Session #99: Robert Otto on Thinking Big

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This is the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast, session number 99, Robert Otto on Thinking Big. Welcome to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast with Jason Lynette. Your professional resource for hypnosis training and out. Standing Business Success. Here’s your host, Jason Lynette. Hey there, and welcome back. As always, it’s Jason Lynette here.

So excited to have you here with session number 99 of the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast. To date, this program has been downloaded more than 70,000 times all around the world. Your interactions, your stories, your feedback, that’s what keeps this thing going. Looking forward to the next 99 to a hundred of them as well, and it’s about time.

I have Robert Otto here on this program. Robert and I first met, I believe, in either 2012 or 2013 as I saw him speak at a convention. We got to chatting and really excited to have him here. Finally, on this program, we’re gonna cover a whole range of outstanding experiences. First of all, of course, we’re gonna be talking about the I Act.

And Im DHA Hypnosis Organizations as well as the Hypno Expo convention that happens each year nowadays in Daytona Beach, Florida. You can learn more about the upcoming convention. Go to HNO Expo 2017. Dot com and that’s where we’re gonna learn all about that convention. You’re also gonna hear some of the history that Robert has, uh, beginning with the experience as a client of hypnosis, then becoming, of course, the student of hypnosis and then launching into a segment of the business that it’s a bit of a minority, yet it’s also the majority of the profession because he’s somebody who.

Began, of course, with the smaller one to one sessions, but then thought bigger. Thus the title, Robert Otto, I’m Thinking Big because he began to launch into a massive career doing group seminars all around the country. And what I find interesting about that is it’s a category of work that many people in the hypnosis profession would look down upon that they don’t do those that I, Oh, I don’t do.

Big group seminars because they don’t work yet. I want you to really listen to the passion that Robert brought into the work that he did to make sure he was delivering a quality product and really making sure that he was representing this hypnosis profession in a professional, ethical way. So listen to that with open filters, with open suggestibility, as it were, to really hear the insights as to how we make this all so much more effective.

It’s how we really do find ourselves at this incredible renaissance. That’s the word that keeps popping up on this program, this incredible renaissance. Of the hypnosis profession. So it’s why I’m so excited to be there this year at the Hypno Expo, 2017 down Daytona Beach. Again, check that out at hypno expo 20 seventeen.com.

We’re gonna jump into this conversation though afterwards, I’ll give you some details. In terms of some of the presentations that I’ll be doing at that event. Uh, but it’s an outstanding light up. It sounds like an outstanding venue and just another great opportunity to learn all about this hypnosis profession to advance your skills, and there’s even a live streaming option as well.

So head on over to hypno expo 20 seventeen.com to learn more about that upcoming convention. Join me there as well though. Let’s jump right in. This is session number 90. Robert Otto. I’m thinking big. Well, uh, geez, we’re going back into the seventies now. Okay. Probably around 19 70, 76, 77. Uh, I had a couple issues going on and, and in my life and, uh, it was a really disastrous situation and I didn’t know really quite how to handle.

And I had never heard of hypnosis or hypnotism before. And if I did, it was just in passing. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. . And, uh, someone said, Man, not, you’re not the, you’re, you’re not the person you used to be. This thing’s really affecting you. And, uh, they said, Go see a hypnotism. And I said, A what? ? They said, Go see a hypnotist.

And this had to be, I’m sorry, Jason, it was probably around 1978 when this. Yeah. And, uh, so I wound up booking an appointment with a hypnotherapist, and his name was Frank Roco. And Frank Roco at that time was working with the Philadelphia Eagles football team. Hmm. And that’s the only time they ever had an all time winning streak.

And I, and I, and I wound up setting before Frank Broco and had a session. And left. And you know, he said if you wanna book another session, book one, man. It was like the next day I was on the phone. I enjoyed it so much and I booked another appointment with him. And before you know it, I was booking like five appointments a week with this guy

We like that type of client. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he was really helping me and I was coming out of the issues that I had, and I was feeling good and things were, things were going really well. I was coming out of the shell there really well and doing great, doing five appointments a week with the guy, and I was in there on a session one time and, uh, it’s, it’s like it happens.

Five minutes ago, that’s how well I can remember it. He said, you know, he said, You really seem to have an interest in what’s going on here in hypnotherapy. And he said, I’m gonna be a guest speaker, a Walter Sea Court Institute of Relax down, uh, outside of Philly. He said, Since I’m a guest speaker, he had, my room is paid for down there.

Walk Seacor con the room to him. And he said, Uh, why don’t you come down and see what’s going on? Rub elbows with the big boys and. I, I was only, I was only a client at that time, you know, and I thought, Okay, I’ll go. So I packed the bags and kissed wife from the forehead and said, I’m going to a hypnosis conference, and, uh, I’ll call you when I’m down there and let you know what’s going on.

And ironically, when we got down there to sea, we walked into the vendor area and everybody had all their tables set up and it was on lunch break or something, and the room was literally packed with people. I mean, just packed right out. And I walked in and I bumped Rocko and I said, You know Frank, I said, This is what I’m gonna do with the rest of my.

and that was around 1978. Actually it was, it was the fall of 19. It was in October of 1978. When, when I went down there and did that conference because I had a certificate of attendance. Mm-hmm. and uh, started just playing around with hypnosis on the side and wound up going to a gentleman by the name of Dr.

