"Start documenting processes early to fuel growth and empower your team."
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford is a Licensed Psychologist, Speaker, Founder & CEO of Therapy for Black Girls and host of its wildly popular mental health podcast which received a Webby award in 2023.
She’s also the author of Sisterhood Heals: The Transformative Power of Healing Community.
Her work focuses on making mental health topics more relevant and accessible for Black women and she specializes in creating spaces for them to have fuller and healthier relationships with themselves and others.
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Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford: I am a Licensed Psychologist and my background is in college student mental health. One of my favorite parts of my work on college campuses was always outreach where we would do presentations for the students in their residence halls, sorority meetings, etc.
In many ways my work with Therapy for Black Girls feels like a natural extension of that work.
I started Therapy for Black Girls (TBG) in 2014 as a blog to share helpful information with Black women about mental health and then added the therapist directory and podcast in 2017 and the business just took off from there. I never intended on TBG becoming my full time thing but the community decided otherwise.
For probably the first 2 years of the business it was just me, my executive assistant and a community manager and today I’m thrilled that there are 15 other Black women on the team helping me run the business.
The podcast has amassed more than 46 million downloads and we have more than 6,000 therapists listed in our directory. Every day I wake up humbled and grateful that this is what I get to do for work.
In the past year, what is the greatest business achievement you’d like to celebrate with your team? Please share the details of that success.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford: I’d have to say the greatest business achievement of the past year was the successful launch of my book Sisterhood Heals. It was such an enormous undertaking for the entire team as we really wanted the book’s release to touch every part of the business.
This required lots of coordination between all the units of our team and lots of creativity. The launch also meant that I was out for much of the last year. I was incredibly moved by the way the team supported me and kept the ship sailing while I was away.
What advice do you wish you had received when you started your business journey and what do you intend on improving in the next quarter?
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford: I wish I had been told about the importance of documenting all the processes used to keep your business running as early as possible. There was a time in the business where I was the one generating most of the ideas and implementing them.
That’s not the case anymore and I feel like there are lots of things I should have been documenting in the process to make it easier for the business to continue to be efficient as we got larger.
My main priority for this next quarter is to document more and establish a firmer foundation for the processes and procedures in the business.
Online business keeps on surging higher than ever, B2B, B2C, online shopping, virtual meetings, remote work, Zoom medical consultations, what are your expectations for the year to come and how are you capitalizing on the tidal wave?
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford: TBG has always been remote so I feel like we were ahead of the curve when it came to remote work and I feel like in the past 2 years we’ve done a better job at figuring out what kinds of things make a team cohesive even in a virtual setting.
In this next year, I expect us to grow even stronger as a team and to continue to utilize technology to connect with our community and to allow them to connect with one another. One of my favorite parts of my work is an offering we call Three for Thursday where women from across the world gather for a Zoom meeting on Thursdays at noon and we refer to this as our town hall meeting.
It’s an opportunity for the community to come together to discuss different topics, to receive and offer support, and offers a much needed space of belonging. I’d like to continue to expand on this type of offering so that we can reach as many women as possible.
Christopher Hitchens, an American journalist, is quoted as saying that “everyone has a book in them” Have you written a book? If so, please share with us details about it. If you haven’t, what book would you like to write and how would you like it to benefit the readers?
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford: As I shared earlier, my book Sisterhood Heals was released in June 2023 and it is a celebration of Black women’s relationships with one another and a guide to deepening them.
When I think about my work with TBG and much of my personal story, sisterhood is at the center of much of it. The book explores the history of sisterhood, discusses some of the challenges that make embracing sisterhood difficult, and shares tips for how to meet new women who might become a part of your sister circle.
My hope is that the book gives language to what often feels intangible about Black women’s relationships and moves the readers to act with more intention about nurturing and sustaining their relationships with their sister friends.
In your experience, what tends to be the most underestimated part of running a company? Can you share an example?
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford: I would have to say the sheer amount of decisions that need to be made as a part of running a company is very underestimated. I don’t know that there is a way to prepare for it. It very much feels like there’s no way to know the extent of it until you’re in it.
As the business has grown, it has become clear to me why so many entrepreneurs will do things like adopt a uniform for themselves or stick to eating the same thing every day as a way to manage decision fatigue.
On a lighter note, if you had the ability to pick any business superpower, what would it be and how would you put it into practice?
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford: I would choose the ability to respond to emails just by thinking of the response.
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Dr. Joy Harden Bradford for taking the time to do this interview and share her knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford or her company, you can do it through her – Linkedin Page
Disclaimer: The ValiantCEO Community welcomes voices from many spheres on our open platform. We publish pieces as written by outside contributors with a wide range of opinions, which don’t necessarily reflect our own. Community stories are not commissioned by our editorial team and must meet our guidelines prior to being published.
