EPISODE 046 | The Journey from Clinician to Women's Health Coach with Dr. Jessica Drummond

Today's episode is a combination of many of my passions -- women's health, coaching, mindset AND entrepreneurship.

Dr. Jessica Drummond is the founder and CEO of The Integrative Women’s Health Institute, The Outsmart Endo Health Coaching Program, and the creator of the Women's Health Coach Certification. She's passionate about caring for and empowering people who struggle with women’s and pelvic health concerns, as well as educating and supporting clinicians and wellness professionals in confidently and safely using integrative tools to transform women’s and pelvic healthcare.

After receiving my Women’s Health Coach Certification a few weeks ago, I’m so excited to bring Dr. Drummond’s two decades of expertise to our OTGR community and I can’t wait to hear what your biggest takeaways are!

BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU’LL DISCOVER WITH: 

• Jessica’s journey from PT to integrative women’s health coach.
• How to shut down that women’s health coach impostor syndrome.
• Why no one is perfectly “healthy”.
• The two questions you need to be asking yourself as a women’s health coach
• The secret to honing in on your messaging as both a clinician and coach.

To check out Jessica's programs, including her Women's Health Coaching Certification, click HERE!

And if you want to learn more about the different ways we're supporting OTs in the coaching industry, whether you're just getting started or you're growing a six-figure coaching practice, go to www.otsgonerogue.com/coaching.

If you want to stay in the know with our podcast, go ahead and sign up for our OTGR Newsletter -- we'll send you our most recent podcast episodes, behind-the-scenes details + bonus resources, directly to your inbox!

And if this episode resonated with you in any way, I would love to hear from you.

Connect with me on Instagram @OTsGoneRogue or drop me an email at hello@otsgonerogue.com.

Make sure to connect with Dr. Drummond on Instagram @IntegrativeWomensHealth and on Facebook @IntegrativePelvicHealth

Transcript

00:06

You're listening to the OTs Gone Rogue podcast, where we inspire therapists to think outside the box and do things differently. I'm your host, Melissa LaPointe. My passion is in helping OT entrepreneurs have a bigger impact on the world, while building a life they love and doing transformative work that lights them up. On each episode of the show, I'm going to share tools and tricks to help you flex your entrepreneurial muscles and grow your business from the inside out. I want to see more OT step up as visionary leaders, change makers and influential CEOs. So let's get started.

00:42

All right, folks, we are officially into the month of December. Oh my goodness. And I don't know what's happening in your neck of the woods in terms of weather. But today, we had this beautiful blue sky

01:07

day the sun was shining. And it was a minus 29 degrees Celsius. So for those of you who use Fahrenheit, I Googled it, it was minus 20 Fahrenheit. So minus 29 Celsius and minus 20 Fahrenheit. Now, I have a pretty high tolerance for the cold. But today was tough. So many of you know, I am a dog owner. And every day I always taken out, rain or shine, we go out for a hike. So I bundled up, I should have taken a picture I had so many layers on and we got out there. But full disclosure, I only lasted 25 minutes. I just couldn't do it, I couldn't to it. And then we got home and the sun set at 3:59pm. So today was the first day we are officially in that like pre 4pm sunsets. Now, I know I shouldn't complain, My tastes are getting so short. But one of my best friends lives in Alaska. And she let me know that they're currently sun. So sunset for them is 2:30pm. And sunrise is 10:30am. So for her right now they only have four hours of daylight. So I'm trying to remind myself of this. Oh, it could be worse. And really reminded myself that winter solstice is just around the corner. So this is a time in the year where I can be very intentional with slowing down and hibernating. I've talked about this before. But you know, for me, that's one of the best parts of being an entrepreneur and being in charge of my own schedule. So I can really lean into the different rhythms and rituals that come with each season. So I'm not working eight to four right now, when I used to be employed with a nonprofit, my hours were 830 till 430. And I would get home like right now I would be getting home, the sun, it would be sad, it would be dark. So I'm so grateful for you know that I can split up my workday that I can be getting outside, even when it's freezing. And this is something you know, there are a lot of gifts with entrepreneurship. But for me living in a part of the world where we have such big fluctuations in our seasons, that's definitely one of the pros that I love. Speaking of leaning into rhythms and being more intentional with cycles, this is also where it's hard for me to separate my ongoing training and women's health, my work as a business coach and my own personal journey as a CEO and a female entrepreneur. And it's not that anyone's asking me to separate these various roles. It's more that I have to be proactive in integrating them. So it's thinking outside the box in how I'm showing up as a woman in business. So in my world, there are many, many female entrepreneurs. But the reality is we are still a minority in terms of the business world and not going with the flow in terms of the different ways that society tells us we need to be showing up in our business and instead, making sure we're putting in the time to be proactive and to get really clear on you know, what are you Your non negotiables and what works for you and your body and your health goals and your family and making sure that you're setting up your business in a way that is conducive to your life. That's something I don't think we talk about enough. All right, so all this talk on women's health. This talk on coaching is leading me to today's featured guest expert, Dr. Jessica Drummond. Dr. Drummond is the founder and CEO of the integrative Women's Health Institute, the outsmart endo health coaching program, and the creator of the women's health coaching certification. So Jessica first came on my radar in 2014. So I had to give this some thought to that when I was doing the interview today, but she came on my radar in 2014. So at that point, I was in the early stages of owning my private practice, and I was specializing in prenatal postnatal health. I was in a training, so a prenatal postnatal health certification, and she was one of the guest lecturers. So that's how I first discovered her work. And then in 2015, I ended up signing up for one of her online courses. So through the integrative Women's Health Institute, and one thing led to another, I signed up for a second course. And then in 2016, I took the plunge and I enrolled in her women's health coaching certification. Now, life happened, and I've mentioned this before I ended up dropping her program, and for several years, so I had gone through the coaching component. But then once it got into the women's health piece, life was throwing curveballs my way, and I stepped back and I focused instead on growing my work as a business coach for OTS. But in January 2021, I recommitted to her program, and a few weeks ago, I officially graduated. Meaning in the last two years, I have spent hours and hours and hours, listening to Jessica's teachings, studying and immersing myself into her program content. She is so passionate about this work, whether that be empowering people who struggle with women's and pelvic health concerns, or educating and supporting clinicians and wellness professionals to confidently and safely use integrative tools to transform women's and pelvic health care. Dr. Drummond has two decades of clinical experience as a licensed physical therapist, a licensed clinical nutritionist, and a Board Certified Health Coach working with women with pelvic pain. She's a sought after international speaker on topics such as integrative pelvic health management, natural fertility options, optimal Hormonal Health, menopause and female athlete nutrition. She has played a huge role on the trajectory of my work, and she has been an inspiration to me in so many ways. So without further ado, let's roll out my interview with Dr. Jessica.

