- Many years ago, I was actually asked to go on the radio
at six in the morning, and the BBC sent a car.
And I just got out of bed and rolled up, and they went,
"Oh no, this is so good,
"we're going to put you on the news."
And they started to roll me across the car park.
I'm like, "Where's the makeup?"
And they're, "No, we haven't got time for that."
And, all of a sudden, I'm sitting
and the camera's over there,
and I think, "Why did I volunteer to do this?
"I've got no makeup on, my hair's not brushed,
"it's six in the morning."
And the camera started to come in and I knew I had a choice.
I could keep going, "Why on Earth did I do this?
"This is embarrassing."
Or I could go, "I love this, I'm brilliant at it."
So I picked option two.
- Hi. So I'm here with Marisa.
And one of the most incredible things about Marisa
is her complete self-confidence, that is extraordinary.
And, unlike any self-confidence that I've ever seen
in almost anyone, it's incredibly compelling,
and is one of the things
that really attracts people towards her.
And it makes people want to work with her completely.
So thank you, Marisa, for talking to me today about this.
And my question is, how important is that self-confidence,
do you think, as a therapist?
- I think it's extraordinarily important
to never doubt yourself.
So many, many years ago,
I think Marie Claire wanted to write about me
hypnotizing Tony Parsons to stop smoking.
I'm like, "Oh, sure. Yeah, I'll do that."
And I did it and he stopped.
But when I got the magazine,
I remember thinking, "Wow, what if it hadn't worked?"
I would have looked terrible.
But it didn't occur to me at the time that it wouldn't work.
And often I get offered things,
I go, "Yeah, I'll do that."
And only when I've done them, do I think,
"Gosh, that could have really gone a bit wrong."
It could have actually not worked.
But I think when you're working with patients
you need to be so confident.
When they come in and say,
"I've got irritable bowel," or "I pull out my hair,"
or "I've got a nervous twitch,"
if you go, "Oh, well, I'll try," or "I hope,"
or "I've never done that before," they lose faith in you.
But when you have, what I call
unshakable, unwavering confidence,
your clients pick that up.
And I work with a lot of football teams,
who really want to win an important match,
and I do the same thing with them.
I say, "You need to have unwavering,
"unshakable self-confidence."
I mean, look at Muhammad Ali.
One of the things we loved about him was
he went, "I'm the greatest."
He said something amazing,
he said, "I said I was the greatest before I even was.
"And then I became the greatest."
And it's not arrogance,
it's that self-belief.
If you go to see a doctor and you're very ill,
you don't want the doctor to go,
"Well, I'll do my best, but I don't know."
And I had an incident with a family member who had cancer,
and when they went to see their doctor,
they went, "Well, we'll try.
"That's all we can do."
I'm like, "No." - Oh, god, no.
- "No, that's not the doctor for you."
I found another one who went,
"I will save you because I'm the best.
"I'm actually the best oncologist with this kind of cancer."
And if you go to a restaurant or a hotel,
or even picking a school for your child,
you want the one that goes, "I'm the best."
And I teach actually now, a lot of companies,
natural leadership.
And one of the things natural leaders do,
they go, "I'm the best at what I do."
They don't go, "I'm the best at everything."
They go, "I'm the best artist, sculptor, painter, chef."
And we like the best.
The best is incredibly reassuring.
I was flying back because I commuted to LA every two weeks
for quite some time,
I had a show in England and a show in LA.
And one day, across the Atlantic,
I thought I was on a ride to Disneyland,
it seemed to be going all over the place.
And it was very alarming until the pilot came on,
and went, "Please, don't worry.
"I am BA's best and most experienced pilot.
"I fly this route every week.
"It's just turbulence. You will be fine."
And no one went, "Oh, that's so arrogant."
They went, "Oh, yay, we're with the best."
- Yeah. Thank goodness.
- And it's very important to say to people,
"I'm the best at what I do."
Because we all have gifts.
And the trick is to find out what you love to do
and be amazing at it.
And what you love to do lies directly behind,
and is connected to, what you're meant to do.
So I love what I do,
and I have no problem saying to people, "I'm the best."
And actually, recently I was giving a talk,
when someone put their hand up and said,
"What is the best book on this subject?"
I went, "That will be mine."
And he went, "Oh."
And later he came up and said,
"I thought that was a bit arrogant when you said that."
I'm like, "Well, I'm not going to promote someone else's.
"I don't mind promoting other people's books,
"but it is the best."
And he's, "But then later, I realized, of course,
"if I can't tell people how good I am,
"why will they not, they won't believe me."
And he said, "So I'm going to do what you do
"and say I'm the best."
Or you can say, "I'm amongst the best,"
or "I'm one of the best."
But when you go, "Yeah, I'm not bad, me.
"I'm quite good. Sometimes I'm okay."
If you have a skill and a talent, you should say,
"I am one of the very best," or, "I'm amongst the best,"
or even, "I'm the best."
We didn't hate Muhammad Ali.
We loved him because he awakened us
in something extraordinary.
Promote yourself,
if you're good.
I mean, sure, you can't fake it.
People aren't stupid.
But if you have a gift, and you want to share it.
Frank Sinatra didn't go,
"Yeah, I'm not bad as a singer, I'm okay."
He was the voice.
- So what would you say to people who are maybe
just getting started, or they've done your training,
and they, sort of, they've got that bit of self-doubt?
Would you, you know, lots of people say,
"Well, fake it till you make it."
But what advice would you give to them
about the way that they portray self-confidence,
that perhaps they're not right inside feeling?
- One of the things people say on my course,
and my students said it again and again,
is, "Wow, I left here with so much confidence."
