Mental Health Therapist & Co-Founder Of Mosaic Counseling Group: Mandy Morris AKA The Therapy Boss – S3E10 (#106)

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Boss Uncaged is a weekly podcast that releases the origin stories of business owners and entrepreneurs as they become uncaged trailblazers. In each episode, our hosts, S.A Grant and guests construct narrative accounts of their collective business journeys and growth strategies, learn key success habits, and how to stay motivated through failure, all while developing a boss and caged mindset. Break out of your cage and welcome our host, S.A Grant.

Welcome back to Boss Uncaged Podcast. In today’s show, we have someone that I’m going to deem. I always deem anybody that I interview with a particular name. So her nickname is going to be The Therapy Boss, and she’ll give you obvious reasons why very shortly. I had an opportunity to meet Mandy a couple of weeks ago at a Badass networking group, which is definitely a cool network group. If you haven’t heard about it, go ahead and just do a quick Google search and take a look and check it out. So without further ado, man, tell our audience a little bit more about who you are.

Yeah, first of all, I’m so honored to be on this podcast, because when you and I had that one on one talk at the Success Champion, I was like, this dude badass. And I just was like, man, he’s cool. I want to know him more. And so I just really appreciate you having me on. But yeah, so Mandy Morris is my name, and a lot of my social media everyone will see me on Know me as Therapist Mandy, and I love therapy. Would you say? The therapy boss? I’m totally going to use that nickname now, for sure. And yeah, I’ve been a mental health therapist clinician for over ten years. I’m co founder and codirector of Mosaic Counseling Group. That private practice that myself and my colleagues started began in 2014, and since then, I’ve been expanding and growing. I now do various programs. One of my program is for people breaking out of toxic relationships and want to heal from that. The other thing that I do is my boss mindset for corporate psychology therapists. And essentially what I do with that is I help leaders, business owners, people in these roles and all these levels kind of deal with isolation and loneliness, uncertainty of the nature of their job.

They have to make a lot of big decisions, and it’s a lot of responsibility for other people. And with that comes a lot of pressure. I’ve worked with so many different businessmen and women who quietly had their very first panic attack and didn’t want to tell anyone about it because they’re the ones who are supposed to have it all together. Right? So I help leaders with things like that. I help them take time to reflect on psychology of their business and help preserve the culture of their employees. And I really work with them on helping provide a psychologically safe place for others and help them learn how to have those sensitive, complex, what I call people issues, people challenges of running a business and things like that. So I’m kind of the person who comes in on the back end and make sure that there’s good mental health and wellness within themselves, but also on the battlegrounds of their business.

Well, with that, obviously, you’re not the stereotypical therapist in the sense I mean, you have a really core niche, and you’re working more so with executives and CEOs and essentially business owners. Is that like a difference? Is that like a fork in a row? Let’s say, if I’m coming in and I want to become a therapist, when is that decision usually made that you want to kind of shift from families to more so executive teams?

Yeah, that’s a good question. So this kind of fell in my lap, if I’m being honest. I did in private practice, like I said, since 2014. And so I work with a lot of clients who have mood disorders, who have anxiety, depression, who have been through trauma. One of my big significant trainings is an EMDR, which is a trauma training. And so I really dig into helping people find freedom and healing from things in their past. And along that way, I’ve gotten to work with people of all walks of life. You know, from stay at home moms, stay at home dads, teachers to lawyers, attorneys, chiefs in the police field, first responders, firefighters, you know, CEOs. I mean, all there’s no mental health, doesn’t know any sort of demographic. We all experience issues from it. And with that, over the past couple of years, as I’ve been growing my social media in my mental health pages, I’ve gotten opportunities to be on lots of different podcasts speaking gigs, and I’ve had multiple business owners on LinkedIn contact me and say, hey, be on, be on my podcast. Our leaders need to hear how to deal with managing stress, panic attacks, the stress of dealing with other people.

And then when COVID hit, they want to be on to talk about how to navigate that in the workplace. And so this kind of fell into my lap because people were reaching out and it was helpful. And so from there, I was like, well, you know what? Let me just start my own sort of specialty and have my own packages to help people become more productive and creative. Because if you’re not dealing with your emotions and your wellbeing and what’s happening mentally, then you’re not going to be as productive and creative. One of the examples that I give is let’s say you’re a kid in the 6th grade, right, and you wake up one morning and maybe you say to your mom or something like that, I feel anxious today. I feel depressed or something’s on my mind, and I really need to talk to you. And as busy parents must be, okay, well, let’s talk after school. We got to go, we gotta get go to school, drop you off. Now that kid is sitting in class thinking about this thing that’s on their mind because they’re feeling anxious or feeling depressed. That situation happened that emotionally, they’re really distraught about it.

They’re not going to care what sort of formula they’re trying to learn in algebra or geometry. They’re going to be dealing with that. And it’s the same thing as adults. When we have something emotionally going on that’s distressing, it affects our productivity and our creativity. And so when we contend to the emotional side of things and be empowered and let that be strengthened and to deal with that so you have the relief. You have the relief. Now you’re in alignment with what your mission is and what you’re supposed to be doing, which is going to make you be able to focus ten times better. If you have issues going on at home or you have issues with an employee, that’s happening, that’s causing you stress, you’re not going to be as focused as you need to be. And so by way of learning about EQ. Emotional intelligence. Dealing with negative beliefs that are formed about yourself because of being in this position of power and leadership and what that means to you. And really navigating through. Clearing out obstacles. You know. Mental blocks that you have distressing situations that that are kind of set you back.

