#77. When Life Gets Crazy: How to Keep It Steady in Your Private Practice

One of the greatest benefits of owning your own business is that you have the freedom and flexibility to adjust as needed when life gets a little crazy.

But running a practice can also be especially challenging when the hard times happen.

How do you keep things going when you’re being pulled in too many directions?

Well, I’ve been through some of that myself lately (and not for the first time), so I thought I’d share a few tips with you.

In this episode, we’ll talk about how to prepare for those inevitable moments when life gets in the way: financially, emotionally, and even physically. 

But I’ve also got a few reminders of important things to remember when you aren’t prepared at all, and you’re just doing the best you can to get through.

It’s been a little like that lately for me, which has reminded me how important this is. I hope some of these tips will make a similar period easier for you.

Take good care,

~Wendy
Xoxo

P.S. Many of you have been asking me how you can help to support the show.

If you’d like, you can click on the link below where it says “Support the show” to make a donation. But you can also share your favorite episode with a friend, or write a review. Any or all of those will make this even better. And thank you!

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THIS WEEK’S JOURNAL PROMPT:  

• Do a system review in your practice. Where do you have a safety net in place and where do you need to add one? It might help to talk this through with a colleague over a great cup of coffee. ☕
  • EX: How long could I be out of work and still pay my bills? What can I do to increase that number? 
  • EX: Who could take care of my clients if I can’t? (Find a colleague who would cover for you if you were out for a while - and you for them. Make sure they know how to get to your info.)
  • EX: Where and how do I get my own needs met when things get tough? 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

You're listening to Ideal Practice, episode number 77. And today, guys, we're gonna talk about how to cope, how to manage, how to take care of yourself, how to survive, how to keep things running when you've got a business to run and life gets kind of crazy. So stay tuned. Hi, I'm Wendy Pitts Reeves and, with over two decades of experience in the private practice world, I've built my six-figure business while learning a lot of lessons the hard way. This is the first podcast that shows you how to apply the principles of energy alignment and strategy to build a practice that is profit-centered, but people forward. This is the Ideal Practice podcast. Hey folks, thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of Ideal Practice. This is your host, wendy, and I am thrilled to be hanging out with you again. How you doing.

Speaker 1: 1:15

We are in the middle of October as I record this, and things are getting really pretty where I live. As many of you know, I live near the base of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and so the colors are changing. It's really quite spectacular, and this particular time of year, the maple trees in my front yard just glow. There is always this moment early in the morning, when the sun first comes over the ridge and it hits those trees and I swear they look like they're on fire. It's just gorgeous. I open all the windows and all the blinds wide open so I can just fill my eyesight with that look, it is just, it's really, really pretty, and I hope that you've got something like that happening where you are. I hope that there is some spectacular beauty unfolding for you as well. So I've been thinking about what I want to talk with you about tonight. It's been an interesting couple of months, lots going on around here in my work and in my own life, and I was thinking about how I wanted to talk with you about it. And do you remember? A few weeks ago I told you that I promised I would share with you some stories from the trip that I took back in September when we went to the Pacific Northwest, spent a couple of weeks touring around Washington and Oregon, rented a car, saw lots of friends, really saw some really pretty places, did some hiking. It was really quite spectacular. Well, I was. As I was thinking about what I want to share with you tonight, I was remembering, in particular, a moment on that trip that I thought I would tell you about. So we went to a lot of places, but one place that we visited that turned out to be much more significant than I expected was Mount St Helens in Washington State. We went to Mount Rainier, we went to the Olympic National Park, we did and we saw lots of gorgeous things. Mount St Helens was just a stop on the way from one place to the next and I had no idea what I was getting into. We went to see that.

Speaker 1: 3:24

Now I remember vaguely when that eruption happened, when the volcano erupted and the top of the mountain blew off, and it was a big deal Back in the 80s. I was an undergrad at the time and you know it was all over the news. There was a movie about it later that I remember seeing, but I didn't think that much about it. You know it was interesting and it was a big deal at the time. And of course it was a big deal because there were people who were killed in that explosion and it was terrible. But I didn't know how terrible it was. And so when we drove up the highway to visit, it's a long, winding mountain road that goes higher and higher and higher and eventually you work your way into where the mountain itself is where the explosion was, and you know this was in 1980, so we are at 40-something years out from that and when you get to where the actual mountain is, it looks like it happened yesterday. I mean, in many ways the land has recovered.

