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If you want to work in a different way, but you feel like maybe it’s too late to start your own signature program or you regret not starting sooner, this episode is for you.
In the last couple of years I have done a LOT of things that I had thought maybe it was too late to do. So I feel you. One of those has been returning to roller skating.
You know the proverb. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is now.
For me, the best time to return to roller skate would have been 30 years ago. The next best time just happened.
I went to roller discos as a kid in the early 80’s from about age 8 to 10 and I felt so alive and joyful. Skating felt like flying and dancing at the same time. I was part of a little crew of girls who skated together. We got sparkly T shirts with roller skates on the front and abbreviations of our names on the back, just to save money on the letters. A couple of my birthday parties were at the roller disco. When Dolly Parton, Donna Summer or Blondie came on I would get shivers.
My family moved across the country when I was 10 and I stopped roller skating partly because I didn’t have my crew anymore and partly because I felt more awkward and self conscious in my body as I got older.
As an adult, through my 30’s and 40’s I wished I could roller skate again, but I figured it was too late. I assumed I would fall and injure myself if I tried. And I guess I worried that I would look foolish.
As roller skating made a big revival in the last few years, I kept seeing the cutest roller skates everywhere. When I would walk past the roller skaters in golden gate park, I felt that longing. I also noticed that lots of the skaters there appeared to be my age or older.
As I was turning 50, I did a little research and discovered it actually STILL wasn’t too late for me to get on roller skates. Not at ALL too late.
So for my 50th birthday I bought a pair of purple skates, knee pads, wrist guards, and elbow pads. The first thing you’re supposed to do is practice falling safely, so I did that about 100 times.
By the way, I know there’s a whole camp of skaters who don’t believe in using padding. I’m not here to fight about it. I see you and I respect you.
I finally I got myself to the outdoor skating area in Golden Gate Park. It’s flat and smooth, and several times a week there’s even someone from the community playing music with a huge speaker.
I shyly asked the incredible roller skaters about the etiquette and advice for a new skater. Then I slowly rolled out there. I realized I could still roller skate. Even after 40 years my body still remembered how.
Even if I didn’t already know how, it wouldn’t have been too late. I’ve met plenty of people who started skating at lots of different ages.
I basically just skate around the area enjoying the music. I feel joy and energy moving through my body. Just like when I was 10, I feel like I’m flying and dancing.
Some folks are in the middle of the area dancing their asses off. Maybe I’ll start learning some of those moves soon.
I keep my roller skates and protective gear in my trunk at all times so that I can skate whenever I get the chance. I go about once a week. Sometimes my spouse comes and sits and watches. They say they love how happy I look.
I know how to fall safely, but at this point I haven’t actually fallen. But I probably will, especially when I start learning those dance moves. And that’s totally OK with me.
Back to creating your own program.
If you’ve been wanting to create a program beyond private practice, but a part of you has thought it’s already too late, let’s try something for a moment.
Let’s do a little parts work, inspired by IFS and other things.
What part of you is trying to be heard with that regret or that fear?
Hear them out.
If it’s the right path for you, it is not too late. In your wisest and most embodied self, you know this.
But also if you’ve got a part that feels like it’s too late, you might need to hear that part out. It’s trying to protect you in the best way it knows how.
So let this “it’s too late” part know that you are ready to listen and that you’re grateful for it’s attempt at protecting you.
Kindly let that part vent about why they think it’s too late. And take notes.
Maybe you’ll hear:
Other people are already doing it. The market is saturated. People already know me as a therapist. If I had started when I first wanted to I’d already be successful but now I’d be a beginner. People don’t buy courses anymore. If I do it now, I’ll have to feel the grief of not having done it sooner.Then when the “it’s too late” part has gotten it all out, you can converse with that part. I can help because I know what it actually takes to create a successful program. I’m an actual expert on creating and making a living from your unique and excellent program.
So let’s go through those reasons one by one. I realize you may have come up with other reasons why it’s too late. I tried to cover the most common ones here
Other people are already doing it:
Yep. There’s probably at least a handful of successful people in your niche. That’s a good sign. It probably means there are people paying them and it’s a viable niche.
It would be unusual to step into a niche no one else is in.
Some people are going to want to pay YOU to be the one to help them because you’re the best fit.
Just like there’s room for lots of therapists, there’s room for more than one program in your niche of choice.
The market is saturated:
A funny thing happens. Whatever niche you choose, you’ll start to see evidence that your niche is saturated. That’s because you’re paying lots of attention to what’s going on in your niche. Confirmation bias will have you believing that your niche is the most saturated one. That’s incredibly unlikely.
People already know me as a therapist:
If people know that you’ve been a therapist for a long time, your program is going to look even MORE valuable to them. Your experience as a therapist is part of what sets you apart. It’s beautiful to have more than one identity. If you’re already wishing you’d done this sooner, now is a great time to show yourself that you’re not limited to one identity or one way of working for the rest of your career.
If I had started when I first wanted to, I’d already be successful, but now I’d be a beginner:
You’ve been a beginner so many times before. Learning new things is incredibly good for keeping you in an optimal state of growth and happiness.
Starting your own program is a gorgeous blend of being really experienced in your work AND being a beginner at offering your work in a new way.
You’ve got new stuff to learn about how to turn your best work into a program, and how to make money with that program. And you don’t have to figure it all out on your own.
People don’t buy courses anymore.
The truth is people don’t tend to pay as much for self-led courses where they will go through curriculum without getting access to the creator. We’re smart to be wary of self-led courses. The completion rates for self-led courses tend to be quite low. We’re tired of purchasing these courses and never doing them.
It’s always the right time for a high-quality program in which participants will get coached by you or observe you coaching others, and will get their particular questions answered.
It will always be the right time for great programs like these because they work.
If I do it now, I’ll have to feel the grief of not having done it sooner.
Yes love, and that grief is there because it matters to you. Grief happens when let ourselves feel. If you haven’t allowed yourself to work in the way that suits you, you will likely feel grief as you finally give yourself permission.
Once you have heard everything from that “it’s too late” part, see if you can hear from the part of you that feels curious and excited about working in a new way.
If the “it’s too late part” interrupts, ask if they would step back for a moment so you can find out more about the part that’s curious and excited about working in a new way.
See what you dream up. I would love to know what you come up with.
If you’re a therapist or healer and you want to work and make money in a new way, I would love to have you in Create Your Program.
You’ll walk through a step-by-step process with me and a small group of therapists and healers to create a high-quality program and offer it to the people who need it.
That’s a big goal, and I break it down for you into tiny goals you can accomplish one at a time. And you get my coaching along the way.
We get started very soon and enrollment is open right now for just a little while. Sign up right away to make sure you get a special bonus training only available this week.
This is your last chance until at least 2025 to walk through this process with me.
Go to https://rebeltherapist.me/create
I’m excited to support you.
Show notes at https://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/231
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I help therapists and healers who have private practices to add a second part to their business models. I show you how to create a niched and outcome based program that you can get known for and offer to people all over the world.
Learn more about that and get on the notification list at https://rebeltherapist.me/create.
I would love to see your name on that list. You’ll get informed as soon as enrollment opens, which happens very soon.
I realized I need to tell you something today:
Even if you are doing your marketing right, you probably won’t enjoy it all of the time.
This is sort of a part 2 to my last podcast episode.
Here’s a summary of that in case you didn’t hear it or you’d like a quick recap:
Reactive marketing is when you feel like you urgently must take action to make more money, to get more people to sign up for your work, or to fix something that seems broken in your business.
You know you’re in reactive mode when you believe you’ve got to do something NOW to market your work.
If lots of your marketing activity is reactive marketing, it isn’t going to be very effective and it’s going to burn you out. When you’re reactive, you’re not tuned in to the people you want to serve, you don’t have access to your more creative parts, and you aren’t taking action from a thoughtful strategy.
Relaxed marketing is what we want to be engaging in at least 90% of the time. Whether you’re creating content, reaching out to referral partners, running free live events, pitching to podcasts, or writing website copy, whatever it is that you’re doing during your marketing time, you want to engage in it with a more relaxed nervous system.
You’ll come up with better, more attuned work when you do that. And you’re going to be able to make better decisions about what your overall marketing strategy looks like.
I received emails from some of you letting me know that the episode really resonated with you.
You loved being reminded that you’ll do your best work when you’re tuning into the people you’re serving, and NOT when you’re in panic mode.
The next thing I need to share involves a lot of nuance:
Even if you engage in relaxed marketing practices, You might still not enjoy marketing some of the time. “Relaxed” might not be the way you feel when you’re sitting down to your marketing activities.
