Owning Your Therapist Identity Online and Offline with Liz Beecroft-Ridgway

Liz Ridgway (00:00):

My role as a therapist with athletes looks a little bit different from the role like a sports performance psychologist might have. However, both roles are very helpful and when the collaboration happens, I think it can be a really amazing thing for any of those clients.

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Michael Fulwiler (00:18):

This is Heard Business School, where we sit down with private practice owners and industry experts to learn about the business of therapy together. I'm your host, Michael Fulwiler. This week I'm joined by Philly Sports fan, sneakerhead, and Disney Adult Liz Beecroft. A licensed clinical social worker, Liz is the founder of MENTL.SESH, a private practice serving athletes, entertainers, entrepreneurs and creatives. She also partners with brands like Nike, Meta, and Crocs to provide workshops, keynotes, and mental health consulting. As a former athlete, Liz struggled with anxiety from a young age, which led her to pursue a career as a therapist to help other athletes who might also be struggling. One of the things I love about Liz is how she integrates her love for sneakers and Disney into her content and personal brand, pushing the boundaries of what it means to be a therapist on the internet. This is a fun one, so let's get into it. Here's my conversation with my friend Liz Beecroft. Enjoy. Liz Beecroft. Welcome to the show.

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Liz Ridgway (01:25):

Thanks for having me. How are you doing?

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Michael Fulwiler (01:28):

I am doing well. How does it feel to be a Super Bowl champion?

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Liz Ridgway (01:31):

Oh, it feels great. The city of Philadelphia is honestly electric to begin with, but after a Super Bowl win, it's even more, which I don't know if you can believe.

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Michael Fulwiler (01:41):

Yeah, we're of course talking about the Philadelphia Eagles. The thing in Philly is someone from outside of Philadelphia. It seems like every time a Philadelphia sports team is going to win or they're winning, they always grease the flagpoles so people don't climb them. I think that just tells you a little bit about the sports culture of Philadelphia. Excited to talk about sports. Of course. I would love to start with your story and your background. I know you grew up in Pennsylvania, not in Philadelphia though.

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Liz Ridgway (02:13):

In

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Michael Fulwiler (02:13):

A small town.

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Liz Ridgway (02:14):

Yeah, in a small town called Frackville about two hours north.

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Michael Fulwiler (02:18):

And you grew up as an athlete. What sports did you play growing

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Liz Ridgway (02:21):

Up? I played basketball, softball, and soccer.

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Michael Fulwiler (02:25):

Did you have a primary sport?

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Liz Ridgway (02:27):

Actually, basketball was always my primary, but I was really good at softball, and so in high school that kind of where the dilemma kind of came when I was going to college, deciding what sport I wanted to play in college, I was being recruited for both, and I ended up choosing both, which was something I ended up actually quitting basketball my sophomore year because it was too much. I was a bio major and I just couldn't balance both seasons and labs and everything. Yeah,

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Michael Fulwiler (03:00):

And you've been open about your own challenges with anxiety as an athlete. Can you tell me a little bit about that, particularly as you're growing up?

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Liz Ridgway (03:09):

Yeah, no, for sure. Growing up, my hometown area is sports are pretty much a religion, and it's kind of this put up or shut up mentality, keep going, push through it don't have emotions. Emotions do not exist, and so I never really learned from a young age because of my environment and even just my upbringing that having emotions was normal, feeling your emotions was healthy and normal, and being able to talk about them was okay. I'm also an only child, so I'm always under immense pressure to perform, whether it was academically, whether it was through sports, and the attention was kind of always on me from my parents. I had a pretty strict upbringing. I couldn't really get away with much, and so with sports, it was year round. I played basketball, a u basketball, travel, softball, regular softball, and then soccer was kind of my sport that I just played to keep in shape, and it just kind of got me started In the fall.

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(04:12):

We had fall soccer at my school, and so yeah, just having coaches that really didn't also not understand how to identify an athlete, what they're struggling with emotionally and how that comes into the sport inevitably. So I've struggled a lot with anxiety, imposter syndrome, just the political things that happen within sports of parents being overly involved and they didn't need to be. Coaches that had favorites and played mental games with their athletes and things like that at a young age, I didn't really understand was not normal and not healthy. So I would go away to sleep away camps and have panic attacks and struggle and kind of be isolated a lot because a lot of my teammates were kind of like, what the heck is wrong with you? And my parents would have to get a hotel nearby and make sure that they were close by if something would happen, which it usually did. It just felt very isolating honestly. And then also just having coaches on top of it that didn't necessarily shape us in the best way when it came to the mental side of sport. It was a challenge.

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Michael Fulwiler (05:18):

It's interesting because when we think about the culture around mental health and sports, I think we tend to think about it in men's sports, but it's also important to recognize that it sounds like it's the case with women's sports, especially kids growing up. I imagine some of that is coming from male coaches,

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Liz Ridgway (05:36):

But

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Michael Fulwiler (05:37):

It doesn't sound like it's that much different.

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Liz Ridgway (05:38):

Yeah. I would even argue too that I think in comparison to men's and women's sports, men's typically show their emotions to regression and being overly physical, whereas women we're not taught that as athletes. A lot of the ways that we compete as athletes looks a little bit different. Sure. There's times where we get physical. I have done my fair share of technical fouls growing up because I was pissed off in a game, but at the same time, I think when you go home after practice or a game, you're not necessarily dealing with your emotions the same way that men are. And I think sometimes within women it's a little bit harder to tell because we at times can internalize a lot of things more

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Michael Fulwiler (06:17):

What makes me think about these female athletes like Simone Biles who've come out in the last few years and been open about their challenges with their own mental health. And it seems like there's been a lot of progress that's been made more recently in sports and mental health.

