Mental Health — we all have it, and now we should all strive to be more open and vulnerable about it.
TheraPieces* is a Slice of Culture column by Mendez, who is a licensed psychotherapist specializing in clinical mental health and has a Master of Social Work degree from Columbia University.
Living in the world that we do today, we often see worth being measured by both success and stability. This can make navigating career shifts feel like balancing on a tightrope—especially for individuals of color who face the weight of societal expectations and cultural stigma around mental health.
Career shifts can be both significantly overwhelming, and endearing, as the excitement for change can also come with the initial dread of starting over. Changing careers involve both positive and negative factors, and under a mental health lens, we want to focus more on the positive changes it comes with while also noticing any negative changes that may impact us.
As we discuss the impact of the positive factors of change—such as openness to learning about our truth, curiosity to discover one’s purpose and joy in finding what we are passionate about—each one can be experienced if we include positive psychosocial sources, such as unconditional support from loved ones as well as our inner sense of strength and empowerment.
When it comes to seeking our truths and desires with career shifting, leading with both purpose and resilience can take you far. Not only does it require ambition, but it also requires the courage to redefine success on one’s own terms, as a journey like this comes with an abundance of challenges.
A journey like this can be a personal one. For many, it’s about breaking cycles of silence, challenging generational pressures and learning to make our mental health and well-being a priority while also balancing achievement and success.
For this Therapieces article, Slice of Culture spoke with Jimmy Jean, who is a motivational speaker and author of “The Purpose-Driven Influencer: A Soulful Guide to Authentic Living & Leading from the Heart.” Through his own personal experience of career shifting and looking inward to discover his own strengths and room for growth, Jean emphasized the importance of aligning career advancement with happiness and purpose by encouraging one’s own sense of self and self-worth discovery.
“True leadership begins when we stop performing for the world and start leading from who we are,” he told Slice of Culture.
His work aims to encourage individuals to pursue professional growth without losing sight due to one’s mistakes, failures, others’ opinions/validations or one’s own mental and emotional toll.
Discussions around mental health, purpose and leadership still often remain limited within professionals of color’s settings who must navigate the complex intersections of cultural expectations, systemic barriers and personal ambition. Within many BIPOC communities, success based on one’s achievements is praised, but vulnerability surrounding mental health continues to be silenced, leaving countless individuals to quietly struggle under the weight of expectation.
“We have to have a separation from what we do and who we are,” Jean said. “If we learn to place our value and our identity in achievements, then that means our identity could crumble over night.”
Through his own work, Jean challenges silence by embracing authentic leadership, service and bold, purpose-driven living.
His book, “The Purpose-Driven Influencer,” reminds readers and career seekers of color that thriving professionally must also mean healing, finding our sense of self and prioritizing one’s self-worth in a world and society that often overlooks it.
Navigating Mental Health Within BIPOC Communities
In many communities of color, success is often paved with unspoken expectations—be the first to graduate, go to college or be the example for others, the family’s “success story.” These cultural “success scripts” can create immense pressure to overly perform and achieve, often at the cost of emotional and mental wellness.
“I come from a background where mental health wasn’t really spoken about, it was something that was very dismissive” Jean added. “Your background and your circumstances may have played a role in who you are, but it doesn’t have a say in who you can become. You can always break that cycle.”
– Jimmy Jean
Due to the ongoing stigma within workspaces of color and dismissiveness of emotional wellness, as a result, many professionals may silently carry the weight of perfectionism and the fear of disappointing those who sacrificed for their opportunities.
Jean’s message directly challenges these narratives, urging individuals to embrace their personal experiences with one’s full potential—both struggles and successes—in order to grow and find power that comes with being our true selves; a topic of conversation that should be encouraged to be talked about more in BIPOC communities and work environments.
“Now as a person healing and doing the inner work, to address some of the traumas of my life, I can’t just shove things under the rug. The only way out is through,” Jean said.