08:21

All right, welcome back, everyone to another episode of the OTs Gone Rogue podcast. Jessica Drummond, welcome to the podcast. I have spent so many hours this year listening to your voice on recordings. I'm excited to have you here live. Welcome.

08:37

Thank you so much. Yeah, it's my pleasure to be here.

08:41

So for those of you listening, you may have heard me reference Jessica a couple of times now. So especially in the last two episodes when I've been talking about my own journey in terms of coaching, but Jessica, I would like to before we even dive into coaching, because obviously we're going to talk lots about that I want to back way up and talk about when you started in terms of physiotherapy. So what motivated you? You know, were you one of those people that went through junior high high school knowing you wanted to be a physiotherapist? Was this a? You know, did you discover this later on? Tell me about how and what attracted you to physiotherapy in the first place?

09:26

Yeah, it's funny. I honestly don't exactly know, like, what was the impetus to I don't I just don't remember why I decided to become a physical therapist. My dad at one point sort of told me about this as a career because he has a cousin who's a physical therapist. And I believe she's retired now, but she may even still be practicing. And but but it was a nice melding of my kind of natural skill set. I was good at science and you know, I was kind of a nerdy student and I was an athlete my entire life. You know, really, but particularly when I was in junior high in high school, I was a gymnast. And then I was a cheerleader in college. And I worked in college in the athletic training center for the sports teams. And so I started my career in physical therapy, mostly in sports in orthopedics. And I really loved all of that. And I continued to be an athlete, you know, through my entire life. And it's so that was really the spark for me.

10:34

How long were you practicing in physiotherapy before you started to venture into the world of nutrition?

10:42

Um, well, I guess officially, I graduated from physical therapy graduate school in 1999. And I officially started this business in 2009. I in 2006, I was doing a lot of work on my own self healing. And that was sort of the transition I was postpartum. So the my first daughter was born in 2003. And I was postpartum and dealing with a lot of HPA Axis dysregulation, fatigue, chronic fatigue, at probably Epstein Barr reactivation, knowing what I know now. And so that was sort of my diversion into functional medicine, if you will, as a patient, really. And as a new postpartum mom with who was both physically wiped and had a baby who didn't sleep till she was about six. Those years. What erased from my memory, but you know, so I, but I continue doing hands on physical therapy, at least part time or here and there and in teaching roles, and I still like you can't take off, you can't and wouldn't want to take off your physical therapy brain. But I did work, you know, hands on in clinics up until the pandemic, so like early, late 2019, early 2020, when I shifted entirely to online, but I was doing primarily work online, in our company, digitally and globally, and, you know, teaching all over the world from about 2009 2010 until the present.

12:29

Has that historically been part of your career trajectory in terms of professional development and teaching? Or is that something that happened? Gradually?

12:42

Yeah, no, actually, in the very beginning. So my first job as a physical therapist school was in a traditional sports medicine practice. And I loved that lots of hands on training. And then within the first year, I moved to Texas and I worked in in acute level one trauma center in outpatient orthopedics, also sports medicine, but more complex orthopedics people that had had really complicated and not so great necessarily surgeries and things like that. It was a large public hospital, a lot of trauma. But I learned so much because I had lots of great mentors. There a lot of manual therapy mentors from the local university down there in Houston and Women's Hospital of Texas. Well, no, sorry. First, I was at the level one trauma center, which was the public hospital. And the university was Texas Women's University, although it was by this point, a coed University. And then I really wanted to specialize in women's health. I had started doing that, in my first two years post, you know, graduate school, as a physical therapist, specializing in postpartum recovery, spine rehab, you know, perinatal PT, and then I started going deeper into pelvic pain and incontinence and things like that. And so a then switched jobs a few years later to work at the Women's Hospital in Texas, which all we did was all kinds of complex women's health and pelvic health PT, which to me was a natural evolution from orthopedics and manual therapy. It's sort of like specialized orthopedics and manual therapy into women's and pelvic health. And even as early as then, and even really, that first kind of trauma hospital job. I was teaching, I was taking students you know, I taught at our big meeting that was called the combined section meeting on physical therapists here in the United States. On perinatal, you know, fitness, I was teaching perinatal fitness. So it was a natural part. You know, within my first year graduating I had, I was teaching taking students and so I really enjoyed the teaching aspect from the very beginning.

14:58

Walk me through So in terms of the work that you started doing online, were you coaching first? Or did you start doing some work online with clients and patients and then recognize the benefit of coaching.

