Bio:
Khara Croswaite Brindle is a professional speaker, author, and workshop facilitator with 9+ years working with at-risk teens and adults as a Medicaid Therapist. In this episode, Khara and I discuss the benefits of outsourcing, how to manage the imposter syndrome and how she supports entrepreneurs in overcoming perfectionism.
Get In Touch:
linkedin.com/in/khara-croswaite-brindle-ma-lpc-acs-b04749143croswaitecounselingpllc.com (Company Website)cacs-co.com (CACS Suicide Risk Web App)
campsite.bio/kharacroswaite (Personal Website)
Transcript:
Katie (00:06):
Thank you for tuning into the Hustlenomics Podcast. I’m your host, Katie. And today I am speaking with Khara Crossway Brendel. She is a licensed professional counselor approved clinical supervisor and the owner of CrossFit counseling, a group private practice in Denver, Colorado. She enjoys inspiring innovation and shared communities through her CAC S suicide risk app, as well as being the founder and executive director of catalog flee a Colorado nonprofit, accelerating innovation and suicide prevention to save lives. So, Kara, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
Khara (01:02):
Thanks Katie. I know that was a mouthful, so I appreciate the introduction.
Katie (01:05):
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So I would love to learn a little bit more about you and your background and kind of how you got to where you are today.
Khara (01:11):
Sure. So I think a lot of people ask this question cause I’m a mental health therapist first and foremost. And so I think, you know, most of us, we get into this profession because we want to help others sounds pretty cliche, but it’s very true to people who are in helping professions and that could be medical, mental health. For me, it was kind of a natural segue from a premed major where I was just really struggling and wanting to do something that really helps the community, but premed was just not going to be it. So I’d always loved psychology. I found it fascinating in high school, which is I think where most people get their first introduction and moved into a psychology major, knowing that I’d have to get a master’s degree.
Khara (01:48):
So here I am 10 years later from that master’s degree and doing my thing with therapy. So I run three businesses and I love what I do. I’m never bored. Yes. Running through businesses. I can not even imagine. I just struggled to run one. So what made you want to kind of start all these different, these different businesses and I’m sure you were inspired by different things. Yeah. I think, you know, for the nonprofit catalyze lady, that’s a suicide prevention nonprofit. And so I think for most of the conversations I’m having these days, I talk about suicide practically daily, which can sound kind of heavy to, to people. And yet I want it to be an everyday conversation because that conversation could save a life if just modeling, like it’s okay to talk about this is part of being human. How do we get people to go from really deep, dark suffering to feeling hopeful again.
Khara (02:33):
And so having the nonprofit be about a year old, it’s been a learning curve just to help people understand, like you’re not going to give someone the idea. If you talk about suicide and how do we make this better for them. So for me that actually started more personal. I had two family members die by suicide before I was 18 years old. And so I think that absolutely shaped me as a therapist, but also shaped my family dynamic into doing this work.
Katie (02:57):
Oh yeah, absolutely. And so starting nonprofit is a very unique endeavor compared to maybe just starting a regular LLC or S Corp or you know, a business. So what was that process like of starting a nonprofit? Had you had any experience with that in the past?
Khara (03:10):
Oh gosh, Katie, I really dragged my feet. I didn’t want to do a nonprofit honestly. I run it like a business because that’s what I’ve been taught to do. I think the nonprofit sector can feel so different though. So compared to my other two businesses, you know, going in and making sure I was following all the ethical considerations, what it looks like to file things and what really drew me to it is this idea of like social enterprise. So being able to offer something worthwhile, but also still being able to, you know, help the community at large. And so it took me a while to get there. I talked to a bunch of colleagues and we finally got to a place where we could do a hybrid, which is basically a, for profit and nonprofit combination. And making sure that it’s still following all the rules. And so once I knew that that was possible, I was more open to it.
Katie (03:56):
Right, right. Yeah. So I mean definitely some different things, but at least some similarities. So it wasn’t completely crazy new. I’ve talked to a lot of therapists in particular recently who are doing a combination of in-person therapy as well as virtual therapy. Is that something you guys do at all?
Khara (04:13):
Not our practice. Those are six of us total that are serving teens and adults here in the Denver Metro area. And when that started to come up as more popular, I was really taking inventory for myself of like, what would the benefit be? I think telehealth has booming because it’s reaching people who are further away or have limited resources. But for our team, we really valued that face to face interaction. And for your listeners, you know, that demographic, I work mostly with the millennial and gen Z generation. So those young adults are saying they value coming in and having that connection.
