October 24, 2024 • 33 mins
#066 Imagine overcoming imposter syndrome and learning to value your unique skills as a therapist. Sarah, an Occupational Therapist (OT) and mindfulness teacher from Ottawa, Ontario, shares her transformative journey from traditional OT roles to launching her private practice during a global pandemic. This rapid shift to online consultations during the pandemic was one of the pivotal moments in her career.
In this episode, you will learn about the struggles of charging your worth, the importance of creating a supportive network of fellow therapists, the intricacies of implementing online programs, how she gauged interest to achieve a successful program launch, and the organizing strategies that helped her balancing this with her client caseloads and personal life.
Sarah breaks down the process of taking her mindfulness-based symptom management curriculum online, from marketing challenges to managing group dynamics and overcoming technical issues. She dispels the myth that online services should be cheaper and underscores their true value, especially for patients with persistent pain. Whether you're considering a career shift in occupational therapy or looking for practical strategies to navigate online services, Sarah's invaluable advice is not to be missed.
For links and show notes, head to: https://rehabrebels.org/066
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Intro (00:01):
Welcome to the Rehab Rebels podcast.
Are you a rehab professionalready to transition to an
alternative career?
Hear inspiring stories fromothers just like you and learn
the best ways to bridge yourcareer gap.
This podcast has you covered.
Now here's your host, doctor ofphysical therapy and podcaster,
Tanner Welsh.
Tanner Welsch (00:21):
Welcome back to another Rehab Rebels episode.
Today's guest is Sarah Good.
Sarah lives and works in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, as an OT and
mindfulness teacher.
Both in her personal andprofessional life, she uses
nature and mindfulnessmeditation to bring calm and joy
to each day.
She often incorporates a walkinto treatment sessions and
(00:44):
leads with meditation.
She has 20 years of experienceas an OT and has been practicing
mindfulness for the same lengthof time.
She presents to other OTs inthe areas of mindfulness, pain
management, women's health andsleep.
Sarah Good (01:01):
Thank you very much for having me, Tanner.
Tanner Welsch (01:03):
Yeah, excited to dive in here with you.
I would like to start with thistransition from traditional OT
employment to your OT, the startof your OT business.
How did all that begin?
Can you help us paint a picturethere of how it started?
Sarah Good (01:21):
Yeah, so I've had a private practice business as an
OT for it'll be 10 years thisyear.
Before that, I worked in ahospital, I worked in a school
system and then I worked for alarger private practice, which
gave me exposure to the world ofprivate practice, and then,
about 10 years ago, I thought itwas time to have a little more
control over my time and thetype of clients that I saw, and
(01:45):
as well it aligned with mypersonal life.
My youngest child was startingschool full-time.
Prior to that I'd worked verypart-time.
So I moved into privatepractice, moved around a little
bit with different clientpopulations at the beginning,
but based on what my skill setis and what the world seemed to
need.
I primarily work with peoplewith mood issues and persistent
(02:07):
pain, and so from that thenthat's led to some creativity in
terms of different ways todeliver services and so forth.
Tanner Welsch (02:15):
Nice and the delivery of your services is
something I want to talk abouttoo.
But before we get into that,let's talk about some of the
struggles and pain points thatyou were having when you were
initially starting out the veryinfant stages of this initial
business.
Can you help us walk us througha pain point or a struggle and
(02:35):
how you overcame that?
Sarah Good (02:37):
I mean, I think the big difference for me of
starting my own business is thatnot only was I working as an
occupational therapist, but alsoby having a business, I was
also putting myself out thereand asking other people to come
and pay for my services or referother people to my services,
and I think that's differentthan a business where we're
selling something other thanourselves, right when we're
(02:58):
working as healthcare providersand with the business owners of
that, and I felt very vulnerableto me.
I'm not sure I was deserving ofthat or I would then lack
confidence in actually sharingmy prices with people.
I'm probably undercharged Well,I definitely undercharged at
the beginning as well because ofthat.
Tanner Welsch (03:14):
For sure.
It sounds like maybe, if I mayput a label on it, a little bit
of imposter syndrome that manyof us face on, even just
becoming a traditional OT or aPT or whatever, because right
after you get out of school, Idon't know about everybody else,
but I didn't feel completelyready to start seeing patients,
you know.
So I'm going to refer back tothat how did you get through
(03:38):
that phase of vulnerability andyou know, learning how to charge
what you were worth and yourvalue and all that.
Sarah Good (03:45):
Yeah.
So I think two things I meantime and starting to have enough
client referrals that thenumber of slots that I wanted to
fill in a week were full mostweeks.
So then it became not, oh,please come be my clients.
It became, yeah, this is thekind of person I can help, I can
fit you in in this many weeks.
So that made it feel like okay,I'm doing stuff that people
want and it's helping people.
(04:06):
So that certainly helped.
The other thing was finding agroup of other therapists to be
able to share the journey withand we can all agree that our
services are worth this much andwe can all agree that this type
of client is challenging andproblem solve together how we're
going to handle these types ofsituations that we come up with
100%.
Tanner Welsch (04:25):
I love the network aspect of it.
It makes a big deal.
So we talked a little bit aboutsome of the struggles in the
initial phase of your businessas it was growing and evolved.
What are some challenges thatyou faced?
I'm going to go ahead and throwCOVID out there, because I
imagine there was somechallenges with that.
How did you evolve and grow toget what you're offering today?
Sarah Good (04:48):
Yeah, certainly COVID, I think, pushed us all to
learn and change a littlefaster.
For me, the biggest challengeof that was that the caregiver
needs that I had in my personallife and balancing work there I
was able to pivot fairly quicklyto seeing clients online.
When the COVID lockdownhappened it was March break for
school, so I planned to be offthat week and over the course of
(05:09):
that week the electronicmedical record software that I
used rolled out video calls.
It was as a beta version, sopeople who are already
subscribers got the video callsso I was able to send an email
because I had that systemalready set up right and it was
easy.
I had an email list of myclients and I had everybody in
these electronic medical records.
I was able to fairly quicklyreach out to people and say
(05:30):
things are changing and inOntario we weren't allowed to
see clients in person.
So if you had an appointmentwith me it'll be online.
You know, if online doesn'twork it'll be by telephone.
So that was a fairly quickpivot and I didn't get a drop of
claims or drop of income duringthat time as well.
The services that I was able tooffer, because I think it's
normalized now to see therapistsonline.
(05:52):
I can see people throughoutOntario, which is the area I'm
regulated in, which is a hugegeographical area.
But before I was only seeingpeople in Ottawa.
I was primarily seeing peoplein their homes in Ottawa.
So I was traveling to theirhomes a lot, so I was no longer
spending much time traveling andI was able to see people in a
broader area and I mean, some ofthat bounced back a little bit.
Now I do like seeing people intheir homes and I like seeing
(06:14):
people outdoors.
But there's still theopportunity if somebody wants my
services and they're in anotherpart of Ontario, or they prefer
online, or they're paying outof pocket and they don't want to
pay for my travel time.
Tanner Welsch (06:26):
That's great.
It allows another layer ofconvenience for the patient,
another option for you to stillbe able to see them without the
burden of travel, and thingslike that.
Okay, so what are all theservices that you're currently
offering?
We talked a little bit about, Ithink, telehealth and in-person
home visits.
Sarah Good (06:44):
Yeah, so I probably like variety a little too much,
but that keeps thingsinteresting.
It's probably a bit of anoutlet for my creativity to
offer different things.
So it's maybe not the bestbusiness sense, but my primary
offerings are I see clientseither in their homes or in the
community, and I see clientsonline.
So that's, as I mentioned inthe beginning, primarily people
with mood issues or withpersistent pain.
(07:05):
So I see a lot of firstresponders younger veterans.
Because I'm in Ottawa, I see agood number of federal
government employees that arestruggling with burnout.
I also see physicians who areoff for burnout or for long.
Covid I do infuse, in variousways, depending on the clients,
mindfulness into my individualclient appointments, but I also
teach a program, and that's aprogram Mindfulness-Based
(07:27):
Symptom Management which wasdesigned and researched at the
Ottawa Mindfulness Clinic, andso I trained to be an instructor
about 10 years ago.
I trained to be an instructorthere.
I taught there.
They closed their doors in 2020.
With COVID, it wasn'tcost-effective.
The two psychologists that runit were nearing retirement, so I
teach that as an onlineoffering now, so that's allowed
(07:48):
me to reach people all overOntario.
It's an eight-week programwhere we meet once a week.
