WP190 | What I Would Do Differently If I Were Starting a Group Practice Today - Podcast Takeover with Amy Dover
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What would you tell yourself if you could go back to the very beginning of your group practice?
Y’all, that question will make you think.
In this episode, Amy Dover is taking over the podcast again as part of her June series on group practice ownership. Amy is a licensed marriage and family therapist, owner of Dover Counseling Services in southeastern Alabama, and a Wise Practice consultant with over a decade of experience building and leading a group practice.
Today, Amy is talking about what she would do differently if she were starting a group practice all over again. And her answer might surprise you. Before the systems, the compensation models, the hiring processes, or the spreadsheets, Amy says the first thing she would tell herself is this: find your people.
Amy shares the honest lessons she has learned around money, scarcity mindset, hiring, leadership, people-pleasing, and learning how to step out of the therapist role and into the CEO role. She also talks about the spiritual side of practice ownership, including what it looks like to stop striving, trust God with the outcome, and build a practice that is sustainable instead of exhausting.
If you are a Christian practice owner who feels like you are trying to figure it all out alone, this episode is going to feel like a deep breath.
What I Would Tell Myself Before Starting a Group Practice
If I could go back to the beginning of my group practice and hand myself one little note, I don’t think it would be about systems, compensation, hiring, or marketing. Those things matter, of course. They matter a whole lot. But the first thing I would want myself to know is much simpler than that.
Find your people.
Y’all, we make practice ownership so much harder when we try to build alone. And I understand why it happens. Most of us don’t start with a perfect plan. We start with a heart to serve, a handful of ideas, and a whole lot of questions. We ask other practice owners what they are doing. We copy what seems to be working. We make decisions with the information we have at the time and hope we are doing it right.
But the longer I have been in this work, the more I believe that one of the most important things a practice owner can do is get in the right rooms with the right people. Not just business people. Not just therapists. But people who understand the very specific combination of clinical work, leadership, faith, money, mission, team dynamics, and calling that comes with owning a Christian practice.
You Were Never Meant To Build Alone
There is something powerful about being around other practice owners who just get it. You do not have to explain why a decision feels heavier than it looks on paper. You do not have to justify why your faith matters in the way you lead. You do not have to translate the pressure of caring for clients, caring for your team, protecting your practice, and trying to follow God’s direction all at the same time.
When you are in a room with people who understand that, you can breathe a little easier. You can be more honest. You can ask better questions. You can stop pretending you have it all figured out and start getting the kind of support that actually helps you move forward.
So many practice owners are making big decisions alone in the dark. They are figuring out compensation alone. They are navigating hiring alone. They are carrying staff conflict alone. They are trying to discern when to grow, when to pause, when to pivot, and when to let go, all while wondering if anyone else feels the same way.
And the truth is, yes. Other people do feel that way. Other practice owners are asking the same questions. That is why finding your people matters so much. It does not remove all the hard parts of ownership, but it makes them a whole lot less lonely.
Money Is Not Separate From Faith
Let’s talk about money, because y’all know this is where a lot of Christian practice owners start squirming a little bit.
Many of us went into this work because we wanted to help people. We wanted to serve our communities. We wanted to create a place where clients could find healing and therapists could do meaningful work. And because our hearts are so tied to the mission, money can start to feel uncomfortable. Profit can feel like a word we are not supposed to say out loud.
But a practice that is not financially healthy cannot keep serving people well.
Profit is not the opposite of calling. When profit is pursued with integrity, used wisely, and rooted in stewardship, it can actually support the calling. It helps keep the doors open. It helps you pay your team. It helps you make thoughtful decisions instead of fear-based decisions. It gives the practice the stability it needs to keep doing good work in the community.
For Christian practice owners, money mindset is not just business work. It is spiritual work. We have to look at what we believe about provision, stewardship, generosity, and responsibility. We have to ask whether we are making decisions from a place of trust or from a place of fear.
Because fear can be expensive. Scarcity can lead us to overgive, undercharge, avoid paying ourselves, or build compensation models that look generous on the outside but are not sustainable underneath. And when the foundation is not sustainable, the whole practice eventually feels it.
