[00:00:00] Karen: So our self-care also needs to be in our workday. And I think it also needs to be something that is very intentional and dynamic because our situations change, right? In so many ways and if we aren’t kind of monitoring that and adapting our self-care based on our changing needs, we’re also going to struggle.

[00:00:26] 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.

[00:00:50] Linzy: Hello and welcome back to the podcast. Today we have two wonderful guests, Dr. Melissa Tiessen and Dr. Karen Dyck, and we are going to be digging into a very salient topic of self-care in private practice and how that intersects with money, but before we get into that, I wanted to share a wonderful review I just received. It was so lovely that I wanted to share it with everyone. This review on Apple Podcast shares, empowering, enlightening, inspiring.

[00:01:19] They say, after months of floundering and feeling like things were spiraling out of control, I stumbled across this podcast. It has been life changing. Listening to Linzy and her excellent guests has helped me find my confidence, get clear on my budget, and set realistic goals for clinical growth. I recommended the show to so many colleagues and will certainly be signing up for her course in the future.

[00:01:39] Linzy, thank you for being a bright light of hope to all the therapists and health practitioners you reach. That review was from Therapist Tea in Canada. Thank you so much for that really beautiful five star review. It’s very moving, to hear how the podcast is impacting you and, I so appreciate you taking the time to share that review so other folks can find the podcast.

[00:02:00] So back to today’s episode topic.

[00:02:03] So today on this episode with Dr. Karen Dyck and Dr. Melissa Tiessen, we are talking about self-compassion in private practice. We talked today about some of the occupational hazards that come specifically with being therapists, and the life hazards that come with being women. How these things intersect and combine to make us really vulnerable to, self-sacrifice and burnout and not practicing self-care.

[00:02:28] Melissa and Karen share their revised definition of self-care and what it means for therapists specifically. The importance of thinking about self-care differently as therapists, and when we do self-care, and how we do self-care. And then they share about their specific framework for self-care, the four Cs, which is this very rich framework.

[00:02:47] I mentioned at the end we probably could have done a single episode on each component of their four C frameworks. There’s just so much here to dig into and explore around this ever important topic of therapists and our self-sacrifice and our need to take way better care of ourselves.

[00:03:05] Here is my conversation with Dr. Karen Dyck and Dr. Melissa Tiessen.

[00:03:19] So Karen and Melissa, welcome to the podcast.

[00:03:24] Karen: Thanks.

[00:03:24] Melissa: Thank you, Linzy. We’re so happy to be here with you.

[00:03:27] Linzy: I am so happy to have you here as well. We share something in common, which is that we are Canadians in like the therapist consulting space. There are not as many of us, which is generally like a fact in the world compared to the United States, our closest neighbor. There’s just less of us.

[00:03:41] So it’s always nice to meet folks in the Canadian space who are doing this work with therapists. And before we dig in today, I’d love for you two to tell us a little bit about the work that you two do together with Canadian therapists.

[00:03:53] Melissa: So my name’s Karen Dyck. I’m a clinical psychologist. I’m in private practice,outside Winnipeg, Manitoba in Canada. So, I do have a private practice where I provide mostly assessments and also therapy. Melissa and I met each other actually through a psychology residency.

[00:04:11] Karen: So I was actually Melissa’s supervisor many, many, many years ago, and I had the good fortune of staying in touch with Melissa over the years, and I guess maybe in about 2018, she and I decided we wanted to do something a little different. And in our conversations we realized that in all the work we had done and with the mental health clinicians that we’ve worked with, self-care seemed to be a topic that many of us were struggling with.

[00:04:40] Linzy: Whether we kind of named it or not,there was lots of evidence, I think, to us that it was a struggle for us at some times, and definitely a struggle for other womenclinicians that we worked with. And so that led to our development of Intentional Therapist. So then your focus is self care for therapists specifically. Is that what you really zoom in on when you’re doing the support work with therapists?

[00:05:04] Melissa: Yeah, and particularly female therapists and it’s not of course, because male therapists don’t have to pay attention to their self care.

[00:05:12] They do as well, uh, we all do regardless of gender identification, but we really thought that it was important to focus specifically on female

[00:05:21] therapists, at least in the resources that we were developing, just because we do think that there are some factors that are unique to those of us who identify as female,

[00:05:30] in this profession. Especially as we have continued in this work over the past few years, we definitely see how a lot of the things that we talk about can apply to male and female therapists equally, but we just especially love to speak to the females in the room.

[00:05:46] Linzy: Absolutely, it’s the same when you niche in a private practice, right? Like you name your niche and you’re like, this is who I’m really good at serving. Like if you are this person, I’m going to show up and do mind blowing work with you, but also that work also often applies to other folks, too, right?

[00:05:59] But people can self identify. When they’re like, what you do also speaks to me and sometimes I’ll have folks reach out and they’re like, what you do also speaks to me. Is that okay? Am I allowed to be here? I’m doing a workshop series right now and we got a lovely email yesterday from somebody who’s participating and she was like, I’m a veterinarian, and I have a behavioral practice, but what you’re doing really speaks to me.

[00:06:17] So is it okay if I’m here? And so we are always going to like, have folks who are like. What you’re doing still really speaks to me. It’s not surprising to me that you’re going to have men and maybe non-binary folks who are also resonating with your message, but I’m hearing that specific passion is serving women around these things, which I can relate to,as a woman and a therapist.

[00:06:34] So let’s stick in to the money piece. Of course, this Being a Money podcast, how do you see money and finances and self-care intersecting?

[00:06:43] Melissa: Well, obviously, we’re speaking to the choir right now. I mean, it’s foundational on a very obvious level to start. The more money you have, the more means you have to take care of yourself and your needs, nevermind your wants, the easier it’s going to be to do the things that are so important to take good care of ourselves, and that’s in the stereotypical sense of like treating yourself

[00:07:05] kinds of self-care but of course, what we are talking about when we’re talking about self-care goes far beyond the stereotypical things of massages or bubble baths or spa days.

[00:07:16] It’s really about how are we taking care of ourselves, both outside of and within our work, and especially for therapists in private practice, of course, how we are setting our fees, how we’re setting our schedule that is just so integral to our own personal wellbeing. So if we’re not paying attention to finances, particularly as a therapist in private practice, but even therapists who aren’t in private practice, this still very much applies… If we’re not paying attention to finances.it’s just going to have such a huge domino

[00:07:49] effect for all of the other ways in which we can or can’t take good care of ourselves, which, of course, is then going to influence the quality of services that we’re ultimately going to be able to provide to our clients.

[00:08:00] Linzy: Absolutely, and that last piece,that you mentioned Melissa,is interesting ’cause when I first started talking about this with therapists… that like, if you’re not taking care of yourself and your money, it does impact your work, it feels a little bit mean, almost, like a mean call out because we do pride ourselves so much on giving good service

[00:08:16] but that is one of those things too that I find can also help people get hooked into the importance of this work. If you’re not taking care of yourself financially,if you haven’t set up your practice in a way that is financially sustainable, if you’re working like crazy, working into the evenings, working hours that you know are not good for you, you’re not actually being your best therapist-self.

[00:08:35] And again, it feels mean ’cause I know that we pride ourselves so much in giving good service. And the last thing we ever want to think is that we’re giving sessions that are not the best that they can be and that we’re not showing up the way we want to for our clients but it, I would argue, is inevitable.

[00:08:49] If you’re not taking care of yourself financially and emotionally, you are not doing your best work with your clients.

[00:08:56] Karen: Absolutely and I think where gender can be so important just recognizing some of the messages women get through socialization.through our training, right? The idea about really working hard. I think all of us who went to,graduate school,or university, realized how grueling that was

[00:09:15] and I think we got used to that pace, and when we move into our profession, it’s just so easy to take that student mindset with us, which means doing with less, really working hard. And so I think it’s so easy to continue those patterns . And on top of that, women are certainly given the messages that we are caregivers

[00:09:38] and that we should just be doing this. So I think when we bring money into the situation, it can really muddy things and to top it all off, women also get messages about their time not being really as important as other people’s time . So I think with that it can be so easy for female therapists to organize their schedule around their client’s needs and what’s convenient for them.

[00:10:09] And that’s not to say there aren’t times when that makes perfect sense to do, but I think it’s so easy for women to fall into that pattern that is just what we’re doing on an ongoing basis, right. And I think that can influence our scheduling and it can influence how much we’re charging for our services.

[00:10:27] Linzy: And it’s not sustainable, right? Over time, that can lead to feelings of resentment and burnout. It really can create such significant challenges for therapists. Absolutely, like I think, there’s so many pieces in here that we could dig into, right? Like I’m thinking about just how emotional labor is valued, spoiler not valued,generally, right? And like women’s time and labor and then also I’m thinking about how. You know, I have this theory.

[00:10:54] I was joking yesterday at this workshop I was doing. I’m, you know, if folks can help me with my thesis that the vast majority of therapists have basically been helpers their entire lives, right? Like we were little therapists when we were five and when we were 10.

[00:11:06] And I often refer to the fact, the first time I had somebody call me a therapist, I was 12 years old. A friend was like, you know, you’re my therapist and I thought, like that’s bad.That’s not friendship, but you know, we were already playing that role for free for decades before we actually became therapists.

[00:11:20] So also that even just individually, that transition of thinking, like this thing that I’ve always done for free, and often at my own detriment, is actually valuable and not only should I be getting paid for it, but maybe I should be getting paid well and maybe I should really be thinking about when do I want to be delivering these services and when do I not?

[00:11:36] That’s a real huge mindset shift ’cause often in our identities we are helpers, and we’ve always been helpers.

[00:11:43] Karen: Absolutely Couldn’t agree with you more, Linzy, and again, right women primarily have really been socialized in that way to begin with, and I think you’re right. I, I suspect Melissa and I could both identify with, that we began our role as therapists when we were kids. Absolutely such important points, Linzy.

[00:12:01] Linzy: And I am curious, like digging into this problem a little bit more, what do you see happens for a therapist and female therapists specifically, when we are like living out this narrative, You know, when we’re not prioritizing our time ’cause there’s a narrative that our time is not really important or the work that we do is not really valuable.

[00:12:19] What starts to happen for therapists who are living that out?

[00:12:23] Melissa: So I think there’s such a range of things that can happen. And I think a lot of it actually relates to the imposter syndrome or imposter phenomenon that also tends to impact on women more frequently than men. And in fact, I think the phrase was first coined to describe high achieving women specifically.

[00:12:46] So it’s always had this association with women, and it really goes back to the things that Karen was just talking about because of women being socialized not to value their time in the same ways as men. And also because women do tend to undervalue what we have to offer and our skills,even though there’s lots of evidence to show that women are actually more effective in many domains in the workplace than men are, but we tend to have this belief that we’re not as effective.

[00:13:14] So that can absolutely bleed into our work as therapists as well. And so, it’s not necessarily going to start with feeling like an imposter, but I would say many of us probably go through grad school with some period of time of feeling like an imposter as well. Then never mind moving into your career. And even if you’re not kind of full-blown experiencing the effects of being concerned that other people are going to see you as a fraud, we’re just maybe going to start to question ourselves. And if we’re questioning ourselves, we’re maybe going to then start, thinking, oh, I need to really. prepare well for this presentation, or I need to really be super prepared for all of my client sessions. And, of course, we do want to be prepared for presentations and client sessions, but we maybe don’t need to be over prepared. We maybe don’t need to be spending hours and hours before and after the primary tasks of our jobs, particularly if that’s being driven by fear. And so, that is one thing that then is going to have a direct impact on our self-care abilities and energy if we’re spending all of this time on these other tasks that are maybe not actually serving us all that well. Other things, of course, and I think this one is so incredibly important… If we do then start to question ourselves and feel like, oh, I’m maybe not as good of a therapist as my

[00:14:38] therapist colleagues are, then we’re going to start playing the comparison game and then most potentially detrimental, we are not going to be willing to reach out to colleagues if we are struggling with something, whether it’s our finances or clinical issues.

[00:14:53] And that is going to have a huge impact on our self-concept, and thus our self-care, because then we’re going to start to feel even perhaps ashamed

[00:15:03] of things that we’re struggling with, but not even realizing that we are certainly not alone in any of those struggles, and that really is one of the biggest messages that we like to share, that none of us are alone if we are struggling with anything, whether it’s fees or documentation or just sort self-care in general. If people aren’t talking about it, that doesn’t mean that they’re not struggling with it.

[00:15:25] Linzy: Definitely.

[00:15:26] Melissa: Just means there’s all kinds of reasons that they’re afraid to talk about it.

[00:15:29] Linzy: Yeah that silence and isolation and I think private practice, too, as an industry, like if we just think about the model that we work within is inherently isolating already, right? Like we’re all sitting in our beautiful little space that we’ve carved out in some old century building or medical building in our inner home.

[00:15:46] I remember when I worked in my physical office location feeling hungry for just casual interactions with people because the way that my schedule worked, and the folks around me, I saw lots of health practitioners, they were kind of like in the building for the minimal viable amount of time.

[00:16:02] So they would show up 10 minutes before their clients; they would leave right away afterwards. They’re taking full advantage of that time, flexibility, power to them, but it means thatI didn’t have any colleagues around. So just that hunger for just any kind of like, connection with somebody on a non-professional basis…

[00:16:17] ‘Cause sometimes I would come to the end of the day and realize like, oh, I had four really great sessions today. Some really great, like, clinical conversations, but I haven’t actually just chatted with somebody, right. And just that,isolation so then you add, you know, these struggles on top of it.

[00:16:31] Yeah,we’re not even in a place where you might end up casually talking over lunch with a colleague about something that you’re struggling with,because you’re probably not running into a colleague. So, yeah, there’s an environmental factor there that makes it so much harder too.

[00:16:44] Karen: I think that’s so true. In our discussions with different clinicians, it’s really been interesting. To hear how many clinicians that we’ve spoken with identify four clients a day as kind of being in their zone where they feel really good, and they feel like they can still have kind of a life outside of work.

[00:17:06] They have the energy because I think it’s you know, one part of overscheduling and the financial wellbeing, it can affect us at work, but also right, it extends into our personal lives, and how much energy do we have after our day if we are really struggling to come to terms and accept the fact that we really do our best work when we have X number of clients a day. And I think it’s really hard for so many clinicians to accept again, because I think we often assume our colleagues are seeing many, many more clients a day and are able to do it without any detrimental effects to the quality of their therapy or the quality of their lives.But the more we’ve spoken with women, we’ve really, I mean, that four, seems to stand out a lot for people.

[00:18:00] Linzy:Yeah, it’s a magical number, I think for many people because I think another shift when you get into private practice is also it, when we’ve been in agencies, often we are overworked in agencies, right? Like their default is you start at 20. 20 weeks is like the minimum, right?

[00:18:15] And I’ll talk to folks who are seeing six or seven clients a day, and for some people that does work depending on your energy and your style of therapy, but I know for myself, Karen, thinking about that four, my max was four clients four days a week. I couldn’t actually do five, and I would pay for it massively

[00:18:31] whenever I tried to delude myself into thinking that I could see more than 16 a week, I would just be like exhausted at the end of the day and yeah, like the cost to our personal lives when we’re overextending ourself in this specific field, because the work that we do is so emotional and takes so much of that interpersonal energy.

[00:18:49] I think largely the cost is to our relationships,but also just to our ability to show up for ourselves. After work and actually think about: okay, now what do I need? Do I need to push myself to get that yoga class? Do I need to take out my watercolors and spend time with them? Do I need to call a friend?

[00:19:03] Like that takes a certain amount of energy to make yourself do it, but sometimes we’ve depleted helping other people think all day about what they really need. So it is like really this precious resource that we can easily use up when we overdo it in our clinical work.

[00:19:18] Melissa: Yeah, and I was just going to add Linzy, that I think, because sometimes the work that we do can almost seem effortless, right? It’s not always super draining. Sometimes there are some days, or at least maybe not the whole day, but some sessions where I come away and I think, I can’t believe I just got paid for that. Right,

[00:19:37] Linzy: Yes.

[00:19:39] Melissa: Because that felt so easy, but, of course, we all know that is not every single session. There are other sessions where then we start to question is this what we still want to be doing? And I think hopefully for most of us, most of our sessions are somewhere in between those two extremes but I think it’s also kind of sometimes easy to forget that what we are doing is incredibly valuable. It’s not something that just anybody off the street can do.

[00:20:10] And most importantly, we are our best tools, right? We all know what makes the biggest impact in therapy is not the specific approach that we’re using.

[00:20:20] It’s the quality of the therapeutic relationship. For that to be the best quality it can be, we have to be taking care of ourselves. We have to be willing to show up for ourselves. We have to be willing to address the things that are maybe kind of uncomfortable to address, like fees or hours or all the other things that are potentially uncomfortable.

[00:20:42] So I think it’s so, so really important to remember that, yes, what we do is about techniques, but at the base of it, it really is about who we are, right? Even if you’re not a humanistic therapist, well, sorry, you are.

[00:20:58] Linzy: Right?

[00:20:59] Melissa: because we, we all have to be, that is actually what our work is based on. So yeah, if we’re not attending to ourselves and our own needs. as Karen and I like to describe it. If we’re not thinking about how we’re putting ourselves into our schedules as well, then everything else is just going to be more challenging.

[00:21:21] Linzy: Right and you mentioned earlier, when we think about self-care, of course there’s the more typical things, the bubble baths. I mentioned yoga, that’s probably another stereotypical one actually. Tell me, How do you define self-care? The kind of self-care we need to be thinking about as therapists.

[00:21:35] Karen: Yeah, so I think Melissa and I really,believe that self-care means putting ourselves into our schedule. It means,doing more,I guess deeper types of self-care, and particularly ones that are really well aligned with our profession because,there are hazards of our profession, certain stressors that,a massage, a pedicure, those really aren’t going to be effective.

[00:22:02] So our self-care also needs to be in our workday because I think so often when people do talk about self-care, it’s about things that we do outside our office and after our workday. And it’s not that those can’t be, a valuable part of our self-care, but if we’re doing those, and not really looking at our workday,

[00:22:23] I just can’t see us being particularly successful at taking good care of ourselves. And I think it also needs to be something that is very intentional and dynamic because our situations change, right? In so many ways. Our career stage, our family circumstances, other caregiving roles, our health. And if we aren’t

[00:22:48] kind of monitoring that and adapting our self-care based on our changing needs, we’re also going to struggle. So I think we really like to see it in a much, much broader sense. And it’s so important again that the self-care strategies are aligned with our profession and are part of our workday and I think that piece often gets missed. And women in particular, I think are so often kind of fed these more commodified versions of self-care and interestingly, often things that kind of focus on our appearance, right? Like manicures,pedicures, and that’s fine, right? If that is something that gives you some enjoyment, please keep doing those. And yet I know that those things in and of itself I don’t think are actually going to address the workplace stressors that we all just face as therapists.

[00:23:44] Linzy: And so some of those strategies that you’re talking about, you’re talking about these kinds of dynamic strategies that need to be integrated into our work week. It shouldn’t be something that we’re doing necessarily in the evening only. Tell me what some of those look like.

[00:23:59] Melissa: Yeah, so it really starts with a model that we’ve developed that we call the Four Cs,which includes connection, compassion, courage, and creativity. And so this is really the starting point for thinking more broadly about our self-care, and as Karen said, really thinking about how can we be incorporating self-care in how we are approaching our workday, our work week, or just how we comport ourselves as a therapist.

[00:24:27] Again, not just what are we doing outside of work. Again, that matters, but if we’re not paying attention to what we’re doing during our workday. That’s just going to be completely insufficient. So we really start the model through this lens of connecting with ourselves, like our values, what’s important to us, who’s important to us, but also of course, connecting with others,

[00:24:49] like we were just saying. So important to be connecting with colleagues, having conversations with colleagues about self-care, about fees, about documentation, as well as about what we normally think of when we think about connecting with colleagues, which is like clinical consultation, right? But all of these other things as well.

[00:25:06] Connecting with our colleagues. And then also connecting with new information like for example, all the great information in your podcast about fees and our schedules and just how we can be better taking care of ourselves from a financial self-care perspective. And I think really importantly too, connecting with this knowledge that there are so many factors.

[00:25:31] Again, especially as women, but even anyone in the therapy profession. There are so many factors that really are kind of conspiring against us to make self-care actually so much more difficult than it seems. And of course, we all have codes of ethics that we need to follow that speak to the importance of self-care, really,

[00:25:49] it’s an ethical imperative for all of us, but none of those codes of ethics actually spell out, well, what are you supposed to do? They just kind of say, make sure you take care of yourself. Okay, thanks. Yeah. Connection is really the foundation for, again, thinking more broadly about, okay, so For example, what is getting in my way of being able to charge appropriate fees or what’s getting in the way of me raising my fees, or charging cancellation fees, which I will admit that is the toughest one for me.

[00:26:23] or just really starting to, again, as Karen said, being intentional, pausing, being willing. There’s even a bit of courage that’s already required here in connection to be willing to look at what’s standing in my way, for example.

[00:26:37] Linzy: Yeah, so connection is then that foundational piece of your four Cs I’m hearing,which is like,one of my favorite words really in general, not surprisingly. I feel like a lot of therapists, if we had to get asked a favorite word…Cause also, again, I think that you’re directly addressing, too, that piece that I was mentioning earlier, but my experience being a therapist of how isolating it can be.

[00:26:55] So we are giving our clients an experience of connection and profound connection of us being with them, but,we need connection too as our whole selves. In these so many ways that you’re mentioning.

[00:27:07] Melissa: I think another piece that’s really important to think about when it comes to connection is our connection to our workplace values. So, of course as therapists, we often talk about values with our clients, but we’re, I think, often thinking about it in this sense of our values for ourselves and our families and we don’t often necessarily think about, well, what’s my values in the workplace, and that can be a really instructive exercise to just think about, like, what kind of work setting do I value most? Again, like we were saying,do I want a work setting where I do actually have more structured opportunities to connect with other colleagues, or do I want a work setting that I do just, work privately and I’m okay with that or also do I want to a work setting that provides me with paid benefits, for example, right. Again, back to the financial side of things, because I think,making a switch from a salaried position to private practice, of course, is a huge transition, requires a lot of courage, but the reverse is true as well because there’s, pros and cons of both sides of the equation and, and so just really being intentional with ourselves about what matters most to me. What’s going to be most fulfilling to me? And again, knowing that there’s no right or wrong. It doesn’t matter what our colleagues are doing. We really need to connect with what matters most to us and what is going to best support our own ongoing wellbeing. Again, this is about making things sustainable. This isn’t just about having a great weekend at the spa,

[00:28:42] Linzy: Yes,

[00:28:43] Melissa: But then going back to toiling in the coal mines.

[00:28:46] Linzy: The emotional coal mines. Yes.

[00:28:47] Melissa: Yes, yes. What’s going to be, what’s going to be most sustainable for us over the long term?

[00:28:54] Linzy: Yes, so first C is connection. Now I want to know what the other Cs are. So tell me about the other three Cs that you find are our core to this self-care reconceptualization.

[00:29:05] Karen: Yeah, so the other three are compassion, courage, and creativity. And I think compassion in a lot of ways is really kind of self-explanatory and yet, in our experience, therapists are so good at being compassionate towards others, but often really struggle in terms of directing that same type of compassion to ourselves and as Kristen Neff in all her work and her colleagues have spoken about, when we’re more compassionate with ourselves, we’re also better able to make the changes that we need to, right. So it’s not about letting ourselves off the hook per se, but it’s about understanding why we’re maybe having some struggles and when we connect with colleagues, recognizing that we’re not alone, which is such an important part of being able to be compassionate towards ourselves.

[00:29:52] And then, using that information to look at making changes and I think so important, too, are the two types of compassion that Kristen Neff talks about, right? The tender and the fierce and again, for women so often, I think we struggle with that fierce compassion as well, which is about setting appropriate boundaries and giving ourselves permission to also pay attention to our own needs.

[00:30:17] I think the connection and the courage piece really go hand in hand. The courage pillar is one of the ones we like to talk about the most because we recognize that true self-care that’s sustainable and really meaningful for therapists is going to be hard. It’s going to mean that we’re going to

[00:30:38] be acting against some of the messages we’ve probably received through our socialization as women,through some of our training experiences that kind of got us into that student mindset.

[00:30:50] That can be really hard to leave and yet. really taking good care of ourselves does require us to do things that are going to be uncomfortable and it’s not because we’re doing anything wrong, it’s just that it’s unfamiliar to us. So having the courage to kind of lean into the discomfort, having the courage to connect with colleagues and talk about these challenges we see as just so important in our model.

[00:31:17] To round things out, our fourth c, creativity, again, probably doesn’t immediately come to mind when people are thinking about self-care but I mean, you alluded to it earlier, Linzy, it is sometimes actual creative pursuits like painting or gardening or anything that really involves kind of creating something

[00:31:39] Melissa: And we think that this is actually especially important for therapists because the nature of our work, while it can be incredibly rewarding, there’s usually not something tangible that we can see as the outcome, right?

[00:31:52] And so, so many therapists that we’ve spoken to have really shared with us how much they do gravitate towards creative pursuits that can give them this concrete evidence of their outcomes because that really is something that is kind of missing in our work. But beyond what we might typically think of as creative pursuits, we also include play and humor in this pillar because, of course, play is so incredibly important. It’s not just for kids. It’s really important for us as adults as well, and again, particularly for women because the history of how women have been socialized, and this ties into the messages we receive about the value of our time as well. 

[00:32:46] Women have also been socialized to not feel as much permission to engage in leisure pursuits and most of the time have actually less time than male counterparts do to engage in more traditional leisure pursuits. This pillar is really about kind of claiming back our right to do things that are just for ourselves, to claim our right to have permission to not be available,which is something that,the author Eve Roski talks about, which is such important concepts that we have permission to do the things that are actually going to fill us up and then most importantly, we see creativity as actually being a willingness to get messy, which again, might actually mean we’ve got paint on our fingers or soil on our hands, but even more importantly, and interestingly, we think this, again, very much speaks to something that therapists often can struggle with… 

[00:33:22] It’s really about letting go of the need to be perfect, being more willing for things to maybe not go exactly as planned, but to be okay with that. To be willing to experiment and just gather data and then adjust and so, of course, this is so incredibly relevant when it comes to our finances because there needs to be this willingness to like, maybe try new things, right? Whether it’s a different stream of income or just thinking outside the box in terms of how we are going to meet our income needs. And again,being willing to pursue a particular plan even without a hundred percent assurance that this is going to turn out the way that we want it to. Of tolerating the uncertainty. Some more courage needed there for that and compassion.

[00:34:23] Linzy: Yeah, so much of what you’re talking about is,personally resonant with me, and I’m also thinking about some of our specific occupational hazards as therapists, too, like when you’re talking about art and creativity, I’m thinking about all of the emotional content that we have to process, which is kind of our job. But in an ideal world, we leave that content in the room with the client and we have our beautiful container visualizations or whatever

[00:34:47] but there’s always going to be things, too, that we have to process because it’s the scary, terrible, painful,uncontrollable parts of being human, and so I’m also thinking about how art is such a beautiful way to be with those things. And I’m thinking about some of my own experiences, too, specifically using art to process a clinical content that was not my trauma, but that was traumatic enough that it was still impacting me personally.

[00:35:09] There’s just so many things that I think we need to be extra mindful as therapists to be able to keep doing this work, right? This work that requires this very specific muscle,that we need to use, that as you say, we might take for granted, it might feel easy sometimes or it might be something we’ve been doing forever, but actually is a very specific skillset and a very specific set of gifts that also has hazards and costs to it that we need to take seriously.

[00:35:33] Karen: Absolutely, and unfortunately, I don’t think any of us really got kind of the specific training we could have benefited from in terms of looking at those specific work hazards and some things to offset or buffer some of those hazards and, fair enough. I know our training is so jam packed with everything else.

[00:35:58] I appreciate it. It’s hard to cover everything, and yet,I do think we could do a better job of preparing our therapists for the workplace hazards and for really integrating self-care into their workday, not just as an afterthought for the weekends or, the once a year vacation, because that’s definitely not sufficient.

[00:36:20] Linzy: No, no, certainly not. No. Karen and Melissa, there’s so much more to talk about here, but we do have to end at some point. So, thank you so much for coming onto the podcast today. There’s so many… My brain is going off in a whole bunch of directions, all of these rich pieces.

