Jennifer Taylor on How to Host an Online Summit with Play Therapists | PoP 238

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Play therapy summit with Jennifer Taylor

In this episode, Joe Sanok speaks with Jennifer Taylor on how to host an online summit with play therapists.

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Confused by all the advice on starting a private practice? I’d love to help. I put together a checklist of the top 28 things to do to launch a private practice.

Meet Jennifer Taylor

Jennifer Taylor, LCSW, RPT is an experienced child and family therapist and public speaker who specializes in trauma, ADHD, and conduct problems. Discover more about her diverse clinical background and family. Reach out to Jennifer with questions or comments by emailing at info@jentaylorplaytherapy.com

 

 

 

Jennifer Taylor’s Story

Launched private practice after six weeks of her twin babies being born. She did this in order to have more control of her schedule.

Within the first year, Jennifer excelled at focusing on what she does and and her ideal client. Her niche is play therapy. What she didn’t do well was understanding all the other components that are included in running a business, like a website, logistics, etc.

In This Podcast

Summary

Jennifer Taylor opens up about her story of starting and growing her private practice, which specializes in play therapy. She also goes into detail on one of her recent ideas, hosting an online summit with play therapists. Jennifer speaks around her challenges and successes in running a play therapy private practice, as well as what the niche of play therapy involves.

Core Components of Play Therapy

“Play therapy is a developmentally-based system of working with children; meeting children where they are at.”

Play therapy allows the child to take control of the therapy process.

Techniques of Play Therapy

  • Non-directive
  • How to be present with kids and follow their lead
  • Listen to what they are telling you through their play
  • Activities
  • Metaphor

“Children’s language is play.”

How To Grow a Private Practice

  • Community outreach
  • Get help from someone that is better than you

“The are so many risks in running a business and investing in yourself seems like the smallest risk. But it is challenging, yet definitely worth it!”

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Meet Joe Sanok

Joe Sanok helps counselors to create thriving practices that are the envy of other counselors. He has helped counselors to grow their businesses by 50-500% and is proud of all the private practice owners that are growing their income, influence, and impact on the world. Click here to explore consulting with Joe.

 

 

 

Thanks For Listening!

Feel free to leave a comment below or share this podcast on social media by clicking on one of the social media links below! Alternatively, leave a review on iTunes and subscribe!

 

Podcast Transcription

File: PoP_238 – How_to_Host_an_Online_Summit_with_Play_Therapist_Jennifer_Taylor
Duration: 0:50:03

[EXCERPT FROM THE PODCAST]
Jennifer Taylor: I was like offended that they would say no. But after like the second or third no, it was just, just keep going.

[MUSIC]

[WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION]
Joe Sanok: This is the Practice of the Practice podcast with Joe Sanok, session #238.

[MUSIC]

Joe Sanok: On today’s show, how to start a play therapy practice, how to get clients into that practice and then leaving that practice.

We are talking all about a play therapy practice and moving towards an Online Summit. Stay tuned.

[MUSIC]

Joe Sanok: You know play is such essential part of how we learn and develop as kids where it’s Lego’s or He-Man or Star Wars figures for me. It’s how we make an understanding of the world. But even as adults, you know when we play, when we play sport, we get lost in something enjoyable. We are fully present. And Jennifer Taylor… she is a play therapist. But she is doing so much more. Her story today, just amazing. She is going to share with us all about starting a practice and what she did after that.

Well, today in the Practice of the Practice Podcast, we have Jennifer Taylor. She is a licensed clinical social worker and registered play therapist. She specializes in individual group and family therapy with a specialty in play therapy and she is the brains behind the 2017 Play Therapy Summit. Jennifer, welcome to the Practice of the Practice Podcast.

Jennifer Taylor: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you having me on.

Joe Sanok: Yeah. Well, we are just recording… actually, just last hour my part of the play therapy summit which we will get [Inaudible 00:02:00.20] and I had a cancellation. I am like you got to come on the podcast. So I am so glad you had time as well to come on.