Generosity Still Needs Sustainability
A lot of practice owners are deeply generous people. That is beautiful, and it is also something we have to steward wisely.
You can love your team and still need a healthy compensation model. You can value your clinicians and still need to protect the financial health of the practice. You can want to serve your community and still need to make sure the math works.
Sometimes, we confuse generosity with overextending ourselves. We think that if we give more, absorb more, or sacrifice more, then people will feel valued. But when generosity is not connected to sustainability, it can quietly create resentment, stress, and instability.
A healthy practice needs both heart and structure. It needs compassion and clarity. It needs generosity and boundaries. When those things work together, you can build something that serves people well for the long haul.
Hiring Is About More Than Clinical Skill
Hiring is one of those areas where practice owners learn a whole lot the hard way.
It is easy to assume that if someone is a good therapist, they will be a good fit for your practice. But those are not always the same thing. Someone can be clinically gifted and still not be aligned with your values, culture, expectations, or mission.
That is why hiring has to go deeper than likability or credentials. You are not just filling a seat. You are inviting someone into the culture of your practice. You are trusting them with clients, with your reputation, with your team dynamics, and with the mission you are building.
And y’all, when something feels off, it is worth paying attention to. Sometimes we talk ourselves into a hire because we need the help, because we want to give someone a chance, or because we are trying to see the best in people. But if that slow little nudge keeps telling you something is not right, do not ignore it.
A wrong fit can affect the whole team. It can create stress, confusion, and cultural damage that takes a long time to repair. Hiring carefully on the front end can save you so much heartache later.
People-Pleasing Can Hurt Your Practice
This one is hard for so many of us, because therapists tend to be relational people. We care deeply. We want people to feel seen, valued, supported, and appreciated. Those are good things.
But when people-pleasing starts leading the practice, things get messy.
People-pleasing can make you avoid hard conversations. It can make you say yes when the practice needs you to say no. It can make you keep someone too long, pay in a way that does not work, bend expectations, or make decisions based on keeping the peace instead of protecting the mission.
Loving your team does not mean keeping everyone comfortable all the time. Sometimes loving your team means being clear. Sometimes it means holding a standard. Sometimes it means having the hard conversation sooner instead of waiting until the issue becomes a crisis.
That kind of leadership is not always easy, but it is good. It protects the practice. It protects the team. And it helps create a culture where people know what is expected and why it matters.
The Practice Needs You To Lead
One of the biggest shifts in group practice ownership is learning to move from clinician to CEO.
That shift can feel strange, especially when therapy has been such a big part of your identity. Seeing clients feels useful. It feels familiar. It feels like the work you know how to do. Leadership, on the other hand, can feel slower, less tangible, and harder to measure.
But as a practice grows, it starts needing something different from you. It needs you to step back from always working in the practice so you can work on the practice. It needs vision. It needs strategy. It needs decision-making. It needs someone who is paying attention to the health of the whole organization.
That does not mean clinical work no longer matters. It means your role is changing. And when you resist that shift for too long, the practice can start to pay the price.
Stepping into leadership is not selfish. It is stewardship. It is recognizing that your practice needs you to lead with clarity, wisdom, and intention.
Busyness Is Not Faithfulness
Y’all, this one will preach.
So many practice owners wear busyness like a badge of honor. A full calendar can make us feel productive. It can make us feel needed. It can make us feel like we are doing enough.
But an owner who never has time to think is usually an owner who is always reacting.
You cannot lead well with no margin. You cannot cast vision when your calendar is packed from morning to night. You cannot hear from God when you never slow down long enough to listen.
White space on your calendar is not laziness. It is leadership. Prayer time is not wasted time. Reflection is not indulgent. Stillness is part of how we stay connected to the One who actually knows where this practice is going.
If you are building a practice that is meant to last, you need margin. You need room to think, pray, process, and discern. You need space to make decisions from peace instead of panic.
Stop Striving And Start Surrendering
At some point, every practice owner has to reckon with the fact that the practice does not rise and fall on their own strength.
