WP157 | How to Know When You're Ready to Go Out on Your Own - Live Consulting with Amanda Zuccaro, Licensed Professional Counselor
Have you ever felt that holy nudge - that mix of excitement and fear that says, “Maybe it’s time to go out on my own”?
I remember that feeling so vividly. You’re standing on the edge of something new, your heart’s racing, and the “what ifs” start flooding in. What if I’m not ready? What if it fails? But also… what if this is exactly what God is calling me to do next?
In today’s episode, I’m sitting down with Amanda Zuccaro, a Licensed Professional Counselor who’s right in that in-between space—still working at her current practice but feeling called to step into her own. We talk about how to know when you’re ready to make that leap, how to prepare financially and emotionally, and what it looks like to take faith-based action even when everything isn’t perfectly lined up yet.
If you’ve ever dreamed about starting your own practice - or you’re wondering if now’s the time - this conversation is for you. Amanda’s story will inspire you to stop spinning your wheels, trust the process, and take that first brave step toward your own wise practice.
Knowing When You’re Ready
Amanda’s question—“How do you navigate the indecisiveness of whether or not to leave your current employer and go all in with your own business?”—is one that so many therapists wrestle with.
The truth is, there’s no perfect moment. But there is wisdom in knowing your circumstances and preparing well. In our conversation, we talked through the practical factors to consider:
Your financial readiness (including having several months of expenses saved)
The support and awareness of your spouse or family
How does your current workload align with your long-term vision
Whether your current clients might follow you into private pay
Amanda shares that her employer has been supportive—willing even to let some private-pay clients transition with her. She’s building her website, working through onboarding in SimplePractice, and researching office spaces for in-person sessions. In other words, she’s laying a thoughtful foundation.
Counting the Cost (and the Lost Time)
One of the key moments in our consult was reframing the idea of waiting. I often remind practice owners that while it’s good to be cautious, waiting too long can actually cost you both time and income.
If Amanda waited until January to open her doors, she might lose four months of growth, potential clients, and brand recognition she could have already been building this fall. Sometimes, taking that leap a bit earlier—when your ducks are “mostly” in a row—is actually the wiser move.
Planning a Smooth Transition
We also explored creative ways to bridge the gap between her current job and her new practice:
Transitioning from W-2 to 1099 work for supervision
Offering telehealth on the side (with full transparency to her employer)
Renting shared office space for one or two days per week while her caseload grows
It’s not all or nothing. Sometimes, building gradually gives you the confidence and stability you need to go all in later.
Faith and Wise Preparation
Amanda’s approach is grounded in faith, discernment, and good stewardship. She’s not just making a business move—she’s stepping into a calling. As she said beautifully, “My identity is in Christ, and everything flows from that.”
That’s exactly what we cultivate inside the Wise Practice Membership Community—a space where faith-based practice owners can grow their business and their faith at the same time.
Amanda joined the community to learn more about business, find encouragement, and connect with other Christian practice owners. Now, she’s found not just one friend—but a whole community cheering her on.
Key Takeaways
Don’t wait for “perfect”—start when you’re prepared enough.
Use this time to set up strong systems and a marketing foundation.
Clients may surprise you—many will follow you to private pay because of your relationship and quality of care.
Look for flexible office options and supervision contracts to ease your transition.
Stay connected to community and faith for wisdom, support, and courage.
Amanda Zuccaro’s Resources
Links and Resources
Learn More about Wise Practice Consulting
Connect with Wise Practice on Instagram
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[00:00:00] Whitney Owens: Hi, I am Whitney Owens. I'm a group practice owner and faith-based practice consultant, and I'm here to tell you that you can have it all. Wanna grow your practice, wanna grow your faith, wanna enjoy your life outside of work, you've come to the right place. Each week on the Wise Practice Podcast, I will give you the action steps to have a successful faith-based practice.
While also having a good time. Now let's get started.
[00:00:29] Jingle: Where she grows your practice. She don't play. She does business with a twist of faith. It's Whitney Owens and Wise Practice Podcast, Whitney Owens and Wise Practice Podcast.
