Breaking the Burnout Cycle: A Real Therapist to Coach Transition Success Story with Kerry Green [Ep 43]

Welcome to the Thriving therapyneur podcast, the show for ambitious therapists who are ready to unapologetically make more money, scale their impact and build their dream coaching business. I'm Carly Hill, therapist turned coach turned CEO of a seven figure online business. I created the Thriving Therapeutic podcast because I'm obsessed with helping big hearted therapists outgrow the office and build successful and sustainable online businesses. So if you are wondering how you can continue to make an impact without sacrificing the life you love, welcome Therapreneur. This is exactly the place for you. Think of it like the business school we never had. I am so excited to dive in with you. Let's get started.

Hello, therapreneurs. Welcome back to another episode of the Thriving Therapeneur podcast. I have a client with me today, Terry Green. She's been growing her coaching business for just shy of a year and a half. She is obviously a therapist by trade. So I would love for you, Carrie, to just introduce yourself, tell everybody who is listening what type of therapist you are, and let's talk about the transition of you adding coaching. Tell us a little bit of your backstory.

Awesome. Thanks, Carly. I'm excited to be here. So I am a therapist and coach. Before adding coaching, I was working with women with trauma and anxiety. And one of the reasons why I started this program where I teach ambitious women how to heal anxiety for good is because I realized in talk therapy, especially for trauma and anxiety, there's a missing component of adding a physical piece. So a lot of my clients would be super dysregulated, but so dedicated to their healing. And they would come to the session and make progress for an hour, then leave and go home and be stressed out again and lose all their progress. So I knew that I needed to come up with something to address the mind, body.

And this is your story too, right? You struggled with anxiety, you had, you know, quite the journey, healing yourself. And there were missing puzzle pieces, which I feel like is so common. I always, always say I probably sound like broken record to everybody. Like 90% of us are our own ideal client. We really, truly walk through something ourselves most often. And then we're just inspired naturally to guide other people through it. So this is your own lived experience, but also the experience that you were seeing and working with and filling that void and filling that gap with your clients.

Yeah, 100%. Like I am my own first client. So much of what I learned started before even becoming a therapist. Just growing up with like a physical, chronic spine conditions, Scoliosis, having medical trauma, just having to do so much deep healing mentally and physically. And it's part of why I know so much about the body as well. Not just, like, mindset stuff, because I've had to heal myself physically. Everybody's always like, what, are you a physical therapist too? Like, no, I just learned it myself.

Well, you have such a unique approach, and you use the NeuroFit app with clients like, you're not just another typical anxiety coach. And if anybody goes and looks at your social media, which they should, because I feel like your social media is always just bomb. Your content is great. I use you as an example all the time for clients who are just starting off, like, go look at Carrie's content. So if anything, go look at Carrie's content, because her social media is bomb. But your reels, I'm thinking of, like, how, like, you're doing all these physical things and you're tapping your way through, releasing the anxiety. There is such a huge somatic component to everything that you teach, which is a huge advantage in the saturated coaching space. You do have to have unique value propositions to stand out in the saturated market, and you have so many of those as you're working with clients. Plus, it's really relatable because this is your own lived experience. So take me back to when you first decided you were going to be a coach, because I was just saying on the recording, I remember our consult call like, it was yesterday, which I speak to hundreds of therapists. So I don't know what it was, but I think it was how serious and dedicated you were. Like, you were fed up of throwing spaghetti at the wall, and you're like, I have to do something different. Like, this is inevitable for me. But it also wasn't great timing for you because you were in this transition period of quitting your job, starting your own businesses. Walk us through. Like, what was this transition like for you?

Yeah, so I was at the time basically like a program director supervisor for other therapists for a child welfare agency. So really, really, really intensive work.

We.

When I became fed up is because we had been able to work from home during the pandemic. And that was when I realized, like, how amazing my body felt physically and not having to go be locked to a chair for eight hours. And I was also juggling, like, I had started my private practice. So when they told me, like, you just basically need to come back for no reason, I lost my shit. Like, I was pissed. That's when I found you. I was like, I need help because I was doing the craziest things, trying to figure it out on my own. I was like, researching. One of my friends are going to laugh at this. She told me to buy, like business for Dummies. Like picking a business dummies body.

Yeah.

Read one page. I was like, this is silly. I forgot. Never looked at it again. So you and I had our first call and I knew I was going to do it. I'm pretty sure I, like, told you after the call, I need a little bit more time reached out to me. I think, like three months later. @ that point, I was so fed up, I was so burned out. I had also just found Neurofit at the time. So it was kind of like the stars aligned. When I found Neurofit and I thought of this breath brilliant plan to create this program, I was like, I need to meet with Carly again. We met, I signed up that day, and it all just worked out. Perfect.

