Sara Beal left a stable position as a psychiatric nurse practitioner to start her own practice in Florida.
This decision makes no rational sense on paper. Healthcare is one of the most regulated industries in America. The red tape is legendary. The business side alone could consume someone with no entrepreneurial background.
Yet Sara built “One Step Closer to Healing” anyway.
I’ve interviewed countless entrepreneurs across industries. Sara’s journey reveals something I see repeatedly in successful entrepreneurs but rarely in those who stay stuck at the idea stage.
The willingness to take action.
Most People Stop at the Comfortable Path
Sara had every reason to stay in traditional healthcare. Good income. Established systems. Someone else handling the billing, credentialing, and regulatory compliance. She chose the harder path.
In my book See, Do, Repeat: The Practice of Entrepreneurship, I talk about how the biggest differentiator isn’t between people who have ideas and people who see opportunities. It’s between those who see opportunities and those who actually execute on them.
Sara saw an opportunity to practice psychiatry differently. She wanted to see the person behind the diagnosis. Focus on symptoms rather than labels. Build a practice around holistic, patient-centered care. So, she stepped out and tried it.
The Time Burden Nobody Mentions
Here’s what catches most healthcare entrepreneurs off guard.
When you’re providing a service, you think your job is providing that service. You’re a psychiatric nurse practitioner, so you provide psychiatric care. Simple.
Except now you’re also running a business.
Finding clients. Managing insurance relationships. Handling billing and collections. Maintaining compliance with state regulations. Building an online presence. Responding to reviews. Scheduling. Following up.
All while still delivering excellent clinical care.
I’ve seen this challenge across service-based entrepreneurs in every field. They don’t realize the amount of time they have to devote to the business side until they’re drowning in it.
Sara figured this out. She had to educate herself on every part of running a business while simultaneously operating as a psychiatric nurse practitioner.
The regulatory complexity alone is staggering. In Florida, psychiatric nurse practitioners still need a collaborating psychiatrist even though they can operate their own businesses. The licensure requirements. The reporting obligations. The bureaucracy.
This is where resilience becomes non-negotiable.
Creative Solutions From Constraint
The pandemic forced everyone in healthcare to reconsider how they delivered care. Sara turned that constraint into competitive advantage.
Telemedicine had existed before COVID, but it wasn’t mainstream in psychiatric care. Then suddenly it became the only option. Sara embraced it fully and discovered something important.
Some patients couldn’t come to an office even if they wanted to.
People with severe anxiety. Patients with mobility issues. Those without reliable transportation. Rural populations with no local mental health options.
Telemedicine solved real access problems. Virtual care works as well as in-person treatment.
Sara built her practice model around this reality. She rents office space only as needed. She balances in-person care with virtual appointments. She maintains flexibility.
This is creative problem-solving at its core. An entrepreneurial mindset element that shows up everywhere I look.
Sometimes the challenges we face lead to outcomes we never would have discovered without the problem forcing our hand.
Trust as Business Foundation
Sara built her reputation primarily through word-of-mouth referrals and positive reviews.
In healthcare, this approach is both challenging and incredibly powerful. We live in a world where people research everything online before making decisions. They read reviews. They check ratings. They ask for recommendations in community groups.
One bad review can damage a practice. One great patient experience can generate referrals for years.
What Sara understood is that building trust with patients isn’t separate from building a business. It is the business.
When you provide genuine, empathetic care focused on seeing the whole person, patients notice. They tell their friends. They leave reviews. They come back. This compounds over time in ways that paid advertising never could.
The entrepreneurial mindset here is recognizing that your clinical excellence and your business model aren’t competing priorities. Done right, they’re the same thing.
The Act As If Mentality
Sara talked about something I find fascinating across entrepreneurs.
The “act as if” mentality.
When you’re starting something new, you don’t know everything. You can’t. Entrepreneurship is fundamentally an experiment. A learning journey.
You have to get comfortable with not knowing.
Sara had the clinical skills. She was trained. Licensed. Experienced. But becoming an entrepreneur was new territory.
So she had to step out, take risks, and learn as she went.
Sometimes that meant making missteps. The key is learning from them.
This is why in entrepreneurship we talk about embracing failure. Not because failure is good, but because it’s inevitable when you’re trying something new. The question is whether you learn from it or let it stop you.
Acting as if you’re already capable, even when you feel uncertain, creates momentum. You take the first step. Then the next. You figure things out in real time.
Most people wait until they feel ready. Entrepreneurs act before they feel ready.
Network as Safety Net
Here’s my advice to any healthcare professional considering independent practice.
Build your network with others doing what you want to do.
You won’t know all the answers. Nobody does at the start. But you can learn from people who’ve walked the path before you.
Entrepreneurs are usually willing to share what they’ve learned. They remember what it was like to be where you are now.
For healthcare entrepreneurs specifically, connecting with other nurse practitioners, other practice owners, other people who’ve figured out the regulatory maze makes everything easier.
That community provides a safety net. Guidance. Reality checks. Encouragement when you hit obstacles.
Sara’s journey didn’t happen in isolation. She learned, adapted, and connected with others in her field.
Entrepreneurship feels solitary sometimes, but it doesn’t have to be.
What This Means for Healthcare Professionals
Healthcare professionals are recognizing they can build practices that reflect their values. They can deliver care the way they believe it should be delivered. They can create businesses that serve patients better than traditional systems allow.
But it requires that entrepreneurial mindset.
Willingness to take action despite uncertainty. Resilience through inevitable challenges. Creative problem-solving when constraints appear. Building trust as your primary business strategy. Acting before you feel completely ready. Learning from others who’ve gone before you.
These aren’t abstract concepts. They’re practical behaviors you can develop.
Sara Beal’s insights from the most recent episode of the En Factor podcast proved it’s possible to step away from the comfortable path of traditional healthcare and build something better. Not easier. Better.
The question isn’t whether healthcare entrepreneurship is hard. It is.
The question is whether you’re willing to do hard things to create the practice and the life you actually want.
Because the barriers are real. The regulatory complexity is real. The time commitment is real.
And people are succeeding anyway.
