DARREN JAMIESON: On this week’s episode of The Engaging Marketeer, I’m speaking with Adam Nassor, who is an autistic hypnotist, magician and business coach.
Now, that is a very strange mix of skills, but I’m going to be talking to Adam about how he employs all of those skills within his business and during his journey in BNI, which I am also in.
I’m also going to be talking to him quite intently about his time in school, when he was the victim of bullying, as I was when I delivered my TEDx talk. You may have seen that on another podcast.
He used his hypnotist skills to disarm the bullies. This is a fascinating story, so get ready for this one.
Adam, you describe yourself as an autistic hypnotist, magician and business coach, which is an eclectic mix, to say the least. Which one of those would you say takes priority in your branding?
[01:44] ADAM: Very good question. I would say definitely the hypnotist.
Hypnosis is the basis of everything I do. Yes, I learned magic and mentalism at the age of six, but hypnosis came to me at the age of 12, when I was bullied because of my autism. I was outcast, physically assaulted and, unfortunately, also sexually assaulted because I was different.
The one thing that saved me was hypnosis, because it taught me how to read people. It taught me how to read between the lines and understand the unconscious.
I then used other things, whether they were magic tricks, rhetoric or certain conversational techniques, to solve my problems. Because that worked, I dedicated my life to studying the craft.
[02:29] DARREN: Sorry, what age were you when you learned hypnotism?
ADAM: Twelve.
DARREN: Age 12? That’s early for hypnotism. Were you able to master the craft and actually use it at that age?
[02:47] ADAM: Yes. I’d already had some success with it.
I was only using it for conversational purposes, such as defusing situations or making people less aggressive.
At the age of 18, I learned the show-hypnosis side. People usually go the other way around and learn show hypnosis first.
At 18, I was able to drop people into deep trances and things like that. Before then, however, it was a very useful tool for getting people who didn’t care onto my side and getting the bullies off my back.
[03:15] DARREN: I find this fascinating. Presumably, this was happening in a school environment?
ADAM: Yes.
DARREN: In school, you were confronted by bullies—probably not very intelligent people, possibly older and often bigger.
Bullies themselves have frequently been bullied at some point, which is why they lash out at someone they see as different. They’re afraid of somebody who is different.
What technique did you use to defuse the situation? Give me a scenario or an example of how it worked.
[03:54] ADAM: One thing that worked tremendously well was studying body language and learning how to read people.
The best example involves somebody we’ll call “L”, because I don’t want to reveal his full name.
He was pretty much the school’s Nazi. I can’t explain it any other way.
He had a problem with me because of my skin colour. He had a problem with me because I didn’t speak with a perfect Bavarian accent and instead spoke High German. He didn’t like that either. My father is from Kenya, and he didn’t like that.
I realised that the principal of the school was on his side. You can imagine the ideology of that principal.
When two white kids were beating each other up, it was, “Boys will be boys.” When he beat me up and I defended myself, the principal threatened measures against me because I “couldn’t behave like this”.
I had no support there, so I had to figure out which teacher L was truly afraid of.
I had learned how to get people to admit the truth and how to bring their real emotions out. A hypnotist’s power is to bring emotions up, direct attention and get people to act in accordance with what they truly feel.
I worked out which teacher he was afraid of. I got that teacher onto my side, because I also understood how to win people over. How to Win Friends and Influence People is a fantastic book that teaches that.
We had a conversation. During that conversation, I got him to admit that he didn’t like me because of my skin colour and because of things I couldn’t control.
That teacher folded him in half. He was so small after that.
From then on, he greeted me every morning with a bow, and I greeted him with a bow back, of course.
We went from, “Hey, [bleep] you,” to, “Good morning, Adam.”
“Good morning, L.”
I would say that was pretty cool.
[05:54] DARREN: What was the timescale? How quickly did it take you to learn the techniques well enough to do that, and where did you learn them?
[06:05] ADAM: I learned the first few techniques from several books: The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Dr Joseph Murphy, a pocket guide to NLP for Dummies, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Think and Grow Rich, and Allan and Barbara Pease’s books on body language.
There was another book about rhetoric, but I don’t remember the author. It was something my father had at home.
Later, when the internet became available, I researched hypnosis techniques online. Bob Cassidy taught me a few things there.
It was mostly self-directed learning and a lot of experience—trying it out in real life.
I would say it took a few months before I was able to use it properly. After that, I started going heavily into it.
I had a slight advantage because I learn very, very quickly, thanks to my autism. But yes, I would say a few months.
[07:02] DARREN: Do you think anyone listening who is being bullied—and a lot of people are bullied every day—could use those books as a starting point?
Could they read them, learn these things and potentially defuse a situation involving school bullies?
[07:18] ADAM: Yes. I would recommend that every child aged ten and above read those books.
They will help tremendously, especially if you have autism, ADHD or something similar.
In the end, when you’re being bullied, it isn’t because the bullies know you. It’s because they don’t know you.
They have a story about you in their minds, and that story doesn’t reflect the truth. They hate a false version of you.
These techniques help bring out the truth and allow people to get to know you for who you really are. Most of the time, that creates good friends.
[07:53] DARREN: Yes. You bully somebody because you don’t know them and you fear what you don’t understand.
ADAM: Exactly.
DARREN: That’s one of the reasons we go to war. We fear what we don’t understand.
It’s also how a lot of right-wing politics thrives. You make the public fear what they don’t understand.
“There are immigrants coming over here. We don’t know what they’re like, so let’s fear them. Vote for me, and I’ll stop them coming over.”
[08:21] ADAM: Exactly, although I think all identity politics works in the same way.
“This person doesn’t agree with my opinion. They’re different from me. We need to cancel them, destroy them, dox them or kill them.”