Then I've just finished havingtwo occupational therapy
students with me for the lastseven weeks to put all this
together.
But this spring I'm starting anature-based therapy group and
that's primarily for people whoare living with mood issues,
targeting primarily people withpost-traumatic stress disorder.
So that's going to be asix-week group where we meet
(08:10):
once a week for two hours in alarge urban park.
So it feels fairly nature-y.
So those are my primary clientofferings, and then I have other
offerings for other therapistsas well.
Tanner Welsch (08:21):
For sure.
So that's for your clients.
And then don't you also teachtherapists how to incorporate
mindfulness in their practiceswith their patients, and stuff
too?
Sarah Good (08:30):
That was another creative outlet for me in 2020.
And it's continued and grownand evolved and changed.
But I run a course, the MindfulOT Mastery Program.
It's a course and it's coachingand community support.
Initially I targeted just forOTs.
I've had a variety of otherallied health professionals take
it physiotherapists, socialworkers and then, following that
, I have a community of practicethat people can join as a
(08:53):
membership program after theyfinish that program, and then I
have a variety of one-offmasterclasses that have been
done on different topics thatpeople have signed up for as
well.
So a variety of different wayssome bigger, some smaller for
therapists to learn to useMindPulse themselves as a tool
to avoid burnout and also bringit to their clients.
Tanner Welsch (09:13):
For sure.
It sounds like there's more ofa virtual course content that
you offer and that would be moretowards the rehab professionals
and that community andincorporating that within their
practice and learning itthemselves, and then more of the
in-person group things, thenature groups and things like
that.
Is there any online stuff,course content or work with the
(09:35):
nature program that you'retalking about for patients like
with PTSD?
Sarah Good (09:39):
The program that I'm doing, the nature program, is
entirely.
We're meeting once a week innature and then there are the
different handouts andworksheets that optionally that
I'll give people each week to do.
But I have learned through mywork that giving people a lot of
you know homework or modulesthat they need to watch between
sessions it can be challenging.
People come and half the peoplehave done it and half haven't,
and so forth, so it really is anin-person endeavor.
(10:01):
I'm hoping later on to find away to share that with more
therapists after I've run itseveral times myself and worked
the kinks out.
So then I'll do an online, moreof a virtual offering for other
therapists to share thecurriculum that we've developed
and so forth.
But for right now thenature-based one is entirely for
people who are in Ottawa orwilling to drive to Ottawa in
(10:22):
person.
Tanner Welsch (10:23):
Nature-based one is entirely for people who are
in Ottawa or willing to drive toOttawa in person.
Cool, Can you walk us through?
You know how these additionalservices started for you and
then how you startedimplementing them, Like the very
first one.
You can even talk about whetherit's a virtual online offering
for the specific patientpopulation you talk about and
would love to dive a little bitdeeper into what are some pain
points that you had and how didyou overcome those?
(10:44):
Because it's pretty clearyou've got some experience with
this because things have beenbuilt out for a while.
So I want to try to go back tohow did all this get started and
what were some struggles thatyou had to share with others
maybe who want to createsomething similar, like a
similar offering, as well.
Sarah Good (11:01):
Yeah.
So I'll give two differentexamples for two different
programs.
So the first one would be themindfulness-based symptom
management curriculumwell-established,
well-researched curriculum whichI was trained in.
In terms of offering that as anonline offering, I didn't need
to sort out the curriculum.
I didn't need to figure outwhat's going to go, what week
it's set up and it was initiallydesigned to be two hours each
week in person.
So it's a fairlystraightforward curriculum.
(11:22):
So adapting that to onlinedidn't take a lot of development
time or a lot of work.
When I first offered it toclients, I think it was January
2021.
So the offering of that wasn'tsuch a challenge, but getting
the word out was morechallenging.
When I'm offering client groups, they're small group situations
.
I'm not trying to have hugenumbers.
I aim for sort of six to 10 ina client group, so there's
(11:46):
enough different people and youknow if two people are away one
week, you're not sitting therewith one person or something
like that, but also small enoughthat if everybody wants to
answer a particular questionthat I put out, there's enough
time for that to happen, right.
So that was then spreading theword, putting it out there on my
mailing list and setting upcalls to talk to clients who
wanted to sign up, and gettingsome people that I see their
(12:06):
services are paid for by thirdparty.
So then talking to the thirdparty payers and getting that
approved for them, so explaininga bit more about what it is.
And, interestingly, there was abit of a misnomer that if it's
offered online it should costless than in person.
At the time I think we've moveda little bit past that now.
In fact, even my supervisorsaid no, we're going to.
You know you should charge lessfor this, it's online.
(12:28):
So I did the first time.
Then I thought well, hold on,I'm not sure this is worth less
to the clients.
In fact, given that thisparticular group is targeting
people with persistent pain,they don't need to go anywhere.
The first time I offered it,there was almost zero
absenteeism from the program andnormally in a group in person
(12:48):
for people with persistent pain,there's people who are away
every week.
Somebody's got a medicalappointment or somebody's joints
were just too stiff to gettheir shoes on that day.
There's all kinds of reasons.
People don't show up or thedriving's not good.
I mean, you live in a placewith a lot of snow, so I
wouldn't even normally offerthat group in the winter.
So I say I ended up learning alot of good things.
I do teach it with anotherperson each time and I've been
fortunate that I haven't had tohire other people to teach it
(13:09):
with me.
There's usually somebody who'straining to be certified to
teach the program, but somelearning they're involved in
Every time.
People have trouble logging in.
Somebody has trouble logging inEven a week, six of eight weeks
of the course.
One person needs to lead theopening meditation, somebody
else needs to just be there witha cell phone and everyone's
phone numbers texting back andforth.
Okay, your camera's not working.
Have you turned off any otherapps that might've kept me?
(13:30):
It's like a lot of that techsupport I felt I had to do.
Those are probably the biggestchallenge.
People are not expecting to payas much if it's online and
still tech support.
And then just reaching out.
When the Ottawa MindfulnessClinic, which had a very good
reputation in Ottawa, closed,letting people know well, this
program is still being offered.
Here's how it's offered.
Tanner Welsch (13:48):
Awesome.
What was the platform?
Or you know, things that cometo mind are like Slack or Circle
or even just YouTube, togetting like video content.
What platforms did you use forthis online service that you
were offering patients?
Sarah Good (14:04):
I do use in terms of software.
I use Teachable for theprograms that I'm offering to
other occupational therapistsand other therapists.
Generally, I use Jane as myelectronic medical records, and
the first time I taught themindfulness program for patients
, I put all the handouts onTeachable and then people got
totally confused.
They had links to Teachablewhere the handouts were, and
then they had links to Jane.
It was just too much.
(14:25):
So I have learned that actuallythere should be one software
for any program, whether it'sfor therapists or for patients.
So what I do is I mean, when Isay it's an online program, the
Mindfulness for SymptomManagement, it's a live online
program, right?
So we're meeting for two hours.
You know everyone's coming intoa meeting space.
I'm not sharing video contentoutside of that.
Clients are at the meeting, soif they miss it, they miss it.
There's no recording of thesession because of patient
(14:47):
confidentiality.
There are handouts, so what Ido is I put those in everyone's
electronic medical record andshare it with them through that,
so that they really only haveone platform that they are using
from their end.
So I've simplified that.
So, really, in terms of whatpatients see, they need to show
(15:10):
up onto a link for a call whichis sent to them by email and
they need to log into their Janeaccount for any handouts.
Again, there's email sent tothem and they need to push on it
, send them to their Janeaccount.
Tanner Welsch (15:17):
Cool.
I love you sharing that,because we're so used to using
technology platforms so we maynot consider some patients or
our clients or customers notbeing familiar with whatever it
is we're using and then it canget overwhelming very quickly
and I really appreciate thatinsight to really try to
streamline and keep everythingin one platform if possible to
(15:40):
deliver the service and orproduct that you're delivering.
Sarah Good (15:44):
So the other program I was going to tell you about
the development of was theprogram for therapists, and so
that one I in the summer of 2020, I wanted to offer something to
therapists.
So I did develop it based onthe eight-week program of
mindfulness for symptommanagement, and I adapted it
quite a bit so that it met theneeds of therapists.
By each week's module wouldhave something on practice for
(16:07):
ourselves, but then also a parton okay, how could you take this
particular principle of it toyour patient population?
There's ways to adapt it to thedifferent populations.
And so then I reached out tovarious therapist groups on
Facebook and said would peoplebe interested in coming to a
webinar on what mindfulness isand how to be used in therapy?
