We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Rachel Stein. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Rachel below.
Rachel, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard
Atomic Souls Counseling and ASP Branding were both founded with the mission to create centralized services focused on quality, instead of quantity, related to their respective industries.
Atomic Souls Counseling is a boutique style group private counseling practice offering a range of mental health and addiction counseling services. We specialize in helping people who are stepping down from higher levels of mental health or addiction support, ie detox, psychiatric stabilization, residential treatment, intensive out patient programs, etc. Over the last 9 years I have worked every level of care possible in the mental health and addiction realms, but I always felt like there was a missing piece when it came to setting up a plan for clients once they were ready to leave higher levels of treatment. At Atomic Souls Counseling we offer multiple levels of individual focused support through our Awkward Recovery program. This program is specifically for people who need more support than just an individual counselor but less support than a group focused treatment center. It allows people to fully face the real world while also continuing to have solid and structured individual focused weekly support. We offer individual counseling sessions, 1x weekly group counseling sessions, life skills coaching, recovery coaching, fitness coaching, nutritional coaching, case management support, and tons of exciting sober and safe events in the heart of downtown Austin.
ASP Branding is a marketing and branding business that brings a well rounded collaboration of internal and external branding, asset creation, content creation, content distribution, and much more. We are the one stop shop for all of your marketing and branding needs. As business owners ourselves, we found it difficult to find quality marketing and branding work in general, but even more so – in one place! Many branding contractors or companies do just web design, just social media management, or just graphic design. It’s not common for an agency to do it all under one roof. We take pride in our mission to not only provide quality work for our clients, but also to fulfill any kind of marketing or branding need they might have. My favorite aspect of our approach is the Brand Therapy model we utilize with majority of our clients. We get to know business owners and operators on a deeper level by diving into not only the details of their company and brand, but also the pain points within their company or even personal pain points that show opportunities for growth. We walk alongside the business owners and operators to help them find the best work/ life balance for them to create their solid foundation and get the company ready for sustainable growth.
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 got my start in counseling seeing teens and adults within various settings such as schools, psychiatric hospitals, and drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers. Through those vast experiences I have helped many people cope with a variety of struggles varying from acute mental health crisis, continued stabilization after residential or outpatient program completion, as well as regular checkups to help clients continue living out the life they have always dreamed of living.
I have found that no matter what level of support I am providing or setting I am seeing people in a few things remain constant: Those who want to heal are seeking genuine connection, clinical direction, and are willing to put in some good old fashioned hard work to see results. With these core principles I find that many people have the power within them to create the life they have always dreamed of living.
I use many approaches to help people get to the point where they can live out their best life (CBT, DBT, person centers, trauma focused, etc) – clinicians call this an “eclectic style” of treatment – I call it personalized and individualized support. I do not believe that one clinical style works for everybody – just like how we don’t all wear the same clothes or eat the same foods. I am a strong believer in individuality and uniqueness across the board and by using your individual strengths or unique characteristics we can create ways to use those things to help you process and change the negative cycles you are stuck in, increase the positive cycles you would like to do more consistently, and start to set goals to create a life that is thriving – not just surviving.
I connect best with the black sheep, the outsiders, the wallflowers of the world. I want to change the face of counseling and therapy away from the “wellness yoga” and “finding inner peace” trends. Although, I believe those are valuable ideas and skills; I find equal value in helping you create a community you can do “hood rat shit with”, helping you rebel against societal norms in a healthy way, and help you push the envelope of what is “normal” to create a life that is personally exciting to you and that consistently feeds your unique and individual soul’s needs.
A little bit about my training and expertise – I am a Licensed Professional Counselor and Licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor. I hold a Bachelor of Psychology from Southeastern Louisiana University and a Master of Education in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. I have specialized training in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Counseling (TF-CBT), Dialectical Behavioral Counseling (DBT), Cognitive Behavioral Counseling (CBT), Family and Couples Counseling, and Motivational Interviewing.
Prior to co-founding ASP Branding in 2021, I was working as a Licensed Professional Counselor and Licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor in the Austin area and in 2019, I started a unique and well-known mental health & addiction counseling practice in the heart of Austin, Texas, known as Atomic Souls Counseling. This business endeavor awakened a passion that has led me to the work I do with ASP Branding as the Lead Consultant.
Since the inception of ASP Branding, I have been a critical player in setting up the brand’s foundation, keeping the business “on brand” with its mission and values, and contributing to the plan for sustainable growth. When consulting with businesses, I utilize my background in therapy to assess pain points that need more stability, guide clients to a place of sustainability, and helps them create systems that support long-term growth.
When not working, I eat & sleep – owning a business is a lifestyle! Kidding….. when I schedules free time, I enjoys trying local restaurants with my husband Mike, watching true crime documentaries with my friends, playing with my clumsy dog Cancun, and planning to be a new mom in 2023!
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
I built my reputation within both companies’ markets by focusing on making genuine personal connections with everyone who crosses my path, having a focus on quality over quantity, and by just showing up to the task at hand.
I am a strong believer in the concept of ‘who you know can be more important than what you know’ coupled with ‘treat everyone you encounter as an equal’ – CEO, front line worker, middle management – everyone deserves respect and their presence acknowledged. If you combine these two concepts you will never meet a stranger and you will rarely make an enemy. Anyone who comes across your path could be a potential customer or know someone who could be a potential customer – be kind to everyone and you’ll just naturally make a name for yourself & many friends a long the way!
When you focus on quality over quantity – people notice. This goes for creating genuine relationships when networking, creating a quality product, and much more. Focus on being not only better than your competition, but more importantly better than previous self. Always work towards innovation that will help people in a more profound and lasting way.
Finally – show up! I can’t stress this enough – I have landed clients and cold leads almost purely from being the business who answers the phone or reaches out to follow up after an initial meeting. It is baffling how many companies don’t hold themselves and their employees to the standard of just showing up, following up, and following through with their commitments.
Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?
My best advice for managing a team and keeping high morale as your company is growing is to hire the right people, make time for the right people, and invest in their future (within or beyond the company).
You have to hire the right people – not the ‘most qualified’ people. I would rather hire someone with a strong work ethic, who shows up on time, and follows through on their word rather than someone who has training in all the aspects of the hiring position. I can teach hard skills and pay for trainings. I cannot teach soft skills like kindness, empathy, and respect.
Once you hire the right people – make time for them! Set up training in a way that helps your employees feel confident in themselves and the work they are doing for your company. Show them every detail of the job and run through all possible ‘difficult scenarios’. Then, keep an open door policy and follow through with it. When someone has a question – set up an individual meeting with them and use the time to not only review their questions, but also check in about how they are doing with the job a whole and how the company can better support them if needed.
Finally, investing in your people is investing in your company. You cannot have a thriving company without a thriving work environment. Take time to meet with your team regularly, give them the surprise bonus for hard work, sign them up for the training of their choice, invest in their personal well being, etc. When your team feels appreciated and acknowledged they will do more for the company and most importantly more for the clients. This can be as “small” as an encouraging email, a thoughtful thank you note, or even a word of praise in a meeting – it doesn’t have to be big to be meaningful.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.atomicsouls.com/
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/atomic_souls?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/atomicsouls
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/atomic-souls-counseling/
- Other: https://www.aspbranding.com/ https://instagram.com/aspbranding?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= https://www.linkedin.com/company/aspbranding/ https://www.facebook.com/atomicsoulsproductions
Image Credits
Ricky Clack Photography with ASP Branding