Sportelli, who at that time owned the Institute of Dynamic Hyp. In Eastern Pennsylvania was right next to Lafayette College and he had had a school when the school had been shut down and it had been closed for quite some time. And uh, he also, you know, he was a hypnotist and a chiropractor. and I, uh, man, I talked and talked and talked to him, and I kept going back and going back and begging him and begging him to open the school.

And he said, uh, well I can do that. He said, I could advertise and put it out there and see what we get. And, you know, for, for students, he said, I’ll do this under one condition. He said, And that is this, that you assist me in the class. At that point, I still don’t know too much about hypnosis. , How am I gonna assist you?

He said, Well, whatever I asked you to do, or, you know, just help me out in the class. I said, Okay. So he wound up opening the school. He had, uh, 12 people there. 12 students, including myself, was 12. And it was the 300 hour course. And that was back in, uh, 1980 when he finally opened that school. It was the 300 hour course spread over six months time.

And I graduated top of the class and I went to work in his office, which was really nice because he had a secretary and he was advertising, the secretary was booking the appointments for hypnosis and for his chiropractic office, and I stayed there. I started practicing. in, in his basement there, and I only lasted about three weeks and it was doing really well.

I was getting referrals off of the people who I had worked with. They were sending referrals in for bookings for non-smoking and weight, weight control. And Matt said, You’re doing really well. And I said, You know, I said, I, I really enjoy this work. I said, But I just, I feel that I could be doing. I can do more than, than, than, than what I’m doing here.

And he said, What do you mean doing more? I said, I’ve never spoken the public before. I said, But I think I wanna put something together and do non-smoking weight loss, and I want to take it on the road. Like yesterday. I remember it so clearly. We were standing at the top of the steps. He said, Robert, he said, I’m gonna tell you something.

He said, If you break out and go out on your. He said, I guarantee you within six months time you’re gonna be crawling up those steps, begging for your job back in the house, . I said, Well, you know, I said, If it fails, would you take me back? And he said, Well, I don’t know. He said, I’m just telling you it’s not gonna last.

I said, Okay. So I sort of took that as a challenge. Never to go back there. Yeah. Yeah. Didn’t really have the money to do what I wanted to do. I went and borrowed $1,500 from someone. I put a program together, never speaking in public before. I had to read off of notes in front of the group. And, uh, so what I actually did it, you’re gonna laugh, is that I don’t want to read off of notes in front of a class, you know what I mean?

because it would look like I didn’t know what I was. But I had a good solid program and then, and I altered it many times through the years. But how I started Jason, was that when everyone would come in and I would go to the front of the room, everyone’s naturally facing me, right? Everyone’s watching me in the front of the room.

I had an assistant in the back of the room. Did you ever see those chalkboards that you can write on one side and then flip the whole chalkboard over? Yeah. Uh huh. So we did notes and I had my headlines, my headers on there. And then when I got through that, he would flip the chalkboard over. Nobody knew it, what I’m saying,

And I’m, I’m looking to the back of the room and I’m reading off of the chalkboard. Nice. And, uh, one time it was, we got six, seven months in doing that. And , one time someone came in late and when they came in late, the door slammed and when the door slammed, everybody in a class turned around and looked to the back of the.

And they saw Kurt standing there next pointing to the headers on the chalk board. , . And I said, Well, you know, I said, We got found out we’re gonna have to change plans. We gotta come up with another routine. So I committed the majority of everything to memory. Yeah. And away it went. I’ll leave out the name of who it was, but there’s a well known performer in Las Vegas that a friend of mine was on stage with.

And as she glanced off stage, she saw her name in Big Red l e d letters, um, which was her reminder of her going, Oh wait, he doesn’t know my name. And they’re just prompting him

So, you know, it started out, and it’s funny because. Mother in nature or the universe, I don’t know what you wanna call it, would only give me enough people that I was able to handle. So like I, I remember the very first time that I did it was down in Edison, New Jersey at a Haard Johnson’s called the Hide in.

And I think I had my very first seminar, I think I had like 12 people there. And I thought, well, that’s pretty good because for what I was charging at the door versus what I had been paid in the office, you know, worked out pretty well. as time progressed slowly, the audiences and the, and the crowds grew and they grew and they grew.

And you know, I I, I really contribute a guarantee that I had on the, on the seminars that I put out there. And what it was was a one year guarantee, but it was not a money back. It was a one year guarantee that if you have any issues or if you need reinforc, , if it’s not working for you, uh, you’re allowed to come into any one of my seminars for up to a year free of charge.

And I gave them a card when they, the girls at the, at the door gave them a card with a date stamped on it and they had to sign it. And I really contribute that to my success being in the field because we would continually have people, who would come in who had never been there before. Or a lot of times people who had been there for non-smoking were weight control and they were doing extremely well.

