HOW FAITH CAN INFORM YOUR BUSINESS JOURNEY WITH JESSICA TAPPANA, LCSW | EP 59

[DAWN GABRIEL]
Hi, I’m Dawn Gabriel, your host of Faith Fringes podcast, recording live from Castle Rock, Colorado. I am a licensed professional counselor, owner of a counseling center and a sacred space holder for fellow therapists. This podcast is for those who want to explore more than the traditional norms of the Christian culture. I create intentional space to explore your own spiritual path, a space that allows doubt, questions and curiosity without the judgment or shame, a place to hear another story and dive deeper into how to have a genuine connection with God.

For my fellow therapist, listening, I will often pull back the curtain of our layered inner world that comes with our profession. I bring an authentic and experienced way to engage your spiritual journey in order to connect you with your deepest values for true renewal and soul care. But really this podcast is for anyone listening who’s desiring a deeper and genuine connection with God. For those of you wanting to engage your spirituality in new ways, Faith Fringes is for you. Welcome to the podcast.

Hello, and welcome back to Faith Fringe’s podcast. This is Dawn, your host. I am coming today just contemplating some different things that business owners and therapists go through. I just notice, as you’re probably listening to this in the summer, that’s when it’s been recorded and it’ll go live, I just notice that the different pace of summer makes you look at things and look at priorities differently. At least it does for me. So it just always makes me go back to like, what am I valuing? What am I putting my efforts in? What am I putting my values into and how does my spirituality and faith form how I do business?

I just love that I get to talk about this. It’s one of my favorite things to talk about with you and I get to share different guests on here who can also jump into those conversations because I think a lot of times we put our business in one area of our life, our spirituality in one, our personal relationships in one and we try to, I don’t know, compartmentalize it a little bit and maybe that helps us handle it better. But in reality, from what I’ve noticed is that our worlds collide and intersect way more than we sometimes like them to. Or maybe I should just speak for myself, maybe that they intersect more than I like them to but I really feel though that when we open ourselves up to let everything intersect and let everything look at, we can look at everything as spiritual, to me that actually helps ground me.

So I’ve been really noticing what distracts me from that spirituality and what draws me into that spirituality. I was just talking actually yesterday with my spiritual director, Jocelyn and just how easy it is to get distracted. Even though my heart longs for connecting with God that sometimes I just don’t want to, or I push it away and it’s easier to just veg out and to do nothing. As I was contemplating that I realized that sometimes that comes after some intense emotions or intense times with God or some struggles and sometimes it’s just life. What I heard the invitation from God this week is that sometimes I’m trying to overthink it and it’s, he’s not sitting there judging where I’m at. He’s not sitting there judging how I’m doing. He’s more just inviting me to be with him, just inviting him, inviting me into his presence to come and just sit and to calm and to relax. I don’t have to do anything.

As you know, my personality I like to do, do, do and get going and stay busy, but sometimes I need to just let go of that, well, a lot of times, not just sometimes and just to sit in his presence and relax. So that is what I’ve been learning this week and I like to share where I’m at, as I’m recording, because it does affect my interviews and my businesses. That’s where I’m at and I hope that as you listen in on this interview I do with Jessica that you can notice where you’re seeing God show up in your life and if there’s something that Jessica shares or that I share in this interview, that it makes you curious and makes you think, huh, I wonder if God’s saying something to me. I’d love for you to reach out and just share that with me in an email. Or even just actually more importantly, just sit with that with you, yourself and with God and just enter into that more and feel the nudge and just be curious about what he’s sharing with you.

