Interview with Kelvin Fong

Kelvin Fong

Group District Director (PropNex), CEO & Chief Trainer of Zest Academy Pte Ltd

1) What differentiates the top producers in real estate from the mediocre ones, who struggle with sales?

A successful and reliable top producer looks after the interests of his client. He will always put himself in the seller’s or buyer’s position before giving them the right advice. When in their position, he plans carefully before making any decisions. A normal agent’s first thought when meeting up with the client is that of closing the deal while the top producers will want to win the trust of their client first rather than closing the deal immediately.

Firstly, the agent should determine what type of client he is serving - investing or buying for own stay? If he is serving clients requiring properties for own stay, the agent should understand the needs of the buyer and work towards meeting the client’s request and make sure he gets something at a good price, i.e give them your own opinion as if you are the buyer yourself. If the agent is dealing with investors, he should understand what they are looking for, whether the property is meant for capital gain or purely yield. For example, for first time investors, the agent should help them maximize their cash flow by turning over their portfolio rather than just holding on to one unit without realizing any profit. If investors do not sell when the property appreciates, they will be stuck with just one property and will not be able to increase their capital. This will prevent them from buying a better asset and multiplying their asset base.

Property is a cyclical asset and there will always be ups and downs. Thus it is important to sell at the right time and re-enter the market when the price comes down. We saw this during the peak in 2007, which was followed by the downturn in January 2009. And currently prices have gone back to reach the 2007 peak levels again. In general, most agents will be asking their clients to sell because the market situation may not be that rosy and we may have reached another peak, so it makes sense to lock in their capital gains. As for top producers, they will advise them to switch their portfolio to increase their capital to look for better deals that will appreciate more when the market improves further.

Investors are looking for agents with good product knowledge and who are able to do a comparative price analysis of the project and understand the price history too. A top producer will look at the surrounding projects to determine the right one for you, advise on risks you may face should the market go against you, and help you to do a financial calculation to ensure you have holding power in such a scenario.

No agent should tell an investor that the project or unit is sure to make money as anything can happen and nothing is guaranteed. Top producers tell their clients not to speculate but to invest and be prepared to hold if the market drops. To find the right agent, look at the classified ads or surf property websites. A top producer will be able to discuss the investment merits of the project and not just be an information provider. He will also share information about the surrounding projects and should be familiar with any units that were recently sold even before the caveat is lodged with the URA.

2) Your team is called the Powerful Negotiators. What goes through your mind when a client says “no” (perhaps more than once) during your negotiation?

My team name Powerful Negotiators does not imply that in every deal, we are able to close the deal. There are times that we could not close it, due to pricing or the time given for the owner to move in/ out of the place. What is most important is to have patience with them and understand their reasons for saying “no” to us.

If it is due to price, we should try our best to work with the buyer/ seller to get the price that they want, if the price for them is good after we have analyzed the recent transacted prices and the last peak price through our graphical chart, we should use it to share with them why they must sell/ buy the property.

All sellers want to sell at the highest price but no one knows when exactly it’s highest, therefore we need to use graphical charts that show the pricing to convince the sellers. All buyers want the cheapest price too but we can never determine when is the right time, therefore we need to advise them to take the long term view and not to speculate. In Singapore, as long as we can hold for the long term, all properties will appreciate due to inflation and being a small country, our land is scarce which gives us the greatest advantage of investing here. As a good agent, we should not advise our clients to buy or sell if it does not benefit them. We must always have their interests at heart. When you have gained your client’s trust, they will always be with you, but when trust is gone, there will not be any more deals forever.

3) Some buyers believe in sourcing for their own property without the help of agents, perhaps due to prior bad experiences. How would you convince them to do business with you?

Most of the time, all the bad experiences are due to mis-communication and meeting those agents who are very pushy without giving their client some time to think before committing. If I meet such clients, I would like to find out the reasons for not working with agents, so that I can share with them my personal opinions on those issues, and most importantly, to listen and understand the reasons for their unhappiness.

