February 5, 2025 • 48 mins
This week on Not in a Huff podcast, we’re joined by one of the funniest people around, Mr. Kevin Lepine! Kevin is the award-winning hypnotist behind “Hypnosis Unleashed”, the longest-running hypnosis show in Las Vegas. He’s got a sharp wit, an incredible talent for hypnosis, and a show that keeps audiences laughing every night.
Here’s what we talked about in this episode:
- Kevin’s journey to becoming a hypnotist and how almost anyone can learn it
- What it’s like performing nightly in Las Vegas and keeping a long-running show fresh
- How Kevin ensures volunteers are the true stars of his show
- The misconceptions about hypnosis and what it’s really all about
- What keeps him from burning out after performing night after night
- Kevin’s rise to headlining his own show and what’s next for him
This conversation is full of laughs, behind-the-scenes stories, and all things hypnosis. Tune in and enjoy!
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Get Tickets to the Show When in Vegas Here: https://vegashypnosisshow.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
The hardest thing is the great shows.
(00:02):
Because you do a great show, to a killer show.
People are waiting for your autographs,
you're taking pictures, and it's great, right?
Then you go to McDonald's and no one knows who you are.
Can you take that difference?
Can you adjust to that?
How bad do you want this thing?
Whatever you are not willing to give up,
that's what it's gonna cost you.
(00:22):
Welcome to Not in a Hoff with Jackson Hoff,
where we interview newsmakers, storytellers,
and all around interesting people.
Sit back, relax, unless you're driving,
and enjoy the show.
Here's Jackson.
Hello, hello, hello, I am Jackson Hoff.
This is Not in a Hoff.
Thanks so much for joining me.
(00:43):
As always, we really appreciate it.
This week's week with Kevin Lapine.
Now, Kevin is a hypnotist.
We're gonna talk all about what that means,
what it is, what it's not.
But we're gonna kind of dive deeper into
just being, not just a hypnotist,
but being somebody who has a show in Las Vegas.
It's a almost nightly show.
(01:03):
I think there's a night or two each week
that he doesn't perform.
But what's it like not just to do hypnosis,
which is an interesting thing in itself,
but to then have a show in the crazy place that is Vegas?
I really, really enjoyed speaking with Kevin.
He's gonna talk about how he learned to be a hypnotist.
(01:26):
He's gonna tell you that he thinks darn near
anyone could do it.
He's gonna talk about his show,
how he doesn't get burnt out doing it night in and night out,
what it's like to have a long running show in Vegas,
because he doesn't just have a hypnosis show,
he has the longest running hypnosis show in Vegas.
So something to be said there.
Definitely a really cool thing.
(01:47):
He's gonna kind of talk about the beginning,
the middle on how he kind of worked his way up
into headlining,
just what he hopes for the future.
This is a really, really fun one.
I didn't know very much about hypnosis at all,
but I think a lot of people look at it
and are a little bit frightened by it.
Like, is he gonna make me do crazy stuff?
(02:07):
And I really like what he says there
about making sure that those that he hypnotizes
are the stars of the show.
So I think you're gonna really enjoy this one.
As you're listening,
go ahead and click that subscribe button
on Apple or Spotify.
I leave a five-star review on Apple or Spotify.
That really helps a ton.
Leave a written review on Apple.
It helps even more.
Follow along on Instagram, Facebook, all them places.
(02:30):
Not enough podcasts, but here is Kevin Lapine.
So Lapine, how are you?
I'm doing great.
Thanks for having me on.
Well, thanks for agreeing to join me.
I'm really looking forward to talking to you about hypnosis.
That's what you are.
You're billed as America's favorite hypnotist.
So that's a big billing for sure.
(02:51):
That is really awesome.
And having the longest running hypnosis show in Las Vegas,
I do the show, Hypnosis Unleashed.
We're downtown Las Vegas at the Four Queens.
Being able to have the longest running hypnosis show.
And literally, I mean, I'm a kid who grew up
all around the Detroit area,
got to live in New Orleans for a little while.
(03:11):
And then I get to live my dream
of being a headliner in Vegas.
Well, I love that.
And I want you kind of just to start at the beginning.
What is what created that passion for entertainment?
And was it always kind of in this, you know, magic?
I don't even know if you want to consider it magic.
That may be a big box to open already,
(03:32):
but what made you want to get into entertainment?
I wanted to be a surgeon.
My parents make me do this.
Honestly, this is my passion.
This is what I loved.
I had a huge stuttering problem
until I was about 15 and a half, 16.
I actually like came through a lot of different versions
(03:53):
of being bullied and a lot of different abuse.
The stage was the only place I felt comfortable.
It's weird.
I couldn't do anything interpersonally,
like you and I would freak me out.
But standing in front of a hundred people on stage
was the only place I felt comfortable.
And it was just, that feeling just kind of grew.
(04:14):
When I was 16, I got picked up by an entertainment company.
So I did costume characters for, you know,
for kids' birthdays.
So I was Barney for your little brother's birthday.
Or for copyright reasons, I was a purple dinosaur.
But it just, and I got to work with a lot of weirdos,
(04:35):
but fun weirdos.
I mean, the guy who ran the company,
this guy would set his minivan on cruise control.
And if there's nobody on the expressway,
he would actually jump to the back, grab a costume,
run back up front and get dressed while driving.
A complete lunatic, but you know,
but there were also these really, really energetic people.
(04:56):
These people had a lot of positivity
and who were trying to do something.
And because I was doing that, I got into clowning.
Clowning actually got me into magic.
I only got into clowning
because it meant I could do more shows.
But you weren't wrong, man.
Magic was the gateway drug.
I started doing some magic in the clown show.
The magic kind of just worked for me.
(05:19):
It's, I don't know how else to say it,
but like a deck of cards just felt natural.
And then, you know, doing that for a number of years,
I got to work with sideshow performers.
We were talking about the piece behind me.
We were talking about interviewing a strong man.
I mean, I used to work with guys
who actually were in the 10 in 1 show in Coney Island.
And then I started working with hypnotists.
(05:40):
And when I was 25, I, excuse me, when I was 20,
I got into a course for social workers
to learn hypnosis.
And it just kind of kept growing and growing and growing.
I love that.
And you've kind of done what a lot of my guests have done
in the past, but you've kind of combined it all
into one person.
(06:00):
So I've actually talked to people who run
these costume companies and have the ice princess
and the Italian plumber again for copyright reasons.
Exactly.
And then, you know, a lot of magicians
and things like that for sure.
But I, you know, I mistakenly asked you about magic,
but I want to ask you that specific question.
(06:22):
Do you consider, you know, the hypnosis and what you do,
do you consider it a magic act or something else?
No, not at all, except.
So no, completely not at all, totally wrong.
Well, except for this one thing
where you're completely right.
Um, I learned something doing magic.
And the difference between magic and hypnosis
is hypnosis is actually happening.
(06:43):
I'm really hypnotizing you.
There is no magic trick to it.
It just is.
But when I was doing magic, I figured out something.
So magic is a trick, right?
If I do a magic trick, you know it's a trick, right?
But for one second, for just one second,
when you see that magic trick,
you have an honest emotional reaction.
(07:04):
For one second, you laugh or for some,
or for one second, you clap,
or for one second, you're just amazed.
Now, after that second, your brain starts going,
well, I mean, it had to have just been a trick.
That was what magic taught me,
was if you can create a moment
and feel emotionally connected to that moment,
that's where it all comes from.
So no, the hypnosis show isn't a magic trick,
(07:27):
but the emotion, making people laugh,
making something genuine, making a connection,
that's universal in every performing art.
So you've done all these other things.
What made you decide that hypnosis was something
that you wanted to not just do, but as you've said,
create a show around it and one that is longstanding?
(07:49):
So it was my friends being smarter than me.
So I would work, at this point in time, I'm touring
and I'm doing a lot of colleges
and I'm doing a lot of comedy clubs.
In comedy club A, I'm doing my comedy magic as a middle act.
So I'm the 20, 25 minute feature.
(08:09):
Comedy club B, I'm headlining doing hypnosis.
I like magic, I'm passionate about magic, I love magic.
I couldn't write a 26th minute of magic.
That was genuine.
And you look at great comedy magicians,
the amazing Jonathan, who is a dear friend, Harry Anderson,
(08:31):
a dear friend as well, Matt King, who's amazing.
These guys, you could give them a deck of cards
and they're gonna do an hour and a half
and have you rolling for an hour and a half.
That wasn't where my personality naturally led.
And my friends are pointing out, when you do hypnosis, man,
you're having fun at an hour, you're having fun at 75 minutes,
(08:53):
you're having fun at 90 minutes, you're having fun still.
So why are you working so hard on something
that isn't fun for you when you can do something
that really fits what you're doing?
And as soon as I realized that,
the rocket ship kind of took off and I never looked back.
Yeah, I think that's amazing.
That's what a lot of people are searching for,
(09:15):
just something that they excel at and that they enjoy.
So I'm happy that you found that for sure.
But I wanna talk about kind of what hypnosis is
and what it's not.
Because I think that too, a lot of people,
it's kind of a scary thing
or something they just don't know a lot about.
And when people don't know a lot about something,
(09:35):
then they form judgments that aren't always positive.
So it's a really, really big question,
but what is hypnosis and maybe more importantly,
what is it not?
Yeah, let's just kinda talk about
what hypnosis isn't for a minute.
So hypnosis isn't the Hollywood portrayal,
but the Hollywood portrayal is never accurate.
(09:57):
Even when Hollywood does a true story,
it's always based on a true story.
Because you're always gonna twist things to fit a narrative.
Hypnosis, first of all, is a natural state.
If you've ever fallen asleep at night,
if you've ever woken up in the morning,
you've passed in and out of different states of hypnosis.
(10:20):
The most, and it happens to you during the day,
you get lost in a daydream,
everything else kinda vanishes for a few minutes.
