Meet Maegan Megginson

Maegan [00:00:03] It’s an act of revolution in many ways to be a woman, to be a therapist, to be a healer who says, “You know what? I’m going to push against what, honestly, the patriarchy has taught me – it means to be, quote, professional. And instead, I’m going to show up as who I am, who I genuinely, honestly am.”

Linzy [00:00:28] Welcome to the Money Skills for Therapist podcast, where we answer this question “How can therapists and health practitioners go from money, shame and confusion to feeling calm and confident about their finances and get money really working for them in both their private practice and their lives?” I’m your host, Linzy Bonham therapist turned money coach and creator of the course Money Skills for Therapists. 

Linzy [00:00:50] Hello and welcome back to the podcast. So today’s episode is with Maegan Megginson. If you have listened to this podcast in the past, or if you are a Money Skills for Therapists student, you’re probably going to know that Maegan Megginson is one of my business besties. We have been friends in business for six years now and I’m really excited to have her back on the podcast today. Maegan is a licensed therapist. She’s a seven-figure entrepreneur, and she’s also a business coach who helps therapists take their careers to the next level. She’s the founder of the Rest & Success Code, which is a charity fundraising event that inspires therapists to become deeply rested and wildly successful. And today, Maegan and I get into the value, both the emotional value and financial value, of creating a personal brand. This is really deeply what Maegan teaches, which is how to create a brand that really reflects you and who you are, how to step out of that blank slate conditioning that we get, you know, that we learn as therapists to be like tucked away and make sure that we don’t personally disclose and all of these things that can make it very difficult if we decide we want to expand and do things differently. So Maegan and I dig into that. We talk about what it can look like, with some examples of a personal brand, an expanded offer can look like. And then we talk to you about the financial value of creating a personal brand or the financial potential, I should say, but also other ways that a personal brand can pay you besides money. It’s always so lovely to be able to talk with Maegan, period, and especially to have her on the podcast. Here is my conversation with Maegan, Maegan said. 

Linzy [00:02:43] So, Maegan, welcome back to the podcast. 

Maegan [00:02:46] Linzy, thanks for having me. 

Linzy [00:02:48] It is always a pleasure. It’s always a pleasure. 

Maegan [00:02:50] Always a pleasure. 

Linzy [00:02:51] And I’m excited to have you today because I think that since you were on the podcast last – well I know this because we speak all the time, because we are biz besties – I think you evolved a lot, I think in turn and like finessed like in the work that you’re doing and the way that you’re messaging and I think really honing in on like your specific offer that you have for us therapists. And I’m really excited to get into those things today. Would you agree with that? Is that accurate, do you feel like? I think you were last here, like maybe two years ago or. 

Maegan [00:03:20] Yeah, it’s it’s been a hot minute. I mean, things change fast. I mean, and we are growing and evolving. Yeah, I would say that, like, my evolution continues in who I am and, and the work that I want to do in the world. And yeah, I’m really excited to talk with you about that today. 

Linzy [00:03:38] Yes, yes. Yeah. I think you really have a, I mean we’re going to talk about some personal brand stuff today, to me, you really have like an ever a real, like living, breathing brand because the work that you do is so, like, tied to like what you’re able to offer with your own growth as you grow. I feel like you’re very quickly able to turn and like help other people up that level right behind you. 

Maegan [00:03:58] And I mean, it is we’re going to talk about this, but it is one of my favourite things about having a personal brand is that it does pivot and grow with you. And I think if you’re the kind of person who is really invested in personal growth and is always looking for like, looking in how to move closer to what you’re passionate about or what you want to do with your work on this planet. Having a personal brand is a beautiful vehicle that helps you do that pretty seamlessly. 

Linzy [00:04:23] Right! So something that you and I have talked about a lot in our time together as friends going through evolutions is how as therapist, you have to kind of have to like tuck yourself back, right? This like blank slate persona that we need to have, you know, in clinical work or that we’ve been taught to have in clinical work. We don’t really share a lot of ourselves. We try to be inoffensive, neutral. And I think for so many of us that become so second nature and like so part of how we experience ourselves professionally. So as therapists are like starting to think about doing the kind of work that that you’ve done and step more into like being themselves and putting themselves out there, how do they shed that kind of blank slate costume that we’ve all been taught to wear for so many years? 

