Y'all know that when I talk about what it means to have an Ideal Practice, I’m talking about building a private practice that is ideal for you. And of course, that's very different from one person to the next.
But the one thing that we all have in common, is that we want to make money, good money. And we want to do so in a way that feels good, and is in alignment with who we are.
That’s exactly what today’s guest, Dr. Ajita Robinson, has done. And how she’s done it is nothing short of inspiring.
Ajita is a Grief and Trauma Therapist, a bestselling author, a TEDx Speaker, and an Income Strategist, along with many other achievements.
More than anything, though, she’s building a true legacy of mental health care that is impacting lives across the U.S., while still having a life of her own.
In this episode, you’ll hear about her journey, all the way from trauma survivor to the incredible success of building an 8 figure practice. (!)
And the coolest part is that she’s doing this in a really unique way that I’ve not heard much about before: a powerful combination of smart strategic thinking, building the right relationships, and leveraging the power of contracts and grants.
My hope is that this will inspire you to think differently as well.
But perhaps more than anything, I want you to hear what she did once she realized she was out of alignment with her own values in what had been a really successful career. There’s a story there that you’re going to love.
Isn't it funny how, when you’re being called to a certain path, the universe keeps bringing you back to it over and over and over again? 🤔
Yep.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
I am SO not kidding when I tell you that you are in for a treat. And yes, I know I say that all the time, but you really are in for a treat!
I can’t wait for you to hear this!
~Wendy
Xoxo
P.S. pppsssst…Have you heard about this?
I am in the middle of developing a structured mastermind specifically for advanced practice owners, and I’m wondering if that might be you. I explained what a Mastermind is and how it works in Episode 44.
You might be working way too many hours, facing burnout, and looking for a better way. Or, you might be feeling pretty good about things and ready to grow, but hold back because it feels like So Much Work. You might just be tired of trying to figure out everything all by yourself.
Maybe it’s time to get some help. Maybe it’s time to find your tribe. 🖤
I am putting together a small cohort of practitioners for a 7 month mastermind with a purpose. This is not a small thing; it’s an investment in your practice, and in your Self. But it is a cool thing. If you’d like to know more, click here to get all the details.
Wendy Pitts Reeves, LCSW
Host, Ideal Practice
Private Practice Coach and Mentor
www.WendyPittsReeves.com
Wendy@WendyPittsReeves.com
Y'all know that when I talk about what it means to have an Ideal Practice, I’m talking about building a private practice that is ideal for you. And of course, that's very different from one person to the next.
But the one thing that we all have in common, is that we want to make money, good money. And we want to do so in a way that feels good, and is in alignment with who we are.
That’s exactly what today’s guest, Dr. Ajita Robinson, has done. And how she’s done it is nothing short of inspiring.
Ajita is a Grief and Trauma Therapist, a bestselling author, a TEDx Speaker, and an Income Strategist, along with many other achievements.
More than anything, though, she’s building a true legacy of mental health care that is impacting lives across the U.S., while still having a life of her own.
In this episode, you’ll hear about her journey, all the way from trauma survivor to the incredible success of building an 8 figure practice. (!)
And the coolest part is that she’s doing this in a really unique way that I’ve not heard much about before: a powerful combination of smart strategic thinking, building the right relationships, and leveraging the power of contracts and grants.
My hope is that this will inspire you to think differently as well.
But perhaps more than anything, I want you to hear what she did once she realized she was out of alignment with her own values in what had been a really successful career. There’s a story there that you’re going to love.
Isn't it funny how, when you’re being called to a certain path, the universe keeps bringing you back to it over and over and over again? 🤔
Yep.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
I am SO not kidding when I tell you that you are in for a treat. And yes, I know I say that all the time, but you really are in for a treat!
I can’t wait for you to hear this!
~Wendy
Xoxo
P.S. pppsssst…Have you heard about this?
I am in the middle of developing a structured mastermind specifically for advanced practice owners, and I’m wondering if that might be you. I explained what a Mastermind is and how it works in Episode 44.
You might be working way too many hours, facing burnout, and looking for a better way. Or, you might be feeling pretty good about things and ready to grow, but hold back because it feels like So Much Work. You might just be tired of trying to figure out everything all by yourself.
Maybe it’s time to get some help. Maybe it’s time to find your tribe. 🖤
I am putting together a small cohort of practitioners for a 7 month mastermind with a purpose. This is not a small thing; it’s an investment in your practice, and in your Self. But it is a cool thing. If you’d like to know more, click here to get all the details.
Wendy Pitts Reeves, LCSW
Host, Ideal Practice
Private Practice Coach and Mentor
www.WendyPittsReeves.com
Wendy@WendyPittsReeves.com
You're listening to Ideal Practice, episode number 93. Today, you get to meet Dr Ajeda Robinson. This is a woman with a story that's going to touch your heart and a practice that will inspire you to think in a whole new way. I didn't know her before this interview or before this experience, but I'm so glad I got to meet this beautiful human being, and you'll be glad too. So stay tuned. Hi, I'm Wendy Pitts Reeves and, with over two decades of experience in the private practice world, I've built my six figure business while learning a lot of lessons the hard way. This is the first podcast that shows you how to apply the principles of energy alignment and strategy to build a practice that is profit centered, but people forward. This is the Ideal Practice.
Speaker 2:Podcast.
Speaker 1:Hey guys, and thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of Ideal Practice. This is Wendy. Wendy Pitts Reeves your host. We are heading into a new moon, I believe, as I record this, and that makes me wonder what's new with you guys. What new ideas are being birthed in your life or in your work as we enter these next few weeks? What new opportunities are right in front of you, just waiting for you to connect the dots, see what's possible and take imperfect action.
Speaker 1:As I am recording this, I have quite a few things in the works, actually, and I can't wait to talk to you about all that. But you know what? I'm going to save all that for another time, because I have someone really special that I want to introduce you to. So let me tell you about Dr Ajena Robinson. So Dr Robinson is known as the Experts Therapist. She's a grief and trauma therapist, an award winning and best selling author of the Gift of Grief, a practical guide in navigating loss. She's a TEDx speaker, an international speaker and, what's special for us today, an income strategist, and by the end of this interview, you will understand what that means. She's been seen in places like Good Morning Washington, headspace, wall Street Journal, huffpo, the Washington Post, cnbc and Therapy for Black Girls. After serving as a grief and trauma expert for over a decade, she began to leverage her years of clinical experience and a previous career as a corporate consultant You're going to hear about that to launch a mental health practice and scale it to eight figures. You heard me right eight figures. She is a first generation trauma and poverty disruptor who helps mental health entrepreneurs create living legacies and financial freedom while helping communities heal.
Speaker 1:And I know what it sounds like when you hear a bio like that. It sounds quite polished, it sounds almost a little bit over the top, it sounds like somebody you might not be able to relate to and you're even maybe a little bit skeptical of. But I'll tell you, after hanging out with her now for a couple of times and different phone calls and conversations, she's the deal, she's the real deal and her story explains exactly how she got to where she is today. And the cool part, what she's doing has some very specific strategies that you could implement if you wanted to. That could be pretty life changing, not just for you, but for everyone you do business with. I love this story. I love where she came from, I love what she has to share and I'm blown away, honestly, by just the sheer business skill that this woman brings to the table. So enough of that. Let me introduce her to you, and with that let's get in to the interview.
Speaker 1:Hello everyone and welcome. This is Wendy. Thank you so much for tuning back into another episode of Ideal Practice. You guys know how much I love hanging out with you every week because this is the highlight of my week, and today I am so not kidding when I tell you that you are in for a treat. I know I say that all the time, but you really are in for a treat. You already heard a little bit in the intro about my guest, dr Ajeda Robinson. Wait till you meet the real thing y'all. We are going to talk about a whole new way of thinking about your practice. That I think it's kind of mind blowing and I think you're going to love this. So let me just say hello, dr Robinson. Ajeda, come on on and say hi.