You’re going to be freed up to be even bigger than you think you could be.

That definitely makes a lot of sense. So come to things that you said you alluded to, like, just talking from a kid standpoint. So what were you like as a kid? Did you know as a kid that you were going to be helping people with mental disorders and just mental health? Like, were you that kid walking around saying that you should do this because this will make you feel better? Tell us a little bit more about, like, a child.

Yeah, that’s a great question. I was that awkward kid, though, man. Really? I had, like, the big bushy hair, prere messed up teeth, like, no braces at the time, and lanky and I will never forget. This is one of the things that I share with some of my clients too, when we’re talking about how negative beliefs get formed. And I’ll never forget, I think I was in third grade and I had, like, two friends, right? And we would always go at recess, on the playground, whatever, and I kept getting left out. I’m the youngest of two older brothers, so I’m used to keeping my mouth shut. I’m used to just, like, stay low key, under the radar, because I don’t want to be picked up by my big brothers type of thing. And I remember asking my one friend, like, why do you play with her more than me? And she said to me, Because she’s prettier than you. And, like, walked off and left. And I was just, like, crying. And I internalized it because I was an internalizer I didn’t tell anyone about that. I didn’t tell my parents what happened on the playground that day, not because they wouldn’t have cared.

I didn’t. And so from then on out, any other negative social interaction I had, I always took as was because I’m not pretty enough, I’m not good enough, which turned into, like, a lot of people pleasing behaviors and just trying to fit in and things like that. But even from that experience, I’ve always been deeply empathic that I never wanted people to feel how I felt, even from a little age, as something like that, that happened. And so I would always make sure I said nice things to people. I was very kind. I was very sensitive to other people’s feelings. I’ve always been a deep fielder, but growing up, I was an athlete. I played basketball. I played volleyball. I thought that that’s what I was going to do as my career. And so I actually went into college being an athletic trainer because I wanted to be the one that went on the field. And when they had a broken bone or they sprained something, I got to bandage them up and take care of them and take them off the field, which is very much sort of a helping profession. About halfway through my college, I was volunteering at this crisis center for women and just fell in love with it.

And at that time, sports, I still did, but I wasn’t going to make a career out of that or anything. And so I was like and at the time, I was in my own therapy as well. And I was like, man, really, this is what I want to do. And thinking back, one of the things I laugh about is, I don’t know about you, if you had, like, senior superlatives at your school or not, if they ever gave those out at my school, it was a smaller school. They gave these senior superlatives. And I remember hating my senior superlative. I was given most caring, and I was like, man, that shit. I wanted something cool. I wanted to be like most athletic. I wanted to be like, whatever, everyone’s caring. And I was like, Man, but looking back, I mean, it’s just who I am. And so when I really had the courage to switch my major and go the psychology route and knew that I would have to go on to further education and get a Masters, it just felt in so much alignment in spite of what people told me I should do, because everyone told me I should be the athletic trainer.

Like, that’s what I’m good at. I should do that. My parents, and they’re wonderful and super supportive. I have a great relationship with them at the time. They’re really leery of me becoming a therapist. Are you sure you’re well enough to be able to do something like that, that you’re able to help other people, which sends such an indirect message that you have to have it all together to be in this field, you know? And so with all that said, I really took this step to become a therapist out of just listening to my heart and my gut and intuition about what I wanted to do in spite of what people were telling me. And from there, it’s just been a wild ride.

It’s been awesome just talking about everything you just said, it makes sense. I mean, you worked with some like, I think in your bio, you work like the NBA, so that definitely makes sense, like bridging the gap between your sports background and your career path. So, I mean, in something that large as the NBA or just dealing with, like, high profile clientele on a regular basis, I’m sure you’ve came across a couple of prima donnas here and there. So what’s the worst experience without naming names, that you’ve ever experienced while working?

Oh, that’s a good question. Well, it hasn’t been the NBA. I have done stuff for MTV, Bet, Apple, some of those high profile, my mental health in the music industry, things that I do as well. But alongside those, all of those, they’re all leaders, they’re all entrepreneurs as well and things like that. I think the initial thing that tends to get in the way of these leaders is allowing someone like me to step in and help, because these are successful people who have big dreams and have big visions. And with that sometimes comes big egos. And that’s not a negative thing because it allowed them to get to where they need to be. It’s a superhero power, and all of our superhero powers have the kryptonite to it, if you will. But sometimes with that, there’s a tendency to see some of my feedback and assessment and the plans to give them as not a weakness. And so with that, I’ll get a lot of pushback. Hang on, let me grab a drink of water real quick. Sorry, I hope you can edit that out. And so I don’t know that it’s so much of a significant story that I have more or less, that there’s a lot of walls that have to be broken down and barriers that have to be broken down around the fact that it’s okay to let someone come in and help you.

