[JOE SANOK] This is the Practice of the Practice podcast with Joe Sanok, session number 786. I’m Joe Sanok, your host, and welcome to the Practice of the Practice podcast. I am so excited to hang out with you today. We are covering everything around starting a practice, growing a practice, leaving a practice. We like to cover lots of stuff from that moment that you say to yourself I want to start a counseling private practice, I want to start a coaching private practice, I want to try this on my own, maybe even as a side gig to eventually leave your full-time job or maybe just pay off student loan debt all the way up through multimillion dollar group practices and leaving and doing podcasts and other things; all the therapy type stuff on this show. We do four shows a week so if you keep up with us, you’re amazing, or you need to go to life. No, just kidding. Hope you’re doing well today. I’m really excited that I was on the road for nine months with my kids and we were in a camper and that was during Covid and I’m really excited to hang out with Becca Rich today because Becca is an engineer turned certified holistic time coach and strategist. She helps entrepreneurs get their freedom, flexibility and joy they started their business with, by reclaiming their most precious resource time. Becca, welcome to the Practice of the Practice podcast. Really excited to have you on the show today. [BECCA RICH] Hi Joe. I’m super excited to be here. Thank you. [JOE] Yes, well to have a fellow digital nomad, even though I’m back home it’s really, I can’t wait to have this conversation today. I actually, we didn’t do a whole lot of prep before we started talking because I knew that we would just get into it, so I want to first just hear how’d you become a digital nomad? [BECCA] Oh my gosh, yes, what a journey. So I of course, love to take it all back. I think travel was so, so, so important to me growing up. It helped me see the world. At 17, I moved a thousand miles away from home to go to college and study engineering. I was only in the cubicle life for three and a half years before my husband and I decided that we were ready to go, ready to see the world and it was actually our plan prior to Covid to travel. Then obviously when Covid happened, a lot of plans shifted and we decided to travel within the States. We were out in near Jackson Hole for two summers on an organic veggie farm and then we finally made it across the pond to Europe in December of 2021. We have been in and out of Europe since then. I’m currently in Portugal, if you’re wondering. [JOE] That’s awesome. Yes, we had planned the road trip before Covid also, and it just, the timing worked out, I mean, great in regards to wanting to do digital school, either here, sitting at home for our kids or do it on the road. When you think about that initial decision to start to hit the road or to travel more how did you dip your toes into it, did you guys just go full tilt right when you decided that you were going to do that? [BECCA] Yes, so our initial plan was essentially to just take a year. We had saved up, it was like just one of those bucket list things to just backpack around the world. The original plan was to take a leave of absence and we were just like that was sort of the original plan. Then I started getting into the online business space. I was also, I trained to become a yoga teacher and reiki healer when I was in college to become an engineer and so I was practicing yoga coaching, if you will. I was just talking to my yoga private clients and they were really struggling with time is an issue to get present and get still and so I was like, maybe I could take this online and travel and make an income. That sort of then, that helped me shift into what I’m doing now. Then once obviously Covid happened, I was like, okay, I can take this full-time. I can travel the world and make an income doing that and working on my laptop. That’s why I pursue my business full-time and it’s two years later. I left my job July 17th, I think 2020, so it’s almost two years exactly. [JOE] Wow, wow. Now one thing that I think about for me being trained as a psychologist, as a therapist and starting private practice and all of that is so much of my identity had been wrapped up in becoming a therapist. So all of high school I was like, I’m going to be a therapist. Then you go get your degree and you finally get the job that for years you’ve been thinking about. For me it felt like a big loss of my identity. Like, wait, I’m not a therapist anymore. Now that’s great. It’s fine with me. But at the time it felt like a big really shift, like, oh my gosh, like, this is what I trained for, this is what my family sees me as. Did you have any of that where engineering was sort of like an identity of what you were going to become? Or was it not really that same sort of story? [BECCA] Well, so for me, like I said, when I was 17, I moved away for college and basically four months into college I got really sick from overworking myself. That’s sort of my background story. I grew up, my dad was an entrepreneur, my grandpa was an entrepreneur, watched them essentially be workaholics my whole childhood. So I went and did the same pattern and burnt out with an intestine infection. I was in the hospital and from