What’s the most encouraging feedback you’ve ever received from a client you’ve worked with?
My friend, Bill O’Hanlon, LMFT, remembers the day he received a powerful thank you message from someone he’d never even met.
Bill is a psychotherapist, a dynamic, inspirational professional speaker (you might remember him from the Hilton Head conference,) and prolific author (over 30 books so far).
He often joins me as a guest expert in our programs at NICABM, and his passion is to motivate people and organizations to determine what they are meant to be doing, and then to remove the barriers to succeeding at those goals.
Today, he’s got an important message for you – you’ll find his story below.
In the year 2000 I got an email from someone I had never met, asking me for a referral to someone in her area who practiced the solution-oriented approach I was teaching and writing about.
She told me she had seen me when I appeared on Oprah with my book, Do One Thing Different, and thought the approach could help her since traditional approaches hadn’t been successful with her addiction problem. She confided that she was addicted to pain pills and added that she didn’t have much money for treatment.
As it happened, I did know three practitioners in her area and I emailed her back, copying each of them and asking them if they could work with her on fees.
For about a year I didn’t hear anything more, aside from a quick thank you email back from her.
Then I received an email that touched me deeply.
The subject line was: Thank you. You saved my life.
In that email, she told me more of her story.
She had run away from home as a late adolescent and had been living on the streets, doing whatever she could to survive and had eventually become addicted to heroin.
She lived a pretty desperate life on the streets until one day she heard a street-corner preacher. Somehow she was ready for his message and before long she had become “born again,” sworn off heroin and stabilized her life.
As the street preacher attracted more followers, she was offered a job at the church as the office manager and had thrived in the position.
Every once in a while, she would be called upon to testify in front of the congregation about her formerly sordid life and her transformation after having been saved.
Unfortunately, a few years before she reached out to me, she had some back surgery. She told the doctors that she had a history of addiction, but they reassured her that she would not become addicted.
But they prescribed Oxycontin for her and she had become dependent on it, eventually resorting to buying it on the street.
She had tried various 12-step programs and traditional treatment methods, but they hadn’t helped.
She didn’t feel she could tell the people in her church or job, since she had been held up as an example of someone who had been saved from drug addiction by her faith. Plus she worked around money and was afraid she would get fired if they didn’t trust her in that area.
By the time she contacted me, she had maxed out her credit cards and taken out a second mortgage to pay for her street purchases of drugs.
When I sent her the referrals, she spoke to each of them on the phone, and though each said they would give her a break on fees, she realized she couldn’t even afford the reduced fees they were offering.
So, she decided to re-read my book, which advocates making small changes to make a more significant change, and try doing so on her own.
She came up with a plan to shave a small amount off the last pill she took each day, and she hardly noticed the difference. Each day she would shave a little more off the last pill until she finally eliminated that pill from her daily regimen.
It took her about eight months to finally get off pain pills. She had been free of them for about four months when she contacted me.
I was blown away by this story and the email.
When someone I had never met was impacted by my work, I realized that all the effort I’d put into writing my book, as well as into becoming a visible expert with a following, was worth it.
If you have a sense that you have a bigger contribution to make, writing a book can be a powerful way to develop a reputation and a following.
Bill has a free series to help you get started writing and publishing your book. You can sign up here.
As always, I’m interested in your feedback – especially if you’ve ever toyed with the idea of writing a book. What would you write about? Please leave a comment below.
I wish to write a book on my life history
The best “thank you” I ever received in my professional career came from the inmate/patients at Salinas Valley State Prison. This facility houses some of the most violent men in the state of CA. I was working as a contracting psychologist on the yard that serviced the most violent and severely mentally ill men in that facility. Most of the men under my care had triple axis diagnoses. The criminal and mental health files were horrific to read and review. Truly unimaginable. I had also inherited a caseload that had been passed to several different clinicians prior to my being recruited to this “yard”. By all standards these men were absolutely hopeless throwaways. Countless homicides & suicides among them. I saw them 2-3 times a week between group and 1:1 therapy for 1 year.They hand made me a going away thank you card (My contract was expired 12/17). All races of inmates collaborated to make the card. The front featured Winnie the Pooh & Piglet putting a star on a sad skimpy looking Christmas tree. Both happy & smiling. They co wrote a poem, each wrote their sentiments & on the back of the card made the recycle symbol and wrote “recycle love” & the year. For an envelope they crafted the cover of the “title 15” rules & regulations book. All the sentiments were totally appropriate & beautiful. Some paid others in stamps or asked other therapists how to correctly spell everything they wrote. When they presented it to me Two different race gang members side by side, I cried, so did they. We all learned that love is more powerful than fear, and that the Sacred & Profane can be found behind the “hardest walls in the state” I had a similar experience as a state psychologist on condemned row at San Quentin State Prison. I never lose hope for the men & women I serve as a psychologist. May you all experience the difference you make as much as I have had the privileged to.
Hi..have compiled alot of info…need an editor i guess …dont begin to know how yo copywrite or publish. Or distribute…a real elusive mysterious type thing there in a town that is so small we dont have a stoplight..further impeded by my being in a wheelchair..unable to drive to find or get to a place where they may have a publisher..wherever they hide out must be a fantastic as they never aspire to see the light of day..hhhmmmmm
This wonderful story reminds me of how even a small paragraph from a book can mean an enormous amount. A couple of sentences in The Confessions of St. Augustine were like a hand of friendship reaching out to me during a particularly difficult period of my life. Those two sentences have given me strength for the past forty years. The book I am writing at this time is about mindfulness. It tells the story of my experiences with different forms of meditation. You can get big results just by doing a small thing each day. Marlene Dasmann
This story is EXACTLY what I needed to hear as I begin to complete two books on the invaluable tool of non-dominant hand writing as a method for shifting psychological & spiritual awareness.
Thank you for sharing this impacting story. There is always a second, third and fourth chance. I hope that those who need help would keep reaching out.
Hi Bill, what a wonderful story.
I have toyed with thoughts of writing…..and yet somehow haven’t found the motivation.
Thanks
I am writing the story of my Grandmother’s life. She lived from 1892 to 1981. I am on chapter 96 now and my family and friends that have been reading it as I feed them chapter after Chapter say they
can’t wait for the next chapter. I figure it will take another 6 months to a years before I finish it.
I am interested in learning what a person ought to do to get it published. It seems that there are people out there that want me to pay to have it published, which is confusing to me as I was always under the impression that a person ought to send a manuscript in to a publisher and they would decide if the story is good enough for them to publish.
Sincerely, Penny Blanchard
I would like to write a book about my healing path.
I some how created MS in my life in 1 9 8 5 and have been on a healing pathcsince then
Through a reply email I sent you a note stating that the time that you have put into the development of this project is appreciated; I know as I am developing a new business: one that envelops psychology, writing and photography. With this I have and am now saying Thank You.
i would like your report.
I would love to be able to share the information that I have gleaned from evaluating children for neurofeedback for many years. There is so much that parents need as they are attempting to help their kids. Many are just beginning to realize that there is a journey in front of them. Those that do are overwhelmed by it.
published a book, Bullshit in psychotherapy. Don’t knowhow to market it. any suggestions?
I have just started listening to this series but have gotten some pertinent information for me and my many “excuses” and feel the time is right to act.
i have published one book and have material I could make into another. I also now have the copywrite for the ability to republish the first book, so I could bring out two at the same time.