Inspired Men Talk: Breaking the Stigma of Men's Mental Health

Gary Johannas: Welcome to this episode of Inspired Men talk, and today we're going to be talking about why men are reluctant to use complementary health services. So there's a wide range of complementary health services, so we're going to talk about them. Today there's only three of us, we've got Peter and Ben and myself, I'm Gary, and I'm the founder of Inspired to Change and Mental Health in the Workplace.
And everything I do is about helping people be the very best version of themselves, whether that's one to many or one to one, because we offer both services. So that's who I am. So let's introduce Peter. Peter, who are you?
Hi
Peter Ely: Gary and everybody listening. My name is Peter. I'm a solution focused hypnotherapist.
I have been for just over two years now. I [00:01:00] work with legal professionals to help them with their self care And I also work with people who are struggling with phobias.
We're going to get Ben to introduce himself
Benn Baker Pollard: hi, I'm Ben. So I'm another solution focused therapist, been practicing for, coming Up to probably three years now. Prior to that, used to be a policeman.
So bring a different perspective to the world. Yeah, that's me.

Gary Johannas: So thank you for all joining us today. So I've got a group of questions for you guys, but the first question, because we're talking about complementary health services, really. So it's quite a strange term because I don't think most people, including us, really don't understand what really is complementary.
So I'm going to ask, You guys, what you think complementary health means, what it means to you, and maybe your perspective of it. So who wants to go first?
Peter Ely: None of us. Brilliant. I'll go first. So for me, I think [00:02:00] complimentary health care is something that works alongside traditional health care. So it's working alongside your GP to support your physical and mental wellbeing.
I think from my experience, I was talking about this a little while ago with someone that for me, Physios, that, that kind of, I didn't really acknowledge that it was complimentary. I just kind of saw it as health care, but it is physios. You go there and you kind of help when you had a bad back. But outside of that, I never really recognized before becoming a therapist, what things were as complimentary.
It wasn't something that kind of, Struck my mind, it was always, I would go and see the doctor, and if they referred me to someone, then they kind of, I still saw that as just kind of under the NHS. And it's only since becoming a therapist that I've become more aware of the complementary kind of stuff that's out there.
Gary Johannas: So anything outside what the doctor might refer, just didn't cross your mind really? [00:03:00]
Peter Ely: No, not at all. Not at all. I was, I was very much kind of blinkered into a go to see your doctor. Your GP knows what he's doing. He's going to look after you and direct you. And you know, when I was there, GPs tended to be men.
So apologies to all the female GPs out there. But it was very much, you go and see your GP and they will tell you what you need to do.
Gary Johannas: Fantastic. Thank you. Ben, what's your thoughts around what complimentary is? What's it mean to you?
Benn Baker Pollard: But for me, I think we've got complimentary for me. That's what essentially be where, and non mainstream, option practice, if you like, support the mainstream practice.
So somewhere if, if your client comes to you, and he's also under their GP for something, and We work with them alongside that, that for me is complimentary alternative would be that we're working solely with that client on their own and they're not receiving something from their primary care or the NHS.
Yeah, [00:04:00] so I think there's 2 angles to that. I think there's complimentary when we work together in conjunction with the NHS and then I think alternative would be when we work with private clients and I want to on basis and then not having any additional treatment or we're not supporting them in the bigger picture.
Gary Johannas: Okay. So I see it slightly differently. Everything both of you just said is totally what I would also say. But I, that bit about sometimes people come to see me with anxiety or depression and they're not seeing their GP for it. They maybe have tried that and failed and they're looking to us to see if we can help them.
But we're still complimentary because. If I can help someone with their anxiety or their depression and alleviate those issues for them, they're not needing the extra care of the GP, they don't need their medication necessarily anymore. So it is still supportive and complementary to the primary care, not [00:05:00] necessarily working into conjunction though.
Where I see alternative very much, we're Going to see them because they don't want to go to mainstream medicine. I'm going to do something which is completely not accepted by, in any shape or form by, primary medicine, primary medical care. It's not seen as any value at all, even if it is valuable. but they don't accept it.
Where quite often I work alongside or within the realms of the primary care to help people get better, rather than being against everything from primary care. Almost setting up a, a, a, a, a, a, a, an us and then camp. I don't do that. So that's my thoughts. So, inspired men talk. Why are [00:06:00] men reluctant to use a whole ream of services out there You Which might help them get over the challenges they're going through.
Why are men reluctant
to do that?
Peter Ely: Speaking from my own point of view there, I think before I became a therapist, There was two things. One was knowledge. So I didn't really know what the, what there was out there. You know, it wasn't something that I would research. It wasn't something that I'd look into. It was very much that whole, you've got to kind of keep yourself going.