Today I interview Jessica Tappana. I recently met her, which we’ll talk about but I have worked with Jessica for a few years now and I just really enjoy her, just her presence and her energy. She has a calm energy and she’s just delightful to talk to. She actually shares more about her journey in here and I’m excited to hear her spiritual journey, how she started two businesses, she has two thriving businesses and she is just phenomenal at both. I’d love for you to hear more of her story and how she integrates her faith and her spirituality, how that informs her practice.
[DAWN]
Jessica Tappana is a mom, wife, licensed clinical social worker and the owner of two businesses. One is a group private psychotherapy practice with 10 clinicians in Columbia, Missouri, and an SEO business that helps therapists get their websites ranking better on Google. Jessica uses her value to guide decisions in every area of her life and seeks to find balance between all of the hats she wears. So listen in, as we talk about her spiritual journey, as she is navigating all those hats, Jessica, welcome to the podcast.
[JESSICA TAPPANA]
Thank you so much for having me, Dawn. I love any chance I get to talk to you and oh my goodness, just honored to be part of what you’re doing.
[DAWN]
Yes, I’m so glad we were able to meet in person finally. I’ve been working with you for, I don’t know, a couple years now. I’ve hired your team to work with my website and then I got to meet you in person in April. It was just so fun to just really connect in person. It’s so different.
[JESSICA]
It was the best feeling. It is different and yet it’s so funny because on my way there, I was saying to somebody, I feel like I know Dawn. We’ve been on Zoom meeting, Zoom calls together and everything. I’m like, I feel like I know her, but we’ve never met in person, but I still, yes, I love that technology allows us to connect with people anywhere. But there’s just still something so nice about seeing somebody in person.
[DAWN]
It’s like a hug almost. You’re like, this feels good. We’re really jiving.
[JESSICA]
Meeting someone in person, being able to have them, but then like, but sometimes it’s not even a hug, it’s just that connection and that warmth that.
[DAWN]
Yes, and I definitely felt that with you, just the warmth and we just talked like for an hour, I think the first time, that night. So my listeners don’t know you though. Some probably do, but some don’t, so can you just share a little bit about you and what you do and we’ll dive in from there?
[JESSICA]
Well, I always say my most important job is being a wife and mother to two adorable children. Other than that, professionally, what I do is I am a licensed clinical social worker. I carry my own still caseload of therapy clients, which I love doing and can’t imagine not but I also have a group practice with I think we’re at nine clinicians at the moment and then I have an SEO business that helps mental health professionals get their websites to show up on Google because I’m a really big believer. We were just talking about like my ethical convictions and moral convictions and one of my beliefs is that we as therapists do our best work when we have enough clients coming in, that we only work with ones we know we can truly help and are able to be paired with the right people. So that’s what the SEO business is all about. Yes, it’s by getting people to rank on Google but really, it’s about helping connect the people that they can help.
[DAWN]
I’m always so amazed because being a therapist and then being really good at SEO is like two totally different, what’s the word, skills. I’m just fascinated. I’ve never known, how did you get into loving SEO and boosting websites? I’ve never heard that story.
[JESSICA]
I love doing trauma work and I also love DBT. I’m not actively sitting on a DBT consultation team anymore. When I started my practice, I was, and I’m only not because of time. We all know I’ll go back and sit on a consultation room when my kids are fully in school and stuff, but for now I’m not, but yes, DBT and trauma are both very intensive, emotionally intensive. I love, love, love it. I would work with clients with PTSD that spent years in therapy and hadn’t made progress and would come to me because of the evidence-based trauma work we did or because of the DBT and it’s really intense.

So when I started my practice, we actually took out a loan. I know not a lot of therapists do, but we did and I was afraid that I was just making this huge mistake and going to cost my family all this money because I heard people talking about how most small businesses fail in the first five years, but I felt such a calling to do it. I couldn’t ignore it. It was what I knew I was supposed to do, no matter what warnings I got from people. But even though we took out loan, we bootstrapped it and so I started learning SEO. What I found is it was this beautiful relief for my mind because it is, it’s a totally different part of the mind. I’m not that great technical stuff, but I’m really, when I’m determined by golly, I teach myself something.

As I started learning it, I just was like, this is a nice break for my brain’s because the worst nightmares is a website, something we think about. When my whole caseload was people with suicidal ideation or who had been so traumatized that they dropped out of school to get treatment or not able to work, then yes, that’s something I worried about all the time. So then being able to take this break in my brain to go figure out how this puzzle of trying to get Google the right information was just delightful.
[DAWN]
Yes, I have, I didn’t know that, but it makes total sense and you’re right, when you’re saying DBT and trauma, those are some intense modalities of working with that client population. You would need a break. So I love that that’s what SEO is for you. And you’re phenomenal at it. I think people hire your team because you’re a therapist and you do SEO. It’s a weird, not weird, it’s a good mix that most of us don’t have that capacity. We trust a therapist to know exactly how to get our websites out there to Google. So, wow. I also feel like there were some nuggets in there, like the two things that really stood out to me is you said you felt this calling to do this no matter what anyone else was saying. Can you say more about that on, I’m sure that goes into your faith and spirituality too.
[JESSICA]
It’s very much so related. I actually said when I was 12 that when I turned 30, well not when I turned 30, when I was 12 all my friends came to me like so many of us therapists do because actually, I was pretty quiet. I know I’m not that quiet anymore, but I was very quiet. So my friends would come to me and be like, oh, you’re so good at listening. And then a therapist saved my life at about 12. So at that point I decided I wanted to be a therapist and we went to a therapist in private practice, my sisters and I did when I was 12, 13 and she was amazing. I mean, she was, oh yes, she was incredible.

