Session #102: Ken Guzzo on Genuine Hypnosis

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This is the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast, session number 102, Ken GSO on Genuine Hypnosis. Welcome to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast with Jason Lynette, Your professional resource for hypnosis training and outs. Standing Business success. Here’s your host, Jason Lynette. Welcome back. It’s Jason Lynette here with an outstanding hypnosis conversation for you to listen, to, learn from, and enjoy.

I first met Ken Gusto back a few years ago at the Hypno Thoughts Live convention and just overall, he’s been a guy who I’ve followed and really been impressed with along the way. It’s a familiar phrase that, uh, the word that’s spelled N I C H E. Is it pronounced niche or is it pronounced niche? And really the preference is the word niche because it rhymes with rich.

And what you’re gonna listen to inside of this conversation with Ken is some of the history as to how he has really positioned himself. As an expert, as someone who primarily helps clients to stop smoking. And yes, of course Ken does work with other things and he trains hypnosis as well. Yet in many ways, you’re gonna listen to and hear his story that the stop smoking protocol was his entry point.

Into hypnosis and many ways nowadays, it’s the one thing he is best known for. What’s really interesting about this is that the, the passion that I, I’ll share that I’ve had when it comes to training hypnosis is that not every student in the room is coming in with the same exact goals. So here’s the person who perhaps maybe was a, a client at some point, and they’re looking to.

Learn these skills and maybe start to actually step into that role of being the actual professional hypnosis practitioner. And then very often as well, there are people who jump into the classes. Kind of similar to the story you’re gonna hear Ken talk about here, that he knew that there was something else going on in inside of the process.

And he was looking to unpack whatever hypnotic tendencies were inside of the hypnotic process, and to use that to model into other change tactics he was previously making use of. And yet, as it seems as you’ll hear the story goes. The hypnosis was something that latched on and just hasn’t let go of ever since then.

So you’re gonna hear about his upcoming trainings. You’re gonna learn what it’s like to be inside of his office and take note of the mindset that as soon as the client is in the door, calibrating to the individual, really getting into the physicality, the body of the change, and really giving the client the experience that something has happened.

And by doing so, that provides an even greater outstanding result. So with that, let’s jump right in. This is session number 102, Ken gso on Genuine Hypnosis.

So just, uh, kind of the origin story of things. What was it that first got you involved with hypnosis? Well, I’d been doing change work with people since 1989. and, um, whether it be in a, you know, weekend workshop format or one on one. And a colleague of mine came across this hypnotic process that was supposed to be absolutely amazing at helping people stop smoking.

And the claims we were making were pretty outrageous. And so I was thinking, what, what kind of junk science is that? Um, and we actually researched it a little bit and we found out it. You know, actually it was really good program. So nine of us went down and got certified in this hypnotic process, um, down in um, LA and I wasn’t particularly interested in, in becoming a hypnotist at that time.

And I wasn’t particularly interested in working with smokers. I just wanted to see what it was about this process that caused it to be so successful to see if I could extract it and apply it to other things. Cause that’s kind of my. As I would kind of parachute into a disaster and then kind of change it all up and make it, make it hum.

And um, two days after I took this smoking cessation course, I was down in Cabo for a wedding, and uh, I was explaining to this woman, you know, she was asking, What are you doing? I said, Oh, I’m just gonna go over my notes. I just took a course in smoking cessation. Well, the next day, Other woman runs up to me at the all inclusive, all you can eat Buffet and says, Hey, I hear you can help people stop smoking.

I wanna stop smoking so badly. My husband and I are from Perth and you know, we realize you’re on vacation. I’m sorry, but we pay you and da da da. I’m like, Okay, well, um, yes I can. And uh, it’s $300 each and I’ll see you tomorrow. And, and I’ve set it all up. Well, those two became non-smokers and every year on.

Uh, on my birthday and on their birthday, I get a note from them saying how grateful they are. I, I save their lives, and of course I redirect that back. I said, You’re the one doing it, not me, but I get this wonderful. Heartfelt message from them every year. And it’s been, That was 10 years ago. Wow. So that’s, that’s kind of what started me in the, in on this path.

I’d said, You know what, I’m gonna, My, my wife was pregnant with our first child and I said, You know what? I don’t wanna spend 14 hours a day in the technology sector in downtown San Francisco. I wanna, I wanna go back into business for myself. Being in charge of my own schedule again. And uh, that’s what I did.

And it took three months off after the baby was born. And then I opened the Bay Area non-smoking center, and that’s how I got into this. So to rewind that back, uh, you said you were doing change work before. . Mm-hmm. . What, what kind of work was that before? Well, um, I, uh, back in 1989, um, I, you know, just this was, uh, I was backpacking through Europe before the Berlin, Well, came down , and, uh, so that was you.

Okay, got it. That was me. Yeah. That was responsible. Partially for that. No. Um, I, uh, I was, uh, backpacking through Europe and I came back and I, and I got involved in a network marketing company and just kind of got in the business for myself. And back then I was taking every kind of success type workshop that I could find.

And what I would do is I’d take the course and I always believed the best way to learn something is to teach it. And so I would come back and whatever was relevant to my little organization that I was forming, I would come back and do my best to. Convey that. And at first I was horrible. I say, Okay, if you wanna be successful, uh, you gotta think positive.