Two things happened today that reminded me to talk about this nuanced truth.
One is: I sat down to do some of my own marketing work. I was not in urgency or panic, and I WAS tapped into the needs of the people I am here to serve.
I also didn’t feel relaxed.
I felt a bit of dread, a bit of anxiety, and a strong urge to find something else to do.
I felt my heart rate speed up a bit. I felt the fear that I might not have a good idea to share. (Yes, Even though I’ve got a huge list of ideas that I’ve been storing up for years).
I had the thought “I hate this part.”
We have a pillow that lists dozens of emotions, so that we can look at it and identify which ones we are feeling in the moment. Yeah, it's the kind a therapist might have in their office. In that moment I identified “inadequate, avoidant and worried.”
Then in order to properly procrastinate, I opened Instagram and I saw a post from one of my favorite writers, Clementine Morrigan. She writes on personal growth, trauma, polyamory and other stuff, and she’s a leftist.
Here she’s talking specifically about writing, but I want to apply this to how it can feel to work on marketing your wonderful work.
Clementine says:
“I find writing viscerally uncomfortable. Sometimes it is excruciatingly painful. It almost never feels good. The thing that is most important to me and that I have dedicated my life to is extremely difficult and unpleasant for me to actually do lol. Your calling might not feel good. I don’t think anyone tells us that. Pleasure and ease are not the only indications that a thing is worth doing. Sometimes our most important and rewarding work feels bad."
So I read that.
Then I thought of you. If you heard my last episode and felt excited to commit or recommit to some regular, more relaxed marketing practices, you might have then sat down to do your marketing work and felt something other than relaxed. Just like I often do. Maybe distressed or avoidant or inadequate or afraid.
So I realized I NEED you to know you’re not doing it wrong. Sometimes doing the work of marketing is not joyful even when you’re doing it right.
I NEVER want to make you feel like there’s some perfect way to run a business that will have you in ease and riches all of the time, and that you just haven't discovered it yet.
Marketing your offers can bring up so many feelings.
Now I want to talk about some ways to move through the discomfort and stick with it anyway.
Here are some things that work for most people most of the time:
Know that you’re not alone if you sometimes have a hard time in doing the work of marketing.
Remind yourself of your personal reasons for marketing your offers. Perhaps you want to work in new ways or make more money or shift your schedule or create your body of work.
Remind yourself of the reasons why your work matters to the people who need it.
Write those things down and look at them when you are struggling.
Give yourself tons of credit.
Remind yourself that you are doing brave and vulnerable work. You are claiming the value of the work you offer the world and telling people that it matters. You’re reaching out to the people who need your help and you’re willing to be uncomfortable to do it.
Remind yourself that by marketing your offers, you’re doing the work of growing your business. That’s part of taking care of yourself. Your younger parts are watching you and feeling taken care of. Depending on your life situation, you might also be supporting other humans with your business.
Don’t let a marketing session go on for too long, even if it is going well. Save some energy for next time. We hunger to get into a flow state where we don’t really notice time going by. In that state, it feels like words are writing themselves or whatever action we’re taking is happening without effort. We still need to stop or take a break after a reasonable amount of time. Otherwise we may feel so depleted that we have a hard time creating again next time.
I heard that tip from Kelly Diels who I interviewed on the podcast.
EbonyJanice Moore, another mentor of mine who I interviewed on the podcast, speaks about reserving some of your energy. She follows the 80/20 rule, meaning that 80% of her waking time is put towards living, healing, connecting, and other things outside of productivity. Only 20% of her time goes towards any kind of work. She avoids working more than four hours a day.
Bring something pleasurable into the experience of your marketing sessions in order to counteract your negativity bias. Bringing in a positive association begins to tell our nervous system that this activity is not all bad. For me, moving to a cozy spot in my house, playing my favorite instrumental mix or changing into my most comfortable clothes can give my nervous system the message that something good is happening.
Have a starting ritual. This could be a gorgeous, involved ritual, or it could be as simple as making yourself a cup of coffee.
Those things work for most people most of the time to keep doing the work of marketing. Notice what works for you.
One more note about that last episode:
If you heard my last in my last episode, you heard me talk about how much I love taking care of my indoor plants. I compared relaxed marketing to my plant care rituals, in which experience a lot of pleasure in tuning into each plant.
I left something out because it didn’t really add to the story. Now it’s relevant.
A year and a half ago, I had 75 houseplants.
When I was getting ready to move across town, I decided to give away about 50 of them.
I realized I was starting to feel a bit burdened by my indoor jungle.
Now I’ve got 24 houseplants, and that’s a fun amount for me.
There’s a difference between engaging in a really fun hobby and running a business. We can experience joy and pleasure in our businesses, and we’re going to feel discomfort sometimes.
Show notes at https://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/230
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I help therapists and healers who have private practices to add a second part to their business models. I show you how to create a niched and outcome based program that you can offer to people all over the world.
Learn more and get on the waitlist at https://rebeltherapist.me/create.
I would love to see your name on that list. You’ll get informed as soon as enrollment opens next month.
I’m gonna talk about my houseplants for a moment, but this episode is really about how to create effective marketing practices.
I had a moment of freak out with my houseplants the other day. I looked up and saw that a group of my plants under the skylight by my home office were very sad and thirsty. One of them looked like it had been receiving too much sun for a few days. I grabbed my watering can immediately, watered them, and moved the over-sunned plant to a different spot. Phew! I’d solved the immediate and obvious problems.
That’s reactive plant care.
Of course sometimes it’s necessary to get reactive, just to keep my plants alive. It’s just not joyful or sustainable for me or the plants to be in this mode most of the time. If that were the only kind of care I was giving my plants, I wouldn’t want to have plants, and they wouldn’t really want me either.
You see, I really enjoy taking care of my houseplants. I enjoy learning what they need and tuning into them. I spend some time just about every week hanging out with my plants, watering them, fertilizing them, trimming them, cleaning off their leaves, turning them so that different sides of them get light, moving their location if they’re getting too much or too little light, repotting the ones that need it, adding new soil to some of them, spotting and removing pests, and on and on.
Before this recording, I looked at my fern. She’s lovely. Her new growth looks so green and happy. I felt inspired to take her into the shower and give her a really good spray.
I also peeked at my fiddle leaf fig. She’s a bit dusty right now. Later I’ll give her leaves a nice wipe down because I know she’ll enjoy a bit more light when she’s clean.
When I do this stuff, I’m present and relaxed.
My plants thrive when I’m doing this and I kind of do too.
When at least 90% of my houseplant care happens in this relaxed way, we’re all thriving.
I’m describing reactive plant care vs. relaxed plant care.
I believe it works the same way with the marketing in my business. And in your business.
Here’s how reactive marketing looks
You have a moment of anxiety, and you think: “I need to do something RIGHT NOW to get people to buy my offer!”
The trigger of this thought could be that you aren’t hitting your revenue goal.
Or your group isn’t filling.
Or you realize you haven’t gotten any new referrals for a while.
Or you see another entrepreneur on Instagram and it looks like they are having more success than you, so you think “I need to do what they’re doing, like now.”
Or maybe you’re just having a hard day.
Doing something quickly in your marketing because you’re anxious or afraid or feeling scarcity is reactive marketing.
Maybe you quickly email your list after over a month away. Maybe you create a social media post. Maybe you sign up for a course on some aspect of marketing that you think you should be doing.
Whatever you do, you’re feeling pretty anxious while you do it.
If you’re doing a lot of reactive marketing, that’s not gonna go well for you or your business.
I understand why you get reactive. The things you’re anxious about matter. You need to pay your bills. It matters that people find your work. Your identity as a business owner matters. So does just getting to do enough of the thing you want to do.
But the reactivity that capitalism encourages in us is not what we want to let guide us.
Here’s why reactive marketing doesn’t work
In reactive marketing, you’re in scarcity, panic and self doubt. The actions you take from that place won’t be the actions to make your business thrive.
When you’re doing reactive marketing, you don’t do your most creative, interesting or attuned work, so it doesn’t speak to your future participant very well.
It’s not fun or sustainable for you so you’ll be more likely to burn out.
Also, there’s just not much you can do in one day or one moment to see significant results in your business.
For all of these reasons, If you’re spending more than 10% of your marketing time in reactive mode, it’s way too much.
Here’s what you CAN’T do when you’re in reactive mode
You aren’t in your safe and relaxed nervous system, so you can’t feel your love, attunement or empathy for the people you serve.
You can’t feel your confidence and love of your offering.
You can’t figure out a creative and sound overall marketing strategy.
