Session #93: How Nicholas Pallesen Saw 56 Clients in One Week

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This is the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast, session number 93. How Nicholas Pison saw 56 clients in one week. 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. Jason Lynette here and Happy New Year everybody.

So the wonders of time travel. I am recording in 2016 and this session is launching in 2017. So the wonders of, uh, all things, uh, yeah, you get the point. This is a very near and dear, uh, session to me that you’re about to listen to a conversation that was really a continuation of a live. That I was able to have with Nicholas Palace, who, if you’re following along, he’s now joining the ranks of the two timers, clubs, people who have been on this program twice.

Go back and listen to session number 65 from, uh, June, 2016. That was part one with Nicholas titled Hypnotizing Artists. And this was a session that, as Nicholas was talking about, this online, whether on Facebook or anywhere else. People were asking enough questions that I basically realized we gotta get him on here and we gotta hear the story.

We’re in the midst of all things busy performance schedules. In the midst of, You’ll hear about this, and I love this, doing residencies with orchestras and other performance arts groups where he is being paid by the day to come in, do a presentation, and then work with the members on a one to one basis.

In the midst of all of that. It’s the busiest of audition seasons now and, uh, pulling off a week of seeing 56 sessions, 56 clients in the span of just one week, and listen through this entire conversation. While there may be some themes that you might hear and go, Yeah, but I’m not a singer. Yeah, but I’m not this, I’m not that.

Trust me, you’re gonna find some nuances into this cuz we’re gonna hit on themes of how do you stay. In the present with your clients, You know, how do you manage to, first of all, book that number of sessions, but then also how do you do so without going crazy? And also how do you do so and still have a voice at the end of it?

You know, over the years, that’s been a theme that’s popped up several times of vocal stamina. There’s a slightly inappropriate story of, I had a chiropractor in my office as a client at one point. And we did the session. It was actually on a fear of public speaking issue, and at the end of it, he only paid me one specific compliment, which was, Huh, you can’t phone this in, can you?

And I, I had to ask him, What do you mean by that? He goes, You had to be on the entire time you were speaking for like an hour nonstop. He goes, I can’t do that. And I, and I’m piecing together what perhaps his variation of that was. And admittedly I was making a joke, which luckily he took it as one where I basically reference, Yeah, kind of like the days where you don’t feel like doing adjustments and you just teach people to do exercises and stretch.

and I, I meant it as a joke, but I didn’t expect him to then respond. Yeah, exactly. Like the school teacher who puts on a video. So, uh, I may have discovered something about this man at that time. So again, where the experience of maintaining that mental stamina, that vocal stamina, just all the stamina necessary that, you know, to hear the nuances that you could hear inside of this convers.

That the Opera singer is a person training to use their voice and their face and their entire body as that microphone to project over an orchestra into a massive, massive theater, and to take that same vocal quality into the session with your clients. So you’re gonna gain some tips and strategies in terms of being in the present, being in the moment, and giving your client the best process possible and leaving fresh as a daisy.

At the end of the week, having done a marathon schedule, listen through this for both the content as well as the context because you can take the model of what Nicholas has been doing and expand it into nearly any other niche market. And yes, we like the word niche rather than niche because niche rhymes with rich.
That’s right. So let’s jump right in. This is session number 93, How Nicholas Pison saw 56 clients in one week,

so I leave for London on Friday night. Okay. What’s the show I’m doing, uh, the title role in rto. Nice. With, uh, the English National Opera in London. It’s a, it’s a company that I’ve performed with twice before now, so this is, this is my third time and the third time’s a charm we hope. Yeah. So it’s been, uh, no, it’s been a really fun, I’ve done a couple of really cool shows with them.

I just, my first show was actually a show with Terry Gillum. Mm-hmm. , who’s, uh, from Mon Python. and that was a pretty wild experience. I don’t think anything can really top that, but, But I’m really excited about this opera because Rigolotto is my favorite role. One of my favorite operas and, and I love London as a city, and you can’t beat the fact that opening night is on my birthday.

Nice. So, so I’m really excited about that. RGA Lotto is a really cool character, really complex, a lot of layers, but also, uh, really beautiful music. So really excited for that though. I’m. Not looking forward to getting on a jet plane again, for like the 10th time this month, but, but it’ll, it’ll be fun. Yeah.

Yeah. And I’m trying to think through now Friday. Yeah. You won’t run into, um, time zones and everything and maybe getting two New Years’. No, no, no. Luckily, and I planned it that way because I thought, you know, I’ve never, never done New Year’s Eve in London and, and I have a few friends there and I thought, hey, you know, because rehearsals start on Monday, and normally what I would do is I’d fly, you know, take the overnight flight Saturday night so that I get there Sunday morning and have a day to kind of acclimate before rehearsals start.

But you know, since this weekend is the new year, I thought, well, I’ll come go Friday. Then be there Saturday morning of New Year’s Eve, and I have some friends there and thought you. What a cool way to have my first New Year’s Eve in London. We’ll see if I’m awake though with, with, with jet lag and, and the time difference.

We’ll see. We’ll see if I can stay up. I might have to take a bit of a nap Saturday so that I can stay up for midnight. Although I’m flashing back because I actually have spent New Year’s in London, except it was 1990 and I was eight years old. The, the best recollection I have of it is my father. Imagine you’re looking at Danny DeVito and now Squint, and now you can see my father

So same, same height, same body type, same balding pattern. And um, I don’t know the, the history timeframe of all things, the London punk rock scene, but basically it. Midnight or a little bit after we’re on the way back to the hotel. And these incredibly kind, clearly punk rocker guys, first of all asks my father, we would like to spray paint your head.

