TRANSCRIPT

SPEAKERS

Rosie Gilderthorp, Rose Aghdami

Welcome to the Business of Psychology podcast, the show that helps you to reach more people, help more people and build the life you want to live by doing more than therapy.

Today I'm recording a really special episode because I'm here today talking with Rose Aghdami, who was one of our students on our first ever cohort of Psychology Business School. So this is an episode that's really close to my heart, but I'm really excited to talk to Rose today about her journey because I know that Rose has trodden a path that many of you are thinking about, many of us consider as psychologists. So Rose has made the transition from working in the clinical environment, to doing much more coaching in her practice. And I really want to talk today about what that journey was like, what it felt like, the training and the route that Rose has taken. So I'm really, really pleased to have you here today, welcome to the podcast, Rose.

Thanks very much, it's lovely to be here.

So could you start by just giving us a little bit of a summary of who you are and how you help people?

Yes, sure. So I'm Rose Agdhami, and I've been working as a clinical and counselling psychologist for many, many years and supervisor of clinical and counselling psychologists for, for 20 plus years. And currently, I work as a more as a coaching psychologist and also as a supervisor of psychologists and also of coaches. My specialism is in resilience and building resilience skills. And I give talks and presentations about that to mostly businesses, but sometimes to other organisations as well. Including groups of coaches, so they learn how to coach for resilience through those workshops.

Okay, so there's so much that I want to ask you about, but I'm gonna force myself to be chronological about this. So take us back then when you're working as a clinical and a counselling psychologist, when did you decide that you wanted to start working more on the preventative side of things?

I would say this started, perhaps about 10 years ago now, when I was working in a very, very lovely private clinic, the Cardinal Clinic near Windsor, and I thoroughly enjoyed being part of that team and in that setting. And I saw more and more people coming in to the clinic, either as outpatients or as inpatients, with burnout or heading towards burnout. And each year there seem to be more. And so it's such a terrible situation to be in, not just for the individual, but for their families, for their teams for their employers. It can take a long time to recover from burnout. Some weeks in the clinic, or many months, as an outpatient or combination of both. And when people go back to wanting to return to work, it's difficult for everyone. The person who's experienced burnout can wonder whether they'll ever be trusted again with the interesting work and the best, the best projects, the employers don't quite know what to do, should they treat with them with kid gloves and be careful? So everybody wants the same thing, you know, they want to be kind to each other, careful. and that's very difficult to negotiate. So I thought there must be a better way than fire fighting this. Is there a way of being more preventative? So thinking about all the symptoms of burnout and thinking about the anxiety that it evokes, and so on, I decided to try and look at the, what I consider to be the the best antidote to stress and anxiety and burnout, which is resilience building. And so I looked into it. I love research, so I was quite careful to look for evidence based elements of resilience and draw together what I consider to be the key elements of those, of all of that research that I looked at, in order to know what the core of resilience was, and put them together in an easy to remember model, FUEL, fuel your resilience, which sort of I thought says it all in terms of recharging and everything. And started to build it in to my therapy work in those last few sessions when you're beginning to disengage from the therapeutic work and thinking ahead as to how the person will take with them something from the therapy and prepare them for relapse prevention and so on. And so I used to run through the FUEL model with the patients in the clinic. And it seemed to go down really well. And so they would come back saying, you know, I've been fueling all week and so on. And they would stick the model up on a post it note or something on their fridge and just be reminded. So it's a practical model, really. So people knew what to do. They didn't simply know about the theoretical side, but they knew what to do. And then over time, I was asked by various people, to give presentations to HR professionals, or to companies to build resilience skills, to spot early signs of burnout, and so on. And so the word spread, and I was really delighted to see how people seem to be able to really use it, because I love the theory, but I'm more of a practical hands on person in terms of how I deliver my psychological sessions and so on. I like people to, to know the background and understand why I'm suggesting things, but also to have that so what question in their minds. So we know now that this is important, so what? How do I make use of that day to day. So, so that's how it sort of evolved really, in terms of transition from more purely therapeutic work to including this preventative element that, that I hoped would would go down well, both in businesses, as well as in other organisations. And that seemed to, seemed to be the something that the patients found useful in feeling more prepared to go back to work and deal with the inevitable, sometimes very huge pressures in life.

