111: Time for a Pause
It’s time for a pause here on the Mind Money Balance podcast. Tune in for what’s behind the pause, two things I know for sure, and a little astrology insights about “why now.”
Taking a Break Before You Need It
In our culture (centering my experience as an American), we believe we need to “earn” rest or “work hard” to take a break. This leads to a cycle of overwork, overexertion, and hitting pause far beyond the time when a break would have been beneficial. I’m practicing what I preach and pausing before I hit burnout (and definitely not feeling like I have to “earn” my rest).
And experts agree! Regularly prioritizing movement, eating, and sleep can buffer you from experiencing burnout. If you’re self-employed like me, it’s even more important to make sure that you practice healthy separation from your work and non-work life. I try to audit my time quarterly to track and see where I spend my energy visually.
Need to do a quick burnout-prevention audit? Ask yourself the following questions:
Am I regularly getting 7-9 hours of sleep each night?
Do I get regular positive social interaction? Are these interactions non-work related?
Am I able to create separation between work and life? (Think: am I able to enjoy my weekends without logging into my work email, prepping for next week’s meetings, or let my work phone go to voicemail?)
Do I move my body 3-5 days a week for 20-30 minutes at a time in a way that feels good?
Am I able to nourish myself with foods that taste good and eat meals and snacks on a regular cadence?
Expansion of Mind Money Balance
I share in this podcast episode that coaching other private practice therapists and allied healthcare providers sort of “happened.” Coaching therapists wasn’t on my “to do” list for Mind Money Balance. I created strategic offers for therapists in private practice when my inbox and DMs were flooded with questions about fee setting, niching down, and having a sustainable practice. While I can coach other therapists, I’ve decided to decommission my most profitable offer, Grow a Profitable Practice From the Inside Out, after I run it once more.
Decommissioning this offer will give my business the space it needs to expand into other areas. I can see a future where I speak more frequently at conferences and organizations about the intersection of money and mental health. I can imagine turning my book, The Financial Anxiety Solution, into a self-paced course. In short? I’ll free up psychological space and time to expand my business.
Find Business–and Human–Support
I’m beyond fortunate to have some amazing people in my orbit to support me on my business journey. I shared in this podcast episode that over two years ago, I was on a call with the brilliant–and brilliantly direct–Meg Keene, founder of A Practical Wedding, the largest independently held wedding publication worldwide.
I was supposed to be market research for her, but she couldn’t help but share some business advice and coaching (I guess that’s what happens when you’re the literal embodiment of an Aries?).
She said, “I think you’re made for more than just therapists, but you didn’t ask me.”
At that moment, I couldn’t hear those words. I didn’t feel ready.
I leaned on the support of the stars (yes, actual astrology) as interpreted by the radiant luminary Leslie Tagorda. I rambled and scrambled my words as space was held for me by my friend and authority on authenticity, Lelia Gowland. I thrashed about “what are people going to think” and “what if my therapist community thinks I’m abandoning them?” with my Mastermind group (who I’ve mentioned before, and you can learn more about here). One of them, Monica Kovach of Hold Space Creative, wisely reflected that I’m actually opening myself to help more people. When I told my strategic virtual assistant, Liberty Sales, that I’d be moving into a new place with my business, she smiled and clapped on Zoom, sharing how excited she was.
The long and short of it? We need support in our businesses.
Tips for Therapists
If you are a therapist in private practice, I’ve got over 100 episodes of the Mind Money Balance that you can revisit. I cover everything from therapists and their money mindset, to marketing, and getting comfortable with visibility. If you’d like some direction on where to get started, you may want to grab my free guide, “Top 5 Resources to Fill Your Practice.”
Help for Couples
If you’re in a relationship and looking to work with me, I’m no longer seeing couples in my practice. BUT I already have something amazing for you! I created a self-paced course to help couples with the emotional side of money. In this course, there’s not an emphasis on “budgeting.” Instead, you and your partner will learn how to create a values-based spending plan in alignment with what matters most to you. What’s great? Most Americans spend upwards of $7,500 annually in unplanned expenses. With my course, you’ll know where your money is going so you can decide how you’d like to use that $7,500. Ready? Learn more about Clarify Your Money: For Couples, right here.
With that, I’ll see you once I sort some stuff out!
