In this episode, we are honored to welcome Dr. Joy Harden Bradford as our guest as she discusses the importance of sharing tools, training, and resources for improving mental health. Dr. Joy Harden Bradford is a Licensed Psychologist, Speaker, Media Personality, and the host of the wildly popular mental health podcast, Therapy for Black Girls. Her work focuses on making mental health topics more relevant and accessible for Black women and she delights in using pop culture to illustrate psychological concepts. She is currently writing her first book, Sisterhood Heals, a tribute to and celebration of the transformative relationships between Black women. It is set to release in the summer of 2023. Dr. Joy has been featured in O, The Oprah Magazine, Bustle, Huffington Post, INSIDER, Forbes, Women’s Health, Teen Vogue, Essence, and many more.
Matt Stauffer:
Hey, and welcome to Things Worth Learning. I'm your host, Matt Stauffer. This is a show where a curious computer programmer, that's me, interviews fascinating people about their passions. My guest today is Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed psychologist, public speaker, and the host of the absolutely freaking amazing podcast that everybody gets freaking out when they know that I get to talk to you, Therapy for Black Girls.
Matt Stauffer:
Dr. Joy, thank you for being here. Could you tell the audience just a little bit about yourself and your personal and your professional life so we can get to know you a little?
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for having me, Matt. It's a pleasure to chat with you again. I am Dr. Joy Harden Bradford. I am a psychologist in Atlanta, and like you mentioned, the founder of Therapy for Black Girls. My background professionally is really in college student mental health, and so every campus that I was on, I would find myself running a group for the Black women on campus.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
So I have kind of been talking about the fact that I've been doing therapy for Black girls before it actually had the name Therapy for Black Girls. It really just is very cool that this is how I get to spend my days and how I get to support myself and my family, because I'm very passionate about mental health, especially as it relates to Black women and girls.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Personally, I am a mom and a wife. I have two sons, ages eight and five. We are, like I said, living in Atlanta. Well, outside of Atlanta. For the people who are actually familiar with this area, we're in Lilburn.
Matt Stauffer:
There's a rap song that just came out and it's literally, she's like, "Blah, blah, blah is not Atlanta, blah, blah, blah." We're like, "Okay. Right."
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Exactly. I am not Atlanta. Right.
Matt Stauffer:
For the rest of the world, it's Atlanta.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Exactly.
Matt Stauffer:
I'm in Decatur. She definitely said Decatur's not Atlanta. I'm like, "Okay. All right." Well, thank you so much for the intro. You know that the first question I always ask is, do you have any sort of life mantra or phrase or idea that you like to live your life by?
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Ooh, I feel like I have a couple. One is, do great work.
Matt Stauffer:
Okay. I like that.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
I mean, I feel like that can translate across lots of areas of our lives. But another I learned working with a business coach, Maya Elious, who talked about, there's a message that comes through us that is not for us.
Matt Stauffer:
Whoa.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Anytime I am feeling anxious or you're like, "Oh, how are people going to receive this?" It really is a reminder to get out of my own way, because there's a message that often comes through me that is for somebody else to help them in some area of their life.
Matt Stauffer:
I just got goosebumps from that.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Ooh.
Matt Stauffer:
I give conference talks and most of my conference talks are for people who are beginners. I always get this imposter moment where I'm like, "Everybody's going to be totally bored by this. This is totally old hat. They're going to think this man's so dumb because you're sharing this." I have to hit that moment every time of like, "My evaluation in this moment of what I'm going to be interested in is not the point here. I'm just trying to do the thing." If I had, had that ... Like I'm stealing it now so thank you.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
It is yours to have.
Matt Stauffer:
I really appreciate that. That's really cool.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Yeah.
Matt Stauffer:
Okay. You know that the podcast is about one primary topic and of course there's a million things we could talk about. Maybe one day when you're not writing a book, we'll talk about something else. Today, can you tell me the one main topic we're going to talk about?
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Yeah. I really want to dig into, Matt with you, the importance of giving psychology away. When I think about that, I think that it really touches on so much of the work that we do at Therapy for Black Girls. The idea is that psychology is not meant to be hoarded by those of us who have gone to school for all these years and only in journals. It really is meant to be distributed to the people who can actually use all this stuff that we have been learning about.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
I think that with the podcast, with our community called The Sister Circle, with the things that we do on social media, all of that is really designed to give psychology away to people who may not ever enter a therapy office or who can't afford to, or have other reasons why therapy or something may not be a fit for them. It's really designed for people to get what they need and then grow those plans later in their lives.