Wow, I mean, I just want to take a minute to pause and reflect on what an amazing achievement that is. Because not only did you synthesise a huge amount of research, it sounds like to, to come up with what was going to be the most helpful framework for people, but you also managed to boil down this concept of resilience, which I think any of us who who've done work in this space, we hear this misused all the time, and contributing to burnout, you hear people talking about, you know, their employer beating them over the head with the term, you've got to be more resilient, as though that means that they can just kind of suppress their emotions all the time. And it's, it's, it's used to mean, you can never say no to anything, which is, you know, almost the opposite of what we would term as psychological resilience. And so I just love what you've done taking all of that kind of psychological knowledge, research and understanding and distilling it into something that is so memorable, and easy to apply for your clients and your patients. I just think that's intensely valuable. And I hope that people listening to this can hear the value in that. Like, it sounds like oh, yeah, it's a catchy name, it yes, and it is very catchy, it's brilliant, and from a marketing perspective, brilliant name. But it also is going to really help the clients, clients really hook on to things which they can say something like, I've been fueling all week. That really makes a difference to how people apply this stuff. So yeah, I'm just really impressed by that, that's fantastic. So how did, how did you take it forward from there? So you've got to the point where you're using this clinically, you've been asked to speak about it, where did you go from there?

Well, after speaking about it, and using it in sessions and so on, I, I found that I thoroughly enjoyed that stage of the work. The preventative, the thinking ahead, the reaching, having reached the stage where the repair, the focus on the repairing was done, then I really enjoyed that, that as it were a final stage of a therapy clients journey. And I started getting asked, having done a number of presentations, to coach some employees of the HR directors who were in the audience or individuals who are in the audience and so on. So my focus was shifting towards that type of work, which I would say was was more like coaching work. And within that, and just pick up on your very good point, very, very relevant point about how resilience can be misused and used as a sort of threat almost, you know, why aren't you resilient enough and so on, absolutely spot on. I remember giving some talks to groups of nurses within the NHS and in private clinics and so on, but especially with the NHS and I don't think it's only nurses that experience this, but also in with corporate clients. This, this cropped up time and time again, you know, I can't, people will say I can hardly bear to hear that word. You know, I've heard it so many times in a negative connotation that I'm really, I'm up to hear with it. But within the model, the fuel model is to use your own resources, including your loyalty to yourself. And so for me, resilience is, includes very, very importantly, the ability to know one's own limits, the ability to be loyal to oneself, as well as to others, but to oneself, and the ability to recognise that you know, resilience is about having a voice and not just taking on what what people expect or want of you. So having having all of that in my mind through the experience that I built up by then, I then thought I really find it energising this, this more coaching style of work. And I suppose there were two reasons or two areas of motivation for me to think about taking that further. One, I'd by now done many, many years as a clinical psychologist and coaching psychologist with different focus, different areas of focus, but I been in that role for lots, lots of years. And I think I was sort of ready for a bit of a change. And secondly, I think over those years, although I'm quite good at recharging, and, and doing things that aren't work related, and doing things I just love, especially having read lots of research that shows very clearly that this is what you need. So it's much easier to give yourself permission to do these lovely things and think, well, I'm just doing this so that I'll be recharged for my job. So but I think I was feeling a cumulative effect. You know, in the clinic I mentioned, I would say it was more the heavy end of the spectrum of the presentations that you might come across. And I think I felt that I'd perhaps leave that to somebody else to pick up on and I might prefer at that stage of my career to do something that I felt was more energising for me. So, so that led me to train in coaching, or at least to have coaching more on my horizon. And then I had a new next door neighbour, Carol Wilson, who we just hit it off from the first sort of encounter when she just asked me some question about the area, and I answered her, and we just found ourselves talking for for a long time and really getting on, became great friends. And she has a successful coach training business. And so she and I had lots of conversations about coaching, the difference between coaching and psychology, and why was coaching better paid and all these sorts of nitty gritty questions. And so she encouraged me to do some coach training, which I then did, in part because I thought I hear so much about coaches, and coaching and coaching by people who aren't psychologists who don't have our background. I was really curious to know what this thing was, you know, how can people after a short course do anything very meaningful, valuable, effective? After we've spent years training for our role as psychologists?