Yes, we have to show up. Yes, we have to make wise decisions. Yes, we have to lead, build systems, manage money, hire well, and take responsibility for what God has entrusted to us.
But we do not have to carry it like it all depends on us.
That is where striving gets dangerous. Striving can look productive on the outside, but underneath, it is often fear. It is control. It is anxiety dressed up as responsibility.
Faithfulness looks different. Faithfulness shows up and does the work with integrity, but it also releases the outcome to God. Faithfulness remembers that He is in the practice, in the staff issue, in the finances, in the unfinished to-do list, in the decisions, and in the unknowns.
You do not have to do this in your own power. And honestly, you were never meant to.
Built To Last
This is exactly why Amy created Built to Last: Growing From a Solo Practice to a Group.
It is for Christian practice owners who want to build something sustainable, faithful, and rooted in the right kind of support. It is not about hustling harder or figuring everything out alone. It is about building with wisdom, clarity, community, and trust.
Inside Built to Last, practice owners will work through the practical pieces like systems, finances, marketing, compensation, interviewing, onboarding, and the shift from clinician to CEO. But they will also do the deeper work around money mindset, leadership, people, faith, and surrender.
The group begins July 9 and runs for six months, with live meetings every other week. It is designed to put Christian practice owners in a room with other people who get it, people who are asking similar questions and building toward something that lasts.
If you are growing from solo to group and you are tired of trying to figure it all out by yourself, this might be the room you have been needing.
Show Sponsor SamBright
This episode is sponsored by SamBright, the marketing growth partner for your practice.
You didn't start a practice to spend your evenings figuring out why your ads aren't converting. You built it to help people.
SamBright handles the growth side so you don't have to think about it. Their team builds and manages your SEO, Google Ads, and local search presence. For larger practices, they even nurture clients with their email and SMS marketing.
Most clients start seeing new client calls within 30 days of launch.
If you want to get back to running your practice by offloading the marketing, book a call at sambright.com/schedule.
Amy’s Resources
Built to Last: The Solo to Group Mastermind
Links and Resources
Learn More about Wise Practice Consulting
Connect with Wise Practice on Instagram
Connect with Whitney Owens on Facebook
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[00:00:00] Whitney Owens: This episode is brought to you by Sandbrite, the marketing growth partner for your practice. You didn't start a practice to spend your evenings figuring out why your ads aren't converting. You built it to help people. Sandbrite handles the growth side, so you don't have to think about it. Their team builds and manages your SEO, Google Ads, and local search presence.
[00:00:18] For larger practices, they even nurture clients with an email sequence and SMS marketing. Most clients start seeing new client calls within thirty days of launching. So if you want to get back to running your practice by offloading your marketing, book a call with Sandbrite. Head to sandbrite.com/schedule.
[00:00:38] Sandbrite.com/schedule
[00:00:44] Amy Dover: Hi, I'm Whitney Owens. I'm a group
[00:00:46] Whitney Owens: 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.
[00:01:06] Now let's get started.
[00:01:10] Jingle: Well, she grows your practice. She don't play. She does business with a twist of faith. It's Whitney Owens and the Wise Practice Podcast. Whitney Owens and the Wise Practice Podcast
[00:01:29] Whitney Owens: Welcome back to the Wise Practice Podcast. Whitney Owens here. So glad that you're here, but I won't be here for long because Amy Dover's taking over the podcast today.
[00:01:38] Um, she has done the last two episodes. This is episode three of her four-part series in the month of June, all about being a group practice owner. Amy has a group practice in Alabama. She has much knowledge to bring to the table, over 10 years of experience and over two years of... maybe three, two or three, of doing consulting.
[00:01:56] So she's got a lot to bring to the table today. I think to myself, though, this episode is about what would it be like if y- she had started a group practice today, and boy, how the world has changed. But also, the things we know now that we wish we had known then. You know, what would we have done differently if the version of ourselves now could go back to the version of ourselves before and say, "Hey, here are some things you should have thought about.
