Balancing Business Growth, Finances, Mental Health, and Workplace Culture

These transcripts are AI-generated, and spelling may not be 100% accurate (especially for names, places, and methodologies).

 

what probably one of the biggest things for me has been learning

the type of person that flourishes in

my practice and the type that doesn’t

and it’s not that there’s anything wrong or right about either of them

it’s just that this is the way the practice is and it suits

some people and it doesn’t suit other people

that’s probably one of the things that I’ve gotten

Hello everybody

and welcome to The Healthy Business Lab Podcast where we interview

amazing Allied Health business owners

to pick their brains so we can get some great insights

learnings from everything they’ve done in

around their business and today I’m super

excited to have someone I know quite well 

Amanda Abel from

the Northern Centre for Child and Adolescent Development

on our podcast today. Amanda, welcome to the show

Thank you for having me Craig, very exciting!

very happy to be here

Awesome! I know you’ve got so much wide breadth of experience

in the psychology profession and obviously

running your business there

I always love our guests to be able to introduce themselves

share a bit of their background but

also start with a bit of a way of sharing insights

from how you’ve leverage your expertise in managing

your own business as well in this

idea of how do we look after ourselves as business owners as well

that was a long question

I’m happy for you to take that wherever you feel like going

as I know our conversations

often go take it wherever you want to go and then we will dig into

bits and pieces of it from there 

yeah cool I think it’s an

interesting point I guess in terms of where I find myself

now as a business owner and psychologist

and I think I’ve been a psychologist for about 17 years

I think it’s about that who’s counting

but I’ve had my business for about I think it’s been 12 years

and that I guess period of time

you know becoming more confident as a psychologist and

interested in I guess different areas of psychology so

I’ve primarily worked with children and families

as a psychologist in the clinical setting but also during that

phase of time I have branched out as well

and had and worked sort of in that more corporate space

and did quite a bit of work in

kids digital media and advertising

and I got to do heaps of fun work with like lego and

got to go to Lego HQ in Singapore

that was so much fun so it’s been

a journey for me as a business owner but then also clinically

and learning different ways to apply my clinical knowledge

and my developmental knowledge

of kids and I guess there’s kind of been the

these two sort of parallel journeys

and areas of growth going on I love that

there’s so much there that I want to pack it to

jump into personally especially when you mentioned lego for anybody

watching the visual one of this you see a bunch of lego

over my shoulder a few yodas and

a few other things but

before we get sidetracked from my personal interest

I’d love for you to share how have you leveraged

the mindset side of things in your own business and even

from the sense of things that we often I know as a business

owner there’s lots of things that I know from my expertise

in managing money and those sorts of things that at times

I lose sight of in my own life in my own business

but when I reconnect with it, it’s like

yeah I need to remember that as a business owner because

that’s what will ultimately help me serve my clientele better

and the like and that idea of practicing what we preach

what is your journey been in that side of things in looking after

the mental side of life for yourself in managing a business 

yeah good question

it’s really funny because it’s something that so I just fell into

owning a business

I can’t remember if we’ve spoken about this before sort of I was

had been working

as a psychologist and then I had my daughter I was not ever really

very much a career driven person

so I sort of didn’t really have big intentions about returning to work

after I had my child and

you know I was just sort of

planning on just let’s see what happens and then sort of probably

six months into being a new mum I was like yeah

I want to go back and I think it reignited

that passion because I was

very burnt out right before I got pregnant

and I was looking at a career change at that point

 so I think, I was probably a little bit lost and then I think becoming a mum

really encouraged me to return

back to being a psychologist

and it just happened that when you work with kids especially

I have always worked with children with autism

and particularly young children

and doing diagnosis and that kind of thing

it can be hard to find a space to work from

that you know your clients

feel comfortable and that they can be

noisy and loud if they need to and I had a few difficulties

finding a location and to work from that where we weren’t disturbing

is someone having a massage in the room next door or

an adult counselling session next door so

I sort of just had to get my own premises

and so that’s how I kind of just fell

into it because then it was like oh now I’ve got all these rooms

now I need to fill them so I can’t just I was literally rattling

around yes yes and so it just sort of slowly grew

I’ve never had a business plan

I never really aspired

initially to create something as big as

what I have created but it just happened

and I guess luckily I was really motivated and very into it so

