Session #314: Richard Clark on Building Community

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This is the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast, session number 314. Richard Clark on Building Community. 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. This. Is about to get interesting because for the majority of you out there, you’ve likely already heard of the hypno thoughts.

Live Convention. This is the biggest hypnosis conference in the entire world. It’s coming up in July and August, 2021 in Las Vegas, and knowing of the event you might know of Richard Clark, who is one third of the team that puts on that event. Him, along with Scott Sam and Stephanie Cheba, for those of you that all of this is new.

Well, first of all, let me call one thing out proudly. This is the first time we got Richard Clark to do a podcast. Hold for applause and welcome back. And I’m so happy that he’s here on this program because it helps us to see a little bit more of the story behind who he is, what drives his thinking, and really the impact that.

Quite honestly, he’s helped to create in this entire industry. You’re about to hear a conversation that really begins in terms of work in a very different profession, but then how that kind of led its way into getting trained as a marriage and family therapist. And then along that journey also getting into organizational psychology.

And this is about to sound familiar, how it is that we can start to organize groups and get people working together to create a bigger impact inside of their organizations. Huh? Once again, one third of the team behind Hypno Thoughts live though inside of this too. Some of the work that he’s done as a marriage and family therapist.

And then from there, a bit of a chance encounter. First, let’s say officially learning hypnosis being represented as hypnosis. And a real turning point where here was a local sort of get together that was being organized in various parts of California, sort of a branded meetup group that Richard reached out to the organizers to say, Can we do one of these in my area?

And the responses you’re about to hear the story not to give too much away too early was, Hey, we’ve already had a few others reach. Why don’t you do it with them and becoming the first time that suddenly, here’s the first meeting with some names that you might recognize where organizing for the first time together, there’s Richard Clark, there’s Richard Rumble, there’s Scott Sandlin, and there’s David Snyder.

The rest of the story now starts to write itself. You’re gonna hear some of the work that he currently does as someone who is actively working in mental health, whether it’s in the therapy world, whether it’s in the hypnosis world, or as he puts it, strategic therapy, how it is, we start to mesh all these things together.

Plus, you’re gonna hear some really cool insights behind what really makes. Hypno thoughts live, really tick and sort of the global impact of, yes, here we are in the midst of a global pandemic, but also in a bit of, uh, evolution. And let’s also use the hypno thoughts branding of revolution of how so much of what we do can now reach a global audience.

The world has become a whole lot smaller. And how very often we end up together at an event in another part of the world with people that we already know and hypno thoughts has really given us an outlet to make that happen. I have to set up one story that pops up a little bit later on, which I forget if Scott and I got into this in a podcast recording, or maybe it was in one of the videos for Hypno Thoughts Platinum, but the fact that when we.

We’re introduced to each other, let’s phrase it that way. We did not get along and the story very clearly changed over the years of giving the keynote at Hypno Thoughts, giving the, uh, opportunity to do Hypno Thoughts Platinum back in February of 2020 before everything got weird. But the opportunity that really, this is a big legacy of what Hypno thought stands for, the fact that we get to actually interact with these people.

I, I’d rewind my personal story briefly back a. Where here I was at the very first, let’s not even say convention. The first gathering of hypnotists that I had gone to. And there was gonna be someone who was gonna be there that I had read their book, I had heard about them, I had seen some video clips of, and I’d really put this person up on a pedestal.

And then to finally meet it wasn’t that it was a letdown, no. Everything that I was expecting was there, and even better. But the fact that we were all human and these were folks that were approachable. And if you look at. Really, I’d say what the legacy of Hypno thoughts has helped to really reinforce the folks who keep it to themselves and, you know, create a mindset of scarcity, or dare even say absolutism, which I’ve recently talked about here on this podcast series that doesn’t tend to have longevity.

These days, the environment where we’re all in this together learning and growing and benefiting from each other. And yes, is where my story with Scott originally began. The appropriate moment to get a uh, friendly smack in the face to go. Not literally, uh, hey, this is how we all can do this better, and growing over time too, and creating those collaborative relationships.

So we’re gonna link to this, I know in the show notes [email protected]. Head over to ht. Dot net. That’s where you can see the incredible lineup workshops that are happening before, during, and after the convention. And of course, let me mention hypnotic products. This is the two day business training that I am doing right after the conference.

So come for the event. Stick around afterwards. Because so many people in this industry are thinking way too small. I mean, look at the story of hypno thoughts of finding a way to reach. A global audience and with hypnotic products, it’s all about helping practitioners around the world to break out of the dependency upon a dollars for hours model.

And while this is a workshop about business and earning a better income, it’s not just a workshop about business and earning a better income, it’s really about showing you the systems to create an even greater impact in this world that’s around. And think about this for a moment. What if you could change the dynamic so that your clients are people who have already interacted with you, have already benefited from, you, have already created a change as a result of something they’ve accomplished with you by way of an online training, a product, or whatever template you want to use.

And now imagine the changes that are gonna be different in your business. Where your clients are, people who are willing to follow instructions, completely ready to work with you and willing to pay the fees that you ask. I’ll tell you right now, that’s what I’ve done in recent years and that’s why I’ve closed down the thing that built my business originally.

