Working with Depression and Anxiety

Visit Jeanne at: https://insightmadison.com/

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You have found Authentic Business Adventures,

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the business program that brings you
the struggle stories and triumphant

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successes of business owners across the land.

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We are locally underwritten by the Bank

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of Sun Prairie. My name is James Kademan,
entrepreneur, author,

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speaker, and helpful coach to small
business owners across the country.

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And today we are welcoming/preparing

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to learn from
Jeanne Kolker, the owner,

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founder, super awesome person, I suppose,
at Insight Counseling and Wellness.

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And today we’re talking specifically

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to Jeanne about business as well as all
the changes that have happened

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in her industry
over the course of that crazy pandemic.

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So, Jeanne, how are you doing today?

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Well, I’m doing pretty well.

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Thanks, James, and thanks for having me.

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It’s great to talk about this stuff.

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Anytime I can have a platform to talk

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about and to normalize mental
health care, I am all over it.

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Nice.

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So let’s start Insight
Counseling and Wellness.

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Let’s say January

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2020, just to give people foundation,
how many therapists did you have?

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That’s a great question.

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Just ball-park.
Yeah.

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So I would say we were probably

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in the teens at that point,
probably somewhere in the 12 to 15 range.

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Okay.
And now today we’re talking January 23.

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Yes, a lot more.

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So in the 20s for sure.

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So our business
is unique in the mental health

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clinic world that we have a couple
of different parts of our business.

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We have our mental health therapists.

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We also have case managers who work for a
county program and then we also have

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more of a holistic wellness side with
yoga therapists and body centered folks.

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So as a whole, Insight has grown from
2020, and I didn’t even look this up,

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but it was probably maxed at 20 people,
and now we’re double that.

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So we have doubled in the last.
Couple of years.

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Over the course of a couple of years.

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And was that the trajectory that you were
on? Let’s say 2018 to 2020?

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No, I had no idea
that this was going to happen.

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I started Insight, just me
just trying to figure it out.

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And a couple of other therapists that I
coaxed along and

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brought them on because it’s a really
hard thing to do on your own.

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To just…
Oh, I bet.

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To provide mental health care is a very

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challenging, fatiguing,
high burnout field.

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And then to try to do it yourself

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and figure it out just out of my
master’s program, I needed help.

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So I had a few people and there was

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probably five of us, a group
of five that really started it.

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Just
in one room, just trying to figure it out.

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And this was in the days when

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if you’re going to do therapy,
you had to have a room.

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Sure.
Back in the day.

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Back in the day, actually had
to have real estate for people.

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So we were sharing and then

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we’d add a room the next year, we’d expand
our lease the next year, that sort of stuff.

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And when the pandemic hit, we were
planning a new building to move into.

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And at that point, there was only so many

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people that I could
hire that we could have providing

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services because
we needed to have a room with a door

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that would close where you could
do psychotherapy.

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We had planned this

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new building that we were working with
a landlord and an architect on.

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It had, there was a threshold.

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We could only have so many people

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because there’s only so many
rooms with doors in a clinic.

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Then January 2020, February,
March, the world changed.

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A little bit.

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Yeah, a little bit.

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One of the only bright sides is that

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there’s less need now for all those
rooms with doors to do therapy.

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Not because the volume of clients is going

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down, but because
telehealth is now a thing.

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Yes.
So

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if we get in our time machine and go back
to March 2020, I have a lot of emails that

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I can go back and read
and get re-triggered.

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But it was very uncertain.

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Telehealth had existed.

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Telemedicine doctors had been doing this,

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but it was definitely the exception
rather than the rule.

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And insurance
companies were not forthcoming about what

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they would pay, whether they would
pay for it, if they would cover it.

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And we’re looking And we take Medicaid.

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We’re a DHS certified clinic through
the state government.

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We get Medicaid money from the federal,
the state, the county level.

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You know how it is to try to in to figure
out what government is going to do next.

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Right.
So it was just like…

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And they don’t know.
No, they didn’t.

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And it was just a lot of pivoting,
like, can we do this?

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Obviously, our clients come first.

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So for those first couple of weeks when I

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was telling people to stay
home, triage, see if…

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Do you need to call your clients?

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Do you need to do phone sessions?

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We might not get paid for them.
Who cares?

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Make sure everybody’s okay.
All right.

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Solve the problem.

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Yes, exactly.

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Make sure they know we’re
still here for them.

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We’re going through this, too.

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But it’s so interesting, the timing.

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The universe was really on our side
with this because in January of 2020,

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we finally modernized and moved
to electronic health records.

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Before that, we were just pen and paper.
We just had our medical paper.

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January of 2020?
Yeah.

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Wow.
That was lucky.

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It was lucky.

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We moved everybody into electronic health
records, did all the training,

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and my staff was amazing in learning
and teaching and how to to do that.

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And we got everybody on board in February.

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So we had a big learning curve.

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We’re just figuring this out.

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And then all of a sudden, we have
to learn how to do telehealth, too.

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Not knowing if we’re going to get paid,
not knowing how to do it.

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But again, we have to think about what
do our clients need?

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So we figured it out.

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It was an interesting transition
to go from in person to telehealth.

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I bet.

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It’s interesting.

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I guess there’s a million
different facets, right?

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But there’s the technological,

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what do we use as software
or platform for telehealth?

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There’s also the, hey,
I can see you from the neck up now,

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where before I used to see
your whole body language.

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A lot of the small talk instead of,
hey, how’s your day going?

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It’s like, Oh, is your mic on?

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The

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user,
I guess the client, you have to make sure

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that they have equipment,
laptop, tablet, phone, whatever.

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And I imagine you have to make sure…

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I don’t know if you ever had to deal
with black screens instead of.

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Just like, Oh, absolutely.

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Yeah.

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There’s.

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All that on top of just the challenge
of helping people in general.

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Yes. i did before that.
Right.

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And we are, like I said,
high burnout field.

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It’s a really challenging
work environment when we’re in person.

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But we were going through the
fear of the pandemic, too.

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I mean, we’re an anxious bunch.

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We therapists, we really are.

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And it was a scary time.

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So we’re trying to manage our
own experience while also…

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Because what am I going to say?
Oh, it’s going to be okay.

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Well, you never say that, first of all,

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because You never know if
it’s going to be okay.

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Sure.

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Did not feel like it was going to be okay
in March 2020.

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No, it felt like the world was ending.
Yeah, it did.

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Or at least, yeah, appending, I guess.

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So let’s start with the technical side,
the software platform, whatever.

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Did you say, hey, we’re jumping
on Zoom just like half the world did?

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Or was there a specific therapist?

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I don’t know if they got involved or.
Anything like that.

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Yes.
Well, of course, it has to get involved.

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Yeah. i mean, it’s a little bit in the
weeds, but I can tell you more about it.

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So we switched to this electronic health
records, which is just a web based…

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It’s called Simple Practice.
It’s a lot of therapists use it.

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It’s made for mental health clinics.

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And it’s where we keep all of our records.

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It’s HIPAA compliant,
and it has a telehealth feature.

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Oh, it does?
Oh, yeah.

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Holy lucky.
I know.

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We hadn’t activated it because
I was like, 10 bucks a month.

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Why would I do that?

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Then suddenly I’m like,
activate, activate.

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So we had to learn how to do it.

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But then I also had to get Zoom
for a lot of my staff, too.

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Like I said, the case management,
they don’t use electronic health records

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because they’re not
providing psychotherapy.

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But they had meet with their clients.

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They had to do meetings
with their clients and providers.

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So yes, I’m trying to get Zoom.

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Trying to get customer
service from Zoom at that point.

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Oh, it didn’t exist.
It was a real challenge.

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Yeah, I remember an email I got back

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from a customer service rep,
and they were like, I’m not sure if you’re

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aware, but we’re in the middle of a global
pandemic, so wait times are a lot longer.

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I was like, Oh, I’m not aware.
Oh, there are months.

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I wasn’t aware of that.
And it wasn’t that I needed…

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Yeah, right.
The only thing I…

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Yeah, right?
The only thing I needed was

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the business associate agreement to make
sure that it was HIPAA compliant.

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I just kept
hammering that out to make sure I had

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that because
I was not going to risk our status

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with Medicaid by using something
that was not HIPAA compliant.