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Liz Ridgway (06:34):

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Have so many icons in sports right now there have been speaking up about it, and it's really nice to see and I think really eyeopening, especially for not only the kids and players that look up to them, but I would hope the coaches that are also teaching the younger generations and coaching younger generations, I hope they're also taking some of that in as well.

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Michael Fulwiler (06:56):

So as you're going through this as an athlete and then into college, are you thinking about pursuing this as a career or when did therapy become an option for you?

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Liz Ridgway (07:06):

Honestly, I really wanted to be an orthodontist when I was in school, which is why I was a bio major. Braces were a huge part of my life. Unfortunately, I've had them three times. This is a note to anyone listening to wear your retainers. And then I had my own issues again in college with anxiety and then had some breakups and things that I had gone through and eventually realized I really did not want to be a bio major. It was something that I think my parents just kind of were like, you're going to be a bio major. You're going to do this. This is where you'll make money. And I had the realization, I think junior year was when I switched my major to psychology that I just didn't like it. I hated organic chemistry and wasn't passionate about it, and I took a chance.

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(07:49):

I changed my major to psychology. One of my good friends at the time was also switching from bio to psych, and so we kind of did that change together and I didn't tell my parents about it at first because I was really scared they were going to be upset with me and it worked out. I think I had took an intro to psych course sophomore year and I really loved it and I was just really fascinated about human behavior and a lot of it started to click for me. I think of just what I experienced and was able to put language to things and start to understand that this is part of being human. So yeah, I changed to psychology junior year. At that point, I still didn't know I wanted to be a therapist. My advisor in school was like, you should maybe look into social work.

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(08:35):

I was like, okay. He's like, if you don't really know what to do, it's a bigger umbrella you can play around with figuring out your niche and where you want to be later in life. I actually took a year off before grad school and I worked a couple different jobs in my area. I was actually working three jobs at one time. I worked for a charter school as an aide. I also worked for an overnight adult mental health treatment facility, and then I also did youth mentorship and I realized I really enjoyed it, and so then I ended up applying to NYU and moved to New York the year after.

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Michael Fulwiler (09:09):

And what was that adjustment?

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Liz Ridgway (09:12):

It was insane. It was wild

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Michael Fulwiler (09:14):

New York.

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Liz Ridgway (09:14):

Yeah, it was going from a small town to one of the biggest city was night and day for me, and I loved it. Honestly, I felt like I could experience so much more than I ever have. And yeah, just the adventure of New York City one night you're going to class, the next night you're out at a concert meeting riffraff, and that was what my grad school experience was like.

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Michael Fulwiler (09:41):

Oh, that's awesome. And at what point do you start posting on social media about mental health? Was this something that was happening in grad school or after grad school?

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Liz Ridgway (09:50):

Kind of senior my last semester of my senior year, and I honestly didn't even post about mental health at that point in time. I was really just posting sneakers and style because I love, I am a huge athlete and basketball was what got me into sneakers. Now I'm a huge sneaker head, and I also just love style. I love self-expression through my outfits and what I like to wear. And my husband works in marketing and he was kind of like, just share your love of sneakers. You need an outlet, you need a side, something to look forward to because you're already getting burnt out and you're not even in the field yet. Started posting that and then eventually would sprinkle in a little bit of mental health stuff. And I, for a while was kind of known as the sneaker girl with Cool Style who's also a therapist and eventually started to try to lean into more of I am a therapist who has cool sneakers and cool style, and that led to some pretty cool opportunities. I think that was probably around 2017 was when it started to go for me. Yeah.

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Michael Fulwiler (10:57):

You had a partnership with Nike where you made, was it a custom shoe design with Nike? How did that come to be?

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Liz Ridgway (11:06):

Yeah, in 2019, they had an incubator program and it was basically selecting different creatives from New York City and they wanted us to tell our stories through sneakers and we didn't really get to choose the silhouette. They kind of decided that for us. And at the time, the two 70 React was the new Air Max model that was coming out for Air Max Day that year. And I kind of was just like, look, this is my story. I'm a therapist. I love sneakers and I am really trying to bring, at the time, bring awareness to the sneaker community around mental health because there's so much connection within the sneaker community. You can be from so many different walks of life, but at the end of the day, you have this shared passion of sneakers that are this vehicle for so many stories and so many just amazing experiences, whether it's the design storytelling, whether it's activations and events that are happening.

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(11:59):

And I found at so many of those different types of events, there wasn't really conversations around just how we feel in all of it. And going to some of these things is very anxiety provoking for a lot of people. Putting yourself out there, networking or just making friends is hard. So that was kind of how I proposed the idea to them was just like, I just want to raise awareness on this that it exists and we can have these conversations and still love sneakers at the same time. So they were like, all right, let's do it. And that's how it came to be. So at the time, Drake's song In My Fields was on the charts, and that's kind of where the name came from, and I really just wanted to keep it a super simple colorway. I didn't want to go overboard with anything, so I kept it green for mental health awareness month. And then my favorite part of it is the swoosh is actually wavy, and I did that to represent that healing is not linear, that we all have our ups and downs in life. So yeah, that's kind of the story around the...

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Michael Fulwiler (12:57):

I love that.

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Liz Ridgway (12:57):

In my React.

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Michael Fulwiler (12:59):

Awesome. Is that available still? I imagine at this point it's probably just a limited edition.

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Liz Ridgway (13:04):

They actually sold out in under 48 hours when they released, and then at one point they were reselling for 600 to a thousand dollars depending on the size. There are some pretty cool moments. LeBron's wife, Savannah James owns a pair and was seen wearing them pretty recently, which is pretty cool. There's a lot of people that have supported and bought the sheet for the message and then had reached out to me and we've become friends through the space, which was such an awesome experience. But yeah, no, they're hard to get now. And I do have a couple pairs on ice in my house in case. But yeah.

