Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses

114 What Are Good Side Hustles for Therapists? Insights to Boost Your Practice

• Dr. Kate Walker Ph.D., LPC/LMFT Supervisor • Season 3 • Episode 114

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Could the stress of relying solely on client income be affecting your clinical decisions and overall well-being? Join me, Dr. Kate Walker, as we explore the transformative power of side hustles for therapists and solopreneurs. This episode unpacks the financial pressures of the gig economy and how diversifying your income can lead to a healthier work-life balance. From substitute teaching to securing a W-2 job, discover practical ways to alleviate financial anxiety, ensuring you make informed clinical decisions while maintaining your mental health. Together, we tackle the ethical considerations and explore how additional income streams can enhance both your personal and professional life.

Throughout our conversation, I invite you to become part of a community committed to building successful mental health practices. Learn about the Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses and how engaging with our content can empower you and your practice. Whether you're navigating private practice or working as an independent contractor, this episode provides valuable insights into achieving financial stability and reducing work-related stress. With a special mention to Ridgely Walker for her engaging voiceovers, we emphasize the importance of sharing this knowledge with fellow professionals eager to thrive in their counseling careers. Tune in to get inspired and take the first step towards crafting a counseling career you love.

Get your step by step guide to private practice. Because you are too important to lose to not knowing the rules, going broke, burning out, and giving up. #counselorsdontquit.

Speaker 1:

You want to be sure, with your client, you're always making good clinical decisions, that what's coming out of your mouth is based on a theory. I know a lot of folks who try to solve this problem by having as many clients as possible. Right, they're going to see 20 clients a week, 40 clients a week. They're building that caseload so high that when they go home they're not able to put all of the stories away. This is the Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses podcast with Dr Kate Walker, where I teach you, texans and non-Texans alike, the latest research-based information to hit your income goals, stay out of trouble and make a bigger impact in your community. Join me and let's fill the gaps in access to mental health care and create a counseling career you'll love. Let's get to work. Welcome to Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses, where it's all about working smarter, not harder. And here's your host, dr Kate Walker, whose favorite planet is Saturn. Welcome back to Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses.

Speaker 1:

This is episode 114, and it's dropping on Christmas Eve, and that also happens to be the day before my birthday. To celebrate, I'm bringing back one of our most popular episodes, all about side hustles A perfect topic for this time of year when we're all thinking about our finances. A side hustle could be just what you need to boost your income and start 2025 strong. And here's more exciting news the $599 giveaway winner will be announced tonight at 5 pm Central on our Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses Facebook page. But there's still time to enter. Head over to katewalkertrainingcom slash bonus and you just might snag some surprise money in time for the holidays. Now let's jump into today's episode and explore how a side hustle could help you build the badass business you're dreaming of. Let's get to work.

Speaker 1:

The ethics of side hustles gets kind of dicey, because I take a pretty strong stance on this, like you could tell from the title. You know the ethics of side hustles and why you need one. Fight me. I don't want you to fight me. I want you to consider, though. Here here's my premise. I want you to consider the idea that if you don't have another source of income and you are a solopreneur, you are your own boss. You own your own private practice. Or let's say, you're a 1099 employee at someone else's practice, and 1099 basically just is another way of saying you are a solopreneur, that is your business. You're just plugging it in to someone else's practice when all you have is that income, then you are creating stress in your life. So that's my premise, and then we can talk about all the problems that stress can bring, and I'm going to talk a little bit about 1099 and W2, but there's another great podcast episode in training on that and I'll be sure to put the link out there when this goes live. And if you're watching me on a replay, awesome, go you. If you're listening to me on the podcast, again awesome, go you. Because you're trying to learn something while you're doing something that's probably pretty boring, like walking on a treadmill or driving kids to baseball practice. So let's dive into it.

