[00:00:00] Hello and welcome back to another Feelings and Finances mini episode for the Money Skills for Therapists Podcast. Today, I’m so excited. We have our first totally listener submitted question. I’m going to say that. Edgar, whose question we answered is also a graduate. and so, you know, we have a relationship already.

[00:00:21] Linzy: I so appreciate Edgar’s question. Megan who submitted her questions today is the first, just pure listener. Megan and I have not met, who submitted a question, and I so appreciate Megan, you, for doing so. I know that it’s a vulnerable thing to submit a question. So for folks listening, you can take Megan’s question as inspiration to submit your own question to the Feelings and Finances podcast.

[00:00:43] You can do that on our website on our podcast page. You’ll see a section of when you scroll down just a little bit that says, have a question for Linzy and you can just push record, introduce yourself and ask your question just like Megan did.

[00:00:54] Here is Megan’s question.

[00:00:56] Megan: Hi, Linzy. My name’s Megan, and I love your podcast. Thank you so much for all of your advice and tools for us therapists. My question is around money shame. I’m noticing as I’m starting my small group practice that some narratives from my past of “I’m not good with money,” “I shouldn’t even be running a group practice because I can’t figure out the finances” are kind of seeping in.

[00:01:21] And I know they’re not true. I know that I’m in a growth period. I know that the insurance panel I took on two months ago still hasn’t paid me for most of the sessions from the last two months, so it’s not based in reality, but it’s definitely seeping into my mindset. So I guess my question is: how do you approach or address money shame from your past when you’re in a growth phase with your group practice and there is some tightness around finances?

[00:01:50] Thank you so much for your advice and all that you do.

[00:01:53] Linzy: Okay. So there’s two, two pieces to this question that I hear right away. One is about the stories, like the past stuff. And then the second one is about the discomfort of being in a growth phase. So I’m going to start with the first part first Megan, as you so aptly named, the money shame that comes up as we’re working on our businesses, generally speaking, comes from the past, right?

[00:02:14] It’s like old stuff that we’ve been carrying with us for years and years. And as we’re stepping into new stages of our practice, whether it’s that folks are building practice for the first time, or raising their fee, or in your case, Megan, building out a group, right? And like you’re taking that step. There’s this business phrase that I find really helpful, which is new level, new devil, right?

[00:02:34] You, you do something at a new level and these old things can come up in a new way, right? There’s more to learn. There’s more vulnerability there as we’re doing things that we don’t know how to do, and that is going to bring up some old things, and this is all part of growth. So the first thing that I would encourage you to do is to spend some time with where these stories come from, right?

[00:02:55] You named that they’re from the past; they’re old, old stories. Maybe they’re stories from when you were three years old, six years old, 12 years old, right? And there’s so much power in just spending some time with where those stories come from. Is this from an experience that you had in math class in grade two?

[00:03:13] Is this from the way that your parents would talk to you about your abilities around math or money compared to your sibling, taking some time to unpack those things in the way that you do, right? That works for you, whether that’s doing some journaling, whether it’s talking it through with a friend, whether it’s visualizing, like sitting down and doing some parts visualization.

[00:03:33] I personally love parts work when it comes to working on these kinds of negative stories because it really lets us zoom in on what’s going where’d these memories come from and connect our adult self, right? That business leader, that competent therapist that you are with the parts of us that are younger and more vulnerable and kind of trapped in what in trauma therapy we would call trauma time.

[00:03:55] Those parts that are still living that negative memory, right? And still feel like that, that little kid who doesn’t deserve, or doesn’t know how to do things, isn’t smart. Connecting those two parts of you is really, really powerful.

[00:04:07] So doing some of that internal parts work, or some version, whatever version works for you, Megan, of being able to connect with this thing that happened, this part of you that might feel still small and vulnerable that can come up and is like probably terrified by what you’re doing in growing a business and being able to acknowledge that part of you, take care of that part of you.

[00:04:31] Notice what’s different about then and now. What have you accomplished over the last few years? What can you do now that you couldn’t do then? And then, of course, some of those classic things too of what is the evidence to the contrary, right? What are the exceptions that show you that you can actually manage money and you can learn new hard things, and you can figure things out. You know, whatever these parts of you need to hear is so powerful.

[00:04:55] And it’s something that’s tempting to skip. It’s tempting to just want to push past the vulnerable parts of us that are scared by what we’re doing in our businesses and just like stay in that business growth, like more of those kind of manager actioning parts of ourselves, but spending some time with that shame and that fear, connecting it to the present, showing compassion to yourself, again, in whatever way works for you, is so powerful in letting those parts of you catch up, you know? Whether you think about it as parts of self, like in terms of visualizing little parts of you or parts of your brain, bringing those parts of your brain into the present and online with what you’re doing, because those stories otherwise are going to create drag for you, right?

[00:05:39] And I don’t, I don’t want to say it in a negative way that those parts are drag, they are not, but the parts of us that are still in trauma time that are around survival and staying small or, you know, like feeling inadequate, those parts of us actually do run the way that we manage our relationship with money in our lives and in our businesses.

[00:05:58] So if we don’t take time to be with them and acknowledge them and care for them and love them and do the things that we need to do to help to release those memories, then they’re going to pop up constantly as we’re trying to do the big things. The second piece that you’re talking about is being in what I would call an investment period.

[00:06:13] So an investment period in your business is where you are putting out more money than you’re bringing in. And ideally there’s a strategy there. There’s a reason you’re making these choices. You can see that when you do X, Y, Z, you will eventually get a certain result that is sustainable and, and worthwhile for the work that you’re putting in now.

[00:06:30] But it’s like, as you said, there’s services that have been rendered, for instance, that haven’t come back yet, but you know that money’s coming to you, but the insurance company hasn’t paid you yet. Right? So like there’s energy that you’ve put in that hasn’t yet been returned financially.

[00:06:43] And for all I know, the money has, has actually shown up between the time you leave this question and when you’ll hear this answer, but also when we’re in the investment phase of our practice, that happens a lot in a lot of ways, right? We invest in a program. We invest in new space for a group practice.

[00:06:56] We buy furniture for that space. We’re putting out money and the money’s not coming back yet. And it’s helpful, Megan, to put this in context in business, that that is a normal phase of business, right? In the therapy world, we’re used to this idea of like bootstrapping it, And somehow being in the black all the time, like never being in deficit.

[00:07:14] And that’s something that we get to experience a lot because the work that we do is very simple, right? We just get to sit in a chair or set up a room and people come to that room and we do the thing that we do, whether it’s talking or for folks who do manual therapy, manual treatments, and it’s a very simple business model.

[00:07:28] So it’s easy to kind of be more profitable than other business models from the start. But that doesn’t mean that we’re always going to be profitable every single month. Right? And so with business, what really, really helps and what is most important is the big picture, right? Not what happens in a week, not even what happens in a month, but what happens in your business over the course of a quarter.

[00:07:48] And then eventually what happens over several quarters and years, right? What is the big picture on your finances? These are skills that I teach inside Money Skills to Group Practice Owners, my course for group practice owners. I teach both of these things, both your money stories and working with them and how they’re showing up,

[00:08:04] and settling into how you want to be as a leader, but also developing the ability to understand and see your numbers from a big picture perspective. Having that zoomed out perspective to see like, “Oh, okay. In April, we were at minus 6, 000 that month, but then in May we were at, you know, positive 8, 000.

[00:08:21] And then in June we were at positive 5, 000, and you put those three numbers together, and now you have a picture, right? Now you have three months worth of information that gives you a real perspective on what’s happening overall in your business. We need to get out of the weeds with numbers and take that perspective because ultimately you are building a business that needs to be sustainable over a long period of time.

[00:08:41] And all businesses have ups and downs. We’re not as used to it in the therapy world again because what we do is so simple, but all businesses have ups and downs. And as you get to know your business over time, Megan, you’ll also see high seasons and low seasons. You’ll start to know, if you spend time with your numbers,

[00:08:56] Okay, every summer, our numbers drop by 15%. Our revenue drops by 15 percent every summer. Once you start to have that kind of perspective, when your numbers drop, there’s no crisis. There’s not a big deal. You can plan for it. Maybe you already have a buffer that you’ve put in there. And also you can enjoy that time because you’re settling into the seasons of your business.

[00:09:15] And that’s what we’re able to do when we have that big picture perspective. So, that is the second part of your question that I wanted to address is just starting to develop for yourself the ability to zoom out, putting those numbers together on a spreadsheet. Again, that’s something that I teach in the group practice course

[00:09:31] if you ever find that you were looking for direct support with that, but having that zoomed out perspective, which you can ask your accountant to help you develop, you can ask your bookkeeper looking at your tools from that zoomed out number over time, as you build your practice is going to let you see how your practice is actually doing.

[00:09:48] Thank you so much, Megan, for your question. I so appreciate it. And I hope that your group practice building goes super, super well. I’m excited for you as you’re building this next stage in your contribution in the work that you do. If you have a question, you can jump over to the podcast page on our website, moneynutsandbolts.

[00:10:07] com slash podcast. You’ll see a link there when you scroll down just a little bit where you can directly record a question for me. It’s super, super simple. You just like literally push record, and like Megan, just share your name and share your question. I would love to answer your question on one of these episodes of feelings and finances.

[00:10:24] And for folks listening, if you are a group practice owner and you are interested in Money Skills for Group Practice Owners, that is a course that I run a couple of times a year. It’s cohort based. It’s a high touch intimate course where you get lots of support from me walking you through working out your money stories, settling into what being a financial leader looks like for you, and developing the skills to have that zoomed out perspective and understand in your group practice what numbers make all the difference for you.

[00:10:50] I have a wait list for that course. I will link it here, the Money Skills for Group Practice Owners wait list. And we also have a freebie for group practice owners called How to Stop Feeling Overworked and Underpaid in Your Group Practice that walks you through the steps to start to zoom out and be able to work with your practice on a big picture, understanding how to actually make a sustainable practice that works for you and takes great care of your team.

[00:11:12] I’m going to put both of those links in our show notes. Thank you so much for listening and joining me on the Feelings and Finances episode today.

[00:00:00] James: So that curiosity, that’s a great energy to have as a practice owner and a business owner is like being very curious about what’s going on. And having the data in front of you, whatever shape or form it might be, builds that curious energy, builds that inquisitive approach of looking into things because you sort of feel like there are things you can discover.

[00:00:24] Linzy: 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.

[00:00:49] Hello, and welcome back to the podcast. So today’s guest is James Childress. James Childress is a CPA, a certified public accountant, and he focuses on helping group practice owners with strategic growth, while emphasizing patient outcomes, and creating financial stability and success for the owners, their supervisors, clinicians, and administrators.

[00:01:12] As you’ll hear in my conversation with James today, he has some really helpful wisdom that he brings in from the general business world, which, you know, in the therapy space, we don’t always get reached by these kind of like larger pieces of business wisdom, about being able to take information apart,

[00:01:28] take perspective on your information, about bias, recognizing your own biases as you’re running your practice. And what we talk about today really applies to group practice owners, but also applies to solo practice owners. Even when James and I dig in today to thinking about setting up so that, the analogy we use is that the machine doesn’t run too hot, right?

[00:01:46] You’re not like setting it up so your clinicians work so much that they’re burning out. As a solo practitioner, you are the clinician who is working for yourself and you want to make sure you’re setting yourself up so you’re not burning out. So looking at those bigger questions about creating a business that is sustainable, both financially but also energetically, respecting that the work that we do as therapists and health practitioners is based on finite energy.

[00:02:10] So there are lots of interesting highlights in my conversation today. Here is my interview with James Childress.

[00:02:32] Linzy: So James, welcome to the podcast.

[00:02:34] James: So glad to be here. Thank you, Linzy.

[00:02:35] Linzy: Yeah, I’m excited to have you here. So James, for folks who are listening, tell us just a little bit about what you do so they can understand kind of your experience with working with therapists.

[00:02:46] James: Yeah. What I do for the private practice owners that we work with is we help them structure strategic plans for the growth of their business and help them ultimately to get out of the business what they want to get from the business. So, private practice is a little bit of a different animal in a lot of ways, but there’s still some very solid business concepts that can support what they’re doing.

[00:03:08] And we bring those to the table for our clients. And for me, I have a background that’s a little bit unusual, you know, I’ve gone through therapy myself and gotten some amazing things out of it. And so we also put all of that into the context… I consider what’s happening between therapists and their patients to be really just a sacred space, and there should be nothing that disrupts that, but everything that we can get from the business world that’s solid and reliable and can produce

[00:03:37] worthwhile results for our clients, we apply that in that context of making sure that sacred space is kept, the way it needs to be kept. 

[00:03:46] Linzy: I think that is a really important consideration because I do see sometimes folks from like the general business space, especially like the coaching kind of world, like the like grow, grow, grow, come into the therapy space and not understand what’s different about it and not understand that sacredness, but also the vulnerability that our clients have to us, you know, like our obligation as health professionals to really be mindful of our power.

[00:04:06] Lots of folks in the business world do not understand that balance that we have to strike and will give advice that actually is contrary to therapists’ codes of ethics. So it’s nice to hear how mindful you are about that piece of the work that we do.

[00:04:20] James: Yeah, we always treat it like a meeting of the minds. So, I’ve been through therapy myself, obviously, like I mentioned, but coming from the world, the ultimate goal is a synergy of what you see as the therapists and practice owners, and your ultimate needs and goals, and what we can gain from the business world.

[00:04:43] Because in a way, hitting certain targets requires the same techniques. it’s just that we don’t sort of want that hockey stick growth. It isn’t necessarily a function that, that is appropriate for private practice, but we can make some great things happen and growth is really not

[00:05:00] something to say no to. It’s uncontrolled growth, unsustainable growth. Those things are bad. And of course growth that’s not in the context of what the owner really wants from their practice.

[00:05:10] Linzy: Yeah. And that hockey stick growth, I’ve never heard that phrase before, but I can visualize it. I think what you’re describing is kind of like just that upward arc, like never ending upward growth, is not actually something that makes sense for practices, like private practices is what I’m hearing.

[00:05:25] James: Yeah, you don’t want that. I mean, and that’s in the business world, they’re trying to sort of light a fire with their product or service, and that can be great. I mean, it’s a sign that in the market, there are people who find this new product or service to be of amazing value, and it’s going viral in the business sense.

[00:05:44] But there’s some very key interrelationships between the admin side in a practice, the clinical side, there’s also some critical

[00:05:54] stress points, you know, in terms of window of tolerance, and compassion fatigue, and things like that. So it can… You can push that needle too far. You could do it in any business really that you can grow so quickly that it kind of falls apart because it’s not sustainable, but that threshold is a little bit more tight in, in private practice.

[00:06:15] So we have to be mindful of that.

[00:06:17] Linzy: Yeah, I would agree with that and I think, you know, a big part of the factor there that comes to mind for me is you’re working with emotional energy, and emotional resources, and that’s such a finite resource that people have. So for instance, like for group practice owners, and I’m sure folks listening, many folks have maybe worked for group practices and experienced this or worked for agencies where if you’re treated as though

[00:06:36] you have kind of endless emotional energy and you can do endless good sessions, then of course people are going to tell you to do seven sessions a day because that’s max profit for the business, right? Like on paper, that’s that hockey stick growth, right? It’s well, if everybody just did seven sessions a day, we’re going to be rich, but that is not possible, right?

[00:06:54] That’s way beyond what somebody can do. But the damage that can be done by folks running businesses and not really respecting the sacredness of the work, the limited emotional energy that folks have, and also they need that energy to live their lives and be well, can do a lot of damage to people who work for group practices when they’re treated as though they’re just like cogs in a machine rather than doing this really nuanced, high skill emotional work, which is what they’re actually doing when we’re talking about mental health therapists.

[00:07:23] Yeah.

[00:07:23] James: I like to use an analogy to sort of describe that, because it is very common for people to describe that as a well oiled machine, but even machines, like if we think about an engine is managing a very hot reaction, an internal combustion engine, and it has to keep that within a zone, and there’s a level where it’s so hot it’ll destroy itself, And there’s a level where it’s so cool, nothing’s actually happening that’s productive.

[00:07:54] And so, when we think about a well oiled machine, that’s a good analogy for any business. But we can’t ever ignore this fact that there’s this middle ground, there’s this balance point. And it’s going to be different for every business, and it’s going to be different for every product or service.

[00:08:11] And you have to create a bias within those balance points that keeps that internal combustion reaction safe and keeps it sustainable. The same thing happens in any business, but especially private practice. So how do we work with the clinicians? How do we help them? First off, I think the most critical thing there is be aware

[00:08:36] of how that reaction is going, and one of the things that the big business crowds that sort of enter into this space don’t do is they’re not mindful of that reaction, even though it’s very clearly the case. I mean, everything needs balance, you know? The atoms in our body need balance, and the orbits of the moon and stars and everything, there’s a certain balance there.

[00:08:59] Otherwise it all kind of falls apart. So yeah, acknowledging that balance is critical. You can’t get around that, and savvy business owners of any type will do that. But especially in private practice, it’s important.

[00:09:11] Linzy: Well, and what occurs to me when you’re saying that is, that is true of a group practice where somebody is trying to oversee a bigger machine, so to speak, and make sure that, they’re at a sustainable level, that the folks who are working for them are at a sustainable level.

[00:09:24] But it’s also true for solo practitioners, because I think solo practitioners, even though you’re one in the same, sometimes, you know, the part of us that’s running the business and wants to make a certain paycheck or sees opportunity and doesn’t want to say no to potential clients can be neglecting the part of you that is doing the work,

[00:09:39] and that is, to use your analogy, overheating, reaching an unsustainable point, right? And basically it’s almost like your boss self can burn out your clinician self if you’re not really being honest with yourself about the fact that you’re doing something that’s not sustainable.

[00:09:53] So I can see this applying to private practice in terms of group practice, but also solo practice. Yeah.

[00:10:00] James: Very much so. And in a way, with solo practitioners, that sort of threshold is a little bit thinner. A lot of the concern that a lot of solo practitioners have is, well, you know, what if I’m sick and I’m out for a week?

[00:10:15] How does that affect my income? What if I, you know, God forbid, want to take a vacation? Oh my gosh.What if I need some time away? Or, you know, what if I just, what if I’m away for training? So all these things sort of create this scenario where you actually have to stack the deck in advance.

[00:10:31] You have to plan this whole operation out to achieve a level of abundance that supports that biasing in the direction of you being in a space that’s safe for you as a practitioner, that reaction is cooled a little bit so that it can be sustained. One of the things I commonly find myself doing with the practice centers we work with is they’re very much in the moment people.

[00:10:58] Very mindful, and it’s a skill set they have for being with their patients. and all the other noise goes away. And that’s a fantastic thing. The counterpoint to that is thinking about the long term. You know, thinking about, okay, it’s not just this time I have right now with this patient. How do I structure this enterprise so it accomplishes what I need it to accomplish this week, this month,

[00:11:22] this year, this lifetime?

[00:11:23] Linzy: Yeah.

[00:11:25] James: And it’s sort of… So we think about those big picture items. Legacy, the lifetime effect they feel that they’ve had on the community around them and the people around them. And, okay, working backwards, what are the steps that need to happen now, so we can sustainably and reliably produce that result that they want?

[00:11:44] Because that will be the passion that drives everything forward.

[00:11:46] Linzy: The word that comes to mind for me there is a word that you used at the beginning, which is strategic, right? Like you help folks with strategic planning. And I have also found that therapists and health practitioners, like helper kind of folks and I’m, you know, for folks watching on YouTube, you’ll be able to see that I’m like putting my hand over my heart. For folks listening to the podcast,

[00:12:03] I’m putting my hand over my heart because they’re such heart led people, right? So present, so embodied, care so much. And as you said, that’s this beautiful gift to be able to just be with your client or your patient and really zero in on what they need in that moment and like, when I was a therapist, I remember it’s almost like I have, it’s like the matrix, you know, there’s all these things coming down around me of: oh, I’m noticing that little thing.

[00:12:25] And I’m noticing this, but I’m also remembering three sessions ago that was a little bit too much when we went there. And I’m not really reading that I should go there. It’s like the analysis that’s happening. All the information that you’re processing is so intense at that moment. And so, so much of our energy goes towards providing that great service and really holding the space for people, whether it’s with mental health work or with manual practitioner work, like really zooming in and listening to somebody’s body.

[00:12:47] But it’s hard to then also be zooming out and thinking of the big picture and thinking, okay, how am I structuring this so that, as you say, I have time off built in. So if I’m sick, it’s not a big deal. That’s kind of almost like it’s a different mode to be in. And most of us have not actually been taught how to be in that

[00:13:05] strategic mode. That’s certainly not part of our professional education to be strategic. We’re taught to be present and to deal with only what is right in front of us at that moment.

[00:13:15] James: Yeah, and thank God you do.

[00:13:17] Linzy: Yeah.

[00:13:17] James: You know, I’ve finished some sessions with my therapist, and I’m like, Is he going to go talk to someone else now after what he just kind of went through with me and, you know, the experience I had and, I know, he has methods for managing that. I think he understands better than I do, obviously, but yeah, it’s really sort of a hypervigilant state, for me being on the outside looking in.

[00:13:39] I’ll bring up things and I’ll be like, Hey, do you remember when we talked about this? And he’s like, yeah. He remembers all these things that we talked about. And I’m like, how does he keep all that stuff in his head? And how does he go from one session to another?

[00:13:49] Well, you know, all this stuff is being memorized, but yeah, it’s definitely sort of like stepping from truck and into a boat, you know, it’s like a very different sort of mindset to then think long term. But one of the inspiring things I’ve found for practice owners when they think long term, and especially when they start thinking about growth, is that switch between thinking about the patients you’re with right now and the patients that have not come

[00:14:12] yet. And so, often when we talk about private practice growth, we’re thinking about revenue and net income and owner compensation and them having a higher quality of life. All those wonderful things, but the rising tide that raises all boats is also one where if that practice grows, and it can provide more service to more people, the people who need help, who haven’t shown up yet,

[00:14:38] those ones we haven’t met yet, they can get that help.

[00:14:41] So, the growth accomplishes all those many things. I like to call it the faceless, nameless patient, and remind the practice owners who feel a little bit hesitant to jump into a growth initiative, that when they first started this whole thing, all they had was faceless, nameless patients.

[00:14:57] They had this sort of dream to serve people they had not met yet. And when they get those people in front of them, that one side of the brain sort of thinks, “Okay, these are my people, and these are the people I’m helping.” They’re the ones in front of me right now. And to step back and think about growing often means we start thinking a little bit about all the people we could help who we’ve never met yet, who are out there that If we create the capacity and we create a different strategic approach to what we’re doing, those people we have not met yet will then come and have the resources that we’re providing to them.

[00:15:29] Linzy: Yeah. I mean, that’s a really beautiful way to put that because I do think, too, sometimes therapists and health practitioners, you know, this might be too harsh of a phrase, but we can have a bit of a poverty of imagination where we’re like, no, these are my clients. These are the people that I help, and I have to do everything to take care of these people who happen to be here.

[00:15:48] But as you say, there’s always going to be more folks. Your next favorite client is only a month away, right? And they’re thinking about maybe reaching out to you now. But as you say, like…And I think about this, too, if you are somebody who has that spark to think about, I would like to do more.

[00:16:03] I would like to be able to be more available because not everybody is interested in growth, of course, but for folks who are, it’s like, yeah, if you don’t set yourself up to grow, and increase capacity, then you’re not going to be available to, you know, all of those nameless, faceless folks, who are thinking about reaching out now, right?

[00:16:21] Or who are starting to think about looking for help and are going to be reaching out in three months. it’s kind of creating that future capacity is what I’m hearing when you set yourself up for strategic growth.

[00:16:30] James: Yeah, you want to be open to that. It’s not at all a negative thing. And I like the flavor that we’re really kind of on here. There’s nothing wrong at all about focusing intensely and caring for the people who are in your space right now. I mean, that’s where it’s at.

[00:16:46] That’s what we’re talking about. That’s what we’re trying to support. But I do see it’s easy because we’re focusing on them to forget about the people who haven’t come yet. That’s that bias. So biasing yourself in a way where you have capacity and you’re building capacity.

[00:17:02] And so you’re, like that engine analogy that we kind of talk about, we’re keeping that thing cool, and we’re doing everything we can to help it be cooler as it provides more, you know, in this case, power to the wheels, you know, and so that rubber meeting the road. That analogy is also a good one,

[00:17:23] the rubber meeting the road is the service for the patients, and I haven’t really met a therapist yet who hasn’t wanted to serve more. Because they’ve got big hearts, and they really want to serve more. But they definitely don’t want to do it to the detriment of themselves because then they can’t serve and you mentioned something about seven patients a day. One of the very odd experiences I had recently I met with a clinician and we were talking a little bit about her goals and what she wanted to accomplish, and she told me she was doing agency work, but she wanted to go back into private practice. And she said the agency she was working with… I almost can’t even say it! She said they were having her do eight sessions a day.

