The Traveling Therapist Podcast
Hi, I'm Kym Tolson, and I'm the traveling therapist. It's my passion to teach therapists how to navigate online private practices and multiple income streams so they can travel the world. I'm a digital nomad. With a virtual insurance based private therapy practice and a multi six figure coaching business. I'm obsessed with entrepreneurship and developing tools that can help therapists live an adventurous lifestyle. In this podcast, I will discuss my journey as a digital nomad. I'll chat with other traveling therapists and help you navigate the complexities of running an online insurance based practice. I'm so glad to have you with me on this journey.
The Traveling Therapist Podcast
224. Leaving the Platforms for Out-of-Network Private Practice with Karen Ann Schmid
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Getting recruited by a platform, telling them flat out that you live overseas, and then getting cut off anyway is a special kind of frustrating, and it's a big part of why an out-of-network private practice starts to look like the smarter move. In this episode of The Traveling Therapist Podcast, I sit down with Karen Ann Schmid, who came out of retirement at 70 and has been piecing all of this together from a 32-acre farm in New Zealand.
Karen has been through it. A handful of platforms, a cease-and-desist, and a lot of late nights trying to keep seeing her clients while living abroad. We talk about what actually shifted for her once she stopped trying to credential with insurance panels, and what she's building in its place.
In This Episode, We Explore…
- Why so many platforms started cutting off therapists located outside the US.
- What happened when Karen got a cease-and-desist after years of full disclosure.
- The realization that opened up once she stopped chasing insurance panels.
- How superbills let her keep working with clients out-of-network.
- The AI tools she leaned on to build her website, logo, and outreach from scratch.
Connect with Karen Ann Schmid:
Website: https://www.seensevicesusa.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karen-ann-schmid-7998ab75/
Are you ready to take the plunge and become a Traveling Therapist? Whether you want to be a full-time digital nomad or just want the flexibility to bring your practice with you while you travel a couple of times a year, the Portable Practice Method will give you the framework to be protected!
➡️ JOIN NOW: www.portablepracticemethod.com/
Connect with me:
- www.instagram.com/thetravelingtherapist_kym
- www.facebook.com/groups/onlineandtraveling/
- www.thetravelingtherapist.com
The Traveling Therapist Podcast is Sponsored by:
Berries: Say goodbye to the burden of mental health notes with automated note and treatment plan creation! www.heyberries.com/therapists
Alma: Alma is on a mission to simplify access to mental health care by focusing first and foremost on supporting clinicians www.helloalma.com/kym
I'm Kim Tolson and I'm the traveling therapist. It's my passion to teach therapists how to navigate online private practices and multiple income streams so they can travel the world. I'm a digital nomad with a virtual insurance-based private therapy practice and a multi-six-figure coaching business. In this podcast, I will discuss my journey as a digital nomad. I'll chat with other traveling therapists and help you navigate the complexities of running an online insurance-based practice. I'm so glad to have you with me on this journey. A year from today, what would your dream private practice look like? Would you spend less time chasing claims or only working with clients who value your skill set? What if you had more time for yourself? Alma empowers you to confidently accept insurance backed by an all-in-one EHR that simplifies scheduling, documentation, and day-to-day practice operations. Your dream practice is closer than you think. Learn more about AMA at helloAMA.com. A year from today starts now at helloalma.com Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Traveling Therapist Podcast. We have a super interesting story to tell you guys today. I'm really excited to invite Karen Ann Schmid here with us. Now, Karen is gonna tell you a little bit about herself, but I just want to say I've personally been sort of like, I don't know if we would call it mentoring Karen. I don't know what you would call it, but meeting with Karen, talking with Karen a little bit through this journey. So I was excited that she agreed to come on the podcast because I really wanted her to share her amazing adventure, but also what she's been struggling with as a traveling therapist right now. So, Karen, welcome to the podcast. Really excited to have you here. Can you let everybody know how did you go from being a typical therapist to a traveling therapist?