[00:36:35] I think each of the four Cs could be its own podcast episode just in terms of how much there is there. I think you’ve really hit on something here in terms of what we need as therapists. For folks who are listening who are interested in getting further into your world and learning more about what you do, where could they find you?

[00:36:52] Melissa: Yeah, so they can go to our website, which is just intentional therapist.ca as well you can check out our podcast called Putting You in your Schedule. We do also have some just to again reinforce the very important message that self-care is part of our jobs, not separate from our jobs. We also have,online course that we usually run cohorts of twice a year that is approved for continuing education credits. So more information about that is on our website and people can sign up for our free newsletter to stay informed about that.

[00:37:32] Linzy: Thank you so much to both of you for joining me on the podcast today.

[00:37:35] Melissa: Thank you so much, Linzy. It was really great to talk to you.

[00:37:38] Karen: Absolutely. Thanks so much, Linzy.

[00:37:50] Linzy: This conversation with Karen and Melissa got my brain going in so many directions, thinking about some of my own experiences, even just over the last few years, and the importance of these pieces that they’re talking about, like our need for connection and for that fierce compassion that they referenced.

[00:38:06] And courage, you know, the courage to do things that don’t feel easy, but ultimately are about getting your real needs met. And the creativity, and my own relationship with creativity and how hard it can be when we’re in that burnt out, depleted place. There’s so much here and you know, when I’m thinking about it further… A lot of what we talked about today brings up the fact that therapists were just not always great for lots of reasons that are largely outside of us, sometimes inside of us, at acknowledging that we are humans with the full range of human needs, right? We spend so much time showing up for other people.

[00:38:40] We spend so much time sitting with them in their pain and their needs and thinking about how to help other folks be well, but if we are not actually setting up our work week, our life our day, to have our own needs being met. We’re not practicing what we preach. Right. And that’s not just, an issue in terms of maybe

[00:39:02] integrity, right? But it’s also an issue like we talked about in terms of the quality of care that we are actually able to give, and then the quality of life that we have. There are just so many costs that happen when we don’t really acknowledge what we need. We need lots. We need connection. We need compassion.

[00:39:19] We need softness. We need rest. We need courage. We need creativity. We need these things in our life just as much as our clients do. So it’s so easy to stay in that helper role and deny our own needs, but I love that Karen and Melissa are out here, you know, preaching what we need, which is we need to give more of what we tell our clients to do to ourselves, like literally every day, not just, as they say, after a long workday or on the weekend. So, so appreciative of Karen and Melissa coming on the podcast today. If you want to follow me on Instagram, you can find me at Money Nuts and Bolts. You can also rate and review the podcast, like therapist teas review at the beginning of our episode. It’s so helpful and as a reminder, the two ways to work with me are through my two courses.

[00:40:02] I have Money Skills for Therapists, which is my course for solo practitioners that I’ve been teaching since 2018. That’s all about helping solo practitioners become calm and confident in their business finances. And then I have Money Skills for Group Practice Owners that is specifically for folks who own a group who have other therapists and practitioners working for them, that gets more into the complexities of financial leadership, which is about getting money working, but also how you show up as a leader to create a group practice that is sustainable and reflects your values. If you’re curious about either of those courses, you can head over to our website, Money Nuts and Bolts.

[00:40:36] You’ll see a tab there for courses, and you will see how to get into wait lists or, get into the webinar to be able to join those courses.

[00:40:44] Thank you so much for joining me today. 

[00:00:00] Linzy: Hello and welcome back to another Feelings and Finances episode of the Money Skills for Therapist podcast. These are our short and sweet Friday episodes where I answer questions from you, the lovely therapists and health practitioners who make up our money skills for therapists community. Today’s question is from Allison, and here’s Allison’s question.

[00:00:20] Allison: Hi, my name is Alison. I own a multi practitioner clinic, and my question is how do I gain better mastery over cashflow for my clinic and work with what seemed to be unusual fears around my cash flow spreadsheet? Thanks.

[00:00:44] Linzy: Thank you so much for your question, Allison, and it is lovely to hear from you again. We have connected in the past, so yes. How do you manage your cash flow? So what I’m hearing is you have a spreadsheet already that you have some unusual fears about. I’m not sure what those fears are, so I’m going to talk about what a working cashflow system

[00:01:05] looks like. When we have a larger business, like a group practice where you do have so many more variables of money coming and going, cashflow becomes much more important than it is for a smaller practice. So we do need to have reliable tools that allow us to see how that flow is working. You know, what is the money coming in?

[00:01:26] What is the money coming out? what jobs has it been doing historically? What do we need it to do? And there’s two ways that I suggest that you keep your finger on the pulse of cash flow. These are both things that we teach in Money Skills for Group Practice Owners, and that we have the tools in Money Skills for Group Practice Owners because they’re absolutely foundational,

[00:01:45] Allison, for you being able to have your finger on the pulse of what is happening with your cash flow. So the first one is a weekly metrics tool. You want to have a weekly tool… I’m using the word tool here, almost a little bit generously. ’cause really it can be a very, very simple spreadsheet.

[00:02:01] It doesn’t have to be complicated at all. But you want to be looking at how your money is flowing weekly as well as monthly and annually. So we’re going to talk about weekly first. In a weekly metrics sheet, and this applies to all level of practice,we want to have the most important numbers, those numbers that we really need to keep track of right on the surface so that we have a light touch relationship with them each week.

[00:02:25] And I say light touch because ideally with your finances, as a financial leader, and you know, as a group practice owner, Allison, you are the financial leader of your practice, ideally you get to the point with your finances where it doesn’t become this like heavy or arduous task to look at the money or figure out where it is.

[00:02:42] It becomes this like nice light habit that you do every week to just check in, see what’s going on, make sure everything looks great, make sure everything looks normal. Move on with your week. So, those weekly metrics, some of the numbers that you’re going to want to be looking at is how much money is in each of your key bank accounts?

[00:02:58] Maybe you have one bank account. Maybe you use a system like Profit First, where you have multiple bank accounts. What is the bank account balances at a given point in time? I do my weekly metrics every Monday morning. So every Monday morning my team and I start the weekwith a weekly metrics meeting where each of us collects our own metrics.

[00:03:14] I’m collecting all the financial metrics, but also my team is collecting different marketing metrics. We have many more marketing metrics than, you know, therapy businesses tend to because of the type of business that we are being in the online space. So, every week you want to be putting together the data that you want to have right front and center.

[00:03:31] So it’s going to be those bank account balances. It’s going to be how much money did we bill last week, or how much money did we collect last week? If you’re using insurance, there might be a gap between those two numbers, so you might want to record both of those numbers. How many sessions did we bill for? How much money actually came in last week?

[00:03:47] But you’re also going to want to be looking at your clinicians’ performance. So how many sessions did people see last week? How many inquiries did we have last week? How many of those turned into consults or first sessions, whatever your system is? How many of those first sessions turned into second sessions?

[00:04:02] You want to be looking at all the numbers that you’ve identified are important from your cashflow perspective. So there’s the movement of money, but also just like one level up from that cashflow, from the movement of money, is what is happening in your practice? How much, you know, service is being delivered that turns into the cash that is cash flow.

[00:04:20] So that’s where I’m talking both here about looking at your financial snapshot, but also your delivery snapshot. ‘ cause that shows you how much money is going to be coming down the pipe because of the services that were delivered. And then you could also be looking at your marketing metrics. But for the sake of cash flow, we’re just going to focus on these weekly numbers.

[00:04:37] That is going to give you a sense of what is normal, where numbers need to be. It’s going to give you a sense of, okay, when I run a payroll, how much do the numbers drop that week? And as you, again, start to have that light touch relationship with those numbers, you’re going to have a sense of like, okay, this week is a payroll week.

[00:04:53] When I look in the payroll account, I see a number that. I know it’s going to cover our typical payroll, so I don’t have to worry about that. You are going to start to know what’s normal without having to even analyze it in a really conscious way. You’re going to have a feel for what’s normal and what’s not, which also lets you catch issues.

[00:05:08] So for instance, if you generally see each week that your business collects, let’s say $10,000 a week, generally comes in the door and then when Monday you go to do your metrics and you see it was only 5,000. That’s like, cause for curiosity. It’s a chance for you to look and see what happened.

[00:05:23] Did an insurance company not pay us like they usually do? Were claims not submitted? Did my clinicians not bill? Did we not do a bunch of sessions last week? Was somebody sick? Were there a bunch of cancellations? It gives you information that you can then investigate to see what is happening that has interrupted

[00:05:41] the flow of cash that we need, and then you can take immediate action to do something about it. Rather than realizing it a month later, you can see there’s something happening. We didn’t get, you know, our, our normal insurance checks. Oh, this insurance company hasn’t paid us, which they usually would. What’s going on?

[00:05:56] And then you can immediately start to deal with issues before they start to snowball into much bigger problems. So those are your weekly metrics that you can do on a weekly metrics tool, which is just a simple spreadsheet. Your monthly and annual metrics are where you really start to get the big picture flow of the cash, and that is where you’re going to track where the money went so that you can see what is normal in terms of where money is going.

[00:06:22] So, the spreadsheet that we use in Money Skills for Group Practice Owners is called the Big Picture Tool. It has a monthly tab and it also has an annual view where you can see, okay, in January this much money came in the door. This is what we paid out to our team, which is this percentage.This is what we paid for our operating expenses, which is this percentage. And you’re going to start to understand and have a sense of what do those percentages need to look like? What is sustainable for your business, what isn’t? And this is more of a retrospective, right? We’re capturing what has happened, but this is where you can start to have a more zoomed out picture of like, okay, we are

[00:06:56] spending more on staff than we can afford, what can we do about that? And this is where in money skills group practice owners, we have the tools to start to see, okay, what if? What if, you know, your clinician saw one more client each? What if everybody raised their fees? What if you lowered some operating expenses somewhere else?

[00:07:10] Like what is going to make the numbers work? But that monthly picture lets you see what is normal, what is sustainable, what needs to change. And then we also have an annual view, which lets you see big picture between all the ups and downs of the month to month, how have the numbers shaken out over time?

[00:07:25] And that lets you see the overall big sustainability. That’s not cashflow, it’s not looking forward, it’s looking backwards, but it helps you see how the changes that you’re making, have made a larger impact in the business over time. So there’s that weekly, monthly, annual view. My suggestion is having, again, like a weekly relationship with those weekly numbers. Monthly, you would do those numbers after you get your reports from your bookkeeper, and then the 12 month numbers you would also do, when you get the report from your bookkeeper to look at in the last 12 months, what has happened in the business.

[00:07:55] Now, in terms of your fears about your spreadsheet, I’m not sure exactly what those are. But sometimes fears that I can see about spreadsheets is that the numbers, there’s a fear that the numbers are not reliable, that they don’t make sense, that they’re not real. So whenever we’re developing a tool and developing our skills with a tool, it is important to really take our time with it.

[00:08:13] To make sure that the numbers are real. We never want to be working with numbers that aren’t real. It happens sometimes. You know, there ends up being glitches in our formulas, we add a line and a formula doesn’t update so things aren’t getting added together properly. So this is really, Allison, where I find having that grounded presence with your numbers really helps because then you can look at the numbers, and you can be with them and see, does this make sense?

[00:08:37] You know, my numbers are saying that we collected 40,000 in October, but only 25,000 in November. Is that true? Does that make sense? And then you can go investigate, right? This number says that we spent, you know, 80% of our expenses on staff, and then 40% of our expenses on operating expenses, but that we didn’t lose money.

[00:08:56] That doesn’t make sense. There’s something wrong here. And you can investigate. That attitude of curiosity gets you so far with finances because it lets you investigate, tweak, fix. And it lets you trust yourself, right? Because when you can trust yourself to be with a notice, and be able to fix, then you can start to play with numbers.

[00:09:22] You can start to investigate your numbers in new, different ways because you know that you can trust yourself to notice if something is off. But we can only notice if something is off, if we actually have developed the familiarity with the numbers, and the literacy around the tools that we’re using, and the confidence to be able to tell if there’s something off and they’re not working.

[00:09:41] And we do that through practice. So, I’m wishing you much groundedness and curiosity, as you are working with your cashflow numbers, Allison. And really encourage you to yeah, start to be with those numbers on that weekly, monthly, and annual picture basis is going to help you become really literate in understanding what is happening with your numbers and identifying where you might need to make changes to make your group practice more sustainable.

[00:10:08] If you like Allison, have a question you would like me to answer on one of these Feelings and Finances episodes, all you need to do is click on the link in the show notes.It will bring you over to our podcast page where we have a little recording button.

[00:10:20] Just push record, share your name, a little bit of context and share your question, and I would be happy to answer it on an upcoming episode of Feelings and Finances. Thank you so much for joining me today.  

[00:00:00] Connor: I call it pseudo-forgiveness and the crazy part is, again, I talk to highly intelligent people all day. Most people have never heard of this. They think loan forgiveness truly means loan forgiveness, right? It’s not like, oh, there’s a big asterisk, by the way, the IRS is saying, here’s your tax bill for $30,000.

[00:00:29] 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.

[00:00:50] Hello, and welcome back to the podcast. So today’s episode, I have guest Connor Pierce. He is a physiotherapist turned student loan consultant from Student Loan Planner. And today we are talking about student loans, specifically American student loans. As a Canadian, I got a good education today on some of the complexities of the American student loan landscape.

[00:01:14] For other Canadians listening, I will say it does get pretty technical today in terms of the specific American pieces, but I think some of the bigger pieces always apply when it comes to money. So I say hang with us even if some of the specifics won’t apply to you. It’s always good to listen to people talk about things that we don’t usually talk about,

[00:01:31] loans and how they work being one of those things. Today Connor and I get into the current state of the student loans landscape in the United States. What’s happening? What’s changing? We talk about what you can do if you are finding yourself with a lot of student debt, which I know many folks listening to this podcast are going to be in this position.

[00:01:50] We graduate from school with tons and tons and tons of debt. That is the default so lots of things we talk about today are going to apply to you. What you can do, if you do have a lot of student debt, and what are some of the loan forgiveness options out there? Something that I learned in this conversation with Connor is that student loans are a different beast.

[00:02:08] They are not your normal kind of debt where it’s like lower interest rate, or paying it faster, equals paying less money. With student loans, there is this whole other aspect of forgiveness programs that you might already be part of, or that you could be part of that just can completely change the math on how much you’re going to pay over time.

[00:02:27] So lots of complexity here. Connor does a great job of explaining so many facets of student loans that I definitely did not understand. Here is my conversation with Connor Pierce.

[00:02:46] So Connor, welcome to the podcast.

[00:02:50] Connor: Hey, thanks for having me.

[00:02:51] Linzy: Yeah, I’m very excited to have you on the podcast, as excited as somebody could probably be about student loans, cause as we were just talking about off mic, student loans is something that comes up a lot with the folks that I work with, like the therapists who I work with inside of Money Skills for Therapists.

[00:03:07] So I know that it’s something that probably most people listening have some student debt, maybe some very significant student debt. and it’s not an area that I know a ton about. So I’m excited to have you on because this is really your area that you work in. This is your, your total focus, if I understand.

[00:03:24] Connor: Absolutely. Student loans are complicated. They’re messy. They seem to be constantly changing, but hugely impactful for your life, for what you want your future life to be. So understanding that is, is my wheelhouse. That’s what our team is passionate about at Student Loan Planner. And that’s what we love to help people with.

[00:03:40] Linzy: Yeah. Great. So start by giving me the lay of the land. Cause I know that also some things have been, you know, happening and shifting with student loans in the United States. And for folks listening, we are going to be digging into specifically to the United States. I’m a Canadian, so this is something I know very little about.

[00:03:55] I think some of the stuff we’re going to talk about today will apply to Canadians in the general sense of your relationship to your loans, looking at your loans, being strategic about your loans. But I think a lot of the specifics we’re getting into is the American loan system, which is its own beast.

[00:04:08] So tell me about what is happening right now with the current state of the student loan industry in the United States. Yeah.

[00:04:19] Connor: That’s a great question. And it’s complicated. I don’t know if it’s still a Facebook status. It’s complicated, but that’s kind of the summary of student loans, especially over the past four years, because there have been some pretty drastic changes that have had a huge impact on clients of ours, on my personal situation, my wife’s situation.

[00:04:34] We actually both have student loans. But there’s this kind of constant flux of, there’s different repayment plans. So one thing that makes student loans, just if we step way back, different from every other type of debt is federal student loans in the United States have an option for loan forgiveness.

[00:04:49] And there’s actually two different subsets of loan forgiveness. There’s one that a lot of people have heard about, which is you go for nonprofit loan forgiveness, but there’s actually another option for folks in private practice, or folks who are part-time, or folks who aren’t working in the nonprofit sector, where you can get loan forgiveness.

[00:05:05] And within that loan forgiveness, there’s another type of way of paying off your loans, which is called income driven repayments where the amount that you pay per month is totally based on your income and not at all based on the amount of debt you have and the interest rate. So this is where student loans are their own beast and you actually treat them, when you go to pay them off, or maybe go for forgiveness, totally different than any other type of debt.

[00:05:29] Linzy: Which is interesting, and that’s kind of, in a way, that’s new information to me, because I think, as you say, it makes them their own beast. And it sounds to me like, from what you’re saying, the kind of forgiveness program aspect, and these income driven, is what makes it different than really any other kind of debt, because if I’m kind of understanding what you’re saying, it means that

[00:05:48] you might not have to repay that full amount in the way that you would have to repay, say like a line of credit or a mortgage with a student loan. The total amount that you pay in the end could vary depending on which of these programs you’re in, like significantly. Is that correct?

[00:06:02] Connor: That’s 100 percent right. And a vast difference. So, when we run the numbers sometimes, especially for someone who has, let’s just say, 50k, 100k plus in student debt, The difference between going for loan forgiveness versus trying to just pay it off aggressively, like everybody’s heard of the live in the basement on rice and beans and just throw everything at it.

[00:06:20] Like that’s one option and that’s an option for some folks. But for the folks who say, Hey, I worked really hard to get this degree. I kind of want to enjoy my life along the way. Things like income driven repayment plans and going for forgiveness can allow you to kind of have that lifestyle. And at the same time, sometimes it will also save you more money than just paying it off really aggressively like you would a private loan or a practice loan or a personal loan or credit card debt. Those are all loans where you just have to pay that thing off

[00:06:46] till it goes to zero for the most part. But federal student loans are where it just gets totally different, to your point, and it can even save you a ton of

[00:06:53] Linzy: Hmm. Right, so that really is a very different ballgame. Really, I was going to say strategy, but it’s like you have to find your strategy within that ballgame. Cause as you say, if you have a credit card debt, you’re going to have to pay it down.

[00:07:04] So it’s how fast or how slow. And I often talk with folks about: how do you balance the other parts of your life, as you’re saying. Make sure you actually enjoy your life. Don’t make your life all about debt repayment, or don’t make yourself feel poor. Because what also happens too, when we try to pay debt too aggressively is we put all of our money into the debt.

[00:07:19] Then some normal life thing happens, like your fridge breaks or your car breaks down, and suddenly you have to put more money back on the debt and you feel like you’re sacrificing everything and yet you’re losing. So there’s always that balance to find, but with student debt, I’m hearing that there’s a whole other set of variables in the game. That means that it’s, not just about your pacing, it’s about these programs and how you use these programs.

[00:07:41] Connor: Yeah, absolutely. I think you, you pretty much nailed it. Other types of debt, it’s really just a game of how much are you willing to pay, and the faster you pay it off, the less you pay overall. But again, there’s even a balance with that of if you’re too aggressive, you can put yourself in a bad position down the road and then feel setback, and feel like you’re kind of spinning your wheels.

[00:07:58] And student debt, again, is where it’s totally different. And just for perspective, there’s like 11 different repayment plans at the federal level. So usually when you lock in like a mortgage or a payment, it’s like, this is your payment. This is the interest rate. This is the option. You pay that amount for how many years. If you pay it more than the minimum amount, you pay it off quicker.

[00:08:18] But with student loans, there’s 11 different options. And some of them are that traditional, you pay it for 10 years, same amount, it’s paid off at the end of 10 years, or you pay it for 30 years, you pay it off after all the minimum payments over 30 years, you pay more than the 10 year plan.

[00:08:32] But that’s kind of like the traditional way. So you can still do that for federal student loans. But then there’s four different income driven repayment plans. And how these work is it takes your income and not just your income. It takes your adjusted gross income. So the amount that you kind of end up with on paper that you’d pay taxes on.

[00:08:48] So you get to deduct things like retirement contributions, or if you have a health savings account and you contribute to that, believe it or not, that lowers your income, which then lowers your payment that you owe each month, because what they do is they take a percentage of that. So you’re paying a percentage of that per year.

[00:09:05] So just for example, one of the plans that it’s actually in a little bit of a question right now, but called the SAVE Plan, which the Biden administration released. It would give you the lowest payment that there’s ever been. You’d only pay 10 percent of your adjusted gross income per year.

[00:09:19] So like rough math, what does that mean for someone who makes like $70,000 a year? You might only have like a two or $300 payment per month, which makes it a lot more affordable depending on your amount of debt.

[00:09:31] Linzy: Right. Okay. So that’s a  program that we were chatting off-mic before that that is now kind of under, I don’t know. It’s imperiled. It might not survive. Can you give me a sense?

[00:09:42] Connor: Under duress.

[00:09:42] Linzy: Yeah, it’s under duress.

[00:09:43] Connor: I’m not sure what the right word is either.

[00:09:46] Linzy: It’s in danger. It’s an endangered lone species. Because that’s being challenged right now in the courts.

[00:09:51] And I’m curious, again, as a Canadian outside of the system, I have like a bazillion questions. So some of these things, for Americans listening, might be things that they already know, but how do you even get onto these different repayment programs? Like, let’s say I’m on a certain repayment program.

[00:10:06] How do I change programs? Will the loan company offer me different programs once you’re locked into a certain type of program, is that where you stay? Like, how is it even determined which of these programs you end up in, in the first place? And how do you change between these different options?

[00:10:23] Connor: So you can change between the programs, for the most part as much as you want. Now, there sometimes is a consequence if there’s outstanding interest. It can get, it’s called capitalized, which just means the interest that’s outstanding gets lumped on the principal which means that the interest will accumulate.

[00:10:38] So that’s the main thing to be wary of if you switch plans. But you can switch between the plans, for the most part, as much as you want. And the way it works is, you graduate. Once you finish your degree, there’s this required thing at every college in the United States, every university called Exit Counseling.

[00:10:53] And it’s kind of funny because it’s like this 20, 30-minute, like you click through, you answer these questions and it’s like, do you understand you have to repay this? You’re going to be in debt, whatever. and it doesn’t really teach you anything about the plans. It just says that. So the default is the standard 10 year plan, which is just you’re paying off the loan in 10 years.

[00:11:11] And over 50 percent of people are actually in that plan. Why? Because it’s the default but for the vast majority of people, especially as a new grad , it’s probably not the best plan for most people because these income driven repayment plan options, they’re kind of confusing. They’re kind of maybe scary, if you will, especially because I know for me, like if it’s unknown, it’s a little bit scary, right?

[00:11:32] Like, I don’t fully understand that. What does this mean? But it can give you a much more affordable payment. And there’s four different ones that are available for income driven. Save is one. Another fancy word is pay P A Y E. It’s called pay as you earn. There’s one called I C R and I B R, and they all take a different percentage of your income to come up with that payment.

[00:11:52] But at the end of the day, they’re all “income driven repayment plans” , which is kind of that umbrella term. And they all are based on your income. So you can switch between the plans. But you just have to know which plan is best for me and for my situation, because as with all things finance, they make it super complicated,

[00:12:08] it seems like. And especially with student loans where, you know, it can make a big difference depending on what plan you’re in.

[00:12:13] Linzy: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:12:15] Let’s say, for example, a therapist graduates with, let’s say $150,000 of debt. That’s a pretty typical number that I see when I look at people’s numbers with them.

[00:12:24] And, they move into private practice, right? And sometimes I see this, like folks who’ve graduated, they move right into private practice, which is a slow build sometimes for people. So it’s fairly normal, like in the first year of private practice, that somebody might get paid like $45,000, right? That’s what they’re earning at the end of the day, after they’ve paid their expenses.

[00:12:41] What options does somebody like that have? Like they have a ton of debt. They’re not making a lot of money yet. How would you talk somebody through, or like, yeah… What does this process look like of figuring out which program somebody like that should be in?

[00:12:55] Connor: That’s a perfect example, because we see examples like that all the time, right? Like, it’s like making that leap, whether you’re a new grad or even if you’ve been working for a while into private practice is like, you don’t just automatically start making a ton of money unless you’ve had a very successful side hustle, right?

[00:13:08] But for most people, it is a drop in income. And that’s where these income driven repayment plans are a super great tool in the tool belt, right? Like not everybody should do anything, but if you have federal student loans, maybe 150 K, that’s going to be a really large payment. If you’re trying to pay this thing off in 10 years, like upwards of 1,500 a month, and if you’re thinking I’m making 45 K, paying 1,500 a month, how are you living on like the rest of that?

[00:13:31] Right. But with an income driven repayment plan, if your income is only 40,000, you could have a very minimal payment to the tune of like maybe a hundred, 200 bucks a month. It would be very small. And that would allow you to, you know, invest in the practice, continue to live your life during those lean years as you start things up.

[00:13:49] So that’s just one example of, you know, I’m a huge proponent, even part of my personal story. Little background. I transitioned from being a physical therapist full time to going into kind of my own business and doing this as a contractor. So there was a large dip in my

[00:14:02] income, but I actually utilized myself and income driven repayment plan to say, Hey, while I’m in this dip, affording a student loan payment is going to be really tough, but I was actually able to lock in a 0 payment because my income truly went to zero.

[00:14:15] So if you take the percentage of, you know, what’s 10 percent of zero, it’s zero.

[00:14:20] So I actually had a 0 payment on my student loans when I first switched over. So that’s just an example that I think is super applicable for a lot of therapists thinking of jumping into private practice, but maybe that student loan is a barrier.

[00:14:31] It’s saying, Hey, well maybe there’s more options out there than what traditional advice would, actually say.

[00:14:37] Linzy: And for somebody like that, then, you know, let’s talk about, you know, our therapist who’s at 45,000 a year so maybe their payment goes down to a couple hundred dollars a month, I’m hearing, might be what that would look like if it’s… Yeah, is that about right? If it’s ten percent?

[00:14:54] Connor: Yeah. Yeah.10% would be the yearly payment, but then you break that down divided by 12. It’s a little bit more complicated. One part I left out is there’s a federal poverty line deduction based on your family size. So, like the Save plan, for example, that was  the most advantageous.

[00:15:06] There’s actually a 225 percent poverty line deduction to calculate the income that they use. So they take, this is like a little finance-y, but so you take your gross income, and then you go to your adjusted gross income. The government uses your adjusted gross income. Then they do a federal poverty line deduction multiplier to lower your discretionary income, and discretionary income is where they take the percentage. So in the Save plan for a single person, that’s thirty three thousand dollars. So what does that mean? If your adjusted gross income is less than thirty three thousand dollars, you have a zero dollar payment.

[00:15:38] Linzy: Right. Right.

[00:15:40] Connor: If you have a forty thousand dollar payment, you’re going to have a minimal payment, but probably less than a hundred dollars on the Save plan. Now, granted, some of the other plans only take 150 percent deduction, or 100 percent deduction. So the numbers can vary pretty significantly depending on which of those plans you’re in, but it can make it pretty friendly at the end of the day.

[00:15:59] Like the TLDR, Connor, get out of the finance world. Talk to a normal person, who doesn’t study student loans all the time.

[00:16:05] Linzy: Yeah, yeah.

[00:16:06] Connor: It can make it super affordable. And depending on the plan you pick, it can be more affordable than other plans.

[00:16:11] Linzy: And so, you know, I think that’s the suspicious part of me, right?

[00:16:15] Connor: Oh, let’s hear it.

[00:16:16] Linzy: Yeah, it’s like, okay, so, you’re paying less. Oh, that’s fun. That’s cute. Like, great. I only pay 150 bucks a month. What is happening to their balance while they’re paying these super low, like, low loan payments? Like, isn’t their balance growing? Yeah.

[00:16:35] Connor: Correct. The balance would be growing. Again, the plans are all a little bit different. Some of them actually offer an interest subsidy. So believe it or not, part of the reason is that the Save plan, which is going through some court cases as of the date that we’re recording this, says, “Is this plan even legal or not?”

