Session #282: Barbara C Phillips on Medical Hypnosis

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This is the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast, session number 282, Barbara C. Phillips on Medical Hypnosis. 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. Welcome back. Program.

It’s Jason Lynette with a perfect follow up, amazing timing to last week’s episode on medical networking. This time featuring Barbara C. Phillips and talking about her experience as a nurse practitioner. First of all, getting an outstanding result from a hypnotic process as a client and helping to overcome a fear to then eventually looking for resources.

To better help her patients dealing with chronic pain situations and then rediscovering hypnosis, then jumping into some training as she found those opportunities and the rest of the story now pretty much writes itself and in this conversation you’re gonna hear us talk about the role of the professional hypnotist and how it is that we can become integrative within that system of being there as a resource and someone who could help to take the suffering.

Out of pain. We also spend quite a bit of time talking about strategies of helping clients overcome anxiety issues and how it is that the entire hypnotic process eventually becomes the induction as opposed to a more, let’s say, formalized ritual of how it all then fits together. And then as we often do here, bring it around to talking about business, the importance of video, the importance of really helping you to identify who those ideal clients are that you work the best with, and those people that you’re sure you can help out.

And as we all should be these days, bringing about an evidence based approach to the. Wow. We cover a lot of information in this conversation, about 45 minutes in length. You can check out the show notes [email protected] to see how to interact with Barbara and find out more of the work that she’s doing.

And while you’re there too, to get some more strategies to help you to grow out your hypnosis business, check out hypnotic business systems. Dot com. That’s where you can get the all access pass to the entire hypnosis business training library of mine. It’s more than two dozen tested and proven business action plans.

Some done for you marketing materials, products that you just have the license rights to go off and reproduce and sell on your own, and an amazing, thriving community that’s there to help you to support and grow and help even more people Check that out. It’s now available as a lifetime access p. Learn [email protected].

And with that, let’s jump directly into this action packed conversation. Here we go. Episode number 282. Barbara C. Phillips on medical hypnosis.

Well, becoming aware of hypnosis. I don’t really remember when I became aware of it, but in my. Late twenties, early thirties, I went to a hypnotist. Mm-hmm. . And I don’t even know why that person was recommended to me or anything like that, but I had a phobia and I went, I have no recollection. Of the sessions, I, I seemed to feel like I went four times, but I only remember walking into the office the first time.

And the next thing that I was really aware of it, my husband and I were sitting on the waterfront of Seattle having lunch and you know, he was staring at me with this funny look on his face. And at the same time, I’m kind of waving my hand cuz I have what I think is a fly, but it’s actually a wasp that I’m trying to get away from me.

and that’s when I realized that it was done. I was over the phobia. Nice. And from there I was like, Oh, let me go study this stuff. This is fantastic. And of course I was already a nurse by this point. Mm-hmm. and I. Got lured into intensive care. That opportunity came to me. It was something I’d always wanted.

And so all the technology of that sent me that way and away from hypnosis until many years later. I. Have owned a couple of private practices, healthcare private practices, and I was actually dealing with a lot of people with chronic pain, and I got involved in an ECHO program through the University of Washington, and one of the consultants that was there working with all of the practices that saw people with chronic pain throughout the state of Washington was Mark Jensen and David Peterson, who wrote the textbook on hypnosis and chronic pain.

Nice. So, I just went, Oh my gosh, I have to do this now. I remember and running a private practice and my nurse practitioner business. I just had no time to go do training and we ended up moving to the middle of the country, which was a challenge in and of itself, but moving to the middle of the country and suddenly I had time and I started doing training and you know, my initial training.

A weekend training. It was through the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis, and they said, Okay, go forth and practice hypnosis. And I left the University of Minnesota thinking, All right, I can now be a hypnotist. Yeah. And realized I knew nothing and I just went on this binge of getting all the training that I could possibly get to.

And voila. Here I. Yeah. So I wanna rewind back to a moment inside of that, which was that, you know, here’s this change. And we always love that aspect where the change is surprising that we’re just, suddenly something’s easier. And, and it kind of throws the person by surprise that, Oh wait, I’m trying to get this thing off.

