Planning extended leave from your practice: What psychologists and therapists need to know before going on maternity leave or other extended leave with Dr Rosie Gilderthorp and Dr Michaela Thomas

Summary and Key Learning points

It is my hope that this podcast episode will be useful to any psychologist or therapist who needs to take a longer break from their practice. For me, and for Michaela, our guest today and long time friend of the podcast, we are taking breaks from our practices because of maternity leave but you could also need to take a break for other life events, maybe even something fun like travel! This episode is not intended to give you a one size fits all plan for extended leave/maternity leave. Every practice and person is different and one of the things I love most about independent practice is that you can flexibly adapt everything to suit your values and needs. Instead Michaela and I will talk you through some key points that you need to consider and we will let you in on our thinking and our plans. 

So before we jump into our maternity plans I think it is important that we both introduce our businesses and say a bit about what our normal working weeks involve as that obviously has a big impact on planning a break!

Michaelas’s business: The Thomas Connection

Tuesday- Friday: 3 days clinical sessions (9 clients)

CEO day on Friday 

Afternoons focus on passive income streams and visibility including - podcasts, speaking, online course, writing, managing her team.

My business: The Innovation in Mental Health Project 

IMHP actually has three projects within it that all contribute to the overall social enterprise. 

Psychology Business School

• Psychology Business School Online Course (building thriving & fulfilling) practices
• Do More Than Therapy Membership (growing and developing passive income streams to make more impact in your practice)
• 1: 1 coaching for psychologists and therapists in independent practice

In Mind Consulting

• A separate company with three other incredible psychologists, Kat, Boo and Kendelle!
• We offer bespoke training and consultancy packages to organisations that want to improve the mental wellbeing of their teams, particularly in the wake of COVID 19 induced change, uncertainty and conflict.

Dr Rosie Psychology Services

• Therapy
• Perinatal online courses
• Hypnobirthing
• Associates

Michaela’s maternity leave plan:

Psychological flexibility is key!

Saved money as a buffer of £12,000

 Plan to take dividends of £1000 a month (limited company) 

My maternity leave plan:

3 months off (while writing a book as I can’t ever stop writing)

3 months teaching PBS and DMTT only 

3 months teaching + consultancy

Clinical work and 1:1 coaching to resume after 12 months

Key points to consider when planning your maternity leave/extended leave 

How long do you actually want off? 

This is my third baby and the honest answer to this has been different every time. It is also likely that you won’t know in advance so it is important to model out some different scenarios and allow for flexibility. 

Financially forecast different versions of your leave. 

Model what it would look like if you needed to take longer than your plan or if you delegated more or less of your work. Eg. If I stopped the-clinical side of my practice all together I could pay my VA less so I needed to model if it was likely to be worth paying her + keeping the associates going.

Consolidate outgoing expenses and reduce where possible. If you have subscriptions ask if you can pause them or cancel anything you don't use regularly.

What tasks can be automated?

• Set up recurring payments as standing orders
• Schedule newsletters/blogs/ podcast episodes
• Filter and forward emails to people who can respond for you
• Create transparent out of office responders
• Create frequently asked questions section for your website and  

What needs to be done while you are away but can be done by someone else?

• Accounts reconciliation
• Community management (f you have FB groups for example)
• Management of incoming referrals + delegation to associates
• Website maintenance
• Responding to customer service issues for any passive income products

Create clear Standard Operating Procedures for every task you are delegating and set them up at least a month before you leave (see our episode on systems with Amy Mitchell and my episode on policies for advice on how to do this)

Be realistic about tasks you will still want/need to do while on leave

• weekly newsletter
• social media interaction
• writing the book

I tried to rid myself of all admin tasks to make sure I could conceivably do these and have made sure that I will have some support in place for a couple of hours a week.

Create clear messaging for your website and socials and emails that show your plan clearly.

If maternity leave: Research whether statutory maternity pay or maternity allowance is best for you

Ask an accountant about this! If you are going for MA but need more than that to make ends meet then pay it to yourself in advance + save it if possible.

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Michaela Links:

www.thethomasconnection.co.uk

Insta: www.instagram.com/the_thomas_connection

Facebook: www.facebook.com/thethomasconnection

Twitter: www.twitter.com/thomasconnect

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/michaela-thomas

Facebook group: Pause Purpose Play pausepurposeplay

Podcast: Pause Purpose Play https://thethomasconnection.co.uk/podcast/

Book: The Lasting Connection https://thethomasconnection.co.uk/thelastingconnection/

Podcast Links:

Michaela Thomas

Episode 37: Dealing with perfectionism and owning your expertise as a psychologist or therapist with Michaela Thomas: https://psychologybusinessschool.com/the-business-of-psychology/perfectionism-and-owning-your-expertise-as-a-psychologist-or-therapist/

Episode 58: Creating a purposeful practice part 2 with Michaela Thomas: https://psychologybusinessschool.com/the-business-of-psychology/creating-a-purposeful-practice-part-2-with-michaela-thomas/

Amy Mitchell

Episode 56: Systems for success – streamlining your processes so you can achieve more with Amy Mitchell: https://psychologybusinessschool.com/the-business-of-psychology/systems-for-success-streamlining-your-processes-so-you-can-achieve-more-with-amy-mitchell/

Policies

Episode 47: 6 key policies/contracts you need in a psychology private practice: https://psychologybusinessschool.com/the-business-of-psychology/6-key-policies-contracts-you-need-in-a-psychology-private-practice/

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Grow a thriving independent psychology/therapy practice

Are you stuck in private practice paralysis? Beat the overwhelm, imposter syndrome and insecurity by creating a business plan that gives you confidence. This summer I'm excited to bring you our free 50-minute training so you can take your first step to a fulfilling, financially rewarding and enjoyable practice.

Whether you are looking to start your independent practice in September or you have decided it is time for a major overhaul in the way you run your existing practice. Choose your date and book your space on the free training at https://psychologybusinessschool.com/webinar I'll see you there.