And . and actually started becoming pretty, pretty good at, at, uh, teaching and training. And, um, then I, uh, I was invited to become, um, uh, part of a circle of 10 with a comp small company that was formed called, uh, it’s now called Mirrors Point. And, um, This was a really neat process. This is probably the juiciest most powerful work that I do still to this day, is um, it’s a one-on-one process over three, four sessions, over three months, and I help people to map out their lives in a way they’ve never seen before.

And then the understand how their whole system got wired up for whatever their major issue is. This is for people that are ready to take gigantic leap forward in their life. We map it all out, we get this nervous system and understand how it got wired. There’s some catch 20 twos, there’s some blind spots in there.

And then there’s a process where we actually clear the problem from the nervous system on a cellular level. So it’s not like they find a better way to cope with their issue, their anger, their anxiety, their uh, addiction. The issue is no longer in the nervous system to be coped with. It’s gone. It’s like clearing the viruses from a computer.

What happens is the whole system reboots the body will often, often transform as well. Um, the, uh, people that have as, uh, rashes, allergies, um, uh, acne, um, Uh, migraine headaches, well, often these things will completely disappear. Once the energetic emotional issue is cleared from the mind and the body, the body transforms.

So people, uh, people, their energy goes way up. They feel like they have effortless effort. Their relationships are more authentic. So not only did the. Do they get the change for the issue, particular issue they came for, but their whole rest of their life will tend to transform at the same time. So I’ve been uh, doing that work since 2004 and I still continue to do that work today.

Yeah. Yeah. So then as you went through that stop smoking training, if it’s something that you can kind of define down to a few specific terms, although I’m sure it’s a much bigger perspective, what would you say it was about that program? You know, obviously not getting into the specifics of the program, but what would you say it was that was making it so effective that you were able to decipher?

Well, you know what, what I discovered in taking the course was, so the course was good, you know, but it was mostly marketing, and the marketing was horrible. . And, and the, the, the part that worked was they, they told people, Okay, read this script. Mm-hmm. . And there was a lot of genius built into that script, but it was by no means.

Um, the be all and end all, uh, and the, and that company went out of business six months after I graduated from their program. So what, I just got started helping people stop smoking. And, uh, so what, what worked about it to answer your question, was I think there was some real genius pieces to that script.

Now, my program today hardly resembles. What I learned back then, um, you know, since then, I, you know, I took, I, I didn’t have any experience in hypnosis, but I had some in NLP and, you know, my own, you know, understanding of how the mind works. And I say, You know what? This, this languaging could be shifted here.

And this is not kind of, this is framed negatively. We could reframe that more positively. We could have some more impact over here. And I started transforming the scripting and then, Said to myself, you know, I wanna bring in something. Something that was common was, uh, I’d get these emails after my clients would leave and they’d start off with Ken, I was so pissed off at you.

I was like, Oh, great. This is gonna be about . Um, I. I, I left your office and I didn’t think I was hypnotized and my arm wasn’t really heavy, even though it didn’t lift. Mm-hmm. , Uh, and I was just about to tell my wife how I got ripped off for $600 and I realized I forgot to smoke all the way home. Nice. That was weird.

And then, then they said, Well, let’s see what happens next morning. He got up, grabbed his coffee, ran outta the house, and realized he forgot to smoke with his coffee and forgot to smoke on his way to the office. So it’s like, okay, I guess I was hypnotized. It did work, but I would get these emails from time to time.

And what was common in each of them was, , they didn’t know whether or not anything happened actually in my office. Yeah. And secondly, they were looking for out there to prove to them that something happened inside here, inside themselves. And I thought, you know what? I need to change this up. And I wanna put, create a process where people will have a visceral experience in the room that something has.

and that’s where I created the neurological process. That this finally after, you know, after developing this over many years and teaching and training it for the last five years, I finally named it, I call it the GSO protocol. I’ve been really resistant to naming it. I’ve had other people tell me I should name it, and I’ve been really resistant by finally bit the bullet and, and named it.

Um, and my clients. It’s a, it’s a combination of, of, uh, several, the tapping modalities, the tft, eft, Kinesiology Energy Psychology, Psych K, and what I’ve done is I believe, for the purpose, What I, how I want to use it is taken the very best of each of these modalities and then put a scientific model over top to make the change very quick, precise, and permanent.

So this is not about making a, creating a state change. This is not about tapping out a headache or feeling some anxiety coming on and tapping that out. And, and there’s great value in that. I’m not putting that down at all. But for, for the purpose of this, this is about creating a permanent change in the nervous system.

So each of my clients, Actually go through a process where when they come in to see me, the first thing I, I greet them and we, in a way that creates powerful impact. They know that something amazing’s gonna happen even if they’ve been to see a hypnotist before they, within that first five minutes I’ve got.

Rapport with them. I’ve got, uh, compliance with them. They, they, I’m doing things with their body that they can’t explain or understand and, and it’s like, Whoa, what’s going on here? Like, right off the bat, they know that something really different is going to happen. And they have huge, uh, expectations cuz they’re, you know, you know smokers when they come into the office, they’re all very skeptical and nervous and anxious cuz they’ve tried and failed so many times.

And all of that evaporates within the first couple of minutes. And they’re in. They’re all in. So the first part of the process is creating that powerful, powerful impact right off the bat. And then I go through, , I pre-talk with them, and then before they sit in the chair for the hypnosis, I work with them to clear the cravings from their body, from their nervous system.

And I find that the, the more that I’ve been working with people with hypnosis, the more I actually, I’m working with their body. I mean, I’ll ask them a question and I’m listening to their answer, but I’m really looking at their body and for their body to give the more complete, direct answer to what I’m.