And I had a whole ton of peoplesign up for my mailing list
(16:29):
that way, because everyone wasinterested in this.
So then I had a mailing listand from that mailing list, I
offered the program, and I thinkthat I hit a really good timing
on that one, because I launchedit the first time in September
2020.
And I put the price fairly low,but I didn't create the whole
program.
I sold it with the okay sign up.
Here's the window of sign upand some dates in August and the
(16:51):
program will be dripped out oneweek at a time, starting
September 15th or something likethis.
And I had a whole ton of people.
I had 30 people sign up rightaway.
So that was really exciting.
And then I knew, okay, I've gotenough people that it's worth
my while to make this.
So then I had video content andhandouts and those I use
Teachable for that.
(17:11):
And the way that program workedis, I say, drip out one week's
content every week and thenthere'd be a group call every
week which I would record andput up there as well.
That then remained up there.
Yeah, Then I've evolved andchanged the program in different
that's cool.
Tanner Welsch (17:24):
Can you remember any challenges that you were
having with creating really anyphase of this, for trying to get
basically a online coursetrialed to see if there's really
like enough interest, enoughpeople, and then also to deliver
on the content of the course?
It sounds really simple, right,but there's really a lot of
(17:47):
steps, start to finish, toactually execute this, and I
really like how you were able togauge the interest by taking
advantage of the Facebook groups, reaching out to see who is
interested and then offering awebinar and get people on your
email list.
So it all, as we're talkingabout it and, as you know, being
on the other side.
(18:07):
Okay, this is what I did, thisis what made sense, but is there
something that, throughout thatprocess, that was just really a
struggle and you obviouslyovercame it, but how did you
overcome whatever that was atthe time to finish this final
product that you ended up with?
Sarah Good (18:22):
Yeah, I think it took me a bit to come to that
product.
I'd actually, just before COVID, I'd gotten myself together to
offer an in-person group forwomen in midlife sleep
difficulties and I had thepamphlets all done and it was
all set up and at the time thatdidn't pivot to online.
It wasn't like this was thefirst idea that I came up with
of a program, but it wascertainly the first thing that
I'd offered as part of mybusiness, whether to patients or
(18:44):
clients or to other therapiststhat was, to more than one
person.
So I was really very pleasedthat that many people signed up
right away and I had put myselfin a good position here of if
two people had signed up, Icould have refunded them the
money and not done it.
I mean, I didn't need to do itbecause I got a few hundred
dollars from two people.
But once I got enough people,I'd say one of the challenges
was I'd really committed myselfto putting out a pretty
(19:05):
significant amount of contentevery week.
It took me about a day a weekto do that for those eight weeks
.
Now I don't carry a full-timeclient caseload, partly because
I like to do these other thingsas well.
So I do anticipate having timefor other parts of my business,
and at the time I had one kid atthat point still at all so I
was balancing out her schoolingas well as all the teaching and
(19:28):
seeing clients.
So it was certainly a fairlyinvolved busy time, but it was
also something that I think itreally was my creative outlet
during that time and so that washelpful for me.
It was inspiring to me to pullthis together and to get to know
all these occupationaltherapists from all over the
world who signed up for this.
Tanner Welsch (19:45):
That's something I really enjoy about Rehab
Rebels is, too is just reallymeeting all the really
interesting, unique, drivenpeople.
It's just really cool.
Follow-up question that I hadfor you is how do you keep
yourself organized?
I mean, you've you mentionedyou got basically you're
juggling a lot of things andhave, throughout a lot of your
OT career, a lot of multiplethings at once.
(20:05):
What are some practices?
Or I don't know if you use anyapplications, or basically, how
are you able to manage thissuccessfully and dedicate the
right amount of time at theright day to get done what you
need to get done?
Sarah Good (20:16):
Yeah, I mean, that's something we all work on, but
certainly I do do a fair bit oforganizational things to manage
that.
One of the things that I findreally changes the week for me
is I take time every Mondaymorning to plan the week, and by
that I hone in.
I'm inspired by Kate Northrup'sbook Do Less when am I at
physically, where am I atmentally, emotionally, where is
(20:38):
sort of my world at this week interms of things outside of me?
Then reflect on what are my toppriorities for the week.
I actually use a notebook and Ifold pages right in half so
that there's one side of thelist is my to-do list and one
side is the universe's to-dolist.
So on my side, it's noteverything I need to do, and I
(20:59):
use this strategy with clientstoo, because I find to-do lists
can be very overwhelming for alot of us, me included, and if I
write down everything I need todo, this's a lot, whether it's
work stuff, it's managinghousehold, parenting, extended
family stuff, whatever else,right, and so I put down my top
five things.
Okay, what really needs tohappen?
(21:19):
And in my mind I try to dothree of them professional and
two of them personal that arejust these essentially need to
get done this week, and if Ihave a lot of personal ones,
then there's less work ones, orvice versa, a lot of work ones
should be less personal.
So that's the left side of thepage, it's my top things, and
then the right side of the pageis things that need to get done,
but they're actually outside ofmy sphere of influence right
(21:39):
now.
So if I'm hoping for theweather to be good for a
particular thing or I'm hopingthat somebody gets back to me on
something, which doesn't meanit's gone from my responsibility
forever I mean, if it doesn'thappen, it may end up back on my
priority list, but right nowI'm perking it there as okay.
I'm just hoping that with aweek's time this will get moved
along.
So I think that's probably mybiggest thing that I use.
(22:02):
And then I use Google Calendarto organize myself, and if
there's small tasks, I put themon the task list or put them in
Google Calendar.
I try not to have too manythings on the task list.
Though there's a lot of tasks,I try to block off time in the
calendar for them.
So this week I want to do somefixing, redesigning my website.
So I've blocked in three hoursof time in my calendar to do
that, rather than just droppingit as a to-do list thing,
(22:23):
because then it just becomessomething stressful that I can't
really fit into my week.
So trying to put things in mycalendar backing up a bit from
that.
I do do annual planning andquarterly planning and as part
of my quarterly planning Iactually have thoughts of what
groups am I offering, what freeproducts am I putting out this
spring, and then what are thetasks that need to happen to
(22:45):
make those the reality.
And I pop those into differentweeks on the quarterly plan.
So when I started my Mondaymorning planning this week, I
wasn't just thinking, well, whatdo I want to do.
I look back at my quarterlyplan and saw, okay, here's the
things.
Tanner Welsch (22:57):
I love all that.
That's brilliant.
It's lovely.
The universal list I got aquestion Is this something
that's things out of our controlbut we're being mindful and
aware or observant of it, tokeep track of it, I guess.
Or am I completely off therewith how to define what goes on
the universal list?
Sarah Good (23:16):
It can be that for sure.
It can also be things likeLester couldn't eclipse, so I
could put on there oh, I hopethere's clear weather for the
eclipse, so it can be thingsthat really nobody's going to do
anything about, but things I'mhoping.
But also, yes, things are outof.
I don't want them front andcenter in my mind of I need to
do this this week, but theystill matter to me.
So the things that somebodyelse has said they'll do and I'm
putting it there because thatother person is part of the
(23:38):
universe and they'll get back tome on it.
But if they don't and it staysthere on the universe's to-do
list at the end of the week Ineed to think about okay, am I
getting back to them on that, oris it good to just stay on the
universe's to-do list for amonth?
I start with a fresh list everyweek too, so I look back at the
weeks before and see what needsto move forward, but I don't
just keep adding to it.
But I mean, some of this mightbe my processes have changed
over time.
(23:58):
When I started my work, I worked, I worked at the hospital and I
worked a physiotherapy partnerand we would just start the day
every morning with, okay, whoare the new patients, what are
the priorities?
And the two of us would eithersay which ones do we need to go
see together so we could, youknow, both transfer or people in
palliative care.
If they could just answer thequestion once and both of us
could hear the answer, that wasobviously far better than both
(24:20):
of us going and bombarding themwith the same on a daily basis.
So in that work it was reallyhard to predict and so weekly
planning wasn't as realistic forme.
But it was key for me to startthe day with, okay, what do I
need to do?
And check in with myphysiotherapy partner and see
what can we do together.
So having some time in one'slife whether it's weekly or
(24:40):
daily, depending on how fastpaced the work is it's helped me
a lot.
Tanner Welsch (24:44):
For sure, absolutely.
What is maybe something that'sobvious to you now that you have
struggled with, you know, inthe past on this business career
journey that you're on, andthen I'm going to ask how did
you get over that?