I’m, uh, the time of release of this. I’m already down in Florida, and the Virginia Hypnosis office is no longer the Virginia Hypnosis Office. The business has gone global. Thanks to the brand we’ve built [email protected]. So think about this. What if you could take what you do and here’s the catch phrase.

You’re gonna come to learn, productize a service to think even bigger. That’s what you’re gonna get at hypnotic products. Make sure you go to that hypnotic products.com page though, because you’ll see it’s not just a two day event. It’s also ongoing training afterwards. Plus some private consulting time with me.

Check that out. Hypnotic products.com though I’d also mentioned Jason Webinar. Dot com. This is an on-demand webinar presentation teaching you six verifiable things you can do every month to continue to grow your business. It’s absolutely free and on-demand. Jason webinar.com though. Let’s get to this episode, episode number 314.

Let me call it out. I pestered him a few times he finally said yes. And this conversation delivers to hear more of the story behind the person who many of us know, and the real heart behind the work. And again, this community aspect, which is why we named the episode as we. Here we go. Episode number 314.

Richard Clark on Building Community. Well, you know, I, I had worked. Years. I, I had two previous occupations before, you know, when I was in high school, I, I got a job as a dishwasher and I, my, my talent at making the dishes nice and clean and efficiently was noticed. And I was, uh, taken under the wing of a, a chef at a French restaurant.

So I was an apprent chef and worked in the restaurant industry until I. 20. And then after that I had taken a job working in a machine shop. I, I got into a journeyman program for, to be a machinist and, and, and followed that through. I I became a tool maker, a model maker, and then all without any education, started getting jobs in production engineering.

And so I, I had worked a long time in the production field, but I had no degree. So I started going to college when I was 20. At that time, that was, you know, this, this is in, uh, 19 89, 19 90. There was a big push. The Japanese were seen to be taking over, you know, uh, production and, and sales in the us. So there was a big push on total quality management.

And I, I joined some total quality management teams and took some trainings, which got me interested really in like organizational psychology. Yeah. So I, I, I was going to, I, I was going to college for, as a business major, and I got more and more interested in the psychology of people and I, I. I switched in my junior year to, to be a psych major and being basically a lazy person.

I, I, I, I thought, oh geez, back then, you know, geez, I can charge a hundred dollars an hour and just like work, you know, worked 15, 20 hours a week and this sounds like the dream job. And so that’s what I did. And I, I followed that through and then went on to graduate school, but that got me interested in mental.

And then interestingly enough for, uh, you know, my, my first training or I learned hypnosis online, right? And this is back in the nineties when Yeah, learning hypnosis online was not a thing, right? And I, I don’t know, I, I, I assume you probably remember, I mean, you’re a little younger than I am, but in, in the, the late nineties Yahoo groups were, Yes, were, were the big thing in AOL groups.

Back then, right? I think as of like two months ago, the last Yahoo group, I was still a member of the emails finally stopped . I still get some, I still get some. Yeah. Anyway, so I was interested, This is when I was in, uh, graduate school, right? For psychology and I, I was interested in some and uh, you know, had, uh, had learned some.

Sort of in graduate school was learning some about Milton Ericson anyways, and uh, so I, I, I started looking online. I found these Yahoo groups and so I joined some of those. And so my first, you know, the, the first people that taught me inductions were actually online, right? Mm-hmm. . And so for a few years I did that.

And then at one point, I don’t know, 99, 2000, I don’t remember. I took my, uh, my first hypnosis training was a two and a half day weekend training by the abh? By Matt James, actually. Right. Oh, nice. . You know, you went in on a Friday evening and you know, they, they warmed you up and then they gave you a script for induction and a.

You practiced that and then they sold you on their longer programs. Right. Showed you some fancy inductions and fancy work and that was it. So that was my first hypnosis training. Yeah. I wanna go back for a moment. Cause you mentioned, uh, organizational psychology. Was that the header? Yeah. Yeah. So where, where was that originally gonna be going?

What was the, what was the focus of going in that direction? More in, you know, human resource management, right? So, like I say, back at that time, I, I, there was this big drive on, you know, building, uh, teamwork and, uh, changing up the work environment, you know, more, uh, ergonomics in the work environment and focusing more on making, you know, making the employees comfortable and compensating them and giving them more autonomy in order to boost production.

So that, that was really, You know, I, I worked for some big companies. I, I had some big jobs for some, you know, Fortune 100 companies in production, and they had old, like I worked for one of the oldest bottle companies in the world, right? It was Crown, Cork, and Seal, and they were based out of Philadelphia.

And they, I mean, they started off making quirks right back in the 18 hundreds. And their production, their whole production mentality was to, uh, you know, really work people to death on antiquated machines that were held together with duct tape and which right away sounds like a group that could use some, you know, mental health benefit.

Yes. Well, and the reason I, I went full fledged, so I had, I had a big job actually. I, I, you know, I, I, I made back then was great money, you know, I was making six figures as, uh, an undre engineer. Right. And, uh, actually I was working as a plant superintendent and they wanted me to sign off on something that was really unethical.