What Mentally, Healthy Careers Can Look Like
Within professional settings, these cultural pressures often collide with the realities of workplace stress, resulting in burnout, emotional exhaustion and overperformance.
(Courtesy of SIMMONS UNIVERSITY)
“I believe burnout is a result of not us doing more [for ourselves] but it comes from people not having enough meaning in our lives—What we are really seeking is more meaning and I think the anecdote is for more alignment and purpose,” Jean added.
What healthy leadership and careers look like is:
Being in an environment that grounds our ability of vulnerable self-awareness
Implementing effective boundaries
Emotional intelligence rather than self-sacrifice—showing up as your full whole self
By implementing his approach of embodying one’s truth and modeling courage that comes with openness to challenge this notion, this tactic can help break the mental health stigma in both professional and cultural settings, creating and developing spaces where dialogue and healing are both normalized and part of one’s self-care.
Similarly, career pivots also involve burnout recoveries, as we learn to take moments of clarity and use them as opportunities for transformation rather than failure. In this sense, we take back the energy we lost that might have drained us at our old place of work and rejuvenate it as we embark on our new career expedition.
“Being a purpose-driven influencer is so important because it’s just gonna cancel out all the noise that social media can create,” Jean explained.
Breaking the cultural stigma around mental health among professionals of color seeking career changes and/or a deeper purpose begins with both personal and systemic change.
On an individual level, seeking culturally competent professional and mental health resources offers a supportive foundation for navigating identity, ambition and healing. Embracing vulnerability as both a skill and strength while aligning work with passion and a deep level of personal purpose allows professionals to lead with genuineness and balance.
At the organizational level, creating psychologically safe spaces, integrating DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) mental health initiatives and elevating platforms of diverse leaders who model curiosity and transparency can transform and transcend workplace culture, elevating mental health to be valued just as much as professional performance.
As Jean’s message advocates, by redefining success and showing up with care for one’s inner strengths and mental wellness, we not only empower ourselves, but also pave the way for future generations to lead boldly and live authentically.
Therapieces: Career Shifts Happen. How To Navigate Mental Health And Success Within Communities Of Color
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Graphic by Adrienne J. Romero / SOC Images.
Mental Health — we all have it, and now we should all strive to be more open and vulnerable about it.
TheraPieces* is a Slice of Culture column by Mendez, who is a licensed psychotherapist specializing in clinical mental health and has a Master of Social Work degree from Columbia University.
Living in the world that we do today, we often see worth being measured by both success and stability. This can make navigating career shifts feel like balancing on a tightrope—especially for individuals of color who face the weight of societal expectations and cultural stigma around mental health.
Career shifts can be both significantly overwhelming, and endearing, as the excitement for change can also come with the initial dread of starting over. Changing careers involve both positive and negative factors, and under a mental health lens, we want to focus more on the positive changes it comes with while also noticing any negative changes that may impact us.
As we discuss the impact of the positive factors of change—such as openness to learning about our truth, curiosity to discover one’s purpose and joy in finding what we are passionate about—each one can be experienced if we include positive psychosocial sources, such as unconditional support from loved ones as well as our inner sense of strength and empowerment.
When it comes to seeking our truths and desires with career shifting, leading with both purpose and resilience can take you far. Not only does it require ambition, but it also requires the courage to redefine success on one’s own terms, as a journey like this comes with an abundance of challenges.
A journey like this can be a personal one. For many, it’s about breaking cycles of silence, challenging generational pressures and learning to make our mental health and well-being a priority while also balancing achievement and success.
For this Therapieces article, Slice of Culture spoke with Jimmy Jean, who is a motivational speaker and author of “The Purpose-Driven Influencer: A Soulful Guide to Authentic Living & Leading from the Heart.” Through his own personal experience of career shifting and looking inward to discover his own strengths and room for growth, Jean emphasized the importance of aligning career advancement with happiness and purpose by encouraging one’s own sense of self and self-worth discovery.
