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This is the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast, session number 354. Karen Byrd on the Attitude of a Champion. Welcome to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast with Jason Linett, your professional resource for hypnosis training and outstanding business success. Here’s your host, Jason Linett. Hey, before we dive into the conversation you’re about to listen to, between me and Karen Byrd talking about working with athletes, working with people who are involved, Sports and all things peak performance with hypnosis.
I like to give you a quick frame on this episode that I think I’ve used maybe two dozen or so times in the 350 plus that we’ve done. Here it is, you’re about to listen to a three hour conversation. that Karen and I pull off in about maybe 37 or 38 minutes. Basically, there’s a lot of stuff inside of this conversation where Karen shares her story of a bit of a chance encounter as many of us had.
With hypnosis. And then from there, getting the opportunity to then begin to teach and share with others inside of the hypno birthing world. And there’s a lot of insights that she shares around that, plus some incredible correlations that, hey, if we can do that with hypnosis, Think about what else we could help people to accomplish.
But then from there, from the opportunity of being the stay at home mom for several years and supporting her children as athletes, discovering a world that was just hungry for the services that we provide, and now really building the career that she’s clearly deep inside of and serving a lot of people.
The interesting thing, a highlight inside of this convers. and she even calls me out for knowing the answer as I ask it. But I think it’s one that a lot of you need to hear. You don’t necessarily have to be the expert on what your client is doing in order to help them. And a playful phrase of my own that I’d share here, which is that there only needs to be.
Expert in the room, and the benefit of this phrase is it’s actually mutually beneficial. Your client is the expert on the situation that they wish to change, and you’re the expert in terms of specific hypnotic techniques. To help them to resolve that issue. So here’s my old story from years ago of the person calling me up for golf and asking me how often do I play?
And I’m now revealing that when we play putt putt with the family, I’m the one insisting we not keep score. Because at the time, my four year old and my six year old, uh, were winning. And had a better score than I did. And now that they’re eight and 10, they are definitely pumbling me because, um, sports games are not necessarily my thing.
That being said, we don’t have to be the expert. How do you feel now? How would you rather feel? As Karen Expertly says in this conversation, it comes around to the confidence and it comes around to the mental toughness that they’re bringing to their game. And that really becomes a big difference between the.
And the professional, uh, this is my favorite kind of episode here because I asked for examples and she gives them, I ask, What’s that technique? And she teaches it. So this might be one you listen to a couple of times and take some notes on. And be sure to check out the show notes [email protected].
Episode number 354, So work smart hypnosis.com/ 3 54. We finally started doing that. That makes it so much. Doesn’t it? And that’s where you can find how to get in contact with Karen, how to connect with her on the various social media channels and find out more about the work that she’s doing. And while you’re there too, check out hypnotic business systems.com.
This is the all Access Pass to my Hypnosis business training library. There’s no need to have to reinvent the wheel. Instead model what works. And as a side note, this program used to be, tell you what to. Then it became, show you how to do it as this is often a field that’s not as technically savvy as would be beneficial in the running of an online business.
And in recent years it actually kind of graduated to a, give you the assets to get up and running. Even faster. So there’s some done for you marketing campaigns that you’re free to use exactly as is. You know, put your own name on it though, or model it and turn it into something else. One of my favorite moments was when someone took my stop smoking email campaign and turned it into a dream exploration workshop series of email.
I don’t think I’m clever enough to pull that off. And he pulled that off expertly and it was really, really cool. Now, I’ll give you a high, a side note here while you’re on that hypnotic business systems.com page. Look at the very bottom there, at least in terms of now is a little bit of a floating, uh, sort of, uh, bar.
And if you click that, that’s gonna give you access to an on-demand presentation. That’s gonna teach you specific methods you can plug into use right away to help you to attract your ideal clients and grow your own business. Check that [email protected], and here we go. It’s about time.
I’ve known Karen for years and finally worked out the time to get her onto the program. Here it is, episode number 354. Karen BYD on the attitude of a Champion. The first introduction into hypnosis was when I was back in college going through my psychology major, yet I recall it being about a half a page.
Yeah, . And I remember learning about it yet it just, it was not really taught, it didn’t seem important. There was a many, many other different modalities to. And then when I was about to have our third child, I was going to have a C-section, and I had heard about hypno birthing on the radio and learned that it was something that we used by ourselves.
