Smarter Systems, Increasing your Cognitive Capacity as a Therapist, Sharing the Work You Love & Selling Out Your Offer with Imogen Nolan

This conversation goes deep into how we're actually working as therapists — what we're carrying mentally every single day, and what changes when we start paying attention to it.

I'm joined by Imogen Nolan, occupational therapist, mentor, and founder of Occupationally Neuro — and someone I've had the absolute privilege of watching build something incredibly thoughtful in this space.

Imogen runs a community-based OT service supporting people with neurological and complex physical disabilities across regional Victoria, and she has taken what she sees every day in her practice around functional cognition and turned it into a body of work, a personal brand, and a mentorship offer that therapists were signing up to before she'd even officially launched.

We talk about functional cognition, cognitive load, and why so many therapists are operating in a constant state of mental traffic without even realising it. Imogen breaks it all down in the most digestible way — including her traffic jam analogy that honestly needs to be on a t-shirt.

Then we dive into the behind-the-scenes of how Imogen went from hesitant post-and-ghoster on Instagram to building a community so warm and trusting that her group mentorship sold out before she had even launched it.

We talk personal brand, showing up consistently, letting go of perfectionism, and why the confidence really does come after you do the thing.

What we cover:

• Why cognition is the missing piece in so many therapy models — and how it shapes everything we do
• A simple way to understand cognitive load (and why so many therapists feel mentally full before their day even starts)
• The “traffic jam” analogy that explains overwhelm in a way that actually makes sense
• Small, practical shifts that reduce cognitive load immediately
• The difference between reactive vs proactive ways of working — and how that shows up in your day
• Why your systems matter more than you think (and how they quietly shape your capacity)
• What it actually looked like for Imogen to start showing up online — including the fear, the “post and ghost” phase, and what changed over time
• The tension therapists feel between professionalism and being human online
• How her personal brand led to real opportunities — referrals, collaborations and a sold-out first time mentorship
• The reality behind building something before you feel ready — and why that matters
• How cognitive load shows up in your business, your content, and your everyday life

Connect with Imogen:

Instagram: @Imogen_occupationaltherapist

Instagram: @Occupationally_Neuro

She is also the host of the Cognitive Capacity Chat podcast.

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-cognitive-capacity-chat/id1887698062

Connect with Mia:

Instagram: https://instagram.com/miapoko and https://www.instagram.com/ot_inspire_therapy/

Get the Complete Personal Brand Kit for Therapists for just $47! https://thefreedomtherapist.com.au/kit

Join the Waitlist for The Freedom Therapist Club: https://www.thefreedomtherapist.com.au/club

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to the Freedom Therapist Podcast, your safe space to learn and unlearn all the things about scaling your business without losing yourself in the process. I'm your host, Mia Poklepovich, a previously burnt-out mental health occupational therapist and business owner who found her way to fall back in love with business and life all over again. Because success doesn't have to come at the cost of your freedom. You're going to get so much chat, a lot of energy, and of course, a little bit of chaos because it comes with the territory.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Hello. Welcome to the Freedom Therapist Podcast. Today's episode is such a special one. I have one of my beautiful clients from inside the Freedom Therapist Club joining me, and someone I have had an absolute privilege of watching build something that is so incredible and so necessary in our space. She has taken what she sees every day, every single day in her practice around functional cognition and cognitive load, cognitive capacity, and turned that into a body of work, a personal brand, and now an offer that therapists and allied health practitioners were saying yes to before she had even officially launched, which I think is just absolutely incredible. We know that that is not the norm in this space, and so I am so excited to pick all of her brains and all the things that she did around that. And I know this is going to be such a valuable chat for everybody listening today. We have on today Imogen Nolan, and she is an occupational therapist, business owner, and educator, passionate in functional cognition and cognitive load in clinical practice. She is the founder of Occupationally Neuro, a community-based OT service supporting people with neurological and complex physical disabilities across regional Victoria. Imogen is passionate about helping therapists understand how cognition influences every single thing we do. Through her teaching, content, and mentorship, she helps occupational therapists design systems, workflows, and ways of working that reduce cognitive load and support clearer clinical reasoning. She's also the host of a soon-to-be very exciting released cognitive capacity chat podcast where she explores how cognition impacts therapists, teams, and thinking beyond the therapy room. Imogen, welcome to the Freedom Therapist Podcast. I'm so excited to have you here.

SPEAKER_03 2:35

Hello, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity to come on and talk about all things cognition.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Oh, I know everybody is going to get so much from this chat. I know I learn from you so much all the time, and you are the guru in this space. So I know all our listeners would love to know. Who are you? How did you get here? Tell us a little bit about your journey.