[00:02:22] Here are some things that could help"? Even as I go back and I think about what would I have told myself right when I started my group practice, I think one of the things I would've told myself was, "Don't be surprised by what God can do," 'cause let me tell you, I never anticipated having a seven-figure group practice.
[00:02:39] I was just telling my admin yesterday, that was not in my cards. My plan was just to serve. I just wanted to hire people so that we could have a bigger impact in our community, and then it continued to grow. And so God can move so much when we allow Him to. And I wish that I trusted more. I wish that I worried less, knowing that God's got this in His hands, God's gonna bring the right people at the right moments, and that it's okay for me to not have all the right answers.
[00:03:10] We put so much pressure on ourselves to make everything work out, and really, it's okay, and God will bring the right people at the right moments. So these are the things that I would've told myself back then. I wouldn't have told myself, "Make sure you use this system or you do this thing." It's more about me.
[00:03:27] Me breathing, me slowing down, me enjoying and being less stressed. And as I look back over my practice growth, I can tell you with certainty that when I had people come alongside me with the strategy, the clarity, and the momentum, it moved me forward. I had less time wondering, worrying, and I spent more time executing.
[00:03:53] Coaches have done that for me. I can think of three very specific times in my practice, maybe four actually, where I brought on consultants for different reasons, and they helped me jump to the next level. If you have been thinking about that, you're not sure how to move forward, you're feeling stuck, please don't delay.
[00:04:10] Reach out to Wise Practice Consulting. That is exactly what we're here for. We give you the strategy, the clarity, and also the spiritual discernment. So today, Amy is also gonna bring it for you. She's gonna talk about what she would've done differently if she was starting a group practice today. We look forward to hearing from you and sharing this in the episode today
[00:04:39] Amy Dover: Hello there, and welcome back to the Wise Practice podcast. I'm Amy Dover, licensed marriage and family therapist, owner of Dover Counseling Services in southeastern Alabama, and Wise Practice consultant. Thank you again for spending time with me today. So I want to start today's episode with a question.
[00:04:57] Whether you're a solo or group owner, if you could go back to the very beginning of your practice, the day you opened your doors or the day you made the decision to hire your first therapist, and you could hand your past self one piece of paper with one thing written on it, just one, what would it say?
[00:05:19] I've thought about this quite a bit, and particularly because of this podcast, you know, what would I do differently if I were starting a group practice today? And 11 years of building, uh, of my own practice, of 11 years of making mistakes and learning from them, of watching God show up in the gaps and watching myself get in my own way.
[00:05:42] And when I boil it all down to one piece of paper and what I would tell my past self, it's three words: find your people. That's it. That is the thing I would tell myself, and today I wanna unpack that, along with everything else that I would do differently if I were starting a group practice today because I've made mistakes in every category there is: money, people, leadership, faith.
[00:06:09] And I believe with everything in me that you don't have to make all of those same mistakes, and that's what this episode is for. Let me tell you what my support system looked like when I opened Dover Counseling in 2015. I had a couple of mentors, good people, genuinely supportive therapists. One of them was a practice owner himself, the other was being promoted through the ranks of a large mental health corporation out of state, but wonderful, supportive mentors.
[00:06:39] Uh, I have a husband who understands the insurance world in ways that most spouses of practice owners don't understand, and that was a genuine gift. And I had people in my life who loved me and cheered me on. Very encouraging, very much like, "Amy, everything you've done has brought you to this place. This is exactly where God wants you to be."
[00:06:59] Very encouraging, right? What I did not have was other faith-based practice owners who truly got it, so the specific combination of clinical complexity and business responsibility and kingdom calling that defines what we do, people who understood why I just couldn't make the most financially optimal decision and move on, people who had sat in the same chair, made the same mistakes, wrestled with the same questions, and who could look me in the eye and say, "Yes, I know exactly what you mean, and here's what I've learned."
[00:07:34] And I didn't find that community until 2023, eight years in. After building through multiple hires and moves, building during a pandemic, after navigating a major culture crisis in my practice, after becoming a seven-figure practice And after making most of my biggest mistakes alone in the dark, figuring it out through trial and error when I did not have to.
