Camille: Here we are with our third official guest on the podcast. But this is our first guest that we've had who I don't know, so I'm very excited about this cuz this is one of the reasons I really wanted to do this podcast, is I love talking to other business owners and what are they doing and how are they managing all of it and getting to know people.
Camille: So thank you so much for being our first guest that we get to meet for the first time.
Camille: Shula is the entrepreneur's therapist and she provides business owners with emotional support and mental health strategy. And holy moly, can all of us entrepreneurs really use this?
Camille: And I love this topic also because it aligns with something that we've been talking about recently on the podcast, which are these three pillars of creating a high performing business.
Camille: And one of those pillars is mindset. Folds right into that perspective of you can't just have good strategy and good systems. You also have to have the proper mindset.
Camille: Welcome to The Belief Shift. The show that explores. What you really need to know about building a successful small business.
Camille: I'm your host, Camille Rapacz: small business coach and consultant who spent too much of her career working in corporate business performance.
George: And I'm George Drapeau: your co-host and her brother. I'm a leader in the tech world bringing my corporate perspective, but mostly my curiosity.
Camille: Together, we're exploring beliefs about success and how to achieve it. But mostly we're bringing practical solutions so you and your business can thrive.
Camille: Shula, tell us your story of becoming an entrepreneur. How did you get here?
Shulamit: Well, I've been an entrepreneur for more than 27 years. My first work was in media and fun fact, I was the owner of the only steady cam east of Toronto in the early nineties, which is like, whoa, long time ago now. But, it was always a side hustle alongside salaried work.
Shulamit: When I came into the job market in the eighties, people think the gig economy is just a new thing. But I'm here to tell you that in the eighties, the gig economy was a thing because there were no jobs, there were only contracts. And so it was always hustling for contracts and hustling for work.
Shulamit: And so to have a side self-employment that kind of bridged the two, that's kind of how I got into working for myself. And I just did that over the years until I was working as a translator, translating documents from French to English, and got a typing injury and couldn't do it anymore.
Shulamit: And I had to do my own occupational rehab. And when I started school I was in the social work program, but got diverted into radio and TV cuz at the time that was much more fun. And I thought, well, if I have to do my own occupational rehab, I had always wanted to go back to school and get my master's degree.
Shulamit: And I had been working in personal growth by then in my side hustles and it made sense to marry the two. So I went back to school and got my master's degree in counseling and spirituality.
Shulamit: Gig economy equals no savings, no pension, none of that stuff. So this had to be my retirement plan. I had to be able to do whatever work I was gonna do until basically like on my death bed.
Shulamit: Which sounds kind of macab, but really, you know, you can do it by phone. So I knew, but coming out of school I knew two things.
Shulamit: One is most small businesses fail within the first year, if not the first five. And the other is that mental health professionals scored the lowest on all measures of financial health. And because my future depended on my success in business as a mental health professional, right away I started in business training, business programs, business coaching, all that kind of stuff.
Shulamit: Because I wanted to have a successful business. I needed to have a successful business. So I started hanging out with entrepreneurs. And I was the only mental health professional hanging out at the chamber, hanging out in Masterminds. And I think I had kind of a privileged position, you know, because people, you know, it's the kind of, you confess to your bartender and your barber kind of thing that people knew I was somebody they could talk to.
Shulamit: And so I would hear whispers of how things were for them that they wouldn't necessarily share with other folks. And I opened a holistic stress and trauma clinic and was then running my own business as well. So together the experience of the emotional rollercoaster of running a business, my own and others, it became clear to me that what was needed was a mental health professional who understood entrepreneurship and could support entrepreneurs.
Shulamit: That's how the entrepreneur's therapist was born.
Camille: That's amazing. How was that?
Shulamit: How long ago was that? I've been working with entrepreneurs for quite some time. The branding came about two years ago.
George: It's a beautiful brand. Where were you born and raised?
Shulamit: In the Mari Times. I was born in Moncton, new Brunswick. Oh yeah. Across the border from Maine. Lot of Francophone crossing back and forth between Maine and New Brunswick and New Hampshire and Quebec, all in that area. I grew up in the Maritimes, but there was a big exodus in the seventies from the maritime provinces, and my family came to Ontario.
Shulamit: I spent my early adulthood in Ontario. And then when I got married, tying in the Francophone thing, I got married to a Francophone Quebecer who was also in media. And I needed to work in English. He needed to work in French. So we went to Moncton because there was a bilingual CBC station there.
Shulamit: There was a Hydro Canada for him and CBC for me, and that's how my daughter was born in the Mari Times. And then we came back to Ontario. And I've been in Ontario now for the past 25 years, I think.
George: Sounds like a wonderful place to live. I've never had the pleasure of going yet, but I hope to.
Camille: I noticed on your website that you focus on women entrepreneurs. Sounds like an obvious question. I'm just imagining you have a much better answer than what most people would give in terms of like what's different for women business owners and their experience in terms of their challenges and their mental health and their wellness challenges versus a male business owner? Or how would the focus be different?