Oh, okay. And he goes, Go right ahead. Nice. Yeah. So, um, hey, it’s New Year’s Eve. Why not? It’s the top that one . So you’re, uh, you’re now in the, uh, the two timers club, being back on the Work Smart Hypnosis podcast, and I wanted to kick us off with that story of what you’re, what you’re up to nowadays. Cuz again, that’s the, that’s the really cool thing inside of this, that, inside of this niche specific.

Industry that you’ve completely now infiltrated, you are still working full time as an opera singer. Yeah. And, and I wonder every day how I’m still doing it because it’s, uh, It’s gotten to the point to where, you know, I really consider both of them to be full-time careers. I’m performing pretty actively as as a singer, and then I’m also doing a full schedule of clients.

So I would say, you know, since we talked last time on the podcast, you know, my. My, my singing work has, has pretty much stayed consistent with what it was the last time we’ve talked, you know, still working quite a bit. I’ve, I’ve done now a lot more work in Europe. I just finished doing an opera in Germany, so I was in Cologne, Germany for two months doing a show.

Go back to London. On Friday night and then next year, I’ve been offered a few return engagements to Germany, actually three of them. So, so I might be spending a lot of time in Germany coming end of next year, so, but the singing is pretty much kind of stayed where it’s at. What’s really exploded even more than it already was before is, is my hypnosis practice.

I would say since we last talked, I joined the guest faculty. One of, one of the top artist training programs for opera singers that that kind of happens in the summer. I was already on the faculty of what’s considered to be the top training program for, for young opera singers. So I went back for my second summer there.

But what, and what’s really cool is that I got, I got hired in on the guest faculty of what’s considered to be the top orchestra training program in the country. It’s, uh, the New World Symphony in Miami. and basically, I go there, like with these other residencies that I have, I’ll go there, I’ll teach a workshop and then I’ll do individual sessions with people who are interested in doing some more customized work.

So I found out late summer that, that the New World Symphony wanted to hire me on the faculty. So I. Went there just a few weeks ago. Went for my first faculty residency. I was there for three days and it was really cool because I got this email about a week or so before I went to Miami, and the person who’s in charge of all the guest faculty, she said, Well, you know, I’ve got some really good news for you.

She said, We, we just opened up all of your session times to the orchestra members to sign up and all of your session times filled up in five minutes. Nice. And there is a 16 person wait list to do sessions with you in case there’s any cancellations. So they said, you know, would you by chance be available to come in a little earlier?
So I actually ended up changing my flight to come in. Earlier on the first day, so I could fit a whole bunch of people in and, and the class went great. Everyone really enjoyed the sessions. People did some really awesome work, which is kind of cool because, you know, in that situation it’s kind of a one off situation.

You know, I’m not working in a series of sessions like I would do in my office. And so you really have to kind of think about, okay, you know, what can we do in this hour? You know, being. You know, I may not see them again for a while or, you know, they can always opt to do Skype sessions with me or whatever.

But, but you know, if, if this is the only time that we get to work, you know, what can we do in this hour that would be of the most benefit? So, you know, taking that client-centered approach, I’d ask people, I’d say, Hey, well you know, what, what, what can we do today that would have the biggest impact for you?
And, you know, take it from there. And the sessions went really well, and, and I got another awesome email last week telling me, You know, originally they, they kind of wanted to see how things would go, you know, cuz this was the first time they’re bringing a hypnotist to come and work with these orchestra members.

They didn’t know how people would, uh, what the reception would be. And it turned out that the, the feedback was so overwhelmingly positive that they said, you know, well we originally had planned for you, you know, just to come once this year. But there’s such a demand for your sessions that we actually just found some extra money in our budget.

And would you be able to come back in a couple of months? ? So, so, uh, so rather than waiting till next season, I’m gonna be coming back in the spring. So, so that’s, you know, that’s one thing that’s really grown is, is doing these faculty kind of residencies of these various programs and it’s really exciting.

What I think is really exciting is that institutions and organizations in the arts are now starting to really recognize the benefit of, of hypnosis and specifically recognizing the fact that, you know, we need to be taking care of the person as much as we are taking care of the artist and. And that the mental aspect of what we do and the training that’s involved in that is, is something that we should be giving just as much attention to as our artistic training.

So, so that’s been really exciting. And then really also my individual sessions, I’ve been. Working, doing a whole lot more sessions, working with people in all sorts of areas of the arts. I’ve started working with a few high school students who are getting ready for, you know, college musical theater auditions, and they’ve been getting into their top schools of choice, which is really awesome.

You know, working with some Hollywood people, working with some Broadway people. You know, outside, you know, in addition to all the classical musicians that I work with and some actors who are doing straight theater. So it’s been really cool to see people getting very excited about hypnosis and, and really wanting to explore what they can do with the power of their mind.

So, so that’s, that’s definitely been growing as well, and I’m, I’m really excited about that, that schedule packing. And as you’ve been chatting there, I’ve, uh, written down about seven points of everything you just said that I wanna unpack and get into the, the one of which being and many people on Facebook had already responded to you on this one.

And I was wrong cuz you already corrected me, uh, before we started here, that it wasn’t a 55 session week, it was a 56 session week, which we will definitely get to that in a few moments. But I’m curious to see if there’s something we can unpack out of the strategy. Not to say. As a result of listening to this, uh, this program here, that people will then go out there and launch their own performance arts based hypnosis niche market, but more so instead to to look at various niche markets that are out there, a and to see if there’s a model we can pull out of this.