Sarah Good (24:57):
Yeah, yeah, I mean what I've mentioned is charging
enough for my services, and Ithink that's been asking others,
looking at other professionsthat are often offering
comparable things and seeingwhat they're charging and it's
usually more, even non-regulatedhealth professionals as I'm
charging a lot more.
The other thing I've struggledwith is saying no to all the
different opportunities.
(25:18):
I mentioned at the beginningthat I do really like variety,
and so if somebody comes alongand says, oh, would you help
edit a chapter for this book?
Or oh, would you come be aguest speaker?
At this I used to just say yesto everything.
Oh, this is so exciting, I wantmy input.
And now I started saying, well,hold on a minute, it's an
exciting thing, but go back tomy quarterly plan.
What's my gist here?
What's my overall direction?
I want to be going.
(25:39):
This may be an unexpectedopportunity that's actually
taking me in the direction ofthat quarterly plan, or it might
be a complete sidetrack, inwhich case the answer is no and
I feel bad saying no.
I had a long-term client who'sdoing well and he's discharged,
but he's helping organize amental health symposium at his
church, and his church reachedout to me and asked if I would
come speak and first I was quitetempted.
(26:01):
Then I realized the churchisn't actually in Ottawa, it's
in the periphery of Ottawa butit'd take me 45 minutes to drive
each way.
And they wanted to do it on aweeknight evening, which is not
my best time to shine.
And I realized that I'm notthat close geographically to
these people.
If they actually want anoccupational therapist, I'm not
going to be their go-to.
There's probably somebodycloser that they could grab.
But still I did feel bad sayingno.
(26:22):
It's a hard one to keep to sayyes to all of it.
Tanner Welsch (26:25):
Absolutely.
The airtime is really valuable.
What do you want people to know?
What do you hope people know?
Learn and understand from yourcareer and your business journey
and your story.
Sarah Good (26:37):
I think one important thing I hope people
learn, especially people who arejust entering the profession,
is that in allied healthprofessions generally, and
certainly in OT in particular,there's a lot of ways we can
vary our profession.
I think sometimes people workin one particular area and I've
never worked out on that areaand sometimes people stay in it
for a very long time afterthey're pretty worn out from
(26:59):
that area.
I have friends who stayed inareas very long times before
they realized they could move,and so I think one message there
is realize that there's hugevariety and you don't need to go
back to school for years If youare one of the professions that
your podcast caters to.
There's all of them.
There is a whole lot that youcan explore and change the
(27:20):
population you work with.
Maybe take a little bit ofprofessional development and be
able to offer some differentmodalities or offer it privately
or for some people, billablehours and hourly rates really
stress them out, in which casefind a job with a clear salary,
right.
So there's a whole bunch ofvarieties and we are really
fortunate to be in professionsthat I think you can move around
(27:42):
and shift, and I've certainlyreally enjoyed that and even
having a private press.
I mean, I graduated in 2002 and,you know, worked a number of
jobs between 2002 and 2014.
But even since 2014, what Ioffer in terms of my private
practice has changed right, soit's not like it's just one job,
that I've been doing the samething for 10 years, day in and
day out, and that might be theright thing for some people, but
(28:05):
it wouldn't be for me.
So, then, that's one, and theother is really finding things
that help you decompress, eitherduring the workday or at the
end of the workday, whether it'sexercise or time outdoors or
meditation or playing music orart.
But that's not optional whenwe're in caring professions.
We need some way to work ourway through the stress tunnel of
(28:25):
we are with people in pain inour work mental pain, emotional
pain, physical pain.
When we're carrying that allday.
It's not the same as somebodycomes home from work and
something where they haven'tbeen carrying that all day.
So I think it's important toreally give ourselves permission
to do the things we need to doto take care of ourselves and
not hold on to that for too long.
Tanner Welsch (28:44):
Absolutely.
What is a question you wish youwere asked more?
Sarah Good (28:48):
hold on to that for too long, absolutely.
What is a question you wish youwere asked more?
Ah, that's a good question.
So I'm wondering here if we'rethinking about generally people
who want to know more about mywork out in the world, or other
therapists.
Yes, I'll go with other people.
People make a lot ofassumptions about what the work
is that I do, so I guess thequestion would be nice to be
asked more is what, not what isoccupational therapy, because
that's going to be quite broad,but what is my role?
(29:09):
How do I work with people?
I do think people who I meetoutside of my professional
spheres do make assumptions, andpeople are often surprised
about the role that OT plays inmental health and well-being for
instance.
Tanner Welsch (29:28):
So, yeah, it'd be interesting for people to ask
me more about what goes on inday-to-day work that I do.
So if I was curious and justwanted to know what you did and
what your role was, because,you're right, the OT I mean all
the rehab professionals, I thinkjust, unfortunately, the
marketing and the generalpopulation is just, for whatever
reason, there's a bigdisconnect, you know, with PT.
They're always oh, you givemassages or like just some real
basic assumptions.
That's not exactly what we door all we do, you know.
(29:50):
So I would love to hear fromyou how do you describe because
you do a lot of things too howdo you describe to somebody that
really has no idea what yourrole is as an occupational
therapist?
Sarah Good (30:03):
So, as an occupational therapist, I'm
interested in all 24 hours ofpeople's lives, so it's not just
their workday.
I'm also interested in theirsleep, their leisure, their
taking care of their house,taking care of their pets, their
kids themselves, people in thecontext of living with
persistent pain or mood issues,and how those issues make it a
(30:24):
challenge for them to do whatthey need to do and want to do
in their day-to-day lives, andhelping them find ways to bring
more meaning and productivityinto their lives.
Tanner Welsch (30:33):
Perfect A plus.
Sarah Good (30:35):
It also surprises people that we don't just work
with people on the return towork.
Right yeah, there's so much.
Tanner Welsch (30:40):
Just I don't know .
It's mind-blowing that peopleknow what a pharmacist does and
a doctor and a nurse or adentist.
You know, these otherprofessions are pretty clear
about the role and the servicesthat they offer, but for the
rehab profession it's just notthere.
What do you think?
Sarah Good (30:56):
Well, I mean, I think in most people's
day-to-day lives, I'll stickwith occupational therapy here
for the one I know the best, butI think most of what I'm saying
is probably applicable to theother rehab professions as well.
We don't actually come acrossan occupational therapist in our
day-to-day life like we do adentist, right.
So most of us go to the dentist, say, twice a year Our whole
lives, from when we're born.
We go to the doctor, we takeour kids to the doctor, we take
(31:16):
our parents to the doctor, right?
We?
We know what the doctor doesroughly, whereas an occupational
therapist you don't come acrossuntil you're actually going
through one of the toughesttimes of your life or you have a
family member going through oneof the toughest times in their
life.
Things are really challengingbefore people get referred to an
occupational therapist becausethere's a real breakdown.
It's not just oh, I've got thissore tooth or I've got this
(31:37):
rash or I've got stomach pains,I'm not able to do the basic
things I need to do in my life,or my life is really void of
meaning and productiveactivities because of what's
going on in my health.
And I think people are slow torefer to occupational therapists
.
Even I was at an informationsession for health professionals
that work with first respondersand the psychologist said well,
I don't refer to OTs too earlybecause you know people aren't
(31:58):
always ready for exposuretherapy right away.
And I think hold on a minute wedo a whole lot more than
exposure therapy, you know.
So if people are stuck in bedall day because of their mental
health, I'm going to be therehelping them figure out how to
put one foot in front of theother and get out of bed, and
I'll come into their house andhelp them get breakfast out and
get them brushing their teethonce a week.
(32:23):
This is pretty basic that we canstart with, but I think that
the perception as well becauseOTs do so much is if you're a
psychologist and you refer to anOT for exposure therapy, that's
what you think they do.
If you sell wheelchairs and OTscome in to help prescribe
wheelchairs, you think that'sall OTs do.
If your mother gets a reacherafter her hip replacement, you
think that's all OTs do.
People tend to think they'reone experience with an OT and
that's exactly what OTs all OTsdo.
I People tend to think theirone experience with an OT.
Tanner Welsch (32:42):
That's exactly what all OTs do.
I love that.
I think that's perfect becauseI think that applies really to
all the rehab professions and Ithink you nailed it.
Yeah, sarah, this has beengreat.
I'm going to put down in theshow notes links to your website
, what you offer social, allthat fun stuff and really
appreciate you coming on theshow and sharing a little bit
(33:04):
about you and your, yourbusiness and career journey.
