Badass Therapists Creating Practices That Thrive
Welcome to Badass Therapists Building Practices That Thrive, the ultimate resource for mental health professionals ready to step into their power, grow their practices, and create a career they love. I'm Dr. Kate Walker, a Texas LPC/LMFT Supervisor, author, and business strategist who's here to show you the path to success.
Formerly Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses, we’ve rebranded because, well, we’re way too big for Texas now! This community of badass therapists is growing nationwide, and we’re here to help you create a career and practice you love, no matter where you are.
Every week, you'll get practical advice, proven strategies, and motivation to help you build a thriving practice—one that gives you the freedom to live your life on your terms. From mastering marketing to designing scalable systems and becoming a clinical supervisor, this podcast is your roadmap to leveling up without burnout.
Hit subscribe and get ready to unlock your badass potential. Your thriving practice starts now!
Badass Therapists Creating Practices That Thrive
120 Embracing Counselor Support: In Conversation with Nakia Roberson, M. Ed, LPC-S, CST, NCC
Get your step by step guide to private practice. Because you are too important to lose to not knowing the rules, going broke, burning out, and giving up. #counselorsdontquit.
and I can edit anything, so don't worry about it, I'll have cool, all right? Hey, I'm Dr Kate Walker and I am welcoming Nakia Roberson to the podcast today because she is one of the finalists in our 2024 practice grant giveaway. And also you shout out a little bit you took the supervisor training, so you're also a graduate of the Kate Walker Training 40-Hour Supervisor Training which is super cool. So glad you're here and we get to highlight you today. So I want to hear all about you today and so you know, this is all part of share the love and a lot of times, as counselors, we don't know how to refer to each other right. We don't understand the power of networking, we don't understand the power of just, you know, promoting each other, because, you know, we're taught to compete with our fellow businesses and that just doesn't work. So thank you so much for being here, thanks for entering the practice grant giveaway and, yay, let's get started. So you want to.
Speaker 2:I'm excited. I'm excited that I won I'm so glad.
Speaker 1:I'm so glad you're here. It's so neat because you have been I know you've been in the step it up membership and you've I've just I've seen you in different groups and things like that and you've just always asked such great questions and I I kind of I stock all those social web things Right, and so I see that you're growing and I see that you're asking questions about growing and all of these things and I'm like, ooh, that is so cool. So, yeah, let's do more of that.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. I'm excited. And just to plug in, I don't know if you remember, but you were my professor in. Oh, good Lord, I don't remember that. Oh my gosh, where which you were my professor in um grad school for the practicum when we were doing the behind the was it? Is it practicum when we're doing behind, where you have to see the clients and you have to view us behind the, the window or whatever?
Speaker 1:uh-huh, uh-huh, so that was Sam Houston. Yeah, oh my, that's been a minute, nakia, that's like almost 10 years ago. Oh my gosh, that's so cool. I don't, I'm so sorry. No, just don't even remember. But thank you.
Speaker 2:That's okay. That's okay. But I was like, oh, you remember? Yes, when I joined the supervision program that you have, and when I saw the name, I was like why does that name sound familiar? And I was like she was my professor.
Speaker 1:Small world. See, it's a small world here.
Speaker 2:Full circle.
Speaker 1:Look at it. I love it. I love it. See, this is what I tell people about. When you supervise, you are growing your own colleagues like you are literally creating your own colleagues, and that's so. I love this. You are growing your own colleagues like you are literally creating your own colleagues, and that's so. I love this. I love that, thank you. All right, I'm putting on the glasses. So, first and foremost, where are you located and how can listeners refer clients to you?
Speaker 2:So talk a little bit about your ideal client and all that good stuff. Okay, so I work a virtual practice in the state of Texas, and so I see clients across the state of Texas, and the name of my practice is Next Stage Counseling and Wellness, and so anybody can contact me by going to the website nextstagecounselingcom me by going to the website nextstagecounselingcom. You can also reach us via email by going to connect at nextstagecom, and I am growing my group practice and so I'm super duper excited about that. And so we see clients, we see individuals, we see couples getting ready to start with groups and things of that nature, and I'm also a certified sex therapist and so I see clients in that capacity as well, and so does the other clinicians in my practice. They see clients dealing with individual grief, adjustment, any type of trauma, things of that nature. So my focus and my goal is just to help individuals to live well, no matter what's happening in life. Right, because we can grieve well, we can do all things well sometimes. We just need to know how.