SPEAKER_03 2:57

Yeah, wonderful. Well, I am Imogen, and yeah, I am an occupational therapist by trade. I have eight years of experience under my belt, which is really exciting. I actually landed on occupational therapy degree after a career counselor at university was like, oh, I think you'd be great OT. And I was like, great, someone told me, someone gave me direction. So on my way I went. I found um practice at uni really difficult. The theory was really hard, but once I started uh working, I found that it came quite easily to me. And now I'm here teaching other people about um occupational therapy, which is amazing because yeah, uni is tricky and we don't always have the right support coming out into the workforce either. So I started my career as a really generalist therapist. My new grad role, I was traveling a lot. I didn't have uh a lot of support around me. Um, and then I found my niche in in brain injuries and neurological conditions and decided to explore some more specific caseloads and workload uh work where I could focus on that area. I uh moved across to a neurospecific clinic in my own personal space. It just didn't land for me, so I only stayed there for six months. And then I found um my previous workplace before I had a baby where I stayed, I grew, I learned a lot, and I have so much respect for that workplace because they really, really valued education and upskilling of therapists and from clinical perspective, but also leadership perspective as well. And I really um grew with them so grateful for that position. Um, and that is where I learned all about cognition, and yes, it is amazing to me that it's such a missing piece and of uh therapy practice. I think we're so quickly taught about physical and it's so easy to see, but that hidden disability or hidden cognitive barrier that we're not taught at university, and um, maybe it was a subject in the neuro um lecture, but it is just to me, it's everything in um how we manage our daily life as therapists, as a human, um, and how we proceed with everything. Like even if you are working with physical or kitties or uh neurodiverse clients, the way that people's cognition presents is going to enhance, if you understand the cognition, it's going to enhance and optimize the delivery of your service. So I just so strongly believe that every therapist should understand functional cognition and in a digestible way as well. And so yeah, I was in that role, and then I I um had a baby and she's two and a bit, and when she was four months old, I decided to go out on my own. I'm very career driven, and um, I have the amazing opportunity. My husband works shift work, so had the opportunity to keep her at home for a really long time whilst also managing, building up a workspace and a business, and it's evolved to having a total of five staff members and absolutely loving the um business side of things, leading a team and developing a practice that um a lot of new grad or early career therapists should have and learnings that they should have throughout their career. So that's my OT journey in a bundle.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

I love it. I love it. I think like I see this reflection so much in this space that we find, you know, something that we've learned or something that's really benefited us, and then we use like that becomes our zone of genius and like our full passion because we've seen how much it can transform our everyday life and our working life. And I feel like this is you with functional cognition, right? Like you have now created a space that not only fosters like functional cognition and cognitive capacity in your clients, but also for your team, for yourself and like in all of the ways that you work. And when did you like when did you start noticing that cognition was like a bigger part of the picture than probably we take into account as a profession? Because I love how you talked about that it's kids, it's rehab, it's physical, it's all the things like cognition is everybody.

SPEAKER_03 7:51

Yeah, absolutely. The main learning that I had was um one of our learning opportunities at our workplace was uh cognition teaching. And uh our leading therapist took us through four weeks of cognition, and um, once a week she presented a 90-minute presentation and showed us cognitive hierarchy, interventions, assessments, and there was discussion and comment made about how some for some therapists uh cognition almost comes naturally and organically, and they they do assess it and they know that they should be understanding it. But my true belief is that it shouldn't be just oh, it comes organically if you are people are able to assess it. I think we should be teaching cognition is essential, it it's it's how we operate in our daily life, and that is exactly what we do as um occupational therapists is assess di daily life. And so once she presented that cognition, I had previously done a lot of um formal professional developments, and so what I have found with the formal learnings is it's it's really difficult to make them digestible for everyday practice, yes, and it's very theory heavy, and there's not a lot of engagement on how to how to optimize. So for me, I view cognition as a tool to help me get to the outcome that I want to in equipment prescription or in my workplace, setting up my employees, or in managing my personal life. Um, and obviously also assessing people with cognitive barriers and how they can operate in their daily life. But it's more than just the person who has the cognitive barriers. It's all of us, it's the support coordinators we work with, it's the NDIS planners that we're writing reports to, it's the equipment providers that we're actually sending an email and a request for equipment provision as well. It's yeah, managing our own cog managing their cognition is also a way that we can manage our our own cognitive load as well.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

That's so true, Imo. I've really never thought about it in that way. And I think that's such a it's like it's a really vital way of describing it because we work in a collaborative model and like this flows into this, this flows into this. And so, you know, we talk a lot about like urgent reactive in the spaces that we work in. And usually when we're getting those urgent reactive requests, it's because you know, maybe somebody else doesn't have that plan of being like, oh, I haven't like listed my to-do list, or that's urgent for me, but then it becomes urgent for the next person as well, and it flows on. And I think working in a space that does run quite urgent care, managing your cognitive load and your like your cognition is so vital in the way that you practice and can actually really set you up as a therapist to have such a regulated way of working and also feel, I guess, on top of what you're doing. And what like, how would you describe what you like? What would you mean by functional cognition? How does that look in your practice and in the work that you do every day? How do you actually practice this so that we can all have clearer minds and more regulated nervous systems?

SPEAKER_03 11:25

Okay, well, there is many different ways that you can do it, but I'll talk through an example using cognitive principles. So when we think about uh cognitive hierarchy, there's attention, information processing, visual processing, um, memory, and executive function. Now, we as clinicians, we need to be able to function and function well in executive function because we have to make decisions, plan, we have to problem solve, advocate, we have to regulate our emotions. And so basically, we want to optimize what we can underneath those the cognitive hierarchy. And uh an example that I like to use is if you recall back when you were a learner driver and you first got into your car and you had to think about the accelerator, the clutch, changing the gear. You had to think about the blinker. I'm sure you turned on the window wipers at some point accidentally. You had to think about um the traffic as well. You had to think about your parents sitting next to you supervising you. You had to think about um just the radio, the radio was noisy. You just had to think about absolutely everything, and it was so such a conscious effort. But now, when you get into a car, I anticipate and I hope that when you get into a car as a seasoned driver, that most of those aspects are actually automatic and you can drive cars. So now you only have to concentrate on the the traffic and the provision and blasting out and singing your songs on your rotor. Yeah, exactly. So you are conscious in that process. So what I try to see is I'm sorry, you're automatic in that process. So what I try and see is where can we make things automatic for ourselves in in business, or where can we make it so it's um less of an effort? It's not like driving your car for the first time every time, or it's not like explaining something over and over and over again or reiterating. What can we make repetitive? Um, what can we make automatic and easier for you? Um an example, so that would be an example with sort of systems in Teams. So what can be automated? So, for example, when a referral comes in as a business owner, I have a really set template that I duplicate every single referral. I know exactly what I want to say in the email, I know exactly the next process, and I know exactly what I want to delegate to my staff.