Right. Yeah. And I. Basically said, No, I can’t do this. Right. Cause I’d been working really hard. I’d been brought in to revitalize the, I, I was actually recruited from another company to revitalize the workforce, right? And I implement, uh, total quality management principles. And it, it was just a really unethical thing.

And, uh, I said, Nah, I can’t do that. I said, Well, maybe you can’t work here. And I said, Yeah, I think you’re right. So at that time, I was, I had just gone through a, a breakup with, you know, Person I was living with and moved out and switched my major at college, and actually I was basically homeless for a year.

Right. I went from making, like I said, you know, over a hundred thousand dollars salary to being basically homeless. I worked a job in a sober living home where five nights a week I, I did the overnight. So I put everyone to bed, slept on a little bed that was in the office, and then woke ’em up in the morning.

And then on the weekends I just offended for myself, slept with friends or hotels or whatever, but that, I forget what, what the hell was the question? ? No, I love that. In terms of, again, looking at, well, that kind of opens up. A whole conversation. Their possibility of, you know, how it is that we can look at, there’s so many opportunities that are out there that this is a big conversation that often pops up in terms of, I’ve done presentations on hypnotic language patterns for HR delegates and to hear how so much of it isn’t just, you know, Oh, this is the insurance we provide.

Oh, here’s when you have. The time sheet end. Oh, it’s really, their role is that of creating that dynamic and having everyone, This is what I did in theater. How do we get everyone to work together and not hate each other? So from the inside out and seeing the opportunities from there. So you mentioned going from that into then finding this hypnosis training.

Was there something about the hypnosis that attracted you or something that piqued your curiosity? How would you kind of motivate that? Well, yeah, I mean, I think, you know, uh, most everyone. I guess, you know, I would say the majority of people, you know, find hypnosis to be sort of a fascinating thing when they’re a kid and they read about it or see it in movies, you know, it’s, Oh, mind control.

It sounds like an interesting, like, Oh, what’s that about? You know? So, I mean, I was interested in it and then, you know, once you. Put your toe in a little and, and find out what it’s really about. Then it’s like, Oh, this is cool. I can, you know, I can definitely do this. And you know, I, you know, you talk about, you know, language patterning, et cetera.

You know, people, I always get a kick when people say, Oh, you know, uh, Bill Clinton in, you know, Obama must have had NLP training and, and no, they didn’t have any NLP training. These are just natural skills that, that people have, that NLP is modeled you. Thank you. You’re talking my language, . No, you’re right.

It’s more, well, any cycle. It’s always the game of, in both sides too. This person was using this. It’s like, well, this is all modeled after effective communication. And if we define communication as being effective because it elicited a response, you can always after the fact go, Oh, that’s like this technique.

And the keyboard is like this. T. So, I mean, I, yeah, and I, and I found, you know, I, I found out, geez, you know, I’m a pretty persuasive person anyways, you know, I build rapport pretty well anyways, so, you know, I mean, I, I sort of found myself to be a natural and just dove into it more from there. And then my, my next step, you know, after, after having taken a, a, a two and a half day training, was, uh, one of the Yahoo groups or a couple of the Yahoo groups were, or the, some.

Some non ballistic sleepwalks. I don’t know if you recalled that, but, uh, I’ve heard stories. Yeah. Yeah. And, and so there was, you know, a chapter that was started by John Petrocelli in. In New York. And then Craig UBank had one in San Francisco and oh, what was the, Perry Perry, I can’t remember his last name, in San Diego.

So I, I contacted, uh, John in New York. You know, I had been interacting on their Yahoo groups and chats and whatnot. Some contacted him and said, Hey, I’d like to open up a, a Los Angeles, uh, chapter. He said Great. You know, I just, someone else had just contacted me. Why don’t you get in contact with him and you guys can do this together?

And that was David Snyder. Yep. So , David Snyder and I started a Yahoo group for the Los Angeles chapter of the Sam non ballistic Sleepwalks and set our first meeting where Scott Sandlin and Richard Rumble attended. And then for the next like four years, we met every Tuesday and that, and so this is where I really got my hypnosis education right For every two, every Tuesday evening for four years, we got together with, you know, sometimes, sometimes only a dozen people, sometimes 40.

Right. And had practice sessions and we would have a speaker and we had, you know, Cal Banian speak, uh, Tom Silver, uh, Justin Trance. We, we had a meeting at the ACH convention with Gil Boy. You know, uh, so I mean, these were people that really knew their stuff. Right. And, and every one of us had something to add.

And so that, that’s where I got the majority of my training was four years of every Tuesday night . Yeah. Which correct me at, at that time too, you were also operating as marriage and family therapist as well? Yes. Yes, I, well, we, when we started, I was still in graduate school, right. And I, and I also, I, I would point this out a lot.

You know, when we were at the meetings and talking to everyone, I learned a lot of hypnosis in graduate school as a, you know, for master’s in counseling psychology, although they don’t call it hypnosis. I mean, I studied a semester of Virginia Sater and a semester of Fritz Pearls and semester of Jay.

