From Group Practice to OT Supervision: Creating Space with Rachel Elliott

Craig Minter (00:01.134)
Hello everybody and welcome to the Healthy Business Lab podcast where we interview amazing allied health and related business owners to get their insights, and evolutions, and experiments in business. And today I’m super excited to have Rachel Elliott from Nurturing Connections OT on the episode here today. Rachel, thanks for joining us.

Rachel Elliott (00:23.426)
Thanks for inviting me. I’m excited to have a chat today and see where the conversation goes.

Craig Minter (00:29.114)
I love that seeing where the conversation goes. And again, With a little pre-chat that we had a number of weeks ago, there, I know that you’re going to be able to share a bunch of amazing insights and experiments, but I always like to get our guests to introduce themselves and share a bit of guess, their expertise in their background. so that I don’t do a poor job at it, to be honest.

Rachel Elliott (00:57.358)
Okay, so I am an occupational therapist, hence the nurturing connections OT part. I’ve been working in the pediatric space for pretty much my whole career, so 21, 22 years now. So a long time I’ve worked in health and public health, I’ve worked in private practice, I’ve worked in schools. So I’ve gone like a broad kind of range as well. I love working with pediatrics

caseloads and the families. And then Over the probably last five or so years, I really switched to more providing supervision and leadership. So I was running a group private practice with another business partner and I was doing supervision and then I started offering the external supervision and that kind of led to now. And…

the trial and error of leadership is kind of what has helped me dig a little bit deeper into that kind of space and helping other OTs as well. So that’s it in a nutshell.

Craig Minter (01:58.81)
Yeah, that’s a great nutshell. they already, I think, listeners will be able to hear a few little aspects that we’ll dive into a few different little tangents there and the trial and error. We love that here. And, But I’d like to sort of tap into even the idea of you talked about being in private practice with a business partner and then also in the latest evolution of the business. but.

Tapping into guess, your experience as an OT, what aspects of that have you leveraged, found useful in managing a business and managing yourself in how you approach business? Because again, obviously, business owners, often don’t look after ourselves as business owners. I’d love to hear again, with that background from an OT background, what have you used, leveraged or even realised in yourself of practicing what you preach?

What have you, What has been transferable in the business ownership space?

Rachel Elliott (03:01.262)
I actually think there’s lots of transferable skills in the OT kind of theory and learning side of things because we, know, task analysis, we can break down things and so easily and then kind of pack it together. But I think also the biggest take home for me is that regulation. So Being grounded and, and I, you know, I’m not always good at it.

I’m much better at supporting other people. But I’m more mindful of it with my training and know the skills and I guess the little things along the way that, okay, yeah, that’s connected. If I do that, I feel more connected and grounded and I can then move forward. Or if I’m feeling overwhelmed by all of the things, then I can just say, okay, this is where I need to just stop, and pause and okay, take stock and kind of get a plan.

Pragmatic person generally and can be a little bit strategic. Okay, this is my problem. What’s next? So I think They’re the practical kind of things that I take away. And then I think it’s just, mean, Maybe not even OT specific, but working with people, you know, that’s the core part of our job is to support people. And so having those conversations, and building relationships, and trust and safety, I think is a really

Craig Minter (04:07.203)
Yeah.

Craig Minter (04:23.363)
nice.

Rachel Elliott (04:26.562)
good transferable skill, probably allied health, not just OT though for that one.

Craig Minter (04:31.479)
Yeah, definitely. I tend to agree that I think that idea of trust and safety is a really interesting one with a lot of people in the allied health space are generally mindful and conscious of that and bringing that into the space. again, I think, you know, We’ve had a number of OT guests on here and the regulation a hundred percent comes through quite consistently and

as business owners, I tend to find that if we can be conscious or mindful of it, as we all do back often, you know, the painter that never paints his own house or, you know, the builder that never finishes their house kind of idea. A lot of times we don’t practice what we preach, but typically what I’ve experienced with OTs, especially in that notion of being very mindful of grounded regulation, actually…

is a really powerful transferable skill in managing the day-to-day of being in business and the many different hats that we often wear in that space.

