IAM288- Psychotherapist, Writer and Entrepreneur Specializes in Anxiety and Stress Management

Angela Ficken is a psychotherapist and entrepreneur in Boston MA. Her psychotherapy practice and brand is ProgressWellness.com. She had worked previously at McLean Hospital and Harvard University before starting her full-time private practice.

As a therapist, she specializes in OCD, eating disorders, and anxiety-related concerns. Angela also has a blog and has written for the HuffingtonPost.com, ThriveGlobal.com, Yourtango.com, marriage.com, and Today.com Parenting.

Her expertise has been featured in Bustle.com, Buzzfeed.com, PopSugar.com, Yahoo! News, Nylon, among many other outlets.

• CEO Hack: Online schedule for everything
• CEO Nugget: With every problem there's an opportunity for growth
• CEO Defined: Limitless sense of freedom

Website: http://www.progresswellness.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/progresswellness/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/progresswellness/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Progresswellness

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of.

This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:30

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresham from the I AM CEO Podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I've Angela Ficken of ProgressWellness.com.

Angela, awesome to have you on the show.

Angela Ficken 0:40

Thank you so much for having me.

Gresham Harkless 0:41

No problem. Super excited to have you on and what I want to do is just read a little bit more about Angela so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. And Angela is a psychotherapist and entrepreneur in Boston, Massachusetts. Her psychotherapy practice and brand are ProgressWellness.com. She had worked previously at McLean Hospital and Harvard University before starting her full-time private practice. As a therapist, she specializes in OCD, eating disorders, and anxiety-related concerns.

Angela also has a blog and has written for HuffingtonPost.com, ThriveGlobal.com, Yourtango.com, marriage.com, and Today.com Parenting. Her expertise has been featured in Bustle.com, Buzzfeed.com, PopSugar.com, Yahoo! News, and Nylon, among many other outlets. Angela, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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Angela Ficken 1:30

I sure am and that was an awesome introduction. Thank you so much.

Gresham Harkless 1:34

I know you're rocking and rolling. So glad we get to take some time with you to learn a little bit more about all the awesome things that you're doing. So I wanted to kick everything off by just hearing about what I call your CEO story. What led you to start your business?

Angela Ficken 1:45

Yeah, so I you know, you kind of mentioned that when I was working full time at McLean and Harvard, I had a small-time private practice on the side. And private practice was something that I kind of always wanted to do and wasn't quite sure how to get there. So working full-time, and having that on side was helpful.

And as I got to Harvard, I was really my career was building my private practice was building and all of a sudden, I realized I was kind of burning the candle on both ends, I was working full time and pretty much having a full-time practice on the side so to speak, I was working evenings and it kind of overflow to the weekend, which left a little time for self-care and family and friends.

So that was when I made the decision with the help of my husband who said You know, you need to pull over here. We never see you, you need to pick one. So I thought okay, now is the time to really make the leap into something that I've always wanted. And that was six years ago, and I never looked back.

Gresham Harkless 2:44

Awesome, congratulations. Well, I always love how you know, something starts out as like a side business or a side hustle or however people phrase it but you know that you know you're providing a good need. Because as you as it sounds like it started to grow and grow and grow and became like your side business, which you're also your full-time business on top of the full-time job yet as well.

Angela Ficken 3:02

Yeah, yeah. And I think just knowing that I couldn't do both. And I really had to pick one. And I think just taking that leap of faith, which I think your community can really all can relate to. It's like you have an idea. Is that worth the risk? And then you eventually just kind of have to go for it and sink or swim, we find a way to swim.

Gresham Harkless 3:23

Yeah, absolutely. Yes. Sink or swim. Exactly. That's a perfect way to say it. And I wanted to hear a little bit more about your practice and the brand that you're building. And can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Angela Ficken 3:32

Sure. So I specialize in anxiety disorders and also stress management. So a lot of times people will come to me really having anxiety problems or stress management, whether it's in, at work, or at home. And together, we work on skills and strategies to try to make them feel better, faster, and more efficient. So we might not be able to change what is on someone's plate.

Sometimes we can. But usually, it's like what's on our plate is on our plate, we can't move that. But what we can do together is really work on strategies to look at your plate and feel like okay, I can manage it differently to the point where what what stressed me out or made me anxious no longer does. So I focus on a lot of stress and anxiety management skills to try to help people feel better faster.

And then on top of that, as you've mentioned, in the introduction, I do a lot of writing. And through my private practice and my writing, I was hearing back from people that what I was teaching and sharing in my writing was very helpful.

