It's Keith Watson standing in for Adam this week - and for the very first time giving some of my own views about hypnosis - Wahoo - there's brave!

The pattern of our business year is settling down so that I now expect to be writing the Adam Up about four times a year - during Adam's Intensive Diploma Course where he has 9 consecutive days teaching - this happens twice a year.  And the other times are when Adam takes a well deserved holiday. 

Adam is halfway through the current intensive course - so here I am.

Adam and I have really been working together since 2005 and in fact now are joint owners of Awake Media Productions which is the business name we operate under.  The name in case you are curious conjured from our initials AE and KAW  leading to AWAKE  (this stuff is not just thrown together you know - we give it some thought)

We met at a BNI meeting I think in 2004.  BNI is a business networking club with some fairly strict rules which doesn't exactly appeal to everyone. 

Summary of BNI:-

• can feel expensive
• start is early morning 
  
• attendance is more or less compulsory
  
• bringing referrals a must
• and then there is the dreaded one minute presentation. 
  

Every business had one minute to pitch there trade each week and of course it was sensible to make those as interesting and amusing as possible - so they needed some preparation.

I can't complain about BNI as it did me well - I was new into business - direct from a career in nursing which isn't exactly good preparation for a business career.  I learned a lot and met many good people some of whom (wow haven't used whom before) are still clients and friends.

And as I have already said - that is where I met Adam. 

I was pitching my Internet Website Design and Internet Marketing Business and he of course was promoting his Hypnosis Clinic which he ran in Boscombe, Bournemouth at the time.  He was fresh down from London and needed to get to know people on the south coast.

I confess my ignorance - in those days I had absolutely no idea about hypnosis and if mentioned in any conversation - clucking chickens on stage came to mind.  Basically like so many people I had no idea what it was about and pictured it as someone having some magical control over someone else.  So here was this Adam Eason turning up promoting what exactly - he MUST be a bit wacky! 

Now - Adam was very good at his one minute pitches and what I was witnessing was this charismatic guy who in every way appeared to be SANE talking about his mind therapy using hypnosis.  I particularly remember one pitch that I have heard him repeat many times since but which made me think. 

In his allotted minute one week he said
"If this hypnosis was all about going zapp and having the power to control someone else - wouldn't I go to my bank manager and ZAPP!! - tell him to hand me over a million pounds." 

Hmmm - that did made me think.

Well I got to like this guy Adam and liked him even more when he invited me to do a website for him for his business. 

Whilst (another word I hardly ever use) doing his website I began to realise that he knew as much about the internet as I did about hypnosis - a big fat ZILCH!     
BUT - here's the thing all you aspiring business people - that is the perfect mix for a successful business.  The sum of the parts is greater than the parts themselves.

There are many stories I could tell you about what we did right and what we totally screwed up in those early days, but I will reserve some of those for another day.

The point I want to make next is that I got exposed to a lot of Adam's views on hypnosis by producing his audio products and videoing his courses and seminars.

So my own knowledge about hypnosis and hypnotherapy was developing through simply being exposed to the content regularly.

I first experienced the sensation of being hypnotised when filming a self-hypnosis seminar and Adam did a group relaxation session - so I thought why not and I joined the students in the session.  It felt really good and was a thoroughly enjoyable experience - and I felt good afterwards.

From there I decided to use self-hypnosis for a couple of my own issues - excessive underarm sweating when about to give a presentation - and a problem that I really couldn't get on top of - my weight.  I had to write my own script for the sweating problem but I used Adam's 'Think Yourself Thin' for the other.  Both worked to my surprise and joy.  I am currently 12st 7lb and have maintained the same acceptable level for my weight for a long time now.

However as with most things hypnosis - this was and is all anecdotal testimony - and even though I was convinced personally that hypnosis was both safe and worked for many issues  - where was the evidence I needed to convince others.

What I was not prepared for though was the hostility and controversy that surrounds the subject of hypnosis.

I first encountered this when I asked a musician friend if she was willing to compose and play some backing music for some audio hypnosis sessions.  She was horrified when I told her what it was for.  She reacted in an unbelievable way, saying that this controlling of minds was evil etc etc.   I was totally taken aback.

