Originally Published February 21, 1983
Q. What is your name?
A. Richard Ward.
Q. . And what is your age?
A. 43.
Q. Your occupation is … ?
A. I’m a certified hypnotherapist.
Q. What exactly is a hypnotherapist?
A. A hypnotherapist provides hypnotic services which can be provided through 7 application areas. The 7 application areas are:
(1) mental and emotional health, (2) physical health, (3) psychic and spiritual development, (4) creative and educational endeavors, (5) athletics and sports, (6) business interest, and (7) legal concerns.
Q. Is this a fairly new profession?
A. No, hypnosis actually dates back sene 5,000 years to the timr of the Egyptians. Hypnosis was approved by the American Medical Association in 1958.
Q. What are sene of the other jobs you have done in the past?
A. I’ve been retained by firms as a consultant to management. In fact, I still do that, but prior I was a sales manager, salesman, police officer, pipe fitter, laborer, baker and paratrooper.
Q. As sales manager, what would be sene of the things you would do to motivate a salesman?
A. Salesmen are motivated by many different things. Each one is an individual. Some are motivated by position in life, some by money, a house, a car etc… Others are motivated by winning awards and vacations for themselves and their wives or husbands. Each individual has his own idiosyncrasies.
Q. So as a sales manager, your job would be to find out what motivated the person and then what?
A. You would then make it possible for them to reach their goal, by giving them the back-up support they need. This may include specialized training in areas needing improvement.
Q. Can you give some examples?
A. Sure, being more persuasive, radiating confidence, building a warm support with your prospect, selling yourself, selling benefits instead of features, taking charge of the interview, getting to the hidden objective, turning objections into closes, eliminating fear of rejection. We could go on and on.
Q. Would you say that sales is a good profession for young people to think about getting into?-A. Sales is an excellent profession for, those that like people and are somewhat outgoing, that enjoy being their own boss. They need self-discipline. These are people that don’t have to haveanyone standing behind them to make them punch a clock.
Q. Is sales a very well-paid profession?
A. Salespeople are some of the highest paid professionals in the country.
Q. Who do you consider sales people? What other lines?
A. Sales people come in all sizes, shapes and colors. Everyone has to sell something and/or themselves every day. The professional sells for his living. This could include the car salesman, the insurance man, the attorney, or the President of the United States. None of these people would earn much of a living if they couldn’t sell.
Q. We hear a lot about positive thinking today. How do you explain it?
A. Positive, in the ordinary psychological sense of the word indicates dynamism, activity, and fulfillment of an effort or intent. For example, to stop, to prevent crime is a positive in action. To vote against to defeat a bad legislative proposition, is also positive. Such are actions to produce a constructive result.
Q. How about some of the negative things that young people face? and negative thinking?
A. A classic example of the effect the self-concept has on actual future behavior involved a young man who had enrolled in college. The college told him that his score on the entrance examination was in the 98 percentile. He took this to mean that his IQ was 98. Thinking, therefore, that he was below average intelligence, he began making bad grades and was at the point of dropping out of college.
Fortunately, his parents discovered in time that he was under a false impression about his entrance examination score and explained to him that the 98 percentile meant he had an IQ of 140. Soon he becarre a straight A student.
Q. So negative feedback from parents, teachers, etc. would have lasting effects? Don’t blame parents.
A. Yes, our parents or.others may have contributed, but we can’t keep blaming them for the rest of our lives. Instead of wasting our talents by worrying about whether or not we have what it takes or by feeling sorry for ourselves, we should begin acquiring the education it takes to become successful at whatever it is we have our hearts set on achieving.
Q. So it has a lot to do with what your attitude about life is and what you want to accomplish in life, whether it’s positive or negative?
A. That’s a big part of it. What a high school student, for example, should do is not give any weight to anything that is negative. He should weigh things and think. Does this remark serve me in a constructive way? If not, don’t give it any weight. If you are not sure, put it on the shelf and come back to it later on and make your own decision about it after you’ve gathered enough supporting material to make a decision.
Q. Can you think back to when you were in high school and think of any teachers that motivated you to do things with your life?
A. I was always involved in athletics, so in my particular case I was motivated most by the coaches. I finished high school in the 1/4th of the class that made the top 3/4th of the class possible. The coaches gave me that little extra I needed at the time.
Q. So the thing is, coaches in schools use positive mental attitudes for their students, right?
A. Coaches deal with positives for the most part. They are after performance. And in many cases they are able to get it on and off the field.
Q. Is there any reason why teachers in’academic classes can’t use the same type of teamwork and motivation to inspire young people to do better?
A. No. However, the classroom teachers use a different game plan. The problem is that not all of the students in the class think of themselves as a member of the team.
Q. Those are the young people I’m talking about?
A. I agree to motivate that group is extrenely important. It would do wonders for our dropout rate not to mention unemployment.
Q. You are agreeing, though, that motivation is a pretty important thing to instill in young people in school?
A. I think that motivation is extrenely important today. Any type of reinforcement that you can give to young people is going to help us all out as a final result.
