Working as a massage employee

I just released my new ebook “The Massage Therapy Career Guide - the truth about becoming a massage therapist” and one of the sections in it I talk about how to get a job in massage therapy. I refer to this example in the book “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill.

Think and Grow Rich Job finding process of Napoleon Hill.
First. Decide EXACTLY what kind of job you want. If the job doesn’t already exist, perhaps you can create it.
Second. Choose the company, or individual that you wish to work with.
Third. Study your prospective employer, as to policies, personnel, and chances of advancement.
Fourth. By analysis of yourself, your talents and capabilities, figure out WHAT YOU CAN OFFER, and plan ways and means of giving advantages, services, developments, ideas that you can successfully deliver.
Fifth. Forget about “a Job”. Forget whether or not there is an opening. Forget the usual routine of “have you got a job for me?” Concentrate on what you can give.
Sixth. Once you have your plan in mind, arrange with an experienced writer to put it on paper in neat form and in full detail.
Seventh. Present it to the proper person with the authority and he will do the rest. Every company is looking for men who can give something of value, whether it be ideas, services, or connections. Every company has room for the man who has a definite plan of action which is to the advantage of that company.

I am not sure if it is just because you only hear the horror stories or complaints and if someone has a good job and they don’t complain about it - you don’t hear about it, but more often than not, all I hear are stories of massage therapists feeling like they are being taken advantage of by employers- whether they are chiropractors or spa employers.

Massage therapists or any employee for that matter seems to think that working for someone entitles you to a never ending paycheck, constant raises and continuing praise for your work. As I have been reading a series of books called “Diamond Heart” by AH Alamas, one of the things he says we search for in jobs and relationships is really our essence.

He says:

You continue to pursue your career as a physicist, a gardener, a mother and so on, but all of the time you remember and realize that it is only a reflection of something else, that what you wish most deeply is to actualize a part of yourself…..your purpose is not to be the physicist, the gardener or a mother. Your purpose is find the precious pearl, your personal essence.”

He goes on to say;

Once you know your personal essence, what you do doesn’t matter much. You choose what will enlarge you and enhance your real self.

That something else is really our attempt to find that totally merged feeling we were supposed to or once had with our mothers. We continue to seek that out in all that we do - unconsciously for the most part.

So why massage therapists are choosing to work for chiropractors or others who take advantage of them to me makes me think that they are still really thinking that they are looking for something or someone to take care of them. So they go to work feeling resentful and are hesitant to ask for raises or what they need because they fear they won’t have any job at all. This will come through loud and clear to the client whether you are aware of it or not.

I am not saying this is every one. I am sure there are massage therapists who go out there and work hard at their jobs because they love every moment of it and don’t feel like they are being taken advantage of even when they have to do the cleaning and are getting paid only $10 an hour.

I also have been getting emails from readers saying things like “they just want to make money in this field because they have heard things like you can make $60 an hour. They of course are not getting the whole story. They don’t have any love of massage or of health or the amazing body. They want to pursue a career just for the money. While you do need to make money to live, just doing something for the money is the work of your ego and not your essence.

Your essence is that deep, vulnerable part of you that gets covered up by society and growing up. It is that part of you that gets set aside when you think and act in ways just to get love and attention. Learning to open that part of you often requires feeling all of those feelings that were buried in order for you to please others and be a good person. It is a painful realization to come to but that is what really being an adult is all about. Our neediness is what tells us how much we have to grieve - not really how much we need.

The thing is that you can have that state of complete merging but not with another person or not with a job. You can have it all by yourself when you learn to let your guard down and feel those feelings of not getting those needs for early bonding and attachment met.

It is what massage is really all about - creating that container where people can get their needs met. Getting it for yourself first will help you to be a better therapist and be a stronger person so that you can give that gift of your essence to others - making it easier for them to find theirs.

Posted in Ethics, Massage Therapy Jobs, Peer Supervision, The Code of the Caretaker | 2 Comments »

Proof of Harm in Massage Therapy

One of the reasons that massage licensing boards and other associations are in favor of licensing massage always seems to come back to the idea that massage can do harm to clients and the public should be protected from harm.

