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Episode 6: A Story of Immigration, Practice Building, And A Lot In Between!
91 Plays1 year ago
From Intern to Entrepreneur is the podcast for counseling graduate students (and other grad students in mental health fields) to start planning their journey to private practice while they're still in graduate school! Host, Cori White, started planning her journey while she was still in her graduate program and it paid off BIG to start planning EARLY.
In this episode, Cori speaks to Phebe Brako-Owusu - and WOW does she have a lot to say! (And DAMN is she funny, btw!). Phebe talks about her immigration to the US, her decision to become a therapist, her experience in community mental health, and her journey into private practice.
AND HER ADVICE IS SOOOO SOLID!
More about Phebe:
Phebe Brako-Owusu, an award-winning Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Consultant, was born and raised in Ghana. She is licensed to see clients in Washington and Washington DC. Her passion for helping immigrants build a home away from home led her into private practice in 2016, and in 2021 she founded 253 Therapy and Consult in University Place, WA to mentor the next generation of therapists and increase accessibility to mental health services in Washington state. Phebe is a Washington state approved supervisor and is a doctoral student pursuing her PhD in counselor education and supervision. She is an upcoming adjunct professor at Antioch University New England who is currently researching international transracial adoption and hopes to pursue her research further in Ghana.
Website: www.phebebrakolmft.com
Instagram: @phebebrakolmft
Want to connect with Cori? Join her facebook community here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/frominterntoentrepreneur
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Episode
00:00:00
Speaker
This is from intern to entrepreneur, the podcast for counseling and therapy graduate students who want to start planning their journey to private practice while they're still in grad school. I'm your host Corey White. And within three years of graduating from my master's program, I had a six figure thriving private practice in large part because I started planning my path while I was still in grad school.
00:00:21
Speaker
This podcast is full of stories and information meant to give you ideas about how you can carve your own path to the therapy career that you want. Please note that when you're listening to this podcast, licensure laws and requirements vary from state to state. So check with your state board about what you can and can't do on your journey. And without further ado, enjoy this episode of From Intern to Entrepreneur.
Meet Phoebe Braco-Uwusu
00:00:46
Speaker
Oh, hey there grad students and future entrepreneurs. This is episode six of From Intern to Entrepreneur. And today I'm interviewing Phoebe Braco-Uwusu. Phoebe is awesome. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist. She practices in Washington State and Washington, D.C. to Washington's weird but very cool.
00:01:04
Speaker
She also is a consultant in the therapy space and she helps people do what she did and get to private practice. And she's currently pursuing her PhD in counselor education supervision. She does a lot, which we talk about in the interview. As I listened back to this interview, there were 145 million things that stood out to me about the things that she was saying and their significance and importance. But I wanted to set you up to really listen to two things. The first thing is that Phoebe is an immigrant and she was raised in Ghana.
00:01:31
Speaker
And it made me think back to when I was in my grad program and I had my multicultural class. And it's like you learn a lot in that class and it's designed to teach you a lot. But man, you just learn so much more by talking to people about their culture and their cultural experiences than you do from reading it in that really thick, heavy book. And so while I 100% acknowledged that like reading it and having that class is important,
00:01:58
Speaker
it's just i don't know i just learned so much more from hearing people stories and i hope that you listen to phoebe story and i hope you learn something from that that's number one number two though phoebe talks about her journey to private practice so real and she's so honest about the mindsets that she had at different times
00:02:16
Speaker
and about some of the like doubt but also confidence and how those just go back and forth for her and I just think it was a really real account of what it's actually like to be a, to have a master's in counseling and not a master's in business and try to navigate setting up a
Phoebe's Journey to Private Practice
00:02:35
Speaker
business. So I want you to hear that and go like this is like a real representation of what this process is like.
00:02:42
Speaker
There's also so much more that she says at the end about mindset. Her mindset nuggets at the end are just amazing. Please let what she says soak in. And you know, okay, I'm going to stop telling you about what I think about what she said. And I'm going to listen. I'm going to let you listen to what she actually said. So grad students, meet Phoebe.
00:03:09
Speaker
Hi Phoebe, thank you for coming on the From Intern to Entrepreneur podcast. I'm so excited to have you here and hear your story. Yes, absolutely Corey. Thanks for having me. It's truly an honor. Yeah, awesome. So I want to jump right in and I want you to give me a bit of a snapshot of where you are today in your professional, personal, entrepreneurial journey so people know what your life looks like and what you're up to.
00:03:32
Speaker
Oh my goodness. My life is a lot. Somebody called me a superwoman yesterday and as much as I was honored, it kind of had me taking a step back to look at like, okay, am I doing too much? Cause sometimes that happens. So right now I'm a group practice owner. I am the founder and CEO of two five free therapy and consult. It is a multidisciplinary, multi theoretical, multicultural group practice in university place in Washington, Washington state.
00:04:02
Speaker
I am currently licensed as a licensed marriage and family therapist here in Washington state, and also in Washington, DC. And I'm an approved supervisor for the state of Washington. I started my AAMFT approved supervisor journey, but I had to put that on pause because, you know, life happened. I had a baby, all that stuff. And so, you know, I'll get back to that at some point because it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work to get that AAMFT approved supervisor credential. So yeah, so I have, I have a wonderful team.
00:04:32
Speaker
at my practice, you know, we're a hybrid practice, and I'm also a consultant. And so I really love to support pirate practice owners who are especially looking to expand into a group practice. In terms of, you know, what my life looks like right now, I am a mom of three boys who are five and under. So there is never a dull moment in my household.
00:04:58
Speaker
I vacillate between, let's go outside and play, and mommy needs an app very, very often. It's not easy, but I wouldn't trade that for anything. In addition to just doing all that, I'm also a doctoral student. I am pursuing my PhD in counselor education and supervision at Antioch University, Seattle.
00:05:25
Speaker
That's just a little bit of a snapshot of I'm a cool mom. I'm a cool sister. I'm a sandwich immigrant. That's what I call myself because I immigrated here first, had my kids here, and my parents have also immigrated into the US. I'm originally from Ghana, West Africa. So I'm right there in the middle. I've got the generation after me trying to model what it means to be a good person. And then I also have my parents that I am trying to support.
