74: Money Guilt & Therapists with Allison Puryear
Starting life in a working-class family and moving into a place of financial abundance is the dream, right? So why did Allison struggle so much when she "made it" in her therapy private practice? Money guilt. This episode covers how it feels to have money and face financial privilege, raise non-spoiled kids with money, and prevent therapist burnout.
Money Guilt
Growing up in a working-class family, Allison remembers how it felt seeing her mom cry about money fears. Money felt fraught, while at the same time, her parents instilled in her the importance of working hard. She said that her parents didn't have savings and worked hard to keep their heads above water financially.
As Allison grew her private practice business and could afford her bills while having money left over, she experienced guilt. Many of us associate money guilt with having a lack of money, or "overspending," but money guilt shows up on the other end of earning too.
Money guilt can look like feeling confused about having or earning money. It can show up by feeling wrong about making money. Sometimes it can feel like worrying that others will judge you or you'll be out of touch with them when you earn more money. Money guilt can be isolating because we tend to keep most of our money fears private.
Saving Too Much
Allison shared that she was "hoarding money" or saving too much as she started earning more. While saving too much differs by person, typically, it means saving more than a person needs for an emergency and failing to invest money or spend and enjoy it. It makes sense that Allison over-saved coming from a background where her parents couldn't save money; it was a way to feel safe. She worked through the behavior of over-saving with logic--by making sure she calculated how much she needed to save and moving the rest of the funds elsewhere.
Fear of Debt
Fear of debt is a common fear, but as Allison shares, her fear of debt was visceral. Even saying the word "debt" left her feeling uncomfortable. While my guest Allison's fear of debt ended at a physical sensation of discomfort, there are other serious manifestations. A serious fear of debt can manifest as:
Turning down social activities because of a fear of spending
Frequent checking of saving and investment accounts
Over-monitoring credit to ensure all bills are paid in full/no fraudulent charges are made
Struggling to purchase necessities
If your fear of debt impacts your ability to function, please know you aren't alone, and your life is worth living. Call the suicide prevention lifeline 24/7 if you are experiencing serious thoughts of self-harm at 1-800-273-8255.
Therapist Money Guilt
In order to make the money I need to make, I really need to suffer.
—Allison Puryear
Our society has told therapists that they shouldn't worry or place emphasis on earning money. In other words, they hear, "you're a therapist because you care about doing good in the world." This message--that being a therapist and a financial martyr are intertwined--leads therapists to have complicated relationships with money. Money guilt in therapists can manifest as therapists undercharging, not charging for late cancellations or no-shows, overworking, or staying at a toxic job for too long.
Therapists can work on alleviating money guilt by telling themselves, "I'm paid well to do good work with others." Another helpful reframe is, "It's possible to be a good therapist and make a good living."
Preventing Therapist Burnout
Allison and I agree that a crucial part of preventing therapist burnout is earning enough financially. For therapists in private practice, that means having firm financial boundaries and charging enough in their practices. It also means having the ability to afford things that are more commonly provided in traditional employment, like health insurance, sick days, family leave, professional development, and contributing to retirement.
For therapists who are traditionally employed, preventing therapist burnout from a financial perspective looks like:
Therapists having the ability to get or negotiate annual raises
Fair and good financial compensation
Jobs that spell out necessary steps upward mobility at the organization
Raising Un-spoiled Children
For parents raising children in financially stable households, they may worry that they'll spoil their children. Raising unspoiled children is important to Allison. Ron Lieber describes in his book, "The Opposite of Spoiled," that teaching children about saving, spending, and giving money is a great way to raise unspoiled children. Other ways to ensure your child isn't spoiled financially include requiring them to contribute to the household in a way that’s in alignment for your family, keeping additional treats and extra toys to special occasions, and discussing what it means to have financial privilege.
Money Guilt Summary
Allison has experienced money guilt as a therapist and has watched many therapists wrestle with guilt over the years. Talking about money, including acknowledging what it means to have money, is paramount in facing money guilt-head on. Let this interview serve as a reminder that financial-self care affords us the ability to take care of our emotional, mental, and spiritual wellbeing. All of us should have access to that, and therapists especially need financial-self care to prevent burnout from the field.