15:16

So I was coaching first within my PT practice. So what I realized is after my own health issues of postpartum, which took about three years to resolve that I had to take a couple years off working entirely. And then I went back, and I started to realize, hmm, if I could make such dramatic improvements in my own house, utilizing, you know, nutritional therapy, if you will, lifestyle medicine, there was no reason that my pelvic pain patients couldn't benefit from this, given that they often had hormonal dysregulation as well. So everyone thought I was crazy, because like I said, this was 2009 2010. And I was just early, as it turns out, and, you know, I, but I saw dramatic improvements with my patients, when I started to just sort of have them dabble in, you know, more nourishing food plans, we talked about nervous system downregulation more, and that was really radical at the time, at the time, everyone was just like, you know, it really doesn't matter what they eat. And you know, as long as we get the right muscle released, like, what are we talking about here with the nervous system, although that was some people were a little bit more accepting of that. Some were not at all and really felt like it was an even now that that's still an edgy conversation, you know, to be mindful to not tell the patients that it's all in their head, you know, but there's a very big difference from saying, this is all in your head to saying there are some aspects of your nervous system that we can activate to support your recovery. So all of that I just started integrating into my PT practice, I started learning about health coaching, I started learning about functional nutrition, which are two very different things. Coaching is really the conversational skill set to help people make behavioral changes. Where as functional nutrition is about using nutrition, therapeutic dosing of you know, supplements and nutrients to achieve a sort of a more biochemical improvement. And they both have played an important role. They're just two different things. So I started teaching that within the pelvic and women's health physical therapy community, at the hospital in which I was working, and in Texas, in general. And then from there, I just began teaching it, you know, I had a reasonably large network from my work as a physical therapist around the US anyway. And then at that time, we started having social media and things like that. So I could, I met other practitioners and essentially developed the first version of the Women's Health Coach certification by teaching it live, and refining it, building it, creating it, meaning making it more robust, by literally teaching it in front of any audience that would have me of, you know, roughly 20 people, you know, sometimes 100, or 200, not huge, huge audiences, literally anywhere in the world. So I spent a year year and a half just traveling all around and teaching and refining. And then I began to build it in an online way. And I did work with prac coaching clients, roughly around that same timeframe, both in person and through, you know, I don't even know that we had zoom, we had Skype at the time. But I think, you know, it's a little hard to understand how difficult it was to do this. Back then. Because, you know, we didn't have like, I didn't even have an I felt like we didn't have an iPhone. We didn't have zoom. We didn't have you know, we didn't really have social media. We had Facebook a little. And Facebook groups were where you could meet people, but it was a very different thing you didn't have like, sites that you could just set up with one click, you know, you had to hire coders. And you I remember how first online video editing and all that yeah, like, yeah, in 2010 we just didn't have all the tools we have now. And that made it more challenging. I mean, most of what I did was actually on the phone I had built a at one point so when my second daughter was born, so this was 2010. We had built like a office for me if you will above the garage, and it was a beautiful space. I was envisioning all these like, you know, kind of integrative health workshops and stuff. We had reclaimed floors and all this light and but when I asked referred people I lived in the city of Houston at that time, the opportunity to either come in and do coaching with me or just do it on the phone 100% of people, I never had one client show up to that office prefer to just do it on the phone because they didn't have to then commute in traffic go to another appointment, you know, because I've always worked with complex chronic pain and complex chronic illness patients. So there, they have a lot of things going on and just trying to work. So that telehealth model and truly was by phone for many years, was fairly revolutionary at the time.

20:35

Yes, it's such a different it's a low barrier of entry to you know, in terms of online, there's so many drag and drop systems and templates. And, again, I go back to my first online course that I created in 2015. And what we're able to do now, it's remarkably different. Yeah, well,

21:01

and that's great. I mean, there and there are different challenges. Now there are, you know, there are things it's noisier. You know, there are different talent challenges, but technically, everything is much easier to do on a global scale now than it was Yeah. You know, I guess that was about 15 years ago,

21:23

when you first started teaching the women's health coaching certification in an in person format, as someone who recently graduated from that program, that that blows my mind, how much time you know, over how many days what? Well, for that

21:40

it was live and in person over three days. But okay, of course, it was much less. Yes, we have added tons of content, we've added now, business coaching, business training, we've added all the functional nutrition education, so it was probably about a third or less the size of, you know, say 25% of the current current version of the program. That's one thing that we're always committed to, you know, we've really default refined our offerings for professionals to just two products at this point. Because we want to give people everything that they need. So we've been refining the same program for 15 years, because we learn from our students, and we also learn from the environment and how healthcare changes constantly. And our work is evaluated by our oversight board every three years, we have to re submit for approval. So you know, the program has evolved quite considerably since I was first teaching it in like a three day weekend workshop. Yeah.

22:48

I'm curious, because I have my my own opinion based on my network, but with your courses. And you can speak to that, because when I first I believe my first course that I took from you was your female athlete course in want to say 2015? That sounds about right. Your courses attract a lot of professionals. Well, they attract professionals. I'm curious from your experience or your perspective, how many people are attracted to your programs for their own personal health and well being versus like, where's where did they start? Is it because they have their own stuff going on, that they are not finding solutions for in the traditional health care system? Or is it that they're motivated from a professional growth standpoint? Where how, you know, what's that first entry point in your experience?

