(Transcribed with A.I. Some errors may appear.)

This is not a video about AI or conferences or selling you anything, but it is about your money and the hypnosis industry. Specifically how in my last year of full time private practice, I made over $300,000 in client revenue and never in my career spent a dollar on advertising. And I want to help all of you understand something that just the premise is wrong and you're fucking this up and I love you and I don't want you to. So. Hi, everybody. I'm Scott Sandland. I was the world's youngest hypnotherapist. Then I went on staff in a whole bunch of places. We'll get back to that later. Then I built hypnothoughts.com, which was the largest free resource in the history of the industry. Which, by the way, more on that in a few videos.


00:50

We got some interesting stuff going on with that huge data set, but. But not now. Also then I built hypnothoughts Live, which is currently being run by me and Stephanie Skiba, which is the largest hypnosis conference and the largest place for hypnotists to come together in the world. And now we also have partnered with Jason Linett to build HT Live365, which is a subscription to give you huge amounts of hypnosis content at a low price year round. And in that, we put on workshops like the one I did on AI. Like Lester Fu, the number one hypnotist on TikTok, he did a video on that. And then Stephanie just did her sort of mastermind Fireside Chat. I don't know what to call it, but it was great. And at that, people asked me a question and asked me to make this video.


01:35

And so this is the follow up on that. Here's the basics. I think most of you are making the biggest mistake that if I had made the mistake, I would currently be selling real estate and I would not have made it to year four of trying to see clients. Okay, you're doing it wrong and it's hard mode. Here's the sentence that so many of you say to me that makes me want to grab you and shake you super hard. Now that I'm a hypnotist, I have to learn marketing. Now I got to be a small business owner. Now I got to be this. Now that I want to be a hypnotist. Now I got to do this other thing that I don't want to do and never intended. And I got to learn slowly so I don't see clients shut Up. No, you don't.


02:16

No, you don't. No, you don't. No, you don't. Nuh. All of that's optional for some of you. It's the obvious choice, but it's a choice. And I'm telling you right now, I never advertised until we had the clinic and that barely worked. The thing that made my career work was I didn't try to do that. I'm going to tell you what I did instead. And let me explain this. I have put out 45 minute and longer videos that explain step by step, how I did this. I'm not trying to sell you anything, okay? I have already explained this multiple times for years. It's been true every time. So it's really consistent. So just go find me talking it through. It's on the Internet all over the place. It's Also, it's in 365 in a couple really obvious places.


03:11

If you're there, go into my pain control and medical classes. In both of the pain control classes, I taught by myself. In the medical class I teach with Michael Elner, there's a dedicated video just talking about this. If you want to find it on YouTube, I bet you can. And I promise I'll give it away to anybody who wants it. I don't care. I want you guys to do better. And right now, you're just suffering. It makes me sad. So here's the deal. I didn't become a small business owner when I first started seeing clients. This is. This is my first client sessions. I was a college sophomore when I started seeing clients professionally, so I was already certified. But when I started seeing clients, not doing a stage show at a frat house, which I also did, this was clinical needs.


04:06

This is cancer patients doing house calls. Because I lived in a dorm because I was 19, that's how I got my start. I was doing house calls for cancer patients when I was 19 and I was doing pain control and I was helping them through their symptoms and it was very rewarding. And then my career did what my career did. This isn't a video that's gonna explain all that. If you want that, I can talk about it, but I'm not going to get into it. I got good because I started early and a lot of people helped me. Melissa Roth and Paul Durbin trained me in medical hypnosis shortly before my sophomore year of college. And I could make a long list of the people who have helped me. It's an amazing. I'm just so grateful. And that's why I'M paying it forward.


04:55

That's why I'm making this video is because they did the same for me. Okay, let me just say this as a statement of fact. Most small businesses fail. Most of my businesses have failed. But my private practice didn't. Because it wasn't a small business when I got started. It was me helping people. Let me explain this. Obviously, it was an llc. Obviously, I paid taxes. That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is this. I didn't try to put up a shingle because I couldn't. I was 19. No. Like, that's insanity. And then when I was 20, 21, 22, I'm still like, look at how young I Look, guys. I'm 46 and I look this young. Do you know what I looked like before life happened to me? Do you know what I looked like at 22?


05:50

I looked like a Cabbage Patch Kid, like, with a driver's license. And I got clients. And I want to talk to you guys about what you should consider. I'm not telling all of you to do this, but I'm telling you all of you should consider this. I did not have a budget. I literally had no money. I was a college athlete who wasn't allowed to get an on campus job because it would have been an NC2A violation. So I started seeing clients. Here's the deal. I became the on staff hypnotist. That's it. That's my idea. Be on staff somewhere. Be employed as a hypnotist. The NGH uses the term consulting hypnotist. I think the term is good. I just hate the NGH because they've been dicks to me my whole career. And I can bury the hatchet.