Q. The academic decathalon that we just had in El Dorado Cotmty, would that be an example of motivation and team work in academics?
A. I think that is a good example, and I feel that is something that has been neglected for quite some time. The athletes, have had their recognition, of course. Those students that have abilities in other areas haven’t had an opportunity to get the recognition in that light.
Q. In a community like Placerville, what are some of the types of people that should give positive, constructive feedback to young people?
A. Most communities those people that hold that responsibility are law enforcement people, the Placerville police officers, the deputies out there that are working the street every day, they have a definite relationship with young people and what they do can mean a great deal to young people.
Q. They can also be a negative influence.
A. And if not handled the right way could be a negative. Quite fortunately most of the time it’s more positive than negative in most professional law enforcenent organizations. The administration of justice plays an important role as well. I have personal knowledge of a couple of professionals that are doing a very good job. Judge Bud Hamilton has been very good with kids. And Bob Ewing is another one who I have knowledge of who has some very definite positive reinforcenent with children. Judge Hamilton is really good with these kids and the kids somre out of that courtroom feeling like they’ve really benefited from him.
Q. I’ve heard other people make the Same statement. He gives them a positive outlook about the legal system instead of going into court and coming out with a negative feeling about the law. You know about law enforcement. Have you worked with them before?
A. Yes. I was a police officer in Oakland fran 1964 to the latter part of 1968.
Q. What was your job or position?
A. I worked in a number of different areas. I worked in juvenile, I worked some in narcotics, and I worked for the most part in patrol
Q. You certainly ought to knav what some of the negative aspects are about police departments on young people too.
A. That’s right.
Q. What are some real positive constructive things that the local Police Department could do with young people?
A. Listen, learn, and adjust.
Q. One of the other subjects I want to get back to is a negative again, the image that has been portrayed by movies and television of businessnen.
A. Quite often because of the attitudes that so many people have they seem to not recognize some of the very good aspects of businessmen. They went out, they took chances, they gambled, they created, they built, and as a result they developed jobs for individuals. They worked hard. They worked long hours which is a prerequisite for an entrepreneur and yet so often, they are not given credit for a job well done, or one they used as a good example of positive action.
Q. So I would imagine it’s the same thing you brought up – coaches being a positive, motivating person but there’s probably bad coaches that probably project a bad image that a lot of people probably think that a lot of coaches are jocks and not motivated.
A. That’s right, Tom. The majority of teachers that I have run into as an example, in, this area, are of excellent quality. We have had tremendously good experience with the teachers that my boys have had. As an example, up in Pollock Pines those people have gone out of their way to do things that you’d never find them doing in large areas. most all of the coaches, that I’ve run into all my life, have all been real decent guys.
There’s only a couple that I’ve run into that don’t fit into that category – and they were over in El Dorado High School not too long ago. I know numerous kids, including one of mine, that had nothing but problems with a particular coach over there, and it took some 2 years before they finally got rid of him.
Q. He’s not there any more?
A. I understand he’s not there any more and I don’t know how many kids have had ill effects because of that kind of negativity that they received frem that particular individual.
Q. How can hypnosis help people?
A. With hypnosis children and adults can build a more positive self-concept; increase self-respect and self-confidence, add a sense of value to everything you do, make good decisions, concentrate better; save time, enhance excitement and anticipation, reduce conflict and stress, and promote health.
A wonderful quality of hypnosis is that you can learn to use it alone, at will, and without complicated procedures. This fact makes the benefits readily available throughout life.
Q. Are you teaching hypnosis?
A. Yes, I teach self-hypnosis whenever possible to clients as a part of their private session and a class in self-hypnosis training will begin on February 10th.
Q. I understand you give lectures.
A. Yes. – As you know, I am a professional speaker and a member of the National Speakers Association. However I am available to local non-profit organizations, service clubs, schools, etc. at my own’ expense.
Q. How do we deal with these negative thoughts?
A. We need to empty our minds of all the negative thoughts we’ve been fed and start believing in ourselves. If we do not believe in ourselves, who will? No longer must we be slaves revolving in an infinite circle of self-contempt. So the next time someone tries to discourage you from doing something you want to do, ignore him. He has probably already convinced himself he couldn’t do the very thing you are trying to accomplish, and he doesn’t want you to succeed either.
Q. Do you have any comments on stress?
A. Medical Science tells us that stress when uncontrolled is a major cause of hypertension (high blood pressure) that can lead to strokes or heart attacks. It is also implicated in causing or intensifying ulcers, rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, overactive thyroid glands plus headaches, depression, insomnia and some forms of cancer . As much as 90% of all disease can be traced directly or indirectly to stress according to the journal of Psychosomatic Research. Learning to control stress can be acccmplished through hypnosis, and self-hypnosis. Controlled stress is actually beneficial and necessary. How one deals with stress determines whether it is harmful or good for you.
