Session #71: Kevin Cole on Empowerment Strategies

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This is the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast, session number 71. Kevin Cole on Empowerment Strategies. Welcome to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast with Jason Lynette, your professional resource for hypnosis training and outstanding business success. Here’s your host, Jason Lynette. What’s your strategy for success?

In this program here today with Kevin Cole, we’re gonna go directly into that content. If you haven’t yet met Kevin, get ready to really meet a force of nature inside of the hypnosis profession. Kevin and I first got to know each other by way of the hypno thoughts, live convention, and then participating online.

And then anytime I’ve been out in Vegas making the best attempt to, uh, hang out with him as well. And he’s definitely someone who is a worker in the profession. It’s rare to find. That person who is spending their time and training, spending their time seeing clients really out there doing the work. And from that, you’re gonna hear a real voice of authority, a real voice of experience, and some really interesting stories of things that Kevin has worked on as a hypnotherapist, as an NLP practitioner.

That many of us perhaps have not yet considered, and it hopefully it’s gonna motivate you to join him at some of his upcoming presentations and upcoming conventions, which we’re gonna talk about. I’m gonna do things a little out of order here though, and encourage you to head over to Kevin’s website, NLP training quest.com because off in the right.

I, I’d frame this for you in two ways. First of all, there’s a little, uh, form off to the right that says, Free NLP Tele seminar. Get your free NLP tele seminar plus hot NLP tips and strategies, this type of opt-in offer on a website if you are not doing this on your sites. You have got to, It’s a mechanism to keep in contact with your potential clientele.

So even though Kevin in this year is taking a break from training to refocus on seeing clients, something that I’ve actually done in some recent months up until now as well, it’s a great way to, once again, work in your business, work on your skills, and. Refine for yourself exactly what your strategies are in terms of working with clients.

Though I’d tell you, having participated with the content that Kevin gets out in this little form. Dude, go there now and request it cuz it is some awesome stuff. That’s at NLP training quest.com. You’re gonna hear just an awesome conversation here between the two of us as we talk about working with kids, working with difficult clients.

Working in one of my favorite themes, working on issues that we don’t yet buy into. The idea that we should have been nervous to work on, as well as a very personal back history as to why Kevin is just so passionate with, as he puts it, giving a damn, helping his clients, helping them to get results. Just a truly inspirational per person, and you gotta hear some of these stories and you gotta spend some time.

Head to some of his workshops at upcoming conventions. So let’s jump right in. The success number 71, Kevin Cole, on Empowerment Strategies

I, I’m fascinated in the most appreciative of there’s this branding of people being a worker. That. I love that I borrowed that terminology from a magician by the name of Michael Close, and for the magic people out there, I got his blessing to use it. Mm-hmm. , because he referred to that. There’s so many people in the magic industry that are hobbyists.

They do it as a part-time interest. Yet he put out these series of books of people who were workers. Mm-hmm. , that was his delineation of the ones who were really out there doing the work, getting results. And you know, it’s, it’s surprising sometimes to find, there are people out there who are trainers, are people who speak at conventions.

And that’s kind of the extent of what they do cuz they go back to the day job. But you are somebody that’s really a worker. You’re really out. Doing it. So, I mean, walk me through kind of the typical Kevin Cole’s schedule in terms of how much time are you spending with clients, how much time are you spending doing trainings?

Yeah. Well, these days mostly seeing one-on-one clients. Yeah. I used to do a lot more trainings. Um, full transparency. I got kind of burnt out on the marketing of the trainings. I, I just, I got a little burnt out on it and I was like, Clients are calling me left and right, you know. I love working with clients.

I love helping people. It’s what I do. So, so I took a little bit of a break, took a little bit of a hiatus, uh, from, from the training. So I’ll still be doing, and I love training. It’s, it’s a, you know, it’s, it’s a, it’s a great, great environment to both help people to learn how to do what I do and how I do literally what I do every day, meaning with one-on-one clients, but, I love the training environment in regards to helping people to, to overcome their own stuff in such a short period of time.

And quite frankly, just sort of my methodology is that I believe very strongly that if we’re gonna be working with other people, we need to be taken care of our own stuff. Yes. You know, not to point any fingers, although I could point many , , we got an hour, let’s go for it. , no, I won’t be pointing any fingers, but I just find that whether it be in the hypnosis business, whether it be in the psychotherapy business, whether it be any people helping business, I find that all too many of us, I’ll point the finger at myself to some degree, that we, we neglect taking care of our own stuff and we’re, we’re just so busy.

Trying to avoid our stuff, and that’s why we get hooked on helping other people. You know, I like to think I took the other route with how I got into this line of work, but nonetheless, that’s one of the reasons why I love training so much as well, is that, you know, I get to help the people that are going to be really doing the work out there, if that makes sense.

Well, I had mentioned a couple of themes here just in terms of expanding on that, which would be that on one side of things, I’ve noticed a shift. In the training conversation the last couple of years that if it was like three, four years ago trying to fill a class, there would sometimes be the occasional pushback on the price of the course, which oddly enough, I, I’m thankful of this next statement.

I’m not hearing that anymore, and it’s really more so the pushback is, I can’t make those dates work. Yes. Do you have an online version? And it’s where the market is really shifting and even, I mean it’s, It’s shocking to me how many Skype sessions I do these days. Yes. I can brag and boast. Here’s the one in Bermuda.

Here’s the one in Dubai, yet here’s the one that’s 10 miles up the road who just doesn’t wanna sit in traffic. Yeah. Yeah. Which then again, it’s Northern Virginia, but it’s this, it’s this trend of that shift. But you’re right. and I, and I even side with you that I’ve had a similar trend recently of refocusing back on those client hours, and it may have been the side effect of some own personal things that I’ve, I’ve shifted and I’ve, I’ve talked about an online venues recently as well of going, Well, let me get back to that.

There’s a phrase that I love that I steal from the best, and we could, we can go into our wonderful NLP language and call it modeling excellence, but there’s moments where clients have said things. and it just, even I, I kept it to myself respectfully in the moment, but it just clicked with me to go, Oh, that’s a good way of thinking about that.

