Welcome to the National Council For Hypnotherapy Podcast, where we dive into the fascinating world of hypnosis, lifting the lid on hypnotherapy, sharing insights and tips for change as we chat. So sit back, relax, and enjoy all the wonderful possibilities of Hypnotherapy. My name is Tracey Grist, and I will be your host today. So, I'm here today with Gary Johannes, who is a man of 4 hats, and many different which we'll ask about in a bit. Welcome, Gary. We're we're going to keep it simple and let's go straight into it. So so what what's what do you do currently and what's been your journey to today?

So I'm a solution focused hypnotherapist. So I'm up in Peterborough. Mhmm. So I'm feeling St. Clair. However, I do cover the whole country for different depending on what half I've got on. And so I guess my day job is seeing clients, seeing people who are struggling in a bit of a pickle, you might say, with anything to do with their mental well-being. So if that's anxiety, depression, whether that's PTSD, or any level of things which they're not being the best version of themselves.

So anywhere and and we also work quite a lot in aspirational stuff, so people want to be better at what they do. So we also help with that. So I work with anyone who feels they just want to be better than what they are, or get better, or cope better.

Yeah. So and you were mentioning earlier, so you also look after training schools across the UK as well?

Yeah. So many years ago, I trained with the amazing David Newton down in Bristol with CPhT. And it's interesting that I'm on this podcast because a few years later, probably about 4 years later, I was at the NCH conference in London, and wonderful lady, part of CPhD still, was a lady called Susan Rodriguez, who everybody knows in in the industry, probably. She's brilliant. And she was there, and she was actually involved in some of my training. And she said to me, why have you not started lecturing with us, training with us? And I'm like, well, I've never been asked, and I've only trained about three and a half years ago. Surely, I'm not. And she's like, oh, you're mad.

And that led me to set up the Peterborough branch of CPhD. And since when I trained, when it was only probably Bristol where I used to have drive down from Peterborough to and they had one in Plymouth, we've now got something like 28 schools. So, you know, it's pretty amazing. And back then, David Newton, who was very involved in CPhD, less so now, he used to ring me up and going just for a chat. And then I put the phone down, and I'd realized I've started another school. So I ended up with, you know, he was very good at making sure you, understood what was needed even though if you didn't know what he was needed. And I ended up running 8 schools. So I've got schools where I look after.

Like this weekend, I'm down in Kent training wonderful students down in Kent. Last week, I was in Birmingham. And sometimes, I'm in Newcastle. Sometimes, I'm in Norwich. So we I personally oversee 8 of the 20 odd schools. And it's one of the it's probably my favorite part of everything I do, watching people students come onto the course with an idea they'd like to help people, an idea they'd like to change career, an idea that this might be the right thing for them, and just watch them over. We do a 10 month course. It's a full HPE course.

It's lovely, accredited because the company's been going for so long. We've got everything. But you watch a student come from that and then become this amazing therapist, and they grow and change, and it's just wonderful to watch.

And so this is within solution focused?

Yeah. So, yeah, so I do solution focused hypnotherapy. There are lots of different modalities. I I I train and I do solution focused work in every every different hat I wear, it's still with the solution focused mindset and model.

Okay. How is that different? So what what are the highlights of solution focused hypnotherapy that's different?

Well, I think the biggest difference, where it it sometimes is counterintuitive to people when they first read it, but I get so many people come to see me and so many people come on to courses because of this. We are, you might say, a brain based therapy. So we understand neuroscience. So everything we do is backed up with neuroscience knowledge, backed up by really robust research. And one of the things which we do, which I don't know anybody else does at the moment, is we only look forward. So we never revisit the past. So one of my things is I really work a lot in PTSD, men's mental health, suicidal awareness and that. But when somebody comes to see us, we don't get them to talk about their problem and talk about their past.

We never go backwards because the brain doesn't work like that, you know, in a from a neuroscience point of view. So we are solution focused rather than problem focused. Now I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the other side of us doing it, but our model is solution focused. So I get a lot of people who've suffered a long time, tried other therapies, and found it difficult because they have to face their problems. And I'm going, don't tell me anything about it. And we work with them about achieving life without the problem with them and using the brain and the newer plasticity of the brain to help evolve that change, which, hopefully, does.

Yeah. And how how how does the session look? So if you're doing a session that you don't want to talk about the problems and you want to talk about solutions, How how is it an hour session? What's the practicalities on it?