What is it that you’re doing, first of all, to make that approach? In terms of these residencies, cause the, the basic format is when you’re there, let, let’s get the format first. You’re there, you’re doing a presentation, and then from that people are signing up for session. Yeah. For the most part, that’s what’s happens.

Uh, in the case of this Miami, the group, they, they ended up signing up for sessions before I even showed up. Mm-hmm. , so many of them had no idea what I did or, you know, other than I did hypnosis. Yeah. And, you know, they, they had just heard about it from colleagues of theirs or, or, you know, they were curious about exploring another possibility for doing some mental training.

But yeah, for the most part, I go, I do a presentation to give people a chance to kind of feel it. And see what this work is all about. Get a taste of it so they can decide if they want to explore it more. And then what’ll happen is at that point, people generally will sign up to do the individual sessions.

And in terms of just nuts and bolts, what kind of materials are you giving them, if any, to help them to do this? You mean in the class? No, I mean in terms of, uh, like the example in Miami where they were signing up in advance. , is it? Yeah. Is there information you’re sending them in advance that makes it easier on.

Yeah, so what I do is I, I send a little blurb about the presentation that I’m gonna do. I send them some biographical information about me, and I also generally will point them to my website and I’ll say, You know, there’s a lot of great information on my website. You can learn about all the various ways that hypnosis can help you.

You can read some client feedback from, and probably you’re gonna know several people on that website. Nice. And. And, you know, read about their experiences with hypnosis. So, so generally that’s what, that’s what I do ahead of time. Send a little blurb about the class, send a bio so they get a sense of where my background is, especially with these orchestra musicians, because in the opera world, people, people pretty much know me as a singer, and so I, you know, I don’t have to really introduce myself very often to them because they already know me as a singer.

So what, uh, you know, But with the case of these orchestra members, you know, they, they haven’t probably, Heard of me, so, So I wanted to send that information and yeah, and then I will point them to the website. In the case of the Miami group, there were already a couple of people in the orchestra who had worked with me prior to this faculty appointment, and that’s actually the whole reason this came to be because they.

When, you know, they actually worked with me to audition to get into that orchestra and when they got there, they, they told the administration that, you know, Hey, this, this work was really helpful. You should have him come talk to the whole orchestra. Cause we think it would, they would all benefit from it.

So, so I’m really grateful to them because they’re the ones that really got help to get my foot in the door without orchestra. Mm-hmm. . So basically riding. One, one leverage point to the next one. That here was a connection. And if it works for the singers, let’s work with the musicians now as well.

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So then you’re there and you’re set up and, uh, the basic structure, not to get too specific on the, the financial details, but they’re housing you, they’re paying you for the day. Are the actual artists paying anything in terms of their session time? Is there something that they’re supplementing inside of that, or is it, here’s the list sign.

No. Yeah. The, when I do those residencies, the, the organization will pay me kind of a, a flat rate, you know, a lump sum fee that, that basically then pays for a certain number of hours. Mm-hmm. , So, so yeah. The people who sign up for the individual sessions are not paying for them because the organization is paying for them.

Got it. And, and so there, it’s kind of part of the whole deal as, as a, as a way of supporting, you know, their artists or their, their group or their students. Which to unpack that. Yeah. Which, to unpack that for a moment, I mean, for, for everyone else listening in on this to consider, you know, even inside of to model what’s what Nicholas is talking about here, if there was some sort of service you could do for a business.

That just goes down to here’s the blurb for the website. Here’s the place they can gather more information. Here’s what I can offer as a seminar for your entire, um, staff, and then also to be on site the rest of today. That’s actually something I, I’d done that. Years ago doing like a stress program for a company and then breaking out to individual sessions, though I, I’m, I’m filtering back to what you had mentioned before about having to structure about this might be a one off when I was getting a lot more, what could have been more ongoing sessions.

But then again, these were businesses that were local to me and that was much more app. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think it’s a, it’s really worked out well and, and what I’ve found is when I do, when I end up doing these individual sessions, there are a number of people who do those initial sessions who then will opt in to do Skype sessions with me to, you know, kind of continue the work that we did.

Some of them, you know, only do that one time. What I found is, is, is a good majority of them, Will end up contacting me, you know, to do that follow up work. And in that event with, with the case of the Miami group, the orchestra actually pays for some of those additional sessions if they want them with most other groups, you know, people will then just pay it out of pocket.

Mm-hmm. though, technically this person is an employee of that orchestra. Yes. So it is within the good interest of that company to, to whatever is appropriate to keep that person playing to the best of their abilities. Absolutely. Yep. Nice, nice. So in the structure of doing this, these residencies, let’s move into what then turned into 56 sessions and how many days in eight days.

Nice. Yeah. And that was all, you were set up in New York for that, right? Yeah, I, I was set up in New York, so. So I work in Melissa tier’s office in, in New York at the Center for Integrative Hypnosis. And, and so I, and that’s really kind of my main, you know, epicenter of, of, of all of my work. You know, my, my hypnosis practice goes with me wherever I go as a performer.

But I would say that, you know, where most of the action happens is, is there in the New York office. And you know, so when people hear about the 56 sessions, they. You know, is that something you do every week? And I, you know, I say no, you know, basically the way I like to explain it is for me as, as a, as a hypnotist who works with performing artists, especially classical musicians, the first two weeks of December, those two weeks after Thanksgiving, Are the peak audition season for opera auditions and a lot of music festivals and summer music festivals.