Very nice. So, I mean, with that, right? I mean, obviously you’ve established a pretty decent system at hand. That way you can kind of work with people and they go through your system. And just talking about just business processes, how is your business structured? I mean, obviously you are a therapist, but is your business more so, an LLC, an S Corp or a C Corp?

Yeah, so I have an LLC that’s an escort, and that’s under. So my LLC for my private practice is under the Mosaic Counseling Group, so that is also an LLC. So we have essentially two veils, if you will, of protection. And so then, for everything that I do under Mosaic on my clients, that I see, things like that, while it’s under the name Mosaic, it gets run through my LLC, so it’s very clean in that way. My colleague has her own LLC, as well, and then that way, too. Any of my own business that I do, like, some of these things we’ve been talking about my programs, the corporate psychology that I do, and things like that also gets run under my LLC. So for that, I have a DBA doing business as therapist Mandy Morris as well. So people who have been following me from all over the globe and from my branding online know me as therapist mandy and my private practice people come to Mosaic Counseling Group to have me as their therapist.

Nice. So we always hear about the overnight success story. Someone maybe listen to this podcast, and they’re listening to you. Like, she’s highly successful. She works with these big name brands, and it may be a perception of you being an overnight success, but in reality, how long have you been on your journey to get to where you are?

Wow. Yeah. The reality is, there’s a lot of hard work with that touch of luck, that 1% that kind of you get connected to the right people, but you do that from hard work. So, like I said, I started the private practice in 2014, so it’s been about seven years now that I started that when I was 28 years old. And so from that and that took a lot of work. Before that, when I was at my internship with my colleagues, and we were like, we wanted to start our own practice. That took a good, solid year, year and a half of planning to be able to implement that, to then get to that. And from there, we’ve been really fortunate. We do a lot of training, and we stay up to date with everything. We do good work, and so we’ve been lucky enough to not have to do much marketing. It’s all been word of mouth referrals for the last seven years. We were really fortunate in that sense. And as I’ve been growing as a therapist and wanting to do more and do bigger things and help more people, a big part of that is keeping up with my self care.

So I always do my runs in the morning, and I do my workout, and on my runs, that’s where I do church. Right. It’s where I just connect, and I listen to inspirational things, pray, whatever. And so all these visions and ideas and thoughts, that’s when that comes to me. So then I’ll go on my run. I’ll come back. I have this idea book. I write all my ideas down, and it got to a point where I was like, man, I have so many ideas and none of them implemented. I got some guys shift here. And I knew that I needed to have an online presence for the world that we’re in today. I mean, you just have to. And I decided I would do my mental health pages across LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. And I’ll never forget writing my very first post of my own content and like this fear of, oh, my gosh, I’m exposed now. This is scary because it’s vulnerable. When you put yourself out there to the world, you don’t know what’s going to happen with it, right? It’s uncertain, it’s risky. And then with that, I remember when I remember I had to make a deal with myself because I know how I am, that I wasn’t going to beat myself up for how many likes I did or didn’t get.

And then if I didn’t feel something genuine in my content, they didn’t move something within me, I wasn’t going to put it out there. Because if I can’t be true to myself in this process, it’s not going to work long term. And with that means that I had to open myself up to be vulnerable for the fact that not everyone may be for me and I may not be for everybody else, but that the right people will come and that’s who I’m going to serve. That’s my community. This is about my heart and my vision, right? And so with that, I mean, then I think it began growing. I remember the first time I did a video, and I literally probably recorded that video over and over, like 15 times. And so I was just like, screw it, just put it out there. And now it’s like, no thing now. Just go on and shoot a video. Put some content out there. I’m comfortable with it now, but it’s been a hard process. And then with that, getting opportunities and scaling to bigger things. I remember the first big panel I did on Song Truck, which is a major music distributor, when they had me on for Mental Health Awareness Month to talk about mental health in the music industry.

And they have a huge following, and I was going live with them and I had to have my friend talk me down off the anxiety ledge because that imposter syndrome kicked in and all these things. And so all that to say is it’s been a lot of work. And where we met on The Success Champions, I love the culture of that, that if you aren’t uncomfortable, then you’re not growing. And that it’s just part of moving forward and getting bigger and and it’s not about not having anxiety. It’s not about being certain. It’s about being uncertain, doing it anyway. And so with that, there’s a lot of fear and there’s a lot of, you know, self doubt that happens, but you get the right support around you and you’re committed to your mission, then you have to stay on the path and things will come into alignment. I’ve grown faster in these past two years than in the seven years of my practice when I just started having the courage to listen to myself. Yeah, I mean, anyone listening. I encourage you to lean into fear. Really?

I think that’s definitely a beneficial statement that you made. And it kind of goes into my next question, right, being that you’ve had seven years on this journey and you had the most success by the compounding effect near like where you are currently in the last two years, and obviously the next five years will probably be ten times greater than what you’re doing right now. What’s one thing if you can go back in time, whether being an adolescent, whether early parts of your career or within the last seven years, what’s one thing that you want to go back and change if you could do it all over again?

