Andrew Burdette 00:00:00 The growing Group practice podcast is part of the practice of the Practice Network, a network of podcasts to help you grow, manage and promote your business and yourself. To hear the other podcasts like The Practice of the Practice Podcast, go to practice at the practice.com backslash network. You’re listening to the grow a Group Practice podcast, a podcast focused on helping people start, grow, and scale a group practice. Each week you’ll hear topics that are relevant to group practice owners. I’m Andrew Burdette, a practice owner, and I love to hear from people, their stories, and real life experiences. Let’s get started. Thanks everyone for tuning back in to another episode of the grow a Group practice podcast. This episode, I am here with Amber Tolbert, founder and CEO of The Healing Collective, which is a very holistic, oriented, multi-state State practice. And welcome to the show. Amber Tolbert 00:01:01 Hi. Thank you. I’m excited to be here. Andrew Burdette 00:01:06 So I usually ask guests to kind of start off and give a little backstory about how they got to be in the here and now with what they’re doing. Andrew Burdette 00:01:13 So how did you end up being creating creating your practice? And then kind of how did you end up here and career wise too? Amber Tolbert 00:01:21 Yeah. so I ended up here with, a backstory. I think maybe like most wounded healers, I, started my own personal journey while I was in grad school and went through a couple of different jobs before I decided I would venture out on my own. ended up going from a solo to a group practice pretty quickly, and in that, felt really led by my own personal recovery journey to build a group practice that supports individuals, couples and families to, heal their back story. But also, consider and look at what pieces of their world are missing. maybe they didn’t get it. Maybe their parents didn’t have it to get to them. But there’s different types of stories that, impact us on different levels. And often our clients identify a lot with having a soul wound. Andrew Burdette 00:02:23 Got it. So it sounds like kind of similar to my practice to where it’s not. Andrew Burdette 00:02:28 I don’t advertise it. Spirituality is kind of a motivator for a lot of us. But yeah, mindfulness is this kind of like soft edged into that world. And so a couple of us in my practice were really passionate about the spiritual piece of things. And because if you’ve been through an awakening, it’s that’s traumatic in and of itself and takes a lot to integrate. And then the mindfulness piece is just enough to kind of settle in your practical day skills for the people that don’t want to jump way off into the pool of the universe, as it were. So, so cool. and you, you mentioned going from like, solo to group pretty quickly. So how quickly was your turnaround to go from solo to group once you got started in this field? Amber Tolbert 00:03:10 Yeah, so I did a couple of contract positions and, employee positions where I was doing intensive in-home with families for a few years, which I loved. Also, hardest job I’ve ever had in my life other than being a mom. but it taught me so much. Amber Tolbert 00:03:29 and it really inspires a lot of how I lead my team today, how I run my process and my group today. I went probably solo for maybe a year and a half, two years, and there were more clients than I could support. very good problem to have. and so I added to my team slowly. I think within three years I added two clinicians, three clinicians, and then after that grew pretty quickly. And now we’ve, just celebrated our 12th birthday as a group practice a holistic group practice. Andrew Burdette 00:04:08 Cool. And so was there any particular any particular factors around either delaying, expanding? I mean, there’s lots of people that kind of stayed small. I stayed pretty much the same size with a full time person and then a very quarter time limited person who’s very niche down. We kind of stayed at that level for about a year and a half. and then it just came down to like, I either need to go bigger to make this really work financially in a way that’s comfortable, or I need to just go back to solo. Andrew Burdette 00:04:36 But right now, I’m in this awkward size. It’s not particularly profitable. so was there a was there a similar kind of choice when you kind of went from yourself plus to, to then deciding to scale up to the size you are now or was there were other factors at play? Amber Tolbert 00:04:54 Yeah, definitely. in my process of, creating Building the Healing Collective, I also thought it would be a great idea to have two kids. So as my business is growing, my family is growing. and as a trained social worker, I was really determined to break out of some of the stigma stereotype. must be broke attitude of of what I do. And and going from solo to group practice. It was definitely in the beginning of financial, decision to make so that I could be more profitable because the number of hours I was putting in far exceeded the amount I was bringing home. and we had so many people in need that what I was doing. I, got so much incredible feedback early on that it really worked. Amber Tolbert 00:05:55 And so it supported me in developing the four stage model that my practice uses today, and not just from a financial standpoint, but there’s so much, as healers that so much passion we bring into this work. And so I create a big discrepancy in my story between profit and success. I feel like I was successful way before I was profitable. and I really didn’t, as a business owner understood what that mean, because I didn’t get that in grad school. So being able to recognize how, how can I get to the point where I’m profitable and successful? and so it grew pretty quickly from a means of needs. But then I got to enjoy it a lot because I was able to live a little more comfortably with my husband and my two boys and our four dogs. but I think the goal overall was to be able to support the community and how many people were trusting us with our care and their healing. Andrew Burdette 00:06:52 One of the things that comes up a lot, I can still remember sitting in grad school and just the martyrdom complex, and I always, you know, people that have known me for years have probably heard this before, but, you know, martyrs don’t have bills to pay because they’re dead. Andrew Burdette 00:07:07 Yeah. And so for those of us that plan to live for a while, like some of the money, peace has to come in. And compared to pretty much every other profession outside of us, like our hourly is generally lower and we’re underpaid, certainly by insurances. I