Session #24: Dr. Jim Wand – Part 1

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Imagine building a more successful hypnosis business just in the next 10 days. To learn how, please visit work smart hypnosis.com and take the 10 day Hypnosis Business challenge. Yours free today. Welcome to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast with Jason Lynette, your professional resource for hypnosis training and outstanding business success.

Here’s your host, Jason Lynette. Here we go with session number 24 with Dr. Jim Wand. Actually, this is just part one of a two part series. Uh, we got to talking and just the content here is so great. I wanna split it up as two different sessions. One that’s coming out today, one that’s coming out next week, Thursday.

That’ll be session number 25. So this is part one of the series with Dr. Jim Wand. It’s a term that is often thrown around and I’m always one to shy away from using it too strongly, but definitely is a, definitely a legend in the stage hypnosis industry. When you look at the span of a career, someone who’s done as many programs, as many locations, as many venues, and also, I mean, I tell the story in this program how I first got into stage hypnosis was watching a stage hypnosis program, and that led to the career path of now doing the hypnotherapy side of things, trainings, products, and so on.

For the people out there like me who first got into this, there are, I’m sure, dozens, if not hundreds, others that at one point were sitting in that college auditorium watching someone like, uh, Jim Wa up there doing that program and especially someone who have kept it fresh for this many years. I don’t wanna hold back.

Let’s jump into this thing right now, a conversation stage, hypnosis legend, Dr. Jim Wand.

And we’re here today with Dr. Jim Juan, founder and Oor of Juan Enterprises. Uh, Dr. Juan has done over 9,000 shows, I’m sure, based on the bio I’m reading. That’s probably much more at this point as well, and a career that’s spanned more than 30 years. Jim, honored to have you here in the program today, and I’m honored to be with you.

Great. Great. Kind of uh, take us back in time for a moment cuz there’s a couple of things I’d love to chat with you about here today. Uh, kind of give us a little bit of your backstory. What, what was it that got you into hypnosis? What was it that brought you to pretty much the journey to where you are now?

What, what was it that got you started? Sure. Well, back in the day, I was a school counselor, school psychologist, and I had worked with hypnosis when I was a freshman in college to take off weight. I took off about 65 pounds of six months, a medical doctor. Was a friend of the family, uh, hypnotized me and worked.

I became interested in hypnosis at that point in time. I had to set back for a couple years until I got my other education out of the way and got into my full-time work. But then I went on and got my master’s in, in doctorate and in psychology. And then I ran a clinic, uh, for eight years that I did nothing but weight, smoking, anxiety, order disorders, et cetera.

And then in about, uh, 2000, well actually in about 1980. A friend today, my personally was uh, activities director of local college and he had asked me if I’d come in and do a show. And at that point in time I was totally against doing entertainment with hypnosis. I was going to clinical site and a lot of my professional colleagues were the same, but he had had a hyp in for seven or several years who was on a power trip and was not presenting it in a way that he felt was appropriate for the student.

And being that I had done a self hypnosis, someone right there for several years, cuz it was close to my hometown, I agreed to put together a demonstration. They had more of the entertainment factors and I got there that night and 800 students were there. And right away it came to me that many times students paid to be entertained before they paid to be educated.

So I kind of made the entertainment, uh, aspect of format to get their attention and then to educate them on the back end. And that’s how things started. I was at a point in time where there were very few, very few just out from college circuit, and I went within two years time, I was doing almost 200 college days a year, and it just turned into a full-time endeavor.

And since that time, I, I’ve kind of cut back somewhat, I still do 200 shows a year, but I do about, I just finished doing my fall college tour. I had about 70 colleges in the last, uh, 80 days, so I just finished doing my college tour. Now I’m into. I do casinos at this point and time of the year. Then I do my corporate holiday parties and then starting in the middle of January I go back doing my college circuit again for about three months.

But that’s also Intermixes, a number of other casino cruises and high school shows. And then of course you had the prom and project grad season last year we did about 128 of those. Um, and then in the summertime I tried to take the month of. And kinda regroup, but it doesn’t always work out that way. So I, I found that I have to actually turn the shows down so I can regroup, refocus on my fall schedule.

So that’s kind of where I’m at right at this point. That’s fantastic. That’s fantastic. So I love that journey and especially, you know, it’s, it’s interesting to see. , a lot of the people perhaps in the state, in, in the hypnotherapy side, and not everybody, it’s a small minority at this point, would kind of have that us versus that mindset for things with uh, stage hypnosis, stage entertainment, when really part of the history is that’s why hypnosis is still around.

