The Practice of Therapy

Gordon Brewer
Okay, Casey.

Kasey Compton
Hi, my name is Casey Compton. And I am so happy I could not be more happy to be back on the practice of therapy podcast with my buddy. Gordon, this is one of my favorite podcasts. So I'm happy to be here again.

Gordon Brewer
Hello, folks, and welcome again to the podcast. And I am so thrilled to have back with me my dear friend, Casey Compton. Welcome, Casey.

Unknown Speaker
Thank you. Thank you.

Gordon Brewer
It's good to see you. Yes. And Casey, if you don't know about Casey Compton in your private practice, you need to know about Casey Compton because she is, in my mind a rockstar, as far as this whole space and, and profession and what she's been able to do to teach folks about being in practice. So Casey, for as a start with most every episode, and this is like the third or fourth time Casey has been on the podcast, I'm losing count, and she will be back again, I know. But Casey, tell folks more about you and where you're located and how you've landed where you've landed? Sure.

Kasey Compton
I think that your podcast was the first podcast I believe, that I was ever on. And that was back in 2017. So Wow. Yeah, it feels like a long time. But it also feels like it was just yesterday, too. So yeah, I started I'm in South Central Kentucky, small light town here in Somerset. And I started and the private practice world and 2015 was a clinician since 2009, went into college knowing that, or graduate school knowing that, that I wanted to own a business and that this was going to be in the cards for me, I just didn't really know it was going to be like this. So started in 2015, and really had no experience at all and didn't have any money and didn't have any formal training and just spent a lot of time building the practice and the the bootstrapping mentality, because that's all I knew. And if you're from the south, which I'm sure a lot of your listeners are, that's kind of how we're, we're taught to be proud of that. Like, we're not taught to outsource and do all these things. Like we're taught to just get in there and get your hands dirty, do it yourself. And so that's that's what I did, and spent the next few years just taking my business. And every year it would double in size and revenue. And I just thought that's what everybody was doing. And no idea. Had a couple people approached me and just say, hey, what do you do? And how are you doing that? And so I've spent the last several years sharing different types of systems related concepts and strategies to help business owners grow their business, but not compromise their lifestyle or their peace of mind.

Gordon Brewer
Yeah, and I know that in the in the several years that I've known Casey now, really, her superpower power is in creating systems and processes. And in a no this this past year, she came out with one of the best books that I can recommend for anybody in private practice. And that's fixed this next in healthcare. And so Casey, you want to talk a little bit more about that? Because that's a that's a big part of your story.

Kasey Compton
It is. So since I was a little girl, I remember being nine years old living in Grand Central apartments and this like, I don't know, it was government related. Housing at the time funding or subsidiaries I don't know that was nine. But it was this apartment complex. And I had all these kids in the in the complex and my grandpa, you'll read about him in the book, I call him puppy. My puppy built me a bookshelf, and I remember he painted it pink, it was like this really light pink. And I had it was full of books. And so I decided that I was going to create this library for all the kids in the apartment complex. And so I made like I got I got those little pockets that go inside and I glued them on and anyone who wanted to check out a book I made them write their name down. And I just remember all the way back at nine years old thinking I want to write books like I want to do this is what I want to do. I love to read my mom said I was reading when I was two and three and I just I think now as a, as I've had a lot more time and space to move past that point, I think that was my escape, or books. And so it was always a dream of mine. But I told myself, what the heck am I gonna write about? I mean, you know, I didn't want to write fiction. And I hadn't really done anything that I thought was worthy of writing about. And then you read some of these amazing authors like my McCalla wits, and Malcolm Gladwell, and, you know, Brene, brown and all these people, and then you get intimidated, and you're like, Well, I can't, I don't, I don't have anything special or unique to say. So for a long time, I just talked myself out of it, and telling myself that it wasn't the right time. And when I read, I've been following McHale, it's worked for a while. And I resonated with his style of writing. And whenever I read, fix this next, I thought, Well, I told myself this for a while, like, you know, you read these books, and you're like, Well, I've been doing that already, in some form, or fashion. They're just, it's just, and so as I was telling myself those things, and then I read, fix the snacks. And I was like, I'm pretty much already doing this already, especially after I read clockwork. And I wrote Vixa snacks. And I thought, Ah, he's actually he's put it together in a framework that's easy to understand. And he built it off of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And I just thought, well, that's, I mean, that's exactly what we're doing. Like we teach clients this every day. This is how we treat our our clients and our patients. And so it just felt like that if I was willing to write a book, one wanted to do it with some support of someone that I respected and trusted. And to, it was such an important message and such an important need for health care providers. And so I decided to write a derivative of his book fix sistex, specifically for people in the health care industry. And so that's how it came about and what it did that I was not expecting. It just cracked. It just cracked it wide open for me. And, you know, you hear people talking about if you're listening to podcasts about authorship, or if you're listening to authors talk about their books. Sometimes they'll talk about finding their voice. And it wasn't actually until I wrote the entire book, and I was at the very last chapter. And it's a chapter about my grandma Lily, and her blue ribbon quilts that she used to sew. And I wrote that chapter that turned it into AJ Harper, who helped me developmentally edit the book, and she read it and she was crying. And she I just had never seen her cry at that point. And she was like, Okay, I have some good news, and I have some bad. Okay, tell me and so she said, You found your voice. This is you. This is the Fannie Flagg of business is what she called it. She said, But the bad news is you got to go back and put that in the whole entire book, because it ain't in there. Yeah. So then I had to go back and Fannie Flagg it up there, she calls it Now pop it up.