More About Allison Puryear
Allison Puryear is an LCSW with a nearly diagnosable obsession with business development. Allison Puryear is the host of the Abundance Practice Building podcast and owner of the therapy coaching groups Abun-dance Party and Inner Circle. She has started practices in three different cities and wants you to know that building a private practice is shockingly doable when you have a plan and support. Learn more here and follow Allison on Instagram.
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Lindsay Bryan-Podvin
Welcome, Allison, to the Mind Money Balence podcast. It's such a treat to like, switch things up and have you on my show. And it feels a little bit strange to be honest. But I'm happy to have you here.
Allison Puryear
Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Lindsay Bryan-Podvin
Yes, yes. So like all good friendships, we met through Instagram. And I don't know if you know, but like, I was a huge fan of your podcast, obviously, before connecting with you off line. So it just feels like things have really come full circle, like I can remember walking to my group practice with earbuds in my ears and hearing your voice in my head. So it's so fun now to see. Just just see where things are. So obviously, as a financial therapist, I talk about money a lot. And you and I, as therapists talk a lot about the way that money shows up in not just our personal lives, but also in the lives of our clients. And you and I both work with other therapists, entrepreneurs, and it kind of came to a head when I had either sent you or story shared a podcast episode I was listening to about the struggle of having money, which most people are going to hear that and hang up this episode right now and be like to hear. And I think it's important to sit with that discomfort and really open up this conversation to have a nuanced dialogue about the way in which therapists have so much shit about money, and hardly any of us talk about it. So let's talk about you. Okay, what is your view around money, specifically earning it and charging for it when you first started in the world of being a therapist?
Allison Puryear
Yeah, well, I come from this background, I come from a working class background, with extremely hard working parents, who neither of them completed college and they kind of hit a limit in where their jobs were going to allow them to get financially. So money growing up was always this fraught, emotional struggle like, is it Suze Orman, who as you like, think about your first money memory or whatever. And like mine is my mom sitting on the steps crying cuz she doesn't know how to make the bills make sense this month. And so when I first started a private practice, it was like an on the side thing. I think I was charging like $80 bucks, which was, you know, $80 bucks, like, it was a lot of money in my pocket per session. But it was also not something I hadn't explored. I was just charging what my supervisor told me to charge. And just thought, like, well, this is nice. And it's good to have some extra cash and add to my hoarded savings. But it wasn't something I was reliant on for my income, which I think really made a difference. It wasn't until I was considering leaving my full time job that I started actually being like, Oh, shit, I gotta get like thoughtful and serious about this, there needs to be some intentionality, if this is what's going to, like, allow me to pay my rent, and my mortgage and my grocery bill. So I came with some guilt, when I realized, like, oh, I can make a shit ton of money. And some excitement, because I've always been part of my working class background is we were in an area full of rich people. So we were like the little neighborhoods surrounded by McMansions. And so a lot of my friends growing up had many, that's kind of what I was accustomed to seeing, but not being able to participate in. So there was a sense of, I'm going to kind of belong more than I did, but also a sense of like, and then I'll lose touch of the things that actually matter in life, just like all my rich friends did, or never had touch with. So there was definitely a lot of confusion.
Lindsay Bryan-Podvin
It sounds like a lot of confusion. And also these are things that as a person who works with therapists from money, shit, I've heard iterations of this. You said something, though, kind of, like sneakily, which was that you had a practice of hoarding money? What did hoarding money mean to you, when you reference that in your life?
