The Practice of Therapy

Gordon Brewer: Well, hello everyone and welcome again.
And so the podcast and my guest today is no stranger to this podcast. I, James, how many times have we done episodes together? Can you two?
James Marland: Probably two on virtual assistants and one on online courses. So this'll probably be the second one on online course, so this might be my third or fourth time.
Gordon Brewer: Oh, yeah.
Yeah. So, but James is no is, is a veteran to this, and James has been a long time friend of mine, and I'm happy for you to get to know James if you haven't heard from him yet. But James, as I start with everyone, tell folks a little more about yourself and how you've landed, where you've landed.
James Marland: Yeah, sure.
I'm, I'm in the online course creation space. I help therapists. I help make it easy for therapists to launch online educational products that will help them fund their greater mission, create a bigger impact, and also fulfill some of their inborn mission. De desired needs to, to do more for a certain group of people.
Gordon Brewer: Right, right. And I know James has helped me a lot over the years and, and just getting content, good content creation, that's a quality quality content. And also James is one of the. He and his podcast which you might wanna tell folks a little bit about your podcast names Sure. But, but are part of the Site Craft network.
So, but why don't you tell 'em a little bit about your podcast, Jim? The
James Marland: podcast? Yeah, absolutely. The podcast called The Scaling Therapy Practice, and I help people diversify their income through online educational resources. I talk a lot about the tools, tips, and tricks I've learned along the way to help build.
Peop build online courses that people actually wanna buy.
Gordon Brewer: Right, right. Yeah. And it's yeah. So be sure and check that out. I mean, I'll just, I'm a, I'm over a
James Marland: hundred episodes now. I hard to believe. Oh, okay.
Gordon Brewer: Wow. Yeah. Wow. That is, yeah, it goes by fast, doesn't it? Yeah, it
James Marland: does.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah. Well, good. Well I know one of the things James and I wanted to just kind of talk about and let you listen into our conversation is just this whole thing around being able to scale your practice beyond just the therapy world, but therapy room rather.
And really look at, you know. Some of the gifts and talents that you have as a therapist that can translate in other ways. And one, one way in particular that is being able to teach and offer courses whether they're online or live or however, as a way to bring in additional income for yourself.
And, as I like to say, and we, I know James, you and I have talked about this before, is just going from the one-to-one model of providing services to the one to many way of providing services or helping people.
James Marland: Yeah. I like to explain, what I do I, I like to help unlock therapists from just the, the, the chair or the couch, you know, where they are just locked behind the desk, doing the same thing over and over every day.
That can lead to burnout. But the big problem with that is if the time, time spoils, I guess, like if you're not working, if you're not seeing somebody, you're not earning money. So it's difficult to take days off because who's gonna earn the money to pay the bills? Nobody, if you're off, when you take vacation, who's earning the money?
Nobody. Like it's, there's nothing there to help generate revenue. I. When you're not doing the prac, doing the work, so that, that's one of the problems we solve. And the other one is like, how do you get your message out to more people with the same amount of effort or similar amount of effort? And so courses that you record.
What? It's a lot of it, it's not a lie to say it's, it's not as easy as you might think like. It's, it's work to get it set up, but you get the, the outcome is disproportional to the work that you put in, meaning you do it once and then you can sell it multiple times. So that's that's the, that's one of the big problems though the therapists face, is that they run outta time.
Like they're time, like who's working when they're not. And so online courses can help shore up the gap and give them some. Time freedom and location freedom while continuing to share their message.
Gordon Brewer: Right, right. Yeah. And it's it, it is, I think there's a lot of different. Different ways. And, and this is one of the ways in which James, one of the many ways James helps people is being able to conceptualize what it is that you want to share, but also just the whole logistics behind doing all of that, which I think is, at least in my experience, has been one of the things that kinda keeps people from thinking they can do it is they get hung up with the logistics of it.
But do you wanna say some more about that?
James Marland: Well, I think many, many therapists and people who, who are mission-driven, like they know that they're called to do a little more, like they know they're called to do a little more. They're also, they also know that they can help people, right? They're, they're masters at their craft.
They perfected it. They say the same thing over and over to multiple groups of people. They get results in the one-to-one. Therapy or even group therapy. So they're good at what they do. People love their service and they they, they get confidence from it. But it's the, the stepping outside of the comfort zone.
