Dr. Rhoberta Shaler is The Relationship Help Doctor | PoP 464

Share this content
Dr. Rhoberta Shaler is The Relationship Help Doctor | PoP 464

Do you have a hijackal in your life? As a therapist, how can you identify a hijackal? Are you a therapist wanting to take your specialty outside of your private practice?

In this podcast episode, Joe Sanok speaks to Dr. Rhoberta Shaler, The Relationship Help Doctor, about “hijackals”.

Podcast Sponsor

TherapyNotes facilitates the workflow of mental health professionals through robust, secure, and streamlined software, accessible wherever and whenever you need it. With fully-integrated scheduling, notes, billing, electronic claims, and more, you’ll have more time for what matters most: your patients.

To get 2 free months of TherapyNotes click on www.therapynotes.com and enter the promo code: Joe

Meet Dr. Rhoberta Shaler

Rhoberta Shaler, PhD, The Relationship Help Doctor, provides urgent and ongoing care for relationships in crisis. Dr. Rhoberta empowers the partners, exes, adult children, and co-workers of the relentlessly difficult, toxic people she calls Hijackals® to recognize emotional abuse, realize the effects, heal, and transform. She helps them see clearly, stop the crazy-making, and save their sanity.

Widely published and author of sixteen books, she also hosts two popular podcasts: Transforming Relationship with Emotional Savvy and Save Your Sanity: Help for Toxic Relationships. Her YouTube channel, ForRelationshipHelp, has reached over 270,000 views.

Visit Dr. Rhoberta Shaler’s website.

In This Podcast

Summary

  • Leveling up beyond clinical work
  • Dr. Rhoberta’s audience
  • The value of focusing on patterns, traits, and cycles rather than a diagnosis
  • Identifying a hijackal
  • How a therapist can spot a hijackal in couple’s counseling
  • Why don’t clinicians create more content?

Leveling up beyond clinical work

Going outside of clinical work, you can reach way more people. It became very important to Dr. Rhoberta for her to get the word out about relentlessly difficult, toxic people, and that is why she made the shift. This enabled her to become a consultant, she could give her opinion and strategies straight and it was much quicker and cleaner this way. Dr. Rhoberta still does clinical work but it is all done through video conferencing. It was a clear decision to make the shift – she gave up her office space (that she’d had for 12 years), she stopped doing classes and seminars, and just decided to focus on her niche, keep it very clean, and get the word out.

Dr. Rhoberta’s audience

Dr. Rhoberta’s focus is to get as much information as she can to people who are up in the middle night crying people asking what’s happening to them or what has happened to them. She got very concerned that people were using the internet as a mental health professional, typing in their difficulties and getting all sorts of psychological terms spat out at them (narcissist, histrionic, borderline sociopath, psychopath, etc.). They would think that they were with these people with severe personality disorders and start separating themselves from these people as if they had no part in the relationship at all.

This concerned Dr. Rhoberta. People who would actually receive diagnoses like those, from a mental health professional, would likely not actually go to one. We needed a term that talks about these patterns, traits, and cycles, so Dr. Rhoberta trademarked the term “hijackals”.

Hijackals: People who hijack relationships for their own purposes, and then relentlessly scavenge them for power, status, and control.
This makes it something that we can now talk about freely because we’re talking about patterns, traits, and cycles, not clinical diagnoses.

The value of focusing on patterns, traits, and cycles rather than a diagnosis

A blanket diagnosis brings about a feeling of not being able to do anything about it. Focusing on patterns, traits, and cycles is something we can wrap our heads around. If someone is engaging in one of the hallmarks of a hijackal, you don’t have to respond to it. It’s just one of those traits and you don’t have to take it on. You can see it as a variable within the traits of a hijackal which can save you a great deal of pain, knowing that it’s not about you, it’s about them.

Identifying a hijackal

I’ve had clients who’ve been married to three or four high jackals before they found me. And so, they have constantly been living in the place of thinking everything’s their fault. And because they’re good humans, they go rushing around saying what can I do? How can I be better? How can I be more compassionate, more loving, less demanding, more patient? How can I make myself into a pretzel? If I need to, I’ll lie down like a doormat. And still nothing’s changing. So, that’s where the power lies – it’s realizing that they have a need to make everything your fault, but that doesn’t mean everything is your fault.

