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13. Savoring the Delicious Moments: Nurturing Personal and Professional Growth with Alex Castro Croy

“But I think it's super important to also celebrate and share the delicious moments, because those are the peaks. Those are the moments where, you know, maybe I'm going through a valley right now and your delicious share is going to eat and resonate with what I need to what I need to hear right now. I really encourage this a lot with clinicians and professionals, coaches, when we get together with our soul tribe with those individuals that we trust, and we can be open and vulnerable with. Let's have some delicious time.” – Alex Castro-Croy

Welcome to the colleague down the hall podcast. This episode is sponsored by the collab Oasis clinical consultation groups. Hi, I'm Janine Wolf, and I'm your colleague down the hall. I have a passion for helping fellow therapists get the clinical and collegial support, we all need to do this work. And wow, it just keeps getting harder every day. I'm the founder and facilitator of the collaborative aces clinical consultation groups. I have been a social worker for almost 30 years, and I own a successful solo online private practice, more of us than ever are practicing and Solr online practices. And we all need colleagues to process cases with commiserate with on those really hard days and also to celebrate our successes with in this podcast, I'll bring you insights about trends and changes in our field and sit down with amazing therapists who are doing amazing work. We'll discuss fictionalized cases, way to practice sustainably and of course, there will be plenty of laughing I love laughing with friends. I'm so glad to have you as one of my colleagues down the hall. Hello, everyone, you are listening to another episode of The colleague down the hall podcast. I'm your host Janine wolf joined today by Katie Reed. Eleni is their pie. Therapist turn coach who has been helping other therapists outgrow the typical office since she did it herself in 2018. She runs a highly respected clinic coach Academy program offering the only coaching certification plus business incubator exclusively for mental health professions. Today, we're gonna talk about outgrowing the office and all the ways therapists are doing this. So welcome, Katie. Hello, thank you. Nice to be here.

Yeah, nice to be here to Katie and I met another one of my guests that I met in Costa Rica. Yeah, a lot of fun got to know a lot of people there. So I'm so excited to have you here with me today. So we're hearing more and more about therapists looking for ways to have more control over their income, their schedule, move away from the burnout that's so prevalent in our field, they're looking for ways to use their therapy skills to achieve this. Let's talk about that.