SPEAKER_01Well, good morning to you, and thank you for having me. I actually came out of retirement because I needed a little extra Dosh to work on a house, actually. Um, my partner and I bought some land here, and I'm I might as well tell you right off the top, I'm living on 32 acres of farmland in the northern part of the North Island of New Zealand. And I'm a federal retiree. I retired when I was 43, and I ended up retiring on a disability after being through a very toxic work environment. So I didn't really need to work because I was garnering a pension, but when we decided to to move off I lived on an island for about 19 years off of the coast of Auckland. We lived on Waihickey Island, and then we moved here on December the 28th. So I started working though, in order to make the move about four years ago, and I s and I fell into platform work, and I started out with the quickest and easiest that I could, which was at that time was BetterHelp. They got me up and running pretty quick and they slammed me with referrals because they apparently had I mean, they have a massive advertising thing. So they managed to capture me into that, and I thought this is really novel. I like this better. I had I had been involved with crisis text line for Ireland, and that kind of went down in flames. So there was just a lot of stuff, but I did this this worked out for me. But I ended up going through about I've been involved with about four platforms, and three of them have gone down in flames eventually after working with them for three years, two years. I've been through BetterHelp, I've been through Talkspace, I've been through Grow Therapy, which I liked, but they disqualified me for a contract with them. And I actually have a EAP company, which I've gotten absolutely no work in years out of Colorado, which is now changed ownership, and I'm ready to kick them to the curb. So that's how I got here.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's all right, so let's let's talk about this because um you say I retired at 43, but we should tell everybody. I mean, you this was how many years ago? I mean, you just had a birthday milestone, right? Yeah. I was 43 and I just turned 70 last month last month. Yeah, you just turned 70. And you know, I guess that first question, did you just keep your license active all those years just in case? Okay, interesting. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And that wasn't without a lot of struggle too, but but I did it. I did it, you know. Okay. I've had to go through two audits and it's just, you know, it's been really hard because that's one thing that I can say about practice overseas is that the definition of a clinical social worker is not the same from country to country. This country doesn't understand that we're trained as independent practitioners, you know, as a mental health practitioner therapist in the US. Because here you get a social work degree, you're gonna be, you know, a family social worker, you're gonna be a this or that, but they're they don't give you the independence nor the salary. It's just a real different, you're talking real different definitions of what a clinical therapist is. So Okay.
SPEAKER_00So you moved to Auckland, what'd you say, 17 years ago, 18 and a half years ago?
SPEAKER_01I came here September 1st of 2006. Okay, wow. So I'm gonna have my 20th anniversary out of country in another couple months. That's amazing.
SPEAKER_00So you did that, but all along you're like, well, what if I do need to use my license at some point? Because you're ever in this other country, you're realizing, like, okay, they're not even recognizing a psychotherapy license. So if I ever need to go back and work for some reason, I'm just gonna keep it, or you just thought, I love the fact that I have this thing and I just want to make sure I keep it. Like, what was the thought process for you?
SPEAKER_01Well, initially I thought, you know, I worked really hard for this license, and I'd be down if I want to let it go, you know, just like that, because I don't want to take the time to keep it. And plus, you know, when I came here, I had kept my house in Baltimore. And, you know, coming here to live with my partner was the noble experiment. I didn't know if the relationship was going to work or not. And I was very reluctant to let go of things that I'm sort of a survivor kind of person. So, you know, you don't burn your bridges so quickly.
SPEAKER_00Just for a little background for you guys, like Karen's she's in the traveling therapist Facebook group. She reached out to me. We chit-chatted, you know, privately because she's had questions and problems coming up that we're gonna talk about. But wasn't there a story about your partner? I can't remember.
SPEAKER_01I feel like you said that, like, was your partner already over in New Zealand or my partner was in New Zealand and when I was working for the government, I had a visitor to the hospital where I worked. I worked for the VA, I worked for the federal government. Yeah. And so anyway, ran into the driver's side of my door of my car, and I developed fibromyalgia, which I still have. I have a chronic pain disorder, and I had a toxic managerial change. So what happened was I was being treated for the fibromyalgia, and so I went into a very early chat room in Talk City. Those of you that are older than dirt like me will may remember it. But anyway, I went into an alternative health room to see what they were injecting me with, which was something called prolotherapy. And I didn't know what it was, and I just happened to run into who was gonna be my my wife in that chat room in that space doing this. And so that's that's how it happened. I mean, you know, so technology was working on my side along with the cosmos, so that's how it happened.