That’s such a good question. I think if I could go back and speak to my younger self, if you will now, I’ll get all therapists on you now, my inner childhood. But if I could go back in all seriousness and even too part of my story is I was in a seven year marriage that was very abusive, and he ended up getting diagnosed with NPD Narcissistic Personality Disorder. And throughout all leaving that and what I’m doing now. And I think the thing I would say is that you’re important and you have a voice to stop playing it small that the world will see you when you let yourself be seen. Because it’s taken me a while to find my voice again and in my own healing journey personally, but then also in what I do to help other people now and how I help them grow. And so a big part of this is I feel like if I had learned a long time ago how to value myself, and I learned a long time ago how to quit putting my feelings and thoughts and needs aside and to actually have a voice, I wonder where I would be now.

But at the same time, I’m so thankful that I’m learning this now, because those experience, I think, have made me become a better therapist. They’ve made me become who I am. My colleague and I have a joke whenever we go through, like, personal shit in our life is, man, I’m tired of becoming a better therapist. Because you go through stuff and then it’s like, oh, man, life can be so hard, but you can use it in such powerful and meaningful ways. And so that would be what I would say, and what I would say to others as well is that find your voice. Use your voice and be loud.

Great. So I think you kind of talked a little bit about you as adolescent you talked about, like, your journey, you talk about where you are, and you’re a very savvy entrepreneur in the sense that you understand the principles of how to connect different things from your past with your present and make them work for you today. So did that come from an entrepreneurial background? Like, was your dad, your mom, an aunt, an uncle, a grandparent? Were they any of them entrepreneurs?

I’ve never been asked that. Sorry. My lady’s failed. I’ve never been asked that. That’s interesting. Not in a sense. However, they all have entrepreneurship in them, and both of my brothers are entrepreneurs, but no one taught us that, and so I don’t know where that comes from. I do think, though, we were taught to be creative. I’m originally from Baltimore, Maryland, and my dad was a chef, and he was brought to Atlanta to start the culinary department of the Art Institute of Atlanta. So he was a director of that for years, and he’s retired now. I was back in the early ninety s, and so he started that. He’s very creative. He does art as well. He’s an excellent painter. My mom is also creative in terms of she’s very musical. Well, both my parents are. My dad also plays drums. My mom’s a guitar player, pianist, she does lessons, things like that. And so I grew up in a very creative musical home. And so while neither of them were entrepreneurs, I mean, my dad was a chef at the Culinary Arts of Atlanta. My mom was a teacher and a music teacher. I think that creativity has allowed all of us kids to really be able to expand our thinking and to go after what we want.

And so I think we do owe a lot of that to our parents. I got to see both of my brothers form their own businesses and be successful at that. And so I had that as an example as well.

Yeah, it’s funny that you’re talking about your dad and I’m sitting here and I’m like, we had a conversation before, right? And I didn’t realize, so just kind of fill in the blanks for you. I went to Artist Atlanta. Both my degrees came from art and studio Atlanta.

No way.

Yeah. So it’s kind of weird with a chef, and I’m like, looking at your name, like Chef Morris. Do I remember chef Morris?

Chef James Morris?

And I’m thinking it kind of rings a bell. I had a couple of friends that were in culinary as well, too, and some of them are like, back in Israel, and some of them are like, chefs here and there. So it’s just a small world when you kind of have these commonalities and then ask this random question and then you tell them, your dad’s a chef and he used to work at the Arts of the Land.

That’s so crazy.

Definitely crazy. Did he work at the Buckhead Building or did he work at a Sandy Springs location.

When we moved down here, his building was in like the Linux Square originally.

Okay.

And then they moved to Sandy, I want to say it’s near Peachtree Street. Somewhere over there the building moved which I think maybe I’m not familiar with that area because I’m out here in the mooniesome but that sort of area. Yeah.

Cool. So obviously you have brothers, you have parents and you said you were married before. So let’s talk about how do you currently juggle like your work life with your family life?

Still figuring that out. I think all of you entrepreneurs can relate that when you have a vision, while these things take a lot of effort, they don’t feel like work. People ask that question and I think work life balance is a lot more applicable to those who view their work as a job and that they need to have boundaries around that. And obviously there’s parts of this whole process that I don’t like. I don’t like the paperwork and I don’t like picking out my website and things like that. But it really is well, it’s a lot of energy. I enjoy the work they do. And so right now one of my goals is making sure I have my Fridays as no client days. So I get to do wonderful things like this with you and I get to go to some other collaborations and things like that. I get to catch up on my contact so that’s more fun for me. I’m able to decompress from the work week of seeing clients and I try to keep my weekends open every night. I make sure that my fiance and I that we have some time to spend together.

He’s very busy as well and just stay in communication. You know, I think that that’s the big thing that we’ve really had to learn to do is because I’m very busy, he’s very busy. But the relationship doesn’t suffer when we’re in good communication with each other and making time to be outside. I think my big and talk about balance is I have to be outside every day in some form even if I’m responding to some calls when I need to. But I’m outside doing it and I can unplug at some point and I can just listen to a podcast and connect with a friend. I mean, there’s certain nonnegotiables I have with myself that when I don’t do them, my week suffers and that’s going to look differently for everybody. But it’s important to really identify what those non negotiables are for yourself. But I do, I work crazy hours but I also love it. And my people in my life who are important to me, I make sure that they stay priority as well. And so sometimes it’s waiting to take that call to the next day or whatever it may be, but there’s no clear cut answer to that.