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So I had to get all that stuff in place.

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It’s like with owning a business,

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you have to learn an entirely new thing,
I don’t know, every few months.

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Yeah.

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Zoom was interesting that time
because I feel like it was just this

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seed of the pants company with the ping
pong tables and whatever junk like that.

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And all of a sudden they actually
had to work and they’re just like.

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Whoa, customers.

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We didn’t expect customers.

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No ping pong, get to work.
Right.

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And look at us, we’re on Zoom right now.

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We’re still using Zoom.

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Yeah, here we are.

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I still have 40 licenses for Zoom.

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And on top of having the electronic health

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records telehealth, just because
this is how we communicate now.

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There’s a much bigger
movement now to be in person.

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A lot of people are really craving that.
Oh, my gosh.

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It’s been good.
A thousand times over.

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But some people got really
used to telehealth.

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I imagine there’s a convenience to it.

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This is pure speculation.

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So you tell me if I’m totally wrong.

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But I would imagine there are some people

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that feel safer
from a telehealth therapist.

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Absolutely.

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You and I, James, right now, I’m sitting
in my house with a cat on my lap.

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This is very regulating for me.

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Hopefully,
we don’t talk about my trauma today,

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but if we were digging into some stuff,
this would be very regulating for me.

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I’d feel really safe and protected here.

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That has been the experience
for a lot of people.

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It also seems to me like it would numb…

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Numb is the wrong word.

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It would regulate
some of the communication.

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I think of being at a live concert
versus watching a concert on TV.

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Watching on TV is cool,
but being at a concert is way cooler.

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Right.

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And for some people, they need
that interpersonal connection.

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They need to be in person.

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We have a couple of therapists at Insight

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who I’d say 75 % of their
folks come in person.

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Because they.

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Just feel more

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connected said
that there’s more of a therapeutic

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alliance, that they can
be more vulnerable in that space.

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Because think about what
the home life can be.

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And this was a big challenge
at the beginning of the pandemic

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because not everybody has a safe
place with a sweet cat on their lap.

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All right.
So coming to therapy is an escape almost.

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It is.

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Or maybe it’s not safe if there was

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an environment where
there was domestic violence.

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There could be an inability to
talk honestly, to even be in therapy.

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Sure.
Hey, abusive spouse, settle down.

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I’m in therapy.
Probably doesn’t go so well.

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No.

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And so that was a really scary
part of the pandemic.

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But also on the lighter side,
it was everybody was stuck home with their

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kids, so that they’d get
interrupted every three minutes.

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Dogs are barking in the background.

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I
did so many sessions with people in their

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cars just sitting in their driveway
trying to get some privacy.

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Because that was what they had for
a safe place or private quiet space.

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Yes, obviously they were not driving

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around their parked,
but that bundled up in the winter,

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I’ve done lots of those sessions because
that’s where people could get privacy.

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So there’s just so much to consider
when you think about telehealth.

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Was there ever a technical challenge
with people that just weren’t?

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I mean, I just imagine my dad, who’s
a older gentleman,

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when we meet on Zoom with him,
that’s every time it’s an event.

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Every time.
You’re on mute.

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I can’t hear you.
Yeah.

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Click the link.

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It’s every time.

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I can imagine in if there’s some anxiety

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because they’re going
to therapy or whatever.

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And the one roadblock is whatever

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technical challenge that they have,
whether it’s self inflicted or not.

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True.

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And so there’s those more
funny anecdotes around that.

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But then there’s also
an issue of access too.

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Not everybody has a smartphone.

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Not everybody who we treat
is able to download the forms,

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the consent forms, sign them and send them
back because they don’t have a laptop.

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We had to really work to overcome barriers
to access for some of our people.

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Interesting.

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Was that something like you had to hire
someone on, or did you have somebody

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on your staff that just figured it out,
or how did you work that?

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Yeah.
Well, we were all pretty much in charge

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of our own caseload, so we would
look at and see.

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We’d be able to communicate.

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We always, well, we have an answering
service that can do some calling for us.

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We email a lot with our clients
and just communicate that way and make

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sure that we’re able to meet
them where they are.

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And sometimes phone sessions were
the way that we reached people.

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And that was something
that Medicaid had to approve.

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And that was another big issue.

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And typically phone sessions were
not approved until the pandemic.

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So there was a temporary waiver

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and variance and all sorts of fun
stuff that I got to learn about.

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But

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in this time since then, I do think access
to psychotherapy has definitely improved.

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All right.
Well, that’s good.

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That’s very good.

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Tell me about the timeline from the time
that the government, whichever government,

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I guess, said, hey, funny story,
no more in person stuff,

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to the time that Medicaid, as an example,
said, Hey, this is the way around that.

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It was probably two,
three weeks to a month where we were.

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Oh, it was?
Yeah.

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I was calling all my therapist friends

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because networking, you have
a lot of people in your network.

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And we’d share, here’s an email you can

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send to the governor,
to your Alder person.

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And so we were really advocating

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to make sure that telehealth was
approved and included.

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And it did end up that it was…

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That we were able to go back and bill

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for those sessions where we weren’t
sure we didn’t know if we’d be able to.

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But there was a few weeks of just real
uncertainty there.

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I didn’t know if the business
was going to…

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Who knew?
We didn’t know.

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We didn’t know.
We didn’t know.

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I can definitely remember talking
a few of our clients off the ledge.

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And in the end, I guess I
felt I don’t know.

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It’s interesting because it was very

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interesting to see how different
people reacted very differently

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to the same information or just like,
Hey, this is what’s happening.

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How do you react?

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It’s the whole it’s not the facts,
it’s the reaction to the facts.

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And some people are just
like, B oard the doors.

[00:16:50.410]
And other people are like, Ain’t no thing.

[00:16:52.810]
This will be done tomorrow.

[00:16:56.040]
And figuring out

[00:16:57.520]
just different entrepreneurs,
how they were treating their business,

[00:17:00.800]
how different people treated their
employees good or bad,

[00:17:03.130]
how, I guess, the people, I guess,
talking about leaders and followers,

[00:17:07.190]
seeing who was
doing what they could to take charge

[00:17:10.770]
of their little part of the world
and lead their crew and others are just

[00:17:16.770]
what I would consider
cowering in fear, I guess.

[00:17:21.480]
Or maybe it wasn’t even fear.

[00:17:22.910]
Cowering in uncertainty,

[00:17:25.240]
I think, where they’re just like,
I’m just going to be in the fetal position

[00:17:27.930]
in the corner and wait till somebody
tells me it’s safe to come out.

[00:17:31.770]
I can understand that reaction totally.

[00:17:36.320]
And it’s a life threat, first of all.

[00:17:38.530]
And then it’s your livelihood.

[00:17:41.170]
It can just get you in that frozen state
of, Okay, no, I guess it’s all over.

[00:17:47.890]
Maybe it’s all over.

[00:17:50.360]
Well, you’ve had me on before,

[00:17:51.990]
and I talked about how
our offices caught fire in 2018.

[00:17:56.450]
We had this big fire event when telehealth

[00:17:58.800]
didn’t exist and I thought,
well, this is it.

[00:18:01.400]
I don’t know how we’re going to do.
All right.

[00:18:03.230]
Well, we had a good run
a couple of years, right?

[00:18:05.750]
And then we just got back,
got our groove back in 2019.

[00:18:11.800]
I was feeling so good.

[00:18:13.450]
And then the pandemic hit,
and I was like, are you kidding me?

[00:18:17.720]
You really have to believe in the mission.

[00:18:22.560]
And I’d love to say, well,
just trust the universe.

[00:18:24.830]
No, you had to really make some quick
decisions and be really thoughtful.

[00:18:29.800]
I.

[00:18:31.480]
Didn’t have a crystal ball,
but I had to pretend that I did.

[00:18:34.970]
Fortune favors the bold, right?
Yeah, exactly.

[00:18:37.640]
You’re not.
Going to failure the.

[00:18:39.730]
Cowards, right?
No.

[00:18:41.450]
And that’s one of the things that we
ended up hiring a lot of people because

[00:18:46.720]
I no longer needed to buy them an office
chair and a couch and all that stuff.

[00:18:52.010]
Oh, so the financial investment of a,
I want to say tech, of a therapist.