SPEAKER_00And so then you're like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna leave, I'm gonna relocate to this other country.
SPEAKER_01Cross my fingers, but I'm gonna go. Yeah, cross my fingers. I'm gonna hold on to my house, I'm gonna hold on to my bank accounts, I'm gonna have my cell phone, US phone number. And so Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because a lot of people ask that, like, what do you do? Do you cut all ties? Do you, you know, do you have keep residency in the United States, but you kept all of that. So I'm wondering, like, over time it'd be slowly like oh that stopped. Are you still maintaining a presence in the US? Just for people listening that might be like, How are you doing it long term?
SPEAKER_01Well, uh, you know, my wife would tell you that I don't let go of anything. And that and then so, you know, I've got three containers of things I brought from the US. I had aging parents. My mother had Alzheimer's disease, and my mom died at 88, and I, you know, and I tried to do long distance caregiving and coaching with my father who was who was, you know, he died at 93 93. And I just wanted to make sure that I did what I felt comfortable doing so that when in when it ended, I wasn't gonna say if I had only something. Yeah. You know, so anyway, nonetheless, I don't like letting go of stuff. But anyway, eventually I I realized that I could you know, I I also felt I also experienced some xenophobia when I came here, which is important, I think, to people that do leave country, especially now, because there's a I have a lot of clients or I have had a lot of clients that are really, you know, suffering with the anxiety of the political milieu there in the US. So nonetheless, there's sort of two schools of thought about Americans here in New Zealand. Some love us because they're glad that we didn't desert them in World War II and make them speak Japanese. And then there's the other part that hate us because of the Rainbow Warrior and uh anti-nuke movements, 'cause they're very strong here. And they also have a very strong feeling about people that appear to put themsel stand out. They call it a tall poppy syndrome. And so they don't they don't respond very well to people that maybe strive for excellence, you know, that it can be really difficult. And I also decided to try to r to get my credentials, which I had in the US, verified here in New Zealand and get working with them in a regular kind of nine to five job situation. Yeah. And and I got a whole lot of pushback. And so I ended up doing things like, you know, cleaning the police station, selling used clothes. And one of the things I've always said about being here is that oftentimes you have to do several things just to get along, you know, get by. My wife continued to work. She worked for the university, Auckland University, and was a um wine science instructor. Oh, interesting. And we've lived in a vineyard and some other things. So but anyway, so I that's how that kind of so those things didn't work for me, you know, in terms of qualifying. I'm still waiting right now. I paid my six hundred dollars to has gone through three different changes of names, but it's now the New Zealand Social Work Board. And they gave me a letter saying that my credentials were very I'm eligible for registration, as they call it. They don't license. And they it's been it'll be a year in July that they've had my money and they haven't proceeded to register me. Their excuse is that I don't have a job offer, but how can I get a job offer for myself? You know.
SPEAKER_00So where would you work if it came through? If are there places, I mean, especially.
SPEAKER_01I don't think I would work anywhere right now because the salaries are pathetic. And so even the even the pathetic salaries from the pathetic platforms, which we will remain nameless, you know, in the exchange rate, I ended up doing much better making my pittance, you know, overseas. And I think, like I said, I kept the bank, I kept the phone number, I have an old pay as you go kind of T-Mobile line. I don't answer it, I don't use it. And nowadays I get to have two SIM cards in my phone. I have my SIM card for my T-Mobile account, and I have a local phone company here in New Zealand, and I have a an e-slot too that I haven't even used.
SPEAKER_00So Yeah, that's the thing now, right? The e-SIM. So you don't have to worry about dashboards.
SPEAKER_01That's probably a the easiest thing to say right off the top. I am not technology oriented, and it changes so fast that even when I struggle to get an understanding of what it is I need to do, I have a proxy account, I have all kinds of things that people that want to try to do this thing that I'm trying to do have to be kind of clued in on, you know, which is the bank accounts, the telephone numbers, the virtual addresses, the proxy accounts to get in a CAPTCHA. I mean, it's been a step-by-step learning process where I've had to figure things out. And I've been figuring it out majoratively on my own, as you might have noticed.
