October 11, 2025 • 38 mins
Adam was a guest on the podcast Hypnosis and Beyond, sharing why he became a hypnotherapist, his way of working with clients, and what his animal sidekick would be...
To see the podcast Hypnosis and Beyond and other episodes, please visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eet2_eWVJWg or https://www.youtube.com/@HypnosisandBeyond
To access a a subscriber-only version with no intro, outro, explanation, or ad breaks with just the hypnosis and nothing else click subscribe or click the following link.
https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/adam-cox858/subscribe
🎧 FREE 22 Hypnosis Downloads Worth £220 / $270
Access 22 studio-quality hypnosis downloads without the intro, outro, and explanation heard in the podcasts, just the hypnosis recordings, downloadable to listen to whenever you want.
🌀 Download your 22 Hypnosis Sessions Here:https://courses.adamcox.co.uk/22-free-hypnosis-downloads
🎁 FREE 7-Day Hypnosis Course
Transform anxiety, self-doubt, and procrastination in just 7 days.Get 21 powerful hypnosis downloads for confidence, clarity, and transformation, completely free:https://courses.adamcox.co.uk/free7daycourse
🧠 Take the Hypnosis Suitability TestFind out in 60 seconds if hypnosis is right for you:https://courses.adamcox.co.uk/suitabilitytest
💬 WORK WITH ADAM DIRECTLYIf you're ready to make powerful changes in your life with expert guidance in hypnosis, coaching or mentorship, here's how to connect:
📅 Book a FREE 30-minute consultation call:https://go.oncehub.com/AdamCox
🧠 Explore private sessions (hypnotherapy, wealth coaching, mindset upgrades):https://courses.adamcox.co.uk/sessions
💸 See pricing in GBP & USD:https://courses.adamcox.co.uk/sessions
👤 ABOUT ADAM COXAdam Cox is one of the world’s most sought-after hypnotists, trusted by celebrities, CEOs, and even royalty. He blends science, imagination, and psychology to create transformational experiences.
📲 Want more from Adam? Connect here:https://linktr.ee/AdamCoxOfficial📧 Email: adam@adamcox.co.uk📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adamcoxofficial/
🔖 Tags:
Hypnosis for focus, joy hypnosis, hypnosis for more calm, intrusive thoughts hypnosis, flow state hypnosis, hypnosis for doubts, hypnosis to feel calm, relaxation hypnosis, hypnosis with Adam Cox, Adam Cox Hypnotist, Hypnotherapist Adam Cox, inner child hypnosis,
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Welcome to The Hypnotist, the show that gives you inside
access to cutting edge hypnosis with real clients facing
genuine. Issues.
Brought to you by The Hypnotherapist, demanded by
celebrities CE OS and even royalty Adam Cox, these
recordings took place live from Evans Clinic in London's world
famous Harley Street. So get yourself comfortable and
(00:31):
enjoy today's episode of The Hypnotist.
Hi, it's Adam here. And every now and then I have a
guest hypnotist, as you know, speaking about their background
and how they got into hypnotherapy.
But I was recently on a podcast called Hypnosis and Beyond where
(00:55):
I was the guest on their podcastand they asked me lots of
questions about my thoughts on hypnosis, how I work, how I
became a hypnotherapist, and some of my opinions on therapy.
And I watched it and I thought my audience might benefit from
hearing my take on these things.So if you're interested in me
(01:18):
being the guest rather than being the host, then check out
this feature on someone else's podcast, Hypnosis and Beyond.
And if you'd like this podcast, I'm going to put a link so that
you can follow and see more episodes of their podcast.
So if that's of interest, check that out and let me know in the
comments if you like to hear more of me being a guest on
(01:41):
other podcasts and I'm happy to share more of those.
For now though, relax and enjoy me being featured on a podcast.
Take care. Hey, Jen.
(02:02):
Hey, Dana. Hey everybody, welcome to
hypnosis. And beyond today we have Adam
Cox. He is the host of the world's
most popular podcast, The Hypnotist.
He also regularly works with celebrities, CE, OS and even
(02:23):
royalty. Hi, Adam.
Great to be here. Thank.
You for joining us today. We so appreciate it.
We've been so excited to get to speak with you.
You are a pretty well known figure to a lot of people in our
(02:46):
world, but what about all the people who don't know who you
are? Can you share a little bit about
who you are and what you do? Yeah, so you could probably tell
from my accent, I'm, I'm British, so live very close to
to London and I'm most well known for being a host of a
(03:08):
podcast called The Hypnotist. And the Hypnotist is kind of
different from a lot of hypnosispodcast because generally I'm
not interviewing guests. What I tend to do is I share
real hypnosis based on real client issues, but protect the
confidentiality of the client. And what that does is it gives
the audience the ability to experience what I consider real
(03:32):
hypnosis. Whereas a lot of what's on
YouTube and, and recordings are kind of scripted voice over
stuff. And for me, I consider real
hypnosis something you do with the person in front of you, with
a client. And that that I think is what
makes it different. So I guess the easiest way to
(03:52):
yeah to to describe me is a British hypnotist that has a
podcast called The Hypnotist I. Like it?
And do you find that you get clients that have the same sort
of issue all in a row? Like do you get crops of a
(04:13):
certain issue or do you specialize in something?
How does How does that work? When I started, I specialized in
weight loss and phobias mainly and that and that was the two
things because my belief system when I started about 12 years
ago is that the medical industrywas very much focused on
(04:40):
changing body parts. So, you know, kind of if you
think of bariatric surgery, so gust gastric sleeves and bands
and those kind of things, or medication.
And obviously with those MPIC, you know, it's quite popular
now. But my belief is that if you can
help someone to lose weight, youbetter off dealing with the the
cause. Like what's the original reason
(05:01):
why they have certain habits andthose kind of things?
And because I had very, very extreme phobias growing up, I
thought, yeah, I'm going to helppeople with phobia.
So when I started, it was that what happened in COVID though,
is that I had a very, very nice therapy room in a very
prestigious part of, of London. And when COVID came, I knew that
(05:27):
clients weren't going to be seeing me face to face.
So I thought, right, let me let me slows down this kind of lease
agreement on on that therapy room.
And I thought I really wanted tokeep having an outlet for
hypnotherapy even during the pandemic.
And I thought of the idea of a podcast.
So what actually happened? Originally I was sharing lots of
(05:48):
phobia and weight loss podcast episodes and that was getting me
clients with phobias and weight loss.
But every now and then I would work with a client that had
something quite unique and quitedifferent.
And then whenever I published anepisode like that, I would then
get more people discovering me because they had that issue.
(06:10):
So, you know, it's now it's very, very wide.
But when I started it was very much weight loss and and
phobias. Do you do you notice a a thread
underneath most issues? Like do you think that that most
things boil down to to anything?Or do you find that everything
is just really unique and and it's there aren't commonalities?
(06:35):
I I I would say both. I mean every client is unique.
Where I would say there is commonalities is that the brain
is pretty good at trying to solve problems, trying to solve
problems, but sometimes the coping strategy that it comes up
with paradoxically gives them the very thing that they're
(06:59):
looking to avoid. So if you think of a phobic, for
example, a phobic quite often has an unpleasant experience and
the brain does not like that at all.
And it says, right, to help you avoid this unpleasant thing
happening again, you're going topay way more attention to this
thing that you want to avoid. And now they end up thinking
(07:19):
more and noticing more the very thing that causes the anxiety.
So I would say sometimes it's a well-intentioned coping strategy
that actually makes things worse.
Sometimes it's just one disempowering belief.
I would say at least a third of all my weight loss clients
somewhere have the belief that they're just not good enough.