SPEAKER_02 14:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:12

And I could do that, you know, I do know what to do, but the fact that I've got it written down, I've got a system, I've got a template that I can just checklist off means that I don't have to have this conscious effort. I've made it more automated.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

Yes. And it's funny, isn't it? Because I think we spend like a lot of time thinking that would be such an effort to set that up, or I already do that really quickly without thinking. But that example around driving a car, like if you reduce that, because essentially what we're talking about is mental load, which we're all running at high frequencies in today's society, how much of a difference do those little things make in everyday life?

SPEAKER_03 14:56

Yeah, so I mean, it's like talking about optimization, right? So we need to operate that executive function, that higher level thinking. So if we're optimizing uh below that, for example, another good example is attention and turning off your email notifications. Like it seems so simple, yet because you've now not been attracted to that attention that task and taking your attention away, you're now able to concentrate on that task. And the little things add up. It's typically the emails that are what you open up and you let out that big sigh of oh my gosh, or it takes up all of your time. It's usually the phone calls that come in and you're reactive and not proactive with your communication, which also is a form of functional cognition, optimizing that. It's making it easier on yourself so you actually have the space and the capacity to like therapists, we have to really think, we have to use our brains. Yeah, um, yeah. Sometimes I'm jealous of my husband who has a labor-intensive job, you know. Yes, yeah, they just get to go out and be physical, and their optimization is being strong and being able to lift the heavy things, yeah. Whereas our optimization is making sure our cognition is free-flowing, automatic, is able to. I like to explain it as you want your workplace to be like if you weren't able to come to the desk for a week, someone could pick it up and take over.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

Yes, that is so true. Like, we need to look after, like, we think about people who are in those physical jobs, they know they need to look after their body, they might go and see a physio or they might go and get a massage or whatever it is. Like, whereas our mental load as therapists and as women particularly is not something we often give as much, give as much like nurture as what it probably needs.

SPEAKER_03 16:57

Yeah, absolutely. And I also think you functional cognition and cognitive load in your personal life as well is so important. Like, I mean, doom scrolling on social media or using too much social media isn't a perfect example of having too much information coming into your brain, yet we seem to continue to do that, and then we're feeling full and overloaded and like we don't have enough rest. And so there's lots of little things that add up over time that just lead to more and more on your plate and less and less capacity.

SPEAKER_01 17:29

Yeah, I think the attention and distraction factor is such a big piece. Like we teach these things in therapy when we work in PEDs, but then as adults, we're doing totally different things. Um, I know that I read somewhere that like you can have your phone face down on, and I'm gonna totally butcher this, but I read you can have your phone face down, like on a table out for dinner, and it's gonna take you a certain amount of time, even if it's face down, to actually take that attention away from your phone compared to if it was like in your bag on the floor. How many times do we like go out for coffee and have our phone up? And I know that you are also a really big fan of the brick as well with your phone. Like, have you got any strategies around that? Like managing your phone and managing your attention. I think just like women in general, we really struggle with this, right? And I know it's your area of genius.

SPEAKER_03 18:17

Yeah, well, I mean, I say that I have a brick and I really do try to stay off social media, but it also is designed to keep us on there and and um use our attention. So I think one of the biggest things is like what you said, out of sight, out of mind is really good. You're not processing that information. So even um off your body. So if you can, if you're pushing around the pram, put it in the base of the pram rather than in your pocket and things like that.

SPEAKER_02 18:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:48

I yeah, I find the brick is the best way to do it. That physical barrier. I did use Opal for a long time, but without that physical barrier, I found it tricky to use.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

Um I do find the brick a lot easier, although I did go to coffee the other day and went, oh shit, I've locked myself out of everything. I know it's great when it works and upgrade when you know it. Yeah, I love that, Yemo. Like, I think there's we're competing for so many things. We're like in a world of distraction. And the way you've spoken to that, like just it it sounds like small things, right? But if you take away those small things over and over again, like the effects are gonna be huge, aren't they?

SPEAKER_03 19:31

Yeah. The other thing that I like to say is um, what can we do instead of procrastination? What could we have a productive break? So if you'll find you're sitting there writing a report or you're um highly distracted, could you put uh go for a walk and put the report away rather than just continuing this cycle of overloading your brain, which is already fatigued, which is why you can't concentrate by going for a walk and having a rest? Would a five-minute break be better than a five-minute scroll or five-minute checking of your emails, most likely? So, what is going to be productive? Um, I also think we need, as therapists, to give ourselves that time to think. A lot of us are just like back-to-back appointments or back-to-back for report writing. Actually, five minutes or 10 minutes hanging out the washing between reports. Sometimes you get those little clarification pieces that you needed to finalize that report, or you remember something or observe something, or just got a little bit of clarity. And I think we put so much pressure on ourselves just to be at 100% efficiency at all time. But our brain needs space.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

Yeah, I think that's honestly so true. Like you can stare at something on your screen and not not be able to do it for hours, spend hours doing it, and then you think, oh no, I don't have time to go out for a walk. And it's it's almost like we feel like a walk needs to be an hour, but exactly what you said like go hang out the washing, go sit outside in the sun, and potentially you always come back and let you the thing that you were trying to do that was so hard become so easy. But there's that barrier of like really doing that little break in between, isn't it? And I think a brain break is a great way of looking at it.