[00:16:48] Because it was so advantageous, it would give people a very low payment. And part of the role in there was any interest that would accumulate beyond your required payment was actually covered by the government. So you actually never watch your balance grow, which is crazy, right? To have a 0 payment, maybe there’s typically $500 of interest accumulating, but that would never happen.

[00:17:08] So that’s part of the reason that plan is under duress, and potentially going to get thrown out in the courts, but the other plans, for the most part, your interest will continue to accumulate. So if you’re making a minimal payment, you can’t just set it and forget it, so to speak. It’s like, hey, at some point I’m going to have to pay a portion of that, but that’s where things like loan forgiveness come into play because maybe you don’t have to pay the entire balance.

[00:17:32] And again, another very confusing part of federal student loans is that you don’t expect to get your credit card debt forgiven. Don’t expect to get that personal loan or that practice loan forgiven. But with student loans, there is an option for forgiveness.

[00:17:44] Linzy: Yeah. Cuz that’s a whole other variable in this game because I will say, as a Canadian on the outside of the system, the fact that folks can have loans that grow is insane. Just like, you know, to give you an outsider perspective. Cause like in, in Canada, we don’t, we don’t have that, right? Like if you have a student loan, as far as I know, and maybe Canadians who’ve had different experiences than me or know something that I don’t will correct me on this.

[00:18:09] But, when you are in like loan repayment forgiveness for a little bit, for instance, your balance does not grow. Right? So it’s a very different system, and this is something that from the outside, I’m like, it seems predatory to me, because the vast majority of people are not financially educated, like we’re not given financial education in the public system, and we’re not given them in our education. It almost feels like a little bit of a bait and switch to me, or something like that, where for so many people who don’t understand the implications, it’s like, Oh my God, I don’t have to pay 150 bucks a month on my loan.

[00:18:39] This is amazing. This is so great. But they don’t realize that, the loan is growing. And it’s growing like 7% a year or whatever and over 10 years that can be hundreds of thousands of dollars.

[00:18:50] Connor: You’re totally right. I hear that word often when I’m doing a one-on-one consult with people. They just feel… they feel they weren’t properly educated on it, which I 100 percent agree. How can you go through K through 12, undergrad, most of our clients have been through grad school as well. Super intelligent, super smart people who are highly, highly effective at following directions.

[00:19:13] But sometimes the federal loans change the rules because of different administrations or different political agendas. And it’s, it’s super frustrating and super discouraging and, and disheartening to say, Oh, I thought I was on the right thing. Wait, they’re going to change the roles, or I thought I was doing things to get forgiveness in this program, but I missed one box that I needed to check.

[00:19:32] Now, what does that mean? So it’s stressful. There’s no doubt about it, especially when It’s kind of a weird job, right? Like I’m a student loan consultant. Sometimes I make the joke with folks of… I tell people that they’re like, what do you mean? And if you have student loans in the American system, you totally get it.

[00:19:46] Cause you’re like, it’s so complicated. Yeah, yeah,

[00:19:48] Sometimes people look at me sideways. They’re like, you do what? It almost feels like it’s shady. Like, Oh, you, you like do student loan stuff? Like that has a bad connotation. I’m

[00:19:55] Linzy: like no no payday loans kind of thing?

[00:19:58] Connor: No, we just do fiduciary financial planning. Like it’s, it’s just, hey, here’s the best for your situation. There’s no back end thing. It’s just, it’s complicated.

[00:20:07] Linzy: Yeah. it absolutely is. Cause the forgiveness piece I feel like is this wild card, it feels like, in this whole thing of if your loan is going to be forgiven one day, it changes all the math, right?

[00:20:18] What I’m understanding is if you, if you jump through certain hoops, if you do certain things for certain periods of time within certain programs, then they’re like, you did it. Good job, you know, like you don’t have to pay the rest, right, which would have a huge impact on the math. It would change all the math,

[00:20:32] being forgiven. But the fact that it’s also, as you say, administered by the government, which means that administrations can change, programs can maybe come and go, or just like government bureaucracy, as you say, like, you don’t tick the right box and like, Oh, sorry, you didn’t tick the right box in 1997 and now you owe us an extra 150,000.

[00:20:51] It seems like something that would be hard to really keep track of in a meaningful way as an average person when you’re coming to these different programs. And this is what I’ve heard one of my students say just recently is like she was told, after 20 years, you’re not going to have to pay anything, so it sounds like some sort of forgiveness program, but then that never really… It kind of seemed to go away and she wasn’t sure she had it anymore.

[00:21:11] So she refinanced. And now, from the outside, it’s like I hope that was the right thing that she refinanced, you know, I hope she got the right advice. But it almost seems like it’s removed that forgiveness option. So tell me a little bit more about these forgiveness programs that exist and like, how do folks know if they’re in a forgiveness program?

[00:21:27] How did they get onto a forgiveness program? What are those options? Because I’ve certainly heard about the non profit forgiveness program. Often I see people who are at the end of their 10 year non profit time, and it’s like they’ve served their time and they’re about to be free of their student loan, and then they’re going to quit their job. Because they’ve basically just been like, biding their time in the non profit because the loan forgiveness is worth it, and then they move into private practice.

[00:21:48] So that’s mostly who I see, and that’s the program I’ve heard the most about. Tell me more about that forgiveness program, other forgiveness programs. Yeah. What, what is that landscape?

[00:21:58] Connor: So one clarification just to make, and speaking to your client situation, cause I’ve seen this as well, and loan forgiveness is only for federal student loans. So when you refinance, you take loans from the federal sector to the private sector, and in the private sector you might be able to get a better interest rate, but there is no loan forgiveness option. There is no income driven repayment option so you’re kind of… It’s a one way ticket. You’re kind of locking things in, and there’s no undo button. So some folks, that makes a lot of sense

[00:22:27] for. A lot of folks, though, are better off, especially if there’s a high debt to income ratio, are a lot better off in the federal system because of some of those flexibilities. if you pass away and you have federal student loans, the loans go away.

[00:22:40] They’re forgiven. They’re discharged. If you become fully disabled, your loans get discharged. If you have private student loans, that might not be the case. They might become a spouse’s. They might become a child’s, or the estate’s kind of issue. So that’s another thing just to really understand before you kind of pull the trigger, understand the pros and cons before you make a, like a, a no undo button decision, like refinancing.

[00:23:05] Linzy: Because I think in simple terms, it would be tempting to think, Oh, I have a lower interest rate here. Lower interest rate means less debt paid because, you know, if we go back to what we talked about at the beginning in typical debt situations, that is how it works, right? If you have a lower interest rate, that’s good.

[00:23:21] You can pay it faster. The lower the interest, the faster you pay it, the less you’re going to pay over time. But in student loans, it sounds like that is not the case when we’re talking specifically about the switch from federal to private loans.

[00:23:32] Connor: You nailed it. Yeah, if you already have private student loans, refinancing them, not a huge deal. Still read the terms and agreements, right? It’s called the promissory note. Fancy word for just terms and agreements of “what are you switching into?” Because some companies have different terms and agreements, but most private companies are pretty similar.

[00:23:49] But that federal loan, Department of Ed loan to any sort of private refinance is a really big decision. So that’s one that you definitely want to understand what you’re trading off and what you’re getting.

[00:24:00] Connor: But to kind of circle back to your question about loan forgiveness, the nonprofit forgiveness, it’s called PSLF.

[00:24:06] So Public Service Loan Forgiveness. And that means you have to be working at a nonprofit or government entity while you’re paying the loans. So after 10 total years, which is 120 months of payments, if you’ve been making payments in an income driven repayment plan. During that time period, you can get your loans forgiven.

[00:24:25] So your point, if you have clients who are like, I’m finally ready to go start my own business, I’ve served my time. I got my 150K or 250K forgiven. The thing is, it doesn’t matter what the amount is, whatever gets forgiven, gets forgiven. There’s no federal tax consequences. It’s just 150K there. Once you make the 120 payments, it gets forgiven and it goes away, which is incredible.

[00:24:47] Like those are my favorite emails that I get all week. And I get a lot of emails because this stuff’s confusing, right? But that’s such an oh my gosh, like what a relief right of just, holy cow, like burden off your back Move forward with life. It just feels like a total fresh start. So that’s public service loan forgiveness in a nutshell. Now there are some nuances to that.

[00:25:06] There’s even some scary articles about public service loan forgiveness from 2017/ 2018. Because the program was established in 2007. So the first couple years, people didn’t know the boxes to check for that program. So less than 1 percent of people got loan forgiveness through that program.

[00:25:24] And if we really dig back into it, in 2007, they weren’t even giving out the proper loan to get loan forgiveness. You have to have a direct loan. They were giving out FFEL loans. The only way you would have known that is if you like had a friend at the government who made the program. So the numbers were staggering of how few people got forgiven.

[00:25:40] Now, fast forward to now, we know a lot more about the program. The information is much more readily available. There’s people like our company at Student Loan Planner who can help you make sure that you’re on the right track and kind of give you guidance there. And then the other thing is, just over the past, three years, they did this program called the IDR waiver or the one time account adjustment

[00:26:00] and that program was actually designed to essentially correct some of those things like oh, you missed checking that one box back in, you know, 2008. You no longer get loan forgiveness, and you’ve served your ten years. So actually tons of people were able to get forgiveness who previously never were because of this program that was designed to clean up some of the mistakes of the past and allow people to have a better situation moving forward. So that’s kind of the optimistic view of, Hey, they’ve kind of realized they’re trying to make some changes here, but not all student loan changes are positive.

[00:26:34] Like with the Safe court case going on, if that plan goes away, there’s over 8 million people in that plan, my wife and I included. So like, it’s going to change our situation for our family. It’s going to change a lot of people’s situation, and what they replace that with, or if they just take it away, we don’t know 100 percent for sure what that’s going to look like on a going forward basis.

[00:26:54] So. So that’s kind of the PSLF loan forgiveness plus a little.

[00:26:58] Linzy: Right, right. Okay. It does make me think, too, about what happens when you mix bureaucracy and finance, which is just like, a shit show? Because when you talk about 1 percent of folks actually getting what you’re supposed to get from their program, like that just sounds basically like a massive bureaucratic failure.

[00:27:13] Like that’s insane. So it’s nice that there’s a little bit of cleanup happening there. And hopefully many more people get what they were promised. So tell me about other types of loan forgiveness programs. That’s one I’ve heard of. What are other options for folks listening who didn’t go into the non profit sector or the government sector, but still have a ton of debt that they’re living with?

[00:27:32] Connor: Yeah, this is probably the other type of forgiveness. So PSLF is one bucket. 10 years at a non profit; you have to kind of check all the boxes. The other is, it’s called long term loan forgiveness, and it’s called long term, because you have to pay for 20 or 25 years and the 20 or 25 years depends on which one of those four different income driven repayment plans you select.

[00:27:52] It also depends on when you borrowed your loan. So a couple nuances to figure out which one is best for you, but it could be 20 or 25 years. The great thing is you can work anywhere you want. You’re not locked into that job where you’re like, I got to stay here for 10 years, and you’re kind of at the mercy of… I’ve even seen cases where someone’s at a nonprofit, and then it gets bought out by a for profit, and they have to make this decision of, Oh my gosh, like, do I leave my job to finish loan forgiveness?

[00:28:17] Or do I stay here, and think, what are the other options? So there is another option. But it’s an extra 10 to 15 years to reach that 20 to 25, and there’s also a tax on the loan forgiveness. So that’s the biggest other differences. Once you get to the finish line, in PSLF, everything’s forgiven. No tax. When you do long-term forgiveness, you actually have to collect that total amount that gets forgiven as income and pay a tax on it as if you made that money.

[00:28:45] Linzy: So if I get to the end of the program, I have 100,000 that was forgiven in this year. That would add $100,000 to my income for tax purposes, and I might have to pay 20,000 or 30,000 of taxes on that when I do my taxes. Okay. Okay. So it’s like this beautiful forgiveness, but the tax bill is going to suck is what I’m hearing.

[00:29:04] Connor: Right, I call it pseudo forgiveness and the crazy part is, again, I talk to highly intelligent people all day. Most people have never heard of this. They think loan forgiveness truly means loan forgiveness, right? It’s not like, oh, there’s a big asterisk. By the way, the IRS is saying here’s your tax bill for $30,000. You’re forgiven. Also give us $30,000, which is a big enough number that somebody would probably have to get new debt to finance the tax debt that they get from being forgiven.

[00:29:22] Connor: That’s another thing…

[00:29:31] Connor: It’s a good trade off to say, oh, I’m going to get two thirds of it forgiven, but I’m still going to owe this tax bill in the end. So it’s less of a debt, but then it’s like, if you’re not preparing for that, and you’re going that route, that’s definitely something that we encourage people to say,

[00:29:43] hey, you need to be paying your debt at this amount in an income driven repayment plan, which is one of the requirements, but you need to be investing this extra on the side so that can grow so that when the tax bomb comes, you can just cover that. And then you’re, you’re debt free. It’s not, Oh my gosh, where am I coming up with 30 plus thousand dollars to say, I was not ready for this.

[00:30:04] Linzy: Yeah, I mean, it sounds like there could certainly be strategy there, but first you need to understand what’s coming. Cause yeah, I think the term forgiveness might be a little generous in that case. It’s like, yeah, as you say, forgiveness with an asterisk, so could still be more advantageous, probably is, from what I’m hearing, but you have to anticipate the fact that there’s going to be then this additional bill coming,along with your forgiveness.

[00:30:27] Connor: 100 percent

[00:30:28] Linzy: Okay.I feel like you have really illustrated well that it is complicated, this whole world. This is why student loans consultants exist.

[00:30:36] Connor: So Connor, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. And if folks want to learn more about what you folks do, and get more resources and maybe people listening have realized like, oh, I need to understand way more about my student loan situation and where I am.

[00:30:48] Linzy: Where can they get that information?

[00:30:51] Connor: The best place to go is studentloanplanner.com. We have tons of free resources. We’re really big on… We have lots of blog posts. We have some calculators where you can actually kind of map out your own and DIY your situation. there’s also a place that you can book on there. I know you have a special link, I think that gives people a discount.

[00:31:06] So that’d be great to share with them. if they wanted to get a one on one console and just say, Hey, I’ve heard enough about student loans. I don’t really want to listen to it anymore or DIY it. Just tell me the answer. Tell me the best options available. That’s a great place to go to.

[00:31:18] Linzy: Yeah. So if folks look in the show notes, there is a link that you can follow and if you follow that link, then, they will know that you came from this podcast, which is also a great way for people to support the podcast while getting, you know, help with your student loans. So it’s a win win.

[00:31:33] Thank you so much, Connor. This has been very enlightening.

[00:31:46] This conversation with Connor today really just affirms to me a belief I already have, and that you’ve heard me talk about many times, which is the importance of clarity, just the importance of understanding and student loans are one of these things that has so much complexity and so many moving parts that it’s not just about the numbers you see on paper but there’s all these other factors at play, these other variables in terms of forgiveness.

[00:32:08] Programs that you’re in, whether boxes have been checked, are programs going away, like he talked about even if you do get forgiveness depending on the program you’re in, if you’re in this kind of private, forgiveness track where you’re not working for a nonprofit, you’re going to have a big tax bill.

[00:32:22] So it’s like, you’re going to be forgiven, but also there’s this other financial consequence that comes up. There’s just a lot to know. And it’s normal that we don’t know these things because we’re not taught these things. And also this information is not made readily available. It’s not made transparent by the folks providing the loans.

[00:32:38] And so this is where investing in being with somebody who lives and breathes these things can be a very worthwhile investment in general. That is true of, you know, investing in a financial planner, investing in financial education, investing in a course, like Money Skills for Therapists, for example.

[00:32:57] But it definitely sounds extra true of student loans, where there could be, you know, 100 or 150, 000 difference at the end of the day. if you get into the right program that suits you and do all the things to make sure that you’re actually checking the boxes to fulfill that forgiveness program. That makes a massive financial difference.

[00:33:14] So lots to know here, Definitely worth getting some support with student loans, if it’s something that you do not have clarity on your own situation, or if you don’t know your options, I do encourage you to, check out Student Loan Planner, and you can again, click on that link in the show notes so that they know that you came from me

[00:33:30] and that’s also a way that you can support the Money skills for Therapists podcast. So appreciate Connor, bringing all of this, what to me, is new information and hopefully for many of you was also some new information today. You can follow me on Instagram at Money, Nuts and Bolts and if you’re enjoying the podcast, I’m going to go back to the thing I used to ask you to do a lot, which is leave me a review.

[00:33:51] If you can leave a review of the podcast, it just gets us more traction on Apple podcast and it’s a great way for other therapists of all stripes and health practitioners to find the podcast and to maybe learn more about student loans, like you did today. So thank you so much for joining me today.   

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome back to another Feelings and Finances episode of the Money Skills for Therapists podcast. These are our short and sweet Friday episodes where I answer questions from you, the listeners of the Money Skills for Therapists podcast, the therapists and health practitioners and coaches who make up our lovely community.

 

[00:00:20] Linzy: Today’s question is from Annette, and here’s her question. 

 

[00:00:23] Annette: Hello. My question has to do with how do you get comfortable with asking your private pay rate? I am just starting to accept some patients on a private pay basis, and even though I have worked really hard, and done a lot of training, I believe in myself, I still struggle with asking for that rate. 

 

[00:00:46] Linzy: Thank you so much for your question, Annette, Thank you for bringing up this question. It is something that so, so, so many therapists struggle with: how do you ask for that rate?

 

[00:00:56] Linzy: There’s two pieces here, one is the external actual practical functional. How do you have those conversations with potential clients, or current clients, if you’re going to be increasing your rate? What are those conversations look like? And then the second part, of course, is that internal part, you know, how do you actually stick to it?

 

[00:01:15] Linzy: How do you not freak out? How do you manage all the feelings inside that come up when you have to have this, what can be a very hard and activating conversation with clients? So, on the front end, in terms of the practical piece of how do you ask, and maybe we should even change the phrasing around that, but it’s not “How do you ask? How do you inform? How do you share your rate?”

 

[00:01:38] Linzy: You’re not asking them. You’re letting them know what your rate is. And that is a rate that you have set, likely after much thoughtfulness and reflection and looking at your numbers and thinking about your experience and the impact that you have on your client’s lives.

 

[00:01:51] Linzy: So you’re not asking for that rate when you’re having this conversation with a potential client or a client; you are sharing your rate. And that might be a helpful place to start in terms of the framing of it. Because when we’re putting ourselves in a position of asking, there’s like a power piece there that immediately we are kind of putting ourself at that person’s mercy.

 

[00:02:11] Linzy: There’s a dynamic there that I think could be framed differently, which from the very start might help to have a more grounded way to come into this conversation. So you are sharing your rate with clients or potential clients. Ideally, that is something that either folks know before they come into, say, a consult with you.

 

[00:02:31] Linzy: So it’s not totally new information. But if you decide that you would rather have conversations with people first, then the actual how of it is easier said than done, which is share your rate and then stop talking, right? Our tendency, generally, when we share something and we’re uncomfortable about it is to keep talking, right?

 

[00:02:50] Linzy: We say, okay, so my rate is $185 an hour. But if that’s too high for you then we can always talk about it. And, I know you mentioned some financial stress. We tend to go in and immediately basically discount our rate, right? If we keep talking because then those parts of us that are starting to feel activated, and anxious and panicked can immediately go to undo the work that we just did.

 

[00:03:11] Linzy: Right? Which is like, we just shared our rate. We need to give people time to react and respond. So stating your rate calmly as a fact, not a question. It’s difficult. I listen back to my own podcast sometimes, and I am an uptalker despite all the work that I’ve done on self-esteem and recognizing the value of what I do.

 

[00:03:29] Linzy: Stating it as a statement, and my rate is $185 an hour. Stop talking. See what happens. Let them digest. Let them respond, right? It’s hard to say those words, but you might find that the reaction that you get when you actually give them time to respond is completely fine. Like, “Oh, okay, great. That sounds good. When can I start seeing you?”

 

[00:03:48] Linzy:  Or if you’re informing them of a fee increase,”I wanted to let you know, starting on April 1st, my fee is going to be $185 an hour.” Stop talking. See what they say. I’ve had clients say, “Good for you.” before. Or, “Sure. Yeah. That sounds fine.” Like it’s a non-event for them.

 

[00:04:07] Linzy: Right? And often our own feelings are so much of the activation that comes into that dynamic. It’s actually us. It’s not them, right? It’s our own fears and not good enough and all the parts of us that have been freaking out anticipating this conversation that bring this kind of intensity to it that might not even be there for your client, frankly.

 

[00:04:26] Linzy: So that’s the first thing is giving them the chance to respond and react. And in that second scenario that I just gave, I gave a date, which would be a future date. And my general policy when raising fees with clients is giving them at least two months notice. That gives somebody enough time to process the information, to bring questions to you later, to let you know where they’re at.

 

[00:04:48] Linzy: And worst case scenario, it gives somebody time to close off their work with you. If they’re like, Annette, I love working with you, but I just don’t have the money. And you’ve already done your math, Annette, and you know you can’t have more sliding scale spots than you already have, or you can’t have any sliding scale spots right now, then you’re able to say, you know, I’m sorry to hear that, I’m going to miss working with you, but let’s find you somebody else who’s going to be a great fit for you.

 

[00:05:10] Linzy: And I always reminded myself, too, when I was having to close with clients for whatever reason, be it that, they don’t want to pay my fee, you, they’ve decided that the work is not worth it for them at that level, or they can’t pay my fee, or I’ve closed my practice a couple of other times for a couple of other reasons…

 

[00:05:25] Linzy: I always remind myself that there might actually be a therapist or a health practitioner out there for them that’s an even better fit than I am. That can serve them even better than I could. Maybe I’ve taken them to a certain place in our work and there’s something right in front of my face that I can’t see because of my own history, and who I am, or my blind spots as a clinician that they’ll go see the next person who’s like, “Hey, have you ever been assessed for OCD?”

 

[00:05:46] Linzy: And I’ve never thought of that, right? Them going to somebody else is not necessarily actually a bad thing for them. It might be a good thing for them in the long run. So always having that openness, too, that there’s other folks in the universe who are providing great service besides you, I found, has always been comforting for me when there does have to be clinical closure in relationships.

 

[00:06:06] Linzy: But then on the other side, that internal piece, right? You have now stated the fees; you’ve let them respond. You have stopped talking. You’ve given a good amount of notice of this as a fee increase. In the internal part of the work, which is not work you’re going to do in that moment, it’s work you’re going to do around these moments, it’s noticing why is this so hard for you, right?

 

[00:06:27] Linzy: What is coming up for you? What does this activate for you? Is this about not good enough? Is it that it’s not safe to take up space? Is it fear of being abandoned? What is activated in you that needs to be attended to that actually isn’t about your clients? It’s about your family of origin. It’s about your history; it’s about your patterns; it’s about your own fears and vulnerabilities and anxieties that you can attend to outside of these conversations, right?

 

[00:06:51] Linzy: You can spend time with these things that you notice. You can do internal parts work. You can take it to therapy, you can talk to friends about it, you can do some journaling, you know, there’s so many ways that we can take care of these, these parts of us that come up, that do need attention and do need to be attended to, and that is our work to do, right, is to be with those fears and vulnerabilities, and approach those parts of us with compassion, and let them catch up to where we are in time, and let your whole system, you know, come on board with the reality of where you are in your career and all that you’ve done, and all the skills you’ve acquired, and how good of a therapist you are.

 

[00:07:30] Linzy: I find it can be helpful too, to think about your most successful clients. Who are those people who you absolutely changed their life, and there is no question that the work you do with them is worth 185 an hour, or 200 an hour? Whatever. 300 an hour. Because how can you put a value on changing the quality of somebody’s entire life and therefore the ripple effects on all the relationships around them?

 

[00:07:53] Linzy: You know, I think the work that good therapists and good health practitioners do when we’re doing quality work, we are literally changing people’s lives for the rest of their life, right? And the value of that is almost infinite. Of course, people don’t have infinite money, so we still need to think about markets, and what makes sense in a certain context.

 

[00:08:10] Linzy: But yeah, I find that that, for me, can also be grounding when I am worried about pricing, is to remind myself of those people who are the best fit, who do the work, you know, and who are the exact target people that I’m looking for. This is worth more than this much money to them. Right? This can be worth infinite money to them when you really have the right click with the right person.

 

[00:08:33] Linzy: So those are my thoughts for you. You know, there’s that external piece and how you manage these conversations. There’s that internal piece and taking care of yourself, and I’m just sending you lots of good energy, Annette, as you are continuing to have these conversations with clients, and sharing with them your fee. I think you’ve probably put a lot of thought into getting there.

 

[00:08:51] Linzy: So just sharing that information with your clients, allows you to have rich clinical conversations, and ultimately allows you to get paid what you need to get paid to be well in this work. Thank you so much for your question, Annette. If you, like Annette, have a question for me that you’d like me to answer on an upcoming episode of Feelings and Finances, all you need to do is click on the link in the show notes, or head over to our podcast page.

 

[00:09:13] Linzy: You will see a little widget there to record a question for Linzy. You just need to press record, share your name, share your question, and I would be happy to answer it on an upcoming episode. Thank you so much for joining me today. 

[00:00:00] Christine: Potentially the conversation needs to start there, or the work needs to start there. I always kind of had a sense of it in terms of marketing and trying to get new clients, but I’m also starting to see that I’ve been using my hospital job as kind of like a buffer to prevent me from having to do this other hard work of maintaining my current clients.

[00:00:30] 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, Lindsay Bonham, therapist turned money coach and creator of the course Money Skills for Therapists.

[00:00:51] Hello and welcome back to the Money Skills for Therapists podcast. Today we have a coaching episode with listener Christine. We dig into this question that Christine has around leaving her full time job. How do you go about planning to leave a full time job that pays you well to move into private practice.

[00:01:09] Christine has a private practice on the side, but works full time, and today we get into the actual practical numbers of understanding what your private practice income is going to need to look like to replace your income. We dig into some parts that many of us have that come up, when it comes to thinking about building something new, parts that might not trust us to follow through or haven’t seen examples of successful entrepreneurship in our lives, so it’s hard to imagine that we could be living that.

[00:01:37] We also explore this piece of being basically overtaxed from your private practice when you do have this scenario of a full time job and private practice income about how you can end up paying really high taxes from your private practice that aren’t really about your private practice. They’re about your total income.

[00:01:53] So we spend some time digging into that, looking for ways to remove that pain and friction, not putting so much pressure on a private practice. So we cover a lot of ground today. There’s lots here, practically,

[00:02:04] And it is inevitable that I’m probably always going to ask, what part of you is that question? Just because the stories that we carry and the different parts of us internally that are there to keep us safe or that are carrying trauma, are inevitably part of these big decisions that seem like practical or professional decisions, but they’re really deeply personal decisions to make.

[00:02:23] Here is my coaching conversation with Christine.

[00:02:35] So, Christine, welcome to the podcast.

[00:02:37] Christine: Thanks so much for having me.

[00:02:39] Linzy: Yeah. Thank you for joining me. And we were talking a little bit off mic before we started recording that this question that you submitted, you actually submitted almost 11 months ago now. but it still is like a pertinent question, you know, coming into our conversation today, which to me also just tells me how long these things like hang out for us in our lives, these questions.

[00:02:58] So tell me about what you’re bringing into our coaching conversation today.

[00:03:02] Christine: Awesome. Thanks. Okay. So I have a full time job as a social worker in a hospital, and I have a small private practice that I’ve had for a couple of years, and I’ve been considering reducing my load at the hospital and picking up some more time in my private practice for increased flexibility, quality of life, all that stuff.

[00:03:24] Working in a medicine unit during COVID wasn’t easy. such a bolster for the mental health and quality of life in general. But I’m finding… I’m not really sure if I’m doing it right. Cause I’m not great with numbers, but I’m not really liking my experience with taxes.I’m just sort of unsure where to go from here, honestly.

[00:03:43] Linzy: Yeah. And when you say you’re not liking your experience with taxes, tell me what has been happening with taxes so far.

[00:03:48] Christine: Sure. So, in the past years of my private practice, I’ve always had enough money saved come tax time. and I’m in Ontario, Canada. So, I have to pay in installments now. And, I recognize that this is, like a very privileged position to be in, but I got taxed at a much higher tax bracket with my private practice income this past year.

[00:04:09] And now my installments are quite big. So it feels like I’m giving all of my private practice income to the CRA, Canadian IRS.

