Nancy [00:00:03] I have a history of unhelpful stories around math and finances, but it doesn’t mean I’m not capable of building skills and learning about how to manage finances now and in the future. And it’s just going to take patience, giving myself grace, and time for me to become more comfortable with it. And for me to develop helpful habits around it. 

Linzy [00:00:30] Welcome to the Money Skills For Therapists podcast, where we answer this question. How can therapists and health practitioners go from money shame and confusion to feeling calm and confident about their finances and get money really working for them and both their private practice and their lives? I’m your host, Linzy Bonham therapist turned money coach and creator of the course Money Skills For Therapists. 

Linzy [00:00:51] Hello, and welcome back to the Money Skills For Therapists podcast. Before we get in today’s episode, which is all about that story of being bad at math or not a numbers person. I’m really excited for it. Before we get into that today, I wanted to share another review that we received on Apple Podcasts. It’s been so, so nice to see the reviews coming in for the podcast. I so appreciate the feedback and the kind words, and I wanted to share a view that made me laugh. I feel mildly roasted by it, and the title of it is Don’t be deceived by the hushed tones. She says, “This podcast is some real talk for therapists in private practice. It’s soft on the ears like Delicious Dish radio program from the 1990s SNL, but filled with truth bombs about shame, martyrdom and finances”. I actually had to go look up what Delicious Dish is I’ll put a link in the show notes. And when I did, I had to laugh because I was like, I do sound like that. I do have this like, very soft, hushed tone, but we’re talking about real stuff on here and heavy stuff. So thank you so much for your review. Whoever left that for us. So today’s episode is a coaching call. So these coaching calls, these sessions that we do are actual coaching sessions with students that I have in the course. And today’s coaching call is with Nancy. We dig into some mindset issues, especially around this story of not being good at math. This is something that I hear all the time from therapists and health practitioners. I think that generally as a group, we are used to being very competent in so many ways, but rarely do we feel like we’re really competent with like emotions or or kinesthetically intelligent and also really good at math. Those are skill sets that rarely overlap. So with Nancy, we dig in to this story about not being a numbers person, not being good at math. We dig into where that came from, and then we look at how to integrate some new experiences that she was actually already having with money. And I mean, isn’t this so much of mindset work all the time and trauma work, from a therapeutic perspective, is actually letting ourselves be updated and taking the new information that’s around us. So that’s part of what we get into with Nancy, but I’m not going to give away any more. I want you to hear the progression as we have this coaching session. But for those of you who think that you’re bad at math or not a numbers person and find that really coming up and getting in the way of working on your finances, this episode is for you. Enjoy. 

Linzy [00:03:34] All right, so, Nancy, thank you so much for joining me today. 

Nancy [00:03:36] Sure. 

Linzy [00:03:37] So, Nancy, you are a student in Money Skills For Therapists right now, and I’m curious before we dive into our coaching topic for today. I’m curious about your decision to join the course. What made you decide to join the course? 

Nancy [00:03:49] Being organized financially, I think, has been a goal of mine for many years. From a personal finance perspective. But since I’ve been in business, that’s been something even more important to me, but I’ve never had really anyone to help me with that. So when I came across this course online, I thought, Go for it. It’s something that I really – I think I need.

Linzy [00:04:17] Yeah, there’s such a gap there in general, right? Like, there’s just so few resources that we find that are out there for us around business and money. 

Nancy [00:04:25] That’s so true. 

Linzy [00:04:26] So, Nancy, digging into your topic for today, so you’ve let me know that you want to explore some unhelpful thoughts and beliefs that have held you back around money or getting organized around money. So can you tell me more about that? 

Nancy [00:04:41] Some of the unhelpful thoughts are I can’t manage money. I’m not good at math, so I’m not good at numbers. Therefore, I’m not good at managing money.  

Linzy [00:04:56] And those stories like I’m hearing, there’s kind of like some identity stories basically 

Nancy [00:05:00] Right 

Linzy [00:05:01] About who you are and what you’re capable of. Do you have a sense of where those stories came from? 

Nancy [00:05:06] I think just growing up, I was not really a great student in math. And so there was a lot of anxiety around anything math related. So of course, it made it really comfortable to avoid anything math related. And then my family would try to explain money management concepts to me, and I think I just would freeze and a wall would just go up. So I really wasn’t absorbing what I could have absorbed. 

Linzy [00:05:40] So this is even as you were growing up, there was as well that would come up OK. And who was it who tried to teach you about managing money? 

[00:05:48] My parents. 

[00:05:51] What is their relationship to money like? 

Nancy [00:05:53] They have a positive relationship with money. They were good at managing it. Good at budgeting. And my brother is too. I just have one sibling and he’s good with money. 

Linzy [00:06:08] So there’s kind of like this family’s skill set that didn’t make it to you, right? Because of this wall that would come up. Like when they would try to impart it. It was like, you couldn’t. So Nancy fast forwarding to today, then how do you see these beliefs coming up now, like as you’re working through the course or as you’re working on your finances? 

Nancy [00:06:27] There are there are just a lot of times when I want to avoid doing the work that I know will help me in the short term and the long term. But it’s just really hard to not avoid and sit down and just take things step by step.  

Linzy [00:06:50] Yeah, because when you do sit down and you start working on it, what happens? 

Nancy [00:06:56] I feel better. I feel better. My thoughts about what the experience might be like for that like hour or two hour block of time end up not being as bad as I am expecting it to be. And I end up getting like, on this role and want to keep working with it. But then I might have something else that also needs to get done so. 

Linzy [00:07:20] OK, OK. And that experience of being on a roll? What is that like? What starts to happen? 

Nancy [00:07:26] I start to feel actually excited and relieved about the process and eager to kind of get a handle on what I’ve been avoiding for so long.  

Linzy [00:07:41] So, I’m hearing there’s these new kind of positive experiences that are happening. And how many of these new positive experiences have you had so far? 

Nancy [00:07:49] I would say quite a few. 

Linzy [00:07:51] OK. So is it pretty consistent at this point? 

Nancy [00:07:54] I think so. 

Linzy [00:07:55] OK. 

Nancy [00:07:56] In terms of the content that’s part of the program, I’m still in the early stages of really digging into the numbers of the business, but I’m expecting that to also be positive as I keep moving forward. 

Linzy [00:08:15] OK. So closing then, like this new experience that you’re having, I’m hearing now when you sit down to work on it, you actually manage to find flow and you even start to feel excited. 

Nancy [00:08:25] Yes. 

Linzy [00:08:25] And this has become a reliable enough experience that you can even expect that this is probably what it’s going to be like as you continue to work forward  

Nancy [00:08:33] Yeah, it’s foreign to me to think of it that way. For sure. 

Linzy [00:08:39] This is a new experience.

Nancy [00:08:41] I’ve never been excited about numbers of anything. 

Linzy [00:08:43] Right. So there was this old experience, this belief of like not being good at math and avoiding these things that was decades long. Right? And now there’s this new experience. That’s. Like a month or two long so far? 

Nancy [00:08:58] At the most, uh huh.

Linzy [00:09:01] So I’m wondering, Nancy, if we were going to start to maybe update this story a little bit. You know, the story that you’re not good at math or you’re not good at finances, what’s maybe some new information that you’re starting to get that is not supporting that. 

Nancy [00:09:18] I have a history of unhelpful stories around math and finances, but it doesn’t mean I’m not capable of building skills and learning about how to manage finances now and in the future. And it’s just going to take patience, giving myself grace, and time for me to become more comfortable with it and for me to develop helpful habits around it. 

Linzy [00:09:41] Yeah, yeah. And it’s good to have a realistic expectation there, right, that it does take time and the habits are so important, right? This like repetition, both in terms of like giving yourself those positive experiences over and over, but also in terms of like working away at these things little by little. So they don’t build up and become big. I’m wondering, Nancy, like, how would you be able to kind of deepen those new experiences that you’re having, like integrate them more into your sense of who you are? Is it like talking to other people? Is it putting reminders like visual reminders? How do you really kind of like process and start to really be connected to something new? 

Nancy [00:10:17] I think one piece of that would be making time. Carving out time because I’m still working on putting that into my weekly routine because my habit has been to avoid. So really making sure I carve out that time and I don’t respond to unhelpful thoughts when that time comes. Like, Oh, I don’t feel like doing it right now. Maybe I’ll do it later. I just I do it anyways. I think that over time, that will be helpful and the support person that I am connected with through the program. 

Linzy [00:10:57] Yes, your accountability buddy. 

Nancy [00:10:59] That’s I think, going to continue to be really helpful because we arrange a weekly Zoom time to just see where we’re at and support each other and text each other during the week to do the same. So I definitely want to continue that as well. In addition to the other, the other options that you provide. 

Linzy [00:11:21] Yeah. So yes, that’s that’s another positive support to keep you connected. So I’m wondering on the practical side, Nancy, like do you have like regular money time in your calendar that you are sitting down and working on these things? 