my practice takes insurance, so my sliding scale rates are really to benefit Blue Cross, not because of what I would actually charge somebody directly, you know. but when people there’s so many solo practitioners up in my area and a fair number of them are stressed, because that idea around managing the business piece or thinking of what they do as a business as well as a public service. Is it really there? And until you kind of connect that money piece of things of like, sure, the goal is not to like extort people out of money, but at the same time, like, I need to pay my bills, right? And I can’t be a functional therapist if I’m stressed about paying my bills, especially listening to somebody else talk about their two week vacation to Cancun or whatever it happens to be. Andrew Burdette 00:08:08 So, I appreciate you kind of acknowledging that shift in thinking between transitioning from solo into group, because even kind of once you got to group about, I need to grow out of this level that’s not really functional and just decide to make this profitable. Amber Tolbert 00:08:24 Yeah. Well, and thank you for acknowledging that because it’s I have a principle that I my recovery informs my recovery, but also informs how I run my business. And it’s I can’t heal anyone else until I heal me. I can only take a client as far as I’ve traveled, and I hold that very dear to my heart because so much of my backstory or my core wounds were around worth, and I had to do so much personal work on money scripts and being able to step into my worth because of, being met with resistance, being shamed by potential clients, and not because that’s what that was, their intention by any means, and being able to recognize the level of quality that I bring to our field. It’s so layered. It’s so layered personally, professionally, from a business standpoint. Amber Tolbert 00:09:24 And in 12 years, one thing that I’ve learned is the healing that we offer. we term recovery. And although our culture views that very much as, a phrase related to substance use and abuse, which it is, and the healing collective recovery is working towards my truest and highest self and accepting all of my shadow work along the way, and it’s bringing me back home to me. And so, in other words, all this stuff that was put on me in my back story, my recovery is about taking that off. And that can’t be done in 6 to 8 sessions. And it also can’t be done sometimes in one hour. So developing a four stage treatment model and forming a team of women who are also, in their own recovery process, supporting our community in recovery was huge to me, and for me to be able to find these high quality clinicians willing to walk their talk, I also have to be competitive as a business owner. So there were so many reasons why it made sense to come off of insurance, and why it made sense to become a W2 And to be able to, not feel restricted by other powers that be, but instead be empowered by what a client needs. Amber Tolbert 00:10:48 It’s so freeing. It’s just amazing. Andrew Burdette 00:10:52 There’s a couple things in there that are interesting to talk about. I you probably could categorize clients and client engagement into two categories. You get the people that you know are out in their boat and there’s a leak, and they just want the duct tape on it and to get back to shore and then put it away until the next time they go fishing or whatever it is. Right. And then you get the people are like, no, it’s actually like rebuild the boat and make it really well. And the majority of clinicians I know are in that want those second camp clients that are really engaged do that deeper work. so so there’s that component of things you’ve mentioned. What’s your four part, model? Was your, your four piece model. Let’s talk about that for a minute. Amber Tolbert 00:11:30 Yeah. I love the discrepancy that you make in healers too. And in fact, we teach every client that comes to us Basically, that same dichotomy is there’s some clients that want to be, met where they are and move forward or move future. Amber Tolbert 00:11:45 And then there’s some clients that want to be met where they are, but go back to the root to heal whatever the root is, and then move forward and explaining that we are the latter. And the four stage model that I’ve developed based on that has been through all of my own personal recovery work, but also my work as a clinician, because it feels in in our industry we share all the knowledge, we share all the information, and we use it really, I think eclectic because not there’s no person that’s a cookie cutter. So in our four stage model it is, joining where the foundation of my business model as well as my client model is a parallel process. I can’t guide, walk with, shine the light for anyone that I don’t have a relationship with. And because I have a relationship, that doesn’t mean I’m going to have coffee with them. I don’t overstep any ethical or legal boundaries, but it does mean that I care about them as a human, and it means that I take the time to understand their story through their eyes and through that joining, we are able to build that foundation and that common language where we move into what we call stabilization. Amber Tolbert 00:13:04 And for many of the clients that find us, as you mentioned there in this, maybe one foot in, one foot out of a spiritual process where they’re really coloring themselves in and figuring out who they are. And sometimes they might be 30 and sometimes they might be 50 years old. But it is this process of stabilization and recognizing, behaviors, coping skills that used to serve me, no longer serve me anymore. And they actually have become limits or resistance, or get in my way and figuring out how to put some of those things down, or step away from those behaviors or those cycles. They’re informed by a trauma response. So if it were about just setting it down, we would have already done it. And moving through that stabilization where the client gets to identify whatever those numbing and medicating behaviors are that help them cope with, a time in their life where they had to really separate from themselves, and we moved from stabilization into what we call repenting. And that’s where just because my mom and dad didn’t have it to give to me as a child, doesn’t mean I spend the rest of my life in deficit. Amber Tolbert 00:14:19 Doesn’t mean I have to blame and fault either. It does mean I can just speak, in fact. And that’s some of what I was mentioning before by my core wounds really circling around worth and being able to step into a business owner, I had to be able to step into my worth