[00:18:05] And I was… you know, after talking to my therapist and my clients and everything, I was like, that sounds unreal. But the thing that told me that was totally far out was when she said this, she said, yes, I had four cancellations today. I was so glad. And I was like, okay, that is not…

[00:18:24] That’s a sign this reaction is out of control. This is too hot when we want it to cool. you know, so a clinician, I think that’s sort of when they’re in that, that worst space they could be in when it’s oh good, people aren’t coming to me for help. That’s when that thing is sort of turned around in the wrong direction, I think.

[00:18:41] Linzy: Yeah, I cannot literally imagine eight sessions a day. And you know, this is something that I encourage my students to think about in Money Skills for Therapists is we all have our own capacity and that’s going to be impacted by other things, too. what kind of work do you do?

[00:18:55] What does your life look like at this moment? Do you have young kids at home? Do you have a parent that you’re caring for? There’s so many factors that influence our capacity at any given moment, but I don’t think eight is in anybody’s capacity. I’ll just say that. I feel confident about that.

[00:19:09] I’ve never met a therapist who sees eight clients a day and doesn’t pay the price for it pretty much immediately.

[00:19:15] James: Yeah. I can’t even imagine it. I can’t like some of the sessions I’ve been in, I can’t imagine eight of those a day. So yeah, everyone I’ve spoken to sort of has this kind of set point and of their general expectation, and often it’s okay, someone’s full time, maybe 25 to 28.

[00:19:31] Okay, But it’s very personal. And I think that’s the other thing that’s very important is if you’re in solo practice, it’s good to be very acquainted with, where is your set point? And, you know, where do you feel comfortable, and it might also depend on what issues you’re working with in terms of what patients, and it also, dare I say, might be affected…

[00:19:54] Your bandwidth in your sessions, and your sort of set point for how much you can serve may very well be influenced by how much money you’re making from what you’re doing. It’s going to be a lot harder to really apply yourself in those sessions, really feel energized. Really feel that ability to communicate with your patients if you sort of feel like things at home aren’t going well because you don’t have the resources to make this, that, or the other thing happen.

[00:20:22] So, to a certain extent, the financial picture is very much a nurturing of the ability for these therapists to perform at the level they want to perform. And so, I guess that’s where we kind of get back into those thoughts of, you know, not being afraid of the numbers. And not being scared of really wanting a good financial result.

[00:20:45] All those things are part of the picture.

[00:20:47] Linzy: They are. This is a lot of the work that I do with folks, at the solo and group level, is making friends with that. Accepting that our financial health is part of our health, and if you are only making 45k a year and you’re supporting your partner who cannot work, you are stressed, right, and you’re not okay and you’re not able to meet your own needs, and you’re not able to give yourself the care or the ease or the space, whatever it is, that you need… There’s no way that’s not affecting the way that you show up for your clients, right? And we can think about that in terms of, like, the impact on you as a worker, you know, if we want to think about it like that, like just that it makes a bad work environment for you.But also it’s going to be impacting the quality of care that you can give folks, whether or not we want to acknowledge that as therapists, there’s no way you’re doing as good of work if you’re like worried about not making your next rent payment, right. Or you have a medical issue coming up and you’re not sure if you’re going to be able to pay

[00:21:39] your bill, there’s no way that is not affecting your ability to be present and grounded. And also I think, you know, with therapists, too, it’s let’s practice what we preach, right? Let’s be taking care of ourselves. So when we talk to somebody else about stepping up and like holding their boundaries, or prioritizing their wellbeing, we’re not being total hypocrites, right?

[00:21:57] We’re actually like, actually speaking from personal experience, knowing that it is hard to do, but that it’s worth it.

[00:22:04] James: Yeah, it is. And you know, I just think that’s important. You have to recognize all aspects. Otherwise, you’re approaching those decisions from a standpoint of bias. And then you’ll inherently make the wrong decision. So yeah, the money’s part of it. Money’s part of it. And so, that’s where you kind of step out into that strategic thinking and you’re like, all right.

[00:22:23] Well, how’s this practice, this business, actually going to be designed to meet the result I need it to meet for me so that I can serve to the best of my ability because, you know, there’s a lot of sort of degrading of the results that can happen. Some practitioners are really good in certain areas.

[00:22:43] Some of them are, other areas are new, or this really is not their focus, so they don’t kind of relate to people on that particular issue. But if they’re struggling, they’ll have a tendency to maybe take on patients they don’t feel as comfortable serving, or they don’t feel like it’s their core competency.

[00:22:59] Well, okay. We can see kind of in that sense, that’s one area where the financial aspect might have forced them into a bias that might lead to a different result that’s not as good for them and their patient.

[00:23:11] Being real about those things I think is important.

[00:23:14] Linzy: Yeah, absolutely. I’m noticing your use of the term bias. You’re using the term bias a lot. Can you speak a little bit to bias? Tell me more about bias.

[00:23:23] James: Yeah, so we all have bias. Bias is where there’s sort of a part of our brain that we sort of head in a certain direction. You guys probably can explain the way the brain works a little better, but it’s sort of like a preconceived notion about something, and this is where I sort of like to talk about my idol in the business world, which is William Edwards Deming. And I’m going to get to bias, I promise.

[00:23:47] William Edwards Deming is who is responsible for what they call the Japanese economic miracle. And they credit him with the Japanese economic miracle, which is where Japan

[00:23:57] was just blasted almost to oblivion. So many things were destroyed. They didn’t have infrastructure anymore, and in 20 to 30 years, Deming took them to being the third largest world economic superpower.

[00:24:08] Linzy: Just to clarify, like after World War II that they were blasted? Is that what you’re referring to?

[00:24:12] James: Exactly, yeah, World War II. Before World War II… the incentive for Japan to get into the war and fight so hard, before World War II, they were in some very dire straits.

[00:24:22] They had some very difficult things going on there, so after, it was even worse. But Deming went there, and he went there with a very compassionate approach to business.

[00:24:32] One of the things Deming said, we can look to hit the things he said as pillars in what we do, and one of the big things he said is, “Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion.”

[00:24:43] Because he felt, correctly, that people, and especially in business, tended to do things based on hunches.

[00:24:50] James: They tended to sort of go with their gut, and that was kind of a big thing. Go with your gut. You know, make it, if you feel this is what you need to do it. Well, that’s going to be a bias, and that’s going to be often what we find in business is the entrepreneurial business owner will rush to a conclusion because they feel…

[00:25:10] You know, some people call it a hunch, some people call it a gut feeling, but a lot of us who are really involved in making excellent decisions, we can call it bias. And so, that’s going to be where your former experiences guide you in sort of this vague, in the gray kind of way, but you sort of just feel it’s the right decision to make.

[00:25:31] Well, Deming was not okay with that. He always said, gather data, inspect what’s going on, figure out what’s going on, gather as much data as possible. So, long story short, we’re basically just putting a lot of weight into that guideline of really sitting down, being clear: what should happen, where should the direction of this thing be, what does the practice owner actually need to get from it?

[00:26:00] What have the prior results been? Collecting data. And data doesn’t have to be a bunch of figures. It can be a list of core competencies. It can be a list of key objectives. It can just be a list of what’s gone well in the past and what hasn’t. That’s also another form of data. And if we assemble all those things, and we start being very real about what we’ve observed, what our intentions are, and what directions we want to head in, that can guide these decisions so much better than sort of saying, Oh, I just kind of have a hunch, which we would call, you know, sort of a bias.

[00:26:34] Linzy: Yeah, absolutely. And because you had mentioned earlier like this idea of, being with the numbers. I don’t know if you said making friends with the numbers. That’s a phrase that I like,

[00:26:41] James: Yeah, it’s good.

[00:26:43] Linzy: That’s so important, right? Because as therapists and, you know, I also work with group practice owners as well, it’s… You didn’t mention this part, but I’m linking back to what you’re talking about earlier…

[00:26:51] Like we are very embodied people, right? Where there is a lot that happens in the body and there’s a lot of emotions and we’re aware of all of these things that are happening, all these levels that can guide you. And sometimes though, that doesn’t set you in a direction that’s actually strategic going back to that word.

[00:27:06] Right. And so it’s, you know, bias, this would be the use of your word bias. And what I think about, to use a therapy phrase is there’s this concept of wise mind where it’s like you’re in the body, you know, you have that somatic connection that you’re with your feelings, you’re noticing your feelings about something, but you’re also in your like thinking brain.

[00:27:25] Both of those are online at the same time. And I think about the thinking brain as what you’re talking about with data. You actually have information. And with these two things together, you know, with connecting with your feelings, how do I feel about this? What do I actually want? And data, you can make strategic decisions, but without both of those things, you’re likely to put yourself out of alignment and make decisions that don’t actually feel good at the end of the day.

[00:27:47] James: Yeah, absolutely. Going with your gut, you can sometimes find yourself way off course after a long period of time. And again, they’re excellent tools. It’s just using the right tool for the job. But an example of combining them both, you can quantify qualitative data.

[00:28:05] So, as an example, one thing that I ask my clients to do is keep what I call a pain points journal. So at the end of the day, take two or three minutes, write down three things you didn’t like how it went. And after a while we see a trend and we see things that show up week after week. We see sort of one off things

[00:28:25] that might be significantly impactful, but you can sort of quantify that and you can say, Oh my gosh, you know, you are spending. way more time working than you realize. You are dealing with this problem every day, and it’s actually taking several hours pretty regularly to manage it in that way. And then we can start sort of picking things apart.

[00:28:45] We can say, you know, why are you doing your own payroll? Why are you doing your own accounting? You know, you might want to get some outside help. And if they look at it in the right way, then they sort of get this unbiased interpretation of it, where they say, Oh, okay. Yeah, I have this pain point, but it leads me to an understanding.

[00:29:05] I’ve been spending this much of my time doing this thing I could delegate out. And, shocker, I could serve more patients by not doing this thing, which isn’t my core competency. And sometimes you just see it because you make note of the emotional experience. And the emotional experience can lead you to a real understanding

[00:29:24] of something that’s functioning poorly in the business. So the emotional experience…It’s a data set in its own way. And so it’s all valuable. It’s all valuable if you treat it the right way.

[00:29:34] Linzy: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, as you’re describing that it’s connecting to my brain. I’m doing a course right now called Life of Focus with Cal Newport and Scott H Young, and they’re in the kind of education, computer technologist space, but they do a lot around living a meaningful life and like taking time and slowing down.

[00:29:51] And something that they talked about that I thought was really interesting was in terms of writing to process information, they talked about how we have limited kind of cognitive capacity at any given moment, even if we really hook into something, there’s only so many things our brain can hold at one moment, but when we write, we’re almost like expanding our cognitive capacity, right?

[00:30:10] We’re allowing ourselves to hold more information at once. So part of what I’m hearing in what you’re saying is by recording these things, even just a little bit at a time, you’re able to kind of bring all this information together that otherwise would get lost. You’ll forget the fact that you were also exhausted last Thursday, or you’ll forget the fact that

[00:30:25] every time you run payroll, you hate your life.

[00:30:28] You know, cause so many other things happen in between, but when you record it, you can see all the information together and be like, okay, there’s some patterns here. There are things that I can do something about rather than just kind of having these fresh experiences all the time where you’re actually kind of like a goldfish in a bowl hitting the same pain point over and over, but you forget about it.

[00:30:44] Cause there’s so many things you’ve done between, you know, last week when you hit this pain point and this week. So it’s just really letting yourself see what’s already happening in a really clear way.

[00:30:54] James: A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah, and it’s a great approach. You know journaling has always been a path to self discovery, but it’s interesting when you think about, you know, going to your journal, and re reading the conversations and you’re like, oh my gosh, four times out of ten, I’m ending the day a little bit, kind of pissed off, and then you start being real because that’s going to affect everything that’s going on, you know, it’s going to affect your ability to serve yourself, your ability to serve your patients, and how interesting that you discovered that through something, an emotional experience, that you’re able to put sort of a quantitative analysis on that tells you the trend you’re experiencing and gives you a sense of… It tells you the symptom you can trace to the cause, and then you can make, change things for the better.

[00:31:40] Linzy: Yeah, and you know, to go to the number side of it, too, cause you know, cause that’s an area that you and I live and enjoy, but I’m sure many folks listening do not necessarily live in and enjoy the number side. Something that a coach that I worked with years ago when I first started selling Money Skills for Therapists talked about is you need to grab the numbers, and look at the numbers, and get out of the stories, right?

[00:32:01] So for instance, especially when folks are first starting out, like you’re marketing your practice for the first time. You launch your course for the first time; you’ve put your heart into it. This is like all of your brain and talents, you know, you’ve put it into this course, you send it out to your email list, and nobody buys, right? Where do our brains naturally want to go? They want to go to: I’m a failure, nobody cares about what I’m doing, I’m the worst, I’ve wasted my time, like all the negative stories are going to be right there being like, Oh, oh, choose me, choose me! you know, so many negative interpretations that we can have of that.

[00:32:30] But if you can turn it into information and see, Oh, okay. I sent emails to 600 people, but only 100 people opened that. And of that only 10 people actually clicked over to my sales page. And of that only one person actually looked at the cart. I’m using an online business analogy here, but what I’m seeing is like, Oh, something’s not working here.

[00:32:49] And it’s not about me, and my inherent worth, and people not liking my face, or anything like that. It’s oh, there’s something about probably my email subject lines that’s not catching people’s attention. So what if I try a different subject line? But you can do those like what if questions and experiment and be curious, which is what I always encourage for my students,

[00:33:07] when you actually know what you’re looking at. When you can actually see, “Oh, these numbers are not how I want them to be.” You know, like if you have clients calling for instance, and you have 10 people call, and only two people book, again, that’s not about you. It’s like, Oh, okay. Where’s the disconnect here?

[00:33:22] Are people not getting a real sense of what you’re looking at? Are you maybe marketing in places that people can’t afford your fee? There’s questions to ask there, but it’s only when you look at the data that you can see, okay, something here needs attention rather than going to those stories and emotions, which are always going to be so present.

[00:33:37] So that also comes to mind for me when we’re talking about this data piece, is it’s an invitation to zoom out rather than get caught up in the stories.

[00:33:45] James: Yeah, I relate one hundred percent. And what I like to refer to what you just did is… I call it an anti conflationary approach. So conflation is when we treat many things as if they’re one thing. And savvy business owners and practice owners will do everything they can to avoid falling into that trap.

[00:34:08] This was part of Deming’s genius is that he acknowledged that you have to go into the problem, and you have to divide it into its many different aspects. Like, the word, clever actually is the same word as cleaver. It means to split things up. And not look at one thing as if it’s a whole.

[00:34:28] Look at its components. So, you were very smart to look at that outreach and divide it into what very clearly was many different operations. You know, the email going out, the people seeing the email, the people actually opening the email, the people clicking the link, you know, they call it a sales funnel.

[00:34:49] The sales funnel approach is the way to say, okay, it’s not just marketing or advertising. It’s all these steps that happen inside there. And another idol of mine, or I guess someone I’m a fan of, is Alex Ormosi. And another example of this is he talks about leadership. He says most people say there are boring leaders.

[00:35:11] And he says he completely disagrees with that, and I do, too. But the way he describes it is leadership is not one skill. And we typically think people are boring leaders because we assume it’s one thing, when in reality, leadership is a bundle of skills. There’s sort of a sense of humor, there’s sort of a sense of compassion and kind of connecting with people.

[00:35:34] There’s communication, there’s anticipation of things, and you know, there’s all these skills that come into leadership, and if you go to that concept and divide it, then you can figure out, okay, this is where one person is weak in this area. This is where they’re strong. This is where they can build that skill.

[00:35:53] This is where our marketing funnel… this is where sort of things fall off. When we make a little adjustment in this area, at the bottom end, we can get a significant result. All those things can be a factor.

[00:36:05] Linzy: Absolutely. That clever and cleaver. I’m curious. Do you know, are they actually related, the origins of those words?

[00:36:12] James: So I’m kind of a fan of etymology, and I haven’t looked that one up in, in a while. But, yeah, my understanding is they are related, like in the history of those words, they have the same root.

[00:36:23] Linzy: To take apart, right, and look at.

[00:36:24] James: Yeah. Dividing something.

[00:36:26] Linzy: I love that. Every time I hear the word clever from now on, I’m going to think about that. Because yeah, it is such an important skill, and I think that, again, therapists, because they tend to be so emotional and care so much, it can be hard to take things apart sometimes.

[00:36:39] And it can be hard not to take it personally when our marketing’s not working, when somebody doesn’t book with us, when clients don’t come back, all of these pieces. And so, yeah, I love what you’re saying, you know, take it apart. think about what are the different aspects, because as you say, that also gives us spots where we can grow, and maybe 90 percent of what we’re doing is great, and it’s just like 10 percent that we need to zoom in

[00:37:00] to build a skill, right? That gives you an opportunity to do something, to be strategic, rather than fall into defeat or, you know, want to throw in the hat. Because that’s also something that I hear from folks a lot, you know, in the group practice space as well, which can be a very high stakes, stressful space is: should I shut it down?

[00:37:17] They go sometimes between the like, this is amazing. I love this! To like, I should just shut this down. You know, and there’s a lot of levels in the middle. There are a lot of things that could be looked at in between those places. But I think when we have everything lumped together, it’s easy to just fall into defeat when something’s not working the way we want it to.

[00:37:36] James: Absolutely. Yeah. And In a way that’s sort of a form of scapegoating. If we look at the business or the practice or whatever, and we just say, it’s not working. Well, we’re kind of bundling the whole thing together. There’s always going to be things that are working well and things that are working poorly.

[00:37:52] And one of the greatest early gains we sometimes get with clients, it’s just showing them something that is just creating a loss and sort of taking the whole thing and putting it off balance. And then we say, just put some effort into here. You know, you could coach this area up or build it up in a way, or if you wanted an immediate positive impact, just stop doing that. Because it’s… maybe that’s the thing that’s not working. So yeah, divide it up. Look into the issue. And the bias you kind of see with that is there’s a bias to considering many things as just being one thing. It’s a lot easier on our brains, right?

[00:38:30] Because we can say, you know, Oh, the Republicans are the problem, or the Democrats are the problem. Well, as opposed to seeing, well, there’s nuanced conversations that are inside of that. Or, you know, I hate to, I’m sorry I brought up

[00:38:42] politics, but it’s an area where there’s a lot of scapegoating, right? Where people don’t see… there’s nuance.

[00:38:47] There’s many different issues and you know, you can’t just sort of wash the whole thing as being one thing. So yeah, dig into the details. And it doesn’t have to be perfect, but just try to split things up into all their parts. Try to split those parts up into their parts. Give some sense of weight to what matters most and what is weakest.

[00:39:07] Put your attention there, and you’ll get a better direction.

[00:39:10] Linzy: Absolutely. I mean, I personally find it very grounding, right, when I can have the data in front of me. This is obviously why I teach what I teach, and it’s probably also why you do what you do. You know, we have that love of the information, but I see that, too, for my students, and I’m curious, the impact that you see with the group practice owners that you support as well. What do you notice shifts for people once they start to take things apart and see the component pieces?

[00:39:32] What becomes different for those folks that you support?

[00:39:36] James: There’s a curiosity that comes up. When the data is available… So one of the things we do on our platform is we put a… It’s meant to be a coaching tool, but we can put the activity of all of the clinicians, an owner and then the supervisors… Sort of what they’re hungry for is a sense… They’re looking for symptoms that a clinician could be struggling in a variety of ways.

[00:40:02] Maybe they’re not getting referrals, or maybe they’re having trouble with retention, whatever that might be. But, so we’re looking for reporting to show that. So when that data is available to them, I almost always, when we’re on a call, see them lean in and look, you know. They look and they’re like, oh, what does that mean?

[00:40:17] Because it’s like discoveries are happening, and they’re starting to see the results of the experiment, which is, you know, ultimately hiring someone and coaching their behavior up. It’s kind of an experiment. You’re trying to see how is this going to work out? Can we control this, and have it go in the right direction?

[00:40:33] But they see that. So that curiosity, that’s a great energy to have as a practice owner and a business owner is like being very curious about what’s going on and having the data in front of you, whatever shape or form it might be, builds that curious energy, builds that inquisitive sort of approach of looking into things because you sort of feel like there are things you can discover.

[00:40:56] So if you’re not creating data, if you’re not harvesting data, that’s not going to be there, and you’re going to sort of feel this sort of numbness like, I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know even what the levers are to push or pull and it sort of feels like you’re stuck. And so, yeah, getting into a state where you’re always sort of building the things you can be aware of

[00:41:17] is a thing that will create that curious energy and sort of a sense of control over what’s going on. Because you haven’t sort of lumped it all into one thing and just thought, “Okay, this just isn’t working.”

[00:41:29] Linzy: Yes. I mean, I think curiosity…As a trauma therapist, curiosity was something that I would really encourage my clients into a curious state because it does also calm the nervous system, right? Like when we get to that place of being like, Huh, Hey, what’s that? You know, like we are getting out of trauma responses.

[00:41:48] We’re getting out of stress responses, and our whole brain is coming online, right? When we’re into that like discovery, problem solving, surprise, like we get to start experiencing this whole other positive range of emotions. And I’m also thinking too, when you pull things apart, you also get to see what is working where you’re like, Oh, we don’t need to mess with that at all.

[00:42:04] This thing over here is great. So I can stop worrying about that. And I can just focus my energy over here on this thing that I can do something about that needs attention. There’s also relief in being able to see, “Wow, we’re actually doing really well in this area,” which again opens the door to all these other positive emotions like relief or even pride, right?

[00:42:22] And those things can exist alongside a problem that you are approaching to solve, right? They can coexist, as you say, once you pull these things apart.

[00:42:31] James: Yeah, and if you split it apart you see the things you’re doing well, that’ll create some confidence. Yeah it’ll inspire you: “Okay, we did that well, so we just need to focus on this area and get that tuned up.

[00:42:42] Linzy: Yeah. Love that. So James, for folks who are listening, can you tell us just a little bit more about who you serve and what you do and where people can find you?

[00:42:52] James: Sure, yeah, we serve practice owners, and they can find us at CACadvisors.com. We are very interested in meeting people, so our tools may not be the perfect solution for everyone we meet with. We’re very mindful of that, so there’s no hard sell in this type of thing. And I’m just a big fan of meeting people in this space and finding ways that we can help them.

[00:43:15] But our website is CAC Advisors, capital C, capital A, capital C, and there’s a little bit more background on us there, and how we serve, and some resources. Just did a presentation at the AACP Psychopharmacology Leadership Summit, and we put the outline for that and a bunch of the resources for that online.

[00:43:36] So there’s some cool stuff on there, and ultimately, we’d love to meet anyone who needs a little help, even if it’s just a 15 minute chat cheerleading them to succeed. So,

[00:43:45] Linzy: Great. Wonderful. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today, James.

[00:43:49] James: Thank you, Linzy, appreciate it very much. 

[00:44:06] Linzy: I really love James’s emphasis on taking things apart. That clever / cleaver thing is still sitting with me. I love that. Because it is so true when we can take things apart in terms of the problems we’re having with our private practices, in terms of the questions that we have, the things we need to learn, it’s less overwhelming, right?

[00:44:24] When we can break it into those component pieces. And as we talked about, too, sometimes when we break things apart in our business and we start to see them as all these separate pieces, we can also see what’s working and not just what’s not working. So you don’t need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

[00:44:38] You know, if your client load is down, you can take things apart and start to understand where is the piece that is not working and you can just address that, right? Rather than just feeling overwhelmed by all of it. So, such a helpful perspective from James today. I really appreciate him coming onto the podcast.

[00:44:54] You can follow me on Instagram at Money Nuts and Bolts. You can also watch this episode on YouTube, which maybe you’re doing right now. If you like to have some video to go along with your podcasts, check out our YouTube channel. We’re at Money Nuts and Bolts, and if you’re enjoying the podcast, as always, it’s so appreciated

[00:45:13] if you can leave me a review on Apple Podcasts, ’cause that is the best way for folks to find the podcast and benefit from these conversations. Thanks for listening today.

[00:00:00] Linzy: Hello and welcome back to a Feelings and Finances episode of Money Skills for Therapists podcast. These are our short little episodes that we do at the end of the week that are all about answering listener questions, giving you a little burst of financial goodness to take you into the weekend. Today we have a question from Edgar who’s a recent graduate of Money Skills for Therapists.

[00:00:23] Here is Edgar’s question.

[00:00:24] Edgar: Hi, Linzy, my name is Edgar Frías, and I’m a licensed marriage and family therapist in California in private practice, and I am a longtime listener of this podcast and also just recently graduated from your Money Skills for Therapists course. And I’ve recently started experimenting with scaling in my practice.

[00:00:47] I just started a group for artists, and I’ve been kind of wanting to think a little bit more about scaling. I know that you have more experience with this, so would love to hear your thoughts, like whether they are good or bad, positive, negative, neutral about scaling? Uh, how much should we be aiming to scale in our practices?

[00:01:09] Should we scale everything? What’s the difference between, doing individual work or working with a lot of people? What have you noticed? It’s something that I’m definitely kind of mulling over as I’m getting excited about being able to offer these types of opportunities for folks, while also knowing that I do love doing individual work as well and find it really meaningful.