Nancy [00:11:33] I have two days a week when I do that one weekend day, one day during the week. 

Linzy [00:11:42] OK. And do you work on both of those days or is one a backup? 

Nancy [00:11:45] Both of those days. 

Linzy [00:11:47] OK. Yeah. And have you figured out a sense of like how much time you want to work on these things in one go? 

Nancy [00:11:52] A couple of hours I usually schedule. 

Linzy [00:11:55] So I’m curious, Nancy, is there anything you’d be doing differently if you were anticipating this to be a positive experience twice a week, rather than this old story that it’s going to be a negative experience? 

Nancy [00:12:07] Are you thinking like things I could incorporate while I’m doing this? Every day I fix myself a latte. I have an amazing espresso machine at home, so just doing that while I’m working on this makes it more pleasant. Or maybe if it’s a nice day outside at summertime, going outside while I’m doing it, sitting on the porch. 

Linzy [00:12:33] Yeah, building in those nice environmental pieces. Because what I’m what I’m hearing is there is still kind of this like, there’s these remnants, right? You got this kind of leftover stuff. And I’m wondering, part of it is going to be time, as you say, right? Just to be like honing the skills, getting back to habit. And it sounds like you’ve already really integrated it. I’m wondering if there’s a way to kind of like even deepen it to be something that you can be looking forward to, right? Or that there could be celebration afterwards. Like, how do we even move it into more of a positive experience that you know is going good and better. 

Nancy [00:13:12] Maybe viewing it, which I wasn’t seeing it this way before, but viewing it as part of self-care? 

Linzy [00:13:18] Yeah, right. 

Nancy [00:13:20] Now, self-care is really important to me. 

Linzy [00:13:22] Mm hmm. Right. 

Nancy [00:13:24] And this has also been important to me, but I never viewed it as a self-care, as a form of self-care. So I think reminding myself of that.  

Linzy [00:13:35] And if it’s if it’s part of your self-care, you know, how would you feel towards it if you saw it as part of your self-care? 

Nancy [00:13:41] More positively. 

Linzy [00:13:43] Yeah, yeah. Like, what are the words that you associate with self-care? 

Nancy [00:13:49] Well, when it comes to money, I think vacation,. 

Linzy [00:13:53] Yes. 

Nancy [00:13:53] But in general, I think just the idea of especially in the work that we do, how important it is to do good work. That requires self-care on our part. 

Linzy [00:14:06] Yeah, absolutely. In our work, it’s like a life preserver, self-care. It’s not like a nice extra. It’s an essential. For you, what are the kind of like adjectives that go with self-care – trying to get a sense of your flavor of self-care, like is it nurture, is a joy, is it relaxation? 

Nancy [00:14:26] Calming. 

Linzy [00:14:26] Calming. OK, OK, calming is part of your self-care. 

Nancy [00:14:28] Peaceful. 

Linzy [00:14:32] So can money be part of like a calming, peaceful way of taking care of yourself? 

Nancy [00:14:38] Definitely. Definitely. I think for me, there’s been a lot of unknowns around my finances because I have been avoiding, but moving from the unknown to the known with my finances. The result of that will be more peace. And I think a greater sense of control. 

Linzy [00:15:03] Yeah, right. Absolutely. And what are you noticing talking about it this way? 

Nancy [00:15:07] Power. 

Linzy [00:15:09] OK, so it’s coming towards the end of our our time together. What sticks out for you? What are you taking away from this conversation? 

Nancy [00:15:17] I think this is one of the best things I’ve really I’ve done for myself in a long time, and I didn’t realize it when I signed up. 

Linzy [00:15:27] Oh, that’s a nice surprise. And knowing that this is one of the best things you’ve done for yourself, like, what do you know about yourself? What does that show you? 

Nancy [00:15:39] I’m worth taking care of the financial aspect of my life, and I’m able to do it with the right support, for sure. 

Linzy [00:15:51] And I do have to say, Nancy, the parts therapist in me, is just imagining that little you, that little one who struggled at math and believe she wasn’t good at math. I’m imagining that part of you being able to start like here and take in some of where you’re landing and the work that you’re doing with the powerful work you’re doing to care for yourself. Thank you so much for joining me today. 

Nancy [00:16:16] Thank you. Thank you. 

Linzy [00:16:33] I really love the progression of this session with Nancy. The energy at the end just felt so different than the energy at the beginning, and so much of that was just helping her get in touch with the experience as she was already having around money. And I think that’s so often the case when we have these really strong stories from childhood about who we are. You know, I am not a math person. I am not good at numbers. The other people in my family can do that, but I can’t. Is that then we exclude exceptions to that story. You know, evidence to the contrary. And in Nancy’s case, it was that she was already starting to have good experiences with working on her finances and starting to feel on a roll and excited as she was working on these things. But she hadn’t quite connected that yet back to the story of being bad at math. So if you want to hear more from me, you can follow us @moneynutsandbolts on Instagram. That’s really where we hang out on social media and put out free money content related to therapists and health practitioners all the time. We’re putting stuff out there. If, like Nancy, you want to jump in and start really changing your relationship to money, having some of these new experiences to overwrite your old stories while you get your finances working for you, the way to get into Money Skills For Therapists is through watching my masterclass, The 4-Step Framework to Getting Your Private Practice Finances Totally in Order. So I have the link to the masterclass below. The masterclass lays out my approach and framework. Even if you are not thinking about joining the course, it gives you tons of helpful ways to think about private practice finances, but it’s also the gateway into Money Skills For Therapists. So if you’re curious about the course, check out the masterclass. The link is in the show notes. Thanks for joining me today. 

Joe [00:00:01] So if you’re treating your business like a baby, that means you’re inappropriately loving it. There’s things in your business that you have to stop doing, whereas as a parent, you’re going to always love that kid. Hopefully, hopefully you’re a good parent. And so even the way we think about our business is, Oh, I’ve raised it, it’s my baby. No. This is a business. This is something that you hope to contribute to the world. And you may need to walk away from it at some point. 

Linzy [00:00:30] Welcome to the Money Skills For Therapists podcast, where we answer this question. How can therapists and health practitioners go from money shame and confusion to feeling calm and confident about their finances and get money really working for them and both their private practice and their lives? I’m your host, Linzy Bonham, therapist turned money coach and creator of the course Money Skills For Therapists. 

Linzy [00:00:51] Welcome to the Money Skills For Therapists podcast. Today’s episode is with Joe Sanok. Joe Sanok is a therapist turned business owner. He is a hugely successful podcaster, and he is releasing a book in October called Thursday Is The New Friday. The book is all about how to work less, be more productive, and actually enjoy your life, which is a puzzle that I think so many of us therapists are trying to figure out all the time. How do we actually make our businesses work for us and enjoy the rest of our lives when it’s so easy to turn our businesses into a kind of agency-like situations where we’re working so, so much. If you feel overworked in your private practice or any other businesses that you have on the go. If you find that you struggle to let go of tasks because you think that you’re kind of the only person who can do x y z for your practice, and if you want to develop a healthier and more balanced relationship to working and private practice than this episode is for you. Joe brings up so much interesting history how our relationship to work and time has been formed and how we bring that into our work as private practitioners, and also how there’s some key steps that we can take to actually start to improve our relationship with work and enjoy our lives and be better at the work that we do for it. So without further ado, here’s Joe Sanok. 

Linzy [00:02:32] All right, so welcome, Joe, to the podcast. 

Joe [00:02:35] I’m so glad to be here. Thanks for having me, Linzy. 

Linzy [00:02:37] Yeah, you’re welcome. So you have a book coming out in October and it’s on a topic that I think is extremely relevant to therapists because this is something – a puzzle that I see a lot of therapists and health practitioners trying to solve all the time, which is how do you work less but make more money and actually have time to do what you want with your life and spend time doing the things that you enjoy? It’s kind of like this puzzle that I feel like a lot of therapists are turning over in their minds often. 

Joe [00:03:03] Yeah, I think that so often therapists just start with the old model, but they just start seeing clients and then more clients. And then they’re on all the insurances, and they just – everywhere – aren’t even evaluating having any sense of intention. So instead of starting with, OK, which insurances should I be on locally? How much do they pay? How many clients are there? Is it even worth the hassle? And then saying, Well, what could I get for private pay? Should I compare those two before I start taking clients. And then looking, do I want to be out of network? And so even just starting with, what’s my intention with this practice? Because too often what happens is they don’t have that intention and then they get busy. Maybe not the right kind of busy. It could be on insurances that you really – it’s not your ideal client. And then you find that you’re barely making what you made at the old agency work. And then you’re burned out and you’re stressed out and you’ve just given yourself a job. You don’t have a business. You just – if you don’t show up, you don’t get paid. If your kids are sick or there’s, you know, things that just happen, you don’t get paid. And so then you don’t take time off because, you know, if I take this vacation, in addition to paying for the vacation, I’m going to lose two grand this week. Dang, that’s like six grand week when you take a whole family away, like, we can’t afford that. And so then they just keep on working and working and working when there’s just so many better ways that you can do it. 