Speaker 1: 4:30

The impact of that explosion was phenomenal. I had no idea how far reaching the damage was. I had no idea how many people were hurt or displaced by it. It was really really something. In fact, one of the things I'm remembering about what I read about this was that when the mountain blew and thousands and thousands of trees were blown down and incredible amounts of mud and debris flowed downstream in every possible way from that mountain south, the Columbia River, which is about 75 miles south of there, that's a major shipping port.

Speaker 1: 5:15

The Columbia River Gorge is a really gorgeous place. You may have heard of it and we were on our way there. That was one of the places we were going to see. That river is typically, if I remember right, something like 200 feet deep, give or take. That's why it's such an important shipping channel. And yet after the explosion, very quickly I can't remember how fast, I don't know if this was within hours or a few days. But the depth of that river dropped from 200 something feet to 14 feet deep. I remember that because I kept thinking about the impact on the local economy. There were so many businesses lost, so many people that were wiped out by all of this. They could not ship, they could not get boats up the river because it was only 14 feet deep. You can't even think of the sheer volume of material it would take to have that kind of impact on a river. It was really something. Well, anyway, as we got up close to the mountain itself, there have been millions and millions and millions of trees planted. There have been hundreds of thousands of acres that have come back to life, there are forests. It really is a remarkable story of resilience and recovery and that is a beautiful thing.

Speaker 1: 6:38

But the mountain itself still looks like a moonscape and we stopped at a particular overlook and I walked a little bit away from the car. I was taking some pictures. I was just sort of studying the landscape and trying to wrap my head around what I was looking at, because although internally the mountain is rebuilding itself, essentially inside, you can't really see that from the road from where we were, which is several, several miles away. I mean, the overlook is several miles away, but it still looks like a barren, rocky mountain that someone has come along and just kind of scooped out the top. It literally looks like a mound of sand on the beach where you piled it all up and then you just kind of scooped the top off. That's what it looks like. It was really interesting from a scientific perspective. It was very interesting from a historical perspective. It was very interesting to me from a mental health perspective. I kept thinking about the PTSD and the trauma and all that was involved.

Speaker 1: 7:48

But I'll tell you, I was sitting on this rock wall just studying it and I don't know where this came from, but I was quite unexpectedly overcome with emotion. I don't know what it was. There was no reason for me to feel that way. I didn't know anybody from that area. I wasn't. It didn't affect me personally at all. It's, you know, it's a gazillion miles away from where I live.

Speaker 1: 8:15

But I suddenly felt this overwhelming sense of grief and loss and the word destruction kept playing in my head. I've never had a reaction like this to a landscape before ever. In my whole life I've traveled a lot, I've been a lot of places, I've seen a lot of things. I've never experienced anything like this and it was so much bigger, so much more than I had any any idea. I just I couldn't stop it. It was really. I don't know what it was.

Speaker 1: 8:47

I don't know if I was intuitively picking up on the energy of the place, if I was feeling the emotions that people experience in that area. I don't know what it was, but it was intense and it took me a while to shake it off. I didn't really, I didn't try to fight it so much as I was just curious about it. And you know, like it's kind of like huh, this is interesting, what's this about? Oh, my, look at me, it was. It was really something. Well, we went on from there and went to the visitor center, went to a museum. I picked up a lot of literature. I ended up standing up on it later. I'm really interested in it. It was just fascinating.

Speaker 1: 9:32

But I kept thinking about why did I react that way? I do think that we as healers I mean, I am a therapist after all and have been for a very long time I am deeply empathic, I am deeply intuitive. I do feel things quite strongly sometime, but they don't get to me like that. This was unusual. So, and that day I thought I'm just picking up on the energy of this place, that's all it is. But tonight, as I was thinking about this episode, I found myself thinking back to that and I thought it might be that I was reacting that way because I was having quite a bit of some challenges in my own life that were wearing me down a bit, and I was, even though we were on vacation and we were indeed having a good time and seeing people we loved and having some special moments. The truth is, I was really, really tired and I was dealing with some real challenges.

