Many therapists have created online courses or have thought about creating an online course. It’s one of the best ways to increase your visibility, establish your expertise, and expand your audience and impact in the world. The course creation journey is not an easy one, and it’s full of challenges and ups and downs. Join us for a transparent look at the process from today’s guest!

Our Featured Guest

Linda Murphy, MEd, MA, LMHC

Linda Murphy is a group practice owner in Florida, and she’s a member of the STC Online Course Mastermind group for therapists. Linda is the founder of the Banana Man Society and the Relationship and Divorce Counseling Center. She developed her idea to create a course for dealing with a difficult person because she saw that topic come up often for her clients, and she realized over time that there had to be a better way to distill and share information beyond 1:1 therapy. She created “Banana Man” as a metaphor for dealing with a difficult person–and the Banana Man Society was born. In this session, Linda gives an open, honest look at her course creation journey, along with insights into how she refined her idea. She shares tips and strategies she has learned that might be helpful to others in the course creation process. 

Website

You’ll Learn:

• How to embrace the mindset of connection, support, and collaboration
• How Linda realized in her first career, as a teacher, that connection is more important than content
• How Linda developed the idea for her online course
• The origins of Banana Man as a metaphor for options in dealing with difficult people
• Why Linda created an animated video of the Banana Man story (through the STC Mastermind group)
• Linda’s best tips for others about creating a successful online course:
• Lean into who you are and be authentic.
• Market yourself and be creative with social media.
• Where Linda sees her course going in the future with a specifically targeted niche
• Linda’s thoughts about the impact and benefits of the STC Online Course Mastermind group 

Resources:

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Melvin Varghese:

Hey there, it's Melvin. Today's podcast is supported by the American Psychological Association. If you are a psychology professional, which I think is most of us that are listening to this podcast, maybe you're considering your next career move. Well, the American Psychological Association's PsyCareers service actually has a listing of over 400 available positions in psychology. You can check it out over at sellingthecouch.com forward slash APA. And you can create a free account, upload your resume, set up job alerts, and submit all your applications. Again, that's over at sellingthecouch.com forward slash APA. So we'll jump right into today's session. Hello, hello, welcome to today's session of Selling the Couch. I hope that you're doing well, having a fantastic day. So today's podcast conversation is for you if you've been thinking about creating an online course, especially in this new year. I'm joined by Linda Murphy. Linda is a group practice owner down in Florida. She's also a member of our online course Mastermind for Therapists and Linda had this idea to create a course for someone that's dealing with a difficult person in their life. She has this beautiful metaphor that she uses in therapy sessions called Banana Man and you will actually hear the whole story of Banana Man and how Linda shares about this that it's such a great, great visual and one I think that you can definitely use in your own therapy sessions. But Linda had this idea and what she realized over time is there had to be another way of sharing and distilling this information beyond just one-to-one work with therapy clients. And so that's where the idea came from. But Linda struggled with just staying motivated to be on the course journey. And today we're talking openly and honestly about Linda's course journey, what it's been like, where the idea came from, what she learned by being part of the mastermind, how she refined and came up with the idea for her course. We sprinkle in lots of like little tips and strategies and things that you may want to think about as you continue to be on your online course creation journey. So we'll jump right into today's session. Here's my conversation with Linda Murphy from BananaManSociety.com. Hey, Linda, welcome to Selling the Couch.

Linda Murphy: Thank you so much, Melvin. Thank you for having me.

Melvin Varghese: I told you this before we jumped into our conversation, but more than anything, I'm just incredibly grateful for your life. I'm incredibly grateful for you. Not just like, I know we're going to talk about courses and your course journey, but who you are as a person and what you have overcome to get to where you are. I just wanted to celebrate that and just say how much I appreciate you.