Subsequently, I will ask them to give us a chance to serve them, ultimately they do not pay us anything if there is no deal at all, but to give us a chance to work with them. Using our sincerity, time will tell and I will continue to follow up with them and keep them updated about those properties that they are keen to buy. If the buyers can feel the sincerity, they will continue to work with the agent.

4) Who/What would you credit for your success? 

My achievements today, the credit should go to my wife, Janet Lim, as without her support in managing the sales for me, I might not be able to concentrate fully on building my team wholeheartedly. With the same goal in mind, we have managed to be the No. 1 TOP Producer and Team Leader for the year 2009 & 2010 in PropNex. I have a group of dedicated team leaders that have helped me to build the team together too. Our achievement today is also due to the group culture of willingness to share and team work.

I believe everyone needs to work hard to achieve our goals, but most importantly, one needs to have the right techniques and systems to achieve success. Being focused and staying positive has helped me achieve my current results.

5) What is a typical day like in the life of Kelvin Fong?

A typical day in my life starts as early as 8am. My day will be spent either conducting training or meeting up with agents and helping them to achieve their goals. In the day, I can easily meet up with three to four agents and help them with their queries. When I am not meeting anyone, I will be doing some planning for new strategies to bring the team’s sales to the next level. At night, most of the time I will be doing my work that has yet to be completed.

Now, my life has just seen the beginning of a new chapter in my career as I have started Zest Academy Group with my team leaders, Dominic Lee, Bobby Sng and Cijay Tew. One of our core courses “Millionaires Realtor System (MRS)”, has as its aim to share the techniques and systems that we have acquired in the private property market that have helped us achieve our million dollar sales to all real estate salespersons from different agencies. The other objective for me is to help many of our counterparts to convert themselves from being a normal salesperson to having an Investor Salesperson mindset. Once they have such a mindset, their sales will definitely increase and they will also know how to become an investor too in future.

We have also created a new course “Millionaires Property System (MPS)” for the investors too. This course is to help investors identify the right property, and to invest correctly based on graphical charts to determine the potential upside and the risk involved.

As for me, the reason why I am setting up this academy is because I want to acquire new skills and get to know more people and learn the whole process of running a business and to share my knowledge with all salespersons and investors.

Grace says: I think Kelvin is someone who has achieved a lot and who remains humble. I think that’s what I respect most about him and my other interviewees who have been so keen in sharing their knowledge, their secrets and their philosophies.

I have been in the real estate line before (something you didn’t know about me, right? Now you do! Haha!) and have come across many rogue agents. For this blog, I’ll be doing my best to find the best people in the industry and feature them here. You can be sure I’ve either met them personally or have consulted friends who know these agents.

I think Kelvin works very hard. And that inspires me to work even harder and find more awesome interviewees. So stay tuned! I have an exciting line-up of interviewees for you.  :D

New to this blog? Enter your email address into the subscription field and you get to read the blog posts first and be the first to receive all freebies given out.

Come back soon for the next awesome interview!~

*Exclusive* Join Me For A Hypnotherapy Workshop

Dear Blog Readers,

I’ll be attending Tuesday’s Hypnotherapy Workshop at The Pathlight Centre. If you’re in a career which helps people (you’re a nurse, counsellor or caregiver) or if you are a manager/supervisor/parent/teacher, then join me there. Drop me an email at gracemg@gmail.com and I’ll ensure you get free entry to the event.

Venue: The Pathlight Centre (near United Square – Novena MRT Station) 199B Thomson Road, Goldhill Centre, S307636

Time: 7.30pm-9.30pm

See you there!

Grace

My First Handmade Card As An Adult!

Guess what I was up to last Friday! I was given the amazing opportunity to find out how a handmade card is created at Stirring Hearts Pte Ltd! Ereen Toh, the boss of Stirring Hearts, is arguably my most generous interviewee so far! Before I’d even uploaded the interview post (with Ereen) on this blog, she had already mailed me 3 beautiful cards, retailing at $9.90 each! By the way, this is not a paid assignment. I’d just like to show you where the 3 cards went.

First, a Thank You card:

Isn’t it gorgeous?

