How Well Being and Compassionate Therapy Helps Women Entrepreneurs with Dr. Nathilee Caldeira

Therapy is for everyone, including entrepreneurs, and not something to be ashamed of.

Dr. Nathilee Caldeirais a licensed psychologist and the founder and CEO of Let's Talk Psychological Wellness. Dr. Caldeirashares her journey from emigrating from Guyana at 19 to becoming a successful psychologist in New York. She started studying business, but she switched to psychology after a beautiful class experience and working at a camp for children who experienced trauma.

Bringing together the two disciplines of business and therapy, she created her hugely successful NYC private practice to gain more flexibility and positively impact more lives directly.  However, Dr. Caldeira soon faced overwhelming demand, leading her to expand and hire additional therapists - which was very challenging.

Nathilee now seeks a more balanced approach to business as she is focused on optimally serving both clients and her employees. For her, there is great importance in defining personal success, valuing time over constant growth, and honoring the different seasons of life when making business decisions. Nathilee’s experience with the importance of self-reflection, adaptability, and prioritizing well-being is a great lesson for all entrepreneurs. 

As women, we're often conditioned to keep pushing forward without considering how our goals and circumstances evolve. We have the freedom to redefine success and shape our businesses in a way that aligns with our personal values and life stages. Let’s use our inner power and command of our choices to create the life we desire! 

Show notes:
👧🏽 Nathilee emigrated from Guyana at 19 years old: how her grandmother helped her take that journey.  04:09
🎓 She changed her major to psychology because of her experience of working with children who have been impacted by trauma. 06:11
👩🏽‍⚕️ After 10 years, she moved from research to clinical practice and soon started hiring other therapists in a group practice to impact more people. 09:32
⚡ Hiring one person at a time helped in managing other therapists. 14:34
😷 The impact of Covid: Nathilee’s staff quickly doubled. 19:22
🌸 We have the privilege to ask ourselves: what do I want my business to look like? 24:11
⚠️ Time is probably the most valuable asset for a business person. 26:59
😍 Our needs are changing as we go: it's freeing to be able to change your trajectory. 28:58
🤓 People want to talk to someone who looks like them, but only 15% of psychologists are people of color. 36:49

Links:

Talking For Wellness: www.talkingforwellness.com

Connect: www.instagram.com/talkingforwellness 

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Adrienne Garland (00:01.326)
Hello and welcome back to the She Leads podcast. This episode is brought to you by the She Leads podcast network. It's the podcast network for women by women. Now my next guest is very special. I'd like you to all meet Dr. Nathalie Caldera, licensed psychologist in New York state. Dr. Caldera is a brilliant, compassionate expert in the field of mental health, and she's a marvelous entrepreneur as well.

She's the founder and CEO of a highly successful New York City therapy practice called Let's Talk Psychological Wellness. Dr. Kildara is also a very dear friend to me. We met at the Goldman Sachs 10 ,000 Small Business Program in New York City. Tory Burch Cohort 5, shout out. And Dr. Kildara earned her PhD in clinical psychology from Adelphi University right here in Long Island.

and completed her doctoral internship at Columbia University Medical Center. Welcome to the She Leads podcast, Dr. Caldera.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (01:08.473)
thank you so much, Adrienne. I am so honored to be here. I feel very special that we've known each other for a long time. So I look forward to this conversation.

Adrienne Garland (01:13.134)
I know, I know.

We're taking our...

Adrienne Garland (01:23.214)
Me too, me too. And this is a long time coming. I've invited you on the show for a while. But this is such a good time, right? Like timing is divine. It's perfect. We're going to talk about so many things today that are super interesting in the field of mental health, in the field of entrepreneurship, and then also just your own personal background and story, which I know that so many people are going to be interested in.