Allison Puryear
Yeah. So at the time, I had just like, I was so afraid of having the kind of debt that my parents had, like debt is a very scary thing to me to this day. Like just even saying the word debt, sometimes I have to like, breathe, it's fine. Like, no one's gonna chop off your head because you have debt. Like we're in a different time now. But there's just the sense of being on the hook for something and what if I can't catch up? Because my family was just always in this sense of like barely keeping their heads over, above water. And I actively worked against that by saving because my parents never had savings. And so at the time I was working my first real mental health job, I was working at a nonprofit with my master's degree making $25,000 a year, which is a good bit less than the student loans I owed. But even doing that, like I'd saved, I think five grand as like a little cushion for myself, which was I mean, that's a significant portion of my income at the time, and it's similar to like, you and I both have talked about eating disorders on our page, right. So similar to someone with anorexia, there's no number, that's going to be the right number. As soon as you hit that goal, you've got a new goal. And that's how it was for me with just with my finances and savings, like I needed to have more in order to feel safer. And there's, I've accepted at this point in my life, there's never going to be a number where I'm like, I'm safe now. Like, I am safe now. And I know that from a math logic perspective, but there's still a desire to continue to hoard money, just in case.
Lindsay Bryan-Podvin
So how have you come to terms with the reality that is, you will almost always want to continue to save. And this other reality that is you do have enough? Meaning? Are you able to enjoy the money that you earn? Or is it almost exclusively in a savings account somewhere that you have to you know, jump through many hoops to access?
Allison Puryear
Yeah, well, since then, I've gone through some pendulum swings, which are like my favorite. Sure. So there was a time when I did a bunch of work on it. And I was like, I could spend money like I can spend money and I did. And then I was like, oh shit, I should save some money. And so I've pendulum swing back and forth enough that at this point, I'm okay with some bigger, important purchases, I'm okay with kind of the, like tiny purchase of like a latte or whatever. But it's the medium purchases that I have a hard time with.
Lindsay Bryan-Podvin
Weird, which is like the opposite of what the Goldilocks story tells us, right? Those medium purchases should be really easy for you. Give me an example of what a medium purchase is like for you these days.
Allison Puryear
So like my husband last summer camp was canceled, right? It's like COVID 2020. And so he's like, Well, let's get a raft and go down the river. Like we'll do raft camp every weekend. And I'm like, Yeah, sounds great. And I have no idea about what a raft costs My husband's a former raft guide. So he knew and then he's like, okay, cool. I found the rig I want blah, blah, blah. It's about $5,000. And I was like, Cool, what $5,000. And even though it was a values based purchase, and we used at a time, and like I even recall, like sitting there after a big rapid, but it had smoothed out. And we had all just like, laughed and had a great time, you know, my kids are in, we're having a really wonderful family moment. And I was like, this is the best thing we've ever bought. And he like, of course file that way, because he's the king of medium purchases. And so I think there's also potentially some amount of just like the seesaw of coupledom that has me a lot more comfortable with the different kinds of purchases than him. Yeah, tend to balance each other out in almost every way. We're definitely opposites.
Lindsay Bryan-Podvin
I really appreciate that. And the other thing is this pendulum because I see this happen all the time. When I first started doing my money work, I come from a financially privileged background. And so when I graduated from grad school, I was fortunate to not have any debt. And at the same time, my first job paid 32 grand, so even with no debt, I was literally living paycheck to paycheck super stressed out. And every budgeting book, personal finance books that I turned to kept telling me it was my fault, right? They're like, Well, you're not saving enough. You're clearly buying too much lattes. And I would look at what I was spending money on. I'm like, I'm literally shopping at Aldi for my groceries. I'm not going out to dinner ever. I am about a latte in forever. What are you yelling at me for and all of this restriction, restriction restriction. And there's a little bit of like, oh, okay, I could see that maybe I was overspending in this area or in this area a little bit. So I did pull back but what really moved the needle for me to have a healthier relationship with money was to earn more money right so I left that first social work job and I took a different one that increase my income enough that now was I not only able to make ends meet, I was able to save money for things like a vacation like that random latte like my frickin retirement and that It was a shift for me that made me realize the importance of earning more not in the way of greed. So many of us therapists are so terrified of, but in the way of, we can't be good therapists, we can't be good partners. We can't be good parents, if we are stressed out by the amount of money we are not earning. And that was a huge shift for me. Because I had so much guilt, right. I was like, here i Here i am Little Miss privilege coming from this financial background. And I'm still living paycheck to paycheck, what right? Do I have to complain, but at the end of the day, it is a math equation. And the math equation was that top number was not big enough to help me meet my needs. So you talk about the pendulum swing, so I kind of shared this idea of like, you need to save or you need to earn a lot. And at the end of the day, it's a little bit of both, was there something in particular that happened in your private practice or in your life that made you realize, hey, I need to shift my relationship to money, I can't just hoard my money.