Jennifer Taylor: Yeah, I love it when those schedules coordinate and things work out that way.
[PRIVATE PRACTICE – START AND GROWTH]
Joe Sanok: I know it’s like weeks and weeks of planning to finally get an interview going, but we did it today. Well, take us back to when you launched your practice. When did you launch your practice?

Jennifer Taylor: The practice that I have here in Memphis, Tennessee, I launched right at the same time that I was pregnant with my twin boys. I had a 13-month old daughter and we moved to Memphis, Tennessee when I was seven and half months pregnant with twin boys and decided to go into solo private practice within the first, probably 6 weeks, of them being born.

Joe Sanok: Oh my gosh! I remember our first six hours and I was not thinking about launching a practice or doing much like… take us through that decision to launch a practice right after your babies.

Jennifer Taylor: Well, what I was thinking was that typical social work jobs require you to be on call. They require you to do group activities in the evenings or work on weekends, and then I really didn’t want to do any of those things, that I was worried twin babies have a high potential for being sick a lot or for having high needs. You don’t sleep at all. And so I was really worried that I wasn’t going to have enough control over my schedule, and thought the only way that I am going to be able to do that is if I am in charge of everything. So, private practice was the way to go at that time.

Joe Sanok: Yeah. So take us through that first year or so. What were kind of some of the components of starting the practice? What did you do well? What you think you could have done differently?

Jennifer Taylor: Ah, that’s a really good question. I think what I did well from the beginning was really focus on what I do and who I don’t see. So I have a play therapy exclusive practice. I really don’t see adults. Very, very rarely I will take one or two adult clients, but when people call looking for marriage counseling or for other adult services, I was able to easily refer them out and keep my sole practice focused really on working with the little kids, the highly traumatized young children, the defiant oppositional ADHD kids, and focusing on how play therapy solves those problems. So I think that goes really well for me. I am able to really make that niche, something that works for me easily. What I didn’t do so well is probably just understanding all of the other components that get involved with running a business – the website, and the marketing and the phone calls, and just the logistics of how to get all of those processes in place. And I probably spent way more time than I needed to doing things that weren’t productive or that were taking away from kind of the core essence of my business.

[COMPONENTS & TECHNIQUES OF PLAY THERAPY]
Joe Sanok: Mm-hmm. So for people that aren’t specialist in play therapy, what are some of the core components of play therapy.

Jennifer Taylor: Ah well, play therapy is a great niche to have. Let me just say that to just start out with. But, some of the key components of play therapy are that it is a developmentally-based system of working with children needing them where they are at. A lot of play therapist are child-centered or non-directed meaning that you really allow the child to take charge of their therapy process by having the play therapy room and the toys that they can use. And so the components really are just that – that the child gets to be in charge of the therapy process, that we use toys and play as their words and as their language and that we meet children where they are developmentally and use that information to help them gain insight into their behavior and to help parents get information and recommendations about how to improve behaviors at home.

Joe Sanok: Mm-hmm. So what are a few of the techniques that registered play therapist use in those situations?

Jennifer Taylor: Like I said, a lot of play therapists start out kind of in a non-directive or child centered way. And so that’s really a way of being with children. There is a whole system and materials that you can learn up how to set up a play room. Actually have a course on the first ten thing you need to learn about play therapy. That kind of gives you some of those initial ideas and things that you can do, but a lot of it is just how to be present with kids, how to follow their lead, how to sit back and not ask lot of questions, and really listen to what they are telling you through their plays. Then more kind of directively, there is some really fun, more therapist-led activities that you can do. I love to do a [Inaudible 00:06:14.08] activity that I came up with where you can just use a little bit of [Inaudible 00:06:18.06] and have children talk about what they are worried about and use the B/yarn to measure out a tiny worry versus a really long worry. And then you can talk about what they can do to manage that worry through breathing and reframing and other copying skills and then overtime you can watch them trim those worries down to size, so that they can come back in and say, well, now this worry is only this big. And so we can really… is a good visual aid to help them track worries and how to still be playful and fun and something that they can buy into.