[00:04:18] So I’m just sort of wondering, I’m like, it doesn’t really seem to be like much advantage to carrying these two incomes, with my eventual goal to try to balance them out. I don’t know, maybe I’m just trying to do damage control for the tax man. I’m not sure.

[00:04:32] Linzy: Okay. And I will say that your installments are based on what you’ve made previously, right? So like, they’re projections, and they are just projections. So they’re guidelines from the CRA where they’re saying, okay, based on what you made last year, this is what we project you should owe us this year.

[00:04:49] But they can also be adjusted if your practice is looking different, right? So they should be in balance with what’s happening in your practice now. And if they’re not, you can always pay less, just to set that as the initial… That’s just the CRA giving you their best guess on what they think you’re going to owe them and breaking that into four pieces.

[00:05:06] I’m curious, how much are these quarterly tax installments?

[00:05:09] Christine: So last year they were like $1800 and the $900 respectively, but they’ll be forecasted to be, I think, $2550.

[00:05:20] Linzy: Okay. 2550 each time. So yeah. Okay. So 2550 times five is going to be 10, 200. And how much, as far as you know, are you bringing home from that private practice?

[00:05:39] Christine: That’s a good question. I would maybe say probably about that, maybe a little bit more.

[00:05:45] Linzy: Okay. So, from your experience with the numbers, it’s like you’re paying half of  what you’re making to taxes.

[00:05:51] Christine: Yeah, I think so. Now, I have to say, like, I’m pretty rudimentary with numbers. Math makes me squirrely. So, I’m not even actually sure. I’ve looked at my dashboard several times,

[00:06:01] Linzy: Yes. Because like that, I mean, first of all, I will say, if that was true, that like basically50 percent of everything you’re earning from the private practice you having to pay for taxes, that would suck. But I will tell you, based on knowing Ontario tax brackets, I don’t think that’s the case.

[00:06:17] So I think part of what we can start to look at here is like, how are your numbers actually working? What’s actually happening with your numbers? Why are these taxes feeling so high? You had mentioned that you have a spreadsheet that you can look at. So can you give me a sense of the numbers that you do know?

[00:06:33] Like what kind of numbers you have in front of you right now that we can dig into a little,

[00:06:36] Christine: Oh, I have so many numbers in front of me. My friend who’s an internal auditor made my spreadsheet.

[00:06:41] Linzy: Oh, that’s nice. Yes. Great.

[00:06:43] Christine: My accountant was the one who actually told me that I was taxed at 42 percent of my private practice income last year. So that’s kind of why I think half might be about right. And then my deductions hover , pretty traditionally over, but maybe between 11 and 13,000 per year.

[00:07:02] Linzy: Okay. Okay. 11 and 13,000. Your deductions being your…

[00:07:07] Christine: Like my expenses .

[00:07:08] Linzy: Oh, okay. Your operating expenses.

[00:07:10] Christine: Yeah. Sorry.

[00:07:11] Linzy: Yes. Okay. So 11,000 to 13,000 for your operating expenses. Okay. Okay. So what this tells me is that your private practice is moving you up into a higher tax bracket. So it’s not actually that your private practice money is being taxed at that higher rate, but because you’re being taxed at a lower rate than you should be from your paycheck, your regular salary, it’s set up in such a way that it’s being basically robbed from your private practice, right? Because you’re moving into a much higher tax bracket. Do you know which tax bracket you are in? Like, what is the range that you’re in? How much are you making at your hospital job?

[00:07:48] Christine: So last year I think I cleared just over a hundred thousand. So maybe like a hundred and three thousand.

[00:07:54] Linzy: Hundred and three thousand, let’s say. And then, with your private practice, how much are you, are you seeing coming home to you there? Like, before you pay taxes. I’m going to guess twenty thousand based on what you said earlier?

[00:08:06] Christine: Twenty two thousand. Yeah.

[00:08:08] Linzy: So what I’m hearing then is between your hospital income and your private practice income, your before tax income is $ 125,000, which is, to stop and pause for a second, pretty great.

[00:08:20] Like, what does that number mean to you when you think about making $125, 000 a year?

[00:08:25] Christine: It’s certainly more than I ever thought I would earn. I’m not a big person, wanting to achieve a certain number, but when I hear it, like considering my life, that’s a good amount of money. I also find this weird thing where I’m like, why don’t I have any then?

[00:08:41] Linzy: Right. Where’d it go?

[00:08:42] Christine: I know? Yeah.

[00:08:43] Linzy: Yes. Yes.

[00:08:44] Christine: Even though I do have some, I don’t know. I feel like I should be full of designer purses

[00:08:51] Linzy: Right. Yes. Which would have been true if you were earning 125, 000 a year in the 1980s. You’d be rich.

[00:08:59] Christine: Yeah.

[00:09:01] Linzy: But I mean, this is part of inflation, right? It’s like, I think these numbers, if I think about when I was a kid and I learned what my mom made, I was like, wow, my mom makes like a ton of money. which was again, kind of true in the nineties money, you know, our purchasing power goes down and down.

[00:09:15] So 125 is a great income, but it’s also not, it’s not designer purse income. Maybe one or two designer purses, but not all the designer purses.. So as we’re thinking then about your picture, like I’m curious, you’re talking about the hospital was not awesome for mental health going through COVID.

[00:09:34] I can’t imagine what that would have been like being in the hospital system during the pandemic. And, You’re thinking about starting to turn up your private practice. I’m hearing there’s this aversion because it feels like your private practice money just gets taxed like crazy. The first thing that I want to zoom out on is the fact that your overall money is getting taxed at a certain percentage. But because you’re not getting taxed at that percentage at the hospital, more has to be taken from your private practice. Right. , how would we say that’s more about how the money’s being arranged than actually that you’re being overtaxed.

[00:10:04] Christine: Right.

[00:10:05] Linzy: You’re allowed to have feelings about the amount of taxes you’re paying.

[00:10:07] That’s totally fair. but it’s not actually that you’re earning less than the private practice. It’s that you’re earning more overall and those taxes need to come from somewhere.

[00:10:14] Christine: Yeah.

[00:10:15] Linzy: And so one way of managing this that would make it feel a lot more even and would make it, in a way, more accurate is you can always ask to be taxed extra from your salary income, knowing like, okay, they’re taxing me at the 103,000 bracket, but I’m actually know I’m going to land at 125.

[00:10:34] So I’m going to ask them to put aside an extra. 200 bucks every paycheck, or 300 bucks, so that it’s like that job is actually starting to be taxed more accurately, which means your private practice is not being overtaxed to make up for it. What do you notice like thinking about that, trying to zoom out and putting these two incomes into a more of a big picture perspective?

[00:10:53] Christine: Yeah. I think my money avoidance definitely comes up there. I’ve, I’ve thought about doing that, and my accountant suggested that as well. When I think about how I do my monthly budget, I’m trying to imagine let’s say four to 600 less coming in of my like predictable paycheck money. And I kind of balk at that. I’m like, “Nah, I’ll just wait until April, but it seems like maybe that might actually be the best call.”

[00:11:18] Linzy: Well, what that would do is it evens out your tax burden, right? Rather than being kind of hit with these larger quarterly payments or having to pay extra tax time if you didn’t put enough aside, it means that there’s a little bit less coming in those regular paychecks from the hospital, but also your quarter lease can come down a little bit because now you’re contributing more that way.

[00:11:38] So in the end, the cash will actually look the same. You’ll actually end up with the same amount of cash at home. It’s just a little less will come from the hospital, and a little more will come from the private practice. but it shouldn’t actually change your budget because you’re not actually paying more taxes.

[00:11:53] You’re just paying your taxes in a different way. Lets you see how much is coming. Actually coming from your private practice? yeah. ’cause right now your private practice is being kind of knee capped, I will say.

[00:12:03] Christine: Yeah, that’s a good word for it. And like, I’m a social worker. So like, I’m a happily taxpaying citizen. I know taxes are good, but I’m also just like, damn, when I see it on paper at the end of the year, I’m like, why?

[00:12:15] Linzy: Ow.

[00:12:16] Christine: Yes, because I’m working, I feel, I’m working really hard, like, and burnout is a real thing, and it’s creeping.

[00:12:22] So when I think about all the time that I put into my private practice on top of a full time job, and then I see at the end of the year, I’m like, wow, damn, I gave so much of that money to the government. Like, I guess it’s just the way that I’m rationalizing it in my mind. I just don’t like the look of it.

[00:12:39] Linzy: No, of course not. And if, if I think about it in terms of an analogy, if we think about these two parts of your earning life, you know, your hospital income and your private practice income, if I was going to make them people with ages, which there’s lots of arguments not to do this, but let’s just like do this cause it’s simple.

[00:12:53] It’s like your hospital job is like an adult. It’s an adult that, has all the benefits, is like, you know, got all of the status, and your private practice is more like. I don’t know, like a seven year old, right? But the way that your system is set up right now is kind of like this seven year old, these earnings of like 3, 000 a month are being asked to make up for all these taxes that are really about the two of them combined.

[00:13:18] It’s really asking a lot of your private practice to carry the tax burden of your total income. And it really, as we said, like kneecaps it. And I think also doesn’t let you actually realize the positive impact of the private practice. Because it just seems like this thing that’s costing you money. It seems like that’s what the relationship has been recently.

[00:13:35] Christine: That’s a good way of putting it. Yeah.

[00:13:37] Linzy: Yeah, so that’s my first idea, which I’m hearing your accountant also had, yay accountant, is to spread out that tax burden so you can actually see all of this money together is contributing to these taxes, right? It’s not actually up to your private practice to pay 43 percent taxes, that’s crazy. If you had a private practice where you were making, I don’t know, 800, 000 a year, sure, that makes sense. It’s too much to ask from the seven year old.

[00:14:01] So let’s think about that first, of evening those things out. Then if we do that, if we move into the space where it’s like this private practice is not actually costing you 43 percent taxes, it’s probably actually more like 25 percent taxes, or 28 percent taxes, just like your hospital job. They’re both being taxed the same.

[00:14:20] Tell me about what you actually want your working life to look like. I’m hearing, thinking about moving more into private practice, more flexibility. What are you noticing you’re needing more of that your private practice could be giving you?

[00:14:35] Christine: I feel this need to say, like, in terms of a hospital job, like, I have a very good one, and I love where I work, and I love the people, but I think, medicine and critical care and that type of work is supersympathetic activation, and I can feel the toll that it’s taking.

[00:14:56] So what would be so ideal would be to be part time at the hospital where I can continue to be in the work that I actually do like, like some part of my system does really like that work. But then to also be able to nurture more of the clinical side where, you know, you actually get to meet with people for longer periods of time, get to help them, you know, with their issues and really dig in.

[00:15:19] And then, on the days that I’m working on my private practice, those would be, days where I wouldn’t be up before the sun, and I wouldn’t be home at nine o’clock, which would give me a lot more time for resting, and being social, and doing sports. That kind of stuff.

[00:15:35] Linzy: Yes. Yeah. living a life that you enjoy.

[00:15:37] Christine: Mm hmm. Yeah, basically.

[00:15:39] Linzy: Yeah.

[00:15:40] Christine: So, if we think about your options, cause I’m not sure what it looks like in your hospital job. Is there a halftime option? Could you go down to three days a week? What’s available?

[00:15:50] Yeah, unfortunately right now that’s not an option. And if it was I would take it.

[00:15:54] I should just say yeah right now that’s not an option, and I’m actually not sure if it’s ever going to be an option. So there is this part of me. That’s also sort of forecasting for the thought that I might actually have to one day resign if my, You know, my system needs me to,

[00:16:11] and what I want with my life changes enough that I feel like I have to, but then, you know, we’re in a different pool then.

[00:16:17] Linzy: Yes. Okay. Yes. Yes. So. I’m hearing right now there isn’t an easy transition you could start to make into a little more. You can’t dial it up and down at this moment. so it would be more like almost like an all or nothing of moving fully

[00:16:30] into private practice. Okay, is the possibility of a part time hospital job somewhere else something that would be good for your system?

[00:16:37] Or do you really think just moving fully into private practice would be the next logical move?

[00:16:42] Christine: There’s not a lot of like 0. 5 full time equivalents available in healthcare anymore. And also the type of unit you’re working on, like really does affect, you know, how much you enjoy the work. And so I don’t know that I would be super interested in a 0. 5 at a different hospital or in a different place. Yeah.

[00:16:59] Linzy: Okay. If we’re then thinking about full time private practice, it almost sounds to me like a part of you needs an escape plan just in case, like I’m hearing, allusions to burnout kind of creeping in, and noticing that. So for moving into private practice, what is feeling difficult or unclear right now about making a move like that?

[00:17:22] Christine: Well, thanks to my, EPIC spreadsheet, I can see how much money I would need to take home in full time private practice in order to, pay my expenses and then also match the, retirement savings and vacation with, that would match what the hospital provides. That really increases the amount of money one needs to take home per month.

[00:17:45] And there’s also this irrelevant, but not, not totally that my current living arrangement is remarkably affordable for the market and it is… I’m renting, right? So I may have to move and if I have to move, like we’re talking multiple thousands of dollars more a month.

[00:18:01] Linzy: Oh, I know. Yes.

[00:18:03] Linzy: I have seen that happen to people. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Okay.

[00:18:06] Christine: So I just, I guess I’m wondering like, do I need to save 50,000 before I can resign from my hospital job. That feels daunting. I’m not sure.

[00:18:16] Linzy: Yes. Yeah. And I think It is important to think about what you would need for a runway, right? There’s two pieces there. One is financially, what do you need for a runway, to make sure that you’re covered? And then the second thing is emotionally, what do you need for a runway?

[00:18:32] Right? Like how much money do you want to have on hand that will allow you to step out and not be totally wracked by anxiety, like up at night, not knowing if you’ve made a massive mistake, as you’re building a private practice. And what I’m hearing is you do have a practice already, so you have some clients. Do you find, is there more demand than you can accommodate right now in your private practice,

[00:18:53] or is it a pretty small, quiet private practice at this moment? What’s happening there?

[00:18:57] Christine: Yeah, I would say more, the second one. It ebbs and flows. I end up just booking people quite a ways out because physically I just don’t have a lot of appointments available in a week. it’s this tricky thing though where like physically I, and like practically and energetically I’m actually not really able to grow my practice much bigger than I currently have it.

 [00:19:16] And if I resign from the hospital, I would need to multiply it by so many.

[00:19:21] Linzy: Yes.

[00:19:22] Christine: Yeah, so I do feel sort of limited right now in terms of growth, marketing, actively pursuing clients, that might actually help me feel a little bit safer about potentially resigning.

[00:19:35] Linzy: Yes. Yeah. Cause it’s kind of like you, you can’t handle more clients right now, but you’re going to need a lot more clients. Yes. if you stepped out of this and, Okay, so let’s think about these two pieces then. The first is the runway. I’m calling it a runway, you know. It could also be an emergency fund, a buffer, you know, there’s lots of words that we could use for this.

[00:19:54] Do you have clarity? And I think you do. It sounds like you have some great spreadsheets there, on how much a month you need to live? Your living number, maybe not your thriving number, maybe not your going out a bunch number, but what is your minimum that you definitely need to have to pay your rent and pay for your life.

[00:20:09] Christine: Because of the way the world is, my spreadsheet just closed, but, so I would say, about 10, 000 would need to be available to me to spend, per month. but that is a little bit of a safety net in that if I had to move, so if my, so 10, 000 ish,

[00:20:31] Linzy: And that’s assuming a higher rent.

[00:20:33] Christine: Yes,

[00:20:34] Linzy: How much of that includes the assumed rent increase? Like, if you did stay where you were, what would be the number?

[00:20:40] Christine: So if I scroll down, one would be about seven. You said, if we didn’t include retirement, vacation, anything like that.

[00:20:52] Linzy: Just looking at it like: you’re out. You can breathe. You can put your energy into building something new.

[00:20:58] Christine: Okay. And if I stayed where I was, it would be probably about 8,000 a month.

[00:21:04] Linzy: Okay, so $8,000 a month is your minimum to cover your life. We know that $10,000 is better, obviously. But we’ll say $8,000 is enough that you can live and breathe for a month at a time. So, as we think about this, like creating your runway, I’m curious how much a month then is coming in from your private practice.

[00:21:25] You said about 3,000 a month right now?

[00:21:28] Christine: Yeah, it varies. I would say usually between 25 to 3,

[00:21:34] Linzy: okay. Okay, 25, 000 and then business expenses come off of that, right? So if we, if we look at the average, I think you had said about 22, 000 a year is the average. So if I just take that average and I divide that by 12, then your average kind of take home is about 1, 800. it’s 1833, but I’ll just make it 1800 for easier math.

[00:21:56] So if we take that 8000, take off the 1800, there’s a difference there of 6200 to make up, right, to get you up to that 8000. So, what that tells us is you would need 6200 of savings as you get started with the private practice at the size that it currently is, because there will be some earnings from the private practice.

[00:22:17] Christine: Right.

[00:22:18] Linzy: Yeah. So if we think about that, how much of a runway, knowing yourself, would you want to have to give you the footing to, to make a big move like this? Like is it three months of breathing room? Is it six months of breathing room? Knowing that your practice will also be gradually growing because you will be putting your energy into marketing and networking and all those things.

[00:22:39] Christine: My first instinct was to say maybe three months, but I, I would like to conservatively say five.

[00:22:47] Linzy: Yeah, that number came into my head, too. Let’s find out, like, a nice middle. So if we do, you know, 5 times 6, 200, then we’re looking at just over 30, 000. 5 times 6, 200, it’s 31, 000, right?That’s even so conservative. Because what that, what we’re assuming there, Christine, just to like play it out, is we’re assuming that you would stop working in the hospital, you’d have no income coming in there, and you’re going to start your private practice, but your private practice is not going to grow at all for five months.

[00:23:17] For five months, you’re still going to have just the same amount of clients that you have now and no more, which is like a pretty dire projection, I would say.

[00:23:25] Christine: Mm hmm.

[00:23:25] Linzy: How realistic is it that you would start your private practice full time and have no growth? Yeah.

[00:23:30] Christine: I’m going to say it would be unrealistic, But I was, I’m still feeling this urge to plan for it.

[00:23:37] Linzy: Yeah. And tell me about that part of you that wants to plan for this unlikely, but kind of scary scenario.

[00:23:42] Christine: I knew you were going to ask me about my parts today. I was trying to move away and

[00:23:47] Linzy: but I would say there, I do have this part of me that doesn’t really trust myself that I can do it. 

[00:23:53] Christine: Or that I’ll work hard enough. So I suspect it’s that, maybe with a little imposter syndrome in there as well.

[00:24:01] So yeah, that part of me really wants me to be able to save significantly more than I actually need. And then there’s also this other realistic thing where like I’m a big spender. So, I want to say that if I resigned from a really good paying job that I would have some restraint, but I’m actually not sure if I would. So I know it’s bad. It’s not great.

[00:24:28] Linzy: It’s not great.

[00:24:28] Well, I mean, part of it is knowing yourself a little bit, you know, like some people would go into the opposite where they quit their jobs. So they’re like, nope, I’m only eating ramen for a month. And like, I’m not going anywhere and I’m not doing anything. Some people move on to almost like a punishment mode, right?

[00:24:42] Where it’s like, well, until I do X, Y, Z, I’m not allowed to be well or enjoy life. I’m hearing that’s not a part that you have, more on the like other side, the like, maybe like indulging spendy side of things. I am hearing, there’s definitely a part of you that doesn’t want to, does not want to turn down your lifestyle.

[00:24:57] Even if you leave the job, right, you wouldn’t want to go into a more restrictive mode, which is fair. And then there’s this other part that doesn’t trust you to actually follow through on building the practice. I’m curious from this part of you that doesn’t trust you. What is that part of you think you’re going to do if you start a private practice full time?

[00:25:17] Christine: Maybe just, like, not grow and just stay, underperforming and under-incoming. I don’t know what the word is for that. That I wouldn’t make enough money and that I would, rack up lots of debt and get stuck in a situation where I didn’t have enough money to get myself out of a bad

[00:25:36] Linzy: Mm hmm.

[00:25:38] Christine: Like, really doomsday thoughts.

[00:25:41] Linzy: And has that happened before?

[00:25:43] Christine: No.

[00:25:43] Linzy: Okay, so there’s not a, right, right, there’s not a precedent of that, that this part is calling on. It’s not like, you know, this is something that there’s been clear evidence for. But there is this concern. Do you know where that concern comes from, that you will underperform, that you won’t be able to figure it out?

[00:25:59] Christine: I’m not sure. I might kind of have a reasonable idea. I also grew up in a family, like my family lived below the poverty line for probably the bulk of my elementary school years, so my money stories are, fraught, so there could be some, like, anxiety around you leave the job with the pension, you leave the job with the benefits, there could be some of that in there as well. 

[00:26:24] Linzy: And did you have anybody in your family or any role models who were entrepreneurs?

[00:26:29] Christine: Yeah. So my mom is actually a social worker. She was a school social worker and then she also started a private practice right around the time that I went to university. And then my dad is like a lifelong business owner. Yes, some.

[00:26:43] Linzy: Some entrepreneurs. Have you seen examples of really successful entrepreneurship in your family?

[00:26:49] Christine: No.

[00:26:49] Linzy: So what are the words that you associate with entrepreneurship based on what you’ve seen in the people closest to you?

[00:26:56] Christine: Hard work for sure. I think about how my brother is also an entrepreneur and everybody in my family works really hard. So Yeah, I guess that’s the only, really the only thing. And the only other thing I guess would be like other people are successful entrepreneurs, I guess that doesn’t really feel like an identity that’s super familiar to me. Like, I can’t really resonate with that right now.

[00:27:18] Linzy: Yes. Yeah. Okay. So you, you’ve seen entrepreneurship done, but it’s like really hard work, but not really paying off. So that would make sense that for a part of you, it’s hard to imagine this could actually work. You could actually make good money. When you have played with these numbers and forecast it, because it sounds like you have done some forecasting around what this would look like, what would your private practice need to look like to give you the income that you need?

[00:27:42] Like how many clients a week would you need to be seeing? What would your fee need to be? Do you have some of those numbers yet?

[00:27:48] Christine: Yes, I do have them. My sweet spot would be 16 clients and my clinical supervisor tells me that this is too conservative, and I’ll surely end up taking more. But I have this idea in my mind that I need a little bit of rest, and that 16 clients a week would be the most I would want.

[00:28:07] Linzy: 16 a week. Yes. And I would say for me that actually just to put it in perspective, that was not my sweet spot. That was my maximum. That was my, like, I can do no more. Now I go home and die, and recharge for the weekend. So 16 clients a week. And what fee have you been looking at that would help to support you on 16 clients a week.

[00:28:26] Christine: I think my fee would have to be around 185 for that to mean what I needed to mean, you know?

[00:28:32] Linzy: Okay. So it’s like 185 per session, 16 sessions a week. And how many weeks of the year would you want to take off for vacation?

[00:28:43] Christine: Well, ideally I would take like six.

[00:28:45] Linzy: Of course. Okay. So 46, right. So that brings you to about one 36, one 60. If we tone that down a little bit for like client absences and whatnot, I’m going to like take 5 percent off that just to sober it a little bit, which makes it 129,352. And then your operating expenses. What would you see those being once you’re in full time?

[00:29:10] Like, would you have an office and additional expenses or pretty close to what you’re doing now?

[00:29:15] Christine: Yeah. They’d be about the same.

[00:29:17] Linzy: Okay. Okay. And remind me what that number was your monthly OPEX number.

[00:29:20] Christine: Let’s say $13,000.

[00:29:22] Linzy: Okay. For the year. So $13,000 for the year. I’m just rerunning numbers that I’m sure you also have in front of you, but just like working through this out loud.

[00:29:30] Christine: Yeah. It’s helpful.

[00:29:30] Linzy: Yeah. If we take off the $13,113, that leaves $116,352 to be your income, which is quite close to the 125 that you’re at now. So it’s like $9 000 less than you have now, but you’re seeing 16 clients a week.

[00:29:47] You’re not working six weeks a year. We’ve also toned it down a little to account for some normal client like absences or your own sick time. And you’re only making 9, 000 less than you are now. So this is a much more spacious version of your schedule. What do you notice thinking about those numbers?

[00:30:02] Christine: Yeah. It’s poignant knowing that would be. Over half my time reclaimed. Most. 

[00:30:11] Linzy: There is also this time money equation, which, it’s kind of hard to know it until you live it, but it’s in that more spacious version of your life, where maybe you can just get up and go for a run in the morning, and you have time to make meals that you enjoy, and there’s less need for convenience, and there’s less exhaustion, and less like, oh, I’m just going to treat myself, I’ve had such a hard week, how that affects your spending, right?

[00:30:33] Even for being spendier, when we slow down, we tend to spend less. Right, because we’re able to meet our needs in other ways. So I would gamble to say, I would guess, that this actually would not feel like less money because you’re going to regain so much time. So thinking about this scenario then, 185 per session.

[00:30:54] Is that what you’re charging now? Or is that a little more? What are you charging now?

[00:30:57] Christine: Half of my clients, I would say, are still at my old rate of 130 per session, and then my new clients, for the last, I think, two years, paid 160.

[00:31:06] Linzy: So, I mean, as we’re thinking about maybe flirting was full time private practice, what do you think about going towards this 185 rate with your current clients?

[00:31:18] Christine: It feels difficult right. 

[00:31:20] Linzy: yeah,yeah. What do you notice about it? What’s difficult?

[00:31:23] Christine: I mean, it’s all the same old stuff, you know? It’s all that, like, lean in, make bank, Tiffany.

[00:31:30] Linzy: Tiffany would be all over this. Yes.

[00:31:32] Christine: But you know, what it is.

[00:31:34] Linzy: Yes. I do know what it is. Yes. Yeah. What I’m thinking is there’s a part of you that needs to see that this could work, right? There’s a part of you that is having a really hard time right now imagining that you could actually have a private practice that’s not exhausting you, making the money that you still want to make and need to make.

[00:31:54] And part of what I’m thinking is, can you show this part of yourself that you can do hard things, and make moves in the direction of where you ultimately want to go. What would that be like if that part of you could see you make this kind of move, which is a move in the direction of the numbers you need, and actually stick to it, and implement, and have those hard conversations and have that be your new fee?

[00:32:20] Christine: Yeah, I think it would be expansive. I think I would start to feel like there was more than one pathway out.

[00:32:28] Linzy: Yes. Yeah. It’s funny. I just recorded a feelings and finances podcast before we got on our call about this question of like being in a full time job and like, when do you step out? And I was saying how there’s two ways to do it. There’s the toe dip method, which is what you’re already doing, right?

[00:32:43] It’s like a little practice on the side. And then there’s the jump off a cliff method. I’m more of a jump off the cliff kind of girl myself. That’s not for everybody. And you do need to have that runway to make that work. but what’s nice about the toe dip is you can practice on a smaller scale, the kinds of skills and conversations you need to have on a larger scale to get to where you want to be.

[00:33:03] And you can do that in like these little-r ways and let yourself experience either that your clients don’t care at all, or that they’re happy to pay your new fee, like you get to actually have that experience without having everything on the line, right? You still have your hospital income. You know, you still have that 103, 000 a year coming in, but you also get to build the kind of resilience and the nerve to go for what you really need and want in your private practice.

[00:33:28] How does that land with you, thinking about this as almost like a practice zone for you?

[00:33:34] Christine: Yeah, like I sort of want to vomit thinking about it. But I also, I think I also know you to be correct. That feels right.

[00:33:43] Linzy: Yes. Because, 185, in Ontario is not a crazy fee. Right?

[00:33:48] And especially,no. And especially where you’re drawing from, like what city are you located in or where do your clients tend to be?

[00:33:55] Christine: Kind of around the London area.

[00:33:56] Linzy: Okay. There’s a university there. There’s lots of folks there who make lots of money, depending on your client population, obviously.

[00:34:02] But that’s a big enough city that you’re going to have a range of folks and there’s going to be lots of folks for whom 185 is a non issue, right? And I’ll say when I wrapped up my own private practice, which was a few years ago now, I stopped at 175. That’s where I was when I wrapped up and I definitely could have been charging more.

[00:34:21] My clients legit did not care what my fee was. When I raised my fee actually from, I can’t remember what it was before, I want to say I only raised it 165 to 175, whatever it was, they couldn’t even remember what the raise was because it was so insignificant to them financially that I had clients who were like, what’s it going to be again?