So you see your GP and you don't, there's nothing else out there. You see GP or nothing was certainly, the view that I started with in life and, and kind of, and, and lived with. And then I think there was something we touched on in previous episodes where it was very much, you had to be strong, you had to [00:07:00] be the person that was kind of holding it all together, so you couldn't, you couldn't seek help or ask for help.
You know, that was somewhat seen as that sign of weakness and I, I remember I had a big incident at work, and, and I kind of, everyone was given access to a psychologist because we had a, a suicide at a place of work and I refused to go and see him because I knew if I did and I, and I then broke down after talking to him, what was everybody else going to do?
Where I was kind of the manager and I was there trying to hold everything together for everybody. So, I think for me, I wouldn't seek that, that complimentary care out. Because I was the person that was supposed to be the strong one. I was the person that was supposed to be able to, to kind of look after everybody else.
My, my views have changed. And
Gary Johannas: But that,
but that, whether that's going to the GP, because you're also [00:08:00] saying I can't even get any help because I'm man, this is taking it a never step further. Even if you were willing to go to the GP, would you go and see a hypnotherapist, would you go for Reiki, would you go for other complementary support services, what are not even referred to, or through the GP, they're just there, Reiki, yoga, you know, things which could help you.
But you'd actually have to go and source yourself.
Peter Ely: Yeah, I think the answer to that would have been no in the past, you know, very much if it wasn't recommended by the GP, then I wasn't searching things out. And even if things came across my, my came across my, my table, as it were, I'd be quite sceptical about them and had that very, had that very skeptical feel about what they are, what they can [00:09:00] do.
You know, I, I worked in security for a long time and, and the, one of the corporate companies used to have a yoga teacher that would come in every day, a Pilates teacher that would come in, they had a Reiki person and I would see them and I would just kind of look and think, yeah, crazy, not, not, don't understand all that nonsense.
And the people that would go into to see them, I'd be thinking that's a bit, it's a bit woo woo is the term.
Gary Johannas: Is that a Peter thing, where you need evidence because that's who you are, or is that a man thing?
Peter Ely: I think potentially it's a little bit of both. Certainly me, I'm very much a, I'd like evidence to support what I'm doing and what I'm seeing.
But I hear that from a lot of men, that, you know, how do I know that this is going to help me? How do I know that this is going to work? What, what can you prove to me? What can you show me that helps
me to understand?
Gary Johannas: I've got another question, but I'm going to go to Ben and ask him why he thinks men don't [00:10:00] adopt a more interesting alternative therapies, complementary therapies, services.
Benn Baker Pollard: I think there's a, there's several layers to this. So I think one of them is probably, the social view, acceptance, however you want to phrase it around, and skepticism around different, different therapies. Or the word therapy, I think that has a big impact, you know, if people talk about it, I think it's a bit, viewed as a weak, weak point or weak spot.
That masculinity comes in and, I've been to therapy and, wow, really? Hmm. We won't invite him to the pub anymore because he's a bit weird, he's he's having an issue or two, and we avoid those people. But I think that's, not just limited to men, I think that's society [00:11:00] overall. And I think there can be, lots of factors involved.
I think that sometimes it's a cultural issue or religious background. I think that's an impact on whether you can seek things or go outside of accepted circles, I think, but I do think whether it's mainstream medicine or complimentary, it's that appearance or, or how you might present people as being weak or unable to deal with your own shit, and not being man enough, et cetera.
But then alongside that, we've got to remember that in the UK, complimentary medicine, you have to fund yourself. I think finance is a really big challenge around it. I think that's it. And particularly at the moment in the current climate, I think that's a massive factor and we, we, you know, the social demographics and the areas that you live and work in class or whatever, if people are struggling to function in a day to day life.[00:12:00]
They're not going to be able to bolt on the additional complementary therapy, from a financial perspective. And I think also, we have to acknowledge that there is a lot of discouragement out there from the medical orthodoxy world. And I think that's another big factor. I think the fact that, you know, I've had it so many times with clients who are on my GP or whoever has said to me it won't work.
Well, how do they know? What do they know about it? What do they know about you to say it won't work? And so I think that creates this mix as well in that, When they're looking for something as an alternative therapy, it creates a lot of skepticism around the price factor, how much it's going to cost them to do this therapy, and then the big question, does this actually work?
And that unknown then ultimately I think paralyzes a lot of people from taking any [00:13:00] further steps to approaching it or finding out about it. Unless they have someone in their social circle. It says, mate, listen, I went to this person. I was struggling. I was feeling depressed. I was feeling suicidal and they sorted me out.
It's absolutely bloody brilliant. You definitely need to go speak to them. That changes that dynamic.
Gary Johannas: So that one person who stepped into that space breaks a lot of the stigma.
