How a Trauma-Informed Therapist Built a Purpose-Driven Wellness Business

Oh, no, I want to see people get better and healed and grow and break down generational cycles.

And so that's one thing that separates us. We do like a thorough hiring process where we make it sure that these are really genuinely good people who want to help. Alicia Williams is a trauma-informed therapist, visionary entrepreneur, and transformational leader who serves as the founder and CEO of ACE Wellness Center,

a behavioral health organization dedicated to supporting children, youth, and families across Ohio. There's one message that you could give to anybody out there that might be watching it, what would that message be?

“I think it's that you can do this, focus on ourselves.”

Let's do some introspection, let's figure out that if we're well, it's exactly that. Three group, let's worry about ourselves and then let's bridge back out and see, well, what can we offer to the world? Because all of us can offer something, but what?

The living your legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy. Welcome back to another episode of the living your legacy podcast. I'm your host, today Jason Tyler, and I am joined by Miss Nilesha Chanel. Correct. Correct. Correct. Now, we're on the other side of filming your episode of Women in Power,

First of all, how do you feel? I feel amazing. I'm very excited. Thanks for having me. You didn't have any of those like pre-filming jitters. You weren't nervous or anything going into it? No.

I really wasn't. I think I'm always just like, we're on vacation.

So it's hard for me not to be late back, especially in my house. Yes, I'm from Ohio, so being here just makes you loose. We just was in here for average just trying not to be late. Have you been to the beach yet? Yes, we have.

“As you should, luckily you weren't here last week,”

because last week is when we got our one week of cold for the entire year. Yeah, it went down to like the 40s. I would not have been happy if we were here. It's 40s back home, so. Oh, no, I'm from Jamaica. I'm from Jamaica. I don't do the cold.

So you run a wellness center, correct? Yeah. Talk to me a little bit about. First of all, what got you into the wellness space? I'm sure, this is unanimous among a lot of the business owners

that we interview here at Inside Success.

But a lot of people are obsessed with their wellness, whether that be mental wellness, physical wellness. Talk to me about how you got into the space. So the funny part about it is like, since I was like, okay, it's been super natural for people to just talk to me.

Like, I was like 12 years old and my parents, friends, were literally telling me about their marriage. So it's something not the gossip. No, they were at, like, it's literally. And my parents were like, you guys, she's like 12,

but I'm literally intently listening to them and giving them my marriage. They're like, you know, tell me more. Okay, and what did you say? Oh, maybe you should have said that.

So I think about it, it's super natural for me. Like, I love this feel when I got into it, it doesn't even feel like work. I love people. I love hearing about people.

I'm very like solution oriented by nature. So it's almost just like something that is very enjoyable for me. Like, some people get overwhelmed by hearing too many negative stories, but for me, it's really like good. Like, let's probably apologize.

I used to date a therapist once upon a time. She would bring home all of that energy and talk to you all night. And then just dump it back onto me and I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'll ask was what was for dinner.

“Oh, yeah, so did you have to because like, of course.”

Oh, absolutely. Also my dad's a psychologist. So my dad's a sports psychologist. So he's the representative for Jamaica. So he's our Olympic sports psychologist.

So cool. He was you say in both sports psychologists, Shelley and Fraser. And now his current athlete is oblique civil, the current 100 meter world champion. So I've been dealing with psychology.

My entire, I'm somewhat of a psychology. I was about to say that. I was like, you probably got pretty good advice for people. Yeah. Yeah, but it's like, sometimes it's hard to turn it off in a relationship.

So do you find yourself like, Oh, I'm telling, I have to turn it off, I have to turn it off. I have to set like clear boundaries of like, hey, if a conversation is too emotionally charged, we both need to take five.

Yes. We both need to take five. And it's the same way I take five on set. Like if, you know, if I'm on a film set, and I can see that my crew is bothered and like everybody's sort of in a fit.

We're all just going to recollect somebody.

Go get her a snack and then we'll be back to school and do it. My dad has been asking me to get a master's in psychology for a few long years time. I think you're missing your calling because even in podcasts, there's a lot of psychology behind podcasts. Like you have to know the right questions to ask.

