Perry: In this episode of The Therapist Experience, I’m speaking with Elizabeth Magro from Pinellas Psychology Associates. This is The Therapist Experience episode number 20. Welcome to The Therapist Experience. The podcast where we interview successful therapists about what it’s really like growing a private practice. I’m Perry Rosenbloom, the founder of Brighter Vision, and I’m just so excited to introduce our guest today Elizabeth Magro from Pinellas Psychology Associates. Elizabeth, are you prepared to share your therapist experience?

Elizabeth: Absolutely. I’m so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

Perry: We’re so excited to have you here, Elizabeth. Elizabeth reached out to me and asked me if she could be on the show and I was so glad that she did because she has so much great wisdom and value to share here. So let me give our audience a little bit of overview of you here, Elizabeth. Elizabeth is a licensed clinical psychologist and the founder of Pinellas Psychology Associates. She has diverse training in the areas of psychological assessment, individual and family therapy, and crisis intervention. She completed an APA approved internship at a in-patient psychiatric facility and completed her post-doctoral residency training in the school district. She has taught graduate school courses in clinical psychology and mental health counseling above the master’s and doctoral level. Elizabeth began her private practice in 2010 where she specializes in psychological assessment and the treatment of various clinical disorders such as anxiety and depression. She also provides training workshops for schools, businesses, and other community organizations as a resource to mental health and educational professionals. Elizabeth, I gave a brief overview of you there but why don’t you take a minute, fill in the gaps from that introduction, and tell our audience a little bit more about you personally and about your practice?

Elizabeth: Sure. Well, I think what’s interesting about my journey to private practice is that I actually– I started my private practice in 2010 but I graduated in 2005. So it took me about five years to start a practice. I wasn’t one of those clinicians who stepped out of graduate school and said, okay, I’m going to do it. I’m going to jump in and start a practice. It took me about five years of thinking, dipping my toe in the water, considering it, looking all of the options. And then in 2010 it took me about another 5 years to really kind of throw myself into it. It took a lot of confronting my fears, overcoming just really all the mental obstacles, to really build my practice to where it is today in 2016.

Perry: So you’re saying that when you even opened your practice up in 2010 you still had all those fears and obstacles to overcome in order to really focus on growing a successful private practice. Is that correct?

Elizabeth: Absolutely. And I think I was one of those clinicians, and I really just recently stepped out of this role of the part-time private practice, working kind of a full-time job Monday through Friday, seeing patients early in the morning, seeing patients in the evening, seeing patients on Saturdays. Slowly trying to build the practice. And I think what held me back from really jumping in was this fear. What if it doesn’t work? There’s this security of the nine to five, right? Or that the employee, the paycheck every two weeks. So that held me back.

Perry: Or the perceived security, right?

Elizabeth: Right. Absolutely. And I think things started to change for me. And once again, it took about five years of building my confidence and saying to myself, well, it’s been five years and it’s still working. What would it be like if I did this Monday through Friday and more than just evenings and Saturdays?

Perry: In 2010 did you set out to start a full-time private practice, was that your ultimate end goal or were you just like, hey, I just want to make some extra income on the side with a part-time practice?

Elizabeth: You know, this is a good question. I think I always saw myself in private practice but I really didn’t have the confidence to do it. And I watched my colleagues and people I have gone to graduate school with, and people that I trusted my respect and I thought they were great clinicians. And I just watched them doing it and I thought, well, I can do that a day a week. I can do that maybe a night a week. I think there was just an internal struggle for me and it kind of– I sat with it for years.

Perry: Was there anything in particular that was a tipping point for you, that helped you overcome that internal struggle?

Elizabeth: A tipping point. Well, I’ll start with this. So, when I started my practice in 2010 I was working for the school system. And it was great for starting a part-time private practice because school hours are usually eight to two, so I could get to my office and see patients at three, four, five, six o’clock at night. And I really just started to enjoy that so much more than I did working in a school. And I started to see that my passion for clinical work wasn’t really being utilized in a school system in a way that I wanted it to. And I started to notice that I was really kind of feeling underutilized, undervalued, and the trifecta here is underpaid. And I think that was when I realized, you know? If I do the math, maybe I should just see patients in the evenings and not work at the school system. But again, that wasn’t enough because I thought, you know? But what if it doesn’t work. Right? That’s the classic– As I tell my clients, that’s classic anxiety. What if, what if, what if. So I ended up leaving the school system, but it wasn’t to go into full-time private practice. It was to go to a university teaching job.

