Session #369: Colin Chapman on Hypnosis is Amazing

Disclaimer: Transcripts were generated automatically and may contain inaccuracies and errors.

---

This is the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast. Session number 369. Colin Chapman on Hypnosis is amazing. 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. I’m Jason Linett, and this week’s guest on the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast is someone who I really got to know for the first time inside of a temporary covid quarantine in Las Vegas.

All right, so there’s a sentence we didn’t know existed until a couple of years ago, and Colin visits the program here today from the Richmond, Virginia area. And actually Colin is someone that I didn’t get to know until I moved away from Virginia. Not that he of course, had anything to do with that. And this is a conversation that’s been a little while coming and I’m realizing I just opened up a massive loop with that opening line.

I promise you we’re gonna, we’re gonna come back to that here in a moment. Yet it’s interesting how, again, how so many of us don’t necessarily grow up going, I wanna be a hypnotist. It’s often by way of a few chance encounters that we first get introduced. And then let it take us to very different directions of our life.

So from a position in sales, you’re about to hear the story. Colin was introduced to hypnosis and NLP as a means of increasing his sales ability, yet kind of fell into it at a point in life where he was looking for something bigger and better and much more important. And it’s where hypnosis as amazing as it clearly is, then eventually led over to learning how to do hypnosis and then really splitting his time between that of working with clients as well as a flourishing career.

Working in stage hypnosis. Actually true story. Um, and I feel the need to say this now because I get these emails on a weekly basis. It seems, uh, I remove myself from stage hypnosis back around 2018. Um, not that I don’t agree with it. In fact, I would very comfortably say, and this is something we run into frequently with the hypnosis certification events that we do, where, Oh, I learned from this person and they say that stage hypnosis is the worst thing for the industry.

Well, first of all, anyone who says that clearly doesn’t understand the history of our profession, and some of the hiccups that we ran into over the years, such as here was James Dale on a boat traveling over to introduce the royal doctors to his incredible methods. And yet basically along that timeframe is when chemical anesthesia.

Was figured out, you know, which is a fancy way of saying that if you gave someone too much, it would kill them. And if you gave them too little, it was, um, rather uncomfortable. And if it weren’t for the stage hypnotist, we would’ve disappeared for a number of years. And even so the big players in our industry, whether it’s folks like Dave Elman, who kept it alive, and eventually even the medical doctors were knocking on his door insisting that he teach the medical hypnosis, to which he rightfully responded, I don’t know what that is.

And they responded, We know, but we see that you could hypnotize 20 people and like 90 seconds. And we think your methods are much more applicable to our specific needs as early as the 1940s and fifties. You’ve got eight minutes in the room with the patient, make it count. Do you see how we’ve already.

Gone off pathway into historical record, which simply put, and I’ll put this out there in terms of my own opinion here, it would be that context is everything. So people who are going to a stage hypnosis show and are basically being preformed in the pre-talk that hey, some funny things are gonna happen.

And for those people who wanna have more fun up here than they would out in the audience, that’s who we are gonna ask to volunteer the stage. Hypnotist doesn’t point the fingers and say, You’re gonna be my volunteer and you’re gonna be my volunteer. So context is everything, right? Which. Here, here, this next phrase, very carefully, depending on the skills of the hypnotist, that’s where then it’s a matter of how well the rest of the program plays out.

And just to date this story, here are the final shows that my company really had still been booking out, despite retiring myself from stage hypnosis, not because I disagree with it, but instead here’s a whole other branch of my business that, of the hypnotic influence for premium sales. You can learn more about that [email protected].

Yet that side of it is, it was growing. It was basically then serving as this distraction, and it was kind of time to. You know, retire away from a couple of things. I say that well before the age of 40, and I understand how pompous and arrogant that may sound, but join me on this journey, uh, . So it’s where I was reaching out to Colin because Colin is now taking over the last and final shows that I had consistently in the Virginia Beach, Virginia area where I’m originally from, including the school that I actually graduated from.

Hey, fun fact, for those of you that are members of hypnotic workers, uh, if you go inside of the stage hypnosis module, inside of there, that full show of mind that you get to watch from start to finish, that’s the school. So in the midst of juggling contracts, in the midst of juggling the language of final balance payment will be made to hypnosis, is amazing.

Care of Colin Chapman and Future Bookings will be under the care of his company as well. I went, Hey, we’re talking a lot. Let’s get you on the podcast. So back to Colin’s story here, where we last left off being introduced to hypnosis and then over the years, as we’ve now clearly established, building a career both in the direction of working with clients one to one as well as a rather flourishing and at least a few more shows by my doing it seems, uh, stage hypnosis career.

What’s really interesting in this conversation though, are some of the deeply personal points that come up that of a major injury, which I gotta say massive, massive respect far beyond what was already there for Colin as he tells the story of recovering from a traumatic brain injury and the PTSD that followed after a, uh, rather difficult car accident back in 2019.

And what I think is a major takeaway of this conversation here is how he says that the hypnosis played a game changing role. Very clearly states, no, the hypnosis is not the only thing that helped me to recover from this yet the hypnosis clearly was something that, let’s say, expedited his healing process.

So this is a phenomenal one. This is one that, uh, for those of you that maybe are on the fence of the importance of stage hypnosis to our world, again, context is everything. Some would say, Well, I think it’s horrible that there are some people who do, uh, stage hypnosis shows and they’re slightly questionable material.