The Safety of Massage by Edzard Ernst had the conclusion: “Massage is not entirely risk free. However, serious adverse events are probably true rarities.”

Keith Grant also did research on medline publications on “Injuries Reported in Medline as Related to the Practice of Therapeutic Massage (.pdf file)  1965 to 2003″

The abstract of this paper states his conclusions;

“Medline citations from 1965 to 2003 were searched for cases relating
significant injury to the practice of therapeutic massage. Eleven such cases
were found from over 12 million medical citations. While this number is far
too small for statistical analysis of injury patterns, six recommendations for
training and practice were obtainable from these reports on mechanistic
grounds. A conclusion of the general safety of massage follows from
the paucity of report injury cases in conjunction with corroborative
insurance statistics.”

Others use the claims of individual massage therapists of stories from clients who were ‘injured’ by other massage therapists in the form of bruising or other stories of massage sessions that were lacking in results.  While I am sure there are many cases of this type of problem, the harm is minimal enough that they don’t report it.

What some will find harmful, others will find beneficial.

The claim that licensing is needed to protect the public from harm has yet to be proven. Until then, what needs to be done is to study the current licensing and the effects of licensing on a massage therapists ability to create a sustainable massage business and also provide quality service to clients.  The variations in the laws of each state vary so greatly and leave the massage profession looking unorganized and unprofessional.  What is allowed and accepted in one state is not allowed in other states. Are you still wondering why it is so difficult to build a massage practice ?

Please let me know what is going on in your state as far as licensing and legislation issues?  Does the licensing of massage affect your ability to build a practice? If you are in an unlicensed state do you think that licensing is needed?

Posted in Licensing and Legislation, Massage Therapy Jobs | No Comments »

Becoming a Massage Therapist

When you first start out in massage school, you will be studying for a year or so, learning all sorts of things you never imagined - anatomy, physiology, pathology, massage techniques - all of which are preparing you to be the best massage therapist in the world. By the time you get out you have massaged many people in the student clinic and all of your friends and family call you all the time for a massage. You are ready to take your State Board Exam or if you are in one of those last states that don’t have any exam, you are jumping right into a practice or job in massage therapy.

You of course pass the exam in flying colors because you spent all of that time studying, memorizing and learning.

You are now on to working at your first job or building your massage practice. You are quite nervous - the changes you have been through are quite amazing. You have grand visions for a job in a fancy spa that pays you $60-$100 an hour (isn’t that what they said in massage school that massage therapists make?) You tell yourself, this isn’t about the money. You just want to help others. You can live cheaply. You don’t really need much. You cherish your freedom and flexible hours.
You show up to your first job or office, and of course, you are a bit nervous. You take a deep breath and look back at your schooling and say to yourself, “well gosh, I shouldn’t be too nervous. I know where all those muscles are and all of the things to watch for not to do. You console yourself that you actually know a lot, maybe even feeling you know everything.

After a year at working at a Spa that hardly pays you much or struggling to start your practice and not getting very many clients, you start to wonder what the heck did you do by choosing this career? You find that working at the spa wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. You are working more hours than you agreed to because they can’t find anyone to work. You don’t have any benefits or vacation pay, and are starting to feel resentful that you are working for such low pay. If you have your own practice, your ideas of changing the world don’t seem so grand - you can’t pay the bills. Do you go back to work doing some menial job that you know you will hate?
But you stay with it and start learning about marketing, sales, customer service, finances, the therapeutic relationship. You take a part time job to help pay the bills. You join or start your own peer supervision group and find solace in knowing that there are others in the same boat. You start reading and learning. You keep learning new techniques. You keep working with as many clients as you can. You are learning so much about yourself as you go.
You can begin to see that everything that is happening to you is really a reflection of your own beliefs about yourself, but at the same time you think it is all about everyone else- your teachers’ didn’t show you enough, you don’t feel like you know enough, clients are getting more difficult health issues, money is slow to come in. You see clients who have physical health issues and are at a loss to help everyone. What you thought would be fun in helping others, now seems like a drain. You keep giving free massages away and start at a really low rate thinking that it will get you more clients. When someone doesn’t show up, you are disappointed and just think you are out the money- you don’t bother to charge them just thinking that you are doing them a favor because after all- they had a last minute appointment that was much more important.
“well, I thought I knew it all back when I was in massage school, but now I realize there’s actually a few things I don’t know.” You somehow thought clients would just show up at your door begging to get a massage. You just want to be doing the massage part- you don’t know anything about marketing, sales or running a business.