[00:34:35] 185? And I was like, Oh no, 175. Damn it. Should have been 185. So just to put that in like the context of, you know, the general area that we live, that is, I would say in, Ontario, not even really a premium fee for what tends to be out there at this point, especially if you look towards like Toronto, you know, and what folks are charging in those areas.

[00:34:56] Christine: Yeah. There’s a lot of therapists in this area charging 185, 175.

[00:35:01] Linzy: Absolutely. Yes. What do you think about being one of them?

[00:35:05] Christine: I guess that could be okay.

[00:35:09] Linzy: Because what I’m thinking is, your numbers work, right? These numbers work. 16 sessions a week at 185 with six weeks off, and the expenses that you already have, right? So like, it’s not like we’re totally making up these expenses. These are based on you already having a private practice. You already know what it takes to run it.

[00:35:28] All of these numbers work. So then the question is, how do you make this real in your life? Like, what is the first step to allow you to see that you could actually live this? These could be the numbers that you’re living.

[00:35:39] Christine: Right. Yeah. I suppose you’re right that it, potentially the conversation needs to start there or the work needs to start there. I always kind of had a sense of it in terms of marketing and trying to get new clients, but I’m also starting to see that I’ve been using my hospital job as kind of like a buffer to prevent me from having to do this other hard work of maintaining my current clients.

[00:36:05] Linzy: Totally. And I remember a bookkeeper that I knew years ago, kind of through networking, you know, in Guelph, Ontario, which is where I’m based. She talked about how she raised client fees, but she was like, I did it the chicken way. I only raised fees for new clients. I didn’t raise fees for my current clients.

[00:36:19] So I think about that. It’s like, often we’re scared to raise fees with the folks who are working with us. But those are the folks who already love what you do. Like they’re the folks who already know that you’re the person that they need. And if you raise your fee and they decide, I was willing to pay Christine one 50, you said it was.

[00:36:37] Christine: it’s. Yeah, 160

[00:36:39] Linzy: Okay, but I’m not willing to pay her 25 more. That probably actually tells you more about where they’re at clinically and how important this work is to them at this point than about an actual financial issue. Because the difference between 160 and 185 is actually a very small increase, right? If we think about somebody’s monthly budget, right?

[00:36:57] And how much they’re paying you for therapy on a monthly basis. So starting to bring this all together, we’ve covered a lot of ground.

[00:37:03] Christine: We have.

[00:37:04] Linzy: What do you see as your next step coming out of this conversation, what needs to happen to start to make some more movement around this? Yes. Yes.

[00:37:13] Christine: I definitely think I need to start having those difficult conversations or start having the conversation about balancing fees for my clients and then, I also need to follow up with my HR team to see if they can tax me some more. 

[00:37:28] Linzy: Let’s stop kneecapping your private practice. It’s not fair. That’s not fair. You’re not letting it shine and show you its potential, when it’s having to carry all those taxes. So I like that just as a practical solution to let you see your private practice does not suck. And it could actually be your full time income, you know, once you start to make these moves.

[00:37:47] So what are you taking away from our conversation today?

[00:37:50] Christine: I think that it will be, I’m going to have to simmer in this a little bit to see what resonates. But I’m definitely feeling some good pressure, I’m definitely feeling some pressure. It feels right. Like what you said affirmed a lot of the things that I suspected, you might say. and so I guess I’m feeling like a little bit more clarity

[00:38:12] Linzy: Yes. Yes. Wonderful. Well, I’m excited for you. I think you are on the precipice of something really cool. yeah. And whether you walk into that slowly or whether you eventually build your runway and jump off the cliff,I think there’s a lot of potential here that could make your life a lot easier than it has been.

[00:38:29] Christine: I hope so. Thank you. 

[00:38:30] Linzy: Yes, you’re welcome. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today, Christine.

[00:38:34] Christine: Take care.

[00:38:47] Linzy: I really appreciated all the different pieces that Christine brought to this conversation today and a part that really sticks out for me is about this fear of trusting ourselves. This need, that we can have to build up so much stability and so much security and so many savings, because in Christine’s case, as she shared, there’s a part of her that doesn’t trust herself, sometimes it’s that we don’t trust ourself to follow through, sometimes it’s that we don’t trust the world,there’s different reasons that inform this, and when I notice this kind of thinking come up in myself, where I feel the desire to kind of hoard or set really high standards for when I can step out and take a risk,

[00:39:29] I try to think about: what would the scenario actually look like realistically where I would literally accomplish nothing in six months, and it’s pretty hard to imagine. So that’s a piece that I would offer to everybody listening. If you do find yourself, having parts of you that doubt that you’ll be able to figure something out or that think that, maybe you’ll never get clients in your private practice.

[00:39:49] You shouldn’t start one because how would you ever grow your private practice? If you think about yourself and you think about if you actually have the time to dedicate to this project, if this was actually your full time project, how many things would you have to not do, and how many things would have to go wrong for you to make literally no traction in this area?

[00:40:07] It would mean that all of your networking would have to fail. Nobody would be able to understand what you do and refer clients to you when you’re connecting with colleagues. It means that nobody will call you from your psychology today or that everybody that calls you wouldn’t book through.

[00:40:20] You have to think through almost that, what’s the worst that can happen? Because it’s so unrealistic because therapists are very competent people. Therapists and health practitioners, like we know how to figure things out and if you’re really committing your resources to making something happen in your private practice, you are going to have time to solve problems and to figure things out, and to try things, until something starts to make an impact.

[00:40:45] So that’s something that I always find helpful to remind myself is that I’ve solved lots of problems before; I will solve lots of problems again in the future. And it’s something that I know to be true of the folks who listen to this podcast as well. We have the ability to figure things out. So there’s always going to be this balance of taking care of parts of us and giving us enough security and enough of a runway in life to be able to make moves without being overrun with anxiety,

[00:41:09] but also, we are people who can solve problems. So we need to also temper that as we’re thinking about what we need to be able to step out and do what we really want in our careers. And in this case to start a private practice full time. So thank you so much to Christine for coming on the podcast today.

[00:41:26] You can follow me on Instagram at Money Nuts and Bolts, and if you are enjoying the podcast, if you’re curious about working with me, the best way to learn about what I do and to learn about my course, Money Skills for Therapists, which is my course for solo practitioners, is to check out my masterclass.

[00:41:42] We’ll put the link in the show notes. The masterclass covers the biggest three mistakes that therapists tend to make with money. It teaches you my four step framework to getting your private practice finances totally in order, which, is part of my course, Money Skills for Therapists that has helped hundreds of therapists to turn around their relationship with money,

[00:41:59] and it just gives you more of a sense for me and what I teach and what’s included in money skills for therapists. So if you are curious about working with me, and you are a solo practice owner, that is the route to take.

[00:42:09] If you are a group practice owner, then you’re going to want to get on the waitlist for Money Skills for Group Practice Owners, which I run a couple times a year. So we’ll put both of those links in the show notes, for the masterclass, which gets you, your invite to Money Skills for Therapists, and the waitlist link for Money Skills for Group Practice Owners for those of you who own group practices.

[00:42:25] Thank you so much for joining me today. 

[00:00:00] Linzy: Hello and welcome back to another Feelings and Finances episode of the Money Skills for Therapist podcast. These are our short and sweet Friday episodes where I answer questions from you, the listeners of the Money Skills for Therapist podcast, the wonderful therapists and health practitioners and coaches that make up our community.

[00:00:20] Linzy: Today’s question is from Lessey and here is their question. 

[00:00:24] Lessey: Hi, Linzy. My name is Lessey. I am a therapist in Colorado. My question for your Feelings and Finance is… I don’t know if there’s an answer to this question. I don’t expect an answer to this question. It’s more just, I’ve been asking other therapists lately and other helpers, sort of their feelings about this.

[00:00:47] Lessey: I would be curious to know what you think. Concerning taxes, when we are aware that there are unethical practices happening with our tax dollars by this government and taxes may be going to things that feel morally or ethically against what we believe, particularly being therapists in the health care system that isn’t very supportive of clients.

[00:01:12] Lessey: Just curious about when it feels really hard to hand money over to the government that you don’t particularly support what they’re doing with a lot of that tax money and any sort of moral imperative or ethical imperative we have as caregivers, to sort of speak up about that, or do something about that, or say something about that or refuse to do that or whatever the action step might be when you feel you’re giving your money to unethical places or being forced to give your money to unethical practices

[00:01:49] Lessey: by our government. Just curious what you have to say about that. Just curious about your own feelings about that. I know it’s a kind of touchy subject for a lot of people. A lot of people don’t like to approach this subject or talk about it. And a lot of what I’ve gotten back is people just putting their head down.

[00:02:04] Lessey: Well, we have to do it; it is what we’re doing, and we don’t get to talk about it. And just wanting to open up the conversation and let people speak freely about how they feel. about having to hand over hard earned money to what they feel is not in alignment for how it’s being spent. Anyway, I appreciate your time.

[00:02:22] Lessey: Thanks. Bye. 

[00:02:23] Linzy: Thank you so much for this question, Lessey. And as you say, it’s not one where I think there’s a hard answer, but it is a really interesting conversation, about money and taxes. And, I’m Canadian, so. I’m living in a different context. and most of the folks that I work with are American.

[00:02:42] Linzy: The folks that we support in our courses tend to be about 90 percent American, 10 percent Canadian, and also some Europeans in the mix. And that makes a lot of sense. Because that’s our exact population ratio. You folks have 10 times more people, 10 times more therapists, than we do in Canada.

[00:02:56] Linzy: So I totally hear you on the ethical moral reservations about taxes going to things that you don’t support. I can name some of those things probably. I would assume the prison system, the judicial system and the way that it discriminates against certain people, war. At the time that I’m recording,

[00:03:16] Linzy: this is shortly after Trump has made these kind of blustery statements about just taking over the Gaza Strip, which may or may not actually turn into anything, but if it did, would certainly be a massive, massive amount of money that America would be investing, to put it a certain way, in something that I’m sure many, many, many Americans do not support, right?

[00:03:38] Linzy: But when you are pooling your money into the collective through taxes, you don’t get to, you know, say exactly what happens with your dollars, right? Our dollars do go to things that we are not supportive of at the end of the day, that do not reflect our values, and what we want to see happen in this world. So in terms of how we work with that and sit with that and what we do about that, this could be like a whole episode, Lessey, I feel like with, you know, lots of people’s perspectives because it is messy and complicated and, you know, tax evasion is a crime. Unless you’re a multi billionaire. Then, you know, you have lawyers who let you get away with it.

[00:04:15] Linzy: But for most of us who are not multi billionaires and who don’t have lawyers on our payroll for millions of dollars a year, tax evasion is a crime. As I’m thinking about this, too, I’m thinking, it’s also not all bad, right? And this is where it gets muddy, when we don’t align with the goals or values of a particular administration, or even just the way the government has been functioning for decades, right, under any administration, there’s still going to be some things that the government is doing that we do support, right? So, for instance, I’m thinking about my own tax dollars, and what do my tax dollars do.

[00:04:49] Linzy: My tax dollars might go towards supporting certain policies that I don’t personally support or endorse. But also my tax dollars do go towards schools and roads, rec centers, all sorts of things that I do support. And they do go towards programming that I am very supportive of.

[00:05:06] Linzy: Right? Programming that I think is great. and so, you know, when I think about it, it’s not a black or white issue.Because I’m sure, Lessey, there are things that the government is doing with your tax dollars that you would support. And that you are happy about.

[00:05:18] Linzy: Roads in Schools, I feel like, is always an easy one. Right? Most of us like roads and schools. Even if you don’t like exactly what’s happening in the education system, I think most of us are in support of the idea that there should be an education system, that all children should be able to access that education system for free.

[00:05:33] Linzy: That it should be a high quality education system. In the United States, there’s many areas where the education system is not good, and it’s underfunded, and that’s where we want to see more of our tax dollars going towards that thing, right? We don’t want to have less tax dollars in the system.

[00:05:47] Linzy: So when I think about it, I think that the points of intervention are not in us giving over our tax dollars, it’s in: how are we using our power and our voices to challenge and change what the government is doing with that tax money, right? And then I also think about: how are we then also using our dollars that we have personally to use to see the things that we want in our community that the government is not doing, right?

[00:06:13] Linzy: And so it’s, I think, finding your sphere of influence, right? Like, where can we actually make an impact? Where can we change the way that things are happening? And nobody is going to change American foreign policy overnight. Nobody is going to stop imperialism and wars and racial profiling in the criminal justice system overnight.

[00:06:32] Linzy: But, as we continue to push for and lobby for what we do believe in, and live our values, and spend the money that we do have as well, on supporting the things that exist. So for instance, I’m very active with my time in my son’s school and also with my money in my son’s school, right? So we support all the fundraisers.

[00:06:49] Linzy: We give a lot of our personal time and our family, both my partner and I, to making my son’s school a better place. Our school council, because we’re in an area that is able to fundraise a good amount of money, we also donate money to other schools. You know, so there’s a school in our neighborhood that draws in families that do not have the disposable income that we have.

[00:07:09] Linzy: So our school made a large transfer to that school’s food program. Right? So we’re now helping have hundreds of meals at that school that would not be there otherwise for kids through the power of our money. It does make me think about, both, how do you use your own power, your own sphere of influence, to challenge and shift what the government is doing?

[00:07:31] Linzy: And then how do you use the rest of the money that you have to continue to make the world what we want it to be? Right? I think that tax refusal could get you thrown in jail. I don’t know if that’s worth it. There’s always strategic questions to ask about how we use our time and energy, and what is effective in terms of making political change.

[00:07:48] Linzy: But I think there is no question that using our time and energy to advocate and to push for the things that we want, and of course, elect candidates that are actually endorsing the things that we want, the value shift that they don’t come overnight, but they do happen, and then also using our own personal money that we have outside of taxes to support causes that we believe in,

[00:08:12] Linzy: are powerful ways to make change in the world within the sphere of influence that we do have. Something else that makes me think about Lessey, for your own money too, when you make charitable donations, that’s going to offset taxes in a way. When you put money into your own retirement funds, that also offset taxes.

[00:08:26] Linzy: So I think about, what are the life giving things that you can do with your money that actually also reduces your tax burden, which means less your money’s going into this pool of money that you don’t like all the things that are happening with it, that are really powerful uses of your money in your own life.

[00:08:39] Linzy: So even thinking about your own dollars, what are the things that are tax savings that also allow you to create change and make the things that you do want to happen, happen in the world? Those are my thoughts, Lessey, on this piece. As I said, this is a very rich question. I love that you are having these conversations with the folks around you… If you want, you can always work with an accountant, too,

[00:08:59] Linzy: I will say, who is more on the creative accounting side, who is more of a risk taker. And if you’re a risk taker, and if you want to, you know, look at writing things off in your business in a more liberal way, you are allowed to do that, which would leave more money in your pocket.But there are, of course, risks that come with that, and the chance of being audited, and the chance of having to pay back that tax money. And then, of course, being flagged as somebody who should be audited in the future. So there’s risks to that, but you get to choose, right? And so with all of this, we get to choose, but I would really think about what are the areas that you can make the most impact.

[00:09:30] Linzy: And also stepping a little bit, again, out of that black and white thinking that all of your tax money is going towards. things that you don’t support, and focusing on the tax money that is going towards things that you do support, and how do you continue to enhance and support those things that you do care about and that are values aligned.

[00:09:48] Linzy: So thank you so much for this question, Lessey. This is a really rich, interesting topic and I really appreciate you bringing this to the Feelings and Finances podcast episode today. If you, like Lessey, have a question, or maybe more of a topic, that you would like me to dig into on a future episode of Feelings and Finances, all you need to do is head over to the podcast page.

[00:10:10] Linzy: You’ll see that spot to hit record to submit a question to me. There’s a link in the show notes too that will take you there. I would love to dig into your question or topic on a future episode. Thank you so much for joining me today.

[00:00:00] Amber: People with ADHD don’t love structure, but we absolutely need it, which is why people like me who were so successful in the corporate world, why we also feel like what’s wrong with me, because the corporate world had this structure and then you go and start your own business and you can’t possibly do everything like you have to prioritize. So I think number one it’s not having this rigid schedule. 

 

[00:00:23] Linzy: It’s really understanding your energy. 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, Lindsay Bonham, therapist turned money coach and creator of the course Money Skills for Therapists.

 

[00:00:50] Linzy: Hello and welcome back to the podcast. Today’s guest is Amber Hawley. Amber is a therapist turned consultant who supports entrepreneurs with what she calls neurospicy brains, so ADD particularly is what we get into today. Her business is called The Easily Distracted Entrepreneur, which I love. Such a good title.

 

[00:01:13] Linzy: Today we talk about ADD and the wave of women being diagnosed with ADD in their 30s and 40s and 50s, and why that has happened. Amber talks a little bit about the different types of ADD, and why it can be missed, and so often was missed in women of a certain age, my age and her age. We also talk about how ADD impacts your ability to do entrepreneurship, to manage money, how ADD and money particularly intersect, and then how you can set yourself up as somebody with ADD, or who is otherwise neurospicy, to succeed in your business, and to just generally allow yourself the success you need to sleep at night, right?

 

[00:01:44] Linzy:  How do you actually get shit done when you have ADD or a neurospicy brain? Here is my conversation with Amber Hawley. 

 

[00:02:18] Linzy: Amber, welcome to the podcast.

 

[00:02:22] Amber: Thank you for having me.

 

[00:02:23] Linzy: I am very excited to have you. because we were just chatting off mic about how I’ve noticed both in my course, in the therapists who take money skills for therapists and money skills to group practice owners, but also in my own friends, people around me, specifically women around me, I’m noticing there is this wave of women being diagnosed with ADHD in their like 30s and 40s.

 

[00:02:48] Linzy: They’re often already successful professionals, they’re probably therapists and health practitioners if they’re in my course. and they’re just now learning that their brain fits an ADHD diagnosis and it seems to me like this, it’s something happening in the culture. Like it’s a big deal

 

[00:03:04] Amber: and I’m curious about your observations, your thoughts on this, on people being diagnosed so late in life with ADHD. Yes, Well, and I’m one of those people. I got diagnosed at 40 and yeah, I mean, I work with ADHD coaching as well as my main business serving entrepreneurs who are neuro spicy, as I like to say. I have people who are in their sixties that I’ve just found out, and so it is this thing.

 

[00:03:31] Amber: And why we’re seeing that is one, the way that everybody’s ADHD shows up is different, right? So I actually studied with Dr. Amon and he talks about there being seven types of ADD, ADHD, same, you know, like we just changed the lettering for the new DSM. But he talks about the seven types, and when you really look at it that way, you understand like it shows up different,

 

[00:03:55] Amber: and what tends to happen in school is that girls are more of like the, they would say like the dreamer, spacey, super talkative type, and they don’t usually like act out as much. And so, there’s a lot that goes into that, of course. And so it’s the boys that are acting out that are getting diagnosed, and so girls are often missed. 

 

[00:04:17] Amber: Right? And so what’s happening is we’re seeing women in their thirties and forties. Usually either they have kids and then their kid gets diagnosed and they’re like, oh my gosh, like that’s me. You know? Or like in my instance, I was in extreme burnout, and I had three kids in four and a half years.

 

[00:04:37] Amber: I was running a group therapy practice, and, you know, I’d been very successful in my career. I was a dot-commer before becoming a therapist. And I think with all the hormonal shifts as well, like all of a sudden all my coping mechanisms stopped working.

 

[00:04:51] Amber: And then actually I met a friend who was also a fellow therapist, Dr. Melissa McCaffrey. And she went and she got diagnosed after going to couples therapy, and then she said to me, I think you might have ADHD. So I was like, Oh, I better go get this checked out.

 

[00:05:08] Linzy: Right, so you had done all of these things in your life, like, all this success not knowing. Right, and it was just like a friend who reflected to you that prompted you to get diagnosed. 

 

[00:05:19] Amber: I mean, it was. Yeah, exactly. Luckily she had this amazing couples therapist. Because we see the statistics that most couples will go to, I believe it’s six different therapists before the undiagnosed person, in both men and women, it doesn’t matter…will get the understanding, and they’ll understand what’s happening with them and they get the diagnosis.

 

[00:05:35] Amber:  So luckily she had somebody who was like spot on. And then of course, once I mentioned it, all of my friends are like, well, duh? And I’m like, well, what do you mean? Duh?

 

[00:05:49] Amber: Like, why… Who never told me all of this? I have all these therapists, friends, and no one said anything.

 

[00:05:56] Linzy: Well, and that’s a funny thing. Sometimes it’s just having someone who comes into your world who has the awareness or it’s on their own mind at that time. Like when I met my partner now spouse, I was like, well, and you have ADD, right? And he was like, what do you mean? What are you talking about?

 

[00:06:10] Linzy: And I was like, uh…  But, as you say, there’s different types of ADD, but in my mind, this is certainly an ADD trait. So he went and took three different tests in one day, cause why wouldn’t you? I think one of them was just a self diagnosis thing on the internet, but he got like 95 out of a hundred.

 

[00:06:27] Linzy: It was like, huh, maybe! But same thing with him where his co worker was like, yeah, duh, of course you do. And she used to call him Two Feet because she would say he would jump into everything two feet first. Like he has this very…when he’s in something, he’s in something and it’s a joke between the two of us because I’m a very kind of moderate, balanced person, and he’s always like to the max.

 

[00:06:46] Linzy: And between the two of us, there’s some sort of balance. He overdoes things. Between us, we’re a reasonable human. We’re a good pair. Right? 

 

[00:06:54] Amber: Exactly. 

 

[00:06:57] Linzy: But it is similar to what you were saying; his coworker was like, of course you are.

 

[00:07:00] Linzy: I know that about you, but nobody had ever mentioned it to him until I mentioned it. And partially why I mentioned it is, as I was joking to you beforehand, I’m always surrounded by folks who would fit into that ADD category, and in fact, I probably have never dated a man who wouldn’t be ADD diagnosable, which is interesting.

 

[00:07:19] Linzy: So, yeah, so I think that, you know, there’s an energy there for me, obviously, that is a good complement to my nervous system and my personality. but it’s almost like a joke, if you’re dating me, you probably have to have ADHD. 

 

[00:07:30] Amber: I am married now, so less people will get this test administered, but yeah, it’s a funny thing because, what you’re mentioning, too, really brings me back to remembering my own family’s experience with ADD because just like you described, when my brother was diagnosed with ADD in the second grade, which would have been in the 90s then my dad was like, oh, that’s my whole life, right?

 

[00:07:51] Linzy: And he would have been in his 40s. Right? But what we’re seeing now I think is this other wave of women, as you say, because in women it often presents differently. So tell me a little bit more about these seven types of ADD. I’m not familiar with this. What are some of the different ways that ADD can look that often mean that women get missed?

 

[00:08:09] Linzy: Yeah, and like you’re saying with your husband and your dad, men do get missed, too. Typically though, of the seven types, there’s one that’s called a classic ADD. And the reason he uses ADD and some other experts do as well as, because most people either grow out of, or don’t have the hyperactivity.

 

[00:08:29] Amber: So it’s like, attention deficit hyperactive disorder with or without hyperactivity, which is so double negative or something. I don’t know. It’s so ridiculous, but… So usually it’s the classic ADHD kids who get the diagnosis.

 

[00:08:43] Amber: And so for women, yes, it can show up very differently. What we see is like that inattentiveness. So that’s kind of that dreamer who’s off daydreaming about other things or in another world, or, you know, as I say, easily distracted, right? Like so many of us are. My particular combination is like three different types and one of them is called over-focused where I actually might have a little OCPD, I mean, I probably fall into that camp. 

 

[00:09:00] Amber: And that’s actually probably one of the reasons why I wouldn’t have got diagnosed because I had developed these obsessive ways of managing things like lists and just being overly organized.

 

[00:09:22] Amber: So weirdly, right, because most people with ADHD struggle with organization. They struggle with that… And now I want to be honest that everything will be obsessively organized, labeled, color coded everything and then I will have like a room or a closet or a big giant pile that is just like a shit show. There’s always going to be that thing, you know, because the executive functioning is a struggle.

 

[00:09:45] Amber: And I’m not saying men don’t do this, but we see it a lot more with women developing these coping mechanisms that actually allow them to function. And so we would, you know, call that masking, of course, but it is this way of coping and over functioning. Then there’s another one called temporal lobe and there’s a high association with head injuries.

 

[00:10:05] Amber: There can be a lot of angry outburst stuff. There’s another one called limbic. Then there’s anxious and then there’s one called “ring of fire.” Which, you know, I feel like you can kind of probably… that’s that high emotionality, right? Like that, which is something we have with…

 

[00:10:21] Linzy: I was like, is that the one where you really like Johnny Cash? Nope. Nope. That’s not it. Okay. Okay. High emotionality.

 

[00:10:26] Amber: It’s where you go down in a ring of fire at all times. You melt down, you know? You know, and again, we have that hyper emotionality where the emotional regulation is more difficult. Right? So you can have a combination. You can have one; you could have a combination.

 

[00:10:41] Amber: I too married a guy with ADHD and he is classic. But he was born in 65. So when he grew up and they gave him, I think it was probably Ritalin or something… As soon as he took it, he was kind of like slow, and just like spacey and like lethargic and his mother like freaked out and flushed all the pills down the toilet and that was the end of that.

 

[00:11:00] Linzy: Yeah. Yeah, Ritalin also did not last long in our household. My brother was prescribed it in second grade. That was kind of what was out there at that time and he just lost his appetite, didn’t feel like himself, like it basically kind of put him into a depressive coma, something like that.

 

[00:11:15] Amber: Yeah, exactly.

 

[00:11:16] Linzy: Yeah, it also did not last long, and he and my father have found other ways to manage their ADHD. Although I will say, ADD, it seems to me like the drugs are getting better. Is that true?

 

[00:11:27] Linzy: Yeah, that’s my impression.

 

[00:11:29] Amber: And the thing is, like we know with psychotropic medication, it’s very much that individual, like how our biology responds to things. So, yeah, I personally take, for my ADHD, I take Welbutrin, because what we have found is that a certain level of Welbutrin is actually helping with a lot of the ADHD symptoms.

 

[00:11:52] Amber: And also if you have like the anxious or the limbic type of ADD, addressing those underlying mood disorders that can be there.

 

[00:12:01] Amber: That’s also part of it, but it really is separate from that, where it does give a little bit of that boost and that focus so that our brain can actually focus on something.

 

[00:12:11] Linzy: And I do see that overlap a lot. If I think about it, I would say my partner’s style of ADD is ADD without anxiety or depression. There’s things that have to be done around focus, but he can also hyper focus.

 

[00:12:22] Linzy: This is a great example. Two weekends ago, he was working on a Facebook ads course for our business and, he’s had the Facebook ads course for maybe nine months but there was like, kind of no reason to do it cause it’s one of the things that he could always do at any time, and there was no emergency, but then it was announced that the course was closing down.

 

[00:12:31] Linzy:  So then he had a deadline and Amber, he worked on that course for, from 9am on a Saturday morning till 5am the next morning.

 

[00:12:50] Linzy: He did a 20 hour work set.

 

[00:12:54] Amber: Yep.

 

[00:12:54] Linzy: Going through this course material and classifying all of our ads and filling out these spreadsheets and… We’re a spreadsheet couple; we both love spreadsheets. But I would not actually be able to do that. Like that is not in me. I do not have that cognitive capacity.

 

[00:13:08] Amber: Exactly, There are so many challenges because let’s face it, ADD is a disability. It is a real, real challenge. So when people, you know, will sometimes say everyone has ADD, I’m like, no. And I was like, no. Everyone’s easily distracted. Everyone’s a little overwhelmed and overcommitted, but it’s a very different thing.

 

[00:13:27] Amber: But then we have these saving graces, like that ability to hyper focus. Because that’s how… Like, I remember a teacher saying in college that the difference between the D or F student and the A student is that A student was willing to pull the all-nighter and I was like, hello, that’s me. That’s the only reason that I did so well.

 

[00:13:46] Amber: One is that I’m a great test taker, but two is I would just stay up the whole night before because there was a deadline, right? We need something that forces us into that focus.

 

[00:13:57] Linzy: Totally. And this is a constant thing that I am finding, as a partner of somebody with ADD is like, how do I give deadlines? As a partner of somebody who works with him, because he works in our business… Yeah, because it does seem like that urgency is so important. Let’s think then about ADHD and money, right?

 

[00:14:14] Linzy: Because as I said, I have lots of folks coming into Money skills for Therapists who are getting these diagnoses or just recently had, you know, a diagnosis of ADD, and money is a real struggle point for them. So how do you see ADD impacting folks’ abilities or relationship with finances and money?