Well, I’d go back to now, he’s no longer doing the show in Vegas, but I’d go back to someone like Anthony Cools, who that’s how the show was promoted. You know, that’s what the expectation was, that it was gonna be an R rated show. And would you then be surprised that that’s what he delivered upon night after night at the, Which hotel was it?

The Paris Casino in Vegas. And here’s Kevin Lapine in his prime, which almost rhymes. Three times over. Mind you, uh, who’s there in, uh, the downtown part of Las Vegas and delivering upon a show. That’s exactly what the audience expects it to be because that’s what it’s promoted to be. Honestly, my only block with stage hypnosis has been the occasional moment, and I think, I believe , don’t get me in trouble here.

I think Colin indirectly references someone that used to be in our shared neighborhoods will say that in extremely general point, that I one time had to play damage control by saying, Look, if a man in his early fifties thinks it’s appropriate to go into a high school and do a handshake orgasm with teenagers, I gotta say, I hope he gets whatever’s wrong with him diagnosed and.

Here’s the list of the 300 plus schools at the time that I had worked. And, uh, if I do anything on the stage of your school, I’m saying this to the principal. If I do anything on the stage of your school that you think is inappropriate, I would hope you would send a certified letter to every one of these schools.

And the principal sits back and goes, I like you. Let’s do this. Which is another show. Hey, Colin, I’ll, I’ll let you know when they’re ready to book there. , we have none left. So everyone else, seriously, there’s this one guy who keeps messaging me going, Hey, if you still have any shows, No, Colin, Colin took him over.

And Brian Ick, who’s also been on the show as well. We, we keep it in the family here. So again, it’s a passion towards helping people. It’s a passion towards introducing hypnosis to new audiences and. . It’s the moment where we get the alert in Las Vegas during hypno thoughts last year in 2021, that, uh, hey, someone has tested positive, um, you know, they’re feeling fine, but just to stay safe, they’re gonna stay in their hotel room.

And we all kind of did the, uh, tracking as we’ve now become experts at to get everyone tested. Big thank you, of course, to Scott Sandlin, Stephanie Skiba, and everyone at the Orleans Hotel in Casino that, uh, we then did bra, daily brain swabs and, um, everyone else turned out to be fine. So fantastic for that.

Uh, which somehow seems like the worst way to then promote. Hey, join us Hypno Thoughts Live 2022 in Las Vegas. You could find out all the details of the convention at ht. Dot net. And then let me also point you to, and I’ll give you a very specific website to go to, which we’ll just have two buttons on it.

Um, and to my editors, this is why the show notes and the entry level to intro to this episode was slightly late cuz we had to build this page. If you go over to work smart hypnosis.com. Forward slash Vegas, as in Las Vegas, but just the one word, V E G A S. Then the numbers 2022 this year at Hypno Thoughts Live.

I’m doing a pre-convention offering as well as a post convention class. First of all, before the convention, join me for a professional IC BCH hypnosis certification event. Teaming up once again live and in person with Richard non guard, which as much as he and I have clearly been doing quite a number of online training events, gotta say the experience of doing it hands on in the room and getting specific feedback is unmatched.

So check that out. If you go to work smart hypnosis.com/. Vegas 2022. That will bring you over to the page where you can click the button that has the image of both me and Richard for our I C B C H professional certification event. If you’re brand new to hypnosis, I can’t think of a better way to really just dive in head first by attending this certification event live in real time, and then sticking around for the hypno thoughts live convention, the largest hypnosis gathering in the galaxy that has been confirmed.

And then if you would like to make it rain on a more consistent level, join me after hypno thoughts Live four. Content is king, your six figure hypnosis business plan in one day. You see, here’s the thing. I’ve become more successful over the years by batching everything down to specific systems and principles.

And if you’re ready to eliminate the overwhelm, the anxiety, and the frustration of running your hypnosis business. You wanna be there for content Is king, your six figure hypnosis business plan in one day? How can I really deliver this much in just one day? The answer is simple. When we actually break the marketing process down the client acquisition journey into rather simple formulas, you start to realize that everything then becomes variations upon a theme, and the quality of the people you attract is directly proportionate to the quality of the content marketing that you create.

And this is gonna be live, it’s gonna be interactive, and it’s going to be. Hands on for. So even for those of you that are members of my hypnotic business systems community, look, look at the page. There’s a discount for you. We keep it in the family. That’s called nepotism. Uh, but it’s really a matter of avoiding the number one mistakes that people tend to make in their content marketing and why it is that most people are throwing confetti out into the air and not really making it rain appropriately.

This is why it’s live and hands on and interactive. We’re gonna be doing the work together, bring your computers, bring your notebooks. We’re gonna actually be mapping out your content marketing strategies. Just the other day in one of our communities, someone was asking, How do I do email marketing? Well, I’ll tell you, join me at Hypno Thoughts Live.

So we’re gonna put both of those, uh, links [email protected] slash vegas 2022 because being successful is amazing. Hypnosis is amazing, and indeed, Colin Chapman. Is amazing. This, this conversation is just a gift. You’re gonna love it. So with that, apologies for the slightly long intro there, but we had to get up on the stage hypnosis soapbox for a moment.

And with that though, let’s dive directly into this phenomenal chat. Here we go. Session number 369. Colin Chapman on hypnosis is amazing.

Well, before that I had the worst day of my life. My son, who is now 18, um, he’s doing very well. He’s a 9 1 1 dispatcher right now. And so the story does have a. Ending. Mm-hmm. in 2007, he, my wife, myself, are all in a room and a doctor tells us that he had cancer, the retina, and had six months to live. Oh wow.