[00:01:34] So yeah, I would just love to hear any reflections you have for me. And again, I want to thank you so much for the work that you do in this world and for creating this incredible podcast that is such a great resource for our communities.

[00:01:48] Linzy: Okay, so scaling. This is a great question, Edgar. And this is something that I hear and see more and more therapists talking about. Obviously this is something that I’ve done myself in terms of pivoting out of private practice, in my case completely, and into Money Nuts and Bolts, my company, where I run Money Skills for Therapists and Money Skills for Practice Owners and have this podcast.

[00:02:12] So, it’s definitely something that’s on a lot of people’s mind, this question of scaling. And I think Edgar, this piece that you mentioned about how you love one on one work, this is a really important piece of information for you and for anybody listening. So scaling, you know, is when we take what we do and we start to reach beyond those one on ones, right?

[00:02:33] Like health practitioners, therapists, generally speaking, our business model is we spend an hour with somebody, we sit down together, we use all of our skills and our expertise and our gifts, and we’re like drawing on all of these things to give them this beautiful customized experience with us, you know, really attuned to exactly where they’re at

[00:02:51] to help them with whatever problem we are there to help them solve. That is a business model that has the limitation of, we only have so much of ourself to give, right? We only have so much time. We only have so much energy. You might be able to do that with 15 people in the week and feel good and be quite effective.

[00:03:09] But if you tried to do that with 40 people in the week, you certainly would pay the price, right? You would burn out. The quality of that is not going to be as good if you do it 40 times over than if you do it 15 times or whatever limit you identify for yourself. But as you say, that work, though, can be so rich.

[00:03:26] So meaningful. It’s very powerful to have an individual relationship with somebody where you really get to know them and you get to walk that path with them, whatever the path that you’re helping them down. And I don’t think that we should discount that when you’re thinking about the type of work that you want to do, because it’s really easy to fall into this thing of thinking, this kind of capitalist thinking, of just like bigger is better.

[00:03:49] And if you have a bigger business, you’re going to be happier. Your life is going to be easier. If you make a million dollars, all your problems are going to go away. That is not true. That is not true. So as we’re thinking about building our businesses, what we really need to be thinking about is what is the work we actually want to do.

[00:04:04] What makes you enjoy your day? What is it that you do in your work that you look back and you’re like, Oh, that felt so good. Or that you’re in the flow in the moment thinking like, God, I can’t believe I get to do this for work. This is amazing. We don’t want to give up those things, right? So never think that you need to scale your business or that there’s something wrong

[00:04:23] if you don’t want to scale your business. If you absolutely love the work that you’re doing and it lights you up, and it’s feeding you, and it’s also literally feeding you, it’s paying you enough, there’s no reason to scale. If you are curious about scaling, I will say like my experience with the benefits of scaling, of taking what I do and doing it differently is that you do get to have that bigger impact.

[00:04:47] Right. You get to reach more folks. You also get to create something that folks get to have results from what you do and Edgar, in your case, you’re talking about like working with like artists and a group of artists. I’m not entirely sure, you know, what you’re planning right now, but generally speaking, when we scale, there’s more people involved, right?

[00:05:04] So when I run Money Skills for Therapists or when I run a round of Money Skills for Group Practice Owners, it’s not just me who is helping somebody through their journey of, you know, developing calm and confidence with money. There’s other people in that group walking alongside them.

[00:05:20] And we all know the power of groups. We all know that folks can help each other as peers in a way that you cannot as a facilitator or a therapist or a practitioner, because they’re walking the same road together. And there’s something beautiful about that, which means that there’s less work for you to do in terms of being the interpersonal connection that’s helping somebody through a certain transformation.

[00:05:39] But it also means that you don’t get to be that person who makes it happen for somebody, too, right? Like you’re also kind of giving up that central pivotal role, which for some of us if we are have been raised to be helpers, and if we really derive like an identity from being helpful and being kind of integral to somebody’s healing, then that’s actually something you have to kind of give up and grieve a little bit when you start to scale, when it’s no longer about just you doing something, but you put what you do into a book or a course, or you create a community space. Folks are going to start to get the results that they used to get one on one with you,

[00:06:14] they’re going to start to get those results in other ways through the information that you’ve shared, through the vibe that you’ve created, through a process that they’re walking through in a more automatic way. And there is a change there. Like I know for me, there was kind of some grieving that I had to do a few years ago now, but realizing like, right, now I’m helping people get this certain result, but I don’t actually get to like walk alongside them in quite the same way that I did with my clinical clients, right?

[00:06:40] So there’s less intimacy there, frankly, in a scaled kind of offering. And so that’s something to consider as you’re thinking about what you want is like how much of that intimacy do you want to get from your work? How much does that feed you? How much do you want to start to scale and do the things that you do and make change in like a more kind of generalized way to put it a certain way.

[00:07:00] And maybe you look for intimacy in other places in your life because that’s also something that friends of mine have talked about as we’ve scaled our businesses, kind of walking this road together, is when you give up some of the intimacy that you get from one on one clients, whether that’s like therapy clients or if you’re a manual practitioner, your massage clients or your, your physio clients, like those folks that you have that real connection with.

[00:07:22] If you’re unconsciously trying to get some of that intimacy in life from those relationships, you’re going to have to find it somewhere else instead, right? You’re going to have to like, make great friendships, build a beautiful neighborhood group with your neighbors. But I think there’s a lot of opportunity there.

[00:07:35] So that’s the first thing I’ll say in terms of just like the work itself. It’s checking in with yourself about what you want to get from your work emotionally, and making sure you’re setting up a job, you’re building your company in such a way that you still get to do what feeds you. And that’s going to be different things at different times, but being honest with yourself.

[00:07:50] So Edgar, if you love that one on one work, don’t give that up. Right? But just think about how much of that do you want to do in the week? And then how much of maybe some different types of work, some more scaled work, would you like to do? The other thing that I will say is financially, there are obviously big returns that can come from scaling, but that’s also going to vary depending on how much you want to sell what you do because selling is always a big part of money coming in.

[00:08:14] It is the thing that makes the money come in. So how much do you want to be showing up and selling? How much help do you want to get? As we scale, we also have to hire folks. So you get to start to think about, do you want to be a one person operation who’s kind of doing everything, but doing maybe less one on one work, but you want to be like picking up the admin that’s going to come with having a more scaled offer?

[00:08:33] Do you want to hire team members? How many team members do you want? Every time you hire a team member to help you run your company, you know, make your service happen, you’re making your life easier, but you’re also choosing to be paid less, right? So I, for instance, choose to have many team members. I love having a team.

[00:08:49] And now I think a lot of that getting to like cheer somebody on and walk alongside them that I used to do with my clinical clients, I now do that with my team, right? I get to coach my team every two weeks. We have like a meeting where we have a one on one and I get to coach them and help them work through a challenge and think about where they are professionally and how they want to develop.

[00:09:06] And that’s really beautiful. And I get to have that intimacy, that professional intimacy in those employee relationships now. I get to mentor in this different way, but I’m also paying those folks. So that means I get paid less. I have other friends and folks that I know in the kind of similar scaled space who choose to have nobody worked for them or just have contractors do a couple things here and there, and then they get to make lots of money, but they also have to do all sorts of stuff that I personally wouldn’t want to do.

[00:09:33] So that’s also something to think about Edgar is like, what is the work that you love to do that you would want to take on? You know, if you’re starting to like create a space or create a group, what is the administrative stuff that you’d be like, Oh, that would actually be really fun. And that would be a nice variety

[00:09:45] in contrast to my one on one work. And what is the stuff that you know you hate, and you’d want to be hiring somebody? Because as we’re thinking about the path to and the model of the business that we’re building, you want to make sure that you’re building a business that will also be able to sustain

[00:09:59] you and sustain your team, right? That’s going to make enough money to pay you, and maybe to pay a virtual assistant and maybe to pay a marketer. So there’s a kind of a math equation there to also figure out. It was just like, how do you make a job that you’re going to love where you’re not doing stuff that you

[00:10:14] don’t love, and you’re also making enough sales that everybody is taken care of. So those are kind of like some pieces, Edgar, that I’m going to give you. Some, some seeds maybe to plant as you’re thinking about scaling. I think there’s like lots of beautiful opportunities in scaling, but also it’s not everything.

[00:10:30] And if we think that it’s going to solve all of life’s problems, that is not true. But I will tell you what scaling has given me, Edgar, is like, I feel so much lighter about my work, doing the work that in the way that I do it now. I get to see folks in Money, Skills for Therapists and Money Skills for Group Practice Owners have these big transformations and do these amazing things without me doing this like intense kind of like really soul demanding work like I used to do in my clinical work.

[00:10:56] And I have a lot more time freedom. Right? So those are all real. Those are all realities. I get paid better than I did in my private practice, but not as much as I would, uh, if I was choosing to do a bunch of other roles in my business. But I’ve been able to consciously make those decisions. So I think we can scale in really conscious waysthat meet our needs, but it’s being really connected with your needs as you grow your business

[00:11:15] so you don’t end up growing something that you hate, which is very easy to do. So thank you so much, Edgar, for your question about scaling. I really appreciate it. And I so appreciate you as a human. Anybody who has met Edgar knows that they are just a downright lovely human. And thank you for submitting your question today, Edgar.

[00:11:34] If you have a question for me that you’d like me to answer on feelings and finances, I would so appreciate you doing exactly what Edgar did and heading over to our website, moneynutsandbolts. com slash podcast. You’ll see a little section there that says, have a question for Linzy. It’s like super easy to record.

[00:11:50] You literally just press record, and it’s going to start recording you right away. Just share your name and your question. And I would love, love, love to answer your question here on an episode of Feelings and Finances. Thank you so much for joining me today.

[00:00:00] Genevieve: I think what that’ll do is just free me up in those ways that I described that I enjoy about private practice where it’s like, I don’t have to think about those things. I know they’re taken care of, and I can just focus on the day to day, and enjoying the freedom and luxury that comes with that.

[00:00:21] Linzy: 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.

[00:00:49] Hello and welcome back to the podcast. Today’s episode is a coaching episode with a listener, Genevieve Strange. Genevieve is a psychologist. She shares a little bit in the episode that she worked for many, many years in the prison system and stepped out to private practice about three years ago.

[00:01:08] And today we get into a topic that is relevant for all of us and can be a stressor for many of us, which is retirement. We talk about how, even though Genevieve has been in practice for a few years and everything is working well, she’s had this kind of inertia or block around starting contributing to her retirement

[00:01:27] again. We dig into why that is. We talk about perfectionism. We talk about big picture. And we dig a little bit into Amazon purchases and what that means to her, and how it can mean many different things to different people. We hit a lot of points today that I know many of us think about and worry about as parents and just humans who are going to age and retire and need to have money.

[00:01:49] And yet there’s all these things calling our time and attention now. Here is my conversation with Genevieve Strange.

[00:02:11] Linzy: Welcome to the podcast, Genevieve.

[00:02:12] Genevieve: Thank you. I’m happy to be here. I appreciate the opportunity.

[00:02:15] Linzy: So Genevieve, for folks listening, tell us a little bit about yourself and then what you want us to focus on today.

[00:02:21] Genevieve: So my name’s Dr. Genevieve Strange. I’m a psychologist and mental health therapist in the Pacific Northwest.I’ve been in private practice for about three years. Before that, a large part of my work was working with people in the criminal justice system. So I worked in a lot of state hospitals, prisons, jails,

[00:02:38] things like that. So private practice has been a nice transition.

[00:02:42] Linzy: Yes, I bet. So, what do you want us to focus on today? What can I help you dig into?

[00:02:47] Genevieve: Well, one of the things with private practice that I’m very aware of is being mindful to save for retirement, particularly because both my husband and I are self employed. So, that’s an important aspect that we need to be mindful of.

[00:02:59] Linzy: Yes. Okay. And what’s happening with retirement savings now?

[00:03:04] Genevieve: Right now. It’s just, we have this sort of static, just because I started my practice about three years ago. So, adjusting to all that.

[00:03:11] Linzy: Yes. Okay. So by static, you mean like things are, you’ve got some money, but it’s not growing. You’re not adding to it right now.

[00:03:19] Genevieve: Right. Right.

[00:03:20] Linzy: Okay. Yes. and how much do you have set aside right now?

[00:03:23] Genevieve: Right now there’s about a hundred thousand, plus I have a partial pension from the government that I worked with for eight years.

[00:03:30] Linzy: Okay. Okay. So there’s some money there, which is great. Like we’re not starting from zero. But I know in your questionnaire that you filled out in advance, you mentioned that with your age, you’re thinking about, you know, like it’s coming. Not tomorrow…

[00:03:43] Genevieve: it’s closer than it used to be.

[00:03:44] Linzy: Yes. Yes. It gets closer every day for all of us.

[00:03:47] So, okay. So tell me right now, Genevieve, like I’m hearing that you have not been contributing to your retirement actively in the last little while as you’ve been establishing your practice. Where is your practice right now in terms of your caseload and the money that’s coming in?

[00:04:01] Genevieve: It’s been full time for, I mean, at least two, two and a half years. So short of just, you know, breaks or taking time off or something, it’s been full.

[00:04:11] Linzy: Okay. Okay. So you are full, like you’re not kind of in that building stage still where there’s a big gap between where you are and where you want to be. Okay. So I’m curious, like being full, what has stopped you from starting to contribute to retirement? What’s happening with that money instead?

[00:04:26] Genevieve: I think for the first year, it was sort of getting to know all the expenses. And also it took about a year and a half to figure out taxes and what that would be. And so that was kind of the main focus in the beginning was just saving money for whatever the tax implication would be.

[00:04:43] And now we have a better sense of that. So I want to move on to doing other saving.

[00:04:47] Linzy: Yeah. It sounds like you were kind of, you were getting your feet under you taking care of like your obligation, which is taxes. And so now you’ve got your taxes sorted out. So this’ll now be the next step. Okay. So in terms of money coming into your practice, I’m curious,the paycheck that you’re getting, that you’re bringing home, is it covering your needs?

[00:05:06] Is it feeling tight? What’s your experience with that money?

[00:05:09] Genevieve: No, it’s definitely covering my needs. It doesn’t feel tight except, you know, like certain times of year, like January is always a harder time of year just because insurance companies slow down, and everything, deductibles restart, and all that sort of stuff. But otherwise, it’s fine.

[00:05:24] Linzy: Okay. Okay. So it’s not like it feels super tight and that’s stopping you. So, I’m curious: what has been stopping you? What has stopped you from contributing last week to retirement or the week before? What do you notice when you think about starting to make contributions again?

[00:05:39] Genevieve: I think it’s a little anxiety-inducing to think about, like, how much should I be contributing? I don’t really know how much I should be contributing. And so it sort of feels… I don’t know. If I put 500 every payday, is that… am I still setting myself up for failure? You know, it’s hard to say.

[00:05:56] Linzy: Yeah. What I’m hearing, correct me if I’m not reading this right, but, you want to do it perfectly.

[00:06:03] Genevieve: I want to be adequate, you know? I don’t want to be 65, not that I know that I’ll necessarily retire at 65, but I want to be 65 and be like, oh, well, that 500, 000 is great, but it’s not much.

[00:06:14] Linzy: Yes. Yes, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Because what I’m hearing is you want to do it right. You want to set yourself up for good retirement, which is great that you already have that connection for your future self. You know that is going to be you, actually, living off that money, but you don’t know what that amount is. So you’re not contributing yet because you don’t know how to do it right.

[00:06:33] Genevieve: Yeah. And it all sounds stupid when I say it out loud, but that is the issue.

[00:06:36] Linzy: We are humans. This is how we do life, right? So yeah, the first thing that comes to me,is a phrase that use a lot in Money Skills for Therapists, like in the course, because this is something we, a lot of therapists, I think, deal with, which is this perfect is the enemy of done.

[00:06:50] Right. It’s like you don’t know how to do it right. So you’re not doing it because you don’t want to do it wrong. But right now your contribution level is zero. Yes.

[00:06:57] Genevieve: Zero is probably wrong, but nonetheless…

[00:07:00] Linzy: Yes. I think. I don’t like to get into right and wrong. But I will say, I think unequivocally 0 percent for retirement is not going to set you up for the life that you want. Yes. So let’s start to think about: there’s two pieces here. One is you getting actual clarity on how much money you need. And that’s something that I’m not going to be able to give you in, you know, any kind of detail today.

[00:07:20] Cause first of all, I’m not a financial planner. Second of all, that’s kind of like a complex picture, right? And this is what I’m kind of hearing that you’ve maybe been mired in or pausing because there are a lot of variables that help us determine what is the right retirement amount for you.

[00:07:34] Right? So that is the first piece is I’m actually going to give you, it’s not homework because you’re not coming back, but a suggestion for a next step would be: have you and your husband met with a financial advisor who can help you determine how much you actually need to be saving for your lifestyle and your goals?

[00:07:50] Genevieve: We haven’t gone together. I have met with a financial advisor in the past, but that was when I was working, you know, for a company, not private practice.

[00:07:57] Linzy: Yes. So there’s an updated picture that you need to get, right? Cause it is unclear, right? And there’s going to always be these kinds of standard guidelines that are out there that are not going to do you wrong. Right? Again, something is always better than nothing. If you’re putting away 50 bucks a month, that’s better than zero.

[00:08:13] But I am hearing that you are missing that clarity and that’s a bit paralyzing. So that is going to be a piece for you to look at after is you and your husband sitting down with a financial advisor with your new picture, two self employed people who have partial pension from the government.

[00:08:27] You have a hundred K, your husband might have some things as well. What do you want your retirement to look like? Do you want to travel a lot? Are you, you know, planning to stay in one place for a long time? Do you want a simple life? Do you want a luxurious life? These are all questions that, you know, a financial advisor can help you think through,

[00:08:42] As well as your risk tolerance, right? Like how much risk do you want to take to build up money in terms of investing versus how conservative you are. So that sounds like that’s missing information. And I’m going to say that information is going to help you a lot.For today, what I want to think about is how can we get you started, right?

[00:08:59] Like, how can we just kind of break this inertia that is there of not knowing those answers yet and do it anyways, right? Do it imperfectly. Right. So,

[00:09:08] thinking about the money coming into your practice right now, Genevieve, like I’m hearing that you’re comfortable at home. You’re not, you know, scraping by, which is great. How much do you think you have available at this moment that you could start contributing to retirement maybe without even feeling it? Let’s start there. What would be something that you know for sure you could easily put towards retirement each month?

[00:09:33] Genevieve: I think for sure I could probably do 300 each paycheck. I think I could do five, but that would, you know… I think that’s not for sure.

[00:09:44] Linzy: Okay. Okay. And how often do you pay yourself? What’s your paycheck frequency?

[00:09:48] Genevieve: Every two weeks. Right.

[00:09:50] Linzy: So you could do 600 bucks a month for sure, without really causing yourself any discomfort.

[00:09:57] It wouldn’t. 500 bucks a paycheck. So getting up to a thousand bucks a month, maybe that would start to feel squeakier. I’m curious for you, what is the difference between that 600 a month and that a thousand dollars a month? What do you start to worry might go away?

[00:10:12] Genevieve: I am a person who is very financially responsible and also not super detail oriented about my sort of, what would be the right word? Like Amazon spending or stuff. I don’t really pay a lot of attention to that. If I did the 500 a month, I would have to pay attention to that sort of thing, which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, but also would be a, you know, just a habit change.

[00:10:39] Linzy: Yes, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Because I will say chances are that the 500 a paycheck is going to be better than the 300 paycheck. And again, as you sit down with a financial advisor, you and your husband together, you can determine, because in some ways it’s like, how much do you want to… the word sacrifice comes to mind, but it’s not even sacrifice.

[00:10:57] I was going to say, how much do you want to sacrifice now? And that’s not even it. It’s like how much discipline do you want to bring into your life now to serve your future self? What’s that balance of being able to enjoy life now and order stuff on Amazon? What is the value of Amazon purchases in your life?

[00:11:11] And I’m sure there’s a range of things on Amazon because Amazon sells literally everything. So there’s pleasure spending. I’m sure there’s household spending. How important is that compared to setting yourself up for an extra 1,000 a month in your retirement. Let’s just throw around like kind of a safe number.

[00:11:28] When we think about that difference between 600 a month and 1,000 a month, it’s like a 400 difference. What is it that maybe part of you wants to hold on to by not having to keep a close eye on your Amazon purchases? What is that that feels important about being able to hold on to that behavior?

[00:11:44] Genevieve: I think there’s a couple of things. I mean, one, when I was a kid, we didn’t have much money. And you know, as a kid, that’s fine. But I have always appreciated being able to have a career where I have enough, and I have more than enough. And I’m not particularly motivated by money.

[00:12:04] As long as I have enough, I’m fine. I’m not trying to make a half a million a year or something. I think there’s a little bit of that, like just the hard work to become a psychologist and the work that I do, like to just have a little bit of that freedom and luxury to not have to nickel and dime, you know, pay attention to everything all the time.

[00:12:25] Linzy: Yes.

[00:12:27] Genevieve: I also think having left large agency work that was particularly stressful just because of the population that I worked with, working in private practice feels, you know, much more of a relief from those pressures. And so I think also there’s a little bit of just wanting to enjoy the freedom and the ease that comes with this work compared to what I used to do.

[00:12:55] None of that really has to do with money, but…

[00:13:00] Linzy: Right. Yeah. Well, and this is what I’m wondering, right, is I’m hearing two things. I’m hearing there’s certainly part of you that still really remembers these experiences of not having enough as a kid, right? And it sounds like in some ways part of how you take care of that part or like a behavior that’s come up because of that is you just want to be able to have what you want.

[00:13:18] Genevieve: Right.

[00:13:19] Linzy: Which, yeah, makes total sense, right? Because it is very stressful as a child to be aware that there isn’t enough, right? Or whatever kind of messages you would have received from your parents about that, however they explain that to you, is stressful for a child, right? And we carry that into our adulthood, and I’m hearing part of it is now you’ve developed kind of an opposite behavior of, you just want to be able to have things.

[00:13:40] Genevieve: Yeah. I mean, I think I just want to have the liberty, you know, like I don’t necessarily have things, like I’m not a big thing person, but I just want to know that I have the option that it’s available.

[00:13:53] Linzy: Yes. What I’m thinking is how do we take care of these multiple needs at the same time, right? So one is not at the expense of the other. So there’s part of you that needs to have liberty. I’m hearing that liberty is important. What I’m thinking is how do we set you up to definitely have liberty, and maybe liberty is not things.

[00:14:11] Maybe it’s not even about Amazon. Maybe it’s something else, right? But like how do you make sure that part of you feels that freedom that you have now and that you’ve hard earned, right? Like getting a doctorate in psychology is not a small deal, right? And so recognizing that and also starting to in some ways, make up for a bit of lost time, make those contributions to retirement, and take care of your future self. Does the concept of like parts resonate with you or is that…?

[00:14:38] Genevieve: Yes.

[00:14:38] Linzy: and so I’m thinking about at least two parts are involved here, probably more like eight, you know, because humans, we’re all very complex, but it’s like, how do you take care of that little girl who needs to know now that she does have the freedom, and also take care of that 75 or 80 year old version of yourself

[00:14:53] who doesn’t want to subsist on beans and rice, or wants to also be able to enjoy her life and do fun things, so that she also has liberty, right? And it’s not liberty now at the cost of liberty later, right? And something that’s coming to mind for me that I’m curious if it would resonate with you is the idea of a liberty fund. What if you had specific money every month that it’s about giving you experiences of liberty?

[00:15:19] Genevieve: Okay. That’s an interesting idea.

[00:15:21] Linzy: It is. Yes. So for instance, if you think about that idea that we had money just bookmarked for liberty, call it your liberty fund or whatever you want that’s going to really bring that up for you… What could you do with that money to give you that experience, maybe even on a more profound level than you have been?

[00:15:39] What would really help you connect with the fact that you have liberty? you can make choices. You can do things. You have power.

[00:15:50] Genevieve: I don’t know what I’d do with it.

[00:15:51] Linzy: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:15:53] Genevieve: Honestly, I mean…

[00:15:55] Linzy: Well, what gives you that experience? When do you really feel that freedom and liberty?

[00:16:01] Genevieve: I, I feel it in part, like when I’m able to take time off of work, you know, I mentioned before we got started that I have two kids who are 10 and eight. So the idea that I can just take half a day off to go to the Christmas cookie party for my daughter is like mind blowing to me because I’ve always worked for large institutions.

[00:16:22] And you only have so much time off and those things. For me, that feels amazing to be, to just make my schedule be what I need it to be, not what is dictated by someone else.

[00:16:40] Linzy: And what I’m hearing there is that’s not even money that you’re spending. That’s actually about setting up your schedule to give you the flexibility to be able to show up and be present when you want to be.

[00:16:50] Genevieve: Yeah. But it is also about managing my money and my workload, both to be able to support, you know, that, that not working for those couple hours.

[00:17:02] Linzy: Yes. And what that would be… There’s a couple things that would be. Part of it would be a regular paycheck system, right? A paycheck system that you’re getting paid the same no matter what. Do you have a system like that in place yet?

