Embark on a journey through the intricacies of therapy and entrepreneurship with me, Steve Bisson, and my esteemed guest, Laura Long. We're tearing down the curtains to reveal the unspoken challenges and triumphs of therapists who are not just clinicians but innovators at heart. Laura, with her vast experience in marriage and family therapy, takes us behind the scenes of her mastermind groups and retreats, offering a fresh perspective on how authenticity shapes the therapeutic journey and powers personal growth.
Grapple with me as I recount the reality of therapy sessions. We're laying it all on the table, from the frustrations with punctuality to the dance of therapist-client dynamics. It's not just a look into the therapist's office—it’s a mirror reflecting our own expectations and the hurdles therapists jump through to deliver care amidst the maze of client numbers and insurance battles.
Finally, we take the plunge into the world of therapist entrepreneurship, where risks are the currency, and innovation is the prize. I peel back the layers of my own ventures into podcasting and authoring, while Laura and I explore the parallels between the strategies of soccer and the agility needed in business. It's not just talk; it's a celebration of the diverse paths that lead to a vibrant and dynamic practice. So, tune in and get ready to be inspired to think differently about therapy, entrepreneurship, and the spaces in between.
You can see Laura's work on her website here.
You can also get Freed.ai here. Use code Steve50 for $50 off your first month.
Embark on a journey through the intricacies of therapy and entrepreneurship with me, Steve Bisson, and my esteemed guest, Laura Long. We're tearing down the curtains to reveal the unspoken challenges and triumphs of therapists who are not just clinicians but innovators at heart. Laura, with her vast experience in marriage and family therapy, takes us behind the scenes of her mastermind groups and retreats, offering a fresh perspective on how authenticity shapes the therapeutic journey and powers personal growth.
Grapple with me as I recount the reality of therapy sessions. We're laying it all on the table, from the frustrations with punctuality to the dance of therapist-client dynamics. It's not just a look into the therapist's office—it’s a mirror reflecting our own expectations and the hurdles therapists jump through to deliver care amidst the maze of client numbers and insurance battles.
Finally, we take the plunge into the world of therapist entrepreneurship, where risks are the currency, and innovation is the prize. I peel back the layers of my own ventures into podcasting and authoring, while Laura and I explore the parallels between the strategies of soccer and the agility needed in business. It's not just talk; it's a celebration of the diverse paths that lead to a vibrant and dynamic practice. So, tune in and get ready to be inspired to think differently about therapy, entrepreneurship, and the spaces in between.
You can see Laura's work on her website here.
You can also get Freed.ai here. Use code Steve50 for $50 off your first month.
Hi and welcome to Finding your Way Through Therapy. A proud member of the SiteCraft Network, the goal of this podcast is to demystify therapy, what can happen in therapy and the wide array of conversations you can have in and about therapy Through personal experiences. Guests will talk about therapy, their experiences with it and how psychology and therapy are present in many places in their lives, with lots of authenticity and a touch of humor. Here is your host, steve Bisson.
Speaker 2:Hello, I'm Zett Darinage. You are an angel and thank you and welcome to episode 142. If you haven't listened to episode 141 yet, please do so. It is with Catherine Darley. We talked about sleep and it was a great episode. I've certainly used some of the tricks already, so I hope you go and listen to that, but episode 142 will be with Laura Long.
Speaker 2:Laura Long is someone I met from a different podcast I was on, and she's a licensed marriage and family therapist based out of Greenville, south Carolina. In addition to her private practice, laura also provides coaching, consultation and mentorship to mental health therapists, helping them gain confidence in her practice and other entrepreneurial pursuits. I think we're going to talk about that. She offers online masterminds, in-person retreats and conducts workshops for therapists who are ready to do the damn thing. I also know that Laura is a real person and I can't wait for you guys to hear more from her. So here is the interview. Hey there, everyone, you've known me to host this podcast for about 130-something episodes before I put actually any type of commercials on here, and I'm looking right now at my healthcare professionals, looking to have a real impact with our clients. I really enjoyed this product and I've actually used it personally and that is why which is very important for me to tell you, because that's why I want to share this I want to introduce FREED F-R-E-E-D.
Speaker 2:Freed, the app that listens, transcribes, writes your medical documentation for you. With FREED, you actually can actually pay attention to your clients, do things with your clients, and not be distracted by making sure you're writing notes. What also helps with this app is that the note is saved for about 10 days and it does disappear no longer as there after a while. So writing down those notes is no longer your responsibility. The AI, freed, will write the note for you and create a progress note for you. But it goes also beyond that and what I really like about it is that it can help you set goals and it even creates a letter. You can make any type of edit to it and there's actually a button now for it to learn how you write your own notes. So maybe the first few days you set it up so that your FREED can recognize your note taking process and how you want to create a progress note either soap or what have you and it really helps you with that.
Speaker 2:And, the best part, it's very affordable. I really think that at $99 a month, you'll have access to what helps your practice and I can tell you from personal experience taking notes, writing down notes, writing down the goals, writing down any type of letter a client might need. That usually takes me I don't know. It takes me a lot of time during the week. I used to do my notes on Sunday and it used to take me about three hours. Now I think that if it takes me an hour, that's surprising. And when you think about FREEDAI, it's very affordable. For just $99 a month, you can access everything that I just talked about. If you pay for the whole year, you actually save 10%, which is what I did, and I'm looking forward to continuing to use it.
