Episode 323: Making a Positive Impact in the Marketplace with Piers Day
In today’s fast-paced and competitive business world, it’s easy for the achievements of many business owners to go unnoticed. However, every business deserves to have a voice and be recognized for its contributions.
Piers Day, an award-winning hypnotherapist, shares his journey and the impact he has made in society. After experiencing personal loss and witnessing the struggles of others, Piers dedicated himself to helping people overcome mental health challenges. He uses hypnotherapy to provide hope and support to individuals who have been laid off due to depression or anxiety. Piers emphasizes the importance of injecting hope into the lives of those who feel alone and offers quick tools to help them de-stress. He also highlights the value of seeking support and guidance from mentors and fellow business owners.
Piers’ dedication to making a difference led him to provide over 300 hours of free hypnotherapy sessions to frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through his work, Piers aims to impact more lives and expand his business to reach a wider audience.
Show Highlights:
- Piers specializes in helping individuals who have been laid off due to depression, anxiety, grief, or fear
- Injecting hope into the lives of those who feel alone is crucial for their recovery
- Piers provided over 300 hours of free hypnotherapy sessions to frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic
- Seeking support and guidance from mentors and fellow business owners is essential for personal and professional growth
- Piers plans to expand his business and impact more lives through different products and price points
Links Mentioned:
Check out Piers Day’s website at www.piersday.com
Get your Business Growth Secrets SUCCESS PLANNER for FREE and profit like a pro: https://adamstottplanner.com/free-book47315172
Adams website: https://adamstott.com/?el=Pod
Watch the Episode on Adam’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/adamstottcoach?el=Pod
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Join Adam’s network on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-stott-coach/?el=Pod
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Transcript:
Please note this is a verbatim transcription from the original audio and therefore may include some minor grammatical errors.
Adam Stott: Hey, everybody. We’re here at the beautiful Champlain Spa Hotel at our done for you branded retreat. We’re having an amazing time with our guests where we’ve shown them in the room how to go and get media for their businesses. Some of the businesses and business owners in the room have never had media before.
And they are literally watching from their phones as the national and worldwide media pick up their stories and get it into press. We’ve also got a group and room full of award winning businesses. And what we’re going to be doing is we’re actually going to be interviewing. Some of those award winning businesses who have won specific awards for their contributions, the things that they’ve been doing in their businesses.
For some of them, this is the first time that they’ve been recognized as an award winning business. So I’m really, really excited to share this with them, hear a little bit more about their story and understand that the moves they’ve been making. And this is the thing, there’s a lot of business owners out there.
The achieve amazing things and that never get noticed for their contributions. And what I’m really excited about today is we’re going to be taking some business owners and show people amazing business owners. They are every business deserves to have a voice. Every business deserves to get themselves out there.
Every business deserves to be seen in the media. And that’s really what we want to do here. So this event, which is absolutely amazing, the branded done for you, retreat, getting featured in the media, winning awards, launching businesses to market, getting them interviewed, sharing their stories. There’s just so many incredible things in this beautiful environment.
So we’re really excited to get these business owners on and interview them for the first time. So the first person up. We’re going to be welcoming Piers Day, who’s an amazing guy. He is a hypnotherapist that has made a massive, massive impact in the marketplace. And I can’t wait to hear his story. So get ready because you’re absolutely going to love it.
Well, welcome Piers. How you doing my friend? I’m doing really well. Thank you for having me. So you have won the award for making the greatest impact. And that impact is impact on society, impact on businesses, done some amazing things. You want to show the award that you’ve won today, Piers, which is super, and you really deserve this.
And I think that you really do deserve it. And I want to kind of highlight that, uh, during a chat with you that we have now to show people what kind of things that you’ve, you heard me say a minute ago, people don’t always get rewarded in public for what they practice in private. And I know that you’ve been working hard behind the scenes.
I remember meeting you in Cambridge for the first time, seeing a really driven guy that wanted to achieve some amazing things, but was stuck in a couple of areas and you’ve managed to re transition out of that. So, first of all, how does it feel to get this award? How are you feeling right now? What’s it been like here?