So actually, let's actually start there. Let's start with your background because it is very interesting and how your background kind of led you down the path of becoming a therapist.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (02:07.641)
Yeah, so right. I mean, I think the one thing I always say like that's missing from my bio there is very important. I was born and raised in Guyana, South America. And my family and I immigrated to New York when I was 19 years old. So I finished high school in Guyana.

And really it was the sacrifice of my grandmother who, you know, left Guyana many years before we did and left her family, everything she knew and came here on her own and built a life and then got us here because mainly so that her grandchildren could have opportunities that we wouldn't otherwise have had. So.

definitely very grateful to her and also grateful to my parents who also had to make that sacrifice. And yeah, that's a big part of my background.

Adrienne Garland (03:16.718)
Well, that sounds like an amazing grandma. What was your grandmother's name?

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (03:24.185)
Millicent.

Adrienne Garland (03:25.198)
Millicent. Well, thank you Millicent for bringing Nathalie and her whole family here. I appreciate you. Yeah, aww, she's so sweet. So.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (03:31.321)
that's so nice. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, both my grandmothers were very, very special people in my life. I lived with my maternal grandmother when I first started high school, because my parents are both teachers and they lived in a very different part of the country from where my high school was going to be. So I spent a whole year with my

maternal grandmother Alice. And so that, you know, both grandmothers have been very influential in the person I am today.

Adrienne Garland (04:11.63)
I love that. So here you are, you come to the United States, you're 19 years old, and you go to college, I assume. So tell me a little bit about what made you choose to go into the field of mental health.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (04:30.617)
Yeah, so you froze a little bit there, so I didn't hear the question clearly.

Adrienne Garland (04:40.046)
So I'm going to cut this out. Let me, I think there's a delay. So I'm just going to say right here, like, so I'm just going to cut this part out and I'll ask you the question again, just so that you can hear it. So Mira, please cut this out. So you came here to the United States when you were 19.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (04:40.537)
but...

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (04:45.689)
Okay.

Adrienne Garland (05:02.926)
and then you attended college, what made you choose to go into the field of mental health?

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (05:13.785)
so great question. I actually started out as a business management finance major. And I would say like in my second year of college, maybe it was my third year, I took a class called psychology of women with a wonderful professor named Dr. Nancy Romer.

And one of her hallmarks of the way she taught was really that you must have community experience outside of the classroom. So whatever she was teaching in the class, you should have the attending experience in the community. And so one of the things that she herself had worked at this wonderful camp when she was a teenager,

And it was something that she offered after the class during the summer. And I went up with that program. It was up in beautiful Reinbeck, New York, a camp called Camp Ramapo that still exists. And the focus there was working with children who had had very traumatic lives and helping them manage their.

emotions, teaching them skills, classroom skills, as well as emotional regulation skills. But these are children who had had like very serious traumatic events in their lives, whether it was physical, sexual abuse. And I really enjoyed that experience so much. One of the reasons I enjoyed it was also because of

the greenness of upstate New York that reminded me of Guyana. And I came back and I changed my major to psychology and that was the beginning of my psychology journey.

Adrienne Garland (07:22.35)
my gosh. I've never heard that story. I love that so much. Yeah, upstate New York is quite beautiful. I grew up up, not quite all the way up in Rhinebeck, but I grew up upstate. So I know exactly what that's like along the Hudson River there. So beautiful. So that's amazing. So many people when they go into therapy, they either

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (07:28.665)
I don't know.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (07:38.745)
Yes.

Adrienne Garland (07:48.942)
you know, join a hospital or they start their own private practice and then they sort of stay in private practice on their own. Yes, they have a business, which I'm, and I'd love for you to sort of tell the story, but I'm sure that you had a practice of your own for, you know, several years. But then it's probably your business background.

that made you think, well, wait a minute, I can serve more people if I have a larger staff of people. So can you talk a little bit about what prompted you to start your business that you have today?

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (08:32.537)
Right. So when I graduated, when I finished internship, one of the challenges I was facing was a giant student loan bill, which is a reality for so many people who take that leap into graduate school. And...