[00:18:58.080]
Yeah.
Sorry, that’s my old world. Well,

[00:19:00.310]
the therapist wasn’t as extreme as it was
when they were remote.

[00:19:05.160]
I wasn’t as worried about
finding a place for them.

[00:19:07.590]
I mean, of course, I’m still paying rent

[00:19:09.630]
at all my offices throughout this whole
thing, and none of our expenses,

[00:19:14.560]
the only thing is I
didn’t buy as much toilet.

[00:19:18.320]
Paper.
Snacks and water for people.

[00:19:21.170]
So there’s a few good things.

[00:19:23.070]
But I made sure people had
the technology they needed.

[00:19:27.440]
Who needs air pods?
Who needs a webcam?

[00:19:30.270]
We took care of all that stuff, but

[00:19:33.970]
really, people could stay
home and see clients.

[00:19:38.000]
I remember the webcam shortage.

[00:19:39.440]
I just remembered that when I was having

[00:19:41.110]
to send webcams to agents
and I was $80 for a webcam?

[00:19:46.710]
That was 20 a month ago.

[00:19:49.080]
I know.

[00:19:51.320]
Do you remember how
much it cost to just buy wipes?

[00:19:55.550]
Like, Clorox wipes, too.

[00:19:57.560]
I could not get my hands on them.

[00:19:59.070]
I think I paid $200
once for two containers of wipes.

[00:20:02.650]
Oh, my gosh.
Because I still had

[00:20:06.040]
somebody coming into the office to do
some work, and boy, that was a wild time.

[00:20:12.800]
Yeah.
Oh, my gosh.

[00:20:13.670]
I forgot about that.

[00:20:16.650]
It’s funny, you mentioned
the word triggers.

[00:20:18.840]
Yeah, absolutely.

[00:20:19.990]
Forget about that.

[00:20:21.530]
So you got the people, the therapist,
all that stuff remote figured out.

[00:20:28.210]
Everything’s hunky dory.

[00:20:29.690]
You got clients.

[00:20:30.920]
I guess, did you end up losing any clients

[00:20:32.770]
just out of either fear or they didn’t
know what to do or anything like that?

[00:20:37.800]
Very few.
I mean, there were a couple of people

[00:20:39.800]
who said, I’ll wait till
we can be back in person.

[00:20:43.490]
It was a couple of years.

[00:20:47.080]
I don’t know if they ever
came back, honestly.

[00:20:52.360]
But no, we definitely saw an uptick
in people seeking services.

[00:20:58.280]
All right.

[00:20:59.600]
So So tell me about that,

[00:21:01.840]
because that is still one of those things
that I can understand

[00:21:07.360]
to a point, but I have
a hard time wrapping my head around it.

[00:21:11.560]
Around the need for a therapist?

[00:21:14.510]
Around the uptick because it was like…
Oh.

[00:21:20.200]
Yes.
Like a psycho uptick.

[00:21:22.240]
Yes.

[00:21:23.680]
I guess maybe that’s
the wrong word to use.

[00:21:25.470]
I was about to call you out, but you did.
It yourself.

[00:21:29.080]
James, come on.
I got.

[00:21:30.520]
A little heart attack.

[00:21:31.560]
Full sensitivity, yes.

[00:21:33.010]
Honestly, it normalized
anxiety, depression, mood disorders,

[00:21:38.450]
and we were all experiencing this
unseen threat.

[00:21:44.840]
Our nervous systems
were all on high alert.

[00:21:48.400]
We couldn’t see what was happening.

[00:21:49.800]
We did not feel cared
for by our government.

[00:21:51.600]
I hope I can speak for other people.

[00:21:55.810]
It was chaos.

[00:21:58.200]
It really did feel apocalyptic in my mind.

[00:22:02.800]
Now we’re anxious about this.
We’re depressed.

[00:22:05.390]
We’re at home.

[00:22:07.600]
What do we do to cope?

[00:22:09.410]
Well, we start drinking, using drugs,
coping with food, video game.

[00:22:14.470]
We turn to our soothing things, which can
also be addictive and damaging things.

[00:22:22.280]
Makes.
It worse.

[00:22:23.410]
Yeah, makes it worse.

[00:22:24.600]
And then our relationship suffer.

[00:22:26.910]
We’re stuck at home
with our kids, our family.

[00:22:29.730]
Maybe then things start to…

[00:22:33.170]
Things that we’ve been able to just

[00:22:35.600]
limp along and get by suddenly the
volume is turned way up

[00:22:41.320]
on some of the dysfunction
that’s happening in our lives.

[00:22:45.010]
So I think that had a lot
to do with the uptick.

[00:22:48.150]
And then there was just a lot
more talk about mental health.

[00:22:51.210]
And I think that, and again,

[00:22:53.990]
maybe it’s just because of who I
follow on Instagram

[00:22:57.530]
and that stuff that I see people talking
about it a lot more, that normalized it.

[00:23:05.920]
More people were willing to reach out.

[00:23:08.010]
Before, was it taboo?

[00:23:09.710]
Or what do you mean normalized?

[00:23:11.530]
Well, there’s still a mental
health stigma, unfortunately.

[00:23:15.050]
I think it’s much better than it was in

[00:23:19.080]
2018, 2019 because we have
gone through this thing.

[00:23:22.930]
We witnessed collective trauma.

[00:23:25.550]
We saw what it looked like on TV.

[00:23:30.600]
Luckily, it was just on TV.

[00:23:32.030]
You saw bodies stacked up in refrigerated

[00:23:34.930]
trucks because the morgues could not
hold them because of the COVID pandemic.

[00:23:40.570]
So we saw that on TV.

[00:23:41.760]
That’s vicarious
trauma that we’re experiencing while we’re

[00:23:44.120]
still experiencing that threat
before we had vaccines.

[00:23:48.050]
And then you consider the folks
on the front lines, so nurses, doctors,

[00:23:52.360]
EMTs, police officers, restaurant workers,
grocery store workers, who were constantly

[00:23:58.010]
in the in that space of
potentially getting sick.

[00:24:03.690]
And then those in the hospitals
and clinics who were actually having

[00:24:08.970]
to watch people die without their family
around

[00:24:13.880]
and folks in nursing homes and assisted
living with their families locked out.

[00:24:17.190]
They couldn’t see them for a year.

[00:24:19.590]
I mean, the trauma is truly
immeasurable what we went through.

[00:24:26.410]
And I think
that it’ll be so interesting to see

[00:24:30.450]
studies in the next few years on
what this did to us as a society.

[00:24:34.650]
Oh, the follow up.
Yeah.

[00:24:36.950]
It’s interesting you
mentioned the hospital thing.

[00:24:39.750]
My dad, during that time, had a stroke,

[00:24:42.690]
and so he’s in the hospital,
and he can only have one visitor a day.

[00:24:47.280]
And my sister was
essentially taken care of.

[00:24:51.440]
So she’s in the hospital, so we drive up.

[00:24:54.080]
We can’t be in the hospital.

[00:24:55.230]
So we go, he’s on the first floor room.

[00:24:58.810]
So we go and find his window and we’re

[00:25:01.080]
talking on the phone
with him on speaker phone.

[00:25:03.930]
And the hospital has some little guard
come out and be like, he can’t be here.

[00:25:08.360]
Oh.
No.

[00:25:09.710]
Well, you won’t let us be inside.

[00:25:11.840]
Right.

[00:25:14.440]
So e’re going to hang out.

[00:25:16.360]
Call the police on.

[00:25:20.960]
Us.
For real.

[00:25:21.830]
But it’s one of those, really, dude,
this is your big problem.

[00:25:25.630]
So it was interesting.

[00:25:27.270]
That had to be hard.

[00:25:28.600]
Yeah, it was just an interesting like,
This is dumb.

[00:25:31.490]
This is so dumb.

[00:25:33.730]
Because there wasn’t an alternative

[00:25:36.570]
that hospitals or clinics put in place
to say like, hey, you can’t be in person

[00:25:41.440]
with this person that’s having
a rough time in the hospital.

[00:25:43.320]
Instead of that, you can do X.

[00:25:46.490]
Hanging out outside the window
clearly was not an option.

[00:25:49.480]
Which is so strange because I know
a lot of places did allow that.