TRANSCRIPT

SPEAKERS

Michaela Thomas, Rosie Gilderthorp

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, we've got a slightly different episode of the Business of Psychology, and it's my hope that this podcast episode will be useful to any psychologist or therapist who needs to take a longer break from their practice. For me, and for Michaela, our guest today and longtime friend of the podcast, we are taking breaks from our practices because of maternity leave. But you could also need to take a break for other life events, maybe even because of something fun, imagine that like travel. So this episode, it's not intended to give you a one size fits all plan for extended leave or maternity leave. Every practice and every person is different. And one of the things I love most about independent practice is that you can flexibly adapt everything to suit your values and your needs. And maternity leave or extended leave is no different. So instead, Michaela and I will talk you through some key points that you need to consider, and we'll let you in on our thinking and our plans. So before we jump into our maternity plans, I think it's important that we both introduce our businesses, and say a bit about what our normal working weeks involve as obviously that has a big impact on planning a break. So welcome to the podcast. Michaela.

Thank you very much for having me again.

I know, this is like I think your third time; you're our most frequent guest on the podcast.

Oh, I'll take that as a VIP, that's pretty good.

Definitely a VIP. So could we start by hearing a little bit about what your business The Thomas Connection looks like and what your normal working week is like?

Sure. So my normal working week is Tuesday to Friday, where Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I do clinical sessions. So I've run a clinic in the morning on those three days. And then the afternoon I do other bits, which I'll get into in a moment. And Fridays are my CEO day. And that is something I've been really kind of edging towards for a long time, thinking that I don't have enough time for admin, but I don't want to just call it admin day, because I am a business owner, I am a CEO, I'm a founder I am, you know, an entrepreneur, I am all of those things on top of being a psychologist. And when you have a CEO day, it means you have the time dedicated to work on the business and not just working in the business. So I do work in the business three, three times a week, I do clinical sessions then, currently no more than nine clinical sessions per week. So there's sort of three slots in the morning for those three days. And I've experimented with more and less and actually considering that I do a lot of other things, I've said before that I'm a multi hyphenated person, that means I'm a clinical psychologist, hyphen, couples therapist, hyphen, author, hyphen, speaker, hyphen, podcaster, hyphen, mother, hyphen, wife, all of those things that I want to get into my life. So in order for me to balance and do these things in a way that works well for me, and along with my values, I've cut down my clinical work quite significantly. So that's the one to one I do. Then obviously, I do one too many things as well. So I spend afternoons recording podcasts, or I might do speaking engagements, webinars, workshops, I've just finished building an online course called The Compassionate Couple, which is again, sort of from one to many, and changing my business model from just one to one to one to many means that I also get some passive income streams. So that means that once you've spent all the time and money making a course, it's not an easy investment, then you get some passive income streams coming because people might buy the course and do it in their own time, without you being there to guide them one to one. So that's sort of what my week looks like. The Mondays I've got off, because then I'm with my son. So that's why I'm kind of balancing my business in that way. And I tend to work between nine and four ish, but in that week, in those in that working day, I also have time for going to my massage therapy or going for a walk or, you know, meeting a friend for a coffee. So I build in things for my own self care as well. Seeing my personal trainer, things like that. So I've, I've kind of budgeted both time and money in my business to be able to be as well as I can be as the CEO of the business.

I really love that. I love the fact that you acknowledge that you have to make time if you want to create passive income or these impact projects, like online courses and books, you have to carve out time for it or it will not happen. I think most of the time when I'm talking to either Psychology Business School students or Do More Than Therapy members, and they're struggling to get their plans off the ground, it is actually because there is no time in their day to make it happen. And anyone who didn't listen to our first podcast episode, Michaela and I talked a little bit about how you have to get your pricing right in order to buy yourself that time effectively. And Michaela's a brilliant example of someone who's done that really well. I also love the term multi hyphen, I think that applies for a lot of us these days.

Well, it helps me to get to be, you know, following my passion and my purpose, the things I'm really, really keen on. So obviously, writing has been a passion of mine since I was little, and I would not have made space for the book I wrote, The Lasting Connection, had not taken my foot out of the one to one a little bit. If I was going to see, I don't know, the IAPT benchmark of 20-25 clients a week, you know that there was no chance of writing a book then. And unfortunately, you know, you and I chatted about this beforehand, we see so many clients, clinical psychologists, and private practice, do way more than that, actually more than the clinical targets that the NHS provides. So if you see seven or eight clients a day, you can't really be surprised that you're gonna feel burnt out and not have any time for passion projects. Whereas I love what I do, I love going to work every single day, I never feel ugh wish, wish I didn't have to do it, and that is because I've carved it out in a way that makes me feel alive, makes me feel like I'm playing to my strengths. So another thing that takes time for me to do is to manage my team. You know, I don't have people I've employed full time, but I have people who are on project basis. So I have an online business manager, who does about seven hours a month for me. So we kind of have meetings, and then she goes off to execute stuff. And that has been, that has been a game changer, because that means that I can then be the visionary, the creative, come up with ideas, come up with the content, say how I want to serve people with psychological content. And then she thinks about how to package that and how to get it out to the right audience, and what systems we put in place. It's all about SOPs. So SOP, standard operating procedures has been something that my brain does not want to get my head around. But it's been fantastic in helping me manage my business. So that means I have to talk to her, I have to talk to my web developer, I have to talk to my podcast editor, I have to talk to my social media person I've just been onboarding, and I have to talk to my virtual assistant. So they're my team. And then I also have to, hang on a minute, how many associates have got now? Three associates, so just onboarding some new people as well. So that means that I'm talking to them, providing them with supervision and providing them with them with clients. So that's why I need as you know, CEO time as well to do all of those things.