You begin to wonder if you made the right choice in becoming a massage therapist. You now are in about year 3-5. You can’t live like this much longer, yet you hate the thought of giving up what you love doing. You stick with it all and move up the ladder at the spa, getting better hours, more pay, maybe a managers position. Your practice is beginning to finally have ends meet. You are beginning to think about hiring other massage therapists. Your training and experience now brings in even more difficult clients. You begin to understand that healing is really not about the techniques that you have learned. They don’t really work on everyone or as quickly on some people as they do on others. You have worked on many clients with serious health challenges- cancer, mastectomies, serious car accidents. sports injuries. You have watched people with constant headaches for a year, suddenly get rid of them when they quit their job. You see people with chronic pain patterns resolve themselves when they start cleaning up their diet. You see people grieving who have lost their parents or other loved ones. You have seen people with post traumatic stress syndrome from accidents, war and trauma. You stand in awe of what the body, mind, heart and soul can do when they finally truly connect to each other. You learn that healing doesn’t necessarily mean that a person is paid free or disease free. You see that death is an inevitable part of life and can’t be avoided no matter how healthy we keep ourselves. You see that health is really about connecting to our wholeness- something that we always had inside of us but we just didn’t know it. You understand that saving the world is about saving yourself. You understand that healing others is about taking care of and healing yourself.

Your once ‘massage can fix’ all vision is quietly put in it’s place but a new vision has arisen. Knowing your place in the world allows you to be present for others to experience their healing and wholeness - still touching one person at a time - but you know that you don’t even have to touch them physically. Your presence is enough - but the massage is the icing on the cake. You see that the more you think you know about the human body, mind, spirit and healing the less you really know…

But there is a new employee at the spa or you are looking to hire other massage therapists. You wonder if you will continue to be successful because you don’t really know a thing anymore…but that brand new massage graduate must know everything so you don’t have to worry.

(How does this story end for you? )

Posted in Licensing and Legislation, Massage Therapy Jobs, Money issues | No Comments »

The Ideal Massage Therapy Job

The Ideal Massage Therapy Job is one that pays you what you need to make to take care of yourself and your family. The Ideal Massage Therapy Job should look something like this…

” 1. $25.00 per hour as a full employee.
2. $25-$45 per hour if you are a sub-contractor as you have to pay your own taxes.
3. 25 hours maximum of actual hands on massage or less.
4. 15 minute increments between appointments
5. Consistent hours.
6. Consistent days off.
7. light phone duty, filing duty or other minor cleaning duties if no clients.
8. Health insurance completely paid for and option to add family members for a fee.
9. Incentives for booking repeat customers
10. Vacation pay no less than 2 weeks a year preferably 4 weeks per year (1 per quarter) to help avoid burnout and injuries.
11. Retirement funding of some sort.

From www.thebodyworker.com

For the most part massage therapy jobs are low paying and do not offer many benefits, but it is possible to find jobs that do pay well. The employers show their respect for massage therapists when they pay them a decent wage and provide benefits.

The other part of this is that massage therapists take those low paying jobs because there aren’t many other choices. This is what is really teaching massage employers how to treat us so they don’t do anything better. People stay in these jobs thinking they don’t have a choice- they do but it may be the most difficult choice they have ever made.

How can we as a profession work to create better paying jobs or teach massage therapists how to start their own business where they can charge more and make more and even hire other therapists to work for them?

Can you imagine a massage therapy job that pays $100,000 a year? or even a massage practice that makes that much? The whole thing is that it is possible but the profession needs to change it’s mindset about this. Schools for one usually tell students not to quit their day job when they are just starting out. Just think about what that is telling massage students - you won’t be able to do well, it will take a long time before you are successful - they are as afraid of the massage profession asking for what they want and are promoting the belief that you won’t be able to make it.