Sarah Good (33:07):
Thank you very much for having me.
It's been a lovely conversation, nice chatting with you.
Enjoy listening to your podcast.
Honored to be part of it.
Intro (33:14):
Thank you for listening to the Rehab Rebels podcast.
If this podcast was useful,make sure to hit that subscribe
button and leave a review Formore information about
transitioning to alternativecareers.
Subscribe button and leave areview For more information
about transitioning toalternative careers.
Head to rehabrebelsorg orfollow us on Instagram at Rehab
Rebels Podcast.
We'll see you next time.
Welcome to the Rehab Rebels podcast.
Are you a rehab professionalready to transition to an
alternative career?
Hear inspiring stories fromothers just like you and learn
the best ways to bridge yourcareer gap.
This podcast has you covered.
Now here's your host, doctor ofphysical therapy and podcaster,
Tanner Welsh.
Tanner Welsch (00:21):
Welcome back to another Rehab Rebels episode.
Today's guest is Sarah Good.
Sarah lives and works in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, as an OT and
mindfulness teacher.
Both in her personal andprofessional life, she uses
nature and mindfulnessmeditation to bring calm and joy
to each day.
She often incorporates a walkinto treatment sessions and
(00:44):
leads with meditation.
She has 20 years of experienceas an OT and has been practicing
mindfulness for the same lengthof time.
She presents to other OTs inthe areas of mindfulness, pain
management, women's health andsleep.
Sarah Good (01:01):
Thank you very much for having me, Tanner.
Tanner Welsch (01:03):
Yeah, excited to dive in here with you.
I would like to start with thistransition from traditional OT
employment to your OT, the startof your OT business.
How did all that begin?
Can you help us paint a picturethere of how it started?
Sarah Good (01:21):
Yeah, so I've had a private practice business as an
OT for it'll be 10 years thisyear.
Before that, I worked in ahospital, I worked in a school
system and then I worked for alarger private practice, which
gave me exposure to the world ofprivate practice, and then,
about 10 years ago, I thought itwas time to have a little more
control over my time and thetype of clients that I saw, and
(01:45):
as well it aligned with mypersonal life.
My youngest child was startingschool full-time.
Prior to that I'd worked verypart-time.
So I moved into privatepractice, moved around a little
bit with different clientpopulations at the beginning,
but based on what my skill setis and what the world seemed to
need.
I primarily work with peoplewith mood issues and persistent
(02:07):
pain, and so from that thenthat's led to some creativity in
terms of different ways todeliver services and so forth.
Tanner Welsch (02:15):
Nice and the delivery of your services is
something I want to talk abouttoo.
But before we get into that,let's talk about some of the
struggles and pain points thatyou were having when you were
initially starting out the veryinfant stages of this initial
business.
Can you help us walk us througha pain point or a struggle and
(02:35):
how you overcame that?
Sarah Good (02:37):
I mean, I think the big difference for me of
starting my own business is thatnot only was I working as an
occupational therapist, but alsoby having a business, I was
also putting myself out thereand asking other people to come
and pay for my services or referother people to my services,
and I think that's differentthan a business where we're
selling something other thanourselves, right when we're
(02:58):
working as healthcare providersand with the business owners of
that, and I felt very vulnerableto me.
I'm not sure I was deserving ofthat or I would then lack
confidence in actually sharingmy prices with people.
I'm probably undercharged Well,I definitely undercharged at
the beginning as well because ofthat.
Tanner Welsch (03:14):
For sure.
It sounds like maybe, if I mayput a label on it, a little bit
of imposter syndrome that manyof us face on, even just
becoming a traditional OT or aPT or whatever, because right
after you get out of school, Idon't know about everybody else,
but I didn't feel completelyready to start seeing patients,
you know.
So I'm going to refer back tothat how did you get through
(03:38):
that phase of vulnerability andyou know, learning how to charge
what you were worth and yourvalue and all that.
Sarah Good (03:45):
Yeah.
So I think two things I meantime and starting to have enough
client referrals that thenumber of slots that I wanted to
fill in a week were full mostweeks.
So then it became not, oh,please come be my clients.
It became, yeah, this is thekind of person I can help, I can
fit you in in this many weeks.
So that made it feel like okay,I'm doing stuff that people
want and it's helping people.
(04:06):
So that certainly helped.
The other thing was finding agroup of other therapists to be
able to share the journey withand we can all agree that our
services are worth this much andwe can all agree that this type
of client is challenging andproblem solve together how we're
going to handle these types ofsituations that we come up with
100%.
Tanner Welsch (04:25):
I love the network aspect of it.
It makes a big deal.
So we talked a little bit aboutsome of the struggles in the
initial phase of your businessas it was growing and evolved.
What are some challenges thatyou faced?
I'm going to go ahead and throwCOVID out there, because I
imagine there was somechallenges with that.
How did you evolve and grow toget what you're offering today?
Sarah Good (04:48):
Yeah, certainly COVID, I think, pushed us all to
learn and change a littlefaster.
For me, the biggest challengeof that was that the caregiver
needs that I had in my personallife and balancing work there I
was able to pivot fairly quicklyto seeing clients online.
When the COVID lockdownhappened it was March break for
school, so I planned to be offthat week and over the course of
(05:09):
that week the electronicmedical record software that I
used rolled out video calls.
It was as a beta version, sopeople who are already
subscribers got the video callsso I was able to send an email
because I had that systemalready set up right and it was
easy.
I had an email list of myclients and I had everybody in
these electronic medical records.
I was able to fairly quicklyreach out to people and say
(05:30):
things are changing and inOntario we weren't allowed to
see clients in person.
So if you had an appointmentwith me it'll be online.
You know, if online doesn'twork it'll be by telephone.
So that was a fairly quickpivot and I didn't get a drop of
claims or drop of income duringthat time as well.
The services that I was able tooffer, because I think it's
normalized now to see therapistsonline.
(05:52):
I can see people throughoutOntario, which is the area I'm
regulated in, which is a hugegeographical area.
But before I was only seeingpeople in Ottawa.
I was primarily seeing peoplein their homes in Ottawa.
So I was traveling to theirhomes a lot, so I was no longer
spending much time traveling andI was able to see people in a
broader area and I mean, some ofthat bounced back a little bit.
Now I do like seeing people intheir homes and I like seeing
(06:14):
people outdoors.
But there's still theopportunity if somebody wants my
services and they're in anotherpart of Ontario, or they prefer
online, or they're paying outof pocket and they don't want to
pay for my travel time.
Tanner Welsch (06:26):
That's great.
It allows another layer ofconvenience for the patient,
another option for you to stillbe able to see them without the
burden of travel, and thingslike that.
Okay, so what are all theservices that you're currently
offering?
We talked a little bit about, Ithink, telehealth and in-person
home visits.
Sarah Good (06:44):
Yeah, so I probably like variety a little too much,
but that keeps thingsinteresting.
It's probably a bit of anoutlet for my creativity to
offer different things.
So it's maybe not the bestbusiness sense, but my primary
offerings are I see clientseither in their homes or in the
community, and I see clientsonline.
So that's, as I mentioned inthe beginning, primarily people
with mood issues or withpersistent pain.
(07:05):
So I see a lot of firstresponders younger veterans.
Because I'm in Ottawa, I see agood number of federal
government employees that arestruggling with burnout.
I also see physicians who areoff for burnout or for long.
Covid I do infuse, in variousways, depending on the clients,
mindfulness into my individualclient appointments, but I also
teach a program, and that's aprogram Mindfulness-Based
(07:27):
Symptom Management which wasdesigned and researched at the
Ottawa Mindfulness Clinic, andso I trained to be an instructor
about 10 years ago.
I trained to be an instructorthere.
I taught there.
They closed their doors in 2020.
With COVID, it wasn'tcost-effective.
The two psychologists that runit were nearing retirement, so I
teach that as an onlineoffering now, so that's allowed
(07:48):
me to reach people all overOntario.
It's an eight-week programwhere we meet once a week.
Then I've just finished havingtwo occupational therapy
students with me for the lastseven weeks to put all this
together.
But this spring I'm starting anature-based therapy group and
that's primarily for people whoare living with mood issues,
targeting primarily people withpost-traumatic stress disorder.
So that's going to be asix-week group where we meet
(08:10):
once a week for two hours in alarge urban park.
So it feels fairly nature-y.
So those are my primary clientofferings, and then I have other
offerings for other therapistsas well.
Tanner Welsch (08:21):
For sure.
So that's for your clients.