And, and they're in this kind ofcycle where the part of them
(07:41):
that believes that they're not good enough doesn't believe that
they should be happy, confident and slim, but eating food makes
them feel better. So they're in this kind of
cycle. So part of what I consider my
job to be is to play detective and say, right, you know, where
did all this come from? You know, when was it not like
this? Because I, I believe that if you
(08:03):
can deal with the, the cause rather than the effect, you're
more likely to make long term change.
And that's the opposite of the Pharmaceutical industry that in
many cases couldn't care less about the cause and they just
come up with a medication to treat the symptoms.
And I think as as hypnotherapists, much better to
deal with what's causing this rather than just giving them
(08:26):
suggestions to make them feel better in the moment.
Do you use different techniques to get at that cause or do you,
you know, what sort of is, how do you explore that with people
in general? I know it's different of course,
but do you have some techniques that you are your go?
TOS asking questions is, is, is my main technique and, and one
(08:51):
of my favourite questions is depending on what the issue is,
is, is I say, if I were you for the day, how would I do what
you're doing? And, and, and that's, that's a
strategy elicitation question. It's it's out of the NLP
playbook, but you can look at what people do as kind of an
internal pattern or strategy. And and I think most people
(09:15):
think they have to know why, butactually how is much more
important because if you know how they do it, then it becomes
easier to figure out what to change.
And then you're just adjusting apre-existing neural pathway
rather than trying to create a brand new neural pathway.
So the analogy I use for a lot of people with let's say,
(09:35):
emotions that are triggered by something and that might be
something that causes anxiety orit might be something that
causes a compulsive behaviour isalmost like a line of dominoes.
And my job is to find out what'sthe first one or two dominoes
that fall that create this sequence and then figure out
where to interrupt the pattern and then reroute it to a more
(09:56):
resourceful way. So questions, I think is the
best way. And listening quite often the
client tells you what's happening.
So you might have a client that is, is very stressed and they
literally say, you know, and I just tell myself like, you're a
piece of shit, like you can't doanything right.
(10:17):
They're telling you they're in adialogue, you know, and, and I
think sometimes it's just payingattention.
And when you pay attention, it becomes obvious what to do.
And then even paying attention, if they've got in a dialogue, is
it stated in a first or third person?
If the inner dialogue is saying you, you know, you've got a
disassociated part. And if it's I, you know, it's
associated. And that's the same way
(10:38):
visually, if they relive A traumatic memory from a first
person perspective, they're associated into that memory.
And if they see themselves looking like someone else,
they're disassociated. And I think association and
disassociation is one of the keythings that you can take eye
levels of an intense undesirableemotion and, and just dial it
down very, very quick just by changing the perspective or, or
(11:02):
giving a part a different role to play.
Fascinating. And so then do you find that an
issue somebody comes to you for initially is the issue or is
there usually something else behind it then?
I mean, there's, there's a greatphrase in hypnotherapy.
(11:23):
The issue is never the issue. And, and, and I think there's a
lot of truth to that. Quite often the issue that the
client presents with is their coping strategy.
Someone might be overweight, they might be drinking too much,
they might be taking recreational drugs.
So they think they just want to quit that thing.
But then you figure out actuallythey're doing it to connect with
(11:45):
themselves. They're doing it to make
themselves feel better. So I would, I would agree with
the statement, not that the issue is never the issue, but
the issue is, is normally never the cause of the issue that
they're dealing with. And you know, from my
perspective, why not, why not treat the, the cause of the
problem? Because then it's going to, it's
(12:07):
going to be a long term solution.
Whereas if someone's feeling depressed, you can do a
hypnotherapy session that makes them feel good in the moment.
You just get them associating into resourceful states.
But you need to know how they'regetting depressed consistently.
And that might be, you know, in a dialogue telling themselves
they're useless. You know, what's the point in
trying? And it's like, well, you want to
(12:28):
deal with that rather than give them a temporary experience,
takes them feel better for the session, you know, much better
to make the change so that whatever's causing that, that
low mood or that depressed statedoesn't keep coming back again
and again. So how do you how do you forward
pace or how do you check future pace to to know that you have
(12:53):
gotten to that point and not just made them feel good?
Yeah, almost every. So I must have published about
1800 and something episodes of of the hypnotist and almost
every single client session endswith future pacing and and I and
I start the future pacing disassociated to say right now,
(13:16):
when you think about your future, you know, I want you to
see yourself. You know, what do you do when
you've got a craving? What do you do when you're in a
social situation? Like I want, I want them to see
themselves like them, someone else first because they don't
have the evidence that they can access that yet.
But we want to kind of sow the seed that it's possible and then
step into that and feel what it would feel like to actually be
(13:38):
that. So for example, if someone's
afraid of public speaking, for example, and they just see
themselves on a stage confidently performing, that's a
great stepping stone, but it's not quite enough because when
they're actually doing the speech, they're not going to be
seeing themselves like there's someone else.
They're actually going to be looking at the audience in front
of them. In which case you need to
associate into the resource state.
(14:00):
So that's one way that you do it.
And and the second way is you test with the client.
You might send them homework, you might say, right between now
and the next session, let's justtest this out to make sure it's
actually working the way that you want.
So I had a client that wanted toreduce the amount of alcohol
they were consuming. And we did a great session and
(14:21):
she came back and she's like, well, it kind of worked, but it
didn't because a friend popped around with a bottle of wine and
then this happened and then thishappened.
So then for me, that's a feedback loop.
And that next session was using this metaphor of snakes and
ladders. But now she knew exactly where
the snakes were, so she could then pre empt those things.
And I said, right now when a friend pops over with a bottle
(14:44):
of wine, like what, what do you say?
And it's, and it's kind of like,OK, not for me.
No thanks. I'm I'm having this.
Do you want some? So she could rehearse that.
And then it was a case of like, Can you imagine that actually
happening? Like imagine the friend knocking
at the door. Who's it likely to be?
What do they have? And, and, and mentally
rehearsing that because once they've done it in their head,
(15:06):
you know, in science, they have this idea of in vivo and in
vitro, they do the test in the test tube before they do it in
reality. So it's good to do that with
clients. It's like the future pacing can
only give them an essence of what it's going to be.
Reality is where the rubber meets the road.
So I don't look at it as the hypnosis is only effective if
(15:27):
everything happens perfectly. It's real life is the way that
you turn thoughts and, and priming into real neural
pathways. And then once they've done that
experientially, of course, they're more likely to do it
again. So I I I treat real life as the
real test of of any change. Do you give clients audios to
(15:53):
listen to as a standard operating practice, or is that
only for some clients? Or is that part of your, you
know, your protocols? It's part of what I do and, and
that's originally where the podcast came from because you
know, as you could probably tell, like I'm, I'm an audio
geek. I, I love all this kind of
(16:14):
stuff. And I had this, I don't know if
I've, I've got it around here atthe moment, but I have this like
portable microphones. When I was seeing clients face
to face, even then I would have a studio quality microphone.
I would hold it, I would do it to them and then record it in
really good audio quality and then I would send them it
afterwards. But what it meant is that I had
(16:35):
200, you know, kind of hypnosis recordings.
And originally I thought, oh, OK, I can launch this podcast
already having 200 hypnosis recordings.
That is just my voice. The problem with when I started,
I had so many weight loss clients.
A lot of the recordings were very, very similar.
And then what I needed to do is to kind of write, OK, have some
(16:56):
variety there. And then, you know, I got
creative and made movie inspiredhypnosis sessions.
But for me, you know, my belief system is that if you're seeing
clients face to face, you need atherapy room.
If you're seeing clients online as as most of my clients are,
you need a recording studio. So one of the benefits of having
(17:16):
a recording studio is that I cando the session, they hear good
audio quality from me and they can they can see me well, but I
can capture that audio in studioquality and then send that to
them. So that that does two things.