 

[00:14:30] Amber: Yeah, and I will say, I see that as well. So, I used to have a group practice. I sold it last year. My main focus is really now serving mostly entrepreneurs, but also like corporate executives who are neurospicy. So there’s a blend of things. But what I see, because I help people a lot with systems and like operations and, you know, being able, I like to say, get shit done. So many people who are coming in are neurospicy mostly, and they’re even business owners who don’t even have budgets. They don’t have any clue, like how much they’re actually spending each month, how much they’re actually bringing in each month.

 

[00:15:09] Amber: Right? So there’s this chaos there, which then perpetuates, like, I don’t want to look at that because that’s overwhelming. Right, so when we feel overwhelmed, when something doesn’t feel like it’s in our wheelhouse, we can be really avoidant because, as you know, money is not just a numbers thing. Like I’m fantastic with numbers and I love spreadsheets.

 

[00:15:27] Amber: It’s an emotional thing and so when you add in the emotions, and then you add in certain traits in ADHD, and not everybody has this because I know people with ADHD who are like very, I don’t want to say rigid isn’t the right word, but they’re very on top of that stuff, but there’s quite a lot of us who are like very impulsive or when we’re feeling emotional, like we’ll spend something.

 

[00:15:50] Amber: I’ve, I jokingly say like, I think I’ve bought every course that’s ever been put out in the business world, I would go through things where if I just, you know, was having that a down day, because that’s just part of entrepreneurship, or I was just feeling really stressed out,

 

[00:16:05] Amber: I would buy something, like I would buy the solution, the quick fix, the whatever. And then I would never look at it. Because I bought it, it gave me that moment of relief, and then I moved on, and then I had to start my day and do my thing. Right. So yeah, there’s a lot of that. There’s a lot of that impulsivity.

 

[00:16:22] Amber: There’s a lot of being in such a frenzied place where you feel so overwhelmed that you’re just kind of grabbing on for things and solutions that maybe aren’t the right fix or even the right thing to be doing.

 

[00:16:35] Linzy: So that impulsivity then leading to spending that we could say is maybe not strategic spending. It seems like an effort to kind of quell some chaos for a moment, and it also does make me think about the talk about dopamine seeking with ADD where it’s like, you sought something, you did it, you made it happen.

 

[00:16:52] Linzy: That feels good in itself. But was it actually the thing you needed? Are you actually going to do it? Those are questions that remain to be seen.

 

[00:16:59] Amber: Well, exactly. And that’s the thing, right? Like, that’s why the impulsivity around shopping, because it does give you the dopamine, it feels good. It feels exciting. And frankly, you know, like my big places around courses, like knowledge, I love, like I’m constantly buying books or courses. I actually had to have a little intervention with myself and I was like, okay, you’re not allowed to buy a course now for a couple months. I had to stop myself because It wasn’t intentional, right? And I’m all about being more intentional in things but sometimes you’re like, I just want something shiny pretty. 

 

[00:17:27] Amber: I like luxurious things. I like luxurious experiences and I want to do those things, but then we sabotage ourselves because what I see so many people doing, and especially therapists, is whittling away our money.

 

[00:17:40] Amber: So there’s no intentionality. So we think we can’t have the thing we want because we’ve been frittering it away on all these things that we don’t really care about.

 

[00:17:48] Linzy: Absolutely, yeah, every dollar that goes somewhere can’t go somewhere else. Yeah. And that lack of intentionality… Because if I think about words like intentionality, which, you know, that’s one of my favorite words,

 

[00:17:59] Linzy: It does require a stopping, a slowing down, a being with. Also, it requires sometimes a tolerance of uncomfortable emotions.

 

[00:18:09] Linzy: Right? It’s like, I really want this thing but what is that about? Like, am I comparing myself to somebody else? Is there some “compare and despair” going on here? Is there some magical thinking? Right? Am I just feeling really anxious and uncomfortable, and so I’m trying to see myself take action? What it takes to slow down and do that is a fair amount of being able to like pump the brakes, right?

 

[00:18:29] Amber: And kind of down regulate your nervous system and that, that can be a hard thing to do. It’s extremely hard. And when you’re neurodivergent, it almost can feel impossible because it feels like everything is urgent, everything is important. I almost think of like a whirling dervish where, we’re, they’re in this like cyclone of chaos there that is going on.

 

[00:18:50] Amber: To even imagine, to stop and take that step back, it feels impossible. And even though logically we know that, sometimes I’m saying, hey, for the next hour, let’s do this… I do annual, quarterly, monthly, and weekly planning with the people in my incubator course, and we’re taking that small step back, and it has a huge impact on so much.

 

[00:19:15] Amber: Cause you’re saying, it gives you clarity. And honestly, that’s where that effectiveness comes in, having that clarity. You have to be willing to do that. For some people, unless they have somebody supporting them to do that, it just feels impossible and I do understand that.

 

[00:19:29] Amber: I mean, I’ve been in those places where I feel so overwhelmed. I’m like, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. I’m just trying to get it all done, but the reality is, it’s like you said, you have to bring it down. You have to slow everything down, and you’re like, okay, this is just one hour. You know, you can go off into chaos after that, if you need to, But we know the magic is they won’t as much, right? Like that’s the magic.

 

[00:19:52] Linzy: The word that comes to mind for me with that, in terms of having somebody else support you in that, is co-regulation. Or body doubling is an ADD term that I like to hear folks use. And that’s something that I do in my course as well, which is just create that container.

 

[00:20:07] Linzy: It’s like, just show up. If you just show up to the container, we’ll be there. Other people will be there. There’ll be like that momentum and you’ll see other people doing the thing. You won’t be alone. And it’s amazing what you can get done in an hour, or an hour and a half. We do hour and a half coworking calls.

 

[00:20:21] Linzy: You can get a lot done on your finances in an hour and a half.

 

[00:20:23] Amber: Oh, a ton done. Like that. And it is magical, right? Yeah. If you show up. All you have to do is show up. Although I do see the spectrum of having clients and friends who have joined my programs before, who have, they show up but they get off camera and they are actually on their phone. 

 

[00:20:38] Linzy: Right, right.

 

[00:20:41] Amber: And I’m like,no, that’s not showing up. You actually have to, so I do encourage people… I mean, I don’t make people, but I say keeping your camera on is actually part of the accountability. Because if you’re not in person… And I love doing it in person as well. It is magical and I realized, after I, you know, got diagnosed and did a ton of training and learning about ADD, then that’s when I realized, oh, wow, I used to do that.

 

[00:21:06] Amber: Like when I would have giant piles of paperwork, and I would ask my husband, like, can you just come sit in the room? Like he would watch a movie. And I was like, I just need you here because it allowed me to stay centered and focused. If he left the room, it wasn’t going to happen. Right? It’s very containing, like you said. And that’s a lot of my programs, too, where it’s providing that container, providing that weekly planning container, and we do coworking like three times a week and then I do extended sessions.

 

[00:21:34] Amber: Right, there are people who come on Monday and one person stands out in particular, even though everyone will kind of chime in about this. But Patty works, she calls it Money Monday because we talked about like having that ritual and she’s like, when I don’t come, I don’t do it and it’s not because she isn’t smart enough.

 

[00:21:52] Amber: It’s not because she’s not amazing. It’s because we have so many things pulling us in so many directions and we’re just, you know, most of us are a little crispy as well. So we’re just a little burnt out. But yeah, it’s that thing that just having that ritual or having that container that helps you, like, okay, I’m going to take this deep breath and we’re going to do this with intentionality for the next hour.

 

[00:22:14] Amber: And like you said, it’s amazing what can be accomplished.

 

[00:22:17] Linzy: Yeah, because often our charge around these tasks, the phobia that can develop around these tasks, is so much greater than the actual pain of doing the task, right? Once you actually start doing the task, you’re like, oh, no, I actually do have this information. It’s right here. Or like, oh, the thing is done.

 

[00:22:32] Linzy: That’s a general human experience I will say, even as somebody without ADD. But it seems to be more pronounced for folks, with ADD, which is all of the noise around it internally is so much greater than the actual effort of the task once you get to it.

 

[00:22:46] Amber: Exactly, and that’s the thing because there’s so much shame. And I remember this narrative for myself until I got diagnosed: If I just did it better, I’m just not doing it good enough, or I’m being a bad business owner, or there’s something wrong with me, I’m broken. Maybe I’m not cut out for this. 

 

[00:23:01] Amber: You know, like the things I hear a lot of my clients will talk about as well and then I got diagnosed and I was like, oh my gosh, all of these things that I thought were huge character defects were actually symptoms of ADHD. And I just didn’t understand it.

 

[00:23:17] Amber: And so I didn’t know how to work with it. All I knew is like everyone else could just say, oh, this is important and I’m going to do it and for me, it was like a Herculean task, but yet I could take something very complex, and I could bang it out in like a day, right?

 

[00:23:31] Linzy: Yeah, there’s like these contradictions there that I think make it easy for someone from the outside to be like, well, why don’t you just do it? Why don’t you? 

 

[00:23:37] Amber: Exactly, exactly. Right? And again, being a couples therapist, you see that a lot, too. You’re like, this feels purposeful. You can do all of this, but you can’t remember to bring home the milk or whatever. 

 

[00:23:49] Linzy: Right. Well, and something else that I have been reading and thinking a little bit about too is the intersection between ADD and giftedness, right?

 

[00:23:57] Linzy: Because there’s also can be this special blend, of like, you might actually be exceptionally smart in certain ways, and very good at certain things, and so from the outside it can be hard for other people in your life, or for yourself to understand, how can I be so good at this thing, and so attuned, and so driven, and so focused on this thing, and yet, as you say, I cannot remember to bring home,you know, the milk, or I can’t find my keys. 

 

[00:24:19] Amber: And it, such a contradiction internally and for the people outside of you as well. 

 

[00:24:23] Linzy: Exactly, right. 

 

[00:24:24] Amber: And that’s where, again, like the reinforcement, because, you know, we have neurodivergent brains. We do not fit in the neurotypical world because they’re like, well, this is how you’re supposed to show up and a lot of the time, that’s the opposite of how our brains want to do it, or how we work, or how it makes sense to us.

 

[00:24:43] Amber: And like you said, there’s a high amount of people that are extremely intelligent. I almost think of the absent-minded professor. That’s who’s in my programs really. It’s like, these are very ambitious people.

 

[00:24:56] Amber: They’re ambitious, they’re successful, they’re super smart. They’re so caring, and even like people around me in my circle as well and yet they have these things that make them feel like failures or not good enough, because it’s these things that we expect you to be good at everything.

 

[00:25:13] Amber: Which is such bullshit because it’s like, we don’t expect that of other people but like you said, when you Excel somewhere else, the understanding is like, well, then you should be able to do everything. 

 

[00:25:22] Linzy: Yeah, There’s this idea, as you say, that it’s purposeful when you don’t do something well. And that’s not how brains work. So, how is it then that folks with ADD who are experiencing these traits that we’ve been talking about, how can they get things done? Like we’ve talked about body doubling, you know, as an example.

 

[00:25:39] Linzy: What else do you find is really effective to help folks with ADD get shit done? Because part of it too, is like what I want for folks is to also, it feels so good to see yourself doing the things that you haven’t been doing and that you’ve been beating yourself up.

 

[00:25:50] Linzy: What strategies do you find work the best? 

 

[00:25:52] Amber: Yeah, so when I think about it, because, and this is like, I’ve developed my programs over the years. The big problem is like, we do get shit done. Because obviously we get degrees. We achieve things. We run businesses, make money.

 

[00:26:06] Amber: We’re successful. And a lot of times what the big problem is also is the consistency, right? So it’s about like, I’m setting this intention. This is what I’m going to do this week. And then we don’t achieve it, which then reinforces. I’m not good enough, I feel like shit. And I consider that like a momentum breaker.

 

[00:26:24] Amber: Right? And so my whole thing is like, how do we build momentum and get as much consistency as possible to be perfect? Well, we’re the wrong species, first of all, but second of all, like nobody’s ever going to finish all of the things, but it’s, how do you approach it to either, like, I say, you have to have the must do’s versus the would-be-nice-to’s, because if you’re like at the end of the week, if I achieved my most important thing, I build this momentum. You have this energy. I know I wake up with energy, and I feel excited when I don’t feel behind. And so there’s this thing. I think number one, we’re overcommitted. That’s what I see just through and through.

 

[00:27:02] Amber: We are over committed. And this also goes in line, especially with women with ADHD, is this over independence, like I can do it all. And even just saying yes to everything, and taking care of everybody else around you, right? So one, it’s really taking a real hard look at what are my commitments?

 

[00:27:21] Amber: What am I actually saying yes to and having to say no to stuff and it’s hard. People feel like they’re supposed to do all of the things. The other thing that I actually consider the foundation before that is your schedule. And we know that people with ADHD don’t love structure, but we also know we absolutely need it, which is why people like me who were so successful in the corporate world, why we also feel like what’s wrong with me, maybe I’m not built for this. Because the corporate world had this structure that supported you getting things done consistently.

 

[00:27:55] Amber: And then you go and start your own business, and everything’s up to you, and you can’t possibly do everything like you have to prioritize, which is something we struggle with because that’s executive functioning. So I think number one is like figuring out a schedule.

 

[00:28:09] Amber: And for me, it’s not having this rigid schedule. It’s really understanding your energy. So to me, it’s energy management. When I say schedule, I’m thinking about energy management and that’s what we go through it looking at, you know, what are my natural rhythms of energy? When is my brain at its peak and when is it, you know, not good.

 

[00:28:29] Amber: And so expecting yourself to do your financial updates or your P and L statement, when your energy is low, it’s not going to happen. But we’ll sit there and think, I have to, I’m supposed to, this is what needs to happen. And all you do is make yourself feel like shit. You completely tank your momentum and then you just, it actually makes it harder to do anything.

 

[00:28:50] Amber: So those are like the two first things that I have people take a look at. The other is just having a plan. So many people don’t have a plan, and they’re just responding to fires. No shame because I understand why, because, you know, we’re constantly having stuff thrown at us. But we have to, like you said, take that step back, and we have to say, why am I doing this?

 

[00:29:11] Amber: What is the intentionality of this? Right? Like, Why is this important for me to do? Because we could justify doing anything, especially as business owners, anything. But is that really the most important thing? We have to have that clarity. So I really think it’s the clarity. So commitments, clarity, and energy management, I would say, are the big pieces.

 

[00:29:32] Linzy: Yeah, those big things cause yeah, like what I, I’m thinking about too, as you’re talking about, you know, is we live in a very busy, very loud world as business owners. There’s always approximately a thousand things that you could be working on and improving at any given moment. and I think, you know, as I think about myself as somebody who doesn’t have an ADD brain, that’s there, but I think it doesn’t cause as much noise as it does for somebody, right?

 

[00:29:52] Linzy:  But it’s like there’s… I’m hearing it’s being able to start to discern what is actually important. What’s going to make a difference? It’s hard. It’s hard. You know, and it makes me think too, of the book 4,000 Weeks, by Oliver Berkman. Have you read that book? 

 

[00:30:07] Amber: Yeah. I, well, I didn’t finish it. 

 

[00:30:09] Linzy: Yeah, okay.

 

[00:30:09] Amber: Because, you know, ADHD. 

 

[00:30:13] Linzy: I understand. I did and I will say it was a bit dissatisfying, but it was good. I like a lot of depth. So, you know, the book, it covers some big ideas in very little soundbites, but generally speaking, basically the idea of the book is you have to make priorities cause you’re only living one life and by the way, you’re going to die.

 

[00:30:28] Amber: Exactly.

 

[00:30:29] Linzy: So that’s my, you know, too long, didn’t read, summary, and it makes me think about that because there’s always more to do. There’s always more to do, and there’ll always be more to do until you’re literally dead, and then there won’t be more to do. So I guess that’s, like, success in that sense, but if we even think that we can get all the things done, we are diluting ourselves and, like, missing the basic limitation of being a human, which is that we get to have one life, and trying to do all of the things doesn’t make for a happy life or a happy brain.

 

[00:30:56] Amber: No, and that’s the thing, I think we also grew up in a time of like that super woman syndrome. Like that’s the other thing where it’s like, you’re supposed to, I want it all. I can have it all. It’s like, no, I think it’s Paula pant who says you can, well, she’s talking about buying it, but you can do anything, but you can’t do everything.

 

[00:31:12] Amber: That’s actually, The guy who wrote, get stuff done. 

 

[00:31:14] Amber: And she says you can afford anything, but you can’t afford everything. And the thing is, this is what’s so sad and heartbreaking. And I’ve been there. I’ve been in those places where I’m so burnt out and overwhelmed and overloaded where we don’t even go and do the things we want to do because we feel like,  “I should just stay home and finish my PNL instead of this.” 

 

[00:31:34] Linzy: Mm-hmm. 

 

[00:31:35] Amber: And so they’re saying no to social commitments. They’re feeling so stressed out. When they’re with their family, they can’t be present. And you know, sometimes I hear people talking about, oh, everyone’s addicted to business or they think it’s like a bragging right

 

[00:31:48] Amber: and I was like,no, not okay. For some, sure but there are people who are like. I can’t figure out how to not, like, how do I do that? And so I talk a lot about ruthless prioritization. And it is ruthless because sometimes you gotta say no to shit that you like. 

 

[00:32:03] Linzy: Oh, for sure. 

 

[00:32:04] Amber: But you can’t constantly let it be the things that fill you up.

 

[00:32:08] Amber: It can’t always come at the cost of you actually having downtime or vacations or, you know, social time with friends and family. And that’s what I see. And that’s kind of the other thing that I saw, and I experienced when I first started my business, is that there’s this notion of as a business owner, I have flexibility. Which is true, and I love it.

 

[00:32:30] Amber: It’s my favorite part; why I could never work for someone else again, but the problem is what I see is we think that flexibility means, oh, I’ll just do the things that are important for me or my business last and I’ll take care of everybody else first. And what ends up happening is then we’re too tired, and then we fall behind, you know, quote, unquote, behind.

 

[00:32:52] Amber: I try to really get away from that because I think like there’s no such thing as being caught up, but what we need to goal for is feeling on top of things, which, like you said, requires prioritization, which requires like having clarity around, this is what’s important, at least right now.

 

[00:33:09] Amber: Yeah, 

 

[00:33:09] Linzy: One of the practices that we have in our business, which I learned from some coaches that I worked with, is the apocalypse list, which is that every day when we’re on the ball, which is not all the time, we post a list of like, these are my big things for today. These are the things that if I don’t do it will bring on the apocalypse.

 

[00:33:26] Linzy: That’s the concept of the apocalypse list, and anything else I do is bonus and that’s really helpful because often, you know, we’ll have a to-do list in our head of 10 things, right? And your brain is trying to hold on to those things because they are important, but like, are they actually urgent? Do they actually need to happen today?

 

[00:33:42] Linzy: Are they even that important, right? Or is it something that could be… And your brain has a really hard time, I think, in general, all brains, discerning what actually needs to happen now and what could happen next week or what could you actually somebody else do or what could actually not happen at all because it doesn’t even matter, right?

 

[00:33:56] Linzy: And so, yeah, we make a list, you know, of our top two or three things. And it’s like, if I get these things done, I’m winning the day and I do find it’s very satisfying to come to the end of the day and be like, I finished my apocalypse list. I think I might be a superhero because I’ve actually done the things that actually mattered. When I took the time to think about these are the things that actually matter. 

 

[00:34:16] Linzy: Because I need to get this thing done to get it to this other person, or this thing is happening tomorrow, so that’s important. Or if I don’t do this thing, it’s going to create damage somewhere. When those things are done and you reflect that to yourself, it’s so satisfying that everything else you did was bonus, right?

 

[00:34:34] Linzy: But if you don’t pull those things out, it all feels important.

 

[00:34:37] Amber: And that’s the struggle. When you’re in overwhelm, how do you know what those things are? I call it the must-do’s versus the would-be-nice-to’s, right? So I actually did fully read two books, after getting diagnosed, which were, “The One Thing” and “Essentialism.” And they are kind of… They have so much in common

 

[00:34:58] Amber: And so those really stuck with me because that’s the thing. Like if you say it, apocalypse list, to many ADHDers, they’ll put 15 things on there. 

 

[00:35:07] Linzy: Yes. 

 

[00:35:07] Amber: That’s not all. This thing you are doing is setting yourself up for failure and to feel like shit at the end of the day. And so that’s the thing.

 

[00:35:14] Amber: The other part, I like that you mentioned it, is we should not be holding stuff in our head. So one of the first things I get my clients to do is to commit to a task management software or system. Because our brains are for having ideas, not holding onto to do lists, right? Having it written down, and I personally prefer that people use digital, again, you do you, because, especially if you’re overwhelmed, you just have to do what’s easiest for you. But the reason I don’t like the paper ones is I see people waste so much time rewriting the same damn list, and then losing the list, or having like 15,000, and it just gets so long. It’s overwhelming.

 

[00:35:52] Amber: But with digital, it’s so beautiful because you can update the date. Like, oh, I’m going to do this tomorrow. And then I update the date, right? But that’s why we need to have those systems supporting us. And there’s a lot, I mean, I could talk for days about this stuff, about how to structure that so that it isn’t overwhelming, so that you do get those things done.

 

[00:36:10] Amber: But yeah, that apocalypse list is great because of that, but you have to narrow it and so I try to get people to come to one thing. What are the things that if I finish them, I can, or if I finished this today, I can go to bed and sleep easy.

 

[00:36:24] Amber: Or at the end of the week, I can feel good and enjoy my weekend. Like those are the things to be thinking about and also many people, I’m pretty sure like all the listeners are therapists or practitioners of some sort. So they’re probably doing one-on-one work. Like my schedule is Tuesdays and Thursdays is when I see all of my clients.

 

[00:36:43] Amber: And I do not expect myself to accomplish anything on those days. Because I’m seeing clients from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. And so there is no to-do list for that day. Yes, there might be like, oh, I have to make this phone call or something like that, something small, but I’ve never put a project or a big thing on… Those days don’t count.

 

[00:37:03] Amber: And so you also have to look at how many things I have on my list is really dependent on: what does the day look like? How much time do you actually have? And then your bandwidth, right? I’m 49 now. My bandwidth for… Now I have days where I can hyper focus like your husband and work like 20 hours, but most of the time I used to do a good nine hour day all the time. I just don’t want to do that anymore. I just, my brain is like, no, I don’t want to.

 

[00:37:33] Linzy: Very fair. Yeah. There’s, I think there’s a seasonality there, too. And I do love your point about what is actually on your schedule this day… Because I catch myself doing this. I just did this to myself on Monday. It’s like I have a day full of team meetings, and basically my whole day is calls, and yet I say that I’m going to do like a two hour video edit.

 

[00:37:50] Linzy: Like when was I gonna do that? Was I gonna bend time? It’s so unrealistic, but it’s helpful, I find, even, to write an apocalypse list that later I’m like, what the fuck was I thinking? Because then I can call myself out on a really unrealistic expectation, right? If I don’t write it out, then it can sit in the back of my head.

 

[00:38:06] Linzy: I’m like, oh, I still didn’t edit that video, right? But if I write it out, then I have to reflect to my whole team later. I didn’t even touch this because I actually had six hours of meetings. So this was obviously not the right item for today, which does give a bit of, for me, an external accountability to them and that bit more can be realistic you know. When I get it out of my head, I’m like, oh, that didn’t make sense okay, that’s okay. And then I can kind of let go of any kind of beating myself up that I would’ve done

 

[00:38:32] Amber: If you don’t do that reflection process… Again, it’s that stepping back. So that’s actually the first thing we do in our weekly planning is we first, we focus on what went well. Cause we’ve got to celebrate the wins. You have to, especially as business owners, all we ever see is what’s left on the list.

 

[00:38:47] Amber: Not all the stuff that got done, right? So we do that, but then we also look at what didn’t go well or what didn’t go as planned and just like that, usually it’s around holding boundaries that cause things to go off track, or not planning ahead. Right? So if you were to do that, then you start to notice, oh, wait, am I committing to big things on days where I have way too many meetings and stuff?

 

[00:39:09] Amber: Like that’s not a good choice here. Right? And, to me, the other magical thing, if you want consistency, cause I’ve had people push back on this in my memberships and I’m like, okay and I know I’m right. As I say, I like to get carefrontation sometimes, loving carefrontation, but you know, we all have our own journey.

 

[00:39:30] Amber: You have to know what you’re doing the next day before that day starts, because if you start the day and then make your list,you’re already going to be overwhelmed. I’m especially speaking to the neuro spicy people. You’re so overwhelmed. You’re already feeling the pressures of all these things, and you’re not going to probably choose the best, most important thing that you should be doing. 

 

[00:39:46] Amber:It’s like meal planning. Like if I meal plan on Sunday, and I plan out the whole week, I will eat a variety of healthy foods and I’ll cook and I’ll do this, but if I wake up and say, what do I feel like today?

 

[00:40:00] Amber: Every day is going to be pizza and burgers. 

 

[00:40:03] Because we want, in that moment, especially if you’re like, oh, I didn’t sleep well, blah, blah, blah, but if you’re like, even when I have nights like last night, I stayed up till two and I don’t know why. It was stupid,

 

[00:40:13] Amber: But when I know exactly what’s happening the next day, I still wake up with an energy and a clarity. So, I didn’t have to make any decisions today and that’s part of it. All I do is check the things off my list. That’s all I have to do and that feels much more manageable than making a decision, which takes a different kind of energy.

 

[00:40:33] Linzy: Yeah, well, and it makes me think about making a decision is more of a zooming out energy, and that’s quite a demanding energy and I think for what I’m running here and talking to you and what I’m observing, especially demanding for folks who are neurospicy. And so don’t make yourself do that every day, and don’t make yourself do that while you’re tired and in the midst of it. Do that in a very intentional way to set the frame for the week is what I’m hearing. Yeah. Yeah. Love that. Amber, I could talk to you forever, but 

 

[00:41:00] Amber: I was like, I’m going to keep going, but I’ll stop because I see the time.

 

[00:41:05] Linzy: Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. This has been so interesting, so enlightening, and I know, so relevant to so many folks who are listening. If people want to get further into your world, learn more about you, where can they find you?

 

[00:41:18] Amber: Yes. Well, if they’re listening to this podcast episode, they can hop on over to The Easily Distracted Entrepreneur. And I also have a podcast… I’m calling it a capsule podcast because it’s going to be like 20, 21 episodes, called The Easily Distracted Therapist. So it’s speaking more specifically to the challenges and the unique things that therapists face. 

 

[00:41:39] Amber: And since, you know, I work with all kinds of business owners, but a majority of the people in my programs are therapists because that is also a big part of my network. but you can always go to amberHawley. com and actually, I wanted to give like another thing that kind of impacts people’s, like you said, having that shiny object syndrome.

 

[00:41:57] Amber: I think you said it earlier. So I do have this thing that helps you discern. Is this an awesome opportunity or a shiny object? One of those things about helping you get clarity. So if they went to amberHawley.com/Linzy, then they would be able to download that for free.

 

[00:42:12] Linzy: Beautiful, love that. I think that’s a question that many of us have. So you can click on that link then in the show notes to get that tool from Amber. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for coming today. It’s lovely to meet you.

 

[00:42:25] Amber: Lovely to talk to you. 

 

[00:42:26] Linzy: I’m just excited cause I know what you’re talking about is going to be really relevant for so many folks. So thank you for being on the podcast today. 

 

[00:42:32] Amber: Thanks.

 

[00:42:45] Linzy: Something that sticks out to me in this conversation with Amber today is some of the things that are good and important for folks with ADD to do, are also good for all of us, but are especially important when you do have ADD. So, what we talked about with zooming out, on your situation, like creating a plan for the week before you’re actually in it.

 

[00:43:07] Linzy: I love her example of meal planning because that is something that I relate to on such a visceral level. If I put a little bit of thought on the weekend, and I don’t do a total meal plan, I don’t do day by day, but at least if I think on the weekend of three meals we can have during the week and make sure we have food around for those, it is so much easier when I’m actually in the week to make that good decision and be like,no, tonight is not popcorn for dinner. Tonight is tacos, and look at all the ingredients that I got on the weekend.

