How I Became a 6 Figure Therapist

1 00:00:03,210 --> 00:00:14,100 Intro/Outro: Welcome to the Six Figure Therapist, where we discuss professional and practical ways for mental health practitioners to help others and make money. Here's your host, Dr. Arcella. 2 00:00:17,880 --> 00:01:27,390 Dr. Arcella Trimble: Well, hello, I'm Dr. Arcella. And I want to welcome you to another episode of six figure therapist. And today I'm excited because my special guest is me. Yeah, so I have been so fortunate to know many people who have watched the podcast, and to actually start to meet people who have listened to the podcast or watch the podcast. And so I've been getting questions lately about, you know, who are you? How did you get to this point? And so I thought, why not? Interview myself and answer some of the questions that I asked the guests that you've heard on the show, and that you'll hear later that have come on the show. So today, I'm going to just give you a little bit of background about how I became a six figure therapist and kind of where I'm trying to go at this point in my life. And in my career years, so welcome. So I'll first usually ask the guest to tell me about themselves. So I'll just tell you a little bit about myself briefly. And then we'll go into more detail. 3 00:01:27,690 --> 00:04:24,150 So first of all, I am a licensed psychologist, and I am also a licensed professional counselor. And I initially started all in the profession, actually, I wanted to be a professor I wanted to teach. So I really had not thought about having a private practice and doing a lot of therapy work. I just wanted to teach but it's so interesting. Now as I look on how my career has spanned it out, I really am glad that I was able to go out in the field and then come back and teach because I feel like I have a lot more things that I can share being out in the field and then coming out and teaching. And so initially, when I wanted to teach, they didn't have any teaching jobs by the time that I finished school, and I'll tell you kind of my my progress in school. But by the time I finished school, they didn't have any teaching jobs. And I had a PhD actually is in School Psychology. I started off in counseling psychology, where my PhD is in School Psychology. So I actually became a school psychologist, and I was school psychologist for 10 years. And so I'll tell you kind of about that. But I've been in a lot of different areas of psychology, and I enjoy it. I can't think of anything else that I would have done differently in terms of a career choice. So yeah, and I'm a mother of two children. I have a daughter who was officer in the Navy. And my son in law is also an officer in the Navy. And I have three grandchildren. I'm a Yeah, well, I have two and a half right now. So my daughter is pregnant again. So I'm gonna Yeah, it's my grandma name. And so I have my first granddaughter Zuri Arcilla. So she's named after me, which is such a blessing. And then my second grandbaby is a Lita trainer. And so I got to name her say, Lea, shout out to daily Barclay. That's where I got it from. She does a lot of YouTube talks about making YouTube videos. So that's why I got the name. But anyway, and then I have a new grandbaby coming. So we don't know the gender anything yet, as I found this, but I'm sure I'll let you know, at some point, when the third grand baby is born, then I have a son, and he works at a major tech company. And just awesome, just awesome. And he he's not quite married yet. But I think he's on the road to looking into that. And I have my parents, I have a bunch of great friends. And so my life is pretty good. I can't complain at all about about my life. And in terms of work, I have a private practice. I actually have. I work out of two offices, one in Atlanta area, and one in Conyers, Georgia. And my specialty is marriage and family therapy. 4 00:04:24,390 --> 00:07:04,710 So initially I started off working with children. And then I moved and started working with adults. And so I've kind of at this stage in my career, I work with adults and I work with couples and I'm winding down the private practice piece and and I'll tell you why later. Alright, so that's a little bit about me. And the next question I normally ask is, you know, I talk about therapy being a gift and when did the When did my guests find out they were gifted in this area or what made them decide to go into mental mental health or become a mental health Professional. So I'll just tell you a quick story. I am from the hood. So I'm from Gary, Indiana. And I was raised in Gary, Indiana. And you know, yeah, so we didn't have many. There were professional people there. I know. But I said where I was from my family was there were entrepreneurs, so they do work and sale things. But I'm technically and one of the first generation college students on on my side of the family, but my family, of course, was very bright and resourceful people. So I didn't actually know they didn't go to college, or even think about it until way later when it was happening to go to college. But I remember when I was about eight years old, or so, my auntie, my one of my favorite Auntie's, she would come on amis. She would come and she'd say, You are so smart, you're smart. And you're like, oh, you know what, as a little child, you like that. And she said, You could be a doctor. And she kept telling me, you could be a doctor, when the only doctors we knew were medical doctors, right? We didn't really think about psychologists or any other kinds of doctors. And so I just kind of had in my mind, I will be a doctor one