How Can I Run Great Group Calls?

Today I’m talking about how to run engaging and effective group calls in your signature program, rather than calls that leave people bored or frustrated or just not showing up. When I say PROGRAM, I’m talking about a niched, outcome oriented, structured container. Your program might be a workshop, retreat, group coaching program, course, or some hybrid of different formats. These are the kinds of programs that are always in demand because they actually help people make significant transformations. I’m not talking about flimsy self-led courses here. I’m talking about programs where your participants get to interact with you in a meaningful way. Therapists and healers make the best programs. We’ve got training and experience in how to help people get from point A to point B. We know how to work with resistance, emotions, and all of the other things that make change difficult. If you’ve been a participant in a lot of programs, you know that some group leaders have no idea what they’re doing! You as a therapist or healer have the potential to be a very skilled group leader for your program. BUT there’s some stuff that therapists also need to learn about running calls in their structured, niched and outcome oriented programs. A question I get a lot is: “How can I facilitate group calls well in my new program?” And I’m excited to share my answer with you here. THE TROUBLE WITH THERAPISTS Our biggest mistakes as therapists are that we tend to run our program calls like group therapy sessions when we need to be doing something different. I’ll use myself as an example. I really fucked this up at the beginning. In the beginning, I ran my program calls a lot like group therapy sessions, and that wasn’t what my business coaching program needed. I tended to go towards depth and bigger emotional material because I was comfortable there and that’s what I was used to doing with groups. I had been moving that way during years and years of working as a therapist. If a person brought up feeling stuck in perfectionism or imposter syndrome, I’d expand and encourage that conversation to the point that it took up most of the session. Then I’d try to rush through some business concepts. I didn’t know how to balance that beautiful depth with the need to direct the group towards the goal of the program. My group calls left people feeling understood, bonded to others in the group, and probably with less shame about their experiences. The calls didn’t give the participants enough help with taking strategic steps in their businesses. Were the calls bad? It depends what you think the purpose of the calls was. People who primarily wanted space to process about their emotions about their businesses probably thought the calls were great. People who wanted to move forward with strategy probably felt frustrated. Lots of participants probably felt pretty good about the calls while they were happening, but then bummed out at the end of the program that we hadn’t gotten enough business stuff done. As therapists, we still get to use our attunement skills, but we need to harness them differently. The problem was that I hadn’t chosen ONE clear purpose for my calls. CHOSE A PURPOSE That brings me to one of my favorite thought leaders around running groups: Priya Parker. She’s an author and a facilitator, and she’s NOT a therapist. Her book, The Art Of Gathering, has changed how I think about groups forever. Priya Parker says that for any gathering, you need to choose ONE clear purpose. You definitely need one clear purpose for your program. The purpose of your program is the outcome it helps people move towards. For example: Let’s pretend your program helps couples in blended families to strengthen their relationships. (That’s a juicy niche by the way. Grab it if you want!) This program is designed to get the couple from point A to point B. Point A is where the couple is now, feeling distress in their bond. point B is feeling stronger in their relationship. Every single decision you make about your program should be in service of helping your couples towards the goal of a stronger relationship. Your whole program has a purpose. Within that program, each of the group calls needs to have one clear purpose as well. For each session, you can ask yourself: “What is the one thing that this call needs to do well?” Is the purpose of each meeting to internalize a concept? To feel connected to other participants? To hear each other’s stories? Choose ONE purpose to build the call around. Yes, they’ll get additional benefits out of those meetings too. But choosing just one purpose saves us from this bias we all tend to have. We overestimate our ability to prioritize lots of things at once and do all of them well. That’s when calls get boring and frustrating for the participants, and you notice that people stop showing up. That’s also when you as the leader get stressed out and maybe even resentful. You’re trying to do SO much and it’s not working. Here’s something I hate to hear from the leader at the beginning of a workshop or a meeting: “We’ve got way more stuff to cover than we have time for!” We’ve all learned to humble brag about being over committed and doing too much, but when a group call doesn’t have enough time to accomplish the goal, it’s just not as valuable. RUN YOUR CALLS IN A WAY THAT