Oh, that’s a better way to approach that issue. Or the client comes in and here’s the success story that they’ve gone through, and there’s that honest moment of going, Hey, that’s what I should be doing. Mm, mm-hmm. . So there’s something I would say the best, the best training I’ve ever had. And I’ve had, you know, I, I like to consider myself a, a lifelong student, but, and I suspect you’ll agree with this, the, the best training I’ve ever had has come from my clients.

Yes. . Those are the best trainers. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s where I say that in the last day of some of my classes, it said was some tongue and cheek ability too. At the moment of, So let me tell you, now that we’re on the last day of this course, you’ve all been duped. You were sold a training course. And all this was, was education.

The training is actually what happens as you now go out into your community and actually make use of this information. Absolutely. That there’s so much to be learned from being out there. I mean, it’s why, It’s why the whole aspect of both the application of how to do it, but also how to get the clients is a big part of it as well.

I, I’d ask you this. Is there, is there a specific niche? Is there a specific style of client that you’re finding a greater passion towards working with these days? Now that you’re back in this? Really good. Excellent question actually, because as, as I think you already know, um, my, my practice, I really built up my practice when I lived in San Diego.

That’s when I really built up my entire business and then I decided to do this crazy thing and just on a whim, literally when the housing market dropped in, uh, in Las Vegas, I said, Okay, I’m gonna move to Las Vegas and buy a house cuz it’s just crazy cheap out there right now or out here right now. It still is, but it’s getting up there.

I, you know, I had to rebuild my private practice. You know, I still was doing the training, so you know, that gave me a bit of a safety net. But I had to rebuild my private practice. And although about, I’d say about 25 to 30% of my clientele were smokers in San Diego, that’s gone up to about 80%, if not more, here in Las Vegas.

And at first, in all, in full transparency, at first I was kind of like, I mean, smokers are cool, you know, but it’s. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s not my passion, you know, and I was working with people with a lot of stuff, you know, I really, you know, I enjoy working with people with, with posttraumatic stress, always with the referral of a, uh, of a licensed psychotherapist and or medical doctor.

But nonetheless, I was like, ah, that just, you know, smokers are so bland. But you know what, once I started getting back into it, I, I really de redeveloped a passion for it because I, I rediscovered that smokers are like anyone else and they’ve got problems too. And we, we kind of, we, we do an ethical bait and switch.

You know, we, we get ’em in to quit smoking, but we help them to change their lives in so many different ways. You know, cuz you know, we’re teaching them stress reduction techniques. We’re teaching them how to feel good in addition to, to never smoking again. And, and I get a rush from that. I get, it gets, uh, it’s, it’s a, it’s a fast high.

It’s a quick high and, Onto the next mm-hmm. , because that’s what so many of my clients are these days. Uh, so it is actually, you know, at first I was a little bit hesitant about it, but, uh, but it’s, it’s a nice change of pace actually now. But nonetheless, that’s, that’s where my, my, my core market is nowadays.

Not, not necessarily by choice in the beginning, but just by demographics. Cuz it’s Las Vegas, , . And, you know, I’ll even get tourists coming in into town and then they’ll figure, well, as long as I’m here in Las Vegas, may as well quit smoking too. Yeah. So, so yeah, that’s my, that’s my number one clientele now.

But really I love it doesn’t matter what they come to us for. There’s always more than what they’re coming to us for. And we get to help ’em with that. And that’s my passion, you know, just wherever people want to go, whatever they want to overcome, whatever they wanna achieve, whatever goals they wanna achieve.

That’s, that’s my passion. Well, there’s an aspect with the stop smoking clients that it, it took a moment where a client wrote something on, uh, on a feedback survey that they left for me. And as I read it, it was the realization of, Oh, that’s what we’re doing. And it’s the similar. Note that you just pointed out where she goes.

It was wonderful that the more we work together, the less we were talking about cigarettes. Exactly. Which is that phrase of that’s, that’s the symptom. That’s the thing that gets the foot in the door. That’s the thing that makes them want to pick up the phone and call. Yet it’s the, we’re really working, it’s.

You know, some would even say it’s probably one of the easiest categories to work with, but also one of the most challenging categories cuz you really gotta address everything. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So someone’s in your office for the first time and they’re about to go on the, on the ride of the experience of what it is to work with you.

Is there i, is there an overall theme? If you kind of had to sum up a mindset, a theme that goes into the work that you do as sort of a passion that’s really the underlying message behind it. Uh, how would you kind of describe. Yeah, I’m glad you asked, cuz I’ve got my perfect spiel. Oh, my standard spiel, , which is, Yeah, I, I, whatever they come to me for, I help my clients to overcome their challenges and achieve their goals.

They always go hand in hand, Okay. But I help them to do so with as little pain as possible, as much pleasure as possible. I wanna teach them how to feel amazing as quickly as possible without rush. as effectively as possible, and one that’s for you and your listeners that I assume are are all hypnotherapist or practitioners of some kind.

We don’t say this last one to our clients. You do say the first four. Mm-hmm. , and they are just drooling because you just said those four things, but the fifth one we don’t say, but I wanna make sure everybody hears also as safely as. . Yes. Okay. As little pain as possible. As much pleasure as possible. As quickly as possible without rushing it as effectively as possible and as safely as possible.

Works on all fingers, including the thumb, so it works. Perfect. Hmm. , , You have to in visualize what the, what I mean by that. Yeah. Yeah. So what’s the thinking behind? I love, I, I’ve got my own logic behind it. Why? Holding back the safety statement. Ah. Well, okay. Yes. Why hold it back for the client? Yes. Because now we’ve just helped them to recognize that this could potentially be dangerous.

And they don’t realize, they don’t realize how well trained we are and they don’t realize that that’s, you know, it just, it plants a seed that you don’t want to plant. Mm-hmm. , I mean, it’s like the classic pre-talk. And I’m Sean Michael Andrews is someone who also points this out. The, I’m not gonna make you tell Secrets Moment, which if that wasn’t their fear, now it.