Joe Sanok: Hmm. I know when we are talking on your interview for me, you were talking about how play therapists love metaphors. How do you think metaphors I guess apply outside of play therapy to maybe as counselors or just kind of adults in general?

Jennifer Taylor: Aw, I mean metaphors are one of those things that I feel like applies to everything. I use metaphors with my clients, with my kids all the time. I’m just trying to figure out how are you going to connect an abstract concept with something that seems more real life and so that’s the beauty of metaphor, is that they help bridge that gap really easily for people. The problem with them is that they are really difficult to come up with when someone asks about it like that. So it’s hard to come up with a really good example when someone says do this. Another interview I did in the Play Therapy Summit was a therapy who uses music and movement, and she talked about singing songs as transitions and I did the same thing to her and I said, oh great, give me the example of a song that you use. And she thought. I don’t know. I just do it in the moment. And that’s kind of how therapists work. Just whatever seems to be the most relevant metaphor, they just pop into your head and help you explain those abstract concepts. And that’s the same way that that works out in play therapy.

Joe Sanok: Yeah, and I think that metaphor is often times it’s… when we have experiences that are hard to put into words, it makes it easier for kids and adults to kind of understand it. Like the other day, I remember my daughter was just really mad about something and I said what does it feel like inside of you. And she said, I just feel like there is a tornado and a thunderstorm going on. So then we can talk about, okay, how do we help those clouds kind of dissipate a little bit, and how do we calm the winds. So then for her it really was a metaphor that helped her kind of find her center again.

Jennifer Taylor: Yeah, and that’s beautiful. It’s like play therapy in your parenting and we might do that through having them draw a picture or having them make a picture on a sand trail but sometimes just having that mindful activity of describing that feeling, that’s all that we need.

Joe Sanok: Yeah, I think… I don’t know I have a pretty creative imagination. I love just coming up with like kids stories and doing that play therapy in parenting. I haven’t thought of it that way, but like we will just get… like the stuffed animals together and I’ll say all these other stuffed animals are rejecting the giraffe because they think he shouldn’t have spots. And they will come up with like a story about like isolation and all these different fun things, then she can kind of sort through those emotions and get the little stuffed animals to help the giraffe work through it and realize that being different is okay. So I just love that kind of stuff with kids.

Jennifer Taylor: It sounds like you are an amazing dad. So she is very lucky to have you, willing to get down on the floor and do those things. That’s one of our top recommendations for parents, as play therapists, is to get down on the floor and just make it up as you go.

Joe Sanok: So like for therapists, we get developmental theory, like even if we haven’t been trained in play therapy as we hear you talk, it’s like, I get it. For parents who maybe not familiar at all with maybe even therapy, let alone play therapy, how do you take this complex idea and describe to them what play therapy is?

Jennifer Taylor: Well, from the moment that they come to my website and then the time that they come to the office, they kind of get the idea that this is about play just because that’s what my office is filled with. It has doll houses and [Inaudible 00:09:59.06] and sand and all that stuff. So they kind of see it. They experience it and get excited about all the cool stuff that’s there just as kind of the child in them. But we go back and explain to parents about that concept again, that children don’t come to therapy like adults do and want to sit down on a chair and tell us all their deepest, darkest secrets, that they really communicate with us by using their own language which is play and the toys that we have, and that that information helps give us the tools that we need to be able to talk through those problems, just like you did with your daughter in a little giraffe story, and that is the way that therapy is done with kids in order to be effective and if that’s what they are looking for. This is going to be the most developmentally appropriate way to actually help their kids.

[HOW TO GROW A PRIVATE PRACTICE]
Joe Sanok: Yeah, so as your practice grew… I know that we see practices kind of in the startup phase and the growth phase and the scaling phase. As you started to grow, what were things that you put in whether it’s systems or other things that helped you to continue to grow and optimize that momentum.