Timing. Yeah. And sometimes it takes being that fed up and burnt out. I mean, we never wanted to get to that point. In an ideal world, we're proactive and we're not at our breaking point. But I mean, man, there's nothing that pushes you into action then being at that last straw. Yeah, breaking point, which is what it was for you. You were really assessing, I think, your future life too, and the sustainability of the work that you were doing. And you probably had this internal dialogue, because this is what I see all of the time. Correct me if I'm wrong, but can I see myself doing this for the next three to five to 10 years? And if the answer is no, what is your plan B? Are you willing to take a leap of faith? You had no idea what you were doing. You were trying to diy, right, which is exactly why you invested in mentorship. But there's still no definitive answer that this is going to work out for you. It truly is a leap of faith. But when you feel like you kind of hit like, rock bottom of burnout, you don't care, you're willing to try.

Anything.

Yes. That type of feeling inside, is that what you were feeling in that.

Moment? Yeah, 100%. When you're crying on a Friday night where your husband's like, let's go do something, and you're crying for no reason and nothing's wrong, I'm just like, my job, I'm tired. What do I do? What do. I kept saying, what do I do? What do I do? And he was like, quit. Like, what? Just where you can Invest in yourself. So, story of my life, and I'm sure so many women's life, all of my ICA is like, we just don't want to ask for help. Part of being an ambitious woman is like, I'll figure it out myself. And that's I was being stubborn. A big part of me, like, I'll figure this out, I'll figure this out. But no, you're crying on a Friday night for no reason. Like, you should get some.

Help. How long were you trying to figure it out and DIY it.

For? Probably, I want to say like a year, because I had been doing it before I had my first call with you and then we didn't meet again for a few.

Months. Yeah. So what's been the biggest game changer between, I always call it throwing spaghetti at the wall, trying to DIY it, and actually having a step by step plan? How did that help your nervous.

System? Oh, I mean, it was like a weight lifted and I was still burned out when I started with you and I. And I knew that one of the things that happens to us, like when we're burned out and when we're. Our nervous system is overwhelmed, is that we waste a lot of time and we start thinking about silly things that don't matter. And I was doing that a lot in the beginning because I was still coming out of it. So, for example, obsessing about my brand colors, everybody can resonate with this. Obsessing about the Facebook group name and the COVID photo. And do you remember when I was obsessing about, should I trademark.

This?

Yes. I spent like three weeks thinking about if I need to trademark this new group name I was coming up with. Anyway, now I look back and I'm like, that was silly. But I can see it was my nervous system, like, just screaming. So you helping me step by step, like, this is exactly what you need to focus on this week and you don't need to worry about anything else. And I started slowly chipping away and, like actually moving the needle forward. Everything changed. My body felt lighter. Everything felt.

Lighter. Yeah. It's a good way to put it that it's your nervous system where you're overthinking all of these decisions and you even fall into the shiny object syndrome too, and you're getting pulled in all these different directions. But this is so normal. I see almost everybody go through these little mini obsessions and overthinking and then rethinking and then overthinking again. It is just. It's so normal. Which is why having a mentor and a guide and a coach to be like, nope, okay, moving forward, decision done. Which is why I always just live by that 80, 20 rule, we're 80% sure and move on. Like your brand colors, we can change them later. Yeah, we can change the name of your group leader. We can trademark later because trademarking is a whole process of itself and usually fork out a couple grand for that anyway. So that was definitely not the best use of your time at the very beginning. Not that it's not important, but there is such an order of operations, which is what you can really find through mentorship and guidance. Thank you for sharing your backstory. I think it's still relatable to a lot of therapists. I mean, raise your hand if you're listening and you're burnt out. All of you are probably going to raise your hand that you've experienced it in some capacity. Hey.

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Winner. So now you're in the thick of running your coaching business. Let's talk about your revenue for a second. And then I would love to talk about some mindset shifts that you've had to go through because it's part strategy, it's part mindset. So, yes, you have a blueprint, you're following the step by step, moving the needle forward, but there's a lot of ups and downs just in the mental load of running your coaching business. I hear so often from therapists who are starting from scratch, they have no business entity filed. Carly, I want to hit at least 10k months to start, and then obviously I would love to scale from there, but they're being very realistic with their goals, knowing that they may don't even know their niche yet, which most people don't. And that's completely fine. You had a goal of hitting 10k months. You're hitting that now. When? How long did it take you to hit your first 10k.

