Melissa LaPointe [00:00:03 - 00:00:54]
Welcome to the OTs Gone Rogue podcast. I'm your host, Melissa Lapointe. Over the years, I've worked closely with thought leaders, changemakers, and OTs who are ready for something more. And now I'm inviting you behind the curtain where you'll hear stories about overcoming adversity, challenging the status quo, and finding the courage to do things differently. Let's dive in. Hey everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the OTs Gone Rogue podcast. Today's episode is the 5th one in this 6-part miniseries where we've been doing a deeper exploration of professional development and looking into who we become through learning. In this episode, it's all about laying the groundwork for my learning plan for the year ahead.
Melissa LaPointe [00:00:54 - 00:01:36]
Not as a checklist or a set of goals, but by looking at the values, shifts, and priorities that are shaping how I learn and how I lead in this season of life. This episode isn't about sharing a finished plan. It's about the thinking underneath it. And while I'm sharing my own reflections, this isn't just about me. It's an invitation for you to reflect on your own learning. What's guiding it, what's changing, and what this season might be asking of you. My hope is that as you listen, you'll hear echoes of your own story too. So let's get started.
Melissa LaPointe [00:01:37 - 00:02:34]
Now, before I could map out any learning priorities, I had to return to something foundational: my core values. Not just my personal values, but the values that shape the company I lead. Over 5 years ago, which is wild to hear me saying that out loud, I recorded the second episode of the podcast where the focus was on the core values that were guiding my work at the time. So if you're curious, you can go back and take a listen. And even though so much has changed since then, both personally and with the business, several of those core values have stayed with us. They've remained at the forefront. But today, there are actually 2 sets of values shaping my work. There are the values that guide our company, and then there are the values that guide me as a CEO.
Melissa LaPointe [00:02:35 - 00:03:20]
They overlap, but they serve different purposes. And that distinction matters because it shapes the kind of learning plan that's actually sustainable. So let's start with the company. Three Peak Performance Group is anchored by 4 organizational values. We have integrity, which is about doing what we say we'll do, being intentional with who we partner with, and making decisions we can stand behind. Then we have connection. Relationships are at the center, collaborative, relational, deeply human work. Then we have sustainability, all about systems and programs built for the long game.
Melissa LaPointe [00:03:21 - 00:04:53]
Last but not least, we have excellence, not perfection, but continuous improvement and thoughtful iteration. Those values, they shape our culture, our programs, and the way that we collaborate with both communities and clients, but they're not the whole story because a company is shaped by the person leading it, which brings us to my CEO values, my leadership compass. As I've already mentioned, many of these values have been with me since the very beginning, but what's happened over time is that their meaning has deepened. So it's changed as my leadership, my responsibilities, and my life has evolved. Today, these are the values that guide how I show up as a leader, how I show up as a CEO, how I make decisions, set priorities, and shape my own growth alongside the company's. So the first core value is freedom. For me, this is about creative freedom, geographical freedom, autonomy over my schedule, It's about financial freedom. This is about building a business that honors where I live, my family, and the way that my brain actually works, while also helping women build real agency and independence in their own lives.
Melissa LaPointe [00:04:54 - 00:05:49]
Then we have compassion. This shows up in how I very much take to heart someone's lived experience. Taking the time to understand their history, their identity, their seasons of life. Compassion guides how I teach, how I facilitate, and how I design learning environments that respect capacity instead of pushing past it. Another value that's been with me for a long time is balance. Not balance as in doing everything evenly, But balance as discernment. It's about understanding cycles, energy, workload, life stage, and leading in a way that responds to those rhythms rather than fighting them. And then the last one is adventure.
Melissa LaPointe [00:05:51 - 00:06:35]
We get one life. I want this one to feel alive. With room for movement, travel, curiosity, and new experiences alongside the work, not postponed until I do the work. Adventure is a core value. Having that at the forefront, it reminds me that building something meaningful doesn't require sacrificing fun or joy along the way. So together, these 4 values, they form the foundation of my learning plan. So they're not abstract ideas. They're not words I have written on a sticky note.
Melissa LaPointe [00:06:36 - 00:07:56]
They very much shape how I decide, how I grow, and how I lead. And when I look back, it's clear that the way that I was once taught to approach professional development It no longer creates the right container for holding these values anymore. So let me take you back to what professional development used to look like for me. Earlier in my career, professional development meant workshops, weekend courses, certifications. I approached learning the way a lot of clinicians do: identify the gap, Do some research, pick the course, bring it to my manager for approval within our education budget, take the course, earn the continuing education hours, and repeat. It worked for a while, but as my identity shifted from clinician to coach, from full-time employee to full-time entrepreneur, from educator to leader, That model stopped being enough. So a weekend course was just skimming the surface. It didn't match the nuance of my work or the realities of leadership and capacity.
Melissa LaPointe [00:07:58 - 00:08:42]
What I needed at that point, it wasn't more information, it was integration. Because learning for me at this point, it's beyond something that I need to complete. It's very much something I embrace, something that I live. And that shift from compliance to meaning, that's what opened the door to the learning plan that I'm about to share. So when I first sat down to map out my learning plan, I wrote down what had been percolating. So within 20 minutes, you know, I'd been doing these brain dumps, I'd been giving a lot of thought to this. It was part of my final assignment. And it's something that I naturally do this time of year.
Melissa LaPointe [00:08:43 - 00:09:18]
So at the time of this recording, we're getting into late November, early December. So I had these 6 big goals written down on the page. I was feeling pretty lit up, pretty excited. And then I stepped away. And later that evening, I came back to this list and I looked at it. And that's when I felt some resistance. I could easily see that familiar pattern that was showing up again, where I was setting the bar really high. I was being very ambitious and I was trying to carry too much.