Matt Stauffer:
I love that for so many reasons, but there's also so many responses you can imagine, because obviously when you say give away, especially I went to very expensive school for all these things and now I'm going to give away the things that I learned. The immediate response we often have is, but how are you going to make any money?
Matt Stauffer:
I understand that for starters, this is actually something you're making money on, but it's curious to me, can you tell me a little bit about why, especially with psychology, you think that this is something important? You mentioned that there's a lot of people who might not actually ever get into an actual therapist office or psychologist office.
Matt Stauffer:
Can you talk a little bit about why, especially relative to anything else you might want to give away for free, why psychology? What's the benefit to the world and to people that having this information available to everybody, not just those who can get into a psychologist's office?
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Oh my gosh, Matt. I mean, well, let's just look around at the world, right?
Matt Stauffer:
Right.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
There's so much pain and so much harm and just difficult situations happening right now. I think that as psychologists, we are in a lot of ways, uniquely trained to help people either be able to prevent pain and damage or to deal with and healthily move through any pain that they do experience. I think we are doing ourselves and our humanity a disservice by not sharing what we know with people who can actually use it and make the world better and make themselves and their families better by using it.
Matt Stauffer:
Yeah. That makes a ton of sense. We can assume that the whole world benefits from this information, right? It helps our healing. It helps us prevent being hurt in the first place. Then I think it's pretty easy to come to the conclusion, yes, we want everybody to have this information.
Matt Stauffer:
Then it's like, well, how do we do things where it costs a lot of money ... And just so you know, there's a lot of parallels in my industry of I did all this really hard work to become the best programmer and now you're saying I should give it away for free? We have a lot of the same things.
Matt Stauffer:
I guess, what are the internal conversations and maybe conversations with others who are saying you're crazy, do you have, justifying or making the decision to say, "Regardless of the fact that I paid all this money and you paid all this money for these psychology degrees and everything like that, it's worth doing it for free and this can become a sustainable way of doing it anyway."
Matt Stauffer:
I don't know if that makes a lot of sense as a prompt, but I'm just curious. Are there any conversations you remember or things you've thought yourself, you're like, "If I give this away for free, how am I going to be able to support my family?" Have you been thinking anything like that over your journey in creating it?
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Matt, I don't know that it necessarily needs to be given away for free, though I think that much of it can be. When I think about giving away psychology, I am often thinking about for individual therapists in their practices.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Like if you, or let's say somebody who helps clients manage panic symptoms, you find yourself over and over again, working with someone to learn how to bring down their symptoms of anxiety, how to manage a panic attack, there are probably things that you're doing over and over again that could then be bundled into a YouTube video. Or could be bundled into a workbook that you share or some kind of webinar or course that you share for people to take.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
I think there are ways that you can financially support yourself, but when you put yourself out there with a specific message, then the money will always come, right?
Matt Stauffer:
Come on. Yes.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Somebody who is working at some billion-dollar corporation runs across your video on YouTube, and now they want to pay you to come in and do a training for their staff, right?
Matt Stauffer:
Absolutely.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Of course, we sadly, I think in some ways live in a capitalist world and so we do have to take care of ourselves. We have to take care of ourselves and our families so money is important in that aspect. But I don't know that that should be where we lead because the money will always come. At least that's been my experience.
Matt Stauffer:
Yes. I love that.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
I think you can't always lead with, "Okay. How am I going to immediately profit off of this?" Because sometimes it is a longer game, but I also really feel like, especially with what I do with Therapy for Black Girls, I want people with deep pockets, like the billion-dollar corporations, to pay me so that I can then give this a way to Black women for free, right?
Matt Stauffer:
Yes. Yes. Exactly.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
There are people who have hoarded all of these resources that can pay me and then I can let everybody take this webinar for free. You know?
Matt Stauffer:
Oh, I love that.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
I think that there are lots of different ways we can get paid for our skills and expertise that don't necessarily involve one to one exchange of money.
Matt Stauffer:
I love that. It's so interesting because you would assume it would be get the billionaires to sign off first and then you can give the free stuff away. You're actually talking about being the other way. You say, "Look, I'm going to give this stuff away. I'm going to create these online spaces and that is actually fortuitously, going to put me in a situation where now the people are going to come knocking."