So all all of our sessions are 1 hour long. So the first thing we do with every single client is what we call a consultation, an initial consultation. And in that first session, we actually show the client how the brain works, why they feel and they're suffering the way they are, what is going on in their brain in a in a way they can really understand it? And it's probably one of the best things you've ever seen is when somebody gets to that hour, and you've shown them what's going on and and why they're feeling the way they are, and then how they can fix it. I've never seen anything in my life which shows and gives people so much hope. And, you know, when somebody realizes, you know, it empowers them. When they realize that they can get better and they don't have to go muddy the waters, they don't have to trudge through the treacle of the past, which some people, it's really difficult for. They've had horrible backgrounds. And they don't have to revisit that, and they can still get better.

Yeah. And they're in charge of it. They take control of their futures. So may watching it in that first hour. And then after that, every session's an hour long. And we normally see people 8 times, you know, sometimes a little bit less, sometimes a a little bit more. Everybody's different. But if you can imagine dealing with everything what life has ever given you to put you in that spin, And then 8 my 8 weeks later, 8 sessions later, 10 sessions later, you are the absolute best version of yourself.

And you know we educate as well. Part of what we do is we help the client understand so they never go back there or they got tools to help them not slip back there. It's fantastic.

Yeah. So so psychoeducating Yes.

Is vital.

Yeah. It's I I think it's important because we we can then claim authority over ourselves, can't we?

Yes. It's very empowering, I think. You know?

Yeah. And so so you say you do some work with men in particular as well. What led you down that path?

Well, I mean, being a man, it it has helped. But one of the things and I've I've I've done some different events to help it as well. But one of the things is we get told and and it's interesting because it's a bit of a flag was waved as well, which is, I think, backfouling a little bit is, apparently, men don't talk. Mhmm. But in my team and inspired to change, we've got 4 guys. I train quite a few men, more women than men, but we still train a few more. We need more. But, actually, I talk to people all over the place and they tell me, as soon as they know what I do, it's a bit like anything, they go, oh, let me tell you this.

And men do talk. We just need to set the environment right. So the whole old fashioned in my head, old fashioned, but still very, very much here is just men don't talk. Actually, if I'm in a bit of a pickle, oh, I can't talk because men don't talk. I'm like, but I wanna talk, but men don't talk. So now the slogan, which was backed up so much men's mental health, is actually backfiring, I think. So we started a male podcast where we got lots of people, guys and ladies, because I think women are very much impacted by the men in their lives when they're struggling. So we we get people come on, but, generally, it's people who've been through really tough times, really been on the edge of many things, and they've found the root fruit.

And if they can tell you how they've done it, so we support men by being hopefully, being a little bit inspiring other mostly other people being inspiring. We're just very open, very honest. You'll you'll you'll hear about a lot of the frogs I've had to buy over over the years as well as other people, but we also have a we had a pharmacist on pharmacist on the last one we recorded, which things she really likes about it is the fact that we've got 4 guys on it, but they're all from different generations. We're all born in a different decade. So somebody born in the nineties, somebody born in the eighties, somebody born in the seventies, and me, the old father of the group, born in the sixties. So it's amazing how we all have a different sort of view, a bit different perspective of the same thing because life is changing all the time.

Yeah. And so it so do you bring difference, you know, because we have all these society values and pressures put on us, and have you noticed how that's changed with each?

Yeah. And and it's interesting because some of the conversations about actually, it's probably more difficult now if you're a young person because everything's in the open, everything you know? But, actually, the things what I might have done or said or been in the seventies eighties would now be completely no no. And, you know, one of the guys on the call is also gay. He's an ex policeman. So his perspective of, you know, we talk about banter and how actually banter can be really weaponized. We we talk about different thing, you know, and just go in how do we adapt and how do we change and how do we enable everyone to be able to go, actually, this is I'm struggling and and it not be a problem? Yesterday, we're talking about pharmacy, how, you know, men never used to be able to buy a condom if there was a female in the chemist. Now men can't buy Vagro if there's a men in there, if there's a woman in the chemist. Although the youngest person on the podcast, I well, actually, I would buy it off a woman, but I don't know if I buy it off a man because she judged me.

I'm like, okay. Never been thought about before. So we do have, you know, with some interesting conversations. And that's typical one.

Yeah. It's around the taboos, isn't it? Like, men aren't allowed to talk about sex in a loving, compassionate way. Yeah. And so that brings this sort of toxic masculinity in it, that you're fighting against all of them. You can't be teachers.

No. And we had a lovely lady on one of our 4th podcasts for a charity who in in she's from a charity called Ladsony's Dads, and it was about, actually, how important, not just on my role model is, but around my mentor who is normally your dad or your uncle. And actually, so many children being so the young men are now blue are brought up where they don't have that masculine side of things, so they also don't learn how to behave, good or bad. Yeah. So they have to make it up. So there's loads of different things. So we we enjoy doing that.

That's so I'll put the podcast in the link as well.

Okay. I do appreciate that.

