Focusing On Your Path Pays Off

20 Years ago there was an event that I really wanted to attend, that I felt would change my future, but I wasn’t able to go…fast forward, and now I’ve got an amazing opportunity coming with the very same group!

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Something incredible has happened to me recently, and it also contains a massive lesson, not just for me, but for everybody, which is why I want to tell you about it. But before I tell you about this thing that’s happened, I got to tell you a story and take you back, because it’s going to give this recent event context.

When I was in graduate school, the whole purpose for me going was I wanted to learn how to be a psychotherapist. But none of the original kind of problem focused approaches were resonating with me. And I actually decided to quit school. And then I read a little bit of this thing called Solution Focused Brief Therapy. It was a small piece, of one chapter, in a big old book, all about all these therapy approaches, and it really made sense to me.

And then the very next semester, my school hired a professor that was really well known in the field of Solution Focused Brief Therapy. And she was so dynamic, and so captivating, and every student wanted to learn Solution Focused Brief Therapy from her. And there was this huge kind of massive momentum to learn from her, but I really just wanted to learn the approach.

And then one day, I’ll never forget it, she came into class and she had a flyer with her. And this flyer was for what she called the Woodstock of Psychotherapy. And this was an event where all of the huge people in the field of psychotherapy were going to be. I mean, people that created different approaches, people that were in the books that I was studying, people that had written the books that I was studying. Irv Yalom and Carl Rogers, every big name. I can’t remember everybody, but like, every big name. Stephen and Sue Deshazer, Michelle Weiner Davis, Bill O’Hanlon, Don Meichenbaum. I mean, I’m talking about the people. Jay Haley. The people that had created all these approaches were gonna be there. This was in the early 2000s.

They were gonna be at this conference. And she had this flyer, and she was saying, this conference is happening in Anaheim, California, and if any of you students want to go, you’ll get extra credit for going. I didn’t have any money at the time, so I couldn’t attend. But I remember thinking, I really don’t want to attend because I don’t want to get caught up in the inertia. I just want to know that I’m learning this way of doing therapy, because it really resonated with me, and it clicked with me.

And so I didn’t go. I couldn’t have gone anyway. I mean, I could afford it, but I really didn’t go because I really wanted to stay and make sure that I was choosing Solution Focused Brief Therapy. Not because it seemed cool, and not because all these other people were doing it, but because it felt right to me.

Now, fast forward 20 years now. This event actually not called the Woodstock of Psychotherapy. It’s called the Evolution of Psychotherapy, but the nickname is Woodstock. So if you remember the Woodstock concert from all those years ago, it brought together, the biggest music acts of the day, and this is bringing the biggest psychotherapists of the day.

This event only happens every few years. And it’s crazy to me that 20 years after that moment where I didn’t go to this major event, 20 years later, they’ve invited me to be on the faculty of the Evolution of Psychotherapy. I am now there representing and leading the charge for Solution Focused Brief Therapy, recognized as one of the biggest psychotherapists in our field of this day. And I can’t believe it.

It really feels surreal to me that I’m going to be at this event. I’ve been working with the team hosting this event, and they’re talking about the different things they want me to lecture about and want me to do, and the whole thing just feels crazy surreal.

So I wanted to make this video for two reasons.

Number one, I want to invite you. You have been my loyal supporters. You have been the people that let me share my passion for Solution Focused Brief Therapy with you for all of this time. You have been a part of this ride, and I would love for you to come and meet me in Anaheim. So I’m going to put the link to sign up for the event here. I don’t get any extra money for doing this. I don’t have any kind of deal. The more people sign up, the more money I make. None of that.

I just want you to come and be a part of this moment with me. And all of my people that come. I’m going to take you guys all out to dinner. We’re going to have a meal together. We’re going to hang out together. We’re going to do something in Anaheim. And I’m just so beyond excited.

And the second thing that this highlights for me, and why I wanted to share, is you really never know where life is going to take you. If I take you all the way back to 2005, when I passed up on attending this event, my life was in a very different place. I was really struggling with my own stuff. Some things were going on in my family, related to my father, and it was just a crazy time in my life.

At that time, I never thought I’d be writing books. I never thought I’d be doing lectures. I never thought I’d have a big following, or I’d be of any influence of significance in the psychotherapy field at all. I just wanted to learn how to do psychotherapy, and be the best psychotherapist I could be.

And I thought if I could do that, then I could change my life. I thought I could make sense of all the things going on in my family. And I thought I could make a living practicing in a private practice or even working at an agency. And then I would not live in the poverty situation in which I grew up. That’s all I was thinking about at the time.

But you fast forward 20 years, and I have the largest training organization in the history of the field of Solution Focused Brief Therapy. I have the largest following, and am the leader of this approach. And I don’t say that to brag or to boast. I say that humbly because, I spend most days not believing that this is all real and that it happened, but it happened.

And this event coming up in December 2025 is the culmination of all of it. And I would love for you to join me and come to Anaheim. Let’s meet in person if we’ve never met. Let’s hang out. What I’m gonna do is when I get to Anaheim, I’m gonna post my social media, everybody who’s one of my followers who’s at this event, meet me at this place and at this time, and we’re gonna commune, we’re gonna get something to eat, we’re gonna hang out. Because this is such a surreal moment. I want you to be a part of it for me.

But I also want you to learn the lesson.

Whatever your life looks like now, understand that there are things lying in your future that you can’t even see right now. There is stuff awaiting you in your future that is so amazing that you can’t even see it. I need you to believe in it even before you see it.

I just knew that if I keep working hard and I keep trying to be the very best clinician I could possibly be, I just knew that that would lead to something positive. I didn’t know what the positive thing was, but I’m so grateful that I didn’t get caught up in, like, I want to write books. Like, that was never it. I just wanted to be the best I could be. And I thought, if I work really hard and become the best I could be, I’ll probably be able to make a living doing psychotherapy. I’ll probably be able to not worry about money for the rest of my life. And maybe something good will happen. And boy has it. Oh, my goodness, has it.

So if you’re out there and you’re struggling, you got some stuff going on in your family, you got some stuff going on in your life, you’re stressed, you’re worried, you’re anxious, you’re depressed, you’re at the beginning of your career and you don’t know what to do, you’re afraid about A.I. and all the things going on in our field. Hang in there and just work to be the very best you can be. And I promise you, there are things lying in your future that you won’t even begin to see until you just start working.

I think that’s the big lesson here. I’m standing in the future that I once couldn’t have even dreamt of. Think about that for a second. What’s lying in your future that you can’t even dream about? That’s what I want you to believe in.

So once again, I’m gonna put the link in somewhere in this video, or maybe in the description of the video, so you can just click on the link and sign up to come with me to the Evolution of Psychotherapy conference in Anaheim in December 2025.

And like I said, I want to meet as many of you guys in person as possible, just so I can say thank you, so we can hang out, at what’s going to be an amazing event.

So see you there. And keep believing in the future that you can’t yet see.