Perry: Really?

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Perry: So you left the school system in, was it 2014, or–?

Elizabeth: Oh, let me think. I left the school system in 2012. In December of 2012. And I went to a doctoral program to teach graduate students and what was nice about that program was it was four days a week. So now I was giving myself an extra day. You see how I’m dipping my toe in the water? I gave myself an extra day of private practice and then some evenings. And I think that helped again slowly. I’m not a jump in the pool, into the deep end, kind of a girl. That’s not how I am. I needed to just slowly see that the waters were safe.

Perry: There’s nothing wrong with that. Anytime you’re growing a business, whether it’s a private practice or a website design company like us, there’s nothing wrong with just dipping your toes in the water, moving cautiously and moving patiently. Because there is always that what if. I mean, even with us here there are times that I’m kept up at night, you know? We’re almost at 1000 clients now at Brighter Vision. I’m kept up at night like, what if? But what if it all disappears over night? What if our referrals stop coming in? What if this, what if that? But as an entrepreneur you just have to plow through it and plow through that anxiety and those fears, because ultimately what you’re doing is helping people and you’re building a great business. And I would imagine that helped you overcome that fear. Just seeing, hey, this isn’t disappearing overnight, this hasn’t gone anywhere. In fact, it continues to grow. Is that correct?

Elizabeth: Absolutely. And I think that kept my momentum going, and I think because I was confronting those fears and continuing to build my practice it wasn’t going away. It was working. I was getting referrals from clients I had worked with over those five years. Those referrals generated more referrals, and generated more referrals. And I thought, I might be doing something right here. I might actually be effective in what I’m offering to my clients. And I think it really took– I think I needed time. I needed time for that to settle in. And I had to build my self-confidence. I think one of the unfortunate side-effects of graduate school is that we get a lot of feedback as you’re growing and you’re developing as a therapist. And I think sometimes that feedback can cause you to be overly self-critical. Am I doing this right? Am I really serving my clients in the best way that I can? So I think I had to outgrow that critical thinking mindset that I had been used to in graduate school and in my training.

Perry: That’s really fascinating. I love hearing from people on the Therapist Experience about the impact grad school had, the positives and the negatives in helping them transition or holding them back from transitioning into private practice.

Elizabeth: I didn’t think that one of the things that held me back was not understanding that my service was valuable. Not understanding that people would be willing to pay for my service and that it was something– I’ve always believed it was useful, clearly. I’m in the field because I believe it’s helpful and useful, and we can change people’s lives. But I don’t think I really ever understood how people are willing to pay for this service. That was something that I think grad school left a big back for me.

Perry: And what allowed you to overcome that?

Elizabeth: So I’ll give you the short answer to that. In 2015, so last year really. There’s a lot that’s happened to me in the last year but last year I was at a place where I said to myself, I really want to do this. I’m ready to get in. I tested the water, I’m ready to get in. And I think I started researching how to build a practice and I stumbled upon some consultant groups, and listening to podcasts, and listening to consultants in the field, meeting other clinicians who were taking the same kind of risks. And that’s when I started to realize, this is a valuable service. This is something that I can market. This is something people will pay for. I can really grow this. It was angling myself in a way of understanding that people are doing it out there, they’re doing it really well. It’s possible and that I had the self-confidence in that point. I can do that too. I can follow their lead and really just map my journey in a way that’s similar to other successful therapists.

Perry: Who were some of those consultants, to our listeners out there, that you relied on to help motivate, inspire, and guide you in those early days?

Elizabeth: I love this question because I think around my house my husband is sick of me saying her name because I say, well, you know what so and so would say. So I got a lot of inspiration and a lot of support from Jennifer Sneeden. Jennifer Sneeden has Thriving Therapy Practice. She’s out of Delray Beach, Florida. I stumbled across her website late at night. This is what happens, this is how our clients often find us too. I’m googling, I need to get out of my job. I need to build my practice. And I stumble upon her website, I listen to a lot of her podcasts, she did some free webinars. In September of 2015 I went to her, what she calls like a Practice Building Intensive. It was a two-day practice building intensive and it really fundamentally changed my view of private practice. I mean, literally just changed–

Perry: Really?

