We recently connected with Eric Barnhart and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Eric, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about how you went about setting up your own practice and if you have any advice for professionals who might be considering starting their own?

Growth and Grit Counseling is my most successful business, but it isn’t my first. For over a decade prior to starting Growth and Grit Counseling, I had a small business, Upcycle Hockey, where I built furniture out of broken hockey sticks. I started seeing clients in March of 2022, basically two years before this interview. I was fortunate in that, I was able to apply the general lessons learned from Upcycle Hockey to Growth and Grit Counseling. I already knew what I needed to do from a logistics standpoint and I knew time management would be essential, but that is about where the similarities end between creating functional art from repurposed sports equipment and being entrusted with people’s mental health.

After founding Growth and Grit Counseling in 2021, I was the biggest obstacle to my success. Like many people starting in mental health, I had difficulty pushing beyond my imposter syndrome. Early on, I had all but convinced myself I should include a disclaimer similar to the end of prescription medication ads with the voice actor talking extremely fast and warning about all the “side effects” that could come with proceeding with me as their therapist. The warnings would be riddled with self-deprecating humor, personal and professional insecurities, warnings about how I was just starting as a private therapist, etc.

Thankfully, my mentor, Sue Hall, was able to help me push beyond my imposter syndrome by initially validating me as a professional.. Eventually, Sue’s validation of me evolved into my validation of myself. A review of my job history helped me see, with all the foresight of a dog chasing cars during rush hour traffic, in spite of myself, I had built the perfect career to become a private therapist. Relevant employment includes working as a counselor at a residential drug, alcohol, and behavior facility, advocate for persons with disabilities, educator at an alternative education “at risk” high school, and middle school educator and school counselor. I realized, when it comes to parental advice, navigating the education system, validating young people struggling in school or with peers, etc. I am really good at saying the right things at the right time.

Young professionals starting now, need to have something that sets them apart from other individuals, practices, businesses, etc. in the same area they are working to cut their teeth in. They need to see an angle that hasn’t been played yet and/or create an edge by creating an advantage. Knowing people who work second and third shifts were an underserved demographic, I offered therapeutic sessions starting as early as 5:00 am and as late as 11:00 pm. When I was first starting, I met with clients every other Saturday from 6am to 7pm. That’s with 55 minute sessions, clients back to back, breakfast from Quick Trip, door dashing lunch, and showing up at home ravenous for dinner. And, most importantly, I not only want success, I am willing to work my butt off for it. That coupled with my sincere belief high quality mental health services should be accessible by everyone and I had my corner carved out. I see school marquees that say idiotic things like, “90% of success is just showing up.” That’s asinine and gives a terrible message to young people. The sign should read something more like, “If you plan on just showing up, be ready to have no control over 90% of your life.”

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

First and foremost, I’m a girl dad and a husband. Beyond that, I’m a basic suburbanite middle-aged man-child nerd who chronologically became older but refuses to grow up.

My journey to becoming a therapist has been anything but direct. With all the foresight a dog has in chasing cars during rush hour traffic, I had built the perfect resume to become a private therapist; counselor at a residential drug, alcohol, and behavior facility, advocate for persons with disabilities, educator at an alternative education “at risk” high school, and middle school educator and counselor.

As a therapist, I feel comfortable working with parents and/or their kids. Being a kid today is hard and being a parent today is hard. Prior to fully committing to Growth and Grit Counseling in October of 2023 I worked in either middle school or high school for nearly 15 years. During that same time, I also became a father two times over. I had a front-row seat both at work and at home to how difficult being a kid can be. The ebbs and flows of social circles, trying to explain to your adult you “need” 13 different colored Bass Pro hats at the start of the 2022 – 2023 school year, balancing a mental health crisis with trying to complete a science lab, etc. Also, being a parent today is hard. The amount of self-doubt, external pressures of how other families are parenting, committing to not messing up our own kids the ways our parent(s) messed us up, etc.