Shulamit: I'll come to that answer in a minute, but I'll say straight up that most of the material on my site, although I'm speaking to women, it applies to any entrepreneur. Cause entrepreneurship is entrepreneurship, it doesn't matter your gender.
Camille: Yes.
Shulamit: However, there are complicating factors that can make entrepreneurship even more difficult. And depending on the intersection of systems of oppression in you as a human, each system of oppression adds a layer of difficulty.
Shulamit: So, because it's somewhat simpler for straight white men. I will say that for straight white men, the main issue is toxic masculinity. That makes it really difficult, like enormously difficult to be transparent about having a hard time. Because to have a hard time and to ask for help is anti masculine, right? It's part of the definition of femininity to be weak. I'm talking stereotypically, right? To be weak, to need help, to be soft, to be supported.
Shulamit: Again, broad stereotypes, but still we're talking like popular understanding. And dudes it's like, I got this. I'm sure you've noticed this like the rash of suicides among male entrepreneurs.
George: Really?
Shulamit: Tech startup guys, because it's so difficult and you also have to front the whole time. And my heart breaks for men. It really does because the system of oppression that we would call patriarchy hurts us, both men and women and folks of other genders as well. So while men are not my focus, it's not that I don't recognize how things are hard for them.
Shulamit: Because I have a degree in women's studies, now they would call it gender studies, but of course I did it, you know, low those many years ago. You know, I feel more at home working with other women because we have much more commonality of experience.
Shulamit: So to come back to your question about what's the difference, well, the difference is for women, to be an entrepreneur is to fly in the face of stereotypes.
Shulamit: And still today, many women are responsible for home and family. And so you're, you're flaunting stereotypes, you're flaunting your gender role as a woman when you become an entrepreneur. And then women who work have a second shift. So that you go to work and then you come home and continue working as a woman, in the majority. The statistics show this.
Shulamit: But with entrepreneurship, many times there are no boundaries. So it's not a nine to five. And so you end up that you're cutting your entrepreneurial life and your family life in between each other. Always kind of trying to make things fit.
Shulamit: And that's enormously stressful. And then if you're considered the person who's emotionally responsible for your family life and you're stressed out, you haven't got capacity for them. Right? And if you're caring for aging parents, yours or your spouses, or you're engaged in that. So you just see it just piles up.
Shulamit: And then if you're a woman of color or a person of the global majority, or if you have a disability, like all those intersecting oppressions add barriers and difficulties to the load you're trying to carry as a business owner.
George: Couple real small questions about terminology that is new to me. Did you say emotionally responsible?
Shulamit: Yeah. A very stereotypical example of emotional responsibility, and this is not a gendered thing, but you might have had the experience where you've confided in somebody something that you're upset about.
Shulamit: Yeah. And they get upset and then you end up having to kind of like soothe and calm them. What you would have wanted is that they would have cared for you in your distress and helped you cope, but they end up more upset than you are. And so you have to care for them.
Shulamit: And so often at home, there's a lot of like management of emotions that the woman does in the stereotypical so-called nuclear family. And that takes work.
Shulamit: It's the emotional care of all the folks in the family. It doesn't always fall out across gender lines. And in general, women are socialized as caregivers and men are socialized to expect care, right? Yeah.
Shulamit: So it's double hired for the dude who's doing this work. Because he can't show that in the world.
George: That gives me an angle that I hadn't really thought of before.
Shulamit: And it helps you understand like, why am I so stressed out? Why is this so hard? Well, this's because I'm doing this work that I'm not even aware of.
Shulamit: Yeah. And this is part of the key to mental health, just as humans is to understand, but especially as entrepreneurs, is to understand what's impacting us so that we're not crapping on ourselves for feeling bad. What's the matter with me? I shouldn't be feeling this way. What's my problem?
Shulamit: Which just again, amplifies your problem, but when you can be clear about what's going on, then you can be like, oh, well, no wonder I'm having a hard time.
George: Is emotional responsibility something you talk about with your clients?
Shulamit: Oh yeah. It's a boundary. Not only in the home, but also in your work where we as leaders are appropriately to some degree emotionally responsible for those we serve and for those with whom we work.
Shulamit: I have a post, which I'll share the link with you folks, you can put it in the show notes. But I talk about the seven factors of mental health risk for entrepreneurs and this aspect of being isolated but amongst people. There are people everywhere, but you are holding space for them.
Shulamit: And that's correct. And it's also work. Yes. Right? And so you're doing this emotional caregiving to have healthy relationships with folks as the leader, that is an additional cognitive load, right? It's more work. And so to be aware of that, like I had a quiet day. What's my problem? Well, you had a difficult negotiation this morning. No wonder, right?
George: Last question in this train is how does that express itself with the clients you go through? What things do you hear them say that makes you think we need to talk about this?