Exactly. Yeah. It’s kinda like the doing the pre-talk where I think, I don’t know if most of us honestly, but, but I’ll say at least half. That would be most, I’ll say half. Do recognize that. Yeah. Quite honestly, we technically could make people do things that they don’t really want to do technically. Okay.

Totally unethical. Totally. And not as easy as a lot of people wanna make it sound. Mm-hmm. . So technically we could, but that’s not something we’re gonna include in a pre. Right. Although I would twist that there’s a moment where a guy’s in the office and he’s there to quit drinking, and the tone suddenly shifts that he looks as, he looks at me and says, I don’t know.

Is it true you could really make me do things that I normally wouldn’t do? Mm-hmm. And, and I’m, I’m being funny. I’m cracking a joke, but he doesn’t take the humor as I go, I don’t know. Is that what you need? Hmm. And he goes, Yeah, that’s what I’m here. Mm, Which was a moment of, Okay, well close your eyes.

Let’s begin. It. It, there you go. I mean, he had a contract, He had a contract in place, which take note for anyone scanning for criticism. I, I did not really answer the question. I let him answer that himself, but it’s where the, the process itself may not necessarily from. Language with clients language and how we talk about it be this exchange of power, yet they’re calling a hypnotist because they have that expectation that we are the one who could help them do these things.

Exactly, yeah. We are the one who can help them, guide them through that experience. So you do a lot of work with, uh, let, let’s kind of rewind things back. Did you grow up always wanting to be the hyp. Oh, heck no. Well, I’ll just be myself and say hell no. No, I, I, well, it, I grew up genuinely giving a damn about people if I may be so transparent and, and just, you know, speak the language of, of.

Of the streets . Um, but nonetheless, uh, no. I, I grew up, as you may or may not know, I, I grew up with quite a few challenges and as I mentioned before, I think that too many people with their own challenges decide to be helping people in this way when they really need to be taking care of their own stuff first.

And that’s where I was at. I. I first started learning about this stuff at about the age of 2021 ish, but it was a good seven years before I started doing this stuff professionally because I, I fell in love with it for my own personal development and, and just got so much out of it and continued to learn more and more about it.

Even if it’s appropriate, is there is a story of the own, your own development as a result of. Yeah, sure. Uh, well, I mean, full transparency. Uh, I was raised by a mother with schizophrenia. Mm-hmm. , so do the math, and, you know, not the best social skills growing up. And, you know, quite, quite frankly, you know, I was a bit of a train wreck, you know, up until, up until about the age of 21.

You know, most people, 21, they decide to, you know, massively drink. And I still did some of that. Sure. But, But I also discovered this stuff and it just helped me to, to really turn things around dramatically. Whereas before I, I had the belief and I, I, I firmly believe that most people, at least in this culture, have this belief that we have to wait for good things to happen to us before we get to feel.

Okay. Mm-hmm. . Now you take a normal everyday life, and that’s hard enough as it is if you have that core belief, okay, now take it with somebody that’s surrounded by literal craziness and you, you’ve got somebody that feels like, wow, they have no choice in life, life. Sucks. There’s no ifs, ands, or butts about it, and there’s nothing you can do about it, you know?

And fortunately, fortunately I discovered, uh, for me it was actually the NLP stuff was my initial taste, um, before I got into the more traditional hypnosis. But fortunately I got a taste of that before I got a taste of the drugs, specifically prescription drugs, because that would’ve probably been the, the route that I would’ve taken, which has its place.
I’m not, I’m not Tom Cruise

I think it’s perfectly appropriate, so long as people recognize they have choice, he’s not a listener, we’re gonna be okay. Okay, good. . So, and hopefully Scientology won’t be coming out for me. , they are listeners, you’ve been warned. I, I, I’m well aware. Um, , , None, no less. Um, you know, simply put, I, yeah. The, the story is that I went from, from, you know, living in a van down by the river.

No, I’m kidding. Um, , I went from a place of being a, Brain wreck to, to, quite frankly, one of the most balanced people that you’ll meet. Because I practice these tools, I practice them daily. And I’m always, uh, you know, I’m always just looking to improve my life in different ways. And, and so, so that’s the story in a nutshell.

You know, it’s not the typical Tony Robbins route, although I did sleep in my car for a little bit . But that’s the, that’s the story in a nutshell. So what was the long that journey? Because there’s this place where, We’re learning it and now we’re doing it. And for you, what about that moment where the passion began to expand in offering it as training to others?

How did that come into. Yeah, well, on the journey of just practicing this stuff and getting better and better at it, a lot of my, a lot of people around me actually said, You know, you seem really good at this stuff. You should be helping other people with it. But it took me a few years before I thought they actually had a point, because at first I was like, You obviously haven’t

You don’t know who I used to be. Trust me, I’m not somebody to be helping other people, which was a very limiting belief that I had at the. That I, that I, uh, got over. It’s when, Well, I’m gonna, I’m gonna, I’m gonna go ahead and give a Tony Robbins plug right now. Go figure. It was actually at one of his events that, that it kind of hit me that, okay, you know what, maybe I am ready to be helping other people with this stuff.

You know, I was just in a place where I would just. Was having all kinds of, of new experiences. I had many before that, of this particular event, but, uh, but it was at that event, so I’ll give credit where it’s due. It was at that event that I realized, you know what? I think it’s time for me to be helping other people.

And actually at the time, I, I was actually an actor. and that was my, that was my identity. That was my, what I felt was my true purpose in life was, was being an actor. And I, I absolutely loved, loved doing it because I, I looked at it as a way of really helping other people, but it was just me expressing myself and in playing these different characters and guiding people through their present state.

Into what, what was a quote unquote desired state. You know, I just, I realized that through that I was able to influence them in making their own transformations in their life. And that’s literally how I was doing it at the time. And that was a tricky, tricky jump for me because it was a scary jump would be a better word, because I was like, Wait a minute, I’m an actor now I’m gonna be, you know, Doing this other stuff.