first. Otherwise, I couldn’t make these clinical judgments in these business decisions on what’s best for my team and clients and community. It would be really narrow, focused on me. So when we go through repair printing, it’s really figuring out how do I do to me? For me, what was never given to me or done for me. And then once we go through parenting, it’s this stage of integration which is very much a spiritual process. Our model is inner child experiential therapy. And so the story that we’re rewriting with our clients is their backstory. It’s their narrative, but it’s also helping them realize that I am not my story. Those are things that happened to me or were put on me. And through this four stage model, I get the chance to take off everything that doesn’t serve me, everything that I don’t even believe in. Amber Tolbert 00:15:30 But that was put on me for many, many people, including me. That was religious trauma. It was growing up in a certain type of faith, community or religious community that I just didn’t identify with as far back as five. I remember sitting there going, what are they talking about? And being able to realize through my own recovery process, exactly what I believe in and exactly who I am, and that that’s not a competition with anyone else. It was just my language of being able to communicate with something bigger than me. And so that integration process is me being able to be, different and like that I’m different rather than trying to fit in and belong with everyone else. So the four stage model isn’t a okay, we finished the race. It’s just a framework of, when I’m in recovery, I have this gift of self-awareness so that I can figure out where I am or what’s getting triggered, and I can get back to a place of integration quicker, rather than maybe spending months or years in dissociation trying to stabilize by myself. Amber Tolbert 00:16:39 I do it in community where I can pick up pretty quickly what I need, and then have resources on how to get it. Andrew Burdette 00:16:48 Sounds like it’s a really values oriented thing, and you’ve mentioned that really integrates with the philosophy behind the group practice, too. yeah. One of the things I’ve learned as a group owner is all of your stuff that you haven’t dealt with gets exponentially louder the instant you’re taking on responsibility for other people’s livelihoods. Yes. So you better get it together and like or at least like not maybe together, but at least acknowledge it’s there. Because even just that acknowledgement allows you to kind of see it and just be like, oh, that’s this part over here. That’s that’s stressed out about this particular thing because of this past story. So Let’s maybe not have that cloud. This decision that I’m about to make that’s going to impact my team of five people or whoever it is, you know. Amber Tolbert 00:17:31 Yeah, absolutely. The need to please or be responsible for or protect. growing up in a codependent home that very much limited my ability to be a leader rather than a boss, because I want to control everything. Amber Tolbert 00:17:46 Because everything felt out of control. and now my team, it really leads itself. And I think that’s so much of us as group practice owners. or let me speak in the I, what I was looking for after grad school was someone to teach me how to do these systems, because working in my practice and on my practice at the same time is not sustainable. It’s it uses every inch of my brain from left side to right side because I, I call my team and and myself experiential inner child is right brain healing. It’s all rooted in how do we walk this out in right brain rather than left brain? Because it’s not about logically understanding it. It’s about recognizing that what my body is feeling is true. And sometimes my thoughts, oftentimes my thoughts aren’t. So when I can walk my own recovery process, I feel like it gives me like a two degrees shift, almost like my my horizon gets a little bit broader. By no means do I have all the answers or am I anywhere near to a standard. Amber Tolbert 00:18:57 It’s more of a the ability to be empathetic and trying to understand someone else’s story through my story, so that I can support them in figuring out what they want to do about it. especially as business owners too, when I’m clouded by some of those things like codependency or whatever. My backstory, was in deficit of I just spend the rest of my life trying to find that outside of me, and it really gets in the way from success or profit. Andrew Burdette 00:19:28 So I don’t know if it’s since we started the recording or if it was leading up to it, but you’d mentioned you have a fully virtual practice and so did you start that way? you said 12 year anniversary. I was going to say like, there wasn’t a whole lot of telehealth a decade or so ago. And I know we’re pretty much everybody’s really well practiced now. I will say it’s been interesting, like being in a disaster recovery area from Hurricane Helene since the first episode of recorded since hurricane came through Asheville area. And I’m kind of surprised by the number of my in-person people that are refusing telehealth. Andrew Burdette 00:20:03 I’m like, I don’t have an office at the moment, I got flooded. Well, we’ll get back there, but it’s just it’s been kind of interesting watching different people’s like how having a catastrophe like that roll through is really disrupted services in a way, and in ways I didn’t necessarily anticipate. But So. Yeah, it sounds like you got started. Brick and mortar. did you do any telehealth to start off with? And then where did where did that shift happen? Was it tied to Covid like so many other people? Amber Tolbert 00:20:30 Yeah. No, we weren’t even hybrid when we started. I’m pretty stubborn. And as a human in general, not just as a business owner. I’m pretty stubborn in that. I really enjoy in person direct care. what I found was in the process, pre-COVID, it served me really well. I’m also a teacher. And so in the process for I feel for so many healers were also teachers. And, sometimes that ends up looking like not just working with a client population, but also working with healers, whether that’s teaching them a modality or whether that’s healers, healing healers. Amber Tolbert 00:21:16 it served me really well to be in person, especially utilizing experiential, inner child therapy, because that uses a lot of psychodrama role reversals, role plays. When Covid happened, it was, devastating. I knew that part of my recovery was turning pain to power. And I also knew that the clinicians that had found me were meant to be with me. and what serves us really well in the last