How I Built My Small Business
Welcome to 'How I Built My Small Business,' where we dive deep into conversations with guests who've carved out their own path to success. But, we're not only about the creation of businesses. Alongside entrepreneurs, I also chat with experts offering perspectives that'll benefit anyone striving to lead, learn, or improve.
This podcast is both a creative outlet and a platform to share knowledge from incredible people. My guests open up about the raw, heartwarming details of their journeys, offering expertise, simplifying business know-how, sharing money-making ideas, and imparting life wisdom—all through the power of storytelling.
By listening to these interviews and stories, my hope is that you find even one little takeaway that sparks or inspires your path.
While most of my guests make $1 million to $20 million net profit a year, some make more and some make less, but there is a lesson worth learning in each one. I also bring in special guests from brokering and mergers, mindset and meditation, entertainment and marketing, among others. So, the line-up is diverse in niche, experience and perspective - and so, so fun.
Special episodes include:
No College, No Problem
Big business founders with a focus on helpful small business topics
Expertise in hyper-niche fields
The connecting piece is that every one of my guests has started their own business at some point in their journey.
Thank you for listening.
Season 2 drops January 21, 2025. Follow the show so you don't miss out!
My Website: https://www.annemcginty.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annemcginty/
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How I Built My Small Business
Alexandra Janelli - The Life-Changing Power of HYPNOTHERAPY: What Celebrities and CEOs Know That You Don’t
Today we’re joined by Alexandra Janelli, a leading hypnotherapist and founder of ModrnSanctuary, an alternative beauty and wellness spa and winner of Philadelphia Magazine’s 2024 “Best of Philly.”
She is also the founder of My Burble, a transformative app designed to help users overcome stress, anxiety, sleep issues, and other personal challenges through tailored guided visualizations and meditations.
As one of New York City’s premier hypnotherapists, Alexandra has guided Academy Award-nominated actors, renowned photographers, singers, and executives toward meaningful transformation. Her work has been featured in top publications like The New York Times, Elle, Oprah Magazine, Men’s Fitness, and Forbes.
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Website: https://www.annemcginty.com/
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Don't stress over the grades. Don't stress over the A's or the B's or having to finish college on the right timeline and scale. It's okay if you're not the best in the class, that each of our skills come from like really a different place. I wish I had known back then.
Speaker 2:Welcome to how I Built my Small Business. I'm your host, anne McGinty, and today we're joined by Alexandra Gianelli, a leading hypnotherapist and founder of Modern Sanctuary, an alternative beauty and wellness spa, and winner of Philadelphia Magazine's 2024 Best of Philly. Alexandra is also the founder of MyBurble, a transformative app designed to help users overcome stress, anxiety, sleep issues and other personal challenges through tailored guided visualizations and meditations. As a premier hypnotherapist, alexandra has guided Academy Award nominated actors, renowned photographers, singers and CEOs toward meaningful transformation. Her work has been featured in top publications like the New York Times, elle Magazine, oprah Magazine, men's Fitness and Forbes. You can find a link through to her business in the episode's description.
Speaker 2:We have an incredible lineup of guests coming your way, so don't forget to hit the subscribe button and stay tuned. Upcoming episodes feature the founder of a boutique surf resort, the creative force behind a local improv pop-up, a doctor of clinical nutrition and an outdoor enthusiast who launched an adventure travel company for teens. Each guest brings inspiring stories and valuable expertise. My hope is that you'll not only be entertained, but also gain fresh insights and ideas. Let's dive in. Thank you to our listeners for being here today. Alexandra, thanks for coming on the show.
Speaker 1:I am so happy to be here, thrilled to chat.
Speaker 2:I am so happy to be here, thrilled to chat. So what can you tell?
Speaker 1:us about hypnotherapy, like how does this differ from hypnosis as entertainment? It's such a good question and it's one of my biggest things that I like to share with about hypnosis, cause I think there is a stigma around it. I think we've all seen the movies. I know it's in cartoons. You know someone getting hypnotized and walking around quacking like a duck. They do both exist, but I will tell you, what happens on stage is very different than what happens in my office. Some people are very disappointed when I say that and some people are very thrilled to hear that. So they do run a similar line, but a lot of hypnosis at least. What we're going to talk about today is really about a deep state of relaxation with an acute focus. If you can fall asleep at night and wake up in the morning, you actually go through the hypnotic state. So it's a very familiar state. People just might not be able to right away identify. Oh, that's the hypnotic state.
Speaker 2:So how do you get into the hypnotic state, and can you tell us a little bit more about what this state is?
Speaker 1:So hypnosis is the state between awake and sleep, like I'd mentioned. And I think to understand hypnosis is to really start with the theory of the mind, right? So we have two parts to our mind. There's the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind is where all of our behaviors are born, our reactions, our coping mechanisms. The conscious mind is all our willpower, deductive reasoning, our logic. It's what we use like 90% of the day, but it only accounts for about 10%, and that's where the subconscious comes into play, right? It's all sort of below this really critical layer of like logical thinking.