day. So probably we fast forward a couple years later, she had foot surgery. And one day, she calls me in the room and she said are solo, can you help me because her she was bleeding through the bandages. And she was saying, Can you help me change the bandages and all of that. And it was painful when I was starting to taking the bandage off. And so she started crying. And when I saw the blood, I literally almost passed out. I was like, Oh my gosh, oh my god. So like in the wound and all of that. And I was like, Oh, my God, and then she was crying, and I was crying. So she had to actually get somebody else to help because I could not finish. And so a little while later, she came to me, she said, my home, maybe you know, you're smart. But I don't know if you can be a doctor. Because doctors have to see blood and doctors have to they can't cry with the people. They got to help the people. And I was like, okay, you know, again, being young, I'm like, Okay, I guess I won't be a doctor. 5 00:07:05,080 --> 00:12:16,060 And so then we fast forward, seventh grade, I'm sitting in a class, I was my English class or something. And they had career day. And that's one of the reasons why I speak at Career Day. And I think I mentioned this in one of the other podcasts. But that's why I go to Career Day, when people asked me to come to Career Day, because you just never know how somebody can be how you can influence somebody, and especially when talking about careers that they didn't even know were possible. So I still encourage everybody to go to career day and talk about your career, especially if you're doing something different and cool, that people may not have heard about. But anyway, and I still don't know how it happened. But it was a lady there. And she had and she was Caucasian, which is interesting, because in the hood, I don't remember many Caucasian people. But she came she's Caucasian woman. And she had a Bob here could I mean she had on this suit. And she talked about she was a doctor. And she talked about she helped people. And I remember raising my hand and saying, Hey, do you see blood? And of course, she got to look at me like, Oh, no. And then she said, after we can you cry with the people? She said, Well, you're not supposed to generally she said, but I have before, but you're really not supposed to. And I'm like, okay, and kind of find out she was a psychologist. And I thought okay, so she's still a doctor, and she still helps people. And she didn't see blood. Yeah, that's it, right. And so I just kept that in the back of my mind, I don't remember share that with anyone. And so then we fast forward to my junior year in high school. And I took two of the most significant classes that I would take. One was typing, which I'm so glad to this day, because who would have known back then in the 80s, that I will be typing this month, because, you know, computers and all that weren't really, you know, a thing yet. And so typing, and then I took a psychology course. And when I took a psychology course, and got to understand about the mind and Freud and, and just how people work. It was just really fascinating to me, because I just always was an observer of people from what my family said, I would just kind of look and watch people and know about people. So the idea that there was a science that you can learn about people, and that people are much more complicated than what we think they are and things like that, but yet simple. I just thought it was fascinating. So that after I took that class, I was like, Okay, I'm gonna Spelman College. And at the time, I didn't even apply to any of the colleges. And one day somebody came to me said, Would it be odd and I'm like, why don't you be like, I felt Spelman. I wanted to go to Spelman. Like I knew nothing else. But to go to Spelman. So I did end up applying to Fisk and I think I applied somewhere else maybe, but I got into Fisk and all that. But I ended up of course going to Spelman. And at Spelman, I majored in psychology did not change. I met some of my mentor was Dr. Burnett and she was a clinical psychologist. And so at the time, even though they were she technically she was a social psychologist, but she had gotten a clinical license and things like that. And at the time, I'm thinking, Okay, well, I'll just be a clinical psychologist, because you didn't really know about all the other different types of psychologists to be. And so I applied I go the summer of my junior year in college, I go to Howard University, and I spent a summer there and a research basically, I got a research fellowship to spend eight weeks, and I was actually researching community violence on on young children, and looking at how that violence impacts different areas of their life. And so I got to hang out there and I loved it there. And I was like, Okay, I'm gonna apply, just like I do Spelman. I'm gonna go to Howard and be a doctor at Howard University. That's it right there. And I didn't think about applying anywhere else. I was gonna go straight and be a doctor. Well, we go back, take my senior year, I'm pledging my sorority, and I'm doing things and then probably around April ish. I'm really tired in class. I'm like really tired, really tired. And I come to find out, I'm pregnant with my daughter. And I was my my husband was at the time we were dating. He was at Morehouse, and I had been dating him since high school. So that's a whole nother story. So we met our junior in high school. So he's a Morehouse I'm at Spelman about to finish up and already Oh, and have been accepted to Howard University. So literally, I was