You know, a lot of them will happen in those two weeks after Thanksgiving. So, you know, so you know, there’s all the people who are local to New York who, who are doing their auditions and you know, they want to get in a good head space, want to, you know, make sure they’re, they’re ready to rock those audition.

But then you also have a lot of people who are flying in from out of town, from other states, other countries to, to do those auditions because basically, you know, you can stay there for 10 days. And you know, I know there were some people who worked with me who I think they said they did like 25, 30, 30, 35 auditions, you know, in the course of that 10 day.

So it’s a really great way to kind of get a whole bunch of auditions done at once. You know what that ends up meaning though, is. There’s people who, like I said, they want to check in, you know, get in a good head space or maybe, you know, they, they want to just check in about other other things. And because we’re both in the same city, they, they want to connect for a session.

So the way I always describe it is, you know, for me, those two weeks after Thanksgiving are kind of like the first two weeks of April for a tax accountant, , you know, you know, those two weeks in December are my April 15th. And, and so I, I know that during those two weeks, I’m gonna end up doing a pretty large amount of sessions and then, you know, after that then it, it goes back down to kind of a normal, steady stream of, of clients, which again, I’m working to unpack this to see if there’s implications of how to do it in other markets.

You know, working with students. There’s especially this big part of the year, I mean, this is a week that most of my clients were recording here. It’s December 28th and the magic of the week between Christmas and New Year’s is that most often the kids are off from school. Yeah, and today has been two teenagers getting ready for the SATs.

Most of tomorrow are teenagers getting ready for the SATs, and it’s how, you know, and especially in a time of year where people would often play the game of some sort of seasonality to instead, you know, really harness. That seasonality to our benefit, you know, to really bump up that schedule in such a way that it becomes naturally full.

But I love that aspect of, again, this is the time of year where they are doing those auditions. So these 56 appointments, were they all artists? Were there, were there other inside of it? There, they were almost entirely artists. There were, uh, there were 54 of them were artists, either, either opera singers or musical theater singers, or several instrumentalists who worked with me, a few actors.

Uh, and then there were two who were not artists. There was, uh, one girl who came in. She, she works in PR and she was actually referred to me because she’s the sister of one of my clients. Who, who’s, who happens to be an artist. And, you know, they were, they were having dinner one night and she was talking about her experiences with this work and, you know, and said, Hey, you should give this a try as well.

So, so we had our first session and then there was also, uh, an, there was also a lawyer who came in to work with me on some, you know, presentation, kind of public speaking. Stuff. So Yeah. But most of them were artists. Yeah. Got it. Got it. And in that format, not quite the filter of, this might be a one off, but this might be an ongoing relationship.

Yeah. There were several people in that week who were kind of starting their initial series of sessions with me, so, So some of them were just starting on that. Some of them were kind of in the middle of that series, and then a lot of them were just, you know, kind of tuneups or, or people who just wanted to come check in, you know, about this one audition they have that they really want to do well in.

Or, you know, a tune up of something that we had, you know, had worked on and, and helped them with, you know, several months prior. And they, you know, like I said, they were in town and I was in town, so they wanted to connect. So it was kind of a little bit of everything really. So without getting into a full vocal lesson, Here

And if that’s not a preview of what I’m about to ask, but it’s something that, you know, even I, I refer to a timeframe when I was seeing clients, um, as BC which for me was before children , right? Before, right before Claire was born, my wife Michelle was working at a job in downtown DC and with the commute and everything, we basically figured.

That she would basically be gone from about seven 30 in the morning till about seven 30 in the evening. Office was right down the road for me. And I kind of, we kind of both looked at our schedules and went, You know what, let’s go ahead and, uh, burn out early. Uh, , what’s the playful phrase? of, I was seeing these marathon days of.

Uh, and I learned this from working, uh, theme parks of all things as a teenager, that if I took a break, that’s when I got tired. So , I would see an 8:00 AM I would see a nine 30, I would see a 11, I would see a 1230, and maybe take a small break and see the next one at two 30. And there were some days that I’d see upwards of nine or 10 appointments.

My, my story behind this was that I also came from a theatrical background. I was the one sitting in the rehearsal hall watching the actors organizing the rehearsal calls, you know, coordinating with the shops and everything to make the, everything work together. And you’ve seen waiting for Goman, right?

Oh, yeah, yeah. The line with, uh, Eugene Levy about people asked me if I was the class clown and well, no, but I sat next to him and I studied. Was my basic background to all things, you know, power of voice, that I wasn’t necessarily there for the vocal lesson, but you’re watching a production run for eight weeks and you could slowly figure out, Okay, she’s about to lose her voice.

Let’s get the understudy ready. Hey, this one’s straining again. We need to get the understudy ready, or this one’s struggling. Let’s see if we can get. You know, the, the vocal coach back in to work with this person. So I’ve not seen many people in the hypnosis profession talk about vocal stamina. Yeah. And you know what?

And you’re giving me a great idea that maybe that’s a, a, a proposal I should, you know, make to present at one of these hypnosis conferences. And I’d honestly tell you, Years ago, I have the video of this, maybe we’ll put it in workers, if I can track it down. I put together a workshop based on Kristin link letters, freeing the actor’s voice, and I called it freeing the hypnotist voice.

And I presented it and everybody there found value in it. Yet it was honestly so weird that I just went, nobody could ever see this cuz it was all the, the vocal warmups and you know, Oh yeah. Especially the opening up those nasal cavities for the full range of your voice. Oh yeah, it was moments of having to go, Okay, everybody just shut up and stand up and do this.