[00:25:52.560]
Maybe, I don’t know,
hospitals may have had.

[00:25:54.560]
Different protocols.
Who knows?

[00:25:55.520]
Whatever.

[00:25:55.920]
It was the mall cop
that I had to deal with.

[00:25:57.930]
So whatever. I’m sure he’s
got problems of his own.

[00:26:03.930]
Yes, I’m sure he does.

[00:26:06.520]
It was just an interesting
thing because I can only imagine…

[00:26:10.930]
That was a short lived stint at my dad’s

[00:26:13.430]
in the hospital, but I can imagine
you got a wife giving birth or something

[00:26:18.080]
like that, or other things that are
what I would consider to be higher level

[00:26:22.030]
where it would normally be like,
Yeah, I got to be by their side.

[00:26:26.080]
And someone to tell you that you

[00:26:27.690]
can’t, it’s got to be
very challenging to accept.

[00:26:32.810]
Extremely challenging to accept.
Yes.

[00:26:35.840]
And we saw a big uptick
in need for services.

[00:26:41.120]
And I’ve heard that story
times 10, with much higher stakes.

[00:26:47.550]
Yeah, I imagine.
Yeah.

[00:26:49.390]
So then that’s a trauma that
people need to work through.

[00:26:54.390]
I mean, if you just shove that down,

[00:26:56.930]
it’s going to find a way out at some
point, the pain of what we went through.

[00:27:02.800]
And of course, it was very individual,

[00:27:04.230]
but also there was something, too, about
like, Well, we’re all experiencing this.

[00:27:09.960]
So again, that’s another way that it’s

[00:27:11.670]
like, Well, this is normal to feel
pain, depression, anxiety.

[00:27:18.450]
And it’s also a good thing
to talk about that with somebody.

[00:27:23.440]
Yeah, it’s interesting because even

[00:27:24.510]
on the podcast, I remember, I
don’t know, let’s call it

[00:27:31.520]
July, maybe August
22, where I’m like, Don’t say

[00:27:38.320]
pandemic, don’t mention COVID,
don’t mention any of that.

[00:27:41.170]
It’s in the past.

[00:27:42.470]
Move on with your life.

[00:27:44.290]
And it’s very difficult to do that because
it altered business along with people

[00:27:50.530]
in such a way that you
couldn’t not talk about it.

[00:27:53.800]
But it’s like, I don’t want to…

[00:27:55.080]
Don’t say the word pivot, just
move the tab answer on that.

[00:28:01.770]
That was the word of 2020, right?

[00:28:03.790]
It should have been pivoting.
Yeah.

[00:28:07.310]
And we’re still dealing with it.

[00:28:09.240]
That’s the thing that we talk about all

[00:28:10.550]
the time is we went through
the whole vaccine thing, too.

[00:28:14.120]
Do we know our employees are all expected

[00:28:17.400]
to be vaccinated, but is that something
now that we continue to…

[00:28:20.400]
Is that the line that we hold?

[00:28:21.470]
What does fully vaccinated mean?

[00:28:25.200]
We do groups, we have yoga classes.

[00:28:27.150]
Do we let people in there
who are unvaccinated?

[00:28:33.250]
We’re still
talking about how to manage that.

[00:28:37.730]
Still?
Mm.

[00:28:38.720]
All right.
Because I imagine there’s people on both

[00:28:41.210]
sides, whether vaccine or no vaccine or
6 feet or whatever.

[00:28:47.160]
I don’t know.
Not mask, all this insert challenge here.

[00:28:51.920]
Exactly.

[00:28:52.350]
And the guidelines haven’t exactly
been crystal clear, as you know.

[00:28:56.280]
Right.
I don’t know if they ever were.

[00:28:58.720]
No.
And that’s where you and I as business

[00:29:00.650]
owners, then have to make
difficult decisions about that.

[00:29:03.720]
And ultimately, it’s about
protecting the greater good for us because

[00:29:06.530]
we are a mental health clinic and we serve
vulnerable populations.

[00:29:12.080]
For our groups and yoga classes,
vaccines are required.

[00:29:17.880]
That’s something that we went
back and forth on

[00:29:21.810]
because we have to think about also not
denying services to people, too.

[00:29:27.930]
Again, that’s where
telehealth can come in.

[00:29:31.690]
Does there where you offer vaccinated
yoga and non vaccinated yoga?

[00:29:35.970]
No, our yoga studio is…

[00:29:37.630]
If you want to come to class, it is Vax
only, and we’re still holding to that.

[00:29:43.120]
But we do one on one with people.

[00:29:46.810]
If maybe group isn’t accessible to

[00:29:50.600]
somebody who is not vaccinated,
we don’t deny them services.

[00:29:54.810]
We continue to serve just maybe
via telehealth or individually.

[00:29:58.770]
But then again, I’ve got a staff of 38,
some people, and sometimes they say,

[00:30:04.800]
I don’t want to be in a room with somebody
who’s not vaccinated or not mask.

[00:30:08.070]
Then I have to have that conversation

[00:30:11.170]
as an employer
because you want to make sure that people

[00:30:14.110]
are feeling that their
health is being protected.

[00:30:19.520]
Speaking of employees, I imagine
just clients, you have employees

[00:30:23.570]
that are going to fit somewhere on that
spectrum, whether they’re mask, no mask,

[00:30:28.150]
vaccine, no vaccine, whatever, in person
versus tele, I’m only remote or whatever.

[00:30:34.840]
So I imagine you had adapt
to some of that or…

[00:30:38.000]
Oh, for sure.
I mean, adapt over cater.

[00:30:39.800]
Yeah.
Good word choice.

[00:30:41.970]
Yes, good word choice.

[00:30:43.930]
Yes, we do.

[00:30:45.410]
And it is very individual, of course.

[00:30:50.280]
When the vaccines were offered,

[00:30:52.600]
we scrambled
to get them, of course,

[00:30:56.310]
because we really wanted
to make sure that we were protected

[00:31:00.930]
for ourselves, of course,
but also for our clients.

[00:31:05.440]
And there’s so much

[00:31:08.240]
unknown and misunderstanding
and misinformation.

[00:31:11.410]
I don’t have to tell
you about any of this.

[00:31:13.790]
It is one of those things where

[00:31:16.760]
it’s so hard to just have like,
here’s a hard and fast policy,

[00:31:19.350]
here’s what we’re doing because there’s
so many shades of gray so often.

[00:31:24.360]
So we do work with people individually.

[00:31:28.080]
We give our staff a lot of attention.

[00:31:29.680]
I feel.

[00:31:30.800]
And.

[00:31:32.160]
Make sure that they are feeling like
it’s a safe and good work environment.

[00:31:38.050]
Sure.
I want to ask you, I guess just speaking

[00:31:40.450]
of work environments broadly,
when people you come to your,

[00:31:45.880]
I guess, clients, and I don’t know if you
necessarily know this or not,

[00:31:48.350]
since you have so many therapists,
but maybe it’s an industry thing.

[00:31:51.920]
When people come and they’re like, Hey,

[00:31:53.890]
I have some challenges
that I’m dealing with.

[00:31:56.520]
Recently, over the past few years
with the pandemic and stuff like that,

[00:31:59.890]
how much or what percentage, I guess,
from your perception, would be considered

[00:32:05.770]
directly pandemic versus
work during the pandemic related?

[00:32:10.690]
Because I see a lot of places, even
Disney, Disney’s like, Hey, come on back.

[00:32:15.210]
Apple, come on back.

[00:32:17.360]
Google, Facebook, Twitter,
they’re all like, hey, come on back.

[00:32:20.010]
We have ping pong tables or Mickey,
whatever it is they’re after.

[00:32:24.520]
There’s a.
Reason that they’re saying come on back.

[00:32:27.800]
And I imagine it has to do

[00:32:28.710]
with productivity
because they don’t want to buy more toilet

[00:32:32.190]
paper than they need to, I suppose,
or disinfecting wipes or whatever.

[00:32:40.600]
So they’re not like, Hey,
we need to increase that top line.

[00:32:44.800]
So I imagine some people
are anxious about that.

[00:32:49.320]
They’ve been living or hanging out
at home doing their job or punching in.

[00:32:55.050]
Maybe not doing their job.

[00:32:57.570]
Not my staff, James.