Absolutely. Worst day of my life. That led to us in order to get to the doctor who was able to discover it was the wrong diagnosis. It ended up with us going up and spending two weeks in Philadelphia, spending that time in Ronald McDonald House, and at the time, going in there, I had too much arrogance to be able to handle the charity of Ronald McDonald House.

However, I quickly picked up on some things that I was learning from all these other moms and dads, and by the time I left, I knew that I had to do something way more meaningful in my life than just chasing money. And I started searching for what I could do that would have real meaning. Cause selling cars a lot of fun, good money, but it wasn’t meaningful in any real way.

And so, um, in about 2010, my mentor comes to me and says, Hey Colin, there’s something I want you to put all your energy into. And that’s, I want you to learn neurolinguistic programming because all modern sales string is based on neurolinguistic programming. And I said, What is neurolinguistic programming?

Yeah. And I say this with all love and respect to everybody in the NLP world, like many nlp, he decided the way to answer that question was a five minute long answer with nothing but jargon and buzzer, . And finally it’s like, James, James, James. You know, we better than that by now. 25 words or less using only English.

Tell it to me like I’m just a child. And he thinks about, So, uh, I gotta get back to you on that one. It’s like, Okay, I’m still waiting on James to get back to me. Can I, can I just jump in? I, that’s, that’s one of my biggest pet peeves, but also one of my greatest passions that some of, and, and hypnosis as well.

Some of it has become so convoluted for the sake of convolution. And the easiest example is, you know, my favorite titled pattern of the unspecified referential index. Exactly what that means is that the noun is not specified. It’s unspecified. What’s the reference? Well, it’s not being shared. How do you do it though?

You use the two words. Some people, if it takes more words to describe the technique, it means you need a new name. It’s called Bingo. Some people pattern . Absolutely. I, I wanna go back before we continue the story here. Cause you hit on something there, which was this journey of looking for something more meaningful.

Mm-hmm. and I, I want to hear more about this and, and even though not everybody in this audience is gonna have the identical story of basically not wanting charity yet, suddenly seeing things in a new perspective and then being inspired to do something similar on a grander scale. There’s people who are holding onto belief systems that just currently aren’t yet working for them.

Uh, so was there, was there a turning point? In that story where the previous perception dissolved away. Oh yeah. And this one, it’s like, I’ll, I’ll, I’m happy to share it. It’s actually kind of tough for me to talk about without getting a little bit choked up. What I discovered is that all these parents are sharing with each other what’s going on.

And one in particular that I’ll never forget is there was a family from Iraq and their son had been burned horribly in the war. He was nine years old. And just their story, you know, was just so powerful what they had going on and however bad a shape your kid was in, every other parent was like, Oh my God, I can’t believe you have it so rough.

And everybody was like that. And I realized I was like that. And I just felt this need that even though at the time until the very end of this two week period, I’m thinking I only have six months left with my son. I had to somehow do something to help people like these other parents that were out there.

Yeah. And so that’s what really got me to start searching. Thank you for sharing that. And it, it’s then here’s this journey where from a sales perspective, go learn this NLP thing. Right. At what point in that journey did it then sort of reveal itself as, Oh, here’s how I can use this for, uh, other purposes.

So here’s what . Now the story starts to get a little bit more fun. Yeah. So I remembered my friend Dan from college had said something to me about neurolinguistic program. I call and said, Dan, what is nlp? And people may agree, disagree with this answer, however, the answer is, was life changing for me? He said, Oh, that’s simple.

All NLP is is hypnotic suggestion without the formal induction into trance. My initial response, I didn’t even think about, I said, hypnosis. That’s some Chuck Norris level badassery right there, . Now keep in mind, this is, I think we just found the title of this episode by the way, but keep going with the story

Um, uh, so I then go out and get. Every book I can off of Amazon on hypnosis. I spent hundreds of dollars. The only one I didn’t get that they had was some $400 Outof print textbook. Mm-hmm. . I read all these books cover to cover. Michael Stevenson’s book was one I read over and over again because it simplified hypnosis.

Yeah. It’s like I read that book and I knew just by reading the book I could probably do this. I didn’t have the confidence to try that yet, so I ended up and no, I’m not sure why you weren’t one of them. I ended up working Google cuz at the time there weren’t a bunch of YouTube videos on hypnosis. I started just cold calling hypnotist.

I was finding all over the country and a bunch of them sent me videos. Oh, nice. And that impressed me cuz like, Hey, you know, that’s really cool. There’s this idiot in Richmond, Virginia who wants to learn something about hypnosis a and these guys are just giving me their stuff, you know? That’s beautiful.

And so I read all these books, I’m watching these videos, and some of the videos were about street hypnosis. Like, Oh, that’s kind of cool. And so I started doing street hypnosis first at during slow times at work, then I go into a Starbucks, then I go to a party and I’d walk up to people, I say, Hey, you wanna see something cool?

Okay. What? It’s like, Have you ever been hypnotized before? And they would either lose their minds, run away and get a restraining order or . They would say, You can do that. It’s like, yeah. It’s like, okay, let’s go. Now here’s the other thing that’s important. In my origin story, I was doing this as a totally underground secret hobby that I did not let my wife and kids know about.

Oh, that’s a first on this program. Thank you, . Cause at the time I thought, you know, this hypnosis stuff that’s a little out there, a little freaky. I don’t know how to talk about it, but I’m doing, I’m really, I’m having fun with it. Um, the comedy aspect, the fact that blowing minds with it was just so cool to me.

