Grant Saunders & Paul Ramsay talk funny skits, hypnosis and general chit chat Paul is a very popular stage hypnotist in America and has a great concept called mind games
Book suggestions:
The New Encyclopedia of Stage hypnotism https://amzn.to/3cDji7L
Think and Grow Rich! https://amzn.to/2BInPsV
The magic of thinking BIG https://amzn.to/2Mxc4Yg
Paul Ramsay & Grant Saunders talk funny hypnosis bits
Grant Saunders 00:10
So, hopefully, you can all hear me each week I also have a different technical issue that I have to deal with. This week we have the amazing Paul Ramsay and I met Paul, a couple of years ago in Vegas and an absolutely great guy. We’re going to talk about how things are over in the States. But about Paul’s history and how he became to be a stage hypnotist. So general chitchat and talk about how he’s hijacked our good English language and changed into something crazy that means different things. Paul has a great concept about stage hypnosis. I saw Paul talk and demonstrate this in Vegas a couple of years ago, I remember leaving that seminar thinking that’s a concept that I need to steal and bring to the UK and get all the credit for it but I didn’t do that. But Paul will go through that in a bit. So first things first. Without further ado, let me introduce to you stage hypnotist extraordinaire Paul Ramsey.
Paul Ramsay 01:08
Everybody, thanks so much for having me here. (Cross talking)
Grant Saunders 01:20
We don’t have sound. Oh, no. Let me one second Paul. Let me just refresh it. If you can just come back in. That would be fine. You can hear me.
Paul Ramsay 01:28
Yeah.
Grant Saunders 01:29
Yes. We can’t hear you. I’m going to bring you out and then refresh. I know. There’s always something last week. It was me. There we go. I’m going to bring you out if you can click the link and come back in. So while Paul figures out how to click the link and come back in touch a few more seconds about Paul. Paul’s got great energy and does a lot of stuff in the States and he’s also got a great thing. Oh, it’s here now. Hey, I can hear you now.
Paul Ramsay 01:56
You can hear me now?
Grant Saunders 01:57
I can hear you now.
Paul Ramsay 02:00
Technology is our friend.
Grant Saunders 02:02
Yeah. According to Lanna, she says she could hear you. But I couldn’t. But the way I see it is I’m the man with (Cross talking) one week ago, a fight now, when it comes to going live and streaming and stuff like that. You’re probably one of the foremost guys doing that at the moment. I mean, you’re going live every day.
Paul Ramsay 02:29
I am going live every day.
Grant Saunders 02:31
Be the naked truth.
Paul Ramsay 02:34
Yeah. My show with a Yfat Monday through Friday. Plus, I’ve got some other stuff here and there. But I’ve been really focused mostly on that and some other projects outside of the stage world. But yeah, it’s I like doing it. I enjoy it. It’s fun.
Grant Saunders 02:47
Yeah, I must admit it’s a lot of people with what’s happened. A lot of people have pivoted and gone online and what you find and probably people think this about watching this show, you find out week one, all the friends and people watch, and it’s cool and then week two comes along, and like the numbers are down and then week three, no one can be bothered anymore.
Paul Ramsay 03:12
Everyone wants a distraction, right? They’ll try to
Grant Saunders 03:17
I mUst admit your lives is something I try and catch every day. It’s great content and delivered really well. The chemistry between you two is absolutely fabulous. So everyone gets a chance to check out Paul socials, I’ll just put the link to it there. That’s bethenakedtruth.com I must admit, when I first saw the URL, I thought it was going to be something else.
Paul Ramsay 03:43
This common language and yet it’s not as common as you might think you told me that we would go on it 310 because first, you had to go give the clap to the health workers. And in America, if you get the clap that’s getting chlamydia. And I was like, I don’t know what you’re up to Grant, but I don’t think that’s gonna help them any.
Grant Saunders 04:02
No, I don’t know. He said I must admit that. We do. It was an old reference. But we used to do that. But here in the UK, every week, we applaud the NHS in the keyworkers. for doing such a wonderful job, it’s a great way socially, that if we clap for them, our government doesn’t have to give them any more money.