But it just, it cracked it open for me. And it made me even more passionate about helping other people with books, even more than what I was already trying to do through consulting.

Gordon Brewer
Yes, yes. And, and one of the things about it, Casey and I can and I, when I the way I read now is through audible. And just knowing you and listening to you read the book on Audible, just really touched, that was very touching. And it was it's just your ability to tell story and pull things together is just, it's just amazing. And you're a great storyteller, so not sure. Yeah. So just kudos to you for doing that. And I would say for anybody listening. I would say get the book, the hardcopy, but listen to it on Audible, you're gonna have a whole different, different experience of this, but it really strikes home for me and I think part of it too, is just being being from the south and being in Appalachia and all of that I got it. I gotta do immediately as you were telling those stories. But the one thing though, that I know, Casey, you and I were talking about before we started recording it is just no in your work as a consultant, and I'm seeing it too in my work as a consultant, a seeing people feeling really overwhelmed with trying to do business in a certain way, or they think they got to get it just right. But they don't. I think one of the things, again, this ties into finding your voice. I think finding your sea legs and business is something that people have to really work on.

Kasey Compton
Mm hmm. Yeah, I noticed that as I was writing this text, and we did a lot of case studies and a lot of research and we there's, there's actual stories of my clients. In the book that we saw, it's so obvious. And then after writing the book, I've seen it even more. And that's one of the reasons. Thank you for saying that. I'm a good storyteller. That does not feel natural, it did not feel natural. To me, it feels more natural now. But all of those things were part of the reason why I started writing the book I'm writing now. And it's all story. It's, it's all in story. But it's just, it's about how to find joy, how to find more joy in your accomplishments, because what I've seen is, so often, we just put our head down, and we just bust it out. You know, we're like, working our tails off. And we wake up one day, and we're tired. And then we're like, what are we doing? Why are we doing this? This doesn't feel like we thought it was going to feel like this. Like something's missing. And so, you know, the more that the more work that I did helping people determine what they needed to do first in their business through the fix this next framework led me to this other, this other issue that I'm seeing is that people are doing all the things but they still don't feel joy for it. And that's really why we went into entrepreneurship in the first place like we wanted for something that makes us feel let up inside. So yeah, I think that sometimes we are just doing too much. And we're telling ourselves that we need to, and we don't,