[00:32:58.890]
My staff is all Well, highly professional.

[00:33:02.890]
Yeah, all of us, 100 %, 110 some days.

[00:33:08.120]
Well, it is.

[00:33:11.480]
Again, it goes back
to serving our clients.

[00:33:13.410]
So we want to make sure that everybody

[00:33:17.400]
has some availability
to see people in person.

[00:33:19.590]
That means coming to one of our offices.

[00:33:22.840]
Unless there is

[00:33:25.080]
a certain person who has really
demonstrated that they work super well

[00:33:29.080]
from remote and that’s how their clients
want to be seen and that’s how they want

[00:33:32.390]
to work, then we would
make that exception.

[00:33:36.000]
But across the board, we want to…

[00:33:39.480]
Everybody has some clients that want to be

[00:33:41.190]
seen in person, so we
want to have them in.

[00:33:45.200]
Again, it does feel good

[00:33:47.120]
to be in person with your teammates,
too, with your colleagues.

[00:33:51.600]
There’s so much, and I’ve just been
noticing this in the last few weeks.

[00:33:54.670]
I’ve been in the office a bunch,
and I like the people at Insight.

[00:33:59.360]
That’s good, right?
I do.

[00:34:00.730]
I know.
I truly like them.

[00:34:02.680]
I don’t get as much work done because I’m

[00:34:04.270]
just chatting them up and, Hey,
can I ask you this question?

[00:34:08.110]
Or, Can we talk about this person?

[00:34:10.200]
So there’s just that exchange of ideas

[00:34:13.130]
and energy that you cannot
replicate via Zoom.

[00:34:17.650]
Totally fair.

[00:34:19.370]
A thousand times over.
Yeah.

[00:34:21.670]
It’s like there’s an energy between people

[00:34:24.090]
that does not necessarily
flow through a camera.

[00:34:27.760]
Yes.
And like you were saying,

[00:34:29.400]
how do you read somebody’s body language
when you’re doing psychotherapy with them?

[00:34:33.160]
And that’s something that we really

[00:34:34.290]
struggled with was like,
how do we do body centered therapy?

[00:34:37.270]
We do body therapy.
It’s like we do the eye movement

[00:34:41.240]
therapy, EMDR, we do yoga therapy,
we do sensory motor therapy,

[00:34:45.430]
which is just really all about
your nervous system and your body.

[00:34:50.200]
And it took us a while to figure that out.

[00:34:53.030]
It was not just organic, oh,
this works perfect via Zoom.

[00:34:57.330]
So fluid.

[00:34:58.680]
No.

[00:34:59.920]
And we really have gotten good at it,

[00:35:01.590]
but there’s just no substitute
for being in person with somebody.

[00:35:07.080]
All right.

[00:35:07.120]
Speaking of which, it may be
twisting that knife a little bit.

[00:35:09.720]
Have you ever had to give therapy or have
your clients or your employees, sorry,

[00:35:15.070]
had to give therapy to a black screen
where the client just either refused

[00:35:20.530]
or couldn’t get their camera to work
or something?

[00:35:25.010]
Yes.
We.

[00:35:27.050]
Absolutely have done that.
And again, it’s a challenge.

[00:35:29.710]
It’s basically like a phone session.

[00:35:35.160]
It is so hard because you
can’t read expressions.

[00:35:39.090]
At least like this is
synchronous in real time.

[00:35:43.030]
You can see the faces that I’m
making when we’re doing Zoom.

[00:35:46.240]
You can see if I’m upset or if I
had a reaction.

[00:35:51.240]
When you’re on the phone,
it’s like, I don’t know.

[00:35:53.850]
I can tell they’re eating chips and
that’s about it.

[00:36:00.010]
And it’s hard.

[00:36:01.310]
It’s really hard to do that.

[00:36:03.770]
It’s definitely not the preferred way.

[00:36:06.160]
My wife’s a teacher,
and when she’s teaching class over Zoom,

[00:36:10.680]
she would show me and there’d be
30 black boxes.

[00:36:15.130]
I’m like, Come on.

[00:36:18.290]
How is that okay?

[00:36:19.850]
How is there not just a mandatory
camera thing?

[00:36:22.600]
And.

[00:36:23.570]
The school district was just
like, Everyone’s a delicate flower.

[00:36:29.160]
We don’t want to force
them to do anything.

[00:36:31.930]
And there were times that my wife would
ask a question and zero response.

[00:36:36.010]
So that these people
signed on, walked away.

[00:36:39.600]
Yeah.

[00:36:39.790]
Now they’re all playing video
games, making a snack, whatever.

[00:36:43.610]
There’s going to be this wave
of people that are so dumb.

[00:36:48.680]
That have not had the opportunity
to get as much education as.

[00:36:52.480]
They should.
Yeah.

[00:36:53.040]
They’re just missing a few years.

[00:36:54.530]
So you’re just like, oh,
you’re pandemic kid.

[00:36:56.870]
Got it.

[00:36:58.290]
Again, it’ll be really interesting to see.

[00:37:02.320]
It’s so hard to do telehealth
with kiddos if you ask me.

[00:37:05.390]
Oh, I bet.
I bet.

[00:37:07.600]
Because you’re just going to sit still.
I’ve been hung up on.

[00:37:11.680]
At least if you’re in my office,

[00:37:14.850]
I got a few tricks I can keep
people engaged.

[00:37:18.030]
But when you’re doing telehealth,
it’s a challenge.

[00:37:22.760]
So as far as percentage is ballpark,

[00:37:24.290]
is more of it still telehealth or is it
50 50 or is it moving towards in person?

[00:37:31.370]
It’s still the majority is telehealth.
It is?

[00:37:34.720]
Yeah, I’d say 60 40 at this point.

[00:37:37.850]
Okay.

[00:37:38.960]
So we’re getting there.

[00:37:40.070]
And again, people have been slow
to to come out and to be in person.

[00:37:49.720]
And a lot of it is that,
like you said, the ease.

[00:37:52.630]
I can do therapy on my lunch break.

[00:37:56.510]
I don’t have to leave work and find
parking and drive across town.

[00:38:00.970]
I can
do telehealth when I’m in my car waiting

[00:38:03.910]
for my kid’s soccer game
to get out or whatever it is.

[00:38:06.850]
So it really has, for working folks,

[00:38:09.430]
for parents, it has made it much more
accessible to be able to get therapy.

[00:38:16.160]
But some people are

[00:38:20.520]
wanting that in person connection, and we
are doing our best to meet those needs.

[00:38:26.840]
All right.
Yeah, it’s a challenge.

[00:38:28.770]
It’s been just it’s been slow.

[00:38:32.520]
All right, fair.

[00:38:35.880]
Was it Medicare, Medicaid?

[00:38:37.610]
Has the way they pay out telehealth,
has that changed?

[00:38:41.640]
It hasn’t.

[00:38:43.200]
Now, that’s always been this thing hanging
over us is what’s going to happen?

[00:38:49.130]
Suddenly, all the insurance companies,

[00:38:51.280]
they were just like, yes,
we approve telehealth.

[00:38:52.970]
Here’s the modifier you
have to use for billing.

[00:38:55.360]
Okay, that took us a while
to figure out, but we got it.

[00:38:57.810]
And the thread has always been has been,

[00:39:01.090]
Well,
they’ll probably pay less for telehealth

[00:39:03.680]
because the theory is there’s no overhead,
yada yada yada, which is not true.

[00:39:09.650]
We still have to have an office
for people who want to be seen in person.

[00:39:14.570]
We still have to pay for the
telehealth platform.

[00:39:19.330]
Right, the licenses.
Yeah.

[00:39:21.160]
Yeah.

[00:39:21.720]
And our headphones and our speakers
and our webcam, all that stuff.

[00:39:26.090]
So far, there hasn’t been a big mandate
or edict that the payment is different.

[00:39:33.510]
All right.

[00:39:34.120]
There hasn’t been that, hey,
in two weeks, no more telehealth.

[00:39:36.840]
Or whatever.
Oh, gosh.

[00:39:37.950]
That has been my fear from the beginning.

[00:39:42.840]
But how do you put that genie
back in the bottle?

[00:39:44.310]
Once it’s been released,
we see that this works.

[00:39:48.570]
It’s improved access.

