Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jeffrey Mandelkorn. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Jeffrey, 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.

As a psychologist working in private practice, I get to learn about my clients’ childhoods and influential early life experiences. These conversations inspire and motivate my own introspections and reflections regarding my childhood. I have a tremendous gratitude and a lot of positive feelings surrounding my upbringing. One strong influence gleaned from my childhood was a sense of being risk-averse, specifically when it comes to financial issues. On its face, minimizing risk makes sense, no one wants to assume more risk than necessary. However, this mindset often led me to make decisions that ultimately created false ceilings in my professional life. While technically I started my private practice nearly a decade ago, I didn’t fully commit to it until 2020. While trying to build my professional chops and my brand as a psychotherapist, I always worked part-time (and at times full-time) as a contracted psychologist in assisted living facilities and substance use treatment centers, conducted vocational rehabilitation assessments in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, served as the clinical coordinator as a community mental health agency, and taught graduate-level courses in psychology and counseling.

These experiences had a strong impact on my professional identity and I learned a lot of important clinical skills. They also prevented me from fully investing in my private practice, from investing in myself and my pursuit of being a successful private practitioner. I found myself in a recursive loop, “I can’t grow my private practice because I need to make sure I have consistent income, and because I need to make sure I have a consistent income, I can’t give up my various employments to invest in my private practice.” This statement encapsulates the core of my false ceiling: I couldn’t, so I didn’t, and because I didn’t, I couldn’t. It was very difficult to accept, but in the spring of 2020, I couldn’t shake the fact I was not working towards my dreams, I was not on my hero’s journey. I was afraid to face the risks of stepping away from my false ceilings and investing in myself.

While I cannot do this topic justice in this interview, the hero’s journey is the universal tale of overcoming hardship, achieving our goals, and becoming a changed person as a result. And while I was perfectly confident in motivating and encouraging my clients to engage their own journeys, I realized I was on the sidelines of my own professional journey. My loved ones and colleagues were instrumental in helping me to see what I couldn’t and to take the first steps of investing in myself. Following a recommendation of a close friend and colleague, I partnered with Bayview Therapy and began the journey of building my professional brand and my private practice into a full-time operation. I have made strong professional relationships and connections along the way, and I feel more fulfilled professionally than I could have imagined.

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

I am a licensed psychologist in the state of Florida and I own and operate a boutique private practice. I provide individuals with a supportive, nonjudgmental place to express their emotions, explore the problematic issues, and find new ways to change their unhelpful patterns of thinking and behaving. Many of the people I work with identify as successful in some aspects of their lives, but struggle to feel as successful in others, namely interpersonal relationships and in their abilities to cope with stress. Despite their hard work and determination, patterns of ineffective communication and behavior continue to create more stress and problems in their lives. Much of my work involves assisting individuals through processing and resolving past trauma and establishing ways to relate to themselves and others.

My clients take the lead in therapy which can be both empowering and generative of new ideas and potential solutions. My clients come away from therapy with an increased sense of self awareness and are better able to handle future problems.

Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?

Mental health counseling, as a field and business, can be complicated and chock full of dilemmas. On one hand, I am a business owner and operator. And on the other hand, the work I do is very personal, often involving people’s fears, dreams, joys, and heartbreaks. It’s a unique business of being entrusted with someone in their moments of pain and vulnerability. The stakes are high, and each person has individual needs and preferences when it comes to mental health treatment.

Part of my professional journey involves doing my best to both understand a person’s needs and determine if my expertise is a good fit for those needs. As much as I’d love to help everyone, I’m not the best fit for everyone for a variety of reasons. Early on in my career, I felt a strong pull to try to help everyone who contacted me for therapy. Partially being green, partially due to scarcity mindset, I thought it was my responsibility to accept every referral I could.

I learned casting a wide net might capture my ideal clients, but it also captures individuals who are not the best fit for my skill set and style of therapy. Poor fit between client and clinician isn’t usually a crisis, but it often leads to therapeutic impasses and dissatisfying experiences in counseling.

I also learned I was not alone in facing the fears of scarcity mindset. I engaged in some group professional coaching, using my colleagues as supports and motivators to play to my strengths as a therapist and to be more intentional with the referrals I accept. This shift reduced the number of people I work with, a change I knew would happen but also dreaded. It meant I had to start saying no and refer some individuals to trusted colleagues, again flaring up some scarcity mindset anxieties.

It didn’t take long for my calendar to become filled with clients I would consider more ideal for my clinical skills. I also was more engaged with my colleagues, learning more about each other’s skills and ideal clients. And, the in turn led to more referrals of individuals who better fit my therapy practice.

Self-awareness is not a static state. It’s perishable, and it’s easy to get lost in strong feelings such as fear or insecurity. The growing success of my business hinges upon my ability to maintain awareness of my strengths and growth edges, and to use this awareness when considering potential client referrals. Being confident in highlighting my skills, as well as being confident in recognizing where I might not be the ideal clinician for a person’s needs, have helped me do my best work and remain excited about the work I do.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

Something I learned early in my career as a psychologist in private practice is it’s easy to become isolated. Starting a business from the ground up is no easy feat, and I found myself quickly becoming fixated on both working in the business and not enough time spent working on the business. I’m an expert in psychotherapy after all, and my natural preference falls in the care of my clients as opposed to learning the intricacies of growing a business. For the first few years of my career, my sole focus was on client care. My frustrations soon began to build regarding my abilities to attract my ideal clients and increase my market exposure.

Even using the phrase “market exposure” just now seems out of place. But it was, and still is, an important truth. Without working on the business, I couldn’t grow my practice. And if I couldn’t grow my practice, I was limited to who and how much I could help those in my community. It was a truth I resisted at first. But ill effects of operating in isolation could not be ignored. I had a lot of clinical knowledge and skills to give, and very few people to give to.

What ultimately helped me become more successful in my field was to reach out for help. I consulted with my colleagues and learned about their processes and experiences in growing their practices. I participated in professional coaching geared towards the “working on the business” side of my career. I became more involved in professional events and stepped out of my comfort zone by being more visible in my community. My colleagues at Bayview Therapy, and in the local community in general, are invaluable to the success of my business. They act as sources of support, consultation, and potential client referrals.

Simply put, I found making and maintaining professional relationships, as well as asking for help were both very important to the success of my business. And I recognized that investing in myself was an essential aspect of identifying my blind spots and building new skills to continue to grow my practice.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.drjeffreymandelkorn.com

Image Credits
Barbini Photography