Right, and, and many others. And you know, they, they rarely would talk about it as being hypnosis occasionally, you know, I mean, if you, you know, are familiar with Jay Haley, he’s the student of Ericssons. He, you know, he, he talked all about Ericsson’s, you know, conversational hypnosis style and, and sort of broke it down for therapists.

So, yeah, I, I was, you know, operating as an. During that time, a marriage and family therapist interned. And, and so, you know, it, it brought a lot both ways. I could bring a lot from my, you know, from my experiences working with clients and sort of a more mainstream view of hypnotic interventions. And then also bring the, the trainings I was learning at our Tuesday night meetings into.

So then, you know from our conversation, from the dialogue that any of us would have nowadays. Yes. We know that hypnosis is not just the close your eyes and now you’re gonna follow my instructions. How so much of it around the influence, the framing and setting it up. I, I was curious to ask you, was there ever a time making use of that working, let’s say family therapy with a couple?

I’m trying to think. I don’t know. I, you know, I, I’ve, I’ve worked with, you know, tens of thousands of clients now, you know, I’ve been doing this for a long time and I, I can’t think of any time with a couple. I can remember doing some group hypnosis sessions. You know, I’ve done a lot of individual hypnosis sessions, obviously, but more often than not, I don’t.

Call what I’m doing with a client, hypnosis, you know, I, I, it may be, Yeah. You know. Okay. You know, let’s try something here. You know, , I just want you to close your eyes and take in a deep breath, and deep from there, right? But, uh, I’m trying to remember who it was the lie to a couple of episodes ago. Okay, well this isn’t hypnosis, but close your eyes and now relax your eye.

Let to the point where they just won’t work. I’m like, wait, what? Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I mean, occasionally there’s, uh, there’s clients. I mean, I al you know, every client is different in the interventions are always different. I, you know, I refer to myself to everyone as a strategic therapist, which is, you know, Jay, Jay Haley’s termination, uh, uh, terminology for, uh, you know, doing, uh, hypnosis.

Conversational hypnosis in a mental health setting is strategic therapy. So, you know, every client’s different. And there’s some where I, you know, I. Sort of recognized, Okay, we’re gonna do some hypnosis. This is gonna work great for you. So, you know, occasionally that comes out, but most often it’s not. You know, most often it’s, like I said, just a matter of, you know, planning a, planning a little pattern, a reframe, a few suggestions here and there, and working it more, more covertly and conversation.

Now there’s a story that I’ve heard by legend that I have to ask you about here, which would be, and I heard this from Scott, that a strategy at one point, and it may have just been a one off experience of working with a couple and basically switching out the file so you could look inept. And this would get them to now finally work together.

Do I, Do I have that correct? I did something switching out the file. I, I mean, yeah. I, I pulled up when a couple came in and I pulled up and started talking about issues that weren’t theirs. Right. So, I mean, I, I’ve never been one to rely a lot on the file, but Yeah. You know, I get them both working against me and I, and I , I really, I said, no, we were, we were, weren’t we talking about, you know, and.

You know, looking through, you know, notes and, you know, weren’t, weren’t we talking about how, uh, how, how, I’ll just make up a name, how John had done this last week and everything? No, no. What? You know, so, yeah, I mean, I, uh, a a lot of, you know, I, I mean, I, I, I did. A lot of reading back then too, and, you know, a lot of things that, you know, I, I guess interventions you could attribute to, you know, someone doing ericsonian hypnosis, Right?

Or were, were the kinds of things that I, that I use often, you know, Continue to use often. A lot of, you know, a lot of it is, it’s not really from Ericsson, but uh, also I, I know you’re familiar with solution focus therapy, I use mm-hmm. , a lot of interventions from solutions, uh, solution focus therapy, and I, I, you know, there are really good ways to, to view your interventions, you know, look for exception finding and, you know, magical thinking and things like that to, to really nail down.

Your, your reframes or your slight of mouth patterns. Yeah. Which I know we’re gonna come around to, to hypno thoughts here in a few moments, but it’s where most of us would know of you from the conference. Yet you’re still someone who’s out there actively working with people. Is there a specific specialty that you tend to work with more so nowadays?

Well, now, currently right now, actually, I’m, uh, I’m working on the Better help.com network, Right? Yeah. Seeing clients there, because it’s easy. I actually had a little while after, let’s see when, let’s see, in, uh, in like 20, 20 15, really it was, uh, like, uh, right when we started the Newport Clinic that you’re familiar with, you know, Scott and I had moved into an office together and opened a clinic that I sort of stopped seeing.

Right. For a while I was managing the clinic and had sort of, you know, I had 20 years of day to day and, you know, some of my work experience, I know you’ve heard of, I know others may not have, but I, you know, I worked for, you know, seven years in a, you know, a community mental health clinic in South Central Los Angeles where, you know, I would see sometimes, you know, 60 clients a week.

Right. I mean, there were so many clients lined up that, you know, I. See one for, you know, 35, 40 minutes and dismiss ’em, and there’s someone else standing right outside the door, you know, and it was just a revolving door. So, you know, I I, I’d seen a lot of clients on a lot of, you know, difficult issues and I, I sort of felt like, okay, you know, let me just take more of a administrative role.