Paul Ramsay 04:20
Much, much better than what I thought you were doing. And that’s good. Okay.
Grant Saunders 04:26
I don’t have the energy or the time you know, if anybody’s watching that’s a nurse or works for the NHS, you know, I’m open to offers. So, I mean, this shows probably about stage hypnosis and the like and hypnotist as such. First, he says, how long have you been a stage hypnotist? And what was your first experience? What kind of made you go I want to do that?
Paul Ramsay 04:51
Ah, well, it’s that’s funny that you so I can’t answer it quite the way the question is for me, but I can’t answer it. So my first experience was when I was in my 11th year of school, my junior year of high school in America. We had a stage hypnotist come in and do a show as a fundraiser for our national honour society. But when I saw it, I thought it was cool. But it didn’t even enter my mind for an instant that I would end up doing that job. It was not. I gave it no consideration at all. I thought it was cool and then my first year at university, in my dormitory, we had a guy come in and do a little show right in our Main Lounge. And my mother, the lady who ran my dormitory, she brought him every year. So I saw him four years in a row at university, and I still never thought of doing it. And it didn’t seem like a real option for me. I was like, oh, that’s cool. That’s whatever. So that’s five times I saw a live stage hypnotism without a live demonstration of hypnotism without ever doing it right. Then I got out of university, I went and I taught I was an English teacher, a secondary school. So I went, I taught a 10th grade English. For a while that I went, I got out of that I went back to the university that I had attended, and I worked there running a dormitory. So I hired that guy and brought him in to do it as a social program for my students, and the third year, so now you’re up to have seen seven different instances of demonstrations hypnotist the third year, I was hanging out with him after he got done, the students had left we were hanging out and talking. And he told me a story about he had only done, he had never had a paid stage show. In his 18 years of his career as a hypnotist, he had only done demonstrations to draw leads for client work and so now he was retired. And he did it just for something to do and make a little pocket money. And he still he would only he do these demonstrations to tell the students about, okay, this is fun, but think about this. And he talked about how they could really use it to make their life better. So we were talking about that. And he told me this story about an interesting client that he had at one point. And I said, Man, that’s cool. I’d love to learn how to do that. And he immediately He’s like, I’ll teach you. And I was like, what? I didn’t think you’d go that you know, like he was I teach you I think you’d be really good at it. I put him off for an entire year. I was like, yeah, that’s cool. Let me think about it. The next year, he came in again; I knew I was getting to the end of that job. And I was like, so is that offer still good? And he was like, Yeah, he goes, I really think you’d be good at it. So I started meeting with him. His name was Bob Chase. I don’t even know he’s an older gentleman. So I don’t even know if he’s still with us anymore. I hope he is. I should follow up with him. I talked with him a couple of years ago, but I haven’t talked to them in a couple of years. He taught me the basics.
I started practising with my students, I sent out an email to my whole dormitory and said, I’m working on learning hypnotism if you want to know what it’s like, come on down and it was like a revolving door like they’re in on the couch in on the couch. And mostly they come in and say I had a stressful day, can I just do some hypnosis for a little bit. And we do it just for stress relief. But that showed me how quick it could be how effective it could be how they would get relief immediately from doing that. And I was literally getting to the end of my I was like, I can’t keep doing this job. I had finished my next degree, which was supposed to be for teaching and I knew I didn’t want to go back to teaching. I was lying in bed Grant one night and I just was like, What am I going to do like, now I have two degrees to be a teacher and I don’t want to be a teacher anymore. Like I’m not going to go to college all over again for the third time and so all of a sudden, I just dislike let’s say I’d like having a light bulb moment. It really was it was like, I was like, you could be an entertainer and you can help people the way these other jobs you’ve been doing because you wanted to help people work. You could do it all within one job and so I was like, Yes and so I when I got certified, and that was 2004 and I immediately when I got done my contract here at the university, I knew that if I kept my day job, I wouldn’t take the hypnotism job seriously. Yes, like quit the day job. And I went fully into hypnotism and so that’s 16 years ago, so 16 years later, here I am.