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Michael Fulwiler (13:42):

I love that people may not realize there's a culture around sneakers and collecting sneakers. We had Gary, Trey Taylor on the show, he is a sneaker guy as well where people will look forward to specific drops or they'll stand in line for hours at stores to get them, or I know Nike does these limited releases where it's like you have to be on the app at a specific time and then they resell too for really expensive. And so it's cool. I love this intersection of sneakers and mental health, especially as you're starting to build your brand. So you're NYU for grad school. What happened after you graduated? Did you go work at an agency or community mental health? What did you do after grad

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Liz Ridgway (14:24):

School? Yeah, I worked for the New York Foundling. I was doing FFT Functional Family Therapy with kids in the juvenile justice system in New York. And honestly at the time, I was just applying for jobs because I had met Colin and he was living New York. I was looking at the situation of either find a job or move back to Pennsylvania, and I did not want to do that. So I had a couple different job offers, but this one seemed the most interesting to me. I wanted to work with teenagers at the time, and I also really wanted to do, I just really love the agency. New York Foundling is a pretty well-known agency in New York. You do a lot of different programs and I loved my supervisors. When I interviewed there, I just felt very comfortable. So that's where I started. And then from there I moved to Little Flower Children and Family Services, which is a foster care agency, and I was doing TF-CBT with kids in foster care. So not really where I'm at today. It's a very different

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Michael Fulwiler (15:21):

Background. And so I'm curious about that shift. So did you enjoy working with that population?

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Liz Ridgway (15:29):

I did. I just found, honestly, and I think a lot of social workers will say this too, but I got burnt out from the system. I was just so frustrated with the amount of obstacles and barriers to just jump through when I was working for the foster care organization just to get a winter coat approved for one of my clients, the amount of forms you'd have to fill out, the amount of different layers of people you'd have to talk to, it was absurd to me. It got to the point where I was kind of bringing in some of the clothes I was getting seated from brands and sneakers and stuff that I just didn't wear and was just giving them to the kids. And my boss at the time was awesome because she was like, I know you do this stuff outside of work. And she was so supportive of it and she was like, I talked to her about it because at the agency you couldn't give the kids anything unless it was brand new.

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(16:23):

And so there were times where I would literally have to throw a pair of sneakers on inside the house, take a photo for sponsored post, post it, and that was the extent of me wearing the shoes. They're brand new for the most part, but because of that, they legally wouldn't let me bring the shoes. And so we just kind of set up a closet in the back of our area and would just kind of store stuff. And so all the other therapists, if their kids needed stuff, they would just bring stuff in or take their kids. And that was kind of our secret area where we didn't tell anyone else from the agency that this was happening. But it was nice to be able to do that because I just got so burnt out. The systems are going to court even when I worked for the foundling and having to provide updates to the judges and having immense progress with some of my clients and their families, and then the judge only being focused on their substance use if they were still testing positive for weed and me trying to be professional, but at the same time being look at all this other progress that has been made, are we really focusing on this?

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(17:27):

And also it takes sometimes longer than 30 days for it to clear from your system. They're threatening to remand some of my clients and for things that are sometimes out of their control. And there were times where I've cried in front of judges because I was just so frustrated with how the court appearance was going, and it's very clear we're on different pages clinically, and I don't think a lot of people in positions of power really understand the clinical factors when it comes to mental health and then making calls that can really impact the trajectory of someone's life. It got to me, I had to get out.

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Michael Fulwiler (18:04):

I mean, it sounds tough. And so what was the path then to get out? Is private practice something that you're thinking about and working towards during that time?

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Liz Ridgway (18:14):

Yeah, that was always the goal I think was ideally to have my own practice. And what kind of helped me get out was I started seeing clients, well, COVID hit, and so I was working remotely during COVID, so for the foster care agency, and then on the side was seeing clients remotely in private practice. And so I was seeing, I think 11 people and still doing my full-time job, and I realized, okay, I can build a caseload relatively quickly. I think I can do this. So I took the risk, I put my notice in and then built up my caseload, and at times I was working mostly with millennials and Gen Z. It was kind of how I was focusing my niche on. And then I think over the years it kind of started to get more niche as I got more experienced and as I started to figure out what the possibilities can look like in private practice. So that's ultimately what helped. And I also signed up for Alma, which helped me at the time, get some referrals and things like that.

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Michael Fulwiler (19:19):

Yeah, I was going to ask, how did you get those first 10 clients for therapists listening who are wanting to start to transition into private practice? How did you get those initial clients?

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Liz Ridgway (19:30):

Yeah, Alma, honestly, I'm a big proponent of Alma and I actually have a sponsored post going up today with them, and I've promise this is not sponsored, but I really

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Michael Fulwiler (19:40):

Do. No, we love OMA

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Liz Ridgway (19:41):

Wholeheartedly. They make it so easy and there's things I still don't understand in private practice, like the insurance billing and the claims. And honestly, that is partially why I did it because it gives people access to therapy and it helps take a lot off of my plate and the overwhelm of trying to navigate a lot of those things. So Alma and then also my online platforms, I would have people sending my page to different people for referrals and then people reaching out and getting clients that way as well.

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Michael Fulwiler (20:10):

You said your niche has become more specific over time. If it started with Gen Z, kind of millennial young adults, how has it progressed?