Allison Puryear
Mm hmm. It was actually, after I got over the hump of like the postpartum weirdest. After having my first kid, I had gone into such a panic, my husband was in school, and he was working like 80 hours a week in school, so there was no way he could have worked. We got pregnant, we were really lucky to get pregnant. Our first try. All of our friends were like, start now because they'd all been struggling for a year and a half. And so we were like, well, we'll start now. And then it'll be good timing later when it actually takes. And so we were in this privileged position of being able to get pregnant easily. But that meant there was going to be zero income coming in when I had this baby. And there wouldn't be for months afterwards. And so, I saved I worked so much, I was in private practice full time. At the time, I was saying 30 Something people a week, I save, save, save, save, saved. And I realized, I guess maybe a few months after she was born, I was like, Why the fuck did I save $47,000 I have never spent $47,000 In three months in my life, it would be like impossible unless I was buying a car buying a house in cash or not a house in cash, but you know, like a down payment, sir. So I was like, Oh, my God, that was such a my whole pregnancy was like this fear based thing financially. Which I'm sure impacted all sorts of things. And certainly my enjoyment of the moment, because as anybody listening probably has experienced, if you see 30 Something people every week, in private practice, you're fried. Most of us are anyway, there might be some people whose brains are just meant for that. But mine was not. Especially with the fatigue that goes with pregnancy and all of that. So it was more like looking back at that and being like, I'm a fool about money. Like, I need to, like, take a breath and like, loosen something up, there was a lot of judgment about it for me, to me, initially, until I was able to, you know, bring it a little self compassion and start learning more about the dynamics of money, historically in my life, and how I wanted them to be going forward.
Lindsay Bryan-Podvin
Yeah, yeah. And what's really interesting about your story, Allison, is that it's actually a lot of what I hear, I think when people hear that I do financial therapy, they make an assumption that I'm worth working with people who are in that paycheck to paycheck cycle. But often I'm working with people who feel guilty about having the money they have, or having earned the money that they have, and not knowing what to do with it. But this idea that at what cost? What was having 47k cash sitting in the bank doing for you at what cost? Was it to be, you know, exhausted and fatigued and have this newborn and not have income coming in? And to go like, Oh, actually, I'm okay. But what did you sacrifice in the interim? And what I heard is, like, you've sacrificed a lot of your well being and those moments when, you know, like you said that up and down of, of pregnancy and postpartum was really tough. Were you ever let me let me pause for a second. With that up and down. You said you started exploring your relationship with money and your family history with money. How did you come to that solution to work on this money hoarding problem? Who did you follow? How did you find them? Like, like, walk us through a little bit of what that process looked like?