Khara (04:45):
I think that’s a very different feel when you’re on tele-health. And so even though I see it’s value, it’s not something our practice actually offers because we’d prefer to see them face to face.
Katie (04:53):
Right, right. I can totally see that. And it’s, I’m, I’m guessing it’s very specific for each practice if they decide to do that. So absolutely. Obviously you’re a very, very busy person running three different businesses. So I’d love to kind of talk about how you structure your day as somebody who feels overwhelmed by one. I can only imagine you’ve put some organizational practices into your day that really help you get things done. So do you mind just kind of talking about what a typical day looks like for you?
Khara (05:18):
Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s, it’s definitely working progress. I think the idea of structure and self care and learning to say no is something that’s really hard for entrepreneurs because we’re just so creative and we’re always looking at the next possible piece to the puzzle.
Khara (05:31):
So for me the primary business is the mental health practice. And so I see clients myself Tuesday through Thursday. So a typical day they might be starting with some paperwork and just grounding myself with some structure and then seeing clients from like lunchtime to six o’clock for the nonprofit I’ve really dedicated my Mondays and Fridays to doing networking, working on grant writing some of the other pieces that really go into a nonprofit being successful. And then the third business is a book business. So it’s actually considered the most secondary income of the three. And the idea that we’re just making sure the book is known and working on our website and making sure SEO is working well. And so that one feels a little bit more passive compared to the first two, which makes this possible. In all honesty, I’m trying to streamline and bring some things into focus so that I’m not working three businesses forever. Cause I don’t think that’s super healthy for me.
Katie (06:25):
I’m guessing you’ve had to do some outsourcing. What was that process like?
Khara (06:28):
Oh my goodness. When I finally gave up control, cause I think there’s a level of entrepreneurs that want to have all the control. And actually I have a coined term for that called perfection. And so perfectionist entrepreneur is the group of people I’m serving as a mental health therapist, but I also hope to serve in a book that I’m writing about this. But the idea of like self care just doesn’t work as well for people who are really creative and need to be go, go, go and have that hustle. That is part of your podcast. So I think, you know, just trying to figure out how to make this happen has been challenging when you finally decided, okay, I need to hand some things off to other people.
Katie (07:02):
What was some of those first tasks that you decided to let go of?
Khara (07:05):
Oh yeah. I take definitely like marketing and some of the social media making sure I was delegating or contracting out for SEO because that’s just an arena. I wasn’t as familiar with myself. So I’ve learned a lot through hiring different people, asking questions. Networking is definitely a big part of what I do. And just being able to say like, what am I looking for? Who’s the person that fits that need and how do I interview them to make sure they’re best fit for my company? So once I actually gave up that control and made that possible, I have some amazing people helping us build and grow and I’m just very grateful.
Katie (07:36):
Yeah, absolutely. That’s awesome. And I’m actually in that same stage of, of needing to start outsourcing outsourcing, I’ve never hired anyone before. This is a very new territory for me. So I would love to kind of hear about your hiring process. Where did you start finding people to interview? What was the interview process like?
Khara (07:53):
Yeah, I think I started with my community just to see if there were people in my network that were already utilizing someone that they trusted or liked. And so I reached out through social media and said, Hey, I’m looking for an SEO company or I’m looking for someone to help me with billing. And sometimes they had referrals for me that I could then check out and interview. I also really value they’ll freelance website, upwork.com. I don’t know if you’ve heard it before Katie, but it’s kind of phenomenal because it’s basically a freelancer for anything you need when it comes to graphic design, editing, book, writing, bead, making an infographic for something you’re doing could be someone doing video edits for you.
Khara (08:29):
So it really is a great place or a great platform. I should say to hire some people that have, you know, kind of a, it’s almost like a Yelp for people. So it’s like, Hey, I have five stars. Here’s all the people who are happy with them. So Upwork was where I got a lot of our different design folks and even my web developer for the app, the tool. And so, you know, that really took a lot off my plate, but it was still asking questions and doing an interview as a second step.