I wrote a message inside and presented it to Dr See:

Yes, the pic’s all blurred but all you need to know is that Dr See, more than just being my awesome Lasik doctor, is also my first interviewee for this blog.

Perhaps, just perhaps, if she had not agreed to be interviewed, I would not have gone ahead with my idea for this blog. So much has transpired since she said “yes”. Look at how many interviews I’ve done so far! Dr See, if you’re reading this, a big THANK YOU once again!

The next card’s for Dad. My Father’s Day card.

Nope. You don’t get to see the contents this time.

The third card is one I was SO tempted to keep for myself! Hahaha

Photoframe card! How creative is that?! But I gave it to a dear friend, Clarence, (who came by for my 114K Sharing) just because he handed in the “homework” early and is a really sweet guy… (Awwww… )

And yes, there’s Clarence with the card:

And guess what, last Friday, I got the opportunity to make a card too! In Stirring Heart’s office, which is amazing! I think scrapbookers would absolutely go crazy in there!

I nearly went crazy too. ‘Cos I really didn’t know where to start. You basically get a blank card, and then add the background piece, the centerpiece, the decorative stuff, etc. Everything made from scratch. I think I took almost 2 hours. ‘Cos everything looked amazing and I basically started trying to put too many things onto one card! Hahaha!

Got the hang of it after a while.

Everything from stamping designs… I wanted a tree:

To coloring it…

And I had to glue everything together…

And ensure some parts of the design had the pop-out effect:

This is the completed card:

Inside the card, I made it known who’s the creator of the card:

And Ereen’s amazingly thoughtful. I don’t know how she came up with this for the envelope:

And here I am with the beautiful boss of Stirring Hearts:

Thanks, Ereen! I had an awesome time You, as well as your team, are amazing! How you guys can make such beautiful cards from scratch is beyond me.

For example, this ROM card for two teachers:

Guess who I’ll ask to make me some ROM cards too (when the time comes!)

Dear readers, IF you EVER find handmade cards on sale too expensive, allow me to say that they are not. So much creative juice, effort and love went into making that card you hold in your hand. When you make one yourself, you will realize why Ereen’s company is stirring hearts with their amazing cards.

Head over to www.StirringHearts.com.sg now.

Interview with Florence Long

Florence Long

Owner, Haute Avenue 

1) Why did you set up Haute Avenue and what do you love most about the work you do?

The business was founded in November 2009. I had a romanticised dream of passing my luxury handbags as heirlooms to my then two-year-old daughter, when she’s ready to tote her own Chanel. When I saw the high prices at local boutiques versus what we were getting from our contacts overseas, I immediately saw a void in the market for discounted luxury handbags. If you ask my husband, he will think the business is my excuse for buying bags to the power of infinity! The thing I love most about my work? It’s the delicious smell of leather in the office. Whenever I feel frazzled at work, all I need is a good sniff inside a Bottega Veneta wallet and I will feel better instantly. (Wow. I know! I should probably see a professional about this.)

2) How do you differentiate your business from the other companies offering similar discounts on branded bags?

Haute Avenue, being the first company to bring into Singapore the guerilla warehouse sale concept for designer handbags since November 2009, has the first-mover advantage of top-of-mind recall when it comes to designer handbag warehouse sales. Not one to rest on our laurels, we are constantly working on enhancing our customer value proposition and improving our touchpoints. Our launching of www.hauteavenue.com in March 2011 to offer a more convenient way for our customers to shop with us was part of our value creation, as well as offering free doorstep delivery within Singapore for all online purchases.

3) What plans are in the pipeline for your company’s expansion/growth? Venturing overseas perhaps?

Having spent two months fine-tuning our online model, we are ready to open our website to shoppers from Asia and Australia by June 2011. As for other expansion plans, we are keeping our cards close to our chest for now. There are some exciting projects we are working on now is all that I can say.

4) Which are your favourite bags? Your biggest splurge item?

My favourite bags? They have to be the Hermes Birkin and Chanel Classic Flap. My biggest splurge is a $21,000 Chanel J12.