Rachel Elliott (05:36.675)
Yeah. And that makes me think of a supervision session I had a little while ago where the OT came in, was very overwhelmed by everything that was going on. And We talked about like interception, body cues. Like, do you notice when things are starting or is it no, it’s gone too far. And so you push through, push through, and then, now I’ve collapsed, and so, yeah, and just like even as OTs, like we don’t always have that good cues

Craig Minter (05:58.648)
I’ve crashed. Yeah.

Rachel Elliott (06:04.759)
system in ourselves and that was yeah so it’s quite interesting how you almost need someone to bring it to your attention sometimes.

Craig Minter (06:14.019)
Totally, again, firm believer of having mentors, coaches, consultants or whoever it is in your world and space. And obviously that’s the space you live in, but I’ve always worked with, again, building teams around myself, around the physical and you know, the therapists, but then also the coaches and the business coaches. and that idea of, again, We can always.

have good self-awareness, which I believe I’m fairly good at as well. And again, I find a lot of people in the allied health space are quite self-aware and conscious and those sorts of things. But as human beings, we’re never going to know or pick up on all of those at a space that somebody, looking from the outside can often see. So I love that. I guess that your share there of you doing the supervisory and having somebody come through, which I guess I’d love to delve into that aspect of

You know, your, your business pivot from, from private practice to you know, helping people supervision and what that business evolution has looked like. How is the, How is that transition phase for you and what experiments did you undertake a year? You kind of made that shift and I guess even what were some of the triggers for it in the the first place?

Rachel Elliott (07:30.19)
It was a huge, huge transition. I think like Going back to the group private practice, we had a team of maybe eight or nine OTs at the time and allied health assistance. So it was a decent sized team, and it was pretty successful and it was well respected in the local area. as well. And so, and I loved the team that we had and all of those things were, that was not the issue at all.

but I was running out of space in my week to do the things that I was really finding a lot more passion around and wanting to explore more, which was the supervision. So, that decision to leave a really great practice to then go out on my own. So from having a whole team and a business partner to then, okay, I’m going solo was huge. But once I made the decision, was, yep, this is it. So, and then Starting from scratch,

like with the new business, because I had to get different contacts and all sorts of things. I think the lessons I learned from the first time to this evolution was being really intentional from the very beginning. So I was very firm on the types of clients I wanted to work with. So I still have a small therapy caseload, but it’s not something that I advertise or you know, focus on too much. I’ve got a small caseload, but…

Craig Minter (08:31.257)
Yeah.

Rachel Elliott (08:57.71)
very intentional with the types of clients I want to work with in terms of OTs, whether that’s in clinical supervision or mentoring around business or leadership or whatever it is, and making sure that I’m the right fit for them. And so That growth tended to be a bit slower, but I didn’t want to just take on everything and then not have the space to do the stuff I love.

Craig Minter (09:25.153)
Yeah, that’s so good. I just want to hold you up a little bit there because yeah, I love the word intentional. I use it all the time because I love you know, the, the whole energy that’s around that word. If we come from that space. and so if I sort of unpack,

that a little bit. What did, What does that mean for you when you said I’m going to be intentional? What were I guess, some of the couple of dot points that sort of went through your mind that if somebody’s in a similar position to you going, whoa, look at this change I might be thinking of. What are a couple of dot points that people could take away?

Rachel Elliott (10:02.007)
I think for me it was the types of services I wanted to offer. I think it can be really easy when you’re starting something new to just slide back into the old way. So I could have quite easily have just taken on a few more therapy clients with kids just to kind of keep the money coming in. But then I would then not have that space to take on the clients that I had created this whole business around.

and so that was the intention was I still want to keep my OT skills current and relevant by having that, but I didn’t want it to take over. And I also was very intentional with how I set out my week so that I wasn’t working you know, here, there, everywhere. I was quite structured so that I had like business hours and you know, days for particular tasks that I needed a bit more head space for. So even little logistical things like that

intentional with how I connected with other people and reached out as well.

Craig Minter (11:08.439)
Yeah, nice. I love that. Nice little three sort of dot points. so to speak, that I just sort of put down here myself around, The type of clients, how you want to structure giving your time. So again, putting boundaries around that is lovely. And then I’ll show again The intentional nature of “How do I connect?” “How do I approach that?” That is well, if I think If people follow that one, two, three idea, they’re going to be in

Rachel Elliott (11:12.161)
I’m sorry.