Jennifer Taylor: Well, I being a mom of twins, organization is kind of my key. So I tried to do as much as possible electronically. So have electronic intake forms and I do electronic scheduling of my practice which my clients love. They like being able to go online at their convenience and check [Inaudible 00:11:14.28] schedules and dads schedule it [Inaudible 00:11:17.19] able to plug in their appointment schedules and/ or make cancels and changes at their leisure. So those two things were really have been the most helpful for me…

Joe Sanok: Which system do you use for that?

Jennifer Taylor: I use therapyappointment.com for my online scheduling and for my billing and all of those things and same reason for billing insurance companies and all that stuff, just as much as you can do electronically and effortlessly, those things really helped me, and that system has an online scheduling tool built in, and then I use a program called Adobe EchoSign to do electronic signature forms for informed consent and all of those kind of intake paperwork.

Joe Sanok: Got you. Cool. I like to know kind of the actual logistical side for people to… so having electronic records, doing as much online has been helpful for growing and scaling. What else has been helpful for growing the practice?

Jennifer Taylor: I think another thing that has really been helpful for me is doing community outreach. I have been really lucky to be able to go and do career days at some of the local elementary schools for the past couple of years and that has been really fun opportunity, but also helped to build community networks with teachers and guidance counselors and other mental health people in the field. So I have done that and then other kind of outreach opportunities where I have done – CEU opportunities for teachers and other people in the community to learn about play therapy. And so those connections with people have really sent back a lot of referrals and kind of other clients to my business as part of doing that stuff, and it’s fun because it gets me out of the office for a little while. So that really has been helpful to me.

Joe Sanok: Yeah. So as the practice grows what advice do you have for people that maybe are past the startup phase and they are looking to grow in scale?

Jennifer Taylor: What I would say is get help from somebody who is better than you. And that’s been one of the things that private practice can be very isolating and sometimes you can spend an hour or a week or a month trying to solve a problem that someone else has already solved. So if you are deciding to expand as a group practice or you just want to be able to get off managed care or whatever it is that your goal is, somebody out there already knows how to do that and can help you and help save you some time. So reach out to people that you can get consultation from, or that you can get advice from and mentor with, so what you can learn from what they already know instead of doing everything on your own which is probably one of the hardest lessons for me. I am so independent and I am so kind of go, go, go, I want to have control into everything myself and to be able to say, hey there’s people out there who already know this and they will help me if I ask them, has been something that really is a lesson for me.

Joe Sanok: Yeah. What do you think it’s in the way that… I know that I for a long time had quite the bootstrapping mentality too where I didn’t hire my own coach. What do you think it’s in the way of people bringing people in that teach the most things?

Jennifer Taylor: It’s hard to say. I think that there’s a little bit of fear that by asking for help it somehow makes you vulnerable or makes you seem like you are not good enough. There maybe a some of that. There is a cost involved in that and sometimes you don’t understand the value of investing in yourself until after you have done it. So when someone says that they are charging $600 for this consultation group or for this mastermind group or $6000, then it can feel like you are not sure if that’s really going to be worth it [Inaudible 00:14:34.09] of investing in yourself. But again, I think a lot of it comes back to you…you get used to doing everything as part of your own practice and you want it done your way and it takes time to train someone else or to teach someone else your processes and they are not going to do it the exact same way that you do it. And you have to relinquish some of that. That can be a hard thing for people when you have done everything to build this business from scratch.

Joe Sanok: Well, I think there is also that fear of just like getting ripped off. You know, someone doesn’t have the skills they say they have and isn’t actually going to help you grow and you kind of have given them $600 or $6000 and you are going to have nothing to show for it too.