Here’s what an effective marketing system looks like
Marketing is everything you do to bring people to your work.
I break marketing down into 3 parts: grow, nurture and sell.
Grow means bringing new people to your work who are not yet aware of it.
Nurture means showing people who are aware of your work how you can help.
Sell means making a clear offer so they can decide whether to sign up to work with you.
Doing all of those things effectively doesn’t happen when you’re in reactive mode.
You need a set of marketing practices that allow you to do all 3 of those things somewhat regularly.
Think of yourself as a marketing team, because you are.
If anyone has ever hired you, then your business is already doing some kind of marketing. Your business has a marketing team. Perhaps you are that whole team. Great. You’ve got a marketing team of one.
You want your marketing team to be creative, strategic, and calm. You want them to have a sense of what they’re doing each week to grow, nurture and sell.
You’d prefer that the team has access to creativity, care about your clients and feel excited about your offer.
You wouldn’t want to start meetings with your marketing team each week by saying “React to this problem! I have no plan! Just do something! Do it today! What’s wrong with you?!”
I doubt you’d EVER treat a team member (other than you) that way.
You’d like that team to be working in a relaxed way at least 90% of the time so that they could feel good and do their best work.
The alternative to reactive marketing is relaxed marketing.
Relaxed marketing might look like this:
Perhaps set aside 3 hours each week, or maybe it’s 8 hours every other week. You choose an amount and a rhythm that works with your body and life.
You set aside and then honor that time on your calendar.
Think of that time as a relaxed marketing session with your team of one.
During your relaxed marketing sessions:
You spend time planning what you’ll do to grow, nurture and sell.
You make sure your plan is realistic to do in the amount of time you’ve got.
You pick a few activities to do pretty well rather than trying to do everything you see others doing.
You start tracking what’s already working so that you can do more of those things.
When it’s time to reach out to a potential referral partner, you do it in a kind, respectful and generous way.
When it’s time to create content like an email, article, social media post, video or a podcast episode, you encourage your idea generation to flow by asking yourself questions like:
What is my right fit person struggling with right now around my topic? What do they need to know in order to be ready to make a decision about working with me? What do they not know about this topic that they need to know? What do I wish I could say about this topic, but I couldn’t dare? (You probably should!)Whenever you have an idea about content you might create or an activity you’d like to try in your marketing, you jot it down so that when your relaxed marketing session comes, you’ve got new ideas handy.
Either during your relaxed marketing sessions or outside of them, you read or listen to people who inspire you and percolate on what you’re learning.
All of that is relaxed marketing.
Ah, that feels so much better.
So what about those times when you’re anxious and feeling scarcity and you’re tempted to do some reactive marketing?
Here’s what I try to do:
I take a moment to feel my feelings. I make room for my fear or anxiety.
Then I reach out to an entrepreneur friend and talk about how I’m feeling. I immediately feel less alone and less stressed.
Then when I’m ready, I get curious about what I might want to do differently. I bring that strategic and creative thinking to my next relaxed marketing session.
But is it OK to DO the reactive thing?
Sure! As long as it takes up just 10% or less of your marketing activities, you can go ahead and do the reactive thing if you want to. It might help and it probably won’t hurt. It’s no big deal either way. If you do that thing, observe how it feels and whether it works. If it works well, you can bring that action into your future relaxed marketing sessions.
Want to work with me to create a valuable, niched, outcome-based program beyond your private practice that you can offer to people all over the world and get known for?
Get on the waitlist for Create Your Program. Enrollment opens up next month and I would love to support you.
You’ll walk through a step-by-step process together with me and a small group of smart and kind therapists and healers.
You’ll be launching your program by the end of our time together.
Go to https://rebeltherapist.me/create to get your name on the list so you’re informed as soon as enrollment opens.
Show notes at https://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/229
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I love encouraging healers and therapists to think deeply and creatively about what their work could look like.
I often say: Step out of default thinking for a moment and give yourself permission to dream into what you want to create.
Who are you serving? How are you working with them? What work do you no longer do or do less of? What does your day look like? Who are you collaborating with?
In this episode I got to talk to 2 sisters who dreamed up a way to work differently by creating a business together!
Meet Kaitlyn and Meghann Ellis.
Meghann Ellis is a therapist with over 18 years experience and has a specialty in complex trauma, EMDR and dissociative diagnoses. She has combined forces with her twin sister, Kaitlyn Ellis, who is an Occupational Therapist and pelvic floor specialist with over 20 years of experience.
Together they run Twin Root Wellness
Here’s some of what we talked about:
Combining the skills of an Occupational Therapist and a mental health expert in one program Choosing the niche of pregnant and post-partum athletes The unique physical and emotional struggles of athlete mothers How they realized they wanted to start this business together Why Meghann is finding that this work prevents her from burning out as a therapist How they nurture their relationship and communicate as both sisters and business partners How they bring in referrals and build their audience Why they are starting with individual coaching before creating a group programShow notes at https://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/228
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This is a short episode and it’s really about you giving yourself permission to do the work that is going to feel most joyful and sustainable for you.
I’m going to talk about two different roles we might choose for ourselves as therapists, healers and coaches:
A catalyst who helps people through a big and clear change in a particular area of their lives.
OR
An integrator who helps people grow and maintain changes over a long period of time in many areas of their lives.
I know there’s a lot of overlap and nuance between these 2 roles.
Therapists I work with who want to create signature programs beyond private practice often want to be in the role of catalyst more of the time, and long-term integrator less of the time.
They’re feeling over-full on the long-term work of helping their clients day-by-day, week-by-week, month-by-month and year-by-year.
They value that long-term work and are honored to get to do it, but they fear that if they keep doing it full time, they’re going to burn out, or maybe just not love their work so much.
In the programs they create, these therapists want to be in the role of short-term change catalyst.
They want to step further into their role as teacher, presenter, and facilitator.
They want to create a container that moves participants through a process of profound growth in a particular area that they really care about.
The topics of these programs include: sexuality, relationships, parenting, money, business, and particular life experiences like divorce and grief…and on and on. I’ll give you a few examples of programs folks have created in a minute.
These programs are time-limited, usually happening over a number weeks or just a few days.
These therapists find it satisfying to watch their people have big insights and make big changes and progress in their programs.
But when folks are getting ready to create their programs, they sometimes think…
“Wait a minute. Even if I help people create a lot of change quickly, maintaining those changes takes long-term work. It’s not just one and done.
So then is my program valuable enough if it doesn’t help people through the long-term maintenance of that change?”
Here’s my answer: YES. The focused change your program creates is highly valuable.
Both kinds of work are totally valuable and necessary.
Neither kind of work is more or less valuable.
As a therapist, I was trained with a bit of either/or thinking. I remember learning that REAL change takes time, and that rapid change is probably fleeting.
Perhaps as therapists, sometimes this is a defensive stance. Sometimes the long-term, subtler work of a therapist doesn’t get enough credit because it’s less obvious than the change that happens during something like a retreat or a workshop.
But you, my friend, are not going to devalue that long-term work. AND you still might not always want to do that long-term work yourself.
You can choose to run a time-limited program and you can also encourage your participants to keep doing long-term work after they are done with your program.
Think of this from the participant’s point of view. I’ll use myself as an example.
When a topic really matters to me, I want to work with someone who is obsessed with that topic for a period of time. I want to be held in a container where I’ll get to focus on topic only. I want a curated experience that is designed to help me make a significant change.
This happened to me recently.
I was a participant last year in Deb Benfield’s program: Aging With Vitality And Body Liberation.
As a 52 year old who has a body, I loved the idea of putting myself in Deb’s hands to go through a big transformative experience over 8 weeks.
I wanted to deprogram myself from ageism and step further into body liberation. I know Deb is an expert in both of these areas, and is one of the ONLY people who is really a badass in both areas.
In the venn diagram of body liberation and pro-aging, you find Deb and few others in that intersection.
she was a grad of my programs, so I know her work well and I trust her.
In signing up for Deb’s program, I wanted a focused experience to bring about some big changes in perspective and to jump start a process to serve me for as long as I’m lucky enough to keep on aging.
I had already done some learning about pro-aging. I’d done years and years of work around body liberation.
And within the first session interacting with Deb and the small group, I had some insights that shifted my trajectory permanently. I got to focus on this one topic with Deb so those insights and shifts kept coming.
Could I have gone into individual long-term work instead for the same result? Not really.
I wouldn’t have had the curated experience Deb was able to provide.
In long-term work, I would have been busy integrating all the other areas of my life as a parent, partner, business owner, friend, and person healing from childhood trauma.
I benefited from the container being ALL about change within this one topic.