PROTECTS THE PURPOSE Once you know the purpose of the program and specifically of each of calls, it’s your job to protect that purpose. When people signed up for your program, you promised them a process to get from point A to point B. I’m gonna talk about some things you can do in structuring your calls to make that happen. THINGS TO DO ON THE FIRST CALL Your first meeting will be different from the subsequent ones because the purpose of the first call is to get everyone set up for success in the program. (If what you’re running is a multi-hour workshop or a retreat, this applies to the beginning of that event.) Start on time. If you wait to start until everyone has arrived, people will take that cue and show up late next time. Don’t start the first meeting with logistics because that’s a missed opportunity. Start the very first moment of the very first meeting with something that brings people into more presence. Logistics can be the second thing you do. You might start with a breathing exercise, an inspiring story, or a simple experiential exercise. Name and ask for acknowledgement of group agreements. Ask participants to share other desired agreements, and allow them to email you with suggested additions if they don’t want to bring them up in the group. Tell people how you’d like participants to behave on the group calls. Talk explicitly about what’s in the range of desired behavior, including things like eating, turning their cameras off, coming late or leaving early. There’s no one right answer to these things, so you need to tell them what’s expected here. Model taking care of yourself. For example, take a sip of water and stretch when you need to. Tell people to expect that you’ll interrupt them sometimes, always with loving kindness, because you’re going to be driving this bus towards a particular direction. Tell people what kinds of feedback or comments are welcome. Unlike in a therapy group, their feedback to each other might not be the priority on these calls. If that’s the case, tell them. Tell them how to get the most out of these calls and the whole program. If there’s homework, give them a sense of how much time that will take, and help them plant seeds for themselves about how they’ll get that done and what they’ll do if they fall behind. STRUCTURING THE REST OF YOUR CALLS Start with a ritual in each meeting to help people arrive. Briefly tell people after that ritual what will happen during that call. When that plan changes partway through the call, acknowledge that you’re pivoting. They won’t care that you’re pivoting. They’ll just be glad you’re still driving the bus. If you’ve got multiple group calls, a structure that often works well is one portion for teaching, then a portion for spotlight coaching or discussion. 90 minutes tends to be a good length for calls where both teaching and discussion and coaching happen. If you’ve got 6 people or more, breakout rooms of 2 or 3 people can be a helpful tool for discussion. When you use breakout rooms, give them a prompt and tell them to use the time as feels best. When you’re teaching something, teach! Keep the focus rather than going into too much discussion in the middle of teaching. Every time you teach a concept, include something experiential so that participants can grapple with what they’re learning. That could be as simple as pausing for silent reflection or journaling. You could fill in a worksheet together. You could lead folks through a visualization. Try to show a visual like a slide every time you teach a big concept. You might include spotlight coaching in place of or in addition to more open ended group discussion. This might move you away from your comfort zone if you’ve been a group therapist. In spotlights, you coach one person in front of the group. If you’ve got a lot of expertise in this topic, and people have paid big bucks to learn from you, so don’t shy away from spotlight coaching. Sometimes therapists are so used to saying “you’re the expert on you” or “the group has all the wisdom” that we don’t step into our authority enough. Return to the purpose of your group call. If spotlight coaching will fulfill that purpose better than open ended discussion, do it. Remember when you said you’ll interrupt in order to protect the purpose of the calls? As someone is talking, it is YOUR job to decide if this discussion serves the purpose of the call. If it doesn’t, explain that kindly and move on. On the other hand, If what’s happening with a person does serve the purpose particularly well, you might spend MORE time on one person’s spotlight. At the end of your very last session, do something that brings people into being present, not logistics. That means you’ll need to talk logistics before the end. EXPERIMENT WITH DIFFERENT STRUCTURES I’m a participant in a group right now in which we learn and internalize a new concept each week. The leader summarizes in one sentence what she would like us to internalize. Then she teaches on that. Then we have a discussion to further internalize the concept. In my container, Create Your Program, people do all of the short video lessons and work between sessions. By the way, I do NOT recommend that you prerecord videos. I recommend that you teach everything live at least the first time you run your program. I taught CYP live many times before I recorded the curriculum. In