gonna go from being an undergraduate students straight into a Ph. D. program at Howard University, getting pregnant. And I'm like, Oh, my gosh, I can't go and he had another year at Morehouse. I was like, okay, I can go being pregnant. I'll just go to Howard next time. So next year, I'll wait a year how to baby go to Howard. He'll come with me. Well, it come to find out after I did that, I was like, Okay, I don't know what I'm gonna do. 6 00:12:16,090 --> 00:17:08,140 Well, when my daughter was nine months, Oh, I get pregnant again with my son. And I'm like, oh, Howard, and what am I going to do in my life? Because I had already had it planned out. And so my mentor, Oh, Dr. Burnett, going back to her. When I couldn't go to hell with the first time I was like, Oh, my God, what am I gonna do? What am I going to do? Oh, my gosh. And she was like, Well, I Oh, I'm opening a private practice. And it was in downtown Atlanta. And she said, you can come and work for me, I haven't grand and you can be my secretary and helped me start the practice. And I was like, okay, because she was still working at Spelman as well. But she was like, I'm doing a practice. So literally, I was her secretary. And I got to learn though, which was a really cool experience, I got to learn about business. Because oftentimes, which is one of the reasons why you fast forward today to what I'm doing with six figure therapists is that many of us were told to go into business but didn't have any business experience. So I got firsthand, to get business experience, I got to see how a person worked with integrity, I got to see how to be Oh, I got to see how to answer phones, I got to see customer service. So I really got to see from working in as the secretary basically is what I'm doing. I got to see how to run a practice and what it took to do that. And she didn't have a lot of clients, but she's still doing well with a few clients she had, especially when we took care of them. And so I got to learn a lot. And I did that for four years. So wasn't even like I did it for a few minutes and left. Because what ended up happening when I got pregnant with my son, I didn't go to Howard, because I was like, I can't go to babies trying to be a doctor. That's not gonna work. So I was like, Okay, let's restructure this vision. And so I went to Georgia State, and I would work during the day as a secretary. And then at night, I would go get on the train and go to class at Georgia State. And I was getting a master's degree in what back then was called community counseling, it changed to professional counseling later. So I pretty much did that. And it took me three years to get a master's degree because I can only take a few classes at a time because by the time I finish, I went off to take a semester off because when I had my son, and then I'm a mother of two small kids, and so I it took me three years to do that. And when I finished it, though, the funny part is, I go and I'm thinking, Okay, I'm finished, I got a master's degree, at least, I don't do some work. I'm gonna work out in the field. And I go to an interview, and it is for a substance abuse position. So I'm there to interview and the man who was interviewing me he, well, he's about to interview me. He says, okay, yeah, let's sit down. I'm gonna set up and then you can come out Uh, you know, out here when the interview starts, it's like, okay, now mind you, I'm thinking it's just he and I, I get out there. There are literally like six people in this semi circle. And it's a chair with me in the middle of the semi circle. And I'm like, what is happening right now? Like, why? Why are so many people talking to me? And they just started throwing questions and questions and questions at me. And I felt like I was kind of like at the matrix or something where I'm like, dodging, you know, and I'm like, Oh, my gosh, what's happening? So I ended up answering all the questions and did everything. And he was like, Okay, well, you know, what, we interested in you working with us? And all of a sudden, like, Oh, my first job was a master's degree. Yes. Now, mind you, I didn't even think about licensure or anything like that at that time, because all I knew was clinical psych. I didn't know anything about masters level licensure, anything like that. Right? And so I'm not licensed. And so then they say to me, oh, yeah, so your starting salary would be $27,000. And I was like, What? No, because I was making that as a secretary. So I'm gonna go do all this work, and not make the same amount of money. And I still got two kids. So I'm thinking a master's degree would increase my pay, but at the time, it was not. And I went home after that interview, and I talked to my husband, it's time I say, hey, this one was they were trying to pay me and I'm not I need to go be a doctor. I need to go be a doctor. Because again, remind you, nobody told me how to to maximize at the masters level, which is one of the things that I'm trying to do today, or I am doing today is helping people at a Masters level maximize their earning potential. So anyway, but I didn't I didn't have that at the time, right. And also didn't know what to ask, didn't know what was even possible in that time. So I'm just thinking 27, I can't negotiate. This is what I'm gonna get. I can't take care to kids on that much money. You know, I went to school, and I got student loans. I mean, I was thinking all those things. I was like, I gotta go and be a doctor, because that's the only other only other choice I knew. 7 00:17:08,470 --> 00:21:01,090 So I had a professor at Georgia State, Dr. Wright