Linzy [00:04:19] Goodness, yeah. I think that coming out of agencies, which most of us do. Yeah, you inherit this model that was never for your benefit in the first place. But we build private practices that are entirely in that model. And it’s kind of like it happens to you unless you’re really taking that empowered, intentional stance that you’re talking about, which most of us don’t. Realistically. You end up creating those same conditions that you were trying to escape when you left agency work. So zooming out on that even more, Joe, your book, Thursday Is The New Friday, is taking a new take on work and productivity. And I wanted to start with this idea of the 40 hour workweek. So the 40 hour workweek is something, personally, I’ve always been very skeptical of. It’s never really worked for me, and it’s this model that we inherit through agency work because most of the time we’re working 40 hours. And so that even when we’re in private practice and even when we’re self-employed, often most of us are still thinking about our work in terms of 40 hours. Right? I’m curious. Tell me a little bit about the history of the 40 hour workweek and how it’s kind of shaping how we work, even broader, even outside of therapists? 

Joe [00:05:25] Yeah. So for me, whenever I almost get anything that I’m learning, I want to know the history behind it because oftentimes we can’t know where we are or where we’re headed unless we know that history. So I’m really glad that you asked about that because I actually want to go back a little bit before the 40 hour workweek started back to the Babylonians about 4000 years ago. So the Babylonians, when they looked up at the sky, they saw the Sun, the Moon, the Earth, Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter. It’s a seven big, bright things in the sky, and they said, we should have a seven day week. And that’s literally where the seven day week came from. The Egyptians had an eight day week, the Romans had a 10 day week. It wasn’t until 300 or so when the emperor of Rome became a Christian and then looked at the Bible said, Oh, there’s seven day week. The Torah where that seven day week was written down was in Babylon. And so, it was when the Jews were in exile there that the Torah was written down. So even the idea of the seven day week. It makes absolutely no sense in nature. We could just as easily have a five day week and have seventy three weeks in a year. A year makes sense, it’s how long it takes us to go around the sun. A day makes sense, we spin for a day. But there’s no seven days in nature. So let’s just start with the seven day week is completely arbitrary. So fast forward to the late 1800s/early 1900s, the average person was working 10 to 14 hours a day, six or seven days a week. They were working all the freaking time. And so when Henry Ford in 1926 says I want to do the 40 hour workweek, that was a huge step for the evolution of business. It was a huge step for workers. It was a huge step in many ways. And his primary reason for doing the 40 hour workweek was to sell more cars to his own employees because he had the idea that if you have to work on a Saturday and Sunday, you’re not going to want to get there faster. But if you have those days off and you have a fun place to go, to go with your family or go out and recreate or whatever you do, you’re going to want a car to get there faster. So it was primarily to sell cars to Ford employees that he switched over to the 40 hour workweek. So then that takes off less than a hundred years ago. So then it’s like, OK, we made up the seven day week we made up the 40 hour workweek. We now are the generation that is leaving the first pandemic. Who knows if it will be the last. But we as a whole society across the globe have said to ourselves, why do we work this way? We’ve had a global experiment happen where we have disrupted work and we get to now say, do we still believe like the industrialists? Do we think of people like machines like they’re just, you know, going down the conveyor belt? Or do we think people are a little different than that? And I would argue we’ve left the industrial mindset already and that the way we view time is actually one of just the last remnants of that industrialist era. 

Linzy [00:08:06] Right. And that’s especially interesting thinking about therapy work because sometimes I see this this attitude in therapists where we think like, well, I work 40 hours, I’m going to make myself a therapy machine. I’m going to do as much therapy within those 40 hours as I possibly can, right? But I would argue that therapy work is very different from industrial work and working in a factory. We’re drawing on very different parts of ourselves and very different skills that maximizing them is not necessarily actually to the benefit of your client, even.

Joe [00:08:37] And to say that we do our most creative, innovative work when we’re maxed out and stressed out? I mean, would you really want your therapist – say you’re going through something really rough, whatever it is, and you know, you are the fortieth client that this person has seen this week and you show up to your therapist. Are they going to be as creative as they are on Monday morning, when hopefully they’ve taken a break for the weekend? Or maybe they didn’t even take a break for the weekend. They fielded all sorts of texts from clients, they worked on their website, they worked on their blog. They have no sense of boundaries so that they can enjoy their family or hobbies. Like, is that person going to really be the most creative therapist and be able to help their clients the most? I mean, I would argue, no. Like we know this, that deep down, our best ideas don’t come when we’re stressed out. You know, it’s like when we’re in the shower and you have that idea or you’re out for a walk, or a run, or maybe a long drive, like when our brains are rested, that’s when we start to make these these neuro connections between things that we couldn’t see before. 

Linzy [00:09:30] Right? Yeah. And I think in terms of clinical work, you know, I certainly know for me, I’ve noticed when I have space in my schedule, my brain’s been working away in the background on something about a client that I would not be able to be doing if I was seeing five other clients in that space. And so when that client comes back the next week, suddenly I’m taking this new, different approach because of the downtime I took, my brain was able to kind of like process and think about something in a new way that wouldn’t have been available if I was just seeing other clients and doing that output that whole time. So going into that idea then of expanded creativity and even maybe productivity, I know in your book you talk about the neuroscience, which is right up therapist alley and also some case studies about how taking this different approach can actually increase those things – makes us more creative, makes us more productive. Tell me about that. 

Joe [00:10:19] Yeah. So every summer I host an event called Slow Down School. I didn’t do it in 2020 or 2021, but I’ve hosted for many years before that. And we fly therapists into northern Michigan, I pick them up in a big yellow school bus, and I don’t actually drive the school bus. Let me clarify that. So I have a bus driver pick us up in a big yellow school bus, and then we slowly drive out to Lake Michigan and we stay on this beautiful campus on the water. And for two days, we genuinely slow down. We go for hikes. The only time they’re supposed to use their phones is to take pictures. I bring in massage therapists and yoga teachers, and it’s just this amazing slowing down. Even our executive chef has partnerships with local farmers, so we know where the kale came from and the carrots came from. And it’s just – we set it up so that we can genuinely relax for a couple of days. And then Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday morning, we run full tilt towards their businesses. And this therapist, Michael Glavin from the Chicagoland area is such a great example. I talk about in the book of what we can get done when we slow down. So Michael has this amazing couples therapy clinic. He brings in interns, he has extra clinicians there, it’s a group practice, and his model with with counseling work with couples is a really unique model, and he has some great data that backs it up. And so for years, he had been really think about like, how do I start writing about this and sharing it and training therapists? And he was in this mastermind group and he was making kind of average progress. And there were times when, you know, he wasn’t writing it down as much as he wanted. And so he comes to Slow Down School, slows down for a couple of days, kind of steps out of his comfort zone. And the first day of sprinting, when I teach him the sprint approach, I ring the bell, everyone goes and does their sprints, and in 20 minutes, Michael outlines the first nine chapters of his book, with five major points on each one. In 20 minutes. 

Linzy [00:12:07] Oh my gosh. 

Joe [00:12:08] And so it’s like, OK. So yes, the Michaels of the world could just keep kind of running the rat race, and you just keep seeing people. Or if you’re going to level up and you’re going to build streams of income, that aren’t just reliant on you showing up. For him, that was writing the book and creating this curriculum. That was what was important. That was that next big step to move out of just the job type of business and to move actually into a business type of business. So when we slow down, we then can allow that that top level stuff to come out, but the other side of it is when we give ourselves less time, are we going to work on the crappy stuff or are we going to work in the thing that actually matters? And so, you know, take the average clinician, they’re like, I can’t work four days a week. I have to work five. Really? Because like, if you work four, are you going to do your best work in that time and drop the ball on your worst work? Or are you going to do all the stupid stuff and then drop the ball on the top level stuff? You’re naturally going to have your best work rise to the top. So you may drop the ball on a few things. You may stop taking out the trash or forget the vacuum. And all of a sudden, two weeks later, you’re like, Oh, this place is a pit. Well, what does that tell you about the priority of cleaning your own office as the owner of your business? Maybe you should have a cleaning person come in. Maybe you should outsource that. If all of a sudden all of your billing starts to back up? That gives you some information. Maybe it’s time to hire a biller because you’re doing your top level stuff. So when we actually reduce the amount of time that people work, they end up doing better and better work as a result of it. 

Linzy [00:13:30] Right, yeah. I mean, it sounds very clarifying, right? By creating that little bit of like constriction, it’s really going to be clear what is just you and you know, I think about this in terms of the business growth that I’m doing. What are the CEO tasks? What is what is only you or your gift can do that? And what is something that somebody else could be doing for $15 an hour that frees up your bandwidth for those more important, bigger impact things? 