Allison Puryear
Yeah, I mean, it was like, I guess like eight more than eight years ago, almost nine years ago. So it's been a while. You know, I had the Suze Orman like this was before the fire movement was big. So it was like I think some Dave Ramsey who I found too shaming for my taste, but I tried to like hold on to any nuggets he had that I thought would be helpful. Suze Orman, I'm trying to think of who else Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Millionaire Next Door, a lot of these narratives that are, in my opinion, similar to what you were describing earlier of like, if you're not saving money, you're doing something wrong. And I noticed it as I was reading it, you know, like, there was an awareness of like, this feels pretty like, blame the victim here. Like, I don't want any of my clients who are struggling financially to read this and feel like they're doing something wrong. And so in imagining people that I cared about reading it and being hurt by it, I was able to offer myself that self compassion. I also had a friend who was working with a money coach, which I'd never heard of in my life. And so she and I were talking and it was really bolstering to hear her just be so matter of fact, she was a dietitian, an eating disorder therapist, so we already shared a bunch of clients, and we'd go, like, grab dinner and chitchat and just hearing the way that she was. So no nonsense about the fact that she deserved to get paid for her work. kind of blew my mind. Like, I was like, oh, that's the thing. It's okay. It's like, I always have this image. I don't remember who was interviewing Oprah. I just remember Oprah's face. And they said something about her being one of the most famous people in the world. And she just kind of like acknowledged that that was the truth, like nodded and said, and there was a part of me that was like, Oh, the audacity to own the thing that's true about yourself. You know, like, I was so triggered by it when I saw it. And notice, like, that was a big reaction, Allison. And so for me, it's, I noticed my reactions to these things. And when they're strong, I'm like, Oh, good. There's work. So yeah,
Lindsay Bryan-Podvin
Yeah. So feeling those those big responses and knowing that there was something to do there. The thing that I also heard was, yes, you tried to do what a lot of us do, which is like, grab all the self help books we can, whether it's money related, or selling, or like, you know, emotional or psychology related. But the power of having somebody in your life to talk about money with Yes, in my opinion, is a game changer. You can you can read all the books, you can listen to all the podcasts, you can do all the budgeting apps, but we want to know, like, Hey, friend, how much are you putting away in your 401k? And how did you afford to take out that vacation? And do you have any experience negotiating a raise? These things are so important, and in my opinion, it's like one of the final taboos. And now you have two different kind of offerings that you have specifically for therapists. And I imagine there's got to be some money dialogue going in on there. Are there common themes that you hear come up in your therapists work, like the areas in which they're struggling when it comes to money?
Allison Puryear
Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think there's some of what I've felt in the past, like this guilt of like, I used to not have money, and now I do have money. And I don't know what to do with that. And I don't know if I'm even allowed to say that out loud. So there's, there's that piece of it. There's the idea of like, nobody else understands, like, I can't talk to anybody about this, like my my friends from agency are still making 30 grand a year. And I can't be like, Oh, my gosh, I broke. I broke six figures. I'm so excited to them, because I sound like a jerk. I also hear like, I feel guilty, being private pay, for instance, like I feel guilty being private pay because or, like--that's a value of mine.
Lindsay Bryan-Podvin
Can I have you repeat it? Because I lost you. "I feel guilty with private pay," if you could start there.
Allison Puryear
Okay. I feel guilty with private pay, because I'm I want to have services that are accessible for people. It's a value of mine to be accessible. And so I think that's probably one of the biggest ones is people feeling a sense of like selling out, essentially, if their private pay that they are basically saying to people who can't afford private pay, we'll see like, I don't care about you at all, which is not the case.
Lindsay Bryan-Podvin
No, it's not the case about and I'll share with you how I combat that. But I'm curious, since we are talking about money, how do you kind of coach them through that, like how do you help them understand that they aren't, you know, exploiting people by having a private pay practice?
Allison Puryear
Yeah, I mean, I There are a few things like, you know, I'm big on networking. I want people to know all the right therapists in their communities. And some of those really amazing therapists that you would want your friends or family to see. Guess what some of them take insurance. And so if somebody calls you and they can't afford your private pay fee to make sure that you have great people that you would trust the people you love to refer to. There's also this piece have like, the number that the amount of money that you need to live your life the way that you need to live your life for this to be a sustainable career. You probably like me know a lot of therapists who got burned out and left this career, and they were great at their job until burnout took them, right, like people who are really making a difference for their clients and for the world who left as literally why I started this business is because I have so one more therapists that I respected, be like, I'm out, because they're working in shitty agencies, right? And so this idea that like, Oh, my God all turned around.
Lindsay Bryan-Podvin
I'll recap for you, you were saying? You were saying that having a good referral network is key. And the other thing that is key is making sure that therapists don't burn out in terms of how you respond when people say, Oh, I feel guilty about having a private practice.
Allison Puryear
Right. So if you have set your fee, according to what you need for this to be a sustainable career, so that you can help more people over decades. And that's a that's math, that's not emotional. That's not whether you feel guilty or not, like that's the math that's going to keep you doing good for the world in this career.
Lindsay Bryan-Podvin
Yes. Oh, my gosh, sorry, keep finish up. I'm just like, I'm like jumping out of my seat. But 1000% percent Yes.