[00:39:52.130]
And honestly,
the need is just even so much greater.

[00:39:58.880]
Our screeners, our waitlist has…

[00:40:01.630]
It’s been very intense.

[00:40:04.280]
There’s a lot of people calling for

[00:40:06.010]
services, and
a lot of people want telehealth.

[00:40:10.440]
So I.
Don’t think that there’s any going back.

[00:40:15.520]
You’ve had to add therapists
over the past couple of years?

[00:40:18.370]
Is it tough to find?

[00:40:21.610]
It is.

[00:40:24.440]
I was going to say I’m picky,
but that feels like a judgment.

[00:40:27.480]
There’s nothing wrong with being picky.

[00:40:28.870]
What a good employee.

[00:40:30.960]
That’s okay to have a high bar.

[00:40:32.410]
Yes, we do have a high bar.

[00:40:34.090]
It’s crucial that people
really fit in with our team.

[00:40:39.160]
Our mission is service.

[00:40:40.870]
We want to serve people.

[00:40:42.470]
That’s why we are a private practice.

[00:40:44.350]
We take take all these
commercial insurances, but we also serve

[00:40:49.490]
Medicaid consumers, folks in this county
program who may have limited access.

[00:40:53.990]
We try to pride ourselves on
serving as many people as we can.

[00:41:03.920]
And the staff, the team,
we’re all on the same page.

[00:41:07.680]
That has to be the right fit.

[00:41:10.950]
In the last six months, I have been
looking and interviewing a lot of people.

[00:41:18.130]
And if they don’t
light my soul on fire, then next.

[00:41:23.920]
All right.

[00:41:25.130]
So I just interviewed someone
that has a massage therapy clinic.

[00:41:31.490]
And when she hires someone,
one of the things, after they jump through

[00:41:37.330]
some hoops and they pass those,
she gets massage from them.

[00:41:42.040]
So.

[00:41:42.770]
In the case of this,
do you end up having you

[00:41:46.200]
or one of your crew go through a therapy
session with a new potential therapist?

[00:41:52.090]
That sounds so cringy.
No, we don’t.

[00:41:55.370]
I’m asking.

[00:41:56.200]
I don’t even know how you
could possibly answer.

[00:41:59.610]
Well, Well, I’ve heard
other hiring processes where people have

[00:42:04.670]
to demonstrate a skill
or something like that.

[00:42:07.290]
For us, it’s really…

[00:42:10.850]
I can pretty much tell

[00:42:12.290]
right away when I see somebody,
when I meet somebody,

[00:42:15.450]
there’s so much of just the interpersonal
presence that is crucial.

[00:42:24.040]
We do a lot of our interviews via
telehealth just because it is.

[00:42:27.160]
I was.
Just going to ask.

[00:42:29.280]
Yeah.
All right. It’s convenient.

[00:42:31.070]
We’ve done some in person in the last
year, but just with schedules,

[00:42:35.160]
I could squeeze somebody
in between a couple of sessions.

[00:42:39.130]
So do they show up on screen
and are they framed appropriately?

[00:42:42.970]
Do they look open, welcoming?

[00:42:44.970]
Are they able to make eye contact,
have a lot of expressions to their face?

[00:42:52.290]
Are they curious?
Do they ask good questions?

[00:42:55.120]
And then, of course,

[00:42:55.830]
we always ask about cultural
humility, ethics, organizational skills,

[00:43:00.680]
documentation, because a lot of our
job is just busy work paperwork.

[00:43:07.680]
That’s crucial, very crucial

[00:43:09.770]
to stay compliant with our licensure
and all of our certifications.

[00:43:13.650]
But we need people who can write notes
on deadline and communicate really well.

[00:43:19.370]
And you can tell that.

[00:43:21.120]
I feel like you can really tell

[00:43:22.570]
that in their email communication and
in their presence in their interviews.

[00:43:29.010]
You mentioned cultural humility,

[00:43:30.910]
and I wasn’t sure if there’s
a comma between those two.

[00:43:33.680]
No.
No.

[00:43:34.960]
Can you tell me about that?

[00:43:35.990]
Cultural humility?
For sure.

[00:43:37.990]
And that’s a lifelong process for us as
human services providers.

[00:43:43.490]
So this is

[00:43:46.010]
our ability to recognize that we’re going
to be serving people who are not like us.

[00:43:51.080]
Okay.

[00:43:51.370]
So can we recognize
our own implicit biases?

[00:43:53.590]
I am a white cisgendered female
with privilege.

[00:43:57.430]
I have had access to education,
and I need to be able to acknowledge that

[00:44:04.370]
and be aware of it as I’m serving
people who don’t look like me.

[00:44:09.720]
Okay.
All right.

[00:44:11.070]
I imagine when we talk about differences

[00:44:14.450]
between people, that’s a
never ending list.

[00:44:17.370]
Absolutely.
We’re constantly growing.

[00:44:20.330]
We serve a lot of LGBTQ community,
and that acronym changes.

[00:44:25.890]
Oh, my gosh.

[00:44:27.090]
So much.
Right.

[00:44:29.520]
So much.

[00:44:30.450]
I just had a conversation
with someone that…

[00:44:34.400]
Oh, my gosh.
How did it go?

[00:44:36.280]
I should remember this, so I apologize.

[00:44:37.600]
But it was something like somebody came

[00:44:39.110]
out of the closet, whatever, and they
said they were X, whatever it was.

[00:44:43.470]
I don’t know the nomenclature.

[00:44:45.280]
And a circle of their friends got mad

[00:44:47.050]
at them because they used
the wrong nomenclature.

[00:44:50.200]
And it was just one of those,
like, oh, my gosh.

[00:44:51.910]
I think people are just
getting mad to get mad.

[00:44:54.570]
Well, it’s always evolving.

[00:44:57.450]
And that’s where we have to…

[00:44:59.470]
I I don’t expect myself to always know,

[00:45:02.570]
but I have to be curious to find out
if that makes sense.

[00:45:06.350]
So that’s what cultural humility is.

[00:45:08.400]
Tell me about this
humility portion, though.

[00:45:10.430]
I guess that’s the…
Well, culturally

[00:45:13.090]
humble, so just being very humble
in the experience so

[00:45:16.770]
that I’m not perpetuating
white supremacy and patriarchy.

[00:45:22.370]
Didn’t think you’d get
into that today, did you?

[00:45:25.600]
No.

[00:45:27.090]
It’s so funny that you say that.

[00:45:30.010]
Maybe we’ll go down a road
that’s not ideal for me.

[00:45:32.730]
I’m just a white man.

[00:45:35.480]
But it’s one of those,

[00:45:36.550]
my wife and I have this conversation
probably more than we should.

[00:45:40.210]
But to me, I’m like, Why does it matter?

[00:45:43.210]
Is it relevant for the specific
thing that we’re talking about?

[00:45:48.450]
It’s interesting because
back when interest rates got dirt low,

[00:45:52.170]
we refinance our house
and there’s a question on there about

[00:45:56.370]
rates on the little form
you fill up for the bank.

[00:46:00.320]
I’m like, Okay, from my perspective,

[00:46:01.870]
there’s no reason for that question
to even be on that form.

[00:46:05.050]
No reason.

[00:46:06.290]
Because you could argue like, Hey,
we want to look at stats

[00:46:10.170]
and just make sure that everyone’s
getting a fair shake.

[00:46:13.530]
But if I was, I don’t know,

[00:46:16.170]
insert minority here, I would feel like,
Why are you asking that question?

[00:46:21.920]
And as a white guy, I was like,
Why are you asking that question?

[00:46:24.790]
I want to be like, unknown
or something like that.

[00:46:28.090]
It’s just a weird like, That’s not
relevant at all to refinancing a house.

[00:46:33.190]
It shouldn’t be relevant.

[00:46:35.200]
And also, you are speaking from a place

[00:46:37.070]
of privilege because you’re a homeowner,
you have resources to refinance a house.

[00:46:41.450]
So that’s where the humility comes in is

[00:46:44.190]
to really just checking
that, especially when you’re

[00:46:49.480]
as a business owner, considering that,
yes, with the services I provide as

[00:46:53.090]
a therapist, but also with
staff and the team.

[00:46:57.440]
I want to make sure I’m not surrounding

[00:46:58.290]
myself with just a bunch
of people who look just like me.

