 My name is Sean McCormick, I'm a float center founder, I'm a life coach, I'm a podcast host, I'm a performance coach, I've worked with big organizations and high performers and I love floating, I absolutely do, this is really a pleasure to be presenting today. I was in attendance at the float con in 2011 in Gothenburg, Sweden and I don't think that I got a star for that one, but I think this is like my fourth or fifth. I'm the founder of Float Seattle, we opened the doors in 2012 and two years ago I sold those both locations to two incredible people Andrew Lopnau and Dean Paris who now have served over 60,000 floats and out of the third location just like doing an amazing job. I love floating so much and it is such a useful tool for personal development and that's really what my specialty is as a biohacker and presenter at various companies and organizations working with people that I do, I really do lean on floating to really take personal development and achievement to the next level. How can we be better? What we're not going to be talking about today is psychedelics and floating. We're not going to be talking about extrasensory perception and floating or peak experiences in floating. I just like these topics and I wanted to just like throw out that we're not going to be talking about these but they are they are sort of tangentially relevant to the work that I'm going to be talking about today so see you later about that. So let me define the term so what is what is life hacking? Life hacking is how I think of using tools, techniques, modes of thought and practices to be your best self. At the heart of the work that I do I'm trying to help people be their best in the shortest amount of time with the least amount of work and what that requires is high impact behaviors, high impact practices that can help people grow really really quickly. You may be familiar with the term biohacking or not if you're a Joe Rogan fan you probably are. If you know Dave Asprey is you know Aubrey Marcus has spoken here at the conference before and basically what are the things that we can do in our lives to help us develop the fastest and life when it comes to life hacking floating is certainly at the very top of that list and there's a good reason for that. Number one is because of what we know about the default mode network. You just heard from Justin Feinstein about his amazing research at Liber and for a float center owner a couple of years ago it was really a big deal to be able to point scientifically at the default mode network. We know that the default mode network is affected during floating the same way that it's affected and really sort of diminished more porous the same way in other alternate states of consciousness work with psychedelics, meditation, ecstatic dance, religious experiences. It all helps us see ourselves in a brand new way. That's sort of rigid. Oh this is who I am and this is how I think all of that begins to soften because of what happens during a float session to the default mode network. There are a couple of really key things that happen to the default mode network. You can redefine the ego and the self. The way that you see yourself is oftentimes not related to your own thoughts and I'm gonna talk about this a little bit later about the subconscious mind but basically we know that we can have control and influence over our sense of self inside the float tank. We can actually get better with some intention and some practices that I'm going to show you a little bit later in this talk but we can't do this work watching Netflix. We can't do this watching YouTube videos or even in the shower where all of our good ideas come from. This is really the best place. Meditation is probably I think the closest corollary in work with psychedelics to be able to redefine our sense of self but we know the default mode network is softened and more porous so that we can begin to develop ourselves. What this also does in a float tank session is it opens us up to a new sense of self. You know what? To greater potential. This is how we hack our minds. This is how we hack our bodies. This is how we hack our sense of self. When we are going into a float session and I really think of floating as sort of two different ways. You can either have passive floats or you can have active floats and in a passive float session oftentimes you just need to get away, you just lay back and breathe and whatever happens happens. Totally awesome. We've all been there. You just need to get away from the world and relax and let go. Our brain bounces around. Maybe we focus on our breath a little bit. Our eyes are usually closed. That's fantastic. But when you're doing an active float you're actually going into the float tank with an intention, with a purpose. That's more active and that's what this is focusing on. When we are going in with agency and purpose and intention you really are opening yourself up to developing yourself, developing your life, crafting your life in a really meaningful way through an active float. The reason that's so effective in a float tank is because of the porousness of the default load network. You all have felt this before. You come out and you feel like a new person. For most of you, for a lot of you that run float centers, you've talked to people who've had these profound experiences like, oh my gosh I didn't know that I was hiding this one thing. I didn't think of myself in this way ever before. I feel like a brand new person. I feel like a kid again. I feel refreshed and renewed. That is essential for hacking your life. That is essential for developing yourself into the person that you want to be. It's to create a little bit of space to open yourself up to a greater potential. The other reason why floating is so great for hacking your life is because you are scheduling for time, space, and death. The world is a nutty place. We are, it's nuttier now than maybe it's ever been. There's