four and a half years, five years since Covid. sorry. I feel like I have Covid time blindness now of when that happened, but, we went virtual and for a little while we’re hybrid. And the hybrid services were, some eMDR, sessions that needed to be in person. Or they were our intensives, which we offer not just eMDR intensives. We’ve been doing experiential intensives that can last up to 2 to 3 days with individuals, groups and families for ten years. and the idea of transitioning that from in-person to virtual was devastating to me. I felt like it was taking away some of the paint of the artistic ability that we did, because I very much believe my team and I are very creative and artistic and, shifting during Covid. Amber Tolbert 00:22:54 One of the reasons that we are now 100% virtual, with the exception of intensives, is because numbers never showed a need to go back in person. We would have some clients say no, we want in person. And maybe they called around and ended up coming back, but Excuse me. My team and I have been 90% to 95% virtual since the beginning of Covid and ran with it. I believe that I have the highest skill set clinician of any group practice, and the reason for that isn’t just because we went through Covid, but it’s because we maintained our level of quality of care and added to it. So when we have clients come in that identify with our four different bodies our physical body, emotional body, energetic body and mental body, my team supports an integrative process that heals all four of those, and whether that’s through energetic, healing Reiki crystals or whether that’s through, clinical services like Licensed Clinical Addiction Specialist or eMDR, we’ve been able to utilize our four stage model to support clients in doing holistic virtual practice for four and a half years. Amber Tolbert 00:24:16 And it really has supported the idea that anyone who wants this level of quality of care can have access to it. It’s not cut off because I don’t want to travel into the city or I can’t travel into the city. It’s not cut off because I’m two hours away in Charleston. we serve clients all the way from Raleigh to Charleston to Greensboro to Greenville. we cover all of North and South Carolina, although my team covers all of the East Coast. So we’re also licensed in Tennessee and Delaware and have plans for growth. But for me, what’s really amazing by being able to provide this level of care is that my clinicians can attune with clients virtually just as well as we could directly. And I would have been the first one to say, that’s not true. I was because I love, love, love direct care. I’m very southern. I like to give people a hug. and although I still do direct care and in-person care for 2 or 3 day intensives, 98% of our practices virtual. Joe Sanok 00:25:30 You’re someone with a vision for your practice, for your side hustle, and for your personal journey. Joe Sanok 00:25:36 But when it comes to establishing your path and how to get to where you want to be with your practice, things get a little messy. You’re also someone who would prefer to go in person instead of to groups and listening to everyone else’s story. To me, it sounds like you could benefit from one on one consulting with our experienced practice of the practice consultants from 595 a month and up, you can work with a consultant that will give you more direction and practical, tried and tested tips match to you and your goals. For more information, visit practice of the practice. Com forward slash apply. Again that’s practice of the practice. Com forward slash apply. Andrew Burdette 00:26:21 I went back to seeing some of my caseload in person last year. And it was really nice to just have a change. there is a different dynamic in person versus telehealth. And telehealth is great, but there is just something about, I think, the what the if. I had to sum up just the main reason why telehealth is different. When you go to a therapist office, that physical office that you’re in hold space for you and you don’t really have that experience, virtually. Andrew Burdette 00:26:52 So sure, this is my home office that I’m sitting in now is really comfortable with the multi-use room, and I’m really I’m okay to do whatever I need to do in here. Actually, in like two hours, you’re going to see my therapist virtually because she’s only virtual, but it’s still not the same as like I went somewhere else and sat in the room. Right. And that’s the one thing that telehealth is always going to miss. But I also really, really, really like working virtual because I like to just if I don’t want to go in, it’s nice to just not go in. Right. Like, yeah. So and just also the accessibility piece you’re talking about to being, you know, I’m licensed in North Carolina and have telehealth privileges in Florida and South Carolina. So I have three states worth of market I can access. And then whenever the counseling compact, if they ever get it together, then that’ll be a whole lot more. Yes, you’ve got the same eye roll with that as the rest of us do. Andrew Burdette 00:27:43 But, you know, the the idea is you’re not just geographically locked to, like, seeing somebody that you can drive down to conveniently kind of thing. And I think that’s really the biggest benefit of telehealth is it it allows this to take place kind of wherever. Amber Tolbert 00:27:59 Well, I love that you point that out. And Your words were almost verbatim my words about a year into Covid. It’s never going to be the same. And I was just so resistant. and that was some of my own personal work, too, of really being isolated in my home. And what I realized very quickly, at least for our population, the clients that find us is part of leading my team from a holistic perspective wasn’t only about how do I support this client and stabilization with numbing through work. We offer systems work, which so many healers do now, thank goodness. I’m so grateful for that system’s perspective. And my clinicians, new clinicians, that I hired during Covid would come to me and they would say, Amber, I just don’t know if this is realistic because when they’re in their home receiving therapy and in the next room, is this person that just did this to them or down the hall is this person. Amber Tolbert 00:29:06 They had such valid points, and so much of our model is helping a human align with an internal locus of control, rather than an external locus of control. And now when I bring on new clinicians, part of my teaching is so much of what we do is we help them create their nest, their safe space in their home. And for many of our clients, that has never existed. They leave their home and