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Hey, y’all. Welcome back to the podcast. I’m glad to have you here as always.
I’m excited for my episode today. Granted, I’m excited about all the episodes. I think they’re all great. This one was particularly special because I got to reconnect with Dr. Paige Hover. Paige was in one of my very first mastermind groups way [00:01:00] back when, and I got to reconnect with her to talk about the practice that she has built, which includes a lot of work with millennials. She is private pay, and we dipped into a great discussion about values and how values come into play as you build your practice. So there’s a lot to take away from this one.
Let me tell you a little bit about Paige and then we will jump to the episode.
Dr. Hover owns and operates her telehealth-based private practice where she specializes in testing and therapy for young adults. In the testing portion of the practice, she focuses on testing for accommodations in school, at work, or for standardized tests, diagnostic clarification to inform treatment or medication management, and also conducting evaluations needed for international adoption applications. Outside of direct clinical work, she’s actively learning more about business management as it applies to psychology practices and is eager to share this information with colleagues and peers.
She’s been featured on The Money Sessions Podcast with Tiffany McLain, which has come up many times on this podcast and gives presentations about testing as well as the business side of testing. She also provides one-on-one consultation for other psychologists and professionals who want to manage their business in a way that serves them as much as it does their clients. You’ll see that theme throughout our episode.
I want to make sure to give a shout-out, we do mention it during the episode, but Paige offers mastermind groups for anyone who may be interested in talking more about business and values. There is a link to her offerings in the show notes. So check that out if you like what you hear.
Without further ado, let’s get to my conversation with Dr. Paige Hover.
[00:03:09] Hey Paige, welcome to the podcast.Dr. Paige: Hi Jeremy. Thanks for having me.
Dr. Sharp: Good to see you.
Dr. Paige: I know. Yes, it’s been a little bit.
Dr. Sharp: It’s been a little while. Yeah. For literally everyone else who doesn’t know what we’re talking about, you were in one of my mastermind groups years ago. It was, I feel like, one of the first ones. I don’t know. Or maybe the second cohort or something.
Dr. Paige: Oh, was it?
Dr. Sharp: I can’t remember. Time is a funny thing. But here we are, we’ve circled back and you’ve got this thriving practice. I’m excited to chat with you. So thanks for being here.
Dr. Paige: Thanks for having me. I’m really excited.
Dr. Sharp: Cool. The first question that I always ask folks when we start off is, why this? Why focus on this in your practice, this niche out of all the things that you could be doing?
Dr. Paige: I think it’s a two-part thing. There’s the practice side and the clinical focus in the population I chose to work with, and then there’s this other pursuit, this passion around business and being able to help other people just think about things a little bit differently, run their practices in ways that work for them. I think all of that came from just my own, it sounds hokey, but my own soul-searching.
I started out in group practice and started testing right away and just went with what the practice was doing. We served all different populations. We went in there and served the need that was there. But when I decided to go on my own, I really wanted to take a look at what I wanted and what I found that I felt the most joy out of, the most meaning, and was exciting for me and not draining.
That’s why I chose this population and we’ll talk a little bit more about that, but a lot of my focus is on young adults and young high-achieving adults and some of the characteristic things that come with that.
How that shows up in my testing practice is I do a lot of testing for accommodations: so people who are going into grad school, things like that; some diagnostic clarification; and then I do some other little things mostly on the side. I do some disability and compensation exams for veterans as a side gig. And then sometimes I will do adoption evaluations for young adults that are trying to start their family by adopting internationally. So that’s a bit about my practice.
And then on the side, when I can, I talk about my journey and if anybody can relate or take a little piece of advice and bring that into their own business, I’d love any opportunities to do that—so recording on podcasts, talking to practices, talking to friends, and then private one-on-one consultations.
Dr. Sharp: Yeah. It’s super cool. That process that you went through sounds like it was pretty deliberate. I loved being there for a small part of that as you were transitioning out of the group practice and really thinking about, okay, what do I really want to do here and how do you wanna shape your practice deliberately?
I’m curious. Were there any structured exercises or practices that you engaged in to do that really deliberately or was it something that… are you the kind of person that just wake up in the middle of the night, jot down your dream sort of thing? How did that come about for you to be so deliberate as you launched your practice?
Dr. Paige: That’s a really excellent question. I would say, it’s a little bit of both. I think I’ve always been a dreamer and always been dreaming big and wanting to think about all these different things. So definitely have that flavor of waking up in the middle of the night, Johnny Don Dreams. But I also know for me, masterminds were super important. So I did the Mastermind with you when I was first starting out, and that was really super important for me to get the nuts and bolts.
I had been in private practice, I was in a group practice running a testing practice, but for some reason going on my own just felt like, I don’t know what I’m doing. I liked the nuts and bolts, but also the start of a community of just like, Hey, like I did this. I’m ready to take the step on my own. And just being able to have that backdrop to be able to have that support when needed to take that big step because it was scary. It was a big risk.
I actually did Tiffany McLain’s Lean In Make Bank course that was more structured. And that was very helpful. And then I did a mastermind with her after that. So I had a smaller group from that class and we broke off and we dove in a little bit deeper. And I continued meeting with two other people from that group still to this day.
So I’d say those are like the structured things that I do: learning from the masterminds and hearing what other people do, learning from Tiffany’s mastermind and taking different avenues, and then I do my own thing like reading books and continuing my own private consultation with other peers and stuff like that. That’s where I can combine that self-drive to look at that stuff.
Dr. Sharp: That’s really cool. I get this image of a magnifying glass with the sun. It’s like you got all this energy and have the drive, and then you just focus it and use these tools to really zero in. Tiffany is fantastic. I feel like her name has come up maybe more than any other guest on the podcast.
Dr. Paige: Really?
Dr. Sharp: Yeah, she’s a legend as far as that money mindset stuff.
Dr. Paige: Yeah. I first heard about her when you interviewed her on your podcast. What she said was just mind-blowing. I looked into it and I was like, wow. And so then eventually, I took her course and worked with her. She’s doing some really cool work.
Dr. Sharp: That’s awesome. Well, we can dive deep into the practice management side. I am curious though, just a little bit of clinical background for who you’re working with because I think that’ll help set the stage for the practice discussion as well. You said, high-achieving young adults. Can you define that group a little bit more? I’m curious what you mean when you say, high-achieving young adults.
Dr. Paige: I struggle with this in my own marketing and things like that of like, how do I just zero in on this population? It’s always hard because there are just many pieces that describe them. But I think that the people that I do end up working with, they go, oh yeah, that’s me. I’m not going to lie. I can relate to some of these things. So some of that comes from my own knowledge of what that is.
These are the people who strive for everything. They’re in all the clubs. In high school, for instance, they’re in all the clubs. They’re getting straight A’s. They have their eye set on prizes, like, I want to go do this, I want to do this. I want to get into this college. And so there’s a constant high achieving, like, where’s the bar? I want to do better. And with that, there’s a lot of anxiety that comes with that. There’s this anxious nervousness around that, this chasing. I hear a lot of like, if I do more than what’s expected, then that quiets some of the anxiety or the worries that I have.
Dr. Sharp: There’s a compulsive quality to it.
Dr. Paige: For sure. That’s a coping mechanism. It’s just like, I’m going to achieve because I don’t want to feel this. This is my identity. I do well in school. I get straight A’s. I do things the way I’m supposed to. There’s perfectionism in there.
You can pretty much see that in high school and into college, and even into grad school, things like that. You’ll see that a lot in med students, law students, psychology grads, stuff like that- more of those high-achieving fields that require a lot of that extra schooling. But I also see it a lot too in the people who finish their college degree and then go right into the corporate world. They get burned out so quickly because they’re always doing more. They always want to do it perfectly. They want to please. That’s part of their identity and they burn out super fast.
It’s hard to describe in two words what those people experience, but a lot of times people will experience some of that. They’ll be anxious, perfectionists, people pleasers, hard workers, and ambitious.
Dr. Sharp: Sure. That makes sense. I have a friend who works with a similar population out on the West coast in the San Francisco area and there is such a demand. It is a pretty unique group of folks, but so necessary, like you said. Especially, it seems like getting into the corporate world, it’s like the finish line just keeps on moving. There’s no degree to get. There’s no grade or whatever. There’s just more work and […].
Dr. Paige: There’s no built-in breaks. There’s no, like, I just have to push myself this hard to get this A for this semester. That just never stops. And so how I see that, like in my business, they funnel into different camps. I see a lot of the corporate burnout in therapy. People come to a point of, I can’t do this anymore. I need some help.
Where I see it more in the testing world is when I’m helping them with those achievements. So they want to get to grad school or they want to get to college and they want to keep those high grades. And sometimes to get into med school or things like that, you have to keep those high grades. So they want to make sure they’re doing everything possible to make sure that they are getting to that. And if they notice they’re struggling or if they’ve already been diagnosed with ADHD or any other diagnosis and stuff like that, or they’ve had accommodations in the past, they’re on top of it. They’re like, this isn’t going to get in the way of my dreams. I need to get this testing and do that.
Sometimes, I see the diagnostic clarification question come up with them. If it’s just like, I’ve been in therapy and it’s not working. Why is this not working? And so there’s that drive to get it, to fix it, to be on top of it, and manage it. And so, then I’ll see them for that.
And then with an international adoption, this is a little bit part of just the process. If you want to go through an international adoption, you have to have a psychological evaluation for some countries. And it’s just part of the process.
International adoption is a process and it’s definitely not for the faint of heart. And so sometimes that high achieving drive in the background, that’s where that’ll show up of just like, yes, we’re going to do this and we’re not giving up on this. We want to start a family and this is where we’re goint to go for it. So that’s where those themes show up in different ways and different avenues of my practice.
Dr. Sharp: That makes sense. There’s a lot of threads there. I know we could dive into any one of those areas pretty deeply. I definitely want to talk about the practice management component, so I’m going to hold back some of these clinical questions, but I will ask one philosophical/practical question that covers both. I’m just curious with all the talk and maybe contentiousness about folks seeking accommodations or maybe not actually deserving them or needing them. I’m curious how you balance that in a practice where you specialize in this area:
1)If you see that, I’m guessing you do,
2) How do you work with that yourself?
Dr. Paige: It comes back to this piece of the high achiever, the drive. There’s this desire to want to perform at this super high level, and it’s fed by perfectionism.
There are many times I will see people come to me that subjectively experience a lot of struggles. This is really hard for me. I have to stay up all night to do this stuff. And that begs the question, do I have ADHD? Do I have something that’s making this harder for me?
And so, sometimes we’ll get in there and we’ll see that as far as an accommodation is concerned, we’re not seeing you performing below average for your peers, but maybe you’re performing average, but when you’re working in high achieving, when you want to be in every AP class, every honors class, you’re striving to have beyond a 4.0, you are also balancing three clubs, two sports, all this stuff. Sure, subjectively, you’re going to feel like that’s a significant struggle.
And so there’s being able to validate that when they come in, if there’s not a clinical diagnosis of ADHD or a clinical diagnosis that you could get accommodations for, but there’s that subjective experience of the struggle and how do they then face that and how do they face like, okay, maybe if I took not AP classes, if I did just my regular English history, all that stuff, they’d probably super excel and it would probably be like, “Wow, this is what my high-achieving peers are all talking about. It’s so easy. It’s so great.”
But there’s that perfectionism, high achieving pressure that’s behind them where they have to do all those things and it’s very hard to be willing to make that shift, to have that subjective experience of things being easier that you would hope would come with accommodations. It’s a hard pill to swallow for a lot of that population. So it’s navigating both. I see that super lot.
I actually get that question all the time when people hear the testing that I do. And it’s like, well what if somebody doesn’t meet qualifications to get an accommodation? And it’s like, that happens a lot. How do we work with that and how do I help them see what they can do to help adjust that subjective experience without this process?
Dr. Sharp: I would imagine that’s a place where having that therapeutic background comes in really handy because you can speak to all of that and well just fill in the picture a bit for people process.
Dr. Paige: Exactly. And it’s also helping. It helps me when I start talking with people about that. If somebody comes to me like, Hey, I want to get accommodations. I say, okay, we’re going to do the things that you need to apply for accommodations. I can’t guarantee you’re going to get those. And so, I start having that conversation right out the gate of like, what if it turns out that this doesn’t happen for you? How is that going to feel for you to start prepping that?
And then I would say, it also really informs my feedback sessions to say like, I’m not just going to say, sorry, you don’t qualify. Or it doesn’t show up that you have ADHD, but it’s folding then in of like, this actually isn’t the answer but your subjective experience is real and also more often than not. There is something that’s influencing that. It could be anxiety, it could be OCD, it could be depression, it could be all of these things that combined together and helping them to see, we might actually be able to try to get accommodations with this.
It’s just not as typical. You don’t see people you’re commonly associated with like a learning disability or ADHD and that the world of accommodations is growing and helping them see that this is not the end of the world because you don’t have this one diagnosis, but it still validates what’s happening for you.
Dr. Sharp: Absolutely. That reminds me, Stephanie Nelson talks a lot about that and others as well, but just that broadening the question versus does this person have ADHD and do they deserve accommodation? It’s more, what’s happening here? Just generally, what is happening and what might be leading to these struggles? That can help a lot.
Well, let’s see. The business aspect of all of this is super interesting to me, and I know it’s something that you have spent a lot of time thinking about and working on. I wonder if we might start just with something that you said a little bit ago, which is, struggling to even find the marketing language or the words to describe this population. That seems like a pretty important problem to solve if you’re trying to build a practice. So maybe we start there.How did you go about that?
Dr. Paige: To answer that question, it’s best to answer how I decided on this niche because then I went through and I was like, okay, how can I talk to these people and speak their language? So I really had to take a look at the…
I went through all of my experiences like therapy, testing, and I thought back on clients I’d worked with and I was like, when did I leave that situation feeling energized? When did I feel like, “Wow, I did a good job. I really was helpful. I enjoyed that. That was exciting.” And so then when I narrowed those down, I looked for threads. I was like, where are there similarities in these things?
You can go as simple as demographics like is there a certain gender? Is there a certain age? Is there a certain income level? Is there a certain therapeutic question that they can… any of that stuff. I looked for as many threads as I could find, and I could see this one picture. It was hard to say, it’s just this one thread, but there was that theme of that high achiever. There was that theme of I want to…. There’s anxiety perfectionism. So I was like, “Okay, that’s where I live.”
I always was this person going through school that I was like, well, my own stuff doesn’t influence my work in any way. I’m totally separate. Well, lo and behold, that’s not entirely true because when I look at myself, I’m like, oh, I can relate to that. I can understand that, but in a boundaried way, it’s not bleeding into everything. But I have this tune in of what would I want to hear? What would I find helpful or what would be something I would be looking for in a therapist in their website and their language. And even going back to thinking about what were these ideal client situations, what would they be looking for? What was the language that they spoke?
That’s how I decided to… I knew that was the population I wanted to work with.
Now, I will say, from a business aspect, this is not the easiest population to work with, especially in a private pay testing business. Not ideal. I wouldn’t say not ideal, not easy. So I had to think about, okay, do I want to go easy or do I want to with what really fills me up? And I think a lot of times, I think a lot of people who take insurance or just enter private practice can relate to this experience where you just go where the yeses are. Okay, you said you wanted to come in for testing. Sure, I can do that. And you focus more on what you can do than what you want to do.
And so I had to have that question because I was pretty burnt out before I started my own practice and I was like, do I want to do that? Do I want to just follow where it says yes and where it’s easier or do I want to go with what really fills me up? And I made the decision to say, I’m going to go with what fills me up. There are risks, there are rewards, there are all sorts of things that come with that, but I was like, I don’t want this, I don’t want the alternative.
That’s how I decided to pick this population. And it’s meaningful and that helps drive going through the challenges, but also informs like, how do I sit with this? I have time to sit and think about these people and really think about the language that they would use and how would I get to them and use that in my marketing.
Dr. Sharp: Yeah. Now, is that a personality characteristic that you would say has been consistent throughout your life? Would you call yourself a person who does the hard thing that’s more meaningful? I’m just curious where that comes from because that seems like it would be a hard choice, right? I work with a lot of practice owners just getting started, and that’s always a question. It often manifests as, do I take insurance or not? Or do I see this population that I have plenty of experience with but don’t really love? I’m just curious how you went through that decision making process and what influenced you to do the harder thing?
Dr. Paige: It’s a really good question, and I think that my first reaction to laugh a little bit when you were like, “Well, do you typically do the hard things?” And I’m like, “Yeah, I guess I do.” I often had the experience of being thrown in the deep end and just figuring it out. I think that’s what I think of initially when I think like, well do you do the hard stuff.
If I think back to who I was, setting goals and stuff like that, if it was meaningful to me, I went for it. And these were little things. I really wanted to work at our local ice cream shop when I was younger and I didn’t know if I could get in. It was very family run and blah, blah, blah. I set a goal and I went for it and it worked out. And then I was a lifeguard. All these things that are a little bit challenging, but I was like, I want to do this.
I think it speaks to even getting my doctorate degree. I could have gotten a master’s degree and started out small, but I was like, I’m going to take the big kauna and I’m going to take it on. I think that I wanted to always do those bigger things. And so I think that’s definitely a personality trait of mine.
Dr. Sharp: Yeah. I imagine you got to have some of that. It’s not going to just come overnight. You’re like, I’m going to take this huge risk and no spend all this time. But I am curious, especially for folks who might be in a similar position, similar question to before, were there any exercises that you went through or any kind of structure to that? Like, were you running numbers? Did you have to decide or save for a certain amount of time knowing that you might take longer to build up your practice? How did you prepare to do that?
Dr. Paige: Totally. It was a mix of two things. In general, I can tolerate a bit of risk, just in general. I can tolerate like, okay, this is going to be a little scary, but I’m willing to try. There are certain things that I have set up. My partner had his job. His job was all set when I decided to do that. We ran numbers and it was like, if I suddenly… we went through worst case scenario and it was like, for six months if I bring in zero, not even that, we decided how much are our monthly expenses? How long can we go with me bringing in $0? And we looked at that of like, okay, what is the worst case scenario? That helped me be comfortable to take that risk. I know that’s a privilege and that’s not everybody’s situation, but that was a reality of ours.
I didn’t have some of those other pressures that would’ve made the risk seem much harder. I ran the numbers of what my expenses are. I ran how long I could go without making $0. That was also just generally empowering because it’s like, is it really likely that I’m going to get $0 for six months? It’s very unlikely. Maybe it’s not as much as I want to, but I’m not going to make $0 for six months.
And then I also had a side gig. So that was something that when I was preparing to do that, I don’t remember when we were talking, if I had known that was going to be a viable option, but I knew there were other side gigs and contract work that was just completely separate that I could do. I had a friend who had done it, and so she had talked to me about how that helped her when she was starting her practice. So I had a side gig. And then I think I also had community.
I don’t think I would’ve been able to make that step without starting masterminds or starting to build a community of people that were doing the things that I wanted to do because I don’t think I could have withstood the low points or the anxious nervous chatter that’s in your head, or the judgment that you get from other people. You need something. You need some armor to go through that to make those choices that maybe aren’t the easiest, maybe aren’t the most lucrative, or maybe have a lot of risk.
Like, it could be paying out really well and people will have reactions to that. So you need some armor to go through those things. So there’s like the practicality of running the numbers, there’s having something in the background if you know you need that and then having a community.
Dr. Sharp: I like that three-prong approach. It all makes sense. I want to go back to something that you said a bit ago, which is that this particular population is not the greatest population to work with from a business standpoint. Can you elaborate on that and what you mean?
