Today we’d like to introduce you to Nkem Ani.
Hi Nkem, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
My Name is Nkem Ani, and I am the founder of Trained Mind Psychiatry LLC. I’m board-certified and licensed as a psychiatric nurse practitioner in both New Jersey and New York. It has been a long journey.
I am currently working toward my doctorate. Why? First, it will help me to make more of an impact in my business and patient population. Also, to my father, who is now in heaven; he always told the community that I am goin to be a doctor. I want to be able to say, Dad, I became a doctor in nursing. I already do part-time, but I’d love to dedicate more of myself to it in the future. I want to share what I’ve learned,
My story doesn’t start in America. It begins with a little girl in a small town in Nigeria. That little girl, me, was just three years old when my mother left. She left not out of abandonment but out of sacrifice. She was trying to build a better life for herself and for us. She went to America. I didn’t see her again until I was twenty-five.
Growing up, I didn’t have the kind of support many children need. I was raised mostly on my own, navigating childhood with dreams far bigger than my surroundings. Even then, I had one clear goal: I wanted to come to America. I knew my mother was here. I knew life had to be different. Just like everyone who comes to this country carries a dream. Mine was education. I wanted to go to school. I wanted to learn. I wanted to grow, and I have grown and am still growing.
Out of that growth has come a business serving people in NJ and NY. And I have written books that are published on Amazon, helping people as well.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It hasn’t been a completely smooth journey, no. One of the greatest difficulties was working for other people while trying to build my own business at the same time. I started it as a side hustle because I needed security — the kind of security that comes from a stable paycheck. At the time, I was teaching as a clinical professor at a College of Nursing, and that gave me a guaranteed income every two weeks.
That stability mattered because I was going through a separation at the time. It was just me and my children in the household, and I was the one responsible for the mortgage and for taking care of them. So I couldn’t afford to take a risk on something that might not work out. I kept working full-time while building my business on the side, because I needed both the income and the time to prove the business could stand on its own.
Even when I was exhausted from a full day of teaching, I still made time in the evenings and on weekends to work on my business — because I knew the dream I carried in my heart was to build this practice that would allow me to take care of people and deliver quality psychiatric care to the people of this community. It was a calling; it was a ministry.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Trained Mind Pydchiatry LLC?
Trained Mind Psychiatry LLC is a Psychiatric Care & Medication Management practice.
We provide comprehensive evaluations and personalized Treatment Plans
Based in South Plainfield, in-person and Available Online Throughout NJ and NY.
We also provide therapy for teenagers and adults as well. What makes this practice different is our dedication to adding value to our patients’ lives. Meaning we listen to what healing means to them, not just our own definition of healing. Then we take their goals to create a treatment plan. for them
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
I like the diversity that South Plainfield offers. It provides opportunities to serve people from different cultural backgrounds without traveling around the world. Diversity is beauty
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