come into our safe container, and then they go back home where it’s not safe. Whereas part of our model in stabilization is, how do you make your nest and your home? How do you get to a point in your system where it doesn’t feel like, excuse my analogy, this is just one that is always spoke to my body. I was not raised in a home of emotional safety or physical safety. And so when I teach new clinicians, the example I give them is if I’m working with a bartender who’s trying to stop drinking and is going to a bar every day, that’s going to feel like really hard therapy. Amber Tolbert 00:30:20 And what happens when the bartender decides I’m done with the bar? I’m going to turn it into a bookstore. Done. It is less about the beauty and the energy that I can bring to my office, which I miss and love. I loved being able to create an environment for people. And now I teach them how to create that environment in their home. And that’s what I mean by the level of attunement and the skill set of my team, because I think in some ways that’s absolutely needed, especially depending on where a client is in their journey. They have to get out and get some clean oxygen and at the same time, how do you make clean oxygen at home? Andrew Burdette 00:31:06 You’re touching on a point that comes up a lot like, so I have my cars as well, worked a lot with substance use stuff. started doing that actually while I was in grad school, because you could do some things and you’re like, what’s now the Sadc for the non master’s level people and stuff? but the question that would consistently come up, it’s like if you are someone that has a very if you’re a professional alcohol like alcohol drinker or drug use or whatever, I always call people professional. Andrew Burdette 00:31:33 Like that’s the level of mastery you have for doing this is think about it like that is you’ve mastered the skill and it’s automatic. There’s reasons why you can’t think through things, just like you don’t think about tying your shoes unless something goes wrong in the process. It’s all just autopilot. So how do you one bring a little bit more awareness in those moments through your day to day, and then to navigate real life where this is going to be a part of your environment. Like there’s going to be beer in the grocery store. Like how do you navigate these kind of things? Can you walk by the Doritos if that’s your thing, like, and notice it, but also not give it power, right? Not give it the same power and not give away your power toward that kind of thing. So I appreciate you kind of talking in this space too, about yes, there is. There’s generally a need to kind of come into a safe space to kind of process things and kind of plant a seed for something new. Andrew Burdette 00:32:23 But the real longer term thing is kind of having people kind of grow into that in their day to day environment. So that, obviously if you’re if you’re not physically safe in your environment, that’s different. And finding physical safety really is important. But in general, like that internal relationship, that internal locus of control you’re talking about, like, how can I think about something that I used to have a really intense with relationship to and then also not drown in, in that feeling when the thought comes up. Right. Amber Tolbert 00:32:53 Yeah. Powerful questions. Thank you for saying that. And to reiterate, yes, we offer outpatient therapy. So my team of licensed clinical addiction specialists, if there is a client that comes in, we absolutely do follow the criteria of who’s capable and who can work within an outpatient model versus who needs to go to our networking partners and then come back to us once there’s a higher level of stabilization. And, I kind of piss off a lot of people, at times when I say this, it is very much my team are trauma specialist, and we believe in work through a lens that I never met an addict that wanted to be an addict. Amber Tolbert 00:33:38 As humans, we use numbing and medicating to survive and unhealed wound. So we work from a lens of all numbing and medicating is rooted in trauma. When I support a client and feeling that level of empowerment when when my team can use some Cicd resources or do some of our workshops where there’s this realization of, holy shit, this is a generational pattern that goes for generations back of numbing and medicating. I didn’t cause this. I didn’t ask for this. I can’t control this. No wonder it is this shift in perspective of I never wanted this. This is me trying to survive something that I never asked for. And the other thing that my team does is whether we’re talking about codependency or whether we’re talking about alcohol, pills, exercise, porn, sex, all numbing and medicating are forms of avoidance or escape. In in our culture, there is this imaginary line where some of us require that higher level of care for a little bit of time, especially if it’s a substance. And, what we also know is, as a codependent, at one time, my brain looked very similar to that of someone suffering from a substance use. Amber Tolbert 00:34:59 Everything lit up the same way. So whether I’m people pleasing or whether I’m utilizing substances or behaviors like exercise or food, being able to bring that to my everyday life requires a level of what we call recovery, meaning working towards my truest and highest self. And part of our four stage model that I didn’t mention is, although we are a private practice and we’re not limited or restricted by insurance, the other thing, the other way that that benefits me and being able to offer the highest skilled clinicians that are really in tuned with their own recovery is we also offer free virtual support groups three times a week. And I run a parallel process. So everything that I built for my clients, I build for my clinicians and my team. So we have a, holding space for mom support group every, Monday night at seven. Excuse me, Tuesday night at seven, we have unmasked, which is our neuro spicy in recovery support group Wednesdays at noon. And then we have connecting for recovery, which is the original one I started four and a half years ago, and I probably have 20 to 25 clients that attend those. Amber Tolbert 00:36:15 But it’s also an offering to my team because we walk out our recovery just like our clients are. We show up, we share, we speak. It’s a community. And so to answer your question, yeah, for sometimes it is really hard to walk through the grocery store and walk past the beer or recognize, okay, only stay on the outside, ring all the shit’s in the middle, right? Like we develop that level of community. So we have a family of choice. And