Month? Yeah. So I want to say, got my first. By the way, I still remember my first client that signed up it was a Friday night. Everything's a Friday night, right? It was a Friday night. I had just met with her like earlier that morning. She texted me at 11pm like, this is a big deal for me, but I'm going to do it. And me and my husband are screaming. We're like, yeah, like it's working. That happened how long into usually finish recording our course?

What? Like I would say like three months if you start right.

Away. Okay, so.

I. Because you're creating it as you go, right? Not creating your whole entire course and then going to market and selling it. You're dripping it to your clients. So I would say around like month three or.

Four. So I probably signed her up and a couple other people like two or three months in and I was still recovering from my burnout. Never not working, just nonstop. I wasn't seeing my friends. My friends are all of in New York. I'm in Florida now. They're like, when are you going to see us? And I was like, you know what? I don't need to be so obsessed with the story about time. And I. Because I realized everybody else was too. Like, I don't need to be doing this at a certain pace. It's fine if I take a weekend off. I'm going to go see my friends. Flew home for two days, didn't think about work, came back that week. I met with like, I had six, like six consult calls. I pretty sure I signed every single one of them. I hit my first 10k month and I guess it was a lesson. I was like, the lesson is, take your time, take care of yourself, nourish your relationships, don't burn yourself out and everything will move forward, Things will be.

Okay. Yeah, well, it makes total sense when you think about your nervous system, which we're really talking about. And in the energetic alignment, if you would have stayed in the position of overthinking, forcing yourself being so caught up in the timeline, then you wouldn't have been an energetic match for those clients to say yes. But because you took a load off, you did what you knew to do best. So there was definitely strategy involved for you to even book those console calls in the first place. Right. For the conversion to happen, for them to trust you, for the sale to come to fruition, you also had to be in that energetic alignment, which it sounds like having a reset, being with your friends is exactly what you needed. And sometimes we feel so guilty for resting. We feel like our to do list is so long it's counterintuitive to our Goals to rest. And if we move into talking about mindset shifts and this is something that I have struggled with too, you know, leaving your to do list and walking away and knowing that it will be there for you tomorrow and knowing that going to the gym or going to hang out with your friends or having a day where you literally don't even go to the computer or you don't do any work, it is going to help you succeed much faster than forcing your way through something just because you are going to be in a better mindset, you're going to be an energetic match for welcoming in your dream clients. And that was this lived experience for.

You?

Yes. What other mindset shifts have you had to go.

Through? I've done a lot of work on money mindset and going from a total scarcity, like growing up with nothing, like always believing that money had to be a problem to totally believing that there, that it's always going to replenish itself. Even if you have dips. That doesn't mean that's going to be forever, like money's going to always come back to you. So I've had, you know, I've had months in the program where there it's a dry spell and yeah, but I don't freak out about it because I do believe that I'm living in alignment. Like I love my program, I love my clients, it's not going anywhere. So I believe that I'm not ever going to give up and the money is always going to come back to me and I'm not even really doing it for that reason anyway and it always does. So I've had like, I remember I told you I had like three months that was really, really hard and like nothing going on. And then I made a 12k a month, you know, right after that and it just goes up and down. And I think the key is, you know, not letting my mindset say oh my gosh, like this is a problem, this is not working. Because that's not true. It's just going to be up and down. I don't make it mean.

Anything. And it doesn't have to be up and down for forever. But I think if I could normalize the roller coaster and the foundational stages of your business, this will help you even more so with the mindset because you're still working on all of your automations and your systems and your lead generation. Not everything is in place. So although you're following a step by step blueprint, how many things do you have on your checklist? That we are very much so actively implementing right now. And once those are in place, you will have more.

Sustainability.

Right. But I think giving yourself a little bit of grace that you can have an up and down month because you don't have all of those systems in place and you haven't forced yourself or rushed yourself to get all of these systems in place because it's not worth the burnout. You're on your own timeline, you're still signing clients, you're still making decent money and you're also simultaneously continuing to grow and scale at the same.

Time.

Yes. Because you can get to the point of, oh, 10k months, easy peasy, always will happen. 15k months, always will happen. 20k months will always happen. And that's. We really do want that security for our nervous system, but it takes moving out of the foundational phases into the growth and the scaling phases where we can have that consistency. Yeah. Which comes from systems, which is what you're actively building right now. You're working on tons of funnels and many chat automations and paid advertising and hiring a team. Let's talk about your team for a second. How many people are on your team? Is that like a team of.

Two? Three? It's only two. I forget my social media manager and then a VA and this, I'm doing these kind of months. I don't even have a setter right.

Now.

Perfect. Yeah. Which is amazing. Yeah.