And then I stumbled onto self hypno. I started messing with that and I used that to experience some different altered states. It’s like, wow, that is absolutely amazing. I can feel that and I’m not even gonna fail the drug test. In a couple weeks, . Um, and I thought, you know what? I heard hypnosis is good for smoking.

And as a parting gift from the army, because I learned within seconds of arriving at basic training that smokers got extra breaks. I, I had a two-pack a day smoking habit at the time, and I said, Let me use self hypnosis to do something about the two pack a day smoking habit. I did, and it stuck. And the day that my daughter, who today is 21, she was like nine at the time, she gives me this note telling me how sh, how proud she is of me and how tough it must have been for me to have done that and how happy she is.

I’m gonna be around longer because I have, That was my aha moment where I realized, you know what? I should be helping people with this. I love it. I don’t know if I’ll be any good at it, but I love it. So I do some digging and I go to my wife, I sit down, I say, Les, um, this is gonna be the craziest thing you’ve ever heard.

I’ve decided that what I would like to do is I would like to, I’m just pausing you right there, cuz I’m just trying to imagine every bit of internal dialogue. did every expectation that clearly wasn’t about what you’re about to say, but, Sorry, go on. Oh, oh, I, I, I was, I was scared to death, make no speak about it.

And I said, I said, I did this research. I would like to get certified and open a hypnosis practice. Here’s what my plan is to make that work. And I lay everything out for over 15 minutes and very, very, very much unlike Leslie, she does not interrupt me once. She’s staring at me and I’m thinking, This woman’s gonna murder me in my sleep tonight.

And finally I say, Okay, that’s all what I have. What do you think? She looks at me. She goes, You’re absolutely right. That is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. I can’t believe you’ve been doing this without telling us for all this time. And I absolutely think that what you’re talking about doing is absolutely who you are and you need to do this.

Oh, nice. And if you do this, this, and this, I’ll do all of these things to make this possible for you. And there is nobody who has been a bigger fan or more supportive through the entire journey than what she has. So yeah, that’s how I ended up becoming a hypnotist. I love that. I love that. So then it began with just the curiosity and kind of.

Uh, cuz correct me on this and we’ll, we’ll get around to all of this I’m sure and do time here. Yet, in the early stages it began as the, you know, let me just learn this. It then went to the, let me get certified. And I believe it’s not till later in your story that stage hypnosis appeared. Exactly. There was still, I think it’s safe to say a bit of a, I don’t wanna say show off, but more of a presentational approach to it from day one.

A hundred percent. Uh, uh, let me share this experience with you kind of thought a hundred percent. Yeah. How, how would you, how would you define that? Where would you say that that comes from for you? It’s really interesting. Um, there being out in public meeting complete and total strangers introducing myself to them, sometimes making a spectacle of myself.

Mm-hmm. is not. Who I really am. Yeah. I’m doing it every day and doing it with enthusiasm. Yeah. Um, and I think I do it because I care so much about this stuff. Yeah. Um, and so, so the question of where does this really come from? That is a very, very, very deep question that I was actually having a conversation about about two hours ago with my really good friend who has an, also has an office here at this co-working space, uh, rabbi, uh, Rabbi Patrick.

And he and I were talking about just the same thing and how similar both of us are in that, that’s still leaving an open loop there. . Yes. , Right. It’s like, it’s just, it’s like, I don’t know what the answer is. Yeah. It’s, it’s a fascinating question and that’s part of why I invited you on here cuz it’s something that I, I share with you.

I feel that. You know, this, I, there’s someone has a story about, he was doing back to nlp. He was doing a fast phobia process with a client and there was this sort of turning point for him where it was a whole issue around fear of intimacy. And the way that he told the story, uh, was that I recognized that something was a bit of a block because it felt like I was presenting the technique to this person and it was around intimacy.

So it needed to be more personable approach to it, more conversational. And instead of standing up and walking him through the technique, I sat down next to the guy. And again, intimacy. I basically watched the dirty movie with him, uh, . And I always come back to that, that story of someone else’s as to, you know, we’re sharing the experience.

It’s not, Look what I can do. It’s instead, Look what we can do together. Look what you can do if you just shift your thoughts in a slightly different way. A hundred percent. Yeah. Um, I love sharing with people, showing people just how much power they have inside of them that they can unlock through hypnosis.

There’s the easiest segue, What’s the name of the business? Colin? Hypnosis is amazing and it is, isn’t it? It is. I know you should do something with that. And I name my business that, call my stage show that because Hollywood is hypnotizing the entire planet, to think that hypnosis is mind control, evil or a direct connection to Satan.

Um, they got my mom on that until she actually needed, um, me to give her a referral for something. But, um, , But, but seriously, it’s like people call hypnosis everything other than amazing. Mm-hmm. . And so I figured, You know what, Let me just start by reframing hypnosis. Yeah. I love that. I love that. Then, so then from the conversation with your wife, at what point did it officially take shape as something you did professionally?

So I started in 2011. I got everything on my certification done, went out, found an office where I was in the same office space for 10 years before I moved to this co-working space. I cracked the code with Groupon of how to get people to buy Groupons and then purchase bigger packages. Yeah. At really, really high percentage rates.

Fantastic. To take that everybody into consideration. It’s not the platform, it’s the strategy. Absolutely. It’s not a matter of, and this is the same conversation around people who are like, Yelp is great. Yelp is the devil. No, it’s what do you do with it? Bingo. Yeah. That is absolutely what it, what it is.