I, I’ve told the story at times of, uh, lawyer that I’d worked with, that it was a big deal, that case of a lifetime, but she saw a cockroach in the court and she backed outta the case. And it’s like a week after we had worked together. And the moment of proof. Killing a fly with her hand, and it was only a moment later going, Oh, I just did that

Yeah. It’s just, it’s, it’s bizarre. Mm-hmm. , which there’s a cool, just to throw a little side note into this, there’s a cool little nuance that I pick this up from Sheila Grainger, that we can widen that gap. Of that group, having that result by going, So the next time you’re here, when you’re telling me the changes, you know, keep track of which ones surprise you and seem ’em automatic versus the ones you were thinking of.

And now the mind is sorting for that other thing. Right. You mentioned, I wanna go to that moment though, of looking into finding, So you were working with people for chronic pain. Mm-hmm. and looking for resources that was. Connection to Jensen and Peterson once again. Well, yeah. You know, this was when people started getting really, you know, started questioning the opiates.

Mm-hmm. . And so as a nurse practitioner run practice and in Washington, there’s no requirement for oversight or anything like that, although none of us works in isolation. I reached out to the program. At the University of Washington wanting some feedback on some of my more difficult patients because our whole philosophy there was to practice pain management correctly.

You know, we didn’t wanna use a lot of medications and the people that came to us that had. Huge amounts of medications I needed to safely be able to reduce them and needed that support and that feedback that I was going in the right direction. And also then that authority so that I could sit down with my patients and say, well, According to the experts at the University of Washington, da, da da.

So that was real helpful. But when they started talking hypnosis, it was like, Wait a minute. . , wait a minute. And it was fitting in with so much of what I had been seeing in my practice. Mm-hmm. , because for years, a lot of people with chronic pain, You know, I, I had a gentleman that was on the so much methadone for his pain that it would’ve killed an elephant, and yet he still had season tickets to the Seahawks and he would get so excited and it was like his pain was suddenly gone.

But wait a minute here, . So, So it really became more clear and more clear and more clear. Yes, pain is real. But you know, my opening consult with a patient was always, Now you need to understand this. The pain is in your head. For a couple of reasons. One, I wanted to jerk them out of the state that they were in.

That poor me, I’m suffering type of a thing. But also to begin the conversation of this is how pain works. Mm-hmm. , and this is even before I knew hypnosis and, and let’s look at that because there’s so many things inside of what you just said. Perfect timing. We’ve, we’ve been scheduled to have this conversation now for a couple of weeks, and it was last week on the podcast.

I talked about medical networking and like as a throwaway, one of the last statements was, Oh, and so often it’s just because of my natural search engine placement that a doctor or nurse practitioner is researching online for something to better help their patient. that and that, that’s that story of what you were doing back then of going, what’s another resource I can share with someone?

Which again, I see less of this these days. I still sometimes hear this game of the just a thought and I don’t believe it myself, but the us versus them. Well, what’s another resource that I can share? Could you elaborate on that conversation though, about the pains in your head? Because some, as they’re just getting into hypnosis, would have the fear that No, no, no, but that’s supposed to be there for a reason.

So how, how would you answer that when that. You know, pain is real. Yeah. It, it is real. There’s no doubt about that. It starts off with some kind of injury and pain is actually critical to our survival. Yes. You know, if we didn’t sense pain, if we didn’t have some kind of a reaction, we would never take our hand off the stove.

until we smelled the burning flesh, Maybe. Yeah. But you know, we, we would not back away from those kinds of things. The problem is with pain is when it becomes chronic. Yes. And a lot of times that chronicity, if you will, It goes back to the saying of you can have pain, but you don’t have to suffer. That’s it.

Yeah. And people don’t, and and you see this all the time where somebody with chronic pain can be pulled out of it for a moment when they need to rescue a kid or a cat when they. Sit and watch, you know, Russell Wilson , you know, and the Seahawks. And yes, I’m a Seahawk fan, you know, so people can come out of that and then they go right back into that.

Or the example, which the mistake would’ve been to, heard the story earlier about the guy with the season tickets. And go to the stereotype of, Oh no, he’s faking it. And where I think it was Michael Elner, who actually led a joint piece of research at one point, a peer reviewed study around how the people in disability, they wanted to get better.

They were looking to crush the expectation that, Oh yeah, but the pain goes away as soon as the payments dry up. And through their questioning, through their research, they saw, no, these people want to get back to work. They want to be intimate with their partner, they wanna play with their grandkids, right?