Joe [00:13:53] Well, and then you start to outpace the competition because you’re putting your time into those top level things. And so it’s like, you know, several years ago, I was saying, my big step is if I can get consulting clients that are twice the cost of my clinical clients, that’s like one person paying for two hours. And then if I do that really well now I’m just sprinting in that direction, then I can jump into mastermind groups or a membership community. And then, you know, the people that are just kind of limping along, you haven’t just outpaced them in like double the time, you’re 10 or 20 times farther ahead, just because you focus so much in that particular area.  

Linzy [00:14:27] Right. And that’s that’s a really interesting kind of trajectory that you’ve laid out there because I think a lot of therapists in private practice might have these dreams of something bigger. This like hope of like, well, one day I’d like to be a speaker. One day I want to start a group practice or I want to create a course. But they are so focused on what’s in front of them right now and just not being able to let go of that. That even taking that first step into thinking, OK, well, how can I do a little bit less work and have even more impact for more money? Even that step feels scary for them to take. Right. And so I’m curious about what you see as the relationship between money and impact, right? Like on this podcast, we dig into finances, and a lot of therapists want to have that bigger impact, but also might be nervous or maybe even a little bit scared of making money. Tell me, how do you see money relate to to what you’re talking about here? 

Joe [00:15:23] I see money as a multiplier. And what I mean by that is that – just how you were saying I could put 15 dollars into this. So say you charge 150 per session and you do one extra session and you have someone that you can pay $15 an hour. Granted, there might be other costs there, but you can then buy 10 hours of time for that one hour. So every hour that you bootstrap it and this and that, you are the most overpaid person doing this fifteen an hour thing. Yes. So the way I think about just how I kind of run everything is, I want to get the basics down really well and get those plates spinning and then hand those plates off to other people to keep them spinning. And so to really look at what in my practice, we’re just starting with someone who owns a practice, what my practice is essential to me. You’re not going to have someone else show up for counseling to be the counselor if someone has signed up for you to be their therapist. So, let’s say therapy is number one. And then there might be a handful of other things, but for the most part, everything else you could handoff. And then we can beg the question of, are you the only therapist in the practice that can do therapy? Maybe you need to add some 1099s or W-2s so that you can then get the plates spinning, have some predictable income, and then once those are going and you’re giving feedback, you’re not just handing it off and saying, do what I do, but I’m not going to give you any feedback. You have to give that feedback. You have to say, you know what? You’re in my emails, if say, you have someone that’s going to check your emails, which would be very hard for a lot of therapists to give up. First, you have to disclose to your clients, Hey, I’m having my executive assistant take this over so that I can do more therapy. She will always disclose when she’s responding. I just want you to know that she’s reading it and need you to sign this thing, saying that you’re aware of that. So I’m protecting myself. So then we give feedback on how those emails are going. You know, if there’s an email that your assistant should have responded to, maybe you just BCC them. And so then you’re learning over time. And so then, once those plates are spinning, now that money has bought you the ability to do bigger, more impactful work. And if those plates are spinning and it’s predictable income and you know your budget and all those basics, then you can take bigger risks over on the other side because it’s something that you can fail fiercely. You can say, I’m going to try to not just make a course, I want to make five courses and a membership community, I want to be on 20 podcasts next month. And if none of that comes true. OK, I still have my money over here from where the plates are spinning, and so that money really opens up the ability to take much bigger risks because you’re not basing the big jumps in your life on making money. It’s on, I’m going to make a big jump and open some doors here. 

Linzy [00:17:49] So that money actually opens up that opportunity to have an even bigger impact than that one on one client session would be. It’s kind of like that enabler to doing even more and something that I’m hearing Joe as you’re talking that I think can be a real kind of falling down point for people who do start this path of outsourcing and getting help is sometimes what I notice is like group practice owners, for instance, who suddenly get help. Then they have this extra time on their hands and we’re like, Well, do I really need a VA to answer my emails, like, maybe I could just jump back in there. And my argument to that is like, that’s a very terrible demotion you’re giving yourself. If you can be making 250 an hour, why would you jump in and do your VA’s $15 job? But I’m wondering for you, for somebody in that position who has done these first steps of opening up this space, what would be their next steps? I mean, one thing I’m thinking of is that they should be working less. 

Joe [00:18:36] I have this whole section about the overvaluing of work and the undervaluing of fun. And even just thinking about – so that example you just gave this person is making 250 an hour, they jump back in and they’re doing all these things, maybe even doing more therapy. What does that say about, for one, your trust in your team? It shows you don’t trust them. It shows that you don’t think that they’re going to be able to do a good job with what you have tasked them to do. So you’re basically telling people you just hired that you think they’re crap, OK? That’s probably not a healthy environment to have. Second, what is that saying about how much you need to be needed? Maybe you do need to be needed, but do we want our volunteer work to be within our business or do we want to do it somewhere else? I mean, I remember a number of years ago I handed off doing every single podcast image to Sam. Sam’s, my chief marketing officer, now. But at the time I was, I would record it. Then I would spend two hours making this beautiful image. I’m artistic. I loved it. I got a lot of fulfillment out of it. Ooh, look how cool that looks. And then I handed it off to her thinking, she’s never going to do it like I do it. And she didn’t. But she needed some feedback. She needed some, some help. But then eventually she got better than I did at it. And you know where I have my art now, it’s downstairs and I do watercolors for fun. It’s like, I just do it for fun instead of within the business. And so to be able to then say, I have a bookend to my day, I am done now. I can close my computer. I give myself permission to be a dad with my two awesome girls, to go on adventures, to go paint. I’m learning to play November rain on the piano because I think that’s an awesome Guns N Roses song. So it’s just like you get to do these things. But for high achievers, sometimes it has to be that you put in these blocks of things that are in your free time that you say, I’m going to do a one minute plank every day or I’m going to go to the beach five times this summer. When you schedule those things in – I think that’s the first point that most people need really need to have something there. If they’re just left to their own devices, they’re probably going to go back to work because they’ve overvalued it too much. 

Linzy [00:20:36] Yeah. And I think in in therapy work and health practitioner work, especially if you tend to be that helper who needs to be needed and derives your value from that, it is easy to really make that your life. But as you’re talking, there’s this phrase like kind of bouncing in my head, which is a bit harsh, but it’s kind of like, you got to get a life. You have to make it so you have a life that’s interesting and a life that’s fulfilling and a life that houses your creativity and has meaningful relationships and adventures. So that work is not more interesting than your life. 

Joe [00:21:03] Yeah. Well, you even think about how so many people think about their private practices. It’s my baby. It’s not your baby. There’s businesses that you need to kill and usually walk away from, and you just send into foster care. Like, I’m not going to do that to my kid, my kid I will love unconditionally. So if you’re treating your business like a baby, that means you’re inappropriately loving it. There’s things in your business that you have to stop doing. Whereas as a parent, you’re going to always love that kid. Hopefully, hopefully, you’re a good parent. And so even the way we think about our business is, Oh, I’ve raised and it’s my baby. No. This is a business. This is something that you hope to contribute to the world. And you may need to walk away from it at some point. 

Linzy [00:21:43] Yeah, I love that. That’s like such appropriate boundaries around a business. Rather than this kind of like mixy – and also, like my business is me, and my value can be something that gets tied up 

Joe [00:21:52] And my ego’s, all in it with my success and my failure. And if you can walk away from the ego side of it within your business, you’re going to be unstoppable because you’ll try things and fail and be like, great, that gave me data. In the book, I talk about the three internal inclinations, and it’s curiosity, an outsider’s perspective, and an ability to move on it. And just that idea of curiosity instead of it being pass/fail, like we were taught all through grad school, to say, Well, that’s interesting. You fail, quote fail. And then you’re like, Oh, why did that happen? What data do I have about my clients, my audience? Whatever that quote failure is, top achievers actually are curious about it, and they don’t view it as pass fail. They view it all as data that they’re taking in. 

Linzy [00:22:32] 100 percent, I’m so glad you brought that up because I was really curious, I know you have these internal inclinations. I was about to ask you about them. So curiosity being the first is like, so speaking to my trauma therapist heart because this is like was always my approach with clinical clients. And it’s my approach with coaching clients is like, be curious, like step back, be curious. And and in my case, it’s like, be curious about what happens when you sit down to work on your money. Do you suddenly want to vomit? Oh, that’s interesting information. Take that in. Maybe what’s that about? But I’m hearing in our businesses, this data point is so essential, and I know for me, my business is a little bit different than private practice at this point. But we do our key performance indicators every Monday. Every Monday, my team sits down and we like all contribute numbers to the spreadsheet and we look at it and we’re curious together and we problem solve like, huh? Suddenly, people aren’t registering for our webinar. Suddenly people aren’t showing up and we come to it with curiosity and it is so fun. It is so much funner and more engaging and more productive than making it a story about us failing or who we are or that nobody wants what we do. It really unlocks this whole new way of being in your business. 