Speaker 2:Hi Wendy, Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to have this conversation and just to get an opportunity to talk to your community as well. So thank you so much for the opportunity.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. We have had a time getting here. I tell you, we've had lots of scheduling and stuff and all kinds of things. And here we are, and during our we had a pre-call where I wanted to learn a little bit more about you and I was telling you that I had to go back and watch that again because I was so impressed by it. I didn't even take notes Normally I take notes, but there were so many goodies that I just thought I'm not even going to write this down, I'm just going to go back and watch it because it was so good. So let's start. Let's kind of set the stage. Tell everybody just a little bit about where you are, who you are, what do you do, who do you? What I like to say is who do you help and how do you help them? Let's do that.
Speaker 2:Yes, so I am in Bethesda, maryland. I'm a Midwest girl, so originally from St Louis, missouri. When I get excited, that accent comes right out. So that's it. I'm a group practice owner, so I have a large group practice here in the Maryland area, but we also have a clinician station in about seven states now. I think last time we talked we were in six, seven states, we have seven.
Speaker 2:We have clinicians in seven states Okay, I didn't know that and our team is a little north of 150 clinicians. We have admin team members, we are co-located in, we have our main office and then we're co-located in OBGYN, pediatric, cairo and speech pathology offices. We're up to 17 and a couple more contracts underway. So that's what I do on the clinical side. I'm a grief and trauma therapist and so from a direct practice perspective, I'll actually work with first generation poverty disruptors and trauma survivors. That's clinically what I do.
Speaker 1:First generation poverty disruptors. Yes, I'm a first-gen kid.
Speaker 2:And trauma survivors, and so some of those are first responders, and so I work quite a bit with law enforcement officers, other physicians, but the commonality is that they are likely the first to disrupt both poverty, education, what have you and that in and of itself comes with some grief and trauma. So that's what I do clinically On the consulting side of my business. I am an income strategist, and so I was trained to broker business-to-business partnerships, and so I help mental health professionals leverage their brilliance beyond direct practice, and so, whether that means securing school contracts, working with universities, government entities, corporations, creating courses, you name it the diversification piece about how we can take what we do in one-on-one and bring it to many to impact more lives while building financial stability for ourselves, and so that's the thing that I absolutely love to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, OK, so that was a mouthful. Did y'all catch all that? Yes, so you are an income strategist for business owners, for private practice and business owners diversifying their income in lots of different ways, which we're going to talk about. But also that you have yourself 150-something clinicians. Who are in how many sites? 17 sites you have 17 sites. 17 sites, yes, how located in seven states where you have therapists that are housed inside the offices of a pediatrician, ob-gyn, chiropractic and speech pathology. That's new. You didn't have that last time I talked to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we just signed that one.
Speaker 1:I love that. And you're doing all of that at the same time and you still do some direct practice. Do you still see yourself? You're still seeing clients.
Speaker 2:I do One day a week I see clients, and so that's that part, I think, just keeps me fresh. Yeah, I get that.
Speaker 1:I do the same thing. I do, yeah, man, wow, ok, so I don't think we need to say anything else. There you go, ok. No, we can't do that. Colleen. So many questions, ok. So clearly you have a huge practice setup that is doing lots of creative work in a very different kind of way. That whole idea of co-locating is not something you hear about very often. Tell us a little bit. Do you mind taking us back a little bit and tell us your backstory? How the heck did you get here? Why have you always been a therapist? You haven't always been a therapist. You have a story before that? Yeah, tell us a little bit about your transition into the clinical world and then let's talk about how the heck, how you built this thing you've got. Yeah, let's do that.
Speaker 2:So I always say kicking and screaming. I became a therapist kicking and screaming. And it's interesting because I should have seen it because both of my parents are in mental health. My dad has always worked for a mental health association in Missouri, but on the administrative sides of things, and then my mom is a substance abuse counselor, but she wasn't when I was a kid, right. So because I'm the first in my family to graduate college and so I graduated before her, but it was always kind of there, right, and big proponents of mental health. But when I was in high school I met this amazing psychologist and I was like, oh, I had actually never met another. I had never met a black woman doctor ever.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, my experience and I was like oh, so I was fascinated with her and I didn't know folks that had personally, that had gone to college, right, and so that was like exposure. And then she was a doctor and I was absolutely enamored and I had always had this knack for helping people. My friends would tell me I have a listening face. That was something that was happening right.
Speaker 1:A listening face, that's cute.
Speaker 2:And I was like now, my expressions are louder than I would like them to be sometimes, but anyway. So I did my undergrad in business and psychology. I had done enough. I'm a data girl, right. So I had done enough research to realize that the bachelor's in psychology would not be sufficient. And then you had an undergrad in business and psychology. Yes, I did so like a double major. Is that what you did? Okay, got it.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay.
Speaker 2:And I realized that my business degree would like provide stability for me while I pursued the doctorate, because I knew that at that point I had figured out the yes, that's what I want to do. I thought I was going to do the medical route and then did an externship and realized really quickly that's actually not the route I wanted to go, which led me back to the PhD route, and so I finished my undergrad. While I'm in undergrad, I am a pharmaceutical sales rep and that full-time job is paying for my undergraduate degree. Wow, and my main job is to get my prescriptions into doctor's offices.
Speaker 1:And so.
Speaker 2:I don't like driving, but I like people, right. And this is when ZipterMax first came to the market and some other meds that first came to the market.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, this is a really good story. I do want to hear the story, that's right.
Speaker 2:And so, once the drugs that had just come to the market was Viagra, and mind you. I'm 18 years old. I am 18 years old, right.
Speaker 1:You were a pharmaceutical sales rep at 18.
Speaker 2:As a pharmaceutical sales rep at 18. It started off as an internship and then I did so well that they offered me a position, and so I'm 18. I get my first car. Like I don't know how to drive, I run over my boss's mailbox. I think I'm going to get fired, right. So when I say my accident, I absolutely mean that right, literally Functional hotness. He doesn't fire me, but I have to drive to like hundreds of doctor's offices to get them to take my prescriptions. And I want to remind you that these are drugs that people don't know yet. We know them now, like ZPAC and Viagra and Norvask and Lipitor, but they were brand new drugs. So I had what you would say at the time were untested products. Right, they just weren't household names at the time. And so my goal is actually to not have to drive, and so I learned that I can actually.
Speaker 1:Now, where were you? Were you in DC? I was in Missouri. Oh, I was in Missouri.
Speaker 2:I had never driven on the highway. I was afraid to drive when it was raining and like snow was definitely out of bounds, right. And so I'm like, oh, I need to get a promotion to be an institutional hospital rep, because then I only have to drive to one location, the hospital, right, which actually was within walking distances, so I actually didn't want to drive at all.
Speaker 2:I was planning to walk to work. This is how driving the first I was, but my motivation was to not drive. That piece is important, and so what ends up happening is I go into this oncologist's office and I'm standing behind the glass screen because they haven't let me back yet, and I'm talking to the front office receptionist about Viagra and he and was this a cold?
Speaker 1:call. It was a cold call, completely cold, so you literally walked in off the street, walked in off the street. Hi, I'm the 18-year-old who doesn't want to drive and I want to talk to you about Viagra, what?
Speaker 2:And she slid her frosted glass over to look like to talk to me. And I'm five foot two, so I'm barely above this counter anyway, right. And so again, pain, the same right. So he steps back and he looks through the window and he's like what did you say? And I was like, oh, I have Viagra. And he's like how old are you? And I don't know, I'm not aware enough to know that he probably shouldn't be asking me my age right?
Speaker 1:Was this the receptionist that was doing this?
Speaker 2:This is now the physician. This is now the doctor that's asking me this. I was talking to the receptionist. He heard me say erectile dysfunction. It's like what did you say? And I was like, oh, it's me, I have Viagra, right. And so he's like, no, how old are you? And I was like, oh, I'm 18. And he's like does your mom know that you're talking about this? And I was like, yeah, she does.
Speaker 2:She's actually really proud of me, yeah that's my job Totally great, right, and I'm just excited that I'm talking to the doctor, right, and he goes come back here, and I was like, okay, like I wanted to get back there anyway.
Speaker 1:Hello, I was like I'm excited Because it was incredibly insulting that he would ask you your agent does your mom know like? Are you freaking, kidding me 100%.