SPEAKER_03 21:21

Yeah, absolutely. And I think as therapists, we have learnt to be reactive and not proactive. And I think that an uh accumulation of all these different habits, turning up your emails, not answering every phone call, treating report writing like you it's an appointment that you respect. It adds up to being proactive rather than reactive, which leads to this whole much more efficient, much more capacity to to dive into those, you know, the higher level thinking and have that space to think of things.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

Yeah. I love that. I love that so much. I think that's going to be so helpful for so many listeners. Now I know that you speak so much around cognition, and we can tell like you are so passionate about this as well, and like you just love what you do. You have launched a cognitive capacity support for therapists and practitioners. And I know that you've done this through this incredible process and you've worked really hard on this, which is something we I really want to dive into. But you have an incredible presence and brand online. And I know this has been a big part of your strategy, but showing up online is something we're so fearful and really quite terrified of as therapists, especially. I want to talk about that. Like, tell me about creating your personal brand. Tell me about what shifted when you started to share on these things that you are amazing at and that you love speaking to online. And yeah, bring me along there.

SPEAKER_03 22:56

Yes, well, it has been, it was difficult to start. I was definitely sitting in the seat of the therapist that's wanting to have a personal brand, knowing that it's the future of therapy and how we manage um referrals, particularly sole traders and business owners, how we market ourselves to other therapists as well and connect and collaborate. And but I was just so fearful, and I think it's tricky because as therapists, we're always told and taught that when we're in clinic, we have to show up as a professional person. We almost have to be this persona of perfection in front of our clients. You know, we have to be neatly dressed, we have to be properly, we have to be respectful. Yeah. And so, and then when it comes to social media, the opposite is we have to be uh not have to, but vulnerability, sharing personal insights, sharing your struggles or your barriers. And that can be really intimidating starting out. And it's taking me two years, I think. Maybe like maybe the last six months have been sort of consistent, and I and I'm still learning, I'm definitely not perfect. But it just started by I did have to have backing of someone, like I just needed that additional validation to say post it.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:28

And at the very start, I was just a post and ghoster, I was so anxious. I would just post and then be like, okay, I'm see you later. I'm out of here. Yeah. And then I just continually did that. I just think um what took me there was discipline and repetition. Exactly what we would, as a clinical framework, creating neuroplasticity, exactly what we would recommend to our clients is just doing the thing because the confidence comes later with skill and practice.

SPEAKER_02 25:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:03

And I would say that I wouldn't be where I'm at if it wasn't for the learnings that I've had from you, Mayor, because I think you just seem to articulate in a way that makes it easier, and yeah, it it just starts when you speak about something that you're passionate about, it's I found it really difficult to make it straightforward for everyone because I'm so deep in my expertise, yeah, that my language and the way I spoke about things. I almost back to that prof professionalism tendency, wanted to sell myself as the expert and be like, I'm so amazing. Yeah, but in reality, the opposite needs to happen for people to be able to relate to you, is showing that you are you were once where they were, you didn't understand cognition, you felt overloaded, you felt like everything is overwhelming and tricky, and it's difficult to put yourself back in those shoes and step away from that professionalism tendency. But when you have someone like yourself who I was like, oh, this is what I want to say, and you say, Okay, maybe let's just do the first paragraph because you don't need the four paragraphs that you go into with substantial detail, just focus on that one. All of a sudden, that has become my consistency and my norm. So the the social media posts are uh more digestible.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

Yeah, and they're so authentically you, I want to say. And like, thank you for those beautiful words. You, Imogen, are just like an incredible therapist and an incredible mentor. And I've watched you do so much hard work on your personal brand, and like you do all of the work in this space, like, and your personal brand is all you, and I just I really want to celebrate you on that so much because it has been so cool to watch you grow as a therapist online and in person as well. And I think what you're sharing there is so important because we put this pressure on ourselves to almost present at a conference when we're showing up online and like have all the answers. And I think coming from an evidence-based background, we're always taught to have all of the evidence, all of the answers. But when you're showing up online as a personal brand, you're showing up as yourself, and it would be wild for us to have all the answers to be able to talk about anything in general. Like, people actually want to know our journey and they want to know that you know, we're coming up with those same obstacles too. We would all much rather from someone learn from someone who is in the process rather than someone who's almost got it all figured out because life happens to all of us.

SPEAKER_03 27:51

Exactly. And I often come back to the common reflection of if someone else was posting this that they're like their expert in their field, would I be put off or would I want to work with them? And I reflect on business coaches or personal trainers or every service that I've engaged in through social media lens, I'm much more likely an engage with people who are actually real humans because that's what we are.

unknown 28:23

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

Yeah, and it's the one thing AI can't take from us, right? Not yet, anyway. We'll see it back in the future. But like I think in a world where like we talk about this a lot, Chat GPT is everywhere, people are using AI to do everything. What AI can't take from you is your story, your emotions, your experience, like all of those beautiful moments that you've had in your career as a therapist, like it's never had those. And so our personal brand is like it's ours, and nobody else can copy it either. Like when you really dive into it, which I think you did so well, I remember us like going through that process of like really, you know, going through some prompts and figuring out, like, we know who we are as people, but sometimes articulating that online is really tricky, as for all those reasons you said about the narratives in the therapy space. And when you've actually shown up online, it's so authentically you. Like you get people will come into your real world now and be like, oh, you're just like your profile.