Melissa LaPointe [00:09:20 - 00:10:30]
So instead of pushing through, I caught myself. I was able to take a step back and look at this plan through the lens of seasonality. I ask myself, where is my energy going right now? What does my family need? What do I need in terms of self-care, in terms of my own personal health? What is my team holding? What are we building right now? And what are our communities actually asking for? And with that reflection, The plan shifted again. So 3 of the goals that were on that list, so I had these 6 amazing goals, super excited, and I was able to see that 3 of them weren't wrong. They just weren't the right timing or they weren't in the best format. So one of those goals, it needed to move to 2027. One of those goals I shifted, so it became a shared initiative with my operations manager. And one of those goals, I realized it needed to change form entirely.
Melissa LaPointe [00:10:32 - 00:11:16]
So what I identified was that in this upcoming year, I don't want more formal training. So outside of my master's program, so I have my courses for my master's program, but outside of that, I didn't want business coaching. I didn't want to be in a business program. I may still— so I have a number of mentors and I'll speak to that here in a moment. Actually, no, I'm going to speak to that more next week when I get into the logistics of my learning plan. But I wasn't looking for another curriculum or another framework to absorb. What I really want for this next year is accountability and implementation. I want perspective.
Melissa LaPointe [00:11:17 - 00:12:17]
I also want more in-person conversation. So time in shared physical spaces. I want to travel more, sometimes to learn, sometimes to teach and facilitate, sometimes just to be in rooms where meaningful work is happening in real life. And having that realization, that light bulb moment, it mattered. Not because it added something new to my learning plan, but because it clarified how I want the learning plan to fit into the life and the business that I'm building. So with the values and my season in life, both firmly in view, 4 learning priorities emerged. So again, these weren't tasks, these weren't goals, but these were commitments that I was highlighting on my learning plan. The first learning priority is stepping into a new level of leadership.
Melissa LaPointe [00:12:18 - 00:13:06]
And in this season, leadership isn't about doing more. It's about holding more— more complexity, more people, more responsibility. It asks for steadier decision-making, for deeper relational capacity. And for clearer communication, especially when things are changing, evolving, and feel uncertain. I'm not chasing performance or seeking validation. I want to lean in and become the leader who can guide this company sustainably. The second learning priority is around deepening my work in facilitation and program design. So this is a return to the heart of what I do.
Melissa LaPointe [00:13:07 - 00:14:07]
This is about refining how I hold groups, how I design learning that's safe and challenging and genuinely transformative. And it's legacy work too, because part of what we're working on behind the scenes is preparing to mentor other facilitators, other coaches who can come in and carry this work forward with the same care and integrity. The 3rd learning priority is focused on money. So more specifically, it's focused on financial literacy and financial empowerment for women. So many therapists in our community are deeply skilled. They are highly educated, and they're often underpaid, not because they lack value, but because they were never encouraged to really lean into their money stories. Mm-hmm. and question what society often tells us to consider in terms of valuing our time and our self-worth.
Melissa LaPointe [00:14:08 - 00:15:20]
Instead, many of us inherited these unspoken rules that our work as healthcare professionals shouldn't be tied to profit, that charging more requires justification, that wanting financial stability or financial freedom is somehow at odds with integrity. And those stories, they don't just affect income. They shape how women lead, how they make decisions, how much risk they're willing to take, and how long they can stay in work they actually care about. So this learning priority, it's about going deep. It's about not just going deep, but going deeper into the intersection of financial literacy and money psychology in a grounded, values-aligned way. And then it's about bringing that back into our programming. Because when women have financial agency, they lead differently. They make decisions from a place of stability and abundance rather than scarcity.
Melissa LaPointe [00:15:21 - 00:16:06]
They generate wealth. They look after their families, And they give back to their communities. All right. The 4th and final learning priority that I identified so that I'm committing to in this next year is around sustainable systems and operational capacity. This is the through line in everything right now for us. Vision and creativity, they don't matter if the systems underneath can't support them. So this learning priority, it is all about workflows, communication rhythms, and infrastructure that can hold growth over time. And it's in collaboration with my operations manager and my leadership team.
Melissa LaPointe [00:16:06 - 00:16:44]
So I'm not carrying this one solely on my own shoulders. And I want to highlight that it's not systems for productivity's sake. It's systems that support the people doing the work. It's systems that support the impact we're able to have. Because I don't wanna grow just to be bigger. I wanna build something with depth, longevity, and legacy beyond me. So as I bring this episode to a close, I wanna name something important. This learning plan, it isn't about becoming someone different.
Melissa LaPointe [00:16:45 - 00:17:54]
It's about becoming more of who I already am with greater clarity, Courage, and capacity. Professional growth isn't linear. It's layered, contextual, relational, and deeply human. And when we stop treating learning as something we acquire and instead start seeing it as something we live, the whole thing changes. As I move into these priorities, As I'm leaning into leadership, facilitation and program design, financial empowerment, and sustainable systems, I'm holding them with openness rather than urgency. Again, not as a checklist, not as a performance, but as an expression of the leader and educator that I'm becoming. My hope is that something in today's episode sparked a reflection for you, a shift that's been building, or the That your learning plan isn't just about skills. It's not just about capacity.
Melissa LaPointe [00:17:54 - 00:18:31]
It's about identity. It's about who you are and who you're becoming. So coming up next, we have the final episode of this miniseries where I'm continuing to pull back the curtain on the second part of my learning plan. So we will look at how a learning plan actually takes shape. So how this pathway develops. Especially when your work is multidimensional, your capacity is finite, and your identity is evolving. All right, that's it for today. Thank you for being here.
Melissa LaPointe [00:18:32 - 00:18:34]
Thank you for listening. Take care, everyone.