Speaker 1:So from the moment that you're born until today, everything is learned through association, right? So if you have a fear of dogs let's say, you get bit by a dog as a child and you develop a fear of dogs, let's say you get bit by a dog as a child and you develop a fear of dogs, you've created an association on the subconscious level that dogs are scary, right? And so when you see one, your subconscious is going to react with that fearful protective mechanism, even though the logical mind is going to kick in to go wait, it's fine, it's a small dog, it's behind a fence, you know it's going to come up to go. Wait, it's fine, it's a small dog, it's behind a fence. You know it's going to come up with reasons that you don't have to feel that way. And so what hypnosis does is we're helping take you from that awake, very aware state into a much more relaxed and focused state, meaning right, like when you're aware and you're fully awake.
Speaker 1:You have a very large scope of focus. You can take in different sights, sound, taste, smells but when you go into the hypnotic state, that scope of focus becomes incredibly narrowed in and you're so acutely focused on what's being talked about that that's where your focus goes. You actually go into this state. When you're watching movies, you go into it. When you're reading a book, some people when they're driving, you go into that highway hypnosis, right. You're not really thinking about am I pushing the gas or am I pushing the brake? You're just sort of doing these things and being aware of the cars to your left and your right and in front of you. So it's actually a very familiar state. You're not under anyone's control or anything like that either.
Speaker 2:So are you talking about the difference between, like, beta waves and alpha waves and theta waves?
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. As you go from the awake conscious state down into the subconscious states and then eventually asleep, you are moving through those different brain wavelengths, states, and then eventually you sleep. You are moving through those different brain wavelengths, and so my private practice is called Theta Spring Hypnosis, because right like that is that nice deep hypnotic theta wave that we're looking for. Now, all of those different depths are different, like forms of the hypnotic state, and you know you can use each state for a different thing, right Like alpha waves. You know I might want someone in a lighter state, where they have a little bit more sensation. As you go into the theta states, there's almost this disconnect from the mind and the body, so it's sort of like you're free floating, your body's deeply relaxed, and they all have different purposes, which is sort of interesting too.
Speaker 2:So when you are in that theta state, is there still any awareness? Yes, or are you already?
Speaker 1:dreaming. No, so you're still aware, right? There's actually one more state, just below that, that, where they can actually get you into a very, very deep hypnotic state to do surgery, where you've really left the body, you've disassociated from pain. And then there's the sleep state, and that's where you get into left the body, you've disassociated from pain, and then there's the sleep state, and that's where you get into the unconscious mind. But you are aware, right? So you know, when you're just about to fall asleep, if you heard someone open your door, you're going to hear it and you're going to, like, wake up and go. What was that? Same thing happens in the hypnotic state. If I said to you, you know, take off all your clothes and go run around the office, on some subconscious level, right, you'd have to want to do that or have like a desire to do that.
Speaker 2:You wouldn't just do it because I told you to, there has to be a want or a desire to do something like that, or even if it comes from a fear place do something like that, or even if it comes from a fear place, and what can you tell us about the science behind what happens during a session so you get somebody into this deep state of relaxation where they're halfway between awake and asleep? How does the hypnotherapy work in the brain?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a great question. So when I run a session with clients, the first step is to always understand what brings you in today, right, my job is to understand a client fully in context, and that means one. What's going on right, how can I help you? Maybe they say that they're coming in for sleep Wonderful, we have a baseline. The other question is why? Now, right, there is something that has caused them to want to. Other question is why? Now, right, there is something that has caused them to want to take care of this.
Speaker 1:Now, right, whether it's oh well, I've been having a hard time sleeping, or I just lost my job and I've been having a lot of anxiety around that, and so you're kind of trying to understand what the urgency is, right, some people it's my significant other or my spouse is really upset that I smoke and that's why I'm here. Those are a little trickier for me, just because they have to have that internal desire to quit smoking. That doesn't mean it's impossible, but understanding context is really important. So, for example, someone comes and they're like I really want to quit smoking. I feel like I'm ready. I have this really bad relationship with it. My next step is to understand that relationship with cigarettes in order to have a successful hypnosis session. I'm trying to understand the client's words, their terminology, what things you can watch their body get triggered by right. You can sort of tell when someone gets uncomfortable they maybe start fidgeting or moving a bunch. I'm looking for tone of words. Are they speaking in metaphor or are they speaking much more directly? All of these are things that I, as the hypnotherapist, am taking in so that when we get to the point, after we've talked and we've created goals of here's where I'm at and here's where I want to go, I can then understand how to phrase what are called hypnotic suggestions.
Speaker 1:And hypnotic suggestions are once you're in that hypnotic or let's call it the subconscious state, I can go in to start negotiating. Now, interestingly enough, hypnosis and meditation are very similar in a lot of ways in terms of how we get you into that subconscious state. So hypnosis and meditation run a very parallel line into the point where we go to the hypnotic suggestion portion. Meditation will leave you to extrapolate. Hypnosis is going to go in to provide hypnotic suggestions of how things can be right. So if we go back to the theory of the mind that we talked about earlier of how associations are created. I'm going in to go okay, so you want to break this association with cigarettes, and I'll start with where they're at and how things can be right.