Joe [00:23:36] Yeah. And you think about the narrative we’re given. When I entered the chapter on curiosity, I try to start with kind of a blank slate. Like if I was just brainstorming curiosity, what would my questions be without any of the data or direction I want to go? And the first thing that came to mind was Curiosity killed the cat, and where did that come from? So in 1910, the front page of The Washington Post said Curiosity killed the cat. So for five days there’d been this cat stuck in a chimney, and it was like national news. So a very slow news week. Very quiet time right before World War One. So front page, this curiosity killed the cat is all about this cat that got stuck in a chimney and it died. It was sad. But think about what that teaches us and our kids. If you’re curious, you’re going to die. Is that even accurate? No. No. Like the other day, my daughters were outside. They’re six and 10, and then my nieces who are five and three, and they’re just playing. And then they all stopped. And when things get quiet with kids, you know what’s going on out there. And they found a dead mouse and there is this dead mouse, all four of them were standing around looking at like with curiosity kind of horror. And then they started asking questions like, Why do you think the mouse died? Is an owl going to come eat the mouse? Should we put it in the woods? Should we bury the mouse? Like all these questions and curiosity. We have that as kids, we have unending curiosity because it’s all new to us. Now as adults, at some point we lose or sway away from that. And if we can return to that and find that natural inclination towards curiosity, that’s where we unlock so much within our businesses. 

Linzy [00:25:03] I like that so much. And so tell me about the other two. Curiosity was the first. 

Joe [00:25:07] Yeah, the second one is an outsider perspective. And so you look at top achievers that oftentimes they have an outsider perspective, and you may have even experienced this if you join a new nonprofit or something, you come in and you’re like, That’s weird, why do you do it that way? What is this system? I remember every Monday I worked as a foster care supervisor. Every Monday. Every foster care worker and the three supervisors all got together in this like 50 person meeting and went through all these clients. And I just remember running the numbers on how much it costs the agency for that one hour to have everyone just sit around. Why do we do this? This is ridiculous. I’d rather just meet with my own team and talk through our team needs rather than sit around with like 40 or 50 people. And so those outsider perspectives are really valuable. We see it with, you know, Einstein moved countries all over. Elon Musk was raised in South Africa and in Canada and culturally was felt like he was out on the outside looking in. There was actually an interesting research study where they looked at the colors blue and the colors green. And so they had groups of six to eight people come together and the researcher would hold up a color and say, Is this blue or is this green? And you know, most of the time people agree that’s blue, that’s green, and there’s some they’re kind of in the middle where there’s a little bit of disagreement. But then the second part of the study, they did the same sort of thing, but brought in two researchers and those researchers occasionally in those middle colors when it was pretty clearly a blue. They would say green or when it was clearly green, they would say blue. And they found that statistically those researchers, as outsiders, had more influence over the group than they should have. And so there’s been other research studies that really show that outsiders actually have more influence than they often realize and that they’re able to sway crowds in ways that we wouldn’t expect. So we see that in a number of different areas. And then the third one is that we want to have the ability to move on it. And so by that, if we think about a spectrum on one side, we have speed and on the other side, we have accuracy. And so if I’m going to go under the knife at a hospital and my doctor, if she’s going to be cutting into me doing anything where I’m asleep, getting cut open, I don’t care how long it takes. She can be as accurate as she needs to be. Take your time. Yeah. Take your time. Take forever. But in most of our business, speed is going to trump accuracy every single time. And so, you know, throughout grad school, we’re taught, you know, write this paper, go to the writing lab, retool it and then turn it in for a final grade to get pass fail. That’s just not how the business world works. And so we want to focus on getting things done more than being paralyzed by perfection. 

Linzy [00:27:29] Yeah. Oh my gosh, 100 percent on that last one. And that’s something that I notice with therapists around their finances, even, can be almost like a nonstarter is they’re so busy trying to be perfect that they do nothing at all. Right? There’s such a focus on this has to be perfect, and there’s no reason that it has to be perfect in finances or in business. There’s no reason that it has to be perfect. So what I’m hearing is like that imperfect action moving forward is way more valuable than being paralyzed or taking forever to accomplish something. 

Joe [00:27:59] Yeah, I mean, you’re going to get the feedback as well. So imagine instead of spending two or three hours on one blog post that you’re going to do for your SEO and then you’re so burned out from that you’re like, I can only do that once, maybe twice a month. So you then are doing, you know, one or two blog posts a month versus, I’m going to set a timer and I’m going to write as much as I can in 30 minutes. I’m going to do it as fast as I can. I’m going to do three main steps on anxiety three main steps on depression. And you just, in those three hours, knock out six or seven blog posts and then you start to see your SEO work. Maybe catch some misspellings or something. So you go back in and you edit it. Maybe you cited a piece of research that later you realized was really bad research. So you go in and edit it. So what? And so it’s not like, this is going to be your final dissertation that’s on file at your college forever. This is a blog post, and most of what we do is that level where we don’t need to overthink it. We don’t need to be putting so much accuracy into it that it’s really the speed is where we’re going to see those big steps forward. 

Linzy [00:28:56] OK, so coming to the end of our conversation, I have a question that I ask everybody and I’m going to ask you, although I’m going to tweak it a little bit because we’ve been talking more about work than money, which is great. So my question for you, Joe, is what advice would you give a therapist who’s listening today, who wants to start to take steps to improve their relationship, to work? Who like they’re listening and they’re hearing like, Oh, that’s me. Like, I’m working all the time. I’m paralyzed with perfectionism. I’m doing things I don’t need to be doing. What would be some advice on how to get started in changing this relationship for the better? 

Joe [00:29:28] Yeah, I would say whenever they’re listening to this, look ahead to the next weekend and I want you to add something and I want you to subtract something. So I want you to add something that’s going to set you up to feel more relaxed and more in tune with yourself by Monday morning. So put that in first. Is it, you know what, I want to rent a movie or stream a movie with my kids, and we’re going to order pizza out. Is it going to be, there’s some friends I haven’t connected with in a while, let’s have drinks on the deck. Is it going to be, I want to make sure I get in nature and move my body with my family. Put something into that schedule that is not going to change that you’re adding. And I want you to also subtract something that’s draining you and maybe a toxic friend that whenever you leave, you feel like trash. It may be that you’re so sick of mowing your lawn and maybe that, you know, by the time this airs, maybe leaves are starting to fall in Michigan. I swear snow comes in September. Winter is coming.  You know, and so it could be, you know, this year I’m going to pay the neighbor kid to rake my yard. Finding something that is stressful, that doesn’t set you up for Monday. If Monday is your first day, whatever your first day is, that sets you up that you can remove from it, that you say, Oh my gosh, it feels amazing to not more my lawn this weekend. This is awesome. Remove something and add something. When you take those really small steps, you’re going to start to see that even that really small step is going to make you feel so much different as you enter the work week and you’re going to start trying more and more, you’re going to do more experiments. Next thing you know Thursday is going to be your new Friday. 

Linzy [00:30:56] So Joe, if people want to find you online, where’s the best place for them to find you? 

Joe [00:31:02] Yeah. So the book’s available everywhere. So whether it’s Amazon or your local bookstore, you can get the book there. The website is JoeSanok.com for everything book and keynote related, and then for all of my private practice work that’s over at PracticeofthePractice.com. I also have a podcast called Practice Of The Practice. We have six hundred and fifty episodes all about private practice now with lots of big names and lots of just average people telling really good stories about their practices. 

Linzy [00:31:28] Great. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Joe. 

Joe [00:31:30] Thanks so much for having me. 

Linzy [00:31:47] I so enjoyed this conversation with Joe and something that really stuck out to me about even the experience of talking to Joe – it’s no wonder that he has this massive impact with his Practice Of The Practice business – is he’s so energizing and inspiring something that I see so many therapists in private practice do, and especially those of us that struggle with money is struggling to take up space and thinking that what we do is valuable and that we have big contributions to make. And what I know is, with so many of my students is although they won’t be making these bigger impacts and they have a passion, whether it’s for perinatal therapy or complex trauma, we’re so stuck in this. First of all, this like, butt-in-seats models, is what they would call it, of just individual sessions and seeing so many clients every week that we’re really limiting our ability to be creative and start to dig into those bigger and more exciting projects that would help us help more people and help more people get our message. So I so appreciate Joe giving us a bit more of a map of how to get there. So if you’re a therapist who has that ambition and wants to do those bigger things and who just wants to enjoy their life more and make a project out of enjoying your life, not just being successful in business, I think Joe’s book has a lot to offer. All the links that Joe mentioned are in the show notes, so you can check them out there. Check out his book Thursday Is The New Friday and his website Practice of the Practice for his own podcasts. He has multiple podcasts on there that you can check out. And to hear more from me and Money Nuts & Bolts, you can follow us on Instagram. We’re putting out great free money content all the time. And if you’re feeling inspired to take those next steps to really get your private practice finances working for you so that you can start to do some of these things that Joe talked about and and really get your impact going because you have the money working in your practice to sustain you and take care of you and mean you don’t have to see a bunch of clients, I really encourage you to check out my masterclass, “The Four-Step Framework to Getting Your Business Finances Totally in Order”. It’s going to lay out my approach that’s helped hundreds of therapists really get money working for them so that their business and their life suit who they are. So you can check out the link in the show notes to register for the masterclass and watch at a time that works for you. Thanks for joining me today. 

