The Practice of Therapy

Miranda Palmer
This is Miranda from Cindy me.

Kelly Higdon
And this is Kelly. And today we're talking with Gordon Brewer about our story of Zinni me.

Gordon Brewer
Well, hello, everyone, and welcome again to the podcast. And, you know, it's very rare that I get to hang out with rock stars. But I've got two rock stars of the private practice world with me, the one and only crew from Zeti. Me, Kelly Higdon. And Miranda Palmer. Welcome you guys.

Kelly Higdon
Thanks for having

Miranda Palmer
thanks for having us, Gordon. I don't know if we're rock stars. We've just been around a long time.

Gordon Brewer
Yeah, so I was so so excited to to be able to arrange this and I thought it would just be fun. And it turns out, this is going to be the last episode of 2020. So this is really special. But I think it was 2020 2020 21 Oh, by 2021 already. I missed out something somewhere.

Miranda Palmer
That's okay. It was totally worth skipping over. Yeah.

Gordon Brewer
Anyway, 2021. And so I thought it would just be fun for Kelly and Miranda to tell the story of just kind of how they got started with Xeni MI, which was one of really one of the first organizations that I'm aware of that really jumped headlong into creating an online space and online resources for those of us in private practice. And I know early on, when I started the practice of therapy, I really looked at what they were doing to kind of get my head around how to do this. But as I start with start every episode with everyone, Kelly Miranda, why don't you guys tell us a little bit about? Well, this really this whole episode is about where you've landed. So this might not be a great intro to that. But why don't we just jump in and tell you guys tell a little bit about yourself and go with the story. Always love a good story?

Kelly Higdon
Well, we are both MF T's in California. And many people think that we were friends first we were not. And because of our journey, I'd say we are passionate about when it comes to partnerships, and talking about that and be real and honest about what it takes to make those things work. So I'm sure that will come up in our story as we chat. But we did not really know each other when we we have just lucked out. Well, I would say it's more than luck. I think it's a lot of hard conversations, honesty and vulnerability and our own personal growth efforts that have made us what we are today. And now we count each other as family. But we didn't start out that way.

Miranda Palmer
I think that's where like when when people ask like, how did Zinni me come to be like, where did that come from? For me, it starts before. Like, it honestly starts with like failing a licensing exam. I failed the licensing exam. By one point, it was the second licensing exam in California. And I took it right before I went to a family get together where like everybody knew I was taking the exam. And I had to walk in and say like, oh, I failed the exam. And this was it was just mortified. There are grandma's like, there's something wrong with the exam. And I was like No grandma, like I failed it. But what I found very quickly as I was trying to navigate that process was that I was just all alone in it. There wasn't anyone else that I was part of in terms of schooling that was at the same place. Everyone was still working on their hours, everyone I asked and said, hey, you know, I'm trying to figure out how to navigate this. I don't even know what study materials to buy, like, this is a huge investment for me to spend hundreds of dollars on something that I don't even know if this is workable. And so started, I was actually teaching online and teaching people about how to do online study groups, and then have this bright idea to do an online study group. And that's where I really started to get, like fully immersed in the idea of online community. And that online community then led me into some consulting and into online marketing. And then that's how Kelly and I met. And so is this very like, I think sometimes I get a lot of people who are like, Oh, you decided to you guys decided to do business consulting or do this course because it was a way to like, make lots of money or is a way to therapy room or something like that. And it was never, not that we don't want to have a sound business, but it was always about where is the pain point? Where do we see people hurting? What's really not being said? What's not being talked about where people feeling lost and confused and alone? Where are we feeling lost and confused alone? And how can we like meet that need? And like, bring it together in a way that's really accessible to people?

Gordon Brewer
Right, right. Yeah, the thing I love about it is that in to echo what you say, I think, if anybody in this, you know, kind of this private practice world, wants to do a side gig or do something, besides just one to one kind of face to face therapy, you better make sure it's something you have passionate about, because it will go nowhere for you, and you will be miserable doing it. And so I think you've got to have that passion.

Miranda Palmer
And I would say, like, you need to not just love doing it. But take a look at the foundation of the thing that you're doing is your main gig first. Because whatever things that you are unaware of whatever things you haven't taken care of, and your main gig, you're going to replicate in your side gig. So if you got burnout and your main gig, because you had poor boundaries, you didn't know when to say no, you weren't charging an appropriate fee, you were saying, you know, yes to insurance contracts that paid you $35 A session or whatever the scenario is, and then you don't resolve those mindset or money issues or boundary issues, you will absolutely replicate that in your side gig that's supposed to help you escape. It's supposed to help you get out of it.

