The Practice of Therapy

Gordon Brewer
Okay, do the blurb.

Maegan Megginson
Hi, I'm Megan Megan son. I'm a licensed therapist and a business coach. And I'm the founder of next level therapist, which is a coaching program for therapists who are ready to move beyond private practice. And my passion is really about helping therapist shed the blank slate persona, bring more of their authentic selves into their businesses, and create profitable personal brands so that they can be themselves while selling things beyond the therapy room. I'm so excited to be on the podcast with Gordon, and I can't wait for you to listen to our conversation.

Gordon Brewer
Well, hello, folks, and welcome again to the podcast. And I'm looking forward to you getting to meet Megan Magnussen. Hi, Megan. Glad to Hi,

Maegan Megginson
Gordon. so delighted to be here.

Gordon Brewer
Yes, we were, we were chatting a little bit ahead of time we both have these southern roots. And so neither one of us detects an accent in the others. That's good. That's, that's a good thing. Yeah. So well, Megan has a start with everyone. Why don't you tell folks a little more about yourself and how you've landed where you've landed?

Maegan Megginson
Well, sure, Gordon, I'm so glad to be here. Again, my name is Megan Megan son. I'm a business coach and a licensed therapist. And my journey started back in 2011, when I first became a therapist, and I've kind of tried all of the things I've worn all of the different hats that a therapist can wear. I started postgraduate school, as an employee in a group practice, and then went on to start my own private practice in Houston, Texas. And then my husband decided to retire from his oil and gas engineering career, we packed up our three bagels, we moved across the country to Portland, Oregon, and I opened private practice version 2.0. And that was when my, my ambitious itch really started bothering me. And I knew I wanted to do something more than private practice. But at the time, I thought the only thing available to me was group practice. So I did it, I started a group practice, I actually still own the group practice here in Portland, Oregon. But a few years into the group practice, I was feeling really burnt out, I was feeling pretty creatively unfulfilled. And I just felt like there had to be another option for for me and for therapists in general. And that's when I began exploring personal branding as a path for therapists who are ambitious, that is different from group practice. And I have just really discovered my passion in personal branding. And now my full time gig is business coaching and supporting other therapists who are wanting to move beyond private practice themselves.

Gordon Brewer
Oh, awesome. Yeah. And I think what's interesting, I think, for a lot of us that been in the field for a while, we tend to gravitate towards that. And I think that's, and, you know, one thing that I hear or pay attention to is that our, our, our skills as therapists and what we know, and how we've been trained, translates in a lot of ways across a lot of different things. Yeah, yeah. I

Maegan Megginson
often say therapists are some of the smartest, most creative, most talented people on the planet. And it's a damn shame that so many of them are stuck behind the door of their private practice office that more therapists were in the spotlight, talking about what they know and what they believe in. I think the world would be a much better place.

Gordon Brewer
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I totally agree. I totally agree. So well, so for folks that might be curious. When you speak of personal branding, what is that?

Maegan Megginson
Great question. Okay, so if we boil it down to its essentials, Gordon, a personal brand is a business that's based on you. So it's a business that's based on your personality, your values as a person, and most importantly, your subject matter expertise or your specialty area. So you get to weave in your personality, your values, and what you know, as a professional by creating a business and a message that calls the right people in to you. So for example, if you are someone who specializes in anxiety, and you have something really specific to say about helping millennial professional women overcome anxiety in the workplace, you can create a personal brand where you show up as you with your stories and your values, speaking specifically to those millennial women who you know are struggling with anxiety. That's just one example of a personal brand. Another example that we're all familiar with would be Brene Brown. She's probably you know, the most famous person in the therapy space who has really done tremendous things with a personal brand.