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Liz Ridgway (20:21):

It kind of then went into millennials and Gen Z, then it kind of shifted into millennials and Gen Z creatives. Now it's more millennial, gen Z athletes and high performers. As I started working also with athletes, entertainers, different influencers, creatives, and even people that are on the opposite side of the industry that are working in the music industry on teams or agencies, marketing agencies doing high performing roles. I think anyone that has a career that you have to be on that often creates a very difficult boundary between work life balance that can bring on imposter syndrome, that can make you feel burnt out relatively quickly, sometimes a lot of anxiety, depression, you name it. That's kind of where I am starting to specialize in now. And so that's kind of how it evolved and I'm really happy. I love that it eventually led to working with athletes because I think going back to college, when I changed my major to psychology, a big part in that was Cole Hamels and the Phillies. He struggled a lot with anxiety as a pitcher and being a diehard Phillies fan, that was another moment for me where I realized there was that whole part of sports that existed kind of full circle moment a bit.

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Michael Fulwiler (21:44):

I love that. I heard this framing recently of instead of niche down, problem up, so start with a problem that a population or a group of people are having and then back out of that. And so if you just say, I work with athletes, it's like a particular type of person, but athletes isn't necessarily a presenting concern or a problem that someone's having. It's more of an identity. But things that athletes struggle with creatives also struggle with are other high performers. And so it's kind of less about who they are and more about the things that they're struggling with because that experience can be universal across multiple populations. So then even though you're super specific in a particular niche, it's more about the types of problems that you're helping people solve, but it opens up other opportunities.

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Liz Ridgway (22:35):

Absolutely. And not every person on my caseload is an athlete or a creative. So that's where understanding the symptoms and what people, like you said, the problem, the anxiety, the imposter syndrome, the burnout, and also just identity outside of your career. That's a big one for me. I really love being able to work with clients in that capacity.

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Michael Fulwiler (22:59):

We had Dr. Lawrence Jackson on the show. Have you connected with him? He's the black male therapist on Instagram and he's at Tulane now, and he actually works with athletes who are transitioning out of professional sports. It has his niche, which is interesting and also very needed when you talk about identity that Dr. Alex Beck, I know who on the show as well. And I think it's great that you work with athletes as a social worker. You don't have to be a sports psychologist to work with athletes.

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Liz Ridgway (23:28):

And I think work's starting to get a little bit more further along in progress and understanding the difference between our roles. My role as a therapist with athletes looks a little bit different from the role like a sports performance psychologist might have. However, both roles are very helpful and when the collaboration happens, I think it can be a really amazing thing for any of those clients. And I'm hoping that's something I still see a little bit of territorial aspects happening within sport, but I think there's starting to become more momentum around understanding that there's a little bit of a difference and both we can all work together in a way.

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Michael Fulwiler (24:10):

Are there certifications or programs for social workers or folks who want to work with athletes that aren't sports psychologists?

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Liz Ridgway (24:18):

Yeah. NYU actually offers a postmaster certificate program for social workers in sports, so clinical sports social worker certificate. And I actually did that last year and it was pretty great. So I highly recommend doing something like that. Or there's also the Association of Social Workers in Sport, which I'm a member of. They have a directory of social workers that work in sport in any capacity, and they also offer their listerv is great, you can connect with other clinicians, you can also find different CEUs. I'm actually taking a CEU later this week from the listserv someone shared because I don't see a lot of CEUs around athlete mental health being offered these days. So I'm excited for that. And it's just a great opportunity to connect with other social workers in sport because it's hard to find other social workers who are in this field.

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Michael Fulwiler (25:12):

So as you're building your practice, your practice is called MENTL.SESH, right? It's not called Liz Beecroft Therapy. And so it's almost like a startup. And so how were you thinking about building the business and the different offerings that you wanted to have?

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Liz Ridgway (25:26):

Yeah, at first it was kind of a pipe dream. Honestly, when I started, even today, I feel very overwhelmed because they don't teach us anything business related in school. And for me, when I don't understand something fully, I hesitate and I delay and procrastinate as much as possible because of the anxiety that it creates for me. So I'm a big, big proponent of if you don't have the time to learn it or it's something that you're not going to be using, hire someone if you're not going to be using it regularly. So any of the legal work that I needed, the LLC, the PLLC, all of that kind of stuff, I just hired out and had all of that established. So that was my first goal was to just get the on paper stuff done that needed to be done. And then from there, my goal when I first started was to have kind of a speakeasy therapy style in Boston and LA. LA actually just closed their store.

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(26:19):

There's a street wear store called Bodega, and it's really cool. You walk in the front and it looks like a little corner store and there's, at least in Boston, there's a Coke machine. You open the door to the Coke machine, it leads you back in this immaculate streetwear space store. And I wanted to do something like that kind of concept for therapy where I really wanted to have this front of house, maybe it was a cafe, working with different brands and having them kind of pop up, offer their have workshops and just little events and things like that, and then go back into a speakeasy spot and then obviously have another entrance in the backside of it for confidentiality reasons. But if people wanted to go and if they were getting therapy services to go back and bring on other clinicians and build out a group practice.

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(27:10):

And honestly, it never happened for me and I don't know if I want that to happen anymore. After COVID, the virtual therapy world significantly changed, and I did have an office in New York at one point. I found I was paying way too much in rent and seeing a handful of people in person, everyone wants to do virtual now. So I'm kind of keeping that idea in the back of my mind at this point in time and trying to figure out what MENTL.SESH looks like moving forward. And I'll be honest, right now, I don't really know. I know what our offerings are, I know what I love to do, but as far as structuring that into a business, I'm a little bit all over the place and confused right now. So I'm kind of just figuring it out. I'm back to the drawing board. But as far as offerings, I love doing creative partnerships and that is something that brings me a lot of personal fulfillment and I think also is a great way to separate the burnout from the clinical aspects of the job. And so some of those partnerships and what we've done in the past, we've partnered with different brands on product apparel collection. So we worked with Unknown, which is LeBron's store down in Miami. We have partnered with Staple Jeff Staples brand for a mental health awareness collection. We've done the Nike shoe partnered with Champs Sports for a mental health collection. There's definitely the hundreds and a couple other brands I'm sure in there over the years. And

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Michael Fulwiler (28:40):

Did you do something with Moleskine, the journal company?