Yep, exactly. And I think it's interesting, because I'm going to talk a little bit about my business now. But the way that we structured our weeks, it's actually really, really similar, even though on paper, it might look like we've got quite different businesses. So my overarching business is called The Innovation in Mental Health Project. And it's a CIC a community interest company. So it's a social enterprise, which just means that we can generate profit, but when we generate that profit we reinvest it back into projects which create an impact in the world of mental health. So for me, that's preventative projects. That's what I'm really passionate about. But the Innovation in Mental Health Project actually has three projects within it. So I kind of have to divide my time between three different priorities. So the first one, the one that I began with is my private practice, which is currently branded as Dr Rosie Psychology Services. So that's where I do my therapy, I've got perinatal online courses, I teach hypnobirthing, some of that I'm not currently doing. When I found out, well, actually, when we decided to try for a baby, I stopped doing some of those things, and for personal reasons. But that's why I'm still offering therapy, I've got associates that offer therapy as well, and I put my kind of supervision time, stuff like that under my psychology services. So a bit like Michaela, I only offer three morning clinics a week. We see a similar number of clients, I think, for exactly the same reason that I need the headspace and the time to plan and work in the other areas of the business. So the second part of the business is In Mind Consulting, which is a separate company, which I set up with three other incredible psychologists at the beginning of the pandemic, Kat, Boone, Kendelle, hi if you're listening, they're wonderful. And we offer bespoke training and consultancy packages to organisations that want to improve the mental wellbeing of their teams. So particularly, we were inspired to do it in the wake of COVID-19 because there was so much change, uncertainty and conflict. And again, it really hits my values of wanting to get in there before the point of crisis and set up a positive environment for people that allows their mental health to flourish. So that's, you know, taking up a bit of my time as well. And then the final thing, which you will know me for, is Psychology Business School. So that includes the Psychology Business School online course, which is helping people to build thriving and fulfilling independent practices. I've also got the Do More Than Therapy Membership, which is about growing and developing those passive income streams and helping you make more impact in your practice. And I do some one to one coaching for other psychologists and therapists as well. And much like Michaela, a lot of my time is actually spent kind of working with my team. So I've got an amazing community manager, Sam, who, if you've been listening to this for a long time, you'll have heard Sam, on the podcast, she's awesome. If you're in the Facebook group, you'll know Sam, and she's really my right hand woman for everything to do with Psychology Business School, I could not run that part of the business without her. I think she probably steps a little bit into that online business manager role, even though she's possibly not supposed to officially. I've also got an assistant who works with me on the psychology services side of things, making sure that I don't have to do any of my own admin, because I'm rubbish at it. And I used to spend hours doing that, and now I can actually generate income in that time, which is so much better. And I've got, obviously, my associates that I work with, I've also got a podcast editor, all kinds of people that I need to be talking to all of the time. And I think, again, as Michaela pointed out, very important to factor that in, and have those kind of CEO days where you're making sure that you're being a good team leader, because you can't lead people on half an hour a day.

No.

So I think that's, that's a good description of what we do and our normal weeks. And just to say at the moment, I do work a five day week, but I've only got school hours. So it's a five day week, but I always say to anybody in that position, if you've got children, and you're doing both school runs, you're only really doing a five hour day. So thinking that you can see more than two or three clients in that time is highly stressful, I think likely to lead to burnout, which as you all know, from listening to this, I did learn the hard way. So I think I find it more helpful to think of my my week as kind of 30 hour week and plan it out that way rather than assuming I can do what I would do in a five day full time position.

So Michaela, let us know what is your maternity leave plan, because I think we've got quite different plans, and I'm looking forward to sharing that with with people?

