[JOE]: What are you doing on April 23rd, say around two o’clock Eastern, one o’clock central, noon mountain, 11 o’clock Pacific? I am hosting a free master class all about how to kill it in private practice. I’m going to go over case examples, research, things that some of my expert friends have said, “This is what you got to do to kill it in private practice.”
I want you to be there. If you want to go slow, if you want to limp along, that’s fine. Don’t come. But if you want to kill it in private practice, if you want to move forward quickly, on April 23rd come to this masterclass. I’m going to dive deep and give you tons of awesome information. We also have over $3,000 in giveaways like a free website from Brighter Vision for a year, Therapy Notes for free for a year and more. I want you to be there.
The masterclass is on April 23rd. You can register over at practiceofthepractice.com/live. That’s practiceofthepractice.com/live.
This is the Practice of the Practice podcast with Joe Sanok, session number 365.
I’m Joe Sanok, your host. How are you doing? Like really, how are you doing? I want to know. Drop me an email, let me know. Where are you stuck? I’m here for you.
You know when you’re new to a podcast, if this is your first time, hey, I’m really glad you’re here. Welcome. We are all about starting growing and scaling a private practice, but we’re also about going after big ideas; big ideas like you launching a podcast and telling the world about your specialty, ecourses, keynotes, really reshaping the world of private practice.
And a bunch of you probably got that magazine I sent out. We just ate the cost of sending out 2000 print magazines that should just help you out and it’s pretty awesome to see kind of the response we’ve been getting. We had some really cool articles in there and you know, Sam and Sam, they did a great job with design and coordinating the logistics. And you know, I thought to myself, there are so many ugly magazines out there for counselors and they look like clip art that are put out by national organizations that just could do better.
And even though we’re eating the cost of it, I know that we’re going to see that come back. It’s going to be people that want to follow us more that are more passionate, that signup for Killin’It Camp or Slow Down School or consulting or just listen to the podcast more, which allows us to then have even bigger sponsors. So, when you’re pushing the envelope, sometimes it’s a gamble, you know, printing these 2000 magazines, I think the overall cost, I want to say it was six or $7,000 to send out these magazines to people. And we didn’t take any sponsor money. We just gave our sponsors that free advertising. We’ve totally just funded it. But when you do something like that, you got to sometimes take a gamble and see and when you do it, you don’t know what the results are going to be.
And I’ll be able to maybe track some of the results but we want to reinvent how people think about private practice. We want people to think about, yeah, you can grow a great income but you can also innovate. You can have influence and impact on the world. And so, I want you to think about what do you want your impact to be? Your influence, your innovation and your income?
If we can set intentions around that, and I’m not talking woo woo, like just throw it up to the sky kind of stuff, but actually say, where do I want to have some change here? What needs change? You know, maybe for you it’s, “There’s not enough mental health services for rural people in my state and I want to offer online counseling and really scale that and figure out how to bill insurance and you know, advocate for different things.”
Or maybe for you it’s helping women that have been sexually assaulted and really standing behind the MeToo movement. Or maybe it’s kids that don’t have access to psychiatric care and you want to work with psychiatrists in conjunction with your practice or maybe you are a psychiatrist. No matter what it is, you have skills that the world needs and you need to amp it up so the world can be impacted more. And we’re here to help you do that.
So, today on the Practice of the Practice podcast we’re going to be talking with Jaime Masters. And, I read Jaime Masters’ book Eventual Millionaire years ago. And then I hired her as my own coach. Actually, at the time that this goes live, she and I will have just had dinner in Austin, Texas together and met in person for the first time. And I’m so excited for that. You know, I’m recording this ahead of time, obviously not like live.
But she is just a go-getter. She’s a lady that I respect so much that has put herself out there and trained some of the biggest people. I mean like John Lee Dumas, Entrepreneur on Fire, she was his coach. She knows what she’s doing. She’s going to share with us just amazing things today. I was on her podcast in late 2018 and so excited to have her on my podcast here. So, without any further ado, I give you Jaime Masters.
Well, today in the Practice of the Practice podcast, we have Jaime Masters. She’s the producer and host of her own online show and has conducted over 400 interviews with millionaires and billionaires. She’s been featured in Yahoo, Online Ink, Success Magazine, Entrepreneur, Women’s Health and Business Insider. Jaime loves business and all things geeky. She’s a mama of two amazing kiddos that are already making money in business as stilt walkers and contortionists. Jaimie. Let’s start there.
[JAIME]: That makes it sound awesome, doesn’t it?
[JOE]: So awesome. You’ve raised the stilt walkers and contortionists. Tell us more.
[JAIME]: Well, I had a baby and he could do weird thing. Now, my former husband actually was a contortionist and performer and so they got a lot of that from their dad. And yes, they walk on six-foot stilts and do shows for people because that’s the life we live. Normal.
[JOE]: So, contortionists, like they can just twist themselves in interesting positions or like, —
[JAIME]: Yes. So, and I’m on video doing my main for you. I can’t do it, but their shoulder blades pop out and weird devil like ways, which is always a fun party trick when you bring your 12-year-old son and you’re like, “Look what he can do.” And so, yeah, they’ve been able to do it since they were babies, which is okay —
[JOE]: So, is it like a genetic thing or they kind of learnt it?
[JAIME]: Yes.
[JOE]: Okay. Wow.
[JAIME]: I made weirdo babies, which is —
[JOE]: Now, how do you market your kids to like make money off of stilt walking and contortionistness?
[JAIME]: That’s a great question. They started businesses since they were little though. So, like even my son at our karate Dojo was selling Gatorade and making more money than he made in chores. So, he didn’t make his bed because he was like, “Mom, pay me squat.” And so, they’ve sort of been entrepreneurial for a very long time.
