What happened when I received a call from an angry client

On a very unusual April day three years ago, I ended a Zoom call with a client (a call I’d been waiting for, for WEEKS) and stared at the screen, absolutely GUTTED.

It took me about 30 minutes to fully process what had happened.

Four months prior to this specific call a VERY powerful influencer with a massive, international network had been staring at me on the other side of a video call insisting that IF we could help him stop sabotaging himself every time he set a meaningful goal, it would change his life and he would (aggressively) help us “get our work out there to the world.”

I remember him chuckling at me and sheepishly admitting he didn’t think we could ACTUALLY address his issue.

In fact, he insisted:

“Erin, change like this HAS to take a long time; I have a background in psychology and therapy and I know this for a FACT.”

I chuckled back.

He obviously hadn’t spent much time on our website’s Results page or seen our client case studies or watched our client testimonials.

We ended our initial call agreeing that we’d gift him a full MindFix program in exchange for him promoting our work to his network and the world after we changed his life.

(Yes, I was still a bit naïve back then with the trade arrangements I ok’d — read on to see what happened with this
agreement…)

And change his life we did.

After 2 months, he was setting goals and completing them left and right like a champion. His procrastination issue was GONE. His self-sabotage and his compulsive avoidance of important goals had completely VANISHED.

So now, back to the original call where I felt so gutted.

During the first 15 minutes of this call, he raved about how different his life felt and how blown away he was.

But then – that’s when things started getting…ODD.

He started to say things like: “Well, you know, OTHER programs I’ve done in the past, they made me feel good as well.”

“Your program was…nice.”

“Your program was…interesting.”

“Your program was professional, that’s a really good thing.”

“We’ll see if these results ACTUALLY last…”

“I’m sure the change that’s happened is because of all the hard work I’ve done in the past.”

In other words, this man began to minimize the incredible results he’d been raving about, that he’d previously shared
he’d never experienced before.

So I dug into that a bit deeper and finally, after almost 90 minutes he shared:

“Look Erin — massive change doesn’t happen quickly. I’m not sure exactly WHAT I’ve experienced with MindFix, but it’d be wrong for us to conclude here that where I’m at right now is because of our work together, or that these changes could possibly last very long. Humans just can’t change quickly, and that’s a simple fact.”

I was floored.

I realized that…

• it didn’t matter that we’d done exactly what we promised,
• it didn’t matter he experienced the change he’d requested, and
• it didn’t matter that his life was totally different…

…he still believed change HAD to take a long time, and so thus what he experienced with us was getting categorized
as a temporary “nice experience” that would, of course, go away like the other “additive” work he’d done in the past.

💔

The meta-point of this conversation is far, far too ironic for it to be funny.

In fact, it sent chills down my spine as I sat there realizing what was happening.

And I changed our entire process in MindFix to try and prevent it from happening to even more clients in the future.

This man’s belief structure and insistence that change HAD to take a long time was rendering all rapid change as…fake, a fluke, or not ACTUAL change.

And so of course I realized this meant that this man would never actually be promoting our work or sharing it with the world as he promised because despite experiencing it for himself, he could only see deep, meaningful change as an impossibility.

We changed his life and delivered on our promise of giving him EXACTLY what he’d asked for – and I realized he was never, ever going to promote our work because we hadn’t addressed his underlying belief system that rapid change
was actually possible.

I was gutted.

And yet he taught me a deeply valuable lesson.

An invaluable lesson, really.

I was reminded how “proof” doesn’t matter to people who are already locked in to believing the opposite.

Proof doesn’t change people’s minds.

Instead, “proof” typically gets massaged and molded into whatever the other person needs/wants to see.

I am grateful for the lessons I continue to be shown every day.

And I’m hopeful my sharing of these lessons helps you learn them more quickly than I do.