and sales
people, I think are the besthypnotists available because a
lot of times they can convinceyou you need something you don't
really need but, the thing thatwhat makes it really powerful
is it it's you don't evenrealize they're doing it.
(12:44):
It it's really helping you knowhelp.
You know giving convincingsomebody to do something, but
making them think it's their ownidea okay, so it's almost a
subconscious inception concept,yeah all right.
So it's like you know I think Ineed to buy this product and you
really take a step back.
I'm like, no, you were.
(13:04):
Someone suggested that youneeded to buy the product, but
you it went to your subconscious.
Now you believe you need it,and that's where hypnosis is so,
like if I'm working withsomeone, let's say, to stop
smoking, which is really whathypnosis is great for with
addictions.
It's not like I should stopsmoking because this person told
me to.
It's getting someone to say Ishould stop smoking because I
(13:26):
want to.
Jay Johnson (13:27):
Okay, so now, what is the process of that?
And obviously I'm sure thatit's a very complex or it could
be a very complex process, butif you were to just give me the
highlights, or give the audiencethe highlights, what?
What does that process looklike and how would you?
Albert Bramante (13:47):
help somebody.
It's really just, you know,helping someone bypass the
critical factor, which can bemild distraction, okay.
Which is why sometimes if yougo, if you do a formal hypnosis
process, we might have you relaxa little bit in your mind, calm
your mind, clear your mind,focus on something else.
(14:09):
Why I tell you you know it'slike I'll distract you with
point A and why I'm telling youpoint B, where you're not aware
of things, and it could besomething again subtle as
advertising.
Look at a lot of commercials.
They may be interacting with apuppy or kitten and you're
consciously like, oh, look atthat.
And then in the backgroundyou're hearing this message
(14:31):
about buy this product, yeah.
And next thing, you know, whenyou're out in the store or out
wanting to do something, hey, Iwant, I should buy this.
This brand sounds great to me.
Not realizing, you were primed.
Um, I'll give you anotherexample.
There was this used car and acompany, a car lot in florida,
(14:52):
did a really brilliant campaignand brought them a lot of money
and in the commercial they hadobviously the salesman telling
you buy all these cars.
But they also had a seven footnba player dressed in a chicken
suit doing these crazy dances.
Because what are you doing whenyou're folk?
(15:12):
You're focusing on that the guydoing this silly and you're're
like, oh, this is so cute.
Now your mind is open, yourears are open, and so now the
announcer is telling you aboutall these discounts that come to
this car lot.
And now, all of a sudden,you're thinking on the weekend,
you know, I need to go check outa car.
Jay Johnson (15:54):
Let me go check out this lot.
For some reason, this lot istwo different paths to
persuasion, one being thecentral route, ie, I'm focused,
I'm putting my energy intothinking about it, I'm looking
at it logically, I'm looking atthe logical structure and it
makes sense.
And then there's the secondary,which is the peripheral route.
Processing, ie is all of thosesub cues that are either
(16:18):
contextual, environmental,happening essentially below the
conscious focus.
So, if I'm taking that and kindof hearing what you're saying,
albert, hypnosis can bedescribed as unconscious
influence that avoids some ofthe defense mechanisms that we
may be doing either consciouslyor subconsciously.
(16:41):
Would that be accurate?
Albert Bramante (16:43):
yes, and it's really something what really
speaks to the subconscious,which is very strong, okay, and
and are guiding our behavior.
So if I can change yoursubconscious beliefs, that's
where I can, that's where allthe power comes in sure, because
those are the ones that areusually overriding our conscious
(17:05):
and or logical thinking.
Jay Johnson (17:06):
So if I'm a trainer and a coach, what are some of
the things that maybe I couldthink about to be able to
essentially access that aspectof the subconscious you know in
a training session or in acoaching session.
Albert Bramante (17:22):
Yeah, I would watch the language that you use.
You know, the language is very,very powerful.
I think that's one of the moststrongest hypnotic processes is
language.
So watching the language thatwe use, not only to ourselves,
but even helping our clientscome to that by.
You know, even if I'm going towork with actors, I always say
(17:45):
don't you know?
The words that you should getrid of out of your vocabulary is
the word starving, struggling,poor, right and the mindset
essentially is start thestarving artist.