Shulamit: My experience is people know. I don't need to know. They know. You might not have the language, but you know that there's something going on around a client and it just seems unmanageable to you and you're like, ah, what's going on here?
Shulamit: You know in yourself where you could benefit from support.
Shulamit: I would say, for example, client boundaries and how not to get wrapped up in an emotional conversation with a client, because you wanna set a clear limit to things and the clients, B, b, but. And there's some coaching around how to have those kinds of conversations.
Shulamit: Also coaching around how to care for yourself because you're gonna have reactions to this. And while you might set your reactions aside in order to appropriately be the leader in that situation, you have to have a place to be like blah afterwards.
Shulamit: Right. To let that all out, because otherwise it's just gonna stay in your organism and really sink your ship over the long run.
Shulamit: So clients know. They're like, laying it out right here. Help me with this!
Camille: Yes. I could imagine myself being one of those people. I had this happen to me., Was it like, I don't know, like two days ago where I was literally ready for bed at like 8:30. And I kept thinking, why is it so early? Why am I so tired today?
Camille: And then I thought back in my day, emotionally, mentally draining day of facilitating conversations with a particularly challenging client, right? And it took it out of me. It was good and rewarding and fulfilling work, but also exhausting.
Camille: You said, something that really struck me, which I don't think we talk about enough, which is how the patriarchy also hurts men. Oh yeah. That's not talked about enough and thought about enough and I remember thinking about it when I was making my own decision about is my business gonna be just for women entrepreneurs or am I just gonna be for just small business owners in general?
Camille: And I remember thinking, I have met so many and know so many great men who want to engage in these conversations and want to do better, and we need them as part of the balancing this equation across the board. And so I thought, I want them in the conversation too, and I wanna be able to bring them to the table with women entrepreneurs to share in these conversations.
Camille: And even with George, I know you've asked questions in the past about lifting women up in a particular meeting or a scenario and just wanting to know that information. How do I make sure I'm doing my part to help them? Because we can't scramble up this ladder all by ourselves.
Camille: But what I really wanna ask you about is, one of the reasons I am focusing with my business the way that I am is because I want to be able to have more choice over the clients I work with.
Camille: So in my previous work in the corporate world, you got assigned to coach who you were supposed to coach, and most of those people would show up just outta compliance. Well, I was told to be here, so I really try to avoid that.
Camille: But I haven't completely gotten rid of that. So I've one bigger client where I go where I need to go and not all those people want my help.
Camille: And it's primarily men in that space you were describing, of I'm supposed to know all the answers and I'm not supposed to show any vulnerability. And so I've had the conversation with the person in charge there about, are you sure I'm the right coach and consultant for this work? Just because I'm a woman and I know what this environment is like. And he's confident that I, and yet I still run up against that level of resistance. And I don't even know if they're aware that they're doing that.
Camille: That's sort of my question is are they completely unaware and is there anything that we should as coaches be doing? Because there is this sort of fine line also, which is another topic we can talk about coaching to therapy, right? Making sure we draw that line. Like I'm not a therapist but I'm curious what your thoughts are about that as a coach and we run up against those barriers. Most of the time. I'm like, I just need to wait until they're ready, but can I be helping them get more ready?
Shulamit: Well, you know, for me this comes down to my scope of practice and so I'll share my thinking about it and then we can continue the conversation around it. This is not necessarily advice per se, just my thoughts.
Shulamit: The model I like to use when I think about this is the social justice model. Where, for example, as a Jewish person, I'm not a Jewish educator. And so when somebody wants to know about antisemitism, for example, or wants to know about what does it mean to be Jewish and what's it like to be? Unless you're my actual real life friend, it's beyond the scope of what I'm trained to do, first of all.
Shulamit: But also what I, again, coming back to the emotional responsibility, the harms I experience as a Jew in the world from non-Jews, to have these conversations with non-Jews is very difficult. Mainly because I'm not trained to do that. And black folks will say the same, that if they're not an anti-racism educator, don't expect them to educate you.
Shulamit: Similarly, as a woman, a cisgender white woman, well white passing woman in this world, for me, I've had a lot of really poor experiences with cisgender white men. Cisgender men, period. I can even feel the tears just even now, so I'm gonna pause.
Shulamit: This is an example of why I prefer not to work with guys because the inner labor it takes for me to provide support for them around, let's say, consciousness raising for them around harms that they are causing to other women in the world. I'm not trained to do it, and the emotional labor it takes from me to be able to have those kinds of conversations is, well, again, beyond my scope of practice, but also not what I wanna do. Because of the toll. It takes away from the work you really, really wanna do.
Shulamit: And the work I really, really wanna do is supporting women who are operating in a world that has these challenges. I think it's a question of personal capacity, really, whether you do or don't want to work with a given demographic.
Shulamit: What are your thoughts?
Camille: I feel the same way about that. You have to make these choices. In the beginning when people are starting out, especially I think in this coaching space where we have a little bit of a problem of anybody can be a coach, thankfully in therapy we understand the certifications. And in coaching not so much.