Coming up with the beliefs. Well, I'm not like this big person or I, I don't who would listen to me. I don't have a big audience, or I don't know if I can sell this because I don't have a mailing list or I don't have a social media following. It's all those. Those distractors or those limiting, I guess they're called limiting beliefs.
You listen to the limiting beliefs. So you're stuck in planning mode where you're planning and dreaming, mode dreaming, where you're like, oh, I, someday I am gonna have an online course. Someday I'm gonna have a product that I can sell someday. I'll be able to spend more time on the people that I know I can help the best someday and, and then someday.
It gets put into a drawer in your desk drawer, and then the next project comes up and you forget about it, and then, then it's a, a week a week. Two weeks, a month, two years before you, you, you put pick it back up. So I think imposter syndrome and then return stuck in planning mode is what happens. I mean, I, when I get stuck, I like to watch a video, like, I like to learn something, you know?
Mm-hmm. Like, okay. I just, if I just took one more course, if I just watched one more YouTube video, if I just stru, you know, asked ai, what's the best way to do this? And then I feel. You know, if I feel like I did something and, and then nothing gets done. So that's what I do. I don't know what you return to when you feel uncomfortable.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah. I think one of the things that I do that it's al almost in a part of the planning, process for me is to, is to go and look and see what other people have done in a similar realm, whether they've taught a similar course or whether they have put some sort of program together similar to what I'm thinking of.
And I just go and look and see, okay, how, how have they approached this? And then, as a starting place, and then just that gives me ideas about, okay, if I were to do it, I'd tweak it this way and do it this other way or whatever. Yeah.
James Marland: Yeah. I think if you're stuck in the comparison trap that's, that's you look at what other people do and you're like, oh, I could never be like them.
But
James Marland: I, I compare that to I'm in a town with five pizza shops, you know, but everybody likes pizza. And you might not make pizza the way somebody else do, but you, you're gonna make it exactly the way somebody wants it. Like having five pizza shops in one town means people like pizza. So having five courses on anxiety means people struggle with anxiety.
And if you can niche it down to what you're really good at. Anxiety with school children or anxiety in life transitions or anxiety with changing jobs or anxiety in relationships. Whatever you're good at, if you can niche it down to that, your, your dream client, the client who wants, who desperately wants what you have, you're gonna be reading their mind and speaking their language.
So right. Yeah. Right.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah, and I think that's that's one of the things I think you know, you spoke of imposter syndrome. Mm-hmm. And, you know, I think when we do that, get caught in that comparison trap we don't really do ourselves any service with that. Because, you know, as you're, as you're speaking about James, is, is that your way of doing things?
Your uniqueness is as a therapist, as a, as a, as a person or somebody that is gonna present stuff is gonna resonate with people. In, in many different ways. And that, that you'll find, you will find your tribe, so to speak, with people that you resonate with. I know just in doing what I do with the practice of therapy, there are, there are, you know.
Numerous podcasts on starting a private practice or running a private practice. And, and a lot of those people are great friends of mine and, but we're all different in the way that we present things and the way our voice, so to speak, and all of that. And I think so that recognizing that you're gonna resonate just like you do with clients in different ways.
James Marland: Absolutely. And, and I think that frees us to be authentic. I think one of the, one of the big setbacks is you, you, you feel like you gotta be a put on a personality when you go online. Mm-hmm. Like, like, I gotta look a certain way, dress a certain way, be a certain way. And that leads to being a little less authentic.
You might, you know, it colors, it colors what you do, but. But, but what really connects with people is being authentic to who you are. Like for the longest time you know, I didn't, I didn't put any of my I just had books in my background. I, I blurred out my background. But in the, my background, I just had books, like books, business books.
'cause I want people to think I'm smart. I love to read and I, I just wanted people to connect that way. But I also like, like Legos, you know? Mm-hmm. So I have a Lego tree in my backyard, in my back. I have a, I have the what is it called? The support therapy pickle. The, the emotional support pickle.
You know,
James Marland: it's it's in the, my background.
'cause I, I. There. I have a story about emotional support. Pickle. I have a pickle story. I have like transformer toys and an owl bear in the background from a video game I played, like I used to hide that stuff. Mm-hmm. I used to be on, not, not that I was, I per, I did not share that side of my personality and the people who.