You need to like, feel where it should move. And like, it's right in your department.

“So that's what I think makes me good at what I do as like,”

I specialize as a documentary filmmaker. I do a lot of documentary interviews. And a lot of times like what, what COVID was doing with you here for your women in power episode. When I do that, like, I take the script that they provide us. And like, that's like the bones of the conversation.

But I have a tendency to just add in my own, like, I'll add live in my own questions. But that's enough about me. And I was like, starting to, you're so cute. You see, you see, you're doing the thing. And the worst part is we'll both do it.

So it's been going back and forth.

This is, we should have, this should have never been.

You should, we should have got Ray in here to do the podcast today. So you have a focus on mental wellness. Yes. Got you. So tell me a little bit about first of all, just, you know,

it's not just that you are gifted in what you're doing, but you're also a business owner. Like, what are some of the ups and downs that you're dealing with in, you know, running and operating this business? Yeah. So it's primarily staff.

So, you know, everybody's human in life happens and trying to make sure your staff is always well can be really difficult. And making sure that they're carrying out every role responsibility to his entirety. So that's actually more stressful for me than even like the kids. Because if you're in this field, as you know, even like as yourself and your dad,

you care about people, not just like your clients, but your staff too. And so sometimes I carry the weight of them not doing well. Or, you know, like, oh, you can be doing better or oh, pay attention here. Oh, you know, and so it's too full when your business owner and you're really hands on because I'm very hands on.

And so it's making sure that you are taking care of the staff just like you are the clients. And it can be very difficult. And so I preach self care, right? Because you can't take care of kids and other things. And even your household, if you're not taking care of yourself.

And so that's one of the biggest challenges is making sure that everybody's doing the self care because have lost good people just because they weren't taking care of themselves. And I'm like, and that's the issue in relationships. Yes. So if you can, if you're not loving yourself, then nobody else is going to be able to come in

“and love you the way that you need to be loved, right?”

If you can't define what that looks like within yourself, then it's how, how can you expect another person to come in and do before you? Humans, humans, toxic trait is sometimes they think self love is selfish. Or like taking too much time for yourself is like in some way negative. Like, oh, my being selfish.

And it's like, no, no, you're not. It's because in our society, we have this preconceived notion that a lot of people, when they take time for themselves, I just need rest, right? Like, I just need to, and we've coined all these funny terms around like bed rotting and, you know, spending a Sunday in bed.

If you, it's, yeah, we call it lazy because we live in a society that's hyper-focused on productivity, right? And if I'm not being productive, I'm of no value to society. So what am I really doing? But like, if you're not being a value, you can stop being a value to society and be a value to you.

And that's perfectly fine. And that's the key, because that's where people go wrong and I see it so much. And then they feel bad for like wanting more for themselves or taking care of themselves. And it's like, no, you kind of have to do that.

It's a toxic trait to think that it's wrong to like put you first.

No, put you first. But then when you put you first and you're going to leave room for other people. And that's like the key, you've got to put yourself first. And then watch this. Now you show up better for everybody else, you forget that.

You do.

“And that's why even partially when I was in there doing the other part, I was saying that”

that's where people go wrong. They forget to take care of themselves first. You literally got to do it or you can't help other people. So all right, stick up in there because I have a feeling that we could go on the topic for about an hour. I want to just talk a little bit about like your brand, your business, and what are like the

separating factors for your clients? Like what separates you from anybody else in the wellness space? Right. And so what I would say is what separates like ACE Wellness Center from others is the way that we care for our clients and how we try to meet their needs and how we wrap around them.

We meet practical needs, meaning like let's say I got a client and I do my assessment with the

You got this really stressed out parent who may be emotionally abusive to this client that I need.

And so we have to help them. They grow out how to stabilize their bills and how to make sure they're eaten well. And then we can get to like the therapy part of family therapy part. So we just wrap around them in such a way that is very caring. Like I was telling Colby we don't even hire people if they don't like what they do.