06:44

By the way, if people at the NGH would like to bury the hatchet, I'm here for it. But I have never had a positive experience with their official organization. Although members and leaders in the organization have been good to me at an individual basis, which is why I remain open. But the term consulting hypnotist I actually always liked. I just wish they'd been nice to me so I could have used it. That's politics. I'm not a joiner and yet I am. Because I joined being on staff, I started at a dental office. I've explained that story too many times to go into. But every Friday I saw people for teeth grinding. Other stuff too, but let's just use that for brevity. Every Friday was teeth grinding.


07:28

Okay, well, after nine months of that, I Could open my own office across the street because it helped me get going. And I kept going on staff, but now I had an office. And then also when that happened, also across the street, the other direction was a medical office because, you know, it's in the area where there's dental offices and medical offices and all that stuff. So then I had a dental office. I had three dentists referring me patients. I was in on staff in an office, and I had three dentists and you know, the whole staff. So the hygienist, the assistants, the front desk. I spent time with each of them. And I talked about this in the other videos.


08:08

I would give free sessions to the staff and their families because that made them believers, or I did in one place, I offered the same professional courtesy discount that they gave me when they became my dentists. And so when they became my dentist, they offered me a professional courtesy and I exchanged or offered the same professional courtesy to them. And that's how that worked. I would see patients in the doctor's office and the dentist's office. And in both those cases, I would walk in, they had booked the patients for me, they had done all the work. I showed up, there were people waiting in order. I would see a patient in a room, I would fill out their chart, I would send them on their way, and I would get the next one, and I would get the next one.


08:58

And it was three to six every day for eight years. And the doctor's office was at. It was a couple different days over the years. It started off as Tuesday and then it switched to Wednesday because Tuesday became the day I did drug rehab centers. And when I did drug rehab centers, I was the independent contractor like I was in all the places. But I would come in, I would give guest lectures and then do one one sessions with them. And those again, they did all the billing, they interacted with insurance, they did the scheduling, they did all those things. I showed up at a predetermined time because I was on duty. You know, it was my shift. I was an independent contractor. I came in to see clients and I was paid very well. I was in the drug rehab center.


09:49

I was the highest paid independent contractor in the facility. I ended up working in nine drug rehab centers. And to the best of my knowledge, I was always the highest paid. And the reason I say that is because I was a specialist in hypnosis. I am not licensed in anything else, gang. I can't even count high, which is why I'm not A good business owner, which is why so many of my businesses failed, which is why I stay focused one thing. Being of service. Look around. What do I do? I just be of service. Were you guys at hypnothoughts Live last year? Stephanie and I were throwing breakfast at you overhand. Just lighting money on fire because we love you. We can't help it. We are do gooders.


10:35

So if I had been running a private practice, I would have run mine into the ground just like all of you are failing. Because I would have made the same dumbass mistakes all of you are making. And I have empathy for it because I see me in you. But I got lucky because no one told me I had to learn marketing or have a business in a box. That's not true. But Roger Moore very gently did. Roger Moore, great hypnotist, by the way. Not the James Bond guy, the weight loss guy. He at the American Board of Hypnotherapy, which I don't even think exists anymore. I know their conference doesn't. Tad James was running it. He's passed away. Tad ran that conference. Al Krasner ran it first. And right around that time, I met Melissa and Roger and all of them.


11:19

And they said, yeah, you could do a business in a box, but you could also just get on staff. You're a kid. No one's ready to see you as a grownup and as a parent professional, but a lot of people could see you as an employee. And so I got really good at being on treatment teams, and I got really good at being a member of a team, not being the most important, not being the guy in charge, being of service, finding out how I could help the dentist with this patient, finding out what the challenges the clinical director, the case manager, and the treatment team were having with this client and how I and the resources that I bring could help turn things around. It didn't need to be the hypnosis show and it didn't need to be the Scott Sandland show.


11:59

It was very client centered and I got to be on a team. And then there's not as much pressure on you because that team has somebody that does marketing, that team has somebody that's in charge of rain making and generating clients. And by the way. Oh, another thing. Yeah. So the last year I was doing full time. I made 300 something in rain revenue from seeing clients. Also, at one time, I employed like 10 hypnotists because I couldn't see all the clients. We were doing 40 hours of group therapy in our Busiest weeks. It was crazy. Again, we did that off my relationships and reputation that I built without advertising. And when we tried the clinic advertising, it was way less effective than the other stuff.