SPEAKER_00You have, yeah. I mean, you reached out to me when it got bad, but it's like I know you've been, I mean, well, you've been over there this long, and then coming out of retirement, and then it's like, okay, now I actually how do I put all these pieces together after just trying to be like a US, like have a I guess a US presence, and then now living over there for that long and figuring all that out, and then then figuring out the licensure and the working and all of that stuff. So okay, so far as you go. Yeah, I mean, that's how I think most of us do it. I mean, we we do have the traveling therapist Facebook group, thank goodness, because I mean, every day there's like somebody posting with a problem similar to yours, and thankfully there's people like you and other people that have figured it out already, you know. So thank goodness we have that. But yeah.
SPEAKER_01If nothing else, the support or the understanding you're not alone or that you have a community is real important. It really is.
SPEAKER_00So let's tell everybody, because I mean you're I've cited your case quite a few times lately when other people have reached out to me about like, can I work for so-and-so? Can I do this? Can I do that? They're telling me I can, they're telling me I can't. Let's talk about what happened to you. So you you decide you're gonna come out of retirement, better help pops up, they recruited you, and you told them where you were located, right? I mean, you have the U.S. presence with the business address or whatever, but yes, could you explain the story? Because every day I feel like I'm seeing this now in the Facebook group where somebody will say, Well, I'm just gonna work for you know, Headway, you know, and it's like you can't, you can't do it. You can't do it. But even the companies give the wrong information. So maybe just could you just tell the BetterHelp thing a little bit? What happened?
SPEAKER_01Well, BetterHelp recruited me from off of a LinkedIn page, I think. I can't remember that far back now. But anyway, um, I always told them where I was located. And I never told them that I was just visiting or any of that either. I never wanted to tell a falsehood. I think that's just bad business. You're gonna get caught getting over that fence. So I said, Well, if you can handle the fact that I I'm overseas and that, you know, I do have a US bank account, and I do have, you know, I can be contacted on a US phone number if I have to be. And they said, Oh, that should be no problem. And the recruiters don't talk to the policymakers. I mean, they're probably hired from an employment agency to just recruit. That's what they do. And they there's very little communication. So BetterHelp went through that process with me, as did Grow Therapy, who had hired recruiters again. I was so happy to go to Grow because of the salary nonsense with BetterHelp.
SPEAKER_00I mean, we all know, and if you don't know and you're listening, I mean, BetterHap Help is abysmal. I mean, they slam you with like 50 clients a week, they expect you to answer at all hours. It's my understanding. Correct me, Karen, if I'm wrong. And I think pay comes out to about $30 an hour after all of that really intense work that you've kind of done some stuff to zizh it up a bit.
SPEAKER_01What happens is you open for referral, you set up a calendar on the platform, they send you referrals, you say yes or no, you spend a lot of time answering referrals, reading them, trying to give a personalized response. And, you know, that's the really difficult situation. I'm really happy to invite you to join with me and and schedule a session so we can talk about how we might work together, blah, blah, blah, blah, standard issue kind of stuff. And they show up and then and that was a membership originally. It was a membership. You paid last time I looked, it was something like $240 that you pay as a membership for four sessions a month or something like that. And they had a gradient in terms of how they paid the the provider. So the first five hours you got, I think you got thirty-five dollars a session. It wasn't even about time, it was a session. $35 a session. And the expectation was it was a 45 minute session. I always run hour sessions because they're just I 35 minutes, 30 minutes is not enough for me. And 45 is barely getting it done. So and it just isn't what uh my style. So then the next five hours you get paid forty dollars, and then the next five you get forty-five dollars.
SPEAKER_00So it's like incentivized to cram more people in, kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And full time is 30 hours a week. Now, what they have done is better help has gone to a to an insurance basis, and I can't tell you for sure who they have handling their insurance claims. And that raised it up about maybe it started out at 45. But when you realize that they're probably they're when they're raking in a hundred and some dollars, and you're getting forty-five tops. I mean and they also used to pay by the word if you did asynchronous messaging. And then they also had just a, you know, you have the audio chat versus the video stuff. And uh I never liked those.
SPEAKER_00I know, I don't like those much either. So how many years ago was that where you were like, okay, I'm gonna come out of retirement? Oh, here's better help. Cool. They don't pay great.