Now I can take those insights and all the transformation that happened over those 8 weeks and integrate them long term.
You better bet that even though the 8 weeks are over, from time to time whenever anything comes up around aging, health, food, or bodies, I say “well Deb Benfield says…”
Now I’ll share a few more examples of programs that folks in the most recent cohort of CYP have created. All of these are designed to bring about big changes in a particular area over a short period of time.
All of them are on topics that are profoundly important to the creator of the program as well as the participants who will enroll.
All of these are delivered live by the the creator.
Aliza Septimus created an Anxiety Relief Program to help people manage worrying thoughts, calm their bodies, and confidently face things they tend to avoid.
Alana Jaeck created Not Just A Pet, a program to help people navigate the loss, or the impending loss of a pet and find their own unique way through the grief.
Salina Bambic created a program to help young adults struggling with social anxiety to build confidence so they can form relationships.
Ali Schaffer created Wandering In Spain, a retreat for women who are ready to experience transformation through exploration and engagement with nature.
Emily Germain created Connected Relationships, a program for busy, motivated couples who are struggling with disconnection.
I’ll be sharing more examples in future episodes because I LOVE to brag on what our grads have created AND because many of you tell me you crave examples so that you can imagine what’s possible.
Now after hearing all of this, do you still find yourself wondering whether it’s OK to just be a change catalyst?
Do you still question whether it’s enough to take people through a valuable and time-limited process and then let them turn to other long-term support?
Maybe there’s some part of you that believes you that you’ve got to suffer in order to be enough. Maybe there’s a part of you that withholds permission to work in the way you will find most joyful and sustainable.
If that resonates, I would encourage you to sit with that belief and see if your wisest self agrees.
My bet is no.
Remember, this week is the time to enroll in CYP to get early access to the curriculum all summer AND a bonus training to help you fill your program. Go to https://rebeltherapist.me/create.
I can’t wait to support you.
Show notes at https://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/227
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Some people create the program they needed for themself.
As you move through a challenging situation and you grow from it, learn about yourself, and find community, you realize:
“This did not need to be QUITE this hard! I want to create a process or a container to help people move through this with more support.”
If you also happen to be a therapist or healer, you may realize you’re uniquely equipped to create something really effective and powerful.
My guest Robin Gibler did just that when she created a program for moms with ADHD.
Robin is a licensed professional counselor specializing in maternal mental health. As a mom with ADHD herself, she is passionate about providing education and support for other women to create their own version of what motherhood looks like and care for kids who may also be neurodivergent.
Here's some of what we talked about:
What ADHD feels like for moms who are overburdened by the impossible cultural standards of motherhood Why moms with ADHD often feel: “I must not be trying hard enough.” How our hormones impact our ADHD symptoms Why Robin started a group program for moms with ADHD How Robin designed her group program and decided what to include and what not to Developing a longer program including guest speakers and a community cohort How ADHD shows up in Robin’s business and how she works with her strengths How she gives herself time to be the visionary in her business with solo mini retreats Giving up her group practice with 11 therapists because it wasn’t the right business model for her strengths and challengesShow notes at https://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/226
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At first this will seem like a story about my online yoga instructor.
But it’s really a story about making your business more sustainable by stopping unnecessary and exhausting emotional labor.
First of all, I know what you’re thinking. It’s so unexpected to hear about a 52-year-old white woman doing yoga. Kidding.
This past fall I was getting back into yoga after several years away. I started with a 30-days-of-yoga video series by an instructor. I sensed that I’d like her in real life. She had spunk, made kind of inapropriate jokes, wore fun rocker outfits, and had good banter. She even had a sweet dog who joined her on the mat.
It took me about 3 months to get through all 30 videos.
When I was done with those, I wanted to do more of her videos. I searched her name on YouTube again, and a different instructor came up.
I started trying one of this new person’s videos. It was OK, but this person wasn’t telling jokes. Her voice was lower. There was more silence.
I was kinda pissed. I called my partner over and said: “Isn’t this illegal? She’s got the same name, she even has a dog who looks like the other instructor’s dog. Can she DO this? It’s like identity theft.”
And Ames said: “That’s her. That’s the same person.”
“NO it can’t be” I said.
I looked back and discovered the 30 days of videos I had watched were from 9 years ago.
This new video was her now.
I’m used to all of us aging. This is not ONLY about aging.
Something else really big had shifted. I was bummed at first. Where are the inapropriate jokes? Where’s the banter? where’s the rocker vibe?
And then I followed the new video and realized her teaching had gotten even better. She was suggesting small adjustments that were gentler on my body.
I was relieved that no one had stollen the instructor’s identity. And of course this was the same sweet dog 9 years later.
As I like to do, I made up a whole story about this instructor. This is ONLY my conjecture, based on my own projections.
I decided that between those videos 9 years ago and now, this instructor decided to stop doing the emotional labor of trying to be liked.
When she started her youtube channel, she truly enjoyed making those videos. For the first 10 or 20 or even 50 videos, she enjoyed being silly, providing banter, and dressing with a rocker vibe. She felt satisfied expressing real parts of her personality on her channel.
She got feedback from her fans that they loved it, so she gave even more of the same.
The pressure to get more subscribers and to make a living as an entrepreneur led her to keep performing these parts of her personality.
And then little by little, she stopped having fun with it. It started feeling like emotional labor.
For a while, she kept performing this way. The videos were popular, and she wasn’t exactly being inauthentic. It was just a little tiring, but work is supposed to be tiring, she told herself. It’s better than working in a mine.
But working in this way was feeling less and less sustainable until she began to DREAD making those videos.
She decided she either needed to consider letting the whole channel go, or to start doing the videos in a more easeful way.
She decided to just teach the yoga. She decided to focus on delivering great yoga instruction, but to let the rest of the effort go. She decided to just stop performing, and wear what felt appealing and comfortable to her NOW.
She decided to let people be disappointed by her more boring clothing and lack of jokes.
She started with “Let’s start in a seated position.” rather than “OK it’s day seven. Let’s go to heaven!” with a wink.
Her voice came out a little lower because that’s how her body was naturally changing AND because she was relaxing into her easiest way of speaking.
She decided that this was the only sustainable and joyful way for her to continue.
I’m an entrepreneur too, and I can relate to this story. And yes, I haven’t forgotten that I made this story up.
I’ve been through a somewhat similar process. My process has shifted how I run my group coaching calls.
I used to show up to group coaching calls feeling the need to amp up my personality and lean into the parts of me that made people feel comfortable.
I performed warmth. I wanted to show that I was someone you could be yourself with.
I tried to bring a lot of energy to calls and show each person that I cared about them.
I was self-deprecating. I made lots of jokes. I’d always scan the zoom room for the least satisfied person and try to please them.
And then I got tired, and decided to show up to my calls in my more natural state, and stop performing so hard.
In my more natural state, I actually DO care about every person I’m working with, but the way that looks when I’m not performing is different.
Now I allow myself to breathe. I ask people to take care of themselves.
At the beginning of just about every call, I ask people to take a breath, notice if there’s anything hanging over their head, and then to jot it down or otherwise let it go so they can be more present.
Then I ask them to take another breath and see if there is an intention they’d like to set.
My focus in my coaching now is on being clear, giving honest and helpful feedback and asking questions that will help each person make their own best decisions in their businesses.
I’m fairly obsessed with doing that well. That’s part of how I love.
The feedback I’m MOST interested in now is what outcome participants are getting, and NOT how much they like me.
When I was performing care with more effort, my focus was, in a certain way, on me. When I’m serving and in more of my realness, I provide authentic care without translating it into a performance.
It’s TRULY OK with me now if I am not every person’s cup of tea.
The funny thing is though, I was never every person’s cup of tea anyway.
I wonder if folks who were coached by me back 5 or 10 years ago would notice a big change in how I behave now.
I wonder if they would see me as less vibrant. Or just less anxious.
I share all of this of course to invite you to ask yourself what you want to give yourself permission to stop performing.
I’d love to know what you come up with.
Show notes at https://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/225
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Join me for a Free Open Coaching Call on Thursday, May 9th at 11 am PT. A recording will be available if you sign up. Grab your seat at https://rebeltherapist.me/question.
Do you identify with the word neurodivergent? Or not?
Either way, stay with us. In today’s episode we’re talking about getting curious about yourself, the way your particular brain works, and what that means about what kind of business will really work for you.
You’ll hear my guest and I both talk about some big changes we’ve each made to our work lives in order to honor our operating manuals.
I loved hearing how Jennifer gave herself permission to close her therapy practice and create a new business as a consultant instead.