[00:47:02.240]
Got it.
Okay.

[00:47:03.570]
Yes, the question

[00:47:06.440]
is frustrating in those situations,
but I do think socially we’re still there

[00:47:09.710]
because when we do background checks,
I’m sure you do that.

[00:47:13.430]
We always have to check a box.

[00:47:15.410]
It’s like, yes, we’re gathering data.

[00:47:17.760]
What are we doing with that data?
Great question.

[00:47:19.710]
Not sure.
Sure.

[00:47:22.130]
Well, it’s what you can do with it
versus what you want to do with it.

[00:47:28.310]
I guess as far as that goes.

[00:47:30.130]
I want to ask my employees when I’m hiring
them if they’ll show up to work,

[00:47:34.130]
or if they have anything that would
prevent them to show up to work.

[00:47:37.770]
But there’s a lot of ways to ask
that question that you can’t ask.

[00:47:42.450]
Of course.

[00:47:44.720]
I want to just be like, Are you a mess?

[00:47:48.440]
Or do you feel like you’re just…

[00:47:49.670]
Yeah, that’s not a great question to ask.
No.

[00:47:52.850]
When I feel like I probably could have
made some better hires in the past.

[00:47:56.920]
That’s really what it is.
I don’t know.

[00:48:00.210]
Correct.

[00:48:00.850]
Yeah, that could
be a whole other podcast, too.

[00:48:05.810]
It’s making good hires.

[00:48:07.370]
Oh, my gosh.

[00:48:08.790]
It’s crucial.
Yeah.

[00:48:10.350]
And remotely,

[00:48:12.800]
especially, I imagine when you mentioned
interviewing remotely, which is,

[00:48:16.290]
I totally understand,
but I imagine that’s a challenge.

[00:48:21.010]
I suppose we’re talking with a therapist

[00:48:25.410]
client when it’s employer versus
potential employee versus wrong word.

[00:48:32.050]
I don’t know what to say there, but you’re
not seeing the whole body language.

[00:48:36.240]
You’re seeing a very
small window into their world

[00:48:40.050]
and trying to make a judgment on like,
is this a good hire or not?

[00:48:43.650]
Right.

[00:48:44.450]
And then you rely on reference checks
and resume and all that stuff.

[00:48:51.930]
And it is, luckily,

[00:48:53.910]
Madison is a pretty small town and
people tend to come to Insight because

[00:48:59.450]
they know somebody else who works
there and likes it.

[00:49:02.570]
Oh, nice.
Yeah.

[00:49:04.480]
Oh, so you get referrals for employees?
We.

[00:49:06.680]
Do.
Oh, that’s awesome.

[00:49:08.150]
That’s incredible.

[00:49:09.210]
Yeah, it is pretty great.

[00:49:10.670]
And that’s how I like it.

[00:49:13.090]
You’ve done the whole Indeed thing where

[00:49:15.290]
you put it out there and you
roll the dice.

[00:49:18.120]
And we’ve gotten a couple of good
hires on Indeed, I will say.

[00:49:20.870]
I’m very blessed.
Yeah.

[00:49:24.080]
Overall, I’d say I’ve done well.

[00:49:25.360]
I wouldn’t call it the cheapest
thing in the world.

[00:49:27.120]
But it.
Has taken me.

[00:49:29.240]
A lot.
Of time. little bit.

[00:49:31.360]
I bet.

[00:49:32.880]
Well, we have Indeed has their tests,

[00:49:34.790]
which is one of the reasons
that I like Indeed.

[00:49:37.290]
So we have a customer service test

[00:49:40.040]
as an example of one of the very low
barriers to entry to get an interview.

[00:49:45.730]
And we have, I would say, easily

[00:49:50.760]
75 % of the people that apply
and take that test fail that test.

[00:49:56.730]
Not that they got a B.

[00:49:59.190]
I mean, they got a D or lower.

[00:50:02.970]
And the customer service questions
are something…

[00:50:06.270]
I took it just to make sure, hey,
what I’m asking people to do, can I do?

[00:50:10.070]
And the questions are like,
you work at a retail store,

[00:50:14.230]
you’re at the front counter, somebody
walks in the store, what do you do?

[00:50:18.550]
A, B, C, or D, right?

[00:50:19.830]
Do you run to the back room and hide?

[00:50:22.240]
Do you keep looking at your phone?

[00:50:24.320]
Do you ask how their day is going
or do you ask if you can help them?

[00:50:27.240]
How’s your day going?

[00:50:28.070]
Help them and get out
from behind your desk.

[00:50:30.950]
It’s one of those, it’s pretty obvious
what the answer that they want, right?

[00:50:35.240]
Yeah.
It doesn’t feel like a real.

[00:50:37.030]
Tricky test.
People are failing it.

[00:50:39.520]
Wow.
I want to take it now.

[00:50:41.360]
Brutally.
Well, I’ll post an ad.

[00:50:43.400]
For you.
Yeah, exactly.

[00:50:45.530]
I’ll apply.

[00:50:46.610]
Yeah, it’s interesting because then from
my point of view, I’m like, Oh, my God.

[00:50:52.880]
I feel like the number of people
because we get a lot of applicants.

[00:50:55.810]
The number of people applying,
is that a good test of society as a whole,

[00:51:01.280]
or is that this chunk of society
that’s looking for a job right now?

[00:51:06.760]
There’s millions of jobs out there
and maybe 10 people looking for work.

[00:51:10.330]
It’s interesting because I know

[00:51:12.050]
why you’re looking for a job because
you are so bad at customer service.

[00:51:16.240]
You’ve lost a few jobs.
Yeah.

[00:51:18.470]
People are like, No way, we’ll live

[00:51:21.210]
without another employee over hiring
you and risking whatever fallout.

[00:51:25.160]
You’ll have.
Well, yeah, that’s what you learn, right?

[00:51:27.750]
It really boils down to making good hires
to prevent headaches in the future.

[00:51:34.560]
Yeah.
So let’s talk about growth.

[00:51:35.720]
We don’t have a ton of time left,
but let’s talk about growth.

[00:51:37.830]
I don’t want to go too far in the future.

[00:51:41.390]
Let’s say two, three years.
Yeah.

[00:51:44.210]
Do you expect to double again?
Oh, no.

[00:51:46.950]
No, not at all.

[00:51:48.690]
I cannot manage that.

[00:51:50.930]
I think probably I’d like to say
we’ll cap at 45 people eventually.

[00:52:00.750]
We’re not quite there

[00:52:02.800]
because the need is so great that we’ve
just seen an uptick in people calling.

[00:52:06.640]
And we have a lot of people on our
waitlist and we are working diligently

[00:52:10.240]
to get them services because I want my
community to get the help they need.

[00:52:17.030]
I want my community to be
healthy and balanced.

[00:52:24.000]
So I think we’ll grow a little bit,
but we have a new building

[00:52:26.930]
on the east side that’s just been
a wonderful new home for us.

[00:52:33.530]
And that feels really good.

[00:52:35.630]
I really like it.

[00:52:36.810]
Everything’s new and shiny
and happy and great.

[00:52:39.650]
Well, I mean, I loved our old offices.

[00:52:42.190]
They had tons of character, but the roof
would leak and the whole fire thing.

[00:52:46.290]
That’s the one.
That.

[00:52:48.200]
Burned?
Yeah.

[00:52:49.600]
That was a tinder box.

[00:52:50.630]
They’re wonderful old buildings
with tons of character.

[00:52:53.800]
And I actually do miss that a lot.

[00:52:55.350]
And I miss the folks
that were in those buildings.

[00:52:59.040]
But onward and upward,

[00:52:59.830]
we’ve got a nice new space and we have
a new clinic in Verona

[00:53:03.240]
in a very old house actually that we’ve
been renovating to turn into a clinic.

[00:53:07.650]
Nice.
Yeah.

[00:53:09.050]
So we want to get that really

[00:53:12.450]
bolstered and we’ve actually just
made a couple of hires for there.

[00:53:16.790]
Very cool.
Being able to serve that community is

[00:53:19.970]
really exciting and to reach
people on the West Side.

[00:53:23.330]
But again, we see people really
all over the state now with telehealth.

