We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Samantha Chadwell a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Samantha, thanks for joining us today. Was there an experience or lesson you learned at a previous job that’s benefited your career afterwards?

I worked at a privately owned cave for 9 years, which helped while I was obtaining my high school diploma, and both my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. While working there I worked jobs from a tour guide, merchandizing, ticket sales, key holder, and everything in between. The most important lesson I learned there was that as one person you can completely change someone’s experience. If I was having a bad day, a bad tour, a bad moment, and I let that impact the way I worked with my visitors, it could influence the experience they had while visiting our cave. I learned that as one person we can have a profound impact on another humans experience, and this has been a massive motivating factor in my career as a therapist. Human to human, we have a profound impact on the way someone can perceive themselves, their situation, or their life circumstances.

Samantha, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My mother is first generation Mexican/ American and went back to obtain her Bachelor’s degree in social work when I was a Junior in high school, and that was a motivating factor to get into the helping profession. I also grew up in a small town that was riddled with the opioid epidemic, with that epidemic hitting close to home on too many occasions. Early on in my collegiate career I lost a close friend to the opioid epidemic and unfortunately have lost several more since that day in 2016. I knew I wanted to help fight the epidemic but also the stigma attached to addiction. As of now, I do not serve the addiction population; however, throughout my time in counseling I have found other areas of strengths in working with people with mood disorders and personality disorders. I am a skills based counselor and I love to work on identifying strengths to help clients meet their needs within the counseling relationship. I am most proud of my work as a counselor when I get to see my client’s reach their goals and recognize their own potential.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

I have worked for small business owners since I was 16, and I have been in leadership roles in every position I have ever worked so morale and team building is everything to creating a great atmosphere. My best piece of advice is “every member of your team has an different perspective and therefore has important opinions and ideas.” I have had interns give me ideas that have solved big problems and so to me a title isn’t important, what you bring to the table does.

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

The most helpful for success in the counseling world is good supervision. I am very lucky and fortunate to have supervisors and other team members who are willing to teach their niche areas!