When they started actually doing stilts so they can juggle. My son can juggle my daughter’s still working on it, and my former husband does shows everywhere. That’s what he’s always done. We actually sort of grew up in a theater setting. So, when my son was like two, he was like pretending to do shows, you know, and so, when they got old enough to actually do something that people would actually pay money for, there was no offense. Everybody wants to see it to and be like, “Look at that kid.” Or like, “Yeah, good job kid.”
And so, now they started having a skillset and so their dad books them shows. They have a show this weekend, they have another show next weekend and they make 50 bucks a show each and so they definitely don’t like making their bed now. Now I make them. Money is not a part of this.
[JOE]: They are like, “Hire a cleaning lady.”
[JAIME]: Seriously. Well, we have a cleaning lady. They’re not allowed to clean my kids’ rooms. My kids have to do that on their own.
[JOE]: Yeah. Well, I think that’s really important to like, even if you have wealth or means like to have your kids not have that sense of entitlement. I mean that’s such a big thing. We have these neighbor kids that are so awesome. The son, he like mows lawns like, I mean, a mad man and then his sister bought all of these Disney princess outfits and shows up at birthday parties and like, you know, she’ll be bell or she’ll be like Ariel and they are just this little entrepreneur family and I just love it. It’s so cool to see them have this like grit to them.
[JAIME]: That’s genius. I should tell my daughter to do that too?
[JOE]: Yeah. Well, like my daughter Lucia, she had Lucia’s homemade lemonade this summer and she had like simple syrup and bezel and like frozen strawberries. So, I just think it’s so important to do that stuff.
[JAIME]: Can you imagine learning that stuff when you were younger then? I mean I had a little ice hold books on the side of the road. Like a lot of the entrepreneurs that I’ve interviewed, especially millionaires started in some capacity when they were younger, which is cool. But imagine having parents that actually knew what they were doing and be like, “Yeah, go.”
[JOE]: Yes, I know, seriously [crosstalk]. “Yeah, and here’s how you can actually like look at the market. Like they will pay $3 for a lemonade if it’s not crappy.”
[JAIME]:
[JOE]: Well, so you have this podcast, the Eventual Millionaire and I don’t remember if it was Pat Flynn or John Lee Dumas or someone had you on when I was just starting Practice of the Practice. And I went and I bought Eventual Millionaire, the book. And I remember I left it at a David Bezan show that I was at and ended up like going back and getting it. Like a friend of mine mailed it to me.
So, I have these memories of Jaime Tardy, that’s who you were then. Now you’re telling me Masters, and just learning so much from you. So, let’s go back to kind of when you started Eventual Millionaire, because so many of the listeners here have these big ideas and they think, “Well, I’m just a therapist. I’ve got a private practice. Like what can I do to really level up?”
And I mean clearly when you’re around that many millionaires and billionaires, you have massively leveled up and done some amazing things. So, talk about when you first were starting that podcast, maybe some tips, and then I’d love to get into more of the advanced things that you’ve learned from interviewing so many millionaires and billionaires.
[JAIME]: Yeah, and just to put a caveat, I am from Maine a small, small town. It didn’t have a stoplight to write and so, I didn’t know any millionaires whatsoever. So, and eventually the thing I started as my own personal blog about getting on a $70,000 in debt back in the day. Like it was literally just nothing to do with millionaires whatsoever, like eventually one day. But when I started actually turning it around and going, “Well, what do I want to do online? I was already a business coach.
I think you kind of know my story a little bit. But I was a business coach because I had a mentor. I was working with him for two years. I tried to start doing something online. I decided to use the domain that I already had, the blog that I already had almost no views and to try and switch it over and within six months, which is kind of insane, I started blogging as much as I can.
Hating writing now. That’s a side note, which I’ll get back to you in just a second. And within six months CNN had contacted me, which got me like, “That’s really impressive.” And that was back in the day like many, many years ago, 2010. So, it was a little bit easier back then. But then Yahoo —
[JOE]: So, what was like, what happened there? Because I know a lot of people start blogs and they’re like, “Okay, I have a hundred people out there [crosstalk) or I have a couple of like, like what happened that CNN said, “I want to take note of Jaime.”
[JAIME]: Well, so, I did guest posts everywhere. So, I did a guest post on Get Rich Slowly back in the day. JD is Awesome and it wasn’t a bit of a great post. It was just sort of my story about getting out of a $70,000 debt. And he had tons of journalists read it.
So, not only did journalists from CNN, from Kiplinger’s Personal Finance found it that way, and they both actually syndicate to Yahoo. So, I was on Yahoo’s homepage twice in three months, which I never thought I would be on once, let alone twice in three months because of just that one blog post, that one guest post that I did on Get Rich Slowly back in the day. And so, but the network of journalists, journalists are continually looking for stories. And so, getting in front of them or going on to another blog that actually did that, if I never did that guest post, who knows where I’d be now?
[JOE]: Yeah. Well, I think it points to how so many people will see someone that’s successful and think, oh, like she has something special. She has this unique touch. Like I couldn’t do that. Versus there are people all around you that you have no idea if they’re going to just like striking gold and they usually take you along for the ride as well if you’re connected with them.
[JAIME]: Well, and let me also say the caveat is that I got a bunch of traffic for a short period of time. My website went down and that was about it. So, and don’t get me wrong, I have been on Yahoo’s homepage for four times since then. Then I got smarter on the best ways to do things, but in general that mass amount of traffic, I thought I would have made it. I was so excited. People from high schools thought I was a big deal. It was awesome. And then I, regular life happened and I was like, “I still have to do more guest posts because I only have like 500 subscribers anyway.