Maegan [00:05:09] Yeah, you know, and I think it’s important to name that we receive this message both explicitly and implicitly as therapists, that many people are trained in graduate school programs that literally say “You need to be a blank slate”, you’re not allowed to share who you are. It is unethical to self-disclose. It is unethical to, quote, “Make the work about you”. It’s selfish to want to share your personality and weave yourself into the work that you’re doing. These messages are, they’re oppressive. They are deeply internalized. And for many of us, they actually started way before graduate school. Many, many therapists received very similar messages from their own families. You know, “Don’t be too smart, don’t be too successful, don’t be too loud, don’t be too shiny”. You know, just be a little less of everything that you are so that you fit in better to, you know, this family system of which you are a member by default. 

Linzy [00:06:04] Right. 

Maegan [00:06:05] So we come about this blank slate conditioning naturally, and we have years and years of conditioning that tell us it’s not okay to be who we are. And many therapists get to the point in their practices and in their lives where they just can’t live that way anymore. And this was certainly something that I experienced of, I just like I can feel myself is begging to come out, and I want to be more self-expressed. I want to be more authentic and honest. And I have to do that in my life. You know, I have to do it in my life personally. And as I do it more in my life, I then have to do it more in my practice and in my business. So it’s a big question how do I start to become more self-expressed, more authentically, who I am in my private practice? And I think the first way that we start to do that is to weave elements of our personality into our business, into our branding and into our work with clients. 

Linzy [00:06:59] Mmm right. And can you give some examples of what that could look like? 

Maegan [00:07:03] Yeah, I can give some examples and I’m going to give your listeners a whole guide about it at the end of this conversation. So listeners are going to be well supported in this process. The first place I like to start is like, let’s just think about adjectives that describe who you are. This is, this is where I begin with folks in my coaching program Next Level Therapist is, you know, what are some adjectives you would use to describe yourself? And people will say things like, you know, funny, I’m funny or I’m sensitive or I’m chill or I, you know, fill in the blank. I’m charismatic, you know, I’m adventurous, I’m eccentric. Whatever the adjectives that you might use to describe who you are. And then we say, okay, let’s take a look at your business as it is right now. Let’s take a look at your website. Let’s take a look at your copyrighting. Let’s take a look at your intake paperwork. Let’s take a look at, you know, how you engage with clients. And I want to know, are those adjectives present in your business? Are they present in the way that you’re working with clients? And let’s just examine that and let’s look at how can we weave more of the way you want to show up in the world into what you’re actually doing. And just starting with some exploration around your adjectives can be a really evocative and telling process. 

Linzy [00:08:19] Hmm. Yeah, that is really interesting because something that I think about is even if I think about like, forms, usually it’s like we have a form that we got from somebody else and we feel like, okay, this is how the form has to be because this is right. And often it has very kind of like dry language or like aspirationally legal language that isn’t really but like this very kind of like stuffy nature of some of those kinds of things. And yeah, I am thinking about like what your client’s experiences would be like if the forms actually reflected your vibe rather than feeling like, Oh, this is like a generic form that could be at a hospital or could be at a vet clinic. But instead I’m at, you know, a therapist’s office, right? 

Maegan [00:08:57] It’s such a small place to make a tweak, but it does have a powerful impact on how the client is experiencing you as the provider. And it’s also going to call in more of the right clients, right? Because if you are, if let’s say you’re sassy, you know, like if sassy is one of your adjectives and your website, home page is super sassy, very conversational, it sounds like the way you would talk to your friends and family, you know, but in a professional setting. And then a client looks at your paperwork and your paperwork while being clear and covering, you know, all of the bases that it needs to cover also has that element of sassiness about it. The client’s either going to know in that moment, you are not the person for me. No, thank you. Or holy shit, I want to hang out with you like, okay. You know, like, I like I’m so excited to talk to you. I like you are going to be the person for me. So in addition to making you feel better as the practitioner that you actually get to be who you are and you get to show up as yourself. You have the secondary gain of pulling in the people who want to hang out with the real you and repelling the people who are not going to like who you are. And those aren’t our dream clients. So those are not people that you need to be working with anyways. So I think it’s just a win-win in every direction. 