Um, but let me ask you this just to get your opinions, cuz you bet on both. , what would you say, and I’ll ask it from both perspectives here, what would you say your opinion is of the benefit of, let’s say, stage hypnosis training, stage hypnosis experience for the hypnotherapist? I personally feel that it’s definitely an add additional tool in their toolbox, especially when you want to go out and give a demonstration, uh, to a local.

Because anytime you’re out there, anytime people see you in any capacity and they like what they see, then of course when they come to a point in their life where they wanna make a change and they need some assistance and they look at hypnosis as a, a viable, uh, way of doing it, they’re gonna look up you.

So the entertainment, again, gets you out there, get you in front of people in a kind of a light way. Hypnotherapy, you know, when you, you did a demonstration just in hip therapy and talked about it, it wasn’t quite the same as if you get up in front of a big. Have some fun, but then show them at the end how they can utilize this, uh, valuable commodities, so to speak, uh, to make personal changes in their life.

So I think any and every hypnotherapist should get some training, if not to utilize it, to understand it that way. Absolutely. It comes up to them and ask about that element. They can explain. My, my biggest takeaway over the years has been that when you look at the skills of the stage, hypnotist, We need to have the ability to get people to a workable level, to give a suggestion and have an immediate response to it, and to take that style of skill and bring that into our sessions.

Whether it’s creating a moment of phenomenon, whether it’s creating a moment of something physiologically happening, it just really gets the foot in the door even further and just makes that change process even more valuable, I found. Absolutely. Cause people in our society, they want something now. They want something instant.

They want. Gratification is gonna come about today or yesterday, rather than waiting a week or two weeks or three weeks. If, if you can show them something front, then they’re gonna be more apt to hang on with you and to move. Through the proper steps to reach their goal, but you have to show them something up front to get them to that point.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And let’s flip at the other perspective from the stage hypnotist learning the hypnotherapy side. What would you say those benefits are in your opinion? I think that’s also extremely important. Not that they’re necessarily gonna do hypnotherapy on stage, but they understand if, if a reaction comes up, how to deal.

If they understand components of people wanting to utilize hypnosis for hypnotherapy, they’re not treating them on stage now, they can give them a helpful suggestion at the end of the show. They can show them how to go out and learn self hypnosis, and then they can recommend them to a, a reliable hypnotherapist in the area if it’s something a person wants to, you know, continue their journey.

Uh, So I think, uh, you know, a stage hypnotist should absolutely learn, uh, some hypnotherapy, at least to be aware of what it is. I have a little bit more experience than it have a little bit more understanding of the background, how it works. That way when people ask them questions, uh, they seem more knowledgeable.

So I think it’s important on both ends of the spectrum, at both entities, uh, learn what the other person is. So at this point in the conversation, I can actually share our personal connection that I’m just now sharing with you for the first time. Uh, I was first getting into hypnosis i’d. You, I, I, I actually had a stage shift and just come to my school.

It was Tom DeLuca back in 2001. And, uh, I’m watching it and I go, Yeah, and I’m watching it. I go, Oh, that’s cool. And become just ravenous for books and videos and reading as much as I can. And then down the line, getting live writing and then growing in the skills. Uh, but somewhere around all of my curiosity, I found myself landing on uh, hypnotism.com.

I’m sure a very familiar website to you, and I’m looking at that and I’m, I’m the skeptical new student going, Yeah, I don’t know about this stuff. I don’t know. And, um, downloading your quit nail biting audio program, and this is in the midst of traveling around doing some shows for schools, traveling, you know, up and down the east coast doing programs.

And I listened to it, I think once or twice and my first intention, Yeah, I don’t buy it. I don’t buy it, but there I am. Two in the morning. It’s the, it’s the problem party circuit, and three in the morning, two in the morning, or so. Going, I need to find like a seven 11 to buy nail clippers. These things are

Oh, cool. Excellent. . Um, so yours was the experience that I had that was kind of the, Oh wow. This stuff actually works. Uh, . So on one side. Thank you for that. They’re actually a little too long right now. Oh, you’re happy with yourself? You’re certainly, I. So let me ask you this, this is something that I’ve been fascinated about with the program that you do.