And I can tell by their posture, by if I’m seeing symmetry or asymmetry, um, if I’m seeing congruence or incongruence in, in, in the body compared to what they’re saying, I’m looking to the body. . Anyway, we clear this craving, the cravings from the nervous system. And every one of my clients just say the craving’s gone.

Uh, after the pre-talk, some of them will ask if they can duck out for a quick cigarette before we do the hypnosis. And I used to say, they say, Okay, sure, be quick now. I say, Hell no. Get in here. We’re gonna clear this right now in 10 minutes and it’s gone. I said, So do you feel like cigarette now? And they say, Oh my God, no, it’s gone.

I said, I. And, and then, and then we do the hypnosis. But every one of my clients, we’re starting the hypnosis with the understanding and the knowledge and the, the belief that the cr, the cravings are already gone. So just imagine having every one of your hypnosis sessions begin with the client knowing and believing that the problem they came in for has already been cleared.

What happens? Causes the hypnosis to work better. They’re not worried about whether they’re gonna get hypnotized or not, whether it’ll work for them and not, you know, it works for other people, but not for them, and they just relax into the session and it causes the hypnosis to work even better. So I find that these two processes dovetail with hypnosis, as I believe, as well as NLP and hypnosis.

They just work very, very well together. Well, what’s that mindset of bringing everything to the table and again, to to use strategies? That are, let’s phrase it this way, strategies that are hypnotic in nature as opposed to being purely hypnosis, but to begin the process even before the moment of eye clo eyes being closed.

Yeah. We’ve already got this in motion. We already have that change taking place. . Exactly, Exactly. And what I, what was really striking me there was, um, getting those changes in the body that you look at and not to continue the constant dialogue of scripts or bad scripts, or don’t use them, but it’s instead this place of so much of the written word.

Is perhaps appealing to logic, it’s perhaps appealing to the rationale of the client, yet clearly their inside of that issue. Because here’s a feeling here is something physically that’s happening and to give them the visceral experience in the office, you’re right. That allows them to leave the process knowing something’s already happened.

Right, Right. And And I have a different take on scripts. Yeah, I know scripts are getting really bad rap these days. . Well, everything that I do is scripted. Mm-hmm. for my smoking. It’s not for other processes that I, that I help people with, but it’s, I guess it’s because, perhaps it’s because I started off helping people stop smoking and I was taught with a script and that’s all I did for five years.

Was help people go walk this type right type rope with 40 hours a week with full week of clients. And all I did was smoking and someone said, Well, can you help me stop nail biting? I say, I know I don’t know how to do that. Well, can you just hypnotize me? I don’t know how to do that. I know how to read this script and make you stop smoking.

That’s all I did, and I’d never met another hypnotist. Yeah. So that was kind of my curse and my, um, my um, wonderful opportunity at the same time because in those five years I. Began to understand every nuance of, of smoking cessation that could possibly come up. I mean, I, I literally saw it all. I, I, I’ve helped 5,000 people now stop smoking and I’ve been a hundred percent referral for, for seven years.

So once people, once I got referral people come in, Well, can you help me with weight loss? Absolutely. Can you help me with anxiety? Absolutely. I, I, I’ve helped people with triple pill mania with a hair pulling, um, all sorts of things. . Um, but it’s all been a hundred percent referral, but I made my reputation becoming the very best at one thing.

And, and then that’s that, you know, that’s how it kind of built from there. Yeah. Yeah. So at what point was it that you started to then add other services in? Um, what really Well, it was, I decided I wanted to learn some techniques for weight loss. . And so I went out and I bought hypnotic lap band.com.

Mm-hmm. and hypno gastric.com. I own both of those, and I, and I started, uh, just started, uh, helping people, uh, with a weight release. And, and what I thought it was kind of funny because I, I was quite heavy at the time as well. Um, I got quite indulgent when my wife was pregnant with, uh, with our, our daughter Sarah.

And, uh, I gain. Quite a bit of weight and uh, uh, along with her and, and I was very sedentary in my, in my life back then. And so I had all this weight to lose myself and thought, so I thought, well, I need to lose the weight first and then I can start offering the service. Cause I need to walk the walk. And my client said, We don’t wanna wait for you, we wanna do it with you.

I thought, wow. Interesting that, that was a shock to me. Why would you, why would you pay money to lose weight with a, like from someone who’s fat? And, and, uh, but what I understood was I just need to be congruent. If, if I’m, if I’m helping people stop smoking and I’m going out having a smoke break, that’s in congruent.

But if I’m losing, if I’m releasing my excess weight, And my clients are doing it with me. That’s completely congruent. So I don’t need to be there. I don’t need to be at the destination. But my life was about me releasing this weight, and so I lost 60 pounds and a lot of clients did it with me, which was awesome.

Which is awesome because again, it’s that place of you’re there along that journey with them. And it’s, I think I’ve had, uh, I had Tom Ole on this program a while ago, and it’s from him. I learned the phrase, Well, it’s not that it worked or it didn’t work. No, it’s working on me. Right now? Mm-hmm. . Yeah, That we don’t have to be that flawless individual.

We can still be in process with something and getting that change in motion ourselves. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. So what, You know, what I teach with, with all, with all the students that I, that I teach in the smoking cessation or, or the GSO protocol, which is the neurological protocol or whatever it is I’m teaching.

Um, I teach We Deserve as Hypnotists to Thrive. Because when I came into this industry, you know, I left a, you know, I left a very good income in the private sector, in, uh, in the technology sector, uh, private sector. Like I took a government job, Sorry, my technology sector , and, but I mean, I was, I was out there doing it.

