The Practice of Therapy

Gordon Brewer: Well, hello everyone. And welcome again to the podcast. And I'm really happy for you to get to know Dr. Ajita Robinson and Ajita welcome.
Ajita Robjnson: Thank you so much for having me, Gordon.
Gordon Brewer: Yes, and  Ajita is is, has a large group practice up in Maryland. And today we're going to be talking about just the ways that things are changing in our, in our industry or in our professions, and also ways of thinking about diversifying our income. And so  Ajita is a start with everyone.
Tell, folks a little more about yourself and how you've landed where you've landed.
Ajita Robjnson: Yes. So I started my career in corporate America working for some names y'all might recognize Nestle, Pfizer, Walmart and really doing a lot of business in, in revenue strategy. So helping those underperforming divisions make more money essentially, but come and revitalize, revitalize process, but there was a disconnect for me.
I was selling, you know, in some cases, pet food or, you know, widgets, things of that nature, and really felt a gap in purpose, which led me to mental health. And I should have known because both of my parents have worked in mental health my entire life that that would come full circle. And so, you know, I went on to pursue my doctorate.
I was a full time professor, training students, and And then I opened my practice 12 years ago, actually and I knew that I wanted a training center, but what I kept encountering was that clinicians would hit a wall either on direct practice because life was lifing and most, most clinicians that I know work two jobs.
And I began looking at ways to really kind of protect. My clinician so that they could stay in this field longer and and leveraging how do we continue to increase their income without having to increase their caseload, which for us led us to securing contracts with the county and are eventually federal government and other opportunities that allowed my clinicians to use their skill sets, not only to kind of impact lives, but also to stabilize their income.
And so that brought my corporate. Revenue strategy, mental and my mental health background kind of merged them. And so now part of what I do in addition to leading my practice is I help mental health professionals launch and scale their businesses and leverage their clinical skills beyond direct practice.
And so that's that full circle moment, right?
Gordon Brewer: Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that is really fascinating. I know in the in my. In the consulting world, in the work that I do with just talking with, you know private practice owners or people wanting to go into private practice, that's a question that always comes up because you're correct.
Eventually, people will hit a ceiling with their earning potential, and the best way, That I know around that is to look at the ways in which we can diversify our income. So, yeah, so, let us, spill us your wisdom, Jenna. What what what are you, what have you learned about that and what sort of strategies do you think people should take?
Ajita Robjnson: Absolutely. I think one of the most important pieces before we diversify is to make sure that we stabilize. So I always want to start there. Anytime we're preparing for a pivot, because what I find in, and I'm sure you have encountered this, that when folks try to pivot, oftentimes we forget that we still have to maintain the thing that's actually maintaining our income, right?
And so. Keeping the practice visible, making sure that we know our numbers so that when we actually begin to expand or scale that business to add another stream of income, that we don't do the thing that I like to call a stream of struggle. That because we've diluted or diverted our attention we often don't think about the importance of having to kind of create a new marketing strategy for that new line of service that people may not already know That we do, right?
I'm a grief and trauma therapist. It makes sense that my, the bulk of my speaking is in the area of grief and trauma, but I did have to reintroduce myself because the way that I talk to and serve direct clients is different than the way that corporations and universities and hospitals make decisions.
And so I needed different infrastructure, different branding and different messages around being able to make that line of service profitable. And so getting, I think, very clear about. Who we serve and how we do that work. And more importantly, I think is recognizing that corporations and organizations make decisions using different points of interest or different deciding factors that a direct practice client might and making sure that we're actually speaking the language of the decision maker.
And what they actually need from us, right? And I think we spend so much time being focused on clients that we often aren't sure how to switch and talk to another CEO, right? Which I often remind clinicians to have, like, we give up our power and expertise because they may be a CEO or VP at a Fortune 500 company.