[JOE]: All right.
[JAIME]: Yeah,
[JOE]: So, do you think like, so, when people kind of chase that like CNN or been featured here, it really, like it gives some credibility but it doesn’t necessarily make the bottom line difference for the long haul.
[JAIME]: Well, and what we’ve talked about before is help a reporter out so you can actually go and get those names. You can get on really, really credible sites, way easier than having to do what I did and just use those because once you have a mass amount of credibility, like you could have read all the other things that, we had actually cut down my bio recently because, I was like, “We don’t need to say all those sites that I was on. It’s getting ridiculous at this point.” Like, “Thanks, I’m cool.” You need five, maybe 10 at the most on your site to be like, “Look, I know what I’m talking about.” Otherwise, it’s not that big of a deal. If it’s a traffic source, that’s totally different and we can talk about that too. But some, it’s just for the main credibility of being like, “Look at me. I was on Yahoo.”
[JOE]: Yeah. And I think it is one of those things that when you connect with a reporter, I’ve had ones where we exchange cell phone numbers and I just said, “If you’re stuck, just drop me a text and I’ll give you a quote as a psychologist.” And you know, they already have a deadline of like 4:00 PM. Like, “I need this in the next 20 minutes.” And it’s like, “Okay, here it is. Send a voice memo, it takes you 20 seconds,” and then next thing you know you’re in cosmopolitan.
[JAIME]: Well, and that’s exactly what happened. So, when my book came out, the previous journalist that wrote about me for something was in Maine, randomly. And “I was like, let me show you around.” We went to Gelato and then she was like, “Oh, your book’s coming out. Hmm. Maybe we can do some things.” And they flew me out. Yahoo flew me out and I did a six series of videos for Yahoo. It was like, “Huh.”
[JOE]: Wow.
[JAIME]: Yeah, I know.
[JOE]: So, as you’re sitting down with these millionaires and billionaires, what are the things that maybe people that aren’t yet millionaires, like what are some of the main takeaways? The three or five takeaways that you’re just like, “This is what every single aspiring millionaire needs to know?
[JAIME]: That’s why I started interviewing people, right? I was, I kept putting people on a pedestal like they must have, they must be smarter, better, faster, whatever those things are; found out that’s not true which makes me feel way better, right? The number of spelling mistakes I was getting, especially in the initial days, I’m like, “They have worse spelling than I do.” And I have pretty bad spelling like bad right?
So, some of the keys that I’ve really found that made a huge difference, because I only interview people that have made their money in business. I’m a business coach. I really like figuring out that piece. Not saying that we exclude all the other people. There’s other ways of doing it. But one of the keys is speed of implementation. And so, what I mean by that is not having a delay. So, a lot of people, especially when you’re a newer entrepreneur, you’re like, Huh, okay. So, I’ve got my websites and then I change the plugin and, right? And so, the amount of actual action, what I call active actions, this is in my book too. Active actions versus passive action. So, passive actions are really about, “Hey, I updated a thing on my website and it hopefully will change something in the future.”
That’s what I used to do all the time. Active actions are the ones that will actually get you more clients, the ones that will actually make a difference on your bottom line and then really paying attention to the speed of implementation of what that is. Because even if at the moment you don’t know how to get more clients, the more actions you take that are “active”, the more feedback you get on whether or not they work and if you can really change that speed of implementation time and make it smaller, then that feedback loop is a million times faster, right?
And then you can tweak and keep moving forward. What I see is we’re like, because it’s stepping out of our comfort zone, which is another thing that they do as you’ve heard, I know it’s Cliché, but because it feels like it takes so much energy to step out of your comfort zone, you like take a break for a little while. Like “Ooh, that was, I emailed.” Like, when I emailed Seth Godin for my book thing. I was like, “Huh, sent.” Like it’s an email.
[JOE]: Like, “I earned an evening out with friends.”
[JAIME]: Yes, seriously, right? It’s an email. You sent an email, Jaime, it’s really, but like I labored over that email. He emailed me back in like 30 minutes. So, it’s the way that I really had looked at it before of how much energy it took to get these things outside of my comfort zone and how your comfort zone grows and that becomes normal. That’s what millionaires have that you don’t. And yes, you might have to go through the hell that might be walking through a hundred different speaking gigs in order to be okay with that.
But that’s the time that millionaires have put in. So, if we can make that speed of implementation faster, that makes you wiser and usually gets you a lot more results. Does that make sense?
[JOE]: Even like over the last few years, each January when kind of all the money has, is clear for the year before, I’ve looked at kind of the big columns of money that are coming in and what percentage of income that is and then what percentage of time is spent on each of those things. And so, over the last few years, the trend has been that the amount of money I’m making from my group private practice as compared to how much time isn’t worth it as much as my consulting or Next Level Practice or the podcast or those sorts of things. And so, watching that trend, that means that over time I’m putting less and less into the practice because if I can put twice as much time into things that are making more money, my profits go through the roof, versus just kind of holding onto something that I’m just holding on to.
[JAIME]: Yeah. How genius that is though. Like, that’s the thing that’s so interesting is that we all kind of know that. Like we know we should be paying attention to our metrics. And when I ask entrepreneurs, because I work with six and seven figure guys all the time and females, right? They’re like, they have no idea where it’s coming from. And I totally get it because it’s not something you’re, you’re so busy in the weeds of doing what you do, especially as a therapist, especially as being so connected to your clients, like you have to be.