Yeah, and obviously, for anyone who knows me in the work I do, I do a lot of work around perfectionism and, and you know, developing compassion for yourself and for your partner. So I do a lot of things around relationships. But there is a lot of ambitious, high striving kind of over control people who come my way, and obviously, practising what I preach, I have actually been putting less plans in place for this maternity leave than I thought I would, which is sort of almost like leaving it open and applying as much psychological flexibility to it as possible, simply because this is my second child, and I'm wise from experience that you do not know what baby you're going to get. So I'm keeping that in my mind. Anything I'm hoping to put in place, it's much like a you know, like a birth plan is actually more of a birth hope or birth wish, birth preference, but that can be subject to change. That's how I see my maternity leave as well, because my first child, it would have been impossible to think of juggling work alongside it. I mean, I did, I did do some of that, I had to do some supervision of associates at that point. My previous maternity leave, five years ago, I was still employed, you know, three days a week, four days a week by the NHS and one day a week private practice. Now, I'm doing four days a week private practice in a limited company, and nothing else. So there's, there's no kind of little rice bowl underneath me. There's nothing providing me that kind of cushion. So I had to create my own cushion. So what I've done, firstly is that I started saving money to come up to kind of a buffer level of the same amount of money that I would have, that I got in the 12 months I had maternity leave from the NHS. And that felt like a magical kind of reassurance thing that you know, I had that pot of money so that I think that was equivalent to 12,000 pounds to be concreted by numbers because I think splitting out my maternity leave over the, evenly over the 12 months, obviously you don't, you don't get too much towards the end of those 12 months, I think I got about 1000 pounds a month from the NHS for my four days a week for working for them. So setting that up meant that you know I now have a pot of money sitting inside the company of 12,000 pounds, might even be 13 at this point, so that means I felt regardless of what happens to the company, I can then take dividends on a monthly basis of 1000 pounds. Right so that means that my, obviously my account and I have talked it through. So if you don't currently have an accountant, I would really advise you to have a chat with one and see how could you do this, they are very good at understanding the systems and what HMRC likes and does not like. And getting really clear on what, what revenue can be generated. So you as an individual can't generate revenue as you're not allowed to work in the company if you're lifting statutory maternity pay, or maternity allowance, but you are allowed to generate revenue as a company. So that's what my plan has been, has been working really hard over the past six months to set up online courses and take onboarding a couple of new associates, because my absolutely fantastic associate who's been with me throughout the whole pandemic and everything is, went on maternity leave in June. So although it's great that we got our two little babies around the same time, where we can meet up, put on maternity leave and have coffees, unfortunately, neither of us will be generating revenue. So I've onboarded two new associates. So that's one element of some passive income stream. But you also have to think that someone has to manage them, someone has to supervise them. So then thinking about what you outsource and what you think that you can juggle yourself in between baby feeds etc. So if it's just doing something like that, like supervising a member of staff that you don't actually get paid for, that is fine, that can count as your keeping in touch days as well. So get really clear on what you're allowed to do in your KIT days. And, in fact, like count up the amount of hours and because a whole KIT day is obviously eight hours, so if you spread that out, that might be quite helpful. So my plan concretely, loosely is currently to, you know, obviously go on Mat leave, at some point, around 20th of August, baby's due around the eighth of September, you know, babies come when when babies want to. But at that point, I will spend a few weeks off and then in the autumn, I won't do any clinical work whatsoever, you know, I'll get to know my baby fourth trimester, hoping for one that sleeps better than my previous one, and then revisit that again in 2022. So what I'm hoping to do is then to start a waiting list of getting people you know, on my books, so if I then wanted to take on any new clients, or if I want to have old clients to come back again, to reach out to them, again my team will do this to say Michaela is considering to take on, you know, two slots or something like that. So one or two slots per week, and then it will be a first come first served. So my idea is to kind of really approach the existing clients first, because then you know what you're dealing with, you know exactly who you're going to see. And it might be that they want some reviews and things like that. So from 2022 the amount of money you get from the government, versus how much I generate, if I saw two clients a week is the same. And that would also mean that I will be allowed to do anything I wanted in the company if I took myself off the maternity allowance. So that's my rough plan that you know, no one to one to begin with, and then phase in one or two, around my husband's hours. So that means that I still don't need any childcare, so you know, he can be with baby for an hour here or there. Because we both work from home some of the time, me all the time and him some of the time, it's a lot easier to facilitate doing a clinic that way. But again, if I'm not well, or if baby's not, well, I will not put those systems in place, then I will continue on maternity pay. So what I'm also planning to do is obviously to build my mailing list. Having my social media person doing a bunch of things are scheduling six months worth of content of, that I'm approving obviously, all my own words, all my own content, but putting it together, a library of that, so they will continue to promote my free lead magnets. For those who don't know what a lead magnet is, is something you give away for free like a free downloadable worksheet or mp3 that gets people on your mailing list. And then I can continue to sell to my mailing list whilst I'm away. All of that can be done by my team. So I'm putting systems in place so that things can generate income for the company, whilst me not having to do very much about it. I'm also planning some coaching packages that I'm going to do in 2022 for other psychologists, kind of a three or six or 12 package. So you can have it over three, six or 12 months, where you can either make sort of tiny tweaks to your business to be less burnt out and you know, embracing that, you know, imposter and allowing you to create passion projects versus going really deep and make major shifts over the 12 months where you then learn to develop more self compassion for yourself. So I'm building all these things that will be easier wins for me, easier things to do rather than say, taking on a you know complex trauma case when you're not having enough sleep, etc. So, to summarise, I'm putting systems in place so that I can go in either avenue, either direction depending on the baby I get.

I think that's really important, you know, because this is my third baby, and with my first, I could have gone back to work really quickly. I was still working in the NHS when I had my first so I didn't need to, but I could have, she slept really, really well. From about six weeks I think she was sleeping through, which is, yeah, yeah.

I sort of hate you now.

I know, but don't, because I then for my second baby had the baby that never slept. And for the whole first year, he never slept for longer than 45 minutes at a time. So in my head, when I'm thinking about this maternity leave, I'm just like, well, I might feel like I want to go back in all guns blazing after three months, I love my work, I suspect you can hear that on this podcast. And if I've got any energy, I like to spend it doing things like this podcast or teaching in PBS or seeing some clinical clients. So I suspect if I had a good sleeper, I'll want to come back quite quickly. It might be challenging, because my husband's in the Navy as a lot of you know, so I have to always assume I have no unpaid childcare. So there, there will be challenges around that. But I've wanted to create myself a plan that means that if I get the baby that never sleeps again, that's okay, too. And I don't have that pressure to go straight back into clinical work, particularly because that's the bit for me that I can't do sleep deprived, I just can't. And so my initial thoughts are that I will definitely want three months off. So I want three months where, yes, I'll probably have to interact with my team and help them occasionally to kind of complete some of their tasks, but I really don't want to have any pressure to do any teaching. I don't want to do any consultancy, I don't do any clinical work, I want to get to know my baby exactly like you said and, and have that kind of precious fourth trimester time. I suspect I might write a book in that time though. So one thing I know about myself is that writing is not something I can stop doing. I pretty much write every single day something. And on both of my previous maternity leaves, I've been writing blogs, I've been writing podcast episodes, I just haven't been able to switch that off. So I suspect I'm going to write a book. I've, I've actually decided to take my maternity leave from four weeks before my due date, partly because my daughter came three weeks before her due date. So you know, they come when they come. But also in the hope that this one might not come early, and I might have four weeks to really get started on the book writing process. Because I'm really excited. I think some of you will probably already know this, but I'm writing the psychology business book. Which yeah, I haven't planned it all out fully yet, but I'm really excited to be to be working on something that can help you take those first steps into independent practice. So really looking forward to working on that. Then when I come back, I've sort of separated it out by what I find easiest, and what I think I can do, yeah, for the quickest wins, I think that was a good term for it. So I'm going to come back into teaching Psychology Business School first, because that's a course which is kind of half live and half recorded. And I love teaching the live sessions, it will be our third time, no our fourth time round by January. So we know the material now inside out, so I feel like I'm confident with what I'm doing with that course, and I just love the interaction with people in the Psychology Business School community. So as soon as I can, I'm planning from around January, I'm going to go back into into that teaching work. Then probably around three months after that, depending on the sleep situation, is when I'll start reintroducing some consultancy work. And then only when I'm feeling fully back to myself, will I start seeing some one to one clients again. And there's a couple of reasons for that. It's partly because my childcare situation will be precarious. And the thing I found most stressful coming back from my previous maternity leave, was if I had childcare let me down, I had to let down the client. And when that's a one on one relationship that just feels terrible. Whereas because of the plans and the SOPs that we've put in place, the Psychology Business School, if I couldn't teach a session, I have an associate who can always come in and teach it for me. So there's never that fear of Oh God, if I'm not there, it's not going ahead, it can't happen and I could really let somebody vulnerable down. So that's, that's sort of my thinking for my maternity plan. But I think like you, I'm going to be very flexible about it. And if that doesn't suit, then I'll just keep on doing what I need to do to keep the sort of passive income streams generating enough revenue to keep us going, and start doing the live stuff again when I'm up to it really.