Linda Murphy: Thank you so much. I just, yeah, I'm so happy to be a part of the mastermind that you have started because it's such a place where you feel comfort in the support of colleagues who are so like minded and are, you know, just so wanting to help other people and be creative in a new way. And so I'm just, yeah, I'm so thankful to be a part of it. So

Melvin Varghese: Yeah, absolutely. It is a great group. And I think, I don't know, the mantra I kept thinking about was like, income is a byproduct of serving others. And I feel like everybody in that group, it's, and it manifests all in different ways, right? Like little, I mean, I know, there's like been colleagues that have like, even outside of meeting, like, let's get on a call, like, I want to help you think through this or, you know, and I think I don't know, they're just, I've struggled with this in my life. I'm not even saying like, I'm there or anything. But I think when you sort of unlock that, that everything is not a zero sum game that if I, you know, if I am doing something, that means you can do it, right versus saying, like, I'm going to do something really well. And I want to help you do something well. Like I just, it's such a great environment to be in.

Linda Murphy: Yeah, what was something really interesting when I joined was that there was already somebody in our group that was doing something similar to what I was doing and having that person there, that it just, it felt comforting. And like you said, we don't have to be doing something different or new. It doesn't have to be just my idea. We can really help to grow each other's ideas.

Melvin Varghese: Yeah. How did you make that shift? Let's maybe even start there because when you see somebody, right, who actually has a very similar kind of idea, I think for some people they see that and it makes them shut down and be like, oh my gosh, if they're already doing this, I can't do this. Whereas other people are like, hey, this is an opportunity for us to help each other, support each other, learn from each other. How did you sort of embrace that latter mindset?

Linda Murphy: I guess knowing that everybody is going to have their own take, right? The way that I'm going to do it is going to be different than the way that somebody else might do it. I think that if it were my identical twin, which I don't have one, but if it were my identical twin and we were so much alike and she wanted to do the exact same thing that I wanted to do, in that case, I might actually go, you know what? Let's let her do it. But otherwise, there's so much that goes into why somebody might choose a specific book or a course or a counselor over another one. And so I think that just having faith that there would be something that drew people to my course versus somebody else's. And that actually there would be enough people out there that for us all to share the people who would want to take a course like mine, you know, that actually maybe the spin that somebody else has on it would be more beneficial to that specific person than mine. And so kind of helping to grow each other's is helpful in that way.

Melvin Varghese: Yeah, absolutely. I think it reminds me of something we've talked, I feel like a lot of times in our mastermind, like it's not that there, there's so much information out there on how to do this, right? Like all these courses, like the topic themselves are so much information out there, but it's ultimately in the delivery and in the presentation and in the personality, really that matters. Right. And I think You're absolutely spot on. I think it's so easy to like, almost disproportionately focus on the information. But actually, the great irony is it's actually in the delivery and who you are as a person. And even the things that we feel like, you know, are kind of quirks, right? Like, even I think about like you, right? Like, you were not a therapist, right? That was not your first career. And maybe even share that with us, like what that previous career was, but like how that then like informs that's part of your narrative and that's part of your story, you know?

Linda Murphy: Right. Yeah, I used to be a teacher for 10 years prior to becoming a counselor. I worked in really, really challenging schools throughout Hillsborough County and Florida. And yeah, it really My favorite part of the job was not the content ever. I taught writing and I actually don't really like to write, which actually maybe kind of a good teacher because I really understood my students who didn't like to write and wanted to help them to learn the tricks of the skill so that they could just get through it, right? And for those who love to write, I could also help to bring it up because I taught at the middle school level. So, you know, there was always something I could teach a middle school student, even the best of the writers, but it was never about the content. It was always about the connection with the child and trying to figure out how do I get this child in front of me who maybe doesn't care about writing at all, to want to write. And I learned early on, some of that was really about just that relationship that you had with the child. They may not write just for writing sake, but they may write because they want to do a good job for me. right? Or they're motivated by the grade. They have goals and aspirations. So, tapping into whatever it is that inspires the kid. And so, later on in life, when I had this epiphany moment. It was actually my sister came to me and told me she wanted to go back to school for counseling, that I had this aha moment. And in that moment, I said to her, me too. And then I did. And we both did.