 

[00:43:38] Linzy: That is way, way easier to actually do the things that are good for me than 

making myself make those decisions in the moment when I’m tired, and I’ve maybe had a big day, or something else has come up that is distracting me, right? Like that ability to zoom out and create a great plan that then you just have to follow is such a gift to yourself. Especially important for folks with ADD, but also helpful for folks without ADD like myself.

 

[00:44:00] Linzy: So a good reminder of the value of zooming out, and putting a great plan in place, for your business and for your life. So you’re not making yourself have to make these decisions on the spot all the time. 

 

[00:44:18] Linzy: Our brains generally are too busy and tired to do that well so it’s a favor to yourself to set a bigger plan in motion. So I’m just very energized after my conversation with Amber today. She’s so lovely. So if you are at all curious about what she offers, do click on the link in the show notes where you can get that freebie on discerning: is this a shiny object? And check out all the other stuff that Amber has to offer.

 

[00:44:36] Linzy: Because I think there’s just a wealth of knowledge there, for folks with ADD, especially folks, as we mentioned, who maybe have just recently discovered that is how your brain works. You can follow me on Instagram @moneynutsandbolts and if you are interested in working with me and using the containers that we have in the course, the coworking with that body doubling where all you got to do is show up and there’s the space to get the work done, and also the step by step guidance to change your relationship with money, get systems really working for you in your business.

 

[00:45:09] Linzy: The way to learn about Money Skills for Therapists, which is my signature course for solo practitioners, is by checking out my masterclass. So there’s a link in the show notes for the masterclass. It is called the four step framework to getting your private practice finances in order and that is where you will learn about what I teach, how I teach it.

 

[00:45:27] Linzy: You’ll learn about the course itself. And you can decide whether or not it is the right container for you to finally get working on your money and change your relationship with your finances in your private practice, and in your life. So I’ll put the link to that in the show notes. That is the four step framework to getting your private practice finances in order.

 

[00:45:43] Linzy: And that is the way to learn about and get an invite to Money Skills for Therapists. Thank you so much for joining me today. 

[00:00:00] Linzy: Hello and welcome back to another Feelings and Finances episode of the Money Skills for Therapist podcast. These are our short and sweet Friday episodes where I answer questions from you, the lovely folks who listen to the Money Skills for Therapist podcast, the therapists, health practitioners of all kinds, and I wanted to share a review today.

[00:00:23] Linzy: I went down to Podfest in Orlando a few weeks ago and realized that this podcast thing is real, eh? This thing that I’m doing is real. And one of the tools that I got from that podcast is helping me see all these beautiful reviews that people have written that were actually not very easy for me to see before.

[00:00:40] Linzy: So I wanted to share a review today before we jump into today’s question. This review on Apple Podcasts is a five star review titled Helpful, Actionable, Comforting. They say, “I run a private practice as a non-insurance based chiropractor and I love these insights to help get the solid skills and more importantly a healthy mindset around money in private practice and my worth as a practitioner. Highly recommend.” So thank you so much to our lovely chiropractor who left that review.

[00:01:11] Linzy: I did not know that chiropractors are listening to this podcast. So that’s also really lovely for me to know. And if you are enjoying this podcast and you’re able to jump over to Apple podcasts and leave a review and share what you enjoy about the podcast, it is a great way for other folks to find us.

[00:01:26] Linzy: So onto our question for the day. Today’s question comes from Stef, who is a current student in the Money Skills for Therapists course. And here is Stef’s question. 

[00:01:36] Stefanie: Hey, Linzy, Stefanie Grush here, current therapist in your MySkills4Therapist course, and I have a question about how to prevent myself from, the shiny new object syndrome along with the impulsiveness to, you know, doing the certification now. Because I have ADHD. And so, one of the things that happens is that I will see all of these exciting trainings, because one of the things that I like is being able to keep up with my learning and, again, learning new information helps me focus, and kind of keeps me engaged, right?

[00:02:18] Stefanie: However, I already have a stack of training to complete, in addition to not just buying things on impulse when it comes to the skills that I’m learning within the course. I really, really would like to know how to, again, kind of pause before purchasing something.

[00:02:39] Stefanie: Literally I am sitting here on my computer looking at this ADHD certification course and “Act now! It’s $129 dollars and you get certified!” and all of the tactics. But I’m pausing and doing this recording with you because I want to have a strategic way to invest in these, and you know really focus on narrowing down what I do as a therapist.

[00:03:07] Stefanie: I don’t need to do everything. There are things, of course, that I have interest in. A lot of my work is done with trauma individuals and group work. So I really am trying, trying, trying to be mindful of the progress I’ve had during the course, and watching those profit first accounts continue to grow.

[00:03:29] Stefanie: So that is my question to you. How do I continue to be successful and not fall for these” buy now, you’re going to miss out on the deals?” And I think that’s really the biggest one is that missing out, like, “Oh, I should have done it this day” or whatever. But also like I’ve known is that I waited and watched for a sale with your course.

[00:03:51] Stefanie: And I’m very glad that I did it because I’ve learned so much. And again, I really do want to continue on this upward trajectory where there’s money in accounts, and I can make decisions that are based on strategy rather than that fear of missing out. 

[00:04:09] Stefanie: Thank you. Bye. 

[00:04:10] Linzy: Thank you so much for this question, Stef. And I know it’s a question many, many folks share, and you’ve already named so many of the key factors that are, you know, both the challenges, but also the solutions in this problem. So, first of all, as you mentioned, there’s zooming out on your bigger goals in your practice.

[00:04:29] Linzy: Just taking us out of these moments of making decisions. If we just pause now and have you think about your practice, It’s really helpful always for all of us, to be oriented into what are my actual priorities right now, right? Coming into this year, or this quarter, thinking about where I want to be.

[00:04:49] Linzy: What is actually important right now? Cause there’s always going to be so many amazing opportunities and they are, many of them are great. You know, so many online courses are great, and you will learn so much, but is it what you actually need to be learning? Does it actually align with your bigger goals for your practice?

[00:05:05] Linzy: Does it help you serve your niche better? Or as you say, is it a shiny object, right? Is it something that’s exciting and new,but actually doesn’t strategically make sense for you. So for instance, if your niche is, you know, helping women in the perinatal phase of life, right?

[00:05:21] Linzy: A training that helps you to help women with postpartum insomnia, which is a problem that many of your clients have that you haven’t really been able to like figure out how to help people really effectively, is a strategic training to take, right? It’s helping the folks that you already serve, solving a problem that you haven’t been able to solve in other ways, and it’s going to help you retain those clients.

[00:05:42] Linzy: So both from the perspective of being a therapist, helping your clients more effectively, that’s a good investment, and from the perspective of a business owner of being able to retain clients because you’re able to help them, and they stick around, because they’re getting what they need from you, that is a good investment, right?

[00:05:56] Linzy:  So just in terms of the theme and the topic of that training, that would be a good investment. If you do perinatal therapy and there is a training on psychedelics, and your clients aren’t really folks who are going to be using psychedelics in the perinatal phase of life, then that’s probably not a great fit.

[00:06:16] Linzy: It’s exciting. It’s interesting. It’s new. It’s shiny. It’s hot. It’s all of those things. But for you as a clinician and a business owner, in that example, that would not be a great investment, but maybe it’s like something you want to watch some documentaries about psychedelics or read a book about psychedelics, but it doesn’t mean you need to go and get a certification, right?

[00:06:33] Linzy: So there’s an important distinction to make there in terms of what are the trainings that are actually strategic? And that’s the word you used, Stef, which is a word I love, as you know. What are the strategic trainings for you to take that actually makes sense for where you are in terms of your niche, where you are right now in your career growth,

[00:06:51] Linzy: and your capacity? So let’s move on to that second piece then. Cause there’s the question of the right thing. I’m going to talk about “right thing, right time.” That’s the right thing. It has to be something that actually makes strategic sense for your business. But then the second piece of making a successful investment that will actually pay off is it has to be the right time, right?

[00:07:09] Linzy: So is this an opportunity that’s coming along at a time where you have bandwidth? Do you have space to learn this new thing? Have you not done any other trainings for a little while? Do you have room in your plate? Is everything okay in your home life? You know, if you’re going through a terrible time with your teenager, and nobody’s sleeping at night, and there’s a lot of stress, then it’s probably not a good time to take on a big course, right?

[00:07:28] Linzy: Or even to buy a low cost course, because if you don’t have the bandwidth to be even managing your daily life, adding something on top of that, again, just probably not strategic. It’s not the right thing, right time. So:  right thing, right time, I find is a very handy way to pause and assess any potential investment.

[00:07:46] Linzy: In this case, we’re talking about courses, professional development. Is it the right thing? Is it what you actually need? And is it the right time? Because as you named, there are sales tactics happening in all of these course launches, right? I use sales tactics. Everybody uses sales tactics. The reason people use sales tactics is because they work.

[00:08:03] Linzy: They help people make a decision, but having the literacy on marketing, and understanding what are those sales tactics being used, can also help you to stop and slow down. So you mentioned the FOMO. FOMO is a weak point for you… fOMO is a vulnerability that you do have that fear of missing out, knowing that about yourself and being able to stop and name either when the way that a course is being sold is actively trying to elicit FOMO from people.

[00:08:30] Linzy: Like, don’t miss out! Everybody’s doing it but you! You know, then you can stop and name. Oh, okay, okay, okay. This is where they’re trying to elicit FOMO, or this is the thing that’s eliciting FOMO in me. Hello, FOMO, my old friend. And then you can pause and notice that FOMO is there, but that doesn’t mean it has to make you make a decision.

[00:08:48] Linzy: Right? You can be with that part of yourself. Notice that reaction is present. Decide how you want to attend to it without necessarily having to follow that impulse to buy, right? So FOMO is one of the things that is used to sell courses to you, but also urgency, you know, deadlines are used to sell courses.

[00:09:05] Linzy: I frankly have to use a deadline to sell my course because otherwise folks will procrastinate forever, and avoid forever. But deadlines, you know, if you notice that you are really vulnerable to deadlines, just noticing and naming when a deadline is being used. Be like, oh, okay, there’s that urgency tactic that’s being used.

[00:09:22] Linzy: Okay. That can sometimes really get me activated. I’m going to slow down. Notice that urgency is being used here. That, again, doesn’t mean this is the right thing at the right time. Silver bullet, you know, are they making promises that this is going to change your whole life? You’re going to be a whole new person.

[00:09:35] Linzy: Everything’s going to be amazing. Noticing that that is there, and if you are prone to kind of magical thinking, noticing like, okay, they’re making silver bullet promises. This elicits my magical thinking that everything’s going to be wonderful. Just noticing that’s there. All of this is taking the time to notice what is happening, slowing down, and allowing yourself to make a grounded decision.

[00:09:58] Linzy: So the third part here that I’m going to suggest to you, Stef, with this then, is having a rule for yourself around how much time you give yourself to make a decision about a course, right? When you are making a financial decision, you’re mentioning the 129 course. If there’s a 129 course and you see that, rather than buying it right away, having a rule for yourself of like, “Okay, when I’m making a decision that is less than $200 I give myself two days before I pull the trigger on that,” right?

[00:10:27] Linzy: So you see it on Monday morning. Wait till Wednesday morning to decide if you actually want to purchase it. And in that time, you have the opportunity to think about these questions that we’re talking about. Is this actually the right thing for your practice? Is this the right time? Are you actually going to be able to get benefit from it?

[00:10:40] Linzy: Do you have bandwidth right now to take on another thing? That rule can then be adjusted for larger purchases. So if it’s a two or three thousand dollar course, maybe you make sure you give yourself five days or you always talk with a certain friend who’s a really good sounding board and can help you reflect like, hey Stef, you know I’m hearing you want to do this But did you do the last course that you did?

[00:10:59] Linzy: You know bringing in those outside folks who love us, and know us, and see us, can also be a good way to slow ourselves down get out of that impulse loop of like I want it I buy it So, slowing yourself down and setting simple rules can be a nice way to do that, right? So again, as I’m suggesting and mentioning here, these like rules around money and, and this comes from a conversation I had with Robin Valadares, who is a physiotherapist who helps physiotherapists with money.

[00:11:25] Linzy: So you’ll hear this in my recording that I did with him, giving yourself just an easy, simple rule that allows you to slow down to make these decisions. Because ultimately, as you mentioned, when you take on too many trainings, you just don’t absorb them. You just don’t learn them. You know, that money almost might as well go in the garbage, if we want to be a little bit hyperbolic about it, because you’ve turned it into something that you got no value out of. And I have totally been in this space myself. I remember one year, Stef, that I was so jazzed about going to trauma trainings and there were like some big names coming through Toronto. And I signed up for three trauma trainings like full day workshops or two day workshops over the course of like three or four months. And after I attended the first one I realized I can’t actually absorb what’s going to happen at these next two workshops.

[00:12:15] Linzy: Like I’m still stopping and implementing what I learned at this first one. I’m not going to get my money’s worth by going to see these names. Even though they’re cool people and they’re big names, I was at capacity for my learning. So that’s the other thing for you to sit with is like, how many courses can you actually take in the course of a year?

[00:12:30] Linzy: Right? Is it like two small courses and one big course? Is it one small course, one big course, you know? So again, you’re pacing yourself so you actually get the value. Because otherwise you are not actually getting the value out of what you’re spending money on. Again, you’re kind of throwing the money away with the best of intentions, with the like, I’m going to learn this, this is going to be amazing.

[00:12:48] Linzy: But if you don’t learn it, the money has not served you and it could have served you somewhere else instead. So those are my thoughts on this piece, Stef. You know, give yourself the chance to zoom out. Is this the right thing at the right time? Is this strategic for my business? Do I actually have the capacity to absorb this or do I have a bunch of other trainings that I am taking right now, or that are piled up on my desk that I should really just focus in on instead? Noticing those marketing tactics that are being used, and giving yourself some sort of rule that allows you to pause to do all of this rather than following that FOMO impulse that is going to lead you to take fast action. Also, FOMO could be something really helpful to explore in therapy. You know, when we have those really strong urges, there’s also always opportunity there to explore and be curious, and see what is at play there that is driving us to spend money in ways that don’t serve us.

[00:13:37] Linzy: So thank you so much for this question, Stef. Since you are in the course right now, I’m excited to be able to chat with you about this, and see what you end up implementing to allow you to make more strategic decisions around your professional development.

[00:13:52] Linzy: If you, like Stef, also have a question for me, you can click on the link in the show notes or just head over to our podcast page, moneynutsandbolts.com/podcast. Just push the record button. You’ll see a little widget box situation, saying, do you have a question for Linzy? You can press record, and just like Stef, you can introduce yourself, give a little bit of context and share your question.

[00:14:13] Linzy: I would be happy to answer it on an upcoming episode of Feelings and Finances. Thanks for joining me today. 

[00:00:00] Robin: Concepts that work for people, especially now in this day and age, is automation. Take yourself out of the equation. So if you get paid on every Friday, automatically set up some sort of debit from your account to your investment account or your savings account, where you are not the middle person. It’s gone without you touching it.

[00:00:21] Robin: So it’s out of sight, out of mind.

[00:00:30] 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] Linzy: Hello and welcome back to the podcast. Today’s guest is Robin Valadares. Robin is a physiotherapist and a personal finance educator. He is the founder of Financially Fulfilled Physio, which he would like to note, do not be tricked by the name. He works with all kinds of therapists and health practitioners.

[00:01:10] Linzy: And today Robin and I dig more into the personal side of finances. We talk about some of the barriers that stop folks from working on their personal finances, much of which come from, surprise, our education that we receive. We talk about some of the behaviours that we can have as humans managing money that make no sense, but are common, and some interventions, behaviours, let’s say, to put in place, to start to break

[00:01:38] Linzy: habits of overspending, or oversaving. Yeah, what are some key things that you can put in place to stop yourself from doing things that you regret later? Robin and I get into that today, as well as how to set yourself up to do the things that you want to do. to do, that might be difficult to do.

[00:01:54] Linzy: And then we also talk about some of the systems to manage personal finances, ways to stay in touch with your personal finances, yeah, lots of great pieces here today about the personal side of money for health practitioners. Here is my conversation with Robin Valadares. 

[00:02:22] Linzy: So Robin, welcome to the podcast.

[00:02:25] Robin: Hi, Linzy. Thanks for having me. 

[00:02:26] Linzy: I’m very excited to have you. We share some very specific identifiers in being health practitioners who have bridged off into finance and who also live in a very specific region of Ontario.

[00:02:39] Robin: That’s correct; odd how similar that is. 

[00:02:41] Linzy: It’s nice! So Robin, before we start to dig in today, can you tell folks a little bit about yourself and what you do?

[00:02:49] Robin: Absolutely, thank you, so traditionally I’m a physiotherapist, here in Southern Ontario. I’ve been practicing for the last 13 odd years in private practice. Going into practice, I realized that I had no knowledge on personal finance or money because it wasn’t really brought up in any former traditional education that I encountered.

[00:03:05] Robin: And despite doing it for a few years on my own, the pandemic gave me a great ability because the clinic was closed at the time to really focus on myself and the work pursue a passion that I’ve been mulling over, but didn’t necessarily have the time or the impetus to do so. So I developed the business called Financially Fulfilled Physio, at that time in 2020, geared towards healthcare practitioners, therapists, on their relationship with money and how to let money use for yourselves so you can improve your life and have a more meaningful or fulfilled life.

[00:03:32] Linzy: I think, COVID, despite the fact that it was awful and terrible, I did notice there was this window that opened, right? To like, do these other things, to pivot or explore something that maybe you wouldn’t have had time or permission to do otherwise. This was your COVID side hustle, that has grown.

[00:03:52] Robin: Correct. When in your adult life were you given the permission, whether out of your hands, to pursue something that you wanted to but couldn’t 

[00:03:58] Robin: do? Otherwise you make some sort of excuse saying I’m too busy, X, Y, and Z. 

[00:04:01] Robin: I was literally sitting at home watching YouTube videos for hours. Because I have things to do!

[00:04:06] Linzy: Might as well build this second business. So I am curious then in the work that you’ve done with healthcare professionals, what do you find are some of the biggest financial challenges that they face?

[00:04:17] Robin: I think as tactical as it is working with money, I think it’s the mindset piece that people really struggle with. It’s the concept where when you’re in healthcare, the majority of us, can’t speak for everybody, but we get into the job because it’s rewarding to help people improve their lives, whether it’s physically or mentally.

[00:04:31] Robin: So oftentimes we put their needs above our own because school has taught us to do so. But there’s a point in your career, whether it’s earlier or later, that you realize that it’s not sustainable to keep yourself second on the priority ladder. Where you realize, hey, I can’t do this forever, nor do I want to.

[00:04:46] Robin: I have to pursue other options or live maybe a more balanced or integral life, but that’s where money comes in because it’s the heart of all our decisions. But if we don’t have that relationship with money and think about it as a second nature, not the primary focus, then we realize that, hey, we can’t do this. We push it off saying it was going to work out in the end, and we start later in life and we know the benefits and the detriments of not compounding well, how that affects you later on.

[00:05:10] Robin: So I think mindset is probably the biggest challenge that we struggle with as healthcare practitioners and therapists.

[00:05:16] Linzy: Yeah, certainly. I mean, I think there is a commonality amongst most healthcare professions. It’s about taking care of your clients. It’s about, like, maximizing your schedule, getting as many folks in as possible, whatever that looks like.

[00:05:26] Linzy: I’m sure as a physio, you see way more folks in a day than I would ever see as a mental health therapist But it’s really just this, like, give, that we’re trained in, without getting that education. Folks who listen to the podcast have heard. You know, I talk about this many times because it’s so foundational, that it’s, not only do you often come into these fields because you care about other people and you want to help, so you’re already a helper type, but then the education that we get just reinforces, like just help people focus on being good at these things.

[00:05:53] Linzy: Don’t really worry about yourself. The money will follow. Or don’t even think about the money. It’s just not even spoken of. 

[00:05:59] Robin: Correct. 

[00:05:59] Robin: It’s like a noble pursuit, but then we realized that life doesn’t really reward everything as you’d want it. You have to take some sort of action on yourselves, whether you entrust your finances to a professional, you learn about yourself. I think the key focus is getting some sort of knowledge base and taking immediate action. Can’t push it off.

[00:06:14] Linzy: Yeah For folks then who are in this space of noting that they’re working, working, working, they haven’t been paying attention to these things and you focus in on personal finances, more than I do. I tend to say in the business space, you’re looking at personal finances.

[00:06:26] Linzy: So thinking about, you know, retirement and paying for schooling and paying down debt, those kinds of things. How do you suggest that folks start to address some of those barriers that are in the way of even starting to think about these things?

[00:06:39] Robin: Awesome question, because I get this often. I think there’s two points to look at it. One is a snapshot in time where you currently are, and then think about your future self as a secondary point. We’ve all gone through goal setting, whether it’s smart goals, but we often don’t do it for ourselves. We do it for our clients in terms of what we want to do.

[00:06:54] Robin: So I think, hey, where do I want to I see myself in X amount of years, whether it is on a beach, or working in a side job, or working in the practice you’re doing, maybe not many hours, and how do I work back from that goal to today, the present? And then you got to take a snapshot thing. Where are you financially?

[00:07:09] Robin: In terms of your house, how is it set up? Not a physical house, but your financial house in order. What are your expenses like? What are your incomes like? What are your debts like? And where can I attribute certain allocations of money based on my goals? And for me, it was a challenge because when you have to take a deep look into your own finances, you reveal to yourself a deeper part of yourself that exists, but you pay no attention to. What are my habits like? Show me where your habits are, I show you where your money’s going, right?

[00:07:33] Robin: So whether it’s Starbucks I might spend it on, Lululemon pants, takeout… Whatever it is, I’m putting those needs instead of my own and my future self so if you understand where you are starting from and then where you’re going, it really helps you in that trajectory or that journey to reach those goals.

[00:07:46] Linzy: Right. So really, yeah, connecting with that future self and what they need, so setting yourself up for them, but I’m also hearing, becoming much clearer on where’s your money actually going. Cause this is something that I hear often and I’m sure you too, is like, I’m working so hard.

[00:08:00] Linzy: I’m making the best money I’ve ever made. I have nothing to show for it. Right? Like the money disappears. But the money’s going somewhere and I am curious, yeah, like what are some of the trends that you see in those behaviors? Where is the money going for many people? You mentioned Starbucks, Lululemon, Takeout.

[00:08:15] Robin: I think it’s a clone of lifestyle creep and for those who aren’t familiar with that concept, it’s a concept that when you’re early in practice, you might earn a certain amount. So you spend in kind of your earnings for the most part; you might not go into debt. But as you earn more, you might inherently, consciously or subconsciously, feel more wealthy

[00:08:31] Robin: and with more wealth comes the concept of keeping up with the Joneses where you feel more pressure to do what your neighbor’s doing, whether it’s taking your kids to Montessori school, buying a Range Rover, living in a certain neighborhood, and then that spend meets up with your increased earnings.

[00:08:45] Robin: So your difference, or your delta, between the two doesn’t change. It’s not like you earn more and spend less and then you have more to take home. You spend more and you have about the same, nothing changes…

[00:08:56] Linzy: Yeah, and that lifestyle creep is so insidious. I live it all the time. I know. I’ve been reflecting on that. I was just saying to my partner the other day, I remember in my 20s, I remember one tax year particularly where I got my tax return, and I had made 11, 000 that year. That was my income for the whole year!

[00:09:14] Linzy: I didn’t feel like I was, like, terribly poor, and I’m sure I had parental support. I think they would buy me a winter coat every couple years. That helps. Rent was cheaper; life was cheaper at that time but even still, I wouldn’t say, if I look at the difference in my earnings now, that I am actually like 10 times happier or more fulfilled than I was then by earning 10 times more money because the money just goes other places. I find for myself a lot of my expenses are about property ownership and like doing the work on the house that we haven’t done for the last few years, and it’s like, okay now we got to do the furnace and now we got to do the water heater, and we went on an insulation spree over the winter holidays, just insulating everything.

[00:09:50] Linzy: Taking care of things that do need taking care of but every single time we go to the Home Depot, we drop $150 bucks which is money that I never had in my 20s, and I never even thought of spending. But now I have the money, so I just spend it. We just go. We see something, we’re like, oh, that’s, yeah, that would solve a tiny problem that we have.

[00:10:04] Linzy: We’ll just buy it. Yeah, the money just disappears.

[00:10:07] Robin: And it’s not typically a bad thing saying like you’re spending more frivolously, just like with your responsibilities later in life, whether it’s kids or in the home, they come with expenses. So you have to be smart, and judicious with your allocations, so you can actually

[00:10:19] Robin: achieve your goals rather than working hard and what I hear in my capacity maybe not the same with your capacity in your profession is that burnout’s a real thing less so in physical practice manually but a lot more in terms of the realm of mental health where you’re taking on the burden of working with an individual and then also living life on your schedule where you might have other issues you’re dealing with too.

[00:10:38] Linzy: Yes, absolutely. And so we want to make sure that money is actually taking care of you, and helping you build stability, so that you can be well while doing this really demanding work. So I’ve been doing a little bit of reading about economics that was my, like, geeky reading that I did over, the winter break

[00:10:53] Linzy: Robin and I are recording this shortly after the winter break, so I’m still getting my feet under me, missing my days on the couch. I read two books about economics over the break. One was _How Economics Explains the World_ by Andrew Lee, which was excellent,

[00:11:05] Linzy: in terms of a primer on just like this is economic theory. This is how economics explains these things that seem disparate and disconnected. They actually are all explained by the way that money works and the way that people work. But then the second book I picked up is on behavioral economics, which is a book called _Predictably Irrational_, which is a great

[00:11:23] Linzy: primer on behavioral economics. And it’s about the fact that like, yeah, sure, we have these theories of what should happen and what makes sense, but like, people are not rational. People are irrational, right? And we make decisions all the time that don’t actually make sense on paper, but that like, emotionally makes sense.

[00:11:40] Linzy: So I’m curious, for you, like, how do you suggest that folks start to work with this side of things, like these financial behaviors, these like psychologically based behaviors that that lead us to to overspend or over save and do things that don’t actually make sense for us.

[00:11:57] Robin: And it’s a tricky concept because it’s really your ability to take a step back and watch yourself in 3D from like a bird’s eye view of how you react to certain decisions, but it takes some introspection and some maturity to do so. And I think it’s if you know yourself well and say, look, I’m always an impulse buyer

[00:12:12] Robin: wherever I’m at the dollar store, that last aisle, I’m buying chips and candy. Don’t know why, because I’m waiting in line to check out, but if I didn’t have to wait, I wouldn’t buy it. 

[00:12:18] Linzy: hmm.

[00:12:18] Robin: A concept that works for people, especially now in this day and age, is automation. Take yourself out of the equation. So if you get paid on every Friday, automatically set up some sort of debit from your account to your investment account or your savings account, where you are not the middle person.

[00:12:32] Robin: It’s gone without you touching it so it’s out of sight, out of mind. Another skill set is having maybe a 24 hour rule, seven day, or a 30 day rule where I think I want to buy a set of these nice pants. I’m going to wait 24 hours before I purchase it. I’ll put it in my cart. And if I feel emotionally in that position where I want it versus where I need it, then maybe I’ll purchase. Then going out to seven days for something more expensive. Let’s say I’m going to buy a new couch and that’s going to be a hefty purchase. Do I actually want the blue color couch, or am I happy with this other type model? So it’s knowing yourself particularly well. And for me I work on delayed gratification, which I think is an absolute superpower. That’s the concept with the marshmallow test where you’re given something now but you can double it if you want to if you wait a little bit. And if you have that not only for material items, like you buy from Amazon, the delayed gratification is the pursuit of minimizing what you’re spending on right now with the goal of pulling that forward into the future, enjoying your life later on. The reverse is, hey, I’m going to pull from the future, like taking on debt, or buying things in the future but buy now, pay later, so I’m feeling gratified today. And I can assure you that’s not a good way to live because you’ll get to the point where hey, I’m 50 years old. I have nothing to my name. Now I have to work because I need to work versus I want to work and you don’t like the job as much.

[00:13:45] Linzy: Yeah yeah and that automation piece is really powerful and I remember Ramit Sethi, who has been a financial educator for, I don’t know, 15, 20 years now. He was kind of the first person that I really saw when I was starting to think about online business.

[00:13:58] Linzy: Cause he’s also in that space, but he talks about this, just like automate, automate, automate. Take yourself out of the middle. Because we know that we don’t make sense. Right? But we can sit and make a decision of like, okay, when I look at my year, this is how much my paychecks, I’m expecting them to be.

