Rebel Therapist

Annie Schuessler
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Rebel Therapist

Rebel Therapist is the podcast where you'll get support in being a therapist entrepreneur. I'm Annie Schuessler, therapist and business coach and strategist for therapists. I'll support you in taking your work beyond the therapy room to make an even bigger impact. I interview Rebel Therapists who are already doing work beyond the therapy room, from running workshops to writing books to creating online courses. You'll hear about how they created their unique businesses, the mindset work they've done, and the mistakes they've made along the way. Get the inspiration and information you need to be a Rebel Therapist, starting now.

  1. 2 DAYS AGO

    Real Advice About Making Money With Your Own Course Or Program: Open Coaching Call Replay

    Wednesday, November 20th is the last day to sign up for early access to create your program. Do you have a sense of what having your own course or program could do for your career? If you’ve been sitting on an idea for a while, I want to invite you to create your program with me. This is the process where you take your incredible strengths as a therapist or healer and you create a signature program so that you can serve more people, make more money, and get your best ideas out of your head and into a unique container you’ll be able to offer over and over. We go through an 11 week process together step by step so that you are actually launching your program during our time together with my support. Head to https://rebeltherapist.me/create to enroll now. I ran a free and open coaching call recently for everyone in our audience, including clients and folks on my email list. We had such great questions that I decided to share the recording with you. Here are the questions I answered and expanded on: What questions should I ask myself to decide what kind of program to create? Do you think in-person or online programs are more in demand right now? Are there any prompts or guidance on how to go about spotlight coaching on group calls? Do I have to set up coaching programs separate from my therapy business? What goals should we aim for when starting a group? How many members? Cost? Time commitment? What's the best way to fill the group? What are some great niches for women’s groups in particular? And what makes a great niche? Do therapists need to be trained as coaches? How do you go from a general to a more specific niche topic? Is trauma healing specific enough? How would you get more specific? If I'm trying to reach people across the country or world, does it still make sense to build up local connections and local networking? The idea of creating a group program and running a group call makes my head explode. Do you have any sense of if individual or group programs tend to be more successful in enrollment? For group programs, how essential is it to use social media as a tool to grow our niche community? Might it work to write articles and listicles as a way to grow my audience? Do I need some type of insurance for liability if I decide to switch from therapy to coaching? Plus we hear from a grad of CYP about an experiment she has been running in her business. Show notes at https://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/234

    41 min

  2. NOV 5

    How Can I Run Great Group Calls?

    Today I’m talking about how to run engaging and effective group calls in your signature program, rather than calls that leave people bored or frustrated or just not showing up. When I say PROGRAM, I’m talking about a niched, outcome oriented, structured container. Your program might be a workshop, retreat, group coaching program, course, or some hybrid of different formats. These are the kinds of programs that are always in demand because they actually help people make significant transformations. I’m not talking about flimsy self-led courses here. I’m talking about programs where your participants get to interact with you in a meaningful way. Therapists and healers make the best programs. We’ve got training and experience in how to help people get from point A to point B. We know how to work with resistance, emotions, and all of the other things that make change difficult. If you’ve been a participant in a lot of programs, you know that some group leaders have no idea what they’re doing! You as a therapist or healer have the potential to be a very skilled group leader for your program. BUT there’s some stuff that therapists also need to learn about running calls in their structured, niched and outcome oriented programs. A question I get a lot is: “How can I facilitate group calls well in my new program?” And I’m excited to share my answer with you here. THE TROUBLE WITH THERAPISTS Our biggest mistakes as therapists are that we tend to run our program calls like group therapy sessions when we need to be doing something different. I’ll use myself as an example. I really f****d this up at the beginning. In the beginning, I ran my program calls a lot like group therapy sessions, and that wasn’t what my business coaching program needed. I tended to go towards depth and bigger emotional material because I was comfortable there and that’s what I was used to doing with groups. I had been moving that way during years and years of working as a therapist. If a person brought up feeling stuck in perfectionism or imposter syndrome, I’d expand and encourage that conversation to the point that it took up most of the session. Then I’d try to rush through some business concepts. I didn’t know how to balance that beautiful depth with the need to direct the group towards the goal of the program. My group calls left people feeling understood, bonded to others in the group, and probably with less shame about their experiences. The calls didn’t give the participants enough help with taking strategic steps in their businesses. Were the calls bad? It depends what you think the purpose of the calls was. People who primarily wanted space to process about their emotions about their businesses probably thought the calls were great. People who wanted to move forward with strategy probably felt frustrated. Lots of participants probably felt pretty good about the calls while they were happening, but then bummed out at the end of the program that we hadn’t gotten enough business stuff done. As therapists, we still get to use our attunement skills, but we need to harness them differently. The problem was that I hadn’t chosen ONE clear purpose for my calls. CHOSE A PURPOSE That brings me to one of my favorite thought leaders around running groups: Priya Parker. She’s an author and a facilitator, and she’s NOT a therapist. Her book, The Art Of Gathering, has changed how I think about groups forever. Priya Parker says that for any gathering, you need to choose ONE clear purpose. You definitely need one clear purpose for your program. The purpose of your program is the outcome it helps people move towards. For example: Let’s pretend your program helps couples in blended families to strengthen their relationships. (That’s a juicy niche by the way. Grab it if you want!) This program is designed to get the couple from point A to point B. Point A is where the couple is now, feeling distr