Or you're driving, especially late at night,
you're driving in your neighborhood,
you're driving somewhere,
you've driven a million times before.
But did you stop at that,
(10:40):
you know you were focused on the road,
you know you were focused,
but you don't remember the fine details of that.
Or you're supposed to drive somewhere,
but it's on the path to work,
and you've missed your exit
because you're driving to work now
because your brain just kinda goes into that pattern.
Those are moments of hypnosis.
(11:01):
We've all slid in and out of it.
People tell me all the time,
oh my God, I didn't really believe in hypnosis
until I saw you.
You know, I saw it on TV,
I didn't think it worked like that.
You know what, on TV,
I've seen people fly.
None of us believe what we see on TV,
and you probably shouldn't.
(11:22):
So when you see it live,
it's a whole nother experience
when you understand these are real people
who get put into this state of hypnosis.
And in my show,
my big goal is if you volunteer,
and hypnosis unleashed,
I wanna unleash your inner superstar.
If I get you to volunteer,
I wanna make you look awesome.
(11:45):
Because one thing I learned a long time ago,
everybody in my audience doesn't know who you are,
but they all know one thing about you.
Oh my God, that could have been me.
So if I make you look good,
if I make you a star,
if I unleash those parts of you,
you're gonna have fun,
and they're gonna have fun.
(12:07):
I like that.
I like the part of trying to make people look good,
look like the star of the show
because I think that's what a lot of people are afraid of.
I'm gonna get up there.
If they put me into a hypnotic trance,
they're gonna make me balk like a chicken or something.
And it doesn't sound like that's your goal.
I am way more creative than that.
(12:28):
Of course, you are gonna do some fun, funny,
and adult things at my show.
But overall, if I make you look good,
then you wanna come back and bring other people.
If I make you look like an idiot,
you don't even wanna tell people you did it.
And there's a difference between,
(12:50):
hey, we're gonna do some stuff.
You're gonna be silly, but you're gonna have fun.
And me trying, and unfortunately,
like we've all seen different types of shows
where the performer really doesn't know what they're doing
and they tend to degrade people that they're talking to.
And it's funny, because I work alongside some great,
(13:14):
what would be considered insult comics.
And these guys are loved by the audience.
But one of their secrets is,
while they might be poking fun at you,
they still love you.
It's a weird thing.
(13:35):
But to watch those guys, I'm like, okay,
I don't wanna insult anyone.
But where does that genuine love come from?
And growing with that love makes it great.
Yeah, yeah.
And you mentioned that you do it mostly with volunteers.
So maybe this kind of takes out the,
(13:56):
I guess the skeptics in things,
but do you, because I've talked to psychics
and people that do that kind of thing.
And I always ask them,
does it take somebody who is completely receptive
for you to be able to do what you're doing?
If you have somebody up there
that just thinks this is a load of BS,
(14:18):
is it something you still can work with?
Or is that, can people go into these hypnotic states
if they don't believe what you're selling?
So I forgot to ask you before we started,
but G-rated, PG-rated or PG-13?
I won't go hard R, but where's my limit here?
You can say whatever you'd like.
(14:38):
Well, the reason I ask is
cause there's one line in the opening of my show.
I make it really clear.
Don't volunteer if the only reason you wanna volunteer
is to prove to me you can't be hypnotized,
cause you win.
Yeah.
And I say that and I do that because,
and I make a joke out of it,
(15:00):
but the whole idea behind this is,
look, if you don't wanna go under,
I can't force you to.
I can't physically drag you up here on this stage
and go relax.
You know, either you wanna give it the shot or you don't.
The funny thing is,
the person who really, really wants to be hypnotized,
(15:20):
a lot of times they're not the ones who go under,
cause they're the ones who you can watch on stage.
And honestly, like everybody in the audience
can read this person's mind as well.
As you're watching this person sitting in the chair going,
am I relaxing enough?
I don't know if I'm relaxing enough.
Wait, what did he just tell me to do?
And they're putting so much pressure on themselves
that they never get to relax.
(15:40):
The person who goes under best
is the person who walks up to me and goes,
look, I have no idea if this is gonna work or not,
but I'll try.
And it's weird, but because they don't care
about the end result,
next thing they know, they're the star of the show.
I love that.
So it's not that, you can't be resistant to it,
but you also don't have to be like some diehard believer
(16:03):
in anything either.
Well, so do you think is, I guess, being a hypnotist,
is it something that, a skill that is just trained?
Is it something that is a bit of an innate ability
or what's that look like?
I've often said a brain damaged chimpanzee
can hypnotize people.
(16:24):
And I know because I do.
Learning hypnosis is easy.
Learning the techniques of hypnosis is easy.
Learning to work with people, that's a hard skill.
The hardest skill that I have as a hypnotist,
doing 250 shows a year,
my major skill is once you're under,
(16:47):
I'll do her two or three things with the whole group,
and they're fun and they're funny things,
but I'm watching you.
I'm watching how you react.
How do you do this?
How do you listen to what I'm saying?
How deep into this moment are you?
And I start learning to target your personality.
And when I say that, it's like,
(17:07):
there are some people who even under,
they're gonna be a little bit nervous.
And so I won't put undue spotlight on them.
Like if you still seem a little reserved or withdrawn,
I'll make sure that what you do, you do with the group.
If on the other hand, in the first couple of things,
(17:27):
you have this really big personality,
oh, well now I can do this, this, and this with you.
And it's funny because some of the people who walk up,
their spouse in the crowd will go, oh my God,
because they've never seen their spouse open up like this.
But you create a situation, you create that hypnotic state,
(17:49):
and they feel comfortable,
and they open up on this big level.
And yeah, I've had some people who've totally surprised me
because they can be the mousiest, the most withdrawn,
the shyest, and once they're on there,
because those barriers are kind of down for a minute,
they're not nervous about it, and they just flourish.
(18:11):
It's funny for the audience, it's fun for me,
but I love watching whoever they came within the audience,
their eyes getting this big and going, oh my God,
I didn't know they could do that.
That's a cool feeling.
That has to be really, really cool.
And I think this is probably the biggest softball question
(18:34):
I could possibly ask, almost a marketing ploy question,
but if somebody comes on a Wednesday
and then they also come on a Thursday,
are they gonna see the same thing?
Is it the same show twice?
You will probably see a very similar opening monologue
from me because there are things
(18:55):
that I need to make sure people know.
But when people come back, I always make sure
to throw in something different,
plus I never know what a volunteer's gonna do
on any given night.
What you saw somebody do last night
will be totally different
because it's a whole different group of people
(19:16):
doing it tonight and who knows how
they're going to interpret it.
And that's actually what makes it really funny for me too
is, so my wife is the main assistant in the show.
She does all of the hard work,
but it's really funny because there's been many times
where it's like, after the show I'm asking her,
why did this person do this on stage?
(19:39):
Do they misunderstand me?
And she's gone, no, no, no, they understood you.
But to them it meant something different.
Yeah.
You know, and it's cool working with those personalities
and going, huh, why are they doing that?
I mean, I'm sure there's a million stories
(20:02):
and maybe hard to come up with them
or maybe you've got one right away,
but what's some interesting things that have happened
while you're up there?
Well, okay, just to go back for one second,
we were talking about people's personalities.
And I'm talking about the big personalities
versus the little personalities.
On the count of three, you're in a rock band,
you can play any instrument you want.
(20:24):
And you've got these big guys slamming the drums,
you've got these girls rocking out with a guitar.
And then one night I'm watching a guy
and here's his whole personality.
And he's doing the cymbals.
He's playing the triangle.
Oh, the triangle, yeah.
I'm telling you, you can play any instrument you want.
I get to play the triangle.
Wow, that's, okay, we're not gonna put
(20:46):
one-on-one spotlights on you much.
You know, I've had so many,
one of my wife's favorite moments is I do this thing
where the girls think, the women on my station
think I'm ugly, the guys think I'm adorable.
And we had a professional rugby player up there.
(21:10):
And this guy grabbed me and huddled me on his lap.
And I mean, like, he was not letting me go for anything.
And he was ragdowling me and my wife freaks out a little bit
and she's going, let him go, let him go, let him go.
And if I would have said sleep,
he'd have let me go in a second.
But the audience is laughing as I'm getting like ragdowled
(21:31):
all over this place by a huge rugby player.
It's funny, fine, I'll take the hit, it's worth it.
But you know, we've turned giant guys into Britney Spears.
On any given night, like the other night,
we had this guy who was covered in tattoos.
(21:52):
And I told him the tattoos on the opposite arms
were arguing with each other.
You know, just playing into whatever's there.
My favorite is probably,
so if I've got somebody on stage
and they've been married for a long time,
I'll bring their spouse on stage.
And then whenever their spouse says the trigger word,
(22:14):
the spouse who's hypnotized will give their spouse a kiss
like it's their first wedding night.
And that one's a lot of fun because, you know,
we've got this image, oh my God,
you've been married 20, 25 years, you hate each other.
Now, man, you've been married for 20 plus years
and you're going up there
and you're still holding hands and going on dates.
It's awe inspiring.
You know, and then, you know,
sometimes we'll have a guy give birth,
(22:35):
we'll have people fight over napkins.
We're gonna make it fun and funny.
What do you say to the people who listen to this
or think about any kind of hypnosis
and think it is just nonsense and the, okay, yeah,
sounds all great, but I'm sure he,
this is all just an act and it's the same eight people
(22:55):
on stage every night because he pays them.
It's, first of all,
I wish we could afford to pay new actors every night.
That would be fantastic.
But that's also why,
because so thanks to social media
and man, you don't hear that phrase much anymore,
but thanks to social media,
we regularly put up pictures of our volunteers for the night
(23:17):
just so that I want you to be able to see
how many different people there are.
And yes, there are some people
who refuse to want to believe it.
Okay, fine.