Melvin Varghese: Amazing. What a story. I feel like I'm going to circle back onto this, but I feel like an experience like this, having something like a previous career and seeing it, it just gives you such a different perspective as you journey into this world of course creation. I know folks listening are probably really curious. I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about your online course.

Linda Murphy: So it's changed a bit over time. I have, from the mastermind, really learned how common that is for things to morph, change. You have to be very flexible with what you're doing because you never know what direction it's going to go in. So in the beginning, when I joined my number one course idea was that I wanted to write a course for parents who were getting a divorce and they didn't want to mess up their kids. I actually used the F word instead of mess up, but I don't know if I can curse on here.

Melvin Varghese: Yeah. G-rated.

Linda Murphy: G-rated, yes. So that was the course idea, but it felt very massive to take on as my first step. And I really wanted to prove to myself that I was really in this and wasn't going to give up. So what I did was I took a piece of that course that I found Many people were saying to me, this lesson, this part of what you have taught me, specifically my clients in my office, would say, this was so powerful. I wish you wrote a book so I could read it to my children. Or I wish you had some way of giving this information to more people. They'd tell their friends. They would try to convey the message. And so, I decided that that would actually be my first course. And that course is all about how to deal with difficult people. And these are difficult people that will not change their behaviors. And they're really hard to get along with. And the course helps people to understand their options. when you're dealing with somebody who is difficult in that way. And the course is called Banana Man. Or at least that's kind of the working, right? Banana Man, a counselor's guide on how to let stuff go. And instead of the word stuff, it might be a curse word as well.

Melvin Varghese: We have the common theme of curse words for Linda's courses. But you know, I joke about it and I think this is like a little nuance of this, like part of this is like embracing your personality, right? And you're sort of, yeah, just like how you show up in the world, right? Like, Mal having courtesies and curse words is probably not happening. Who is this guy? Who is he trying to be? I'm so glad you embraced it. Tell us a little bit more about Banana Man. I remember you created some graphics and a video. Tell us a little bit about that too.

Linda Murphy: So banana man is a metaphor for how your options for dealing with difficult people. So it's a story that I tell my clients about what if you were to come across somebody who believes that you are a banana, what, you know, and you're obviously not a banana, what are your options for dealing with that person? And, you know, And you can apply that to any difficult person. Let's say you have a parent, for example, who is a worrier. And let's say it's mom. She gets very, very anxious about all steps of life and doesn't seem to accept any information from you on how great things are going and how things are fine. Mom, I'm successful. I'm okay. But she worries and she worries and she worries. I take whatever the client's situation is, and I then tell this metaphor story about, okay, so what if instead of mom just being anxious about how you're going to get hurt or you're going to lose everything or whatever it is that she worries about. What about if it was just some person who thought you were a banana? It's a joke. It's silly. It takes you outside of your own story that you're very connected with and allows you to see like, okay, yeah, that would be annoying. You're not a banana. So what are your options? You can argue with banana man, you can avoid banana man, or you can accept banana man. And most people typically go toward argue or avoid, right? So they may, every time they see mom, every time they talk to mom on the phone, They may try to convince her that they're okay. They may never tell mom stories about hard stuff in life because they don't want to give her any ammo for thinking that something is wrong. And it may really be hard on them, right? Because mom doesn't shift the way in which she thinks about them. So typically, that's one path people go down, the argue path, where you try to change the person's perspective. You try to change their behavior in some way. Or you go down the avoid path, which might mean, I moved to a state far away, so I don't have to see mom as often. I don't call as much as I would typically call or as much as other people call their moms. And I space out visits to go visit mom long enough that I can tolerate each time I see her. So every five years, I go to visit mom instead of every year for Thanksgiving. Or they cut mom out, which I mean, that would be an extreme case if she's just a worry wart, but mom's challenging enough. Sometimes people just say, I'm done with mom. I'm not interacting at all. So they fluctuate between trying to change the person or trying to just get away from the person. And that's where banana man comes in because a lot of people don't realize that there's a third option, which is to accept that the person is not going to change and change your expectations of their behavior. without, it's like you're transforming the way that you interact with them, right? You no longer are expecting mom to not treat you that way. You begin expecting her to do it. and then just not allowing it to bother you. Because part of it is this belief that we can change people, that feeling that it's possible. I'm just not doing it the right way. I haven't, you know, something, something's going to rock that in her and it's going to make her see finally. And if we can just let that go, let that stuff go, then it's really empowering in freeing that you no longer have to have mom feel okay about every move you make because it's not possible.