I think it's really important because men, and particularly suicide numbers

Yeah. It was 3 quarters of all suicidal happenings are male, and it's the biggest killer of men under 45. So we know it's still not being fixed. It's 3 or 4 well, at least 3 times more than road accidents.

Yeah. That's crazy.

You know? So but it's it's it's not it's not very press worthy. Where where a big mile to power car accident doesn't happen, hopefully, very often, but it's quite newsworthy where people taking their life and left their really high celebrity status. It happens every single day. There's there's something like 18 to 25 men a week taking our life. So something's got to be done, but it's just not press worthy enough.

Yeah. And I suppose Which

is fun of it.

Yeah. It challenges all the biases, doesn't it, that we have? So hard. Hard.

Yeah. But it's an enjoyable subject if you go, okay. Well, what's the positives we can bring? So rather than talking about how awful it is, we're talking about, actually, how can men thrive? How can we be better? How do we get foot? Foot? You've got foot. How did you do that? And that really NCH, we're we're getting people coming on, okay, that's really helped me because it showed me there's another way out. And I think that still sticks with solution for it. There's a way out of it. We're not focusing on what if, we're focused on what we can do, not what we can't do. And that's what we're trying to do.

Yeah. I love it. So what so what was your personal journey towards hypnotherapy? What what does your lifeline look like?

Depend it depend it very much depends on how honest you want me to be.

Oh, very.

Because that the the because it it's not necessarily the journey what most people would go on. So it's got it's it's double edged, really, or double sided, more than double edged. So my first time I saw somebody doing hypnotherapy was I went to a networking event when I started in sales, and they talked about hypnotherapy. And I'm like, oh, that's really interesting, but still a bit weird. You know? It it was definitely I in my head, people who did things like counseling. I'm, And then they And then they were talking about all this voodoo stuff, doing hypnosis and things like that. So I was very uneducated towards what it really was. But, actually, it really piqued a lot of my interest about, actually you know? So and then I started being working with the lady who had done it for with with a slightly different business, so I actually understood it a lot more.

And I'd left school 13, 14. You know, I was an academic. I joined the forces. I did this, did that, went on. But I'd already run, at that point, set up and run and then self sabotage 3 different businesses because I wasn't clever enough to be at that height. So I quickly demonstrate. And then I got the opportunity to work at that level again, and I said to the actual society I saw who in terms of who I saw was working with a lot. And I said, I'm I'm gonna get caught out on this.

I'm now working with hundreds of people being a mentor in many ways, being a coach in many ways. And I'm gonna get caught out because they're all more clever than I am. So I talked about going to do some some coaching, training, and that. And all of it come with an agenda of some sort. And it's like, go and train as a hypnotherapist because you'll learn about you. The techniques will be useful working with these other people, but you'll learn about you doing the training. And I'm like so I did, and I went to see David giving and and and the difference for me was where I needed to find something which was showed me the evidence. You know, I I I'm I'm I'm not very fluffy, as you could probably tell.

And although I do love all these other things, if somebody can't tell me exactly what's going on and why it works, can't buy into it easily. So when you start talking about the science and the newer science and the different parts of why these things happened, and that really worked for me. So I started training. And then probably halfway through the course, I was in my forties, which is probably the average age of people coming on training, probably sort of 40 or 50. And it went, oh, this is what I've always supposed to be doing. Ah. So I quit everything and become a hypnotherapist full time, which I never expected to ever believe, say, do. And I've now been doing that for 13 years, and I haven't had a day of work since.

Brilliant. Brilliant. And how did it join the dots for you? What what was your moment where you went, ah?

So I think in all my businesses and all the things I've ever done, I've always supported and helped other people, but I've done it badly. Thing and I normally got very badly burned myself because I've tried to help people and you know? So I'd always probably been looking for that avenue, but I come from very poor background, very tough South London main streets in South London, where you never showed any vulnerability. Yeah. So I was never good at a mayor. I was a soft, you know, cuddly person. I was always tough, looked tough, behaved tough, even though I've never had a fight in my life. Never physically been involved, but NCH everybody thought it because that's the only way you survived. It was a dog eat dog world where I'd grow up.

And then I was in the forces and a bit like that as well in the air force. And all of a sudden, I realized, wow. This is what I should always be doing. I should just be helping people. And if I'd been maybe come from a different, spot, you know, area in life and things like that, I would have gone on to do this. But, you know, it took me until I was 45 to realize this is what I should always been doing, and it came easy to me. It was something which was just right. So I don't know what joined the dots up apart from it was easy.

It felt right. Yeah. So

And sometimes that flow, isn't it? When you just know that things come automatically and naturally, and and you realize, oh, actually, this is this is smooth.