Adrienne Garland (08:48.718)
no, really?

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (09:01.497)
So I actually stayed working in research and I did that for about 10 years because research is a field where there are opportunities to be able to repay your student loans a little bit faster. So there are programs where if you are committed to the field of research, you are able to.

Adrienne Garland (09:04.462)
working in research and I did that for about 10 years because research is a field where there are opportunities to be able to repair your phones a little bit faster. So there are programs where if you are committed to...

Adrienne Garland (09:28.558)
able to have some opportunities to have those students who are not included. So anybody out there who is on that path, that's something good to know.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (09:29.817)
have some opportunities to have those student loans repaid. So anybody out there who is on that path, that's something good to know. After about a decade while working full -time in research and part -time private practice, I realized that I really liked research, but I loved the clinical work even more.

And so I decided to transition to full -time private practice. And so I left research and I started full -time private practice. And that offered me an opportunity to really focus on the clinical work. I work primarily with adults, like,

And my focus is really on helping people with a history of trauma manage those reactions as well as specializing in helping people with anxiety and anxiety related disorders. What I found was that I was pretty overwhelmed pretty quickly with the number of people who were seeking.

help and I was very lucky in those early years, which was about 12 years ago now, that I was able to find.

other colleagues who were offering a way to teach you how to be an entrepreneur, right? So now we're very lucky, particularly in our field where there are a lot of opportunities to learn how to start your own private practice or even how to have your own group practice. But 12 years ago, that was not something that was

Adrienne Garland (11:21.966)
Hmm.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (11:41.145)
you know, very available. But I did have the opportunity to find two colleagues who were having a webinar on how to start your own group practice. As I said, I was pretty overwhelmed with how many people were seeking services that I had this like very long wait list. And that was the opportunity that they were talking about that if you find that you have a

Adrienne Garland (11:53.806)
As I said, I was pretty overwhelmed with how many people were seeking services, but I had this very long request.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (12:10.521)
a long wait list, you should be thinking about how you can help more people by hiring other therapists who are not yet ready to start their own private practice, but are on the path to starting their own practice. And so I took that webinar and it was so helpful. But to be honest, it actually, because I had no experience in running a business outside of a solo practice,

Adrienne Garland (12:29.902)
Yeah, that can be very scary and not just for

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (12:39.065)
It took me about a year sitting on the information before I actually took the leap to hire the first person. So yeah, that's sort of how it started.

Adrienne Garland (12:57.742)
a therapy practice, but for any solo entrepreneur that, you know, they're sort of overwhelmed with work, overwhelmed with clients. And then, you know, if you haven't sort of set yourself up for hiring somebody, bringing that first person on can be a very scary prospect because you not only have to think about yourself and paying yourself, you now have to think about someone else and making sure that that wait list.

continues to grow and to be there because now you're responsible for someone else. So that is something that I find in entrepreneurship. If we don't sort of go into it, knowing that, you know, first things first, we need to build a team. We start pricing our services just to accommodate ourselves. And we don't think about the bigger picture of it. And it's so...

it's great that you were able to, especially in your niche, you were able to find a resource that could help you. So after you hired that first person, and I think this is so important for everybody that's listening in, after you hired that first person, what experience did you sort of have and not so much about the person, but actually managing someone now, right? So you had to manage you,

You had to manage your schedule and now you had to manage someone else and someone else's schedule.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (14:34.041)
Right. So that's actually where I encountered the biggest challenge because, you know, I had no experience managing another person. Like I had managed people in very structured environments, like on a research project, let's say. But not where, you know, the responsibility for...

their well -being, the well -being of the clients that they were taking care of, as well as their schedule, how they're paid, when they're paid, all of these things. The six -week seminar did not necessarily give me all those tools. So I basically had to learn that as I was doing it.

I did one of the ways that I managed it was that I tried to hire one person at a time. And I found that that was very helpful in managing the task of this new task or new challenge of really learning to manage people.

