Lacey Tezino is an experienced technology leader with a passion for promoting healthier mother-daughter relationships. Lacey believes that technology can be used in beautiful ways to enhance our lives and make mental health care more accessible and convenient. She has worked as the Director of IT and Clinical Applications Manager for the Menninger Clinic, one of the top 10 psychiatric hospitals in the country.

Today, Lacey joins the show to speak to the work she is currently doing pouring every creative ounce into the success of Passport Journeys, a company focused on the mother-daughter relationship through teletherapy, live events and more.

Key Takeaways

01:24 – Lacey discusses how Passport Journeys is redefining mother-daughter relationships through its app

04:50 – The inspiration behind Passport Journeys and the unique aspects of mother-daughter dynamics

07:38 – How the pandemic accelerated the adoption of teletherapy for Lacey and her business

09:56 – A heartfelt story about Lacey’s relationship with her mother

15:53 – Growing up in a predominantly white neighborhood in Texas and its impact on Lacey’s journey

18:59 – The future vision for Passport Journeys

20:33 – Where Lacey sees herself and her business in five years

21:25 – Dr. Flowers wraps up the episode with gratitude and shares how listeners can connect with Lacey and learn more about Passport Journeys

Connect with Lacey & Passport Journeys

Lacey’s LinkedIn

Lacey’s Instagram

Passport Journeys Website

Passport Journeys Facebook

Passport Journeys Instagram

Passport Journeys LinkedIn

Resources Mentioned

J. Flowers Health Institute – https://jflowershealth.com/

J. Flowers Health Institute Contact – (713) 783-6655

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**The views and opinions expressed by our guests are those of the individual and do not necessarily reflect those of J. Flowers Health Institute. Any content provided by our co-host(s) or guests is their opinion and is not intended to reflect the philosophy and policies of J. Flowers Health Institute itself. Nor is it intended to malign any recovery method, religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.

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Passion, Inspiration & Strengthening Mother-Daughter Relationships With Lacey Tezino

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Introduction To The Episode And Guest

Welcome everyone to the show. I am super excited to welcome our guest and her name is Lacey and I’m going to get her last name absolutely correct. Tezino.

Yes.

I love it, Lacey. That’s fantastic. How are you?

Thank you. Great. Happy to be here.

I’m so glad you’re here. I know how busy you are and how amazing your life is. I loved the story of your journey, where you came from, where you’ve been, and where you are today. Almost more excited about where you’re going in the future with something that’s super excited that I hope we get to talk about.

Thank you.

That’s your new app, right?

Yes.

I’m very excited. We’re talking about mother-daughter relationships, and we have an innovative new app to talk to you about that Lacey has created to enhance the relationship, and it’s called Passport Journeys. Yes. I love it. Can you tell us about Passport Journeys?

The app is a teletherapy app for mother-daughter pairs. Mother-daughter wants a better relationship, so they download the app and fill out a few questions. Based on their answers, we’ll match them with a licensed clinician, and then they’ll start a monthly journey where they see their clinician, they see their therapist through the app, they get worksheets, journals, etc, and it’s a healing journey for mother-daughter pairs.

When I first heard the story, my immediate reaction was, “I wish my mother and my sisters had the time.” Mother-daughter relationships, like any relationship, can obviously be difficult at best sometimes. Let’s talk about that. Tell me more about the app, rather, tell us more about the tele-therapy component of the app.

I’m not a clinician, but I’m a technology leader. I have seven licensed clinicians who have come on as my clinical advisory board. We are building out a tele-therapy platform. After the questionnaire is filled out, after you get matched with the licensed clinician, you really begin a monthly journey with your clinician. There are tons of teletherapy apps out there. Better help is the leader in the space. There are two things that will really make us different. Number one, the niche market of mother-daughter.