Yeah. And I think that's that's kind of meeting yourself where you're at knowing that when you are not sleep deprived, when you are well, and baby's well, and actually what what's going to make us thrive and feel fulfilled and not as bored, as you know, honestly can happen on maternity leave, for people who are passionate, then actually, that might make you a better mum to that baby, if you get to scattering things for you as well. So obviously, I do a lot of work around, much like you do, obviously perinatal training, so I do a lot of work around sort of motherhood things. I'm, I'm a contributor to the Nourish app, I am on the editorial board for Motherhood magazine, you know, part of a postnatal wellbeing kit for comos. So, I do a lot of these things, which is one of the things I'm going to do a CIC for in the future, but not now, because I don't know how to do it, and it's too confusing for me to do on pregnancy brain, but in the future, to be able to do more, you know, parenting projects in my local community. So I think a lot about the wisdom I've taken from all the guests I've had on my podcast talking about parental mental health, about everything I learned. So this time around, I'm going to give myself that grace period to just do what I want to do. If that is not work at all, then I'll not work at all. And I will just, everything is figure-outable as Marie Forleo says, if anyone doesn't know Marie Forleo, she's she's really awesome in terms of business school stuff, so everything is figure-outable, you know, there's nothing's going to explode if I don't do my podcast for few months, nothing's going to explode if I don't take on therapy clients for the full year, I will just figure it out. So giving myself that grace period to figure out what I want to do and how I can work rather than putting pressure on it by saying, getting another book commissioned, you know, much like you, I love writing, and I have a book in my head that I've been sort of putting ideas towards for a long time, you know, around sort of paused purpose play themes, that same name as my podcast, and my facebook group, you know, it's my signature system. So I'm going to write about that. But I'm not, I'm not commissioned, I've not written a book proposal, because I don't want to publish it to chase me saying, where's this book that you're supposed to be writing in between the nappies?

That's such a good point, I think I should say. I've been debating a lot, I think I mentioned this to you kind of off the podcast, about whether to self publish, or whether to go with a publisher, and I decided for this one, I'll probably self publish for that reason.

Yeah, you can call the shots.

I can't wait to write it, but I want to do it when it suits me rather than on somebody else's timescale.

Yeah. And I think that makes a lot of sense. I mean, I've interviewed so many published authors on my podcast. And you know, a lot of them psychologists and kind of learning their wisdom of writing books and having that process, and we're all different, and how long we need to turn over a book, but it's sort of, you know, 12 to 18 months is on average for, you know, according to my my publisher, and I suppose, if you write for me, you know, you don't do anything else. And a lot of psychologists don't make space for writing a book, because they're, they're doing their 20 clients a week. So and effectively being with my, my baby is going to be more than 20 clients a week, if you see what I mean, that's an around the clock kind of job. So, so I'm just giving myself that grace, period and flexibility, but also picking up projects that I think could be flexible towards me when I need to be flexible. So keep in my supervisees, who are lovely people, who are also mothers, and, you know, we kind of made an agreement that you know, I we can give you a choice, if anything is going wrong, where I don't have childcare or baby's really unsettled, you know, we can either reschedule or we can do supervision whilst with the camera off, and I do a feed, or we do a phone supervision, or you know, and having that flexibility and that compassion going both ways, has been really, really helpful for me to give myself the permission to, to not push so much, to not sort of like must see them, must be professional, must do everything perfect. Actually that's, if the pandemic has taught us anything, it's okay to rock up in your yoga trousers to to your computer, that I think that taking that wisdom with me, and knowing what I need to thrive, and having that flexibility with myself and working with projects that will extend the same flexibility. Whereas taking on you know, I did, I did a really big stretchy thing in February when I was in the Deliciously Ella's podcast, and you know, we had to rearrange that because my book hadn't been coming out yet. Amazon was short stocked, it was a pandemic, it was mayhem. You can only do that so many times before you get dropped, right. So when I do the big stretchy sort of media projects or you know if I do you know, a respond to a journalist wanting something, they want the piece right then and there. So I probably won't go out searching for those, because that is putting a deadline on yourself and then I'm not going to work in a way where I'm sitting up frantically, you know, instead of having that nap when the baby's napping, I'm not going to do that, because I'm not going to do anything that will hinder my postnatal recovery this time.

That's such a good point. I think the Americans on American podcasts I listen to you, they tend to refer to it as knowing what fits for the season that you're in.

Yes.