Gordon Brewer
Yeah. Love that. So Kelly, what, what are your thoughts? Yeah,

Kelly Higdon
when I think back on our story, it's interesting. When I coach people now, I want them to dream big. Like I want to where are we headed? And I think it's because I didn't do that. When we started Zinni me. But life has pushed us to dream bigger and bigger. I think when I started, it was just a passion project in some ways. So what many people don't know is that when Miranda and I started Zinni me, it was I had hired Miranda, to coach me and starting my practice. And I'm a very type a kind of person, and I do what I'm told, and I did everything I was told. And I told Miranda was like, some of that stuff could be automated into a course. She was like, Yeah, you want to work with me on it. And I was like, Oh, that's so nice of you. And I really didn't believe her. Because I was doing my practice, I was leaving my county job. And the interesting thing about that whole scenario is I didn't really have community where I lived, I had moved there, started my job and was still trying to find my way with community. And so my way of building my practice originally was with my website ranking, and SEO and all that kind of stuff. And I, I killed it, you know, like, I went for it. And so, when Miranda's proposed this and then we decided to do it, I hadn't really thought of it becoming my full time thing and then had a baby so it became more of a thing and then you know, we've had life changes which have called us out to do more and be bigger throughout the entire kind of story of, of this journey. And I'm and I'm grateful for that. And that's what I bring to my coaching is like helping people see bigger than they imagined because I'm real, you know, that's just a skill that I've had to develop over time that I hope to give to my clients as well. And in doing this, I remember we had coaches and they had and we do this exercise a lot you can download it in our free community this like perfectly imperfect day exercise. And I remember doing it of like, what is a good day of work look like? And I was not seeing clients and I literally went back into my journal and I wrote in seeing clients because I was like, oh Xinyi me is not going to be told no, I'm a therapist. I went to school to be a therapist. This is my calling this my gift blah blah blah. I wrote I like literally did the exercise and went in and added it that's and and you know here we are now like I sold the assets to my practice and now this is what we do and Miranda header has their own story with thinking like this any means not gonna be the full time thing and here we are. And I think, you know, sometimes people, you know, they make assumptions like, Oh, you did this to get out of therapy? No, I hung on to my therapy practice for a very long time. And or we do it for, you know, get all sorts of emails that we do it for money. And well, yes, I pay a staff I, you know, and that's all well and good. But I want to be part of a legacy of changing our field, you know, and that passion that you talked about Gordon is, is lit a fire under us to push and push and push and lead. And I'm, it's interesting, like, I'm seeing a bunch of new, like, therapist retreats pop up and stuff. And I'm so delighted, because, you know, that's where we kind of, we've done that like with them. We did most awesome conference with Joe and some other events of seeing the value of community and seeing how boot campers have connected and grown. And what an amazing thing to see. And I know you said that we were there. Oh, geez. But I think Casey Truffaut and leningradsky, a couple other people who are retired now, really were I think we were the first to really knock out of the park in terms of the online visibility piece, because Lynn and Casey they had written books as well, they were doing the online stuff, some but not fully online. Miranda has more insight into that. But

Miranda Palmer
I yeah, I think they didn't, I think the thing that was missing there, and that they probably didn't adjust to very quickly was just the online community aspect of Yes, I think we, we understood how to help people really get to know each other and online world before that was cool or normal, and how to do it in a really like, safe and lovely way. And, and it, it's been really magical to watch over, you know, the last 11 years, watch therapists who had no knowledge of each other, come into a program get to know each other meet in the world world and become like best friends, like legitimately like, people have become best friends and business partners and other things from through that like community building. And I think it's because we've always really focused on creating a space where people get to really own what their values are as a as a person, and what their values are in terms of how they want to live their life. And then it makes it easier to kind of find your people like you can see in the light of them. Here's what they're like, hey, they have the same vision, or they have the same energy that I do, you know, the same core beliefs,

Kelly Higdon
I think it's just neat to see the transformation of our field, to be more community based and to be intentional in these retreats or in courses or in other spaces of saying, we want to lift each other up. You know, in bootcamp, we have a saying we don't compete, we stand out. And that is just a beautiful thing to see happening in therapists communities, because I feel that together, we we can keep this field alive and thriving. Because we have tech companies coming in and oppressing therapists and all these kinds of things. And we need each other to come together. To hold on to really what we know, is good therapy for identities. Right.