that moment four months into college, I was like, I don’t know if this is my version of success. Like, I don’t know if this is what I want my life to look like. While, yes, I did graduate with my engineering degree and I worked for three and a half years in the field basically, when I became an engineer, I never really had my identity wrapped up in that. So I feel like I never really got to the point of having to unwrap it, if that makes sense. I feel like my identity, I’m really grateful to say this, I guess, which is like sort of awareness and even in this moment I’m like, I’m really grateful that I’ve never really identified myself with a specific label. So yes, that’s cool. [JOE] Yes. So when you say you started the online things and you’re moving to the Farm Mountain, Jackson Hole, take us through some of those initial steps to build maybe like a business online that could sustain you. What were some mindsets? Were you looking at your budget and saying, okay, I need to bring in this much per month, or how did you engineer what you needed financially to come in through the online business? [BECCA] I mean, I think when you’re first starting out, and I’m sure any of the newer people here in starting their own businesses, it still feels like, it felt like a black hole of, I have no idea where this money is going to come from. I don’t know where this income is going to be. Like, it was sort of just nebulous and that was one of the things that I really had to work on initially when I jumped into it. I mean, I was in a different position. My husband is a writer, a food and travel writer and editor and so I had his income, we had his income and we did our best to make sure that we weren’t overspending. Digital nomad life is really easy to overspend doing all the things. So we really made sure that we were intentional with how we were spending our money. Through that process I was able to rework my mindset around like the money scarcity or the money stress. That was a huge, huge thing jumping from a cushy engineering job where getting a paycheck, you have really sweet health insurance and all the things, and having to take that bold step to letting go of that and trusting in yourself, trusting in your partner, trusting in the universe if you will, that you were resourceful enough to figure it out. I was, and I am, I still am. I think it’s two and a half years, I guess, into being a time coach for folks in the entrepreneur business space. My clients really struggle with money scarcity sometimes too. So that was a huge thing. Then of course, what I talk about right, is, is this like hustle mentality is I have to do all of the things. I have to be all the places I have to give my whole self to my business and I have to work all the time and I feel guilty if I’m not working. Rest is uncomfortable, taking breaks is uncomfortable and so my business helped me do that. Then once I started helping others do that, it was even better for myself, my own healing, my own work around it. Then I got to see the ripple effect within my clients and my people when they shifted their mindset around having to do it all and not enough time, don’t get enough done. That was, is a really powerful shift as well. [JOE] Now, what’s your typical week look like? I always love hearing how people have pushed back against the typical 40-hour week and how they structure their time or think through when they’re going to rest and when they’re going to sprint and all those things. What’s your typical week look like? [BECCA] Yes, I love this question. So I think ever since I started my business, I told myself from the cubicle, because I burnt out before I started my business, I started my business with the clarity of I don’t want to get back to that place. I don’t want to go back to the hospital. So I was in the cubicle starting my business, growing it, and I was trying to keep everything to three days, and three is my magic number. As of right now, still to this day, two and a half years later, I have stuff scheduled Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, that’s it. I work, I accept take calls with clients and podcasts and all the things that I do Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Monday is sort of like my intro to the weekday so I’ll do my own therapy, I’ll do coaching, I’ll do any of the things that take care of myself, to take care of myself and my business more of like that CEO Day. Then the rest of the week I have completely unscheduled time so I can do whatever I want with it in that time. [JOE] Now on the days that you are working, what does that look like? Do you break it down as a percentage, like, I want to do this many coaching calls per week or Thursdays are more creative, or is it very freeform, like whatever gets scheduled? [BECCA] I have sort of a schedule. Of course, I’m like, I have a whole VIP service where I help people create their schedule, so I definitely use my schedule quite a bit. I’m at the point now where it’s a lot more free flow and freeform though. So I have specific times where I’m meeting with clients one-on-one that they can schedule through the Calendly system that I use. Aside from that, I have obviously, the specific goals that I want to reach in my business, whether it’s marketing, sales, networking, et