One, it's added value for the client, but it also means
they've got not a generic recording because I know some
hypnotherapist, they say, OK, right, we've done the session
(17:38):
and then I'm going to e-mail yousome pre recorded sessions, you
know, from before, but that's not for the client.
The client needs what is calibrated and and and kind of
customized to them. So every time I work with a
client and do a hypnotherapy session, they get the studio
quality recording of that session.
That's that's really powerful. So in terms of your podcast,
(18:04):
then, do you see yourself continuing in this, you know,
doing hypnosis sessions on thereor do you, do you see that
changing over time or I mean, I know it's working.
So I, I I'm, but I'm just curious where you see that going
in the? Future I'm I'm having way too
(18:25):
much fun at the moment to to change it So and, and I've got
this this cycle that you, you know this from having a podcast
like one of the most difficult things is to is to build an
audience. Once you've got an audience,
it's easier to grow an audience,but actually building it
initially can be quite challenging.
And, and I'm in a a fortunate situation that because of what
(18:47):
I've done, I have I think over 51,000 followers on Spotify.
I think there's about 20,000 on Apple.
So it means that every every month I've got about 400,000
downloads and that gives me a good base.
So I just share my hypnosis sessions, protecting the
confidentiality of the client. That generates me more clients,
(19:11):
which then generates more sessions.
So it's this wonderful, you know, kind of flywheel where the
busier I get, the busier I get. And you know, from a financial
perspective that doesn't make sense because it's difficult to
scale your time if you're only working with clients one-on-one.
Except for me, it's I enjoy it too much so I don't look at it
(19:33):
as right. Is this the best way to scale my
brand? It's kind of like, no, I love
working with clients 1 to 1. So if I just get busier working
with clients 1:00 to 1:00, that's fine.
But because I have a recording studio, I'm also creating
digital courses because not everyone can afford to work with
me. So you want to have something
where if clients can work with you, they can, but if they
can't, there's they get a digital clone version of me
(19:56):
doing the sessions for them, which it makes me more
accessible. But I'm a hypnotherapist and
hypnotherapist do hypnotherapy with real clients.
And I think one of the one of the paradoxes that you have in
the hypnotherapy world and you know, we were at Hypno Thoughts.
Sometimes a talented hypnotherapist then starts doing
(20:18):
conferences, starts doing talks,they become a trainer, and then
they end up doing less work withclients and then effectively.
You know, you lose that sensory acuity, you lose that
calibration, and then effectively you're saying stuff
which becomes less and less experiential because you've
become a teacher rather than a therapist.
(20:41):
And, and for me, you know, I teach and I do courses, but I'm
a, I'm a hypnotist, I'm a hypnotherapist.
Like that's what I do. So, you know, I would never, you
know, the day I retire from hypnotherapy is I physically
can't do it anymore. Like outside of that, you know,
I'll keep doing it because it's it, you know, I was, I was
having a conversation with someone and they said being a
(21:03):
hypnotherapist is like, like a cheat code for life because you
get paid to do something incredibly fulfilling, that's
creative, it's intellectually stimulating, you actually make a
difference in people's lives. And there's no downside.
And there's lots of professions that can't say that they get the
money, but they don't really like what they do.
They're kind of ashamed of it. And hypnotherapy is, is a
(21:24):
wonderful thing that I can't really see a downside.
So it's kind of like, you know, I'm, I'm happy to be, to be as
busy as I can be because I know it's, it's doing good.
And it also has that ripple effect with me that beyond the
clients that I'm working with, one of the, one of the most
wonderful things about the podcast is that I'll see in the
comments and I'll see messages from people that I'll never
(21:47):
meet, You know, they'll, they'llnever meet me.
They'll never talk to me. But they say in the message, you
know, lost 30 lbs of weight, youknow, stop smoking weed, you
know, drinking weigh less. And it's just, that's just a
ripple effect of me working withthe original client.
But but people out there are hearing this stuff and it's
actually helping them too. And that's, you know, what a
(22:09):
wonderful time to live, to be able to, to have the ability to
do something like that. It would be really interesting
to hear how you got into hypnosis.
What made you what you know? Yeah.
What brought you to this field? What, what brought me I was, I
was fascinated by psychology quite young.
So I was a very shy, introvertedchild.
(22:33):
And only later in my 20s, I kindof pieced it together.
But that belief that I talked about with a lot of my weight
loss clients, not feeling that they're good enough, I had that
belief, a deep conviction, not just a belief, but a strong
conviction that I just wasn't good enough without defining
what enough was. But I believed it anyway.
(22:53):
And you know, but I was also quite resourceful.
So if you genuinely believe thatyou're not good enough and you
don't want to stay that way, then it creates this motivation
to get better. And you know, I had a love of
learning. So as a child I would read books
on lots of things that I thoughtwould make me better and that
(23:13):
might be exercise. I remember reading books on
mnemonics. I was I learned to speed read
when I was about 12 years old. And by speed reading young you
can learn more stuff quickly. And I thought, OK, well I want
to accumulate knowledge reading books on investment quite young.
So I had this kind of desire to do that stuff.
And the first book I read on hypnosis was a book by Ormond
(23:35):
McGill on stage hypnosis when I was about 12 or 13.
And now I am doing like little arm catalepsy tests and the
locking fingers and the magneticfingers.
And, you know, I didn't realize why they were working.
It doesn't explain the book, butof course there's, there's
certain kind of physical thing, but it is the, the confidence
and the congruency of the language.
So all of these things were being planted quite young.
(23:59):
The irony for me is that where it really changed was when I was
18 years old, I left, I left home to study psychology as a,
as a degree. And during that time I, I had
very, very severe social anxiety.
So I had these kind of horrible rashes over my, my, my face and
my chest. And that led me to avoid people.
(24:23):
And then effectively I became a recluse.
And I knew at the time, because I knew a bit, you know, about
psychology, that if I would havegone to my doctor and said,
like, I'm feeling this way, they're either going to diagnose
me with generalized anxiety disorder or depression and
basically put me on meds. And I knew I didn't want that.
(24:43):
So instead, you know, being a recluse, I was avoiding people.
But the university I was in had a 24 hour library.
So I would kind of basically become a vampire.
I would like sleep in the day and then at night time go to the
library and just consume everything that I could on
different therapeutic modalitiesand those things.
(25:05):
And, you know, it kind of went from to use almost like a bit of
a cliche as an extreme, but I was suicidal at that point,
generally considered like endingmy life to thinking, right, I've
got nothing to lose now by testing this stuff out.
And it was hypnosis and the early NLP approaches that really
(25:26):
I found was effective for me. And, and I went from being, you
know, very, you know, shy and introverted and anxious and all
these kind of skin conditions toactually getting to a point of
being very confident and very a strong level of belief in my own
abilities. And when you're 20 years old,
(25:50):
you know, and you and you start actually getting confident and
you've never had that before, you're not interested in being a
therapist. I was interested in making
money, you know, and, and datinglike that.
That was, that was the, the thing that I was interested in.
So I had a couple of jobs, but then I set up my own business at
23 years old. The money I made for my
business, I, I invested. So technically I was a self-made
(26:14):
millionaire at the age of 27 andin my mid 30s came across this
concept called icky guy because I didn't really feel fulfilled
with my PR agency that I'd builtand, and the investments that I
had. And I asked myself the question,
you know, what is it that I think about and I'm interested
in, even though it's nothing about money and nothing about
(26:35):
anything else. And it was, it was still
psychology, it was hypnosis. It was these things.
So literally the next day I signed up for a hypnotherapy
course. And what really changed for me
is that when I was learning hypnotherapy and becoming a
hypnotherapist, it was almost like there was unlocking a
secret level in my life that I didn't know existed.
And then suddenly everything gotbetter.
(26:57):
You know, I felt happier, I feltmore confident, more aligned.