And if you’re wondering how to use LinkedIn effectively, you want to hear Jennifer break it down.
Meet Jennifer Alumbaugh, MS.
They are here to help change the cultural narrative for late identified Autistic and ADHD founders, executives, and professionals.
She built Expansive Expressions in order to create and deliver neurodivergent business & marketing training, support systems, and business strategies so that neurodivergent entrepreneurs can build profitable and sustainable businesses.
Here's some of what we talked about:
Why Jennifer closed their therapy practice Divesting from licensure for ethical AND capacity reasons Building a consulting business as a neuroinclusion DEI consultant Issues that come up for neurodivergent microbusiness owners The masking neurodivergent people do at work and what that costs us Exactly how Jennifer uses LinkedIn to create relationships and find speaking opportunitiesShow notes at https://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/224
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Today I’m talking about the most effective way to fill a signature program beyond private practice:
Creating and nurturing Ideal Referral Partnerships.
If I were to coach my clients to do only ONE kind of marketing, this would be it.
Another word for this is networking.
You’re probably already doing this, but you might not be doing it very strategically.
When I meet someone who says they don’t do any marketing, but they’ve got customers or clients, I know they HAVE been marketing. They just didn’t see their behavior as marketing.
I often find out that the marketing they’ve been doing has been networking.
If you have relationships with people who refer to you, even if you don’t do any of it on purpose, you’ve been marketing.
Maybe you’ve been networking with colleagues you met at trainings, at agencies you worked at, or from working with the same client at some point. You hit it off with these folks.
Some of these people have referred clients to you or introduced you to other people who referred clients to you.
If you're an extrovert, you might have experienced a TON of this with very little conscious effort.
It’s time to get strategic because your time is limited.
Michelle Warner teaches a course called Networking That Pays. She points out that we can each only maintain a finite number of meaningful relationships (between 100 to 250, according to British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, author of How Many Friends Does One Person Need).
We need to be strategic about WHO we spend our limited networking time and energy with.
You’ll also need to be more strategic when you’re selling a signature program because you’ll probably be serving MORE new people each year than you do in your private practice.
If you do long term work, you may only need 10 new clients a year to keep your practice full, or even less in some cases.
To keep a signature program full, on the other hand, you might need 30 or 100 or more new participants each year.
The math is a bit different, so the networking will be a bit more strategic.
I just peeked at my own statistics. This year, over half of my participants have come through my referral partners, NOT by stumbling upon my podcast or finding me through IG or google or paid ads.
But let’s look for a moment at the OTHER kinds of marketing activities I do and you might do too:
Sending out a weekly or biweekly email.
Creating a podcast episode.
Delivering a free live event.
Updating my website.
Creating a new lead magnet.
Setting up an ad funnel.
Posting on social.
Some of these things do help people find me, and I love that I can do these things in relative isolation.
AND… It’s a really bad idea to leave relationships out of our marketing practices. Networking will help to amplify the effectiveness of those other activities.
Dialing down your time spent on solo digital marketing activities and dialing UP your time and energy spent with ideal referral partners is going to grow your business WAY more quickly and more reliably.
Why is this kind of strategic networking so effective?
LOTS of your future participants are already in someone else’s audience.
The people who created those audiences are your Ideal Referral Partners.
By PLACE I mean things like:
a podcast, a free online community, a paid community, an email newsletter list, or a paid small group program.
When the person who leads and curates that gathering place invites you in and vouches for you and the work you do, you’re MUCH more likely to have the trust of members of that community.
Compare that to the trust that you can establish in a video on IG that is 60 seconds long.
I created a step-by-step process for this activity, not because it comes easily to me. Rather I created it because it is very important and does NOT come easily to me.
Here’s a quick summary of that process.
First, you figure out: Who are my Ideal Referral Partners?
They serve your niche
They probably serve your niche in a different way than you do.
(If you don’t know what your niche is, that’s your task before you can find your Ideal Referral Partners).
You have aligned enough values
You don’t have to agree on everything, but you resonate with the way this person works and you feel that they have integrity.
They have an audience
They do NOT need to have a huge audience. A very small audience of people who are highly engaged and in your niche is better than a big audience of folks not in your niche
That means they’ve already gathered a group of your potential participants.
(It’s OK to spend time networking with people who just work with folks 1:1. But your growth will happen a lot faster if they have at least a small audience.)
They may be open to sharing their audience with you in some way
How this sharing happens may become clear right away or later on.
Then, once you’ve identified an Ideal Referral Partner:
Step one: Find where their audience is gathered.
(A podcast, a community, a newsletter, a paid program, for example.)
Step two: Observe.
(Listen to the podcast, hang out in the group, or read the emails.)
Step three: Approach them with specific praise or observations and invite connection.
(If there’s any way to get an introduction, ask for it!)
Step four: Meet
(Come with a back pocket idea, but be open to their idea, a different idea, or NO idea happening.)
Step five: Try it
(Be a guest on their podcast, guest teach in their course, or share each other’s work.)
Step six: Check in
(Get in touch in from time to time and collaborate again.)
When you meet, you’ll start with an open ended conversation. You won’t rush in and say: “I want access to your group.”
They are as protective of the time, energy and well-being of their participants as you will be of yours.
Plant the seed for collaboration with no pressure. Make it easy to say no.
Think about what might be in it for them. Maybe you’re offering access to your audience if that would serve your audience. If you have no audience yet, what’s in it for them is simply your willingness to serve their folks.
You’re not there to extract value. You want to build trust both with the person who gathered those folks, AND with the people in that community.
Be open to giving more than you get. Be unattached to the particular outcome of you serving their audience.
Embrace some emotional discomfort!
You might feel tempted NOT to do any of this strategic networking stuff.
You might think:
What if they ignore my invitation?
What if the person I reach out to doesn’t like me?
What if I don’t enjoy my time with them?
What if it stays completely awkward?
I mean, have you ever had a horrible networking date? Those feel bad.
I get it.
I’m introverted. I find small talk exhausting. I don’t say that because I think I’m above small talk. I understand that small talk is a way to test easy topics and start building a bit of trust.
Small talk tires me out because I don’t understand it well, and meeting new people in an unstructured way is a bit painful for me.
And that’s what networking dates ARE. I KNOW.
Some of the time this process might not go well. But I promise you, some of the time it WILL go well, and it is TOTALLY worth it.
Resources Discussed:
Michelle Warner (https://www.themichellewarner.com/
Shownotes at: https://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/223
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If you fear bothering people with your marketing, this is for you.
I recently got the worst email I’ve opened in over a year.
I’m gonna share the actual email with you and I’m gonna share my internal reactions and the decisions I made after.
In the context of life, this email is really NOT that bad at all. No trigger warning necessary.
I’m sharing this because I know many of you are really afraid of getting an email like this.
I’m hoping hearing about my experience will help you feel less afraid of getting an email like this. I’m hoping that you feeling less afraid will help you make aligned decisions. I’ll explain all of that in a moment.
The email I’ll share was a response to one of my sales emails promoting Create Your Program, the high touch program I run 3 times a year.
Here’s what the email said:
“Way too many emails with not much info. Blocking your email and please remove me from your waitlist.
Feels like clickbait.”
I said “ouch!”
My partner looked over my shoulder and said “that’s not nice!”
I had a moment of panic. I thought: Am I a fraudster? Am I a villian? Am I a jerk who never provides value?
AND…Does this person hate me?
And then paused and I said to my partner: “No it’s OK. She’s right to tell me. She’s annoyed.”
Now I did feel a little peeved with the email sender. I thought: “She could have just unsubscribed. There’s a link in every single email to unsubscribe! Why didn’t she just unsubscribe? Why be like that?”
And I wished I could write back to her and explain about unsubscribing and also say I’m sorry you didn’t get value…and maybe you should check out this or that free resource I provide.
But I couldn’t write her back because she told me not to contact her.
But you know what? She might not know that unsubscribing works. She’s totally within her rights to tell me about her experience and to set a digital boundary. She was clear. She did not call me names or behave abusively. She let me know that she’s withdrawn her consent to be emailed.
I very much WANT people to be able to withdraw their consent.
So as she asked, I went into my email platform and deleted her from it.
Then while I was there I looked into what emails I had sent her, so I could better understand her experience.
She had signed up for a free workshop through an instagram ad that I run. Then she’d gotten follow up emails reminding her to watch that free workshop, and then some sales emails about my program.
It’s likely that she didn’t actually watch the workshop…which is totally understandable. I’ve signed up for a free workshop or class and then not hit play on it.
She also signed up for the waitlist for Create Your Program.
