We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Adam Lien a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Adam, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today. We’d love to hear about how you went about setting up your own practice and if you have any advice for professionals who might be considering starting their own?
I kind of got into this career through non-traditional means. My background was in entertainment and I had been working at an event center at the time I made the decision to completely change career paths. Now, I’m not one to make hasty decisions and it’s something I had been looking into and researching for several years leading up to this point. I wanted to make sure I received the best training and education I could to not only set myself up for success but also to be able to really help people and make a difference. That’s one of the main reasons I decided to get into hypnotherapy! The biggest challenges looking back were the uncertainties and lack of stability starting a practice of my own. I knew I could help people and I had the appropriate training, now just came the business side of it. I had to market myself, manage finances, and be decisive in order to be successful. Ultimately, it worked out better than I could have expected and looking back the only advice I’d give myself is to trust your knowledge and your intention. If you have the knowledge and intention to succeed, then you will!
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?
My path into this profession hasn’t been what most would consider the most traditional. I actually started off with a degree in entertainment and worked in Orlando for Walt Disney World just out of college. I’ve always had a strong passion for music and entertainment, but even in college I had an interest and curiosity about the mind. I’d even considered switching colleges and changing my major to Music Therapy, allowing me to combine these interests! However, not wanting to move to another city and start over a year into college, I decided to continue with my degree in Music Production. While working in Florida, I kept up my interest in human behavior and the mind through reading, researching and continuing to learn more about how we work as people! At this time, I stumbled across the idea of hypnosis and it fascinated me! To be able to “rewire” someone’s brain and change their behavior completely seemed too good to be true! I had the opportunity to meet with the owner of a hypnotherapy clinic in Orlando and learn about how he first came into the business. He recommended a great school which I immediately looked up and started following! (This would later be the school I enrolled in to become a Certified Hypnotherapist).
About 3 years into living in Florida, my wife and I ended up having twin boys and were considering moving closer to home. Thankfully an opportunity came up at an event center near my hometown in Minnesota. I ended up interviewing and being offered the job in which I accepted. We moved back home in the summer of 2017. The job was a salaried position and came with a lot of long hours, nights and weekends. I didn’t have a lot of time for much else. About a year and a half into the job, it was announced that the building was going to be turned over to a private management company and it was uncertain who would remain employed. At this time there was a lot to consider! The entertainment industry was a lot of fun but required a lot of sacrifice from my family life. I decided this was the time to finally enroll in that school for hypnotherapy I had been thinking about for a few years! I enrolled in their distance/virtual program in January of 2020 just before the start of the pandemic. Thankfully being a virtual program and with now significantly reduced hours at my current job I was able to finish up schooling quickly and start my supervised clinical internship. I finally opened my practice full time and gave notice at my current job in May of 2021!
I couldn’t be happier working in this profession! It has allowed me to meet some incredible people as well as help those people make incredible changes in their lives! I work on a variety of presenting issues such as habit control, smoking, weight loss, motivation, phobias, procrastination, success modeling and more. I’ll also work on more serious cases such as pain management, insomnia and depression. However, it’s important to note that as a hypnotherapist, I’m not a licensed psychologist or medical professional. In these instances, I partner with the physician or therapist the client is working with, or help them find one if needed and will work via referral in conjunction with a licensed professional. I want to make sure that anyone I’m working with gets the appropriate help and care they need to be successful and have seen incredible results when working alongside others in the therapy or medical fields! Now, in addition to these areas I’ve worked on, a very heavy and underlying theme has been present, which is stress and anxiety management. Anxiety seems to be coupled with almost any issue I’ve worked on with clients. The ability to separate that out and remove it from someone has created some of the most rewarding and profound experiences in my short time as a hypnotherapist. It reaffirms every day that the choice I made for both myself and my family was the right one.
Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?
I had an instructor that spoke to this very topic. It was during a Neuro-Linguistics Certification program that I’d been attending for a few months at the time. I recall we were discussing the material that we were learning and one of the students wasn’t getting a particular concept. Our instructor took a moment to pause and then stated that everything we’re learning, whether it be neurology, definitions, tools or exercises, that we’ll get all that in time. It’ll just come. However, the most important thing you can do with your client is simply provide space. It is important to provide space that is free of all judgement, by simply accepting and understanding. That is more therapeutic than any tool he could teach us. That really stuck with me and became a core part of my practice. I don’t look at clients and see them as a problem to solve or that I have to figure out what tool is theoretically the most appropriate to apply based on what they’re saying. I simply just be with them, allow them a space to express and then ask questions from a place of curiosity rather than judgement. I believe there’s a positive reason behind all our behaviors, whether it be anxiety, a phobia, self-sabotage or procrastination. I want to understand that reason, get to know them and in doing so, help them move through and beyond it. Be open, be accepting and be curious, and everything else will work itself out exactly as it needs to.
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
I think this is kind of a tricky question to answer because ultimately, it’s going to come down to your industry as well as your location. For me, thankfully I’m in an area where I am the only hypnotherapist. There’s not a lot of competition that I need to get in front of from a marketing standpoint. Hypnotherapy isn’t well known here. Most of my marketing is based on building awareness of the service as well as educating on what hypnotherapy really is and who it can help. Having a well-built website with strong SEO as well as google ads has been the cornerstone for reaching new clientele. At a local level I’ve been working with a Media Sales Rep from iHeart and running radio ads to create that surface level of awareness, really letting people know in the community that hypnotherapy exists and is a great option! I also reach out to a lot of local businesses and offer seminars, lectures or guest speaking opportunities to help educate people on what hypnosis is and how it works as a therapeutic tool! I’ve found this to be both very effective as well as a lot of fun! A lot of organizations and businesses are constantly looking for speakers for luncheon seminars or educational opportunities. There are definitely a lot of philosophies on how to market your business and increase clientele. It doesn’t matter if you’re just starting out and have a small or none existent budget, there’s always a way to reach the people that need you! More importantly, do what works for you, be your true and authentic self! I believe that carries more weight than any of the other tactics!
Contact Info:
- Website: centeredhypnotherapy.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/centered_hypnotherapy/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/centeredhypnotherapy
Image Credits
Bekke Berge – Forever You Studios