And those grew upon clients and also the clients I got through my hand to hand networking through bni, Chamber of Commerce. Those I ended up with, um, with some great clients. I ended up with all love and respect to you and every other trainer. Honestly, my very best hypnosis trainers have been my clients.

Mm-hmm. . Cause they’ve let me know, Oh yeah, they’ve let me know what’s really working and they let me know what’s not. And taking that feedback in is, is, is really powerful and it gave me a lot of skills and. I started after just being active for just a few years. I started coming up in the Google ratings and so I was able to continue on through 2019 with a solid business.

Was I getting rich off it? No. Nowhere close. Could have made a whole lot more money doing a whole lot more things. However, I was helping a ton of people. Yeah. And at the time, that’s what mattered most was knowing that I was on a path that really mattered a lot. And what’s great about that though is that you know, these strategies, and let’s give it a quick moment here where some would have the absolute isab as to that’s the best thing or that’s the worst thing.

It’s something that serves its own specific benefit. While you’re doing it, and I, I agree with you right there that I, the last thing I say in the work Smart Hypnosis live training is that, um, well need to be a little honest with everyone. You’ve all, uh, been duped. You signed up for what you believed was a training event, and instead all this was, was education.

Mm-hmm. , you know, it’s a good education event, mind you, but training is what happens when you actually go out there and start working with people. And no matter how clever you think we are, what you’re gonna learn from your first dozen or so clients is gonna strengthen everything and help you find your own specific style, your own specific approach.

So, and then in that journey, I wanna go back to something you talked about though, which was that you got pretty good at having them come in for this easy entry point, which is what Groupon helps do. Mm-hmm. marketers and marketer speak, it’s called a trip wire, which is a horrible name and that’s why I call it a value added offer cuz the value goes in both directions.

Mm-hmm. , that’s, that’s more positive. What was behind some of the strategy? What was some of the method of then elevating those people into, let’s say more premium services? It was honestly finding out what it is that they really wanted. Mm-hmm. and then offering them a package and giving them a compelling offer.

And basically what they were getting was they were getting an initial consultation with me and one full session for, I think they were paying $50. Yeah, at at that point. And what I would say is, okay, it’s like if you wish to come see me for a total of six sessions, you’ve already paid for one of those.

So normally it’ll be $600, I’ll drop it down to $500. You can either pay that in two, $250 blocks, or you can pay everything up front, and I will make the sixth and final session free. So you’ll only pay $400. Yeah. And then I would give them exactly what the actual cost percentage was instead of a hundred dollars a session.

Now today, My rates are quite a bit higher than, It’s a bit different, I’m sure. Yeah. Which is a bit different. Ok. How we price things. That is something that is a very dark art and incredibly complex science too. Did I price everything right? I don’t know, but it did let me stay in business for a decade. No, I, I’d say the same thing, that I didn’t do Groupon, but I did living social, I believe at the time that Groupon was buying them.

Mm-hmm. . So we can say, I did a Groupon and you know, when I did it, I had a fully booked schedule. And it was that I played hard with them as to why would I do this? And they said, We can expose you to a new audience. I’m like, Well, as close as I live to Washington DC if I wanted to expose myself, I’d drive in front of a White House and drop my pants, but they’d arrest me.

So, um, how can we use your, which be provocative and they get curious, uh, , how can we make this worthwhile in, in a similar way, we did a group program and you know, the offer was at the time, you know, $50 a person, 15 people in the room. Mm-hmm. . And the offer was simple. It’s like, well, normally when I do a three session program, it’s 450, but do you all like getting things for free?

Yes. Okay, good. So that it’s just 400 and we’ll treat today as if it was free and you just got it with the program. Nice. And it’s just very, all you, the, the influential phrase here is, All you need is because mm-hmm. , you know, because you’re here. That’s why I’ll do that. How’s that? Absolutely. And it’s reasonable.

And I’m sure while the numbers may be different now and the entry point may be different, some of the basics are still there. Absolutely. And what you’re talking about is what I call the power of free. Yeah. Um, when we are able to offer something and call it free, I feel a little bit guilty because when I’m offering you something for free, it never ever is

No. It’s absolutely priceless. And you

Well, it’s, it’s giving someone the experience. Absolutely. Giving you something of value. And it’s the better question of what can I give rather than, than what can I get? Uh, I’d be amiss by not asking the obvious question though. Cause we’ve been a little heavier on, uh, the deep passion underneath it as well as the strategies of bringing the clients in.

And this may be something that’s kind of changed over time, so let’s kind of focus on. The efforts these days, what’s that clientele that you’re the most drawn to? What do you tend to work on the most? So right now my primary focus is the entertainment side of, Yeah, hypnosis is amazing. On the clinical side, I am still doing individual sessions.

I’m just not pushing those as hard. Yeah. And I focus on sleep, stress, smoking, pain and performance. Those are the areas where I really want clients that are dealing with those challenges because those are the ones that I enjoy working with the most. What, is there one that stands out more than the others to you in terms of something that kind of defines, let’s say, your style, your specific approach?

The sleep piece. And that’s just because I feel like that’s something where I’ve been able to help an awful lot of people. I think I’m really good at that and I know that those people that I am helping, I may be actually saving their lives because they’re less likely to make mistakes when they’re driving.

Yes. They’re gonna be happier, they’re gonna do better in their relationships and they’re not taking a bunch of drugs that are slowly killing them to do. So there’s the sleep is often a component of so many other things as well. It’s, Well, yeah, like you said, it, it’s having effect upon every other part of life.