Let's talk about it. I am always amazed. And I you know, this was me too. For so long, I didn't understand that actually, the skills I had, as a therapist, were a completely unique skill set. I think a lot of times we don't believe in just how much we know and just how much we have to offer. And we kind of go into this thing where we assume lay people ever the average person who's gotten their, you know, psychology education on Tik Tok, somehow knows just in the budget, there tend to be way too humble to what they know and what they do. And so because of that, it's very easy for us to accept being the lowest paid of the highly educated professions. And it's very easy for us to kind of limp along accepting the challenges of insurance or agency work or even the challenges of a private practice, even if it is private pay because you still have such variable income and such a very draining job and a private job and a job that can take a real toll on you physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, even, it really can take a toll. And often you're suffering in a degree of silence because of the privacy of the job. So there are just so many parts to it that are a challenge. And for me, what happened for us was our family went through a major transition. Both of my boys were diagnosed with special needs, my life changed a lot. I had to be able to do a whole bunch of services with them all day. And then we were moved with my husband's company across state lines to another state, and suddenly my license was moot. And I was back at the beginning, after years of directing community mental health programs and creating therapist training materials and all these things. It was like it didn't matter. I couldn't make a living overnight once we moved. And so all of that was a huge challenge for us, and it forced my hand it certainly forced me to think okay, I'm going to get relicensed but in the meantime, which took a long time. Like in the meantime, what am I going to do to make money to support our family, and it forced me to get creative and the direction to make a long story short, the direction I ended up going was into coaching and realizing starting to meet coaches starting to see the World. And when I say coaching, I mean, possibly life coaching could also be business coaching could also be consulting with companies could also be leading retreats could also be creating online courses. There's this huge, massive world that can fall under that umbrella of coaching. And then we therapists are literally the best possible people, right be leading this world, like, we have our entire ethical code, we have our massive education behind this, we have this unbelievable amount of training behind all these things like we are the people who should be at the forefront who should be spearheading a world of online education and the world of coaching and consulting. And so often, we don't, because of whatever narrative we have in our heads, either that coaching is somehow bad, or that we should just put up with all the difficulties of being a therapist, and we should just be grateful for the job. And I'm like, I love being a therapist, like, there are so many elements of it that I know all of us are so grateful for. It's the greatest job in the world. And it has its challenges. And a lot of us, it just says and, you know, we hit this certain point in life where you look around and you're like, okay, there are things I like, there are things I don't and I wonder if I could take the skills I already have, and improve on some of those things. I don't. Yeah, that's what our clients in the clinic coach Academy are all therapists and they're doing exactly that. They're figuring out how do I take what I love and take what I'm good at, and just apply it and send it out into the world in a slightly different form. So that it can be more and more people can benefit. And that that person that therapist slash coach can also benefit and can also change their own life in doing it.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And the first point that came to mind, as you were talking is I live in huge military community in Virginia Beach. And so I've seen military spouses over and over go from one state to another where they lost their career just like you, and it's devastating, you still have this amazing skill set, you still have all of your experience, but you're in a state that says like, we don't know, you, you're gonna have to maybe take more classes, you might have to do new certifications. So all of that is time consuming and scary. Yeah, then on top of that, in graduate school, we're sort of marinated in the idea that we have to just be pleased to have a job, we have to show up and do whatever we're told to do. We have to work in ways that are not good for us as people. And so all of those things result in therapists looking for other avenues. Like I can't keep doing this any longer. And I'm all about sustainability. We have to work in a way that's seamless. And so what you're teaching is a great option.

Thank you. Yes, I love it. It's been incredible to see people's growth, once they start to look at it and go, You know what, I'm ready, I'm ready. For more in my life, I'm ready to take on this new challenge. And for me, and for a lot of our clients, what we see happen, do you remember, like when you were in grad school, how exciting it was every single day, because you were like learning these new things. And you get to like, run out to the coffee shop with all your grad school colleagues. And you'd be like talking all day. And I'm like, and I loved that I loved the excitement. I loved running home to read my frickin textbooks, because I was that we were learning, you know, but I loved it. And it's so funny, then you go through years and years and years in the profession. And you're not necessarily feeling that same excitement, like you, you kind of know the drill now you know the job, and starting to develop more of an online program, and then develop that coaching business and learn all the things that are available to us now to be able to make this easier, and all the different ways that we can take our knowledge and get it out to more people. That is that same level of excitement. And we have people in our group all the time, who are like, Oh, my gosh, I stayed up all night because I was so excited because I was working on this new coaching offer. And I'm so excited to get it out into the world. And I'm like I Yes, I get it. Like I get that excitement. And it's fun again. And so just knowing I've got all the skills, I've got all the knowledge, now it's just a matter of learning. Okay, how do I actually put it out online so that I move beyond my little local area? And yeah, really succinctly talk about what I can do to help someone which we're not necessarily people know what therapy is. We don't have to explain to them how we can help them they just have an assumption about what therapy is. When you move into coaching or consulting or online courses, you need to be able, you actually have to learn the skill of succinctly explaining to somebody, Hey, I know you have this problem. I'm passionate about helping people with that problem. Here are some of the ways that you do that. Here's the service I'm offering to you. You have to get good at doing that. And so that is this whole new skill set, but you're back in that excited place when you get to learn it just like in grad school when you're learning new stuff. It's fun. Yeah,

yeah, that's so true. And yes, I was that nerding out I had school that was like, he can't wait to get home and read my textbook. And I'm still honestly, I'm still kind of a continuation, continuing education nerd. But, but that was so important. And I see that on my consultation groups, because there's so many ways that therapists can meet other therapists that are not healthy and not supportive. And therapists, Facebook groups are one of those where there's so much shaming, and there's so much guilt about people who are looking for other options. And then to show up in a program like yours or mine, where like minded people are saying, like, yes, yeah, this is great. I want to encourage you, I'm gonna support you. Like, that's what we need. We need supportive colleagues, we need supportive people who, you know, want to grow and learn and not just do the same old, same old.

