The American Hypnotist

Conviction as I see it is navigating life with the specific knowledge of what you can and cannot change. It leads to an incredible, indistinguishable ability to enjoy any moment handed to you.

It's not learned in the classroom. It's not something money can buy. You can gain conviction through just two variables: Time and Experience.^[1] Everyone gains conviction with time but experience can accelerate it.

I have come to believe that the ages of 24 and 25 are incredibly unique. You're still young with so much creativity and energy, but you have the wisdom of being two years into the “real world”, away from the bubble of college.

But the more interesting thing about 24 is you can look at everyone your age and notice their patterns of thought that got them to where they are today in life, and you can use that model to predict their next couple years. This prediction muscle begins forming at this age I believe. And it only grows stronger.^[2]

This is incredibly valuable because your 20s is inherently about making the key decisions that will set you up for the rest of your life.

Therefore your ability to define the variables, see with clarity the factors that go into the right or wrong decisions in your 20s is the most important muscle to nurture in yourself, while detecting it in others.^[3]

And you have to be very vigilant.

I had a six-week internship in France. I showed up to the first meeting and could only say "Bonjour." So I decided that by the end of the internship, I would speak Business French.

Most people download Duolingo. I hypnotized myself instead.

The Actual Problem With Language Learning

The traditional approach treats fluency like a math problem: memorize enough words, drill enough grammar, and eventually it clicks. But that's not how humans acquire language. Kids don't get fluent by conjugating verbs. They absorb language in a state of relaxed, almost hypnotic focus, where the conscious mind stops second-guessing every sentence before it comes out.

The real block is not vocabulary. It's the fear of sounding stupid.

I have sat across from a lot of people in private sessions and the ones who stall on second languages, on public speaking, on anything that requires real vulnerability, they all have the same thing happening. The conscious mind gets in the way before the mouth can move.

So every morning for six weeks, before any conversation or input, I ran a 20-minute self-hypnosis session. The structure was simple:

• Induction: progressive relaxation, about five minutes
• Mental rehearsal of a French conversation going well, fluently, naturally
• A specific suggestion tied to the feeling of speaking without hesitating
• Back to waking state

I also used an app called Deep Belief every morning. It recites affirmations out loud, and I had mine set entirely in French. So even before the self-hypnosis session started, my brain was already hearing French in a calm, receptive state. The two things compounded each other.

Nothing special happened beyond that. In the evening I reviewed vocabulary normally, but I was already in the French mood after each morning session. I let the subconscious do all the work/learning for me!

What Happened

By week two something had shifted. I stopped mentally translating before speaking. Sentences started coming out of my mouth without me thinking.

By week six I was dreaming in French.

I am not saying hypnosis is a cheat code. My French has limits. There are still topics I can't get into with any real nuance. But holding a full conversation, making a joke that actually lands, arguing with a landlord, those things happened in six weeks. I am certain the hypnosis moved that timeline up by months.

Why It Works

The brain learns best in states of relaxed alertness. Neuroscientists call these alpha wave states. In light trance, the critical faculty of the mind quiets down. The part of your brain that tells you that you sound like an idiot, that your accent is embarrassing, that part goes quiet. What you are left with is a much more direct channel for the brain to actually encode new patterns.

Language is a motor skill as much as it is a cognitive one. Your tongue, jaw, and breath have to physically learn new movements. Hypnosis speeds that up by reducing the interference. Less fear, faster wiring.

I'm in a coffee shop right now in Oklahoma, wearing shoes I bought in Portugal and pants I bought in Turkey. Next to me, my phone is popping off with messages in Russian in preparations for an upcoming event. In my wallet are the metro transit cards of Madrid and Paris, both of which I'm keeping for later use. Also in my wallet are 1,600 Ukrainian Hryvnia, which as I stare at I struggle to wrap my head around how drone attacks on civilians and sunny festivals can exist on the same continent.

The Camino, in many ways, is just like life. How so?

For one, you get used to the whole thing so quickly: waking up in a new place, still sore and tired, doing the long stare at nothing (a very guy thing), then springing into action to pack and get your coffee before hitting the road before 7am. All of a sudden you're outside back on the road, in nature, doing nothing but walking.