Piers Day: I’m feeling really humbled, I’ll be totally honest. Um, I’m, I think I said to you the other night, I said I’m not very good at being told well done. So, I’ve still, as I hold it now and I’m stroking it, I still feel quite choked up. To me it means a hell of a lot and I’m really grateful, thank you.
Adam Stott: Absolutely.
So many people entered, um, that award for the impact award and you were really chosen for that award because we really felt like you had made a big impact in society. So I’m gonna ask you some questions around in a moment, which would be really cool. But tell us a little bit about your business before we go there.
Piers Day: So my business, um, I originally started as a hypnotherapist and that took me down a rabbit hole of learning and I’ve traveled all over the world. Well, pretty well all over the world to meet the best people in the business and to get trained and I train people myself, uh, but I’ve got a blend of therapies to get people from my, my specialist area is getting people from when they’ve been laid off due to depression, anxiety, grief, fear, whatever it is.
Because businesses obviously don’t have stress in the workplace because HR departments don’t like that word. Um, but as soon as they’re laid off, um, that’s where I can step in.
Adam Stott: And in terms of doing that, what interested you in hypnotherapy? So, you know, something that I feel is personally really interesting, um, many people, there’s sometimes skepticism around hypnotherapy, but the bottom line is it works, right?
It works incredibly well. What is it that you, why did you decide to get into it? What interested you about hypnotherapy originally?
Piers Day: Um, oh God, back in… 1992. Um, I closed, I had to close my property business in London as an estate agent and the market went down. Um, and a lot of businesses went out of action.
And so I got
Adam Stott: at the same time, you know, same time, 1992, my dad lost his business. Tough times for business owners, right?
Piers Day: Yeah. And I would, I said, right, I, I give up. So I sold the business to one of my competitors or basically took over the premises and that sort of stuff uh, and then I was sitting at home thinking what am I going to do?
My grandmother said look if you’re going to be bored and broke you might as well be bored and break abroad So she gave She gave me two and a half grand.
Adam Stott: Nice advice grandma, I like that .
Piers Day: She said basically go around the world, disappear, go find yourself Uh, and the night before I went, um, I met a very old friend who had just been laid off because he had depression.
And in 1992, people didn’t, don’t, depression, no one had to spell it, let alone what it was. And I had a pint with him, and he said, Peter, you’re so lucky, you know, you’ve got a chance. You know, he had just got married, you know, he had two dogs and six chickens, that sort of stuff. Um, and I flew to Hong Kong.
On my way to Australia, and I got to Hong Kong, rang home, and my brother answered the phone in tears, and I said, What the hell’s wrong? And I’m not gonna say this bloke’s name, because I’ll get choked up, but he said so and so shot himself yesterday. Oh my god. And that really blew me away. And he was the third friend I’ve got who’s taken, uh, friends, close friends I had since I’ve been born, who’ve taken their own lives.
So…
Adam Stott: It’s a terrible thing, isn’t it? Yeah. It’s so hard, and… You know, and, and this is why we really felt, uh, you as a, a candidate, because we had a lot of entries for the Impact Award and really felt that you deserved that because you, you obviously got a really purpose driven mission to help people and that’s really close to your heart, isn’t it?
It is hugely. Yeah, so, so obviously that really impacted you. What did you decide to do from there? What was the next step?
Piers Day: Um, I then started going on a whole massive, uh, feel good… Personal growth, personal development courses. And that took me into hypnosis. And the only place worth around… I come from, you know, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire.
The only place worth… Going to, there was the Cambridge College of Hypnotherapy. And I went in, and that was just the opening of a huge rabbit warren. Because I was going in and out of courses and the holes, and I wanted to learn more and more and more. Because one side of me was blaming me for my friend’s death.
Really? Because had I not been, Yippee, I’m off around the world, yay! He might have not pulled the trigger, I don’t know. I’ll never know, but what I like to think is because of his, what he did, it saved countless of other people because that’s really driven me because the person who disappears, their pain’s ended.