Gordon Brewer
yeah, yeah. And I think that's so true. I think one of the things that I'm learning, just around the I don't know if I shared with you, Casey, but I started another podcast called The kindness and compassion podcast, and we'll have you on that as well, because I think you, you can think the all of this kind of ties in and one of the things that I'm hearing as a theme for a lot of folks, is that with the this, especially over the last two or three years with COVID, and the political turmoil and the stuff that were failing in the, in the, in the Europe, Ukraine, and just all of this, all of those kinds of things going on, it just creates this internal angst. And we, we, we think that we have to do more in order to handle all of that. But the truth of the matter is, is that when we slow down enough, and we get mindful about what's going on, and really ground ourselves in what I like to call our why, as far as what is our internal, what are our internal systems telling us is amiss. That's when we can really begin to, to kind of heal and get to where we were intended to be.

Kasey Compton
Absolutely. I knew for me, and I'm a little bit probably of an oddball in this in this situation. But I remember telling myself early on, whenever I started my business that, you know, I just needed to focus I needed to focus on the goal and say, stay focused on hitting that million dollars hitting that 2 million hitting that three, hitting that five, you know, growing the business having an impact on the community, which are all great things, but what I was doing was checking out of my own systems, like not not my external, but my internal systems. I was telling myself, like, don't feel that are you tired? You're fine. You know, I was just really, really rigid with myself. And it got me a lot of places in business, and I'm thankful for that. But I could have still got there by staying in touch with all of the stuff going on in here. I just didn't know I didn't know how and I was. I didn't have anyone talking about that. I didn't have anyone guiding me and have anyone you know, to influence in that way. And so I just thought I just need to shut it out. I'm going to For everything going on out here and in here, and I'm just going to focus on the job. And I'm going to do more. And I'm going to more more, more more. And but but it's not sustainable. It's just like any any kind of system that you're operating, if you're putting too much pressure, and you don't have a strong enough internal sense of support, it's never going to last. And it's all it's like a house of cards.

Gordon Brewer
Right? Right. Yeah. So I'm curious, how do you how do you ground yourself with those things that you figured out?

Kasey Compton
Well, for me, it's it's a process that that I'm sharing in this framework. But the theme is really self love. It's, it's, it's, it sounds really cliche and silly and not tangible. And not any of the things that are normal for me. But it's really just having that internal dialogue with what do you what do I want? What what is it that's going to serve me, one of the first steps that I'm talking about in this, this framework is worse, worse, so hard on ourselves as adults, and I think we lose touch of our inner child, and who that little boy or girl or whatever was? And if we think about ourselves in that way, and ask ourselves, what did that little girl need that then chances are we still need that now. And so I think that's one thing is just giving ourselves grace and giving ourselves the permission to slow down. Yeah, is one part of it?

Gordon Brewer
Yeah, it's, uh, you know, I think one of the things for us that are in this, these professions, as counselors and therapists, and that sort of thing, it's stuff that we know, and it's stuff that we work with our clients on, but it's sometimes difficult to apply to ourselves. And, yeah, yeah,

Kasey Compton
that's, that's a part of this, too, a part of the framework is just revisiting our past and revisiting people and events that have shaped us in some form or fashion. And that was me, you know, I worked with in clinical practice, I worked with panic and anxiety, panic disorders and anxiety. And I, myself never really experienced anxiety, because I knew how to control it. But I was I put up these blocks and these barriers. And, of course, I wasn't experiencing anxiety, because I wasn't feeling anything I was focusing. And so you know, being able to recognize that those data come down, and how we can start to as clinicians, ourselves start to allow, bring those down. And it also applies to the same kind of work that we do with our clients. We just disregard ourselves in a lot of ways. We're too busy trying to take care of everyone else.

Gordon Brewer
Right. Right. Yeah. And I think that's, that's one of the things that we we can slip into. And I recently was talking with Jane Carter, who you might know, Casey, who's another consultant in Asheville, North Carolina, and we were talking about people pleasing. And one of the things that I think happens, as she pointed out is, is that if we get too caught up in people pleasing, it's like anger, anger turned inward. If we do that, too long we can be get, we can get to the place where we can begin to resent others. But, but at the same time, and it's a southern thing, we want to be polite and put on the nice face, and that sort of thing. But inwardly we've got this kind of rage going on. Because we're trying to please everybody.

