We recently connected with Pamela Garber and have shared our conversation below.

Pamela, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I always loved walking to run errands. Since childhood to today, meeting the business owners and visiting their real life ventures was always the best Off Broadway play. Throughout 2002-the end of 2018, NYC streets offered comfortably accessible connections – meeting this guy while walking along Lexington Ave who turned out to be on the board of an organization I learned about in grand school, meeting a fellow therapist while in line at a neighborhood diner who would up giving me a lead for office space, and getting my make up done just for stepping into Tom Ford to kill time.

As the comfort of the streets started to yield to crime, isolation became the by-product of caution. The therapist in me is trained to think of problem – solution – How to get to point B -(albeit sometimes point B in therapy is sometimes an emotional state of being, rather than physical, there are behaviors, feelings, and thoughts that are the components of a problem. I targeted the problem of crime ruining basic, base level safety. There are other factors within the crime uptick, including the suffering of those on the streets, however sometimes targeting everything leads to targeting nothing. targeting the safety of the average citizens walking to work, school, stores and just being out and about. My very long walk to work was rerouted to the train and rideshare, by necessity. Missing my walks lead me to think about a safety app that provided vetted walking companionship.

My progress on the Never Walk Alone Safety App was mostly drawings on my sketch pad until I was assaulted while walking along Third Avenue on a sunny Saturday just before noon. After my assault, I picked up the pace of my app development.

Pamela, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I got into the therapy field as a result of studying acting and writing. My strongest love between the two was writing. Finally, my academics gifted me the assignment of creating a character on paper and giving meaning to this person’s choices, emotions and overall life. In pursuing a career that would give me greater stability that writing, I found solace in psychology classes and the writing of the founders of psychology and then newer psychology pioneers at the time, just before my career – Alice Miller, and Dr. Yalom in particular.

My practice is mostly individual sessions for working professions dealing with depression, anxiety and low social support.

I encourage my clients with think of their lives as a business where there are their product and assets, liabilities, risks and goals are to be discussed and worked through. I also listen to the career aspirations of my clients and when helpful, session time is allocated to the challenges of career pursuits and the impact on other aspects of my client’s life.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

For the purposes of a pilot test, I am revamping my current design and using materials, including proof of concept to get participants for a pilot test. I am using sweat equity to get the participants and this is necessitating tons of emails, calls, video presentations.

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

I initially envisioned my app to be accessible by individuals, similar to Uber or VIA. As I started sketching drawings, writing out scenarios and getting good feedback, the decision became clear to go with my alternate approach of making my app be available only by subscriptions where organizations – companies, schools, places of worship, and clubs.

More conversations lead to more sketching.

Isolation, crime, and safety were ongoing themes. Isolation was more complicated and reached beyond the crime impact.

I applied the psychological term, Secondary Gains – where a positive/ reinforcing by-product exists as a result of a negative event. Picture being home, sick with the flu but then getting waiting on. I added an advertising section where personal security professionals could advertise and also offer monthly safety training workshops for Never Walk Alone safety App members.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.grandcentralcounselinggroup.com www.Neverwalkalonesafetyapp.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pamelagarberneverwalkalone/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pamela-garber-950b894b/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xypRADR05Nc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QI7Ttcm0Sc