And, uh, I just, actually, it was during the start of the pandemic, right? I, I decided, okay, I, I’m gonna start seeing clients online. And I, and I had some old clients that. Continued to see sort of sporadically, you know, through Zoom or Skype before that. And then I, I, I found the, you know, the better help.com and, uh, it just really, uh, really streamlines everything.

They, they, they find all the clients, they have the whole platform and, you know, do most all, well do actually all the file keeping and everything. So all I have to do is, you know, set up a calendar and click on go to session. And, uh, you know, it’s, it’s very much a, a set it and forget it. . Nice, nice, nice. So then back to, it was the Sleep Walkers group and you know, inside of it, I love the origin story of, you know, there’s, you, there’s.

David Snyder, There’s Scott Sandlin, there’s Richard Rumble. A lot of the people who we now know is a big part of the hypno thoughts live community. Wh where inside of this, because Scott had launched hypno thoughts.com, you know, somewhere back in that, in that timeframe. At what point in that journey can we say that you started to, you know, come on a board and it become now the movement of this big live in person?

Oh, well. So back, you know, we did some things with the Sleepwalks we put on like, uh, the, the first what, what National Hypnosis Day? January 4th, What do you call it? Uh, World He, yeah, World Hip, Tom, Tom, Nicole Eve, but also, uh, World Hedonism Day. Well, the, actually the first year, I don’t know if you’ve heard this story.

I think you probably have Wendy Friesen was big back then. Um, And for whatever reason, she was competing against the NGH or whatever. And so at the same time, really, I don’t know who was fir, I don’t care who was first, but she started a Hypnotize America Day the same day as Hypnotize, uh, World Hypnosis Day.

Mm-hmm. . So they were going together. So, but we had known Wendy cuz she had come, participated in our, uh, Tuesday night meetings sometimes. So we put on a, uh, you know, open to the public. We had 16 one hour talks, two rooms going, and, oh, now this sounds familiar. And a vendor. Yeah. Yeah. And that was the first world hypnosis day.

We, we rented out, you know, three rooms at, uh, Holiday Inn in Long Beach. If anyone’s ever flown into Long Beach, it’s the one that looks like a capital records building right next to the airport. Uh, so, so we had done that and that’s where I sort of, you know, showed my, my original talents and organizing, and then Scott.

David and Richard and I and a few other people actually set up a hypnotherapy practice. Right. And we all had separate offices, but we had one website called California Hypnotherapy, oddly enough. Mm-hmm. and, and so that, you know, we’ve. Split referrals back and forth and cross referred, but we also then decided to start doing some training.

So I, I actually, you know, uh, set up and organized David Snyder’s first training ever in conversational persuasion and influence. And then also Scott Sandins first in person training for, you know, these were both weekend trainings, two day trainings, Saturday, Sunday, and his was in, uh, uh, pain Manage. And, and then later on we did a, a training with Richard Rumble at the Magic Castle, actually.

But this is where we got started sort of collaborating on, uh, events. Right. And yeah. And then actually, you know, the Sleepwalks thing had, we’d kind of abandoned it. There was another, there was a part in there for a while where we started myself, John Petrocelli and Mark Cunning. Started a hypnosis organization called the Society of Applied Hypnosis, and, and we ran with that for about a year and it didn’t really, didn’t really work out the way we had hoped, but that, that sort of, at that time then there was, eh, whatever, some bad feelings back and forth and the Sleepwalks Association sort of.

Fizzled out. Mm-hmm. . So it was a couple years without doing the Sleepwalks meetings and without really close contact, I mean, I’d see Scott, you know, every three months and talk to him on the phone, some here and there. When Scott started up hypno thoughts.com, he said he, he wanted to, you know, start up a new thing and he, and he had a couple of, a couple of shots at it before something.

Really took off. And, uh, at the beginning, I wanna go back to a word that you used a moment ago about fizzled out, which, uh, the, the joke is now Oh, in the modern, uh, marketing world that’s now called a pivot . Yeah. Oh yeah. You know, as well, you know, you could look at what I do and say, Well, yeah, Jason runs that failed, uh, meetup group in Northern Virginia.

I’m like, Well, no. It pivoted into the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast. Which, hey, welcome. You’re listening Now, you know, of looking at how we can find a different way of going about something rather than just one specific way of doing it. So, uh, good job with the pivot there,

So when he started that, he asked me to help moderate it and, and you know, that that grew a lot. And then, I mean, I know you, and probably, you know, many of your listeners have heard the story from Scott before about how, uh, Hypno Thoughts Live got started is a bunch of people wanted. Where hypno thoughts, buttons to the GH convention and, and they, they didn’t want that to happen, so we decided to have our own convention.
See how nicely I said that

Well, I mean, looking at, there’s a, When we find there’s an audience that’s already there. Yeah. You know, here was everyone who wanted to have an outlet that we were all interacting. I think that year unofficially, Michael Elner, myself and I think Seth, Deborah Roth and a few others were like, We’re gonna call this the unofficial table as we’re all at the banquet

But when we find that there’s a community that wants to gather. So the natural pivot was, To do something out in Vegas. I, I was curious to ask you, because what, what year is this coming up on in terms of our ninth year? Yeah. Cause I remember the first year was when I was primarily a stage heist and I had events booked and, you know, my, my one regret that I can live with, uh, was not being there the first year, but there since from this background of organizational psychology to then running the local meetup group, which then flourished over the years.