Adrienne Garland (15:39.214)
Mm.

Adrienne Garland (15:56.59)
Yeah.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (15:57.625)
you know, manage their needs as well as the needs of the practice as a whole. Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (16:04.174)
Yeah, now, when we met you, your your business was growing, scaling, and I believe you were at, you know, 810 people at that point. So you you came into the Goldman Sachs 10 ,000 small businesses program just like I did, in order to figure out you know, where the opportunities were in order to grow and scale your business because

as entrepreneurs, that's kind of the message that we're fed, right? Like, if you have a business, you need to keep growing, and you need to keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger, right? And I know it's so funny, we'll talk about this, but so many of the people that were in our cohort, I think have sort of, you know, we all,

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (16:46.585)
Yes.

Adrienne Garland (16:59.726)
agreed that we wanted to grow our business and make it more healthy and all of that. And I think that the prospect of scaling got, it was sort of overwhelming for a lot of us. And so some have gone on to very great success. We have some people in our, that were in our cohort that are like superstars. And then others have shut their business down. Others have, you know, pulled back different things like that.

So can you talk a little bit about your experience? Because I know things also shifted during COVID. So here you were, Goldman Sachs, trying to grow your business. So can you just kind of take us through that whole entire process? Yeah. So.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (17:41.305)
Yeah, so definitely when we when I started a program at Goldman Sachs, the that was the idea right for the dad, like the standard way that you operate as his business owner is to have the ambition to grow as big as you can. And I definitely that's all I knew at the time and I am very grateful for that program in that.

Adrienne Garland (17:57.678)
Yes.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (18:11.001)
you know, I met you and other wonderful people, but I also got the foundations of actually how to run a business, you know, like, and how to operate as an entrepreneur. I mean, all of the nuts and bolts, I feel that that program was really very good at like every aspect of what the foundation of a business should look like.

I do think that there was one area I know we've talked about at length about that may have set up us for, I don't know, maybe a more even success rate if we had been paired up or mentored by people who were even further along in their business or entrepreneurial journey after the program.

Adrienne Garland (19:04.202)
Yeah.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (19:08.473)
But all that said, I think overall I found it exceedingly helpful as, you know, gave me a lot more confidence in what I was doing in terms of running the group and, you know, helping, like keeping focused on what the actual mission was while...

Adrienne Garland (19:29.486)
focusing on the abomination one while focusing on the diesel engine is more effective in terms of.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (19:33.337)
focusing on making sure things were effective in terms of like people had the benefits they needed, the tools they needed, et cetera. And then, yeah, like, so that was around 2017, 2018, going along with that idea of like growing 2019, we had our own space. And then, yes, I mean,

Adrienne Garland (19:40.782)
Yep.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (20:01.289)
and it hit everyone in different ways and it definitely affected us as well in a significant way. As we know, it was a collective traumatic experience for the country and for the world. And people were really seeking a lot more help than before, so much so that we ended up

Adrienne Garland (20:09.902)
as well in a significant way. As we know, it was a collective, somatic experience for the country and for the world. And people were really seeking a lot more help than before, so much so that we ended up doubling our staff.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (20:31.673)
doubling our staff. And I think that it hasn't really, it didn't really strike me until like, as we're really recovering from COVID, like years later that sticking a step back and thinking about what does success.

in business actually mean and that it could mean different things for different people. And it doesn't necessarily have to mean that you are growing to the biggest or as big as you can. Because what I realized for myself personally is that I actually liked the pre -COVID practice a lot more than I liked.

Adrienne Garland (21:08.974)
Yes, or as engaged as you can. Because what I realized to myself personally is that I actually like pre -COVID practice.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (21:26.745)
the post -COVID practice, which was, you know, double in size, many more people to be responsible for, and many, many more tasks and things to manage, people to manage, myself to manage differently because...