Speaker 1:And this is why it's so important is that we're trading right. It's almost like a scale. I'm taking away your current association with it and giving you an option for a new one. The mind has to like it right and it has to resonate with the client. So if I was like, oh, you're going to feel so free and fluffy and they're like, I would never use those words. That's a really weird way to phrase it. They're going to reject that suggestion because it just doesn't hit on the emotional level. And so that's why the terminology and words are really important, because you're you're trying to negotiate right. It's like you have to want the negotiation on that has to sound good to take it.
Speaker 2:It makes a lot of sense. It's fascinating to hear you describe it. I heard you mention smoking as a possible use case. What are some of the other best use cases for hypnotherapy, and can you also tell us what it cannot do?
Speaker 1:Yeah, these are really good questions because, for me, I am not a licensed therapist, I am not a medical professional. I really work within a scope of practice for self-improvement. There are times, however, that I might work with a medical professional or a licensed professional for things like depression, depression. So where does that leave us? I can work things that I've worked on our anxiety, stress management, nail biting, hair pulling, finger picking, fear of flying fears, phobias, smoking cessation, weight release and I call it weight release because you didn't lose it, you don't want it back. Manifestation right Anytime there's a behavior that a user or a patient is going.
Speaker 1:I don't want to feel this way. Why am I like this? Usually, you're looking for what is that behavior, why is it a problem, and you can go in and negotiate, so it really has a full scope of where it can be applied. However, it depends on where you're looking in that scope of where someone who's not licensed can do it. There are plenty of licensed therapists that also are trained in hypnosis, though that can easily fill in for all of it. I say, if there's an association, there's probably a way to shift it on that subconscious level.
Speaker 2:Can hypnotherapy help with chronic pain or physical conditions?
Speaker 1:It's a great question. There is a level right. So when we look at pain, it's really interesting, because pain is your body's way of talking to you. It's your body's way of saying hey, something's not right. And so there is a point where hypnosis can help, and then there's a point where we don't really want to ignore that trigger can help, and then there's a point where we don't really want to ignore that trigger.
Speaker 1:But what I tell people is, when you're having pain, it can cause significant stress and it can therefore influence the perceived pain levels. And when you have increased perceived pain, it feels worse, and that's where hypnosis can help. Meditation can help. There's a whole slew of things that subconscious work that we can take down the perceived pain or the anxiety around the pain, the worry around the pain, so that it can be lessened. And when you lessen pain and stress, the healing processes can increase. There's been lots of studies that have been done post-surgery of people using hypnosis and meditation and realizing that the healing is significantly faster because the stress levels are lower and those processes are not inhibited by stress.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I believe it. I believe stress is probably the number one cause of all illness in the world.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. I mean when you think about the body. It's really interesting, right. Absolutely Absolutely, I mean when you think about the body it's really interesting, right, because when we can't fight or flight, we hold it in and you're going to notice people who have anything from jaw clenching, finger picking. You know so many different experiences. I had one client who was like I just have this lower back pain Now he'd been to a doctor no slip discs, nothing there. We did some hypnosis around some other stuff but it turned out a lot of his pain that he was experiencing was just stuck tension from carrying a lot of guilt from his past with him. So the stomach, interestingly enough, and lower back, you know we look at different body syndromes and it's like where your symptoms that have no medical reason to be there presenting and you know the stomach and lower back does represent it's an, it's a line to look down. It's not always finitely true, but guilt and frustration, and so it's like tell me more about that. So you know it's really.
Speaker 1:It's always interesting to listen to the body and the cues that it's giving you. It's always interesting to listen to the body and the cues that it's giving you and to really again build that picture. The goal is to build that picture of the person in context. It's like, wow, that really makes sense, given what you're sharing, given what you're telling me. The second thing that's always important is to try to go from the presenting problem. Right, I can't sleep. It's never about sleep. It's never about sleep. That's the presenting issue.
Speaker 1:To be able to ask a line of questions, to get really deep into the what is the underlying association there? You know it's like, okay, so maybe I'm not sleeping because I'm really stressed out. Well, what's causing you stress? Right, and they're like well, I'm really stressed out because I just went through a breakup. Okay, well, tell me what's stressful about the breakup. It's like I feel rejected. Tell me, where does that come from? Right, so you keep digging down to get deeper and deeper. And it's like, okay, this is where we want to work, cause again, you're trying to get those roots out, to plant a new seed. Root cause. And that's why I like the context right, cause if I go, you're going to have great night's sleep tonight. You might, but you're not. It's going to come back because, again, you haven't pulled the roots out.
Speaker 2:So with something like sleep due to stress, due to some other deeper root cause. How many sessions can it realistically take for somebody to feel healed?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I always say healed to feel healed as an interesting statement. Right, because it really depends on the definition of healed. But when users come in with a presenting issue, right, like I never know, I always have the commonalities of like what I've seen. But I've I've never ceased to be amazed, sometimes things that I think won't clear up right away and maybe you're going to take, you know, a series of sessions anywhere from like three to six. It's like in one. All of a sudden it's like one and done so. It's sort of amazing.