SPEAKER_01In October, it would have been four years.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_01And they kicked me to the curb probably about maybe six months ago.
SPEAKER_00So tell everybody how that happened because this this is when I first met you, I think. When you reached out to me and you said, look at this letter I got. Or maybe you had reached out to me earlier. No, it was better help first and then grow it and did it later. But could you tell us what what you got?
SPEAKER_01When I moved from BetterHelp to Talkspace and moved from Talkspace, because they kicked me to the curb too. I moved to Grow. But I kept the Better Help thing because they hadn't decided to kick me to the curb. So I used it as a fallback, you know, when Talkspace went down to just keep working. And then I got hooked up with Grow and they took over. And so I only had one client that I kept on BetterHelp, but I just kept it going and made myself unavailable until I I lost my work contract with Grow. So BetterHelp was still always there throughout the years because I wasn't really active and they I was below the radar, I guess, or something. I don't know. So when I went to Talkspace, I went to a a CEU conference and they realized that I was one of the trainers realized I was out of country, and they blew the whistle on me with their ethics policy making people. And they sent me out a a kind of a warning shot saying, We're gonna have to look at this. And I said, Well, you didn't look at it when I told it to you straight up, so what what's this about? And I said, And this is really disruptive for clients. It's not just about me. You know, I mean, yes, it's about me, but this is not a good way to treat your clients without notice. And they literally just turned me off.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Wow. Now, before they turned me off, I went ahead and took names and addresses, you know, because there was nothing saying that, you know, I couldn't invite them to follow me wherever I went. And so when I st when I started hearing rumblings about it, I I let I've always been very good about keeping clients in the loop about what was happening because they really didn't take a lot of notice of clients and continuity. So anyway, then I went to Grow after I got kicked to the curb with Talkspace from that training thing where the trainer ratted me out, so to speak.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and when you say kick to the curb, I mean basically they're saying you're not allowed to be located out of the United States, even though you've disclosed this and all that. Yeah. So they're like, sorry, never mind, you can't do this. So then you went to Grow, which at the time they didn't have a policy on this, right? Because I I know this is a more recent thing with Grow.
SPEAKER_01I don't think they thought about it because I don't think they anticipated anybody trying to make it work. But I had a, again, a person that onboarded me, walked me through how to get on the platform, how to use it, and we had a video, this and that, and you know, and they were all very animated and very excited about that I was doing this and how novel and all that nonsense. And then all of a sudden, I got a message saying, um, I that's probably that's been a maybe that was a year ago. I can't even remember. It cut your time just gets really collapsed. They basically said, please confirm that you are practicing from within the US. And I said, Well, I can confirm I'm not practicing within the US. I never have been. You've always known that. And so then I got a note that said, cease and desist. And so I rapidly composed a note to all my clients to say what was going on. And that it looked like I was gonna be cut off. They were g not gonna be able to to stay with me on Grow and if they wanted and I c and they they told me to, you know, they gave me some kind of cut me some slack in saying that if I had some extreme cases that I needed to continue to see off of Grow, I could do that. So I just took that literally and just sent everybody a note so where I'm going. You know, and at that time I said I'm gonna go retreat to Better Help until I can get situated again. And then they didn't have an insurance part then. They were still the membership thing, and people with insurance didn't want to be paying 240 or 260 a membership a month. It's a subscription plan.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Right, right. Well if they could use their insurance, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So I when I ended with them, I had already poached my email addresses and everybody knew where I was going. And I said that I was gonna work on going private, because three strikes and I'm done.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. You know. So I said I'm gonna kick this effort of mine into a higher gear to get, you know, if I can do it privately, I'm gonna do it. And I had to do it as cheaply as possible. Right. I had to try not to fall into any rabbit holes where I'm paying money for something I don't need or I you know. Not only did I not want it to be expensive, I didn't want it to be not good enough.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Inadequate.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01So I said I you know, and so it's this sort of if you want something done, you have well, you need to do it yourself. And so I did that the best I could, but then I tripped on you and portable practice and some other things, and I was starting to get the feeling that there were some people that knew more about what I was trying to do than I did. And when I hit a wall, you know, I sometimes I spend days kind of swimming through the through the systems and whatever. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So it's crazy. It's really exhausting. It really is trying to figure out all the pieces.