It’s the ones you leave behind. You know, the parents, the brothers, the sisters, the friends, the cousins, the, you know, whatever. And if I can prevent that, that’s something I’m really, really passionate about.
Adam Stott: Yeah. And look, amazing, amazing story. And the fact that you use that to drive you to help people is, is, is amazing.
You built these skills in the Cambridge, uh, hypnotherapy. You started to build on that and obviously then you’re going to turn it into a business, right? And, and having going and turning this into a business, being that you’ve had a business in the past in 92 that didn’t succeed. Um, you might’ve had some fears and some beliefs.
Potentially they were holding you back. What did you need to change in yourself? This time around and obviously there’s a lot of people that listen to this podcast That are great people that want to succeed, but they often have fears Or they have different beliefs that are holding them back. What did you learn?
What did you do differently? And what fears do you feel business owners need to address and what beliefs do you feel they need to change?
Piers Day: I think when I was in property, because it was easy, um, it was more like a game. Um, and I was buying houses, doing them up and selling them. I was developing properties.
I was, you know, I had my estate agent, I had four people who I employed at one point. And to me that wasn’t serious, that wasn’t a serious business. Because it was really good fun. And every day was a new deal. And because I’m on a much more serious footing. So when people come and see me, you know, a lot of them in a really, really bad way.
Um, I bring the same ethos. Let’s play at this. Let’s, let’s, let’s have some fun getting you better. Yeah. Because everybody else in the outside world go, they’re there. I don’t. It’s like, right, come on, it’s a horrible thing and let’s drag it out. Let’s pull it out. Let’s get on and get you better. And that, I find that injection of hope that I give them gives me a real buzz.
So that’s one of the things that motivates me forward. Uh, but in answer to your question, going back to your question before I go off on a tangent. What, the way it’s different is because it’s personal. One, say you’ve got bricks and mortar and I may go into a house and say, you know, to a, uh, a client, before you put it on the market, can I suggest you get a gardener in just to tidy it up and get, get your front door painted and get a window box.
Cause for some reason London is in terraced houses like window boxes, that sort of thing. Uh, but when you’re actually talking about human beings, um, uh, the way they think, feel, behave is changing. Changing that aura almost because that’s the first thing you have to do. You have to inject that hope that they can get better because most people when they are in depressed, anxious, fearful state, rather like a business owners feel very alone.
And there have been times as a business and I thought, what do I do next? You know, and I’ve, I’ve been stuck before. Yeah. Um, which is why I met you.
Adam Stott: Yeah. I met you in Cambridge. And when we met, you know, I remember I brought you up on stage actually, it was just a preview event where we preview what we do.
I remember bringing you up on stage, obviously you had experience in running businesses, you had experience in hypnotherapy, you’ve done a lot of cool things, you had a really good career, but you seemed very open minded, you wanted to say, hey, what is it I don’t know rather than what I do know. Exactly.
And you seemed to have some strong beliefs about how you could really move things forward. You know, at that point, you started working with us, you came in, you became a, a Gold Circle member, you made a massive amount of progress in Gold Circle, um, you said something really cool yesterday, uh, which was that it felt a bit like a new pair, I, I won’t say, why don’t you say what it that one, yeah.
Yeah, that was, I say yesterday, it was this morning, mate. This morning, yeah. It was like a long day, right? Yeah. You said something really cool, which I, I like the analogy, so.
Piers Day: Um, yeah, coming into, uh, Big Business Events was rather like putting on a new pair of walking boots. They fit. But they’re tight and you want them to be tight because you want support so you don’t break your ankles when you’re walking.
But yeah, they rub, they may give you blisters there. You’ve got to walk them in. And they become really uncomfortable to start with. And then as you do the laces up, your feet change and it becomes comfortable. Until the point you don’t want to walk in anything else. So what this has helped me do is it’s gotten me…
Me prepared now to, to take walking any terrain. I can go anywhere now. I love that. And I know any terrain, right? Yeah. Yeah. But I, I know that if I need help, it’s there. Yeah. ’cause you’ve got the school group Yeah. And you’ve got the WhatsApp group. Yeah. Um, and there are people to reach out to. Yeah. And I know that if I’ve got a problem, I can just email your office and I can book a one-to-one with somebody.
