Joe Sanok 00:00:00 Using different phone systems and devices to manage your practice is a headache. Open phone makes it simple with a single app that brings your business calls, texts, and contacts into a single place across all your devices. Activate your seven day free trial and get 20% off your first six months when you sign up at Open phone. Com forward slash Jo again that’s open phone.com/jo. This is the practice of the practice podcast with Jo Sarna session number 1007. I’m Jo Santa, your host. And welcome to the practice of the Practice podcast. I am so excited for this summer series. We are going to be interviewing movers and shakers that are in and outside of the field of counseling business leaders, innovators, thinkers, people that are engaging and innovating on just levels way beyond what most of us are doing. So I’m really excited about this series because, you know, it’s summertime. A lot of you, maybe your your numbers are down a little bit. Maybe you’re choosing to take some time off, maybe you’re giving your staff some time off. Joe Sanok 00:01:23 There’s all sorts of reasons that we may have a dip in our practices in the summer. Now, we did a whole bunch of webinars and training back in the springtime, so that you wouldn’t have a dip if you didn’t want to have a dip. But you know, now is the time that if you are experiencing that, it’s a good time to learn. It’s a good time to recuperate. It’s a good time to think about some of the burnout and the things that you’re doing. So that’s why I’m so excited to have our very first mover and shaker, Tabitha Scott. Tabitha is recognized as a thought leader and innovator, public speaker, and a 2023 Forbes Business Council contributor. She specializes in harnessing human dynamics for sustainable business success and is a best selling author. Currently, she advises on engagement, innovation and leadership for major organizations. Tabitha has spearheaded IT strategy during a record expansion phase for a fortune 400 firm, and continues to grow in a number of different areas. Renowned for applying energy science to boost organizational innovation and productivity. Joe Sanok 00:02:19 Tabitha was instrumental in forming the world’s largest solar powered community, earning white House recognition for her tech advancements. She’s a prolific author with contributions to top publications covering energy, behavioral change, and burnout prevention. Tabitha. Welcome to the practice of the Practice podcast. Tabitha Scott 00:02:36 Thank you. Happy to be here, Joe. Joe Sanok 00:02:39 Yeah, I always am amazed at the people that land on my podcast. And you are one of those as well, where I’m like, oh my gosh, like, look, someone that’s even been recognized by the white House. I mean, for your work in solar. That’s incredible. I mean, are there ever times that you’re just like, I can’t believe I get to do this work because I don’t know about you, but like I lots of times I’m just like, I’m amazed that somehow the universe lined up this way, that I get to talk to people like this that are doing major things in the world, like, do you ever just have that feeling as well? Tabitha Scott 00:03:12 You know what? I have that feeling every day. Tabitha Scott 00:03:15 And I think when you’re really aligned to what jazzes you up, what energizes you, then work becomes more like play than work. And while sometimes we get buried in the fanaticism and the time schedules and all of the things that we have to do as soon as we can step back and like you said, it’s it’s summertime and people taking a bit of a break, taking a bit of reflection to recharge and when you can be in alignment with what you love, then, yeah, every day you’re like, I can’t believe I get to do this for a living. Joe Sanok 00:03:49 Yeah. When were you not in alignment with what you love? Like when in your career has it fell off and then how did you shift that? Tabitha Scott 00:03:58 Yeah, I have been in that situation a number of times. And recognizing where you are, your strengths and what you really love to do, what the types of things that you’re in flow. You lose track of time. You forget to eat lunch, doing more of those. So for me personally, I love change, I love innovation, I think in the future as a natural state of being. Tabitha Scott 00:04:22 So when I’m in jobs that were like risk compliance and you had to find risk and reasons not to do things, it was the opposite of how my brain works, which is how can we get around this? How can we do it differently? How can we leapfrog this, you know? so I think really recognizing what is your strength that naturally energizes you and then trying to avoid being in those situations long, you know, for long periods of time that are opposite of that because that’s what causes burnout. Joe Sanok 00:04:55 Yeah. And I think that, you know, sometimes the things that energized us that were in flow, all of those things they shift sometimes, you know, who I was a year ago or five years ago or the things that I really geeked out on is completely different than where I’m at right now. And so I think part of that burnout prevention, part of that leveling up, which we’re going to get into, is recognizing when you’re personally experiencing those shifts, those interests, those life