They would go brag back to their companies and stuff and say, Hey, here’s a one year guarantee. It’s working for me. I’m smoke free. And then the companies, a majority of the companies started. A lot of people to me, and especially up through New England. I remember when Subway was just getting started up there in Connecticut.

I was working in, uh, I forget the name of the little town up there where Subway headquarters was. Anyway, people would go there from all over the country. Who were opening Subway franchises. Mm-hmm. and everyone, Well, I’m gonna say a majority of the people who came to me through, even through Subway, uh, they were losing weight.

They were stopping smoking. And every time Subway would call our office and say, When’s he coming back? We have more people appear in training. And, you know, , sometimes I’d make a special trip up there just to work with, with, with a lot of those people. And, uh, . I, I, I really do contribute that to a lot of my success, just putting it out there.

And, you know, other people would come, sometimes people would come in from other smoking seminars and they would say, Oh, who you guys are like, And I went to you and I didn’t quit smoking. And I’d say, You have a year guarantee. Where’s your card? What card? You never gave me a card. Mm-hmm. . I said, Well, you know what?

You didn’t go to my seminar then. And I’ll, and, and what I would do with them, Jason, I’d say I’ll tell. , even though you didn’t come to my seminar, and a lot of times they would admit they went to somebody else, but now I’m gonna try you. I wouldn’t even charge those people. I’d let them come in for free under two conditions.

Number one, you sat in the front row, and number two, when it’s over, tell me what was different about my seminar versus where you had went. And I wouldn’t even charge them. I’d give them the seminar for free, and I would also give them a year pass to come. . So that went out like wildfire, so to speak, in what I mean?

Yeah. Well let, let’s pause there for a moment because it’s an interesting category and it’s one that very often it, it, it’s kind of the, uh, The, the black sheep sometimes, as it were, as many other hypnotists would talk about it, of uh, oh yeah. But I don’t do those big group sessions yet. Clearly there you were, you were doing them and getting outstanding results and the referrals, the feedback, the audiences.

What would you say needs to be understood perhaps differently about these group sessions? Um, to realize that they are a viable. Well, number one, the hypnotist, You have to be yourself. Yes. Okay. You can’t go up there and be a phony, and you can’t go up there and blab and, and say, Hypnosis will do this or do that.

It’s purely a therapeutic tool. And you know, the way that my pre-talk was, was that I would ask people in the audience, one of my opening statements was, was who in this, who, who, who in the room here this evening can stand up and give me a well defined definition of the subconscious? never had a hand go up mm-hmm.

And if a hand did go up, it would say, Well, it makes me dream. To answer your question, I think a good thorough explanation to the client is, is, is, is very vital to a successful session. And then once I would go through and explain to them that, you know, the subconscious, the conscious mind, the conscious mind has the ability to look, listen, learn, reason, judge, analyze, criticize, accept, or.

purpose of the subconscious mind is to run all bodily functions. It’s a memory warehouse, and it acts out on any imaged or concept that you allow to be implanted into it. Well, those people in those audiences, they never heard that. They didn’t know that. Mm-hmm. , they, they had no clue what was going on. And I would tell them, If you think your subconscious mind isn’t acting out, look how good it’s acting out.

I can’t quit smoking. You’re totally convinced because your subconscious mind is acting out. You can’t. . My job here with you this evening in this room is to implant within the subconscious mind the idea that you can quit and you that you are a non-smoker. And man, it was a lot of times in my pre-talk, you would see people in the non-smoking reach in their pockets or purses and take their cigarettes out and crush ’em and throw ’em under the seat or throw ’em under the seat in front of them.

Just on pre-talk. Yeah. So pre-talk is, is and, and I really worked on my pre-talk for years before I had it mastered. . I did it. I worked on it for years. I kept tweaking and bending it and tweaking and bending it. And you know, there were other group sessions going on out there, and I’m not gonna mention the name, but at a conference one time, he said, you know, he said, How come every time he said, we would see you booked in the town.

And we would go ahead and book on the other side of that same town and we would send spies over. And he said You would have almost standing room only. And we had 10 or 15 people Now, But that’s where I started doing two, three, and 400 people a night in a, in a group. Mm-hmm. , you know, and, uh, they, he, this guy asked, and you, I’m sure you know the gentleman, I’m not gonna mention the name.

And, uh, he said, So what is it? He says, how, he said, How come that you’re, you’re, you’re packing these rooms out and we’re getting a small turnout. And I told ’em, it’s a trade secret. I’ll never tell you, . Yeah. But it grew, my, my, my sessions actually grew to the point when we were. Uh, Stout Island, New York in Las Vegas.

We were doing 1,015 hundred people on night of seven. Wow. Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were doing ram ballrooms and that was right up until the time I decided that I wasn’t gonna do this on the road anymore, you know? But it’s funny again, The universe would only give me what I could handle in group sites, You know what I mean?

Mm-hmm. . So for someone coming in and, and, and they think they’re gonna go do a thousand people in the grand ballroom the day that they running out in the paper, they’re really wrong because you really have to perfect that pre-talk. That is the most important thing. It really is. Well, I think the, the sort of underlying phrase there is a, is a statement that I keep coming back to myself, which is just, well do good.

you know? Well, exactly, yeah. That if the process is effective, if the process is getting the results and uh, they’re smiling on their way out the door and telling everyone they know we can’t really play this game. That is often played, far too often of that doesn’t work as well. That technique isn’t as good when, when the better question is exactly what you were just talking about of how do I make this work better.