Elizabeth: Yeah. I came home from that intensive the second week of September and I had not looked back from that moment. It really was that influential. That’s really how I learned to value myself as a clinician. And there was actually one moment in that conference where I think things shifted for me. I was sitting at a table and there was a therapist to my left and a therapist to my right. And we’re talking about whether or not we take insurance. And at this point in my life that’s all I did. I took insurance. I was on a number of different insurance panels because I believed that’s how you got clients. And I looked at the therapist next to me and she said, no, no, no, I don’t take insurance. I only do full fee. Oh okay. I looked at the therapist to my right and I say, well, what insurance panels are you on? And she says, well, I don’t take insurance either. So I look back to the therapist on my left and I say, well, how long have you been in practice. And she said, oh, since December. I’m like, what? I’ve been in practice five years. And I looked over to the therapist on my right. She said, well, two years. And I looked at both of them and said, well, I’ve been in practice six years and I only take insurance. What’s going on. And it was watching these younger therapists who have been doing this a lot less than I had. Who had this confidence and just, yeah, no, I don’t take insurance. I’m cash-pay only. Okay, I’m doing that. I’m definitely doing that.

Perry: And what was the name of that conference again, for our listeners, I didn’t get that written down there?

Elizabeth: Okay. So Jennifer Sneeden and her business is Thriving Therapy Practice. And twice a year she offers a practice building intensive, she does it in March, and then again in September in Delray Beach, Florida. If you’ve never been to Delray Beach, Florida, it’s worth the trip alone just to see this amazing city. And it’s on the water on the East Coast of Florida. So it’s a two-day, usually Friday and a Saturday and it was just, again, just life-changing for me.

Perry: Fantastic. And of course, we’ll have links to Jennifer’s website, Thrivingtherapypractice.com/ in this week’s show notes which you’ll be able to find at Brightervision.com/session21/. So Elizabeth, I want to take a step back here and go to a point in your career as a therapist where you could have called it quits. Where you were just as low as you could possibly be in your journey in private practice and you were ready to throw in the towel. So if you could share with our audience that moment and then, more importantly, how did you overcome and move past that to continue growing and thriving in private practice?

Elizabeth: Looking back, I think this moment for me was probably when I started math. When you’re trying to build a practice, doing math– And number one, I’m a psychologist so I don’t like math. That’s why I went into psychology, I’m not good at that. And I sat down and I started looking at my insurance reimbursement rates. And then I started doing a little division and saying, okay, how many clients would I have to see a week to really make the salary that I want to make? And then number of clients was just way too high. And I looked at it and I thought, how am I going to do this? How am I going to build a business at these low-paying insurance rates? And at that time when I’m doing this math and I’m kind of reflecting on growing my practice and how it’s going to look. I had a fair amount of cancellations within the last 30 minutes prior to the appointment, or, oh, I forgot my appointment was today. And I just wasn’t getting a lot of good traction with those insurance clients. And at that point I said to myself, I just can’t take insurance. I’ve got to find a way to build a practice where I’m not relying on insurance because the numbers wouldn’t add up for me, at all. I didn’t want to see 42 patients a week. I knew that I wouldn’t be good to any of those patients if I was seeing 42 clients a week. And I also didn’t want to see 20 patients at an insurance rate and not make the kind of living I wanted to make. So that was a really important piece for me. I could have quit and said, I’m just not going to work with these insurance companies. My joke to my family was always that I’m going to go get a job at the Gap or something because it’s a lot less stressful than this. Or I’m really going to, again, dive in and focus on how I’m going to build my practice where I’m valued. And I think some of the work that I’ve done with the consultants and listening to podcasts, listening to other therapists talk about– I believe that there’s a real difference. I’m not saying that insurance clients don’t appreciate you but if you look at it from the perspective of– If an insurance client is coming to see you there’s a good chance that you were just close to the ZIP code that they entered into their search strategy, right? They go on the website and they type in their ZIP code and you answer the phone. But what happens when someone calls you because they have looked at your website, they feel connected to you, they like what you’re talking about on Psychology Today or on your website or on Facebook, and they call you because they want to work with you, most of the time they’re willing to pay your fee for that. And those are the clients that don’t cancel 30 minutes before the appointment. Those are the clients that remember their appointments because there’s more value. If you’re getting insurance clients, often times they value you at whatever they’re co-payers, right? It might be they value your time is 20 dollars and I just don’t want to value my time that way.

Perry: That’s a really fascinating perspective. So after you did the math do you remember what you did next?