So I knew I wanted to do what she did and so I had this whole life plan mapped out and it just so happened I had assigned years to it and I would be about 30 when I would start my private practice, get married and have children. God looks at our plans and laughs at them in a lot of ways in that I met my husband when I was 21. I could tell really quickly he was someone I could marry. So I tried to resist him so to speak and he was very patient. He was very, very patient with me. We both had some greening up to do, but we actually got married when we were 23, which if you didn’t know, this was about seven years before my plans were, but was beautiful because my dad was diagnosed with a terminal illness shortly afterwards and so he was able to walk me down the aisle.

I was able to have my first child, he was able to meet him and loved, adored him. But all of that happened very out of order. Ironically, it was when I was pregnant with my second child that I looked back at my first child’s early years and I was frustrated, there were some frustrations at work at the time. But the big thing was looking back and my brain just crying when I would drop my son off when he was a baby and I would be gone. He was one of the first to daycare and sometimes one of the last when I would pick him up. My husband was in school. He had gone back for his nursing degree and I was like, I don’t, I was thinking about how I didn’t want to do that. I was thinking about what it was that was frustrating me at work wasn’t, it was basically that the therapy part of my job I went to do all day.

So I just knew that dream that I had, that I had said when I started the job I was at while I was pregnant with my daughter, I had said five years here, and then I’m going to start a small private practice on the side and just gradually work my way into it. I just kept hearing this little voice in the back of my head saying, you don’t have to wait five years. You can do this. My husband and I prayed on together and talked about it and came up with this whole budget to where we could survive on his income alone for a little while. It would be tight. We could do it. We just paid a sitter for literally the hours that I was seeing clients. Yes, it was very much so like, but ironically, I ended up opening my practice when I was 30, which was the original age I was supposed to.

It’s the only way it was. At the time I was resisting, I was like, no, no, I actually had no idea what I needed. I need to be much further in my career. It turns out again, actually when I was 12, the 30-year-old opening your practice thing was perfect because it worked and here we are five and a half years later and I think we have a good thing going. I really, really love my practice. Then same with the other business that again was a calling because, I actually wanted to open a trauma therapy, intensive outpatient type program. I still have that dream. I actually still have everything drawn out and I want to do that very much so, but that’s where I thought I was going to go.

When I got my website ranking, other people started helping me and ironically the first I would say SEO client, so to speak was a friend who has a very overtly faith-based practice who was really, really wonderful with just letting me basically experiment on her website. I was like, look, I know that this stuff works in Columbia, Missouri. You’re in a major metropolitan area. Probably not going to get anywhere like here, just try, just try. Totally got her really, really well and she was very instrumental in me starting my SEO business, but again, it was like things fell into place. The people came, we did good work, people came and I did good work initially. Then like the first two employees fell into my lap too, which doesn’t always happen, but it’s very much so just been like, no, here’s this opportunity that you have and because of that, I’ve been able to give jobs to people and I never would dreamed I’d open anything, remotely tech based.
[DAWN]
That’s so funny. Well, and how many employees do you have in Simplified SEO Consulting world?
[JESSICA]
We’ve had a couple people that have moved on lately, so we’re trying to hire right now. Now I think there’s six of us together, including myself, five on our calls and one person’s not. So yes, like five. One’s very part time. They’re amazing. The team I have is amazing. They’re awesome.
[DAWN]
Wow. I love that. I’ve worked with your team and yes, have really enjoyed what they’ve done with my website. But I want to go back to something you just said, you said you were wanting to open a trauma intensive, but yet here you are opening this SEO business. I’m curious, like people who are trying to figure out, am I hearing from God or is this just me pushing it? Can you talk a little bit more about that process for you because I think sometimes people get confused on which direction they should go. How do you listen to your calling because you said both of them were callings for you, your group practice and your SEO, so I’m curious if you could talk a little more about that.
[JESSICA]
I think that maybe my default is to run myself into the ground if I’m really honest. I come right now —
[DAWN]
Same girl
[JESSICA]
Yes. It’s like, on one hand I have great imposter syndrome and self-doubt. On the other hand, I have this thought that if I just try hard enough, I can go make something happen. But it’s also been my experience that when I do run it myself into the ground, then I can’t do a good job. Also sometimes I’m pushing for something that isn’t meant to be at that point in time. What I found is many times the thing that I thought I need to push and make happen is actually meant to happen later. I think that’s what the deal is with the trauma intensive of like, I still think it’ll happen, but sometimes what I find is that when I have my plans, and same with the group practice, with the practice that happened earlier than I had expected.