And I thought to myself, I’m just gonna try it. I have a psychology degree. I remember hearing about hypnosis. I’d rather use hypno and try it than have a C-section. And surprisingly at the time, I didn’t believe it, but it worked so well that my ob I was the talk of the hospital. Nice. And then the OB said to me, Uh, if you ever wanna teach it, I will endorse you in my practice, which is all I needed to hear.
So I started out teaching hypno, birthing, and becoming a Marie Mongan. No birthing practitioner for voting. Oh, so cool. Nice. Mm-hmm. . I, I, I, yeah. My son Max was a hypno birthing baby, and the, the classic story is after the first one leaving and going, It’s gonna be different next time. And the quick anecdote around that was, you know, the doctor coming into the consult going, I don’t know how to assist you with natural delivery.
Let me get you someone else. Exactly followed by the next doctor. Was a large practice going, Oh, these are easy. You just text me when it’s time. Yes. And that’s what the nurses said is, is we love hypno birthing patients because we don’t have to do anything for ’em. Although, to rewind back, you mentioned getting a psychology degree.
What was kind of the, the track you were on up until. Well, I, um, had gotten my undergrad in psychology. I went to UW Milwaukee for my msw and I was, uh, working and going to school. And then I got pregnant and decided was gonna get married and then pregnant. And then I decided that I wanted to be an at. So I was an at home mom for, I don’t know, like 12 years.
And then we had foster girls for a couple years and at the time I was starting to develop then my practice as a part-time practice and work mainly with athletes because that was the arena I was in with my husband who was a, uh, collegiate wrestler. And then we had our boys who were then. Wrestlers and lived eight and breathed wrestling.
Yeah. So, um, yep. So that’s how I started my practice. I did it part-time for quite a few years as I was still that home mom side or weekends and evenings and, and then it just developed from there. So then along that journey, it started with the hypno birthing. At what point did you start to branch out and look into other services?
About a year after I was teaching hypno birthing classes and I really enjoyed it. I realized how with anyone that learned how to relax their body and their mind with self hypnosis, that they could do anything. If you can have, What I decided and learned is if you can have a baby under hypnosis, hypnosis can help you with anything in life.
and I still contend that. Are there, I have to ask now, uh, are there situations where you’ve had to state that, where maybe here was a client who was kind of cautious or on the fence or the, you know, the classic pattern of, I don’t know, this, is this gonna work for me? ? Absolutely. And you know, here’s the thing is, you know, with hypno birthing, we are taught self hypnosis.
The zones, the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And what I learned and what I teach my athletes especially is, that was so easy to do when you mastered it. Mm-hmm. and between contractions, which we call surges, right? I would teach, I would just do that 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And I could go from the waking talking state to an automatic deep state of hypnosis and work through any surge without moving my body or changing my heart rate or breathing differently.
And, and I do use that with clients cuz I teach them that 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 zone. And I say if, if I can do it and have a contraction, which is supposed to be the most worst pain in the world, you can do it in my office. for, for those that might not be familiar with the technique is like, walk us through the basics of that.
Sure. It’s literally a quick and easy way to get yourself into self hypnosis and it’s an imagining your body in zones. Your head is zone five, shoulders zone four. Midsection zone three legs, zone two, and feet zone one. And it’s simply taking a deep breath in saying to yourself, I’m calm, I’m relaxed.
Exhaling, let yourself sink into your body and then relax that set of muscles in those zones. 5, 4, 3. Two, one, your head starts to fall checking in with your shoulders and your jaws, and by the time you get down to the tips of your toes, you can get into a self hypnotic state, which is a actually a deep trance state if you practice it.
Yeah, and what’s great about that is exactly what you said about how the sort of dirty dancing catchphrase of mind, no one puts hypnotic techniques in the corner. The fact that this could now be applied to so many different other situations, W will come around to, I’m sure, working with athletes and what are some of the mindsets behind that, but like what are the situations where perhaps you’re informing the athlete.
This is a time that you can put this into use. Typically when I work with athletes, uh, I see them for four sessions and by the fourth, and it’s a program, a whole mental training program. And by the fourth session I teach them self hypnosis. And the reason that I started doing that is I learned that many athletes that come into your office, it’s not because they care about hypnosis nor they’ve heard anything about it, nor they’re more on the natural side.
