You can’t make a racehorse out of a donkey, but hypnosis can make it run its best race

Every athlete has a ceiling — but very few ever get close to it. The gap between what an athlete is physically capable of and what they actually perform under pressure is rarely about talent. It’s about the mind: focus that scatters at the wrong moment, confidence that evaporates before a big event, tension that creeps into muscles that should be loose, and a body that forgets what it already knows how to do.

In this session, Rob will talk about how hypnotic techniques can be used to close that gap — helping athletes and performers of all levels access the states they need on demand: unshakeable focus, calm under pressure, and that elusive “zone” state where performance seems to happen almost effortlessly. Rob will share his approach to working with athletes, drawing on years of experience helping golfers and other performers train their mental game with the same rigour they train their physical one.

Rather than just talking theory, Rob will demonstrate these techniques live on stage — showing in real time how quickly a shift in state can happen, and what that shift looks like from the outside. Expect a practical, hands-on session with plenty to take directly into your own practice.

Whether you work with elite athletes, weekend warriors, or performers of any kind, this session will give you tools you can use immediately — and a live demonstration of what’s possible when the mind stops getting in the body’s way.

Rob De Groof is an award-winning trainer and one of Europe’s leading hypnotists. He is the owner of the highly successful HypnosisCentre.be in Belgium, where he works with a team of hypnotherapists across multiple cities. As the founder and head trainer of the European Hypnosis Academy, he has trained thousands of students in the art of direct hypnosis, both at his school in Belgium and worldwide. Rob is the creator of HypnoQiGong - Flowing Change Work, a unique approach that combines the power of active alert hypnosis and Qigong to facilitate deep transformation. His mission is to keep hypnosis as simple and effective as possible. As the official trainer of his mentor, the late Jeffrey Stephens, he continues to teach and preserve Jeffrey’s powerful, no-nonsense approach. Rob is also a certified trainer for Sheila Granger’s Virtual Gastric Band, Bob Burns’ The Swan, and the Dave Elman Hypnosis Institute. He is the author of Mentalism for Hypnotherapists and has developed several specialized hypnosis protocols, including HypnoFasting (The Power Combo), Hypnosis4Golfers, Stop4Ever, and Hypnotic Breast Enlargement. In April 2022, his book Stop It! “ The Art of Simple Hypnosis was released, emphasizing his philosophy of keeping hypnosis straightforward and effective—a core principle of his training programs.