Camille: And so you're taught you can help anybody. Yeah. And it's just not true. I can only help people as a coach who want to be helped. True also for consulting, even though consulting is much more of a, I'm giving you information versus coaching is I'm helping you discover information.
Camille: It's the same, like I can consult all day long, but it won't help if nobody wants to believe anything I give them. So there has to be some trust in those relationships. Yes. And I think that's ultimately what it comes down to is who do I feel confident that I can build enough trust with that I can help them create the change they're trying to create?
Camille: In a way it's both frustrating but also freeing to be able to say there is a segment of our population I'm not equipped to do that with. Not because they're not worthy, not because they're not, like none of that just, like you said, I don't have the training, I'm not equipped to do that.
Camille: Well, and also our own past experiences, right? So similarly had my own horrible experiences of men in power who were squelching my career path, which is part of the reason I decided to go out on my own was I'm just gonna be in charge of this. I'm not gonna let someone else like that ever be in charge of my career or my work in that way.
Camille: And so part of it is also that, your past experience lends you to what you do and don't want to experience again. And so you put yourself in this place where you can flourish the most. So I do think it's important to choose what you're gonna be able to do and not do that's best.
Camille: You have to take care of yourself first in that if you're actually gonna be able to serve these people who are also as well deserving as anybody else, right? And there are other people who are taking care of those people. I don't have to solve all the world's problems.
Shulamit: This thing that you brought up about creating your own safe space by leaving a toxic place and creating your own business, this has been, especially in the past two years, where folks were home from covid and discovered men, folks of the global majority, folks who had other barriers, facing systemic issues, came home and discovered how much better their mental health was!
Shulamit: And went, well, that's the end of that. I'm not going back. And so many folks who end up in entrepreneurship are actually also trauma survivors because one of the greatest experiences of folks who have trauma is that someone had power over me and caused harm with that. And so when I'm my own boss, nobody's gonna f with me. I see. Right. It is a thread.
Shulamit: I'll mention just parenthetically, my colleague Nicole Lewis Keber, we call co-founded the Business Therapy Center. Her work is all on the intersection of trauma and entrepreneurship.
Shulamit: Whoa. Wow. It's worth a peak. I'll give you the information to put in the show notes.
Camille: It's interesting that you just said that about the choices that people are making in entrepreneurship.
Camille: So there's all of these layers where I think working in a traditional corporate setting just really doesn't serve a larger group of the population than we think.
Camille: My most fun work is helping them design a business that actually works for them. Like break the mold of this old tradition. Cuz you sort of carry that with you cuz it's all you know.
Shulamit: And we do have a tendency to reproduce those systems of oppression. If we came up in the capitalist world where we were employed and had to work nine to five and had to be productive, we can reproduce that relationship in our business. And also as trauma survivors, this is, again, thanks to Nicole, we can reproduce the relationship of abuse. We can be our own mean boss. Not because we had a mean boss, but because there was somebody in our lives who was harmful to us. And we can reproduce that unknowingly in our relationship to our business as well.
Camille: Yes. Wow.
George: You mentioned a couple times, global majority?
Shulamit: We, white folks are white passing folks are actually not a majority. Globally speaking, we are actually a minority. And so it used to be that we would say black, indigenous people of color, but that's smooshing everybody together.
Shulamit: My understanding from recent research is that the more accurate term and the term that kind of puts us in our proper relationship to that is to say folks of the global majority.
George: Cool. Thank you. Tell me about a conversation you had with a client who wants to work with you and you decide not to take them on.
Shulamit: When folks wanna work with me, I invite them to fill out a questionnaire, and this helps them get their thoughts together in preparation for the call, but it also helps me understand what they're looking for and what's on their mind.
Shulamit: I did used to be a trauma therapist. That was what I did before I came into this work with strictly entrepreneurs. And that's difficult work, especially as a trauma survivor.
Shulamit: And so part of what I'm looking for when folks come to me is how much heavy lifting do they want? If they're wanting to do the heavy lifting around their trauma, then I'm going to recommend that they work with a trauma therapist and then come back and we'll do the entrepreneurial. When you're working with me, it's about riding the ups and downs, but you've got a foundation already.
Shulamit: If you think of the analogy where a person has been in a car crash, well there's a whole lot of work to do before they can go to the rehab and start actually getting back to normal life. So it's kind of like that.
Shulamit: So I'm feeling people out for some of these things that are, to come back to what we were saying before, outside the scope of my practice. And so I'm just straight up with somebody, you know, what you need is outside the scope of my practice. I'm either not qualified to provide that service or I'm not currently providing that service and my job, the way I see it, even as a therapist before, you know, folks would come to me for all kinds of stuff.
Shulamit: And I'm not trained for ocd, for example. I'm not trained in dissociative identity disorder, which is a very extreme presentation of trauma symptoms. And so I'm so grateful now that I'm still a therapist, but I'm working with a broader population to have this understanding of scope of practice. Because it doesn't make it about you, it doesn't make it about me.