They just want to be better at their sport. They just want to reach their peak performance and be more confident. So what I found is that by the fourth session, they now believe in hypnosis. They’ve felt hypnosis. They have seen the results. That we have worked through and now they’re ready to practice self hypnosis.
And with most athletes, as you and I know, is there’s only so much time in the day and they’re busy. And to me it’s very important that they practice self hypnosis and visualization. Cuz as we know that’s the blueprint, as they step on the mat or get into the game. So it’s a quick way that I can teach my athletes and most of ’em.
When I ask them which technique, I’ll teach ’em a few self hypnosis techniques, which techniques they used or they used. Nine times outta 10, they’ll say the zones. Yeah. Well, the beauty of that is it’s something they can do in the moment. It’s something that they can do without having to escape. It’s not necessarily the, I need a dark room and a CD player kind of experience.
Exactly, Yes. And they, you know, I tell ’em, do it in your study hall. Like literally just take a few moments and do it and do your visualization and create that blueprint of what does your perfect game look like. So, um, yeah, it’s definitely the technique that I find most of them prefer, even though I teach ’em the stairs and a few other ones, this is the one that they tend to rely.
In terms of like a structural approach, you, you mentioned something here that we kind of hear a balance of both sides of this. Some would begin by teaching self hypnosis strategies to the client. I’m kind of in a similar vein that I’m doing more teaching toward the end of the process. What’s, what’s your thought process behind that?
Well, between every session I have tasks, yes. And I start the first session by. Formulating their, their training program, and that is creating affirmations with them. What is it? What are your goals? What would, what could you do if you did this? Would, uh, you would definitely win or be a better player? So we set the goals in affirmations in the first session.
I learned that, first of all, by having tasks in between sessions, that they are starting to learn how to comply. and trust you. And I know for myself, I don’t know about you, Jason, but I learned from myself. I knew about self hypnosis for so many years before I even started to do it myself. I would teach it, but I didn’t do it.
I don’t know about you. Did you do it right away when you learned it and realize the value of it There? There was this sort of bell curve. as to, okay, I’m helping all these people, but you know, there’s that one thing in my life. And then kind of going, Oh yeah, I know something for that . And then starting to plug it in.
And I’d say there’s still hypnotic tendencies to a lot of what I do, and it kind of reached this place of, you know, being able to make changes more quickly. Because it kind of trained the mind. I, you know, I live by the metaphor that everything’s a muscle and it can grow stronger if you use it right? But yeah, there absolutely was that moment of, Oh yeah, I should practice what I preach.
That’s probably what we need here. Exactly, and I learned from that is I knew about self hypnosis, yet I didn’t use it myself. And with the athletes, they are so busy and they only have so much time until they realize the value of visualization, mental training, and they’ve been through a process with you, their chances of doing the self hypnosis are much greater.
If I teach it at the end, I, I th that’s, that’s kind of where I align with that, which is that, You know, catchphrase of mine is that all hypnosis becomes self hypnosis eventually, you know, is a bit of an update to the words the all hypnosis is self hypnosis. Because now that the change is in motion, now that they know what they ought to be expecting, I think it’s easier at that point to teach them something.
Let’s say more formal. Yes, Yes. There is that part of it. And then, you know, so many people, anyone, a lot of our clients, including athletes, I think they overthink hypnosis sometimes, and once they’ve experienced it from you from a few times, they now trust that self hypnosis is a very simple process of just relaxing that conscious mind.
Whereas if you try to teach it in the beginning, there’s so much chatter going on, they don’t tend to feel like it’s important or they’re not sure how to use. Does that make sense? No, that does that, you know, let’s put that even into the, you know, sports or athleticism metaphor, that once they know what they ought to be doing, it’s easier to give adjustments.
Yeah. I’m going back to a personal example of learning how to deadlift from a trainer one time who’s barking commands at me. Don’t round your back. Don’t round your back. And I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing instead, and I didn’t know what rounding my back. But to then have the form, then here’s where the instruction and here’s how I could track improvement on my own after the fact.
Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Yeah. Curious to ask you, in your take on this, does the practitioner need to know all the details of the sport? In order to help the athlete. Great question. And you know the answer to that. Absolutely not. And we’re le we’re leading like crazy here. Appropriately. Yes. . And you know, here’s my take on it.
And this is, this is what I tell others in our profession is the mindset coach. I help you manage your mind. You know your sport, you know the insight on to your sport. You know what that looks like, yet I don’t have to know anything about your sport. And I’ll admit when I have a. Let’s say I have a lacrosse player come in and I don’t know the sport that well, or I had a, a guy that was like, went to the Olympics for bags.