Gordon Brewer
You know what I had an aha, as you all were talking about this is that what I think a phenomenon that we're seeing is that what we are doing online through community building is, is kind of replacing trade organizations. You know, I know here in Tennessee, the Tennessee Marriage and Family Therapy Association, which is connected with a MFT is struggling, it just cannot seem to keep the momentum in I think the reason for it is, is just that there are the communities like you guys have created within Xeni me, and just the practice of therapy and all of that, where we're kind of pushing back against the Convention of, oh, this is the way you should do it. Kind of kind of thing. And we're just saying No, we weren't there's another way to do this.

Miranda Palmer
And I think there's also like, it's not just there's another way but like hey, you know, organizations, we need you to hear us of what we're really looking for. Like what are you what are you really needing so I'm gonna I'm gonna call out and hopefully I won't get in trouble so years ago There was a professional organization. And they were promoting a website company that was really exploitive to therapists, it made false claims it missed directive clients. And that professional organization was getting like money and kickbacks for every therapist that they pointed in that direction. But, and you would talk with them. But the professional organization was like, Well, we already have this relationship, we have this contract with this person, or oh, we don't really understand this. So you don't understand or professional enough to know what is good or not good in terms of being able to, like, point us in the right direction, but you're going to use your list. And the and basically, like I paid to be on this list for you to give me misinformation. And whether that was done intentionally or you know, ignorantly or not, I think people are, are are standing up and saying, No, I don't, I don't want that I really want to make sure that where I'm putting my money, the organizations are there are really out there to protect me. And they have my highest and best always in place. They are out negotiating for me, whether it's in terms of of legal, you know, they're they're pushing for legal and law change. They are pushing for discounts with organizations for me and helping to save me money on the things that I really need. And it's, it's interesting, even having talked with different associations, and really wonderful people, and they're saying, Well, you know, it's just hard because if I, if we say yes to this, then like, maybe this over here, they might get mad. So you know, I can't get this discount for my people over here. It's just it's a people are kind of stuck. But But I think people are standing up and saying, hey, where I put my time, and where I put my money really matters. And here's what I need. And I think associations aren't pivoting quickly enough.

Gordon Brewer
Right, right. Yeah. Wow. Didn't know where we're gonna go there. But that is exactly what we need to be talking about. But yeah, so Okay, so let me backtrack a little bit. The names me me.

Miranda Palmer
So it goes back to the the study group. When I started a study group, it was on Yahoo. And you use your email address, and my email was zinni@yahoo.com. Right? It's still there, but I don't check it. So feel free to email me everybody. So as any at Yahoo, it was literally just a name that popped up in my head. That was short. Zinni, I'd had the email address for years at that point. So then when Kelly and I got together and started it, a lot of people knew me from the study group, as like Zinni, or what have you, like that was kind of thrown around there in terms of it just being part of my profile. And so people gave this suggestion, like, Oh, that would be super cool. Like to have a name that like, does it, you can, like, make it mean, anything and any.com was taken. And we went back and forth. And there was like, even like a dot me's were just coming out. So we're like, maybe we'll be zinni.me. And then we decided it would be zenni.com. And we'd make up a word. Like, it's just ridiculous now looking back on it and hysterical. And yeah, and now it's a search term. Now, it legitimately is a search term that people use.

Kelly Higdon
And it's a lesson in our boot camp on what not how to name your business. You know, because you know, how many times a year I go through Z, as in Zebra wise, and Yak and Nancy, always having to spell it for people. And you don't want that in your life, if you can help.

Gordon Brewer
Oh, boy. Oh, my goodness. So so with the things that you guys have got going on now. So you've you've just curious how big of a staff do you have now?

Kelly Higdon
Ah, yeah. So in the past couple years, we've grown for the majority of the time that we've been together, it's been me and Miranda, maybe about your three or four. I don't know, I'm terrible with time and we decided, Okay, we're gonna have an assistant, we'll pay them whether or not we use them or not, and that'll force us to use them. So we started having an assistant. And then a couple years ago, we said, you know, the dream here is for us to do what we do best and let other people shine in there. We can do all the things. I mean, we've been doing this for a long time, but we wanted a kind of a shift in our energy. So we now have over the years we have, we have full time and part time staff we have for accountability. coaches who work in our accountability program, and they are amazing. And then we have about four or five full time staff. Wow, as well. And then yeah, and then we have a couple of contractors, but mainly we have employees. And yeah,