Like Legos and toys and fun and like emotional support pickles. They're the ones who are gonna like me and they're gonna, they're gonna do, you know, be like, oh, I think I want to be like James, or I like James. I can resonate with him and I wanna be like him. I wonder if there's something he offers that I can use, you know, or of when I'm looking for the problem, I can use it.
And so it's that authenticity that we often sometimes hide from, that I was hiding from for a while. It, it makes you like everyone else and people don't want somebody like everybody else, they want you. Mm-hmm. Like they want what Your ideal client, the people that resonate with you. Want you. They don't, they don't want a watered down you, they need you.
So. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, so I got toy, I got toys on my bookshelf now thing. Okay,
Gordon Brewer: okay. That's always a good thing. Always a good thing. So, yeah. So you know, I think one of the things, there's lots of different ways in which people could think about diversifying their income and I know there's, you know.
On the clinical side of things you know, if you're a solo practitioner, you know, expanding to having a group practice, then you're making money from what other people are doing. Another way that I think you could on the clinical side are to actually start offering group sessions and that sort of thing, but I think even, even a better way to go from.
One to many is through the creation of a course or seminar, webinars, those kinds of things. And I know one of the things that James, you put together just kind of a, a one pager or whatever of just starts out with three reasons not to go create a course. So you wanna Yeah. You wanna say something about that?
Yeah.
James Marland: Yeah. When I first started out doing this, I'm like, oh. Therapists, therapists know stuff that people need to know. You know, I worked in the therapy realm for a while. Access to service was difficult, but so what if there was a way for easily dis distribute this information in a way that people would wanna buy and understand?
So I was thinking everybody needs to create an online course there. You know, I, I believe every, you know, every, every therapist has something that they're really good at that the world needs to have. So I started out doing that, but as I get longer into this journey, there's probably, you know, the online courses isn't for everybody.
Because maybe you're not bent for it or maybe, you know, you're, you're you don't, you don't, you don't like tech, the, some of the technology or the training. But I have three, three main reasons that you sh you should not create an online course. See if any of these resonate with, with you. One, one, and I got this from Julie Harris.
She did a, she did a little mini webinar for me. Mm-hmm. As the, the first reason is to not create an online course is to save your struggling therapy practice like an online, like if you're, if you're thinking, oh, I need to generate some revenue. The therapy aspect isn't working, but I, I, I can create an online course.
'cause online courses generate all this income, that is not a reason to start an online course because the, the online course could be a detour. Like you're, you're what you went to school for, what you got your degree in, what you've invested all this money in is for, for, for the foreseeable future is probably how you're gonna earn your money.
It's, it's how you're going to earn your money. So if you're not earning money, an online course isn't gonna fix your. You're, you're struggling practice. In fact, it's probably gonna drain resources away from marketing good customer care, answering the phone, web blogging, you know, all those things that would might networking.
That might generate some income from you. It's gonna divide your attention for a little bit.
Gordon Brewer: Mm-hmm.
Yeah. So don't, don't quit your day job too quickly. Yeah. Is what I like to say. Well, everybody
James Marland: needs a runway. Yeah. Do you know what the runway principle is? Like a runway? I think that,
Gordon Brewer: remind me of that.
Yeah.
James Marland: Well, it's, it's when you're starting something new, if your business, your new venture is a plane, it needs time and space to. Get up to speed so it can fly. And so the runway is cash. Really? Mm-hmm. Like it's, it's cash or energy, but whatever your runway is, like, everybody has a limited runway. So if you, if you have a short runway, you need to get up in the air quickly.
But most businesses don't generate revenue first. There's all these startup expenses and it, they drain your cash and energy and resource so. Have a runway to build, which, which might mean you, you fix, you know, you fix your SEO or your webpage or your, your lead generation for your, for your practice, which gives you the runway to do, you know, grow into something else.
Fix what's wrong. Now there, there's probably some other problem. That you can, that is going on be before you just jump, jump off and say, oh, an online course is gonna fix my problem.
Mm-hmm.
James Marland: It's not gonna save, it's not gonna save a struggling practice.
Gordon Brewer: There's certainly people out there that have gone from having full-time therapy practices.
