Lilia Shifrin

Hi, I’m Lilia.

I became fascinated by psychology at the age of 17 after I read a Milton Erickson’s book, “My Voice Will Go with You”. Erickson’s extraordinary ability to love and truly understand people, his interest, full and complete acceptance of everyone, resonated with my core. It was my total waking up moment. I knew I wanted to become a psychologist.

But let me start from the beginning.

I received my Bachelor degree in Business Management in 1998 (Moscow Institute, Russia). At that time, it seemed a good choice to compliment my organizing skills, leadership traits, and natural energy. Only once finished, I realized that it wasn’t enough. I became interested in human behavior and relationships and started reading everything I could find about psychology. Fascinated by the Erickson’s idea of the unconscious mind and brief, solution-focused therapy and possibilities of trance and hypnosis, I especially became interested in neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) – an attempt to distill Erickson’s flexible therapy strategies into the group of set techniques. In 2002, I received a full scholarship for my postgraduate study and soon got my Master degree in psychology, individual and family counseling (Manchester, UK).

In Russia, it was impossible to pursue my career as a psychotherapist, so I found my way through HR consulting, eventually becoming a COO of an HR consulting company, specialized in Employer Branding. The main part of my job was to work closely with the HR departments of the multinational companies as a subcontractor in order to support our clients current employer branding strategy. That included (but was not limited to) all required marketing and PR services, conducting assessments, organizing seminars and presentations. My interdisciplinary skills gave me a unique advantage and an ability to create projects that suited our clients the best. Also, in order to keep Russia’s best universities at the arm-reach, I was providing individual career consultations to the students and graduates, as well as conducting group training and educational seminars to the faculty members. That allowed me not only to practice psychology, but to hone my public speaking skills and become a well-rounded business manager.

In 2006, I married and moved to the USA. For a while, I was busy being a mom of three kids and spent all my free time helping my husband to establish our family business, OWS Software, Inc. Our company specializes in integrating websites with social media. My previous business experience was invaluable for the company at the beginning and I am still involved in the project development and strategic decision making. But at some point, it became possible for me to pursue my true calling – helping people to become happier versions of themselves.