00:05:55
Speaker
teach, help them unlearn them of the things, you know, educate them about things like systemic racism, which is something that we weren't really exposed to or not exposed to, but it was not a concept, for example, that we really talked about in our culture.
00:06:09
Speaker
Yeah, I a couple things that I really love. I love that you started this by saying someone called you a superwoman and it made you go. That's not necessarily a good thing. And vulnerability of acknowledging, I'm about to say that I'm doing 45 things. And I don't know how great that is, is really cool. And then
00:06:29
Speaker
Also, I love how you really talked about all the different roles and all the different aspects of your life. A lot of times I ask this question to therapists and they hear it only as what they're doing in their therapy world or their professional world. So when I hear your answer, I'm hearing like, no, you're integrating and thinking about your family and even both sides of your family, the younger and the older and what you're doing professionally and also to learn. So I think that that's a really cool
00:06:59
Speaker
you have a lot going on. Yeah, yeah. And there's all that overlap, right? A lot of the things that happen in my life are what allows for some of the things that happen in my life to happen. So for example, I don't know that I would be the successful group practice owner that I am if I didn't have my support network, right? I don't think I would be able to be a therapist, practice owner, and supervisor, plus being a doctoral student with raising three boys.
00:07:25
Speaker
There is no way I could have done all that if my mother was not around to take care of them and help me out with all of the things that come with raising children. It's a lot. It's a lot, but there is definitely that intersection. Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. Okay. So there's probably so much we can unpack with that and we'll get there. Take me all the way back to how did you get... What did your journey start like? How did that start?
Cultural and Career Challenges
00:07:55
Speaker
My journey was a very interesting one. I am from a culture that, you know, a lot of us immigrate. Immigration is not anything that is new to us. And, you know, you're expected to leave the country, go and make greener pastures, maybe bring your family with you, or they come visit you with that sort of thing. And so I came into the US with that pressure, right? I moved to the US at a fresh 18, had my backpack, my two suitcases, and
00:08:24
Speaker
I was out here alone and not really knowing what life was going to be like. Did I imagine my life was going to be like this? Absolutely not. The dream was I was going to be a gynecologist and, you know, I was going to have a successful medical career and, you know, that's just what it was going to be. And, you know, I was going to make a lot of money. I was going to work a lot of hours and, you know, just live that immigrant American dream, whatever that means.
00:08:53
Speaker
Can I ask you, Stevie, was there a cultural component to that being your projected path? Yeah, that's the expectation. We have running jokes within the immigrant communities, especially the African immigrant communities, African and maybe Asian, that you're either a doctor, a lawyer, those prestigious professions.
00:09:17
Speaker
that make a lot of money, make good money because you're not just thinking about yourself. Whatever salary you're asking for is not just for you. You're thinking about your parents, you're thinking about your siblings, you're thinking about the people back home, all of that. So the money needs to be enough for you to go back home and build your house so that your family can live there, right? So there's a lot of systemic ideals that fall into that. And so you're not just choosing, I didn't have that luxury of I'm choosing a career that's gonna work for me.
00:09:49
Speaker
Yeah, so there's that. Yeah, no. And I think that's a really important perspective. I imagine that there will be people listening to this podcast who are in their graduate programs who
00:10:02
Speaker
maybe have had or felt similar pressures or expectations. Absolutely. So for them to hear that, it sounds like you've kind of found a way to make it your own way, while still being able to show up culturally the way that feels in alignment for you. So yeah, interesting. Yes, yes. There's a lot of those intersections there, you know, around your cultural expectations.
00:10:26
Speaker
um getting into a career that because that was one of the first questions that my father asked me when I told him that I was going to major in psychology um at that point I don't think I really had the words to express to him whatever it was I was just terrified because my father sent me to America to become a doctor and here I was telling him that I was veering off the path like how dare you I'm over here paying for you to go to college and you're going to come and tell me you're going to be a a what
00:10:53
Speaker
therapist? What is that? My father's first question to me was, are you going to be able to make money with that? Is this sustainable? And it was a real concern. Yeah. Well, and I think depending on the path that you take in this profession, it is a real concern. So I didn't expect, when I came into this field, I didn't expect to be out here making a whole lot of money.
00:11:21
Speaker
I had this whole idea of I'm going to be a therapist. I'm going to work in community mental health. And I've heard that it's not a whole lot of money. But for me, from someone who had once been unhoused in this country, any money to me was money. And so I was very excited about my little $18 an hour that I started with. So my journey started off with wanting to get into the medical field, not getting accepted into any
00:11:50
Speaker
schools and kind of like a last minute thing of, okay, Phoebe, you're at your wit end at this point, final quarter or final semester of school in college, what are you going to do? And it was either, you know, push through and maybe take a gap here or something. And even that was not even feasible for me because I was an international student and so I was on an F1 visa.
00:12:16
Speaker
So there's a time limitation there. After you graduate, you have only a year of your optional practical training, the OPT. And then you either have to get a company to sponsor you or you have to leave the country. And going back home at that stage for me was not an option. My mother made it very clear to me, yet you're not coming back here. No, because it was going to be the ultimate disgrace that your daughter has gone to America, couldn't do something with herself, and now she's back home. So there was a lot of pressure there for me.
00:12:46
Speaker
So in my last-dish effort, I applied to graduate school, an MSc program that I found out about actually like January of I graduated college in May. January is when I found out about that program and I put in an application and I got in. And so, you know, that interview was not a joke. I came out kind of like frazzled. I didn't think I would be getting in. And it was one of the best things that ever happened to me. Graduate school was a life changer.
00:13:13
Speaker
You know, I was a keynote speaker at the Washington Association of Marriage and Family Therapists Conference. Not the conference, they have like a mentor day type thing. And so I was talking about going against the grain. And for me, that was the first time I was going against the grain and making sure that I was choosing something that was going to work for me. And I did it scared. I was terrified. I was afraid of bringing shame to my family. I was afraid of failing in this career that I was choosing
00:13:43
Speaker
And I still did it anyway. Yeah. How did you do it? What was the voice inside of you that was like, despite all of that, what was the voice inside of you saying that you, I don't know, that propelled you in that way? You know what? I kept telling myself, that voice kept telling me that you were destined for this. You love working with people. You love talking to people.