5) Do you expect the recent Tin Pei Ling episode will affect Kate Spade bag sales?

Where’s the indemnity clause for answering this question? I can see where this question is steering me to, you sneaky girl! Seriously, I don’t think people will dislike (or like, depending on which camp you are from) the brand by association. The matter of that fact is, Kate Spade is an extremely bold brand that pushes the envelope each time they launch a new collection. Just when you think they’ve outdone themselves in the last season, they will come up with an even wilder (in a good way) collection this season. Who isn’t in love with the brand’s quirky and whimsical designs, not to mention candy colours that beg to be the centerpiece of your look? There is no such thing as bad publicity – in the fashion arena, at least. See what Monica Lewinsky did to the blue Gap dress. More power to Kate Spade, I say!

Grace says: Florence is such a fun person to interview! You can tell from her replies what a cool person she is, right?

Best of all, she has this gift for you: a $10 coupon code. All you need to do is to click through this link to claim the discount: http://on.fb.me/iM57CN  Happy shopping, folks!

Are you new to this blog? Enter your email address in the Subscription field and you get all exciting updates sent to your email inbox. Awesomeness!

Come back soon for the next amazing interview!~

‘How I Found & Persuaded Millionaires To Be Interviewed’ [Sharing Session]

After the amazing success of my first sharing session on ‘How I Made 114K At Age 24′, I’m even more confident to present you with ‘How I Found & Persuaded Millionaires To Be Interviewed’!

You should attend if:

• You want to find out how I managed to interview all these millionaires WITHOUT being a millionaire myself (plus, most of them had not heard of me before)
• You want to learn how to handle rejections, or if you are in a job (or entering one) which potentially handles many customer rejections daily
• You may sometimes have a fear of authority, or those whom you perceive as “high-and-mighty” and don’t know how to approach them
• You have a fear of asking for what you want, fear of being rejected, fear of speaking up in public, fear of just about anything under the sun you can think of
• You want to know how to stay calm and draw from your inner reservoir of strength to be able to ask for what you want, when you want it
• You just want to meet me

Date: 21st June, 2011 (Tuesday)

Venue: United Sq (Novena MRT) Exact dinner place to be confirmed later

Time: 7pm

Fee: $50 (not inclusive of dinner) *Seats are confirmed only upon payment*

The fee will cover a workshop session you’ll attend after dinner to learn about how you can help yourself and others with Hypnotherapy. Banish your fears and worries by constantly being able to access a state of relaxation and calmness.

Very useful for teachers, nurses, counsellors, caregivers, parents, supervisors, just about anyone who experiences stress constantly or are around people who are stressed (or give you stress!) If you are in the profession of helping others, you’ll LOVE the experience and also the courses on offer!

How to register: Email your name and mobile number to gracemg@gmail.com

See you there!

The 114K Sharing Session – June 15, 2011

Yesterday evening, I was extremely blessed to have the company of 5 amazing individuals who all came to hear how I made my 114K last year.

It was a great time of sharing and I’m glad I witnessed their breakthroughs.

If you’re wondering whether you should come by for the next session, here’s what they said:

“I really enjoyed it very much! You should go and talk to Grace. She’s a very passionate, enthusiastic, friendly person. It’s not only about money, it also provides you a good opportunity to realize your potential, your strength & to make them work for you in your life. It’s certainly worth it!” – Hao Xiang, Biomedical Research Assistant

“[The session helped me] be more precise & clear of what I want, [reminded] me of my ‘clear’ goals & how I should be keeping my momentum. It’s a worthwhile sharing session, not to be missed. Come & learn more on how you can excel in life! ” – Samantha, Financial Consultant

“[I got]more value than I expected. So far most people I told this about, they totally want to attend. Unfortunately, today’s session was full (as you wrote on Facebook)” – Mark, Tutor

“[It has] been good & learnt quite a few tips. I like both the personal & public session, the hybrid gives a fresh experience. [Should you attend?] Yes!… it’s a customised experience & saves you lots of detouring on your journey.” – Clarence, NUS undergraduate

“Grace, Thank you for your sharing, you embody a lot of the traits that I encourage my students to have – proactive, do more than expected & walk the talk. Listening to you makes me have to up my game!  - Trina, Trainer

I’d like to thank Hao Xiang, Samantha, Mark, Clarence & Trina for coming by. I have also been encouraged by their courage to share in front of a group, their willingness to learn from me and from each other, as well as for their encouraging & supportive messages.