[00:53:28.040]
All right.
So we’d have to keep…

[00:53:30.600]
Obviously, we’re all licensed
in Wisconsin, so we have to continue.

[00:53:33.400]
To just see people.

[00:53:34.040]
I was just going to ask what
the limitation there is.

[00:53:36.150]
There’s a limitation.

[00:53:37.430]
There sure are.

[00:53:38.470]
Our client has to be
in the state of Wisconsin.

[00:53:41.730]
Got it.
If we’re only licensed in this state,

[00:53:44.710]
which most of us are,
we’re just licensed here.

[00:53:47.720]
All right.
Well, cool.

[00:53:49.290]
Yeah, it’s exciting.

[00:53:50.360]
We’ve got a little yoga studio we’re

[00:53:51.650]
hoping to grow too, and that’s just
a compliment to the therapies.

[00:53:55.930]
We’re doing aerial yoga,
which is a very unique thing.

[00:54:00.770]
Real strange.

[00:54:02.690]
It’s like a hammock.

[00:54:05.850]
So you’re in a hammock at your lake house.

[00:54:09.850]
James, I’m sure you’ve
got one of those, right?

[00:54:12.240]
I do.
If you’re in a hammock,

[00:54:17.200]
it’s hooked to the ceiling, and we do yoga
with that as a prop, as a tool to support.

[00:54:24.240]
It’s not circus arts.

[00:54:26.510]
It’s very much yoga based.

[00:54:28.310]
And we have that at our East Side Clinic,

[00:54:30.610]
and we’re building it and really excited
about it and just having a lot of fun with it

[00:54:36.386]
Nice.

[00:54:37.110]
When does that open?
It has been open.

[00:54:39.350]
We opened in the fall.
Oh, wow.

[00:54:42.680]
Okay.
Yeah.

[00:54:43.190]
We got classes, we have classes every weekday.

[00:54:46.214]
The aerial yoga stuff?

[00:54:49.400]
Well, we have aerial twice a week,
and then we just have other mat classes.

[00:54:52.950]
I teach just regular mat classes,
restorative, gentle, flow, that sort of stuff.

[00:54:57.640]
It’s open to anybody.

[00:54:58.890]
You don’t have to be a client of Insight.

[00:55:02.830]
You can come and take yoga classes.

[00:55:05.110]
So that’s part of that integrated

[00:55:09.280]
clinic philosophy that we have
that it’s not just about…

[00:55:13.840]
Sometimes you can’t just
talk about your feelings.

[00:55:15.920]
Sometimes you have
to actually be in your body.

[00:55:18.120]
You got to be in your body,
have a relationship with it.

[00:55:20.670]
And we offer that as that compliment.

[00:55:24.490]
Very cool.

[00:55:26.570]
So before we close here,
is there anything…

[00:55:29.470]
I guess if you were to
just tell the world something to help them

[00:55:33.150]
out in this facet, I guess, is there any
advice, quote, super awesome magical

[00:55:40.782]
Jeanne-isms that you
would send to the world?

[00:55:47.440]
Well, it’s pretty cheesy,
but it’s really all about getting

[00:55:51.650]
to know yourself
and being comfortable with yourself.

[00:55:56.730]
And I’m not saying be yourself,
but doing the work

[00:56:02.210]
of introspection, I think if you can
spend some time, whether it’s

[00:56:08.680]
exercising, doing yoga, being with family,
playing your instrument,

[00:56:13.810]
whatever outlet you feel where you feel
a sense of wholeness, do more of that.

[00:56:19.050]
Do more of that.

[00:56:21.090]
Get off the Facebooks and
really engage in your life.

[00:56:26.210]
And I know that sounds really
cheesy and simplistic, but that.

[00:56:31.680]
It’s usually the best
advice, though, right?

[00:56:33.490]
Yeah, I feel people are missing that.

[00:56:35.510]
People are anxious.

[00:56:36.600]
They’re reading the news constantly.

[00:56:38.200]
They’re comparing themselves to others

[00:56:39.930]
on social media, and we’re losing
that connection with self.

[00:56:46.690]
And the more that you can do that for

[00:56:48.850]
some people, maybe it’s not
journaling or meditating.

[00:56:51.970]
For some of us, that really works well.

[00:56:54.440]
Like I said, maybe it’s playing your
guitar in your basement, whatever it is.

[00:56:57.730]
Just do more of that.
I like it.

[00:57:00.240]
Love it.
Cool.

[00:57:02.370]
Thanks, Jeanne.

[00:57:03.440]
I appreciate you being on the show.
Thanks, James.

[00:57:05.270]
This has been great.
This is cool.

[00:57:07.950]
Can you tell us where people can find you,
both your offices, office location

[00:57:14.240]
as well as website or just
a way to get a hold of you?

[00:57:16.690]
Absolutely.
So we’re at insightmadison.com

[00:57:19.240]
and we have our maps to our offices

[00:57:22.770]
there and screening forms
and all that good stuff.

[00:57:26.470]
We’re located on the East Side
at 1943 Winnebago.

[00:57:29.490]
It’s a brand new building.
Lovely.

[00:57:32.490]
And then our Verona

[00:57:33.730]
branch office is at 324 South Main Street,
right next to Miller’s and the bike path

[00:57:38.730]
there in Verona,
if you’re familiar with it.

[00:57:40.910]
Big old Victorian house.

[00:57:43.170]
Now our little therapy home.
Nice.

[00:57:45.310]
So on Winnebago,
that’s a brand new building?

[00:57:48.450]
Yes.
Wow.

[00:57:50.000]
Yeah, right across from the bank.

[00:57:51.480]
It’s surrounded by some older stuff there.
Yes.

[00:57:54.170]
We basically just moved around the corner.

[00:57:56.930]
I carried lamps and furniture
and boxes of books around the corner.

[00:58:01.870]
People would just stop and stare,
like, what is that person doing?

[00:58:05.730]
But we moved around the corner
and it’s been wonderful.

[00:58:08.690]
It’s like Steve Martin
from the Jerk, right?

[00:58:11.000]
Right.
All I need is this chair.

[00:58:15.520]
That’s funny.
Cool.

[00:58:17.790]
Thank you, Jeanne.
Yeah.

[00:58:19.270]
Thanks, James.
This has been

[00:58:20.720]
Authentic Business Adventures,
the business program that brings you

[00:58:23.110]
the struggle stories
and triumphant successes.

[00:58:27.360]
Struggle stories, triumphant successes.
Sure.

[00:58:29.080]
Business owners across the land.

[00:58:30.640]
We’re locally underwritten
by the Bank of Sun Prairie.

[00:58:33.070]
I still just imagining you just walking
down the sidewalk with a chair and a lamp.

[00:58:37.920]
Just screw you guys I’m going home.

[00:58:39.030]
If you’re listening to this on the web,
if you could do us a huge favor,

[00:58:43.120]
give it the big old thumbs up, subscribe,
and course, comment

[00:58:46.130]
and let us know how has that pandemic
treated you, good or bad?

[00:58:50.760]
Whatever, it’s all good.

[00:58:51.720]
My name is James Kademan
and Authentic Business Adventures is

[00:58:54.290]
brought to you by Calls on Call,
offering call answering and receptionist

[00:58:58.110]
services for service businesses across
the country on the web at callsoncall.com.

[00:59:03.410]
And of course, The Bold Business Book,

[00:59:05.680]
a book for the entrepreneur and all of us
available wherever fine books are sold.

[00:59:09.600]
We’d like to thank you,
our wonderful listeners,

[00:59:11.110]
as well as our guest, Jeanne Kolker, the
owner of Insight Counseling and Wellness.

[00:59:15.960]
And, Jeanne, can you tell us
your website one more time?

[00:59:18.490]
Yes, it’s insightmadison.com.

[00:59:21.720]
Excellent.
Insightmadison.com.

[00:59:22.920]
That couldn’t be any easier.

[00:59:24.570]
No, I-N-S-I-G-H-T.
Perfect.

[00:59:28.080]
Past episodes can be found
morning, noon, and night.

[00:59:30.040]
The podcast link found
at drawincustomers.com.

[00:59:32.170]
Thank you for listening.

[00:59:33.480]
We will see you next week.

[00:59:34.360]
I want you to stay awesome and if you
do nothing else, enjoy your business.