That’s right. Pivoted into something else. I was curious to see what kind of trends have you been noticing, You know, in terms of looking at this as an industry in terms of how we learn, how we communicate about the process, how it is that, you know, clearly the thing that, you know, if we want to label a method here, which is not even a method, we can, you know, fake out, but to say clearly what’s winning now is community.

What, what would you say is that sort of greater impact that you’ve been noticing in this profess. Well, I, I, I think it is technology. I mean, I, I think it’s worked everywhere in our lives and, and, you know, worked, worked to good, good ends and, uh, less good ends. But, you know, the internet has made every.

Everyone closer made it a smaller world. So where, when I first got started, like I said, it was hard to find hypnotists. You know, I, I mean there, there weren’t, I lived in Los Angeles and I had a hard time finding hypnotists. The first, you know, the first meeting we had of the sleepwalks, you know, I sent out.

Like a hundred emails to anyone within driving distance of where we were gonna meet that I, that I could find that had hypnosis connected to them in any way. Right. But people didn’t really have meetups or get togethers and there wasn’t online forums. So I, I think that’s really, you know, what has changed a lot about the industry or, you know, the, the profession of, of hypnotherapy is that more and more people can connect.

With more people that are, that are like-minded and interested in the same thing and facing the same challenges. So, you know, and then that’s really what hypno thoughts was always about, was building community. And you know, it’s funny, hypno thoughts. It’s an interesting thing. You know, Scott and I and Stephanie.

I’ll run hypno thoughts and people think it’s like, I don’t know, we’re getting ready to go public and we’ve got a huge staff and you know, it’s, we’re just organizing, you know, a family picnic is the way we look at it, you know? Well, you do feed everybody, so I guess. That desk line up . Yeah. It’s just everyone, you know?

That’s how it started is, okay, let’s all get together in Las Vegas and let’s have some people talk. And everyone loved it. And so it’s grown into where now, you know, it is a big thing, but it’s really, you know, it was never meant. To, to compete with organizations. It was never meant to, uh, you know, be a, a big business, a money maker.

That’s why we, you know, we try to keep everything, you know, our, our prices low and provide as much as we can. Cuz we’re not looking to make money on it. We’re just looking to, you know, collect enough money from everyone to make it happen. That’s all, you know. At the end of the day, we’re, we’re hoping to have you.

Have our, our bank account, you know, close to zero, right? I mean, spend the money we, we take in and, and that’s what we have been doing so well. I think what what’s great about it too is it, it be, it’s become this opportunity for yes, we can go and see a lot of the people that we already know and people that we’ve already interacted with.

Yet, what’s become great about it is it’s also that sort of foundation for a lot of people to then become known, I think with Scott who said, you know, not just to have a voice in the industry, but to, you know, be recognized as one. Yeah. That, you know, when we find the environment where, I’m trying to remember if Scott’s reference to this, but times where I’ve been sitting at a workshop, I’m like, Oh, I’m sitting between Victoria Gallagher.

Freddie Jack and uh, behind me is Richard Barker and we’re all at this workshop because we actually wanna listen. Yeah. That it, it’s not the let’s go to be seen, it’s everybody’s there on the same level and I can’t think of any other environment, but that’s just the natural foundation of it. Yeah. And it’s great.

And a lot, you know, I mean, I, I. I take a lot of, you know, personal pride and a lot of the connections that have been made in the community. I was thinking, I don’t know, a few weeks back when I saw an advertisement you had for your trainings with Richard Non guard. You know, I, you and Richard Nagar are people that might not have ever really crossed paths for a long time before hypno thoughts you.

Yeah, a few, a few interactions just online, but then it was the, Oh, we’re all here together. And just to have that opportunity to actually meet and interact, you know, And I wanna, I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this or told much of anyone this, so this would be great. But, you know, I, I heard Scott posted a video the other day about how, you know, well, hypno thoughts, you know, helped provide some space for Jason and whatever, and, and you posted a video about first knowing Scott, did you know that I had to drag.

Into, into, uh, your, uh, it wasn’t work smart. What was, what, What was your original product? Oh, okay. So when it, it’s now, and there’s a, I’ll make the story brief. The program was originally Hypnosis Business Boot Camp, which let me call it out, even though I still own the trademark was a crappy name, but I also saw that.

People were successful from what they learned from it, but the program needed a rebuild. It was originally linear. Now it’s hypnotic business systems where every module stands on its own. But I remember, yeah, I think Richard, you were like in like the first, I launched it off of a webinar around the holidays, I think in 2013, the original one, and there’s my little moment of going.

Richard Clark just got it. Ha . Well, so the reason I got it right is because Scott was like, is like, Who’s this Jason? When that got over there, he, he was not necessarily that happy with you. And I said, Well, let’s look into it. And I, I bought it mostly for, you know, I, I listened to a lot of stuff or watched, I think they were videos weren’t they watched a lot of them.