Melvin Varghese: Yeah, there's something so liberating about it. And then I think the other side of this, like there are people like this who are struggling with something like this all over the world, and yet they will never step into a therapy office to talk about it and talk through it, right? Which is where I think this whole world of online courses also comes in, right? Because people get the opportunity to heal and yet, you know, they can kind of do it in a, that makes the most sense for them.

Linda Murphy: Absolutely. And what I did was, you know, over time, I have told the Banana Man story so many times, right? And like you said, as we were starting, I actually created an animated video to go along with the audio of the story so that people can kind of get a visual. I thought it was a really cute way to display it.

Melvin Varghese: Hey there, I hope that you're enjoying today's podcast session. So I've jumped back into private practice and I decided to go the private pay route. And one of the things I've been thinking a lot about is how do I tap into outer network benefits for clients that might want to use it? Now, the common sort of perspective or tip that a lot of folks say is just to provide a super bill for clients. But the reality is I feel like most clients aren't going to go take a super bill. and then call the insurance company and then deal with that whole mess of trying to communicate with the insurance companies and waiting on reimbursement and all of that kind of stuff, right? And then at some point, especially if they're keenly aware of budget and stuff like that, they're like, oh my gosh, I may not be able to afford working with this therapist and all of those kinds of things, right? This is where Thryzr comes in and the really cool thing with Thryzr is that they will actually float the clients for the sessions. So basically when you sign up for Thryzr you can automatically submit out-of-network claims for your clients. It's simply done through an app, it literally takes seconds, and Thryser takes care of all of the insurance stress. So we don't have to deal with it as clinicians, our clients don't have to deal with it, and clients just pay what they owe for actual sessions, i.e. like the difference between your rate and the reimbursement rate, in order to skip the long insurance wait. All they have to do is pay the standard 3% credit card fee. There is no monthly contracts or fees or anything like that. If you would like to try out Thrizer, You can go to sellingthecouch.com forward slash thrizer. Enter the promo code STC so that your first $2,500 in fees are waived. Again, that's over at sellingthecouch.com forward slash thrizer and thrizer is spelled T-H-R-I-Z-E-R and enter the promo code STC. Yeah, it was really cute. And for those of you guys who are listening, by being part of our mastermind, you get access to our video editing graphic design team. So Linda was able to take this Banana Man concept and maybe even walk us through this, because I think this was really interesting that you did it. So you, I'll just stop there. So you had this idea, you wanted to create a video, and then what did you do?

Linda Murphy: So, I took the story and I recorded the audio of the story. And then I came up with some ideas about what visually I would want the characters in the story to look like. And I actually went on, you know, different websites, found other people's artwork that inspired me. And then I contacted the team of artists that could do the work and asked them to start creating these characters for me. and letting them know that these characters would be a video. They would create them with like movable arms and, you know, so that, you know, the animator could then take that art and create a video out of it. So it was really easy, honestly, just some back and forth tweaks. But I also, I skipped over one step, I really created a template for them, almost like I was writing out a cartoon in order for them to understand what I wanted the scenes to look like as well. And then they took their own artistic creative liberties and just like made it amazing. It's better than I could have ever imagined. And if anybody wants to see it, they can go on my website and you just sign up for the email and you'll get access to that, which is so much fun.