Hijackals make everything your fault, and it isn’t. They can’t bear the idea of being wrong or making a mistake. They can’t stand the idea of being shamed so they make everything your fault. If you were raised by a hijackal parent, it becomes comfortably uncomfortable, it becomes familiar, and you will likely be targeted by a hijackal partner.

How a therapist can spot a hijackal in couple’s counseling

If one person is doing any of these things, see it as a red flag;

  • Being charming
  • Exhibiting seductive behavior
  • Being complimentary
  • Keeping a lot of eye contact with you
  • Reaching out and touching you

They do things to get you to see it from their point of you, to see that the partner is unreasonable, and the partner is the one who needs help. Once you can see it, you realize that there’s a whole other set of questions to ask like, “What do you think your part in this particular problem is? That’s when the hijackal will point fingers, will accept no part in it, and will show little empathy for their partner.

Why don’t clinicians create more content?

  1. They don’t know how to market – If you stay in private practice, particularly group practice, you don’t have to market. You may be very uncomfortable with the marketing world and may not know how to do all of it.
  2. They don’t write easily – Even if you don’t write easily, you can write consistently and train yourself.
  3. Technological issues – Don’t let a lack of technical knowledge get in your way, you can pay somebody for it and it’s not necessarily terribly expensive.
  4. Paralyzed by perfection – Once you get over the fear of screwing up publicly, it makes it easier to create content.

Books by Dr. Rhoberta Shaler

Useful Links:

Meet Joe Sanok

private practice consultant

Joe Sanok helps counselors to create thriving practices that are the envy of other counselors. He has helped counselors to grow their businesses by 50-500% and is proud of all the private practice owners that are growing their income, influence, and impact on the world. Click here to explore consulting with Joe.

Thanks For Listening!

Feel free to leave a comment below or share this podcast on social media by clicking on one of the social media links below! Alternatively, leave a review on iTunes and subscribe!

Podcast Transcription

[JOE]:
This is the Practice of the Practice podcast with Joe Sanok, session number 464.

There are many ways to keep your practice organized, but TherapyNotes is the best. Their easy to use, secure platform lets you not only do your billing, scheduling, and progress notes, but also create a client portal to share documents and request signatures. Plus, they offer amazing, unlimited phone support. So, when you have a question you can get help fast. To get started with practice management software trusted by over 35,000 professionals go to therapynotes.com and start a free trial today. If you enter promo code JOE, they will give you two months for free to try it out. Again, that’s therapynotes.com, promo code JOE.

Well, I’m Joe Sanok, your host and I hope that you are doing awesome. As this June kicks off, I hope that your transition to telehealth and all of that has been smooth, I hope that your family is doing well and that you’ve got through this pandemic time in a way that maybe has helped you in some way. I know a lot of people have been reevaluating their business model to say, Do I want to full-time go back to in person counseling? Do I want to have more telehealth? Do I want to have multiple streams of income? And so, we’re offering a ton of different resources around that totally for free for you. Over at practiceofthepractice.com/100kwebinar. That’s the number 100 and then the letter K webinar. We have all sorts of webinars coming up. The next one is going to be on June 23 and that’s going to be with Alison Pidgeon and Jeremy Zug. We’re going to be talking all about insurance, billing, software, how to make sure you’re doing that right and so, if insurance is part of your model or is going to be part of your model, make sure you come on over to that webinar, and we will hang out together and have less time for you to ask questions.

Well, today we have Dr. Rhoberta Shaler, and really excited about this interview. This is one that I actually did back in the fall, but it just didn’t end up seeming like the right time to go live. So, without any further ado, I have Rhoberta Shaler.

Well today on the Practice of the Practice podcast, we have Dr. Rhoberta Shaler. She is a relationship consultant, mediator, speaker, and author. The relationship help doctor provides urgent and ongoing care for relationships in crisis. She empowers the partners, exes, and adult children of the relentlessly difficult toxic people she calls ‘Hijackals’ to recognize the emotional abuse, realize the effects and remove themselves from it and heal. She’s the author of 16 books, has two podcasts, and a highly successful YouTube channel. Dr. Rhoberta, welcome to the Practice of the Practice podcast.