Linzy [00:10:14] I, yeah, I agree. And it’s interesting, like it’s reminding me of something. Yesterday I was having a conversation with someone who wants to join the course and that had run out of time to join the course and came back in and said like, “Oh, I didn’t realize there was a deadline. Like, Can I join today?” And so I replied to her and said, “Yeah, absolutely, I’d love to help you in”. And I shared a, you know, a sales pitch that has a deadline on it. And I shared with her, “We use deadlines in our business because we’ve learned that the therapist that we serve will avoid money if they can until approximately the end of time”. And that’s what I wrote in the email and I thought it was very funny and clever. I was obviously having a bit of a sassy day, but I did notice afterwards there was like this policing voice that came into me like and was like “You don’t know this person yet, like, that can be very off-putting to her, that could be offensive to her”. Like, you could have struck the wrong tone. But then I had a counter thought of like, “Well, yeah, but if she doesn’t like my little jokes, she’s probably not going to like working with me”. 

Maegan [00:11:06] Exactly. 

Linzy [00:11:07] Because I use humour and the work that I do, right? But like I did notice this, like back and forth that happened in me almost immediately of like doubting that infusion of like more of my kind of like lighter personality right away. And then also reminding myself, like, yeah, she doesn’t like that little joke. She’s probably not going to like the hundred other little jokes that I like to tell when I’m doing coaching calls to keep things light. 

Maegan [00:11:28] Such a good example. And it’s so true. It’s an act of revolution in many ways. To be a woman, to be a therapist, to be a healer who says, “You know what, I’m going to push against what, honestly, the patriarchy has taught me it means to be, quote, ‘professional’. And instead, I’m going to show up as who I am, who I genuinely, honestly am”. And it is really hard. And what you’re describing is just a great example of that internalized conditioning. It just bubbles. It automatically bubbles right up to the surface. 

Linzy [00:12:00] Yeah. 

Maegan [00:12:00] I’m like, “Oh, was that appropriate? Are you going to upset her?” Like we all walk around with these little critics that are really concerned about upsetting people and really concerned about stepping out of line? And when my clients are really struggling with that, I will often say like, “The only thing that you shouldn’t do is be an asshole”. Really. Like, don’t be an asshole, you know? And if you are not being an asshole, then there’s not many things you can do wrong. You know it’s, be yourself if you’re being kind, if you’re leading with love always and you’re being yourself and someone doesn’t like the way that you presented, great! What a beautiful opportunity for the two of you to decide that you were not the right fit to work together. 

Linzy [00:12:41] Right. 

Maegan [00:12:41] But it is like, every day, every moment that you are taking off the blank slate costume. It is a reconditioning process and we as therapists know how hard that is. So you have to be really gentle with yourself to be kind, and you need to be in a community of therapists who are doing that work as well. Because if you’re trying to do this in isolation and you have nobody to talk to you when you have one of those challenging days or you’re doubting yourself, you’re going to go right back into the tiny little box that you’ve been stuffed into for so long. Like being connected to community as you are coming out as your true self is a really important part of this process. 

Linzy [00:13:19] Mm hmm. Yeah. And that makes all the sense in the world to me. And I think that, you know, if I think about our business relationship, I feel like that’s part of the work that we’ve helped each other do over the last six years or whatever that we’ve been friends,  it’s like when you are forging this new path and you’re sticking your neck out and you’re, yeah, being yourself and experimenting with how to do that, it is hard. And it’s very tempting to be like, nevermind, I was joking. I’m going to go back and like, be small and little and good again where like, nobody can criticize me or yeah, it’s, I mean small feels safe. And so it makes total sense that having that community around us to help us take risks and also I think like absorb wins when it goes well, right? Process when it doesn’t go well would be essential. 

[00:14:04] Yeah. Totally agree. 

Linzy [00:14:05] So therapists then, who are listening, what makes it beneficial for them or like why do therapists especially, are they in the position to be able to step out and build these personal brands? Because I know this is kind of the center of the work that you do, right? Is that that you know, that therapists like we are uniquely positioned. So tell me more about that. 

Maegan [00:14:26] Okay. I’m so excited because this is like I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about this sometimes and I’m just like, filled with joy and excitement, you know, like, I’m so glad that I have moved past the era of my life where I wake up in the middle of the night like stressed with and wracked with fear and anxiety. 

[00:14:42] So much worse,. 