00:14:11
Speaker
people find it easy to talk to you. And for me at that stage, that was literally how I was conceptualizing what being a mental health professional was. I mean, you realize over time that there's layers to it. It's not just, oh, everybody wants to talk to me. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's not just that. It's more complex than that. But at that very early stage, I knew I wanted to support people. I wanted to make a difference in somebody's life, right? I wanted people to leave after talking to me with a smile on their faces, right?
00:14:41
Speaker
And so when that, that voice just kept pushing me in that direction of you're going to do something that is different. You're going to do something that is not culturally appropriate, culturally acceptable, not appropriate, but culturally acceptable for you. You're going to have to explain a lot of what you do to people because I still have to do that, you know, when even within my culture with the shifts that we're going through right now.
00:15:07
Speaker
When I said, I'm a therapist, like, Oh, okay. So you are just a counselor. Well, it's not just a counselor. Right. So, you know, just even recently being at a, at an outreach event and someone saying, so you want me to pay you to come, just come and talk to you. I said, yeah, for me, my money, you know, and then we made a joke about it. Right. But I had to, you know, do some psychoeducation about what it means to go to therapy.
00:15:33
Speaker
And, and I think I was even more excited about doing something that was not popular. I wanted to be that trendsetter within, within my community. And, and it's been, it's been working. It's been working. Yeah. So you're a bit rebellious is what I'm hearing. Just a little bit, just a little bit, not a whole lot. And my mother reminds me every time, you know, when my, my kids do something and I get a little upset or something and she's like, well, that's, that's you, you know, you ask, you ask a million questions.
00:16:03
Speaker
You've always done that. And you've always wanted to entertain people. You've always wanted to talk to people and connect with people. And my mother has been telling me, especially over the last few years, stories about my childhood, how I was. And she told me one where she said I would grab her sunglasses. I was maybe like three or four. And I would walk around the market with my sunglasses, making people laugh and modeling and just
00:16:31
Speaker
being a people person. And so in that way, it has always been this reminder of like, you were meant to do this. So so the journey, the journey, what really pushed me through was just that mindset of this is what you're designed to do. It's going to be hard. You might have to explain yourself over and over again. But after after being in graduate school, I went to school in Pennsylvania and moving across the country because my husband wasn't the military.
Career Transitions and Mentorship
00:16:58
Speaker
And coming out here and realizing like, Oh my goodness, there's a whole different world out here. Um, I think there was that reminder of like, okay, this is going to be an adventure and you are going to enjoy it, whatever that looks like. And, um, I started off in community mental health. Okay. Yeah. I started off in the agency work because that when I was in graduate school, that's all they talked about.
00:17:21
Speaker
The idea of even like prior practice seems so far fetched. It was not something that was even on my radar because it was like, ooh, private practice, like that's, that's business. We didn't go to school for that. Like, what are you talking about? Right, right. Where did you go to your graduate school? I went to Seton Hill University in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Just a little bit outside Pittsburgh.
00:17:44
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So I'm actually from the other side of the state. I'm a civilian reading and I will say that, yeah, you know, kind of being from, I mean, that's, that's a couple hours away, but definitely in Pennsylvania, they're not talking in graduate school.
00:18:01
Speaker
about the opportunity of private practice. They're talking about getting into agency work. They're talking about grinding. They're talking about working 40 hours a week, client facing. And yeah, they, and I would say that nobody was telling me no, but it was not encouraged and it was not talked about. Definitely. That piece, it was not encouraged. When, um, I remember I had, uh, maybe a couple of classmates who would bring up fire practice and you know, the response was like, Hmm, okay. All right.
00:18:31
Speaker
It wasn't like a very straightforward, like, uh-uh, we don't do that. But I remember one of my professors saying, very just kind of casually, like, you don't get into this profession to make money. Which makes me crazy. You know? And I'm like, well, but we have student loans. We have bills. Some of us are still buying diapers. What are you talking about?
00:18:55
Speaker
We're supposed to be taking care of other people, right? We're supposed to be prioritizing people's mental health and advocating for them and making sure that they have what they need. It's like, how could we do that if we don't have it for ourselves? Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. So it was a huge shift for me, just even like moving into community mental health. And I learned so much. That's the one experience that was life changing for me because
00:19:22
Speaker
I have been so insulated being in college and grad school that I didn't know about systems in the US. I didn't know about DSHS, for example. I didn't know about welfare systems. I didn't know about a whole lot of these things. And so I got to work with communities who are within these systems. It was a very humbling experience for me. I got to understand systemic racism. I got to understand institutionalized oppression. I got to understand a whole lot, like the foster care system.
00:19:52
Speaker
my goodness. Listen, because think about it, I moved into the country at 18. Right. And so I was a quote unquote adult. I use that very, very lightly. Um, so there are a lot of things that I didn't know. I didn't grow up in the country. So I didn't know about like, you know, foster care. I didn't have friends who, you know, had been removed from their homes. I didn't know about CPS. I didn't know about a whole lot of things.
00:20:17
Speaker
And so when I came into community mental health, I learned so much. And I also learned about my role as a therapist within this system and especially as a black female therapist in this system, right? And what it means to work with folks who look like me and how I can advocate, how I can show up and how I also did harm.
00:20:43
Speaker
you know, in some ways to some of these communities that I worked with and really working on being accountable and growing up to be the therapist that I am today. I feel like that community mental health experience, as hard as it was, as much as, you know, I still remember parents cussing me out over things. I remember parents being upset because I had to call CPS. I remember all of these things. Some of those lessons are what have informed the policies that I have within my practice today.
00:21:12
Speaker
Yeah, you took what you, it sounds like in very many different aspects, you took that experience and translated it into practically, logistically, how you do your work, but also from a values perspective and from a deeper perspective, how you do your work. I love that.
00:21:35
Speaker
Hey, grad students. Real quick, before we get back to this interview, if you are loving the idea of being a part of a community of like-minded graduate students who want to own their own private practice one day, then you need to head to Facebook and join my Facebook group from intern to entrepreneur. There's already a community set up of graduate students who one day want to own their own private practices and be entrepreneurs just like you.