We start to live into thosedifferent identification markers
reality it's like okay, well,I'm starving, so therefore I
must be poor and I must be umI've got you know limited,
(18:11):
nothing to do, I'm poor andtherefore I'm not going to be
successful.
But if you start the, I'm aprofessional working actor, so
you start to then develop thosehabits and then even a lot of
times, a lot of things arerepetition.
So even rehearsal andrepetition is important.
(18:35):
So, even if you're working withpeople as a coach, get them to
use a more empowering languageand over and over again
repetition, well, and I'm.
Jay Johnson (18:43):
So I'm even thinking about, like some of the
affirmation work that dr ellenlanger did in the mindfulness
versus mind mindlessness typeapproach you know the
identification of, oh, I'mgetting older and all of a
sudden we adopt that mentality,we start behaving as such.
So this is, you know, kind ofreframing.
Maybe identity politics or, youknow, identification markers
(19:06):
for the audience is maybe one ofthe first ways we're, we will
hold on to any identity we adopt.
Albert Bramante (19:15):
Yeah, and so again, going with the older
mindset, that because we, wehear the society, we hear
doctors, we, everyone doubt thatthe older we get, the more
limitations we're going toexperience, the more pain we're
going to experience, right, andtherefore create conditions.
Yeah, and we need theseconditions.
(19:37):
And because I can tell you, Iknow a lot of people that are in
their 80s and 90s that defythose expectations, that are
probably healthier than most 20and 30 year olds out there well,
you know, and it's really funnyand, albert, I'll share this.
Jay Johnson (19:53):
This you know from my from my childhood at one in
time a teacher told me that Iwas not good at mathematics and
for some reason it was early.
It was like, oh, this reallyisn't your subject, is it honey?
And I think I was like insecond, third or something great
.
I carried that identity all theway up until high school,
(20:14):
underperforming in mathematics.
But here's the funny thing, andit definitely had an impact on
my behavior.
I deferred my graduation from myundergraduate degree two full
years because I was afraid totake the math proficiency exam.
Ironically, I'm actually quitegood at math.
That was the highest sectionthat I got on the ACT when I
(20:38):
took the entry exam.
Uh, I was very good at physicsand chemistry and I now do
probabilistic uh, you know,statistical modeling for some of
the research that I do.
I wasn't bad at math, but Iwore that label and it had a
huge impact on how I showed upand performed all the way
through school until,essentially, I felt like that
(20:58):
label was no longer fitting andkind of dropped that and a lot
of students are older than himand what I was and I can relate
to this too I feared math.
Albert Bramante (21:09):
But what was ironic was I did very well in
chemistry in high school when Itook statistics for psychology,
both advanced and basic, Iscored high marks in.
I remember my professor saidyou must have been brilliant in
algebra, which, whoa.
That was a new thing to me.
I struggled and it was becauseI had that belief and that's
(21:31):
where and even I tell mystudents there that I teach that
when they say, oh, I don't likemath, I'm not good at math, I'm
like that's not true.
Yep, that's not true at all.
Because if you, you know whatis true?
Yeah, that when we utilize math, we're utilizing it in our
brain.
So, but it requires training inthat.
(21:55):
So it's not that you're notgood at it, you just need more
training in that area, you needmore practice and more of that
muscle.
Jay Johnson (22:04):
And maybe you know, as we're talking here, I think
about it.
Is that sort of one of thoseself-sabotage protection
gestures, like I say, oh, I'mjust not good at math because of
a potential fear of failure?
Or like, oh, this is hardbecause I haven't practiced it,
I'm not working on it you know,I'm not doing it every single
day or whatever it is, versussomething that we are maybe more
(22:27):
passionate about, where we putour energy into it, that we see
progress and we see ourselvesmoving forward.
Is that a form of theself-sabotage that we spoke
about?
Albert Bramante (22:37):
Absolutely about self-protection, because,
therefore, when you felt like,because if, when you do fail,
that's all I would say, when ifyou adopted I'm not good math,
you're not going to be good mathand that, but then you could
use an excuse.
See, I told you I wasn'tgetting that, yeah, but right,
right.
And and I thought, because Italked to a lot of even math
professors in my field and mathtutors in my field and what I
(23:01):
found was that the tutoringcenters at colleges and high
schools are so underutilized inmath.