SPEAKER_01So I mean, I you know, by the time I got to you, I had already done a lot of stuff, as you might have remembered.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. But uh again, the the trick is being able to coordinate those moving parts, as I call them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I haven't been able to quite succeed and get over the line with that yet.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we're we're working on it. So after talking to Karen, I mean, and for people listening, this is just for people listening, you know, this comes up every day in the traveling therapist Facebook group, the insurance piece. And that's the reason why most of the platforms are now saying you can't be out of the country, because most of them didn't care. Even Allah that actually sponsors this podcast didn't care until September 2025. They actually supported the traveling therapist lifestyle. They're like, Yes, we want to sponsor your podcast. We're so excited to, you know, fund these or help with these alternative lifestyles. And then even for me, I'm like in with the people there. With me, they send me an email one day. They're like, hey, hate to do this, but we have to change our policy. And I'm like, Are you kidding? Like, I mean, I'd like to promote this to the traveling therapist constantly as like a really good way of doing that.
SPEAKER_01If you travel in the US, you're okay.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. If you traveled in the US, you're okay. But I love AMA still, I'm not bashing AMA or anything. I'm just saying, like, all of them changed their policies because they are insurance-based. And most of the insurance companies are okay with it, but Blue Cross Blue Shield is not okay with it. And, you know, some of the smaller state-specific insurance companies aren't okay. Some of the Medicaids aren't okay. Medicare is not okay. So when you start looking at all that, if you're if you know, if you if you're eligible for Medicare, you have to be eligible for Medicare for some of these commercial plans because they do Medicare HMOs. So if you're not eligible for Medicare, you can't even be in the commercial credentialing. And it's just, it's this maze of just insanity. You know, it's just crazy. And they just don't want you to be out of the United States.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, all these platforms would contact me and say, Do you want to do Medicare and Medicaid? And I said, I can't. Yeah, leave me alone. And they said, Okay, why why can't you? And I tell them, and then they said, Okay. And then we just go on like usual. And then months later they come back to me and say, Yeah, see ya.
SPEAKER_00So Karen reached reaches out to me with this stuff because I'm the admin in the traveling therapist group, and she's like, Look, look what's happening. She's sending me stuff, and I'm like, oh my gosh. So I meet with Karen, and you know, it's like the plan, right? Karen's plan was like, okay, I guess I should just try to get independently credentialed and do the insurance on my own. And, you know, my advice to her and to everybody is you probably shouldn't do it, do that. I mean, I'm not the end-all be-all of like decision-making for people, but the writing's on the wall. And it's just slowly over the years, I've just seen that option become less and less and less of an option. So, you know, Karen decides, okay, well, I think that's a good idea. I think I won't credential.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that was a real big revelation to me to say, no, you don't have to credential and wait for them to open their panels, and you don't have to uh go through 180 days of them figuring it out and saying no in the end anyway. So you know, you can you could go on without having to get credentialed on these individual insurance panels as a provider. That was the biggest revelation that I got from you. Because like I said, I had done a lot of other kind of stuff to kind of CYA.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01With you know, the address in Delaware with virtual this and that and bank accounts and oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But I haven't been able to quite get across the line with my billing yet.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01We're gonna figure that piece out.
SPEAKER_00So I did tell Karen about you guys probably know Mentaya. Thrizer's another one, and you did I've talked to Mental, Karen talked to Mentaya, and as of our recent conversations, it was okay for the provider to be located wherever they want to be located and submit, let Mintai submit super bills on the client's behalf. So that is sort of where this trajectory's taken us, and Karen's now reaching out to these clients, and she was smart enough. If you guys are listening to this, and you're smart enough to get names and numbers of clients off your like existing platforms, if you ever decide to go international, as I know right now, it's not like a can I non-compete clause, like they don't say you can't take your clients with you. Most of these platforms.