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Hello friends, as you can tell by the title of this episode, it's a little bit of a different episode today. Before I get into what's going on and let you in behind the curtain, I wanted to open with some words from my friend, Leslie Tagorda of New Moon Creative. She has been on this podcast before, she's a an astrologer and in addition to being a musician, and many other things, but she said this month's full moon, "You're being asked to see where it's easy for you to access flow, where you get caught and structures and schedules that trip you up, and what you need to do to free yourself to be able to live and create in the way that best works for you." She does these amazing business star casts every single month that are free on her website. And that was from this month's full moon. And you'll be hearing some quotes from Leslie later on, towards the end of this episode. But I wanted to be really transparent with you all about what's going on and give you a sense of why I'm hitting pause on the podcast after this episode. But I think in order to get to where we are, I need to rewind and kind of back you up. Because whether you've been here from the beginning or not, you may know parts of my story, but you might not really know why I am doing literally the things that I'm doing right now. So Mind Money Balance is my business that was born a while ago, my gosh, probably 2018 when I got certified in financial social work, and then was able to be a financial therapist. But at that point in time in 2018, I was still a practicing therapist in a group practice. And it wasn't until April of 2020, that I left that group practice and went all in on my financial therapy, business Mind Money Balance. And so between April of 2020, in the summer of 2020, my practice that I was finally doing all on my own was full. So for my therapists friends, that's a pretty quick progression to have a full practice. And I started getting questions from other therapists, asking things like how did you set your rates? How were you able to get full? What, you know, website do you use? All of those kinds of business questions. And I was like, well, rather than answering them kind of in these one off, pick your brain sessions that may or may not mean--I'm sure they were helpful, but I don't know how much they move the needle in people's businesses--I'd rather create a program or yeah, a program that makes more sense to better help people all at once. And that's when I started Grow a Profitable Practice from the Inside Out because I wanted to help others without being harmful. Because the reality is I have had some really unhelpful, exploitative, harmful coaches in my world and I wanted to be really clear about not repeating any of those harms that were done to me and being really clear and transparent about what works in business and what doesn't, and being really truthful that it is not just as easy as putting up a landing page or joining a therapy directory to get a full practice. There's a lot of intentionality behind there. But there's also a lot of like business structures that need to be in place. And I wanted to help other therapists who are often so anxious about money, who often have their own money stories that we've inherited from our field, that they don't have to be on social media 24/7, you don't have to undercharge you don't have to deserve to be in private practice. You don't have to overwork you don't have to work on nights and weekends and all of those things. And so that is when I really moved towards creating Grow a Profitable Practice from the Inside Out and speaking more to therapists about money. And that's when I ran my first beta program of Grow a Profitable Practice From the Inside Out was towards the tail end of the summer in 2020. And at that point in time, it was a nine week program. It has since expanded into a five month program, where we cover money mindset and pricing and the metrics you need to be tracking to make sure that the marketing things that you're doing in your business are actually moving the needle. And in that space, we cultivate community and lean on one another and share with one another what's working, what's not where we're stuck, where we need help, where we can lend help, all that good stuff. And that summer, when I was crafting my first beta program of Grow a Profitable Practice From the Inside Out.
I had a phone call with Meg Keene, for those of you who don't know who's she is: She is a brilliant and also brilliantly direct businesswoman. She is the founder of A Practical Wedding. It has, it started out as like a literal blog. And then she turned it into two best selling books and a business that was really built on this foundation of weddings, not having to be a part of the wedding industrial complex, and being able to be expressive and joyful and highlight weddings that we traditionally don't see in the wedding space. So highlighting queer weddings, highlighting Jewish and Hindu and Muslim weddings, highlighting weddings with people of color and highlighting different types of love stories and answering incredibly interesting questions about what comes up in marriage. So anyway, that's Meg Keene. She's a brilliant, brilliant businesswoman. And somebody who I'm honored to say is a friend of mine now, but she, as you can imagine, was hit really hard in 2020, because she had a wedding centric business. And so she was pivoting in her business and starting to help other people with their businesses. And so she was doing some market research and asking other people, what do you need? What do you look for in a coach, what's helpful, what's not, so she was actually interviewing me for her own market research. But as she's interviewing me, she like could not help but step into business advice and coaching role. I think that's what happens when you're the literal embodiment of an Aries and just can't help yourself. And she said something that I remember as and I don't know her exact words, but this is what I heard. She said, "Lindsay, I think you're made for more than just therapists. But you didn't ask me." And it was a semi throwaway line that really landed me, landed with me. And it wasn't harmful. It was just one of those things. I'm like, I don't know Meg, at that point in time, I was like, I don't know, I feel like I've got a pretty good thing going here. I am moving into helping other therapists who need this help. And I can help because I've got this financial therapy training. And it just like feels like it's checking all these boxes. But as I've been reflecting on it, my pivot to helping therapists kind of happened. It wasn't "I want to create a business helping therapists," it was "while people keep asking me for help, so I guess I will help them." And I love helping therapists let me be super, super clear. I love helping therapists. But as I reflect on it, it was something that happened more to me. It just felt like a really easy progression in my business from I'm a person with a full practice who gets money to let me help other therapists get full and profitable practices and talk about money stuff. So that was over two years ago.