    23 min

  3. OCT 22

    Ask Annie: Are People Just Looking For A Quick Fix? I Don’t Offer That!

    The fact that you are providing a real and nuanced process rather than a quick fix is actually not a problem. It’s how you’re going to attract the right folks to your work. Therapists and healers work with me to create high quality, niched programs beyond private practice. The people I work with have a ton of integrity. What I mean by that is that the people I work with really give a shit about the work they do and the programs they create. They care deeply about the people they help. As they’re getting clear on their niches, I hear something like this from many of them: “I like to help people with deep and nuanced transformation rather than quick fixes or practical tips. I worry that people are just looking for the practical solutions.” This thing tends to happen: Once you’ve chosen the topic of your signature program, you might start noticing Reels, Tiktoks or articles with simple tips to solve the problem you help people with. Some of those tips are useful, or even sufficient for some people. But those are not the people you’re selling your program to. Your people are ready for a paradigm shift, and that’s what you’re going to guide them through. Before they even sign up to work with you, they’ll learn that you’re inviting them to look at their problem in a different way, perhaps questioning some of their underlying assumptions. I actually encourage you to lean in to the depth and nuance of the solution you offer. Leave the quick tips to someone else. You get to be known for the stuff you are great at. The people who want to purchase your program have probably already tried those practical strategies, and have been failed by them, or they’ve already spotted that those strategies aren’t the right fit for them. Maybe some of your people are wondering why those things haven’t worked for them. They might even feel shame that they don’t seem able to fix this problem when some people say it’s simple. The attractiveness of YOUR offer is that you have a deeper solution, one that perhaps gets to the root of the issue. And your solution is one that they have not yet tried. You get to tell them: “You’ve tried these practical tips. It’s not your fault that those things haven’t solved this for you. To have a lasting change in how you experience this issue, here’s a completely different approach.” And then you name the paradigm shift. The person who wants to work with you will feel relief and resonance. I’ll give you an example. Lots of therapists I’ve worked with who help parents tell me: “I want to help parents who’s kids are having undesirable behaviors, but I’m not going to teach the parents how to get their kids to stop doing the undesirable behavior. I’m going to take the parents through a much deeper process that has to do with the parents accepting themselves and deeply accepting their child. The behaviors do usually shift quite a bit during that process, but I don’t want to promise that.” Great! You’re going to work with people ready for a paradigm shift around their children’s difficult behavior. If they’re like I was when my kids were younger, they’ve already tried about a million tips that seemed to work for other parents. But nothing stuck, and none of it really helped my family to feel grounded at a deeper level. Don’t hide the fact that you have a deeper solution, and don’t apologize for it. Lead with it. If you can articulate this paradigm shift well, the right folks will be grateful they finally found you. Your future participants are smart, and they like hearing what YOU’RE saying because they’re finally hearing something that sounds true. You’ll talk about the problem exactly as your right fit person is experiencing it, which perhaps includes feeling totally frustrated, hopeless, confused or ashamed. You’ll help them feel less shame when you point out that the reason why those quick fix solutions haven’t wo