[00:00:47] Whitney Owens: Welcome back friends to the Wise Practice Podcast. I wanna start today by asking, have you ever felt stuck in private practice? Maybe your caseload's low. Maybe you feel like you're drowning in administrative staff issues and tasks, and you don't know how to delegate. Maybe you're wondering if you're charging the right fees, tired of making decisions on by yourself or, or you're trying to figure out how do I integrate faith in an appropriate way in the work I do clinically and in running my business?
Here's the good news. You don't have to keep spinning your wheels. That's exactly why I created the Wise Practice Community. This is a membership space designed just for Christian practice centers where you will find weekly live teachings, expert interviews, accountability groups, editable paperwork for your practice in a supportive network to support you, cheers you on and helps you grow your practice with faith at the center of it all.
So here's something really cool. I am offering a special deal and the reason I'm doing this is 'cause I want everyone to be a part of the membership community that wants to be, I know that it can be hard to manage our finances and make decisions about is it really worth investing? I don't really know what this thing is really all about that Whitney keeps talking about.
So for just 89 cents. For your first month, I'm giving access to the Wise Practice membership community. I'm running this special deal November 12th through the 14th, so just in a few weeks. Yes, for only 89 cents for your first month. So if you've been thinking about joining and you've been unsure, now's the time to do so.
For less than a dollar for me to help you. Grow your private practice. So over the next few weeks on the podcast, I'm gonna be introducing you to some amazing practice owners who are part of the Wise Practice membership community, so you can hear more about their experience, about their practice and who they are.
And in addition to that, we're doing some cool live consulting. I absolutely love listening to your questions and answering them on the podcast. And so we are doing that over the next few weeks. These live consulting sessions, I answer real questions. From real practice owners, you will get to hear stories, wins, and hear about a community that changes the way people run their practices.
It truly doesn't get any better. So today on the podcast, you're gonna hear from Amanda who is currently working at a practice and trying to consider if she's gonna go off and start her own practice. And also wondering when is the right time to do that? So if you've ever considered starting a private practice or maybe you're currently working somewhere trying to figure out when's the right time to take that leap of faith, you are definitely in for a treat with today's episode.
So stick with me through this incredible series with live consulting and don't miss out on the limited time offered to join the Wise Practice community. You don't have to do this work alone. Now let's jump into the episode with Amanda.
Welcome to The Wise Practice Podcast. And I am thrilled because we're gonna be doing some live consulting, and the question that Amanda brings today is so fabulous. So before we jump in and hear that, I wanna tell you about Amanda Zuro. She is born. Again, Christian wife, mother, new business owner. She owns personal community.
Amanda's a licensed professional counselor in Virginia and Illinois, an approved supervisor in the state of Virginia. She specializes in OCD, anxiety, trauma, disordered eating issues, and incorporates faith-based counseling as well. Amanda currently works at a private practice as a counselor and supervisor.
Thank you for coming on the show today. Thank you for having me, Whitney. Yeah, so why don't you kind of just jump, well, yeah, let's jump into your question and then I think we'll get some background as we go. Okay, great.
[00:04:49] Amanda Zuccaro: So one of my questions is how do you navigate indecisiveness, whether or not to leave like your current employer and just go all in
[00:05:01] Whitney Owens: with your business?
Hmm. Yes. Such a good question. I'm gonna ask you lots of questions because I think that really helps and every decision is is different. So could you share with me where you are currently? Kinda like, it sounds like you're at a practice and you own a practice, so could you talk about that?
[00:05:21] Amanda Zuccaro: Yeah, sure. I've been with the practice where I'm employed for about six to seven years now, and so I'm still working full-time here.
I'm supervising as well, a few folks, so I just. So I just took taking Laura's masterclass, had some realizations such as like, I need more time. And so I just moved some clients over so I can spend more time on the business because I'm trying to get some of the basic things done, like someone's working on my web.
Site right now. So that should be up and running soon. And then I'm just trying to do things like onboarding or, uh, try to figure out that stuff with simple practice and then looking at spaces for particular, possibly January to be able to see people in person somewhere. So I'm still in the, pretty much like beginning stages.