That coming back and going, huh, running those numbers, which doesn’t even take that long sort of always gets put on the back burner and it’s really putting those things on the front burner and making you, or making your team do it also instead of you. Because I forget to do it all the time, but my team doesn’t, which thank goodness for them. But being able to see those so you can actually make those tweaks in those improvements. Like you said, it’s a million times easier to take that data, look at it and go, “Huh, I should go in this direction instead of going in every direction not knowing which is the right way to go.
[JOE]: Well, I love that idea of speed of implementation because that’s just an area that I love to be like fast and it just, “Okay, I want to do this. I’m going to do it.” And even just having Sam and Sam in Cape Town, you know, they’re six hours ahead. So, if I have an idea as I go to sleep, I can text them or drop it into Trello and when I wake up, it’s almost done.
I remember when I was at Slow Down School this last summer, and talking to the participants, the plan had been to have Slow Down School out in Colorado in 2019 but they were like, “No, keep it on the beaches of Michigan. This is amazing.” I was going to shorten it up, and so, we had created this promo video for Slow Down School 2019 being in Colorado and got permission from this drone footage that I found online to like change it out.
And so, I texted Sam as I went to sleep and said, “Okay, here’s the text I want you to add to that drone video. I want you to have it ready by noon tomorrow so I can show all these Slow Down Schoolers how fast you can move if you have the right people.” And by like 10:00 AM the next morning she had this sweet like promo video with awesome music and it’s just like you can move quickly. You just, you usually need to have a team of people that can help with those little things.
[JAIME]: Well that’s sort of the other piece from millionaires, right? Like rarely, and I just interviewed one guy that was one guy, but he had tons of contractors too. So, he wrote a book about The Power of One. But in general, when you’re looking to do anything that’s on a bigger scale than you, you have more people to help you. We’re only one human and you can be as effective and efficient as humanly possible. And I think that’s really, really important. And two people are better than one as far as the time that you actually have to be able to implement stuff. So, it does make a huge difference.
[JOE]: Well, and when you think about just a therapist doing counseling, like if they’re charging $150 an hour and they spend five hours doing a website, that’s the most overpaid website designer, like compared to if you just went and did counseling for an hour and even if someone’s 50 bucks an hour, like that’s three hours you bought for that one hour. And then when you start to scale into consulting and podcasts and those other things, it makes less and less sense for people to be doing every single aspect of their business.
[JAIME]: Well, and to be able to have that, right, like you have Emily, I have Laelani and having a right, I call it the operator, I’m the owner, she’s the operator. I can do details. I was a project manager, I can. I got paid $100,000 when I was 22 to be a project manager and I hated every second of it, just so we’re all clear. Like I can do it, but it was not fun. But Laelani who’s my absolute amazing right hand operator loves it. Like, thank goodness for her. So, she handles —
[JOE]: Yes. Emily, our director of detail, same sort of thing. She’s good with the details and that’s okay.]
[JAIME]: And I’m like, “Thank goodness. Thank goodness I have you,” because there’s no way like the millionaires have spelling mistakes. I drop stuff all the time. Thank goodness I have somebody else to pick up the pieces after me because most entrepreneurs are like that. I mean I have worked with hundreds and hundreds of entrepreneurs and we’re more visionary in general and so, for us to do the details is actually more draining anyway.
So, living in your strengths is actually one of the other tips that I say from millionaires. They can really self-identify what their strengths actually are and stop doing the stuff that is so draining that it feels like pulling teeth. Then your whole day changes and you can actually get outside of your comfort zone more because you don’t feel like you’re being drained from all the little things.
[TARA’S VOICE]: Hi, my name is Tara Vossenkemper. I am in Columbia, Missouri. My practice is located in Columbia, Missouri and it’s called the Counseling Hub, with the tag line Live Connected. I would describe Slow Down School as a reset. I think that as group practice owners, as practice owners, period, we spend a lot of time doing and thinking and planning and creating and implementing and testing and modifying and just, we spend so much time going, really consistently and we don’t really give ourselves time for breaks.
And so, Slow Down School has, I mean it’s really about taking a break. I mean taking a mental break, you know, you put your phone on airplane mode, you leave your laptop in the room and then you just, you just stop, stop engaging and it feels like letting things percolate and sort of settled down so then the stuff that needs to get done are the important pieces. Then they end up coming up first and you realize, “Oh, here are my next moves.” Even if they’re not ginormous moves, I mean little steps that are going to make really big lasting impacts on my practice in my life.
[JOE]: So, if this sort of working vacation sounds good to you, where we slow down together, hang out on the beaches of Lake Michigan, go for hikes and then work on your business, will you apply for Slow Down School? Slowdownschool.com is where you can apply. And I jumped on a phone call with every single person that applies. I want you to feel like this is the best investment for fast forwarding your business. So, head on over to slowdownschool.com to apply for the 2019 Slow Down School here in Northern Michigan.
So, I think for people, you know when they’re starting a practice, it’s kind of, you’re pretty clear as to what their path is. Then they get to grow in their practice. They add a couple of contractors or W9s. I want to talk to the people that are scaling their practice. The people that you know, they may be just over $100,000. They know that they can scale up. Talk to us about what they should be evaluating first in their practice. Kind of the low hanging fruit, it’s there, but then the big ideas that go beyond the practice. Like what are the things that you see that therapists could be doing to really level up nationally or internationally that you know like, “Why the heck aren’t more therapists doing this?”
[JAIME]: Well, it is really interesting and I have a client that’s in this space and she’s brilliant and what’s so interesting now is because their time is so valuable. It seems so easy just to spend more time with patients. Like I make more money when I spend more time with patients. When I go over here and start a podcast to start, I have people do proprietary work, right? I want you to create your body of work that really would turn into the book, to the podcast, to all the things that can actually touch so many more lives than just you one on one, right?