changes. Joe Sanok 00:05:21 You know, I’m a single dad with almost full custody of my nine and 12 year old. And so my life of who I want to be as a father impacts how much I put into my business or don’t put into my business. And so that’s different than how things were five years ago or will be in five years, when, you know, my kids are 14 or what’s the. That would be 14. Yeah. And and 17 like so that’s going to be a shift. And I think that idea that, you know, we kind of set it and forget it, to me that’s such a fallacy when we think about our businesses. What does that bring up for you. Tabitha Scott 00:05:54 What that brings up for me is that there is no one size fits all. And when I say find your strength in what you love. there will be a theme no matter what life is throwing at you at the current moment. it your your day to day life will change every day. It’s a constant. And so the adaptability, the way you adapt is kind of the secret sauce of staying energized. Tabitha Scott 00:06:24 And I don’t want to use the word happy, because if you focus on being happy, you actually end up more unhappy. It’s about finding your purpose and what really lights you up. So it’s looking at how you deal with those situations. Do you find the risk in them, you know, and assure yourself. And that’s how you feel better, over time. And then if that’s the case, find things that are more aligned with identifying risk and assuaging it versus if you deal with it in a transformational way or you need to, you know, enact change on it, then find a role that’s more aligned with enacting change. So it doesn’t matter if it’s soccer or practicing your spirituality or your your medical practice, whatever your approach is that makes you feel comfortable and happy and energized. That is the approach that will carry you through your life and a more successful way. Joe Sanok 00:07:24 Yeah, I want to start there because we’re going to dive into kind of growth cycles. In your article that was in Forbes and Bloomberg Businessweek. Joe Sanok 00:07:32 But when we think about burnout, when we think about kind of just those methods or mindsets of how we keep that, those aspects of, of joy, of happiness, of success, of growth, of all those things that go into having a career that gives us a sense of fulfillment when we think about burnout, that just is in such opposition to that sense of fulfillment. How do you frame out burnout and kind of that whole topic that therapists could implement for their mindsets or their ways that they kind of dig into their practice? Tabitha Scott 00:08:08 Yeah, it’s it’s interesting. I’ve kind of feel like an interpreter between the woo and the logic folks because, I fully resonate with what people are saying. spiritually, you know, and at the same time resonate as an energy engineer with the logic and the science behind it. And what I would say about burnout is the more you understand about frequencies, you can align. And in my most recent book, Powering Change, I take the popular psychological models like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs or Hawkins Map of Consciousness. Tabitha Scott 00:08:47 even Google Aristotle’s study on what makes the most successful teams. What are the psychological factors for that? Every single one of them line up in the exact same order. You know, you have your foundational core safety things, and then you start adding belonging. And at the top you have actualization. And in the spiritual realm, or, you know, thousands of years ago, in, in India, they mapped out your energy chakras and those chakra systems that power your body, quite literally. they vibrate at different frequencies, low vibe, you know, starts at the bottom. That’s your safety needs. High vibe. ends up at the top of your head. And those are your self actualized. Your higher needs are controlled by those chakras. And so what I would say is, you know, we have to remember in order to get to the future because this wisdom has been there forever. We’re just putting you can put any structure you want around it, but that fundamental thing of if you’re in a low vibe state, it’s just like, you know, water freezes, it turns to ice, and then it can’t move anymore. Tabitha Scott 00:09:59 It’s the same way with humans. Deer in the headlight. Our nature is to freeze when we’re in fear. And so if you want to move quickly, if you want to flow, you know, with a more powerful presence and stay away from burnout in those higher needs, then it’s finding ways to get your vibe up. both, you know, literally get your vibration up and your mood vibe as well. Joe Sanok 00:10:27 You know, it’s so interesting, you know, in doing so many podcasts at this point when we have different series that seemingly on the surface, are very disconnected and very different. And like, you didn’t even know that, you know, at the at the time of this recording is actually in the future. But at the time of the release of this, it’s in the past where, you know, throughout all of May, we did this psychedelic assisted Therapy series, where we were interviewing people from maps. We are interviewing people that are practicing psychedelics with their clients that, you know, around the world. Joe Sanok 00:10:56 They’re doing different research studies. And one of the