Um, I share a quick anecdote here of, um, I. I had the report to get away with this, which is the, uh, dangerous intro because the mother had seen me for weight loss. Mother became my best referral source. She was active in BNI as I was a member of too. And there’d be times where I’ll, I’ll clearly change the name.

We’d end up at the same meetings as guests. Mm-hmm. , it would turn into, Hey, Janice, do you wanna do my 45 seconds ? Oh yeah, sure. And she’d get up for me and talk about it and just, I’d have a line. And she was wonderful. So there’s the rapport to which the machine brought her son in for issues focusing in school.

And I get to say to the son, Hey, um, gimme like three minutes. I need to go take care of something and I’ll, and I’ll be right back. And I wander out and just go, Hey, he’s getting three hours sleep at night. Because you think you can just let him be the, um, you know, Bohemian who just kind of does his own thing, but it’s not working.

He’s 11. Give him a bedtime. Mm-hmm. . All right. I’m gonna go back and see what I can do, that just the brain doesn’t work. And it may often be, so when, when, when you’re working with someone for sleep, and I’m sure it’s often, you know, or if not always customized to them, like what are those, you know, must hit elements.

What are some of those go-to strategies that you’re using with them? The first step is showing them how to do self-hypnosis and how to use that to fall asleep. Yeah, that’s a, that’s give us like a 30,000 foot view of that, of that approach. Basically you’re lying down doing an induction that only involves numbers between five and zero, and you do this induction on yourself and you won’t even get all the way through the induction.

Mm-hmm. and you’ll go sleepy night night and you’ll wake up nice and feeling great the next morning. So that’s, that’s the first thing. However, that’s just the bandaid. Yeah. Because. Step two is, let’s figure out exactly why it is you aren’t sleeping. Mm-hmm. , and there are some basic reasons why a really common one is people’s FOMO about something on some screen.

Maybe it’s something on Netflix. Maybe it’s something on their phones. Maybe it’s something on their computer for work. Sometimes it’s porn. Not that I would know anything about that it, It’s all kinds of different things that it can be a FOMO piece, sometimes physical pain that’s keeping them up.

Sometimes what they’re dealing with has to deal with some kind of past event where they are actually afraid to fall asleep. And we just kind of go through these different pieces and we identify what is it that has us staying awake. What’s really cool about what you just mapped out there is something that I feel is missing from a lot of people’s process, which is, you know, this intention of we need to find the cause, we need to find the origin, which, which you are doing yet first and foremost, you’re giving them a significant win very early in the process, which gets some level of success, possibly all of it, if not at least some, that it’s noticeable yet, uh, from the guy who does say hypnosis is amazing.

As we have the foot in the door with something that’s already happened mm-hmm. , and they can validate that things are at least moving forward. You’ve got now belief that it’s absolute peak. You’ve got conviction already in motion and now the other strategies are gonna become even more effective because there’s that, you know, mindset of now this is already working, which means the rest of it’s gonna work even better.

I love that. A absolutely. And my intention with every single clinical session I do with someone, including the initial consults that I haven’t charged people for, my intention is they walk away from wi from that session with something in their lives that they didn’t have before. And even if I never see them again, I still get to feel good about.

The ones who realize, Hey, I just really got something here, so yes, I wanna come back. I wanna see you five more times. I wanna see you 10 more times. It’s like, that’s even better. Cuz then we can actually really have a huge impact on their lives. But even though it’s ones that I only get to see one time.

Yeah, that’s great. And so I want to give people as many wins every single session, whether it’s the first one or the 20th one. Yeah. So does that lead into sort of that journey of now focusing the attention on stage hypnosis It, it does a little bit because one of the things that I came to realize is the way that I was approaching my practice, there was a pretty low ceiling in terms of how successful I could become.

Mm-hmm. . And I kept going back to. When I was starting out doing street hypnosis, I started catching myself doing street hypnosis more and more when I probably should have been doing some other things. , At the time it was, it was, once it became street hypnosis became my hobby, even though I was a working clinical hypnotist, and I thought, you know, why haven’t I dug into.

Stage hypnosis more. So I started digging, and this was absolutely marvelous timing for me. It was late 2019 when I made the decision to shift stage hypnosis to my primary focus. And so officially began doing things moving towards my first show on March 13th, 2020. And on March 12th, the NBA announced that they were canceling the rest of their season because one player had tested positive.

And I realized I’m nowhere near as big and as bad as the nba. If they can’t handle it, what am I doing? And I was already getting calls for my bigger ticket buyers saying, Hey, are you really sure you wanna do this? It’s like, okay, we’ll reschedule for a couple weeks. We, and we ended up rescheduling three times before.

Finally we had to just simply, um, cancel the show cuz it was gonna be over 12 months since these people had bought their tickets. Yeah. We just had to refund everybody their money because you know what, that was a really, really, really expensive show that never happened for me. Mm-hmm and the amount of money lost really kind of sucks.

However, I can always get more money, I can’t get more reputation. And so I had to do the right thing for all those people that had purchased tickets to this show. And so we did that and. While I struggled for a while sorting out what it was I was supposed to do, because the pandemic also impacted the clinical stuff as far as in person.

And shifting to the, the zoom hypnosis sessions, that required some pivoting. And so that wasn’t going back to where it was quite as quickly. And so it was kind of a downer. And what I realized is that, you know what, There’s a, it’s like I can wh and I complain about this all I want to. However, at the end of the day, this is also an opportunity for me to sharpen all of my tools.