[DR. RHOBERTA]:
Thank you so much. I’m delighted to be with you.

[JOE]:
Yeah, I am so excited to meet a fellow podcaster that is working around clinical issues, because one of the biggest questions I get from clinicians is, how do I level up beyond just my clinical work? So, I would love to go back and hear a little bit about how you started developing all this amazing content outside of just your maybe clinical work that you do.

[DR. RHOBERTA]:
Sure, well, I don’t do clinical work anymore. So that’s one big way. One of the things that I found, Joe, was that I could reach way more people by going outside of that, and it became very important to me to get the word out about people who are relentlessly difficult, people who are toxic, and so that’s why I made that shift. And that was an important step for me because then I could become a consultant. And that way I can give the straight goods and tell it like it is because consultants are hired to give their opinion and to give strategies. And it was much quicker and cleaner.

[JOE]:
Now, was there a moment when you started to realize, maybe I don’t want to do this as much and I want to be more in the consulting space and the content side? Or was it more of a slow, gradual realization that you wanted to do that?

[DR. RHOBERTA]:
Um, no, actually, I do it all. I just don’t have a clinical practice. But I certainly have a thriving practice. I have clients all over the world because I work only through video conferencing. So, it was a very, very clear decision. I gave up 1200 square feet of office that I’d had for 12 years. I was giving classes, doing seminars, doing all of that and said, no, I just want to focus on my niche, just stay very clean, get this word out, leave a legacy, get as much information as I can to people who are up in the middle of the night crying and saying, what is happening to me or what has happened to me? And that became the focus of what I do every day.

[JOE]:
Yeah. Tell me more about that audience and why you’re connected to them in particular.

[DR. RHOBERTA]:
Well, let me say what Hijackals are, Joe, because people may not know what we’re talking about. I got really concerned that people were going to the internet and they were putting in their difficulties, and they were almost considering that the internet was a mental health professional. They were forgetting it was an index. So, the internet would spit back psychological terms like narcissist, histrionic, borderline sociopath, psychopath, and then people go, oh, my goodness, that’s terrible, right? I’m with one of these people who have a severe personality disorder. And then they would start separating themselves from these people as though they had no part in the relationship at all. And so, I got concerned about that. And I thought no, the fact of the matter is that people who actually would have diagnoses such as those, if they went to a mental health professional will not likely go, so we need a term that talks about the patterns, traits, and cycles so that people could just get into the trench, talk about what’s going on. So, I trademarked the term ‘Hijackals’, and Hijackals are people who hijack relationships for their own purposes, and then relentlessly scavenge them for power, status, and control. And that makes it something we can all talk about. We can all freely talk about, I’m sure I’m with a Hijackal. I was raised by a Hijackal. My ex is a Hijackal. The person in the next cubicle is a Hijackal. Clearly, we can talk about that, because we’re talking about patterns, traits, and cycles and not clinical diagnoses.

[JOE]:
Yeah, what do you think the value is in focusing in on those patterns and cycles rather than a diagnosis?

[DR. RHOBERTA]:
Well, I can do something with them myself, right? If I just have a blanket diagnosis and go, oh, read all those criteria. I can’t do anything. But if I know that somebody is engaging, say, in one of the hallmarks of Hijackals, which is all or nothing thinking like, one day, you’re the best thing since sliced bread and five minutes later you’re the scum of the earth. Then I can wrap my head around that. I can say, oh, there it goes again, all or nothing, black or white thinking. And I don’t have to respond to it. It’s just one of those traits. So, I don’t have to take it on. I don’t have to say, oh, I’m so glad that I’m the best thing since sliced bread. Oh, it’s so terrible, I’m the scum of the earth. No, I can just see it as a variable within the traits of a Hijackal. And that can save me a great deal of pain because I know it’s not about me, it’s about them.

[JOE]:
So, take us through when someone starts to identify a Hijackal that’s either in their life or has been in their life. What types of things do you teach them through the content you put out there?