[00:17:14] Genevieve: Yes.

[00:17:14] Linzy: Great. Okay. And the system that you’ve set up, is it allowing you to take this time off and not have your paycheck be impacted?

[00:17:20] Genevieve: I think it is, but in a haphazard kind of way, where I know in the information that you talk to people about, there’s a like time off fund to cover time off, which I have , but I’ll say I don’t know how to use it.

[00:17:36] Linzy: Yes. Yeah. So what I will say is I do talk to folks about a time off fund. If people really want a time off fund. It’s actually not my favorite way to have paid time off. I find myself, I can be someone who can be a little bit not sure when I’m allowed to have a treat or like… And I do have that hesitation around using a paid time off fund where they’re like, yeah, but I don’t really want to see that number go down.

[00:18:01] And maybe I could just work a little bit more, and then I don’t have to use my paid time off fund. It can become a barrier. So the system that I actually like better for having regular paid time off is this regular paycheck system where all your money that’s going to go towards your paychecks goes to one place. It goes to one place, but what you figure out is what is that regular sustainable amount you can take out of that one place, which is one bank account generally, so that the time off that you know you want to take in the year is baked into that number and you never have to make the active decision of digging in to paid time off money.

[00:18:36] It’s just let’s say for instance, for simple numbers, Genevieve, it’s let’s say each month, in your paycheck fund, so tax taxes are being taken care of elsewhere. And it sounds like you’ve already locked in that system. But let’s say in your paycheck fund, you discover that on average, you’re able to pay yourself like 6, 000 a month, right?

[00:18:55] If you look at the year, you’re like, okay, for all the clients I plan to see, I want to take off eight weeks. In total. Some of that is going to be an afternoon off to go to the cookie party. Some of that might be an actual trip to Hawaii. some of it might just be staying home and painting your bathroom.

[00:19:09] It’s like everything. Some of it’s going to be all the diseases that the children bring home, which we were chatting about off mic beforehand. Once you look at what you can afford to pay yourself big picture,

[00:19:20] 46 weeks with the average amount of clients you see, you can determine a paycheck amount.

[00:19:25] And if we see that, let’s say that amount is 6,000 some months, there’s going to be 7,000 or 8,000 that goes in there because you have a busier month where you see more clients and you work more, but you still only take six. Right? So you’re building up that buffer and you don’t have to make an active decision to use the buffer.

[00:19:39] It’s there. And then other months where you’ve worked less and you’ve brought in less money, you’re still taking six and you’re actually digging into that buffer a little bit, but you don’t even realize you’re doing it because all you’re doing is drawing your regular paycheck. Right? So there’s kind of this math we do upfront and then we don’t have to make active decisions later about whether or not we actually get to use our time off, our paid time off.

[00:19:58] It’s built in.

[00:20:00] Genevieve: So if I’m understanding, what you’re saying is my business checking account, which is what I used for, where all my money goes, let’s say that there’s that month that I make 7,000, that 1000 stays in the business checking account, and then I just still take the 6, 000.

[00:20:16] Linzy: Correct.

[00:20:18] Genevieve: Okay.

[00:20:18] Linzy: Yeah. And I mean, ideally… Are you familiar with Profit First or like a multiple bank account system?

[00:20:24] Genevieve: Yes. That’s what I use.

[00:20:25] Linzy: Okay, perfect. Yes. So it’s exactly that. So just like we’re just talking right now with that salary account or paycheck account. Yeah. So you put in seven, but you’re only going to take six. And then the next month you might only bring in five or let’s say a little bit more than that, 5, 500.

[00:20:41] And so you’re going to dig into 500 of the money from the month before, but again, you’ve built in this big picture plan. So you’re not making an active decision. Should I take this money? Should I work a little harder and make a little more so I don’t have to? It’s just baked in.

[00:20:54] You’ve already made the decision up front. I’m going to not work eight weeks this year, and I’m going to have that liberty experience of being able to go see my kids’ Christmas pageant. And I’m not even going to have to think about if I can afford it.

[00:21:08] Genevieve: I definitely think that would work better for me than having time off fund. Cause I did, like I said, it just feels unwieldy.

[00:21:16] Linzy: Yes. Yeah. I don’t love it. I don’t love it. Some folks really want to see that cause they want to see it build up. Personally, I prefer this. So this will be one component of your system then. And what I’m hearing is this is actually kind of your liberty fund. Your liberty is around time and your use of time.

[00:21:31] Genevieve: Yes.

[00:21:31] Linzy: Let’s go back to a little earlier in our conversation, when we had talked about the idea of you contributing 500 a paycheck, so like a thousand bucks a month. You had talked about Amazon. So let’s talk about the relationship between Amazon and liberty.

[00:21:46] Genevieve: Yeah. I think it’s, you know, in a way that’s sort of about time as well, in the sense that it’s not some… whatever I’m buying for the house for my kids or whatever, you know, it’s not something that I have to put on my list to go do this weekend. It’s done. It’s off my list. So I think that is a little bit of it where we can just… whatever the need is, we can just address it and move on, and we don’t have to keep it on the to do list.

[00:22:14] Linzy: So does that cost you more than going to a store? Buying from Amazon instead of going to a store on the weekend?

[00:22:19] Genevieve: I don’t know. I don’t necessarily think it costs me more. I think, you know, between the gas and all that to go wrangle everything up, it would probably cost more.

[00:22:29] Linzy: Yes. Yes. Because what I’m hearing is for you, because Amazon means a lot of things to a lot of people. Where my brain initially went when you said you want the freedom to spend on Amazon, I was thinking about impulse purchases. Like buying stuff. I don’t know, buying an avocado blanket because you’re tired and it’s cute and you want it and by the time it arrives you’re like, oh right, I ordered this.

[00:22:49] Forgot about that. That’s not what you’re talking about.

[00:22:52] Genevieve: No, I think it’s much more utilitarian than that. It’s my makeup remover, you know, my girls’ Easter dresses they wanted. And part of that, too, is with the way that everything has changed with COVID and… you know, before that, the in store shopping versus online shopping, and I’ll explain how COVID made a big difference for us.

[00:23:12] I’m in Oregon, so we were literally shut down for two years. It was a long time that we, like when COVID first happened, they shut down the schools, they shut down everything. The only place you could go was like the grocery store and Home Depot, which is where everyone went. but in Oregon, that lasted for months, many, many, many months.

[00:23:38] I mean, the schools were shut down for over a year. I mean, it was intense. So a lot of shopping options totally went away during that time, and they never came back. We have vacant buildings in our city that used to be department stores, so, you know, and I know it sounds ridiculous, but like where would I go to get Easter dresses for my kids if it wasn’t online? And if I did go somewhere,

[00:24:05] it would be like an hour drive there, and an hour drive back. I think that’s where Amazon became the sort of go to.

[00:24:16] Linzy: First of all, I will say we had a similar experience in Ontario. We were also shut down for a long time, and you had to prove that you were going somewhere. Sometimes people got in trouble because they’re out in their car and they were playing Pokemon Go. So they got ticketed.It was a time.

[00:24:27] And similarly in my city, there are certain things that I actually can’t get in my city. I’d have to drive to the city 25 minutes away to get, especially having a baby and having kids. My city, despite being a city of 100, 000 people, weirdly has a lack of children’s supplies and baby supplies. I’m hearing that when you’re saying Amazon in the way that you’re saying Amazon, I think what you’re actually talking about is just household purchases.

[00:24:52] Genevieve: Yes, I think so.

[00:24:53] Linzy: I think so, yes. And it’s not that these are actually impulse buys. It’s not even sounding like it’s that much of a convenience buy. Like there’s a convenience tax on it, right? It’s not like you’re getting Uber Eats and you’re paying 20 for a delivery for a 15 meal, right? Like we’re actually just talking about you doing your household maintenance

[00:25:09] and shopping online so you don’t have to take a trip to the next city over on a Saturday, right? And I don’t know if that’s actually costing you any more money.

[00:25:19] Genevieve: Yeah. I don’t think it is.

[00:25:20] And it arrives at my door. It’s perfect.

[00:25:22] Linzy: Yes. Yes. So what I’m wondering is if the, you know, that initial response that you had, where we were talking about what if you save 1,000 a month instead of 600 a month… I don’t know if Amazon really has anything to do with that. Because I’m not hearing that you’re actually spending more because of Amazon. I’m just hearing that you do your household spending on Amazon. So I guess the question that I have is, are you spending any more on Amazon than you would be spending if it was in store in terms of, like, buying more stuff for your household?

[00:25:49] Or is this just how you do your household shopping?

[00:25:53] Genevieve: I don’t know. Now I’m looking at my Amazon purchases. So…

[00:25:55] Linzy: Take a look. Yeah. What are we actually talking about?

[00:25:57] Genevieve: Yeah, no, I mean, it’s definitely… Some of it’s, you know, stuff for my kids. Like we went on a trip, so I bought stuff, but like shirts for my daughter because she outgrew her shirts, but then it’s like vitamins, and swim goggles.

[00:26:11] Linzy: Yes. And I really want to distinguish this because I think this happens a lot to women or the primary parent in a family. And I don’t know if that’s your case, but, where we are told to shop less and spend less and feel bad about spending. And yet the spending we’re doing is like literally just vitamins for our children.

[00:26:29] Right. And so this is what I’m hearing here is you have this story that you… You know that shopping on Amazon is somehow not a good thing, but you’re actually taking care of your family is what you’re doing. This is not impulse spending. This is not 11 p. m. Instagram purchases for things that you regret the next day.

[00:26:44] This is literally just taking care of your kids and your household.

[00:26:47] If you think about it that way, that Amazon is just how you buy groceries or, you know, household items, would contributing 500 a paycheck interfere with your ability to buy household items and take care of your household?

[00:26:59] Genevieve: I think I would just have to look at my budget and maybe outline it more in order to see, because I haven’t… Again, silly, but I haven’t necessarily just sat down and crunched numbers to see what that difference would be.

[00:27:14] Linzy: Yes. I would encourage you to do that as part two, right? So a financial planner, financial advisor will help you look at the big picture. What can you do now that if you start doing it every paycheck, you and your husband both, start building a saving habit, where will it get you?

[00:27:29] Is it the retirement that you want? That’s your big picture, right? But your weekly picture is like, what do you actually need in your household just to sustain your normal standard of living? Where we’re not talking about extravagance. We’re not talking about impulse. I’m not even hearing that in the picture.

[00:27:44] We’re just talking about how much it costs to buy vitamins for your kids and their Easter dresses and all of the normal things that have to do with taking care of a family. And how much wiggle is there, right? How much money is not actually called for that might, you might end up spending in a restaurant or buying something that’s a bit more expensive than something next to it, but could instead go towards taking care of your future self, your retirement self.

[00:28:05] Genevieve: Yeah. I mean, I think our biggest indulgence is like going out to eat once a week.

[00:28:10] Linzy: Right? Right. Yes. Yes.

[00:28:12] Genevieve: More expensive now than it used to be.

[00:28:14] Linzy: Yes, it is.

[00:28:16] Genevieve: That’s really, I mean, we’re not particularly outlandish people, but I do think that’s where time comes in, like we talked about initially, like being able to take time off, go take the kids on trips, stuff like that…

[00:28:30] Linzy: What I’m wondering is if you really highlight your experiences of liberty, both by implementing the system we just talked about of folding your paid time off, just into your salary account, looking at what is that regular number, thinking about how much time off do I want to take in the year?

[00:28:45] And then like running, playing with numbers to see, okay, what is the sustainable paycheck that lets me take time off work whenever I need to, take the weeks off I want to take in the summer with my kids, take times off over the winter holidays, like really think big picture, right?

[00:28:57] So once you have that number of what the business can pay you, you’re going to be able to then also look at your household number and see yeah, what does it actually cost you to run your household?

[00:29:07] Where is their wiggle? And what I wonder is if you might find that there is actually an extra 400 bucks that you could easily start to put into your retirement and you could start doing that tomorrow, long before you’re going to meet with this financial advisor, who’s going to give you that bigger clarity.

[00:29:22] I would be curious if this is actually in reach right away.

[00:29:27] Genevieve: Yeah, I think it could be, if I, you know, take the time to do it. And also just the other practical hurdle is because I have an IRA, how do I add money to it? Like on a practical basis.

[00:29:42] Linzy: And I would say, you know, like that is something that personally, if I have a task like that, that feels a little overwhelming, using like a Pomodoro timer, like doing a timer where you’re like: 20 minutes, I’m going to sit down and research how, for my investment platform that I have, how do I fund money: do I have to send it to my bank first and then use a bill payment?

[00:30:01] Is there a way that I can directly send money into that account? Take 20 minutes to do the research. You have a doctorate. I have no doubt this is research that is well within your ability. Cause it’s one of these things that can feel daunting, and so we can put it off,

[00:30:14] because it has this kind of confusion that can be associated with it. But I have a feeling you could get this information in about 10 minutes out of that 20 minute Pomodoro set.

[00:30:22] Genevieve: I think that’s a really good idea. I will say I have a doctorate in psychology. That doesn’t… I know nothing about computers or money or, you know, like I, I know a lot about one thing.

[00:30:33] Linzy: Yes. But what a doctorate in psychology proves is that you can do research,

[00:30:38] Genevieve: Yes.

[00:30:39] Linzy: And you can learn things. And this is what I’m emphasizing. Yes, you do not have a PhD in economics. I hear that. That’s also not required for what we’re talking about, right? And so I’m hearing another story here, which we will not get into today because we’re going to start wrapping up soon, which is the kind of I’m not a money person.

[00:30:54] I’m smart in this way, not that way. But what I suspect is that you are a great problem solver, that you know how to start a task and finish it because finishing a PhD is a massive undertaking. And I wonder if you bring a little bit more discipline, put a bit of that container that helps you get through your PhD, if you put I don’t know, 10 percent of that, 5 percent of that, around this, how much you would be able to learn.

[00:31:20] So I… can I give you a deadline? Can we put a deadline on this to make it happen? Right now is a Thursday when we’re having this conversation. Can I give you a deadline of starting to fund your retirement fund by next Friday? So you have one week to start. And my suggestion always, if possible, is to automate it.

[00:31:41] So to set up some automation. So can you have a recurring bill payment that comes into your bank account? Can you send money directly from your business bank account to that investment account? And if you find it a bit overwhelming, does your husband have tech skills, or do you have another friend or family member that could help?

[00:31:57] Genevieve: Yeah, I mean, I think I can probably figure it out. And if I can’t, I have a resource to make sure that I can figure out the answer.

[00:32:06] Linzy: And if we think forward to next Friday, how is it going to feel when you see your first 500 go into that retirement count and that inertia be broken?

[00:32:18] Genevieve: It’ll be a big relief because it feels like I know I need to do that. I just haven’t. And so it’ll be a big relief.

[00:32:26] Linzy: It’s going to be a relief and what is it going to show you about yourself when you see yourself taking that step by next Friday?

[00:32:32] Genevieve: That I can do hard things.

[00:32:36] Linzy: You can do hard things. And what else? Tell me more. What else does it show you about yourself?

[00:32:39] Genevieve: I think it would feel very much like I’ve completed the circle, you know, of the to-do items when I started my practice. That’s kind of the last big thing really to do that’s been on my list for three years.

[00:32:52] would be very nice to get that

[00:32:54] Linzy: Yes. Yeah. And what I’m hearing is you have figured out and built out a lot of aspects of your financial system. And this has been a missing piece that’s been hanging over your head. So there’s a completion there where you’ve kind of completed the set. You’ve got tax savings, you’re going to have your paycheck figured out, and you’re going to start to have what I hope will be automated retirement contributions.

[00:33:12] So then you’re seeing yourself as just taking care of business on a regular basis.

[00:33:18] Genevieve: And then I think what that’ll do is just free me up in those ways that I described that I enjoy about private practice where I don’t have to think about those things. I can just focus on, you know, I know they’re taken care of and I can just focus on the day to day and enjoying sort of the freedom and luxury that comes with that.

[00:33:35] Linzy: Exactly. It takes a lot of emotional energy to know that we’re not taking care of something, or that there’s a problem we need to figure out. And so, yeah, it’s going to give you back a lot of energy, I think. And then also, I think, I would encourage you to really lean into that liberty aspect of your practice.

[00:33:49] Think about, are there even more ways that you can give yourself this experience of liberty and kind of catch up with yourself to the fact that you have created a very different life for yourself than the life you had as a child. I’m sure your daughters’ lives look very different than your life looked as well.

[00:34:02] And you can really enjoy that and figure out how to really get the most out of that life that you’ve built and you’ve worked hard to build.

[00:34:10] Genevieve: Yes, I agree. I think so.

[00:34:12] Linzy: So Genevieve, coming to the end of our conversation today, what are you taking away?

[00:34:15] Genevieve: That I have work to do this weekend to figure out the practicalities of how to fund my retirement. And then just, I think, you know, looking at numbers and making sure everything fits in the way that it should. And then talking to my husband and setting up a time to talk to our financial planner to make sure that the big picture is being taken care of.

[00:34:38] Linzy: I love this list. I think you’re going to feel amazing when this list is complete.

[00:34:42] Genevieve: Yes, I agree. I think so, too. Thank you. I appreciate it.

[00:34:45] Linzy: Yeah. Thank you for coming on the podcast, Genevieve. I appreciate it.

[00:35:02] Linzy: My conversation with Genevieve brings me back to a point that I keep coming back to again and again because it’s so important and that is clarity, what clarity can do for us, especially if we have any kind of perfectionism which we talked about a little bit today in the episode of like really feeling like you need to understand something before you can do it, or if you get overwhelmed by not understanding something, if it creates confusion, that can stop you from taking

[00:35:29] any action at all. And when it comes to saving for retirement, or other big goals, any action is better than none, right? So any savings that you start to set aside is better than zero. And yet for so, so, so many of us, we get paralyzed in that spot that Genevieve was talking about where she wasn’t sure how much she needs.

[00:35:47] She doesn’t want to do it wrong. She wants to do it well. And so she’s just doing nothing. So I’m going to encourage you, therapist who is listening, if you notice yourself stuck in a place like that, whether it’s around retirement, or student loan repayment, or saving for a mat leave or any of these bigger financial projects.

[00:36:05] I encourage you to think about: how can I give myself clarity on this? And how can I start taking action on this today, even before I get total clarity, right? There’s kind of a both and here. Having that clarity really helps. Like in cases like Genevieve’s that we were just talking about where she’s going to have to make an appointment with her financial advisor, sit down with her numbers, her husband’s numbers, their goals.

[00:36:28] That’s a bit of a process. And chances are they’ll get that clarity within a couple months of really working with their financial advisor. But it’s best to start today. So I’m going to ask you to think about that for yourself. How do you both give yourself some clarity to help you know how to get towards the goals that you have, let yourself sit and be with numbers and think about what you want.

[00:36:48] And also how do you set yourself up to start taking action now towards those goals, even if it’s literally putting like 50 a month towards a goal to break inertia and see yourself taking action. Because inertia can be so powerful. And there’s parts of us that are always going to use that inertia to tell negative stories about ourselves.

[00:37:06] And inertia is hard to break, but once you break it, you can just keep going, and you can keep making contributions, and then you can use the system that you figured out of “Oh, okay. I make contributions through my bill payment feature in my bank. And I’ve been doing 50 bucks a month. And now that I’ve got more clarity, I’m going to up that to 250 a month, which I know is exactly what I need.”

[00:37:26] And now you’ve broken the inertia, you’ve created the system, and you’ve actually gotten the clarity to be making strategic investments. And you’re working towards the number that you actually want to see. So, lots there today. Hopefully you took something really helpful away from this episode. I really appreciate Genevieve coming on the podcast today.

[00:37:45] You can follow me on Instagram at Money Nuts and Bolts. And if you’re enjoying the podcast, as always, I really appreciate it if you will take literally two minutes to head over to Apple podcasts and leave me a review. It is the best way for other therapists and health practitioners to find the podcast and be part of these conversations.

[00:38:02] Thanks for listening today.

[00:00:00] Linzy: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Feelings and Finances. These are our short and sweet Friday episodes for a little bit of financial and emotionally intelligent goodness to bring you into the weekend. Today’s question is from Diane Webber. Diane is a grad of Money Skills for Therapists. She is the coach who works with me inside of Money Skills for Therapists, and she has submitted a question.

[00:00:27] My team is getting us started on this question and answer series for the podcast. She’s submitted a question here that we’re going to listen to. 

[00:00:36] Diane: Hi, Linzy! This is Diane Webber, Money Skills for Therapists coach, and I’m a long time fan of Money Skills for Therapists, and hello to all the listeners as well. I have a two pronged question for you that comes up a lot in the course. It comes up a lot in my conversations with peers, and it’s something that I continue to noodle on.

[00:00:58] And those two pronged questions are, one, I’d love some advice on reconciling, or coming to terms with, what we think we’re worth in terms of our fees and rates and feeling comfortable and confident in that number, whatever it is. For many of us who receive insurance reimbursements, the insurance kind of dictates what we are worth, and that is both a source of security and also a major source of frustration.

[00:01:28] And the second question is, in general, advice on how to normalize conversations around money. I realized that I personally love talking about money. I just find it so fascinating and interesting, but that’s not necessarily the norm. And I’d love your advice on how you have been able to normalize it more, both in your business and in your daily life.

[00:01:52] Linzy: Okay. So let’s start with this first piece about fees and worth. Well, I mean, one thing that occurs to me immediately off the top of my head, as I’m listening to Diane’s question, is there’s the question of the worth of our work, but that is not about our own self worth. Our own sense of self worth comes up and gets in the way when we’re trying to determine the financial value of the work, right?

[00:02:16] When we’re trying to set our fees. And we’ll talk about insurance in a sec… But when we’re trying to set our fees, something that, you know, Diane and I see come up a lot is, a personal sense of self worth, right? Of like, I’m not good enough. I have more to learn. Therapists, I find, tend to be very perfectionistic.

[00:02:32] We’re always focused on what we don’t know, where we want to be, and where we’re not, and we don’t recognize all the goodness that we bring to the table. And that can come into like a shame story of I’m not good enough. And that’s where those self worth struggles come in. And that gets in our way of setting fees, right?

[00:02:49] And setting a fee that works for our life. But fees are not really about what we as humans are worth, right? That’s a deeper question and piece for like therapy, for spiritual work, right, for getting to the root of why we might not feel good enough. but actually your fee, the amount that you charge, the amount that you earn has nothing to do with your inherent worth as a human being.

[00:03:16] So I want to start by saying that, right? Like it’s easy for us to conflate these two things and low sense of self worth can get in the way of setting the fee that we need to set to be well, but also having a high sense of self worth doesn’t mean that we can charge infinite amounts, right? If we have a high sense of self worth, it doesn’t mean that our service is infinitely worthy and we could charge a million dollars an hour.

[00:03:37] Although, of course, that would be nice. We need to separate this identity question from a service because what we are doing in business when we are providing therapy, folks listening, whether you’re a mental health therapist and you’re providing talk sessions or trauma therapy, or whether you’re a manual practitioner and you’re doing massage or physio treatments, or you’re doing like SLP work with folks, speech language pathology.

[00:04:01] What we are providing is a service, right? And as we’re thinking about the worth of that service, the fee, it’s about the value of that service to the person receiving it. And there’s to be two pieces here. One is about you and your client recognizing the value of that work, right? What is that work worth to them in their life?

[00:04:23] What is it doing for them? But then there’s also the always this like financial question of like your own financial needs, right? What do you actually need to pay for your life? That’s a very important piece in the fee setting question and then how much money do they actually have? Right. Are they making $10, 000 a month or are they making $3, 000 a month?

[00:04:40] You know, there’s like actual numbers. There’s this material part of fee setting that is also really, really important. So coming to this piece about value, with this question, Diane of like, how do we feel comfortable and confident in the fees that we’re setting?

[00:04:57] Something that I find really helpful is to take time to think about the the best work that you do with your favorite clients. What is the transformation that you create for them, right? What is the change that happens in their life because of your work together? That is the value of the service, right?

[00:05:14] So for instance, I remember years ago I saw a client, who was on leave from work. She had really spiraled into like a deep depression and she started seeing me two days a week to do her trauma work, to do family of origin trauma work. And she was like, I want to just like get rid of all of it. I want to have these things stop hanging over my head,

[00:05:34] and I don’t want to be like living with all of these memories and feelings anymore. And we basically did this like really deep dive work into just kind of clearing the table, working on all of these memories from all throughout her childhood. and at the end of our work together, which was really only a few months long because she got in there and she really did the work, and I really did the work…

[00:05:54] She said that, you know, that work had not just positively impacted her own life, but the life of everybody around her, right? Now she was going to show up as a more present mother, which impacts her children’s lives. It impacts her husband’s life. It impacts her mom’s life, right? Like her ability to be a child and a neighbor and,you know, what she did in her work, all of that was positively impacted by

[00:06:18] the work that we were doing together, right? That work that we were doing at one hour at a time was bringing immense value into her life, right? So that’s the first thing that I encourage folks to think about when we’re starting to try to build confidence and comfort with what we have identified we need to charge is really think about what does this work do for your clients’ lives? Chances are, if you think about your favorite clients and the best work that you’ve ever done, it has had an impact that would almost be beyond a dollar value, right?