Um, you’re one of those people that I’ve seen the most amount of work, perhaps in terms of keeping the show current, keeping the show modern. Um, That it’s a common concern I hear from different stage hypnotists about perhaps they’re getting complaints, perhaps they’re getting some comments from schools, from venues that they work that year in, year out.

It’s the same show. Um, and you’re someone that I’ve heard speak before about just keeping the show as current and as modern as possible, uh, which is share some thoughts on that. I will, and I’m definitely gonna be covering this in detail on do upcoming training. When I go into do a show, 90 to 95% of all my shows I book are repeat and referral.

There are colleges that I’ve done for over 20 consecutive years, and I continue to do ’em and I will continue to do ’em as long as I want to, as long as I continue to keep things fresh. But what I do after every show, uh, is I make a list of everything I did during that show. I keep a list file, keep an at least five year file in each.

Every summer, uh, before I start my fall college tour, I actually have a group of college students get together. Uh, we have dinner, we spend a night together finding out what’s hot and what’s not, uh, what the big things are on social media right now. What trends, what music is important, listen to, uh, so I held these college students assist me in developing a new college.

Uh, I do that every year. And then during the year, I, I also have usually one or two younger interns that work with me in my office. They continue to keep me on top of things because if I was not on, if I did not have them there, you know, I would not be kept abreast of what’s going on. And I, I continually try to put new bits into each show.

Like, let’s say for instance, uh, as a new song comes up, how am I gonna be able to use, like at Taylor Swift song, you know, shake. I found that in order to do the, do it, uh, the proper amount of time, from the time that song comes out, until students can actually lip sync that song, and everything’s about six weeks.

So if it comes out yesterday, it’s, it’s not gonna happen tomorrow. It takes about six weeks before it gets to a point where it’s popular enough. Then enough people will see the video and usually I’ll make a guy kill this with and do shake. And I have the rest of the group on stage become part of the backup of singers and dancers and, and, and it works out really well.

But yeah, it takes a certain amount of time to get to that point. The second thing, when I go in to do a show, I kind of know what I’m going to do. I know that I’m not gonna do anything I did last year. I know what I’d like to do this year, but. I kind of wing it every show. I wing it. I know my induction, what I’m going to use with that group.

And sometimes I even wing that cuz I want to try something different. And if there’s a certain group that’s really getting onto what I’m doing immediately. Uh, some of the groups I’ve done every year, like, uh, last year in University Nebraska, uh, rather than ring anyone up on stage, I just hypnotize the entire audience that was at the.

And then I picked the volunteers from the audience, and I still kept people hypnotized in the audience during the entire show. It worked out really well, and it was the first time I tried it exactly that way, but since that time, I’ve seen other hypnotist starting to do some of that. But with that being said, I’m always looking at what’s out there that’s new.

I’m always looking at what other people are doing because I think I’m good, but there are other people out there that are very good too. And the day I quit learning is the day I quit performing. So keeping it fresh, not being afraid to take a chance. If you have a new bit that you want to, Try it between two proven bits and I do that continuously.

I was doing the casino show Saturday night. I did four casino shows Friday and Saturday night and two different casinos. And the Saturday night show was just at such a flow. I mean, I brought things in. My sound man had no clue what I was doing. Uh, the people were running the video camera, didn’t know where I was going with it, and the people in the eyes were just absolutely loving it.

So there are times that you can interject new. That’s going to work every time, and there are times if you try too hard to force it, it’s not gonna work any of the time. So you just gotta go with the flow and get very comfortable with making mistakes. If it happens, it happens. You learn from the mistake, but you gotta continue rather than just having one show that becomes so entrenched in your mind.

That it becomes automatic. It’s gonna take away from the enthusiasm that you show to the audience, the enthusiasm that the volunteers on stage get from you, thus portray to the audience and the lack of enthusiasm that you’re gonna get from the audience. So it, it’s kind of like it snowballs. Either it goes uphill or it goes downhill.

You want it to go uphill and go uphill very quickly. Well, it’s that spirit of just the show seeming and feeling improvisational in nature too. Absolutely. And the systems that you’ve got in place in terms of working actually with a sound person, so you’re able to bounce around in the program. You’re often, I think at one time I saw you, you had someone, you asked someone their favorite song and suddenly it began to play.

just because the system was in place to play that. Am I remembering that right? Absolutely. I have, I have about 500 different sound cues I have with me all the time. The current stuff I always have, uh, things that I don’t think, like, let’s say for instance, I have a singer that comes up on stage and their tailors swift, but they don’t know.