Julie [00:00:02] If you don’t know how much your fixed monthly expenses are, how much your variable expenses are, if you don’t know what your bottom line is, you’re really doing yourself a disservice in your business as well. Because cash is like the oxygen of a business, it needs it to live. So if you deprive your business of money, it’s not going to survive. And that’s not good for you, but it’s also not good for the community that you serve. 

Linzy [00:00:31] Welcome to the Money Skills For Therapists podcast, where we answer this question. How can therapists and health practitioners go from money shame and confusion to feeling calm and confident about their finances and get money really working for them in both their private practice and their lives? I’m your host, Linzy Bonham, therapist turned money coach and creator of the course Money Skills For Therapists. 

Linzy [00:00:52] Hello, and welcome back to the Money Skills For Therapists podcast. So the podcast has been out in the world now for two weeks, and we’re starting to get some reviews come in and I wanted to share one of those today before we dove into our episode with accountant Julie Herres. So a review that came across from Deborah about the podcast. She shared the podcast has been such a blessing and is so needed the strategies have been helpful, and Linzy’s eloquence, empathy and constructive approach is so refreshing. This topic is so needed. Thank you, Deborah, so much for your review. And if you’re listening, please jump over and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts, specifically. That is the way for us to get more eyes- well, ears specifically on this podcast for therapies and health practitioners who also want to hear more about money. So today’s episode is with accountant Julie Herres. So. Therapists and health practitioners, and accountants, we tend to occupy different ends of the universe. It can feel like and I’ve had so many therapists tell me that even though they’re professional communicators, communicating with an accountant can be so difficult and intimidating. So, Julie, I’ve sat down with her a couple of times before. She is such a lovely, approachable accountant. And today we’re going to dig into some questions of profitability in private practice. Some of the biggest mistakes that she sees therapist making in private practice and the value of knowing your numbers from her accounting perspective. She even gives us one thing that private practice owners can do right away to improve their financial situation. So Julie owns GreenOak Accounting It is accounting firm specifically targeted at therapists. They serve therapists all over the United States, and she always has so much to say in a very accessible way. Very refreshing. So without further ado, here’s Julie. 

Linzy [00:02:49] So, Julie, thank you so much for joining us today. I’m so excited to have you on the podcast. 

Julie [00:02:54] Thanks for having me. I’m glad to be here. 

Linzy [00:02:56] Yeah. So Julie, something that you probably know about therapists and health practitioners already is a lot of us are really intimidated by accountants. I know it’s shocking, right? Right. Like, sometimes it almost feels like this like gap of like two different cultures. And like, we don’t know how to talk to each other. So I’m really glad to have you here today because not only are you an accountant who I’m going to ask you some questions and and let our listeners have some time with you. But you’re an accountant who specializes in working with therapists and mostly mental health therapists. 

Julie [00:03:29] Yes. Yeah, exactly. 

Linzy [00:03:30] So you you kind of bridge that gap a little bit that often therapists feel like are there. 

Julie [00:03:36] I think so. And I like to think that my heart, my team has the heart of a teacher, right? And I think that’s one of the advantages of working with us is that we know how to kind of bridge that gap. And in the sense that I think we’re going to start building the blocks over time of financial knowledge so that you, a therapist, can understand what’s going on in their business because they should. 

Linzy [00:03:59] Yeah, I love that. And I think that really hits on like a key problem that therapists have that like you’re solving and and I’m solving and like things like there are people like us who are trying to solve it, which is that we just are never taught these things. So there is a lot of learning to do. 

Julie [00:04:13] Yeah, it’s such a blind spot where you start your own business and you might know therapy really well, but that doesn’t mean you know the business side and there’s just so much to it. You’ve got to. I truly believe every practice should be profitable because you deserve to make money doing your your god given talent. 

Linzy [00:04:31] Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it’s easy to have it not be profitable if you don’t know what you’re doing. So I mean, moving into that, Julie, I’m curious, what are some of the common mistakes that you see private practice owners making when it comes to money? 

Julie [00:04:47] I would say probably number one is just not knowing your numbers. I would say the most common mistake is just not knowing your numbers. And it’s easy to just put your head in the sand and not really look and think if I don’t look at the problem doesn’t exist. But not knowing what’s going on financially in your business. And so that doesn’t mean that you need to become an accountant or become an expert at anything. But if you don’t know how much money’s coming into the business, if you don’t know how much your fixed monthly expenses are, how much your variable expenses are. If you don’t know what your bottom line is, you’re really doing yourself a disservice in your business as well. Because cash is like the oxygen of a business, it needs it to live. So if you either- if you deprive your business of money, it’s not going to survive and that’s that’s not good for you, but it’s also not good for the community that you serve. Yeah, that would be one of the big mistakes that I see often. I’ve got a lot more. How many do you want? 

Linzy [00:05:45] Oh, like so many. 

Julie [00:05:46] So many, OK, mistake number two, I would say, not saving for taxes. Taxes are inevitable.  Death and taxes are our two certainties in life. And so from the very beginning, you’ve got to be saving for taxes. And one of the reasons this often happens is if someone’s transitioning from being an employee to being a business owner. When you’re an employee, the taxes are already taken out of your paycheck, right? And your employer remits those to the government. All as well. You might owe a little bit at the end of the year, but nothing crazy. But when you’re a business owner, depending on the legal entity, you may not have paid anything in taxes. And so you’re taking money home thinking, Oh, this is all mine, but really, it’s not. 25 percent, 30 percent, 40 percent of that might actually be the government’s money. And so it’s one of those cases, too, where you’re doing yourself a disservice if you’re not thinking ahead and planning for that because that is coming at some point you’re going to owe those taxes, and I’d much rather someone be prepared for it, even if they’re just a little bit short. It’s still better than in your second year of business, catching up from the mistake of the first year and trying to get ahead for year two. So, so, so hard. 

Linzy [00:06:58] Yeah, yeah. We call that kind of like the the tax cycle where it’s like once you get behind, you’re trying to pay back the past, but you’re also trying to save for now. And often what I see people do is they prioritize that past payment because that’s the one that has interest and that’s the one that has emotional weight. You need to cover that, but then you still don’t save for the future and you’re just going to be in the exact same spot a year from now. 

Julie [00:07:18] Exactly. And you’re not paying estimated taxes. And even with a payment plan, right? So sometimes if you if you have a big, big payment owed and you don’t have enough money, you can set up a payment plan, but that’s going to take you years to pay down. And so it’s just this this vicious cycle where it just gets harder and harder. So planning that from the beginning is always, always, always a good recommendation. 

Linzy [00:07:44] Absolutely. 

Julie [00:07:45] I also think one of the one of the mistakes I see often is waiting too long to get help. And that’s not necessarily in accounting, although it certainly does apply, but when starting a business, it’s kind of natural to want to bootstrap everything and just do it on the cheap. Or you’re bootstrapping your own website and you’re you’re doing your own billing and you’re doing your own bookkeeping and answering all the phones, right? And for a certain period of time, that can be really helpful, and it’s good to know how to do those things. But there comes a time where you’re going to burn out from doing all the things, and financially it’s actually more efficient for you to give those tasks to someone else. Like, if you’re not, if you’re returning calls two days later because you don’t have time just paying someone $15-$20 an hour to answer calls either live or return phone calls within a couple of hours. That’s just going to be money well spent because you’re it’s going to increase your number of clients. It’s going to increase your revenue coming into the business and decrease the time it takes you to take to do that. 

Linzy [00:08:48] Absolutely. Yeah. And I think, you know, going back to your saying about knowing your numbers, that’s where knowing your numbers, you can start to make those kinds of strategic decisions. That’s a strategic decision, right? And I think for private practitioners, we have this real thing with bootstrapping like more than so many other industries where we just start from nothing and then we just try to make everything happen from nothing. From nothing, in terms of financially, we often start with like, no, we don’t get loans in our industry. Like even though like if you’re going to start a restaurant, you go and you get like $150000 loan. And in our industry, you start a private practice and you just, like, try to fund it from your bank account, which if you can, that’s great. Or a lot of people put stuff on their credit cards or just pay for it from their personal money. And so, you know, that piece about knowing your numbers that lets you make those really smart decisions. As you say, that’s like a better use of your money because you’re actually going to make more money for having made that decision. 