Well, and that honestly, that is the exciting part of it. Because you're right, we've all been in the therapists, Facebook groups, where people are bitter, and they're burned out. And they're, you know, just in there to kind of complaint and, I don't know, be trolls to other switches, like why why? That's the conversation. That's all right. Now, let's do it. Let's schedule our next week for that. You get around the people who are sort of excited about life again, because they're taking on new challenges. I was saying to a friend of mine recently, I was like, you know, a lot of people my age are sort of on cruise control to retirement, I'm in my mid 40s. A lot of people my age are kind of on cruise control to retirement. And I love that I'm in an environment where I'm actually learning new things all the time. And I'm with other therapists who are learning new things all the time, it seriously keeps you young and engaged, and vital and creative. And I just love having these new skill sets that to me, I will tell you it like for me, and I know everybody's a little different. But a lot of us I think are very security motivated. And that was certainly me. So when we cross state lines, and I lost my income, that was the worst feeling for me, like, I hate that lack of security so deeply. So for me, it was always like, okay, how can I be able to create something that no one can ever take away from me, I cannot move one state over. And someone has taken away my security like that. It was a horrifying feeling. And I know that there's a lot of people who are like that, never, that won't happen to me, I cannot tell you how many clients come to us. And they're like, I had to go take care of an aging parents. So I had to move I fell in love with someone in another state, I had to move I followed an adult child I had to move, people don't expect it to happen around. But now the truth is because I've developed the skills to take what I know, as a therapist distinctly package it into a service that I can offer to someone else, and do that in exchange for money and put that out on the internet. Because I've developed those skills. I feel this total lifetime security, like everything fell. Tomorrow, I know exactly how to rebuild, and I could do it again. And so that kind of security that I'm in control my income, I'm in control of my livelihood. And I'm using all the things that I learned doing the best career of all time. Yeah, becoming a therapist is amazing.

Yeah, I have to be remiss and not bringing up the fact that therapists love to throw out the word ethics. I'm sure that you have encountered that at times people are like you can ethically Coach, I know there are ways to do it. And I know that that's probably something you teach in your program, how to make sure you're doing the right things.

Yep, let's talk about it. So you absolutely can ethically Coach, what therapists need to understand is, you are always held to the ethics of your license no matter what. So you are held to that higher tear standard of your therapy license, even if you're coaching. Now, what we have our clients do is we very specifically write it into their paperwork, you are going to in your initial consults, we actually have our clients who are the clinic coaches, they get a certification as a clinic coach. And so what we have them do is we have them say, I am going to go over mandated reporting, I'm gonna go over limits to confidentiality. And I'm going to explain to you coaching client that because I am a therapist and a coach, I am not your therapist, but I am holding to the ethics of my therapeutic license. So I want to review those ethics with you as well, even though you're my coaching client. Now the other thing that's really important to protect yourself and to protect your license and to protect the client who doesn't understand the difference is to separate out your two businesses. So we strongly recommend for anyone out there, don't just slap a coaching page on your website. It creates confusion in the marketplace, you cannot expect clients to know the difference. You have more responsibility than that and this is what I'm constantly kind of lecturing people about your responsibility than that you need to make it clear Isabel and it is up to you and not to the client to understand the differences. It's up to you to explain the differences. Now beyond that, of course, your coaching should be serving a non clear Nicole level of need your therapy, you can help everybody, you can help clinical and non clinical levels of needed therapy. In coaching, you should be serving a non clinical level of need, you should be referring to another therapist to a higher level of need if somebody needs that just the same as we would and our therapy work every day. So you should know that you're still going to follow the same tenants that you do every day as a therapist, you're going to choose usually one specific niche, and it's going to be a non clinical niche. So you're not going to be like I'm a therapist for trauma coach for trauma, right? Right. How do people get into trouble. And that is where therapists are yelling in the groups like, Oh, you're just trying to do therapy across state lines. Yet, there are therapists who do do that, and they're not thinking enough about the potential damage that could be done to them and to the client continuing to work that way. what you want to do is choose any non clinical level of need. And the way that I explained it to my clients is, let's say, in your practice, you're an expert at anxiety, and you're treating generalized anxiety and you're treating panic attacks, and you're treating all of these, you know, intense forms of anxiety, you could take the same skills. And you could take the exact same, you know, interventions and things that you give your clients in therapy, but you could come over into a coaching space and say, I am going to treat people who have public speaking nerves, and I'm going to help them overcome their public first date jitters. And I'm going to help them overcome. Because this is a non clinical level of anxiety. This is not debilitating, or life. This is saying I have a very specific situational challenge. I need the tools and the techniques just like any other more highly anxious person does. But I can apply them in this one specific way. This is where we now start to see oh, I can flow very easily what I do in clinical work over to a non clinical level as well. Yeah,

