International Travel for Hypnotists
by Henry Leo BolducFor those who yearn to travel, nothing is more rewarding than a trip that pays for itself. Every therapist should travel. It's good for business and good for the soul! Travel should make money for you; it should not be an expense. You deserve it! I am a great advocate of travel because it teaches so much. Travel, as well as being fun, is probably the most valuable way to learn. It is an intensive course in the school of life. You will receive more value for your travel dollar than that invested in any other form of education. How do I know? Take a minute and think back to your early years as a child. Which days do you remember most vividly? Possibly they are days spent on trips with your parents or on a school trip. Why? Because those trips taught living lessons as important as those you learned by rote, in classes. You learned about geography, culture, social skills, and most of all-you had fun! You can repeat this experience now, as an adult, and it can pay!
(with generous help from Linda Hutchins
and Marjorie Reynolds)
As a therapist, one easy way to generate income while traveling is to arrange consultation with clients in conjunction with your trip. It can be done very simply. Choose a destination where a friend or acquaintance is already living and ask that person to schedule private sessions for you. Such sessions might consist of weight reduction, cigarette cessation, stress management, or any other program. (This procedure is not designed for long-term therapy requiring numerous sessions.)
Often, it is possible to use a friend's home as a base for conducting the sessions; if not, perhaps your friend would be able to locate a temporary facility for your use. Not only will you be helping people to respond to personal challenges, you will be combining a wonderful healing adventure with creating a practical source of income. (Excellent business and tax advantages also accompany this procedure. Ask your accountant.)
A much wider world of travel-generated income awaits you if you cultivate the beneficial, all-important art of public speaking. Audiences yet unknown to you are awaiting the opportunity to hear what you have to say, and they can make contact with you only if you go to them. Give it a try!
How do you get off the ground and organize your own career of speaking and traveling? One method, which I have employed over two decades, requires a bit of preparation but brings excellent results. This beginning method involves teaching small, informal classes in self-hypnosis. Its aim is the encouragement of others in self-help and personal betterment.
If you have not taught such classes, you could consider doing so. Teaching a person about self-hypnosis is a bit like the analogy of giving someone a fish: if you give a person one fish, it is food for a day; if you teach a person to fish, you feed that person for life! Once learned, self-hypnosis is a technique that can assist an individual throughout an entire lifetime.
The genesis of your traveling/speaking career might occur by offering free classes in self-help at, perhaps, a local library. Programs at libraries are easy to arrange, and libraries are excellent public locations in which to practice teaching skills. Your talks should be open to the public and free of charge. Offer non-accredited, informal classes in self-hypnosis and begin at an easy level: teach your audience basic relaxation and self-help techniques.
Later, it is probable that those attending your first sessions will return at in-depth classes for more advanced work. At this point, you could offer classes in a more commercial site such as a hotel meeting room available for public use. Eventually, you could approach local businesses or civic groups, offering classes tailored to their members. Many professional speakers build expertise by this practice.
Go at your own pace, and, in a year or so, you will find yourself ready to go "big time." You may choose to go national! In some ways, it's easier to present a workshop nationally than it is to get that opportunity in your local area. Why? Because you are familiar to those living near to you, and so you might not be considered a prominent figure. When you become nationally known, you will find yourself, suddenly, more in demand. If you belong to any national organizations, take advantage of this connection to make contact by suggesting that you work together with them in mutually beneficial outreach. This method serves to focus attention on your work and to create a network for future bookings.
Granted, it takes time for this outreach to develop, and you have to be willing to get out and do a little promotional work; however, long-range rewards are fantastic. I have done this sort of work, and I can assure you that it is worth the effort. Many of my friends and colleagues are also following this procedure, and are finding their own successes in career enrichment.
Now, the boldest adventure of all-- expanding your work to an international level! Such a step often seems overwhelming at first but, in reality, is very feasible and quite easily carried out. I have done it successfully, as have many of my friends and fellow professionals.
To begin an international outreach, you must earn your wings to fly. Be willing to grasp opportunities as they arise and work to create more opportunities by building an international reputation, step by step.
Allow me to describe the events leading up to my first overseas workshop. You may say that this opportunity came about by means of pure luck, but-in truth-I simply made the most of an offer and everyone ended up a winner! (Perhaps "luck" should begin with the letter "p" for "plucking" your fruit from the Tree of Life!)
Take this opportunity to adapt my discoveries and techniques to fit your own temperament and lifestyle to bring you success as a national/ international speaker and traveler.Many years ago, I met with some other individuals involved in past-life regression for a day of shared learning and companionship. Throughout that day, we talked about the various techniques and strategies we used in our work. During that time a visitor came to the house looking for his daughter's lost kitten, and he was invited to stay and share in our open discussion. He observed, and even participated in one of the group sessions. He was so impressed by the experience that he told us that if any of us should travel to Europe, he could easily gather a group of his friends for a workshop at his home in the Channel Islands off the coast of France.
As it turned out, I was the only one to take advantage of the offer. I talked with this man and later wrote to him. It was agreed that I would pay my transportation expenses to the Continent and, generously, he would allow me to keep the entire profit from the workshop that he arranged. My overseas outreach work was born.
I gave my first workshop in the Channel Islands, on the subject of past lives and channeling (what else?)! It was a grand success. My new acquaintance had phoned several of his friends and had invited them to attend an informal workshop in his home. Costs were kept to a minimum, the living room was filled with twenty-five eager and appreciative people, and I was on my way! I was also able to conduct private sessions with new clients before and after the full-day workshop, which added to the profit of the trip.
