In short
Vulnerability as a competitive advantage for founders and therapists; how “3%” (the small part people hide) fuels shame, loneliness, and business dysfunction; practical ways to notice resentment, set boundaries, and build a therapy practice through word of mouth and trust.
Guests
Blake and Jamie, licensed therapists/counselors who each run full private practices and co-founded Three Percent Co. (3%). They met in porn-addiction 12-step recovery (Sexaholics Anonymous) and later built their friendship and business together. Blake is described as a former singer-songwriter; Jamie has a background managing a local brand and designing websites before becoming a therapist.
Key claims
Healthy entrepreneurship requires being safe with yourself; if you can’t be safe internally, you can’t be safe with others. Mental health change can be “slow and then sudden.” Resentment toward therapy work is a boundary/burnout signal. Trust grows when therapists communicate in plain language and cultivate themselves in counseling.
Notable examples
A live somatic experiencing session with Dr. Andrew Ballman (inner-child grief; symbolic pillow holding; improved self-trust). Word-of-mouth growth via weekly community coffee. Social media growth by “not taking themselves so seriously” and dramatizing relatable therapist moments.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOThe Importance of Vulnerability
0:45 to 3:00
Blake and Jamie discuss vulnerability in personal and entrepreneurial contexts.
“Like, what are you avoiding in yourself that's costing you your business?”
Live Therapy Experience
3:00 to 5:30
Chris shares his experience with a therapist during a live podcast episode.
“And you can basically choose to pick between like, Hey, this is like a one out of 10 on how intense it is for me or a 10 out of 10.”
Connecting with the Inner Child
5:30 to 8:00
Discussion on the therapy process and the importance of connecting with one's inner child.
“I often say that mental health changes at the pace of a garden.”
Mental Health and Self-Trust
8:00 to 10:00
Exploration of how mental health practices influence self-trust and day-to-day life.
“So you guys then have your own practices, but you're building those.”
Balancing Multiple Responsibilities
10:00 to 12:30
Discussion on the challenges of balancing therapy practices and building a brand.
“And so trying to focus on like, I was just talking with somebody out in the lobby about even like in the age of AI and all the different things that we can do.”
Resentment in Professional Life
12:30 to 14:00
Discussion on how resentment affects professional relationships and responsibilities.
“It's hard to show up angry to doing something with your best friend.”
Acknowledging Personal Chaos
14:00 to 16:00
Learn how acknowledging personal chaos can lead to greater empathy and understanding in entrepreneurship.
“And you can, you can, I can, I know entrepreneurs as they talk and you hear them say all of the chaos.”
Vulnerability in Creative Processes
16:00 to 18:50
Discover the importance of vulnerability in creative and professional relationships.
“And now I can articulate and interact with what's really happening.”
The Birth of Three Percent Co.
18:50 to 22:20
Explore the origins and mission of Three Percent Co. and its focus on vulnerability.
“They would have a share that's like 97 percent honest and they would come back the following week and they'd be like, I acted out this week or I'm not sober anymore.”
Navigating Scarcity and Growth
22:20 to 25:20
Learn how to balance financial pressures with personal growth in entrepreneurship.
“If you're talking about like an actual baby.”
Show all 28 chapters
Creating Safe Spaces for Honesty
25:20 to 27:50
Understand how creating safe environments fosters honest conversations and growth.
“And a lot of people, whether they're services or consultants or whatever, word of mouth is how they all really grow.”
Navigating Personal Challenges as a Founder
28:00 to 29:26
The speaker reflects on the emotional struggles of balancing personal life and entrepreneurial ambitions.
“Every day we all know we're trying to chase a dream.”
The Importance of Connection in Therapy
29:26 to 30:16
Discussion about the significance of personal interactions in building a therapeutic practice.
“It's like what hunger and thirst is that serving?”
Building a Successful Therapy Practice
30:16 to 32:19
Insights on the journey of establishing a therapy practice and the struggles faced.
“You come out of school, you've got like no one's promising you a job, I'm assuming.”
Collaboration vs. Competition in Therapy
32:19 to 33:49
Exploration of the dynamics of collaboration among therapists and the industry mindset.
“You're like, all right, I'm going to do it now.”
Advice for Emerging Therapists
33:49 to 36:35
Practical advice for therapists on cultivating their skills and growing their practice.
“But that true success is not just how high you can go individually and how quick you can, but how, like, the collaboration, how high the people around you are going.”
Authenticity and Vulnerability in Professional Settings
36:35 to 39:55
The importance of being authentic and vulnerable in professional interactions, especially in therapy.
“irresponsibly and probably in the wrong space, like the multiple parts of you that are showing up.”
Leveraging Social Media for Therapist Growth
39:55 to 42:00
Discussion on using social media strategically to enhance visibility and client connections in therapy.
“I'm not saying that you need to like share your story in every pitch.”
The Relatability of Therapy
42:00 to 43:19
Explore how therapists can connect better with clients through relatable content.
“And that's like 97 % of therapists' websites.”
Connecting with Clients in Therapy
43:20 to 45:06
Discussion on the importance of building trust and understanding clients' true pain points.
“And now I'm just, like, just showing more of my humanity.”
Brand Therapy: A Unique Perspective
45:07 to 46:26
Insights into how brand work parallels therapy, addressing deeper issues in business.
“But when we do a two-week intensive where we look through their company, they answer a bunch of questions.”
Social Media and Trust in Therapy
46:27 to 47:51
Analyzing the role of social media for therapists and how it influences trust.
“I do it like this, they're still going to go, I really, that's not my problem.”
Overcoming Fears in Social Media Engagement
47:52 to 49:22
Discussion on personal fears related to social media and the journey to overcome them.
“sub stack do you write on sub stack as well jamie just with three percent three percent yeah so tell me a little bit about how you guys as therapists are approaching social media not as is social media bad or good?”
Authenticity in Social Media Presence
49:23 to 51:37
Exploring the balance between authenticity and performance on social media.
“My therapy practice works primarily off of relationships that I hold.”
The Complexity of Being a Therapist on Social Media
51:38 to 56:02
Discussion on the challenges and perceptions of being a therapist and influencer online.
“I say this to clients a lot, I gaslit myself into believing I don't need it.”
Navigating Vulnerability on Social Media
56:02 to 57:26
Explore the balance between authenticity and performance in digital storytelling.
The Value of Diverse Backgrounds in Creativity
57:26 to 58:30
Learn how interdisciplinary experiences enrich personal and brand development.
“and at the end of the day, it's just a weird medium.”
The Evolution of Social Media and Authenticity
58:30 to 1:00:04
Understand the shift back to holistic personal branding on social platforms.
“Anyway, I think one of the fun things to call out is the multidisciplinary nature of both of you.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Chris Cruz:At your very best, you're 97 % honest. It's the other 3 % that keeps you stuck. Blake and Jamie are licensed therapists and counselors, each running their own full practice, but also doing this additional project called 3%, a podcast, a movement, and it all started in the most unlikely place. But we met in 12-step recovery. Level of vulnerability that we were bringing when we went into 12-step was like, if we're being generous, 50%. And we noticed that in those rooms, we would experience really uncomfortable amounts of vulnerability. I need you to be compassionate. I need you to give me grace.