So I thought okay, if this is all good stuff if what I'm sharing and teaching people is working, why don't I write a course on stress management, which is essentially my mini dissertation of if people are interested in learning how to manage things differently and more effectively. You can sign on to my course which I titled it breaking every day into sliver It's not chunked, practical skills to manage everyday stressors. And through that, you can learn as A to Z, how to manage stress and anxiety. So that's kind of, in a nutshell, all that I do.

Gresham Harkless 5:12

Nice. I absolutely love that just because I know we talked a little bit offline about how you know, evidence and how that always pops up for, you know, entrepreneurs and business owners in our audience as well, just because you're always, you know, trying to take on more sometimes when you are shrewd, or super ambitious, you bite off more than you can chew.

So I love the name of the course for one and definitely just breaking it down step by step by step on how you can kind of not necessarily take things off your plate, because that's not always the option, but be able to kind of manage it and be able to affect or understand how you can look at things in a different way.

Angela Ficken 5:44

Yeah, absolutely. It's just, I tend to think about what, I often say, like breaking things down into slivers, not chunks, which is part of the reason why I wanted to name the course that is that when we feel overwhelmed, we see the big picture.

And sometimes it's not just about the big picture, it's about the small steps to get to that. And if we can break it down, everything becomes more manageable, everything becomes more clear. And I also tried to practice that. I'm not perfect either. Sometimes I get stuck in the big picture. But breaking it down can be incredibly helpful.

Gresham Harkless 6:16

Yeah, absolutely. I definitely agree with that. I always say the quickest was the question, what's the quickest way to eat an elephant? It's one bite at a time. So I love that it's kind of the same fear.

Angela Ficken 6:26

Yes.

Gresham Harkless 6:27

Nice. Nice, nice. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. And you might have already touched on this, but this is what you feel kind of distinguishes you or your organization.

Angela Ficken 6:36

You know, I think for me, it is having really good people like who were your troops. I have people in my life, both professionally and personally, who are incredibly supportive of my back, but not to the point where they're gonna just they yes, me to death, but challenge me in a way of, if I have a creative idea, they helped me think outside the box, which is what I love, they challenge me and, again, are supportive.

So through my endeavor and this adventure, I don't know, kind of what the next step will be. I guess part of my secret sauce has many ingredients. And one of that is kind of having good people that are there to help me brainstorm and also be supportive. And on top of that kind of being interested in the skills and strategies that kind of help people feel like they can be empowered and challenged and have control over challenging emotions. I think that also sets me apart is it's not so much doing all about the exploratory work.

When people think about therapy, it's Oh, tell me more about that. And how does that make you feel? That is incredibly important. I do some of that work. But it's also okay, what, what can we do to get you doing action skills to feel better now? So I think those two things are kind of part of my secret sauce. It's the behind-the-scenes troops. And then kind of the upfront, like, what, how can I help you get some armor on? So you can really feel empowered when you go into hard stuff?

Gresham Harkless 8:26

Yeah, absolutely. I think that I love that, you know, example. And you your secret sauce is because like you've mentioned, a lot of times, you know, you want to make sure that you have I don't want to call it a theory, but that's what comes into my head. But you want to make sure that you're also able to execute on something and have something practical that you can, you know, execute today or do today that can also help you out so that you can get you to know, towards, you know, get taking those small slivers and getting to that big chunk that you want to get to.

Angela Ficken 8:53

Yeah, absolutely.

Gresham Harkless 8:54

Nice, nice, nice. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And you might have already touched on this. Or you might have given us a little bit of a teaser for it. But this is something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Angela Ficken 9:09

Yeah, so I think, for me, the thing, the one thing that I use constantly, that helps me be more efficient for myself is a schedule. And I have an online schedule. I write everything down on that schedule, so I can see it. And that means whether I'm seeing friends who I'm calling when I'm going to write my blog, who am I seeing that day when I'm gonna go to the gym like everything is on my calendar.

And that just helps me stay mindful of what my day is going to be like. And then also allows me to move things around as I need to. So if tomorrow I'm going to write my blog, but then I realized something came up I realized like, Oh, I could just move it to Thursday and I have a chunk to do it there.

So it's easy to move those pieces around and also see the things that are set cuz don't like seeing people doing some family time for me being a one-person show. And I schedule everything. My calendar is my lifeline and having it online has been incredibly helpful. So that's the one hack that's been super great for me in my business.

