Meet Shulamit Ber Levtov | The Entrepreneurs’ Therapist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Shulamit Ber Levtov and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Shulamit, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
I had become injured at my job and had to do my own occupational rehab. I was in my late 40s at the time and I thought that if I was going to start a new career, no-one would hire me so I’d have to be self-employed.

For my occupational rehab, I went back to my educational roots (I had started university in social work in the early 80s) and got a Masters degree in counselling and spirituality.

I graduated with an awareness of three things:

1) most small businesses fail within the first year

2) financial psychology research showed that, compared to other occupations, mental health professionals score significantly lower on measures of financial health

3) I was trained to be a therapist, not to run a business

Those three things led me to treat my self-employment as a business, and seek out business education, training and coaching.

What should our readers know about your business?
I’m Shulamit Ber Levtov, MA, RSW, CCTP (but you can call me Shula for short). I’m the Entrepreneur’s Therapist. I work with women business owners who want to develop, implement and be accountable for their mental health plan so they can set the foundation for sustainable success and show up fully as their CEO-self in their business.

What sets me apart is the fact that I am a licensed, trained and experienced trauma therapist who is also trained in coaching techniques and who has an intimate knowledge of the stressors of owning and running a business. Not only do I get what entrepreneurs are going through, I am trained to support them.

I am excited about the book I’m writing on women, entrepreneurship and mental health. I have interviewed 36 women business owners about their mental health—taking the conversation out of the diagnosis and treatment box and into how they define, relate to and care for their mental health and wellness. My goal with these interviews is to destigmatize and demedicalize the mental health conversation, and share real-life, real-people stories and tips specifically from and for women entrepreneurs.

It has not been easy to get to this point. I am a survivor of multiple traumas including sexual assault and domestic violence. It took me three tries across the span of my adult life before I was able to complete a Masters degree. I founded–and then let go of–a successful and award-winning holistic clinic. I believe it is the independence and perseverance I developed in surviving trauma that serves me to this day and has made it possible for me to keep going on my projects despite adversity.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I live in rural Southeastern Ontario, Canada, about 1.5 hours southwest of Canada’s capital city, in the area of the Unesco World Heritage site, the Rideau Canal.

I would take them paddling or houseboating on the canal.

We would visit and dine at two restored, historic hotels on the Rideau, the Opinicon and Hotel Kenney (once a vacation spot for royalty).

We would visit the Hotel Rideau in Smiths Falls and lunch at C’est Tout Bakery. We might also tour one of the first and leading cannabis producers in the world, Canopy Growth, which–I think hilariously–is located in the former Hershey chocolate plant.

We’d shop in the town of Merrickville and watch the boats go through the locks there.

We’d also go to Kingston, where I spent my teen years, and eat at Chez Piggy, established in 1979 by Zal Yanovsky of the 1960s pop group The Lovin’ Spoonful. We’d take the Wolfe Island Ferry and eat at the restored, historic Wolfe Island Hotel.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I have two responses to that:

As a therapist, I owe my success to two wise and mature women who trained and mentored me: Heni Nadel and Laurie Bourne-Mackeigan. Without their confidence in me and their willingness to take me on as an intern and then as a new therapist and train me, I would not be the skilled therapist I am today.

As a business owner, Maggie Patterson of Scoop Studios and Small Business Boss is directly responsible for my success in business. She believed in me and my business concept and has trained, supported and cheered me on from the beginning.

Website: www.shula.ca

Instagram: @the_entrepreneurs_therapist

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shulamitberlevtov/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ShulaBerLevtov

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shulaberlevtov

Youtube: http://youtube.com/shulamitberlevtov

Image Credits
Isabelle Bouchard