You know that bag game? No, I don’t. Now I have to Google this . Okay. So it’s the pla it’s the, it’s the wooden board that has holes in it and you throw the beam bags into the holes. Um, isn’t that also called corn hole? Yes, Yes it is. Yes it is. So I had a gentleman come into me for that because he wanted to be better and, you know, reach his peak performance and more confident.
And I, I don’t play that game. I don’t even know the rules of it. I didn’t know it was an Olympic sport . It is. Can you believe that? I know. So I just Google it. Affirmations for cornhole players, . It gives me a little bit of their languaging so I can kind of sound like I’m, know what I’m talking about. When I ask ’em for what is a visualization of their perfect game, I can get all the languaging I need right there.
And it’s all the same techniques, the mental training, the working with the subconscious, creating visualizations. So no, you do not need to know anything. You don’t have to have been an athlete nor know anything about a sport, though I know from the direct connection you’ve had around wrestling, has that been one of the more prominent ones, or is that the one that kind of got the foot in the door and started this for.
Uh, great question. Wrestling and swimming is where I started. And the reason swimming is because I find that the individual sports, individual athletes tend to have, want even more. Their mental game is a little bit more important. And so with swimmers, I had a friend and her daughters were elite athletes, and I did a few sessions with them way back in the beginning, and they told their coaches and they told their teammate, And so it was at wrestling at the beginning, and wrestling also because I offered some free sessions until I got confident and knew what I was doing, and the results were amazing.
So I started with those two and now it’s branched out to any, any sport you could imagine, because these athletes are, you know, they’ll tell everybody about. That, that’s definitely been the experience, the insight you just dropped there about wrestling and swimming, that in the most cases, it’s the, it’s the solo aspect.
I’m thinking of even the baseball players that I’ve seen over the years. It’s, yeah, it’s the pitcher, it’s the moment at bat. Mm-hmm. , have you run into, Yeah. Have you run into the situation where it is something of a team? Oh, absolutely. I see football players and basketball players and because they feel, still feel responsible and you know, the bottom line is, I would say 99% of them come to us or me for confidence.
They know they have the ability, yet they have that self doubt and that affects their performance. And again, I do see athletes for performance, anxiety and mental blocks. You know, gymnast that can’t perform a back flip anymore, cheerleaders injuries. But I would say the majority of them are confidence.
And we all know that confidence changes the way we do anything in life, even if it’s a team sport. That’s something I was gonna ask you about too, that oftentimes there is that catalyst here’s and, and what you said there was right on that these are people that clearly already know they have the capability and it’s either a matter of the confidence or like you mentioned for the gymnast, something happened and it’s about moving past that and getting back to the confidence.
Do, do you find there’s a bit of a common through line of the story as to why now they’re in front of. Uh, what do you mean by that? Like, is it often triggered by an event as in here comes the next, let’s say competition. Mm-hmm. , or, uh, here was the injury, they’re now on the recuperate period. I said that right.
Um, what, what’s often that story that’s leading them into what you do? Uh, you know, a lot of times it is a big competition, a big tournament coming up because we all know that as it gets closer, the self dow creeps up, creeps in. I can even attribute that. I can even say that’s true in as a parent of an athlete.
You know, I can believe in my, my son’s, uh, wrestling ability forever, yet. The second they get to a national competition, I start getting that nervousness. And what if they don’t? And you know, they’re wrestling with really good kids. So I get it. And as an athlete it’s, it’s that much more so the self do creeps in as they get closer to tournaments, which is a lot of times when they’ll wanna come in.
But I also have found that because it’s all based, a lot of my business is based on referrals. It is more about the confidence piece. Uh, when I work with youth in high school, I’ll have the parents say they were always really great wrestlers, or really great athletes. I believe in ’em. They’re a great basketball player, soccer player.
Yet they don’t believe in themselves. The way that I do, and I know if they could believe in themselves the way I do, they would be much better. And so it’s really just the basic confidence. So it sounds like many of the people you end up working with may be in that, let’s say, late high school college timeframe, or what’s, what’s kind of the spread on that?