I don't know why you came to my show
if you just want to prove it doesn't work.
(23:37):
It's kind of an odd,
but then again, there are some people who go to magic shows
just to prove they can figure out how they're done.
But my goal in a show is I want you to understand,
like I do everything I can to demystify it.
I don't want it to be spooky and creepy.
I want you to understand, here's why they're doing this.
And by the way,
if I can get them out of the audience and have them do this,
(24:00):
I know 50 different people who do it for therapy.
And if there's something you want to fix in your life,
if this guy can be Britney Spears, you can quit smoking.
That's powerful.
That's powerful stuff for sure.
So I want to get to the,
I guess a little bit more about the show.
And I want you to just tell us,
(24:21):
I mean, how did you decide to go to Vegas?
How did you decide to create the show?
There's so many answers that I want to give to this.
And unfortunately,
I've got to jump all the way back to being 16.
So I did my first costume character and I got paid 40 bucks.
And this was in 92, 91, 92, somewhere in there.
(24:46):
I was 16, just about to turn 17.
That was as much money I made.
That 40 bucks was as much as I got paid
for working a full week at Little Caesars.
So, okay, you know what?
I'm done flipping pizzas.
I got a new game.
And it sounds dumb to think about a 16 year old.
You know, do you want to work in a pizza place
(25:06):
or do you want to do this?
But keep in mind, what I actually said there was,
I don't want a stable job.
I want to do this insane thing.
And that was true through my entire career,
is I was willing to sacrifice other things,
safety, security, reliable income, health insurance,
whatever, to build this entertainment thing.
(25:30):
My wife who graduated from Del Arte,
she said one of her teachers told her,
if you can do anything in the world besides performing,
do that instead, you'll be happier.
But if you can't do anything else,
you're screwed because you're one of us now.
When I was 25, I had the opportunity
to go to New Orleans for six months.
Six months turned into five years.
I knew no one in New Orleans.
(25:52):
It was literally, I had an opportunity
or I could stay in Detroit where it was comfortable and easy.
And the one thing I knew, as I was leaving for New Orleans,
I knew one secret.
Detroit would always be there.
I could always go back.
And the five years in New Orleans were amazing.
Katrina's what sent me back to Detroit.
But in New Orleans, I got to work
(26:12):
with great performers as well.
I got to work with people who really built me up,
started touring colleges.
When I came back to Detroit,
taking that whole world of experience,
I was able to turn it into doing corporate shows
all over the world.
And after five years of doing that,
I had an opportunity to come to Vegas for six months.
And six months is now almost 15 years.
(26:34):
And it's awesome.
But the majority of it is,
how bad do you want this thing?
And whatever you are not willing to give up,
that's what it's gonna cost you.
And I don't mean to sound negative.
I don't mean to sound mean when I say that.
Because yes, some people have made it
(26:57):
while having a 40 hour a week job
and a family and everything else,
but it makes it a lot harder.
I just, I never stopped pushing for what I wanted.
But there's also a big difference
between pushing and being pushy.
It's that difference between,
I'm going to achieve what I want,
but I'm gonna achieve what I want by working with you,
(27:20):
not trying to step on you.
I think that's an important distinction for sure.
And I think you've answered the question
I was a little afraid to ask,
has the show been going on for 15 years?
Because I know with Vegas and a lot of things,
you can get specific enough that the longest running
monkey show on Tuesdays is three weeks or something.
(27:41):
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
I am definitely the highest rated hypnotist
named Kevin Lapine of all time.
So I joined Hypnosis Unleashed in 2010.
And at that point it already had either,
I wanna say it had like almost
an eight or nine year reputation already.
And then I came in and I was basically interning for him.
(28:05):
That turned into one night a week.
One night a week turned into one night a weekend
subbing for the other guys.
One of the guys decided he was ready to retire.
So I took his spot.
And then when the theater we were in closed,
the other hypnotist who's like a big brother to me,
Michael Johns, he said,
if you wanna carry the name forward, you can.
(28:26):
And so I did.
And so Hypnosis Unleashed has been under my name
for 12 years now, a little over 12 years,
but it has a 20 plus year history here in Las Vegas
of running consistently if we don't include COVID.
What's the interview look like to join this show?
(28:49):
Did you have to hypnotize the person
that was interviewing you?
What's that look like?
Here's the biggest amount of honesty
that I can give anyone.
I was invited to the show by one of the people in it.
One of the hypnotists had no problem
bringing another hypnotist up on stage
and letting them do one routine.
And the guy really liked the one routine I did.
He brought me up there to do one routine.
(29:10):
And he invited me to come back the next night.
And then he invited me to hang out.
At this point, I was 35 years old.
I had toured the world doing this.
And I knew what I was doing.
But you know what I didn't know?
Anything about Las Vegas.
And I basically became an intern.
Like the next six months with them, I would seat people.
I would take tickets.
I would work the box office.
(29:31):
I'd work as the assistant.
I would work in the sound booth.
I would work security.
I would do anything they needed so I could learn.
And eventually they said, look, you're doing this stuff
basically as an intern.
What do you want?
I said, I want your dark night.
And they gave it to me.
And after about almost six months of doing the show,
so now I've been with these guys for a year, right?
(29:53):
I asked them, why me?
Why me?
The hypnosis world isn't that big.
You could have picked 150, 200 other people
who would have all say they would die to have this.
Why me?
And they said, because out of all of them,
they're the first person to come here and ask questions,
not to tell us how you would do it instead.
(30:14):
That's powerful stuff.
It is.
And this is a truth.
I don't care what job you're in.
I don't care what career you're in.
If there is someone you look up to,
and you reach out to them sincerely with a question,
and then you sincerely listen to the answer,
don't interrupt the answer.
Don't tell them, well, that's not the answer
(30:35):
I would have given, because I would say do that.
Listen, everyone who's successful, anyone
who you think is more successful than you,
well, I'll tell you one giant secret.
There is more room at the top than there will ever
be people to fill top positions, but only
if you're willing to learn.
And humility helps you grow more than anything else.
(30:56):
Sincerely reach out.
Ask those people.
You'll be surprised at how much knowledge they'll give you.
Yeah, well, I mean, the passion behind it,
I think that's easy to see why you've been successful.
And I want to know why you think the show has
been so successful for so long.
I mean, Vegas is an interesting place
where you're getting new people every week.
(31:18):
So you're getting a fresh set of a potential audience.
But it's also interesting where there's hundreds of shows
people can choose from.
And it's really easy for one just to be absolutely fantastic,
but somehow just doesn't get the publicity.
How has Hypnosis Unleashed been able to withstand
(31:40):
20 years and 12 years under your tutelage?
So the first thing you need here in Vegas,
if you're going to have a show or a restaurant or a casino,
and mind you, I'm like one of the smallest shows in Vegas,
but me and Caesar's Palace still have
to do the one thing in common.
(32:02):
I have to give you a reason to come back.
Caesar's Palace isn't going to live if they can't convince you
to come back.
MGM will gladly take that customer.
If I can make sure you're having a good time,
word of mouth is the strongest advertising out there.
My friend told me I needed to come and see you.
Hey, we saw you two years ago when we were here.
(32:22):
We had to come back.
And one of the great things I'll say about the Vegas community,
especially the smaller shows, we don't want fans.
I've never wanted a fan.
I want friends.
When you come and see my show, I want to connect with you.
(32:45):
And I want to connect with you in such a way that it's not,
oh, we should go see that hypnotist again.
It's, oh, man, we should go hang out at Kevin's show again.
And I'd look.
But there has to be a sincerity there.
It can't be fake.
Because audiences know when you're lying.
They know when you're not being sincere.
(33:07):
When you give them sincerity, they'll bond with you,
and they'll come back.
So maybe it's just that passion behind it
and wanting to be sincere and know that you're doing it
among friends.
But given that you're doing this night in and night out,
at least five days a week, how do you make sure that you,
(33:29):
I guess, remain fresh?
How do you make sure that you're not going to be feeling super
chipper every day?
Everyone has their own mental health.
So how do you make sure that every show that people
are getting, I guess, the best Kevin Lepine?
I can't give you the best day Kevin Lepine's ever had.
(33:50):
I can give somebody that.
But who knows when or what that'll be.
But from bell to bell, from the start of the show
through the end of the show.
There's one thing I never forget.
You chose to see me.
Do you know what that means in Vegas?
You chose not to see Carrot Top.
(34:11):
You chose not to see the Topply Show.
You chose not to see Cirque.
You chose not to see Celine.
You chose not to see Blue Man Group.
You chose to come and see me.
And so for that period of time, I owe you 100%.
And the other reason I owe you 100% is tickets to my show
are $35.
(34:32):
Some people had to work almost two hours, maybe a little bit
more to make that after taxes.
Except you didn't come alone.
You brought whoever you're dating with you.
So now you worked almost five hours, maybe six hours
to come and see my show.
You could have gone to see a movie.
It would have been a little cheaper.
Special effects would have been way better.
Not only did you choose to spend your money with me,
(34:52):
just give me your vacation time.
Limited time in the most limited time.
I owe you the best I can give you.
I owe you that.
That is my debt to you, and I will pay it.
How do you make sure that you withstand
and you make sure that you're taking care of yourself, too?
You talked about people could go to a movie.
(35:13):
Pretty timely right now.
I don't know exactly when this will come out.
It probably won't be on theaters anymore.
But the last show girl is in theater now.
It kind of talks about somebody who doesn't really
know what to do with their life because they've
been in the same Vegas show for 30 plus years.
And now they're kind of burnt out on what they're doing,
but they also don't know how to do anything else.
(35:35):
So how do you make sure that you don't get yourself
in that rut?
You don't get yourself burnt out,
but you also don't get yourself where you have no identity
outside of those walls.
I've been really fortunate.
I've been really lucky.
Most of the performers that I've met throughout my career
have been fantastic human beings.
They've been very giving.