Peter Ely: Yeah.
Gary Johannas: Yeah. This is coming back to Peter talked about education. I mean, we know, I mean, I recently visited, an event, and I think Ben, you come along with me, from OCCHO, and who are the UK Confederation of Hypnotherapy Organizations, and they are doing so much work to try and get recognized.
By mainstream medicine. Mainstream medicine recognized hypnotherapy say in 1955 as a genuine complimentary support [00:14:00] network to the work they do.
in 2024 are still trying to get together the evidence which medicine demand of us. to take us seriously. There was people, there were GPs there, there were A& E doctors there, there were people talking about the ambulance service, but they will always go, well I don't know about that, I don't know if it's any good, that complementary stuff, that alternative stuff, and if there's doubt, if the doctors haven't got the absolute rigorous research to support it, they'll just say no.
They don't even, they don't even take a moment to look at it. They'll go, oh, that's not that, that's, that's not right. We don't, we won't go anywhere near that and they won't give us time. Any alternative complimentary therapy. So there is that, but we know that whether it's an osteopath, whether it's a chiropractor, they are still complimentary health [00:15:00] and they get plenty of service.
But then there's, they deal with physical pain. And people go with that, there's a lot of fashionable alternative therapies, alternative ways of dealing with, whether that's the breathing techniques, whether it's ice baths, they're all alternative therapies, which there's no science necessarily behind.
Benn Baker Pollard: And I think that's just not just doctors that impact, I think that impacts the person looking for it, you know, I mean, certainly someone said to me, go and have crystal therapy, like, or maybe not.
Yeah.
Yeah. You know?
I was like, what does a crystal bring for me? Will you prove to me what that crystal can do? And then I'll consider taking it up. But if you can't prove to me, I'm not interested. Because I don't personally believe it does anything for me. So I think that applies across all the complementary therapies.
If we can't prove the efficacy, people go, All jog on. I'm not interested. But if
Gary Johannas: somebody says, I've tried it, it's really helpful. [00:16:00] You're more likely to give it a go.
Benn Baker Pollard: Yeah,
I'm not saying I'd give crystals. I'm going to stick with crystal. I'm not saying I'm going to say I give crystals a go though. Okay.
That's a little bit in my woo woo box, a bit too much out there. If you said go see, you know, someone who does, A talking therapy, where you've got someone that, I've got some more trust and credibility behind that.
Gary Johannas: So I totally agree with that, except I've got this crystal here, which I'm showing you guys, so those on the podcast won't be able to see this.
Benn Baker Pollard: Can we, do we have the option to get him off this podcast? Okay,
Gary Johannas: now that's been given to me by somebody who I trust and believe a lot, and they said it means I know the science behind, from my perspective, is it's actually just a piece of Rock and it might have some goodness. It might not but if I believe it does Then it will have more value because we go into that world of placebo and now even the big big players within the Pharmaceutical world are using placebos [00:17:00] all the time.
So it's about belief. So those complementary medicines whether it's crystal medicine whether it's hypnotherapy If we believe they're going to be of value to us, then they're going to be a value to us But we're still going to talk about this from a men's mental health perspective. And whether that's yoga, whether that's Reiki, whether it's crystal healing, whether it's hypnotherapy, whether it's any of those things, men can do it.
tend to be reluctant. So is the, well you've got to prove it works for me, prove the science to me, just a fob off? If it, if it's us just going, well, I'm, I don't know, is, is, is it going to weaken me? Is it going to make me look more vulnerable as a man? So I'm going to throw out there, give me more evidence so I can back off of it?
I'm going to fob you off. So is there a reluctance to bringing that in?
Benn Baker Pollard: Well, I mean, I think that is, I'm trying not [00:18:00] to, come across as to,
Gary Johannas: Well, you're a solution focused hypnotherapist.
Benn Baker Pollard: Yeah,
I am.
Gary Johannas: You're offering one of these services, which you're talking about crystals, not necessarily floating your boat, because there's not enough evidence.
We get the same set about what we do as many people, and we can back it up with evidence. We can back it up.
Benn Baker Pollard: I gonna say that's the difference. I
can, I can turn around and I can document the efficacy of what we do in, in research terms, and, and demonstrate the effectiveness of how we work. Plus, you know, we work on a basis of neuroscience.
We under, that's a big, a big difference than saying, hold my crystal and feel my energy and it's gonna heal you. Yeah, you know, and also image is a big part of this. I, you know, I've just got this image of all these burly builders turning up to the building yard in their vans with crystals on their dashboard.
Image is huge. Is that going to work? No, it's not.
Gary Johannas: How do we get those big burly builders or those very cynical scientists or whatever to look at complementary? So it's now, there's an alternative Which crystals fit into which means there's no real evidence But we've got a [00:19:00] lot of support for it because of the people who find it Supportive, but then we've got complimentary karma practice.