But but for a a South London lad who grew up or grew up fighting for every single thing he had, every meal, everything. And I also come from a big family. So coming from that background, admitting that was really tough. But luckily, by then, I'd started to get some really good people around me. Mhmm. And, you know, so when I said, oh, this is what I need to do, they went, yeah. We've known that for ages. It's like, you know and that's been happening since then for the last 13 years.

People will go, well, of course. It's just like, but nobody told me. You know?

And so so and the family, did they respond? Because sometimes when when we train as Hypnotherapy, the family are like, oh.

Yeah. Yeah. So I I've got 3 children. I've got I've been married for 41 years this year, next month. And it's interesting because I've done lots of different things. I've had lots of different careers in that. So they were like, oh, here he goes again. But my son's now a hypnotherapist.

He's trained with us and he's now practicing hypnotherapist. I've got a great team. Some of my family go, yeah, don't talk to me about it. You know? Because I can't even 13 years later, it's all I talk about is, you know, about everything we do. But, interestingly, because I'd already had this suit of armor, this facade I've been wearing for so long, the people who I then interacted with on a social level and a business level really found it difficult. I had people laugh in my face. What? Me. You know? I'm the people what nobody messes with.

Now I'm saying I just help people. And it was a complete turnaround for me. You know, one of the business I had was before I started doing this. You know, I was in sales, but before that, for the previous 10 years, I've known nightclubs and bars and restaurants. So from being in a nightclub and running nightclubs to being a therapist, it was like, well, you know, light and dark. But, actually, if you look at all the people I've ever employed, I employed the people who probably needed the help rather than the job. Yeah. Yeah.

But it but I never knew that. I was just thought I was just doing just employing people. But if you feel it all bad, but the people most people who didn't know me, but they all knew me, they they they judged me based on what they saw rather than who I was. And it was only very few people who knew the real me.

Yeah.

And and that's who I ended up, and now I only surround myself with.

That's a really lovely journey and transition from, like, not knowing yourself to knowing yourself and then going, well, people who know me know me now.

But it it brought a lot of distrust because I didn't know myself, and I, therefore, didn't trust myself. So I made bad decisions. I I hung around with the wrong people. And and I don't mean bad people. I mean, people who didn't support me, didn't care about me, really. Because I was always trying to find a place, but I wasn't being authentic. Now I'm totally authentic. And and like I said to you earlier, NCH we don't care.

Some people still misjudge me, but I can't change their judgment. You know? So I don't try. You know? And that's made it a lot easier, but I also surround myself with people who get to see me straight away. They they they don't judge the cover. They read the book.

Yeah. And I think do you know? And I think there's there's more with loneliness at the moment being so high. There's, there's, there's so much that we neglect about who we are around and our tribe and people, and finding that right people that match our authentic self rather than the self we project, you know, NCH emphasized by Instagram. And that disconnect between finding our people, Internet, and life now, it it's just it's sad.

Well, I think I think the term and I might be wrong. I might be correct on this, but I think the term is a power relationship, and that's where we make lots of friends on social media. We follow people who have got their influencers, and we follow them, and we feel like they're our friend, but they don't know who we are. So it's a one-sided relationship. So we're not getting that constant positive feedback. We're reading the feedback they want us to have rather than genuine feedback. You know, the people who are close to me and and sometimes I wish I hadn't done this, but all the people who are very close to me have got complete permission to say what they think to me and and and what they think of my behavior. And and they're very full frightened telling me exactly what they think, and it's just like, I don't like that, but it helps me grow.

It helps me be the person I am because, you know, if I'm being, you know, less than best, they will point it out. And they have permission to because they wouldn't say it unless they knew it. You know? And and and they're not scared of saying it. Yeah.

Because

they know I wouldn't take it personally.

No. And that's being in your authentic self, isn't it? Knowing that that 98% of the time, we are authentic and we're good. There are always going to be times where we make mistakes or say the wrong thing or do the wrong action. And if we if we can reflect on that and know we can make a difference, if we can't, we're still gonna keep doing the same thing?

Yeah. Absolutely.

That that's then your strength, isn't it? Your

Yeah. But it's never finished, I don't think. Never. Good. We're always discovering more about ourselves and it's like, okay. You know? But it's willing to listen and accept and go okay. You know? And that little bit of self awareness, which I'm probably a long way from being completely good at self awareness. I look at other people who are very, very self aware, and I think, how do you do that? Because I still have the same insecurities, probably not as many, well, definitely not as many, but I still have them just as like everybody else does.

Yeah. And it's funny, isn't it, that just how varied we are? And I think it's knowing that we're all different and we can celebrate our own strengths and you bring like, your series of strengths to the table, and then they might not be somebody else's.