And if I was gonna leave that career, I wasn’t to take on a hobby of being a hypnotist. I needed to make money at this. And so I treat my. Hypnosis as it practices a business and people. We do amazing work with people. We are changing people’s lives, improving the quality of people’s lives. And in the case of smoking cessation, we’re sa helping to save lives and we deserve to thrive as hypnotist.

So, , I, you know, I, I teach my students, if, if you’re holding on that, you’re worth whatever dollars per hour, you know, let it go. It’s about getting that result. And if you can be the very best in your community at something, whatever that something is, people will be the path to your door and you should be charging for it.

It’s the most. Compassionate thing to do for your clients as well, because when you are successful and you’re making money, they’re going to value what you have more, They’re going to be, you’re gonna have opportunity to innovate and to thrive and make sure the saw is sharp and so to speak. So it’s really the most compassionate thing in the world to do is to, is for you to be thriving in what you’re doing and to charging for what you do.

And the side benefit of that becomes now that you’re in that session, you’re on that initial phone call. And you’re able to better serve that client as the full attention is completely going to the, to the wellbeing of that individual rather than, Oh, the phone rang. I really need this one to close. I really need this one to come in.

I, if it’s not a match, just to let that one go or to give them the strategies to then come back when they are ready. That’s right. That’s right. And at this point, you know, I’ve reversed my work week, so I only see clients two days a week. Uh, but I’m charging $600 per client. And, and I don’t sell to anybody.

They book themselves in online. They pay usually online before they come in. And the first time I speak to. Well, I’ll, sometimes I’ll call and introduce myself just to say hi after they booked their appointment, but the first time we’re meeting is right there in the office and they’re excited. And, you know, most of them have been either referred by a doctor, dentist, plastic surgeon, or usually by a client or, you know, they’ll, they’ll find me organically through Google or Yelp just by the natural traffic that flows there.

But, um, I haven’t spent a. To advertise, and I don’t try to sell anybody. If they call to ask questions, I’ll happily explain. So yeah, there’s not that sense of I really need to get this next client through the door. Um, it just, it’s just happening on its own. And so, um, when they come to see me, it’s, it’s because it’s what the client wants.

So a question for you. Okay. Because this, this category of working with stop smoking clients, there, there are some who would boast that they don’t take everybody. Is there, is there a weeding out process at all inside of what you do? I used to be much more focused on making sure that they, uh, are really motivated, um, that, that, uh, they, this is something you really want for themselves.

And, and, you know, most ous would say the client really needs to want it in order for it to happen. And over the years I’ve find that I’ve, that’s shifted in my approach quite a bit. I think starting off by the fact that I charge so much. I think that weeds out a lot of people. then and there. If someone, someone’s saying, someone finds a group on for $50 to quit, quit smoking.

It’s like, Well, what the hell? They’ll give it a try , right? But if someone’s paying $600 to come in and see me, they, they, they for the most part pretty much know they want to be there. So that weeds a lot of those people out. And again, I think my success rate is higher because I charge more. I mean, because it will beat out the people that are just kicked tire kicking.

But the other thing is because. Of the neurological process that I put in up front, the cravings are cleared from the nervous system before they sit in the chair for the hypnosis. So that commitment level becomes less important than it did to me before. What is most important to me now is it’s their decision to be there.

So some people will, will be concerned about this and they’ll ask me the question, you know, am I in the right mindset? and I’ll say, Don’t worry about that. Relax. Every person that comes to see me is conflicted. Part of your mind wants to smoke, and part of your mind doesn’t wanna smoke. That’s normal.

That’s natural. Otherwise, you would’ve solved this for yourself a long time ago without my help. So you’re conflicted. That’s normal. So, So give yourself a break. But what’s important is, is it your choice to be here? Or did someone twist your. And they said, No, no, I decided to be here. I said, Great. That’s all that matters.

This is gonna work perfectly. And of course, and then it does. Well, it’s where that question that someone asked about, uh, the motivation scale of one to 10, where would you rate it? For, For the most part, if I ever were to ask that question in the past, and I, I don’t do a heavy weeding out as other people would.

Uh, it’s a place where they’re calling for a reason, and in most cases when I’d hear a lower. Sort of range of motivation and most often be that it, it’s as a result of the being kicked around by this habit for so many years, you know that they don’t want to be in that try and fail pattern where for a while it’s as if they just put up the white flag and went, Well, I’m just gonna smoke now.

So it, it’s that not even a resistance to the process, but this resistance to the failure once again, that once you get past that, now we’ve actually got something to work on. Well, exactly, because they have a whole lifetime of history that will, that is as evidence to prove to them that they are not committed to the change because they keep on giving up on themselves.

Right? They keep on failing. They keep on, And so when you ask someone to, to rate the problem from one to 10, well now they’re even the question. Now they’re in their imagination. Formatting in their mind all the re ways that this might not work. And, and using that, they could be using that as part of their answer.

Well, how committed am I based on past history? I’ve failed every time. So I’d say I’m gonna give myself a low score because if I were truly committed, I could a quick cold Turkey like my dad did. Yeah. But I ain’t my dad. And you know, there’s a lot of those men that fought in the war, World War ii, and they, and you know what, And they, they just quit cold Turkey because they didn’t know another way to do it.