They do a lot of work We've got osteopaths who but they're dealing with physical pain. And actually if you're in physical pain, you'll do anything To secure that release of that pain.
Benn Baker Pollard: I'm sorry if my brain's gone off on a tangent. I've got visualizations of crystal, crystal encrusted gardening tools now and different shit in my brain and I've lost the plot a little bit.
Gary Johannas: I'm going to move on to Peter. Peter quick save us from Ben and his crystal encrusted gardening tools. Complimentary, rather than alternative, because this is getting men, so we can go far left, it's almost political, we can go right to the left and go very spiritual, very woo woo we might say, even if it's not, or we can go very much right.
pure science. [00:20:00] If you can't give me reams and reams of metadata, I'm not even looking at it, if it's not logical, which is too far right for some people. It's just, we just can't give that evidence on most drugs, most chemicals, most things what doctors prescribe. So how do we get more main. go into osteopaths, go into hypnotherapy, go into things which are complimentary to them, which is going to help them through those challenging times without feeling undervalued, feeling like they're feminine.
I know that 70 percent of the average will come to see therapist are
women.
Peter Ely: So you mentioned the word there, you mentioned the word feminine, which I think is, is a really important thing. So when I was thinking about it, when I say You know, I wanted to stay strong. I didn't want to seem weak. And [00:21:00] I think that was because my perception of therapy was kind of the one where you get people crying and into a tissue and, you know, you're blowing your nose and going, Oh, thank you, doctor.
While you've got tears streaming down your face and snot coming out of your nose. And as a man, that kind of really turned me off wanting to talk about my issues. Why? Because I didn't want to feel that way. I didn't want to seem like that weak person. So big boys don't cry. Yeah. It's, you know, one of the, one of the, I remember my uncle said to me, one of the worst insults he ever got was someone called him weak.
And I think that's a very common thing for men is they don't want to be perceived as weak. And yet therapy, when doing therapy, we get this or certainly I did, I had this perception that it was going to leave me in tears. It was going to leave me. you know, feeling like I was broken, feeling like I wasn't a real, a real man.
I wasn't [00:22:00] kind of the strong person that I'd been raised to be. But what I've found and what I love about the whole solution focused method is that we don't do that. We don't have, because we're not having to kind of go back in and live that past experience. We, you don't have people crying in your sessions, you know, even when they're talking about things that might be quite personal and quite difficult.
You're talking to me about them in such a way that actually you're able to laugh at them. You're able to smile and kind of have a meaningful conversation. A conversational. Yeah. an intellectual conversation that's helping you to move forward with yourself and your life. So I've, I've never had to give a tissue to a client because they were crying.
Gary Johannas: So before we started the podcast, we were talking briefly about what is complimentary and you [00:23:00] mentioned martial arts. Yes. So I didn't ever see that as a complementary health service. I've been doing this a long time, and I still never saw martial arts as part of our complementary health service. But you did.
Peter Ely: Yeah. So I studied, I studied, Wing Chun for about four or five years and you get into a really nice head space. You're doing katas, you're, you're doing gentle movements. And even when you're, you're fighting, cause with Wing Chun you fight on a table, you don't think about fighting. Your head space is somewhere else.
Because it's, it's all about feeling and feeling what's going on in your body and feeling what's going on around you. And for that, that time of my life, nothing fazed me. There was never, I never had any problems. Physically I was good, but
mentally I was really good.
Gary Johannas: But there's no difference between that feeling then, then working things out through having hypnotherapy, or maybe even having other complementary services.
Why was that more [00:24:00] acceptable to you, who sees weakness as a problem, or then you did?
Peter Ely: Yeah, I, I guess at the time I probably didn't perceive it as complementary therapy as well, but I think it had to be.
Gary Johannas: Why not? It was, it was martial arts, right? It was seen as, it was seen as martial arts. It's self defense.
Benn Baker Pollard: Oh, a hobby.
Peter Ely: And a hobby, yeah. That's a great point, Ben. And a hobby. Yeah. And so it, it wasn't kind of, I wasn't going for my mental health. I was going probably more for my physical health. To kind of think about getting stronger and fitter and looking after myself. Ballet, ballet can do that for you as well.
I would never have done
Gary Johannas: ballet
Peter Ely: dancing.
Benn Baker Pollard: I would, I
Gary Johannas: did ballet. Probably not, Christopher's not on the call today, but I can guarantee you, I know he did ballet. But why not Peter?
Peter Ely: I think you, you said the two words. They have feminine energy and masculine energy and, and growing up when I did and, and in through the seventies and eighties.
I wanted to [00:25:00] do things that had masculine energy as opposed to feminine energy. Yeah.