0:33I'm terrified to tell you this. I think you're going to reject me when I tell you this.
0:37Chris Cruz:Blake and Jamie dive into the vulnerability necessary to be both a healthy human and a healthy entrepreneur. So the questions we need to be asking ourselves are deep. Like, what are you avoiding in yourself that's costing you your business? And if I can't be safe with myself, how am I supposed to be safe with anybody else? And just like giving myself permission to be silly and embarrass myself has actually turned into... This is episode 32 of Anatomy of a Brand, and I'm Chris Cruz. And this is my conversation with Blake and Jamie, founders of 3%. You guys run a mental health podcast for men. You both have individual practices.
1:12Chris Cruz:but one of the things i want to talk about right away is an episode on your podcast where you brought a therapist on which we'll dive into your podcast and the the nature of it and the meaning of it and why it's powerful and what matters behind it as you guys are building that brand but talk to me about the experience of being live like as a therapist having a therapist work with you live in public which he didn't know was going to happen by the way oh okay that's even better he had an idea we both knew this therapist and i had heard him do something similar on a different podcast so you knew it i knew it yeah and since i had heard the exercise it's kind of one of those that you you don't you're supposed to not know what's coming next because that helps the exercise be more impactful okay and so i kind of was like hey would you be open to doing this it was a question but more of like a you have to be the one because i already know what's happening yeah and i'm pretty open yeah in general uh-huh so i was like yeah let's let's do it i'm i'm super interested in the modality or the type of therapy that this guy does it's called somatic experiencing well i don't know that technically he's just doesn't matter yeah he does somatic work which means like body work connecting what you feel to what your body experiences okay and i was like let's let's see how that works it'll be awesome to show everybody on our podcast how that works and the experience got pretty intense pretty quickly like really yeah this is on so after this after this episode if people want to make a reference this episode is literally titled our most vulnerable our most vulnerable episode okay cool so i'm gonna go back and listen because i want to it's really powerful yeah with dr Andrew Ballman.
2:51Okay. Um, so he, the type of therapy that he does, it connects you to inner child in you. And you can basically choose to pick between like, Hey, this is like a one out of 10 on how intense it is for me or a 10 out of 10. I tried to pick like a five, that five turned into a 10 pretty quickly.
3:14Chris Cruz:So what do you mean? Like five turned to a 10? What does that mean? Like, Like, is your body like freaking out? Are you having like this like, like almost like visceral, like you're not able to control your body? Like what do you mean five to ten? I had complete control and that's mostly because of how good of a practitioner he is. His name is Andrew Ballman, Dr. Andrew Ballman. Check out his work. He's amazing. Okay. I had control. I had agency, I'll say. Yeah. and when I connected to the young part of me where this was coming from where like I can't remember what memory we chose to begin with we talked about it beforehand but um once I connected to that memory I didn't know how much grief that little kid in me was holding oh god dude we're not gonna start here because I'm just gonna start crying myself as I start thinking about memories of my channel.
4:06Chris Cruz:I'm like, stop now. Yeah. Yeah. Stop recording. So Chris, when you were seven, I'm getting ganged up on really, really my wife has messaged y 'all and said, Hey, when Chris gets you on the podcast, you need to flip this and you need to do some work on him. Anatomy of a Chris. Yeah, exactly. We're going to dive into me and my wounds. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and that's basically what happened. Like this was a pretty big wound in me that I didn't know was living there. And instead of stopping, I was like, I want this part of me to be free. And our podcast is all about vulnerability and how that can lead to being a holistic man, which one of the definitions of holistic man for me is safe.
4:51And if I can't be safe with myself, how am I supposed to be safe with anybody else? Yeah. And I think unlocking that part of me was allowing the I mean, he was an 11 year old part of me. Wow. Allowing the 11 year old part of me to learn to be safe with me through grieving what he went through was what Dr. Bauman was walking me through. Wow. And I just in the moment had a this might be a little intense. and and by the end of the episode i was really grateful i was a little detached because you know you walk through trauma counseling and it can be disorienting but it was disorienting in a really good way like the kind of thing where you've worked out hard and you feel a little bit like
5:39Chris Cruz:whoa do you feel do you feel after that experience and i'm going to tie this into something here do you feel after that experience you were able to go not hey what changed in your life and to give evidence to the modality but more so like you what did you feel a difference in your day-to-day or did it take time for do you feel that difference like what what was that like great question i can't remember who was saying it this weekend somebody said that mental health is really slow and then it's sudden. I often say that mental health changes at the pace of a garden. And so I think what's tricky about that is you can be cultivating something for a long time, and then one experience can be the sunlight that is necessary for that thing to bloom.
6:28And I think for me, that experience helped a lot with my self-trust. Because one of the things he did towards the end and you'll have to listen to it to really understand this context because i'm making a 30 minute yeah one minute absolutely but the what he did at the end was have me hold that 11 year old part of me symbolically by holding a pillow okay and then let him know that i'm going to take care of him even if nobody else is taking care of him and that he's now safe with me and then integrating that into my body by how I was holding me. And I think at the end of that, I had not previously had the self-trust to be safe for those parts of me.
7:16I was externalizing that to other people. And I mean, I've been doing this for, yeah, we all still have, no matter what
7:22Chris Cruz:you're going to have stuff that comes up still. That was year nine of me working on myself. And it was still like, that was a big part. That's fascinating because I think the self-trust element is a part that I'm actually like, I wouldn't have put it quite at those words because when we work with brands and leaders who are leading companies, you're always like, I understand that you've got this at the surface, but underneath all of that is that you're this human that has all these things going on. And if you don't work on you and you just work on your business, like we've seen that recipe before.
7:53Chris Cruz:And we've seen that recipe. We know what happens. And we understand that this external metric of success of you may have the right amount of revenue coming in, but internally you're crumbling and your relationships are falling apart and your staff hates you and it doesn't work and you don't treat anybody with respect or care because you have all of this going on inside of yourself. So I think one of the joys of having you guys on a podcast that isn't about therapy or mental health is to make these communities of creatives and strategists and executives and entrepreneurs get reminded of the significance and importance and what they're building connected to their own mental health and why they need to be focusing on that.
8:29Chris Cruz:So you guys then have your own practices, but you're building those. So you're building businesses while you're doing this and you have a podcast. What for you right now is the hardest thing you're doing? Like out of all the stuff you got going on, whether you're building your personal practice, trying to build a podcast brand, trying to write content, create, I don't know the other things you got going on as a dad too and you're a dad. What is the hardest thing you're like, this is so hard right now to do? All of it? No, that's a good question. Also, you're a very great host. I see. Because as we're talking, I'm like thinking about the audience listening because we're podcast hosts too.
9:07And I'm like, we just jumped in the deep end for this. And then you so beautifully tied it back into, okay, what does this mean for us as business owners?
9:17Chris Cruz:Yeah, the people who aren't watching, just to know I slid a card over to Blake. It said, encourage me. At the end of this. Did I do good? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I would say, I mean, at least for me personally, doing all of it well, which I guess could be subjective depending on your own personal standards you have. How would you define doing it well? Like what's your - Yeah, now he's got you. What's your thing of like - I mean - You just got jujitsu. Yeah, that's it. I'm a purple belt jujitsu. That's that purple belt coming out. like high quality intentionality. I'm just, I'm such an idea person and we balance each other out well as business owners together.