Speaker 2:And because you hear this podcast, you're my friend, someone I know I have a little treat for you. You can use the code STEEV50 against STEEVEE50, and you'll get $50 off for your first month. That's right more value for your money. I don't want you to miss out on how to get your practice going and give yourself a freedom to pay attention to what's important. Why we did this job is to pay attention to the client. So download FREED today. Don't forget to use my code STEEV50 for $50 off the first month, and let's make a difference in our clients' lives and make sure we can pay attention to them. When you're free, your clients always come first. Well, hi everyone and welcome to episode 142. I'm just excited to have someone who I've met her before on a different podcast Scaling your Therapy Practice with James Marlin. That was a few months ago of I think it was October 2023. And I loved Laura so much and now that we did a pre-interview I love her even more because she's my peeps, basically. But welcome, laura Long, to Finding your Way Through Therapy.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having me, steve. It only took like four months for us to get this date coordinated, sorry.
Speaker 2:But you know, I think that between being a French Canadian and Quebecer, now someone from Massachusetts who's an American citizen talking to a Long Island Southern bell, I think we just got all complex around all that stuff. There's a lot going on and then I'd be like, hey, what are we going to talk about? We're like, yeah, we're just going to shoot the shit. So I was very happy to hear that and that's kind of like the best thing in the world in my opinion.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we're just kind of free balling it. Hopefully some value will come out of it in the process.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I always think that people like real conversations. Most people love it because they say like they don't feel like it's a podcast, feel like they're listening into a conversation. It's kind of weird. Yeah, little creepers. Yeah, like the voyeurism and we can talk about sex therapy afterwards.
Speaker 3:Sure, let's do it. I'm game Whatever, whatever comes out, Steve.
Speaker 2:We will go down any rabbit hole. I'm more than happy to go there, like you said. You know I told you before we were pressed for court, so I'm going to try to get you angry Like good luck. I'm a therapist. I find the rabbit hole about willing to go into. But I feel like I know you already. But my audience doesn't know you because maybe they didn't listen to James podcast. So how about you tell him a little bit about yourself?
Speaker 3:Short thing. Well, my name is Laura Long. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist based out of Greenville, south Carolina, and I'm also a business coach for therapists.
Speaker 2:If you've got to flick your hair.
Speaker 3:I'm a southern bay, that one. Exactly Well how many accents can we do today?
Speaker 2:I know that's what I think we're going to try to do, but I think that it's you know. Maybe I can ask you. You know, everyone comes into my show. I say, you know, be in therapy. And I don't know if you ever been in therapy. So I ask you have you ever been in therapy?
Speaker 3:I've been in therapy a lot, a lot, steve. Okay, so you want to know the real deal.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you the real deal. I'd like the real deal. That's what I'm going to tell you the real deal.
Speaker 3:Because there's a socially desirable answer I could give you. And then there's the real shit that I'm going to give you. So the real shit is I have been to probably six or seven therapists in the last 10 years and I don't make it past like session four most of the time, because I'm not the easiest client.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 3:I yeah, I am kind of a pain. I think it's because so my background is is like entrepreneurial, and when you're an entrepreneur, forget the fact that you're a therapist. But when you're an entrepreneur, you care a lot about your customers and the customer experience. That is like the creme de la creme for me customer experience. And as a therapist, I like to bleed aspects of that into my work with clients.
Speaker 3:So it's not just about a client finding me on psychology today, calling me and coming in. I want them to have a nice experience. So I've got this nice room and we've got like a drink station and I care a lot about communication and being on time and all these like what we would call professional issues and therapy. I see them as customer experience. So from the very first time someone learns about me until our final termination slash, graduation session, I want them to feel like nurtured and cared for on multiple levels. And when I am the client, I expect the same thing. And then when I don't get it, it's really hard for me to like open up and be vulnerable with someone whose desk has shit all over it or who was late to our first appointment or whose clock is broken. So I'm just I'm not an easy client in that way. So therefore I have seen a lot of therapists. Unfortunately, I just haven't seen any of them for very long.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, having standards is not the worst thing in the world, if you ask me.
Speaker 3:Well, I appreciate that reframe my standards are pretty high.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because I'm like you know, if someone is perpetually late to their sessions as the therapist, if they're perpetually late, or if the communication is lacking or like I just noticed little little holes in the ship, so to speak, then I start to question their clinical abilities, which is not necessarily fair, right, because if someone has a crap over their desk or they're running late a couple of times, like could they still be a great therapist? Absolutely so. I've just I've yet to really find that I don't know what I'm looking for. Diamond in the rough? I don't know.
Speaker 2:You put on my glasses here for the YouTube channel.
Speaker 3:Won't that be your?
Speaker 2:defense mechanisms. Laura, Maybe you can talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, let's talk about it. Yeah, so I've had a hard go of it, but on the other hand, I also am the person to be like. Yeah, I'm a therapist and I'm a real person. I still have real issues too. I worked with couples for the first like decade of my career and I would often find myself telling them hey, just because I'm married and just because I'm a marriage and family therapist, doesn't mean that my husband and I don't go at it. I've definitely called him a schmuck once or two times.
Speaker 2:Schmuck. Okay, we're gonna.
Speaker 3:It's the New Yorker coming out.
Speaker 2:I was gonna go. We're gonna go with the Yiddish a little bit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yiddish schmuck and that's Fakata. But anyway, no, I think that that's a valid point. By the way, no, I think this is a good place to go because for me, lateness is also something For me. I just did a survey. Someone called me right before this and it was an insurance company and I will remain nameless. They said how long do people wait in your waiting room? Zero to 15 minutes, 15 minutes to 30 minutes, over 30 minutes? I'm like five minutes is too much for me. I get upset when I'm late. Five minutes for my clients. I text them from my room and go. Something's going on, I'll be right with you or whatever. What do you consider late?
