Helping clients redefine who they are

Hello from sunny California. I’m in Palm Springs at a, at a business meeting that I have. And so I’m gonna share something that I haven’t really shared before because I want to tell you guys a story that inspired the hell outta me. And I think it’s gonna touch you too.

A lot of people know that I’ve been coming to California for about a year. I’ve been super vague about what I’ve been doing and I still can’t give all the details, but I’m coming to California to make a television show or actually shows. And in doing that, I’ve gotten to meet lots of people in the LA kind of entertainment world, lots of celebrities, and it’s been a really surreal, cool experience. If you follow me on social media, if you follow my Youtube channel, you’ve seen a part of that journey.

And one of the people I’ve gotten to know is a woman by the name of Tiffany Haddish, who is a famous movie star and comedian, but in my opinion, just a wonderful person. And she told me a story that was so touching and so, so much evidence that you can change someone’s life, like in a moment, in an instant, what would be seemingly like a small gesture. And what she did, So let me tell you a quick story. This is the story.

So Tiffany and I went to a festival in LA called The Taste of Soul, which is like a food festival in South Central LA and it was pretty awesome. And Tiffany’s charity, her, her organization called ‘We Ready’, had a booth there. And there was this kid, man, a super, super cute kid. He probably was like seven, eight years old, and he was at Tiffany’s booth and he, he spun a wheel. And if you answer a question, you get something free off the table.

So he spins the wheel and they give the kid a super easy question, whatever question was, and he got it right. And on this table, just a bunch of little trinkets, it’s like little tiny bracelets and, and like a protein bar, like a little shot of like a vegetable juice from a juicer.

And this little seven, eight year old kid is like staring at the table and he’s like, I can have anything for free. And the person who works at Tiffany’s booth said, Yes, now I’m standing next to Tiffany, but we’re not really super paying attention. And then I turned and I looked at the kid and he said anything. And she said, Yes. And then he points way to the right, still on the table, but way to the right, to a suitcase. And he said, I want the suitcase. So Tiffany’s team was like, can he, can he ask for that? Well, I guess it’s on the table. And they went ahead and they gave the young, the young boy the suitcase.

So later on I turned to Tiffany and I said like, why do you have a suitcase on the table? Like, I found that odd, like why does your, why does your charitable organization have all these things for kids in foster care? And then these suitcases and Tiffany, she got really emotional and she said, When I was growing up in foster care, going from home to home to home, every time I go to a new home, they would take all my stuff and put it in trash bags.

And I felt like trash. And when you feel like trash, you live your life like trash. And I just felt like I was a piece of garbage that nobody wanted. And then at one of these homes, at some point along the way, somebody gave her a suitcase. So now when she went from home to home to home, she said, I felt like a traveler. And like I was on a journey and it completely changed my life. And I was so touched, I mean, she was literally like emotional. She’s sharing that story. I was emotional as I heard it.

And it, but it exemplifies, I think what’s important about Solution Focused Brief Therapy because one word, one moment, one thing can change everything about a person’s life. Like I always say, if you wanna make a difference in someone’s life, you have to change what they see when they look at themselves. So imagine looking at yourself as if you’re trash.

And then one moment happened, one thing happened, one transformative event happened, and now you look at yourself as if you’re a traveler on a journey. It changed Tiffany’s life. She’s now one of the most famous comedians movie stars, actresses in the world. And we do that for our clients by asking them questions that give them new definitions of themselves. So

I said, Tiffany, is it okay, can I share this story because it’s such a powerful story? And she said, Yeah, of course. In fact, you can hear that story on Youtube, like Tiffany shares it herself from the stage and, and you can go to our charities website and they tell the story. But I want you guys to hear it here because it’s such a wonderful example how one moment, one word, one action, can redefine a person’s life and change everything about how they live.