9:57I do not lack ideas. And I hear you when it comes to the execution of those ideas, that's a whole different ball game. And so trying to focus on like, I was just talking with somebody out in the lobby about even like in the age of AI and all the different things that we can do. it's so easy for me to get distracted i also have adhd so that's a thing but to get distracted by like there's so many different things i can do and and can do them quicker it can distract me from the main thing like the that focus point and so trying to like have this big picture idea of where i want to be personally or where we want to be right and because you guys have stuff connected
10:40Chris Cruz:together with the three percent which we'll get into yeah but then you guys have your own individual practices that are full-time. And you synergize on those as like people in the same industry do. But then on the other side of that, you have the ways that you grow your practices. There's so many layers to this. So when you're saying like, I want to do this well, focus on it, how would you describe it not going well? Like what would be the thing you're like, man, this is how I know it's not going well. You're asking great questions. So I think I know it's not going well with my therapy practice when I am resentful that I have to show up there.
11:14Chris Cruz:Ooh. All right. I think. That's what I was going to say. I think if it gets to the point where, where my, where my clients are suffering because I'm not holding appropriate boundaries with my practice, then I'm going to start resenting them as if it's their fault that I'm showing up to care for them. Wow. And I think that's when I know I'm not caring for myself well enough out of here or I'm not holding my boundaries with how many clients I'm seeing in a week well, which is a temptation because we're trying to fund the growth of a second business that doesn't make us enough money yet. So our therapy practices, both of us tend to have a full client list with that and the temptation would be to take a couple more.
12:05and just make enough for our families and the business instead of recognizing that part of what funds our second business is the care that we are giving to ourselves in both of them. And if I'm not doing well, then I either don't want to show up to work on 3%. That's more rare. Yeah. You're like, that's exciting for you and gives you life and rejuvenates you.
12:31Chris Cruz:It's refreshing. It's hard to show up angry to doing something with your best friend. Yeah. That's good. It can happen. It's kind to you. It can happen, but it is harder. And then it's easier to show up when you're pouring out directly in one direction. Because counseling is a very lonely profession. It's relational, but it's one direction. Yeah, it's one side. So you're just pouring into somebody all day and trying to maintain levels of care for yourself within that day. and that's the job. I'm not trying to complain about it. I love it. No, I mean, that's the entrepreneur journey, right? To invest so much of your time, energy, and resources into one thing, and then at the end of the day, you're watching that you spent the entire day by yourself.
13:13Chris Cruz:You've been around people all day, but you've been thinking in one way all day, pouring out. And I love that metric of, am I resenting what I'm showing up for? That's a great metric that I think people, I don't think they catch as often. yeah how's that and if you were to go one layer next after that go all right resentment what do you do when you notice it like when you notice that you're getting resentful like what do you do like what's the way that you navigate that one of the ways that for us in our friendship yeah that it's been such a structure of support is that i'll call like on my way in and i'll say here's what's going on and i know that's my fault wow and even being able to name it there's some ownership in that too.
13:55Chris Cruz:Has to be. Hearing you say like, and that's my fault versus like, gosh, this is so crazy. Chaos. And you can, you can, I can, I know entrepreneurs as they talk and you hear them say all of the chaos. Yeah. But they will never own that that's their chaos they created. Right. Yeah. Which I empathize with. I don't want it to be my fault. Yeah, right. But to be able to acknowledge that it's your fault from a place of compassion and not criticism is really what. Yeah. Because then I can show up for it Instead of sitting in that resentment all day, I can just name it to Blake. Literally the act of going, hey, man, I'm noticing that I am resentful of showing up as a therapist today.
14:33I don't want to show up as a therapist today. But not for the permission to wallow in that. for the permission to check that in and then go, okay, now how do I do that in a way that, as my clinical supervisor would say, at least allows me to be the world's okayest therapist today? I know it's not going well whenever I'm working on something. And the main thing I'm thinking about is how much money can this make? Because I'm, I don't think that it's bad to think about that like to think about what's profitable and what can work for us but when that's like the main thing that's living in my mind to me that's uh that's showing me that the the scarcity parts of me are really kind of driving the ship which then stifles my creativity because it doesn't feel it doesn't feel free it doesn't feel open it's very constrictive yeah so what do you do
15:27Chris Cruz:in that moment is it about name or do you have to do you do you do anything else do you go like all right i've said it sometimes it's just i mean naming it is the first piece and then being able to let something go for me like give myself the permission to not work on that yeah or to not spend as much time on that or to do the more boring thing instead of this thing that feels yeah fun yeah yeah i love what you guys are saying and we'll pivot here in a moment to three percent and some vulnerability stuff that you guys have talked about but what i wanted to call out and our video producer has no idea i'm saying this but i remember one day we had a conversation and he called he he recognized in himself that there was a moment that he was something sharp whatever he called me back and he's like hey i just want you to know i'm feeling guilt not about that but about that i can't go to this thing and that's causing me to be sharp and causing me and i'm like it's great great self-awareness like and so i appreciate the phone call telling me that's why you're acting that way like i get it and our team is in that Michaela, Coop, our team has done that over and over again, has voiced, hey, this is what's actually going on underneath the surface for me.
16:36Chris Cruz:And now I can articulate and interact with what's really happening. And it's always people don't want to do that in companies because they want to focus on progress. They want to focus on being effective. And they want to like there's this both in the work. You see creatives all the time who are like, I am so empathetic. But then they won't articulate anything when they're going through it while they're creating. right we'll see them build brands and you're like do you realize how much like you got that you're going on right now that you're not talking about that you're burning the candle on both ends that you're not willing to talk about yeah but that leads me to my point with y 'all you have this emphasis on vulnerability like you guys have a podcast three percent which is its own brand of things not just a podcast correct so you have an origin story for that and i've seen um content you guys have put out and i'm going oh that's that's pretty vulnerable to say okay you know as a therapist you've acknowledged you're going to aa and these things where i'm like okay like these are things people are really dealing with yeah that are building companies but you guys are like yeah so are we and here's what it is you're on your own podcast getting worked yeah yeah it's like versus people saying like the only way forward is to put on a mask and say i'm the best at this and that's how I do it.
17:50Chris Cruz:You guys are going, nah. Yeah. Let's pull that out from underneath our feet and stop faking it here and do something real. Tell us more about 3 % vulnerability and what that looks like with what you guys are building. Yeah. Well, I think we have an advantage because all that you just described is what our friendship started on and then we decided to build something together. So it's not like we're building this thing and then we have to learn how to be vulnerable as we're doing it. It's like we were close friends talking on the phone every day for seven years eight years before we were like let's build something together so then naturally that what was normal in our friendship just kind of came out and what we were doing you give the the the quick synopsis of what school person is and then i'll go into the backstory because yeah yeah so as you mentioned chris we met in 12 step okay and i didn't know that for you as well oh i didn't know that but you realized i was gonna ask you how did you guys be your high school friends whatever 12 step yeah eight years ago eight or nine years ago yeah almost nine now wow and um we met in well it's called sexaholics anonymous but we met in 12 step recovery for porn addiction okay and we would go to these meetings and the level of vulnerability that we were bringing when we went into 12 step was like if we're being generous 50 percent vulnerable like we were telling the truth maybe half the time and we noticed that in those rooms we would experience really uncomfortable amounts of vulnerability from others oh yeah like it's like shocking to be around and i think that's pretty true of everybody who goes like it can be shocking enough that you leave because it's like i don't know what to do this kind of weird Yeah.