core kind of questions I had is, how do we honor what has been through a lot of these traditional medicines and ceremonies? And how do we then also say we have different needs, you know, in the West, compared to what a lot of these indigenous cultures had, and people had all sorts of different answers to that. And as you talk about kind of your vibe on one side or the woo and you feeling like an interpreter between kind of the science and heady side of Western medicine or psychology and then the woo side of a lot of this. That’s exactly what so many of these people talked about, where they said, yeah, on one side we have ceremony, we have indigenous culture, we have these plant medicines that have served people for thousands of years. And on the other side, we have different needs and pains and modalities that, you know, if we view it as as therapy or something that needs to be signed off by the FDA. Joe Sanok 00:11:48 There’s just different needs there. So and not that what you’re saying is, is guaranteed like in the psychedelic therapy world, but it’s just interesting how some of these truths transcend just kind of where we apply them. That, you know, what you’re talking about is kind of business, personal development, getting your energy flow going. And that same model also really applied to what I just, you know, interviewed people for the last month and a half about. Tabitha Scott 00:12:13 That’s so true. And, it’s so interesting how, these medicines that have been around for millennia that indigenous cultures have turned to for enlightenment and many traditions that they’re now feared. And I, I’m going to go back and relisten to that. Do those interviews when you have them, out, because I think it can help people so much just to, to tap into their own mind and align with where they already want to go. So I think, you know, we do have different situations now, but there’s only one truth. And that truth is connection. Tabitha Scott 00:12:57 If you think about our language, Joe, like it’s throughout all of our language and we don’t pay attention to it, this fact that we’re all made of the same energy and by all of us, I mean, trees, leaves, plants, flowers, humans, animals. Right? We’re all made of the same exact energy source. And this vibrating light. It’s throughout our conversation, she lit up the room. I’m feeling off balance. He’s transformed. Like in all of our language. We use these descriptions all the time. I feel drained. I’m spun up today and eventually, you know, burnout. What happens if you have a good idea? There’s a light bulb over your head like it’s throughout our language. And in ancient times, we could still see the fields around people. You know, the the old study where in like Asia, if you show them a picture of a jungle and there’s a tiger in it and say, what is this? They’ll say it’s a jungle. And some of them will say, it’s a jungle with a tiger in it. Tabitha Scott 00:13:58 If you ask an American or someone in the West, what is this? They’re going to say it’s a tiger because we have missed the context we’re so predisposed for. Give me the top three bullet points. Get to your point. You know I have no attention span. I have no, you know, patience to see anything around that. We’ve literally trained, you know, our eyes, the the rods in our eyes and the cones aren’t developed as much as, as they are in other areas, and certainly not as much as when we were thousands of years ago. We had to use our peripheral vision and our night vision and things like that. So we’ve kind of gotten this tunnel vision for what’s right in front of us, and we’re missing a lot. So whether it’s modern times or ancient times, it’s about seeing what’s around you and really observing your space and what’s going on and thinking about it. We don’t take time to do that. Joe Sanok 00:14:54 Yeah. Joe Sanok 00:14:55 Now before we move on from burnout, what are some signs that someone is headed towards burnout. Joe Sanok 00:15:02 And then what are a couple things that they can start to evaluate and do. And I’m sure that each person has to kind of go through their own process of figuring out what works for them. But what are some starting points once people realize they’re headed towards burnout? So how do people know they’re headed towards burnout? And then what should they do to start to examine what they can do to respond to burnout? Tabitha Scott 00:15:20 Yeah. So going back to this sense of being an electrical being, if you were powering something, you know what happens. Well, it might start flickering turning off and on. So we’re the same if if you have, you know, really off days and then really on days if you’re flickering, if you find yourself starting to wane, pay attention to that If you hear yourself using words to describe yourself like I feel drained, you know I feel disconnected. Those listen for those words that discuss the state of being disconnected from your energy source. And that energy source can come from food. It can come from spiritual practices. Tabitha Scott 00:16:02 It can come from jumping up and down or riding a bike. So whatever your way is of regenerating, playing a guitar, you know, walking your dog, that’s when you’re feeling drained, disconnected. Those are your triggers, your cues that