Speaker 2:And yet 100% and I'm totally green, so none of this is registering that I should be offended, right? I'm happy that the doctor's talking to me and now he invited me back to the sacred space. If you get them to open that door, you are in the money, and he said. He says and this was pivotal he says if I get my colleagues to take your prescriptions because that's what I needed to do was to get them to take my prescriptions and then give the samples out to their clients, which and then write a prescription for it, right, that's how that piece works. He's like if I can get my colleagues to like you, come once a week, drop your prescriptions off, will you stop talking about this?
Speaker 1:Will you stop talking about this?
Speaker 2:Stop talking about this. And I was like, yeah, yes, I will stop talking about this, hello. And he's like, great. And so we negotiate that I would come and bring lunch this was before HIPAA you could bring lunch, you could take them to golf, you could do all the things right. And he got his oncologist friends to come once a week and I would drop my prescriptions off. And so now again, remember, I don't want to drive. And so I was like, oh, I wonder if the cardiologist would mobilize something like this. And so, yes, I found a cardiologist that had influence and relationships and I would take them to golf twice a month. I still can't play golf. I would pay for golf and they would write my prescriptions, right. And so what I learned was and I did that with other specialists right. So now, instead of having to drive so hundreds of doctors' offices five days a week, I got my schedule down to two days, because I'm either providing breakfast, lunch or golf.
Speaker 1:You learn to find one person who can introduce you to everybody else and who can bring the business to you. That's great, Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And so now I have all my classes on two days, I work two days, I have a free day, even Wow, and I was the youngest institutional hospital rep that they had had ever, because, of course, this strategy led me to get a promotion. And then they're like how did you do that? And I'm like, and they're asking me, I'm talking about erectile dysplasia.
Speaker 2:I was like you know what motivated you? And I was like I don't want to drive and they're like and so my boss is like you can't say that in the training he's like what else? And I was like I really didn't want to drive, like I need you to sit and think about what else was motivating to you.
Speaker 1:And I was like all right In terms of why you wanted to be an institutional rep or yes.
Speaker 2:And which drove me to drive sales and build relationships in that way, and I was like how about? I just tell them the how and we could just like think about the why. Because I didn't want to like lie about that, right. I was like, literally I didn't want to drive on the highway in the car, right. And so what I did was I said you know, when you understand your why, you will figure out the how. And that has served me well throughout my career.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:You know, as I pivoted right and then building relationships with people is about what they care about. So for the oncologist, it was about reducing. For him, I represented his granddaughter and he just couldn't imagine her having this conversation, and so it wasn't even me, it was what I represented to him, and so for him, his motivation was different than mine. I just want you to write my prescriptions, right, and to take my samples, and he just wanted to reduce the that trigger for him, right, and I wasn't even aware of that at the time. But what I learned is that you can find what's essential to people and you can meet that need. They will give you all of the time in the world, and that is the same strategy that I've used to. You know, integrate other offices is understanding what actually matters to them and where the pain point is that we're uniquely, like capable of resolving right, and so I okay, let's highlight that.
Speaker 1:You learn to understand what their unique pain point was. Say that again, repeat that, because that was important.
Speaker 2:So what is important to them and what pain point they have that we're uniquely qualified to help solve.
Speaker 1:We are uniquely qualified to help solve, and you said that when you understand the why, you'll figure out the hell Right. Absolutely, I love that. That's absolutely true.
Speaker 2:Okay and I think that helps us stay anchored with like kind of why we're doing this and that can help us reorient when we find ourselves feeling burned out, like it may not mean that we need to leave the field, it may need to change how we're serving in it in a way that actually honors the why right. Which has to be anchored in what matters to us, and I think they're like. I learned that lesson in that space. I still don't like to drive, so that's so funny.
Speaker 1:I love driving we can hang out, I'll drive. I don't mind we're having.
Speaker 2:That's funny, I'll tell stories and I'll DJ. That's fine. And then Nestle recruited me from Pfizer, and so that was. You know, they saw what I did there and I, mind you, at this time I'm training and so I'm getting to travel all over the world not all over the world.
Speaker 1:Training who Training sales reps? Training other reps.
Speaker 2:Other reps. Okay, got it On relationship building and using relationship to drive sales. So all of this comes full circle and as like. Well, if you understand people and what matters to them and you put them first, the sales will come, because people don't like being sold to, they like being served.
Speaker 1:People don't like being golly. People don't like being sold to, they like being served. Amen, amen and amen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which aligns with my servant leader identity as a clinician, and as I lead my team, I serve them first, I don't have to worry about them also taking care of our clients. And so then Nestle recruited me and my job was to, you know, broker partnerships between you know, get us more shelf space in places like Walmart. Right, that was my you know kind of main client, my biggest client.
Speaker 1:Your job was getting chocolate on the shelves. That's what you did. Dog food.
Speaker 2:Dog food Benifold. Benifold was a premium line that was just coming out, so it was again first to market. It was unheard of. Could we serve a premium client? You know that had a shorter shelf life, higher price right, and so part of that was again understanding that we're talking to a different audience. We're not talking to people that treat their you know, their cat and their dog as pets. We're talking to people who treat them as family because they're willing to pay for the premium product and so again, understanding who we serve allows us to tailor the services to them right.
Speaker 1:Yes, this is important. Stay tuned into this because as she tells her story, you're going to see how this comes back to serve her as a clinician and as a practitioner. Because it's so good yeah.
Speaker 2:So at this point at Nestle, nestle is now paying for my masters in counseling. I have a dual masters in counseling and statistics, and so research is counseling and statistics counseling and statistics and so again.
Speaker 1:that makes my head hurt. That makes my head hurt, Okay.
Speaker 2:But also the piece around that. Like, I'm collecting degrees but I don't realize at this time that it's a trauma response, right? That also is important Because, again, where my origin story started, you know, I had a parent incarcerated until I was eight. I knew what it meant to have unmet needs and the level of instability that created. I was unwilling to allow that to be the next part of my journey, because I inherited that coming into the world, and so I knew very early on that education was a gateway to financial stability, and so this is why the business degree remained so critical and relevant. And so then I end up stacking degrees in other areas. Well, I finished my master's degree and then I enroll in law school, and this is the running piece is because I didn't realize at that stage of my life and my career that the reason that direct practice, full time, felt really difficult for me was because I had never named the childhood trauma in grief, and so I couldn't in a sustainable way hold space for the people that I was working with.
Speaker 1:Right and so I was doing work that I lost you somewhere in there. Hold on, I lost you. So you were a sales rep with Nestle you know you were training sales reps and you were doing it as yourself, right. And then you went to, you made a decision to go to law school. I got I got that point about you were stacking degrees. That's really profound, right there, and that that was a trauma response.
Speaker 2:It absolutely was super important.
Speaker 1:But so somewhere in there you decided to get out of sales and into law school.
Speaker 2:Right. So you must have full time employed at Nestle. So I'm still working my corporate job and I'm going to. I did my master's degree part time while still working in corporate and then I enrolled in law school part time, still working in corporate.
Speaker 1:Why? Why did you do that Like where?
Speaker 2:were you going or what was the?
Speaker 1:shift.
Speaker 2:So I thought that I knew I needed the corporate job because it provided stability, and at this point I have a. At this point I have a two year old, and so stability is really important to me right Like again for myself and also now for her. I have excellent benefits, and everything that I know about the mental health field means that if I transition there, I'm going to take a significant pay cut right.
Speaker 1:And had something happen that made you want to transition to mental health.
Speaker 2:I knew that the business piece was the thing that I was good at, but it wasn't the thing I was passionate about. So even when I was in pharmaceutical sales yes, like cardiovascular health and cholesterol was helping my grandparents, like I got them on better medication but the sales aspect of it was very data and money driven. It wasn't improving life like driven. That's just not the culture that was happening and that was always incongruent. And so it felt really disconcerting that I kept being praised for how much revenue I was bringing in because it never aligned with the why I was doing it Right.
Speaker 2:And so being asked not to tell that part of the story also was not. It was a disconnect for me and I was like I'm actually not interested in just making you a whole heck of a lot of money because I can't see the impact that it's having on the people that I actually care about. Right, and I actually really care about people. And so that part just kept gnawing at me and it was tough because I was experiencing really like lots of career success. I got promoted at Nestle, I got recruited from Pfizer of all places.
Speaker 1:Right, you're an overachiever. You're clearly an overachiever. Right, absolutely.
Speaker 2:But it wasn't satisfying your soul. It was not satisfying.