Also I am a church goer and I was approached one day by someone in my church who asked me whether I was really working in a business that put out mind control audios. 
Wow!!
I told her that I had worked in Psychiatric Units where I had witnessed many dubious medical practices which should be much more worrying from a mind control point of view. 
I am pleased to add that I know that as a result of research a lot of the practices I witnessed back in the sixties are not now being practiced - thank goodness.

You have only to search on the web to find total nonsense being talked about hypnosis - produced out of total ignorance.

The trouble is - and as I pointed out above - I personally had a totally wrong perception myself about the topic of hypnosis.  I didn't though go judging others which I think is wrong unless you have knowledge of the subject yourself.

Because of my nursing background I guess I still had a lot of reservations about hypnosis as it was being taught by Adam before last year.  I did quite a lot of psychology and even worked (for my sins) for a short time in a psychiatric unit.  I needed to have the evidence and for it to fit with my medically learned facts about the mind.

My frustration and ambivalence with the subject of hypnosis was reinforced when we had a GP and his wife round to dinner one evening.  We were discussing weight and the problems that GPs have dealing with this subject.  He was saying that - apart form Gastric Band which is for extreme situations doctors had very little to offer except for the sound advice that we all know already - eat healthy food, smaller portions and exercise.   I was arguing that there was an approach using hypnosis to get the right mindset in place and that it had worked on me.  He said he was more than willing to consider that approach but wanted the evidence.

ENTER A NEW ENLIGHTENMENT

Over the last eighteen months I have become happier and happier with what is evolving here as I realised Adam was moving to an evidence based approach. 

I think the breakthrough was complete for me when I videoed Adam's new five day course 'Cognitive Behavoural Hypnotherapy'.  CBT is a recognised therapy in the NHS and the whole course made complete sense to me and I was so delighted that there was real congruence with my previous medical experience.  CBT bolted on to hypnosis is really moving things on in a way that I think more medical generalists will be interested in.  Certainly room for so much more research which will produce the evidence the subject craves.

Also in Adam's new book which will be published shortly (currently being proofread)  and new audio and video product 'The Science Of Self-Hypnosis' the approach is fantastic as far as I am concerned.  It all makes enormous sense to me and I feel I can send any sceptics I meet to a place to find out just what they are misunderstanding. 

I love the fact that one of Adam's students is working with hypnosis for pain actually in the NHS. 

Adam also emphasises things like hypnosis is heightened focus - which is as far away from sleep as you can imagine - etc etc.  LOVE IT!!

And so on - ALL good as far as I am concerned - and I hope - it will also open some light bulb moments for as many people as possible.

FREE VIDEO SESSION FOR YOU

Anyway what I thought I would do is give you all access to the first session of Adam's new one day self-hypnosis seminar which we have now re-titled 'The Science Of Self-Hypnosis' 

In this first session that I have selected - some of it is introductory which you can skip if you wish - but later Adam talks about the history of hypnosis which not only helps to set the scene but gives a frame of reference so that you can understand where Adam is positioning his practice of hypnotherapy now.

Adam describes this at one point as the boring bit of the day - whereas I thought it was thoroughly enlightening about why Adam has moved on to his evidence based approadh. 

I leave you to judge for yourselves. 

I hope you enjoy this insight. 

You will need a decent broadband internet connection as the files are large. The video may take a while to start if your connection is not fast and there may be some buffering

There is so much of our business that has gone well over the years but for me there has been one major frustration.   I have been working hard to finally sort this one out though - I have in fact enrolled the help of my son Tom who has done literally hundreds of images for this project.

What am I referring to?

Affiliate selling of certain products. 

The good news is that we are really going to be throwing all our effort into this and offering a whopping 75% commission to our affiliates.

We have had several attempts to set up an affiliate programme but for a variety of reasons they have all stalled and eventually had to be stopped.

What we have decided to do is to use ClickBank - which is at least an established and tried and tested company. Added to that I have set up a resource centre so that our affiliates have as much help as we can give them to sell our products.

The first two products are with ClickBank for approval now and providing they find everything ok then I expect them to be available by early next week.

We will be rolling out much more over the coming weeks.
 
We have a large list of people who have either been affiliates in the past or expressed interest and I will be writing to them with details. 

SO if you have a website, Facebook or Google+ page and would like to become an affiliate then please let me know. 

Contact information at bottom of this ezine page.