Katie (08:55):
Absolutely. And I think Upwork is great, especially if you’re not ready to dive in with somebody on a monthly basis, but you might want to just try out for a couple of projects. I think it’s kind of a great stepping stone. Exactly. Yeah. Especially cause I think when we’re starting businesses or helping them grow, we have to be pretty conservative of where we spend our money. And so having that short term gain can be really helpful just to getting up and running and then figuring out if it’s sustainable.
Katie (09:17):
Oh yeah, absolutely. And I was kind of like looking through your, your blog and you have so many fantastic blog posts in there. Everybody should definitely check it out. And one that kind of caught my eye is the imposter syndrome post. I think that, yeah, not just my generation millennials or gen Z or whatever it has to do with this. Everybody does, of course it manifests itself differently generationally and I think we all deal with it differently. But do you mind just kind of talking a little bit about what that post was about and what inspired you to write it?
Khara (09:44):
Yeah. I mean, I identify with the millennial generation as well. I’m considered an old millennial air quotes for that. But so I think the imposter syndrome, like you said, absolutely connects back to this generation, that’s really about impact, right? So the millennial generation is coming into therapy saying, I want to feel heard. I want to feel connected. I want to make a difference. And there’s this piece about legacy that’s showing up outside of having children. So it’s like, how are we benefiting the world in a way that has longevity beyond us being on this planet? And so imposter syndrome starts to show up because we have all these dreams and hopes and wishes and all of a sudden we start to learn how to do something well. And imposter syndrome basically describes me feeling like I’m a fraud doing that thing. And I think that’s so relatable because it’s a human experience to be like, Oh, someone’s going to realize that I don’t know what I’m talking about, or I don’t know what I’m writing about or whatever my businesses that I don’t know what I’m doing.
Khara (10:37):
And I think that started to become more common for people to name after some of our celebrities started that Mo that movement, they modeled that. So Beyonce was one of them, for example, who said that she, you know, can be seen as very successful and she doing amazing work. And yet she still has imposter syndrome show up of like, Oh, I’m a fraud. Someone’s going to find out. And I’m not actually as good as I seem. So the post itself was just an inspiration for my own work as an entrepreneur, but also for the clients I’ve been serving because a lot of people, when they finally get into their power and realize they want to do something meaningful, there’s a lot of self doubt that can show up,
Katie (11:16):
Oh yeah. A hundred percent. And if Beyonce feels it, then anybody can, right. It’s kind of a reality.
Khara (11:22):
Exactly. That’s why I mentioned her like, wow, now that puts it in perspective. So when you’re working with people to kind of get over this imposter syndrome, do you have like daily exercises or mindset shifts exercises, how do you kind of get people to get past that negative self talk? Yeah, I think that’s where this next book idea came in. So I had a four, 4:00 AM epiphany back in January about how I wanted to put some of the things I’ve been doing personally and professionally into practice, but also bit what’s been working for this, this clientele. You know, I think self care as a term is over commercialized. And so it was about like, how do we give people rest versus restoration is one concept. And so I’ve done a couple different conversations or short videos on this, but like rest is what people think of.
Khara (12:04):
When they say I binge watched a show all weekend, I stayed on my couch. I didn’t go anywhere. And we have a generation that’s doing that very frequently. And yet they come into therapy on Monday, Tuesday morning and say, I still feel exhausted. I still feel gross. I still feel lethargic. And when I started to introduce them to, is this idea of what restores you, what actually energizes you? What brings you back to baseline back to your energy makes you feel, you know, vital revitalized. And so when I started to frame it that way, all of a sudden we had different answers to the equation. It wasn’t sitting on a couch, not going anywhere. It was more about what makes me feel bright and happy again. So maybe it’s spending time with a certain person that you enjoy or cooking or gardening, or just doing something that doesn’t feel glamorous, but helps people feel more like themselves.
Katie (12:50):
Yeah, absolutely. I love that approach. Do you have things in your life that kind of recharged you that you do for yourself?
Khara (12:57):
I think now that I’ve given myself permission to have better structure and not work 24 seven, I really start to enjoy more time with the family and my friends. And I’m, I’m one of those weird people that even though I’m an introvert, I do enjoy networking. It does make me feel grateful and reminds me of why I do all that. I do. For example, last week I went back to my alum and did their interview day. So I talked to future students coming into the masters program and talked about what I was doing now and why I enjoyed the program. And that is a gift. I think that’s two, two ways, you know, it’s a gift to them cause they get a sense of what it looks like outside of the school program.