But I think when I’m trying to figure out what I’m being called to and what is more God than Jessica a lot of it is what might be a challenge and might require sprinting, but feels fulfilling in the moment. Sometimes things I love don’t feel totally, I don’t know if fulfilling is even the right word, because I wouldn’t have said SEO was fulfilling at first. It is, but so much as it’s like the people came into my life that I needed to make each of these things happen. I mentioned that we got a loan. It was the only way I was going to feel secure enough to open my business. A friend of mine that I had met through church that said this guy that we used to go to church with, he’s the one that gave me my loan to start my business. You need to go talk to him.

He was really great about helping me write my first budget for my practice and all of that. So it’s like these people were just put in my path that to me, that’s been one of the biggest signs that this is something that’s meant to be in good people, not just random people, but like good people that I hear somewhere speak or I see someone or a friend tells me and they’re good people that I can tell are put my in my path for a reason and make the path doable and make the path where it’s not, it might be pushing, it might be a ton of work. It might be a lot of hours, but it doesn’t just feel like I’m forcing it just because, I don’t know if I’m making any sense.
[DAWN]
Yes, well, it sounds like you’re trusting the process that you’re not in control of at all at the same time, but then you’re also having this connection with community. It’s like a community connection. Like we’re not meant to do this alone, I don’t believe, like life, so even our business, we’re not meant to do it alone. So when you have that person that, like, I do find that as a divine connection has been offered to you of, hey, this person’s here to partner with you on this business venture. That’s huge, because I think we don’t talk about that enough. We’re like we don’t talk about our business ventures being spiritual, but they are.
[JESSICA]
They are. And I guess the other thing, too, is that that things will get stuck in my head in a way, not like I wish by golly that I heard the voice of God as like an actual voice? But sometimes I talk about this little voice, this little nagging voice in my head and it’s not unfortunately a voice for me. It is, but what it is it’s like my head coming back around in those moments of relaxation and seeing the possibilities. It’s like Danica who works with me at my SEO business, her and I will just be joking that like when we’re just hanging out, like we have our best business ideas, but I do feel like a lot of times when things are that meant to be, that it is like, yes, I’m taking a shower and I just suddenly see a solution to something I thought was a barrier to me pursuing that path. Like SEO business was really funny. I thought that was something I’d do for about six months. I kept telling my husband when I’m done with this I’m done.
[DAWN]
I’ve heard that you make more in that than you do your group practice, is that true?
[JESSICA]
Yes, it probably is true. They’re not a huge discrepancy, but it’s a little bit more. Also just how you spend money is very different in my two businesses because what you need for overhead and stuff, but yes, no, the SEO business is bigger than the group practice and what that’s done is it’s given me the freedom to be less business focused, I guess you could say in my private practice. I probably do things that not everybody would say is great. We give a free consultation, that’s a full half hour to every single person in-person and people are like, I don’t know. I’m like, I’m able to be less focused on profits, even though every business has to make profit. You can’t keep a business open without profits. But because I do have two sources of income, I do think that that diversified income does give me more flexibility to do what needs to be done in each business. Because I know that if one business I make less money off of for a little while, if the other one’s going strong, then it’s okay if I need to stretch myself a little bit.
[DAWN]
Hi. I just want to take some time to talk to you about Sacred Space Mastermind Group. This is Dawn Gabriel, your host of Faith Princess podcast. I am super passionate about bringing people together who are group practice owners. Whether you’re wanting to start a group practice, you’re in the middle of starting one or you’ve been a clinician for years running a group practice this mastermind group could be for you. So maybe answer some of these questions. Do you value your faith and want to keep a spiritual view on your business? Is that a grounding value to you that you want to bring in to how you run your business? Do you want to grow your group practice and do you feel like you need a community around you that can support you and not only support you in the growth of your business, but also support you in what’s it like to be a business leader and an entrepreneur, as you look at how your faith informs that?

