Ryan Forbes discusses his approach to working with highly driven and high-achieving clients on the Practice of Therapy. Inspired by a client in 2016, Ryan explores the challenges this unique yet underserved population faces, such as isolation, high anxiety, and a constant fear of failure. He shares insights gathered from interviews with 45 high achievers, including CEOs, professional athletes, and musicians. Forbes emphasizes the importance of providing a confidential, judgment-free space and adopting a direct, problem-solving approach rather than traditional therapeutic methods. He also highlights the need for therapists to market their services in places frequented by affluent clients and to understand the distinct stressors and expectations that come with high-profile lifestyles.
Meet Ryan Forbes 
Ryan earned his Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Texas Tech University in 2003 and a Master’s degree in Mental Health Counseling from Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, KY in 2008. With nearly two decades of experience in private and agency work, Ryan has developed a profound expertise in his field. Ryan has maintained a private practice for the past eight years, primarily working with high-impact and highly driven adults.
Ryan is also an accomplished trainer, providing professional development for other mental health practitioners in areas such as Ethics, TeleCounseling, Crisis Response, Adolescent Development, sexual behavior issues, and Business Development. He is passionate about helping therapists develop the skills to work effectively within their communities while maintaining their integrity and sense of self.
On a personal note, Ryan has been happily married for 24 years and is the proud father of four children.
Understanding the Loneliness of Success
Ryan’s journey began around 2016 or 2017 when he encountered a client who, despite being attractive, wealthy, and the youngest CEO in her company’s history, felt profoundly lonely and isolated. She confided that everyone around her was either a potential client or an employee, leaving her without genuine connections or people she could truly talk to. This sparked Ryan’s realization of the profound loneliness experienced by successful individuals. Over time, his client base grew to include others in similar high-stakes situations, like a client living a high six-figure lifestyle who feared losing everything if his business failed, as his relationships seemed contingent on his financial success. Ryan’s work has since expanded, addressing the emotional and relational challenges faced by those in high-pressure, high-reward roles.
Inside the Minds of High Achievers
Ryan discusses the profound isolation and extreme anxiety experienced by high-achieving and highly driven individuals. They often withdraw from others and are incredibly self-critical. To prepare for his presentation, Ryan interviewed over 45 such clients, including musicians and actors, who frequently expressed a significant inferiority complex. Their success is often fueled not by a desire to succeed but by a fear of failure and a need to compensate for past inadequacies. For example, a Grammy award-winning musician from Nashville shared that his drive stems from trying to prove wrong the negative messages he received from his parents as a child, despite recognizing at 50 years old that he will never fully compensate for those early criticisms. This constant need for reassurance and validation highlights the pervasive feelings of inferiority among high achievers.
Navigating Therapy for High Achievers
Ryan observes that while high-achieving individuals face issues similar to those of “regular folks,” the scale and expectations are vastly different. These individuals have spent their lives directing others, which impacts their approach to therapy. CEOs, NFL referees, and other high achievers consistently emphasize the need for therapists to be bold, confident, and direct problem solvers rather than diagnosticians. They are less interested in emotional exploration and more focused on practical solutions to issues affecting their families and, consequently, their businesses and incomes.
Ryan also learned that to attract high-net-worth clients, therapists must distinguish themselves from mainstream services. A successful friend advised him to avoid conventional advertising venues, which cater to the general public, and instead target exclusive platforms such as private plane magazines, fashion week publications, and wealth-driven websites. This approach positions therapists as consultants aiming to improve clients’ lives and businesses rather than addressing perceived personal deficiencies.
Confidentiality and Practical Solutions: An Approach with High-Achieving Clients
Ryan emphasizes the critical importance of confidentiality for high-achieving clients, noting that many feel isolated because everyone around them is a client, customer, or employee. This isolation makes confidentiality and secrecy paramount. Almost all his clients prefer unmarked offices without any identifying signage to maintain their privacy. This is particularly important for clients in political positions, where any information could be used against them.
These clients generally prefer not to receive diagnoses, as they typically pay cash and do not require insurance, which removes the need for diagnostic labels. Their therapy is often goal-driven and short-term, focused on overcoming specific hurdles rather than ongoing treatment. Once a particular issue is resolved, they may not return until they face another significant challenge. Ryan’s clients seek direct, practical solutions rather than traditional therapeutic exploration.