SPEAKER_01I haven't seen anything that's really logistically told me I can't poach people. But I don't really poach people because if you you saw what I sent out in terms of a letter of just a sort of a newsletter kind of thing and saying, Okay, I'm done, you know. I told you that I was gonna work on some things and see if I could find a place for you to land. If you want to land with me, that's fine. But if you've moved on and you've got another person that's working well for you, I'm happy for you. You know, I've never been a hardcore seller person. So now that I've sort of, you know, try to bring over the ones I can bring over or who want to stay, which some of these people took an opportunity to just take a break and have just decided to stay on a break, and that's okay. Sure.
SPEAKER_00Sure. But at least they the seed has been planted, you know, when they're like, oh gosh, I've got this going on. Let me reach out to Karen. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01But I have started to use, as you know, I've started to use I do all my chat GPT stuff on this because I don't want it to get a hold of my information on the laptop and yeah. I don't want to mix that up yet. I'm still cautious about AI and and what it can do. So anyway, but I have used it and I love you know these huge rock questions I asked. Yeah. GPT, you know. You know, is God so big and powerful he can make a rock so heavy, even he can't lift it, kind of question. Where I just sort of say, okay, I want to know what are the an example right now is what are the organizations that will that service my population of cho my populations of choice? They have to be in Maryland and DC area, and I need uh email addresses and contact numbers, and I need a letter that of introduction, and I need a letter of service, you know, that's tailored for each of these populations, because I have about maybe four or five, I don't even know, four or five niche populations. Plus, I've started to do some, you know, I've done some Udemy stuff to kind of give myself another option, which is the coaching option, which we've talked about briefly, but you know, right now I'm still trying to get the clinical options straight. Because I mean it's either a step up or a step down when when you do life coaching, you know. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Depending on how you look at it.
SPEAKER_01You need the clinical services as much as you need the organizational and the supportive services that come through coaching um that are tailored. So basically my next port of call will be to send out letters of introduction for my services, and I used um WebAccor to develop my website, which actually I'm I'm I'm pretty happy with it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, she did great with your website.
SPEAKER_01And then I did um, I also told ChatGPT that I wanted a logo for my business. My business is called Scene, which is for support, empowerment, and enrichment network services. And I wanted it to be inclusive. You know, I tend to do a lot of women's empowerment stuff. I do a lot of LGBTQI plus stuff, I do elder care stuff, life planning, end-of-life planning. There's a couple things I do and I do well. So I've tried to diversify. So anyway, I I told ChatGPT I wanted a tree of life with vibrant colored leaves in the form of human beings. It looks so good, you guys.
SPEAKER_00If you go to her website, go check out Karen's website.
SPEAKER_01And I wanted to have the trunk as intertwined hands.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Leading to the branches and the roots going deep into the earth. And it came out magic. It's beautiful. So I have tried my those were my initial efforts at using AI.
SPEAKER_00You're doing great with it too. Yeah. What's your website, Karen, again? Just in case in case anybody's listening, they're like, hey, I'd actually need a therapist that's in Virginia or or Maryland in the DC area.
SPEAKER_01We're gonna have to do this. It's gonna be HTTPS colon slash slash www.sene S-E-E-N services USA dot com slash. Hopefully that's right.
SPEAKER_00We'll link it down below in the show notes too of another. But I that's it was that's the shortened version. So we had a discussion. I gave Carrot a little feedback. She had a real long URL. I was like, let's see if we can shorten it a little bit so people can remember it a little bit better. But yeah, well carrot.
SPEAKER_01But WebAccor is good. I've I you know they they they have an AI component that just says answer these questions and we'll do the rest. And then I've been able to edit and stuff, you know, and me as a sole practitioner, sometimes you get into the plurals that you have to try to ferret them out.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but absolutely you're doing it. I mean, and you know, not the 70s old, but to to be a retirement to come back and at 70 be like so determined to navigate this stuff and try to figure out a way to still be able to see your clients and you know make some extra. If they be you've got the pension, you got your wife and that income, but still trying to like just go through this because I think a lot of people would have been so frustrated at this point and just been like, you know, screw it. But you haven't. I mean, you just keep trying, which I think is amazing.
SPEAKER_01And that's the other thing that I think was important about my encounter with you is to say that what I'm doing, I'm not trying to do something illegal or unethical.
SPEAKER_00Oh, thank you for saying that. Yeah. Just like that's a really important thing. Yeah. Because we get that that's an important part every day too. Yeah, absolutely. We get that in the world.