Yeah. And paid advertising, we're really, really working on dialing in. So I would say that's not even fully optimized. And you're making six.

Months. Yeah, And I also still have a private practice so like I might again moving at the speed of what my nervous system can handle. Who knows what, maybe in six months I'm ready to like pivot further away from that. But you know, you can't compare yourself to others because some people, you know, they sell theirs or you know, they step away from it for a little while and so, you know, I'm not just doing.

This. Yeah. And most people don't want to get rid of their private practice and maybe this will change in time. But usually everybody loves their private practice. It's their baby. They love the work that they're doing, but they just want to reduce their clinical hours. Right. They don't want to rely only on their private practice. They really want to outgrow the office. They want to expand their impact. Of course they want to expand their revenue. Who doesn't? So yeah, you're managing two full time businesses, you're making 10k months in your coaching business, still in the foundational phases, still implementing so much. You should be very proud of yourself. I mean, I am very proud of you. I know firsthand how much work it takes. And I think that most people don't realize until they actually get into mentorship for coaching and they start to implement all of these pieces. They're like, oh, this is what goes on behind the scenes. Oh, this is what it.

Takes.

Yeah. Holy cow. I would have never been able to continue diying it. I don't even know how I thought I could do these pieces on my own. Not because they're inherently hard, but just because I think there's so many of.

Them.

Right. I've built a successful private practice and I have built a successful coaching business. To me, and I'm curious your opinion. Building a coaching business is much.

Harder. Oh, so much harder. And you don't, you don't know what you don't know because you have to have somebody that's done it to show you what you don't know. Like, there's so many, you know, there's big systems like the automations and all of that, but then there's the tiny things, like, you know, how you walk us through the steps of a funnel and you're like, why do you have this thank you page here? I'm like, I don't know. Why do I, you know, that's. I would never think of this stuff because I just don't know. It's new for me, you.

Know? Yeah, it is. It's a totally new world. But if we're comparing private practice and in coaching business, the scalability of a coaching business, although it is much harder, is way larger. The reward is it just outweighs private practice. There is a cap on your income. Very much so in private practice, you are trading dollars per hours. Unless of course, you grow to a group practice and you can scale in that way. Personally, I didn't love that for myself. It's not for everyone. So there is different ways to scale your group practice. But at some point, if you're wanting to outgrow your private practice, coaching is a wonderful way to do so because we can do so much as.

Therapists. There's just not as much, in my opinion, behind the scenes in private practice, it's a little bit more like to the point, you know, and there's a lot of websites that can, you can market yourself on. In coaching, you are marketing yourself. Like, you are strategizing constantly. You are being creative, you Are you have to find a way to stand out. I mean, the reward is much greater, but there's a lot more work that goes into.

It. Absolutely. So what's next for you? You have your private practice, you're scaling your coaching business. You're growing it, I should say. Then we're going to work on scaling it. We need to nail down the sustainability first, which will come through our systems. What are you excited for moving into next year? What's going to be happening in your coaching business? Do you have any plans for your private practice? Reducing your caseload? How many clients are you seeing? I'm.

Curious. I'm still at about.

15.

Okay. Yeah. That's an amount, not small.

Potatoes.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm so excited to see my group grow in my coaching program. Nerf to soar. I like, I, I'm finally ready for that, you know, to have like a lot more women in the group. I'm also really, really excited for you to help me with my low ticket offers, you know, like courses and webinars, like things like that to help me make passive income. That's not something I've ever done before. And that is one thing. You know, I've been working on like a seven day anxiety reset and I sometimes I stare at it and I'm like, I'm staring at it again like, you know, that's on my agenda to finish and I'm really excited for that. One thing I love about continuing my work with you is like, again, I'm not pressuring myself because I know that it keeps me accountable to keep.

Going. Yeah, yeah. And there's so much room for growth. I mean, I know you want to start a podcast.

Eventually.

Yes. That's probably not first on your priority list. Digital products are a great thing to be on your priority list because you have your signature program up and running like a well oiled machine. We're working on the lead generation sustainability piece. But once you have that going, adding low ticket items is just an extra pop of cash. It can help build trust, extend them into your high ticket offers. I firmly believe there's a time and a place for low ticket and high ticket. And the perfect time to implement these low ticket funnels into your business is now for you. So that's.

Awesome. Yeah. And it's inspiring to see you're like every other day with a new idea. I'm like, how is she doing it, folks? So it is like so inspiring.

Yeah. I remember you actually asked me that on a coaching call recently. Like how I don't know how you worded it. Like, how do you come up with so many.

Ideas? How do you stay.

Excited? How do you say excited? Isn't that what you asked.

Me? Yeah, it was something along those.