The the challenge for me is, and and it used to be something I was very, very bad at, is when somebody had strengths, I took that as, therefore, I'm weak. And therefore, I've become defensive rather than going, wow. You bring something I haven't got. Let's see where we can both lift rather than saying, oh, you're you're more. And that's one of the things which learning to be a hypnotherapist has helped me be. And learning how people are suffering and listening to the stories of suffering and going, wow. You you just need to be a little bit more, and life will change completely. But they've not got the capacity in that moment to see it.

You know? And we help them do that, and I think it helps us every single bit of the way.

Yeah. And I I think, for for me, it's that love and wanting to help and wanting people to thrive. Do you find that now that you're in your slipstream and you've found your place, like, how do you want to carve that into your future? What what would you like to

So one of the things is I'm very, very passionate about the solution focused model. Now some people will go, but this model works and this model works and, you know, and and and I'm not saying they don't, but I am solution focused. And and one of the things I have to learn early on and what's I would see in people who are training and then trained and then is becoming solution focused as an individual. Because there's one thing knowing and telling other people, and there's another thing doing yourself. So that's a never ending thing. But for me, it's like to to grow more is to now spread that to more people being able to be solution focused in the way they live their lives and therefore understanding it. And to do that, we're we're just people who spend most of their time at work. So let's say we can create and we've created I've me and my team and mostly the team, not me, have created training programs where we can go into corporates.

But we started a research program. We've just done Monday project with Nofumbra Place, which has now been published. And we've now got some other tray research tools we've developed, which we're to prove the efficacy of what we do. Because one of the challenges I've had in hypnotherapy over the years is, oh, wow. Sounds great. Prove it. And there's been very little evidence. We've got anecdotal evidence.

We've got a shared load, a bus load of evidence which we can bring to the party, but it's not research evidence. So we're starting to work on that track. So that means more people will be able to see the value and then either use it or start using it as their profession. So for me, it's about bringing that approach further and further into the mainstream.

So are you looking at measurable outcomes? Yes. How how is the research focused?

So we did research with a number of places who we we thought I think it's probably typical of me, some of it luck ways about knowing the right people. But it was like, who's the toughest people to admit they're vulnerable? Quite often, there's police officers and people like that. So we looked at the police staff over uniform, non uniform, administrative. It's it's a tough life. Low budgets. Everything's problematic. Everybody's having a go on all this stuff. There's a lot of pressure.

So we did a research program where we use solution focused Hypnotherapy. It was all online, and everybody does the same model in the solution focus, so it's measurable. And we measure the outcomes, and then we compare it against things like CBT Yeah. Where which is what they get they use already. We looked at the research on it, and, actually, our outcomes were hugely improved. And I'm not talking about 3 or 4%. I'm talking about 20, 30, 40 percent improvement on 8 sessions. Yeah.

You know, life changing differences compared to other therapies. So we can now go, this is the difference we make. When when we see people, whether they've got PTSD, whether they've got anxiety, depression, or any other mental health issues which comes with doing what they're doing. And it we also measured the overall wellness, not just whether the therapy work, but overall wellness, and that improved dramatically as well.

That's wonderful.

So we've now created a tool to start measuring that with all of our clients Mhmm. Yeah. Which will be published probably next year.

Powerful.

Yeah. It was you know, it's it's really difficult to measure a lot of therapy because a lot of hypnotherapy is based on where I'll go where the flow takes me, where we have a very robust process with within solution focused hypnotherapy. So it's easier to measure Yeah. And measure the outcome scales. So and we use the GAD 7 and PHQ 9 to compare it with so it's got a an NHS measurement scale with it.

And so the the forms that you measure, are they about wellness?

Yeah. We we the wellness and well-being, and there's a slight difference between the 2. So we what we don't want is just going, oh, yeah. That person got better for 2 weeks, and therefore, they signed off and gone. It's like, overall, it's impacted every area of their life. So we measure quality of life, really.

Wow. Brilliant.

Yeah. NCH. So yeah. We're very proud of that. And we've got a proper team working on that in Inspire to Change. We're a specialist in that. So

Brilliant. Brilliant. And you're saying that you also do corporate work as one of your main

Yeah. So one of the things we did is it's it's like, I wanna help lots of people. But as a hypnotherapist, mostly, I'll see 5 or 6 or 7 people in a day. So even if I'm working flat out, I've I've got a limited amount of people I can see. So how can I stop people neither? I'm always wanna put myself out of a job. So if I can get in and train people to how to stay well and not have the mental health issues, then they won't get so broken. They can't work. They can't do this.