Speaker 3:What would I consider late? Yeah, One minute, two minutes. Yeah, If my appointment is at noon and my therapist comes out to get me at 12.03, I'm not visibly upset. It's just like I'm keeping. It's like a little internal data like why weren't they ready? I was ready. I'm paying for a 50-minute session. So you just I lost three minutes of that. We're down to 47 minutes by the time I sit down and get my bearings. Now we're at 45 minutes. So am I paying for a 50-minute session or a 45-minute session? Yeah, I guess I have high standards.
Speaker 2:Well, I worked with the military, still do. One of the things I learned from the military is if you're five minutes early, you're on time, and if you start on time, you're late. I'm not saying that I'm perfect by any stretch, but most of the time I'm within the minute of the time that I said I would start my session.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it shows respect to your client that you honor their time just as much as they're honoring their time. Yeah, A lot of what I do as a therapist stems from experiences that I've had as a client and how I want my clients to feel when they come to therapy, so even sitting in their vantage point when they sit on the couch. Sometimes I'll sit on the couch and be like okay, what does it feel like and look like to sit here? Do I feel comfortable? What would make it better? That's client experience, customer experience.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:I wish that more therapists thought of that, but unfortunately I think a lot of therapists worry. They bring that worry to their practices because they're worried about having more clients, or do I have enough clients, or do I get off of insurance, or there's just a lot of worry that they bring but they don't focus and I know I'm speaking more generally, but I don't think they focus enough on the clients that are already coming to see them and how to make their experience of therapy even better.
Speaker 2:I mean, you bring up those points and I have like seven questions that popped into my head about that. One of the things that I've done is my office looks a little bit like a man cave, as some people have said to me, and I'm fine with that. By the way, that's my choice. I decided to put my personality on the wall the best I can, but probably attracts a very particular type of person, though, who appreciates that.
Speaker 2:Or doesn't appreciate it and becomes a good source of conversation. Honestly, sure, yeah, like people like I'm a Montrealer, so I have a lot of Montreal Canadian stuff in the Boston area and so the Boston Bruins fans don't really like my Canadians. But it becomes a conversation about different things and I think that there's there's value in that. But the one thing I've always done is I put it whenever I put up some stuff, I sit where the clients are typically sitting and then I look at what they're looking at.
Speaker 2:Most of them have access to two windows. They have access to sings on the walls that are nice and all that and then they also have one that says suck it up, buttercup. I don't know if that's common for therapists to think about, but for me I don't think they're going to run out of clients, are we?
Speaker 3:I don't think so.
Speaker 2:I mean, I agree with you, but I don't worry about that stuff. I worry about if the clients are comfortable or not, and sometimes my clients. I had a client who didn't like my. I had a blanket and she like I don't really like this blanket so I don't know, you can bring your own. She bought me a blanket for Christmas. She liked it. And then a couple of other clients like oh, that's nice, you didn't choose that, did you? And I'm like thank you. You know I banter with my clients. I don't know about you, but I always banter.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, we're people too. You know, obviously, what we talk about can be really serious at times and heavy, but I think it's also important to show that, yeah, we're real people. We can have normal conversations too.
Speaker 2:I mean, we talked about rabbit holes. You know when you're down the rabbit hole probably not time for banter, nope. But you know, like, even between, like after the end of the session, to like wrap up sessions or to start up a session, I'll start very banter, like to have a conversation. I don't know what happens with you, but that really warms up people in my opinion.
Speaker 3:Well, I think part of becoming a therapist, or wanting to become one, is because you genuinely like talking to people. You know, if you're someone who hates people or doesn't want to talk to people, or you just want to be like so my husband's a very introverted engineer and if he never talked to another soul for the rest of his life, he'd probably be perfectly content. I would hope that the best therapists are ones who genuinely enjoy just talking to people, getting to know people, learning about them, sharing things with them. It's not just about what is our, you know, treatment modality.
Speaker 2:Right, I mean that's that's. The hard part is that I'm sick of hearing treatment modalities, you know, like when you're not niche or not, to niche, you know, for me.
Speaker 2:I'm like, yes, I do work with first responders in the majority and that includes, like ER people and I work with military, which I enjoy tremendously, but the reason why is that they're people, yeah, yeah, and I don't know, as my one cop once said to me, so you took all the quote normal, you like adults and you worked with the hardest motherfuckers you could find and like, yeah, I love that.
Speaker 3:But what I noticed about your population is that you work with people who, in their own lives, they are the heroes and they can never let their guard down. They're the ones who have to have their shit together. You're working with first responders. You're working with people in the military. They don't have a place, generally, I would imagine, to go where they can just be themselves and shoot the shit and just speak candidly, because everyone in their circles depending on them, right. So you give them a place or a person. You get to be the person that they can then depend on and let off some steam and just be real with, and I think that that's what we all aim for.
Speaker 2:You talk about. You know your entrepreneurship stuff. I think as an entrepreneur I learned a long time ago that I was a big fan of entrepreneurship. I learned a long time ago that if therapy was just let's do CBT technique number 17, cognitive behavioral therapy, and do cognitive dissonance, the scut, I'm like I couldn't do this. I would be the one who's on the couch all the time. So I don't know about you, but as an entrepreneur, did you find your own way by doing what you like or what you didn't like, or how did you figure all that shit?
Speaker 3:up. Who knows, I'm still figuring it out. You know, I always wanted to be a therapist. I don't know why, it just is something that was always intriguing to me. And then you know, of course, we go to grad school and we just learn all of the techniques, what you were just talking about. We learn about the different modalities and efficacies and, yeah, all the different CBT worksheets and everything. And then you, through your training program, you don't know what you're doing.
Speaker 3:I used to equate it to we're being expected to perform a lot of things. I used to equate it to we're being expected to perform surgery, but we've never actually seen a surgeon do it in my grad program anyway. But I would say, once you venture out into the field, you know, you graduate, you get your hours, you go through supervision. At some point you learn what works for you, what works for your clients. You do more of that. You get more continuing education around those things and over time you just start to fall into what feels good for you.
