Who you deal with that you get infected by

Your community, your friends and family. Who do you hang out with? Who do you spend the most time with? You will be just like them.

It was already in the book of Proverbs, in the Bible. If you deal with a bad person, you will become bad. In 2018, they researched this and found through brain scans that you really do become like those around you. Those are the people you hang out with the most. If you hang out with chess players, then you are definitely a chess player. If you hang out with smokers, chances are you smoke, too. If you hang out with drinkers, chances are you drink or have other bad habits. And yes, I think drinking is a bad habit.

Maybe you actually want to do different things than those around you. For example, you want to get out of the hypnosis you call problems. Then it's good to go to komuithypnosis.com anyway. But apart from that, if you're thinking, yes, I've already seen that master class, but how else can I do that? Do you have any other tips?

Change your environment to change

Absolutely, my number one tip is: change your environment. Remove the triggers, no matter what. Imagine you have a pink cookie fetish—don’t bring pink cookies into your home. That’s the simplest thing you can do. Don’t go to the grocery store when you’re hungry, because then there’s a chance the pink cookie will end up in your basket or cart. These are very simple tips that you already know—of course you do. Everyone knows this—or maybe not. Well, if you didn’t know that yet, then maybe you’ve learned something, but do you actually put them into practice? Not everyone does.

Anyway that's a 1 tip: set up your environment - including literally your own environment at home, your office or wherever you work - in such a way that you are not tempted. Now that is quite difficult when there is a soup machine at your work or a soda machine and you think 'yes it's all there'. I get that, it's not easy either, it just is. But that's one way, maybe the best way: change your environment.

Change the people you interact with

Another way: change your environment of the people you interact with. See, if everyone drinks a can of Coke at lunch at work, yes why shouldn't you have a Coke? Hey, why not, 1 Coke is fine. One coke a day is 365 cans of cola a year. That brings you to 120 liters of cola and that is quite a different story. 120 liters of cola a year, that is a lot. It's all fattening, it contains lots of sugar cubes, you know that too. But you think, 'Oh well, what's 1 can a day'. Well, that's quite a lot if you calculate it over a year. It adds up. Every little bit helps to become unhealthy, but also every little bit helps to become healthy.

But the other thing is, who do you spend time with? I actively seek out people I want to be around— people who are doing what I want to do. Imagine this: people who work out—who work out a lot—that’s the kind of people I want to hang out with. Then I have to start working out too, because they’re basically working out all the time! So I’ll start working out too, and then I’ll naturally spend more time with those people, and I’ll develop that same mindset.

Suppose I want to eat healthier; then I want to spend time with healthy people. So I’ll spend time with people like Richard de Leth, for example—yes, he eats healthy. The more I spend time with them, the more I’ll start making healthier choices myself. Subconsciously, automatically. It takes no effort. So I’ll naturally start to adopt his behavior. Why? The more I spend time with someone, the more my brain will align—it will start to operate on the same wavelength as that person.

You know what's good for you

These can be good habits as well as bad habits. It's all about the habit you want. You know what's good for you. Maybe not necessarily in detail, you would have to measure all that with blood tests and things like that. Maybe not that, but you know what's good for you, and you know what's not good for you. You're not retarded - especially if you're reading this - you're smart, and you get it all. You know it all. Only the implementation from head to body there is a whole area, it seems, in between. A gap. We think "Yes, we're going to do that," but we do other things, unconsciously automatically. But that is because of our unconscious programs, because of the hypnosis we are in. But the hypnosis of the environment is also very strong.

When your entire environment says 'Oh well, who cares, that coke'. Then you think 'Yeah, who cares'. But if your whole environment says 'Would you do this, a Coke'. Then you might still do it, but it feels annoying. And before you know it you don't do it anymore and then you think 'Yeah, they're actually right'. So you want to move to an environment that does care, and that's annoying at first, because your brain is not yet the same.