Gary Johannas: So, so I think some of the stigma lays around whether it's a girl's thing or a boy's thing. And that's rubbish, but you go back to, I did martial arts, it was a combat sport, how many women, and my son, other son runs martial arts, I know Ben done some martial arts, Peter's done some martial arts, but whether that's rugby or football or boxing.
There are men's things, so you don't see it as weak. Yes, you're getting the spiritual benefit, but actually I'm here to fight. People go to complementary health where they get osteopaths, they go to chiropractors, you know, they even maybe even allow a little bit of, what's the needle thing? Acupuncture.
Acupuncture's gone on my mind, because that's a little bit more masculine. You have to be a little bit tougher. [00:26:00] You're dealing with pain. But they won't go to Pilates, yoga, anything spiritual, maybe even talk therapy where they're having to talk about their emotions. So they're non emotional things. You're not using your emotion in fighting.
In fact, you're being stoic. In a lot of the martial arts you're having to be non emotional. Osteopaths are dealing with pain. Chiropractors dealing with pain. Non emotional. Although talking to them they'll tell you a lot of the pain comes from emotional ways. But when you're going to a lot of the other things, you're having to put vulnerability on the line.
And most people see, unfortunately, most people see vulnerability, most men see vulnerability as weakness.
Yes, I would agree with that 100 percent and say certainly pre being a therapist, that was my view on it.
But women tend to be [00:27:00] wearing vulnerability a lot more comfortably than men. So they go to the alternative, complimentary services to help themselves when men see it as a weakness still.
Ben, can I, what's your view on that?
Benn Baker Pollard: I think, look, I think your, your your belief system is a big part of this, isn't it? Your upbringing is a big part of it. And if it conflicts with, Your beliefs, your values that you have in life, it doesn't matter how much someone tells it to you, it's going to take a lot for you to accept or do it.
You know, and it, like, like me and Crystals, it goes against, My intuition and then I'm just like, Oh, maybe perhaps I am missing something. And I get the idea that energy is never lost. Energy just changes shapes and things have energy and all. And there's lots around that. I understand that, but it goes, that idea of sitting there and doing something with crystals goes against what I was brought up with in terms of my belief system and my values.
And I look at it and go, that's [00:28:00] bollocks.
But
yeah, And it would take a lot for someone to convince me and change that. And I think that's the same for the therapies and things out there. If you're brought up in that, male dominant, masculine world, or, or like your, your dad or whoever your parents are, or big influences in your life, and they view that stuff, has been too out there or too feminine or too bollocks, whatever you want to look at, then you adopt that and it takes a lot to change that for you.
Gary Johannas: It's very interesting because if I go back to the 70s, and even the 80s, and if you look at a lot of films of the 70s and 80s, somebody who is into any level of Alternative stuff, whether that was Reiki, whether that was chanting, whether that was this spiritual stuff or that spiritual stuff or, or [00:29:00] therapy.
They were mostly hippies. They were dressed alternatively. So when we saw it on the TV, it was always somebody who is either very effeminate. Or very, we were very hippie like new age. So, you know, you couldn't look at the moon unless you had the whole thing going on. So if you was a, you know, a normal person with a work suit or a builder or something like that, you didn't fit.
You had to be, you know, Alternative in your lifestyle. You had to be a vegetarian or a vegan to be able to fit in with that. So that massively influenced because you had to, it was almost seen as, if you wasn't into tree hugging. You couldn't be into anything else.
Benn Baker Pollard: And I get the irony, right? I'm sat here as a complementary therapist saying I can't get into one of those complementary things.
But the reality is, it [00:30:00] was demonstrated to me, scientifically, that what I now practice does do something.
Gary Johannas: Yes.
Benn Baker Pollard: In terms, it was done on a screen with a brain scanner, and you can see the actual shift and change in someone's brain activity when you implement hypnotherapy. Yes. that's sort of just that to me, that's my mindset.
This is how I work. I work on fact, prove it to me. Hat another complimentary therapy, and I'm not going to say it again because I'm avoiding it. No, not any complimentary therapy. Another complimentary therapy out there actually does something for you, and I'll buy into it every single day of the week.
Gary Johannas: Okay. That's
Benn Baker Pollard: the issue, I think, for, for barriers and people going to get them, is We don't, we don't, we don't make that readily accessible. You can't, you know, throw out there to the world. I know we're trying to communicate that message in terms of what we do and put videos out there to demonstrate how it works and, and, and prove that scientifically.
But it's not there like orthodox world is that if you want to look something up or we've, or [00:31:00] society has invested this cultural belief and acceptance that what doctors say Is basically gospel and it works and then the signs comes in to back that up if you want to dig a bit deeper reality being though, if we look at that science there's more, there's often arguments for and arguments against and we're just doing on a society based level that society overall believes doctors know exactly what they're doing, and we should believe what they say and the treatments that are available out there.