And then don't you also teachtherapists how to incorporate
mindfulness in their practiceswith their patients, and stuff
too?
Sarah Good (08:30):
That was another creative outlet for me in 2020.
And it's continued and grownand evolved and changed.
But I run a course, the MindfulOT Mastery Program.
It's a course and it's coachingand community support.
Initially I targeted just forOTs.
I've had a variety of otherallied health professionals take
it physiotherapists, socialworkers and then, following that
, I have a community of practicethat people can join as a
(08:53):
membership program after theyfinish that program, and then I
have a variety of one-offmasterclasses that have been
done on different topics thatpeople have signed up for as
well.
So a variety of different wayssome bigger, some smaller for
therapists to learn to useMindPulse themselves as a tool
to avoid burnout and also bringit to their clients.
Tanner Welsch (09:13):
For sure.
It sounds like there's more ofa virtual course content that
you offer and that would be moretowards the rehab professionals
and that community andincorporating that within their
practice and learning itthemselves, and then more of the
in-person group things, thenature groups and things like
that.
Is there any online stuff,course content or work with the
(09:35):
nature program that you'retalking about for patients like
with PTSD?
Sarah Good (09:39):
The program that I'm doing, the nature program, is
entirely.
We're meeting once a week innature and then there are the
different handouts andworksheets that optionally that
I'll give people each week to do.
But I have learned through mywork that giving people a lot of
you know homework or modulesthat they need to watch between
sessions it can be challenging.
People come and half the peoplehave done it and half haven't,
and so forth, so it really is anin-person endeavor.
(10:01):
I'm hoping later on to find away to share that with more
therapists after I've run itseveral times myself and worked
the kinks out.
So then I'll do an online, moreof a virtual offering for other
therapists to share thecurriculum that we've developed
and so forth.
But for right now thenature-based one is entirely for
people who are in Ottawa orwilling to drive to Ottawa in
(10:22):
person.
Tanner Welsch (10:23):
Nature-based one is entirely for people who are
in Ottawa or willing to drive toOttawa in person.
Cool, Can you walk us through?
You know how these additionalservices started for you and
then how you startedimplementing them, Like the very
first one.
You can even talk about whetherit's a virtual online offering
for the specific patientpopulation you talk about and
would love to dive a little bitdeeper into what are some pain
points that you had and how didyou overcome those?
(10:44):
Because it's pretty clearyou've got some experience with
this because things have beenbuilt out for a while.
So I want to try to go back tohow did all this get started and
what were some struggles thatyou had to share with others
maybe who want to createsomething similar, like a
similar offering, as well.
Sarah Good (11:01):
Yeah.
So I'll give two differentexamples for two different
programs.
So the first one would be themindfulness-based symptom
management curriculumwell-established,
well-researched curriculum whichI was trained in.
In terms of offering that as anonline offering, I didn't need
to sort out the curriculum.
I didn't need to figure outwhat's going to go, what week
it's set up and it was initiallydesigned to be two hours each
week in person.
So it's a fairlystraightforward curriculum.
(11:22):
So adapting that to onlinedidn't take a lot of development
time or a lot of work.
When I first offered it toclients, I think it was January
2021.
So the offering of that wasn'tsuch a challenge, but getting
the word out was morechallenging.
When I'm offering client groups, they're small group situations
.
I'm not trying to have hugenumbers.
I aim for sort of six to 10 ina client group, so there's
(11:46):
enough different people and youknow if two people are away one
week, you're not sitting therewith one person or something
like that, but also small enoughthat if everybody wants to
answer a particular questionthat I put out, there's enough
time for that to happen, right.
So that was then spreading theword, putting it out there on my
mailing list and setting upcalls to talk to clients who
wanted to sign up, and gettingsome people that I see their
(12:06):
services are paid for by thirdparty.
So then talking to the thirdparty payers and getting that
approved for them, so explaininga bit more about what it is.
And, interestingly, there was abit of a misnomer that if it's
offered online it should costless than in person.
At the time I think we've moveda little bit past that now.
In fact, even my supervisorsaid no, we're going to.
You know you should charge lessfor this, it's online.
(12:28):
So I did the first time.
Then I thought well, hold on,I'm not sure this is worth less
to the clients.
In fact, given that thisparticular group is targeting
people with persistent pain,they don't need to go anywhere.
The first time I offered it,there was almost zero
absenteeism from the program andnormally in a group in person
(12:48):
for people with persistent pain,there's people who are away
every week.
Somebody's got a medicalappointment or somebody's joints
were just too stiff to gettheir shoes on that day.
There's all kinds of reasons.
People don't show up or thedriving's not good.
I mean, you live in a placewith a lot of snow, so I
wouldn't even normally offerthat group in the winter.
So I say I ended up learning alot of good things.
I do teach it with anotherperson each time and I've been
fortunate that I haven't had tohire other people to teach it
(13:09):
with me.
There's usually somebody who'straining to be certified to
teach the program, but somelearning they're involved in
Every time.
People have trouble logging in.
Somebody has trouble logging inEven a week, six of eight weeks
of the course.
One person needs to lead theopening meditation, somebody
else needs to just be there witha cell phone and everyone's
phone numbers texting back andforth.
Okay, your camera's not working.
Have you turned off any otherapps that might've kept me?
(13:30):
It's like a lot of that techsupport I felt I had to do.
Those are probably the biggestchallenge.
People are not expecting to payas much if it's online and
still tech support.
And then just reaching out.
When the Ottawa MindfulnessClinic, which had a very good
reputation in Ottawa, closed,letting people know well, this
program is still being offered.
Here's how it's offered.
Tanner Welsch (13:48):
Awesome.
What was the platform?
Or you know, things that cometo mind are like Slack or Circle
or even just YouTube, togetting like video content.
What platforms did you use forthis online service that you
were offering patients?
Sarah Good (14:04):
I do use in terms of software.
I use Teachable for theprograms that I'm offering to
other occupational therapistsand other therapists.
Generally, I use Jane as myelectronic medical records, and
the first time I taught themindfulness program for patients
, I put all the handouts onTeachable and then people got
totally confused.
They had links to Teachablewhere the handouts were, and
then they had links to Jane.
It was just too much.
(14:25):
So I have learned that actuallythere should be one software
for any program, whether it'sfor therapists or for patients.
So what I do is I mean, when Isay it's an online program, the
Mindfulness for SymptomManagement, it's a live online
program, right?
So we're meeting for two hours.
You know everyone's coming intoa meeting space.
I'm not sharing video contentoutside of that.
Clients are at the meeting, soif they miss it, they miss it.
There's no recording of thesession because of patient
(14:47):
confidentiality.
There are handouts, so what Ido is I put those in everyone's
electronic medical record andshare it with them through that,
so that they really only haveone platform that they are using
from their end.
So I've simplified that.
So, really, in terms of whatpatients see, they need to show
(15:10):
up onto a link for a call whichis sent to them by email and
they need to log into their Janeaccount for any handouts.
Again, there's email sent tothem and they need to push on it
, send them to their Janeaccount.
Tanner Welsch (15:17):
Cool.
I love you sharing that,because we're so used to using
technology platforms so we maynot consider some patients or
our clients or customers notbeing familiar with whatever it
is we're using and then it canget overwhelming very quickly
and I really appreciate thatinsight to really try to
streamline and keep everythingin one platform if possible to
(15:40):
deliver the service and orproduct that you're delivering.
Sarah Good (15:44):
So the other program I was going to tell you about
the development of was theprogram for therapists, and so
that one I in the summer of 2020, I wanted to offer something to
therapists.
So I did develop it based onthe eight-week program of
mindfulness for symptommanagement, and I adapted it
quite a bit so that it met theneeds of therapists.
By each week's module wouldhave something on practice for
(16:07):
ourselves, but then also a parton okay, how could you take this
particular principle of it toyour patient population?
There's ways to adapt it to thedifferent populations.
And so then I reached out tovarious therapist groups on
Facebook and said would peoplebe interested in coming to a
webinar on what mindfulness isand how to be used in therapy?
And I had a whole ton of peoplesign up for my mailing list
(16:29):
that way, because everyone wasinterested in this.
So then I had a mailing listand from that mailing list, I
offered the program, and I thinkthat I hit a really good timing
on that one, because I launchedit the first time in September
2020.
And I put the price fairly low,but I didn't create the whole
program.
I sold it with the okay sign up.
Here's the window of sign upand some dates in August and the
(16:51):
program will be dripped out oneweek at a time, starting
September 15th or something likethis.