Matt Stauffer:
That's really cool. It builds your reputation and all kind of stuff. Like I said, it's a parallel in the programming world where a lot of people I think ... I've coached a lot of people to give as much stuff away as possible because if we're all just trying to help each other, first of all, it's the right space to be in. That's where you started, right? You said, "The first thing is, let's just do this because this is the right thing to do."
Matt Stauffer:
However, also, since we do need to still pay for food and stuff like that, it is amazing to be in a place where giving that away earns you reputation. It allows the decision-making process for people who don't have the ability to call every psychologist in America to say, "Oh, this person has bubbled up to the top." Or every program in America, "Oh, this person's bubbled up to the top."
Matt Stauffer:
My company, our reputation primarily came from me writing blog posts and giving conference talks and making podcasts for free. But now everybody knows who I am and then my company now gets hired. There's definitely a parallel there, but it's outside of what we're taught to think, right? We're taught to think that you must charge money.
Matt Stauffer:
Anyway, if the answer to this is no, that's totally fine, but it feels like this is like a sociological way of thinking about ... I don't want to say redistribution of wealth, but the first thing I thought of was Robin Hood. Is there a basis this came to, or is this something that was just more natural for you to figure out?
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Yeah. I wish I could say that this has always been the plan, but really it is just something that I have figured out continuing to run the business. I also think that I was doing therapy for Black girls before it became my full-time job. This has always been something really important to me, but along the way I figured out there are people who will pay you a lot of money, one, because they believe in the work that I'm doing, but also I'm really good at what I do.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Realizing that I can get some of these large checks from major corporations then allows me to redistribute the wealth or make these services available to people who may not have the resources to be able to talk with a therapist or do some of these other things.
Matt Stauffer:
I love that. I mean, I have a million different questions and you can guide me in any direction you want to go. One of the things I was curious about is like, if you wouldn't mind sharing a little bit about, you mentioned that we should give these away and you didn't say always for free, but regardless it's putting these resources out there, especially because a lot of people may not ever find themselves in the place where able to be in a psychologist office.
Matt Stauffer:
There's lots of different reasons behind that. Do you have any thoughts about if there's a change you could make in the world other than just putting resources out there, are there any changes that you really love to see in the world that made it more likely for people to be able to be in the office? I don't know if these are financial and sociological changes, or if there's getting rid of some of the stigmas around therapy or whatever else.
Matt Stauffer:
If you were to see like, man, if I could just make this one change, other than the huge change you're already making, which is making this out there, that would make more people have access to this information through actual face-to-face conversations, what would that look like?
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Well, I definitely think there's more resources that need to be given to community mental health. For the past, I would say 10 to 15 years, we've seen significant cuts in community mental health programming. A lot of the hospitals that existed, even five years ago, don't exist anymore. A lot of the community clinics have been closed because people look at funding lines and mental health isn't always the place where they are spending money.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
I would like to see more money being given to that. I think even before we get there, I think that there are just some ways that we, as a society, damage people's mental health before. There are things we could be doing in a prevention kind of a way that would make it so that you don't even necessarily have to come and sit in a therapist's office.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Even though therapy is great, I think for lots of different reasons, but taking care of issues with people who don't have homes, so homelessness or unhoused individuals, really being able to put more funding into people having safe and stable housing, I think can do a world of good in terms of mental health concerns, as well as pay equity. If we are paying people $7 an hour, that money, and especially with gas and all of those things that are so expensive right now-
Matt Stauffer:
That's two gallons of gas.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Yeah. It's just not stretching.
Matt Stauffer:
Not even. Yeah.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
It's not going very far. I think that there are lots of different ways that we can take care of people so that they can tend to their mental health so that they don't have these stressor after stressor that we know deplete our mental health. Like that is where I think resources can go if we really want to be serious about paying attention to our country's mental health.
Matt Stauffer:
It's funny. One of the things we joke about in programming is that people will do things in programming that are job security, right? Like you do something that requires you to be around long term, rather than doing the thing that allows you to get ... It's like, if you're purely just talking about capitalism, you're like, "Well, of course I want to keep getting this paycheck."
Matt Stauffer:
But if you care about your client in the programing world, you want to do the best work for them so they don't need to pay you anymore. I love how similar that is to what you're saying. You're like, "Look, I like that y'all come to me and we can do some good work together, but I'd rather you didn't need to come to me in the first place." Right?