I was able to kind of stick

with it but having just fallen into being a business

owner meant that I wasn’t really prepared mentally

I hadn’t owned a business before so definitely

in terms of you know I suppose just

the mental health side of things as as the business

owner and managing that balance

between my personal life

and being the business owner

that was trial and error and I just had to learn that

as I went and there was definitely

challenges along the way to test me yeah so it was very much a

let’s just wing it and see how we go which is

still kind of my approach to

life as you know and in terms of the mindset

from the business perspective

that’s also just something that’s evolved so it again

wasn’t something that I sat down and planned

yeah cool and is there anything

that sort of that you’re leaning on in that space

now to help you or any sort of

practices routines reflections

or all those sorts of things that you’re sort of

utilising at the moment

I suppose in a lot of ways from what I’ve learnt

in this period of time it’s been very much about

learning to pace myself

so almost more kind of proactive strategies of pacing myself

planning, setting small achievable goals

and things like that but I guess from a mental health perspective

as well

I’ve eventually become good at kind of switching off usually on weekends so

there’ll often be weekends where I don’t even log in to my emails or

check the calendars and things like that

I guess just little practices like that I’m not big on mindfulness

we’ve spoken before I’ve got ADHD like I just

I don’t know that’s one thing I where I can’t practice what I preach

well it’s a different type of mindfulness

though isn’t it and that’s why I think

if we sort of frame that a little bit differently I love how

again what I just took away three sort of key points there

was something that another guest had sort of

said very recently and I was that pacing yourself

and so for me that’s nearly a mindful practice of I actually have to

put attention to it, attention and intention

to this idea of pacing myself

because if that’s not natural

necessarily you touch upon the ADHD part of it

then well that is actually being quite mindful but I’m just need to

be conscious of this and I need to take my time with it so I love that

idea of again

just being conscious and intentional around pacing yourself

and the active switching off again intentional idea of hey cool

just making it clear so

what I was hearing so the subtext under that I was literally

that stuff sits over there somewhere it’s not a near me it’s not

around me and we actively

do something else the other thing you didn’t say explicitly

but from what you shared there and

winging it a little bit

and those sorts of things was basically

the idea of doing it your own way

as well I’m really getting comfortable with that which

I’m guessing over the years

potentially I know I definitely have

sort of like I should be doing

things a certain way cause this is the way a business

owner acts or this is the way a psychologist would act is that a fair comment

it’s funny you say it cause I’ve never been like that

so I’ve always been do it my own way awesome and

and I think sometimes probably to the detriment

of me as a professional because

I’m not to everyone’s cup of tea

I’m not to everyone’s taste

what you see is what you get and very authentic

and so I don’t come across as a super professional clinical

type of psychologist

and it’s not to say I’m not a good psychologist

but it’s just that sort of facade and mask doesn’t work

well for me and

it can be very tempting as a psychologist when you first graduate

to be like that because it’s kind of what we’re taught

we’re not taught to keep ourselves a bit reserved and a bit separate

and but yeah definitely I very much have done it my own way

in terms of the business particularly so from the start I sort of

was very excited by the business and

did lots of sort of marketing courses and things like that and

really loved all of that got quite excited by that and it

probably was quite different at that

point in time to what other practices were doing in terms of their

marketing for example

yeah cool I love that and

again that’s a great knowledge and share for people too yeah

don’t put a mask on it

for people out there that feel that and feel uncomfortable about it and

just thinking you touch on autism earlier on that idea of masking

unmasking such a challenge thing so if you think of it from

a professional space that’s so cool

a bunch of notes there on that but I think

that was a nice little also segue

into what we love to talk here experiments

in business, in that business side of it there and you touched upon

marketing and even a touch earlier there you mentioned a few

trying many different things

over the years and again 12 years there’s countless

things that you’ve done you’ve tried

things that have worked that haven’t worked I love you to start to

I guess share a few of those experience and maybe that marketing

side when you first started

and some of the things that lessons you’ve learned

yeah good question I guess

in terms of like say the marketing side of things

and that was very eye opening for me cause I’m like such a consumer

I’m just like shopping and I’m a real consumer

and so it was really funny for me learning

about being on the other side of that and about

marketing funnels and EDMs

and just all these sorts of different tactics and you know nothing

yucky and sleazy marketing but I guess ways of promoting my brand