Shulamit: There's nothing wrong with me that I can't do it. There's nothing wrong with you that you're asking too much. It's a simple fact of like, I don't have the skills for this, but I know who does. Let me refer you. And I have a network of people I trust. Because I have to trust them in order to be able to refer somebody.
Shulamit: And that's what I do. I'll say, well, based on what you've said to me, I would recommend xyz or I will say, based on what you've said to me, what you're looking for is outside the scope of my practice. I know some great people. Here's my recommendations. We take it from there.
Camille: Since we're talking about scope of practice, I run into often, and I alluded to this earlier, as a coach, I have to be careful when it starts to go into therapy land. And it's something I set out from the beginning.
Camille: I'm very clear, when we start, make an initial agreement, I'm not a therapist. This is what coaching is and this is what consulting is. But I'm curious about your thoughts about that. Some of my best experiences with clients is when they are also in therapy at the same time.
Shulamit: It's a perfect mix!
Camille: It's so great when that happens. But what do you see from your side? Why do you love it when they're also seeing a coach?
Shulamit: It's not that coaches don't do deep work, but it's deep work in a different way. I'm gonna use neuroscience to kind of like lay versions of neuroscience cuz I'm not a neuroscientist. But what happens when you're emotionally activated is you flip your lid, right?
Shulamit: So what happens is, I'm using this hand gesture. This is a Daniel Siegel develop this, it's called the brain in the palm of your hand. Huh. You can Google it. This is the mid-brain, the mammalian brain, which is always on alert for danger. And it's also where the emotions and memories sort of reside.
Shulamit: And then we have the frontal cortex, which I call the CEO self. It's where our executive functioning also quotation marks resides. When your nervous system perceives threat and as engaged in emotions, the amygdala, the emotion center gets hot. And when that happens, hot again, metaphorically speaking, your prefrontal cortex goes offline. It stops communicating with the rest of you.
Shulamit: This is why, for example, you can be tearing a strip off of somebody and the other, you was up there looking down going, you shouldn't be doing this, but you're doing it anyway. Or you can walk away and two hours later you'll be like, oh, why didn't I say that?
Shulamit: Because the capacity to do differently, the flow of communication is not open. And so therapy wise, when we're dealing with emotional stuff, big emotional stuff, cuz in coaching too, for learning purposes there needs to be some feels to the learning, right?
Shulamit: But when it gets big, this I think is where therapists have the training and the capacity and the experience to ride the wave of these big emotions. And provide grounding and containing help so that the emotions can be soothed and the CEO self can come back online. And, I mean, coaches do the same thing just to a lesser extent.
Shulamit: Because you know when people are emotionally activated, you know how to common soothe and reorient and ground and all that stuff. But they're not like, ah, right? The lids just a little like, you know, when the pot spoiling and it starts to jiggle, that's kind of where it gets with you, I would say.
Shulamit: And with me it's like big.
Shulamit: Well how does that land on your side of things?
Camille: Yeah. I love that description that you just gave about that CEO mind. When I see it happening where I'm like, oh, therapy would help them in this scenario is when I realize I'm no longer able to help them. And just what you described made such a great visual image for me because aren't able to turn on their CEO function. That's the work I'm trying to do with them.
Camille: Every time they come to me, they're just still stuck in this other space that now I have this better way of describing that.
Camille: It's so much bigger than what I have the tools to help them. And they need to break through that before they can even work with me. I've even had clients that step away for a couple of months and then come back because they really had to go work on something else first.
Camille: But sometimes they don't recognize it until we're trying to do this high functioning executive level work. Cuz it's coach and consults. I'm gonna give you to do, and I'm gonna teach you some new things to try. And they have to open to learning and that makes them feel vulnerable.
Camille: And as soon as they go into that I feel vulnerable cuz I don't know what I'm doing space, it can trigger all these emotions. Instead of feeling like, oh, this is great. I'm learning.
Camille: I love that framework, that way of thinking about it. It definitely aligns with my experience as I work with people.
Shulamit: You're bringing out a point about technique as well. Our trainings equip us with a different set of skills. Yes. So I have, especially as a trauma therapist Right. I have a pretty deep understanding of people's psychology. And you have a deep understanding of, how to help people move forward with things. And I've been trained how to help people go deep,
Camille: Yes. I always think of it as the therapist is helping you process the past and how that's affecting what's going on with you in here and, and your present, but like the past and the present, just all the, yeah.
Camille: Deep rooted emotions and perceptions and everything that it's created and it's helping you sort through all of that. And my job is I'm trying to take you from where you are and move you forward and help you do that faster than you would do on your own. So I'm very forward looking and the reason you come to me is because you wanna go at a faster pace then you're bumbling self might do if you're don't have clear direction.