Now, fast forward to life since pretty much March/April of 2022. So the last like six ish month or so. I started like feel and you can't see me because I'm on a podcast. But I'm like wiggling in my chair. Right now, as I record this, I'm like, Oh, I could like feel this itch, this sensation in my body, and I couldn't quite pinpoint it. And with my mastermind community, they support me in ways that I didn't even know I needed support, and they provide loving guidance, and they hold up a mirror to me many times. And they kept like, kind of going where I could potentially take my business, but I just like, wasn't quite ready. But I started to take these small iterations in my business that if you've been here for a little while, you've probably noticed I started to have podcast themes. So I could help people beyond just helping therapists with the intersection of money and mental health. I also wanted to practice better self care. And so I moved my publishing schedule from weekly to every other week that I took six weeks off of Instagram. During that time, every time I take a break from social media, I always have epiphanies, but this time I was also seeing friends and family that I hadn't seen since March of 2020. And I was nurturing parts of myself that were super important to nurture and then right as I kind of ended that Instagram hiatus and these these moments of super intentionality just in my personal and my professional life. I literally flew to FinCon. FinCon for people who don't know is a money conference for financial content creators and money brands. So it's this mix of have certified financial planners and accountants and money coaches and banks and apps and software. And the topics at FinCon vary wildly. But it could be a person talking about how they grew their podcast to how to blow up on TikTok to why you need to have a 529 if you have a child, or how to maximize your solo 401k. When you're self employed, so it's a mix of how to grow your business and also how to manage your money. It's a really interesting intersection of people and topics and everything like that. And there were these mainstage speakers, and they kept talking, I'm honored to say that some of them are my friends, but they were talking about their businesses in the importance of emphasizing balance and self care and doing what feels good, not just what makes money. And of course, we all need money. You know, if you're here by now that I believe that we all deserve to have good steady income, that allows us to nurture parts of ourselves our spiritual, emotional, physical selves, like money is a tool that helps us to live our lives. But I don't believe in just chasing the things that is going to bring in the most coins, right? Like, you know, making bank to me is far less important than making intentional financial decisions and making a solid income anyway. So these mainstage speakers were talking about all this stuff, and it was really resonating with me. And then on the last day of FinCon, I got to be a speaker. And I spoke on why people in the money space need to understand financial anxiety, and not just like, Oh, gee, I'm anxious about what's in my money or my savings account, but also what impacts what factors impact our money worries and our money anxiety beyond just us as individuals, but things like our our families, communities, spiritual practices, and beliefs, the organizations that we're in, the businesses around us, the culture, what our culture says about money and the laws and policies and how all of those things impact our money worries. And it lit me up being up on that stage. And having the opportunity to talk to some therapists there were some therapists in the crowd, but also talked to money coaches, and certified financial planners and financial advisors and accountants. And it was just so special to see my message and my work, land in that way. And I got really beautiful loving feedback. And yeah, that was that was a couple of weeks ago. So now you're up to date on how Mind Money Balance started, why I started talking to therapists and why now Meg Keene's words are in my mouth.
