We caught up with the brilliant and insightful R. Michael Stapleton, Jr. a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, R. Michael thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
When I was a teenager, my family fell apart. Talking to a therapist helped. I’ve always enjoyed helping people, solving problems, and the transformative experience of helping to change a person’s experience from bad to good.
I have worked in the social services field since 1991. I was a child abuse investigator with Florida’s child services agency, DCF, and I worked in drug treatment. I was not able to help provide effective change in these roles. These experiences helped me realize that I wanted to be able to help people more directly, so I went back to school to earn my Masters of Counseling Psychology. I became licensed in 2000 and have been working as a licensed therapist ever since. I started by working for a psychologist, then various other agencies. I also formed a part time private practice as a “side hustle” to help people adopt children.
About 7-8 years ago, the corporate position I was in was being eliminated due to the company losing it’s contract. To be honest, I was bored out of my mind with the job. I wasn’t involved in direct patient care. I was stagnant and stuck. Being laid off, while scary, was the best thing that ever happened to me. I had thought about becoming a full time private practitioner, but I was afraid of failing. Ultimately, by trusting in God and going for it, I rented an office and started seeing clients full time.
I knew from talking to my colleagues that being a provider who accepts insurance was a nightmare. They ended up spending more time trying to chase payments than they did actually helping people. I decided that if I was going to make it in private practice, it would be as a fee-for-service provider or not at all.
When I first started working for myself full time it was scary! Every week I was worried – would I have enough clients? Would I be able to feed my family and pay my bills? Every week, God showed up. I never missed a bill. Then, COVID. Again, it was a big fear bomb. I believe that therapy is most effective in person. When doing telehealth, a lot can be missed. Subtle body language cues, facial expressions, interactions between clients, and so on. I was reluctant to shift to video sessions. I did video for clients who requested it. Quite a few of my clients wanted to stay in person.
Despite all of the restrictions and fear that everyone was experiencing, I still made it through. I never missed a bill, and my family was provided for. In 2021, my business increased significantly and has been going strong ever since.
What I have learned is that if you do good work, don’t do work that you’re not good at, and have a genuine desire to provide good services to your clients, your business will grow, whether it’s therapy, lawn care, or anything else.
In 2022 I looked at how I could create passive income. I looked at many models that have already done this – from podcasts to paid curriculum to speaking engagements. For years I have written “nuggets” on sticky notes and given them to my clients. These are one liners – reminders of what we discussed to help them stay on track, like “Choose Gratitude” or “Don’t Should on Yourself.” Several clients have suggested that I put these in a book.
One day I was talking to a pastor about the men’s group I was going to be speaking to that evening. The discussion sparked an idea about how people deal with shame. I started writing, and two hours later I had the kernel of what became my first book, Shameless. Five months later and it is a published book available on Amazon, and I have several more books in the works. I’m excited to see where becoming an author will take my career, and I’m very hopeful that my writing will help others to heal and grow.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I’ve always enjoyed helping people, so being a therapist was a natural fit. I have a lot of experience with trauma, anxiety, depression, marital and men’s issues. I am passionate about helping my clients overcome trauma, self-doubt, and broken relationships.
I think what sets me apart from other people is that I have a unique way of looking at people’s issues. I am a therapist who is comfortable being “real” about my own struggles. I believe that this makes me authentic and approachable. I am a ‘straight shooter’ – I tell the truth in love, which means that I challenge my clients. I am a combination of therapist/coach in that I accept people without judgment, but also challenge and hold them accountable.
My favorite days in therapy are when a client breaks through an issue and when I get fired. If I’m being “fired” it’s because my client no longer needs my help, and that’s a great thing! I love that my clients will reach out after a year or two for a “tune up” meeting, just to check in and work on a couple of minor things. Helping someone overcome significant trauma and step out into their new identity is an incredible honor.
I am proud that I have become an author. This was one of those “never” things. Given some negative things that happened in my childhood, I had to overcome a lack of belief in myself. I ‘never’ thought I’d run a full time private practice, yet I’ve been doing that almost eight years. I certainly “never” thought I’d write a book! And now I have a book and workbook I’ve written that will help people to overcome lifelong shame.
Have you ever had to pivot?
About eight years ago I was in the tenth year of a corporate, work from home position. I was part of a team that monitored the quality of care provided to teens in residential mental health treatment. The position allowed me the great blessing of being able to be present in my daughter’s lives from birth through elementary school.
Unfortunately, I was bored. As an ADHD person, I crave challenge and variety. This job provided security, but very little challenge. At least, I thought it was secure. My whole adult life I had worked for someone else, relying on the ‘security’ of a paycheck and benefits. At least, until our team was told that we had lost our contract and were being laid off. I had time to prepare and severance because of the years I’d worked there, but I didn’t know what to do.
I applied for different jobs, but nothing fit. While applying, I explored going into full time private practice. The more I explored it, the more it seemed that this was what I was supposed to be doing. God opened doors and put people in my path that helped me along the way. Now, eight years later, I can’t imagine doing anything else. I love working for myself and being able to provide for my family. I rely on faith and hard work. Faith that people will call for help, and hard work to make sure that I am doing a good job helping them.
One of the questions I ask my client is about the idea of a silver lining in the cloud, or the Christian concept of joy in suffering. When they are talking about a difficult situation or event, I ask, “Why is it a good thing that this bad thing has happened? What’s on the other side of it?” The ‘bad thing’ that happened to me was that I got laid off. What was on the other side was a successful business, helping people heal, and becoming an author. I never could have predicted this, but I’m very glad I got laid off!
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
I have been able to build my reputation within my market by being cautious. One of the ethical considerations of working as a mental health clinician is that you should only work within your areas of expertise. As a new full time business owner/operator, I felt the desire to say yes to anything that came my way. I had to trust that I would be okay financially and say no to those kinds of work that were outside of my expertise.
Rather than approaching potential referral sources from the “here’s what I can do for you” selling point, I followed the advice I was given to instead place myself in the position of subject matter expert. I am in the business of helping people, so when I talk to people about issue they’re dealing with, I enjoy helping them figure out how to handle it. That can be as simple as referring someone to a therapist who specializes in treating children to sending a client a link to a helpful YouTube video, a church sermon, or a book. While I do send business to other colleagues, that actually helps my business. That person who called me and was sent somewhere helpful is more likely to tell someone else: “Call Mike. He’ll help.” And that colleague is more likely to cross-refer someone to me that they can’t help. Win-win.
Contact Info:
- Website: stapletonconsultingservices.com
- Instagram: @stapletonwoodworks
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stapletoncon/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/r-michael-stapleton-jr-903a8613/
- Youtube: @stapletonconsultingservice3509