[00:14:42] Yeah, it’s so much worse. This is way better. Ten out of ten recommend waking up feeling just like so excited to talk about a thing. So first, maybe let’s define what a personal brand is because it is kind of ambiguous a little, it’s a little difficult to understand. In its simplest form, a personal brand is a business that’s based on you, your personality, your values, and most importantly, your subject matter expertise or your specialty area. So when I say you should have a personal brand, I’m not saying you should be an influencer on Instagram, right? Influencers, they do have personal brands that, that is true, but they don’t have subject matter expertise, right? They really are just known for their personality and their values and that’s it. What makes this different, what you and I are talking about is that we get to lead with who we are and we get to back that up with our subject matter expertise. And there are few people on the planet who are as specialized, as intelligent and as human, as psychotherapists, like we have spent years getting specialized training and whatever it is that we do, we have spent hours and tens of thousands of dollars getting supervised by people who have been doing this work for longer than we have. We are experts and yet therapists, we are some of the people who are the quickest to dismiss our expertise, to discount ourselves. You know, we are the, we stay in little tiny private practice offices with the doors closed, you know, where we maybe talk to 20 people a week and that’s it. No one else gets into our mind. No one else gets to know what we know or hear what we have to say. And I just feel like it’s such a travesty because, like if more therapists were out there in the spotlight sharing what they know and what they believe and how they help people heal and transform their lives, I genuinely think the whole world would be a much better place than it is right now. So anyways, yes. 

Linzy [00:16:38] Yeah. It makes me think about the more you know, the more you know, you don’t know rightly kind of that like Dunning-Kruger effect.  I think about all the coaches out there who know this much and have confidence just like through the roof and take up so much space like teaching this like, you know, tiny area that they figured out with full confidence, not understanding all of the adjacent areas that they know nothing about that, you know, can be really important. And then I think about therapists who have hundreds of hours of training and know so deeply what they know and what they don’t know and what they specialize in and what they don’t, and like the complexities of what they do. And yet they doubt themselves and think that they should only be like making a small impact when these folks who know way less than you think that they deserve to be making a huge impact. 

Maegan [00:17:24] And again, we have to ask ourselves, why is that the case? Well, it’s the case because the way we’re trained as therapists, you know that we are trained in a paradigm in graduate school programs, in a culture of psychotherapy that has deep roots in white supremacy and patriarchy and these systems that have profited overtime on keeping people like us small and quiet. And so that’s why I come back to like this is an act of revolution to say no more. I’m not going to be small. I’m not going to be quiet. I’m actually I’m going to step out. I’m going to open the door of my private practice office. I’m going to, like, step into the street. I’m going to look both ways first, of course, and I’m going to say, “Folks, I have something to say”. You know, I know something that will make your lives better. I believe something so deeply that I want more people to have access to this work that I, and therapists say this all the time right there, like I want to expand my impact, you know? I don’t want only to be limited to the work that I’m doing in the therapy room, which is great. It’s great to say, but now we need to take that to the next level. So if that’s how you feel, if you feel called to expand your impact beyond the therapy room, then do it. You know, it’s then do it. And I think the easiest way to do that in the most joyful and creative way to do that is by creating a personal brand. And eventually, when the time is right, creating a business separate from your private practice where you can start showing up in a different way and selling things to your people, to your community in a different way as well. 

Linzy [00:19:00] Right. And, you know, for folks listening, you know, I think that we’ve been taught many roads to that right to expand an impact like some people will say, like you need to make a course based off of what you’re doing in your practice or you need to speak like you need to do this. Tell me, you know, Maegan, your perspective, why is a personal brand the thing to do first rather than jumping into one of those other things? 

Maegan [00:19:26] Yeah. When you jump into another thing before laying the foundation for your business, inevitably you are not going to be very successful, right? And I see this all the time. People invest big money in programs that say… Okay, okay, let’s use the online course as an example. There’s a therapist in private practice and they’re like, I really want to make a course. So they pay 3000, $4,000 to take a course to learn how to make a course. And then they make a course and then nobody buys the course. And then they say, “Oh, I just wasted all of that money. I’m not meant to be successful. This isn’t going to work for me”. But the problem is an analogy I often use is, you hired the contractor before you got the blueprints from the architect. 

Linzy [00:20:12] Hmm. Right. 