Speaker 3:I always knew that when I related to people in the therapy room and didn't act like a bobblehead or like this, you know clean slate that I was taught originally to be. When I. When I put that aside and just showed up as myself, I connected more easily with clients and their outcomes improved, as opposed to when I just focus on the model and the assumptions of the model. So I think there's a lot to be said for just that. We call it the therapeutic alliance. You know just the relationship that you have is so important and you can't have that at least a genuine one if you're not willing to show up in a more authentic way.
Speaker 2:And I think that you're absolutely right. I mean, you know and, by the way, I just recommend to you the myth of normal by Gabor Maté to figure out why you're doing what you're doing that way. After you read that book, you're going to have, oh shit moments left and right.
Speaker 3:Can't wait, I'm writing it down. But yeah write it down and get the pen out of my boo bag.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love the boo bag. That's cool.
Speaker 3:It says you're perfect. I don't know if you can read it if it's backwards for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can read it, yeah and everyone's going to see it on YouTube. It's going to be perfect, I'm excited. All right, thank you, libby.
Speaker 3:Murdoch Shout out to my friend Libby therapist and Cincinnati. Now do I have to like my boot bag?
Speaker 2:Do I have to go on YouTube and tell him that I had like restricted content now?
Speaker 3:Yep explicit Because the cartoon boobs cartoon boobs.
Speaker 2:You know that's always dangerous, but yeah, no, I think that you're absolutely right and I think that what you know, one of my graduate program teachers went to Stony Brook and that's the first thing he says like you're not bringing CBT in the room, you're not bringing DBT to your room, you're not bringing psychoanalytic to your room, you're bringing you to your room. And never forget that. I really like Peter Tuscano. Rest in Peace, peter. I love Peter, but I always remember that, and you know you grew up in Long Island too, so go figure, but I think it's learned. I think it were. You know, part of the other thing that I like to do is to bring who I am and my like. I didn't grow up, you know. I'm not saying I was poor by any stretch of the imagination, but you know blue collar parents, parents who never graduated high school until later, and they had blue collar. My dad had a blue collar job most of his life. I think it brings out the therapy and I think people can relate to you a lot more too.
Speaker 3:Well, and even you know, going back to my entrepreneur roots, from a business standpoint, I think it actually works in our favor when we bring ourselves to the therapy room, because if all I am is a bobblehead CBT therapist which I'm not I don't really practice CBT, I'm just using that as an example. But well, I do. That's a separate issue We'll talk about that later maybe when it comes up.
Speaker 3:But let's just say, I practiced primarily CBT and you practiced primarily CBT. Well, if we live in the same town, what differentiates us from a business standpoint? If all we are is bobblehead CBT practitioners, why would someone choose to see you over me? It wouldn't matter, we just therapy would become commoditized. At that point it's a race to the bottom and we're just going to go with whoever is cheapest. But what makes us unique and different is that we are bringing ourselves to the room. So the way that I would hypothetically interpret CBT or any other model is going to be different from how you might interpret it slightly. But bringing ourselves into it is why first responders would be more inclined to see you over me or why a budding entrepreneur would be more likely to see me over you. That makes us creative monopolies. That's what makes marketing a lot easier. It makes everything better and easier both for us and our clients when we bring ourselves into the room.
Speaker 2:And all joking aside, it's going to come off as a joke, but I promise it's not a joke. It also helps like I don't have boobs. But for some women they need someone who's a therapist, who's going to be safe. That happens to be a male. And then I go hey, guess what? I'm not the only male in this world, that's safe and that's going to create a safe environment for you. And I think that's important too, because I also know men, like some men, come in for a few sessions like don't take this the wrong way, I need to open up to a woman. I can't open up to a man, it's fine.
Speaker 2:It's not an attack me personally. You know what Laura's down the street. She's got a good personality too. Go see Laura. I think that's also important for therapists, and I think that's missing too, to say, look, maybe I'm not your cup of tea and that's okay.
Speaker 3:That's totally fine.
Speaker 2:But I think we don't do that enough, in my opinion, because we sit behind the fears. Like you said, entrepreneurship Am I going to run out of clients? Am I going to run out of money? What's going to happen next?
Speaker 3:Oh, the scarcity is huge and that must be a hard thing to balance as a therapist the scarcity of just owning a business and am I going to get clients and what's going to happen? When also understanding that in order for us to do our jobs well, we need to be working ourselves out of a job with our clients. So it's an interesting dichotomy, maybe that therapists are having to balance Is this desire to help, which means I'm working myself out of a job I don't want you to be in therapy forever and balancing that with the scarcity of? Okay, well, if I graduate, four clients this week, those are four hours on my case load next week that are wide open. What do I do?
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's also realizing that there's always going to be referrals. You know I joke around and it's not really a joke, but you know I went into private practice and one of the saddest day of my private practice is when I was full, and the reason why is that that's all I want. I want to be a therapist and I want to be full. I was full and I'm like shit, I'm 40. I got like 20 something years left of this crap.
Speaker 3:Yeah, now what do I do?
Speaker 2:Right, and I think that when you talk about you know one of the conversations you talk about entrepreneurship, and what I tell a lot of therapists that I work with is you know, okay, so you're afraid to be scarce. Then what's the commodity you bring to the table that's unique and what do you have any ideas of what you want to do next?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I think it's a little bit of you know pre-interview, and even in the notes you know you're in the middle of, like you know two you know projects at this point, so to speak, and that's what I tell people Like for me when I get bored guess what? Got a podcast out of it, got a book out of it, working on a military project. I can't really go into details just yet, but I'm working with that. I'm working with the first responders on different models too, and that's all fine and good, because that's what I find that is healthy to do in our field. I don't know what you think.