Sometimes you don't know why you're walking. Sometimes you don't know what you're doing here. Sometimes you want to take a break and sit. But you keep moving forward, and you keep walking. Because at least you have a direction.

You start off hurting, but you warm up. It's insane how quickly you get used to walking with blisters. Even your eyes become 25% closed because your body is using that energy just to stay alive. But when walking, you look down and marvel at your feet and legs and how such a machine got you here.

In many ways, late in the afternoon, it can be daunting to see your target village on the horizon. You think about how many steps you have left, how much your feet hurt. But then you hear another word about the Battle of the Somme and living in a WWI trench from a Dan Carlin podcast and you shut your mouth.

And every day you decide how many kilometers you want to walk. Feeling good? 25km. Want to do a marathon? 40km. Literally all the work you have to do is get up, put on your shoes and backpack, and then walk.

And like in life, there's a Camino-wide debate about how slow or how fast to walk every day. You have some people who say “Take it easy, take it slow, have long breaks!” And you have others who say “Original pilgrims didn't set off to take it slow, they wanted a challenge. They expected to sacrifice and feel pain.”

But the point is, who the hell cares!! Go as slow as you want, go as fast as you want. Yes, listen to what others have to say, but there is a huge distinction between listening to input and blindly following it. It's your own Camino and nobody else's.

Also, as in life, you'll run into some people along the way. Some you'll become friends with and see over and over, at albergue after albergue. Some you'll just say “Buen Camino” to as you pass them on the road. Some you'll bump into, have a great talk for the whole day and never see again. And it is tempting to fall into the FOMO temptation and be social just because you're “lonely”, especially when you have no internet.

But, as in life, the truth is, there is no better feeling than being comfortable just sitting, eating, walking by yourself and knowing it's enough to just be by yourself (which counterintuitively improves your ability to be present for others... by like a LOT). I'll tell you a little story.

Around me was a flurry of filled tables with conversations: A Korean tour group to my right. An American couple in front. And to my left, a bunch of pilgrims who came solo, all in their late 20s, having that classic “In Germany, we do this! In Hungary, we do this!” conversation of cultural differences that I've participated in probably hundreds of times.

Maybe three years ago, I would've asked to sit with the pilgrim group, obeying that mammalian instinct whispering that if I don't socialize and join a tribe, I'll die alone. One year ago, I would've heard that same instinct but distracted myself by scrolling the news or checking messages.

But here I was, eating a plate of beef and fries, with my notebook to my right and a biography open to my left, fatigued, reflective, and more at peace than I had ever been in my life. I felt nothing but quiet satisfaction hearing all the conversation happening all around me.

True wealth isn't money or fame. It's being at peace, completely at ease in everything going on in and around you. After a year of nonstop travel, the Camino reminded me to protect that peace, to carry it forward.

As I read a sentence on the page and cut into another piece of beef, I realized that in just a week, I'd finish the Camino. A few days later, I'd be off again, into a flurry of festivals, reunions, beach parties, and hypnosis breakthroughs. A European summer packed with movement, events, and abundance awaited. The continent was simmering with anticipation and energy, and I could feel it in the air.

But what I didn't realize, sitting at that mountain restaurant with a relaxed half-smile on my face, was just how much this summer would change my life.

Carnaval is nonstop chaos, nonstop partying - but there are many moments when you are a few Xeque Mate cocktails in, dehydrated yet quite drunk, and you take a second to notice what exactly where you are.

You're in Rio de Janeiro, the symbol city for Brazil you've heard about all your life, a city that is as mystical as it is dangerous, a city that you wonder how it is possible to live and be incredibly productive in.

You're burning under the sun, you're dehydrated, you're helplessly in the middle of thousands of people - nothing that a few drinks can't help with.

To your left you see a guy dressed as a big ass sunflower talking to his friend carrying a Teletubbies plushie. To your right you see your friends jumping up and down, hopelessly yet passionately lipsyncing whatever Brazilian classic song is on. In the distance you see a group of three doing a triple kiss - because why not!