And every, every hypnotherapist knows that whenever they work
with a client, they're not just helping the client, they're
extracting the insights from theclient to themselves.
So it's kind of like you, you see the patterns and someone
might be addicted to something else, but it might be a
different addiction to me. So since I've become a
(27:18):
hypnotherapist, I think I'm healthier, I think I'm happier.
I quit drinking alcohol about 7 years ago.
My life has got better, but it all came from being this kind of
very anxious nerd of a of a child essentially.
Wow, thanks for sharing that with us.
(27:38):
A lot of people believe that, you know, when we come across as
a hypnotist, you know, maybe don't bring your story, but do
you Share your story with your clients?
If it's relevant like. As a means of kind of, yeah.
Yeah, if, if it's relevant, so when I'm working with an anxiety
client and I and I tell them when I was a recluse that my
(28:00):
heart would be up to like, you know, 140 beats per minute just
by opening the door, they connect with that, you know,
they, they know it's lived experience rather than just, you
know, kind of words. So yeah, absolutely.
And you know, I, I had AI, had afear of public speaking.
Obviously, if you're afraid of people, public speaking is quite
a daunting, you know, kind of thing.
(28:22):
So, you know, I share what my experiences were, but also what
I did to overcome it. Not just saying, oh, I did
hypnotherapy myself, which doesn't say anything because
most people want to hear the story of the convincer strategy.
Like, what did you do to prove to yourself that fear is gone?
So when I had a fear of heights,yeah, I did the work on myself.
(28:43):
But then I did a skydive becauseI thought you can't do a skydive
and and still be afraid of heights, particularly if you do
it more than once. And I had this for a public
speaking and I did this speech at the age of about 2324 to 500
people in the in the Savoy Hotel.
So I think that becomes evidenceof the change.
It's not that you can just say that you've changed.
(29:04):
It's like it's doing the thing. And that was really helpful in
the years leading up to COVID because I would do these monthly
spider phobia workshops and at the end we would get these
lifelong arachnophobes holding atarantula.
Now, it's not useful to hold a tarantula, particularly for for
people in England, there's not many tarantulas.
(29:25):
You know, we're not, we're not in the Brazilian rainforest.
But where it's really useful is to give them evidence of the
change. And then they've got a reference
that if they held a tarantula now when they see that spider in
their kitchen sink or in their bathtub, they feel resourceful
to cope because they can think back to that very vivid memory
(29:45):
of them holding a tarantula and then give themselves the inner
narrative that if I did that, I can definitely handle that
situation. And that makes them feel
resourceful in a moment that they wouldn't be resourceful.
So I think, I think sharing personal anecdotes is a, is a
really useful thing to do for, for clients because, you know,
(30:07):
one of the things I was always not dismissive of, but, but had
a credibility issue with is incongruency.
And one of my early hypnotherapyteachers did a master class on
weight loss and was massively overweight.
And, and I'm thinking, right, there's, there's incongruency
here. And another one of the teachers,
(30:28):
you know, they, they clearly hadlike a nervous twitch.
And I'm thinking it doesn't quite sit right for me because,
you know, there's a great Gandhiquote, which is be the change
that you want to see in the world.
And I think as hypnotherapists, we have got not an obligation,
you know, but I think it's a good example to set that we've
(30:51):
experienced all of this stuff and we've got through it.
And if we can do it, then they can do it.
You know, we're not, we're not superhuman.
And I think some hypnotherapists, and I would
also say life coaches as well, operate behind this facade of
somehow they're perfect and they've got all the answers.
And I think it's so disingenuous.
(31:13):
Like I call bullshit on that, you know, and I, and I speak all
the hypnotherapists, like hypnotherapists have loads of
problems too. Like no one's perfect.
But I think when you talk about how you've got from where you've
been to where you're going through and, and can articulate
why and how you've done that, that can actually give a lot of
confidence to to to clients. Agreed.
(31:33):
I mean, I the last, I mean, tellyour story.
I would have never thought of you as somebody who would lack
confidence. You know, you have like such an
incredibly popular podcast and you know, you're so good at what
you do. By the way, I do use your
recordings. I've told Dana that and I'm
really enjoying them. So thank you.
(31:55):
Amazing, that's lovely to hear. Well, and with that, we that
brings us to our next segment, which is our silly subconscious
question. And our question for you today,
Mr. Adam Cox, is if you had an animal sidekick, what would it
(32:18):
be and why? So I've never thought about it
as a, as a sidekick, I, I was considered my, my spirit animal
to be either a rhino or a wolf just because I think, you know,
they're not, they don't brash animals.
(32:40):
You know, it's not like a parrotor a Peacock, like trying to
seek attention. But but there is this kind of
element of they're capable and they're, they're real and
they're, they're playing by their own rules, if that makes
sense. So as a sidekick though, I'd
want something that complements my skill set.
(33:00):
So I'm thinking a very well trained tiger.
I think that would be, that'd bea useful that as long as it was
entirely loyal to me and it was a genuine sidekick, I'd say that
would be a that's a powerful resource to have.
Nice. Well, that brings us to our next
question. Beyond what we've talked about
(33:22):
today, is there something you'd like to share with the audience
about you? Yeah, I think, I think the thing
I, the thing I would share is that it's good to challenge
yourself. Like I, I, I heard this metaphor
(33:43):
of the comfort zone that actually when you feel that
discomfort or awkwardness or kind of thing, like that's a
clue that you're at the edge of your comfort zone.
And that actually, rather than that being like an electric
fence that you have to kind of run away from, it can actually
be something that if you experience the discomfort, do
(34:03):
the thing anyway, then your comfort zone expands.
And, and interestingly, it doesn't expand only in that
direction. It kind of expands
proportionally in all directions.
So one of the things that I did when I, when I became, you know,
let's say, more well known in the UK.
So I was featured in a few magazines and TV shows and they
(34:24):
use this phrase phobia guru. And I had full on impostor
syndrome of, of like thinking very, you know, felt very
uncomfortable with that because I had this fear of doing stand
up comedy. And I thought, who am I to be,
you know, this, this guru of, ofhelping people with phobias when
I have this. So I thought, I've got to change
(34:46):
that. So I signed up for this comedy
school and then on opening night, how you do this showcase
and there was 100 people there in this, in this comedy club in
East London, Bethnal Green. If anyone knows London's like
like a dodgy East End of London,there's 100 people there.
And I've got my 5 minutes of material and I'd love to say I
(35:09):
had no anxiety whatsoever. I had full on anxiety, but it
wasn't going to deter me becauseI knew I was beyond my comfort
zone. And I did that 5 minutes and I
got some good feedback. I even got a client at the end
of it because one of my jokes was about erectile dysfunction
and a guy stopped me in the bar afterwards and he's like, do you
really help people with this area?
(35:30):
So I ended up getting a client after doing 5 minutes worth of,
of stand up comedy and then I, and I kept on doing it.
I did it because I wanted to have no anxiety whatsoever.
And I kept on doing it and some nights went well, some nights
didn't go so well. But I, I finally got to a point
where I could just get up and, and, and kind of do my 5
(35:51):
minutes, 10 minutes. And it was, it was fine.
And I was never the best in the,in the open mics and I was never
the worst. I was all in the in the middle.
But it dawned on me that this isn't my passion.
I was only doing it to kind of banish the anxiety.
And then at that point, what am I doing this for?
So I'd say hopefully that that's, that's a useful thing to
(36:12):
know about me. But I would say the key lesson I
got from that is that you've gotto, you've got to lean into what
you're passionate about. And the key catalyst for me to
kind of stop doing stand up comedy was to realize that I'd
met my goal of doing it to beginwith.
And then I just met someone thathad no desire to be a stand up
comedian and was just effortlessly funny.