[00:06:48] Like what is the impact of somebody being able to now have healthy relationships for the rest of their life, right? What is the impact of somebody no longer feeling suicidal on a regular basis? Or from a physical health perspective, what is the impact of somebody no longer being in immense pain every day?

[00:07:04] Like how much would somebody pay for that? So much money, right? And so that’s the first thing that I suggest when you think about the value of the work is like sink into your best work and identify how valuable it is to the folks that you serve. Right? That’s the one piece. The other side of it, Diane, is then this real material question of like, money buys us things in our life.

[00:07:26] How much do you actually need to live the life that you want to live and that you need to live? And that’s where we get more into being able to look at numbers and look at, okay, this is how much it costs me to live. For the life that I actually want, I want to be able to go on vacation. twice a year. How much would that cost, right?

[00:07:44] That’s when we can start to actually crunch numbers and look at like, what do you need to live? And what somebody needs to live a life that really nurtures them is going to look different in Kentucky than it’s going to look in downtown Toronto, right? So this is where there’s this like, getting real aspect about it, right?

[00:07:59] It’s like, sure, our work might have infinite worth, in an emotional sense, but how much do we actually need to live? And then thinking about the folks that you want to serve, how much does it make sense for them to pay you? Right? And you can market yourself really well and put across the value of what you do.

[00:08:14] For the people that you want to work with, how much are they actually willing to pay you? And you can test the market with this. You can always put out a fee and say like, okay, I would really like to charge $200 an hour. Right? You can put that out there knowing that if you charge 200 an hour, that’s actually going to get you a life that allows you to be well, that allows you to keep doing this work, that that is a very reasonable amount of money for you to be earning.

[00:08:34] And then you’re going to see, are you able to put across the value of what you do in such a way that people are willing to pay it? There’s a conversation when we set a price, right? But if you can ground in the value of what you’re offering and the fact that you deserve to be well, right? You deserve to also go on vacation sometimes.

[00:08:50] You deserve to be able to save for your kid’s education. Just really owning that you are a human with inherent worth and your needs and your wants are valid. When we can sit in those two places, then we can have a conversation with somebody, when we’re setting a fee and just let it be a conversation and say, I do this, I’m really, really good at this.

[00:09:08] I’m really good at helping these specific people with a specific problem, and it’s $200 an hour. And you will get feedback from folks who contact you as to whether or not they also immediately understand the value, whether you’ve put that across in your marketing, whether that’s something that they actually have the disposable income for the people that you are attracting, are you attracting the right people?

[00:09:26] But it can be a conversation with curiosity once we’re grounded in the fact that the work is really valuable and that our needs are valid. So those are my thoughts about setting fees. The insurance piece, Diane, does make me think about, you know, you mentioned this piece of like insurance tells us our worth.

[00:09:44] Again, insurance tells you what they’re willing to pay you. That’s not about your worth, right? So if you are a very experienced clinician and you’re extremely good at what you do, and insurance is only paying you $75 an hour, that does not mean that the work only has a value of $75 an hour. But that means that that is the business relationship you’re in with that insurance company, right?

[00:10:05] And if we can remove that story about worth, and you could just ask yourself, okay. Am I willing to do this work for 75 an hour? Can I live the life that I want to live making 75 an hour? You might be able to. And if you can, and that allows you to serve the folks that you love to serve, and have the life that you need to have to be well, then that’s great, right?

[00:10:26] Like that is a sweet spot. And if you can’t… if you can’t afford to live the life that you need to live off 75 an hour, then you can start to think about which insurance companies are you willing to work with? Do you want to start having some, some out of pocket clients, right? But those are conversations you can ask yourself with curiosity, and you can ask yourself strategically when we get away from this idea of what we as humans are inherently worth.

[00:10:51] So that’s my answer to your first question, Diane. The second piece about conversations about money is a great one, and I feel like I could talk for a whole other 10 minutes on that, which I’m not going to, but I will say that something that I have done in my own life in terms of conversations about money is I let folks know that I like to talk about money and that I think it’s important, and that I teach other folks how to talk about money, and how to be clear about money.

[00:11:15] And so what I have found, similar to other vulnerable topics, is in let’s say a personal relationship, if I want to talk about money, which generally I do, because I think it’s important and interesting and we all need to do more of it, I will share a little bit of information financially. Like I’ll kind of be a little vulnerable first, right?

[00:11:34] I’ll put myself out there first and maybe share, oh yeah, because I make this much money a year, right? And that allows us to do this and this and this. I will disclose first, right, and be vulnerable first before I ask somebody to tell me something that could feel really personal. And then I’m going to like read their body language, right?

[00:11:50] Diane, and I recorded, we recorded an episode together for this podcast, and we talked about how it’s, it’s very much akin to talking about sex, right? Like, I wouldn’t want to be at a dinner party and start talking about sex in a really like raw, personal way if the other people at the table don’t want to talk about sex with me.

[00:12:06] Yeah. That’s not very fun. It’s not fun for them. I’m making them uncomfortable. I’m not forging connections. So as I’m thinking about these conversations, I’m thinking about how do I create connection with the person that I’m talking to? So I’m going to like toe dip and share a little bit of financial information or ask a financial question or talk about something financial that maybe folks don’t usually talk about, but I’m going to be light about it.

[00:12:25] And then I’m going to see how they respond, right? Because ultimately when we are trying to bring these conversations to light, we’re trying to create connection, not disconnection. So if somebody is uncomfortable, if somebody kind of like bristles, then I’m not going to keep going down that road. I’m going to leave it alone.

[00:12:40] Right? But then maybe when I hang out with them in another few weeks, I might mention something again, and then maybe they might decide to tell me something that they wouldn’t usually talk about, but they’re seeing that they can talk to me about this thing and it’s comfortable and neutral and fine, right?

[00:12:51] So I do think that there’s a culture change piece here that we have to be mindful of. You can’t just like start bombarding people with discussions about money because they’re going to like turn and run screaming. But we can start to gently model what having a curious neutral open relationship with money looks like, and we can invite them to join us in that space.

[00:13:12] Thank you, Diane, for your questions. I really appreciate you bringing these topics forward today. And I appreciate you recording it. And for folks listening, I would love, love, love to answer your questions, too. You can go to the podcast page or click on the link in the show notes for this episode to connect to SpeakPipe.

[00:13:30] That’s our service that allows you to leave your own question. You can just leave your first name. You can leave no name. But we so appreciate getting your questions so that we can put them together here for Feelings and Finances and just keep the conversations about money and therapy and health practitioners going.

[00:13:46] Thank you so much for listening today.

[00:00:00] Kelly: This content is really helping so many people, and I almost think of it as very similar to what Julia did for me of saying, “No, you’re my people. You’re going to charge 250 plus.”

[00:00:13] When I share that sort of income report for people, I think it’s really permission giving in saying as a therapist, you can have this, you can want it. You can do it. It’s possible for you on sort of like a bigger scale. And so that’s a big part of my why behind it, too. 

[00:00:31] Linzy: 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.

[00:00:49] Linzy: Hello, and welcome back to the podcast. So today’s guest is Kelly McKenna. Kelly is a therapist who built her business on Instagram. She now continues to help women on Instagram with anxiety. She’s helped millions of folks, through her one Instagram account. And now she also helps therapists with building their practice and building their Instagram presence.

[00:01:13] This conversation today with Kelly I really, really appreciated. We talk about her experience with getting started with her private practice, how she made $250,000 of revenue in the first year, which is pretty unheard of. We talk about that process. We talk about having the right people around you and being pushed outside of your comfort zone.

[00:01:33] Something that Kelly talks about today is the importance of being uncomfortable and what that has done for her in her business. And then something that Kelly also does that we chat about today is every single month she shares her business revenue and expenses on Instagram. And so we talk about that experience, the feedback that she’s received about that, what she’s learned from the experience of being so, so transparent about her numbers on Instagram.

[00:01:58] Lots of interesting insights today from somebody who has really figured out, I would say, the business of therapy, which by the way, is also the name of her Instagram account. Here is my conversation with Kelly McKenna.

[00:02:25] Linzy: So Kelly, welcome to the podcast.

[00:02:27] Kelly: Thank you. I’m so excited to be here with you today.

[00:02:29] Linzy: Yeah, it’s great to have you here. And you know, some of the things we’re planning to talk about today I know are going to be really like interesting and maybe even challenging for some of the folks who listen, which I’m excited about. And I wanted to start with your journey because I think some of the folks who are listening, like there’s going to be a range of where folks are at.

[00:02:46] Some folks are maybe making $45,000 a year. Some folks might be making like 120, 150. I know part of your story is that you brought in $250,000 in your first year as a therapist. Do I understand that correctly? Yes. And just to be clear, was that revenue coming into your practice, or was that what you got paid?

[00:03:08] Kelly: That was revenue coming in.

[00:03:10] Linzy: Okay. Okay. So. I’m very curious, how did you do that in your first year of private practice? How did you build up $250, 000 of money coming in the door in your first year?

[00:03:23] Kelly: Yeah. So kind of like going backwards even when I was first starting in private practice, I was working in nonprofit management. I had been doing that for probably seven years at that point and was really kind of feeling burnt out. I sort of was not even feeling like a social worker anymore.

[00:03:40] I was doing so much administrative stuff. And so I decided to work at a group practice one evening a week, just to kind of refresh myself a little bit. And I did that for one day and saw like two clients, which were amazing. And then COVID hit and we went virtual. And that just really very quickly made me start to wonder like, why am I

[00:04:03] kind of doing this in a group practice? I really had no affinity to the group practice since I was there for the one day, and all my clients are coming from Psychology Today. We were accepting insurance via a platform called Headway. And I was kind of like I could be doing this on my own, like I don’t need to be giving 50 to this guy. And so I decided to incorporate my own business and start doing that on the side. And again, at this point, I really just viewed it as like a way for me to kind of sharpen my clinical skills and just feel more connected to things.

[00:04:32] But during COVID I found I was really, really enjoying that clinical work. And so I was scheduling tons of clients in the evening. I also didn’t have much of a social life because it was COVID. And I was really looking forward to that time of being a therapist and kind of dreading the time at my nine to five.

[00:04:50] And so I decided that, you know, I was going to try and go full time in my practice, and really do this thing for real. And so in October 2020, I started an Instagram page, and that’s sort of when I consider like my first year beginning, um, but I did have some, you know, insurance clients up until that point,

[00:05:10] and some people I had been seeing in the group practice as well. And so I gave notice at my job like a month later and fully transitioned full time in February 2021. And at that point I had decided, you know, if I’m going to put my job in nonprofit management, where I was earning a really good salary, six figures at the time.

[00:05:31] I was like, I don’t know that this insurance model is going to work for me. Even if I’m not giving away half my revenue, this probably still is not going to be super sustainable. And so I decided to… you know, that was a big reason why I decided to get on Instagram. So I could find clients who would be excited to pay me $250 a session and really see the value in working with me instead of, you know, another practitioner who maybe took their insurance.

[00:05:58] It was a lot of work at the beginning, a lot of hustle with marketing, but I kind of made that transition off of insurance panels as I was building up my private pay caseload from Instagram and brought in 250, 000 that first year of seeing one on one therapy clients that first year, full time in my business.

[00:06:16] And it totally changed my life and what I even thought was possible. Really, my goal was if I can earn six figures this year, or next year, even, like I’ll be really happy and this will have been worth it and sustainable and a good choice because it will have been more enjoyable for me. I was not even thinking that I could ever kind of like out earn what I was earning at like a senior director role at a non profit.

[00:06:42] Linzy: Mm hmm. It’s almost like a private practice on fast forward. You know, it’s like you did in one year what often folks, well, not even often, which some folks do over three years or five years or 10 years, which is like going through these stages, right? Like it seems like you went through many of the normal stages that folks go through to step into private practice and then to eventually start charging more and like building a niche, and really seeing the money working.

[00:07:05] But you did it very, very fast.

[00:07:08] Kelly: Yep.

[00:07:09] Linzy: Yeah, I’m curious about your style as a person: is that pretty on brand for you? Or was that unusual that it worked so quickly?

[00:07:17] Kelly: I think that’s pretty on

[00:07:18] brand for me.

[00:07:20] Linzy: Yeah, okay.

[00:07:20] Kelly: I’m somebody who’s I’m going to decide something and go for it. and of course there was like, you know, a ton of care with those conversations with clients. I gave people, honestly, probably too much notice, like 6 months notice that I was getting off of insurance panels, which I would not advise, but…

[00:07:35] you know, I think that once I decide that I want to do something though, I’m like, okay, we’re going to start working towards it, at least with everybody new moving forward, and then we can kind of figure out what happens, you know, on the back end.

[00:07:48] Linzy: Hmm. And I’m curious for you… Because I think this is something that sometimes folks struggle with, like I know definitely in Money Skills for Therapists, like I’ll see therapists go through this process of looking at their numbers being like, okay, I probably have to get off insurance or I probably need to raise my fee and like seeing where they need to go, but it can be really hard for them to get from here to there, right?

[00:08:05] There’s all this kind of stuff in the middle. I’m curious, for you, do you think it’s a certain trait that you have, or is it a certain mindset? What allows you to go for it at the rate that you

[00:08:16] Kelly: Yep, I think like a willingness to be uncomfortable and to recognize that people can judge me, and that’s okay. Like we’re not all going to want to build the same business. But I can definitely relate to that. I think there were two instances that come to mind. One is that I met this woman on Instagram.

[00:08:33] Her name is Dr. Julia Colangelo, and she was a therapist in New York and New Jersey. And we just sort of became friendly with each other on Instagram when I first was starting my Instagram page. And she asked me, you know, are you taking any new clients? I have somebody who I think would be a good fit for you.

[00:08:49] And I said, yeah. She said, great. send me your website. What’s your fee? And I told her it was $150 per session at the time when I was first thinking about getting off of insurance panels, although I didn’t have any clients at that 150 rate. And she was like, Kelly, like I charge $400 plus dollars a session.

[00:09:07] I don’t think I can send people to you for $150. They’re going to have a negative impression. Are you open to increasing your rate? I have some clients that I think would be a really good fit. And I remember telling my husband, What the heck is this she talking about? But I guess so, right?

[00:09:22] Like I should do it, right? And I did, and she sent me a few clients and I was like, okay, this is my rate now. This is what we’re doing. And so I think that had a really positive impact of just somebody saying, you know, this is what you can charge. And people actually may assume you’re a better therapist when you charge this kind of rate.

[00:09:41] So that was really, really powerful for me. And then the second thing that comes up for me is when I was kind of making that transition and leaving my nonprofit job, I was super afraid of what my colleagues were going to think. And I remember also talking to my husband and saying should I take my prices off my website for the month that I’m quitting?

[00:10:01] I imagine a lot of my colleagues are going to Google me. They’re going to check me out. They’re going to be a little more interested in what I’m doing. When I make this announcement, I don’t want them to see that I’m charging $250. They’re going to think I’m a bad person. They’re going to think that, you know, I’m only leaving for the money.

[00:10:15] And I had to work through that. I ended up keeping my prices up, but definitely there was a huge fear of being seen and judgment that was super uncomfortable, and that I had to work through in my own therapy, too.

[00:10:27] Linzy: Yes. Yeah, definitely. And I do think that those are things that a lot of folks experience, right? Well, the first one sounds like an amazing resource that you had. Like you had somebody who was

[00:10:35] Kelly: Yep.

[00:10:35] Linzy: Look, let’s just help… I’m just going to help you skip all this middle section, and get right the rate.

[00:10:42] And I think that’s so powerful because it makes me think, too, about women and marginalized people just like lifting each other up, right? Like just saying no, look, I know that there’s all this messaging that makes you afraid, but I know you’re really good. And it sounds like Julia had already cultivated an audience of folks who

[00:10:59] value therapy that amount, have that amount to spend on therapy. So it also sounds like she shared that with you, right? Like this, this abundance that she had built, she shared with you and helped you to kind of skip all of that anxiety around, do I, do I not? She was just like, I need you to do this.

[00:11:15] Kelly: And it was still, so much anxiety, right? When I was at the group practice, I thought that I was, like, the luckiest person in the world. I was getting paid $45 a session. And when I first got it, I was like, this is amazing. Because I had been interviewing at community mental health clinics to sort of do therapy, and they were going to pay $18 a session.

[00:11:33] And I was like, this is great. I hit the jackpot. And so I think that it was also just like another woman showing me what’s possible, right? And seeing you could actually set your goals a whole lot higher than that, was just super, super powerful.

[00:11:47] Linzy: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think who you surround yourself with has a huge impact on what you know is possible. I think that just really speaks to that. That second piece about being judged is really interesting to me because I’ve just recently, in the last week, had kind of this experience of reconnecting more with my local therapist community again, because I basically live inside the internet now, right?

[00:12:06] Like I’m based in Guelph, Ontario. Yeah, it’s really weird. I’m based in Guelph, Ontario, which is a city of 120, 000 people outside of Toronto. And I have been doing online work now for the last five years since my son was born. So I never went back to doing therapy in person, so I don’t know local therapists, but I’ve been giving away my therapy books because I stopped practicing a couple of years ago.

[00:12:25] I posted all my books and so I’ve had some therapists come by and picking up books and mostly I’m just doing like porch pickups, and they’re taking all my complex trauma dissociation books, you know, and then giving them new life, which is so exciting. But I’ve chatted with a couple people who like work at the agencies that I used to work with or like work with people, like I know that they work with like my old boss or whatever, and I’ve noticed those feelings coming up myself again of oh, I kind of don’t want these people to know what I’m doing now, right?

[00:12:50] Which is so interesting that for me there’s still this latent part that’s like, “Oh, I hope that they don’t look me up,” or I hope this person doesn’t mention me to these old co workers that I have who, yeah, I feel like always wanted me to be small, and now I’m doing all these things. Like it is interesting how strong that can be.

[00:13:06] Kelly: Yeah, it’s sort of like a splitting of two identities, too, right? Like I think that as a social worker especially, we were taught like so much of, you know, you don’t go into this profession to make money, it’s bad to make money, like our job is to do social welfare and social justice, and so I think that a lot of us carry that burden into our private practices.

[00:13:26] And in reality, I’m not running a nonprofit, right? Like I’m running a business, and that’s going to look really, really different than my colleagues who work at a nonprofit.

[00:13:36] Linzy: Yes. Yes. So, I mean, thinking about that then, I think a lot of folks who step out of the agency space into their own practices do struggle with this fees question, of course. This is always always the most challenging piece I think of money because it’s the decision you have to make before you do anything else, which is like, what are you charging?

[00:13:54] I’m curious, like in your experience, you know, you got to 250, 000 of revenue in the first year. I’m hearing you did not do that by charging $45 an hour.Tell me about the fees that you charged and just kind of your position on fees for therapists who do actually want to establish a business that pays them well.

[00:14:12] Kelly: So I think it’s super important to actually do math, right? Like I find that so many therapists, and myself included when I set that first 150 rate, just kind of go to psychology today, and they type in their zip code, and they scroll, and they figure out: Okay. What’s sort of in the middle? Let me go ahead and do that.

[00:14:32] And if what’s in the middle works for you and your practice and your family and your goals, I think that that’s fine. But I think it’s really important to actually consider what sort of life you want to live. So when I was setting my fees at my nonprofit job, I actually got six weeks paid vacation because I’d been there for a long time.

[00:14:49] And so I was like, okay, minimum, I want to take six weeks paid vacation. I was getting married that year. I was like, I already had a month long honeymoon booked. I’m like, we’re doing this, you know? And I didn’t want to be burnt out. So at the time I had, I think I saw 25 clients a week in that first year because my, I think, perception was a little skewed of you know, I was probably working 50 hours plus at the nonprofit and doing the group practice.

[00:15:15] And I was kind of like 25 clients is a breeze. Now I could never, but I think that that is important to consider too, is like, what is your capacity? And also how might that capacity change? So I don’t have kids, but I definitely want to have kids one day. And that was something that I considered in setting my rate, too, right?

[00:15:34] Maybe now is a season where I’m working a little more and earning more, and it allows me to save and to kind of position myself to eventually work much more part time hours and still be able to earn a good income with that. So I sort of always tell therapists it should be a fee that feels kind of uncomfortable to say out loud. If you’re not embarrassed that your colleagues and friends are going to see it like that almost might be a warning sign, right?

[00:16:00] You should be a little uncomfortable, but also you should still feel okay with it, right? Like it should be something you’d be potentially willing to pay for your own therapy. It should be something that, you know, you don’t feel like you’re stealing from people or something like that. Like you should still feel okay ethically behind it, but it should also feel a little scary, you know?

[00:16:21] Linzy: Mm, for sure. And I do think, too, that piece about what you’d be willing to pay yourself for a session of therapy is interesting because sometimes for folks it can be a bit of a loop, like a trap, right? Where they’re like, well, I couldn’t pay somebody else 200 for therapy, but the reason they can’t pay somebody else 200 for therapy is they’re making 40, 000 a year because of their fee.

[00:16:39] So that is something that I do find interesting where it’s… It can be tricky to almost imagine stepping up to the next level both as a therapist, but also then what that’s going to do for your life and your ability to pay other people for their skills. Both of those things go up at the same time.

[00:16:54] Kelly: Yes, and I think maybe it’s a little bit less of okay, looking at your budget, what can you pay for therapy now? And more so about like, how it feels to you to pay your therapist that

[00:17:04] amount, right? Does that feel like a hard no, there’s no way I’m getting this much out of it? Or does it feel like I would love to be in the position to pay my therapist that much?

[00:17:13] Like, how can I get there? You know?

[00:17:16] Linzy: Yeah, that’s a great distinction to make because I think that’s really helpful because I do sometimes see folks get caught on that piece that I just brought up. But yeah, it’s yeah, is this a fee that would feel like, oh, I’d feel really good if I could pay my therapist this much because I know they’re definitely bringing much more than that amount of value into my life, which is I think a much more kind of expansive way to think about fees and money.

[00:17:35] Kelly: Totally.

[00:17:37] Linzy: So something that you do now, cause the Instagram part of your story, you made it this big in the story. It’s very small, but now Instagram is a very big part of your story.Is that fair to say, like a big part of what you do? So part of what you do now is you help therapists with Instagram as well as with general practice building.

[00:17:55] And something that you do that I think is, you know, if we want to talk about being uncomfortable, and probably being brave is part of allowing yourself to be uncomfortable, is you share your income every month on Instagram, just like you do a, a reels post every month with your revenue that came into your practice.

[00:18:12] Kelly: Yep.

[00:18:13] Linzy: I’m curious, tell me, tell me why do you do that? How does it feel like to do that? Tell me about that.

[00:18:19] Kelly: Yep. So I’m even going to go backwards, like before Instagram. So that first year that I earned 250, 000 in my private practice, I was doing Instagram and kind of pitching, you know, some news articles and stuff like that, trying to get more media and publicity and really grow my business.

[00:18:39] And I pitched somebody at Business Insider because I saw her write a similar article. And what I wanted to talk with her about was how sort of the mental health tech startups are really hurting therapists and that, you know, people are kind of afraid to start their own practice, but you can do really well.

[00:18:59] And here’s kind of how I did that in that first year. And sort of like showing therapists this other option. She wanted to do the story, but was like, I don’t know about the whole tech startup thing. We’re not comfortable going there. But I was like, okay, we can do like a profile piece.I had to send over, like, all my financials, all this stuff… The article gets published and the title of the article is how this virtual therapist earned 250, 000 her first year in private practice.

[00:19:26] And that was 100 percent not the story I pitched or the story I was trying to tell.And I was like, so mortified and excited at the same time, right? all that fear around what my colleagues were going to think was really showing up again. I had never talked about money on the internet at that point.

[00:19:46] I had not talked about money with my friends. I hadn’t told my parents how much I made in that first year. Like it was just so much exposure. And I sat on that article for two days before sharing it with anybody outside of my husband and my sister and was kind of like, I know I have to share this. Like I know it’s the right thing for my business to share this profile far and wide, but wow, am I ready for it?

[00:20:13] You know, and I had just launched my course, The Private Practice Academy, maybe three or four months before this article was released. And so I was kind of starting to do this business coaching with therapists for the first time, and I knew how good this was going to be for my business.

[00:20:28] So eventually I worked up the courage, and I shared the article. And it was basically like I had a whole launch via this article only. Like I had 15 therapists join my course, and I gained a ton of Instagram followers. And I was like, holy cow, this is super important. Like people really want to hear about this, and it’s really helping me grow my business.

[00:20:49] So I’ll kind of pause there, but that was sort of the catalyst for me starting to talk about money on the internet. Yeah.

[00:20:57] Linzy: You know what’s so interesting is it’s bringing up this thought for me. I have a comedian that I really like who I talk about regularly on this podcast, named Mike Birbiglia. He’s my favourite comedian, and he has a great podcast where he talks about comedy with other comedians, and the process of being creatives and these are all very hardworking, hardworking people, who make amazing things.