Gosh, it is, I would say it starts at about sixth or seventh grade youth through high school. And then college because we all, you know, if we have athletes, a lot of times they have siblings in college. And then I do see Olympic trial athletes because they, um, you know, they move on. So, because I’ve been seeing ’em for so many years, they’ll just continue to come to me season after season.
And I have worked with a few professional athletes, although. They don’t like to tell others, so they’re not as good of a referral base. ? Mm-hmm. ? Yes. They don’t like to tell others they’ve seen hypnotists or working with a hyp. I forget if I’ve shared this story with you at one point that part of the backstory of what launched Virginia Hypnosis was that in Northern Virginia there was a newspaper that printed a different addition in every individual city in Fairfax, counties, like 32 cities.
So they print all these specialized editions and they said, We’re not gonna print it in Alexandria because that will look like advertising. Let’s put it in this other city, in the county. 15 miles away, and it was a gymnastics coach that read that article. And then the amount of word of mouth that came in after the fact.
Meanwhile, I then started to work with bodybuilders and powerlifters and they don’t share. Mm-hmm. . Yes, I, I have found that also, I’ve worked with a few of those and now I don’t, I think it’s because they wanna keep it to themselves more so than they’re embarrassed about it. But I haven’t quite figured that out yet.
Well, it’s, so much of that world is. Again, getting into just that little bit of an edge. Mm-hmm. , because sometimes it might be the difference of two extra, three extra pounds on the barbell. Uh, it might be just that little bit of a shift of technique that suddenly is every reason why they win and they’re friendly to each other, but it seems to be a little bit more cutthroat when it’s actually the competition side.
Yeah. Yeah. I’ve seen that with some of my MMA fighter. I’ve seen that with lawyers as well, which is a whole other conversation, . So which, which leads into, I mean, are athletes the only thing that you do, or does this lead into, let’s say it as more, let’s say retail hypnosis type things? Yes, for sure, because most athletes that I see, they’re not afraid to tell others about, at least the, the age groups that I see.
Uh, they tell everybody why they’re doing so well. And so then I have parents and. And siblings come. And do you do weight loss hypnosis and smoking hypnosis? Can you help my friend with anxiety? I’m afraid of flying and I’m going to Florida next week. And uh, so yes, I would say even though I’m an expert in sports hypnosis, it’s maybe even 50% of my clientele because of the referral base.
Yet you’re illustrating, I think, something that a lot of people need to hear, which is that we get this expectation that if someone’s gonna niche down to something, that means that’s gonna be the only thing that we do. And instead by nicheing down to something specific, that’s the biggest foot in the door that we could have, and then everything else will likely follow as the result.
And it sounds like that’s kind of the, the roadmap towards a lot of what you’ve been doing. Yes. And like I tell everybody, if you have heart issues, you don’t go to a general doctor. You want a heart specialist, and that’s how people find you. Yet, when they see the results, they will refer you to everyone.
So then from that, you know, inside of this program we often talk about, you know, the work that you’re doing. I’m curious to hear, you’ve mentioned affirmations, you’ve mentioned teaching self hypnosis. Is there a bit of a roadmap that you kind of bring them through? Are there specific techniques that you tend to find are the go-to methods for your athletes?
Yes, there is absolutely a roadmap. In fact, I love athletes and high performers, so I use the same program for speakers and entrepreneurs, musicians, and it’s a pretty simple system and a lot of it is, is mindset training. Uh, we go through things like thought stopping. Carrying yourself like a champion, writing affirmations, uh, paying attention to your thoughts and reversing ’em, changing negative to positive.
I teach, you know, the visualization. So there is a roadmap that I love to do, and the reason that they’re my favorite clients is because there’s not of a lot of emotional stuff going on there. It’s more about peak performance, performance enhancement. And, uh, so yeah, there’s four sessions. It’s pretty cut and dry.
And of course there’s hypnosis in there and there’s making a recording with their affirmations for them in there. Yet, uh, it’s, it’s a pretty easy program that we can use with athletes because they want to succeed and they will do anything you tell ’em to do. Well, we were, we were having a conversation before we hit record, and it was where part of a business group that I’m.
The dialogue popped up at one point where someone suddenly stumbled upon, Wait. That’s the market that I like talking to the most, and I heard it, and I’m over here. You know, it’s a Zoom meeting and I’m over here nodding going, Oh yeah. That’s why. And it’s part of the reason I like working with entrepreneurs.