Gordon Brewer
You Yes, yes, I am. And I think that one of the things that at least I hear from folks, and maybe you can help them with this is that they're maybe a little bit shy or a little bit wary, or I don't know what the right word is putting themselves out there in that way. That's really putting their, their name in the forefront and that sort of thing and all the negative messages around that. You want to say something about that? Oh, do

Maegan Megginson
I say many things about that, Gordon, I'll keep it brief. I think that for many therapists, that stepping into the spotlight is challenging for for two reasons. The first reason is graduate school, right? Most therapists are really created in graduate school programs that explicitly and implicitly teach us that we need to be blank slate therapists, right that it is not appropriate to be ourselves in the therapy room that it's, you know, we got into this work for the client, not for ourselves. So don't be selfish. I mean, that's something my clients tell me they heard explicitly all the time. So we are conditioned in the therapy space to believe that we need to stay small, and we need to stay quiet. And the second reason I think this is challenging, Gordon, is because many therapists grew up in families that taught them the exact same thing. Right? Many therapists are people pleasing perfectionists who never quite fit into their family of origins who received the messages from their family that they were odd or different or too shiny, or too smart or too special. And could they just tone it down? Could they just, you know, could they just be quiet. So many therapists are sitting in their private practice offices right now with a lifetime of conditioning that says, don't take up space on the stage. So of course, it feels really scary to think about putting their name out there and putting themselves out there. And there's a lot of work we have to do to get from private practice therapist to bold personal brand, but it's a journey that offers a ton of value, both for personal healing and professional opportunities.

Gordon Brewer
Right, right. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's one of the things that I think is really a struggle for a lot of us. Well, a lot of folks is, is just getting through the mindset around what we were trained to do. You know, as far as being those, you know, not, I've been doing this long enough, where I've changed my mind about a lot of those things. Not to go too far on, on a rabbit trail here. But, you know, one of the things that I think gives us credibility and also builds rapport with clients is a bit of self disclosure, or about our own struggles with things and then Pete, being able to, you know, give that empathy of so you know, you know, I know kind of what this feels like, because I've been there to kind of thing and so, yeah, so a three. Yeah, I

Maegan Megginson
mean, I love that you've had just in your own practice that, that realization. And, and I agree, I mean, I first started thinking about this, when I was having some transformational moments as the client with my therapist, and as my therapist was showing me a bit more of her personality and sharing some of her life stories, and it was helping me go deeper into my own work. It pinged a little light bulb, inside my mind of like, oh, wait a minute, I was taught not to do that. But why was I taught that who made that rule, because what's happening for me in this moment, is incredibly transformational. And I think I've just taken that moment and, and really have run with it. And and now I am firmly on the other side of that spectrum, where I believe, you know, like I said, all therapists should be doing more self disclosure, not necessarily in the therapy room all the time. But the way we self disclose in our branding, by showing people our personality by using our voice by saying what's true for us, but we really believe those are really powerful ways to begin the kind of humming out process as therapists who are also real three dimensional human beings.

Gordon Brewer
Right, right. And you know, as I think about it, we you mentioned Brene Brown, and one of the things that I that stands out for me about her is that she does a lot of self disclosure, and you know, talking about, you know, she which makes her approachable and I think that's why she is she has done as well as she has just in this whole world. I don't think of her as, you know, big self pro Modine kind of person. She's, she's done a brilliant job of, of creating kind of establishing herself as an expert, and being able to connect with people in a certain way. And it

Maegan Megginson
is about that balance, isn't it? It's the balance between, you know, I talk a lot and next level therapist about courageous authenticity, right, that we want in our brands to be courageously honest and authentic about who we are. But we have to balance that with our subject matter expertise. So what is it that we're talking about? What is it that we're helping our clients with? If it's a therapy client? Or if you've moved beyond private practice into coaching or consulting? What are you helping those clients with? And I think you're right Brene does such a beautiful job of striking that balance between telling us who she is and sharing her honest stories with us as her audience, while also coming back to what is she teaching? You know, what is her message? What is she helping people overcome are transforming their own lives, that balance is what makes it a business and not just, you know, a blog or an Instagram account.

Gordon Brewer
Right? Right. So it as people are starting to think about this, where where, what is the starting point in just thinking about creating a personal brand,

Maegan Megginson
I think the starting point, and we're gonna, you know, be our best therapist selves here and take one tiny little step at a time. And it is important when we're talking about this Gordon to be really connected to your own window of tolerance as a therapist as well, because as we both said, this process, it's a big change. For many therapists, it is a 180, from how they are used to showing up in their lives and in their businesses. So it's important that you don't just dive off the deep end, but that you take it in small chunks. And for me, the first little chunk is by starting to explore what parts of my personality, can I weave into my existing private practice, what parts of and we get to choose? Right, one of my favorite, favorite quotes a mentor said to me long ago, was you show your audience, the real you. But that doesn't mean you show them all of you. So we have choice here, and what parts of our lives and our stories were weaving into our businesses. So this first piece of exploration is about your personality? What parts of your personality Do you want to show to your clients? What parts of your personality Do you want to weave into your website? Let's start there. And when you get more comfortable expressing your personality, you can take you know, additional steps towards the personal profitable personal brand path.