Of things just a little bit more of. So my employer, I spoke with him a few weeks ago and he's fully aware that I'm leaving, that kind of stuff. And so he did say that I do, because I'm planning to do private payer like I model, get. Yeah, and so he did say that I do have a few clients who pay that way already, and he's okay with just kind of, you know, if they're open to that moving with me.
I'm not sure how many, but he did say that. But I haven't looked into it or anything. And I think that's where I am with things so far. So pretty much beginning stages, those things. Yeah.
[00:06:57] Whitney Owens: Wonderful. Well, it's an exciting and scary time for sure. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So when you say at your current practice you work, you said six to seven years, that's, that's a good investment.
And when you say you're full-time, how many hours there are you working
[00:07:13] Amanda Zuccaro: now? I'm working probably around maybe 25 a week, maybe a little over that. So 25 to maybe. 30, but it looked, it's averaging around like 25 or a little bit less right now with cancellations and everything.
[00:07:30] Whitney Owens: Okay. That's how many clients you're seeing?
That's how many clients. Mm-hmm. Okay. And then you're doing supervision? Yes. How many, how many hours is that?
[00:07:40] Amanda Zuccaro: So that's about three hours a week. I mean, I still have to do things like documentation, like look over documentation, maybe send emails, that kind of stuff. So I would say probably it's a little maybe over that.
Maybe like. 4, 4, 5
[00:07:55] Whitney Owens: hours, something like that. All right. And so you're probably really putting in about 40 hours a week when you start all the communicating with clients and all the things, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. And just to confirm, you have not yet started seeing clients at your private practice, right?
Mm-hmm. Okay. And your current setup, are you a 10 99 or a W2? At your current place of employment, are you getting, uh, W2? You're getting a W2 paycheck, okay?
[00:08:28] Amanda Zuccaro: Mm-hmm. Yes.
[00:08:30] Whitney Owens: All right. And I think I'm asking these questions because everyone's phase of life. Where they're at is different as well as their income goals and what they need.
So like sometimes I see people who are in a full-time private practice and they take the leap and go all the way and put everything into starting their practice. It could be maybe they had a death in the family, so they had an inheritance and they were like, I'm gonna do the thing I wanted to do. Or maybe they have, like for my situation, it was a lot easier and I was fortunate in this way to start a private practice 'cause my husband worked full time and so could we have lived off his salary and eaten ramen noodles every night?
Yes. So we were, we took that risk and we were like, okay, we can do this. So, mm-hmm. My question, whatever comfort level you have, when you think about the financial aspects, 'cause that's important, do you have any additional income or do you need to make a certain amount of income per month to be able to survive?
[00:09:29] Amanda Zuccaro: Yeah. Yeah, that's a good question. So I was thinking about this, so I started to look into my savings actually to consider that. And from what I see with like finances of what I would need a month, I have probably enough to someone in the masterclass said maybe to consider at least having like six months of what you need as far as like expenses, like living expenses, if you're gonna decide to just.
Kind of go all in with things. And so I do have that. But another thing I did think about is, so my spouse is military and they're away, so they won't be home for like close to it's few months. And so I can't have this, I do also wanna wait to have this conversation with my spouse when they, when my husband gets back.
So, so it wouldn't be something that I decide like right away without. You know, kind of talking to him first. But I do know, like financially I do have, at least I have that six months
[00:10:27] Whitney Owens: Yeah.
[00:10:27] Amanda Zuccaro: Of
[00:10:28] Whitney Owens: somewhere. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Great. And do you have children to consider? Yes. Mm-hmm. Okay. What are their ages? So, a 15-year-old boy.
Okay. Wonderful. So a little self-sufficient but not fully, right? Yeah. Okay. Wonderful. So. You know, again, it's like some things to consider. It's like, could you live off of your husband's salary? You know, what would that look like? I, I appreciate what you're saying about, Hey, I'm gonna wait until he returns before I make a big decision.