23:46

Well, so we have sort of two divisions of the company. The integrative Women's Health Institute is primarily geared at educating professionals. And then outsmart endometriosis is primarily geared at coaching and supporting the direct health of people with chronic health issues. That said, there is dramatic overlap, I would say 75% of our clinical clients are health professionals themselves. And what's very fascinating is for years, we've been trying to create a program to support the health of health professionals, and health professional, you know, directly, not necessarily just looking at one particular diagnosis, if you will, because endometriosis is obviously the leading issue on that side, although we also treat a lot of kind of a lot of long COVID over there now because of my own experience with that. But what's so fascinating is professionals unless they are quite sick themselves and really starting to personally prioritize that issue. They prefer to, in our experience to join a professional program and so Word of use themselves as a bit of a case study. And then they'll often become a true client of our coaching practice. But if I offer like a, you know, burnout program or something, which never works, because health professionals are are do not admit they need that support. Yes. Wow. And we've tried that probably six times in the last 15 years, and it's never worked.

25:28

Yeah. You just did a great job of describing my women's health journey.

25:33

Yeah. And so what people do is they learn the skill set. And then they bring me like a question, well, what if I had a client who, blah, blah, blah, because it's very difficult for health professionals to admit that they need support for themselves. And which is why I'm so open about the fact that I use functional medicine clinicians, I've joined health coaching and just coaching programs all the time for myself. But it's still a very difficult stigma to overcome. There's a perspective that health professionals are superhuman and shouldn't need health care, which is really fascinating. Yes,

26:14

well, and I think there's something to be said about our personality types and our learning styles. And, you know, I've been very open on the podcast about that. Where, often, if it's an area, you know, I'm more comfortable learning, processing, you know, coming at it cognitively. And then really taking it to that next level. Often it's learning, teaching, and then applying, and, you know, especially when it is work that really challenges our belief system, in many ways. And when we get into behavioral change, you know, you can't talk about behavioral change without talking about our core values and our belief systems and our upbringing. You know, that's the biggest that's been really eye opening for me in terms of functional nutrition. And in terms of this work is how deep we go. And oh, my goodness, it's certainly given me a different perspective, in terms of all the intake forms. History, but it's, you know, you're constantly peeling layers back and feeling like I'm just starting to put the pieces together, you know, I'm going to be 44 Soon, and how long I've been studying the human body and just, you know, still so far to go, this is really, truly a lifelong experiment of sorts. Yeah,

27:43

yeah, absolutely. And I do think that one of the reasons that we attract so many health professionals through our programs, but for themselves, which I think is a great way to start, because you have to meet people at their place of comfort and understanding and like core, just beliefs, otherwise, they can't hear you. Like if I start talking about some of those deeper issues. There's a resistance there's a this is not for me, this is this fully evidence base, there's a lot of resistance in many different ways. And so just like all of our clients, whether they're clinical health professionals or not, we have to meet them where they are, what's their level of motivation? What's what are their motivators? You know, what is their level of understanding? What are their belief systems, and people who have health training have a very strong prioritization of biochemistry physiology, that is difficult to we can't just like skip that we have to make sure that our training integrates that understanding with then taking it to the next level. Because the reason as you said, most people get stuck in behavior change. Is there a values conflicts? more so because people think it's things like time management, or like scheduling or, you know, they're not taking the right dose of a supplement or something like that. But they're, you know, they're on a slightly wrong diet. It's never any of that, really. But if we don't connect it to what they think it is, then people will get stuck because they won't be able to hear you until you sort of answer their current question first.

29:35

It's so true. It's so true. Let's speak for a moment about so occupational therapists and physiotherapists. I know in the OT world, there's a lot of discussion around and I'm sure similar in in physio, but with OT coaching is within our scope of practice. We just touch on it. And I say that from experience with all of the training and education Genet since then and coaching, separate from OT train my OT experiences. And so we have this conversation happening, where people are saying, well, we don't need additional training to be a coach, because we can coach it is within our scope of practice. And of course, I agree with that. But at some point, we also have to acknowledge that there's this plethora of opportunity in terms of professional development. Yeah. What are some of the benefits? So speak to me about actually becoming a certified coach, what do you see some of the benefits, because I've worked with excellent coaches who don't necessarily have a designation or certification. And I've worked with coaches who do have a designation who aren't necessarily the best coaches, like I've worked with, you know, because I've worked with a lot of coaches, in terms of my own career, my own journey. So can you speak to that? What are some of the benefits in your experience to taking that next step and becoming a certified coach?