Gordon Brewer
Right, right. Yeah. And I think, as people hear from me, I think the other other thing you've got to think about is how all of this fits with your life in general. Particularly, think about lifestyle. Another term that I've heard here recently that I love, and it's lifestyle congruence, in that, although that fits for you, and doing all those things.

Maegan Megginson
That's beautiful. I have not heard that term before. But I love it lifestyle congruence, business congruence, like how are we creating? I often think about what's the through line for me, what's the through line between my personal life and my business? Because I'm a big believer that I'm a business owner, to serve me first, my clients second, which is a big reframe, for many therapists who think that, you know, they have to serve their clients to the detriment of their own needs. So if I'm thinking about lifestyle congruence and business congruence, a question you can ask yourself is, what is the through line for me? Why am I doing this? Why am I in business? What parts of my life do I want this to support? And that can be a helpful question to kind of open up the gates to thinking about how can I bring more of myself and my own personal needs into what I'm doing as a therapist?

Gordon Brewer
Right, right. Yeah. It's, um, yeah, I think that that's the only way that we can really do it with preserving our own kind of mental health.

Maegan Megginson
Right, exactly. And something I often say is that I, I want all therapists to be deeply rested and wildly successful. And I think we often are taught that it's one or the other. Right? That you can, you can be wildly successful. But if you choose that path, you know, you're going to be sleazy, you're going to be exploitative. You're going to take advantage of people, and it's eventually going to land you and burnout. And if you want to be deeply rested, well you can do that. But you're not going to be that successful. And I think this conversation kind of pulls people into a new paradigm where we say No, actually I think I'm going to be both I think I'm gonna find a way to be really rested, and really successful and self expressed and a healer and transforming people's lives. And that's, that's what we're all working towards, I think in this space is how do we take care of ourselves and our clients and do it in a way that lifts everybody up?

Gordon Brewer
Right, right. Yeah. I love that. Love that. Yeah. So tell folks a little bit about kind of how you work with them and the things that you do? Well, helping people with all of this,

Maegan Megginson
thank you for the opportunity to share I would love to, I work with clients through my signature coaching program. Next Level therapist, which is a six month coaching community, for therapists who have established private practices, and are at the point where they're feeling burned out, they're feeling bored, they're feeling ready for the next thing. They know, the next thing isn't group practice, but they're not sure how to create anything else. So a next level therapist, I walk you from A to Z, how do you create a profitable personal brand, and it's a really beautiful community where we are trying to strike this balance between being and doing, trying to become deeply rested and wildly successful. And we're trying to change the world by expanding our impact, sharing more of what we know, as therapists with more people on a bigger stage. Yeah, that's next level therapist, and it's a really, really special place. Right?

Gordon Brewer
Yeah, I think it's a, it's a, it's an issue that comes up for all of us at some point. You know, when when a person first goes into private practice, they're really focused on getting a client base and getting those referrals and all of those sorts of things. But eventually, you reach kind of a plateau, applied toe or a glass ceiling, or whatever you want to call it. And so you really have to at that point, you do have to switch from the one to one way of doing things to the one, one to many. And the good news is, is there's a lot of different ways to do that.

Maegan Megginson
That's right. And it's one of the things I love about personal branding, as well as when you move into personal branding. And you take a step beyond private practice, by creating a second business, the options for what you can do and how you can work with people are endless. And that creativity really excites me, if you want to do a group program, you can if you want to do an online course, or a retreat, or one on one coaching in a different way than you were doing therapy, those are all options that are available to you. And I just I love how expansive the work becomes when we find an ethical way to move beyond the psychotherapy services that we're used to providing.

Gordon Brewer
Right, right. So in your, in your work in helping people with this, what sort of you just mentioned some ways in which people can kind of begin to spread their wings, so to speak, by doing retreats, doing groups, those that I mean, doing group coaching, or doing coaching that kind of thing? What what topics are you seeing that people are moving into when they do this? So like if so for good, you know, if somebody wanted to do a retreat, what would be the retreat be about? Does that question make sense?