(35:55):
They've been very caring.
They've been very warm.
I would say at least 85% of all the performers I've ever met
have been that.
Less than 15% have been jerks.
But part of what makes the people who are happy happy
is they have a world beyond what they do.
They have other interests.
(36:16):
They have other desires.
They have other friends.
They have other interests.
If you turn yourself into a one dimensional human being,
it's a really, really sad life.
And I have been fortunate that I've
had great friends around me who have shown me the difference.
And the trick is, the first trick you learn
(36:36):
has to be financial, which is how do you save up
for when you don't want to do it anymore.
As much as you're going to say that about the last showgirl,
well, the same is true for that accountant
who's done it for so long.
And then that company closes.
And they weren't quite ready to retire yet.
And they really have a retirement plan either.
(36:58):
They knew they were going to retire.
But retire to do what?
So it becomes that next question of,
if you stopped doing this tomorrow,
what would still ignite your passion?
If you can't do this tomorrow, what
would you start doing next week?
And performers, doctors, accountants, anybody,
factory worker, you've done that for 40, 50 hours a week
(37:21):
every week for 40 years, maybe a little bit more.
Now I'm telling you to retire.
And you're sitting at home.
And there's no community around you anymore.
See, this is what people forget is
it's that community of people.
Everyone I know who has retired successfully has retired.
And most of them don't work for money.
(37:43):
Some of them still work for a couple of bucks.
But it's in doing something in a community
they want to be a part of.
This person was a CEO of this major stressful corporation.
And now he makes minimum wage because they
have to pay him to help out at the dog shelter, which
he'd gladly do for free.
(38:04):
But legally, they have to pay him.
But he's doing something he wants.
He's doing something around a community.
All the lines about the old guys who are just
sitting around playing golf.
It's not about playing golf.
It's about having a community around you.
I definitely understand what you're saying about it
being any job, being a tough thing to move on from.
(38:26):
But I'm going to challenge you just a little bit with that.
Because when you were talking earlier about how
if you could do anything else that the person told your wife,
if you could do anything other than entertainment,
then do that.
I do think that it's a little bit different just
because an entertainer, they're built to do that.
So I think that leaving that world
(38:48):
and or being forced out of that world would be a harder thing.
Because I mean, you can't entertain the dogs
for only for so long.
So I do think that that's maybe a longer road down
if you don't find a better solution.
But that's also if you are wise.
(39:08):
And Lord knows, wisdom and performers,
there's a combination that goes hand in hand.
If you are wise, the audience in the mirror
will tell you a lot of things.
I haven't seen the last show girl yet.
I've read all of the descriptions and everything.
There's a point as a performer where you go, oh, well,
(39:29):
I've entered this stage in my life.
I've entered this part of my career.
How do I adapt to it?
And what do I start doing next?
And I would say as a performer, if you
don't have an idea of what you can do next,
you can find yourself in a really bad spot.
But in our modern world, nobody's guaranteed a 40-year
(39:53):
career doing anything anymore.
And I think everybody always has to have
in the back of their mind what's something else that
could make me happy as well.
Like if for some reason I couldn't do the hypnosis show
here anymore, yeah, I'd go back on the road a bit.
I'd pick up more road gigs.
I'd pick up corporate gigs.
Or I'd probably speak at more conventions.
(40:17):
Now, if I get to do it my way, my choice
is do it until I want to retire.
And then when I want to retire, I'll
take the 12 gigs a year I want to take, and that's that.
Then it becomes a what do you want to do,
not what do you have to do.
Yeah.
I mean, it's easy to look at the show that you do,
(40:41):
the passion you have behind it, and see
all the positive things.
Obviously, you get to do something you love.
You get to entertain people.
You get to make people happy.
You get to perform and kind of be the star of the show as well.
These are all really, really great things.
And so we're going to put those aside
and realize that the bulk of what you're doing is amazing.
(41:02):
What's the hard parts of doing what you're doing?
I mean, you do have to do this night in and night out.
It can't be all rainbows and butterflies all the time.
So what's the challenging part?
No, it's tough sometimes.
It can be tough sometimes.
There are times you have small crowds.
There are times you cancel shows.
And that hurts.
That's a huge ego drain.
(41:23):
And there are nights where it's like, well, we
did the show we had to do tonight.
It wasn't the show I would have wanted to have done tonight,
but this is what we had.
So this is what we did.
And I have to look at it like a baseball player.
Now, as far as baseball goes, I would
be the greatest baseball player in the world
with my home run stats.
(41:47):
With my at bats, I'd be killer.
Still going to strike out once in a while.
When that happens, you just got to brush off that last one
and get ready for your next at bat.
And it's tough sometimes.
It is hard to have that and to do that with a smile
and to say, yeah, you know what, OK, fine.
Let's move forward with this.
It's hard to do a show on a day when you've lost somebody,
(42:09):
but that's happened.
My wife had to go on stage.
She got notified from her sister as she
was walking out on stage that their dad died.
And I was just really, really unfortunate timing
about when she got that news.
It's hard, but it's the job we signed up for.
And one of the hardest, though, for performers
who don't have a great support system around them,
(42:32):
everybody thinks the hard part is the tough shows.
It's not.
The hardest thing is the great shows,
because you do a great show, do a killer show.
People are waiting for your autographs,
and you're taking pictures.
And it's great, right?
And then you go to McDonald's, and no one knows who you are.
Can you take that difference?
Can you adjust to that?
(42:53):
Can you mentally go from, I was just on top of the world,
and now I'm sitting here waiting for somebody
to make me a Big Mac?
And that's the problem a lot of performers have,
is how do you go from A to B?
I'm lucky.
I've got a fantastic wife.
I've got fantastic friends who really made me look at the fact
that, yes, I'm passionate about it.
(43:14):
It's not an all-consuming thing.
And it's a tough one to learn.
Yeah, well, I appreciate you sharing that.
I can only imagine.
That has to be a humbling experience at times.
So I really.
But it's also true, once again, across the board,
any other field.
You can go and do something amazing whatever fields you do,
but nobody else in any other field
is going to really understand it.
(43:36):
So take pride in what you do.
Love what you do.
Be honored by it.
Just surround yourself with people
who don't let that define you.
Yeah, I think that is a really important thing for sure.
And I want to kind of keep with your baseball analogy
just because I've talked to tens and tens of people that
are doing really amazing things and people that are performers
(43:58):
as well.
But normally, we're talking about a show
that they do this weekend or a show that they did in the past.
You actually are doing a show today.
So we've got you literally right now in the bullpen.
So I want now you to talk about how you're feeling about tonight,
how you feel about the show today.
Today's going to be fun.
I'm going to go meet a whole bunch of new friends I haven't
(44:21):
I've never met before.
And we're going to have a party together.
And we're going to have a great time doing it.
I love it.
I love it.
And tonight's people and all the people that come out and see
you, what do you hope that they gain
from checking out the show?
So the main thing is I want them walking out
of there having had fun.
(44:42):
You laughed.
He had fun.
You had a great time.
And you're walking out in high spirits.
And that's 95% about how I want you to feel.
The other thing, that little 5%, I want you to feel
is I want you to feel, oh, maybe next time I should do that.
Or maybe looking at this hypnosis
(45:03):
to help me do something.
Maybe I should look into that.
If I can leave you with a huge smile on your face,
that's great.
If I can leave you with a big smile on your face,
maybe feeling a little bit more hopeful than you felt
before you came in, that's great too.
Well, let's hope the bulk of people
leave your show with just that for sure.
(45:23):
And this is the most interviewy question that I've got.
And that is, if we're talking in five years,
what do you hope that you're doing at that point?
We've got a few different hopes five years from now.
So hypnosis unleashed is five nights a week
at the Four Queens on Freemont Street.
Five years from now, I'd love to be doing three
(45:45):
of those nights and maybe having somebody else do two
of them just like how I was able to grow
and have that opportunity.
No, that's awesome that you wanna help that next person.
I think that shows a lot of character for sure.
So I want to, in wrapping things up,
shout out the show again,
how people are going to check it out,
(46:06):
how people are gonna get tickets,
how they're gonna follow along with you just so they can,
maybe they can't get to Vegas all the time,
but they still wanna check out your social media.
They wanna see maybe some of the fun things you're doing.
Talk about the show and shout out all your social media.
Join me on social media.
I've been really lucky, I think on everything.
It's at Hypnotist Kevin.
(46:27):
Join me on any one of those.
Facebook I'm really active on.
Instagram I'm figuring out.
TikTok I'm figuring out.
But got TikTok was great when I went,
when my wife and I went to Japan on vacation
because it was a cool way to see what some stuff was.
So any of the social media, please add me, follow me.
If you have questions, reach out to me.
(46:49):
But the show, go to hypnosisonleash.com.
We'd love to see you.
It's recommended 18 and over.
Any age can attend with adults.
But you know, we do use a lot of adult language
in adult situations.
But either come to the show, sit back and laugh,
or take one of the best seats in the house,
volunteer and become a superstar.
I really, really appreciate your time.
(47:10):
Thanks so much.
My greatest pleasure.
So that was Kevin Lepine.
Hope you enjoyed that as much as I did.
Really fascinating guy.
I learned so much about hypnosis
and just about kind of the technique behind it.
I certainly had no idea.
I'm definitely gonna have to check out the show
when I'm in Vegas next, which is just a few weeks away.
(47:31):
I urge you to check out his show, Hypnosis Unleashed.
If you're ever in Vegas, I'm sure you'd love to see it
and love to know that you heard about him on this podcast.
I will put the links to all his information
in the show notes, his social media.
I'll put a link to the website for Hypnosis Unleashed
so you can go check him out the next time you're in Vegas.
(47:55):
But I really appreciate you being here.
Kevin, thank you for being here.
This is your first time listening or you haven't already.