And, you know, I think post maternity or yeah, postnatal is a particular season. And like you really thinking, actually, I'm not going to put much effort into engaging with the media right now, because I can't give them what they need. I was very much in that position when my son was in his first year, he was really poorly in that year. So I could never be that person who could be there at six o'clock in the morning for the Breakfast Show, they only ring you at 5:45. Like, you never get very much notice. And I couldn't do that. And there are times in my life when I have been able to, and times when I can't. And, and it can be difficult to give yourself that compassion, because you can see the opportunity, if you've got entrepreneurial brains, which a lot of you listening to this have, I think, then you see all this opportunity and feel guilty almost for not always being able to take it. But actually giving yourself that grace and going this is not the season for that. Next season, I will go all in for that, but right now, I'm just not gonna chase that particular thing. But d'you know what, something that struck me when you were talking about your financial plan is that in order to have that psychological flexibility, we actually do need to do the financial planning behind it. And I wanted to move on to think about the key things people need to consider if they're going to be taking an extended break. And that was one of them for me. Because what I did, I'm not, I'm not as financially prepared as you, I'm not gonna lie about it. Michaela has done an exceptional job, I was a bit shocked to find myself pregnant. So I possibly haven't got as much kind of saved in the bank for it. But what I did do that was really, really helpful, and I really recommend it, was financial forecasts for lots of different scenarios. So I modelled what it would look like if I needed to take longer than my plan, or if I wanted to come back sooner, if certain revenue streams, like my online courses, for example, do really well, if they do kind of average for what we've expected over the past year or so, or if they take a dip and they do less well. You know, what if I get loads of referrals from my associates versus not getting very many referrals for my associates, and my accountant sort of has put together this spreadsheet for me called a cash flow forecast. And I've got five or six different versions of it now, with all of these different scenarios mapped out. And also with me kind of paying myself different amounts at different times as well. And that really allows me to feel secure, that actually all of these pathways work without the business going bust. And if they don't, then I know where I need to reduce expenses, or it's really clear what changes I can make to make it work. So I'd really recommend that. I mean, I assume because of the business that you've gotten the size of it is that you've got a financial forecast thing as well?

I do not, no. It's making me sort of realising my own little imposter syndrome then, like oh goodness me, she's painting this picture that I've done all of these things, and then, you know, financial forecasts, thinking like oh must write to Ryan immediately, who's my accountant, and Ryan is used to me by now, we've worked together for years and he's he's used to my patterns of procrastination and urgently need to ask questions, and he's fine with it. He specialises in working with a lot of different psychologists, so he knows that we're all crap at this side of things. And that's fine. I've owned that about myself, it's y'know, one of my one of my shadow selves. So no, I have not done that, but I've obviously got an idea roughly, of what the sort of bare minimum is, and this is the benefit of paying out those those dividends, it's not based on new revenue coming in, it's based on a pot of money sitting there. So I know, as a worst case scenario, for the 12 months, I will get paid the same amount as I did in the NHS. Plus, I'm also, obviously I'm salaried, so can also pay myself 795 pounds, or whatever the current level is, for a limited company. So and then, so I just see everything else as an optional extra. So we've planned for a very conservative, like, this is what I'm going to get paid, and then if I get anything extra, that's great, because you also have to think about what else is going on in your life. You know, within the same week of my new baby being predicted, my son is starting school. So that means I get back around 800 pounds a month of nursery fees that'll feel like winning. So it's I guess, you know, when we think about financial forecasts for the company, we'll have to think about, you know, planning in your overall expenses in your house. You know, how much do you have to live off you know, what do you what does your kind of day to day life need you to take out from your company or your business in order for that to survive? And, you know, can you be stretchy for a few months? Or what do you want us to kind of a, I guess a sort of often in coaching we think about sort of the bare minimum, the things you need to be able to operate versus sort of, like, you know, a comfortable level versus like a unicorn level. And obviously, a unicorn level would be that I could afford to be at home, as long as I want with my child, you know, she's on the waiting list for for nursery from 12 months, simply because their waiting lists are insane, and you have to put your child's name and date of birth down before you have a name and date of birth for them. So, so that's my idea, my hope or my wish, of 12 months of being off. But I then beyond that, especially if I continue in this sort of online business model that I'm currently in means that I'm hoping to work a lot less, because at that point I am also guided by the school hours, and one of my business coaches, I have two, has shown me what's possible, and what she does in her online business. So that's the kind of aspiration of working no more than five hours a day. And then potentially having one day when I do only a half day or you know, so being able to do things that I am was still thriving from, for when you have the school hours compared to nursery hours, you know, I don't have the same time in the morning, you know, I can't just go and have a nice walk for myself or a swim for myself, because I have to get him to school for 845 rather than to nursery for 730. So all of that has to be adjusted.

That has been the difference for me, I've got to say. So since being pregnant, I've made time to go for half an hour walks during the day, because I, my body needs it so badly. But when I switched from nursery hours to preschool hours, which are the same as school hours, it was all the kind of self care, having a coffee with like a business friend or something, all of that kind of went out of the window. And so I'm very much looking to try and reclaim some of that when I come back from maternity.

And that's where the systems have to be put in place, because otherwise it will, it will feel like it goes out the window unless we actually make it be in the window, if that makes sense. It's a conscious choice we're making. And that might have to mean that either you up your prices, or you take less of an income when you think actually I get paid in wellbeing, which is also important. And it's also we think about productivity that you know, when I work fewer hours, and I've been really focused on a project, I'm going to sit down and do this amount on it, and then I go for a massage, I actually find that I am able to complete more projects than when I think I'm working seven and a half or eight hours a day. And that's just how it is. So yes, we do know that as psychologists, we do know that productivity and performance is highly related to be an inflow states, being in a in a state where you're engaged, you're present, and you don't have that when you're burnt out and overwhelmed and don't have self care.

Absolutely. So I think another thing that is really important to consider if you're planning some extended leave is what you're doing in your business right now that could be automated? So some things, I thought I was pretty hard on automation. I've been using quite a lot of it for a long time now. But actually prepping for this maternity leave, I realised I was still paying a lot of my regular suppliers every month using my iPhone app. Doesn't seem like a lot, but actually I could set those payments up the standing orders, they're the same every month, so why am I taking that time? Things like scheduling, I think Michaela's already mentioned scheduling social media, maybe getting somebody on your team to do that, I don't schedule my own because as you know, it will go wrong if I do. I write it and then somebody else schedules it, which is brilliant. But scheduling newsletters, blogs, podcast episode, socials, anything you can create an advance, building that library and then it being scheduled for you. Filtering and forwarding emails; so again, I thought I was really good at this, but actually, there's always more that you can do. So I don't want to see my invoices and receipts and things because they all get reconciled on to my accounting software by somebody else. So actually, they should all get forwarded to that person. So I've set up a filter that allows that to happen without me having to physically do it, because again, it feels at the time like minutes, but when you add them up, it's probably an hour a week you spend forwarding stuff.