Well, you're also a CEO with, you know, lived experience and expertise. And so you're speaking to a colleague. And so I really think that kind of brand clarity and then being clear about who our avatar is that would best benefit from those services is really important to do.
Gordon Brewer: Yes. Yes. And yeah, you know, you had said something kind of in our introduction just about being reaching out to like federal and state agencies, tell us more about that as far as those kinds of opportunities that maybe people aren't aware of.
Ajita Robjnson: Absolutely. So one of the, I think, cool ways to kind of scale your business. And I always say that when it comes to like state, local and federal contracts, you need to have cash reserves in place because most of those contracts have a 45 to 60 day payable term, which means you'll get paid 45 to 60 days after delivering a service or after invoicing.
And so you need to have enough cash reserve to be able to, you know, pay your team, right. When I started off, I staffed myself on those contracts, and so I could delay paying myself, which isn't ideal, but it's much more sustainable than not paying your team when you're just starting out. And so those are some just, you know, that's just one thing that I wish I knew going in I think more with more clarity, right?
But getting started really was a matter of registering with my state. And I started with local and state contracts. I think those are easier to navigate than, than federal contracts if you're just beginning. And so think about that. All of us are under, our licenses govern under the Department of Health and Human Services or whatever it's called in your state, and they provide and pay for services for people who need mental health services, who have court required services or mandated care.
However, that falls under Department of Health. HHS in most states. And so it was easier to get into there. And so what we basically did was register as a vendor with our state and then register as a vendor with our County. And this was a matter of like, it was very similar to registering my business with my state, right?
There's some documentation you need to build your profile so that people, other agencies know how to work with you. Other vendors know how to work with you. And then I began going to procurement events. Procurement is essentially the purchasing department for your state or university. And the federal government.
And so they often have matching events where they're looking for people who provide a specific service. And so I always sign up for those. I go to at least still 12 years later, I go to at least one to two a month, because that's where a lot of these conversations are happening, where you can meet decision makers who are looking for folks.
And one of the things that I think is a gift that we have is that every single person that you meet Either needs mental health services or know someone who does. And so it doesn't matter what room we're in. If we are clear about how we serve, it makes it, I think, much easier for us to, to walk into spaces and build partnerships and relationships and that has worked really, really well as a strategy for us.
And then the other piece that gives us an added advantage. Anytime we're competing for contracts. Is we have business certifications. And so there's 5 main ones that are recognized at both the federal and the state level veteran owned businesses, disabled business owners, women owned businesses minority businesses and disadvantaged business owners.
Those contracts are what they call set aside. And so there it's literally money and contracts that are set aside for businesses that meet the criteria for those certifications. And. There's billions of dollars that get on allocated because not enough of us know and not enough of us apply. And so those were ways that I got into contracting.
And now we get approach to partner because we have these criteria and we have a good track record of delivering mental health services. And I always want to kind of. remind people that it's not just mental health services. Our largest contract with the federal government was for training. We didn't do any direct service.
And so that was our largest contract that we've received was to train 300 federal law enforcement officers in mental health first aid. And so it doesn't have to be service. The government buys books, they buy training, they buy consultation, they buy t shirts, right? And so there's so many ways that you can sell and serve.
Local state and federal contracts in that regard.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah. Yeah, that's that. That is really fascinating because I think yeah, the opportunity to do trainings is probably much more, much more prevalent than we realize. You know, just like you mentioned the mental health first first aid. I know, um, the, the other other place that might be, I don't know if you've had any dealings with this, but also churches and things like that, where they need somebody to come in and do the training.
Ajita Robjnson: Absolutely. And universities and hospitals are a. Our big areas, right? Our K through 12, our schools in general, K through 12 or higher ed have recurring contract. And what I think is pretty cool is when it's, it's kind of one of those things that once you know, you know, and I always love kind of spilling little tips that people may not be aware of, but that are readily available and that are free is that if the school is publicly funded, their budgets are also public information.