Jennifer Taylor: Right. And that’s the risk of anything. I mean you took that risk when you go into practice too. What if I sign this lease on this office space and no one shows up? What if I put this ad out there and no one calls? If I do these things, there are so many risks that are involved in being in business, and investing in yourself seems to be like the smallest risk. But it is the hardest one to take because it’s kind of selfish in a way and people focus on other things. It’s more about let me tweak my website or let me add this photo here, and that’s going to be the best investment. But sometimes really investing in yourself is the best investment really that you can make with your money. And if they turn out to not be good, then you got information, that’s what I tell people.

Joe Sanok: Right, right.

Jennifer Taylor: Right? If you did something and it doesn’t work, now you have information. You know, well, don’t spend any more money on that person or maybe do some better research and get a referral from somebody that you do know about who does excellent consultation or get some more information and find somebody that’s good and use that information to move forward.

[NEW PROJECT: PLAY THERAPY SUMMIT]
Joe Sanok: Yeah. Well, I know you have been working on the new project, the Play Therapy Summit. I love to hear when you have the idea, like how did it go from just an idea to actually doing it?

Jennifer Taylor: Well, talking about risk, this is one of those things that is for me a completely new adventure and so there is some risk involved in that. It really started… virtual summits have kind of been this trendy topic it seems like lately and so you will see in your Facebook feeds, virtual summits on parenting and on these different things and blogging for success or whatever. And so I signed up for a couple of them, just out of curiosity, to see what they were about? And it was cool. I just thought it was interesting how they were giving people so much information in a short period of time from experts and from consultants and people that you normally have to pay tons of money to get access to who had given you just some of their little snippets and I thought that was still cool. But it wasn’t about play therapy. And I thought, well, this would be really cool if there was a whole bunch of play therapist that I could learn from and that I could get this advice from because that’s what I’m really passionate about. And there was nobody out there that was doing that. And I talked to my husband one day and I said if I don’t do this somebody else is going to do it and then I am going to be mad. Then I didn’t do it when I first started thinking about it and he said just do it, try it. See what happens and just go with it. And so I said, okay. We are going to go and we are just going to see what happens, and that’s kind of how it’s all born. Just out of a need to have that product for myself really, because it was something that I would be interested in attending and I thought maybe other people might too.

Joe Sanok: Yeah, and it lines up pretty well with a big life change of moving out to Hawaii.

Jennifer Taylor: Yeah, my husband is in the Navy and we are moving from Memphis to Hawaii, who said that’s been another kind of challenge to say my own private practice is that every three years I have to reinvent my practice and we have to move it around, and I was in a group practice prior to living in Memphis, then I am in solo practice here. And part of this struggle of having to continue to reinvent your business is how can I do that in a way that’s is going to help me achieve my personal goals for my family and kind of align with all those things that we are doing. And so moving into the virtual summit training space and helping other professionals kind of is a two-fold. It helps us do all those things and it also helps benefit my family as we transitioned because I have got to wind out my practice in Memphis. I am not seeing as many people, which means I have more free time. But it also means that I am not making as much money. So I needed something that would help me transition and kind of fill the gap between my practice here and my practice in Hawaii.

Joe Sanok: Well, and I think that often is what propels us to try new things as some sort of life event. That we say, you know, the finances are tighter or I don’t want to have this lifestyle any more or I want to spend more time with my kids. When you think about developing this virtual summit, what were some of the core things that you either personally wanted to get out of it or you hoped other people would get out of it.

Jennifer Taylor: So the two main things that I definitely wanted me and everyone else to get out of it was to link the concept of the play therapy theories that are out there and to really give new graduate students or new clinicians some good information about the theories behind play therapy, but to connect that to practical things that you can do in your practice. So I want everybody to walk away with something practical, something actionable, something tangible that they can use from every speaker to say I can take that information. It will help me be a better clinician, it will help me be a better play therapist, or help me just be better as a clinician in my field. And so those were the two main goals and then just to help you hone in on who are these great people and where would I like to go get more information from. If I could see 20 of the best play therapist in the country talk about their techniques, then I get a little feeling of this person is definitely worth travelling to Denver, Colorado or [Inaudible 00:19:58.07] beach, Florida to get more information from them, and so really just to help people kind of make those decisions about where to invest their money in the future when it comes to training.