(36:32):
And they're like, that's their genius.
And I'm pretty good at weaving hypnotic stories together.
You know what? I should just do the thing that
I'm really passionate about. And I would, I would say anyone
listening, like there'll be something that just people are
amazed at how good you do that thing.
Like that's the thing you shouldbe doing more like do that.
It's. An amazing message, thank you.
(36:54):
I love it. Well, we so appreciate you
taking the time to come and speak with us today, and we hope
you'll come back again. And with that, Jen, what do we
always say? Peace.
Out. Peace out.
Peace out. Thank you so much for joining me
(37:22):
on today's episode of The Hypnotist, and if you've enjoyed
today's episode, I would encourage you, if you haven't
already, to hit the subscribe button or follow button to make
sure that you're automatically notified of any future episodes
that I release. Also, by doing that, it lets the
(37:44):
algorithm know that you like this show, and that will put it
in front of even more people that might not know that this
show exists. So that would be helpful for me.
And if you like the stuff that Ido, take a moment just to have a
look in the show notes or the description because there's lots
of free things that I have to offer, including free hypnosis
(38:05):
downloads without the intro or the outro like I'm doing now.
So thank you again for joining me on today's episode, and I'll
see you again soon for the next one.
Welcome to The Hypnotist, the show that gives you inside
access to cutting edge hypnosis with real clients facing
genuine. Issues.
Brought to you by The Hypnotherapist, demanded by
celebrities CE OS and even royalty Adam Cox, these
recordings took place live from Evans Clinic in London's world
famous Harley Street. So get yourself comfortable and
(00:31):
enjoy today's episode of The Hypnotist.
Hi, it's Adam here. And every now and then I have a
guest hypnotist, as you know, speaking about their background
and how they got into hypnotherapy.
But I was recently on a podcast called Hypnosis and Beyond where
(00:55):
I was the guest on their podcastand they asked me lots of
questions about my thoughts on hypnosis, how I work, how I
became a hypnotherapist, and some of my opinions on therapy.
And I watched it and I thought my audience might benefit from
hearing my take on these things.So if you're interested in me
(01:18):
being the guest rather than being the host, then check out
this feature on someone else's podcast, Hypnosis and Beyond.
And if you'd like this podcast, I'm going to put a link so that
you can follow and see more episodes of their podcast.
So if that's of interest, check that out and let me know in the
comments if you like to hear more of me being a guest on
(01:41):
other podcasts and I'm happy to share more of those.
For now though, relax and enjoy me being featured on a podcast.
Take care. Hey, Jen.
(02:02):
Hey, Dana. Hey everybody, welcome to
hypnosis. And beyond today we have Adam
Cox. He is the host of the world's
most popular podcast, The Hypnotist.
He also regularly works with celebrities, CE, OS and even
(02:23):
royalty. Hi, Adam.
Great to be here. Thank.
You for joining us today. We so appreciate it.
We've been so excited to get to speak with you.
You are a pretty well known figure to a lot of people in our
(02:46):
world, but what about all the people who don't know who you
are? Can you share a little bit about
who you are and what you do? Yeah, so you could probably tell
from my accent, I'm, I'm British, so live very close to
to London and I'm most well known for being a host of a
(03:08):
podcast called The Hypnotist. And the Hypnotist is kind of
different from a lot of hypnosispodcast because generally I'm
not interviewing guests. What I tend to do is I share
real hypnosis based on real client issues, but protect the
confidentiality of the client. And what that does is it gives
the audience the ability to experience what I consider real
(03:32):
hypnosis. Whereas a lot of what's on
YouTube and, and recordings are kind of scripted voice over
stuff. And for me, I consider real
hypnosis something you do with the person in front of you, with
a client. And that that I think is what
makes it different. So I guess the easiest way to
(03:52):
yeah to to describe me is a British hypnotist that has a
podcast called The Hypnotist I. Like it?
And do you find that you get clients that have the same sort
of issue all in a row? Like do you get crops of a
(04:13):
certain issue or do you specialize in something?
How does How does that work? When I started, I specialized in
weight loss and phobias mainly and that and that was the two
things because my belief system when I started about 12 years
ago is that the medical industrywas very much focused on
(04:40):
changing body parts. So, you know, kind of if you
think of bariatric surgery, so gust gastric sleeves and bands
and those kind of things, or medication.
And obviously with those MPIC, you know, it's quite popular
now. But my belief is that if you can
help someone to lose weight, youbetter off dealing with the the
cause. Like what's the original reason
(05:01):
why they have certain habits andthose kind of things?
And because I had very, very extreme phobias growing up, I
thought, yeah, I'm going to helppeople with phobia.
So when I started, it was that what happened in COVID though,
is that I had a very, very nice therapy room in a very
prestigious part of, of London. And when COVID came, I knew that
(05:27):
clients weren't going to be seeing me face to face.
So I thought, right, let me let me slows down this kind of lease
agreement on on that therapy room.
And I thought I really wanted tokeep having an outlet for
hypnotherapy even during the pandemic.
And I thought of the idea of a podcast.
So what actually happened? Originally I was sharing lots of
(05:48):
phobia and weight loss podcast episodes and that was getting me
clients with phobias and weight loss.
But every now and then I would work with a client that had
something quite unique and quitedifferent.
And then whenever I published anepisode like that, I would then
get more people discovering me because they had that issue.
(06:10):
So, you know, it's now it's very, very wide.
But when I started it was very much weight loss and and
phobias. Do you do you notice a a thread
underneath most issues? Like do you think that that most
things boil down to to anything?Or do you find that everything
is just really unique and and it's there aren't commonalities?
(06:35):
I I I would say both. I mean every client is unique.
Where I would say there is commonalities is that the brain
is pretty good at trying to solve problems, trying to solve
problems, but sometimes the coping strategy that it comes up
with paradoxically gives them the very thing that they're
(06:59):
looking to avoid. So if you think of a phobic, for
example, a phobic quite often has an unpleasant experience and
the brain does not like that at all.
And it says, right, to help you avoid this unpleasant thing
happening again, you're going topay way more attention to this
thing that you want to avoid. And now they end up thinking
(07:19):
more and noticing more the very thing that causes the anxiety.
So I would say sometimes it's a well-intentioned coping strategy
that actually makes things worse.
Sometimes it's just one disempowering belief.
I would say at least a third of all my weight loss clients
somewhere have the belief that they're just not good enough.
And, and they're in this kind ofcycle where the part of them
(07:41):
that believes that they're not good enough doesn't believe that
they should be happy, confident and slim, but eating food makes
them feel better. So they're in this kind of
cycle. So part of what I consider my
job to be is to play detective and say, right, you know, where
did all this come from? You know, when was it not like
this? Because I, I believe that if you
(08:03):
can deal with the, the cause rather than the effect, you're
more likely to make long term change.
And that's the opposite of the Pharmaceutical industry that in
many cases couldn't care less about the cause and they just
come up with a medication to treat the symptoms.
And I think as as hypnotherapists, much better to
deal with what's causing this rather than just giving them
(08:26):
suggestions to make them feel better in the moment.
Do you use different techniques to get at that cause or do you,
you know, what sort of is, how do you explore that with people
in general? I know it's different of course,
but do you have some techniques that you are your go?
TOS asking questions is, is, is my main technique and, and one
(08:51):
of my favourite questions is depending on what the issue is,
is, is I say, if I were you for the day, how would I do what
you're doing? And, and, and that's, that's a
strategy elicitation question. It's it's out of the NLP
playbook, but you can look at what people do as kind of an
internal pattern or strategy. And and I think most people
(09:15):
think they have to know why, butactually how is much more
important because if you know how they do it, then it becomes
easier to figure out what to change.
And then you're just adjusting apre-existing neural pathway
rather than trying to create a brand new neural pathway.