Miranda Palmer
and it's been, it's been really amazing to find other people that have the same passion for the work that they really have a passion for mental health. Even one of the people that we brought in, that's our community manager, we got her as part of a marketing internship and had her come in and turns out, she was a burnt out social worker, I tried to retool, and she was amazing, really got what we were doing. And so we're able to do that process. And it's been a magical thing to impact other people's lives to be able to provide benefits for our employees to, you know, take it to a whole nother level of service, in terms of having, you know, availability, and having just excellent responsiveness to our people throughout the year. And we know that in order to sustain this long term, and to really change our profession, because our profession, there's so much that is better than it was 11 years ago, like there's so much that has improved, and there are so many new risks to our profession, and so many like turning and pivot points right now that we feel so strongly about, and that we are really uniquely positioned to help shift out of, you know, like, one of the reasons that tech companies can come in and, and really mislead therapists, in terms of, hey, you can make $100,000, just working 40 hours a week, when you did you know, when you're over here, we're gonna do this thing is because we're not training therapists in terms of how to run the numbers and how to look at the business side of things. If we taught them how to run the numbers and how to ask the questions. Nobody would say yes to these tech companies, and they would not say yes to these privacy policies and things where they are agreeing to provide therapy in places where clients information is being resold to target them for ads based on their mental health diagnosis, like, what has happened, you know, it's like a whole new thing. But people don't know. And so we really want to, especially in this next year, really help educate the next generation of therapists. But honestly, the current generation that is struggling because our graduate programs don't include business information, we include statistics. Well, statistics is great for reading research articles. But a most therapists are not integrating as much research as they should. And be I think everybody needs like a business finance course. And whether that is related to saying yes or no to even a position for a nonprofit and realizing what does that look like for me financially, when I have 150 or $200,000 in student loans? You know, what does that look like? Oh, wait, there's, I'm not bad at budgeting. Like this. math doesn't add up.

Gordon Brewer
Mm hm. Oh, can I get an amen? Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, yeah, I think, you know, I think so many times we go go into this whole world of really being afraid of our numbers, being afraid of looking at that whole piece. But once you do, it's so empowering, to really kind of know, okay, this is what I need to do. This is the this is the right decision, this stuff. You know, bout a year ago, I was approached by one of those tech companies to sponsor, you know, this and the practice of therapy, and I said, Okay, sounds like a good, good deal, all of that. But then I started looking into some of the practices and I said, Nope, can't do it. It's just, yeah, it's, yeah, it's just with, you know, and it seemed like a great time to do it because there was such an emphasis during COVID which we're still in, but on telehealth and, and that sort of thing. And it just just, you know, because I knew what the numbers really were.

Miranda Palmer
Yeah, yeah. It's it's, it's an interesting thing, and I think we're actually we're gonna be doing a big push, we might reach back out to Gordon, we're putting together with a couple of Other organizations and podcasters? or what have you a petition, to start to talk about what's happening with these tech companies and kind of bring therapists together to say, like, Hey, this is this is not okay. And just to help educate because every person who can kind of be educated about what the big picture is, and can share that if we all share that with 10 of our colleagues, and they can understand in a way that they can see it, then we can a take that as an option, because these tech companies couldn't come in and do this. If we didn't say it was okay. You know, if they don't have employees who will go in and do that, then they don't have a way to go out and exploit their clients. We're giving when we say yes to those tech companies, even if it's if it's completely, like, what they ignorantly, you know, like, just out of the, like, just not understanding, we're actually giving credence, we're a licensed professional. And when we go to work for these organizations, and we say, like, Hey, this is totally normal, then it tells clients, this is totally normal. And they don't go in and read that information. It's up to us to hold ourselves to a higher standard and say, What am I really agreeing to? And what am I agreeing to almost on behalf of my client? Right? Like, am I really giving them informed consent? Am I sitting down and saying, Hey, informed consent, you realize that we're going to be taking this information? And you're going to be retargeted ads based on our conversation today? I mean, maybe it's not exactly like that. I might be like, over simplifying it a little bit. But it's, it's not far off. When you read the Terms of Service, like, it's, it's pretty gnarly,

Gordon Brewer
right? Yeah, I can remember not to get too far down the rabbit trail, but I can remember, in talking to this, this one company, you know, part of how they reimbursed their therapist was based on the amount of text how much they texted their clients, and how many words they used and that sort of thing. And I thought, oh, my gosh, who's watching this?

Miranda Palmer
Okay, so, and here's the other part, it's not always just the amount of text, but it's, it's the amount per word up until a certain point per client. So what that means is, like, after a certain point, if somebody needs more support than you're giving them, you now are working for free. Or you are withholding services to this client who needs it,

Kelly Higdon
one of the mandrem less stress and what I just it's just, it makes me sick.