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Liz Ridgway (28:43):

Yeah, we created our own journals with Moleskine and then had our own activation at ComplexCon. And I love doing that because I love the storytelling component of creating a product and knowing that it's going to do something for someone's mental health. But I'm also very big on during COVID there was this whole it's okay to not be okay going around. And while I agree with that, I also think we can't stop short there. What do you do when you're not okay? And the way my brain works is I'm just like, we need to give people tangible tools, whether it's teaching people how to find a therapist or something they can do on their own. I can put a quote on a T-shirt, but at the end of the day, it's not really helping someone's mental health. So for me, in all of those partnerships, I want to make sure that there's tangible tools, whether you buy something from that collection or not, if you see it in some capacity, you're still taking something away from it. So always making sure that we're trying to go above and beyond and aligning with the brand's mission and storytelling of the collection to give back to a nonprofit, to give people tangible tools and to do a little bit more than a standard mental health awareness type product.

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Michael Fulwiler (29:54):

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(30:51):

Are you able to talk about the business model of those partnerships? Is it something that you have a licensing deal or you get paid upfront for? How does that work? What you're able to share?

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Liz Ridgway (31:04):

Some of it is licensing deals, and honestly, I have a whole management team that does this. So for MENTL.SESH, as of the brand, when you look at the brand from the outside and you see the branding, the colors, the logo, the fonts, but that is what I want. I intentionally designed it this way, I want people to see it. But business wise, it's broken into two sections. I have a PLLC, which is where all my clinical work happens. And then I have an LLC. So the PLLC is technically Elizabeth Ridgeway, LCSW PLLC as a business on paper. But everything gets is also under a DBA as MENTL.SESH. So I funnel it all through there. And then for visibility purposes and optics. And then on the other side is the LLC of MENTL.SESH, and that's where all of the partnerships, the workshops, the consulting, anything that is front facing and non, I don't have to worry about any HIPAA stuff kind of happens on that side.

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(32:00):

And so on that side of the business is where I have my agency and they represent me as a individual online, so my personal Instagram and then also the MENTL.SESH side of things. So they're negotiating contracts, they're dealing with all of the licensing deals, they're doing, all that kind of stuff for me, and to be honest, that's another thing that I source out because don't understand it, don't need to really understand it. I need to know the key bullet points, but I can't take that on my plate. So a lot of it is licensing deals. There's also some times where we'll do a design fee, so then we will just get a flat design fee upfront. And then I have a creative director that I work with as well that does all the branding. He'll design all of my, if I need a t-shirt design or a hat design or basketball, it was with unknown. We actually did a basketball that looks like a brain and he designs all of that for me. So then we figure out depending on from project to project, what his rate looks like and then everyone gets paid and they're done. So that's kind of how it gets played out. But it looks different depending on the brand you're working with as well. Like smaller brands, it's usually a design fee, bigger brands that will look like licensing deals, and that's where then lawyers might get involved as well for trademarking purposes and things like that.

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Michael Fulwiler (33:19):

What about for sponsored content? I'm assuming that's also funneled through the LLC side of the business.

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Liz Ridgway (33:26):

So any sponsored content is also funneled through that. That is also handled by my agency. So then we typically have rates. The rates also fluctuate depending on who we're working with. If it's a Nike versus a small startup, that's going to look very different, but they handle all of the negotiations, all the back and forth. I have the MENTL.SESH email, and then I also have an agency email Liz at Counterculture. And so if I get something sent to my personal MENTL.SESH email, then I just forward it to them. But as far as any of the clinical emails, that's all funneled through my MENTL.SESH email, they don't see any of that. They're not on any of those emails. So yeah, they do all the negotiations. When it comes to my sponsored content, they're usually the ones replying to all of the emails. I will be on calls if we have a ideation type call set up or going over a certain brief, but otherwise they kind of speak a lot on my behalf for me because very much just happy to be there. And I'll be like, yeah, I'll do it for a dollar. This is awesome. And they're like, no, we're not going to let you do that.

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Michael Fulwiler (34:37):

And you also do speaking and workshops. Could you tell me about that?

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Liz Ridgway (34:40):

Yeah, so I do a lot, and this is right now kind of, I was just literally talking to my husband this morning about this. We do workshops and speaking, so I'll speak on panels, I'll speak at different, I just spoke at Vicon sometime last year, I don't even remember. And then with the workshops, I don't have a one sheet. This is my offering. My approach is I like to customize it to what the event is or what the brand is looking for, and I want whoever I'm working with on a workshop to get the most out of it, instead of just being like, here's a workshop on journaling, who's attending the workshop? Will they even be journaling? Let's really sit down and figure out what the best fit for this is. But I'm also entering Crossroads right now where that means the brand or whoever's hiring me to do the workshop has to take a risk on me because I don't necessarily always have past evidence of this is what I've done with Saucony.

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(35:33):

I recently went up to Boston for the marathon and a journaling workshop with Saucony, and it was for women, it was co-facilitated by Lisa Berger who was celebrating her 40th anniversary of winning the Boston Marathon. And it was really focused on a high performer mental health and how to kind of prepare mentally prior to the race, how to set routines and rituals, how to stay motivated and maintain the resilience during the run and then after the run. So before, during, and after, the things you need to be focusing on for your mental health as well as your identity outside of running. And a reminder that no medal, no title is, you're related to your self worth. You are so much more than that. And that's what we did there. But then what I might do with another brand depending would look different. And so that's where I'm kind of struggling right now to be fully transparent is how to still be flexible and specific and help companies get the most bang for their buck.