Shulamit: That's what I love about coaching. The focus, like where attention goes, energy flows. I know this from my own personal experience, my business would not be where it is today if it weren't for the coach. Well, she's a mentor, but regardless, the mastermind mentor with whom I've been working for years. The folks who come to entrepreneurship, we are strong, but we are even stronger with support.
Camille: Absolutely. We all need thought partners too. It's not just telling you what to do it's most of the time I find my clients, they actually have the in answers they're looking for. They just needed a thought partner to help pull those answers out.
Camille: Yes. And then feel good about them too. We need a little validation. Like, this is okay, right? Like, yes, it's okay. Like, let's talk about that and why that is an okay trick. Because making decisions for your business, boy that can be really stressful and overwhelming and just like, is it the right one? I don't know.
Camille: And so we don't make them, which is what slows us down. Cause we don't actually make choices. We just kind of get all frozen up for all sorts of reasons. But that's where I think that this intersection of therapist and coaching is so useful cuz if something deep rooted is holding you back, there's always something,
Shulamit: yeah. Powerful combination. Not that we're co-signing each other or anything.
Camille: I know. And the thing that I struggle with as a coach is how do people know if they're finding a good one?
Shulamit: I have a whole blog post about that, so, oh, we're
Camille: gonna ask so many good links in the show notes, people.
Camille: Oh my goodness. Yeah. I would love to see.
George: Will you please tease that blog post?
Shulamit: Give you some bites of it, you mean? Yes. Yeah. Well, really, it's caveat amor, right by her beware. Ask, ask, ask, ask. Because as in your field, same in mine, just cuz you've got the paper doesn't mean - you really need to spend some time with the person.
Shulamit: And especially what I find, because we're therapists are sort of perceived as quasi medical, for the most part, you don't really interview your doctor. You don't really think of yourself as hiring your doctor. So you don't really think of yourself as hiring your therapist.
Shulamit: But you actually are hiring your therapist. Just like as an entrepreneur, you would hire a VA or you would hire a CFO or a CMO or whatever, and you need to spend time talking to them. You need to be able to ask about their qualifications. The time you spend with them gives you a sense of how they are going to be with you when you work together.
Shulamit: And that's why that initial phone call is like, I could give you a whole list of stuff, but honestly, as a person who works somatically, and who senses into the world just as a human being, and who has worked with trauma survivors in a culture that teaches us not to trust ourselves, you don't need a list of things from me.
Shulamit: What I would really encourage is to get on the phone and trust your sense. And go slowly. So that if somebody's trying to sign you up on the call or they're giving you a 24 hour something that creates a sense of urgency and scarcity. It's important to slow down, take time, talk to somebody, because you can trust your organism to know the right way forward when you give it the time to tell you.
Camille: That last thing you just said rings so true for me, and it was a lesson I had to learn about the way that you go through a coaching program and what they teach you in how to sell your coaching, which is the opposite of having them do what you actually want them to do as a coach, which is slow down their thinking and do a little research and actually just trust themselves.
Camille: And instead you're told , get ready to close that sale on that discovery call. And it's, that's a problem. Especially, you're choosing something as important as a coach and a therapist because there has to be trust there to do it.
Camille: And right out of the gate I'm like, how am I building trust when I'm basically just telling them, Hey, it's now or never. It's almost, almost like you're supposed to be telling them there's something wrong with them if they're not ready to buy from you in that moment.
Shulamit: That's a hundred percent that's the traditional sales tactic. Many coaching programs teach. A colleague of mine, Maggie Patterson, she's Small Business Boss on Instagram, talks a lot about sales, like so-called ethical marketing, and she points out these kinds of coercive tactics that are really problematic in marketing.
Shulamit: Yes. We were in conversation this morning around these things, coming back to choosing a therapist or choosing somebody you want to work with in terms of taking time to also look back 2, 3, 4 years over their work and their body of work and look at not what they're saying, but how they're actually doing.
Shulamit: So we were in conversation this morning about trauma informed and what that means. It was Maggie, Nicole and I were gonna be on Maggie's podcast in a couple of weeks talking about this, and like the fact that people say that they're this or that, but what they do, for example, that coercive tactic, that's not a trauma informed process, right?
Shulamit: You need to give them time and slow them down and give them opportunity to consent and all those kinds of things. So when you are looking for any service provider, but especially somebody who's working with you as a coach or a therapist, the other thing I would say is to take time to look at their time: at their social media timeline, at their blog posts, at some of the, like, their podcast episodes, who they hang out with those kinds of things that will also let you know whether they're actually walking their talk.
Camille: Absolutely. And I think we just don't emphasize that enough. We don't allow enough space for them. I mean, I just think of it as the basic respect for people. Respecting this decision process, respecting that, especially as a coach , these are high ticket kind of engagements.
Camille: When people are hiring a coach and it's high risk for them in their business cuz we've gotta help them and not have that be a sinkhole of money. So I think just respecting the process that other people need to go through. Yes. And making that decision. It's just so, so important and it gets missed so much. It gets back to that idea we're so pushed to this quick fix kind of mentality.