Speaker 3:But yeah well, I think that everyone is a little different, so I'm hesitant to just say that the way I do it is the way it should be done. It's worked for me. I probably would work for a lot of other people, but it's not necessarily going to work for everyone. I'm a very restless entrepreneur so, like yourself, when I get bored, I need to do something else.
Speaker 3:There was a time where I was just adding more things and that, in and of itself, became a bit stressful. I became it's like you got this light bulb moment, followed by another light bulb moment and all of a sudden all the light bulbs go out. So there was definitely some burnout that I dealt with a couple of years back and I'd say that I've recovered pretty well, but on paper it still looks like I'm doing a lot of shit. Yeah, I do, I get restless. So it's like I'll come up with a new idea or a new project and start venturing into that, and for me it's fun. That's not the case for everyone. Some people, if they just want to see clients they want to see 20, 25 clients a week for 30 years they feel great. Sure, do that. Just because I do it differently doesn't make it the way to do it, but I've yet to meet someone who is only a therapist and not something else and happy and feeling content.
Speaker 2:And I think that you talked about the scarcity, the lows of entrepreneurship as being that scarcity mentality and that's why, for me, when I talk about, you say it's not for everyone, you're right, but I remind people then go do something that might be scary for you, because the great thing about being an entrepreneur in your own field is do something. Scary Because, worst case scenario, you drop it and you still can go back to your 25 clients a week or whatever hell you decide, and you don't really lose anything other than a few hours, a few days or a few months, but I don't know. That's what keeps me from falling into scarcity mode personally.
Speaker 3:Right, because what would happen if you got to the end of your career and now you regret not taking action on an idea you had? Because once you get an idea as an entrepreneur, it's hard to just Kill it unless you try it. And it doesn't work. If you just have this idea that you think, oh, that's a great idea, and then you never take action on it, it will eat away at you and consume you if you don't do something about it. So I'd much rather try a few different things and have them fail miserably, then never even try, only to wonder later Could that have been because I'd have changed people's lives?
Speaker 2:And I think that that's why you do different things and that's why, like I, I think that being an entrepreneur in this field Is one of the best gifts, because psychology is everywhere.
Speaker 2:You know I think that my clients love the fact that sometimes they can access my podcast or grab my book or what have you, and Sometimes they're like, wow, you're doing too much and you're too scattered, I don't want to deal with you, and that's funny too and that's okay. But I also really realized for me as a therapist I need to have these things to look forward to, because I'm not a sit still type of guy.
Speaker 3:And that's actually this, this new project that I'm working on. It's still in its infancy, but it is helping to support therapists who are ready to explore other avenues. There's a lot out there for therapists who want to become coaches. I feel like that's a pretty big, saturated market, but not not enough. People are talking about all of the different cool things that therapists can do, and You're a living example of that.
Speaker 3:I mean being a therapist in private practice, but you also have a podcast, you've written a book, you do some consulting work. You know it's nice to have that level of diversification, even if people look at you and think you're crazy for being what they would consider scattered baby right, yeah, that's true, but yeah, like, I do a lot of things too. I like to do clinical supervision and I'm an adjunct instructor at a few different colleges and I enjoy that. It's not something that I'm doing every single day, but it just keeps it keeps the field interesting, keeps me from getting bored. But I also think that it makes me a better therapist because I'm having to keep my finger on the pulse of new information, new data, things that are coming down the pipeline that can help my clients too.
Speaker 2:Like you said. You know. You know, podcasting came by accident for me. I wrote the book and then a couple people said, like this is a great, this would be a great podcast talking about how to find your way through therapy and Talk about entrepreneurship, talk about experience in therapy, fake your French accent once in a while, or talk to someone from Long Island who's now a Southern L or whatever. But, joe, all joking aside, I also tried stuff that's failed and I'm okay with that. I mean, I had a French podcast that I tried because I've always like I should do it in French. It too. It's obviously this is my first language and I.
Speaker 3:Obviously it's your first language. I mean maybe because of where you're from, but it doesn't sound like well to me. I'd be your first language.
Speaker 2:Maybe we say a TH word and really you'll tell right away. But you know, I tried to do the French podcast and Turns out, you know, there's like there was no market for it and maybe I didn't market it right, maybe I didn't have the enthusiasm, maybe a combination of 17 different things, and I shut it down beginning of this year. But I don't regret trying that and I'm okay with my failure. I'll learn something from that failure and I think that that's the other part that entrepreneurs fail to realize no pun intended that Failing is a good thing. You're gonna learn something from that fail.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, to me, failure is information. I don't even I see it as completely neutral. It's not good, it's not bad, it's informative. So for you doing this French podcast and it didn't work you got a lot of information and therefore you derived a lot of value from that. What would have happened if you didn't never start it? It would be nagging at you like, well, what could this thing be and why aren't you doing it? So I think when we fail, I don't necessarily celebrate failure, but I definitely am not gonna run away or shy from it because I think it's gonna help me either way. But it's neutral and.
Speaker 2:And I and you know you joke you, I don't, you weren't joking around, but you talked about, you know, therapists, not you know we're not working out and you've had six or seven therapists. But all those quote failures, thought you what you wanted out of therapy and maybe the things that you also have to go like, wait a minute, that's not as important.