recovery is about, the gift of awareness. It’s not that I won’t relapse. It’s not that I won’t bump my head. It’s that I have resources at my fingertips that I can call in or utilize to get right back to where I was in integration. I don’t have to stay there for months or years anymore. Andrew Burdette 00:37:03 There, I take a developmental lens to pretty much everything to to where? Hey, either I grew up in a household where everybody drank a 12 pack every night, and that was my normal and didn’t think anything of it, because that’s the only thing I ever knew until I went to college and saw something different, let’s say. Andrew Burdette 00:37:18 Or, you know, hey, this this particular feeling I noticed when I took this particular substance or did this particular activity, like, suddenly I don’t feel so bad. So it seems like it solved a feeling. my therapist in grad school was like, hey, tell me, like Mr. Mind, like, have you ever problems? She’s like, have you ever solved a feeling? And I still use this with clients too, but some kind of thing like, oh, pairing this substance with this feeling like, I have social anxiety, but two beers and I don’t notice it. Right? You’re not really fixing the social anxiety or just masking it, right? with an adaptable skill that’s not really adaptive in the long run, but for the moment kind of is. But there’s, a fantastic book called The Biology of Desire. There’s another one called The Unbroken Brain. They they’re both, the biology of desire is great where it’s like there’s nothing functionally different between craving a chocolate cake and craving a beer. Andrew Burdette 00:38:12 They are absolutely the same functionally. So the sooner we can kind of relents things and kind of generalized out, the better off are going to be. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Amber Tolbert 00:38:22 And I think that’s so important because as you mentioned earlier, professional alcoholics or professional workaholics, which is also myself, I have strong tendencies. I grew up on a farm, work ethic was far exceeded what I should have been doing at any point of childhood. and, I love I own another business called Amber Talbot Consulting, and I love this group we run where it’s, group healing for group practice owners that are looking at. How’s my backstory getting in the way of what’s going on with my business and being able to walk through and heal that? Because not all group practice owners, not all, do we give ourselves the invitation and the permission to do our own work all the time, or feeling like, oh man, I got to do daddy stuff again? Like, I’ve been doing daddy stuff since he passed when I was 24. Amber Tolbert 00:39:16 So I frequently the ones saying, oh, I got more daddy stuff to do, but it’s so true because it’s so a part of my foundation. So as group practice owners, being able to stay so permissive to our own healing, that shows up so much in our leadership, to our team, who then are treating so many more people than we could treat Individually. So it’s just really powerful to me how we can still be a part of that direct process, even though we might be working on our business rather than in it, and being able to look at how can we empower people rather than labeling them or judging them with things like substance use or abuse. Andrew Burdette 00:39:56 So this seems like a good pivot to ask you about how you address company culture, especially having a virtual practice. And also because you’ve mentioned having a multi-state practice, I’m assuming you have people that are not necessarily like 30 minutes away. Yeah. If you wanted to like, get everyone together physically. So the practicality of having that, you know, in-person face to face things not really there either. Andrew Burdette 00:40:21 So can you speak a little bit about how this all translates into creating a company, your company culture in your in your practice? Amber Tolbert 00:40:29 Absolutely. I’m going to go back. I feel like I need a t shirt that says this. I’m going to go back to my, key component, which is a parallel process. How I develop relationships with my clients translates to how I develop relationship with my clinicians, and the same level of safety that my clients need, my clinicians need. Because in order to walk out this, this specialized, I think, specialized level of healing, we’re owning our own personal recovery as a team, and that’s on every single one of our bios. I don’t make my team do that. They they are as transparent as they feel safe. And each one of them speak into their own recovery process. And I think recovery guides so much of what I do around connection, when I want to hide under my weighted blanket. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I probably need some connection at that point, but that’s also part of my back story and pulling away because I too have social anxiety, or I get overstimulated or overwhelmed. Amber Tolbert 00:41:33 And it’s that level of awareness where I’m not in there for days or weeks. I have this awareness of after a couple of hours, okay, I probably need to connect with one of my safe people. So the culture within my team, we are spread out all over the East Coast, all the way from Delaware down to the tip of South Carolina is we. We are connected more than we are not. So we use Google Workspace, we use Google Chat. We have a main chat that every member on my team is on probably 3 or 4 times a day. I have senior lead staff that are, available throughout the day for, consultation on. Hey, this happened in a session. Hey, this is happening. We have a two hour team meeting every Monday, and then we also have a 90 minute leadership meeting every Monday. the beautiful part is, I don’t have to make my team connect. They they recognize, together, we do what we cannot do alone. Thank you. AA, and it’s it really guides the culture and the philosophy that we follow. Amber Tolbert 00:42:46 Like, if I’m going to ask my client, hey, have you ever been to an AA meeting? If not, I need you to go. Well, that clinician needs to have been to an AA meeting because otherwise, from an integrity standpoint, the client feels that. And so I feel very, very, blessed and fortunate to be able to lead this team that wants the connection. And I think that’s as healers sometimes. Well, let me speak in the eye. That’s how I feel about the clients that find us. It feels very spiritual, very purposeful. The right clinician needs that. Right. Or excuse me, the right client needs that right clinician. And so I think that happens in teams too. And being able to have the culture led by recovery as we define it, not as our culture defines