Camille: One of our belief shifts. Hire quick, do it quick, this is the right thing . I just think not going back and studying enough about the decision we're about to make, not doing enough research, is hurting a lot of people just because of that. Just from that not wanting to slow down for a minute.
Shulamit: And not to throw coaches under the bus or other people who use sales techniques. This is one of the things that's like part of the work around which I do with entrepreneurs, it's a survival issue, our business for us. It elicits a life or death stress response in the body. We end up in an alarm state. We come from a place of legitimate fear because we are afraid for our survival as the business owner.
Shulamit: But at the same time, we have good intentions. We're doing this work cuz we wanna help others. And so we rely on somebody to teach us how to do the selling and we trust in their expertise.
Shulamit: So it's not like coaches are predators. It's about finding a way to mediate, to be aware of where's my nervous system right now when I'm on the sales call? Am I in scarcity? And I wanna say scarcity's not a mindset, it's an actual psychological phenomenon. There's a whole book about it. I'll give you the reference. But either the belief that resources are scarce or the fact that resources are scarce bring you into a fear state where your survival matters.
Shulamit: And this is evolutionary. It's not wrong or bad, it's just human. But knowing this and having ways of working with this so that you don't cause harm as a result, but also so that you as an entrepreneur don't lose your shit on the daily from being in fear all the time. Working around the fear that comes up around survival is part of the work that I do because entrepreneurs by in large, often anxious, and rightly so.
Shulamit: But coming back to my original point, not to throw coaches onto the bus, like, we're all trying to do the best we can. It's about being aware of these things so that we can care appropriately for those with whom we are in sales conversations.
Camille: Totally agree. Yes. As a coach, just emphasizing that when you enter into this world, you're not an expert at marketing. That's not why you're getting into it. And so you're just looking to others to help you. And unfortunately, most of the messaging, which I do love Maggie Patterson's podcast because she speaks to this so clearly. Most of what we are taught is this horrible way. Like the first thing you learn, literally, right, in my certification program was, and this is how you do it. And it was the first moment I was like, oh, do I wanna do this? Because it just felt so icky and most of what my clients say to me is, I don't know if I wanna do this marketing, if I'm gonna be able to do it, cuz it feels icky.
Camille: And just walking them through that you don't have to do it that way, so much of the messaging is the opposite because that's the culture we live in. Get the money, fast hustle, hustle, all that stuff. So yeah, some of it is just we're trying to undo some bad messaging and bad training around how we're supposed to do it.
Camille: And some coaches are still trying to find their way out of that. And it is driven by this idea, but I have to do it this way because you have that, you know, scarcity going on.
Shulamit: And it's hard to be afraid for your survival.
Camille: Yeah. It's hard to slow down and make really deliberate, thoughtful choices when you're in that space.
Camille: You're just gonna try to quickly react and do what's gonna make that anxiousness go away in that moment.
Shulamit: One of these moves that I teach folks is, no wonder. No wonder. Entrepreneurship is hard. This is stressful. I'm scared. No wonder I'm scared. Of course I'm scared.
Shulamit: Of course this is hard. Of course. No wonder, right? And sometimes you see this is my self care gesture, but any kind of like, you can put your hands together, you can put your hands on your belly, whatever. I just like to place my hands on the heart space as a kind of self soothing thing. You know? No wonder.
Shulamit: And when you're like in this kind of panic state to go, oh wait a sec, I'm stressed out. And to stop and say, right, this is a big deal. This really matters to me. No wonder I'm stressed out about it. Yeah. Cuz there's nothing wrong with. Of course, of course. This is tough.
Camille: Yes. I'm gonna definitely use that, no wonder, because a lot of my clients most of the time what I'm telling them is, look, this isn't hard because you're not good at it. Just running a business is hard.
Shulamit: It's hard. Cause it's hard!
Camille: Yeah. It just is. So, take yourself out of that equation of you're not making it hard just because you don't know what you're doing.
Camille: That's why we're here. We're gonna figure it out.
Shulamit: Yeah. This is the legacy of rugged individualism, right. It's, you can do anything, but it's also all your fault.
Camille: Yes. Exactly. Which is just a horrible message. Trying to get people that agency around, like, you can do something about this.
Camille: Yes, yes. But business came with the problems that you have. It's a package deal. Like all the problems of business, they just show up that way.
Shulamit: Yes. And I love, we have like such a meeting of minds on this because this is one of my big main messages is that if you break down, there's nothing wrong with you because mental health challenges are inherent in entrepreneurship.
Shulamit: It's the nature of the beast.
Camille: I kinda like that. So what other questions do you have before we wrap this thing up?
George: How do clients find you? How do they realize that they need what you provide?
Shulamit: Most of the folks who come to work with me are therapy savvy already. They've been through therapy. They know the value of therapy and they have done that work, but they also recognize I want that kind of support, but around what's coming up for me in my business.
Shulamit: And so they look for a therapist who understands business.