00:22:02
Speaker
So head over to Facebook, join that group, and stay in the loop and get connected with people who are doing things that you want to do. Back to the interview. You know, once I got licensed, you know, I was one of those people that I was a go-getter. I was on it. I was getting all of my hours. I think I was the first person in my class to take my test, pass it on the first try. Like, I was determined to get that license, right? Because to me, like,
00:22:28
Speaker
It felt like a status symbol for me to like share with my community. Like, listen, I'm not just any therapist. I'm a licensed therapist. You better come correct. Okay. So, so I made sure I got my hours. I was working a lot of long hours. Um, did my supervision. I was paying for external supervision also to make sure that I was getting all of those supervision hours. Um, I, that was my grind. Like I was on top of all of that. Did my studying took my tests very early.
00:22:56
Speaker
that I got my license and I had this dream of becoming a supervisor within the agency, but that didn't happen. I was passed over for, you know, for a lot of reasons, including, and, you know, I was upset about it, but looking back, I think that was one of the best things that happened to me because I would have probably stayed longer than I needed to. And part of what happened was, you know, I had a client who was murdered.
00:23:26
Speaker
And it hit me, it hit very hard. And I had a whole meltdown at work. Like, think about somebody on the floor, crying, sobbing because my client, you know, a child had gone through this and was no longer here. And they had to call my husband to come get me. So having that, my supervisor at that time was like, Phoebe, I don't think that this is the time for you to start
00:23:57
Speaker
You know, getting into supervision and, you know, I think you need to take care of yourself. Um, but you know, at that same time, I also got an opportunity to be a contractor with the military and it was paying double what I was, what I was making. I said, what?
00:24:13
Speaker
Excuse me, there's actually money out here to be made. Hello. So, so I, you know, I transitioned from that and I mean that that whole incident with my client was not the only thing that happened. I was going through a lot in my life at that time also, you know, just personally. And so I, I decided, okay, I think it's time to move on.
00:24:37
Speaker
and moved into becoming a military and family life counselor. And so I worked with military families, because I was a military spouse at that time. And that was great work. That was really great work, very fulfilling work, just being able to support the military families. And what was incredible about that was that was what launched me into private practice. Oh, interesting. Yes. So because of the flexibility of the job, most of us were school MFLACs. They call us MFLACs.
00:25:06
Speaker
Um, and so a lot of people on the team have their own pirate practices on the side because the job was easy and you didn't have to do any notes or anything like that. You worked on the school schedule. So for me, I was working from 8am to 2pm. Well, what am I supposed to do after 2pm? It was such an adjustment because let me think about it. I was used to working from like eight to six Monday through Friday. And then all of a sudden I have all this free time. Phoebe doesn't do free time. What is that?
00:25:37
Speaker
I love that. Well, yeah, you just you essentially came up with like, I have two full extra days here, you know, if you total all that time together. So that, you know, I started learning from people who were on the team who had their own prior practices, I started having conversations with them. And there's like almost like informal mentorship kind of started. One of the therapists that I was working very closely with, we were a team at her at the school. So there was two of us there. And so she would just spend time talking to me about her practice.
00:26:06
Speaker
And then that was when I started to dream of, okay, this is a possibility because I actually have the time now and I could actually do this and okay, people are actually out here doing it. So this is something that might actually work for me. And I think part of that was the humility of like literally almost sitting at her feet and learning from her and hearing what her story was kind of like how, you know, we're having this conversation.
00:26:33
Speaker
just really talking to her. And I've always been a naturally curious person. I was telling my mom that I used to ask 100 questions for per hour. And so I would just ask questions of what is it like? How do you do this? How do you do that? What does it look like to do this? And even in that, there has to be a mindset shift that happened for me from going from committee to mental health to contracting with the military and then to prime factors. Huge mindset shift.
00:27:02
Speaker
my role as a therapist even felt different, right? And so one of the things that I started considering was like, okay, maybe I could maybe work for somebody in their practice and see, get a flavor of it. I'm that kind of person that I don't just jump into things, I like to tiptoe. And as much as I'm rebellious and all those things, I tiptoe into things. And that was not a very good experience. This person left me to essentially run the practice myself and
00:27:31
Speaker
did not do what she was supposed to do, just kind of took off on me. Took off on me, would not pay me on time, did not explain a lot of things. And yeah, I think this person was trying to build a group practice, but didn't even know what they were getting into. And then I realized, I was like, wait, I'm doing this. So why can't I just do it for myself? And coincidentally, I had a friend at my church who
00:28:00
Speaker
was like, Hey, why don't you go out into your business and do
Entrepreneurial Mindset and Business Skills
00:28:03
Speaker
your own thing? I said, uh, no, no, no, no. I gotta work for somebody. I gotta get my benefits. Okay. I like my health insurance. Okay. So, so I, I, I, I started talking to that friend and then, you know, he also had a, uh, a group home. And so he was like, well, we need a clinical person to sign off on and review paperwork and all that. So I started kind of doing, that was on my side, my side hustle started. So I started doing that on the side and, um,
00:28:31
Speaker
I had a lot of support, I did. That one mentor, she told me, you do office ally, you do this, you do this, you do this. These are the good insurances to join. These are the ones you want to avoid. Started off that way. And then the friend who had the group home, they had an office downtown Tacoma. And so he was like, you know, how much are you going to charge us?
00:28:50
Speaker
Right. And this was one thing that you can look at it as a blessing and also like a side-by-side thing. I didn't do any market research when this person asked me how much I was going to charge them for reviewing my paper, for reviewing their paperwork and doing the work for them. So I was like, Oh, just pay me $20 an hour. And I remember his left looking at me like $20 and I should have taken a cue from that, but I didn't. I was like, you know, like pay me $20 an hour. The great thing that came out of that is that I had an office for free.
