For those of you just beginning your exploration of the field of massage therapy, I’d like to extend a warm welcome. Soon you will discover the many resources you have available to learn more about the profession: the hundreds of helpful and knowledgeable people, the expanding number of massage schools and learning centers around the country, all the tools of the trade and where to find them, plus much more. This book can serve as a guide while you become familiar with new territory, new concepts, and new possibilities. It is filled with practical advice and how-to information that will get you up-and-running in your successful new business.

However, the most important information I hope to share in the following pages has much more to do with You than it does with any business form, insurance by-law, or tax code.

Massage therapy, more than any other profession available as a career choice today, will bring you back into direct and meaningful contact with your fellow human beings. Whether we acknowledge it or not, we all are seeking out ways to contribute to society, to give back to the family of mankind that supports us and that we are an integral part of. Yet, at the same time, we are forced by economic realities to engage in many occupations that do not give us that sense of contribution and joy that comes from working wholeheartedly at a contributive, ethical livelihood. We feel stuck, chained to a system that offers no escape from the daily treadmill.

Choosing massage therapy as a career is a way to escape from that disappointing cycle, to add more enjoyment and satisfaction to your work life, and to make a very good living at it in the bargain.

Most physicians begin their careers in medical school with the noble goal of relieving the suffering of other people, but by the time they graduate and enter the modern world of high-tech medicine, they find that something is missing. Even though they are highly trained and excellent at what they do, they’ve lost Touch with the people they want to heal. A barrier of machinery and technology has come between them and their patients.
I am not proposing a back-to-nature plan that would do away with the advances of science. In fact, my own father’s life was saved through some sophisticated medical intervention, and I fully support the use the ingenious tools that save lives and increase the quality of life for so many people.

Yet, at the same time, something has been lost. John Naisbitt writes about this in his book, Megatrends:

“The more high technology around us, the more the need for human touch. The more high tech in our society, the more we will want to create high-touch environments, with soft edges balancing the hard edges of technology.”

and

“Our response to the high tech all around us was the evolution of a highly personal value system to compensate for the impersonal nature of technology. The result was the new self-help or personal growth movement, which eventually became the human potential movement.”

Massage therapy and other body-oriented techniques are not new, but they are even more important to us now than they were in years past. The more technology pulls us away from each other, the more we feel a need to get back in contact. As we fly apart from each other on jet planes and bullet trains and fast cars, we feel a little tug within that calls us back to each other, back to our own bodies, and back to the quiet stillness and healing energy of our planet that is always there.

How often do you spend an hour in a tranquil, softly lit room with a person, speaking quietly about things that matter, or simply not speaking not at all, while working diligently to restore suppleness and health to that person’s body, mind, and spirit? This scenario makes up the bulk of a working massage therapist’s day. The quality of human interaction in this field is unsurpassed by any other profession.

The profession of Massage Therapy has become a way of life and a livelihood for thousands of people in this country. It is in a period of explosive growth right now, and for very good reasons: it is a way to serve; it is a way to communicate; it is a way to transform your good intentions into concrete benefits for your fellow human beings; and it is a way to train your sense of touch, refining it and turning it into an instrument for healing, for compassion, and for love.

Throughout this book I am going to be introducing you to some very interesting people who have chosen massage therapy as a profession and who have then gone on to create stimulating careers. Their real-life stories are called “Profiles,” and they will serve as inspiration and guidance for you as you take the first steps in the same direction.

Let me begin by introducing myself. In 1983 I was 23 years old and living in Venice Beach, California, spending my days roller-skating down the boardwalk and searching for ways to make ends meet while still enjoying the bohemian lifestyle the neighborhood was famous for. I was friends with actors, musicians, street people, writers, and health food fanatics, and I was working in a juice bar for four dollars an hour.

My roommate was a young filmmaker named David who was also a licensed massage therapist. I went to the screenings of his movies, and we traded massages occasionally, just for fun. I had never been trained in massage, but it felt natural to me, and David suggested that I check out a local massage school in Santa Monica and get my license too, as that might be a good way to make some money while doing what I enjoyed.

