This is literally our ethical duty…

Welcome to today’s edition of Solutions Every Day. I’m your boy Elliott Connie and I want to talk to you about something that I think is literally our ethical duty. Literally our, what is the word, fiduciary duty when we’re working with clients. So today I got interviewed by a company that I’ve admired for a really long time. If I’m being honest with you, it’s kind of like a professional bucket list desire that I would be featured by this company. And today it actually happened. I’m super excited about, I’ll tell you the details about that later, but that’s not what we’re about.

So they, they were talking to me about the way that I work with clients who have particular problems and clients who do particular things in their sessions. And one of the questions that they asked me was how do you work with clients who believe they don’t have any success in their life? So if you ask a client about their successes, like tell me about a time when you’ve been really successful and what skills did you draw upon to do those things? People who are so sad, depressed, and struggling, they can’t answer your question. They can’t think of a thing in their life where there is evidence of success. They can’t think of anything in their life where they are able to draw upon those resources.

So what do you do? And the answer is question is so important that I want you to truly have this. I want you to really, really get this. Listen, seriously, I’ve released over a thousand videos on my social media platforms, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, over a thousand. I have, I have done a lot of work to get this message out there. And literally, if you don’t remember anything I say, I want you to remember this.

If your work does not impact the way the client views themself, then they can’t change. I don’t care whether you’re doing Solution Focused Brief Therapy. I don’t care whether you’re parenting, working with an employee. If you don’t have an impact on the way, the person that you care about views of themselves, you cannot impact their lives positively.

So for example, if someone comes into my office and they say, I’ve had such a difficult life, that I haven’t had any examples of success in my past. If you allow them to continue to think that about themselves, they’re not going to change and/or achieve an outcome that is meaningful to them. So I have to dig and I have to work and I have to be persistent. I have to say things like literally, it’s a success to get from the second to the third grade. How did you do that? Literally at…you know what I mean? Like you have to really, really work. Some people have had such a difficult experience in life that it’s hard for them to see their successes, but it does not mean that they’re not there.

In fact, if you were talking to someone in your office who genuinely has never had a success, I mean, authentically really honestly has never had a success. If you’re talking to someone who has never succeeded, then the fact that they are still alive and pushing and in your office is now evidence of a success. So just never let yourself believe your clients when they tell you they’ve never had an opportunity for success.

Never let yourself believe your client when they tell you that they’ve never done anything well. Never let your clients tell you that they’ve never succeeded because that can’t be true. So that means it’s my ethical duty to ask questions that demonstrate that I’m persisting and I’m digging. And I’m working really hard because I know the success is in there somewhere.

And it is my job to find a question that unlocks it for my client. I think too often when our clients tell us things like, I’ve never been happy or I’ve never…my wife and I have never been happy. Or my husband and I have never gotten along. We tend to believe them, except understanding that the truth can’t be one way or another.

You’re never, always happy. And you’re never always unhappy. So if someone tells you that they don’t have examples of success in their past, don’t believe them and persist in your question asking until you aluminate success in the past that the client is able to latch onto. And then you can ask questions that build towards their future in that way.

So that’s a really important lesson. I genuinely think that is our ethical duty to make sure that when people come into our offices, our work impacts how they view themselves. Because if you can’t, you’re not making a difference in someone’s life, right? Like, think about what, the way we talk to kids. If a child says, I can’t tie my shoes.

Let’s say you’re teaching young person how to tie their shoes. The child says, I can’t tie my shoes. I’m so frustrated with it. If you don’t help the client view themselves as someone who can tie their shoes, they’ll never learn the skill. So you have to be able to talk to your clients as if they can change. As if they can have it.

As if I can ask the right question, will unlock your ability to connect to your past successes. And once we do that, then it makes future successes more realistic. So take that with you. Remember you have to make a difference the way people view themselves, if you’re having any intention whatsoever of impacting their lives positively.

So look, I love y’all man. This is an important lesson carried with you into your sessions. Say hi in the comments section below. Like this video, share this video, like my Facebook page, head on over to my YouTube channel. If you’re not already there and subscribe to my channel. Hit the bell to get notified when I post dope videos, love y’all and I’ll see you in the next video.