[00:08:01] When I finally found my people in a consulting relationship, in an accountability group with other practice owners at my stage, at a conference full of other Christian business owners asking the same questions I've been asking for years, which by the way, was the Wise Practice Summit, the relief was almost physical.
[00:08:20] I didn't have to explain myself before making the point. I didn't have to translate my world for someone who had never been in it. I was just understood immediately. And I thought, "Why did I wait so long? What would the last eight years have looked like if I had found this place sooner?" So when I say find your people, I mean don't build alone if you don't have to.
[00:08:50] Find the community of practice owners who share your faith, understand your work, and who are a few steps ahead of you on the road, because almost everything else I'm going to talk about in this episode, the money mistakes, the people mistakes, the leadership struggles, all of it is easier to navigate when you're not navigating it alone.
[00:09:09] Okay, so first, money. Mm, did you just kind of squirm in your seat a little bit when I said that word? Money. Let's talk about it. I made a lot of mistakes here, and I think a lot of Christian practice owners make the same ones. The most visible mistake was my compensation model, and in, in previous episodes, I've talked about this.
[00:09:29] I'm very open about the mistakes that I made because I, I want other practice owners to understand how important this is and really to learn, like, don't do what I did back then. Like, do this instead. This is the steps we take for a good, solid, sustainable compensation model. But my most visible mis- mistake with money was my compensation model.
[00:09:50] I started with a 1099 structure and a, a 70/30 split, uh, meaning my therapist kept 70 cents of every dollar that came into the practice, which sounds very generous, and it was, unsustainably so. I was absorbing every overhead cost, every liability, every administrative burden, and giving away 70% of the revenue.
[00:10:14] The math was never gonna work long term, but I didn't know that because I was doing what I saw other practice owners doing. And as I said, as I said before, a lot of them didn't know what they were doing either. We were all just copying each other, uh, and hoping for the best, but it wasn't long, you know, before that 70/30 split, it...
[00:10:36] Again, I had so much wrong with my money stuff in the very beginning, the 70/30 split, and then I was even giving them bonuses. Like, oh my gosh, even just thinking about it now, I'm like, "What were you thinking, Amy?" But it was my generosity. Just I really, really wanted my team to know how much I valued them, but I was doing it all wrong Underneath the compensation structure mistake was actually something deeper that no spreadsheet could fix or really reveal.
[00:11:03] Because what was underneath my compensation mistake was my scarcity mindset. So I had operated for years from a place of financial fear. A lot of it comes from my family of origin, just my own baggage around money. A-afraid that there wouldn't be enough, afraid that if I paid myself well, something would go wrong, afraid that wanting the practice to be profitable somehow contradicted my calling, somehow it just wasn't godly or Christian.
[00:11:30] And that fear drove decisions that were not good for me or the practice. God had to do some real work on me in this area, and I wanna be very clear. It wasn't just mindset work, it was spiritual work. It was me coming to actually believe, not just intellectually acknowledge, but to believe and know that He and He alone is my provider, that the practice is His before it is mine, that He is not surprised by a slow month or a difficult season, that I do not have to white-knuckle my way through financial uncertainty because I'm actually not in charge of the outcome.
[00:12:12] And here's the piece I really wanna say out loud because I don't think it gets said enough in Christian spaces: profit can honor God. Yes. Let me say that one more time. Profit can honor God. When it is pursued with integrity, when it is used thoughtfully, when it is the result of serving people well and stewarding resources wisely, profit is not a dirty word.
[00:12:38] It can do great things. It is not the opposite of calling. It is what makes the calling sustainable. You cannot keep your doors open, keep your staff employed, keep serving your community if the practice is not financially healthy. Sustainability is stewardship, and stewardship honors God, and I will go toe-to-toe with any practice owner who disagrees with that.