You know you can easily lean out somebody who's here for a job versus someone who's like oh no I really want to help people. Oh no I want to see people get better and healed and grow and break down generational cycles. And so that's one thing that separates us. We do like a thorough, higher in process where we make sure that these are really genuinely good

people who want to help and care about people because I've seen it myself like people can work a job and not care they just can't pay you know however to kids turn out is on them in the parent and it's like no that's not cool. That's not what we're looking for. No, that's not what we're looking for.

That's what we're looking for. And it's super important like this goes to any business. I don't care what niche you're in. I don't care what industry you're in. If you care about your customer you will do well.

Like it's like that's to me is the highest law of business. Is if I care about the result that the person is coming to me to spend money that they worked really hard for, I need to take absolute care of the person and I need to like and you know going back to what mean you're like we care about people deeply so it's like I want to make sure that this thing that I'm offering this thing that I'm putting out there into the world is actually

able to do what I set out to do like if I tell a client hey coming to my business and you'll achieve ex-result and they don't yeah I broke my promise. Exactly. You deserve every dollar back because I didn't give you what you paid for.

“So like I think that's just that just goes to show like any business that you have out there any”

industry or in any company that you're running, any offer that you're putting out that should be your main focus. Can I do the thing that I say that I was that I'm going to do?

Yeah. I want to take a second here to just talk about you.

Okay. So first of all, tell me where you from. I and while I was born in Long Beach California we're doing this super backwards. By the way, I should have done that way at the beginning. It's okay. I know you guys can chop this up. Oh, I was born in Long Beach California and I currently reside in Ohio. Yeah, it's like, yeah. So when did you where was the moment where you said you know what?

I care so deeply about people I'm going to go and study this and this is going to be my career path. Like when did you make that decision? Probably high school like maybe like sophomore like when I was about 15. I knew that this was a niche for me, but like I was going to do pediatrician but in career day, the previous tradition who came for career day discouraged me. It's like, oh, you kind of go to school for 12 years. You don't want to do it. I know. And I was like,

“oh, yeah, 12 years sounds crazy. So then I was like, well, how about child psychology?”

Because I, I even at that age was like, oh, it's going to start when they're young. Let me see how I can help kids when they're young, do like, overcome. So when they're adult, then I haven't all these issues because adults are still. You can change, right? But you're a little more stuck in ways that kids aren't. They're very malleable when they're kids. So probably about 15 is when I was like, oh, this is what I want to do. I want to

help see changes in kids. And that's a great thing that you're getting in getting those, uh, you know, getting the mental aspect in early for kids because you're creating habits that are going to live with them for a long period of time and only get better with time, right? Like I wish when I was like 12, 13, 14 years old. Well, no, my dad was psychoanalyzing me at that age, but I wish that I had started working on some of the habits that I built into my daily life.

Now, like, going to the gym, making sure I'm eating, right? Yeah. And at the time, it's like, I don't give a damn. I'm an eat McDonald's. Yep. And I can't go to gym. I'm going to go outside to play. I can't believe I used to eat McDonald's. The thought that I used to eat McDonald's is crazy to me and feed it to my kids. I'll be honest here. I still eat sometimes. Sometimes. Sometimes. Oh, do you eat McDonald's? Yeah. By the way, for those of you that are listening, we do have an

extra guest with us in the studio. Um, so. Um, Mike. She's on Mike. So if you see that and you're like, who is she talking to? She's, she's, she's right off camera. Um, so now that we're on the other side of your women and power interview, what do you think the people out there that are watching your episode are going to learn about you specifically? What people will learn about me? Um, I don't know if it came through, but I'm funny. If it doesn't come out in the episode, it's going to come out

“in this podcast. I was like, I want you guys to know what I'm funny. That's, that's the most important”

to me. And then second is that I, I love business. Like, I, it's just something that is super natural

to me. It's very fun. It's like, I love the plan. Come up with a vision and just like take steps to like learn it. Um, so that's something else. And then then I just care about people. Like I care

believe in picking sides. Like, I believe in making solutions for any problem, but without like picking

sides. People always want you to pick a side because I pick a side because I know I'm not how

about let's just solve whatever. That's actually the solutions often in the middle. Thank you.