Yeah. And, and gave him to Scott and said, Look, I want you to watch this. And he was at first Livi. With the idea that you said something about cooking chef and he was, he was just, he, he was determined that we stealing his cooking chef metaphor and that, that he was really unhappy with. So, you know, it, uh, it took a while for me to say, Scott, look, let reach out to the guy, Talk to him.

He seems like a decent guy, you know, And he’s at that time, you know, we were seen. Major competition by the ngh. Right. And I never thought of them as competition, but I, I, I always like being a thorn in someone’s side. And you were, you were, you were, you were like the new hot child for the NG at the time.

And so, you know, I told Scott, well reach out to him. He seems like a decent guy, and it’ll just piss the NG. Like, like you wouldn’t believe, you know, if he decides to come out to our conference or become more involved with this. And I think that’s about the time I started to publicly say we’re, the more we’re all successful, the more we’re all successful.

Yeah. No short version of it was I, I had misquoted something and I did not give credit where it was due as much as that was the section of giving a lot of credit. And you know, so this is, I think Scott and I shared the story. I forget if we. Told the entire thing on a podcast episode, or it might have been in some of the promo leading up to hypno thoughts.

Platinum back last year, uh, our first interaction was the, who the hell are you? Which the sort of button on the story was I Priority Express, mailed him a, uh, Doll of the Swedish chef from the Muppets to go. It’s your quote and it’s really good. Thank you. I’m sorry. Can we be friends and we are ? Yeah, I had put some work in before that.

Thank you for that.

So I was curious to ask, so we find ourselves, you know, live conferences took a bit of a hit in the last year, as you know, suddenly, here comes quarantines, here comes a pandemic, and we’re seeing some numbers, let’s say look a little bit more positive moving forward. What is it we can look forward to in terms of hypno thoughts coming up this year in July and.

Well, I, I think it’s gonna be, uh, you know, an epic year. You know, people use that word a lot, but I, I really think it, I mean, last year we had a good year, but there was only, you know, where we’re used to, uh, you know, roughly a thousand people showing up. You know, we had grown to that size. Last year there was like 250, right?

Which, let’s phrase it right, it was a pivot into a hybrid event. Yes. Right. Yes. We pivoted. You know, it’s funny, that came off really well. We pivoted last minute, you know? Yes. And just, uh, decided and, you know, the reasons are what they are. But, um, Right. And I, I give Scott a huge credit for the way that it was phrased to go and just to show you the online as viable
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That’s how I’m gonna be running that segment from home. Just like, Yeah. And that, that’s what planted that transparency that had to be there. And it was a great experience for online too. Yeah. And so, you know, this year though, I think, uh, you know, people are e everyone is just burned out on this pandemi
c.
Right. And, uh, I, I think. You know, the, the overall trend looks like, you know, more people are getting vaccinated the winter, the winter spike is, you know, naturally abating some, and, and I’m really hopeful that, you know, we’ll be able to get a thousand people into Vegas again by, uh, the end of July. Now, I mean that, that may not happen.

The plans right now are not to do a hybrid event. Things, you know, if, if everything goes exactly wrong, there would be a chance that we might do another hybrid event, but that decision won’t be made until June. Right. Yeah. Which I, I like that phrase of, Oh, we know how to do this. Yeah. If we have to. That’s how.

You know, this, this podcast series last, last year around the same time, Uh, that’s why we suddenly went out twice a week to go, Hey, let’s highlight the people who are already doing a ton of work online to show, Look, this is not new. We know how to do this. Here’s how. Yeah, no, but I, I’ve heard a lot of great feedback from people I’ve had, You know, we’ve got some other conversations in the podcast.

Next week is Jim won Dan Kendel and Michael Desal, which by the way, is the largest panel we’ve ever had on a single episode. Yay. That’s, so that’s my little, uh, frame on that. Thank God, Thank. You know, Dan and, uh, Dan and Michael, you know, uh, are putting on a, a three day pre-conference and, uh, I think it’s great that they got Jim to come out.

You know, Jim, Jim helped us a lot for a few years with the stage show, and he was, Well, I think this, this goes back to what you mentioned with like the projects that I now do with Richard or even a few years back. This is the environment where, And you can all find this on YouTube, I’m sure now that I’ve said it, the, uh, the editors of this program put it into the show notes cuz we just put it on YouTube to say, Hey, everybody here, Kevin Cole and I just in the side conversation go.

I forget whose idea was his or mind to go. What if we did a workshop at a hypnosis conference called Do Less Hypnosis? Right. We just went, Well, let’s submit it and see if they want it. And then this is the, uh, questionable part. Then we’ll figure out exactly what that is, if they take it. And of course, you know, you and Scott went, Hey, that sounds good.

Do it. Uh, which we did a whole workshop for two hours and like conversational influence before and after the session, but it’s, it’s become this. I remember my first hypno thought. Being called into a panel where talking about the methods of Dave Elman, where of course Cheryl and Larry were there. I’m sitting between Sean, Michael Lands and Michael Elner and going down the line.