Elizabeth: Oh, hahahaha. Actually yes. Dear insurance panel, please remove me from your list of providers. That was a really big leap for me–

Perry: I bet.

Elizabeth: There was a little bit of panic, yes.

Perry: That’s a major fear, like, but what if it doesn’t work?

Elizabeth: Absolutely, absolutely. And one of the things that I tell my clients when they ask what if questions is, you’ll be okay. Either way you’re going to be okay. So I would say that to myself. Well, what if, and I would say, either way you’re going to be okay. And when I did the math I said, if I get rid of two insurance clients– Let’s say other two clients, I tell them that I’m no longer going to work with their insurance. And they say, okay, sorry, we’re going to find someone else. I only have to fill one cash-paying client to take up those two insurance clients because the rates of reimbursements are so well. So that helped my fear too. I’m like, well, I’m not really replacing a full caseload, I’m only replacing half.

Perry: And then you have more time too. You’re less stressed, you’re able to spend more time marketing your business, you’re able to be more dedicated and present with the clients that you are seeing because you’re seeing fewer of them.

Elizabeth: Yes.

Perry: It’s pretty amazing how that works, isn’t it?

Elizabeth: It is and it just worked. And I would love to say that I had zero sleepless nights over this but that would not be the truth. Many sleepless nights, a lot of tossing and turning and I still will get that wave of fear. But I remind myself that it’s okay. It has been okay, It will continue to be okay. And if it’s not okay I’ll figure it out.

Perry: I love that. That’s the attitude of an entrepreneur.

Elizabeth: I never thought I was an entrepreneur. If you were to ask me that 10 years ago I would have laughed. But I started to realize as an employee, wow, I don’t think like an employee. Oh no, I think I’m one of those entrepreneurs.

Perry: Oh, gosh. Oh no, not me.

Elizabeth: Exactly.

Perry: Well Elizabeth, you’ve come such a long way from there and moving off of insurance panels to private pay, that’s just such a huge leap. And something that we often see with therapists struggling with in the early days is pricing themselves well, especially if they’re cash-pay. So can you share with our audience what your current session rate is to see clients and your journey to that rate?

Elizabeth: Absolutely. So my current rate is 150 dollars an hour, that is certainly not where I started. I think I started in 2010 at a 100 dollars an hour, and at that time I consulted with some colleagues and said, well, what are you guys charging? Most of them were between a 100 and 125 dollars. So I settled at a 100 of course because I wasn’t valuing my service. Starting at a 100. I remember the very first time the client wrote me a check for a 100 dollars and I took that check and felt so strange. It was such a weird interaction, right? Was my service really worth that amount? And I gradually increased it. I moved it to 125 in 2013. And I actually just increased it in January. I was 140 last year and then moved it to 150 in January, and it continues to work so it’s kind of nice that I did it. I took a leap from December to January and clients are still willing to pay that for the service. So I think again a lot of that has just been that feedback of being able to get to that rate, feeling comfortable and then watching your clients receive it well.

Perry: Fantastic. That’s such a great journey and thank you for diving into such explicit detail with that. Because it’s not an easy thing to accept money for your services, understand what your value is and then over time figure out, hey, maybe I’m actually worth more than this. Let me try. It’s a big leap of faith and you’ve been making those incremental changes and getting right feedback from it. So congratulations and thank you for sharing that.

Elizabeth: Yes, you’re very welcome.

Perry: So Elizabeth, one thing we’ve found that therapists struggle with is marketing their business. And I heard you used the M word once already. They feel that marketing or sales is like a dirty word, but as you know, there’s no way that you can grow a private practice without marketing. So what I would love to find out is what you feel is the single best marketing move that you made for your practice and why do you feel like it worked so well for you?

Elizabeth: The single best marketing move. Well, this is a confession. About a year and a half ago I didn’t even have a website.

Perry: Hahaha.

Elizabeth: I know. Because at that point I was thinking, well I’m just getting referrals from insurance companies. What do I need a website for? People aren’t just randomly looking for therapists, right? Well, they actually are. That is the thing.

Perry: Believe it or not people use the internet.