cetera and so I have specific, specific goals for myself. Then it’s sort of like just your general time block in my schedule that then I can pick which one feels most exciting, most energizing that day or that week with my larger goals at hand or in the picture, if that makes sense. [JOE] Yes. [HEARD] As a therapist, the last thing you probably want to think about is doing your own bookkeeping and taxes. Heard is here to help with that. Heard is the financial back office built specifically for therapists in private practice. They combine smart software with real humans to handle bookkeeping, taxes and payroll. Regardless of whether you’re a seasoned clinician or in the first year of your practice, Heard will identify areas for growth and streamline best financial practices for your business. When you sign up with Heard, you’ll be matched with an accountant who will help you track your income and expenses, file taxes online and maximize tax savings. You’ll also receive financial insights such as profit and loss statements and personalized monthly reports. You can say goodbye to pouring over spreadsheets and guessing your tax deductions or quarterly payments. Focus on your clients and Heard will take care of the rest. Prices begin at just $149 per month for solo practices and can easily be tailored to fit your businesses financial needs. Sign up for free for a 15-minute consult today at www.joinheard.com. Again, that’s www.joinheard.com. [JOE SANOK] I want to think through the average listener, so they’re probably a solo practitioner or a group practice owner. They’re seeing 20 to 30 clients a week, and a lot of their money is wrapped up in if they show up for therapy. I would say a lot of people listening don’t want it to be that way. If you were coaching with them, what would be some questions you would ask? What would be some ways that you would dig into where they’re at? Then I would love to hear what strategies you would employ with them in regards to maybe shifting their schedule. [BECCA] Ooh, that’s such a good question. The first thing, of course, that I walk people through, I set people through is their core values. Most of the people that are listening, most of the people that I work with, like they went into their own private practice or started their own business for freedom, for flexibility. What happens is that we have to make a certain amount of money and we hustle and grind to meet that certain amount of money. So after some time your schedule is packed, you feel chained to all the things that are in your schedule. It doesn’t feel flexible, it doesn’t feel free. So coming back to the essentials, coming back to the foundation of who you are as a human being, like taking some time to write out what are those core values, what are the most important things to you as an individual? My question would be, when you look at your schedule, how closely are they aligned? How well are you living out your values in your calendar? That’s sort of like your big general awareness piece. But I think when it, especially when it comes down to people who are seeing clients there is that like, I can’t just delete half of these client appointments. I have to go to these 20, 30 hour a week time slots. There’s no doubt about that. So of course, one of the things that I would love to chat around is pricing. Of course, when you create your pricing based on your capacity, based on your schedule, your pricing is most likely going to shift. So there’s a connection there. I create my pricing, I do sliding scale for my coaching, and I reverse engineered really, like, it took me months to come up with my pricing because I was so intentional about it, and it’s completely based on my capacity and how many calls I want to accept in a day. My max is three to four. I do not want to take more clients than that because I’m not being of service to them like I could be. So that will probably dramatically shift pricing. Then aside from that, it’s sort of like, how can you add more of those core values into your schedule? How can you feel more flexible? Do you need more breaks between clients or do you need to work on specific days of the week? It’s sort of just like redesigning or re-engineering the schedule to meet your specific desires and wants, if that makes sense. Does anything come forward for you, Joe? [JOE] Yes, I mean, I think that idea of peppering in things that connect with your core values so for me, realizing that I work best when I just sprint and get as much work done during a certain period of time as possible. I’m not a person that wants to work two hours and then go paddle boarding for an hour and a half and then come back and work. To me, like when I work, I don’t want to waste my time. But when I don’t work, I am aggressive about my boundaries and so even just figuring out, okay, what are my core values? When I take a quick break during the day, being outside in my backyard and being in nature is really nice. So thinking through how do I pepper those things in and how do I make sure that they’re actually scheduled in and as part of the equation? So there’s people that they are locked in at that 20 or 30 clients a week. Their finances are such that they just have to do that. They haven’t started a group practice or other