it. feels really powerful. And in the walk out of how we do the quality of our work. Andrew Burdette 00:43:41 Cool. So logistically, it does sound like you’ve got regular scheduled meetings. We for a while had a pretty consistent Friday afternoon. Andrew Burdette 00:43:49 Just kind of check out what’s kind of our thing. So if people need anything to kind of like close their week out so they could actually step away from work, which I want them to do. Yeah. you know, that was kind of it, although I’ve added three people this year and I’m planning out a fourth one as a bonus. because it’s the right person at the right time or the right person, not exactly the right time, but like, is connected to a local university. So it should come in with like some existing caseload. So that makes it a little easier to, to bring in. but yeah, it’s, it was it was nice. Like part of me misses when it was like 3 or 4 people. Because coordinating everybody together was a little more intimate and easier. And now it’s like I’m learning who these new people are as we work together and kind of their temperaments and balancing out. And thankfully, so far as everyone’s gotten together and sat down at a coffee shop and we could still do that before everything kind of got paused in Asheville for the moment. Andrew Burdette 00:44:44 everybody got along and that was the goal. It was like, I want, I want you all to feel like you can be friendly with one another and potentially be friends if you want to and have that compatibility thing. So it’s cool to hear that you’re doing similar kind of things. I think me just knowing my, like, limits on things, I don’t think I could do a two hour meeting and then another hour and a half meeting the same day with all my staff people. But that’s just me. And knowing my yeah, my different individual needs kind of thing. So, so cool. Amber Tolbert 00:45:12 Yeah. Well, and when there’s a parallel process in place, even supervision is experiential. So time flies because we are doing our team process rather than just being in our team process. but it’s really powerful to, there’s another. I’m pretty sure this is AA, but I’m 100% responsible for my 50%, and that’s the accountability I put on my team. Like, I will do all of my 100%, of my 50%. Amber Tolbert 00:45:45 And relationally, when I hire a new clinician, that is the non-negotiable. It’s you have to be able to have functional, healthy relationships with my team or it’s not going to work out because we are teaching people how to have healthy, functional relationships. So I feel that’s only a place of integrity to have the same accountability on my team. So absolutely, we have conflict. Absolutely we do. not everybody is maybe what people would call best friends, but everybody has so much respect because we all bring something to the table. I think it’s really cool for me to see what a functioning system looks like when my back story was definitely dysfunctional. So it’s the power of what everybody brings to the table, too. Andrew Burdette 00:46:34 I know one of the things we talked about and we’re kind of coming up to the end of time anyway, but quickly, like for those curious about running a multi-state practice with W-2s, is there can you kind of sum that up about bullet points? People need to make sure they have in place as they’re setting it up. Andrew Burdette 00:46:50 If you’re listening and have heard me talk and the bumper at the end of the episode is going to say the same thing of just if you think you need a professional, please hire one. So, you know, talk to your accountants like you may need an accountant familiar with different state, you know, statutes and things. just like we have different, jurisprudence exams for, for, the clinical work we do. you may you’re going to need somebody to walk through your different kind of HR and state specific laws around employment to just make sure everything’s good there. I’m guessing if you have somebody that’s working from Delaware, they are employed in Delaware functionally. So you’re dealing with state taxes too. So I mean, I know it’s done. I haven’t moved into multi-state in that sense yet as W-2, but can you kind of hit on the key points for listeners out there of stuff they’re going to need to to think about if they want to do it? Amber Tolbert 00:47:40 Yeah. And thank you for saying that. I 100% agree with everything you just said. Amber Tolbert 00:47:45 when in doubt, I inquire, if I would inquire for my clinical process within client. I’m going to inquire for a clinical process for my team. Everything is built on safety. when it comes to, things to consider. One thing that I might add, especially if you’re looking at offering unconventional or alternative healing modalities, is, joining a group like Tina Vardalos, Black Sheep Therapist, where you can get guidance on how do I incorporate this modality? theoretically, so that there’s a lot of safety around knowing how to talk to your clients about it. And if I’m offering a modality, it’s because I’ve done it as a client and then I’ve done the training in it. So just that level of authenticity and integrity and incorporating it when it comes to a W-2 versus a 1099, kind of branched off of that is hiring my team. I am, marketing for clinicians and marketing for clients. That’s two different marketing styles that we have to look for as group practice owners. And what I know that shows up in my team is Women in recovery who are moms of skinned babies or fur babies, who have a desire to be their authentic self. Amber Tolbert 00:49:11 That’s also 90% of our client population. That is who my team is. we have a lot of diversity, and it doesn’t look like that if you just look at our picture. But once you get to know us, it’s pretty massive. the other thing that I would recommend, if you’re looking at going multi-state is the culture. When you think about how do I build safety for clients? For example, the Healing Collective is a HIPAA compliant practice, not just a HIPAA compliant clinicians. That’s a huge undertaking. And so when we put that level of thought and energy into creating safety for clients, how can I equally put that much thought and energy into safety for my clinicians? Because my clinicians being really high skill set and bringing in lots of recovery, I love that they’ll call me out on something. Do we have this? Do we have that? Are we protected with this? I can’t know everything. They don’t teach us near what I would have loved in grad school. And what’s the awareness of things like black sheep therapists that I mentioned? I didn’t even know that existed until I found her, and being able to create our treatment