SPEAKER_03 29:22

Yeah, absolutely. I would say that there, and I continue to have this barrier of the the lack of tangible uh outcomes, yeah. It's really tricky to continually put yourself out there and potentially. I mean, I'm not looking at just metrics, but if there's not many likes or there's not many uh comments, you sort of get worried, but it's almost you just continue to build. And what I found is the tangible results come through really odd things. Um like uh I managed to become a referral partner to a clinic here in Geelong, and that's because they were just following me, and I had obviously built that trusting relationship through always showing up, coming up on stories, being a true human, and now I'm a referral partner with them, and I think that that I wouldn't get that networking opportunity with them otherwise, but because I showed up and built on it. Additionally, I had um my mentorship that I ran a couple months uh last month was sold out before I even launched it because I just created that sort of relationship and person-centered approach, which we do in therapy, yeah, yeah, through Instagram and showing up and just yeah, being me, like you said.

SPEAKER_01 30:58

Yeah, and you created a community, right? Like that's what we do, and that's what so many of us long to do as therapists, and we long to make like bigger systemic change that's just outside of our location, that's and that's the portal that online space has because we can reach so many more people. I also just like really want to celebrate the fact that you launched a brand new mentorship mentoring other clinicians, and you had sold that one out behind the scenes before you'd even launched it. Like that is massive, and I think what we see a lot in the online space is we see so many therapists who create amazing offers that have so much skill behind them, but it is what we kind of miss is the marketing element, and we maybe drop it in a Facebook group, get a little bit lucky, get some clients through, but there's no consistent marketing there, or we might launch this offer, and I hear this so often, and it honestly does, it just like really breaks my heart that therapists put so much time into an offer, they launch it and then they have no one buy it, and so it never gets launched again. Whereas what we need to do is the behind the scenes marketing, the behind-the-scenes of creating a consistent brand, and it is that because we often don't get that validation, like there's no close-off of that, like you're not getting clients off every single Instagram post, but they're creating a bigger conversation, and we don't tend to then prioritize that. Do you have any thoughts on that too?

SPEAKER_03 32:22

Yeah, absolutely. I think reflecting on that, I would say even six to seven years ago when I was looking for professional development, it was always Google searching and trying to find, you know, this expert, this resume. And now I think the that's difficult to do that in that space. It's more so the marketing of social media and and being a human behind um behind it.

SPEAKER_01 32:51

Yeah, and you're really just creating rapport, aren't you? Because it's like you're doing what you do in your initial session, but you're doing it online, and it will feel like you're speaking into the void, but it starts to make some pretty big progress. I know you spoke a little bit to this, but have you noticed anything else like changing, any opportunities opening up? Like, what's been the positives around having a really strong personal brand online?

SPEAKER_03 33:16

I find it really interesting. I always hear little whispers of sort of myself or the clinic getting out into the wild and people coming back to my employees, like, oh yeah, I saw the image on Instagram, or um, oh yeah, I know of them. And I think in the space that we work in, private practice, where referrals aren't always um referrals aren't always consistent, you're not gonna have sort of it's it's not you need to be in people's whispers so that people you're you are front of mind. Another thing that came through was the opportunity to go to a clinic. So for um therapists that follow me, but are employees maybe wanted to do the mentorship, reaching out and actually being able to be that consult uh consultant and um lead professional development, which is always where I wanted to be. But six to seven years ago, that was really having a workplace back you um and help with that almost professional PD. Whereas now it's that flexibility of I can create the world, how my world, how I want it to look, and I can say what I want to say as well, because it's my personal brand. So it's what I want to teach, I can teach, which is really cool.

SPEAKER_01 34:39

It's really cool. I think your personal brand is absolutely incredible. I think like, and I know people are gonna go onto your page and be like, Imogen's just such a natural at being on Instagram, she's so good at it, and I think there is that hard work behind it, right? Like we have to figure out where where our voice is, what we want to say. We all go through that process. And the other thing you said there was around um before was around like the confidence comes from just doing the thing and showing up consistently, yeah. And letting that perfectionism, right?

SPEAKER_03 35:10

Absolutely. Don't scroll to the end of my um my early post because you'll see that. But it is also the truth. I mean, you you don't expect yourself to be able to drive a car like we were talked about without practicing. You don't just walk in there and be able to drive it. I suppose the future will might be a different story, but um it's yeah, it's it's the practice. You don't expect to go into a gym strength train and be able to lift 100 kilos off you know, one training session. You you need to do the reps to get stronger, and eventually it it comes. But yeah, it definitely could. I definitely it was a challenge for me to try and post, and but the consistency has paid off, and it still can be a real challenge. I particularly as a woman, I think my cycle substantially impacts my confidence in posting, but uh it it is all worth it.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

Yeah, I think that's so true because I know there's so many therapists who are like, oh, I'm just not very good at Instagram, or I don't know if I really want a personal brand. And I think what you just said there, it's so worth it. It's so worth it, isn't it? Like the opportunities far outweigh climbing cringe mountain and sitting there and being like really vulnerable because we're so scared of this judgment, but you're actually saying no to all of these opportunities that could be available to you if you just dove in.

SPEAKER_03 36:38

Yeah, absolutely. And I continually say to myself, where would I be in five years? And I think we often look at people who are successful on Instagram who have been consistent, but we're looking at them five years down the road and they have heaps of engagement and heaps of followers, and that's amazing for them. But then how we say, Oh, well, I don't have any followers, so I'm not gonna post, or I can't show up because I don't have enough of an audience. But reality is they're five years down the road, and yeah, I often just prompt myself in saying, if if I want to be where I want to be in five years, is that to post? Is that to show up consistently? Yeah, because that's the only way you're gonna get there. You're not just gonna be able to buy your followers or buy your community.