Grant Saunders 09:23
It’s I mean it’s so weird the difference in the experience between the UK market and the American market, because you guys have always had a really great relationship with stage hypnosis. You perform in high schools. It is a very it seems very positive thing unfortunately in the UK in the 90s we kind of had some stuff happen and it got a really bad rep. And now you talk to people about stage hypnosis and it is still very much like oh no, it’s creepy. It’s weird. It’s you know, it does get a bad rap here.
Paul Ramsay 09:56
So what I do though, Grant, we get there, we get I get people every show who will say something like that before the show?
Grant Saunders 10:03
Yeah. Oh, I mean, yeah, the mysticism and some of that stuff. I think that helps what we do and but I mean, I can work audiences now and they don’t know what stage hypnotist is, you know, who’s ever seen the stage hypnotist, or I’ve seen Darren brown on TV, you know, they’ve got no point of reference and what that is, I mean, you try and explain that can face some challenges sometimes. So it would be nice if we could kind of, you know, get that get them early and show them how much fun stage hypnosis can be.
Paul Ramsay 10:31
We’re so focused on being entertained here. It’s so pervasive that it is we’ve gotten to sort of a luxurious point in our history of stage hypnotism in America where, you know, it used to be cruise ships, independent theatres, you know, colleges. Now, it’s a standard form of entertainment for like, secondary school, like, when they have their prom, you know, they after-prom party, and they’ll have it at that, or when they graduate, they’ll have an after-graduation party, and they’ll have it at that like, you know, we’ll do fundraiser shows for their sports teams, or their class trips or something. So like, the exposure really now comes all the way down to like 14-year-old kids and then goes from there. So we’re really and that’s happening a lot now. So I think you’re going to get this whole generation of people who are like, really comfortable with it. Yeah.
Grant Saunders 11:36
Yeah. That’s, I mean, that’s great. I mean, we like to say we don’t, we can’t kind of don’t work for high schools. within the UK, we’ve got the stage hypnosis licensing, which is a very political point of a lot of stage hypnotist ways, it’s never been proven in a court of law, but there are ways around and it just makes it difficult and complicated. But it’s, it’s a great form of entertainment and done right. I think it’s one of the best forms of entertainment that’s out there. You know, there’s nothing funnier than seeing your friends doing silly things in the UK. And I’m sure you guys have it as well. We do have a lot of guys that are, you know, not necessarily entertainers and doing hypnosis and the problem of that is, you know, people get a bad experience of it. So you know, they see one hypnotist is not necessarily funny, or very good and then they kind of think that’s all stage hypnosis is exactly the same. So
Paul Ramsay 12:32
Cheap effects, you know that?
Grant Saunders 12:34
Yes.
Paul Ramsay 12:34
Let’s cut right to it. You know, like, what it really is a lack of craft. That means the operator goes for cheap effects. And that leaves a bad taste in people’s mouths. It’s, the easiest, it’s like slapstick comedy, which I laugh at slapstick comedy. But it’s a little different with hypnosis, right? Like, in a movie scene, a guy get kicked in the nuts and makes you laugh, you know? But you’re like, you don’t want to hypnotically make someone think they got kicked in the nuts, right? Like it’s and yet there’s a lot of people doing stuff like that, getting pricked by needles or seeing spiders or mice or things that you’re afraid of, and a lot of this stuff to get that initial visceral reaction. You go, but they’re having a shitty experience right now. It’s funny for everyone else. It’s not funny for them. Like, that stuff drives me crazy. (Cross talking)
Grant Saunders 13:26
I mean, I think it can be funny without being offensive. You know that if you can do that, that’s easy. It’s easy to go for the cheap or the reaction and as a performer, if you’re insecure about your ability to entertain, then when you get that response from the audience, you think, Oh, I’m doing brilliant, you know, the audience went wild. But for me, it’s about that. It’s about getting booked again. You know, if you see the show and go, Oh that was fun. You know, it wasn’t the greatest, I want to give that a try next time and experience it. That way you get home towards you get the rebooking and the rebooking only booking. So, yeah. When we spoke in Vegas, I remember we’re talking about USPs. You know, what makes your show different and I remember you telling me about the story that was speaking to an agent that kind of said, you know, your shows great, what makes it different from somebody else? And we’ve got a clip of your mind game show. I’m going to play that now and then you can you can tell us I mean, it’s self-explanatory.