Dr. Paige: Yeah. There’s many things. I think, in general, when you talk about this population, there’re two things. They’re either in a position where they don’t have the money, like they’re just starting out of their first job, everything is new. They just straight up don’t have the money. Or they’re at a place where they’re trying to gain independence. They might have somebody that would be willing to pay for it, but they are trying to stand on their own two feet and trying to do that themselves. And then they’re also trying to figure out their own self-worth. And so it’s like, am I really worth this? Do I really need this? Stuff like that.
Those barriers get in the way of them wanting to say yes versus when you think about… A lot of people talk to me about, “Why don’t you test kids?” Parents will do anything for their kids. It doesn’t matter what the cost. If they need it, they will do it. It’s just less rigamarole. It’s easier to get to that. And I thought about that for a little bit and it’s just not my jam. I just don’t like it.
And I think that the people, I would sometimes go, I got some advice from people of like, well go to private schools. Tuition of Law is $40,000 a year. You got to find people that want to be able to test for their kids or have the funds, blah, blah, blah, blah. I would go and I would talk to some people and I’d try to market that way. And I think they could sense that I didn’t love it. It never really worked out.
And that’s my sense is like they probably picked up I didn’t love that work, and there wasn’t as many opportunities there as I thought, in general, but I also think that people could just sense that. I was just like, you know what? Maybe I need to follow where I’m most excited because people will see. It’s different when you see somebody light up. And I could go for things. There was things that I could talk to people about to help them see the value. I could answer their questions. I could ease their anxieties because that’s my world. I’m in it.
So rather than dealing with places where I’m not as strong, I’m going to go for the places that it’s meaningful because it’s a little bit easier for me to be genuine and maybe make them want to say yes more than situations that typically could be easier.
Dr. Sharp: Yeah. Well, it comes back to that theme. It sounds like just knowing what is important to you and being willing to go for it even though it might be challenging.
Dr. Paige: Yeah.
[00:32:00] Dr. Sharp: So then from a business standpoint, how do you work with that? There are lots of choice points here, either not working with that population or working with that population, but taking insurance. And you have chosen to stay private pay and work with this population. I am curious to get into the nuts and bolts of how that works in the practice.
Let’s take a break to hear from our featured partner.
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All right, let’s get back to the podcast.
Dr. Paige: I am going to start with pricing and coming back to a little bit of soul searching, and then we’ll talk a little bit about some of the marketing.
Let’s start with soul searching. I had part of this work when I decided I’m going to run a business that’s very meaningful to me. One of the things a lot of people encourage me to think about is hours. How much do you want to work? What is your actual capacity? What are the things that drain you versus the things that are really energizing and how can you fit that in?
When I got clear, and it took me a while to really clarify that and be honest, for me, I had a certain number of testing batteries that I knew I would want to do in a year that I felt like didn’t drain me too much, made me still love the work, and was just enough for me. So then when I decided that number, that’s how I decided a bit of my prices. And so the prices are higher, no lie. They’re not higher than most, but they’re not cheap. They’re not $300, they’re not $2,000.
I had to say, okay, if I want to see, and I’ll be more transparent, I want to do 8 batteries a year. That’s my sweet spot. I know that that’s a lot less than other testing practices and things like that, but I have other sources of income and [00:34:00] stuff like that. So for me to do that, that’s my sweet spot. So I had to decide, okay, if I wanted to see 8 people and make this worth it, what’s the price that I need to have?
You’re going to get a lot of Nos in this population every time. You’re going to get a lot of Nos if your private pay, just in general, but was I going to get 8 people in 365 days of a year to say yes? Yeah. And I have for two years in a row now. That’s the number. That’s the sweet spot. And it’s like, okay, that works. So that was some of the nuts and bolts. It’s like, okay, I had to tolerate the nos, I had to set my prices. That worked for me.
Dr. Sharp: And you did that, just to be super clear, when you figured out your quota for testing cases you were going to take on, I assume that you just extrapolated the number of hours per case and worked that into your weekly or monthly caseload and said, this is what I have time for, this is how much I want to work. Was it [00:35:00] a process like that or different? Were there other twists?
Dr. Paige: That was a basis. I would definitely say that was a basis, but I also had to check in with my energy level because I love this work, I really do, but there were times that I didn’t like it. I had to pay attention to the times- what were the factors that went into me not liking it? And for me, I hated the pressure of time. Like I need this very intense, very complicated, high quality battery in two weeks. And it’s like, I can’t do that.
And then just noticing the downtime that I would like to have. I just felt always a little drained after those kinds of things. They’re exciting and I like them, but they take a lot out of me. And so, I had to remember, like if I wasn’t listening to the downtime and I jumped right back into another one of those, I was too tired. I would start to resent it. [00:36:00] Again, understanding that I’m a bit of an anxious perfectionist myself, going through that document and the report itself, the report writing always just takes a lot out of me because there are so many pieces. I proofread it like 4 or 5 times and I’m still nervous to hand it over. And I’m like, it’s just draining.
It was a combination of like, okay when I looked at just numbers of what I had in my work week, it was higher as far as the number of batteries that I would take. But then I started over two years looking at when do I feel the most drained? What’s my attachment and meaning to this work? And then when I was like, 8, that feels a little bit more comfortable. And I’ll be transparent too, this year is the first year I’m able to say 8. I think I was always convincing myself, maybe it’s 12. Maybe it’s 10. Maybe it’s 14. I played with it and it was 8. [00:37:00] 8 is where it is.
Dr. Sharp: That’s it. So then just getting super granular because that’s how my mind works, is it so structured? Does that mean you’re booking one every six weeks? Is it that regular or are you doing two in a row and then you take it all? Do you just loosely spread it across the year or is it more structured or what?
Dr. Paige: It’s a little bit looser and it more so ebbs and flows with the calls I get. There’s a natural ebb and flow to your practice. And I think that when I held myself to 12 batteries a year, I was like, I have to have one every month. Every single month I have to have one. That doesn’t always happen. Summers happen. Over the past two years, I’ve seen ebbs and flows happen at different times. I think the pandemic changed a bit of some of those ebbs and flows for a couple of years.
So, 8 is not so structured of like, this is what it is every six weeks I do this. It’s to go with the [00:38:00] ebbs and the flows of the highs and lows, but if I have more than one person calling me at the same time, I’ve gotten more comfortable saying, I don’t book more than one a month. So if I have one in the month and you’re calling me and you’re saying, hey, I need this done tomorrow, I can see you next month.
And because I think I put more structure around that, I don’t have astronomical wait lists. There’s a piece of that that would be nice to have a waitlist to know that that income’s coming in, but I also can see people quicker sometimes. So like, I just happen to finish up and you just happen to call me and it’s like, yes, I can see you tomorrow. And they’re like, oh my gosh, great. I want to say it’s more intentional than that, but I think what the intention behind it is to go with the ebbs and the flows that I don’t 100% have control over. So that helps me deal with that anxiety a little bit better.