I so love that explanation. Because I do have members periodically, who will say, I want to start a coaching business. And what do I need to do and I'm my advice is always like, you need to talk to someone who understands this, because it is more complex than just at face value. So you do need to understand what you're doing. But most of the time, they want to do anxiety coaching, when they are an anxiety therapist. And so explaining that you can find those specific niches where you're still using those same skills, that I love the way that you describe that because that is that makes so much more sense. And the clients are going to understand the difference. I can't imagine a client who sees me for anxiety, saying, Wow, I see that you're a coach for public speaking. And I want to come and do that to you. And they might and then you have to be prepared to deal with that, I guess.

Exactly. Well, and the truth is, you know, once a therapy client, always a therapy client, that exact example, I would just say, Oh, great, well, we can help you with that here and therapy to your own. Yes, my therapy. And so we do, of course follow the same dual relationship guidelines and everything, because it's that standard of ethics for license. But people worry about it, interestingly, more than it actually comes up. Because when you choose a certain niche for coaching, and you start to put it out on the internet, we're now the whole world is your potential client list. Not scary. At first, thinking about like five miles around your office, you're now looking at how I can get clients from anywhere. And so people worry a lot like, Oh, someone's going to come in? And what if they want to go to therapy instead of coaching? And I'm like, if they can't drive into your office, or they don't live in your state, it's a moot point anyway, and the vast majority of people, it's a moot point. That's where people are always worried about it. I'm like, I've had it happen maybe once.

Yeah, well, we set the bar so high. Anyway, as therapists, we have these high expectations. And we are so afraid, like you said, it's the lowest pain of people at masters levels, education. And on top of that, we are so scared about the epics, that it really immobilizes us at times and creates like people won't even look into things. And then once they double down that they can't do that because they're afraid then those are the ones who are then criticizing the people who are doing it successfully. And they feel a little bit jaded about that. So now

I feel bad. That's exactly what happens. And yet the people who are out there doing it, it's amazing. Literally just this morning before I jumped on with you, I was in our Facebook group answering questions. We have one client who out now I shouldn't say out of the blue, she has been steadily building her social following she's been steadily doing the things that I teach in the program. She has been booking clients in her niche contacted by a television network, who wants to develop a show and have her be the expert on the show. I'm not gonna give away more details. Right, these are the kinds of opportunities we have had clients invited to speak in Spain and Ireland all around this country in the areas of their coaching niche because when you choose a certain niche, you start to become seen as the go to expert in that niche and now more and more opportunities can open up for you. And so it's amazing to see people's lives expand in ways they weren't even anticipating. We had another client recently who had said, I have now booked my first five coaching clients. And with only five coaching clients, she's making more that month than she ever made in a fully booked month as a private practice therapist. So when you think about working a five hour week, versus what you probably typically do, let's say like a 30 hour week for your average private practice therapist, you think about how much life This gives you back, and how much more impact you can have and how much more you can maybe be with your family, or just do the things that are high value for you in your life. It's amazing just to see people's lives expand like that. And I will say this, and you know this a little bit because you saw my talk in Costa Rica, I'm sort of obsessed with the fact that I feel like it is our job as helping professionals, that if we are not constantly growing and expanding our own lives, and our own worldview, and all the things about us, like not just growing like, Oh, I'm reading another self help book. And it's great. But we're actually challenging ourselves, that we're actually facing the fears and doing it anyway, that we're actually growing into the next level version of ourselves. I truly believe and people get mad when I say this, I do not believe you're the best therapist you can be. If you're not doing that.