streams of income and so it’s just harder for them. But I think starting with your values and saying I started this business to be free. I could always go get a job with somebody, I could always go make the same or maybe a little less money and have less stress. You’re choosing to do a business and are you getting the values out of it such as time freedom or things like that? I think that’s such a solid question to start with. Where do you take people from there in regards to evaluating where they’re at? [BECCA] Yes, so I think one of the things that came from what you just shared is, is being able to play, being able to remove yourself from thinking about the limitations and the struggle and the problems and the stuff that’s heavy and coming back to just playing and the possibilities, playing in the openness, playing in what you want, what you desire, what your heart wants, what your body needs, what your family might want or need from you. I love being able to take people through like an actual idealistic or realistic ideal week or ideal day. Most people, most time management people will be like, let’s create your ideal week. It’s like working two hours a day. That’s great and all, but it’s, then most people will be like, but this is impossible. I don’t even know how to get to that place where I would have this perfect ideal schedule that whatever. So I love taking it a step a little bit closer, but also still playing in the possibility, so it’s sort of like combining the two, like where are you right now? What realistically needs to happen in your schedule and how might you, like you said, pepper in your core values even more. What does playing look like in your schedule? What could be possible for you? When you’re in stress, when you’re in survival, when you’re in those modes, overwhelm, exhaustion, it’s so, so, so difficult for our brains to imagine that something else is possible. So being able to work with a coach or a consultant or a therapist or anybody to, like I said, let go a little bit of the limitations. We can talk about them and bring them back in, but focus on playing for a little bit. Give yourself that energy that your soul is like really dying for. If you feel like more freedom or flexibility isn’t possible, it can be. [JOE] I feel like the more that you find that authentic self the easier it is to do good work. The blog posts come faster, you don’t overthink an email and overall, the ease of the work just flows out of you compared to when you’re stressed out and maxed out. That’s just not when you create your best work? One thing I do, and I’d love to hear if you do this, like how would you adjust it, but one thing I do with people that say they’re seeing 20 people a week and they’re just like, I just can’t see more and I don’t want a group practice yet, what should I do, is we’ll look at how much actual money is coming in. So say they’re at like, I don’t know, $125 a session times 20 sessions, that’d be $2,500 a week, just as like a gross. To just say, well, are you on any bad insurances that pay you $87.12 cents, and are you on any really good ones that pay you $150? Are you, do you have any private pay clients? So to even just look at, okay, if you were able to on average say, take that $2,500 and divide it by $150, if you’re averaging $150, you could be at 16.6 sessions a week. So I mean, you would save yourself three and a half hours of time that you could either see more people or you could just have fun or do other things. So even just starting to think about who are the insurances that are draining you and not paying very well, and you don’t have that many clients and what types of clients are really filling you up? When you think about the actual numbers with people maybe you don’t dig into that and that’s fine, but how do you help people think through some of those sides of as they build a business and some of that time freedom? [BECCA] Yes, I mean, I definitely think some clients are more inclined to talk about numbers than others. I think being a holistic time coach, we talk about anything from holistic meaning physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and how all of those parts of you as a human being impact how you experience and feel about time. Of course, numbers come into play a lot, especially with pricing, especially with schedule, capacity, a lot of those things. So I take again, a holistic approach to my questions that I work through my clients with. I ask them questions from, how does your body feel about this number, this pricing, how does your what feelings come up for you when you schedule three, four, or five calls a day? There’s so much that goes into behind the numbers that I am often more inclined to talk about. But of course, any scheduling stuff, like any Excel spreadsheet stuff that my clients create, one of my clients recently that I’m thinking of has like nine, this is a very masculine approach, but like he has like nine key indicators for a successful day. I love that he came up with a numerical thing to help him and his brain determine what is success for him. I have another client who wanted to figure out her unique capacity and change her pricing. She’s a web designer, which they are a completely different pricing model than like 101 and so she had