It is always the same thing.
That reminds me of a very interesting lecture I attended while studying psychology at university.
The psychobiology professor told us that racism and these kinds of responses have a biological component connected to our immune systems.
He asked us to imagine a world without national borders, but with “germ borders”.
When people live close to one another, their germs are similar enough that their immune systems complement each other. When there is too much difference, somebody’s immune system may be exposed to something unfamiliar.
An illness that is only like a sniffle to one population could devastate another population. Historically, diseases introduced to isolated populations caused enormous numbers of deaths.
He said that, subconsciously, our bodies respond to these differences. We instinctively distrust somebody who does not appear to be like us.
As cognitively evolved beings, the same thing happens in the mind. When we think somebody is too different culturally, we may reject them because we fear that they threaten our society or physical health.
That does not excuse the behaviour, but it may help explain it. Understanding it can help us respond more wisely and take measures to fix the problem.
Both left-wing and right-wing extremes are bad. It doesn’t matter which side they’re on. Extremes never lead anywhere.
[10:12] DARREN: I’ve never thought about it like that.
I’ve always believed that racism is inherently taught—that you aren’t born with it. You don’t suddenly hate somebody who is different from you. You are taught that belief, usually by a father, uncle or grandfather who passes it down.
If you aren’t taught it, you won’t become racist.
You’re saying there may be a biological element beyond what is taught. That’s fascinating. It had never occurred to me.
[10:43] ADAM: I experienced it that way.
Growing up, I was the only child with brown skin in my kindergarten. None of the parents was teaching their children to call me the kid with “[bleep] skin”, but they called me that anyway.
There is something instinctive that says, “If something is too different, I don’t like it. I exclude it.”
It is basic human behaviour. It is tribalism. If you are too different from the tribe, you are perceived as a threat to survival.
The DNA of a species changes over incredibly long periods. Homo sapiens has not existed for that long in evolutionary terms. We are still like the same cave people, but with smartphones.
We still think tribally.
That is why public speaking can feel more frightening than death. Public speaking presents the possibility of rejection. You don’t only risk personal failure; you risk damage to your reputation, which, in a tribal context, could also affect your children and your bloodline.
If you fail in front of others, the primitive part of your mind may interpret that as your entire gene pool being at risk. This is subconscious, of course.
That’s why people are so terribly afraid of it. We have to keep that in mind when we think about these things.
[12:02] DARREN: It’s strange for me to think that people are afraid of public speaking, because there is nothing I like more.
I love getting in front of an audience, having a microphone, controlling that audience and having them hang on what I say. It is food to me. I love it.
I don’t understand how people can be afraid of it.
I saw a public speaker give a talk—a lady named Cat who has been on my podcast. She explained that when you’re born, you have two inherent fears: falling and loud noises.
She said the fear of public speaking is something you are taught, rather than something biological.
But you’re saying there is a biological fear of public speaking?
[12:52] ADAM: More or less. I would say the underlying fear is rejection.
I have never experienced a fear of public speaking either. I don’t know what stage fright feels like. I have never had it in my life.
But that is because I had been rejected and outcast since kindergarten. People had hated me since then, so there was nothing more to add.
When I got onto a stage and received attention, I welcomed it because things couldn’t get any worse in the first place.
That was the learned aspect for me.
It was different for other people. Some were popular, so public failure presented a risk. They could lose that popularity.
I had nothing to lose.
[13:33] DARREN: Nothing to lose, but everything to gain.
I had similar experiences at school, where I was bullied as well. I don’t think it reached the extremes you’ve described, but it made me want more attention.
I tried to make people laugh—sometimes successfully and sometimes not.
I think that’s part of the reason I do what I do now. I want the attention and adoration I wouldn’t have received in other ways.
Is that similar to how you feel about what you went through?
[14:09] ADAM: I would say it is very similar, yes.
It makes us stronger. Adversity always makes us stronger.
We never grow through success. Why would we? There’s no need to.
I’m a very big fan of Dragon Ball Z and anime in general.
In Dragon Ball Z, Goku, the main character, says, “Power never responds to a want. It always comes from a need. You need to create that need.”
That is something I took to heart.
[14:44] DARREN: That is similar to a line in Gladiator.
Marcus Aurelius is trying to hand the emperor’s crown to Russell Crowe’s character instead of giving it to his son, Commodus, because Commodus is a bad man and should not be emperor.
Russell Crowe’s character, Maximus, says something like, “I don’t want this. It shouldn’t be me. I’m just a soldier.”
Marcus Aurelius says, “That is why it must be you, because you don’t want it.”
ADAM: Yes.
DARREN: He didn’t crave it.
ADAM: Exactly.
[15:21] DARREN: You dealt with those bullies using hypnosis.
Some people might imagine you walking around waving your hand and making them do stupid things, but it was much subtler than that. You were changing how they perceived you.
How did that skill stay with you and how did you use your power for good as you got older?
[15:44] ADAM: Just to clarify, I wasn’t using hypnosis in kindergarten. That was later, around the fifth or sixth grade.
DARREN: As you went through life, how did hypnosis stay with you?
[15:58] ADAM: The first thing I did—hello, love—was learn how to heal with it and use it to help people.
I was obsessed with mastering persuasion, reading people, understanding them and guiding emotions.
At first, it was literally a self-defence mechanism because I didn’t want to use violence. I’m a martial artist and I like martial arts, but I prefer nonviolent approaches.
I became obsessed with questions such as: How does the mind work? How do emotions work? How do you turn an enemy into a friend? Why does that work so well?
I started using it for good by teaching other children who were being bullied how it worked.
People often say it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master something, but that you can accelerate the process by teaching it. Teaching helped me grow very quickly.
