When I first started graduate school to become a Marriage and Family Therapist, like many people, I did lots of studying in coffee shops. One day, I saw a man reading Yalom’s Group Psychotherapy book by the cappuccino machine. I recognized it as a textbook I was studying and asked him if he was taking the same class.

“No, I’m teaching that class,” he told me.

He then proceeded to give me several great ideas for my final paper, locations where I could apply for my practicum internship, and the names of supervisors who would work well with me. This kind man, I had never met, went out of his way to help me in a dozen ways in our forty-five minute conversation.

And as amazing and wonderful as that conversation was (and he still is) I found out quickly this is far from a rare occurrence. Throughout graduate school and beyond I was very lucky to have had wonderful supervisors and mentors on my path to becoming a working therapist. People were so kind and helpful to me when I was starting my career and I have a strong calling to pay that forward.