They wanna operate. So as this guy was going to the, the sports event, realizing that, you know, he could. My metaphor of this, he could fill his mind with something that makes him happy, which overwrote the suffering cycle and the pain could have stayed where it was. But now the experience of it is what was different.

Yes. And it is the experience. And one of the things that I have told my patients for years is it’s how you interpret that signal. Because you, you can have the same signals coming from a weekend of being the weekend warrior, you know, building the fence, mowing the lawn, building the shed, you know, or or out hiking, exercising, whatever.

And when you have that signal in your head, you’re like, Yeah, I really accomplished something. Yeah, I did this. And it’s a good. It’s good pain, if you will. Mm-hmm. , but then you’ve got the back pain and it’s like, Oh, my back hurts. I can’t do anything. And that’s a bad pain. And that is what affects a lot of the suffering.

So it’s, it’s a mindset thing, not to minimize that people have injuries. That some of them are chronic, that that it’s going to hurt and not feel better, but it doesn’t have to affect your life in the way that it affects a lot of people. Not everybody. Obviously this is, you can’t say this about everybody, but for a lot of people that I have seen with chronic pain, they just get into this head cycle.

Well, it’s where that then becomes the definit. That you know, well, this is just what it’s going to be as opposed to something I might have to deal with on occasion. And you know, places where two people might have the same situation, but it’s the reaction to it that’s now so different from one to the other.

Exactly. Exactly. You know, I, I mean, yes, things hurt. I mean, we’ve all had some kind of pain, you know, I’ve broken bones, you know, I’ve hurt my back before. Part of that for me is I just refuse to go down that path. It’s like, No, no, you, no. You cannot do this to me. We’re not going there. And yeah, things hurt.

That’s fine. That’s a part of life, but it doesn’t have to take you down. To a really deep, dark place. So the first real entry into all this was then, you know, not just being the client, but then looking for resources and finding here was an opportunity to learn. Was the goal to see chronic pain clients yourself, or did that kind of branch out as things progressed?

It really did branch out. I mean, I had hoped I would be able to work with patients. I’m in a new state with new practice rules for nurse practitioners, so I wasn’t quite sure how that was was going to go. And yeah, when I put it out there, this is medical, this is, these are the things that we’re gonna deal with.

I want to, because nobody needs to have a life of chronic pain and not have the suffering. That goes with it. That’s, that was the part was to alleviate some of that suffering, and yet that’s really not the majority of what I see in practice. Mm-hmm. . So how does that balance out then? What are those other issues that you’re often working with?

Number one over and above, everything else is anxiety. Mm-hmm. just, I mean, Totally. Yeah, totally anxiety almost. And most of the people I see are women and they come in for anxiety. They come in for self-esteem issues. They come in because they don’t know. They’re, they’re fearful about the direction they’re going, and they want a different direction in life.

So I see an awful lot of that. Plus, you know, I, I do the smoking thing. I see a lot of that, especially since doing Ken Gustos course. Mm-hmm. , which is a phenomenal course. Yeah. And that has made a big difference. And brought, and, and those are the people that refer everybody for all sorts of things. So, you know, I see.

The gamut of the, the people with the GI issues. I see autoimmune, I see chronic pain. IBS is a big thing that, that we see a lot of in fibromyalgia. But overall it’s anxiety, which you know, makes sense because if you think about it, everything. Is anxiety based. Yeah. Yeah. Everything. The pain, the weight loss, the smoking, the tests, the talk that I need to do.

What do I need to do in my career? It’s all anxiety based. , which you mentioned working with anxiety and you know, we have so many strategies. We have so many techniques of how we can work with our clients. Fr, from your perspective, how would you define, you know, yes, we’re always client centered, but what’s kind of your go-to approach of beginning to address and take down those anxiety levels?

Probably the very first thing that I do, and I do this probably with everybody, is Melissa Tiers anxiety toolkit. Mm-hmm. , everybody learns no matter if it’s for pain, for smoking, for, you know, just anxiety of can I get to a bathroom in time, Whatever. The cases, even the children, it’s, you know, we start with bilateral stimulation.

I teach them peripheral vision. You know, we just do all of those kinds of things. And anymore, I don’t even know whether to say that. It’s, you know how when you start working with something and you learn, you know, like you learn Melissa’s bilateral stimulation or you, you learn something from anybody else pretty soon you don’t know when it’s theirs and when it’s something else.

Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. It just kind of morphs into something like, you know, one of the, for the last three, four years, I guess, I’ve been in a study group with some other hypnotists. We meet every week, and I remember recently one of them was asking me, Well, what induction did you use for this?

And it was like, I have no idea. Because I just start talking. Mm-hmm. and I often just feed things back so that when people are nervous about something or anxious about something, I just start talking. You know, I do teach everybody bilateral stem. Everybody’s just blown away by it because it works so darn.

I love what you just said though about, you know, I just start talking and I can’t remember what the induction was and th this was a topic and a training that was running online a while ago that, you know, it’s like, well, when do you use this induction? I go, Well, I use this here and here’s why. But then again, so often, because I’ve now conditioned that as soon as the tone of voice shifts, as soon as the conversation changes, now’s the hypnosis.

and it’s this organic transition that the induction is not just the thing we get through to then begin to address the issue. The induction is that shift, which in my head is facilitating as much of a change as everything else that if we’ve now brought the conversation somewhere else, and now that.

Perception is different. That’s part of the hypnotic process, right? Right. Exactly. It’s, it’s a lot of times what I have noticed, both when I saw people in the office and now online, cuz I just do it all online now. Yeah. Is, you know, usually when I’ve seen somebody, maybe it’s their second visit, they almost start going into a trance-like state.

Almost the moment I start talking. In fact, many times it’s like there’s, there’s no definite transition between not hypnosis and hypnosis. Yes. They just start going there. But I’m also starting to see that in people that even in the first visit, I’ve noticed some of that because of how I guess I’ve evolved and how I just start feeding their stuff right back to them.

And I suppose that even my, I suppose my voice changes, but it’s no longer a conscious thing for me. Mm-hmm. , where it’s just that subtle shift that now here’s the mode that we’re now in. Here’s the process, which there’s another side note inside of that, which is the beauty that they are expecting, the hypnotic experience, which gives us some Lee.

Do some practical things even before the process officially begins. But then also as soon as we’re in the experience, we’re now delivering upon an expectation, which now heightens it even further because we’re actually delivering that. Right? Yeah. Right. So then once you’re, let’s say, formally into the process, so beyond the anti-anxiety toolkit, what are some of the go-to strategies?

Let’s say inside the session, Oh gosh. It’s so hard to say because it really does depend on the individual and I don’t even know that their techniques or strategies so much as really taking what they have given me and taking them down that path. Nice. Yeah. I suppose if anything I could say I use a lot of is teaching people about the control.

I use a lot of that in all kinds of situations because oftentimes people do feel outta control. And another thing I would say that I throw in there a lot with both men and women is some of Kelly Woods’ archetypes. Yeah. And the parts, because everybody needs that. Everybody seems to need to know that they’ve got this part of them that is strong.

That is the warrior that is going to take care and that that they can get to their own highest inner wisdom, if you will. And you know, so I blend all that stuff together and I couldn’t tell you really when one starts, where one starts and stops, which is the beauty of it where, you know, as for someone who’s brand new in hypnosis, there’s the concern of, okay, so this is the.

This is the pre-talk. Here’s the induction, there’s the deepeners. And even from the start for the client, it’s, here’s hypnosis, , They, they, right. They put everything into the same bucket and the deeper, This is not meant to be hypnotic language pattern, but of course everything is, The deeper we get into our career, the more it becomes that same respect that.

It’s how the entire process just now blends together to deliver that outcome. I’m, I’m curious to ask, is there a story of a client that comes to mind of, you know, something that even surprised you in the process of what the result was that they noticed? Well, there’s several, but I think one of the first ones that I.

Remember, because of course when you’re new at this, you’re like scared. Mm-hmm. , I would say scared something else, but scared. . And you know, she had anxiety and fear around birds. She was a, a senior at the university cuz there’s a university in the town where my office is. And, and she was a senior at the university and she and her boyfriend fiance were getting ready to go at graduation to Venice.

and she said there’s pigeons everywhere. Yes, there are. And . She’s . She’s was fearful of pigeons. Of seagulls and she wanted to go and have a good time. and in the beginning, and actually I still do this, I followed what you said. They start off with three visits and would go from there. Right. And so I had her do that, but at she came back for the second visit and was just like, Oh my God.

