Selling the Couch ENCORE: Owning A Therapy Building During The Pandemic
What would it be like to own and run your own group therapy practice--including the building? And to complicate matters, what if the whole endeavor is getting off the ground during a global pandemic? It might sound crazy, but you’ll hear the details from today’s guest who is making it all happen after facing down all the obstacles. Join us!
Our Featured Guest
Karen Grayson, PhD, LPC
Dr. Karen Grayson had a vision a few years ago of owning a therapy practice building, so she followed through with the big purchase in 2018. She’s here to help us navigate through the challenges of owning a therapy practice building during a pandemic. The Center for Inner Transformation, in St. Louis, is a place where Karen combines philosophy, therapy, and spirituality on an integrated pathway to her clients’ personal and collective development, and it’s also home for the practices of three other clinicians. She shares where the idea of buying a building came from, how she went into the process, along with practical steps that she took during the pandemic. We wrap up today’s conversation with four pieces of advice that Karen would give to her younger self about this undertaking.
You’ll Learn:
- How Karen began with the dream to purchase a therapy building
- How she moved from vision to implementation through finding comfort in the unknown
- How Karen’s journey unfolded from her teaching role to group therapy
- How Karen purchased her office building in 2018, dealt with two colleagues who backed out after the purchase and endured a difficult neighbor in the office park
- Why Karen learned to be gentle with herself and fierce in her purpose, staying grounded in the uncertainty
- How the drawbacks in the process led to feelings of failure and depression for Karen
- How she persevered with a deep commitment to her purpose and a willingness to fail
- How Karen learned the value in having support people in place from STC
- How the pandemic has affected Karen and her endeavors
- How word-of-mouth referrals have benefitted Karen’s business
- Why we need to know what our strengths are
- How Karen deals with her core wound of not being good enough
- How things worked out for Karen when she “let go and listened”
- Karen’s pieces of advice to her younger self about purchasing the building during a pandemic:
- Everything is an invitation for growth.
- The birthing process is always a hard thing.
- I’m not in charge of time.
- Be open to a larger container.
Resources:
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Mentioned in this episode:
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