Speaker 1:And so you said the email. But I also, in stalking your website, saw you have these great portals, right? You have portals for existing clients. You also have a button for new, I think right. So tell us like, if I'm going to say, hey, you've got to go check out this therapist, do this thing. Would they just go to your website and click a button, or do they need to get on email?
Speaker 2:Yes. So if you are a client looking for services, you would just go to the website. You will determine what it is that you're looking for. Do you want to work with someone for couples work? Do you want to work with someone for individual work? And so then you click the button and then the button is going to take you to an intake. Well, not an intake form, but take you to a consultation pre-consultation form For you to complete. Someone from our office will contact you. So, after you schedule, then you will get contacted from someone from our office and we will talk to you about what your needs and what your desires are and match you with a therapist who will be the best person to work with you.
Speaker 1:That sounds easy. Would they contact through email or phone?
Speaker 2:You will get contacted. So, basically, when you go to the website and you click the link, you're going to schedule your appointment. The appointments are via phone and so someone will contact you via phone. So you will leave your information there and you'll be contacted via phone.
Speaker 1:Nice, okay. So no chance of someone like just sending an email and it going to spam. They're going to be waiting for a real person to contact them. Kind of triage them and figure out what's going to be the best fit at your practice and then they get plugged in.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, Absolutely. You will be waiting for someone to give you a phone call and our consultations are not the typical 15 minutes, so it's about 20, 25 minutes, and then for couples, our consultation is 45 minutes. Now for couples. That's the only difference For couples the phone consultation, the consultation. I'm couples, that's the only difference For couples the phone consultation, the consultation. I'm sorry, it's not a phone consultation, it is a virtual consultation. Okay, we do ask that both partners are available for the virtual consultation. For a couple who is looking for therapy.
Speaker 1:Wonderful that sounds You're dealing with two individuals.
Speaker 2:Right, and so we try to make sure that both people are on board and wanting to move forward. We're doing the work.
Speaker 1:I love that. Ok, so next question what do you love about your business?
Speaker 2:What do I love? I love witnessing the transformation that happens when a client embraces their choice right, their choice to change and live well under any type of circumstance that they're going through. I strongly believe that we have to make a choice to change and in order to do that, we have to have self-awareness, we have to have clarity and we have to have a desire. And so when I see clients transform and they're beginning to see that, oh my gosh, that I'm choosing this and guess what? I like it. I like this choice that I'm making, Because sometimes we choose to live or to do things that are not conducive or aligned to where we want to go in life and we don't like it.
Speaker 2:So when clients are able to say, oh my gosh, even the little steps, you know, I tell clients don't negate the baby steps. And so we have to take those small little steps. And so helping a client to say, hey, although you're not where you want to be, you're not where, you're not where you were when you first started seeing me, where you want to be, you're not where you were when you first started seeing me, you're not where you were last week, right, and so for them to be able to see that and that light bulb go off like, oh my gosh, oh, even though it's small, that is a change, and so that is my favorite part. It's like you know. So sometimes I have to bring clients back, say stop, you know you're saying that you're not making progress or you're not doing this. Let's, let me go back in my notes and let's look OK, session five. This is what you say. And then when they're like oh yeah, I'm like see, look at that, you're making progress. I love that. I love that.
Speaker 1:Well, your passion is just everywhere here. I mean you are so encouraging and the fact that you see the solutions where the clients don't, I mean you've got to be that the butterfly because you know, as a caterpillar you're crawling and then you emerge into this beautiful butterfly.
Speaker 2:But before you do that you have to go into the cocoon phase and sometimes phase, and sometimes that's what therapy is. That is me getting along by myself, going through this phase of you know, because a butterfly they liquefy, right, the caterpillar will liquefy. And I tell my clients all the time that we go through this change process it doesn't always feel good. It doesn't always feel good. I have to be alone, by myself, and I have to deal with things that are probably not going to feel good and probably going to be uncomfortable, but it is so that I can emerge and begin to soar and fly high.
Speaker 1:I love that, I love that, and so tell me kind of, that's, that's Nakia the counselor, but what about Nakia the entrepreneur, business owner? What do you think about business?
Speaker 2:Yes, what do I love about the business? I love seeing other clinicians One of the things because, as a supervisor, I love seeing other clinicians grow. I love them being able to take their client from point A to point B. I love teaching. That is my background and so, being that type of person, it just, you know, just transformation, to see the transformation in my clients, to see the transformation in working with other clinicians, like all of that is something that I'm very, very passionate about right, being able to help the next generation. You love people.