19:34Yeah. And yet. People would keep coming. They would have a share that's like 97 percent honest and they would come back the following week and they'd be like, I acted out this week or I'm not sober anymore. And we came to this conclusion that at our very best, we're 97 percent honest and it's the three percent that we keep to ourselves that binds us to shame and loneliness from which a lot of other issues stem. So we began calling each other, which is a tenant of 12-step recovery. You've got to make these recovery phone calls, which is its own barrier to get over. And we would call each other and we would say, hey, I need to share my 3 % with you.
20:14And it's kind of an invitation into making sacred space. I need you to be compassionate. I need you to give me grace. I'm terrified to tell you this. I think you're going to reject me when I tell you this. Please don't do any of those things. And it invited all of that with a few words. Yeah, it's like just a permission slip to be honest. Yeah. That's powerful. So we started just using that in our friendship. And yeah, it was just like a very quick entry into what we really need to be talking about, whether in ourselves or even if it's just like a conflict between each other. Yeah. And then we naturally started using it with like telling our friends about it or using it in our therapy practices and it's like separately.
20:57And it seemed to be really sticking with clients where even like in therapy, a client would be sharing something and and they would sort of you would see them like processing and they'd be like, OK, well, the three percent is. And then it's just like the freedom that comes when you share the thing that you're so afraid of sharing. And then you're met with the opposite of what you're afraid you're going to be met with. So Jamie and I both are entrepreneurial. I used to manage a small local brand here, an artist. And before I became a therapist, he's a former singer songwriter. So we always knew that we wanted to do something together.
21:33And we had actually gone to a cabin. I don't know. How many years ago was this? Five. Five. And we were going to plan what we thought. Like I used to design websites and stuff for therapists. We thought we were going to do like a creative agency for therapists because therapists have terrible branding. They do. Still do. With peace and love. yeah yeah i love it pictures of rocks stacked on top no no love no peace that looks so bad and it's not congruent to even who you are so anyways we thought that we were gonna do that together and we went to this cabin and we were gonna like plan the whole thing and we both just realized that going back to what i said earlier about the scarcity piece that is a very clear felt need that we could probably meet because we're also both in the same space and we could probably make some money on it pretty quick like it's easier to think about what services you need to provide but we both just realized that that was not really where our heart was our heart was more around how do we help men experience some of the freedom that we've experienced so that's kind of how three percent came to be was we thought we were going to go this direction realized we were forcing that because it was just what we thought we should do realized just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it and then it kind of morphed into what is now three percent
22:58Chris Cruz:okay and so in that process you're like we're thinking about building an agency for therapists you currently are at that point you are practicing and lessons and doing it yep and you're like all right we're gonna we're gonna do this now here's here's the the tough question i wanted to ask as you're doing this you recognize if i don't have money i don't have a job how are you now balancing as you've built everything that you've built now you're in the spot where you're like i have a full practice i have a full practice i have three percent we have three percent it could make more money but it's not making as much money as we want but then we have these other things that we're doing how are you now wrestling up against that kind of like oh man i i know that i don't want to let this be the scarcity mindset that drives me yeah but without it there's no fuel in the tank to keep going like what how do you what do you do now like how do you think about that now and get yourself forward i i think we take baby steps towards it and i think i even posted this on my socials the other day i think people get in their minds that a baby step is a tentative and scared step forward when really it's a wobbly, courageous jump into the unknown.
24:09Yeah. If you're talking about like an actual baby. Like an actual baby is trying something brand new for the first time and they're doing it with courage. Yes. So we are taking baby steps by progressive boundaries towards making space for 3%. Wow. So the way that we did that last year was we did just Thursday mornings. we gave all of Thursday morning to 3%. And we somehow made - That sounds like a lot of time. It was like two and a half hours before we would then go see five clients. Yeah. Somehow we made that work and put out a podcast every week with just that amount of time. Which is very hard to do.
24:45Really hard to do. And now looking back on it, I'm like, wow, that was tiring. Yeah. This year we took one baby step forward and we now do all day, one day a week is just 3%. Okay. And so that's our step so far of like where we are, how we operate right now, what resources we have. This is still sacrificial, but it's not detrimental to our families.
25:12Chris Cruz:Yeah. And so I have one more core question about building stuff in the therapy world. But before I do, before I get to that, that's going to be around word of mouth stuff. And a lot of people, whether they're services or consultants or whatever, word of mouth is how they all really grow. So I want to talk to you about growing your practices in a minute. Before I do that, 3%, what is it trying to do? Like what are you guys creating and why does it matter? The first thing that comes up for me is I have personally, I know this is true for both of us, but I'll just speak personally. I have been in my story.
25:49So like the biggest wounds in my story, so things that have hurt me the most relationally, abuse all these different things have come as if i'm using what we're talking about has have come as a result of people not being honest and vulnerable with themselves and like getting the appropriate help and then transmitting that pain intentionally or unintentionally on to other people or onto me and then same for me as a result of me not being fully honest with myself or other people are learning what it's like to be a safe man. I then hurt people unintentionally in different ways that affected their life.
26:31And like some very big things that I won't get into in this. And so when you ask that, it's like, I mean, you kind of said it earlier, the bigger vision is we always say on our show, we're not trying to tell men who they need to be because there's plenty of people out there that are saying like, I found the thing and you need to come to me and I'll give it to you. We're just trying to help them explore what gets in the way of being who they want to be and creating spaces and tools to help men be safer men. Because when you're a safe man, your family thrives, your business thrives, the people around you thrive.
27:13So it's like this bigger vision that comes, I think, birthed out of our own individual pain.
27:19Chris Cruz:Yeah, that's great. I love that because I think that that's, I mean, I know that I benefit from that reality myself as I'm building something and the amount of honest conversations I have to have about with my wife, with friends in my life going, this is what, like, it's always fun when someone upstairs in the space here, you guys just toured it. It's 27 ,000 square feet. Lots of people walking around. Someone the other day saw me. They said, hey. And I was like, hey. And they're like, are you okay? Wow. And I was like, I stopped and they're like, the normal energy you have isn't there. Are you okay?
27:53Chris Cruz:And I was like. So I do. And so I said, no, I'm not. They're like, what? So in our workspace here, 27 ,000 square feet, people from all different ways of life. Every day we all know we're trying to chase a dream. We're all trying to build something. So when they see you and you sit with them in one of the bars upstairs and we're sitting at the bar with the coffee maker behind us, all our snacks. And he's like, so what's going on? I was like, well, I've got this hurdle because these three different proposals didn't go through. And I feel like I failed. Like I'm trying to figure out why didn't they go through?
