We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Danielle Branche-Brown. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Danielle below.
Hi Danielle, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.
In order to get myself, my career, my business where it is, I have had to take many risks. The most recent and maybe the most powerful one was choosing to create alignment in my business instead of just having it be something that fills in the gaps of pain in the world. Once I begun healing my own codependency and really dug into my past traumas, I was able to realize how much of my business was not aligned with what I actually WANTED to be offering the world. It was created out of a need, out of a place of woundedness. It was a way to “fix” people’s relationships and “heal” people’s wounds. Now, we are creating space for people to build the trust in themselves to heal their own woundedness. A safe space where people can discover that they were never “broken” in the first place.
The riskiest part of this transition has been recognizing that I do not want to do one-on-one therapy anymore. I realized that I am a teacher, an educator and challenger of systems, narratives and limiting beliefs. We realize that therapy is not the end-all, be-all of wellness; not the only road to healing. So, we have begun prioritizing our other wellness offerings, including beading for self-care, vision board creation classes and accountability, mentorship programming for teens/adolescence and our movement therapy classes. This was risky because, in many ways, it’s been like starting the business over from ground zero. We had to rebuild our audience, change our branding, set boundaries with how many clients we were admitting into the business and completely refocus our priorities.
It has been challenging to not get discouraged and just go back to what I know, what’s comfortable. But comfort is not equal to happiness or fulfillment. Safety (the illusion of control that it brings) does not equal alignment. So, I implore you to take the risks that creates the life, the career, the business that you WANT and not the one that you feel you SHOULD have.
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 started the practice as a private practice 7 years ago. I was scared, anxious and excited. I was miserable working in agencies and decided to take a risk. I started the private practice as a part-time, side hustle. I then made the jump to full-time business ownership after a year of overwhelm, juggling way too many things (many of us in the field of mental health are guilty of this).
After a year of offering out-of-network services (individual, family and couples therapy), I decided to get paneled to accept a single insurance, carefirst, which we still accept today. I did this to make my services accessible to working-class folks, specifically BIPOC communities.
Eventually, the isolation became lonely for me. I am admittedly a community and connection oriented human; thus, I needed to build a community within and around my business. I decided to bring on my first independent contractor, creating a group practice. I’ve since employed 9 clinicians, each for over a year and most for over 3. We’ve created a space for clinicians to feel safe and aligned with their dreams. We’ve done this by actively challenging the codependency, imposter syndrome, self-limiting beliefs and unrealistic expectations that run rampant in our field.
We now have expanded from just offering therapy services to engaging the community in much more holistic ways. We’ve coined ourselves a “baby wellness center”, offering a plethora of wellness workshops and programs, from movement therapy classes to beading for self-care workshops. We also offer a ton of holistic health and wellness content on IG, Tiktok and Youtube. Most of our classes are virtual for convenience and/or are recorded for later playback. This makes our content sustainable for its participants, making it easy to use the things learned consistently.
We also bring on interns to bridge the gap between training and practicing in the field. We are passionate about making the field of mental health and wellness and safe and healing one for those who choose to serve in it. We offer a program specifically for therapists: Unshame and Untame the Human Therapist Program. This program has 3 tiers, offering mental health professionals different levels of untamed potential. We teach them how to transform themselves into the helpers, space holders, and healers that they truly want to be.
Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?
What has helped me succeed in this field is taking care of myself. As simple as that sounds, I know self-care is needed in order to continue helping others and working with my team. Having a successful career can be exhausting because you’re pouring so much of your time and energy into creating your vision. If you aren’t taking care of yourself properly, it can leave you feeling drained, burnt out, or even misaligned with yourself. Being a therapist, self-care is the thing that I stress most to my clients and to other helpers and healers in the field. I help them create self-care goals and support them in reaching those goals. The same concept that I was talking about for hours on end, I wasn’t practicing. I decided to be honest with myself about what I needed while also being aware of what I could juggle realistically, as a human and business owner, the journey became easier for me. I began incorporating my humanity into all aspects of my life. I showed up as a human first, a business owner second. I was able to find and create safe spaces within and outside my brand that encouraged me and facilitated the growth that I needed to succeed in this field.
Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?
Treat your team like the humans they are! I honor each person for their passions, skills, and uniqueness that they bring to the room. I believe it’s so important to recognize them for what they bring to the table versus the position they were “assigned”. I see my team as our own little community whose job is to encourage and challenge each other in becoming the best versions of ourselves. Because of this, my view on asking for assistance or receiving feedback isn’t “black or white” or “wrong or right”. I don’t value one person’s opinions over another or shut anyone out because they don’t have enough “experience” to contribute. I want to facilitate a space where my team feels comfortable sharing their thoughts so we can build something together. Because of this, our conversations and meetings are very collaborative, organic, flexible, and encouraging
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.branchesoflifetherapy.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/branches.of.life.llc/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BranchesOfLifeTherapy/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-branche-a6058685/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFHdKdeHENreoQ8LdC_m2Xw
- Other: Self Care Academy (Community Wellness Workshops): https://danielle-branche-brown-s-school.teachable.com/p/self-care-academy2 Resources of Therapists: https://danielle-branche-brown-s-school.teachable.com/ “And I Still Love You: The Art of Loving Imperfect People” written by Danielle: https://danielle-branche-brown-s-school.teachable.com/p/and-i-still-love-you