…Then there comes a moment when you quit looking around. The chaos and stimuli all seems to blend together, pause almost. Your eyes relax as you stare at the ground. You take a second to scan your body, and have this mix of feelings that you can't shake off. In some ways, you feel that you made the right decision to come here - that, out of everywhere you could've been this time of year, you're grateful you're in Rio with everyone here during Carnaval. You also can't shake the feeling that you will be back here multiple times. But one thought dominates them all, and you can't help but repeat it in your head over and over again:

“This energy will stay with me my whole life.”

You stare back up with a kid-like smile, and sing at the top of your lungs with thousands of people:

“Vou festejar, vou festejar!” (I'm going to party, I'm going to party!)

It's 10:30pm on a Saturday in O de Casa Hostel, and I'm in the zone.

An English guy comes up to the bar - he's in a Tottenham jersey, slightly tipsy. He lets out an easygoing smile and raises his eyebrows at me - but he's tapping his fingers on the table and looking back at the dancing crowd every few seconds. “He wants this quick,” I conclude to myself, as I quip “Large Corona?” As the English lad nods with a thumbs up, I'm already opening the bottle and swiftly handing it to him.

I see three empty gin and tonic glasses next to the sink - “I swear those French girls ordered these five minutes ago,” I laugh to myself as I surgically sponge my way through each glass, rinsing and repeating.

I notice at the cocktail station that my friend Akio needs more ice. I slide like a snake past my coworkers in the kitchen and grab a full ice pack from the fridge, slamming it on the ground before cutting it open and dumping it into the ice tray.

Now my favorite part of the job has arrived - when I go clear the tables of empty glasses and actually talk with the guests. “Oi, e acabou?” I repeat with a instinctive Brazilian accent as I go from social group to social group. I walk up to the rooftop empty handed, and not even one minute later, I'm walking back downstairs not only carrying countless glasses and bottles, but having sung samba lyrics with Brazilians, instigated a political debate between two Canadians, and confirmed plans to go out with my best hostel friends. I return to the bar feeling victorious, and rinse and repeat.

When I first signed up to bartend for São Paulo's most famous hostel a month before, I had imagined myself making these elaborate drinks with a sense of calm. I thought I'd only be making caipirinhas by day and cool random combinations for my favorite guests by night.

And to be fair, I did learn all these things. But more than anything, bartending was this subconscious trance that I never wanted to end - my eyes darting from task to task, my hands and body in fluid motion from station to station.

“I've missed this feeling,” I kept telling myself. “I feel like I'm working at Cane's again.”

“Damn, it's over,” I think to myself.

It was over... this small yet poignant phase in my life - in our lives. The phase of being 22, solo traveling in the most backpacker friendly country in the world, having the energy to go out every night and wake up without a huge hangover, not knowing anyone, not worrying about anything except for the sails of luck to carry us through the winds of life.

I came to Thailand to experience beaches, fun, and spontaneity. But more than anything, this place gave me that clarity, that sense of urgency... and an unparalleled closeness to the secrets of this life.

It's the last night before we leave, and I'm chatting with some people outside. Noble silence has turned into noble chattering. I check the clock.

“It's lights out already? What?”

You know when you have those moments when you're realizing the gravity, the honesty of the place you're in? I had a huge one right there.

For the past hour, I had been in this Bali jungle meditation center without access to the outside world, chatting with a group of charismatic Russians about meditation positions, European politics, and English slang over some Taiwanese Oolong Tea. We were so absorbed in just enjoying each other's company, with the white noise of Bali crickets and the friendly night skies looking over us in one of our last times all together.

These moments were what I dreamed of in high school, at 2 AM when I'd roll around my gaming chair and contemplate life after playing five rounds of League of Legends, with the white noise of Oklahoma crickets and the friendly night skies looking over my house.

Walking back to my room, I smile at myself, “This is one of the finest nights of my life.”

The difference between America and the world, why its universities are so good at pumping out talent and boosting the economy, is its liberal arts education - the emphasis on exploring oneself through different classes and activities. No other nation's education system has such an emphasis on mixing problem-solving, innovation, and leadership.