She received the maximum amount of emails someone could ever get from me, about 2 a day for a handful of days. That’s because she signed up for my free workshop and then my waitlist, all during a launch of my program,
I took a step back and considered…is there anything I want to change about this email flow going forward?
In this case, there’s not much I wanted to change.
I want people who are new to my list to have a chance to jump on the wait list for CYP, which functions as an interest list. Often people find me right when they’re looking for a program like mine, and it’s important that they CAN sign up right away if that’s what they want. I only run CYP 3 times a year right now, so I don’t want people to have to wait months to have a chance to jump in.
I did make one change to my email flow.
I already have an opt OUT email that I send to my list when I’m launching. It basically says: “I’m gonna be promoting my program for a couple of weeks. If you want to stay on my list but you don’t want to hear about CYP this round, click here. I’ll be quiet for a couple weeks.”
I learned this opt-out approach from Kelly Diels, and I always hat tip to her in that email.
Here’s the change: I added a quick opt-out option in just about every sales email.
Now if someone on my list opens ANY sales email before the final day of enrollment, they’ll have a chance to opt out of receiving more sales emails in that round.
This change took about 10 minutes. Done!
I feel pretty great about how that went.
When I get criticized, I’m tempted to either collapse into shame OR get mad at the person who criticized me.
I felt really good noticing that I didn’t do either in this situation.
I felt twinges of shame and anger, and then I quickly found a more grounded spot.
On the shame side I felt: “Hmmmm. this feels upsetting. But also, I know I’m a good person who’s striving to do good work.
I don’t need to collapse into shame.”
On the anger side I felt: “I’m irritated at the person who sent the email. BUT also I know she’s standing up for herself as best she can and I KNOW that’s exactly what people should do. So I don’t really need to be mad.”
When I teach people about email marketing and guide them to create a practice of emailing their list regularly, they often tell me they’re terrified of getting a response like the one I got.
Here’s the thing: If you email your list, you might get an email like this.
But probably not very often. This is the worst email I had gotten in several years.
The people I work with and the people who listen to my podcast and read my emails are here to do important work. They’re NOT just here to make money. They want to make good money AND they are invested in creating meaningful work that helps people.
The people I work with are critical of any kind of tactics that are manipulative. The people who want to connect with Rebel Therapist LOVE consent.
So when people like you email your lists, you’re probably doing so thoughtfully.
The good news is that when you send emails, you’ll probably enjoy a LOT of feedback telling you that your work is helpful.
When our team member Taitlyn saw the email, she said “this is the FIRST time in the year I’ve worked here that I’ve ever seen an email like that.” What a good perspective.
I also noticed that on that same DAY, I got an email thanking me for the valuable free content and naming a specific takeaway they got from it.
If you’re increasing how much you’re communicating with your email list, or you are getting more frequent or more bold with your messaging, and you’re fearing some kind of push back…I’m here to tell you it’s probably gonna be OK.
You’re going to be able to consider the feedback, take useful stuff from it, leave the rest, and keep doing your important work.
Before I close this topic, I need to tell you where this kind of thinking doesn’t apply:
I have gotten some really mean and abusive comments on social media. Like someone recently sharing that I am hideous. That feels bad of course, but that kind of comment is so clearly NOT something to let in. It’s coming from a person who is trying to harm a stranger by insulting that stranger’s appearance. I inherently don’t believe that’s a good thing to be doing. When people are dehumanizing in their communication with you, I DON’T suggest you consider their feedback. Fuck that. That’s not feedback.
Want to get help from me to create your signature program? Get on the interest list for Create Your Program. You’ll be notified first when we open early access registration.
In CYP I work with you and a small group of ethical therapists and healers to create signature programs and start working and making money in new ways.
—> Get on the list. ( https://rebeltherapist.me/create)
Yes, that’s the very interest list this person requested being removed from. You can easily unsubscribe at any time.
Show Notes at:
https://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/222
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I’ve had a hard time figuring out how to talk to you about this.
I never want to be a dream killer. Or a bummer.
If you’re thinking of creating and launching a signature program, I want you to do it. AND I’m gonna talk about one of the hardest parts of that today.
Then I’ll talk about how to handle this hard part. I promise.
In Create Your Program, I help a small group of therapists create their high quality, high touch, niched programs. And then I help them launch those programs so that they can actually start making money.
Those programs bring these entrepreneurs significant ongoing incomes.
Some folks choose to shrink or close their therapy practices or leave their agency jobs once their programs are established.
AND…one really hard part of that whole process is launching the program, especially for the first time.
Launching basically means sharing your program with people.
Launching involves two really hard things: being more visible and asking for help.
You have to be visible when you launch because you need to share your program with people so that they can sign up to work with you.
You have to ask for help because you need other people to help you spread the word.
Launching isn’t the hardest part of the process at all in terms of skills and it’s not the most time consuming part either. But emotionally it can be really hard, especially for sensitive souls.
We feel vulnerable and exposed when we launch, and we might even worry that we’re bugging people.
On top of that, most of the people in Create Your Program haven’t launched this kind of program before, so these are new muscles they’re using.
Launching can even give them queasy feelings.
And when something is emotionally hard, and makes one feel queasy, one finds a way to avoid it.
In Create Your Program, up until now I always walked people all the way up to that launching finish line. Participants got training and structure from me to create their launch plan. I encouraged them to take the brave final steps and even asked people to take some of that action on the final day of our program.
And some people did that! I ask participants to share their announcement emails with me, which are the emails they send out to their colleagues and communities.
I always received some on the final day of the program, and a bunch more in the following couple of weeks.
Lots of people would use the momentum of the program to follow through and continue implementing.
But some others would put it off.
They’d say they weren’t quite ready.
They’d say they started reconsidering their niche.
They’d say life started getting in the way so they didn’t get around to it yet.
Or many other valid things.
Side note:
As a very direct coach, I’ll tell you that these are people who really wanted to launch!
They were ready enough, and they had already done enough work on their niches. They had indeed done everything they needed to do in order to launch their pilot programs.
When I was describing this issue to my former business coach Claire Pelletreau, she said: “You have to walk them all the way over the finish line.”
And I knew she was right.
Immediately I made a change to Create Your Program.
And I’ll describe that in a minute.
Let’s talk about HOW we get ourselves over the finish line to accomplishing hard things in our businesses and lives in general.
Well, there’s accountability and support. Those help.
But you know what else helps?
A Hard Ass Deadline.
Accountability buddies usually don’t cut it for the really hard stuff. They’re helpful for getting focused, but not necessarily for getting over the finish line with the very hardest things.
Now I’ve got 2 short examples for you: Taxes and Art.
This just came up for me around my taxes.
I get intimidated by the process of my taxes every single year.
I’ve been trying to get my documents toghether to give my accountant for a while now. My accountant has a policy that once you turn in all your documents to her, THEN you can schedule an appointment. I called the office and begged them to please give me an appointment first and promised I’d get the docs turned in 2 weeks before that appointment. And they agreed. Phew. Now I have a Hard Ass Deadline.
As you’re listening to or reading this on or after March 19th, I promise you I’ve already handed in my documents to my accountant.
My partner is a neon artist. They’re also a neon sign maker. Most days they make and repair neon signs for people and businesses, or they create the neon aspects of art pieces for other artists.
But they make incredible art themself. AND almost all of the art they create happens when they’ve got a show coming up. Because being part of a show means having a deadline.
They sometimes say: “I SHOULD make more art. I WANT to make more art.”
They talk to their artist friends about making art. They get inspired thinking about what they’d like to make.
But it’s the deadline that gets them past all the hard parts and forces them to create wonderful pieces, some of which I won’t let them sell because I need to see them in our house every day.
Back to how we changed Create Your Program:
We’ve added an 11th week.
After meeting weekly for 10 weeks, we amp it up in the final week with more meetings and more support.
Here’s the Hard Ass Deadline: You have to submit the registration page for your pilot program in order to attend week 11.
During week 11, you take steps to launch your program while we are together.
You walk over the finish line with me and your cohort in real time.
It’s called Nausea Week.
That’s because getting visible and asking for help are really hard to do. And during nausea week, you’ll be doing both of those things.
It’s worth it.
When you actually launch your program, you’re WAY closer to creating the business you want.
And you get to start serving the people you made your program for.
I would LOVE to have you join me for Create Your Program.
We’re enrolling right now and the last day to sign up is March 26th. We’re already half full, so please register now.
I can’t wait to help you walk over the finish line and launch your signature program!
Register at https://rebeltherapist.me/create
Show notes at https://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/221
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Lea had been helping people with self-compassion for years, but when she started using art journaling in her program, it came together in a more powerful way.