Speaker 2:Maybe, you know it's okay if they're cut ties, crooked or they don't wear a tie and I'm making it up here. I don't know if it was a tie to broke it for you. But the point being is, you know, I tell, I tell myself that that's okay for those failures to Accur so that you can learn from, and that's okay for our clients to learn from that too.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Well, what I got from that was how I wanted to show up as a therapist and then also as I'm coaching other clinicians who want to do private practice, and as a supervisor, how I want to supervise Therapists so that, at least from a professional issues standpoint, they're showing up to sessions on time. You know they're, they're showing that they honor their clients time. They're showing up to sessions prepared, having read their notes from the week prior or just understanding what are the goals that we're working toward, as opposed to come into sessions unprepared. So I think I've learned the value of that from my experiences on the other side of the couch, you know.
Speaker 2:I know I've learned a lot from my therapists that I've had. I've had Not quite seven, but probably like three over the last ten years and one of them was seven years, so I was with her for a long time. But I bring that experience and you know, even if and I don't say anything bad about my former therapist or current therapist but sometimes their response was a little harsh or like whoa. And now when I have a client who says similar things, I'm like hey, be careful on how you react, because you learn from being on the other side of the couch. That might be coming off as harsh.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm, Absolutely so. I think we learn a lot from being the client.
Speaker 2:And I think that that's why, like entrepreneurship for therapists like you know, I appreciate how Laura's just an amazing woman. All joke, like I've we've joked a lot, but I love Laura because she's like who's your audience? And you know she was asking me and I said honestly, I think it's both sides. I think therapists need to hear a little bit about it and I think clients want to know that we're humans too and that's what I've. One of the things I if tomorrow something happens to me and the only thing you remember is that he was a human and he humanized therapy. I've done my job in life, yeah you're good.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I think that that's the other part, too, that I really like about you, laura, is that you're a great human and you're you know. You talk about your success, you talk about your difficulties, you make, you know jokes and use humor. I think that that's what we tend to forget to do. As a therapist, we become too so fucking self-involved Sometimes. Yeah, we forgot like, you're just a unit.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for that and I think that's why, like you know, when you talk about, you know the, the entrepreneurship and all that you know, I always wonder how you know, how did I succeed? Was pretty easy is like I threw a big A against the wall and saw what stuck, and you know. I'm a childhood family specialist and I hate working with children or family.
Speaker 3:And I love that for you.
Speaker 2:I know, but it it's not because of the children, it's not about the kids and it's the parents that I couldn't stand and, yes, if you are my former client, you can do whatever hell you want that information. But bring it to your new therapist, I guess right, exactly, but the point is is that you know? I think that you know the mindset is it's okay to fail, but it's also okay to try things, but don't be Content on sitting on your laurels. In my opinion, that's yeah entrepreneurship.
Speaker 3:I agree. I think that every great entrepreneur just try shit. And the ones who do really well, it appears that everything they touch turned to gold. And oh my gosh, jeff Bezos. Look at this right, look, look what he did. Look at all these amazing entrepreneurs to do these great things, or big things, or billionaires. Now, we don't often look at all the failures, do we? It's just that Something they tried, worked out and they kept doing it.
Speaker 3:So if you want to be a great entrepreneur, you too are Tassed with having to try things, and sometimes it's not gonna work, and that's totally fine. As you were saying, steve, it's information, it's okay. So what do we need to learn from that? What? How can we pivot? But I think there's a misconception that if someone is a great entrepreneur, it's because everything they tried worked. They had a great idea, they did it. It worked the first time Awesome. And so then, the first time, we experienced some sort of tribulation or roadblock. If we just give up and quit, then I guess we're not great entrepreneurs, and I mean you have to push through that.
Speaker 2:But I think it's also kind of like where we need to learn to accept failure as what it is. It's failure, it's okay. It doesn't mean you are a failure.
Speaker 3:Correct Just because the thing that you tried failed. Yeah, don't get your, don't derive your sense of worth and value from your projects.
Speaker 2:I love talking to my soccer girls and my coach, my daughter, who's 13. I've been coaching her and my oldest for about 10 years now. This is my spring is going to be my last season, so to speak, so I'm looking forward to it. One of the things I've said to the girls when we lose, I say we have a lot more to learn from a loss than we do from a win, and I think that that's something we can translate to entrepreneurs and therapists too, in my opinion, Well, you've just solidified for me why we like each other so much, because I am a former soccer player.
Speaker 2:I was too, but I was lousy at it, but much better coach.
Speaker 3:I'm too afraid to be a coach because I think I'll be a screamer. I don't know I'll get way into it. No, I played my entire life. I played into college and then ultimately burned out after my first year in college and haven't really played much since, aside from, you know, pick up games here and there. Oh, I didn't know. Soccer, soccer was everything for most of my formative, formative years anyway.
Speaker 2:No, I watch a lot of like my oldest is my youngest likes it, but my oldest really loves it and we watch like women's soccer, we, you know. Again, I'm not quite, I know this is going to come out later, but we watched a Canadian team play another team and my daughter knows the girls on both teams, or the women. I should say that's very vulgar of me think, but yes, vulgar.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't know, but if someone's listening to your podcast and they're going to be offended by that, I think this is the wrong podcast.
Speaker 2:I'll go into the quick joke. My ex-wife went to a woman's college, but when I was meeting her and her friends I would always say a girl's school, just to piss them off.
Speaker 3:But, that's why the marriage didn't work. Yeah, that's, that's the divorce. That was it. It wasn't a response.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was like girl's school references too much, but now I think that that's soccer is life. I think that I love soccer just for that, and these girls are like deriving. What I love about my girls is they support each other and even like we have, you know, and not naming any girls, but some girls are not as talented as others and they elevate that girl and if she makes a great effort, like a good job, and they go and like I love that because you know that sometimes that's exactly what we all need and it brings that maybe when they grow up as women and just elevate other women versus sorry, the feminists and these kicking in now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I see that I like it.