CYP, the purpose of the weekly calls is to move through obstacles to getting your program created and launched. The structure of most of my calls is a quick ritual, then spotlight coaching, and sometimes a 10 minute breakout with groups of 2 or 3. People get other benefits from the calls, but by focusing on that one purpose, I know the calls do that one thing really well. I’ve also been a participant in a group where we met two times a week. One session was all about learning a concept, and the other session was for discussion and Q&A. DIFFICULT MOMENTS Handling difficult moments might come easily to you as a therapist. We know how to have some really tricky conversations while staying present. One difficult thing you’ll deal with is shame. Your participants will sometimes experience shame during calls because they’re learning big stuff and making changes. Rather than expanding in that direction, which might be too much for the container, you might want to normalize and contain shame. You’re containing the group process, not the person. One way to do that is to say out loud what you see in others (” I see lots of head nods” or “I see a lot of resonance on people’s faces”) to show that the person is not alone in their experience. You can also name it if you have struggled in a similar way yourself. If a participant seems to be in fight or flight or freeze, you might acknowledge that things got big, and that this is big stuff. Name that you’ll circle back with the person if that feels right. Don’t feel you have to tie a bow on every interaction. You won’t always be able to fix or resolve everything, and that’s OK. When you’re the one who gets dysregulated, especially if you cause any kind of harm, name it. Say “that was about me.” Don’t over apologize, because then participants are likely to feel they need to take care of you. Circle back next time if you’ve got more accountability to take. Even if you’re not normally available between calls, you’ll need to be available if a conflict happened and harm happened. Now remember what I said about talking about homework in the first session? It’s gonna come up in subsequent sessions. If you’ve got a program where there’s homework, you’ll need to acknowledge many times that it’s hard to get the work done. Whether you give 5 minutes of homework or 3 hours of homework, it will be hard for people to get it done. If there’s any way to get people to the outcome without homework, don’t assign homework! This is gonna go against your therapist sensibility, but you’ve got to contain the conversation around how hard it is to get the homework done. Don’t allow your program to become a group only about how hard it is to do the homework. That will not serve the purpose of the group. In my program, there’s a LOT of homework. The homework is broken down into bite sized pieces, but it’s a lot, because people are creating their programs. I have a lot of practice at normalizing the struggle to get things done, and strategizing with people about what to prioritize and what to let go of. BE WILLING TO BE LESS LIKED This is something you might already be good at as a therapist. Running a group program is great for getting over people pleasing because you can’t people please 4 or 8 or 25 people at once. I used to have the habit of scanning for the person who looked least happy on the call and focusing on them. I rarely do that anymore. Partly because I’ve done a lot of trauma healing recently and partly also just because I’m 52, I just don’t need everyone to like me at every moment. It’s also helped me to be a participant and watch group leaders who don’t take it personally when someone is struggling or unhappy in the moment. I’ve noticed how calm that makes me feel. I’ve watched myself as a participant and noticed when I’m the “difficult person”. It’s fine and helpful to be redirected in those moments. When someone else is the “difficult person”, it’s very comforting to watch the group leader handle it with compassion and clear boundaries. I work to allow myself to be a conduit for anger, frustration, or whatever a participant might need to feel in a particular moment. It’s always generous to protect the purpose of the group. Therapists and healers really do create the best programs. Once you harness what you’re already great at and grow your skills around this particular kind of facilitation, my prediction is that you’re going to be hooked on running group programs. The energy and mutual support that happen make group calls my favorite part of my whole job. Show notes at https://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/233