And so that can help you with identifying Who has the funding and in their annual reporting where they're requesting money, they're in marking money for professional development if they're K through 12. And in many of these schools, there's state and federal laws that have mandates around what type of training educators and staff must maintain such.
Most states have a training that says every year educators and members serving in a K through 12 school as well as Universities that receive federal funding or public dollars have to have some training around suicide prevention and intervention. And so those are ones that they're required to do. And who else is better trained to support educators with being able to recognize that?
During the pandemic, we did it. Over 100 trainings to schools to show them how to recognize mental health distress in an online classroom because most of our educators had never taught virtually and we knew that our educators are on the front line of being able to recognize child abuse and neglect and if they're not in the classroom, how else do we.
Kind of get eyes on our kids. If they're in a virtual setting, how do we recognize when kids are struggling from a social emotional perspective and our educators needed those skills because they were being put in in situations that nothing prepared them for on top of. Everything that the pandemic created, right?
And so we always identify what's the gap that's happening in our community where we can serve because people will, if it's a priority for them, that's causing them pain and it's a known problem. They will partner with you if you can offer the solution. And so that's what we did. To support our local schools that we knew were struggling, right?
With how to kind of adapt a curriculum to an online setting. And then we have some clinicians that are trained in working with individuals with neurodiversity and neurodiverse learning needs. And so that was an additional training that we were able to offer was how to. To create that inclusive learning space and online classroom.
And so that's just one idea how we were able to be responsive to a critical need that schools didn't even recognize was going to be a problem, but we knew would affect our kids because it's our area of specialization. Right?
Gordon Brewer: Yeah, yeah, that is so, that is so cool. What are some, what are some other areas in which we might be missing out on diversifying our incomes that maybe don't come to mind for people?
Ajita Robjnson: Yes, one of my favorite is, I think that all therapists should have a book of some sort. And part of the reason this is is because we're outnumbered and we're going to be outnumbered for a really long time. And I think a book and or some other self help Avenue is one way that we can get people access to what happens in those one on one sessions or in our group sessions, because there aren't enough of us to serve the amount of people that actually need access.
And so that's one way and people are still, you know, interested in self help. It's a 14 billion industry and not enough of us who are trained to support people who are navigating grief and trauma and anxiety and, you know, reparenting are contributing to that body of knowledge. And so there's a lot of information out there that's unfortunately causing more harm.
And so I think mental health clinicians have an opportunity. And in some regards, we have a responsibility to disrupt what's happening in the self help space to make sure people get access. who otherwise aren't coming to therapy. There's some people who are not coming to therapy, regardless of the fact that they have access, but they are still looking for resources to help them better understand what's happening for them to better advocate, to better cope.
And I think that's one way that we can contribute. While also generating income for ourself. I have two of my books behind me that have sold internationally and I can't tell you how many people have reached out to me to say, oh, my goodness, this, this really helped me understand and be better, a better companion to someone.
someone that was grieving because I didn't realize that I held these false beliefs about grief that really affected myself and certainly affected how I was supporting my spouse or my kid or my employee, right? And I think that's one way. And I also think that speaking is another way that we can one, free up some of our time, but also impact more people.
They got to train. An audience of 2000 in 6090 minutes, right? I got access to 2000 people to have an impact that walked away with strategies. How long would it take me to touch that number of people to give them psychoeducation to give them coping skills if I kept doing One on one or smaller, smaller engagements, and that work is totally worthwhile.
It's just not sustainable long term, especially with the amount of vicarious trauma that we're experiencing as clinicians. The burnout we're experiencing that are causing us to exit the field at alarming rates. I think. Being able to do speaking and consulting allows us to have a larger impact in a compressed amount of time.
Right? And so I think that's something that we, those are things that we can bring tremendous value to communities and workplaces.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah, yeah. And you hit on something that is just really I think a key point in just thinking about diversifying income. It's moving from the one to one kind of way of providing things to the one to many.