Khara (13:32):
But for me, it reminds me of why I do what I do. So I’m really grateful to go back and have those conversations. And so those definitely energize me amidst, you know, the mundane tasks of a business. Right. Yeah. I can only imagine. I mean, and it’s so funny because when you mentioned like binge watching a show, we can like, in my mind I was like, Oh yeah, it sounds relaxing, but I’ve done it. And it’s not, I come back on Monday and I’m not feeling, you know, excited for the week. So yeah, it’s really taking a look at those activities and finding what works for you.
Katie (14:04):
So that’s really interesting. Yeah. And this book that you’re writing is this your first book?
Khara (14:08):
It will be my second one. So we launched a book last July that specific to supervision in mental health. And so everything I’ve done in my businesses so far has revolved around mental health and supervision as well as suicide prevention.
Khara (14:20):
So this 4:00 AM epiphany that I had about a perfectionist, which is that term I’m going to try and coin of just like, okay, here’s a group of people who is really like high drive, lots of motivation, hustling hard. And yet they’re struggling with this idea of self care. If self self care was simple, we wouldn’t talk about it. Right. So I’m just figuring out what what’s working for, the clientele I serve. Cause I’m right here by one of the medical schools. So right now I’m serving pharmacy, students, medical students, nursing students. And I think we can agree that there’s a certain type of personality that’s driven to help and to go to that level of schooling. And so for this book, you know, it’s, it’s in a draft form right now, but I would like to streamline my schedule even further to make more time for writing so I can finish that.
Katie (15:04):
Yeah, absolutely. Is writing something that comes natural to you? Have you always been a writer? Is this a new passion for you?
Khara (15:11):
Oh gosh. I feel like my sister was the better writer when we were kids, but I find that I write really well in the morning. So I get up at the same time every day, even on weekends and just have a really good structure that way for my sleep hygiene. And so when it’s nice and quiet at like six, 7:00 AM is when I do with my best writing, whether it’s a blog or a draft to a book or a chapter in a textbook, which is what I’m working on right now. So having that routine is really helpful.
Katie (15:36):
Yeah. I can only imagine. Cause you can say, Oh, you know, I’m going to write tomorrow and then you put it off, put it off, put it off.
Katie (15:40):
So doing it every day is really helpful. I can, I can imagine.
Khara (15:44):
Yeah, just like small chunks otherwise it’s never going to get done.
Katie (15:48):
And did you decide to go the traditional publishing route?
Khara (15:52):
Absolutely not. Actually. I think that is for lack of a better word, it’s slowly dying because the traditional publisher route, I did do a lot of research to figure out what was best. And since I had a co author, I had to make sure she was on board for that decision as well. And so for that first book that we launched last July, it was more about, okay, we have to factor in our income and then divide it by two people. And a traditional publisher route from everything I researched was more about them telling you what to write and how to write it and the outline. And then they take their cut while they still help you publish and push it out there.
Khara (16:27):
So there were pros and cons, but the cons outweigh the pros when it came to a traditional publisher. So we actually went through the Amazon route, which is where I think a lot of new authors are going because it takes away some of the costs and you’re not having someone take a cut for the book that they dictated. So we had a lot more creative freedom to do what we wanted to do. And Amazon made it really easy to make that possible.
Katie (16:48):
Yeah, absolutely. I’m a huge, huge proponent of self publishing. I’ve done that myself and I just like, like you mentioned, I love the creative freedom, but for somebody who’s out there, who’s heard of self publishing, but they don’t really know what you mean by the Amazon publishing route. Can you just talk about like what that process is like when you get a draft ready?
Katie (17:06):
Do you have to send it to an editor that you find yourself or, you know, how did that all work?
Khara (17:09):
Well, absolutely. So I think our first task was to, you know, put the outline together and start writing it and then have an editor come back in a fresh pair of eyes and make sure that everything looked right and format it correctly because I think the biggest challenge with the Amazon publishing is you have your paperback, which in my professional mental health people still like to buy the physical books. And then you have your Kindle version. So the Kindle version has a whole different format that I was not familiar with. So having an editor do that was something I was more than happy to pay for to make sure it was formatted correctly for someone who bought the Kindle version. And so once you have your document, your word document written up, he save it as a PDF and you upload it to the Amazon system.
