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Growth and authenticity are interdependent, not competing forces in building a practice.

Avoiding promotion or over-promoting both weaken trust, visibility, and long-term impact.

Avoiding promotion or over-promoting both weaken trust, visibility, and long-term impact.

Sustainable visibility comes from sharing your work while staying grounded in your voice.

A therapist said to me recently, “I want to grow my practice but I don’t want to be one of those therapists who is constantly promoting.”

She was caught in a paradox: the desire to grow her business and also stay authentic.

Most therapists and coaches don’t go into this work because they are entrepreneurs, bad-ass at business, or self-promoters. We are good at cheering others on, not ourselves. At the same time, we need a touch of that to get our business out there. No one is going to know about what you do if you don’t promote your genius. But your fears are right: If you self-promote too much, you lose trust. (Exhibit A: See my product placement below? That’s very intentional.)

Many therapists and coaches try to “resolve” this paradox by treating it like a branding problem. Here’s what I hear:

"I just need the right platform."

"I just need the right platform."

"I need to fix my messaging."

"I need to fix my messaging."

"I need to hire a marketer."

"I need to hire a marketer."

Yet, these don’t really address the underlying issue. The tension between maintaining your authenticity and getting yourself out there is a source of energy. If you engage in unwise effort with it, you will oscillate between: holding back and feeling invisible, pushing forward and feeling inauthentic, and pulling back and losing momentum

I have felt this tension, too. I struggled for years between playing small, and then, when trying to play big, feeling like it was not really me. The solution is not to throw more energy at it. It’s more nuanced than that: You need to reframe your question and rethink your outcome.

What is a paradox, anyway?

When I interviewed Marianne Lewis for her book Both/And Thinking, I was struck by the overlap between her work with organizations and my work coaching therapists. She defines paradoxes as persistent, interdependent contradictions that cannot be resolved.

Consider this statement: I want to grow my work and I want to stay true to how I show up.

Persistent → this tension never goes away

Interdependent → both sides matter and depend on each other

Contradictory → they pull you in different directions simultaneously

Your attempts to resolve this paradox can drain your energy and blunt your outcome. If you over-index on authenticity, you spend too much time making everything perfect you and nothing gets out there. If you over-index on growth, you can lose your voice in the process.

You can’t remove one side without weakening the other. You need both. So ask yourself: Are you over-focusing on authenticity at the cost of growth, or on growth at the cost of authenticity?

If you can work with this paradox and move inside of it instead of trying to eliminate it, you access a different kind of energy. That’s the work.

Get out a piece of paper, your phone, or walk and talk with a colleague.

1. Locate the strain.

Where does this tension show up for you?:

avoiding posting or outreach

overthinking what to say

bursts of visibility followed by long silence

discomfort saying anything that is not original

over-quoting everyone else

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2. Name both sides of the paradox

Say it directly. Out loud: I want to grow my business and I want to stay authentic. Not one or the other. Both.

3. See the interdependence

A paradox is not always something to resolve; it can be something to work with: Your authenticity is what makes your growth sustainable — and your promotion is what allows your authenticity to reach anyone. Without visibility, your work stays small. Without authenticity, people lose trust and so do you.

How do they reinforce each other for you?

4. Identify your energy drains

In Wise Effort, I address three forms of unwise effort: What story are you stuck in? What are you holding too tightly to? And what are you afraid of feeling?

As you build your practice, are you waiting until something is “fully formed” before sharing? Avoiding anything that sounds promotional? Relying only on word-of-mouth? Or putting content out that doesn’t sound like you?

5. Enter the paradox and design for both

You can build a system that allows both authenticity and growth. Give yourself space to explore your voice through free writing, imperfect posts, and even sharing something random like learning to ride a bike. Also block out time for visibility, newsletters, posts, and learning how tools including AI can support your reach.

Keep your voice intact and get your work out there. We need it.

Being visible, authentically visible, will bring discomfort, vulnerability, and maybe some criticism. As my book coach Jennie Nash taught me, if you’re pissing people off, you’re onto something—and you’re no longer hiding behind either side of the paradox.

The work is to feel that and continue with wise effort.

When you work this paradox well, your growth becomes less forced. Your voice becomes clearer and less diluted. You start building something that actually reflects you. Don’t you want that?

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