and Dr. Wright said, have you I know some people at Southern Miss University of Southern Mississippi, that if you go there, they'll take all your credits from Georgia State. So you only have a couple of years that you would need to do to finish to be a doctor. So I was like, Oh, I'm gonna go do that. So I apply, I get in. And they take my credits, like she said, and so I was gonna be in the council, I was originally accepted to the Counseling Psychology program. And at the time, it probably hadn't realized how many applicants they have, they had quite a few applicants, because it was a brick and mortar, you know, because online, even though it existed back then it still wasn't as prevalent. And so they accepted six of us out of that class. And actually, I'm still friends with many of them today. So that's pretty cool. But anyway, and so I get there. And I told him by this time, I knew I like working with kids. And so I get there, I start working with adults, and I work with adults in the counseling center. And I'm now I'm still in my 20s at this time. So I'm working with older adults and some of their problems. I'm not quite understanding, because I had been working with kids and adolescents. And so I wasn't really ready at the time to work with that population of people. And so I talked to the professors about and they were saying, Oh, we don't see some kids, but I never did for a whole year. And so one day, I'm sitting in a class that had, it was called. It was like careers in psychology class, but some type of way. I was in the psychology department that we had, we had clinical, we had counseling, we had school psych, we had IO, we had experience, experiential, or experimental, sorry. And I don't think we had any other areas. But pretty much all the major areas of psychology, that we were all in the same area and same department. So in that class, people from all those different areas, or students from all those different areas were in the class. And so one of our things that we had to do for the class was stand up and present about your area. And so I remember some of the school site, people get enough standing up member now I hadn't heard of school psychology at this point. I didn't know anything about school psychology, they stand up, and they start talking about how they work with parents and how they work in the school system, how they do testing, how they do some groups and how they do and I was like a dancer what I want to do that has my career that I should be in. And so I go down the hall, and I talk to the school side people and I say hey, you know, I'd be interested in doing this and I'm in counseling, but I think I want to be what you all are right? And they looking at me like oh, we don't know. And they say Well, no, you'd have to reapply. And now remember, as I told you before, a hundreds of people apply and only six get in so literally If I reapply, I have the possibility of being out of one program and not getting into the other program. And I was like, No, I'm not going to do that. That doesn't make any sense. So I went and I guess they must have talked to some of the other professors and said are so let's, you know, she's a good student, she's done this, that that. And so they came back to me, they said, Okay, we won't make you reapply. But of course, you got to interview you got to do some things. And then we'll let you know if the faculty agrees to accept you. Well, some of the faculty and the other department were really upset. So you really shouldn't do that. I won't recommend that. So any you all who are getting a doctorate degree, I don't recommend you do that. But I did. So. And anyway, they did. Let me anyway, they let me in. But I added an extra year to my time. And right away, I got to work with kids, I got to learn testing, I got to learn parent training I got and that's the stuff that I still enjoy doing. So after I finish that, I did my dissertation and everything. 8 00:21:01,000 --> 00:24:26,290 So my goal was to finish before I went to internship. So I go end up going to internship at Johns Hopkins, and the Kennedy Krieger Institute, where I had, I did marriage and family therapy training, and I did parent training. So those are the two things that I ended up getting additional training. And that's what I ended up doing with my practice stuff. So that kind of gives you an idea. But as I told you earlier, I bought in also had taken to I was teaching to as a graduate assistant, and I love teaching. And I was pretty good at teaching actually. And so I thought, Okay, I'm gonna just be a professor, as soon as I finish, and they didn't have any jobs. Then I became a school psychologist, and actually being a school psychologist. And I'll tell anybody, if you like testing you like working with kids, you like working with parents and teachers and things like that school psychologist is an excellent job, especially nowadays, because many people are retiring in School Psychology. And also, I will say if you are a person of color, or male person, too, we don't have a lot of males and people of color in School Psychology. And so that also is a good place to be, and they pay pretty well. And I ended up doing that job for 10 years. And I did it because as I said, the benefits were good, the pay was good. Also, I was off when my children were off. So it was an excellent job to have as a mother with kids. And it was flexible in the sense that as a school psychologist, I had to be at certain places, but I couldn't have flexibility in scheduling meetings, I could have flexibility. And you know, what days I went to certain