There’s not an app that is targeted for relationships. Most are for anything, anyone. We’re really going to a laser-focused approach on the relationship. The second piece is we’ll be the first teletherapy app to actually prescribe activities. The other apps, they have journaling, they have worksheets, but the clinician will get to know the mother-daughter pair and each month will assign an activity for them to do, whether it’s in person or virtual, to help promote intentional bonding. I think we’re going to stand out in that way.

“Two things set us [Passport Journeys] apart: we’re the first teletherapy app focused on the mother-daughter niche, targeting this unique relationship. Plus, we’ll be the first to prescribe activities as part of therapy.”

I absolutely believe so. I’ve participated in some of these other apps. You’re right, there’s no specific activity that you do. There’s journaling, but there are no homework assignments and things like that. I think you guys are going to stand out. I’ve never seen an app that’s targeted to mother-daughter relationships. Something that you said a little bit earlier when we were sitting here chatting, getting ready for this show that made me super excited is that one of your advisory board members said, Let’s talk about the definition of what a mother-daughter is.” Can you tell the audience a little bit about that?

Ensuring Inclusivity In The App

I was on another podcast for a university a few months ago and I was talking about just the birth of this idea. The podcast interviewer said, “How are you going to ensure that you’re inclusive because this is a very specific app?” I sort of froze.

I bet.

I thought the first person who came to my mind was an LPC that I know I used to work with her in the past. I called her that night and I said, “ I really wanna know if you could be on my advisory board, hold us accountable to inclusive language.” She’s an LGBTQ plus specialized counselor. She has come on and every Friday my cab meets and she’ll say, “What about tweaking it a little bit so that we’re not doing it only for women and we’re not saying ladies and girls, but we’re being inclusive to say anyone who identifies as a mother-daughter pair, this app is for you and just trying to be more open that way.”

That is absolutely amazing. I think that also completely separates you and brings you out in front of the rest of the game. That’s super cool. Tell me what influenced this and what was the birth of the idea of this app?

Great question. From the relationship piece, my own personal story with my mother is what inspired me to create it. I have a beautiful love story to be told for my own mother-daughter relationship. While I was going through some ups and downs with her, I also have been in technology, and healthcare IT for over ten years. When the pandemic hit, I saw and my team had to support thousands of video visits with their therapists that were traditionally in person. Before the pandemic, they were coming in.

I think as I was creating this, how can I help mother-daughter pairs? Also in my career, I was supporting this teletherapy. I thought, “It’s just as what the research is showing is that it’s just as effective as in-person therapy. How can I make this more accessible? How can I bring clinicians to where the mother-daughter pair where they are in their journey and convenient and comfortable for them at home.” I got the idea, it started rolling, and left my job in February. I’m a very new entrepreneur, but it’s exciting. I love it.

That is so cool. I love the feeling as well. I can sense your passion and your excitement about it. The pandemic really changed the way we think and react to teletherapy and Zoom meetings and everything else. Talk a little bit more about how the pandemic and teletherapy evolved for you personally and helping you become successful in launching this new app.

I was working as director of IT at the time and my team had to take clinicians who had been working for decades in front of their patients and really working through providing the therapy, providing their management. When we had to shift, we had ten days to bring the hospital up to do teletherapy. When I watched it and watched how difficult it was for the clinicians, but then once everyone started going, how convenient it was. You no longer had to drive across town to come sit in the office. You could do it anywhere in your home. You could do it walking at the park, on an iPad, a phone. I think that convenience and me being an innovative technology lover, I thought, “This is changing the game completely.”

“As IT Director, my team had to quickly transition seasoned clinicians to teletherapy. In just ten days, we set up the hospital for remote care. It was challenging for the clinicians at first, but once they adjusted, the convenience was clear.”

I think it’s just that access, being more accessible is what I fell in love with. I love supporting it. I love getting clinicians comfortable with delivering teletherapy. I think watching it, supporting it, and then I did my own through COVID. I have small kids. My therapist, I did weekly online on my iPad. I would go and lock myself in the closet and she’s like, “How are you doing this week?” I’m looking at her on the iPad I’m like, “Do you hear that out there?”