The fact that you are providing a real and nuanced process rather than a quick fix is actually not a problem. It’s how you’re going to attract the right folks to your work. Therapists and healers work with me to create high quality, niched programs beyond private practice. The people I work with have a ton of integrity. What I mean by that is that the people I work with really give a shit about the work they do and the programs they create. They care deeply about the people they help. As they’re getting clear on their niches, I hear something like this from many of them: “I like to help people with deep and nuanced transformation rather than quick fixes or practical tips. I worry that people are just looking for the practical solutions.” This thing tends to happen: Once you’ve chosen the topic of your signature program, you might start noticing Reels, Tiktoks or articles with simple tips to solve the problem you help people with. Some of those tips are useful, or even sufficient for some people. But those are not the people you’re selling your program to. Your people are ready for a paradigm shift, and that’s what you’re going to guide them through. Before they even sign up to work with you, they’ll learn that you’re inviting them to look at their problem in a different way, perhaps questioning some of their underlying assumptions. I actually encourage you to lean in to the depth and nuance of the solution you offer. Leave the quick tips to someone else. You get to be known for the stuff you are great at. The people who want to purchase your program have probably already tried those practical strategies, and have been failed by them, or they’ve already spotted that those strategies aren’t the right fit for them. Maybe some of your people are wondering why those things haven’t worked for them. They might even feel shame that they don’t seem able to fix this problem when some people say it’s simple. The attractiveness of YOUR offer is that you have a deeper solution, one that perhaps gets to the root of the issue. And your solution is one that they have not yet tried. You get to tell them: “You’ve tried these practical tips. It’s not your fault that those things haven’t solved this for you. To have a lasting change in how you experience this issue, here’s a completely different approach.” And then you name the paradigm shift. The person who wants to work with you will feel relief and resonance. I’ll give you an example. Lots of therapists I’ve worked with who help parents tell me: “I want to help parents who’s kids are having undesirable behaviors, but I’m not going to teach the parents how to get their kids to stop doing the undesirable behavior. I’m going to take the parents through a much deeper process that has to do with the parents accepting themselves and deeply accepting their child. The behaviors do usually shift quite a bit during that process, but I don’t want to promise that.” Great! You’re going to work with people ready for a paradigm shift around their children’s difficult behavior. If they’re like I was when my kids were younger, they’ve already tried about a million tips that seemed to work for other parents. But nothing stuck, and none of it really helped my family to feel grounded at a deeper level. Don’t hide the fact that you have a deeper solution, and don’t apologize for it. Lead with it. If you can articulate this paradigm shift well, the right folks will be grateful they finally found you. Your future participants are smart, and they like hearing what YOU’RE saying because they’re finally hearing something that sounds true. You’ll talk about the problem exactly as your right fit person is experiencing it, which perhaps includes feeling totally frustrated, hopeless, confused or ashamed. You’ll help them feel less shame when you point out that the reason why those quick fix solutions haven’t worked is because those tips don’t address the root of the issue. There’s nothing wrong with them. It’s not their fault. A deeper paradigm shift is needed, and it’s totally normal that they need support in moving through that. In fact, when I realize I’m ready for a paradigm shift, it’s an easy leap to wanting to consider signing up for your high touch program. If I’m gonna do some deep unlearning and profound inner work, I’m probably going to benefit from a container and a guide to walk me through that. And by the way, you probably DO offer some practical tips that will help your people find some relief soon. Feel free to share those too. In fact, just hearing about this paradigm shift is probably already helping them feel better. Join me for a free workshop on choosing a juicy niche for your program beyond private practice. Sign up at https://rebeltherapist.me/niche. It’s live on Tuesday, October 29th at 11am PT. But if you sign up you’ll also get a recording for about a week. A great niche is a HUGE predictor of the success of your program beyond private practice. Niching for a program beyond private practice is totally different from niching for your therapy practice. What worked there might not work here. We’ll talk about how to choose a juicy niche and how to articulate your niche so that the right people understand how valuable your program is. I haven’t offered a free workshop on niching in years, and I may not do it again for quite a while. I’d love to have you there. Get on the waitlist for Create Your Program If you’re thinking you might want to get my guidance with creating and selling your signature program, make sure you also get on the waitlist for Create Your Program. We start in January 2025, but I’ve got some really good early bird bonuses ONLY for folks who sign up in November. So go to https://rebeltherapist.me/create and get on that list so you’re notified as soon as we open registration. Show notes at https://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/232

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

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

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

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