It’s part of the reason that I like working with athletes. I’m doing less of that now as we’ve kind of repositioned the focus of things. But to put it in the athletic sense, these are people that are used to practice. These are people that are used to putting in effort to see a result. And that’s a different dynamic than I haven’t been able to do this thing yet and I need help.
Mm-hmm. . Exactly. And to that point, this is what I tell them is you have a physical coach and now you need a mental coach. Nice. You don’t want me to be with you all the time. I promise you. I can’t be with you all the time. But what I can do is teach you how to be your own mental coach. And that’s gonna make the huge difference between winning and losing.
Now it’s clear that these are conversations that you’ve had many times that I’m curious to kind of open up the conversation around what are some of the things you’re doing in addition to the referrals, in addition to the word of mouth, What’s classically working for you to be found by this world?
Google. Mm-hmm. , Google Business. And that is just putting the testimonials Yes. On Google business. Changing out my pictures. I don’t advertise, I don’t pay for any Google business ads yet. I get hundreds of hits a week. Nice. And then Facebook testimonials on there. Having a Facebook group where I encourage my clients to get into the group and give little tidbits and do weekly, uh, Facebook lives for.
They love that stuff, you know, that’s mostly it. And referrals. I don’t do any paid advertising for my individual business. Yeah. And you know, I often say that that’s one of those things that someone can do in the early stages if they’re going after a specific audience, that’s an option. But we kind of reached this point, and this was the episode with Nathan G uh, back on number 350, where he goes, I feel like I’m slacking off because like I did a lot of active stuff in the early days and now I’m not doing that.
And people are just coming to. It’s like, well, that’s kind of the bell curve of the business that we have to begin with a bit more active strategies, and that then feeds the fire of the passive strategies, where now we just keep up the momentum, as you mentioned, of putting out some content, keeping things refreshed, engaging with our clients, getting results, which is always very important.
And then that’s where it kind of now begins to run itself. Right, Exactly. And you know, being involved also in the community, and I do have a lot of clients that come from all over Wisconsin and all over Illinois. So they do drive and if they don’t wanna. drive for six hours. I will do Zoom sessions with them.
But I also believe that being engaged in the community is helpful to just get, they remember you, right? You’re out there, you tell ’em what you do, you tell ’em. You’re a mindset expert with athletes and they want to know more, you know? And that, surprisingly, that’s a theme that I can think is only maybe popped up.
Like four or five times and we’re now up to 354 episodes here, , which would be that become a part of the local community. And you know, it’s not always of the transactional nature of, Hi, here’s who I am and this is what I sell. So when you say being a part of the community, like what does that entail for you?
Chamber of Commerce? Yeah. You know, go to a few ribbon cuttings. Mm-hmm. , um, go to the yearly Chamber of Commerce meeting. What else? Being out in the community, I always, if anyone ever asks me to speak, which it happens often, I will always be there to speak, whether it’s a wellness program they’re doing or something else.
Uh, rotary meetings, optimist meetings, Kiwanis meetings. There’s always those opportunities. They love to have speakers like us that are interesting. Being out there mostly in the community offering. I go to high school sometimes and will speak to the freshman class about stress. and just get out there and serve and that’s how people find you.
Yeah. And that example of the high school, are you going there? I have to ask, are you calling it hypnosis? You kind of alluded that it’s no, about stress release. Yeah. Good question. Uh, no I don’t. I just go and I teach them how to release stress, so I will teach same techniques, like I will teach ’em that 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, self hypnosis, yet I won’t call it.
So it’s, you know, touch your finger to your thumb, take a deep breath, allow yourself to relax and teach ’em stress management techniques mostly. But they also get a business card from me so they know, you know, they know what we do, yet we don’t teach it in the schools. I’ve always loved the pattern of I’m not here to do hypnosis.
Now, close your eyes and . Well, it’s that again, you’re illustrating the fact that we ought to be out there providing value, giving people an experience, and then in a very non-salesy way, inviting them to take the next step, but also making it pretty clear here’s how to get in contact with you. Yes, exactly.
And you know, the one big thing I forgot to mention is I do get out, and this is one of the strategies that I teach in my attitude of a champion course. I do get out and I speak to teams. And I give them just a little bit of what I will give them when they come to see me as a client and talk about mindset training and how important it is.