00:29:19
Speaker
for almost four years. Oh, wow. Yeah, almost four years. And so I was able to jumpstart the practice in that way. So I was working full time at, you know, with my military contract. And then I was also running my practice. I started off very small, a couple of clients here and there, a couple of clients here and a little some some. I think maybe I started off with like one or two clients a week. And then I started going to like,
00:29:45
Speaker
four and then six and then just carefully steadily building that and also starting to network with other therapists who are in private practice and I think it was 2020 when I finally said okay you know what I think it's time to move on and you know maybe dream a little bigger so I moved out of that office got my own office
00:30:08
Speaker
I saw two clients in there and then we had to shut down because of the pandemic. Oh my God. You know, you're the, you were the second person I'm talking to today that has a similar story. I was so excited about being in my own office. The whole, like I, the core, I had this brick wall accented, like, you know, that, that one mentor, she came in and helped me punctuate the office the whole nine. Twenty, twenty. And then the world changed. Yep. And then the whole world changed.
00:30:38
Speaker
So I was paying for this office and people were giving up, they're starting to give up their offices at that point. And something was like, no, just hold on to the office. Just hold on to the office. So I, you know, I held onto the office. I would, you know, kind of stop in when, when things started opening up a little bit, I would stop in to see, but I immediately moved to telehealth. I had a whole panic attack because I had practiced telehealth a little bit in the past.
00:31:02
Speaker
But, um, it wasn't my modality. So I had to shift. That was a huge shift that happened there for me. And, you know, throughout all of this, I, I had three kids. I went through IVF and I tell people it's my, my buy one, get two free. I pay for that one. And then after that, my body figured out what to do.
00:31:26
Speaker
So two kids after that, you know, bam, bam, bam. I was pregnant every year from 20, 2017 to 2021. So throughout all that, I'm still building the business and you know, I just kept going. And so there was a contract change with the military. And so I decided it was time for me to leave. And so I worked for another company for, for a very short time and I started learning and started paying attention. That was when the whole group practice thing started.
00:31:54
Speaker
you know, circling around in my head of like, I could expand. But a huge book that shifted my mindset that even pushed me propelled me towards the whole, maybe you could do a group access thing, was we should all be millionaires by Rachel Rogers. Oh, I have to write that down because I love a money book. Listen, I don't I've never seen myself as a business person. I'm not a money book person. Like I'm not
00:32:19
Speaker
People talk about mindset and all that. I'm like, uh-uh, I'm not a business person. I didn't go to school for this. Like this is not, no, no, no, no. Like look at the trajectory of my practice, right? I didn't even ever jump into full time. Like I was, I always kept my job. But then when I noticed that when I feel like when I, after I read the book and I shifted the way I was looking at my practice, I used to tell people, oh, I have a small private practice in Tacoma. Once that shifted for me, I feel like everything blew up.
00:32:49
Speaker
And I started to make decisions that were like a business owner, like an entrepreneur. So yeah, that was, that was that book. We should all be millionaires. Life changer for me.
00:33:02
Speaker
I am going to read that but I also want to go back because it's funny that you just referenced your journey in terms of you had a small practice and then you did this because I actually want to reframe that too. This is something that comes up again and again on this podcast and on the interviews that I do and it's actually part of what I did.
00:33:23
Speaker
I think that it is not the only way. You can do it different ways, but I think that it is the smartest way for us to scale small and keep stability where we can keep it and dip our toes into private practice. When I talk to people who go into private practice by thinking, okay, I'm going to quit my job.
00:33:42
Speaker
and then I'm going to open my doors tomorrow and they don't have any backup plan and they don't have any stability or security. Those are the people that then become freaked out immediately because you don't have a full caseload in the first month, the first week, first year sometimes.
00:33:57
Speaker
They're the people that make bad decisions because they're coming from scarcity mindset and they're afraid versus what you're doing in a lot of other successful practice owners I know. And what I did is, you know what? Like for me it was, I'm gonna keep my restaurant job. I'm working at a restaurant in bartend and I'm gonna have a private practice one day a week. And then it was two days a week, right? So I would decrease one and increase the other. And that's how I made decisions that allowed me to be present for my clients.
00:34:24
Speaker
because I wasn't in money scarcity. I could pay my bills and I could make decisions that were alignment. Like, you know what? I want to see, I see couples. I'm a couples counselor. And so I'm like, I'm seeing couples and that's what I'm going to niche my practice to. And I have a couple individuals, but I'm going to spend all my time marketing for those, those people. And so it allowed me to grow my practice. So I just want to reframe that. I actually, I would argue that you've been a business person and that's why you made smart decisions. It didn't go, I'm a business person. I have a business.
00:34:55
Speaker
Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And that makes a lot of sense. And I think for me, it like the mindset around like, you know, small was more of how like I was looking at the business as small, right? And so it, I looked at it as, Oh, is this a part-time thing? I don't think I ever looked at it as it could actually be a thing, right? It can actually be a household name that I could actually like, you know,
00:35:22
Speaker
be, be getting awards for, for this practice, like, you know, like things like that. And so, you know, so I, yeah, I absolutely agree with what you're saying. And, you know, I think even now there's this shift that's going on where because of telehealth and the pandemic and all of us kind of going through this crisis of like, Oh my goodness, like life could end, you know, at any point and blah, blah, blah. There has been this drive and everybody wants to get into private practice. And I think it's great. However, however,
00:35:49
Speaker
It's a huge risk to just jump in without having the steadiness because it's going to impact the work that you're doing with your clients. Absolutely. It's going to show up in the work. It's going to show up in the way that you market yourself. It's going to show up in the room and the way you even ask your clients to pay their balance if there isn't a plan. I see a lot of people getting into this because it seems appealing. It looks good. Everybody's doing it, so why not me?
00:36:19
Speaker
and not realizing that this is a business. This is a business. It's not just, you know, like a practice is not just a practice where you see people. There's a lot of back end things that happen. And I think folks are a little misinformed about that.