I think we've all thought that.

Yeah, exactly. So I was curious to know what, what this is all about. So I did the training. And sort of as a result of that, and becoming a member of a bit of a community of peers, who'd trained with me and so on. And you know what it's like with the red jumper syndrome, or the the Ford Focus syndrome, whatever it is, once you start focusing on something, I think the, our more professional jargon is the Reticular Activation System, whatever, we notice things that are relevant to us. And so, so yeah, I just noticed the coaching psychology section in the BPS, and so on and so on. So I just got more and more into that way of thinking, working and developing my skills and my network and did more and more coaching. It evolved, it sort of evolved without too much of a deliberate step. So it was a gradual transition. I had this sort of overlap of quite a lot of therapy clients, some coaching clients, and then they gradually changed emphasis. So I was doing more and more coaching and less and less therapy.

So what was your kind of lived experience of the difference between psychology work and coaching. How different do they feel to you?

There's something about my professional identity, which I had to get used to. Because as we've acknowledged, there's something about the title of coach, which, which is very, very broad. Coaches, I think can be extremely, extremely effective. Fantastic. You know, I've heard people's experiences of coaching, and it can be a very valuable role to have. I've heard other experiences of coaching, where it seemed to be a bit more like just time, I shouldn't say just because it's valuable in itself, but things like time management, things like stress management's ticks, and so on. Which, depending on the person's need, it can be helpful, but it's, I would say a world away from what as psychologists we can offer, and when I think of myself as a coach, I, I think of myself and generally refer to myself as a coaching psychologist, because I think for many people, it does add a layer of extra weight, in a sense. Some people won't want that, as we know, as psychologists, some people are scared by that or wonder whether we're going to read their minds and so on. So for some people, it won't help in terms of attracting clients and so on. But I prefer to stay with within that bracket, as it were of people who have got a substantial amount of solid training behind them. So, so it felt as though I needed to in my own mind, make sure of my own sense of identity. I didn't want to be seen to be a coach who had trained for just a few days, and then putting themselves out there. So, so that's why for me, it was important to to stay with that title of coaching psychologist or that that reference to coaching psychologist. So the identity was quite important. The skill set, which I think, again, it overlaps, but it is generally different. It's far more, the way I see it, looking ahead. Yes, of course, accepting that the past has an impact, and depending on the client that you're working with, more or less attention might be paid to that. But the skills of trying to encourage the client to stay with the aim they come with, you know, the end in mind, keeping the end very much in mind, you know, what are we working towards, and just gently nudging them back to that, if that's what they've said they're coming for, rather than go too far down what can be the rabbit hole of looking into the past and so on. So for me, that was something to work through and practice and see what works best and what didn't, and so on, just so that I made sure I was offering coaching, and not offering therapy. For both reasons, of thinking about what the client had come for, but also what I had made this step for, you know, I, I was aware that I wasn't really any longer available for the intensity of that sort of therapy that I'd been used to working with all these years, I'd made that decision for myself for the reasons I've mentioned, so I wanted to stay loyal to my own reasons for making that step. And if I realised that somebody could benefit far more from that, at least for a stage, than what I would consider coaching, then I would suggest to them that they did work on that, but perhaps not with me. And then the other reason, of course, the person coming to me for coaching, and having said perhaps in the initial call, the introductory call, this is what they want to achieve, if we were to go back, as we might naturally do as part of a course of therapy, I would wonder whether they would be getting what they've come for. And so it's of course possible to ask the person, which is what I would do, but I would be aware of that and just make sure that you know that where they wished there focus to remain if there was something of a, not conflict, but an opportunity to go either way, then then I'd check it out with them and keep my own loyalty to myself in mind as well.