It works. Trust me, . Yep. Yep. So I’d be curious if there’s any specific tips, any specific advice you’d give to the hypnotist, cuz I see constantly people pop up online and it’s loss of voice. Strain of voice and you know, maybe it’s the stage hypnotist. Maybe it’s the hypnotherapist. What, what recommendations could you.

Yeah. And I mean, and, and this is, this is something that happens to people, you know, You know, you don’t have to do 56 sessions in order to do it. No, I mean, I, you know, like you said, I, I see this pop up from time to time. People who are just doing kind of a, a normal everyday kind of load of clients kind of talking about this.

I would say that the, the first thing is, Is, is if you can really learn, a lot of it has to do with the breath support. Yes. And, and how you’re using your breath. So, you know, and this is, this is where being a classical singer really comes into to play for me. And as a huge advantage because as a classical singer, a lot of people actually don’t realize this.

We are trained to basically, Have our body and our, basically our face become a microphone. You know, as an opera singer, we are trained to be able to sing and project our voice. Over a full orchestra and be heard, you know, in a 2000, 3000, 4,000 seat theater with no microphone, you know? So, you know, whereas in musical theater, a lot of times in straight theater, you know, they’ll be micd in a opera.

We’re never micd and, and so it’s the natural voice that has to carry in that huge space over the orchestra. And one of the, and so one of the things that we’re always talking about is really the importance of breath and how you support and how you use your breath. So, so I’m, I’m always being mindful as a hypnotist and, and, and through everyday life as well of, of making sure I get a really good low breath.

As you know, the common phrase in, in, in the singer world is, you know, breathe from your diaphragm of, of breath. You know, what would feel like a little lower of a breath than what you’re used to kind of taking with that shallow kind of chest breath, but really imagining, you know, one easy way that I describe it to people is, you know, imagining is if you’re breathing and you’re gonna breathe all the way down into your feet, you know that you’re, it’s almost as if the breath is just gonna go really low and as if you’re breathing all the way down through your feet.

And what ends up happening is you. , you end up getting this sense of, of the abdominal abdominal area expanding a little bit, kind of expanding all the way around, like a balloon inflating. And if you can get really connected to that good low diaphragmatic breath, then what what happens is all the muscles down there are working, which is taking all of the pressure and all of the strain and all of the effort off of your throat.

So, So by breathing down there, you can also get a deeper breath and you can also sustain the breath a lot longer. You know? Now. Now I’ve just been, funny enough, we’re having this conversation because, you know, right before I jumped on this with you, I was actually singing for the last hour and a half getting all this music ready for rehearsal starting on Monday.

So it’s something that I’ve been thinking about a lot. So I would, I would teach people, I would talk about trying to get as low and deep of a breath as you can. Trying to imagine that sense of breathing from, from the diaphragm, feeling like that balloon or that tire kind of expanding lower in your, your abdominal area.

And then I would say the real big key, and, and this is something that you might notice even as I’m talking to you right now, is, is when I’m speaking, I’m always being mindful of, of what we would call speaking on the breath. And what I mean by that is if you notice when I’m talking to you, I’m talking with, with what I’m, you know, hoping will be a very kind of lyrical, smooth kind of sound.

And, and the way that I’m accomplishing that is I’m thinking. About speaking on the vowels. What a lot of people tend to do, and this will wear out the voice, is, you know, they’re either not supporting their breath or. They’re speaking with all the consonants and they’re having a very kind of abrupt, loud, you know, kind of short, kind of sound like this.

Mm-hmm. sound is always interrupted and, you know, which works really, really well for musical theater because so much musical theater is about bringing out all of the text, you know, for, for saving and, and you know, the voice. And for having, you know, for opera, it’s definitely a challenge because if you’re stopping and interrupting the breath saying Illa Bowl like that, Then it, it, you know, it’s kind of just smashing those vocal holds together and causing some wear and tear.

So what I do instead is if you listen to me right now, I’m thinking, I’m just thinking of speaking from vow to vow rather than trying to B with all of my Cs. Mm-hmm. like that, you know, so, so I, I take that low. . And then as I’m speaking, I imagine just a steady stream of breath coming out, and I’m thinking of just allowing the breath to connect every vowel to every vow, and when I need to do the consonants.

They’re kind of. You know, they’re, they’re spoken, they’re, they’re articulated, and yet I articulate the consonants in a way that, that they don’t disrupt that flow of the breath. Now, when you’re doing that, you’re able to talk for hours. You’re able to talk, you know, you know, forever really. I mean, not forever, but you know, you’re even, even, you know, I have to rest my voice.

But from time to time, but, but you know, you’re able to, you’re able to speak and sustain the voice a lot longer because since that breath is constantly flowing, You know, you’re not constantly, you know, smashing your vocal vs together and interrupting that sound. So, so that’s, that’s really what I would say the way, that’s how I do all of the sessions is, is, is I’m really mindful of speaking with that more kind of legato, you know, is the term in music that, that kind of smooth, that connected, that more lyrical sense of the phrases.

So there’s more of. Just natural. I mean, on one side that also just makes the voice sound more interesting and more hypnotic, but at the same time, it’s bringing in just this natural mechanism of how the body’s supposed to work. Absolutely. You know, you’re allowing the voice to kind of function in the way that it was naturally intended.

I mean, you know, it’s something that we all do as children and then as we grow up and learn our local dialects Yeah. And learn our local speech patterns, you know, the, you know, things get a little entangled. So Yeah. You’re, you’re allowing it to be that nice. Natural kind of flow of the voice. But like you said, you brought up a really good point that when you’re speaking on that breath and with that kind of more lyrical sense, then you do it.