Navigating Stability and Trust for High-Achieving Clients
Ryan notes that while high-achieving clients often initially seek therapy for specific, immediate issues, many eventually realize they have deeper matters they want to address. These clients typically lead highly stable lives and cannot afford a breakdown, making them wary of opening wounds they can’t quickly heal. Trust is key: once they trust that therapy won’t disrupt their business or family, they become more willing to explore underlying issues. This process of establishing stability and trust is similar to that of other clients, but the stakes are higher due to the potential fallout if their lives were to destabilize.
Breaking Stereotypes: Ryan on Understanding High-Achieving Clients
Ryan emphasizes the profound impact of judgment felt by high-achieving clients from the rest of the world, including therapists. Many clients express guilt and frustration when their feelings of depression, fear, or anxiety are dismissed because of their wealth. They often hear responses like, “You have so much money; what could you possibly be sad about?” This dismissive attitude overlooks the reality that wealth does not shield them from personal problems and can sometimes exacerbate them.
Ryan highlights the importance of allowing these clients to be genuinely open and honest in therapy without judgment. Recognizing that money doesn’t equate to happiness and can even lead to bigger problems is crucial for therapists working with this population. This understanding fosters a supportive environment where clients feel safe to explore their issues.
Gordon Brewer: Well, hello everyone. And welcome to the podcast again. And I'm happy for you to get to know today, Ryan Forbes.
Welcome Ryan.
Ryan Forbes: Thank you.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah. Yeah, it's good to have you here. And Ryan, as I start with everyone, why don't you tell folks a little more about yourself and how you've landed where you've landed?
Ryan Forbes: Yeah. So my name is Ryan Forbes. I'm an LPC in Louisiana. I'm also licensed in Texas and Florida. So, basically, the, where I landed was I've, I've realized that working with highly driven and high achieving clients is kind of a group of people that in a lot of ways has not, not necessarily been ignored, but a lot of people don't realize how much of a minority they are in the world and how, how much this truly is a need area that LPCs and other psych mental health professionals, I think, have largely You know, it's been, it's become an underserved population, which is, you know, something that I find interesting.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah. Yeah. So is it, I know you've done, as we were chatting about at the beginning, before we started recording, you've done some presentations just around this whole, whole idea of working with highly driven, you know, people. And shout out to our, our friend, Lisa mustard, who kind of helped us get connected, but what are, what are some things that come to mind with for you and just, what are the things that you like for people to know about that particular niche?
Ryan Forbes: Well, so the reason I started this all started when I had a client and it was around 2016, 2017, I had a client come in. And she told me, she's like, I'm attractive, I'm wealthy, I'm successful, I'm the youngest CEO of this company in history, and I'm miserable. She's like, there's nobody I can talk to, everybody is a potential client, or a potential customer, or they work for me.
She's like, I have nobody that I can talk to, everybody that I talk to is, is not real with me, because they don't want to upset me, they don't want to hurt a potential relationship. So that's kind of where this started was with that client. And then since then, it's kind of grown to where I have a lot of clients.
I have a client that's, you know, in the high six figure kind of lifestyle. And he's terrified, you know, if his business ever fails, he loses his marriage. He loses his wife. He loses his family because he realizes that all of that relationship is transactional based on his income. So it's, That's really how it got started.
It just kind of grew from there.
Gordon Brewer: Well, so what are you besides just being feeling isolated, what are the other kind of issues that you notice with that particular population or the particular niche?
Ryan Forbes: Yeah. So there's, there's a lot of isolation, extremely high anxiety, you know, withdrawn from a lot of folks.
They, they tend to be extremely hard on themselves. I asked a You know, so to conduct this presentation that I did, I spoke to over 45 people that fit what I call high achieving and highly driven clients. And a number of the things that they, that I heard from, you know, particularly from the more artistic style, like the musicians and the actors and things like that, was that they have a huge inferiority complex.