say, okay, I got to get charged up. And so and I’m coming at this from an energetic, not a psychological standpoint. So your listeners that are counselors, they’re coming at it from a little bit different angle than what I mean. I’m saying listen to your your intuition, your energy level itself. Think about how you’re feeling in that moment. Your body’s feeling and then ask yourself, am I needing to recharge more and more and more? Are you finding yourself? You know, when people are really depressed, what do they do? They lie in bed. They have a really, really low vibe. And so think of it in terms of how do I get my vibe up. whereas a psychologist would approach that as, how do I feel about that? What mentally is going on? They would put it, you know, in the mind, not all of them. Tabitha Scott 00:17:09 Some do body work as well. But I’m saying it’s it’s both and not either or. Joe Sanok 00:17:24 Something always comes up when you’re running a private practice. Well, gusto is payroll, and HR services can make it a little easier. Gusto was designed for you, the small business owner. They take the pain out of running a business, automatically calculating paychecks, filing payroll taxes, setting up open enrollment. Gusto. Does it all want more time tracking health insurance 401 day onboarding, commuter benefits offer letters, access to HR experts. You get the idea. With gusto, you can focus on the joy of running your business. It’s super easy to set up and get started, and if you’re moving from another provider, gusto can transfer all the data for you. It’s no surprise 99% of businesses said the value they get for gusto is worth the price. And here’s the best part because you’re a listener, you get three months totally free. All you have to do is go to gusto.com/joe again. That’s gusto.com/joe I’m telling you you’re going to love gusto. Joe Sanok 00:18:27 Get started today. Now I know you had an article that was in Forbes also Bloomberg Businessweek on growth cycles of of businesses that we can apply to practices. I’d love for you to walk us through that. because I think sometimes people, especially when I’m doing consulting with folks that are getting to a new level, they feel like they’re doing it wrong because they’re shedding so many things that were past mindsets that worked for them, past staff that worked for them, and then they’re moving into this new phase. And there’s sort of this jumbling that happens between phases and just the normalization with them of saying, no, you’re you’re changing phases. You’re you’re moving into something different. It’s very normal that the bootstrapping mindset does not serve you anymore. I’d love for you to walk us through those growth cycles you wrote about, and then maybe we can have some follow up questions around each phase. Tabitha Scott 00:19:18 Absolutely. And Joe, you’re so right. What serves you today as your business grows and changes is not going to serve you well tomorrow. Tabitha Scott 00:19:25 So it’s not cookie cutter one size fits all. One of the things I did in powering Change as well is I took those four growth cycles birth. You know, that’s when you’re starting up a new phase or a new business and you’re starting to test it out. Growth is when it’s taken off and it’s starting to grow up. The curve maturity, which is at the top of the curve and then decline where it starts to fall off. And the perpetual growth cycle would be to loop in and start again with innovation and start a new growth cycle. And what happens with organizations like you had Amazon and Blockbuster where Amazon evolved, you know, they jumped onto the new curve and blockbuster did not. It fell off. And each of those phases has a very unique need and skill set. So if you’re energized by starting up businesses, an Elon Musk type, he loves starting up new businesses. And once Steve Jobs is another one, once it’s already in the cycle of growth, then what you need is no longer an inventor. Tabitha Scott 00:20:35 You need a scalar. So you need someone to add structure to it so it can grow as much as possible. It’s like when you put a plant in the ground, and sometimes you trim off leaves along the sides or at the top, so it will push out. But it’s that trimming and refining process as it grows. So you need people that can understand innovation, but can execute and start to build that structure. Then at the top, once you reach maturity, that’s like your cash cow or in a in a practice that’s I have a well-oiled practice. It’s been around for a while. Everybody knows what they’re doing now. You need to think about efficiencies and eke all of the efficiencies you can out of it. that’s the problem that happened with Southwest Airlines, a couple of years ago. Whenever they hired a new CEO to replace the former CEO, they were in the maturity phase. And those CEO’s, instead of getting someone to jump onto the new curve, they kept hiring more people that were just making it more and more and more efficient and more and more lean. Tabitha Scott 00:21:40 So they weren’t investing in technology, they weren’t innovating, and their systems couldn’t keep up. And it crashed. So depending what fazer and today, you need to maximize the things within that phase. And your strategy is going to change with every phase. So in