So the analogy I use for a lot of people with let's say,
(09:35):
emotions that are triggered by something and that might be
something that causes anxiety orit might be something that
causes a compulsive behaviour isalmost like a line of dominoes.
And my job is to find out what'sthe first one or two dominoes
that fall that create this sequence and then figure out
where to interrupt the pattern and then reroute it to a more
(09:56):
resourceful way. So questions, I think is the
best way. And listening quite often the
client tells you what's happening.
So you might have a client that is, is very stressed and they
literally say, you know, and I just tell myself like, you're a
piece of shit, like you can't doanything right.
(10:17):
They're telling you they're in adialogue, you know, and, and I
think sometimes it's just payingattention.
And when you pay attention, it becomes obvious what to do.
And then even paying attention, if they've got in a dialogue, is
it stated in a first or third person?
If the inner dialogue is saying you, you know, you've got a
disassociated part. And if it's I, you know, it's
associated. And that's the same way
(10:38):
visually, if they relive A traumatic memory from a first
person perspective, they're associated into that memory.
And if they see themselves looking like someone else,
they're disassociated. And I think association and
disassociation is one of the keythings that you can take eye
levels of an intense undesirableemotion and, and just dial it
down very, very quick just by changing the perspective or, or
(11:02):
giving a part a different role to play.
Fascinating. And so then do you find that an
issue somebody comes to you for initially is the issue or is
there usually something else behind it then?
I mean, there's, there's a greatphrase in hypnotherapy.
(11:23):
The issue is never the issue. And, and, and I think there's a
lot of truth to that. Quite often the issue that the
client presents with is their coping strategy.
Someone might be overweight, they might be drinking too much,
they might be taking recreational drugs.
So they think they just want to quit that thing.
But then you figure out actuallythey're doing it to connect with
(11:45):
themselves. They're doing it to make
themselves feel better. So I would, I would agree with
the statement, not that the issue is never the issue, but
the issue is, is normally never the cause of the issue that
they're dealing with. And you know, from my
perspective, why not, why not treat the, the cause of the
problem? Because then it's going to, it's
(12:07):
going to be a long term solution.
Whereas if someone's feeling depressed, you can do a
hypnotherapy session that makes them feel good in the moment.
You just get them associating into resourceful states.
But you need to know how they'regetting depressed consistently.
And that might be, you know, in a dialogue telling themselves
they're useless. You know, what's the point in
trying? And it's like, well, you want to
(12:28):
deal with that rather than give them a temporary experience,
takes them feel better for the session, you know, much better
to make the change so that whatever's causing that, that
low mood or that depressed statedoesn't keep coming back again
and again. So how do you how do you forward
pace or how do you check future pace to to know that you have
(12:53):
gotten to that point and not just made them feel good?
Yeah, almost every. So I must have published about
1800 and something episodes of of the hypnotist and almost
every single client session endswith future pacing and and I and
I start the future pacing disassociated to say right now,
(13:16):
when you think about your future, you know, I want you to
see yourself. You know, what do you do when
you've got a craving? What do you do when you're in a
social situation? Like I want, I want them to see
themselves like them, someone else first because they don't
have the evidence that they can access that yet.
But we want to kind of sow the seed that it's possible and then
step into that and feel what it would feel like to actually be
(13:38):
that. So for example, if someone's
afraid of public speaking, for example, and they just see
themselves on a stage confidently performing, that's a
great stepping stone, but it's not quite enough because when
they're actually doing the speech, they're not going to be
seeing themselves like there's someone else.
They're actually going to be looking at the audience in front
of them. In which case you need to
associate into the resource state.
(14:00):
So that's one way that you do it.
And and the second way is you test with the client.
You might send them homework, you might say, right between now
and the next session, let's justtest this out to make sure it's
actually working the way that you want.
So I had a client that wanted toreduce the amount of alcohol
they were consuming. And we did a great session and
(14:21):
she came back and she's like, well, it kind of worked, but it
didn't because a friend popped around with a bottle of wine and
then this happened and then thishappened.
So then for me, that's a feedback loop.
And that next session was using this metaphor of snakes and
ladders. But now she knew exactly where
the snakes were, so she could then pre empt those things.
And I said, right now when a friend pops over with a bottle
(14:44):
of wine, like what, what do you say?
And it's, and it's kind of like,OK, not for me.
No thanks. I'm I'm having this.
Do you want some? So she could rehearse that.
And then it was a case of like, Can you imagine that actually
happening? Like imagine the friend knocking
at the door. Who's it likely to be?
What do they have? And, and, and mentally
rehearsing that because once they've done it in their head,
(15:06):
you know, in science, they have this idea of in vivo and in
vitro, they do the test in the test tube before they do it in
reality. So it's good to do that with
clients. It's like the future pacing can
only give them an essence of what it's going to be.
Reality is where the rubber meets the road.
So I don't look at it as the hypnosis is only effective if
(15:27):
everything happens perfectly. It's real life is the way that
you turn thoughts and, and priming into real neural
pathways. And then once they've done that
experientially, of course, they're more likely to do it
again. So I I I treat real life as the
real test of of any change. Do you give clients audios to
(15:53):
listen to as a standard operating practice, or is that
only for some clients? Or is that part of your, you
know, your protocols? It's part of what I do and, and
that's originally where the podcast came from because you
know, as you could probably tell, like I'm, I'm an audio
geek. I, I love all this kind of
(16:14):
stuff. And I had this, I don't know if
I've, I've got it around here atthe moment, but I have this like
portable microphones. When I was seeing clients face
to face, even then I would have a studio quality microphone.
I would hold it, I would do it to them and then record it in
really good audio quality and then I would send them it
afterwards. But what it meant is that I had
(16:35):
200, you know, kind of hypnosis recordings.
And originally I thought, oh, OK, I can launch this podcast
already having 200 hypnosis recordings.
That is just my voice. The problem with when I started,
I had so many weight loss clients.
A lot of the recordings were very, very similar.
And then what I needed to do is to kind of write, OK, have some
(16:56):
variety there. And then, you know, I got
creative and made movie inspiredhypnosis sessions.
But for me, you know, my belief system is that if you're seeing
clients face to face, you need atherapy room.
If you're seeing clients online as as most of my clients are,
you need a recording studio. So one of the benefits of having
(17:16):
a recording studio is that I cando the session, they hear good
audio quality from me and they can they can see me well, but I
can capture that audio in studioquality and then send that to
them. So that that does two things.
One, it's added value for the client, but it also means
they've got not a generic recording because I know some
hypnotherapist, they say, OK, right, we've done the session
(17:38):
and then I'm going to e-mail yousome pre recorded sessions, you
know, from before, but that's not for the client.
The client needs what is calibrated and and and kind of
customized to them. So every time I work with a
client and do a hypnotherapy session, they get the studio
quality recording of that session.
That's that's really powerful. So in terms of your podcast,
(18:04):
then, do you see yourself continuing in this, you know,
doing hypnosis sessions on thereor do you, do you see that
changing over time or I mean, I know it's working.
So I, I I'm, but I'm just curious where you see that going
in the? Future I'm I'm having way too
(18:25):
much fun at the moment to to change it So and, and I've got
this this cycle that you, you know this from having a podcast
like one of the most difficult things is to is to build an
audience. Once you've got an audience,
it's easier to grow an audience,but actually building it
initially can be quite challenging.
And, and I'm in a a fortunate situation that because of what
(18:47):
I've done, I have I think over 51,000 followers on Spotify.
I think there's about 20,000 on Apple.
So it means that every every month I've got about 400,000
downloads and that gives me a good base.
So I just share my hypnosis sessions, protecting the
confidentiality of the client. That generates me more clients,
(19:11):
which then generates more sessions.