Honestly, I love smaller sharing sessions as I get to interact a lot more with participants. Each of them walked home with a personalised reply from me with regard to the 3 ‘homework’ questions they received before attending.

Now, for the next session, there’s already a priority waiting list. If you want to get your name on the list, email gracemg@gmail.com and include your name and mobile number. Will send you the confirmed details as soon as I can. *It’s a small group session so book early to avoid disappointment!

See you there!

Very Much In Love

Yes, I’m very much in love with this blog – the work I’ve done, the people I’ve interviewed, and the readers who have loved and commented on the interview posts. Thank you all!

Just to share with you, I’ve just added a new tab to this blog’s homepage – What Interviewees Said.

They’ve said some very nice things so I thought I’d share them with everyone:

All these couldn’t have come about without my blog readers’ support so a big THANK YOU to you for reading. Your comments, encouragement and support have enabled me to go through some pretty trying times.

Sometimes, interviewees just simply refuse (occasionally rudely), while others just take months to get back to me. But for all those who have said “yes” to interviews, and for all of you who have enjoyed reading these interviews, I believe this road less travelled has been absolutely worthwhile. Thank you for sharing this journey with me!

I look forward to bringing you more awesome interviews and I hope to meet every one of you, my blog readers, at one of my sharing sessions or workshops in the near future. If you spot me in Singapore or overseas, do say Hi!

Inspiring You So You Can Inspire Others,

Grace Tan

The Video Expert Who’s Been Helping Me: David Liem

I’d like to honor David for being really professional and extremely helpful. If you’ve seen the video done with the hypnotherapists, David was behind the camera!

And here is a screenshot of him being interviewed on Channel 8 news:

Interested in watching the entire vid? Head over to Youtube. Here’s the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URdO68piOPM

David works at Happy Marketer and if you need Web Marketing, go look for him at www.happymarketer.com

Shooting videos is actually his hobby and I must say, he’s really good at producing videos. You can check out his website at www.daveliem.com or look for him on Facebook (daveliem@gmail.com).

The upcoming awesome videos you’re going to see on this blog are gonna be produced by David.

I’d like to thank him for his help ‘cos I’m a newbie at video interviews. He often has to coach me on what to say and what to do. What would I do without him?!

So, a big THANK YOU, David!

p/s: Enjoy your missions trip to East Timor! I hope it’ll be an even greater blessing for you!

Batam Missions Trip 4th-8th June, 2011 [Possibly the blog post with the most pictures ever]

Last week, I had the privilege of heading over to Batam for my first missions trip ever. I had expected something like a hardship posting, but it was just full of blessings instead.

There were 20 of us from church and we stayed in rooms like this one at Skyview Hotel, Batam:

This room had a cockroach problem. We’d have to stomp on a couple every day. Thankfully, they weren’t too big.

My bed’s kinda messy ‘cos I sat on it before taking a photo. Haha! Must test whether it’s comfy or not!

And here I am with our interpreter’s daughter, Melody. Photo’s taken on the last day so I am visibly tired:

On the very first day, we went to an orphanage:

A small place housing lots of kids. We were quite overwhelmed:

A lot of them are tsunami survivors who lost their parents to the Aceh tsunami. Some are even Negro children who really stood out from the group.

Some kids I taught to make fluffy sheep. We had a fun sheep hunt after that:

We had fun with balloon-making:

Possibly my favourite picture of the lot:

You’ll have to squint a little to see the kids praying (sorry, no flash allowed). It was touching to see even the naughtiest kid be so fervent in prayer.

It was a great time of singing, laughing, learning, praying, and playing.

And this was repeated the next day at another orphanage. However, I was tasked to be one of the Masterchefs for a “banquet” dinner.

