Nora, for me to be able to support other people, I had to learn about who I w...
I needed and what I didn't need and where my boundaries were and where our limits are.
I have to constantly remind myself that I am not my vulnerabilities, right? That I am not my fears, I am not my failures, but I am everything that came out of that. Dr. Annabaron is a resilient purpose-driven mental health practitioner, entrepreneur, and the founder of Baron Psych, drawing from her journey as an immigrant in years of community
leadership. She empowers others to lead with courage, live by their values and create meaningful lasting impact. The industry glorifies the work, right? I think the industry sometimes wants it to look easy, but sitting with people's pain
“for eight to ten hours a day, that seeps into your soul and so you have to know how”
to care for yourself.
For a long time, I've also prioritized medical practitioners, because they're the ones
that are giving help to everybody else and yet. Living your legacy podcast for those who live to live a legacy. Hey, welcome back everyone to another episode of Living Your Legacy Podcast. I'm your host again, Jay Slangen, and we're down here in the new podcast set up, looking all nice and snazzy, but we have a special guest today.
Yes, please introduce yourself. You're a mom-preneur, right? What's the name? Where are you from? What do you do?
My name is Dr. Annabaron, and I am from Rhode Island, and I own a boutique mental health group practice called Baron Psych. We provide support and treatment to adult children and families, and I also consult with other entrepreneurs and mental health practitioners, and to developing their businesses. Yeah, so my wife really got me into the importance of knowing personalities and psychology,
right?
“And we got really into the Myers-Briggs personality type, right?”
How accurate do you think those are? I think that over time, we evolve and we develop, and I think that depending on when you take it, it really reflects that developmental stage of your life. If you retake it and it continues to present in the same way, then sometimes it can be very consistent, but if you change and your core features adapt over time, it can look
a bit different. So I think it's very useful for the purposes of understanding who you are and in the way that you relate to others and it forms your relationships, but to say that that is who you're going to stay your entire life, I think that is limiting.
But basically, for those people that don't understand, it's kind of breaking down people's
personalities into 16 different times, right? Correct. Yeah. So when you're swiping through Tinder, and then you see someone put ENFJ or something like that, right?
Yeah. Those are the Myers-Briggs personality type, right? That's correct. Me, I am an ENFJ, my wife's an INTP, she's kind of very rare, but she gets into her head and she likes to think and she's very smart, right?
Me, ENFJ is kind of like, I got a lot of heart, I guess, right? I wear my heart on my sleeves and I'm very emotional guy, but actually it's kind of helped
“me, you know, and I think about people's personality types, right?”
Reading people's personality dash, but mental health, right? It's a days day and age, it's such an important thing, you know? Oh, it absolutely does. And it seems to be kind of at the forefront of, you know, the social media conversation, right?
People are trying to be like, you know, the influences that are just like describing your inner peace, right? I don't know. I feel like that easy. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, it just seems like in the age of social media, right? Yeah. It's just like so much at us and it can get so, life can get so busy, right? That we kind of just lose ourselves and question ourselves and we see other people living
lives of success and happiness, it's a beauty that it just causes a lot of stress, more than it does. It does. Yeah.
Talk to me a little bit about that.
Well, social media is a huge, I think that it certainly impacts people's, the quality
of their mental health. You know, you can put out anything on social media that can look beautiful, right? It doesn't mean that it gives you context, it doesn't mean that it gives you an opportunity to really understand who the person is and it only shows you bits and pieces of what they want you to see.
Yeah. So, I find that when I am working with clients or when I'm working with colleagues who are wanting to expand their practice or who want to refine their brand and they say, "Well, you know, this person looks awesome all the time."
“You know, I have to remind them, I think you have to really consider what goes into the”
work that they're doing because what you're seeing is the final product, right? And you're only seeing what they want you to see. You're not seeing the hours of preceding work that they didn't want to show you.
You're not seeing their tears, you're not seeing their insecurities, you're not seeing
their vulnerabilities, right? You're seeing what they want. It's almost like this is inside success, we talk to a lot of entrepreneurs, right? And they say, you know, for every overnight success, there's 10 years of struggles on hardship to the honey.