And then once you have your proprietary system, you can train other therapists and coaches, and clients. So, that way it’s not just you which is huge. But what we have a tendency to do, even at making really great money is going, “Oh, I’m used to going down this path and straying and going over here feels very out of your comfort zone.” And so, I highly recommend it just on the low hanging fruit side is get that operator. So, if you don’t have the operator already, somebody that is an A player, by the way, not a B, not a C.
Like an A player, because as a small, small business, we don’t have the capacity to be able to be a big old corporation that can have some C players. And it’s not a big deal. You only have a few. So, please think, right now what we’re doing is, if you even have somebody that is a VA or kind of helping out in the office or something like that, really judge them. I know it’s not nice. Don’t tell them when you judge them, please, but judge them A, B, C, or F because that’s potentially holding you back already, right?
Because if you have that A player then me and Joe are gushing about our people, you should be gushing about how amazing your person is because then you can really let go. When you can’t let go and you’re sort of micromanaging, that’s draining too. So, the low hanging fruit on that side is if you don’t have an operator, you’re what I call an operator, find one.
If you have somebody, rate them and if they’re not good, do the hard work of letting them go and finding somebody that is actually going to take you to the next level. Because when you know that you can let go of that one piece, then you can actually start looking at creating that proprietary system, figuring out what online space you really want to go in. And it is a learning curve people. So, and I’m a geek, so, when I came on, I have a degree in computers, I was an engineer for a long time and I was a business coach beforehand and yet it took me a while to get the whole hang of this online world, right?
It changes constantly. Online marketing can be a little fickle and crazy and Facebook’s in and then it’s out and then, right? So, give yourself the time and the space to be able to explore what that is. Potentially hire somebody that knows a little bit more than you while you’re creating your proprietary system because your content is going to be king. Then what you say that’s different is going to be king and most likely if you’ve been a therapist for a long time, you can actually already know the seeds of what you say over and over and over again.
But it’s taking those pieces, understanding what content really is unique and then which platforms you want to go about because there’s so many ways to be able to do it, which is overwhelming. Don’t get me wrong. But being able to understand that your core content makes a huge difference and then we bring it out to the world in whatever way feels best to you, whether it be video or audio or whatever is the first few steps.
[JOE]: So, drill into that ‘content is king’ kind of mentality. Like how do you discover your proprietary method? Because I feel like so many therapists are really scared because we’re trained in grad school that you cite everything. You have a bibliography and very little fields original to us oftentimes. And so, how do you develop that so that you feel confident that you can say, “No, this is mine. You can’t steal it and I’m going to train you in it.”
[JAIME]: Well I had a big realization when I wrote my book. So, it was published through Wiley and this was quite a few years ago and they didn’t fact check anything. I was a little geeky, like, no don’t get me wrong. We did surveys and interviews because I’m a data geek, right? So, for me, we did that, but I realized that it, I thought they would have done more, just so everybody’s clear.
And so, what was really eye-opening in that, and I was already telling people what to do and I sort of came in and was trained from a mentor and had sort of his systems, when you’ve been doing it long enough, you go, “Hmm, when I give them this exercise, that works better. When I do this and, in this sequence, this works better. Ooh.” You know what I mean? You start getting so much data on your own that you have a flavor of the way that you do it, right?
So, one of the things I like to do, and there’s a system, and of course I can’t remember the name of it right now, is its pretty much free writing, right? So, you start writing down the things that make the biggest difference of your clients and just literally just take as much content as humanly possible and then reorganize it later. So, when we were creating, we were talking about on our box, beforehand, which is sort of the proprietary system that we started creating from all of the years and years and years and years of doing this right, we started pulling out what are the common things that we do all the time, right? And can I improve it? Because that’s the other piece too. We kind of get stuck in our ways of like, “Well, this is how I was taught.”
Instead of, no offense, humans evolve. We get way better at stuff. Maybe the things you learn from the 1970s don’t work as well now. Why don’t we start testing some things that could actually work better? That’s when you’re starting to really manage the system and improve it. Because once we have just the core framework of what that proprietary system is, then you can actually run people through it and test it and go, “Ooh, I can make this better. I can make this better, I can make this better.”
So, think of it just when you’re 80, 90 years old, what is that change that you want the people to be able to go through and yes, don’t get me wrong, I know you guys have a lot more rules and regulations than coaches. So, go you guys for doing what you do and dealing with all the rigmarole of what that is, right?
But still, but putting in a framework, that is your flavor makes a huge difference, because the layman doesn’t know what you guys are taught. We’re not taught like the exact same things as you. So, you lead us through a system. I don’t care where it came from as long as it works. That’s what I’m —
[JOE]: Yeah, and I think that that’s where so frequently I see people that have that kind of imposter syndrome. When we actually look at the stats, we know only 8% of the U.S. and 5% of the world has a master’s degree. So, just having a master’s degree puts you in the top eight in a group of average hundred Americans. And then what are the odds of those eight, you know, being a doctor or a dentist or something else? You’re probably in any room of 100 people, the smartest mental health person, just by having a master’s degree, let alone your extra expertise that you’ve done.
And so, you know, when people say, “Oh, I just feel like an imposter.” Like, you know, “The Gottman’s are doing such great work around marriage,” and like, “What do I have to say about marriage?” It’s like, well, you already know way more than the average person. That’s what really matters. And so, when I see people that actually launch things and find their voice, that’s where it seems like people can really level up beyond just the sitting in the chair doing counseling.
