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Published on:

1st Sep 2022

321: Business As A Tool For Growth, Creativity, and Social Justice with Ariana Lloyd, LCSW

Hello! Welcome to a brand new season of STC that will take us through September and October before I take an extended sabbatical of several months. Today’s session is a fascinating conversation about considering the greater purpose of our businesses beyond merely generating income. How can our businesses be a vehicle for much, much more in the world? Let’s discuss this topic with today’s guest!

Our Featured Guest

Ariana Lloyd, LCSW


Ariana Lloyd is a licensed clinical social worker in Portland, Oregon. She runs eight-week live cohorts to help therapists coming into private practice set up their businesses in ways that are focused on personal growth, creativity, and social justice. In this conversation, we talk about the ways her business has been a means of personal growth and healing, along with how to offer programs with intentionality and meaningful service to clients. Ariana tells us how she exercises her creative muscles through her business, and we wrap up with ways to tackle social justice issues and advocacy with intention, care, and cultural humility. 


You’ll Learn:


  • How Ariana’s business became a source of healing and personal growth 
  • How even the practical tasks in business-building can help heal past wounds
  • How to find balance between personal healing and being of service to clients
  • How Ariana has tapped into her creativity by offering her unique programs to clients
  • What works best for Ariana in exercising her creativity muscles: writing and talking to a trusted friend when facing a new project
  • Why clinicians have unique opportunities to step into leadership, advocacy, and empowerment for social justice issues
  • How the business-building process can incorporate more radical values that address systemic change for social good
  • Why Ariana offers free training on specific topics and donates to organizations doing good in the world
  • How social justice applies to the sense of duty Ariana feels to help others
  • An overview of Lloyd Collective offerings and the help offered to private practitioners


Mentioned in this episode: Barbara Love, author, and researcher

Connect with Ariana



Mentioned in this episode:

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About the Podcast

Selling the Couch
Impact + Income Beyond The Therapy Room
With over 1.5 million downloads, Selling the Couch is the #1 podcast for mental health private practitioners.

Psychologist Melvin Varghese interviews successful therapists about how they've built their therapy practices + diversified their income beyond the therapy room, as well as top entrepreneurs, business/marketing, productivity, and social media experts.

You'll learn how therapists get referrals, make money, work through fears, and how they've stopped "trading time for income."

Melvin also shares the lessons as he grows his impact + income beyond the therapy room (podcasting, video, online courses, masterminds, investing, etc) and the tips, tools, and tech he uses to grow STC from a single-person business to the CEO of a 5-person 100% remote team.

You get bite-sized and highly actionable tips to guide your private practice and entrepreneurial journey.

The best way to get started is to check out https://sellingthecouch.com/start. =)
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About your host

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Melvin Varghese, PhD

Hi. I'm Melvin. I'm a Vanderbilt-trained psychologist, entrepreneur, and online creator living in Philadelphia, PA.

In 2014, I began to think about how to use the therapy skills we learn in grad school, and in our clinical work into different realms (e.g., podcasting, consulting, online course creation, etc).

This allows us to serve others on larger scales while diversifying our income beyond 1 to 1 work.

I make podcasts and videos about business, tech, productivity, and lessons I'm learning from becoming the CEO of a lean, mean 5 person 100% remote team (we're not really mean..it just rhymed =P).