[00:13:03] I firmly believe in how practice-- in how profit can honor God, particularly when you understand this all belongs to Him anyway So if I were starting over today, I would do the work on my money mindset first, actually. Before I wrote a compensation structure, before I hired anyone, before I made a single financial decision, I would get clear on what I believe about money, about provision, about profit, and about my role as a steward of something that belongs to God.
[00:13:35] Because every financial decision I made from a place of scarcity cost me more than the ones I made from a place of trust, of course. Okay, let's talk about people. This is the category where I have the most material, actually, and I say that with humility and some humor because I think most practice owners do.
[00:13:55] We are relational. We love people. We know that God brings people into our paths for purpose. We see our, our practices as places that we can serve others, but serve our team. But man, I've made some mistakes in this area, and I'm not afraid to talk about them because again, I want you to learn from me. So my early hires were actually pretty good.
[00:14:18] Imperfect, of course. I've talked in other episodes about not having contracts and learning the hard way about expectations and leadership. But the people themselves were good, solid therapists, and several of them are still with me 11 years in, which is amazing, such a blessing. The harder lessons came later as the practice grew and became more visible and more successful, and this is something I really want you to hear Here's something that nobody warns you about.
[00:14:47] Success attracts attention, and not all of it is healthy attention. As Dover Counseling grew, as we became known in the community, as therapists in the area saw what we were building, we started attracting people who wanted to be part of something successful, and some of those people were wonderful. Some actually joined the team, and some of them were not what they appeared to be in an interview, and I did not always catch it fast enough before I allowed them on the team.
[00:15:18] So I learned that you have to hire very carefully for values and culture fit, not just clinical competence, not just likability, not just need. Someone can be ge- a genuinely good therapist and still be wrong for your practice, and I know that sounds crazy, but it's the truth. Someone can interview beautifully and still carry things that will eventually affect your culture in a negative way.
[00:15:43] And the square peg in the round hole situation that I talked about in the last episode where something feels off, but you talk yourself into it anyway because you want to give them a chance or because they need the opportunity or because you believe in their potential or because you're just desperate to hire, that almost never ends well.
[00:16:02] I've lived that more than once, I'm embarrassed to say, but I'm just putting it out there. But here's the pattern that I made most consistently across all of it. The one that shows up underneath... This is the one pattern that shows up underneath every people mistake that I've just about made.
[00:16:21] People-pleasing over practice needs. Choosing to avoid a hard conversation because I didn't want someone to be upset with me. Letting something go on longer than it should have because I didn't want to be the bad guy. Overcompensating financially because I wanted people to feel valued even though it was unsustainable.
[00:16:41] Making decisions based on what would keep the peace instead of what the practice actually needed. I'm very happy to say that I'm in a place now where there's not much that trumps practice needs. I very much am like, "Okay, well, I like this person," or, "I understand what you're asking for, but this does not align with practice needs."
[00:17:00] And at the end of the day, it is about the practice needs. I'm very much more confident in saying that now, and there's always... I, I understand the importance of data, which we're going to talk about, in making those decisions But a lot of us are people pleasers at our core, and really understanding if that's your pattern, making sure that you recognize it, and really just making sure that you're not making your decisions from a place of people pleasing.
[00:17:26] It is not sustainable, and it really isn't authentic or taking good care of your practice. So I'm a relational person. I love my team deeply, and for a long time, I confused loving my team with keeping them comfortable, and those are not the same thing. Loving your team means being honest with them, holding them to a standard, having the hard conversations early instead of late, and making decisions that protect the mission even when it costs you something relationally.
[00:17:57] And for us, that is so hard to do, but vital for the sustainability of our practices. So if I were starting over today, I would get much clearer much earlier on what I actually need from a hire, not just clinically, but values-wise, culture-wise, character-wise, and I would recognize earlier and trust the Holy Spirit's nudging more.
[00:18:24] The slow creeping feeling that something isn't right is almost always right. Don't wait until you have a crisis to act on it. All right, so this might be the hardest category to talk about because it's the most internal, because it's about me, really me. The money mistakes and the people mistakes, those have visible consequences that eventually force you to reckon with them.