Yeah, yeah. No, that brings about, I don’t know if I told you this story, uh, before or even shared it here, um, and I’m blanking on his name. There’s a hypnotist who used to be in the local area that was, uh, he passed away a few years ago and, uh, he was in his eighties and his statement was, it used to be so much easier to help people to quit smoking.

As he put it, he goes, I was helping people quit smoking before it was. Thing to quit smoking. And as he phrased it, he goes, You flood the market with strategies that just didn’t work as well. And it just built the belief system that it has to be hard to make that change. Right? Yeah. And every method on the planet that treats smoking as an addiction has less than than 20% success rate.

Mm-hmm. and explain to the clients, like in in, in my office, I show them seven or eight examples of how nicotine is not addictive. That this is a powerfully ingrained. And. . And, uh, since we’re addressing this in the mind where the cravings, the behaviors, and the habits are stored, this is gonna be easy. So, so many of my clients, they’d say, Ken, I quit heroin.

Yeah, I’ve been clean and sober from alcohol for 25 years, but I can’t stop smoking. And there goes, the, the wives tale that smoking is harder to quit in the heroin. Well, that’s completely bogus. It’s so much easier to quit than heroin. There’s no. Heart, palpitation, shake, sweats, convulsions, vomiting, diarrhea, hallucinations,

You know, when was the last time you saw someone go through any of that and they tried to quit smoking? What happens? They get grumpy, they get irritable, they have cravings. Sometimes they get anxious. Notice. All of those are in the mind. None of those are physical withdrawal symptoms, So it’s, that’s a bogus story.

They just, they just have been approaching it the wrong way. They’ve just been walking east looking for a sunset. , once we shift the beha, the, uh, the, the modality of change. Then actually becomes quite easy. So then have you worked with so many people with quitting smoking? Are there specific lessons that have come from that that you now fold into all of your process with all of your clients, even outside of this category?

Right. Um, uh, I don’t know that I have any absolutes. Well, I would say, yeah, there’s a couple of things. Um, My approach now is so much different than it was seven, eight years ago. Mm-hmm. , and it is so much more real, authentic, and personal. So, you know, some people will see in my marketing, I really try to push the, the, the message with hypnotist.

That we deserve to thrive. So it’s like, hey, you could be making $600 per hour or per session, you deserve to thrive. So I’ve been pushing the money part out, but in order to be successful, you need to be really making a powerful connection with people. So, um, and I realized I, at first I wasn’t teaching that because it was just something I was doing.

Naturally that I, it never occurred to me to teach and my students kept coming back to me saying, Well Ken, yeah, but you are so this, or you’re so that, you know, fill in the blank. They would add some compliment, but there I was saying, I was really resistant to that. It’s like, no, no, no. I just have a few years head start on you.

It’s really not about me, it’s about the process. And I realized there was something, and it’s about the making this authentic connection with. and like you think of like a, like a grandfather, you know, like smiling at their grandchild. Like just some, some kind of unconditional acceptance with that person.

So I’m not judging the person for being a smoker, because that would be ridiculous. They’re, they’re not actually a smoker, that’s the problem. But they’re not going to leave with why would identify them with that issue. Mm-hmm. and so many of my clients, when I started collecting testimonial videos two years after I began, would make this statement to me, you.

Can, you know, I, and, and I never felt judged by Ken. Well, it never occurred to me to judge them, but it never, also, I was blown away at how important that was to them. They all mentioned it, and that surprised me that, that they’ve been, they’ve been judging themselves so much. They didn’t, And then often other people who try to help them, they were judging them as a smoker.

Like, Oh, don’t you know, that’s a disgusting, horrible habit. You should really give it up. You know, I’m just, I don’t care. People smoke. I just wanna help people that wanna be helped. by making that connection authentically and starting from there, what happens is that critical faculty actually begins to melt away when the client realizes they’re in a safe place and they’re not being judged and they’re actually being accepted and they’re actually being helped and handheld.

So since they’re the, the things that I would take. Carry over to all my other sessions is that client is often walking in nervous, skeptical, um, anxious. Um, they’re, they’re, they’ve got a history of, of failing whatever they’ve come to see you for. In the case of a smoker, you know, hypnosis is like a last resort.

They’re not particularly, New ag or alternative health conscious. Uh, so when they come in to see me, this is a big deal. And by connecting with them so authentically and taking them by the hand and having them borrow from your confidence. , that is huge. So what my clients get from me is 100% confidence.

And that’s difficult to do for sometimes for a new hypnotist because like, who am I to hold that level of confidence that they’re gonna change? I don’t know if they’re gonna change or not, cuz they’re a doctor. Certainly doesn’t have that level of confidence, you know? Well this has a 30% chance of succeeding.

You know, you’ll probably be dead in 30 days or 90 days, you know? They, they, they’re so measured in their enthusiasm because they don’t wanna over promise. Well, with the hypnosis, it’s really important that you are holding that confidence, cuz if you are a new hypnotist and you are checking in with your clients to see if what you’re doing is working or not, you’re putting the emphasis and the confidence in the completely in the wrong place who’s hypnotizing?

Are they hypnotizing you, that you, whether your process works or not, are you hypnotizing them that you can, that they can absolutely transform their own lives? And I put, and it is them transforming their own lives. I don’t want them giving me the credit for the change because the truth of the matter is I’m just the coach and they’re the athlete.

I’m helping them to transform and they deserve the confidence and the credit for the change. Because I don’t want them changing their dependent on cigarettes to the dependency on me, because that’s, first of all, it’s bogus. They’re the one doing it. I’m only helping. So that’s the first thing is having that level of, uh, acceptance and then that level of confidence.