Right. And you know, you have to be, I the people that would come to. From other hypnotherapist or whatever they were doing to stop smoking, you know? I sort of have a big heart, you know what I mean? And I could not take money from someone who went somewhere else and failed. Mm-hmm. . It was more important to me to prove to them that the art and craft of hypnotherapy worked a hundred percent.

If it’s explained properly to the clients. Right. That’s more important for me to release that client free of charge and let them go out feeling good. They got something for nothing. They went through a rotating door on somebody else’s push, you know what I mean? And they felt really good about what was going on.

And that’s what I did for the entire 28 years that I was on the road with people. I just treated them with respect and didn’t take advantage of them for the money. You know, there’s an old concept and an old saying and, and a lot of people have to learn it, and you know, and there’s a universal law that says if you break the laws of the universe, the univers will come back and break you.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. What you take from others will be withheld from you. and you have to practice with that. Don’t make money. The most important thing. Make, uh, quality and dedication to your work. Make that the number one thing, and the money will take care of itself. It’ll flow in so big and so fast that you won’t be able to handle it.

Instead of trying to ch somebody out of a few bucks on a session, You know what I mean? Right, right. Well, it’s that mindset of, again, when you’re operating from the place that you don’t really need each and every client to come in the door, suddenly that’s when the business and my experience in terms of, you know, my own business and the people I’ve been around as well, that’s when it takes off.

It, it, there is occasionally the moment, and I, I don’t like this statement yet. It is a true statement. I found, um, the one that perhaps if it’s a one to one and you’ve turned away because for whatever reason it’s not yet a match for that person. Um, I unfortunately yet fortunately have had the experience of, Yeah, my friend was complaining that you wouldn’t see her.

Um, I wanna chat with you about that . And suddenly they’re seeing that, okay, this is where I. This is what I need to do, but I, I love the aspect of working with that person, welcoming the men, even though, you know, even though they weren’t someone who actually had gone through your program before. Right, right.

Yeah. And it’s, it’s, it’s just funny how, how, how, how the seminar business really took off for me and don’t get me. , don’t get me wrong. You know, when I started out, there were hard times. It wasn’t all glory and success when I started out. It was, it was it. I started out on borrowed money. We would have good hits and then, then we would go and, and, and advertise for seminars and one or two people would show up.

And it’s because again, it took me years to work on the ad to get that ad to, to, to do the, the good and perfect draw for us. It was not an overnight success. Or sometimes we’d go to do a seminar and a newspaper, put the wrong date in there and we’d, we’d drive, we’d drive eight or 10 hours to get somewhere to go do that, and we’d get there and it would be a NoShow.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. So it, uh, yeah, it. Again, you just have to stay dedicated to what you’re doing and don’t go out and chase the buck. You know, let the dollars chase you, Create that vacuum law of success. Allow the dollars to chase you. Just do what’s right in your heart, you know? Uh, so the classic question, if you had to go back and start that all over again, the knowledge that you had at the end versus the knowledge you had at the beginning, uh, what would you maybe have done differently at the.

Well, I would’ve, I would’ve made the ads different. Uh, there or there were, there’s a whole list of things that you could have done differently in the beginning, believe it or not, in doing groups. It even comes down to how you even space the chairs side to side in front the back. Uh, you get chairs too tight together.

You have, uh, you have issues on induction. If you get the chairs spread too far apart, you have issues on induction. So it, it’s, I mean, it’s, it’s a science. It really is, right? It’s actually a science. It comes down to, it even comes down to placement of the chairs, okay? Uh, newspaper ads, how and where and when to do your newspaper ads.

You’re gonna laugh. I was up in Hartford, Connecticut at a Ramada in and, uh, in the beginning of my career, when I say in the beginning, it was a year, year and a half in, in, into doing the seminars and uh, the Hartford current newspaper advertised in there. And that’s big money for the size ads that I was running.

I mean, big, big money, you know. And, uh, we advertised and then we went up there to Hartford, Connecticut, and I had like two people show up. , Are you kiddingly? Two people showed. But again, if you’re doing true to your heart and, and you’re not a know at all, and I believe in the old theory that when you’re green, you grow.

When you’re ripe, you’re rotten. You know? Yeah. So two people showed up and some old guy came in limping with a cane, and uh, he was like the third guy that came in and, uh, he said to, it’s like an angel. The universe sent him to me. He said to me, The reason I came down here is because I wanna talk to you about your ad, but you wanna talk to me about my ad?

What can I do for you, sir? He said, Do you have some time? Can you sit down? You have an hour? I said, Yes, sir. I said, But what? I don’t even know who this guy goes. Oh, gray hair guy hunched over. And I cane. And I said, Well, sure. I said, Sure. I have. Come to find out this old buck that came in to see me. He saw the ad.