A lot of. It is just learning to step back and I got to learn to listen to myself. I had a crazy day yesterday where I totally overworked it ever did that. So today I’m intentionable about I’m going to turn it off, but I had to do what I needed to do yesterday as well. And so just really trying to be mindful of the mind body connection, the things that I need to get outside and to make sure that I’m staying connected to the people in my life that I love.

Wow. Just based upon that, it seems like obviously there’s a lot of structure within your days. I mean, you’re talking about running, you’re talking about having opportunities to go outside. So I think behind the scenes it’s like scheduled appointments throughout your day, what is your morning routines, your morning rituals look like?

So when I stumble out of bed, because I’m not a morning person, I get my breakfast going and I give myself a minute just to kind of catch up and then I look at what is something I need to post on social media for today. So I’ll do my social media posts. I’ll take a look at my day and when I wake up is based off of making sure I can get these things in before I start and then I go on a run. And like I said, my running time is where I get inspiration, where I pray, where I listen to my podcast, whatever it may be because that’s what feeds me and that’s where a lot of my energy comes from because I really get a lot of insights and ideas during these runs when I’m able to connect to myself on a heart level. And from there, if it works out too, then I go and I lift some weights and trying to build some muscle and do that. And then I come back and I hit the ground running with my day. So that’s usually a typical morning routine of mine.

With that. Right. It seems like you’re very well versed and I would think that you’re either an average reader or your avid listener of some kind. One side of the accordion. So this next question is a three part question, like what books did you read to help you get to where you are? What books are you reading right now? And the third party question is, have you authored any books as of yet?

Awesome. Great question. So yes, a couple of the books that I’m reading now and I do have to say I do listen to a lot of podcasts. I am totally a podcaster. Some of my favorite podcasts are brene Brown’s dare to Lead and Unlocking us. I also really love Gosh. Of course the name of it is going to Split my mind right now. Pulling it up. The 10% happier podcast and armchair expert with DAX Shepard. I love this one. Those are some of my favorites. But some of the books that I’ve been reading lately, well, that I recently started as well, because I go through so many books. I read all Bernard Brown’s books. Those are really good for me personally on a personal level, but on more of a business level, some of the recent books, and I’m pulling up this one in particular because I always forget the name of it, but it’s on my list. So this is one that Donny just shared with us the other day that I’m sure a lot of people know it, but I hadn’t read it yet, and I just ordered it. But it’s the subtle art of not giving us that’s one.

That’s on my list to read that I have now. And I read a lot of books related to trauma, to mental health, things like that. Another book that I just got that I’m looking forward to reading. And I’m pulling up the title because I don’t want to mess the title up, but it’s The Seven Disciplines of Relationship Marketing. And this book with this guy, the guy who wrote it, Bill Dolan, he’s a new connection of mine, and he’s a producer, filmmaker. He’s an amazing person who had a near life or near death experience where he did die on the table. And after that, he wrote this book about his life is just how he operates, how he relates to people. Everything has changed from it. And so that’s one of the books that I’m reading as well. So anything where I can grow my own mental health, my own business. I read a lot on neuroscience because a big part of my therapy work is helping people understand the science behind why they think and feel the way they do. It’s not about the fact that there’s something wrong with them. It’s about an education of the mind.

And so I’m always staying up to date with things like that. And, yeah, those are some of the biggies for me.

Wow. So did you have an opportunity to author any books as of yet for yourself?

I did. I had my first book, and hopefully it’ll be one of many. Had a wonderful opportunity to be a part of Laura DeFranco. She’s an author and national bestselling author and The Ultimate Guide to Self Healing, volumes four. And so it’s an amazing book with 25 different authors. 25 and of them, they’re all people who are healers, clinicians, dietitians, people into all sorts of backgrounds. Each chapter is a part of their story and then a tool so that people at home can use these tools to begin to heal. And so that self healing from your own home. I love the fact that there’s just 25 different modalities, so there’s something in there for everyone, from everything from nutrition to sleep to sex to learning about. My chapter is called Tapping into Your Identity, where I help people dig into what are those negative beliefs that they can’t seem to shake and how to shake them. And so that is the most recent book that I did as well. And so if people are interested in that, you can find it on my website, mandothys.com. And when you purchase through that, I also give you a free little gift from me as well.

Nice. Yeah. This is like, one of my favorite questions that I always ask, and because of that, it allowed me to create a book club. So in like the Boss Uncaged Book Club, my goal for everyone in the book club is to be able to read 52 books per year. And that’s kind of like underneath the status quo of an executive that reads 60. But we kind of go through steps and procedures on how to read these books per week. A book per week, essentially. So definitely I would like to invite you to that thing that whatever books that you’re writing be a good fit to kind of just have this community of people to talk to directly about those books and how they can achieve their goals and have success from that.

Yeah, absolutely. I love that.

Cool. So where do you see yourself 20 years from now.

In Costa Rica drinking a margarita? Does the kind of that count?

Of course.

You know, I struggle with that question. I tell you why. I don’t want to limit myself.

To.