Joe Sanok: So someone has an idea. They decide they want to do a virtual summit. I think most people would say, I have no idea technologically how to do this. I have no idea at all how to even start this project. Take us through some of those like first I did this, then… like did you get coaching or advice or did you just google how to do a virtual summit. Like, take us through the nuts and bolts of setting this thing up.

Jennifer Taylor: Oh, yeah. Totally. So like I said, first I went to a couple virtual summits, participated them online, just kind of saw how people were running them, and then I reached out to one of the team hostesses for a virtual summit that I went to on blogging and just said, hey, what was this experience like for you and what would you recommend, this is an initial reach out. And she gave positive feedback. And then I starting researching and googling how to run a virtual summit and where to get that information, and then actually are some resources out there, some consultants out there who have this process pretty well mapped out and who are available to help walk somebody like me through all of those things that you need to do. And so I invested in that. I invested in learning from someone who is better than me about this and taking a course from them and getting information from them about how to do that. And really I could not have done it without that because you need that professional mentor that can say, I don’t know anything about play therapy, but I know a ton of stuff about virtual summits and here’s the things that you need to know. So using that consultation group and that person in a way to help me develop this has really been the only way that I would even be at the place that I am at now.

Joe Sanok: Who do you use?

Jennifer Taylor: Navid Moazzez.

Joe Sanok: Wow!

Jennifer Taylor: Yeah, it’s a mouthful. Right? And I am going to make sure that is right. His Virtual Summit Mastery… is his program and he is amazing. I really like his program. And so he lays out a course that gives you every module and every step that you need to do, and walks you through the technical aspects with videos and Facebook groups and he has everything and it really was an investment in the summit, but it was worth it as far as having the support and the people that can help you when you are struggling or when… like yesterday, my video interview didn’t go as well as I wanted to because of my internet connection went down and kind of how to recover those things. So without having the supports of people who have been there, you can get filled with self-doubt and then you don’t ever finish. And that was my biggest concern that I told Navid when I started this, was what if I start all this and I never actually launch The Summit and what if it never actually comes to [Inaudible 00:22:33.23]. And he said that won’t be a problem because we are going to walk you through every step, every step of the way and whenever you need help, there is going to be somebody there that’s been through it before. And just having that gives me the confidence to go. Okay, just keep going. Now just do the next step and you don’t have to see the whole staircase. You just need to see the next step.

Joe Sanok: Yeah, I say wow because I have heard him on some podcast and that’s a pretty well known… he is a well-known consultant in that space. So that’s great that you engaged with him. And I think… so how did you decide to go with his program? Because I think some people going back to that fear of investing in yourself and being worried that you are not going to get results. Like what built trust with you to decide to invest in that program?

Jennifer Taylor: Well, one of the things that I can say and I don’t want get, you know, too much on Navid’s bandwagon, but one of the things I can say about what he did was that he gives away a lot of stuff for free as well and a lot of the really good people give away a lot of stuff for free. They are not afraid to give you great material to let you know what else they have. And if that’s the stuff that they are giving away for free, you can only imagine this stuff that you are going to get when you are paying for the service. And so he set up some live Facebook calls and some question and answer periods, and he sent out email instructions with kind of the first steps that you would need to do just to get you really thinking. And by the time I had gone through that kind of first week of the freebies that he was offering, I really had that sense of… okay, as long as he keeps sending me emails all the time, then I can do this, and without him I started to feel like, I don’t know what to do next and I am going to spend a ton of time researching and trying to figure this out when the answers are already there. So I think really when people are good at what they do, they give away some stuff for free.