[00:21:17] And something that he talks about is, your audience will tell you who you are, right? And that’s kind of what I’m hearing in your story twice now. It’s Julia Kangello, she told you who you were, where she was like, “No, no, no. You’re not a therapist who charges 150. You’re my people, and you charge this fee,” but then also this, this reporter at Business Insider was like, “Oh, you think that you want to talk about this, but your real story is this, that you figured out how to make all this money.” And then it sounds like you’ve stepped into that role, right, of realizing that this is a gift that you have to offer people.

[00:21:50] Kelly: Totally. And, you know, at the time I just had the one Instagram account, Sit with Kelly, which is where I talk about anxiety content for millennial women. It’s how I built my private practice. And so I was sharing about the business coaching there, but it felt like I was very much still in an apologetic space about it because I was also marketing my therapy services.

[00:22:10] And so I was like, what is this balance between trying to tell people I can help them with their anxiety and like how good I am at that, and also being like, and I’m going to make a ton of money

[00:22:19] while I help you do that. It just felt like a little off to me. And so probably a year after that, I was really going all in on this business coaching thing and made a second Instagram account, Business Therapy, where I talk all about marketing and business skills for therapists.

[00:22:35] And that’s when I decided to start the series where every month I share all of my revenue and all of my expenses for people because I think both sides of that transparency are super important.

[00:22:46] Linzy: So important.

[00:22:47] Kelly: And it is, if you look at my Instagram insights, like my top performing reels, every single one of them is one of these posts.

[00:22:56] I think that that also really affirmed for me, okay, we’re going to keep going with this, even if sometimes it gets a little uncomfortable, but I would say mostly the feedback has been super, super positive from folks.

[00:23:07] Linzy: Yes. Okay. So when you, what I’m hearing then is where you say, sometimes it feels uncomfortable. I mean, sometimes you don’t get positive feedback. You’re getting like some sort of pushback from folks. Yeah. Tell me about the pushback. What are the critics saying?

[00:23:20] Kelly: You know, that it can be unethical… Mostly that it’s unethical for therapists to want to make good money. Yeah, I think that that’s sort of it. And that happened, too, when I shared the Business of Therapy article, there was like probably 80 percent of people were really lovely and wonderful. And like 20 percent of people were other therapists or even like therapy attenders who were like, this is what’s wrong with our healthcare system.

[00:23:46] This is what’s wrong with therapists. Like they just are money hungry. They don’t care about you, like all of this messaging, which it’s really hard to be on the receiving end and kind of wondering is this what people think about me, you know, and if yes, is that something I’m okay with?

[00:24:01] Linzy: Yeah. Yeah. That’s it. Right. it’s something I’ve been thinking about more and more lately is the more visible you become, the more people comment out loud about what they think about you, right? Because we always have opinions of each other, right? Everybody forms a really random opinion of a random person, like that, you know, the human brain is made

[00:24:20] in part to judge, to keep you safe, and to discern, you know, where to spend time, where not to spend time. But when you’re visible, when you have an article about you in a big magazine, or when you start to become a public figure, or when, like you, you have, you know, tens of thousands of followers on social media, people, you start to be someone who’s almost like worth commenting on?

[00:24:39] Do you know what I mean? Like people actually put down their thoughts about you rather than just keeping them to themselves or just like griping to their partner, right? Like you get, you start to actually get that feedback from strangers about what their random thought is about you.

[00:24:52] Kelly: And I think manners sort of go out the window, right? Like you would never walk up to somebody in the street and comment on them. Or to like somebody on your personal page, you would never like you like, “Oh, I don’t like your

[00:25:04] dress” or whatever.

[00:25:05] Linzy: Mm hmm.

[00:25:06] Kelly: But it seems like on the internet, especially I think you’re right, when your account sort of reaches a certain size, or even if you have something that goes really viral and people see tons of likes and comments, think that they almost start to view you as an anonymous fake

[00:25:19] person…

[00:25:20] Linzy: Yeah. You’re not a person anymore.

[00:25:21] Kelly: who you can just comment whatever about, you know?

[00:25:24] Linzy: Totally. Yeah, It’s one of my least favorite things about the internet, if not my least favorite thing about the internet, is that like removal of humanity, that people like stop being empathetic towards each other and see each other as like memes or just like a two dimensional figure rather than an actual human with like feelings and complexity and like maybe this doesn’t represent everything about somebody, this like 12 seconds of content that you’ve just consumed.

[00:25:48] But yeah, I mean, talking about being uncomfortable, you mentioned at the beginning that part of what you’re good at is being uncomfortable, like doing things that make you uncomfortable. I’m curious, yeah, how do you weather that, or process or digest, the people who, yeah, might not have a positive opinion of you and let you know about it?

[00:26:06] Kelly: Yep. So I think there’s two things that are really helpful for me. One is I’m a big fan of delete and block. So if somebody, you know, asks a respectful question and they’re like, “As a therapist, I have a really hard time with this. I feel really guilty. How do you sort of justify charging 250 a session?”

[00:26:24] I’m happy to engage with that kind of content, right? If people are just like, you’re a money hungry therapist, it’s wrong to charge 250 a session, I’ll delete and block you. I don’t care, you know? And I kind of view that as this is my home and my space, and I’m going to protect my sanity here. And then I think the other thing that really helps is, I’m so lucky, honestly, I think that I have the most supportive community and there’s so much good that outweighs the bad.

[00:26:49] And I keep tons and tons of screenshots in an album on my phone of just nice things that people say to me, about me, et cetera. And I’ll revisit that whenever I need to. One is it’s great marketing. I like to share those screenshots all the time on my Instagram stories.

[00:27:04] Linzy: Yeah. Those are your testimonials. Yeah.

[00:27:06] Kelly: Yes, but it also really, really helps me on those low days where for whatever reason, a comment sticks and it’s kind of harder for me to get over is I’ll go through and read it and remind myself, “No, I’ve helped literally hundreds of therapists create a better life for themselves, for their families.”

[00:27:20] This is worth the discomfort of, you know, upsetting somebody who may not be ready for this or who may not ever want it. This content is really helping so many people, and I almost think of it as very similar to what Julia did for me of saying, “No, you’re my people. You’re going to charge 250 plus.”

[00:27:38] When I share that sort of income report for people, I think it’s really permission giving in saying as a therapist, you can have this, you can want it. You can do it. It’s possible for you on sort of like a bigger scale. And so that’s a big part of my why behind it, too.

[00:27:52] Linzy: Yeah, and I think, you know, it’s such a good point that you make that what you do is not for everybody. Nothing is for everybody, right? And so there’s going to be folks who are listening right now who are like, yes, that is exactly what I want. That’s what I need to do because of my family situation, that’s what I need to do because I live in San Francisco and to even buy a normal house, I’m going to need to make that income.

[00:28:11] People’s situations are really different. And I think that it’s easy, especially for therapists and healers, like the people pleasing kind of types that we want everybody to like us, right? But something I remind myself of sometimes is like I’ve never walked into a party and liked everybody at the party. When you walk into a party There’s going to be one or two people that you’re like, oh they seem really interesting, like I’d like to talk to them, and that person’s not so much for me I’m going to go get another drink, you know, get back away And it’s there’s nothing wrong with the people that I don’t connect with, but nobody is for everybody.

[00:28:41] We all have those connections, but it is hard sometimes, I think, when you are public like that, like people, yeah, they want to tell you that you’re not for them, but of course, of course, that’s going to be the case. In some ways it’s almost not news.

[00:28:54] Kelly: Yeah, totally. And, you know, we, I’m all for helping therapists build private practices, but we also need therapists who are going to work in nonprofits, who are going to work in community mental health, who are going to, you know, accept insurance while our healthcare system pays therapists, abysmal amounts for,

[00:29:11] therapy. Butif those people don’t desire anything else, if that feels good to them, if that feels fulfilling and purposeful, I’m not going to tell you that you’re doing something wrong by doing that. You can totally do that for the rest of your career. But for therapists who are thinking, I don’t know how long I can do this,

[00:29:29] I want to help show them that there are other options for them.

[00:29:32] Linzy: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and people’s life circumstances have a big part to do with that. I remember when I worked in non profit, one of my colleagues who I loved, she talked about how her sister would give her a hard time for having a wifey job, you know, because it’s, a job that she could only have because her, her partner was, like, a high school principal and he was an earner.

[00:29:49] And so, between the two of them, they could afford their life, but living alone, she wouldn’t have been able to, right? But it’s, that worked for their life situation for a long time until it didn’t work anymore. And then, you know, she went and started a private practice, but you know, like that’s very different.

[00:30:00] I, I find a lot of folks in my audience are women who are primary earners in their household. Right. And so like those women should not have to apologize for wanting or needing to make, you know, whatever their salary would be after 250 of revenue, whether that’s 150 or 175, support maybe an entire household, maybe to be a solo parent where there is no other earner, maybe to support a partner.

[00:30:23] Like I have lots of folks who’ve come through my course who have a partner with like chronic illness, right, who like can’t work. So they’re actually supporting two adults, and nobody should have to apologize for making the money that they want and need to make to make their life what they want and need it to be.

[00:30:40] Kelly: Yeah, totally. And I think, too, of also letting yourself be expansive with what you want your life to be. Right? I think that those are all super admirable reasons to want to earn well into the six figures. And you can also do it because you want to buy a vacation house, because you want to pay for your kid’s college for them, because you want to build generational wealth, because you want a new car. You’re allowed to want those things, too, even though I think that as therapists, that can feel harder to say out loud and to say, You know, I want this for me, right? I want to be able to be wealthy.

[00:31:16] Linzy: Mm hmm. Yes. And I think generally, too, like, when we’re talking about it as well, what I see sometimes is therapists have this black and white kind of narrative around money where it’s like you either don’t have money or you’re like, ultra wealthy, you know, like bigger income than like most nations, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos.

[00:31:33] And the reality is there’s such a massive spectrum in between and like what you’re describing there is like it’s not even like halfway up the spectrum of what some folks live with, right? And so it’s like yeah, you don’t have to apologize for wanting something that many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many people have, and enjoy, and they’re not apologizing for it.

[00:31:53] Kelly: Yep. Totally.

[00:31:54] Linzy: Yeah. So with the sharing your, your revenue and expenses on Instagram as well, like I’m curious, what have you learned from that experience of being so transparent? Because in our company, I will say being transparent about our numbers is one of our values. And we do that within our team, and we do that with our students.

[00:32:11] And I do it kind of more in my teaching spaces. But I’ve never posted on Instagram, partially because I’m not teaching folks how to earn. I’m teaching folks how to like manage. It’s not quite as… It’s not quite as flashy. but I am curious, what, what has that been like? What have you learned from this experience of doing this every month?

[00:32:28] Kelly: Yeah. One it feels really inspiring and empowering for people. And so, like I said, I’ve gotten 95 percent of feedback has been like, super positive. And so that tells me to kind of keep going with it. It sort of makes you like have to surrender to money a little bit more in that naturally as an entrepreneur, there are going to be ups, and there are going to be downs.

[00:32:49] And I think the first time that that sort of happened and I had to say, no, I actually earned less this month than I did last month on Instagram that felt hard. Right? And then it sort of got easier as time went on. And it was, I was able to say I get to normalize this for people and to sort of normalize that there are going to be months where you earn more and months where you earn less, or months where you spend more and months where you spend less, and that that’s okay.

[00:33:14] And so for me, I think that it’s really been healing in like my own relationship with money to be able to talk about it so transparently and to share and to sort of neutralize it a little bit, too.

[00:33:25] Linzy: Totally. Yeah, because you’re sharing the wins and the highs, but you’re also sharing, the mediums and the lows. You’re just sharing whatever. Yeah.

[00:33:33] Kelly: And you know, I spend this much in team support, like I spend this much in software. I see my business coach this month. I think that that is so helpful for people to also see what goes into it. That it’s not just, you know, you make all this money and I’m doing everything by myself cause I think that that can be such a point of like comparison for people, right?

[00:33:53] You know, they see… I had 191 therapists joined the reels membership this past month during my launch, and that was amazing. And the first time I launched it two years ago, I had 18 people join, right? Like it took so much time to get here. There’s so much team that goes behind it. I can never, you know, manage a membership of almost 500 therapists on my own.

[00:34:14] I just think that it needs to share like that full picture to show people how you get there.

[00:34:19] Linzy: Yes, I totally agree. Cause like at this point, the aspects you’re talking about are more almost like the online coaching space. And as somebody who spent the last five years in the online coaching space, something that makes me crazy as a money person is like people, everybody’s talking about revenue.

[00:34:34] It’s you’re seven figure this, right, and you’re six figure that, and that’s very sexy, but it doesn’t give you any sense of like how the money’s actually working. And as you said, like the bigger you get, the more team you need, right? And we all make different decisions about team and what it looks like, but I know in my own business now, it’s like my revenue has gone up, but my team expenses have also gone way up because I actually really like having support, and I like being able to support folks to work in their zone of genius.

[00:34:59] And so it’s like the… My profit is not necessarily that much bigger, right? Because there’s like other factors at play, but it’s easy for, folks to really oversimplify money as though it’s only the numbers that come in the top that works. And you’re really demystifying that by sharing all the numbers below it as well.

[00:35:17] Kelly: Yep, totally. I think that it’s super helpful. And, I’ll admit, it is definitely sexier to share, like, the revenue.

[00:35:23] Linzy: Yes, for sure.

[00:35:24] Kelly: The reel itself is, the video is straight revenue. I’m just like, here’s

[00:35:28] how much I earn from all these things. And then in the caption, I give every detail of here’s the money that went out and the total profit, whatever.

[00:35:35] But, you know, from a marketing standpoint, I definitely lead with like, here’s how much money I’m making.

[00:35:38] Linzy: That’s sexy part.

[00:35:39] Linzy: part. Yes. I made 198, 000 this month and I spent 150, 000. yes. Not that those are your actual numbers, but that is kind of the sober part. So I’m hearing sexy comes first, the sober reality comes second, which is great. Which is great. Kelly, for folks who are interested, well actually before I even tell folks who are interested, I will share that I am part of your Reels membership.

[00:36:01] You know that. I’m sharing with folks in the audience. And I was saying earlier to you, I was joking before we started rolling that I was like, for this conversation in my head and I kind of came up with this like meme, which is like from the most interesting man in the world a few years ago, which is like I don’t always record memes like reels on Instagram, but when I do I use Kelly’s Reels with Kelly subscription. Because it’s so helpful for me as somebody who’s not a social media person and like I’m actually going the other way like I’m becoming a digital minimalist and I’m doing as little kind of phone time, et cetera, as possible, which fits my nervous system.

[00:36:33] But like your membership, which is, you know, every week gives a summary of trending reels and suggestions on how to use them and examples is it just distills. all of this work down into one beautiful document that my team just goes through, and we just pick the ones that… Well, my team picks the one that they like, and then they make me make them and it just saves us so much work.

[00:36:55] It’s so, so, so, so, so helpful. So I will say if folks are looking to make reels on Instagram, Kelly’s, Reels with Kelly subscription is like very, very, very, very worth the investment. that’s my plug for you before I ask you to now plug yourself. So Kelly, for folks who want to get further into your world, where can they find you and follow you?

[00:37:13] Kelly: Yeah. Follow me on Instagram at Business of Therapy. I share tens of tips and marketing resources to help you grow your practice, whether that’s an Instagram or elsewhere. Instagram’s definitely my jam, though. And doing it with a ton of ease with things like the Reels Membership.

[00:37:28] Linzy: Great. Thank you so much, Kelly, for coming on and having this conversation today.

[00:37:33] Kelly: Thank you for having me. This is lovely.

[00:37:50] Linzy: I really appreciated hearing about Kelly’s experience with just being uncomfortable and letting herself be uncomfortable. You know, as I think about it so much in our business when we come up against these hurdles of “Oh, I need to raise my fee,” or “Oh, I need to move off this insurance panel,” or I want to start being seen more and show up in these different ways in these different places on social media or start a podcast like it is uncomfortable.

[00:38:13] It’s uncomfortable. Andas Kelly mentioned, her own basically willingness to be uncomfortable and be with that discomfort has allowed her to grow her business, I would say, much faster than most folks are able to. And it just makes me think about, If we can embrace that discomfort more, how many things can we move through faster?

[00:38:32] And how much can that help us be less stuck in the steps that we know we need to take in our business by embracing discomfort? I know in my own business, and I’ve talked about this on the podcast before, like taking up space, and some of the moves that I’ve made, and decisions that I’ve had to make in my own life have been uncomfortable. But it is true: by letting that just be the reality,

[00:38:52] not moving away from something because it’s uncomfortable, but maybe even moving towards it, you can be moving towards growth and expansiveness. And as Kelly said, like a life that you might not even have imagined was possible. So really inspiring talking with Kelly today. You can follow me on Instagram at Money, Nuts and Bolts.

[00:39:13] You’ll see the reels there that I make sometimes with the support of my team and Kelly’s Reels with Kelly subscription. And Kelly does also have an offer for her, reels with Kelly subscription for our listeners. So you can take a look in the show notes. There is a code there to get your first month of that subscription free.

[00:39:32] And as I said, I super recommend it. I find it a really, really helpful tool in making social media. If you’re enjoying the podcast, as always, I really appreciate reviews on Apple Podcasts. So you can jump over to Apple Podcasts, take 30 seconds to leave a review, share about what you appreciate about the podcast, and that helps other therapists and health practitioners find us and be part of these conversations.

[00:39:55] Thanks for listening today.

[00:00:00] Linzy: Hello and welcome back to the Feelings and Finances mini podcast series on the Money Skills for Therapists podcast. This podcast series is all about answering listener questions, questions from you, the folks who listen to the Money Skills for Therapists podcast, and giving you the chance to have your question answered.

[00:00:19] And it’s fun for me too, to just answer questions, like this is kind of what I do all the time in Money Skills for Therapists and Money Skills for Group Practice Owner calls. I kind of have this feeling of like, okay, bring it. What’s the question going to be? And lets me, you know, show you what I do.

[00:00:31] And gives me the chance to support the folks who listen to this podcast. So today I do have very much this feeling of like, okay, what’s the question going to be? I’m ready. Because I’ve not listened to this question yet. Today’s question is from Linds. She is our marketing coordinator here at Money, Nuts and Bolts.

[00:00:48] She has submitted a question, and I haven’t heard it yet. So let’s listen to Linds’s question together.

[00:00:53] Lindsay: Hi, Linzy. This is also Lindsay, just spelled differently. First off, I just want to say that I love your podcast. I think that you have such a soothing voice, and I feel like I could just listen to you talk all day, so thank you for putting that out into the world for all of us. My question pertains to my relationship with money.

[00:01:14] I’m always scared that I’m going to run out of it. Now, I don’t know when exactly this started. I mean, in high school, I had absolutely no problem with spending money. My teen years, it was a non issue. But now, I don’t know, somewhere along the way, I feel like I’ve started to almost hoard it in a way. And while I want to be conscious of where my money is going, I don’t want the act of spending money to feel so heavy on me.

[00:01:39] So I was just wondering if you had any advice for me that could, you know, help shift my mindset from this scarcity mindset to one of more abundance?Thank you so much for listening, and I’m excited to hear you hopefully answer this on an upcoming podcast episode. Thanks.

[00:01:55] Linzy: Okay. So. This is a great question, Linds. And this is something that over, I think over the last few years in Money Skills for Therapists, I’ve seen this happening more and more. Like, when I started doing my work on Money Skills for Therapists, like when I created this course in 2018, was our first round.

[00:02:15] I was really focused on folks who, overspent, who like couldn’t stop spending money and felt like really, like money always disappeared. And I used to like talk about that a lot. And I still do, you know, in terms of helping folks understand who the course is for. But over the last few years, Linds, I’ve had more and more folks in the course talking about what you’re talking about, which is the other side of the spectrum, right?

[00:02:35] Which is like clinging and hoarding. And something that I want to reflect is like, that is also a dysregulated relationship with money, right? Like that shows a relationship that is out of balance, but rather than this kind of like out of control, can’t hold onto it, it’s like the opposite where it’s like, can’t let go of it, right?

[00:02:54] There’s this clinging around money. So, you know, since this is something that you’re aware of, but haven’t dug into too much yet, the first thing that I always encourage is curiosity, right? Like start to notice around this fear of spending money, spending money being heavy. Like what is that heaviness?

[00:03:15] Is there a story that goes with it? Is there a specific fear that you have? Is there a belief about yourself or belief around money itself? Like the first. The first step, Linds, that I would encourage is to really be with this experience to start to kind of turn it over in your hands, and be curious about like, what is this?

[00:03:37] What is this? Right? Is this a fear of running out of money and like not having stability? Is this about security and safety? Is this about like not deserving? I know for me, for instance, like some of my anxieties about spending over the years when I reflect on them now, were about not really feeling entitled to take up space in the world or kind of like general existential anxiety about like consumerism.

[00:04:04] These kinds of things I know for me have made it like hard to spend and like accumulate things. So it’s like, what is that for you? Right? Like, what is making it difficult to enjoy spending money? Because what I’m hearing is in the past, in your, your teens, your younger years, you, you were able to spend money freely.

[00:04:22] I don’t know if it was too freely. Like, I don’t know if there’s maybe a pendulum swing that’s happened here, but I would be curious about what changed, right? Like what has brought you to this place that you are now? Did it change when you had kids? Did it change after a certain financial experience that you had?

[00:04:38] Just really being curious and digging into this and whether that’s through journaling, talking about it with your friends, talking about it with your partner. Something, too, that can be really helpful for all of us is just letting ourselves slow down and track what the experience is.

[00:04:52] Like if you know that you need to spend money on something and you are noticing that like, feeling around it. trying to stop and notice like, what is the emotion? What’s happening in my body? Like, what are the thoughts? All those kinds of like typical therapist y questions, go a long way to starting to uncover what it is for you, right?

[00:05:11] Because once you know what it is for you, then you can start to address it. You can shift it. If there’s parts of you that are stuck in the past, like if there’s a part of you that went through the experience of like, making a big financial mistake or like being broke, or maybe not having enough money in your life, not enough food to eat.

[00:05:28] Like there’s such a spectrum of experiences that we have around money. If there’s a part of you, a part of your brain, a part of yourself, that’s still stuck in that place. Sometimes it’s about helping that part of us catch up, you know, to where we are now to notice like, Oh, right. I’m scared of spending money because of this, But also letting yourself see like, but the conditions have changed, right?

[00:05:47] My life is different now. Helping yourself see why it can be okay to spend some money. And then with this as well, Linds, I would encourage you… There’s a couple more pieces that, you know, come to mind for me. One is that I would encourage you to think about how do you bring some more lightness into your relationship with money?

[00:06:05] Are there places that it feels good to spend money? Are there places that you could experiment with playing with money? Like, what if you give yourself $15, and you just get to think about, okay, how can this $15 bring the most joy into my life? I’m going to go out of my house and I’m going to take this 15 and I’m going to turn it into the lightest, most joyful experience that I can.

[00:06:23] And letting yourself notice that, like playing with almost the opposite experience of lightness and joy around money. So that’s one piece. And that’ll also let you start to really see like what comes up, what’s in the way, what is it like to spend money on things that you really enjoy? Can you take in that experience?

[00:06:39] Can you notice that you do that and it’s okay? Then the other piece is, you know, I know that you, uh, have a young daughter at home. I know you have another kiddo on the way, and that’s also a very financially stressful time of life. It’s very expensive to have little kids. And so it also makes me think about what can you put in place with your spouse so that you do feel like there’s a good stability.

[00:07:02] There is a good base. You know, you do know that you’re covered. You have set clear buffer goals with your spouse, or you’ve got a budget together that you know, okay, this gives us like safety and security. This is actually what we need to be okay. Because the reality is you can’t spend all the money you have, but to know, okay, once we have this much in the bank, or we keep our budget around this, then we have this room

[00:07:25] to play and spend and, you know, have more light experiences with money. Right? So it’s like a both/ and. We don’t want you swinging to the opposite extreme where you’re just going nuts and spending all your money. But we also don’t want you to be in this tight place because that’s also a very stressful place to be with money.

[00:07:41] So, to summarize, I suggest being with the experience: being curious about it, journaling about it, talking about it, tracking the feelings and emotions. I suggest experimenting with going the other way, and trying to play with bringing some lightness into your relationship with money. How can money feel light?

[00:07:58] Where are there times where there’s exceptions? And then, look at if stability or safety, which I think is often a part of this hoarding, and clutching around money is often about stability and safety. If that is part of your picture to talk with your partner about what is actually enough.

[00:08:14] You know, what do you need to put in place to know that you are covered and you do have enough and that can give you the space and permission to also just enjoy your money because you know you have actually taken care of those foundational pieces of your financial stability and security. So thank you so much, Linds, for your question.

[00:08:33] This is a great question. I really appreciate you asking it today. If you would like to have your own question answered on one of these Feelings and Finances podcasts, you just need to head over to our podcast page. You’re going to see a little icon for SpeakPipe. That’s where you can leave your name and your question.

