Hey Therapist Entrepreneurs,
Experienced entrepreneurs will tell you that your business can only grow to the extent that you grow yourself as a person, and I’ve found that to be very true.
Whenever I get even a little bit comfortable, something needs to change, whether it’s my website, the tools I’m using, my comfort zone, or the strategies I’m applying.
One of the things I love about listening to so many podcasts is that I can always find a new place to grow myself, and then watch that growth reflected back in my business.
These three episodes were especially impactful for me this week, and they directly influenced changes I’m making right now to help Thriving Child Center continue to grow. I hope you feel like they’re worth it too.
My 3 Favorite Episodes This Week
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For defeating the myth that your training doesn't matter…
It's time to talk about being found by AI again. It's an important topic, but sometimes a really overwhelming one. The way that Chris Morin talks about AI in this episode of the Business Savvy Therapy podcast made me wrap my mind around the strategy. Here's the reframe: he talks at length about proving to AI that you are real and qualified and how that's not that different from proving to a human that you're real and qualified.
Thinking about AI as an entity who is evaluating our credentials and rating them compared to others suddenly gave me some clarity about how I could rewrite parts of my website in a way that would help ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude find me. Instead of thinking about "the robots," I was able to think about what kind of proof I would need in order to view another professional as legitimate.
Honestly, it was kind of hilarious to me that we've been listening for years to people telling us that our degrees and training don't matter. I've always scoffed at this personally. Of course I would want an extremely qualified clinician or doctor to work with me. You can listen to me talk about this at length in an earlier Worth It podcast episode, but the fact that you now need to prove it online is truly an advantage for any clinical psychologists who want to get found by AI.
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For several website changes you need to stay up-to-date…
There are so many changes we can make to our websites that I personally start to feel overwhelmed. My website has honestly kept me up at night more than once, which feels like a pretty lame reason to be awake at 2 a.m., but I also know that staying up-to-date with my marketing is one of the keys to continuing to build my business. I’ll be honest with you, sometimes there are so many things to do that I genuinely don’t know where to start.
This may be because I’m currently in the middle of an extreme website project where I’m taking two Squarespace websites and combining them into a WordPress website that I hope will rank significantly better for SEO. However, most people do not need a project of that scale. Learning how to make simple rewrites and tweaks that improve your website and help more clients find you is really the information most of us actually need.
That’s why I loved this episode of Marketing Therapy. Anna Walker talks specifically about how updating small things like your FAQ page can make a real difference in how you’re found online.
This episode kind of piggybacks off of the Business Savvy Therapist episode because it helps you understand what tweaks you can make today before you go into a giant AI deep dive another day. Sometimes several key changes that truly move the needle are enough, and if you’d like to understand what those are, I highly recommend this episode.
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For surrounding yourself with people who normalize your ambition…
When I told my wildly ambitious plans for scaling my practice to a group of successful entrepreneurs that I know well, nobody batted an eye. I was so nervous about verbalizing the goals that I wanted to reach that I could feel my hands shaking. Surely, someone would tell me that I was out of my mind? They didn't of course; everyone reacted as if I told them I was planning a mildly challenging camping trip. Interesting, but not shocking. My plans seemed normal to them.
That’s because I’m surrounded by people who normalize ambition. That is also the reason why I find myself becoming more successful.
It’s not just about trusting yourself. It’s about being around other people who are so secure in their success that it doesn’t even occur to them that you can’t achieve what they can. At first, it feels overwhelming to be in that room. When you see them spill chicken salad on the front of their blazers, it’s hard to still feel intimidated.
That’s what this episode of the Worth It Practice podcast is all about: putting yourself in rooms with people who view success as normal, and the incredible impact that has on you, your mindset, and your business.
If you’d like to approach your practice with the blind confidence of Elle Woods standing up to her snotty Harvard-bound fiancé, then this episode is for you.
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Leah's Personal Story Time:
I started because I had to, and now I can't stop
I’ve decided to post on Instagram. So far, I have posted eight times.
Ironically, not for Worth It Practice, but for my Educated Parent podcast. Now, this doesn’t seem like a big deal, and eight Instagram posts are certainly not impressive. However, I have had the biggest block about Instagram for probably the past five years.
I can’t fully explain it, but something about posting on Instagram created this extreme discomfort within me. I hated the idea so much that I delegated it to other people. The content didn’t look very good, and I knew it, but something about taking ownership of that task myself seemed impossible.
It’s interesting because I think most people avoid social media because they’re afraid of visibility or being seen on camera, and none of those things bother me. I have two podcasts. I’m constantly talking. I have YouTube videos connected to those podcasts. Clearly, visibility wasn’t the issue.
I think there was something about the mechanics of actually making a post that made me wrinkle my nose. Maybe it’s because I’m not a big consumer of social media in general. I love podcasts and listen to them constantly, but I do not actually enjoy Instagram.
Right now, I am on Instagram for one purpose and one purpose only: to learn what Instagram looks like so I can learn to post things that make some amount of sense on that platform.
Even though I’m there reluctantly, I still get sucked in. I’m like an actor who learned how to smoke for a TV role and now accidentally has a cigarette addiction. I’m pretty sure I could stop, but I had to start this bad habit for business reasons, and now I find myself watching probably the weirdest content imaginable.
For example, I now know how to breed pythons for specific color patterns and to hatch their eggs successfully. I know how to heal a cow’s foot and identify white line fractures (if you also follow @natethehoofguy, you’ll know too). I know how to turn an abandoned school into an apartment complex. I also get significantly more upsetting parenting content than I ever wanted from influencers who absolutely do not know what they’re talking about.
But the goal is the same: I realized I was avoiding something that would probably grow my business because it made me uncomfortable. And that goes against my value system as a person. I don’t avoid things because they’re uncomfortable. I avoid things if I think they’re a waste of time.
So now, if you want to watch me awkwardly but hopefully consistently conquer my five-year Instagram avoidance, you can follow me at @EducatedParentPodcast. Apparently I’m an Instagram person now, which is honestly shocking to me. But I’m doing it for the same reason I do most things in business: because I realized my discomfort was getting in the way of growth, and that’s not a good enough reason for me to stay stuck.
If it's Worth It, pass it along!
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Hope these resources help you grow your practice this week! Here's to your continued growth and success!
Warmly,
Leah
CEO of Thriving Child Center and PCIT Experts
Host of Educated Parent Podcast
Host of The Worth It Practice Podcast
CEO of Worth It Practice Consulting