Speaker 2:But, you know, I think that elevating women is better than like, oh, comparing and does she has this? Or who gives a shit?
Speaker 1:But that's just again.
Speaker 2:I have white male privilege and I understand that.
Speaker 3:I think you bring up an important point about attitude and entrepreneurship, because I've noticed a pretty strong link when I'm doing business coaching with a therapist who's wanting to start private practice or expand their practice or do something completely different. Maybe their practice is rocking and rolling and now they're wanting to explore another entrepreneurial venture and I've noticed such a strong link with their attitude about the project and how successful they ultimately end up becoming independent of my help.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:So if someone comes to a business coaching relationship and they are just tell me, tell me, like, give me some ideas and I'm excited to try them and I know I'll be successful in one way or another, because I'm just gritty and scrappy, I'm going to figure it out. But if they come to me and they're just riddled with fear about whether or not something's going to work, or I want to make sure that this is the right next step, you know every little thing they're checking in with me is this okay? Is that okay? They're timid and scared. They have a lot of scarcity and there's a lot of perfectionism there.
Speaker 3:They can be just as successful as the first group, but man does it take longer, absolutely, and it comes with a lot of, I think, cost to their own mental health and experience of the process of entrepreneurship. So, like with your girls, you know building each other up and understanding that when they lose a game, even a big game, there's a lot to be learned there. As you're teaching them that mentality, I would hope that that's really going to transfer into their adult lives, regardless of what career path they go down, that they will be more willing to take risks, and I think that's ultimately what entrepreneurship is is it's taking risks.
Speaker 2:And sometimes entrepreneurship, in my opinion, is don't worry too much, you know, get out of your head. And you know, that's a little bit. I teach, when my soccer girls too, because some girls are like okay, putting my foot down to this, and then by the time they finish thinking about it, the balls gone or whatever happened. And it was a few girls. I'm like stop thinking, go with instinct. You know what you're doing, just go with your instinct. And they do with their instinct, like, hey, I worked out. See, you can't overthink everything in life, you just got to do it sometimes.
Speaker 2:And if you make, a mistake, all right, that's fine, we're gonna figure it out from there, but I don't know. That's kind of what I heard you say. Is that it's okay? Like okay, so you made a mistake. It's not like the whole project is crumbled to death because you made a mistake.
Speaker 3:I think that's what I love so much about soccer and playing it not to bring that analogy back, but when I was playing it, you have to just be in the moment. You can't plan 15 moves ahead because you have no idea what the other team's going to do, so it forces you to be very present, focused. What am I doing with the ball right now? Where do I need to be right now? And all of a sudden it's been 90 minutes in the game's over.
Speaker 2:We're playing indoors right now because when we're recording this we're still in it, we're still in the winter and up here in the Northeast we got to play indoors. And I tell the girls Two touches, three touches. At the third touch it's gotta be gone. You can't do more than that because it's too small, it's a hockey Mm-hmm, and the girls really took into that. And two touches for those of you who don't know soccer, it means you touched the ball twice and it's gone. Or if you say three touches is to two touches and the ball is gone, you kick it on the third one. And the girls, once they get that, they're like wow, that really works. And I'm like yeah, you, you don't have the space, and outdoors you have that space, maybe you can go around. There's a lot of space, but under like it's a hockey brick size. Yeah, it's tiny.
Speaker 2:You don't have you gotta say you can only think one step ahead, really kick it off the the boards. Find it like look up quickly, find someone open, shoot at the net, but don't overthink it, just do it.
Speaker 3:I think that's what the best entrepreneurs do honestly, because the times in my career where I've tried to think too many steps ahead, it really hasn't worked out well for me. There's variables, I didn't consider, there's things that are gonna come up, my mind changes along the way and I got I just like a race the whole plan and start over, but to just be more nimble, you know, think one step ahead maybe, and go from there and then pivot. It just makes it a lot easier to pivot when you're not trying to think 14 steps ahead.
Speaker 2:It's good advice for clients too, frankly. Yeah you know, I think that that's the other part too, when you said that I'm like oh, I do say that on my clients, I'll overthink it, just do it. Yeah, then we'll get to the next step after that, and if it didn't work out, we'll go look back and where do we go wrong, and we'll work together and I make it part of the team effort even wouldn't have clients relationship.
Speaker 3:But at least you moved right you know, I don't want to be sitting in the same Shipstorm that I'm in a year from now. I at least want to be somewhere else.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna you break a wall here. For those of you who are uncomfortable, you can skip for about a minute. You know, laura and I were talking before the interview and saying I don't know what we're gonna talk about. Like, just shoot the shit, see where it goes. And People like, for some people I've done that in interviews and you could clearly tell this is not their comfort zone whatsoever. And for me it's like you just go with it, because if we you know even my set list questions I want you to forget. You got a mic in front of you. I just want to shoot the shit. But yeah, and so I don't. I did have questions just for the record, but I don't have a set question and I'm just gonna talk to someone and if we end up talking about soccer for 10 minutes, we're talking about soccer for 10 minutes. I really don't care.
Speaker 3:Well, now we have something to talk about. Off Off the recording.
Speaker 2:I mean it. You know, canada and the US teams are both in a little change right now. Couple of stars with a lot of transitions going on there. But yeah, I'll talk off the air about that.
Speaker 3:My daughter. She's only eight, she plays soccer and she's she's fine, but her love, her like thing that she absolutely is obsessed with right now is figure skating, and that is a whole new world for me. That's something I know nothing about.
Speaker 2:Individual sport versus team sport is a whole different bag all of yeah. Yes, no shit, I played. I did do figure skating for a short while myself actually you did yes, I.
Speaker 3:Just pegged you as the hockey player.