Khara (17:47):
You set your price point, you said all these different things, you create your cover and walleye it’s launched. So what I really appreciate about it is it’s a print pay in print. So if someone pays for the book, that’s when they’ll print a copy for them. So it’s not like we have a bunch of books sitting somewhere in a warehouse which I find valuable as we continue to update our book, that every time I update it, it’s immediate, it’s within, I think 24 hours that the new version is available. So if someone buys it tomorrow, they’re going to get the most up to date version that we’ve created. So it’s just really user-friendly that way.
Katie (18:18):
Yeah. So much better than the traditional publishing route, I think. And did you guys do all the marketing and all that kind of stuff? The launch yourself so far?
Khara (18:26):
Yeah, so I mean, in that first six months, we definitely were marketing to our established community. And since I network a lot, it was relatively easy to go to the community and say, Hey, is this the next project I’m working on? Would love to have you come to a training or a book signing. We’ve done two trainings so far in 2020 already. And we have one next week. And so that’s been another part of like, not just the book, but just how do we create something for the community at large. And so most of our people are mental health leaders who are trying to do this really well when it comes to supervision. So, so far so good, but our next step is to refine the website and make sure SEO is working well.
Katie (19:02):
You’ve mentioned your app. We haven’t really dived into it yet, but you mentioned getting a web developer for that. So what was that process like creating an app I’ve only barely barely heard about what that whole process is like.
Khara (19:14):
Sure. Well, my inspiration was in the mental health community. We can’t do 40 hours of therapy a week. It’s just not sustainable. It’s something that would burn us out pretty quickly. And so most of us have been encouraged to find secondary income streams, other things we can do, whether that’s a workshop, a training, a book, or in this case, an app. And so when I had this idea, I was supporting a team of 15 other therapists as our supervisor. And they were out in the homes, working with people in the community. And a lot of them came out of grad school saying, I don’t feel prepared to talk about suicide. Like they were scared of it. They had no idea or they’re trading with limited.
Khara (19:49):
And so I created the tool as a suicide assessment tool that was mobile could be on the phone, could be on their tablet, iPad laptop. So for my team that was out in the community, it was helping them do their job well and helping keep someone you know, safe, hopefully when it comes to suicide and that conversation. So the process was coming up with the idea, interviewing a bunch of web developers. I had quotes everywhere from $2,000 to $20,000 just to create the thing. I would tell people now if they want to create an app, depending on what it does, the more intricate it is, the more money it costs. So I’m up to six figures right now and just putting it together and making it something worthwhile. And so it’s really is a labor of love. If it’s not something you’re passionate about, you might want to try it another route.
Katie (20:36):
Yeah. And is it still being built or has it been launched yet?
Khara (20:39):
Yeah, so it was launched back in 2017 and we went through a couple different pilot programs with mental health counselors who are the major users. We have about 200 professional users right now in a pilot study happening in nine Colorado schools. And our mission with that and where the nonprofit comes back into play is there’s a collaboration between the two to get this tool into every single school in the state, because we have plenty of mental health and principals and staff or teachers who are the first kind of person to notice that a youth is struggling with their mental health. And so we want them to feel prepared to have that conversation.
Katie (21:14):
Wow. That’s incredible. So, so cool. And you’ve mentioned like an amazing resources already, and I’m definitely going to link to all those in the show notes, but are there any other resources out there, whether it be a book or a podcast or a course, a coaching program, anything that you would recommend to the listeners that they might want to check out?
Khara (21:32):
Yeah. I mean, when we’re talking about book publishing the book that really helped me along the way was the book called published. I don’t remember who the author is, but the word the title is published. And I know that he wrote it to just basically say, let me debunk all the myths and empower you to do your own self publishing journey. And so he actually broke it down into measurable steps of like you write it. And here’s what your launch party looks like. Here’s what your marketing strategy looks like. So I found that super helpful as someone who is just entering that arena with no context. So that book, I would definitely recommend, there’s also a video course that my coach has been using when it comes to your question about introductions. And so whether it’s networking, doing live videos, putting something on your website, her online video courses, I think it’s called charisma in video.
Khara (22:20):
I’ll have to double check that for you, Katie, but it’s an online course that you self paced and you learn how to present better when it comes to videoing yourself for coursework or marketing or whatever you’ve got going on. So I found that super helpful too, even when it came to equipment to use things like that.