He said, I felt sorry for you. He said, That’s why I came over here to see you. He said, I was a type setter at the Hartford Courage for 42 years, , and I wanna tell you what’s wrong with your ad. Beautiful and placement in the paper. What was wrong? and we wound up talking about, I’m gonna say two, two and a half hours.

And I took notes that whole time from this guy size of type where to place the ad in the paper, what days to run, run the ad, what day is not to run where in the paper to run position in the paper. And from that day on, I never saw the guy again. I, he was an angel, just swooped in and solved everything he, Yep.

And from that day on the career really started to blossom. So what was it from that experience that then had you move on to other things as far as, uh, when did you make the decision to stop doing the groups? Oh, I, I actually ran the groups for almost 28 years. Mm-hmm. . Okay. We did the, we have over 5,000 group sessions under our belt.

We were doing, believe it or not, 300 sessions a year. , Which is a lot. That is, Yeah. But it’s two. It was two a. Okay, so cuz it was a non-smoking and, and, and then a weight loss. And I did that. For 28 years, and I did 29 states. We did all up through New England and then I worked Route 81, Route 40 all the way down through Nashville, Memphis, out through Oklahoma City to King Flagstaff, Kingman, Arizona, turn right, go up to Vegas and then we would work all of that.

We would work Vegas. We would take a few days off and then work our way all the way back again, hitting other cities on the way. , we did every city within four months, uh, of, of, of being there. And finally, I just decided that, uh, you know, I’ve done this. I’ve traveled millions of miles. I’ve done this 28 years, and I, I just wanna take it easy now and enjoy, you know what I mean?

Yeah. Yeah. I, I was in a position as to where I could do that after doing everything that I did and, uh, I said, I’m just gonna go speak at conferences. Mm-hmm. , I was speaking all the major conferences around the country, and, uh, I said, I’m just gonna do conferences and, and sell product at those conferences, and that’s all I’m gonna do.

I just, I’m done. I, I, I’m done. I, I’m the one at that point that needed the hypnotherapist, you know? Yeah. , I, I was just done and so I decided to take a couple years off just doing conferences and yeah, that was like 28 years. So, and that’s like 10 years ago now that I came off of the road and, and, and I did it in a big way.

You know, I, I did it in a big way. My wife traveled with me. We had a fully converted Greyhound tour bus. It’s. For years before I stopped, uh, I became a pilot and bought an airplane and put a runway in my backyard because I would go do Ohio and Michigan and stuff with my plane. I was able to leave from my backyard and return back to my backyard.

Awesome. Like, like if I would go to Ohio, I would go to Ohio and landed an airport and rent a car and just use that rental car and go do five or six cities in that state. And then when I was done like. Thursday evening or Friday, whatever day we stop, I would just drive, take the rental car back into my plane and play home.

You know? Uh, that’s what’s out there. That’s what’s available. Anybody can do it, but they have to be dedicated. They can’t chase the dollar and they have to. have an excellent pre-talk down, and when you do that, the people, they just come from, from everywhere, you know? Anyway, there’s a, there’s a beautiful thing that you mentioned there about during the pre-talk, they were already pulling out the cigarettes and crumpling ’em up, that you were basically hitting a theme that I’ve found to be critical, which is the mindset that I, I call it normalizing the hypnosis, because again, it’s something that they’re already doing.

We’re just showing them how to do it. , Right. I’ve, I’ve won many awards just on that pre-talk from just about every organization in the country. You know, uh, the, the pre-talk is, is really important. So anyway, I decided to pack that up and take some time off and only do conferences. and then I was approached by, uh, Ann Spencer.

I believe Jesus gotta be 11 years ago, 12 years ago. Uh, she wanted to know if I was, I had to sign a confidentiality agreement that I couldn’t, couldn’t speak to anyone, you know? Mm-hmm. about, Im dha. And she wanted to know would I be interested in taking it over and purchasing it actually. And, I said, Well, sure.
So we went into negotiations and while I was negotiating on Im dha, somehow there was a leak. And, uh, Jill Lave approached me and said, I don’t know if what I heard is true about you taking over the, Im dha, she said, However, uh, I would be interested in retiring and getting out of IAC and there would be another opportunity.

So I went into negotiations with her as well as Ann Spencer on the other end of the realm, and wound up becoming the CEO of I M D H A and I act, and that’s probably, I think 11, 12 years ago. We’ve had the organizations now and we’re running them. And, uh, yeah, that was, that was so that sort of kept me in the business, you know what I mean?

Uh, it kept me involved, but yet I wasn’t out practicing and running the roads and being gone for a month or two months at a time on the road, you know? Yeah. So it we’re going on. This would be the, uh, the 10th year that at this point, Uh, 10th year of Korea. Yeah, Yeah, yeah. So have you seen that that conference grow?

Cause that’s the conference is down in Daytona Beach in May. Uh, have you seen that conference grow over the years? Well, you know, a, again, now you have to remember that when Ann Spencer was running her conference, she was up in, uh, Royal Oak, Michigan, little suburb of Detroit, and Julie and Lavell was running her conference one year in Atlanta, Georgia, the next year, in Jersey the next year back to.