And I think that that if we can kind of get our heads around that and think about ways in which we can go. Get to that in the different avenues in which we are things were passionate about things that we have our expertise in that sort of thing. I'll have to admit agenda is that you have kind of prompted me to really re revisit.
I was also going to be planning on doing a memoir or a book about grief, which is similar to what you've done, but from the perspective of a therapist who has also lost their wife. And so being able to you know, do, do something like that, it's been an idea that's been back there for the past year.
But Yeah. And so I think that's a, an important thing to think about our own life's experiences and how, how we've applied them in our own life. I think it's just the perfect kind of self help book.
Ajita Robjnson: Absolutely. And it's a wonderful way to honor ourselves in this work. I wrote my book, The Gift of Grief in probably one of the hardest seasons of my life and didn't feel qualified.
Didn't feel ready. But was also maxed out and I kept getting, you know, other clinicians that would ask like, Hey, can you, you know, can you train this? And there's only so many collisions that I can supervise, right. So, and most of us don't get experience and in our courses and in our programs on grief and all of us are doing grief work.
Some of us just without. You know, the knowledge and the skills that we need, but all of us are doing grief work, if we're working with people. And so that is really what compelled me to continue and move forward. I did eventually expand it to a 16 week curriculum where I do actually train other clinicians and an eight hour component of that, where I go and I train H and H our leaders.
And so I brought that up because oftentimes we think we have to continue creating new things or different things. And I kept, I created seven variations of that thing, right? It's a course, it's a. Training, right? It's a series. It's a 16 week program to train clinicians an eight hour curriculum, right?
To train non clinicians. It's the title of my tech talk, right? And I think that that that allows us to really understand that we can serve well and long. And for me, deep, I don't want to kind of do all of the things and be scattered and burnt out in that way, because you can easily trade Direct practice for speaking, and then that becomes a direct practice pipeline there, right?
Every time I speak, someone walks up to me and asks, Can I work with you? And it's like, I'm not, I don't have additional spaces for clients. I'm glad I have a team. But the piece that I think is so important is that that's a thing that can outlive us. In perpetuity, right? Think about the books that we have read as we become clinicians.
Many of those authors are no longer walking this earth and yet they're still having such an impact. And for me, that's a, that's a living legacy that I get to benefit from. You know, it, it brings me great joy when people are like, thank you so much. And they're talking about my book and I was scared to death and I was like, is it enough?
And I agonized over it for like 18 months before I put it into the world. And literally it has sold on every single continent. And that wouldn't have happened if I just didn't get out of the way. Now I keep tweaking it, right. And I'm, you know, have revised it and there's a second edition coming out, but I remind myself like how many editions of, you know, counseling theory did I like until the 16th edition and no one's saying, Oh, it wasn't a good book.
All right. I don't know if I for the rest of our life but what is at stake if we don't make it available to the people who truly need it if we keep it wrapped up in ourselves or in those individual sessions and people are truly suffering. And so, that is what prompted me to get out of my way. And I dedicated it to my grandfather who did not live to see the book come to life.
And that was one way that I was able to honor him, but also honor my recommitment to doing this work because I was disconnected from it at, at that season of my life. And it gave me renewed purpose, right? It gave me just renewed energy that I could do this work differently in a way that, that Didn't require self abandonment, and I think that's an important part of what diversification allows.
It allows us to continue to serve the people that may not have access, right? It creates additional breathing room in my practice where we can pro bono sessions. We can accept clients, whether they have the capacity to pay, because we have been able to create such a profit center through passive income and diversified income that.
I can fund our pro bono sessions and still pay my clinicians. And that again, wouldn't be possible if I didn't recognize that my number 1 responsibility as a CEO is to make money so that we're in the community for 12 plus years, right? Because if we don't have financial stability week, I can't pay my team.