And so that's why I'm taking a pause. This is not Oh, I'm taking a pause, because I'm burnt out. Because if you've been here a minute, you know that I believe you do not have to wait until you're fried to rest. A part of divesting from toxic capitalism and toxic productivity is preemptively caring and nurturing for ourselves and not waiting until the other shoe drops, not waiting until till we're mentally and physically burnt out to take care of ourselves. So this podcast pause is a pause that I am taking to get really clear on how I can best serve others in ways that continue to light me up. I love working with therapists and healers. And I know I want to reach people beyond therapists and healers, whether that's individuals, companies, speaking on more stages at conferences and retreats. I know in my gut and my heart and my bones, that the more people who have awareness of the intersection of money in mental health, the better. I also know that you my dear listener, can tolerate a podcast pause. I know that when I share more vulnerable things about me and my life, I get beautiful feedback. And that tells me that I've got a compassionate group of listeners here. And I know financially I'll be okay because my practice continues to be bursting at the seams with a very long waitlist, but I don't want to just go into like the next "natural thing." The next step for therapists, my therapists, friends know that the next step after you have a full practice, if you want to keep growing, is to go into a group practice and hire other clinicians to work under you, but I don't want to do that. I really love having the schedule that I have. I love the autonomy and the flexibility and I love all that this powerful little Business provides me. And I have no desire to like hustle more or work more or grind more or 10x or scale my business just because I can. I really want to be intentional about what comes next. So a couple of things that I know for sure I'm pausing the Mind Money Balance podcast after this episode, I don't know where it will go if/when it returns, but this is a pause. I can't say Oh, for sure I'm canceling it, or I'm done with it, I have a strong feeling that I'll be back. But I need to take a break right now to be really smart about what comes next. And the other thing I know for sure, is that I'm going to be decommissioning my group coaching program Grow a Profitable Practice From the Inside Out. I will run it once more, most likely at the beginning of 2022. Or I'm sorry, 2023, or at the end of 2022 we are in the last quarter of it at this point in time. But that is my small group coaching program that helps therapists of marginalized identities or in social justice grow profitable and sustainable, profitable practices, and learn about money in a way that doesn't make them feel icky. So I'm going to run it once more, and then I'm going to decommission it, which means I won't be offering it again. So if you want to be notified before the next time I the next and last time that I offer it, make sure you add your name to the waitlist at MindMoneyBalance.com/ProfitablePractice, being on the waitlist does not mean you have to apply or have to join, it just means you'll be the first one to know when I open up application. So again, that's MindMoneyBalance.com/ProfitablePractice.
Those are the two things I'm hitting pause and decommissioning inside out, Grow a Profitable Practice From the Inside Out after I run it once more. And if you have thoughts on what you would like to see me offer, you are more than welcome to let me know total transparency, I'm going to take your feedback and run it through another filter of whether or not what you're craving is something that I feel like I can provide that will be mutually beneficial. But if you want to tell me what you're doing, or I'm sorry, if you want to tell me what you're interested in, go to MindMoneyBalance.com/Survey. This community, this audience, these followers, whatever language you want to use, that is in the Mind Money Balance orbit. I know how thoughtful and compassionate and curious you all are. And I really do you value your opinion. So again, that's MindMoneyBalance.com/Survey, you can tell me what you think I should do next. And I will again run it through making sure that it honors my needs.
I want to revisit my friend Leslie Tagorda again, because she shared what's literally happening on the day of this recording. I'm recording this on September 22, 2022. She says of what's happening right now the middle combustion point of mercury being in retrograde at this snapshot in time, she says "How can you make space to take in all this new understanding to reflect without yet making decisions. This is the middle point, like the full moon phase of the cycle where Mercury and the sun meet, you could feel a surge of information as your learnings become illuminated, things may feel intense, it's time to reflect. Afterward, you will have a clearer understanding of what you need to integrate into your business after your Re-examination." So that again is like me offering my dear friend's words to you if they land with you. And also just like, perfect, perfect timing to hit pause and just wait. And one last thing because I'm all about, you know, sprinkling where I stand on things. I believe our lives are so much more than dollars and cents. And you know what a research paper says about evidence based practices even though both of those things are important. I want to share another little loving nudge the universe sent me as I mentioned at the top, this is episode 111. So I just Googled 111 and numerology to see like, what does that mean? What does that 111 mean? And it means a symbol afresh. A symbol of a fresh start and new beginnings your inner voice is telling you to focus on your desires and not give up. So with that, I'm gonna be hitting pause I'll be over here hanging out in reflection, listening to my inner voice and excitedly welcoming in what comes next for Mind Money Balance and how I will disseminate my love of life at the intersection of money and mental health. Thank you so much for listening, and I hope to be in your ears again. Take good care!