Get some specifics go. I want to be on a show. I’m getting to be on a show, be on set this June for a show called The Social Movement. It’s a docu reality series. Amazon prime picked them up in a bunch of other places. And four days to save the world. And so I get to be a part of all these entrepreneurs and business people flying in. We’re all going to meet in Miami on set. I can send you a link to the trailer of it, if you’d like. And essentially what they’re doing is they have four days to come up with a viable business plan to end one of the world’s biggest social issues. So four days to end suicide. Four days and racism, to end cyber bullying, to empower women, to reinvent the education system. There’s a bunch of different ones. And so these head CEO, business owners, who have all their resources in the world already are teaming up. They’re going to be put on teams to go against Team Geniuses. And whoever wins, they get to see their business plan come to fruition. I get to be the one to interview them on camera, to pull their stories out and to let the world see where they’ve come from to where they are now.

Because all of them are going to have a personal story that’s connected to the social issue. So, for me, I’ve always wanted to be on some sort of show and have a show of my own, help the world on that sort of a bigger platform because obviously it reaches more people. And so this is my first step towards that. So sky’s the limit from here, I think.

Wow.

Yeah.

Well, first of all, congratulations.

Thank you.

So let’s talk about obviously you have all these different platforms. You’re not the stereotypical therapist by any means, right? Definitely. So going into software, what kind of applications or software do you use on a day to day basis that you would not be able to do what you’re doing without?

Awesome question. So for my practice, I use Simple Practice, and so it takes care of all my clients. Having an online portal where they can electronically fill out forms, sign consent forms, documents, things like that. It’s for therapist. I think people can use it in lots of different ways. I am able to build insurance electronically through that for the insurance that I do take. And it takes care of sending out automatic emails, text, reminders, things like that. I mean, everything is right there. So I have that that I use. And then through my website through Squarepace, Square Space and Stripe, I use that for a lot of my packages and programs as well. Some of the content stuff that I use, things like Canva, that really helps me with. I design a lot of my own stuff, and all my content I do myself. So I use that to distribute my materials online and things like that as well. Simple Practice, though, is really great. It helps me create my invoices and sends me reminders if something hasn’t been paid, if I need to update client information because maybe something’s expired, or if you need more information, it just sends me an email.

Because my big thing is I don’t want to have to do this stuff. I want to do what I want to do. So it needs to be easy because I get frustrated and don’t want to spend time on all the details of all these things. And so Simple Practice really makes it easy for me to do that. And my different publishing tools on Canva makes it easy to get my content out.

Yeah, very cool. So let’s talk about final words of wisdom. Right? And I’m going to actually like a very detailed question. I’m going to paint the profile of the user. So let’s say the user’s name is Mike. Let’s say he is 32 years old. Or maybe it’s Joanne and she’s 32 years old, right? And she started a business. She’s maybe in year three to year five in her business. And she’s going through that roller coaster like the year before. Maybe she made mid six figures. Maybe she made 200, $300,000. Then a year after that, maybe she dropped down to 50. Then a year after that she’s back up to 350. So she’s in the seasor phase of her business. It hasn’t leveled off yet. What words of wisdom would you give to her to keep her level and keep her focused to stay steadfast on her dream, to execute that plan, to make her business a successful business, which you can count on that revenue stream over a period of time.

Yeah. Wow. So right now I just want to take it on as a client so I can help her figure out what’s caused the job. What are those automatic thoughts? What’s that psychology behind that mindset? That’s creating the decline. Because decline is normal. It’s normal to have ups and downs and especially as you’re growing when there’s things that don’t work, it’s normal. And failure should be open with should be accepted with open arms. Because failure is data. Failure is good data. Thomas Edison, when he was trying to invent the light bulb, he got interviewed and they were like, what’s it like to have tried to create the light bulb and fail 1000 times? It’s like, what kind of a ridiculous comment is that? He said, I know a thousand ways that doesn’t work. All that to say is do an inventory. Do an inventory, a nonjudgmental inventory of what has created the frustration and the decline. Because frustration happens because of unfulfilled expectations and unmet needs. There’s clearly too many demands and not enough resources. It’s just data. Look at the data and then start to gather resources. And don’t take your eyes off your goal.

Just because you’re going through a season of having to regroup and reinvent and reconstruct even from the success of what’s going now, doesn’t mean that you’re failing. It just means you’re ready to go to the next level because there were too many demands up here and now you need to scale.

Nice.

So that’s what I would say.

Yeah, definitely. I definitely appreciate that answer. Obviously, I think with my audience of people and just understanding your principles, I think that message can kind of expand to anyone understanding that in business, like, there are hurdles that are going to happen on a routine basis. There’s going to be highs and lows. One year you may make a million and next year you may make half of that understanding. You just have to figure out the why and it goes back to your data. So how can people get in contact with you? You’re talking about Facebook, you’re talking about LinkedIn. I think you also mentioned Instagram. What’s your profile?

So, easiest way is just to go to my website, Mandytherapist.com. At the top you’ll see all my links to all my handles. On instagram. I’m therapist underscore Mandy. You can find me on TikTok as well. I don’t know if you knew this, but I now have on Tik tok I jugged the Koolaid Mandy underscore therapy tips and then Mandy Morris LPC EMDR for my sorry, my LinkedIn as well. So, yeah, easiest way, just go to Mandy the therapist.com. Click on my handles and you can see all my content there.

Cool. Do you have any special offers for our listeners.