Uh, that you instill under your client. You take them by the hand and you walk them over this little footbridge to your side of the world where they can feel confident that the change has happened and that the change will stick. 80% of my clients that come to see me for smoking cessation of all things are in tears during their session.

Is, it’s a beautiful, wonderful, authentic moment when their nervous system realizes that the gig is up, that this program that’s been running for 40 years, 50 years for some of them is gone. And the whole, they, they, they start crying and they start apologizing and say, You please, 80% of my clients are doing the same thing as you.

And they go, really, Even the big strong guys. What you, what’s going on with you is real. Thank you for being so genuine and authentic here in my office. What a gift to me, like this is what I get to do for a living is hang out with you while you’re being so real. Um, it’s a really a beautiful thing. . I love that.

I love that. What I especially love is the, the lack of judgment that comes into it. I’d share that there’s a couple of anecdotes over the years of clients who have come to me for other things, and clearly as they walked in the door, you could just smell on them. Okay, this person’s a smoker, yet here’s the police officer who’s nervous when he is having to get up on the stand and testify for something.

Here’s this person who’s got. Test anxiety for some upcoming, uh, some educational event, and clearly they’re seeing me for something else, but the times over the years that someone has made the statement, you never once offered me the stop smoking program, and my honest response was you didn’t ask about it.

Mm. So it’s not this, it, it goes back to the very first time I was involved in like a networking, uh, marketing group. And the fund was, there was this, uh, lawyer in the group who looked at my business card, which kind of read like a menu at the time and a diner cuz it listed everything. And he goes, You know what’s great about this card?

I know somebody for every one of these services, you know what’s difficult about this? He goes, If I told them they’d smack. Uh, where, where the, in your face style of selling the process really doesn’t need to apply. That just being genuine, just being in the experience, just being honest with the client and dealing with what emerges inside of that process and feeding back what’s appropriate to help them make the change for themselves.

I love. Well, and that’s my impression of you always is well, very intelligent and very authentic and genuine. That’s my impression of you always. And the bro continues. So then at what point , at what point in the journey did you decide to start training? And I love what you said earlier, I took a note of this, of to really know how to do what you’ve gotta a teacher.

Well, for the smoking cessation I was really, Um, quite protective of that process for the first five years. Um, especially when I started innovating and creating this, this neurological piece. Um, I wanted to guard it, you know, this was my little goal of mine and I didn’t want anybody knowing about it. And then one day it just has hit me.

It’s like, what a selfish way to hold this. Um, I need to share this with other people and get this out into the world so more people can be helped. Um, And you know what? I can make some good money, um, training it as well. Now to this day, my, the vast majority of my income comes from seeing clients. I am, I, I love training and I’ve got a history of being a trainer and a consultant and coach, uh, you know, in my previous life.

So I really, I really enjoy teaching, but. You know, I’m in the trenches with the clients every day and I love it. And I don’t think that’ll ever change. So I wouldn’t give that up to become a trainer because I think once I become a trainer, I can innovate in ways to train, but I’m not gonna be innovating in the process to create change because that happens in the room with the client.

So, um, so what happened was, um, I, after being in complete isolation, never meeting another heist for the first four and a half years of my, of my career, I said, You know what, I should go to the one of these conferences. And I was a member of the International Hypnosis Federation, the ihs. So I called up Shelly Stockwell and I said, Hey, I want to come and meet some other hypnotists and come to this organization I’m a part of.

Um, and you know what? I should probably take a hypnosis class as well. And so I, she signed me up for a hypnosis class and. Then I, you know, so I started be, you know, coming into this world and then I developed the neurological process and, um, and I taught it at the IHF conference the following year. Like I, I, I gave an exposure to it, I demonstrated it, and all of a sudden this flurry of activity and interest was created.

And then outta that, Shelly Stockwell came up and took one of my other classes, and then she asked me to become a member of the Board of Advisors to the International Hypnosis Federation, which I thought was just unreal considering I just was so fresh into this industry to be, to be asked. Uh, so I really, uh, was honored to be asked.

And then the following year I opened the North American Academy of Hypnosis, and I began training. And my first class was, were 80%. Former smokers of mine that wanted to learn what I did and how to do. and so, so that these were just people with no hypnosis background. So I was teaching, I was certifying ’em as hypnotist and then as the smoking cessation specialists.

And um, and then from there it’s grown. So, you know, the last class I just taught, uh, people flew in from, uh, Anchorage, Alaska, from Vancouver, from Southern California, from Florida, from Toronto, from Ohio. One person flew in. Kuwait to take the class. So there were 17 students in the room and these were hypnotists from all over the world, like, you know, successful practicing hypnotists.

And what was great was I, you know, I charged $3,600 for the class, which is your first six clients, and some of them had their six smokers waiting for them. Already with appointments and, and those appointments paid. So they got paid before I got paid. Nice. Um, and then they’ve gone, obviously taken this out into the world and, and they’re, they’re helping smokers and, you know, all these other parts of the world now.

So, um, that’s, that’s kind of the story of how the North American Academy of Hypnosis got created. Yeah. I love the aspect of it though, that it’s the theme that’s popped up here several times where. We didn’t really have the model to copy, so we just kind of had to figure it out for ourselves. Mm-hmm. that rather than trying to emulate rather than trying to to, to mimic something else.