Elizabeth: I know. So for me building a really great website. And the other piece of the website is being able to put more of myself into that website. In graduate school it was all about kind of pulling back and not sharing any personal details, and kind of having this veil as a clinician. And I think what’s helped me tremendously is having a website that has my picture on it, that has a story using first person, that I help people with this and I enjoy this. I think people respond, I know i respond to that better when it’s personalized. So that’s really helped me a lot. And it was a really big leap for me because I don’t want to put myself, I don’t want to put picture of myself, I don’t want to put, I do this and I can help you with this. So that’s really changed things for me. You get a lot of inquiries from my website, a lot of phone calls from my website because people do have struggles at one, two AM. That’s what they’re going to do, they’re going to google, how do I deal with depression. Or a therapist in Saint Petersburg, Florida. And I want my website to come up as, hey, I can help you. I’m here, you can trust me and I can help you.

Perry: Now I come up but communicate to them and have he relate with it. And we pulled your website out just before here and I remember when we built your website and I really just love it. It’s one of our favorites, it’s one of my favorites that we have. It was just a really great job, a really great feedback that you gave us in terms of how you wanted your sliders structured, so the image sliders on your homepage. So, as opposed to the image taking up the whole page or the whole width with quote captioned over it, we did a nice little fade-out so that you have call to actions directly on those images. So the first things someone sees when they come to your website, it’s screaming to them, couples and family counseling or psychological learning evaluations or individual counseling, book an appointment.

Elizabeth: Yes.

Perry: And that’s just so so crucial, effectively communicating and getting people to contact you. I think we both– Your developer and your feedback did a fantastic job at crafting a website for you that really markets you effectively.

Elizabeth: Thank you, and again, I think for me that was a bold move to even come up with a call-to-action because as clinicians we just kind of want to sit in our office and have people come knock and say, hey–

Perry: Hey, I need some help! Haha.

Elizabeth: Exactly. But that’s not– And people tend to google things. I google things. I google things before I call my pediatrician. I’ll google, my toddler has this symptom. So I’m thinking how do I come up in that Google search, and then people land on my website, immediately it says, click right here to book an appointment. Click right here to call us. So I think that was important to me because I thought about how I am as a consumer.

Perry: Great perspective. And you have to think about that through your potential clients’ eyes. Elizabeth, you went to school to become a therapist not to get your MBA but back in 2010 you decided to dip your toes in the water of private practice. And over time it grew, and it grew, and it grew, and now you’re full time in private practice and you have a thriving private practice. What’s the one thing that you wish you would have learned in school about starting your own business?

Elizabeth: Probably going back to that piece about valuing my service. I think we’re often taught in school that this is just a helping profession. You’re not supposed to take money. You’re not supposed to get paid well for what you do. And I think, if we have any courses in graduate school, if this were ever to be a thing that gets introduced into curriculum it would be nice just to talk about, this is actually a product that we’re offering. This is not a charity. I mean, there are ways to do that. There are certain ways that we can offer our time that are pro bono that we can volunteer, but really understanding that this is a business. I think that even physicians in medical school understand that this is a business. I think that we just don’t do a good job of that mental health. So when someone said to me in graduate school that this is a valuable service to the community that you can charge for, that you can actually structure as a business, I think it would have helped me overcome those fears a little bit faster.

Perry: That’s a great, great point. And yeah, people are paying for mental health and mental health services and improving their lives. And I really think that we’re going to see that even more with the millennial generation being more open to cash-pay and to seeking mental health. Because there’s so much money that’s spent by the generation-wide, the millennial generation on health and wellness. Organic foods, gym memberships, wellness retreats. It’s so integrated into the mindset, the fabric of this upcoming generation that I think is going to be even easier for people in private practice to have their potential clients and clients truly value their service. And I think it’s just going to be more and more common and easier for people to do that in private practice.

Elizabeth: I totally agree. And what’s interesting is you’re talking about that millennial generation. I think probably 60% of the clients I work with right now are between the ages of 19 and I would say 26.

Perry: Wow.

Elizabeth: I do have a lot of college age or right out of college kind of struggling with relationship issues, and job stress, and identity issues. And there’s not a lot of a stigma, there’s not as much of a stigma, I think, with that generation and maybe some of the older generations in seeking mental health counseling. They do look at it as wellness. This is just what we do, we care for ourselves.

Perry: Yep, I agree wholeheartedly. Do you specifically work on trying to attract that age group or is that just sort of come about as you’ve grown your practice?

Elizabeth: Oh what a good question. I think that having a Facebook page and the way that I structure my Facebook page and some of the things that I post and share there, it kind of leans a little bit towards that generation. Because I like wellness and caring for yourself. I like Brene Brown’s work and vulnerability, and shame. So I share a lot of things like that and I think my voice kind of speaks to that generation a little bit more and I think that’s where those referrals come from.

