Therapy for Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders

If you’re an entrepreneur, founder, executive, or business leader seeking therapy, business coaching or consultation, I want to offer you more than a list of credentials. I want to give you a real sense of who I am, what I’ve built, what I’ve been through, and why I feel equipped to help. This page is more personal and memoir-like than most professional pages, and that’s intentional. My years as a founder and CEO, along with difficult personal circumstances that shaped some of the biggest decisions of my life, deeply inform the way I work with entrepreneurs and leaders today. Below, I share some of that story, some of the lessons I learned, and the two primary ways I can help: therapy and inner work, and business consultation and coaching.

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My Experience as an Entrepreneur and CEO

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Before selling GoodTherapy.org to a Nasdaq traded company in 2018, the company’s website was reaching millions of visitors per month, had thousands of mental health professionals subscribing to its services, and nearly 40 employees and contractors. GoodTherapy.org established itself as a functioning social enterprise, became the primary competitor to Psychology Today, and garnered national brand recognition.
 

I had built the company from the ground up, beginning in 2006. I was motivated by a vision to demystify therapy, protect people in therapy from harm, and support and promote those therapists who were sensitive to the power imbalance in therapy and worked consciously to provide collaborative and non pathologizing forms of therapy.
 

Like many business ideas, this vision was born out of personal experience. In the 1970s, my mom was emotionally, physically, and sexually abused by an infamous therapy cult, shattering the structure of my family and leaving emotional wounds on me, the marks of which would last half a lifetime.
 

When I started GoodTherapy.org, I didn’t have much entrepreneurial or business experience beyond running my own private practice. What I did have, however, was common sense, an ability to put myself in the shoes of my customers and site visitors, and the indelible belief that if I worked hard enough, and built a smart, hard working team, nothing could stop the idea from succeeding.
 

The company grew year after year, to the point where VC brokers were contacting me nearly every week. But I was satisfied to hold onto the company, to keep refining it, improving it. That was until 2017, when my mom broke the news to me that she had been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. Overnight, my perspective changed.
 

I had already been gearing up to face a huge problem. A number of lower level competitors had appeared on the scene. One of them was BetterHelp, and it was clear from the amount of advertising they were doing all over radio, TV, print, and the web that they had deep pockets. I knew if I wanted GoodTherapy.org to remain competitive, I would need investors and would likely have to give up a portion of my ownership. This was a stressful possibility to swallow.
 

From the inception of the company, I had remained the sole owner. The only startup funds came out of my pocket: $5,000 I put on a credit card during our first year in business, and another $10,000 my grandma had lent me in our third year. Yes, the idea of sharing the risk and having a larger advertising budget were both super appealing, but I just didn’t want to lose creative control.
 

I had a unique perspective as a CEO. In some ways, I was stuck in my C suite, analyzing spreadsheets, creating Excel forecasts, making decisions by some balance between what the P&Ls dictated and the risk I was willing to take, and always looking at creative ways of optimizing our existing revenue stream and expanding into new ones.
 

But in other ways, I was totally hands on. Though I had learned over and over again that I couldn’t do everything, that I needed to delegate functions to others, I was still involved in much of the day to day, even leading the cosmetic and structural redesign of the website.
 

So given all of this, when I imagined selling shares of my company in exchange for capital, it frightened me. I didn’t want to lose all the control I had. In a lot of ways, I was like a firstborn child who didn’t want to share.
 

But when I found out my mom was sick, my priorities changed. I knew her days were limited and wanted to get as much time with her as I could. I also wanted my kids, who were 9 and 11, to get as much time with her as they could. My perspective had shifted 180 degrees virtually overnight.
 

The good news is that I didn’t have to shop GoodTherapy.org around. I had already turned down two multimillion dollar offers from big players who just didn’t feel like the right buyers. By early 2018, I was contacted by PaySimple, which would later rebrand as EverCommerce.
 

We went through a long due diligence process, multiple disclosures to my team, including the dreaded “breaking the news” meeting, and lots of preparation for the big day ahead, when PaySimple would officially take over. The team seemed good. PaySimple had promised to bring resources, increased employment benefits, and promotional opportunities. So by fall 2018, nearly everyone was on board with the sale when the ink dried and the deal closed. The only one not fully prepared for what he was doing was me.
 

The closing meeting was virtual, a Zoom call with me, my counsel, and 10 others from PaySimple. I attended from my office, alone, overlooking Percival Creek in Olympia. When the final document was signed and the CEO and CFO of PaySimple thanked me and logged off, I was alone, and I bawled. Tears pretty much exploded out of me.

Letting Go

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I had spent 12 years of my life building and caring for a company like it was a living, breathing entity, like it was my child. I felt I was abandoning this child, and it hurt. What would become of her? I also wasn’t totally sure who I was now that I wasn’t the owner of the company. Sure, I had a decent amount of stock in the company, a huge payout, and PaySimple had urged me to stay on as the president of the company, to keep driving the company in the direction we envisioned. Or at least I had thought we shared a vision.

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I would be remiss to go into too much detail here. So suffice it to say, my expectations about what would become of GoodTherapy.org, my team, and the revenue that would flow into the company were just expectations. One disappointment after another, combined with my mom, who was getting worse each month, could no longer be ignored. Emotionally, I hit critical mass and couldn’t keep working under conditions I hadn’t planned for. Only a few months after the sale, I resigned my position.
 