It just became, well if I’m gonna do it, this makes sense. Well this is working and really getting that ongoing feedback from the client. Cause I’m sure as you went from the initial scripts, from the program that you got trained in to now what you do, I, I’m sure what drove that was the experience with the clients as opposed to, I, I’d refer to the, uh, the hypnotist in a dark room typing on a keyboard by themselves going, I’m gonna sell this thing.

Uh, but instead the, the experience of getting that ongoing feedback that I’m sure along the way, what you were teaching at the beginning is different from what you’re teaching now. It is, it, it’s hardly recognizable from the original, um, scripting, so to speak, that I got. And then the process itself is completely different than what it was.

And the, to circle back on the piece on scripting that I think is really important. Um, so I believe in scripts mm-hmm. , however, my belief in scripts, and when you think of a, you know, an actor, we’ve got a Hollywood movie star that gets paid 20 million a. , they’re reading from a script. Yes. You know, it’s a, it’s scripted.

The line. The words are carefully chosen. But here’s the, here’s the caveat, here’s the big piece. That actor is not reading from that script, right? That actor knows his script or her script. And that’s the difference because when, because what I do is scripted, but I’ve got it down verbatim. And what that allows is because I’m not trying to think, Well, first of all, I’m not reading it from a page, so I’m not distracted, Right.

I’m not looking in the book and missing the client twitching over here. or some, some important, some important, uh, cue that they would. So, but the same is even when I’m talking to them in the greeting and in the, in the pre-talk, everything that I, I’m gonna say, I. I, I know down. And so that, what that does is it frees me to be in, in the room with that client being completely authentic with them, noticing every little nuance of how they’re reacting and how they’re behaving to the things that I’m saying.

It allows me to completely be there with the client rather than in, in my head. Um, Thinking of what I’m gonna say next. So the scripting is, is can be great, but you, you need to know that script. You need to, you need to, you need to get that down in your unconscious mind. So now it becomes a conversation of my unconscious mind.

With their unconscious mind. I’m not in my conscious mind trying to make change with them unconscious. and I think that level of connection, I actually putting myself into a trance first and then having the client follow me into trance is another key component to being successful with the clients.

There’s a story that I’ve shared here before that was, uh, seeing a comedian do crowd work. And you could tell, and as somebody who’s a bit of a comedy junkie myself, and listens to a ton of it, what they’d refer to as the hump, that they’re, they’re then working a crowd and they’re looking out in the room and going, Hey, what do you do for a living?

And this one responds that they’re a lawyer, and suddenly the comedian looks like the most genius of improvisational comedians. Yet, you don’t realize that’s the same six minutes he would do every time he gets a lawyer. Yet it’s that place to kind of dip into, and I hesitate to use the word autopilot, but to dip into something that’s reliable while meanwhile they’re calling their next shot in terms of where the routine is about to go, and there’s the place where you’re.

Given the flexibility yet, it’s how, you know, as someone who worked in the theater world for many years, uh, the management side, that the actor could bring so much life to that script that you hit the nail in the head there, that it’s not about, the script is bad, it’s the ignoring your client to be staring at a sheet of paper.

Is what we’ve gotta step away from. Yeah. That these are our training wheels. And it’s the most efficient way I’ve found for the student to really learn something new. Yet it’s that ability then step away from it. And to recognize, I I, I’d reference certain induction methods. I tell my classes, I don’t tell you to memorize this though.

Understand this is the exact way that I now say it every single time because it works. , right? Yeah. And it works for you because it was probably written by you. On a piece of paper, but written by you in the process of having dialogue. And it’s just this, what you’ve become. It’s the routine that you’ve created for yourself and it’s naturally you.

And so what I’ll teach my students is, you know, and I’ll, I’ll show them, I’ll show them inductions that ha, that are completely nonverbal. And I say it’s not about the words, it’s much more about that authentic connection. So are these, are these, do these words feel authentic to you or can you know, as you learn them, if you’re gonna change them, by all means make them yours, but be on purpose about how you change them to make them yours.

Don’t just don’t bother to learn them and make stuff up. That’s, that’s may or may not be delivering the, the key, uh, components of each particular part of the process. So for my process, every, everything that I deliver is purposeful and every step builds on the previous step, and by the end of the process.

There’s nothing to do, but become free of the problem you came there to resolve. It’s, it’s virtu. I, I’d be, you’d be hard pressed to not do it. , , even if someone was, was resisting. It’s just, it’s, you know, um, you know, if you, if you’ve ever sat through a timeshare presentation, you see it just, they make such a compelling argument that you’d be ridiculous to say no unless you actually know Math

Outstanding. So what do you have coming up? Well, um, I’ve got, uh, at hypno thoughts, uh, I’m going to be teaching the GSO protocol, so Ra, so I just wanted to change it up this year. The, the, uh, last year I taught, last two years I taught the smoking cessation and I believe it was the most, um, profitable course ever.

Offered in the history of, uh, of hypno thoughts. So, so it was going great. Uh, but, uh, in the spirit of changing things up, I wanted to do something different this year. And so I’ve unpacked the neuro, the neurological process, the GSO protocol from the smoking cessation, because you can, I use this with my weight release clients.

I use it for all kinds of things. It’s a, it’s a 10, it’s a greeting. And then after the pre-talk, it’s a 10 minute process to clear the issue of the problem from the nervous system on a cellular level. And it, so it’s powerful, it’s impactful, it’s really unique and it creates such a, an impression on the client.

It, it actually causes them to be enthusiastic refers. So that’s the, the goodo protocol and it’s quite inexpensive compared. It’s the probably the key piece that I teach as part of the smoking cessation for 3,600. Um, and it’s, I think the early bird is like 400 and something dollars. Uh, it’s a post-conference class and I think it’s right up against Jason Lynette’s clerk.