Julie [00:09:40] Yeah. In this day and age, in this virtual world, it’s so easy to get a virtual assistant that’s not even going to be full time for you, right? You might hire someone five hours a week, but if you are charging $150 per session, and that may be high for some areas, low for some areas. But if you’re charging 150 per session and hiring someone, again, at $20 an hour, gets you even one additional client on your calendar like you’ve made a lot of money in that time, so freeing you up to see additional clients. And then just also making getting that revenue in. Same thing. The same can apply, certainly to your accounting right. If you’re DIYing it and missing stuff, missing deductions, filing your tax return wrong, that can be really costly to fix. 

Linzy [00:10:27] Yes. 

Julie [00:10:27] I’ve seen it plenty of times where it would have been cheaper to do it right the first time with a professional, than to fix the mistake. 

Linzy [00:10:33] Yes. 

Julie [00:10:33] But a website is an example I like because I am very crappy at updating my website, like that is not one of my talents. And so I might spend five hours working on something and my awesome admin will go do it in 20 minutes. So like, I know, I should not have been spending my time doing that right? That was not efficient. 

Linzy [00:10:53] I think health practitioners, particularly, we’re used to being very competent, like the work mental health professionals do especially. And that’s the work I know best, so I can speak to it. Like you’re used to being so on the ball and so able to, like, solve these problems that other people would run away screaming if they had to do the work that we do. And I think that leads to kind of this blindness where we believe that we’re the ones who need to do that thing, that we could do our website better than somebody else or like we need to be the ones returning phone calls. And it’s a very costly belief. 

Julie [00:11:26] It really is, and that’s not to say that you shouldn’t know how to make a minor update on your website, but that doesn’t mean you need to know all the inner workings of it. Like that’s not an efficient use of your time or my time. In my case, my time. But it’s also not something that- I’m never going to go start a website company because I am not good at it and so like, so trusting the professionals to do their work is is is a good idea here. 

Linzy [00:11:54] Yes. And I’m hearing also financially, it’s a better decision to do it that way. Much of the time. 

Julie [00:12:01] Usually they’re going to be just a professional is going to be much more efficient at it. All right. I’m going to give you one more. I think it’s very, very common when going from solo practice owner to group practice, paying that first hire too much. I’ve seen it over and over and over again. Like, I cannot tell you how many times I’ve seen that. And it comes from such a place of kindness and wanting to lift others up and do right by other people. It comes from a place of, I’ve worked for someone else and I hardly made anything and it didn’t feel good and so I want to give them as much as I possibly can. So it comes from a very good place. But when adding one clinician, typically you don’t need more physical space. If you if you even have an office anymore, you need very little additional overhead. You might have a EHR subscription, email subscription, right? Those costs are minimal and you typically are not going to need to all of a sudden add a full time admin just because you add one person. So you’re probably still taking the calls, doing some of the intake, doing the billing, but that’s not sustainable long term. Right. So while that while those numbers might work for the first clinician, if you’re not thinking of where am I ending up in one, three, five years and what support am I going to need to sustain that kind of a team? You’re paying someone too much because you haven’t built in the full time admin, the biller, the additional physical space, and all the other pieces that come along with having a group practice. And it’s very fair for that to be paid for by other people’s money, right? You shouldn’t be having to work harder to pay for everyone else’s overhead. And be losing money on each session that your clinicians see.  

Linzy [00:13:43] And so I’m really curious, Julie, like, is there a magic number that you do suggest for people who are starting to hire clinicians under them as employees or subcontractors? Is it a split? What do you suggest? 

Julie [00:13:54] Well, so there’s a lot of different ways that clinicians can be compensated. But just generally speaking, for a large group practice, we look for no more than 55 percent of gross income to be going to clinician payroll. And so there’s some times, like right now, it’s a very tight labor market. It’s very hard to hire. We’re seeing that number sneak up, but that usually means it’s going to be reduced somewhere else. And what I mean by that is not every single person needs to be at 55 percent, right? But you’re going to have some more experienced people who might be a little bit higher. But typically that’s going to also be offset with less experienced people at lower rates. Because if everyone on your team is an 80 percent split, there just is not any room for profit like there literally is no room and chances are that you’re losing money on each session. So, so an average is that’s kind of where we like to see that, including payroll tax too 

Linzy [00:14:50] OK. So that includes payroll tax. So that doesn’t mean they have a 55/45 split with you. That means at the end of the day after payroll. 

Julie [00:14:58] Yes. So if they were a contractor where no taxes are withheld, they might be at a 55 percent split. But if they’re an employee, they might be at a 50 percent split because after payroll taxes, that costs you about 55. And if you wanted to add benefits, you might want to even adjust that a little bit as well. 

Linzy [00:15:13] OK, great. That’s a very helpful guideline. So, Julie, what is one thing that private practice owners listening today, what’s one thing that they could do to improve their financial situation, like right away,. 

[00:15:26] Right away? I would say reverse engineer your lifestyle. And what I mean by that is a lot of times when we onboard a new client, we’ll ask them how much money are you looking to take home per month from the business? And a lot of times they don’t actually know what that is. And there’s always the want- I want to be taking on 50,000 per month, right? And that’s all well and good. But what do you actually need? Like, what does it take to sustain your household, to pay your mortgage, your rent, your car, your kid’s activities? What are the minimum things? There’s there’s a kind of nice to have and good to have, right. Those are, to me, those are two different numbers, but a lot of people don’t know either one of those. And so if we start there, we can do the math on what does that mean in your business? How many sessions per month, per day, per week? We can break it down in a really granular way that doesn’t seem so overwhelming. So we just need the information for that. I was just reading a book by Tim Ferriss. I think it’s a four hour workweek. And he talks about like, what’s your dollar amount per day that you need to survive? And I thought that was really interesting because I typically have looked at it by month. Yeah, but even per day, if you need whatever, it may be a $125 per day like, that’s not overwhelming at all. Can I go make $125 today? Yeah, I can definitely do that, right? So. So I don’t know that that’s not necessarily my number, but I just thought it was an interesting way to look at it. So if we if we can just focus in on that, then that also tells us, like, what is the next thing that you need to do today in your business, right? So if you need if you need, for example, 100 sessions per month and you’re currently aiming or you’re currently projecting, you’re going to have 75, then you know, OK, I’ve got to do some marketing activities today like we need to get more people in. And if you’re projecting for one hundred and twenty five, then your activity might be, OK, it’s time to hire or who’s going to see all these clients. So knowing what that threshold is can be helpful in so many different ways. 

Linzy [00:17:30] Yeah, I love that because it it really demystifies. It demystifies the the business and our fees and our client hours. And and I do the same thing with my students. I’m a firm believer – I’m right with you – in like, there’s real numbers here. There’s real numbers, like we don’t have to set a random fee based on what people around us are doing. We don’t have to see the same amount of clients other people are seeing, like there’s actually a number that supports your life. And when you know that number, as you say, you can then make your business support that like, fund your life. 

Julie [00:17:59] Yeah, absolutely. And I was talking to a client a couple of weeks ago, and she is a solo practice owner, wants to stay that way, and is consistently full every week. Always, always, always full. So we were talking about, OK, well, she would like to be taking home a little bit more money. And a year ago, that wasn’t the case, she wasn’t always full, but now that she always is like, OK, how about you raise your rate $20 an hour? And we can look at the numbers, look at the difference this does when you don’t have employees, like you can see more clients or raise your rate, like those are kind of the main two things you can certainly control expenses. That’s always a good thing. But there comes a point where there’s only so many more places to cut without you spending a whole lot of time doing something manually. And so just knowing, Hey, I want more, how do I get there? Like that’s that’s a fun exercise to do as well. Mm hmm. 

Linzy [00:18:52] Yeah. And I love that too, because I think that also- that’s asking therapists and health practitioners to do something that we don’t naturally do first, which is like, think about your needs first, right? This business is funding your life. Like the point is that you’re it’s paying for your home and your life and your kids activities, as you say. And I think as therapists, we can get so focused on our clients and our clients’ needs that when you know, when they come back, that question of like, Well, what should I charge them like? Well, people don’t have money or, you know, like, Oh, well, I need to see as many people as I can because people, we think about their needs first and often they’re kind of made up needs their stories that we have, rather than thinking about the fact that the business is supposed to be supporting us. This is like the work we’re doing to make money in the world. 

Julie [00:19:37] Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s a limiting belief of, I don’t think people will pay, and it is possible that if you raise your rate, some clients will leave, right, it is possible. But then they will likely be replaced with clients who also equally need you and can afford to pay your fee. And of course, I’m probably a little bit less emotional, I’m an accountant. Like I know my viewpoint. But but to me, like part of our our job as the accounting team is to say, Hey, you deserve to make more money. You have one more year of experience the last year, right? And also to normalize like it’s OK to make a good living running your private practice, like that is a very OK thing to do. You deserve to be able to pay for everything and then some. If you want to go on a nice vacation, you should be able to do that. You’re very talented. You’re very educated. There has to be profit in your practice or else why are we doing this?  