31:03

Yeah, I think that's just true with any profession. There are people with, you know, certain letters after their name, who are not super good at what they do. There's certain people with no letters after their name, who are extremely good at what they do. And I also think that no matter the profession, that's a bit subjective, especially with something like coaching, some of it has to do with sort of how you gel like how client and coach gel it sort of like psychotherapist or even OTS PTS, like, you know, you could have the same sort of clinical knowledge and just not be the right person fit for your client or vice versa. So I think there's a lot of layers to that. But there are some very particular benefits to a practitioner for becoming certified coach. In the US particularly, there are a lot of legal and liability. Benefits, getting liability insurance is one of the main things and I would say that's probably global as well, it helps to more clearly define what you're doing with your client. So alignment of expectations, and helps set up your like legal ducks in a row in terms of your coaching agreements, and, you know, legal agreements, contracts, things like that. I also think there's a level of professionalism. So there's code of ethics, there are continuing education requirements, it's just sort of you defining yourself as a professional coach versus someone who is, you know, has a different perspective, per different profession, and is, you know, using coaching skills within that profession. That's perfectly fine. I think actually, all clinicians should have some basic coaching skills to be able to help their clients implement any recommendations, they recommend, and then do it in alignment with what that client needs. But if your core work, like how you're leading your work, so like I said, I don't ever, like take off my physical therapy brain. But no matter what, even if I were to go back into like an inpatient rehab setting, I would lead as a coach. Now I have licenses and nutrition, I have licenses and physical therapy. But my mindset for how people heal is dramatically different. When I'm seeing myself as a coach. You know, in our clinical training, there's a bit of a perspective that we have the capacity to heal people in the way that like, you would think a mechanic can fix a car, right? We just put our hands on people, we mobilize stuff, they get better. And that's dramatic oversimplification, of course, but that's never how it really works. What we're trying to do is sort of like physiologically, create space, take pressure off, improve circulation, things like that, so that the body can do its healing work. And that's a really different perspective than like me being in charge of like healing someone like I'm in charge of like putting a tire back on. Whereas with coaching, we very much start with what is this client's What did they define as healthy? Because of course, you know, my definition of healthy and their definition of healthy might be totally different. And then what is the priority of being that definition of healthy in their life? How important is that to them? And it might be dramatically different than how important it is to me. And until they are really in the driver's seat, and then we create space pays for their physiology to do the work of healing. It's just a really different experience than it's like, Okay, I'm coming to this PT or OT, they're going to assess me, they're going to tell me what I need to do, and they're going to fix it, or whatever I do is going to fix it. Versus Okay, I have to wait for a second, define what health is Get clear on my goals. Decide how much time and energy and financial resources I'm going to devote to solving this problem. And then take a holistic approach to solving this problem. Using tools from a number of different health professions is a really different thing than kind of like, well, can the OT fix me? Oh, that didn't work and the PT fix me, oh, that didn't work. Can the doctor fix me? Oh, that didn't work, you know, and just kind of doing that Western medicine perspective of like trying to find the one tool, the one modality, the one surgery, the one medication. And this could involve integrative tools to acupuncture, acupuncture, didn't work, supplements didn't work, diets didn't work. Instead, it's a whole mindset of your body and mind have the capacity for healing? Always. As long as you're alive? What do you want that to look like? And now let's open up the world of tools. And think about prioritization of those tools. Does that make sense?

36:19

It really does. And I think it speaks to in terms of coaching, and again, I can't say this for every coaching certification, but I know in your coaching certification, so much emphasis on the partnership, and really not positioning yourself as the expert and inviting your client to acknowledge their level of expertise in their own body. And that's something that so many, it's so ingrained in so many people to seek out someone who can fix them. And you know, there's a, when we are entering into a coaching relationship, there is a certain level of support of education, for lack of a better word in terms of helping people to acknowledge that and to empower them with that understanding that they do have capacity to heal themselves. And they don't have to be seeking the, you know, that magic pill or that magic practitioner who's going to fix them? And I see that a lot. Yeah, and a lot of people in a lot of healthcare professionals, you know, I just need this practitioner or or this supplement or this medication, and that's the, you know, that's the unicorn for me to finally get get healthy again. So there's a lot of, yeah, it's it's educating them in, you know, meeting them where they are, but recognizing that's a big piece of the puzzle, isn't it?

37:47

Right, and I think it's important to recognize that people on both sides of the system have been trained that way. So that's how we were also trained in our clinical education. You know, if your stuff doesn't work, refer them to an orthopedic surgeon rather than okay. What's going on with this client? You know, what is their level of desire? What are their barriers to change? What are their values, and kind of integrating all of that is a really different experience than being like, Okay, do your PT, and or you're doing your OT, and if that doesn't work? Well, I guess they'll need surgery, or I guess they'll need medication, or I guess, you know, and or even if you're doing that collaboratively, I think often we think of a multidisciplinary team, we don't think of the patient as being the leader of that team. And that has to be re educated on and kind of globally in the system. But it's also very hard for people who are professionals. And that's one of the things I think that the professionals who come to my program with the desire for self healing, really get out of it. First, you know, of course, they get tons of professional education and skills. But the first thing is like this huge mindset shift, that they have a lot of power to heal, that they didn't even know they had. And then how could they show it to their client, when they don't even know that that exists, that they have it already. It's literally like that kind of doors a moment of like, you've had it all along, click, click the red shoes together, you know. But it's a very sort of esoteric thing to understand. And that's why we have such structure in our program. You have to get there, over time, through practice, through learning through looking at the research, because we have to, you know, unwind some of the programming that we already have. And we have to really be convinced This is not just sort of like a random idea that I had, that this is based on tons and tons of research over the last several decades.

40:08

Hmm. What are your thoughts on so when uh, you know, speaking from personal experience, one of the things that so I first started the women's health coaching certification in 2016. And then 2017, we had a number of catastrophes for lack of a better word. And in 2018, really had to focus on recovery for both myself and my family. And the women's health coaching fell off of my plate, in part because I was 100% in survival mode that year. But then even in 2019, I was doing more performance coaching and business coaching for other therapists, my coaching business was growing, it was thriving, and the women's health coaching, there was that small piece, it was still on my bucket list. But who am I to do women's health coaching? When I still have so many things I have to figure out about my own health, right, that imposter syndrome that was sneaking up on me? And I know I'm not alone in feeling that way. No. And surprise, surprise, I now graduated from the program, I'm still dealing with, you know, this is part of our journey of being human, we're always going to have health stuff. And I'm recognizing that, you know, that doesn't necessarily dictate who or how I am showing up as a coach. But could you speak to that? Because I'm sure you see that a lot. I've seen it in the different retreats that I've attended as part of the women's health coaching certification, where again, that small piece, you know, if you don't have your stuff figured out, who are you to coach someone else on that? Yeah, especially when it's a chronic condition. And you know, we haven't healed ourselves. So putting that in quotations. So can you speak to that?