Yes, looking back, there’s a part of me that wishes I was still running GoodTherapy.org, still responsible for growing the company, striving to reach its vision for mental health. I loved the creativity of the job, I loved the mission, I loved the team, and it gave my life an extra purpose, a reason for striving. It was all difficult and painful to let go of.
 

But I found other things to live for. Most importantly, it gave me and my mom time to continue healing our relationship and growing closer, time I wouldn’t have had if I had kept sole ownership of the company.

Yes, I will forever regret how the GoodTherapy.org team, my employees, the people to whom I provided salaries, benefits, and security, lost that security. That was the worst part of the sale. The team splintered. Some left for state jobs, seeking more security, and others were later cut as downsizing continued after I left. That’s the tragic part of letting go of control and selling a company. Even though it wasn’t my decision to cut team members, I still felt responsible.
 

All of that experience shaped me profoundly. It taught me not only about business, leadership, pressure, risk, delegation, grief, and letting go, but also about what business ownership and leadership can stir up inside a person. It is a large part of why I now feel genuinely equipped to help other entrepreneurs and business leaders, both with the inner challenges they face and with the external demands of leading and growing something important.

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Lessons of a CEO

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I learned a lot of lessons over the years, and in truth, the learning never really stops. Building and leading a company asked more of me than I could have anticipated, not just professionally, but personally. Some lessons came through success, others through stress, mistakes, conflict, disappointment, and having to face my own limitations. That’s part of the journey. Growth as a leader, and really as a person, is ongoing. We never really get it wrong in any final sense, because even our missteps become part of what teaches us. And we never really get it done, because each new stage of life and leadership asks something new of us. For me, the work was never about arriving at perfection. It was about continuing to learn, adapt, deepen, and become more capable, more honest, and more grounded over time. Here are a handful of the things running a company taught me, sometimes the hard way.
 

• How to rely on and delegate to others

• The importance of consulting with experts

• How to hire and contract with people who know things I don’t

• How to use my position of power to benefit the team

• How to provide good leadership

• How to create a supportive, friendly, and motivated milieu

• How to deal with the occasional difficult employee and workplace drama

• The importance of doing my own therapy to address limitations, fears, and resistance

• How the law of attraction impacts progress

• How to balance priorities

• How to assess risk

• How to make decisions

• How not to operate in a vacuum

• And many others
   

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How I Help Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders

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There are two categories of help I can offer business owners, C suite executives, and other business leaders: inner work or therapy, and consultation and coaching. Because these roles serve different purposes and require different kinds of relationships, I do not provide both for the same person. If I am serving as your therapist, I do not also serve as your business coach or consultant, and vice versa. I have this rule because therapy and coaching involve different boundaries, different goals, and different responsibilities, and I want the work we do together to remain clear, ethically grounded, and fully in service of the role I am providing.
 

Therapy and Inner Work

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Entrepreneurs and business leaders face external challenges and internal ones. Anxiety, tremendous responsibility, burnout, perfectionism, conflict avoidance, fear of failure, indecision, people pleasing, difficulty delegating, imposter syndrome, harsh self criticism, and chronic overwork can all quietly interfere with one’s general happiness as well as leadership and decision making. Some leaders become too controlling. Some are too passive. Some get stuck in loops of doubt or overanalysis. Some are highly capable externally but feel chronically burdened, lonely, or internally driven in ways that take a toll over time. Therapy and inner work can help address and transform the parts of you, the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, that may be interfering with reaching your goals, your relationships, your wellbeing, and your capacity to lead with greater clarity and steadiness.
 

​Business Consultation and Coaching
 

When I help as a business coach, rather than doing inner work to clear resistance, we focus on the external, real world application of ideas for the purpose of supporting a business venture. Topics for discussion include:
 

Strategy and direction

• Vision and long term planning

• Strategic analysis

• Goal setting and prioritization

• Business model refinement

• Market positioning

• Competitive strategy

• Growth planning

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Revenue and finance

• Revenue stream expansion

• Pricing strategy

• Profitability

• Budgeting and cash flow

• Financial forecasting

• Cost control

• Fundraising or capital strategy

• Exit planning

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Marketing and sales

• Brand strategy

• Marketing

• Messaging

• Lead generation

• Sales strategy

• Conversion optimization

• Customer retention

• Customer experience

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Leadership and people

• Leadership development

• Team building

• Hiring

• Delegation

• Accountability

• Organizational culture

• Communication

• Conflict resolution

• Boundary setting

• Human Resources

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Operations and execution

• Operational efficiency

• Systems and processes

• Time management

• Decision making

• Project management

• KPI development

• Performance management

• Scaling operations

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Change and transition

• Change management

• Succession planning

• Partnership issues

• Mergers and acquisitions

• Restructuring

• Crisis management

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Founder and executive effectiveness

• Burnout prevention

• Work life balance

• Stress management

• Confidence

• Executive presence

• Difficult conversations

• Values alignment

• Clarity and focus
   

Now, to be clear, I’m not an expert at every single topic listed above, but I do know about all of these topics, some more than others. I ask those who want to work with me as a business coach or consultant to outline the areas they need help with and summarize the primary concerns they have about their venture. With that information, it is usually self-evident whether or not I’m the right person to help. If it looks like a good fit, then, my schedule permitting, I’m happy to schedule a first meeting. And if it doesn’t look like a fit, you can count on hearing that from me and hopefully I can point you in the right direction.
 

My business coaching and consultation fees are $300 per hour. 
 

If you are an entrepreneur or business leader who wants support, whether around the internal challenges and barriers to healthy self leadership or the practical realities of running and growing a business, I’d be glad to explore whether working together feels like a fit.