I'm also sitting here thinking. When he's not here, might be a good time to put a lot of work into your practice, right? Because you know, when he comes back, you're gonna wanna spend time with him. You're gonna be excited to have him back. You're gonna wanna probably take some time off. So I also see this as potentially a really good time.
Now, I certainly think that timing is important for your season of life, the amount of money you have. I also think this is so important and someone said this to me and I have really held onto it. You, you're losing time in the process. So here's a quick example, Amanda. Let's say in an ideal world, you started your private practice September 1st, and you had September, October, November dec.
It's four months to grow it and get some clients. Mm-hmm. Let's say in that amount of time. Let's say you were seeing 10 clients a week. It's pretty low, right? 10 clients a week? Mm-hmm. What would you charge per client?
[00:11:58] Amanda Zuccaro: Probably about where I wanna see clients about,
[00:12:02] Whitney Owens: probably about two 30. Okay, so you're charging two 30 a session?
[00:12:08] Amanda Zuccaro: Mm-hmm. Okay.
[00:12:10] Whitney Owens: So it's $2,300 a week times four months. I mean, sorry. Ah, I should multiply that by let's say. If it's four months, you know, that's 16 weeks. It's the holidays. Let's just do, let's just do times 14. Okay? $32,000. Now, if you were to start your private practice January 1st, you just lost $32,000.
Does that make sense? That does make sense, okay? Now that doesn't mean that you're not gonna be working at your current location, but you've lost that time of money you could have had because now you're behind, more behind. I mean, I don't know if that's really the best way to say it, of money that you could have been earning and a reputation that you could have been growing.
So a lot of times people are fearful about starting, but they know they wanna start. And so sometimes it's, it's like, well, considering the loss of time, you should just go ahead and make the jump if all other things are in place. It sounds like you have a lot of things in place and you've got an employer who's also telling you take some of your clients with you.
And I know you're probably thinking clients aren't gonna wanna leave insurance to come do private pay. This is a myth. I love how you're smiling about it. You're like, I know the struggle. It's so true. People look, I have a private pay practice. I have at least 15 therapists here. They're not all completely full right now 'cause we're at the end of the summer, but they probably will be in the next four weeks.
All these people pay cash. Because of what we offer and who we are. Do they have insurance? Yes, most of them do. And they could go use their insurance. They come here because of so many other things. Your clients, many of them, unless you're in a really, like, you know, people in a really difficult financial situation, which we wanna, you know, pay attention and honor that.
But most clients will make it work to come with you because they love the work they do with you. And you could offer 'em super bills or you could offer 'em a sliding scale for people who are your current clients, you know, wanting to come with you. But you would be, you're gonna be surprised how many people follow you.
So I would encourage you to run a little calculation of what it would be like if your current cash pay clients followed you, how many that would be. And then I would take your insurance based clients and assume half of them follow you. And then think about how much money that would be and if that what you need.
[00:14:45] Jingle: Okay.
[00:14:46] Whitney Owens: Now another thought, and you'd have to talk to your current employer, and I do see people do this when they're trying to decide to leave and they wanna play it. Careful is having two jobs, like having your private practice and then having, yeah. Now a lot of employers probably aren't gonna like that or want you to do that.
And you definitely need to tell your boss if you're gonna do it. Because I can definitely tell you people who've done it behind my back and it didn't go well, but a lot easier to do with the 10 99 model than a W2. Okay? Mm-hmm. So what kind of questions are coming up for you here?
[00:15:23] Amanda Zuccaro: Yeah, I guess like with the 10 99.
So 10 99 is more of it's contracted, right? Uhhuh. Okay. So I would.
[00:15:34] Whitney Owens: I am sorry about that. A, a good way to think about it with contractors is when someone paints your house, they are contracted to come to your house and provide you with service. They usually provide that service for multiple houses. They don't just paint your house, you know?
And so contractors really are therapists who have their own business, their own LLC, their own bank account, their own liability, and they are contracted at other businesses to come in and provide. Counseling.
[00:16:05] Amanda Zuccaro: Mm-hmm.
[00:16:05] Whitney Owens: Makes sense. So I actually could see, and I don't know what your current employer is like, but a situation where if they still needed a supervisor and he want needed that from you, you could con be contracted out to supervise people at the practice, potentially.