a ton of information coming at us. It's an election year. There's a pandemic. It's bananas. We are so inundated by external sensory input that we don't make the time to have some time to ourself, to create some time and some space and some depth for ourself. So just the act of booking a float, the act of scheduling a weekly or two times a week float practice actually is empowering in and of itself. The same way going to the gym is empowering to the self. These practices where you're actually caring for yourself, loving yourself, honoring yourself, it's encouraging and inspiring. One of my clients who is a CEO at a tech company, that's what I'll say, he's a regular meditator and he was having problems at work and in his life, in his social life and he couldn't focus. He was a great meditator, been meditating for a long time and I said, hey, you have to start floating because the meditation, the groove you're in in meditation is no longer effective for you. After that first float experience, everything started to make way. He was able to focus more clearly. He got recovery and he was actually able to activate his parasympathetic system and what it became over time was this practice that he really took very seriously. He protected really, really seriously so that he knew like, hey, I'm going to do something for me. I have all these people that rely on me but I need to do something for me. How do I make that happen? So what you can do when you're scheduling a float is in creating the space is processing new awareness. Stuff happens in our lives. It really often times surprises us when we lose a loved one or get divorced or have some sort of traumatic event. It just, it catches us by surprise. It always does and we rarely spend the time to actually process these emotions that we have. How are you responding to this big life-changing event? For this one client of mine, he was going through a divorce and by making time to think and to be, period, was a big, big deal for him. This level of self-care was helping him create the sort of life and lifestyle that he wanted. He was creating time to process. A lot of folks don't ever process this traumatic, these traumatic things that come up in their life. You know, maybe they'll do it like in the bath or at night before they go to bed but that's not, that's not enough. We are not designed to be going as fast as we go all day every day, redlining all the time and then just quickly go to sleep and wake up and do it again. You know, we've evolved to sit around a fire and to have time sitting by streams and just to relax and ground down to process the things that are going on in our life. So once you are able to process some of the things that are going on in your life, then you can integrate. You can integrate the things, integrate new awareness. When you're, when you're working with a life coach or performance coach or a therapist and you're seeing yourself in a new way and you're combining that with flotation therapy, what you're doing is you're finding ways to come to terms with what's going on in your life. So not only do you, can you see like, oh, this is what's happening for me. Holy cow. Now it's like, well, how do I feel about that? How do I feel about what's going on in my life? How much agency do I feel? After you've integrated, after you've made, after you become aware of it, after you've actually acknowledged that this stuff is happening in your life, then you can integrate it into your being to think really critically. How do I feel about this divorce? How do I feel about my job? How do I feel about my life? And by scheduling that, you become more intentional. After that, then it is applying. You see, I'm looking at my notes there. Then you can apply it. What is the, what's the next plan? What's the next move? Where do I go from here? Again, can't happen on the couch watching Netflix. This stuff has to happen when you are calm and relaxed. You know, oftentimes it takes us 45, 50, 55 minutes to kind of go through the day in our float sessions. And then it's in like the last few minutes of a 60 minute, 90 minute float. That's when things start to come together. That's when it's like, oh my gosh, I've now, I've now processed some of these things. I've, I've, I've integrated them into, into my life and my awareness. But then what am I supposed to do? What do I do next? In fact, my decision to sell the businesses, sell my float centers came obviously during a float session when I realized that I needed to direct my attention to the next chapter in my life. It never would have come to me if, if I hadn't had that intention and made some decisions about what I wanted out of my life. You know, obviously working with a coach or a therapist or a shaman is a really good idea and floating just enhances that level of intention. So you've got the default mode network, you've got scheduling time and space. And now we're going to talk about some of these techniques that I was, no, I want the blue one. We're going to talk about some of these techniques that I do with my clients that work that are amplified way more effective in the float tank. So we're going to be talking about programming the subconscious. I've done, it's hard to talk him right at the same time. I've done presentations on programming or reprogramming, not the human bio computer like John Lilly. Big shout out to John Lilly. But the subconscious mind. You may not know this, maybe you do. Most of our decisions in our awareness of life itself, 98% of our awareness in the world is happens in our subconscious mind. That subconscious mind is developed between the ages of zero to seven. So before we turn eight or nine, we are absorbing culture, absorbing how to be because we are technically in this hypnagogic state. And we just learn how to be in the world from our parents. And the subconscious mind picks up especially on the really negative aspects of ourself. In the amygdala, which is the subconscious