And I had a whole ton of people.
I had 30 people sign up rightaway.
So that was really exciting.
And then I knew, okay, I've gotenough people that it's worth
my while to make this.
So then I had video content andhandouts and those I use
Teachable for that.
(17:11):
And the way that program workedis, I say, drip out one week's
content every week and thenthere'd be a group call every
week which I would record andput up there as well.
That then remained up there.
Yeah, Then I've evolved andchanged the program in different
that's cool.
Tanner Welsch (17:24):
Can you remember any challenges that you were
having with creating really anyphase of this, for trying to get
basically a online coursetrialed to see if there's really
like enough interest, enoughpeople, and then also to deliver
on the content of the course?
It sounds really simple, right,but there's really a lot of
(17:47):
steps, start to finish, toactually execute this, and I
really like how you were able togauge the interest by taking
advantage of the Facebook groups, reaching out to see who is
interested and then offering awebinar and get people on your
email list.
So it all, as we're talkingabout it and, as you know, being
on the other side.
(18:07):
Okay, this is what I did, thisis what made sense, but is there
something that, throughout thatprocess, that was just really a
struggle and you obviouslyovercame it, but how did you
overcome whatever that was atthe time to finish this final
product that you ended up with?
Sarah Good (18:22):
Yeah, I think it took me a bit to come to that
product.
I'd actually, just before COVID, I'd gotten myself together to
offer an in-person group forwomen in midlife sleep
difficulties and I had thepamphlets all done and it was
all set up and at the time thatdidn't pivot to online.
It wasn't like this was thefirst idea that I came up with
of a program, but it wascertainly the first thing that
I'd offered as part of mybusiness, whether to patients or
(18:44):
clients or to other therapiststhat was, to more than one
person.
So I was really very pleasedthat that many people signed up
right away and I had put myselfin a good position here of if
two people had signed up, Icould have refunded them the
money and not done it.
I mean, I didn't need to do itbecause I got a few hundred
dollars from two people.
But once I got enough people,I'd say one of the challenges
was I'd really committed myselfto putting out a pretty
(19:05):
significant amount of contentevery week.
It took me about a day a weekto do that for those eight weeks
.
Now I don't carry a full-timeclient caseload, partly because
I like to do these other thingsas well.
So I do anticipate having timefor other parts of my business,
and at the time I had one kid atthat point still at all so I
was balancing out her schoolingas well as all the teaching and
(19:28):
seeing clients.
So it was certainly a fairlyinvolved busy time, but it was
also something that I think itreally was my creative outlet
during that time and so that washelpful for me.
It was inspiring to me to pullthis together and to get to know
all these occupationaltherapists from all over the
world who signed up for this.
Tanner Welsch (19:45):
That's something I really enjoy about Rehab
Rebels is, too is just reallymeeting all the really
interesting, unique, drivenpeople.
It's just really cool.
Follow-up question that I hadfor you is how do you keep
yourself organized?
I mean, you've you mentionedyou got basically you're
juggling a lot of things andhave, throughout a lot of your
OT career, a lot of multiplethings at once.
(20:05):
What are some practices?
Or I don't know if you use anyapplications, or basically, how
are you able to manage thissuccessfully and dedicate the
right amount of time at theright day to get done what you
need to get done?
Sarah Good (20:16):
Yeah, I mean, that's something we all work on, but
certainly I do do a fair bit oforganizational things to manage
that.
One of the things that I findreally changes the week for me
is I take time every Mondaymorning to plan the week, and by
that I hone in.
I'm inspired by Kate Northrup'sbook Do Less when am I at
physically, where am I atmentally, emotionally, where is
(20:38):
sort of my world at this week interms of things outside of me?
Then reflect on what are my toppriorities for the week.
I actually use a notebook and Ifold pages right in half so
that there's one side of thelist is my to-do list and one
side is the universe's to-dolist.
So on my side, it's noteverything I need to do, and I
(20:59):
use this strategy with clientstoo, because I find to-do lists
can be very overwhelming for alot of us, me included, and if I
write down everything I need todo, this's a lot, whether it's
work stuff, it's managinghousehold, parenting, extended
family stuff, whatever else,right, and so I put down my top
five things.
Okay, what really needs tohappen?
(21:19):
And in my mind I try to dothree of them professional and
two of them personal that arejust these essentially need to
get done this week, and if Ihave a lot of personal ones,
then there's less work ones, orvice versa, a lot of work ones
should be less personal.
So that's the left side of thepage, it's my top things, and
then the right side of the pageis things that need to get done,
but they're actually outside ofmy sphere of influence right
(21:39):
now.
So if I'm hoping for theweather to be good for a
particular thing or I'm hopingthat somebody gets back to me on
something, which doesn't meanit's gone from my responsibility
forever I mean, if it doesn'thappen, it may end up back on my
priority list, but right nowI'm perking it there as okay.
I'm just hoping that with aweek's time this will get moved
along.
So I think that's probably mybiggest thing that I use.
(22:02):
And then I use Google Calendarto organize myself, and if
there's small tasks, I put themon the task list or put them in
Google Calendar.
I try not to have too manythings on the task list.
Though there's a lot of tasks,I try to block off time in the
calendar for them.
So this week I want to do somefixing, redesigning my website.
So I've blocked in three hoursof time in my calendar to do
that, rather than just droppingit as a to-do list thing,
(22:23):
because then it just becomessomething stressful that I can't
really fit into my week.
So trying to put things in mycalendar backing up a bit from
that.
I do do annual planning andquarterly planning and as part
of my quarterly planning Iactually have thoughts of what
groups am I offering, what freeproducts am I putting out this
spring, and then what are thetasks that need to happen to
(22:45):
make those the reality.
And I pop those into differentweeks on the quarterly plan.
So when I started my Mondaymorning planning this week, I
wasn't just thinking, well, whatdo I want to do.
I look back at my quarterlyplan and saw, okay, here's the
things.
Tanner Welsch (22:57):
I love all that.
That's brilliant.
It's lovely.
The universal list I got aquestion Is this something
that's things out of our controlbut we're being mindful and
aware or observant of it, tokeep track of it, I guess.
Or am I completely off therewith how to define what goes on
the universal list?
Sarah Good (23:16):
It can be that for sure.
It can also be things likeLester couldn't eclipse, so I
could put on there oh, I hopethere's clear weather for the
eclipse, so it can be thingsthat really nobody's going to do
anything about, but things I'mhoping.
But also, yes, things are outof.
I don't want them front andcenter in my mind of I need to
do this this week, but theystill matter to me.
So the things that somebodyelse has said they'll do and I'm
putting it there because thatother person is part of the
(23:38):
universe and they'll get back tome on it.
But if they don't and it staysthere on the universe's to-do
list at the end of the week Ineed to think about okay, am I
getting back to them on that, oris it good to just stay on the
universe's to-do list for amonth?
I start with a fresh list everyweek too, so I look back at the
weeks before and see what needsto move forward, but I don't
just keep adding to it.
But I mean, some of this mightbe my processes have changed
over time.
(23:58):
When I started my work, I worked, I worked at the hospital and I
worked a physiotherapy partnerand we would just start the day
every morning with, okay, whoare the new patients, what are
the priorities?
And the two of us would eithersay which ones do we need to go
see together so we could, youknow, both transfer or people in
palliative care.
If they could just answer thequestion once and both of us
could hear the answer, that wasobviously far better than both
(24:20):
of us going and bombarding themwith the same on a daily basis.
So in that work it was reallyhard to predict and so weekly
planning wasn't as realistic forme.
But it was key for me to startthe day with, okay, what do I
need to do?
And check in with myphysiotherapy partner and see
what can we do together.
So having some time in one'slife whether it's weekly or
(24:40):
daily, depending on how fastpaced the work is it's helped me
a lot.
Tanner Welsch (24:44):
For sure, absolutely.
What is maybe something that'sobvious to you now that you have
struggled with, you know, inthe past on this business career
journey that you're on, andthen I'm going to ask how did
you get over that?
Sarah Good (24:57):
Yeah, yeah, I mean what I've mentioned is charging
enough for my services, and Ithink that's been asking others,
looking at other professionsthat are often offering
comparable things and seeingwhat they're charging and it's
usually more, even non-regulatedhealth professionals as I'm
charging a lot more.
The other thing I've struggledwith is saying no to all the
different opportunities.
(25:18):
I mentioned at the beginningthat I do really like variety,
and so if somebody comes alongand says, oh, would you help
edit a chapter for this book?