the maturity case your strategy would be I need to be finding someone to reinvent myself before you’re in the decline phase. So you’re looking one phase ahead at all times and in your staffing plan. That’s who you would bring on to help you graduate into the next phase. Where companies get it really wrong sometimes is maybe the entrepreneur that started it, stays around too long and that creates chaos. Think of them as energetically. They’re like the the speedboat going across the lake, which is really fun if you’re writing it. But if you’re in the houseboats next to it you know, it’s really shaky for the people around you. You create this wake that’s really disruptive. and in contrast, if you have all, you know, and a lot of fortune, five hundreds are like this. Tabitha Scott 00:22:47 If everything is so mature and so bureaucratic, then you miss all the flexibility, you’re siloed off and you’re not getting that cross-pollination of ideas. So, you know, these concepts found in nature of diversity, cross-pollination networks, we can learn a lot from just looking at the patterns in nature and the way energy flows. Joe Sanok 00:23:12 And what would you say for the average therapist that owns a practice? So their life cycles, typically they start the practice, maybe they want to leave their full time job, they add an assistant, they get too many referrals. They add their first couple of clinicians, either W-2 or 1099. you know, they get to say five and realize that it’s kind of a breaking point where they need to bring in some more staff to support, and then they start to look to scaling from 10 to 20. And then, you know, maybe, you know, a handful of, you know, every 100 or so practices might go to, say, 50. When you think about those phases specifically of a private practice, how would you lay over your lens to what I just described? To give some practical tips on each of those kind of jumps into the next phase. Tabitha Scott 00:23:58 Yeah, I think for for medical and health care specifically and growing out of business organically, which is probably going to be smaller site businesses. It’s about finding what works like what is your particular secret sauce? Is it having online scheduling? Is it, you know, what are the things that really click for you that allowed you to grow? Listening to those patients and what they like about the service? Why are they coming to you? You know, continually ask yourself, why are they coming to me? and then making sure that that goes into the other phases of your business as long as you’re continuing to expand like that, I would consider yourself in growth mode. Excuse me, I would consider yourself in growth mode. And when you’re in growth mode, you need to be thinking of how do I scale this? How can I continue this growth pattern? You’ll know you’ve reached the top and it’s mature when you’ve stopped that rapid growth. So when you reach that point and you’re like, well, I’m not really getting there’s no need to keep expanding. Tabitha Scott 00:25:08 Now you flip your switch a little bit and you’re about, how can I be more efficient? So think about it. And you growth mode. You want to lay the tracks. Where do I want to go? How do I stay on the track. But then once you’re in maturity you’re like, oh, how do I get a more fuel efficient vehicle that’s on the track? So you’re starting to lean and lean and lean out, and then once you start declining, you got to start either thinking about rebirth. do I sell this to someone else? You know, do I shift my core offerings here or do I divest? But thinking ahead is the key there. Knowing that once it slows down, you’re already headed for decline. So you need to think about rebirth, whether that’s selling the practice or, you know, pivoting where it’s at. Joe Sanok 00:26:00 So awesome. Well, let’s let’s just talk in the last few minutes that we have together of where people get the growth cycle wrong, like where does the owner get in the way? Where do staff get in the way? What what just goes sideways with with some of this? Tabitha Scott 00:26:15 Yeah, I think where I’ve seen it the most and I, I’m biased, I’m sure because I’m at the tip of the curve, where change is natural and very exciting to me. Tabitha Scott 00:26:28 So my bias is that most of the large organizations that I’ve consulted with or worked with. they miss the boat because they don’t understand the importance of the complete cycle of innovation. So instead of instead of embracing disruption and, you know, there’s plenty of folks GE, you know, and others, if you contrast like an Edison who is like invent and invent with, Henry Ford, who is these annoying salespeople keep telling me that people want different colors, you know, they’re driving me nuts. they’re completely different. So depending on your phase of growth, each would be powerful. And that’s where the people like Ford, while his company is sustainable, obviously, they were not embracing the creativity. And, you know, they ended up acquiring other companies that had that creativity, and it ended up coming in through other channels, but I think the biggest missing is that once companies get mature and get in their ways of thinking, this is how it is. They don’t want the disruption, they don’t want the change. Tabitha Scott 