Maegan [00:20:14] Like you know, you jumped in and you made a thing. But there’s actually a lot that goes into setting a business up for success before you sell something. And I think that’s where the personal branding piece is really important. You know, slow down. First, let’s get really clear on what parts of you do you want to weave into your business? What is it that you really want to say? How do you want this business to serve you? This is what we do in Next Level Therapist is we first start with the personal exploration, then we turn our attention to who, who are we here to serve? Who are we here to serve? What do we want to say to them? How are we going to serve them? And then let’s put the infrastructure in place to support our ability to sell things. Let’s make sure we have a marketing plan. Let’s make sure we have an email list. Let’s learn what it means to build an audience. Let’s learn how to sell with integrity. And when we do all of these things upfront and then we go to make the course, bam! You’re going to be so much more successful because you have the infrastructure to support you in doing the thing, selling the thing that you want to do that you want to sell. And the personal brand infrastructure also allows you to pivot. That’s what we were talking about at the beginning of this conversation, that if you can do a course and then maybe you’re like, “That was boring”, I want to do a group program. And then you do that and you’re like, “That was too stressful”, I just want to do a retreat and then you can do a retreat. And I think the ability to play and to experiment with different ways of offering things to your people is a really important element in creating a business beyond private practice. 

Linzy [00:21:50] Right? Because with the personal brand, if I understand properly or correctly, people learn to like and trust you, they like you and what you do. So if you’re doing a course and they like and trust you and the content is relevant to them, they’re going to jump in and take the course. But then if you say, I’m going to do this retreat instead, they’re gonna be like, “Oh my God, I would love to have time with … Claire” and they’re going to interest do the retreat because they have a personal connection to you. 

Maegan [00:22:13] Yeah, that’s right. You are always leading with your personality and your values. I say there are three things that you need for a profitable personal brand. You need courageous authenticity, right? You have to be courageously yourself. You have to be honest. That doesn’t mean you have to show people everything about you or your life, but the parts of you that you do show need to be courageously authentic. People are drawn to authenticity. Two, we need genuine relationships, right? Successful personal brands are built on relationships, genuine relationships. My friendship with you, Linzy, is genuine. My relationship with the people in my audience, on my email list, those are genuine relationships. I am really talking and connecting with those people in real ways. And three, we need to be compelling storytellers, right? To have a successful personal brand, you do have to be able to tell stories. And this is one of the most fundamental elements of being human is being able to tell a story. Our brains are hardwired to receive story, to tell story. So when you’re being yourself, when you are open to genuine relationships and when you are telling stories in your business in a way that brings people in and makes them curious about you and what you do, then what you just described, it happens. You know that people start to trust you. People are interested in what you have to say and they’re willing to kind of follow you around as you experiment with different offerings. And just because you know, you’re the, you’re the money person, I will also say that, like, this is the path that leads to a scalable income. 

Linzy [00:23:44] Yes. 

Maegan [00:23:45] For you as a therapist, right? When you get out of the therapy room and you start experimenting with offers that aren’t just an hour of your time with one person at a time, you can begin to see the pathway to increasing your income and your revenue in a way that you’ll never be able to see with a traditional private practice business model. 

Linzy [00:24:05] Yes. Yeah. And, you know, just to help folks understand, like, would there be any kind of an examples or numbers that you could share to help them wrap around what’s possible with a personal brand? 

Maegan [00:24:15] Sure. Well, let’s brainstorm this together. I mean, let’s say maybe we can start with the online course example. 

Linzy [00:24:20] Sure. 

Maegan [00:24:21] Okay. So let’s say. 

Linzy [00:24:22] We’ll my calculator? I’ll get my calculator. 

Maegan [00:24:23] Yeah, maybe get your calculator. Because, you know, Linzy knows me in numbers we’re …. we’re not the closest friends. 

Linzy [00:24:29] You’re acquaintances. 

Maegan [00:24:31] We’re acquaintances. I have mad respect for numbers, but we don’t get each other, you know? 

Linzy [00:24:35] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Maegan [00:24:36] Okay, so let’s say you create an online course. Now you create an online course after you do all of those other things that I mentioned, you know, building the infrastructure, creating an audience so that there are people who want to buy an online course from you. So I don’t know, Linzy, let’s say that someone specializes in anxiety and they create an online course about managing your anxiety and work meetings. So you’re getting anxiety at work meetings. You’re not able to speak up for yourself and you want to overcome that. So you create a kind of self-study course that guides people through, let’s say, a 4 to 5 step process for managing anxiety and speaking up at work. You package that up and I don’t know, what do you think someone would sell for Linzy? 