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Right.
Matt Stauffer:
That makes a ton of sense.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Yeah. Again, there are lots of different reasons why people come to therapy, right?
Matt Stauffer:
Right.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
More severe mental illness is definitely a reason to talk with a therapist. That is often where people come to therapy, is when there's been some kind of a crisis. But it is important to know that you can talk with a therapist before a crisis even arises.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Just because you want to have healthier relationships with yourself and other people, or you notice that it's difficult for you to be assertive or anything that you're recognizing there's something I don't like about this and I need somebody to talk with or get some new skills around, all those are reasons that you could talk with a therapist.
Matt Stauffer:
Yeah. I really appreciate that. Because with my therapist recently, we made this really wonderful breakthrough and we were talking about ... She's like, "Oh, you learned how to set boundaries in this way. You've been working on this for five years and now you've had this wonderful couple of weeks of setting boundaries so we're done now, right?" I was like, "No, we're not done. Let's just move to the second thing on the list. Like this-
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
No. There's something else.
Matt Stauffer:
Yeah. Right? Yeah, no, but it is very nice to have worked through ... I don't know if I'd call that an immediate crisis, but it was causing lots of little mini crises. To have gotten to the point where that's not a big, painful, regular problem that's contributing to depression, stuff like that, was really big. But I was like, "That doesn't mean that there's not all the other things that you listed and there are many more to be talking about."
Matt Stauffer:
When you are creating Therapy for Black Girls, a lot of what you're doing is picking particular topics to talk about for people. What is guiding you even deciding what to share? As you talk with people and see stuff happening in the world and work with your own clients, are you then saying, "Oh, I need to make sure I bring somebody on?" Or what even motivates you and helps you guide what people need to hear at any given moment?
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
I do need to share, my caseload is minimal at this point.
Matt Stauffer:
I figured. Yeah.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
I have one to two clients that I still see on an ongoing basis, but largely I've not been accepting new clients for a long time. Much of the content that we talk about on the podcast is one either taken from just what I see people talking about, like in our community, so on our social media channels, in our Sister Circle community, what I'm watching and listening to. Those of you who are familiar with the podcast know I love pop culture.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
I'm always watching a bunch of stuff on Netflix and Hulu and all of the places. There's often some mental health undercurrents in some of those pieces. I try to bring those to the podcast. But I also have an incredible production team and so they are also thinking about like, okay, what's going on in their worlds? What's happening in their friend circles? What are they reading? It really is a collaborative effort around the kinds of things that are being discussed in our community and what we think it would be important to share with them.
Matt Stauffer:
That makes sense.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
We also have a very robust mailbox for our community, so people are always sending us suggestions and things that they want to hear more about.
Matt Stauffer:
Yeah. When you said that with the social media thing, it was reminding me the fact that I've found more and more lately that a lot of like the ... I don't know if this is good or not, you can tell me. But a lot of the best internal conversations I've had with myself around especially relationship stuff has come from memes on Instagram, put out by ... I don't know the guy's real name, but Yung Pueblo. All these other various people. Nedra Tawwab I think her name is?
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Yes, Nedra.
Matt Stauffer:
I see these various people. I'm like, "Oh, when I see something from this person, it's not just one meme that tickles my fancy, makes me feel good about myself. Every time I see something from this person, it challenges me or it encouraged me." Whatever. I was like, "Cool. This is now my free therapist." Like you said, I'm now going to buy every book they ever put out. I'm going to whatever.
Matt Stauffer:
I wonder, do you have any thoughts about ... Because you mentioned that that's one way for people to put out these workbooks. Are there any things where you see them that's like really good signs of what's happening in the world of memeable psychology or any things that you're concerned about where you're like, "Oh, I see this happen and I wish it weren't." Is there anything that you have any strong feelings about?
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Matt, I feel like you are eavesdropping in my group chats.
Matt Stauffer:
Oh, no.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Because we talk about this quite a lot. Like you just mentioned, I think that there's lots of great content on social media that is designed to spark an interest and help you think like, "Oh, is that something I struggle with? Maybe I want to bring that up to my therapist." I think that if it is used in that way, it is really good.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Unfortunately, what has happened is that people who don't always have the best intentions, or maybe don't even have the training to know what they don't know, I think have recognized how engaging this kind of content is. Then people are just sharing a bunch of stuff that isn't always backed by anything clinical or anything research-based. If you get too far down that rabbit hole, then I think it can be harmful.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Using it as a catalyst to learn more about something or to take a next step, I think can be great. What I would encourage people not to do is to spend all day searching through these Instagram accounts and taking in all this content and picking yourself apart because that's not helpful either. I think pick and choose what you need and then leave the rest there.