I did this, I did that, da da. She was just ecstatic. That it was gone. It was gone. Mm-hmm. . And I’m like looking at her. My mouth was inside of me, is just dropped because it’s like, how can this be gone? What am I supposed to do for two more visits? What did I do that made it gone? But she was just so ready to have that change happen, and I really believe she needed to know that she could make it happen.

Because I’m, I’m just a guide. I don’t fix anybody. Medicine doesn’t fix anybody unless you’re a surgeon and you’re putting bones back together. But we simply guide people and allow their minds, their bodies, to make the changes. Now, one of the things I wanted to chat with you about is that I’ve nicknamed at times people are a hyphenate, where they’re in one world, but also in another.

So there’s some in our communities that do hypnosis, and they’re also yoga instructors. They’re a nutritionist. They also do hypnosis or the doctor who also does hypnosis. And it’s the way that you’ve blended the worlds of more specifically introduc. Hypnosis to nurse practitioners. Can you chat about that a bit?

Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I have to admit that when I first started doing this, I was very fearful about what my colleagues would say. You know, I’ve been a nurse practitioner for a number of years. I’m a fellow in the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. I teach and speak to nurse practitioners across the country, run online courses, this kind of thing.

So here I am. Now I’m going to talk about this thing that is woo woo , you know, and where does. Come in. I mean, even in my graduate program, I wanted to do something about, you know, herbal therapies for menopause or something like that. I can’t remember now. And they, that was way too out there at that time.

But now I’m gonna talk about hypnosis. Hello . And so it was a gradual. Coming out story, if you will. But since then I’ve spoken at national conferences on hypnosis. Last year, I think it was, I did two four hour workshops on hypnosis for nurse practitioners. I’ve written in, was recently published in one of the peer review journals.

On the use of clinical hypnosis or use of hypnosis in your clinical practice? Was was the actual title. Oh, awesome. Congrat on that. So, you know, and it’s fascinating that people are St now starting to come out and say, Well, I wanna learn that. And so I’m really happy with that. And then earlier this year, when Covid first started, I actually, and you know, I’m watching and listening to my colleagues who are kind of freaking out about what they’re seeing.

I started a free group for healthcare workers for, for any first responder, but it was mostly nurses, physicians, nurse practitioners who attended just to help bring down anxiety. And, and that has been real successful. We petered out with the group in June cuz I needed to take a little bit of time off.

And then I, and then it, it was like, ah, if things are dying down, we don’t need to worry about it. But now things have exploded again. Mm-hmm. , so I’ll probably be starting it up again. Yeah. And I want to come back to that, but I’m curious to ask what kind of is that thesis of how it is that the nurses can make use of hypnosis?

Inside the practice, is it just an optional service or integrated in? How would you describe where you most often see that done? Well, I think what I have been focused on, mostly because there’s not very many that have even gone on to do some training, and the issue is, is when we do hypnosis, it’s not a 10 minute visit.

Right? Yeah. You know, so it’s really hard to do that in the practice. It would probably fit more in for a psychiatric practice to do it there, but some people have now opened up the thought of, and, and I talk to them all the time to refer out, to bring somebody into your practice who can spend the time and do this, but also just how we use language with our patients.

I, I think that that is probably one of the most important things because, and I’ve done it myself where. I have given, unbeknownst to me some really negative suggestions to people, and so it’s really learning how to communicate better, how to communicate, where we’re giving positive suggestions. You know, that whole placebo, placebo thing.

So I think that’s one of the biggest places that people can use it to their benefit and to their patient’s benefit, is learning how to communicate more effectively and understanding what they’re picking up on. And what’s cool about that is that was. Part of that entry point for you of going, let me find a resource for, you know, the patients that we’re seeing and finding at the time, the, you know, the local resources of Jensen and Peterson, but then now in the position of going, Oh, let me make this even easier.

Let me go out and. Introduce it. I’m curious to ask this, is there an aspect of hypnosis that they tend to respond to more of than anything else? You mean the, my colleagues? I would, Yes. When you, when you’re introducing if there, Yeah. You know, it’s, it’s interesting. I think the very first talk I did on it when I simply wanted to take people through, you know, the whole lemon visualization to show them how they could have a physical response.

