Chrystal Strickland

I have been told numerous times that something I wanted was not possible. People have told me 'Oh, you'll never,' or 'Don't do that,' then it kind of becomes my fuel to do just that! I remember when I moved in with my sister and we were at the mall in Parisians, which was a very upscale department store at the time. I said I would love to work here because it was just so bougie and beautiful, and she was like, 'Oh, don't even waste your time applying here, they'll never hire you here.' Two weeks later, I was working there. I don't accept limitations that other people try to put on me. I'm going to definitely find a way to get it done. It's that persistence and that belief in myself that my father instilled within me that keeps me reaching for the stars!

The best career advice I have ever received was from one of my professors in grad school, and she told me, 'Diversify, diversify, diversify.' She also told me to have multiple streams of income, never just one. She also said when you become fully licensed, there will be so many doors open to you. That advice really stuck with me, and now I have an Etsy shop, a Redbubble shop, and a pro-mental health 2026 therapist calendar. It truly was great advice! Having multiple ways of contributing and generating income, not just through therapy sessions alone has been so helpful!

To young women, I would say be confident, because you are doing much better than you even realize. Challenge imposter syndrome. Challenge negative self-talk. Challenge it. If there's no evidence that it's true, let it go. Let it go, because the world will beat us down every day without us also joining in. We have to be our own friend. When I worked at the Learning Center, I had a sign on my bulletin board that all the students saw, and it was, 'Be a friend to your own self.' That's what I would tell all the young clinicians: be a friend to your own self. You have to advocate for yourself. You have to believe in yourself. That makes you a better counselor.

The biggest challenge throughout my career has been the pay. Working with insurance companies is the devil you know kind of thing. Unfortunately and fortunately, I don't have the luxury of having only private pay clients. I said unfortunately, too, because you're limiting your scope. You're limiting your accessibility, and you're limiting your ability to grow by having only private pay clients. If you only have private pay clients, you are only serving a higher socioeconomic level of people, and you're not as in touch with the real human nature of people who have to work for a living, and who don't have that higher socioeconomic level of achievement. So, you're limiting yourself, too, in that way. I have to hustle every single day, and I'm 57 and I'm still hustling. As for opportunities, there have been so many. Organizations like Influential Women highlighting women as influencers and role models is a big opportunity. The opportunity to submit articles to the LPCA of Georgia newsletter was huge for me. Public speaking has opened many doors, from workshops on body image to presentations at Gwinnett Tech on unplugging to recharge. I can give to others in so many ways beyond just therapy sessions, whether that's swinging a hammer at Habitat for Humanity or doing presentations for people who work so hard for students at Gwinnett Tech. I can do more, and it doesn't have to be just one way of doing more.

My values are aligned with being a person who knows that everyone, no matter what they have going on, if they're young, if they're old, if they're broke, if they're poor, if they're rich, everyone has something of value to share with people that they meet. When I first started at Brenau, I worked at the Learning Center as the office manager, and we were having a party. I invited the employee from Aramark who cleaned the center to come to the party. She started crying, and I was like, I'm so sorry, did I say something bad to you? And she was like; nobody has ever invited me to any of the center parties. I was shocked! I asked her if she was kidding me. Surely, she was, I thought. And she said, I mean, I'm just here to clean. And I said, no, you're not. You're not just here to clean. You are part of what makes the Learning Center so great. We became really good friends and used to go to lunches together. I can't even imagine a world where someone would think, oh, this person's just cleaning, they'd have nothing of value for me to get to know them as a person. I tell people all the time, I learned more from my children than I feel like I taught them. I truly honor and believe that with all my heart. Everyone has value and something to contribute, regardless of their role or socioeconomic status, their age, their experience, etc.