Speaker 1:

When I say side hustle, I'm being very broad here, so I'm thinking in terms of not just having a second job. I'm going to even include the supportive partner's income, so anything that can provide you with working capital, that money you need to pay the mortgage, keep the lights on, get new tires when you need them. I'm also including things like substitute teaching or working as a barista. I'm not necessarily talking about outside the therapy room, public speaking, or creating an online course or starting a podcast. That's not for everybody and that's okay. I'm talking about any job that could complement your income, even if it's completely different from counseling, and I'm including W-2 employment. So W-2 employment versus 1099 employment Well, when you're a 1099, you are considered an independent contractor.

Speaker 1:

That means you've got your own equipment, you do your own thing, you know how to do the thing, and nobody's going to tell you how. To an independent contractor, that means you've got your own equipment, you do your own thing, you know how to do the thing and nobody's going to tell you how to do the thing. That's not the IRS definition. Again, you're going to want to look that up on your own. Number one thing though you don't have taxes taken out. You've got to do that on your own, and nobody's saving for your retirement. When you're a 1099 contractor, you're responsible for that as a W-2,. Well, yeah, your boss is taking out your taxes and they have to take out money for retirement.

Speaker 1:

So that piece of that, the day-to-day keeping the lights on your retirement what happens when you get to the place where you can't work anymore and you have to have someone taking care of you or helping take care of you? And, of course, those all important bennies. You've got to have benefits because chances are good you're going to get sick, you're going to need help somewhere along the way. And if you're a 1099 or solopreneur, I mean it's hard right, because you've got to take care of all of that. Now, problem number one anxiety goes up. Cognition goes down, right, when you're stressed about those things, your anxiety goes up. I mean, how do I know this? Well, I just got finished texting one of my adult kids. Adult kids are adult kids, right In their 20s. Everybody gets to be in their 20s.

Speaker 1:

But you can struggle finding a job with good benefits that pays enough money, that helps keep those lights on. And oh my gosh, mom, I'm not feeling good, I've got a fever. What should I do? Well, if they don't have benefits, then they've got to go to the urgent care. So, as solopreneurs, we can be in that same boat, which is not pleasant, right? That's problem number one. It causes a lot of anxiety, and when our anxiety goes up, right, our ability to decide, our ability to plan, our ability to make good decisions goes down. How do we know that? Well, we're mental health professionals. We understand the role anxiety plays in our client's life and in our own life.

Speaker 1:

Now, what can add to that is this idea that, as a counselor, I can do great work and somebody's not going to come back. Okay, again, fight me on this. Right, I can do great work and I can piss somebody off and they don't come back, right? So look at that Catch 22,. Right, I can do great work, they're cured. Angels come out, unicorns are singing. I can do great work, they're pissed off. They don't come back for 10 years. With that business model, if I'm looking at that client return rate as the metric For am I doing a good job and can I pay my rent this month and can I take money home to make sure my mortgage is paid, anxiety up, cognition down.

Speaker 1:

It's an odd profession that we're in, isn't it right, when we can do a really good job and our client maybe doesn't come back? So I talk about this in terms of ethics, because when we're locked down into just seeing a client getting paid, seeing the client getting paid, those clients can start to look like dollar signs. And if we're not theoretically based, if the interventions that are coming out of our mouths, if those interventions are not based on a theory, if they're based on, I can't lose this person. Right, I'm down to 20 people this week. I can't go down to 15. I've already had two no-shows this week. I can't lose this person. We've stopped thinking through a theory, haven't we? We're now intervening from our needs versus the client's needs, and that's the problem I'm talking about right, because we're anxious about our mortgage and our tires and all the things. Because we aren't sure if we've got enough money to cover all of that, we may not make good clinical decisions.

Speaker 1:

So I want you to compare this to like the surgeon. The surgeon who's going to do your biopsy next week Okay, I'm making this up. If you don't show up for that biopsy, the surgeon is like they're okay, they're going to get paid right, somehow, some way, their salary will stay the same. Their salary doesn't go up when you show up and go down if you don't show up, right, because they work for a big corporation or a bigger group and they have things in place to make sure that their take-home salary is not going to go up and down, up and down, up and down, based on who comes, who goes, who shows, who doesn't show, counselors, solopreneurs. We don't have that luxury, so we've got to do other things, like what I'm going to talk about today, to help ease that line, so that we're not freaking out because we have months that are slow or weeks that are slow, or we're worried because we had four people terminate this week and we don't know how we're going to fill those slots. Right, and you can go listen to other episodes, other trainings, because I do talk about how to make sure your conversion rate, how to make sure that you're talking to potential clients in a way that either makes them your client or a raving fan, right, and I'll be sure to put that link into the training. Or, if you're listening to me on a podcast, I will put that in the show notes.