Speaker 1:It was not Right, yeah. So I want to talk about an ideal practice. That's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and now that I have my daughter, the amount of time that I'm now spending away from her feels that much less. Right, yeah, the trade-off doesn't make sense. When I was a single person, by myself, it was like, whatever, I'll work 40 hours a week, go to school for another 10 hours a week. Right, right, not have much of a life.
Speaker 1:So you shifted to law school at that point because you wanted to do something that meant more. And you were ready to do something that had deeper meaning and because of your own family history or your background, whatever that story is you were like this is not helping people the way I want to help. Yeah, I mean it's great, but it is an empty success. This is not what I want. All right, Great.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:So you went to law school.
Speaker 2:I go to law school and academically I'm doing well. I'm with a two-year-old Amazing support system that allows me to do all of these things. It certainly wouldn't have been possible without them and I am academically thriving and morally and ethically suffering because the law is not like. It doesn't take context Like how they got there into consideration. Very rarely it interprets the law which is not always designed to recognize, like how they got here as a result of trauma, right, as a result of unmet economic needs and my therapist's heart is bleeding here, right, yes, and so, as my contracts law professor and I'm in her office and I'm doing the office hours and the consultation and we have a great relationship. And she says Contracts law professor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:She was phenomenal, right, I do. I'm doing fine academically, I have a 4.0, great scholarship, but academia had always been my safe place anyway. But I'm suffering, right, yes, and I don't feel like I fit, and it's taking me longer to write my papers because I have to scrub all of the humanity out of them to meet the requirements of the assignment, and so this is what I'm struggling with and we're talking through office hours.
Speaker 2:Eventually I write the paper, but it's taking so much out of me, right. And so she encouraged me to take by this time I've moved to DC and I'm at George Washington for thinking I'm going to finish my law degree and she encourages me to take my electives. She's like you don't have to take your electives and these things. You think you're going to take them in international law and trademark? Right? You can actually take your electives over in grief. And so I did.
Speaker 1:And so I signed up, yeah, as you can see, I love that you were in law, but you took electives in the psychology side of things. Right, I did. I did the same thing. I started off as a broadcasting major, believe it or not, and I had to take and I was taking advertising classes which were putting me to sleep. And then I took psych electives just for the fun of it and completely fell in love. Yeah, yes 100%, isn't that crazy?
Speaker 2:It absolutely is.
Speaker 1:So you took grief, you took classes in grief.
Speaker 2:I took a course in intro to grief and loss and before the class started I wrote my professor an email trying to negotiate to not have to go to. They had an individual counseling and journal requirement like three sessions of counseling and then journal. And I wrote him a persuasive email from my experience in law school trying to justify why I actually didn't need to do that component.
Speaker 1:I don't have to do that. Counseling part.
Speaker 2:That's not really relevant. It's not why I'm here. I'm here because my professor recommended it. He goes oh, you're my student from the law school, and I'm like, yes, it's me. And he's like excellent, I look forward to reading your journal. I did not go as planned. I love it, I love it. And it was in that class that I realized that in therapy really for the first time, where and I found a grief therapist and because I'm like I'm just going to do the requirements, I don't have any grief right Whatever.
Speaker 1:I don't need this. My childhood was a norm.
Speaker 2:It's totally fine, it was not fine, it's not fine, it's not funny.
Speaker 1:Isn't it funny how, when there's a path you're supposed to go on, the universe keeps bringing you back to it over and over and over?
Speaker 2:and over again.
Speaker 1:One way or another, you're going to do this work.
Speaker 2:You're going to do this work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you're not ready, you're not ready, that's fine, but when you're ready you're going to be there. I love that I really love that agenda.
Speaker 1:I think this is. I totally want to honor and respect for just a moment what you have said, because you're saying it quickly. I told you to y'all. I had to audience my friends who are listening. I have to tell you. I told her before we get online, before we got on this call. I said you talk fast and I hear slow, so we have to stop.
Speaker 1:But I want to, I just want to pause for just a second and honor and respect the drive that you had, the courage that you had, the sheer willingness to persevere no matter what, and the sense of excellence that permeated everything that you did. I totally understand when you I've not heard anyone say they were stacking degrees before, but I get that, I get that honey. But for you to see now what that was about, you were basically running and learning. You were running and learning at the same time and I always say it's all grist for the mill, which is my Southern thing. But it's like everything that we do in our life, everything we try, everything that works or doesn't work, every experience comes into. It, informs our, our skills as a clinician our skills as a practice owner.
Speaker 1:It all adds to the mix, it's all valuable, but I just really want to praise and recognize. It just feels really important to me to honor that. Okay, because that's a lot that you were pushing through. So here you are, find yourself in a Greek class and you just take it for the heck of it and the guy goes yeah, let's do a little counseling. No, I don't need that, I'm y'all you know the. Tar baby, don't throw me in that there. Briar Patch, that's so funny.
Speaker 1:No one's going to get that reference. Y'all are not going to get that reference, never mind. All right, so let's continue. So where? So you're taking a Greek class, you're going to do the journal because you're a good girl, you're a good student, you do what you're supposed to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's like fine, right, I'll just do this, fine, I'll do it. And then we learn because no one had died, right, and that's what I knew about grief was death. And this class opened my eyes. Therapy opened my eyes that I had cumulative losses that had never been named, never been worked with, and it's the reason that I would busy my way through the moments that actually I needed to pause and actually acknowledge and name and feel right and I learned that you know for me that, that the absence of pain is not joy, and that's what I thought.
Speaker 2:I was not in any pain, so I must be happy. And I wasn't. I was numb and I was busy and I kept moving forward because there was nothing If I stopped moving there was such so much fear about that. I would go back where I came from.
Speaker 2:And that's not like my family of origin is fine, but I grew up in one of the worst neighborhoods in, you know, in the city. It's not where you want it to be right. And so I was so afraid of and I remember saying to the therapist when she asked me like, what has like motivated me all this time? And I remember telling my high school counselor I just don't want to die here, because so many of my friends died before they graduated high school, because that's what happened in my neighborhood that either died or they went to jail, and I didn't want that Like. So I began stacking the deck in my favor because I came in with statistics that said what I could do and what I could be, and I just knew that I didn't want that for my life.
Speaker 1:I had seen that you were bound and determined you were not going to be the story that somebody else was telling. And having met that black doctor in high school, which sort of started you to think that there was something, something new that was possible. Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:She represented proof for me that that, like, I didn't know whether or not she had a background similar to mine, but I knew she looked like me and that if she could do it, that it was possibly doable, that I just need to figure out how to do that Right. And so the business degree came into play, because I didn't have a family that could fund me while I was, you know, studying full time as a student. I knew that wasn't mine, that wasn't my kind of story, and so I knew the business degree could sustain me while I navigated those other things, and that's why I stayed in the business realm for so long. When I was good at it, I could, you know, do it in my sleep. It was very for me. Although I was high, achieving it still was not the same effort.
Speaker 2:It paid the bills, absolutely, yeah, counseling required a different part of me that the business that you're never required, like I could not be well mentally and still like fill a palette you know what I mean and look at a strategy. That's not the same when you're doing therapy, like it requires your presence and your authenticity and your ability to hold space for someone else, and I had never been on the receiving end of that, so I certainly couldn't provide it.
Speaker 2:And so that's class forced me to sit with myself in a way that I didn't know I had never been fully present for and so, guys, this is what I really want to.
Speaker 1:This is so. This is so rich because this is something we talk about strategy a lot here. But this is the soul of not I mean of running a practice for sure, because I think the same thing applies there. But, as a healer, if you are not doing your own inner work, you're not going to be very good at what you do. You will miss important things in your clients. You will miss or avoid or just not even see things because you don't see them in yourself. So I totally support that. You have to do your own work.
Speaker 2:And so here you are by golly there you are Okay, and so I never went back to law school. So, of course I withdrew and eventually gave myself permission to finally fully withdraw and not keep delaying re-enrollment and I finished the PhD program and that was really pivotal.