Gresham Harkless 10:23

Yeah, I love that hack, hack, I swear by my schedule as well, because mainly because I have such a bad memory, you try to hold on to too many things and things that just fall off. So I just say, you know, put it on my calendar, but I love you know how you kind of touched on to the way you can, you know, you're looking at it from a day-to-day standpoint, but you know, something pops up and you have to push it someplace else. You can say kind of like a grandeur or step back view of the calendar and understand you can put that into whatever pocket it needs to go to.

Angela Ficken 10:51

Yeah, yeah. And it's kind of, again, it kind of piggybacks on the slivers, not chunks, it's like, okay, you can look at the whole week as a whole. And you can also break it down into just like, like, hour-by-hour week, or date today. And that just helps it feel much more contained. So that's been my lifeline.

Gresham Harkless 11:10

Absolutely. I love that lifeline. And that CEO hack. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice. Or if you can happen to be a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Angela Ficken 11:21

Oh, boy, my youngest business self. So I think I would say, you know, with every problem, there's an opportunity for growth. And my dad used to say that to me, as you know when I was a teenager, and I just would get so angry. I'd be like, No, you don't understand is a problem, a problem. But as I moved through my life and had experiences, but then also now kind of, you know, pave my own way.

It's true. Like with every problem, there is an opportunity for growth. So with every issue, or every, like sale, or whatever, it's like, okay, how do I want to look at this, so I can have some idea and creative sense of changing the outcome? How do I want to grow through this, rather than feeling stuck?

And I think that's been incredibly helpful for me, and the many adventures and kind of creative times I've had in my practice have been because of problems. So when I faced one, I try my best to remember that kind of phrase that my dad said years ago. With every problem, there's an opportunity for growth. So that's one thing I would definitely pass on if I only knew that then. But then I wouldn't be here. Now, who knows where I would be? So that's my bit of wisdom.

Gresham Harkless 12:51

Yeah, I love that bit. It was, um, and it's funny, a lot of times, you can only get those things when you, you know, you go through life and things happen, and then you understand it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Or if it hadn't happened, then you may not have, you know, taken the steps that you've taken, so you kind of get a better perspective of it. But I love that reminder. Because a lot of times, just like you said, related to stress. It's all in how you look at it, how you approach it. So if you look at it in a different light, then all of a sudden becomes an opportunity, as you said, not just a challenge.

Angela Ficken 13:21

Yeah, exactly.

Gresham Harkless 13:22

Nice, nice, nice. So now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different, quote-unquote, CEOs on the show. So Angela, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Angela Ficken 13:34

I think for me, it is a sense of empowerment, where I have control over what my next move is, it allows me to be creative. And in a field where I can, I never know what's coming next. And that can be it's certainly as stressful and anxiety is anxiety-inducing, and the anxiety expert will certainly throw herself under that bus. But it's all what you do with it. I think being a CEO and having my own business allows me a real sense of freedom that I can do whatever I want. And that's limitless. So that's what it means for me.

Gresham Harkless 14:20

Awesome. I love that perspective in that definition. Because a lot of times you can kind of chart the path however you want it to be charted. And a lot of times you know, it does, like you said, we kind of talked about, you know, the different perspective, it can be stressful, but at the same time, there's a lot of opportunity, because you can pretty much always say paint a picture of whatever you want is related to your business and life.

Angela Ficken 14:40

Yeah, absolutely.

Gresham Harkless 14:42

Nice, nice, nice. So, Angela, I truly appreciate your time. What I wanted to do was pass you the mic so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and our listeners know and then of course, how best they can get a whole view and find out about the course and all the awesome things you're doing.

Angela Ficken 14:55

Sure. Thanks so much. So I think the last bit that I would share that I found incredibly helpful with my practice and my business is to kind of piggyback on that statement my, my dad taught me years ago, is that this mantra I've had for several years now is if it makes me anxious, I'm going to do it anyway. And I've had a lot of opportunities in my life, if leaning into that anxiety, anxiety might say, Are you sure you want to do that?

Maybe you, you're not the one for this? And I think no, I'm just going to do it anyway. And each time it has, I'm not necessarily saying everything's been perfect, but it has led me to different avenues I never thought I even wanted or could ever get to, or were even on my radar. So I think I throw that out there too, just like if it makes you anxious to think about the risk and how worth it is.

And you know, the time is now so I will I guess we'll end with that. And for people who are interested in contacting me or reaching out to me or learning a little bit more about me and my practice, you can check out my website at progresswellness.com

Gresham Harkless 16:10

Awesome, awesome, awesome. We'll make sure to have that link in the show notes as well. But again, I appreciate you Angela, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Angela Ficken 16:16

Thank you so much Gresham, I appreciate your time.

Outro 16:19

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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