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(36:30):

But at the same time, how can I offer something that is a little bit more standardized so they also know what they're getting into. And my own personal beliefs on that are kind of holding me back from doing more of the standardized offerings, which I think I can go in and say, Hey, I'm going to do this workshop. I have three different tiers. You can choose tier one, tier two, or tier three, and this is what you're going to get for each tier. And I go in and I do the same thing every single time around. And I think that is boring, honestly. I think it's not as impactful. And I fear we're headed into a direction in society where we're missing the plot a lot on things. So I think there's a lot of people that want companies or organizations, brands that want to do that as a way to check a box. But for me, at my core, I really want to make an impact. If you're spending money on something that I'm doing, I want to make sure you're getting something really good out of it. And so my motto is always over or under promise, over deliver. I constantly will do that, but then it also means they have to be willing to take the risk on me because they don't know for certain what they're going to get on it. So it's kind of this tug of war game that I'm playing right now with myself.

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Michael Fulwiler (37:53):

I hear what you're saying. A lot of companies, they want to bring in a therapist or a mental health professional to speak to their team or company, and it really is about checking a box. It's about the optics of it and saying that they care about mental health. And it sounds like that's not what you're interested in doing. You don't want to come in and just deliver a talk that you've given a hundred times. It's more about the impact. And when you're creating something custom for every engagement, that's also more work

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Liz Ridgway (38:23):

On

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Michael Fulwiler (38:23):

Your end. So how do you think about pricing your services when especially you're doing more custom work, you have to spend some time in the front end coming up with something new every

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Liz Ridgway (38:33):

Time? Yeah, we have kind of base price that we'll start at. And again, this is where my agency steps in because they're really, I am not well versed in this at all, honestly. I'm still blown away at how much I will get paid to do sponsored content or for some of these partnerships versus how much I make through private practice through sessions. And to me I'm just like, whoa. It just seems absurd and there is money in it. There truly is. But for me, I am so grateful that I have the agency to speak up on my behalf and who have an idea of what those rates look typically look like because I genuinely still to this day am like, I don't know. But yeah, it typically starts at $5,000 or up. We're also very much flexible. If it's a company I really love and want to work with and they're like, look, we don't have that budget right now, let's figure it out.

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(39:26):

Okay, we can throttle back a little bit on some things. We don't have to go as hard and we'll make it work. And that's happened a lot too. And I think it's just kind of being flexible and strategic about your future because that company that you really want to work with that doesn't have the budget such as shutting them down, being willing to work with them might lead to that happening again in the future when they do have the budget or on a bigger scale in some other capacity. Or that person from that brand that you talk to might leave and go work for another brand, but you were great to work with and they want to bring you back now at this brand. And that just recently happened. One of the girls that I have grown really close with that works at Saucony, who brought me in for this running workshop in Boston just left and is now with Converse.

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(40:14):

And we've been talking about potentially figuring out ways to work together in that capacity. And it's really about relationships. I think at the end of the day, yes, it's great to be able to bring in other sides of income, but I think that only happens if you can genuinely form relationships with people. And I think what's really helped a lot too is those people from brands getting to know them as a human, not just what can you offer me or what can you do for me? Or Here's what I want to do for you guys. What's going on? How's your life? How's your time off? And even just checking in from a therapeutic lens. You good. You have some work-life balance right now. What are you looking forward to over Memorial Day weekend? Things that just are human interactions and showing that you care about them more than just what they can do for you or the money they can put into your pocket because that's great and it helps sustain my life, honestly. But at the same time, I really do care about making a difference and I can only do that if I have opportunities to be able to do that. Sorry, I just kind of rambled there.

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Michael Fulwiler (41:20):

No, what you're saying is it's resonating with me. I think it's really important that we talk on the show a lot about how business is about relationships and if you're listening and you're interested in doing more workshops or speaking or brand deals, it's really less about reaching out and pitching yourself and more about building relationships with stakeholders and gatekeepers. And you and I have known each other, I don't know, four or five years now, and now you're on the podcast and I'd love to partner with you on something at some point. And we talk all the time about opportunities and things that as they come up. And so it really is about relationships and I think just being open to that I think is really important where these types of opportunities come from.

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Liz Ridgway (42:04):

Yeah, because circling back with not having a standardized offering, people at least know who I am and they know what I'm capable of and that also helps people see me as what I can bring to the table, but at the same time, it's being comfortable with working with that person. Yeah, we've talked about working together and I love that because I know you on a human level and I trust you and I know that you're more than qualified to do anything if we were to partner together on something. But at the same time, it's also fun getting to work with someone that you're like, oh, he's a cool guy. His dog's named after Bryce Harper. That's cool.

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Michael Fulwiler (42:41):

Yeah, absolutely. And I've also introduced you to other people. I think I introduced you to Alex, so because of our relationship, I am happy to open up my network to you as well. Absolutely. And that's again, just goes back to the power of relationships when it does come to pricing. I love what you said just around it starts at a typical engagement starts at $5,000, and so having some sort of minimum engagement fee I think can be helpful. So you're not committing to a price of if you want to do a workshop, it's this cost, but it starts at this cost, so at least there's a floor. And then for those larger brands like the Nikes, you can go up, but then you're not underselling yourself either by having fixed rates.

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Liz Ridgway (43:27):

And I think it's important if people reach out to me, I am transparent about what I get paid for certain things or rates because I think it's important in the scope of the field. If you are a therapist and you're trying to generate money off making content or partnerships and things like that, we don't typically know. We're not full-time influencers and so we don't know what is out there and what that looks like. And I think being able to be honest and help other people in the field understand those things, even with sponsored content, there was stuff that I didn't understand that my agency has helped me with of just whitelisting and paid ads and things that add more to the rate depending on what that contract looks like, that it can easily be snuck in there if you don't understand what some of those terms mean.

