Today we’d like to introduce you to Tamara Taylor.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Non-traditional is my story to Tamara Taylor Edu (TTE): Mental Health & Wellness Firm.
Graduating from high school I said that I wanted to be a psychologist, but I also had the skills and a desire to build a successful corporation. Well, as a highly recruited NCAA Division I athlete, I accepted a full basketball scholarship to the University of Houston. Why U of H? It was not the basketball program that made me say yes. It was the nationally top-ranked business program, C. T. Bauer College of Business.
Most practitioners will tell you that although their graduate programs prepared them to be great practitioners, it did not prepare them to be business owners of their own practices. Many of them had to seek out this knowledge on their own. So, I decided to pursue business as an undergrad at the University of Houston: C. T. Bauer College of Business. Upon graduation, I secured a management position with a Fortune 500 company. This was a major achievement, and it led to the next part of my non-traditional story. Appreciating my years of successful corporate leadership experience in the Fortune 500 company, there was something missing. What? Psychology. Recall my goals were to become a psychologist and build a successful corporation.
So, I met with my executive team and discussed with them that I needed to continue building towards my goals. I gave them a two weeks’ notice, and they supported me in my next step, graduate school. During the next five years, I earned my master’s degree in educational psychology (NOT school psychology as there is a difference) and another master’s degree in human behavior and mental health counseling — both from Capella University.
To build experience, I worked in the mental and behavior health field simultaneously while in graduate school and continued after graduation for a total of twelve years of experience. Throughout that time, I started two small businesses. One business being book publishing and the other business being a mental and behavioral health and wellness program consultant and mental and behavioral health and wellness professional development trainer. Now, with three degrees, 12 years of experience, and two mental health and wellness businesses I was ready to start building my corporation, Tamara Taylor Edu: Mental Health & Wellness Firm.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
The struggle to get to where I am was real. Money and time are always a struggle in the beginning for many successful entrepreneurs. To gain the needed professional experience I had to take a significant reduction in salary when I left my management position in the Fortune 500 company. This was a challenge because the biggest financial investor in my businesses was me all while in graduate school
and living on my own. Balancing graduate school, work, and my businesses also was a challenge of time management and self-care.
In addition, as every business person has experienced, the resounding “no” “not now” or “maybe” led to many setbacks, disappointments, doubts, and trips back the drawing board to revise my business plan and myself as a businesswoman. But with resilience and a few consistent supporters (my parents, brother, and best friend), I persevered, learned, improved, and grew.
We’d love to hear more about your practice.
As non-traditional has been my theme from the start, so it continues. As an educational psychologist (NOT a school psychologist as there is a difference), I created my own niche and area of practice and research outside of the traditional roles educational psychologists play in the educational industry. While educational psychology is basically the study of how people learn, I extended it to be more than just academic. Instead, I bridged together the “psychologies” of my education and degrees, professional experiences, and businesses to develop my integrated field of practice and research. This includes the psychology of: behaviorism, cognitivism, social leaning, motivation, and emotions and emotional intelligence. In my approach to how people learn I focus on WHAT information people are given and HOW people process information in order to understand the WHY of their mental, emotional, and behavioral health and wellness.
From understanding people’s why, one question that was presented was, “Why are so many people reluctant to receive this form of help?” Well, one reason is that there is no structure to accommodate people’s differentiation of learning styles. Not everyone learns the same way. Not everyone is ready or comfortable with the more common style of therapy which includes a practitioner and client talking together and working towards solutions. Depending on the person, sometimes providing supplemental therapeutic options helps people warm up to therapy or even find healthy and effective solutions independently through those therapeutic options. Since therapy is about SELF-discovery and SELF- learning, with guidance, and educating others it became essential to design a firm that gave people more independence in achieving mental health and wellness per their preferred learning styles while also being a platform for therapeutic education. This makes mental health and wellness more inviting to more people and therefore, more effective.
The TTE firm is designed for two markets:
(1) Consumers of mental health and wellness (2) Licensed mental health professionals, certified life coaches, and advocates of mental health and wellness.