Lines. Yeah. And I think it's just because there is so much room for growth in the coaching space. Like, it's really a sign of when you love what you're doing and you're in flow. Like, I mean, I will wake up at two in the morning and email myself ideas because I just, I can't shut up about helping therapist at coaching and outgrowing the office and unapologetically making more money. Like, is my lived experience. Very much like how you help your clients and it is your lived experience. You're in flow and you come from a place of service. Money is just an amplifier. It's a magnifier. It will come. But when you really listen to your clients and you're like, what do they need? How can I be of service? How can I help them faster, faster and easier? How can I help them with a proven system? How can I help them make a transformation in their life? That's when the ideas come to.

You. A hundred percent notes on my phone, like 300 pages long of.

Ideas.

Yes. Again, if I didn't have someone to help me, they would just stay in the.

Notes. Yeah. And we don't have to execute them all right away. This is why I keep my vision board right here and I just keep my ideas and I know that they're safe in my heart and they will come to fruition when they need to come to fruition because we can get very caught up with all of our ideas and then not executing anything. So jotting down our ideas, keeping them safe in our notes section or vision board or whatever, but then really strategizing the order of operations in the smartest first steps to. To take that are going to meet our lifestyle and our revenue goals. Right. And that's what you have been doing. Yeah. So as we wrap up, what advice would you give to any therapist who maybe is going through a similar transition of you? Like they are at a 9 to 5 or brick and mortar community, mental health, whatever the case is, group practice, or they have their own private practice and they're wondering, how am I going to add coaching? How is this going to be possible for me? I'm very busy. Maybe they're burnt out. You've been through all of the phases and you're currently in the thick of the phase of running both a private practice And a coaching business. What insight would you give to anybody who wants to do.

This?

Yeah. But they're scared. They don't know if it's going to work out for them. Is it going to be worth it? They have all these questions in their.

Head. Yeah. I have two pieces of advice. One, check in with your body. It sounds very simple, but if your body is heavy, if you have physical symptoms, if you're chronically fatigued and you find that you're pushing yourself, pushing yourself, pushing yourself just because you love what you do, which we do, that is a sign that your nervous system, it needs a change and you're living beyond your capacity. Right. So it doesn't matter how much we love it if it's hurting our health, that you need a change, if you're seeing, feeling anything like that. My second piece of advice is if you do have a notes app or a vision board with a thousand ideas that you continuously stare at and say, I have all these ideas, but I don't know what to do with them. I don't know what to do with them, which is what I was experiencing then. That is your sign. Like, you just need to ask for some help, somebody that can guide you with the actual step by step process of how to bring those ideas to life. Otherwise, we're just, what are we doing? Or just wasting.

Time? Give yourself a permission slip to get help. It's okay to not do it alone. You don't have to have it figured out. In fact, we're not supposed to do it.

Alone.

Yeah. And it feels much better.

Yeah. Yeah. And you're still the one that's going to be doing it. You're just. I can let things be easy for me. As high achieving women, we don't. We're not very good at that. Like saying that to ourselves. I can just let things be easier for me.

Mm. I think a lot of people have a hard time delegating and stepping into mentorship for that reason of letting things go, letting the control go and that mindset shift that, you know, they don't have to do it alone. But there is nothing better than delegating and knowing your to do list is being taken care of or having a step by step system in front of you and at least knowing what needs to be on your to do list for tomorrow instead of aimlessly kind of piecing together things and hoping they'll.

Stick.

Yes. Yeah. Well, Carrie, thank you so much for being on the show, sharing your story, sharing your insights. I'm so proud of your success. Sharing that as well. Where can everyone find you? Let's start with your Instagram, because I was saying everybody needs to go look at Carrie Bomb. What's your Instagram.

Handle? It's Carrie Green. Official Carrie with a.

Y.

Okay. It's so funny when people are like, carly sent me to your page. Carly's always, like, gassing me up behind the.

Scenes. I am. I am my client's biggest.

Fans. Yeah. And then my website is thenurobabe.com.

Awesome. Theneurobabe.com all right, Carrie, Well, I look forward to all of your success to come. Maybe I'll have you back on the show. Maybe when you start your own show, I'll be on your show as your number one fan. Until next time, Therapeners. I will see you in the next.

Episode. Thank you so much for listening to the thriving Therapeneur podcast. I hope that this episode has inspired you to reduce burnout, work smarter, and see the freedom potential you have as a therapist. We would love to have you inside the Therapist to Coach Accelerator, Facebook group, where we have live trainings and cheat sheets on all things marketing, sales and adding coaching, etc. I am here cheering you on and I'll see you.