Top CEOs and Entrepreneurs Who Use (or Swear By) Hypnosis and Subconscious Mind Training
The world’s most successful leaders know that mindset is everything. Beyond strategy and spreadsheets, their greatest edge comes from mastering the inner game — the ability to stay calm under pressure, rewire limiting beliefs, and lead with clarity and confidence.
Here are a few visionaries who’ve turned to hypnosis, visualization, or subconscious mindset work to fuel their success:
1. David DeRam — CEO of Greenlight Guru
David DeRam openly shares how he uses self-hypnosis and mindset conditioning to retrain his brain for positivity and growth. He’s spoken about how these subconscious tools helped him reframe challenges and inspire his team to think more clearly and creatively. His approach reflects a growing belief among CEOs that true leadership starts with mastering the mind.
2. Marc Benioff — Founder & CEO of Salesforce
Benioff is known for his deep commitment to mental awareness, regularly practicing visualization and meditative techniques that mirror the principles of hypnosis. He’s said that creating mental space and internal alignment is essential for innovation — proof that subconscious clarity often precedes corporate success.
3. Jack Dorsey — Co-founder of Twitter and Block (Square)
Running two companies would break most people — but Jack Dorsey maintains his composure through intense meditative and self-hypnosis-style practices. He’s been known to attend silent retreats and use deep focus techniques to sustain mental stamina. Dorsey’s dedication to mastering the mind shows how mental discipline fuels long-term resilience in leadership.
4. Arianna Huffington — Founder of Thrive Global
After collapsing from exhaustion, Arianna Huffington made mental well-being her top priority. Through mindfulness, guided hypnosis-style relaxation, and visualization, she rebuilt her relationship with work and balance. Today, her company Thrive Global helps executives worldwide prevent burnout — a mission rooted in her own subconscious transformation.
5. Richard Branson — Founder of Virgin Group
Branson has long advocated for visualization and subconscious goal-setting, techniques often categorized within self-hypnosis. He’s described how mentally rehearsing success helped him navigate uncertainty and take bold leaps in business. His fearless, intuitive leadership style reflects a mind trained to see opportunity over obstacle.
6. Steve Jobs — Co-founder of Apple
Jobs’ legendary creativity and intuition were fueled by deep mental training. Through meditative visualization and trance-like focus, he accessed what he described as “the space where ideas are born.” His approach shares striking parallels with hypnosis — quieting the conscious mind to unlock innovation from the subconscious.
7. Elon Musk — CEO of Tesla and SpaceX
While not confirmed to practice hypnosis formally, Musk’s communication style has been described by NLP and behavioral experts as “hypnotic in influence.” His ability to focus, inspire, and persuade through language demonstrates a subconscious mastery of storytelling and suggestion — key elements rooted in hypnotic technique.
8. Tony Robbins — Peak Performance Coach & Entrepreneur
Robbins has openly studied hypnosis and neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) for decades. He integrates hypnotic language, visualization, and subconscious reprogramming in his seminars to help leaders break mental barriers. His methods have influenced CEOs across industries to adopt mindset training as part of their leadership toolkit.
9. Oprah Winfrey — Media Mogul & Philanthropist
Oprah attributes much of her success to visualization and mindset work — forms of self-hypnosis through intention and focus. She’s spoken about “creating from the inside out” and how aligning thought, emotion, and energy allows success to unfold naturally — echoing the core philosophy behind subconscious transformation.
10. Walt Disney — Founder of The Walt Disney Company
Known for his extraordinary imagination, Disney reportedly studied forms of auto-suggestion and self-hypnosis, believing that the subconscious mind was the gateway to creativity. His ability to turn imagination into empire stands as timeless proof that belief — deeply programmed into the mind — becomes reality.
The Common Thread
What unites these leaders isn’t luck — it’s mindset. Each recognized that success begins in the subconscious, where habits, focus, and resilience are formed. Hypnosis and similar practices help train the brain to respond from clarity, not chaos.
That’s why at Go burble, we created the Leadership Mindset Program with Lisa Pachence — combining executive coaching with subconscious reprogramming to help modern leaders access this same level of focus, presence, and flow.