Speaker 2:I hate it playing hockey Really and I think I someone once one of the guys I work with told me if this is okay, it's my podcast, I do whatever I want. One of my my clients said I bet you didn't like the hockey skates because of how they fit on your foot. Your best part of a hockey game was to take off your skates. I'm like that's absolutely true, like yes, okay, figure skating skates are way different. They're not putting the same pressure on your foot, so probably why you like that better.
Speaker 3:Well, you just come across to me as a very dainty individual. So yeah, I can picture you doing some triple axles like a triple toe combination.
Speaker 2:At one point I had to make a choice between football and figure skating. It was football.
Speaker 3:Can you put your, your leg, you know like how they the really great skaters, so they can skate with their leg like vertically, like that? Can you do it there? You?
Speaker 2:go. My last time I went to PT, my PT said to me you're like the least flexible person I ever worked with and like is that a Compliment or I went anything, I get a challenge.
Speaker 3:So now I used to be a lot more, but I played football.
Speaker 2:I joke around that. You know, I didn't play hockey, I love football and I still love football over hockey. That's probably why they said leave Canada, man, you're an American, but now I like soccer, so they probably want to send me to Europe or some shit. I love soccer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we'll have to talk offline sometime, Reminisce about the good old days. I'm like the equivalent of that, you know. You know, I'm like the equivalent of that, you know, almost 40 year old guy who maybe played like Varsity football in high school. That hasn't touched it since. But every time football comes up they have to talk about the big game. You know, state championship. I feel like that sometimes.
Speaker 2:I did play soccer. I was terrible at it but more more good. Like that. I have that varsity football player mentality. I didn't get quite to varsity. I'm a you can't see because I'm sitting down but I'm five, seven and I wasn't much taller. At one point my coach says look, you're not tall enough. You just can't do it, dude, you can't be an offensive lineman at five, three yeah.
Speaker 3:I would imagine not so but I did appreciate the the soccer analogies today because I hadn't really put those two together. You know, it's like the attitude of failure and how you see a failed effort or If you lose a game four nil. It's easy to get wrapped up in that. But what you asked earlier with your girls is what do we learn? And I think entrepreneurship comes, it's inherent. You're going to fail multiple times if you're doing it right. So how do you deal with the failures and the fears? How do you overcome those? I think that's really important.
Speaker 2:You know the we last year we played at last spring we we got to the semifinals and we lost in Shootup and a couple of girls.
Speaker 2:That was their last town games and the last travel games that they were going to do. So a lot of them were sad and upset and some of them weren't and some of the other younger girls were upset and it was just nice to see everyone support each other and not there's you did your best, this and that was just great to see it. And you know like people ask me why I do the soccer stuff. I'm like, honestly, if I can empower people and done my job in life and those girls really like they're starting to get my humor, which is bad because I guess it's my last season. They're finally getting me after 10 years.
Speaker 2:But they came around eventually so it's got a fun and you know, and part of me is looking forward to having some free time and part of me is going to really mess being there with those girls, because I I see them grow up, so it's kind of cool. Yeah, well, it's the same thing as a client right, an entrepreneur or anything you do, I think it's the same thing.
Speaker 3:It's a both and you've got both of those that you're balancing. Well, I teach my clients that all the time.
Speaker 2:I think that you know at one point you are gonna have something to lunch and I'm gonna tell you right now. You tell me the date and I will make sure that you can come on to my podcast and you can talk about whatever you, how you want. I really enjoyed talking to you. Like I said, we talked on a different podcast with James Marlin and I truly appreciate you as a human being. I appreciate you as a therapist, what you do for entrepreneurs and as a woman and empowering other women again, that's all stuff that you know, truly appreciate about you. So thank you for coming on today.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks for inviting me. I know it took a while to get this set up and I really appreciate your honest efforts, continuing to reach out and be like, okay, now can I get you on. So thanks for everything that you do for first responders, for people who otherwise maybe would be a bit hesitant to come to therapy, and just for Really making it what it is. It's a human experience. So thanks for everything that you're doing through the podcast and your book and everything else that you've got going on. I got to come visit you sometime so we can shoot the shit.
Speaker 2:Well, I just want to see the Saturn bell out of you.
Speaker 3:Oh wow, that accent was rough.
Speaker 2:I know I'm not the.
Speaker 3:Southern Bale. I was in Florida. You had to touch your hair when you do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you very much.
Speaker 3:Florida is not the south Florida is not the south, florida is the north, but hot and sticky.
Speaker 2:But they had the Southern.
Speaker 3:Pah and like re yes, but we'll get into that another time.
Speaker 2:Alright, let's wrap this up. How about, even if you have nothing to plug? Yes, you'll come back on and we'll explain how. Florida is just the north going south, absolutely we'll talk about it.
Speaker 3:You can find me at yourbadasstherapypracticecom. That's my business, coaching for therapists, and if you are located anywhere in South Carolina and you're interested in some therapy, I'd love to talk with you. So you could find me at lauralongtherapycom.
Speaker 2:Can you have any social medias that you?
Speaker 3:I mean through Facebook. You're bad ass. Therapy practice. Same thing, same handle. Okay, perfect, I'm not on any of the others, I don't have time. I'm a mom.
Speaker 2:Believe me, I'm not a mom, but I get it. Thanks again, steve. Please come back and I'll talk to you soon. Alright, bye, no, that's it for episode 142. Laura Long, thank you, I hope to have you back. I know you have other projects coming up. I'll be excited to hear more about them. I don't know what they are, but I hope you come back. But episode 143 was a friend of the show, liz Kelly, who has been here before. She's going to be releasing her book soon and I can't wait for you guys to hear this interview, because I already, like I just think she's going to be awesome and I already read her book and I think it's amazing. So please join us then See you next time.