I. Into doing consulting or doing mm-hmm. Online courses and that kind of thing. But it's kind of like the same advice I give people that are maybe working for an agency or a nonprofit or something like that, and they're wanting to go into private practice. Don't assume that if you jump, you know, quit your job at the nonprofit.
Yeah. And then just open your doors as a therapist. You're gonna be, you know. Flooded. Flooded with people flooded, but and that's just not the case. Yeah. That's, that's a lot
James Marland: of work to to own your own business.
Gordon Brewer: I think that would be the same for creating a course is to, to recognize that there's some, I.
A process to it and there's a, some patience that's required. And being able to market not only create the, create the course and create the content for it, but also marketing it once you've got it created so that it's something that, yeah, there's a lot one people do.
James Marland: You can't just put it out on Instagram once, like, oh, I got this course and expect the, the, the dollar signs to roll in.
There's a right, there's a, there's a journey you build to help customers find you. You're sending out signals that, that you can help them and you have to be persistent and consistent in those signals 'cause. Our attention span is getting, it's getting worse. My attention, oh yeah. I had a bad attention span in high school.
I can't imagine. Like, oh, it's even worse now. So, yeah, so that's the first reason. I think the second, the second reason not to do an online course is because you're really excited about passive income, and it sounds really easy. Mm-hmm. It reminds me of there's a meme going around. It's a banner hanging in a business.
It's a big red banner and it says, we're doing this not because it's easy, but we thought it would be easy, and now they're committed to doing it, Uhhuh. And, you know, that's how I started out. I, I started out thinking, oh, all therapists need a course. And it's just easy. I just tell them, oh, you can make money doing a course or you can pursue your mission doing a course and.
It's it's not as that easy just saying it 'cause it's, it's, I've, I've had success, but I've had to be persistent and there, and not like start one day and, and, and you know, disappear the next. I've had to stick with it for the long haul and I've paid, like life, a life experience. Like I paid for it with life experience, you know, I've, mm-hmm.
I'm earning my dues by put, just doing it, doing it not being perfect and doing it again. Yeah. So it's it, it, there, there's work to it. And anybody who says you know, you, you can make thousands and thousands of dollars with five hours of work. I, I don't mm-hmm. I don't think that's possible. There, there might be a few lucky people or famous people mm-hmm.
Who can do that. But for most of us, we gotta pay our dues with life experience.
Gordon Brewer: You've got to, you've got to build an audience as they, as we call it in order for those kinds of things to really do well. Well what would be the third reason not to. On the course.
James Marland: Yeah. I think the third reason is you're just, you're just burnout.
You're tired of therapy and you, you know, you, you wanna try something new and you think a course is gonna fix your life. Like, oh, I'll just make this course and all my problems will go away. I think burnout is a feeling. And, and, and, and I think it's something, you know, therapists struggle with a lot.
You're doing emotional work, difficult work, and you're, mm-hmm. You're carrying the weight, I mean. You I, I was gonna say, you're carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. I know good therapists can brush it off, but, and when I was when I was doing intakes in a mental inpatient unit, you had to care a little bit.
Like you had to care for the person. You had to let them in and show that what they were saying was. Impacting you, like you, that it was meaningful, so you had to hurt a little bit. So they knew you cared. You still had your boundaries and you still had whatever. But if you, if you share, if you didn't care, they didn't talk to you.
Mm-hmm.
James Marland: Like there was no connection or therapeutic alliance when you, when you did the intake. So you had to hurt a little bit. And so if you hurt a little bit. 50 times a week, you're gonna burn out. Like you're just gonna burn out. Does that, is that making sense?
Gordon Brewer: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's really a matter of really thinking about your energy level as much as anything.
Yeah.
James Marland: And, and I know when when I am emotional, I, I think about anger. I've made some really bad decisions when I'm angry or like angry at somebody or said something in a relationship out of anger that. I, I really regret, and I think it's the same. That's probably the, the biggest mistakes I've made when I'm angry.
The second one would probably be when I'm burnout and I'm less just like tired. Mm-hmm. And then making decisions when you're tired and you're not ready to go is, is is a bad, it's a bad decision. Like you've gotta be in the right environment to grow. Spring's coming around the corner. It's what the, almost April when we're recording this.
And I live in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and there's lots of, you know, farming farm equipment plow fields being plowed, lots of equipment. Mm-hmm. Why did they do this in the spring? Why did they plant in the spring? 'cause the fall and the winter prepared the soil for. The, the environment to be ready for growth.