Linzy [00:20:40] So for people who are maybe DIYing their finances right now and they’re wondering about whether or not they need help, what’s your suggestion? In what cases should health practitioners and therapists be DIYing our bookkeeping and our accounting, and when should we look to hire somebody like you to get help? 

Julie [00:21:00] Yeah. So I think in the very beginning, the bootstrapping is not a bad thing. I think if you have a financially focused mind, like if you can get the work done and you will do it consistently, learning how to do your own books is really a good thing to understand how the mechanics work, what’s taxable, what’s not taxable, like how all the different pieces work. I think that will serve you well in the long run. So in that case, if you’re really good at that, I would still always team up with an accountant for your taxes. I just think as a business owner, there’s just a lot more complication to your taxes, and I’ve just seen too many errors to suggest that anyone try to DIY. Like if you’re an employee, TurboTax all day long, go for it. No judgment here, but if you have your own business, I really think you should work with with an accountant for taxes. At least there’s an annual opportunity for someone to look over what you’ve done and say, Hey, you’re doing this piece correctly, or this has changed, and kind of fix things. However, as you grow, I really think there’s a tipping point, certainly as you move into group practice, right? Because there’s a lot more complication. There’s payroll and there’s just a lot of things that can go wrong with payroll, but you’re spending a lot more time managing the business and having something like that off your plate where you’re still getting reports, you still have access to everything, you still know what’s going on with your business, but you’re not necessarily the one doing all the work. I think at the point of group practice, that should always be on the plan unless you’re someone who really, really, really enjoys and you were a CPA in a previous life like then maybe you knock yourself out or your spouse is an accountant, then that might be a little bit different. But I think it’s always beneficial to learn how to do that just so that you know what you’re looking at. But then just give it over to someone else as soon as you can afford to, because a bookkeeper, an accountant is going to be able to do things more efficiently, but probably more accurately as well. 

Linzy [00:22:57] Yeah, that’s the thing I think with doing your own taxes when you have a business, as you say, is like, you don’t know what you don’t know. So you’re doing it and you don’t realize that there’s this whole benefit, this, you know, a tax benefit that you could be getting some money back that you don’t even know about. So you’ve missed that opportunity or yeah, there’s just- I know so little of what you know, Julie. And I think that’s part of wisdom, right? Is like knowing when to hand it over. Even I, who like, loves bookkeeping and numbers and stuff, I work with an accountant. 

Julie [00:23:25] So Linzy, can I reverse this on you and ask you, when should someone DIY and when should they outsource? 

Linzy [00:23:33] Yeah, well, I’m the same page as you in terms of like, I think, always have an accountant do your taxes. I have had an accountant do my taxes for years. Unless you get some sort of really deep satisfaction from taxes. And as you say, like you were a CPA in a former life and you actually know all of the loopholes and all the little quirks and tricks. So for the most part, I’d say almost always have an accountant do your taxes. But I think in terms of bookkeeping, I mean, like what I teach in my course right is it’s important to have ownership over the numbers. And that’s what it’s all about. Like in, you know, I believe that like therapists and health practitioners should have the skills so that when we do get help with things, it’s that we’re delegating not like giving up our power, right? Because I think so often part of the reason I think so often that therapists also struggle with our relationships with like accountants or bookkeepers is because we don’t understand what they’re saying if they don’t have like a teaching kind of philosophy like your firm does. It’s very disempowering. And when you have those interactions that are confusing, it just kind of reaffirms the negative story that many therapists have that they don’t understand numbers and they’re dumb about this stuff and they don’t know what they’re doing. And it just kind of is even more disempowering. So I’m a big fan of like, get your feet grounded in it, understand the basics of what are happening, the foundations, and then you can like, hand it off. But like from a CEO empowered place rather than a like, I don’t know what I’m doing so I’m just going to get this big pile of receipts to somebody and hope that they’re doing right by me. 

Julie [00:24:59] Hope for the best. 

Linzy [00:25:00] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because many accountants are doing a great job for you. But yeah, there’s a very different energy to handing it off as like an empowered delegating task, rather than like giving up and hiding under your bed. Yeah,. 

Julie [00:25:13] Yeah, I agree. 

Linzy [00:25:15] So, Julie, I’m wondering what would be one piece of advice that you would give somebody listening who wants to start to improve their relationship with their finances? 

Julie [00:25:25] I think I have two. So I would say, don’t be an ostrich, take your head out of the sand and just look at what’s going on. There is so much power in that knowledge and knowing what’s happening in your business. So I would say, face it head on. I would love for any practice owner to be looking at their numbers at least monthly, because there’s a lot of people who will just wait till the end of the year and then put everything together. You spend the whole weekend putting everything together, and that’s good enough for taxes, right? So, can you get your taxes done that way? Yes, absolutely. For compliance purposes, you can, but you’re missing out on all the important data that your business is trying to give you if you’re not looking on a on a regular basis. And if you have that information, it’s just going to help you make data driven decisions. And in the business, that’s a really good thing. And I would also say, my second piece of advice is a lot of times when someone comes in to work with us or reaches out to us with a call for a consultation, they’ll say something along the lines of. I don’t understand what my current accountant is doing, they tell me, like, don’t worry about it, I’ll just take care of it, and I don’t know what that means. Is it handled? Is it not handled? Do I need to do something? So I would say, whether you work with with my team or someone else, look for someone who’s going to be a good fit for you. And if you don’t have a good fit right now, talk to someone else, right? There’s a lot of different accountants out there and you just ideally you want to work with someone who’s going to spend the time explaining things to you in a way that makes sense to you. That’s going to meet you where you are. I mean, that may cost more. It probably will. And if you just have a tax preparer and you need to reach out throughout the year, that’s probably going to cost you as well. But having that person in your corner is just such a- it should be an asset. You shouldn’t dread reaching out to that person. And once you have that person, talk to them before you make big financial decisions. So before you open up a retirement plan, talk to them, see what the tax consequences are or tax benefits like, is there something else that might work better for you before you get a loan or buy a building, or even sell your business. Talk to your accountant so that they can help guide you through those big decisions and maybe, hopefully shine a light on perhaps something that was a blind spot otherwise. 

Linzy [00:27:49] Yeah. Like when you have that person, use the resource. 

Julie [00:27:52] Yes. Yes. Like, it’s always worth reaching out to them. And that’s why a lot of accounting firms, including mine, have gone to have a flat monthly fee model, right? And it’s in part because we don’t want anyone to hesitate to reach out to us because it’s going to cost them to talk to us, like talk to your team. That’s exactly what they’re there for. 

Linzy [00:28:11] Yes. And I feel like that ties right back into the number one you talked about, like not ostriching, right? Like looking at these things and thinking about them as you go helps you make better decisions. 

Julie [00:28:20] Yes 

Linzy [00:28:22] Well, thank you so much, Julie, for people who want to hear more from you, where can they find you? Is there a social media channel you hang out on the most? 

Julie [00:28:31] Yes. So I would say go to greenoakaccounting.com. You can find out a whole lot about our services. You can even schedule a free consultation with my team. I also have a podcast called Therapy for Your Money, where I talk about all things money in finance for a private practice. So there is- Linzy you were a guest recently. So we have lots of great topics like compensation, tax saving tips, like there’s just a whole lot of different things that you can get on there as well. 

Linzy [00:29:00] Oh, so great. Awesome. So you can check out the links for those in the show notes below and check out Julie’s podcast. And thank you so much, Julie, for joining us today and showing us that accountants aren’t that scary. You’re, like, really nice and pleasant. 

Julie [00:29:13] We’re really nice. We’re very nice. Thanks for having me, Linzy it was a pleasure. 

Linzy [00:29:17] Thank you. 

Linzy [00:29:19] So something that I so appreciated in my conversation with Julie that actually almost caught me off guard a little bit when we were talking was that moment where she stopped and asked me what I thought about when people should delegate work to an accountant. And that is something that I so appreciate about Julie is that collaborative approach. She’s told me before that their accounting firm, she’s all about hiring accountants with the heart of teachers. You know, there’s more of that open, communicative back and forth. And I always appreciate that when I talk to Julie. If you want to hear more from Julie, her link is in the show notes, she has her own podcast. If you go to a greenoakaccounting.com, you’ll see the link down below. You can get on to her podcast where she digs into private practice finances as well. But from that specific account and perspective, which is definitely not my perspective, it’s so great that we have people in the world who like to do different things and have different gifts. It makes all of our lives and businesses richer. If you would like to hear more from me, you can follow Money Nuts & Bolts on Instagram @moneynutsandbolts. The link is in the show notes. And if you would like to get more into my world and would like help with your private practice finances and developing a better relationship with money, the best way to do that is to check out my masterclass. The link will be in the show notes. It’s the four step framework to getting your business finances totally in order, and my approach is that emotionally present, talking to you like a therapist, building these foundational skills to get your private practice really working for you and get money really working for you in your life. So if you want more of that, check out my masterclass and a link is in the show notes. Thanks for listening today.