Miranda Palmer
Yeah. And then, of course, the idea to that, you know, they are counting the words and they have access to the words. And there's some conversations about whether that might be being used for an algorithm to develop some AI, some artificial intelligence in terms of providing therapy. So like, I believe in text based therapy, I believe in virtual therapy, I think there's a place for many types of therapy, but I do not believe in big tech. doing that. And, you know, there was a I actually had a friend who called me up and they said, hey, there was a totally different tech company that I've never heard of. And they said, Oh my gosh, like, there's this company that I was going to interview for. And they said that they're providing unlimited therapy to people for $99 a month. And, and I just said, let's just do the math on that. How does that work with licensed therapists? And they decided they declined the interview. They're like, No, I don't want to be a part of stigmatizing mental health and, and really exploiting therapists giving lovely heart. Like it's not okay.

Kelly Higdon
Right. Well, more to come on that one. Maybe we'll have another pot. Yes. Yes. Yes. Maybe

Miranda Palmer
we'll have a roundtable and we'll bring everybody all at once. We'll have a whole group of all talking about this petition. And we'll we can do to change the world.

Gordon Brewer
Yeah, folks, you heard it here first. So to get us back on track. So what is going on with ne ne me right now with what did you guys? What do you guys got coming in the future in 2022?

Miranda Palmer
Yeah, um, so we have really amazing monthly trainings coming in free trainings for our community, we wildly want to, again, keep people coming together inside of community. And so we're paying really amazing speakers to come in and talk about issues that no one else is talking about. So, for example, like not just couples therapy, but like, what do we do with couples therapy and private practice and how is that different? It's something that we don't always like Talk about the nuances of and so we're bringing in an expert on that. We're talking about like, even if you do or don't take insurance, how insurance impacts the care that you give, and like what you need to know about that. As a provider, we're bringing in fiberglass balls for that. So we have lots of cool stuff happening with that. And then we're going to definitely be talking more about the issues of burnout and trauma in our profession. We have a training, which probably maybe the replay will be out at this time. I'm not sure when this is coming out, but December 9, where we're going to be really digging into what we're seeing in our profession. Because while I'm sure you're seeing Gordon, like, oh, wow, people are so great on communities online are wonderful. And then I'm sure you've also seen it where people are attacking shame each other. There's just kind of this, like nastiness happening in a way that we haven't ever seen before. And I've been doing online communities for 15 years, like a lot more than 15 years since 2005. I've been doing online communities, and the last two years has been like nothing I've ever seen before.

Kelly Higdon
And I know and we're not talking about like important conversations. No, we're talking about just general ranting and frustration and like there's a displaced stress. We're not talking about accountability for social justice issues are talking about this. This overall, like it's more than on weed. It's like there's like a people are really deep in their pain and frustration. And they just are, are venting. And it's got it's not getting taken care of you know.

Miranda Palmer
But I think that that's just one of the pieces, right? They're the people who are venting, they're the people who are just deep in despair. They're the people that are just looking everywhere for an outlet and escape. Like, maybe I'll be a business coach, I'm gonna do an online course. Let me start a podcast. Let me do this. Let me do that. The core right, people are really unhappy, burned out, and maybe just maybe our trauma has been activated, reactivated, you know, triggered what have you. And so we really dive down deep into like what we really experienced as a profession over this last couple of years, and start to create safety for ourselves. Again, there is not enough online grants, there isn't enough multiple streams of income or side hustles or creative outlets, there isn't enough people pleasing we can do. You know, there isn't enough like rest or vacations we can take if we don't understand the core of what our body's telling us that this is a guidepost.

Gordon Brewer
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I think again, coming full circle, back to where we where we started is really just thinking about understanding your own motivation behind what you're doing and why you're doing it is, is key to all of this and helping people get grounded. So Well, Kelly, and Miranda, I know we could go on for hours with this conversation. But I want to be respectful of your time. So tell folks how to get in touch with you.

Miranda Palmer
So Vinny mi.com, z is in zebra y.

Kelly Higdon
Nancy N as in Nancy, why isn't yak and Mary is an elephant doc

Miranda Palmer
have over 10 hours of free training, we also have a free community. And it's not on Facebook. And this is something actually we have found in particular, is that having a community that doesn't have ads, that doesn't have Facebook, that's not connected with personal at all. It really does change the whole vibe and energy of the space. And so we found that that's a much safer faith space. So we have about 15,000 therapists there. We have a licensed and pre licensed community so people can go to wherever it makes sense for them for free. So

Gordon Brewer
yeah, and it's wonderful resources, folks. So be sure and check it out Xeni me.com. And there'll be easy links here in the show notes for for this. And so, Kelly and Miranda, we're going to have more conversations. Yes, more to come. So glad. So Happy Holidays and Happy Holidays. I hope you have a great transition to the new year. And, folks, thanks for joining us for this episode.

Kelly Higdon
Thank you, Gordon. Thank you