So what I have done is I’ve created some mastermind groups that I call Sacred Space, where we get together with four to six other clinicians and we meet twice a month for an hour and we really just enter into some spiritual exercises that really get us centered and listening to what God may have for us, not only us, but one another. So we listen in together to what God is saying and how he informs how we make decisions. Then we come back to one another and talk about what we’re hearing and what we’re noticing. It’s definitely more of, it’s definitely a mastermind group, because we can talk about what you’re needing practically on how to grow your business but we also enter in together to this sacred space and we listen in to what the spirit might be saying to us as well.

I have found that it’s be a very beautiful place for not only yourself, but for one another for the group. It’s just a beautiful thing to watch as the group really joins in on a deeper level of spirituality and business building. If that sounds like something you are wanting to do, please reach out to me at dawn@faithfringes.com and let me know that you’re interested in this group. We will meet, the next one is starting in July, 2022 and it’s from July through November, so we’ll meet for five months and there’s two meetings each month and you’ll have access to me, email, text, and phone calls in between those times. You’ll also get a lot of my documents, my task lists that I like to check off in how to grow business, how to onboard clinicians, how to train clinicians and just a lot of the stuff I’ve already done as being a group practice owner for seven years. You’ll get access to all of my master checklist.

Let me know if that’s something you’re interested in. Like I said, reach out to me through email dawn@faithfringes. I’d love to have you. I have a few spots open for this next one in July and I would love to have you. Oh, and I forgot to mention those of you who do join this July one, it will include a spot secured at my soul care for therapist retreat, which is coming up in September. It automatically gives you a spot completely paid for. When you join the mastermind, you will get a spot at the so care retreat here in Colorado. I hope to see you. I’d love to answer any questions. I’ll jump on a phone call with you. Just reach out. Thanks so much.
[DAWN GABRIEL]
Yes, but I love what you said, like when you’re in the quiet moments or you’re not totally focusing, you feel these nudges. And I do, I feel like that’s the spiritual realm, like bringing it back to our forefront, like this is the way to go. Like it’s this hard to define moment but you feel it’s spiritual. That’s what I’m hearing you say when you talk about it.
[JESSICA]
Yes, it is. It’s those moments where it’s like, oh, I thought I couldn’t do X, Y, Z because of X, because of this and now I just see it. I just see where I could go with it. I’ve probably thought some of those moments. There have definitely, probably been some judges that I’ve ignored because I’m a very practical person
[DAWN]
I feel you.
[JESSICA]
But the biggest moments of growth and connection have been when I have followed them, when I follow them, even when maybe it doesn’t make sense to other people to follow them. I mean, same with, even if, I mentioned Danica a minute ago, her and well, I mean, there are multiple examples between my two businesses of people that I’ve known personally before they’ve come on and how many people would tell you, that’s a terrible idea, that it ruins relationships and stuff and definitely not bringing on everyone I know. But I will say some of my best hires have been people that I’ve known previously. Same with my lead clinician at my counseling practice, Christy, I’ve known her since around the time I got married, so like 12 years. That’s worked out beautifully, but it is scary.