[JAIME]: Well, we’re sitting here comparing ourselves, right? Like, “Oh Gottman’s, of course …” Well, they’ve done it forever. No wonder why they have a huge body of work, right? But when they first started, they didn’t have a huge body of work. Right?
[JOE]: Right.
[JAIME]: And so, when we’re starting to compare ourselves to people that have been in the game for 10, 20, 30 years, there’s of course, okay good. That’s a good excuse to give up your rights. Don’t know what to tell you. But the good thing is, and this is what I did to, because I feel the same way, I like data so much and if I can’t prove it to myself, there’s no way I’m going to feel good about proving it to anybody else.
So, I start collecting, especially for me testimonials are my gold, right? So, I start collecting what works. You don’t have to show anyone, like, feel really good about those letters of how amazing you did, how you’re changing lives, those sorts of things and start letting that fuel you into the research that you’re doing. And as you start moving through, you’ll start to get more and more and more in data and you can lean on that going, “Hey, you know what? I’m in the beginning of starting this,” right?
It’s not always going to be perfect at first, but I don’t have to go, “I’m sharing everything with the world. That doesn’t have to be a perfect system that’s completely done. Please. No. Even the Gottman, everything’s ever evolving. Data changes. Please understand that you don’t have to have a perfect system that lives in a little vacuum forever. It’s not the way it is.
[JOE]: Yeah, totally. And it’s interesting because when you look at the Carmen Gallo’s book Talk Like Ted, or you look in New York Times bestsellers, they all have the same formula of about 40% science and research, 40% stories and then 20% like here’s the takeaway. And so, just the more data that you can get and the more good stories and case studies you can get that’s going to help you no matter what you end up landing on.
[JAIME]: Well, not the story piece. So, and it’s funny, I’m looking like this book is, I recommended this book to one of my —
[JOE]: Oh yeah, I was just listening to Donald Miller’s podcast this morning. He’s one with the co-founder of the Ritz Carlton. Amazing.
[JAIME]: Really?
[JOE]: It’s so good. He talks about like vision and how you do that, like companywide. Yeah.
[JAIME]: See, and that’s the piece, no offense that most business owners do not have. So, the storytelling, and that’s a skill set that you need to learn also. It’s not something that you’re born, well, some people might be better than others, don’t get me wrong. But as a therapist and going through what you’re doing, part of telling these things and figuring out a proprietary system is learning how to tell a good story, learning how to get engaged, people to pay attention, and learn from those things.
And those are skill sets that at least you’re better at the most because you do that. You work with clients all day long and most people don’t. Especially most regular business owners don’t have that interaction like you do. So, you can touch those things over and over and over again. And that’s what’s going to give you fuel too, because the story, especially the trends that we’re going right now, we need to be able to connect with humans and, you know, data’s great, but data on in and of itself and not seeing the results in the change of a real human doesn’t make a big difference.
[JOE]: Yeah. I mean, and even just looking at the brain research when someone’s telling a story that there’s neuro mirroring. So, the part of my brain that lights up while I’m telling a story about being chased by a wild rhinoceros in Nepal, like he’s going to light up your brain because [crosstalk]. You know, the people that listened to your stories around a campfire, well they’re the ones that survived. And stories are so much a part of how we learn and stay safe. Learning how to do that to build your business is so important.
[JAIME]: Well, and it’s funny because we were talking about earlier, so I’m going to bring this up, not that you want to go in this direction. I’m an interviewer too, right? So, I’m used to like steering the conversation. But what’s so funny is one of my most popular videos, especially quite a few years ago, was the divorce video that we were talking about a little bit before and I was scared as all heck to put that out. It was a video of saying, “Hey, I got divorced, everybody,” like —
[JOE]: Yeah, I mean you were pretty well known as Jaime Tardy and then it’s Jaime Masters. Like I don’t know how deep you want to go into that, but you know, going through a divorce and having a business and so publicly changing your name, tell us about that.
[JAIME]: So, and it’s fine. The reason why I bring that up is because that story I thought I was going to get, well let me back up. So, we were married for 11 years, together for 16, high school sweethearts. We’re still really good friends, let me say that at the beginning, right? We have Christmases together, we have thanksgiving together. The kids are amazing all as well even now.
But when I was doing it, this is almost five years ago, I was like, “Huuuh.” And when I accidentally did, which I would not recommend anybody doing, I changed my name on Facebook first, not telling anybody why I changed my name, like, don’t get me wrong. Like the, I had done a posting like, “It didn’t work out, blah, blah.” And he posted and it was all great as far as with our local friends. But I kind of forgot about all the rest of the people that will see it.
Oh, by the way. So, a lot of people are like, “Congratulations, you got married.” And I was like, “So, now, [crosstalk]. And I get that a lot, which is also very interesting. But the reason why to me that it was such a such a scary thing up front is because I was worried about judgement for everyone. I remember Dan Miller wrote my book Forward and I was like, “But he’s Christian and he might look at me bad.”
Like I had all these like in my head, things about what people would say, but either way I just had to get it out there. And so, what is eye-opening is that I’ve gotten zero negative feedback, which I was very surprised at. Just say, you know, I thought I was going to get a couple of like home homewreckers in there or something like that. Zero negative feedback and so much outpouring of humans going, “Oh my gosh, thank you so –.”
Like it was a connection that I never in a million years would have thought people would have resonated with because it is so deep and like we try and shove it under the corner, but they were actually telling me how amazing it was that I had the guts to be able to do it. And I was like, “Oh, I just thought I had to tell people what the heck was going on with my name so they wouldn’t keep congratulating me for being married.”