Yeah, I actually have a couple of different promotions going on right now. Obviously, for any of the corporations or business owners or who are interested in some of my packaging, I’m doing I used to do just Ja War doing just a free 30 minutes consultation. But for anyone who’s wanting to explore the corporate stuff I have to offer, I will do a full 1 hour session with you for free and come up with a game plan, and you can have that plan whether you want to use me or not. And I have a 90 day program for people who are trying to break out of and heal from toxic relationships. And that is normally an $8,000 program that I’m doing for 50% off due to COVID and people’s financial situations as sort of a gift for myself or gift to my community. But I only have limited spots for that, so if people are interested, to definitely reach out to me.

Wow. Definitely. So, going into the bonus round, I got a couple of bonus questions for you.

I love bonus round.

Yeah. So I think earlier on, you alluded to Superpowers, I think, within the first 15 minutes of the show. So if you could be a superhero, who would you be and why?

Oh, I love this question. Does it have to be, like, one that already exists, or can it be made up?

I’ve learned that probably eight out of ten entrepreneurs, we want to make up our own superheroes. By all means, go for it.

So if I could be a superhero, it would be Wonder Woman esque, but, like, with Mandy vibe and my superhero power would be that I don’t know if it wouldn’t be waving a magic wand, because that’s too true. It would be something more like, I don’t know, I would have this laser beam or this shield that would go over all of mankind, where it allows people to actually be who they are, all who you should be and what you should be doing. All this people who are trying to hustle for their worthiness, it would just be everyone is connected to the truth about them, and they’re confident in it, because can you imagine a world where there’s no more people competing against each other? It’s just everyone being in their own badassery and, like, doing their own unique thing to better themselves and better humanity. Think about a world, like, what kind of crazy productivity would we have? Ingenious inventions would we have if that’s how we lived and operated? So that would be my superhero power? Definitely.

Very interesting. Very interesting. So I got another one for you. If you could spend 24 hours with anyone, dead or alive, uninterrupted for those 24 hours, who would it be and why?

Oh, my gosh. I feel like this question means that you have to give this hugely deep, insightful answer to it, and that if not, like, stones will be thrown at me because, you know, my automatic thought is Chris Farley. Why I love Chris Farley. I don’t know what it is. I’m a big fan of the underdog stories. I used to love watching Tommy Boy all the time and in, like, the interviews with him and how much people loved him. If you know his story that he took his own life and had mental health problems, but he fought so hard to always try to make people laugh and not feel the way he fought. Unfortunately, in his circumstance, he did not get the help that he needed. But he left such an impact on the world for me. If I need a laugh, like dumb hug. I watched something with Cousin File, like the old SNL, the Tommy Boy movies, things like that, that would be who I would pick. Now, if I’m being serious and I were to pick someone dead or alive, which is also really hard. I’ve always wanted to meet Renee Brown.

I listen to all her stuff. I do all of her books. I’m determined to be on her podcast one day. So if Renee Brown ever gets a hold of this one she’s done so much work around shame, fear and vulnerability, and it’s been a big catalyst for my own work. So she’s someone who I’d love to meet as well.

Wow. Well, you put it out in the eater. I mean, earlier today, I said MBA. I would just put it out in the ether. It just makes it sound like a perfect fit. So.

Yeah.

MBA. Ms. Brown was on the list. And I think part of your Chris, probably, I think in addition to that, someone else that falls in that spectrum would be Robin Williams. It’s kind of, like, had the same demise and the same growth path. Great, influential people.

That kind of Will Hunting is one of my favorite movies. Yes, absolutely.

Great.

Yeah. Good question. Cool.

So going into closing, I mean, we had a great episode. You answered and fulfilled, like, these questions that I think anyone that’s listening can kind of get some action from them, get some activity from them, get some results and kind of listen to it and relisten to it, and it’s evergreen content that can move forward. But maybe you come up with some questions for me. So this is the time in the episode that I give you the microphone, the floor is yours, you become the host. What questions do you have for me?

Awesome. So first question is, what are some of those negative beliefs or insecurities or whatever, maybe, that you’ve had to overcome to get where you’re at? Because I look at you and all these amazing things you’re doing and it’s not easy.

No, it’s not. So to answer that question, I think I was always a big. I was kind of like the wizard of Oz. I was the guy behind the curtain forever. And I had successes in there, but then unfortunately, I had a stroke in 2018. And once I woke up from that stroke, I was like, okay, I’ve done all these things for all these people, but what am I leaving behind for my legacy? And so then my girlfriend at the time, which is now my wife, she was just saying, it’s time for you to step in front the camera. It’s time for you to become the voice. It’s time for you to become the brand. And I’m sitting there looking at her, and it’s kind of like internally, I’m like, how are you going to debate her? How are you going to argue with her? What are you going to say? No, I can’t do it for this reason. And I’m thinking of all these negative things on the left side, on the right hand side, I was like, do you have a stroke? Shut the hell up and do it. That was when I created the podcast.

I mean, I created my podcast roughly February of 2020, so it’s really like a year of change. And it was just kind of like becoming the voice, becoming the brand versus hiding behind the brand in that switch. In that journey, obviously, I became myself. That’s where I was the entire time and kind of my brand being boss and caged. I was a boss that was being caged the entire time. And now that I’m free to be myself, it’s kind of like I have all these opportunities. I can speak to people as great as you are, and it just gives me more insight and ingenuity to what I’m doing and where I want to go versus being behind the scenes.