12:42

But I want to talk about the people who worked for me because I've employed hypnotists and some of them weren't ready to be hypnotists. I'll just be honest. Even though I met with them, like talked to them, trained them, some of them just, you know, whatever inside them. And that's not. I don't want to, I don't want to shit on them. They're all human beings in their life and in their process. But a couple of them just weren't ready. That's okay. A couple of them were ready to stick around and hang out. That's good too. And more than a third of them graduated. And this was always the plan. You'll come in here and you will be an employee hypnotist. You will be an on staff hypnotist.


13:23

And then when you build your own practice, you will like fly away, right, and leave the nest. And that was always the goal. And some of them totally did and some of them totally didn't because they just wanted to be an employee hypnotist. And some of them weren't ready to be a hypnotist seeing clients at all. And many of you watching this video should not be small business owners. You're not cut out for it. You're a do gooder, you're a bleeding heart just wimp who just wants to help people. And you don't want to learn QuickBooks, let alone click funnels. You don't want to learn marketing strategies and TikTok. You don't want to do that. You just want to see clients and go home. And you say, why can't I? And the answer is because you've opted out of that choice.


14:11

And I'm telling you where that path still is. Door number two is not gone, it's just hidden. You can be an on staff hypnotist. I really, really recommend it for some of you and I really recommend all of you. Think about it. Even if you're seeing clients, like I would do a couple days a week of clinics out and then a couple days a week of private practice. So it was somewhere between, depending on what year it was three for me, two for them or three for them, two for me. You know, something like that. And then some days it would be like a half day, like in the mix of there, like when it was switching from one to the other. Like I would do, like I would hit two drug rehab centers before lunch.


14:54

So I'd do like I'd do a process group and then a one at a place and I'd do a process group and one or two ones in another place. Then I'd go to lunch and then I'd go to my private practice and see a couple private clients. And that was like a normal day for me and that kind of stuff. And it's just so much better. Doctor's office, drug rehab centers, dental offices, hospitals, schools, clinics, all these places. Would love to have an on staff hypnotist. It'd be great. I want you guys to do that also. It is the easiest way to make money in this profession. It's so much easier than teaching classes. It is so much easier than putting on events. It is so much more stable, repeatable, scalable and relaxing than becoming an instructor.


15:50

And I see some of you think the next pillar you need to do because you think, oh, I got to have multiple streams of income. No, now you're just opening multiple businesses, you don't know how to run and you're just stressing yourself out and building this taller and taller pile of stuff I gotta learn before I can be effective at helping others. And just you're just like, stop it. Let's just knock all that down and instead go be of service. That's what you want. That's where the resistance goes away. You guys are procrastinating so you don't actually have to hold yourself accountable and see if you're great. You have come up with all sorts of ways to delay the moment where you find out if the client gets better or not. Cut it out. Spend time thinking about how to be on staff.


16:40

I'm going to make another video about this. It's going to be free. I will put it in365, but I'm going to send it out to all of you. Some of you want to be business owners and you should be. Some of you have ambitions to open multiple locations and that's great. Some of you should absolutely be with small business owners in three years. But for the next three years you should just, you know, go get your reps. By the way, this absolutely just mind blowing revelation that you heard from me is how most therapists do it. Like that's the genius of my plan. My clever little trick was I did what clinicians do, not what online marketing dudes do. I didn't become a coach to the stars. I didn't want to. Da da da. No. Shut up. Just go be a service.


17:40

Just humble yourself and get on a team. I was the least important person on the team all the damn time. I remember at one point, like, there's a dentist office that was very mixed about if I was like, if I should be there or not. And I had to win everybody over. And, like, part of me winning everybody over was just, like, seeing their family members or helping out or, like, genuinely. There was one weekend where I helped reorganize all the client charts. So, like, in the, like, the deep storage room for, like, old patients, like, all those old charts, like, going through and reorganizing filing cabinets for them and stuff like that. I did that just to show I was on the team. And this video isn't about all the details about how I earned it.


18:29

This video is just about helping you guys see door number two. That's it. I just would like some of you to consider this as a career path and you can just use it for now. It doesn't mean it's how you have to live your entire career, but it might be the best way to get started. So I would like you all to consider that and I would like to encourage all of you to think that through. And maybe, I mean, and you don't have to choose between the things. I didn't. You know, I started in one and then did both. And I would like that to be what you guys consider. So that's the end of this video. I will make another one of these video.


19:12

And by the way, I'm going to put all of these videos in365 just so they're organized in a place. But I'm giving them away first because I want you guys to know it. So thanks and I'll see you all soon.