Rachel Elliott (11:19.107)
Yeah.

Craig Minter (11:38.263)
a great proactive space rather than again, what I’m hearing a bunch there is just you wanting to make sure that you weren’t going to be reactive to everything that’s going on around you.

Rachel Elliott (11:49.175)
Yeah, it’s easy to kind of get into that fear mindset or scarcity mindset. I was also in a fortunate position that I could cover a loss of income for a little while. as well, well, to maintain that. So that’s something to be mindful as well. And I just went all in. I didn’t do like a half half. I couldn’t do the two in one. Like I know other people can. I’m like, that is just, I know that will be burnt out for me.

Craig Minter (12:01.027)
Yep.

Craig Minter (12:09.401)
Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

Craig Minter (12:16.995)
Yeah, brilliant. Yeah. Again, they still come that speaks to that intention. as well. Those are nice like being super clear on what by the sounds you went through the process of what do I need? That’s the whole reason you did make the jump in the first place. So then, well, what do I continue to need and what will it look like in X amount of time into the future? I’m guessing by the sound of what you’ve said, you’ve had that sort of played out in your mind a little bit.

Rachel Elliott (12:44.685)
Yeah, yeah, I think, you know, my age now too, like I’m looking at long term like retirement as well. Like I’m in my 50s, you know, I still like a decade or so, but you still have to think about that. Like that will come.

Craig Minter (12:57.593)
100% 100% and I love the fact that you’re thinking that I’ve thought about myself. Do I retire? What do I try? But it’s like, what does my life look like in 30 years time? It’s like, I think that’s it helps you human beings. Again, we don’t like, I want to live in the present. I need to be conscious of that a lot, but even just having that guard rail is put in place around. If I could see that’s where things are going to go.

Rachel Elliott (13:00.813)
Yeah, it

Craig Minter (13:21.279)
It helps you with that day to day because I’m not in fight or flight wondering what’s around that next corner. kind of, I’ve got guard rail around that.

Rachel Elliott (13:29.465)
Yeah, yeah, it helps when you kind of get into that overwhelm stage just to kind of bring it up. Yes.

Craig Minter (13:37.23)
Yeah, coming back to the regulation piece. for sure. Nice. So if again, again, well, that’s a Thank you for sharing I guess that transition phase, but as you then stepped in, started getting a few clients and you got more into the supervision, supervision work and the like. what other sort of experiments, if I say the word experiments in business or the phrase,

What’s the things that have popped into your mind that you’ve done over you know, the last five odd years that you’ve been in your standalone business there?

Rachel Elliott (14:12.303)
I think personally the biggest experiment is increasing my visibility. So in the group private practice it was around you know like word of mouth so we didn’t have to market or anything it just all came to us. Whereas now this whole new world of being social media and I just you know it’s an experiment in itself definitely and it’s not something I’m overly comfortable with still.

Craig Minter (14:35.331)
Yeah.

Rachel Elliott (14:39.769)
So the experiment is how do I show up in a way that is authentic to me and doesn’t feel forced or salesy or cliche or, know, all of those sorts of things. So there The experiment is trying to work within a system of Instagram, let’s you know, like scroll, you’ve got to stop, catch their attention really quickly, which is not necessarily how I work. And so how do I fit into that model?

Craig Minter (14:48.419)
here.

Craig Minter (14:53.07)
Yeah.

Craig Minter (15:07.001)
Nice. So I’d love you to go a little bit deeper on that. What are even some of the things that have worked, haven’t worked or you’ve learned from as you’ve again, tried to evolve with the times. I’d love to hear because I know I’m in the constant process of doing that myself. And I know we had a chat about LinkedIn, which is how we connected. So again, this world of social media and you talked earlier, even that idea of being intentional with connections. I’d love to hear some of the things you tried that have gone “Yeah

that kind of worked well” or I learned something on how to approach it, therefore I pivoted. Yeah, let’s take a bit deeper on that.

Rachel Elliott (15:42.819)
Yep. Yeah. So LinkedIn, I feel is my probably more comfortable social media platform, because it is more that thought leadership and sharing ideas and things like that in a longer format. And so I’ll write posts you know, that I think are I guess, topical to me and that might resonate with others. So I don’t necessarily think about what I should write to get you know, engagement. It’s like usually something that comes up

a few times in appointments and sessions and talking to people. That’s how I kind of do it. So then it doesn’t feel as forced. With this Instagram side of things, the experiments are like how I word things and how I then engage and I can’t like the whole DM thing is still work in progress.

Craig Minter (16:13.038)
Yeah.

Yep.

Craig Minter (16:19.213)
Yeah.

Craig Minter (16:34.839)
Love it. I love a work in progress. like, again, I like your framing of it. It’s lovely. It’s a work in progress. Great.

Rachel Elliott (16:40.535)
Yeah. And, and so I just like the guess it’s the pages or the, the profiles that attract my attention. It’s like, wow, that’s really cool. And so then I’ll reach out to them and just say, I loved this, you know, and then maybe ask a follow up question, you know, just like you’re doing here in this, like to get a deeper understanding. And so then You just have those conversations, which then builds your confidence as well.

Craig Minter (17:01.677)
Nice.

Rachel Elliott (17:06.767)
And I guess the other experiments I’m doing at the moment is doing some master classes. just kind of Looking at topics like the one I’ve got at the moment is how to set boundaries that stick. And so just Trying to share some tips and things like that and my insights and ways of thinking about it with a broader group of people. So that’s my latest experiment. And then the, you know, like

tweaking it each time just to kind of improve it and see what resonates and how I can get better and add value. I guess that’s the thing, isn’t it, with social media? You just want to add value. You don’t want to add to the noise.

Craig Minter (17:50.072)
Yeah, I’m glad you said that and shared that thinking because I think it is that idea of.

Yeah, I think in the allied health space and people wanting to help people, sometimes there is a reluctance to potentially put ourselves out there. I know we’re talking about similar stages, obviously, and they’re going on about to kick off and by the time this episode goes live, I would have probably just done a lunch and learn series, for example. And it’s that idea of sometimes it’s the bit of a…

limiting belief or it’s the fear factor of it. I’m just going to contribute to the noise. But again, If leaning into the expertise and going, what I have is valuable to share and I don’t have all this experience behind me. and I’m not on cyber police and then, well, only share stuff. It’s okay if other people don’t want it and the right people will find us. But I love, I really appreciate you sort of sharing that.

Yeah. And what I wrote down here, even the idea of that ties in with what you said before, it’s like that conversations lead to confidence. yeah, Let’s talk about that a little bit more. How you, How you did that evolution before as you’ve been having more conversations. And again, I love you to say what, So I had my mentor ask me this yesterday actually. So it’s What classes is a conversation for you? Because again, there’s so many different ways that we can

Rachel Elliott (19:01.591)
out.

Craig Minter (19:18.229)
have a conversation in the modern world, what does having a conversation mean to you?

Rachel Elliott (19:23.115)
My ideal conversation is like this. So, you know, Actual conversation. Yeah, Yeah, or even a phone call. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that, know. I just think it’s easier for me. And then I think conversations are like commenting on you know, something that kind of resonates with you but also putting out content and having conversations where it might resonate with other people and trying to form that.

Craig Minter (19:28.109)
Real life, face to face, I can see somebody. Yeah, awesome. Yeah. Yeah.

Yep.

Rachel Elliott (19:53.411)
But even just reaching out to people that I’ve known in the past that I know might be interested in and just seeing if there’s ways that we can help each other and it’s more that type of conversation.

Craig Minter (20:07.225)
Yeah. Conversation and sort of into collaboration. I’m hearing a lot of C’s here. like it. I like it when I get a bit of alliteration going here.

Rachel Elliott (20:11.245)
Yeah, yeah. I love good collab. Because then you get to bounce ideas off each other as well and it’s less isolating. I think that’s the other thing around connections.

Craig Minter (20:20.301)
Yeah.

Craig Minter (20:26.817)
Yeah, cool. And I think Going back to what you said when you first mentioned it, you’re like at the end of the day, it’s about adding value. And I agree with some of the different things that you touched upon as being a conversation, even commenting on somebody’s post. Again, if I’m sitting there going.

top job or great post, then it’s not really a conversation. But if we’re adding value and saying, hey, I’ve got this, here’s my or either insight or what I got out of it, then that’s adding a great piece of the conversation again, which then becomes that you know, it’s a semi collaborative space that can be on an individual post really if it’s, you know, it’s fascinating, isn’t it?

Rachel Elliott (21:06.051)
Yeah. And when they’re done well, like I know on LinkedIn, there’s some really good conversations that happen. And if they ask like a question that kind of digs a bit deeper, then everyone kind of learns from those insights as well. Like I love reading the comments of other people’s as well, not just the main post.

Craig Minter (21:23.085)
Yeah.

Craig Minter (21:26.425)
Yeah, well, I think I know my experience and even how I’ve got connected with many people, as I’ve seen a thread or a post who’s on there, it’s like, oh, they look interesting. I’ll go and have a look at them. And yeah, That’s, fascinating how that can evolve, which again, the idea of conversations, build confidence can lead to collaborations. in again, whatever that terminology is for you is quite.

at the end of the day.

Rachel Elliott (21:57.849)
Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Craig Minter (22:00.835)
Cool. Okay.

Rachel Elliott (22:02.553)
And I think once you And I think once you get those connections, like it kind of energises you as well, doesn’t it?

Craig Minter (22:06.967)
Yeah, energise you and I love to go into that. What have you experimented with with your energies and your management? Again, that ties back to your intention at the start as to how you plan to build these things out. How have you evolved your activity and the business and how the business even operates to work energetically for you?

Rachel Elliott (22:30.255)
So when I first started for the first two years of this business, I’ve been wearing all of the hats for all of the things. I mean, I’ve got an accountant from day one, all the admin, all of the bookkeeping, all of the OT stuff, all of the everything. And now just recently I’ve hired my first virtual assistant. So that evolution is happening. So I think as I grow, I’ll be able to kind of…

offload some of the other stuff so I can focus on the creative side. What else? I think even just the services I offer have kind of evolved and improved as well, like just those quality improvements and always checking in and seeking feedback. So that’s really important for me is to get feedback that what I’m offering is what they’re after as well and what they’ve expected.

Craig Minter (23:23.789)
Yeah.

Rachel Elliott (23:24.751)
And I think the next lot of evolutions is more around the leadership program. that is kind of in its first, I’ve almost finished the first cohort now, so a couple more weeks of sessions and then that will be first cohort as a group practice that are running through it with me. And so that’s super exciting is like creating these new projects. that are really, I think, like some gaps in the area.

Craig Minter (23:44.514)
No.

Craig Minter (23:53.508)
Yep. Yeah, cool. So again, what I’m hearing is seeing where people are again From the conversations and collaboration, seeing what are the things that aren’t currently being talked about covered and there you’ve evolved and experimented with a few different offers. around that. And then the experiment on from that is then to create a program. I love the first cohort. I know I’ve just done a first pilot for a

group sort of programming as well. And then by the sounds of what you just intimated there is, okay, that’s then gonna be refined, tweaked for. The second cohort that comes in is gonna get the B’s E’s version of this. And then in reality by the sounds of it, that’s just going to be the continual process. Is that a fair comment?

Rachel Elliott (24:38.837)
Yeah, Absolutely. And I think that’s with all of the services that we provide, like there’s this constant, you know, and I constant evolution and improvement. And I guess part of our upper registration is that you have to maintain you know, your professional development and you know, you need to that code of conduct and code of ethics and so providing good service. And so if you transfer that over to all of the work that you do

and look at quality, like just improving and providing you know, a better service when you know, when you learn more than you can, you know, obviously do better as well. So I love one of my values is, you know, lifelong learning. So.

Craig Minter (25:13.633)
So true.

Craig Minter (25:18.041)
You took the words out of what I was about to write down there because I have exactly those words over there. And that’s why I love the Allied Health Space because it is that notion of…

PD really means something because so many people in this space are that lifelong learners and always evolving, which is why I love having conversations about experiments because we could have a chat today and have another chat in two weeks time. There’s probably a whole load of new things that have happened or learned or read or whatever that would tweak thinking we’re having an evolved conversation off the back of that. So yeah, I love you touching upon that. Yeah.

Rachel Elliott (25:54.383)
and

Yeah, that’s not, I love it.

Craig Minter (26:00.627)
Awesome. So…

To sort of round off the chat today, I always love to guest transformations that they’ve seen, whether it’s the client, the practitioners that we’re working with in your case, or even yourself in different things that have happened in business. But I’d love to share that if I say the word, what transformations have you seen happen as a result of what you do and where you’re at and the business?

Well, what comes to mind for you?

Rachel Elliott (26:34.159)
I think with the practitioners that I work with, particularly in supervision, I think the feedback I get is actually with one of the leadership programs I did. I did it a one-on-one with one of the OTs and her boss emailed some feedback around their professional review

and the outstanding PD that she had done was the program with me and then listed like, I don’t know, was like nine or 10 different dot points of how it improved her business, her like practice as a supervisor in her practice, like that confidence and just strategies to keep grounded and intentional and also working in a way that

Craig Minter (27:08.473)
Thank

Craig Minter (27:12.129)
Yeah.

Rachel Elliott (27:21.113)
feels authentic to her, not like some version that she thought she should be or copying someone else. That was pretty awesome feedback and really tangible transformation. And the other thing I think for me is going from a practice where I had a whole team and support network to going on my The confidence to trust myself, there was no safety net. and so.

Leaning into that and just knowing I’ve got the skills, I can do this. And I think that’s the biggest transformation for me. was knowing that self-trust, I can do it.

Craig Minter (28:01.625)
So good. I know I’ll go some nice little goosebumps. I love that. That’s part of the reason why I ask that question to again, its like, oh yeah, that’s just often rounds the conversation around why you’ve did what you’ve done in the very start, what you’ve evolved, what you’re doing to then you know, see these outcomes and transformations for the people we work with or we work for. But then also that you and I sell again, I think.

Rachel Elliott (28:04.611)
We’re good.

Craig Minter (28:28.035)
What’s interesting, The one that you shared with your one of your practitioners there was even that is the third party validation of her was to sort of come in from the and share the dot points of what they’ve seen is brilliant. And again, I love that idea of that they can see the transformation of that as well as whatever that practitioner no doubt felt themselves and that flows through to the amazing work that you’re doing there.

Rachel Elliott (28:48.846)
Yeah.

Craig Minter (28:58.329)
Brilliant. And that’s what we’re all about here. And why we want to have lots of these cool conversations is because we want awesome allied health business owners out there doing cool work, making intentional decisions, building sustainable businesses and practices or whatever it looks like to help support the communities that are around them and the ripple effect that that has,

and again, the capacity for allied health to have those ripple effects out is just amazing. So, So good, Rachel. I really appreciate your time on today’s episode. And so as we talked about collaborations and conversations and those sorts of things earlier, I’d love for you to share. Where’s your best place? You touch on LinkedIn, but and Instagram, but where’s the best way?

Rachel Elliott (29:29.551)
Bye.

Craig Minter (29:50.849)
as I mumble my words, as I always do at the end. I said that before our pre-chat. But yeah, Where’s the best place for people to connect and find you?

Rachel Elliott (29:55.37)
Yeah.

Rachel Elliott (30:01.123)
Yep, so yeah, LinkedIn, it’s under my name, Rachel Elliott. Instagram is under my business name, Nurturing Connections OT. I do have the website, Nurturing Connections OT as well. So you can email me, you can DM me, you can yep, do a little form submission on the website. Like, yeah, so there’s lots of different ways. I can put my email, I don’t know if you do anything like on the thing as well. I’m happy for that.

Craig Minter (30:31.245)
Yeah, awesome. So yeah, What we’ll do is we’ll definitely add those details to the show notes so that people can reach out, connect and continue the conversations off the back of the one that we’ve had here today. So again, really appreciate your time and your share. Lots of gold there for our guests to take away. And yeah, That’s over and out from us here today. So thank you very much, Rachel.

Rachel Elliott (30:57.763)
Thank you so much, Craig. It was great to be here.

Craig Minter (31:01.045)
Awesome. And so that’s a wrap here from the Healthy Business Lab podcast. Please like, subscribe, do all those fancy things on all the social channels and the like and yeah, over and out until next time.

Craig Minter (31:16.27)
Hey.