SPEAKER_01 37:25

Um, those days are gone. I love it. I'm here for it. I feel like we're in the era of like authentic Instagrams and like therapist is the best place to do that. We're very insightful humans, we're very real humans. And I want to now dive into your mentorship. I'd love to for you to chat to us a little bit about your mentorship. I know we mentioned it before, but you built this incredible offering for therapists. Can you tell us a little bit about it? Maybe tell us a little bit about the lead up to it, tell us a little bit about what you teach in there as well. I know people will just be itching to know more about that.

SPEAKER_03 37:58

Yeah, so I was able to launch my first group mentorship earlier this year, uh, which, like Maya said, was sold behind the scenes. I am currently working on how to roll out my next one, feedback from this one. I just want to optimize it and make it better, and then I'll be launching another one.

SPEAKER_01 38:20

Yeah, which I think is so important. Even though you had incredible feedback from this one, you're forever optimizing. And I'm just, yeah, really celebrating that.

SPEAKER_03 38:29

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's it's amazing how the therapists that said yes are the ones that are willing to grow and develop and want to change how they operate. And so the mentorship is all about managing cognitive capacity from a workload sense. And there's this whole storyline of therapists and particularly OTs coming into a workplace or being taught that they just have to take on 30 referrals, they just have to do the work, they just have to keep their own to-do list or just reply to the emails, they have to do their billables, they have to be efficient. And I remember being an early career therapist and opening my laptop and just getting overwhelmed before the day had even started. I remember falling asleep and nearly asleep, nearly asleep, and then remembering that I hadn't done my case notes or I hadn't followed up the task.

SPEAKER_01 39:31

Yeah, we've all we've all had that, like in those early years, right? Like it was a little bit of a sweatshop model for like that.

SPEAKER_03 39:38

Yeah. And I think unfortunately, there's still a lot of uh workplaces that still operate uh in that way. I was just talking to a friend the other day that they're like, I'm on boarding and it's awful. But what I am trying to, and and I found that when I was leading a team too, I was like, what am I even trying to do to this team? I'm trying to control their cognitive load, and I'm trying to also manage my own, but there's no there's no clear way to do that. So my mentorship is all about effectively ways that you can manage your cognitive load, but also understand it and underpin it. And my true belief is that if you can manage your cognitive load, then you are going to be able to manage your clients' cognitive load, which also the opposite true. If you aren't managing yourself, it's likely that your clients aren't being managed well because um and it will just be a really reactive model. Um, I don't think I've yet described what cognitive load is, which is basically the amount of information that we hold in our brain. So we have a limited working memory, so we can only hold five to seven pieces of information at one time. So wow, it's not a lot. And as therapists, we're expecting ourselves. Now, this is sort of like a typical day. We log onto our computer, we check our emails, we recognize that we need to follow up to a comprehensive email, and then we go to our appointment, and then we do a really thorough appointment, pro mods, whatever it is. You need to understand everything about that client. They have emotional regulation difficult, you know, it's all it's a lot. You get back in your car, you've got a missed call, you um call back the support coordinator that you've got a missed call from, you get back to your office desk. All of a sudden, you've got to try and remember your case notes and what you were trying to follow up. You've got to remember the email that you replied to, which is probably still on your mind in that appointment. And you've got to also follow up that phone call. And I anticipate that phone call was not very productive because you wouldn't have had that capacity to actually articulate um that higher level thinking and the reasoning and the rationale, or if it was an emotional regulation, sort of like a heightened client, there's no way that you would be able to regulate yourself and you would just get really overwhelmed. Yeah, that is so true.

SPEAKER_01 42:12

I feel like and like you'd like make the phone call. I remember like years ago, you'd get in the car, you'd make the phone call, they're asking you questions, then you've just created more of a to-do list. Whereas if you'd gone back to the office, thought about it.

SPEAKER_03 42:26

Exactly. If you were proactive about it, or if you got the what was in your working memory out into a compensatory strategy, like your task database or your IDAI, I really love to use as well, or even just pen and paper, and you got it out of your mind and into your compensatory strategy that you've chosen to use, that starts to free up our cognitive load. It starts to um, I like using a traffic jam analogy. So um picture your brain and your body as a highway, and you've got lanes coming up and down, and everyone has a different amount of lanes. Um, but our cars are coming up and down our highway. And if you picture your cars as thoughts, so when you are thinking about your ability to reach out and have a drink, that's that's a car going up. Some of those cars might actually be trucks, um, some lanes might close down because maybe you had a really poor sleep, so you're fatigued, so you don't have much as much capacity for our cars. But also, what's in what happens if we have too many cars or we have some road works or we have lanes shut down? Yeah, we end up having a traffic jam. And exactly what happens with an ordinary traffic jam, we get really flustered, we get sensory sensitivity, you know, the radio is too loud, or the kids are yelling in the back. We either don't want to go to our destination or we want to. U-turn, um, we sort of say, What are we even doing? Yeah, we get really dysregulated emotionally, snappy, frustrated. And that's exactly what's happening in our brain.

SPEAKER_02 44:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:14

And that's exactly what happens when you have too much clutter, too many things, too much information.

SPEAKER_02 44:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:21

And like I said earlier, therapists, we have to use our brain at full capacity. We have the demands on us of high-level thinking. We need to have emotional regulation. We need to be able to manipulate information in our brain. Planning, problem solving, advocating, analyzing. There's so much that we need to do. We need a free-flowing highway to do that. So, where can we reduce the cars, reduce the road works, fix some potholes, maybe? Yeah. To optimize our workflow. And that's effectively what I work on. How do you manage those things? And what are things that we can implement? And often there's systems that we can implement. And systems look different to everyone.