Speaker 1:Personally, the reason I ended up getting into hypnotherapy 14 years ago was that I was an avid finger picker. It started when I was really young and it just continued. It was terrible through my childhood, got really worse during high school and college, and then I had been seeing therapists and they're like we think you have OCD, we want to put you on a high dose medication. I was like that's just not the route I want to go. I am certainly not one who's opposed to medication If it helps, then why not. But it was just didn't feel like the right thing at the time and I ended up seeing a hypnotherapist on a total lark. Someone was like oh, have you ever tried hypnotherapy? And I was like, no, should I? That's crazy. Yeah, I'm gonna try it.
Speaker 1:I went in very open minded and within one session, I kid you not I stopped and this was a habit that I've been doing my whole life. I was blown away and I I to this day I went back to the same hypnotherapist who became my mentor and it was just so life-changing. I went back for what I now describe, as you know, just sort of fear. I was living sort of in this fear bubble of like, if I do this, what are all the ramifications and just started living more freely and taking, you know, not a lot of risk, if I do this, what are all the ramifications? And just started living more freely and taking, you know, not a lot of risk, but doing normal things, that it's like, no, I actually want to do this and that sounds exciting and it was really freeing and it's just something just like it feels like nothing changes, but everything changed. It's like this whole new lens.
Speaker 2:It's incredible, and if you can remember anything from that session, what would you say was the suggestion? So how was it so effective?
Speaker 1:You know the session. So, first, the first session, I remember really going. Just it was a lot of like testing, right, like, if I look back with my sort of scoped eye from a hypnotherapist point of view, right, the first part is really just testing what worked for me, right, where do I fall in terms of am I a metaphorical learner? Am I a direct learner? There are things that we as hypnotherapists look for as you go into the hypnotic state. So he's testing how the rapport is right. Am I following command? Am I doing what's being asked? How am I? Am I relaxing as we go through it?
Speaker 1:So I remember him doing like a hand levitation, which is where you put your hand out or your elbow on the table, palm flat, and it's sort of like I want you to think about, with your eyes closed, a string on the back of your hand pulling up and up, and up and up, and again you're like this is weird, until all of a sudden your hand is like moving up without you like thinking about it, and you're like, okay, wow, mind, body connection, right, your mind is thinking about the string and the hands responding. I remember also he regressed me back to a point where he's like I want you to go back to the earliest memory of when this started and, interestingly enough, right your mind, as we've all seen in the Disney movie about emotions. He regressed me back to a memory that was accessible. It was not a logical one I would have recalled, but I remember being a very little girl in my grandparents living room and I remember looking at the carpet and it was the same carpet that I had living room. And I remember looking at the carpet and it was the same carpet that I had in college and I just never really I knew where it came from, but I was like I don't, I had no significance to me, but I remember being on that carpet and being very upset because I didn't know where anybody was, and that's where the anxiety started from. It was like a core emotion that started of. Like that pinpointed the beginning of it.
Speaker 1:Now, what's amazing in hypnosis is that he was able to go well, where is everybody Right? He challenged the fact that my mind had taken in. His truth was that like I was abandoned or whatever it might've been, and I was like, oh, they're just in the kitchen, okay, and reframed it so that that my mind didn't have to sort of see it as a terror, but just a oh okay, they're there, I'm fine, and it was almost like a domino effect of it, like just released all this stuff. But I also remember it was like anytime my hand comes up to my mouth or my fingers go to pick my cuticles or what have you, I hear no, and it was almost like this jarring effect so that anytime I like I would go to do that, there would be this almost like little panic that would cause the leg trigger.
Speaker 1:It's like I don't do that anymore kind of thing and it just stopped. It was sort of wild. I mean, you don't think it's possible when you've been doing it for so long, and I think that's part of what is so cool about this profession. Now, I certainly don't want to sell this as like it's 100% guaranteed, just so you become not confident, right, that you can change. And then you realize, wow, like I can. I just have to know what I want and I have to like find the ways that it can work to do that.
Speaker 2:The mind and the body are incredible.
Speaker 1:Unbelievable. It's a wonderful system and yet can be so toxic.
Speaker 2:But hearing you tell your story was reminding me of EMDR. I don't know if you've ever tried EMDR. I haven't yet, but I've heard it's very similar it sounds like it, and I've done EMDR once before and the amount of progress I was able to make in a 15 minute session was mind blowing to me. So all of this, I think it's like what you're saying, if you're open, right, and if you've also been doing a little bit of research to understand how the subconscious works and how you can really choose, sometimes, your future.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's hard again, right, like people are like I can't change, but you're really working that logical willpower alone, you're working with 10% of the mind against these associations that have been built for so long. So it's hard to do that and it's sometimes I, I even have a hard time doing guided visualizations to myself. Right, it's sometimes easier when you find someone. But now this gets into a couple of the key things. If you want to work with a hypnotherapist or anyone, even an EMDR specialist, right, therapist, you have to trust them. Right, like, if you don't trust them, you're not going to allow yourself to go into these unknown states. Because what the mind, the subconscious mind, hates the most, right, remember, everything's built on association.
