It’s Hard to Show Up When I Have to Deal With Critics Everyday

I want to take a minute to be real with you, and real honest, about some things in my work, in my professional life, what’s going on in my world. I’ve been doing the SFBT Moments video blog for almost a decade. When we started, I would just post whenever I had a thought. And then maybe eight years ago or so, we started making it weekly, and it’s been weekly ever since. I love doing it. It’s important to me, which is why in spite of all the things that I’ve done and all the things I continue to do, I will always make a weekly video and put it up. But I’ve noticed in the past few weeks I’ve had a difficult time coming up with a topic to talk about.

And I spent some time reflecting today about “Why am I having a difficult time coming up with topics?” I’ve literally been doing this for almost a decade and I’ve never struggled, ever. And I decided I wanted to be honest with you, and share what my thoughts have been, and where I landed.

I think I’m feeling frustrated.

I started doing my work because I wanted more people to learn about Solution Focused Brief Therapy. For me, it was really that simple. It wasn’t to get rich, wasn’t get famous, wasn’t to be well known, wasn’t to get book deals. I just wanted more people to know about Solution Focused Brief Therapy. And that’s still what drives me.

I think Solution Focused Brief Therapy is underrepresented in our field. I think it is the single most misunderstood approach in the psychotherapy world. And I wanted to help more people learn about Solution Focused Brief Therapy so that more people would have exposure and the opportunity to receive therapy in this way.

I’ve noticed a couple of things happening.

Number one, as my platform and profile have grown, I’ve been [the target of] more and more hatred. For example, my organization, we do the largest amount of free trainings than anyone else in our field. Almost weekly we’re delivering some sort of free training, which makes us the largest distributor of Solution Focused training content in the world. And more than 95% of the trainings we offer totally for free.

Now, in order to keep the lights on, because I have a staff that I have to pay, every now and then I have to charge something. So in spite of offering so much stuff for free, every time we do make an offer for people to sign up for our trainings, I get like attacked. Like, “All you’re doing is trying to make money.”, and “All you’re doing is pitching your services.” And I’m like, “How is this happening? How is the world so negative and critical that we’re literally judging people who are trying to do good?”

Now, that doesn’t mean you have to sign up for everything. I mean, by all means, if you don’t like what we are offering, don’t sign up. I haven’t threatened anybody. I haven’t told you, “If you don’t sign up, you can’t come to any more of our free trainings.”, or, “If you don’t sign up, I’m going to kick you off my email list.” Like, feel free to enjoy all the free trainings that we offer, and we provide continuing education credits for you showing up.

But there is something about the way the world and the community is shifting that I’m experiencing as demotivating. And I’m trying to put my finger on it. I’m trying to wrestle with it. I was doing a webinar recently, and just like everybody else, I do a little intro because not everybody on the webinar knows me. So it’s like, “Let me introduce you to me, and I literally talk about three minutes about my journey, how I started and what’s happening now. And I posted a picture of me at some huge celebrity events, and on some huge podcasts. And people are like, I didn’t just come here to watch you show off about all the people that you.

And I’m like, “Whoa.” I mean, “This is crazy.” I’m not showing off on all the people that I know. If you wanted me to show off, I could. You know what I mean? Like, if the pictures that I have that I don’t post, the relationships that I have in this field that I don’t often talk about. If I wanted to show off, I could show off. If I wanted to flex, I could flex. I literally am just sharing this information so that people get to know me and know who I am. And this is the reality of my life.

It’s hard for me to continue to show up with an attitude of service when I feel like doing so is causing me harm. Doing so is causing my team harm. You know, there have been situations where we didn’t post material because members of my team thought it would be bad for their mental health to see the feedback of that material. And we’re a community of helping professionals. That’s crazy.

So I don’t know what I hope to accomplish by making this video other than just being honest with you and letting you know, it’s getting harder for me to show up with an attitude of service because I’m feeling some combination of unappreciated, misunderstood, and the environment seems to be getting more and more negative, and more and more toxic.

And my natural personality is, when I start experiencing something as toxic is to separate from that toxicity. That’s my natural personality. And I was sitting in thought about what my weekly topic would be this week, and it was the first time in almost a decade of doing this, that I thought to myself, if I stop doing this, it would probably simplify my life. If I stopped working so hard to provide free training, and just lived my life selfishly, and lived off of my training material, my book revenue, and social media, all that stuff, that would make my life simpler.

And I have never had that thought in 10 years.

I’m very proud of the work that we do to serve this community. But it’s starting to cause… harm is too strong a word for what it feels like… maybe trauma is too strong for what it feels like. But it’s starting to cause me… as I notice the toxicity… it’s really difficult.

If you sign up for our free webinars and online workshops, online lectures, we provide free continuing education credits. Those things cost money, time, it’s a very difficult process to be approved across all the different boards. Very challenging. And we give the CEUs for free, because we know that people in our field need CEUs for free, and we offer them. And you guys wouldn’t believe the vicious emails that people send. Like, “I didn’t get my certificate, so you lied.”, instead of, “I didn’t get my certificate, perhaps something happened, could you resend it?” You know what I mean? There’s a huge difference.

And technology is a thing. You know, when you attend one of my workshops, when the workshop’s over, we’re gonna send you an email that has access to a quiz. Once you pass the quiz, you get your continuing education credit. But sometimes your email service provider will block the email, or sometimes you miss the email, or sometimes it goes into your spam folder, whatever.

But we get emails that are from people, “I’m really upset with you because you lied.” “Was this bait and switch?” And I’m like, “Holy cow, people. Oh, my gosh.” Like, “No, it’s not bait and switch.” It’s just there was 1100 people that signed up for that workshop, 400 of which showed up live. Of course, 10 of the 400 might not get the email as it’s supposed to happen, because it went into spam, or it got blocked. And then it turns into an attack on me, and I’m just trying to show up in service.

I don’t need to be patted on the back. I don’t even need to be appreciated, though it would be nice. I just need the environment to, like, not be so toxic. Because my. My natural inclination is to just be like, “I’m out. This is a toxic experience. Causing me harm, causes me the absence of satisfaction. I’m out.”

So, yeah, I don’t know why I’m making this video other than to say, for those who do support me, and show up for me, I love y’all, man. You mean the absolute world for me. And for those of you who are the kinds of people that make those kinds of comments on social media, or make those kinds of comments on my webinars and workshops and online lectures, I just ask you for grace. And not just for me, it’s a better way to live life. It’s a better way to exist in the world.

So for now, I’m gonna continue doing what I’m doing. Don’t know how long that’s going to last, because for the first time, I’m starting to think, “Maybe simplifying would be the best thing I can do right now.” Never had that thought before, but here I am.

So please continue to support, and show up. Let’s create a nicer, safer community. Because I would love to continue doing this forever, or at least until, you know, I retire, whenever that’ll be. But in the meantime, let’s just be better. That’s all.
Let’s just be better, kinder, and have a more warm, and nurturing community. Thank you.