Perry: Great. And what’s your Facebook page for our listeners, what’s the URL for it?

Elizabeth: I don’t know what the URL is for it.

Perry: Don’t worry about it. I’m sorry I put you on the spot there Elizabeth. We’ll have it in this week’s show notes at Brightervision.com/session21/

Elizabeth: Remember Perry, I didn’t have a website a year and a half ago so…

Perry: I know but you’ve come quite a long way since there. Alright Elizabeth, now we’re going to move into the final part of our interview. The part we like to refer to as Brighter Insights. I love this part because we really get to distill down your experience and your advice into little sound bites and answers that our audience can use to motivate and inspired them throughout their week and growing their private practice. So Elizabeth, are you ready?

Elizabeth: I’m ready.

Perry: What or whom inspired you to become a mental health professional?

Elizabeth: I had a guidance counselor in tenth grade. I talked to her about my interest in psychology and she said, well, let me send you to a community college course over the summer. And that started it all for me.

Perry: Awesome. I bet that tenth grade counselor must be really proud, if she or he knows.

Elizabeth: I sent her a thank you about five years ago. I did. I sent her an email and said, I made it all the way through to graduate school. I wanted to say thank you.

Perry: That must have made her month, or his month. So what do you do to clear your head and get a fresh start in your day?

Elizabeth: Okay Perry, so my answer is probably not the typical answer. I know a lot of my colleagues would tell you they meditate and I don’t. Haha.

Perry: Oh-oh. Haha.

Elizabeth: I have three young boys at home so my house is always wild, so when it’s too calm I don’t know what to do with myself. There’s two things that I do, I really working out. I like exercising, I like getting that energy, getting those endorphins going. Or if I’m completely overloaded I go right to Netflix. Those are my two.

Perry: There you go. And even working out is very meditative at times as well. Especially what kind of workouts you’re doing. You’re on a treadmill or something, that can definitely be meditative in its own way. So what are some tools that you’ve used to leverage the power of technology in your private practice so that technology is no longer a hurdle but instead an asset for you?

Elizabeth: You know, I use a virtual assistant for all of my phone calls. So everything gets routed to her and then we communicate on a Google Calendar that we share. I use Simple Practice for my billing. I use Square Invoices. I use as much technology as I possibly can. Once I got in and I dove into getting a website I use technology as much as I can because I really think it simplifies things and it saves time. I mean, I don’t want to be doing paperwork and doing things really how we did them 10-15 years ago. I want to use technology so that I’m working smarter and not harder.

Perry: Perfect, I love that. So you have a virtual assistant who answers the phones for you. How did you find this virtual assistant?

Elizabeth: You know, I actually know her. We are good friends and she is a– She’ll love this if she ever listens to this podcast but she is a school psychologist who really has an interest in getting out of being a school psychologist. And it’s kind of her part-time job. She answers the phones for me, she screens the calls, she kind of gets almost like an initial consultation with my callers to see whether or not we would be a good fit, and then she sets up. I do 15 minute free phone consultations with any potential new clients so she does this as kind of her part-time job. It’s a nice thing to have and it’s all done remotely so she doesn’t have to come into the office. She does it on her own time and it really helps take a huge weight. I mean, seeing clients all day and then worrying about voicemail and getting back to those things, it just weighs down my schedule and using her has just been a treat for me.

Perry: Do you think she would want a shout out here if she’s looking for more business?

Elizabeth: Yes. Her name is Kim Kirchofer and she would absolutely love it because any way that she can get out of her school psychology job faster I’m sure she’d love to answer calls for other therapists.

Perry: And does Kim have a website?

Elizabeth: Kim’s actually on my website.

Perry: Perfect.

Elizabeth: Yes, she is. So you can find her on there.

Perry: Fantastic. And again, we’ll have a link to that in this week’s show notes. So the phone system that you have setup, do you have different phone numbers that get routed to her house? How do you have that setup technology-wise?

Elizabeth: I have Google Voice and she has Google Voice on her phone so we use it that way. And that way I can see calls and we can both see them.

Perry: Perfect. Elizabeth, what’s the quote that you hold near and dear, something that has helped formulate your perspective on life or has inspired, motivated, or provided guidance for you?