As I have been reading the classic book “Think and Grow Rich” it finally dawned on me how the massage profession is really creating their own reality. Napoleon Hill says if you don’t put yourself into your career full force, you won’t have a chance to be successful. He uses the example of teaching his hearing impaired kid to hear by fully believing in the possibility of it. He also uses the example of sending a troop into war on a ship and dropping them off and burning the ships so there is no way home - they don’t have any other choice but to be successful.

What does your ideal massage job look like? Do you have an ideal massage job? Share your stories either way.

Posted in Massage Therapy Jobs, The Code of the Caretaker, The Wealthy Massage Therapist | 1 Comment »

Defining Deep Tissue Massage

In my last post I touched on how defining massage affects the profession and how we are perceived by the general public. Learning to communicate what we do is the core of creating a successful practice and creating a image for the massage profession.

The way deep tissue massage is defined and experienced by others is one of the best examples.

A few months ago I called to make an appointment at a local spa for a relaxation massage. They asked what kind of massage I wanted and I said I just wanted a really firm relaxation massage. I didn’t want any painful deep tissue techniques. The receptionist said what I was looking for was their special signature massage which included some kind of warm eye mask being applied. I said that sounded fine. When I got there for the massage, the therapists touch was so light I could hardly feel her touch on my skin and she wasn’t engaging the tissue in anyway to create the relaxation I needed. I asked her if she could apply more pressure. She said that would be the deep tissue technique - but she wouldn’t have time to do the eye mask part. I said that was fine. She then proceeded to just do the same thing. She never asked -”Is this enough pressure? Is this what you were looking for?” To make things worse I was so disappointed when I left and when I went to pay for the session, no one asked how my massage was. By that time I was so frustrated I just left thinking I would never go back to that place. But I got home and was still thinking about it and I thought that they just don’t know how to communicate what they are offering or what their therapists are trying to do. I emailed them and I ended up getting a free massage and went in with another therapist and had a great deep relaxation massage - what they think and call deep tissue massage on their menu of services even.

My definition of deep tissue massage comes from 8 years or so in structural integration training with the Zentherapy Institute and going through Rolfing and Hellerwork sessions. Now that in my mind is deep tissue. The deeper muscles of the body are accessed sometimes with a fair amount of pain.

So how we define what we do affects every client and potential client. What do they think they will be getting? What do they want as far as a massage? What has their previous massage experiences been? What do they have in their experience to compare to the session I am giving them? I always ask people what types of massage they have had and try to get an idea of what the pressure feels like to them. Even then we are faced with them being unable to verbalize just what it is that they want for whatever reason - their not wanting to hurt our feelings, their thinking that we know best what ‘they’ should be getting, their lack of experience in getting massage to be able to compare it to other sessions so they know just what they want.

All of these things come into play when trying to build a massage practice and most do not even know how what they do and how they communicate what they do will affect everyone - not just their session with their current client.

I have an exercise I like to tell massage therapists to do who I am working with in peer supervision - go out and search out a new massage therapist online or from the phone book or from getting a referral and actually go and get a massage -even a few massages. This is a great exercise for keeping you in touch with just what it is that you do and learning to provide the service that clients need.

And then there is the what if you don’t do deep tissue or don’t do the deep tissue that hurts and someone is asking you to do that? This is where screening people on the phone and providing enough information on your website comes in handy. If someone gets as far as your table thinking that they want a really deep tissue session and you just don’t do that for whatever reason ( not enough training, don’t define deep tissue as painful, not enough strength or size to work on a larger body) you are faced with having to say “I am sorry. I am not able to do that” and let them leave your table without paying or without doing any work which is a waste of your appointment times. Learning how to describe what you do so that a potential client can figure out if your service will be a match for what you need is also the basis for creating a ‘website that works’ and is all laid out in the free Site Build It! Action Guide.and also in the free Service Sellers Masters Course from SBI!

Posted in Massage Schools/Students, Massage Therapy Jobs, News | No Comments »