3 Ways to Grow Your Bravery - The Prologue

When beginning a private practice the wise psychotherapist will probably open up a few books to learn how to actually build said practice. In some places the old adage of them coming when you build it is probably true. Denver, CO, however is not one of those places. The Denver Metro area is saturated with therapists and a lot of them are very good.

If this entrepreneurial therapist is in Denver he is likely reading in the book about starting a private practice that it is important to choose a niche. The book will suggest something along the lines of: figure out your favorite client and/or that one theme that really gets your heart pounding, or the one topic or diagnosis that really makes you excited. And then use that information as the basis of developing your niche.

I have gone through this niche-finding process time and again, to no avail. This is not because I don’t have favorite clients (“I love all my clients equally”) or because no particular topic lights my proverbial menorah. No, it is because I am fascinated, enthralled, and enraptured by so many things and I thoroughly enjoy working with so many different types of clients – couples, families, parents, adults, adolescents…the list goes on. 

I have maintained a strong part time private practice since 2011 and experimented with assigning myself different niches at different times none of them fit and none really speak to my heart. I am well trained and experienced in working with kids, families, couples, trauma, teenagers, and more. My hobbies are airplanes and being in the wilderness. I like reading mystery novels and books about quantum physics. My favorite foods include pickles, barbeque chicken, and pizza with mustard (not usually all at once).

Creative Commons. Photo by Jeremy Keith

I thought about specializing in traumatized teenaged pizzas on airplanes flying in black holes (advertising slogan: “When your tomato sauce and cheese are being pulled in to separate dimensions, call Ari Hoffman”) but I felt this was a bit too specialized.

Over the course of the last few months as I prepare for full time private practice and business building I have been thinking again about this well-worn question. This time I got an answer. It’s not a population -  it covers almost all of them and it’s not a diagnosis – it’s beyond diagnoses but still relevant to most. The answer that came to me is bravery. I am passionate about bravery.

Epic Fail

The Talmud says that the true measure of a person can be understood by 3 things:

1.       How that person uses money

2.       What that person does when he is angry

3.       What that person does when he is drunk

I’d like to humbly suggest one more thing. Failure.

How a person responds to failure is an intriguing barometer of self esteem, confidence, and hope.

Photo Credit: Paxson Woelber

Working on succeeding is great but working on failure is really valuable because as Winston Churchill so beautifully pointed out, “success is going from one failure to another without loss of enthusiasm.”

If you are deciding to read on in the hopes that I will uncover secrets about how to fail well, I am not a diet plan and therefore have no expensive secrets to uncover. I may provide an approach though, a different perspective through which to view your failures.

A great man named  Rabbi Noach Orlowek, once said: “hard is not bad, it just means it takes time”.

In my parenting of my children and in my psychotherapy work with children (not the same children) I have discovered a tendency for some kids to say sometimes, “I can’t do it”. This is because they’ve tried to do something whether it be related to a therapeutic challenge, building something out of lego, or climbing a rock (or on to my car), and they’ve failed. They fall, they can’t build it, or they’ve failed to control anger yet again. I enjoy when this happens because it is a wonderful opportunity for children to build self esteem.

 

The first thing is to remove the word “can’t”. I tell the child, “I expect you can and you need to work on it some more in order to do so.” In therapy this often works well because I am not the child’s parent so she is less likely to argue with me or throw a tantrum. She tries another few times and maybe she gets stuck in a rut trying to do the same thing over again.

While I’m sure this line is already ringing in your ears, I will present it here anyway because it is one of my favorites. “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.” (This line is often attributed to Einstein but I have heard that it is a misattribution).

If she gets stuck in a rut then my job as a parent and therapist (yes there is dangerous overlap to these roles) is to help her get herself out of the rut, but not do it for her. This teaches the child that she has the ability to do it herself and it also teaches her that sometimes accepting help is necessary.

The lessons of working with children can be readily applied to our own lives. When I’ve failed yet again and I am tempted to say, “I can’t do this”, let me remember that I don’t let my children say that. When I have found myself in a rut and doing the same thing over and over again and seeing failure each time let me remember that when I see children doing this it is an opportunity to facilitate imagination and growth. Let me also always remember that it takes a great person to not need help from anyone, but one who asks for help when it is needed is a much greater person.

If you want to fail better get in touch and I'll help, but you know I won't do it for you.