Massage Therapy

Welcome to my next career podcast with your host Addison Dickson. I'm excited to interview a good friend of mine with you today, William Bill You prefer William or Bill? William Okay, Bill. Well, William, it's just me the coffee bill, I guess Well, William, we met together working at Lowe's driving trucks, and I haven't really seen you much since we started new jobs Or for you I should say a new career tell me what is it that you're doing now So I am a licensed massage and bodywork therapist LMBT That's a mouthful I guess you're saying massage therapist essentially, right Yes, correct so You had mentioned Massage therapist and then you had some letters and numbers and I just Sounded pretty technical. Is there different levels to being a massage therapist or is it just one one thing So as a massage therapist, there's not necessarily different levels, however, there it is a rather broad field going into the different You say broad field going into each individual Specialties of the field is that something that you would consider vital when somebody's considering becoming a massage therapist Looking at those differences. I don't know if I would use the term vital because it's because it's so broad You have a lot of options as far as like what direction you want to go So you're not locked in to a specific specialty per se like a doctor that a Urologist is locked into urology like you're not locked into a specific part of Massage therapy. It's Kind of you're versatile, but you prefer one area. Would that be safe to say? I'd say that's a pretty good analogy However, it's hard to compare the two we do have specific modalities But you don't have to go to school for years on end to specialize in one area so it's safe to say that You can start school and then kind of learn about it and decide as you go That's a pretty good way to say it. Yeah, so just tell me a little bit about the schooling Do you have to have a college degree or anything? So you go through the schooling In order to get your license as a massage therapist, but you don't have to have a college degree It's just out of high school into the training Correct. Okay As far as cost goes and how long it takes where are we looking at? How much does it cost? and how long does it take to get the degree but certified So to get certified as a licensed massage therapist it depends on The state you live in the state that I live in required 500 hours of training So from my understanding am I saying this right you have to be 18 to start training that's correct. Okay So it'll be something you can pretty much start coming out of high school. I mean from worst-case scenario For the average high schooler that's just going to be within a few months of graduating Yes, in fact, I think we did have a student when I was in School who was still in high school, but was 18 So with that high schooler in your class, do you have to have a high school diploma to get the certification? I Want to say yes But don't quote me on that And just to kind of get some clarification You said the course is 500 hours How does that translate into? Months like how many months would it take me to finish the class? At the school I went to they offered part-time for one year and full-time for six months Okay, so really not too long it's a lot to cover in Six months to a year. It is a lot of information because you also have to consider They're over preparing you for the exams the board exam you take Just quickly kind of walk me through what the board exam is. Is that you have to get certified by the state I guess so after you complete your schooling you sign up for what is It's called the MBLEX and That is the state board exam to become a license to get your license for massage therapy Okay, so in each individual state that you practice and requires its own Certification I guess that yes, that is the national exam based on the credit hours for each state. Okay, okay All right schooling is done We've got our board certification What happens next After that, you just apply for a job that you want in the field So What you're telling me earlier you work for one of the leading massage That's a massage parlor No That's going to get people the wrong idea when you say massage parlor it generally is pointing to a Risk a risk a Establishment which is illegal with some of the stuff they do there. Yeah, we won't go into that. Um, what? So what's the official name? I know that you have massage envy Hand and stone and you've got all these standalones, but what would the official name be? I don't just curious So Places like hand and stone massage envy and other places like that They're generally considered a spa and they do they offer more services than just Swedish massage All right. Now you're through school. You're hired What's your day-to-day life look like what kind of scheduling is it and do you like it? First of all, I absolutely love what I do. I don't think I could have picked a better career for myself Considering who I am is my personality and everything However, you depending on where you work you can actually make your own schedule and you can choose your own hours and everything But it just that depends on the establishment really and so for me I choose to work more late afternoons and evenings starting here I Just have no idea. So every career has Stories some careers tend to have more Mature stories, I guess you'd say there's a lot of things that you would see as a police officer or firefighter. I Can imagine there being? some Crazy stories as a massage therapist to just whether it's Who knows? So before we get into this, I just want to mention that viewer discretion is advised Everything we went over that's Expected that's what everybody's gonna expect. What happened that you did not expect Some of the things that you don't really expect