[00:08:49] I would absolutely love to answer your question on one of these podcast episodes. Thank you so much to my team for getting us started. Ashley and Christelle and Linds getting us started with our first three questions on the podcast. And I’m so looking forward to answering other questions, listener questions, questions from students, in our future Feelings and Finances podcast episodes.

[00:09:12] Thank you so much for listening today.

[00:00:00] David: By being intentional and putting these blocks of deep work in place, it’s proactive. It’s not reactive. And so I’m identifying every week: What are the most impactful things to really move my business forward, and to really improve the lives of my clients? I’m doing those things, and I’ve just noticed less mental noise about, “Oh, but you need to be thinking about this, and you need to be doing that!” It’s just like, “Okay, I have a system, and these things are moving.”

[00:00:25] Linzy: 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.

[00:00:51] Hello and welcome back to the podcast. So today’s podcast episode is with David Frank. David is a returning guest. He is a financial planner for therapists specifically. And today David and I talk about deep work, what deep work is. It might be something you’ve heard about. We dig into what it is, our own definitions of it.

[00:01:10] We talk about the value of making time to give yourself focus and be able to really dig in to do deep work. We talk about how deep work applies to private practice, what it means financially for private practice, and about our own experiences in our businesses and in our lives with using deep work practices to create space to focus on what really matters to us.

[00:01:31] I talk about my recent love affair with digital minimalism. Uncoupling with my phone. This is a really fun conversation for me to have to just nerd out about a topic that I’ve been really excited about lately, which is deep work and digital minimalism, and just really being intentional with how we use our times in our business and in our lives.

[00:01:50] Here’s my conversation with David Frank.

[00:02:08] Linzy: Hi, David, welcome back to the podcast.

[00:02:09] David: Thanks. It’s good to be back.

[00:02:11] Linzy: Yeah, it’s good to have you back, and I’m very excited for what we’re planning to talk about today, but before we get into our planned topic, tell folks again, who are listening a little bit about yourself, cause it’s your second time on the podcast. But yeah, remind us about who you are and what you do.

[00:02:24] David: Yeah, great. Happy to do it. So my name is David Frank, and I’m the founder and owner of Turning Point Financial, and we are a financial planning firm that focuses exclusively on serving the needs of therapists who own private practices. So I help folks navigate every essential element of their financial life from budgeting to investing to risk management, insurance, estate planning, and kind of everything in between.

[00:02:49] Linzy: Great. And our topic for today that we, you know, are planning to talk about is something that I knew that you were interested in because you have this excellent autoresponder on your email.

[00:03:00] Can you tell folks about the autoresponder on your email?

[00:03:04] David: Yeah, so the autoresponder on my email… So I have my out of office set on all the time, even when I’m in the office. And so what happens is, if you send me an email, you’ll get I think a brief… It’s a brief little email that’s just like, “Hey, thanks so much for reaching out. I aim to return client emails within 72 hours.

[00:03:24] I aim to return everyone else’s email within a week. And that probably sounds crazy to you, but let me explain to you why I’m doing that. And the reason I do that is because email is this huge distraction. And, by the way, my clients know if anything is really urgent or truly important, they can call me or text me, but if something’s urgent,

[00:03:43] don’t send me an email because I only check email a couple times a day. And the reason I do that is because I want to focus on engaging in deep work, which is super important for a variety of reasons. Not the least of which is that it enables me to do really impactful work for my clients. And I don’t want to get distracted.

[00:04:01] I want to be super focused on what it is that I’m doing, what it is that I’m learning, and what it is that I’m developing to help the therapists of the world out there.”

[00:04:08] Linzy: And when I saw that autoresponder, when we, I think when we first started corresponding, you know, about six months ago, I was like, I like this guy.

[00:04:15] Because it’s so intentional. It’s so clear. It’s such a clear boundary that you’re setting of this is my boundary. This is why it’s here. And I remember you even have links in there, too.

[00:04:26] I think “if you want to read more about deep work” and,

[00:04:28] you know, you have a blog on your website that talks about it more in detail, but it’s not like you send a whole lecture out on your autoresponder. But it’s just

[00:04:35] so clear about owning the parts of your work that you do that are really valuable, and not kind of giving into this urgency of email that runs most of us most of the time.

[00:04:47] David: Yeah, absolutely. And just to be clear, this is not something that I, you know, just showed up knowing to do. This is something that I did in the beginning of 2023, so a little over a year ago as we record this, but getting my life… like reclaiming my life and moving out of my email inbox is something that yeah It’s a fairly recent development for me.

[00:05:10] Linzy: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Me, too. Okay. So let’s talk a little bit about deep work first for folks who are listening, who are not familiar, who are like, what does that mean?

[00:05:20] David: Yeah.

[00:05:21] Linzy: Share your definition of deep work with me.

[00:05:24] David: Yeah, so most of my thinking is influenced by this guy by the name of Cal Newport, who is an author, and I think he’s like a computer scientist somewhere in the eastern US. I can’t remember where he works, maybe Penn or something. Anyway, it doesn’t really matter. He wrote a book called Deep Work a number of years ago, and I heard about it through a business coach, I think, at some point.

[00:05:43] And the whole idea is that, I mean there’s a lot going on in that book, but the general idea is that deep work is really important, especially the way our economy is evolving and given all the changes that are happening with technology, and AI, and everything else, and yet it’s really rare. Because we’re so distracted by email and a million other things that are clamoring for our attention at all hours of the day.

[00:06:05] So the idea of deep work, for me anyway, is just to have blocks of time where I very intentionally map out over the course of my day slash week, what do I need to focus on? What are the really the most important activities, sort of proactively, like not reacting to stuff that’s coming into me, but being really intentional about what is most important for me in terms of accomplishing the big picture goals that I want to accomplish, and then protecting that time where I sit down and I just

[00:06:35] tune out all distractions, put the phone away, put it somewhere else where I don’t even see it light up if something comes in, and I just focus on the task at hand for some period of time. And that can vary. It can be a 25 minute sort of sprint or it could be sometimes a multi hour period.

[00:06:51] Linzy: And, I’m doing Cal Newport’s course right now, Life of Focus, which we chatted about a little bit beforehand, where the first month is about deep work. And so they, you know, they’re just kind of sharing the concepts that are from the book, but giving it to you in this nice implementable way, right,

[00:07:06] where you can take action on it. The second month is on Digital Minimalism, which I could talk about for a year. I’m so excited about it. And then the third part of the course is about doing something meaningful, like having a project that has a lot of meaning, which I think for therapists listening, you already have that. It’s your clinical work. You’re doing that work every day. Right? So I don’t think therapists lack for meaning, but this deep work piece, something that they mentioned in that course as well, which he teaches… It’s video recordings. I don’t actually get to have contact with Cal Newport. I think I wouldn’t know what to say.

[00:07:35] Cause I’m a little starstruck by him at this point. I’m a bit of a fan girl, but… it’s also work that takes focus and skill where you’re going to need to be in it for a while. Right? So it’s not necessarily like these little tasks that like you could train, you know, a 19 year old to do in half an hour, but it’s these tasks that actually like really call on your skills and expertise that you’ve honed over a long period of time and require you to get in the zone, which doesn’t mean it’s always easy to

[00:07:59] get there. It doesn’t mean you start in the zone, but things that you have to sink into, and you’re like, Oh, this was kind of hard, but now I’m in it. Now I could keep going. Now I’m getting somewhere with this book that I’m writing, this like new lesson that I’m creating, this like opt-in, you know, for folks in the online space, this blog article, like those are all

[00:08:17] things that would be examples of deep work because they require our skills and gifts, and they really benefit from a good chunk of time. Not like working on something five minutes at a time.

[00:08:26] David: Right. Yeah. And he also makes this distinction between deep work and shallow work. And so I think that can be helpful to think about, too. Shallow work is kind of exactly what it sounds like. It’s processing just a bunch of different emails that have shown up in your inbox.

[00:08:40] Shallow work is probably dealing with invoicing of clients or dealing with insurance billing, whatever it is… That type of stuff where it’s not really taxing your mental faculties. It requires some degree of concentration perhaps, but it’s not really very deeply thoughtful work.

[00:08:57] Linzy: Yeah. For private practice owners, it’s going to be a lot of your admin work. That is shallow work, right?

[00:09:02] Checking your inbox, seeing what’s there; checking your phone messages, doing your notes. Although I would actually probably argue that notes could be integrated into your deep work.

[00:09:10] And we’ll talk about this in a minute… 

[00:09:12] David: I was just thinking about that.

[00:09:13] Linzy: Yeah,I do think in some ways though, I will say, I think private practice owners, we tend to treat notes as kind of like that later on the side, shallow administrative work. But really once you’re in flow, they’re probably easier.

[00:09:26] But yeah… And what they talk about is it’s not that these shallow tasks are not important. Because I think the word shallow has negative connotations. Like you don’t want to be a shallow

[00:09:33] person. That’s not great. You want to be a deep person, but they’re the tasks that don’t require really accessing all these different parts of your brain at once, and they’re also things that once you move into focusing on them, it’s hard to get back into those deeper tasks, right?

[00:09:47] Like they take your attention away. So if you try to intersperse them every 10 minutes in some deeper task, you’re actually… you know, they talk about residual attention. You’re kind of leaving some of your attention with that task when you stop to check your phone, and you send a few texts, and five minutes later, you go back to work. It takes your brain energy to try to get back on track with whatever you were just creating. You get out of the flow. Yeah.

[00:10:09] David: The concept you mentioned about residual attention, I think, is really interesting. I was reviewing some of my highlights from the book before we jumped on this call, and what I thought was interesting about residual attention specifically is that… And so the concept here, and there’s been studies done on this, psychological studies, where the idea is that when you switch from one task to another you might believe, or you attempt to fully direct your attention toward the new task, but despite our best intentions, there’s some residual attention that’s still going on in our heads that’s focused on the old tasks. So there’s like a real cost of switching too frequently. And what I thought was particularly fascinating is that that residual attention…that impact like it degrades your ability to perform well on the new task. But interestingly, that residual effect is more strongly pronounced when the previous task you were engaged with was shallow work rather than deep work. I thought that was really intriguing.

[00:11:06] I think intuitively I might have assumed the opposite would be the case. But it’s just really interesting… And I think that just highlights, at least for me, anyway, just the importance of trying to be really intentional, and disciplined, to the extent possible, to sort of batch shallow work and put it almost at the margins of my day, if possible, so that the negative effects of that shallow work aren’t creeping into sort of the middle of my day, or at least the portions of my day where I find I can be the most productive and focused.

[00:11:38] Linzy: Right, like kind of your best energy and time should go towards that deeper work. Yes.

[00:11:43] Yeah. And I do really like that idea of residual attention because that to me gives me like an image where it’s like my attention was here. There’s this like purple, say my attention is purple. It’s like I’ve got this nice concentration of purple.

[00:11:52] I go over here to do something quickly, which seems like a little easy side quest, but I leave some of my attention behind. So when I come back, there’s a little bit less of that intensity. There’s a little bit less focus left. And the more that I do that, I’m just like, kind of like spreading that attention thin until when I come back, I don’t have a lot left.

[00:12:10] And I think cognitively, I know what that feels like when I get to that point where I’m like,

[00:12:14] Whoa, I’m like, my brain is so full. I can’t really sink into this thing anymore because my brain is actually thinking about like 12 things right now.

[00:12:22] David: Yeah, exactly. I think this is a fascinating topic, but like it’s difficult. It’s not like you can just be like, “Hey, I’m going to be a deep worker now.” And I’m like, great. I’m totally sold. I’m just going to go do it. You know, I’m even thinking back on today. You know, I’ve been thinking a lot more about deep work lately because I’ve been thinking about getting ready to have this conversation with you.

[00:12:42] And so it’s been very top of mind. And yet, there’s been times today where I have gotten distracted by checking the news, or checking my email, or what have you. It’s one of the many areas of life, I think, where you focus on progress rather than trying to get anything perfect. Progress rather than perfection.

[00:12:59] Linzy: Always. Always. Always. So for folks who are listening, you know, you and I, David, do work that’s a little bit different than what they do, right? Just because we’re not necessarily doing the same amount of like service outward facing every day in the same way that clinicians are. So thinking about deep work in private practice, as someone who works with therapists, how can you see deep work applying to therapists and health practitioners in private practice?

[00:13:24] David: Yeah, I’m biased because, well, like you, I’m thinking a lot about the financial world and the financial side, both of being a practice owner, and how that translates into your personal financial stuff. And so the first thing that comes to mind for me… One thing that I talked with

[00:13:39] practice owners about a lot is, especially when you might be newer to private practice, remembering that there are so many tasks that are non clinical in nature that are really your responsibility from marketing to managing the finances of your practice, and there’s just going to be a lot of learning that you have to do.

[00:13:57] And so I think it’s really important just to say, okay, when I think about what my ideal caseload looks like, when I think about what my ideal week kind of looks like, and when I think about, you know, when I want to be scheduling client or patient appointments, and when I want to be doing the other tasks of the business, just getting really clear, just like keeping in mind, and just know,

[00:14:17] oh, yeah, you really have to set aside some significant chunks of time to work on the business and to be learning how to work on the business. So I think yeah, it’s just really important to know that from the outset, maybe even when you’re just thinking about the financial plan for your business in terms of how many folks you can see in any given week. Just keeping in mind there’s so much that needs to be done in addition to just the actual clinical work.

[00:14:43] So just being actually very proactive and intentional about protecting your time to focus on that type of stuff.

[00:14:50] Linzy: Yeah, because I think that piece about all those other parts of the business, all the non client facing parts of the business, sometimes those can feel almost like a little bit of a burden for folks in private practice. It’s like,

[00:15:01] Oh God, and now I have to learn about marketing, too. And now I have to learn about bookkeeping, and find an accountant.

[00:15:07] What I do love about bringing some of the deep work concepts to it is it’s okay, you have learning to do. And learning takes focus, right? And learning, like

[00:15:15] we really benefit when we can really dig into something and come out the other side and be like, now I know this thing that I didn’t know 45 minutes ago.

[00:15:21] Cause I gave myself time just to learn and solve it. And I could see that setting yourself up at the beginning of practice to say, this is my marketing time, and half that time I’m going to be learning some marketing strategies, and then some of that time I’ll start actually implementing and building my own website, or like really giving those tasks the credit that they’re due, and like you are building new neural pathways. You are learning

[00:15:43] whole new concepts and theories like to market your practice, or to do the finances, like you’re learning things you’ve truly just never learned before. And learning is a deep work task. It takes a lot of our

[00:15:55] cognition. And if you stop and check your phone 15 times, or answer a random email that just came in immediately because it just came in, again, you’re leaving some of your attention behind. When you go back to learn that thing again, your brain is having to be like, Wait, what were we reading?

[00:16:08] What are we talking about? Oh Yeah.

[00:16:10] But that email that I just sent, are they going to reply again? You know, I think that there’s such opportunity there to kind of take that part, the learning part of building those skills, seriously.

[00:16:19] David: Yeah. I understand the feeling… Like anyone who runs a business, and I put myself in the same bucket, there’s just certain things that I’m not super excited about. I just don’t love it all. But learning how to do those things, it’s really important. It is a growth activity.

[00:16:35] Just like another way to think about it is that, you know, it, it really is an opportunity to become more… It’s like personal development, right? It’s like getting better at things, and learning, and just I’ve had to do this myself, just trying to frame things… Like sometimes when I have to learn something new,

[00:16:49] and we always have to be learning something new… That’s just the world we live in. Things are constantly changing, especially as business owners. There are new tools, there are new trends, you know, like SEO changes, you know, the way to engage on social media can sometimes change.

[00:17:03] There’s just, I think, protecting time and reframing what it means to be working, like learning is such an important part of actually working.

[00:17:14] But it doesn’t feel productive a lot of times, you know, like just, you know, and that can be frustrating.

[00:17:19] Linzy: Yeah, and I have noticed myself,  I took this attitude towards learning when I was building out Money Skills for Group Practice Owners, which is a course that I built out last year from June till December. And Fridays was my deep work day to build that course.

[00:17:34] So Fridays, depending on where I was kind of in the cycle of do I have to do a video drop? Do I have videos due next week or do I have a little bit of time? Sometimes I would be making videos. And filming the lesson, making the tool, you know, uploading the lesson, editing it, just in the flow.

[00:17:48] But sometimes I would be like, I’m just going to sit and read this book today, and that’ll be part of it. And it felt really, I don’t know, respectful of my students, for me to be really just like I’m just going to… Friday is for this and I’m going to give my all to this and there’s no distractions because my team doesn’t work on Fridays. So I’m the only one working. Nobody’s going to send me messages. Nobody needs literally anything. I don’t coach on

[00:18:09] Fridays. But also it just felt almost like going back to being a student where it’s like learning is a valuable activity.

[00:18:15] David: Absolutely.

[00:18:16] Linzy: Learning has value. It’s not something that I should have to do in the evening on top of my full time work week.

[00:18:22] David: Right. Yeah, I totally agree. And I think that gets back to just kind of like being intentional and creating sort of a sustainable schedule for yourself, and not just thinking I’m going to see eight clients every day, Monday through Friday, and then I’m going to do everything else sort of nights and weekends.

[00:18:40] There can be seasons where that has to be what happens, right? Like things get out of balance occasionally, but your business, your practice, can’t be built like that long term. I have conversations with clients like this all the time. You know, the work you’re doing is super important.

[00:18:54] You’re helping people. Sometimes, you might be helping people in crisis that are actually like relatively high need, and there can be a lot of, even kind of guilt about not being responsive to their needs, but I think just finding boundaries and protecting your own personal time as well as your own deep work time…

[00:19:12] I mean, it’s really just so essential to sort of prevent burnout as opposed to sort of managing burnout once it shows up. Not that it’s ever… You know, you can’t do this stuff perfectly, right? Like burnout, it could be a thing that just happens, but just sort of learning and getting better over time, I think is really important.

[00:19:29] Linzy: Yeah, I mean, something that I’m quite sure is in Life of Focus, the course, the Cal Newport and Scott H. Young course, that he talks about is the distinction between work that is like cognitively challenging, but it’s like your zone, you know, and therapists, I think about this, like when I was practicing trauma therapy, if I’m in the middle of an EMDR session and I’m doing parts work with somebody and there’s 12 parts that I’m aware of at any time that I’m kind of listening to and

[00:19:53] aware of, right? That’s very much a great example of deep work. And I will be very clear, therapy is deep work, right?

[00:20:00] David: Oh, sure.

[00:20:01] Linzy: Whether you’re doing manual therapy, like massage or physio, you are very much engaged. In a deep way, accessing all of these skills and all of this knowledge that you have, it all has to be kind of pulled up and present so that you can assess and intervene and read the moment and know when to say something and when not to, or when an intervention makes sense and when it doesn’t, right?

[00:20:20] That is very much deep work, but

[00:20:22] there’s a distinction between that deep work and hard work, and I think what we do in private practice and in business is if you set yourself up for hard work, so it’s work that you’re doing late into the night, it’s work that you’re doing on a Saturday morning so that you’re not having time with your kids, right?

[00:20:38] It’s like those extra sessions that you’re doing at the end of the day when you’re already beyond your capacity. That is what causes burnout. I don’t actually

[00:20:46] think that it’s often like the actual work that folks are doing that causes the burnout. If it’s your zone of genius and you love it, chances are it’s

[00:20:54] feeding you, but if you’re setting it up, so you’re seeing too many clients, right,

[00:20:59] or you’re working hours that don’t work for you, that is what causes burnout. And that’s hard work. That’s making hard work conditions. It’s not actually the work itself that is causing the burnout.

[00:21:10] David: Yeah. I think that’s a really good point. I love that.

[00:21:13] Linzy: So another piece that occurred to me as we were talking earlier, as I mentioned about notes, right? Like how notes fit in…

[00:21:17] David: right. Yeah.

[00:21:20] Linzy: As we were talking about it, this has not occurred to me before, but notes are a real pain point for therapists. They hate notes. I hated notes when I was a therapist. I’ve had my own notes trauma where, you know, I have a hundred notes built up, and I’m like, “I’m never going to be done typing up these notes!” Right? And I have my own handwritten

[00:21:35] notes that are kind of like this like indecipherable, you know, scrawl and

[00:21:39] random words like dog that like only I know what that means. You know, but then you actually have to type them up and put them into a format that somebody else could understand. And something that I’m thinking about is I think that therapists tend to make notes, treat them like shallow work. We treat them like this admin work that is just like taking care of our duty, and it’s an afterthought. But if we did actually batch our notes at the end of a session where we’re still in the flow and that client

[00:22:04] is still top of mind, and all of those parts of you that were like on board to deliver treatment are still up, I think that is when notes can become deep work instead of

[00:22:16] hard work because we’re actually using our kind of full capacity that we’ve put online for that. Just type up what you did, finish it off. And then you’ve deferred yourself pain for later. This is what’s occurring to me because

[00:22:27] you do have flow when you’re in deep work. What do you think about that idea?

[00:22:31] David: Yeah, no, I really like that, which… So a couple thoughts. So many things kind of jumped to mind. But as you’re describing that, I’m almost like, wow, you know,does it make sense to almost reframe notes as not just some sort of administrative burden that you have to do, but like an opportunity for you like to really view it as this is part of

[00:22:50] the service I’m doing to the client… like a processing of it, and like creating something of value I think that’s, yeah, that’s just really interesting to think about. And oh, by the way, just as an aside, therapists aren’t like the only ones that don’t like notes. Like financial planners also have to compile notes after meetings, right?

[00:23:07] That’s you just… You need to memorialize the stuff…

[00:23:09] Linzy: Yes. Yes.

[00:23:10] David: To better serve the clients, and like I’ve actually spent a lot of time trying to figure out a way to make note taking both efficient and impactful, and i’m definitely not done… I think it’s a really actually rich area for development, but like the other thing that I think about is like, again, the concept of boundaries and balance because if you’re doing a 50 minute session, and you’ve got back to back sessions at the top of every hour… and I know this is can be so challenging because sometimes I struggle with it, too, but boundaries around when the session has to end, right? Because like you protect that 10 minutes of time to give you, you know, give you time to do the notes and maybe have a bio break and all

[00:23:50] these things, or maybe, you know, it just doesn’t really work for you to have sessions starting at the top of every hour, hour after hour, again. And so obviously there’s some implications to how you run your practice, or run your business that way, and then there’s financial implications to these decisions as well, but yeah, it’s really interesting and I think… Yeah, I always hate to see that happen to people like when they’ve got weeks worth of notes building up because I know a similar stressor, and it’s just like this overhang on your life, and it’s not fun at all.

[00:24:22] Linzy: Note pain is a special kind of pain, and I can tell it’s a pain because I’ve seen a few folks in the therapist, coach space offer different supports for note writing, so I’m like, yeah, people are trying to, offer supports here because it is something that happens so much, but yeah, that boundary piece is so important.

[00:24:36] And you know, when I think about the work that therapists and health practitioners do, something that I think about is if they really valued the work that they were doing, kind of in the way that it sounds like you’ve developed valuing your own expertise and skills, like where you have that autoresponder, where you’re like, these are some really important things that I do to let me do my work

[00:24:53] well; therefore, I’m not going to spend all my time on email. If a therapist can really realize wow, it takes a lot of cognitive and emotional energy to be able to do what I do. Like it’s really like a flow state that I get into, and I need to

[00:25:06] be able to take care of myself and ground between sessions, and if I can do my note at the end of the session, it flows. Cause I know that for myself, it was always true. there’s always that little interruption where you’re like ending the session with somebody. And for me, I would always like… when I was doing in person sessions, have the person walk over to my desk, you know, do the payment transaction, say okay, next Tuesday at 2 is still good.

[00:25:25] Great. See you then. But if I can just stay at my desk and finish that note, then I’ve closed it off, but I always gave myself 15 minute breaks between sessions. So it’s like, if I have a session from 10 till, you know, 11, it’s actually only from 10 till 10:50. That last 10 minutes is that little admin exchange, some time for notes.

[00:25:47] And there’s a 15 minute buffer before my next session. So my next session is at 11:15. It wouldn’t actually be at 11:15 because lunch is sacred, but I’m just using this as an example.

[00:25:54] David: Right. Yeah.

[00:25:56] Linzy: But I think part of it is that I was able to recognize like, Shit, this is like really crazy work that I do, and it takes so much bandwidth.

[00:26:04] And if you think about your work in a quality over quantity way, and if you can set up your fee to support you in actually doing the quantity that you can sustain so you can give the quality that you want, then both you and your client benefit immensely from you really valuing your service.

[00:26:20] David: Well said. Yeah, exactly.

[00:26:22] Linzy: Thank you. Yes. So let’s talk a little bit about our own practices of deep work, because I know this is something that you’ve integrated into your work. You were mentioning that today, sometimes it doesn’t always look exactly how you want to.

[00:26:33] But tell me about what you’ve really found works for you in terms of having a deep work practice.

[00:26:38] David: Yeah, so for me,I’m a morning person. So, you know, early to bed, early to rise is just sort of the way that I’m hardwired and just like fully accepting that has made life a lot easier. And what I used to do is I’d sort of wake up, roll over, grab the phone. Look at like the New York Times, check the email…

[00:26:55] Linzy: Same, same, same.