[00:18:48] They're gonna catch up with you. The mistakes I made about myself were quieter and slower, and in some ways more costly because they shaped everything from the inside. The biggest one was this I could not wrap my mind around my own importance in the practice. Does that sound crazy? But I really struggled with that.
[00:19:13] I mean that very specifically. I kept trying to stay in the clinical role to be a full-time therapist who also happened to run a growing practice when what the practice actually needed was an owner who was willing to step back from the clinical work and step into the leadership work, working on the practice, not just in it.
[00:19:32] And I resisted that for a long time, like several years actually. And there were many reasons for that, partly because being a therapist was my identity for years. It's just what I had always done. Partly because I genuinely love the clinical work and I didn't want to give it up. And partly, if I'm being very honest, because staying busy in the therapy room felt safer than sitting in the uncertainty of what it meant to be a CEO.
[00:20:00] At least when I was seeing clients, I knew I was doing something useful. The leadership work is slower, less tangible, much harder to measure, and oftentimes it's invisible to the people around you, and I struggled with that. But the practice was communicating very clearly through its growth, through its needs, through its problems, that it needed me in a different role, and the longer I delayed that transition, the more the practice paid the price for it The other thing I got deeply wrong about myself was my relationship with busyness, and some of you might be hearing me on that.
[00:20:36] And again, this is part of my family of origin. I've had to do a lot of work on this, and I'm just a doer. But I did not realize what my relationship with busyness was. It was a very unhealthy relationship, and I wore it like a badge of honor for years. A full calendar meant I was working hard. It meant I was doing my job.
[00:20:58] It meant I was earning my place. And for a practice owner, that is exactly backwards. The owner who never has a moment to think is the owner who is always reacting instead of leading. You cannot have vision when your calendar has no margin. You cannot hear from God when you never stop moving. What I know now is that white space on my calendar is not laziness.
[00:21:25] It is a leadership practice. Stillness is not wasted time. It is how I stay connected to the one who actually knows where this practice is going. The reflective time, the prayer time, the quiet time where I'm not producing anything, that is some of the most important work I do as an owner, and it took me far too long to protect it, and I still do struggle at times to protect it.
[00:21:51] But thankfully, I have other Christian practice owners in my life who hold me accountable to that. So if I were starting over again today, I would build margin into my schedule from day one. Even when I was... even as a solo, I would build margin into my schedule, and I would make peace with my role as an owner and leader much earlier, and I would stop equating busyness with faithfulness because they are not the same thing.
[00:22:16] All right, I wanna close with a thing that really I think underlies everything I've talked about today. Because I could give you a better compensation model and a smarter hiring process and a healthier leadership mindset. All of them would help. All of them things that I have done myself, and then I-- that are just an ongoing...
[00:22:34] I always say it's an ongoing objective on my treatment plan, these things. All of that would be great for you to hear and for me to give you, but the deepest thing that I would change if I were starting over is this: I would learn sooner to get out of God's way. I am a striver by nature. I'm a doer. I take risks.
[00:22:57] sometimes more risks than I should take. Maybe I'm not as risk-averse as I should be, but I take risks, I make things happen, I identify a problem, and I fix it. Those are not bad qualities in a practice owner. In many ways, they're exactly what this work requires. But they become a problem when they lead you to believe that the practice rises or falls on the strength of your own effort.
[00:23:20] When striving tips over into control, when doing becomes a way of managing your anxiety instead of actually trusting God, that's an, that's a problem. And I did that for years. I spent so much of my practice growth striving, stressing, running on my own energy, solving problems in my own strength, white-knuckling my way through hard seasons when I didn't have to.
[00:23:45] Jesus was right there. He's been there the whole time, and he will continue to be there the whole time He doesn't need me to do anything for Him. What He asks is something both simpler and harder than that, to be His vessel, to be available, to do the work He places in front of me with faithfulness and integrity, and then to trust Him with the outcome.
[00:24:11] To acknowledge that this practice, its growth, its impact, its future, belongs to Him before it belongs to me. I still struggle with this. I wanna be honest about that because I think there's a version of this conversation that sounds like I've arrived somewhere, and I haven't. Owners are doers, and old habits run deep, but I'm slow- I'm slowly learning and genuinely learning.
