Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hey, hey, Shawna a here, the delightful clinician. And you are listening to a delightful audio sode, the email episodes where you get tips, tricks and information on the mental health industry. In this episode, we are going to be talking about a podcast that I recently viewed on YouTube that was amazing and the takeaways that you can use to help you further your business in the mental health industry. But first, before we even go there, let's talk about the social media themes that I saw this month. I can already see how the mental health trends that I mentioned in the past audio sode is coming into fruition. In this audio sode, there were so many viral videos where I saw an underlying aspect for the need of community. And what does that mean for people when they have a community? One of the trends from last time that I saw was people's desire to have more social engagements. Right. They were spending less time isolated and more time trying to do things with other people. And I think that community runs hand in hand. And I also think that people struggle with having a community, being a part of a community, and knowing what good communities look like and knowing how to become a part of a community, or if even they should be a part of a particular community.
[00:01:30] I'm going to tell you about one viral video that I saw that was just very interesting to me. This is the viral video of Baby Zoe with the parent who was asking how to do baby Zoe's hair. She was only like 20 days old when they released this video, and it just sent TikToks into like a bit of a tizzy. One, because they were coming to another community asking how to take care of their baby. But two, because there was just so many questions about where do you go when you have particular questions, especially if you're raising a child who's not a part of a similar culture or a community that you are a part of and what you need to do as a parent. I think these questions are going to come more into play as we go further, as people are recognizing the importance of having a community. But I just thought this was such an interesting phenomenon because, again, we are seeing so many people struggle with the idea of community, struggle with the idea of togetherness, and how do we go about doing things together in a respectful way.
[00:02:43] So if you have not seen the viral video on Baby Zoe, you can just type that into any search, and I'm sure you are going to see some of the attachments that were with that and people's thoughts about that. But for you, as a clinician, this might be something where you think more about particularly what does it mean to be in a community, how to either become a part of a community or find your community. And how does that tie back into becoming less isolated and more socially engaged? And another question about community that I also want to bring in here, and further proof to me that people desperately want to have togetherness is the rap beef scenario that is playing out. I'm not going to mention names, but there is one rapper who put out a dis track. It came out on Thursday. Another rapper is now spiraling. There's so many things that were coming out of it, but the big thing is their Stan community. They are going as far as doxxing people. They have gotten accounts banned on TikTok, and it's been very interesting to watch. And the reason why I called it a Stan community is because these are multiple people who say that they stand for a particular artist. Now, when I talk about Stan, I am talking about a Stan in reference to the Eminem song Stan. Right. And we know that Stan is a combination of stalking and fan. So a Stan is really just like a stalker.
[00:04:24] You know, sometimes we can take this really lightheartedly, but if you know the song Stan, what really ended up was, like, stan just kind of, like spiraled out of control and ended up having his pregnant girlfriend and his drunk, and he drove off a bridge or something like that in the song. So, yeah, it became very intense.
[00:04:46] What's really interesting is because I knew Stans not like stalker fans, but I knew people with the name Stan in school. It never occurred to me until way later that he was really talking about how somebody ascends into obsession when it comes to their favorite idols and their favorite celebrities. And we can even say this about certain people who are not necessarily Hollywood or artists or musicians, but also maybe politicians, how people kind of become really cult ish. And so my question is to you all to think more about, why does that happen? Why do people go to those lengths? Right? Is it because they need a level of togetherness? Right? Isn't that our human experience is that we are very social and that we need a certain amount of validation, togetherness, a certain amount of connection to other people. And there's going to be people who will be like, no, I'm an introvert. I don't need this. I do need that. But to the most part, most humans do need some of that. We do need some forms of connection, some forms of togetherness. And when you have these kinds of communities that come to the point where they're spiraling out of control. You have people who don't know how to engage in communities. What does that mean for our people? What kind of issues can we see out of that, and what can we do to help people with that? Does that mean that you put on workshops to talk about ways that you can be engaged in your community, ways that you can come together? Does that mean that you're offering specialty sessions that are focused on this particular topic? Just more to think about and more to kind of keep your eyes on. As we go through this year, we're seeing more and more people talk about this. But I think the underlying idea is people's needs for connection. Again, people wanting to get back to being more social, and how can we get back to doing that in a healthy way?
[00:06:54] So that is my tidbit for trending on social medias. Take a look at those things. See if you can find who exactly I'm talking about as well. Let's get into the meat and potatoes of this. We are talking about Mahdi Woodard's podcast interview again. It was on the YouTube channel social proof. It was a really good interview. What I enjoyed about this was like Mahdi talking about his journey as a marketer and how he got to the point that he got to. I took two major takeaways from this. The first is that the vantage point of process and progress and what that looks like. And the second is innovation and how he became innovated and how he moved through this process again. So I'm going to be talking about those in a little bit, and I'm just going to give you some backgrounds of what I heard and saw. So Marty Woodard is a marketing expert. He teaches his skills and his expertise on Instagram. But Instagram is the place where he grew to. He is just like a regular guy from Atlanta, and it's really cool to see. And so he talks a lot about how to create content and how to gain following on these social medias. And now I see and I've noticed that he talks a little bit more about the process of creating good content that people are actually engaged in. I have taken so many of his courses. I'm actually down to just one last one that I want to take. But this was just such an inspirational interview to watch and listen to because he really showed you how much of just like a regular guy he is, right?