So it. We can't, we don't have that same level of proof in the complementary world, which, and plus that orthodoxy world don't believe in it either sometimes, and often promote that in the negative light, we end up on this downward slant.
Gary Johannas: But belief, I think, ultimately sits in there. So right now it's August 2024, so if you're watching this on catch up, don't press record it's August 2024, we're right in the middle of the Olympics, okay?
How many Olympians who are doing heats will be having an ice [00:32:00] bath between their times when they're competing? How much science is there whether an ice bath actually helps performance? There's none. No genuine proper research, and if there is proof that it works, there's enough proof that it doesn't work from other research.
However, the, the sports person believes it's going to help them recover quicker and therefore improve their performance.
Benn Baker Pollard: I think that the operative word in that, if you, if you look up something like the efficacy of ice baths, is, the optimum word is may. May. So it may not. Yeah, exactly. They can't actually say it will, it's may reduce.
Peter Ely: And that comes back to the old magic sponge on the [00:33:00] football field, doesn't it? It
Benn Baker Pollard: does, yeah,
Peter Ely: yeah.
Benn Baker Pollard: A paper towel at school, how amazing. The power in a wet paper towel at school. Phenomenal healing powers they have.
Gary Johannas: Yeah, so we do a bit, the challenge we've got we're going to wrap this up very shortly, but the challenge we've got is.
With Men's mental health, I deliver Bay new lecture with us. I deliver H Tail. Be training if you wanna become a hypnotherapist, a solution focused hypnotherapist. We've got schools all over the place and I deliver a lot of training to people who want to become full-time or part-time hypnotherapist. And 90 percent of people who I teach, and I've been teaching it for probably over 80 courses over six or seven or eight years, God is times flown by, most of them, probably 80%, maybe even 90 percent of the students I've taught have been women, even men who want to become therapists like us for And Christopher, five, we're still the minority within our industry because the majority of people who come for therapy are also women.[00:34:00]
We need to change that because we can really help men stop being the worst of themselves and we're still, we can stop men taking their own lives.
Benn Baker Pollard: I think another factor in all of this. It's as well, we've got people out there who, who abuse the vulnerability or the acceptance of people. And because, because there is no governance, there's no per se that regulation around stuff, there's always people who are going to be here to make a quick buck.
And exploit people for, who come to them for that and I think, you know, the medical NHS world, yes, we've got, in any organisation in the world, there's going to be cases where bad things have happened, where people abuse their positions, but the reality is compared to us and, and that world is, that's like the, the mainstream governing body that's planted in society.
is funded free and that's where everybody goes for your illnesses and things like that. When you come to our world, we've got a [00:35:00] lot of charlatans out there who portray themselves as doctors or people of this or people of that, rob people of their money and don't help them in any Yeah. And therefore that adds another taint.
On people who are looking to explore this and they're, you know, there's a part of that as well, whereas this is just a bit of a scam.
Gary Johannas: Does that make it easier for the average man to go, yeah, there's a lot of scams out there, I won't do it. It's just another excuse we can lay on top of any other excuse because I'm still vulnerable about showing any weakness.
I don't want to be seen as not capable. So when somebody gives me an absolute golden ticket to getting better, I can go, oh yeah, but I've heard people can be, you know, ripped off going to that. So I [00:36:00] won't do it.
Benn Baker Pollard: How many times have you been in the pub where you've heard someone get berated for doing something like that?
And they all make the saw you coming from a mile away, didn't they? You know, you get the piss taken out of you because of it. And it's like, well, and it's good. And other people look at it and go, nah, that's bullshit.
Gary Johannas: Okay. Let me ask you a straightforward question then Ben and I'm going to ask Peter the same question and I'll tell you my experience.
When you said. What did you say, Justine? Don't ask any straightforward questions. When you decided to train, you were a servant police officer of a high rank, and you said, I'm going to train as a hypnotherapist. How did people react to you?
Benn Baker Pollard: Mixed. So a lot of people are like, are you being serious? And like, that's bullshit.
And then a lot of people are like, you know, the usual, Ooh, look in my eyes, not around the eyes. I'm going to control everyone. And some people were like, Oh, that's interesting. Why hypnotherapy? Why hypnotherapy?
And the reality to that, you know, is that actually, hypnotherapy, I picked, well, solution focused hypnotherapy in particular, because I saw correlation between [00:37:00] some, a little bit of a course I did around positive psychology and understanding some elements of that, and I saw correlation in the solution focused world, and I was like, what is this about?