Dr. Sharp: Yeah. I guess there’s a trade-off there. Do you need that security of being booked further out and keeping it more structured or [00:39:00] are you okay just knowing that you’re keeping your energy in check no matter what. You get to choose.
Dr. Paige: Yeah. And the nice part for me is my practice. I think you’re getting the sense. This is a little bit of my baby. It’s everybody’s baby, but it’s a very meaningful page-centered kind of practice. It’s very defined by my energy, but I have side gigs. That’s where it’s like, okay, how much risk can I actually tolerate? I haven’t gotten rid of my side gig that I started in the beginning because that’s where I can go. So I don’t have to put the nervous energy into my practice and the urgency around it having to work this way.
So I can almost work with the practice a little bit rather than having to have these very rigid boundaries because I know when I have the urgency to have to make something work in my business, it’s not super authentic and it sometimes doesn’t go my way, or I make decisions that are more out of a sense of urgency or scarcity than a center, like, this is why I’m doing this.
Dr. Sharp: Right. That’s a nice perspective. Our practices shouldn’t be a source of nervous energy necessarily in training. So I’m right with you.
Let’s see. So we were talking about the marketing aspects and how you present these services and bring these folks in. Other dimensions of marketing that are nice to be aware of in working with this population and managing the flow of referrals?
Dr. Paige: Yeah. One thing I’ve learned very much about this population is that they take time. So you have to have patience with them because when they’re making that big financial decision and big, I’m going to focus on myself decisions, they will usually take some time to make that decision.
In the first two years, I had people coming in, the [00:41:00] time between the initial call and when I started testing them ranged from 2 weeks, 3 months to 1 year. Those were some things that I saw. They’d call, and I’d be like, I need to think about it. Two weeks later they’d call me. Three months later they’d call me. I had somebody wait a full year, and I was like, I’m ready now.
With that, you have to remember that… That’s why I think the sense of urgency cannot have a place in my practice because I can’t force you to make that decision. You’re going to do it on your own time. So I work with that.
The other thing you want to do is when they’re making a big decision to focus on themselves, therapists are actually very integral in getting them to want to do this. It’s also the testing world too. The general population is very confusing and there are many pieces of it. I see your reaction.
Dr. Sharp: Oh my goodness.
Dr. Paige: It’s totally true. It’s just question marks. It’s very anxiety-provoking. So with therapists, they might be the [00:42:00] first person to suggest it, or they might be the first person that that client talks to them about. Like, Hey, I’m wondering if I’m on the autism spectrum. They start talking through it, and they go through it, and then it’s like, okay, here’s where you might want to get those final answers.
I find as far as marketing, talking to the therapists, marketing to group practices that see my kind of people, and other therapists that are private pay as well are super helpful because their clients already get it. It’s like, yeah I got this. I understand this. They’re very helpful in greasing the wheels to get them to come through.
So I do spend a lot of time marketing to other people, talking to other therapists, doing even just general presentations about what testing is, because I find a lot of therapists want to refer their adult clients to that, but they don’t know how to talk to them about it, and they’re just as confused as to how to do it. So I like to talk to people that want to hear more about it, that if you’re [00:43:00] interested in being able to make those referrals here, I’m going to give you some basics about it so that you can communicate that with them if you want me to give them a call, stuff like that. So that’s a key part as far as marketing is connecting with those referral sources.
Dr. Sharp: Yeah. I have so many questions about this. I think the thing that jumped out right away is when you said that you’re marketing to other group practices. I’m curious how that works. Who are you making contact with at these practices? Are you going in and doing talks? Are you take going to lunch with the owner? What does that look like?
Dr. Paige: It’s a little bit of all of those. I would say in general, the practices I’m looking for are the practices that don’t offer testing. So usually just practices that’s not part of their wheelhouse. They don’t have anybody that does that. I will usually reach out to something like a, if there’s an outreach coordinator, stuff like that. Or if it’s a smaller group practice, I will reach out directly to the owner. Sometimes I’ve [00:44:00] had people like, oh my gosh, Paige, we’ve been asking about this in group supervision or in the consultations. This comes up all the time. We have some time set up. Can you come and do a talk?
So sometimes I will do that. And sometimes it’s, yeah, just grab, I mean, before Covid, it was grabbing a cup of coffee with them if they would, or grabbing lunch if we could. But now, I was lucky enough to be able to make some of those in-person contacts before everything happened. So now it’s just, I can communicate via email and nurture those relationships that way. But making new referral sources in the digital age is a little bit harder just because it’s not the same.
Dr. Sharp: Yeah. We were just talking in my beginner practice group this morning about this question of warm marketing versus cold marketing, and how important those in-person connections are. I think that goes a long way in building a practice even now.
Dr. Paige: Yeah, especially if we’re testing referrals. There’s so much anxiety on everybody’s part that comes from the unknown, and I think if you can have a personal connection. And this person, I met her, she’s nice, she’s warm, she’s going to walk you through it. But also, the way I talk to them about testing, they can get a sense of like, well, how do I introduce a topic to them that they know nothing about? If the client’s going to come in there and I don’t know anything about this process, how are you going to walk me through this so that I feel comfortable?
Dr. Sharp: Right. That makes sense. Another specific question.
Dr. Paige: That’s okay.
Dr. Sharp: Are you researching? How are you finding these practices? Are you just googling counselor in Chicago or whatever it is? Are they friends and friends?
Dr. Paige: It was a little bit different when I first started because pre-covid everything was so geographical based. So I looked around my area. I wanted people that would make referrals to people that were willing to come meet with me in my office. So I just looked in my area. I just [00:46:00] Googled counseling practices, therapists, word of mouth, anything like that? Oh gosh, in the beginning, that’s what I spent three months doing. I had a few clients. I had a testing client here and there, but that was my full-time job was just connecting with spending people as I could.
Post covid, and since my practice went into a digital age, I think that’s also something unique about mine is mine is telehealth based 100%. So therapy, testing, the whole shebang, my marketing, everything. I still grease the wheels with that, but I have a lovely assistant who helps me work through, how are we going to translate these brochures or this information I would talk about over coffee in an email or can we make an e-brochure or stuff like that. So it’s trying to shift that, but I had a base where I made those in-person connections locally, and then I just kept nurturing those, is what happened.
Dr. Sharp: I love that. There’s often some kind of combination of the warm connection with digital outreach, I suppose. Finding balance is super important.
Dr. Paige: Yeah. How do I put you on my email list without spamming your email? How do I actually get you to pay attention versus like, I would send an email and say, can we get coffee? It’s like, great, there’s a coffee shop right next door, let’s meet. How do I do that in a digital form?