SPEAKER_01The systems would like you to believe you're doing something naughty and you're not.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so that, you know, that's a real deterrent, I think, for was what would be for me is um if I was doing something or being false about something, that would really upset me. That would not jive with me. But that was another really important thing that people have to remember. But I'm I'm very I am a dog with a bone, and I just I don't let I don't want things to beat me, and that includes the technology. And so much do I curse technology. I know, it's hard, it's frustrating. I'm still trying to make it work, I'm not giving up yet. But there are days where I just I just collapse. Yeah, I know. I just go in, lay down, and just sleep because I just I I had enough. But I spent hours.
SPEAKER_00So frustrating. Just good therapists just trying to do good work and they've got to deal deal with all this crap.
SPEAKER_01And I live in a very rural community, which is even another complication that you you may people that go overseas with their internet hookups and things like that. I have no phone service, no television service, no internet service, any number of things unless I can get them all to work on Starlink. Right, Starlink's the only option. So anyway, and and Starlink is somewhat portable, but you know, nonetheless, I mean, it's daylight. I'm looking at my farm hills and the cows, and yeah, you know I've seen the pictures, it's beautiful. And then living on the island was also kind of weird, but that's sort of sort of the story, but yeah, it's it's you know, and each of us have these crazy stories that are unique to our own tourney. I just don't know of too many 70-year-olds that are bothering with this. And I'm not saying that I'm gonna bother with this in a big way, but I swear to God I'm gonna get through this somehow.
SPEAKER_00You're gonna at least get some clients, and by God, you're gonna see those clients.
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna make a little money, and you know, and that's another thing I might I might caution people is like please do not end up owing IRS. Right.
SPEAKER_00We could do like a whole episode on that, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. You know, the taxes are so complex. And the other thing I might say to you is also, I don't I mean for say to everyone, is to to make sure that your country doesn't have any prohibitions about you working out of country.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And that they want to make sure that in your in their country you're doing work that you they sanction. Because some countries don't don't allow that. But I called m I call the registration people and I call the ministry of whatever it is here in New Zealand and said, you know, do you have any prohibitions about me working offshore, collecting offshoes money, paying taxes to that entity? And I have a tax, I'm under tax treaty for my pensions and things. So everybody has their own unique thing, but as a federal government person I have a little bit of benefit. And as long as I'm paying my taxes in the US, or at least responsible for it anyway, and dealing with them, I am I'm covered here. I don't have to pay double taxation. But you gotta know what your own jurisdiction requires, you know. But again, like I said in the beginning, you gotta understand that different countries have different ideas about what a clinical professional is. Because I mean finding work here for me was just a bloody nightmare. And so, like I just did what I had to do. I mean, you know, I made muffins for the Saturday market. I mean, we just have done a lot of we made vinegar, we grew mushrooms, I mean, we've we've done a lot of things just to, you know, get by. But my wife is actually came here when she was twelve from the UK. And we're both, you know, we're both survivors. I mean, we both didn't grow up we didn't come up easy, let's put it that way. You know, we have a little bit of backbone.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But oh, I'd say you're really toughened, you're really trying to figure this out. So I admire you for that. And I just want to say thanks for coming today and being a guest. I think it's gonna inspire a lot of people.
SPEAKER_01I hope I hope it helps. I mean, that's it. Yeah, I think it will. That was the one reason I thought, how can I help? I mean, if I can, I want to. Yeah, but you know, it's not a very straightforward, simple process, and it probably isn't for the faint-hearted either.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, probably not agree with that. Well, on that note, I'll wrap it up. You guys will put Karen's beautiful new website in the show notes so you guys can check it out. Share it around, pal. Yes, share it around, please. Get Karen some some private pay clients or out of network clients as she can see. Karen, thanks so much for being here. Thank you so much for listening to the Traveling Therapist Podcast. For show notes, links, and downloads, head over to the Traveling Therapist.com where you'll be able to learn more about my journey, the courses I've created for you, and other exciting resources to make your dreams become a reality. If you've enjoyed this episode, please share with your traveling therapist friends. Subscribe to the podcast, and if you love this episode, please leave a review.