Adrienne Garland (21:46.626)
Yeah.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (21:53.882)
I have to pivot to doing things a lot differently. I have to delegate more, think more about how I'm leading. So just a lot more responsibilities that I really don't think that, for me personally, it's something that may.

sit well with other people, but it really has been, you know, very stressful to manage. And it was really, you know, we grew, we grew at that rate was, it was more in reaction to enormously traumatic event, rather than it was something that I thought about and decided that,

Adrienne Garland (22:26.222)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (22:50.574)
that this is something that I want. So...

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (22:51.097)
this is something that I want. So right now I am in the process of taking a step back and really we haven't hired anyone new in the past 18 months or so and just focusing on where I'd like to see the practice going. And I think it's more something at this point that I prefer.

the small, like I think of success as something that's smaller, more focused on, you know, the impact we're having for the therapists who are working in the group, helping them to learn how to be entrepreneurs themselves in a smaller community rather than, you know, a big large practice.

Adrienne Garland (23:46.318)
I love this conversation so much because there is a message out in the media and in society, I think as well, that you must keep growing. You must keep getting bigger. You must take over the world and earn as much profit as possible. And.

I think we talked a little bit about this before we started recording, but in my NYU class that I teach, I often give an assignment called your vivid vision. And it's actually very similar to one of the exercises I think that Goldman Sachs did at the very, very beginning. I'm not sure if you remember or not, but we were asked, what type of business do we want to have?

And it was sort of like, do you want a business where you sit on the beach and drink Mai Tais all day? Yes, please. But if you want a business like that, you need to build a business that allows you to do that. Or do you want a business where you're going to be working 24 -7? Is that what you want from your life? And so this Vivid Vision,

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (25:05.721)
Mm -hmm.

Adrienne Garland (25:08.238)
assignment that I give to my NYU students is actually something that I feel like everyone really needs to do and ask themselves, like, what do I want from my life? We have the privilege of being able to ask that question, first of all. I think we need to acknowledge that. We have the privilege to say, what do we want? We're not in the place of struggling for.

shelter and food and all of that. But to be able to say, what do I want my life to be? What do I want my business to look like? And that is very personal. And I don't know that we give ourselves enough room to allow ourselves to define success in that way. And I think it's, I love that you are sort of

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (25:40.409)
Yes.

Adrienne Garland (26:05.71)
taking a look at like, okay, where am I right now? And do I really want this? You know, and the answer is like, no, no, not not not now. And not really, it doesn't mean forever. And that's the other thing. It's a very empowering type of inquiry, self inquiry.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (26:19.193)
Right. Right.

Right.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (26:30.201)
Yeah, and to be honest, it took me a lot of years to get to that place and a lot of conversations with colleagues and friends like yourself, as well as a coach to come to that place. So it's not something that I would say that I'd.

Adrienne Garland (26:48.462)
Yep. Yeah.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (26:57.337)
came to on my own, it was something that I spent a lot of time thinking, but also consulting with other business owners, as well as listening to podcasts and reading and talking to my own coach, who happened to be a psychologist as well. So I definitely encourage people to seek coaching when needed as well.

Adrienne Garland (27:26.574)
Yeah.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (27:26.809)
I would say that, yeah, I do remember that exercise. So that's a great exercise that you give to your students. And that's so wonderful, by the way, that you're teaching now at the university level, which is something that, you know, to me, I'm not sure I have the patience for that. So I definitely admire that you're doing that.

Adrienne Garland (27:41.666)
I'm not sure I have the reasons for that.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (27:54.425)
as part of the million things that you're doing. But I do remember that exercise as well as another very important lesson that that program taught us, which was that you should have an exit plan when you are thinking about your business. And so your business is supposed to be something, and yes, money is important.

Adrienne Garland (27:56.718)
Thank you.

Adrienne Garland (28:11.63)
Yes.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (28:24.057)
But time is actually probably the most valuable asset. So thinking about how you spend your time as a business owner is very important. And I think that that lesson about, yeah, what's your vision as well as what's your exit plan for this particular endeavor, like, you know, as a business person.