Speaker 1:

But here's the long and short. Hey, badass business builders, quick break here to tell you about an awesome opportunity. We're giving away $599 that one lucky listener can use to level up their counseling practice. Imagine what $599 could do for you. You could take that, become a clinical supervisor course. You could invest in professional branding, upgrade to a new scheduling tool or get a consultation to streamline your business. It's super easy to enter. Just head to katewalkertrainingcom. Slash bonus, give us your name, email and practice website and here's a fun bonus we might even feature your practice on our Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses Facebook page and podcast. Mark your calendar. The drawing will be held on December 24th, the day before my birthday. So it's a little holiday gift from me to one of you. Remember, go to kwalkertrainingcom slash bonus right now to enter and good luck.

Speaker 1:

If you are dependent on your client day by day to pay the bills, I call that a gig economy. And you guys, if you've heard me teach before, if you followed me on social media, you know one of the things I do is I play music. Well, I don't play music for a living, but I do go out and play music and it's a lot of fun. But I play with folks who depend on that income in order to pay their light bill, pay their mortgage, keep the cable going on their TV. It's not an easy life. It's like your Uber driver or it's like your Grubhub person who brings you food right.

Speaker 1:

A gig economy. You only make as much money as you're able to hustle that day. Only make as much money as you're able to hustle that day. It's tough because you are laying out your bills, you're matching up how many clients or how many gigs you have and if there's a deficit, that end of the month can look really, really dire. It can look super scary. So solutions you know I always like to talk about solutions here and I'm going to go back to what I started at the beginning A side hustle can include a supportive partner.

Speaker 1:

If you're going to be a solopreneur, if you're going to go into business and you're going to own your practice and you've had a conversation with your partner and they are on board and they're supportive and they're like you know what I got you? You take 12 months to ramp up your practice. I will cover this bill. I will cover that bill. I mean, imagine that huge sigh of relief. I mean, I'm talking about my own story here. There's no way I could have done the things that I've done opening a private practice, starting Kate Walker training, doing all of these things without a supportive partner to support me with that financial bridge until my business started making money, right. So that supportive partner if you are like well, kate, I don't want to get a job because I've got to keep my schedule open for seeing clients, all right, be a substitute teacher, right? I mean, they'll call you at five in the morning every single day and you just got to say yes or no and they'll keep calling.

Speaker 1:

Something that will help you take care of those three things and there's way more than three, but the three that I'm talking about today the day-to-day keeping your lights on keeping your business running, keeping your mortgage paid, making sure you got money in an emergency account in case you need four new tires. Retirement right, god willing, we're going to get old and we're going to need somebody to take care of us. Yay, and I've got it over here. Your benefits, right. What happens if you get sick?

Speaker 1:

So the ethical component here again, isn't just this idea that clients are becoming dollar signs to you, right? Of course you know that's the obvious one. The one I really want you to look inside and be self-aware and really kind of sit with this feeling for a minute is just this idea. If your anxiety is up and whose wouldn't be? I mean, let's normalize this, we've all been there. If you're a solopreneur and it's either a new practice or you've been doing it a while and it's a slow season and you're feeling that tightness in your stomach because, oh my gosh, how am I going to make this work? I've got two weeks left. I've got one week left. I've got three weeks or three days left in this month and I still don't have my mortgage paid. You want to be sure with your client you're always making good clinical decisions, that what's coming out of your mouth is based on a theory. And when anxiety goes up, either because of money or you're sick and you can't go to the doctor, cognition goes down your ability to make great decisions.

