We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Joanna Hardis a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Joanna, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Before we talk about all of your success, let’s start with a story of failure. Can you open up about a time when you’ve failed?

I love this question because, as I’ve gotten older, I’m so much more comfortable taking a risk, even if it means I could fail.

I learned the value of following directions, humility and patience from my first professional fail, when I got fired from my first professional job within the first week of starting. It was the early 90’s, and I had just graduated from Cornell University. I got offered an entry-level position at the National Victim Center. I was so excited since I had volunteered at the Ithaca Rape Crisis Center throughout my time in Ithaca.

As many 22-year olds are, I was full of unrealistic expectations coupled with bravado (and cluelessness). My job was to type memos (this was when people wrote things out and then typed them), make copies, print things, answer the phone, take messages (this was before voicemail), etc. Back then, I had to make copies of journals and books, a surprisingly hard task to do neatly. I still cringe remembering how I rewrote memos because the grammar or word choice could be better (which I didn’t neglect to mention). Because of my inability to do the tasks for which I was hired (and solely those), I think I was hired on Monday and fired by Thursday. I was shocked, humiliated, embarrassed, ashamed, and, to this day, I still feel a gut punch when I think about my behavior.

I can be direct and opinionated, and I’ve had to learn (through smaller setbacks and fails) when and how to voice my opinion, when to do as I’m told and when it’s okay to suggest something different (and it’s not the first week).

In my field, I learned that experience — and not ego — brings me seniority, and all the rewards that come with it. Being my own boss has always been my goal but I had to move through the ranks from a student therapist to decades in different roles as a therapist to now being a specialist, practice owner and author.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m a cognitive behavioral therapist and author, based in Cleveland, Ohio. I became a therapist because my college advisor, with whom I had never previously spoken, said “it sounds like you want to be a social worker” when I asked to drop my pre-med courses. She based that on my interests being “talking with people” and my work with high school work with HIV patients l. Being a (relatively) lazy student, I replied “okay,” and my path was set.

Luckily it worked out.

I’ve worked in different clinical settings and levels of outpatient treatment. Before I started my practice in 2018, I spent 13 years in an eating disorder treatment center.

My current private practice specializes in the treatment of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and anxiety disorders. Suffering most of my life with unrelenting worry, I’ve been committed on a personal and professional level to translating evidence-based treatment into relatable, understandable language.

I am committed to helping people change their relationship with anxiety and, more broadly, get “unstuck.”

Anxiety is not the enemy, how we’re treating it is. Our reactions to anxiety are the problem. When we:
Fear it
Hate it
Dread it
Avoid it
Escape it
Judge it
Dwell on it
Have to figure it out
Resist it
Freak out about it

If you want to feel better, you have to learn to be anxious.

I’m also a firm believer that therapy should NOT last forever. I wasted so much time (and money) in ineffective therapy talking about my anxiety and worry. Whether it’s in therapy or in my book, I lay out the process if you want “to get comfortable being uncomfortable” and learn to be less anxious.

In life, I’m most proud of surviving an incredibly painful divorce and raising 3 kids as a single parent. Nothing in the world brings me more joy, pride and, yes, worry than my 3 kids.

Professionally, my biggest accomplishment is the publication of my first book “Just Do Nothing: A Paradoxical Guide to Getting Out of Your Way.”

Launched in August 2023, it’s designated a Booklist “Editor’s Pick” and received a Five
Star review from the Los Angeles Book Review. In my spare time, I enjoy
powerlifting, doing anything with my kids, traveling, and getting sucked into bad reality TV.

How did you build your audience on social media?

It’s a work in progress!

I’ve been so lucky to have a great messaging strategist (Jenn Prochaska who you’ve interviewed too!) and we’ve used different social media managers. Practically what’s helped has been having people on my team who manage this for me (because it’s not my lane), engaging with posts, messaging people in the field, responding to messages/posts, keeping abreast of what leaders in the field are doing online.

We focus heavily on Instagram, posting 2-3x a week. Our messages center around connecting, validating and helping people. We meet people where they’re at. I’m not a lifecaster. This isn’t about me. It’s about what I know will work for our audience. Rather than the quantity of posts, we focus on the quality. Nothing goes out that isn’t clinically correct.

Building a following for most of us takes a lot of time and can be really random and discouraging. I try to focus on the process and NOT the outcome. When we’re focused on outcomes (followers, likes, shares, etc), we’re investing in something for which we don’t have much control. It also puts an inordinate amount of pressure on everyone when our definition of success is predicated on someone else. When we have a process focus, we’re paying attention to the things we can control, the practices that are likely to build engagement. Once you do that, how the algorithm works is anyone’s guess.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

For me, challenging personal experiences have increased my resilience and helped me professionally.

The genesis of my book, Just Do Nothing: A Paradoxical Guide to Getting Out of Your Way was born from such an experience. A romantic partner ghosted me in 2022.

Recovering from that painful and confusing disappointment reinforced what I’d been teaching clients for years — that the way out of distress is learning to live with it, not fight against it.

I had to accept I would never get adequate answers, my attempts to understand the situation made me more confused and upset and healing came from reengaging with life while I felt however I felt.

I knew from previous challenges that I couldn’t wait until I felt better to do the things I either needed or wanted to do. I worked, wrote and published a book, socialized, relaxed, dated and did life anxious, uncertain, distressed, sad, bored, confused, angry, embarrassed and a host of other challenging feelings.

Professionally, writing a book is one of my proudest accomplishments, and doing it while I recovered from this, was a massive confidence boost.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.joannahardis.com
• Instagram: @joannahardis
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JoannaHardisLISW
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joanna-hardis/

Image Credits
MockTuna Photography Cleveland