to track her hours. There’s a lot of time tracking that can come into play, which are numbers and data that you then can analyze and really draw out a lot of information, like good juicy information from time tracking apps. Those are also really extremely helpful as well. [JOE] You mentioned that one client, that he takes a pretty masculine approach. I would love to hear, I mean, I would say that in general, most strategies around time were written by privileged white males, so a lot of our ways that maybe we think of seven habits of highly effective people. How would you describe maybe the value of a more feminine approach what that looks like things that maybe are undercover in the world, like they’re not given as much of a spotlight that you would say are really valuable. I’ve heard a lot of it as you’re speaking, but I’d like to pull it into that discussion around a feminine approach. How would you describe that? [BECCA] I think one of my guiding principles for holistic time management is that healthy time management happens in a loving and supportive inner environment, not through judgment, shame or guilt. That sort of ties what I want to share about a more feminine approach to time management is that most times time management brings up so much shame, so much guilt, so much, oh my gosh, I didn’t get this done. I didn’t fall through, I didn’t spend my time, I wasted my time. There’s so much inner shame and inner critical voice inner narrative that happens when it comes to time. That is where I believe that I as a coach have a unique view on all of this, is that I was not able to spend my time how I wanted to until I started working on creating a loving and supportive inner environment. When one creates a loving and supportive inner environment, it’s so much more flexible, it’s so much more freeing. It’s so much more aligned and authentic to the people that I work with, including myself. When I found like most time management strategies, like those are processes and systems created by other people, and what I do is I help people create their own systems, their own strategies, their own tools, their own belief systems that come from that loving and supportive environment. Just like there’s so many studies now that are showing self-criticism negatively impacts productivity, negatively impacts success. I feel like that’s sort of like an old paradigm that we’re all trying to release and let go of and shift more into this new paradigm of acceptance and love and compassion and empathy for ourselves and for others. So yes, I feel like also regular traditional time management, like your worth is tied up in checking things off your to-do list in achievement in the success. I believe that a feminine approach is that your self-worth is inherent. It cannot be earned by doing or achieving. So yes, it’s just a whole sort of like, just flips it all on its head. [JOE] Well, when you say that your worth is by what you’re checking off your checklist or what you’re getting done, I mean, that aligns so much with what I studied with Thursday is the New Friday with the way the industrialist taught us about business and seeing every person as part of a conveyor belt and just that you’re just a machine that can get plugged in; we’ve got a job description, we can just insert somebody else in there. That’s all you’re worth is, versus this post industrialist world and post at least first lockdown pandemic. I think a lot of us saw that before, but even more so during the pandemic saw, wait a minute, we don’t have to do things the way that we did it before. I mean, seeing some of the creativity even in the counseling world just blows my mind where people that thought that they were just stuck in an office doing 30 hours a week and they had a successful practice, that they’ve totally shifted how they do it, whether that’s doing partially online or whether that’s doing some sort of courses or group work or like all sorts of things. When you think about people post pandemic really enacting what you’re talking about, what are a couple of the maybe key bullet points that you would say really help people figure out how they want to work in this new and ever-changing world? [BECCA] I alluded to that. The first one that comes to mind is that I think a lot of people are tired of beating themselves up, about not doing enough, not doing the right things, just not being good enough essentially. I think that comes really connected to this conversation with childhood trauma, intergenerational trauma that is just growing and growing, growing, is sort of just like this inner critical voice that people just don’t want to deal with anymore. I think people want to be able to rest. I think people are trying to take more time off, are trying to find more flexibility, more possibility, more joy, more play throughout the day instead of like the traditional nine to five and then play on the weekends, but mostly the weekends is like the chores and like trying to make sure that you have everything else together anyways. So then essentially there’s no play time at all. It’s sort of like before I think that there was conversation around if I get enough done, then one day I’ll be able to enjoy. I think now people are like, I want to enjoy today and how do I do that? How do