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(44:13):

And I still am not an expert in them, but I know enough to be able to say, okay, if this is your contract, you might want to look out for these kind of things. And if you see them, that's where you can go back to them and ask for more money or redline in the contract and maybe they would have to take that out if they can't pay you that. Because when you think of any type of sponsored post, if a company were to hire a photographer, have a set ready, whatever they would do for a typical ad, that's all that money they'd have to spend there. So you to think about you're providing a lot of that on your own and that's kind of one way to approach it.

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Michael Fulwiler (44:54):

And it sounds like the agency that you work with is handling a lot of the details as it relates to the contracting and pricing. Are you able to share a little bit about what your financial relationship is like with them? Do you pay them on a retainer? Do they take a percentage of the deals that they bring in? How does that work?

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Liz Ridgway (45:10):

Yeah, I pay them 20% of the deals and typically right now their role is really, they'll reach out and pitch me with the relationships they have, but also a lot of it is just navigating the inbound stuff. And then recently my husband, Colin has actually been doing some outreach for me as well. So we have a media kit that is shared and he just kind of reach out media kit. And that's another thing, I've had fellow therapists that are like, what is a media kit? How do I create this? I don't mind sending mine out. You can go over my page and see what I've done here. It is consolidated, and so you have an idea and I recommend Canva. If you need a place to start, go to Canva, try and do it on your own. If you can't, then you might need to reach out to someone in Photoshop or graphic design and kind of give them an idea of what it is you want. But I think the media kit is really helpful for me because I do do a lot of things and I wear a lot of hats, but it's a way to consolidate that into here's Liz and this is what she can do.

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Michael Fulwiler (46:14):

Appreciate you sharing the specifics there. So you had mentioned 20%, so if you're listening, you're considering representation. My sense is that's a pretty standard benchmark. Alright. I want to pivot a little bit here. You're a self-described Disney adult and I'm curious for those watching the YouTube video, there's Nikki and our other friend behind us here, Jim Cricket. Yeah, I was blanking on the name there. So I'm curious, how does this Disney theme and topic, how does that intersect with sneakers and everything else that you're doing? Or does it really not have to?

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Liz Ridgway (46:51):

No, I mean it's just me, honestly. I grew up going to Disney, that was our family vacation every year. My parents, my mom mostly loves Disney and because of that I love Disney. So it's just my happy place. When you think of safe space visualization, that is where I go when I'm doing, I go to Disney and I take in all the smells, all the sight, all the sounds, but it just genuinely makes me happy. And to be honest, when I was younger it was really just the experience of the movies, the stories, the little kid things. But now that I'm older, I am obsessed with their marketing, and that is something, their attention to detail, it's changed over the more recent years. But what it was, it's phenomenal. It's just the lengths they go. And that's kind of a huge inspiration for me and probably why I am so a little all over the place when it comes to my offerings and wanting to curate it.

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(47:49):

And because I am down to every little detail matters to me so much so that it probably holds me back in a lot of ways. But Disney World, they have a tour called Keys to the Kingdom Tour, and you have to be 18 and older. They take you on this five hour walking tour through Magic Kingdom. You have a headset on, you have a tour guide, and you learn about all the things that they do to make the park magical. From the scaling of Main Street, it's actually scaled and it gets more narrow as you go down to make the castle appear bigger than it really is. Disney World is actually set on the second level. The first level is actually all the underground tunnels called Utilidors, which they navigate because if you're in Frontier land and you want to be in fantasy land, you'll never see someone, an employee that is in frontier land, a uniform, be in fantasy land.

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(48:44):

They all commute and work navigate down in the Utilidors. That is to keep the magic light. They have five keys that they are their pillars to maintain all of this. This is the things that it just, it's fascinating to me. They pump out smells on Main Street of fresh baked cookies during the fireworks when they have Tinkerbell flying through the air, her hair is actually her helmet. There's two guys in the castle that kick her out the door to get enough momentum. She has to be an Olympic level athlete. It's just stuff that to me is fascinating and I love it. So that's where the Disney lore comes in.

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Michael Fulwiler (49:25):

I love that. So there's two things here. One is that it's okay when you're thinking about your brand and your content to have other things that you talk about. You don't need to just talk about sneakers and mental health. You can also talk about Disney because it's who you are as a person and I think it's great that you have multiple passions. Then I think the other thing here that's coming up for me is taking inspiration from other industries. I think it's great. There's things that you can learn about marketing and branding from a completely different industry that you can apply to being a therapist. There's a really great book, it's called Right of a Lifetime, by Bob Iger, who's the, I think CEO. He was the current CEO and he came back and he's had some, I dunno off the field issues we'll say, but it's a great book and really kind of pulls back the curtain on Disney and how the business and brand was developed I think was, I really enjoyed reading that book.

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Liz Ridgway (50:18):

Yeah, there's another book I read in college in a sociology class and it's actually kind of sad, but it's called Inside the Mouse and it's, it talks about all the corruption of Disney too. So the bad stuff that I try to zone out on, but interesting and a good read. But I dunno, I think as therapists online, I know there's kind of different camps people stay in, be very professional, don't share your personal life. I am very much in the other camp, I think it's okay to share your personal life. We try to encourage our clients to show up authentically as themselves at times and own who they are and be the best version of themselves. And I try to, this is me, this is what you're going to get. I think sometimes it can be helpful if a client knows that I like Disney. There's times where I have recommended go watch Inside Out too as homework. And I think as long as we're not posting things that are detrimental or harmful, I think it's okay to be ourselves too. We don't have to hide online.