That's really interesting. And I think it reminds me a little bit of what it's like when I teach hypnobirthing. Because I'm a psychologist that teaches hypnobirthing. And I wrestled with that too, like can I, am I now a hypnobirthing teacher? That doesn't seem quite right, because, you know for a lot of people that's only a four day course. And actually what I'm bringing to this is, is, you know, psychological formulation. And actually I settled on offering a package which allowed me to be my identity in that role. So I only work with people who have been through a trauma, birth trauma or related trauma that makes birth particularly difficult for them. But I'm always thinking, you know, they didn't come to me for therapy, so I can highlight to them where therapy might be useful. And sometimes that might be therapy with me, often it's not, often it's referring that on, but it's, it's always trying to hold in mind what they actually came to me for. And also, you know, what I want to offer and what I want to make sure I deliver in this course that I'm offering and it sounds like you've been through a really similar kind of process to try and to get comfortable with that for yourself.

Yes, yes, exactly. It sounds very, very, very similar.

One thing I wanted to ask you was about the value of the training that you did. So I mean, I know you mentioned the name of it briefly, but do feel free to mention that again so that people can look it up. And just what do you feel that you took from doing that additional training?

Yeah, it was training run by the company that Carol Wilson has. And she also has some books called something like performance coaching. But she comes up very readily on Amazon, or on a search. So it was, it spanned I would say a couple of months, but it was a few days of one to one training, and but not by Carol, but by her trainer, James, and then there exercises and so on to do, and you had a buddy from the course that you would have practice coaching calls with and so on. And then there would be another two or three days of coaching and an assessment and so on. So the practice in between was very helpful. What I found was very good was that there was a lot of experiential learning during the face to face days. And there were a lot of strategies that were taught, coaching strategies, what to do when, how to ask this, how to ask that, what to do if they go off track and so on. So, and I think that sometimes it's those what to do type skills that are somewhat lacking actually, in clinical and counselling psychology training, we know all about the theories, we know all about the conditions that people are going to present and so on. But I know that I learnt quite a lot of those what to do type skills through supervision, when I was a, you know, early in my training career, and still now in my therapy career, I should say and still now, and also when in speaking to other psychologists. So it was, it was excellent to have these strategies built in as part of the course. So I would say that was a big plus of doing coaching training. And it was a reminder of how psychology skills or therapy skills and coaching skills differed because, of course, hearing how to do this in a coach, with a coaching focus, our therapy skills came to mind and I would be constantly thinking, so I do it that way in therapy room, but this is how I can do it through coaching. So those strategies and skills were very, very helpful. They weren't necessarily that complex, which is perhaps what I was expecting, that because people who were on the course came from a whole range of different backgrounds. So I don't think there was another psychologist there. Some HR professionals, some... there was a headmistress or ex headmistress and so on. So, you know, various backgrounds and some actually quite young who hadn't really had much of a working life already, so great range of people. I think the other big takeaway I took was, how, how different coaching psychology can be to some sorts of coaching. And so that evolved into me deciding to name what I'm offering as in depth coaching. So when I talk about it to new enquirer's, when I send them a summary of how I work and so on, I especially refer to it as in depth coaching. You know, coaching psychologist, and I offer in depth coaching. And so in that summary, I include something of course we take into account the background, and so on, and check for, you know, depression, anxiety, and so on. And so make it clear that it's something a bit more than, or it can be something a bit more than the more day to day strategies that don't need the psychological background. And I love actually, I love working in this way, I love have knowing that I've got the background, knowledge and skills to draw something into the present moment of discussing something with a coaching client that I can spot is relevant, because I think as psychologists, experienced psychologists, we were good at having that sort of helicopter view and thinking, hang on a minute, you said that a little while ago, and that's just so relevant to what's going on right now, or what you're talking about. And I really like that combination of being able to draw on those sorts of skills, and integrate it into a focus on now and the future. So I, yeah, I got a lot from the coaching training, and was then able and enjoyed integrating it with my psychology and therapy experience and skills.

