What I'm Struggling With Right Now In My Business

This episode addresses the common guilt felt by business owners and how they can shift their mindset to recognize their valuable role in their practice. By focusing on delegation, teamwork, and embracing leadership responsibilities, owners can overcome guilt and foster a healthier business environment. 

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*Intro/outro song credit:
King Around Here by Alex Grohl

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
As a business owner, do you carry guilt?
Just the fact that you get torun the business, own the
business, but maybe seeing yourteam do a lot of the day-to-day,
seeing your therapist work withthe clients and you're here
working on the big picture butpulling in the money, does that
feel weird to you?
If so, you're definitely notalone.
There's a lot of businessowners practice owners

(00:20):
specifically who struggle withguilt when it comes to their
businesses.
They feel like their team isdoing the grunt work, the leg
work, and they just get to sithere and count dollars.
Well, today I'm going to guideyou through this mentality and
how to overcome it and help yourealize just how valuable you
are and just how much workyou're doing in your business.

(00:40):
My name is Craig and I'm theCEO of Desi Financial Coaching.
Our goal is simple to help yourun a therapy practice that is
permanently profitable.
If you own a solo or grouppractice, we're here to help you
build a business that createsmore time, makes more money and
serves more people.
This is the Therapy BusinessPodcast, this podcast.

(01:05):
I remember one of my first jobsback when I was in my late teens
, early 20s.
I worked at a summer camp andwith this summer camp we had
these groups of kids, you knowages from kindergarten all the
way up to probably sixth orseventh grade, and we would have
about probably 10 to 15 kids inour group and all day long, in
the Texas summer heat, we arewith them, we're doing archery,

(01:28):
we're going to the lake, we'redoing arts and crafts, we are
trying to entertain these kidsfor eight hours a day, five days
a week.
Well, we had team leaders, wehad unit leaders for our camp
and their job was to oversee thecounselors, to make sure that
the counselors were doing theirjobs, to make sure the kids were
happy, to make sure thateverything was running smoothly.

(01:50):
And I would sometimes look overand you'd see them kind of
cruising around in a golf cartin the shade drinking a Gatorade
, while we are out here in thebeating sun trying to play
kickball with a bunch ofnine-year-olds and this feeling
of wow must be nice, or it wouldbe great if they had something
to do or feeling like just thisbitterness toward them for not

(02:13):
just appearing to be doingnothing right.
And so this perception has kindof sat with me for a long time,
and even when I became a unitleader and was driving my own
golf cart, I learned, okay, yeah, they had a lot to be doing,
they were working really hard,so it wasn't as nice and kick
back and put your feet up as itmay have been perceived.
And then, as I moved into mybusiness now, where I have a

(02:36):
team under me, I realized thisguilt kind of followed me, this
feeling and fear that my team isgoing to be looking at me going
oh wow, Craig doesn't work withvery many clients anymore.
What does he actually do allday?
You know we are the ones whoare in here working with our
clients doing the work and whois he to be getting paid and to
be counting the money and to,you know, fill in the blank.

(02:56):
And then, as I talk to practiceowners, I see that this is a
recurring theme.
They feel guilty when we talkabout reducing their client load
.
They feel guilty that theirteam is going to be having full
caseloads and that they won't.
They feel guilty when they'realmost afraid for their team to
know how much they're making.
Not that it's alwaysappropriate for your team to

(03:17):
know what your paycheck is, butthere's just this shame really
tied deep into it.
Well, I want to guide youthrough this and some just
different perceptions that Ihave been working on to change
my mindset on this, and this issomething I'm still working on,
so I am nowhere near at a placeof finishing this.
So just be aware that, as Ishare this with you, I'm on this

(03:39):
journey alongside of you aswell.
So some things that have helpedme in this mindset is that me
not taking clients, not workingwith clients, is really good for
the team and it's really goodfor the business.
I've learned that me focusingon the big picture is the sole

(04:00):
reason my team can even haveclients, that they even have a
job to come to every Monday.
If I wasn't focusing on thefinances, if I wasn't focusing
on marketing and lead generation, if I wasn't focusing on all
the other pieces of the businessthe vision, the growth, adding
in different services andproducts and offerings and
tweaking pricing and all thisstuff there would be nothing to

(04:21):
do on Monday.
And so Feeling like I was beinglazy quote unquote for not
seeing clients or not seeing asmany clients and asking them to
and asking them to do things forme in the business I realize is
more internal than external.
Honestly, on their perception,I don't think they feel any kind

(04:42):
of resentment towards me.
I don't think they think I'mlazy.
Maybe they do, but I don'tthink that's the case.
I think it's more things I puton myself and what I catch
myself doing is not assigningtasks to my team because I'm
afraid or I feel this guilt.
That is really not warranted.
So what I have been workingreally hard on is delegating and

(05:05):
kind of overcoming this ideathat no, it's good, it's good
that they do it, and creating aspace where they could speak up
if they feel like, okay, myplate is overfilled, my plate is
overloaded.
I'm working on nurturing thisenvironment where my team
members can speak up and they do.
They do.
When there's a time wherethey're feeling burnt out or