[00:16:23] Amanda Zuccaro: Mm-hmm. While you have your own business. Yeah. Yeah. So we actually talked about that very briefly. So, because he's interested in. He wants me to still do that if I'm able to even like after I leave. So we've
[00:16:39] Whitney Owens: definitely spoken about that. Yeah. So what other questions do you have there?
[00:16:45] Amanda Zuccaro: So, so far with the, like, pretty much like with the steps to take of like, you know, definitely talking to my employers some more about.
What I'm planning to do or like what he's comfortable with. And then maybe for myself, like considering looking at like how many clients I currently have that are private pay and seeing how much that would be if they would follow. And then assuming that about 50% of the ones who are insurance might follow and see how much that is.
[00:17:17] Whitney Owens: Good. So it sounds like that was helpful for you.
[00:17:19] Amanda Zuccaro: Yeah, it was very helpful.
[00:17:21] Whitney Owens: So another thing. That I wanna really emphasize here is starting a private practice is a lot of work, and I see people sometimes, you know, think that, oh, if I make the investment, like just the financial investment or I hire a coach or whatever, like it'll all work out.
And yes, hiring a coach is great. I mean, you just did Laura Long's masterclass on, you know, private pace. I know you learned a lot through that experience, but like you got to put in the work. So it could be, you know, I know for Laura, and I'm just thinking about her specifically, she has a lot of stuff in that class, like lots of handouts and extra resources that you can use.
Yeah. So I, I can say with certainty that the people that I've coached and watched along the way that take advantage of resources, attend teachings classes or some that get individual consulting, those people are the ones whose practices grow. It. But yeah, you gotta, you gotta work on your website, you gotta work on SEO, you gotta put in the marketing.
You can't just hang up a shingle and hope that clients come. You have the advantage of leaving a practice. So you'll have a little bit initially, but you're gonna have to put in the work to figure out how to get more clients. And there's lots of ways you can do that. We teach all those in the Wise Practice community, but I encourage you to, like you said this, I think earlier, just really giving yourself time to work on the business.
You know, because those, those components are really important. Yeah. Yeah. So I see, I see you writing, taking notes. I love it. Yeah. How, what kind of direction do you feel like more decisive now than you did when we started the consult? Or are you feeling more confused, or where are you at?
[00:19:12] Amanda Zuccaro: No, I think it's, it's more for me to think about because I had in my mind, okay, this is what I'm gonna do.
So maybe like by October I'm taking. Maybe telehealth only and then January, then start to see like in-person clients then and like give it a go. But I wasn't considering like even like the insurance, the clients that pay insurance, I didn't even consider that maybe they would even, you know, consider coming on
[00:19:45] Whitney Owens: with me.
[00:19:46] Amanda Zuccaro: Mm-hmm.
[00:19:47] Whitney Owens: Yeah, definitely girl, I never use my ISU insurance for therapy. I don't want all that on my record and my diagnosis and all that kinda stuff like, or my kids or my family like.
[00:19:58] Amanda Zuccaro: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
[00:20:00] Whitney Owens: Yeah.
[00:20:00] Amanda Zuccaro: Yeah. Hmm.
[00:20:03] Whitney Owens: Yeah, I, I certainly think the idea of doing some telehealth on the side, if that's something your employer's open to, is great.
I mean, it sounds like your employer's, you know, kind and willing to work with you and appreciates you. I mean, I think you're longstanding there probably is helpful for that. Mm-hmm. And then office space can be tricky. It's hard to find. We want the perfect space and those don't exist, you know? Yeah. So I would encourage you just kind of brainstorm different things.
I'd start looking now because the right space might open up now and not be available in January. So don't, don't wait. I mean, if you could find something that's January great, but like even if you found something in November, but it. You know, you could afford it now, like go ahead and make it, you know, because you might actually end up getting a better deal than waiting till January when maybe the rent's gonna be a thousand and maybe the rent could have been 600 or whatever.