schools and things like that. So if some of you are looking into an area of psychology, that's not often talked about school psychology is really, really something you should look into. So anyway, but I like being a school psychologist, per se, I did, I felt like it was more like putting bandages on source. Like some of the stuff that I knew was happening, you couldn't really because because really who employs you, like the schools employing you, you don't really work for yourself. So you can't really go against the school. And then you can't really go against the parents sometimes. So it was just, it was just a fine line that you had to walk in that profession. And I enjoyed the testing, I didn't necessarily enjoy the report writing, because it was a lot of it. And so that was a little more difficult. And I will say though, that the people that I worked with in School Psychology, the people I work for, they were excellent. They were excellent people. And I'm still friends with a lot of them today, too. But and I will say that I ended up toward the end of my schools, I career working in alternative schools, and things like that. So that was cool. So I got to do more of the therapy piece of it and help kids who normally didn't get as much help because of their behavior. And I enjoyed because remember, I did behavior modification. And I did Parent Training and things like that. So I got to use a lot of those skills. And I didn't have to do as much testing. But I still knew that that wasn't the career for me. But I say 10 years to get invested. And I also stay 10 years because like I said, my kids so by this time my kids are high school. They're older now. So I'm like, Okay, what do you want to do with your life? You know, you liked this, but you don't love this. 9 00:24:26,590 --> 00:27:47,860 And so, my friend, one of my friends, she and I were doing a parent training together. And she, um, sitting in her living room, and all of a sudden she says, Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I got tickets. I got tickets. I'm like tickets to what? So she had tickets to the Oprah Winfrey Show, like right before it was going off the air like so I guess like, not her last year but the year before her last year. And she was like, You're gonna go with me? I'm like, oh, god, wait, so we all go see Oprah Winfrey. Now we didn't know what the show was about. And but we we decided we were going to really get in front. So if you want to be in front of a warm show, you have to have bright colors. So we all lit like a bag of Skittles because I had on a bright lime green shirt, she had like a hot pink, we had only yellow. I mean, we were bright. And then they said, if you kind of, you know, turn up in the lobby area, they all come. So it doesn't matter because you stand in line, and you get you know, tickets and stuff. But if you turn up in the lobby there, you could still get picked first over your ticket number. So we turned up in the lobby, we will speak into people we will all right. And of course, they picked the Homebrew as one of the first groups. So I literally was on like, we were on row three, like right there. Like I can reach up and touch obrah Everything looked creepy or nothing. But I could have touched over. That's how close we were. And so we were so excited, then we find out the show is about your dream job. And how's that? Oh my god, oh my god. So they had like the cake balls there. He was fairly new at the time. They have people who were living their life and doing their dream jobs. And I remember sitting there thinking, you are not living your dream job, you're not doing your dream job or something. And you're not gonna go out like this, because by this time, I'm in my 30s. And I'm like, you know, you got to figure out what you want to do in July. And so I was like, Okay, so when I get back, I'm going to quit this job. As a school psychologist. Well, mind you, when I get back. And I tell everybody, everybody's like are you've been trying to quit since year two. So they didn't believe me. And my boss even was like our salah, go ahead. And by this time, I'm making pretty good money. I'm probably about 80,000 or pretty close. And also also by this time, I'm a professor too, like a part time professional. So I'm making six figures at this time in my life, right? I didn't really look at it that way. But if you when you added it all together, I was making six figures easy. And so I was thinking, you know, so everybody's like, what, what's wrong? You know, you this job is not hard yet the other job? He's doing pretty good. Like, what's the problem? And I was and I did question myself, like, what's the problem? But I was like, I just think it's better. It's more, it's more. So when it came around for the contracts to be signed in April, I just didn't sign it. And my boss called me You sure? You know? Are you sure you don't do this? And did it it it it? Because, you know if you don't sign it, and why don't you sign it? And then so I was like, no, because if I sign it, I'm gonna stay here another year, because then I'm gonna be responsible for the students because you know, when I do my work I do I work well. Now I don't, I don't have work. And so I know if I started that I wouldn't want to leave the children. I wouldn't want to lead a parents. I wouldn't you know what I mean? And I was like, No, I'm not doing that. And so I didn't. 10 00:27:48,040 --> 00:31:39,550 And so what I ended up doing was I had no other job lined up, by the way. Yeah. So I ended up taking some of my retirement money. And I spent a year I mean, a year ago, a child on a year, a month in Utah. And I hung out I was at a spa, and I hung out with Mormons, and I hung out with wild mustangs, and I was really trying to get myself together. Well, before I left though, Dr. Cherry, who you'll see on one of the podcasts, if you look back to Cherry had called me and she was working at a university. And she said, hey, they hire in what do you think about this? So I actually had done the interview before I left to go Utah. And I really didn't think of anything about it. I really wasn't that pressed to remember I always wanted to be a professor and I was teaching part time, but I wasn't a full time professor. And I was saying, Oh, I have to be a full time professor. That is my dream job, right? So I go and I do the interview. I leave I come go to Utah today call me while I'm there and say I got the job. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, and then a salary they offered me though I was like, oh new. And so I thought about it. And one of the things that that's cheering on talk about is negotiating salaries and things like that. So I looked up the salaries, I looked up, you know, all this stuff. And I talked about what I was worth. So I came back and I counter offered what they were telling me and I told them why wasn't just like, well, I want more money. It was like I've done this, I've done this, I have this experience I have that I've done this net. And this is what I'm worth. And they gave me more than what I was worth. And so I also enjoy teaching so I taught there for a nice little minute. And the issue was I was teaching mostly undergraduate, they had actually hired me to make a master's program which I did help make the master's program which is pretty cool. And it still exists today. But I was teaching mostly undergraduate students and I just didn't I didn't particularly I realized I like teaching people how to do stuff. And so I was like as an undergrad you know, when you teach an undergraduate student is more broad education. And so I just didn't that still wasn't my dream teaching job, but I still like teaching and I enjoy with the students and I enjoyed it, I was close, but I wasn't quite there. And so I ended up opening also a private practice, because many of the people that I was working with, especially in the school systems, they were like, Oh, can you see our children and it's not enough mental health providers and things like that. So I ended up getting licensed psychologist, oh, and had a private practice, but I really wasn't doing much with it. Then I moved to California, real quick, nice. My daughter when she got in the military, she was deployed. And I started working with veterans too. And I realized, I want to make sure that my baby is good when she goes, and when she comes back. So I stay in California for a minute, still trying to figure out my life. And I'm also still teaching, because I can teach online, so part of what I was doing was teaching online. But I ended up leaving on teaching job. And I still didn't know what I was gonna do. So I did the private practice. And I actually did pretty well in private practice, which is, because remember, I go back to when I learned about from Dr. Burnett years before. So I know about business. I know about people, I knew how to set it up, then I started getting excellent people to work with me. So that's when Dr. Sands Eric came. And so I did pretty good in private practice, and also, also my superpower, which is one of the one of the things that I ask the people that are guest on the show is, oh, I am an expert of people. That's what I believe that we are not professional experts of people. So I knew people, I was pretty good at therapy, I was pretty good at teaching. And so I was doing I'm doing I was doing well in terms of making money. And in terms of liking what I was doing. But I still hadn't quite put it together. 11 00:31:39,550 --> 00:41:42,250 So now we come to my my vision that I have now and the vision that I have for the future. I was like, what is it that you want to teach? So I started, I have been teaching PhD students. And I will see your massive level students and I will teach them how to do stuff like yes, I liked that. I liked that a lot. And then I remember going to get a Advanced Certificate and something. And I remember sitting in the continuing education course for four days. And to be honest, it was not a good course it was different people that came, but it was like I thought about you know how many years? Well, I haven't seen in these continuing education classes, and not really learn anything. And I'm saying what is the goal of these classes, the goal is for us to improve our skills. The goal is for us to be better the goal is for us to figure out how do we continue to help others. And so then I realized was let me go back and I went back and I got my license as a professional counselor, because I also remember that as at the masters level, I didn't know much about a lot of things. And it wasn't necessarily me, it was just I wasn't exposed to it. And then I started talking to friends who were professors teaching at the masters level. And then I taught the masculine when I realized that a lot of people still were not coming out with the skills that they needed to be as successful, not only with their clients, but also in business and in making money and things like that. So we're telling students to go out and make money and have private patents. But nobody knows how to run private practices. Nobody knows because customer service, nobody understands the skills to get them to come back. They didn't have