[00:14:12] Linzy: This is how much I want to save. I kind of joke with my students… Let the robots do your bidding. Because we know that if we get in the middle, we’re going to be like, ah, well, but this month, I actually could, really like, you know…there’s a sale at LLB and I’m talking about my own weak spots here.

[00:14:26] Linzy: For instance, this month in my own family, January is when we have to sign up for all the summer camps. As insane as that is, January is summer camp season so it’s like, I know there’s going to be like 1, 600 bucks of expenses coming out, which makes it really tempting to pull back and not contribute to those other goals, right?

[00:14:41] Linzy: But overall, if I still automate it and still contribute to those other goals, I will make it work, like, I will find a way to still pay off our cards at the end of the month. But yeah, if I put myself in the middle, I’m going to make it more complicated than it needs to be in a certain way. 

[00:14:55] Robin: And you know you make decisions differently if you’re tired, hungry, happier, like these emotions do affect our decision making skills. So take yourself out of it. 

[00:15:05] Linzy: Yeah, absolutely. It makes me think about the HALT, which I think is like, it’s actually for addiction, right? which is like hungry, angry, lonely, tired. Like, are you any of these things? Like, stop. 

[00:15:14] Robin: Then P.S. is pain and stress on top of that? 

[00:15:16] Linzy: Yeah, totally and so, you know, the delayed gratification piece, you’ve mentioned a couple like strategies here.

[00:15:22] Linzy: Let’s dig into those a little bit more, or brainstorm some ideas. Because in Money Skills for Therapists, I teach folks about budgeting, right? And budgeting in the business, is helpful to think about like, okay. How much in the year are you going to spend on professional development?

[00:15:33] Linzy: Because I find my folks who learn from me tend to be people who want to take every course that comes by. Every course… whether it’s clinical, whether it’s business, whether it’s on marketing, on Instagram, you know, is shiny and exciting and so for instance, setting a budget for the year to say, in the year I’m going to spend 3, 000 total on trainings allows them to have, a plan for that money,

[00:15:54] Linzy: But there is also that in the moment of: I want this now, this is in front of me now. And what I’m hearing you suggest here is more like what I would think about as maybe money rules. Where you have a certain rule of how you behave to stop yourself from doing the things that are going to hurt you.

[00:16:11] Linzy: So I’m hearing that delaying is a money rule, and you mentioned delaying like a shorter or longer period of time. So can you give an example maybe for folks who are listening to whom this might be a new concept? What would be some concrete examples of those money rules? Like you mentioned for dollar amounts, different periods of time.

[00:16:27] Robin: Correct, so like smaller purchases, and it’s all relative depending on how you look at it. So let’s say I’m looking for a new set of pants, and I have plenty of pants at home, but there’s a new one on sale, and I’m like, oh, this looks good and summer’s coming down the corner.I want to buy these; I don’t need to buy these.

[00:16:42] Robin: So I, I look at ’em like, okay, is that a good deal? I’ll put it in my cart. Let’s say it’s 7:00 PM that night. I just ate, and I’m emotionally quite happy. Then I’ll wake up the next morning, take a look at the cart. I’m like, “These pants, they’re nice, they’re not needs, because I have plenty of pants.” So I’ll push it back. Can I allocate that $100 somewhere else that would better serve me than the set of pants. I know in four weeks time I might want another pair of pants because I’m trying to fill some sort of hole I’m not getting elsewhere. So I think purchasing or buying is going to buy my 

[00:17:11] Robin: happiness, and it doesn’t. 

[00:17:12] Linzy: Right, yeah, well, and that’s such a great example, and also you know, an insight to that piece underneath. It makes me think about Gabor Mate, he’s a Canadian doctor. You know him. Yeah, he’s brilliant. And he has that book about addiction called _In the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts_, which is about his work in Vancouver, working with folks with severe, severe addiction.

[00:17:32] Linzy: And the hungry ghost is a Buddhist concept, right? Of like this kind of hole at the center of us and, you know, what I’m hearing you refer to here is that what I think about as, you know, a hungry ghost kind of thing where, like, yeah, we’re trying to fill something that really isn’t about pants.

[00:17:45] Linzy: It’s not about the pants, and the pants are not going to make it better. There’s some other emotional need there and so stopping to identify that is something I’ve talked to my students about. The phrase that I use sometimes is like, what is the need under the want? 

[00:17:57] Linzy: I remember one of my students’ pants being the exact example during the pandemic she was like, just kept buying black stretchy pants and it’s like, how many pairs of pants can one woman really wear? You already have more pants than days of the week, but what is it about?

[00:18:09] Linzy: And it’s like the black stretchy pants are about comfort, right? And permission to relax. Something being softer or easier because the pandemic as a parent, especially, is really hard. Your kids are at home; things are uncertain. There’s a lot of stress. So it’s like, okay, it’s not really about pants.

[00:18:22] Linzy: Right? It’s about needing comfort and reassurance and permission to take care of yourself. So stopping to, to name that. And I’m curious for yourself, you know, in the work you’ve done with folks around personal finance, what do you see as, like, some of those holes that people are trying to fill by buying things?

[00:18:39] Robin: I think one of the components is societal pressure to look a certain way, act a certain way, because of your profession and whether that’s hey, I have to make sure that I have the latest phone, the latest computer to do my charting on. I have to look a certain way and be dressed out in a certain way because if I don’t I’m looked down upon based on my peers. It might not be as pertinent in our profession of being manual therapists for the most part but other fields, let’s say you’re a physician There’s definitely that sense of: hey I’m a certain status, whether it’s consciously or subconsciously and I have to act and behave like that status because society deems that people in this profession look a certain way. It’s getting over that concept. 

[00:19:19] Robin: And you’ve got to be like a contrarian to do so. You have to say, hey I don’t care what society deems. I know my worth. I know what I can provide. I can look presentable but I don’t have to look very expensive and presentable, and it’s going to take for my future self to look at a certain way right now.

[00:19:31] Linzy: Mm hmm. Right, yeah, because that’s where you’re really paying the cost is when you are doing something to fit in that you can’t actually afford, right? You’re stealing from your future to have that certain car or, and cars are something that I think about a lot because cars are something that really don’t matter to my partner and I.

[00:19:46] Linzy: I’ve been lucky to marry somebody who also is like, eh, why would we buy new cars? That’s crazy, but that’s a great example of something that costs just so much more than almost anything else you can purchase. It’s second only to homes in terms of the amount of money you spend, and yet folks will make quick snap decisions because it’s shiny, it’s pretty, it’s like your neighbor’s car down the street and then spend $50,000 of money that they don’t have. I mean, I don’t know anybody who buys a car in cash, so committing to a loan for 10 or 20 years.

[00:20:17] Linzy: And we have a young friend who recently bought an electric vehicle and when we did the math with him. He’s paying almost double for this vehicle, which is already not a cheap vehicle, but the money seems cheap, but you’re actually just costing your future self money, you end up paying twice as much for the car in the end.

[00:20:34] Robin: On an asset that depreciates. On money now that you could put to work and compound, that we know money today is a lot more valuable than money tomorrow because of inflation.

[00:20:41] Linzy: Yes. Absolutely, yes, yeah, and let’s talk about that concept for a bit because I’ve talked about that on the podcast in the past. But this compounding piece, because this is something that is much more relevant in personal finance than it is in business finance, because business finance, usually we’re not investing in terms of investing, you know, in stocks, right?

[00:20:56] Linzy: We’re investing in ourselves, we’re investing in our team, but the money works a little bit differently, but yeah, let’s talk about compounding and the value of taking action now. 

[00:21:06] Robin: Absolutely. Two things you’ll see with any sort of graph on or compound interest calculator is the key variable is to start early because time is your superpower. The time will outweigh certain additions to your investment accounts later on. For example, let’s say you started 20 years old and you’re only investing $1,000 a month, because what 20-year old has $10,000 to invest a month, right?

[00:21:25] Robin: But let’s say that same person, I’ll call him Jack, goes up against a lady named Jill, starting at age 30, or even age 40, with 5 to 10 times more initially than Jack did. Guess who, at the age of 65, is going to have more money? Not Jill, even though she has 5 or 10 times more than Jack’s starting amount, because he started 10 years or 20 years earlier.

[00:21:45] Robin: So time is a huge variable with compounding. We struggle with this as humans because we usually think linearly. Our brains don’t work very exponentially. So the first 10 years of investing, you’re not going to see a huge amount of growth. But I assure you, the last 10 years, if it’s 30 or 40 years, is huge growth, and whatever you do now will impact later. So that’s the first one, starting early. The second one is do not stop. Contribute often and it doesn’t mean that you have to contribute 100 every single month. Something as little as 10 a week, 20 a week, will compound. So you have to contribute often, don’t stop investing, and start early. Those are the two variables that really help your compound growth.

[00:22:23] Linzy: Right, yeah, and that starting early, can be tricky to hear if you’re 45 and you’re like, damn it. But basically, it starts today. It’s kind of like that saying about “the best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago.” The second best time is today. Because it really is like that kind of visual right of what seems so small today over 10 years, it becomes huge, and just huger and huger all the time. So yeah, and I love that idea of “just start with something,” right? Like even if it’s 20 bucks a week, cause what I see is when we start with something like 20 bucks a week, is we also see ourself doing the thing, which in itself has really positive like mental health impacts of just seeing yourself taking action, even if it’s not the ideal action, even if ideally you should be setting aside

[00:23:04] Linzy: $1,000, $2,000 a month, and you’re only setting aside $100, you’re still building that machine, you’re building that pathway, and as more money becomes available, it’s going to be easier and easier to contribute to those investments. But as you say, too, time is your greatest factor, so putting aside 20 a week this year is going to serve you better than setting aside a few hundred bucks, 10 or 20 years from now.

[00:23:27] Robin: Exactly. You build that habit. And I heard a quote yesterday that might be quite pertinent today is, “if you focus on doing the hard things, the hard habits, life will be easier on you. If you focus on the easy habits, life will be hard on you.” And this is a good concept of that. You’ve got to do the hard things if you want a better life.

[00:23:41] Linzy: Right, yeah, and automate those things. So you don’t have to be manually making that decision, over and over again because that’s something, too, in the behavioral economics book that I’m reading that he talks about is like the pain of spending.

[00:23:51] Linzy: There’s a pain to spending money. So if you automate it, you don’t have to actually make that move right? Like it’s your past self who is thinking about the future has set it up so it automatically happens and you don’t have to actively make that decision, over and over again.

[00:24:06] Robin: Exactly. And this might speak to the conversation you had with Julie recently was how money that you earned is treated differently than money that is given to you. So how do you allocate that effectively? When you know you’ve earned this, you put the time and effort in, you know how much that costs in your personal life.

[00:24:19] Robin: Don’t mistrust it and be frivolous with it. Just like if you have credit cards, you’re like, I’m using my credit card, I’m not handing over cash, therefore it’s not real money because I can’t see it or touch it. I’m going to spend it differently. Being mindful of how you’re spending. 

[00:24:30] Linzy: Yeah and I think, you know, being in touch, as you say, with the energy that went into earning this money, like this money is, a distillation of your time and energy, right? Like you gave up X amount of your time and your emotional energy, if you’re a mental health therapist, that you didn’t have for yourself and your family, to earn this money. So respect that, right. and use it in a way that actually is going to make your life better. which maybe another pair of Lululemon pants is not going to do, maybe, I don’t know. Depends how many pants you wear in a day. Not too many.

[00:25:01] Linzy: So, I’m curious then, you know, thinking about this piece about our behaviors, what are some habits or routines that you’ve seen really working for folks to help them build wealth? Are there other things you would add to the list of: how do we really start to turn around the way that money is working for us?

[00:25:18] Robin: Lovely. And to go back to the analogy we learned earlier about starting now in terms of snapshot and think about personal finance as a journey. Think about you on an actual boat, and you’re sailing across the sea. What do you have to do to ensure you achieve that goal of reaching your destination? The main thing you have to do is check in often with yourself. You’re not going to check the compass once when you set sail and not check it again until you get there. Makes zero sense you’ll be off course, especially if you’re off course by a little bit.

[00:25:42] Robin: It will compound that result in terms of the aperture of that direction, so what I mean by that is what I do with myself, and I implore to my students or my clients is have these check ins with yourself and make it a frequent thing whether it’s once every two weeks, once a month. So, you know, hey, I’ve done this habit.

[00:25:58] Robin: Now, what’s the repercussions of it? Positive or negative? Have I developed a certain trajectory to my goal? Whether I can reconcile my accounts, I can make sure the allocation is there. Do I still want to invest in this? Do I still want to save in this? Do I still want this goal? But if you don’t check on it, you’re going to wait 12 months and you’re like, Ah, I should have gone back and checked it because I don’t want that right now, but I’ve wasted six months or 12 months of compounding where I haven’t checked in. For me. It’s every two weeks. Saturday morning cup of coffee. I’m there from eight to nine o’clock. I’m knocking this out because I know at the end of the year. I’ve achieved my goals based on what I’ve done during the year.

[00:26:29] Linzy: Right yeah and it’s that you’re not talking about looking at it every day or every hour. I’m hearing: every two weeks. This is what I would call money time or a money date. If you’re partnered, it’s also a good thing to do with a partner to look together at your money, but just like checking in on it.

[00:26:45] Linzy: I think setting and forgetting it in terms of automations is helpful to have good behaviors, but then also check to make sure that you’re actually getting what you want out of these things, is what I’m hearing. Like: is this still even making sense for where you are?

[00:26:57] Robin: Yeah, because our decisions change all the time. Remember if you decided last January 1st, and where you decided maybe June 1st, and December 1st. I think your decision might have changed over the course of the year because life has changed.

[00:27:06] Linzy: Yes. Right.

[00:27:07] Robin: You should update it accordingly. 

[00:27:09] Linzy: That makes sense. I am curious, too, Robin, with that, do you have any particular tools that you like or that you recommend to your students for personal finance? Like, are you a fan of budgeting software? Is it spreadsheets? Is it having things written down on paper?

[00:27:23] Linzy: Like, what does the actual data sorting through look like?

[00:27:26] Robin: I love the question. For me, I’m old school and what I generally do is when I write stuff down or type things down, I feel that pain a little more than when I get a spreadsheet of where it’s gone. What I mean by that is when I say, okay, I spent X amount of dollars, I’m typing into my budget on Saturday morning that I spent this, I have to actually actualize what I’m doing there. Realize that, hey, $175 going to this allocation. When I use a software, it takes the effort out of it. It’s more convenient, but you’ll see all their items. You’re like, oh yeah, I forgot that I spent X amount there. Oh, I forgot about that because it’s easy to forget about these things.

[00:27:58] Robin: But at the same time, it does take that time and or speed and convenience. So it’s up to you and how you really work. For me, I write it down. I make it a manual process, but that’s more time and effort. For an individual getting started, you might sync up to a certain platform where it already downloads based on the feeds you have and then you can have a little summary and that’s your first foray into knowing where you’re going and then you can decide whether that’s a strategy you want to do yourself, manually or automated.

[00:28:19] Linzy: Yeah. Yeah, because what I find with the manual, as you say, is like, it does give you that real processing. Like, it almost like it moves through you, the information, right? Like, you see it, comes through your brain, has to come through your arm and out your hand. So there’s a real processing of like, oh, I spent, woo, yeah, how does that feel for me?

[00:28:36] Linzy: So there’s a real kind of actual physicality to it. But the downside, you know, that I find, and as you’re mentioning, is, because it’s manual, sometimes folks fall behind. And then when they fall behind, that can be overwhelming and that can be a reason to avoid. So yeah, I think, yeah, it’s going to depend on what is going to be the bigger payoff for you.

[00:28:52] Linzy: Like, is it having it automated so that it’s there for you? Or is it going to be the value of you, like, really manually processing it? So, yeah, and that changes.

[00:29:01] Linzy: When I was in my 20s, I went away to university with a spreadsheet that I had made and I would manually put in all the stuff that I had spent and had these different little boxes. It’s like, this is my eating out money. This was my clothes and I would type it in. And yeah, I was definitely very in touch with my numbers, but it was manual and I was in my 20s and probably single at that time and just going to university, and didn’t have a kid, and I had time to do that. Now I wouldn’t necessarily see that for my life and my lifestyle now. That wouldn’t necessarily be feasible or a great use of my time. So I’ve got these automated systems, but I do totally feel what you’re saying, it does become a little bit easier to breeze by things when it’s automated.

[00:29:38] Robin: Super. Especially let’s say it goes three or six months. It’s down the line. Oh yeah, I forgot I spent that. Can you remember the purchase now from eight months ago on a random Tuesday? I couldn’t tell you. 

[00:29:48] Linzy: No. No. No. Sometimes we have things come into our You Need a Budget and I’m like, what is that? And it was from three days ago. You know, life can be busy. It’s easy to forget. So there are pros and cons of different kinds of systems. Robin, thank you so much, for coming onto the podcast today.

[00:30:02] Linzy: It’s been wonderful having you. Thank you for bringing these personal finance insights to us and for folks who want to hear more from you, who want to get further into your world, where can they find you and follow you?

[00:30:14] Robin: Absolutely. Thank you again, Linzy, for having me on. Anytime I get to speak about this stuff, as you probably learned, I love talking about it. I’m really passionate about it because I think it really can impact your life. So if you want to learn more about me, I have a platform called Financially Fulfilled Physio.

[00:30:26] Robin: Just type that into Google or your search platform, you’ll find me there. I write on a weekly basis, on Sundays, just my forays into personal finance and hopefully can provide some value to the audience and then there’s some spreadsheets that I use or some things that might help you throughout the process, which you can find on my website, but that’s the main way to get ahold of me.

[00:30:42] Robin: If you want to email me, I’m quite open to email. It’s info at financiallyfulfilledphysio.com. 

[00:30:47] Linzy: Wonderful. Thank you so much for joining us today, Robin.

[00:30:50] Robin: Welcome. Thanks everyone.

[00:31:02] I really appreciated Robin’s perspective today, and I especially appreciate his mentioning of some of those behaviors that you can put in place that support budgeting or intentional spending. I believe I’ve heard referred to before as like money rules, where it’s just a set guideline on how you make financial decisions.

[00:31:22] And I think especially when we’re prone to impulse decisions, and overspending, having just some clear guidelines for yourself of when X, then Y, can start to slow you down and get you out of those automatic behaviors that you don’t like, that aren’t serving you. So as he mentioned the idea of, if it’s a small purchase, let’s say if it’s less than,between 50 and a hundred dollars, you give yourself 24 hours. Put it in the cart or make a note of it, but come back to it 24 hours later and see, do you still want this thing?

[00:31:54] Or was that about an emotional need at the moment that you thought about buying it, but is no longer there, that has now been fulfilled in some other way. Cause you got a good sleep, you had a good meal, you had a good talk with a friend and suddenly that extra pair of pants doesn’t seem so important.

[00:32:06] Or as he said, with larger purchases, giving yourself an even longer timeline, right? Of, “I’m going to give myself a week to think about this couch.” Or sometimes in my own budget, I think about, “I’m going to put this next month.” We will decide next month if this is something that we want to buy.

[00:32:20] It’s not in this month’s budget, but we’ll make a budget category for it and we’ll see if we still care about it next month because often things that are exciting in a moment, aren’t so exciting later and it becomes clear with a little bit of space. That’s not actually a great use of my money. As Robin says, there’s somewhere else that would be better to spend my money.

[00:32:35] I’d rather see this money going towards my investments. I’d rather send this hundred bucks to my investments and see it go there instead of going to Amazon or I’d rather, buy this great gift for my partner, and see them take great joy for a bit, rather than buy something else that I don’t actually really want or need.

[00:32:51] So, lots of opportunity to be more mindful with your money and to start to align your money with your values when you practice just slowing down, stopping yourself, and thinking about what those roles could be for you is a great way to start with building these kinds of skills in terms of managing your money.

[00:33:10] So, so appreciate Robin for bringing forward that idea today. If you are enjoying the podcast, you can both follow me on Instagram @moneynutsandbolts and you can tell a friend about the podcast. Tell your physio friends, for instance, or other kinds of health practitioners who might be in a different field than you about the podcast. I’m really proud of this podcast and the conversations that we’re having here. I think that they are speaking to things that we don’t get to talk about too often, and I know there’s lots of folks out there who would benefit from hearing these conversations and hearing great people like Robin.

[00:33:46] So, please tell your friends and colleagues about the podcast that goes a long way to helping other folks be part of these conversations. Thanks so much for listening today.

[00:00:00] Linzy: Hello and welcome back to another Feelings and Finances episode of the Money Skills for Therapists podcast. And these are our short and sweet Friday episodes where we answer questions from you, the listeners of the money skills for therapists podcast. Today we have a question from Nick, and here’s Nick’s question.

[00:00:17] Nick: Hi, Linzy. My name is Nick. I recently started my private practice. I’m now private pay. Before that, I was insurance based. and so my question is, I guess, something that is now coming up for me. I’m doing a lot of work on things like money mindset, and marketing, and all of these… Just learning so much that I didn’t have to do when I was insurance based.

[00:00:43] But something that keeps coming up is some parts that aren’t feeling good enough and I can’t do it and I should just go back to insurance. Like it’ll be a money stressor but what’s sitting underneath that is a lot of like parts, negative core beliefs. So how do you hold on, and keep going and not… For me, it would feel like a backpedal to go back to insurance.

[00:01:11] It’s really not even an option. So it’s just, it’s really scary, to kind of hold on. Needing more clients, needing more money, and all of the parts that are getting poked at during the process. So I would love to hear your thoughts on how to just build that distress tolerance for how different it is being private pay than insurance based. Thank you for the work that you’re doing.

[00:01:43] I’m really enjoying your podcast, and I hope that we get to talk more soon. Thank you.

[00:01:49] Linzy: Okay. This is a great question, Nick. I mean, the first thing that… My first response, which is kind of a joking response but also not a joking response, is therapy. So I’m thinking about my own journey, Nick, with kind of playing a bigger game to put it a certain way, in business, you know, and moving into a space where you’re like, this is what I’m offering and this is the value of it.

[00:02:14] And this is what I’m charging. And that’s not for everybody. You know, all the things, as you say, that we have to do, in your case, you’re talking about, being private pay rather than insurance. I’ve experienced a similar thing just in terms of courses, and what I charge for them and having to be real about what it costs to run a business, and pay a team.

[00:02:30] And there is so much opportunity, as you say, just ample, never ending opportunity for the parts of us that hold negative beliefs, parts of us that, as we know, are about survival, about keeping us safe. It’s so much opportunity for those parts to just go bananas. You know, like they get so activated by the exact kind of project that you’re doing where you are saying, no, I can’t be small anymore in this way. Financially, I need something else, or emotionally, I need something else.

[00:03:06] I don’t know exactly what has brought you to the journey of deciding to be fully private pay, but we are having to be seen and to be big and to, as you say, weather the uncertainty that comes when we ask for more. And when we communicate to the world that no, what we are doing is worth more, and we’re willing to wait for the folks who recognize that and the folks who are willing and able to pay us for that work.

[00:03:35] It is scary. So how do you weather that? How do you build that distress tolerance? This is where, again, therapy is your friend. If you are not already working with a great therapist, this is a good time to do it.When I first started building this version of my business, of Money Nuts and Bolts, and really had my neck stuck out, like it felt like I was in a really neck stuck out position, I talked about it in therapy all the time. It’s so activating. It brings up so many parts of us that are like, no, no, no, no, no.

[00:04:05] Just go back to that safe thing that you were doing before. And yeah, it had its costs, but like, this isn’t worth it. This is too scary. And it’s going to bring up the not good enough, the fear of being attacked. Just so many things… I know for me, I had a lot of fear, stepping into this version of my business, of trolls on the internet, that it wasn’t safe to be seen in this way.

[00:04:24] I was going to get hurt emotionally, it would cost me, certain friendships or relationships, which in some ways it did. You know, some of those things are true, but they are worth it. Right. And so for you, I would encourage you to work with those parts of yourself, whether it’s with a therapist or with your own skills, this is a time to take extra good care of those vulnerable parts of yourself.

[00:04:47] Whether that is through journaling, visualizing, naming, talking about, being with, just creating that internal distance inside, you know, in a parts work kind of framework of noticing that part. What age is it associated with, does this part of you know that the conditions in your life are different now, and that so many skills that you’ve built, and so much education that you’ve received, does this part of you know about all those things when it believes that you’re not good enough?

[00:05:12] Has it been updated on all of the things that you’ve done to get to this particular place in your career? You know, that kind of time orientation work with those young parts of us, and the compassion and the kindness and taking care of them, could be through art. You know, could be through just talking honestly with other friends and business owners that you know.

[00:05:32] But letting those parts of you have space, because if we try to just squash them down and override them, we know that they just pop up in different ways, right? They don’t go away. We need to help those parts of us catch up with where we are in life. Catch up with you, and why you have made this decision.

[00:05:50] What has brought you to this place? Because it wasn’t just all of a sudden. You know, there’s been a whole journey that has brought you to this place, Nick, where you’ve decided to be private pay and to go off insurance panels. And you don’t want to go back to insurance panels. And you probably shouldn’t, you know, if there were good reasons for leaving them, but that part of you… Those parts of you, probably multiple, don’t know that story yet.

[00:06:12] So that would be part of it, is therapy, being with those parts of you, allowing them to catch up to where you are now, letting them know that you’re an adult, and you’re safe, and you’re making strategic choices, and you have supports. So that’s the core emotional side of the work. On the practical side, thinking about the distress tolerance, I would think about: what are the actions that you can be taking on a regular basis to build your practice that let you see that you’re taking action, right?

[00:06:40] That don’t make you feel powerless or stuck, but let you see, okay, I’m doing these things. So in marketing, this is where we get into the kind of the business strategy side of it… In marketing, there are activities that we do that generate certain results, and we need to be doing these activities, even if they’re not going to immediately give you a client.

[00:06:59] So you have your activities that are kind of your lead generators, right? That let people know about you, whether that’s speaking at community events, networking with colleagues, building a newsletter, showing up on social media platforms where you’re building your audiences, that let people see you and remember, “Oh yeah, Nick, they’re so great.

[00:07:17] I would love to work with Nick” right? You’re reminding people that you exist and you’re letting your colleagues know, this is what I’m doing now. This is who I’m serving. So they think of you the next time they have a client in front of them that’s not the kind of person that they serve, but will be perfect for you, right?

[00:07:31] Those are your lead generation kind of activities. You’re getting the word out there. Then there’s going to be the actual things that you do that allow folks to see you, learn about you, contact you… your website, you know? Then there’s going to be people, moving further down the funnel, who contact you through the website, they book a consult… Do those people who book consults actually turn into first sessions?

[00:07:54] Do your first session turn into six sessions? These are kind of like in broad strokes, the different stages of the marketing funnel. And as you’re building your practice, it’s important that you’re taking action to get leads into your world so folks know about you, to get those concept calls booked, to turn those consults into clients, to keep those clients for six sessions, or whatever your baseline would be.

[00:08:17] Seeing yourself doing things on a regular basis that are having an impact in your practice will also help to sooth those parts of you because they’ll see like, okay, things are happening. You know, you’re going to be able to actually show yourself that progress is being made by taking strategic action in these areas.

[00:08:32] So, stopping and thinking about: where is there a deficit right now? Where do you need to be putting more activity? Is it that people don’t know about you? Is that you’re attracting the wrong people so they’re not converting? Or is something else happening further down the funnel where you’re losing the right people?

[00:08:48] Putting that kind of strategic focus on your business allows you then to also build a business that works, and lets all parts of you see that you are doing this, and it takes time, but you are taking action, and you are making choices that are having clear impacts on the business, and you are going in the right direction, right?

[00:09:07] So we want to soothe, but we also want to be strategic. So I suggest a mix of those two things, Nick, in whatever quantity you need each of them.And that will allow you to keep going, and take the steps that you need to take to build the practice that you actually want, which you’ve already embarked on by making this decision.

[00:09:27] So lastly, I will say congrats, Nick, for doing something big and scary. And I wish you lots of groundedness and fortitude and also strategy to build the practice that you really want. Thank you so much for sharing your question with me today. If you, like Nick, also have a question that you would love me to answer on one of these Feelings and Finances episodes, all you need to do is click on the link in the show notes or head over to our podcast page, moneynutsandbolts.com slash podcast. You will see a little box there where you can just hit record, introduce yourself, and share a question with me. I would love to answer your question on a future episode of Feelings and Finances. Thank you so much for joining me today.