I’m gonna be, you know, I’m gonna become a, a practitioner and be helping other stu, other people, you know, I’m gonna be doing trainings and seminars and all that sort of stuff. Really scary jump. But once I, you know, I kind of look at it now is, um, you probably seen it like the, the metaphor of the, uh, the trape where you’re letting go of one in order to grab onto the other.

And, you know, it’s a great metaphor because that’s what it felt like. You know, I felt like I. Killing, uh, killing the actor. But then I realized, no, the actor comes along, so good. The actor’s part of it, because for me, especially for me, When I was acting, I wasn’t really acting, I was becoming, it was really just different aspects of me that I, that I brought to whatever character I was playing, which is exactly what we all do with our clients.

You know, we’re, we’re present with them, we’re flexible with them, and we just, we, we build that rapport with them and we just flow in the moment. . So, So I think I made a good choice. , I think I made the right decision. I’d mentioned there’s something that I went through that kind of hits on a, on a similar tone here.

Are we doing group therapy for each other rather than a podcast? I think we are. Uh, it’s a moment where, well, I mean credit to the NLP trainer, Jonathan Feld, that you were there with Tony. I was there with Jonathan in one of his trainings and. The similar journey of others saying, You should be doing this, you should be teaching this.

And you know, if we want to talk about it in terms of well formed outcomes, it wasn’t my goal. It wasn’t yet congruent. It wasn’t yet eco ecological with me. And until it was that moment of going, Well, here’s the approach, here’s the thing that’s different, and here’s the result that can be had by taking this information and spreading it around.

In a very different way where the passion expanded and it’s that, it’s that main word I wanted to highlight. There have expanded that there’s something. . I have moments where I, I’d phrase it as, there’s a fascination with negative language using it positively, which is again your phrase of holding back the terminology of safety.

One of mine is that as you walk into my office, there’s this playful spirit, as it were, of, I don’t care about your problem. I care about your so. . Mm-hmm. . And that’s why I, I have to admit, when you’re looking at various conventions and any of them have this, there, there’s workshops that have people talking about how to prevent transference, how to not get bogged down with your client’s issues.

I have to look at that and go, That’s clearly a person who is not on the other side of this as they should be. Map is not the territory. Mm-hmm. , that issue is a representation of something they’re going through. It’s not who they. Mm-hmm. . So it’s how you know, you see a busy schedule. We’ve been back and forth in terms of timing this out to, to get on the call together, but it’s where to walk out at the end of the day with a load of clients and with the same energy you walked in with.

Mm-hmm. to look at every client as that good degrade category. Though, back to that point a few moments ago, that place where I might be talking about something new I’m working on. And I’ve often been met with this bit of fear from people, even in our industry of, Well, you’re still gonna do this, right?

You’re still gonna see clients, right? And the answer is, Well, yeah, I, I’m just adding one more thing into it. Here’s something else I, I want to be doing. And that place of our own personal growth, our own personal journey. Yet the main thing is there’s something to be said about when, when the timing is right.

When it’s the right fit and more specifically when it actually becomes our goal, which plays in so true when the client is calling in, and maybe it’s someone else’s goal. Maybe it’s a goal of what they should be doing as opposed to what they ought to be doing or what they, at this point, let’s go mole on it.

What they must be doing at this point. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. and navigating that journey. , the journey of getting into it originally, finding your own benefits, developing that passion of working with clients, and then expanding the trainings as well. I love to ask this one. Let’s say it’s, it’s five years out.

What’s kind of the journey that you’re looking at where, where do you wanna see this all going? Yeah, you’re right. It is training into group therapy or group coaching rather. Uh, yeah, five years out. What I, what I would like to be seeing is I, I would definitely like to be doing the trainings again, doing more of the trainings.

Um, I would like to, of course, still be seeing one on one clients. I never, this is sort of a negative, uh, but, uh, but I never want to be one of those trainers that just trains and thinks that they have a clue what they’re doing, , Um, because you will get, you’ll forget. And also just, uh, you know, you need to be, you need to stay in that gym.

You know, it’s, it’s, it’s cuz otherwise you get too complacent. And you and I both know all too well and I tell you, probably tell your students this as well as I do, if they think that it’s as easy for me in my office as it always is in that classroom and that training room. Think again. Oh God. So, so I do my best to bring as much of the real world into the training room while still maintaining structure.

And, and just to really, uh, you know, to bring that balance. But, but nonetheless, to, to answer your question, five years from now, be doing more training, still be doing the private practice, have more products out there, full transparency. You know, don’t model what I do, learn from my mistakes in regards to product development, and just get it out there.

I’m being totally hypocritical by saying that because I’m, I’ve been the exact opposite of that, but none. Get products out there. And, and also I’d like to be doing more, uh, group transformational seminars where I’m not just, where I’m not teaching people exactly how to do what I do, but helping them to go through the transformations as well.

I’d say those are the main four categories. Again, doing trainings, again, product developments or getting more products out there. Seeing clients of course. And, uh, more transformational seminars. Well, again, it’s back to that phrase I mentioned of someone being a worker, which is how several of my students have been looking through.

Oh, we can go there. The upcoming hypno thoughts, live convention, and, uh, I’ll share with you now the description I give of how I brand the Kevin Cole workshop. The Kevin calls seminar. It’s the moment where, yeah, he’s gonna talk for about 20 minutes, and then he is gonna get fed up and go, Let’s just do a.

Right, and you’re gonna see the actual work. Mm-hmm. and even better, uh, I can’t remember exactly which one it was the beautiful, honest moment of, Well, actually, I normally wouldn’t use this specific strategy I’m here to talk about today for this issue, so let’s just go ahead and fix it anyway. Mm. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, Yeah. So that application of actually capturing the process, I know from memory, I don’t have it in front of me. You’re doing one, I think it’s Friday on allergies. Yes. Uh, doing one on Friday for, I forget the date, so I shouldn’t say, but it’s some, sometimes I think it’s Friday in show notes over it.