Speaker 1:If you don't know them or you don't trust them, the unknown is frightening because it can't categorize it. And so you know, I can tell when a client and I just aren't having a rapport, you'll notice, in the hypnotic state the body does amazing things. When you're relaxing, right One, you can see the client sort of turn away. Right, have you ever been talking to someone and you're just not vibing with them and, like you just sense their body language turning away from you? The same thing can happen and you can gain it back, but you know it's. You have to be aware that it's not working in that way or there's some block and you can ask directly to go. What is the block? Tell me about it.
Speaker 2:How do you handle I mean, beyond asking questions about what is the block like how do you handle people who may be skeptical, or they're resistant, or they're just nervous about the process altogether?
Speaker 1:Of course, I would say 90% of the clients that I work with come in and have never done hypnosis, and so the first step is always going. Let me tell you what to expect. I like to set up expectations very clearly from the beginning of how the session's going to flow. That before we do hypnosis I'm going to tell them all about what happens. That if they want to record the hypnosis portion, they're welcome to that. You know I typically don't have them talk. If they do, they're going to remember it. It's not stage hypnosis. But you should be skeptical. I think that's a great right. Tell me I'm wrong if you want me to go into that state with you. So there's a level of reassurance. Now, again, as you're working with a client, again, if they've never done it, it's perfectly normal for them to like have a little bit of a block at first, and again, that's just showing them. You know it's like, well, let's do some hypnosis, right, like one of my favorite things is you can do. You know what I call the lemon test, and it's not a pass fail, it's just I'm testing a client, right, or it's. I have them close their eyes and I guide them through walking into their kitchen and finding where they would keep a lemon and a cutting board, and what you do is you have them cut the lemon in half and bring that lemon up to the mouth and take a bite of it. Now, interestingly enough, what's funny is the mind is focused. They're focusing on something they've seen before. They remember what we all know what a lemon tastes like.
Speaker 1:A certain type of person will start to have their mouth salivate. You'll get like a tightness in the jaw or they'll begin to salivate. Some people won't and that's totally fine, but again, most people do and it's like, oh, and I'm like there's no lemon here, right? So that's hypnosis. Is that I'm giving you a cue, you're having a response and we create that.
Speaker 1:So these are the things where it's like I want to make people comfortable, right, and even as they're going into the hypnotic state, reassurance is great. Or there's things that I'll point out to them as we go through it, where it's like listen, you might notice like the first stage is going into the hypnotic states. The eyes wobble up and down. Most people don't notice it's happening when it's happening, but if you point it out to them, I'm like you might notice this wobble of the eyes moving up and down and they'll nod their head and it's like and that's just showing me that you're already in a light hypnotic state, right? And that's the way of that, just sort of going look, you're doing great, right, and that's like, just keep doing what you're doing and we'll just keep going deeper and deeper, and just because people don't want to feel like they're not in control of the process, I think that's by far the most frightening.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can see that and I can imagine that, especially given that most people's exposure to hypnosis is like what you were saying TV shows on stage where people are doing maybe things that they don't want to be doing, and it feels creepy. This doesn't sound like that at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it's not like that. Again, I'm a very reputable person. I read body language extraordinarily well. I'm pretty intuitive. It's interesting because you can tell especially if someone is in the hypnotic state. I can tell you when I was doing hypnosis personally and I see I've seen this before with my clients too but for me my hypnotherapist had asked me a question and I remember I don't remember until he pointed it out that I was tapping my fingers on the desk like tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. And he asked me it's like I want you to draw your attention to your hands. What's going on? And I was like I don't want to talk about it. And he's like, okay. So I was not noticed, totally aware that I was tapping my fingers, but my body was talking and that's what we call an adverse reaction, right Is that?
Speaker 1:A suggestion is given and the body responds, right? It's the same thing as flinching, right? Your body is responding before your mouth does and therefore I might notice, as a client is in the hypnotic state and I might provide a suggestion that doesn't resonate with them, you might see their face sort of squinch up a little. You might notice their foot begin to tap a bit or move, you might notice the breathing pattern change, because when you're in the hypnotic state it's a very shallow, light breath. So, interestingly enough, the breathing pattern when you're awake right is a normal breath.
Speaker 1:As you go into the hypnotic states they get shallower and shallower. It's almost feels like you're not breathing, and then when you go into the sleep state it becomes like a rolling breath. So these are all like very cool cues that we look for, like the skin becomes very smooth and flush, the jaw relaxes, the body gets heavy, heavy, heavy. So it's such a fascinating experience to not only watch but also be part of, because it's for the user. It's very relaxing. And again, it's not that you're not aware of anything, you're just choosing to focus your direction on what is being talked about.
