You’ve heard the statement, “What’s the worst thing that can happen?” Instead, why not focus on the best thing that can happen? You see, when we focus on the worst things, we create the worst things. The flip side can bring to you your dreams — and it sure did for me. At Basic Steps Mental Health, we teach our participants how to focus on what they want. These “Ideal Scenes” help people imagine some miracle taking place, visualize themselves walking around in it, and then jotting down, line by line, all the items of this dream. What you see is what you can be.

If you focus your mind on something you want with all your heart, you can obtain it! Here are the basics: list out all the areas in your life where you express yourself. Usually, people list out sobriety, family, health, and home environment. In fact, this company was created by a series of Ideal Scenes. Visualize, jot it down, and then take the action steps.

I had never owned a company before. I had been a worker bee, and once given a task, I was all over it. I worked eleven years at the first Mental Health Urgent Care Center and saw over 7,000 people who were in crisis. This, I thought, was my calling—until I got a call from a client I treated ten years prior who wanted to open up a residential treatment facility with me, and I found myself saying yes before I even thought about it.

I have a past. Forty years ago, I was homeless on the streets of Hollywood—you know, land of broken dreams and all that crap. Substance use was familiar to me, and I lost everything because of it. I hated who I had become and prayed the prayer of the ages asking God for help. That was my bottom. I knew the first step was getting sober, and I bargained with myself to get sober for two years — you know, to get back on my feet — and two years from then I would decide to use or continue being sober. I then asked an old friend for help, cleaned up, got a job, and reentered society, clean-shaven and with clean clothes.

It wasn’t too long before I went back to school to complete my AA degree and to see if I had any functional brain cells left. I discovered I had three—and they worked overtime! I proved to myself I still had my ability to think (though many of my friends still dispute this claim to this day).

Forty years of sobriety. That is a long time, but I stuck with sobriety after the two-year mark, continued with school, and began attending personal growth seminars. I may have been sober, but each day my anxiety mounted, and I wanted to find some solution that didn’t have me using medication.

I met myself at the seminars. I had been trying to put on a front, make-believe I was great, and did all these things to prove my worth to others. I think they all saw through it. In the seminars and counseling, I realized that it was more important to simply be me, so I gave up the act, was real, and life became great. I got into my first long-term relationship, bought my first home, and decided to pursue psychology. I thought I was doing well, and then I was admitted into the University of Santa Monica, studied Spiritual Psychology, and my life took off!

At the university, we counseled each other, applying the approaches we were learning, and to be frank, all of us students profoundly healed — especially me. I learned that I was an addict for a reason. I was trying to cover up all the anxiety I had on a daily basis from early childhood. It was quite a process to address the wounds of my past. I actually confronted my abusive father after not seeing him for ten years. I was transforming, loving the changes in me, and through all of this, I had a new best friend — my dad. Through my studies, I learned to embrace inner child work.

My biggest takeaway from the university was having a new best friend – my younger self. He was at the root of all my fears, and the anxiety and panic I experienced on a daily basis were fading — and faded even more each time I connected with my inner self. So, yeah, I am one of those advocates of inner child work. And if you have suffered childhood abuse or trauma, it is the number one approach to getting to the core of your ailment and properly treating it. This approach I wrote about in my Doctoral Dissertation, and it received a lot of acclaim. Who would have figured that some homeless guy who was a drug addict would turn academic heads? But hey, I was on a quest. I was feeling new, happy, healthy, and healed. My volunteer work at a 12-Step Treatment Facility was becoming more and more popular with the spirituality group, and suddenly our group had upwards of 40 people! The psychology I was being taught was new. None of the clients at this facility had experienced opposite-hand writing, muscle testing, or empty chair work before, and they were loving it!

It took 15 more years to gain enough field experience from my humbling beginnings there, and later at the Mental Health Urgent Care and a Luxury Residential Treatment Program, before I moved to Washington and opened my own clinic. A facility providing Spiritual Psychology was cutting-edge, and I was proud of what we presented. Imagine going through a school the way you always wanted it to be. And right from the start, this facility was creating miracle after miracle because the clients were excited about being there. No shame — lots of love and praise. It was like teaching at the University of Santa Monica because the owner of the school encouraged me to use all the curriculum of their approach. Now it was treatment the way you always wanted it to be!

So this is what I do every day. Since 2017, Basic Steps Mental Health has conducted treatment like it is a psychology school. The participants literally learn how to be a counselor, practice on one another, and since our opening, miracles have been taking place. Don’t take my word for it, read our reviews. It really is treatment the way you always wanted!

Before Basic Steps, I opened a residential treatment facility in Washington with my old client and soon realized that residential treatment didn’t suit this approach. A number of clients were relapsing, and I couldn’t understand why. I thought that if you teach something, people would take it to heart and run with it. Yeah, that was a fantasy. In fact, it took me over a year at school before the Spiritual Psychology approach was locked into place in me. I needed to keep a longer eye on the folks I treated, and Basic Steps Mental Health was born.

It was hard for me to be a businessman. As a therapist, I believe I am pretty top-notch; however, with no business experience, I almost lost it all. I opened my clinic in Mukilteo, not knowing a single soul. Shoot, I was from Los Angeles and didn’t want to go crawling back home with my tail between my legs. Suddenly, things were hard, and if the phone rang twice in a week, I was lucky. But I had my Ideal Scenes and my determination. I was going to do this thing or bust. So I re-edited all my Ideal Scenes and got the perfect staff, but where were the clients? I panicked! I went to every marketing group, talked at the Chamber of Commerce, and hired a man as a job coach. Nice man—no clients—and almost no money remaining. As a last-ditch effort, I hired a man to take over all my advertising. Everything was riding on this because my credit cards were almost maxed out.

When the phones immediately began ringing, I was on cloud nine! I could pay my rent! I could breathe! Then it all began to build on itself. When COVID hit, everything ground to a stop. NO! My intern, Charity, asked me to consider telehealth and helped me get into Skype and then Zoom. Almost instantly, my schedule filled up and kept filling up. When people are stuck at home with little to do, they tend to melt down. COVID, politics, and the holidays were great for my business!

Today, my schedule is filled up two weeks in advance, and the phone just keeps ringing. The keys to getting to this point were practicing good self-care, listening to my gut, continually refining the product, and above all, listening to my customers.

Thank you for going on this journey with me. I am about to turn 68, and usually at this time of year, I tend to take a look back and marvel at Basic Steps, my hardships, and my triumphs. I feel I am incredibly fortunate and somehow scratched out a living up here so far away from my home — Los Angeles. Thanks to all the people who have supported me, the company, shared the teachings with others, and bought the Self-Helping book, because all I want to do is ensure that people don’t end up on the street addicted and lost like I was. I was fortunate, and I hope to share that gift with as many as I can.