[DR. RHOBERTA]:
Well, the most effective piece that people tell me is when they learn from my YouTube videos or my podcast or whatever. They will say, what really got me was that you said, Hijackals make everything your fault, and it isn’t. And that’s what they do because they can’t bear the idea of being wrong. They can’t bear the idea of making a mistake. They can’t stand the idea of being shamed. So they make everything your fault; if you’re with one and if you were raised by a Hijackal parent, it’s likely that the comfortably uncomfortable will become familiar and you will be targeted by a Hijackal partner. And then you will be in that relationship. I’ve had clients who’ve been married to three or four Hijackals before they found me. And so, they have constantly been living in the place of thinking everything’s their fault. And because they’re good humans, they go rushing around saying what can I do? How can I be better? How can I be more compassionate, more loving, less demanding, more patient? How can I make myself into a pretzel? If I need to, I’ll lie down like a doormat, and still nothing’s changing. So, that’s where the power lies – it’s realizing that they have a need to make everything your fault, but that doesn’t mean everything is your fault.

[JOE]:
So, once they realize that, where do they go next?

[DR. RHOBERTA]:
Well, then they can start looking at the actual truth of what’s going on. Is it actually true that I made a mistake? Or I could have done something differently? And then I can be self-reflective enough to say, no, I don’t think so. Or, yes, I could change that. And then I can grow as a human, I can do something that I feel better about. And if the fact is no, it had nothing to do with me that something that that person is really afraid is true about them, and they’re projecting it on me, then I can say, hmm, now I have a better understanding of that piece.

[JOE]:
So I’m sure there’s a bunch of listeners that you want to stay in this clinical discussion, but then I know part of the listeners would probably want to hear the business side of what you’ve developed. So in a minute, I want to kind of go there and talk about how people can learn from you in regards to what you’ve developed in regards to resources and how they might apply that to their specialty area. But when you think about your audience, how do you think about outcomes? Because I think it’s very clear when you’re in a clinical session, traditional mental health counseling, when you switch to more of a coaching role or a consultant role, some things change. And I think, especially with laws around online counseling, and just how hard that is, even though we know that people need mental health services, how do you look at outcomes? How do you think through that as a professional that isn’t doing it in the way that maybe other traditional mental health providers have done it?

[DR. RHOBERTA]:
Well, are you thinking, in terms of outcomes, what the client benefit is, or what are you thinking when you’re asking the outcome question?

[JOE]:
Yeah. I guess I’m just thinking that it’s very cut and dry in a clinical setting. When you kind of make a treatment plan, you go over the treatment plan, you reflect on the treatment plan, how it’s going. That’s a very cut and dry way, whereas the work you do is different than that. And maybe my question would be more like, how do you view that work in regards to its effectiveness? Yeah, I guess in regards to the effectiveness of it?

[DR. RHOBERTA]:
Well, it’s wildly effective, I will say that. People don’t really need a treatment plan and all of those things in the same immediate necessity of feeling like, ah, somebody sees me, somebody hears me, somebody gets it, somebody can identify the things that I can’t quite put my finger on. And so, they need that guide on the side. I never call myself a coach. It’s not something I do. I call myself a consultant because you go to a consultant, they’ll look at what’s going on, you hire them to assess what’s going on and give you some options of strategies to move forward. Things to think about. The client chooses which one, the consultant then helps them with the choice and helps them enact it. And then they go away feeling powerful because they made great choices. So, it’s a different model. And that’s where I think there’s a great deal of power from my clients. You know, as I said earlier, I have clients all over the world and they feel very empowered, they feel heard, they feel seen, acknowledged, and accepted for where they are, never blamed any further. And then they get strategies, they get insights, they get skills. Many times, I will say to them, you know, don’t make any rash decisions unless there is sexual or physical abuse. Let’s work within the paradigm right now to find out who you are, what you want, what’s going on, why this has been acceptable to you, why it is now unacceptable to you, what you need to know, what are your next best steps. It’s very straightforward in that way.

[JOE]:
Yeah. Now, do you feel like clients or people that follow you understand that differentiation between consulting and a typical clinical relationship? Or do you feel like there’s some education there that you have to do additionally?

[DR. RHOBERTA]:
No, I don’t feel I have to educate them at all. They come to me because they want what I have. So, I don’t have to make any differentiation because they weren’t looking for a clinical model.

