Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Tia Morris.
Hi Dr. Tia , please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
When I was younger, I always knew I wanted to help others. I thought about becoming a doctor, but also knew that math and science weren’t my strongest points. I’ve always been curious about people and human behavior, along with societal impact, and making positive change, so social work made the most sense for me, one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I do believe growing up as a child with severe hearing loss, also impacted how I saw myself and the world.
That curiosity has guided my entire journey. I pursued my undergraduate degree in Human-Community Services and Religious Studies-Family Ministries, followed by a Master’s in Social Work, and most recently a Doctorate in Human Services- Leadership & Organizational Management. Over 20 years as a social worker and 16 years as a licensed clinical social worker, I’ve had the privilege of serving across a wide range of settings, from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, the American Red Cross, to community mental health, school social work, and nonprofit leadership.
During the pandemic, like many others I had a period where I realized I needed to pivot as I wasn’t content with my life overall. I decided to resign from my job, sell my house, and made plans to move overseas. Though the move didn’t come to fruition, that season gave me the reset I needed to decide to bet on myself. In February 2021, I decided to open a virtual private practice and have been doing that full time ever since.
Because of the work I’ve done with my therapy clients in the past 5 years, it was a natural progression to become a mental wellness coach. With coaching, it allows me to make a greater impact, which as I get further into my 40s and lean more into my own womanhood, it’s important to me. Most of my clients are women who are high-achievers, A-type, perfectionists and high-performers and constantly show up for others. One of the things I noticed is that women are conditioned from a very young age to put others first. When putting others first, they sacrifice their own needs and wants. As one who has made it my life’s work to do my part with empowering those I work with, I provide my clients with permission to think, speak, and move differently, especially when they know what they’ve been doing isn’t serving them anymore.
Alright, 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?
As the founder of Purpose + Presence Coaching, one of my biggest challenges has been transitioning solely from the professional identity I held for 20 years as a social worker and therapist into the expanded role of founder, CEO, and mental wellness coach.
Although I have successfully run my therapy private practice for the past five years, building a coaching brand requires a different level of visibility, marketing, and audience development. However, like everything else in my life, I have welcomed the challenge.
The other challenge has been scaling a new brand often takes longer than expected. Like many entrepreneurs, I had a vision for growth, but the timeline requires patience and persistence, however, I know the struggles are part of my story and journey that I have and will continue to appreciate.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Purpose + Presence Coaching ?
As the founder of Purpose + Presence Coaching, I help high-achieving and high-performing women, especially Women of Color shift from self-abandonment, perfectionism, and exhaustion into embodied presence, confidence, and sustainable success.
I currently offer two entry points: the Identity Expansion Program: 12-week 1:1 60-minute sessions delivered as a boutique, fully customized coaching experience, along with Clarity Intensive: a 1:1 90-minute intensive, which gives clients a strategic roadmap for beginning the work of identity and lifestyle recalibration. In addition, I provide executive coaching for women nonprofit leaders.
Being in more networking spaces lately, I get asked constantly: Who’s your ideal client? What does she do for a living? I’ve gone back and forth about narrowing that down, but I’m asking my clients to show up as their authentic selves and speak their truth, so I have to do the same. Because of my life experiences and my own intersecting identities, I work with women, especially Women of Color, who are in the C-suite, in academia, in leadership, running their own businesses, and leading their communities and families. I work with women who have self-abandoned for so long in the name of strength that they don’t know where to begin reclaiming their whole selves.
What I’m proudest of, brand-wise, is refusing to shrink that message to fit a “safer,” more generic niche. Naming that I work with Women of Color specifically, alongside the broader range of high-achieving women, is brand integrity in action, it’s the same authenticity I’m coaching my clients toward, and I couldn’t ask that of them without living it myself.
What makes this coaching program different is that I bring 20 years of social work expertise together with 40+ years of life experience. That combination lets me pour into my clients and walk them through the process, while also holding them accountable to show up for themselves and build a life that actually feels authentic and sustainable.
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
I don’t necessarily believe in luck. I believe in something either being for me or not, and I believe in divine timing. That doesn’t mean things have always gone the way I hoped. It means that when they haven’t, I’ve learned to trust the outcome anyway. More often than not, what actually unfolded turned out to be more exciting and more fulfilling than what I originally asked for.
One of the biggest things has been timing. I’ve been building this since October 2025, and it’s taken longer to scale than I originally anticipated. It would have been easy to read that as a sign that this wasn’t the right time. But I’ve learned that resistance isn’t a signal to stop, it’s a signal to ask what skills and abilities you need to strengthen and tap into. For me, that’s meant balancing logic with leaning into being more audacious. And now that I’m being more audacious, things are falling into place.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.purposepresencecoaching.com
- Instagram: purposepresence_coaching
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61579117119971
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiajenicemorris
- TikTok: @purposepresence_coaching
