The Smart Funny Tortured Origin Story: How It All Began
People always ask me, “Where did Smart Funny Tortured come from?”
To answer that, I have to take you back five years ago—to a moment that was raw, humbling, and, in hindsight, transformative.
The Breaking Point: A Coffee Cup Full of Red Wine
At the time, I was coming out of a brutally bad period. I had been drinking—not socially, not casually, but destructively—and I had reached a point where I couldn’t ignore it anymore.
I remember vividly one of my lowest moments.
I was drinking red wine out of a coffee cup way too early in the day. Not just any cup—one that was dark red on the inside so you couldn’t see what was in it. And I wasn’t just drinking it—I was even blowing on it, pretending it was hot.
Like that made it okay.
Then my wife caught me.
That moment—it wasn’t just embarrassing. It was devastating. I saw myself in stark relief, and I couldn’t unsee it. I knew I had a problem. And for the first time, I was ready to do something about it.
So I reached out. I called some of my most trusted, beloved friends. And one of them, a person who knew the terrain of transformation, connected me with a master coach—someone who understood addiction, because he’d walked that road himself.
The Retreat That Changed Everything
I booked a three-day intensive one-on-one retreat with him in Santa Cruz.
I had never worked with a coach before—I had no idea what to expect. But I was open, because I knew I had to be.
And let me tell you: it was brutal. It was powerful. It was overwhelming.
I left that retreat feeling two things at once:
1️⃣ Hope—because I saw a version of myself that could heal.
2️⃣ Dread—because I saw how fucking far I had to go.
One exercise in particular shattered me.
How Do You See Me?
My coach had me make a list of ten people who knew me well. Friends, family—people who had witnessed my highs and my lows.
Then he gave me a script and told me to call them.
📞 The script:
"I’m at a retreat doing personal development. Can I ask you one question? You can’t ask me anything back—I’ll explain later. But I just need to know: How do you see me?"
That was it. Just one question.
And let me tell you—people had wildly different reactions.
Some of them were skeptical:
"What the hell are you doing? What kind of woo-woo shit is this?"
But others? Others gave me pure, unfiltered truth.
Some answers made me laugh. And some—some brought me to tears.
Hearing how the people closest to me truly saw me, with no filter, no pretense, no defenses—that was one of the most powerful moments of my life.
The Moment Smart Funny Tortured Was Born
At the end of the retreat, my coach looked at me and said something I didn’t expect.
"You’re a mentor. You’d be a great coach yourself."
I laughed. I brushed it off. Yeah, maybe years from now.
Then he asked me:
"If you were a coach… who would you work with?"
And, without even thinking, the words just came out of me:
"Smart. Funny. Tortured. People."
I had never put those three words together before in my life. But the second I said them, I knew.
Those were my people.
I knew them.
I was them.
That moment—offhand, unexpected, unscripted—became the foundation of everything.
From Brand to Movement
When I started my coaching practice three years later, I remembered that moment.
At first, Smart Funny Tortured was just a brand. A tagline. A label.
But over time, it became something much bigger.
It became a flag for those of us who feel different—for those who are brilliant, joyful, and deeply wounded all at once.
It became a movement for people who know they are capable of so much more, but who feel boxed in by work, school, relationships, society—systems that force us to fit into a single, narrow lane.
Breaking It Down: What Smart, Funny, and Tortured Really Mean
Let’s clear this up—Smart doesn’t mean IQ.
It’s your acumen, your skills, your talent, your learned experience. It’s that thing you know how to do that nobody else can quite do like you.
It’s like the nurse who walks into a hospital room and, without checking a single chart, just knows: this patient is in trouble. That’s years of knowledge, intuition, and emotional intelligence fused together.
And Funny?
Funny is flow state. It’s joy, pleasure, the thing that makes life lighter.
It’s not about telling jokes. It’s about knowing where to find lightness and where to give it to others.
We are at our funniest, happiest, and most alive when we are in a state of flow. When we are with the right people. When we feel free.
And then there’s Tortured.
Tortured is desire. Shame. Trauma.
Most people? Their Tortured side is inflamed—it’s the basketball next to the two golf balls of Smart and Funny. It dominates. It warps. It overwhelms.
That’s why we feel agitated, stuck, frustrated, even enraged.
My mission?
To help people bring that into balance.
Because when Smart, Funny, and Tortured work in harmony—holy shit.
That’s you at your full potential.
That’s power.
The Real Goal Isn’t Perfection—It’s Honesty
This isn’t about being the “ultimate healthy person.”
It’s about being the ultimate honest person.
Honest about what you know.
Honest about what lights you up.
Honest about what you carry.
So that the next time you sit down with a coach, therapist, mentor, or guide, you don’t show up asking them to help you find yourself.
You show up saying:
"I know who I am. Now, I just need to refine it."
That’s the journey.
That’s Smart Funny Tortured.
Your Turn: How Do You See Yourself?
I want to hear from you.
📌 Which one resonates most with you right now—Smart, Funny, or Tortured?
📌 What does balance look like for you?
Drop a comment, shoot me a DM, or join the SFT community—because this isn’t just a story.
It’s a movement.
🔥 Like this? Keep the conversation going.
📥 Get the FREE Smart Funny Tortured Self-Audit—10 mins to map your three elements and find your essence: https://smartfunnytortured.kit.com/4a3cbd8e1e
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