of you. I agree. 100% Yeah, thank you, oh, actually, I just this morning recorded another podcast episode talking about all the ways that we are humans doing this work, and it's never getting accounted for. And one of the things was that our world is ever changing. And it's gotten really, really hard in the past three or four years. And we need to be challenging ourselves, looking at our values, looking at how the world is changing, and what are our values showing up like in the in the therapy room or the coaching room, so that we can be prepared for those things. But also allow ourselves to say, I can work with this client who is so opposed to who I am, as a person, I'm not going to have to sit like the blank slate in the room with this person, hear them criticize my race, or my gender or something like that. And then to continue to learn and to grow. It's easy when you're burnout to forget how exciting that is. And I know Yeah, a lot about that as well, that bubble baths are not going to do it when you're burned down.

Exactly. A bubble bath has never cured my burnout. It's so true. To me, I truly believe that at base a human being is creativity in a human form. Like that is truly what I believe that our spirits are just made of creativity. And that we get stuck all of us it's just a condition of human existence, we get stuck in the Ruts of the every day, we get stuck in the Ruts of just what it means to go to work and drive home and pay the bills and go to the dentist and all they do. And if we're not consciously seeking places for our creativity to explore itself, and for us to grow and expand, then we are shrinking. And as we are shrinking, and as we're not doing those things and not challenging ourselves, we are not going to be the best therapists for our clients. Because we are truly not in that place where we're saying, Hey, I'm talking to you as somebody who has done this work. And I'm really excited over here on the other side of it, and I'm gonna pull you along and get you over here with me, because you will see how much better life is over here. That is what I think is truly the most helpful thing to our clients is that they're looking at someone and going wow, I want to be able to be in that emotional, spiritual excited place that you are. You absolutely have to get there first, we have to do that pioneering work first.

Yeah, absolutely. And so I would imagine that a lot of your coaching clients have discovered that they enjoy their therapy work more, now that they have this balance of maybe just learning about the coaching when they're in their learning phases, or growing a second business and the energy that infuses into them. And then they find that I actually love therapy again, and I can have a balance of still doing therapy if they choose to, and not being so much worried about how much they're getting paid, and still have this other part that can provide the financial freedom for them to have work life balance and to enjoy their lives.