We provide seven platforms in which people can choose from to accommodate their preferred mental health and wellness learning styles. It is not one service fits all. People can choose what works best for them. Recall that I mentioned previously in this interview that most practitioners lack business education and training from their degree programs. They spend years mastering their content, but not so much when it comes to making their degrees work for them in business.
This is how TTE serves mental health professionals. Each platform’s health and wellness services and resources are developed, designed, and facilitated by licensed mental health professionals, certified life coaches, and advocates that we partner with exclusively for the TTE firm. This gives the professionals opportunities to enhance their professional brands and build their own mental health-related businesses with the support of the TTE firm.
We are selective, so we review resumes and interview every candidate before they become partners of the TTE firm. This is because we want to provide people with the best mental health and wellness services and resources. One of the luxuries of partnering with the TTE firm is that we have a complete production team for every one of our platforms that puts everything together from the partners’ proposals to completed products or services.
TTE Therapeutic Services & Resources
SPORTS PSYCHOLOGY COUNSELING: This is counseling service focuses on athletes and coaches at all levels and all sports. Our sports counselors are carefully selected and hired as part of our staff.
Sports presents a unique set of challenges that impede not only athletes’ sports performance but also their lives. It is important to understand that the sports industry is a mind game too, and sports counseling is different from mental training. The two can work together, but essentially sports counseling is designed to deal with deeper issues impacting players and coaches that go beyond their performance. So, just as much as athletes and coaches train physically to compete, we work with them in achieving mental health and wellness to maximize their potential in their lives in conjunction with and outside of sports as well as their sport performance.
WHY-BASED THERAPY: This form of therapy is for our non-sport clients (individuals, teens, adults, couples, and families). Just like our sports counselors, our WHY-based counselors are carefully selected and hired as part of our staff. WHY-based therapy takes the approach that every “WHAT” has a “WHY.” We work to help people discover the real “why” that has brought them to our office in order to be better able to work towards meaningful and sustainable outcomes. WHY-based therapy can also be facilitated in issue-specific counseling groups.
MIND & MONEY COUNSELING: This division of our firm addresses financial mental health. Our Mind & Money counselors are carefully selected, trained, and state licensed. Understanding that finances are one of the top reasons for stress, anxiety, depression, and relationship issues and we have partnered with a leading international financial brokerage in providing both financial services with mental health and wellness. We help people take control and achieve financial mental health and wellness.
WHAT WHY PROGRAM: This is an 8-12 session program designed to help teens process through trauma and unresolved issues. This program is facilitated in schools and communities by licensed mental health professionals. There are four components that includes: acknowledgement, self-evaluation, accountability, and planning. The goal of this program is to improve the mental health and wellness and emotional intelligence of teens. This collectively improves their: attitudes, behaviors, social identity, and schools’ climate and safety.
UNIVERSITY OF TTE: Our university is a unique place for people to access and enroll in e-courses created by our TTE professors. Our professors are licensed mental health professionals, certified life coaches, and advocates who teach courses designed to help people achieve health and wellness and/or continuing education for professionals to enhance their skills and knowledge.
TTE SPEAKER’S BUREAU: TTE partners with speakers in the areas of mental health and wellness. Our speakers include licensed mental health professionals, life coaches, advocates, and motivational speakers. They speak at conferences, special events, and present trainings. This provides people with learning and community connection opportunities.
BOOK PUBLISHING: TTE print and e-books are resources authored by carefully selected licensed mental health professionals, life coaches, advocates, and people with inspiring and/or educational personal narratives. Our editing department reviews manuscripts and conducts interviews to select the best authors for our firm. Our authors contribute to TTE literature for mental health and wellness.
Contact Info:
- Address: 6160 Warren Parkway Suite 100, Frisco, TX 75034
- Website: www.tamaratayloredu.com
- Phone: 972-418-2960
- Email: psy@tamaratayloredu.com
- Instagram: @tamaratayloredu
- Facebook: @TamaraTaylorEdu
- Twitter: @TamaraTaylorEdu
- Other: www.linkedin.com/in/tamaratayloredu
Image Credit:
Marscel HP
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