Matt Stauffer:
That's helpful. It's the algorithms, like I'll like one of those-
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Exactly.
Matt Stauffer:
... and then it's like, "Here's 50 more." They know how to do that. They're like, "Oh, here are the signs that make one of these look like they're reputable. It's a picture from his book." Then they start printing out a piece of paper or take a picture of it as if it's actually valid but it's total crap. Anyway, I'm both discouraged and encouraged to hear you say that because it is a real thing. It's just such a bummer that it is like, wow, we're going to capitalize on anything to try and get more views or whatever.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
Matt Stauffer:
Okay. The original topic of conversation is around giving these psychology resources up for free, but you also mentioned the fact that your specific experiences has been giving out resources for Black girls. I understand that some of it has to do with that's a group of people who have historically not been given resources at the same level of specificity and care.
Matt Stauffer:
There's also some stigmas with psychology and therapy and stuff like that in some of the Black community. I'm curious for you, how much does it look different providing psychological resources for one particular sociodemographic group or whatever versus another? How much of it is, hey, look, this is the same stuff, we're just contextualizing a little bit? How much of it is like, no, each group also has ... Obviously no group is a monolith, right?
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Right.
Matt Stauffer:
Black women are not a monolith, but how much of the work of providing care and psychology resources for one particular demographic group versus another is the same with a little bit of contextualization? How much of it is, no, we all have really uniquely different things based on our presence within the community, within our country and all that kind of stuff?
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Yeah. I would definitely say it's more of the latter and I feel like I can't completely speak to what it's like to offer services to other communities, because for so long, my singular focus has been Black women. But there is so much about how we are socialized in this country, the history of slavery in this country, all of that, you cannot separate mental health from all of those social experiences.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
When we're thinking about talking with someone about going to a therapist, well, how many people have parents and grandparents who have ever seen a therapist, right? How many of us come from households where spiritual and faith practices are directly against that? When you're thinking about like, what does mental healthcare conversations look like in the community? It just looks very different.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
There's also so much related to, again, how Black women are socialized to be the strong one in their circles. I got to take on everybody's stuff. I can't let people know that I'm struggling or else that looks weak. It's not okay to cry. All of these things, when we are talking about mental health, all of those things don't necessarily exist in other populations.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Yes, panic attacks for Black women may look the same as they do for other women, but there's all this other history and context that you have to get through before we can even get to the panic symptoms.
Matt Stauffer:
Yeah. That's really helpful. I mean, I know that the purpose of our conversation today is not the specific therapy and psychological needs of Black women. But at least I wanted to point at that for two reasons.
Matt Stauffer:
One, because I think that I have a lot of friends ... I know there are a lot of people whenever they hear something is contextualized for a specific group, especially if that specific group is a historically marginalized group, where they're just like, "Well, why do they need their own special space?" I don't love that that's a question that gets asked, but I also know it's always going to get asked.
Matt Stauffer:
Even though that's not the point of our conversation today, I at least wanted to give you a second to answer that. I think, but the other aspect of it is that you answered it in a way that makes it clear that that's not just relevant to Black women. Like each group has a unique space and experience based on the history, based on how culture treats them and there are specifically contextual experiences, like for example, for me, I come out of a really conservative religious background.
Matt Stauffer:
So talking to therapists who understand that background, versus those who don't has been very helpful for me. While I'm not dealing with the history of slavery or colorism in the media or whatever, I still have things that impact me that are relevant to my particular experience. It's helpful to be able to find people who understand that particular thing.
Matt Stauffer:
I think for what you're saying here, I both want to really affirm everything you've said about Black women specifically, but also just for other people who are like, "Well, I'm not a Black woman. What do I get from that?" Well, first of all, hopefully understand that Black women need this and Black men and everyone else, but also for you, there might be particular things about you that make it so that you can receive a particular type of contextualized help. Does that make sense? Having said that, does that prompt anything else or you're like, "Yep. Cool."