“Often it's right. I think it's so fun that like you're at that you're in the, you're what I like to”

call in the pocket as a business owner. You're right at the intersection of two passions for yourself. Yeah. And so you're going to be able to go infinitely harder, infinitely further than the average person that starts a business just to make a quick buck because you care. Thank you. Thank you. Care about what it is that you're doing. So for anybody that's out there watching at this point, take note of the fact that if you are at the intersection of two things that you love to do,

I guarantee you will see some modicum of success. You may, you might not be a billionaire, you might not be Elon Musk, but you will see success in that you will feel good in your day-to-day

interaction. I agree. And I always say like when, because I talk to people around me about business,

I will, I'm going to write another book. I wrote one book, but it's more about emotions and stuff, but my second book too will probably be about business. And like number one about a business is make sure you know how to do it. Because I see, listen, I know that sounds really simple, but I see so many people who like start a business about something that they're not knowledgeable about.

“It's just like, oh, I think this is a good thing, but if I have a proximate knowledge,”

this is the thing. So it's like, do something that you're knowledgeable about that you will enjoy. You'll make a lot of money. Because that's where I see most success from. But when you start a business and you're like, I'm just doing it for the money. No, it probably won't go too well. You're going to probably give up. You're going to fizzle out. Yeah. That I've seen that happen time and time again, where it's like you start off with all this enthusiasm. Yeah, I'm going to start a business.

First couple of months, you make a little bit of money. Like, yeah, I'm going to just keep doing. And then when it gets really hard, because it's going to get hard. Because it's going to get how you're going to have chargebacks. You're going to not be able to make payroll for a month. There's so many different variables to have in this business that when it gets hard, you're going to realize, I kind of want to salary again. Yeah. I know. And that's terrible. Don't do that.

It's happening to me. It's happening to me. Look, I'll be the first to tell you. I've started three production companies at this point. And the first one was in a niche that I wasn't really too happy with. And the second one was in another niche that I was too. It was real estate. That's a great one. I don't like real estate photography. No, but you don't love it. I'm not a real estate guy. Like, I love looking at a pretty house. Don't get me wrong. Love it to death.

But like, I'm a storyteller at heart. So like, finding my niche in documentary filmmaking and in telling people stories, that was when I found like again, that intersection. Yeah. I love listen, put a camera in my hand. I feel like Michael Jordan. Really? I'm I'm him with a camera. Okay. That's cool. But when it comes to telling stories, that was like the real at point for me. And so once I made it to that point, that was when I was like, oh, okay. This is

what I needed to be doing this whole time. I actually love to get your opinion on this. In the process of helping my dad write his second book, we have a section in there that I'm writing. And I've coined this term that me and my dad keep using called proximity of awareness. And you're the person for me to test this theory out on. But the proximity of awareness basically posits that anxiety comes from being aware of too much at once. So your proximity of awareness is spread too

wide. Think of it for example. If I'm thinking of all the problems that are out there in the world at large, plenty of opportunities for anxiety. Okay, shrink that down. Let's just think about my city. Still a lot going on. I don't like that bridge that they're building with despider legs. It irks me. Shriek it down again. Just my neighborhood. Okay, everything pretty cool. I'm really going on and it's shriek it down again. Just the these four walls. Everything that

are all of my immediate needs are within these four walls. I actually have nothing to be worried

“about. Yeah. So that proximity of your awareness, it's almost like your lungs. You need to be able”

to expand and contract it at will. And so that's like kind of a key term that me and my dad used for managing anxiety. What's your take on that? I think it's brilliant. And I think that the next step would be as you expand, you do like a little bit of body work, right? So like because you will have to work as a big part of it. Right? So but that's brilliant because it's true. Like I went through panic attacks when I was in grad school and I had to do that. So like

I, you know, it's my field, right? So I'm having panic attacks don't know. I go to emergency room

because I don't know what's going on. I never had one before. Find out his panic attacks.