Speaker 2:It sounds like an incredible practice to also just help people with changing their lives in the direction that they want to. Okay, so you do one-on-one sessions, but then you also have Modern Sanctuary, and then you also have the Burble app.
Speaker 1:That's right. Yes, so healing my journey really started with my private practice. I've been doing that since 2010. It is a passion of mine and I had realized that, while my private practice is wonderful, I just knew I wanted to reach more people and I knew that not everyone can afford hypnotherapy it's not covered by insurance. So how would I do that? And I had started, back in 2015, an app. I actually paused development on it until three years ago and we really started developing it, but that's what has recently become verbal. We'll come back into that. But modern sanctuary is the spa that I started, where we had all different types of holistic practices all in one space so that if hypnotherapy didn't work, we had acupuncture, if acupuncture didn't work, we had Reiki. We had so many different treatments as well.
Speaker 2:So modern Sanctuary started before the Burble app or after.
Speaker 1:Before. So, funny enough, it went private practice. I started the app and then stopped it, jumped into Modern Sanctuary, and that was from 2016 until today, both New York mostly, and then Philadelphia.
Speaker 2:And I think I just saw that you won Philadelphia Magazine's 2024. Best of Philly. Is that right? We?
Speaker 1:did Yep, we did so very exciting stuff. And then Burble has been in tandem with so since I started development in Burble 2022.
Speaker 2:So I'd love to hear a little bit about both of these entrepreneurial journeys, because they're pretty different from each other. Yeah, so how was let's do Modern Sanctuary first? How was Modern Sanctuary set up?
Speaker 1:Okay, so Modern? When I started Modern, I actually was working at a spa or a wellness center and I ended up taking over the lease there and then creating my own sort of experience. It was a sole proprietor LLC. I had the vision. The original goal was to create a Himalayan salt room with one or two practitioner rooms, and it just so turned out that the space that I was in and working out of with a whole team of practitioners the guy was like I'm not renewing the lease, maybe you want to take it over and put the Himalayan salt room here. And I was like interesting, lo and behold, it turns out when you have a dream and a deep desire, you can make anything happen. So that was where Modern Sanctuary was born was in New York City the day after the election in 2016.
Speaker 1:It was really all about doing wellness differently. It was about dark, black walls and crocodile wallpaper, playing on the idea of sensory deprivation right, that instead of it feeling light and bright, that you were coming into a dark room to take away all that stimulus to feel relaxed. It was about having the waiting room look like a living room. You literally walked off into like a living room style waiting room because I wanted people to feel like they were stepping into someone's home and those were sort of the goals, like creating this. You know you can do anything from med spa services all the way to crystal chakra balancing and neuroplasticity treatments and stuff like that. So it was pretty wild.
Speaker 2:How many rooms is this Like? How big is the facility?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the New York location was 16 treatment rooms and a huge Himalayan salt room. Oh my gosh, it was huge. It was 5,000 square feet of space, an outrageous like rent Cause of course you're in New York, we were not even ground floor. Rent was like above $25,000 a month not including expenses. So that was only in New York, right. So what was interesting is, after COVID, we just knew we weren't going to recoup and so we decided in 2022 to close.
Speaker 1:But, knowing what I knew from the New York location, it was really looking again at the numbers right, numbers don't lie of what was working, what wasn't, because we were also a rental facility. So, you know, we were kind of like a we work of wellness where people rented with us, and so I knew that I didn't want to be a landlord. Again, I looked at the numbers of what services were doing really well and then also what the benefit of the other ones were. Right, I was never getting into salt again. That's a whole, nother probably podcasting conversation, but there were certain things that I did want to keep, like our crystal bed, which is a marketing staple, like it's always looks great in ads and it's a great draw for people to come in and be known for. But then we really stuck with like lymphatic drainage, massages, facials, infrared sauna, those sort of like really key treatments.
Speaker 2:So, then, the idea to restart developing the Burble app came back into play. What has that journey been like, going from idea to the app actually being available in the store?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So this has been, I would say, modern. There was a very steep learning curve at the beginning because whoa did I get in over my head? Burble has been really neat because I'm back on a learning curve of things that, like, I know nothing about. So during the pandemic, I realized it was time to bring that back on to the platform to find someone to develop it with and, interestingly enough, I just moved to Philly, so I didn't really know anyone. I just had a kid. I was locked in my house and I was like I need to do something. I need to do something because I can't run the spa and I'm tired of trying to figure out loans and all that craziness.
Speaker 1:But I ended up posting on Nextdoor app and about being like does anyone interested in developing an app with me? It's funny because my business partner, daniel, was like I'm never on that thing. Are you sure that's where we met? I'm like it's a hundred percent where we met. We talked to. He was like this sounds interesting, let's chat. And we just went back and forth going over what the idea was and he's like let's do it now. Unbeknownst to me, I didn't realize what his background was in technology and development and he was like I love this idea. My business partner and my other business partner and I want to do this with you.
Speaker 1:So the three of us over the last three years have taken so much time to really outline the user experience, what the app is, and I will tell you as we went through the user experience. It was so daunting, like I. Three years sounds like a long time to develop like what seems to be a very simple app, but it was so interesting to go through the mind of what happens in development of oh yeah, there's no button to do that. We forgot that. Oh man, we got to go back in and do that.