Melvin Varghese: That's awesome. And the website has been adamant society.com. This was one of the things I was thinking about for a mastermind, just like, you know, because it's a big time commitment. It's a big, it's a cost commitment, right? And so how do we like deliver even more value. And one of the things is we use this team for our YouTube videos. And graphic design stuff. And I was like, Oh, we can actually add spots for the mastermind members too. And they can just use it versus, you know, paying separately for membership for them, you know?

Linda Murphy: And to have hired somebody to do that, I can't even imagine how expensive that would have been. So the value of that is huge. So I'm very happy you included that. It's a big deal.

Melvin Varghese: No, absolutely. And you got to put it, I mean, I think you already, but if you haven't like in the sales page too, right. Cause I think that would be a great spot too.

Linda Murphy: Absolutely.

Melvin Varghese: We're like coming out just a couple more minutes, but I have a couple more questions. So what was like in just going through a mastermind, right. Cause you said. One of the things she said earlier was, you know, I came in with this idea and then I realized like, man, there's a lot of tweaking and just walking and navigating. What other like one to two pearls of wisdom have you picked up from our mastermind regarding like, what makes what grows a successful course and what makes it you know, successful?

Linda Murphy: I think one thing that I really picked up was that you have to go with your personality. You have to kind of lean in to who you are. If you try to be something else, that inauthenticity will shine through, right? You've got to not only that, but picking something that you're really truly passionate about. There may be a great idea out there, and maybe there's even a great need for it, but if you don't love the content, then you may get bored with it over time. And this is a long game, you know, to be talking about this as much as I plan to, right? I'm hoping that Banana Man continues to grow and evolve over time. And I knew I needed to pick something that I was truly passionate about. So that's one of the things. I'm trying to think of another, another thing that I could share that I have learned. I think the other thing is how important it is to market yourself, right? To get out there. And that a lot of what I've noticed is that there's a mindset uh, challenge when it comes to social media, specifically for me, for example, I really struggle to put myself out there. And so if anybody's listening, who is thinking about doing a course and you like social media and enjoy being creative in that way, man, you are like 10 steps ahead. If you don't, though, there is a way to build up to it, to figure out what avenue to go down that can help you to do it in a way that's authentic to you.

Linda Murphy: Yeah. And I, you know, finding the way that makes sense to you is, is so important. And like you said, don't, it doesn't burn you out. And I'm still, I'm just going to be, you know, completely honest, I'm still trying to figure that out. That's really my next step. And I don't know whether it's going to be Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn or TikTok, but finding the one that goes with it is the easiest for you to feel comfortable with and then putting your effort into that and seeing how it goes.

Melvin Varghese: And I think you said the nuance so well, which I think is another mistake. I made this too. Leaning into one platform and just getting really good and versed at it for like a couple of years versus trying to diversify right at the onset. LinkedIn and Instagram, you know, like that's really hard. It's not just about repurposing one content because they're just different platforms, you know? Facebook is a lot more like personal and, you know, like, you know, I noticed this Facebook group like you know, you usually start with like, Hi, gang, I hope you're doing well, it's almost like a letter, you know, post, whereas, you know, you can be like on a Twitter or whatever they're calling it these days, or LinkedIn, it's a lot like more punchy, right? So it's just it is really interesting, like trying to figure out what it is. Got two final questions. So where do you see the course kind of growing? You know, because I heard the website is banana man societies. And so that seems like there's some potential there for growth beyond just the one course. So how are you thinking about it? And I'm sure we will listen to this episode about two years from now be like, I can't believe I said that.