Yeah. I mean, look, I didn't get to where I am by just being, right? Like I had to sacrifice, I had to go to school, I had to build, I had to fail. And I had to understand that in order for me to be able to be effective and in order for me to be able to support other people, I had to learn about who I was and what I needed
and what I didn't need and where my boundaries were and where our limits are, right? And then I also had to figure out how I was going to be a entrepreneur or a practitioner while also raising a family, right?
“And so for me, I have to constantly remind myself that I am not my vulnerabilities, right?”
Like I am not my fears, I am not my failures, but I am everything that came out of that.
And people sometimes don't understand how it is that people get to where they are because they see the end result and they're like, oh, wow, you know, she's successful, it must be nice. You're right, it is nice because I've earned it. Yeah.
Like I have worked tirelessly and I have sacrificed. And so when you think of psychologists, right, you think of the, the couch that they're lying on. Right. Well, not the psychologists, the clans are lying on the couch because psychologists are
hopefully not lying on the couch. Unless it's break time in between, right? Unless we take us power and up, yes. But do you do that? Is that a thing?
Or is that Hollywood? Do I take naps? No, so will you have your clients on like some special couch and they're lying down for fessing their childhood and I am not a psychoanalyst, right? And I have couches, I have chairs.
I have a carpet on the floor and they can do whatever they want as long as they're clothes and they're, you know, and they're present and they're attentive, they can lay on the couch. I have had people who, you know, come to see me right after work after they work the overnight shift. And I've had clients fall asleep and what a privilege is it to have created a safe space
where they feel like they can completely put their guard down, right? I don't wake them up, I just let them rest. Others may lay down and, you know, we'll chat but generally they get up because they're uncomfortable. Yeah.
I think the industry glorifies the work, right? I think the industry sometimes wants it to look easy, but sitting with people's pain for eight to ten hours a day, I mean, that's been my life experience, right? Some people do her four or five hours, I did it for eight to ten hours a day for a very long time.
And that sweeps into your soul.
“And so you have to know how to care for yourself.”
And one of the biggest reasons why I made the shift from the nonprofit industry into private practice wasn't for the money. It was because I wanted a healthier life for myself, and I wanted my kids to have a present parent. Yeah.
I wanted my nervous system to heal, and I wanted to give myself an opportunity to be able to do that. So before when you were, when you didn't have your own private clinic, right? Yeah. Was it ten patients a day, five days a week, and it's okay, it's time and you've got to
get out next and then. So it depends. It depends on what setting you're working in, right? So right out of grad school, I was the director of a community month, a health, it was a behavioral unit, it is called community based acute treatment, diversion to an inpatient
unit. And it was a program that, you know, took care of children as young as four and as old as 18, the kiddos were admitted there overnight. They were with us between, you know, four to seven days.
As a director, I was responsible for managing the entire facility, including ...
So if my staff called out and we were at a ratio, I need to go in.
“If the clinician called out and there was no clinical support, I needed to go in.”
If the census was down and we needed more referrals, I needed to do that. And that's not a 40 hour job. It's not even a 60 hour job. Yeah. That's a 70 to 80 hour job, right?
So when I had my kids, I made a very deliberate intentional decision that I was not going to do that because I couldn't be everything that the industry needed to be. And then also the type of parent that I knew my kids needed and deserved frankly.
And that type of life that I want to live, right?
So when I pivot into group practice, well, I pivoted into private practice. I had, so when I was six months pregnant with my daughter, which was, she's seven now, I was working full time and I started building my, my, my, my practice. So I have been doing both jobs for a very long time. And so when I transitioned solely to my private practice,
I had already had almost three years of opportunity to build. Yeah.
“So you must deal with a lot of kind of heavy situations where, you know,”
the client has just experienced maybe some trauma or some difficult situations, right? How do you, how do you kind of go home after that after a whole day of talking with them and heaviness of a caring for them, right? When you're exhausted and you want to go home and have someone care of you, but you have to go into a different kind of caring hat.