00:36:36
Speaker
Yeah, I would definitely agree with that. And I'm actually, when I see people that are a little bit afraid to do it, I actually feel relief for them. Cause I'm like, if you're a little bit afraid, that means you're not disillusioned to the fact that this is, this is going to be hard. And it's not, it's not like things are hard. It's not hard that you can't do it. It's hard that you have to essentially learn another master's program. Like business is a master's degree. That, that,
00:37:05
Speaker
And I think for me, that was one of the things that I was always scared of because I was like, I'm not, you know, my husband will talk about, Oh, you know, maybe you should like think about opening your own practice in life, but I'm not a business person. I don't know anything about business. I don't know what is a business plan. Right. And it's not like, you know, those in 2016 or 2015 chat GPT was out there where I could just get out on there and like ask, ask a question and get an answer immediately. Right. Like it was, it was scary. I didn't know what I was doing.
00:37:34
Speaker
Um, I didn't know a thing about bookkeeping. I didn't know anything about taxes. I, I went into this with, you know, very carefully and like asking questions.
Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
00:37:44
Speaker
I, I even had a tax person, you know, just take off on me until today. Like, I don't even know where she just disappeared. I hope she's alive.
00:37:52
Speaker
Yeah, hopefully. But yeah, that's what happens when you're in business, right? Because you're the one in charge then, right? You got to keep the pieces going. If you work for somebody else, it's their responsibility at the end of the day, right? Right. But yeah, if you have your own business and your tax person disappears, you still owe taxes. And that's what happened because she told me she filed everything we signed off on the paper where he comes to find out she never filed our taxes. She never filed. Okay, that's wild. That's just wild in itself.
00:38:22
Speaker
And also, yeah, that's what you have to deal with when you're in private practices. Like when something goes wrong, you got to figure out a way to get around it. And that's hard to do if you're not financially secure. It's hard to do if you don't feel confident about being able to pay your bills and where your business is. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm all about learning too. And you know, maybe part of it is just because of the kind of learner that I am. I like to sit at people's feet.
00:38:48
Speaker
I like to learn from people who have gone before me. I want to ask about the mistakes that they're making. Listen, I'm that person before I became popular on social media. Like I will go to a, I'll pick up maybe something on Facebook market and I'll get to the neighborhood and be like, ooh, this is nice. These are nice houses. And I go up to the house to pick up whatever microwave or whatever I'm buying. And I'm asking the person, what advice would you give a person like me?
00:39:13
Speaker
Right? What, what, how, how do I get to where you're at? And sometimes people are like, you know, laughing and all that. I'm like, no, but for real though, I want to help like this one day. Talk to me. What's up? What do I need to do? How'd you get here? And I've never met anybody who has like not given me advice or not said anything, um, prolific, like, you know, like talking about, you know, maybe, you know, do some investing and,
00:39:38
Speaker
and, you know, get looking to stocks and, you know, just work hard. Well, what do you mean by just work hard? It's not just working hard. Give me some more, Charlie. Give me some more, you know. So. You have a practical step. Right. You know, and so so, you know, it comes even with like things like that where, you know, just having that humility of like, listen, I see that you're somewhere that I could be. What can I do to get there? Right.
00:40:05
Speaker
And I feel like that's one of the approaches that has really really helped me Get to where I'm at just learning from people asking questions and like not expecting free knowledge from every single person I've had to invest in some programs and things that I learned and all that stuff But sometimes you read the room and you can just see somebody is available to like maybe like answer a question or you know something like that and you know, I go to networking events and you know, I'll talk to people and
00:40:31
Speaker
It's crazy because after I say all this and I'm like, yeah, you know, I'm an introverted person. People are like, huh? But you talk to, yeah. Cause it's one-on-one. Yeah. Yeah. Different settings, different version of me. Right? You see what I'm saying? And I'm here for a reason. Like I'm on a mission. You see what I'm saying? I'm on a mission to get whatever knowledge I can get and then take it away and you know,
00:40:55
Speaker
go even looking at the last company that I worked for was a healthcare company, you know, one of the venture capital companies. And I looked at how they were running things. I looked at how they're running the show, I started taking notes. And that's one of the things that I even tell people on my team, because like, I don't, I don't feel this like sense of possession over my team. And so I'm like, you know, if you want to go into practice, let's have that conversation, you know, and I want you to I do a lot of coaching and mentorship within the practice around that.
00:41:25
Speaker
So I tell them, I want you to pay attention to how I do things. And if I'm doing something that doesn't make sense to you, I want you to ask me, yeah, why is our policy this and this and this and this? And I'll explain it to you. Cause I have a reason for why I do things the way that I do them. Um, I like to think I'm a very well calculated person. So is that something that I'm doing, you know, like ask me, why, why do we have a 72 hour turnaround on notes? People do 24 hours or same day. And I let them know, well, I do 72 hours because.
00:41:55
Speaker
If you're seeing a client on Friday, I want you to actually have your weekend in rest. Get me those notes on Monday. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And I think that something that's, that's really speaking to me right now is based on what you're saying for grad students to hear this and to recognize that they get to choose who they surround themselves with. They get to choose who to work with. And so they should be trying to surround themselves like with people like you who are not trying to keep information.
00:42:25
Speaker
who are trying to teach them and who are trying to push them and who are trying to advance them and who are trying to get them to see their potential. And if you're around people who are not doing that, who are not open to doing that or who give pushback if you ask questions, then that's probably not going to be the people that support you entrepreneurially. Absolutely. Absolutely. You want to surround yourself with people who are, who have been where you want to go.
00:42:53
Speaker
Right. Or who are where you actually want to be. Right. And people who will, you know, we, we, I'm, I'm a realist. Right. And so if my husband comes to me with a dream and all that stuff, I want logistics. Okay. So you want to do this. All right. What's that going to look like? Right. And that can cause issues within our marriage sometimes because he's like, well, you're not supporting my dreams and you always have questions. Yeah. I always do. Cause like, how are we going to get from A to B? Are we taking the highway? Are we taking the side roads?
00:43:22
Speaker
You know, we have a tank of gas, like all of those things, right? But I feel like sometimes people don't, people feel scared about the questions and there's a sense of defensiveness that comes with it. But I really look at it as an opportunity for me to think about and be more intentional about the things that I do. And so you also want people who can help you dream, right? Because my husband was the one that was like, you know, hey,
00:43:46
Speaker
you should get into business. And I was like, but because he planted that seed, I, I started thinking about it over time. You see what I'm saying? So you want people who are realists and you also want some dreamers who can help you, who can help you dream. Like right now I have one of my friends from grad school who were meeting once a month. We're going to start that this month. And she knows that I'm the realist. She's the dreamer. And so we balance each other out. So she's going to bring up the dreams and I'm going to be like, okay, well that sounds like a great dream.