When I moved into show hypnosis, I also gave people a little hypnotic gift.
I never made people do stupid things, such as clucking like chickens. I found that disrespectful to the unconscious mind, and I respect the unconscious too much for that.
I might let somebody experience something surprising—for example, temporarily being unable to see a friend, as though the friend had become invisible—but I would also give them something powerful, such as a better memory.
A lot of people got straight As after I worked with them, because I hypnotised them to improve their memory.
I appeared on Austrian national television because I created my own system that could give even people without a naturally strong memory something approaching a photographic memory.
I also taught people how to read others so they understood who they were dealing with.
I had a lot of female friends who tended to make very poor choices in men. I would say I was almost 90% accurate in predicting what those people were like, sometimes before I had even met them.
I could look at a picture and have an idea of the kind of person they were. My friends would say, “Holy [bleep], how do you know him?”
I taught them how to read people so they wouldn’t fall for the wrong ones.
[18:07] DARREN: Wow.
You’re classed as a business coach, but it sounds like you should also be helping people with life.
You should be teaching children how to deal with bullies, get through school and earn straight As. You should be teaching dating skills. There are so many things you could be doing.
Do you ever feel that you don’t have enough time to do all the things your abilities could enable you to do?
[18:33] ADAM: Yes, I definitely need more hours in the day.
I used to have a hypnosis practice where I did exactly that. I helped people with their lives, and I still do it today, but I don’t advertise it anymore.
I only work through referrals, and I generally take the very serious cases where nobody else has been able to help. Those cases tend to come to me anyway.
It’s the same in business. It’s about how you use your time.
I’m a very faithful man. I’m a Christian and I strongly believe in God and Jesus.
I believe He will send me the people who need my help the most.
I don’t turn down people who genuinely need my help when I can see that they truly want it.
If I can see that they don’t want help, I don’t force it on them, because you cannot force anybody to be happy.
I received all these skills for a reason. Every skill I have learned relates to persuasion and helping people make good choices in life: hypnosis, copywriting, high-ticket sales, social-media algorithms and understanding how to go viral consistently.
All those skill sets are about helping people take certain actions or guiding them towards certain emotions.
My mentor, Igor Ledochowski, is one of the greatest human beings on this planet, in my opinion. I love that man. He changed my life forever.
He taught me almost everything I know about hypnosis, including its moral principles.
He said, “Persuasion and influence are about getting people into a state of mind where they can make the best choices for themselves, even if the choice goes against you.”
I wholeheartedly believe that.
[20:12] DARREN: I can see that.
I’ve interviewed hypnotists before, and I’ve interviewed a lot of sales trainers.
Sales trainers often use NLP—neuro-linguistic programming—and there is a big crossover between sales, NLP and hypnotism.
If you’re good at sales and you do it ethically and properly, you’re helping people make the decision that is best for them.
You shouldn’t try to sell somebody something they don’t need or want, because that isn’t good for them and, ultimately, it isn’t good for you either.
How much has hypnotism helped you with sales? I think I already know the answer, but I’d like you to put it into words.
[21:03] ADAM: Infinitely.
When I first learned high-ticket closing, I learned from Dan Lok. It was great training and I really enjoyed it. It changed my life in more ways than one.
He taught me how to sell ethically and powerfully without being a nuisance or behaving like a stereotypical used-car salesman.
He taught me to do it at a high level, where you truly help people.
When I sell to people, they always thank me at the end. I never get the feeling that somebody is thinking, “Why did I do that?”
There is always a “thank you” at the end, and that’s how you know you did it correctly.
Hypnosis helps me guide people through problems during a sales call.
If you are making a major decision or a large investment, it is uncomfortable. You may be afraid and unsure of yourself.
Most of the time, people don’t buy because they don’t trust themselves to succeed.
Being able to give them self-confidence and guide them through the pain is crucial.
You cannot sell without addressing pain, but creating pain merely for the purpose of selling is evil manipulation.
You need to show people the pain they already have so they realise, “I need to do something.”
You then guide them through it, allowing them to make a good decision about whether they genuinely want the solution.
That is where hypnosis has helped me most.
[22:16] DARREN: I know a lot of people in sales roles who aren’t really salespeople and aren’t good at it.
I also know many business owners who cannot sell themselves. They might be fantastic at what they do and genuinely passionate about it.
They’re often engineers, so they become deeply involved in the hows and whys of what they do, but they can’t articulate it to other people in a way that sells it.
They’re bad at growing businesses and bad at explaining what they do.
Do you think anybody—even the most introverted engineer—could learn hypnosis and become better at selling their business?
[23:06] ADAM: It depends.
It is a craft that anybody can learn, but not everybody should learn it.
There is hypnosis that can make you better at sales, but I became good at using it in sales because I implemented what I already knew. I didn’t take a “sales hypnosis” course.
You need a certain passion for it.
If your only reason for learning hypnosis is to change people and make them do what you want, you should definitely not learn it.
You have no business learning that technique. You will fail.
If you are introverted and want to improve your conversational skills, genuinely help people and stop your conscious mind from sabotaging you, then it may help.
Perhaps you rely heavily on facts, facts, facts and logic—which never sells—and you want to learn to communicate in a more human and meaningful way, building real relationships with customers.
In that case, yes, absolutely.
[24:04] DARREN: So, if you’re a salesperson who wants to get out there, sell, sell, sell and smash every target possible for your business, you have no business learning hypnosis. Stay away from it.
ADAM: Exactly.
DARREN: It might help you—but don’t do it!
ADAM: Exactly, because hypnosis is too sacred to become a tool for manipulators.
That is also one of my biggest pet peeves.
I see people talking about “dark persuasion” and “dark hypnosis”, which is usually [bleep] anyway. It’s simply common sense that has been rebranded.