Allison Puryear
And the last thing is like, I don't know, any software engineers or accountants, who are like, I really need to take on some free customers, because that's how I give back to the world. It seems to almost only be mental health professionals and some other like, healing, helping professions that feel like in order for us to give back to our communities, we have to do it through our job.
Lindsay Bryan-Podvin
Totally. And, and oh, my gosh, so to piggyback off of what you had said, this idea that we as individuals, we need to decide how much money we need to earn to have a sustainable lifestyle, that is very different than saying, well, I need to bring in $500,000. Otherwise, you know, my therapy practice isn't successful, or I need to have more commonly you hear things like I need to have 10k months, or I'm not doing it right. And it's like, it's about the individual, I might need a 10k a month, but somebody the next town over, specifically, the next town over is New York or San Francisco, they might need 15k A month and somebody in Boise might need like 5k months, right? We're all different. And we need different income sources. But this idea that you have to be bringing in so much money, otherwise, you're doing it wrong is inherently just drives me bonkers. Um, but the other thing is that it's not just software engineers and developers. It's other mid level health care providers. Right. My sister's a nurse practitioner. So yes, of course, she did a lot more rigorous scientific trading, I am not discounting the amount of incredibly hard work that it takes to get there. And at the same time, in terms of education, it takes the same amount. It's four years of a bachelor's, two years in a master's program, two years of an intern or externship, sitting for your boards and maintaining your credentials. And when she went in to become a nurse practitioner, she was not hearing the same things I was hearing right I had my you know, crotchety older, great aunt who sends past say to me, like, you're never gonna make any money in that field. Are you sure you want to do that? And then people were telling my sister Oh, what a great idea. That's so smart. Good for you. Right? So our culture talks very differently to people even in allied professions. Yeah, and then the one thing I would add about what I also kind of offer as a reframe to my therapist, clients who are struggling with this is a lot of them get caught up in, am I perpetuating the the harmful things about capitalism, and what I often remind them is that capitalism is not the same thing as earning money. And Sonia, Renee Taylor really helped me to understand this. But if you are not exploiting people, for the purpose of profiting, you are not actually actively engaging in the negative parts of capitalism. And so I always ask them, like, are you exploiting your clients? Are you exploiting your contractors? And that, you know, not 99% of time 100% of times, like, no, of course, I'm not exploiting anyone. And it's like, okay, then. Good news. If you're not flying off in a rocket ship, phallic shaped rocket ship. You're probably not exploiting people. So anyway, that's, that's another thought I have on that.
Allison Puryear
Yeah. Yeah.
Lindsay Bryan-Podvin
So you said earlier that when you feel these kind of like itchy points, that you're like, ooh, that's an area of growth I need to work into. You mentioned that things have changed in your relationship with money. Are there certain itchy spots coming up for you now where you're at in your practice and in your business?
Allison Puryear
Um, well, I think knowing that I am temperamentally. Maybe as like a type A Enneagram, three, like, go getter type. I think I'm temperamentally always going to want more of everything. Right, like. So there's that piece, which is also tempered by the fact that I don't want to be seen wanting more. I don't want to be showing it at all. Like, I mean, I'm not gonna drive a fancy car, probably. I mean, I'll never say never. But like, you know, I'm just not until like this, the things that most people would deem luxury. I kind of bristle about a little bit like, oh, well, I mean, they're nice, but I don't need that, um, and, and my husband who grew up in a really different way than I do underscores that significantly, he's, uh, he has a hard time with anything luxury. So it keeps me I'm not going to stay grounded, because I don't think there's anything wrong with luxury, but it keeps me in that space. But there's this there's a tension there. But he, of course, I like nice things like I do. And I also have that tension you and I talked about this some in DMS about like me, not wanting to raise shitty kids. And the fear that I have that because I'm raising rich kids, they're going to be rich, shitty kids instead of rich, amazing kids. And read the book that you recommended and all sorts of things. And so I feel a bit better prepared. But there was there was a point in time, I think my daughter was four or five, and we were in target. This was pre COVID. And she was like, Oh, can I have that? And I was like, No, we're not gonna buy that today. And she's like, why don't we can afford it? And I was like, Oh, my God done. Um, yeah, because I do value a lot of the way that I grew up where I knew my parents would do anything and everything for me, really amazing parents, they just happen to not have money and not be good with money, both and but they, you know, like, if I wanted something, I worked for it. And I value that I really do value, I don't think I need to work for it in such a way that I'm hurting my life. I think that there was a long period of time when I felt like in order to earn the money that I make, I really needed to suffer. And I'm not there anymore. But it'll it'll try to pop up every now and then.