Speaker 1: 10:35

So what I haven't shared here, but I think it's okay to talk about, was that I mentioned to you all. I think I mentioned last week that my parents are somewhat elderly at this point and that they are needing a lot of help, and I took a couple of weeks off from the podcast to deal with that. Well, what I didn't say was that my father is in the late stages of dementia as we speak and he is quite ill at this point. He's doing okay, all things considered. He's stable, he's being taken care of, he is still, you know, adorable to me and we have sweet moments, but he's pretty far along in that disease.

Speaker 1: 11:20

My sweet, amazing, resilient mom has been taking care of him around the clock for about a year and a half and essentially it's just too much for anyone person and that when he's in hospice we have help. We have friends and neighbors and we have help. You know, it's not like we're just sort of suffering through this, but she herself has been shouldering by and large the biggest part of the burden and in early August she kind of hit a wall. She got sick herself, which happens when people just wear out right. She landed in the hospital herself and suddenly we had to figure out what to do with my dad. And this was all literally two weeks before I was about to go on that trip. So maybe three weeks it's running together now, but it was close and I suddenly had to figure out a whole lot of things what can we do to help her get better, what can we do to make sure he was safe and where we were going to go with this in the long term.

Speaker 1: 12:27

So I immediately had to begin making arrangements, figuring out logistics, exploring tons and tons of different options, and it's not like we didn't know this was coming, but y'all know how it is. You know it's coming but it's not the same until it actually happens. And so suddenly I was in this moment that I have known for probably the last three years or so. It was coming and I had to figure out a lot of stuff right as I was about to take off for a two week two week plus trip all the way on the other side of the country. So it was a little crazy. We got him to a place where they lived that he could be taken care of temporarily while I figured out something else. We got her to my brother's house where he could take care of her while I could go on this trip, which sounds, as I say that out loud.

Speaker 1: 13:22

It feels really selfish to say that I'm just gonna claim that and own that, because I think that's a little bit of social worker thinking in me and if you guys said that I would probably fess at you. But I did feel that way. I did feel a little bit like is this wrong for me to still go? But I'm hoping you guys will be able to relate to this. We've been planning this trip for a year.

Speaker 1: 13:47

Life is pretty intense all the time these days and let's just say we needed a break. So I was determined, not just for my own sake but for my wife's sake and for our family's sake, that we took this much needed break. But I needed to do it in a way that my parents were okay. So, anyway, I was figuring out all that kind of stuff and it was kind of crazy. For now I'll just say that that's what I was dealing with all the both before and all the way during that trip and after. And it's made me think about a lot of things, because not only was I trying to make sure that my personal relationships were okay, I was trying to make sure that I was okay. I was trying to make sure that people I loved in my family were okay. And I still have a business right. I still have actually two businesses to run and to take care of. So that's why I wanted to talk to you about this today, because I also see things like this in with my clients. I see it with my colleagues.

Speaker 1: 14:52

We all go through these times, do we not? We all go through periods when life just gets a lot harder for one reason or another. You know it might be a death in the family, it might be illness, it might be somebody goes through a divorce, it might be you have a child that needs extra help. For a while it's just life. But the challenge, the tricky thing, is we on a business, we have a practice to run, we have clients who are counting on us as well, and our income and our financial wellbeing, as well as a whole bunch of other things, are dependent upon the continued help and wellbeing of that business. So how do you handle that? How do you hold steady in your business and how do you hold steady in yourself when your life suddenly goes a little nuts and when things seem a little hard?

Speaker 1: 15:47

I've been thinking a lot about that lately. I've also had some really good conversations with friends and with people in my mastermind and others, so I've really been thinking about this, and I'm very conscious of it with my clients as well, because I have certainly been there with many of them, not just my counseling clients, but my coaching clients, those of you who are practice owners that I've worked with. I've seen you guys deal with a lot of this kind of thing too. How do you think about that? Well, it strikes me that it is precisely because those kinds of things happen that I am really glad I run my own business. I'm really glad that I am in charge of the way my life goes. When you are a practice owner, when you are the CEO of your own program, when you run your own show, you have a certain amount of freedom and flexibility that those with a job do not necessarily always have. So there are some real benefits to this.

Speaker 1: 16:52

I remember when my kids were little, I started my practice. Y'all know this. I started my practice when my first born came home and from the very beginning it was all about making sure I could be there for my kids and still work. Well, when my kids were little, if they were sick or they were out of school for a day or there was something like that, I just took them to work with me. Now, no, I didn't take them into sessions with me, I would set them up in another office. Remember, I had a group practice. We always had, you know, there was an office empty here or there. I would bring a lot of toys and some pillows and blankets and a radio to listen to. I would just sort of get them all set up in a room and I would tell them they had to stay there until I came to the hand. This was what I used to say you see that clock and you see the big hand. When the big hand gets up to the 12, mama's gonna come back in here and talk to you, but you have to stay here and be quiet. Until then I had good kids so we were able to make that work. I had to sort of train them a little bit, but that was an example of something I could do because I ran my own business.

Speaker 1: 18:01

I had a colleague who had a son who had a very serious chronic illness that she frequently would have to leave that the office to go tend to him at school when he needed extra help. And she said that that was why she went into private practice, because she knew she needed to be able to be there for him and it was gonna be that way while he was growing up, and owning her own business enabled her to do so. So there's like I don't ever regret this. I would not have it any other way. When you own your business, you have freedom and flexibility. That's a good thing.

Speaker 1: 18:38

However, there are some very real challenges to running your practice when life gets kind of hard like this, for example, at the risk of stating the obvious, there's no such thing as PTO is paid time off. You don't get vacation, leave, sick time, fmla time. You don't have all that. You still have to have income coming in. You still have to take care of your clients and your promises to serve them. You have an ethical obligation to make sure that they are tended to. You still have to keep up the business support activities like paying your bills or managing your team, even keeping your marketing going, because you can't afford to let your business die off while you're off tending to the rest of your life, and perhaps more than any of that, you still have to take care of your body, of your heart, of your spirit. You still have to manage your energy, your perspective, your mindset. Perhaps more than anything, you have to tend to that. So it's pretty challenging sometimes to just keep things going while you are dealing with life.

Speaker 1: 19:51

Well, before we talk about what to do, let's talk about what not to do, because there are certain mistakes that a lot of folks tend to make during a time like this, including me. One of the mistakes that we make is that we often think we have to keep up appearances so that nobody knows we're going through a tough time. We are so used to taking care of other people that the last thing we want is for anybody to know that there's anything wrong with us. Right, and there is a certain aspect of that that actually I think is appropriate, like therapeutically, professionally. You don't need to be sharing this kind of stuff with your clients. You don't need to like you know your stuff is your stuff, like it as much as you can. It does need to sort of stay out of the consulting room.

Speaker 1: 20:37

I also actually find some some mercy in that, some comfort in that, even when I have been and y'all, I mean, I've been on the planet for a long time. I have had my share of difficult times of my life, just like we all have. But I have often found it sort of comforting actually to continue with my clinical work during those times, because and it's the same today with my coaching work because I do find and I wonder if you can relate to this that when I'm with a client I am 100% with my client. I'm not thinking about all that other stuff. I'm not thinking about whatever's going on at home, or, you know, when I'm worried about one of my kids, or the 10,000 phone calls I've got to return as soon as I'm out of here, because so many people need me right now. I'm just there for that client. That in itself is a type of, is a blessing, is a bit of medicine. It is like it's almost meditative in a way. So I actually don't mind that at all. I kind of appreciate that.

Speaker 1: 21:37

But, that said, when you're having a tough time and you're going through a time in your life that where you're perhaps a little more fragile, a little more stressed, a little more tired, a little more on edge, somebody needs to know that you do not need to be pretending like everything's okay when it's not. It's also, I think, a mistake that a lot of us tend to think we have to handle things alone, that we have to just power through, and that especially I see this among women especially, but sometimes I see it with the guys that you tend to put yourself last while you take care of whatever it is you have to take care of. And yeah, I understand that sometimes there are certain realities that you just have to deal with. One of my best friends just got through a period of time that lasted a couple of years where she was trying to get her twin daughters through their senior year of high school in the middle of COVID and off into college, all while managing a cross-country family move and keeping her own business going. Talk about insane. That was insane. So, yeah, I know that that happens sometimes. Sometimes you really do have to do what you have to do. I get that, but that kind of stuff happens to everybody. You do not need to handle that alone, and she didn't. There were ways that she reached out for support and took advantage of other resources along the way.