Because I say to them, "You can do this.
"This is not difficult."
I fill up my students with confidence.
I hypnotize them every day in the class
to believe they're phenomenal, and amazing,
and they have a gift.
And they all leave going, "Wow,
"you just filled me up with such extraordinary self-belief,
"I can conquer the world."
And some of them start advertising for clients
when the course is still on.
And one of them, on our last course,
said that she had so many responses
she was actually sharing them out with other students,
because she had an amazing response.
So, it isn't about faking it till you make it,
it's about having a great belief in yourself.
Because, of course, when you have belief, you're confident.
When you're confident, you act at a different manner.
So, even when my little girl was little,
and I was raising her,
I would always go, "No, you can read that.
"And your teacher's given you that book that's older
"because she believes that you can read it."
And she'd go, "Yeah, and I can."
And it's really about understanding how your brain works.
It responds only to two things,
the pictures you make in your head
and the words you say to yourselves.
When you go, "I can't do that, I'm not up to that.
"What if it goes wrong? What if I mess it up?"
Your brain will respond to that.
And if you go, "No, I can do it,
"I'm ready, I'm exciting."
And often, when I'm about to go on stage,
I still think, "Why did I volunteer to do this?"
But I never let myself go there, because that's a luxury.
You have a brilliant brain.
We all have a brilliant brain.
You have two choices,
rationalize why you feel so bad or talk yourself out of it.
- Many years ago, I was actually asked to go on the radio
at six in the morning, and the BBC sent a car.
And I just got out of bed and rolled up, and they went,
"Oh no, this is so good,
we're going to put you on the news."
And they started to roll me across the car park.
I'm like, "Where's the makeup?"
And they're, "No, we haven't got time for that."
And, all of a sudden, I'm sitting
and the camera's over there,
and I think, "Why did I volunteer to do this?
"I've got no makeup on, my hair's not brushed,
"it's six in the morning."
And the camera started to come in and I knew I had a choice.
I could keep going, "Why on Earth did I do this?
"This is embarrassing."
Or I could go, "I love this, I'm brilliant at it."
So I picked option two.
And I'm loving it, I'm brilliant,
this is what I'm good at.
And the camera came in,
and I did my piece to camera, and it was fine.
And when I look it back,
my hair could have done with a hairbrush.
But nobody actually really cared,
because they were listening to what I said.
- Brilliant.
- And in every situation, you always have a choice.
And, when you learn to dialogue with your brain
in a specific way, and focus on what you're good at,
then if you look at little children around a pool,
they go, "Daddy, look at me jumping,"
"Mummy, watch me swimming,"
"Granny, watch me dancing."
They never go, "Don't look at me,
"I'm having a bad hair day."
And babies are very comfortable with attention,
that's the first thing you get when you're with them.
They'll look at you, they tickle your feet,
they go, "You're the best thing in the world."
No one goes, "Oh, don't look at me,
"I've got milk spots this morning."
So we are actually born rather liking attention,
and then we learn to feel concerned.
And I think as long as you just focus on your gift,
it's not arrogance.
It's fine to go, "Yeah, this is the thing I'm good at."
A great chef should go, "Yeah, this is my specialty.
"I cook the best chicken tagine in the world."
When they go, "Well, it's not really good,
"and I forgot the herbs."
- You wouldn't hear a chef saying that, would they?
- Never.
If you called Gordon Ramsey, or even Jamie Oliver,
and said, "What's your food like?"
They'd go, "It's amazing,
"because I am a brilliant cook and I love food."
We don't go, "How arrogant."
We go, "I'm going to your restaurant this week."
And it's very important to have self-belief, because,
you see, your thoughts radiate out from you and back to you,
like a magnet, people that match your thinking.
If you like dogs or babies and you pick them up,
they know straight away,
and they're completely happy in your arms.
If you're nervous, they don't like it.
If you get on a horse and think, "I'm a great horse rider."
It makes the horse feel comfortable.
When you're anxious, it panics them,
and people are no different.
When you're anxious, and don't believe in yourself,
it makes the person around you anxious.
- It radiates out, doesn't it?
- My husband went to have a lumbar puncture
and the poor nurse was so nervous.
He said, "Have you've done this before?"
She said, "Never."
He went, "Okay, I'm sorry, I need a different nurse."
Because he was nervous, she was really nervous,
and he knew straight away to ask her,
"Have you done this before?"
Because she was so nervous.
And then in came the surgeon, they went,
"Oh, I do these every day, you're in good hands."
And then he relaxed.
So, when you're very nervous, people get that.
And it probably sounds quite complicated to say,
"How do I change that?"
It's actually really easy.
You just keep telling yourself better things.
Because if you start to say, "Don't really want to do this,
and "I'm not up to this."
Your brain, picking up you don't like it,
will try to make you leave.
Whereas when you go, "I love this, this is great,
"there's nowhere else I'd rather be,"
even if it isn't true,
your brain starts to believe it's true.
And then all the resistance goes away
and you feel very comfortable to be where you are,
do what you do,
but other people also feel comfortable in your presence.
- Yes, exactly.
- It's like when we're at school,
we know the nervous teacher,
and we don't give them any respect.
And we like the one that goes,
"Listen, I'm a brilliant teacher.
"I'm going to give you a great lesson,
you're going to love it."
They get more respect.
So, if you didn't believe in yourself,
no one else is going to believe in you.
And if you do believe in yourself,
other people will follow your lead.
- Brilliant. Thank you so much.
- Oh, you're welcome.
- That's really helpful, thank you.
So, I hope you've enjoyed that,
and go out and tell yourself
that you love every moment of your therapy,
and you'll see the difference that that's going to make.