00:27:42 And therefore, you know, it hurts their business. Joe Sanok 00:27:47 Yeah. Joe Sanok 00:27:48 For sure. Well, the last question I always ask is if every private practitioner in the world were listening right now, what would you want them to know? Tabitha Scott 00:27:56 I would want them to know that they have the ability to set their own limits. And what I mean by that is we all get so frenetic about our time schedules. You know, there’s an endless rotating door of new patients coming in, and things can seem very overwhelming. And I would invite them to see these waves, these waves of change, these waves of Fanaticism and demand as something that can be surfed upon instead of drowned you. And, it’s really important to remember that we each can be part of the change that we need, in the world, whatever that is to you. It’s really important to just take a moment, even if it’s five minutes, and breathe and remember that these things are coming to you because you can solve them. They’re coming to you because, you have the unique capacity to help. Tabitha Scott 00:29:03 And so just remember to breathe and it’s okay. And we’re all here with you. Joe Sanok 00:29:08 So awesome. Well, if people want to connect with you, Tabitha, follow your work. Where should we send them? Tabitha Scott 00:29:14 They can head over to Tabitha, a scot.com, and they can see my books there. You can hit me up on LinkedIn or social media. You could, you know, Google Tabitha a Scott and Forbes and see the articles we’ve been talking about. And certainly powering Change is the new book that has come out that has all of these concepts mapped out. and I’m just so excited. I’m giving 100% of its profits away to wildlife restoration. to be part of the change that I’m really passionate about right now. Joe Sanok 00:29:51 So awesome. Tabitha, thank you for the work you do. Thank you for your commitment to businesses, the environment, human potential, all of these things that you’ve been talking about today, and can’t wait to have you back on the show when you’re doing your next venture. to keep this conversation going. Tabitha Scott 00:30:09 Thanks, Joe. I love your work. And this podcast is helping so many people. Thanks for having me today. Joe Sanok 00:30:15 Thank you. Joe Sanok 00:30:24 You know what I love about Tabitha? And kind of what she talked about is so often we bought into this narrative mostly through grad school, that this is what therapists do. Here’s the lane. You work for a nonprofit. You work for CMG private practice. That’s basically maybe some advocacy work. But when you look at Tabitha and how she’s brought together so many different fields and really made her talking points her own, I think that’s where, as we’re talking about movers and shakers during this series, that’s where movers and shakers really make progress, that they find areas that they’re passionate about that to a lot of people may seem very different, but they bring them together. You’re like a good Seinfeld episode or, you know, a lot of, you know, I do improv and long form improv, which is usually like, you know, 20 minutes to an hour long and a made up play. Joe Sanok 00:31:19 that’s what I’ve really been into lately. And we have this thing called red trillium, where it’s a murder mystery. We ask the audience for a ridiculous murder weapon, a ridiculous place to get murdered. And just like recently, we had getting murdered by a microphone in a laser tag arena. So our first three scenes are meant to be really far apart. And then the idea is they come together in something beautiful at the end, assuming we make it up well and do a good job. And I feel like that’s the sort of thing where you may have crazy different interests, and bringing them together in your own unique way is what’s going to help you level up and stand out and do work that you’re passionate about. Just like how Tabitha and I talked about at the very beginning, that we just love the work that we get to do. So if you’re finding that maybe you’re not feeling that you’re loving the work you do, we talk a lot about having a thriving, thriving practice we absolutely love. evaluate why, evaluate what you’re going to do to to move and to shake and to think about how you can add different things into it that will fill you up differently. Joe Sanok 00:32:20 Today’s episode was sponsored by gusto. Gusto is who we use for our payroll solutions. I absolutely love it because it helps do all the taxes and file everything, and I don’t have to worry about having a whole accounting team or bookkeeping team that’s doing that payroll. So tri gusto.com/joe, you’re going to get three months totally free. It’s going to help you with your payroll and so many other things like doing open enrollment, filing payroll taxes, calculating paychecks, all that sort of stuff you can do with gusto. Again, that’s gusto.com forward slash. Joe, thank you so much for letting me into your ears and into your brain. Have a great day. I’ll talk to you soon. Special thanks to the band Silences Sexy for that intro music. And this podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the producers, the publishers or guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical or other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.