It opens up a lot of colors in the voice. It opens up a lot of op op opportunities to be expressive. And I think as hypnotist, because so much of what we do is about language, then it’s about, you know, if we can color those words, if, if. Going deeper can sound deeper, you know, or, and or if we can energize, you know, those adjectives, those words that you know, that maybe will inspire confidence and feeling even more energized.

You know, if we can, if, if we, if we do that, see now there’s so many more possibilities, so our suggestions can go in even deeper. Our suggestions, I think, can, can land even more powerfully because, We have all, we have access to all of those colors, all of those expressive tools and, and the ability to, to really paint, you know, we call it text painting in, in, in music, to, to really paint every word and every suggestion that we give so that, so that even our suggestions begin to sound like the things we’re suggesting.

which there’s a, there’s a theme inside of that, again, of letting the power come from the. Yes. Yeah, that, uh, there’s a, there’s a book that I read years. When I was first getting into running, and it’s a book called She Running by Danny Dreyer. And it, it’s pointing out that yes, running it turns out is actually considered one of the more dangerous sports for people to get involved in.

There are more injuries in running than just about everything else. It turns out, based on statistics that I cannot quote right now. So read the book, he will share those with you, , but it’s where he, he points out the, the flaw of it is that people think I’m just gonna go out and. Pound the pavement. I’m going to use the, the biggest muscles.

I’m gonna propel the heaviest parts of my body using these smallest bones and muscles of my feet. And the story goes that Danny Drier sees these people out in San Francisco doing Tai chi out in a field. He decides people need to run like that where you’re engaging the core muscles to do the running.
And similar to letting the breath control the volume, the intensity, the pitch, the, the tone of the language, that the method to run faster with chi running is just to slightly lean forward. And let Gravity do its work, that it’s this almost effortless methodology of running that when I, when I started employing it, suddenly I was running much faster with a lot less wear and tear on my body.

And what you’re hitting at here in terms of the vocal quality is again, it’s not this strain it and project it and force it out there. It’s this more of using the muscles in the way that they were meant to be used in the first place. Absolutely let, let the breath do all the work for you and, and, and it won’t feel like work, really.

So is there some sort of visual sort of cheat sheet that you can give somebody to say that you’re in your session? What’s something they could possibly imagine or visualize that might at least get the foot in the door and towards in terms of better control with their voice? You know, one. One kind of cool may, and maybe this will land for some people, is one, one visual that I got actually when I was a student at Juilliard, I was, I was doing an artist diploma in opera studies at Juilliard and we, we had a class where we were working with one of the coaches on, on certain repertoire song repertoire.

And it was interesting cuz she kind of, she gave this cool visual of, you know, imagine it’s like, A string of pearls, you know, like a pearl neck necklace, and the breath is that string. That kind of goes through all of the different pearls. It’s that string that connects all of the pearls together and that the pearls are like those consonants that, that, you know, that the breath is always constant through the consonants, you know, and, and the pearls kind of are their own thing, and yet they have that sense of being connected all in that bigger kind of string.

And so that, that was one visual that really. Kind of landed with me is imagining that breath being like the string and that, you know, the consonants are those pearls, but they’re always connected to the string rather than kind of being separated. Um, you know, another one, another one is just imagining kind of the sense of, of feeling like you’re connected to like the, the, the breath is kind of like the smooth, kind of consistent wave.

Of, of letting kind of the momentum, letting the breath take you through, kind of like a wave would carry you, you know, back to the shore if, if you just let it ride. That’s another one that, that really helped. And, you know, I’m trying to think if there are any other visuals that I can, can think of in this moment.

Sure. One thing that I would say really quick Yeah. Is, you know, that I didn’t mention is also hydrating. Yes. Is really, is really good. You know, drinking lots of water. So, you know, I make sure that I, you know, in between sessions I’ll, I’ll go, you know, Melissa has a, a water dispenser there in the office, and so I’ll go get a cup of water.

Sometimes I’ll even have water that I sip on during the session. So, staying hydrated is also really good for, for, you know, taking care of the voice. . Yeah, absolutely. I’m curious if there’s something of the technique nature that’s gonna back up a premise that I think is helpful and definitely necessary, that if I had to give a very unfair characterization of a lot of stage hypnosis that I’ve seen over the years.

The entire show is done at this volume, and now you’re doing this and this is what’s happening, and now you’re a Platy post and now you’re on an airplane and it’s all kind of done. At the same pitch and tone, as opposed to, you know, playing with that tonality, playing with just the, the way that the voice connect as that instrument, You know?

And what’s interesting is in a moment I’m gonna count from one to three and everybody up here, it’s gonna find that I’ve become completely invisible. You know, just to find that different range, the way that any good concert, every song is not gonna have the same rhythm, the same sound, the same feel to it, which at the same time is kind of giving the voice a little bit of a break.

in that respect too. Yeah. Yeah. Again, when, when you’re, when you’re letting the voice do what it naturally wants to do. You, you are giving it a break. You’re not working nearly as hard and, and it makes it so much more interesting. I mean, there’s, you know, one of the things people are always talking about in, in this, in the classical singing world is, is, you know, getting away from this idea, like you were saying, of, of this monochromatic kind of singing that.

Everything is the same volume, everything’s the same expression, everything’s the same color. You know, it, it might be impressive for a moment, you know, just like the stage hypnotist who kind of talks with that exciting voice and blah, blah, blah. You know, at, at first it might be impressive and interesting, but then, you know, it kind of gets old after a while.