And it's the headspace it takes up as well. It's not just a minute. It means that it's one more task, it's more mental load, it's more things floating around in your brain that you have to get focused on doing.

Yeah, and I don't want to spend a minute when I'm on maternity leave doing that. Like if I'm going to be working it's going to be doing on, doing the stuff which requires my expertise; psychological thinking, podcasting, that kind of thing I want to do, I do not want to do admin. Another thing that can be automated, that's good to think about is your out of office responders. I think just making them really transparent about you know, what hours you are or are not working and when you intend to come back to your normal working hours. And even if you have to change that, because your plans change, I think having something nice and concrete, and that directs people to the correct people to speak to. So I think for both of us, most of our core business is actually continuing, even if we're not doing it. So making sure that people know where to go, in order to engage with those services is important. Is there anything else you can think of that can be automated? People might not have...

Yeah, absolutely. Having a Frequently Asked Questions section on your website, or if you don't want to kind of pay your web developer to do it, just put together a Word document. Because that might mean that someone is monitoring your emails and your abs..., you know, in your absence, maybe they go in a few times a week, or even you know, pay someone to do daily, whatever. If you then get queries that the admin can't answer, because obviously not a clinician, they can direct that to the frequently asked questions, especially if you have things like workshops, online courses, and someone asks, is this right for me? You know, making a video about what's you know, who is this for, who is this not for? Or doing just a really simple word document can save so much time because you've already been dictated in your own words to, to say what you want to say, to have that ethical boundary, without the admin feeling worried about what they should be responding to. So that can be a really good one as well.

Really good tip. And we have a bank of those, that my assistants for Psychology Business School, and for the therapy side of the business have access to. But I'm also thinking now what I'm going to do is add links to the frequently asked questions blog posts, into the out of office responders, because why not give people the information when they need it? Really good idea.

Yeah. And that's obviously a place where you can have, you know, out of hours numbers and crisis numbers and things like that as well to make sure that you feel like you've provided some sort of cushion for people, if they're reaching out in distress, you know, my clients don't tend to do that, because that's not the kind of client I work with. But that crisis can happen to any of us. So having those things that can make you feel like you've, rather than thinking of us as box ticking, thinking that actually have you acted in line with your values there, do you feel like you can step out comfortably and not have to worry about people reaching out to you? So it's not just like, sorry, your computer says no, but actually, here's your next step, this is what you can do next.

Yeah, and if you've got blog posts that could be useful to majority of people to get in contact with you, linking those up in those out of office absolutely can be useful as well.

And that also means that for anyone who is not in distress, but is looking for a bit of help, you know, my team has put together you know, kind of a list of resources that they can still tap into, even though they can't work with me one to one, they can schedule a call with my associates, or you know, one to one therapy, or they can listen to my podcast, they can buy my book they can do my online courses. So that means that, or they can download my freebies, so that means that someone who you may not get as an inquiry coming your way, if they fail, or they wanted to work with you and not with your associates who might have sort of quote unquote, lost that lead, they may sell then sign up to your, your freebie, download your worksheet or whatever, and stay in your world. And that's kind of a term that we often use, so we want people to stay in our worlds from a business point of perspective. Because that might mean that they're then on the mailing list, and you can then reach out to them to say, just to let you know, Michaela's now gonna open up some slots for therapy, they may then be in touch. If there are people who not urgently kind of, I need this right now, I mean, there's a, I provide therapy as well as coaching and sometimes people are a bit on the fence by coaching and they um and ah, and they're not so distressed enough by it to really need to seek action immediately, or they're waiting, they've gone to the NHS as well, I'm thinking actually, that's going to be another four months, but here's another slot coming up, I'll take that. So that means that you're keeping people in your world and all of those people who some of them may never ever come for therapy, they may still absorb psychological content in order to make them feel more well and emotionally stable. So keeping them in your world is a really great way to to also feel like you're building your business and growing your business in your absence.

Absolutely. I also think another key thing that people need to think about when planning extended leave, and I've had to think about a lot, is what does need to be done? Making a list of what has to happen while you're away to keep your business ticking over. And it kind of depends where your business is at. So for both of us that there are things that are going to need to happen, whether we're there or not. But the first time I took maternity leave away from my business, actually, it could close. And I wanted to make that point, you know, I had a sole trader business, it was just me seeing clients. I didn't, I had a couple of VA hours a week, but not very much. I think all I needed to do then was put out of office responders on, automate a few things, and it could just close and it didn't really do any any harm. But that's not where I'm at right now. So some of the things that need to be done at the moment with the business I have now while I'm away, are things like accounts reconciliation, because imagine if you just didn't do that for months, it would be hell when you came back. Community management...

Yes, that's never ever happened.