Mm-hmm. And then they do the activities at the right time to grow. And so if you're burned out, taking on another thing that's going to divide your attention, take time. And it's also gonna take emotional, mental energy to do. It's just not the right time. Create the space for yourself. Do do what need to do.
So that you're, you're not burnout, and then you'll be ready to grow in the right season. Everybody's on a journey. Everybody's in a season. I think there, I think there could be a lot more courses, but not, not if they're created outta burnout. It's just not Right. It's not the right time.
Gordon Brewer: Right, right, right.
Yeah. So y, so, I know we've gotta be mindful of our time, James and that sort of thing. But what tell folks how they can be in touch with you and find out more about Sure. What you do.
James Marland: So I wanna, I wanna support you on your diver diversification journey or your passive income journey or just your mission.
For me, I am mission minded. I love. Helping people who are on a mission to do something. So, and you know what that is for you? Like, just think of your top three clients. You know, like if they call, if they call you, pick up the phone right away. 'cause you know you can help 'em. You know that, that, that it's gonna be a good call.
What if all your clients were like that? You know what, if every person you served was the, the client that you love to serve because you could, you, you could help them and grow. So. I wanna help you get there with online educational projects courses, coaching products. And so I have three ways for you to, for you to reach out to me.
One is, if you're just dreaming, I have a free resource on the store page. It's 15 ways. To package your experience into a coaching product. It's, it's just, it's a checklist and it's information about just 15 different ways you can package it up. Those are for people who are, they're not ready, but they're dreaming.
At the end, in the middle of April, I'm running a, a challenge. The challenge is gonna be. From therapist chair to course five day challenge. So it's it's just, okay, you think you wanna make a course, so who are the people that are gonna buy it? What is the, what are, what are you gonna make and how do you know when they're ready to buy?
So it's a, it's like a planning challenge. In five days, you'll have a plan that you can enact and put it on your calendar. And then for the people who are like, you know what, I know what I wanna do. I am ready to invest some money. I want some accountability. At the end of April, I'm launching my six month cohort course.
Where you go, you, you travel with up to 20 different therapists. I have room for 20 different therapists to, to build your own online coaching educational product that can fund your mission. Like you'll, you'll sell it for a price, but it'll also like will feed your soul. It could be a great first step to growing your practice and scaling your practice.
So all of that is on course creation studio.com. The Gordon, I'll give Gordon the links. The store page is courses dot course creation studio.com/store. It's a mouthful. I wish I had a shorter webpage name, but, oh, well. So here you're imperfect. I'm imperfectly moving forward.
Gordon Brewer: Yes. Well, like James said, we're, we'll have the links here in the show notes and the show summary and so you can access that e again.
Well, James, as usual, it's always good to have you on the show. Any parting thoughts for folks as we close out this particular episode?
James Marland: So I think the, the biggest barrier that I learned in the last year is, is me, like I'm the biggest barrier because I tend to look at things like, oh, I haven't done enough, or I'm not like this person.
I compare myself to other people and I read the book, the Gap in the Gain, and that's called Living in the Gap. And I was living in the gap probably for 40 years, like for a long time, like comparing myself and I'm never good enough. You know. Just it. And, and I realized if I look at how far I've come instead of how far I have to go, like that is very motivating.
Like
mm-hmm.
James Marland: I got, I got married, I have a son, I have a business, I have a master's degree. Like I have people that use my services. Those are the things that, that fire me up. Mm-hmm. And and, and so look at how far you've come, get fired up. And then see, see if there's a course in your future.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah, that's great.
Great advice. I think it's as people have heard, I, I use my, have my planner that I'd rely on a lot, the full focus planner. And it's one of the things it does is in there is it goes, takes you through this process of a weekly review and it starts with what are your wins. And so I think it's so important to go back and look at, well, like you said, James, your accomplishments rather than, you know, it's a, it's a, in its abundance mindset rather than a deficit mindset or scarcity mindset.
Yeah,
James Marland: absolutely. Like mm-hmm. It's, it's really hard to advance if you're in a scarcity mindset or a limiting mindset.
Gordon Brewer: Well thanks again James. And folks, I'm sure you'll hear more from James here in the future. And check out the links here in the show notes.