But it actually opened up the conversation for a whole bunch of things. I mean, knowing half the time people didn’t even know I had two kids and I’ve been podcasting for many years. And so, understanding the audience and understanding where they’re coming from and how, showing you as a real human because we all are and we’re not perfect Instagram people in a million years is actually what they want.
They want to know that you’re not, you know, made of steel and everything bounces off of you, but you’re not the same. That’s one of the reasons why I even started interviewing millionaires. I wanted them to act like real people. So, we knew that they messed up. And so, it’s not like you can’t attain that because there’s something else. Now we’re all human. We all mess up. We all go through crazy situations. As therapists, you guys know more than anybody else, right? That we’re all the same and stuff and being open enough to share that was a huge eye-opening moment for me and crappy for part of it too. But you know, you got to do what you got to do.
[JOE]: Yeah. Like in the midst of the divorce, what tips do you have for people going through, it doesn’t have to be divorced, any big struggle in regards to kind of keeping your business afloat? I mean there’s times that you just don’t focus on your business as well because of life issues. Like for me that was 2012 when my daughter was going through heart surgery and I was going through cancer treatment and then Christina had a miscarriage.
It’s like, just, the stuff hit the fan. And we think differently about our businesses often when we go through those really rough times. Like what, during that do you have advice on? And then maybe afterwards, how has that changed you?
[JAIME]: I had some core eye-opening moments. When you’re in that state it’s difficult to do your work, right? Like in general, it’s difficult to find the motivation. It’s difficult to keep things, anything afloat. And thank goodness I had literally, right before, just hired an opera — who was my operator beforehand, her name was Kendra, who was amazing. Before that, the people that I had on my team, I don’t know what would have happened because there wasn’t an A player, just so you know.
So, I’m really, really grateful and I implore anybody to actually listen to that piece because if when you’re going through a state, if your business cannot remain steady, then not only are you going to have whatever issues you’re dealing with, you’re going to have financial issues, business issues, and having to overcome that also.
So, today if you are healthy and happy or not in a state, please do your due diligence in advance to shore up those pieces. And some of it is systems and we can, I can share templates and all that sort of stuff with people for those pieces. But that was really eye-opening for me. I don’t think I had nearly the amount of systems that I needed to have. That being said, I also love working, so I actually threw myself into work probably more than I should have when I was doing that because I was like, “Ah.”
So, my business actually doubled when I was getting divorced, just so everybody’s clear. Because I finally felt like I had the permission to be able to work as much as I wanted when I was alone, and that was also extremely eye-opening because it was also me being, holding myself back going, “Well, he doesn’t want me to work that much, blah, blah, blah. I’m supposed to be the mom of the kids.”
The kids were still a little bit younger at that time. And it was all my stories. And I literally just, I don’t even think I’ve worked more to tell you the truth. And I still doubled my business. I think a lot of it was mental. And so, when you start going through some of those pieces and realizing, “Okay,” when we get back on track, having a new outlook of A, how much you can get done actually, because I had, I was just chatting with a prospect yesterday and he’s getting a new kidney next month.
And I’m like, he’s working from the hospital and I’m just like, I can’t even fathom what that’s like. He’s like, I’m actually feeling way better. And we started talking about like him going through it and what he’s doing and it gave them some hard love for the business side of stuff. And that can change the trajectory of what he’s doing because he now has some hope on some of these pieces, you know what I mean?
And so, getting the right support system, I really wish I had more of a business kind of support system back then. I kind of went a little more recluse than I probably should have. Don’t get me wrong. It ended up really going well, but it also could have not, and so, those are just some of the reflections. I haven’t really been asked questions about that before, so I really appreciate it. I really appreciate it.
[JOE]: I remember when, I don’t remember if it was, I mean that 2011, 12 is sort of like a big blur. So, I could have been in the hospital when my mom was in there, my daughter or me, who knows like why I was there. But I remember writing an article about the origins of Pinterest and just diving into like, like how did it start? It wasn’t like ‘A how to Pinterest.’ It was like ‘What can we learn from starting a company like that?’
And learning about how it was basically this guy who like loved insects and like wanted a place to like just share insect photos and butterflies and things like that. And just like his obsessive nature around that. And I still remember writing that blog post. I feel like when you’re going through those things sometimes like working on your business can be a healthy distraction. Of course, there’s kind of a point where that topples into very unhealthy, but you know, we got to slow down also.
But recognizing that sometimes those patterns where you want to stay up late and you want to keep working on a project and you’re in that flow state, that’s okay. And giving yourself permission there, but then also recognizing when it’s unhealthy. It’s like recently I’ve been going through Sam Harris’ Waking Up course on meditation and I’ve found that almost every time that I get distracted during meditation, its to-do list items or business items.
And so, recognizing so much of my subconscious thoughts are achievement-oriented, that’s probably a problem and I need to work on that more with my own therapist. But, it’s also helped me get to where I’m at. So, it’s like two sides of the same coin.
[JAIME]: So, I want to chat about that a little bit too.
[JOE]: Yeah.
[JAIME]: Because I, especially for a lot of my clients, I highly, highly recommend meditation and most of them are like, “Yeah, it doesn’t work for my type of brain.” Like this is why entrepreneurs need it. But to me, and we’ve talked about this before, to me that’s, I’ve been meditating for 10 years and I meditate every single day and it’s not always —
[JOE]: How long do you meditate each day? I like to hear like what people’s —
[JAIME]: 20 or 25 minutes.
[JOE]: Okay, cool.