I know, I know, I just remember last time, and that was a small business, and it was bad enough. Community management, so if you've got Facebook groups, you know, you really don't, you've put so much work into getting people talking in those, you don't want them to go dead. So having somebody that can talk in your group, can sort of represent you, flag up to you when you need to get involved in a conversation. And just generally sort of take care of people is really important. Managing incoming referrals, delegating to associates, maintaining the website, you don't want bugs coming up on your website in that time. Again, you know, we've both probably got quite complicated websites, because of the online courses and things that we run. So I've got to pay somebody every month to check up on that and make sure that's all running smoothly. And I also need somebody to respond to customer service issues for any of those passive income products. You know, what if that ebook just doesn't download, or they can't find where to access the legal templates for Psychology Business School? So creating some clear SOPs for every task that you're delegating, and setting them up at least a month before your leave, so that you can test out any holes in them, anything that your team don't understand, is really important. And we've got an episode with Amy Mitchell. And I've recorded an episode on policies where you can get some good advice on how to set up those SOPs, if you've not done it before,

That's really helpful, because that means you can bulletproof yourself without having that stress of you know, the team just needs to know something and you're there, you know, three weeks postpartum, don't know the sort of, if it's Thursday or Friday. And it's not going to be helpful is it? And at that point, that's last thing you need is stress about what's happening to my company, I'm going to lose money, or I'm going to lose face. Y'know actually, this is going to be really, really unprofessional, for instance. So and they're things we just have to do, I have to pay my, I have to pay my team. That's something I have to do. So I've trained my husband in using free agents so that he can manage that. Because I don't know if people are aware of that, but not every VA is allowed to do invoicing or accounting for you because they need to be sort of making sure it's not money laundering. So some of them provide it, some of them don't. And in my experience, it's actually really difficult to find a VA who also does the accounting or the invoicing. So I've trained my husband, who is my sort of very much honorary business manager as well, he steps up for difficult things like speaking to clients who don't pay.

Oh, that sounds really helpful. But that does bring me on to another thing that we need to consider, and that's being realistic about the tasks you will still have to do. Even when you're trying to be completely off, and you can't do anything income generating, there are some things which can't be automated and can't be left to somebody else. So, you know, for me, that's things like interacting on social media, and you know, writing content that needs a psychologist to write it. But I'm aware we've taken up loads of your time already, Michaela, and I'm so grateful to have that different perspective. I didn't want to give the impression there was a one size fits all maternity plan, because there certainly isn't. And I think people will have taken a lot of value from hearing kind of how we're doing things a bit differently, and how it's going to work for you. So thank you so much for sharing that with us.

You're more than welcome. And if anyone has any questions, you know, I do help with people, y'know doing business coaching for psychologists is something I love doing because we're overall really crap at it, and I've spent years learning it. So if anyone has any questions or is in the same boat and just want to bounce some ideas, then feel free to reach out on thethomasconnection.co.uk

Brilliant. And I'll link up to all of Michaela's socials and her website in the show notes. Thank you so much, Michaela.

Thank you so much Rosie.

After I finished talking to Michaela, there were a couple of things that I felt we needed to clarify, and a couple more key things that would be useful for you to consider if you're thinking about taking some extended leave away from your practice. So we were talking with Michaela about being realistic about tasks that you still want to do or need to do while you're on leave. And one thing I want to say on that is, this is the reason that I tried to rid myself of all admin tasks and get those SOPs in place, so that I don't have to spend any time doing anything that I don't have to do. So there are certain things I'm going to be doing for example to keep in touch with you guys. So I'll still be putting out my weekly newsletter that lets you know about the podcast. I'll still be interacting on social media, and I'm going to be writing the book. Those are all things that really require me and my expertise, but I don't want to be doing anything that doesn't. So it's about being realistic, and if that list looks a bit too long, and you think, actually, I'm not going to be able to do that with a tiny baby, or while I'm on my travels, or while I'm caring for somebody, then you need to think about, okay, what could be done by somebody else and revisit that part of your plan.

Another thing you need to consider is creating some really clear messaging, for your website, for your socials and for your emails that show your plan really clearly. And that's that so that people that land in those places will see it, but also so that if your team get any questions about your plans, they know exactly what to say, and they don't have to come to you and ask each time because that can get really, really draining.

Another thing that we've touched on today already and Michaela mentioned and talked about really eloquently, is researching whether if you're going on maternity leave, whether statutory maternity pay, or maternity allowance is best for you. And my advice on that topic is to ask an accountant, always ask an accountant, because it will depend on the formation of your business, how long you've been in business for, how you normally take your salary, whether you pay yourself as a freelancer, whether you're on the books as an official employee of your business, all of that, and it can get really complicated. So find a good accountant, Michaela and I have both got good accountants, so feel free to get in touch and we can recommend the people that we've used. Mine's called Mahmood Reza from Proactive Resolutions. If you're in the Do More Than Therapy membership, you've met Mahmood because he did our numbers financial planning masterclass, which is in our content library. But yeah, I could not recommend more strongly that you get professional advice on that, because it's really difficult to figure it out. Personally, for me, I will be claiming maternity allowance from the government, and that means that I'm not able to top that up with any additional pay from the business during that period. That's because of the formation of my company as a CIC. It's a bit complicated, but basically, it means that unlike Michaela, I can't hold money in the business to then pay to myself as dividends because we can't take dividends from a social enterprise. So instead, one way that you can approach that is to pay yourself a slightly increased salary for a few months, and save that money in your own personal bank accounts in advance, if you're going to need that if you're going to need to top up the maternity allowance. So similar to Michaela, i've worked out what my family need for the months that I will be on maternity leave. And I'm just finding a slightly different way of making sure that we get that. But you need to speak to an accountant once you've worked out what your family needs, speak to your accountant about the best way of making that happen.

So I really hope that's been helpful. And I hope that it's given you some things to think about, even if you're taking extended leave for a completely different reason. And I certainly hope that it will be there for you if you are taking maternity leave. Because one thing Michaela and I both spoke about before we started recording today was how sad it is that there is not available information about how to take maternity leave from a business, in general. It's as though the content hasn't caught up with the fact that there are lots of women running businesses who need to take time out. And the fact that lots of men also take time out from their businesses when they have children. The content that's out there in the business planning world has not caught up with that fact yet. So we wanted to put that straight. And we wanted to release something to help you if you are in that position because it can feel really lonely, and really scary. And we've both been there twice before. So I really hope this has been useful to you please do let me know. You can drop me a direct message on Facebook or on Instagram. I'm Rosie Gildertrigg on Facebook, I'm Rosie Gilderthorp on Instagram, and I'll put all of the links to everything that we've mentioned today including the other podcast episodes on creating SOPs and policies in the show notes.

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