Mm-hmm. it, it, it becomes much more interesting. It actually draws the listener in more. It makes people want to listen more. It makes people wanna follow the suggestions more when it does have that variance, when it does have those different degrees of color. A volume of, of intensity of, you know, leaning on certain words.

You know, it, it, it makes, it, it, I think it keeps people much more engaged in the process and draws them into the experience even deeper and without, you know, without much of a cost on your end as the hypnotist. Mm. . Got it, got it. So, so what’s up next for you, other than London ? Yeah, so, so I’m going to London and then, and then what’s exciting is that when I get back from London, my last performance is the last day of February.

And so starting on March 1st, I am transitioning into, you know, being by and large a hypnotist first and, and an opera singer Second, I’m, I’m, I’m starting this process. of transitioning out of performing as actively as I am because as the hypnosis practice grows, , you know, I, I, I want, I wanna be able to support, support that, and sustain that, that growth and doing both things as actively as I am right now is becoming pretty difficult.

Mm-hmm. . So what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna start pulling back a little bit on my performing. So, so I’ll do, you know, I’ll do a couple of gigs a year. I’ll do, you know, maybe two, three operas a year, maybe do some concert work. But, you know, really focus on the hypnosis practice. So, so basically, you know, starting in March I’m gonna have a few months where I get to just be a hypnotist and I’m really, really excited about that.

So I’ll be doing, you know, I’ll be doing my sessions in the office in New York. I also, I also make some visits. out to other cities because there are some other cities where I’ve performed before and kind of built up a base of clients. So I, you know, I’ll, I’ll make some trips out to Chicago, to Boston, to Houston, to some other cities to kind of touch base with some people there, as well as start doing some more of these faculty residencies.

I have some meetings planned with people to. You know, perhaps start in a, in a, an official capacity as early as the spring, if not, you know, next fall. So I’ll be, I’ll be doing a lot of those meetings to, you know, build on the, those kind of residencies that I already have with some of these groups. And, and mainly also, I, I have some really cool ideas of, of some products that I want to be developing that.

They’re gonna be mainly geared toward artists, but I think that they, some of them I think can also apply to hypnotist as well, and, and especially people who are interested in, you know, doing any sort of performing, whether it’s a stage hypnotist, whether it’s people doing public speaking to kind of help them get out of their own way and help them feel really confident and comfortable doing the, those shows, giving those presentations.

You know, but then also developing a product that can kind of be a, a really good kind of holistic wellness, you know, program for artists to help them to be able to deal with all the onstage challenges that we all face, but also, you know, our everyday lifestyle challenges as well. And then I’m really excited.

To, uh, you know, go back to Miami, to go back to some of these summer festivals that I’ve done and very excited to be presenting at a couple of the hypnosis conferences. I, I know at this point I know that I’m gonna be presenting at the Im DHA Convention in May in Daytona Beach. That’ll be my first time attending that conference, and I’m gonna be sharing some of the strategies that I use to.

Performing artists get out of their own way and, and kind of talk to teach hypnotists how I work with artists from that perspective of being somebody who’s doing it. So I’ll be sharing some of those strategies and then, then I’m also gonna be presenting at the Hypno Thoughts Live 2017 conference.

Haven’t heard back yet what topic I’m gonna be teaching, but really excited to go back there because it’s just an awesome time. It’s always a great time at Hypno Thoughts. Really excited just to. Having, you know, the opportunity to learn from other hypnotists, to collaborate with them, to to, to, you know, get exposed to some really cool new ideas that, that can help me in my own work.

So really, really good times ahead. Lots to be excited about. Okay. I gotta ask though, and I’ve got my strategies for this one, but I’ve gotta ask you as well, 56 sessions, how did you do that? We talked about maintaining your voice. How did you maintain your San. Well it. The way I maintain my sanity is it, it’s a really simple principle and it’s something that I think we’re all working on as hypnotists, and something that I think where we talk to clients a lot about is, is I, I approached it from the mindset of.

Really allowing myself to be present and being in that moment that I was in right then. And so, so the way that I looked at it is, you know, in this one given moment, I’m not doing 56 sessions. I’m only doing one session. And so by allowing myself to be really fully present and committed to what I was doing in that moment, I never felt like I was doing a whole bunch of things all at once.

And it’s something that I, I try to do in my everyday life of really being present that in that moment I’m with that client, that client is the most important person in my life. Mm-hmm. in that moment. And, you know, and. When I move on to the next client, then I’m with that client. Or if I have to go, you know, do some emails, or if I have to do some admin work, I’m really allowing myself to be fully present in that.

And so, and so what I, what I told people is, you know, I, I never felt busy. I never felt overwhelmed. I never felt really exhausted, you know, because number one, I was making sure I got enough sleep at night, but I, but throughout the day, I, I was never sitting with a client and thinking, Oh my gosh, I have 10 more sessions today.

Or, Oh my gosh, I have to like, find time to go run that errand really quick in between all these sessions, or I have to send all those emails out that, that are sitting in my inbox. What, the way I looked at it was, In that moment, I only am doing one thing, and that’s all I have to do. I’m not doing 56 sessions, I’m not doing emails.

I’m doing this one session and when I’m doing the emails, I’m not doing 56 sessions. And so that really helped me to feel like, you know, at any given moment, all I had to do was one. And, and that’s, that’s easy enough. And it just happened to be that I did that one thing 56 different times. But, but you know, that really helped me so that by the end of the day, I felt as fresh as I did when I started the day because I was not, You know, expending all this energy, you know, trying to be there, present with that client, but also trying to figure out all this other stuff at the same time.