SPEAKER_02 45:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:09

Um, systems could be uh a practice. One of my systems is every morning I go for an outdoor walk before I start my work. Otherwise, I will not be achieving higher level thinking that day, and I will be feeling very overwhelmed and overstimulated.

SPEAKER_01 45:26

But also, if we need to peach this stuff in schools and put it on a t-shirt within chucking jam, right? Like it just makes it so. I was like, this just needs to be chucked on a t-shirt, and like everyone needs to know this because we don't. We really don't. We don't have that knowledge of it.

SPEAKER_03 45:42

No, and what I love about it as well is it's now an ordinary conversation with a lot of my friends, my colleagues. They're like, oh, my cognitive load is too high at the moment, or like I'm messaging my admin assistant. I'm like, can you do this? And she's like, Yeah, but can you um explain it? It's too much for me right now. My cognitive load is really high. And it's just like, I think it should be a normal, normal topic of conversation. Because I think a lot of us quickly go to, oh, I'm just really stressed, oh, I'm just really busy. Yeah. Why are you actually busy? Is it because you just keep refreshing your emails and have them open the entire time? Yeah. Is it because every time you need a quote, you have to go back to your emails, Google search search it and not be able to find it, and then you realize you've missed an email and then you've got to go back.

SPEAKER_01 46:30

Yeah, all those things take so long and they really do impact our cognitive load in such a big way.

SPEAKER_03 46:38

Absolutely. And I think another one, which is I think a lot of people understand the visual processing. When your desk is clean, when your environment is clean, the capacity to work or concentrate becomes much, much easier.

SPEAKER_02 46:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:55

But we now have digital environments as well. We have computers, we have phones, and they can be optimized too to help with your attention, your information processing, your workflow. Like, for example, I, like I said before, I use Heidi AI. So I put my case notes in, um, which is a voice recording system, and it pumps out an AI. I don't love to do it with a client. I only do it when I'm driving in the car on the way home, just to brain dump my thoughts. And instead of that is on my home screen, ready, easily accessible, one click, and I'm ready to go. Versus hidden unhinder hidden under a mountain of apps. Yes. Where I'm looking through it, scrolling through it, and then I see, oh, I've got a notification on my phone, and I'm gonna click that and go into that and go down that rabbit hole.

SPEAKER_01 47:50

That's so true, Imo. Like, we don't think about like even like a busy Google Drive or a busy document drive or like a busy case management system, it's all the same, isn't it? Like it's gonna contribute so much to your cognitive load digitally as well. I really dropped my thought on something there, and I know that you're gonna just have so many great insights on this. As someone personally who is not super tech savvy savvy, there has been times when I've gone, oh, it's just not another app, like not another app vibes, right? Like we're just like, oh my god. But you use apps so well, and I think there's a specific reason why I know personally I approach that, and it's usually because I haven't done the work behind it. But um, what is your thoughts on that? Because I know this comes up for us as therapists, we're like, oh, another thing to learn or do. How would you speak to that? Because I know you're gonna have a brilliant perspective on it.

SPEAKER_03 48:45

Yeah, so the first thing is when we're trying to tackle our cognitive load, and it might be apps or it might be paper-based or it might be something completely different, yeah. It will be a mountain to climb. Yeah. But then when we get to the top of the mountain, we can come back down and we can manage our cognitive load. So there is that aspect of we do have to do the hard work to get the outcomes. But the opposite of not actioning our cognitive load is we're just gonna keep climbing up that mountain and it's just gonna continually get harder, harder, harder. And I anticipate that will lead to burnout.

SPEAKER_02 49:23

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:25

The other thing that is really important is we're not just gonna get shiny object syndrome and find the app that is, you know, really said it can do it all. Flavor of the Mars. Everyone's got an app for something. That's right. It's about utilizing and doing a critical analysis and understanding what's functional for us. And it's about using our OT brain. And I think OT is we have amazing brains. When we have, let's use a uh we need a script a wheelchair, we are critically analyzing what they need, what their functional needs are, what they want to achieve, every single aspect to get the wheelchair scripted. We need to do exactly the same when we have a barrier. So, what is our barrier? So maybe it's a task management system. We're not actually we put our to-do list on paper, we put our to-do list on Microsoft To do, we put it in our email, we just flag emails, we use OneNote. It's not consistent, it's not similar. Well, the barrier here, what do you actually want the system to do? So for me, being an employer, I actually want the system to highlight all tasks that they need to do from an administrative purpose. I want it to show things like functional capacity assessments, wheelchair assessments, every task that I need to do. I want to be able to delegate to other people. I want to be able to label. So instead of just jumping into a planning system, I went through critically analysed what's the actual occupational performance issue and what would actually be a good solution as well. So um that's what I do with all of my systems, and I would say as well, it's it's a continual thing. Once you have one system set up, it's great and amazing, but it's never going to be perfect, and it's about looking at what could also be you would also be happy to um, I can't think of a word right now. Trade off trade-off a few things as well.

SPEAKER_01 51:47

Yeah, yeah, fully. I think that's amazing, Emmo. Like, I think the way you speak to that with the mountain is so true because we we're digitally a little bit exhausted, but we're often creating a lot of that exhaustion for ourselves from doing things in a way that's much harder, and really having that app can make so much change. I really am conscious we've been talking for hours and I've been picking your brains selfishly to learn all of these things as well. But I know everyone wants to know how do you look after your own cognitive load? You are a busy human, you run a very successful business, you have multiple offers, you're a mum. Talk us through how you manage your cognitive load, if you will.