When there’s nothing there, I had people actually walk out. Because they were afraid. Now granted, this was in the, in the south when I did this . Mm-hmm. , you know, so that probably wasn’t my most, it would’ve been a lot different had I done that in Seattle. Yeah. But good thing you were doing the lemon test and not like, you know, your hands are stuck together.

You can’t open them. You know, we can get there eventually, but. Right. Well, I don’t, I don’t even do anything like that. Right. Yeah. Because I don’t, you know, there’s, there’s this whole idea of talking to people about this isn’t entertainment hypnosis. Mm-hmm. that, that I’m talking about. You know, there’s, there’s plenty of places they can learn that there’s plenty of shows that, that they can go and watch, you know, they can.

Pull up YouTube if, if that’s what they want. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about what are you gonna do in your office. Yeah. I love, I love that because you’re highlighting what’s gonna be, you know, it’s where someone, if someone just simply asks me, what’s the difference between stage hypnosis and let’s say hypnotherapy?

And the answer is that it all comes down to what’s. Congruent with the environment. You know, back when I did assembly programs for high schools, the closing bit was the hands became puppets and bohemian RH that he started playing. There’s no reason to do that today. You’re in here to overcome this fear, , right?

So it’s what fits into the context and know what. Methodologies will become, let’s say, more integrative, more symbiotic with the work that you’re doing, right? I mean, if anybody came in to a provider’s office and that’s what they’re going to do, that person will lose all credibility and you’ll never get anywhere with that person.

Even if all you wanna do is give ’em a little. Pill for their blood pressure. They’ll never believe that it’ll work. Although, and therefore, I’ll throw a side note out that there’s a talk that I’ve done it, it’s been like six years or so since I’ve done this, which was just introducing a few hypnotic and I’d put them in the category of distraction strategies and I would teach this to dentists.

I’d find their meetings and I’d offer it. And then the obvious thing was, or you could just refer them to me and I could help them overcome the fears and that. The through line, but of all things, it was teaching them not only, and we did a podcast episode where I fully detailed this hypnotic priming with convincers the way that I taught finger magnets, but then immediately debunked it to go, Well, here’s why that worked.

But it’s happening because, not because of the magical force of my words, but I just simply knew to put the right words in the right order so your body could better follow my instructions. And the pivot then is, And that’s exactly like what we’re about to do. I’m gonna use the appropriate dental tools and the appropriate medications with the right instructions to make this a much more comfortable experience.

And they loved that. So I think context is everything is a little side note to that. Yeah, yeah. Context. And you know, I think when it comes to communicating with healthcare providers, we are all educated. With science as the basis, you know, it has to be evidence based. It has to, we have to have the science behind it, and a lot of people are not even aware of the studies that have been done.

They’re not aware that hypnosis is an evidenced. Based modality. Mm-hmm. . And so I think, you know, certainly approaching people from that point of view. I would never recommend that any hypnotist, any, you know, even well a hypnotist don’t call up a healthcare provider and start talking past lives. Yeah. You know, past lives may or may not be.

You know, I suppose it depends on your orientation or, or so, but you know, approaching somebody with, you know, here’s why it works and how it works, and here’s a couple of articles or, or whatever. And that’s, that’s one of the things that I did in the very beginning on my website, was I started posting articles Yeah.

Of evidence based, peer reviewed articles that people, whether they’re gonna look them up or not, it doesn’t matter, but, but here’s the publication list. And I, I’m firmly of the belief that that’s how most of us should be working with clients in general anyway. You know, lean on the success. The, the lineage I share with people is that if you’re brand new, we don’t yet have the testimonials.

We don’t yet have all the, you know, really cool media and stuff. Oh, we don’t have the front page coverage and the things hanging on the wall. But we do have the research of our profess. And that’s one of those things that as we share that with the client, it’s validating that it’s not a matter of, Oh, I believe, or I don’t know if I believe in that.

No, here’s the proof, here’s what it does. Right. And this is like what we do in the office. So I think not just for working towards networking with medical professionals just in general, that’s in our best interest. Well in general, and I work with some people that just, you know, are like fed up to here with quote unquote western medicine and it, but it really doesn’t matter.

Mm-hmm. , because this is what we are all trained to do. Yeah. When we get a boo boo, where do we go? We go to the doctor. You know, that’s, that’s our thinking from the time that we’re little un unless you’re brought up in a completely different household where, you know, your mother is gonna go out into the garden and, and pull up some Mullin or something to wrap around your wound or some comfort or something.