[JOE]:
Yeah. Yeah. I think that it’s such a new way of thinking, I think that what I love about it is, so often we put ourselves in a box and, whether that’s the steps of a career, or what we can do, to think differently, and say, what is it that I feel is gonna be most effective? And then how do I offer that to potential clients? I love that you’ve taken the time to really think through, how do I help these people? And how do I do it in a way that reflects the kind of work that I want to do in the world?

[DR. RHOBERTA]:
Well, it’s… I’m glad you think it’s neat. I do. I mean, it took a big step, obviously, Joe, to go from one way of providing assistance to a whole other paradigm that I kind of created for myself. I knew I didn’t want to get into the coaching realm because coaching had… there’s no room for the therapeutic model in the coaching realm. I have a friend who’s one of the founders of the International Coach Foundation, we were having a – Federation, rather – we were having a big talk because I said, I read things online that coaches say, well, I can heal trauma, and whoops, no. So, what do you think? And she said, well, if you ever send somebody’s advertising to me that says that a coach can heal trauma, and they’re a member of ICF, I want to know about it because we have a code of ethics.

[JOE]:
Yeah.

[DR. RHOBERTA]:
Right? So, I did take all these things into consideration, Joe, when I made the shift, and I wanted to know how can I make the biggest impact and help the most number of people in this model, because they may not have the finances to go and get the help that they need. And way too many times, and I’m sorry that this is the case and I understand why it’s the case, that I have had so many people who went with their partners in hopes that a mental health professional would see what was going on and help them. And mental health professionals who are not in my specialty field may not see that at all. And so they would go, and the Hijackal was delighted with the opportunity and the challenge of exploiting, seducing, manipulating the therapist into believing their truths about the partner, and then joining with them to make the partner wrong. And it happened way too many times.

[JOE]:
Hmm. So, what would you say to those people that are doing that clinical work of how to spot a Hijackal and also how to work in that? Say they came for a couples counseling; what would you recommend to that therapist? How can they identify a Hijackal? And then what can they do about it in the clinical sessions?

[DR. RHOBERTA]:
Oh, well, I would be probably going out on a limb to say too much there. But basically, if somebody’s sitting in front of you, and one person is being super charming, and you can read anything in their behavior that is seductive, see that as a red flag. If they’re trying to charm you into believing them and they’re being maybe complimentary, maybe they’re keeping a lot of eye contact with you and maybe they reach out and touch you. They do things to say, come into my web over here. And when you see it from my point of view, you’ll just see that my partner is totally unreasonable and the poor thing needs help. And when you get into that energetic and I think the energetic of it, Joe, is very clear, once you see it, that you can then say, oh, I have a whole other set of questions to ask here. And when I see clients together, which I often do, because we don’t know if the person’s a Hijackal or not, so we have to start there. After the second or third time, when I’ve got a sense of it, and I get into asking questions like to each of them, what do you think your part in this particular problem is? That’s when it will show up that the Hijackal will then point fingers and have no part in the problem. No part at all. It will be all the other person’s fault. And they will have 10 good reasons why that’s so and they take no responsibility for what’s going on. You’ll notice that they have little empathy for their partner. And these are things that should show up very clearly to say, oh, this is not your average communication or conflict management issue. It is something other.

[JOE]:
I’d love to shift into people that have a specialty and what they can do to get content out there beyond their clinical work. So, what are some of the first steps that you would recommend people take if they have a specialty that they think can go outside of their private practice?

[DR. RHOBERTA]:
Write about it. Certainly, if you Google my name and you put articles or something, you’ll get hundreds and hundreds of them. I wrote extensively in the article and blog market for a long time. And then I added my podcasts. And then I’ve been an expert on certain sites like your Tango or Good Men Project or things like that in my niche area. And so, I focused completely; I started with passive aggression, and then I broadened it into the whole Hijackal realm. So, anything to do with personality disorders, although I don’t talk about them at all. So, you have to get your word out there. You have to be someone who demonstrates that this is something that you are focusing on, because then other people will identify with it. I know that 15 years ago, when people would say to me, you need a niche, you need to get the narrowest niche possible. I was resistant, like, oh, but I can help so many more people if I just do couples work. Well, actually, it turned out that for my business and for me and my energetic, getting into this very deep, narrow niche was the best thing I ever did.