Okay, and so it sounds like, well, okay, I'm just gonna ask it, I'm trying to think of a less awkward way to ask it, but you mentioned earlier, that one of the things you've been curious about at the beginning of your journey was why coaches are paid more than psychologists or therapists or mental health professionals generally. And that is a question that comes up for me all the time. People ask me that constantly. So I was wondering, as somebody who has got a fairly unusual position, having worked in both camps, what's your view on that now? What, why is that?

Yeah, my view on this is that therapy is an expense, you know whether it's for the insurers who cap our rates at a certain point, whether it's for even corporates who perhaps fund some therapy sessions for an employee, but it's an expense. It's in blunt terms. Of course, it's not as clear cut as that, but I think it seems to be an expense. So the insurance want to pay out as little as possible, of course, and, and employers will pay something, but just to bring people back to being able to function well, whereas in my view, coaching is seen to be more of an investment. And so employers and individuals, I believe will pay more for their coaching sessions, because they will expect realistically, and I think it's fair enough to expect this, and I would hope that the results would reflect this expectation, they would expect that the individual will be in a better position to do their job extremely well, in whatever area it is that they're coming to coaching for. So if it's for, let's say, relationships within the workplace, you know, so a client might come as you would imagine, I'm sort of amalgamating a few individuals here. But if you imagine a client comes to you, because they're very senior, very good at their job, absolutely, you know, skilled as they can be, but they can't manage difficult people or they come across in a way that's not helpful to them or other people. The employer or they, if they're self funding the coaching, course of coaching sessions, I think, can expect to be able to manage that better in the future, in order that the business will grow more successfully, the business will make a lot more money than before or if they're an individual, they will earn more in time, because they're much better at their job. If it's to do with confidence, or some communication skills to in terms of presenting and so on, then it might be that this person is in a sales role and just needs to address, perhaps some self doubts and so on, that are getting in the way. But when that's done, one would expect that they might bring in more business for the organisation. So that is many noughts for some businesses. And so to invest something which might be in the 1000s for a few months worth of support, or six months worth of support, let's say three or six months, will not seem such a mismatch in terms of investment and return on that investment. So that's how I see it. I also think that one needs to, as a coach, not just appear, but be professional, and seem to be a sort of as senior a professional, and as experienced a professional, and as at least in some situations well paid-ish as that. It's a bit like presenting in a way, I think that presenting fees can be high per hour, if you break it down like that, compared to therapy fees, because I think you just need to come across, to be taken seriously, you know, and very often, corporations or businesses won't want to be employing the cheapest for their very senior executives, they will want to employ somebody who has the, the weight of their background or their experience in terms of being known about and so on, and that comes at a price. You know, it's it's more business focus setting where often numbers will reflect seniority and experience and expertise. So I think it's, it's all those different things that you know, the, the investment side of it, the expectations of results, and what that means in terms of money, and the way we present ourselves as coaching psychologists to be taken seriously. You know, somebody earning many, many, many hundreds of thousands a year in a corporate setting, I think if you're charging what I guess, for most therapists will lie between one and two pounds an hour for a therapy session, whether wherever you are London or elsewhere, that's going to seem not very substantial.

That is so interesting, because I think a lot of us, we don't have experience of that world. Certainly before, a couple of years ago, I started dipping my toe into organisational work and working with corporates. And that is something that has really struck me between the eyes that I was not expecting that you can very easily be way too cheap. And it does, it devalues your skill set. But also just makes people think that you're not the right fit for them. And it was really interesting when I put out an offer with a much higher fee, that I got completely different people going for it. But I got people, and I was very, very surprised. So I hope that people listening to this will start to incorporate that thinking into their pricing strategy. If you are offering something to kind of executives or to the corporate environment, you know, think about your pricing strategy quite differently and think about what that communicates. Not just what you can get away with charging and still cover your bills, which are things that you're used to thinking about a lot more. But I also want to pick up on what you said there about coaching being seen as an investment, where therapy's a bit more of a repair job that you wish you didn't have to pay out for, but you do. I think it's a bit sad, isn't it? I wish it wasn't seen like that. But I think you've hit the nail on the head. That's exactly, that's exactly how it is perceived. I wonder if there's anything that, you know we might be able to do as as professionals to start shifting that. But I think I've never heard it expressed so well. It's a really good way of explaining it.