Elizabeth: I’m a really big fan of Eleanor Roosevelt. She has so many quotes that I love but I think there’s one quote in particular that really speaks to my journey in private practice and it is this, “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you have really stopped to look fear in the face. You’re able to say to yourself, I have lived through this horror and I can take the next thing that comes along. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

Perry: That is one heck of a quote.

Elizabeth: It really speaks to me. It really does.

Perry: Oh yeah. Man oh man, that’s powerful. I’m still trying to get over that, digest that quote. It was spoken so powerfully too.

Elizabeth: I steal it, really I think some of these quotes– And really being able to embrace those things really have helped me with fear and understanding that fear is a natural process for all of us. And making quotes like that part of my daily mantra and saying it to myself when I’m experiencing that fear really helped me.

Perry: If you could recommend one book to our audience what would that book be and why?

Elizabeth: Well, there is one book that everyone in our audience should be listening to or reading. It is called Turning Pro and it’s by Steven Pressfield. Steven Pressfield has a really fantastic viewpoint. He’s a writer, he’s not a clinician. He’s a writer and he talks a lot about resistance and how resistance creeps out in all of us when we’re trying to achieve greatness. And with this book Turning Pro is really about the difference between people who think like amateurs and people who think like professionals. And his undertone in this book is all about fear and how really it’s looking fear in the face. Everyone has fear, it’s just do you run from it or do you face it and keep moving? It’s a great book.

Perry: I think that’s probably the third time that book has been recommended on this show. We should try and get him on this show here.

Elizabeth: He is great. He’s a really interesting guy. I’ve listened to him on some other podcasts and I look at his things on Facebook. He’s a great perspective so I think he would be a great guest for you.

Perry: Yeah, I think we will reach out to him and see if he wants to get on the show here. I bet he’d get a lot of book sales from us.

Elizabeth: I’m sure he would.

Perry: Alright Elizabeth, last question. If you moved to a new city tomorrow and you did not know a single soul there, and all that you had with you was your computer and 100 dollars to start a new private practice, what is it that you would do on your very first day?

Elizabeth: Let’s assume I don’t have a website, I would get that website up and going. The website has been so important to me and I think that’s the first thing I would do. Without that web presence I don’t think anyone knows you’re there, that you’re in that new city.

Perry: Or if they google you they’re not going to find you.

Elizabeth: Exactly. So I think for me that’s been really important. And when I was setting up my website one of the things I started looking at was if I google Saint Pete therapist what’s my competition look like? And you know, there aren’t a lot of people out there who have a really good web presence so I think I would put all of my money into that basket because a lot of clinicians don’t do this well. They see how I saw it years ago, maybe a year and a half ago. So I think that I would put all into that and really corner the market in my area with a really good web presence.

Perry: Perfect. And that’s such a great way to differentiate yourself because it’s true. Most clinicians out there don’t have a great website. You’re not with Brighter Vision yet. Hahaha.

Elizabeth: Exactly. Or they don’t know that they need one, right? That’s where I was.

Perry: Yeah. There’s so many people on Psychology Today, you can go through, just scroll through, that don’t have websites. And it’s amazing. It’s like, come on guys. It’s time.

Elizabeth: We got to do that in 2016.

Perry: Yeah. Alright. Elizabeth, thank you so much for your time. Where can our listeners find you to connect and learn more about you?

Elizabeth: You can come to my website which is Pinellaspsychologyassociates.com/ or Elizabethmagro.com/ And you can find me on Facebook as well. Both of those places have ways that you can email me if you want to send me a direct message. I’ll be excited to hear from you.

Perry: Perfect. And of course, everybody, we’ll have links to all the resources that Elizabeth mentioned here, her website, and all the great advice on this week’s show notes at Brightervision.com/session21/ Elizabeth, thank you so much for being so generous with your time, your expertise, and your knowledge. I know that I speak for our entire audience here that we are so grateful for advice that you’ve provided and the therapist experience that you have shared. Thank you again.

Elizabeth: Thank you.

Perry: Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you have a question for us please email it to us at [email protected]/ We really want to be doing some episodes that are just answering your questions. So if you have a question about growing a private practice, about marketing, about math, whatever it might be, email it to us at [email protected]/ And of course, if you’re interested in launching a new website please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. Brighter Vision is the worldwide leader in custom therapist website design. For just 59 bucks a month we’ll build you a website that’s as unique as your practice, provide you with unlimited tech support and complementary SEO so people can actually find you online. That does it for today, thank you again for listening and we will catch you next week.