Speaker 1:So you switched from law to a PhD in psych. Is that what you did?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did the counseling education program at George Washington and that was like it was a great program. I came in licensed and knew exactly what population I wanted to work with and everything after I just made that commitment and decision really just moved pretty fluidly. And so now I know like I'm now trusting myself that one, this is the thing that I was called to do, like I didn't navigate all these things to not be able to use it purposefully. And I'm still trying to figure out how do I leave the corporate income, because that has been like that's what my lifestyle is based upon. You know my school's tuition, all the things right. And so I needed to figure out how to do that. And so, you know, I learned about private practice and I was like, oh, can navigate that. And so what do you do? I'm a God girl, so I've always been taught to seek wise counsel.
Speaker 2:So I went and I spoke with an advisor who I knew had a private practice but was a full-time faculty member as well, and I was like, okay, great, he'll get that. I need like, likely we'll need to keep one of this corporate job while I do my practice part-time, because that's essentially what he's doing. And he told me something that in the moment, was very discouraging in for a moment, right. And he said well, most private practices aren't profitable for at least the first three years, and so you're going to need, like, this program has prepped you to be a professor and so, like, do the thing we've prepared you to do. In the moment, in his office, I'm sitting there and I'm like, I don't have three years, I have a five year old now. I don't have three years, right.
Speaker 2:I spent four and a half years in a doc program that was accelerated for me Because I feel like I'm running out of time. Now. I feel like I'm starting over from scratch. I later was able to realize that I wasn't starting over from scratch. I was starting over with experience, right, yes, Right.
Speaker 1:I wasn't starting over from scratch. I was starting over with experience. I love that.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's so true, okay, I was thinking that all the time I was in corporate and dabbling in law school, I was off track. All of those things came back to play and were transferable and really have shaped the way that I've been able to build and grow my practice, but also the things I've done beyond direct practice, and so I made a decision. Then I was like you know, I don't have three years and this either has to work or it has to work, so I'm just going to build my business as if it works, and so that's what I did, and I ended up growing Right, so did he.
Speaker 1:Was that that guy that you went and talked to? Was he discouraging you from doing private practice at all, or was he saying it's not? Or was he saying you can do it, but it's going to take a while? You got to keep a job. What was his?
Speaker 2:Well, he was absolutely discouraging me from private practice.
Speaker 2:The other statement that he said was that you know, as a and he was treating me as if I was like a lot of my colleagues had not been in the field right, so they had gone from their master's program right into the doc program. Like I had a full-time job in corporate but I also was working part-time in mental health. I was fully licensed by the time I got to the doc program and so all of that really didn't mean much. Because he said you actually should go work for someone else's private practice before you go and start your own. And I was like you're discounting totally the again the experience that I'm bringing that I already understand business, right, I just have never done business for myself. But I've always been a little delusional about you know what's possible for myself. Like if someone tells me no, I make two, like I have two, one of two things that I immediately think Either you don't understand what I said or you're not the right person, but it never occurs to me that I should do it.
Speaker 1:I love that what you said a minute ago you said either my practice had to work or it had to work.
Speaker 2:And so what?
Speaker 1:do you?
Speaker 2:how would you build your business if you didn't calculate, like, do this fear-based thing right? And what I knew was I could trust myself, because I had been through all of these things, that I was committed to the thing that I wanted and that I believed could provide the stability and the flexibility that I wanted, because I had I was feeling the weight of the 16 hour clinical days that I was missing from my daughter right. So again now my why is I want my freedom of time back. I know I want to exit corporate America and I don't want to burn myself out. I was willing to work at that pace so that I didn't have to continue working at that pace.
Speaker 2:And I felt very hastily that it was time for me to pivot. So I did take part of his advice is I did go and secure a full-time faculty position. Actually, before I finished my doctorate and I opened my private practice at the same time, seven months in, I had grown that practice into a group. We were profitable, we were sustainable. Seven months into your career Seven?
Speaker 1:months in, we were a group Okay With a lot of things I didn't know.
Speaker 2:My employee manual was seven pages. You had an employee manual Seven pages. That was it. So they were employees. They were W2s.
Speaker 1:You were hiring W2s in the beginning. Okay, yes.
Speaker 2:I initially hired them as ICs, but then, a few months in, when I I see independent contractor yeah. Yeah, sorry about that. I realized within seven months that they actually couldn't be ICs, that they needed to be W2s. Oh, I need an employee manual. I know that much, and so I got seven pages right, which, coincidentally, was the paper I had to write in employment law class. Ah, perfect.
Speaker 2:Again full circle. I was like I got this piece, love it. It was nowhere near sufficient, and so for me the lesson in that was start where you are Absolutely. And continue to continue to grow, and so I did.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Like now. It's like 200 pages of stock right that I've learned over the past 11 years, but that same kind of relationship building piece and honoring people and being connected to the why is how we even integrated with pediatrician practices is that we saw a significant gap between when they would identify that there was a need for a client to see mental health care and when the client actually contacted us. They would wait until they were in crisis, when the pediatrician often recognized or sometimes missed them when it could have been in a different state. And so we kind of piloted like we had a really good relationship with the clinician as a result of me kind of stopping by her office and doing the thing.
Speaker 1:No, wait, okay, so wait, slow this one down. You had a doctor in your town local that was referring people to your group counseling practice yes, right, and there was a delay. The doctors would say you need to go get counseling, and they wouldn't come until they got into crisis and somewhere along the way you recognized that this was a pattern. And you wanted to figure out a way to get those. This was kids. This was adolescents.
Speaker 2:Yes, these were all kids, right, okay?
Speaker 1:And you were, like, they need the help, but they're not coming for the help. How can we get that to them faster? So was this your pediatrician that your daughter went to by any chance?
Speaker 2:No, no, it wasn't.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So is this somebody who knew you?
Speaker 1:just knew your town or knew your business. Those are okay, okay.
Speaker 2:And some of that was because when I started my practice I didn't have a website. And again, I'm a Midwest girl. I mentioned that earlier and I told you it would come back because we know all of our neighbors and so I really walked around and met and introduced myself. I brought my little fruit baskets and my muffins and I introduced myself because I didn't have a website and I also wanted to know who was in my neighborhood right Serving the community, and I wanted everyone to know that I was there if I could add value, and so I literally was the welcoming committee in the neighborhood. Okay, I love this.
Speaker 1:Okay, this is a strategy people can use. So you were and this goes back to your days selling Viagra, so you were doing like cold calls. Would you walk into a doctor's office, a pediatrician's office, with some kind of a gift, something tangible, a backskitter fruit? This is totally your sales rep days and you would say hi, my name is So-and-So, I run a good counseling practice in town. I just kind of wanted to meet you guys and you would like talk to the front desk and what? Give them some fruit and some business cards.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and they were geographically close to your practice, so they were where your referrals would be coming from. And y'all, I want, I want y'all y'all are listening to Ajeta talk about this. I coach a lot of people about how to talk to doctors and and it's very, it's intimidating. It's intimidating because they're busy people, they're, they are back in the back somewhere and most of them don't want to talk to us. What she I want y'all to notice, all she's doing is sort of, is starting a relationship and yeah, it might feel a little weird, but it does work.
Speaker 1:I actually did this with a speech pathologist that I coached who we talked, we came up with a whole strategy about how she could get past that door, and it was very, very, very carefully crafted, but it was. It was exactly like this. So they're like who are you, what do you do? Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:And, in my experience, primary care doctors want to refer people to doctors. They want to refer people for counseling, but they have no idea where to send them and they're too busy to go find out. So you just they probably didn't care who you were. You had the word therapy attached to your name and they're like fine, give me your cards. Got it? Absolutely, Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And I also would look up the doctors right, the practice and and so I could walk in and say, like you know, I did a little bit of research on you. Like I wouldn't say that right, but I'd say, you know, I see that you work with this population I do too right, and so I just want to be a resource for you all.
Speaker 2:That's key, yeah, and, and so one of the things that I started doing, particularly with this pediatrician that I noticed was sending like, was sending referrals and and we were seeing the gap is I asked and I said we see a lot of you know, we see a lot of you know adolescents and pediatric population, and I'm wondering if you're noticing that they're coming in complaining about stomach issues or chest issues and then you can't find anything biologically or physically wrong Because I've got a single thing, that a lot, and it ends up being like it's like you know, it ends up being like anxiety. Are you seeing that? And she was like, oh my God, yes, and we, it's like to sue the parents of the kid we're giving them, you know, whatever the stomach medication is, I forgot what she told me right?