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Yeah. I get asked that question sometimes, not often, but I do get that question sometimes. Like, has there been any pushback on me creating Therapy for Black Girls? Every now and then you will get some kind of troll, but largely nobody ever told me that I couldn't and so why wouldn't I? Like if it felt like work that I was called to do that clearly feels very needed and important, why can't I do that work?
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
I think the other thing is that when you think about ... So yes, the organization is called Therapy for Black Girls, but there are lots of ways that therapists historically have had therapy for white women, but it wasn't called that. If I visit your website and all I see is white women on your website-
Matt Stauffer:
Just making it clear.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
... then subliminally that's the message that you're giving me. I think that, that is such a funny, for lack of a better word, question, because nobody ever questions if they go to a website and they don't see any Black people pictured how that's excluding lots of other people. But because you see the name is very explicit, then there's all this conversation about, "Well, what does this mean? Oh, if I had a therapy for white girls it would be a big deal."
Matt Stauffer:
Exactly.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Well, lots of therapists actually have therapy for white girls and just don't call it that.
Matt Stauffer:
There are just so many. Yeah. Yeah. They don't just name it. Yeah. Well, I know we're getting close to the end of time. Before I ask you the last question, is there anything else about this particular topic that you wanted to cover today?
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Well, I just think it's really cool how you can use both traditional media platforms, but also some of the newer social media platforms to be able to give psychology and mental health away. We've already talked about memes and things on Twitter, but I do want people to think about, are there workbooks that you could create that would allow you to share psychology or other things that you know? Can you be a guest on a radio show or a podcast?
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Can you be a guest on a news station or some kind of news program to be able to give the information away to the people who might actually be able to use it? I think that that's really important, especially for people who are doing a lot of research, so academics and clinicians who are head down in their office, there's probably something that you can offer to even your immediate community that would be super helpful.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
I want you to think about the kinds of things that you find yourself repeating over and over again, and think about how can I make a very low entry, low level 101 version of this thing and offer it to people? And just see what happens because you just never know.
Matt Stauffer:
Yeah. That's really interesting to me because when I'm talking to programmers at my company, I often say, "Hey, that's a really fascinating thing you just shared. Can you go write a blog post about it or whatever?" The imposter syndrome is huge though. I feel like I know how to talk to programmers, right? I'm able to talk them through like, "Oh, this is something useful to new programmers or whatever."
Matt Stauffer:
What's the message to people more in your industry? How do you tell someone who says, "No way, nobody would want to hear this from me or blah, blah, blah." What's the message to them?
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
I mean, well, just look how much random stuff you google, right? We think it's-
Matt Stauffer:
Right. That's good.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
I kid you not, every time I need to take a screenshot on my MacBook, I have to google how to take a screenshot on a Mac. You would think that I would just write myself a sticky note, but I don't. Again, I think that that's a silly example, but we think it's silly because it's like our lived experience. It's what we're living and breathing all the time. There's somebody who is at a lower level who needs the exact thing that you feel like, "Oh, this would be silly to write about."
Matt Stauffer:
That's so good. That's so good.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
I think you mentioned blog posts, and I think that blogging is an excellent, excellent way to, one, get your name out there. Again, for people who are interested in growing your expertise and being a thought leader in some particular topic, blogging is an excellent way to do that. It is also again a free resource for somebody who could be looking for an answer to a question that they are struggling with, that you can offer with very little time or expansion of your resources.
Matt Stauffer:
As a programmer, I can also say that blog posts are google-able in a way that radio interviews and other stuff aren't, and you can throw a blog post up without having to get a ... You don't need an agent to get on a blog post, right?
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Yes.
Matt Stauffer:
I've been blogging and doing these things for years, and I've still never been on radio and TV. It's something I'm hoping to do this year. That's a big gap. Blog post, I literally just said, "All right, sign up for ..." It was Blogger at the time. I don't know what it'd be now, Squarespace or whatever, just type. You can also type it for a month and get all your friends to read it and review it before you put it out there in the internet, right?
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Yeah.
Matt Stauffer:
I couldn't agree with you more. Find those easy ways. Then once you get validated in your blog post, then maybe somebody's going to see your blog and they're going to be like, "Oh, can you come on my radio show or whatever?" Then slowly you get more and more comfortable realizing that people actually want to hear what you have to say.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Yeah. You know Matt, I also want to add people are probably blogging without even recognizing it. All of the time you're spending responding to comments on Facebook-
Matt Stauffer:
Come on, yes.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
... and all of the long Twitter threads and responses on Instagram, all of that could be a blog post. Don't just save your best stuff for a property that you don't own. Bring your good stuff to a property that you actually own-
Matt Stauffer:
That's so good.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
... that you can get the SEO benefit from and make them blog posts. That's a really good idea to ... or good low level way to start.