14:35
Mind Games, breaks the mold of stage hypnotism and provides a whole new experience for audiences. Paul Ramsay hypnotizes, ordinary, everyday people while they’re still sitting in the audience, allowing their friends and family to witness the transformation up close. Then the audience is given remote control polling devices, and they get to vote on what scenarios should take place on stage. What happens from there. Well, that’s up to you.
Grant Saunders 15:26
Amazing. I absolutely love the concept and how it’s delivered and all the interaction between the audience, what, how did you come to the idea?
Paul Ramsay 15:37
What was that meeting with my agent? It all started with that. I mean, I sat with him. And he said, you’re good at what he said, you know, to pick on your earlier language. He didn’t say your shows great. He said, you’re great at what you do. He said, but there’s nothing special about your show and he was totally right, I was running a pretty traditional stage show at that point. So we sat down, we brainstormed ideas. And he said, Look, each generation each four year cohort, not even a generation, each four-year cohort of college students is more technologically savvy than the one that came before it. So if that’s what they know, and what they love, why don’t you would incorporate it. They’re more and more used to using technology to interact with the world. And so at first, I thought, all right, well, I don’t know about the technology, but I can at least make it more interactive. So what it literally did at first Grant was I had quarter sheets of paper, and golf pencils and before the show, I would print out these sheets that would have like five questions on them and then if they were in quarters, and I’d cut them into quarters, and I’d go out before the show, and I’d hand them out to the kids who were in the audience with a golf pencil, and then two minutes before the show started, I’d run around and collect them all and then during the show, I would just, I’d say, Alright, here’s what we’re gonna do next and I would just choose one of the I randomly pick a thing, and I choose what the kid said, and I build it right? And it was just way too cumbersome. It was way too cumbersome.
And I was and then I was visiting with a friend from when I was working at the uni. And she was asking me how it was going. I was sitting with her husband having a beer and she goes, how’s your show going? And I was like, well, it’s cool, because I got I know, I have the right idea. But the implementations wrong and it’s too common. I was taught. And she was working at the university still. And she saw that they had started to use these remote controls in the classrooms. And so she goes, why don’t you just use the remote controls? And I was like, what? And she goes, they all have these remote controls. Now in class, they take quizzes with them. It’s how they keep track of their attendance. So there’s, and I was like, Oh my God, why didn’t I think of that? I was like, yes. And so I went, and I bought the remote controls, and I moved it all to that voting format. And it just crushed it just for I mean, I literally doubled my business the first year, I doubled my bookings and then I got you know, here in the States, we have these middleman festivals where the middleman is an organization that brings together the college buyers and the artists, right? And they put on these little festivals.
And you can you can showcase your show, you have to apply and pay a fee. But if you get picked, you showcase your show. Well, what determines whether you get picked or not is if you’re offering something different. So once I had that concept, I applied to three showcases a year for three years straight. And in three years out of the nine showcases I applied to I got six of them and so again, it just everything just went like it just took off like crazy. I got to a point where I even phased out a couple years ago, I phased out the remote controls because I finally found an app there were there had been apps before, but they wouldn’t do everything I wanted them to do. And then finally I discovered Kahoot and Kahoot was built for education. So it allowed you to do polling, but it had a nice visual interface as well, what so I got to a point where I could pay for a license for that very reasonable and now my audiences can just download the app for free to their phone and they can vote in real time and I can have up to 1000 people voting per show. And it’s just gotten better, of course then, and then it all went away. So
Grant Saunders 19:15
It saves people stealing the remotes as well, especially if they’re doing it on their own phone.
Paul Ramsay 19:18
Right! Yeah. Not so much the stealing they dip. People Yeah, little with them and they break them because they’re just fiddling or you know, or stupid stuff.