They're not effective. The you know, something like 300,000 people lost their job on the average year due due to their mental health issues. No. You know? So we can actually educate people because there's no mental health training which is stopping people becoming unwell. All of it, like, mental health first aid, which is brilliant. I trained that as well. But that's after you know, that's great NCH you fell over. Yeah.

But how do we stop you falling over? So we wanna work with we work with corporates. We work with aero front companies. We work we work a couple of police forces. We work with quite a number of different you know, we've worked with county councils and city councils to train their staff of how to try and mostly keep well, but also to train new organizations to have an open relationship with mental health so they can support their staff better. So it's both ends of the book. So understanding

Yeah. Resilience and supporting. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

You know? But, actually, putting some on this back on the individual, it's not the company's fault if you're got an issue. You're going for divorce or whatever. So how do you best do that? But actually put the owners back on the organization. Because if they are going through those problems at home, you can't exacerbate it in the workplace. So it's working together, and that's shoot.

Yeah. Yeah. Unneeded.

Yes. It's it's it's massively needed. But most people are just told to tick box, so we're trying to change that. So we're working with companies who understand the value of their employees.

Yeah. And creating a thriving environment. Yeah. It's it's tricky with, I think, on the back of COVID, where everyone's doing 2 jobs instead of their one job, and people are going back to work, aren't back to work in the office, all of those things. I see it all the time, people struggling with how to manage the bigger demands.

Yeah. Ab absolutely. And, you know, everything's been squeezed, and now people have got financial crisis and things like that. So there's a lot of pressure on employees, but a lot of pressure on companies to keep the best employees. And if your employee gets broken, then everybody loses. So let's give you some support and training, which, by law, you have to do mental health training now. There's it's in legislation. It's just not well read.

Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. And so so so you're doing your schools that inspired to change, the men's talk, the company work. Have you got any time for off duty?

It's interesting because I I don't listen to a lot of her car, but I'm in the car a lot, so I do wanna listen to some. And I've started listening to the diary of a CEO. Oh, yeah. Okay. But and it's really interesting because I've only just started listening to it, you know, a couple of weeks ago. So I'm on the early stages, and it's quite old. But he talks about people having a real issue with with how much he works. Mhmm.

And he said, people go on about work life balance. And for that, that's quite useful and important. But, actually, what about work work balance? You know? And and it's just like, he enjoys working. I I haven't felt like I've been to work for 13 years. I work most days most days of the week. I'm not big for time off. I'm not big for holidays, if I'm honest. But my most like, being on here today, I feel like I've had you know, it's a holiday.

So it's it it it's everything I do is my hobby. Yeah. Now if you want me to do anything else, this still comes back to being my hobby. Yeah. You know? So when it's not a hobby, then it will be hard. But right now and I think one of the things is I do like you said, I do a bit of podcasts. I do men's mental health. I do mental health in the workplace, where Google incorporates.

I train students, and I see clients. So although it's all about the same thing, there's such variety in what I do. Mhmm. But everything I do is about improving mental health, whether that's one to many, one to 1, training other people to do what we do. So it's really helpful because I really wanna make a difference, but I don't wanna work hard. So even though I might be working 14 hours a day, 7 days a week, some some weeks, most weeks, I don't feel like I do.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you've inspired your son to follow the same path.

Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, he he can see it. And he's I've got 3 children. 1 of them is more, you know, the chances of him doing what I do, but the chances of what the dog doing what I do because he just you know, he he he's very supportive, but it's just not him. Where the youngest one is probably more like me, And it's like, yeah. I wanna do that. But, again, he'll have his own version of that, how we bring that you know? Because he he's different to me, but he's still

Their experiences are different, aren't they?

Yeah.

Plus he's got the inspirational force that is his dad. Like

Well, we can only help. You know? My issue with that is I don't want it to be a burden though. I've gotta be like that. So it's like, be you. Be you. And I think that's the same with all the students. You know? Because I run so many schools, I have co lecturers, like, across all of them because, you know, there's 8, so more than 1 more than 1 weekend. So but some of them have got blue hair, red hair, pink hair.

Some of them are male, some of them are female, some and it's because as a therapist, you just need to be you. You know, I've I've got dyslexia, which I got I did a master's degree last year in neuroscience. So I've got no education in the school of 13, 14. Got no qualifications until I did this training, which is a level 4, and then I did the level 5. But I've got no formal academic training, But I needed to learn more, so I went off and did a master's degree. So I had to, black my way onto it, you might say. So luckily, I've got it because I've got quite a lot of experience in this field now. And they said, well, some of the things I was struggling with, mostly because I've never done anything like this before, so they tested me and I found out when I was 60 that I've got ADHD and dyslexia.