Speaker 1:I do and you have to, and with the entrepreneur piece, I mean you're, you're teaching the people that you bring on how to be sort of entrepreneurs as well. Right, because they're responsible for themselves, they're responsible for you know, and that's sometime the first time folks have been in that position and you've got to mentor them along.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And, side note, you do supervise associates LPC associates in private practice, correct? I do, okay. So if you're listening to this, just I hope you made a little check mark right there, because that's, we need those unicorns, all right. Next question when do you struggle in your business and I don't know. Maybe we can brainstorm a little bit about what you need.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so as a business owner.
Speaker 2:I love being a business owner, I love the freedom that I have as a business owner. But the thing is right now, with me transitioning from being a solopreneur to being someone who has a group practice, I think that is a little bit of the struggle, and so I would say it is me having a consistent, strategic marketing plan for my business so that I can grow it and expand it beyond myself, and so I think that would probably be one of the struggles that I would say that I have is trying to figure that out, the overwhelm that that can sometimes be. Sometimes in school we don't learn the business, all of the business pieces and the business components. And so, being someone who loves people, like you said, I love people, I love working with people, I love the transformation of clients and working with other business owners and things of that nature that I sometimes can forget the business aspect of it. And so now that I'm growing my practice, I think that is my biggest struggle is the marketing and being consistent and things like that.
Speaker 1:Well, what do you think would help you and I'm going to put a caveat on that because you are such an active member in Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses, the Facebook group, and I do see you asking questions and I do see people connecting with you and hopefully you getting answers that way. But what do you think would be helpful for?
Speaker 2:you. So that's one of the things is being a part of a group of people who are not gatekeeping, I should say, you know, people who are open to sharing, sharing their experiences and not just telling me the good, but giving me you know the bad and the ugly, so that, therefore, I can know how to navigate. So I think that is one of the things learning and figuring out some things that I could possibly outsource or automate has been helpful, even in being in the groups, and so I think being in those groups the Facebook groups but then also going to networking events which is something that I have put on my list of things to do for this upcoming year is to put myself out there and going to more networking events and not being afraid to ask for help.
Speaker 1:So when you say networking events, you mean not just counselors, right, you're talking about just the general entrepreneur type of networking, and we had an episode with Mark Tovar about that, just the importance of networking. Had an episode with Mark Tovar about that, just the importance of networking. I'm curious which groups do you have on?
Speaker 2:your list for 2025? Well, one group I've actually visited. One of their networking events is called Woman CEO Project, I think that's the name of it, and so I've been to. I think they meet monthly and so I've been to a couple of their maybe one, I think, one. Some of them I've done of online, but I've been to one of their events and so it was kind of interesting to listen to. And the good thing I mean well, not that I shouldn't say good like it's, but but the thing that kind of is it normalizes things for me and validates me as an entrepreneur is I'm not the only one, right, and I'm not the only one in not just this space, but there are people in other spaces who have other types of businesses, who have the same problems or the same struggles that I'm having, and so it was just kind of like oh okay, it's not just me as a therapist.
Speaker 1:It could feel so isolating. And then when you don't know what you don't know, then we think, oh gosh, is there something wrong with me and should I have have looked harder or read more, or you know? And it can just be so nice to have somebody say, yeah, no, I'm struggling this time of year too, right, it's hard with the new technology to to whatever, right.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly. So that that was, you know. That was comforting, to say the least, like just in the therapy world, right, it's also in the candle making world and in the you know you know, I was like oh, okay, so more networking, just more information about strategic marketing.
Speaker 1:And I'm pausing because I know you know, with chat, gpt, all of that is just it's changing so quickly. So I mean, have you incorporated any of that yet and have you played around with it at all?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, oh, absolutely, I'm going to step it up. Membership, listen, absolutely so, um, I have definitely played around with it and definitely talked to chat GPT. Like chat GPT is my personal assistant.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, and we have been on it in the Step it Up membership. I mean, it's just like bam it's, we're just throwing it out there and I'm so glad to hear you're using it.
Speaker 2:It's been very helpful. It has been very, very helpful. So, yeah, especially coming up with things that are out the box you know, so, yeah, good, what side hustles can you promote?
Speaker 1:So you and I talked a little bit about what else you do besides counseling, and I asked you specifically if you would ever, or you have ever, coached or mentored other entrepreneurs in the therapy world. And you said yeah, so yes.
Speaker 2:I have, and so, just for entrepreneurs that are wanting to start a group practice, and so I have definitely mentored and I've coached and consulted you know, had some consultation meetings with entrepreneurs who are therapists who are wanting to start the journey, so that I can you know, I have some experience with being able to help with. Okay, this is, you know, how to begin. Also, like I said, as a sex therapist, and so working with other clinicians and things like that, and doing workshops and, you know, presenting and things of that nature for other therapists who are working with, with not just couples, but who are working with individuals who are having sexual health related concerns or issues, you know. So sometimes you know, I've done workshops and and I do training with to other therapists with that.