[00:08:41] There is no nepotism in there for him. He just was in the right places after a lot of hard work. And he talks about I'm just a kid from Atlanta, and I wanted to party and I wanted to live my life, and I wanted to do these certain things within his journey. And it just really was just such a humble listen. And again, even in all of that, he was dropping gems. He was dropping so much information. There were so many things that was said in there, all for free. That was just like Chef's kiss. So what I liked about this was just how much information was given, just, like, so much value. And what I took away from this is, again, that when you're seeing somebody, you're seeing them at this point in time. You don't get to see them five years before, ten years before. You're seeing them in this moment. And so it was really nice to hear his story and hear about how he's progressed through different phases of his life.
[00:09:49] So Marty Woodard is a former marketer. He used to work for Mars. That was his first job. And when I say Mars, I'm talking about the candy. Yes. Those candies. He worked for the Mars company, and he actually did pet food division. So he talks about this and what this looks like. So on this, he was talking about how to create viral content. And it felt so much more than that. I told you the two things that I took from it was the vantage point of his progress and his process and how much innovation helps drive you forward in your field. He was no doubt dropping gems and bars, but it went well beyond content. One of the first things that I noticed was his process. He talks about how he came to working for the Mars company. He talked about going to different company parties, things like that, how he worked his way up to the level at which he was working. And one thing that I noticed was that how much social media makes you believe that people are like, overnight sensations. We don't really get to see a lot of the process in social media because you're coming as you are. And so it presents businesses as if they don't ebb and flow. And that really skews your vantage point, because the truth is he's been doing this work since the early 2010s. He has fallen many times, and he's picked himself back up, and which each time that he's picked himself back up, he's learned a lesson. And again, like I said, he's not a Nepo baby. He has been doing this work. He talks about how he had a mentor. He talks about how he got his first job from Mars. And his mentor was kind of like, hey, take a look at this. Think about this how he's had people that has helped to guide him, but many a times he had to also learn how to take in that information and how to process it, right? He's had friends who were already millionaires and things like that, and he was looking at one thing one way, and his friends were like, nah, take a look at it this way. And he had to kind of learn his lesson about listening and about when to push and when to fall back. And so I think it was just such a really great episode to just really see somebody's progress in somebody's journey. And in the mental health industry, we see a lot of people's progress and journeys, but we don't always see it from the aspect of growing a business. And again, when you're on social media, you just see so much people where it's like, I made five k overnight, and you're trying to figure out how you made five k overnight. When really that person got to that point after a long process, it wasn't just that one day they woke up and they were making five k. This five k came after three months of build or six years of trying to figure out the right formula for their business. So I really enjoy seeing people talk about things from that aspect of saying, this is not an overnight thing, this is a build. I thought that was just really beautiful and really elegant. The next thing that I really thought was important was talking about innovation. One of the things that I was just really blown away by was how he expressed that. He was at a meeting and someone said, hey, I'm going to put you on some game. And they talked about how they mastered a 32nd commercial. And in the future, you're going to need something like a five second commercial. Right? And this was back in the 2010s, before social media is what it is at this point in time. And he was like, think about it. When you think about people and their attention spans today, and you think about how long you have to really hook someone and get them into watching your videos or into paying attention to your work, it ain't that long. That's your 5 seconds right there. So I think it's really important to be ready to innovate, be ready to look out for change, because we are in a society right now where things are moving, things are grooving, things are changing. I will let you know. I did not suspect when I was coming into the industry that I would see online therapy change so quickly. And it moved from it being a taboo to something that we regularly accept that is done in our field. And I will tell you that one thing that I noticed was the people who were early adopters were the people who were not panicked, who were not questioning if this is something that could be handled during the beginning or during the peak of the pandemic in 2020, when we were talking about offering mental health services online and moving online, you have to understand that those big online platforms that I do not mention, but you know who I'm talking about. Those big online platforms started in 2013 and 2012. Those platforms had been operating for eight years at that point. I had gotten on those platforms back in 2017. So I had been online for three years at that point. So when we are talking about online therapy and people have been operating in those spaces for eight years or three years, and people are coming on and they're saying, like, when things go back to normal, this was already a norm. Therapists were just late. And so when we talk about innovation in the field, I want you to think about that. Do we want to be late to the trend, or do we want to be an early adopter of the trend? Do we want to have the understanding of it? Because when we are late to a trend, we have less autonomy, we have less say so in what needs to happen. We have less ability to advocate, because there are people who are already running it, there are people who are already understanding this landscape, and they have come in and they have done whatever they felt like, and now they're at a point where they are just now getting to pay for some of the repercussions of the things that they've done. If that. We know that when some of these online companies started, they engaged in some unethical practices to get to where they were. Now, of course, we, as clinicians, we are hard when it comes to adopting new things because we have people to care about. We have to figure out and make sure that the people that we are treating, that they are being treated in an ethical manner, and they are being treated in a manner in which they get the help that they need, they get access to the quality care that they need. But just because we are innovating, just because we are offering something new and different, does not mean the thing that is new and different is not of quality. We also have to consider that the traditional services that we have offered have not always been the best. They have not always been the most inclusive. They have not always been the quality care that we express or that we think it is right. It's not always been the competent care that it needed to be. So times change. And as clinicians, we have to be mindful that how we are practicing right now is probably going to be very different in another couple of years. And we have to be malleable, flexible, and being able to take on new things.