Grant Saunders 19:28
Yeah. After seeing you kind of demonstrate in in Vegas. The moment I got back, I’m like trying to contact app developers and I need something that can do this and I want to give away most of what some venues. Yeah and the app development was really expensive. So I thought, that’s how it works. Now I do a lot of holiday parks. So that you know the audience is very young. Sometimes they don’t volunteer, obviously. But I thought you know what I need to bring this concept to the holiday parks and I thought I know I’ll use Twitter. So I love the display up and then I’ll say to people, if you want to tweet your suggestions, tweet them use this hashtag, it’ll appear on the screen and then that’s the suggestion that we’ll do.
Paul Ramsay 20:11
how that goes?
Grant Saunders 20:13
First, genius. But then you take into account you’re asking the general public that I’ve had alcohol, sweet. Their suggestion to a holiday park audience that is fair to say about 10, 15 minutes into it was just like, just unplugged the screen. (Cross talking) I need something. I think that’s the reason why I didn’t roll out over here. It was just like, you guys. (Both laughing)
Paul Ramsay 20:51
Yeah, terrible.
Grant Saunders 20:52
Luckily, I managed to save the contract for that particular venue. While there’s nothing worse than having children in the front of the audience seen swear words appearing by.
Paul Ramsay 21:04
Oh, my gosh.
Grant Saunders 21:06
Yeah. So yeah, I mean, I can imagine, you know, things are very different. So I think probably the same over there. Now, what is very different now to how it was, how are you? How are you pivoting? How are you changing what you’re doing at the moment?
Paul Ramsay 21:21
So for the moment, my pivot is I’m just assuming that I’m not going to work on stage for the rest of this calendar year. And I if I’m wrong about that, I’ll be happy to be wrong. It’s not anything I’m rooting for. But I just think when you look at, you know, when I’m keeping in touch with the people I primarily perform in the college market. So I think they’re a pretty good like a barometer, you know, because they’ve got real liability issues with other people’s children attending their institutions, and they’re really, you know, trying to look at it all and so I keep checking in with my I’ve certain clients, you know, like, the Juilliard School in New York City, the performing arts school, I’ve been there opening week entertainment for 16 straight years, so I have a great relationship with them. I can, you know, check-in and see, like, where are you at? What are you talking about? I’ve got that kind of stuff that I can do and what there. So far, what most of my people I’ve checked in on are saying is, well, we’re probably going to open in the fall, but even if we do, we’re not gonna have group events. Yeah. And so it’s confirmed so far, what I thought they’re going to err on the side of caution. And so I’m like, Alright, so I’m not going to spend time trying to do something that relates to something I can’t control, what can I control, I am a board-certified hypnotist, I have more skill sets than stage.
And so I’ve worked on, my big thing is, I have two things that I’m like working, I was telling you, before we started, I’m working harder than I’ve ever worked in my whole career really, hours wise, I’m building a small business mentorship for hypnotists, that what I found was, like, look, if you’ve got downtime, this is a great time to revamp your business, like get your business more organized, strengthen your brand, change your infrastructure for how your business works and so I’ve run into a lot of colleagues who are still, even though they’ve been a hypnotist for years, they’re not doing that stuff, they don’t have a solid business infrastructure and that’s one thing I have been, you know, smart enough to do well over the year. So I’m mentoring hypnotists on that now and then my other big thing my like moonshot thing Grant is I’m building an online site, an online community, that is not it’s primarily hypnosis focused, but not just hypnosis focused. It’s a wellness community is what it really is. And idea is to break again, I want to do things differently and one of the things that drive me crazy is how often I see hypnotists selling primarily to other hypnotist like there are times when it’s appropriate and right to sell the hypnotist, I get that. But I think there’s too much of that and I was like, I’m not going to add to that there’s already enough of that. I’m going after the 8 billion people that are on the planet that have problems that need help and so we’re building a site that’s community-based, that’s membership-based, that’s gonna actually network other hypnotists. That’s the other big thing is I’m like, I’m not going to keep trying to do everything myself, I’m not going to try to be the smoking guy, the weight loss guy, the golf guy, right? And what I’m going to do is say we can do this together and have a greater effect than we can have on our own and so I’m coordinating with other hypnotists and getting them to focus on one thing, and I’m letting them be the expert in that one thing on this site and we’re gonna all pitch together and really try to help other human beings live happier, healthier, more abundant lives, by all Taking a team approach, and I’m super excited about it like it’s a big, big deal for me to be working on it.