    8 min

  4. AUG 20

    Why It’s NOT Too Late To Create Your Program

    If you want to work in a different way, but you feel like maybe it’s too late to start your own signature program or you regret not starting sooner, this episode is for you. In the last couple of years I have done a LOT of things that I had thought maybe it was too late to do. So I feel you. One of those has been returning to roller skating. You know the proverb. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is now. For me, the best time to return to roller skate would have been 30 years ago. The next best time just happened. I went to roller discos as a kid in the early 80’s from about age 8 to 10 and I felt so alive and joyful. Skating felt like flying and dancing at the same time. I was part of a little crew of girls who skated together. We got sparkly T shirts with roller skates on the front and abbreviations of our names on the back, just to save money on the letters. A couple of my birthday parties were at the roller disco. When Dolly Parton, Donna Summer or Blondie came on I would get shivers. My family moved across the country when I was 10 and I stopped roller skating partly because I didn’t have my crew anymore and partly because I felt more awkward and self conscious in my body as I got older. As an adult, through my 30’s and 40’s I wished I could roller skate again, but I figured it was too late. I assumed I would fall and injure myself if I tried. And I guess I worried that I would look foolish. As roller skating made a big revival in the last few years, I kept seeing the cutest roller skates everywhere. When I would walk past the roller skaters in golden gate park, I felt that longing. I also noticed that lots of the skaters there appeared to be my age or older. As I was turning 50, I did a little research and discovered it actually STILL wasn’t too late for me to get on roller skates. Not at ALL too late. So for my 50th birthday I bought a pair of purple skates, knee pads, wrist guards, and elbow pads. The first thing you’re supposed to do is practice falling safely, so I did that about 100 times. By the way, I know there’s a whole camp of skaters who don’t believe in using padding. I’m not here to fight about it. I see you and I respect you. I finally I got myself to the outdoor skating area in Golden Gate Park. It’s flat and smooth, and several times a week there’s even someone from the community playing music with a huge speaker. I shyly asked the incredible roller skaters about the etiquette and advice for a new skater. Then I slowly rolled out there. I realized I could still roller skate. Even after 40 years my body still remembered how. Even if I didn’t already know how, it wouldn’t have been too late. I’ve met plenty of people who started skating at lots of different ages. I basically just skate around the area enjoying the music. I feel joy and energy moving through my body. Just like when I was 10, I feel like I’m flying and dancing. Some folks are in the middle of the area dancing their asses off. Maybe I’ll start learning some of those moves soon. I keep my roller skates and protective gear in my trunk at all times so that I can skate whenever I get the chance. I go about once a week. Sometimes my spouse comes and sits and watches. They say they love how happy I look. I know how to fall safely, but at this point I haven’t actually fallen. But I probably will, especially when I start learning those dance moves. And that’s totally OK with me. Back to creating your own program. If you’ve been wanting to create a program beyond private practice, but a part of you has thought it’s already too late, let’s try something for a moment. Let’s do a little parts work, inspired by IFS and other things. What part of you is trying to be heard with that regret or that fear? Hear them out. If it’s the right path for you, it is not too late. In your wisest and most embodied self, you know this. But also if you’ve got a par

    12 min

  5. AUG 6

    When You Feel Resistance

    I help therapists and healers who have private practices to add a second part to their business models. I show you how to create a niched and outcome based program that you can get known for and offer to people all over the world. Learn more about that and get on the notification list at https://rebeltherapist.me/create. I would love to see your name on that list. You’ll get informed as soon as enrollment opens, which happens very soon. I realized I need to tell you something today: Even if you are doing your marketing right, you probably won’t enjoy it all of the time. This is sort of a part 2 to my last podcast episode. Here’s a summary of that in case you didn’t hear it or you’d like a quick recap: Reactive marketing is when you feel like you urgently must take action to make more money, to get more people to sign up for your work, or to fix something that seems broken in your business. You know you’re in reactive mode when you believe you’ve got to do something NOW to market your work. If lots of your marketing activity is reactive marketing, it isn’t going to be very effective and it’s going to burn you out. When you’re reactive, you’re not tuned in to the people you want to serve, you don’t have access to your more creative parts, and you aren’t taking action from a thoughtful strategy. Relaxed marketing is what we want to be engaging in at least 90% of the time. Whether you’re creating content, reaching out to referral partners, running free live events, pitching to podcasts, or writing website copy, whatever it is that you’re doing during your marketing time, you want to engage in it with a more relaxed nervous system. You’ll come up with better, more attuned work when you do that. And you’re going to be able to make better decisions about what your overall marketing strategy looks like. I received emails from some of you letting me know that the episode really resonated with you. You loved being reminded that you’ll do your best work when you’re tuning into the people you’re serving, and NOT when you’re in panic mode. The next thing I need to share involves a lot of nuance: Even if you engage in relaxed marketing practices, You might still not enjoy marketing some of the time. “Relaxed” might not be the way you feel when you’re sitting down to your marketing activities. Two things happened today that reminded me to talk about this nuanced truth. One is: I sat down to do some of my own marketing work. I was not in urgency or panic, and I WAS tapped into the needs of the people I am here to serve. I also didn’t feel relaxed. I felt a bit of dread, a bit of anxiety, and a strong urge to find something else to do. I felt my heart rate speed up a bit. I felt the fear that I might not have a good idea to share. (Yes, Even though I’ve got a huge list of ideas that I’ve been storing up for years). I had the thought “I hate this part.” We have a pillow that lists dozens of emotions, so that we can look at it and identify which ones we are feeling in the moment. Yeah, it's the kind a therapist might have in their office. In that moment I identified “inadequate, avoidant and worried.” Then in order to properly procrastinate, I opened Instagram and I saw a post from one of my favorite writers, Clementine Morrigan. She writes on personal growth, trauma, polyamory and other stuff, and she’s a leftist. Here she’s talking specifically about writing, but I want to apply this to how it can feel to work on marketing your wonderful work. Clementine says: “I find writing viscerally uncomfortable. Sometimes it is excruciatingly painful. It almost never feels good. The thing that is most important to me and that I have dedicated my life to is extremely difficult and unpleasant for me to actually do lol. Your calling might not feel good. I don’t think anyone tells us that. Pleasure and ease are not the only indications that a thing is worth doi