Adrienne Garland (28:31.662)
Agreed.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (28:53.721)
are two very important lessons to remember. And I think it's sometimes, I personally felt like it's something I would forget along the way because you get so busy, you know, running the business and all the different things that you need to take care of. For me, I also found it challenging to give up the clinical work.

Adrienne Garland (29:17.338)
Yeah.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (29:20.761)
so while I've been running the business, I've been working as a clinician as well. And so that may have made it a lot more challenging for me. I know a lot of therapists do the same thing. So that's something to think about how we, how we operate as well, like how many things we choose to take on that then doesn't give us the time to reflect on these.

Adrienne Garland (29:27.47)
Yes.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (29:49.817)
larger questions about, you know, how we're spending our time, how much money we want to make, etc.

Adrienne Garland (29:57.966)
Yeah, and you reminded me even just now about this idea of having an exit plan, whatever that means, whether it's selling it to someone else or shutting it down or moving on to your next thing. Again, and I always say, I don't like to make sweeping statements, and then I make sweeping statements. But I think that for women, we're not almost encouraged.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (30:10.041)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (30:26.958)
to think about exiting, right? And it's in a lot of ways, thinking about an exit plan is very freeing because it sort of puts a timeframe around it, almost like it's a project, right? This is a project that I'm working on. It has an end date and what is going to happen after that end date? I think it allows your mind,

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (30:31.321)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (30:47.353)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (30:56.142)
to be able to solve that problem in a larger sense. It allows your mind to solve the problem. What am I going to do? If we think that, well, God, this business is just going to go on forever, it's almost exhausting. And our mind is like, my God, forget about anything. I got to just be able to keep my energy up.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (31:17.977)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (31:25.134)
to go through this. So this is a really, really great reminder to everybody out there that is listening that in your business, and the choice could be to have it go on forever, but maybe it's not you that's in that same position, right? Maybe it goes on forever under the guidance of someone else. And this is, I think this is such, it's freeing, it feels freeing.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (31:52.153)
Mm -hmm.

Adrienne Garland (31:53.742)
free to me as like a woman to think that I can actually like give something up instead of taking more and more and more on.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (32:02.809)
Right.

Right, right. Yeah, and definitely I think that...

Adrienne Garland (32:05.742)
good.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (32:12.889)
really spending the time to think about what is it that is most important to you, right? So what is the most valuable thing to you? And whether or not you're in a different season of your life, that you have needs that are different from when you started the business, let's say. And for me, I do...

So I feel very rewarded by the fact that I've been as a group along with the therapists who have been working over the past 10 years. We've impacted a lot of lives. And I like to say that when you work with one person, you're actually impacting so many other people because you're also impacting not just their life, but

the all the people in their life. So all their workmates, all their family mates, you know, all of their friends. And in general, the people, anybody that they're interacting with, you're also helping because now you have somebody who can, you know, stand in a healthier place, reacting differently, managing differently that benefits the entire community.

Adrienne Garland (33:13.71)
Yeah.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (33:41.977)
So I'm very grateful that I've had that opportunity to impact so many people and also impacting the therapists who've come through to practice. So a lot of the therapists we've helped either with getting to licensure that stage of their professional life where they are now independent practitioners, clinicians.

in the community, but also most importantly, teaching them the skills that they need as business owners so that when they are ready to get into their own private practice or start their own private practice, they feel confident and ready. So I'm very grateful that we have been able to accomplish those things. But at the same time,

You're right, it's like 10 years later, are my goals still the same as it was when I started the group? And it's not because I'm older, I'm now on the cusp of menopause. And you know, that's a great opportunity to sit back and kind of reflect on what my needs are. And...

Adrienne Garland (34:58.998)
And that's a great opportunity.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (35:09.977)
Yeah, my needs for myself, for my daughter, it's very different than it was 10 years ago. Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (35:18.126)
Hmm.