So when we decided, and, and, and when we, you know, took the realm of both organizations, I didn’t really wanna be in Detroit, Michigan in a conference because everybody who attended that conference was complaining about the snow and the cold and the wind and, and, and, and who wants to come up there in October?

Uh, and the same thing with Jersey. Why we gotta go to Jersey one year? We gotta go to thing. And I said, Well, you know what? This is all new. Uh, you know, it, it, it’s, it’s, it’s all new blood for iac and I am dht. So we we’re gonna change, we’re gonna go to, uh, actually Miami. And one of the reasons that I wanted to go to Miami was because IAC had a real big, big.

uh, membership base in southern Florida from Lake Tampa down was really big. And I thought, again, let’s cater to those people. So we did one year in Miami and the first year that we were in Miami, we actually, uh, outgrew the hotel. And the hotel said, Do me a favor, don’t book here again. . Nice, nice. They couldn’t handle what was going on.

And then, you know, So I wound up finding Daytona Beach and, uh, I liked everything about Daytona. We, we actually, Linda and I jumped on a flight and we, after the Miami conference, the first one, we flew down to Daytona and we were looking for spots and we found the hotel that were. . And now actually it’s the second hotel.

Uh, but it was on the beach and I sort of liked that because it’s me. And then I’m thinking everyone from Canada and up north who’s been trapped all winter, and the cold and the ice and the snow. This is sort of like a spring break for them. They can walk the beach in their free time and there were five swimming pools at the hotel and it was.

To me that was a class place to go to and, uh, actually fell in love with Daytona. And that’s how we wound up in Daytona. I mean, anybody can go to New Jersey, you know, , , anybody can, you know, And again, uh, so yes, we have seen it grow. We, we, we, we have seen it grow compared. It’s really grown compared to what they were when they were separate for IAC and Im dha.

Yeah, well, I mean it’s how across many different, even other organizations, there’s this history of the, the blending of communities, of different organizations coming together, different organizations being folded into the bigger ones. And, um, for, for people who have never been to the, to the Hypno Expo, what’s kind of that experience?

From just being in a venue that’s, uh, interesting to travel to you. What’s different with ours? Is that what you’re asking me? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I’ll tell you what, , it’s not because we put that conference on in Daytona, and I’m not blowing any horns here. Mm-hmm. . , and it’s not because we’re the ones that are promoting it, but I’m gonna tell you as far as I’m concerned, it’s the best conference that I’ve ever attended.

And the reason being is because we, we, we do many, many, many, many things throughout the, the entire weekend of the conference. We start out on a Friday evening. Friday evening outside pool site. In view of the ocean, you can literally throw a rock to the ocean from where we are at the pool and we have live band, live entertainment.

Friday evening, we have urs, we have open bar. On Friday evening, there’s a fire pit there and a lot of people, believe it or not, they cook those, uh, schmos, the marshmallows, the chocolate graham crackers, and, and they set around the fire around alongside the pool at, at cocktail hour. That’s on Friday evening.

And then Saturday throughout the day and Sunday throughout the day in the halls, we have, uh, people who are doing drawing caricatures for you for free if you wanna sit down and have your cartoon caricature done. We have that going on. We have, uh, soft ice cream and yogurt being dispensed throughout the weekend at different times for free.

We have, uh, we have fruit and vegetable. Fruit and vegetable bars set up in the hallway weekend, it’s all free. You can go out there and grab fruit or vegetables or yogurts or ice cream. Uh, sometimes we put a big display of, uh, different cakes or, or it, it just goes on and on and on and, and on all weekend.

Uh, I’m just, then we have, sometimes we have live caricatures, walking the hallways, talking with people, you know, uh, Disney characters, . We do that all weekend. Then Saturday evening, uh, prior to the award banquet and dinner, we have an open cocktail hour. Prior to the, the banquet, and then we go through our dinner, and then we go through the award ceremony, and then we have another live band that they can dance to until midnight or one in the morning if they choose to do so.

You know, so, so we have two live bands there, plus everything that we put on in the hall, and I’ve never, ever, ever been to any conference anywhere that offers anything like, You know, there’s something to be said about, you know, creating that community as well. And it’s kind of the chat that you and I are having before we jumped onto this.

And it’s, you know, the, the seminars and you’ve got a great lineup, a great series of speakers there for the event this year. Um, but some of the most memorable experiences would be what’s happening in the lobby, what’s happening in the hallways, What’s happening in the restaurants is people are interacting and having these convers.

Like, like last year we had a photo booth and in the hallway and people could dress up as a cowboy and Indians or dress up in the twenties and they could go, they could go two or three at a time in the booth and have their crazy pictures taken. All that’s for free, you know, so we, we, we do a lot of things that when they’re not in a class, it sort of breaks up the class routine.

Studying and we give them fun things to do throughout the entire weekend. And then naturally they can walk the beach at night. They can go swimming, you know, uh, which is really nice in May. It’s really beautiful. And when we’re there in May, it’s just before, uh, it’s just before like summer vacations and things start, so the rates are lower in May for the rooms.

and, uh, the hotel we’re in now is really great too. And again, we were, we were in the Hilton and we moved from the Hilton over to what, what is now called the, uh, Daytona Beach Resort. And the rooms there are really unique because it’s a living room. It’s a living room combination. And there’s a kitchen there with all the utensils, everything’s there, toaster, coffee, pot, microwave, ovens.