00:44:14
Speaker
what can we do, blah, blah. And, you know, she's going to also let me know, Phoebe, that's a limits and belief, you know, like, I know you're trying to be real here, but allow yourself to think a little bigger. How about that, right? And so that company, you keep it. I can't stress that enough.
00:44:29
Speaker
so important. Yeah, yeah, creating community. And that's another theme that keeps coming up again, again, in all the interviews is you've got to have a community around you of people that support you, even if they don't understand what you're doing, that support you and ones that do understand what you're doing. So let me ask you, what is one piece of practical advice that you would give to somebody who was interested in an entrepreneurial journey?
00:44:57
Speaker
you have to work on your money mindset. Say more, say more. You're the first person that said that, and I totally agree. You have to work on your money mindset, whether it's in therapy or just in self-reflection or whatever it is, because whatever beliefs you have about money are going to show up in your business. Right. So whatever struggles that you have with money, it's going to show up in your business. If you don't know how to budget in your personal life, it's going to show up in your business.
00:45:26
Speaker
If you think that you have to work 50 hours a week before you can make money, it's going to show up in your business. If you have this belief that like, you know, it's hard work or nothing and it's the grind or nothing, it's going to show up in your business. So if you struggle with, you know, setting boundaries with people in your life, when people, for example, owe you money and
00:45:50
Speaker
you think that you're going to come into fire practice and make money because, you know, you're going to ask your clients who owes you $300 from their co-pays and they haven't, you know, paid you and you think you're going to be able to come and have those conversations. I'm sorry. That's not going to happen. If you can't have those conversations in your real life and you're outside of the therapy life, you're not going to be able to have that with your clients because who we are outside of the therapy room is who we're going to be in our businesses. Absolutely.
00:46:17
Speaker
Yeah. And anything that's unchecked in your, in yourself and you're not even going to know it. Right. So I've, I've had a lot of people when I work with like newer therapists in my practice or interns and stuff and, and you know, we'll be chatting and they'll be like, there's a lot of irritation around like, Oh, this person, their, their core got declined. Like I'm so agitated and I'm always kind of like, okay, well let's pause. Like maybe it was expired. Did you check it? Like I'm asking all these practical questions because I'm not active in that way. And what it always comes to is that,
00:46:47
Speaker
is that these people have a hard time talking about money with their clients. And there's all this emotion tied up in that. So if you're unchecked, how you feel about money, that will show up in your therapeutic relationship. Yes, yes, yes, absolutely. And I know you said, I know, I know you said one thing, but even still sticking to that, like I have to remember having to like coach a therapist that, you know, used to work for me around that because she thought out to me, I don't like talking about money with my clients.
00:47:16
Speaker
And I said, okay, cool. Well, if you do that, then how are we, how am I going to pay you? Because if we're not checking with our clients and talking about that, talking about money is, is such, it's an emotional thing. And we have, we miss as therapists, we miss those opportunities with our clients because we're uncomfortable about money, right? And we don't want our clients to think that, oh, Phoebe is just in this for the money. Well, Phoebe is in this for the money because Phoebe got to pay rent. Preach.
00:47:43
Speaker
And Phoebe isn't this for the money because Phoebe is going to be doing a food giveaway for unhoused neighbors on her birthday. And she does that every year. She needs the money to go feed people out here in these streets. So Phoebe isn't this for the money, right? And it doesn't take away from the fact that I'm a phenomenal therapist. Yes.
00:48:00
Speaker
You know, so much, and when you just said that, and maybe this is what you were even alluding to, we have such a complicated relationship with money as therapists because what are we told in grad school is that we're here because we want to help people and we're not going to get paid. And so we come into this with whatever our personal money stuff was, but then also the message that as therapists, we're supposed to be broke and we're supposed to be altruistic. And I am only a therapist. Well, that's not true.
00:48:28
Speaker
I am primarily a therapist because I needed to pick a job because I need to pay my bills. I take my job because I'm good at it and because I care about helping people. But that's secondary to the fact that I need to take care of myself. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's one of the mindset shifts that I had to experience throughout my career. And it's something that I still even do. But I think that for me, what I came to is for me to be able to show up
00:48:55
Speaker
relaxed with my clients, for me to be able to show up for my community, to be able to give back, to be able to do the donations, to be able to volunteer my time, to attend the fundraisers and lift my paddle and all that stuff. I have to have something in the bank. The impact that I'm trying to make in this world is going to take money, whether I want to accept it or not. Right now, I have the luxury of being able to sit on a board for an immigrant organization here in Washington state.
00:49:25
Speaker
because there's money in the bank for the hours that I'm using to take care of my community, take care of the immigrant communities, is taking care of. I don't have to worry about that, right? So I think it's time we really expanded the ways that we look at money, the way that we think about impact.
00:49:45
Speaker
We have all these people who are out here doing big things. Look at Oprah Winfrey. She's built a school in South Africa. She's doing this, blah, blah. If she doesn't have money, how is she going to do all of that? She can't help anybody if she doesn't have money. You see what I'm saying? We are in a field where people are very like, oh, no, it's not about the money. I don't do this for the money, blah, blah. Yeah, I can hold that. Absolutely.
00:50:11
Speaker
And there are things that we also want to do in this world and the impact that we want to make that is going to require us to have such resources. And it's okay if you want to, for example, if you want to be a millionaire and be a therapist, it's possible. They're out here. You have to just look and ask and talk to people about it. And one of the shifts that I've even seen within some of the groups that I find myself in on Facebook, there's a lot of therapist groups and I love being in them. That's the only reason I'm on Facebook.
00:50:41
Speaker
Um, but, and I think that's how we, I even connected with you, right? The whole reason I'm on Facebook. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so, um, I started seeing the shifts where people are being open about money.