Work smart Hyn. And then one that I’m really ex excited, Well, both I’m excited about it, is I’ve decided excited to, uh, team up with Kelly Woods. To the best of my knowledge, we’re gonna be the first really, I think across the board, I think could be wrong if I am wrong, you know, forgive me, but to, to be presenting on how to be working with people on the, uh, on the autism’s.

Spectrum. Mm. Anywhere from what used to be known as Asperger’s. I guess they’re weed out that term, which is high functioning autism. Yes. To, to more serious autism and you know, anywhere, everywhere from kids to adults with it. We’re gonna be, I think it’s on Saturday, myself and her’s, a two hour workshop we presenting on.

I would go to it , because we’re gonna be teaching really practical stuff. Yeah. I just cheated. That’s gonna be Saturday in the afternoon. Unless of course it competes with Jason, uh, in which case well make up your own mind. ? Uh, no. We, uh, let’s see. Um, no, we’re not. Nice. There we go. Enjoy both of us. Enjoy the both of us.

How would you It’s, it’s conversation. Let’s go back to the concept of allergies. Mm-hmm. . Just cuz that’s one that there’s all these factors that are going into it though I definitely wanna talk about the Asperger’s and all. Actually I note about the Asperger’s autism and I. You know, from the perspective, I’m sure, and correct me if I’m wrong here, it is not necessarily eradicating that specific thing, but it’s more so how do you work with this very specific group.

Absolutely. And the issues they’d come in with. Absolutely wouldn’t wanna eradicate it. Mm-hmm. , it’s, it’s superpowers. Yeah. It’s beautiful. That’s the, Yeah. You know, with great power comes great responsibility, especially within ourselves. What other reference Spider-Man references and Star Wars. I’m sure I’d come up with Star Wars reference to, um, it, I’m pretty sure I’m speaking for Kelly as well in regards to how we both got into it.

Neither one of us were formerly trained in specifically in regards to working with. People and kids with with autism. My first experience of it was actually with a student who I didn’t know. He, he got him enrolled and you know, you. It’s like, Okay, cool. Got him enrolled. But then he called back. I don’t know if it was the next day or same day.

It doesn’t matter. He, he calls back and he says that his, his partner informed him that he should probably tell me, or should probably inform me that he has Asperger’s and I, I played it. Cool. You know, cuz I’m like, Okay, Asper, I’m like Googling at the same time. Mm-hmm. , asparagus. What? What? ? I had no idea.

And if there’s any psychotherapist listening, they might be thinking, Oh my gosh, he had no idea and he is whatever, blah, blah, blah. But, but nonetheless, you know, long story, short term, he’s in the class. The only thing I was concerned about, the only thing that I was concerned about was, what do you want?

Mm-hmm. . That’s all I cared. And in his specific case, his specific case. Cuz I don’t like when people over generalize anybody, especially when it comes to autism and, and uh, and Asperger’s. But in his specific case, really all that he wanted was, he wanted to be able to feel emotions better. You wanted to be able to feel emotion stronger.

I said, Cool, we can do that. And it took a very flexible approach, and I won’t for the sake of time, I won’t get into to, to all of it, but show up at the workshop and I will . Um, but nonetheless, uh, by the end of it, literally. Literal I wish I did of before and after. I really wish I did. As far as his complexion, this, you know, very white, pale skinned gentleman, and he was bald, so what especially looked, looked very white.

Went from very white, pale skin to almost looking, almost looking sunburn because of how much he was allowing himself to just feel good. And the, the, the, the, the trick wasn’t nearly as much of how to help him to learn how to feel good. He already knew. But the trick was to help him to recognize it because what I re, what I realized through just go figure, paying attention to who’s in front of me as opposed to, you know, going off what is supposed to be done and what the, what the textbooks say, and all this sort of stuff.

What I realized was he just had a very specific strategies for, for almost like a light switch where the moment that he would quote unquote, start thinking about, am I feeling or. Well, that’s when he went into over analytical mode. So it was just helping him through to, to balance that out in some really pretty creative ways, Quite frankly, to the point, the, the funniest part of the story in my opinion.

Not that any of it was funny so far. I don’t think any of it was yet . But nonetheless, a very funny part of the story was, uh, sometime after the training, I had a conversation with the, with the psychotherapist or the psychiatrist actually, who shared with me. She said, You know what? , what you help this individual to achieve in such a period or what you help my client to achieve in such a short period of time should technically be impossible, but I’m convinced.

You were able to do it because you had absolutely no idea what you were doing, . I love that. And exactly, and of course you mention it in a, in a wonderful compliment that I took it as, and it was true because I didn’t have any prepositions. I didn’t know before that I knew, I knew nothing about You weren’t, So you weren’t sorting for any reason why it had to be d.

Exactly. It’s how you know. My variation of that is I grew up in an area with a lot of traffic and I quickly learned that if I sped in my car, I would sit at the stop light longer than the guy I just worked so hard to pass. So needless to say, I’ve always been a rather safe, cautious driver. Uh, others may disagree, but I feel I am though.

It’s a place where, uh, I moved my office and suddenly the line is I discovered that I was in a school. The hard way. So I decide, Oh, what the hell? I’ve never been. I’ve got the morning off. Let’s go to traffic court. And it’s this moment of walking in. And I love this, this line that actually again, it came from a client years ago, and I’ve used it in my own life.

I cannot buy into the premise that I should be nervous. exactly, because I knew, well, worst case scenario, the ticket is gonna be like $135 and they’re probably, I mean, I was definitely going 42 in a 25. Uh, so guilty. But it’s a moment where, you know, maybe the fact that the record is completely spotless, you know, maybe pay the court fees and I’m out for less.

But again, it was almost this, I’ve never. Let’s see what happens kind of moment. But it’s this place of, I can’t buy into the premise that that’s any reason why, which it’s like a client who comes in and I smoke because I have this condition. I’m eating more because I came out of this relationship. And yes, you can go meta model and asked more questions and yes, there’s the obvious phrase.

