The Abundant Practice Podcast & Blog Spot!

Tell Me What To Do

The Mastermind Group I’m in is comprised of 4 entrepreneurial women. We’ve all started two or more businesses. We’re fairly strong personalities. We would all identify as feminist and tend to have a healthy amount of confidence. I say this so the following sentiment is kept in context. We want to be told what to do. Keep your mind out of the Fifty Shades gutter… not like that. There are parts of each of our businesses that we genuinely just want some expert to tell us what to do because we r…

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Saying No In Your Private Practice

There are a million ways we can talk about boundaries in your practice, and I’m sure I’ll hit most of them at some point, but today I want to talk to what happens when we fall into scheduling and fear-based victimhood. Oh yeah, I used the V-word. Let’s own it. Time Here’s what happens: someone calls and seems like a really great fit. You have space available since you’re still building. You want to see this client. They insist that they can’t make the times you offer, so you stretch a lit…

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The Private Practice Roller Coaster Ride

There are two ways to ride roller coasters: holding on or arms in the air. The same can be said for the private practice roller coaster ride you are all on. I know, you’re supposed to keep contained within your little car of metal and foam padding, but man the exhilaration sometimes causes even a rule follower like me to throw my hands in the air with a hearty fun-filled scream. And there’s also the fact that they’re terrifying sometimes, and not in the fun way. Did you guys see that repo…

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Healing From Client-Related Trauma

*Trigger warning: description of violence follows* I have a scar from a client, a man twice my weight, who locked his jaw on me and wouldn’t let go. I was once restrained by a young but strong girl and didn’t know how I was going to get out of it. As a house parent at 19 years old, I was placed alone with two men in their mid-30’s who had sexually assaulted a young woman and I wasn’t told about it, nor did I have access to their chart, until months in. A co-worker I traded shifts with was once p…

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Business Half-Truths

I have a new pet peeve! It’s people who spout off business advice half-truths. (And before you worry, it’s no one in the Abundance Facebook Group; those folks will tell you the full truth).  These half-truthers know it’s more complicated than they say it is, but they don’t just fess up that a part of their brilliant idea/system sucks. Having bought into some of these, I want to tell you some pitfalls of these options so you can make a better informed decision. I want to stress that these strateg…

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When Partners Have Concerns

This suggestion came up in the Facebook Group as a blog topic and it was the first one I wrote about because it’s something I see a lot. I’ve had several conversations with partners of therapists who wanted to join the Abundance Practice-Building Groups but their loved one had some reticence around private practice (and thus the investment in the group).  I think our partners' unfamiliarity with the private practice possibilities, in tandem with the risk, makes for some very fair, very real conc…

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Lessons Learned Launching

So here I am, back from maternity leave and getting all my ducks in a row with both businesses so the content of this post is what’s on my mind. Balance is big for me right now and as you’ll see in this post, I was feeling like a train wreck for part of last year. Here's the story: Let’s start with a guy named Jeff Walker; he’s a brilliant, likable, extremely successful entrepreneur who a bunch of multimillionaire entrepreneurs listen to about how to “launch” their products or services. Being a …

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5 Things I Wish They Told Me In Grad School

Amanda Patterson, LMHC, CAP, NCC is a private practice success story. She has been so successful individually that she's built a successful group private practice.  As a member of the Abundance Practice Builders Facebook Group, she has generously offered support to clinicians new to private practice from her wealth of experience. I totally agree with this blog post; I had no idea what was available to me as a grad student and may have started this process much earlier if I had.  It’s been more t…

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Private Practice & Your Life

Let’s talk about your private practice within the context of your life. Not how to fit your life around this entrepreneurial venture. Not what you have to give up in order to succeed. I hate that shit, as you know. I want to make a few assumptions about you. You are a person with beautiful, amazing, interesting things going on. You have interests beyond counseling. You have reasons you want a more flexible schedule and more money. They don’t have to be grand, but how you want to spend your t…

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Busting Your Niche Hesitations

No matter who I’m working with, no matter what context, be it Group or Free Individual Consultation (yes, that’s a thing, email to get scheduled), I always start with creating a niche. At least 30% of the time the person doesn’t want to go there. Usually they don’t want to limit themselves or they think they’re niching themselves with a population like “women in transition ages 25 to 60.” (Think for a second about the difference in marketing to a 25 year old in a quarter-life crisis and a 60 ye…

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