It was there Zeller. It was Seth, Deborah Roth, it was Roy Hunter, Michael Elner. I think I’ve said Michael twice there. But this environment of people. What’s that? He, he was twice, He was twice the guy. . Oh, absolutely. Yeah. But this environment of people learning together, collaborating together and creating something really, really unique.

You, you, you hinted at something, I think when we were first chatting before we jumped on about sort of the, as as I’d phrase at the superhero skill of being able to organize things where others couldn’t. Being able to make things happen. Uh, can, can you expand? Well, yeah, I think, you know, I, it’s interesting and, and this is how, you know, I said I, as a, an undre person, I, I, I got big jobs in corporate America doing engineering, right?

Because I, I, I’ve got sort of an. Innate ability to, to visualize all the working components in a system and sort of spot where there might be problems and proactively work on that. Right. So I’m really good at, uh, systems thinking, big picture thinking, and, you know, it, it, it’s, uh, it, it’s helped me a lot, you know, in.

Therapy career, right? When someone comes in and they, you know, they give me their presenting problem, I see it as, you know, a more holistic system that that needs, Okay? So thi thi this little piece over here, you know, might, might not seem like it’s part of, but if we change this little piece, everything else is gonna run a lot more smoother.

Or not a lot more smoothly. So yeah, I mean that’s just, uh, something that’s sort of always been my forte is to be able to, uh, problem solve and uh, uh, make systems work. So, you know, and that’s all a, a conference is Right, is a, is a giant system of moving components so that that’s. Sort of, like I said, just fallen to me.

I, you know, I, and I, I like, you know, every year we, we switch things up a little to see, you know, what, what that, what’s that gonna do for our conference system. Like this year, you know, we intentionally put a focus on having more, you know, more four hour workshops, long, more three day workshops. Four day workshops.

So we’re, we’re really looking at sort of providing more depth. You know, I, I, I look. You know, a lot of people, you know, they come to the conference and everyone is always like, Oh, what do I wanna see? What do I wanna see? And they bounce back and forth and you get a lot of little pieces. That’s, that’s really helpful.

That’s to, to grab a technique here, a perspective there and approach over here. Learn something new about something you hadn’t. Learned before, but I think this year’s going to really, you know, really benefit everyone where they can say, Oh, you know, I, I’ve really wanted to, you know, study this area more and they can go for a, a four hour talk on it.

You know, it’s just part of the conference and. Yeah. Which that was a great part of, you know, of the conference, but also then also last year with hypno Thoughts Platinum. I, I do have to have one moment for me though, Richard. Do we get the, the rights of claiming the first Richard Clark podcast recording?

Oh, absolutely. Hell yeah. It’s funny, I, yeah, I dunno if I’ve ever told you this, but I’ve told others. People ask me and I say, Oh hell no. I can’t even stand listening to podcasts, . And, uh, that is one thing. I mean, I have, I, I, it’s, it’s not a short attention span. Again, just sort of the way I, you know, sort of the way I work and even in, uh, you know, in my college career or, you know, in going to different trainings, you know, most good speakers, they tell you, you know, in the first, you know, 15, 30 minutes really all about what they’re going to teach you.

Right? Mm-hmm. and I have just this ability to sort of flesh that out, right? So once you’ve told me in 15 minutes everything you’re gonna tell me, I already, I, I have already figured out, Okay? So that would mean this, and that would mean that, and that would mean this, and that would mean that, Well, you’ve given us some amazing insights and stories and 43 minutes, so thank you for that.

Where can, where can people find out more from you? How can they learn more about hypno thoughts? Where’s the best place to go? HT live.net. Awesome. And of course, we’ll link to that in the show notes. You can check out some of the workshops before, during, and after. Uh, Richard, thank you for coming on. Any final thoughts for the listeners out there?

You know, I, I, I think for final thoughts, I’d like to just sort of speak globally, you know, and hope that everyone, uh, e everyone keeps an open mind about where things are going. I mean, the current world situation is tenuous. I’m a eternal optimist, so I. You know, I, I feel like this year we’re, we’re gonna break out of a lot of, a lot of this juri this and things are gonna turn around and just looking forward to seeing everyone in July and August.

Jason Lenette here once again, and as always, thank you so much for interacting with this program. And I’ll tell you my favorite part of this is that it really helps to start a conversation with not just me, but also the people who are on the program I had mentioned. Conversation I had with Anthony Sereno, who was on a little while ago, who goes, Hey, I just got another client from someone who heard you, me on your program.

So really, again, building community, bringing us all together. And thank you once again to Richard for joining me for this episode. The first episode launched as I’m now living in another state. So head over to HT live.net to see all about the upcoming hypno thoughts live convention. And once again, check out hypnotic products.

Dot com. That’s the two day post-conference training, specifically about helping you to create design, launch, and continuously profit from your own passive income machines. Richard, beat me to my favorite catch phrase. Thank you, Ron Pope for this one. Said it and forget it though for a little bit more of an instant gratification.

Head over to Jason Webinar. Dot com. That’s an on-demand free presentation. Six steps to build a six figure hypnosis income. Check that out jason webinar.com. Hope to see you in Vegas. Stay safe. We’ll see you all soon. Thanks for listening to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast and work smart hypnosis.com.