[00:17:35] So I want you to think about this. I want you to think about what innovation looks like in our field, and where can we possibly offer different care? It doesn't mean that nontraditional care and different care is bad care or non quality care or unethical care. It is just innovative. It's different than what we were traditionally doing. But how can we offer that with what we have? One thing that I think is really important is recognizing that we do have the talent, we do have the skills, we do have the knowledge to be innovators in this field. I also want you to think about something else. I saw a video recently and somebody talking about these viral cups. You know what viral cups I'm talking about? But they said something, and that really hurt my feelings at first, but I had to really think about it more. And I was like, oh, that's actually true, right? When you've gotten to the point in a trend where the moms are adopting the trend and sharing it with their children, you are probably at the end of that trend. When you see something new and you're like, I'm seeing this thing pop up all over the place. You're actually seeing the rise of that trend. And then there's some people who bring on the trend. They are early adopters to this trend. Trends move in this way, right? You have the early adopters, then you see the rise of it when you start to see it popping up all over the place. But you have questions, and then you have the part of it where it gets into the hands of the people that it wasn't really intended for, and those people are sharing it with their children. Now, we have seen the part of the trend where you're likely to start seeing new things. You're starting to see a new innovation or a new adoption. How can you be a part of an early trend? How can you be a part of something when it's on the ground floor versus when the moms have gotten it? And we're not talking about the trends that moms start because there are some trends that moms start. We are talking about other trends that are typically started by younger generations and how they move through things. So what does that look like? And how can you, as an entrepreneur, as a business holder, find yourself in the early parts of a trend right before it's moving, before it's ascending. And if it is moving and is in ascending, do you know what that looks like? Do you know how to catch a trend on its wave? Think more about that. I also want you to think about where we could have been forecasters in the field. In the last episode, I shared with you mental health trends and the forecast of that. Are you able to look at something and say, oh, I can see how this is going to be something in the future? I felt this way about retreats a couple of years ago. I thought that retreats were going to be what they are today, and now everybody wants to be on a retreat. So think more about that. Can you predict things? Can you see things and see where they're going? And are you able to separate how you feel about that? I know that a lot of us have been taught traditionally that we do certain things in the field. Are you able to separate how you personally feel about something and look at how it moves and ebbs and flows within the industry? I think that is a big thing because a lot of the stuff that we are taught in the field feel very personally connected to many of us. And if we are able to make those separations and say, like, okay, I can see where this is going, and then bring your values back in. If you like it, that's fine. If you don't like it, that's also fine. That's just not for you to adopt in your business. But there are other things that we could potentially adopt that do align with how you feel. But you also have to recognize how things are moving and grooving in the business. And I think that's what this episode of Mahdi has taught me and what I looked at other things that I want you to think about. Where can you be a forecaster in the field? Think about, again, the life and the phase of a trend. And these last two questions are important. What does it look like at the end of the trend? How do you know a trend is ending? How do you know not to jump on a trend? And then for our field, for our industry, when it comes to mental health, who are the early adopters? Who are the trendsetters? That's going to be really important because those are the people that you're going to be watching and following when it comes to your business. Those are your audience. And you might have different people depending on your niche talking about different trends in different settings. This episode for you, is about innovation. It's about remembering the process, remembering that this is all a process for us. It's a journey and we know this. And I hope that you are able to take some really good things about it. Catch that episode. I'm going to drop a link for you so that you can get to it easily and catch more of it. It was such a good episode. It was 2 hours, so it's long. If you got a long drive, just listen to it if you so good. And I will see you next time for another delightful audio sode. Bye. Now, just popping back in here to say there is the therapizing collective Facebook group. I'm going to drop the link for that below. Be sure to check out that Facebook group. Share your questions and your insights from this episode. I would love to hear from you and we can keep going from here. See you next time.
