These transcripts are AI-generated, and spelling may not be 100% accurate (especially for names, places, and methodologies).
I love that you’ve said experiments
because when I first started in business
I was like is it right or is it wrong
and I very quickly learnt business is an experiment
and there absolutely is no failure
you’re just getting feedback
so you’re always learning oh
you know something that you didn’t know before
and then I always ask myself
ok great
now I know something I didn’t know before
how could this be useful to me
so that has really cause business is our best teacher
so having that mindset initially
about experimentation has been really
really important for me
Hello everybody
and welcome to the Healthy Business Lab Podcast
where we interview amazing allied health
and related business owners
to learn their experiences stories
experiments and transformations
and today I’m super
super excited to have Leesa Tuffnell on the episode
today Leesa
Welcome to the Podcast oh
Thank you I’m very excited to be here too
We’ve had many chats over time
and that’s why I know
there’s just so much that’s going to be shared on here
there’s going to be nuggets of gold here
there and everywhere
but I’d love for you just to introduce yourself to
to the audience a little bit of your background
in the allied health space
Well as she said
I am Leesa Tuffnell I am the creator of The Mindful OT
so I’ve been an occupational therapist
for more than twenty years
and in that time I’ve had lots of different roles
so quality assurance product management
clinical supervisor clinical efficiencies manager
so as well as doing the clinical
I’ve also held operational roles within teams
and as well as that sort of support service role
so I did that for a really long time
loved it
maybe too much burnt myself out
and so
that happened when I was sort of in my early forties
and as testing times they kind of
you know maybe
make us more aware
of something we perhaps hadn’t seen before
so for me when that point in my life came
it was really dramatic it really put the brakes on
I’m always someone who’s worked with real urgency and
very outcomes focused and driven
and doing all the things
and then I literally just had to stop
I was bedridden for a few weeks in hospital
and yeah it just made me
I suppose
reimagine my life and what that was going to look like
so I decided to make the leap into self employment
a few years ago and created my own business
so I am
do a bit of work clincally
I still work in that space
but what has evolved for me
has been my own coaching business
and so what I primarily do now is I coach OT
sole traders and small practice and clinic owners
to build businesses that love them back
so businesses that are really sustainable
and values aligned and profitable
and I use all of my experience
I suppose in that corporate space
and then I essentially also use my own lived experience
of what it takes to start from scratch
and yeah
so that brings me to today’s yeah
That’s bought again
a great insight into the vastness of your experience
background and a very holistic view of
of what you do and how you do it
and again there’s a bunch of things
we’ll unpack off the bits of what you shared there
but something I’ll touch upon there is
I love to share the stories of
with the you know
your occupational therapy background
schools and expertise
you teach and you educate clients in different ways
what part of that training have you used
your leverage in being a business owner as well
and sometimes
they’re the things
that we often forget to do ourselves
at different points and we teach about it all the time
I know I teach about money
and I don’t follow my advice sometimes
but with that expertise what
what do you think has translated into business
that you’ve used
you know to be able to
to do what you do in business as well
There is so much and honestly
like I kind of go
the more I go into it the more I’m like
that is so helpful you know
thinking so things like from my operational background
and thinking about forecasting and casebook planning
that so much comes into how to manage day to day
referral capacity and workflows
KPi’s are things that you know
often we shy away from as employees
but actually having customised KPi’s in my own business
really helps to guide me
and to keep things steady and structured
so for me structure is what creates space and freedom
it’s what supports my business when maybe
you know I’m a human being
and sometimes things feel a little bit wobbly
so having that the background I have in processes
policies structures
systems has so supported me
but then when it comes to OT and clinical OT
there is so much of that, that I use
you know I’m very much
what’s the smart goal
and then that’s the outcome I’m wanting to achieve
so let’s work backwards from that
so what does that look like in my business
the other really huge thing for me has been all around
emotional regulation which
some people may not think
is front and center of their business
but for me it has been
it’s been huge and I don’t yeah
I’ll just touch upon that
I think that’s that notion
and it’s probably something that I’ve become super
super aware of myself obviously
neurodivergent family hearing that
you know the awareness of regulation and the like
and been out of
manage the the ups and downs in the flows of that
and you touch upon obviously you
you shared the story of being in burnout
is that part of the trigger that then goes oh
as I do this now it’s yeah
I don’t want to end up back in that space
and yeah I think leading up to that
like I was like
a lot of OT’s that I speak to and work with
you know we’re very good at helping others to regulate
and set strategies and co regulate
and all those sorts of things
and we absolutely terrible at doing it myself
and almost to a point where I felt a little bit fraudulent
you know because the way I regulated is not how i
you know taught other people to regulate
and that is what led me to a place of burnout so
and that is also like
the very foundation of what got me past my burnout
it wasn’t the physical stuff
it was going in first and being able to regulate
and learning how to do that
in ways that I was not taught at uni
so I got additional support
you know psychology
somatic coaching
I became a yoga teacher and a meditation uh
trainer and things like that
so it was really that whole evolution of self discovery
and doing all the inner work
that brought me to a place where I was like
I want to show this to other OT’s
and that’s actually
where I first started in my business
it wasn’t around hitting KPi’s and
you know building business strategy
it was around creating really regulated therapist
because as soon as I became regulated
or understood what that looked like for me
the doors opened for me and I was like
I would love to do this
it had never even been a thought in my mind
but it because I was able to regulate
it gave me the space to be able to lean into that
and I’m so glad and I just think
the best businesses
are the ones that are run by the most regulated people
not that they never get disregulated
we are human beings but it’s about noticing
checking in
and then having practical strategies that work for you
so that’s a big part of how I OT’s in business
is actually regulation
that’s brilliant and I love it
and that’s it whole idea of OT’s generally and
even allowed other allowed health practitioners that
that learn about these things
do have skills in their toolbox
because they’re usually so well educated
in a lot of these things it’s coming back to those
and reminding them what we can use them for ourselves
and that’s again the quote there for me
I wrote down that I just had to get down there
with the really regulated therapist
and we all know that if we turn up in that space
as a regulated human being
we’re going to give the best version of ourselves that we can
at any given point
which is going to get back to you before
are we going to get the outcomes
towards the goals that we are trying to achieve
for anybody
and a like so that’s brilliant
I love that sort of little
tying that together with the expertise into
you know ways that
that can enhance what you do
but we also love to talk to your experiments
and you’ve already sort of
shared a few little things there of
and so to see some of the experiments
that you would have done through that process
you just talked about with the regulation
but from the process of starting your own business and
you know going to the coaching space as well
what are some of the experiments that sort of come
initially come to mind that have
you know some of them may have worked
may not have worked but we’ve learnt from them
what are some of the highlight experiments
that you’ve done over the years
I love that you’ve said experiments
because when I first started in business
I was like is it right or is it wrong
and then I very quickly learnt
business is an experiment
and there absolutely is no failure
you’re just getting feedback
so you’re always learning
oh you know
something that you didn’t know before
and then I always ask myself
okay great
now I know something I didn’t know before
how could this be useful to me
cause business is our best teacher
so having that mindset initially about experimentation
has been really really important for me
and the other thing I would say there is
don’t make hard wrong I did that really early on um
and business was not fun satisfying
you know
but now it is because I have that different mindset
so lots of experiments
when I first started in business for myself
I created a course like an online course
I’d never done anything like that before
I’d done training I’m a certified trainer and assessor
I’ve done all of that
but to be able to create something from scratch
this is back before chat gpt
so everything written from scratch
and then being able to record that I was a woman
like if you look on my camera roll
there are no photos of me
there are just photos of my husband and my children
like go missing tomorrow
there’s nothing to stick on the milk carton
so you know
even facing the fear of having to have my face
on a training video to then have that sit in a website
like I always
you know thought I was not a techy person
isn’t it amazing what you can do
when you just kind of have a go
and you experiment
so creating a website and doing all of that
and then what I thought was marketing back then
which was a couple of posts in a facebook group
you know things like that
so they were all experiments
and then experimenting with a business model
that involved one on one coaching
and then getting booked out with that and going ok
well you know
this is a good problem to have
so how can I use that and then literally
you know building out a membership and
and all of it like
it’s just constantly been an experiment
constant experiment
I absolutely love it as
you know somebody who loves your experiment as well
but again even your phraseology of these
are always just about getting feedback
which again
on the clinical side of what you do
you’re doing that all the time as well
so there’s another little tie into that
idea of tuning into
into that idea of every single thing
every single conversation
every whatever it is
is feedback and to be able to go
what have we learned from that
the reflection time and those sorts of things is
absolutely love it and also the don’t make hard wrong
which again
comes back to even what you were saying at the start
of the idea of no right or wrong
uh we don’t need to have black and whites in business
yes and there’s so many grey areas
that is all open to interpretation
so that’s the other reason why regulation is like
front and centre in that mindset bit for me
because every time you do something new
your brain obviously is like
you know going
we’re going to die you know
the physiological stress response kicks in
and so we go back to a place of comfort
so doing something new like starting a business
having like
you’re scared a lot you know
um you’re scared of not being accepted or rejected
or having nobody come and do your course
or whatever it might be having your business fail
those are things
that discomfort that sits with us in business
and I don’t think that changes
that’s not been my experience
it doesn’t get less scary the longer you’ve been in it
it’s just more like
your capacity to sit in the discomfort
is what improves so that’s why I think again
regulation is so important
I know so many OT’s have like
got these amazing ideas and then they’re like
but I couldn’t do that because it wouldn’t work for me
so once again when we get into the regulation bit
when we get into once we’re regulated
just doing having a plan
one step at a time
next minute they look up and they go like
oh my god
I’ve done the thing
I’ve done the thing I never thought I could do
yeah that’s been the same for myself as well
that’s cool you mentioned the marketing
it’s like what I thought was marketing
I’d love for you to unpack that a little bit
in as much as you know
what’s one of the main sort of experiments that
you know you loved
that worked well
that you really got a lot of feedback from
and again may not have been all smooth sailing
but I love to to deep dive into marketing
I’ll put it in inverted commas there
it’s something you know
we’re not taught at at unI marketing
and twenty years ago when I went to you
or when I graduated from uni
like none of us went out and work for ourselves
like you didn’t do that until you were very
you know very well established in the game
so I wasn’t given those skills at uni
so for me I started years ago
this group is now
got thousands of OTs from all across the world in it
but it’s our private facebook group
called the Mindful OT I started that years ago
with probably fifteen of my closest OT friends
and as I said now it’s thousands of people in the group
and so I started that so that was an experiment Craig
I didn’t even have my own facebook account
personal one until I was like thirty something
so for me
to go from not even having any social media preference
a sort of presence
to then all of a sudden I’ve got this facebook group
and I’m posting stuff in the facebook group
and then I was doing you know i
I still do facebook lives with
you know um
regularly in the group to
give training and things like that
all of that was an experiment
but you don’t know what you don’t know
but it became very clear to me early on
like there was great feedback always
that’s a great post
and I got lots of dms and things like that
we had great conversations
and people were always joining the group
so that’s nice and that’s good feedback
but I sort of realized I probably
I don’t know what marketing is
and that’s not a problem
because it is just a skill that can be learned
I learned how to be a great OT
I learned how to assess write reports intervene
I can probably also learn how to market
sOThat’s when I went and got specific support
and I’ve been working with amazing
you know marketing specialist for years
and that’s when you go oh wow
I didn’t know that like
as I said the first time I put my course out there
I think it was probably like three facebook post
and now I’m like oh
that is a drop in the ocean
now there’s you know
we get to do marketing really holistically
there’s so many levers we can pull
do we need to pull them all the time
the same time no
yeah that’s right
I’ll probably
yeah
strategically pull the levers based on where you’re at
where your business is what your goals are
um but to me
I didn’t even know that there were levers at the start
and you just kind of amble your way through
yeah and I love that though
but I think you’ve shown even doing that short space
obviously the different options
and even opportunities at the different stages
because going from nought to three post for an event
is actually quite big and yeah
you know I love to
I love to talk in percentage terms
it’s like we’re going from one for three
that’s like three hundred percent
at the end of the day so that’s yeah
I know you love to take my stuff but yeah
but it’s just that thinking of that
actually acknowledge it is a big deal for me to do this
and this is my version of marketing but even
again a group
creating and curating a group
again a step that can be taken
which I’m guessing when you first did it
and you got fifteen of your closest buddies around
to do it was like oh
let’s just do this and we’ll have a chat
we’ll see what happens and then to think again
that’s one small step the next fifteen people come on
because each one of those people tell one other person
or something like that
and then all of a sudden you again
you’ve gone two hundred percent
you’ve doubled things over and over to now
like if you chart over that time
and how long are we talking here
a few years a few
for your facebook group how
what’s your how old your facebook group say
now I’m
I’m going to say it’s I should know this
but it’s at least you don’t should know just
yeah uh
probably at least four maybe five years old
yeah there we go
four to five years and you’re in the thousands now
so even from starting from fifteen
double double
double double
yeah basically
to get to that kind of level every three to six months
po tentially over time it’s probably even more
you know it’s probably in three months
doubling in that time and you just sort of go
putting anything out and sharing just education
which is what it sounds like you’re doing
in the group there and building community and education
that’s still marketing and I think
I think it’s that interesting thing which yeah
no doubt you’ve learnt more proper than me on
on this so I’m not going to delve deep onto that
but again
I love the experimentation and then your own education
to go oh ok
now is the right time to learn a little bit more
because I’m doing it a b c y
so that’s so cool and again
now I’ll probably
go into some of the operation side of things
as well as far as operations or delivery
you take whichever way you go
but you pick one one of those
as far as other experiments that have
you’ve learned from along the way
I think the other good there was a couple of things
actually that have held me in good stead
so I did a product management
and service development role
years ago and part of that it was like you
I always said it’s kind of like
we’re building the car while we’re driving it
and that is scary cause at the time I was like
why can’t we just develop this service
and then release it
why are we developing and doing and everything else
and now I know exactly why we do it that way
because you get feedback as you go
otherwise
you could spend a very long time and a lot of money
and a lot of energy building a porsche
and nobody wants a porsche
they literally just want a corolla
so you know
or the other way around it doesn’t matter
I like the idea of experimenting and building as you go
because then
you get to develop something that is fit for purpose
for the people it was intended
and you get to have them along on the journey
and you get feedback straight away
I don’t have to wait for feedback
I can just get feedback
and then tweak and optimise as I go
so you know
even in terms of the membership
there was a need for that
because as I said
I was booked out with one on ones and I had
I was the bottleneck in my business
in one weekend in one weekend
I built out a membership
and I had that membership full within seven days
and I didn’t launch it at all
I didn’t market a group I simply already had a
a funnel I suppose
or a pathway for people to come in
join the group and help me build it together
and it’s just grown and improved
and the quality and the curriculum
all those things and the support people are provided
and then even in terms of
you and I like getting to work together
and I’ve you know
twisted Craig’s arm and I was like
this understanding this financial brain care
this financial literacy
it is such a piece that is missing for us as OT
you know small business owners
but it’s critical and now I’ve learnt that myself
I was like this is amazing
we need to put this into my group Craig
so let’s come and and we’ll experiment
and we have done no planning
we just go we kind of
we know what we want this to look like
we kind of know the structure of it
let’s build as we go let’s get people in and
you know who want to help us do that
because they’re going to get benefit along the way
so that’s me it’s exciting
whereas you know
maybe a few years ago
I would have found it too frightening
I know a lot of OTs cause I do help support OTs
in the space of developing
non traditional non one on one services
and the big thing is I’ve got a million ideas
I need to build them all out perfectly
and then I need to launch and I was like ugh
we don’t have to do it yeah
and I think that developing and doing is just a nice
little simple way of phrasing it
and as somebody work works with software as well
that whole idea of don’t build a whole heap of stuff
that people aren’t going to use
like get value from um
you know I’ve done plenty of that in the
in the software side of things
but again have learned
let’s just do it smaller iterate more
a massive massive difference
but I think
another key part of what you just touched upon there
that I want to highlight
is that how you identified yourself as a bottleneck
as well again
that idea of having that
please reflection piece of doing that
it’s something that you know
some people may struggle with or identify or
or push it to the side
because they’re our babies of business
where we often want them to be certain things
and so that can come with
you know
plenty many emotional and context to it as well
but I think you sharing that
and just bringing the awareness to hey
if I’m the bottleneck
if just focus in on that a little bit more
can you just sort of unpack that a little bit more
for you how you went about that
just to give people an insight of just unpacking that
firstly
I probably had a good idea that it was approaching that
long before it hit that wall
which is it was another amazing
like learning for me because business is an experiment
but it’s also about moving quickly
moving before you think you’re ready
you know and being able to regulate so you can
you know do that
so for me
I knew that I was approaching being fully booked out
so what I had done is taken my ideal day
where I was like I’m going to have this many sessions
because you know
one on one coaching it requires energy
like you I am there to be my best self to help you
that is what you have signed on for
and we are going to do amazing things
and so what I was doing was adding in more sessions
and still showing up as my best self
people still getting amazing outcomes
but the break time for me
like I was noticing of an afternoon yes
cause I condensed my day I only work at school hours
so after I had picked up the kids
yes I had work school hours
but I felt a whole lot less energy
and presence in my family life
for a period there but in my own head
I was saying
private coaching helps me get people results
I may not be able to do that
in group coaching I may not be able to do
it was all mindset stuff just preventing me cause
oh Leesa
you’re safe over here
and you’ve got this great business model
and you’re doing really really well
and why would you want to do something new
and then yeah
the way it hit a wall was I was literally
I was booked out for months in advance
I was having to turn people away
or put them on a waiting list
like they needed help now
and
my whole vision and mission is to leave an afterglow
and be able to help as many sole traders I can
to build these really sustainable
profitable businesses
so they can stay working in their communities
and deliver amazing results to their clients
whilst also being able to enjoy their businesses
and support their families
so if I can’t do that or if I’m telling somebody
it’s probably three to four months
until I can get you in for your first call
like that’s not helping me
it’s not helping them
it’s not helping anyone’s families or communities
so at that point
it was the line in the sand because of my calendar
and you know me I’m a calendar girl
everything’s you know
beautifully organized in my calendar
and I’m like well
it’s not working for me and I love it
but I’m not loving it right now
not loving it right now
so I knew months before this happened
that it was a likely possibility
as is with a one on one coaching model
like
my choice was either to massively increase my prices
or it was it to reimagine or re
you know structure how I was doing things
I didn’t want to massively increase my prices because
as I said my goal is impact
I want to help as many OTs as I can
so to me that just didn’t hit the values checklist
that I had for myself so I was like
right saturday morning I said to my husband
could you please take the girls for the day
go and have a dad and daughter day
I am here and I am building this out for the weekend
and I did that I didn’t have it all in there
but I had uh
the basic modules I had an outline
I had a platform I had the structure
and I knew how I wanted to deliver that initially
and that’s what we did cool
and again showing the idea of awareness into regulation
into focus and then speed to make things happen
because you’ve you’ve identified these things
and now
shine a light on a comment you made there before
of the leaving and afterglow
and again we love to talk about transformations
to round out our Podcast episodes
I love that if I talk
the word transformations that you’ve got
you’ve seen again
whether that’s clinical or coaching or whatever
comes to mind when I mention
that what’s it
you know some of those things that give you the tingles
or an example that you can share with the audience
I just get I do
I like literally get the tingles quite often
because I get to work with
like amazing therapists and there’s so many examples
but I remember working with one beautiful OT
and she had been in business for over five years
for herself and she always felt like
she told me I felt like I was failing my family
I was not contributing I am working all the time
but the cash flow
like she’s still struggling to pay bills
she is very experienced OT and she’s like
she felt guilty like she couldn’t make this work
because it was something that she was missing anything
she was just under resourced in particular skills
in terms of really optimising her utilization
cause we know when we optimise utilization
we optimise revenue so straight away we
you could go in there and within one session
she was like I’ve doubled my utilization
so she doubled her revenue and she goes
I cannot believe how easy that was
so first of all
that just took the panic away from can I afford this
like already she’s like
I’ve invested in myself for coaching
I just want a quick win and that’s what we got her
and then she was like okay
I can pay my bills like Maslow’s hierarchy of need
like we’ve sorted we’re feeling safe
so once we’re feeling safe
then we can move towards you know
those aspirational goals and then
it became more about
being able to structure her business
because being a sole trader
does not mean that it is all about you
so you don’t have to do it all on your own
and so
when we put some structures and some systems in place
she felt like she had to be on less
so there was more time for her family
she could go back to going to pilates
like all the things that she wanted to do
cause we we go into business for ourselves
wanting these freedom businesses
but freedom does not just
you know appear because we work for ourselves
like
it requires intention and structure and some strategy
you don’t have to have everything in the kitchen sink
just some basic things and that’s what we worked with
and she was like this has completely changed
like the way she works
the way she lives the way she contributes to her family
and another really amazing OT
this one like
makes me cry a little bit
but she had a clinic overseas
uh she and her husband were living overseas
she did well
it scaled it burned her out when she came to australia
and then they had some personal circumstances
that required her to go into self employment again
and she was a sole breadwinner
and she was like I know
I can but I don’t want it to look like it did
that nearly killed me like
it was awful so we just started slowly
by slowly just working on the basics
as I said she’s an amazing clinician
and within that twelve months
you know I knew it was a stretch
for her to come and work with me
but at the end of the year
because we did a few rounds of coaching
like her husband said tell Leesa
that she is the best investment we made in our family
because they were on a fertility journey
and they had not been able to explore that before
because they did not have the financial means to do so
so being able to build a successful business for her
meant that they could go and do that
so how is that is just so
that’s definitely it’s giving me the tingles
and that’s why we talk about these things
and we want to share these stories with the listeners
and again the best investment in family
again having those words
I know where I’ve yeah
experience
it wasn’t me she invested in herself
she backed herself and then she did the work
and now she loves her business
they’ve got holidays they get to spend time together
and as I said
they’ve been able to go and have treatment
that they weren’t able to afford before
so to me it’s always good to say
oh yes
I’ve got a multI six figure
da da da
but it’s what that gives you
like she’s now got
you know so much more freedom in terms of her time
her purpose she’s also creating other services to help
like refugee population
she couldn’t have done that before
because she was just battling on
you know trying to get day by day
yeah so
it just really opens everything up
and expands everything
they’re the transformations
you know that you live for
and we see them all the time
which is amazing yeah
and again that’s exactly what we want to share here
and it’s sharing that full circle of the expertise
into experimenting into the outcomes that we get
whether it’s the direct clinical stuff
or whether it’s the
how we support the wider networks that sit around
whatever it is we do because again
coming back to the idea of reimagining
the impact that we can have
there’s so many good
little gold nuggets and soundbites
that our listeners can take away from this
and as you’re just talking
that last little bit I just wrote down here
it’s the transformations sort of
underpinning that is
the idea of just
being able to reset all people’s nervous systems
and as you’ve managed to do that
then people can just be themselves
and explore the things and do the amazing stuff
which you’re one hundred percent
and doing plenty of that Leesa
and I really appreciate you sharing all your experience
knowledge and transformations on the chat today
if people want to connect with you
where is the best place
is it the private facebook community
where else
what are the places
we need to be adding into the show notes for you
what are the places
so the website is the themindfulot.au
and then on the socials
we have The Mindful OT on facebook
with the private facebook group and instagram
themindfulotau and on linkedin is Leesa Tuffnell
awesome as always
we’ll add those to the show notes so that all
all the listeners can connect with you
learn more from you and
and keep on following the journey
and following the experiments along the way
and ideally getting involved with those experiments
feedback is key so once again
really appreciate your time here today
on the call with Leesa thank you
catch you later everybody
that’s an over and out and as always
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They are Awesome bye for now