Along with being told you can do anything you want is an unsaid truism that lots of Yalies absorb in their minds - that they are important and will be leaders in this world.

Now, nobody says this to you. There isn't some information session where are you told how you're going to be some superstar who excels in everything you do. Rather, it is in the extravagance that Yale offers you, the little things you observe. One particular morning a couple weeks ago, in a meeting with the Yale Study Abroad office, I was told point blank that no school had more funding opportunities per capita for going abroad than Yale. In the afternoon, I went to a free olive oil tasting with one of the world's brightest minds in the field. And in the evening, I was, along with every senior in my residential college, treated to a fancy Roasted Beef Sirloin dinner with crisp sweet gem lettuces and Radicchio with herb crusted goat cheese as the starter.

This combination of events and funding screams a particular message: “The world is a big place and you deserve to make a mark in it - we think you are worth investing enormous resources in.

If you want to learn anything honestly, you have to be comfortable with making mistakes and feeling dumb. Yale was the perfect laboratory for me to get used to this. This doesn't mean getting complacent with being “dumb”, but putting myself in positions to learn about the world in a different way while improving.

People

College, especially when you barely know anyone, is a perfect opportunity to figure out what your values are. It's the first time in your life where you have full agency over who you want to hang out with - and I couldn't be happier at how it turned out.

Ask a Yalie what their favorite part of college is, and 9 out of 10 times they will say “the people”. What they mean by this, in my opinion, is the diversity of extraordinariness that you absorb by just being around each other. Most people who come to Yale are here because they had a “spike” in high school - something they did better than nearly anyone in the world. Whether it's winning nationals for debate, founding an international nonprofit, or groundbreaking lab research, there's so much that students here learn by just spending time together.

When I first observed this, I figured out very quickly that certain traits were prevalent especially at Yale. I remember asking myself over and over like a mantra, “Which of these traits do I really want to take away from this place?”

What I sought to absorb was, of course, the ambition and work ethic I saw in my peers. Those who initiate things, are proactive in planning trips, those who I would have in my C-suite if I was running a company. It's been so inspiring living with people who I know for a fact are some of the most hardworking and most ambitious people I've ever met. It's those who have a lot to say about the world I gravitate to. It still boggles my mind that my sophomore year suite mates and I speak/write a combined nine languages.

What I've tried my best to avoid is the pressure to feel insecure/need validation from others. There's this spirit at Yale of constant, I wouldn't say competition necessarily, but comparison with others. Let me try to explain.

When you take 1,600 valedictorians of their high schools and put them together, not everyone can be #1 and receive the same portion of attention they received in high school. This has resulted in an environment where Yalies are constantly fulfilling their need for attention, the need to be envied. This is completely normal from a human standpoint, but the degree to which I've seen it I've never seen anywhere else, as students are constantly wondering how they stack up to their peers.

What I have accordingly noticed embedded in countless conversations in dining halls are gossips about who won what fellowship, did they deserve to get in that club? Who got what job? This is a phenomenon that lends itself to you absorbing it if you aren't paying attention. It's something that you can so easily fall into the trap of since it surrounds you. It's something I struggled with a lot my first two years here but especially after finding my own path I feel these things a lot less, and value the lack of these things a lot in my friends.

Observing a phenomenon and reacting to it are two different things. There are many ways to take in this phenomenon of comparison and need for attention from others, but from especially junior year I've taken a different road in consciously realizing whenever I'm having that conversation and choosing to tune it out so it doesn't become something I absorb from here.

Forever sealed into my memory will be the faces of the volunteers, the faces of the cheering spectators. There is nothing like seeing and hearing people of every demographic looking you in the eye yelling “You got this!” - old ladies whose block you're running on, little kids giving out Twizzlers, twenty-somethings handing out free beers, and energetic soccer moms. Every minute, I swear, I would hear someone yell, “Go Eddie!” (Eddie Z was the name on my bib).

Not only this, they had some eye catching cardboard signs. Many were motivational, saying stuff like “Go Mom!!”, “Run like a zombie is chasing you!” and “On a scale of 1-10 you're 26-2”.