So to me that’s huge value. Yeah.
Adam Stott: Is there anyone in particular in the team that you feel like has helped you a lot? Is there anyone that you’d you want to just give a shout out to?
Piers Day: Well there’s you and Ross. Obviously. Uh, the two people, one you may be surprised about, uh, David. Yeah. Um, because I’ve seen him, I’ve been on his Strategy sessions, I think it’s Tuesday, Wednesday from two o’clock, whatever it is.
And I’ve been in a couple of those and I’ve asked some questions and he’s gone bang, bang, bang. He’s very good. Oh yeah. And I’ve gone, wow, that’s simple. Yeah. And the other one is really inspirational is your new guy, Stephen. Steve. You know what? He is such a, he doesn’t know it. That’s what I like about him.
Yeah. He, you know, I met him and he’s very open, very friendly, horrifically young, which I really liked. Yeah. Uh, cause I feel quite old. Uh, but I thought if he can do it and he can change his life and he’s at that point where most 19 year olds know everything, he’s a very unique guy. Yeah. Yeah. And I just thought.
Yeah, when I talked to him, I just walk away feeling really good about myself because he really enthusiastic and he wants to know about me and I asked him about him and he fills me with, yeah, he just says, I’ve been doing this, I’ve been doing this and I’ve been doing that. He’s like a kid in a sweet shop.
Adam Stott: He’s such a great student. You know, he, he invested and actually came in and did some of our courses and he was only 19 and we just thought this guy’s got so much talent. That you could, you know, we’d love to have you in the team and he’s joined the team and he gives great contributions. And I think I love the fact that you’ve called him out as being a, being a great help because he deserves it.
Piers Day: You’ve got so many people, you know, and I’ve been, I mean, I’ve been on a lot of the calls. Um, your hot seat’s really good. when I, when I get the chance to do it. Um, but yeah, those are the two who’ve really, really, really hit me quite hard.
Adam Stott: Yeah, it was great. You know, the thing is, it’s a collective, isn’t it?
Yeah. And, and however we can, however we can impact people the most. So in terms of impact, um, there was a big part of your story and what you’ve been through and what you did in COVID, which I thought was really inspirational. So why don’t you mention a little bit about that? So I’d love to just, you know, talk a little bit about some of the things that you did to make an impact in the marketplace.
Obviously, you’re running a business, but you do, you care. Yeah. And I think that is something that, you know, anyone watching this understand that if they know someone with depression, they know somebody that’s got issues, mental health issues, issues in that way. And they want to try and re engineer how that person thinks, but they can’t do it themselves.
And frankly, a lot of the time they can’t, they’re too close and they can’t make the impact. Um, this is what you specialize in, right? So tell us a little bit about what happened in COVID and then we’ll come back to that.
Piers Day: Yeah. In COVID, um, obviously lockdown, no one could go anywhere. And my business was mainly face to face in the clinic in, um, in Buryston Edmonds.
And I thought, well, I’ve got to get out on. Zoom. I did quite a bit of zoom, but not a lot. And there’s the business dried up completely. And I thought, right, I need to practice. I need to, to develop my skills and also need to keep myself occupied because I was living by myself. You know, I had six chickens.
Um, you got the chickens as well. I got chickens as well. Are you a vegetarian? No, definitely not. And I was living in a farmyard, renting a house, between houses, having recently got separated from my wife. and, you know, example, one morning the peacock came into my sitting room and ate my sandwich. It was that rural.
So I was in the middle of nowhere and I thought, how can I make a difference, how can I keep myself going? And, I was talking on the phone to a friend of mine who works in the hospital. And she just said, we’re just so stressed, you know, cause I, I just said, it must be hell in there. Yeah. It’s just like a war zone.