Most of the people that reallygo to the tutoring are the ones
that are good in math, nosurprise.
And it's like the ones thatreally need it are not never
there, and it's like sometimesno interest, no motivation and
(23:26):
probably a little bit of thatfear.
Yeah and it's like well, how canyou be good in math if you're
not making effort to be good atmath?
Jay Johnson (23:34):
that's fascinating.
So, all right, let's and Ithink this is really good
because we've talked a littlebit about hypnosis and I, ego or
that you know really helpingthem sort of explore some of
this.
That's really practical, albert, and I like that.
(24:07):
Let's talk a little bit aboutneurolinguistic programming.
So NLP you had mentionedearlier because you had
mentioned hypnosis and NLPneurolinguistic programming.
You had mentioned hypnosis andnlp neurolinguistic programming.
Um, could you?
Albert Bramante (24:23):
give us maybe a working definition that we can
operate from for this?
yeah, it's using the power ofmind, your neurology in a sense,
and using a language to kind ofrewire neurology, because when
you change your language, whatstarts happening is your brain
will, your neurology will startto rewire itself.
So it's using thosecombinations though it could be
using our imagination more, butalso the power of language, and
(24:49):
combining those two together.
So a process could be likevisualization, one of the things
we do know, and there's been alot of studies that if you
visualize something and you knowon a consistent basis, you're
more likely to be successful.
They do this with athletes, soI actually there's a.
Jay Johnson (25:11):
There's an incredible story about Tiger
Woods when he was, when he wasactually in his prime, his dad
was recounting a story andbasically what would happen is
they would go out onto thecourse pre-A tournament, pre-a
tour, and he would practicephysically and what ended up
(25:34):
happening is, after he would goback, they'd go back to the
hotel room, he'd shower, he'deat and then he would lay down
and play that entire round overvisually in his brain while
laying in the bed.
And his dad actually timed himLike how long did it take you to
physically play that round, youto physically play that round,
(26:00):
and how long did it take you tomentally and visually go back
through and play that roundagain, fixing the things that
you wanted to fix?
And it was interesting becauseit was almost exactly the same
amount of time.
It was like three hours andwhatever amount of minutes, but
I mean it was like within sevento eight minutes of each other.
And I was thinking to myselflike I have never been able,
like I couldn't visualize a 15minute conversation to that
(26:21):
level.
That's such a powerful aspect,but I mean I guess that's why he
was tiger when he was tiger,right.
So that visualization has beendemonstrated to show a lot of
impact on our development.
How do you get people to taketheir visualization to that next
level, though?
Because when I tell somebody,you know, if I say, hey, I want
(26:43):
you to visualize success, a lotof people go and the first thing
they're going to think ofAlbert is money, or they're
going to think about a time, oryou know, like wearing a crown.
It's going to be somethingthat's like not going to
necessarily really representwhat the visualization exercise
is.
Can you walk us through whatthat might look like?
Albert Bramante (27:01):
sure well it's going to be.
You're going to take aparticular situation.
Success can mean anything toanybody.
So pick a situation and whetherwhether it's an upcoming test,
an and I'm going to imagineupcoming performance and not
just visualize it beingsuccessful, but visualize the
(27:23):
steps that you're going throughit.
You know each step in theprocess and not only just
imagining each step at a time.
It's visualizing it going verywell, like everything working so
smoothly together, because theinteresting thing about the
brain is it does not know thedifference between reality and
fiction.
Jay Johnson (27:55):
Our subconscious does not know the difference
between history, present andfuture in the concepts of like
the neuroscientific studies ofgrief.
It doesn't understand that thatperson will no longer be there.
The brain itself, it's our mindand our, you know, sort of that
subconscious that actuallybrings the context to the
(28:15):
logical hey, they're missing.
That actually brings thecontext to the logical.
Hey, they're missing.
They're not going to be theretomorrow, but I can remember
their history and their past andour experiences in the past and
relive those momentarily, youknow, through different thoughts
or through differentvisualizations.
I think that's such afascinating area of brain
science.
Albert Bramante (28:32):
Yeah, and that's very empowering when you
know how to use it, because thenyou can, okay, change.