Grant Saunders 25:07
Yeah. Good. I’m looking forward to seeing that. One thing I kind of go into the habit of asking people and it’s just because I know a lot of hypnotists are kind of, you know, we all have book addictions. And so if you were to have your two books, whether it be stage of therapy, the two most influential books that you think every hypnotist should have on their shelf.
Paul Ramsay 25:30
Oh, I have so many books. So it’s funny, you know, when I got into stage work, the first stage book I read was Ormond McGill’s New Encyclopedia of stage hypnosis, right? Yeah. And I met Ormond, and I didn’t know him well, but I had the honour of meeting him. In the final year of his life, he was amazing. And so that’s a book that I’m sort of sentimentally attached to, it is. It’s still a solid book. I don’t know if I would really say, a lot of people for a long time said it’s the Bible. And I’m like, and maybe not. I don’t know, I don’t know. It’s a good book, though. It’s a great place to start.
Grant Saunders 26:10
It’s a great reference. And it’s really thick. There’s a lot of content in there. And some of the stuff I know you sometimes if you go you go, I don’t know, it’s moved on a lot since. Yeah, I think you’ve got it. You’ve still got to go there and kind of, at different stages of my career. I’ve gone back to it. And you kind of look at it differently, you know, at different times in that career sort of thing. So yeah, I think for me, it was the Bible. And now it’s a reference book. I mean, sometimes I look at it and go, what, really?
Paul Ramsay 26:42
Yeah, so Yeah, and I think that’s gonna happen. And you know, like things do age and context changes. Yeah. The other book, they’ll tell you the only book as far as I’m aware of myself, the only book that I reread at least a portion, if not the whole thing of every year, is thinking Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Yeah.
27:05
That’s my gift book. Yeah. You know, my journey and you meet some people along the way, tend to be younger, you know, full of all the ambition in the world, and we’re going to take over the world and you just go, here’s that book. Read it. Yeah.
Paul Ramsay 27:23
Yeah. That’s a real treasure. That book. Yeah.
Grant Saunders 27:27
Yeah. I think the first personal development book I was given years ago was the magic of thinking big which is a great book. Oh, it was part of the, I’m sure you have the, way. Yeah. Well, it was it was a guy that was involved in that, that gave him this, magic of thinking big, a great, great, great book. And the second one was the thinking Grow Rich Napoleon Hill. And it was just phenomenal.
Paul Ramsay 27:54
What’s funny about the age we live in is a lot of times when I talk books with people, people will mention a book, especially fiction. And I haven’t read that. And they’re like, no, you’re an English teacher. And I’m like, do you understand? Do you really understand the scale of the time we live in and how much has been created? Like, yeah, you can’t get to it all. Like, if you’re just can’t. And so it’s funny how people end up. There’s so many great things out there, but you just can’t get to them all, which is sad in some ways, but also, it’s fun, because you think, well, I can try
Grant Saunders 28:29
I mean, I love my book collection, but loads of it. Now, I just don’t get time to read, you know, like I used to, but yeah, you know, I think a great book can change your life. You know, I’ve said, go back to it. And you read it again, and you read it again. And it’s from the people that we interact like wonder burns the secret, you know, I mean, that’s based on Napoleon Hill’s work and its foundations there. So, yeah, it’s a lot of people kind of get the classics, revamped them, rehash them and put them out like a new TV series.
Paul Ramsay 29:02
Do you have a Bible of stage hypnotism?
Paul Ramsay 29:12
No, I just mean, metaphorically speaking, do you have one that serves as your Bible of stage hypnotism? If it’s not Orman’s? Is there one that does? Or do you just not have that at all?