Thank you. The, the approach to costings that I've been just talking about is what I perceive the corporate coaching to include. Of course, it's not the only way to use coaching skills or to be a coaching psychologist. So I know of others who choose to offer a very, very specific niche; compassion coaching. And they have chosen that the population they wish to help and support with this is mothers of young families, mothers of young families, so women, she's very attuned to women, women's psychology and coaching women, and these are not, this is not therapy, this is coaching. But her, you know, her prices are reflect the population that she's working with. So it's a choice, but perhaps with coaching, the range of choices, as far as expected, rates is concerned is much broader, I would say.

That's really interesting. So I also wanted to ask you, what life looks like now. So you've talked a bit about your, your business journey, and how you've gotten where you are, so what's life like for you now, what's life in business like?

I'm really enjoying having made the transition from providing purely therapy to providing almost exclusively coaching and coaching supervision now, although I still have some therapy in my repertoire of work. So I'm really enjoying that. It's tempting to say, you know, this is something I might have done earlier, and, and so on. But on the other hand, you know, we are the people we are because of all the experiences we've had of course, so who knows. So I'm really enjoying that. I have a Facebook group, High Rising Coaches, which actually the the... which which I'll go on for a moment, which is there to support people who are either doing this transition from psychologist to coach, as well as other mostly newly qualified or less experienced coaches, to get some more support and inspiration as to how they might continue with this journey and make a success of it. I was just going to mention the name of the group, High Rising Coaches, we used to have a family house in the UK, I'm now in Spain, called High Rising. We really didn't know why, you know why? It used to be... built, I think it was built actually, by somebody who was a director of Marks and Spencer years ago. Yeah, we didn't know the person, it had changed hands a few times before we got it. But we thought, well, maybe they were hoping for the shares to be high rising or something, no idea. But it just sort of had quite a nice ring to it, so we left it and so on. So but I haven't lived there, you know, for some years now. But we sold it quite a few years ago. But when I was thinking of the name for the group, and thinking of rising and high and success, and so I actually High Rising Coaches just sums up what I'm wanting to offer. And so it's as if now I know, you know what that was, it sort of makes sense of having had that name of the house all those years ago. So that's why it's called High Rising Coaches, and it's something I enjoy contributing to, and making connections with. And, you know, I'm hoping that as well as providing coaching to individuals, through corporate connections and so on, that I will also be supporting coaches on their journey and in particular coaches who have come from the same background as I have, psychologists who are becoming coaches. So that's part of my working life today.

Fantastic. And it sounds, you know, you've got something really valuable with your FUEL model, which I can see a lot of people benefiting from. So can you tell us a little bit more about the FUEL model? And how that could help somebody making that transition?