And it's interesting because I meet people with these conditions, and some people are going, oh, I've got this issue. I can't do nothing. And other people have got this issue, which is brilliant because I can do so many other things. And, you know, I found a course, found found my own route to deliver everything, whether it's a portfolio or the written stuff, whether it was seeing clients. So I found my route, whether it's learning, consultation, so I took classroom role plays. So dyslexia, for me, wasn't a barrier. It was just a I just found my way of doing it, and and that's brilliant. So and I think most successful people have got an element of that going on because they've they they find a different route, a better route quite often.

You know? So anybody out there who might wanna train, do not let your labels stop your training because, you know, most of these things come to you to give you a different view, different perspective, and it can and it will.

And I think away from that's the beauty of private education, isn't it, essentially? Away from that formal school education. When you pay for private training, you get that support from your tutor or from your teacher?

You you you do. Yeah. I I I think the difference is, and I might be a bit controversial now, there's a difference between support and having done for you.

Yeah.

So all just about all the most successful people I know in this field have needed to find their own group, and they might have needed some support to do that, which is brilliant. And they'll ask for the support, and then you get other people who will go, I've got this label, so therefore, you have to do for me. And, okay, we can support that, but it won't make you any better. And it's about all the time looking to how you can improve yourself rather than how other people can improve you. And, you know, I never knew I did that until, probably, I saw a teacher and realized that, you know, the people who have to work hard is probably doing them the greatest gift. Yeah. You know? And that's for me, that was, you know, really good.

Hard work, isn't it? And actually taking the responsibility and finding your way and being determined and all of that.

Yeah. Despite challenges. You know? Because it's those challenges which will give you more. It will give you the confidence. It will give you the evidence. It will go, I did this despite that. You know? And quite often, that's, you know, trying to show people that when they get that, it's like blows them away. And they forget, you know, like, when you speak to them a few months later and they go, ah, I did all this.

I'm so pleased I worked through it because it was, like, difficult to hang in there. It was hard. I nearly bailed, and then I didn't. And it was that moment, when you wanna bail is when you should push another inch in. A bit like doing exercise. It's like, do one more. Do one more. You know?

I'm like that with cake.

Yes. Well, I

Just through that barrier.

Yeah. Yeah. I I I eat another piece of cake, definitely.

So if you've got a top tip for somebody, what would that what would that look like?

Are we talking about with their mental health, or are we talking about as a as potentially training to do what We

could do both. Let's do both.

Well, if we look at this will go for every human being on the planet. We we talk about, you know, mostly the way the way the brain's designed is to notice what's prop what's what's wrong. You know? So it's about trying to do one action. You know? One of my favorite videos is the one where the colonel from the or the general from the sales or admiral, whatever it's called, from the Navy sales talks about making your bed. It's a it's a graduation speech. That's a brilliant film because he talks about going for training as a Navy SEAL and all the things. But what you always had to do in the forces was make your bed before you did anything else. So it don't matter how awful the day was, you started the day taking a positive action.

And even if the day was awful, you had a nice bed to get into. And I love that story, but I think the biggest tip for me is take action, positive action, whether it's going for a walk, whether it's emptying the dishwasher, whether it's making a cup of tea, whether it's going for a shower. If you're feeling a bit overwhelmed Yeah. Do something. Take an action because the action will produce dopamine. That dopamine is going to then give you the the motivation to do something else. And don't try for great big things. Look at things which are in reach.

If it's just getting out of bed, get out of bed. Set the alarm 10 minutes earlier. Don't do do the snooze that day. You know, any small action will help you produce more action, and it produce it will really help. So just take action. That's what I would definitely say. And I think for anybody contemplating training, I think there's 2 things. 1, if you're thinking about it, then you probably should do it.

But I think the biggest thing is finding the right school. So one of the things about, say, CPhD, been going 20 odd years, it's got high level of accreditations, trained thousands of people. However, it's solution focused. So if you're not interested in the science, you're not interested in, you know, that clinical element, then it might not be the right school for you. You might wanna do much fluffier stuff. You might wanna do past off regression. You might wanna do this, which works for you. But if you actually want to get good accreditation with a proven track record where you know that you're being taught well Yeah.

Then you should go down that route and look and and do some investigation. And, unfortunately, and you know this from the NCH, there are a lot of sham schools out there promoting themselves. So look at the NCH, look who they accredit, look at other serious governing bodies. Because if they're not accredited, then you might spend a lot of time and a lot of money learning something and then not being able to use it. That's

a difficulty, isn't it? Because people who produce shiny websites and shiny things look authentic.

Yeah.

Well, that's the insta version of training.