[JAIME]: But like I said, my boyfriend just came back from Verpaso. He’s now doing an hour in the morning and an hour at night. So, now I’m doing longer in the morning and I’m kind of doing it at night too. And it’s interesting. It’s very interesting, but to notice the evolution that is meditating, I couldn’t meditate for five minutes before. I’d actually lay down and fall asleep, which was, I was a tired mom.
So, that’s the other piece. But the noticing of the thoughts, I actually keep a pen and paper. So, I don’t, I do my own thing, just so we’re clear. Like it’s, I definitely have a lot of modalities that I’ve practiced from, but give yourself permission to do whatever the heck you want in meditation. So, I write my stuff down. Because you’re right. Those things pop up and some of it is actions that I’m like, “Oh, my brain is reminding myself,” right? Like, I like to do brain dumps quite often and sometimes I’ll use that as a brain dump idea.
When I get a lot of those out, that’s when I have the insights. Like when I’m completely clear, I have insights that make connections that I don’t think I ever could have made without meditation. And then when I follow those actions and I feel in flow, so many things are so much better in regards to the business side and I feel like that’s what, we’re told what to do. “You have to do this, take more action, blah blah.” But like what are those things that you actually do? I find meditation and actually getting clear on what direction I feel like going after makes such a huge difference in the actual momentum that I can create. It’s huge.
[JOE]: I love that you have a piece of paper there because I felt guilty thinking about wanting one, but you know, maybe your new course can be mastering meditation, yeah.
[JAIME]: Seriously. Well, I know it was funny. I think it’s like Leonardo Da Vinci. I think I told you the story a long time ago when we were chatting. He would hold a ball and he would fall asleep because that waking and sleep state is one of the most creative states we could potentially have. So, you can get to that brain state in meditation. And if we just try it, that’s where your big ideas will come from, right?
[JOE]: Yeah.
[JAIME]: Like, and I don’t think we ever give our chance, our brain, especially people that are, I have an overactive brain, let’s just say that. I do have ADD and I would try medication and I don’t like it. So, I live in the state of “Woo.” And so, being able to actually intentionally clear it, going and looking for those bigger creative connections, taking that time is the time most well spent and I highly, highly recommend it. Even if somebody is like, “I know meditation is supposed to be good. I tell my clients to do it, but I don’t do it.” That kind of stuff. Please just sit for 10 minutes straight and let that stuff come out. It’ll be hugely changing.
[JOE]: Yeah. It’s one of those things that I’ve wanted to dip my toes into or I have here and there and the Sam Harris’ course has been so helpful to at least get me going and I’m signing up for one of the 10 day retreats this year. I think I’m going to do it in like the middle of the year. So, oh man —
[JAIME]: Well, let me know how it goes.
[JOE]: I will. So, Jaime, the last question I always ask people is if every private practice owner in the world were listening right now, what would you want them to know?
[JAIME]: Ooh, that’s a great question. I give my audience a heads up on the last hardcore question that I have. You don’t do that at all. Good to know.
[JOE]: I just forgot to let you know. We were chatting up before we got started, so, and then had to [crosstalk] issues and then, you know, so, —
[JAIME]: All right, I’ll run with it. So, to me, moving forward and taking that outside of your comfort zone, I know, you know, you guys are so smart in such a way that can be detrimental sometimes. So, getting outside of your comfort zone and making it a daily habit of actually pushing like that. Like I turn bright red when I do these videos because I know most people are watching a video, but I turn literally bright weirdo red. So, I have a very good distinction to know whether I’m outside of my comfort zone or not, which is a wonderful thing.
Try and notice that. Like I want your heart to be a little faster every single day because that is the life that we should be living, that on the edge, pushing forward, moving forward faster and making that the habit, whether it be in your practice or outside of your practice, creates the life that you actually want to live. And that’s the reason why we’re here. So, that’s what I’m saying.
[JOE]: Oh, that’s so awesome. Jaime, if people want to connect with you, connect with your work, your podcast, all your new courses and all that, what’s the best way for them to connect with you?
[JAIME]: Well, we created a landing page for you also. So, if you go to eventualmillionaire.com/pop, I love how it’s pop. So, the prime is pop, I’ll put some resources and stuff too, like the team tests like we talked about a little bit. Any other templates that you think would be great to share with your team, I’ll go ahead and pop those up there for you too. I also have a speed of implementation. It’s a Google doc. It’s not even an Optin, where I go through and help you understand your time tracking and all that fun stuff too. So, thank you –.
[JOE]: I know that’s going to be awesome having done consulting with you and I’ve seen so many of those resources. You guys have to go over there and check out all the stuff Jaime has put together for you. She’s an amazing consultant. She’s helped me just continue to grow. And make sure you pick up her book, learn from her podcast. Jaime, I can’t wait to hang out with you when I’m down in Austin soon. Thanks for being on the show.
[JAIME]: Thank you so much for having me. I so appreciate you.
[JOE]: Thanks so much for listening. Also, don’t forget that master class that’s coming up on April 23rd. I want you to hang out with me. Come hang out over at practiceofthepractice/live. You can register for that. I’m going to be going over case studies, research and really looking at what experts say you need to do to absolutely kill it in private practice.
We also have over $3,000 in gifts that we’re giving away. We would love for you to come to this live event. This live master class is totally free and it’s to help you kill it in private practice. So, again, that’s going to be on April 23rd at two o’clock eastern, one o’clock central, noon mountain, and 11:00 AM west coast. Again, practiceofthepractice/live and thanks so much for letting me into your ears and into your brain. Have an awesome week.
This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It’s given with the understanding that neither of the host, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or other professional information. If you need a professional, you should find one. Also, thanks to the band, Silence is Sexy for that intro music.