The Abundance Practice Building Blog
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The Smart Way to Talk About Clients
A couple weekends ago, while at my favorite breakfast place with my family, I somehow heard the conversation going on at the table next to me. I say “somehow” because if you’ve ever gone to breakfast with a 1.5 year old, a 4 year old, and a partner you like to talk to...
Guest Blog: What Happens When You Decide To Write a Book
I've admired Mercedes Samudio's social media savvy for years. She's built an amazing platform around Shame Proof Parenting that I not only appreciate as a fellow businesswoman, but also as a parent. Her book is phenomenal and you should get it asap if you're a parent...
Pathological Continuing Ed and Other Roadblocks
“Pathological” may sound strong. Learning is vital to what we do, after all. Occasionally I work with someone who is using learning to feel good enough. To try to beat back the imposter syndrome. It may start as a desire to feel more competent in order to better serve...
Private Practice Won’t Solve Your Problems
I love private practice. It changed my life. It changed my family’s life. It made me love therapy more than I ever had. It opened up opportunities I never knew were available. I have also had moments of hating private practice. The weeks without phone calls....
Charging Too Much?
So, let’s talk about whether you’re charging too much. There are two groups here: The people who have some money stuff to work through that aren’t actually charging too much, but fear they are (cue imposter syndrome, not-enoughness, fear people won’t pay it,...
Paying Your Dues?
Raise your hand if you have a strong opinion about whether a new counselor should have to work in an agency before venturing into private practice. Just kidding, we can’t see you. I have a strong, unpopular opinion. Ready for it? I’m a fan of starting with the end in...
If You Market It, They Will Come
I see it all the time. People wanting to encourage each other in the FB Groups saying things like “Yes! If you build it, they will come!” My consulting clients say it to me with a hopeful voice, “If I build it, they will come, right?” Well… not if they can’t find you....
The Abundance Mindset: It Only Took Me Two Years to Develop It
Danielle Kepler has been a big part of the Abundance Practice-Builders FB Group since its early days. I refer to her Insurance Credentialing & Billing For Mental Health Professionals FB Group at least weekly. This woman KNOWS insurance. I love this blog post...
The Role of Fear in Your Practice
“Feel the fear and do it anyway” is a mantra I’ve lived the last 20 years of my life by. At 19, after my second hospitalization for an eating disorder, depression, and anxiety it finally clicked that my natural reaction to fear (i.e. avoidance), wasn’t necessarily the...
Imposter Syndrome
Imposter Syndrome Hello. Welcome to the rest of your life. It’s not what any of us want to accept but, if we keep growing, we are all going to struggle with Imposter Syndrome off and on, forever. Like, I fully expect to be 110 years old and having some doubts about my...
What I Expected vs What Happened: a Guest Post from Lindsay Melka
I am so grateful to have gotten to consult with Lindsay Melka and I’m honored that she is writing for the blog this month. She is brilliant, thoughtful, brave and so honest it sometimes makes my heart ache. You’ll get to hear more about her story (the really hard part...
Giving Others Praise
There’s this house I love that had pigeons living in it. It was a few blocks from my office, this gorgeous, great-bones, hulking house that would be perfect for a bunch of therapists to have practices in. The pigeons had nested inside. The porch was falling apart. I...
High Maintenance: An Unlikely Goal
"High Maintenance" brings up some some interesting images... I’m not talking about insisting upon caviar and peeled grapes, or looking and acting “polished” every day. That’s not necessarily a bad thing - it’s just not what I’m talking about here. Until this month,...
Parenting and Private Practice
I’ve been asked numerous times to write about balancing parenting and starting a practice. I kept nodding my head and put check marks next to it on my “Blog Post Ideas” doc and skipping over it every time it came time to write. I've been avoiding this post hard core....
Where New Businesses Get Stuck
Where New Businesses Get Stuck There’s a theme I see in the folks who get stuck on the struggle side of their business. It’s wholeheartedly a mindset struggle. A space of desperation, fear, resignation, helplessness, scarcity. It usually starts in three ways:...
Sample Private Practice Schedules
Whether you’re on the front end of starting a private practice or you’re managing a busy caseload, your schedule is a make or break situation. It’s not what you think; your schedule is a make or break for your longevity and happiness, not whether or not clients will...
5 Ways to Dance With Your Fear of Online Marketing
Daniel Fava has been a really helpful member of the free Abundance Practice-Builders Facebook Group for a long time. He’s a tech guy with a therapist wife and you can tell from this post that he blends the emotional and technological beautifully.  He’s seen how having...
The Benefit of the Doubt
I’ve mentioned being wholly Team Locke so this post shouldn’t be a huge surprise. I’ve noticed a pattern in some folks as they’re in that scary building stage: a propensity to jump headlong into conclusions. I want to create a little structure to protect you from that...
How Long It Takes To Get Full
Want to know the fastest way to tap into shame and/or superiority as a private practitioner?  Compare your private practice’s growth to a colleagues’ practices’ growth. Or, ask in a practice-building FB group (hop into ours; it’s awesome!) where people from all over...
Self-care-An Ethical Imperative for Helping Professionals
Jamie Stacks and I have been internet friends for what feels like a long time. Jamie has been a staunch advocate for self care, not just through her awesome Facebook Group REAL Self-Care for Therapists, Â but also through the way she interacts with people, the example...