So, but I would say you know,even going back to the old
science or pseudoscience thatthey call manifestation, which I
there's nothing we'revisualizing, but I think what
(28:54):
the traditional manifestationlimits is what's the methodology
you're going to get there.
Yeah, I can manifest being rich, but how am I going to become
rich?
Because if I sit here and tellyou I'm going to be rich, I
might as well stay here forever.
What steps are you going totake?
And that's when you start tovisualize, not necessarily the
end action, but the actions inbetween.
(29:15):
So, even if it's like helpingstudents with test anxiety,
imagine taking that test butgoing through question by
question and being able toanswer it.
Jay Johnson (29:27):
I think that's really insightful because I
think a lot of times, if youwere to tell somebody visualize
your success on this test,they're going to think about the
graded paper with the a on itrather than the process of
showing up to the classroom orthe studying that was occurring
beforehand or the writing thatwas done before the studying or
the sitting in class, and likethe logical steps of behavior
(29:52):
that would essentially get us tothe outcome, ie an A on the
test.
And I really like the way thatyou framed that is that
systematic process of and what'snext step?
And how is that?
You know what?
What is that success?
What does that feeling looklike?
How does that play out?
What's the next step?
And really walking through that.
So, from the neuro-linguisticprogramming perspective, we know
(30:14):
that language is powerful andit does end up creating our
reality.
And it also is something thatyou know.
It is something that when wethink about the entire world,
the only way that we canunderstand it is through the
language.
And that's how is theprogramming function of
neuro-linguistic programming andyou know, again, breaking the
(30:43):
name down, neuro, which is ourcognitive linguistic language
programming, is essentiallyrewriting the script which is
above, you know, rise above thescript, your book.
What is it about thatprogramming that does help us
really kind of find change.
Albert Bramante (31:04):
Well, it's a repetition, number one and
rehearsal repetition, andeventually it changes again at
Limiting Belief.
Going back to math, I'm notgood at math too.
I'm learning math.
I can do this.
And now, when you start toadopt that I can do this, watch
(31:25):
how your performance in math isgoing to improve.
So you now just reprogram yourviewpoint about math, or even
just about luck, by sayingbecause a lot people ask me,
what's my secret about luck?
How do I become lucky?
I said start feeling lucky.
Jay Johnson (31:48):
Start feeling that and adopting an identity as
being lucky.
See what happens and see whathappens?
Yeah, so, albert, here we'regoing to play.
We're going to play a littledevil's advocate debate here,
because I know that there arepeople out there that
immediately go.
It can't be that easy.
That doesn't work.
Hypnosis wouldn't work on me,neuro-linguistic programming
(32:09):
none of those Okay.
So I'm going to play and I wantyou to help me.
Help me navigate the question.
The first one is is hypnosisjust doesn't work on me?
Albert Bramante (32:21):
let's play with that so I would then turn
around and say, well, what, whatmakes you think that?
Okay, what, what?
Why is that?
And if somebody says, well,because I just know what it's so
, and then I'll be like, well,you're kind of hypnotizing
yourself to already say that, no, this doesn't work on me.
So you just gave me there yougo, it works, see right.
Jay Johnson (32:47):
Well, and and it is kind of funny, because when we
do have something that we sortof lock in on without the
ability to be adaptive or theability to be open, it's more
than likely some kind of as yousaid limiting belief that has,
somehow or another, beenembedded there over and over and
over again.
So being able to sort of openand crack that open is, I think,
(33:09):
a powerful practice.
Let's play with the, yeah, butit can't be that fast.
There's no way that you canturn me from one to the other
this quickly.
How would we respond to that?
Albert Bramante (33:24):
So I would then turn around and say have you
ever went to a store and spentimpulsively on something you
didn't need?
Or look how fast the phobia is.
Let's say somebody's beenattacked by a dog.
That one five ten-secondincident can now create someone
(33:48):
to have a dog phobia for life.
So if that can happen thatquickly, then there, why can't
it happen in a few minutes?
Jay Johnson (33:58):
I really like that.
Well, and ironically enough,even thinking about kind of what
you said, you could have atraumatic experience that
creates the conditions for fearor anxiety or anything else.
But even if you went to theMichigan Humane Society where
I'm, you know and Michigan andbought a dog immediately, your
identity has shifted.