So it's this wonderful, you know, kind of flywheel where the
busier I get, the busier I get. And you know, from a financial
perspective that doesn't make sense because it's difficult to
scale your time if you're only working with clients one-on-one.
Except for me, it's I enjoy it too much so I don't look at it
(19:33):
as right. Is this the best way to scale my
brand? It's kind of like, no, I love
working with clients 1 to 1. So if I just get busier working
with clients 1:00 to 1:00, that's fine.
But because I have a recording studio, I'm also creating
digital courses because not everyone can afford to work with
me. So you want to have something
where if clients can work with you, they can, but if they
can't, there's they get a digital clone version of me
(19:56):
doing the sessions for them, which it makes me more
accessible. But I'm a hypnotherapist and
hypnotherapist do hypnotherapy with real clients.
And I think one of the one of the paradoxes that you have in
the hypnotherapy world and you know, we were at Hypno Thoughts.
Sometimes a talented hypnotherapist then starts doing
(20:18):
conferences, starts doing talks,they become a trainer, and then
they end up doing less work withclients and then effectively.
You know, you lose that sensory acuity, you lose that
calibration, and then effectively you're saying stuff
which becomes less and less experiential because you've
become a teacher rather than a therapist.
(20:41):
And, and for me, you know, I teach and I do courses, but I'm
a, I'm a hypnotist, I'm a hypnotherapist.
Like that's what I do. So, you know, I would never, you
know, the day I retire from hypnotherapy is I physically
can't do it anymore. Like outside of that, you know,
I'll keep doing it because it's it, you know, I was, I was
having a conversation with someone and they said being a
(21:03):
hypnotherapist is like, like a cheat code for life because you
get paid to do something incredibly fulfilling, that's
creative, it's intellectually stimulating, you actually make a
difference in people's lives. And there's no downside.
And there's lots of professions that can't say that they get the
money, but they don't really like what they do.
They're kind of ashamed of it. And hypnotherapy is, is a
(21:24):
wonderful thing that I can't really see a downside.
So it's kind of like, you know, I'm, I'm happy to be, to be as
busy as I can be because I know it's, it's doing good.
And it also has that ripple effect with me that beyond the
clients that I'm working with, one of the, one of the most
wonderful things about the podcast is that I'll see in the
comments and I'll see messages from people that I'll never
(21:47):
meet, You know, they'll, they'llnever meet me.
They'll never talk to me. But they say in the message, you
know, lost 30 lbs of weight, youknow, stop smoking weed, you
know, drinking weigh less. And it's just, that's just a
ripple effect of me working withthe original client.
But but people out there are hearing this stuff and it's
actually helping them too. And that's, you know, what a
(22:09):
wonderful time to live, to be able to, to have the ability to
do something like that. It would be really interesting
to hear how you got into hypnosis.
What made you what you know? Yeah.
What brought you to this field? What, what brought me I was, I
was fascinated by psychology quite young.
So I was a very shy, introvertedchild.
(22:33):
And only later in my 20s, I kindof pieced it together.
But that belief that I talked about with a lot of my weight
loss clients, not feeling that they're good enough, I had that
belief, a deep conviction, not just a belief, but a strong
conviction that I just wasn't good enough without defining
what enough was. But I believed it anyway.
(22:53):
And you know, but I was also quite resourceful.
So if you genuinely believe thatyou're not good enough and you
don't want to stay that way, then it creates this motivation
to get better. And you know, I had a love of
learning. So as a child I would read books
on lots of things that I thoughtwould make me better and that
(23:13):
might be exercise. I remember reading books on
mnemonics. I was I learned to speed read
when I was about 12 years old. And by speed reading young you
can learn more stuff quickly. And I thought, OK, well I want
to accumulate knowledge reading books on investment quite young.
So I had this kind of desire to do that stuff.
And the first book I read on hypnosis was a book by Ormond
(23:35):
McGill on stage hypnosis when I was about 12 or 13.
And now I am doing like little arm catalepsy tests and the
locking fingers and the magneticfingers.
And, you know, I didn't realize why they were working.
It doesn't explain the book, butof course there's, there's
certain kind of physical thing, but it is the, the confidence
and the congruency of the language.
So all of these things were being planted quite young.
(23:59):
The irony for me is that where it really changed was when I was
18 years old, I left, I left home to study psychology as a,
as a degree. And during that time I, I had
very, very severe social anxiety.
So I had these kind of horrible rashes over my, my, my face and
my chest. And that led me to avoid people.
(24:23):
And then effectively I became a recluse.
And I knew at the time, because I knew a bit, you know, about
psychology, that if I would havegone to my doctor and said,
like, I'm feeling this way, they're either going to diagnose
me with generalized anxiety disorder or depression and
basically put me on meds. And I knew I didn't want that.
(24:43):
So instead, you know, being a recluse, I was avoiding people.
But the university I was in had a 24 hour library.
So I would kind of basically become a vampire.
I would like sleep in the day and then at night time go to the
library and just consume everything that I could on
different therapeutic modalitiesand those things.
(25:05):
And, you know, it kind of went from to use almost like a bit of
a cliche as an extreme, but I was suicidal at that point,
generally considered like endingmy life to thinking, right, I've
got nothing to lose now by testing this stuff out.
And it was hypnosis and the early NLP approaches that really
(25:26):
I found was effective for me. And, and I went from being, you
know, very, you know, shy and introverted and anxious and all
these kind of skin conditions toactually getting to a point of
being very confident and very a strong level of belief in my own
abilities. And when you're 20 years old,
(25:50):
you know, and you and you start actually getting confident and
you've never had that before, you're not interested in being a
therapist. I was interested in making
money, you know, and, and datinglike that.
That was, that was the, the thing that I was interested in.
So I had a couple of jobs, but then I set up my own business at
23 years old. The money I made for my
business, I, I invested. So technically I was a self-made
(26:14):
millionaire at the age of 27 andin my mid 30s came across this
concept called icky guy because I didn't really feel fulfilled
with my PR agency that I'd builtand, and the investments that I
had. And I asked myself the question,
you know, what is it that I think about and I'm interested
in, even though it's nothing about money and nothing about
(26:35):
anything else. And it was, it was still
psychology, it was hypnosis. It was these things.
So literally the next day I signed up for a hypnotherapy
course. And what really changed for me
is that when I was learning hypnotherapy and becoming a
hypnotherapist, it was almost like there was unlocking a
secret level in my life that I didn't know existed.
And then suddenly everything gotbetter.
(26:57):
You know, I felt happier, I feltmore confident, more aligned.
And every, every hypnotherapist knows that whenever they work
with a client, they're not just helping the client, they're
extracting the insights from theclient to themselves.
So it's kind of like you, you see the patterns and someone
might be addicted to something else, but it might be a
different addiction to me. So since I've become a
(27:18):
hypnotherapist, I think I'm healthier, I think I'm happier.
I quit drinking alcohol about 7 years ago.
My life has got better, but it all came from being this kind of
very anxious nerd of a of a child essentially.
Wow, thanks for sharing that with us.
(27:38):
A lot of people believe that, you know, when we come across as
a hypnotist, you know, maybe don't bring your story, but do
you Share your story with your clients?
If it's relevant like. As a means of kind of, yeah.
Yeah, if, if it's relevant, so when I'm working with an anxiety
client and I and I tell them when I was a recluse that my
(28:00):
heart would be up to like, you know, 140 beats per minute just
by opening the door, they connect with that, you know,
they, they know it's lived experience rather than just, you
know, kind of words. So yeah, absolutely.
And you know, I, I had AI, had afear of public speaking.
Obviously, if you're afraid of people, public speaking is quite
a daunting, you know, kind of thing.