Yeah, yeah, thanks for mentioning it again, it is something that I'm hoping to raise awareness of in the future. So the FUEL model came about, as I mentioned, by doing quite a lot of research on resilience, you know, what, what had people discovered through noticing how some people managed to get through crises in, less scathed than others. And so I drew this together to encompass what I considered based on that research to be four key elements of resilience. And they each begin with the letters of fuel F U E L. So F is for Flexibility. Absolutely key; rigidity is the enemy of resilience. And so flexibility needs to be in our thoughts, in our openness to experiencing feelings out of our usual comfort zone, and in our behaviour. So, that section is fairly loosely perhaps based on CBT, especially the flexibility in thoughts as you can imagine. So trying to silence the what if thoughts and so on. U is to do with Using Resources, Use of Resources, internal resources and external resources. So, first of all, knowing what we carry with us in terms of the internal resources, that includes our own strengths, as well as our skills and so on. And this focuses on the, the strengths we have, and instead of, as we often do, giving them away to others, being caring and considerate and determined and encouraging for everyone else, to do the same for ourselves as well, not instead of, but as well. And this is where that a part of my model comes in that we were talking about earlier, the loyalty to oneself, you know, make sure that you use that resource that you have within you, if it needs strengthening we do that, you know, as working through the model. And then external resources as well, you know, realise don't have to do everything on our own, sometimes it's perfectly appropriate to ask for help, use help, use external resources. Some people find that extremely difficult to ask for help, so this is sometimes when you know a bit of the more therapeutic or the more background side of things is relevant. So F and U and then E, almost my favourite one in some ways, is Energise, make sure you recharge, and you make sure that you, you do what you need to do that re energises you. And so often people will say, how can I do that, you know, and just don't have time? That in itself, if you don't have time is the red flag to ignore at your peril, really. And so, knowing how important it is, you know a bit like a high performance car, you can't expect it to run at its best without fueling it. And you have to make time to go and get that done and be maintained and so on, otherwise, it's just unrealistic to expect it to go at all. And we're the same. So Energise is what E stands for in the fuel model. And then L is, stands for Locate your Control. So as psychologists we know about the locus of control, and although for some people that's a very new idea, I've found that people really like this, this idea that we can be either having an internal locus of control, a helpful version, or an external locus of control, where we tend to just feel like a leaf in the wind, if if we believe that things external to us are controlling our experience of life. So those four elements, the flexibility, using resources, energising and locating our control are the four that make up FUEL. And there are a number of exercises that I suggest people try out, and we discuss in sessions and so on or in workshops. And although, as psychologists we know about these things, when I've run workshops to train coaches, to coach for resilience in their clients, it gives them a hand... a sort of convenient template really to follow. Convenient for encouraging these skills in the clients from the coach's point of view, and convenient for the, for the coachee or the client to remember and run through as the sort of checklist in their mind whenever they're feeling overwhelmed. Where can I do something to adjust each of these if it's necessary, which area is most relevant for me right now? So that's why, that's why I speak about it quite a lot. And what I'm hoping will be a more well known model for encouraging resilience for others.

Yeah. So is that where the main effort is now to try and get this model out to more people and get more kind of coaches or psychologists or therapists making the transition to train up in it?

Yeah, I would like that to happen. I would like that coaches and coaching psychologists and psychologists, if they want to integrate it into that final part of the course of therapy, for example, could, could train in it, become aware of it, and then spread the word. I have heard from clients sometimes that they also are spreading the word on my behalf by you know, telling their sister or whoever it is to, who might also be able to make use of it.

That's got to be the best feeling!

Yeah, yeah, it feels good.

So I guess then, what I'm curious about, so you were in the Psychology Business School Cohort One, which was in January, I can't believe, I can't believe how far back...

Nor can I now you mention it

It feels like yesterday, doesn't it? But, so where did Psychology Business School fit into your journey?

Yeah. I think what one of the key impacts for me was that, through having the focus on on the business, presenting my work and myself in the ways that Psychology Business School was encouraging, thinking of the messages, thinking of the presentation and so on, it meant that I was thinking of myself more as... I don't know if entrepreneur is quite the right word for it, but more of as a having a business, rather than having a practice. Although it's a bit subtle, perhaps to say that. That was something that came to mind time and time again, through the different aspects of and elements of the course. This is a business, we need to think of the impact on the client or the potential clients, we need to think about the way messages are interpreted or misinterpreted, we need to think about numbers, we need to think about not just numbers in terms of finance, but numbers in terms of the reach that that you might get. And I think that the quality of connection with people is very important, and I know this is a message that you put across too, rather than just the number of people you have in a group and so on. So, so it, it shifted my thinking from thinking of myself as a almost a jobbing psychologist or coach who has a practice who people can find out about, to thinking actually this is a business. Yes, it is appropriate to have an assistant, it is appropriate to have things automated, it is appropriate to think about that sequence of emails and so on that can be helpful to people. So, so that shifted my mindset and my and then of course, it influenced my my decisions and my actions as a consequence of that. Very helpful, I would thoroughly recommend it.

Oh, that's lovely to hear. I mean what do you feel then has been tangibly different as a result of doing the course for you?