Speaker 1: 23:02

So I want to share with you some thoughts about what do you do when you are facing this kind of thing. Based on my own experience and based on what I've seen in others, there are certain things you need to do in advance to prepare yourself so that when life gets nuts, when things happen, you are ready for it. And then I also want to talk about what to do when you're not ready for it, because both of those are important, right? So just a couple of tips really quick. First of all, it's really important that you prepare yourself financially for those times when you may not be able to work as much or when you may have to miss work for some reason, either because you're out sick yourself or because you've got to take care of somebody you just kind of need. Like this is just yet another reason, y'all, to clean up the money part of your practice.

Speaker 1: 23:56

So that means things like making sure that you have healthy money practices and I talk about that all the time. Y'all know what that means. It means things like making sure that you're getting paid well, making sure that you are current on collections, making sure that your pricing is healthy, making sure that you have a practice that's full of ideal clients who are good about paying you all that kind of stuff. But it also means things like Making sure you've got enough in savings, making sure that you keep your debt down. You might want to be practicing profit first, something along those lines.

Speaker 1: 24:30

It means making sure that you have adequate insurance in place, and there's lots of different kinds. There's, you know, your malpractice insurance, your business insurance and umbrella policy, health insurance, all those kinds of things. There are experts out there other than me that can talk to you about all that. But it means that this is how you. This is how you cope with not having paid time off. You make sure you have enough money in the bank that you can keep paying yourself, even if you have to miss work for a while. Or you make sure that you have the right kind of insurance in place that would cover you, like short-term disability insurance, for example. That's one way you get through this.

Speaker 1: 25:09

A second way you get through this is to prepare yourself. This is probably not quite the right language. I want to say prepare yourself emotionally, but really what I mean is get your support systems in place. For example, it helps to know upfront which family and friends you can talk to, who are going to be in your corner and uplifting Some. Y'all know what I mean by this. There are some folks who are always going to be more on the negative side of things and aren't necessarily gonna be what you need to hear when you're going through a tough time, but there are others who will be there to support you and genuinely support you. Who are those people? Who are your go-tos in your personal life, in other words, who can you fall apart in front of? Who can you talk to when you're scared or worried or sad or overwhelmed or just upset.

Speaker 1: 26:01

It's certainly important to have that kind of support in our personal life, but I also want to know who do you talk to as an entrepreneur? Who are the other people that you know who runs a business, that believe in you and who get you that you could talk to at a time like this Because I've had both. I have dear friends, even in the last couple of months who will say is there anything I can do? I hope your folks are doing okay. Are you taking care of yourself? Are you making sure you're getting enough sleep, like people, friends who are just checking in? But it also really helps to talk to other people who run a business because they get what it's like to be pulled in so many different directions when you still gotta keep your business running and I would also say this is part of the advanced prep is.

Speaker 1: 26:55

This is a really good reason to make sure that you have systems in place that support you, that make life easier for you to the extent that you are able. Something like childcare and backup childcare, help with the lawn, help with housekeeping, help with other kinds of routine errands and backup for those things. If you couldn't mow the grass for a while? Who would do that for you If you couldn't take the kids to daycare? Who would do that for you? Like, what kind of physical or logistical support do you have? And what's your backup plan? Okay, what's your backup? Always think about that. So those are some things like. That's what will like kind of keep the wheels turning. Keep the wheels turning if you need to be elsewhere for a while or your attention needs to be elsewhere for a while. So it's preparing yourself financially, it's preparing yourself emotionally and, to a certain extent, just physically in your life. But there's more to it than that.