Yeah, but you were smoking before you were dating this. . Yeah. But you were overweight before this was ever diagnosed. Exactly. That’s where I, I run into this. You’ve probably had this too, where you’re training a class and I think it’s a great compliment to the modern society of the hypnotist where there you and I are as the nonmedical lay hypnotist, and we’ve got the psychologist, we’ve got the doctor as a student.

In our class. Mm-hmm. . And there’s this beautiful moment where something clicks, which is the, I’m not sorting for the diagnosis. Yep. How do you feel? How would you rather feel? Okay, great. Let’s do that. Exactly. To not get caught up in the reason why it’s how it becomes a bit of a running gag sometimes.

Someone goes, Well, what would you do with somebody with this? And my gut reaction is, Well, what’s their. Exactly what do they want? Exactly. What do they want? That’s what matters. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I’ve got the, the story that stands out of, uh, for her, she was diagnosed as Asperger’s, though at the, eventually would be the phrase, because growing up in the, either late seventies, early eighties, there’s the moment where, I mean, terminology wasn’t what it was then.

What it is now, as they just look at her and say, You’re retarded. You need to be in the slow. Or for that matter, even schizophrenic. Yeah. Okay. I, for confidentiality, I won’t say which relative, but, uh, but I have a, a relative that speak, especially because connected with, with, you know, my family history, you know, the, the psychiatrist, the very first question that they ask, which I think is a terrible question, is the schizophrenia run in your family?

Well, this particular family member got concerned about that and, you know, eyes just went wide open, like, yes. And then he said, Ah, that’s what we’re dealing with. Wasn’t what they were dealing with and they decided to medicate that, that that individual for quite some period of time based on that very, very false belief.

So, So yeah, don’t me wrong, diagnosis has its place. Yeah. And I’m glad that it’s not our job to do it cause I don’t wanna do it. Well I would argue that as much as people could say that things are overdiagnosed, I would also point out they’re also being underdiagnosed. Yes. Correct. That’s as big of a potential of a danger as the.

Correct. So there’s a balancing that has to be done, but the, in the story of this girl, it’s this moment where basically she went through her life being told, You are retarded, you are slow, you’re different than everyone else. Mm-hmm. . And to slightly generalize the story, of course, it’s a moment where why is the retarded girl on track to become the Val Dictor.

Mm, Exactly. Huh? Exactly. Why is she the one and being high functioning, being labeled as Asperger’s? And the word you used a little while ago was the exact one that came into her story of someone looked at her, a school counselor and said, There’s nothing wrong with you. You have super powers. There you go.

There are certain things that you do better than most people, but think of a as if. Guidance counselor was the world’s best hypnotist of metaphorical and ericsonian hypnosis, but it’s as if it’s like a water balloon because it’s squeezing over here. It’s bulging out in this skill. Yet we need to balance everything out.

So really what we were working on, I mean, this was just part of the backstory, but in many ways it was reinvigorating the conf as she put it, rebuilding the confidence she should have had while she was growing. Yep. And taking the knowledge she has now, this, this, this fits into my argument of regression, ain’t just about finding the cause because this was a moment of taking all this knowledge in a, in a format of taking it back to her at those younger ages and changing that personal history of what was being said as the gospel is.

The fact is this is what’s wrong with you. And as if now she had that knowledge her whole life and getting her on the other side of. Exactly. It totally reminds me of a quote that I just had to Google so I could, so I could say it verbatim and not, not, uh, not screw it up. Um, it’s actually a quote by Albert Einstein, who I suspect you and I would agree.

If he was alive today and he got near somebody that would diagnose such a thing, there’s an excellent chance he would be diagnosed with at least some form of, of, uh, of autism. Nonetheless, the quote that he, that he wrote, uh, or that he said at least, is simply everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

I love it. And it absolutely so many kids. And it be, and that’s the thing, I’m actually, in some ways, I’m very grateful for the diagnosis of, of, uh, of Asperger’s because at least it’s, and I still think it has its place to diagnose these things. I still think it’s very limiting. When I see all too often they get the diagnosis that means, Oh yeah, so you know, this is, you’re gonna have this problem, this problem, et cetera, et cetera, cetera.

But none. At least they’re not being labeled as retarded anymore, which mm-hmm. used to be far too common. Far too common. Well, I mean, the danger also of just the word because Absolutely. I’m this way because I’m this way to swap it out for the word and, Yep. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Got it, Got it. So, to, to bounce around a bit then, in terms of some of the training.

The experience. I, I have to go there. You know, I probably would cuz I’m on your side. I’m looking at the testimonials and there’s a familiar face of Jordan Bel. Oh yeah, yeah. Wolf of Wall Street. Going through your hypnosis training, and of course, as much or as little as appropriate. I, I’d ask the question, Let’s go bigger picture first, which if you don’t know the reference, there’s the, uh, Leonard DiCaprio, Martin Scorsese movie, uh, Wolf of Wall Street, that it’s based on him, and he’s now also somebody.

What’s that? Fun movie. Oh yeah. I recommend it . I, I, I enjoy it a little bit too much , but then again, I’m also a big movie buff and I’m going, It’s the only Martin Scorsese movie that the pace just keeps up the whole time. It doesn’t get indulgent. Yeah. So from a film perspective, it’s, it’s awesome. But the as and just the whole, uh, Jonah Hill character at is, is phenomenal.

I love that he got the Oscar nomination for it, but I’d ask. . Let’s approach it from a different perspective first, which is that you are in Las Vegas. I’m in the Washington DC area, and I’m sure there’s been the experience of, Oh, that’s who’s going to be in my office. Oh, that’s who’s gonna be in my training perhaps.

Which you mean whether it’s distinction pro celebrity, whether it’s I’m in, in my area, it’s been everything from politician to sports person. Ah, gotcha. And, and I’d point to a moment where a student calls up and she goes, I’ve got someone from the Washington Redskins coming to quit smoking. What should I do?

Mm-hmm. And my. Of course response is, uh, help ’em quit smoking. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, I’ve had the moment where I, I did have to hold back and I do have a policy now. I do not Google my clients otherwise I’m, it’s back to the same conversation we just had otherwise, I’m convincing myself why this is going to be different.