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Michael Fulwiler (51:23):

Agreed. It's something that's come up a lot. I feel like this season more than the first season could just be the people that we've had on the show, but authenticity seems to be something that keeps coming up and feels like a common theme for therapists, especially therapists who are building brands and creating content and kind of doing other things beyond just offering therapy services.

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Liz Ridgway (51:44):

Yeah. What are your other parts of your identity? Leave the identity map right now

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Michael Fulwiler (51:51):

I am a huge sports fan as well. I grew up playing baseball and coach baseball after I retired after college. So baseball big, and I've talked about this a little bit on the show, but I grew up traveling and living overseas. My dad was a foreign service officer, so travel is a big thing for me as well. And so I would say baseball, travel and then I've become more of a dog person as an adult too. You mentioned I have a dog named Harper. My wife and I will disagree on the origin of that name. I haven's named Dr. Bryce Harper of the Phillies, who is my favorite player. So I would say those are the three pretty big things for me that come to mind.

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Liz Ridgway (52:34):

Yeah, pretty cool. It's just humanizes us and there are those reminders that there's more to us too than what we're doing every day. Definitely.

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Michael Fulwiler (52:43):

Alright, we're coming to the end here. I have a few rapid fire questions to close this out. How does that sound?

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Liz Ridgway (52:49):

Cool.

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Michael Fulwiler (52:50):

First one very important question, what is the best cheese steak in Philly in your opinion?

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Liz Ridgway (52:55):

Oh my God,

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Michael Fulwiler (52:58):

You heard it here. Favorite sneaker in your closet right now? If you had to choose?

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Liz Ridgway (53:04):

If I had to choose right now, oh gosh, this is a tough one. I have the new Balance Mi Mu five 30 and I really like those. They're very chic. They're kind of my recent flex pair that I wear.

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Michael Fulwiler (53:15):

What is one brand that you'd love to partner with that you haven't yet?

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Liz Ridgway (53:20):

Pop Mart

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Michael Fulwiler (53:21):

About that? What is Pop Mart?

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Liz Ridgway (53:22):

Have you seen the Labubu craze happening now?

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Michael Fulwiler (53:27):

No.

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Liz Ridgway (53:29):

I want to show you my wall of my trinkets.

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Michael Fulwiler (53:33):

Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. I have seen you post these.

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Liz Ridgway (53:37):

They make all the trinkets. Right.

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Michael Fulwiler (53:39):

Gotcha. Okay.

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Liz Ridgway (53:40):

But it's for me and they, all these things come in like blind boxes. So when you buy it, you don't know which one you're going to get. You only know there's one in six, what the series is. But I think it kind of speaks to collecting things like sneakers, blind boxes. They look

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Michael Fulwiler (53:55):

Like Funko. Have you seen those? Funko? Okay.

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Liz Ridgway (53:58):

Yep. That's

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Michael Fulwiler (53:58):

What it reminds me of.

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Liz Ridgway (53:59):

Yeah. And they're cool. So I would like to do something with Pop mart around. I don't know.

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Michael Fulwiler (54:03):

Alright. Well, pop Mart, if you're listening, reach out. What is one thing that therapists need to hear right now?

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Liz Ridgway (54:11):

I think especially this is personal experience, but during mental health Awareness month that we matter and we are important because I think there's a lot of times where we don't always feel included. I see a lot of uplifting of other people, things in the space that are also important, but I think sometimes the therapists get a little left out of that equation so that we are very important and we matter. And at the end of May, we're still going to be doing all this work.

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Michael Fulwiler (54:37):

Well said. During mental health awareness month, we see a lot of panels and we see a lot of talks about mental health and especially in the creator community, but there typically aren't mental health professionals that participate in those. And it's become a thing that you and I send each other these events exclude mental health professionals.

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Liz Ridgway (54:58):

Another one.

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Michael Fulwiler (54:59):

Yeah, exactly. So as a therapist, if you see an event that's on the topic of mental health and you notice, well, there isn't a mental health professional or the therapist, it's who's participating, reach out to that event organizer, say, Hey, I'd love to participate.

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Liz Ridgway (55:14):

Yeah.

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Michael Fulwiler (55:14):

Finally, what's one thing that you want therapists to take away from this conversation?

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Liz Ridgway (55:19):

To own your uniqueness and don't be scared to sometimes have to step outside of the box. Sometimes it's scary, but it's worth it.

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Michael Fulwiler (55:30):

Well said, Liz, thank you so much for coming on the show. This has been awesome. For folks who want to connect with you, where can they do that?

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Liz Ridgway (55:36):

Yeah, my personal Instagram is at Liz, the letter B, and then C-R-O-F-T, and then MENTL.SESH is M-E-N-T-L dot S-E-S-H, or just message me and we can connect. I'll give you my email. Sometimes I'll give you my phone number. The worst texter in the world though. Or we can jump on a call or meet up if you're in Philly. Happy to connect.

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Michael Fulwiler (55:59):

Love it. I need to get out to Philly, Dr. Melvin Varghese, who we've got on the show is in Philly. Elizabeth Earnshaw, who we've got on the show, is also in Philly. There seems like this kind of community of therapists in the Philly area. So I'll come out, we'll go to Phillies game.

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Liz Ridgway (56:12):

Yeah, come down in September if you're free. I know you might have your hands full by then, but yeah, I'm speaking on a panel with the Phillies, September 9th, for their Strike Out The Stigma series on the positive impacts of social media.

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Michael Fulwiler (56:27):

Well, I would love to make that happen, Liz, thank you so much.

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Liz Ridgway (56:30):

Of course, thank you.

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Michael Fulwiler (56:31):

Thanks for listening to this episode of Heard Business School, brought to you by Heard, the financial management platform for therapists. To get the class notes for this week's episode, go to joinheard.com/podcast. And don't forget to subscribe on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. We'll see you in the next class.

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