model from the holistic lens that is safe feels pretty badass. Amber Tolbert 00:50:26 And being able to lead my clinical team from a lens that captures all their essence. If I’m not capturing my team’s essence, it’s going to create storming from a group process standpoint, and it’s going to affect the safety of my team. They’re going to maybe have some behaviors or actions that look more like a 1099 versus a W2. And if you’ve ever led a team, when teams go into storming it, it can be a little stressful to figure out what’s actually happening. So from my standpoint, it’s definitely about the consent forms, the marketing, the ability for the team to speak to what we do and how we do it, but then also being able to create that safety for my team through culture in how how you show up on the team and what do you bring to the team? Because that also creates this mutual respect, from the team lends to and because we co facilitate and our clients almost always work with 2 or 3 of us, there’s not one clinician assigned to every client. It’s really important that there is that mutual respect because it’s so much, more advantageous from a profitability standpoint to market to the population I already have, rather than bringing in new. Amber Tolbert 00:51:48 So that’s kind of how we maximize that too. But from a team culture standpoint. Andrew Burdette 00:51:52 Yeah. Values that I impart to everybody. I’m like, I can’t fix anything I don’t know about. So if you have a question, please tell me, like I will do my best to give you the best answer I can. And some things are just not logistically feasible. Or maybe not what we want to do. Like I’ve got friends that train people on how to stay out of court, and apparently the simplest ways to do that are not work with couples and not work with minors. So cool. Like that’s that’s a 80% reduction of the likelihood I’m going to get dragged into court or anybody on my team. And like my team is cool with that. I’m like, if you want to do it, it’s cool. But maybe, maybe we can work out a sharing between you and another practice that that’s exclusively does couples or mostly does kids because they already know how to keep you safe. And that’s the most important thing and are going to have insight and knowledge around that I don’t have. Andrew Burdette 00:52:41 And, yeah, I get concerned if people are not. Every one of my team asked questions, and I’m so thankful for that because I at least know they’re thinking about these things. So a lot of times I do have an answer for them. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I, you know, it’s there’s so many little checkboxes when you’re onboarding somebody to like go in the software and check a box here. And you know, I’m going to forget stuff. I’m actually doing better this year really having people track all little nuanced things. But yeah, just please come to me. Like the whole reason is to keep you safe. Like just even little things. Like I have it disabled for my clinicians to be able to delete a client in my EHR. And I’m like, I don’t think you would do anything nefarious. It’s just by accident if it happened and there are backups, but this way it spares you from ever even having that conversation to begin with. Right? Like just it’s just an error. Andrew Burdette 00:53:32 Yes, it’s a bumper on your bowling lane so you can’t drive off the road, right. Like it’s it’s that kind of thing. So any last things you want to make sure we kind of cover. Amber Tolbert 00:53:43 Oh. Andrew Burdette 00:53:44 Cause we talked a lot about we talked a lot about different things than we thought we were going to talk about, which is yeah, I just want to also want to acknowledge that too. Yeah. Amber Tolbert 00:53:53 No, I just, I feel really proud that my team offers such a wide range of healing and that we can do it statewide. And we do have some plans for growth. I love the community that my team and I have built for clinicians. being able to create some of those free services along with paid services, but also being able to speak into why we use the modalities we use, we can speak into and from a research standpoint, why this is beneficial. And that feels really badass to me. Yeah. so I love being able to back my clinicians up. And just like you said, one of the ways I assess the safety level in my team is how comfortable are they with asking questions? And when they ask a lot of questions, I get super excited because it feels it means to me they feel really safe. Amber Tolbert 00:54:45 So, I just really appreciate this opportunity and getting to share how we’ve evolved and where we are today. And I’m just couldn’t be more proud. Andrew Burdette 00:54:56 Cool. Well, it’s been a pleasure having you on. are there any pluggable that you want to do? I know you mentioned outside your practice you do some other things, so please feel free to mention those. And we’ll link everything in the show notes and stuff too. Amber Tolbert 00:55:08 Yeah. Thank you for that. I also own Amber Tolbert Consulting, where, I love that myself. And my clinical director, Amanda, are nerds, and we love to weird out on dashboards and finding ways to track things. So Amber Tolbert Consulting is very much about, if you want to DIY it or if you just want to buy the product so you can track any of the five systems from intake, air, marketing, profit, or clinical, you can actually just go online and buy them. And we also provide consulting to help you track all that data. but what I mentioned earlier with Amber Tolbert Consulting is we do group healing. Amber Tolbert 00:55:48 And so it’s for a group practice owners. Our next one I think starts in February. And we provide that opportunity for group practice owners to explore what part of their backstory is getting in their way. And we look at what would it mean to kind of bust through that block or get through that core belief so they can be successful and profitable. and I’m super excited about that. All that’s virtual, of course, because we’re virtual. So it doesn’t matter where you are. You can definitely join that if you want. Andrew Burdette 00:56:16 Well very cool. again, thanks for coming on. This has been really lovely to hear about all the cool things you’re doing. And, yeah. So thanks for coming on and talk to you soon. Amber Tolbert 00:56:27 My pleasure. Take care. You too. Andrew Burdette 00:56:35 If you love this podcast, please be sure to rate and review. This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher or the guest are rendering legal, accounting, clinical or any other professional information. Andrew Burdette 00:57:02 If you want professional, you should find one.