And a lot of their success is not driven by the desire to succeed. It's driven by the desire not to fail and a lot of making up for it. I spoke to a Grammy award winning musician in Nashville who talked about, you know, a lot of his drive. was to make up for what his parents told him he wasn't when he was a kid.
And he's 50 years old now and telling me it's like, right, I realized I'm never going to make up for that. But it's a constant need of reassurance and constant need, you know, to feel like they're better than what they were before.
Gordon Brewer: A lot
Ryan Forbes: of a lot of inferiority.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah, yeah, it's yeah. And as you have kind of developed this niche where where are your clients coming from?
I guess is a good question. You know, it's I'm sure all over. It sounds like.
Ryan Forbes: Yeah. So right now I have a couple right where I live in Louisiana. I have a couple in New Orleans two from Orlando, and then I'm working on getting my license in Oklahoma and they'll have one that's moving to Oklahoma shortly.
So it is, they kind of, most of the referrals I would say come from other clients, you know, like you usually see that they usually self refer from other people or refer from other people.
Gordon Brewer: Huh. Yeah. Yeah.
Ryan Forbes: You don't tend to find me online. So
Gordon Brewer: right, right. Yeah. So yeah. So tell us tell us more about how you you said a little bit about it, but how did you get interested in this particular niche and just how, because I don't know that I've ever run into anybody else that works specifically with highly driven clients.
And I'm sure you work with. With other folks as well, but I mean, just, yeah, what got your interest in all of this?
Ryan Forbes: Well, a number of years ago, like after I had that conversation with that, that client, I kind of started researching and kind of, you know, so I got introduced to, to words like ultra high net worth individuals and people in that, in that frame of thinking and in realizing how much of a minority they must be in to be in the 1 percent or the 5 percent or even a 10%.
So I started researching and started looking into, and I met a therapist in New York that this is his whole niche is he works with ultra high net worth individuals. When I spoke to him a couple of months ago, or sorry, about six months ago. And the way that he described what he has is, you know, most of his clients are CEOs, celebrities, business owners, and minor royalty.
And at the current, at the time that we were talking, he was charged in 1, 000 an hour. Wow. To see the clients. He, he developed what he was called, what he would call walk and talk therapy. So this is Clay Cockerell who, who works in New York. He lives in Kentucky.
Gordon Brewer: I know Clay. Yeah.
Ryan Forbes: Yeah. So I talked to him and he just had a completely different way of looking at the world.
And he was a fascinating individual and talking about how these people have the same needs as everybody else's. It's just on different scales. You know, they have, they have million dollar problems versus a hundred dollar problems. And if they're not doing well, their business goes down and if their business goes down, other things go down, you know, we're not for the most part for the other 80 percent of us are 90 percent of us.
We're worried about our everyday jobs. They're not just worried about their everyday jobs. They're worried about if their business fails, they have 1000 employees that no longer have jobs or, you know, their whole lifestyle is gone. If I lost my income today. I could go find a regular Joe job and replace it.
If you're a multimillionaire and you lose your job, it's hard to find a regular Joe job to replace that income. So their stress level is wildly different. So if this may help explain it a little bit. So the way I developed this presentation was I talked to 45 different people through all over the world about, about this population.
So people that I identified. So this was my own definition. I may be wrong, but of what I consider high achieving, highly driven clients. I spoke to 45 different people. So I spoke to two professional athletes. I spoke to professional musicians a number of mental health professionals, lots of CEOs and business folks.
And I did, I developed it more from the idea of not necessarily what do I see, but what do these folks want to know? You know, so one of the questions that I asked is how did you get where you are, like what made you, what made you successful and then what does your success mean for therapy? Like, what do, what do you want therapists to know about how you work and how you're different than other people?
So that, that was kind of how I developed the presentation. It took me two or three years, but my first conversation with Clay was probably 2018, 2019 and it just kind of rolled from there. Yeah.
Gordon Brewer: Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So again, what what are you see as the biggest, biggest struggle points besides, I guess, maybe being hard on themselves, inferiority, kind of, kinds of things that you, you notice with this population is it that much different than what we see in regular, regular folks, so to speak?
