Hey Therapist Entrepreneurs,
You can have a lot of insight without a lot of action. It's sometimes so obvious to know what to do, but the actual sitting down and doing the thing is the hard part. We all know this.
We avoid things for real reasons. Sometimes we feel unprepared. Sometimes we're scared to look at what we might find. And honestly, that kind of avoidance is very human and not always the problem.
The dangerous part is when we don't even know why we're avoiding something. We just keep putting it off. If you can identify the real reason you're not doing something, you have something to work with. It's the avoidance without the awareness that actually gets us into trouble, and that's what ends up hurting our businesses in ways we don't always see coming.
Maybe that's why I was drawn to all of these episodes this week.
My 3 Favorite Episodes This Week
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For creating a neurodivergent-friendly website.…
There are a lot of podcast episodes about website copy, SEO, and how to “improve your website.”
But I had honestly never heard anyone talk about this before: what if your website is hard to process for the exact people you’re trying to help?
This new episode of The Entrepreneurial Therapist made me think about something I had completely overlooked—how neurodivergent adults experience and read our websites.
And let’s be honest… how many of us work with neurodivergent clients? Probably far more than we realize.
There’s plenty of good conversation in this episode about website strategy in general, but the real gold is at the end, where they spend several minutes talking specifically about how to make your website easier to navigate, easier to process, and easier to trust for neurodivergent adults.
If you are reworking your website right now, or honestly if you should be, this one is worth your time.
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For protecting your practice like the asset it actually is…
I’ve been doing a lot of uncomfortable grown-up things this week that I would strongly prefer to avoid.
I met with my estate planner to talk about wills.
Yuck.
I met with our financial planner to talk about finances.
Also yuck.
I even talked about disability insurance.
That one was maybe the yuckiest.
So when I saw a podcast episode about yet another thing in my practice that I probably should be thinking about, but absolutely did not want to think about, I decided to stay on theme and listen.
I’m really glad I did.
This episode of CEO Conversations with Brandy Mabra is about protecting your business in the event of divorce, and when she brought on a divorce attorney who specializes in practice divorce for physicians, I really sat up and listened.
Because here’s the reality: if you do not protect your business legally, something you spent years building can be treated like any other marital asset. In some situations, people end up having to sell the business, drain it financially, or even face bankruptcy because of how assets are divided.
I know this is not exactly a fun topic, especially because I love my wonderful engineer husband, but it really got me thinking:
Is it worth having a conversation about a postnuptial agreement so that I know the business will always be protected and stay in my name, no matter what happens?
Because I have put blood, sweat, and tears into building this practice, and the last thing I would want is for it to be destroyed while everything else in life is also falling apart.
If you’re like me and your instinct is to avoid this conversation entirely, you probably need to listen to this episode.
Honestly, 100% worth it.
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For understanding what’s actually getting in your way when you’re trying to grow…
I think a lot of us assume that if we just learn the right strategy, things will finally click. But I’ve also had plenty of moments where I knew exactly what to do and still wasn’t doing it, and often I didn’t even know why.
Looking back, it wasn’t because I didn’t understand it. It was because I was overthinking. I was hesitating. I didn’t fully trust myself because something underneath the strategy was still stuck.
Honestly, I never would have started the Worth It Practice Podcast without Danielle Swimm’s direct encouragement. I was afraid to be seen, especially by other psychologists, especially talking about business. It gave me stomach aches. It gave me insomnia. I kept trying to tell myself I didn’t actually want it.
Danielle encouraged me to unmute myself, and I have never been so grateful. I was incredibly honored to have her as a guest on the podcast that she supported me to create.
What made this episode especially powerful was how honest she was about her own experience. She talks about mindset all the time on The Entrepreneurial Therapist Podcast, but in this conversation she shared more personally about the internal work behind growth, what it looks like to move through fear, stop muting yourself, and trust your own voice.
I didn’t even feel like I was interviewing her. It felt more like a conversation about the part of business growth that people do not talk about enough, and I walked away inspired both as the host and as a listener afterward.
This episode is not really about strategy. It’s about the reason strategy sometimes still doesn’t work. Because if 80% of success is mindset, then this is the part that actually moves the needle.
If you’ve ever felt like you know what to do but still aren’t fully doing it yet, this one is for you.
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Leah's Personal Story Time:
Why is it so hard for me to learn this lesson?
I've been really busy this week with work, so busy that I find myself just sitting in my chair until my back hurts. Not exactly my ideal life, and definitely not the way I want things to go on, but I was telling myself that it was necessary. I'm in a growth phase, so I need to work more. I'll get outside into the sunshine with my dog another day.
This is not untrue. I am in a growth phase. But I learned something this week while working with ChatGPT.
I like to use ChatGPT as a moving to-do list. I tell it everything I have to do, and then I update it as I go and let it keep track of what's done. Today, I gave it a truly ridiculous list, probably 25 things. Instagram reels I needed to make, emails I needed to send, content I needed to post, structure I needed to review, networking follow-up emails, bills I needed to pay, honestly just a whole lot of stuff.
After working through a big chunk of it, I said, mostly to myself but also to ChatGPT, "Wow, can you see why I'm overwhelmed?"
And ChatGPT basically said yes, because you're doing a lot of things a CEO should not be doing.
Annoyingly, it was right. I was doing too much. Again.
I had fallen back into the trap I was trying to avoid. I've been trying really hard to delegate the things that are not actually my job, but somehow they keep creeping back in, and before I know it, I'm dealing with fluff instead of working on the strategic decisions that actually need me. It's just so easy for that to happen.
I started asking myself what I should actually be handing off. What could other people do better than me? What was truly CEO work, and what was just me holding onto things because I was used to doing them?
I probably do need to create my own content. That part is mine. But do I need to be the one uploading it to every platform? Probably not. Do I need to be the one paying every bill? Definitely not.
The irony is, I have help now. I have an office manager. I have admin support. I have a Clinic Director. I even have a nanny helping during the day. I thought I had resourced myself, but what I realized is that I haven't fully delegated things to the right people, and I probably need an executive assistant for some of the email and moving-pieces work.
I can tell you the immediate ROI of this very annoying realization: I delegated all of the bill-paying tasks to my admin that same day, and I realized a few other things need to be structurally different too.
That delegation freed up an extra hour of my time. An hour that I spent taking a walk outside with my dog, unsticking my back, and thinking about a whole new episode for The Educated Parent Podcast that I've been wanting to make.
That hour was worth it in so many ways.
If you notice that you are spending all day doing a hundred little tasks and ending the day exhausted, I'd encourage you to ask whether those are actually CEO tasks. Figuring out what belongs to me as the CEO is the work that I have to do over and over again.
It feels more like organizing a closet. It looks beautiful when you first fix it, and then six months later, somehow everything has drifted and nothing is back where it belongs. You have to reorganize it again.
Apparently, ChatGPT helped me realize my CEO closet needed cleaning.
So now I'm cleaning it up.
If it's Worth It, pass it along!
Got a fellow therapist or practice owner who would love this info? Send them this email! They can also join the list by clicking on this link. Let's help more people thrive in their businesses.
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