41:55

Yeah, I love that question. Because it is a common barrier for students to even join our program, which I think is a huge mistake, because we immediately support you because it's such a common challenge. But I think it's a barrier to people doing this important work. So I think one of the downsides, so we talk a lot about the negatives of conventional medicine, right, the siloing and, you know, medication focus and all that. But there's, there's a downside to kind of the world of holistic health as well, there's, there's some shadows there. That much of it, because it was kind of developed, in contrast to the quote unquote, sick care system, right. Like the goal is enhancing health. And everyone over here is healthy and over, everyone over here is like sick, and we're trying to get them a little better, but not to better, you know, this is sort of the dichotomy in social media in public media, that you see. And so people in more of an integrative business model are gonna be showing like before and afters and I'm so raving ly healthy that I can do this. And, and it's such an illusion. It's such an illusion. I know, hundreds of people in integrative health. And I don't know, anyone, anyone, anyone who is optimally healthy. Because what does that mean? I know many, many people who are extremely healthy. But health is a continuum. It's not like a destination. People always have work to do. People always have blind spots. And, you know, there are lots of things we just don't know, we may have way more capacity than we even think, to be more healthy. People might be ragingly healthy, and then they get in a car wreck, you know, like, or they get a infection, or they have a terribly traumatic birth experience or life experience out of the blue that was no fault of their own. And I think there's this problem with Integrative Health that I've seen more and more in the last couple of years. That, you know, if you're not doing it all, exactly, right. There's a lot of professional perfectionism in integrative health, and it's, it's shaming. It promotes stigmatization of something that's not even really very clearly defined, like, and I think it also is very aggressively ableist quite honestly, I think it's a bit ageist as well. You know, there's this whole idea of never aging or only aging in a certain way or you know, and some of this stuff So, like I said, a lot of it is an illusion. There are many ways to keep the body looking youthful and, quote unquote, optimally healthy, without being joyful without being biochemically healthy. And that illusion is a really large part of the marketing. So it's an interesting thing that I think we have to navigate in general, on all sides of health and wellness. But I think probably even more, you know, we talk, this happens in conventional medicine, too, where, you know, a doctor will be like, well, your heart is better. And then they're like, well, but yeah, but I still have this. And they're like, Well, nevermind, we don't really know what to do with that, it's probably fine. And then they just dismiss you. So I think this idea of what does it mean to be optimally healthy? And when am I healthy enough to be a health coach or a clinician? And interestingly, we don't really ask that question about being a clinician, right? Like, am I healthy enough to be a dentist? Am I healthy enough to be an OT? We don't really ask that question, which is sort of fascinating as well. Because the health care system does not prioritize the health of its workers, it's robots. Which is interesting. So you could be super unhealthy. You know, we always talk about the like, unhealthy smoking like cardiologist, that person is fine, they can do their job all day, which is super weird, actually. So I think step one is take a breath, recognize that most of this stuff is fake. And for marketing purposes, or not even so much that it's fake. It's It's It's snapshots of time. And snapshots of images that we you know, look like what might be someone's goals or achievement of goals. But in reality, there's a whole lot of gray area. So step one is if you're a practitioner, who feels like that impostor syndrome, and you're not sure if you're healthy enough to coach, you're healthy enough to be an OT, or whatever. First step back for a second and define what health means to you, because that's where we start getting really more and more clear on our own values. Because while you might be 10 pounds overweight, but you eat lots of vegetables, you have a great social life, you move your body, you have a really nice relationship with your family, you're patient with your patients, you might be far healthier than someone who's like at the perfect weight, and, you know, their hair is glowing, or whatever. And they come home from work and fight with their spouse and, you know, have stressors that we're just fully unaware of. There are so many layers of what health is involved in, that the first step is to just get really comfortable with what house looks like to you, and start with celebrating how well you're doing with your house. Because it's probably better than you think it's

48:15

so true. And just that level of awareness, you know, and self compassion, right. The more we know, the more we realize, we don't know. But kudos to us for being curious and open to exploring this journey in the first place.

48:29

Yeah, and, you know, I like to think of it not so much as a journey anymore as to, you know, a place of somewhere because like, Where the heck are we going? We're there now. It's a moment by moment experience. You're healthy now. If you're alive right now, you're healthy now, at some level. Enjoy it.

48:53

Yeah, that's a nice. I like that shift in perspective. Yeah. Jessica, what about so with the shift in you know, you and I both online before COVID has, so we've been able to, to witness this wave of practitioners moving into the online space. And I tried to just tune it out and not even look at those conversations anymore. But every now and then I still see conversations happening in the online space amongst health professionals, where, oh, if you want to work online, if you want to see clients and patients outside of your state inside of your country, you can just call yourself a coach because that's not a regulated industry. So that's a nice easy way to take on some online work where you can call yourself a coach if you're online. And then if you go back to your state, your province, you can go back to your your health care license. What words of advice or caution and now I will state who neither of us are lawyers? This is not legal advice. But when you see those types of conversations happening? Yeah, what like, what do you have to say about that? Because they're happening a lot in professional circles, not necessarily within coaching certifications, but just say on, you know, a Facebook group for OTs and PTs. Oh, if it's a wellness consultation, call it a coaching consultation, or a wellness consultation, you can target anyone and everyone and it's great. But if you're doing it, you know, within the city of New York, where you're licensed, let's call it a physio or an OT consultation. And then, you know, we can get insurance involved, and

50:37

it's covered. Yeah, I would say that that question is so complicated, because it depends on where you are, it depends on what exactly you're doing. It depends on your business model depends on your risk tolerance, it depends on your insurance, it depends on your program agreements. And I would also say that absolutely anyone who is who is working as a coach, even if it's a you know, quote, unquote, side hustle, like it's a small, secondary business or whatever. You absolutely, absolutely must have an attorney on your team. No matter how big or small your company is, now, you don't have to have a full time attorney on retainer necessarily, but you do have to have an attorney, assess your business, someone who understands scope of practice law, you know, help you write those agreements, you know, and there, like I said, there are a lot of things to consider, because most of these laws are quite vague and inconsistent. So you really have to think about what exactly is your business doing? You know, what exactly are your credentials? What exactly is the risk to yourself to your clients? You know, what are you willing to risk? So that's, that's a really complicated question. And unfortunately, it doesn't have a simple answer. Other than 100% of people who are collecting income from a coaching practice of any size or shape, must have an attorney on their team and an insurance provider as well.