At the moment when I have brought each of these people and have been like, oh my gosh, I know this person, usually they’re not. Well, I mean, I was going to say, usually they’re not that close to a friend, I’m like, oh. But we become a lot better friends and I still believe in boundaries, professional boundaries. Absolutely those are important. I keep those in mind, but those were scary moments where I’m like, this is something people tell you not to do, but I think they’ve been some of my best decisions. I’ve had a couple friends that have worked with me and left for various reasons. I’ve yet to have a ruined friendship. One of them was like my little sister’s best friend or one of her best friends came. She worked for me for over two years, three years, something like that and was wonderful and definitely left on good terms. I definitely still adore her. But yes, she was one I was like, oh my gosh, if this doesn’t go well, that would be terrible but I treat her with the same respect I treat everybody with. We say it was like a big sister, little sister dynamic. So I’m like, okay, sometimes we have to —
[DAWN]
You’re like, don’t bring any stories in.
[JESSICA]
She was in middle school —
[DAWN]
But I’m so glad you said that because I’m feeling like we have more in common, like we’re kindred spirits more in common because I have hired a couple friends as well. I don’t usually talk about it because people always say don’t, but the one is my clinical manager and she was like the best decision I have ever made in my business. I could not run my business without her. We’re gotten super close and it’s actually grown me as a leader. It’s grown me spiritually and yes, she’s one of my closest friends now too. I mean, we were good friends before, but it’s gotten even better. We just have, we talk about boundaries, but she’s invaluable to me personally and professionally and so I agree with you, you can do it. You just have to be super honest and high communication and talk about boundaries
[JESSICA]
Yes, yes, being open about boundaries, being clear, being on the same page. That everything you were saying though, I’m like, yes, yes. Right now, there are a few, two people in particular that came on that, that I knew before and both of them I’m closer to now than I was when they came on. It’s just been like this huge gift and how we’ve done things. I’m so grateful. I’m so, so grateful and I’m like that somebody that knows me and knows some of my faults that they’re willing to come work with me, like, wow, what an honor that is and what a responsibility, but what an honor. It really is a good reminder to me that every single one of my employees should be treated well enough.
[DAWN]
We’re talking about a lot of like awesome things about how spirituality in our business intersect but I was wondering if you have any stories of, because I’m such a realist too, like there’s been times where things have not gone well, and that actually has been spiritually forming for me too, with the business where you have to face your own stuff and depend on God or whatever. I was curious if you have any stories of that, just so people don’t think like, oh yes, if we trust God, all this stuff happens and we’re great. It’s like easy, smooth sailing. Because I know that’s not true either.
[JESSICA]
Yes, no, definitely. I wish that was true. I feel like most days I’m so human, more things go wrong than go right but, in a way, even this year, I was telling you a little bit about this, this year I had this plan for 2022 and it was very much going to look both businesses had leadership teams in place and I was going to be able to focus on some really fun stuff. Namely I wanted to add groups to my group practice, like we wanted to offer more groups because we get so many calls, we’ll get 30 calls in week and have two openings?

So I was like, okay, we’re going to open groups and it’s going to less help more people in the community without a huge, without much extra commitment from our therapists. I was so excited and I put together a couple of, I thought brilliant groups, obviously one of them was cognitive processing therapy, which can be a group treatment. We’ve mostly done individual to treat PTSDs, so excited and we got calls and interest, but didn’t turn into enough people signing up for these to run the groups at all. But what’s funny is we got a couple individual therapy clients. Like I did a pre-call for the coping schools one thinking like this is going to be perfect. This person sounds like a perfect candidate. Of course, we’re like halfway through the call and there were multiple reasons.

He was just like, can you just see me individually? He’s been this fantastic individual client and just this great fit. I’m like, yes, yes, definitely. I’m so disappointed because I really wanted us to be having these amazing groups. But it’s just, yes, that has failed spectacularly but like I said, some things have come of it and I think it’s gone well and all of that. We’ve had staffing changes. Probably one of, I would say the things that hurt my heart the most as a business owner is there’ve been times where people have come into one of my businesses or the other and it did not work out. A couple of my initial therapists I didn’t think that, I thought they’d be a great fit and they were but basically, they weren’t at a point where private practice was what made the most sense and I wasn’t able to fill people up as quickly back then.

It just hurt my heart to think somebody had left their job and come to work with me all excited and then not that long later within a year they had realized it wasn’t a good fit. So I take that responsibility really, really seriously. We’re actually, at Simplified, redoing our hiring process to try to be really clear, like send people a video right away, telling them what the job is, because it’s such a weird job. Same at my practice. I just did an interview a couple weeks ago with my lead clinician where by the end of the interview, like I was like, what are you thinking? We just agreed that this person wasn’t ready to make the leap to private practice.