I love it. See the courage to be yourself once you took that step, man, things just rapid fired. I have another question. Yeah, hopefully, what is one of your proudest moments?

I think one of my proudest moments is it happened recently, and my son was raised in an entrepreneurial family. I’ve always instilled him become entrepreneur for multiple different reasons, and one of them was kind of his personality. Like, you’re kind of a type personality, but you’re kind of a hermit at the same time. You want to be inside, but you want to rule your own thing. And it was like, with that demeanor, anybody you work for, you probably going to get fired in the first five minutes. So let’s figure out what it is that you want to do. And like, literally in the past couple of months, you know, after telling him this for like, years and instilling in him and taking him to conferences and meetups, he finally came to me. He was like, I think something that I would like to be interested in would be stocks. And I’m like, cool, well, let’s just try it. Then he started picking stocks, and we started buying stocks, and we started making capital off the stocks, and he was like, okay, he win more. So we had opportunity to take him a two day workshop, then workshop.

So now he’s at the point to where he’s diving more into forex and futures, and we’re grooming him in that space. I’m okay, like, you’re 15, so understand you’re 15. You finally found a niche that you can kind of play like a video game because you’re also a gamer. You could also do it and not necessarily be around people, but it gives you opportunity to grow wealth from 15. So, like, these next couple of years all about education. So by the time you’re 18 and you can kind of legally have your own accounts and everything else, you’re going to be well ahead of someone that’s 35 deciding to get into the market.

Yeah. That’s amazing. Very cool. Do I have time for one more?

Yeah, by all means.

Okay, so next question is maybe this is more so for some of your listeners too, but like, what is that voice, that negative or that imposter syndrome, those automatic thoughts that you have to learn how to talk again, what is that for you? That tries to keep you small at times, that tries to tell you that maybe you’re not good enough?

So because of my new brand of Boss Uncaged, and I’ve owned an agency that was cerebral, drew 60, and it was a graphic design agency. We build websites. We did all these things for clients. But now we’re in that shift, and I’m trying to develop I’m not trying I am developing a Boss Uncaged Academy that kind of educates authors, educates podcasters. So the switch between these two business models, there’s a lot of no’s for the cerebral side. I’m saying no a lot because I need my time to be focused on the bigger picture and the more longevity picture. So the transition obviously there’s fluctuations in income, right? So I have some people that are still paying in building and developing, and I have a team for that, but I’m moving away from that business unit. I’m getting more into the education side of things. So that’s kind of why I’m so every time I wake up and I may look at like outstanding invoices, I’m just kind of like, well, okay, those invoices for this brand, where am I at with this brand? Where am I at with the recurring revenue? Where am I at with my authors?

I authored seven books. I’m getting ready to publish my eight book, and I’m okay, I need to make sure this launch is situated to where it can streamline and funnel back into the academy and more so on the marketing side than just on the service side.

Awesome. Okay, and last question so far, if you had to have a last meal, like last dinner type of thing, what would it be?

Wow. I’m a foodie, and I actually created a foodie group as well, too. So it’s kind of like this. Obviously you always have like your stereotypical ribs, but I’m like scar go octopus. This is kind of like it’s a toss up between so I’ll probably lean more towards like the unusual. Something like a steamed octopus with like a marinara sauce would be awesome. I’m talking about an entire octopus using the ink to make the sauce and all that.

Yes. Love it. You can tell me some good places to go out your way because I like that kind of stuff.

Cool. Yeah. I’ll add you to that group as well too. It’s multiple different groups and for every part of my personality, I have a group for it.

That’s amazing. That’s so amazing.

Well, I definitely appreciate you taking time out your Friday, especially like your Zen day, right?

Yeah. Thank you for having me. It’s such an honor and I’m so grateful that you would consider me to be a part of your podcast and I’m going to support you in any way I can and I would love to link some of your stuff on my website as well so people can find out who you are.

Cool. Yeah, I definitely appreciate that. In the first 5 seconds of me, I already knew you was a badass, so it just made perfect. I got to have you on my show to deliver that value.

Awesome. Well, I appreciate it. I think you’re wonderful. I love what you’re doing. You went from a life changing experience from your health to now living fully and I’m really proud of you.

No, I definitely appreciate that, Mandy. And say Grant overnight. That was definitely a cool episode. I definitely appreciate. Thanks for tuning into another episode of Boss on Cage. I hope you got some helpful insight and clarity to the diverse approach on your journey to becoming an uncage trailblazer. Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, review and share the podcast. If this podcast has helped you or you have any additional questions, reach out and let me know. Email me at ask@sagrant.com or drop me your thoughts via call or text at 76223 three Boss. That’s 762-233-2677. I would love to hear from you. Remember, to become a Boss Uncaged, you have to release your inner Beast essay. Grant signing off.

Listeners of Boss Uncaged are invited to download a free copy of our host S.A Grant’s insightful ebook, Become an Uncaged Trailblazer. Learn how to release your primal success in 15 minutes a day. Download now at www dot boss uncaged.com free Book.