You know, that is a really important question to ask because it is one of the fundamental reasons why I created a group practice rather than staying as a sole proprietor because I knew that what my clients needed at that point in my life. I couldn't produce because if I wanted to be the type of parent that I knew my kids needed, I didn't have enough internal resources, right?
So I needed to cut down my case load, but we were growing very rapidly. And I wanted to give clients opportunities to have the best care that they needed. So I had to take it on as look at how is I showing up to work, how is I showing up at home as a wife, how is I showing up as a parent? And I challenged myself to say, I know what good quality care looks like, and I need my clients
to have that. And I also need a life where there is sufficient balance so that I am not depleted. And so to answer your question, there wasn't a miraculous sort of experience that I had, that said, like, I'm a superhuman, right? For a long time, I felt like I was a superhuman because I needed to be. And when I had the privilege to say, I no longer wanted to be that, because that is a privilege, right? For some people, there's no choice.
They have to do that degree of work all the time. And it is exhausting. And it's at the sacrifice of us, right? It is at the sacrifice of us, it's at the sacrifice of our families. And so for me, what my group practice represents is an extension of the work that not only my, our clients deserve, but the piece that I want to give to my staff, so that they know that when they are independently licensed or when they decide to transition to whatever stage of their
life, that they have autonomy, they have agency, they have a choice, and they know what the feeling valued looks like, because I don't expect them to sacrifice their health at the expense of the work, because it just doesn't make any sense to me. It seems like mental health is a lot in kind of just like the chatter online, right? And it's almost gotten more popular to seek
“mental health practitioners to set up, to seek health. Honestly, before it was almost seen as”
something only rich people can do to see to see a psychologist. Or, or if you were really sick,
right? And then you needed to go to the hospital. So, you know, I always--
It's the East, one flu, West, one flu, over the cook who's next, right? Right. And, you know, when you're that ill, it's a very different type of work, right? Yes. Inpatient is different. And, and look, nobody's no, nobody's absolved of any experiences when it comes to their mental health, right? I have known incredible successful people who have operated at such high capacity that their nervous system collapsed, and they were depressed, and they struggled to get out of bed, and they
needed to seek support, right? And, kudos to them for knowing that they need of the help, whether it's inpatient, whether it's outpatient, three times a week, or or partial program, right? We have access, we have opportunities. I think the shift-- I think COVID sort of normalized this experience of needing some support, because we're all isolated, right? During COVID, like, our industry literally just like exploded, and what's fascinating is that it exploded because
Practitioners also needed support in knowing how to balance life and give to ...
for a long time, I've also prioritized medical practitioners, so that because they're the ones
that are giving help to everybody else, and yet they're the last ones to receive the help. Yeah. Now, being a mom for noor, right? But a mom for noor who's, you know, a mental health expert of learning. Do your cycle analyze your kids all the time, be it like, oh my god, if I'm this kind of mother, because a lot of times people think, how was your child? So now you're raising kids, and you're saying, oh my god, how is their childhood, right? Well, this is mean not giving
them their treats right now. Going to affect them 30 years in the future, and they're going to be on the couch because, you know, I didn't bring them to Disneyland or I have to say I have these conversations with my husband for frequently. Okay. I, you know, my Instagram is, is all about mothering and parenting and figuring out how to balance the two. Yeah. And my daughter, my seven-year-old,
“keeps me very honest, and she reminds me why psychological safety is so important. And, you know,”
sometimes I'll say to her, like, honey, you seem to be struggling and she's like, right mama, you're the doctor, you're the feeling's doctor. So help me, and, and she's right, but if I'm activated, if I'm overwhelmed, if I've asked her five times to do something, and she's not doing it,
I have to help myself first, right? So living a life that is, is, is authentic and honest,
is hard. It is hard. And, and when my clients come to me and they say, "Oh, no, like, what do I do here?" Sometimes I say, "You're doing everything that you can." And there's, look, there's millions of ways of raising children, right? We were raised differently than our generations being raised. Well, our children's generation, right? And, and we came out fine, but, you know, 14 years of therapy, certainly heal that. Yeah. And, and I know that I am doing the best that I can for the resources we
have, and I know that I am giving both of my kids, and then the husband is giving both of our kids more than what we had, right? So, if they choose or if they experience life obstacles, then I have to trust that we've raised them well enough to be able to figure it out. And if they can't, then we will support them through it. Yeah, because in the end, they've got to make the choices themselves. They've got to learn for themselves. And all you can do, I guess, is get them the tools
“to, I guess, face those problems and adversities the best they can to make the right choices, right?”