Exactly. Yet it’s that moment where , there’s been the moment. When did the sleeping problem first occur? And as they tell you the story, I have to go, Oh, that was you. So let’s call it the category of a high profile client or even a high profile student. Is there, is there a mindset that perhaps you are getting into to not, to not get caught up in the backstory as it were?

This will sound really arrogant, but yeah. I know a lot more about than them in regards to how to help them, and I’m, and I just, I, yeah. I don’t really, it’s never been an issue, and I never really analyzed why it’s not an issue. I just, Well, I, Okay, I’ll tell you why. Because I genuinely give a damn, and I give a damn about the individual, not about their background.

It’s like, Okay, let me help this person. I don’t care who they are. I don’t care what background they are. Now, in the case of Jordan, as for example, it was an interesting conversation actually, when he first called me, I knew nothing about him. Uh, he opened, he shared with me, he said, Well, I should probably fill you in on my background.

And I’m like, You. Okay. Is it anything that, uh, I’m gonna need to, to, uh, you know, as long as it’s not anything that you’ve done, any, you know, anything that I have to report to the police, it’s like, no, it’s all we’re doing. Reported and he filled me in and, you know, I just, I. . I was like, Okay, well, you know, same rules of play.

What do you want? You know, So that’s just, hey. Yeah. It’s just pretty hardwired for me. It’s just, you know, they’re just people, you know. They’re just people and they’re more normal than most people realize when you, when you get ’em in their office or get ’em in in your classroom, whatever the case may be.

You know, they’re just, They’re just people with real, real problems and fortunately, real goals too. It’s not always problems. Sometimes they just wanna take things to the next level. Oftentimes they do. Yeah, I’d point to, maybe it’s even the, the background. Cause we share a similar lineage. I was on the management side in theater.

You were more on the acting side though. It’s that place where this person’s gonna be in this role. This is the designer, this is who this person is. And from an early age, there was the moment of this big name was coming to do an event at our school, at our college, and I can flash back to, Oh yeah, that’s right.

Now I had to spend 20 minutes helping him find his keys in the back of his car. . Exactly. I mean, it’s like there’s a moment which understand, this is not a generalization, this is a direct quote, but it’s a moment where I. In a doctor’s office myself, getting something checked up on. And the doctor, I, I made a mistake from his perspective is that I labeled it, I self-diagnosed and, uh, clearly he knew I was wrong as I was.

And he points to the, the, the halo of all the certificates on the wall, all the honorary doctorates and the earn doctorates that are behind him. Mm-hmm. and his exact languages. You see all this shit behind me, . So I’m, I’m just like, you just tell me what’s going on and I’ll figure out what to do next. Yeah.

And I just then describe what was going on and he goes, Oh, okay. Yeah, follow me to this room. Let’s see if it’s that. Nope, it’s not. Okay. We’ll do this, do this. You’ll feel better. It’s like, Oh, nice. But that, that honest moment where to work with. I’ve got way too many stories that I’ve had to sign waivers about things that, political fundraisers that I did stage management on of what happened and what didn’t happen, which, yeah, we’ll leave that one out.

The moments where, again, though, at the end of the day, it’s about, well, to use the word that you lean on, it’s about that empowerment. It’s about that journey, that quest, and getting them to that next. . Mm-hmm. , getting them to that next phase of, uh, of what they do. There, there’s a theme that you, you will often pop up on, uh, on the Facebook and, and share a client story, and there’s a theme that’s popped up that I’d love to spend some final moments chatting on Before we, uh, before we wrap things up here, I know you’ve gotta busy schedule and I do too today, but the, the concept there seems to be a fascination with the concept of strategies and n.

Mm-hmm. . And what’s kind of, what’s the Kevin call take on that? What’s, what’s your, your approach to that? Where does, where does that really fit into, into our conversations for change? Let me quote unquote, meta model you a little bit on that. Yes. Which, if people know nlp, they know what I’m talking about.

If not, then they have no idea. So, sorry. If you don’t , um, throw another term and someone’s gonna go it. What do you, what do you mean by the, the strategy that it’s, it’s something. If I’m reading some of the posts that you’ve put up in terms of client successes, that there’s often the story of, we identified his strategies and you went into this earlier, uh, as an example.

Yeah. Just your approach of how, how that comes to play in such a way that you’re there working with someone for change. Yeah, well, two ways. My favorite way, first off, is let’s say somebody comes to me for, for sports enhancement, just as an example, and let’s say they, you know, let’s say it’s for golf, for a simple example, I don’t golf.

I, I’ve golfed very, very little, and I’m pretty terrible at it. But I don’t need to be good at it as long as somebody else, As long as a client is coming to me because they at least have some skill level. They at least have know how to golf. They at least have a core competency level, but they’re just either A, wanna improve a little bit, or B, My really, my favorite is if they’re excellent, but they’re in a slump.

That’s my favorite. Yeah. That’s kind of the Jordan Belfort, if you will, when they’re already, they’ve already got the strategies, they know what to do, but they got off track somehow. The, in regards to, to better understanding their strategy. The thing is that we have both conscious and unconscious strategies that we do, as you know.

And so what I do is I just help them to figure out what they do when they do it excellent. So that they can duplicate it more consistently. Okay. That if somebody was to, to, to say to me, out of all the NLP techniques, what’s the one tool? If you could only have. , what would it be? And I would say strategy elicitation.

Specifically what’s called the tote model. Mm-hmm. , that would be the one, because that I can create, I can, I can quote unquote, steal just about any technique from just about anybody. And I don’t mean stealing people’s techniques and calling your own, you know, make sure you hear me on that. But learning different techniques, learning how people do different things.

Can do by eliciting their strategy for how they do it. And most of the time people aren’t consciously aware of how they do. You know, and again, looping back to golf, so for the sake of simplicity, you know, there’s a lot of very unconscious strategies that people have. The most common for simplicity. So people kind of digitalize, uh, what I mean, for example, their strategy for doing excellent, I guarantee is always just focusing on that ball going in the hole,

So that’s a core component to it. There’s a little more to it, but that’s, that’s the core component as opposed to their negative. Looping back to where I, I said that I start with my favorite, which is what they do. Excellent. Well, let’s also figure out what they do that’s screwing them. Okay. And more often than not, a big part of the strategy with golf that’s screwing them up is that they’re focused.