Linzy [00:25:16] MM Four or five lessons, anxiety work and on-target audience. We’re talking about like really big corporate people or?

Maegan [00:25:25] Let’s say like middle managers. 

Linzy [00:25:27] Sure. Middle managers. Okay. I would say that’s at least 500 bucks. I would say if I’m a middle manager and like it’s impacting my work performance. Yeah, it easily would be that much.  

Maegan [00:25:39] And let’s say that includes like a little bit of one on one support too, you know? So there’s like a group coaching call or something like that. So great. So we have this course anxiety management for middle managers looks like that needs some copy work. 

Linzy [00:25:51] So inspiring. 

Maegan [00:25:52] Yeah. Okay. So $500. So let’s say, I don’t know, let’s say you sell 20. What’s that? 

Linzy [00:25:57] $10,000. 

Maegan [00:25:58] $10,000. So and let’s say you how many group coaching calls do you show up for? Let’s say five. 

Linzy [00:26:05] Mm hmm. 

Maegan [00:26:06] Okay, so there’s five group coaching calls. And so really, this is an online course that became a group program. And in the course of this brainstorming an online course became a hybrid. 

Linzy [00:26:15] A hybrid, yeah, this how it works.

Maegan [00:26:17] Yep. That’s that works Great. So you just made ten grand. You showed up live for 5 hours and 20 people get a pretty huge transformation, right? And now it’s, it’s not fair. I don’t want to be someone who’s like, “You got paid ten grand for 5 hours of work” because a lot of work when into creating that course, right? A lot of hours went into making it. A lot of hours, you know, you probably had to pay people to help you with the tech. But what you now have is something you can rinse and repeat. So you made $10,000 the first time that you did it. Well, the next time that you do it, maybe you increase the price to $700 and instead of 20 people, you do 40 people and you actually don’t have to redo any of the work you did the first time because it’s all already created. So the only thing you do the next time is show up for those five coaching calls. So I don’t know, Let’s and let’s let’s say 30 people. 30 people, $700 each. What’s that one’s?

Linzy [00:27:10] $21,000. 

Maegan [00:27:11] Okay, great. So the second time you did it, you grossed $21,000 and so on and so forth. As things evolve and change in your business and now you can begin to see the pathway out of, well, how many one on one therapy hours did it take you to generate $21,000? 

Linzy [00:27:28] Mm hmm. Right. Yeah. 

Maegan [00:27:30] And when you were focused on delivering those 21 or however many therapy hours for that $21,000, you also didn’t have the time to create something that you could scale and share with more people in this new way. What do you think? 

Linzy [00:27:46] I think the math is good. And I was going to say, you know, to put it into you know, since this is a financial podcast, $21,000, if we’re using like your kind of standard profit first rate that applies to most businesses are paying yourself about 50%. That’s like $10,000 in pocket that you could take home from doing that work. Yeah, it is. You really are, when you’re doing this kind of work, I think not just increasing your impact, but also in our practice, like when we’re doing one on one sessions, it’s like you might say the same thing 100 times and like one time you might say it really, really well and the next time you’re like, “Ah, that was okay, I think, I think I got it across. But I actually forgot to mention this part”. Like, what I think about too, is when you make a course and like when you package and create something like that you do get to know that it’s like your best take, right? Like you’re going to you’re going to use the version that you really like, yes, nailed it. Also added this piece that I often forget. And so you also know that there’s this certain consistency of quality that those folks who are taking the course are getting because they’ve got, you know, your best version of that spiel. 

Maegan [00:28:43] Mmmm I love that. 

Linzy [00:28:44] I think when we do therapy work, there’s beauty that comes from it, obviously, like being in person and like the relational aspect, whatever. But like if you’re having a bad day because you took too many cold meds and you’re like, woohoo, I’m a little bit loopy in the middle of the session. Speaking from personal experience, that happened to me once and I was like, “Oh dear”, you know, you’re probably doing good work, but you’re not doing your best work. And so that’s also something that I think about is like you when you take that energy to create it once, as you say, you get to that people benefit it from time, time and time again, like over and over. And also you really know that you’ve like nailed you’ve nailed it and you’re happy with the product. 