With the chief Masterchef:

Here’s some of the food being prepared. “Some” actually refers to 140 chicken wings:

We cooked until the sun set and it got pretty dark. But it was worth it. Here’s the buffet line:

There was rice, mixed veggies, sausages with scrambled eggs, lots of chicken wings and apples! Thoroughly enjoyed dinner with the kids:

They even had a bucket passed around to collect all the chicken bones, which would then be used to feed the dogs they kept. Nothing goes to waste here!

And here’s where I cried the most:

These children were standing at the door of the church to welcome us. See the girl in the pink & purple dress? During ministry time, I prayed for her mother who was crying at the back. We weren’t able to communicate because of the language barrier. Yet, her sorrow was palpable. It reduced me to tears and I cannot explain how it happened. Still, I prayed a prayer of blessing for her. And later, the interpreter told me this woman’s husband was going to jail for some reason, and that day, the woman was incredibly sorrowful (sadder than she had ever felt before). I suppose there was some kind of divine connection that enabled me to feel the depth of her sorrow and it was really nothing like I had ever felt before. I hope you’ll also pray that her family will be reunited soon, as the 2 young children need their parents.

On a lighter note, the children were entranced by some of the “magic” tricks performed by a few members of our group:

It was a lot of fun. There was a lot of jaw-dropping from the kids as they have probably never seen a “magic” trick performed before.

The next day, we went to paint at another church, which was situated in the most ulu of ulu villages.

You can even see some smoke coming out of one of the houses. Here’s the dirt path before we could get to the village:

The church (I’m not allowed to reveal the name) before work was done:

Yes, this is a church. Unbelievable?

And after:

Pretty cool, right?

Here’s a brick wall I helped to paint:

It was initially all brick, and chipped and messy brick at that. And I painted it light pink, all the while perspiring like I was at a sauna.

And inside the church, we painted these:

This little girl lives next to the church:

The little girl kept “sticking” to me and wanted me to carry her. So I was babysitter too!

The trip wasn’t all work. We had fun too. An awesome seafood dinner at Golden Prawn on the last day. Followed by shopping (however limited due to the time) at Nagoya Hill and of course, we had to have:

That’s right! Curly Fries & Root Beer Float! Yummilicious!~

Pastors Jimmy & Belinda who planned the trip (in their free time, they can be Pocky Ambassadors):

 

 

 

It was such a marvellous experience. I got to experience a young child’s clamouring for attention. Like wow, I could mean so much to a kid I had just met. And the church we painted… we were the blessing that the pastor was praying for. He had wanted to spruce up the place a bit but didn’t know where the help or money would come from. Then this team from Singapore comes along and fulfills his wishes. How extraordinary! I learned that when others are looking for a miracle from God, I should be that miracle for them.

During the painting process, I even discovered that if I’m being paid to do a task, I would probably want to weigh the $$ given and effort put in. More $$ = More effort. However, without getting a cent, if I have been ‘called’ to do a task, I’ll do it as best I can, be it sweeping the floor or painting the walls.

One message which came through pretty strongly to the group was that we should Live Simply. However you interpret this, I hope your life will be blessed too.

 

Interview with 3 Certified Hypnotherapists [First Video Interview EVER]

Just last Thursday, I had the opportunity of interviewing 3 Certified Hypnotherapists. You can imagine my excitement at the prospect of meeting them! (I suppose they were stunned at having to appear in my first-ever video interviews though! Haha!) I interviewed them as I wanted to find out how Hypnotherapy can help you, my blog readers.

Here’s my favourite picture:

That’s me & a cute kid. We’re not hypnotherapists!

This adorable kid, affectionately nicknamed “Lele”, is the daughter of one of the Hypnotherapists I interviewed. Besides having the cutest hairdo you can ever find on a kid, she was also the largest Asian baby born at the hospital – naturally and WITHOUT epidural! At birth, she weighed a shocking 4.4kg, which is just slightly lighter than the dumbbells I work out with at the gym! You cannot carry her without significant muscles, ok. I don’t even want to think of giving birth to a baby of that size without epidural. According to Lele’s mother, Nicole, the birth process was fast and relaxed.

