We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tracie Bearden a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Tracie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?
One of the bigger risks of my life was when I quit my job of eight years in St. Louis, Missouri at a hospital, packed up my entire life, and moved across the country to California as a travel speech therapist. As COVID-19 took over, I became unemployed and landed in Colorado. This eventually led to the BIGGEST risk I’ve ever taken: to invest in all of my unemployment checks to create my own business where I have full autonomy in who I serve and how I serve them. Without risk, we can’t gain more traction to reap the benefits.
Our greatest successes often come from our most challenging struggles.
Throughout my career and personal experiences in the past decade, tenacity and resilience in difficult situations are the characteristics that helped me build what I have today. Challenging career choices, loss of a single parent, along with my own physically and emotionally traumatic experiences have created an internal skill set of altruism, empathy, kindness, resilience, and perseverance that I didn’t know existed in me. This has allowed me to not only provide a higher quality of care, but has given me the drive to keep pushing forward (even when I desperately wanted to quit).
Tracie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I was born in Illinois, but St. Louis, Missouri is my home! I lived in the mountains of Montrose, CO until 2022. Me and my pups have finally settled on the front range in Colorado! I graduated in 2010 from Southern Illinois University- Edwardsville with my master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology (SLP). In 2018, I became a Certified Brain Injury Specialist (CBIS) and became a Certified Brain Injury Specialist-Trainer (CBIST)
Beyond my expert knowledge and clinical experience across the traumatic brain injury (TBI) continuum, I have also been in the shoes of a TBI survivor.
I am all about patient advocacy, MedSLP resources, and tools for SLPs and TBI survivors to navigate a chaotic system.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
In 2018, I survived a traumatic experience that resulted in optic neuropathy and a mild-moderate hypoxic concussion. My journey on the other side of the clinician’s seat opened my eyes to the variety of struggles TBI survivors experience throughout recovery.
Between implementing effective cognitive compensatory strategies and learning how to cope with a “new norm,” I transformed my clinical practice to encompass a level of empathy and expertise hard to find anywhere else.
Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?
Whether someone has suffered a concussion, or serious brain injury, or is dealing with long-term post-COVID cognitive impairments, I think it’s helpful is someone succeeding in my field can offer both the specialized training and personal perspective to help other survivors achieve their goals.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.tbimedslp.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tracieb.slp/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/neurobasedspeechsolutions
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/traciebearden9
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@tracieb.slp
Image Credits
https://shoutoutcolorado.com/meet-tracie-bearden-medical-speech-therapist-certified-brain-injury-specialist-and-educator-patient-advocate/ https://www.tbimedslp.com/