    14 min

  6. JUL 16

    Stop Reactive Marketing

    I help therapists and healers who have private practices to add a second part to their business models. I show you how to create a niched and outcome based program that you can offer to people all over the world. Learn more and get on the waitlist at https://rebeltherapist.me/create. I would love to see your name on that list. You’ll get informed as soon as enrollment opens next month. I’m gonna talk about my houseplants for a moment, but this episode is really about how to create effective marketing practices. I had a moment of freak out with my houseplants the other day. I looked up and saw that a group of my plants under the skylight by my home office were very sad and thirsty. One of them looked like it had been receiving too much sun for a few days. I grabbed my watering can immediately, watered them, and moved the over-sunned plant to a different spot. Phew! I’d solved the immediate and obvious problems. That’s reactive plant care. Of course sometimes it’s necessary to get reactive, just to keep my plants alive. It’s just not joyful or sustainable for me or the plants to be in this mode most of the time. If that were the only kind of care I was giving my plants, I wouldn’t want to have plants, and they wouldn’t really want me either. You see, I really enjoy taking care of my houseplants. I enjoy learning what they need and tuning into them. I spend some time just about every week hanging out with my plants, watering them, fertilizing them, trimming them, cleaning off their leaves, turning them so that different sides of them get light, moving their location if they’re getting too much or too little light, repotting the ones that need it, adding new soil to some of them, spotting and removing pests, and on and on. Before this recording, I looked at my fern. She’s lovely. Her new growth looks so green and happy. I felt inspired to take her into the shower and give her a really good spray. I also peeked at my fiddle leaf fig. She’s a bit dusty right now. Later I’ll give her leaves a nice wipe down because I know she’ll enjoy a bit more light when she’s clean. When I do this stuff, I’m present and relaxed. My plants thrive when I’m doing this and I kind of do too. When at least 90% of my houseplant care happens in this relaxed way, we’re all thriving. I’m describing reactive plant care vs. relaxed plant care. I believe it works the same way with the marketing in my business. And in your business. Here’s how reactive marketing looks You have a moment of anxiety, and you think: “I need to do something RIGHT NOW to get people to buy my offer!” The trigger of this thought could be that you aren’t hitting your revenue goal. Or your group isn’t filling. Or you realize you haven’t gotten any new referrals for a while. Or you see another entrepreneur on Instagram and it looks like they are having more success than you, so you think “I need to do what they’re doing, like now.” Or maybe you’re just having a hard day. Doing something quickly in your marketing because you’re anxious or afraid or feeling scarcity is reactive marketing. Maybe you quickly email your list after over a month away. Maybe you create a social media post. Maybe you sign up for a course on some aspect of marketing that you think you should be doing. Whatever you do, you’re feeling pretty anxious while you do it. If you’re doing a lot of reactive marketing, that’s not gonna go well for you or your business. I understand why you get reactive. The things you’re anxious about matter. You need to pay your bills. It matters that people find your work. Your identity as a business owner matters. So does just getting to do enough of the thing you want to do. But the reactivity that capitalism encourages in us is not what we want to let guide us. Here’s why reactive marketing doesn’t work In reactive marketing, you’re in scarcity, panic and self doubt. The actions you ta