So I always say be looking for space. I mean, I, when I bought the building most recently, I think I spent six to nine months looking at buildings, and then when it became available, it was like, boom. Like I had to get it within 24 hours. So you. And that was purchasing you rent, rent at the beginning. You also could consider if you know people who have office space for rent, if you wanted to try to rent a space for just one or two days a week while you're growing.
And then you can always expand from there. And if you know, depending on any other connections you have, maybe other people, it doesn't have to be a therapist, has space. You could rent space from a lot of different offices, like a real estate office or. Acupuncture office or like, you know, limitless opportunities or you if you are at your church maybe, or another church, if they have an office, you could use that while you're growing your caseload, you got options.
We don't love the idea of mo getting in somewhere and then moving and moving and moving. It can mess with your SEO mess with your Google My Business stuff, but. Better. Better that than to make an, you know, make an investment in something that's not gonna work or be somewhere you don't wanna be.
[00:22:14] Amanda Zuccaro: Yeah.
Yeah.
[00:22:16] Whitney Owens: So
[00:22:17] Amanda Zuccaro: great. And I didn't think about the other options with renting 'cause I was only thinking about like other therapy offices and
[00:22:26] Whitney Owens: Sure. That's helpful. Wonderful. Well, great. You have any other questions here for me today? Are you feeling like you got some direction? Yeah, I think this was very helpful.
Good. So what are your next steps that you're gonna take?
[00:22:44] Amanda Zuccaro: So I am going to look into the clients I currently have and see private pay versus like insurance, and then look into space. Possibly like running space for when's the best time to do that, and then if ducks are in a row for what I need right now, then maybe consider, consider starting or sooner rather than later.
[00:23:13] Whitney Owens: So exciting. Wonderful. Well, Amanda, as we kind of close up here, I know you're a member of the Wise Practice Membership Community, so for someone who's listening who doesn't know what that is, or why are you a part of that, you know, could you share a little bit more about what it is and why? Why it's special for you?
[00:23:32] Amanda Zuccaro: Yeah, so last year sometime I was looking for different types of networking communities to become a part of. I know more about business now, but even back then, barely, barely anything. So, you know, I wanted to network. With other people to get wisdom. And so the guy was impression on me to wait for like a faith-based one.
And so I was like, well, I don't know any, so I ended up connecting with someone and I didn't even share with them about wanting to join a network that's faith, faith-based. And so they just let me know, Hey. Is what was, is very helpful, was, and still is very helpful for me. And so ended up looking into the community, ended up joining and it's been amazing.
There's tons of resources, way more than I would even expect. And I think the cherry on top is that it's a faith-based. Community. And that's really important to me because that's, you know, a part of like my identity, where my identity is, and everything kind of flows from that. So it's been very helpful to get resources from people.
I just attended a master's masterclass, which is pretty much kind of like, in a way, a bootcamp of like a specific. So if you're wanting to move from insurance to private pay, then that's what it's about. So you have this expert consultant teaching you and encouraging you and how to do that. So it's been a great resource and very encouraging.
[00:25:01] Whitney Owens: Hmm. I'm so glad. And, and Amanda, you had one friend when you joined. But now do you feel like you have a community of people that you know? Yes, I do. So that's so cool. Well, I appreciate you being a part of the community. I absolutely love it, and this has been really enjoyable. I know this interview's gonna help a lot of people, so thank you so much for taking the time to be with me today.
[00:25:25] Amanda Zuccaro: Thank you. Thank you for letting me get on today.
[00:25:31] Jingle: So click on follow and leave a review and keep on loving this work we do with Whitney Owens and Wise Practice Podcast, Whitney Owens and Wise Practice Podcast.
[00:25:49] Whitney Owens: Special thanks to Marty Altman for the music in this podcast. The Wise Practice Podcast is part of the Site Craft Podcast Network. A collaboration of independent podcasters focused on helping people live more meaningful and productive lives.
To learn more about the other amazing podcasts in the network, head on over to site craft network.com. The Wise Practice podcast represents the opinions of Whitney Owens and her guests. This podcast is for educational purposes only, and the content should not be taken as legal advice. If you have legal questions, please consult an attorney.