I went to the massage school, but in my heart I felt that massage was something I could never charge people money for. It was too personal and I enjoyed doing it too much. It was more an act of friendship, support, and shared pleasure than a business transaction, and I assumed that my course-work and licensing were all formalities, that I would continue as I had before when I graduated—giving free massages for fun to people I liked.

Then I lost my job at the juice bar and graduated from massage school at the same time. David told me he knew a man who wanted a professional massage. David was too busy making a movie to do the massage himself. Was I interested?

At first it was a dilemma. Would I willingly give up the image of massage I had as an intimate gift, turning it into a commodity to be traded for the almighty dollar? On the other hand, I literally did not have enough money in my wallet to buy a sandwich for lunch the next day.

I called the man. His house was beautiful, perched on a mountainside above the waves in Pacific Palisades. I walked in there with my friend David’s battered home-made massage table, set it up in this man’s den, and proceeded to give him the same kind of caring, nurturing, soul-communicative massage I’d share with friends for years, all the while trying to push the idea of a money exchange out of my mind.

At the end of the massage, the man was extremely grateful and reported feeling better than he had for a long time. Then, reaching into his wallet, he extracted two twenty dollar bills and handed them to me, smiling. “Thank you so much,” he said, looking me straight in the eye.

That was a magical moment for me. Something clicked in my mind, and suddenly I knew that it wasn’t “wrong” to be paid for doing something I loved that also made other people feel great! In fact, the entire concept of having to suffer and work for somebody else and perform some unwanted task in order to get money seemed like a very bad idea. Who had thought up that idea in the first place? Why had so many people bought into it, including me?

I saw a new light shining at the far end of the tunnel of pennilessness I’d been living in since leaving my parents’ home. As I walked back out of my first client’s house, carrying David’s table to my beat up old Toyota, I considered the numbers: Forty dollars for a one hour massage was worth ten hours of work in the juice bar. If I could get just two paying clients like that five days a week, that would be like working a hundred hour week just for doing ten massages! The light at the end of the tunnel exploded with a flash, and I saw a sign.
royal $

Yes, a dollar sign. I had been converted. It was OK to make some money now that I knew I could do something I loved, not hurt anybody, and probably even make lots of other people feel much better.

It’s been a long road since then, filled with hundreds of challenges and rewards I never could have imagined back in 1983, and I haven’t regretted a minute of it. Of course, there have been many ups and downs. The straight road to riches and fulfillment has been strewn with unexpected obstacles, and that is precisely why I am writing this book, to help you avoid some of the worst potholes and hazards.

In Chapter One we’ll explore the development of massage therapy in this country and how the profession has grown. We’ll see why now is the perfect time to become involved in the expanding market as traditional healthcare is gradually forced to broaden its scope, allowing more “alternative” therapies such as massage to become accepted parts of our system. The “baby-boomers” are reaching their fifties now, and alternatives for maintaining youth and health are tops on their list of ways to spend their vast amount of discretionary income. Massage therapy is a broad field that offers multiple ways to capitalize on these demographic trends. Opportunities for continued education and expanding salability are limitless as well.

In Chapter Two you’ll find out if massage therapy is the optimum profession for you. Some people enter the field for the wrong reasons, and they find their enthusiasm quickly runs out. Take the test in this chapter and discover whether you have any of the ten traits of a “born therapist.” Learn about the psychology of touch and how to deal with people on such an intimate basis when they are often at their most vulnerable. Often, massage sessions can become “spiritual experiences,” and we’ll meet a minister/massage therapist who has worked to help people discover the spiritual aspects of massage. Then I will give you some realistic facts and figures about what you can expect your first year in practice and in subsequent years as your practice develops. Of course, as your career develops, sexuality is an issue that must be confronted, acknowledged, and discussed honestly in order to move past it and assume your role as a true healer, and it is discussed in this chapter. Then, once you’ve decided that this is the path to follow, there are many schools and institutions to help you. You will be given resources to scout out the best ones in your area and across the country. Finally, to help you on your way, you’ll be given some advice about forming relationships with mentors and guides.