52:20

Do you have any tips on so a number of my clients have sought out advice from a legal attorney? And these have often been paid consultations? Where Yeah, absolutely. They still get conflicting information from different attorneys. The reality is, this is I mean, I don't want to say it's a newer area, because at this point, it's it's, it's not that new, but it's still new enough in terms of working in the online space, that regulatory bodies, there's still some catch up happening in terms of institutions and organizations and licensing. And that's the same for attorneys. So I know that sometimes I've had coaching or consulting clients who have sought out advice from an attorney where they've received conflicting information from two different attorneys. Do you have any tips for how to seek out an attorney who you can feel confident they know what they're talking about? And that the advice the information that they're giving you is Sound Advice?

53:29

Um, well, I think of this as the exact same as getting conflicting information from to physicians or to PTS or to OTs, right? People have different professional opinions based on how they interpret the data that they're taught to interpret under their their own training. And it's, this is all humans, and it's always going to be imperfect. And that's why you have to take a little bit of stock of your risk tolerance, because ultimately, legal questions are always about a matter of mitigating risk, which can never be zero. There's risk and everything really. But you're right, the laws are inconsistent, and they're behind the technology. And that's not just in our industry, it's in many, many, many regulatory industries. And if you look at like the laws across even US states for even you know, physical therapy or nutrition license, it's highly variable even now, so I don't expect to catch up, you know, to maybe ever happen. There's a ton of inconsistency across international and local law bout everything. So I just, you know, I think consulting more than one person, getting a few pieces of a few perspectives is a good idea. I do think paying people people for Their time is really valuable because it shows that you, this is a business you're ready to step into. If you are not ready to step into what it takes to run a business, which is quite a lot, as you were well aware, I'm sure. If you are board certified as a health coach, you can get a job in health coaching. So that's another benefit of being a board certified health coach. There are great jobs in health coaching, that don't require you to do this kind of hoop jumping, because it's all more clearly defined within your role in an organization. That organization is responsible for some protection of you from a, you know, insurance standpoint and things like that. So that's I think, really, like I said, the all questions all legal questions have to do with risk mitigation, and to most mitigate risks you can mitigate it to zero is to get consultations, paid consultations, I do strongly recommend from professionals in the legal and insurance space. And then you have to make your own decisions. One of the hardest things about being a business owner in any field is you must make difficult and decisive decisions all the time. And sometimes, if not almost all the time, you're going to be wrong. And so one of my perspectives as a just a business owner for the last, you know, nearly 15 years is you you have to be comfortable making challenging decisions without having all of the information about almost everything. And sometimes it goes well, and sometimes it doesn't. But that's the creative, creative nature of business businesses not running a business is not at all the same thing as having a job. So true.

56:59

On that note, as we start to wrap this up one question or one scenario that I want to hear your your thoughts on. We know the coaching industry is booming. We know it's the second fastest growing industry, other than the IT industry, we know that there are a lot of problems, the healthcare system is broken, there are a lot of people in need. So we know coaching industry is booming. There are a lot of people in need. There are a lot of people with the power of technology, who are now seeking out support. We have a plethora of coaches across the board in every possible niche you can name. And then over here we have our OTs, and pts. But for me, OTs are front and center, who have the training and have the skill set, but yet are still struggling to find clients or build the business in the way that they want, where it's actually paying them a full time salary. What do you see are some of the disconnects there? Because I'm seeing a gap. And I have some ideas based on my work. But I'd love to hear from you. You know, where's the disconnect happening? We have the clinical skill set, we have the knowledge, we have the certifications, we have the training, and we have people who need the help. Why are so many therapists struggling to connect the dots?

58:21

Well, the simple answer to that question is you need good marketing and skill sales skills. Which we do teach in our women's health coach certification. And then you need to practice and refine. And, you know, that's why we do live calls every week and support people through these questions. I was just on one of those a couple hours ago. And so an example is kind of in my head, you know, most people are not very clear about their marketing message. You know, I like to think of that as being a really simple thing to do. But it's difficult for people to commit fully, especially from a clinical background where they're like, oh, I want to I can help everyone and this could work Yes 100% Your clinical skills will allow you to do that. But marketing skills require one core saying that's the hardest thing for all of my clinical people to accept. In one ideal client, literally one person I think of it as one literary count character. You have to know this person as well as you know, if you've read the all of the Harry Potter books, Hermione Granger, Harry Potter, you have to know your ideal client that well on from all angles, their motivations, their chunk their struggles. And what is the one problem that your your work is aiming to help them solve? Until you get clear on those two things. Now You don't have to be perfect with them because you're gonna refine them as you meet and work with people. But you have to have a clarity of of those two questions and you have a commitment to those two to like figuring out those two things over time. And then you have to do two other things. One is figure out what kind of business model you want. And stick to that. Because if you have a volume model, it's very different from if you have a kind of a bespoke private coaching model. Those are two very different businesses, and you can't do both, or unless you have a pretty big team. And then the second thing, so which business model do you want? And then you have to commit to those, that organization, what business model, what ideal client, what problem you're supporting, for at least five to 10 years, then you'll be successful. Yes.

1:00:57

Practice, practice, practice people.