I enjoy today while also still pursuing my dreams, pursuing my goals, and also, I want to live my life now? [JOE] I think that when you’ve been faced with just whether it’s a lot of people I know have long Covid and people that used to be marathon runners find it very difficult to run or go upstairs or seeing aging parents deal with being in the hospital or having pneumonia from Covid or even outside of Covid to know that the health that you have today may be the best health you have in your whole life. Like, take advantage of that. The idea of working a whole lifetime only to retire when you’re 65, that model I think has long been on its way out that even more so in our generation now going through this as being like the adults of middle age that are at the peak of our careers, we’re saying, yes, of course we want to do good work. We don’t want to just sit around and be entitled or any of that, but we also don’t need to kill ourselves to only be 65 and then die. I think about my grandparents my grandpa worked like 40 hours a week in the Detroit auto industry, had to drive an hour each way and then they had this Sanok family store that he worked in every night. Sunday was his only day off, and they just bought this house in northern Michigan that was going to be like the place they retired and then his wife got breast cancer and died before they retired and got to enjoy it. It’s like how many people lived that story, and had to, I mean, like we have way more choices than that generation had, but they just say, we don’t have to follow that script anymore. We can push back on it and think differently. I love the work that you’re doing and just how you’re pushing back on that. If every private practitioner in the world were listening right now, what would you want them to know? [BECCA] I love that question. I think essentially everything that I teach like boils down to when you are a good boss to yourself, when you treat yourself well, that’s when you achieve fulfillment. That’s when you’re more productive. That’s when you experience more energy. Imagine if you had all of those things, how much easier it would be to achieve all of the things that you want, all of your goals professionally and personal. Just flipping the script on time management to enjoying today is going to make you so much more successful, faster and easier. [JOE] So. Awesome. Well, Becca, if people want to connect with you, if they want to read more about your work, what’s the best way for them to connect with you? [BECCA] My website is called the Holistic Time Coach, and I wanted to share also that I’m on Instagram if you like to DM, if you want to be more connected and see more about my travels and all of that, I’m over on Instagram at the Holistic Time Coach. Then specifically for your people, your audience in the next few weeks, I’m coming out with a program, so I’m going to be transitioning from seeing just one-on-one clients to seeing one-on-one clients as well as certifying healers, therapists, coaches, service providers in holistic time management as a framework modality that they can use with their clients. So I’m super excited about that. [JOE] So awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on the Practice of the Practice podcast today. [BECCA] Thanks, Joe. Glad to be here. [JOE] I love it, this idea of just restructuring how we do our schedules, our time even full-time workers that are working virtually are thinking through this. They’re having flexibility. They’re having to run and get groceries or drop their kids off at camp. It’s stuff that maybe we tried to do when we were in the office but couldn’t as much. Even a lot of this really applies to if we have virtual staff and to have that flexibility. I know that for our team in South Africa, I try to be really flexible and just say, here’s the outcomes that I need from your position and to just have honest conversations and have a deep level of trust for them too. The more that you can do that, the more that just helps you retain good quality people as well. We couldn’t do this podcast without amazing sponsors and one of our sponsors today is Heard. As a therapist, the last thing you probably want to think about is doing your bookkeeping taxes. I know that for me, I’m terrible at that sort of stuff, so that’s why I have a bookkeeper. That’s why I have an accountant, that’s why I have a Chief Profitability Officer. I have a lot of people that tell me what to do with my money, what to do with my receipts, things like that. You can say goodbye to pouring over spreadsheets and guessing your tax deductions and quarterly payments and just focus on seeing your clients and Heard will take care of the rest. Prices begin at $149 per month for solo practices and can easily be tailored to fit your businesses financial needs. Sign up for free for a 15-minute call over at www.joinherd.com. Again, that’s www.joinherd.com. Thank you so much for letting me into your ears and into your brain. Have an amazing day. I’ll talk to you soon. Special thanks to the band Silence is Sexy for your intro music. This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. This is given with the understanding that neither the host, the producers, the publishers, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.