    13 min

  7. JUL 2

    Two Sisters Create A Program With Kaitlyn & Meghann Ellis

    I love encouraging healers and therapists to think deeply and creatively about what their work could look like. I often say: Step out of default thinking for a moment and give yourself permission to dream into what you want to create. Who are you serving? How are you working with them? What work do you no longer do or do less of? What does your day look like? Who are you collaborating with? In this episode I got to talk to 2 sisters who dreamed up a way to work differently by creating a business together! Meet Kaitlyn and Meghann Ellis. Meghann Ellis is a therapist with over 18 years experience and has a specialty in complex trauma, EMDR and dissociative diagnoses. She has combined forces with her twin sister, Kaitlyn Ellis, who is an Occupational Therapist and pelvic floor specialist with over 20 years of experience. Together they run Twin Root Wellness Here’s some of what we talked about: Combining the skills of an Occupational Therapist and a mental health expert in one program Choosing the niche of pregnant and post-partum athletes The unique physical and emotional struggles of athlete mothers How they realized they wanted to start this business together Why Meghann is finding that this work prevents her from burning out as a therapist How they nurture their relationship and communicate as both sisters and business partners How they bring in referrals and build their audience Why they are starting with individual coaching before creating a group program Show notes at https://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/228

    47 min

  8. JUN 18

    Is It OK To Do Less Long-Term Work?

    This is a short episode and it’s really about you giving yourself permission to do the work that is going to feel most joyful and sustainable for you. I’m going to talk about two different roles we might choose for ourselves as therapists, healers and coaches: A catalyst who helps people through a big and clear change in a particular area of their lives. OR An integrator who helps people grow and maintain changes over a long period of time in many areas of their lives. I know there’s a lot of overlap and nuance between these 2 roles. Therapists I work with who want to create signature programs beyond private practice often want to be in the role of catalyst more of the time, and long-term integrator less of the time. They’re feeling over-full on the long-term work of helping their clients day-by-day, week-by-week, month-by-month and year-by-year. They value that long-term work and are honored to get to do it, but they fear that if they keep doing it full time, they’re going to burn out, or maybe just not love their work so much. In the programs they create, these therapists want to be in the role of short-term change catalyst. They want to step further into their role as teacher, presenter, and facilitator. They want to create a container that moves participants through a process of profound growth in a particular area that they really care about. The topics of these programs include: sexuality, relationships, parenting, money, business, and particular life experiences like divorce and grief…and on and on. I’ll give you a few examples of programs folks have created in a minute. These programs are time-limited, usually happening over a number weeks or just a few days. These therapists find it satisfying to watch their people have big insights and make big changes and progress in their programs. But when folks are getting ready to create their programs, they sometimes think… “Wait a minute. Even if I help people create a lot of change quickly, maintaining those changes takes long-term work. It’s not just one and done. So then is my program valuable enough if it doesn’t help people through the long-term maintenance of that change?” Here’s my answer: YES. The focused change your program creates is highly valuable. Both kinds of work are totally valuable and necessary. Neither kind of work is more or less valuable. As a therapist, I was trained with a bit of either/or thinking. I remember learning that REAL change takes time, and that rapid change is probably fleeting. Perhaps as therapists, sometimes this is a defensive stance. Sometimes the long-term, subtler work of a therapist doesn’t get enough credit because it’s less obvious than the change that happens during something like a retreat or a workshop. But you, my friend, are not going to devalue that long-term work. AND you still might not always want to do that long-term work yourself. You can choose to run a time-limited program and you can also encourage your participants to keep doing long-term work after they are done with your program. Think of this from the participant’s point of view. I’ll use myself as an example. When a topic really matters to me, I want to work with someone who is obsessed with that topic for a period of time. I want to be held in a container where I’ll get to focus on topic only. I want a curated experience that is designed to help me make a significant change. This happened to me recently. I was a participant last year in Deb Benfield’s program: Aging With Vitality And Body Liberation. As a 52 year old who has a body, I loved the idea of putting myself in Deb’s hands to go through a big transformative experience over 8 weeks. I wanted to deprogram myself from ageism and step further into body liberation. I know Deb is an expert in both of these areas, and is one of the ONLY people who is really a badass in both areas. In the venn diagram of body liberation and pro-aging, you

    12 min
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About

Rebel Therapist is the podcast where you'll get support in being a therapist entrepreneur. I'm Annie Schuessler, therapist and business coach and strategist for therapists. I'll support you in taking your work beyond the therapy room to make an even bigger impact. I interview Rebel Therapists who are already doing work beyond the therapy room, from running workshops to writing books to creating online courses. You'll hear about how they created their unique businesses, the mindset work they've done, and the mistakes they've made along the way. Get the inspiration and information you need to be a Rebel Therapist, starting now.

Information

  • Creator
    Annie Schuessler
  • Years Active
    2017 - 2024
  • Episodes
    241
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Show Website
    Rebel Therapist

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