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

Hi Christopher , thanks for joining us today. If you had a defining moment that you feel really changed the trajectory of your career, we’d love to hear the story and details.

My daughter Aalesia is my second oldest child and has something called Trisomy 18. I was in my early 20’s when she was born and told over 10 times during the pregnancy that she would not live past a year if she would even make it through conception. The feelings of having to prepare to grieve a child is something I can’t explain. Hoping for a miracle was all we had as parents. We were told she had about a 2% chance of living past a year and she is turning 18 this year. When you go through something like that it releases an amount of resilience in you that you never knew you had. Now obstacles that I go through in life seem small and I try to help clients find resilience in the same way throughout their lives.

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 have been working in human service over 15 years now and got into the business due to having high motivation to help teens from urban areas. I grew up this way and was disregarded as someone that was going to end up in jail or dead by many educators. This always made me disgruntled and resentful to those that were supposed to be helping me. Eventually those feelings became motivators to be different for teens like me. My career started at a place called Turning Point Youth Center where I worked with adjudicated young men. Many of the staff had the perspective that trying to help and rehabilitate these kids was hopeless and they would end up with poor outcomes such as being dead or in prison. Due to others seeing me this way, I fought against this perspective. I tried my best to always stand by my morals that every child was worth trying for regardless of what they have done or where they came from. Having 2 children of my own at the time made me emphasize this even more.
Due to the difficult schedule and missing events for my children I decided to go back to school to get my Masters in Social Work. This would give me more options for jobs that have more favorable schedules. This led me to a place called Highfields where I became a family counselor for adjudicated youth. I spent my next 10 years of my career here building my skills and assisting int he rehabilitation of youth and their families.
In 2020 I had the opportunity to accept a position with Michigan Department of Human Health and Services working to improve the mental health of children throughout the entire state. This is also the year I decided to to create Therapy by Rob, a mental health private practice that also provides training and technical assistance to professionals throughout the country. This was in response to the increase awareness and need of mental health services during the pandemic. Although I felt I was making a difference, I did not feel I was reaching enough people with the knowledge that I felt could help others. This motivated me to publish my first book “Master Your Process. Creating Habits That Lead to Successful Outcomes”. With this book, I was able to make the information widely available to anyone that is looking to improve any area of their lives.

Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?

The most important thing to succeeding in the mental health field is to live what you provide. Many people think that therapist have life figured out and have very little problems and that is just not the case. Many therapist, including myself actually go to therapy when needed. Living what you provide is really making sure you are practicing good self care techniques and practices. This may be utilizing coping skills, attending therapy, or disconnecting from things when feeling overwhelmed. At times when you are in a helping field, you think you have to overly sacrifice yourself to improve the lives of others and in reality when you do this you actually put yourself in a position when you can’t help anyone.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your firm or practice?

When starting Therapy by Rob, I knew it would be a while before I could actually make any kind of serious profit. I never considered quitting my full time job as an option and prepared mentally to work 2 jobs. I first explored grants that may help me to start my business, but did not receive any that I applied for. I used money saved from my full time job to fund all of the start up cost that consisted of laptops, marketing, insurance, credentialing, printers, office supplies, legal services, and more. One of the mistakes I have noticed for other potential business owners, is the desire to have a quick profit and not work for anyone else. They seem to chase this ideology and leads to financial hardships, disappointments, and lost opportunities. I used lessons learned from others to be patient and conservative with my expectations.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.therapybyrob.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therapybyrob/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therapybyrob/