Well, what's been tangibly different is that I now have this coach's group. And I am now focusing more on that side of things rather than the more general area of perhaps promoting confidence and resilience to a more general population. So it has meant that I thought, very, very carefully about not just the niche subject, which I sort of already knew about, but also the niche audience who I wanted to reach, the potential clients. I have another Facebook group called Calm, Confident and Resilient, which is for women and a much more general group. I don't monetize it. It's something that I wanted to do as a sort of lockdown support, as it were, in part for people who joined the group, in part for me to have a project. But with the coach's group, I mentioned, the High Rising Coaches, that was born from the Psychology Business School, and it's done in a way which will allow me to monetize it and to run courses and groups and trainings to people who I hope will benefit from, from that. And I always liked your approach to combining business with psychology. You know, I suppose it's self selective, in a way, I think psychologists usually want to be helpful and kind and considerate, and we don't want to rip people off, and we don't want to just think about money. That doesn't really, you know, do it for us. I think we like a combination, and that's appropriate, we need to be properly rewarded I think for what we offer, but I like that human touch within everything you encouraged us in the group to, to think about and to practice. So, so yeah, that's worked really well.

So lovely to hear. And I think what, what comes through for me from that is that allowing yourself that mindset shift to start thinking of yourself as a business owner, kind of opened your mind to the possibilities and the way that you could have impact in different ways. And I think that's what I see a lot of in Psychology Business School, and actually, it was my experience from being coached, having it, having a coach myself is what allowed me to do that. Start thinking, you know, how do I, you know, make the most impact for the most people and give myself the kind of life that I want to live too, rather that just, I used to think of myself as a freelance psychologist. I really relate to that, that mindset shift where you're like I'm not, I'm a business owner, and that gives me the freedom to do things in a more creative way. And I'm so glad to hear that I've managed to pass that on a bit, because that's been such a big transformation for me personally. So that's really wonderful to hear. Now, I know that there are lots of people listening to this, who will be interested in adding some coaching into their work. So we know the Facebook group is High Rising Coaches, is there anywhere else people should go to connect with you or to make contact with you if they want to know more about what you're doing Rose?

Yes, I'm always open to email contact, because then you get straight to whatever the personal aspect is that somebody wants to find out about. And my email address is rose@dr-rose.com I think we both tried to avoid our difficult to spell surnames, so rose@dr-rose.com is the easiest one to remember. And I have a website, which I've had for quite some time, probably in need of an update by now. But it still contains quite a lot of relevant things, including a summary of the FUEL model. So people might like, like to look at that. And that is rare-consulting.com.

Brilliant. And I'll make sure there's links to all of that in the show notes. So if you want to connect with Rose, go through to the show notes and you can click straight through to her Facebook group or her website and I'll put her email address in there as well. Because I'm sure there's going to be lots of people that do want to connect with you, Rose. Thank you so much for sharing your journey and about the FUEL model today. Really fascinating stuff and I love what you're doing. Very proud of my cohort one.

Thank you. It's been my pleasure to be here.

Are you looking to build an independent practice that is fulfilling, impactful and financially rewarding? Did you know that I run a business course that's designed to help you do exactly that, without making all the mistakes I made along the way. Over 12 weeks, we take you through everything you need to know to set up a practice that lets you live your values. Through a combination of teaching from experts legal templates to make sure your practice is covered, peer support and group coaching sessions, this is the place for anyone looking to get off the starting blocks in private practice. The course is always accessible in pre-recorded format and three times a year we run a live cohort. So what are you waiting for? Join us at psychologybusinessschool.com/thepsychologybusinessschool. The link's in the show notes.

Thank you for listening to this week's episode of the Business of Psychology Podcast. If you share my passion for doing more than therapy, then make sure you come over and join my free Do More Than Therapy Facebook community where you can work on getting your big ideas off the ground with like minded psychologists and therapists. I'd also love it if you could leave the show a five star review wherever you listen to your podcasts. It will help more of the people who need it to find it. See you next week for more tips and inspirational stories to help you do more than therapy.