“True leadership begins when we stop performing for the world and start leading from who we are,” he told Slice of Culture.
His work aims to encourage individuals to pursue professional growth without losing sight due to one’s mistakes, failures, others’ opinions/validations or one’s own mental and emotional toll.
Discussions around mental health, purpose and leadership still often remain limited within professionals of color’s settings who must navigate the complex intersections of cultural expectations, systemic barriers and personal ambition. Within many BIPOC communities, success based on one’s achievements is praised, but vulnerability surrounding mental health continues to be silenced, leaving countless individuals to quietly struggle under the weight of expectation.
“We have to have a separation from what we do and who we are,” Jean said. “If we learn to place our value and our identity in achievements, then that means our identity could crumble over night.”
Through his own work, Jean challenges silence by embracing authentic leadership, service and bold, purpose-driven living.
His book, “The Purpose-Driven Influencer,” reminds readers and career seekers of color that thriving professionally must also mean healing, finding our sense of self and prioritizing one’s self-worth in a world and society that often overlooks it.
Navigating Mental Health Within BIPOC Communities
In many communities of color, success is often paved with unspoken expectations—be the first to graduate, go to college or be the example for others, the family’s “success story.” These cultural “success scripts” can create immense pressure to overly perform and achieve, often at the cost of emotional and mental wellness.
Due to the ongoing stigma within workspaces of color and dismissiveness of emotional wellness, as a result, many professionals may silently carry the weight of perfectionism and the fear of disappointing those who sacrificed for their opportunities.
Jean’s message directly challenges these narratives, urging individuals to embrace their personal experiences with one’s full potential—both struggles and successes—in order to grow and find power that comes with being our true selves; a topic of conversation that should be encouraged to be talked about more in BIPOC communities and work environments.
“Now as a person healing and doing the inner work, to address some of the traumas of my life, I can’t just shove things under the rug. The only way out is through,” Jean said.
What Mentally, Healthy Careers Can Look Like
Within professional settings, these cultural pressures often collide with the realities of workplace stress, resulting in burnout, emotional exhaustion and overperformance.
“I believe burnout is a result of not us doing more [for ourselves] but it comes from people not having enough meaning in our lives—What we are really seeking is more meaning and I think the anecdote is for more alignment and purpose,” Jean added.
What healthy leadership and careers look like is:
By implementing his approach of embodying one’s truth and modeling courage that comes with openness to challenge this notion, this tactic can help break the mental health stigma in both professional and cultural settings, creating and developing spaces where dialogue and healing are both normalized and part of one’s self-care.
Similarly, career pivots also involve burnout recoveries, as we learn to take moments of clarity and use them as opportunities for transformation rather than failure. In this sense, we take back the energy we lost that might have drained us at our old place of work and rejuvenate it as we embark on our new career expedition.
“Being a purpose-driven influencer is so important because it’s just gonna cancel out all the noise that social media can create,” Jean explained.
Breaking the cultural stigma around mental health among professionals of color seeking career changes and/or a deeper purpose begins with both personal and systemic change.
On an individual level, seeking culturally competent professional and mental health resources offers a supportive foundation for navigating identity, ambition and healing. Embracing vulnerability as both a skill and strength while aligning work with passion and a deep level of personal purpose allows professionals to lead with genuineness and balance.
At the organizational level, creating psychologically safe spaces, integrating DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) mental health initiatives and elevating platforms of diverse leaders who model curiosity and transparency can transform and transcend workplace culture, elevating mental health to be valued just as much as professional performance.
As Jean’s message advocates, by redefining success and showing up with care for one’s inner strengths and mental wellness, we not only empower ourselves, but also pave the way for future generations to lead boldly and live authentically.
You can find and purchase Jean’s book on platforms such as Amazon, by clicking here and on Instagram.
If you want a specific topic related to mental health covered, Daniella Mendez may be reached at [email protected].
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