Speaker 2:What else has a side hustle that I do? I do have an e-commerce store on my website, so, yeah, so I do have that, and so one of the products that I have is the Worthy Collection, and so that is basically features self-love, and so products dealing with self-love and inspiring you to be confident and have a sense of purpose. Another very popular collection that we have is God plus therapy equals clarity, and so that was aligning faith with, with your mental, mental wellness work, that it does not have to be either, or it can be both, and I can go to therapy and I can talk to you know, talk to God. So that is something else that I have is I have, you know, a couple of merch products mugs and pillows and and things of that nature. What else do we have going on?
Speaker 1:Don't forget. I mean talk a little bit more about supervising LPC associates in private practice. What does that look like?
Speaker 2:Yes, supervising LPCs in private practice, and so that is a new hat that I am wearing and I am thoroughly enjoying it, and so supervisees after they are. You know, when they're ready to get their hours, contact me and I help you. We work together, I should say, to hone in on your clinical skills, and so I do do that virtually right now, clinical skills, and so I do do that virtually right now, right now virtually. And so anybody who is in the state of Texas and you are looking for someone to work with, then please, please, contact me. I am open and I am willing and I'm excited to help on this journey.
Speaker 1:I'm definitely yeah, and tell us again how to contact you. What they can, not the website, if they're looking for supervision. Right, you'd rather have an email, or how do you want them to contact you if they're looking for supervision?
Speaker 2:Yes, on the website there is a link. So on the website you can go to the website. There is a dropdown for supervision, so just click on that one your scheduled consultation with me and then we'll talk about all of the things that you need in order to move forward with me. So it is also on the website. But you can also contact me at contact at nextstagecounselingcom and just let us know. Hey, I am looking for Nakia to supervise me and we'll move forward that way. But you can also go to the website at nextstagecounselingcom, go to the drop down the services drop down and click on supervision and you will go to the, to the landing page and fill out all of the information and we will move forward that way.
Speaker 1:Awesome, All right. So this is it Hopes and dreams for 2025. What do you throw it out there? What are you going to manifest in 2025, Nakia?
Speaker 2:Well, I want to expand my practice. I want to have more LPC associates, because I really do love teaching and walking and walking with other clinicians as they are growing into the type of clinician that they want to be. So that is on my list. I want to strengthen my online presence, and you know what. I want to write a book. That's at the bottom, but you know I do. I want to write a book, but, yeah, that's at the bottom of the list. That's something, but you know I do. I want to write a book, but yeah, that's that's at the bottom of the list. That's something you know. I have things on my computer that I need to dust off and just kind of blow it off and get back at it. So I think that that's what my goals are.
Speaker 2:And to expand in speaking. I love, you know. So, speaking if you are having an event or something and you need to have a keynote speaker or you need to have a workshop speaker or a panelist or whatever you know, hit me up. Those things I love to do, I love to do. So that's, that's my goal for 2025. Sounds like a lot, though, don't it?
Speaker 1:No, no, ok, and you're giving me ideas and I love that. So it sounds like we need to have like a step it up session on writing a book, because you're one. I'm sure there are other folks out there that are ready to write their book. So that's just. You just planted a little seed there.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Yes, let's do that. That would be great. I will be in that session. All right, we play or whatever, because I'm probably going to be busy with having a supervision session with the LPC associate.
Speaker 1:Yes, you will All right. Tell us one more again, one more time again. How do we contact you?
Speaker 2:You can contact me by going to nextstagecounselingcom, or you can email me at connect at next stage. Counseling dot com.
Speaker 1:Excellent. And if I'm listening to this and I want to be a client of next stage counseling, I go to the website and what do I click?
Speaker 2:Go to the website, click on the services button, decide Are you looking for individual, are you looking for couples work? Are you looking for sex therapy work? And then fill out the. It's going to take you to the next page for you to fill out the form so that we can contact you. If you are looking for supervision, go to the website, click on the services button, go to the supervision page and fill out the information and we will contact you, and we will contact you Excellent.
Speaker 1:Well, Nakia, I wish you all the luck and good fortune in 2025. Thank you again for being a guest today and I hope you get all the love in February. And just thank you so much for being part of Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses. Absolutely Thank you so much for having me All right, and we will stop recording Boom. Stop, yes, I want to stop.