1:01:00

Yeah, and many people don't have that attention span that focus. Because it's challenging, you have to learn every single time you reach out and talk, have one sales conversation with a client, or do one Launch or however you're marketing your practice. Yes, you have to think of those as a learning experience, one colleague of mine has been doing in the last couple of years, I was watching her work transition from more in the health coaching space, she's become at least emphasizing her skills as an artist. And this is a similar path, she decided that she was going to be rejected her goal for like one year was to be rejected by 100 art shows. And I think having the same perspective, like, there's a book called something like the art of asking that if you change the goal to the process, it will be easier, because you have to keep doing it, keep doing it, keep doing it. And if it doesn't matter what the outcome is, you're going to learn every time.

1:02:10

Well, and again, the you know, this concept of failing, and as entrepreneurs, you know, so many of us are type a perfectionist, and, you know, there's a reason why we do well as clinicians, but in the world of entrepreneurship, you know, when it comes to sales and marketing and making decisions that often aren't the right decisions, but then learning from that, it's a different level of, you know, we really have to swallow our ego and our pride. And now in entrepreneurship, we're not just failing, which is so hard for so many of us were failing in the public eye, which is such a different level of vulnerability and intensity, which I think comes back to both of us fully believing that as entrepreneurs, we need to have our own support system, but we need to have a community, we need to understand that we're not in an honor, you know, by ourselves, because so many of the pieces that are holding us back or keeping us up at night. No, it's not. It's not isolated to ourselves, everyone, you know, these are common issues. And when we talk about it, it takes the power away from that intensity.

1:03:16

Yeah, 100% you have to have your own support community because being an entrepreneur is challenging. But it can be really fun. It's so creative. It's there's so much opportunity. But yes, you've got to be willing to just try something that might be totally stupid. 100 different times. And, you know, one of the earliest like media things I did was I was I met, like the producer for a local news station. I had no idea what I was doing. And I kept going on this morning, you know, a news show. And it was embarrassing, it was terrible. They always like change the questions at the last minute on live TV, like, everything about it was difficult, but I kept showing up there and got better at it in a relatively low risk, you know, that's the other thing like start relatively low risk, like the the number of people that watch morning, Connecticut news, that are going to be my ideal clients. Not that many, so you can get a lot of practice. And I think to take the pressure off of your marketing, people aren't looking at your marketing as closely as you think they are. So you're going to fail 1000 times based on what you thought was the ideal outcome, but almost no one is going to notice for a really long time. Now. Obviously, you know, if you do something very offensive or something like that, it could be problematic, but the things we classify as failures are usually just Blips. Hmm. So but it's hard. You know, it's hard to see that unless you have a support network and Don't get out of kind of your own head about it because I do. Your point is well taken that this is hard to do on your own. But it can be so so fun if you are okay with looking stupid on video. Yeah, and that's really it, honestly, yeah. Yeah, gosh,

1:05:21

well, and I often joke, you know, entrepreneurship, it's equivalent to jumping off the cliff and jumping off the cliff can feel really scary. But if you're with a group of women, and you've locked arms, and you've committed and you know, you're gonna dance by the fire down the beach afterwards, and you're whooping and hollering, you can make it a fun experience, you can make it an exhilarating experience, it doesn't have to be this no petrifying scary moment. There are a lot of ways that you can make it fun. You just have to find your find your people find your community.

1:05:52

Yeah, absolutely. And that's one of the things about our certification program. It's not just like an academic checklist. It's a community of people who have done it too. And that's very inspiring to be able to be around them, and they help each other. You know, we help you but the community helps each other as well, which I think is really, really important.

1:06:13

Yes, well, you've certainly set the standard in terms of creating, you know, an intensive program in that it does check all the boxes, there's that community support the mentorship. Now, I thoroughly enjoyed my experience with my master coach to the retreats. You know, the the research it has at all, it's a very intensive program. And, yeah, thank you for the work that you're doing. It's really important work for women for professionals, you know, across the board. Yeah. It's been a pleasure being part of that experience. Thank you. I'm so glad. All right. Well, on that note, I'm being careful on the time. Thank you, again, for joining me this was, as someone who's been studying this and immersed in it for so long, even just having these conversations. There's always something to learn. And there's, you know, I really enjoyed enjoyed my time with you. And yeah, definitely gonna carry some of this forward. As I continue to learn and grow and evolve as a health coach. It's never fantastic. Yeah, absolutely. That's

1:07:18

fantastic. Yeah. Okay.

1:07:20

Take care, Jessica.

1:07:21

Thanks so much. Bye, bye.

1:07:24

All right. So that was a podcast episode, where we got to talk about all of my favorite things. So women's health, coaching, professional growth and entrepreneurship. I hope you enjoyed listening to my conversation with Jessica as much as I enjoyed interviewing her. If you're interested in knowing more about her women's health coaching certification, you can check out the link in the show notes or reach out to me directly. I'm happy to share more about my experience, and answer any questions you may have. And if you're interested in knowing more about the different programs that we have for OTS working in the coaching industry, so this could be getting started as a coach or it could be you know, if you're an experienced coach and looking for more resources and support in terms of your coaching skills, in terms of setting up your business in terms of sales and marketing. Reach out to us we have some pretty cool things on the go. So check out our programs, you can go to www dot OTS gone rogue.com forward slash coaching. As always, please go ahead and share this episode with any OT friends or colleagues. And better yet, take a few minutes to leave us a review on the podcast. It would be greatly appreciated. All right, my friends, take care. Stay warm, depending on where you are in the world. And we'll be back in a couple of weeks with our final episode of 2022. We'll talk to you soon

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, coaching, health, coach, client, business, terms, healthy, professional, ots, support, integrative health, women, work, ot, program, teaching, jessica, practice, coaching certification