Rule Results with Your Rule Results with Your IncredibleMindLet's Rule Results, with Your IncredibleMind: Incredible People

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Incredible People | Paul McKenna

Paul McKenna (born 8 November 1963, in Enfield, Middlesex) is an English hypnotist and media personality. According to the Sunday Times he is Britain's best selling non-fiction author and is published in 23 languages.

McKenna has written and produced books and multimedia products, hosted self-improvement television shows and presents seminars in hypnosis, neuro-linguistic programming and weight loss.

Paul McKenna started in radio, aged 16, at in-store Radio Topshop, and went on to present for stations including Radio Jackie, Radio Caroline, Chiltern Radio and Capital Radio.

A hypnotist who guested on his show led to a developing interest in the subject, initially for reasons of self-promotion, although entertainment was later to play a big part. Whilst still working at Capital, he began experimenting with small hypnotic shows, first for the amusement of friends, then for hoodwinked audiences in pubs and clubs. McKenna then started doing regular Sunday night shows at the Duke of York's Theatre, which was owned at the time by Capital. The success of those shows led to his playing other theatres across the UK, Ireland, The Netherlands, the US, Australia and Hong Kong.

After a brief spell at Radio 1 in the early 1990s, McKenna decided to quit radio. In 1993, ITV broadcast The Hypnotic World of Paul McKenna, which featured audience members volunteering to be hypnotised to act in comedic ways, the show subsequently being aired in 42 countries. During this time, McKenna continued to study hypnosis, and neuro-linguistic programming with Richard Bandler, the co-creator of NLP.

Many of McKenna's one-to-one hypnotherapy clients are celebrities including Ellen DeGeneres and David Walliams, who used McKenna's 'time distortion technique' to help with his swim across the English Channel .

In the 1990s, McKenna presented a number of TV programmes including The Hypnotic World of Paul McKenna (1993-1995), Paul McKenna's Paranormal World (1997) and Hyp the Streets (1999). In January 2008, the Discovery Channel signed a £23 million deal with McKenna to make a series of self-help programmes. To date, the deal is the largest ever for a British TV personality. The first of his I Can Make You Thin programmes aired on TLC, The Learning Channel on March 16 2008.