Maegan [00:29:18] I think that is so spot on. It’s better for everybody, I think and you and I are the first people to say like, this doesn’t happen overnight. No, we don’t want to sell you like flash in the pan. Linzy and I have been working at this for years now, and we’re still growing. We’re still learning. But what’s so exciting is that you do get to experience more freedom in your own life because you’re not committed, you know, every hour of every day to a client, you get to be more creative and more playful and you get to fine tune what you know into these courses or these programs. I do allow you to show up in the best way possible, and the people who are participating in those programs are paying a whole lot less than they would pay if they were doing long term one on one therapy with you or long term one on one coaching with you. It just kind of, it’s so expansive when you get to this place and you start it’s expansive personally, when you become more self expressed, when you start showing up as who you are and saying what you actually feel and you actually believe. Like there is a personal expansiveness that is so beautiful and healing for many of us who have been hiding our entire lives. And then there’s a professional expansiveness, right? That we’re getting to reach more people. We’re sharing what we know with more people. We’re helping more people create this powerful transformation in their lives. And yeah, there are stressors and there are learning curves and there are growing pains. But what makes it worth it for me is that expansiveness, like once you get a taste of the expansiveness, it’s really hard to go back. 

Linzy [00:30:50] Yes. Yes. And I would add to that to financial expansiveness as well. Right. Like I think as you know, before we started recording, you and I were chatting about kind of our own numbers and some, you know, numbers that we’re looking to meet and settle into and what becomes possible. And we were just reflecting on how a few years ago, there’s no way we would have thought we were having these conversations about, you know, like settling into consistent 30K months, 40K months, like 50K months, being the kind of, you know, level that we’re at now. That would have been a total pipe dream years ago when we started doing this work. 

Maegan [00:31:24] And now that we’re at that point, it’s like, oh, okay, it’s not that big a deal. You know, It’s like, okay, like we see like, yeah, you need that much money at the stage that we’re at now. We’re like, “Oh, you need 50K a month to be able to do what you want to do and pay your team well and pay yourself well”. And I think it’s really important to name too on the personal brand path. You can be as big or as small as you want. 

Linzy [00:31:44] Mhm. Right. 

Maegan [00:31:46] Like you can be a powerful company of one where you generate, you know, 150K a year and that’s a sweet spot for you and you’re living your best life. Or you can have a personal brand and say I want to make $1,000,000. Great. Make you can work your way up to making $1,000,000 or you can say, I want to make $300,000. Like there is a pathway for you financially through the personal brand roadmap that will help you meet your personal needs. And I love the flexibility of that model. 

Linzy [00:32:16] Yes. Yeah. Because the other thing that I think about, too, is I think about money as I also think about being able to buy back our time. You know, and as I reflect on, you know, my own decisions around how I use money in my business, it’s very much reflected for me in last few years, having time flexibility. Right? And like I have a son, he brings home every disease under the sun and like being able to just have that be okay and it’s like, I don’t have to, I don’t lose a day of revenue. Nothing is ruined, you know, like, maybe I have to, like, show up and do a coaching call because it happens on that certain day. But then I only need somebody to cover me for an hour and a half. Like, for me, I know that looking at my values in my business over the last couple of years, it’s very clear to me that I have valued my time, right? And so more money goes to pay other people. So I have lots of support. So I have lots of time. And you get to, like, play with those variables too, in your business and decide trading money for time or you work more and you make more money, but you get to play with those levers. 

Maegan [00:33:15] I think that is such an important lesson, but it’s something that I talk about a lot as well. It’s I think I call them creative profits, like, let’s get creative here. Like, profits aren’t always money in the bank. 

Linzy [00:33:28] Yes. 