“How do you think I’m doing?”

“It’s a mess.” It allowed me to just be able to stay home, but also get the help that I needed during a very difficult time. That’s the goal. That’s what we want to do.

Isn’t it amazing? Teletherapy has been around for so many years, really, and traditionally used by physicians or cruise ships would use it when someone broke a leg or whatever for imaging and things like that. They would send it overseas and someone would look at it and get on teletherapy and do it, or sometimes hospitals would do it, or psychiatrists at psychiatric hospitals would do it for very brief moments, but we never really thought of expanding it. Mother Nature, what is it? Mother Nature is a necessity of invention or something like that.

We were forced into this innovation.

Now today it’s become mainstream. I think it’s so timely for you to be able to do this. I’m interested in hearing more about your relationship with your mom and your story from childhood and how your life evolved into where you are today. I think our audience really needs to hear that story because it really speaks to your passion of this app.

Lacey’s Emotional Story With Her Mother

I had a beautiful relationship with my mom. It was intense, it was a very intense dynamic, and I only had ten years with her. To start off with, she gave me up for adoption at birth. At that time, my mom did not feel that she was fit or that she had the space to have a child. The way it happened is very interesting. She frequented a bar and Montrose and my father managed the bar. She would come in, she was pregnant at the time.

I want to know what bar it was.

The name of it was Michael’s.

I remember Michael’s.

Do you?

Yeah.

My dad managed that. A gay White man who manages a bar, he had one arm, and my mom used to come in there, and so she’s pregnant, but she’s still coming in for drinks, and she’s pouring her heart out to him, and she was planning for an abortion. He said, “Look, because of my lifestyle, because I won’t have a kid, but I will take yours.” She thought he was kidding. She was like, “No.” He said, “I will pay. I want to get you sober.” He said, “I want to take care of you. I’ll take care of all expenses.” They made an informal agreement in the bar but then a month before I was born, they did the adoption papers. I left with him that day.

I have chills over my entire body.

I lived with him and when I was six, going on seven, he passed away. His parents had to raise me. We were here in Houston, but then his parents were down in Vidor, Texas.

You went from Montrose to Vidor, Texas.

Yes. That’s where I was raised when I tell people that.

In a White family.

All White family. All White school, community. When I tell people now, as I say, they say, “Where are you from?” I say, Vidor.” “Vidor?” I’m like, “I was adopted by a White family. It’s a long story.” Anyway, I grew up there. I was always told that my mother was dead. My father passed away. Your mom’s dead. You live with your grandparents, and that was the story. I found out when I was a sophomore in college that she was actually alive and I met her on Mother’s Day, my sophomore year. It was mind-blowing. My whole life I thought she was dead and then being able to meet her. She was living in Houston at the time, and I was at Sam Houston down in Huntsville. I called her up on the phone, I actually called 411 at that time, do you remember that?

Absolutely, yeah.

I called and I was trying to get some information about her and her name was on my birth certificate. I said, “I’m going to call.” I was working at a gas station at that time. It was early in the morning, it was Mother’s Day, I called 411, and I said, “I’m looking for her and I give her a name.” A guy is coming up to pay for his gas, so I put the phone down and she’s looking up the number, he walks off, I pick it up, and she’s on the phone.

What?

Yes. She’s asleep, it’s like 6:30 in the morning and she says, “May I ask who’s speaking?” I said, “I think I’m your daughter.” She says, “Lacey?” I was like, “What?” She was like, “Where are you?” I said, “I’m in Huntsville.” She said, “Come to Houston tonight. Come meet me tonight.” That was the beginning of our story and that’s how we met and we had ten years together. A couple of years ago, she was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer and the oncologist said, “Look, you’ve got nine months.