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28:21Chris Cruz:What did I not do right? What's that? And then I'm like, then I got this going on with my nine-year-old or now 10-year-old. He's turning 10. And I'm living through the existential reality of my son is growing and I hate this. And then I'm like, and then I've got like 15 years of marriage and I'm trying to figure out my marriage in a great way. And then I'm also trying to still build a company and make sure these things are going well. And then I also feel really discouraged about this way of that. I'm doing things in life that's not going the way I want. All of that unpacks when you're honest about when someone asks you, hey, are you OK?
28:48Chris Cruz:How are you? Versus no, I'm good. I'm good. Yeah, I'm good. Yeah, it's like and that's the beauty I think of when you don't work from home. I'm not making a call from work from home. People, I'm just saying like when I don't. I don't like the isolation. I think people think they get that get that wins them a lot and what they like. I think they lose in the connective tissue of life when you meet somebody and you see them in a space and they stop and you stop. Versus like I'm in my house and the steps I take are from my bedroom to my kitchen, from my kitchen to my bedroom and occasionally to a coffee shop.
29:25Well, we talk about that a lot. It's like what hunger and thirst is that serving?
29:31Chris Cruz:Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, maybe you really like it, but have you asked why you like it? Mm-hmm. Oof. yeah it's a it's a dangerous game yeah i think i think for us to your question about what what we hope this will be we don't lack for ideas yeah um blake is great at coming up with ideas and when i'm around him it inspires ideas in me and i think what we hope for in succinctly is that the more we grow this the greater ability we have to serve a number of people we would never be able to serve of one-on-one in therapy. Multiplies, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Have that multiplication effect. Absolutely.
30:10Chris Cruz:Yeah. Okay, so let's move to word of mouth and growing a practice. You come out of school, you've got like no one's promising you a job, I'm assuming. I'm assuming you're not getting out of school with someone going like, all right, here's a list of patients you can take. I'm sure there's places that you go work that they'll give you patients based off of government stuff and things like that. But you're not having that at the gate. No. You have a sense of like, I got to build a practice. Yeah. If I don't hunt, I don't eat. What were the struggles and how did you overcome them with growing up practice from the ground up and now having your practices full and being like, all right, this is how I built it.
30:48Chris Cruz:Whether it's right, wrong, whatever, this is how I did it and what worked for me. Yeah. Well, I think what's true about this profession is there are places that will just hand you a caseload right out of school. And the tradeoff is that you don't make a livable wage. and so um so like what he means is if you go to like a group practice for example they do all the marketing you're like a 1099 employee okay or w2 employee like a 1099 contractor or w2 they either or they feed you clients and do all that stuff but then they take a percentage of whatever your hourly fee is like i saw an advertisement which is not a great percentage right i saw an ad today for a job posting that was like 50 50 split that's like you can't you can't survive yeah And so that does exist in what I think that, I don't think they're trying to be predatory, but what it ends up doing is for people like me, I was terrified coming out of grad school to help people.
31:46And so I felt more of an attraction to the safety of that.
31:51Chris Cruz:Or the predictability, even the illusion of safety. Like, hey, this is safe. You're like, actually, it's not that safe. You forget to ask those questions, though, because it feels like, oh, well, it's there. and I don't have to do the work on the front end. Thankfully, God was like, hey, I'm going to drag you kicking and screaming into this private practice setting in Columbia, Tennessee. I was part of the drag. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I went straight into private practice. Yeah, you just went right in. You're like, all right, I'm going to do it now. I'm getting dragged in, kicking and screaming.
32:22Yeah, and so I have my undergraduate degree is in business entrepreneurship. Okay. And so I have experience building businesses, but I just didn't want to spend the energy doing it. But then once I was put down there, it was like, why was I not going to do this? And it was like my hunger and thirst was for safety and security. And then the way that I started building my practice, the word of mouth that you're talking about, is there was a stretch of probably eight months, my first year of practice, that I took somebody to coffee every week in the community to make sure that they knew that I was the guy.
33:02Chris Cruz:See, that's the stuff that I'm like, people don't say when they're building word of mouth. They're like, word of mouth was my best referral. I'm like, yeah, but did you look a layer deeper and ask them what they did? They're like, they went to coffee every single freaking week with somebody or some of them are like, hey, I'm going out twice a week, three times a week. like i tell our team if my if my eating out expense is too low that shows me that i'm not getting out enough nice and i'm like i know that that actually has to get higher because it helps me get out so i love that you actually said it because i'm like that's that's what so many people need to do yeah yeah it's great and same for me like i i really believe somebody said this this weekend this conference we were at that um all the convening of the minds i saw it on instagram Lots of well-known Instagram therapists included.
33:52Chris Cruz:Some not real therapists. But that true success is not just how high you can go individually and how quick you can, but how, like, the collaboration, how high the people around you are going. And I remember I was so naive getting into this field because I was just thinking therapists are all going to be people that are very just good people, emotionally aware. Supported. supportive but then you get into it you're like oh yeah this is still just a this is still just a field a business field yeah and it's an industry yeah it is and i had people so i was just going in this mindset of like everybody's going to be great and we're all going to collab and like send clients to each other and it's so supportive and i had people that would reach out kind of what jamie's saying to grab coffee and it just felt so yucky because it was like it was framed as i want to connect with you and i want to get to know you but really all i want is something from you yeah and i don't send clients to those people yeah so when i'm going out and trying to grab coffee or lunch with somebody again back to the main multiple motivations like yeah there's the motivation that i want you to see me and some clients to me and like me yeah there's nothing wrong there no no yeah that's not the main thing that's driving the ship though i also just want to get to know you And there's plenty of clients to go around for all of us.
35:16And when we can collaborate and lift each other up, it's better for everybody.
35:21Chris Cruz:So what's the advice you're giving now? I know you guys have seen stuff that you guys have put out about helping therapists even now, getting them going more. Your agency for therapists almost feels like I see it in other ways, pop out, even though it's not the exact same. It's leaking out. It's leaking out. If we had a room full of therapists who are like, hey, I'm not here to learn a new modality. I'm not here to learn about how to be better at my craft. I'm here to learn how to grow my practice. What are we saying to them? Like, what are we talking to these therapists, telling them to do to grow their therapy practice?
35:55I think what I would probably be saying to them is that it's a gift that you're in this field. Like, you are the gift. Please cultivate yourself in the way that you're the one who is the gift in that room. you have to trust that like there was a study i read one time and somebody's gonna have to fact check me on this one fact check your honor here yeah that like 70 of the growth that you'll make in counseling has to do with how well you get along with the therapist and how safe you feel in that room 70 yeah so i'm not going to be telling therapists make sure you go get this modality i'm going to be i'm going to be telling therapists make sure that you're in counseling big for yourself because if you're not in counseling then who you are is going to show up irresponsibly and probably in the wrong space, like the multiple parts of you that are showing up.
36:46Chris Cruz:It's like to put the mask on you first before you put it on your kids. That's right. And the primary place that that's going to show up is when you meet with another therapist who you're trying to network with because all that's going to walk into the room is your terror that you're not going to be able to build your practice. And so you're not going to be able to be the gift that you are in the networking meeting with someone who wants to experience the gift that you are people are going to refer you clients if you're a great hang yeah i mean you're not wrong in so many ways i think that crosses industries yeah it's the relatability of like oh that was a good person yeah and i liked being with them and it was enjoyable i will say for myself the scariest thing is when you are yourself and you've done the work and you and the shame you feel after or you're yourself because it's uncomfortable.
