There Is More Than One Door

T H E E L E P H A N T M E T H O D · B U S I N E S S & B O U N D A R I E S

What happens when million-dollar companies make promises they never intended to keep — and what you owe yourself when they do.

Let me tell you about a door I chose not to walk through — and why that decision was one of the best I have made in a long time.

I recently had an experience with a well-known coaching organization. In her video, the founder — let us call her Suzanne — made a promise. She said her team would help me.

Not screen me. Not evaluate whether I was the right fit for their business model. Help me. Those were the words, and I heard them clearly.

So I showed up. I gave my time. I engaged. And what I received in return was not help. What I received was a gatekeeper, a funnel, and eventually — when I had the audacity to say no thank you — a personal attack on my character."If you keep shutting doors on yourself, you'll keep in the same pattern."

— WHAT THEIR TEAM MEMBER SAID TO ME WHEN I DECLINED TO CONTINUE

Read that again. I declined their process — a process that was never disclosed in the original promise — and their response was to suggest that I am the one with a pattern problem. That my decision to walk away was evidence of self-sabotage.

That, my friends, is not coaching. That is manipulation. And it is dressed up so professionally that many people would have doubted themselves and stayed.

I did not stay. And here is what I want every person reading this to understand:

There is never only one door. The Universe is abundant. If I want to get to Los Angeles, Interstate 10 West is not my only option. I can take a different route. I can take a scenic road. I can book a flight.

The idea that this program, this company, this opportunity is the only path to your success is a lie — and it is the foundational lie that keeps these organizations profitable.

This was not my first encounter with this kind of behavior. I had a nearly identical experience with an organization connected to Tony Robbins. A video promise. An implied relationship. An expectation of real support. And then the reality: a system designed not to help you, but to convert you. When I did not convert, the warmth evaporated.

What these organizations have mastered is the architecture of false intimacy. They use video — personal, direct, speaking right to you — to create the feeling of a promise. "I will help you." It feels human. It feels real.

And then you discover that what was promised publicly and what is delivered privately are two entirely different things. Their own team member admitted as much to me: "We do need to update that video."

An admission. Right there in the text thread. But here is the part I want to sit with, because it is uncomfortable and it is true: it is not only on them.

It is on us, too — for not saying no sooner. For tolerating the pressure tactics, the manufactured urgency, the false scarcity.

"Limited spaces, won't open again until mid-July." For second-guessing ourselves when someone with a polished brand and a large following implies that our hesitation is our own psychological flaw. We have been conditioned to accept this behavior because we want the result they are dangling in front of us. And as long as we accept it, they will keep doing it.

You are not closing doors on yourself when you say no to something that did not deliver what it promised. You are protecting your most valuable resource: your trust.

My final message to their team member was simple. After reading her last response — which, to her credit, confirmed everything — I wrote: "Boy, looking at your message, it confirms my decision. Thank you."

And I meant every word. Not sarcastically. Not bitterly. Genuinely. Because sometimes the clearest sign that you made the right choice is the other person's reaction when you make it.

To anyone who has been in a similar position — who sat through a call that felt like a sales pitch disguised as support, who felt the ground shift when you tried to hold someone to their word, who was made to feel that your discernment was your dysfunction — I want you to hear this:

You are not the problem. Your standards are not the problem. Holding people accountable to what they promised is not shutting doors on yourself. It is knowing your worth. And the right door — the right organization, the right coach, the right opportunity — will not require you to abandon your dignity to walk through it.

There are many roads to Los Angeles. There are many paths to the life and business you are building. Do not let anyone — no matter how large their following, how slick their video, or how confident their tone — convince you that their door is the only one.

The Universe does have just one door, it has MANY, choose wisely.

Best wishes,

Lisa

L I S A C O U R T N E Y · I N T E R C U LT U R A L C O M M U N I C AT I O N

S P E C I A L I S T · F O U N D E R , T H E E L E P H A N T M E T H O D