Joe Sanok: Yeah. Well, I think what I hear for people that want to do more consulting is make sure you kind of walk people through that process of here is how you get started. Give away stuff for free and then on the other side for people that want to invest in things to find those people that have done it. They give away their knowledge, they teach you before you ever give them a dime. I think both sides of kind of the fence is really important to take something away from that. So then you get the logistics set up. You start reaching out to play therapists. Did everybody accept you, everybody reject you? Tell me the emotions behind trying to get these people to come on to get interviewed.

Jennifer Taylor: Oh man, there is so many emotions involved in that. So before I actually invested in Navid’s course, I had one kind of what I would consider well-named play therapist, Dr. Janet Courtney, who had responded to one of my blog articles that I had written and said what are you up to? I am so curious to what’s going on with you because I love your blogs and I thought why, why, she is reading my blogs – are you serious. And I said, well, actually I am thinking about hosting this virtual summit and I would love for you to join. And she said, absolutely, I will be honored to. And that was kind of the enough to go, okay, if she is willing to do it, then I can find other people who are willing to do this. And so that’s when the whole like… the idea was… okay, it’s a thing. I have told somebody about it, so now it’s really going to happen. Then after that, I had to go and find more people. Not everybody said, yes. The people who said no at the beginning kind of really hurt my feelings. Right? I was like, why would you say no to this. This is going to be amazing and everybody is going to want to do it and I can’t… I was like offended, that they would say no. But after like the second or the third no, it was just, just keep going, Right? Just keep asking. There are people out there and then there was more people that started saying yes, and more people that started getting excited about it. And that’s it. That just keep going and keep finding the people who are going to be right for that, but it’s a hard thing to be told no sometimes, especially when you are really excited about an idea. I thought like ah, if they don’t want to do it, that means that this whole part is going to be a failure. No one is going to want to participate in it and it’s just going to be bad. And the truth is a lot of those no’s were really because logistically they couldn’t fit into their schedule. They were travelling out of town or they were doing other training or they had other things going on where we just couldn’t make it work or it was just… they were little outside of my reach at this point. They were doing things that didn’t align with my project at that very moment and it really wasn’t about them rejecting the project or me. It was just it didn’t work out this time and maybe they will do it next time.

Joe Sanok: I love what you said there. After the second or third no, you just kept going and I think that’s so true that the more you get rejected, the easier it gets. And then you get some of those yes’s of people that were kind of like, ah, can’t believe they said yes. That’s awesome, and then you just realize that it’s not personal. It’s just not a fit right now.

Jennifer Taylor: Exactly. It’s just like when you have your counseling private practice, and someone calls asking about services and you think they are going to book an appointment. And then they say, okay, thank you very much and you never hear from them again. And you go, ah man, they must not have liked me or ah, what should I have said differently to get them here. And the truth is you probably weren’t the best fit for them and that’s good. It’s okay for them to find another therapist or another counselor that is going to be a better fit and that makes room for the people who are your ideal client and are your best fit to make space for them. So just like in counseling, it worked the same way in summit. Some people, it didn’t work out. It wasn’t going to be the best fit. Now we have this great line of 20 awesome and amazing psychotherapists from all over the country, even have somebody coming all the way from Israel talking about water play therapy and just all over the country. So it’s going to be amazing, and the people that we have and the people who have agreed to sign on to a project, not knowing a whole lot about what it was going to look like in the end and are the forward thinking play therapists that I am so grateful for.

Joe Sanok: Yeah. So walk us through what participants are going to experience, so that if there is play therapists that want to join you, they know what they are going to experience.

Jennifer Taylor: Yeah, absolutely. And you don’t have to be a play therapist to be part of this. This is really designed for clinician at every stage of the play therapy game to get information. So what happens is you go to the website, www.playtherapysummit.com and you enter in your email address to get access to your free ticket to get to the summit which is August 25th to the 28th.

Joe Sanok: So right around the corner, like couple days from now.