Grant Saunders 29:22
The one that had the most impact on me, or where things started to kind of go? Oh, yeah, that makes a bit more sense was Jonathan chases book, deeper? Great book. And again, it is from a working hypnotist point of view. I think a lot of stage hypnosis books are done from a theory point of view. Yeah, there’s a lot of stage hypnotist that wants to have that they want to create that Bible of stage hypnosis. Yeah. But a lot of it is germane. There are a couple of books out there. That just wind me up. Because you read it and you go. Yeah, that’s because you’ve read that in a book. You’ve not been on stage and done that. I think you can tell sometimes. We had a guy on last week. Chris doc strange and he’s got a great book on stage hypnosis. And again, it’s from that from a gigging hypnotist. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Jonathan Chase is a British guy.
Paul Ramsay 29:41
Yeah, I don’t know him personally, I’ve interacted with on social over the years.
Grant Saunders 30:31
Yeah, he’s, very direct. A thing for hypno bass went out on Instagram a couple of weeks ago. And I was speaking there virtually as such. And it’s I did a stage hypnosis for the hypnotherapist performance hypnosis, and Jonathan chase just well underneath it. Interesting question mark and I thought, Oh, I’m not get into it. I love how dramatic our industry can be sometimes. So yeah, and Andrew Newton who’s a British stage hypnotist, who taught Paul McKenna has a great book, I believe it’s called mind might be called mind games, actually, by Andrew Newton. But yet again, that’s a great book, but Andrew seems to really dislike British stage hypnotists. Yeah. Oh, yeah, it is. I think. I mean, as you can see, I’ve got a beard. I don’t normally have a beard and I may just have the goatee. I was always Andrew coals. If you think that vagina on your chin makes you somehow dynamic. You’re mistaken. Wow. Oh, cheers. (Both laughing)
Grant Saunders 31:44
But Andrew is a it’s a great stage hypnotist. He’s old school. The first half of his show is old school, but it’s delivered with great timing. But I always recommend UK hypnotist to go and see him. However, Andrew has this USP that he actually employs security at his shows. And if he knows it’s a stage hypnotist in their security will come and have you removed from the theatre? Really? Oh, yeah. Wow. Oh, yeah, it’s very protecting always material. But he is great, it pains me to say it, but he’s a phenomenal stage hypnotist. But yeah,
Paul Ramsay 32:24
how far you gonna go? How long you gonna do it?
Grant Saunders 32:26
You know, what if you’d have asked me this six months ago is like, I want to take over the world, same as everybody else. Sure. I mean, you know, by some accounts, I’m quite successful at this. But like this, you know, with my pivot is kind of gonna go right? Well, there’s only there’s only so many stages I can perform on at a time. There are only so many days in the week. There are only so many miles I can do. I mean, I travel, ridiculous mileage on my car. I’ve travelled all over the world, which is quite nice to have a few cruise ships, which is lovely. But the reality is, like, you know, like sitting at home, and creating a product that can then be out there actually giving something to the community, rather than just performing on stage and go and look at me, I’m special, that I’m finding more value in that. But I don’t know if that’s just my laziness kicking in where I think, you know, the idea of making an income and staying at home like this. But I love I mean, you’re exactly saying there’s that there’s no better feeling than that when you’re on stage. You know,
Paul Ramsay 33:38
Yeah, you know, and it’s funny, like, I think I’m over it. Like, I’ve done it for 16 years, I’ve done it. You know, the only stuff I haven’t done really I haven’t done cruise ships, and I haven’t done Vegas, you know, and really, that’s because I never tried, I just never tried, you know, I probably could have if I had tried.
Grant Saunders 34:03
I got a phone call. My best friend Alan will watch this. At some point, he always watches the late one just to make sure. I tend not to slag him off. But it always comes into the conversation somehow. He used to be my sound guy that looked after my sound and looked after my stage. And then he realized he could make more money as a sound person and went off and set up his own company. Cheers. Absolutely. Phenomenal guy. His wedding was coming up a couple of years ago. And in the run up to Alan always jokes because if a show comes in on a cruise ship or anything like that, I’m gone. That’s my priority and I got an email and I was out with Alan at the time and the email was from a lot so it was for someone like this and you know, Anita want to come on my show. Is there any chance she could do it as a Vegas show? Could you do as a performer that is what you want to do to perform Vegas to do three dates. One of those dates was Alan’s wedding? I’m looking at the email, and I’m looking at Alan and I thought, oh, surely thought about it. And literally, I messaged back saying, I can’t do that day or that day and the message came back, go and listen, and the messages got bought by going, listen, I’m offering you this. You have to do all the dates. I’m not on the line. I can’t do it. I’ve come back in upsets, etc. And I’ve gone. I’ve just turned down a gig in Vegas for you, anyway. Oh, cheers. I’m not bitter. But to this day, I always say Josh would be in Vegas now, but I’m not. That would be my moment. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, do you how quickly do you think Vegas will bounce back?