My daughter will say to me, "Mom, make it and I have McDonald's for lunch," and I'll say, "Honey, like, we're, you're already had it yesterday. Like, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna go get McDonald's again." She's like, "Mom, this isn't good parenting." Oh, you're new. You're not making me very happy right now. You're making me really angry. And I, and I, and I say to her, "My Kayla, I love you. My job is to not make you happy. My job is to keep you safe." And eating McDonald's every day is not the safest for you.
Yeah. So, you can be angry at me. That's okay. Thank you for telling me that you're angry. But that's not gonna get me to buy you McDonald's again today. Yeah. It may in a couple of days, but right now we're not having McDonald's. Or she'll remind me, "Mom, that's not very good parenting because, you know, you just yelled." I said, "You're right, baby. I did yell. Why did I yell?" Well, I wasn't listening.
Well, what could I have done differently? Well, maybe not yell? Yes. Yes. She's a very intuitive. She's a very astute young girl. You're looking at your kid being like, "Oh, you're going to doctor feel me like that." How much you're going to come back to me and do me like that? Yeah. I am going to hope that she has discretion and that she's able to use her voice and
her passion and her creativity and the intuitive that she has to help shape whatever future she wants. Yeah. And that my four-year-old is going to know how much he's loved and that, you know, when I travel, that I have not left him, but I am building a life that, you know, I want him to
“remember and be proud of her, you know. Of course. That's what we all want, right?”
It's been been a good parenting. Yeah. They're both incredible kids who are incredibly intuitive.
And in order for me to be able to stay healthy and be present for them, yeah. I have to make hard choices. And those choices sometimes is to work long hours or sometimes to say, "I'm done. I'm not, I'm taking the weekend off." So I ask everyone, "What do you most excited about?" It can be personally, but let's talk about kind of work and maybe your feel also, like, almost like, what are the things in your feel that
are kind of leading edge and pushing things? So I am really excited about the movement towards engaging beyond the chair. Like, for me, in my stage of my career, the entrepreneurship of
The consulting, the educating, the inspiring, the motivating, like, the, the,...
And, and being a visionary means that I take risks. And in the ways that sometimes do not
“often land well with other people. You know? And my husband and I are an incredible team.”
He brings a perspective that I have access through him, but I do not have lived experience. In that way, so what I'm excited about is really marrying the opportunity to be able to show people that difference is an opportunity for growth, that it's not a barrier that when you are invested, when you're in committed, when you know, when you know yourself, and you know what you
“want, there's ways to do that. And then my now be the traditional route. And he and I are”
non-traditional learners. And we're also non-conventional builders of careers. Yeah, he's school hard knocks.
I end at the truth. My mother always said to me, and I wish that you would just learn through
other people's mistakes instead of your own. And I'm an experiential learner. I don't want to be told.
“I want to experience. I want to live it. I want to understand it. And, and I know from the”
work that I've done over the last year that if I didn't have the people in my life to push me, I don't know that I would have taken those risks. But I intentionally and deliberately put people in my life that are different than me, that will not yes me, because I don't want to clone. I'm also that would just me. Yeah. I have a little one that reminds me of what it's like. So, all right. Well, thank you so much for joining. It's been a pleasure to have you in the
studios here. And it's also pleasure to have interviewed you. I get to the privilege myself to
interview amazing entrepreneurs like yourself. Thank you. And to learn about your journey from
Belarus, right? Yeah. All the way. Not knowing English. And, you know, having a speaking perfect English to having an amazing clinic. So thank you so much. Thank you, Brad. And thank you, guys for joining us also. And hope to see you guys again. And if you're into kind of mothers who are taking risks and caring for their family in a way that mothers do with an tune into her episode and tune in for more of a living legacy podcast. Thank you for joining us, guys. Cheers.