It’s everybody says everybody’s on edge because COVID in those days we thought was the big killer, which it was, um, but no one quite knew what it was about. And I just said, look, if you’ve got anybody who’s stressed, tell them to give me a, you know, get, get in touch with me and I won’t charge. I’ll just.
invest in myself in the future in case I get ill. Um, and I did over 300 hours over the lockdown free of charge to frontline workers, whether they were teachers, police, fire, uh, a lot of consultants. Nurses, porters, anybody in hospital, because to me they’re all part of a team, they’re all important. And I just gave them quick tools to be able to take a two, three minute sit down and de stress.
So you basically put the snow globe down and let all the problems just settle for a minute, go inside themselves. And, yeah, it worked amazingly. And then, people talk about karma. So I was giving out, giving out, and then dear old COVID got me. And I woke up one morning, four o’clock, I couldn’t breathe.
Literally, I could not breathe, and I got quite frightened by this. So I got myself downstairs, let the dog out, rang 999, and I said, look, I can’t breathe. And within seven minutes, the ambulance was there, and it turned out they were having a cough at the top of the hill around the corner, which is brilliant.
Um. And they took me, blue lighted me into hospital, because I was in a pretty bad way by then. And they took me into the ICU. Uh, and I was in there for near enough two weeks, I think it was just over two weeks. A lot of it I was, I can’t really remember. But they kept wanting to incubate me. Not incubate.
Yeah. Um. Yeah. What’s the word I’m looking for? The um, ventilate. Ventilate, thank you. They wanted to ventilate me. And. I just kept saying, no, no, no, no, because I heard that only 90, I think it’s 92 percent of those who have, have that don’t, don’t survive. And they said, we’ve got to do something. And I got a piece of paper and I said, do not touch me or disturb me for an hour, please.
I put hypnosis. And I took myself in for self hypnosis. And for about an hour, I said to my body, look, you either sort this out or we’re checking out of here. And my, the, um, oxygen count in my blood started going up. Started going up and up and up and up and up. And they were going, we’ve never seen this before.
And… I just, I did this for three or four days, literally just lying there putting myself into hypnosis. And what I didn’t realize is when I, when they came to check out, the, my consultant said, Piers, you’re obviously very famous. And I said, why am I famous? He said, everybody keeps coming to look at your charts.
Everybody comes to look at your thing because you’re the guy that’s been helping us. You’re one of the nice guys. And I thought, wow, that was a, that was quite a big moment that actually what I was giving out. Came back, came back.
Adam Stott: Yeah. I think it’s incredible. And really, that’s why you got that impact award doing 300 hours working with the NHS in a, in a real time.
And they, you really deserve that. And you know, you should be really proud of what you’ve done. And now moving forward, obviously, yeah, you, you, you’re going to be in a position where you’re growing your business. Things are going well for you, right? You’ve been picked up by the media now. Um, you’re, you’re winning awards, you’re, you’re going to be gaining more clients.
You must really feel really excited right now. Very excited. What are your ambitions for the future? How do you see things going?
Piers Day: That’s where, uh, becoming part of the BBE has really helped, because I’ve actually got… I’m beginning to get the road map ahead beforehand. I was going I can only do this Yeah, you know time from time for money type of thing There are only so many hours in the day, which means I can only work with a certain number of people So you’ve you and others have been saying right you’ve got to have different products for different price, price things.
Uh, and that’s really, really helped me. So I can actually see now plan forward, which to me is really exciting.
Adam Stott: And also it means that you can impact more people, which is obviously very close to your heart. Yeah. You know, yeah. I look how somebody that’s been watching this, that perhaps knows somebody that stress knows somebody that’s struggling, somebody that’s having problems with mental health, any areas of mental health in those different areas need some help.
And would like to learn more about what you do or learn more about hypnosis. How should they get in touch with you?
Piers Day: Very, very simple. My website, www.piersday.Com.
Adam Stott: So piersday.com, www.Piersday.com. Go and check it out. Pears is a wonderful guy. You know, from, from us to anybody watching, we can really say this is a person of honor, a person that wants to help people, and a person that wants to make an impact.
Look, I’ve loved having a great chat with your peers. It’s been great to dive deeper into that story. Congratulations on your award. Thank you very much. And I’m really looking forward to, to your future and what happens next, because I’ve no doubt you’re going to go far, my friend. Well done. Thank you, my friend.