I didn’t start out as a corporate coach. I trained as a Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapist.
Admittedly, I spent 35 years in the corporate world rising to board level. And working in London, Singapore, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Wellington. I ended up working with Lionel Messi, Neymar, Serena Williams, and Nick Kyriagos amongst others.
Nowadays in my current role, I’m finding that increasingly my clients are from the corporate world, government, civil service, banking, and aviation.
They’re rising and somewhere along the line they’ve become ‘stuck’.
They might be in senior boardroom roles, but if it affects them and their personality then it’s personal.
And it’s no different to treating anyone else.
Consider the following examples:
| Your corporate issue | Cognitive Behavioural Therapy/hypnosis treatment |
| Lonely at the top | Hypnosis - don't worry about it |
| Imposter syndrome (not feeling good enough) | Hypnosis - don't worry about it |
| Afraid to present/public speaking | Hypnosis - visualisation; take away the negative meaning, enjoy it |
| Working too hard | Assertiveness - learning to push back and delegate |
| Feeling bullied | Assertiveness - learning to push back and delegate |
| Am I a good enough leader? | Hypnosis - believe in yourself |
| Learning to be quiet | Hypnosis - relax, listen, don't feel the need to be on broadcast |
| Control issues ("micro-managing") | Hypnosis - let it go |
| Feeling under pressure | Hypnosis - relax, enjoy the process |
Coaching and Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy overlap greatly.
Both are processes that aim to improve performance and focus on the 'here and now’.
Although we can draw on past behaviours and how these arose to get to the core of a problem.
In essence what working with me means:
- Helping you change the way you think and the you direction want to go.
- Supporting you at every step to become who you want to be.
- Building your awareness.
And one of the most common definitions of coaching is:
"It unlocks a person’s potential to maximise their performance. Coaching helps them to learn rather than teaching them”.
Incredibly similar words and actions that belong with Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy.
My ‘unlocking’ is hypnosis to change how you, think feel and act for the better.
‘Maximising performance’ I would describe as letting go of what’s holding you back. When you’re calm you see things for what they are. Self-impositions.
‘Learn rather than teaching’. We call it the therapeutic alliance. You the client trust the process that I suggest to you. We form a partnership.
Also, I’m no expert in your business
I’m no hedge fund manager, banker, transport and logistics specialist, electronic engineer, or head of genetic research.
But what I am is an expert in behaviour change.
Therapy is my way of working with you to take away psychological (stress, anxiety, phobia, fear, addiction, for example), or physical (muscle tension, restless legs, IBS, teeth grinding) conditions.
Performance - being a better version of yourself
So far all I’ve talked about is what you’d call remedial. Giving a remedy for a problem.
But we can work on what we call generative. Get more out of you to reach greater heights.
We can work on helping you achieve your higher personal best to produce the results you want in your professional life.
Typically, I work with department heads, sales managers, entrepreneurs who want to achieve more.
As an aside, it’s not too dissimilar to the work I do for sports people: golfers, ultra runners, motorcar racers and cross-country riders. Relaxing, visualising success and ‘seeing’ what it’s like to achieve. Then fulfilling it.
And who am I a Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapist to call myself a coach?
I don’t really. I use Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy as a way of coaching. That would be a better way to describe it.
It’s my style. We analyse your self-talk. Then through hypnosis, I teach you to be calm and be a better version of yourself.
This is my corporate ‘pitch’.
My company is called The Gentle Mind. Why? Because I believe that when we’re calm we’re a better version of ourselves
I have rooms in Louth and Lincoln.
Contact me at jamesthomas@thegentlemind.co.uk or call 07787563099.
