We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Angela Ficken. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Angela below.

Alright, Angela thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

One of the best risks I took led me to finding my mantra, which helped me build my confidence and my business. It was April of 2017 and my therapist of 17 years had suddenly passed away and I was about to go through my first trial of IVF. I was feeling incredibly sad, lost, and anxious. One evening, I was scrolling through Instagram and saw that one of my favorite musicians, Ani DiFranco was going to be on a European tour that June. I thought about how her music helped me get through the decade of my twenties 20’s, and how seeing her play live in concert would be amazing for me at this stage in my life. I checked her tour dates and saw that she would be playing in Scotland in June right before I would start my IVF trial, and would not be able to travel once that process got started.

I thought this would be an opportunity to travel on my own for the very first time. My husband was not interested in joining me and I thought it might be fun to go on my own. When would I get another opportunity to do that?

I’ve been on planes by myself but I’ve always met someone on the other side up until this point. My first thought was how fun and exciting this would be to take this trip on my own and then I felt anxious. I thought to myself, “What if I get lost?”, “What if I make a mistake and miss my flights?”, or worse yet, “What if I get hurt or something happens?” Being a psychotherapist who specializes in anxiety disorders, I knew these “what if” thoughts were a sign of anxiety. “What if” can stop us dead in our tracks, and it was doing that to me.

I thought, “Maybe I shouldn’t go?”, And then I thought about my therapist who I loved so dearly, I thought about this time in my life–my last moments before becoming a mom, and I thought “If it makes me anxious, do it anyway.” I booked the flights, hotel, bought the concert ticket, made dinner reservations, and planned a trip to see the Loch Ness monster and did it scared. I did it all alone. I was anxious but I did it anyway, and it was a trip of a lifetime. I saw museums, castles, I met lovely waiters, couples sitting next to me at meals, had fabulous cocktails, and went shopping.

It was the very last trip I took before I got pregnant and had my daughter 10 months later.

This trip showed me just how much I was letting anxiety dictate my decisions in other areas of my life that I wasn’t aware of. For my business, the “what if” thoughts were just loud enough for me to procrastinate certain projects and hold back on saying “yes” to opportunities. When I got back from that trip, I told myself that if I felt anxious because I thought “I don’t think I could do that”, I had to do it. “If it makes me anxious, do it anyway” became my mantra.

Doing things scared helped build my resilience and my confidence. I have said yes to podcasts, live television interviews, and most recently I have started the process of writing a book. This is all because of the risk I took. The risk of doing something that made me feel anxious but also had the possibility for personal growth. I haven’t looked back since.

Angela , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a psychotherapist, mom, wife, daughter, and sister. I love going on adventures with my daughter, date nights with my husband, and will never say no to a good cheeseburger. I also get great joy in helping people and I am so lucky that I could make a career out of it.

In my full time private practice, I specialize in anxiety and stress disorders. I am trained in two gold standard therapy modalities that help treat anxiety and stress- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT). I primarily focus on teaching people strategies to manage difficult emotions like stress and anxiety.

You can’t get rid of those emotions, (they can actually be helpful at times!) but you can learn to move through hard emotions with more ease, so what once used to stress you out no longer does in the same way.

Before moving into my full time practice, I worked as a head social worker on an anxiety and depression unit at McLean Hospital which is one of the best psychiatric hospitals in the country, and I also worked at Harvard University as a primary therapist to undergraduate and graduate students.

In 2013, after taking the leap into private practice, I began getting feedback from clients that the skills I was teaching them were life changing and they were noticing significant improvements, but that finding a therapist like myself who taught strategies took months, sometimes years. Boston is not that big of a city, so if they had a hard time finding me, who else out there might be looking for help and is having difficulty finding a skills based therapist? That question ignited my entrepreneurial career.

I wanted to make it easier for people to gain access to the skills and strategies I teach in sessions, no matter where they are in the world. This is when I started writing monthly newsletters which helped me build an online following, I have also written articles for Today.com/parenting and Huffington post. As I gained traction in the online community, I dove into writing an online intensive, seven module course focused on skills and strategies to manage everyday stressors. This course is essentially my mini dissertation on stress management. Everything I teach in my individual sessions is in the course. All the worksheets, materials, and skills.

My goal as a mental wellness entrepreneur is to provide help to as many people as I can and make learning new behaviors and skills fun. It’s hard work to change but hard work doesn’t have to be a grind all the time.

I am the most proud of this course, the work me and my team put into creating it, and how accessible it is for the online community.

How’d you meet your business partner?

I was introduced to my business partner, Kristin Marquet through my business coach at the time. My coach had suggested that I needed to increase my online presence by stepping up my social media presence, being a guest on podcasts, and interviews for online publications. Kristin owns her own PR firm and had experience working with people in the mental health field, which is why my coach recommended her. Little did Kristin know that she would soon be my everything!

She not only my PR manager, but she is my guide, friend, and cheerleader. She does all the behind the scenes work from setting my up online course, guiding me through all things technology, webinars, pintrest, and social media. I honestly do not know where I would without her.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

There are two things I did and continue to do that I think has helped me build my reputation.

First, I remember my therapist telling me when I was just starting out in my career that the best education she received was by sitting at the feet of giants and learning from them. She encouraged me to do the same, and I did just that.

When you learn from the best, you get a wonderful education, experiences you might not otherwise have had, and have the opportunity to work with experts in the field.

Over my twenty years in working in mental health I have learned from some of the best clinicians in the field of anxiety and depression. Having wonderful mentors and teachers gave me the learning opportunities I needed to excel and overtime, build my reputation.

Second, I make a conscious effort to tell my teachers and mentors how much I appreciate their guidance and friendship, and find ways to give back to them because they have given me so much. I don’t want any relationship I have to be a one way street. This is why giving back, I think is important in building connections and a good reputation. I might send them articles on a topic we had just discussed, send them a client referral, or mention them in an interview I do when asked who in my life has helped me or influenced me. These are just a few ways I try to give back and honor the work they do and how much I appreciate them.

Learning from the best, cultivating good relationships, and giving back are the steps I take to build my reputation

Contact Info:

• Website: progresswellness.com and worriedtowellbalanced.com
• Instagram: @progresswellness
• Other: TikTok – @angelaficken

Image Credits
Elyse Pono