For example, I saw a dark-persuasion video saying, “If you give people food and care for them when they’re sick, they will love you. Cook for them so you can manipulate them.”
Oh, no! If you cook for people, they like you! I never thought of that!
That must be why all the leaders of the world are cooks and nurses.
Another example is, “Always tell people the truth so that, on the one occasion when you lie, they will believe you.”
No way! That is the darkest manipulation secret ever!
I hate those people.
[25:07] [Laughter]
[25:13] DARREN: Trump could do with that.
ADAM: He is a very good persuader, I have to tell you. His technique is spot-on.
DARREN: He flips it the other way: always tell a lie, so that when you tell the truth, nobody will know.
[25:29] [Laughter]
DARREN: Here’s a question. I think I know the answer because I’ve found this to be true of myself.
I consider myself quite good at selling, although I’ve never learned hypnosis. I don’t know whether I should.
I feel that I’m good at selling because it is about leading people to the right decisions.
As a result, I find that I’m very easy to sell to.
When somebody offers me a product or service, if it makes sense in my mind, I make an instant decision. I don’t need to think about it. I’ll buy it.
I bought a sofa last year, and I could tell the salesperson had received very good training.
He sold the aftercare perfectly. He explained all the benefits—if I spilled something on it, somebody would come out and fix it—before mentioning that it cost extra.
By that point, I thought, “This is what I’m getting, and this is what I want.”
Then he said, “By the way, it’s an extra £3 a month.”
I thought I’d be a fool not to have it. I even complimented him on the way he had sold it before saying yes.
Are you easy to sell to because you understand the selling process yourself?
[26:43] ADAM: Yes, I’m extremely easy to sell to—sometimes a little too easy.
My mentor taught me that, if you want to be influential, you need to enjoy being influenced.
If you want to sell, you need to love being sold to as well. Otherwise, there is a mismatch.
It’s the same as a coach who wants you to invest ten grand in coaching but would never personally pay for coaching. How is that going to work?
[27:12] DARREN: I love that answer.
I’ve met quite a few business coaches—or people who call themselves business coaches—who don’t have a coach themselves and won’t invest in coaching.
I remember one person saying, “I don’t need business coaching because I’ve done it all.”
That tells you everything you need to know about them, doesn’t it?
ADAM: It absolutely told me everything I needed to know about them.
DARREN: They were in BNI.
ADAM: Sad. I would say the membership committee should have checked a little more deeply.
DARREN: Yes. It doesn’t work for certain people.
Let’s talk about magic.
There’s obviously some crossover between hypnotism and magic because you’re putting on a performance.
You’re leading people towards a conclusion that may or may not be correct, because they believe one thing is happening when something else is happening.
What first got you interested in magic?
[28:16] ADAM: That was at the age of six. My father performed magic tricks for me at my birthday party.
DARREN: Was he skilled at magic, or did he learn it just for your birthday?
ADAM: He was very skilled.
I’m not sure whether he initially learned it for my birthday, but he always brought me magic tricks.
He travelled a lot. That was back when we still had a good relationship.
Whenever he travelled, he brought me gifts, and they were usually magic tricks.
I loved the apparent ability. I was always obsessed with superpowers.
He told me wonderful stories about superpowers and magical heroes, and I always wanted to be able to perform magic.
Once I learned the tricks, I loved them.
I also realised that, even when people didn’t like me, they experienced a sense of wonder when I showed them magic.
Suddenly, they were a little more open.
It was like opening a door into a magical world, where the rejection disappeared for a while and could sometimes even be turned around.
[29:17] ADAM: When I started learning hypnosis and NLP, I realised the principles that make mentalism and magic work are also the principles behind hypnosis.
I’ve always been obsessed with efficiency.
I didn’t want to learn a thousand techniques. I wanted one technique that would always work.
That’s what I didn’t like about conventional body-language interpretation, which is why I created my own system for reading people.
If somebody crosses their arms, it might mean they don’t believe you. It might mean they don’t like you. It might mean they’re cold. It might mean a woman is physically supporting a larger chest.
You don’t know. There is too much interpretation.
I needed things that were more reliable.
Then I realised that mentalism—the performance of reading people or predicting the future—teaches skills that can be transferred into real life.
If I can vanish a coin, that’s cool, but it isn’t really a life skill.
Being able to read people helps me everywhere.
[30:16] DARREN: What was the first magic trick you learned?
ADAM: That’s a very good question.
I think it was a vanishing or teleporting-coins trick.
You had a stack of coins in a little box. Somebody placed their hand on it, you performed the move, and suddenly the stack appeared somewhere else, even though they had apparently been holding it.
They saw it vanish from their own hands. It was a pretty cool trick.
I also had a few card tricks, but my favourites were always the self-working mind-reading and prediction tricks.
At any given point in time, I always have a magic trick ready.
There is never a moment when somebody can ask me to show them something and I’m unable to do it.
[31:00] DARREN: I go to Liverpool football matches because I have hospitality tickets.
In one of the lounges, there is often a magician. Usually, two or three magicians alternate.
Over the last couple of years, I’ve been shown the same trick around a dozen times.
The magician picks six or seven people in a row and shows each of them a card. Sometimes the cards end up in his pocket, sometimes they’re on the floor and sometimes they’re already in your hand.
I have no idea how he does it. Not a freaking clue.
I know he is going to perform the exact same trick, and I watch him like a hawk, but I still can’t work out how the hell he does it.
How does he do it?
[31:50] ADAM: A magician never tells—not somebody else’s tricks either!
But I know how he does it. I’ve performed the trick myself.
DARREN: You know how he does it? Son of a gun.
Does that mean you’re in the Magic Circle?
ADAM: I’m not currently part of it, but I used to be part of a magic circle in Linz when I lived there.
Now that I’m in Vienna, I’m not part of a magic circle, but I used to be.
DARREN: And you’re not allowed to tell anybody.
Okay, fine.
In terms of famous magicians, I’ve seen Penn & Teller in Las Vegas.
ADAM: I love them. I met them in person. They were great.
[32:23] DARREN: I’ve also seen David Copperfield in Las Vegas.
ADAM: You’re a lucky man.
DARREN: The lights went out, and he materialised a spaceship inside the theatre.
It was amazing. You’re thinking, “How did that get in here?”
It’s the most ridiculous thing possible.
In terms of famous stage magicians, who is your favourite? And what is your favourite trick you’ve seen?
[32:55] ADAM: David Copperfield, when he started flying and took somebody from the audience with him through the room.
I always wanted to be able to fly. It was one of my biggest dreams, and when I saw that, I was absolutely captivated.
My first great hero and idol was Peter Pan, so I always wanted to fly.
What I loved about David Copperfield was his childlike curiosity and wonder about magic.
He wasn’t only there to impress people.
That is why I don’t like Criss Angel. Criss Angel is just a poser.
He also pays people to react to his tricks. That isn’t magic.
Magic is the entire show. If you eliminate the show and the wonder, you are merely repeating a mechanism. That is ridiculous.
He perverted magic. It became a festival of narcissism: “Look how cool I am.”
With David Copperfield, you could see his love for it flowing through the performance.
I learned from watching him that, when I perform a trick, I should convince myself that I’m performing real magic.
I’m genuinely surprised by the trick when I watch myself doing it, and I love it every time.
Whenever I can give people that childlike sense of wonder and see that spark in their eyes, it is the best feeling.
[34:19] DARREN: You mentioned flying and wanting to be like Peter Pan. Earlier, you mentioned superpowers.
I was going to ask what superpower you’d choose. I suspected it would be flying.
[34:31] ADAM: Not anymore. It used to be, but there are so many other superpowers that would be great.
I used to invent my own superpowers.
One of the most amazing would be the ability to stop time, so that I had more time to do things.
But the version I imagined wasn’t only about stopping time. While time was stopped, I could experiment with everything.
For example, I could test what happened if I said a particular thing and observe the reaction.
When I resumed time, it would be as though nothing had happened, but I would know in advance what the reaction was likely to be.
I could experiment with many different possibilities.
The power to heal would also be fantastic.
I wouldn’t ask for the ability to read minds, because I can already read people very well. It isn’t the same as genuine mind reading, but it’s similar.
I would want something that genuinely made life better but still required mastery.
I would never wish for omnipotence. A lot of people say, “Omnipotence is the best superpower because I could do whatever I wanted.”
No. I would want something with severe limitations—something that forced me to be creative, remain grounded and avoid abusing it.
I wouldn’t want a superpower that made me feel like God. That would be blasphemy.
I would want something that could be used in many ways.
If I could stop time and experiment, I could ask, “What would this person tell me if they were completely honest about how they feel? What are they really struggling with? What would actually help them?”
Then I could resume time and give them life-changing advice.
That would be great.
[36:29] DARREN: That’s a cross between Hiro Nakamura from Heroes, who could stop time, and Doctor Strange, who can view multiple timelines.
You would stop time, look at the possible timelines, identify the best one and then take that action.
ADAM: Yes. That is a very good example. Exactly.
DARREN: Those are two very powerful superpowers in one. I think that’s slightly cheating, but I’ll allow it.
ADAM: A little bit.
The downside is that nothing I do while time is stopped would actually happen in real life.
If I punched somebody while time was stopped, for instance, it would never have happened once time resumed.
DARREN: A safe zone. A sandbox effect.
Okay, let’s talk about business coaching. That’s primarily what you do, I believe?
[37:18] ADAM: Yes.
DARREN: Just checking! What kind of people and businesses do you coach?
[37:26] ADAM: Most of the time, I work with solopreneurs such as coaches, trainers and therapists.
These people are often so good at their jobs that they can no longer explain what they do.
Their brains have become so technical in relation to their craft that they struggle to explain it simply. They’re afraid of being imprecise or insufficiently technical.
But technical complexity doesn’t convince anybody.
This is called the curse of knowledge. They’ve forgotten what it is like not to possess all the knowledge they have.
For example, you have never learned hypnosis. If I started explaining intricate technical details, you would quickly become confused.
I could begin using specialist terminology about hypnotic processes, regression, sanctuaries, Dave Elman inductions, openers and deepeners.
What would I be talking about? Nobody outside the field would know.
More importantly, nobody cares exactly how you do it.
If I told you I could perform a rain dance around you, turn my head three times and make you a million dollars—and you then made the million dollars—you wouldn’t care whether I used hypnosis, mentalism, copywriting or some other technique.
The process doesn’t matter to the client.
The only thing that matters is whether the client knows that you understand them.
[38:48] ADAM: You also need to overdeliver.
I ask every client, “What is the maximum you can give your customers without robbing yourself? What is the most value you can provide while remaining profitable?”
I absolutely despise businesses that provide the bare minimum in exchange for extreme amounts of money.
There are coaches charging ten grand without providing a guarantee, bonuses or personal assistance. They simply sell knowledge for ten grand.
Today, even ChatGPT—even though I don’t think it’s as good an AI as it once was—can provide much of that knowledge.
It’s a scam.
My great vision as a business coach is to flood the market with powerful experts who are excellent at what they do and genuinely care about their clients.
Right now, the charlatans have good marketing and the good people don’t.
I want to be the great equaliser.
Once things are equal and the good experts have equally strong marketing, they will win through scale.
The charlatans won’t be able to meet the standards the public has come to expect.
[39:57] DARREN: I was literally talking about that problem in a one-to-one meeting around two hours ago.
There are businesses and people who aren’t very good at what they do, but their marketing is excellent. As a result, they achieve market saturation.
I need to be careful what I say now.
Take Budweiser beer. It’s absolute [bleep] beer, but the marketing is phenomenal, so it became one of the biggest beers in America.
Every supermarket seems to have an entire aisle dedicated to Bud Light, even though it tastes like [bleep]. It doesn’t even have the flavour of [bleep]. It isn’t that good.
Yet it achieved saturation.
There’s also a company advertised on television here in the UK that sells video phone systems. It’s called HiHi.
ADAM: I’ve never heard of them.
DARREN: In the UK, they’re all over the television.
Compared with the alternatives, I think they’re [bleep], but they’re the company everybody knows because they have the saturation, branding and advertising.
If a business is buying a phone system, somebody says, “Oh, HiHi—I’ve heard of them.”
It’s disappointing for businesses that are genuinely good at what they do when poor brands have great marketing.
People like us—marketing agencies—contribute to the problem.
That’s why we want to work with people who are good at what they do.
As you said, it’s about finding people who are genuinely good and giving them a voice and power.
That is what you should do as a marketer, business coach or hypnotist: do good and help the right people get their voices heard, rather than helping poor providers saturate the market.
I’ve just had a rant. I don’t know why I did that. Sorry.
[41:41] ADAM: I loved what you said. I couldn’t agree more.
I also love your Bud Light example because the brand experienced an enormous downfall.
It isn’t even among America’s top four beers anymore, because it fell dramatically.
The company hired a new marketing executive, apparently from Harvard or somewhere similar, who said its existing audience was too “fratty”.
They started a campaign with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
Bud Light’s main target audience included rednecks and more conservative people. The marketing approach effectively communicated, “If you don’t like this campaign, you’re a bigot and we don’t want you.”
They tried to market to a tiny percentage of the market that didn’t usually buy the beer.
They attempted to be progressive, but Bud Light fell heavily from grace.
Supermarkets were apparently turning away Bud Light representatives because the beer wasn’t selling.
If I’m correct—and we could fact-check this—it still isn’t in the top four.
That happened because of the marketing. They violated their own audience.
Everybody can hold whatever ideology they want.
But if you are part of a multibillion-dollar company, don’t understand your audience and believe your small bubble of thought is more powerful than the millions of people giving you billions of dollars, you are delusional.
You need to focus first on the people you serve.
If you don’t serve people correctly, you will fall.
We no longer live in a time when an organisation is necessarily too big to fail.
A lot of power is back in the hands of people through social media, particularly TikTok and Instagram.
TikTok, especially, has extremely high subscriptions and engagement. It can even shape elections. I believe Trump said that a significant proportion of his votes came through TikTok.
Don’t underestimate people. They aren’t stupid, and they don’t take these things lightly anymore.
We now live in a time when people often care more about who you are than what you offer.
Boycotting is easy. Say one wrong thing, get cancelled online and your career may be over.
[44:16] DARREN: They cost themselves the redneck racist dollar.
ADAM: Exactly—and that represented billions of dollars.
The marketing lead is no longer there, of course.
What made it worse was that the CEO attempted a public apology that sounded like a narcissistic, “I’m sorry you feel that way,” rather than a genuine apology.
That made things worse.
It remained a major topic for months. The backlash became so serious that Dylan Mulvaney left the country for a while.
That is why you must do your research first.
[45:00] ADAM: Research is the first thing I do for my clients.
I produce between ten and thirty pages of psychographic analysis.
It doesn’t matter what you sell if you don’t understand the psychological profile of the people you are selling to.
I use something called reverse-engineered research.
First, I look at the offer and the problem it solves, because there is a buyer for almost everything.
Then I work backwards from the product and identify the psychology of the people who would buy it.
That usually gives me extremely high accuracy when identifying the customer avatar. I say that 80% accuracy should be the average, although my work has generally exceeded that.
When you understand your target audience and are genuinely obsessed with serving them correctly, you are doing your job properly.
That is also why I overhaul my clients’ offers.
If you only sell time for money, you don’t have an offer.
“I sell an hour of my time for 100 bucks.” That isn’t an offer. Everybody can sell time.
“I help transform people’s lives.” What does that mean? You might know, but nobody else does.
Be specific.
I could say, “I help trainers, coaches and therapists get more business.” Everybody says that.
Instead, I say that I do exactly four things for trainers, coaches and therapists.
First, I change their offer so that it becomes irresistible. When the right audience sees it, they say, “I need you.”
I do that using my proprietary processes, including my Sherlock research—but customers don’t care about the details of the process, so becoming overly technical would be a mistake.
Second, I make sure they get in front of the right people.
I have a specific process for reaching a target audience on TikTok, even when the business assumes that audience isn’t there. TikTok is the only platform where that is possible in quite the same way.
Third, I help them sell the offer properly.
I train them to sell ethically and without being sleazy, in a way that builds genuine trust.
Fourth, I make sure customers come back.
I take the client through all four stages.
I write the scripts for them, so they don’t need to worry about doing it themselves.
The only thing they need to do is record what I give them and use the language I provide in their pitches.
They can then concentrate on their core business.
All the words they need come from me.
I have the best words. I have all the words. I have studied the words. I give the most persuasive words!
[47:21] [Laughter]
DARREN: I need to edit the title of this podcast and add “impressionist” as well.
That’s really interesting.
A lot of business coaches I speak to don’t like using the words “business coach” because they feel it pigeonholes them.
They also find it very difficult to explain what they do and how they help people.
Certainly within BNI, many members don’t know how to help a business coach. They don’t know how to introduce or refer them because they don’t understand what they do or how they help clients.