Even with treatment, you’ve got nine months to live.” She and I just looked at each other and said, “We’re going to write our own ending.” We’ve got a lot of issues. These last 9.5 years, there’ve been ups, there’ve been downs, but we’ve got to reconcile it. We’re going to prioritize our bond. She’s like, “Anything you want to know about me let’s get it out.” We went on a few road trips. I took care of her during treatment and she passed nine months of the day.

That is amazing. I’m so sorry to hear that.

No, I’m not. I am so honored to have had that ten years. That was beautiful.

That is amazing. Did she talk about your relationship with your father, your adopted father?

She did, I mean, she asked. She knew nothing about it, she said, “How was it growing up?” When I met her, she didn’t even know that he had passed away. She was like, “What?” She said, “How was it growing up?” She had lots of questions about how was I treated in Vidor as a small Black child in this homogenous white environment. She had lots of questions. She had lots of guilt. She thought I was going to be in Houston. That was the plan, being Montrose. I think she harbored a lot of guilt. I had some resentment as well.

Of course, you did.

I met her, I came to Houston, she’s thriving, she’s doing well. She’s in this nice condo in the Heights and a VP of this ad agency. I’m like, “Wait a minute. That is not the story that I got. I got a story that you were an addict and you were not fit and you look fine to me.” I had lots of, but we worked through it. It was hard, but she had her reasons, but the beautiful part is that we were able to forgive. We were able to say, “It doesn’t matter what decisions, what happened. You’re dying and I love you and I’m caring for you and I forgive you.”

“The beautiful part is that we were able to forgive. We were able to say, ‘It doesn’t matter what decisions or what happened. You’re dying. I love you, and I’m caring for you. And I forgive you. ’ I’m proud of that.”

That is what I am too. I’m so proud of you. That’s amazing. How were you treated growing up in Vidor?

I was treated wonderfully. I had the most amazing family. I had the most protective family. I think I was the favorite of the family. I was the favorite at school. I was prom queen and class president. I don’t have this story of abuse or trauma. I had a beautiful childhood. I’ll say that. I also had one at which I did not embrace my identity. When I was small, I think to protect me, my family was, if anybody asks, you’re not Black.

I’m like, “What am I?” They’re like, “Your mom was Hawaiian.” She was Saboan, and they said that my father was the White man who adopted me. At that point, I was not even told that I was adopted. My whole life I said, “I’m Hawaiian and White.”Until I got older, when I got to college, I had black roommates and I had black suitemates. They were asking and they said, “How did you grow up in Vidor?” They said, “You do know you’re black, right?” I was like, “No.” They’re like, “You are joking. Look at your hair.” They are still like my best friends to this day and they tell this story. It’s so embarrassing.

I love it.

I was treated well. I think until I got older and I understood, “This is my identity and going through college for me to embrace who I was.” Now going back, I’m like, “This place is a little sketch. This is a tough place to be black.” My experience was great.

That’s so cool. In all of that experience, you and I have somewhat similar stories, but different stories. I had a sister die of drug addiction and I had a sister die of cancer and a mother who has passed and a father who died at ten. You and I have both had that loss of experience from our family members and that’s difficult. I’m doing what I do today because it’s a passion and it’s what I lived through with my family. I feel like this is what brought you on this journey to develop this app, is your relationship with your family and your mom. Did the two of you do individual therapy or couples therapy, or family therapy together?

We did not do it together. She went through a little bit of individual therapy over the years. She did a rehab program. She was an alcoholic. She did go through rehab. She got sober for a little while, but we didn’t do any mother-daughter therapy, but I wish that my app would have been around because we would have done it. She was so open to that. All types of modalities. She was always self-help. We would have been open to it, but I think we didn’t have that offering in our face. It’s not like it is today, where everything you see on your feed is mental health and hashtag self-care. That wasn’t happening but I think if it were, we would have definitely done it.

That is so amazing. What an amazing story. What do you see in the future for the app?