Speaker 1:Right, you don't think about, when you send a text message through your phone, what happens to the text box as you type. Does it just keep typing and the text box doesn't get bigger, or does the text box expand? There are these little things that you're like I have no idea. Turns out the text box when you're texting on Apple, on an iPhone, it expands upward. But I'm like, whoa, we didn't even think of that. So it's all these things that when they develop, they have we need to know. So we've gone through that, we've gone through the patent process. We've rebranded like color scheme wise, website development wise. All of it just being done by Daniel myself, bill and the team that's making the app. So it's been a really cool learning curve in terms of you got to be open to it, because it's a frustrating process at times.
Speaker 2:And what did it take for you to finally launch?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I had to put my perfectionist it's not good enough quality to the side, because I think what I realized was the app will always be in development, right, just as we, as humans, are always in development. Yes, maybe there's one or two things that can always be improved upon, but you had to get it to a place where the first step being the minimum viable product right. It's like we had to keep stopping, let's add this and let's add this. We had to go. Let's just launch it and see if people even want this to begin with. And that's sort of where we're at.
Speaker 1:We launched with a great product. It's super interesting and for your listeners, burble, is it's not a hypnosis app. It's a guided visualization app that takes into account, like, several different modalities of the subconscious mind. But what's really unique about it is it's a choose your own adventure platform, meaning we give you the ability to create your own session, right From whatever you want to work on, whether it's smoking or manifestation, finding love you're going to find that treatment that's perfect for you, and then you know, the most important part is how you get into the relaxed state, and so you're going to be able to choose your adventure of, I want to go to the beach and then I want to watch clouds, and then I want to float in a river, and you can then pick the music you want in the background and how you want to end it, whether it's, you know, falling asleep, waking up or just relaxing for like 10 minutes.
Speaker 1:The background, what's happening, is we're toggling together all these components and creating your unique experience. No session is ever the same, unless you save it, but it's always going to be different, and we wanted that to be the case, because I love apps like Calm and Headspace, but I found I'm like I can't find what I'm looking for. I don't even know what I'm looking for sometimes, and it's just. We wanted you to be able to build your own experience.
Speaker 2:It's a very interesting concept. I gave it a try and I was having trouble sleeping and I can say with certainty that it definitely helped me go to sleep. Love that. I don't know at what point it did, so I'm curious if it was while there was speaking taking place or if it was while the beats were happening in the background. I don't know, but it was effective.
Speaker 1:It was probably all of it. It all worked right, it's all cumulative and I think that's the exciting all of it. It all worked right, it's all cumulative and I think that's the exciting part of it. And again, those binaural beats that we put into them. They're really helping and train the mind, as you talked about with the alpha waves, beta waves, theta waves. So it's all very meticulously curated and put together.
Speaker 2:So, with Burble, what are you hoping to achieve?
Speaker 1:My goal is one to raise awareness that there are tools out there that people can use. I think what's important for me for people to understand about verbal is I love meditation and again, this is not a knock on that, but I think there's a way that you know apps can get you into a really calm place and feeling calm is wonderful, like that's great. We're looking to take it the next step further, where it's like we're not just helping you get calm, we're helping you change and that's we're putting those suggestions in the recordings. It's really going to help, right. We're helping you work on and treat anxiety right, or dating, or you're feeling not good enough. We're helping like shift that by providing those suggestions and other subconscious techniques and tools as well. So we're looking to just take you past the state of calm into that real manifestation of change in your life.
Speaker 2:Do you see hypnotherapy becoming more commonplace? So what do you see as the future of hypnotherapy?
Speaker 1:It has been my mission from when I started in 2010 to make hypnotherapy come to the forefront as a real, powerful tool that is accessible to people. I can tell you from when I started in 2010,. There, of course, there's lots of hypnotists out there, but I, you know, right as I started getting going, there was lots of news articles that were coming out. You saw it in the papers more. Olivia Munn was noted as being someone who was using it for one of her roles, and that's when I started getting more and more press requests. And that's when I started seeing more and more celebrities interestingly enough in my practice and top level CEOs and musicians.
Speaker 1:And you know, I think you're always going to see it sort of in the mainstream first and then it's going to trickle into like everybody else sort of wanting to try it. So I think it's on its way up there. You're seeing hospitals, right, you have the Mayo Clinic, the Children's Hospital, Philadelphia, Mount Sinai. They have dedicated programs for hypnosis and hypnotherapy, which is really amazing. So again, if we look back, you know, 15 years ago, to acupuncture, when everyone was like, oh, this is crazy. But now it's, it's totally, it's in hospitals. You see it everywhere, it's normalized. I'm hoping the same thing will happen as well same thing will happen as well.
Speaker 2:I think that it will. I mean, I am deeply down that path right now, which is with my own self-healing. Just sure, I've been reading Joe Dispenza. My sister is an integrated physician. She's been teaching me so much and just understanding again what the possibilities are for yourself and how openness can really be a powerful tool.