[JOE]:
Why is that? Why has it been so successful for you, do you think?

[DR. RHOBERTA]:
Well, first of all, every morning what gets me up in the morning, floats my boat, and flips my skirt is helping people understand this, right? So, I don’t have to say, oh, we’re gonna go through the, you know, he never tells me he loves me business all day. Oh, and then I get to talk about Hijackals. No, I get to do what I want to do all day. Secondly, I could become an expert in one thing. I could talk so much more about this one thing in so many ways, and then I could find different media to do it in. So then, I’ve had podcasts since 2002. Right now, I have two podcasts, Emotional Savvy and Save Your Sanity. They’re doing very well. You know, we’ve had about 123,000 downloads, and then part working on YouTube, really understanding how YouTube grows and all the SEO and things you have to do around data. I’ve got about 360 videos up there, you know, meeting people where they are specializing, understanding SEO so that you know exactly what you talk about. You will see that if you look into SEO, you’re going to get a different concentration of numbers if you’re looking at narcissism than if you’re looking at relationships, and then you have to know my people are the ones who are looking for narcissists and relationships, not just relationships, and then you get into the whole analytics behind everything, and you get that working for you.

[JOE]:
What do you think gets in the way of people creating that much content? I have my guests, but I’d love to hear what you think about why someone doesn’t write all the articles and do YouTube and get interviewed on podcasts? Why do you think clinicians don’t do that more?

[DR. RHOBERTA]:
Well, I have two reasons. The first one you won’t like the second one you will.

[JOE]:
Okay.

[DR. RHOBERTA]:
The first one is that if you stay in private practice, and particularly in a group practice, you don’t have to market, and you may be very uncomfortable with the marketing world. And you may not know how to do that, you know, which is why they turn to you, I’m sure. And they, the one that you might really like is that even though it’s difficult to write, for some people, it’s very easy for me, that’s why I’ve written so many books. But even if you don’t write easily, if you write consistently, then you can train yourself to do that. So, you need to know that so that you will get over the stumbling block of, oh, that’s hard. And then having the technical knowledge to do all of this, well, I have it because I have been doing this since 1996. But you can always pay somebody for it. And it’s not necessarily terribly expensive. So, don’t let technological issues get in your way, either.

[JOE]:
Yeah, I agree with you. I would add to that, that I think there’s a… there’s sort of a being paralyzed by perfection. That, especially for highly trained people, they’ve gone through grad school, they’ve written the paper, they turn it in, they get the grade and realizing that getting things out there on a regular basis means you’re gonna stumble, it means you’re going to screw it up, it means that you’re going to either edit it or you’re going to choose to leave it in there, and getting over that fear of screwing up publicly. When you can do that it makes it easier to create regular content. And of course, you want to edit things. Of course, you want it to look good, but you’re going to screw up, you’re going to misspell something that’s going to get through your editing process. But the more that you can learn to get over that and jump before you’re ready, the more that it seems like you can create regular content that will start to resonate with more people.

[DR. RHOBERTA]:
Well, I absolutely agree with all that, and I would add something else. I had to really struggle to not write in academic language. It took me about a year to be able to write in the common vernacular that anybody could relate to. And I really wanted to be able to do that, Joe, so that it doesn’t sound like some convoluted psychological message. It talks about how you feel and what that looks like, and you know, what’s really going on in your day to day life. And I think that’s a very important piece. Yes, I could go and write in academic journals. I can turn that switch back on, but I had to learn to have another channel too.

[JOE]:
Now do you think that people should start a separate website if they’re starting to build projects like this or should they keep it within their clinical website?

[DR. RHOBERTA]:
I don’t know, it depends if you’re a sole practitioner, you can do whatever you like. I would certainly say put it on your own website and demonstrate this growing shift or this new niche or whatever it is, and let people know that, hey, I gotcha.

[JOE]:
Yeah, yeah. You know, for me, and having done podcasting as well, you know, you’ve been doing it for so long, which is so awesome; you were an early adopter. I think a lot of people say, well, should I start a podcast now? And I usually say absolutely, it’s still the early phases. I mean, when you look at the stats, I think there’s six or seven hundred thousand active podcasts right now, compared to however many millions of YouTube channels and blogs that are out there. What are your thoughts in regards to podcasting and whether people should get into it at this point?