[00:26:56] David: Yeah. And it’s just Oh, but that’s I’m just waking up, like I’m trying to ease myself into the day, but I just felt like that was reactive, right? I wasn’t controlling what was coming into me. So, and I just felt like that could put me in a bad mood or a good mood, but it just… it was haphazard.

[00:27:11] Like it was just kind of out of control. And so eventually what I started doing is every day when I wake up and I do a lot on my phone, which, you know, maybe isn’t the best, but it works for me for right now. I don’t do this every morning, but most mornings I’ll wake up and the first thing that I read is I just have a list of daily reminders.

[00:27:28] And they’re just like little inspirational quotes that I’ve picked up. It’s not necessarily focus on what tasks I need to accomplish but it’s more kind of mindset and just like reminding myself of the importance of deep work and just like the importance of resilience and just stuff like that, so just like that’s the first thing I want entering sort of my psyche for the day of kind of putting me in a good mind space.

[00:27:47] And then, you know, I have some coffee, like I get up, but like the first thing I do is just like, I don’t check email at all. Like I get up and then the night before I’ve identified, you know, what is the most… I pick one of the most impactful pieces of deep work that I need to do, and then I usually have three a day or something like that’s a general…

[00:28:07] And then I pick the one that I least want to do, or that I feel the most resistance around, and I try to do that one first.

[00:28:13] I don’t always do this, but when I do, I find that it makes my whole day go so much better, because I’ve done the difficult thing. And what I usually…

[00:28:22] Linzy: That’s the eat a frog strategy, right?

[00:28:24] David: Yes, exactly right. Eat the frog. Yeah, I don’t know where that comes from. It was just like, I think the idea was like, if you eat a frog first thing in the day, you’ve already done the worst possible thing.

[00:28:32] Linzy: Everything else is easier.

[00:28:34] Yeah, unless you’re French. Christelle, who works for us, is French. She’s from France. So she calls it eating the toad, because they do eat frogs in France.

[00:28:42] David: Fair enough.

[00:28:42] Linzy: got to eat the toad. Do the thing you don’t want to do first. Same is true, I think, for folks who ice plunge.

[00:28:47] I’ve heard of people who, you do that first thing in the day, and you’re like, everything else after this, easy peasy. Already did the hard thing.

[00:28:52] David: Yeah, exactly. But that’s what I try to do. And then after that, so like after I’ve kind of accomplished that win… And by the way, I usually discover that the task that I wanted to avoid, or I found intimidating, or whatever, like it actually wasn’t that big of a deal. Like usually that’s the discovery.

[00:29:10] And that’s empowering as well. It’s just kind of like, oh, well that’s good to know. I can do anything now! But then I have very dedicated times where I check email, you know. So I have my morning sort of deep work session. Then I’ll go exercise, or take the dog for a walk, or do something like that, so like I’m taking care of my physical body as well. And giving myself a break, by the way. And then I come back and then it’s okay to check email, but when I check the email… As I say this, some of this is aspirational.

[00:29:37] I’m so grateful to be having this conversation because I’m reminding myself of what my intentions are and there’s a little bit of… Yeah, there’s a little bit of deviation in my current reality from what the ideal is, but that just happens, right? That’s what it means to be human. So, at any rate, at the beginning of the day and right at the end of the day.

[00:29:54] So that’s shallow work, sort of like at the margins of the day, or at least during normal kind of business hours after I’ve had that morning deep work session. And then the rest of… the middle of the day, it can be client meetings. it can be deep work for clients. and of course it also has to, you know, for me too, has to be deep work around marketing and learning marketing and figuring all that type of stuff out.

[00:30:13] Because that’s also… You know, it’s important, but it can be difficult.

[00:30:16] Linzy: Nice. And I’m curious, what have you found that is different for you since you’ve been implementing these strategies, even if not to perfection, since you have these intentions and you’ve created these blocks? What have you noticed has changed for you?

[00:30:28] David: A number of things, but one of the biggest is that my levels of stress and anxiety have gone down because it’s, I’ve developed a practice of doing that eat the frog work. So it’s just like I’m building that habit, or like the muscle memory almost, of doing hard things, and just like that internal confidence of just yeah, I can do hard things.

[00:30:48] I do it all the time. But also just by being intentional and putting these blocks of deep work in place, you know, it’s proactive. It’s not reactive. And so I’m identifying, every week, what are the most impactful things to really move my business forward, and to really improve the lives of my clients? So I’m doing those things and there’s just like… I’ve just noticed less mental noise about: “Oh, but you need to be thinking about this, and you need to be doing that!” It’s just “Okay, I have a system, and these things are moving.” And I think the other thing that I’ve noticed, and I think this is a pretty universal experience is that Sometimes things take longer, well often things take longer than you think they are going to or maybe they should.

[00:31:27] But also I’m discovering that when I look back on the week or the month or the quarter, it’s like, actually, some of this stuff doesn’t take as much time and effort as I thought it would to get the results that I want. it’s really interesting to be like, oh, that was a big scary thing that I had to figure out.

[00:31:45] It actually wasn’t that bad when I just sort of broke it up into manageable chunks.

[00:31:50] Linzy: Yes. Yeah. And I think that’s true. It’s almost like that thing of the days are long, but life is short…

[00:31:55] The individual tasks can take longer than we plan. But if you’re actually doing those tasks and like doing the top priority things and getting them done,

[00:32:03] David: Yeah.

[00:32:04] Linzy: The impact that they have can come a lot faster than you might anticipate.

[00:32:07] David: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. You said it better than I did, but yeah, exactly, the impact. It’s oh, wow, look at these things that are actually happening now! That’s so cool.”

[00:32:15] Linzy: Yes. So I want to share about my practices as well because they’re not as

[00:32:20] intentional of yours because I have a five year old, too. So different life

[00:32:23] scenario, right? So I am also early to bed, early rise because my son thinks that five o’clock is a reasonable time to get up in the morning. And some mornings he sleeps until seven, and that’s a beautiful gift. But this morning he woke up at… maybe today was 5:20. Yesterday at 5:08, he decided to wake me up to tell me that if I was… I’ll never be lost because he’ll always be there for me. I was like, that’s very sweet. Thank you so much.

[00:32:44] David: That is sweet.

[00:32:44] Linzy: Can we please go back to sleep? He did not go back to sleep. He didn’t go back to sleep at all. He was up for the day. So I’ve had to plan my life around that reality, right? Which is if

[00:32:52] I don’t go to sleep early, I’m going to be woken up early. Even if my partner does get up with our son, or I set him up with his tablet and he watches

[00:33:00] Netflix for the first little bit. I’m still being woken up early in the morning. So I build that in, but what I used to do is exactly what you’re describing. I had the exact same routine. New York Times, email. And when I…

[00:33:11] When my email was on my phone, which it’s not anymore, is I have four different email accounts with Gmail, and I found myself compulsively… I’ll just pick up my phone and I’ll just flip between all four accounts. I check all four inboxes within a matter of seconds. There’s literally no reason for me to do that because first of all,

[00:33:30] our hello at email for hello at money nuts and bolts is not mine. I don’t manage it.

[00:33:35] It’s Christelle’s. She’s in charge of it. So even if I see something there, it’s hers to take care of. And she’ll let me know if she needs something from me. My private practice email is basically inactive. I only get marketing emails or like angry emails from my college when I forget to update my dues soon enough.

[00:33:51] My personal email, almost nothing happens. And then my business email, I’m not going to answer if I’m not in work hours anyways. But I found that I developed this compulsive almost tick of I don’t know what to do… Suddenly my phone is in my hand, and I’m flipping through my Gmails compulsively.

[00:34:05] So I used to do that in the morning, even though I’ve probably never sent an email from bed in my life. And then I would read the New York Times, which was extremely depressing. I’m not even American. I can do nothing about anything else in your country, but I developed a real news addiction, and sometimes I’d lie in bed…

[00:34:21] I have a timer on the New York Times and other news apps. Sometimes I might even read the news for 45 minutes before I got out of bed, and all I’m doing is

[00:34:28] delaying starting my day, feeding my body, spending time with my family, taking care of myself. There’s this story that it’s a break, and I’m like, easing into the day as you said. That is definitely not what it was for me. That’s not what I was actually

[00:34:42] doing. I think I was delaying getting up. And I think for me it’s a remnant from some periods of depression that I went through during COVID, and some things that happened in my personal life during COVID, I kind of developed this habit, and like, COVID, it wasn’t very exciting to get up because every day is the same.

[00:34:55] What are you going to do? And it was kind of left over. So, now, Digital Minimalism, Cal Newport’s other book, which I haven’t read, but it’s part of his course, I’ve gotten rid of… No news apps on my phone. No Gmail, no Instagram, no Facebook. And sometimes if things notify me, I’m like, “Oh, yeah. You get out of here, too.”

[00:35:13] My phone is very boring. I’ve made it very boring. And that’s been extremely helpful for me in terms of deep work, but also just my own mental space, as you say, like I now phone

[00:35:26] doesn’t have anything to give me. I also had a little game I used to play in the evening, this little scavenger hunt game.

[00:35:30] It was very cute. But I just wasted time. Because what I’ve actually found is setting myself up in the day to have periods of time. So I do deep work on Tuesday mornings and Wednesday mornings, right? I have a fairly large team at this point. So I have a lot of folks to communicate with, but those are the mornings where I have deep work time, and they’re also starting to implement deep work time.

[00:35:48] Like our new marketing coordinator. I’m like, you’re an artist. Please, don’t feel like you have to us.

[00:35:52] Go off and make gorgeous things.

[00:35:54] It feels so good to actually make time to do the important things and get them done. It just calms my whole body to see myself making progress. And it feels in some way, too, like a coming home to myself, where I’m just really honest with myself about what actually makes me feel good?

[00:36:09] What is important to me? Like where do I want to grow as a person? And actually nurturing those things rather than this constant reactive relationship with like email, and relationship with my phone, relationship with my work. Because something I’ve saying to my team, which I got from Deep Work and Digital Minimalism, is that we are not emergency workers. We do not provide emergency services.

[00:36:20] David: Yes.

[00:36:28] Linzy: If we get an email in the inbox, even for Christelle, it’s her inbox. So far, we’ve never gotten an email saying there’s an intruder in my house. Please call 9 1 1, and this is the address, Right, that’s not what we do. We’re not a crisis line, right? We’re not an emergency service.

[00:36:41] And so, there’s actually no reason that we all have to have our nervous systems primed for danger by checking our inboxes constantly. That’s

[00:36:49] not the kind of work that we do. Right? And so that has been really helpful for me to really settle into and trying to help my team settle into it too, of we actually have like much larger purposes to serve. And it’s so much better for our business, for us to be like really sinking in and like building this new course or like, finding ways for other folks to find us so they can take the course or find the podcast.

[00:37:08] That is having such a bigger impact in our life than replying to this particular email in four hours instead of 20 minutes.

[00:37:15] David: Right, yeah.

[00:37:16] Linzy: It doesn’t make any difference. It doesn’t make any difference. So those are some like big things that I have found, but certainly for me implementing like the mix of deep work with like really taking my tasks seriously and taking my own growth seriously and scheduling that week, combining that with like Digital Minimalism.

[00:37:31] And another part of that too, I will say is, Cal Newport has this phone foyer concept, which totally brings me back to my own house in the eighties when I was a child. So when I was a child,

[00:37:41] the phone was up on the wall, it had a coil phone cord. There was a stool in front of it, which now lives in my kitchen.

[00:37:49] I now have that stool. And I remember my mom sitting on the stool, talking on the phone because that’s where the phone lived. Like you go to the phone to use the phone doesn’t come with you. And one of the things that

[00:37:59] has really stuck out to me is this idea of your phone is not your companion. Like we don’t need to carry our phone all over the house. Again. I’m not on call. I’m not a first responder. My brother is a first responder. You know, he does have to do emergency rescue calls. He should have his phone nearby. That’s just not my

[00:38:13] life. And I have found leaving my phone in one spot in my house has allowed me to actually start just being present in my life.

[00:38:20] David: Yeah, so cool.

[00:38:21] Linzy: It’s been transformative for me, especially along

[00:38:25] with the deep work practices, because what it means is if I’m sitting on the couch and I don’t know what to do, I can’t just look at my phone. I actually have to decide:

[00:38:33] what do I actually want to do? Oh, my son wants to do tie dye?

[00:38:36] I had an experience where my son wanted to make tie dye. We had these leftover tie dye packets. He’s like, let’s make tie dye. And I was like, we don’t really have time. And then I was thinking, well, what else are we doing? Cause usually what I would say to him is we don’t really have time.

[00:38:46] You have to go to bed soon. I would scroll on my phone for a while. He would watch his tablet, and then I would get him ready for bed. Instead, because I don’t have this crutch of my phone anymore. I was like, let’s do tie dye. And turns out tie dye only takes 20 minutes.

[00:38:59] David: Yeah, interesting.

[00:39:00] Linzy: We did tie dye a weeknight. We had this fun experience together. He was making a mess, but I was just focusing on him, so I could just clean up. We made this cool

[00:39:08] thing. He was really happy. We had this nice experience. He went to bed. It was like such a better Tuesday evening than I would have had doing the scavenger hunt game on my phone.

[00:39:17] David: Right. Yeah. I mean, that’s so powerful. And as I hear us talking, I’m just reminded of the fact that this is such counter cultural stuff that we’re talking about. this isn’t just folks we know. It’s not just therapists, right? This is our whole culture. Like this is how everyone just sort of lives… Not everyone. But this is the dominant cultural practice of distraction, and phone as companion. And yeah, just this automatic habit of I’m bored, or I have an instant where I don’t know what to do next, and so I just open my phone and let the lights distract me.

[00:39:48] I’m just remembering that one thing my partner has recently done is you can enable the phone… I forget what it’s called, but you can turn it into sort of like black and white mode, so it’s just less engaging. Okay. 

[00:39:58] Linzy: I do that. 

[00:40:01] David: Do you?

[00:40:02] Linzy:  It looks so boring. It’s great. Thinking then about, you know, what we’re talking about, kind of deep work. Talking a little bit of digital minimalism in the mix to make room to just be present, and

[00:40:11] money. How do you see deep work intersecting with finances, and money, and the kind of stuff that we help therapists with?

[00:40:18] David: Yeah. Well, I think that, you know, money work is deep work, especially in the beginning. I mean, there’s… once you get used to it and you get your system set up, there are certain things that can become shallow work. And that’s kind of part of the goal almost. You want it to be easy to accomplish and engage with.

[00:40:36] But in the beginning, it is very much deep work because there’s so much learning that needs to take place of just familiarizing yourself, even doing exposure therapy with yourself and some of your money stuff. Because emotions do jump up when we touch money, whether it’s money in our practices or money in our personal life. And one thing that I really encourage folks to do, I call them kind of like money dates, which is a term I borrowed from someone, but just having a dedicated time every week.

[00:41:05] And I think really, at least every week, I want to say, like to develop the habit of engaging with your finances in some way, shape, or form. And that really… Those money dates are really meant to be kind of exploratory and curiosity driven, so it’s not really a time to do your bookkeeping per se. But it’s a time to learn different ways to do your bookkeeping or to learn about different software applications that you might consider using for your bookkeeping, just as an example. But there is always so much to be learned in the financial world, and I think it’s just important to dedicate time to it, and just understand that everyone has to learn this stuff.

[00:41:43] Most folks aren’t going to be taught it in any type of structured educational setting. So it’s really just upon us to kind of figure it out ourselves. And obviously there’s folks like you and me that help people navigate this. But we can’t really do the work for you. You know, like we can help guide you.

[00:42:02] But there’s always going to be some work that has to be done by yourself. That’s just for the nature of it.

[00:42:07] Linzy: Yeah, there’s like the learning work that kind of building new, you know, neuropathways, and then there’s also the emotional work of dealing with your own emotional landscape as you’re doing this

[00:42:16] work. And I was thinking the exact same thing earlier in our conversation, because I did have this little side thought of like, is money work deep work, or shallow work? And I completely agree with you. I think that when we start dealing with our finances, and we start looking at our money stories and trying to make big financial plans, and think about our goals. That is deep work for sure.

[00:42:33] That is work that is going to benefit from you taking an hour to be with it, to do some reading, and deep work can involve other people. It could be talking with your partner about what do we want, what’s important to us.

[00:42:43] You know, like what do we want our money to do for us and our family this year? You know, what experiences do we want to have? What goals? So, definitely deep work. But I have the same goal as you, which is that eventually I want there to be shallow work aspects because folks have locked in their systems, and they’ve locked in their goals, and they’ve done that deeper work and they’re like, “Oh, I just need

[00:43:03] to update my spreadsheet,” or Oh, I just need to send my money over to my investments. Like I do every, you know, 28th of the month.” And now it’s just become a little task that you do that might take literally three minutes instead of this like deep, wait, what does that mean? Well, what’s happening right now? Taking all of that weight out of it is a goal. And then of course, there’s always going to be other things for you to learn about.

[00:43:23] David: Yep.

[00:43:24] Linzy: Mostly it should become something that’s kind of more automated, and doesn’t take a lot of energy.

[00:43:29] And then, you know, then you can use your deep work time and energy to learn other things or do other projects in your life.

[00:43:34] David: Yeah, I think that’s well said.

[00:43:36] Linzy: Something else I think about with Deep Work and money is I would argue that, and this is what Cal Newport does argue in the book, right, is like folks who take the time to get really good at something, to value their own learning and become experts in their area, that will have financial returns for you in any kind of business. In private

[00:43:54] practice, in businesses like ours, you know, where we’re helping folks with money in different ways. What I can see is if you are somebody who really takes the time to value your skills, that’s going to allow you to do better therapy, which is going to allow you to charge more per session or get off insurance if that’s a goal that you have, right?

[00:44:13] Or find other ways to reach folks, do deep work to build out a course, right? So that you can reach a thousand people with your lessons. If you don’t want to do premium work, reach a thousand people who pay you, like, 200 each, right? Like that kind of work definitely creates opportunity for positive financial returns in a business.

[00:44:32] David: Absolutely. No matter whether you’re a therapist or a financial planner or any other profession in this world, it’s easy to worry about what’s happening, what’s AI going to do, is our job going to be stolen or what, you know… Who knows what’s going to happen? We can’t predict the future.

[00:44:45] But what I really believe, and I think Cal Newport argues this in the book, too, it’s just if you can get really good at deep work, which is learning how to do new things, and get really good at solving complex problems or difficult problems, the nature of your work might evolve as the world evolves, but if you are really good at learning and really good at solving complex problems, Like you’re always going to have a marketable skill, whatever that looks like. So who knows what your business evolves into who knows what the world

[00:45:14] evolves into… but if you can develop this deep work skill, I think you’re always going to be in a good spot to respond thoughtfully to the world as it is.

[00:45:25] Linzy: Yeah. You become indispensable.

[00:45:28] David: Exactly. Yep.

[00:45:28] Linzy: I think another Cal Newport book… Cal Newport should be here. I should have just invited him to come talk to us.

[00:45:33] David: Yeah, we should!

[00:45:33] Linzy: But it’s I think it’s, something like So Good They Can’t Deny You, or something like that…

[00:45:37] There’s another book that he has, which is basically making this argument, and it’s a quote from Steve Martin, but it’s be so good that you’re undeniable. Be undeniable. Really hone a skill so clearly that you are just known for this, in your city, in your state, in your area of expertise.

[00:45:53] If you’re a perinatal therapist, take the time to take yourself seriously and be, like, an incredible perinatal therapist, you know, that a bunch of other therapists look up to, right? And so, we all

[00:46:02] have that opportunity, but I think that’s another piece. And as we’re talking, I’m just thinking now, David, about how as I’m, you know, kind of moving into the Cal Newport world, it’s a lot of men. A lot of men are in that space.

[00:46:13] Right?

[00:46:13] David: Interesting.

[00:46:14] Linzy: I think that… I don’t think, I know that men are socialized to take their gifts more seriously and to believe that they do have gifts to share with the world. And something that I see with the folks that I support, like with women and marginalized folks and queer folks, is

[00:46:27] they’re generally socialized to believe that they don’t have gifts, right? And that they don’t have something special to offer the world.

[00:46:33] And what I want to say to folks who are listening is you know, as David was saying, like it is counter cultural to do these things, but it’s also especially counter cultural for women and marginalized folks to do these things, to take yourself seriously, and take your gifts seriously and build a schedule that actually allows you to hone your gifts.

[00:46:50] And like, where you’re really owning your learning and your gifts. That is, kind of not what you’re supposed to be doing in these marginalized positions. But I have to say,

[00:46:59] most of the therapists that I meet are brilliant. They’re brilliant people, but they don’t recognize that gift in themselves.

[00:47:05] Do you notice that working with therapists, like them not recognizing the value of what they offer?

[00:47:10] David: You know, sometimes, but I think it’s definitely out there, and I suffer from that, too, sometimes, you know, as well. I, I think, yeah, a lot of folks do. As you said that, I was like, oh yeah, like that’s so important, and what jumps out to me is just this: build your community. Get people around you to remind you of this fact because I struggle with it, too, and sometimes I’m just like, oh god, like I’m a cis white male, like I should be…

[00:47:32] Linzy: Yeah.

[00:47:32] David: Like I should have this down pat, and like in a lot of ways, like I have, there’s a lot of privilege behind that, like I am gay as well, so there is that, that The factor and so sometimes i’m like, yeah, like it’s just when you said that i’m like gosh for so long like… what like… where did that come from?

[00:47:46] Like why do I think that way? And I’ve done a lot of work recently to really shift that narrative, but like community, and having people to talk to has been so important in that. And a therapist too, by the way. A therapist, but also a community.

[00:47:59] Linzy: Also, we love therapists. Yes.

[00:48:01] Yeah, And I agree. I think for myself, I have built a network of friends who are all across North America. Nobody’s even in my province or my country,

[00:48:10] but I have found that network of folks who are all women who do recognize my brilliance. I recognize theirs.

[00:48:17] We lift each other up. We encourage each other. We just kind of reflect back the best in each other, and challenge each other, and I think that is essential is to have folks who are going to support you to be your best self,

[00:48:28] right? Not folks who might be unconsciously wanting you to just be a helper to them, or stay small for whatever relational reason you might have between you.

[00:48:35] So Yeah. That’s a very powerful point as well. So David, thank you for coming.

[00:48:41] David: Yeah. Thank you!

[00:48:41] Linzy: Thank you for nerding out about Cal Newport and Deep Work with me. For folks who are listening who want to get further into your world, where can they find you and follow you?

[00:48:50] David: Yeah, the best place is probably to visit my website, which is turningpointhq.com. So HQ, like the abbreviation for headquarters, turningpointhq.com. I’m also… one of my deep work goals for this year is getting more into social media, which also sounds… That sounds a little counterintuitive, but social media is not something that I am very familiar with.

[00:49:09] So I’m on LinkedIn, LinkedIn is my big space. So you can find me there under David W. Frank, if you want. But there’s links to all that on my website as well.

[00:49:17] Linzy: Yes. And I think, just to be fair, social media can be deep work when you’re really like getting into that creation and strategy

[00:49:24] piece of it. It’s just the checking of it that can be distracting, but you can batch that.

[00:49:27] David: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. Batch it.

[00:49:30] Linzy: Awesome. Thank you, David.

[00:49:32] David: Yeah. Thank you. This has been so fun.

[00:49:49] Linzy: I feel like my conversation with David could have been twice as long, and after we stopped recording we continued to talk for a little while about some of the ideas about learning and, you know, how much learning we’re capable of… There’s a lot to talk about when we start to dig into creating space in your life to do

[00:50:05] work that is meaningful and satisfying and makes a big difference. So, I really appreciate David coming on the podcast today to dig into something that I’ve been very passionate about that I’ve seen make a huge difference in my own business. And if you’re curious about Deep Work, these are not our ideas.

[00:50:19] We’re talking about Cal Newport’s ideas. You can check him out. As David mentioned, he is a computers professor, a world that I know nothing about, who’s written Deep Work, and Digital Minimalism, and several other books basically all make arguments around how we use our time and how we use our minds is important.

[00:50:38] And when we’re intentional about how we use our time and our minds, we can do really meaningful, satisfying work and make a big difference in our fields, and everybody listening, you know, you are an expert in your own focus area of your practice. If your niche, you know, you’ve got your modality, you’ve got your lived experiences, you’ve got your skills that you’ve built.

[00:50:58] And I would really encourage you to think about how you could build more time into your week to really take your own learning and growth seriously. And those deeper tasks, those things that take focus, give yourself that gift of focus to work on your business and let yourself learn and be really great at the things that you love and that you’re already really great at.

[00:51:19] You can follow me on Instagram at money, nuts and bolts. And as always, I do really appreciate your reviews on Apple Podcasts. So if you’re enjoying the podcast, if you could jump over to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review, sharing your favorite episode, what you enjoy about the podcast, the impact that it’s had for you.

[00:51:37] It is the best way for other therapists and health practitioners to find us and be part of these conversations. Thanks for listening today.