There's a funny thing that happens and we talk about this actually a lot in our group because after probably I was probably two years in when I realized this is happening to everybody and I started trying to think about why so what happens is people come into my program that's called Six Figure flagship that is the one program I run if you want to work with me, we have different levels of support inside of six figure flagship but you need to get in there to work with me. So people get into six figure blog. Should they start dedicating all this energy to building the coaching business, they're getting excited about it, they're staying up late. They're, you know, figuring out all these little things that they can do all the bells and whistles. what inevitably happens, it's so funny. Therapy clients start coming out of the woodwork. Of course, everybody is getting like five calls a day, people they saw 15 years ago, we're coming back like It's craziness. And they come into the group, and they're like, I'm overwhelmed. And I'm up to 30 therapy clients. And I have a waiting list of 27 people, I don't know what to do. And it's hilarious. And I was really, truly a couple of years ago, sitting there going, why is this happening with and you know, what hit me and the way that I explained it to myself, I truly think you step forward in your own life, and you say, I'm ready for more. I am ready for the next step. I am demanding more of myself, I'm demanding more of the universe, I am opening myself up to more income and more this and more of that. And I feel like the universe is like, Okay, so the channel that is open right now is your therapy practice. And I'm gonna flood it with everything you're asking for was that more, more more? And I also feel like it's almost cruel test in a way like, well, how dedicated Are you really? Getting out of your norm? Like, really? Are you sure even if it's then you 20 More Clients, you still. So I always really, it's a funny thing, and I can't It's hilarious, because almost every new client will come in, and they'll hit like six weeks in the program. And we can almost time it, people will come into the group or they'll send us a DM and they'll be like, I have so many therapy clients, how what do I do? Welcome, you're exactly what happens. It's funny, and some people literally will end up at that situation being like, I'm gonna bring on another clinician, I'm gonna open a group practice, because suddenly I have demand, some of our clients have actually closed their therapy practices, because the coaching business just totally eclipsed what they were doing in therapy. And they're choosing a level of lifestyle freedom. We have one person, she's closing her therapy practice, they bought a boat, and she and her husband are gonna go live on the boat and sail the world. From anywhere, like how cool is that? Right? And so there's so many options available for people. And there's so many ways to balance it to you know, people that maybe do therapy two days a week and coaching two days a week, there's a million ways to make it work.

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I think that we sometimes underestimate the energy that we bring into the room with our clients. I was went through a period of time where I was really burned out, I made some changes included moving to a different practice. A bunch of my clients came with me and they could notice like, they're like, Wow, you are so different. You seem like you're doing really well. And then they feel that energy, and they're getting good results from therapy, and then word of mouth is blowing up because they're telling everybody this therapist is not funny.

Yeah, it's true. And we don't think about that energy. But it's so true. Like, we can't help it. We're human, all of our daily stressors, and all of our life stuff are going to be there in the room with us. Gosh, I remember so well, when my kids were first diagnosed with special needs. And I was seeing clients and I would sit there and I'm sure my energy was just in the absolute gutter because I was terribly depressed. And I would sit there and literally, I'd be hearing like my client talk about oh, my boyfriend, like took two days to text me back. And I'd be like, in my head, like, you think you've got problems. Because I was in such a rough, rough place. Yeah. And we're like, we can't help it. But of course, as therapists it's also our responsibility like you did to make the changes that help us come out of that,

oh, I still relate to one of my children. I'm not even gonna give a gender because that'll give it away. One of my children was particularly hard to parent in the teen years. I came in one day, and I was like, no more teenagers, because I'm angry at all of them right now. And it's hard for me to sit in the room with a teenager who's being a jerk to their parents, and I'm supposed to be the therapist, because I just want to jump them. So