Speaker 1:It's also important. One of the things is to share with people. If you are going to be looking for a hypnotist or hypnotherapist, there's a couple of things you should look for. One ask about their training, because there's several different types of trainings people can have. Sometimes people are like, oh, I know hypnosis and I took a week long class and I was certified by. I mean certifications right now are kind of like I mean people are just like tossing out papers, so you know, know where those certifications come from.
Speaker 1:How long did they study hypnosis? There's one thing to know how to hypnotize someone, and then there's what you do with them while in the hypnotic state. So I know the school I went to, the hypnosis motivational Institute, has one of the only accredited programs out there, so they have a resource where you can actually go look up where their grads are located to find someone in your area. I really they're a fabulous program. It's usually like a year long program too, so it's not just let me get you into the hypnotic state and tell you what to do, but it really goes through like how do you handle when someone's like in trauma or how do you handle all of these things that are happening and really making sure you do it ethically and morally, and all that stuff too happening and really making sure you do it ethically and morally and all that stuff too, and also just knowing how one match may not be the right fit for one person but it is for another person, and finding the right practitioner.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I just have a couple of questions for you remaining. The first is just what advice would you give to anyone who is aspiring to be an entrepreneur?
Speaker 1:I think it is such an exciting time for entrepreneurship. My first advice is trust your gut. If you have a vision like, listen, someone created the pet rock, right? Like if someone told me that that was going to be a gangbuster thing, like that's crazy, but trust your intuition. Everything can be made into a business, everything and anything. You just have to believe that. The second is do your research but also, more importantly, have a marketing plan.
Speaker 1:That has been the biggest hurdle is marketing. I've seen a lot of people that I've mentored go in and go well, I have a really great product. It's just going to go gangbusters and you're like, no, it might, if you're really really, really lucky, but having a solid marketing plan and budget for it and maybe not even a budget, you might be able to do a lot of it on your own and time and research, but marketing it's all about especially with the competitive edge of that people have nowadays is have a solid marketing plan with it, cause an idea is an idea is an idea, but it's how do you get it to the people that want it? That's right.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of noise out there. There's a lot of noise.
Speaker 1:You've got to stand out somehow.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly. So for a final question if you could go back and speak with yourself when you were in your early twenties, what life wisdom would you give yourself?
Speaker 1:It's a really good question. I would go back and probably tell myself don't stress over the grades, Don't stress over the A's or the B's or having to finish like college in the right timeline and scale. It's okay if you're not like the best in the class, that each of our skills come from like really a different place. I wish I had known back then that my superpower is I'm a creative right and I'm a solution finder. If I had that sort of nurtured from a younger age, I think that life would have felt a little bit easier and maybe I wouldn't have sweated so much in the competitive environments that I was in for sure, and that would have really bred a lot more ability to learn without fear and phobia.
Speaker 2:In my mind it's great advice and I think a lot of people in their early twenties are just doing what they think they're supposed to do.
Speaker 1:Of course. I mean that's what we've been indoctrinated to do. Right it's get good grades, go to college, do this, you know, get the job and and that works right. Like I can tell you, my husband's a doctor. You know there's a path if you want that. But if you're not feeling like the conventional path is working for you, there's a million other pathways out there, and finding people to mentor you would be another one. Find mentors, even if it's not like an official mentorship. Just finding people that can like, inspire you on the daily has been life changing.
Speaker 2:I am so thankful for having you come on the show.
Speaker 1:Me too. This has been really nice. I hope it comes through that. I just love talking about what I do and sharing about it. So thank you, Anne.
Speaker 2:Today's key takeaways. Your subconscious mind is a wellspring of creativity, potential and healing. Whether through hypnotherapy, meditation or guided visualization, cultivating this skill of tapping into your subconscious mind can enhance personal growth, problem solving and creativity. Start small and dream big. Alexandra's journey with Modern Sanctuary started with a single vision for a Himalayan salt room, but her ambition and adaptability turned it into a 5,000 square foot wellness center. Start with what you have and allow your vision to evolve as opportunities arise. Adapt to changing circumstances.
Speaker 2:Flexibility in business ensures sustainability, especially during challenging times. Identify what makes your business stand out and lean into it to attract your ideal audience. Know your numbers. Analyze the performance of each service or product you offer, and use these data-driven insights to cut inefficiencies and focus on profitable areas. Be open to collaborating with people who bring different skills and perspectives to your business. Choose progress over perfection. Let go of perfectionism to get your minimum viable product into the market. Remember your product will always evolve and the best feedback often comes after launch. Understand the importance of marketing, even if it's grassroots or low budget or maybe even free. Invest time and energy into reaching your audience effectively. Don't know how to do something Great. It's time to learn. Always seek growth opportunities, even if they require stepping outside of your comfort zone, even if they require stepping outside of your comfort zone. And lastly, when you have a dream and a deep desire, you can make anything happen. That's it for today. I release episodes once a week, so come back and check it out. Have a great day.