Speaker 1: 27:59

I also want you to think about sort of like, kind of like your version of emergency preparedness in your practice. What do you need to have in place in your practice to make sure everything is taken care of if you have to be out for a while, either because you're sick or because someone in your life needs you, something like that? So, for example, if you had to suddenly take off for a week or two, do you know how to contact all your clients? Do you have a way to reach them? If you were unavailable to reach them, could someone else do that in your place? And, if so who is that and do they know how to do that?

Speaker 1: 28:40

Long time ago y'all, several years ago, I landed in the hospital quite unexpectedly with a bout of unexplained anemia and went in for a checkup and they wouldn't let me leave, so hadn't planned on that. I was not happy about that because I had a full day of clients the next day, right. So, as something like that happens to you, do you have someone who in place that you can call and say can you call all my clients and cancel them for me tomorrow? What's your system for that In terms of your team, your staff? Do they know what to do if you're unavailable or how they can pitch in and help? All those kinds of things Like.

Speaker 1: 29:19

Just think about in your practice if you had to be gone, like tomorrow, and you were gonna be gone for a couple of weeks because something in your life required your presence, what would you do? How would your clients be reached? How would they be served? Would you just cancel? Would somebody else step in to see them for a while? How would you handle that? How would you handle the records? How would you handle access and how would you handle, like, the business side of stuff Getting the bills paid, processing the claims, all those things that keep the wheels turning in your practice. So that's just kind of a quick and dirty overview that I can think of.

Speaker 1: 29:57

Often we learn this stuff when you go through it and then you're like, oh, next time I need to be ready. But I encourage you not to do that. Think about this stuff in advance. How can you be prepared? But I also wanna be realistic. What about when you aren't prepared? What about when things go kind of crazy and you just have to get through it the best you can? I have had plenty of both. I've had things happen when I was ready. I've had things happen when I was not ready. Well, I've got four things I wanna say about this. The first one is please, I want you to practice crazy over the top.

Speaker 1: 30:38

Extreme self-compassion, I didn't say self-care, I know that's what you were expecting Self-compassion. We get so mean in our heads to ourselves when things fall apart. Watch the negative self-talk. If there was ever a time you need to be kind to yourself, this is it. So when something goes kind of crazy and you find yourself scrambling to manage or keep up, please don't go around telling yourself you're stupid or you shouldn't have seen this coming, or you should have been ready for that, because that doesn't help anybody. Instead, tell yourself you're gonna be okay, you're gonna make it through this, everything's gonna work, you're gonna figure it out. You have helped, seen and unseen. It's gonna be all right. Talk kindly to yourself. Practice extreme self-compassion, because Lord knows you're gonna need it.

Speaker 1: 31:30

The second thing I wanna say is ask for help. Ask for help, trust me. Over these last couple of months, I have leaned on people like nobody's business, because I had to. There was literally no physical way I could be in all the places I needed to be at the same time, so I called lots of people. Can you take care of this for me? Can you handle that for me? Can you solve that for me? Can you go get that for me? Can you attend to this for me? You have to ask for help because you are not superhuman, nor do you want to be, trust me.

Speaker 1: 32:09

The third thing I wanna say is let yourself off the hook, for Pete's sake. Focus on what you absolutely have to get done and let everything else go. What you have to get done might be that you still see your clients, but it might be that you don't because you have to tend to a family member. It might be that you still, that you are slotted to show up at an event. You're the headline speaker somewhere. You still have to do that. Focus on what you have to do, but let everything else go that you don't have to do in that moment. That might be your progress notes. It might be that networking thing you were gonna get to. In my case it was a couple of weeks worth of podcast episodes. Let's the stuff go that you can let go. Focus on what absolutely has to be done.

Speaker 1: 32:57

And then the fourth thing I wanna say is just know that this is a moment in the life of your business and in your life that you're gonna get through. You will get through it and you will get back to it soon enough, soon enough. Might be a few weeks, it might be a few months, it might be a year or two. I mean like it might be. Sometimes we go through periods that last a while, but you will land on your feet Because you, my friend, I know you. You are clever, you are creative, you see things that other people don't see, you are resilient. You can come up with 10, 20, 30 ways to solve a problem and do all the time for your clients. I know you can do that for yourself as well. So practice kind compassion towards yourself, ask for help, let yourself off the hook, do what you gotta do, but let the rest go and know that you will find your way through this. Your business may even be stronger on the other side just because of the lessons that you learned along the way. You're gonna be fine. You're gonna be fine.