Speaker 1:

I know a lot of folks who try to solve this problem by having as many clients as possible. Right, they're going to see 20 clients a week, 40 clients a week. They're building that caseload so high that when they go home they're not able to put all of the stories away. And so, even though they have time off, it's not time off up here, and I'm pointing at my head right, it's not time off when you're trying to relax, when you're trying to be with your significant other, when you're trying to be relaxed and with your friends and enjoy yourself. It's almost like we ride a wave or a roller coaster. Right, we are up, up, up with anxiety. When we're with our clients and we're focused and we're working, then we go down, down down. We're trying to relax, we're trying to relax, then we go up, up up. It's hard to maintain that up and down, up and down.

Speaker 1:

So a side I mean anything like I mentioned before, anything that can complement that gig economy that so many of us solopreneurs fall into. Any kind of a side hustle can help, even if it's something as simple as substitute teaching. So I'm keeping this one short today because I talk about this one a lot and I want to invite folks to talked about this one a lot and I want to invite folks to talk about this. It's not an easy subject to talk about because I think there's a lot of pressure in our sort of practice world. Okay, you got to build that practice. It's going to take six months to three years to build your client load. Then you'll take insurance until you're just cash-based. Once you're cash-based, then you're going to have you know to be smooth sailing from then.

Speaker 1:

And it's not. I mean being an entrepreneur. It's funny. I had a friend and he sent me a meme and it was a guy riding a lion and he said being an entrepreneur is like riding a lion, like it's thrilling but it's scary and it's up and it's down. That makes for. Remember my premise anxiety goes up, even good anxiety, even having a great month. Right, your body doesn't care if it's good or bad. Your body just experiences it as stress, as anxiety. You stress good stress or distress, bad stress.

Speaker 1:

And so to make sure we are operating at our optimal level and we're delivering services to our clients that are absolutely in line with our theoretical orientation and what they're requesting, we have to make sure we are taking care of ourself, and we've talked about that under self-care, right? I'm just filing it under a different heading here. It's not really self-care, but so many people when I talk about adding a side hustle, they think oh no, that's more work. You're just asking me to do more and more and more, and that's not what I'm saying. I wanted to be real clear about that today. This is not to put more on your plate, like I mean, that's up to you. But we know clients who do this too. Right, they'll clear off a little room in their schedule and then they'll add something right on top of it and they'll come back in and they'll say I don't know what's wrong, I'm still feeling stressed, and you're like, wait a minute, you're supposed to create room in your schedule. You didn't. So that's the same with us. We're looking in the mirror. If we're able to create space and add a side hustle that's a little bit closer to a W-2, remember what a W-2 does. A W-2 position takes care of your taxes, takes care of your retirement, or is a supportive partner or is something like substitute teaching, which I don't know about you, but in my world substitute teaching is pretty doggone reliable. They'll keep calling if you keep answering. So keep that in mind as you're thinking about adding a side hustle. It's to remove some of the stress you already have.

Speaker 1:

The clinical supervision journey can be even lonelier than your counseling journey. Supervisees can be unpredictable. You're worried about your license and you're afraid that if you do ask a consultation group a question about the rules or best practices, they're going to jump down your throat. Look, you already know. There's a soft, fuzzy blanket of nurturing mentors in the Texas Supervisor Coalition that have your back and there are no silly questions, lots of free resources and a live virtual consultation group every month. But how would you like a supervisor consultant in your pocket or on the phone? That's what my new book, the Clinical Supervision Survival Guide, is all about. It's like having great advice at your fingertips and there are resources you can download immediately after you purchase the book. There's a QR code that you can scan and bam, you get interview questions, logs, remediation plan templates, assessments and more. Grab your copy of my new book, the Clinical Supervision Survival Guide, on Amazon today and start downloading the resources you need so you can supervise and put more amazing therapists out into the world.

Speaker 1:

I can't wait to join you on your journey. I'm Dr Kate Walker. Thank you so much for listening to Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses. Thank you to Ridgely Walker for her lovely voiceovers at our introduction and do me a favor when you get a second, please like, share and subscribe and write us a review. That's really how we get picked up by other RSS feeds and we get this information out to the mental health badasses who need it. Thanks again and keep saving the world with excellent therapy.