37:34So uncomfortable.
37:35Chris Cruz:Like you're like, all right, I was with that person and I was genuinely me. Yeah. And now I'm having a little bit of a hangover of like, I want to send a text. It's like, dad, that was kind of, I'm sorry. I'm like, oh God, hold on. Just wait a second, breathe. Because you are yourself and you're like, I am the multiple motivation thing that's happening. We're like, I want this, but also that would be great too. Yeah. But like you're saying, but showing up authentically, you can almost feel shame like you have to put a mask on to win work yeah and that's unsustainable yeah and also like i wonder not to therapize you you can therapize me all let's go how much of that let a candle let's sound machines on for the hallway how much of that what i'm hearing you say is like the this kind of like insecurity afterwards is the shame of you being yourself or like how that person received you being yourself.
38:29Yeah. Maybe it's just, because when you're yourself and somebody else is their self and it's like a good connection, I don't know how much shame you feel leaving that because they meet you well and they accept you where you are. And maybe, so it's like, maybe that's just not the person.
38:46Chris Cruz:Yeah. I mean, there's certainly elements to that. I think there's a big part of my journey that has been a journey of, not to stay in my therapy lane here for myself, has been a journey of as a leader watching for years my intensity my what my passion be either sideways commented on or front-facing commented on that you almost shrink to accommodate and so and when you step out of that in a setting where you're like man i felt like myself all of the other past treatments start to fill in and you're like i was like man i was really confident in that pitch i felt amazing pitching to that person yeah and then you leave like but then all of a sudden it's like but you were so intense you talked more than they did and you it's all of those things that came in from my past yeah that jacked me up more than i think that person thought i was this way or i even thought that it's like it's all my past woundedness and i don't know how this translates in your world when you're pitching stuff but that's why like vulnerability and authenticity is so important because when like when we had coffee and i learned more about your story and everything you just described yeah when i do experience the intensity which we've talked about this like i'm i'm a person that is not intense and historically like shrinks when i am around people who are intense because of the stories i make yeah but like when i learned that part of your story yeah then like i wasn't the intensity i was like oh this makes sense.
40:18Like, this is just who Chris is. I'm not saying that you need to like share your story in every pitch. This is why I'm intense.
40:26Chris Cruz:This is why I'm afraid of being intense. I tell people I'm probably the, those that know the Enneagram, I'm like, I'm probably the eight that's gone to the most therapy that you know of that's an eight still. And like still identifies as an eight versus after a long time. I don't think I'm an eight really. I'm like, no, no, I think I'm an eight and I've got this issue. Yeah, which is great. So word of mouth, is there anything else like we're talking about that helps the therapist grow their practice? I don't know if there's some of the, even some of the tactics you might be using, Blake. I see a lot of your Instagram content that you're putting out.
41:00Chris Cruz:Like, is that tying to growing your practice or growing other things? Yeah, at this point, that's kind of tying into growing other things because I'm not really, I don't need new clients right now. I also just have to name that I feel like we had an advantage of growing our practices because we are the minority in our field. Yeah. So, I mean, as far as like the other stuff, I haven't like touched my private practice website in a while, but like I still get so many inquiries. And a lot of that is from the word of mouth connection. Because you did good work. Yeah. I did good work and it compounds over time.
41:36Yep. And I did good work in translating the therapeutic language in a way that would meet my client where they're at.
41:51Chris Cruz:I think that's a – I experience that on a regular basis. Insider language about brand and marketing, talking to a client, they're like, you're talking in jargon. No idea what you're talking about. And that's like 97 % of therapists' websites. I mean, we were joking before about like our, the numbers behind our name, like nobody cares. They don't know. Yeah. They don't know what LMFT. LMFT. Right. It just means loud therapist. That's what it means. That's right. That's what it means. But they will know if they read something and they're like, oh, wow, you're reading my mail. Like that's speaking directly to me.
42:23So I think doing, for therapists, doing that work of.
42:27Chris Cruz:Almost like run it by people who aren't therapists. Yes. Nice. Yep. Like see if they, how they resonate with what you're saying. Yep. And in the social media piece, I mean, this is all kind of new to me, like blowing up on social media. And it's really just happened since I started not taking myself so seriously. Like just giving myself permission to. Talking about where you feel your pain in your elbow. Yeah. Let me listen some more. Yeah. Letting myself be. I got like, what, like 1 million views or something like that about making fun of therapists. Yes. Fantastic. Because the people in the comments who don't know, I'm like, if you just read the bio, the dude's a therapist.
43:01Chris Cruz:Yeah. Like, what are you doing? But it's, I mean, I really am just taking stuff that is real, that people relate to, and dramatizing it a little bit. And just, like, giving myself permission to be silly and embarrass myself has actually turned into, like, not just social media growth, but, like, really great connections. Yeah. And before, I was just, like, trying to do everything the way I thought it was supposed to be done. Yeah. And now I'm just, like, just showing more of my humanity. Yeah. It's great. But I think you guys calling out like the two tactics that I really see that I'm like, man, could apply to almost every industry is, hey, how many people are you actually actively going and having coffee with and just connecting and getting their knowledge to you?
43:43Chris Cruz:Like them to you and associating that together. People hate that they have to do that. They just want the clients to come to them. They just want the people to randomly find their website and go like, oh, my gosh, you're it. You're like, no, we're in a trust game. and trust game works relationally. It's going to take time. The other part is how often are you talking like a therapist versus talking like what they're actually, you're an industry expert. So your industry expert is a curse when you communicate sometimes. It stops you from being able to say what they need to hear to get that trust to work with you.
44:17Chris Cruz:Because that's what we run into in Brand and Marketing. They're like, I didn't come to you because I needed this and this. I came to you because I don't know how I'm going to grow and make more money. yeah and like that's their pain point they're not their pain point is really like i'm off purpose and i'm like i'm not feeling fulfilling in my work that could be another symptom in there for sure and i don't mind if you come to me about your money problem i'm going to still probably go back to your purpose yeah in that process it's like you guys probably with people where it's like yeah i come to you this but you're like yeah but it's probably this yeah it's in therapy what i would call it in our world is first principle thinking it's the idea that like yes you came to me with this but really let's go down let's strip this down to this most basic thing and it's it's really this not that and so i think that's getting that language right is way harder for practitioners yeah yeah way harder you're like the therapist for brands we we joke about brand therapy all the time like as our as a thing we've talked about trying to get the mckayla wants us to get the instagram account brand therapy um we're like we when we when we do our that's a great name When we do our blueprints for people where we walk through their company, we look at it, we do an intensive two-week thing.
45:26Chris Cruz:This is not a sales pitch. We weren't going to talk about this. But when we do a two-week intensive where we look through their company, they answer a bunch of questions. We do a visual audit, a verbal audit, all the messaging, all that stuff. And then we present back to them our findings, what we think their ideal customer is, what we think are the avenues for growth for them. The amount of times we've had people be like cry in there as they're like, oh, my gosh, you know my company right away. And then others be like, man, I've not looked at myself this. We've even had companies repair relationships because in our process, they recognized one of the reasons why they're not doing a product anymore is because of a relationship dynamic.