(05:27):
they feel like they're jugglinga lot, then I can step in and
take an opportunity to servethem and maybe take some things
off their plate temporarily.
But going from a place where,when I first hired them, I was
afraid to tell them or ask themto do things because I didn't
want to overload them, versusgiving them some autonomy,
giving them some ownership oftheir job and giving them things

(05:49):
to do that, honestly, a lot oftimes they are happy and eager
to be doing.
They want to be doing thesethings, they want to see the
business grow, and that'sanother thing I've learned too
is that my team wants thebusiness to grow.
It feels really weird, thisbusiness that I started all by
myself I was a solopreneur for,you know, five or six years and

(06:09):
now I have this team helping megrow it.
It feels weird because thebusiness feels like my baby and
it feels like I'm asking thesepeople to raise my baby in a
sense, and that can feel reallyodd and bizarre and can throw me
for a loop and again can makeme feel like I shouldn't be
asking them to invest themselvesin it.
But they want to.

(06:30):
What I'm finding is they areeager to, they want to, and so
in your practice, maybe you'vegrown it from solo therapist to
now having a team of cliniciansand maybe you're dealing with
this guilt.
Maybe you're going through thesethoughts of you know, when I
was working for another practice, I was going it must be nice
getting to keep the whole $200that we're charging instead of
just taking home half of it.
It must be nice to be able todo X, Y and Z.

(06:52):
Those thoughts are my team.
Are they thinking that it canreally hinder ourselves here.
So what I want you to do isfind ways to nurture that and
truly see are my team asinvested in the business as I
want them to be?
Or I won't say they're asinvested as you are, but are

(07:14):
they invested in the business?
Are they hoping and working ongrowing your business?
Do they care?
Do they want your reach toreach more people?
Growing your business Do theycare?
Do they want your reach toreach more people?
My team Christine, Alicia,Vanessa all three of them care
about being able to serve andreach more people.
Being able to reach and helpmore people.
Now your team is that whatthey're hoping for?
And it's okay if you know thatyou have team members who are

(07:37):
hoping to own their own practiceone day.
It's also okay to be hiring andlooking for therapists who have
no desire to run a business.
They understand the stresses ofa business.
They're going.
I just want to provide therapy.
I just want to work with peopleand help them overcome a lot of
things.
I don't want to have to dealwith the marketing and the lead
generation.
So, really coming into thisidea that creating this

(08:02):
environment where it is really,really good for the team for you
to be stepping back, for you tobe doing your role, and that
you don't have to justifyyourself, you don't have to
over-explain yourself, you don'thave to act stressed out
because you want them to thinkthat you're busy and that you
have a lot to do.
It's okay for them to see youtaking time off.
It's okay for them to see thatyou don't work afternoons or

(08:23):
that you don't work Fridays orthat you don't do whatever it is
.
That is okay, and that'sbecause this is a huge point
that has really changed myperception.
It's because you're paid tostress, to carry the burden of
the business.
I don't want to say you're paidto stress because we don't want
you to stress, but let's behonest business comes with

(08:43):
stress.
You are paid for carrying thisbusiness, the weight of this
business, on your shoulders.
You are paid because beingresponsible for other people's
paychecks, being responsible fora book of clients that they are
seeing, being responsible forthem having a job to come to on
Monday, that's a lot.
That is a lot, Regardless ofhow many tasks you have on your

(09:06):
to-do list.
Compared to how many tasks yourteam does.
That burden is a lot and youshould be paid appropriately for
carrying that burden.
There's a reason a lot ofbusiness owners don't make it
and it's because of that exactthing, that exact thing, that
burden that we are carrying onour shoulders, that stress that

(09:27):
weight that we carry.
So it's not an apples to applesthing and that's what I'm
learning every day.
Is that my task list, my to-dolist, the hours I put in, it's
okay if it looks different.
It's okay if I don't have verymany meetings in my day, but I
have a client or a team memberwho has client meetings for the

(09:49):
whole day.
That's all right because it'snot what I'm paid to do, it's
not my job, it's not my roleanymore.
So really leaning into that,and then you're doing them a
favor in that sense as well.
So I've found that my teamwants more clients, Most of them
.
Alicia is capped, but Vanessaand Christine are looking and

(10:10):
wanting more clients.
They want them.
If somebody were to come in andtry and work with me and I were
to take them, I'd be almoststealing from Vanessa in a sense
right.
So me keeping that MySpace openfor other things gives her a
job, gives her more income.
If your clinicians are paid oncommission or they're paid on a

(10:30):
fee for every session they do,then they're gonna be eager to
be taking on more and more andmore clients.
So you not taking them on isdoing them a huge favor and
doing them a huge service.
This is a much different podcast, I know, as I, as I kind of sit
here and just guide you throughsome of my thought process as a
business owner.
You know I like to teach, I'm a, I'm a teacher, I love coming

(10:53):
into these things with.
You know, here's four ways toimprove your practice.
And then sometimes it's justhere's kind of what's on my
heart, here's what's on my mind,here's what I'm struggling with
right now in my business andI'm just in case you're
struggling with it too I want totalk through it.
I want to help you kind of peekinto my thought process and the
work I'm doing with mytherapist and with my business

(11:14):
coaches, into changing thisnarrative for myself, for my
team and for my business.
Thanks for joining us on theTherapy Business Podcast for my
team and for my business help.