We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Heidi Mortenson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Heidi, looking forward to hearing all of your stories 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.
I am a Licensed marriage and family therapist and owned a business for 10 years. I was married with almost 3 kids. It was 2018 and my business wasn’t going great and neither was my marriage. I was a “Christian”, with a cross around my neck and going to church weekly. But I wasn’t happy. My husband and I went on a date night and on this particular date night in April, my husband said “I think God wants me to leave my bank job to run your company.” My husband does not use words like “God said”. Ever. Never has he before that and he hasn’t since then. However, it was said and I believed it was God. We took a leap of faith and became a 1 income household for 4 years. He came on board and helped turn my company around. We got business consultation and marriage counseling. Our marriage is in a WAY better place. Our business in an amazing place being run by 2 great leaders. I am able to be in my lane, which is a visionary with creativity as a podcaster and an author. My husband is now back in banking and leading well with what he learned from his time at my business. It was a huge financial and life risk. Many people don’t last in their marriage with what we did. I can only say the hand of God moved us through to a better place than we could have imaged.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am a mom, wife and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. I own a business and provide individual, family and couples counseling. I also provide business consultation services and supervision for those therapists seeking licensure. I am trained in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and am a Certified Daring Way (TM) Facilitator, which is based on Brene Brown’s research. This is a fancy way of saying I work with trauma and am very comfortable with my own shame. Thus, I am able to help others navigate through their own shame and trauma to find their true identity and purpose. After the pandemic, I was encouraged to step out and use what I have learned on a larger scale and started a podcast called Strong Tower Mental Health. I also wrote a book called The Brave Encourager, how the power of encouragement changes the world. I am passionate about pulling the gold out of myself and others and teaching and influencing others to do the same. We focus too much on what we are frustrated in others and being critical. This type of “motivation” doesn’t motivate others. When we learn how to pull the gold and encourage others, they then become motivated to do what they are called to do. And love themselves for it. I speak at conferences and other people’s podcasts as well. My brand is essentially faith and mental health coming together.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
I started my business (mental health practice in 2008) and I very much wanted to please everyone. I wanted the therapists who worked for me to be happy and enjoy their work. I wanted to be ‘different”. This sounds great right? The problem with this attitude is that by the time the business was growing and expanding, the management and administrative staff were exhausted. I wasn’t happy myself and I had therapists who made more than me. That didn’t make sense to me. I didn’t know what I didn’t know at the time. What I needed to “unlearn” was people pleasing over a healthy business structure. People pleasing will not lead to a growing and successful business. It will lead to tired and insecure people, which is what was happening to me. As I got business consultation, encouragement from friends and my own therapy, I learned that I indeed had a successful business and needed structure and processes. My husband came on board to help us create order. The book Traction by Geno Wickman helped us a lot. When we created structure and processes that would help the business, we lost many people. This was a big hill for me to get over. I was believing the lie that if people left then I am not valuable. This was a lie that came from people pleasing. As I was able to overcome this, we learned to create a successful business that now has an incredible culture of authenticity and accountability.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Networking. From the beginning I always networked with others in my field. I never saw anyone as competition. I saw them as colleagues that could help one another out. I continued to network at least a few times a month consistently and I still do. I am very authentic and genuine, and this built trust within the referral network. Over time, there has been such an incredible referral network due to people and businesses I have met along the way.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.heidimortenson.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heidilynnlmft/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HeidiMortensonLMFT
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidi-mortenson-lmft-cdwf-3828aaa/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/HeidiLynnLMFT
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI_Xr3hKJB3T_q0mI_dqm1Q
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@heidilynnlmft