Others had me chuckling:

• “You run better than the economy!”
• “After mile 18 don't trust your farts!”
• “Finish the race like you finished last night!”

One of my favorite historical idols to ever live is the rapper Juice WRLD. In high school, I listened to his albums religiously when driving, hanging with friends, or studying for the ACT. I still remember when he overdosed in the airport at 21. As I learned about his tragic death, I felt helplessly disconnected from realizing just how young 21 was. And now that I'm about to surpass this age, I'm thinking of his eerie line, “We ain't making it past 21”.

I remember a few months before he died, when he toured through OKC. I went with Jonny and we jumped up and down while singing our favorite songs at the top of our lungs. We moshed to Robbery. We waved our phone flashlights while singing Legends with the crowd. At the end of the concert, an emotional Juice WRLD, trying not to pass out from exhaustion, downed a water bottle and spoke his heart out to the crowd.

“Anybody in here who has dreams or aspirations raise your hand!”

I raised my hand without any specific dream in mind. Maybe it was going to college, doing well on a test, or I nearly teared up, watching everyone around me with their hand all the way up. We were all young teenagers, packed like sardines in a concert hall, with no clue about how things would end up years from then.

But watching Juice WRLD, he had a Napoleonic way of connecting with crowds. He wasn't afraid to wear his heart on his sleeve, and he was giving all his energy for us to hear his message. It was so cliche looking back, but the way he said it I could tell he meant every single word.

“As long as you put your mind to whatever that dream is, give it your all, and don't let anybody steer you off your path, you'll get exactly where you wanna be. I'm living proof of that shit!”

Just a couple of days ago, I was sitting on the New York subway, watching the sun start to set over the Manhattan skyline. I thought of this moment, and I paused whatever song I was playing in my Spotify to switch to Juice WRLD. I closed my eyes and reminisced on what it felt like to be back in that sweaty concert hall, with my hand touching the sky.

Pour moi, une de les choses plus amusants pendant le temps seul est pour etre etonne des petites choses, tout en voyant les grandes choses comme d'habitude. En fait, c'est normal pour moi penser des petites choses dans l'etonnement pour longues periodes. Un de ceux-la choses recemment a ete un cendrier peculiare, dont j'ai vu pendant ma derniere latte a Montpellier. Okio je vais a expliquer avec le moins possible traduction necessaire. J'espere que c'est pas si desordonee quand je traduis cette blog en anglais. Donc, ce cendrier a un couvercle que tu appuyes, et quelques trous dans la couvercle baissent, s'ouvre un endroit en qui tu peux mettre ton cendre. Apres t'arretes appuyant le bouton de la couvercle, le platforme dans qui tu as juste mis ton cendre tourne rapidement, de sorte que tout le trous est pousse loin. Ok chais pas si ca a travaille mais au moins j'ai essaye. Si je dois changer un peu apres DeepL c'est pas grave.

Bah ouais, je suis ici a la plage maintenant. En fait c'est ma premiere fois depuis longtemps sur une plage nue - je suppose le plupart des les plages en Sitges sont nues. Je regarde le ciel bleu, les gens souriant, et je me promene vers l'eau.

If I had to name the biggest personal takeaway, however, it's that being abroad has influenced my ability to see the story. What do I mean by this?

When you embark on anything, really, it becomes a part of your story. You can connect the dots between it and other events in your life, or witness its impacts on your present self. The reason people have the saying that we are all unique is precisely because of this - none of us have had the same experiences as each other and as a result our stories are ours and ours only. Studying abroad for a semester and having all these experiences has made me tempted to spill every detail about every, cultural difference, trip, feeling to anyone who has asked about the semester. But the reality is, at some point you just have to accept that it's much easier to communicate the small, objective parts. Sure, I can say that I went to X number of countries this semester or that I tried souvlaki in Greece and loved it. It's easy to talk about a small cultural difference between the U.S. and Spain, like how they have siestas and things are open late. But a lot of the more personal, subjective feelings that flowed through me at some point, or some of the biggest things I learned, I just have to accept may be stories that never get told.

