Hi. Normally I make really fun, happy videos that tell you about the things I'm looking forward to at the conference and things that you get to look forward to. This is not one of those videos. This is one of those very rare videos where there's a problem in our community that I need to address. And so I'm going to address it. I just got off the phone with four women that I respect a lot and who I've respected for many years, and they brought to my attention some things that are absolutely unacceptable. And we're going to do something about it starting right now. This is very fresh, so policy needs to be created around this, but I don't want to wait for that, to address this as a community immediately. So let's get into it first.


00:48

Before I get into anything, no names were shared at all in the conversation I'm about to talk to you about. So I'm going to use the word predator and victim to describe the two roles. And there's varying degrees of intensity in those labels and in all the different stories. But I can tell you that women I have respected for years shared firsthand accounts. This is not hearsay. This is truth. This is statements of fact that are unacceptable. So to the people who've been in those conversations and. And shared with the women who just spoke with me, this happened or whatever, but I don't know what to do. Those stories were brought to Stephanie and I today. We heard it, and. And I just want you to see what we're going to do about it.


01:46

And I'm sorry, and thank you for helping make sure we found out, because now we can do something about it and we're gonna. So let's get into it. This is not somebody making a mistake. This is not somebody having, you know, one too many, two drinks. This is not, you know, a joke going too far. This is something else that I'm talking about. And a few things happen on the call that I want to address right away, before I talk about the policy and what we're going to do about it, there's a few things that need to come up. The first thing that came up, one of the women on the call said, look, we know, Scott, this. This has happened at hypnoths, but this happens everywhere at other hypnosis conferences and other conferences.


02:34

And we're only going to talk to you about things that happened at hypnothoughts Live, not at the other conferences, because you aren't responsible for that. And I'm going to pump the brakes on that. Right now. No, no. This is not a liability issue. This is a community issue. This is a humanity issue. Absolutely not. If something inappropriate is happening at a different conference, we do want to know about it and we do want to take care of it because it's happening in our community, it is happening in our industry, and we are all responsible for helping each other, regardless of what building it takes place in. That's the first thing. The second thing pisses me off a lot more. One of the women in the call explained how a sentence was used. It was something to the effect of, this person's a big.


03:36

This predator is a big name. This perpetrator is a big name. They're a presenter. There are something. I don't know what they are and I don't know who it is, but a couple different people have said about. A couple different people. There was the spoken threat of, if you say anything, it'll be bad for your career. And it might have been said a whole bunch of different ways, but that was the message and I want to speak to that specifically. No, it won't. No, it won't. Out of hypno thoughts. Let me be very clear. There is no person at our conference who is more important than the issue I'm talking about right now. There is no presenter so good that will look the other way. There is no technique so important or presentation so popular that we are going to ignore these issues.


04:37

The safety of our community is number one. And I don't think that's even up for consideration. So I just want you to know that anybody who said that is wrong. And if anybody says that ever again, they are wrong. We will not look the other way. Now, what I've heard is some of the things that were discussed are recent and some of the things are quite old also that barely matters. You know, like, if it happened. And. And that's got to stop. So this literally just happened. I just got off the phone and pressed record. So I can only say what's going to start happening. And that's a few things. The first thing is we are creating a code of conduct. We outlined a quick one.


05:41

We've got to finish it and run it by the lawyers, but it's pretty good and it's going to get done pretty close to immediately, and that is going to go out to every single one of you. So every presenter at hypnothos Live will be required to sign a code of conduct and every attendee at our conference will be required to sign a code of conduct and in that code of conduct, we'll outline some sort of potential consequences. I've got to figure that part out. That part's still a little interesting. But yeah, everyone will agree to the rules and it will be very clear to everybody what is out of bounds. I have no patience for this. I, I love a good joke. You guys know that. And I'm willing to push the boundaries on jokes and a lot of you know that.


06:45

And I am very comfortable with people doing things at Hypnos Live they wouldn't do in their normal life. And I demand that we respect each other and we take care of each other. And any one of you who thinks it's okay to leverage someone, to pressure someone, to coerce someone, to push a boundary, all of that stops now. And I want to be very clear, I have already put in a email to my lawyer to discuss what it takes for me to blacklist someone from the industry and what happens if I call all the other conferences and say this is why they have been removed. So I'm going to find out from my lawyer what I can and can't do there. But that's where my head's at on this. We are not going to let that persist in our industry.


07:45

We are going to do something about it and it starts now. So next week I'm going to have a really fun video for you guys about pre and post conference presenters and I think you're going to love it. We've just started going through the regular conference proposals. There are over 700 of them, so it's going to take us a minute. We just built the structure that we're going to use today, this year for all that. So that's going to be a whole process that I'll be as transparent as you guys want about. But right now, transparency is about this. We need to get our house in order. Some of the members of our family have been behaving badly and we need to do something about it.


08:31

So as a community, we're going to, and I'll go first, I'm going to help create this code of conduct with this group of women and then we're going to create a co ed council committee, something we are going to create something that can address this and a way for reporting to work and a way to make sure that reporting is valid. We're going to do this right. So we're going to think it through, we're going to do our homework, we're going to sharpen our pencils and we're going to make something that we can all be happy with and something that will. Will help. So there will be a new code of conduct for hypnothoughts Live for all attendees and participants.


09:26

And we are doing that so that we can have fun and we can feel safe, and we can be in a place where we do things that we normally wouldn't do and try things that we normally wouldn't try and learn a technique that we wouldn't normally go to and talk to a person we disagree with. And we want to create environments where that is as safe as possible. And looks like I've got a little work to do in this area, so I'm gonna. And we're gonna. Thank you. I'm sorry. To the men and women who shared their experiences and their concerns and their fears with the people I just spoke to. Thank you. I'm sorry. And we're all going to do better.

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