Kasey Compton
Yep. That's, that's a big part of it. And I mean, that's, you would never, maybe you would, but a lot of people would never think that about me, because I'm pretty direct. And but I, I still do that, you know, and I have to be very cautious of is this crossing my own boundary. And, you know, like, I was at a I was at a retreat just a few weeks ago in New York, and I was with a bunch of New York people. And we each had scheduled times that we were to come in and do a one on one with this editor. And mine was at 10 o'clock. Well, there was someone else at 930 before me, and I'm sitting out in the hall and it's like, 1002, and I'm not going in there because you know, it's uh, you know, the other person hasn't come out yet, and that's rude. So I'm like waving and it's 1005 and then it comes 1010 Finally one of them one that was helping her on the event comes out and she was like, you can come in and I said, okay, and she said, I wasn't I didn't even think to come out here and get you. But then I remembered your southern so you are not gonna walk in there. And I was like, No, I was it was rude. I was just like, all these little things. But you know, that was my time that it was my turn, but I wasn't gonna say anything. It's just it's a it's a cultural thing and a lot of ways, and it's more, like paying attention to things like that. Yeah, it's funny.

Gordon Brewer
Yeah, I'd say it's funny. It's my gut reaction is as well bless their hearts. Yeah, so No, it's great. Well, well, Casey, what other kind of parting thoughts to you, you have just around this whole theme of being overwhelmed and being able to pay navigate all this stuff that we do is practice others?

Kasey Compton
Well, if you feel if any of the listeners are feeling like they are just overwhelmed and tired, and it's the job's ever done, that's normal, because most people feel that way. And just to give you a little bit of hope, or a little bit of peace of mind, it's not that it's always probably going to feel like that to a certain degree. It's just, it's just how triggered and how upset Are you going to get about it. And most times, it's not that we're, we're just doing the wrong things is, as I guess what I'm trying to say, if we learn, which is what I'm teaching in this book, is if you learn how to prioritize the needs of your business in a way that becomes automatic to you, you can so much easier, just let the other things fall away. Because you know that yeah, it's important, but it's not gonna make or break my business. And this is where I need to focus my attention. This is where I need to teach my team to focus their attention. And I can honestly say that once I did that, and once I've seen other people doing that, it is like, this weight just comes off of your shoulders, and you sleep better, and you feel better, you feel more confident about what you're doing. And so I guess it's just that you don't have to do everything, you just need to know the right things to do at the right time.

Gordon Brewer
Right. Right. It's, it's really kind of the power of outsourcing to some degree, but also knowing what to outsource.

Kasey Compton
Right? Yeah, it's, it's being able to compare it a lot in the book to diagnosing your clients or patients is the same way we have to be able to diagnose our business on the spot all the time, because those those diagnoses are going to change and we can't fix what we don't know exist.

Gordon Brewer
Right? Right. This is great stuff. And I know, we're overdue for being able to hang out with each other and, and all of that sort of thing. And as close as we are. There's no excuse. I mean, really is. We're not Yeah, we do we do. So do you have a name for the new book yet? Or is that not yet in fruition?

Kasey Compton
I don't have a name. We're just calling it right now. Something a little generic. It's called an insert of me. But that will change. Yeah, so yeah, we'll see what well

Gordon Brewer
folks check out fix this next for health care by Casey Compton. It is it is anybody in private practice and I would put it up there in the same category which is out of that kind of the same mold anyway as Profit First, by Mike McCalla wits, which is how Casey and I kind of got connected to begin with, I think about the long story of it all. So but yeah, so check it out in Casey, tell folks where they can find you if they want to connect with you.

Kasey Compton
Yeah, if you want to connect with me and my team, just find us on social media or go to our website, just my name, Casey. compton.com.

Gordon Brewer
Awesome. Awesome. We will have that in the show notes and show summary. Awesome. Thank

Kasey Compton
you, Gordon.

Gordon Brewer
We'll see you here soon. Hopefully, Casey. Kay