So if you’re, you know, . So at this point we will find a way to arm wrestle via Skype. Okay, good. Your class has gotta be full by now. Uh, we’ve got a, It’s amazing, Mark. Yeah. We’ve got a great group already together and, uh, looking forward to it. Uh, it’s the nice thing about these events where there’s so many good options that it should be difficult, uh, to make that choice.

Oh, I know. Yeah, it should be. I don’t think you can make a bad choice this, uh, this year. There’s so many wonderful, uh, presenters. So we got that. And then, uh, there’s also a pre-course that I’m teaching with Martin Peterson and we’ve become very good friends. This is gonna be really fun. It’s called, uh, uh, Excellence in Hypnosis and.

You know, Martin has a very different approach than I do. And so we’re gonna be up there each sharing our unique approaches on things. There’s a lot of, we agree on, there’s things we disagree on too, and we’re gonna kind of hammer it out up, up there. And so you’re gonna get, you’re gonna see us both, um, you know, kind of arm wrestling, we each other on the different approaches.

And so, um, uh, that’s, that’s gonna be really fun and uh, really wonderful. And if we have a bundle package so you can do both together, I think for another extra 2 95 or something that you can do both. So we’ve got that. And then in November I’m gonna be teaching again the, uh, smoking cessation program. Now when I teach the smoking cessation program, , it’s the marketing, the practice management.

Um, it’s the whole business in a box. So I, so I have, you get everything that I have, the music that I use, the technology that I use, um, so that you can duplicate my results and have a 100% referral practice earning 5 95 per session or more. The people up in Canada, uh, are, are charging a thousand dollars per session because the cigarettes cost twice as much.

So, you know, so it’s, it’s. Uh, this is about really, uh, transforming your practice and, and making money. Um, so I teach the marketing all of it. And when I teach marketing, it’s not that I’m teaching necessarily the latest techniques in marketing that are out there. Um, which I’m, I’m sure if you wanna learn that type of marketing, Jason Lynette would be a much better course to go to because he’s got that stuff.

You, you have got that stuff down. What I’m teaching. How to market so that you don’t have to spend a cent on marketing. Right. You know? So how to build a 100% referral practice that just starts humming and running automatically because frankly, I haven’t done any marketing in years. I just show up because I’m full, because my clients keep on coming and it’s free money.

Yes. My wife has wanted me to leave the Bay Area. Um, five years ago, and I can’t because, um, I’ve got, you know, uh, three, two to $3,000 a day in the Bay Area when I show up. And, and so, so I’m there every week because I kinda walk away from that five, $6,000 a week, uh, just for showing up for two days. It’s free money that I didn’t have to do anything for except the p the friends and family.

My clients keep on bringing that. So I’m gonna show you how to do all that, uh, in November. So you can register now, uh, for that as. Outstanding. You know what’s great about that is again, where yes, we can delve into some of the more advanced strategies and some of the sexiest of technologies that are out there.

These days though, here’s a week that I’m looking at some of my clients coming in that are for quitting smoking, and I can actually. Play the game of tracking them back that six degrees of separation of, okay, that was a referral of this one, which was a referral of that one who just waited at the four month mark to leave his review on Yelp for me, which as soon as he did that, this one called In and scheduled.

So it’s, it’s the mindset that all of these strategies are effective. It’s just plugging it all in. And it really comes back to my favorite theme of all of this, which is just simply do good work and the business will. Yes. Yeah. If you got a 50% success rate, then you’re gonna be marketing forever, because it’s not, you’re not gonna get any momentum happening on your own.

But if you’re good at what you do, like, like, uh, Jason, Lynette, obviously it is , then, uh, you’re, you know, you’re gonna have that. Once you, once you get that success rate down, then the, the referrals will keep coming and coming and coming, and. There you go. And we’ll put links in the show notes for these upcoming, uh, classes that are coming up, both at Hypno Thoughts as well as the one in November though, uh, can work and people find you online.

These. You can find me at if you want interested in the smoking cessation, you can find me at non-smoking center.com, uh, or North american academy of hypnosis.com. Or you can just find [email protected]. That’s K E N G U Z Z O, and my phone number is +1 800-635-8150. Outstanding. Ken, it’s been awesome having you on here.

It’s been awesome to be on here. Thanks for having me, Jason. I really appreciate it. And uh, of course teaming up for the hyp no ball details to come on that. Oh yeah. It’s on team name to follow . Hey, there’s a good name we should call ourselves. Team name to follow, that would be great. There you go. Awesome.

Thanks again. Have a great. You too. Bye-bye. Jason Lynette here once again, and as always, thank you so much for interacting with this program and to learn more about how to really build your hypnosis business. It’s a blend between that word of mouth style of advertising, as well as using some of the latest strategies and information marketing.

And for that, I’d point you over to hypnotic business systems. Dot com. Inside of hypnotic business systems, you get access to my entire hypnosis business training library. So everything from how do I get testimonials from virtually every one of my clients, How do I influence? And ethically persuade them to send me referrals.

And then also how do I get found online? So it builds this wonderful network of a hypnosis business where the phone is constantly ringing and people are either coming in by way of referral by my marketing streams. And either way, I’m not dependent on just one specific stream of business. Get started the day.

You can start for as little as $47. Learn more at hypnotic business systems. Dot com. Thanks for listening to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast and work smart hypnosis.com.