You're now a dog parent, younow have to feed the dog.
(34:20):
Your behaviors are going toshift from that very moment
forward because of a newidentity that you've essentially
purchased in a short amount oftime.
And if we can do that, veryquickly why can't we do other?
Albert Bramante (34:35):
stuff.
Jay Johnson (34:36):
Yeah, no, I like that.
All right.
My last one, albert, you'resaying that I can just visualize
that I can fly and this is onethat I always hear right, like
something that's way out there.
I can't just visualize that I'mgoing to fly and then all of a
sudden grow wings and fly Right.
And I hear this in a lot ofcases when people push back on
(34:59):
something, because when they seea pathway forward or a
potential pathway forward, theyblock it off, right.
So you know, I can't justvisualize it and it'll occur.
What's the response there,albert?
Albert Bramante (35:14):
Well, I would say, first of all, you know
what's the evidence.
I mean, yeah, obviously, beingable to fly is not a realistic
thing, but what is realistic inyour life Now?
I can't visualize I'm going tobe a multimillionaire tomorrow,
but I can visualize that I'mgoing to make good steps to
become even more wealthier thanI am today.
(35:35):
So start small.
What are some small goals?
And if you're already saying itcan't happen, you're already
visualizing.
You're already visualizing.
You can think about it bysaying you can't and then it's
not going to happen.
So you're using visualizationalready.
That's what I would tell people.
(35:55):
Yeah, so just switch it, flipit on its head and do the
opposite.
Well, I can become morewealthier today than tomorrow,
than I had to, and this is whatI'm going to do.
So it's not just the end result, but what's the steps in
between?
So when we're visualizing let'ssay again, tiger Woods or
(36:19):
anybody else doing a match it'snot just the end result I won
the match but the process,visualizing stuff, rehearsing
for that match, practicing forthat match and then doing a blow
by blow every you know round inthat game, rather than just
saying, okay, I'm visualizingmyself winning the game, no it's
(36:42):
, it's a lengthy process I'll.
Jay Johnson (36:45):
I'll share a cool study with.
For those of you that arelistening that don't think
visualization works, there wasan actually a really fascinating
study, and you don't have to beTiger Woods.
They took a bunch of golfersthat have been playing at least
five years.
Okay, all different scores,some were talented, some not so
talented, and what they did wasthey divided them into three
(37:06):
groups.
Group A did no practice for twoweeks.
Group B did practicephysiological, went to the
course every day, shot for twohours, two hours of physical
practice.
Group C did two hours ofpractice every day, but it was
only visualization and it wasonly just in their mind that
(37:30):
they were coached through it, etcetera, two hours a day.
At the end of the two weeksthey measured them.
They measured before, theymeasured afterwards.
Group A actually deteriorated.
They got worse because theydidn't play, they didn't
practice, they didn't doanything.
Group B, who practicedphysiologically and went out to
the course and swung a club.
They improved by about 50%.
(37:52):
It was Group C, though.
That was super fascinating noswinging club, no going out, no
practice, no physiologicalpractice, just the visualization
38% improvement in their shotspre and post.
So works.
It's well documented, it's wellstudied and albert, I just want
(38:14):
to say thank you for bringingthis topic into our space,
because it's such a powerfultopic it really is, I would
wonder.
Albert Bramante (38:21):
I would love to see a future sound study when
they maybe combine both it'slike the two-hour practice and
two-hour visualization, imaginewhat that can do.
Jay Johnson (38:32):
Turn you into Tiger Woods much faster.
Yeah, exactly so, albert.
If the audience wanted to reachout and get in touch with you,
how might they be able to findyou?
Albert Bramante (38:41):
So you can find me on my website,
albertpermonticom.
You can also find me onLinkedIn and Instagram and
Facebook Just search for AlbertPermonti.
I'm there, love to haveconversations with you.
Feel free to reach out.
Jay Johnson (38:57):
I love it and I really appreciate this
conversation.
It's always fun to dig in withsomebody who is also in the
applied psychology or thebehavioral sciences and to just
kind of wax poetic.
So thank you so much for beinghere with us, albert, it's been
my absolute pleasure.
Thank you again and thank you,audience, for tuning into this
(39:18):
episode of the talent forge.
We're together.
We're shaping the future oftraining and development.
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