those, we were missing those things. And so I was thinking, how do you combine that new desire to help the profession with your desire to teach. And so that's when I developed the training institute. And that's when we started doing professional development and continuing education. And so I have the, we got the NBCC certification to teach the continuing education classes, and we actually made a very hands on. And so far, of course, you're always gonna have somebody who doesn't like you know, something that you do. But the majority of people have always talked about how great our classes were, how interactive how much they learned and how it changed their perspective on the work that they do. And that's really what I'm like, Ah, that's it. So what I do now is I provide continuing education services and courses, and I still I supervise the next generation of mental health providers, I, I supervise supervisors. And so I feel like now I'm combining my love with teaching with my love for the profession, and helping it as I go on, as I become on the downside of my career, helping the next generation to do this better, and to help not only others but themselves. Because again, I think you should be able to help people and make money. And so if any one of those things are missing, then I don't feel like we're balanced. And so I'm very excited about this point in my life. And then the podcast came about because I like talking and I'm pretty good at it overall. And also the other thing is, I also want to figure out how can I expand this help The I'm providing and other people are providing How can I expand it. So if you couldn't come and pay for a program with us, at least you could hear something for free. And that could help you and help your clients and things like that. So I was trying to see how can I help on all levels of the continuum for those who can't pay anything to those who want to pay and spend extra VIP days with us and things like that. So I really was trying to figure out how can I help on a continual continuum. 12 00:35:35,700 --> 00:38:26,280 And so that's where the podcast came in the sixth video therapist came about, because I had gone to a podcast seminar thing. And I actually want to help people improve the skills and the art of therapy. But I started realizing people were not making money. And I just didn't understand when you go to school, all this time, when you have all these licenses that you have to keep up with and all these degrees you had to get, and then you're not making any money to show for it. And you're not having time for yourself and not getting to travel and do things I just, I didn't quite understand it. And so I call it a six figure therapist, because people are drawn to numbers and things like that. But what the goal is, again, to remember that philosophy of helping people and making money and get that balance for people. And so most people start to listen to this, because it's part of a six week therapy to see what we're going to say. But it is a combination of different things that we hope will help you to be in the career and to stay in the career and to also help yourself and other people and your family. So that's kind of the big picture of him. And so far, it's gone. Well, so far, I'm so excited. I and even the podcast, actually, I'm even more excited about the podcast. And I thought it would be because I get to sit and talk to people who are doing this. And I get to who are doing well in the profession and who are helping a lot of people in the profession. And the other thing that I love about the podcast is if you hadn't noticed, I'm really trying to talk to people who are doing different things. Because as I told you, I did school assignments, like I did, you know, some other things like yeah, like I worked in inpatient before, I don't want to be locked behind in the doors. I know people who work in prison and things like that. And so I'm hopefully I'm giving you a variety of settings that you can work in to. So that if you didn't particularly like what you're doing or where you're at now, you would say, Hey, let me look at this area. And let me try this. And so, and even talking to some of the people that are on the podcast, I'm like, I don't even think you were doing that, you know, oh, my gosh, I didn't think to do that. So I'm learning different things that I could do as well in the profession. And I have never been one to do just one thing I always do generally have multiple streams of income. But I also have multiple streams of income at one point, they were burning me out. So that's another reason why I'm like, Okay, can you pick something you really like to do, and then maybe add on here and there, you know, and maybe not even something in mental health, it could be other things like I have a one of my colleagues, that's gonna do design in our shirts for the six figure therapists, the shirts, and you know, so it has mental health practice, but also those T shirts on the side. So things like that. 13 00:38:26,280 --> 00:41:42,270 And the other big thing about what what I'm doing now, and what we're doing is, I really would like us to build a community together, so that we could talk to each other about stuff so that we can help each other so we can support each other, giving each other clients giving each other information, talking about the different things that we want to learn, that we don't know about just really supporting each other any other outside interests or outside businesses that we have. So I really am trying to build a community of mental health providers to so that we'll be