Rebel Therapist

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 program Show notes at https://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/228

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

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 challenges Show notes at https://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/226

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

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 opportunities Show notes at https://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/224

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  

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

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

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 ads Show notes at https://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/220

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 iterations Show notes at https://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/219