Yeah. And. I feel really good that the show I did last Saturday night in Virginia Beach was a hundred times better than it would’ve been if the pandemic hadn’t happened because I have added so many new things that I can do and do well and do with confidence and enthusiasm. Can you give an example of something of that nature?

Uh, one was, I fought doing any kind of mentalism at first, Michael C. Anthony, who’s, uh, my stage hypnosis daddy and, uh, Michael, we all call you Daddy

He’s really big on opening stage hypnosis shows with mentalism routines, and I know that most stage hypnosis don’t do that. However, I, he, his logic actually makes a lot of sense. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it because I was like, Look, I don’t know anything about mentalism. I, I’m not very good at that.

I haven’t given the last 10 years of my life to mentalism the way I have hypnosis, and so I fought it. However, during all of this time I had, I was able to put some time into working on it and coming up with some pretty cool things that I can now do. Another piece is it gave me time to really, really go all the way down into the rabbit hole as far as the comedy piece goes.

Oh, nice. There is a science as well as an art to comedy, just as there is to hypnosis and doing some digging on that understanding. My show is way funnier than it would’ve been without the pandemic. And of course, doing lots of GI Jane jokes always helps too. . Oh, and the fact that this is releasing later topical, I, I’m betting it’s gonna be topical for a minute.

Yeah, yeah. That’s, that’s not going away anytime soon. Anybody doesn’t get the joke. Google it. Follow that rabbit hole and, uh, keep going. I’m curious to ask you, and let me give a disclaimer to this, hold on, to every benefit it has created for you. Okay. Uh, because all I, I’d be open, I got into hypnosis out of a frustration that I had with Magic and Mentalism because it was, Something that I’d have to do exposition as to, here’s why I have this prop.

Here’s why you’re writing this name down on this piece of paper. And then suddenly when I saw hypnosis, it was just like that. That’s just communication. Mm-hmm. . That’s, that’s it. And that’s where I had a block. And I learned from people too, who said, Use this and I have nothing against anyone who does, so let’s get the positive answer rather than my little, um, limiting belief that’s serving me for the time being, uh, , which would be, What did you find that Mentalism element did to benefit the stage show?

What it do? So what I do, also, not at all what Michael C. Anthony encourages people to do. Um, which anyone who’s ever trained me, I’m really upfront with them. It’s like, I’m gonna take in a lot of what you have to say. Then there are other things. I’m just gonna go do my own thing. Mm-hmm. . And that’s just who I, who I am.

I reframe every single piece of mentalism as being hypnosis. Yeah. And so what it does for me is when I walk on the stage and within just a couple of minutes I’ve read somebody’s mind, I’ve already started from the audience perspective, I’ve already started doing hypnosis, and then that buys me more time to do all the things I need to do to get people to be excited about coming up and volunteering on stage.

Nice. It, and also it helps me have some credibility with the audience that, oh gee, if Colin was able to read that woman’s mind, he can probably hypnotize. Do you see how we’re expertly coming back to the same themes in this conversation that we, we perfectly planned out? I mean, Uhhuh, uh, this episode is not gonna be that some funky chunk Norris stuff.

Uh, though it is, it’s, it’s, we always use your branding where we can, This will be episode 360 9. College happen on hypnosis is amazing. Uh, cuz that helps you and makes Google very happy. Uh, yet really this theme of the quick win something. Mm-hmm. beneficial has happened. The foots in the door of the change.

That’s the benefit of the self hypnosis for the sleep client. Yet using, let’s phrase it this way to generalize it, some other medium of interactive entertainment. To condition the audience for even more interactive, impressive, uh, mind based entertainment, to make it as generic and as I can make absolutely sound.

Yeah. So that, that’s cool. That, that sounds great. That, that, that’s been in there. Um, I, I know some of your story and I’d be ais not by asking how hypnosis has had a major role. You know, it’s clear, it’s been incredibly effective. Mm-hmm. in terms of how you’ve helped your clients and how it’s helped to, you know, bring you into a world that you were more passionate about.

And I know there’s a story about how, you know, it, it became, I guess we can say life changing. I will go as far as to say that if it wasn’t for hypnosis, I’m not sure that I’m even here right now. If it wasn’t for hypnosis, I am definitely not able to have a conversation. Like I’m having with you right now.

Uh, hypnosis helped me through get over smoking. It helped me overcome a two pack a day. Smoking. It helped me not only come over, overcome a two pack a day smoking habit. It helped me deal with a 10 year long fear of flying. And it also helped me when, in 2019 I was in a really bad car accident. And if you want to check out the my dash cam footage, just do a search on YouTube for Wreck Carry and Meadow, and I’m in this accident, I come away with a traumatic brain injury and ptsd.

The, uh, doctors tell me, Well, you’re gonna be stuck with the TBI for at least five years. And as far as the pt s d goes, that never is going away. And I looked at her and I said, You’re fired. I got up and walked out the room. Now, at this moment, my cognitive function was at 35% of what it was. However, I knew, even though this doctor screaming at me that I can’t walk out because she’s the doctor and I’m not.

I knew that if I don’t have hope, I’m done. So I had to find somebody else, and I was able to find other members of a medical team, and I was able to use hypnosis, and I’m not gonna sit here and say, Oh, hypnosis cured me. No, I had a great medical team to deal with a medical problem. This wasn’t magic. The challenge with the medical problem is staying in the fight was not at all automatic was not easy.