Linda Murphy: It's totally not what happened or what I did. I could see. So I have completed the first course and the first course is very general. You know, somebody could watch it if they have a difficult mom, like I said, or a child that they find difficult to connect with because you're so different from them or a boss or colleague that you don't get along with. Right. It could be your ex-husband. It could be whoever it is. Right. And the course itself has examples that touch on all those different types of relationships to allow you to really see how you can apply this metaphor to your own life. But the next one that I'm wanting to do is one geared toward just people who are struggling with a difficult co-parent. So going back to my original idea, you know, when I'm a counselor who specializes in divorce, so I do have a lot of information to share and divorce is such a hard time of life. And but it continues way past the day that you sign those papers into, you know, now I have to navigate sharing children with somebody who I didn't get along with a lot of the time. And so this would be where all of the examples throughout the course are going to be geared toward situations in which you may find yourself with a co-parent that is being difficult with you. And it's a really hard one because with a co-parent, most of the time, you cannot avoid them. And really, if you argue, there's very little control that you have anymore. to change the person if you ever did have any kind of influence that typically is gone once you get a divorce. And so really acceptance can be such a valuable tool. So I'm thinking about going in that direction and then also developing some of the other parts of that original course idea as add-ons, little add-ons. Do you want to learn about all the different ways in which you can go about getting a divorce? here's a quick video. And right now, you know, the Banana Man course is only an hour and a half long. It's quick, easy, to the point lesson that really, truly people have said has been so helpful. So I'm hoping to continue that.

Melvin Varghese: Yeah. And I mean, you said something so beautiful, which is, you don't have to have like five hour long course, right? Like, it's the thing, you know, we're trying to share was, it's the shortest path from A to B, right? From where the person is to where you want to be, right? People are not paying for, you know, eight hours of content. We live in such a world where, you know, people want like, helpful information, but they don't want to, like, stalk through it, you know?

Linda Murphy: Absolutely. And I also designed the course to not have so many visuals that you would have to sit and watch. Yeah, I don't blame people if they don't want to sit and watch me for an hour and a half, right? So if you want to do the dishes or you want to walk around the house or walk through the neighborhood, play it on your phone. And once in a while, there may be a visual that might be helpful, but it's not necessary. You can go back and look at that part of the video later if you need to.

Melvin Varghese: Yeah, absolutely. I want to wrap up with just one observation, which I think with this, this this course idea with the co parenting, one of the things that we recommend is niche to a certain person in a specific situation, right, and go like, four to five years deep, right. So, and you're doing that with that example. And Because you're not trying. I think there's this, at least this is something I struggled with, I feel like many of us do, which is, we have this fear that nobody will buy our course so then we make it so general, with the hope that we try to capture everybody, but it's actually the exact opposite of what you should do which is like hyper focus the course so it's tailored to a certain person because it also lets you become an expert on that one area and then also charge more premium prices i so appreciate you what would you final thing is you know what would you uh share if someone is considering joining our online course mastermind in the future season

Linda Murphy: I would share that if you're like me and sometimes you've taken on things and then lost steam or lost the energy to continue to go forward and pursue it. We were just talking about music before we started. Let's say you buy a guitar. And your plan is to play beautiful music for Christmas that year, but you just aren't picking it up. and it sits there, right? Sometimes this happens. We have these big dreams of doing things and then we either lose the motivation or life, you know, takes over and we don't find the time for it. The mastermind, it just helps to refocus you every week. You're meeting with people who are depending on you to help them stay motivated too, right? To help them keep each other accountable. And it's a weekly touch time with people who are doing something similar. And even if you don't feel like going that day, you just, I've got so much to do. When you leave the meeting, you walk away reinvigorated, you know, having something to work on. And it just, it really has helped me to stay on track. So if anybody out there needs that kind of support, right. That it's like, it's just, it's so motivating.

Melvin Varghese: It's a great group of people. And obviously like we, like, we really focus on quality versus like quantity of people. Right. So we have a small, but then I think they're just people that are just successful, but incredibly humble and kind and generous. Like, you know, it is just, there's something so wonderful about being surrounded by people like that. And Linda, you're one of them. So appreciate you. We mentioned the course a little earlier, but where can we learn more about the course and the awesome work you're doing in the world?

Linda Murphy: you can go to bananamansociety.com and find it there. Yeah. Find out more about me there. Perfect.

Melvin Varghese: Thank you. And have a great rest of your day.

Linda Murphy: Thank you. You too.