But, you know, just knowing how, for all of us, just like we need to meet our clients where they are. We need to meet other professionals where they are. Absolutely. Which you do a number of outside of the training and the publishing, you also run a bit of a community online, Correct. For nurse practitioners?

Yes. Yes. Yeah, so for the last 13, 14, 15 years, I have been working with nurse practitioners on really how to do business. Mm-hmm. , how to start a practice or some other kind of a business, how to operate that business, how to. Keep it profitable, you know, just how, how do you grow that business? And so we have a semi-private group and, and I say semi-private because anybody can ask to be a part of that.

And I think we’re about almost 8,000. Oh, nice. Now. And then we have the, the private group who are just basically clients and teach courses and I have a membership and, and that sort of, So then as you’re in that community, then talking about building business, if you had to give the advice, as there’s many people listening to this that are brand new to business or even looking at a rather interesting time to be starting up a business, what, What do you tend to find of those best strategies these days in terms of building that awareness, getting that service out there and actually turning into something that’s profit?

Well, the first thing is I tell everybody, just take a deep breath, , , you know, because I, and I think this is true for anything, when we get into a fear mode, a panic mode, things don’t go well. Yeah. You can’t see what’s in front of you. And, you know, that was something I learned early, early on because I used to do critical care, um, and trauma.

And so, I mean, you, you had to be. The first you did was, you know, Oh, there’s a coat. Take a deep breath. , Right? . And so I ask people to take a deep breath and you know, one of the first things I think for, for anybody, and I know you talk about this and I know a lot of other people talk about this, and when we’re starting out, we’re so resistant to it.

But it’s like, who do you wanna work with? Yeah. Who do you wanna work with? I did a, a workshop a few years ago up in St. Louis and had a bunch of people come and, you know, these were nurse practitioners who already owned practices, but were having some issues. And so it was really, okay, so how can we get you back on track?

What do you need to do? And, and one of the things that I. Said was, Well who do you work with? You know, for, Cuz we had somebody who didn’t have, she felt like she could use more patients. Who do you work with? Well, I work with everybody from WO to Tomb , and it’s like, which sounds good, but you know, Yes, I understand that, that your specialty as families and you know, as a family nurse practitioner, you can take care of all those people.

But who do you wanna work with? And, and I think it’s really important for people to identify who it is that they wanna work with. And this is something that is, so it goes against what we think. Mm-hmm. . It’s, we need clients. We need patients. You know, we’ll take, you know, any warm body running through the door.

But the thing is, is you have to identify who you want. Who’s the best fit for you? For your skills, for your strengths, for, for the desire. You know, if you’re for like a nurse practitioner, if you have a health and wellness practice and you wanna focus on getting people healthier, so in hypnosis, it’s like you want those generative type clients.

Mm-hmm. , then you need to know that because when you go to speak to them or to market to them, or however you’re going to market, and. Plethora of ways to do that. But you need to be able to speak to that person. And yes, you may get that guy who smokes three packs of cigarettes a day, has end stage C O P D, has hypertension, is not interested in quitting.

He still may wanna come to your practice, but more than not, you’re gonna get that person who’s. Eating right. Who’s exercising right. And who just wants to get better at what they’re doing? Yeah. Well, there’s advice that I picked up last year, and this has really helped to focus a lot of efforts. And it’s from someone who’s up in the Milwaukee area, his name is Pat Quinn, and the line was The ultimate sales conversation begins in the language of the consumer in the problem state, and ends in the language of the expert in the solution.

Great. And I love that because it came down to you’ve got to understand what their needs are, what they’re looking for, and how to communicate them. And as soon as we answer those two points of that, the marketing, the sales process writes itself and you know, let’s add on top of that. The ones that you were the most excited we, we used to say, to go to the office and work with or to hit the button and at least change your.

To work with in our Covid Indian era, the, the, the groups that we know we can be extremely effective with. Right. I once, when I, I had a primary care practice and I remember one day looking at my schedule and it was a full schedule, a busy day, and I’m thinking, Ugh, yeah, And I saw this one name, there’s a sign, and I just went, Oh no, not today.

and later on in the day there was somebody I was excited about seeing and it’s that day it really hit me. Mm-hmm. that one. I don’t have to see everybody. And two, I’m not good with everybody. . And when I saw that person who just made me cringe, I went into the room, the exam room, she’s sitting on the exam table, she’s just glum, She’s looking, ticked off like, I don’t wanna be here.

