Enjoy this week’s guest blog post by Jo Culver, owner of Diversity Counseling of Nevada, sharing a personal journey to becoming an entrepreneur!
When I was asked to write a blog on my story, I was flattered and overwhelmed at the same time. To be recognized for who I am, what I have achieved, and what I am trying to achieve is a validation for which I am truly grateful. However, now, I am like a dog who has caught a cat thinking, “Now what do I do?” So, I am going to keep it simple and answer three questions: What happened, what was it like, and what is it like now?
To begin with, I am in recovery. I have been sober/abstinent since September 8, 2007. I have known since that time that I wanted to be a substance abuse counselor. As you can imagine, my life was a complete mess and totally unmanageable. It took me two years to get into school because I had a 1.7 GPA and no school wanted to lend me money to go back. Eventually, I moved away from where I had sobered up, and the local community college of my new town had an open-door policy.
Early on, I became a workaholic. I went from not being able to get out of bed to being unsatisfied with getting a B in my associates’ program. I rushed through eight years of school in four and a half years.
All through my school years, I was fighting systems. I felt like I was paying a lot of money to be spoon fed ideas that I did not necessarily agree with. When I would use evidence to counter “the theory of the day,” I would get harsh reactions from my professors and peers about not being flexible. While they saw inflexibility, I saw sophists with no backbone and no real way to defend their “evidenced based practices.” Please understand, I would not change a thing about how or where I went to school except for maybe my reactions, but not my truths about how the disease of addiction should be treated. I did learn a lot from my post graduate program.
My first real experience with being a counselor was during my third rotation of internship during my post graduate program. My clinical supervisor was fired my first week and I was then handed a caseload of 15! The agency had just installed new software for the Electronic Record Keeping and they didn’t even understand it. I learned the hard way about what works with clients and what does not because, really, I was on my own.
After I graduated, I worked for other agencies over the course of five years, one of which I had worked for two years, only to be passed up to be the Executive Director. Like many entrepreneurs, I have “authority issues.” Part of me has always wanted to be the boss, because I know what works for alcoholics and addicts who are suffering from the disease of addiction, and in many cases that goes against agency policies. So, I decided to move to Nevada where I could open my private practice, but I felt that I needed to get a job first. I went through many, many agencies that were not a good fit for me. At the last job I had, I was grumbling to my friends in sobriety and my therapist, and what they universally said was, “You need to go into private practice.” I have held the idea in my head since I have sobered up. If one person I trust says it, it is an opinion, but if three or more are saying it then I need to listen to their suggestions.
Starting a substance abuse private practice has been time consuming and expensive. While I do not have any clients yet, I know if I keep putting in the hard work, I will get some soon! I could have cut corners, but that would have cost me more money in the long run. I am doing what most of my peers are not by going into business for myself. Most of my professional peers are independent contractors who move from place to place. I know they say “never say never,” but I do not ever want anyone making money off my license again (except me)!
What makes me unique in Nevada is that I am bigender, gender non-conforming. I got fired from one of my jobs for coming out at work. This is another reason I do not want to depend on a paycheck from another agency. I also want to be there for others who are like me. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, LGBTQ+ suffered higher rates of addiction than the general population and within that group, transgender/gender non-conforming suffer at even higher rates. While I will not turn anyone away, these are the people I want to focus on.
I am not going to give advice, however I will say that if I could change anything, I would have been less impulsive about starting before finishing my business plan, but there is no perfect time to start a business! I also wish I had more financial backing, but once again, I could have waited forever before getting a bank loan or finding someone to go into business with me.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Joe Joanne Culver (pronouns are He/Him/His/ She/Her/Hers) is a native of Texas and graduated from Austin Community College in Austin, Texas (2011) Park University (Austin Campus 2012) Hazelden Graduate School of Addiction Studies, Center City, Minnesota (Now Hazelden Betty Ford Graduate School of Addiction Studies) . Jo is single and has a passion for baseball and shoes. Jo is the owner of Diversity Counseling of Nevada. You can reach Jo at jculver@diversitycounselingofnevada.info or 702-221-1938