Ryan Forbes: I think it's very, it's probably very similar. And what you see with regular folks per se, but it's just on a wildly different scale,
Gordon Brewer: you know,
Ryan Forbes: and also their expectations are, are much higher. So a lot of these people, they, they expect tremendous things out of themselves. They spent most of their lives, you know, most of their adult working lives, at least telling people what to do and how to behave and how to react.
So how does that apply to therapy? And one, the overarching frame or a thing that I heard from. You know, CEOs, I spoke to an NFL referee and, you know, like people that had high achieving jobs and the overarching phrase or thing that kept on coming up was you're the expert, be bold, be confident. And we need direct, we don't need a diagnosis.
We just need wave. It's a problem solving. We need like a lot of these folks were not really interested in the quote unquote touchy feely. You know, they were more interested in my wife's breaking down. My husband's breaking down. It's hurting my family. And this in turn is hurting my income and let's see if we can fix so we can move on.
Gordon Brewer: So
Ryan Forbes: it's a lot of the same issues, but it's just larger scales there. Their downtime equates to profit loss for stakeholders.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah,
Ryan Forbes: you know, things like that. It's just bigger scales,
Gordon Brewer: right? If somebody were thinking of maybe trying to go into this niche What would be ways for them to begin doing that?
Ryan Forbes: So a lot of the people that I talked to their their their Suggestions were talking to other people like letting them know that you're you're seeking this type of client that you kind of are looking To be almost more of a consultant kind of role You're not working with the expectation that there's something wrong with them, but you're looking to see, Hey, can we help you improve?
Can we have, you know, like, can your marriage get better or your business get better? And if counseling helps that, let's give that a try. They, there is a lot of conversation of not looking for typical places to advertise. So like a friend of mine was telling me that a very successful friend of mine was telling me that he wouldn't use me as a therapist.
And I was like, why is that? And he's like, cause you're a Walmart therapist. I was like, okay, keep talking. And he's like, you advertise the same place that everybody else does. You charge the same thing everybody else does. He's like, I wouldn't work with you because you're not different. You're just an average Walmart therapist.
So we talked about it. I was like, okay, where should I advertise? He's like, you should look for private plane advertisements, or advertising private plane magazines. Look for your, your fashion week magazines. Look for the websites that are more dedicated to wealth and success and business driven things, not towards the populace, but get into more, I don't want to call it elite, that sounds wrong, but more cash, like business driven magazines or, or wealth driven magazines was a lot of his, of his advertisements or his advertising suggestions.
Gordon Brewer: Right. So, yeah. And thinking about that, what would be Putting on my kind of my marketing hat and just thinking about, you know, for therapists for us to be able to get our message out there, we need to be able to kind of put into words, how we help people, what's the transformation that we can create for people.
So as you think about working with this particular niche, what is the transformation that you offer for them? That they're looking for
Ryan Forbes: so the one thing that I see More than almost anything with clients like this is that it gives them a place that they can talk Where there's not a lot of judgment.
There's not a lot of he said she said there's it's just a completely open non biased non judgmental listening ear
Gordon Brewer: That I
Ryan Forbes: think it's the first thing that clients can do or therapists can do for a client like this Because like I said at the beginning the one woman that I started with You Very much.
There's nobody I can talk to. Everybody's a client. Everybody's a customer. They work for me or they could work for me. You know, there's nobody I can talk to. And that, that was a big deal. So confidentiality is huge. Most, almost every person I'm trying to like, I'm pausing because I'm trying to think if there was anybody, I don't think there was a single person.
I think everybody said that they would prefer the offices being not marked and to not say, you know, Ryan Forbes counseling office. But they would prefer it just as much be an unmarked office or an unknown name. So the confidentiality is huge. Secrecy is huge. Anything that can be used against them, because many of these clients, I have a number of clients that are political
Gordon Brewer: and
Ryan Forbes: anything that can be used against them politics wise could, could look negative.
Gordon Brewer: So
Ryan Forbes: that's a big deal. Like super secrecy is something that needs to be done. They aren't looking for diagnosis. That was a big statement for every single one of them there. Cause they're like, well, for all, for their benefit and the therapist benefit, they're typically going to pay cash. So there's not an insurance need to diagnose.
Gordon Brewer: So
Ryan Forbes: that that's helpful. And they don't want the diagnosis either.