[00:24:36] Like I said, this is an ongoing objective on my treatment plan. A few months ago, I wanna tell you this story. A few months ago, I was running some errands, turning into the local Walmart parking lot actually, and my mind was flooded the way that it gets sometimes with everything on my plate. The new newsletter we were rolling out, a staff issue I needed to address, notes that still needed to be completed, clients I needed to transition, the to-do list just piling in, piling up, one thing after another in my mind, and that familiar feeling of being responsible for all of it, carrying all of it, holding it all together through sheer force of will.
[00:25:17] And then, just as suddenly, a calm settled over me, and a voice, quiet and clear and so tender, said, "Amy, I'm in all of that. You don't have to do it in your own power." I sat in that parking lot for a minute and just let that land. Even now, it makes me a little emotional. He's in the newsletter. He's in the staff issue.
[00:25:43] He's in the notes and the transitions and the to-do list that never quite gets done. He is in all of it, and I don't have to carry it like it depends entirely on me, because it doesn't. And that day in that Walmart parking lot, I felt such relief and thankfulness to Him So I think that is actually what I would tell my 2015 self.
[00:26:06] Not just find your people, though that too for sure, but this, He's in all of it. You don't have to do it in your own power. Stop striving and start surrendering. Not passivity, faithfulness. Show up, do the work, and then release the outcome to the one who is never surprised by any of it. That's the practice owner I'm still becoming, and I think it might be the most important work that any of us do.
[00:26:33] Before I let you go today, I wanna tell you about something that I built specifically because of everything I just shared with you. So in July, I'm launching a mastermind group called Built to Last: Growing From a Solo Practice to a Group, and the name is intentional. Built to Last. Not built to hustle, not built to sprint, not built on a foundation of striving and stress and figuring out, figuring it out alone.
[00:26:58] Built to last sustainably, faithfully, with the right people around you. Everything I've talked about in this episode, the money mindset work, the people and hiring clarity, the CEO identity shift, the invitation to stop striving and start trusting, that is the work we are going to do together inside Built to Last, along with the practical stuff: systems, financials, marketing, compensation strategies, interviewing, onboarding, and how to begin making the shift from clinician to CEO in a way that actually sticks.
[00:27:31] So this class, this group, it starts July 9th, and it runs for six months. We meet live every other week, and the room is going to be full of Christian practice owners who share your faith, understand your world, and are committed to building something that lasts beyond them. Legacy. People you don't have to explain yourself to, people who get it The thing I needed most when I opened my practice in 2015 was not a better compensation model, though that would have really helped.
[00:28:01] It was not a smarter hiring process, though I desperately needed one. It was people, my people. A room full of faith-driven people, practice owners who were asking the same questions and willing to figure it out together, that is what Built To Last is. There's an early bird discount, as well as a discount if you're already part of the Wise Practice community.
[00:28:21] The deals are great, and if you're a Wise Practice member and register before the birth- the early bird date of June 18th, you get $150 off per month of the mastermind. Check out the details at wisepracticeconsulting.com/masterminds, and the, the link is in the show notes for you as well. I wanna tell you thank you so much for spending time with me today.
[00:28:43] I hope something in this episode gave you permission, permission to find your people, to do the money mindset work, to step into the leader you're called to be, and to release the outcome to the one who has always been in all of it. He's in yours, too. You don't have to do it in your own power. I'll see you next time, friend.
[00:29:06] Jingle: So click on follow and leave a review and keep on loving this work we do with Whitney Owens and the Wise Practice Podcast. Whitney Owens and the Wise Practice Podcast
[00:29:24] Whitney Owens: Special thanks to Marty Altman for the music in this podcast. The Wise Practice Podcast is part of the SiteCraft Podcast Network, a collaboration of independent podcasters focused on helping people live more meaningful and productive lives.
[00:29:38] To learn more about the other amazing podcasts in the network, head on over to sitecraftnetwork.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.