Maegan [00:33:28] How else are you profiting from your business? You’re profiting in time. Flexibility, right? You’re profiting and rest. You’re profiting in space for personal development. For me, a big one is creativity, right? That in this path I get to be creative and expressive in ways that I couldn’t be as a private practice therapist, right? That I am experimenting with a workshop or a group or an in-person event. And like that kind of playfulness and creativity is worth its weight in gold for me because it brings me joy. So I think, I want everyone who’s listening to this who feels excited about moving beyond the traditional private practice, who wants to be more self-expressed to also ask yourself, what do you need your business to do for you? Something I often say is that your business should serve you first in your clients second. So if you really are putting yourself first as the business owner, what do you need to get paid in? Time flexibility? X amount of money per year? Creative expression? More space for rest? What? I mean, the sky’s the limit. Make it whatever you want, but be really clear about what’s most important for you so you don’t get swept up in the business building space, which will just tell you to do more and more and more all the time until you, you know, grind yourself into the ground. Avoid that trap. Be clear about who you are and what you actually need. 

Linzy [00:34:52] And it will tell you, too, that money is the metric of success. And that’s not true. 

Maegan [00:34:56] Sure isn’t. 

Linzy [00:34:57] Especially not revenue. You make that money that comes in the top. That is not what is going to make you feel fulfilled. Yeah, that doesn’t make it worth it, frankly, especially if the money’s not working. But sometimes even when the money is working, it’s still not worth it. 

Maegan [00:35:11] Yeah. If you if you’re making a shit ton of money, but you have no time. Not worth it. I mean, depending on your values. But for people like me and you, it would not be worth it. Again, this is why you have to name what’s most important for you. Because maybe time flexibility is not important to you in this season of your life and what is important to you is generating as much money in the bank as possible. And if that’s true for you, great, more power to you. But be clear about it so that you don’t get swept up in other people’s expectations. 

Linzy [00:35:39] Hmm. So, Maegan, if folks want to get further into your world and also get that great resource you mentioned at the beginning. Where can they find you? 

Maegan [00:35:49] Thanks for asking Linz, yes! If you’re feeling really drawn to this conversation about self-expression and weaving more of your personality into your private practice, because that’s where it begins, right? We don’t start by creating a course or launching a high-ticket program that comes way later. It starts by first weaving more of who you are into your private practice. I would love for you to download my Personality Powerpack, which is a lesson pulled straight from Next Level Therapist and it’s a five-step guide to help you discover your authentic personality and learn how to weave that personality unapologetically into your private practice. And you can download that at Personality Power Pack dot com. And the second invitation I would love to extend Linzy, you’ve joined me in the space before. I have a weekly writing studio called Express Yourself. It is free. You can come and go as it is convenient for you. We gather with the sole intention of getting our hands dirty and practicing, expressing ourselves on the page. I give a prompt. We write together for 30 minutes and then we spend about 20 minutes at the end sharing and reflecting as a community. Do you want to read more about that and register to join us? You can do so at Express Yourself Studio dot com. 

Linzy [00:37:05] Great. Thank you so much Maegan for joining us today. 

Maegan [00:37:08] Thanks for having me back, Linz. 

Linzy [00:37:22] Something that stuck out from my conversation with Maegan that I think is so important is just how much therapists, and I want to say mental health therapists for sure but I also feel like I could probably say for some other health practitioners as well, how much we doubt ourselves, don’t value what we know, as I mentioned, how much we’re aware of, what we don’t know. You know, when it comes to stepping out and kind of staking our claim and sharing what we know with the world, I think it’s really easy to undervalue your expertise, you know, that you’ve gained through not just training like formal education, but also through often your own life experience. Usually, we specialize in a certain area because it has some personal relevance to us. And then the hundreds and thousands of clinical hours that we’ve spent working with people around, whatever the topic is, you know, that we focus on and that that we love to work with. I just love her point about how uniquely positioned therapists are to build these brands because we just know what we know so deeply. So if you have an area of content that you love and work that you love to do, I’d really encourage you to think about and be curious about if you ever would want to expand beyond one on one work. And, you know, think about how much you know, and how much you have to share and how much information you’re able to share with your clients every week. Both like knowledge that you have, but also ways of dealing with, you know, whatever it is that they’re struggling with. I just love Maegan’s point about how uniquely positioned we are to be able to help people on a broad scale and build these brands because of all the expertise that we amass every single week in the work that we do. I’m grateful to Maegan for coming on the podcast today. 

Linzy [00:39:02] You can follow me on Instagram at Money Nuts and Bolts. And if you’re enjoying the podcast, please hop over to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review. I’ve said it before because it’s true. It is the best way for other therapists, new therapists to find the podcast and benefit from these conversations. Thanks for listening today.