SPEAKER_03 52:25

Yeah, so I guess it just starts with one thing, and you just, for example, I optimize my workflow. Like I said, I design it in a way that if I was to step away for a week, someone could pick up where I left off because my all my systems are organized. And I think that whole concept changes the way you approach work. I actually just um this week I didn't clock off very well. I didn't follow my own advice, I didn't follow my systems, and I had the day off on Wednesday with my daughter, and I was just thinking, I was just like, this is how I used to operate all the time. My brain was just blowing, it was just always on whirring with head noise. Yeah, and I just did, I just knew it was because I didn't implement my system. So I always write um everything that I need to do down. I have a task, I call it a task management system and not a task list because I put all my tasks for all my clients, everything that I need to do in my task management system, which is Microsoft Planner for anyone interested. And then I have my daily to-do list. So I write down things that I want to achieve, but that's just on paper. Yeah. Um, and then I have my emails are sorted and in systems. So I manage it by I I often joke with my staff, there's a high correlation between how many unread emails there are in your inbox and how overloaded you are. Because when you feel like you have a million emails to reply to or they're really unorganized, it's almost like this, it's just constantly in your mind that you have these um things. So I do that. I am really clear with setting boundaries. So I make sure that I set a really specific work time. And um I also really work hard with my family to make sure that everything's in the family calendar, that we we, you know, you can optimize everything. The Woolies app, we do click and collect, we put our recipes in the list because then I can just go to the list and go click, click, click. Um we have um uh, you know, we we do lots of different things. I always get in the gym. I think it's just a matter of what is going to help open more lanes for me in my highway is getting into the gym. And that knowledge of that is what helps me then increase my cognitive load. But also on the other time, other hand, if I have a really poor sleep because my toddler wanted to co-sleep with me, yeah, I have that insight to be like, okay, I've got my lanes closed down today, so I'm probably not going to get as much done as I wanted to. But because everything's in my task-based management system, I'm able to go, okay, well, I just won't act on that today, but I know it's in there and I know it's something that I need to do.

SPEAKER_01 55:31

Yes. It's it's such simple concepts. Like it's like simple concepts that we make in our brains so big and overwhelming. And I think you just spoke to so many things that is gonna be so supportive. I love a paper-to-do list. I think it's just like, it's just the best. There's nothing better than crossing it off with a pen at the end of the day. And also I love how you speak about like if you don't have as many lanes open, being kind to yourself and going, okay, cool, I'm gonna adjust what I need to do because we do put a lot of pressure on ourselves to do everything as well.

SPEAKER_03 56:05

Yeah, that's right. The other thing that I have that is a daily operations. So every day I have 45 minutes of that, that's you know, my time to check emails, do the admin tasks, all that sort of stuff. Um, and also a closing week procedure. So I always block out time um on my at the end of my week to to do all those things that that may have cropped up.

SPEAKER_02 56:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:30

Um a lot of white space in calendar. I think we as therapists we're taught to just back to back to back billable. Um, but it's really important to give ourselves the space to have one, the adjustability because we always know things change, but two, also space to think and um clarify what we need to clarify in our own minds.

SPEAKER_01 56:50

Oh my god, Imogen, I love this. I could have talked to you for hours and hours and hours. I want to really close off here because I think that is just the most beautiful part of information, and people are just going to honestly get so much from this. Like, what I have learned even in this last hour is just like managing those smaller things on your cognitive load is going to give you so much more capacity, and just like I guess tackling one thing at a time. I'm I'm off to go organise all the things after we've been late this morning. Um, but also I want to know, like, and I can see that you you have so many things on the go and it's so impressive because you're so regulated in your business. But tell us what you're most excited about right now. I know you've got some cool things launching and incoming, and tell us all about them.

SPEAKER_03 57:40

Yes, well, if you can't tell, I love talking. So I'm uh launching a podcast, which is exciting. Um, I just I love talking about all of this stuff, and I find it difficult to articulate in just simple words, small words with Instagram. So yeah, having a space for that. So it's going to be called the Cognitive Capacity Chat. And yeah, I think it will be launched very, very soon. I've already recorded a couple of the episodes, so excited to get that out into the world. I'm currently only offering one-to-one mentorship. Um, that's sort of an evergreen offer. So if you're interested in working with me, that is always um open. But hopefully very soon there'll be a new group mentorship opportunity releasing. So if you want to hear more about that socials, Instagram is the best way to find all out all about that. So my handle is Imogen underscore occupational therapist.

SPEAKER_01 58:38

Amazing. I know people are gonna just want to dive all into this, and I feel like the podcast is just gonna be so valuable for clinicians and also valuable just for everybody because your knowledge on this is tenfold. I know that like we have so many conversations around cognitive capacity, and I've learned so much from you. And I just think this podcast is going to be a space that is really gonna support the wider healthcare space in such a big way, and you're so generous in sharing your information. So thank you for being so generous with your time and all of your wisdom. I always finish off with one final question, and I would love to know, Imo. What does freedom mean for you?

SPEAKER_03 59:19

It just means being able to live the life that you want to live, and I think for me, I'm doing it right now, so that's great.

SPEAKER_01 59:26

We love that. It is, it's this, it this is it, it's available. I love it. Thank you so much for today. I know this episode is going to be downloaded so many times and re-listened to and come back to. You're an absolute guru in all things cognition, and the space is just better for having you in it. Thank you so much. Thanks so much for having me.