mind, it's very emotional. It doesn't know what's good or bad. It just feels these feelings. And most people don't know that we can actually use these techniques in the float tank that I'm about to explain to change our subconscious mind. To actually make major changes for ourself and reprogram the way that we operate in the world. It's it's and here's how. So here's one thing that all of you guys can do is in life coaching world. It's called ants. These are automatic negative thoughts. But one thing that you can do, we all have these is purge these, get them out. Do you say, oh, I'm not good enough or I'm unlovable? That'll never work. Why can't I get this right? Why are you so stupid? These automatic negative thoughts come from our subconscious mind that keep us safe. It comes from the ego. It keeps us in a box. It keeps us small. It keeps us really tied to our subconscious. Which is keeping us little and scared. Because that's what the subconscious does. That's what the ego does. It just wants to keep us safe. So when you write out these automatic negative thoughts, get them out on paper. What you can do in the float tank when you are the most suggestible to yourself. You can literally talk yourself into just about anything. Especially inside of a float session. You can reframe these negative thoughts. So you're not good enough. Can be reframed into I'm working to improve. You are totally unlovable. Can be reframed into I am actively open to being loved. When you change those automatic negative thoughts through reframing in the float tank. Repeating them over and over and over. Because you are so highly suggestible in that state of consciousness in the float. Then you come out of the float and you actually do feel a little bit different. You do this over time and the results are incredible. I've done this with with several amazon clients who are totally fried out of their brains. And it seems hokey and corny but this stuff works. So reframing these negative thoughts are really really effective. Another thing that you can do is self hypnosis. I had the pleasure of working with interviewing Bruce Lipton on the podcast on the optimal performance podcast. And we talked we spent like 40 minutes talking about these sorts of techniques to reprogram the subconscious mind. Dr. Roderick Borey who was one of the very early adopters you know 60s and 70s to rest sensory deprivation out of New York talks about how he used to do hypnotherapy sessions with clients through an intercom in the float tank. And what he was able to do is because these clients of his were so highly suggestible they were able to break through these blockages that they had in their life. Well you can do that for yourself when and here's how you do it. So what you'll do is you'll write out type out 15 or 20 minutes of positive affirmations to yourself and then you just listen to them in the float tank. That's how this works. So Sean you are an excellent presenter you are an effective life coach you are a loving father you are working hard to continuously improve. You are worthy of trust and and admiration you are you are continuing to affect people's lives in a positive way. Whatever that sounds like for you write that out record it in a voice recorder and then play that in the float tank just play it. It works like crazy even if you not off to sleep which happens from time to time. You are still downloading through through that highly suggestible theta state into a new awareness of yourself. You're hacking your life hacking your brain hacking your subconscious mind. I did this through a pretty tumultuous time in my life a couple of years ago I guess like four years ago and it was effective at just like once a week for the first part of my float. I would keep my eyes open and listen to my self-hypnosis inside of the of the float pod in that case and I would come out and I would feel lighter and stronger and more confident. We could all use a little boost like this right now and this is a really crazy effective technique. Some other techniques fall into the realm of energy energy psychology refers to techniques that you can use on yourself to improve. One of them is tapping you know do a duct up go search or youtube search for EFT emotional freedom technique it's called tapping where you can actually process trauma and break through blockages in your life that you're storing in your body by tapping through meridians and using certain terminology that will help you break through these these sticking points so you can you can look take a look at EFT. You can also do progressive energy up and down your body just call this energy flow but here's the big idea so there are lots of these techniques if you want to learn more about these you can ask me about these after this session these are all be available for for the Q&A right after this and there is no end to the work that you could do on yourself in a float with a regular float practice there is no end consciousness is infinite you are an infinite being of love and light and truth and you can change yourself you can hack your life you can be a better person and the float tank is really the best place to do that it's the most effective you're the most open to change while you're doing it and I've been advocating for it and it's it's really it's really a cool honor it's to be here and giving this this talk to you guys today again I'll be around to talk a little bit more about this but when you look at combining flutation therapy with cognitive behavioral therapy or life coaching or you know gestalt therapy and then working afterward on these additional these additional practices you're gonna change you're gonna improve in your life and that's a beautiful thing that's all that we can that's all that we can do thank you so much for your time thanks for sticking around I hope this was interesting to you and I look forward to talking to all of you after after the session thank you