Chapter Three focuses on what you can do once you’ve taken the plunge and made massage therapy a part of your life. You’ll learn about all the job options that are open to you as you search for entry-level positions, and I’ll offer guidance to help send you in the direction that’s right for you. I’ll teach you how to develop an inexpensive promotional package that will set you apart and create an image for you as a therapist and business person. Marketing and advertising will play a part in this discussion. I’ll also talk about business plans for therapists and the associates who plan on going into business with them such as salon owners, doctors, and chiropractors.

Chapter Four is my opportunity to introduce you to that special class of people you will be spending most of your time with—the massage client. Very specific needs and concerns arise when someone becomes a massage client. Often, the relationship between client and therapist becomes extremely close. I’ll show you how to move people swiftly from being strangers to being loyal customers by using tools such as evaluation charts and referral systems. I’ll also give you some tips for dealing with problem clients and establishing clearly defined boundaries even while allowing opportunities for friendship to flourish.

In Chapter Five, Touch and the Law, we’ll get down to some basics about what you’ll have to know to operate your business up to the highest standards. I will fill you in about zoning, licensing, taxes, insurance, third-party billing, safety issues, and more.
Chapter Six is filled with information to help you create the most conducive environment for your new business. Massage therapy is a profession unlike any other, and you’ll require some very specific design savvy when you are creating your space. This chapter will give you everything you need to know from choosing the right location to picking the right colors. You’ll also learn how to sort through a panoply of equipment choices that can be somewhat confusing at first. Massage tables, chairs, linens, oils, creams, mats, tools and more will all be explained, and I’ll get you in touch with some of the best distributors and manufacturers in the country.

Once you’ve settled into your new workspace and your new lifestyle, you’ll be faced with the challenge of optimally organizing your schedule. Chapter Seven will address the issues of scheduling your time, staying in good enough condition to keep up with a demanding practice, and battling a common complaint of many massage therapists—the burnout syndrome. I’ll teach you fourteen key techniques to help you create yourself and your practice anew year after year, to stay fresh and continue to offer clients the very best you have. In this chapter you’ll find two day-in-the-life scenarios of a typical busy therapist. One will be a dream day, when everything is going right, and I’m including it so you will know how wonderful this life can truly be. The other will be a nightmare, when everything that can go wrong for a therapist does, and there seems to be no escape. You will most likely never experience all of these potential difficulties at once, but I am including them here so you can be prepared. In the last section of this chapter I’ll talk about money: how you can determine your fees, how to set up the successful bartering systems that so many therapists use, and how to keep track of your income and expenses. Of course, one of the ultimate goals you’ll have as a successful therapist is a new degree of personal and financial freedom. I’ll discuss how to achieve this state most effectively and then offer some ideas about enjoying it once you get there.

In the last chapter I am going to talk about the vision you have of yourself as a successful, evolving practitioner of the multi-faceted art form and healing science of massage therapy. I’ll explain many of the paths you can choose to further your knowledge, perhaps learning one of the advanced techniques in the field such as Watsu? (water shiatsu), or the massaging of prize race horses, or working hands-on with AIDS patients. I am going to give you the information you need to keep up with your dynamic new career through the professional journals, professional organizations, trade magazines, and a plethora of excellent books targeted to practitioners. Then, at the end of the book, I’ll offer some advice about creating a name for yourself in the massage business and perhaps moving to the next level which includes writing your own articles or books, teaching your own workshops, and branching out into the lucrative consulting opportunities available with corporations (in and out of the beauty industry), medical facilities, salons, and spas.

The best way to use this book is to read quickly through each of the chapters, getting an idea of where the information you need most is located. Slow down and absorb those sections that seem most relevant to you at this stage of your life. Pay special attention to the profiles in each chapter, reading them closely, because they will provide the real-life inspiration you need to turn ideas into accomplished goals. Then later you can jump around from chapter to chapter, extracting the data most relevant to your situation, absorbing the material about each subject as it arises in your career development.

You’ll be able to use this book as a reference while your practice grows and while you gradually become more accustomed to thinking of yourself as a massage therapist. Over the years, if you stick with it, many of your clients will become friends, very good friends in fact. Your fellow therapists will become friends. You will network and grow, and new doors will begin to open. Your world will gradually begin to spin more and more around an axis of massage, and your life will evolve into something you cannot fully imagine right now, and it will be a good path to follow.

I know. It has happened to me.