It sounds as though that clarity is what you help coaches create.
[48:14] ADAM: Yes.
DARREN: How easy is it to get a business coach to buy into that, when we’ve already established that some coaches think they know everything?
[48:28] ADAM: It is very easy if you know your target audience well.
My motto is: if you tell people their problem and what they’ve already tried before they tell you, there is zero resistance.
I tested this.
I spoke to around fifty or sixty business coaches over several weeks because another BNI member helped me contact them.
I offered each of them a review of their business in exchange for an honest LinkedIn recommendation if they were happy with what I told them.
I started every conversation by saying, “Let me guess. You love what you do. You’re passionate and very good at it. But for some reason, no matter what marketing you try, it doesn’t work.”
They would say, “Yes.”
Then I’d say, “Let me guess. You spend two or three hours creating an Instagram post, and it receives three likes—one of which is from your mother.”
They would say, “Did you stalk me?”
I continued: “You hate doing it. You know you need marketing, but you don’t have the money for a large agency.
“You want to do it yourself because you think nobody understands the business as well as you do, but you also don’t want to do it yourself because you have better things to do.”
“Yes.”
“And let me guess: you’ve taken courses, joined masterminds and bought programmes that promised you the world. In the end, you were left alone, still expected to implement everything yourself—and you didn’t do it.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Great. Let me fix that.”
It is a completely different angle.
[49:57] DARREN: Wow. I love that.
I also love it when I’m recording these podcasts, hear something and immediately think, “That’s going into a clip.”
[50:05] ADAM: Thank you.
DARREN: That is definitely going into a clip.
For those listening rather than watching, I can see several BNI certificates on the wall behind you.
I take it BNI is working well for you and your business?
[50:24] ADAM: I love BNI. Joining the network was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
BNI is by far the best way to make friends and have money as a side effect.
DARREN: Nice.
ADAM: BNI is all about building relationships.
You cannot do business without relationships, especially today.
The connections, advice and genuine help I’ve received through BNI are things I couldn’t have found in the same way elsewhere.
I could talk about it for hours. I love having the network.
For example, I’m currently working with a client on sales. One of their clients had been scammed by a former boss out of 21 grand.
She wanted to invest in a programme but couldn’t because she was missing the money.
I was able to refer her to a lawyer in her area who could help her. That is amazing.
[51:23] DARREN: That is a major benefit of BNI: you can help people because you have the connections.
People often come directly to me and ask, “Can you recommend somebody who does this?”
They know I’m somebody who can make that recommendation.
It feels good because you help the person looking for assistance and also pass a referral to another business.
You get the dopamine impact of helping two separate people, you receive credit for the referral and you get points on the traffic lights as well.
It’s win-win.
How long have you been in BNI?
[52:00] ADAM: Altogether, I’m coming up to my fourth year.
I was a member from 2018 to 2020 as a hypnotherapist. I then rejoined in 2024 as a business coach.
Officially, my BNI profession is now copywriter, because most of what I do involves writing scripts for clients.
Unlike other copywriters, I also give clients all the underlying research and coach them on how to use the scripts.
That is why my clients tend to get around four times the results.
One of my clients is currently exploding on TikTok.
I told him, “Within around three months, you’ll start receiving leads from TikTok and you’ll have a viral video.” It has never taken longer than that.
He is now exactly within that timeframe. His videos are receiving hundreds of thousands of views, and people are contacting him. It’s pretty cool.
[52:48] DARREN: We’ve only got a few minutes left, although I think you’ve already touched on this.
The time has flown, hasn’t it?
You mentioned being able to go viral consistently.
How do you do it? Although a magician never gives away his tricks.
[53:04] ADAM: I’m joking—this isn’t magic. I will explain how I do it. It’s actually very simple.
I can also give you a link to a YouTube video where I explain it. I’m very willing to give it away.
DARREN: We can share that in the description, so people can click through to the YouTube video. That’s fantastic.
ADAM: Perfect.
I lean on something Jeff Bezos said: “Don’t worry about what will change. Think about what will not change.”
What will social-media platforms always want?
Will they ever want fewer users? No.
Will they ever want less watch time? No.
Will they ever want fewer shares? No.
They want as many people on the platform for as long as possible, so they can show those people as many advertisements as possible and make as much money as possible.
You therefore need to optimise for watch time and shareability.
[54:02] ADAM: How do you do that?
I use something I call the multi-hook technique.
I use four different types of hooks to capture attention.
The first is a written hook, usually displayed in a white box in the upper third of the screen. It gives a general idea of what the video is about.
The second hook is in the caption or description below the video. It makes a direct reference to something said later in the video.
It should never simply say, “Watch until the end.” That is horrible.
It also shouldn’t repeat the first hook.
The third is the verbal hook. It should make viewers feel as though they have entered the middle of a conversation between friends, almost as though they have stumbled into a FaceTime call.
The fourth is the visual hook: movement, a facial expression, an unusual object or something visually distinctive, such as a striking jacket.
Those four hooks capture attention and buy you three or four seconds.
Then you need to give people relevance.
[54:59] ADAM: You need to provide good content.
One of three things needs to happen.
First, you give viewers something they can implement immediately. For example, the formula I’m explaining now is immediately usable. People can check whether their own hooks are effective.
Second, you give them a mindset shift so that they think differently about a problem.
Free content isn’t intended to provide a complete education. You cannot change somebody’s life in 15 seconds or teach them everything you know.
But you can make them feel that their problem can be solved. You can make them feel enriched or slightly more competent.
Third, you give them an emotional boost through nostalgia, fun, happiness or another positive emotion.
If you allow me to share my screen, I can show you an example from my own TikTok channel.