[DR. RHOBERTA]:
Well, I think podcasting is a very viable medium, but I think you do need a niche and I think those two things have to go together. Until you’re willing to say, what is my exact niche. People like to do what I did 15 years ago, well, I can help so many more people if I don’t narrow it down, but if you’re going to have a podcast, it better have a very clear audience in mind.

[JOE]:
I totally agree. I just met with a local guy yesterday for a beer. And one of the big things was like, who’s in and who’s out in regards to who your listeners are, like, what’s the culture you’re trying to create through this podcast? And if you can’t answer that, you’re not going to attract anyone because you’re saying, I’m going to attract everyone. But everyone’s not going to listen to it. So, I totally back up what you’re saying there.

[DR. RHOBERTA]:
I think it’s very important. I was working with my team this morning and we were just doing some random check-ins; putting different combinations of words in quotes and checking into Overcast or Castbox or TuneIn or wherever the podcasts are, and just seeing what’s hot and what’s working. You have to do a lot to understand how to position yourself, and you need to be comfortable. And just chatting with folks is… You and I could have a very convoluted conversation with $10 words and it would sound absolutely wonderful to a clinician who reads that as shorthand and is grateful for it, but the average person wants to say, I know nothing about that. What I do in life has nothing to do with that. I want to hear that someone knows how I feel or what I’m going through, and I want to hear it in my language. So, it’s very important to be able to make that shift and have a niche that people can identify and that they can relate to immediately. They don’t have to wonder.

[JOE]:
Yeah, such great advice. So, Dr. Rhoberta, one of the last questions I ask is, if every private practitioner in the world were listening right now, what would you want them to know?

[DR. RHOBERTA]:
I think I would reiterate, Joe, that you need to know who you are, what you’re about, who you serve in the finest possible niche market. And know that once people know about your niche, they’ll know you can do other things. Don’t worry about that. But find something that floats your boat, and you’re excited about it every day. I can hardly wait to learn more things about Hijackals. I am always reading; I’m always relating it to attachment theory or this or that or the other thing and putting it into vocabulary that my audience can immediately understand. And I would recommend speak the language of the client.

[JOE]:
So good. Dr. Rhoberta if people want to connect with you and learn more about your work, what’s the best way for them to connect with you?

[DR. RHOBERTA]:
Well, there’s a couple of ways, Joe. My website is transformingrelationship.com, lots of things there for you, including my membership program. If you want to find my podcast, you’ll also find them there. Or you can find my podcast and my YouTube channel on relationshiphelpnetwork.com. My YouTube channel is called For Relationship Help but all the links are at relationshiphelpnetwork.com. So, there are many ways to watch and listen and read what I’m up to. And if you’re not sure about Hijackals, then you can always download my book How to Spot a Hijackal at hijackals.com and you spell that hijack-A-L-S.com.

[JOE]:
Awesome. Well, Dr. Rhoberta, thanks so much for being on the Practice of the Practice podcast.

[DR. RHOBERTA]:
Thank you so much. And thank you for the work you do, Joe.

[JOE]:
Well, thanks so much for listening today; really excited about what we have planned for you throughout the summer. We have two podcasts a week that are going to be going live, we have a lot of great people coming up. Actually, on the 16th, we have how to build amazing funnels; we also then, on the 18th, have a person that started a group practice a year ago and now has 30 clinicians. Then, on the 23rd, we’re going to be talking all about how to protect your assets, and then on the 25th, how to build a sales pipeline. And so, we’ve got some really great episodes coming up. As usual, thank you so much to TherapyNotes, who has been a sponsor for years. TherapyNotes is the best electronic health records and they’re adding video to their platform, and so you can sign up for that as well as the HR, that’s all included. Use promo code JOE to get two months for free, and that includes the video software as well. That’s so important right now, to have a HIPAA compliant telehealth software. So, head on over to therapynotes.com, use promo code JOE. Thanks so much for letting me into your ears and into your brain. Have a great day.

Special thanks to the band Silence is Sexy for your intro music. We really like it. This podcast is designed to provide accurate, authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical or other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.