Dr. Sharp: Yeah. It’s a challenge we’ve all worked with. Let’s see. You said something about this decision making process that I wanted to follow up on that folks take a long time sometimes to make the decision to come in. During that process, are you nurturing that lead after that initial call somehow or are you waiting on them to make their own decision? Do you keep a list of folks who are in the deciding process. What do you do with all those leads if they don’t commit right away?
Dr. Paige: I typically, and this has been refined over a couple of years, so what I’d like to do is make sure I have an email to connect with people rather than a phone call because nobody wants to talk on the phone, myself included sometimes. It’s a little easier to respond to an email than it’s to take a phone call all the time. So, I make sure I have an email and I make sure I let them know, Hey, just to let you know, would it be okay if I contact you if I don’t hear from you?
A lot of times when you hear people say, oh, I’ll think about it, that is the there’s no way this is going to happen, and I’m just trying to be polite and I’ll follow up. So, I do just gather that information and I usually do two follow ups. I will follow up like a week or two after, like, hey, just wanted to touch base, see if you had any other questions. And then if I don’t hear [00:49:00] back from them, I will give one more follow up and say like, Hey, didn’t hear from you. I’m going to assume if I don’t hear from you that you’re no longer interested, but I just wanted to check in and make sure. So I will do that.
But there is also a fair amount of, I want to let them work through their process. So if they’re going to work, I don’t know what they’re working on. I don’t know. It could be they’re trying to save up. They know they want to do this, but they can’t. And so they’re taking a strategic approach of saving up this amount of money. Some people are working through it with their therapist of: Do I really want to face this diagnosis if it’s true? What would this mean for me?
So I don’t want to keep pestering them. I want them to have the space to decide on their own. And my husband has worked in sales for a long time, so he’s given me a little bit of those tools, but that’s very much like a sales tool. It’s like, I’m just going to let… This is my [00:50:00] price, this is my offer, these are my values, this is the quality you’re going to get. I’m going to let you decide. I’m just going to leave it, let you decide with that because I feel like if I’m pushing too hard, again, that’s where the urgency, I think can sometimes drive my decisions more than I want it to. If I’m very urgent and desperate for them to say yes, I might pester them a little bit more. Like, Hey, I can start with you tomorrow. Do you want to come in? I know you were really ready for this.
Dr. Sharp: Right.
Dr. Paige: Let them decide. And then that also communicates too some of the quality. I’m not banging down your door. I know the work that I do. I know the work that I could do for you and how it could help you. I’m here for you when you’re ready.
Dr. Sharp: I like that. There’s definitely, again, this thread of doing what works for you. It’s like you’re pretty solid in your [00:51:00] practice convictions, I suppose.
Dr. Paige: I think that a lot of people realize the name of my practice is Big Picture Psychology. And I think that I embody that pretty much like, here’s the big picture, here is the overarching umbrella of the things that are important to me and how do I make those decisions in my business.
I’m happy my name reflects that, but I also think one of the things that doesn’t get talked about a lot when we talk about business and business building is to check in with those emotions. Like you have to be aware of what you’re feeling. You have to be aware of how that might influence behaviors and decisions and all that stuff because you have to be aware of what it’s telling you. Sometimes it’s telling you very important, helpful things. Sometimes it is just chatter that needs to sit somewhere. I think a lot of people don’t pay attention to that a lot. And I think that that’s one thing that I’ve taken away of starting my own practice is it’s non-negotiable. [00:52:00] I have to pay attention to what I’m thinking and feeling to help make this business what I want it to be.
Dr. Sharp: Right. It’s so true. We lose track of that all the time. The emotions involved here, you can get totally wrapped up in all of the emotions and pulled all over the place. I think about, again, this question of practices grounding, or consultation groups, how do you keep those things in check and just keep your arms around them, I suppose?
Dr. Paige: How do I keep all of my moving pieces in there?
Dr. Sharp: Yeah.
Dr. Paige: It’s a good question. It definitely came from practice. I think in the beginning, [00:53:00] I jumped in with my side gig a little harder just because that was reliable. I knew I had a limit so that I had enough energy to focus on building my practice because if I focused too much on my side gig, then I wouldn’t put enough energy into building that thing. So I had to a clear line on that. I was like, okay, let’s be careful with that.
And then, how do I keep my arms around it? Oh, that’s the thing I was going to say. Private pay versus insurance, I think then dictates things a little bit differently. I don’t always have the luxury to predictably have my hands around what’s going to come towards me. I think when you’re taking insurance, you take insurance, you turn that light on, you put your shingle out, and you will have a hundred people waiting. That’s the income or the influx of people. That’s [00:54:00] not anything you have to worry about. You have to worry about managing boundaries that way. In private pay, you don’t always have that luxury. People are going to maybe really want to work with you and then go, ugh, you don’t take insurance. Okay.
It’s harder for me to say that I purposely put boundaries around certain things in my practice because sometimes I don’t have that luxury. When I’m running a private paid business, I think there’s a very strong desire to just say yes to everything that wants to come in, follow the yeses. If they’re saying yes, you just go and you don’t ask questions, you don’t check in and see if you’re burnt out. Like that’s a yes because you don’t know when the next yes is going to be.
And so, that’s where I think you have to really learn to tolerate some risk and know what you can, like to be able to still say no when there are less people willing to say yes. And so, that would be, I think, [00:55:00] the way that I manage that as best that I can. But it does look differently over the years and throughout the year because of the influx, it’s not as reliable.
Dr. Sharp: Yeah. The way you phrased that was really interesting, being willing to say no when there are fewer people saying yes, right? You’re getting squeezed on both sides. It does take a lot. Sorry.
Dr. Paige: I was just going to say, I think that’s a unique part about how I run my business of just still being able to say no when there’s a limited amount of yes. That takes a lot of work and the side gig helps with that, but it also helps me really enjoy my practice because I’m not saying yes to everything that comes my way. I feel like I try to embody. I’m running my business, my business is not running me.
Dr. Sharp: That’s an interesting perspective. I think that we, [00:56:00] or speaking for myself, I certainly had the mindset of being a practice owner means that is my full-time commitment. I did have a side gig for a few months when I started, but it was like a race against myself to just rely on my practice 100%. I like this fresh perspective of letting go of that a little bit and just being able to say, no, this side gig is actually super secure and gives you a little more freedom to do what you want in your practice. I like that.
Dr. Paige: I think a lot of times the definition of success in private practice is full quickly. And that is just not the reality of running a private pay practice. It’s just not. That’s where I think [00:57:00] you have to really be thoughtful about it going in. I think that it’s very enticing to hear people who’ve been in it five years and have this nice work-life balance. They have a nice income, they have all these things that we want, but it takes time to get there. And so you can’t have that right out the gate. You have to let go of the insurance mentality of success and really change what the success model looks like in private pay.
