by David Hinkson
Naturally, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to some significant personal challenges, not only financially, but also in the area of interpersonal relationships and in terms of career and other personal development goals.
Lead consultant of microbusiness Insight Consulting Barbados, Krisnan Hurdle, said he faced a similar dilemma some years ago which led him to help others facing similar situations.
He told Today’s BUSINESS: “It all started from a personal development journey back in 2013. I felt like I was not achieving any goals in my life and in many ways, I was not happy with myself and where I was in my life. I felt like I direly needed to change direction. I had no idea that it would have led me down this path, doing what I do today.
A contact introduced me to Toney Olton of the Potter Center who happily took me under his wings and trained me as one of his associate training consultants.”
The Potter Center is a training and people development company which specialises in leadership training and most recently, the initiative known as EQ Barbados which focuses on emotional intelligence.
After two years, Krisnan made the decision “to give up many of the things that I had been known by, and had formed an identity around. In one large swoop, I decided to retire from playing elite cricket locally.
This was a big step because there were many expectations that I would eventually become an international cricketer. I also resigned from my two jobs in a charitable organisation and a waiter job at the Sandy Lane Hotel”.
Naturally, those around him wondered what he was planning to do with his life at that point. He undertook studies in Clinical Hypnotherapy in the United States and also did his life coach certification training under the internationally renowned life coach Anthony Robbins in the same year.
Krisnan continued: “As I got to work on re-organising my life, I started to recognise many gaps in our society that I could see myself filling. So I undertook training in each of the skill sets and eventually returned to open my business in 2016.
“My primary goal was to help people to overcome obstacles which were holding them back from being their best self. The most significant elements I found from interacting with people was in overcoming trauma, failure, and difficult situations from their past. It took me from life coaching to hypnotherapy, to clinical psychology.”
So what has response to his business been like? “In the first three years, it was difficult. Without a big reputation, very few people trusted hypnotherapy and I had to do a lot of work on overturning misconceptions about hypnotherapy, which as the name suggests, is about using hypnosis therapeutically.”
He said doctors had responded well to his services in terms of referring clients to him, and he had also done some work with a number
of local athletes, a demographic he is seeking to explore further.
Krisnan stated that he was pursuing his Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology at the University of South Wales in the United Kingdom when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out a year ago, but it did not hamper his consultancy service.
“While there, I continued to work virtually with previous clients from Barbados. I also received new client requests and doctor referrals. By and large, people prefer to do sessions in person.
“Working virtually brings with it certain barriers including internet connectivity. There are often issues with privacy when sharing a household with others. Sessions were conducted on Zoom and payments were facilitated by bank or credit union transfers or online payment media.”
He said there had been an increase in demand for the services he provides but financial constraints among other issues had prevented some of the potential clients from getting started. Nevertheless,
“There has definitely been an uptake in coaching services in the areas of career coaching and transitioning, as well as an increase in relationship coaching as relationship issues have come to the fore as people have to spend more time in the same space for extended periods of time.”