Speaker 2:I said do you, would it be helpful if we came in and just had like a lunch bunch with your team and talked about how to recognize psychosomatic complaints in the adolescent population?
Speaker 1:Yes, boom Again, I'm adding value.
Speaker 2:Yeah Right, I'm adding value, I'm I'll bring lunch, no problem. And sometimes they like we'll bring lunch you. You just come right.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And it was so empowering. And of course, now they know me and my style and now I'm top of mind when they have a kid, absolutely. Right and now they're doing consult and saying hey, doc, can you like, can you weigh in on this, would you, you know, can we ask you a question?
Speaker 1:And so now they now you really are a resource.
Speaker 2:Yep, I mean really interesting resource, and so I still don't have a website. But I don't need one because I have in my network of within four block rock walking distance in either direction. My community knows me and they know that I'm available to assist them. And so when I call and say, hey, do you know anyone? Right, I have a new clinician, let me introduce them. This is who they serve. If you have anyone that we can help, send them our way.
Speaker 1:And they know we're known for providing excellent care, so you know it's a good referral Right and so there was a time, there was a time when I worked with adolescents and I was the go to person for teens in my town and the local juvenile court judge sent practically every kid that went through his court to me all. I mean like all of them. At no point did it occur to me to go offer to do a training of some sort, or to go to the court and do something or, much less, create some kind of a contractual thing. This is brilliant because you are now helping the kids, you're helping the families, but you're helping the helpers do a better job as well and you're building a reputation for your practice as one who serves. People don't want to be sold to, they want to be served, absolutely Boom.
Speaker 2:Got it Okay, and then we'd ask a critical question of you know our providers that already trusted us. Do you know any other practices you think that could benefit from the type of service or workshop that we provided to you? Because now they'll introduce us to their friends.
Speaker 1:Do you know anyone else Do you know?
Speaker 2:anyone else that could benefit from this, and so I just committed to doing one of those workshops a month. I could dedicate an hour. You know, either I come in person or we do it virtually, whichever works for you, but we could just do it over and over and over again, the same workshop.
Speaker 2:I would tailor it like I did it in an urgent care setting, because I would, you could ask, but attack and I, you know. Of course, now that I can breathe, I'm going to ask you questions. Right, You're right here and I said do you see, like people with suicidal ideation or anxiety in urgent care? And he's like no, we don't. I'm like aha, so what that tells me is you don't know what you don't know it.
Speaker 1:When you see it Right, you don't recognize it Right.
Speaker 2:And so I asked him. I was like, do you guys ever have any trainings, or you know PDs that come in to talk about mental health? Of course the answer was no. I figured that out by the intake paperwork, right. I said, oh, I would love to, like we'd be happy to come in and we'd look here on the corner like we're neighbors right Right.
Speaker 2:And so we got into the urgent care right Because I had an asthma attack right, which was not the way I was like. This copay is going to pay for itself one way or another. Friends, I love it.
Speaker 1:I love it. Talk about turning a problem into an opportunity. I love it.
Speaker 2:Yes, right, yeah, and so you know, we just, you know, continued that strategy and really looked at what other disciplines are our clients that are experiencing grief and trauma? Because that's our area of specialization? Yeah, who else is likely serving them? Right, and so that's how we diversified, right? So we the chiropractor again was another good referral source was working with a lot of folks that had, you know, had car accidents and other you know injuries and there's grief and trauma. You know that's wrapped up into there. And so that became, you know, another space. And so we just began asking the question, like we love that you refer to it, we love that you refer to us, but what, how would it improve your patient care if they could have a mental health assessment on site? Like we can come into your office and just pilot it? And so we did that.
Speaker 1:We'll bring it to you.
Speaker 2:We'll bring it to you, we'll bring it to you, yes, and so that really kicked things off. And then, like now, we have offices that approach us, whereas before I was doing all the legwork and getting into the offices and pitching them, and now we've built a reputation that we have four partners that are looking to bring us in, for us to staff, and so that's actually how we grew the business, and so we're intended to have 150 plus clinicians.
Speaker 2:But, this thing just continues to expand and now I have clinicians that you know. One that we just hired last week has a specialization in perinatal care. That's not my jam, but can we staff you know an? Obgyn office, absolutely, and is there?
Speaker 1:a birth rate, and so you're not having to buy buildings and create an office somewhere. You're just placing people in offices that exist and then do their patients pay you or does the office pay you Like? How does the payment work for that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so some of the offices are concierge and so it's only private pay. Either way, the pay, the we're paid directly from the client.
Speaker 1:But from the client, not from the doctor's office. Okay, mm-mm, okay.
Speaker 2:There are some situations in which, like when we do the interdisciplinary consultation, previously, prior to January 1, we weren't able to bill for those, and so we do have agreements where the MD bills or the prescriber bills for that, and then they pay us, because Medicare and Medicaid only pays one person.
Speaker 2:They've always paid MDs. Now, as of January 1, we can bill for those consultations when we couldn't before, and so that's the only place in which they pay us directly. Otherwise we're just collecting the payment directly from the client. But the beautiful thing in the majority of these offices they're not charging us overhead, and I negotiated that because, you know, one of the things that happens is when we have an appointment scheduled with the client, 99% of the time we're running on time. So if they're behind and they're usually behind they actually can now bring a client right into a treatment room because we're available right and we can keep that. It improved their patient care, it improved their patient experiences and we can roll in right either before or after the nurse that comes to check vitals. We can do a quick mental health assessment and if they need additional services, we either can refer them to our main office or, if we're in a location where we have space, we can actually just schedule them right then and there for their actual session right.
Speaker 2:And so that improved the efficiency of their office. We're 100% paper-free, like it really just elevated their practice and so we can negotiate to not and we really don't, we need an iPad, we don't take up a whole lot of space and so we really negotiated. I was like, okay, if we don't save you money or make you money in six months, sure you can charge us. And we've not had anyone that has come back and said we actually need to bill you because it's not working in our favor, and so that's why I said it's funny, it didn't even occur to me that they would charge you, because I'm thinking you're doing them a service.
Speaker 1:Why would they charge you? But I can see that, like it is, it also helps you. You're getting business out of this, so I can see how they might think of it as subletting an office or something like that.
Speaker 2:For sure, and a lot had that mindset when we initially started this Cause. Now, like co-located integration is becoming, you know, more common, but we were one of the only folks doing it, you know, seven years ago.
Speaker 2:Like it just wasn't as common as it is. It's becoming to be, and so we were kind of first to the market in our area and so we really were piloting a lot of things, seeing what worked, what didn't work, and then dialed in the disciplines that it really made sense to partner with, and so those were different types of contracts so I didn't have to figure out we only have one office space with six suites, like that's it, that's-.
Speaker 1:One physical location, right One physical location.
Speaker 2:I don't have to manage all of those other. You know other locations because they have administrative staff and everything for us is streamlined, and so that really allowed us to be efficient and optimized.
Speaker 1:That's impressive yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's been really awesome to kind of just be a part of.
Speaker 1:Wow. So that whole piece there about just how to get into a doctor's office is incredibly valuable, and if nobody hears anything else out of this episode, that alone, I'm hoping, is gonna be like sparking some ideas among people, because I really do think that this is money on the table.
Speaker 1:Because, I've experienced this myself where I've talked to clinicians or MDs who are like I'd love to send people I don't know who the good people are and part of actually what worked for my group practice actually when I ran I don't have it anymore but when I sold it in the pandemic.
Speaker 1:But I had a group practice for 25, give or take years and we had such a reputation as the go-to place in our town. Like doctors would tell their patients, I don't care who you see, just see somebody at this place. And so that's our name meant something. Our brand meant something which was huge to me when I started hearing that, because clients would say my doctor said they didn't care who I saw just as long as I came here. So what we started doing was making generic business cards that didn't have anybody's name on it, just our practice name. Because we did two things. We did that because doctors wanted to have that in their office so they could just hand it to somebody. Just call this place they'll help you.