Do a quick relaxation and visualization. And that is how, in the beginning I did get a lot of athletes as clients, just reaching out to teams. Yeah. And that’s interesting. Was that sort of a free talk? Was that ever paid in terms of working directly with the whole team rather than the individual? That is a free talk because you know, like I told the mentees in my class is the coaches, they’re actually, they’re the ones that’ll get you in front of the teams and then once you get in front of a team, it’s a half an hour.
You know, I literally, I’ll schedule a half an hour with ’em and they’re so impressed with it. Like simple things. How many times do you say that you’re a great soccer player? And then give them that as a task. And they’re so impressed with these little mental training tips that I would say with every every team talk I do, I probably get two to four to five clients from it.
Individual. So this is probably the more self-serving question of the conversation. And, uh, let’s say more for entertainment. Out of my curiosity, , um, is there a story that stands out where even you were, let’s say, surprised as to how well the result was? Oh my gosh, there’s so many. Which one would I choose?
You know, what I find is, is one of my favorites is with swimmers. They will all have them set short term and long term goals. And when we work with Shortterm goals, it’s, I go 50.1 in my 53 for 30.1. I don’t even know the timing right now. And so they will set these and it’s fractions of a second and I have.
Probably more than a handful of times received emails from these clients, these swimmers saying, I don’t even know how I did it, because I set this as a, what we talk about stretchy, but attainable goals is what I tell my athletes. I set it as a stretchy but attainable goal. I didn’t know what I was going, cause my head was down as I was swimming.
Yet when I looked up, I got the exact time, fractions of a second that I had set my goal time for. Nice. I love those. I love those stories because I tell them, I, I don’t know the mechanics exactly of how your mind works. I just know it’s magic enough. That’s exactly what happens in your life. That’s a great way of phrasing that.
Uh, you’re, you’re illustrating something here that I think is also a dialogue that many in this profession could benefit from. Uh, and, and we’ll talk about, you know, your program here in a bit, but just share behind the scenes what was that sort of thought process to take? Here’s something that you discovered there was a need for, and you started to serve it, and you started to, for lack of a better term, begin to really figure it out.
And then at one point there was a transition to go, Let me now. Teaching it. At what point in that journey would you say, not even, you know, the decision point, but what point did you feel that comfort to go, I can step into this role as an authority and now share this with others? Hmm. Well, I was teaching at the Heartland Hypnosis Conference maybe six, seven years ago.
and I was teaching and working with athletes, and I remember Helen Mighta said to me, and we know life is about planting seeds. Helen Mighta said to me, You work with athletes all the time. You know exactly what you’re doing. You have a proven process. Why are you not teaching others? Yeah. How to do this.
That’s all I needed to hear. And interestingly enough, I started to write then the manual that I now teach my courses from. The attitude of a Champion manual. And shortly after, I think that took me, gosh, longer than I had expected, maybe six months to a year. And as I was finishing it, that is when my oldest son, who was at college for a full scholarship, got into himself in some trouble and it was a, uh, private school, got himself in some trouble in Nebraska, and within 24 hours, Signed out of the school because he was facing four felonies and they weren’t big deals, but it was like a pocket knife.
That was too long cuz he hunted out there and. He had his bone in his room without arrow. So four felonies, signed himself outta school, completely done, done wrestling, done in college, and moved down to Florida, Took the sim card outta his phone, didn’t have any contact with us. And that was when I decided, okay, I now have this.
I learned so much from him. He was Olympic, you know, the top three on the Olympic list. Uh, he was amazing. Wrestler, national champion. Uh, world, World winner around the world to wrestle. And I thought, Okay, I know all the tools and techniques. I’ve learned it. I’ve seen mental toughness. The things that he did were almost super human, is what I thought.
And I thought, Okay, now I have this manual and I get to do something with it. I get to teach others how to work with athletes cuz not only have I worked with athletes, the ins and outs, but I raised a champion athlete. And, uh, it’s time that I taught others that same mental toughness that he had. It’s kind of my story.
I love that. Mm-hmm. now I love that cuz when we catch that moment where, you know, oftentimes we get into this conversation and to use some slightly negative phrasing, it becomes how dare I not share this? Mm-hmm. , you know, where it becomes that responsibility as to this is what impact it can create. You know, there there’s a personal story and I think you heard.
When we did the Train the Trainer a couple of weeks ago where I had someone who goes, How is it you put all these podcast episodes out? How has he put all these videos out? You keep speaking at these events and you know, it was a polite yet direct phrase to respond. Well, I wonder what would be different if you believed in your message?