They don’t know, uh, shake it up, but they might know one of her older hits. So I asked, What’s song you gonna do today? And they picked us. because then I know it’s gonna be successful where, And if I have someone come up my stage I’m not sure about, then I might have someone become Taylor Swift’s twin sister, which no one had ever heard of.

And she comes on and the two do a duet. One of the two are gonna hit it. One of the two are gonna make the show. So you can stack it in your favor. You have to layer it, you can stack in your paper. If you’re not absolutely sure it’s gonna work, then then find another way that’s gonna guarantee your.

Fantastic. And you hinted at the training that’s coming up, which that’s gonna be in Iowa, right? Yeah. I, I’ve looked all over the country. We thought about doing it in Las Vegas, and then we thought, well, why do we bring it right to the Midwest? We thought maybe Chicago, but I found a, I found a casino in Dubuque, Iowa that’s going to allow me to use it for seven days, their main showroom, which holds 900 people, which is fantastic.

We’re gonna do it from, uh, uh, March, uh, 28th, uh, through April. Actually marked the 29th or April 4th. And it’s kind of a unique training. And what I mean by that is we have some superstars that are involved. Uh, for instance, uh, Sean, uh, Michael Andrews is gonna do the first day, two days, which is gonna be kind of his stage training.

Um, basically it’s gonna be more hypnotherapy though, Clinical hypnosis for those two days, I’m sorry, not the stage training, uh, days. Uh, three and four are gonna be me with the stage training. And then the night of the second day, I’m also gonna. I’ve developed a new home weight loss system and a new home smoking program that you do in people’s homes.

It’s kind of like a party system. Yeah. Um, that works where you don’t take any risk. And I’ve been doing that now for about about two years. Uh, I’m been basically developing the hybrid, finalizing it, I’m getting it licensed and I’m gonna let people from the casino, their VIP players are gonna come in that night and there’re gonna be other people in the community are gonna come in.

I’m actually gonna do the seminar. So that the participants can see how I do the seminar. They’re gonna be able to go through the seminar, and then if they decide that they wanna license that and take it back and utilize it themselves, they can’t. So it’s an additional tool. And then the next day is gonna be a Sean, Michael Andrews myself.

We’re gonna do, uh, instant and rapid inductions. Which Sean is a master at that, and I’ve done quite a few myself. And then day six and seven, uh, we’re gonna be bringing, uh, Richard Barker and doing his advanced, uh, business master class. Excellent. Now to top that off, to put the, uh, icing on the cake on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday night, we’re actually going to put on hypnosis shows for the community.

The casino is gonna give pre tickets to anybody in the health industry on the Wednesday. Anyone to the educational industry on Thursday night or in education on Thursday night, and anybody in business on Friday night. Thus, they’re going to assure a full showroom of probably close to 900 people.

Everyone in attendance who wants to, will get a chance to do a portion of a show on those three nights. Uh, we like, Oh, wow. Yeah. We’re, we’re thinking about having four to six hyp. So they all get a chance to explore every aspect of it. Also give them a chance to be on stage in a beautiful casino on an up, uh, state of the art, uh, stage.

And they’re also gonna be videotaped. Then they can use that lies that videotape as something later on for promo. That’s fantastic. That’s fantastic. Yeah. So I love that aspect of just bringing a community of people together to put something on that. Um, you know, it’s great when we have these trainings that are just one person centric, but then, yeah, I love the environment even though it’s, I, I know all of you and it’s, uh, rather open environment, but I love the phrase of people who disagree with each other, that not everyone has the same style.

Not everyone has the same approach. And having people with different experiences just really flushes out that educational experience. And Sean, myself and Richard, I mean, we have certain directions that, uh, we deal with all the time. We have certain things that we think about differently, but we’re coming together for this training and I think, uh, it’s gonna merge into such a way that everyone’s gonna get value out of it.

Now with that being said, let’s say a person just wants the hypnotherapy part. Then the first and second day will be a module with just Sean, Michael Andrews. Let’s say they want to just do the stage hypnosis. They can come to the third and fourth day with me if they wanna do the stage and wrap it. Only they can come to the fifth day.

Or if they wanna do just the marketing, they can come to the sixth and seventh day. So they have a choice of going through all of it or just parts of it. Depending on what their needs are. Thanks for listening to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast and work smart hypnosis.com. Please visit the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast listing on iTunes and share your positive feedback.