Speaker 1:And then the other thing that we did that I put together as a resource for doctors. I put together. I always had like 10 or 12 providers in my office and they all did different things, they worked different hours, they had different all kinds of things. I put together a simple one pager that explained who was there when they were available, what their specialty was, and everybody took some more self-paced, some took insurance. They did it their own way and because the doctors would be like I do want who sees kids at your practice. So I created this one pager, folded it up, stuck it in a Christmas card with a picture of all of us and sent that to every medical practice in town. And I only meant that for the doctors to pull up and look at and go go see this one if they didn't want to and if they needed something specific, they started making copies of that and giving it to patients.
Speaker 2:Oh I love that.
Speaker 1:I didn't mean it for that, like I hadn't designed it with that in mind, and at first I was a little bit mortified because it was a very you know, it was just the facts. But I learned from that that they will refer. They just don't know who to refer. So make it easy for them to refer, absolutely make it easy, and that's what you're doing.
Speaker 1:You're doing that on a big scale and you're doing it so much further, you're taking it to the I just said. But you don't just do doctors, you also do government contracts and corporate contracts. Tell me about that that's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and again, all the skills are transferable, because what we often do with corporations and even government contracts I'll be at a university in Chicago next week on Monday talking really about burnout prevention and intervention in the workplace, right. And then I'll be training federal law enforcement officers on Wednesday and Thursday of next week on mental health first aid and you know, one of the things that's really important is be able to highlight the pain point they know that they have.
Speaker 1:That they know, that they have.
Speaker 2:That they know they have and that's also a priority. And so I liken this to like our. When we answer the phone and we do a quick consultation with someone, I might hear that there's some unresolved childhood trauma. But they're coming in and the thing that brought them in was the thing that happened at work, and if I don't honor the thing that brought them, in and I'm like, but you know you need to do this work.
Speaker 2:I lose them. It's dishonoring. And the same is true if I address the problem the client has, it will create room, trust and the relationship. So I might be able to introduce this other thing that I think is contributing to what the current trigger is, and the same is true when you're wanting to partner with organizations, corporations, government entities is what's the problem? That is a priority Cause it may be a problem, that it's a known problem, but it's not something they're willing to do something about. They won't pay you to do, they don't care what the solution is because it's a problem that they have tolerance around or that's not a priority right, they're not miserable enough yet.
Speaker 2:They're not miserable enough. And so I made a post on LinkedIn, like earlier in January, that talked about like here are five things you need to consider, or that you should think about, to determine whether or not your team is burned out. So you can't ask people that are burnt out and disengaged to be creative and do more without honoring where they currently are. And I did that, and then I think I had a post on, like you know, how do you know if you have a toxic workplace, right? And so those two you know, this representative VP from the university was like I actually think you're talking about my team that I just inherited. I'm brand new.
Speaker 1:And I'm worried about the things. You did a post on LinkedIn that talked about these.
Speaker 2:I did a newsletter on LinkedIn and most people aren't leveraging LinkedIn, so it's not a saturated as many other platforms.
Speaker 1:That's a really good point.
Speaker 2:It absolutely right. And then, thinking about it, like your decision makers from academia, from corporate America, from government entities, they're on LinkedIn.
Speaker 2:They may have Facebook and Instagram, but they're on LinkedIn looking to build professional relationships, and so where's your audience? And so for me, I know that that's where they are, and so I have different conversations with them about what's happening in the workplace environment, and so we're talking really about the burnout prevention and intervention. But that's what I'm talking to their employees about in therapy, right? What's showing up for them, how that's impacting their productivity, how it's impacting their quality of life, whether or not they stay at a job when they feel dishonored, all the things. And now I get to go into corporations and help them understand how policies, procedures, productivity, impact them into health and wellness of their team and really what's at risk if they don't address those things right.
Speaker 1:Why they should care. Why they should care.
Speaker 2:Why they should care right, and it's important to understand what's motivating them, because what's motivating me and what's motivating their employees isn't the reason decision makers bring us in, and so we have to be able to speak their language and be able to pivot. What are we doing one-on-one and how that's that apply to many. That's the thing that I think sometimes we struggle with is not thinking our skills is transferable, right yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So there's a saying you know sell them what they want and then give them what they need for that Absolutely Right. So that's what you're talking about here. It's funny. I was just coaching this morning with someone where I was saying there's a lot of things you can bring to the table, but they don't know that and they don't want that. You have to start with what they're asking for. So what are they asking for? Yeah, Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I know that our federal law enforcement officers likely need a training on vicarious trauma. Yep, what they're willing to pay for is mental health first aid, because they want to be able to recognize mental health distress when they're navigating and working with the general public.
Speaker 2:But what I know will happen when I deliver this training that they will recognize and see themselves in their own experience, but I also know that there's incredible risk of them saying, oh, I also might have PTSD or I might also be experiencing this, because they have a federal clearance and we still have a lot of work to do in normalizing mental health in their profession. So I know the thing that will get me in the room to at least create the conversation is to talk about interacting with the general public. I'm aware of that and I have to be willing to pivot from my objective to identify what's the barrier and then having this conversation. If I make it about them, I'm not getting in, but if I make it about them.
Speaker 1:So you start off by helping them do their job better and safer, and then, along the way, help them see themselves. Now, when you do that so you're speaking to like conferences or police departments or whoever brings you in are you getting paid for those speaking engagements? You are Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Remember, I do free on purpose but not because I'm unwilling and I'm scared to ask to be paid right. And so if it's an alignment, totally. But this is also my bread and butter, you know. It's an eight hour training, that's a big one. So we actually secured a grant. I wrote a grant that was publicly available. So SAMHSA Department of Health and Human Services, often foundations will have grants, and this particular one was earmarked for first responders. Well, law enforcement officers are first responders. I happen to have built a relationship with our federal law enforcement officers. This particular unit is our healthcare fraud unit, which is a division under the FBI, and so that's who I'll be training next week. I've done capital training.
Speaker 1:So you got a grant to pay you to go and do this training. So does the grant come to your company or is the grant did you get? The grant for them to hire you.
Speaker 2:So we've done it multiple ways and so this particular grant my company was eligible for when we first trained law enforcement officers. It required that it was a 501C3, which I had established, and so it just needed a community partner, which happened to be the government agency. Even in that situation, it came directly to the 501C3, which then subcontracted my practice right.
Speaker 1:So you have your business entity. Do you have like an LLC or an escort? Okay, so you have your business entity and then you also create a nonprofit. 501c3 is a nonprofit like an arm of your business, so the nonprofit gets the grants which then pays the business for you to go provide this training.
Speaker 2:Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, galley, I also did that, so that I could subcontract, I could hire my clinicians, and those clinicians that work fully for the nonprofit could get student loan forgiveness right, because private practice doesn't qualify, and so that was another motivation for me.
Speaker 1:That's somewhere on the lines. Yeah, that's a whole other topic right there, whole another man example, right?
Speaker 2:But yeah. So we've secured contracts where, like we've worked with schools where we weren't eligible even the 501C3, it had to be a school entity that held the contract. We would write the contract partner with them and write ourselves in as a service provider, and so the money would go to the school and then they would pay us, and so there's so many ways you can navigate that.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you that our first entry point into this was actually subcontracting. So somebody else secured the contract and we delivered like parent skills training, and that was really a saving grace, because I didn't know anything about. I knew grant management from a research perspective, but I didn't know anything about it from a management reporting balancing funds all of those things there's a lot to it.
Speaker 1:There's a lot to it.
Speaker 2:There's a whole lot right Like we've hired that out, but in the beginning I didn't even know who to hire.
Speaker 2:I didn't know what job description to say I needed, because I didn't know who did that. And so for me, it was about subcontracting and staying in my zone of genius, which was delivering the parent skills training right, and learning from someone that had done it, and that was they had invested interest in training someone else, and so I just had to make myself available to be mentored in that regard right, and I paid for that for them to share their knowledge, and they wanted to look for somebody that could take this grant over because they wanted to retire, and so it really was. Because I was so visible in the community, I met them at a networking event.
Speaker 2:And they were like I heard like you're heard. I'm like I don't know if I'm the one, but I'm me and I have a unique name, so I can't act up right. She's like, no, it's you. And I was like yes, it's me. And then we finally like actually talk details. I was like, oh yeah, that is me right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that is how you know I got started and so-.
Speaker 1:So somebody else already had a grant to provide parenting services and they wanted out.