Paul Ramsay 36:02
I mean, I think Vegas is in probably one of the group areas in which I’d say they’re in the most trouble because not only is all their stuff based around group gathering, like even if you just think, Well, no, I gambling I just sit there you go sit there in a giant room with a bunch of other people. Like, you know, you sit in a slot machine, you got people, right, like no matter what, like, they’re all their stuff, restaurants, buffets, you know, like, it’s all built around large groups of people being together all the time. So, and then how to most people get there, they have to fly. You know, like, surely some people do drive, but most folks are flying there and I think even though flying is happening right now you have to go. But how comfortable do people feel with it? And so, you know, I think flying is going to take quite a while to recover because of people’s fears and so you add that to that i i think they’re, you know, they’re in tough shape,
Grant Saunders 37:05
I think, coming back from a gig last year, in November last year. Via Ethiopia, you’ve got a lot of agents. Tell me this. Can we send him direct from here to here? No, let’s send him via Ethiopia. Oh, that’s, a lovely airport. Exactly what you would expect it to be. I remember, I’ve gotten the plane for Ethiopian Airlines. And literally, when they’ve shut the doors before we took off, people have walked down the cabin with disinfectant, and we’re spraying it over all the people and remember at the time thinking, oh my god, this is crazy. And it’s been disinfected over people. But I think that’s gonna become the norm now on flights. You know?
Paul Ramsay 37:48
Yeah. Again, it’s, it’s one of those themes that if I keep talking about on the show, like every week, we come back to at some point is, I don’t think any of us can appreciate how many variables are really interacting, and how that will ripple out into, you know, everyday life. And I in that one example, I used with her in one episode, as I said, Look, it only took a guy trying to smuggle a bomb into his shoe one time for us to have to take our shoes off at the airport. For now, how many years you know, and no one’s ever done it since. And yet, we still you go, Well, if you’re in the pre check line, or okay, but still, there’s people every time they fly, you have to take their shoes off, because I did something one time. So I think about that kind of stuff. And I go, we just don’t know, we just don’t know. And we got to try to just, you know, be as flexible as we can be. I think the big thing that I keep trying to come back to Grant whether it’s if you do get the chance to work in stage again. Or if you decide, you know what, I’m not going to work stage I’m just going to pivot and go to this other thing, no matter what. There’s this amazing opportunity for us to just get our shit together and try to start helping people more Yeah, no matter what you do, right and to get to say enough like we need to make some changes in our culture and focus on human beings being kind to one another again, and trying to help each other more. And I don’t know if people are going to get that some act like they get it out. But that’s the thing I keep coming back to is, you know, is how can you make whatever you do even if it’s a show you go, it’s not just about making people laugh. Can you make them laugh and encourage them to bring some kindness somehow? I don’t know.
Grant Saunders 39:41
Yeah. Well on that bombshell Paul, it’s been an absolute pleasure once again to speak. And yeah, I’ll see you on your be the Naked Truth which is not what you think.
Paul Ramsay 39:55
That’s right.
Grant Saunders 39:56
Don’t go there looking for that. You will be disappointed. Once you get over that, it’s great.
Paul Ramsay 40:03
Yeah, timings perfect. My dog wants to go outside. So, hey, thank you for having me and talking with you and I’m happy to talk to you. If you ever want to do it again you just let me know. Okay.
Grant Saunders 40:15
Fantastic, Paul. Take care.
Paul Ramsay 40:18
Alright brother.