I'm gonna transfer it's all over you. It's not gonna work. Exactly. Oh, so funny. I get it though. I've worked human like that is such a human story that every therapist cannot along to be like, yep, yep, I've been there. Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely. I don't know if you want to get into this in the podcast, but I loved some of the things you talked about in Costa Rica and asshole brain is something that to me, then you want to talk a little bit about Sure. Sure, sure. Well, in a way we sort of have been talking. It was funny. That was the one slide that like stuck with everybody. And one of the things that I talked about. So I think that was in the context of what I like to call grocery money goals. So the reason I use the phrase grocery money goals is that very often, and I did some silly slides in Costa Rica about how if you let's say, do a vision board and you go get your magazines and you've cut out your pictures and you create this like amazing vision board of your life. It's fun, right? Like we all I'll happily go do that right now. It's fun. I A lot of that stuff. And we typically tend to build vision boards or dreams or goals for our lives that are so far disconnected from our actual life and so distant from like, where we're actually at right now that our brain has no way, there's no red crumb trail from here to there. And so we can go look at our board and be like, some day, I'm gonna go to all these places and have the perfect partner and have this giant mansion. And, you know, like, we can look at our vision boards and have all these dreams on it. And our brain is like, that's nice, but I'm overwhelmed by that I have no idea how to get there. So I'm just going to shut down. And then our brain starts growing all the fears and all the negativities and all the imposter syndrome and all the you're not good enough. But all these things about us, that shut us right back down, and they leave us stuck. And you see it in your life, and we see it in our clients lives. And we all know it's true. It's just such a basic sort of human condition. You know, when I think back to starting this business, like I said, we had moved, I couldn't make any money. I didn't have my license and this new state plus we were trying to obviously move get my kids set up with services and school and all the things. And all I wanted to do, I thought, what if I could just make enough that I could pay for groceries, that I could make enough with my little coaching business that I was trying to get off the ground, not knowing what I was doing? Total, middle aged, non techie, suburban mom here, like did not know what I mean. But I was like, what if I could just make enough that I could make grocery money. And that worked so well for my brain. Because if I said to anybody in your audience, all I need you to do this month is figure out how to make an extra $1,000 Anything you want, besides therapy, go make an extra grant, you could do it, you could even do it with two grants. Because if you had all that creativity, you'd be like, well, maybe I could sell my skill online or I know how to make a logo or I know how to walk dogs or I can babysit or I can do this or I can there's a million different ways. And when you give your brain a creative project that is right sized, you kind of turn down the asshole knob. And you're because you're giving it a project that it can actually chew on a little bit. Yeah, so and like for me what started as grocery money goals, well, then I started making grocery money. And then I was like, Well, my car is on its last legs and it's got expensive repairs, I wonder if I could save up enough to have a down payment on a better car. And then I did that. And then I was like those damn student loan bills every month, I wonder if I can make enough to pay off the student loans and a little by little it grew until in year three, I had a million dollar business on my hands, which was a shock to me completely. But if somebody had come in in the beginning and been like you need to make a billion dollars in year three, we would have nothing you and I would not be talking I would be just sitting in my little therapy office you know, like none of this would have ever happened. And so to to down all the imposter syndrome and all the obstacles that our brain our poor little sweet asshole brain likes to throw in our way. Those down, we make those goals right sighs You need to make the goal be the next breadcrumb on the trail. And yes, you can be gearing towards that giant mansion on the side of a lake somewhere. But we need the breadcrumbs so that we don't overwhelm ourselves. And that is how you grow so much faster than you even think you're gonna grow just by making it right size and giving your brain that creative project to work on.

Yeah, I love that, that expansiveness that space to grow. And you know, when we teach our clients, those things, I'm sure in coaching, you teach that I certainly teach that as a therapist, and we often don't do the things that we teach others.

Exactly. We are the classic like hairdresser with bad hair, you know, dentist with bad teeth like therapist. Class.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And again, I think it comes back to this small brain mindset that we get in grad school that we forget that, okay, we do have a lot of skills, we do have a lot of things we can do. Maybe I just need to find this small little goal that I can work towards, and see where it goes. Yeah.

Well, and I always think it's so eye opening too, because we'll have a lot of clients, I think, because therapists are so educated, you forget how educated you are, all the time who are like, Oh, I went out and I got an A group of my ideal clients. And I was just reading like the comments in the group or participating in something the group was doing. And they're like, I was saying, the most basic stuff that I could possibly teach, and people were blown away by Yes, blown away. They'd never heard that before it was blowing was amazing. It was blowing their minds. And our clients who are of course, therapists are like, I thought everybody knew that really didn't right. Nobody knows that they need you. You know, we think everybody knows that. Nobody knows that. And realize I think having that lived experience where you're like, I'm no one's expecting me to teach the Harvard level. They only can take in the third grade level. No. And that's easy. I can do it on Miss sleep, you know, I can teach that stuff in my sleep. And so realizing that is refreshing thing, because you realize, oh, if we just even go back to basics, it's so helpful for people.