00:50:54
Speaker
and you know like talking, I'm a part of one of the black therapist groups, one of the larger ones on there and people are trying to post what their screenshots of their like that income to allow for people to dream and so you know you have some grad students who are in there they're like oh my goodness like this is so nice to see and you know we're allowed to dream yes dream big set the goal and ask yourself what do I need to do to be able to get to that goal.
00:51:17
Speaker
And then that's it. I love it. Now that's kind of practical and mindset advice. Did you have a separate mindset advice that was aside from that? Well, you know, like thinking about mindset, you know, I think the big thing that I want to leave the listeners with is and the grad students and everybody listening is that your good heart is not enough to sustain a business. That is a huge mindset shift that I had to experience also.
00:51:46
Speaker
I'm a good person at heart. Anybody who knows me will say that. I've been taken advantage of in so many different ways because of that good heart. And part of that is realizing that it's also going to show up in the business. And it has shown up in the business over time, where sometimes my therapist has always told me, people, you have a very high tolerance for BS. And it's not something that I'm proud to say.
00:52:15
Speaker
But the reality of it is that your practice is a business and it needs to run. And there's a statistic, I can't really think of it, but there's a very small percentage of businesses that exceeds that five-year mark, right? And because we weren't trained to do this, that means that that's our cross to there. We have to do that extra work of figuring out those gaps, like what are your gaps, right?
00:52:40
Speaker
And I knew for me like money was a gap for me. So I needed to do some work around that. Bookkeeping was a gap for me. I needed to do some work around that. Setting prices was a gap for me. I have to do some work around that, right? And so knowing what your deficiencies are and making sure that you're taking the multivitamins to meet those needs is so, so, so, so important. And so you can have a good heart. You can do all of those things. But if you continue to lead with that good heart within your business, your business is not going to sustain itself.
00:53:10
Speaker
It's not going to make it past that five year mark. I'm sorry. Yeah. And I really love that because that's the difference between going, Oh, I found a check sheet online of all the different steps I need to take to make a business. Right. And then going, and so I need, I have that check sheet and I am a good therapist and I have a good heart. So I'm going to do it. And what you're suggesting, I love that analogy of the multivitamin, right?
00:53:32
Speaker
What your deficiencies are, in whatever way that they are, are unique to you. And so you need to really be aware of the ways in which you need to supplement things so that your big heart can be a part of what's out in the community and what people are able to see.
00:53:51
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, you have to really be aware of what you don't have for for your big heart to To matter in a practice setting. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah There's a lot there's a lot of mindsets that we have to to release especially like, you know from the grad school the root ones of like well We don't get into this to make money and you know therapists aren't rich and all that stuff There's there's multiple streams of income now people are talking about that now
00:54:19
Speaker
We're talking a lot about, you know, all of these different things and like just consulting even, right? And you do that, right? And what that looks like for you. But that's not something that they taught us in grad school. So I had to commit to learning about business, about finances. I had to figure out a system that works for me. I had to think about how to market. How do I market myself? Because as an introvert, my goodness,
00:54:48
Speaker
It is so uncomfortable. It's so hard to like sell myself and let people know why they need to work with me and then having to do it for somebody else within my practice because now they're my employee. Oh my goodness. I cringe even just thinking about it. But I have to learn how to do it. Right? Yeah. And you have to know that you don't like that to know where you have to push yourself. Yes. Or where to delegate.
00:55:15
Speaker
Yeah. Well, yeah, absolutely. And pay somebody else to do that work because billing, I'm not doing that anymore. I used to do it for myself now. No, no, no. I have six, seven clinicians right now. I'm not doing all of that work and trying to call insurance and be like, run me my money. You know, no, no, no. Somebody else can do it. Get somebody else to do it.
00:55:36
Speaker
I love that. I love that. Well, listen, so Phoebe, there's a couple of things that you said that I would love to have you on to maybe in the future talk more about, like just getting it out there. I, and we didn't have time for this, but definitely I think that grad students could benefit to hear from your decision to get your PhD and also what that's like owning a group practice, having kids, like
00:55:59
Speaker
I think that there's a lot of things there. I talk to a lot of people who, when they're in their graduate program, they're like, I think I want that. And then they graduate and they go, hell no. And then a couple of years later, they're like, maybe. So I think that conversation, I'd love to have you on sometime in the future to maybe talk about that. And then also I'd love to have you on maybe in the future to talk more about
00:56:21
Speaker
your work with immigrants and ways in which people can sort of conceptualize advocacy or I'm not quite sure how you define what you do or what the realm of it is. I don't know enough about it, but I think that that's really an important topic that grad students should be hearing about from a first-person perspective. So yeah, if you're interested, let's hook up and I'll get you back here.
00:56:48
Speaker
want to contact you or find you, what's the best way that they could do that or to learn more about you or follow you? Yeah, yeah. So my website, www.cdbrackle, L-M-F-T, that's P-H-E-B-E-D-R-A-K-O-L-M, as a man, F as in fox, T as in tango. Did I get that right? I don't know.
00:57:14
Speaker
Yeah, so that and then under the same handle on Instagram, I do try to be active. I'm taking a little break on Instagram right now, but I'm typically active on Instagram, CBBrac for LMFT, or even through my practice page, 253 Therapy.
00:57:33
Speaker
Yeah, I try to be on the internet streets as much as possible. Those are rough streets I'm done though. I will share all of that information in the show notes so people will know exactly how to contact you and they'll be able to click some links and get to you easier. I want to thank you for being here and sharing your story with me and with anybody who's listening to this. I think it's going to be really valuable and I really hope to catch up with you again in the future.
00:58:00
Speaker
Thank you so much for having me, Corey. This is amazing work that you're doing. And so I wish that we had a you when we were in grad school, but you know what? It's okay. That's what we get to be for the graduate students and the young professionals now. Absolutely. And part of our journey, right, is now that we know, now that we went through what we went through, you know, now we can help other people. So awesome.
00:58:25
Speaker
I hope that you love this episode of From Intern to Entrepreneur, and if you want to learn more about what we talked about, check out the show notes. If you love this podcast and you want to support me in continuing to create content for entrepreneurs, then please share this with a friend, a grad student, who you think might want their own private practice one day, and also like, subscribe, and review this podcast wherever you're listening to it.