They’re focused on, Okay, I don’t want it to go against, I don’t want it to hit against that tree. I don’t want it to get in the water. I don’t want it to, to, to, to, to end up in the sand Cetera, cetera, et cetera. And they’re focused, whether they’re, and they usually aren’t conscious of it, they’re very focused on what they don’t want.

And especially with something like golf where that, that ball is gonna go where you focus, you know, that’s exactly what’s, what’s going on when people are do, when people are, are screwing up or doing excellent. And that, uh, that same methodology, if you will, applies for. applies for everything. You know, again, I, that’s mostly what I did with Jordan, at least the, my opinion, what he benefited most from was I helped him to figure out his own strategies and bring a little something called ethics to him.

If you’ve seen the movie, then you know what I’m talking about. Yeah. Really good guy, by the way. As a, as a, as a note. Okay. The, the film, just on a quick side note, uh, with that, the film was, from what I understand, from what he shared with me, is mostly accurate. Not all of it. But most of it is accurate. But if you were to meet him now in the ways that I have, you would see somebody totally different.

You know, it’s just that he, his strategy that I can say because of the movie, it’s not, you know, breaking confidentiality cuz it’s all in the movie. But his strategy was that he was, is one of the most visual individuals to this day. Here’s one of the most visual individuals I have ever. and my sincere belief is that he just got so visually focused on all of the, the, the, the grown up candy store of $500 an hour hookers, you know, just, you know, you name the drug and just the high, high, high, high.

Like, uh, if you can imagine like a, the, the horses with those blinders that they can’t see the peripheral vision, if you can imagine that. Mm-hmm. , that’s what he was. His intention, his strategy was not, how many people can I hurt today? Never was his strategy. Never was. It wasn’t even, It literally wasn’t even his, in his peripheral vision.

It was nowhere near his vision. But that, but so he was so focused on the excitement of it and cetera, et cetera, et cetera, that quite frankly, one of the things I helped him to do was to, to bring to his strategy. More of that peripheral vision so that he could see, so he could slow down and, and, and be able to see in his per version, like, Oh, okay.

Yeah, With great power does come great responsibility. So, so yeah, absolutely. Just under being able to better understand people’s strategies is without a. One of the most beneficial things that, that all of us have, cuz we can, you know, we can, uh, be creative and make things happen from there. But if we don’t know how to figure out their strategies, it’s gonna be a lot more difficult.

So where can people find you online? How could they, Uh, you’ve got the upcoming, uh, talks you’re doing at hypno Thoughts. There’s the, uh, Friday before lunch on overcoming Allergies. Ooh. In just one session. Oh, there’s a title. I love that. Well, let me be specific with that. They have enough room, or they did, they paraphrase.

I like to say in as little as one session. There you go. with hypno thoughts. They kind of simplify things a little bit. . Nonetheless, they can find me online. Throw out two websites. My training website, which is just simply NLP training. quest.com, you know, look me up. Feel free to gimme a call. As you’ll see on there, right now, I am on hiatus with trainings, but feel free to gimme a call and, and, you know, say, Okay, I’m really interested in training and who knows, you may push me into doing a training sooner than I planned.

Other than that, you know, most of the people are practitioners themselves. So, so, but nonetheless, if you, if you know anybody in the Las Vegas area that could use my help, feel free to send ’em to my private practice website, which is just simply Las Vegas. Hypnosis center.com and go to either one of those and you’ll find my phone numbers and you know, and if you’re a practitioner, feel free to gimme a call and you know, just chat.

Anyway. Awesome. I’m glad we could finally do this. We’ve been talking about this for about a year. Yeah, it was cool. You’re, it literally, it’s been about a year. Yeah. . Yeah. Well, great. I’ll see you soon. Awesome. Take care, bud. Thanks for listening to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast and work smart hypnosis.com.

Hey, it’s Jason here, and thanks once again for listening, participating, and leaving your reviews of this program online. And in many ways, I’d share the mindset, once again, if you’re brand new to this program. Work Smart Hypnosis was founded originally because I’d go to conventions, whether it was gh, whether it was Hypno thoughts, whether it was the Hypnobirthing, conclave, MidAmerica, Hypnosis, and all the others that I’d go to as well, and the workshops, the seminars, the preimposed, all that stuff was outstanding.

Yet it was these conversations that either you would have with the fellow professionals. You would overhear as the fly on the wall, just people talking about what they do. And that’s the goal of this program is not the Tonight Show, uh, seven minute rehearsed interview, but let’s just talk, Let’s just see where this goes and have a good time about this hypnosis stuff and bring us all up in our qualities and our skills.

It’s about highlighting those people that I have deemed to be hypnotic workers, which goes right along with my training program, which is available online. Hypnotic workers, and it’s specifically the brain dump of everything of my hypnotherapy training, not the business content of how to get the clients, but how do you navigate that change process?

How do you confidently guide your clients to deep levels of hypnosis? And my real mission statement of hypnotic workers, it’s all about eradicating this virus of people asking. Hey, do you have a script for this? Because it’s all about training a contextual mindset to really, really help you. To not get stuck inside of your process, to not be there with a client with something new you’ve never heard of and have no clue where to begin.

It’s all about training a new mindset, a new approach to hypnosis that empowers both the seasoned professional as well as the brand new hypnotist to jump in with better strategies and a better mindset to really produce change. Now, this is a library that’s open only by invitation only, so there is currently a waiting list.

So do this right now. Head over to hypnotic workers.com. Watch the video, click the button, and that’s gonna get you on the list. And as soon as we open up more spots, you will be the first to know about that. And also be among the first to really take both the hypnosis profession as well as your business, your practice, your skills, your efficacy, your mindset to a whole new level.

Become a hypnotic worker today, hypnotic workers.com. See you next time.