So beautiful. And I just want to just acknowledge that, gosh, your business, it's so much more than just a business. The fact, you know, I'm like listening to you saying, gosh, I sort of wish that all business owners could have the perspective of not only the people that they're serving, but also the people that are working for them, that you're kind of...

wanting the best for them and helping them to get to where they want to be. It's such an altruistic type of approach to business and it's really, really beautiful. And I, you know, it's funny, I know this about you, but just hearing you say it in this way, it really moves me and I think it's such a beautiful thing.

to be able to literally like teach people and empower them to go out and be sort of the best selves that, that they can be. And also when you're helping all of your, you know, your, your clients, your, your customers, you're right. It, it, the way that they react to the other people in their lives, it's going to be better.

And so you truly are making the world a better place. And for that, I am so appreciative. We need more people to be self -aware and to go out in the world and just be less reactive and kinder and all of that. So you are truly doing such incredible work. And I know this. I know this because I know you. But just hearing it is beautiful. Yeah. my god. So good. Such, such good stuff.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (37:08.601)
Well, I definitely appreciate that, yeah.

Adrienne Garland (37:15.886)
I wanted to touch on two really quick things. Just because I do believe that seeking therapy is something that is very, very important. People don't need to be in therapy forever or anything like that. But if people are sort of struggling through something, I know that there's also a...

like a cultural aspect to not wanting to seek out therapy. And I kind of just want to put that message out there that therapy truly is for everyone and there's nothing to be ashamed of when you seek out help.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (37:58.201)
Yes, so definitely one of the dreams I've had and I have been able to realize this dream because of the practice, I believe. I have been able to volunteer, return, travel more often to Guyana. And I've definitely seen progress in terms of awareness of mental health.

the need for seeking support if and when you need it and that while there is still stigma and shame about it, that it is less than it was, let's say 10, 15 years ago. The shortage of clinicians, mental health professionals across the country, across the world, certainly in Ghana.

is a real issue for everyone. And it is true that in the US, it is still the case that only 15 % of psychologists, so this may be different for licensed social workers and licensed mental health counselors, but for psychologists, only about 15 to 17 % are

clinicians, psychologists of color. So that means that there are systemic issues that need to be addressed as well for people. Because oftentimes, one of the most frequent things we hear when someone makes it to that call, the first call that they make, you will hear that they've put it off.

months, sometimes years before seeking help. And the way people feel more comfortable is usually talking to someone that either has had similar experiences or that looks like them. And so that is sometimes a barrier as well that people face. And it's something that I believe that, you know, the universities are beginning.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (40:25.689)
to address, but the process is really, really slow. But I do think that since COVID, there has been a dramatic increase in awareness about mental health issues, the ways in which to seek support, those things have improved. People have, a lot more clinicians have been able to.

Adrienne Garland (40:30.286)
Yeah.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (40:53.625)
start their private practices. People are generally a lot more aware, but there are some systemic issues that still exist that need to be worked on methodically.

Adrienne Garland (41:09.966)
Yes. Yeah, and consistently until things change. I want to thank you so much for all of the wisdom that you have relayed to our audience here today. And I also want to give you the opportunity to just invite people to connect with you, reach out to your practice if they need help. So how can people get in touch with you?

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (41:16.761)
Yes.

Nathilee Caldeira, Ph.D. (41:41.817)
Yes, you can visit our website at talkingforwellness .com, talkingforwellness .com, or calling or texting us at 917 -283 -0738. And yes, speaking of my new, you know, thinking about what I am about to do next is thinking about how to help.

fellow entrepreneurs manage the stress that comes with entrepreneurship. So that's something that I'm working on. So stay tuned. Thank you so much. I really appreciate this conversation and opportunity to talk about what we do.

Adrienne Garland (42:21.294)
Ooh, I love it, I love it. Well, thank you so much.

Adrienne Garland (42:33.006)
Awesome. I will see you soon.