Well, I'm not gonna lie. I came to the day one of my training course that was with you and Ali and, and Claire and I was sat there going, is this bollocks or is it not? Am I embarking on a bit of a woo woo journey here or not? And I was waiting to be proven, well for it to be proved to me that this actually had something behind it.
And that was delivered scientifically, which I didn't know about, I wasn't expecting, but strapping a brain scanner onto someone and then demonstrating it, Maybe sit back and go.
Gary Johannas: Yeah. Okay, cool.
Benn Baker Pollard: I understand. I get this but we still see to this day And you guys will have all experienced that when you say the word hypnotherapy [00:38:00] There are some people where it's like, oh you just press my ick button and I've just gone
inside
Gary Johannas: what's that?
ick button if people feel like that they feel like that I have a problem with When I first trained and I trained 13 years ago, but also I come from, I mean, you come from a very strong male industry as well. I think being in the place, but I come from, everybody knew me. I come from nightclubs and bars and restaurants and everybody knew that.
I'm quite a direct type of character, you know, I'll front anything up and I'm going actually, I'm going to train as a therapist. I hit the therapist. I literally had people laugh in my face. I can remember it to this moment. People just. Laughed in my face, one that I could be a therapist, I think, and two what you're doing, what, what sort of rubbish and it was all men and some women, but mostly men who just, and then all of those men, including the guys who laughed in my [00:39:00] face later become clients of mine.
Benn Baker Pollard: Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. A lot of people I worked with became my clients afterwards.
Gary Johannas: Because if I could do it, and then they saw the results I was getting, if I could do it, they were the ones who would text me on the sly going, Jesley, I've got a problem. Can you help me with this?
Peter Ely: Yes.
Gary Johannas: So the education, and I was very good at telling people exactly what I did.
Peter, what was your experiences?
Peter Ely: So, I actually had the fear of that. And didn't tell anybody. Right. So I, I did the course kind of surreptitiously and it was only once I found out the science, once I kind of realized there was so much positive in it that I then started to talk to people about it and because at that point I was able to explain.
The science behind it. It wasn't as bad. Now. I still get the stuff when you meet new people and they do the don't look in your eyes and yeah, they do all of that stuff. You'll always get that. I used to get it when I did stand [00:40:00] up. People would always go tell me a joke, right? You'll always get those. Yeah, they just don't quite know what to say to you.
But I think something you said just really resonated with me, Gary, where you said, you know, when, how it was portrayed. It was new age and it was all or nothing. You couldn't be a masculine man that was a therapist. You couldn't be a meat eater that was a therapist. You were a vegetarian tree hugging hippie that then did therapy.
And that was how it was portrayed. And that, I never realized that before until you said it there.
Gary Johannas: I never
knew it was true. I don't know if that was
true. But that's the way it was portrayed.
Yes. Yes. 100%.
Benn Baker Pollard: That's interesting though, because when you say therapy to me, like, I get the 63 hugging bit. I think of, like, the kind of librarian guy.
Frasier. Yeah, do you know, like, the, the, the academic, who's, who's quite well educated. Psychiatry,
Gary Johannas: you're [00:41:00] thinking.
Benn Baker Pollard: Yeah, yeah, but when you say that for therapists, that's where my mind goes. As opposed to the tree huggy type. Unless you said to me we were going to bang some gongs and wave some smoke around.
We're going to
Gary Johannas: talk about, we're going to talk about complementary therapy. What comes to mind then?
Benn Baker Pollard: I think still, It's a little bit more,
my brain defaults, I'm not gonna lie, my brain defaults to homeopathy. When
you say
therapy, and I think the, the, probably because the big influence when I was younger was one of my friends, her mom was a homeopath. Mm-Hmm. . And now that does fit into the hippie category 'cause they very much lived their life.
With like knit wool wool handmade wool jumpers and yeah, like colors and things
Gary Johannas: They and I think that was a thing because you're right because you either were that hippie type Which Peter just say that wow, that's a or you was Freudian Yeah, where you'd sit there and you know Lay on a couch [00:42:00] and talk and that's what most men think when you show arm hypotherapy such a talk therapy They think you're gonna lay him on a couch and you know, tell him play word association games You know, so you can see things about their childhood and life and we never go backwards, as you know, but you can see why it's quite terrifying to most people to.
Think what comes to mind is either laying on a couch and Freud talking to you, or you're gonna have to knit your own jumper out of yogurt
Peter Ely: Yeah,
Gary Johannas: and and that's the problem Because none of that's true. I'm sitting here as a therapist who We'll happily stand in a pub and talk to you. I, you know, Ben will happily stand in uniform on, you know, be your job, your stand on the stage.
We've got nothing to do with the [00:43:00] stereotypes. And we all do the same job as what we're saying. What comes to mind is this or the other, because the press have done all the educating. Media have done all of the educating and unfortunately then the very few people who have gone out and made a different a new age travelers we used to have and that the press the news that only focused on that element.