Go follow along on Instagram, Not Enough Podcast,
on TikTok, Not Enough Podcast,
Not Enough for JacksEnough on Facebook.
Go leave that five-star rating on Apple and Spotify.
Leave a written review on Apple, that helps a ton.
(48:16):
But if you do nothing else, catch you next week.
Take it away, Chris.
This has been Not In a Huff with Jackson Huff.
Thank you for listening.
Be sure to join us next time
where we will interview another amazing guest
who is sure to make you laugh or make you think,
or hey, maybe even both.
But until then, keep being awesome.
The hardest thing is the great shows.
(00:02):
Because you do a great show, to a killer show.
People are waiting for your autographs,
you're taking pictures, and it's great, right?
Then you go to McDonald's and no one knows who you are.
Can you take that difference?
Can you adjust to that?
How bad do you want this thing?
Whatever you are not willing to give up,
that's what it's gonna cost you.
(00:22):
Welcome to Not in a Hoff with Jackson Hoff,
where we interview newsmakers, storytellers,
and all around interesting people.
Sit back, relax, unless you're driving,
and enjoy the show.
Here's Jackson.
Hello, hello, hello, I am Jackson Hoff.
This is Not in a Hoff.
Thanks so much for joining me.
(00:43):
As always, we really appreciate it.
This week's week with Kevin Lapine.
Now, Kevin is a hypnotist.
We're gonna talk all about what that means,
what it is, what it's not.
But we're gonna kind of dive deeper into
just being, not just a hypnotist,
but being somebody who has a show in Las Vegas.
It's a almost nightly show.
(01:03):
I think there's a night or two each week
that he doesn't perform.
But what's it like not just to do hypnosis,
which is an interesting thing in itself,
but to then have a show in the crazy place that is Vegas?
I really, really enjoyed speaking with Kevin.
He's gonna talk about how he learned to be a hypnotist.
(01:26):
He's gonna tell you that he thinks darn near
anyone could do it.
He's gonna talk about his show,
how he doesn't get burnt out doing it night in and night out,
what it's like to have a long running show in Vegas,
because he doesn't just have a hypnosis show,
he has the longest running hypnosis show in Vegas.
So something to be said there.
Definitely a really cool thing.
(01:47):
He's gonna kind of talk about the beginning,
the middle on how he kind of worked his way up
into headlining,
just what he hopes for the future.
This is a really, really fun one.
I didn't know very much about hypnosis at all,
but I think a lot of people look at it
and are a little bit frightened by it.
Like, is he gonna make me do crazy stuff?
(02:07):
And I really like what he says there
about making sure that those that he hypnotizes
are the stars of the show.
So I think you're gonna really enjoy this one.
As you're listening,
go ahead and click that subscribe button
on Apple or Spotify.
I leave a five-star review on Apple or Spotify.
That really helps a ton.
Leave a written review on Apple.
It helps even more.
Follow along on Instagram, Facebook, all them places.
(02:30):
Not enough podcasts, but here is Kevin Lapine.
So Lapine, how are you?
I'm doing great.
Thanks for having me on.
Well, thanks for agreeing to join me.
I'm really looking forward to talking to you about hypnosis.
That's what you are.
You're billed as America's favorite hypnotist.
So that's a big billing for sure.
(02:51):
That is really awesome.
And having the longest running hypnosis show in Las Vegas,
I do the show, Hypnosis Unleashed.
We're downtown Las Vegas at the Four Queens.
Being able to have the longest running hypnosis show.
And literally, I mean, I'm a kid who grew up
all around the Detroit area,
got to live in New Orleans for a little while.
(03:11):
And then I get to live my dream
of being a headliner in Vegas.
Well, I love that.
And I want you kind of just to start at the beginning.
What is what created that passion for entertainment?
And was it always kind of in this, you know, magic?
I don't even know if you want to consider it magic.
That may be a big box to open already,
(03:32):
but what made you want to get into entertainment?
I wanted to be a surgeon.
My parents make me do this.
Honestly, this is my passion.
This is what I loved.
I had a huge stuttering problem
until I was about 15 and a half, 16.
I actually like came through a lot of different versions
(03:53):
of being bullied and a lot of different abuse.
The stage was the only place I felt comfortable.
It's weird.
I couldn't do anything interpersonally,
like you and I would freak me out.
But standing in front of a hundred people on stage
was the only place I felt comfortable.
And it was just, that feeling just kind of grew.
(04:14):
When I was 16, I got picked up by an entertainment company.
So I did costume characters for, you know,
for kids' birthdays.
So I was Barney for your little brother's birthday.
Or for copyright reasons, I was a purple dinosaur.
But it just, and I got to work with a lot of weirdos,
(04:35):
but fun weirdos.
I mean, the guy who ran the company,
this guy would set his minivan on cruise control.
And if there's nobody on the expressway,
he would actually jump to the back, grab a costume,
run back up front and get dressed while driving.
A complete lunatic, but you know,
but there were also these really, really energetic people.
(04:56):
These people had a lot of positivity
and who were trying to do something.
And because I was doing that, I got into clowning.
Clowning actually got me into magic.
I only got into clowning
because it meant I could do more shows.
But you weren't wrong, man.
Magic was the gateway drug.
I started doing some magic in the clown show.
The magic kind of just worked for me.
(05:19):
It's, I don't know how else to say it,
but like a deck of cards just felt natural.
And then, you know, doing that for a number of years,
I got to work with sideshow performers.
We were talking about the piece behind me.
We were talking about interviewing a strong man.
I mean, I used to work with guys
who actually were in the 10 in 1 show in Coney Island.
And then I started working with hypnotists.
(05:40):
And when I was 25, I, excuse me, when I was 20,
I got into a course for social workers
to learn hypnosis.
And it just kind of kept growing and growing and growing.
I love that.
And you've kind of done what a lot of my guests have done
in the past, but you've kind of combined it all
into one person.
(06:00):
So I've actually talked to people who run
these costume companies and have the ice princess
and the Italian plumber again for copyright reasons.
Exactly.
And then, you know, a lot of magicians
and things like that for sure.
But I, you know, I mistakenly asked you about magic,
but I want to ask you that specific question.
(06:22):
Do you consider, you know, the hypnosis and what you do,
do you consider it a magic act or something else?
No, not at all, except.
So no, completely not at all, totally wrong.
Well, except for this one thing
where you're completely right.
Um, I learned something doing magic.
And the difference between magic and hypnosis
is hypnosis is actually happening.
(06:43):
I'm really hypnotizing you.
There is no magic trick to it.
It just is.
But when I was doing magic, I figured out something.
So magic is a trick, right?
If I do a magic trick, you know it's a trick, right?
But for one second, for just one second,
when you see that magic trick,
you have an honest emotional reaction.
(07:04):
For one second, you laugh or for some,
or for one second, you clap,
or for one second, you're just amazed.
Now, after that second, your brain starts going,
well, I mean, it had to have just been a trick.
That was what magic taught me,
was if you can create a moment
and feel emotionally connected to that moment,
that's where it all comes from.
So no, the hypnosis show isn't a magic trick,
(07:27):
but the emotion, making people laugh,
making something genuine, making a connection,
that's universal in every performing art.
So you've done all these other things.
What made you decide that hypnosis was something
that you wanted to not just do, but as you've said,
create a show around it and one that is longstanding?
(07:49):
So it was my friends being smarter than me.
So I would work, at this point in time, I'm touring
and I'm doing a lot of colleges
and I'm doing a lot of comedy clubs.
In comedy club A, I'm doing my comedy magic as a middle act.
So I'm the 20, 25 minute feature.
(08:09):
Comedy club B, I'm headlining doing hypnosis.
I like magic, I'm passionate about magic, I love magic.
I couldn't write a 26th minute of magic.
That was genuine.
And you look at great comedy magicians,
the amazing Jonathan, who is a dear friend, Harry Anderson,
(08:31):
a dear friend as well, Matt King, who's amazing.
These guys, you could give them a deck of cards
and they're gonna do an hour and a half
and have you rolling for an hour and a half.
That wasn't where my personality naturally led.
And my friends are pointing out, when you do hypnosis, man,
you're having fun at an hour, you're having fun at 75 minutes,
(08:53):
you're having fun at 90 minutes, you're having fun still.
So why are you working so hard on something
that isn't fun for you when you can do something
that really fits what you're doing?
And as soon as I realized that,
the rocket ship kind of took off and I never looked back.
Yeah, I think that's amazing.
That's what a lot of people are searching for,
(09:15):
just something that they excel at and that they enjoy.
So I'm happy that you found that for sure.
But I wanna talk about kind of what hypnosis is
and what it's not.
Because I think that too, a lot of people,
it's kind of a scary thing
or something they just don't know a lot about.
And when people don't know a lot about something,
(09:35):
then they form judgments that aren't always positive.
So it's a really, really big question,
but what is hypnosis and maybe more importantly,
what is it not?
Yeah, let's just kinda talk about
what hypnosis isn't for a minute.
So hypnosis isn't the Hollywood portrayal,
but the Hollywood portrayal is never accurate.
(09:57):
Even when Hollywood does a true story,
it's always based on a true story.
Because you're always gonna twist things to fit a narrative.
Hypnosis, first of all, is a natural state.
If you've ever fallen asleep at night,
if you've ever woken up in the morning,
you've passed in and out of different states of hypnosis.
(10:20):
The most, and it happens to you during the day,
you get lost in a daydream,
everything else kinda vanishes for a few minutes.
Or you're driving, especially late at night,
you're driving in your neighborhood,
you're driving somewhere,
you've driven a million times before.
But did you stop at that,
(10:40):
you know you were focused on the road,
you know you were focused,
but you don't remember the fine details of that.
Or you're supposed to drive somewhere,
but it's on the path to work,
and you've missed your exit
because you're driving to work now
because your brain just kinda goes into that pattern.
Those are moments of hypnosis.
(11:01):
We've all slid in and out of it.