So if anybody wants to go just across the road there to the market and they want to cook in their own room, they can bring that stuff back, put it in the fridge, in their own room. Uh, And they can snack out anytime they want. They don’t have to go look for a restaurant. And that was a big hit with, with a lot of our attendees.

They just, we have, we have a lot of vegans that go there and they don’t wanna do their restaurant stuff and they go to the market and they do a lot of their own stuff in their own room. Preparing their, you know, stuff. Yeah, yeah. I’m actually on the site at the moment looking at the lineup. You’ve got some outstanding speakers.

Uh, you’ve got, uh, Sheila Grainger, Sean, Michael Andrews, Roy Hunter. Yes. Um, Melissa Tier. Uh, nice, Good line. I’m gonna be there this year and, uh, really looking forward to attending. . Yes. I, It’s, we’re, we’re looking for another, It’s a fun time. And you know what, And, and when you’re there, you’re going to hear it from many attendees there.

They say, this is like coming to a family reunion when they come to our conference. They really do. Mm-hmm. . And, and you’ll hear it, you’ll hear it being said many times. And, and everybody says, Man, I, I’ve missed my family for a year. You know,

And again, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s not about it. It, it’s not. Us as faculty and, and, and staff of Via, and Im dha. We try to cater to, and we want our attendees to be happy and we want them to have an experience that they’ve never experienced anywhere else. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. And, and, and we go to a great expense in doing that for our attendees.

I mean, you know, with the live bands and the. Everything that we put on, on the weekends in the halls. Mm-hmm. . So then, uh, what’s the next phase of things? Where do you see things moving in the future? As far as conference or as far as conference? As far as I act, Im dha or hypnosis in general. Let’s kinda hit it all.

Well, I, I think, I think, you know, I, I think that we’re at a very interesting time in the field of hypnotherapy and I think that, . Yeah. And it’s a hard thing to say, but I, I see hypnotherapy being divided in two ways. Mm-hmm. , I see the very serious practitioner that we actually draw. We, we, we draw more of a serious type of practitioner, uh, I’m not gonna say more professional because we’re all professional mm-hmm.

but we, we we’re drawing. It seems to me that we’re drawing people who are more dedicated and who have been in the field of hypnotherapy for many, many, many years. Is is the audience that we’re pulling there, but I also see a new generation coming up now of hypnotherapist, and I think that, and again, it’s my own personal opinion.

I, I think that the best way for a lot of these new people coming in, , I think it’s good for them. It would be good for them to attend a conference lake ours, where they can have and talk to real seasoned hypnotherapist who have been doing this full time. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. , uh, uh, and I, and I see that happening.

I, I and I, and I hope to continue to see that happening where the younger people coming in wanna get really on the serious side and break away and, and, and, and do this full. Uh, it’s, it’s hard to be a hypnotherapist. I believe it would be hard to be a hypnotherapist and be dedicated to your work doing it on a part-time basis.

Uh, and I do see more people coming in full-time. So that’s definitely a trend that, uh, you know, in terms of some of the classes that I’ve been doing myself and then some of the conferences as well, that it, it’s that experience. The, the phrase that I would wrap up a training with is that, well, you’ve kind of been duped.

This was sold to you as a training, but really this was education. The, the training is what happens as you get out there and you’re actually doing the work. You know, I like that you up there doing all those presentations and. Continuously refining that pre-talk to get it to be just right. But it’s that experience of doing it and there’s something wonderfully contagious about being in that environment of change that, uh, you know, here at you or I are recording this morning and it’s a full slate of clients and, uh, I’m couldn’t be more excited to be seeing these people who are coming here today.

Right. And you know, on the pre-talk, I’m just gonna bounce back to that for a second. You know, if you’re doing a one on one and you’re doing a pre. and if you make a little spoof or something that’s not totally right with that client, you can go back and, and warm over that client and correct what you’ve said or done.

Okay. And if that client, if for some reason that client’s not happy and says, I’m not gonna come back, or I want my money back, then you can deal with that in a one on one basis fairly. , but my pre-talk had to be geared toward that. No one would ever say that in the audience. Mm-hmm. . Because if one person would stand up in the audience and say, I want a refund, then you’re gonna have a lot of people stand up.

Okay. Yes. So my pre-talk was geared around having them. That issue never even entered their mind. You know what I’m. So the pre-talk had to be like, you’re getting your money’s worth plus more and this is gonna work for you and this is how and why, and you know, uh, so again, pre-talk very important.

Absolutely. So I, I, so that’s where I see hypnosis going. Uh, , more younger people coming in hoping that they will choose wiser, older mentors. You know, uh, my mentors now, one of ’em has passed away and the other one is probably 84 years old, you know, And I always went after like, uh, for mentors and teachers.