Now she teaches art journaling in every session of her signature program, Everyday Self-Compassion. Once she integrated this practice into her program, she fell even more in love with her work. She’s got a feeling of presence, joy and even goofiness.
I deeply resonate with the need to feel like my full self as I do my work. How about you?
You’re about to hear how she transformed her program over the last several years, why she loves running it, and why she’s got fewer therapy sessions in her schedule.
Lea Seigen Shinraku is an artist, teacher, licensed therapist and founder of the Center for Creative Self-Compassion. Through her transformative program ~ Everyday Self-Compassion ~ she helps people who struggle with self-judgment connect with their innate creativity and joy, so they can feel more calm, connected, confident and playful in meeting the uncertainty of being alive.
Here's some of what we talked about:
Working with people who are finally ready to really learn how to do self-compassion An example of how Lea teaches art journaling How Lea designed her program Why including art in her program made her feel more joyful and present Creating a follow up program to Everyday Self-Compassion How she fills her program How she draws people to her work with free offers and events A tip from Annie (via Claire Pelletreau) on tracking your Meta adsShow notes at https://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/220
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Do you ever dream of creating a program you’ll love running over and over again?
My guest Amy has run her program, Grief Medicine, at least 9 times now. Sometimes people wonder if focusing on grief brings her down, but you’re going to hear why working with folks around their grief brings her inspiration and joy.
As you listen to this conversation, one thing I want you to notice is how much Amy enjoys running this program and never seems to experience it as a grind. You’ll hear how she created her program and how she continues to fill it after so many iterations. And by the way, it’s mostly NOT through social media.
Meet Amy Hyun Swart, a therapist, writer, children's book illustrator, and entrepreneur who has been leading grief gatherings, rituals, and courses since 2015, both in-person and online. She was introduced to the healing power of grief work by way of her own life experience, the traumatic loss of a parent at an early age. As a grief activist, Amy views grief as a critical ingredient to move through these collectively heartbreaking times without losing our shared sense of humanity.
Here's some of what we talked about:
Why her program went from 6 to 10 to 8 weeks long How grief is handled SO badly in our culture Co-hosting local grief gatherings Co-facilititating BIPOC Art of Grief courses Creating safety and connection in her program How she fills her program each time How her program has changed over time Why she’s still feeling inspired by her program after 9 iterationsShow notes at https://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/219
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Today I’m gonna talk about one of the fastest and least stressful ways to start a group program.
Let’s say you’re excited to run a signature program beyond your private practice, and you know you want it to be a small group.
I relate. I LOVE running groups.
Just a few reasons you might be in love with the idea of creating a group program:
Participants benefit from each other’s wisdom and feel less alone. You make more money. A sense of accountability is often bigger in a group. Groups give you energy. You’re gifted at running groups. In a group, you get the richness of discussion.Let’s imagine this is you.
You’ve written up a sales page or registration page for your program. You’ve told everyone you know all about it. You’ve sent out emails to your small but growing email list. You’ve posted on instagram, in FB groups and anywhere else where it’s appropriate to post. You’ve reached out to every single colleague who might make a referral. You’ve even reached out directly to a handful of people who you think would be great participants with a no pressure invitation to check it out.
All your friends and colleagues are excited for you. You keep hearing: “People will want this!” You’ve got the outline ready. You’ve got the zoom link ready to share. The group calls are on your calendar. You’ve figured out how to accept payments. You are just SO ready.
You offer a free consultation to anyone who has questions about the program and might want to sign up.
And then the consultations start…
You talk to one person who might be interested but not right now and is wondering when you’ll run it again.
You talk to another person who might be interested and will let you know.
You talk to a third person who decides to sign up. Yay!
You talk to a fourth person who says they want to do it but then realize they’ll be away for the first 3 weeks of your program.
And then…no more consultations. No more sign ups. And your start date is next week. Arg!
Did you do something wrong? Is your group not meant to be?
First of all, you are not alone. This has happened to me. This has happened to many people who run successful group programs now.
This often happens when you’re transitioning to a new kind of business. Even if you already had a full therapy practice, this can easily happen when you step into selling a program for the first time.
Perhaps your mistake (if you made one) was to start with a group program.
Perhaps you should have started with a 1:1 structured, niched and outcome based program.
What?! We just talked about why you really prefer to run a group.
But you STILL might be better off starting your pilot program 1:1 and then turning that offer into a group when your business is ready.
Listen to the episode in which I break down why starting with a 1:1 structured, niched and outcome based program might be your fastest, least stressful way to create a group program.
Show notes at https://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/218
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Maybe you plan to double or significantly increase your income this year.
If you’re in private practice, you might look at the numbers and think you should double your sessions. And you totally could. People are out there looking for a therapist exactly like you.
You might feel like adding sessions is your ONLY option to increase your revenue.
That’s not true.
You’ve got other options.
Check in and be honest with yourself. Will adding to your client load exhaust you or head you towards burnout?
If you’re already seeing 12 clients or 15 clients and you’re starting to feel a bit of dread around sessions…do not double your sessions.
On the other hand, If your’e excited about filling up your private practice further, follow that excitement and do it. Like I said, there are plenty of people who need a therapist like you.
If you’re like SO many therapists I know, you might have the time in your schedule to add more sessions, but you don’t have the capacity in other ways.
You don’t have the energy, the self-care practices, attention or focus capacity to add even more sessions.
I want to invite you to take a step back and look at your business model.
Your business model is basically the way your business is set up to make you money. It’s the combination of the things you get paid for.
If your business model is built on 1:1 private practice sessions, and that isn’t sustainable for you…you are in good company!
There’s nothing wrong with you.
A full private practice might not be the right fit for your nervous system or your particular gifts.
There are other business models.
For years I thought I should be happy to have 25 or more therapy sessions a week. I had worked so hard to build that business. I was helping people and making good money so I thought I should just be grateful.
But that business model wasn’t right for me long-term.
Then I started helping therapists build their private practices and I talked to tons of therapists privately about what really works for them.
I discovered that LOTS of therapists don’t find it sustainable to have 25 or more sessions each week.
Like me, they built their private practices and then discovered it wasn’t right for them. And they felt guilt or shame like they SHOULD want the full private practice they worked so hard for.
They started to feel drained and overwhelmed. Either their work or their life outside of work or both began to suffer.
Therapists often don’t want to tell people they feel overwhelmed by a full private practice. So they think they’re alone.
If working in a different way at least some of the time would be a better fit for you and for your nervous system and your gifts, now is the time to start building a different business model.
I know that it’s really hard to carve out time and space to do something different. But it is SO important to start building a business you’ll be more fulfilled by.
The business model I help people create is based on running your own high-touch, niched, outcome-based signature program.
If you’re someone who loves teaching or facilitating and you’d love to really focus in on a topic you’re passionate about, a signature program might be a great fit for you.
If this resonates with you…but you’re feeling overwhelmed by the idea of getting started…mostly because you’re not even sure HOW to get started, do not let that stop you.
I end up hearing from grads of my program that they just wish they had realized sooner that it was possible to grow a signature program.
They are so relieved to have another income source and another place to direct their creative energy. They’re happy that they no longer have all their eggs in the private practice basket.
If you think you want to run a signature program, don’t wait.
Don’t set yourself up to stumble along exhausted trying to build something AFTER you’ve burnt out.
AND Don’t just make little tweaks to a business model that is showing itself to be unsustainable for you.
Start building your signature program.
If you want to make a lot LESS mistakes and get there a LOT faster, with a step-by-step process, join me in Create Your Program.
That’s where I help a small group of therapists and healers to create signature programs they’re really excited to run and then start selling them.
This is exactly the process I needed when I was ready to build a business beyond private practice.
Show notes at https://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/217
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As this episode goes live, registration for Create Your Program is open. This is my process to help you create and launch your signature program beyond private practice.
If you’d like to start growing another part of your business and make money in a new way, this is the best time to jump into Create Your Program.
If you register by Sunday, January 7th, you’re going to get lifetime access to a bonus training that has helped grads of CYP to fill their programs.
Go to https://rebeltherapist.me/create now to register.
I can’t wait to see you inside.
Today I want to talk about a few really important things that set apart the people who launch programs and succeed from those who wish they had.
Here are 3 things people who succeed with their programs are WILLING to do. 1: Be willing to work through discomfort in your marketing.My last guest, Samantha Fox, is great at this.
Just like most people who sign up to work with me, Samantha was really nervous about getting more visible and sharing her work with large audiences.
Her program is called Unbox Your Sexuality. She helps women all over the world who are realizing they are not as straight as they thought they were.