That was accomplished with Hypnosis. How cool is that?! Long gone are the days when people try to hypnotize you by swinging a pendulum in front of your face! Now, Hypnotherapy aims to help individuals in a variety of ways, e.g. pain management, weight loss, childbirth, depression, etc.

What I found on ol’ reliable Wikipedia:

“Hypnotherapy has long been used in relation to childbirth. It is sometimes used during pregnancy to prepare a mother for birth, and during childbirth to reduce anxiety, discomfort and pain.”

“Modern hypnotherapy is widely used in the treatment of anxiety, subclinical depression, and certain habit disorders, as well as in the treatment of conditions such as insomnia and addiction.”

Here’s Lele and her beautiful mother, Nicole:

I also had the chance of interviewing Fazdli Jamal & Suparna Kapoor, . Fazdli is in his early twenties but already sought-after for his Hypnotherapy skills. Most notably, he recently helped a client of his who was a cancer patient. The client did not need more than half the chemotherapy sessions that the doctor prescribed after Hypnotherapy sessions with Faz, and recovered fully!

In fact, both Faz and Suparna share their thoughts (even about their own initial doubts) in this awesome video interview we did. It’s a short clip so go ahead and watch it:

Hypnotherapy is far from scary and can help if you are, for example, afraid of public speaking. When you are in what is called an “amnesic” state, it will allow you to temporarily disengage from the fear and perception that you cannot do a certain thing (in this case, it is speaking to a group). When you have a reference for success in an area, it allows you to start focusing on what is possible rather than what is not. Very useful, isn’t it?

If you want to explore a career in helping others, you should definitely consider Hypnotherapy. If you are already a nurse, caregiver or counsellor, learning Hypnotherapy will take your skills to the next level.

Of course, if you are interested in how communication and conditioning can affect human development, (if you are a manager, supervisor, teacher or parent), then you would want to explore and find out more about Hypnotherapy and how it can be of help to you and your charges too.

I did a bit of research to see what public opinion of Hypnotherapy (not often discussed but so very helpful) is like:

Newsweek (Sept ’04): “Hypnosis can help. A growing body of research supports the ancient practice as an effective tool in the treatment of a variety of problems, from anxiety to chronic pain.”

Dr David Spiegel: “…hypnosis is not mind control. It’s a naturally occurring state of concentration; It’s actually a means of enhancing your control over both your mind and your body.”

Forbes (Nov ’05): “[Hypnosis] can also be applied to improving study habits, stress reduction and raising self esteem…If you are having difficulty controlling your appetite, sleeping or just need to relax, hypnosis might help you toward your goal.”

I was very fortunate to have Faz take me through the entire process for relaxation. Last week, I had the missions trip to prepare for and lots of work piling up. But those precious minutes were priceless. I emerged feeling very at peace and also refreshed.

And here we are:

I had a burning question too – Would anyone get “stuck” in hypnosis? Like, being unable to emerge or have someone do something irreversible in their head? Pete Tan, the lead Hypnotherapy Instructor, said that no one has ever gotten stuck in Hypnosis and that the entire process is really voluntary and if you ever find that the Hypnotherapist does not have your best interests at heart, you can emerge immediately. Myth busted!

The 3 awesome Hypnotherapists I interviewed can be contacted via The Pathlight Centre. You can find them at www.pathlightcentre.com.

Also, they are awesomely kind and are extending complimentary (FOC!!) invites to you, my blog readers! Simply SMS Julieh at 9067 0785 for a ticket to their demo session on 21st June.

You will be able to experience first-hand what Hypnosis is, ask as many questions as you want, and receive special deals on the courses. The best part is, Pete will be conducting the demo session so you have to be there.

So, hurry and SMS Julieh (9067 0785) NOW for a free ticket by saying you read this blog post. I believe they have approximately 10 places left so if you want to be able to help people or just want to experience the kind of relaxation I enjoyed, then grab your ticket right now.

See you there!