Dr. Sharp: Right. There’s so much mindset stuff involved here. Like you said, the emotional component is huge. And I know for me, when I’ve done presentation talking about private practice and so forth, I spend so much more time on the emotional components than the practical components because to me the logistics are easy. It’s just registering on websites and clicking buttons and whatever.
The emotional part is the [00:58:00] hard thing. It’s like working through this. What if I fail? Am I charging too much? Am I worth this? Am I an expert? Can I call myself an expert? What happens when people don’t call for two months? It’s the rollercoaster, the money mindset stuff that Tiffany talks about so much. That’s where we get stuck.
Dr. Paige: Oh my gosh. I could talk about that for days, but if there’s so many pieces to it. It’s also too, I think, more personal. I think that when you think about the nuts and bolts of setting up a practice, that’s the same. Everybody’s going to get a website, everybody’s going to get registered as an escort, all those things, but everybody comes into the business with their own stuff and their own messages, and that’s individual.
And that is, personally for me, what I like to work with. It’s more abstract, it’s more personal and it has such an impact. I think [01:00:00] that people, once you go through the nuts and bolts, you assume like, great, this is it. All I have to do. And it’s like, oh wait, there’s this other half. And I would say half. It’s the other half of your business that influences so much. And if you don’t look at that, if you don’t listen to it, if you don’t explore it, if you don’t talk it out, it is going to impact your business the same way as if you didn’t set up a website.
Dr. Sharp: Oh, for sure. I’m here to say too that that does not go away after the beginning.
Dr. Paige: No, that’s a good point.
Dr. Sharp: That sticks around at every stage of practice. There’s always emotional work to be done and self-reflection and getting feedback.
Dr. Paige: Yeah. That’s such a good point. I hear people come to me and ask, well how did you do it? And okay, well once you get those things it’s good, right? It’s like, Nope. I’ve got to work on that stuff all the time. .
Dr. Sharp: Absolutely. This is an aside, but this just struck me. I wonder if that is some of the shiny object of some of these capital backed mental health companies, because it’s the promise of taking away some of this emotional energy that we have to spend like, we’ll do everything for you, just come, do practice. You don’t have to worry. Gosh, I know there’s so much more that we could talk about. We didn’t even really get into marketing and website and language […]
Dr. Paige: I know. Maybe we’ll do a part two.
Dr. Sharp: Maybe there’s a part two. Yeah. You’re always welcome back.
Gosh, let’s see. What other parting thoughts, anything you would hope people might take away or leave with from this discussion if they’re thinking about, or in the midst of launching a private pay practice.
Dr. Paige: Oh gosh. Takeaways. I think what I would hope for people to take away from this is the permission to self-reflect and see that almost as a necessity in the same way that you would see it as setting up your website, getting your docs in order, because I want people to look at that. It’s been so powerful for me and really I think transformed the business that I have today that I wouldn’t have had if I hadn’t done that work. And I think that there is…
The reason I say permission is I think that people see that as something that you don’t really have to look at, or there’s no reason for me to worry about this or explore my worries. Or if I’m feeling jealous of somebody’s practice, I shouldn’t be thinking that. And it’s like, actually if you look at that and explore that, you might find something really important. You might learn something from that that can influence your business.
And then I would say the continued permission to check in with those emotions. Like we just said, you don’t stop feeling these things. The mindset stuff, the emotion stuff doesn’t stop coming in once you’ve had practice for 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, but it’s again, that permission that even if you’re seasoned at this or your practice is successful, you have permission to explore the scarcity mindset, the concern that you’re not good enough, the imposter syndrome, any of that stuff, because if it goes unchecked, it will come up just like we talk about in therapy with our clients. That stuff will show up and it will make itself known whether you want it to or not.
Dr. Sharp: That’s such a good point. I think that’s a nice thing to just put a fine point on as we start to wrap up that you got to do the work.
Dr. Paige: Yes.
Dr. Sharp: I’m struck by, I don’t know, I’m in a consultation, or I guess it’s a consultation group with other group practice owners who are at a similar sort of stage and size, and it is striking how this emotional stuff just doesn’t go away. It’s like a cycle, like every month, somebody’s going to bring up, like, what if it all goes away? What if I lose everything? You just gotta do the work instead on t….
Dr. Paige: Yeah. And it’s so important to have the spaces to talk about that because I think that when you feel like you have a successful practice or you’ve done the work, you’ve set it up and things like that, you feel seasoned. It almost feels like you shouldn’t be feeling those things. Like, is there something wrong as today? And it’s like, no, no, no. Totally normal. We all have it.
One of the things that I think is important about voicing that is there is always somebody else in the room that feels that way. And if you are taking the time to say it, that shows them, oh, I can [01:04:00] talk about this too. And so we start having it be more common. So that it’s out there just as much as like the nuts and bolts is available on Google. Like what are the feelings that you have as a practice owner? When we talk more about it, it becomes more normalized and it just can be something that you fold in and think about rather than keep in your closet until it’s just like scraping at the door. .
Dr. Sharp: Oh gosh. Yeah. That’s a powerful image. Negative emotions just clawing to get out.
Dr. Paige: Yeah. It’s just like I’m here, I’m waiting.
Dr. Sharp: Well, I’ll tell you what, I’m going to switch gears and throw one more question at you in the interest of this discussion. I am curious, and I think people always like to hear about this stuff for better or for worse, any moment or moments where you felt less confident in this whole process or considered like, Hey, I can’t do this. This isn’t right for me. I’m giving up. What did that look like?
Dr. Paige: I would say it most poignantly came up when Covid hit because my husband got furloughed and he eventually lost his job. I had this young practice that didn’t even have a year under its belt, and I was the primary breadwinner. So that was a panic. I felt like I had the luxury to really think about what I wanted and make the business what I wanted rather than “what I needed” at that point. And so I felt this, I don’t get to sit in this WOOWOO stuff anymore and think about like, where’s my energy? What do I like the most? And stuff like that. I felt like I had to then focus more seriously on something.
So then I considered getting on insurance very seriously. I started looking at other contract jobs and stuff like that. And I ended up not, because we had some other funds, we had things set up to [01:06:00] where it’s like, actually that’s not the need that it feels like the urgency is the need right now, but that’s actually not where we’re at. We have more reserves and we could do that. I would say that definitely was a period where I was like, I don’t know if I can do this.
