We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Breanna Perry a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Breanna, thanks for joining us today. 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?

At 32 years old, I decided to pivot out of my 6 year managed health care career into a mental health career working as a therapist. This was one of the greatest leaps of faith I had taken in my life because it would require me to quite my job to go back to school full time to obtain a 2nd master’s. I had been working since I was 14 and didn’t know what it would be like not to have steady income and I had promised myself that I’d never go back to school full time in undergrad!

I cried at the thought of leaving my job because 2 years off just seemed too long of a time to not be working but I knew it was the only way I’d be able to attend the program I needed to get where I wanted to be.

So far, it’s the best decision I had ever made in my life! I don’t even regret “not doing it sooner” because I wouldn’t even be the person I needed to be to choose this path for myself.

I have since started working as a mental health therapy practitioner at a community family practice and started an image consulting firm where I fused my passion for mental wellness and fashion.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a Florida native and have been living in Georgia for the past 5 years. I relocated here with my husband who was raised in Atlanta. I have been passionate about fashion for as long as I can remember. I wore my first pair of heels when I was five years old playing in my mom’s closet. I then upgraded to plastic princess kitten heels. My mother would buy me ballet flats in every color and said that I’d be so excited about them that I would even wear them to bed. My original plan was to pursue a career in fashion but after working in retail for four years during college the allure wore off and I chose a more practical field of study in marketing/advertising. I also always had this dueling desire to choose work that was helpful and altruistic, hence why I ended up in healthcare even though it wasn’t what I went to school for.

After starting my first job in managed care I decided to get my Master’s in Health Administration because at the time I thought I wanted to run a large health care system. Working in the field over the next 6 years my passion for mental health grew as I worked closely with the behavioral health department at my job. I had a love for psychology back in undergrad but was discouraged to pursue it when I got a C in a psych elective I took one semester. Two years later, I quit my job and went back to school to pursue a career as a mental health clinician and will be sitting for my LMSW licensing exam in October. Additionally, I started an image consulting firm called Inn3r Image Consulting this September, two days before my 34th birthday! Working as a therapist I get to see the transformation people are making in our work together which inspired me to fuse my two passions of fashion and mental wellbeing.

I cultivate authenticity and aesthetics through holistic personal transformation services that cater to an individual’s internal and external needs. I begin with identity discovering workshops that help individuals map out who they are and who they are becoming. I have customized workshops that cater to specific topics such as confidence building, boundary setting, interpersonal relationships and etc. We then move to the external aesthetics to ensure the external aligns with the internal and the individual looks how they feel. This includes wardrobe assessment, purging and instruction on how to shop for your new aesthetic in the future.

I ultimately help individuals reinvent and transform in a way that makes sense to them. I first work internally because many times individuals will use aesthetics to feel better about themselves and mask the core issues of their problems. Additionally, life transitions present a desire for change whether that is dying your hair or buying a new pair of shoes and there are times when we don’t even recognize the person standing in the mirror because we don’t look how we feel. I am here to support that process and establish personal alignment in an effort of self-love and care.

I am most proud of having the opportunity to do what I love every day and trusting God to show me what that is. I told myself before quitting my job “life will always be hard, so which hard do I choose?” It’s never too late to start over, I did and if you do, I am here to help with that!

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I built my audience on social media (Instagram) initially as a hair influencer for microlocks completely by accident! However, I maintained my following despite cutting my hair two years later by consistently creating content, not dwelling too much on the ebbs and flows of the algorithm but still monitoring my engagement and building genuine relationships with other content creators in my verticles. My true enjoyment is when those relationships transition from online into real life! My advice is to be yourself, find your niche, and research every aspect of creating engaging content that appeals to your audience and sometimes that may be conflicting but my formula was to give them a little of what they want mixed in with a little of what I want and I found a balance over time.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

Word of mouth because your reputation precedes you, pro bono work (within limits of course) so that future clients get an idea of the quality you provide and consistent marketing and branding that aligns with the values your brand communicates.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @inn3rimageconsulting
• Other: [email protected] – for a consulting inquiry

Image Credits
Christian Perry