So I’ve come across, I don’t want to say it like I try to scare people off. It’s not that, but I’ve tried to fix like how much my heart hurt those times it wasn’t a good fit by trying to be even more transparent at both businesses about what the job looks like, because that just weighed so heavily on my heart each time it happened. I’m like, I want, if somebody takes a chance, it feels like every time somebody comes and works for me, that they are taking a chance on me. Like, I need to make sure that that that’s going to be worth it for them. That’s going to work out. That they’re going to be good at the job and satisfied by the job and that’s going to meet their needs. So, yes, I would say you, hopefully we’re fixing that, but that has at times been a failure too.
[DAWN]
It’s just like a deep, I’m the same way, I take it so personally. I feel like the hardest things for me in my business have been the personal, when someone doesn’t work out, that’s been the most gut-wrenching times where I doubt myself and I go into shame spirals and question and pray a lot and I’m just like anguished. So I relate with you with that or resonate with that because we’re affecting and impacting someone else’s life and their business. I take that very personally too, and so I definitely resonate with that part.
[JESSICA]
Me too. I care so deeply for the clients that we serve, but I also care so deeply for the team members that I have. In balancing those, it’s always a balance, but I think that by taking good care of the people of our team and by hiring really good teams, we are taking better care of our clients and both businesses. So I try to be very aware of that and take that responsibility very seriously. So yes, that does hurt. I mean, those are just and sometimes we celebrate somebody moving on to, but especially those where it’s like, early on, it wasn’t a good fit. Those are like, no, yes, I don’t even have words. I’m stumbling over my words because that for me is something that I care about.
[DAWN]
I would say that’s, when I’m consulting with someone, that’s when I coach them to like, this is when you reach out to your small, small community of other group practice owners who will get that and you need to support them because that’s how we do go into our spirals and you need support, you need community, you need a consultant or somebody to touch base with. And I know you have a good network of people and so do I, and that’s been instrumental to really reach out.
[JESSICA]
Yes, both individual coaching. I met with my business coach this morning and then also my mastermind. I know you participate in one and are even offering some now. To me, that is so critical, is having like-minded people. So our mastermind is a group of Christian therapists who are also doing something else. We’re just a little informal group and they’re everything. We text each other in the middle of the week, sometimes we do voice memos, sometimes we send memes but yes, having that support network. I’m lucky that I started and again, like doors opened and I learned about the value of consulting and networking or consulting. I hated the word networking for a long time, by the way, funny story, but I love the, but I learned about masterminds and coaching early on, and that’s been just critical, I feel like in so much my growth and so much, especially during these more challenging moments.
[DAWN]
Yes, I love that likeminded people have made the difference in my world. Well, Jessica, I want to thank you so much for your time. I also want to allow you to just please tell us your name of your business so that people can reach out to you if they want to work with you and yes, give us some details.
[JESSICA]
Absolutely. It’s Simplified SEO Consulting and it is yes, just simplifiedseoonsulting.com. We have a free email series on there at the top that you can hit the button. That’s the easiest way to learn some of the basics.
[DAWN]
I highly, highly recommend her for this. And Jessica, you just told me something cool that you have a deal for my listeners. I am very excited about this deal. Go ahead and share it.
[JESSICA]
Yes, I do. For anyone wanting to work on their SEO, but who is still in that boots phase like I mentioned, I was in for such a long time, I want to make that as easy as I can on practice owners. So we’ve developed some courses to help with SEO. Some of the smaller ones are something specific, like using blogging to improve SEO. Then we have a really big one that’s like all the basics to get somebody started but if you’re in that bootstrapping phase and you want to do one of our courses, we, just for your listeners are going to offer 25% off, which is a bigger discount than we often give. That code is fringes F-R-I-N-G-E-S. If you go to our site that’ll work on any of our DIY courses, even the big one. So people are welcome to do that. It’s a great way just to get started for low cost because I want to make SEO as accessible as I can.
[DAWN]
I love that. Please take advantage of that deal. Well, thank you again, Jessica, for that awesome deal. Jessica, it’s been so good, just chatting. I feel like we have a lot in common internally and how we do our groups, even so our group practice, but I’ve really enjoyed our time. Thank you so much for just sharing with us, your heart and your journey.
[JESSICA]
Sounds good. Thank you again for having me.
[DAWN]
Thank you for listening today to the Faith Fringes podcast. For those of you wanting to take a deeper dive into your own faith journey, you can grab my free email course, Spiritual Reflections on my website, faithfringes.com. If you’re a therapist and would want to work with me, I offer sacred space holding for you through my consulting as well as my soul care retreats. To find out more, go to my website or email me, dawn@faithfringes.com.

I love hearing from my listeners. Drop me an email and tell me what’s on your mind. You can also connect with me on social media. I’m on Facebook and Instagram at Faith Fringes. As always, if you’re enjoying this podcast, I would love it if you could show it by your reviews. Go to Apple Podcasts and leave your review so that others can find this podcast and get curious about their own spiritual journey. Thanks again for listening.

Faith Fringes is part of the Practice of the Practice network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you market and grow your business and yourself. To hear other podcasts like Faith in Practice, Beta Male Revolution, Empowered and Unapologetic or Impact Driven Leader, go to the website, www.practiceofthepractice.com/network.

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 guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or any other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.