46:06Chris Cruz:And that product was their best selling product. So they were like, man, in this process, I discovered that was my best selling product. and I ended it for X, Y, and Z. And I want to go fix that so I can rejuvenate that. All because we're doing brand work, which is much, people would think it up here, but we're down here. And we're like, which is hard. Because even if you tell entrepreneurs, this is what I do, I do it like this, they're still going to go, I really, that's not my problem. It's us knowing that our methodology or modality for this is going to get to that. But I got to talk to where you're actually feeling your pain.
46:41Chris Cruz:and if you're not feeling that pain of i don't know my brand my brand doesn't resonate with me anymore and that's why i can't go out and pitch it i'm like you're not going to come to me because that's your problem yeah you're coming to me because you're like i don't know why i'm not getting new customers right yeah that's what you're going to come to me for yeah it's like therapy for your brand yeah exactly so okay we'll i want to bring us down to one point here and i want to get your guys's thoughts and then we'll wrap up here we can go for hours social media and therapy you're seeing a popularity both in therapists like yourself blake and others and you're seeing stuff grow in ways you're like man there's lots of things on the internet being said that i'm like wow that's intense um the and you look up who they are and you're like oh i i don't i okay and because it's all a trust game for me like it's like who do i trust for information about this thing how are you guys thinking about social media and and your influence there do you i know blake obviously you jamie i'm a little less informed on some of the stuff you're doing but i know that i am too yeah okay good yeah good to know thanks jamie i appreciate it you needed to give me your data sheet before we got into this conversation i needed to know this stuff um but i know that because i've on instagram i'm like there's sub stack you do writing on sub stack do you write on sub stack as well jamie just with three percent three percent yeah so tell me a little bit about how you guys as therapists are approaching social media not as is social media bad or good?
48:05Chris Cruz:That's not the conversation I'm interested in having. I'm more going, how are you guys thinking about social media as a whole and how people are leveraging it and what you guys are doing with it? You've caught me at a unique time, Chris. Oh, yes? Did I? Good. I'm excited. We'll do some brand therapy with you live. You did work with me live, so I'll do some work with you. Yes, exactly. I was only using 3 % social media to do things until last week. let's go what changed what why did like i love this because the amount of people the the amount of entrepreneurs or brand builders that are like i only we only communicate through our brands again like and they don't ever make any kind of change yeah but you're in real time what's the feeling we're like um we're like mumford and sons together and then we like branch out and do our own like solo so you're like n-sync so you're like n-sync i'm gonna put it like this you're n-sync just to be like, we hope there's another in there because the rest of the end seemed kind of...
49:05Chris Cruz:They did fizzle out. With peace and love. With peace and love, yeah. I wasn't really interested. It's how I was thinking about it. Okay. That's what changed. What were you thinking about? I was thinking about it previously in terms of I don't really care to have my own brand. Yes. My therapy practice works primarily off of relationships that I hold. I don't do a lot of social media influencing for my practice. And I was content with that. I didn't need it to grow anymore. My practice is full. So it's almost this false sense of I don't need this. So I can remain in the safety of not doing something that's scary for me.
49:52Chris Cruz:Oh, okay. What was scary about it for you? Oh, that I'm not good enough at it. that I'm watching my best friend be free. And it seems, it is a lot. I think fact, it's easier for him to do. Just personality driven. Like it's easier for him to do the social media stuff than you. Yeah. Some of that's reps. He's done a lot of reps now. And I don't want to dismiss that at all. No. And some of it was just not believing I had something worth adding to the space. Because there's a lot of really good voices already. 100%. Okay. I feel that every day with anything I do. Yeah. That's validating. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
50:32Oh, gosh. Are you kidding me? You just named what changed. Okay. Last week, we were at a conference with some people who are pretty influential in the space. And all of them were really authentic. And they were really encouraging. And the rising tide floats all boats kind of posture. and I recognized like I was just never allowing myself to think of it as something I could do that's fun and a place where I could learn to play and I could have times where I'm serious I have a lot of life experience now to offer in the therapy space my story go listen to the one where I'm crying you'll hear some of my story and you'll recognize like there's things I could say that I think are unique.
51:20Yeah. And what was getting in the way was the feeling that I needed to have it perfect before I tried.
51:28Chris Cruz:Yeah. Super common. Super common. And I used to have it with music and what changed it with music was me just doing it. Love it. But then I got to this and I was like, I don't really, I convinced myself, I say this to clients a lot, I gaslit myself into believing I don't need it. and so it's okay that i don't need my want to overcome my fear and that gaslighting kept me stuck bro so that's it right there like i i totally get what you're saying where like the saturated world lots of people in this space and like i've wrestled so much with like all right how do i do this if there's everybody doing this and i remember thinking so much about the fact of like yeah but nobody and this is where i'm at right now i'm like i'm actively like i've i've so i consistently put out content but i've paused my consistency for a little bit until q2 which is next month yeah i'm sitting down for basically a week as much as i can clear out my schedule i'm sitting down for a week and going okay i need to keep these meetings i'll keep them if i can't if i can get rid of them i'm getting rid of them and i'm basically looking at the company q2 i'm looking at myself q2 everything to actually look at a core thing which was i'm realizing i'm not exporting my experience i'm exporting ideas and i don't want to do that it's more comfortable to oh it's so much easier to export it's more vulnerable it's more vulnerable it's more vulnerable to export export experience and not ideas but the thing is of ideas i can export i can export ideas and they'll sound like anybody else yeah everybody's tired and tired of the ideas but my experience which takes all of these things together and molds them into something my leadership of experience 15 years of organizational leadership going but i have this background in this and this background in this and this background in this blend it all together i a phrase i like to say now it's like i am the niche not i'm looking for a niche like yeah it's me it's what i carry who i am and what i care about yeah and i've even told our team i don't care if you build a personal brand on the job nice because all that does is raise what we do and like it doesn't hurt us which is why i'm doing it now which is why you're doing it see Let's go.
53:40Chris Cruz:Blake, take us home with your approach to social media, what you're doing, and how you feel about it all. I saw this reel the other day that I was like, that's it. Okay. Somebody said - I love that it was a reel. Yeah. Why are therapists trying to become influencers? Oh, yes. I saw you repost this one. And then it said, because influencers are trying to be therapists. Yeah. So there is this element - Oh, shots fired. With peace and love? With peace and love. I love that that's just the kind of thing. Yeah, shots fired on all the people getting there. Maybe I'll just start doing hot takes on my social media and I'll end it with peace and love.
54:13Yes, do it. I mean, why not? I'm here for it. So that is an element of it. I think for me, mostly it's just it's been. I mean, kind of like what you were saying, it's been fun for me. Like it's a it's a creative outlet outside of my therapy practice. And then I can also see how it's like strategic ways to, or it's strategic things that will help me out in the future with book launches or, you know, whatever. Audio distribution, all that kind of stuff. I'm kind of just approaching it in how can this be fun and how can I balance, again, I kind of said like what has popped off for me as my funny stuff.