Yeah,
Benn Baker Pollard: yeah. And I think, you know, like, I can see your background, Gary. You can see your therapy room. Come and sit and have a cup of tea. Yeah. You know, yeah, we do a bit of talking, but it's not like you think it's gonna be. Yeah. You know, we don't need to go back through it all. We don't need to dig up All the past and all the rest of it, your childhood and God knows whatever, we just actually know what's the problem for you now, what you're having difficulty with.
Okay, where would you like to get to?
Gary Johannas: Okay, [00:44:00] Ben, what one thing if some one blokes listening to this podcast who are going, Oh, okay, that sounds. different to us. How can you reach in and speak to one person give them something to go that's worth looking at whether it's come to see us or anybody else in the world to not be frightened or tainted by the stigma and not do a course and not tell anyone like Peter did or get laughed in the face when you're brave enough to tell someone and then realize you wish you'd never actually said which I was just going to reaching out for some help What tip can you give them?
Benn Baker Pollard: Oh, well, I can say if you want to, you know, if you want to come down and have a chat, like you're having a chat in the pub with your mates, to help deal with whatever's going on, then come and speak to me
because
that's literally how I work. You know, it's like coming down the pub and having a chat.
Gary Johannas: And all the people I've ever known, well I've [00:45:00] trained and you, work in the same way.
I don't know
Benn Baker Pollard: if you'll be able to see it, but look, like, for those of the other nine, come and sit in the chair and have a chat like we're down the pub and we'll have a cup of tea. We can't have a beer because it's, you know, that's not like ethically right. But when you're doing therapy, I can't give you that.
But it's no different to that opportunity to talk freely, openly, or have a laugh about life. Thank you. Rather than be depressed and negative.
Gary Johannas: So you've not got a therapist couch you're going to make me lay down and No. Okay. Peter, what would you say to someone who is out there, just wishing they had the confidence to reach out and try something, which might help them?
Peter Ely: Yeah, one, one of my very first reviews was from, a male client who came to see me. And he said That the first consultation, that free consultation that we all give is it, it was just a chance for him to just talk and get a few things off his chest [00:46:00] and that made a massive difference for him. So just to get, get, if you've got something that's stuck on your chest, that's making you feel that way, all three of us, we all do free consultations.
You can come along and just have that conversation to get that thing off your chest. And then we can explain how hypnotherapy helps.
Gary Johannas: Okay. So, absolutely agree with what both of you have said. I also think that it's important for you to be really open minded. So, we do solution focused hypnotherapy. We've talked about that a lot.
Well, we never revisit the past. So, even if there's something on your chest, we won't want any details. You might talk about the headline, but you never, ever have to delve into the past. But actually, whether that's just going for walk or Going to see a chiropractor or any complimentary therapy, really, it's about being open minded and not listening to the [00:47:00] words of the people who don't actually know, because I find there are so many people who talk about stuff.
They've never witnessed or been, but they've got an opinion on it. And so I think, for me, don't listen to opinions. Go and find out. Just go and have a look. And actually, there's a thousand different types of therapies and complementary and alternative styles. Find the one that fits you. Try them all. Just go and have a dip his toe in and go, oh look, you know, Ben come on our courses, he just said, and sat there waiting to be proved right.
And when he was, he stayed. If it hadn't been proved right, no doubt about it, he would have got up and left. So just go and have a look at, try whichever one comes along, and be open minded about it, and go, how did that make me feel? Because I think we just need to be more [00:48:00] open about how we approach everything.
Because as men, we can be very single minded, very single, single lanes rather than seeing the whole world. So, for me, get out there and have a go. Have a look. Because there's always something that's going to fit you. So, for me, I think we can call. Close to the, our little chat and end the podcast. So I'd like to say thank you to everybody who's listened.
And if you want to find out any more, just reach out to us, but we'd love you to subscribe to the channel because we do really interesting podcast every day. We'd love you to subscribe. We'd love you to comment. We've got this on YouTube now. We've got it on. All the different platforms you can use for listening to podcasts, but look at us on YouTube.
You'll even see how ugly we are. And we've got a face for podcasts rather than YouTube, but we'll [00:49:00] try it. And just keep listening and pass it on, share, share, share, because there's always people who might need to hear this. So thank you for me. I'm Gary guys. Thank you very much for me, Peter. Have a lovely day.
Benn Baker Pollard: Yeah. Thanks for me, Ben. And look, anyone who's into crystals, it's nothing personal.
Gary Johannas: Yeah, absolutely. It was just something we used as obviously somewhat we could use as a foil, but, if it works for you, it works for you. Thank you very much for an inspired men talk. Bye bye.