As much as I believe in mine. Mm-hmm. , and when we start to attach that kind of. So that kind of importance to something that’s where now, you know, sometimes it does take these moments. I, my angel moment may have been a moment with Kelly T. Woods, and I don’t think she knows this where she goes, Here’s what you do, here’s what’s interesting about it.
And I went, Yes, that is what I do, . Uh, and we have these moments where, you know, to be acknowledged to have that opportunity to then share it. Um, I, I’m curious to ask you, is there. , Is there a through line that you’ve found to be different? Let’s say between, because we’ll occasionally see, let’s say the amateur athlete that wants to get better and then the world class athlete who just needs that little bit more of that peak performance, more of that edge.
If, if you had to be pressed to have the answer as to what the difference is between that amateur versus the pro, what would be your take on that? Mental toughness, and I know that’s a broad term. But mental toughness is resilience shifting out of bad performances like true mental toughness. And, and this is an example is what I can think of is I would say to my son when he was a senior in high school and had won two state titles, and like I said, he was a like a five time national champ by then, I would say, What is it that you do that when you walk on the mat?
Everybody knows you are going to win. There is no doubt that you are going to win that match. And you know, for him it was mental toughness. It didn’t matter what his situation was, he would shift into. An apex when he walked on the mat and he, like he said, he would be superhuman. And that to me is that mental toughness where you all distractions disappear and you believe in yourself so much that there’s no doubt you’re going to win.
That is awesome. That is awesome. I wanna thank you so much for coming on and really just, you know, peeling back the curtain and sharing so much of this. Where can people find out more? How can they learn more about what you. I would say the easiest, uh, website to go to is Karen by, which is my name, karen byd.com, and Karen is c a r y.
Yes. B I R D. Yes. I own every wrong spelling of jason Linett.com and they all point to the right place. So, uh, . Exactly. I’ve always wanted to be careful around that. And we’ll put all the links and references over in the show [email protected]. This is episode number 354, so work smart hypnosis.com/ 3 54 in terms of how they can find out more about the work that you do.
Before we wrap this up, any final thoughts for the listeners out there? Well, first of all, I wanted to thank you, Jason, for having me on. We all know it’s an honor to, to be on the Work Smart podcast and I, I was telling you earlier that when I was, uh, just maybe five or six years ago, even when I was really getting into.
Building my business up. I would listen to your podcast like one on top of the other as I was walking. So thank you. Um, no, I think that’s it. You know, my mission, and you mentioned this and alluded to this also, is I. I can’t reach every athlete in this world yet. I know how to help you have mental toughness.
I know how to help and create champions. I believe in the power of the mind so much, and I believe that if there was a sports hypnotist that lived a block away from me, there are enough clients forever. Single one of us in this world. And my goal is to teach others how to help athletes be champions.
Jason, let I here once again, and as always kind of like the story you just listened to. It’s feedback from all of you that helps us to grow. It’s the referrals, it’s the testimonials. So thank you to those who have left reviews of this program on the iTunes side or ever else. You can find places to leave reviews and one of the best things you can do to help us out with.
Ongoing and continuously growing podcast series is share it with others. I love that Karen shared toward the end that for years in her startup phases, this is something that she listened to as she was out for a walk and even at times, still continues to listen to today. So who do you know? In the hypnotic profession that needs some help getting up and running.
There’s so many people that are just on that cusp of getting started. Share these episodes with them, whether it’s ones like this with Outstanding conversations or some of the solo episodes that I’ve done. Over the years, and I’d invite you to head over to the show notes, Work smart hypnosis.com/ 3 54.
That’s where re finded all the details of this specific episode. And again, check out hypnotic business systems.com. More than 200 hours of content, it’s lifetime access. And the reason it’s called Hypnotic Business Systems is because every module stands on, its. If you’re in a startup phase, you’ll see.
That’s why it’s gonna make sense to go in the published order of content. But then again, you might be in that. Where it’s time to now scale up your efforts and see a greater impact for the work that you’re putting in. And yes, of course, see greater value coming back. That’s a more lofty way of saying, earning more money or as we like to say, making it rain.
So head over to the hypnotic business systems.com website. Look it over though. While you’re there, look at that floating bar at the bottom. Sign up for that free on-demand masterclass. Learn some strategies you can put to use right away, and join us inside of hypnotic business. Dot com. See you all soon.
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