And it's the same thing I had to do to get over it. So I had to shrink my world. So where I'm only taking care of me. I can do this with a client the other day and they were like, oh, I have kind of a similar thing that I do when I'm having like a tough time. I go like this. And so everything in this circle is the only thing I'm allowed to pay attention to. And I was like, you know what? That's almost exactly what I was just talking about. Yeah, it's so true, but what? Guess what?

Yeah, so I think for survival purposes, yes, shrink. But then slowly open it, but with tools now. So I think I love that idea, but couple of what tools to as you expand back because you do have to expand because you know what if you don't, it's isolating. It's unaware, right? And so

“you have to do it to survive the time, right? But then eventually expand, but with your tools now,”

because there's a lot going on, but you can handle it, right? So it's figuring out how to handle it, as you expand again. But I love that. That book will be coming soon, but that's good.

To your book now, let's talk about your first book. Yes. What is the title? Where can people find it?

The title is Emotions, but don't be moved by them. It's like, they're caught Emotions, but don't be moved by them. It's a play on words. E, little dot there in Emotions. And then saying that you're going to fill it, but don't be moved by it. So it's a very, very, very great book. I know plenty of people that could take that advice. Yeah. So I'm very proud of it. I have it start selling it yet. But I'll be selling it about a time I get back home,

which will be like, and probably by the time that this episode is released, guys.

“Yeah, so to be on my website, they'll be able to get on a website, probably Amazon,”

and a couple of little things that I'll be prone. But primarily, I'll probably be

approaching on my Instagram and want my website. While we're on the subject of that, guys, if you are still watching at this point in the episode, I want you to go ahead and make sure that you follow. All right. Yeah, it's Nailisha underscore LPCCS, which is like my license. Nailisha underscore L, P, P, S. L, P, P, S. I'll make sure that we put a nice little tagline there on on the screen. So make sure that you guys are going and following her everywhere that you

possibly can. Also, make sure that you check out her episode of Women in Power, which will be dropping shortly after this episode drops, is there anything, if there's one message that you could give to anybody out there that might be watching it, what would that message be? What would my message be? I think it's that you can do this because I think a lot of the times are so much going on right now, or it's like people are freaking out. And I want, yeah, I want

people to not be distracted by noise that you aren't even involved in, right? One thing is that be distracted because you if you're going to do something about it. But if you're not,

how about let's refocus to you? And I'm always like to what you're going to be writing about.

Let's focus on ourselves. Let's do some introspection. Let's figure out if we're well.

“It's exactly that. It's exactly that. Because sometimes we're not well, and that's why we're”

getting distracted in like losing our minds about these things that's going on. Let's take a second. Let's regroup. Let's worry about ourselves. And then let's bridge back out and see, well, what can we offer to the world? Because all of us can offer something. But what, right? It's not going to be negativity. It's not going to be discord. What can you offer? That's going to actually help. Right? So that's one thing that I think people need to figure out and learn.

Who are you? What's your purpose? And what can you offer to the world? Not just being distracted. And like, yeah. Also, if you're watching, I don't know if you can tell. But Nailisha is a expert at podcast and please plug your podcast for us here. Oh, yes. So my podcast is say it out loud, Whitney, Lisha Chanel. And one thing about it is nothing's off the table. So we talk about you, your life, religion, politics. Nothing's off the table. So if you think it, we're going to say it.

Now, normally, I don't promote other podcasts on this show. However, having sat down with Nailisha and spoken for a little bit now, I can tell that I'm going to be a viewer. And so should you. But with that guys, that is pretty much it for this episode of the Living Your Legacy podcast. Make sure that you guys go out and check out Nailisha's episode of Women in Power, which will be coming out shortly after this episode is dropping. So I'm really excited. You guys are going to

get to hear her whole story. Everything that's going on in her business. We did, I mean, we just had like a conversation. You guys get to actually go and do a deep dive into what it is that makes Nailisha tick. So make sure you guys go ahead and check that one out and we'll catch you guys in the next one. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO]