Transforming Mental Health Through Education

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

 

SOMETIMES IT’S FELT LIKE JUST THROWING SPAGHETTI ON THE WALL

AND SEEING WHAT STICKS

AND BECAUSE I WANT TO SOMETIMES HAVE A STRATEGY

AND THEN SOMETIMES STRATEGY CAN FEEL INAUTHENTIC

AND SO I’M ALWAYS TRYING TO BALANCE THIS

I WANT TO SHARE WHAT I’M EXCITED ABOUT

OR WHAT I THINK’S REALLY HELPFUL

OR WHAT I’VE BEEN LEARNING

AND THEN IF PEOPLE DON’T KNOW IT EXISTS

I CAN’T HELP THEM THEN I HAVE TO BALANCE THIS

I NEED SOME STRATEGY TO GET EXPOSURE

SO THAT I CAN HELP THE MOST PEOPLE

 

Hello everybody and welcome to The Healthy Business Lab Podcast

where we interview awesome

allied health business owners to share their insights

learnings and knowledge with us

and with our fellow business owners in the same space

and so today

I’m extremely excited to introduce Marie Vakakis from The Therapy Hub

welcome to the podcast Marie thanks for having me

so yeah I love for you to share a bit of a introduction about yourself

your background and your expertise

yeah absolutely

I am an accredited mental health

social worker and couple and family therapist

and I set out to create a business by accident

I guess I’m in lockdown like a few people

and now I have group private practice called the Therapy Hub

and then I also have my own business

through training and consultancy and supervision

my main expertise is in working with adolescents and families

and trying to create an environment that’s not super sterile

that’s a little bit more relaxed and fun to come to

with some really amazing qualified staff

who also like to think about the system and the whole family around

the young person but we also work with adults

we have neurodiversity affirming assessments

we run training and workshops 

and events for parents and external organisations as well

love that

so many cool little things that we’ll can it can touch into 

over the course of our chat here

also I love to kick off with

our chats is also around

sharing some of that expertise and the mental health side of things

it’s front and foremost

I love it on your website you share that idea well

everybody has mental health

but the same as physical health and we look after that

and so as a business owner

we often don’t look after ourselves that well 

so I’d love for you to share a few little

sort of insights of things that you’ve experienced

you’ve seen and even for yourself coming from

the expertise that you have around

good mental health for business owners as well

it’s really tricky

I remember there used to be a saying that floats around like

if you love what you do you don’t work a day in your life

and then I saw someone write a meme that if you love what you do

and you’re self employed you do it all the time

it does feel like that it

at points the lines are blurred between what’s a hobby

what’s work especially with sometimes a real pool to document things

for social media it’s almost felt like different

all parts of my life are possible

could have been pieces of content or if I’m doing an art class

should I write a post about the benefits of art for well being

so because we all have mental health and we are all in relationships

not doesn’t mean like an intimate partner

but it felt like every single part of my life could be a potential

story or learning opportunity

or something to share or

and that became actually really quite overwhelming

it got to the point where sometimes for weeks at a time

I’d have to delete all social media off my phone

and then I feel guilty

cause I think of some of the marketing books that I’ve read

especially like around like Gary V. stuff of like

you know just document as you learn like

oh for goodness sakes

it does consume a lot of brain space

and I don’t know if I’ve got the balance right yet

of trying to figure out how to do that

I’m very active I have a

an active commute so I walk or ride to work when I can

I go to the gym often I’m recovering from an injury at the moment

so I can’t do that but a lot of that stuff does help

but even then I’m listening to podcast on my way to work

I’m listening to audio books at the gym

quite haven’t found quite that sweet spot yet of the not learning bit

but I feel well

I sleep I eat well

I exercise my body

I get a lot of comfort and enjoyment out of peer supervision

and groups and things like that

so it does consume a large part of my life

and I don’t know exactly how to what I would give up

cause I also really like some parts of that too awesome

I love it again

a great interesting perspective of that

of said the intertwining of business and life

where we had some other guests sort of mentioned that same idea

but you’re linked at how we often think

like

everything we do in life actually can be for the business as well

and having that awareness

I think he is much a bigger thing

and I guess the fact that you’re actually conscious of it

no doubt does help you be a bit more mindful of that

so that you do have those moments of being able to at least name it

I did a learning

I was learning something the other night

and somebody was talking about just name it to tame it

and I was like ah

that rung quite well

so even you doing what you’ve just done is kinda like I’ve named it

I have the ability to tame it

it’s aware of it it might always just be there

but I’m always conscious of it

yeah it can be tricky cause it’s not just in business

I think having maybe the background I do in

social work and mental health

even when I worked elsewhere

I couldn’t not see it out and about

like I couldn’t not see systemic injustice

I couldn’t not see poverty or racism

I couldn’t not see political disasters

as being directly related to the work that I do

there was a level of awareness that comes with

studying and learning about things that impact people

and having

being a highly empathetic person and feeling really big feelings

really like all feelings so big

it was hard not to see that

when I worked with people with substance addiction

every new bottle shop that would open up

it would make me think oh

is this because it’s a low socioeconomic area

and it’s overpopulated with

bottle shop

like I couldn’t not see all these pieces kind of working around

I always found that hard to switch off

and so some of it

you got targeted into different advocacy work in different

times or different works within organisation

around training or practice groups

or fundraisers

I had to use that energy for something

and now that it’s more relation on mental health

that’s my focus I use that for the podcast

it feels a lot of the content for the podcast this Complex Life

I’m starting up Inside Social Work again to educate other people

I get to have an outlet

I guess to target that

then just spinning around feeling helpless 

at the end of the day, it’s finding the fuel

to keep that going

but again and seeing where that’s gone

I’d love for you to now share and you touch up on a few avenues there

from the business side of things

there’s a little bit of a

fell into it which so many of us business owners

we do in different ways and chance or happen

chance or opportunity knocks and it’s like okay

this is what I’m going to do

and you share how that actually happened

and some of those early experiments you did when 

you sort of started out on your business journey

I’d love to hear some of those early stories

I probably was curious about it to begin with

I was working in someone else’s practice and I love to learn

and so there wasn’t a lot of at the time

resources around how to do therapy in a private practice setting

especially Australian based

like it wasn’t very common

there weren’t a lot of online resources or webinars

I was listening to quite a few podcasts from the US

and they always talked about private practice

and then the business side

so there was clinical outcomes

how to do different therapeutic techniques

how to deliver them which most people

that’s the bit we already know usually

sometimes adapting that to various models

like within the Medicare constraints or within an NDIS framework

there’s a learning curve of how to

deliver the service and manage some of those external factors

and there were constant kind of conversations around budgeting

or finance or saving

putting money aside for tax

it’s when I first heard of the Profit First model

so I went and read that

there were these little bits

along the way that kind of planted little seeds

and so when I did make the jump into solo practice

and then I had my first contractor to come on board

I wasn’t starting from zero knowledge

I sort of had consumed content

one of my favourite podcast at the time was Selling The Couch and

I’ve been on that a couple of times actually

which has been really fun to have listened to it from episode 1

and then be a guest

it gave me a few ideas of what I didn’t know

and where I needed to go to get that

and what support I could put in place to learn

everything from organisational

like structural policies procedures frameworks

getting a lawyer to write up a good contract

understanding how far out GST still that’s baffling

and just building up slowly from there

but at the core of it was the first contractor I brought on

it was to service a particular client

there was a conflict of interest in that

relationship for me to work with them

and so I picked a person who like if I could see a therapist

it would have been this person

and then from there the team grew and we’ve had probably

over time about 20 different staff members come through

the ones that have left have all gone to start their own businesses

and are all self employed

which is pretty exciting and now there’s a team of about

I think six or seven of us here at The Therapy Hub

I love that the insights there are as well doing the education

and you always say you’re a voracious learner there

you’re already learning stuff

so it didn’t actually feel like a huge jump again

when you actually hit the ground running and things happen

you’re always aware of that

you’ve got a foundation of knowledge there sitting there and

and moving through that growth cycle

or the evolution of your team there

I would love to hear any insights around how you’ve worked with team

you’re set up on

your first hire was very much around who would I like to see

that’s a great way to go well

I want the best how can I find these people

but the subsequent team members you brought on

what experiments I guess

or what have you found with the learnings along the way

of evolving and growing a team

that was probably my steepest learning curve

because under the contractor model

it’s business to business relationship

so there has to be a level of I’m not their boss

but they are employed under my brand

and so having I guess

the same values around

and we talk a lot in the interview around why they’ve chosen us

why do they think they’ll be a good fit and vice versa

we make sure that people can work with the queer community

that the neurodiversity affirming

that they have experience with certain frequent presentations

because that’s our reputation

that we want to make sure all the team members

have a similar way of approaching

and working with certain community members

and then it’s then trying to refine it’s not necessarily mentorship

but it can be but sometimes there’s supervision

but it’s also their own business

so they also have responsibility to do that on their own

and so it actually just requires lots of conversations

and navigating in each person

especially if they’re at the start of their career

might need a little bit more support

others are quite happy to come in for a couple of days a week

go home and

not think of us again until they come back the week after

it’s actually trying to reduce any preconceived expectations

and ideas I had

and I look

I would have loved that dream clinic of

everyone has the same work days and

and we have big team lunches

and I mean I’m a social person

so that sounds like a dream for someone else

they’re like what a nightmare

I cannot and the idea of having a team lunch yeah

that was my dream was to have this big team and have

on site trainings and collaborations

and without the funding to do that

it’s impossible in private paid

expecting people to do it outside paid hours

or we have to charge clients

we have double because the overheads are so great

that it doesn’t quite what clients pay and what we get paid

it’s not the same and I think that’s a big misconception as well

yeah thank you for sharing that

I think that is obviously across Allied Health and

many of the different modalities as well

there’s different set ups and frameworks between the

contractor model versus the 

employees sort of space

and again multimodality practices as well

then have a quite often a mix between

and so obviously 

pointing that out 

for somebody that maybe you can

you can fully think about that

idea of the owner if their contractor is not being

can’t control what they do

but they need to work under the brand

it’s definitely something very interesting to navigate

thank you for sharing that

it’s great and I guess other experiments as you’ve grown and evolve

you’ve already mentioned a couple of times

sort of the podcast and the like

you’ve definitely had 

the personal branding side of things

something that you look as though you have done quite a bit with

and you’re working in that

space of building a personal brand

sometimes it’s felt like just throwing spaghetti on the wall

and saying what sticks

and because I want to sometimes have a strategy

and then sometimes strategy can feel inauthentic

and so I’m always trying to balance this

I want to share what I’m excited about

or what I think’s really helpful

or what I’ve been learning

and then if people don’t know it exists

I can’t help them so then I have to balance this

I need some strategy to get exposure

so that I can help the most people

and that’s always a real struggle

like i spent significant amount of time creating my parenting program

Connected Teens

that fuses together a couple of well researched and well known therapy

so we got acceptance and Commitment Therapy

and Bowen Family Systems Therapy

and it’s the kind of program that

if a lot of the parents that saw me with their kids had done

they might not have needed to come and see me

so I was like great

what amazing value for the cost of less than two sessions

they can do this course and they won’t need me

and selling that is so much harder than I expected

I was like why wouldn’t people want to do this

if I had something that would fix this problem

I would do it and then

but then sometimes I think I’m so fatigued with online courses

I just want someone to just do it for me or show me how to

do it myself in one on one

then there’s that

so there’s always this kind of struggle between marketing sales

which essentially I can’t help people if they don’t know I exist

and that’s a really tricky

cause I believe in the product

and whether it’s one of the online courses or just therapy

but then I also need to caveat it’s not a panacea for everything

it can helps some people sometimes

or a lot of people a lot of the time

but not each therapist

will help each person with all the things that they want

and so there’s this then trying to myth bust some of that

so then some of the content I create is to myth bust that

to myth bust even do I need to see psychologist

what’s a mental health social worker

what about family therapist

art therapist it’s hard to try and dispel misinformation

that really affects your industry

but then also really wanting to provide valuable learning

I guess that’s where the personal brand and The Therapy Hub

have slightly different audiences

wants to teach people

it’s the online digital anything that’s workshop or days

and then The Therapy Hub is you know sit on the couch and we talk

let’s get it done yeah

and I love that 

you spread out yourself just at the end there

it’s like the personal brand being a very educational purpose

put you in a position of you are a person that has great information

you’re able to share it and again

the people that resonate with your approach

your style and those sorts of things

and there’s opportunities for them to access that content

in a way that you have productised and the like

there also is actually the flow on effect through to the practices

well

for those that kind of go actually I just want to talk to that person

and do you see that quite a bit

some people sort of seeing you from the educational content

and then flowing through and how is that sort of played out over time

definitely

it does mean sometimes there’s bottlenecks of people wanting just me

because I’m that visible voice

so that I has its own challenges

but also maybe the urgency people will listen to like

had someone recently listen to a podcast episode like yeah

you nailed it that’s our exact issue

can we see you now I’m like

I’m unavailable for several months like

oh well

this just can’t wait it’s like 

I get that and I’m still unavailable for several months

and so then there can be that deflating

defeated thing that people have where they feel

might feel a bit of a parasocial relationship

or have connected with me

and I don’t know them at all

and they might come in knowing all this stuff about how I work

or me and I know nothing about them

so that can be have its own interesting perspectives too

where I especially if I bump into other social workers at conferences

sometimes they and I don’t have a wide audience

it’s only a few hundred people listen to each episode

but someone will like

I love when he said this and he said that I’m like

hi I’m Marie

nice to meet you I

I don’t I don’t know you

I don’t you don’t know you

and I’ve forgotten a little bit of that

because I’ve shared so much content

yeah all the time yeah

yeah how do you manage that

I’m curious around that

that’s it again

great insights because it is for somebody like yourself

you share

you very social

and you want to know those people on the other end of it as well

how do you approach sort of those situations

they’ve all been positive interactions so far

and I’m always open to feedback

one of The Therapy Hub’s values is connect

grow and discover and I think I will get it wrong

there’ll be something I say that then will be updated or changed

or I just did a a little video on Neurodiversity Celebration Week

and how what I was taught

explicitly taught at university 20 years ago

has been flipped on its head and completely changed now

so if I’d done a video then and someone resurfaced and said

look what you said you said this

this and this I would be like yeah

and that’s what I knew to be right then

and so as people if we have these robust conversations

and I mean the podcast is called This Complex Life

and I’m talking about that things aren’t simple

they’re not black and white

they’re not a meme they’re not a one off phrase

it requires dialogue

so if someone comes and has a constructive dialogue like oh

you’ve overlooked this part or you could have done that different

great I can update my database

my learning and then go and create something so that I welcome and

but most of the time people have just been

it’s just been really nice for them to share what their favourite

episode was or what resonated with them

so that I know it’s helping people

that was the I don’t like listening to the sound of my own voice

that’s actually the worst bit

having to do some of the editing and listen to your own voice back

it’s in trying to share a message or try and share some learnings

and sometimes things that oh

maybe I found this so amazing

and just can’t wait for other people to learn it too

actually I usually quite like when people reach out and say

I heard this I liked it or this resonated

or actually this person might be a really good person to interview

yeah keep doing it people

if you’re out and about

I love to hear from you on LinkedIn or Instagram

and hopefully

at least we get some more viewers and we’ll all the contact details

yeah come check it out

which will grab at the grab at the end and the like

but again

he’s leading through to what you’re just so saying some of 

the conversations you’ve had

both with people that coming through from the podcast realm

or the online course and like

and some of those case studies or feedback testimonials 

and through to the one on one type of clients

I’d love to hear some of those

any of those transformations that he stood out where you

had the chat or you’ve had the feedback where people have gone from

A to B with their mental health and the like

yeah let me just get up

I’ve got my spreadsheet of testimonials

just because I was actually working on something else and nothing

are you saying you’re about to go on a bit of a break

you’re cramming so much in

you’ve got so much going on at the moment

there are plenty of sheets open

yeah, i think when

I’m just looking at some of the feedback of some of the parenting

courses but things like

I’ve learnt to expand my mind

and prepare to deal with teenagers in an effective and caring way

I’ve learnt to take a better approach and how to coach emotions

in the last few weeks

we’ve seen a change in behaviours and had fewer arguments

due to the strategies offered

those things are amazing

I think my favourite was one of the courses

a parent brought me a bunch of flowers and a card and I was like

that is so kind she’s like yeah

my daughter said to give this to you because I’m less angry now

this is like so I don’t know where you’re going every Tuesday

but you’re less angry now

and it was just it was so funny that it did

the daughter had already noticed the change and 

the mum brought me a card and some flowers on my last day

and I love that because it’s very very simple

so powerful and effective

yeah

I probably have a photo of it somewhere

but it absolutely made my day

it was so sweet

that’s brilliant

how long ago that was

you were on the video here for listening to see the video

you can see the body language Marie

it’s literally lit her up and again

that’s why we do what we do

it’s why you do what what you do and the like

so we talk about here

and trying to share information and knowledge and stories

a lot of health business owners out there

creating these transformations

doing more of building sustainable

profitable businesses and a lot so they can have this impact

thank you for sharing those insights today

any other I want to hear if you got another little case study there

that sticks out of mine cause I really enjoyed that one

yeah

case study not so much but as you were saying around transformation

I think that’s also been part of the challenges

we can get really fix and focused on

how long it’s taken us to build these skills

and sometimes our clients don’t give a shit

they don’t care that you’ve studied for 10 years or 20

they want to know what’s in it for them

how are they going to be better or happier or healthier

and so I think of some of the ways I’ve adjusted

my business have been based on services

I’ve had that haven’t gone well

and I still find it very frustrating when I go to

a physio or osteo for an injury and they say okay

just come back when you need to see me again I’m like well

when do I need to see you again

what should I do in the meantime

what’s my treatment plan what’s actually wrong

how do I prevent it happening

and I think sometimes as therapist

maybe when there’s money exchange and we’re very aware of that

we can be okay so just come back when you want and they’re like

well when do I need it

really try and understand what the person wants why they’re there

and then come up with a way to assess that and have a treatment plan

and depending on your modality

you’ll have different

theories that help you with your formulation of what that looks like

and then sharing that with the person and figuring it out together

cause if you’re like oh well

you’re the severity of your presenting issues

actually probably going to take weekly work for a year

and they’re like yeah

no I’m not doing that

I just want this thing here to be okay and then go about my day

you’re going to have a rupture there

they’re going to feel like maybe things are moving too slow

and you’re like I don’t know why they just have stopped coming

and trying to figure out that

it’s a constant challenge

it’s a struggle for a lot of us

I still fluctuate with sometimes with that

and trying to figure out what do you need

what are you expecting of me

how does my skills and expertise help you

and are we focusing on the right thing

or is that serving as a distraction

and so when you can get that right

we get that more enthusiastic buy in

and people are really aware of what to expect

and that doesn’t always go well

sometimes I’ve had families with like no no

we don’t want family therapy

we don’t need your help just fix that fix

it’s them they’re the problem

and then they when I try and be like

why I actually want the whole family in

because how you’re reacting or responding impacts the young person

which then exacerbates the exact thing you’re trying to reduce

sometimes

they’ve just gone and found someone else who will just diagnose

label medicate

and problem solved for now

sometimes that’s hard when there’s different agendas

and sometimes it can work really

really well uh

but I would encourage people if you’re listening as a consumer

don’t give up

and if you just had one therapist that you didn’t like

try another one it’s not one size fits all

that’s definitely not the approach

I think there’s an episode of Ted Lasso

where he went to a therapist once and didn’t like it

and I was having a conversation with him with Coach Beard who’s like

and what did you say he’s like

not all people are the same people like

oh yeah they’re not all the same

you gotta go find a different one

so true and I love that

from both the

practitioner level and the consumer sort of level

managing expectations and having a plan

and actually just sharing that

at least like

I think that’s a lot of things cause we often will

we’ll have a plan in place and we know it because again

we’ve had the experience

we’ve had the expertise we’ve had the skills and I like

but nobody people don’t know that unless we actually share that

as well and then people can opt in or out of that

like you’ve said again some people kinda go well hey

that’s not for me and I want the quick fix or whatever it is

being conscious of that from

you talk to it at the very start of the call interesting

about having strategy and not it’s not kind

it’s kind of the in between step

so at least we’ve got a plan

you don’t necessarily need the the full blown strategy

so there’s a bit of an outline of a plan that we can always tweak

modify and that’s why so we use your the terminology around experiments

we can experiment with that if we’re thinking of it in that way

it can only be win win situation

but even that I would still be encouraging people to overt that

because even if you’re saying look

after three sessions I’m still getting to know the client

so I’ve got nothing to assess or tell them

that’s the bit you can tell them you say look

the first three sessions we’re still getting to know each other

can I ask you some questions

some might seem completely random

some might land us somewhere

I’m trying to piece together the best way to work together

let’s bear with me you’re not going to feel immediately better

cause I haven’t actually done any therapy with you yet

but it’s just how I work or even just overting that

or if you’re a person who’s like

I like to send you 17 forms to complete at home

and then we go through those results together

then say that too because each person I mean

I’ve had a dozen therapists in my life and each

every single one did something completely different

and so even as a therapist I go in there and I’m like

how do you do what you do

and how do you do what you do is going to help me with what I want

how do we figure this out

because not everyone does the same thing

there’s no perfect structure

getting comfortable overting that 

and asking about asking questions

I suppose well

I love that and for me

that’s great way to round off

the chatter is at the end of the day

asking questions on both sides of the fence

it actually just helps if we ask questions

we get information we get knowledge and therefore knowledge is power

knowledge is key

and then we can actually make decisions on what’s best for us

at the end of the day

thank you for sharing and as I said during the chat there

if people do want to find you I will include in the show notes 

a bunch of details that we’ve already got there

but it feel free to share here

as to the main place is where

you hang out where people can connect with you, yes

so on LinkedIn is probably my most comfortable platform

that’s where I post a lot of content

that’s related to both businesses

I suppose you’re educating other people

and then also helping with a man

own understanding of mental health and relationships

and on Instagram is a lot more about this Complex Life podcast

check out the podcast 

it’s all on the Marie Vakakis website or a Spotify iTunes

all the podcast places and 

then thetherapyhub.com.au for therapy

and we do offer telehealth

we can do international

there’s just a few countries that are best in their insurance

we can’t do but yeah

nationwide if people want and telehealth is always an option too

awesome

once again we’ll put all those links in the show notes for you

thank you very much for sharing your knowledge

expertise insights and the learning that you’re paying forward

all the many things that you’ve learnt 

over the years to this point

and thank you for sharing that with our audience today

no worries thanks Craig

awesome so

that’s everyone

out from another episode from the Healthy Business Lab podcast

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