Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. L. Annette Drain.
Annette, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
The desire to open a private practice that serves a diverse clientele and in different geographical regions regarding mental wellness and workplace wellness began when I was a graduate student, completing an internship initially and traveling internationally. The interest later grew into a venture, Do Network, a lifestyle platform to connect with others and inspire them to learn, explore, and do different activities/gain new experiences, perspectives, and skills. As a way to tap into people’s psyche by appealing to their interests, goals, or awaken any dormant or latent aspects, the platform featured videos of doing fun activities and visiting different places as well as tips on varying topics. It helped to build a network for reaching and engaging with others, but the need for working individually with clients or with organizations remained. Eventually, I paused work on Do Network to focus more on L3 Group, LLC. It had already been a goal of mine to open a private practice that combines counseling, consulting, and coaching and in 2015, I launched it!
With a focus on quality, L3 Group, LLC offers mobile, virtual, and in-office services for mental health therapy for individuals and training/consulting companies on employee relations from a psychological framework. Combined at L3 Group, LLC are these services in a convenient way for clients, coupled with my passion for overall health (mental health and health of professional environments) and love of travel. As an international psychologist, author, and professor, one of my objectives with L3 Group is to guide clients in being or becoming their whole selves. All of my work focuses on mindfulness, which can cultivate such wholeness, and some mindful practices such as yoga and meditation are incorporated. With experience in counseling children/adolescents and adults with varying mental health concerns, including depression, anxiety, grief, and trauma, I am also a professor at a graduate psychology institution teaching master’s and doctoral students, develop seminars, and lead retreats. I work in other universities on student dissertation committees, a reviewer for a scholarly peer-review journal that publishes manuscripts, and contract with Fortune 500 companies. Clients and students, alike, respond well to the mindfulness practices incorporated in the work.
I had been practicing yoga for years and engaged in simple breathing techniques or actual meditations with private clients, but in 2016, I decided to offer meditation to the public and started Meditation and Mocktails, an event series of a fun, accessible way to learn and practice meditation for all levels and meet and mingle new people with tasty, alcohol-free beverages, so again the connecting or network component from Do Network was present. This led to becoming an independent contractor with a new and innovative meditation studio in Chicago.
As the founder of L3 Group, LLC, I have published articles and books on emotional intelligence and body language reading, managing anxiety with a 4-step method I created for clients, emotional intelligence and leadership, mindfulness in the workplace, featured in different media outlets, and collaborated with industry leaders and government officials on the importance of total wellness.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Certainly, there have been challenges as in any new venture, and starting a business that focuses on mental wellness has its share as well. Going into private practice is exciting and exhausting at the same time. My background is in outpatient care in hospitals, organizations and systems functioning, and academia/higher education, which may sound like useful ingredients to open a private practice. Indeed, they are and these skills and background have and continue to be useful for effective work, but they do not shield against health insurance dilemmas or trends and stigma in the field. As a company that does not currently accept insurance plans, some clients encounter difficulty in access to services if their insurance does not provide coverage for mental health or do not have the resources for private pay. For corporate clients in need of training on cultivating healthy work culture and professional development, although the finances may not be problematic, realizing an internal issue within the company, warranting a need for such training, may be.
L3 Group – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
L3 Group LLC is a company that specializes in the psychological wellness of people and organizations through leadership development, mental health therapy, meditation and yoga, retreats and seminars for skill development (emotional intelligence, communication, leadership and team-building, motivation, amongst others), and global consulting initiatives.
From its name, L3 Group LLC’s pillars are learn, lead, lift, with the idea that clients (individual and corporate) will learn the necessary skills to implement effectively in their daily lives, lead with confidence and clarity, and lift others along their path. L3 Group, LLC began with the intention of being a full-service private practice that provides counseling, consulting, and coaching (the group of services in the L3 Group name) to individuals and organizations across the globe and in convenient modalities, online and in-person as well as traveling to clients, with mindfulness practices at its core, all of which makes it unique, all of which makes us proud to do and be.
With changing the environment or method of working with clients, L3 Group, LLC keeps work interesting whether by being outdoors in various nature locales for mindfulness practices, in creative spaces indoors for off-sites or trainings or peaceful office settings as well as catering to different learning styles, which all is to engage clients and empower them to lead their own path.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
There have been several proud moments, thankfully, from just starting my private practice, getting a first client or first international client, publishing books and articles, or completing legal and insurance paperwork, but the moments that typically stand out are the ones in which I see when my message, even on a micro level, resonates with a client. Watching them put into action, on their own, the skills we practiced whether to resolve conflict, build cohesion in the workplace, manage anxiety, demonstrate responsibility for actions, communicate clearly, and so forth brings both excitement and a sense of confirmation for me. Excitement for them and confirmation in terms of my own purpose.
There are times when it appeared as though a client may not have been grasping or implementing anything we discussed and continued engaging in behaviors that ultimately caused emotional harm. This does not mean that our time together was not taken seriously. Quite the contrary. This particular client was typically engaged, but upon self-termination after a year and a half together, the client expressed the levels and depth of personal growth and in ways that showed I resonated with her and that our time together was useful.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.l3group.net
- Phone: (872) 205-6550
- Email: support@l3group.net
- Instagram: @l3group
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/L3GroupLLC/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrLDrain
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/l3-group-llc-chicago-2
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