Speaker 1: 34:08

In my own case, I'll tell you that. You know I'm still in the middle of this phase of my life, like this is where it's gonna be for a while, but I will say we are in a better place. I was able to get my father moved from a place out of state to a place close to me. I saw him today. I see him now every day or every other day, which makes me very happy. He looks so much better. He's getting really good care, and my mom bless her sweet soul.

Speaker 1: 34:37

After dealing with her bossy kids for a while, she's actually doing pretty good too. Her health is better. She's getting some things in place that she needs to in order to take care of herself, and we are very happy about that. So I feel like we kind of have come through a tough spot and we're on the other side of it. That doesn't mean we won't have others, but we're doing okay. We're doing okay and I'm doing okay too.

Speaker 1: 35:03

So I wanted to share all that with you because I just feel like this is an important part of running a business too. So I told you that I had a couple of questions for you to think about. A little journal exercise that might be helpful for you. I would encourage you to answer the following. I want you to do a system review in your practice. Where do you have a safety net in place and where do you need to add one?

Speaker 1: 35:32

And if this is hard to think about, you might find it helpful to think this through with a colleague. For example, could you pay yourself if you were still out of work for a while, or if you had to cut your caseload in half for a while, or if you couldn't take any new referrals for a while because you had so much going on? How long could you be out of work and still pay your bills? And if it's not very long, what could you do to increase that number? Another example might be what I said earlier who could take care of your clients if you couldn't for a while. And if you're not sure, I encourage you to find a colleague who would cover for you if you were out and that you would do the same for them. And make sure that you each know how to access what you need. You wanna know how to do that. Another example might be how and where are you gonna get your own needs met when things get tough? I hope you know the answer to that question, but if you don't, I encourage you to find that too, because that's important. So that's a lot.

Speaker 1: 36:32

I just hope this sort of gets you thinking a little bit, because you are human, my sweet friend, and you are a human being who is having a human life, and you also have a business, and I want you to just I just want you to be ready for when things get a little rocky, because that happens. And I'm gonna wrap this up, but before I close I do. I just wanna say real quick, I have had some of the sweetest notes lately from some of you. People are telling me that they are enjoying this podcast. I've had people who don't even know that, I see it that are commenting about how much they're enjoying my podcast. I've seen that online. It's really really sweet, it makes me feel really good, and some of you have been asking how you can support me or how you can help me with this, and I appreciate that. So I, if you don't mind, I thought I would share with you just a couple of quick things If you wanted to support me or help me keep this going, no matter how crazy life is.

Speaker 1: 37:30

There are a couple of things you could do. First of all, if you haven't noticed this in the show notes, underneath each episode, wherever you happen to see it, you will see at the very bottom there's a little link that says support the show. If you click on that link, you can actually make a contribution to the show A one-time contribution, a monthly contribution or, honestly, you could just share a favorite episode with a friend, a colleague, somebody that you know could use this. Hopefully, it will uplift them and it will help me get this in front of more people, and I cannot tell you how much it helps when people write a review. If you give me a five-star review, hopefully, if you feel like that, and if you would write a few words. That does a lot to help me promote the podcast. So those are just a couple of quick ways that you can help support me and this show, if that would be, if that's something that you would like to do and you know I appreciate it more than I can possibly put into words, because that's kind of what helps keep me going.

Speaker 1: 38:33

So there you go and with that, everybody, thank you so much for hanging out with me today. If you ever get a chance to go out West and you can go see Mount St Helens, I encourage you to do it Because let me tell you, that was worth seeing. It really, really was something. I'm really glad I got to go, and it is every bit of story about resilience as it is anything else. So that's what I got for you today, everybody. Y'all have a great week. Have a great week, take good care of yourself, enjoy the beautiful fall colors and, if you have them, where you live, and I will see you next time right here on the Ideal Practice Podcast. Bye now, uhh, uhh, uh, uhh, ahh.