People tell me all the time,
oh my God, I didn't really believe in hypnosis
until I saw you.
You know, I saw it on TV,
I didn't think it worked like that.
You know what, on TV,
I've seen people fly.
None of us believe what we see on TV,
and you probably shouldn't.
(11:22):
So when you see it live,
it's a whole nother experience
when you understand these are real people
who get put into this state of hypnosis.
And in my show,
my big goal is if you volunteer,
and hypnosis unleashed,
I wanna unleash your inner superstar.
If I get you to volunteer,
I wanna make you look awesome.
(11:45):
Because one thing I learned a long time ago,
everybody in my audience doesn't know who you are,
but they all know one thing about you.
Oh my God, that could have been me.
So if I make you look good,
if I make you a star,
if I unleash those parts of you,
you're gonna have fun,
and they're gonna have fun.
(12:07):
I like that.
I like the part of trying to make people look good,
look like the star of the show
because I think that's what a lot of people are afraid of.
I'm gonna get up there.
If they put me into a hypnotic trance,
they're gonna make me balk like a chicken or something.
And it doesn't sound like that's your goal.
I am way more creative than that.
(12:28):
Of course, you are gonna do some fun, funny,
and adult things at my show.
But overall, if I make you look good,
then you wanna come back and bring other people.
If I make you look like an idiot,
you don't even wanna tell people you did it.
And there's a difference between,
(12:50):
hey, we're gonna do some stuff.
You're gonna be silly, but you're gonna have fun.
And me trying, and unfortunately,
like we've all seen different types of shows
where the performer really doesn't know what they're doing
and they tend to degrade people that they're talking to.
And it's funny, because I work alongside some great,
(13:14):
what would be considered insult comics.
And these guys are loved by the audience.
But one of their secrets is,
while they might be poking fun at you,
they still love you.
It's a weird thing.
(13:35):
But to watch those guys, I'm like, okay,
I don't wanna insult anyone.
But where does that genuine love come from?
And growing with that love makes it great.
Yeah, yeah.
And you mentioned that you do it mostly with volunteers.
So maybe this kind of takes out the,
(13:56):
I guess the skeptics in things,
but do you, because I've talked to psychics
and people that do that kind of thing.
And I always ask them,
does it take somebody who is completely receptive
for you to be able to do what you're doing?
If you have somebody up there
that just thinks this is a load of BS,
(14:18):
is it something you still can work with?
Or is that, can people go into these hypnotic states
if they don't believe what you're selling?
So I forgot to ask you before we started,
but G-rated, PG-rated or PG-13?
I won't go hard R, but where's my limit here?
You can say whatever you'd like.
(14:38):
Well, the reason I ask is
cause there's one line in the opening of my show.
I make it really clear.
Don't volunteer if the only reason you wanna volunteer
is to prove to me you can't be hypnotized,
cause you win.
Yeah.
And I say that and I do that because,
and I make a joke out of it,
(15:00):
but the whole idea behind this is,
look, if you don't wanna go under,
I can't force you to.
I can't physically drag you up here on this stage
and go relax.
You know, either you wanna give it the shot or you don't.
The funny thing is,
the person who really, really wants to be hypnotized,
(15:20):
a lot of times they're not the ones who go under,
cause they're the ones who you can watch on stage.
And honestly, like everybody in the audience
can read this person's mind as well.
As you're watching this person sitting in the chair going,
am I relaxing enough?
I don't know if I'm relaxing enough.
Wait, what did he just tell me to do?
And they're putting so much pressure on themselves
that they never get to relax.
(15:40):
The person who goes under best
is the person who walks up to me and goes,
look, I have no idea if this is gonna work or not,
but I'll try.
And it's weird, but because they don't care
about the end result,
next thing they know, they're the star of the show.
I love that.
So it's not that, you can't be resistant to it,
but you also don't have to be like some diehard believer
(16:03):
in anything either.
Well, so do you think is, I guess, being a hypnotist,
is it something that, a skill that is just trained?
Is it something that is a bit of an innate ability
or what's that look like?
I've often said a brain damaged chimpanzee
can hypnotize people.
(16:24):
And I know because I do.
Learning hypnosis is easy.
Learning the techniques of hypnosis is easy.
Learning to work with people, that's a hard skill.
The hardest skill that I have as a hypnotist,
doing 250 shows a year,
my major skill is once you're under,
(16:47):
I'll do her two or three things with the whole group,
and they're fun and they're funny things,
but I'm watching you.
I'm watching how you react.
How do you do this?
How do you listen to what I'm saying?
How deep into this moment are you?
And I start learning to target your personality.
And when I say that, it's like,
(17:07):
there are some people who even under,
they're gonna be a little bit nervous.
And so I won't put undue spotlight on them.
Like if you still seem a little reserved or withdrawn,
I'll make sure that what you do, you do with the group.
If on the other hand, in the first couple of things,
(17:27):
you have this really big personality,
oh, well now I can do this, this, and this with you.
And it's funny because some of the people who walk up,
their spouse in the crowd will go, oh my God,
because they've never seen their spouse open up like this.
But you create a situation, you create that hypnotic state,
(17:49):
and they feel comfortable,
and they open up on this big level.
And yeah, I've had some people who've totally surprised me
because they can be the mousiest, the most withdrawn,
the shyest, and once they're on there,
because those barriers are kind of down for a minute,
they're not nervous about it, and they just flourish.
(18:11):
It's funny for the audience, it's fun for me,
but I love watching whoever they came within the audience,
their eyes getting this big and going, oh my God,
I didn't know they could do that.
That's a cool feeling.
That has to be really, really cool.
And I think this is probably the biggest softball question
(18:34):
I could possibly ask, almost a marketing ploy question,
but if somebody comes on a Wednesday
and then they also come on a Thursday,
are they gonna see the same thing?
Is it the same show twice?
You will probably see a very similar opening monologue
from me because there are things
(18:55):
that I need to make sure people know.
But when people come back, I always make sure
to throw in something different,
plus I never know what a volunteer's gonna do
on any given night.
What you saw somebody do last night
will be totally different
because it's a whole different group of people
(19:16):
doing it tonight and who knows how
they're going to interpret it.
And that's actually what makes it really funny for me too
is, so my wife is the main assistant in the show.
She does all of the hard work,
but it's really funny because there's been many times
where it's like, after the show I'm asking her,
why did this person do this on stage?
(19:39):
Do they misunderstand me?
And she's gone, no, no, no, they understood you.
But to them it meant something different.
Yeah.
You know, and it's cool working with those personalities
and going, huh, why are they doing that?
I mean, I'm sure there's a million stories
(20:02):
and maybe hard to come up with them
or maybe you've got one right away,
but what's some interesting things that have happened
while you're up there?
Well, okay, just to go back for one second,
we were talking about people's personalities.
And I'm talking about the big personalities
versus the little personalities.
On the count of three, you're in a rock band,
you can play any instrument you want.
(20:24):
And you've got these big guys slamming the drums,
you've got these girls rocking out with a guitar.
And then one night I'm watching a guy
and here's his whole personality.
And he's doing the cymbals.
He's playing the triangle.
Oh, the triangle, yeah.
I'm telling you, you can play any instrument you want.
I get to play the triangle.
Wow, that's, okay, we're not gonna put
(20:46):
one-on-one spotlights on you much.
You know, I've had so many,
one of my wife's favorite moments is I do this thing
where the girls think, the women on my station
think I'm ugly, the guys think I'm adorable.
And we had a professional rugby player up there.
(21:10):
And this guy grabbed me and huddled me on his lap.
And I mean, like, he was not letting me go for anything.
And he was ragdowling me and my wife freaks out a little bit
and she's going, let him go, let him go, let him go.
And if I would have said sleep,
he'd have let me go in a second.
But the audience is laughing as I'm getting like ragdowled
(21:31):
all over this place by a huge rugby player.
It's funny, fine, I'll take the hit, it's worth it.
But you know, we've turned giant guys into Britney Spears.
On any given night, like the other night,
we had this guy who was covered in tattoos.
(21:52):
And I told him the tattoos on the opposite arms
were arguing with each other.
You know, just playing into whatever's there.
My favorite is probably,
so if I've got somebody on stage
and they've been married for a long time,
I'll bring their spouse on stage.
And then whenever their spouse says the trigger word,
(22:14):
the spouse who's hypnotized will give their spouse a kiss
like it's their first wedding night.
And that one's a lot of fun because, you know,
we've got this image, oh my God,
you've been married 20, 25 years, you hate each other.
Now, man, you've been married for 20 plus years
and you're going up there
and you're still holding hands and going on dates.
It's awe inspiring.
You know, and then, you know,
sometimes we'll have a guy give birth,
(22:35):
we'll have people fight over napkins.
We're gonna make it fun and funny.
What do you say to the people who listen to this
or think about any kind of hypnosis
and think it is just nonsense and the, okay, yeah,
sounds all great, but I'm sure he,
this is all just an act and it's the same eight people
(22:55):
on stage every night because he pays them.
It's, first of all,
I wish we could afford to pay new actors every night.
That would be fantastic.
But that's also why,
because so thanks to social media
and man, you don't hear that phrase much anymore,
but thanks to social media,
we regularly put up pictures of our volunteers for the night
(23:17):
just so that I want you to be able to see
how many different people there are.
And yes, there are some people
who refuse to want to believe it.
Okay, fine.
I don't know why you came to my show
if you just want to prove it doesn't work.
(23:37):
It's kind of an odd,
but then again, there are some people who go to magic shows
just to prove they can figure out how they're done.
But my goal in a show is I want you to understand,
like I do everything I can to demystify it.
I don't want it to be spooky and creepy.
I want you to understand, here's why they're doing this.
And by the way,
if I can get them out of the audience and have them do this,
(24:00):
I know 50 different people who do it for therapy.
And if there's something you want to fix in your life,
if this guy can be Britney Spears, you can quit smoking.