Why stay away from that other environment?

'Just drinking water and eating healthy, gee that's extreme. Are those people enjoying themselves?' You start making all kinds of excuses from your unconscious programs to stay with that other environment. Because if you start doing those things, you will be excluded from the previous environment and it is not yet certain whether you will be included in that other environment. You don't have that certainty yet, so that transition is very difficult.

You can compare - and this is a very crazy comparison perhaps - I used to have long hair. The process of going from short hair to long hair. Somewhere there is such a moment, yes that doesn't look right. Long hair is fine, short hair is fine, but there's one of those middle parts where you think 'cap on'. Then I had that and I just couldn't do a ponytail, so it's all just not there. Well that piece, you have to go through that. And then you have long hair, for example, and you're also in that other area. But you have to get through that annoying bit, the feeling of, "Oh I don't belong here anymore, but I don't really belong with those other people either. Not yet, huh, but know: that's going to happen.

And you may always look to yourself, "What hypnosis do I want to be in? Do I want to be in the hypnosis of a Coke is fine and a cigarette doesn't matter and you have to enjoy life so we can stuff ourselves at the Mac' that or 'No we enjoy life because we eat healthy, we train hard and we drink water'. Is one better than the other? I won't argue that. For me one is better than the other, yes for me it is. We are going to die anyway, so in the end none of it matters. But for me it matters and that's all that matters, for me.

What matters to you?

For you, it might matter, too. If so, it's good to really seek out those people. How do you do that? How do you get to those people? Well in my case: I am bad at maintaining friendships, establishing and maintaining relationships. Especially maintaining, yes, because I am bad at sending cards, I also forget again. I am a mission-driven person, and my mission is: Everyone in the world should think positively about hypnosis. So that when I ask someone in Bangladesh, "What do you think about hypnosis?" that they say, "Yes, great. That's our mission. And how do we do that? By giving them insights like you might read in this blog or hear in the podcast. By sharing experiences and without the bullshit around it. No: clear, plain, simple.

So that's our mission. So I'm a mission-driven person and then I forget about friendship, a social life, and because of that I've kind of lost a lot of people because, 'You never call back either.' And then I think 'Yeah, neither do you,' but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter to me, but it matters to the other people. So now I have found people who are also mission-driven and who understand that. Who understand that that's how it works. That everyone is busy, that I don't really have time, that it's hard to make time for that. Few people understand that. And those few who do understand, I then deal with them, they are a kind of 'my people'. I want to be like that too, I want to deal with those people.

Well that's personal. You're probably different. If you're good at that, forming relationships, making friendships, that's a good thing to do. I'm bad at that, so I pull out my wallet, that's the bottom line. Most of the people I have friendships with now, I invested in them first by going through a coaching program or going through a mastermind. And that's how I met those people. With Tibor, for example, I took a coaching program years ago. And that's how I met him and a friendship developed out of that. But that wasn't necessarily the intention, I just wanted to be coached by him at the time.

So I'm investing in relationships that way, which sounds very quaint. It's also not that if you pay money that someone then becomes your friend, of course that doesn't make sense, but it's an entry point for me. Because I'm not at all good at calling "Hey, what's up?I find that irritating myself. 'Hey, shall we do coffee sometime?' No, first of all I don't drink coffee and secondly I don't feel like it and I don't have time for it. I am selective. I invest primarily in masterminds, and from there relationships do naturally emerge. I'm not literally looking for that, but I want it. Because I want to meet like-minded people, and so I find them in masterminds that I pay for.

Choose a way that suits you

But that's another way, find the way that suits you. If you want to deal more with athletes, go to a gym, go to a crossfit box. You want more yoga? Go to a yoga club. As a matter of course, friendships develop there and then you become like those people. That's helpful if you want to learn new habits and also if you want to get out of that hypnosis you may now be infected by in your current environment. Take advantage of it. Good luck! ;-)

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