able to help each other and again, sustain ourselves in the profession and improve the profession. So that's kind of where I'm at now. So my big vision, Okay, y'all ready? My big vision is to be a seven figure therapist, I put it out there now put it out there in order, I'm just telling you now. But I have been a six minute therapist for many years now. And I enjoy it. I enjoy and this is the other big thing. This The other big thing that I want some of you all to think about, especially those of you who are already six figure therapists are pretty close. The other goal for me is to how can I make money in less time? How do I make more money in less time, so I only work a few days a week technically now and still can make six figures. The so now back in the day, you might have called me work in six days, all that kind of stuff. But I work I work less and less I'm doing something new like now, one of the other things The six figure therapist course. So I'm sitting in, I'm writing the course out, and I'm gonna go film it and all of that. So that's taken up time, right? So there are going to be some things that take up more time, especially if you started have a business and starting to get it off the ground. But the majority of my time, I don't work as hard as I used to work, and I still make good money. And so that's another thing to think about is how do I maximize my time and then also some of the things that you choose, and we'll talk about that another time, but some of the projects you select, and some of the people you work with, all of those things help you to get and keep money. And so that's a part of some of the things that I talk about in the course, is we talked about, I have personality pieces in there, I have pieces, about, you know, making money, keeping money, your thoughts about money, because I in the mental health field, and I have a lot of people talking to me, but it's not about the money, whether Yeah, it may not be about the money, you pay to enter for the money. But we need money to pay rent, we need money to even help people. One of the one of my other visions is that I want to be a philanthropist. So I want to give out money to people and I do give out money. But I want to give out like large sums of money to people. When my children were in college, every year, we pick somebody and give them money for books, so computers and things like that. So you can't even do good for other people without money. So even if you didn't want the money for yourself, in order to have to help other people, you still have to have money in order to help your own children or your own family. I have I'm an only child. So I have three parents to take care of my father, mother and stepmother. Guess what, I have to take care of them. You know what I mean? And so I have to have them and I want to I want them to be taken well taken care of. 14 00:41:43,620 --> 00:44:16,530 And so that means I need money to do that. So again, you know, I'm gonna get on that soapbox. But but the point is, is that it's a lot of things that we have to look at. So with the course I really am looking at all the things that I've heard over the years, all the things that I've experienced over the years, and putting it together so that you all could, you know, see, see what you do in terms of your skill set and in terms of your financial success. So I am very, very excited. And I told you all a lot right now. So I hope that it was helpful for you. And so yeah, so that's what's next, we just got to keep doing the podcast, we're gonna keep doing the six figure therapists course, we're building out community, mental health providers. We're doing our continuing education courses. And so I'm just so excited. And I'm hoping that you all continue to join us and, you know, share this with others. And again, if it's something I've gotten to talk to many of you a lot of you, but if it's something that you want to hear about, in particular one or Oh, one of the other things that I have added to and if you listen to the podcast with Dr. Friedman, is a masterclass because also in doing the trainings, I realized again that some skills were not taught like they used to be taught and so I'm I have a masterclass every month with someone who looks at a different theory. So Dr. Freeman, for example, start off with psychodynamic theory. And so we're gonna have somebody reality therapy and somebody with solution focused and things like that, so that you can also get the skills or just continue to learn in terms of your skill set as well. So I'm hoping that it'll be helpful. So again, give us give me feedback and comments. Always helpful, what else you want to hear about? And who else you want to see what what some of the things that you felt like you were missing that you want to know more about. So please continue to let us know. So I'm so excited. I hope this was helpful. You have to learn a little bit about me, we're probably not about me. But I'm sure you get to learn even more and I want to learn more about you. So again, please share. And yeah, so thank you the next time, bye. 15 00:44:20,100 --> 00:44:49,140 Intro/Outro: Thank you for giving some of your time to listen to the six figure therapist. If something was said that taught or inspired you. Please join us on our mission to uplift and empower mental health practitioners. You can become part of the movement by sharing this episode, subscribing to the podcast and leaving a review. We can also be found at six figure therapists on YouTube and Instagram. Until next time, we wish you wellness and remember, broke is not your color