Not everybody is able to stay in the fight when you are in. This kind of shape like I was at that time and I made every single one of my appointments, I took whatever homework, the doctors, the speech therapists, everyone else was giving me, and I doubled the homework. Yeah. And it’s hypnosis that let me do that.

And so instead of looking at years and years and forever, I ended up with a clean bill of health in six months. Wow. And so, um, so, so yeah. It’s like, it, it has made such a huge difference in so many different ways for me. And that was, that was a huge one right there. That was a huge one. I really appreciate.

Not only you sharing that, but also drawing that. It’s not that this is what cured it, it’s that here was the plan. And this is what I think a lot of people in our industry need to, you know, recognize and lead into as our dialogue. We help to amplify what people want. Mm-hmm. , we help people achieve their desired outcomes faster and easier.

There’s people who could have done these things on their own that we normally would help with, yet it’s through hypnotic methods, we can help them achieve those results more easily. So that, that drawing of that line, I really appreciate you, uh, sharing that, uh, inside of it. Uh, so, so these days, as the world is continued to open up, h how would you say you balance things out now?

Like what percentage is focused on stage, what percentages the clients, what’s kind of that split? So, um, on the marketing side, it’s almost all like at least 95% on the stage side, However, At each of my stage shows is the opportunity that I give people to get different products, such as self hypnosis is amazing.

Hypnosis is amazing for sleep. H here, hypnosis is amazing for smoking. Hypnosis is amazing for pain. And so I’m able to, through these digital products, still be helping people. And I have not done one single show where somebody has not contacted me later to see about becoming my individual one-on-one client.

That’s, that’s outstanding and especially, you know, let’s give it 10 seconds. There are some in this community who would go, Oh, but that doesn’t help. That’s not good for that. Oh, it’s bad that these people are doing stage hypnosis. And really it’s telling the story that yes, indeed. Hypnosis is amazing. And if it can help these people do these extraordinary things in the show and it can also help people achieve these incredible things in, in their own life.

And, uh, let me just give you the thumbs up for following through with a plan that I abandoned. Cause get this at one point I just looked, we don’t own it anymore. I had to peak, uh, I used to have work smart weight loss. Mm-hmm. work. Smart confidence. Yeah. There’s a theme here. Uh, so good on you for, uh, sticking with the branding rather than launching an entirely separate thing, which is the.

Much more aggressive task that I’ve apparently taken . Yes. Uh, for those that wanna track you down and get in contact, uh, what’s the best way they can, they can find you. Best thing to do is to go to hypnosis is amazing.com and there you can find all the different ways to track me down. You got links to YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram to find me there.

So yeah, everything is is right. On that website. Excellent. And again, we’re gonna put everything in the show notes [email protected] slash 360 9. That’ll just redirect you over to this week’s episode with Colin, where you can find those links, you can find those resources. And thank you so much for coming on here and, and sharing this with everybody.

Before we wrap it up, any final thoughts for the listeners out there? Well, I just wanna thank you for having me on. Jason. You, uh, pulled me aside at hypno thoughts live last year and told me I needed to go to talk to Scott and wouldn’t tell me why. It was because I was a close contact to someone with Covid, but I didn’t know that at the time.

And I go in the room and there’s also a, one of the managers from the Orleans Hotel who was in there. And you didn’t know this until just now, I thought that I had been busted. For a stunt I had pulled the night before on the casino floor where a woman grabbed me and said, You, you work here? Where is, where are the Fridays at?

And I gave her the wrong directions and told her that when she did get to the Fridays to tell them that um, I had comped their meal and that they were just to take care of. And I was convinced that I have been caught on video and was getting thrown out of the conference.

That is amazing.

That went entirely different direction than I expected, . I know it did. That’s what you get when you have me.

Jason Leded here once again, and as always, thank you so much for interacting with this program. Thank you for sharing it on your social media streams and really letting this program become something that even I didn’t expect was gonna happen. A daily part of the hypnotic conversation that even as full respect these incredible communities that other people run, whether it’s the Jacks or Mike and Chris over with, uh, the Mike Mendel Hypnosis Academy, Sheila Grainger School of Thought, uh, that this has really become part of the ongoing conversation of this industry.

So not just about, Hey, here’s what Jason said in the program, but for example, I’m sure in the next couple of weeks, We’ll see a conversation pop up where someone is quoting Colin Chapman because again, after all, hypnosis is amazing, and the more we’re all successful, the more we’re all successful. Check out the show notes for this [email protected] slash 360 9.

That’ll bring you right over to this episode. And hey, let’s hang out in Vegas. Hypno Thoughts Live 2022. It’s the 10 year anniversary event. You can check out the details of the [email protected], though I would encourage you do not go to the HT Live website and register there instead, as you join me either for the pre-conference that I’m doing, the I C B C H certification.

With Richard non guard or stick around afterwards for the content is King. Six Figure Hypnosis Business Blueprint event. Well, when you sign up for, through one of those events, you get a massively, amazingly discounted rate for the hypno thoughts. Live convention. And can we just talk about the fact that like weeknights, the hotels are like 50 bucks a night?

You know, cuz Vegas doesn’t need your money for a casino, for a hotel room. They, they earn enough money at the tables . So register for the convention through us and you can find all the details about the pre and post that I’m offering. Check that out. Work smart hypnosis.com/vegas 2022. See you soon.

Thanks for listening to the Work Smart Hypnosis podcast and work smart hypnosis.com.