Maegan Megginson
It makes Yes, it makes great sense. And I think this, this comes back to what we were talking about earlier of knowing your subject matter expertise or your specialty area. And what I find with clients in an expo therapist is people make a decision, they choose to either stay connected to the work they've been doing as a therapist, but they want to do it in a different way, or they want to pivot. They want to pivot subject matters entirely. So let's start with pivoting entirely. I'm thinking about a client of mine, Arianna Smith, who is a therapist in one part of her life and in the other part of her life. She is a copywriting coach for other therapists. So she has created a separate business from private practice where she is teaching therapists how to write courageous copy. So that's an example of a therapist who said I want to do something totally different from therapy. Another example is my client, me to Falaschi and me is a therapist in private practice who has specialized in grief and relationships. And she decided I want to do something beyond private practice. So she created a coaching business, where she's designed a group program called the soul Weaver experience where she is helping women who have experienced untethering loss, weave their souls back together. And she's using some of the things that she did as a therapist, but not in a psychotherapeutic way. She's really approaching this from from a different lens as a coach, she's teaching curriculum, leading experience says that help clients create transformation, really on their own. So those are kind of two examples, you have to ask yourself, Do I want to pull from my therapy practice to create a coaching business? Or a consulting business doing something similar? Or do I want to pivot entirely and do something totally unrelated to what I did? As a therapist? Once you make that decision, you can just start to play and experiment with different ideas to figure out, where's the magic for you, you know, where is the alignment for you around who you are, and what you want to offer to the world?

Gordon Brewer
Right? Right. As you were saying that I'm reminded of one of my favorite quotes by gab. Some people I know, a lot of people have heard him his name was Joseph Campbell, and he was a he was a professor of comparative religions at Sarah Lawrence College years ago, he was I can't remember when he died. But anyway, that to get too far off on him, but one of his quotes was follow your bliss. And so figuring out what it is that is passionate for you and your life, and when you do that, there were there, I'm paraphrasing the quote, doors will open where you didn't even know, there were doors. And so I think, I think that's something you know, as you were saying, of finding what it is that you would love to do beyond the therapy room, but beyond kind of this traditional way of thinking of the services we provide, and absolutely follow that and pursue that.

Maegan Megginson
And remembering to that it's an iterative process. So you're, you're not going to know the big thing that you are going to do the first time you move away from the therapy room. And I think that kind of perfectionism keeps a lot of people stuck in a paralysis, right? Where they feel like, Oh, I can't take the step, the next step until I know exactly what I meant to do, and exactly what I meant to say. And, and on my journey, at least, I've discovered that it's through the doing and through the talking in the serving that I get closer and closer to the thing that really feels 100%. Correct. So if you have even a little inkling of what you might want to do right now follow the Inkling, and then let it take you down that rabbit trail, and you're going to pivot and you're going to change directions. And that's all a beautiful part of the creative process. Eventually, you'll land where you're supposed to be.

Gordon Brewer
Right, right. Oh, I love this stuff. Yeah, this is great. So, Megan, I gotta be respectful of your time. And yeah, and so I'm so glad you are you join me for this episode. tell folks how they can get in touch with you and find all your stuff.

Maegan Megginson
Oh, well, I would love to I have a couple of gifts for listeners. If you are feeling sort of magnetic pool to this conversation. If you're feeling curious about weaving more of your personality into your practice, which we said earlier, is the first step of this process, I would love to offer you my personality Power Pack, which is a lesson I have pulled straight from next level therapist. It's a five step guide to help you discover your authentic personality and to become unapologetically self expressed in your business. So you can download that at personality power pack.com. I also host a free writing group every Thursday morning called express yourself. And this is a beautiful community. We come together I share a prompt, we write for 30 minutes, we practice expressing ourselves in real time. And then we come together at the end for 20 minutes of reflection and connection as community. So if you're looking for a space to get your hands dirty, and to really try doing this work in a supportive community, you can join me every Thursday, you can register at express yourself. studio.com.

Gordon Brewer
Awesome, awesome. And we'll have links here in the show notes in the show summary. So people can get to that easily. So well. Megan, I'm so yeah, thanks for

Maegan Megginson
you. Yes, this was such a wonderful conversation. I'm so grateful to you and for the work that you're doing on this podcast. Thank you so much for having me.

Gordon Brewer
Oh, glad. My pleasure.