She had to work through her discomfort with being known as a queer thought leader.
A few years later, she’s so glad she did! She’s constantly creating content, including videos, and sharing it with people all over the world.
She’s guested on about 20 podcasts and gotten comfortable using her voice in that way.
She gets to hear from people she's never met about how much her work has changed their lives.
So even though she is an introvert and she used to be afraid of visibility, she’s now a very public leader who feels abundant love and energy for the people who find her from all over the planet.
2: Be willing to talk about your program with a lot of enthusiasm, and ask people to help you share it.Thing is something that the prior guest, Sonya Brewer, knows how to do!
This one sounds obvious, but asking for help is NOT natural or easy for many folks who sign up to work with me.
Sonya said that she shared the news about her program, badass boundaries for trauma survivors, with everyone she knows.
She asked people: “Who do you have for me?”
Sonya was able to do this because she knows her program is excellent. She sees the transformations her participants are able to make, and so she’s willing to spread the word.
Many people start to shrink or hide or even apologize when it’s time to sell their programs.
Even if this doesn’t come easily to you, I know that you CAN learn to ask for referrals with enthusiasm!
I used to shrink when it was time to talk about my work, and now I ask for referrals with ease.
I no longer feel like hiding how awesome I know Create Your Program is. I’ve iterated it over 28 times. I’ve worked over 200 therapists through it. I’ve worked with a curriculum designer. We’ve got the best expert guest teachers who come in and teach particular vital things.
CYP has grads like Sonya and Samantha and so many others who have created SO much value.
Now when I talk about Create Your Program, I exude a lot of enthusiasm.
I also don’t care any longer if some folks don't like me because of my confidence. For every person who feels annoyed at my confidence, there are a few people who are encouraged to be a bit more confident themselves.
So follow Sonya’s lead and shout your program from the rooftops. 🎉
3: Be willing to show up and work directly with your participants.That means being willing to create a high touch program. NOT a program that’s self-led.
This one might freak some of you out. Maybe you’re burned out, you want less contact with clients, and you dream of having passive income and not dealing with clients at all.
I want to encourage you to reconsider that approach.
Showing up in your program and leading your participants through it does NOT mean you’re constantly working. You still get to have boundaries. You still get to set things up in a way that feels good to your body.
AND…at least for the first several iterations of your program…and maybe forever…show up live for your participants. People will get WAY more out of it. Self led programs have a very low completion and implementation rate, something like 5-15%. Cohort based, live programs tend to have completion rates that are as high as 80% and higher.
One person who talks about this Deb Benfield from episode 213.
I recently went through Deb’s program as a participant so I got to experience first hand what a difference it makes to have access to her!
Now that her program is up and running, she continues to make small tweaks to it, but she isn’t pouring TONS of time and energy in every single time. She knows how to show up and walk participants through the process. Even though it is far from passive, it’s fulfilling and easeful for her.
So if you’re feeling tempted to create and launch a “passive” self-led course, please reconsider. If you’re burnt out on clients, you might need a little rest before you create your program.
Like me and SO many of the grads of CYP, you might find that working with participants in your signature program feels very different from therapy sessions.
If you’re burnt out on being a therapist, you might still feel energized by running your signature program.
Show notes at https://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/216
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Samantha has shrunk her therapy practice way down and is no longer taking new therapy clients. She’s delighted that her business has transitioned to mostly her coaching programs. She’s found that she’s got abundant energy and love for serving in this way. AND…Samantha has discovered that even the free stuff she provides on social media and on her site helps many queer women live truer lives.
That’s just ONE of the ways that the work she’s doing now is a much better fit for her life than a full time therapy practice was.
As a sexuality coach, Samantha Fox works with women worldwide to support them as they discover that they are not as straight as they might have thought. She’s developed an experiential method called Unbox Your Sexuality that creates a monumental transformation. The method helps women in unpacking, unlearning, and relearning schemas and narratives that we carry with us due to being born into a patriarchal society.
Here's some of what we talked about:
Why Samantha is happy she’s shrunk her therapy practice and transitioned her business mostly to coaching Choosing the niche of women who are curious and coming out as queer Creating her signature program: Unbox Your Sexuality Why she feels great about being visible in her work (even though she used to be afraid) How she fills her program using podcast guesting How she creates and repurposes her videos and the apps she recommends Creating lead magnets that attract the right people Dealing with trolls on social media How Rebel Therapist helped her build this programShow notes at https://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/215
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We’re sharing one of our favorite episodes as an encore this week.
How do you create and fill a group program?
How do you navigate a full therapy practice at the same time?
We’re about to go behind the scenes and find out exactly how my guest has done it.
Meet Sonya Brewer, a trauma specialist and relationship expert who specializes in creative life and relationship design for overachieving trauma survivors and their partners.
She created Badass Boundaries, a 12-week group mentorship program for overachieving trauma survivors.
Here's some of what we talked about:
Sonya’s framework to help trauma survivors transform their relationship to boundaries Creating Badass Boundaries, her 12-week group mentorship program for overachieving trauma survivors How Sonya helps people befriend their bodies as they do boundary work The benefits of offering 1:1 asynchronous coaching in the program How she filled her program Sonya’s advice about running valuable and joyful free workshops (engage with your participants!) How and why Sonya runs her discovery calls Navigating building this program while also running a full private practice Leaning what works for her as a socially motivated person, including having a coach and scheduling co-working sessions Her weekly planning ritual Why she chose “mentor” as the name for her role in this program rather than “coach” The anxiety provoking process of keeping her two businesses separateShow notes at https://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/214
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How can you create a business if you’re a disruptor in your field?
If you’ve got a unique voice and you’re finding yourself pushing back against most others in your field, that could actually be a wonderful thing for your business.
Today’s guest has carved out an important space right at the intersection of the Body Liberation and Pro-Aging movements. And she’s pretty much on her own as a leader there.
Meet Deb Benfield, a Nutrition and Body Relationship Coach with over 35 years of experience working with women to heal their relationships with food, eating and their bodies.
You’ll hear why Deb created a program for women in mid-life and beyond, how she designed her program and grew her audience, and what works to fill her program.
Here's some of what we talked about:
Why she’s alone at intersection of the Pro-Aging and Body Liberation movements How she designed her program Streamlining her program and leaving more room for integration How she grounds herself when stepping into her work Pivoting her niche and feeling the stress of losing some audience members (but gaining others) Where most of her participants find her How she collaborates with other creatorsShow notes at https://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/213
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I’m grateful to be running a tiny and simple business right now. I have no plans to grow this business up to 7 figures.
I was a bit hesitant to tell you that!
I feel some fear that you won’t think I’m a badass, or you’ll think I have upper limit problems or limited beliefs.
Maybe you won’t want to hire me because I’m not as ambitious as you hoped.
Or if you’re my friend who runs a larger and more complicated business, maybe you’ll think I’m judging you when you hear what I have to say about running a tiny business.
(I’m not. I promise!)
But since I have the desire to be radically honest and I think this serves you, I’m sharing it anyway.
I trust you to identify the parts of this that fit for you and the parts that don’t.
Note: I’m talking about service based businesses, because that’s what I know best.
Capitalism tends to point us towards one vision of what it means to be a successful business owner. And that’s being a business owner who always makes and does MORE.
Capitalism tends to pull us AWAY from noticing when we have enough, or even considering what enough might be.
Us feeling enoughness or satisfaction is NOT helpful to capitalism.
Here’s the default vision of a successful business owner:
They’ve got a company bringing in revenue of 7 figures or more. They’ve hired a big team. They expand their business to serve more people year over year. These numbers are all as big as possible: total revenue, number of team members, number of followers, and number of people served. This person might be a coach who runs a course or membership with hundreds or thousands of members at a time. Perhaps they also have many many other offers at many price points.But when I look around at my colleagues and friends who are having a good time and feeling fairly stable financially, I tend to see a people with tiny and simple businesses.
Here’s the vision of that (tiny) business owner:
They’ve got a tiny team, like zero or one employees. They’ve got smaller revenue, like under 500k, but they get to keep more than half of that money. Their tech is simple. They don’t have much overhead. They have one or two high-touch offers.Sometimes people come work with me hoping to create huge empires. I’m delighted to help them because the first phase in creating an empire should be to create a really solid small business. And that is what I help with.
When you start with a tiny, strong and simple business, you focus on creating value. And that’s where every business needs to start.
Listen to the episode to hear
2 stories of folks who scaled big, hated it, and decided to simplify and shrink their businesses How I keep Rebel Therapist simple How you can still serve more people with a tiny businessShow notes at https://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/212
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