(28:22):
So, you know, I share what my experiences were, but also what
I did to overcome it. Not just saying, oh, I did
hypnotherapy myself, which doesn't say anything because
most people want to hear the story of the convincer strategy.
Like, what did you do to prove to yourself that fear is gone?
So when I had a fear of heights,yeah, I did the work on myself.
(28:43):
But then I did a skydive becauseI thought you can't do a skydive
and and still be afraid of heights, particularly if you do
it more than once. And I had this for a public
speaking and I did this speech at the age of about 2324 to 500
people in the in the Savoy Hotel.
So I think that becomes evidenceof the change.
It's not that you can just say that you've changed.
(29:04):
It's like it's doing the thing. And that was really helpful in
the years leading up to COVID because I would do these monthly
spider phobia workshops and at the end we would get these
lifelong arachnophobes holding atarantula.
Now, it's not useful to hold a tarantula, particularly for for
people in England, there's not many tarantulas.
(29:25):
You know, we're not, we're not in the Brazilian rainforest.
But where it's really useful is to give them evidence of the
change. And then they've got a reference
that if they held a tarantula now when they see that spider in
their kitchen sink or in their bathtub, they feel resourceful
to cope because they can think back to that very vivid memory
(29:45):
of them holding a tarantula and then give themselves the inner
narrative that if I did that, I can definitely handle that
situation. And that makes them feel
resourceful in a moment that they wouldn't be resourceful.
So I think, I think sharing personal anecdotes is a, is a
really useful thing to do for, for clients because, you know,
(30:07):
one of the things I was always not dismissive of, but, but had
a credibility issue with is incongruency.
And one of my early hypnotherapyteachers did a master class on
weight loss and was massively overweight.
And, and I'm thinking, right, there's, there's incongruency
here. And another one of the teachers,
(30:28):
you know, they, they clearly hadlike a nervous twitch.
And I'm thinking it doesn't quite sit right for me because,
you know, there's a great Gandhiquote, which is be the change
that you want to see in the world.
And I think as hypnotherapists, we have got not an obligation,
you know, but I think it's a good example to set that we've
(30:51):
experienced all of this stuff and we've got through it.
And if we can do it, then they can do it.
You know, we're not, we're not superhuman.
And I think some hypnotherapists, and I would
also say life coaches as well, operate behind this facade of
somehow they're perfect and they've got all the answers.
And I think it's so disingenuous.
(31:13):
Like I call bullshit on that, you know, and I, and I speak all
the hypnotherapists, like hypnotherapists have loads of
problems too. Like no one's perfect.
But I think when you talk about how you've got from where you've
been to where you're going through and, and can articulate
why and how you've done that, that can actually give a lot of
confidence to to to clients. Agreed.
(31:33):
I mean, I the last, I mean, tellyour story.
I would have never thought of you as somebody who would lack
confidence. You know, you have like such an
incredibly popular podcast and you know, you're so good at what
you do. By the way, I do use your
recordings. I've told Dana that and I'm
really enjoying them. So thank you.
(31:55):
Amazing, that's lovely to hear. Well, and with that, we that
brings us to our next segment, which is our silly subconscious
question. And our question for you today,
Mr. Adam Cox, is if you had an animal sidekick, what would it
(32:18):
be and why? So I've never thought about it
as a, as a sidekick, I, I was considered my, my spirit animal
to be either a rhino or a wolf just because I think, you know,
they're not, they don't brash animals.
(32:40):
You know, it's not like a parrotor a Peacock, like trying to
seek attention. But but there is this kind of
element of they're capable and they're, they're real and
they're, they're playing by their own rules, if that makes
sense. So as a sidekick though, I'd
want something that complements my skill set.
(33:00):
So I'm thinking a very well trained tiger.
I think that would be, that'd bea useful that as long as it was
entirely loyal to me and it was a genuine sidekick, I'd say that
would be a that's a powerful resource to have.
Nice. Well, that brings us to our next
question. Beyond what we've talked about
(33:22):
today, is there something you'd like to share with the audience
about you? Yeah, I think, I think the thing
I, the thing I would share is that it's good to challenge
yourself. Like I, I, I heard this metaphor
(33:43):
of the comfort zone that actually when you feel that
discomfort or awkwardness or kind of thing, like that's a
clue that you're at the edge of your comfort zone.
And that actually, rather than that being like an electric
fence that you have to kind of run away from, it can actually
be something that if you experience the discomfort, do
(34:03):
the thing anyway, then your comfort zone expands.
And, and interestingly, it doesn't expand only in that
direction. It kind of expands
proportionally in all directions.
So one of the things that I did when I, when I became, you know,
let's say, more well known in the UK.
So I was featured in a few magazines and TV shows and they
(34:24):
use this phrase phobia guru. And I had full on impostor
syndrome of, of like thinking very, you know, felt very
uncomfortable with that because I had this fear of doing stand
up comedy. And I thought, who am I to be,
you know, this, this guru of, ofhelping people with phobias when
I have this. So I thought, I've got to change
(34:46):
that. So I signed up for this comedy
school and then on opening night, how you do this showcase
and there was 100 people there in this, in this comedy club in
East London, Bethnal Green. If anyone knows London's like
like a dodgy East End of London,there's 100 people there.
And I've got my 5 minutes of material and I'd love to say I
(35:09):
had no anxiety whatsoever. I had full on anxiety, but it
wasn't going to deter me becauseI knew I was beyond my comfort
zone. And I did that 5 minutes and I
got some good feedback. I even got a client at the end
of it because one of my jokes was about erectile dysfunction
and a guy stopped me in the bar afterwards and he's like, do you
really help people with this area?
(35:30):
So I ended up getting a client after doing 5 minutes worth of,
of stand up comedy and then I, and I kept on doing it.
I did it because I wanted to have no anxiety whatsoever.
And I kept on doing it and some nights went well, some nights
didn't go so well. But I, I finally got to a point
where I could just get up and, and, and kind of do my 5
(35:51):
minutes, 10 minutes. And it was, it was fine.
And I was never the best in the,in the open mics and I was never
the worst. I was all in the in the middle.
But it dawned on me that this isn't my passion.
I was only doing it to kind of banish the anxiety.
And then at that point, what am I doing this for?
So I'd say hopefully that that's, that's a useful thing to
(36:12):
know about me. But I would say the key lesson I
got from that is that you've gotto, you've got to lean into what
you're passionate about. And the key catalyst for me to
kind of stop doing stand up comedy was to realize that I'd
met my goal of doing it to beginwith.
And then I just met someone thathad no desire to be a stand up
comedian and was just effortlessly funny.
(36:32):
And they're like, that's their genius.
And I'm pretty good at weaving hypnotic stories together.
You know what? I should just do the thing that
I'm really passionate about. And I would, I would say anyone
listening, like there'll be something that just people are
amazed at how good you do that thing.
Like that's the thing you shouldbe doing more like do that.
It's. An amazing message, thank you.
(36:54):
I love it. Well, we so appreciate you
taking the time to come and speak with us today, and we hope
you'll come back again. And with that, Jen, what do we
always say? Peace.
Out. Peace out.
Peace out. Thank you so much for joining me
(37:22):
on today's episode of The Hypnotist, and if you've enjoyed
today's episode, I would encourage you, if you haven't
already, to hit the subscribe button or follow button to make
sure that you're automatically notified of any future episodes
that I release. Also, by doing that, it lets the
(37:44):
algorithm know that you like this show, and that will put it
in front of even more people that might not know that this
show exists. So that would be helpful for me.
And if you like the stuff that Ido, take a moment just to have a
look in the show notes or the description because there's lots
of free things that I have to offer, including free hypnosis
(38:05):
downloads without the intro or the outro like I'm doing now.
So thank you again for joining me on today's episode, and I'll
see you again soon for the next one.
Popular Podcasts
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com