Yeah, absolutely. And I love your energy. I imagine you're a phenomenal coach. Oh, thank you certainly brought a lot of fun energy to Costa Rica. And I love what you're doing. You know, I've learned a lot today, which is helpful for me when I have consultation group members that are thinking about coaching, because really, once they get into the consultation, group programs, they start seeing therapists doing other things, and then they start getting that creative care. Yeah, absolutely.

So then if we want, I don't know, were you about to wrap Are you going to ask him to go ahead, you're good, you're good. I was gonna say there is one thing I'm doing that any of your therapists can join in, it's totally free. It's brand new, it started as a little experiment within our client group, I wanted a way to stay more connected on a daily basis to all of our graduates. And so I think by the time this goes live, it will be live for everyone to join, I started sending out little like one to two minute audio messages that I send via text once a day. And they are all along these lines about mindset and motivation and up leveling your life and you know, psychology and just the therapy and like things that matter to us things that are important to us. And I started sending them out to our clients as this little like, Hey, here's this little thing, it might be the exact right thing that you need to hear today, it might not be a totally random topic, it doesn't apply to you today, but I'm just gonna send them out anyway. And the response was phenomenal. People love them, it was two minutes, they can just listen to it in the car on the way to wherever. And it would just give them that little like, Aha, or that little thing to think about or that little journal prompt for the day. So we decided to open it up to everybody, and growing. Yeah, so it's called the growing edge micro cast, because it's kind of like a little micro podcast that you can listen to once a day. If everybody wants to, if you go on Instagram, to Hey Katie read on Instagram, or if you just go to Hey, Katie reads.com. And also my name because I have one of those names that you can spell a million different ways. T i e, r E, A D, like read a book. So it takes@read.com or Hey, Katie read on Instagram, you can opt in, and we'll send them to you too. It's just it's a free thing. It's just once a day. And secondly, if you're interested in the six figure flagship program and learning about all the different we have multiple price points, we have multiple levels of support in there. If you apply for that, that is Katie reading.com. So just take out the Hey, Katie read.com, for six feet, your flagship application, it says like, outgrow your practice, and you just click there and apply. And then we'll send you a little webinar that talks about all the different price points and levels of support. And we would love to hear from anybody who's working with you, because they know they'll be amazing.

Yeah. My numbers are amazing, I'm sure. Yeah, I was reading your email earlier today about this new micro podcast. And I'm like, Oh, thanks for the day that we get to sign up. I'm gonna be signing up.

I'm really, like, ridiculously excited about it. So hopefully, other people will enjoy it as much as I have.

Yeah, but what a great thing to be able to do something that's just going to take a little bit of time of your day and a little bit of time to their day that could potentially change someone's perspective for the whole day.

The whole day. Yeah. Well, it's kind of cool, because our clients were like, Oh, I sent that out to some of my clients or I talked about that little concept in therapy today. It's funny, you know how Kismet just work sometimes. And apps, you hear something? And then your client talks about something? And you're like, yeah, no, I just did this thing this morning, where they were saying, and then some clients are like, it's just my coffee with Katie. And they feel like it's just our little time together. And, like, it's my daily journal prompts. And I love that because I'm a daily journal er, too, so I love it that people see it. It's like, Oh, I'm gonna dive deeper under my experience of this concept in my daily journal.

Yeah. And I feel like it probably feels like people are feeling they have a more intimate connection with you. It's just them in a room listening to your voice, I hope.

I hope so. Yeah, I hope so. Well, Katie, thank you so much for being here today. This has been a lot of fun. And we will absolutely put your contact information, all the things that you just shared in the show notes so that everyone can easily find you. So thank you for listening. There are new episodes of The colleague down the hall podcast released every Thursday on all major platforms. Please remember, our work is hard, but it doesn't have to be lonely. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to the colleague down the hall podcast. For show notes, links and downloads, head over to colleague down the hall.com where you'll be able to learn more about getting the clinical support you need and resources to help you work in a supportive sustainable way. If you've enjoyed this episode, please share with your friends RP friends and colleagues subscribe to the podcast and if you love this episode please leave a review.