That's powerful.
That's powerful stuff for sure.
So I want to get to the,
I guess a little bit more about the show.
And I want you to just tell us,
(24:21):
I mean, how did you decide to go to Vegas?
How did you decide to create the show?
There's so many answers that I want to give to this.
And unfortunately,
I've got to jump all the way back to being 16.
So I did my first costume character and I got paid 40 bucks.
And this was in 92, 91, 92, somewhere in there.
(24:46):
I was 16, just about to turn 17.
That was as much money I made.
That 40 bucks was as much as I got paid
for working a full week at Little Caesars.
So, okay, you know what?
I'm done flipping pizzas.
I got a new game.
And it sounds dumb to think about a 16 year old.
You know, do you want to work in a pizza place
(25:06):
or do you want to do this?
But keep in mind, what I actually said there was,
I don't want a stable job.
I want to do this insane thing.
And that was true through my entire career,
is I was willing to sacrifice other things,
safety, security, reliable income, health insurance,
whatever, to build this entertainment thing.
(25:30):
My wife who graduated from Del Arte,
she said one of her teachers told her,
if you can do anything in the world besides performing,
do that instead, you'll be happier.
But if you can't do anything else,
you're screwed because you're one of us now.
When I was 25, I had the opportunity
to go to New Orleans for six months.
Six months turned into five years.
I knew no one in New Orleans.
(25:52):
It was literally, I had an opportunity
or I could stay in Detroit where it was comfortable and easy.
And the one thing I knew, as I was leaving for New Orleans,
I knew one secret.
Detroit would always be there.
I could always go back.
And the five years in New Orleans were amazing.
Katrina's what sent me back to Detroit.
But in New Orleans, I got to work
(26:12):
with great performers as well.
I got to work with people who really built me up,
started touring colleges.
When I came back to Detroit,
taking that whole world of experience,
I was able to turn it into doing corporate shows
all over the world.
And after five years of doing that,
I had an opportunity to come to Vegas for six months.
And six months is now almost 15 years.
(26:34):
And it's awesome.
But the majority of it is,
how bad do you want this thing?
And whatever you are not willing to give up,
that's what it's gonna cost you.
And I don't mean to sound negative.
I don't mean to sound mean when I say that.
Because yes, some people have made it
(26:57):
while having a 40 hour a week job
and a family and everything else,
but it makes it a lot harder.
I just, I never stopped pushing for what I wanted.
But there's also a big difference
between pushing and being pushy.
It's that difference between,
I'm going to achieve what I want,
but I'm gonna achieve what I want by working with you,
(27:20):
not trying to step on you.
I think that's an important distinction for sure.
And I think you've answered the question
I was a little afraid to ask,
has the show been going on for 15 years?
Because I know with Vegas and a lot of things,
you can get specific enough that the longest running
monkey show on Tuesdays is three weeks or something.
(27:41):
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
I am definitely the highest rated hypnotist
named Kevin Lapine of all time.
So I joined Hypnosis Unleashed in 2010.
And at that point it already had either,
I wanna say it had like almost
an eight or nine year reputation already.
And then I came in and I was basically interning for him.
(28:05):
That turned into one night a week.
One night a week turned into one night a weekend
subbing for the other guys.
One of the guys decided he was ready to retire.
So I took his spot.
And then when the theater we were in closed,
the other hypnotist who's like a big brother to me,
Michael Johns, he said,
if you wanna carry the name forward, you can.
(28:26):
And so I did.
And so Hypnosis Unleashed has been under my name
for 12 years now, a little over 12 years,
but it has a 20 plus year history here in Las Vegas
of running consistently if we don't include COVID.
What's the interview look like to join this show?
(28:49):
Did you have to hypnotize the person
that was interviewing you?
What's that look like?
Here's the biggest amount of honesty
that I can give anyone.
I was invited to the show by one of the people in it.
One of the hypnotists had no problem
bringing another hypnotist up on stage
and letting them do one routine.
And the guy really liked the one routine I did.
He brought me up there to do one routine.
(29:10):
And he invited me to come back the next night.
And then he invited me to hang out.
At this point, I was 35 years old.
I had toured the world doing this.
And I knew what I was doing.
But you know what I didn't know?
Anything about Las Vegas.
And I basically became an intern.
Like the next six months with them, I would seat people.
I would take tickets.
I would work the box office.
(29:31):
I'd work as the assistant.
I would work in the sound booth.
I would work security.
I would do anything they needed so I could learn.
And eventually they said, look, you're doing this stuff
basically as an intern.
What do you want?
I said, I want your dark night.
And they gave it to me.
And after about almost six months of doing the show,
so now I've been with these guys for a year, right?
(29:53):
I asked them, why me?
Why me?
The hypnosis world isn't that big.
You could have picked 150, 200 other people
who would have all say they would die to have this.
Why me?
And they said, because out of all of them,
they're the first person to come here and ask questions,
not to tell us how you would do it instead.
(30:14):
That's powerful stuff.
It is.
And this is a truth.
I don't care what job you're in.
I don't care what career you're in.
If there is someone you look up to,
and you reach out to them sincerely with a question,
and then you sincerely listen to the answer,
don't interrupt the answer.
Don't tell them, well, that's not the answer
(30:35):
I would have given, because I would say do that.
Listen, everyone who's successful, anyone
who you think is more successful than you,
well, I'll tell you one giant secret.
There is more room at the top than there will ever
be people to fill top positions, but only
if you're willing to learn.
And humility helps you grow more than anything else.
(30:56):
Sincerely reach out.
Ask those people.
You'll be surprised at how much knowledge they'll give you.
Yeah, well, I mean, the passion behind it,
I think that's easy to see why you've been successful.
And I want to know why you think the show has
been so successful for so long.
I mean, Vegas is an interesting place
where you're getting new people every week.
(31:18):
So you're getting a fresh set of a potential audience.
But it's also interesting where there's hundreds of shows
people can choose from.
And it's really easy for one just to be absolutely fantastic,
but somehow just doesn't get the publicity.
How has Hypnosis Unleashed been able to withstand
(31:40):
20 years and 12 years under your tutelage?
So the first thing you need here in Vegas,
if you're going to have a show or a restaurant or a casino,
and mind you, I'm like one of the smallest shows in Vegas,
but me and Caesar's Palace still have
to do the one thing in common.
(32:02):
I have to give you a reason to come back.
Caesar's Palace isn't going to live if they can't convince you
to come back.
MGM will gladly take that customer.
If I can make sure you're having a good time,
word of mouth is the strongest advertising out there.
My friend told me I needed to come and see you.
Hey, we saw you two years ago when we were here.
(32:22):
We had to come back.
And one of the great things I'll say about the Vegas community,
especially the smaller shows, we don't want fans.
I've never wanted a fan.
I want friends.
When you come and see my show, I want to connect with you.
(32:45):
And I want to connect with you in such a way that it's not,
oh, we should go see that hypnotist again.
It's, oh, man, we should go hang out at Kevin's show again.
And I'd look.
But there has to be a sincerity there.
It can't be fake.
Because audiences know when you're lying.
They know when you're not being sincere.
(33:07):
When you give them sincerity, they'll bond with you,
and they'll come back.
So maybe it's just that passion behind it
and wanting to be sincere and know that you're doing it
among friends.
But given that you're doing this night in and night out,
at least five days a week, how do you make sure that you,
(33:29):
I guess, remain fresh?
How do you make sure that you're not going to be feeling super
chipper every day?
Everyone has their own mental health.
So how do you make sure that every show that people
are getting, I guess, the best Kevin Lepine?
I can't give you the best day Kevin Lepine's ever had.
(33:50):
I can give somebody that.
But who knows when or what that'll be.
But from bell to bell, from the start of the show
through the end of the show.
There's one thing I never forget.
You chose to see me.
Do you know what that means in Vegas?
You chose not to see Carrot Top.
(34:11):
You chose not to see the Topply Show.
You chose not to see Cirque.
You chose not to see Celine.
You chose not to see Blue Man Group.
You chose to come and see me.
And so for that period of time, I owe you 100%.
And the other reason I owe you 100% is tickets to my show
are $35.
(34:32):
Some people had to work almost two hours, maybe a little bit
more to make that after taxes.
Except you didn't come alone.
You brought whoever you're dating with you.
So now you worked almost five hours, maybe six hours
to come and see my show.
You could have gone to see a movie.
It would have been a little cheaper.
Special effects would have been way better.
Not only did you choose to spend your money with me,
(34:52):
just give me your vacation time.
Limited time in the most limited time.
I owe you the best I can give you.
I owe you that.
That is my debt to you, and I will pay it.
How do you make sure that you withstand
and you make sure that you're taking care of yourself, too?
You talked about people could go to a movie.
(35:13):
Pretty timely right now.
I don't know exactly when this will come out.
It probably won't be on theaters anymore.
But the last show girl is in theater now.
It kind of talks about somebody who doesn't really
know what to do with their life because they've
been in the same Vegas show for 30 plus years.
And now they're kind of burnt out on what they're doing,
but they also don't know how to do anything else.
(35:35):
So how do you make sure that you don't get yourself
in that rut?
You don't get yourself burnt out,
but you also don't get yourself where you have no identity
outside of those walls.
I've been really fortunate.
I've been really lucky.
Most of the performers that I've met throughout my career
have been fantastic human beings.
They've been very giving.
(35:55):
They've been very caring.
They've been very warm.
I would say at least 85% of all the performers I've ever met
have been that.
Less than 15% have been jerks.
But part of what makes the people who are happy happy
is they have a world beyond what they do.
They have other interests.
(36:16):
They have other desires.
They have other friends.
They have other interests.
If you turn yourself into a one dimensional human being,
it's a really, really sad life.
And I have been fortunate that I've
had great friends around me who have shown me the difference.