I was, I was really allowing myself to be fully there in the moment. And so it kind of, you know, when number 56 finished, it felt like, cool, that was awesome, . So I, I did it, and you know what, it, it didn’t feel that hard because all I was ever doing at any point was one. What’s the longest run of an opera that you’ve ever done?

12 performances. 12 performances, Okay. So it’s a different world than theater where you typically would be, I mean, we would launch a theatrical production, and this is regional theater and I mean they’d between be between eight to 12 weeks, eight shows a week. . Yeah. And, and we, you know, we do probably as opera singers, you know, depending on the production, we’ll have anywhere, like in the states, you know, anywhere between four to five, six weeks, you know, four to five weeks of rehearsal.

And then, you know, in Europe, oftentimes with a new production, it’s. You know, six, seven weeks of rehearsal. I actually had eight weeks of rehearsal, the show I did in Germany. And then we do a max, you know, generally two or three performances a week. Because like I was telling you earlier, you know, we, we are trained to be able to project our voices over a full orchestra, to fill a whole theater and to be heard clearly with no microphone.

And so, You know, we, we, we use our whole body. We use our voice a lot, you know, when we’re doing a three, you know, three and a half hour opera. So, you know, whereas a lot of people get the benefit, you know, in musical theater, straight theater, they get to have the microphone. So they kind of let the mic do most of the work.

Mm-hmm. . We, you know, we’re, we’re using our whole selves the entire time, so because of that, you know, we, we need, you know, a day or two to rest in between performances. So, yeah, I think the most, the most I’ve ever done of one opera is three performances in a week. Usually it’s around two. Just, just to give us that time to rest and fully recover for the next show.

And I’m flashing to the complete opposite scenario that I did a kid’s magic show at Bush Gardens Williamsburg when I was 19 years old. Oh yeah. And the story goes. I had, I, I found a spot. This was the entrepreneur in me. Even at that age, I found this spot in the park that, uh, had a kid’s show with the land of the dragons.

The stage was empty most of the day. So I designed and pitched and wrote a show to fit in there. And only at the last minute they went, So when are you gonna go for your costume fitting? And I went, Oh, I’m doing it though. I’d remember the words of advice which were delivered like the perfect negative hypnotic suggestion, which was don’t count the number of shows you do over the summer, which then turned into the dry erase board counting the number of shows.

Oh yeah. And, And the wonders of liberal arts education. I was there for the stage management side of, yet having to take a few acting classes. And this is something that, I mean, delivering the pre-talk over and over to clients, delivering some of the same pattern points. Yes, it’s all client centered, but there’s still some elements that will repeat.

I mean, let’s be honest here. Oh yeah, absolutely. And I forget where it came from, but the advice was whether it’s the other actor’s dialogue or the lines you’re speaking yourself, you’re still hearing it for the first. . Yeah. And I, I love that as the mindset that, you know, yours was the strategy of being in the present, being in the moment.

And mine was, you know, even from the experience of doing the show, I think 438 times, but who’s, who’s counting? Oh, it was a 15 minute thing. I did maybe eight or nine times a day. And we did it for a little while. Then eventually I went, Hey, let’s get someone else to do this now. No, but the, the phrase of, again, you’re hearing it whether you’re speaking it or actually hearing it.

Either way you’re hearing it for the first time and it, it’s where still it feels like I’m inventing the words of my pre-talk as I’m talking to my client. Still, it feels like I’m, I’m coming up with what to say next, and it’s stepping into that mode of, no, I shouldn’t have this rehearsed and picture perfect, you know, letter perfect and ready to go.

It’s the discovery of we’re figuring this thing out together, cuz that’s, that’s how a conversation goes. Anyway. . Absolutely. And, and that’s, and that’s I think something we’re always thinking of as actors and singers as well. And, and that’s, that’s what that spontaneity, that that sense of, you know, you’re creating it in the moment as it’s happening, I think is what makes it so magical and so interesting.

And, and again, yeah, I think as a hyp is too, it just, it brings even more life and vitality and color to everything that you, you. Thanks for listening to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast and work smart hypnosis.com. All right, Thanks again so much for interacting with this program. Leave your review online.

Just head over to work smart hypnosis.com forward slash iTunes, and that’ll redirect you over to the page to leave your feedback on the iTunes page for this. Also, comment over on the show. For this page as well, I’d also tell you to head over to whole artist hypnosis.com. Whole artist hypnosis.com.

That’s Nicholas’s website. You can learn more about him and follow him as well and learn more about the upcoming conventions he’s gonna be speaking at, and just keep track of what he’s doing, which is just outstanding. I, I chair a huge. Pride for the work that he’s done that the phone rang about four years ago.

And here’s a guy who, first of all, was going to be paying for a hypnosis training based on a, uh, an educational grant, which that was a first. And then on top of that, had this, had this dream of working with fellow artists to get over their performance anxieties. Definitely he has pulled that off. So Nicholas, congratulations and looking forward to seeing so much more out of you over the coming years as well.

I’d encourage you as well to head over to work smart hypnosis.com and click the training page, the training button in the top right tab. That’s where you’ll learn about all my online programs, whether it’s hypnotic workers to really. Improve your skills as a hypnotist, getting results with your clients or even hypnotic business systems to get on the waiting list for that one.

We only tend to open that up a few times throughout the year to really get the strategies, the roadmap behind how I’ve built my business. So once again, head over to work smart hypnosis.com and I’ll see you next time.