Lindsay Bryan-Podvin
Oh, that idea that in order to earn money you have to suffer is such an American thing, this idea of like bootstrapping, and working really hard. And I often say that there's one acceptable narrative of how you're allowed to get money in this country. And it's if you grew up impoverished, or working class and worked really hard and made your way up, which right now doesn't really exist. But that's like the one acceptable narrative that most of us can get behind be like, Yeah, that's the one right rate to be rich, whatever that means. But those that person's kids, now we're gonna turn our noses up at them and be like, Oh, well, they're spoiled. You know, they had it handed to them on a silver spoon. It's like, what do we want? We want everybody to start off at the bottom and work their way up. And then there, it just, it makes no sense. So yeah, I appreciate that.
Allison Puryear
When even people kind of coming out, as you know, having grown up in financially prudent like, as you said, at the beginning, like you said, you grew up financially privileged, like, it's almost like, sitting there, like, can I say that out loud without people thinking, I'm an asshole, when likely, of course you can. Like, that's how you grew up. That's wonderful. I'm glad that's how my kids are gonna grow up to. So yeah.
Lindsay Bryan-Podvin
Yeah, and it's interesting, right? Because I used to feel like I had to put a lot of qualifiers in front of it, um, which are that my mom got pregnant with me in high school, right. She literally took me in the car seat with her to college many nights, and, and on the back end, we were able to live with my grandparents rent free, they helped us a ton. And then my mom married a physician. Right? I am so tempted, all of the time to make sure everybody gets that full story to know that my mom struggled, she busted her ass. She worked really hard. And also she married somebody whose income was significantly higher. But it's so interesting, because for years, there was that shame over having money and what that meant. And, and then, you know, you move to a place I live in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which is an incredibly wealthy city in the Midwest, and I came here and I was like, back at the bottom of the barrel, you know, and it's like, it's also relative, and how I used to feel like I had to qualify my privilege in the past. Now I feel like you know, that's, it's, I'm kind of not even a blip on people's radar. So it's very very situational.
Allison Puryear
Yeah, yeah, I think about marketing to like in our world, there's such an emphasis on, like, tell the story about how you came up from the bottom, you know, like, whatever that means for you. And that's, it puts Shame on people who were raised with money unnecessarily. Like, why does everybody have to have come from the bottom, like, some of us were born on third base. Like, there were ways I was born on third base. And I think owning that privilege and knowing that, instead of just thinking like you worked your ass off, and thus you made, you know, you made your millions all by yourself, like nobody's a self made millionaire.
Lindsay Bryan-Podvin
Exactly, exactly. And that's, that's the thing about privilege, right is that it doesn't just show up and race or class or gender or sexual orientation, it shows up in a myriad of ways. And you and I both have privilege. And we have privilege in similar ways. And we are privileged in different ways. And we don't both have areas of our identities that are marginalized or oppressed. And so we've spent, you know, the last year really talking about racial privilege, but we haven't spent much time talking about financial privilege, or religious privilege, or any of the other areas. And I think it's important to just, you know, shed a light on all of those aspects of the discomfort of our identity. So I appreciate that too. And I appreciate you having this conversation with me. I know it's so uncomfortable. And it's also something that as I mentioned earlier, when you said you were talking to your dietician, friend, it's so powerful, even if you don't identify it listen to her with Alison's story or my story. I hope that it gives listeners the opportunity just to hear from where other people come from, and that we've all had financial struggles, whether it's living paycheck to paycheck, whether it's saving a lot of money, and all of the the mind stories and garbage that come up with it.