because that was my goal and I guess that’s what I learnt

through a lot of that sort of work that I did in the early days was

my goal was about brand exposure initially

and so just learning different things I could do for that

and yeah there were lots of things that I like lots of mistakes made

printing off postcards that never got sent or that had errors

on them or like just doing things that were probably I think

ineffective for me as a business were things like expos

and having a stall at an expo

I don’t think that really was particularly helpful

but then I guess at the same time one of the things

that I did learn was about

actually being able to evaluate that and measure that and like

what strategies that you’re using in your marketing are

which ones are leading to

leads and more referrals and things like that

lots of lessons learned there yeah we can dig

into a few of those but I just want to circle back

in some aspects to that notion

of what you found fascinating from being the consumer to then

actually being the person that was

marketing and I’ll put in inverted commas

here and that idea and I would guess

given the fact of your background your profession

understanding the behavioral concepts and how the mind works

do you feel as though you sort of like lent

into that side of things to go how could you unpack

that and how could you make it work for you

and again with that idea touch one of not having

sleazy, salesy sort of thing for the type of

work that you’re doing and obviously there’s certain parameters

around what can and can’t be done from a health

and a practice perspective so I guess

yeah curious as to how you

went into that or leverage that at all yeah definitely

probably just being a psychologist we’re probably all like this we’re just so

interested

in other people and people’s minds and how they think and how they

respond to things and so

doing exercises like working out your ideal client

that was I found that really easy also

I’ve kind of always been the target audience

of my business as well as a mum and

that has made it a lot easier but I definitely

I think as a secondary interest

I’m very interested in advertising and marketing

and promotion and things like that and it probably is tied in

into why I love psychology too so I definitely

did lean in into that side of things and really enjoyed it

and then also as you talked about it

at the back end of that the measuring and evaluation of it

which again I know is very

part of what you do daily from a delivery standpoint that how

you find that process when you go to the business

side of it and then going that this process is it

very similar or do you find you do it a little bit differently

for kind of the business operations

whether it’s in marketing whether it’s operations

whether it’s financials

what how do you find that sort of measurement and evaluation

yeah, again probably something that comes naturally to psychologists

I being at uni and doing lab reports and hypotheses and

under what the expected outcome’s going to be and then getting

surprised or not surprised

so generally it is all very similar whether 

we’re doing

sort of pre and post treatment measurement

with clients versus asking reception asking

clients how did you hear about us I guess it all really is

fundamentally the same in terms of where we’re collecting

data that’s going to help us make our next decision so with the clients

has this treatment been effective

and if it has then great we do this if it hasn’t then we do that

and same with the marketing

side of things and yeah you’re right even from the

financial perspective and all the work that

we’ve been doing

it really does follow that similar pattern I think

yeah cool and what I’m hearing in the subtext of

that kind of all that is just like this is just a genuine curiosity

around business in general as well and you sort of just

lift the hood under that and you just keep on

where does that take me is that a fair comment

totally, like I feel you know talking about experiments I feel like the whole

journey of being a business

owner has been one big experiment and it’s just like probably only

more recently have I really been able to take it a lot more seriously

as a business because in the early years you know you don’t

I didn’t pay myself

for quite a long time and is this viable is it going to continue

and is like one big experiment and I have always felt like I can

just try different things and see what happens

like what have you got to lose

whether it’s marketing or changing processes

or I love that and even as you were talking it

what was going around my head is

for those that are seeing the visual

side of this on my whiteboard there

is an experiment I sort of touched me when you mentioned

I sort of started take business more seriously

but then I still get these

always been an element of fun

with you is that a fair comment as well it’s like

hey I’ll be serious because I need to XYZ

but because I have the curiosity

and I want to do these sorts of things

and I’m fairly easy going with it is it always just making

sure there’s a fun element to keep you sort of

moving in the directions that you want to go

yeah definitely, and I mean I don’t know

that might be part of having ADHD

that I’m just I’m not going to do it if I’m not interested in it

so luckily keep on going there yeah yeah so that yeah definitely

curious and always kind of

always wanted to make a workplace that people wanted to come to that was as the clinicians

and then wanting to make a waiting

room and a clinical experience that families wanted to be in and

you need to have an element of fun and knowledge of the people

your target audience in both of those instances

to be able to execute that

yeah nice and I I’d love to hear that now

if we’re talking about experiments you touch one there the waiting

room what experiments have you done with your waiting

room over the over the years no doubt it’s change for example

just a little bit yeah well we’ve done

lots of different things and also our clientele

has changed a bit too so

when I first started the business we worked a lot with sort of

quite young children preschool aged whereas now we do

see a lot of adolescents and and primary school age kids as well so

things like

what you’ve got in the waiting room and what’s accessible

to your clients is something that has to be as your clients evolve

I always have wanted

it to it’s always had an element of I call it day spa vibes

because I’ve always wanted it to be calm

obviously working with kids that might have

sort of sensory differences we

have always had to be careful of not having like music really loud or

really strong scents and fragrances and things like that

so we have sort of probably more subtle elements in those areas

and then we’ve changed physical locations

and at one point I had two practices

and so it was fun playing

around with like what can I do with this space

because my other secret passion is like interior design

so that lets us have a lot more experiments yeah

that’s so cool and again knowing obviously

we’re a neurodivergent family you have some of these

things that you talk about

that waiting experience can very much affect and change what your

time with the client could end like at the end of the day if

these things that just aren’t working for a client there you could

use them before they even get into the room

to help them get to where they need to

that’s great

love that idea again as you said you basically

hey I’ve got a theme and it’s the day

spa vibes if I follow that theme

and that has the feeling that it makes people want to be calm

relaxed chilled before they go into any

interaction with any of yourself or the team

that’s great and I think so many learnings there brain ticking over

but the other one when you were talking about

sort of experiments as well you touch upon clinicians and team I’d love to

hear what sort of experiments you’ve had in the process of

team development

team growth and some of those sorts of things

how have you seen that evolve over the years as well

 yeah, and that has been a really interesting

learning for me and any as well from the start the team

that I had at the start is not the same team that I’ve got today

what probably one of the biggest things for me has been learning

the type of person that flourishes in

my practice and the type that doesn’t

and it’s not that there’s anything wrong or right about either of them

it’s just that this is the way the practice is and it suits

some people and it doesn’t suit other people

that’s probably one of the things that I’ve gotten

really slowly and that is trial and error and sometimes it’s horrendously

stressful and it’s not a fun journey but

I’ve finally kind of developed a good understanding of that

for myself yeah and has that just been the iterative approach to hey

to slowly over time

finding all those little bits that go oh yeah that is us

this is the type this is

the way to approach it is that

how you’ve sort of approached that and has it just been a process of

internal continual learning as well as guidance

from coaches outside people

yeah definitely has been that internal learning feedback

I’m still really good friends with so many of the

employees that I’ve had over the years and feedback from people

has been really helpful and I’ve had some really good mentors, coaches

over the years as well

I mean look a lot of the time they’re teaching you really

great new valuable stuff but also it’s often

a process of reassurance

that I think maybe this person isn’t

the best fit for our team and having someone help

you work through that I think he’s very really quite beneficial

yeah yeah and I love that I think

you say that it’s kind of just getting that validation and that

idea of

bounce it around and so on that and you touch upon coaching

and I know there as well but I know you’ve continually

had different forms of coaching over the years how have you found

that’s why I personally find getting

coaches whether it’s general coaches

specific ones I consider that a bit of an experiment I have

sort of experiments test and measure and

some of those sorts of things how’s that

experience been for you and how is it that even

changed over the years how you’ve approached that sort of

support that you get outside of the

business to be able to

you know help you do what you want to do with the business

yeah I mean I

remember when I first discovered that I could have a coach

like that was, I was just like they’re great

okay, this is so much better

and the first coach that I had was a lady

called Cathy Love and

she’s Melbourne based as well and she is an OT

and worked in the pediatric space

as well and I can’t even remember how I met her but

I remember getting her business card and going

wow you’re a business coach

for allied health people working in pediatrics

this is awesome and

again, it was that reassurance and

someone giving you the confidence

but also someone that had been there before and could learn from

their experiences and so that was a very much like a one on one

coaching experience that we had where we would meet

like once a month or something like that and then more recently

which was how we met Gerda Muller

a psychologist, Queensland based

who has a whole academy for private practice allied health

I think our professionals

and that was a really big leap

because that was a commitment

that wasn’t just like oh I’m

going to meet with you every month and pay you a couple of hundred bucks

it was like you’re committing to paying

quite a bit more and I mean not that 

it was a commitment that you couldn’t get out of or anything

but she did does ask for a commitment

so that you can get the most out of it committing to the process

at the end of the day exactly

actually really I’m the kind of person that needs

that boundary put in yeah

100% that’s why that works so well that’s why I love that

approach it definitely works

because it’s either if that’s not for me that’s fine

if it is then we’re going to get outcomes yeah yeah so that was really

really good and that was more of a group mentoring

experience and lots of other elements to it and

again it’s that kind of ongoing theme I suppose that I keep it

referring back to it of the validation and the reassurance

whether it’s from the mentor

whether it’s from other practice owners

that we’re all in the same boat and I think to

finish the answer to the previous question about

staffing and that’s changed over the years

there have been patches

where it’s been incredibly difficult to recruit psychologists

and you know there were times it was very easy to recruit

and being in a group coaching setting had

it is really helpful in those situations

because it’s just like we’re all in the same boat or

we’re all experiencing stuff turnover and I think that as a business

owner it just takes the pressure off her a bit like you know

because otherwise you start thinking am I doing something wrong

I look a lot of the time I am a lot of the time

when you’re sitting in the echo

chamber it’s hard to to just realise what’s going on and we’re

as a business owner we get caught up in that no yeah so yeah cool

given you touch one couple times as well be remiss

to talk about your experiments on the financial side of

business as well obviously that is how we did get connected through

Gerda’s amazing group there yes I mean that was one big where do we start here

experiment

and you know what I think being in that group coaching was so helpful

when we did all start talking about our financial difficulties because

again that was something you really don’t talk to other people about and to know that there were other practices

in the same or worse position

it was very reassuring for all of us

just to normalise that experience and

part of it was about the climate and

part of it is about for me speaking for myself

I’m not very money minded and

I think when you start a business

or for me when I started the business I had no idea and I mean

you’ve spoken to me so many times trying to explain all the different

tax things to me like I had no

idea and you think you’re going along okay and then

work cover, bill comes in. I never signed up for this what’s this

and then that suddenly increases because your wages are becoming

higher as your team grows

and then you got your PAYG

you got your BAS and your personal tax

oh you know you know me and I think for me the entire

time of having my business up until a point

where I met you Craig, it was so confusing

for me and I mean I’m a relatively intelligent person but

that just not understanding how it all works and not knowing

the time frame

and I do I have a good accountant I have a good bookkeeper

but I think it’s never really been something that

things have never really been explained to me in a way that

it’s been able to make sense and that’s really not their

responsibility it’s my job to learn but it had been so confusing

for me and very stressful and then also I think as a business owner

as your business grows you’re suddenly

you’ve got access to a pretty big pool of money and you’ve got access

to pretty big credit limits too and I think that is where a lot of us

and go wrong because if you’ve got access to so much cash

and you don’t know that there’s a 20 30 thousand dollar tax Bill

coming up next month

or you forgotten or you’re so caught up in everything

else that you like that is just not on my radar

you do get yourself in trouble and you know I think most of us

end up on payment plans with the ATO

and debts that we need to pay off and the work

with you really helped me to know that I wasn’t the only person

in that position

but also I wish I had a known about the Profit First approach like

12 years ago because it has just and

and it is something that I was always crying

out for and and trying to seek and

my husband and I’ve always done like the barefoot

investor stuff

with our personal finances and I was always like I want something like this for the business

but not confident enough to just go set that up myself

which maybe I could have and just that clarity

that the Profit First approach

has provided it I just can’t

say enough how much it’s reduced the stress

like you probably hear it all the time

well I do personally obviously

again that what of why I let you to share there is

it’s because those few minutes that you shared it is it’s 100%

normalise it’s very

normal it’s typical it’s whatever word we want to use for this

idea for business owners everywhere for that matter but

again that’s why I love being in the allied health space is because

Allied health practitioner you

want to look after people but finances is never

front of mind top of mind

but again as you articulated you’re very intelligent

you’re actually quite good with numbers

you just need that little bit of confidence and again

having a way or a framework that can work for people

as you’ve alluded to there it can just really help things

along that path that we can go ah yeah it doesn’t need to be

a massive

thing where I need to know the ins and outs of financial reports

and all these sorts of things as long as I’ve got

the confidence the clarity and

able to simplify some things

that can just be a process that happens and

I’ve got that there and

and I know when the next bill is going to come in cause it’s now being

either explained to me or I can visualise it and as you know

financial brain care model which

we talk about financial team again you’ve got an

awesome team already there and then just having

a little bit different skill set in there just makes it

that little bit of a difference as

guys the model you’ve talked about Profit First and then forecasting

and that’s hey I’ve got a big

block of money here that is like so easy

or the credit limit is like I can just access this it obviously

makes a world of difference yeah yeah

it does and I think it’s that forecasting

side of things which is just not something really that you do

and well I hadn’t done it

until we had started all of this and that’s kind of all I ever needed

like just knowing

that these are the things coming up and then I think also having

those different pools

of funds and I’m very diligent every Monday

I’m doing my calculations

and doing all my transfers and

it’s such a good feeling because I feel in

control and I was so out of control previously

and now I do feel in control and it’s not to say that like it’s

there’s no financial problems

but I think at least just got more oversight

yeah I love that and again

because at the end of the day it does come into this idea of

if I’m feeling in control

we’re looking after our brains and you know that

as good as anybody else with

that your background and your expertise yourself

and that’s what we find from the financial side if people

have that feeling of in control

and an awareness even if things don’t look great at least I’m in

control of it I can see that I can take actions

that can improve it therefore now I’ve got something that I can

mark again come back to your words earlier you can then

evaluate and I was looking for

all these notes I’m losing track of

the testing and the evaluation sorry

measuring and evaluating I put that in the middle

funny enough but there’s so many things around it

but yeah again being out to have those those markers

to be able to do that

that’s great and I’d love to sort of move into the

you’ve done a bunch of

all these experiments to create an amazing business that impacts

you know hundreds of

hundreds and probably thousands now over your 12 years in business

I’d love for you to sort of share some of those transformations

that you’ve seen and you’ve experienced with your clientele

we love to hear these stories because we want

practices out there providing these amazing

experiences these transformations and we want them to have

the sustainable

business so I’d love for you to share a story of two that just

make it all worthwhile for you well it’s funny

because the thing actually that

jumps into my mind when you mention that isn’t

necessarily about clients but it’s about clinicians and employees

and maybe that comes back to my desire to create a workplace

that is positive and people want to be in and definitely

there’s numerous psychologists that I’ve had

employed over the years and watching them grow and develop and

become confident because none of us come out of our psych training

with much confidence at all and it’s such a grey kind of world

psychology and it’s as in not black and white

not grey is in in depressing although but

watching that confidence develop in the clinicians

and knowing that like I’ve been part of their journey and that whether

they’ve stayed

with me or whether they’ve moved on to something else and

most of them I keep in touch with and

hearing where they are now and some of them are overseas

or you know some of them are starting their own business

and it it’s really

like nice to have played a small part in that journey

but it’s similarly with clients

as well there’s definitely some clients that

I’ve worked with that especially when I first started my business and

it does make you feel really old when you realise that

these kids are adults now

those ones you were talking about when you started

being three or four year olds and

they’re now the 20 year olds it’s very humbling

but I think the feedback sometimes that we would receive whether

it’s about me as a clinician

or one of my team members as a clinician

but we get parents that email us and just with the most beautiful

positive feedback and an update on and

where they are now and we were struggling as a family

and blah blah blah and now this is where we are and I think obviously

that is what keeps us going as psychs

and so I guess it’s that kind of transformation

from both sides in terms of

the clinicians but then also from our clients

that’s so good again

what I’ve written down here is at the end of the day it’s the transformative

ripple effect and I love it for any space I love my football

and coaching and it’s like I don’t want to coach the next Australian

football player but I love to coach the next Australian coach

kind of idea is that idea of knowing that

if we’ve had an imprint on somebody

that they then go off to then coach more people then

it’s just that ripple effect and that sort of expands out

and you’re not looking after one individual person and that’s that

idea of a business at the end of the day that

a sustainable business that can impact people through

the internal team the ripple effect is that means we can serve more clientelle

more people to get the outcomes that we’re after and you put this in the allied

health space and the psychology space

where there’s such a demand

such a need out there for people to get these kinds of supports

that constantly just gives those sort of little goosebumps

around that idea so, I love that share and I love that

that was your the first thing that came to mind

was like how would I’ve help other people who help other people

it’s such a lovely way to look at it

yeah it is and I think it’s just that it’s so rewarding

and like I said it’s what keeps us going and I think knowing that

you’re playing a part in someone’s

journey and that it’s leading them in a more positive or

helpful direction whether it’s a clinician

or it is a family it really does give you that motivation to

continue because it is like it’s hard as a business owner

and I’m sure you hear lots of stories and

I’ve been ready to throw in the towel

numerous times and I’ve almost sold my business on

probably three occasions and it is hard but then you kind of

remember that god there’s hundreds of families

that come through the door every week

and you’re making a difference

yeah and I think there’s a flow and effect for our whole team

yeah in in that regard

well thank you for sharing all that you’ve shared on

today’s show and again we want you to continue providing amazing

services and outcomes to everybody

involved both team and and all your clientele but also

through what you’ve done here today

be able to share your knowledge and expertise you’re doing that with

the wider allied health community if other people want to

other professionals want to reach out to connect

and network and do those sorts of things where’s the best place

for therm to reach out to you good question generally through our website

which is centreforchilddevelopment.com otherwise I’m on

Instagram and LinkedIn so they’re also

good places to get me as well awesome

brilliant as always we’ll put those

links into the show notes at the company this

podcast wherever you listen watch and everything

in between so once again

Amanda really appreciate you sharing your insights

from all your vast experience

across the space and again as always everybody

make sure you like subscribe

and do all those sorts of things so we hear more cool stories

like the one we’ve shared today once

again Amanda thank you very much for your time today

Thanks Craig

Bye everybody

Balancing Business Growth, Finances, Mental Health, and Workplace Culture

Episode No: 18

Guest Name: Amanda Abel

Summary

In this episode of the Healthy Business Lab podcast, Craig Minter chats with Amanda Abel, psychologist and owner of the Northern Centre for Child and Adolescent Development. Amanda opens up about the realities of running a thriving allied health practice — from navigating financial and marketing challenges to building a positive workplace culture. She shares insights on balancing business ownership with mental health, leading a growing team, and the powerful impact her work has had on both clients and staff.

Episode Highlights:

00:00 – Introduction to Amanda Abel and her journey
02:38 – Balancing mental health with business ownership
05:14 – Marketing strategies and lessons learned
12:00 – Creating a welcoming environment for clients
18:45 – Coaching, leadership, and team growth
25:00 – Navigating financial challenges and business lessons

Connect with Amanda Abel:

Website https://centreforchilddevelopment.com/
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/amanda.j.abel
Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-abel-a302b120/

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