I always went after the older people, you know, Mac McMurray, He was in his late seventies, early eighties. Walter C Court. He was in his, you know, mid seventies, early eighties. Uh, those are the people that I always gravitated to when I was coming in the business because I felt that I could learn more from those guys than I could from someone who was teaching hypnosis and practicing part-time.

You know what I mean? Yeah, I, so it’s, it’s my wish that the younger people would sort of catch on to that also, uh, you know, so I see the conference actually growing and, and I see us bringing in a more mature audience, and I think hypnosis is at a really important. Stage in it, in its life right now. There are more and more things being done with hypnosis and things being discovered with the use of hypnosis and hypnotherapy than have ever been out there before.

I mean, we’re at an all time high. We’re at an all time peak. And uh, I actually have the feeling that there’s just about, you could do just about anything you desire with, with hypnosis. Uh, another thing that I would really like to see happen is that a lot of. Younger people that are coming in and practicing and you know, we, we, we come into this profession because we have a, a yearning in our heart to do so.

You know, and the thing is, is that if you have a desire to come into hypnosis, then that means that you have the ability. If you don’t have a desire to do something, then that means you do not have the. And I give that, I, I give that explanation. A lot of times doing a live, a live talk is that I’ll take some woman out of the audience and ask her to stand up and get her name and, Okay.

Your name is Mary and Mary, let me ask you a question here real quick before we get started. Uh, Larry Holmes, the Ex World Boing Champion’s, very good friend of mine. And if I could arrange. For you to go in the ring with Larry Holmes and fight a couple rounds and the first one that hits the mat loses, uh, would you want to go in the ring with Larry Holmes?

If I could arrange that, and she would say, Absolutely not. So I would say, Mary, then that means you don’t have the desire to do it. . If you don’t have the desire, you do not have the ability. Okay? So for all of these young people that are coming in and have the desire to do this, that means they actually have the ability and they can succeed.

And I’m not telling anyone out there what to do, but what I did in my career is I dove into this thing full. I didn’t care about a retirement plan, a four ohk eye glass, dental. I didn’t care because I knew I would be able to be, make enough money in this business and become self-supportive. And that’s what happened by taking care of the people and worrying about the people first.

You know what I mean? So I’ve been independent and never worked for anyone, you know, since I started. So it’s my desire that the young people who have that desire within their heart, that they do the best that they can do and they go all out, uh, to make that achievement work for them, and they can live the American dream.

Being in the field of ip, no therapy. There are many people out there doing it today. Many, many people I know, many hypnotherapist making six figures full-time practice. So that’s my desire and that’s my wish. And I think that’s what I see happening in, in, in, in the field. Jason, outstanding. I’m gonna cut it.
Okay, great, great. , uh, I always like to wrap up with you having the last word,

Jason Lett here, and as always, thank you as always for joining me on this program. We’ve got some outstanding sessions coming your way of this program coming up. Very soon though. I’m gonna take this little bit of time at the end of the program today to once again direct you over to hypno Expo 20 seventeen.com.

It’s looking to be an outstanding convention this year, the organizations of the I Act and I M D H A. Hypnosis organizations putting on the hypno Expo 2017. Join me on Saturday at the convention as I’ve been invited to the special networking luncheon and at that special presentation I’ll be talking about innovation in the future of hypnosis.

Definitely a theme that you heard Robert and I just discussing here just now, that we need to be shifting our thinking in terms of. What the next phase of all of this is, the things that we used to perhaps look down upon and what we can do as practitioners and business owners to take this all to the next level.

Then on Sunday, I’m gonna be doing a presentation as what I’ll call the hypnotic sales funnel, all about rethinking your business, rethinking how you approach the sales process. and then Monday Post-conference. Check out hypnotic talks.com. I’ll be doing a one day business bootcamp, all about giving live presentations and the content strategies, the marketing strategies, the business strategies to really turn that into a profit building hypnotic business machine.

Check that out at Hypnotic Talk. Dot com though. Once again, of course, head over to the conference website, hypno expo 20 seventeen.com. Look at some of the other speakers, presenters, workshops, seminars, pre and post offerings as well. And, uh, go ahead and register right away. It’s looking to be an outstanding event.

I’ve been personally hearing about it for years. I’d actually, at this point now, let me tell you the real story. Uh, behind me in the Hypno Expo, why? This is the first year that I’m attending, uh, when I first met Robert years. . I mentioned to him that that used to, that was my busiest week of doing stage hypnosis.

That, uh, there I was doing a lot of these, uh, after grad post prom shows, and that was a weekend that I was booking upwards of nine to 15 shows, doing multiple programs a night. And I, I leaked the number of what my income was by doing that. And he smiled, he shook my hand and Robert said, I hope to never see you at my convention.

though, as my goals began to shift, and now as I’m doing less and less of the stage hypnosis and sending out others as well, I couldn’t be more thrilled to be, uh, joining, uh, the autos and everyone else down. The Hypno Expo this year, so check out the dates, check out the details, register right away. I look forward to seeing you there.

Hypno Expo 20 seventeen.com. It’s Jason Lynette. I’ll see you in Daytona Beach. Thanks for listening to the Work Smart Hypnosis podcast and work smart hypnosis.com.