54:59And I don't want to be known as the funny guy. like that's not you don't want to be known for i don't funny guy no but it's but it performs well but it's happening like when we were at this conference that was like people were recognizing me and asking to take pictures yeah the time i took pictures of him every time he got recognized so weird but because they're like oh you make me laugh so hard and like your stuff is so does that cause pain for you internally it doesn't cause pain but it's like that's not what i that's not what i want to be i don't want to be like the funny why don't you want to be the funny i'm
55:31Chris Cruz:curious because i look at like guys like dave chappelle or steve martin or jerry seinfeld and i'm like people go oh they make me laugh i'm like do you know these men are geniuses yeah like actual geniuses right on that level of intelligence that is so high that they understand human psychology so much that they can make you laugh well okay so it's part of the that's actually a really good point about that it's part of the story i make up yeah if all of your stuff is funny then you're not taking as seriously so if i'm the funny guy then is that gonna water water me down as the licensed therapist and what i'm realizing is that it does the opposite actually like um if if my satirical stuff is what gets more eyeballs on it then the people that want to stay for the sincere stuff is like those are my people yeah um so it's i'm trying to figure out how to balance all of it and let myself again just let it be like my it's weird to translate your yourself onto this medium of social media because even if you're trying to be vulnerable it's inherently performative you're recording a video of yourself it's like an artist though it's like a musician that goes on stage and the moment they go on stage they you're not going to go to that musician you're not going to go up there and go okay uh jack white you're like he comes off the stage you're like man you were really performing yeah i'm so sorry that was so inauthentic to who you're like the dude's like no no i was doing my craft i was lost in what i did is that how i talk every single day and walk around well jack white is a little bit interesting but like that's a that's probably not the best example but like right like kiss isn't walking around with makeup on their face everywhere they go yeah that's nice like so there's an element to what you're saying where i'm like it is performative but not in a wrong way no yeah it's not And so just getting comfortable with that being, especially when you're like us and your whole thing is built on vulnerability and authenticity.
57:23Like you can still do that in a way that is, and at the end of the day, it's just a weird medium. Like he was telling me that yesterday he texted me and said that he made this video to show me. And he was like, it's amazing how, what did you say, how uncomfortable that made me? How nervous it made me. And I was like, oh, don't worry about it. It's your first time you'll get used to setting up a camera and recording yourself when no one's asking you to and sharing it to the void, hoping that people will affirm it if the algorithm chooses to show it to them.
57:52Chris Cruz:You'll get comfortable. You'll get comfortable with the idea that you spent hours and it was like 10 people. Yes. Five people. You're like, I'm okay with this because I'm creating and exporting. I have to remind myself also too, it's like things like, oh my gosh, what's his name? The artist Van Gogh who didn't sell a painting in his life while he was alive. Right. Crazy. You're like, this is insane. You're like, so there's this element of going, if you're doing it for this internal, I get it when you're doing it for a business. And you're like, this has got to move the needle somehow. Different.
58:26But also at the same time, still needs to be authentic to that brand.
58:30Chris Cruz:Anyway, I think one of the fun things to call out is the multidisciplinary nature of both of you. Whether you're a musician background, your own background with arts and photography and brand building. like i think people want to get so specialized because they're told to me that they forget part of what allows you to get out of some things was that you refer to your music background that you pulled in your brand building background that nothing gets wasted in our life that we can bring them together to build what we're trying to build and that's where i think a lot of people get off yeah on what they're going i only need to i need to get really good at this one thing and focus on that one thing and only that i'm like tell that to leonardo da vinci like i don't like i don't think that's gonna work for for you i think you allow yourself to be you yeah and it has all those elements yeah if you delight in that one thing do that do it then absolutely yeah yeah if that's what makes you you do it yeah but if you also like to cook i'm not i'm not gonna be upset about you being like i like to cook i'm gonna bring my cooking into this i love that do it but it's like everything is going it's coming full circle because if you think of how social media first started and people were just sharing all the facets of themselves yeah and then there was this big influx of like oh this could actually be a tool for our business yeah marketers got a niche down got so specific and everybody became just one thing and that's who you got used to but now everybody's tired of that and now like even like the old days of like mommy blogging are back in because now it's going back to we're so tired of this we want to see like all of you not just this one specific thing.
1:00:06Chris Cruz:Yeah, like we really want to see like doing the worm on the dance floor. Yeah, people do. I don't know why. When you show the video, what was it? I'm sober, the only sober one or something like that. Dancing on the dance floor. A little wobbly. A little wobbly. But guys, thank you so much for coming on today and sharing all this with us. This is going to be invaluable for people building companies. Thanks for having us. Thanks, man.
From the publisher
Subscribe and join our community for operators, marketers, and builders shaping the future.Most founders don't break because the business broke.They break because nobody told them the 3% they were hiding was already running the company.In this episode, we sit down with Blake and Jamie — two licensed therapists, best friends for nine years, and the co-hosts of The 3% Podcast — a show built out of a 12-step room and a single sentence: "I need to share my 3%."We unpack why the most operationally healthy founders are the ones doing the inner work, why "I'm fine" is a leading indicator of a business unraveling, and why the same pattern that ruins relationships is the one quietly killing your team.This isn't a conversation about therapy.It's about the silent tax founders pay when they refuse to be honest with themselves.You'll hear:• Why a 3% lie binds you to 100% of the shame• The Resentment Metric — how to know your business is breaking before the numbers say so• Why baby steps" are wobbly, courageous jumps - not tentative ones• Why 97% of expert-led brands sound like every other expert-led brand• The unsexy word-of-mouth strategy that built two full therapy practices• Why founders are trying to be influencers - and influencers are trying to be therapists • How to tell the difference between exporting an idea and exporting an experience If you're a founder, operator, creative, or builder, and you've been quietly carrying something you haven't named — this conversation is for you.Timestamps00:00:00 Trailer00:01:00 Why a therapist asked Chris to do somatic work — live, on his own podcast00:05:25 "Mental health is slow. Until it's sudden."00:07:30 Why founders crumble underneath the metrics nobody sees 00:10:30 The Resentment Metric - when your business is broken before the dashboardsays so00:13:30 Owning the chaos: "It's my fault" as a leadership skill00:18:00 The 3% origin story - born in a 12-step room00:21:00 Why being 97% honest is still 3% bound to shame00:22:30 The pivot - why a creative agency for therapists became a movement for men 00:25:00 Baby steps are wobbly courageous jumps — how 3% was built in 2.5 hours aweek00:29:30 The bigger vision — multiplication, not metrics00:34:30 Word of mouth as a 30-month strategy — coffee every week for eight months00:37:30 "You are the gift" — why most expert-led brands market themselves wrong00:42:00 The intensity tax — why being yourself can feel like a hangover00:46:00 Why 97% of expert websites lose their audience in the first sentence00:49:30 Brand therapy - the moment a founder cries in a brand audit00:53:00 Why Blake avoided social media for two years — and what cracked open lastweek00:58:30 "Why are therapists trying to be influencers?"01:02:00 The end of the niche-down era — why multidisciplinary is back01:04:30 Closing reflections — the weird medium of being seenGuestBlake and Jamie, co-hosts of The 3% Podcast and licensed clinical therapists in Tennessee. Both run full private practices, both came up through 12-step recovery, and both have spent the last decade building a framework for how vulnerable men can lead more honest businesses, families, and relationships.Get in TouchInstagram: www.instagram.com/anatomyofabrandWebsite: www.anatomyofabrand.coEmail: micaela@harborandunion.com