Or oh, would you come be aguest speaker?
At this I used to just say yesto everything.
Oh, this is so exciting, I wantmy input.
And now I started saying, well,hold on a minute, it's an
exciting thing, but go back tomy quarterly plan.
What's my gist here?
What's my overall direction?
I want to be going.
(25:39):
This may be an unexpectedopportunity that's actually
taking me in the direction ofthat quarterly plan, or it might
be a complete sidetrack, inwhich case the answer is no and
I feel bad saying no.
I had a long-term client who'sdoing well and he's discharged,
but he's helping organize amental health symposium at his
church, and his church reachedout to me and asked if I would
come speak and first I was quitetempted.
(26:01):
Then I realized the churchisn't actually in Ottawa, it's
in the periphery of Ottawa butit'd take me 45 minutes to drive
each way.
And they wanted to do it on aweeknight evening, which is not
my best time to shine.
And I realized that I'm notthat close geographically to
these people.
If they actually want anoccupational therapist, I'm not
going to be their go-to.
There's probably somebodycloser that they could grab.
But still I did feel bad sayingno.
(26:22):
It's a hard one to keep to sayyes to all of it.
Tanner Welsch (26:25):
Absolutely.
The airtime is really valuable.
What do you want people to know?
What do you hope people know?
Learn and understand from yourcareer and your business journey
and your story.
Sarah Good (26:37):
I think one important thing I hope people
learn, especially people who arejust entering the profession,
is that in allied healthprofessions generally, and
certainly in OT in particular,there's a lot of ways we can
vary our profession.
I think sometimes people workin one particular area and I've
never worked out on that areaand sometimes people stay in it
for a very long time afterthey're pretty worn out from
(26:59):
that area.
I have friends who stayed inareas very long times before
they realized they could move,and so I think one message there
is realize that there's hugevariety and you don't need to go
back to school for years If youare one of the professions that
your podcast caters to.
There's all of them.
There is a whole lot that youcan explore and change the
(27:20):
population you work with.
Maybe take a little bit ofprofessional development and be
able to offer some differentmodalities or offer it privately
or for some people, billablehours and hourly rates really
stress them out, in which casefind a job with a clear salary,
right.
So there's a whole bunch ofvarieties and we are really
fortunate to be in professionsthat I think you can move around
(27:42):
and shift, and I've certainlyreally enjoyed that and even
having a private press.
I mean, I graduated in 2002 and,you know, worked a number of
jobs between 2002 and 2014.
But even since 2014, what Ioffer in terms of my private
practice has changed right, soit's not like it's just one job,
that I've been doing the samething for 10 years, day in and
day out, and that might be theright thing for some people, but
(28:05):
it wouldn't be for me.
So, then, that's one, and theother is really finding things
that help you decompress, eitherduring the workday or at the
end of the workday, whether it'sexercise or time outdoors or
meditation or playing music orart.
But that's not optional whenwe're in caring professions.
We need some way to work ourway through the stress tunnel of
(28:25):
we are with people in pain inour work mental pain, emotional
pain, physical pain.
When we're carrying that allday.
It's not the same as somebodycomes home from work and
something where they haven'tbeen carrying that all day.
So I think it's important toreally give ourselves permission
to do the things we need to doto take care of ourselves and
not hold on to that for too long.
Tanner Welsch (28:44):
Absolutely.
What is a question you wish youwere asked more?
Sarah Good (28:48):
hold on to that for too long, absolutely.
What is a question you wish youwere asked more?
Ah, that's a good question.
So I'm wondering here if we'rethinking about generally people
who want to know more about mywork out in the world, or other
therapists.
Yes, I'll go with other people.
People make a lot ofassumptions about what the work
is that I do, so I guess thequestion would be nice to be
asked more is what, not what isoccupational therapy, because
that's going to be quite broad,but what is my role?
(29:09):
How do I work with people?
I do think people who I meetoutside of my professional
spheres do make assumptions, andpeople are often surprised
about the role that OT plays inmental health and well-being for
instance.
Tanner Welsch (29:28):
So, yeah, it'd be interesting for people to ask
me more about what goes on inday-to-day work that I do.
So if I was curious and justwanted to know what you did and
what your role was, because,you're right, the OT I mean all
the rehab professionals, I thinkjust, unfortunately, the
marketing and the generalpopulation is just, for whatever
reason, there's a bigdisconnect, you know, with PT.
They're always oh, you givemassages or like just some real
basic assumptions.
That's not exactly what we door all we do, you know.
(29:50):
So I would love to hear fromyou how do you describe because
you do a lot of things too howdo you describe to somebody that
really has no idea what yourrole is as an occupational
therapist?
Sarah Good (30:03):
So, as an occupational therapist, I'm
interested in all 24 hours ofpeople's lives, so it's not just
their workday.
I'm also interested in theirsleep, their leisure, their
taking care of their house,taking care of their pets, their
kids themselves, people in thecontext of living with
persistent pain or mood issues,and how those issues make it a
(30:24):
challenge for them to do whatthey need to do and want to do
in their day-to-day lives, andhelping them find ways to bring
more meaning and productivityinto their lives.
Tanner Welsch (30:33):
Perfect A plus.
Sarah Good (30:35):
It also surprises people that we don't just work
with people on the return towork.
Right yeah, there's so much.
Tanner Welsch (30:40):
Just I don't know .
It's mind-blowing that peopleknow what a pharmacist does and
a doctor and a nurse or adentist.
You know, these otherprofessions are pretty clear
about the role and the servicesthat they offer, but for the
rehab profession it's just notthere.
What do you think?
Sarah Good (30:56):
Well, I mean, I think in most people's
day-to-day lives, I'll stickwith occupational therapy here
for the one I know the best, butI think most of what I'm saying
is probably applicable to theother rehab professions as well.
We don't actually come acrossan occupational therapist in our
day-to-day life like we do adentist, right.
So most of us go to the dentist, say, twice a year Our whole
lives, from when we're born.
We go to the doctor, we takeour kids to the doctor, we take
(31:16):
our parents to the doctor, right?
We?
We know what the doctor doesroughly, whereas an occupational
therapist you don't come acrossuntil you're actually going
through one of the toughesttimes of your life or you have a
family member going through oneof the toughest times in their
life.
Things are really challengingbefore people get referred to an
occupational therapist becausethere's a real breakdown.
It's not just oh, I've got thissore tooth or I've got this
(31:37):
rash or I've got stomach pains,I'm not able to do the basic
things I need to do in my life,or my life is really void of
meaning and productiveactivities because of what's
going on in my health.
And I think people are slow torefer to occupational therapists
.
Even I was at an informationsession for health professionals
that work with first respondersand the psychologist said well,
I don't refer to OTs too earlybecause you know people aren't
(31:58):
always ready for exposuretherapy right away.
And I think hold on a minute wedo a whole lot more than
exposure therapy, you know.
So if people are stuck in bedall day because of their mental
health, I'm going to be therehelping them figure out how to
put one foot in front of theother and get out of bed, and
I'll come into their house andhelp them get breakfast out and
get them brushing their teethonce a week.
(32:23):
This is pretty basic that we canstart with, but I think that
the perception as well becauseOTs do so much is if you're a
psychologist and you refer to anOT for exposure therapy, that's
what you think they do.
If you sell wheelchairs and OTscome in to help prescribe
wheelchairs, you think that'sall OTs do.
If your mother gets a reacherafter her hip replacement, you
think that's all OTs do.
People tend to think they'reone experience with an OT and
that's exactly what OTs all OTsdo.
I People tend to think theirone experience with an OT.
Tanner Welsch (32:42):
That's exactly what all OTs do.
I love that.
I think that's perfect becauseI think that applies really to
all the rehab professions and Ithink you nailed it.
Yeah, sarah, this has beengreat.
I'm going to put down in theshow notes links to your website
, what you offer social, allthat fun stuff and really
appreciate you coming on theshow and sharing a little bit
(33:04):
about you and your, yourbusiness and career journey.
Sarah Good (33:07):
Thank you very much for having me.
It's been a lovely conversation, nice chatting with you.
Enjoy listening to your podcast.
Honored to be part of it.
Intro (33:14):
Thank you for listening to the Rehab Rebels podcast.
If this podcast was useful,make sure to hit that subscribe
button and leave a review Formore information about
transitioning to alternativecareers.
Subscribe button and leave areview For more information
about transitioning toalternative careers.
Head to rehabrebelsorg orfollow us on Instagram at Rehab
Rebels Podcast.
We'll see you next time.
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