And the trick is, the first trick you learn
(36:36):
has to be financial, which is how do you save up
for when you don't want to do it anymore.
As much as you're going to say that about the last showgirl,
well, the same is true for that accountant
who's done it for so long.
And then that company closes.
And they weren't quite ready to retire yet.
And they really have a retirement plan either.
(36:58):
They knew they were going to retire.
But retire to do what?
So it becomes that next question of,
if you stopped doing this tomorrow,
what would still ignite your passion?
If you can't do this tomorrow, what
would you start doing next week?
And performers, doctors, accountants, anybody,
factory worker, you've done that for 40, 50 hours a week
(37:21):
every week for 40 years, maybe a little bit more.
Now I'm telling you to retire.
And you're sitting at home.
And there's no community around you anymore.
See, this is what people forget is
it's that community of people.
Everyone I know who has retired successfully has retired.
And most of them don't work for money.
(37:43):
Some of them still work for a couple of bucks.
But it's in doing something in a community
they want to be a part of.
This person was a CEO of this major stressful corporation.
And now he makes minimum wage because they
have to pay him to help out at the dog shelter, which
he'd gladly do for free.
(38:04):
But legally, they have to pay him.
But he's doing something he wants.
He's doing something around a community.
All the lines about the old guys who are just
sitting around playing golf.
It's not about playing golf.
It's about having a community around you.
I definitely understand what you're saying about it
being any job, being a tough thing to move on from.
(38:26):
But I'm going to challenge you just a little bit with that.
Because when you were talking earlier about how
if you could do anything else that the person told your wife,
if you could do anything other than entertainment,
then do that.
I do think that it's a little bit different just
because an entertainer, they're built to do that.
So I think that leaving that world
(38:48):
and or being forced out of that world would be a harder thing.
Because I mean, you can't entertain the dogs
for only for so long.
So I do think that that's maybe a longer road down
if you don't find a better solution.
But that's also if you are wise.
(39:08):
And Lord knows, wisdom and performers,
there's a combination that goes hand in hand.
If you are wise, the audience in the mirror
will tell you a lot of things.
I haven't seen the last show girl yet.
I've read all of the descriptions and everything.
There's a point as a performer where you go, oh, well,
(39:29):
I've entered this stage in my life.
I've entered this part of my career.
How do I adapt to it?
And what do I start doing next?
And I would say as a performer, if you
don't have an idea of what you can do next,
you can find yourself in a really bad spot.
But in our modern world, nobody's guaranteed a 40-year
(39:53):
career doing anything anymore.
And I think everybody always has to have
in the back of their mind what's something else that
could make me happy as well.
Like if for some reason I couldn't do the hypnosis show
here anymore, yeah, I'd go back on the road a bit.
I'd pick up more road gigs.
I'd pick up corporate gigs.
Or I'd probably speak at more conventions.
(40:17):
Now, if I get to do it my way, my choice
is do it until I want to retire.
And then when I want to retire, I'll
take the 12 gigs a year I want to take, and that's that.
Then it becomes a what do you want to do,
not what do you have to do.
Yeah.
I mean, it's easy to look at the show that you do,
(40:41):
the passion you have behind it, and see
all the positive things.
Obviously, you get to do something you love.
You get to entertain people.
You get to make people happy.
You get to perform and kind of be the star of the show as well.
These are all really, really great things.
And so we're going to put those aside
and realize that the bulk of what you're doing is amazing.
(41:02):
What's the hard parts of doing what you're doing?
I mean, you do have to do this night in and night out.
It can't be all rainbows and butterflies all the time.
So what's the challenging part?
No, it's tough sometimes.
It can be tough sometimes.
There are times you have small crowds.
There are times you cancel shows.
And that hurts.
That's a huge ego drain.
(41:23):
And there are nights where it's like, well, we
did the show we had to do tonight.
It wasn't the show I would have wanted to have done tonight,
but this is what we had.
So this is what we did.
And I have to look at it like a baseball player.
Now, as far as baseball goes, I would
be the greatest baseball player in the world
with my home run stats.
(41:47):
With my at bats, I'd be killer.
Still going to strike out once in a while.
When that happens, you just got to brush off that last one
and get ready for your next at bat.
And it's tough sometimes.
It is hard to have that and to do that with a smile
and to say, yeah, you know what, OK, fine.
Let's move forward with this.
It's hard to do a show on a day when you've lost somebody,
(42:09):
but that's happened.
My wife had to go on stage.
She got notified from her sister as she
was walking out on stage that their dad died.
And I was just really, really unfortunate timing
about when she got that news.
It's hard, but it's the job we signed up for.
And one of the hardest, though, for performers
who don't have a great support system around them,
(42:32):
everybody thinks the hard part is the tough shows.
It's not.
The hardest thing is the great shows,
because you do a great show, do a killer show.
People are waiting for your autographs,
and you're taking pictures.
And it's great, right?
And then you go to McDonald's, and no one knows who you are.
Can you take that difference?
Can you adjust to that?
(42:53):
Can you mentally go from, I was just on top of the world,
and now I'm sitting here waiting for somebody
to make me a Big Mac?
And that's the problem a lot of performers have,
is how do you go from A to B?
I'm lucky.
I've got a fantastic wife.
I've got fantastic friends who really made me look at the fact
that, yes, I'm passionate about it.
(43:14):
It's not an all-consuming thing.
And it's a tough one to learn.
Yeah, well, I appreciate you sharing that.
I can only imagine.
That has to be a humbling experience at times.
So I really.
But it's also true, once again, across the board,
any other field.
You can go and do something amazing whatever fields you do,
but nobody else in any other field
is going to really understand it.
(43:36):
So take pride in what you do.
Love what you do.
Be honored by it.
Just surround yourself with people
who don't let that define you.
Yeah, I think that is a really important thing for sure.
And I want to kind of keep with your baseball analogy
just because I've talked to tens and tens of people that
are doing really amazing things and people that are performers
(43:58):
as well.
But normally, we're talking about a show
that they do this weekend or a show that they did in the past.
You actually are doing a show today.
So we've got you literally right now in the bullpen.
So I want now you to talk about how you're feeling about tonight,
how you feel about the show today.
Today's going to be fun.
I'm going to go meet a whole bunch of new friends I haven't
(44:21):
I've never met before.
And we're going to have a party together.
And we're going to have a great time doing it.
I love it.
I love it.
And tonight's people and all the people that come out and see
you, what do you hope that they gain
from checking out the show?
So the main thing is I want them walking out
of there having had fun.
(44:42):
You laughed.
He had fun.
You had a great time.
And you're walking out in high spirits.
And that's 95% about how I want you to feel.
The other thing, that little 5%, I want you to feel
is I want you to feel, oh, maybe next time I should do that.
Or maybe looking at this hypnosis
(45:03):
to help me do something.
Maybe I should look into that.
If I can leave you with a huge smile on your face,
that's great.
If I can leave you with a big smile on your face,
maybe feeling a little bit more hopeful than you felt
before you came in, that's great too.
Well, let's hope the bulk of people
leave your show with just that for sure.
(45:23):
And this is the most interviewy question that I've got.
And that is, if we're talking in five years,
what do you hope that you're doing at that point?
We've got a few different hopes five years from now.
So hypnosis unleashed is five nights a week
at the Four Queens on Freemont Street.
Five years from now, I'd love to be doing three
(45:45):
of those nights and maybe having somebody else do two
of them just like how I was able to grow
and have that opportunity.
No, that's awesome that you wanna help that next person.
I think that shows a lot of character for sure.
So I want to, in wrapping things up,
shout out the show again,
how people are going to check it out,
(46:06):
how people are gonna get tickets,
how they're gonna follow along with you just so they can,
maybe they can't get to Vegas all the time,
but they still wanna check out your social media.
They wanna see maybe some of the fun things you're doing.
Talk about the show and shout out all your social media.
Join me on social media.
I've been really lucky, I think on everything.
It's at Hypnotist Kevin.
(46:27):
Join me on any one of those.
Facebook I'm really active on.
Instagram I'm figuring out.
TikTok I'm figuring out.
But got TikTok was great when I went,
when my wife and I went to Japan on vacation
because it was a cool way to see what some stuff was.
So any of the social media, please add me, follow me.
If you have questions, reach out to me.
(46:49):
But the show, go to hypnosisonleash.com.
We'd love to see you.
It's recommended 18 and over.
Any age can attend with adults.
But you know, we do use a lot of adult language
in adult situations.
But either come to the show, sit back and laugh,
or take one of the best seats in the house,
volunteer and become a superstar.
I really, really appreciate your time.
(47:10):
Thanks so much.
My greatest pleasure.
So that was Kevin Lepine.
Hope you enjoyed that as much as I did.
Really fascinating guy.
I learned so much about hypnosis
and just about kind of the technique behind it.
I certainly had no idea.
I'm definitely gonna have to check out the show
when I'm in Vegas next, which is just a few weeks away.
(47:31):
I urge you to check out his show, Hypnosis Unleashed.
If you're ever in Vegas, I'm sure you'd love to see it
and love to know that you heard about him on this podcast.
I will put the links to all his information
in the show notes, his social media.
I'll put a link to the website for Hypnosis Unleashed
so you can go check him out the next time you're in Vegas.
(47:55):
But I really appreciate you being here.
Kevin, thank you for being here.
This is your first time listening or you haven't already.
Go follow along on Instagram, Not Enough Podcast,
on TikTok, Not Enough Podcast,
Not Enough for JacksEnough on Facebook.
Go leave that five-star rating on Apple and Spotify.
Leave a written review on Apple, that helps a ton.
(48:16):
But if you do nothing else, catch you next week.
Take it away, Chris.
This has been Not In a Huff with Jackson Huff.
Thank you for listening.
Be sure to join us next time
where we will interview another amazing guest
who is sure to make you laugh or make you think,
or hey, maybe even both.
But until then, keep being awesome.
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