I’m a big fan of proving what I say, because anybody can talk. Proving it is slightly harder, isn’t it?
[55:50] DARREN: It can be, yes.
ADAM: Thank you.
I’ll show you several accounts where I’ve done this.
Let’s begin with my own account, which I started one year ago. You can see it on my screen.
DARREN: Yes.
[56:13] ADAM: This video has almost 600,000 views. Another one I posted recently has 227,000.
The effort required for that video was 15 seconds.
I actually made it while I was on a call with one of my clients, because I was trying to prove a point.
I told her, “It doesn’t matter what you say. You simply need these elements.”
Look at this: “Seriously, tell me—how is this possible, guys?”
What does that tell you about the video?
When you read the text with that emoji, what do you expect?
[56:46] DARREN: That you’re going to tell us about something we wouldn’t think could be done. It is something I need to know.
ADAM: Yes.
Now, you read that and see dancing. What do you think?
DARREN: The video is probably going to involve some sort of dancing.
ADAM: Maybe.
Now, look at my facial expression. What does it say?
[57:08] DARREN: You look confused or in disbelief about what you’re about to tell us.
ADAM: Right.
The text also says, “What is wrong with Kenyans?”
Those are the four things you notice immediately.
You also see a man wearing a bonnet, which is unusual because women in Kenya are more commonly seen wearing bonnets.
You see several unusual things.
Now, let’s see what happens in the video.
[57:29] [Video plays]
[57:48] ADAM: It was simply a video praising Kenyans because they are my audience.
I love them. I love my audience deeply.
It was a genuine thought. I wanted to say, “You guys are amazing. You have wonderful coexistence between different religions. Muslims and Christians aren’t fighting one another.”
My own Kenyan girlfriend is amazing, and I wanted to show appreciation.
It went hyper-viral.
Here is another example—100,000 views. I made it a few days ago.
“Kenya, what is going on here? This is seriously baffling.”
It uses the same principle.
[58:24] [Another example video plays]
[58:53] ADAM: They love commenting on it, and that is the power of the whole thing.
It is about relatability.
People see themselves in the content, so they want to engage.
I never say, “Follow me,” or, “Please comment and subscribe.” I don’t say any of that.
It isn’t necessary.
When people see themselves in your content, they will come by themselves.
But that requires deep research.
I have researched my audience deeply, and I’m fortunate that my girlfriend is Kenyan. She tells me how people feel.
I want to give my audience a good experience. I want them to feel happy when they see my content. I want them to feel uplifted, because I genuinely love my audience.
[59:37] DARREN: We are almost out of time.
Does the same principle apply to long-form content? Is that something you do?
[59:46] ADAM: Yes.
I don’t create long-form content myself, but the principles are exactly the same.
Long-form content requires much more work.
For a long-form YouTube video, you need to focus intensely on the first 30 seconds, because those first 30 seconds decide everything.
You might need a visual change every 1.4 seconds during that opening section.
You need to establish the stakes, build anticipation and create an excellent thumbnail.
I feel that the effort required for long-form content needs either a full team or the attention of a full-time job.
[01:00:19] ADAM: By contrast, I sometimes receive more views on one TikTok video than successful YouTubers with thousands or even hundreds of thousands of followers receive on their channels.
I can achieve that from around ten seconds of effort.
I don’t say that to show how great I am. I’m trying to make people understand that TikTok is the place to be.
It gives people opportunities regardless of how large or small they are.
Even Instagram doesn’t do that. Instagram cares about your existing followers and may suppress your reach.
You can do everything correctly and still be suppressed.
One of my clients has a video that received 100,000 views on TikTok but only 2,000 on Instagram. It is the same video for the same audience.
It’s bollocks.
Go to TikTok. Use its power to reach the people you care about and serve them properly.
Here is the magic tip: on TikTok, they don’t care about the individual content format as much as they care about the strength of the idea.
If you see somebody using something effective, such as Dr Julie’s visual metaphors, you can adapt the concept of visual metaphors for your own business.
It can work because TikTok looks at whether people feel uplifted, happy or entertained.
As an expert, you also learn to communicate your point in 15 seconds instead of rambling for 30 minutes while nobody understands what you do.
It’s great.
[01:01:41] DARREN: I love it.
TikTok wants people to remain on the platform, moving from video to video.
Its algorithm is phenomenal. It very quickly learns what you want and what you watch, and then gives you more of it.
ADAM: Yes. It’s fantastic. Best platform ever.
[01:02:02] DARREN: We are out of time now, Adam.
Somebody listening may be thinking, “You are a fascinating person. I need to learn more about you, speak to you, work with you or have a BNI one-to-one with you.”
What is the best way for them to contact you?
[01:02:14] ADAM: The best way is to contact me on LinkedIn.
I’m not extremely active there at the moment, but I do check it.
I used to post every day, but I’m currently so busy that I’m not posting regularly.
LinkedIn is still a great place because people can see some of my views and find a lot of valuable content.
I made sure my LinkedIn articles were timeless, so people can obtain value they can implement immediately.
Even if I’m too busy to provide extensive help or can’t arrange a call, they can at least benefit from the content.
I always try to make as much time as possible.
At the moment, I’m working from seven—and sometimes five—in the morning until around eleven at night, usually back-to-back.
But I will always try to find time to provide at least a quick review or two or three minutes of voice-message feedback on somebody’s content or website.
I will always try to help.
[01:03:08] DARREN: Fantastic.
I’ll put the link to your LinkedIn profile in the podcast show notes and in the description of the YouTube video.
Anybody who wants to connect with you on LinkedIn can click through directly.
Adam, thank you very much for being a guest on the podcast.
[01:03:23] ADAM: Thank you, Darren, for having me. It was a pleasure.