Speaker 2:and you said I can take that on for you, Sort of the larger contract was they were providing supervised visitation for the state and all these individuals were Mandated to one provide to provide like received at a Proof facility. Yeah, and the state wanted them to also, while they were there, provide this mandatory parent skills training and they had the facility, but they had no one that could provide the parent skills training and we were already on the courts List yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm also a certified mediator, so we were on the courts list to do those things. We just didn't have, like I had a three office Sweet. Like I didn't have the capacity or the space to do it, yeah, and they didn't have anybody that could do it. They had the space and so she's like no, I've heard about you, like you know, family law attorney, or someone had mentioned you should talk about Robinson. Because they had the space, didn't have the skill. I had the skill, didn't have the space, and so we could meet a need that the other person had.
Speaker 2:And then Eventually the state was in the process of building their own secure facility for supervised visitation, but they still wanted someone to come in and do the parent skills. So that was like our first entry point into contracting and what it's been. Eight years we still. We still hold the primary contract for the training. I no longer have to worry about the space because the state now has its own facility and we were able to carry that work that she had started Forward and someone that she could feel like she could trust this is a thing that this goes through everything you do.
Speaker 1:Everything you do is it's been about building a reputation, building relationships, but also leveraging a single point of contact. That turns into lots of business and Providing services on site for someone else, not having to house it in your own place.
Speaker 1:So you don't have the overhead, so it's your your profit margins are going to be higher and your impact is greater. It's a brilliant way of thinking and clearly your, your business background helped you a lot. You know the language. I can tell it even as you talk. The way you speak is not typical for therapists, but it is. It's totally learnable and and and it's it works. It really works.
Speaker 1:So, fellas, I I Am, I am amazed and so grateful to To have met you and to learn about this really cool way of running a practice. It's so much more than quote a practice in a way. Yeah, I mean, there was a time actually when I had my, when my group practice was at its height, when we were so well thought of, I kept thinking how can I spread this out, how can I? And I briefly thought about building satellite offices into other communities, but I didn't have the systems in place to do that and I was exhausted because I was kind of doing all the things and when I hear conversations like this, I think, man, that was a missed opportunity.
Speaker 1:I just didn't know how to do it. I love that you're here to share this with my audience. For real, not everybody I I said this the other day in a different conversation. I said not everybody wants to build an empire, you know, not everybody wants to do this kind of thing. But Even if you don't want 150 clinicians in seven states, you might want your local county government to contract with your office and maybe two other therapists to come in and provide Services, in fact. In fact, that reminds me I'm coaching someone right now in the Pacific Northwest who a big part of her practice has turned out to be that county governments and Major organizations in her community are asking her to come in and do work for them, like to create like group, group training and all that kind of stuff, and it's turned out to be quite lucrative because when there are pilot projects they want to try or They've got a problem and they're not sure how to do it. She's like let me see if I can come up with something.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's really like.
Speaker 1:You become the first person that people think of. You are top of mind when an opportunity pops up. And I also like what you said, that you had no idea how to do this in beginning. You started small, locally with one pediatrician, figured out what worked, tried things on and then began to grow from there. I love that too. I'm gonna mind full of the time. I think we could probably talk for three days.
Speaker 1:Which is actually you just had a summit about this. I should mention that you just Just conducted a two-day summit where, in fact, you did do exactly this. Yes, and I know you're gonna be doing some more of those. A jett, tell people how to find you, because as I'm listening to you, I'm thinking if I had known someone like you earlier in my career, like you would have been the person I would have wanted to hook up to, because I did have big ideas and Some people actually do want to build an empire. And you have the fact that you are doing this in a way that doesn't leave you exhausted and burned out and you still have a life and you have a you know, a sweet daughter Like I. Just, you're doing all the things, but you're doing it in a way that works Like on.
Speaker 1:It works financially, it works spiritually, it works energetically, it works physically and and you, with that person that you were when you left Nestle to go to law school and you were like, yeah, I'm making all the money, but this is empty money. Now you're making you're still making good money, really good money. Yes, absolutely. You had eight figures, aren't you?
Speaker 2:yeah, the clinical practice that I built two seven figure businesses alongside that. So we get to grow and build at our scale, you know. And so one of the things and now you know I work nine months out of the year on like I get to choose, right that do you really a?
Speaker 2:line right and and I'm Planning to build a year sabbatical right in and which I never thought I could do outside of academia I've created a pension for my team, and so for me, that's like a few living, like I don't want to, just what I leave behind when I'm no longer here. What do I have the opportunity to create while I'm here that changes lives, and I get to start with the people that have agreed to Work alongside me right, and so for me, that's my team and as well as as many therapists as I can touch and inspire and, you know, in help, that's really the thing that makes me. All of this has happened in community and so where folks can find me, I'm.
Speaker 2:Dr Jetta, on all platforms, like all the platforms, except for Twitter. Someone took my name on Twitter, so the real. How dare them? We have this. They have the same initials as me, but they're not like. Dr is like their first and second, you know, initial, and then we have the same name and so I've not got it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I'm down to general, on all platforms Otherwise.
Speaker 2:And then I have the purpose, one profitable therapist community on Facebook where it's a completely free group, where we just have these conversations and and normalize, rest, and that you get to say no. So you can say yes on purpose, right, and I think that's the piece that matters the most.
Speaker 1:Yes, I love that so much. We will make sure so. And y'all, you spell a jet, a AJ Ita, so when I look at it, I pronounce it a jita, you know. Or a jita, so it's dr, jetta, dr and then a J. Ita is where you'll find them and we'll link for low and it's Robinson, of course, and the purposeful and profitable is that what?
Speaker 1:you said yes, or therapists Okay, therapist yes. So we'll find that as well, and Y'all you know, as I bring this to a close, when I talk about what an ideal practice is, I mean a practice that it that is ideal for you, and that's very different from one person to another. But the one thing that I think should not be different from one person to another is that you need to be making money and you need to be making money in a way that feels good to you. So it that whole transition that is yet a maid from corporate to the mental health world, and that she took the corporate talents and skills with her but reconnected with her soul. The same process like this is why this is an okay thing to do. This is a good thing to do. You don't yeah, I preach this so much but you don't help anybody by playing smaller, by being broke that this doesn't work. On the other hand, when you run a really successful practice, look how many lives she's impacting. It is, it's immeasurable, the difference that this one woman is making, not only just right now, but in generations to come, because she's impacting the families of her clients, the families of her staff. It's it's just really. It's powerful and beautiful, and this is what social workers can do, this is what psychologists can do, this is what counselors can do, this is what energy healers can do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we all have. The world needs us, but we need to be making money. We need to be making money. Profit centered people forward. Profit centered people forward. Can I get an amen? All right? Well, thank you, ajeta, so much for being here today. Thank you for telling us the rich, full version of your story, because, I mean, I, I have to fight not to cry, and it was like just so so touching and so inspiring and I Lord, there's no telling where you're going next, but it's gonna be fun to watch. So thank you for being on the show.
Speaker 1:It's really been an awesome. Thank you for having me. So I always ask everybody I almost forgot to ask you this I always ask everybody at the end Is there anything I haven't asked you? Is there anything that you feel called to share? Is there anything else that you want to say that will make this conversation complete?
Speaker 2:Hmm, I think I would just share that. We all get to choose how we do this work, but we all only have one life to live and just make sure that that life honors you. Yeah, I trust that as therapists will, will do good by other people and we don't have to choose or a self-abandoned in order to make Alasic impact on the lives of others. Like be a good steward of the life that you have. It's the only one you have. A man.
Speaker 1:Ah, I Feel like I just won't take a moment. Thank you, sweetheart, thank you so very much and y'all, I hope, I hope you will listen to this more than once and when you're having a bad day, go ahead and listen to it again because, and when you're trying to decide where to go with your practice, there's real strategy here as well, really good strategies that, I bet you money, most the people in your area have never thought of. So this is a way you can serve more people, make more money, do more good, have more fun. Alright, everyone, have a great week and I will see you next week right here, same time, same bat station, on ideal practice. Bye everybody, bye, bye, bye everybody. Hey, y'all, if this program has become important to you, if ideal practice matters, it would mean so much to me if you'd be willing to take just a minute to do one or two of the following things first of all, would you follow or subscribe to the show here at ideal practice?
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