And I would say that that comes up still just when the phone doesn’t ring. There’s times where the phone doesn’t ring especially as you compare it to last year, it’s like, well this time last year I was up to my knees and this stuff and everybody was calling. And so, you can definitely hear those doubts. Or when you share your success and you get some poor reactions to it, I think that always makes me question that and just be like, do they know something that I don’t? Am I making a mistake? They don’t think I should be doing this, or they have some reaction to that and it’s like, am I doing this wrong?
Dr. Sharp: Yeah, let’s talk about that for a second actually, because that’s pretty powerful, right? [01:07:00] You get shade from other clinicians who, I don’t even know, are jealous, disagree, whatever. How do you handle that?
Dr. Paige: I would say like the reactions that come from people are so many different things because it’s their own individual stuff. We don’t know what it is, but there’s a reaction and that’s where that emotional work is so important to do, to know where is your stuff. And it comes to any forms, so I deal with it. This is where I always communicate to people. Having a community is so important. You have to have people in your corner that get it, that think the way that you do because when that stuff happens, it rattles my cage.
There’s a couple of points I’m even thinking of now, specifically where I just felt like my cage was totally rattled and I sat in it for a minute and rather [01:08:00] than making decisions in my business from that, I sat with it for a second and then I went to my community and I was like, guys, this just happened to me.
And I have community in many ways. So I have the Limb community, which is, when you complete the course, you become part of this community. You have this Rolodex of people that have completed it. So that’s really nice. I have my two people that I worked with from that mastermind with Tiffany that I meet with every other week. I have family that I think gets it as well, my partner gets it, stuff like that, and then two friends that I’m very close to that I can talk to.
So, it’s nice to have different communities because there’s different scenarios to it that you might want input from. That always helps. And they’re always really lovely about holding that because I think there sometimes can be, let’s skip over the feeling, you don’t need to worry about that. They’re no-nonsense or just [01:09:00] don’t worry about them. They’re just jealous. It skips over that feeling of like, oh my God, did I do something wrong? Or this is the thought or feeling that I’m having. And a lot of my community is able to hold that and be like, wow, that really sucks. I would feel that way too. Or, yes, I felt it just the other day. Or stuff like that. And then help me problem-solve or listen to hear me say, do you now want some problem-solving skills or do you just want us to hold that?
So those communities are just beyond helpful when those moments come up. And never make a decision in your business based on that. Talk to somebody, sit with it for a minute, and then if you want to make a decision, go ahead, but do not react from those things.
Dr. Sharp: Such a good point. I feel like whenever I learned that I don’t even know, it took way longer than it should have, but whenever those feelings get stirred up, do not touch your keyboard. Do not call. [01:10:00] Just step back for a second. Text somebody else. Gosh, so many of those mistakes, you know, early on.
Dr. Paige: Yep. Do not call the insurance panel if you’re not on insurance and take them. Wait. Don’t go to your website and change all your prices. Don’t touch it.
Dr. Sharp: Totally. Oh my gosh. Well, speaking of community, and I couldn’t agree more, I feel like the different forms of community that I have are just incredibly valuable. I wouldn’t be able to do anything without leaning on different people. Speaking of community, you mentioned, I think before we started to record that you would love to do some mastermind work yourself or lead some masterminds. What’s the deal with that?
Dr. Paige: Yeah. I like to stick with more of the abstract and not just like, Hey, I want you to do a mastermind, and at the end of this mastermind you’re going to have [01:11:00] X, like X amount of clients, like no decision. But for me, I want to have people to have a space. If you’ve had a moment where you say, gosh, I wish I could, gosh, I wish I could leave insurance. Gosh, I wish I could not see evening clients. Gosh, I wish I could go totally into my full private practice. If you’ve had that moment, I have two prompts that I’ve saved or developed over my own work that have been really powerful for me to think about, to help me understand a bit more of the desires and how to get there and identifying barriers that might be getting in the way.
So I’m going to be starting a mastermind. It’s going to be for 4 people, so it’s going to be pretty intimate. We’re going to go through some of those prompts for two weeks, and then we’re going to have an individual session, and then we’re going to come back and we’re going to talk as a group for two weeks about some goals that maybe you have, the specific I wish I could, what have you learned from that and how do you kind of address that?
So helping people to just think more big [01:12:00] picture rather than a specific, to just tap into that emotional piece. We’ve talked so much about how that’s not talked about enough. And I want to create a space for people to start doing that and hopefully, eventually build a community that really prompts people to think about, like, what are my emotions? What’s coming up? What does it tell me? This is what it wants me to do. This is the mindset that I’m in. Just to be aware of all those things and make more thoughtful decisions about their businesses because I want to see people run practices that work for them as much as it works for their clients. We work so hard for our clients and I just want to see us as clinicians be able to give ourselves as much as we give our clients.
Dr. Sharp: That is lovely. I like that.
Dr. Paige: Thanks.
Dr. Sharp: Now, that’s a great note to end. Give ourselves as much as we give our clients.
Dr. Paige: Yes.
Dr. Sharp: All right. Well, [01:13:00] Paige, it was a pleasure. This is great.
Dr. Paige: This is very fun.
Dr. Sharp: I feel like we could talk for a lot longer. Maybe there’s a part 2.
Dr. Paige: Yeah, we can maybe see if there’s a part 2.
Dr. Sharp: Yeah. Well, I appreciate your time. It’s good to connect with you again.
Dr. Paige: Yes, thank you.
Dr. Sharp: I hope to talk to you again soon.
Dr. Paige: Yes, agreed. Thank you so much.
Dr. Sharp: All right, y’all. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode. Always grateful to have you here. I hope that you take away some information that you can implement in your practice and in your life. Any resources that we mentioned during the episode will be listed in the show notes, so make sure to check those out.
If you like what you hear on the podcast, I would be so grateful if you left a review on iTunes or Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcast.
And if you’re a practice owner or aspiring practice owner, I’d invite you to check out The Testing Psychologist mastermind groups. I have mastermind groups at every stage of practice development: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. We have [01:14:00] homework, we have accountability, we have support, we have resources. These groups are amazing. We do a lot of work and a lot of connecting. If that sounds interesting to you, you can check out the details at thetestingpsychologist.com/consulting. You can sign up for a pre-group phone call and we will chat and figure out if a group could be a good fit for you. Thanks so much.
The information contained in this podcast and on The Testing Psychologist website are intended for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing in this podcast or on the website is intended to be a substitute for professional, psychological, psychiatric, or medical [01:15:00] advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please note that no doctor-patient relationship is formed here, and similarly, no supervisory or consultative relationship is formed between the host or guests of this podcast and listeners of this podcast. If you need the qualified advice of any mental health practitioner, or medical provider, please seek one in your area. Similarly, if you need supervision on clinical matters, please find a supervisor with expertise that fits your needs.