I have three other products and services that are going to support the app, which I’m really excited about. I’m building out these mother-daughter cabins. They’re like bespoke tiny houses that are for this non-distracted getaway for mother-daughter pairs to book the cabins. You can either book them with a clinician that comes to visit the cabin and does therapy, or you can just do it as a restful weekend unplugged. Those cabins are something that I’m working on that’ll be ready this fall.

Amazing. Here in the Houston area?

It’s in the Southeast Texas area. I have live events. I’ve already hosted three, which have gone very well. We’re going to do one per quarter. My clinical team will help me. We’ll have very thoughtful agendas for mother-daughter pairs to come, whether it’s lunch in the park if we’re going to do spa day, or things like that. Those events and then an online gift shop for thoughtful gifting. All of these things are going to support the app. Everything is tailored to the mother-daughter relationship for the business. We nail that over the next five years. We really get it down to a T and then expand. How can we take this model and do it for father-son? How can we take this model and do it for lovers and friends, etc., but we’re laser-focused on moms and daughters?

“Everything is tailored to the mother-daughter relationship for the business. So I see us nailing that over the next five years. We really get it down to a ‘T,’ and then expand.”

Of course, yeah. That is just amazing. Where do you see yourself in five years?

Where Lacey Sees Herself In Five Years

In five years, I see myself packaging up passport journeys and selling it, getting acquired. My kids at that time will be, I have a 5 and a 3 year old and they’ll be older and so I think after this five-year push, I’ll take some time. I’ll just be soccer moming it until my next big idea.

I’m sure more will just continue to roll out. That’s what entrepreneurial minds do. You’re still in therapy.

I’m still in therapy.

Still in therapy, doing therapy.

My husband and I actually use a teletherapy app, ReGain. It’s under BetterHelp, and we see our therapist weekly.

I see my therapist weekly on Doxy Me every week.

Very good.

Every Tuesday at 10:45. I’m out there, she calls.

We love it, I love it.

I do too. I think it’s so important. As a part of all of our general lives and keeping our engines running smoothly and our minds running smoothly and having someone that is a third party just speaking with and helping us maintain and navigate life in a healthy way. I think that this app with mothers and daughters and then eventually others and families and what have you is just so important to the world and what you’re adding to it. Congratulations.

Thank you.

I think that’s so cool.

Thanks a lot.

Tell everybody how they can reach you and ask questions about the app or see if they can help in any way. By the way, as a side note, are you looking for any funding?

Yes, I just finished my first investor pitch deck and I have my five-year performer. I am all ready to go into it, I’m interested in venture capital, pre-seed round, and friends and family round. I’m ready for funding. This first year we need about 200,000. I’m going to start a fundraiser very soon. To reach me, we have PassportJourneysApp.com as the website. I’m very active on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Great.

I post our journey there. Connect with me, add me. I’d love to have more people.

You bet. It’s Lacey Tezino. You guys, please keep up with her. Keep up with her journey. Look her up on LinkedIn. She’s an amazing, successful woman that I’m so proud to be now friends with, I think.

Thank you.

Closing Remarks And Gratitude

We want you to stay in touch with us and we want to help you in whatever way we can. Thanks for being here. Everyone, thank you for tuning in. We appreciate you. Look us up as well at JFlowersHealth.com, (713) 783-6655. Have a great day everybody, thank you.

I’d like to remind everyone watching or listening to us that there are numerous platforms to find our podcasts, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio. Please share this episode on social media or with someone that you think could help. We remind you also that a clear diagnosis is key to the most effective treatment possible.

Yes, it is. See you next week.

Thanks again, Robin. Thank you.

Passion, Inspiration & Strengthening Mother-Daughter Relationships With Lacey Tezino [Episode 70]

Listen to the podcast here

Passion, Inspiration & Strengthening Mother-Daughter Relationships With Lacey Tezino

Introduction To The Episode And Guest

Ensuring Inclusivity In The App

Lacey’s Emotional Story With Her Mother

Where Lacey Sees Herself In Five Years

Closing Remarks And Gratitude

Important Links

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