Throughout the years, I have returned to give other programs at this man's home, and we have become friends. Once, my wife and her son came with me as well. Over time, my scope of European sponsors enlarged so that I gave workshops spanning three consecutive weekends each year. Weekdays were spent vacationing, touring ancient sites with my family. Even with the added expense of a family traveling together, I always came home with a comfortable profit.
The Action Plan
First, you must want to travel and to teach. If you don't enjoy traveling, this plan will not work for you.
Second, you will need a passport. Get one. Passports cost only about a penny per day to maintain. I am working on my sixth, so you can see that I truly practice what I preach.
Third, and perhaps the most crucial consideration of all, is the obvious need to secure bookings for overseas workshops. Two of the best ways to start are: (a) contact every organization or group to which you belong and look for a chance to develop an overseas workshop in conjunction with the interests of that group; and (b) contact people you know in foreign countries and ask if they would be interested in facilitating programs for you. (You do not need to attract large audiences at first; even small groups are a good beginning.) If those friends cannot sponsor you, perhaps they know people who might be willing to accept that role. Contact those people suggested to you. Write and/or call every possible lead. The secret to breaking through internationally is in the percentages. If you knock on enough doors, sooner or later someone will respond!
Fourth-and this is the biggest secret of my success which you are free to use to your benefit-you may find that potential facilitators or sponsors are often reluctant to put out their own money, up-front, to help you or anyone else to achieve a goal. You must take the initiative. Affirm that you will pay for your flight (saving future groups and sponsors the expense of prepaying for you to come), promising to reimburse yourself from the workshop's income. In other words, lend yourself the cost of an air ticket and, from the profits earned, repay your loan to yourself.
Next, choose a travel time that best suits your schedule. Of course, you will not want to leave the country while office loads are heavy with client bookings. In any case, smart travelers choose the off-season for trips. As a plus, air fares are lowest during this time (usually September through May) and prospective audiences will be in residence and able to attend your programs. Summer months are not the time for scheduling workshops because people everywhere are away on vacation and most destinations abroad are crowded with tourists.
Once you have decided upon an ideal month for travel, write to a prospective sponsor and say that you have planned to visit the area at that time. This procedure takes pressure off your sponsors, as mentioned, to pay your traveling expenses as an incentive for you to come. Next, confirm whether that person will be comfortable with organizing your program. Let your sponsor know that, while you expect the workshop to be successful, your primary motivation-as always should be the case-is to share knowledge and materials distilled from the best of your professional experience.
Keep the faith. You will find your audience shaping up, money coming in, and your workshop a "go"! Above all, don't worry about your financial gain. For various reasons, some workshops will show only a marginal profit while others will provide substantial results. The point is to share, with good intent, what you know. The bonus is in being paid to visit parts of the world you otherwise might not have seen.
I usually plan such trips one full year ahead, and sometimes even two. Advance planning is important, especially if the workshop is to be given in a foreign country and in another language. I have given many workshops in foreign languages and found it almost as easy as giving them in my own.
The following is a system I have refined, and it works great for presenters to audiences in any foreign language. First, I send my sponsor all printed materials that participants will be using in the workshop. This helps the sponsor to know ahead of time what subject matter will be presented, enabling that person to target an appropriate audience.
Second, my sponsor (or another person) volunteers as an informal interpreter or translator. The method of delivery that works for me is that I speak three or four sentences, then stop. The interpreter translates those sentences to the audience. During that brief period, I mentally prepare my next paragraph for delivery. The interpreter then speaks this paragraph, and so on it goes. In about five minutes, both you and your interpreter will be comfortable with this process. It is important, however, to keep spoken segments to about the length of one short paragraph. This procedure is very helpful both to the translator and to yourself, ensuring clarity and ease of presentation.
The Perks
Have I inspired you? What I have presented to you sounds like a lot of work but the results are well worth the effort. As an international speaker, you will raise your professional standing significantly. In the process, you will help many, many people to learn more about the benefits of self-help or self-hypnosis, they will appreciate your visit to their country, you will make money to support your new enterprise, and you will experience an excellent adventure!
Best of all, once you have given a program in another country, you will find it very simple to return to that country in a year or so to give other programs. On return trips, everything will be much easier. You will be familiar with various locations, and your sponsors will have become your friends. Participants who attended former workshops will return and bring their friends. The process becomes more and more assured of continued success.
Take this opportunity to adapt my discoveries and techniques to fit your own temperament and life-style to bring you success as a national/international speaker and traveler. My procedure is not a scheme to get rich quick, but rather a proven method of carrying out work that brings help and encouragement to many. Such work will fund travel adventures which will profit everyone: The sponsor who arranges your programs, the people who attend them, and you, of course, who will gain in numerous ways. When your work enriches the lives of others, you automatically enrich your own life.
When I come to the end of my life, I am convinced that the aspect of my work which shall have pleased me most will be the presentation of international programs. I look upon them as my greatest achievements: they provided enjoyment to my family and to me as we traveled abroad and they brought benefits to others. It gives me a great sense of accomplishment to realize that in working with individuals living in foreign countries, I have introduced them to materials and concepts that have changed their lives for the better.
You can share a similar experience by building your traveling and speaking career along the same lines that have worked for me. My latest book, Your Creative Voice: Reaching and Teaching From Your Experience, offers further details on discovering and developing your innate ability to combine teaching, speaking, and traveling, and explains how easily it can be done.
Reach out to others and they will respond. Dare to be more, to see more, and to do more. Share what you know and you will be repaid, generously. Find your own creative voice, get into motion, and see the world!