that are unfortunately There are people's lack of awareness of their scent and hygiene, etc So what you're saying is some people just really stink to the point where it caught you off guard Yes, absolutely like people whenever they sweat and even you know, I also have some people that are going to Pass a lot of gas Pass a lot of gas That for me would be hard to deal with it is sometimes And this next story I'm going to ask you about that's More specifically saying viewer discretion advised for this. It's something you've told me before Why don't you just start from the top with I think you already know who I'm talking about So, I believe I know the individual you're talking about because I've told you the story before I Will keep his name private for obvious reasons however Very nice. Very nice guy. However about Halfway between the service. I noticed that he did have a an erection which is Something that you will run into occasionally with certain people Occasionally with certain people best way to deal with that situation is to pretend it's not there. I Understand that situations like that can happen, but I think you know that the story doesn't in there So, yeah, the story doesn't quite quite in there however Whenever you're faced in that type of situation and he follows up with saying the line You can do or excuse me. I Would probably be okay with whatever you did to me That's whenever you have to engage with the client and saying that you have to keep things strictly professional at work And it wouldn't it wouldn't be unreasonable to to end it right there No, absolutely not because you know, you have to You know first and foremost protect yourself so that you can continue on with your career and for the safety and comfort of the therapist Would somebody like that could could you have them banned or barred from your establishment? Absolutely, and if it's something that would carry over into a more extreme circumstance Where the client may be trying to engage with you on a very uncomfortable level you can Actually get the police involved in that at that point so there's there's a high level of care Directed towards both the therapist and the patient. Yes. It's one of those things where Depending on the establishment and like I have very good Owners and managers where I work and so they work very hard to protect everyone there Okay, why don't we Go to the opposite end of the spectrum. So, you know what you're going into and now You know the downsides, but what are the upsides that you weren't expecting? So it kind of really depends on what you're really wanting out of this career So the money in the career is decent and you have room to grow in the career as well You also have the benefit of being able to help others and yourself on a physical and emotional level too so for you it would be Helping. I mean that's one of the huge pluses for you. That would be the primary reason that I got into this field And when you first started you had mentioned that a lady you were working with she moved to the Outer Banks Somewhere in that area. Yeah, so she had a awesome opportunity to not just make a lot more money But live in one of the most desirable places. Yes So There's a lot of opportunity there and there's a lot of benefits that come With this field both on a personal level and a professional level What about is there any other aspects that it affected you in ways you weren't expecting? Going into this field. I knew within the first two weeks how little I knew about myself both emotionally and physically and That was kind of sent me on Personal growth journey as well completely life-changing That's pretty awesome. Not only is it awesome that you learn that about yourself But it sounds like you're able to pass some of that on to your I don't know What a client or patient patient isn't the right term. Would you say client client is the term that we use? So now that we got a snapshot about Massage therapy work. What's your plans now? I Actually would like to go back to school so that I can learn more and further Understand what all this field does have to offer So it's I mean, it's an endless amount of growth pretty much. Yeah Are you wanting to stay in the this area? Or you want to branch out and kind of see the country and get paid to do it Definitely the latter Do you have any areas in mind that you want to go to first? considered going Basically to the four corners of the country. I'd like to go visit out west as well as up north, too And really anywhere There's I guess you aim for cities, right? high traffic areas It's a better way to Better place the area to work in high traffic areas. So the more desirable place is for The average person the more desirable place is going to be for you in your career. Yes, that's correct I want to thank you for joining us today. I really appreciate you sit down and just let me learn a little bit more about your career and If there was only one thing that you could share with somebody that's interested in becoming massage therapist, what would that be I say the most important thing is just to keep an open mind when going through this and Just kind of pace yourself and just trust your two teachers that they know what they're doing, too Well, that was more than one thing, but I think both of those are vital after we're closing out I just wanted to give you a thank you and I just let you know how much I appreciate you helping us out with this Yeah, no problem anytime. So if you have any more questions, just email me. I left my email in the description I'd be more than happy to get William back on here if we want to have a Second go or if you have just simple follow-up questions We can get him to shoot over some messages and I'll I'll read them out to y'all And that concludes this episode of my next career. We will see you next time