Allison Puryear
Absolutely. Because there's, this is, like you said, it's like the last taboo. I don't like I don't talk to many people about the intricacies of income. And I've noticed this now that I'm kind of in a more wealthy circle than I've ever been in seeing how it's talked around in different like amongst the different financial classes, right, like, the way that I grew up with my friends who were from the same, you know, financial situation I was in, we'd be like, Okay, let's go get Mexican so that we can get chips and salsa for free, fill up on that, maybe split some case. So you know, like, we had our little ways of making things work. And I'm finding amongst some of my my friends who are more financially comfortable than, you know, I ever imagined I would be when I was a kid. Like, we just don't talk about it at all. And I'll like sketch sketch, you know, me, I'm gonna push a limit, like sketch some financial conversation in there. And it's, sometimes it's like, oh, I don't know, I'm like, you don't know. Okay? I mean, that's fair, cuz you don't, you don't have to know. But it's just kind of mind boggling. That these things that I care a lot about and have needed to care about throughout my life in order just to like, stay in my apartment, or stay in my dorm or whatever is something that a lot of people don't like they never had to so they don't. Right, right. And I probably have stuff like that too. Right? Like, there are probably things on like Lulu. I mean, my hair is two inches long or something. So like, I like don't brush my hair, anything. Some people spend an hour in the mirror every morning. So, yeah, yeah.
Lindsay Bryan-Podvin
Yeah. Oh, well, before we kind of shift into like, where people can find you and all that goodness. If you were to offer just some words of wisdom or reassurance to a therapist who's struggling with just looking at their practices, finances, or raising their fees, or just struggling with these feelings of discomfort, what what would you offer to them?
Allison Puryear
That you can have what you want to have to be really clear about what that is. And that means getting honest with yourself about what you want without judgment.
Lindsay Bryan-Podvin
Ding, ding, ding. I love that. Yes. And that's exactly it permission to have desire permission to have wants and permission to take the steps that you need to have that fulfilled. So Allison, I know you have a couple of different offerings for therapists. Do you want to tell us a little bit about those two offerings?
Allison Puryear
Sure, sure. We've got the abundance party, which is a membership site, it's $69 a month. It is fun, and makes practice building as easy I think is it could be it's for people who are really good at like, getting their stuff done, right. So if you're somebody who like buys a course and never signs into it, I want you to save your money. Please don't come into my course. I want the people who come in to really like implement what they learn and go forward. Most people in there end up having six figure practices if that's Their goal. So it's a nice, smooth step by step way to do that. And then we also have the inner circle, which includes the party, but also has a lot of one on one and some group calls, and just six months of kind of higher level help for people who are like, I can't implement this, but I want to, I want to be sure that I'm doing it right. So, yeah.
Lindsay Bryan-Podvin
In between those two programs, you mentioned kind of temperament and style for one versus the other abundance party versus inner circle, are they in a certain certain stage of their private practice are these for people thinking about private practice for people who've been in private practice for years, like who should join abundance party versus inner circle.
Allison Puryear
So I would say if you're brand new to private practice, or you're like plateaued, kind of in the lower end of how many clients you want to have, or if you're making a big change in your practice, like getting off insurance panels or changing your niche, then the party's a good fit. Okay, some of our inner circle, folks, probably about a third of our inner circle folks are for full, but they're miserable. And so they've like built the wrong practice. And so we're kind of taking it down to the studs in a way that doesn't hurt them financially and helping them rebuild it in a way that it feels sustainable and fun. But it's an interesting, like, we also have newbies in there, and we have folks who have plateaued in the middle.
Lindsay Bryan-Podvin
Awesome. Love it. And where can everybody find you?
Allison Puryear
Yeah, so we've got the podcast, which you're going to be on twice this year. I love it. And that's over the Abundant Practice Podcast wherever you listen, and we've got the AbundanceParty.com and AbundancePracticeBuilding.com which is where a lot of the free stuff is.
Lindsay Bryan-Podvin
Beautiful. Thanks so much, Alison.
Allison Puryear
Thank you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai