Maya Zack is a peak performance specialist and expert mindset coach & hypnotherapist. Based in the UK, she works internationally, mainly with women entrepreneurs as well as with businesses that aim to make a positive impact on people’s lives.
She helps business owners, leaders and teams free themselves from mental & emotional habits or blocks that prevent them from experiencing more success or slow it down. She has developed her unique signature 8-week step-by-step mindset makeover programs for aspiring as well as already established entrepreneurs that change thinking & feeling patterns on the deepest, subconscious level, reprogramming their minds for success so that new habits & behaviours quickly become automatic and effortless. She believes it’s so important to our lives, joy and fulfilment to be doing what we love and daring to go for it regardless of the outcome. So many are held back by fear and she wants to change that. She believes success happens from the inside out alongside mindset mastery, and that as humans with imagination, we have the incredible capacity to become free, powerful creators of ourselves and our lives.
Maya Zack, Peak Performance & Mindset Optimisation Coach
Hi Maya. Can you tell us more about your work and a bit about your story that got you to where you are today?
I help women entrepreneurs be free of any mental or emotional blocks that may be preventing them from or slowing down their progress & success.
I use tools such as hypnosis and the Sedona Method™ that make the change process far faster, far easier and more profound as we directly access and work with the subconscious mind, which is the part of you that’s calling the shots.
Ever since I was a teenager I was obsessed with the idea of ‘freedom’. I wanted to be free from the traumas I’d experienced growing up. Having grown up in Israel, I also had to very reluctantly give two years of my life to the mandatory military service, which made me crave this freedom to be or do what I want even more.
So on this mission to be free it became clear to me that it was really just me in my own way. I realised it was anger, fear and self-hate that were running me and keeping me a prisoner, not just the military telling me what to do. I was insecure, had issues with trust and genuine communication and I struggled with showing any kind of emotion other than anger.
I also realised that all my self-perceived limitations and ideas of ‘who I am’ were only there because I was repeating them to myself or revisiting old stories; that in the present moment, they were all made up in my imagination, remembering and thinking back.
Having always had an interest in how the mind works and how the mind & reality interact, I then discovered self-hypnosis and once I moved to the UK, I started training in that as it was having such a profound effect on me. Later on I discovered the powerful and profound Sedona Method™ which I immediately got hooked on because it’s all about letting go of the limiting stories we tell ourselves or hold onto.
In the beginning of my coaching journey I was helping people with confidence and performance issues – in their personal, professional & academic lives (for my master’s degree I conducted experimental research that showed hypnosis to be effective in helping university students reduce anxiety and achieve better academic results). Then some years down the line I decided to focus on working with women in business because supporting other women is something that’s particularly important to me. As things progressed, this narrowed down to working with women running their own business, because I know so well the struggles they go through.
The tools I work with have completely and utterly changed my life, and I wanted to show others how they can do that too, no matter what story they’ve come from. I went from deeply traumatised, insecure, feeling unworthy and unable to interact with others to teaching others how to be confident, feel great in who they are and communicate in a powerful and genuine way.
What would you say are the most common things entrepreneurs reach out to you and ask for help with?
When working with those who want or who are in the process of setting up their business, most issues they struggle with is self-doubt, issues around fear and confidence, lack of clarity or focus. Fluctuating motivation, imposter-syndrome and comparison to others are also issues. There can often also be confusion and overwhelm around how to set up and many also struggle with their relationship to money – which absolutely determines one’s money making potential.
Already established entrepreneurs reach out more for help with stress, anxiety or overwhelm around running a business, getting clarity for decision making, identifying and getting rid of invisible blocks that seem to be preventing from taking the next growth steps, communication & leadership skills and dealing with challenges in their personal lives while keeping focused and creating a healthy work-life balance.
Other issues many of my clients are faced with are perfectionism keeping them in action-paralysis or negative self-talk causing self-sabotaging behaviours.
The common factor here is my clients wanting to make taking action and keeping on track as easy and effortless as possible, to be in the flow state free from negative patterns pulling them backwards. My clients know the best and quickest way to do that is by getting their subconscious automatic patterns of thinking and feeling to match their conscious goals.
We know your clients have said some great things about you. What are the results they have been getting from working with you?
They say that success has is down to around 70% mindset. My clients are ambitious, and they take this seriously and understand this basic factor. Mastering your mindset is the foundation of any sustainable long-term success. In the same way that a house has to have the invisible foundations underground so that the house doesn’t collapse when hit by winds.
So they come to me wanting to completely change and create a whole new internal conversation & perspective to bring about and support a new external experience as a result.
From fluctuating motivation we move to unwavering commitment. We remove any subconscious blocks or self-sabotaging mental habits and instead create a growth mindset, the confidence and the focus, powered by clarity, supporting & empowering self-beliefs and success-focused thinking and doing habits.
With self-trust instead of doubt or constant self-questioning, and with curiosity, willingness to experiment and ‘fail’, grit, resilience and new beliefs supporting their goals, taking the right action becomes easy and consistent. My clients become free of the fear of failure (and of success!). This doesn’t mean they don’t ever feel fear, it just means that it’s not at all in their way, just a shifting feeling or sensation in the moment. My clients also learn to let go of their attachment to their goals and see them in a completely new way. This takes off the internal pressure – so they stop having to fight resistance or procrastination and instead get into a flow state with minimal conscious effort.
They also get to become free of any past baggage that’s keeping them stuck in any way mentally or emotionally – whether these past ‘failures’, disappointments or other pain, is directly business related or indirectly affecting it. The truth is that it’s all interconnected. So whether it’s to do with self-worth, past relationships or events – one needs to let go of them to be able to step into their new future-successful-self they want to create.
Overall, they experience a mindset ‘makeover’ – they get programmed to have complete belief in their success and take the needed action to make that happen with clarity and a feeling of effortlessness.
It’s important to me to empower my clients, not just help them. So all the tools we use are tools that they can then use on their own, for life – to make more progress in any area and of course to deal with any other challenges they might face in the future. They become more in charge of their mind and of self-regulation and far more self-aware. More peace of mind and joy in life are also side effects!
You say your clients ‘let go of attachment to goals’. But how does this help to achieve them?
Goals create strong subconscious resistance. Here’s what I mean – think of two purpose-driven actions; doing exercise vs brushing your teeth.
So doing more exercise has an emotional charge around it – you might feel your self-worth or well-being depend on it. So there’s pressure, and so you might have a pull-push relationship with it. It’s difficult for most people to stick to it in this state of mind or it requires a lot of conscious will. On the other hand – brushing your teeth has no emotional charge and so it’s just a simple and easy habit task – we just do it without even thinking about it.
Paradoxically, the less attached we are, the more likely we are to take action because it’s just so much easier. This way we’re more likely to achieve what we want. So that’s what I do – I turn my clients’ action-goals from exercise to brushing teeth kind of tasks. They just do what needs to be done, without all the (internal or subconscious) drama around it.
As you let go of this attachment, at the same time you also get to experience more contentment with the way things currently are right now. It’s a win-win!
One of your skills is identifying the root beliefs that are causing self-sabotaging behaviours and then ‘reprogramming’ them. How do hypnotherapy and your methods work, and why do they transform lives? Your subconscious beliefs drive 100% of what you think, feel and do. I’d like to first point out that what’s important to clearly identify are the beliefs themselves, not necessarily where the beliefs originally came from. This is a common misconception which actually often keeps people stuck. Wanting to figure out where blocks come from kind of gives the issues ‘justification’ for being there while also strengthening your identification with them, subconsciously telling yourself ‘this is a part of me, there’s good reason for this issue and I need to dig into this and fully understand it’. This kind of mindset is the kind of thing that keeps people going to therapy for years and years… they might experience some positive relief, maybe some valuable insight… but the real question is – how does one move forward from it? How do you actually break free?
So my work is focused on identifying the programs running you, not on where the programs came from. When you’re fully aware that the programs are not ‘who you are’, you can drop them without having to find their cause. That said, the insight as to where they came from often shows up as a side effect. But the point is that other than by repeating to yourself and re-identifying with old stories over and over in your mind, you’re not limited to them in this moment.
So once you’ve clarified the habitual subconscious ‘self-instructions’ that are responsible for your current state, you can then directly access the programming to change them.
Beliefs are always subjective, always depend on your personal life experience, your learning and particular circumstances. So because they’re never objectively true, that’s why they can drop so easily when you use the right tools. They never had any real substance. And then you can be in the driver’s seat – creating the beliefs that serve you rather than not. Using hypnosis and other tools that access the deeper levels of your mind – this happens far more easily and far more quickly, and the new beliefs stay with you permanently.
Working with your subconscious mind you’re able to create any success-focused mental & emotional habits – which become your automatic, default ‘settings’.
No more having to consciously repeat your self-empowering affirmations a hundred times a day!
Is there a core value that you are most passionate about?
Freedom is my number one value and what’s always driven me on my own journey, personally as well as professionally.
The freedom to be & do what you want and to create the kind of life you want. And from my own experience, I know that you’re not limited to your past or to ideas of who you are. It was my own trust in this truth that has enabled me to come out winning from my own traumas.
Nothing is stopping you other than your own mind barriers, and those limitations, in this present moment, are imaginary. They’re stories you’re telling yourself. You already have inside you everything you need to be the person you want to become. I like to argue that you’re already the person you want to become – because you wouldn’t want to be something other than your real self – so it’s simply your true self wanting to come out, be free and express itself.
What are your three best tips for aspiring entrepreneurs?
Building or running a business is challenging, risky and can get very uncomfortable. The biggest mistake I see is that people go into business without first building the basic, essential foundation – their entrepreneurial mindset. Without the right mindset, you’d be setting yourself up for failure.
Not dealing with mental and emotional blocks means you’ll struggle even more with taking the needed action to implement any strategy consistently or most effectively.
So my tips are:
1. Prioritise your mindset. It’s essential for your success, probably more than anything else. Develop a strong, resilient, growth-focused mindset. You have to have unshakeable confidence and belief in yourself, your self-worth & your ability to achieve your goals. You have to have supportive, empowering inner-conversation driving you on a daily basis. You have to have a healthy relationship with money that’ll allow you to feel comfortable and confident around talking about money, selling, charging or investing.
2. Get clear on your values and your vision for the future – both for your business as well as your future-self. Lack of clarity around your business-vision creates confusion & overwhelm around strategy and taking action and also takes away from your motivation.
Lack of clarity around your vision for your future-self can be even more important - although often overlooked. We tend to focus on the external achievements without giving much thought to the person we need to become to achieve those. But it’s that future-self who has achieved that success you want.
So by focusing on becoming that person first, you embody that success already now, you make better decisions, take better action, and as a result – life responds in a way that fits with that. So you then experience the external success you want with far less struggle. I truly believe success starts from the inside out!
3. Get support. Another mistake I often see is a reluctance to reach out for help. Many think they need or should deal with their challenges on their own. They might feel it’s a weakness to get support. But getting help is a sign of strength – and if you do, you’ll reach further and faster, so allow yourself to invest in support when you need it. The truth is that almost all top performers have mentors and coaches. Having quality support keeping you on track means you’ll have the energy & mind-space to focus on growing your biz instead of putting it towards fighting all the inner battles.
What would you say are the needed characteristics, inner resources or skills for being successful?
1. Again, confidence & self-belief. If you haven’t got this, you’ll constantly be fighting inner battles. But if you’ve got this and the needed supportive belief systems in place, your success is almost inevitable.
2. A strong commitment with a positive, growth-mindset. You’ll be facing lots of challenges, taking risks and many things you do won’t get the results you want. So you need to make a commitment to continue on, no matter what, with an open, curious and solution-focused mind. Be willing to experiment and ‘fail’. You need to see everything as a process of learning and development and see that kind of progress as the thing to aim for.
3. The ability to direct your attention at will. I don’t just mean focus on tasks without distractions or being in a state of flow. What I mean is the skill of intentionally directing your attention wherever you want it to go at any moment – to what will serve you rather than not. This is really taking charge of and mastering your mind & awareness.
Mastering this skill allows you to keep positive and be able to choose which thoughts to ‘follow’ and which to let go of. It allows you to use what I call ‘intentional imagination’ to bring clarity, create strong states of motivation & keep heading towards your goals. It means you’re able choose which beliefs to have. It enables you to stop caring about what others think of you or comparing yourself to others (as you simply shift your focus onto your ‘own business’).
It keeps you in the present and responding in the best way without being pulled into past-related pain or future worries.
I believe this is the number one most important skill in life – and it goes far beyond personal or professional success. Master your attention and master your consciousness and experience.
What’s your purpose, mission, and driving force for all the amazing work you do in this world?
It’s my mission to encourage and enable people to do, be and have what they want in life. I’m driven by the idea of freedom and I want to share that drive with others – empowering them to do what they love and on their own terms, following what they’re passionate about and enjoying a meaningful time on earth.
We spend so much of our lives working – and I think it’s tragic that so many of us (who are privileged to have the option) are not doing what we want or love, or that we have dreams we never go after or we give up on too quickly. We trade our dreams and purpose for fitting in with societal expectations, prioritising competition and productivity.
So personal development – in life and what we do for work is what I aim to share and educate on. Self-expression, self-regulation & fulfilment are so important for living purposeful lives. We only live once – and we need to make it intentional, make it matter.
And the thing is, we have the mind – the most powerful tool in existence for creating our life and experience yet we’re not taught how to use it properly. So that’s what I aim to do in my work.
With all the imbalance in the world, my mission is also to help women in particular be freer – personally, professionally and financially.
What’s the next big goal or project?
I’m currently making a library of self-hypnosis recordings that will be available to buy, to use along with my programs or on their own. These will specifically address challenges that entrepreneurs face whether they’re only starting out or already well on their journeys.
I’m also working on a new program for team performance – to increase productivity, creativity & and job satisfaction while improving mental and emotional health and resilience, which is quite a challenge at the moment after the (or still ongoing) effects of Covid on businesses.