Matt Stauffer:
Go buy your name.com, set it up on Squarespace, get those blog posts up. She said SEOs, search engine optimization. What that means is basically if somebody is searching about your particular area of expertise and your blog posts keep being the answer to that thing, then you're going to get further and further up when somebody's searching for that. You don't have to get on the radio, you don't have to get on TV. You just write that stuff.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Yes.
Matt Stauffer:
Amen. Dr. Joy, I love that. I mean, this is my world, right? I'm like, "Yes, come on. Let's do this."
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Look at that connection between the worlds.
Matt Stauffer:
Right? The synergy, whatever. All right. Anything else you want to cover in this primary topic before I ask you our outgoing question? We can talk as long as you want, but if there's anything else on your plate.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
No, I don't think so. I don't think there's anything else.
Matt Stauffer:
Okay. My last question is what insight or support did you receive or need when you were younger that you hope that more people will give to others?
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Ooh, I think the thing that has made all the difference for me has been community and support. I biologically am born into a family with just a lot of people. Like my mom has 10 siblings, so I have lots of aunties and uncles, lots of first cousins. There's always been a ton of people around for me.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
I think even if it is not something that happens naturally in your family, there are people in the community that you can surround yourself with who can support you, who can answer questions for you. I think a lot of times we get in our heads and we just don't ask for the thing that we need or does somebody know somebody? I think that's how I even met you, Matt, was trying to find somebody to help with the Therapy for Black Girls website, right?
Matt Stauffer:
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
I think just asking for the thing that you need and letting the community actually support you is a very untapped gem that a lot of us are leaving on the table.
Matt Stauffer:
That's awesome. It's funny because ... not to get too deep on your answer there, but when you ask, you have to be open to share that you don't know in the first place. Not only is it good to ask, but it also puts us in a place like ... I don't know if you heard Brené Brown, she did a series of podcasts about her Dare to Lead book that she's just put out and she ... I'll put these in the show notes for anybody else, but she did just two episodes on her free podcast saying, "Hey, here's a teaser for this podcast."
Matt Stauffer:
I don't know if it's paid or it's only in Spotify or whatever. One of the things she talked about was healthy versus unhealthy leadership practices in ... I think she called them daring leadership versus guarded leadership. The whole idea was basically openness, transparency, all this kind of stuff allows us to then be leaders in these really healthy ways. One of the things she talked about was being a knower versus a learner.
Matt Stauffer:
She talked about as a knower, you have to always have this armor around you of I know everything and I need everybody to think that I know everything because if they think I don't know everything, then I'm going to look like a useless failure or whatever. If you're a learner, you just go from this posture of like, "Oh, really? Tell me more."
Matt Stauffer:
Wow, what a change it makes in life where you don't have to keep this facade up all the time of just knowing something. Plus, now you get the benefit of all these resources. I just wanted to connect those. I really appreciate you sharing that because it's not other people doing something for me. It is me changing my posture so that I can receive what is already there to be given, if that makes sense.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
I love that.
Matt Stauffer:
Am I hearing that right?
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Yes. Yes. Absolutely.
Matt Stauffer:
Okay. Cool.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
I love it.
Matt Stauffer:
Awesome. All right. Last question of the day, if somebody's super interested in you and they've never heard of you before which is wild but whatever, what does it look like to follow you, support you, continue to learn from what you have to share from us?
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
I am @hellodrjoy across all the places on the internet and my personal website is hellodrjoy.com, but I'd also love for you to visit our website at therapyforblackgirls.com to just learn about all of the incredible resources that we have that are dedicated to Black women and girls' mental health.
Matt Stauffer:
Awesome. Everything will be in the show notes, everything we've talked about will be in the show notes, all podcast, books, all that kind of stuff. Definitely check it out. Dr. Joy, I cannot tell you how grateful I am that you spent time with us today, in general because you have so much wisdom to share, but especially I know how busy you are. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford:
Thank you, Matt. I appreciate it.
Matt Stauffer:
To the rest of you all, until next time, be good to each other.