Coming from a career in education, I am uniquely able to speak on both frustrations a child and/or their parents might experience in school while also being able to reach out to both school and home with potential solutions. In a previous building I had the pleasure of working with a Multi-Tiered Support System expert, Dr. Chris Colgren. During that time, I was able to shift away from a sort of “celebration” of problems a student might have (i.e. organizational skills, non-preferred task initiation, emotional identification/regulation, etc.) to an acceptance they either have a lagging skill or an unsolved problem exists and then begin to teach to the lagging skill or working toward solving the problem. The difference in paradigm is profound going from, “How did April get to 7th grade and isn’t able to get her work turned in on time. She should know how to do this already!” to, “April is in 7th grade and isn’t able to turn her work on time yet. How can we help her learn this skill?”

It’s the same in parenting, “My child is getting ready to graduate high school and they lose it when I ask them to do anything around the house.” to, “My child doesn’t place importance on being part of our family team and helping around the house yet. How can we help them learn this skill?”

I’m big on the power of “yet”. A growth mindset is essential in both education and parenting. Yet acknowledges everyone is on a journey. “I can’t swim.” is a very different statement than, “I can’t swim, yet.”

One of the most important things I try to communicate to everyone is, as a mental health provider, I don’t have boxes labeled, “Mental Health” on them in my office in Wildwood, Missouri, or at my home office. When clients come to me, I can’t pull out a Goldilocks, “just right” size bag of “Mental Health” for them and send them on their way. Just like physical health and financial health, mental health is work. Going to therapeutic sessions ensures zero change. To an earlier point, 90% of success is not “just showing up” to therapy. Attending a therapeutic appointment and expecting a magical change is setting that individual up for frustration. Attending a therapeutic appointment and expecting to leave with some new strategies, insights, and/or questions to ask/answer that could lead to better communication thus causing incremental growth in relationships is the better mentality to enter into sessions with.

I am most proud of my ability to build my private practice from scratch while minimizing the impact it would have on the time spent with family. While our nighttime routines have evolved when I’m not reading to one of my daughters each night but instead reading to both of them at various times throughout the week, we are still spending the same amount of time together.

Most Important Things For People to Know: The skills I see lagging most in people of all ages now are communication, grit, and normalizing lagging skills and then teaching them.

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

About five years ago a coworker whom I have a great deal of respect for introduced me to a mindset of, “Know your why.”

If I am honest with myself when answering that question it will easily separate if I am doing something that will benefit my family, practice, community, etc., or if I’m acting on impulse without a clear plan, being motivated strictly by money, etc.

When I started Growth and Grit Counseling one of my primary “Whys” was my belief everyone should have access to high-quality mental health services.

To be honest, others are less altruistic and more secular. I want to be able to be an adult volunteer and chaperone every single field trip and school function for both of my daughters. I want my daughters to be able to pursue any and all of their passions (swimming, martial arts, gymnastics, etc.) to their fullest interest. I want to be able to take my wife on vacations she never allowed herself to think of because we were both educators. I want to be able to sit in the hammock my wife and daughters gave me for Father’s Day a couple years ago and see the smiles on my wife and daughter’s faces. I want to hear the squeals of laughter after one of my girls sprays me with the hose and I get up to extract my revenge by ticketing them until they’re laughing so hard they can barely breathe.

My “Why?” can almost always be broken down to my wife and daughters. If anything is unfortunate to get paired up where I have to choose between my family and literally anything or anyone else, I will always choose my family.

I know that treading dangerously close to Fast and the Furious “Family” meme territory, and, it’s the truth.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

At the end of the 2022 – 2023 school year and continuing into the start of the current school year, I found myself in a difficult position. Expectations that did not align with my family above all else values were being placed on me by members of building leadership. I found myself faced with a false choice where I either would need to compromise on a foundational belief or leave a job early in the year leaving students, as well as some truly great people I worked with, in a difficult space of being a school counselor down at the start of the year in a high needs building. With the support of my wife and knowing this would have a massive impact on my family, I decided to terminate my contract in early October 2023. For those not familiar with the world of education, breaking a contract mid-year is equivalent to blacklisting yourself. Leaving when I did I had effectively ended my career in education while also going all in on my private practice. I firmly believe if you’re not willing to bet on yourself why should anyone else believe in you? I believe it’s important to note that another educator in the building made the same broke their contract less than a month after I left. I felt extremely validated.

Contact Info:

• Website: eric-barnhart.clientsecure.me
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100076892905618
• Other: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/eric-barnhart-wildwood-mo/978311

Image Credits
itsevantube Patrick McGuirk