We don't our doors close right? And that those 2 wanting to be profitable and do purposeful work that they align with 1 another. They're not in conflict when we are. The intention is service, right? To others and to self. So that's for me, the exciting part of being clear about how else we can do this work that also takes care of us.
Right.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah, right. Oh, yeah, that's a you talk about so many important things agenda and I'm curious. You mentioned getting out of your own way. So how did you do that? Because first thing that comes to mind for me is just thinking about imposter syndrome and which I think a lot of us maybe suffer from that.
What was kind of the, what was kind of the turning point for you?
Ajita Robjnson: I think the turning point for me actually happened when my grandfather died and unfortunately nine months later, my oldest brother died. And my oldest brother's death was very public and and I unofficially became our family's PR person.
And it really was my training in background and grief and crisis that allowed me to function during such a terrible time in my life. And I found myself correcting mistruths. And, and then helping not only my family, but my brother's children and and, you know, my extended family navigate what they couldn't process.
They couldn't, they couldn't name and as there was a very public nature to my brother's death. I found myself educating people who were impacted because of the way the news covered his death. And. And answering questions over and over again that I think I had taken for granted because it's the language I speak every day.
Gordon Brewer: And
Ajita Robjnson: one of the final things that my grandfather said to me before he died was that you've done enough. And really what that meant was I'm a first generation poverty and trauma disruptor. I'm the first and only doctor in any generation of my family. And I didn't realize the ways that I was constantly trying to repay my family of origin for all the sacrifices they made so that I could be in ways that actually was.
stifling my creativity, my growth, my career even. And he really freed me up from that. And that's literally one of the final things that he said to me. And then my brother dying as a result of, of, of suicide and being a mental health clinician and not being able to help him, I knew that that alone could help other people.
And so it really wasn't me. It was this, I think this innate sense of responsibility to helping other people that allowed me to tell a part of my story on my terms that other folks could relate to. And I think sometimes as as therapists, people think that we're immune and me being very vulnerable.
And as transparent as I was. comfortable with being navigating those things publicly allowed me to normalize what grief looked like across time, even when you're high functioning and you know, you're successful that none of those things buffer you from experiencing the fullness of grief, including the joy because my grandfather was no longer suffering from cancer.
My brother was no longer suffering. And as a mental health clinician, he didn't meet the criteria. He didn't have the initial signs that And that allowed me to also help educate others about what this actually looks like. Right. Yeah. In a, in someone that was very successful and, you know, and happy and all the things that we think make someone protected and buffered against something like that.
Right. And so it wasn't, it wasn't me. It was, it really was my faith and my recommitment to making sure that we, I did right by them. In this part of my life, right? Yes. I think that's what kind of forced me to like fear couldn't drive the car anymore because there was too much at stake. And it doesn't have to be death, but death is a wake up call for so many of us that reorients us to how we're actually living.
And what I didn't recognize was that career and my identity as a wife at the time and a mom had taken up so much space that I had stopped being a Jetta. And on the other side of, of grief and loss is a renewed gift around how we operate in the future. And that's really what. this book is anchored around.
Gordon Brewer: Wow. Well, well, I can't wait to get my hands on it. And Jenna, I've got to be respectful of your time and this has been such a wonderful conversation. Tell folks how they can get in touch with you, find out more about your book and your TED talk and all of those great things.
Ajita Robjnson: Absolutely. So since I have such a unique name, you can find me at  AjitaRobinson.
com. I'm  Ajita Robinson on all platforms on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn. And on my website, there's a tab called shop where you can find both of my books. And my Instagram has a ton of free resources for therapists. If you're thinking about diversifying, there's a 30 ways to diversify workbook that Has some questions to help you get clear as well as some ideas about how you can diversify.
And so connect with me on social media. I'd love to serve.
Gordon Brewer: Awesome. Awesome. And we'll have links in the show notes and the show summary for people to access that easily. So, well,  Ajita, Dr.  Ajita Robinson, I'm so glad that we got to meet and hopefully we'll have another conversation.