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And, well, the other thing, I mean, I don't know what you do, you know, what type of clients you see. I see clients who are wheeling a pickle. I see clients who are struggling, and some of them are suicidal. Some of them just wanna get through their exams, you know. However, if you've not got the right training, how do you know you're helping? How do you know you've got the best tools? And, you know, unfortunately, I've had to train a lot of people who spent a lot of money on other training and then didn't have confidence to use it.

So I would pick a school. I I would talk to the lecturers, you know. I would talk to other students, maybe, you know. Excuse me. Because it's really hard to get trapped into that. And the thing is, our course is 10 months, and to get a HPD, you should be doing 10 months. And that accreditation level is really important. We do also the NCH, so it's really comfortable for us.

And but you can't learn to do deal with somebody's mental health issues in a few weeks. You can't learn it online, you know. So for me, though, if you wanna be do this as a queer, if you wanna make a real difference, put the effort in, put the length of training in, get the experience.

Absolutely. Absolutely agree. Because the difficulty is people don't know what they don't know. Yeah. So you can think that you're going on a really worthwhile course because it's shiny and and you think that you're being trained. But if it isn't accredited because our industry is unregulated, in the same counseling is unregulated.

Counseling is NCH

We can stick a sign on our door and say that we're we're these, and so the credibility of the training school, the credibility of your therapist Mhmm. Is important to ask. And any good training school or any good therapist will want to say, come in. Look in look in my doors. Yeah.

Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, we're very lucky. So I trained something like 13 years ago down in Bristol where there was only but David, even then, had been going for many years, David Newton, who who created the solution focused model. But now we've been going 20 odd years. We've got multiple schools. We've got you know, so you can see with the longevity, there are lots of people it's financial crisis and we've lost it. We're going to suffer our own training school.

And they've got like you said, it's unregulated, and you can say what you want. You know, I've seen stuff out there where people are making all sorts of claims. Yeah. So it's it's worthwhile checking them out. You know, do your due diligence, I guess.

Yeah. Yeah. I I think that that that's probably one of the main things to check on. So anything else that you would like to add?

Well, I don't know. I don't know. I think we've had lots of information in there, haven't we?

Yeah. It's been a lovely it's been a lovely conversation. Thank you. So I will put links on your podcast. Yes. And and the links to the site for the training schools as well.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. I really appreciate that. I mean, I've come in on this because you've invited me on to, hopefully, just inspire people that regardless of what training you do with anybody within hypnotherapy, as long as it's a good course, we can make a difference. We can really help people, and that's the main thing. Everything I do is to go, how will we long term help individuals not need us? I'd love for only to be aspirational in in a few years' time. And I think the biggest thing now is, I think, more people are looking for hypnotherapists than ever before.

You know? It it's changed. I I go to a networking event and go, I'm a hypnotherapist. Everybody wants to talk to me, where 10 years ago it went and people yeah. Well, half the people wanted to speak to me, maybe, because I was, like, want to be more science y. And I wasn't, you know, I wasn't I I didn't come across particularly fluffy. So they, you know, they gave me a little bit of credibility. It whether it was deserved or not, I don't know. But now you we can give you know, when we talk about what we do, there was real genuine interest.

People mental health is now becoming the forefront of the early conversation. However, there aren't the solutions available, so we've become a really credible option because people aren't willing to wait for the other solutions to come along, sometimes 2 or 3 years later on that waiting list. So I think it's the I think anybody who wants to train as a hypnotherapist is the perfect time. We are we are right at the front of the curve where mental health is gonna be dealt privately, and they're gonna be looking for alternatives. And a lot of counseling isn't necessarily sticking with people. CBT is being overused for the wrong thing sometimes, you know, because it's the easy answer for the NCH, and people are looking for better alternatives, and we're definitely a better alternative.

And I also think that aside from even if you don't know that you want to make it into a career, actually training for that self knowledge and self understanding and working with people and finding your tribe.

Yes.

You know, it brings so many other benefits.

Yeah. It's interesting if you at the end of every course, and I've won 70 odd courses over the years now, you ask people, what's the course done for you? Not what you now know, and a 100% say it's changed my life. And all of them would have trained for what it's done for them, let alone what they can now do with it. So what they can do with it is why they came on the course, what it's what they got from it, they didn't even know they were gonna get, and that's been worth the time and the financial investment. And I that's probably the the loveliest day of every course was that last day when people go in, wow. This is the course has helped me. It's it's it helped my relationships. It's helped my interaction with my children.

It's helped, you know, the you know, it's so big. You know? So whether they use it or not, which we hope they do, but whether they do or not, everybody benefits from training.

Brilliant. Brilliant. Well, on that note, thank you very much for your time, Harry.

Thank you.

It's been lovely talking to you and getting to know you a bit more. Thank you very

Thank you very much. Hopefully, I've given you all the answers you want.

Brilliant. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks again. Bye bye.