Everyone's journeys are stories full of challenges and hopes, and I really think its our responsibility to study and absorb each page as it comes. Only by examining and seeing the nuances of our stories do we truly protect them. What I've hypothesized is, especially in these very important years, if you don't mold your story, someone else will mold it like theirs. Protect your story.

While driving to Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers a few days ago, I was wearing my Chupiteria 69 shirt (from a bar in Granada), listening to Belgian rap, and wearing socks that had been stained orange from the Saharan sand in Morocco. And in the meanwhile I was on a straight section of Route 66 in the same car I've always driven and glancing at the Chick Fil-A and McDonalds I frequented as a kid. I couldn't help but laugh a little at such a juxtaposition, and sped off into the distance.

Auschwitz is one of those places that when you learn about it, it's hard to believe it's real. Sure, you read the numbers. You see in your textbook that more than a million people were murdered here. Sure, you've read Night by Elie Wiesel for high school a few years ago. Sure, you imagine prisoners unknowingly being led like sheep to their deaths inside gas chambers.

But there's always a gap between imagination and experience. It's one thing to imagine standing at the infamous gate, “Arbeit Macht Frei” (meaning “work will set you free”), where prisoners passed through on the way to their death simply for their religion and genetic identity. And it's one incredibly miniscule step closer to the truth to actually stand there. But the gap between both of these actions and the actual experience is a gap I'm lucky to never have experienced, and visiting Auschwitz has only made me realize how big this gap actually is. How insane it is that standing in the same place thousands were murdered makes you feel helplessly farther from the truth than you ever felt reading about such a place thousands of miles away in an AP World History class 7 years ago.

When my tour group got off of the bus, we were greeted with the same snow, the same bitter cold that hundreds of thousands of Jews experienced when getting off their trains decades ago. The snow wasn't accompanied by wind and it was utterly silent around us except for the footsteps of other tour groups. Never have I heard a more profound silence in the air.

On so many blistering cold mornings in the early 1940s, trains from all over Nazi-occupied Europe full of both living and dead victims arrived in Auschwitz. Families that had endured a several days-long train ride without food or water, with people dying from exhaustion around them, held onto the faint sense of hope that they would at least be put in the same living block. But during “selection”, those who were deemed fit to work were separated from those “unfit to work”. Women and children were often separated from fathers and sent to the gas chambers upon arrival. I can't even imagine hearing the screams of families being torn apart where I stood at the train tracks.

There are two tragedies of Auschwitz that stuck out to me.

The first tragedy is the one we all know, the destruction. The destruction of lives, families, marriages, engagements, parents, children, brothers, sisters, love affairs, grandparents, friends, colleagues, classmates, traditions, culture, the chain goes on.

But the second tragedy was what made helplessly dissatisfied with my visit. And I don't think it had nothing to do with the tour guide, the museum, none of the organizers. It was simply the fact that it was impossible to cover the murder of more than a million lives in the span of a couple hours. No amount of time will ever feel enough, no amount of attention paid will do justice these lives lost. Every part of the tour - the living barracks, the house where the Nazi officers lived, the gas chambers, the crematorium - it all went by in an instant. Everything felt ridiculously rushed, and there was nothing I or the tour leader could do about it. There just simply isn't an easier way to grapple with so many deaths in one place.

I honestly think it's the duty of every human citizen to visit a place like this, because at the end of such a depressing visit there lies a hint of motivation at the end that sticks with you. There is no turning back the past, there is no reclaiming the lives, no reuniting the families separated. Seeing thousands of suitcases that belonged to children who, upon arrival, were sent to be suffocated to death by gas reminded me of something. All these kids had big dreams. They wanted to be artists, mathematicians, professors, doctors, soldiers when they got older. They saw their future selves as happy, thriving, and doing what they loved. If the victims had souls that talked they would be screaming at us to make the most of our lives. And so it's up to us, those who were born in more fortunate times then, to fulfill OUR dreams. We can't only be depressed by the past but use it as a point of inspiration... to be better. Being grateful for what we have and making the most out of it. Fighting the numerous injustices of our world today. And even more important, ensuring that something like this never happens again (tragically this is still happening in many parts of the world right now...). We just have no excuse to not be educated on our past. Never forget…