Gordon Brewer: Right.
Ryan Forbes: Most of it is goal driven. They're not going to be there a long time. It's, this is happening. This is going on. And once we get over this hurdle, I'll see you in a year, whenever I get another hurdle. But it's lots of hurdle driven things.
Yeah, that answer your question.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah, I think so. I think so and it sounds like really with this this particular niche too Is that it is at least in my mind akin More to coaching with people About things rather than doing kind of deep dig in kind of therapy Right.
Ryan Forbes: Yeah, it is But there's one thing that's important to say to that.
So with most of these clients that I have work, it's similar to that. What has happened a lot of times is they realize four or five, six session ends sessions in that there are other things that they want to talk about, and there are other things that they want to dig into. So a lot of folks that are in this, their life is so it has to be stable, you know, and so not not to over exaggerate the statement, but they don't have time for a breakdown.
Yeah. So they don't want to open up wounds that they can't close back up quickly. Once they, once they realize that they can trust me and that their business will still function if they're in counseling and that they're not, their family's not going to fall apart, then they do want to go into the deeper issues, but it takes a lot of getting stability
Gordon Brewer: and that
Ryan Forbes: everything else is going to be okay.
Gordon Brewer: And again,
Ryan Forbes: that's not, that's not different than any other client. It's just based on their level of. How much need they have, and if their life falls apart, quote unquote, their fallout is really big,
Gordon Brewer: right? Right. Yeah. And that's yeah. And so I would think with high profile clients like that, they've are, they've already kind of conditioned themselves to, to be kind of wary of, wary of who to trust and knowing what you know, what the, who they can talk to and who they can share information with and what information they can share.
Yeah.
Ryan Forbes: Right. Yeah. Cause a lot of them, I had one mid conversation the other day, stop and say, wait, I can't tell you this is, this is a trade secret
Gordon Brewer: or
Ryan Forbes: this is part of a gag order. This is part of, you know, and one of the fascinating things is I tell them like, this is maybe the only place that you can say that.
This is maybe the only place that you can be open about X, Y, and Z particularly care about that you're going to sell this widget or that widget. It makes no difference to me,
Gordon Brewer: but
Ryan Forbes: I see why you don't want to tell your competitors or your coworkers, but that's, that's not my world. So being that is a really big deal for them, because like I said earlier, everybody.
Everybody I spoke to, one of the frustrations was all their friends are either competitors, colleagues, people in the field. When you work 80, 90, 75 hours a week, your friend zone is pretty small. And the people that understand you are coworking. Well, you can't have open conversations with all your coworkers.
I had one, one man tell me that, you know, you don't want your employees, you don't want to complain to your employees about how hard it is to start a business. You know, because they're the ones that are working for you, you know, so you're, It's a pretty marginalized group up here that they can talk to you,
Gordon Brewer: right?
Ryan Forbes: So being that person is really big deal.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's Ryan, this is fascinating stuff and i've got to be respectful of your time. What are some kind of parting thoughts or things that you would want people to know more about with all of this?
Ryan Forbes: I think that the most impactful thing of all these conversations is was how much this group of people feel judged by the rest of the world.
And that is something that I think therapists are really guilty of. So most of my clients come in and they'll say, you know, I feel bad about doing this. And every time I tell somebody that I'm depressed or scared or anxious, all they say is you have so much money. What in the world are you sad about? Why can't you?
And, you know, so not Not looking at this population is how in the world do they have problems? They're multimillionaires
Gordon Brewer: or
Ryan Forbes: how in the world does she have a terrible marriage? She's married to a billionaire, you know, and that's, that's a big thing is the realization that money does not buy them happiness.
Sometimes it buys them bigger problems.
Gordon Brewer: Right.
Ryan Forbes: So allowing them to be really, really open and really, really honest is a really big deal.
Gordon Brewer: Right. Well, this has been great, Ryan. How can folks get in touch with you if they want to find out more and talk with you about any of this?
Ryan Forbes: I would love it if they would just email me.
So it's just ryan@ryanforbeslpc.com
Gordon Brewer: okay. Well, Ryan, great to have you with me. I hope we can chat again before too long.
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