And I looked at her and I just said, You really don’t wanna be here. No. I said, What if we found you a different provider? Mm-hmm. . And she immediately lit up. Yeah. And so I think we have to know who it is we work best with and that’s really a position of strength rather than where someone here that can go, Oh, why can’t you help that person?

It’s like, Well, no, because this is what I’m really good at. The same as you hinted earlier, I mean, here’s the dentist. They went to medical school, they decided to go and look at teeth and for all these different specialties, That’s a position of strength that they can identify this is what I do really well and even better.

The sooner that we can do that, the better we’re able to then better serve those clients and, you know, be found by them too. Right, right. I, It’s just, you know, I, I think that, That’s number one. And then of course, you know, you asked about, you know, how do I tell people to get out there? It’s, you know, the same thing that you tell people, you know, videos, , videos are, are so important now.

And, but you know, one of the things that I find too, and, and this is probably the one thing that I did in my practice, is Google my business. You know, I started using that. I came, you know, I was immediately at the top page of Google. Yeah. And then just, you know, keeping it updated, keeping some posts going.

I also did Psychology Today, which I understand sometimes people aren’t able to get into that. It’s kind of a game. And let me maybe say something unofficial here. It’s kind of a game of who reviews. because the same week that I got approved, others didn’t, and I had the same credentials that they do. So unofficially, I am not the one telling you, wink, wink, if you don’t get in, wait a month and then resubmit.

But you ain’t heard that here. You heard that here. No. No. You know, and, and for me it was, it was easy enough cuz I, I have a license, right? Yeah. You know, I’m a licensed healthcare provider. So, but I think between Google my business, and then the Psychology Today, and I did throw in a Yelp, you know, listing.

I don’t have any reviews on it, but my webpage started coming up and moving up to the top of Google very quickly. Yeah, and I’ve optimized a few things here and there. And now, if you just were to Google Hypnosis, hypnotherapy, Columbia, Missouri. You know, I’ve got several listings Nice. On that page. So, And you know what, That’s all I’ve done.

Yeah. Which it’s the beauty that we don’t have to do everything. And even better, as soon as we’ve identified that ideal clientele, it just takes a few little steps to then be visible, be seen, whatever they find they. See the videos, they get to meet you before they even call you. And it’s where so much of the process now begins to write itself, I’m sure.

Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Mm-hmm. , this has been, this has been fantastic in terms of, you know, helping to clarify that line between one world and the other, but also the way that it’s all connected and have to ha how to have those conversations too, and even better, how to better serve our clients. So Barbara, thanks.

Joining me here. Where can people find you best online? Well, Facebook, My hypnosis practice is Hypnosis Mind Works, so you know, Facebook Hypnosis Mind Works or hypnosis mindworks.com. Also, nurse practitioner, business owner or NP business owner. Either one of those will also get to me online. Excellent. And we’ll put links to everything over in the show [email protected] though.

Barbara, any final thoughts for the listeners out. You know, one of the things that I would do, and I think when we’re brand new, you know, we, we just try to grab everything. We take every course we can. We read every book we can. And I think while we do that initially, I think it’s so important not to try to be a mini, you know, excuse me, Jason, but a mini Jason , you know, or a mini Mike Mandel.

Mm-hmm. . But to really find our own voice. Yes. And for me, I think some of that has, Especially since I’ve picked art back up in the form of photography. Right. It’s learning to see things differently. I think that, and just opening your ears and just really listening. To what’s going on, Jason T here once again, and as always, thank you so much for interacting with this program, for sharing it on your social media streams.

And once again, check out the show [email protected] to find out how to connect with Barbara. And as well, check out hypnotic business systems.com. That’s the all access pass to my Hypnosis business training library, though. Here’s a bit of a freebie. Head over to Hypno Formula. Dot com. That’s where I offer the Hypnotic Pricing Formula Workshop.

It’s a free educational on-demand event that you can learn a method to immediately scale your business more easily. That’s for free [email protected]. See you soon, and stay safe everybody. Thanks for listening to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast and work smart hypnosis.com.