Jennifer Taylor: Yes, so go now, write now to the website. There is still time, is unlimited access for you to get your free ticket. So go now to the website, www.playtherapysummit.com. You enter in your email to get access to the Summit and what happens is every day of the Summit you get access to the speakers of the day. So there’s five speakers every day and you get access to their information totally for free for 24 hours. So you can listen to people, to Joe talking about marketing of a private practice, and to other people talking about using play therapy with little babies in trauma, with children with foster care and adoption, all sorts of topics. Those videos are available for 24 hours only and then in the next morning you wake up and you get another email with a link to five more speakers and that goes on for four days. And then if you missed one or if you had information that you just wanted to hear again, that you didn’t get enough of, if you want access to the special bonuses that people are offering or if you want to get play therapy non-contact hour credit, then you purchase the All Access Pass which gives you lifetime access to all of those things and an opportunity to get those play therapy credits that you are going to need to become a registered play therapist.

Joe Sanok: Wow! So www.playtherapysummit.com. If they want the All Access Pass, how much is that?

Jennifer Taylor: If you get it now, go now before the Summit starts on August 25th and it’s only $97, which is less than $5 a CEU, which is an unbelievable bargain. If you wait until the Summit is over or you missed it, you can still get in, but the price is not going to be that low. Try to get in before August 25th, where you can get the cheapest CEUs that you will ever be able to get for the play therapy summit, but even when the summit is over and the price increases, you are still going to get this huge bargain for 20 CEUs and the incredible access and actionable items that you are getting from these amazing mental health people.

[CONCLUSION AND LINKS]
Joe Sanok: Well Jennifer, I love hearing your story and kind of your progress. It’s so frequently I get to hear about people that are starting a practice, growing a practice, and then do really cool things outside of just their practice. If every practice owner in the world was listening right now, what would you want them to know?

Jennifer Taylor: What would I want them to know if they were listening? I would say embrace the anxiety that comes in risk, and that everything that you think is scary, everything that you think is impossible or that you doubt yourself in the ability to do, you probably have the ability to do if you just get started, and then just keep working at it a little bit at a time. You never know what thing is going to be the thing, that is going to be the most effective. Just do something every day to keep working and to keep building your way and your progress to the thing that scare you the most.

Joe Sanok: Mm-hmm. I love it. Jennifer Taylor from www.playtherapysummit.com. I can’t wait to hear the results from this. So glad that you invited me to be a part of the summit, and I look forward to hearing what happens as a result of this. Thanks for being on the Practice of the Practice Podcast.

Jennifer Taylor: Thank you. I appreciate being here.

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Joe Sanok: Wow! What an amazing interview. You know since that interview Jennifer has set up a better way for her to track what’s working in regards to podcast interviews and promotions, just to know who and where people are coming from. So if you actually want to use the link www.practiceofthepractice.com/playtherapysummit, that’s going to help her track and to know just how many Practice of the Practice people are coming through to this play therapy. I highly recommend you sign up for this, even if play therapy is not on your radar, if eventually you want to build those skills. Sign up for it now, so that you can access to those videos. Again, that’s www.practiceofthepractice.com/playtherapysummit and it’s just so impressive to see people creating these things. Already, there is 2500 people registered for this event. So it’s going to be huge, it’s going to be one of these things in the play therapy world that really helps clinicians, but also helps them connect with each other. So again, www.practiceofthepractice.com/playtherapysummit and thanks so much for letting me into your ears and into your brain. Here’s what coming up next week.

“Actually, my kids, they grew up and they became adult people, went off to college, and my husband and I were trying to reflect on what was going on from there. At the time, I was working various nursing positions, and I decided to join the Air Force.”

Joe Sanok: So to hear what Frances does at age 42, when she joins the Air Force and as she transitions out of the Air Force, you are going to have to tune in next week. We would love to have you be here on every Tuesday. Thanks for rating and reviewing us on iTunes. You guys rock. Have a nice week.

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This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher or the guest surrender any legal, accounting, or clinical information. If you need a professional, you should find one, and thanks to the Silences, sexy, for that inter music. We love it.

[End of Podcast Audio][Inaudible 00:33:53:13]

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