George: Really. That's what they're thinking when they come and find you? I know a therapist, but who understands business, huh?
Shulamit: Well, that's half of it. The other half of it is in my experience, folks who come into contact with me, it takes them between 12 and 18 months before they become clients.
Shulamit: Not to say that everybody who comes into contact with me 18 months, but that's the kind of arc, because what happens is when folks meet me, they don't necessarily need me. But when the crap hits the fan, 18 months later, they're like, oh, wait a minute, who is that Shula woman? I'm gonna call her.
Shulamit: That's the other way it happens.
George: I get that. I was trying to imagine myself being in this position of being an entrepreneur, and so how would I even know to look for your capability?
Shulamit: People will Google anxiety, small business owner, that kind of stuff, or depression small business owner, they'll just Google things like that.
Shulamit: Because they're looking for a therapist, is what it is. And then they realize, oh, wait a minute. There are some therapists, Nicole and I are the only two I know who know, who are therapists, who do business, who do
George: Now because of this podcast is gonna be a hundred.
George: Everybody's gonna think, oh, this is an awesome idea
Shulamit: Well, there aren't enough of us. Cause you know, when you go to a therapist and you're an entrepreneur and you're working day and night and the therapist is, well just work less, have good boundaries.
Shulamit: Take things off your to-do list. Why don't you just get a job? Like, that's not helpful. Right?
George: That's awesome.
George: Do you have role models who guide you and how you currently think about running your business or in through your life?
Shulamit: Really, it's Maggie Patterson. I've been in her mastermind from the beginning of my business and she's the main influence. Also Trudy LeBron, her podcast is Business Remix. But these are not people that I've worked with. They're people whose work inspires me because there's an intersection of my values and theirs.
George: Let me ask from a different direction. Okay. So think in your personal circle of people you know and forget about your business. Do you have people whom you look to for any aspect of your life or in your business to help you think that stuff?
Shulamit: As an entrepreneur I'm pretty isolated. And that was like full-time entrepreneurship for me was 10 years ago. So yeah, it's really been limited. But my grandfather, my mother's father, came to Canada when he was 13 years old.
Shulamit: He'd had polio and he wanted to start a newspaper. And folks said to him, you're a cripple, you're an immigrant. And he goes, well, I don't put the paper out with my legs.
Shulamit: Right. Awesome. And so, in my heart of hearts, what I would have liked to do, what I would have liked was that my mother would've taken over the paper and then I would've inherited the paper from her. Really? That's what I would've liked to do. My grandfather ran ran an award-winning newspaper for many, many years.
Shulamit: We all know that the newspaper environment now, I mean, it's, it's, you know, it's tough. It was, yeah. So it's now, I think it was called the Liverpool Advance when he started it. I think it's now the Queens County record, and it's owned by some conglomerate now. It's not an independent paper anymore.
Shulamit: The person who looms large in my world as the person who gave me the idea that it could be done was my mother's father.
George: That's beautiful.
George: One last question for me, if you don't mind. Something I ask myself and ask people in they're doing career growth is this two part question to help them discover if they're well suited for their job or where they want to go in their career.
George: Part one: what would you say you're uniquely good at? I don't like to use the word superpower, but in any group of people that, you know, usually you're better at this one thing than almost anybody you know. And two: what are the attributes that are most satisfying about roles that you had or about your business that you run?
George: Make sense?
Shulamit: Yes. So I'm noticing I'm feeling a flush of discomfort because I know what the answer is and it's a certain requires a certain vulnerability to say. So I'm just acknowledging that that's what's happening here. The thing I'm good at is empathy to the point that people think I can read their minds.
Shulamit: Oh! But I'm just a good guesser and I've worked really hard at cultivating the capacity. It's the work that I do. It's what makes me a good therapist. It's a little like braggy to say that.
George: No, no, it's awesome. And we should have you be introduced to one of the previous guests we had who's a palm reader.
George: Cause he's great at empathy. Oh man. I could, we have that podcast, Camille, where
Camille: they're talking to each, each other. That would be fun. Yeah, it would be. We're just observing. Yeah, that would be super fun. Anyway,
George: so, no, please don't apologize for that. I think it makes sense and I think it's awesome that you say it.
Shulamit: And because I had that flush of emotion. I forgot the second question. So could
George: attributes of your career attributes or John that you find satisfying?
Shulamit: Oh, communication. So this is the thing. People are like, okay, so I was in radio and tv, I was a translator. I worked in PR and media, and now I'm a therapist.
Shulamit: But then I also taught yoga on the side. Like, what the heck? And for me, the umbrella of it all is communication. Hearing stories, telling stories. And when I'm doing that, that's my happy place.
George: So Cool. Thank you.
Camille: That was a fantastic closing question, George. Nice job.
George: Thanks ma'am.
Shulamit: I wanna talk for hours
Camille: on. Yeah, me too. I too. I know. Yeah,
George: I mean too, this is your fault, Shula. I know. Stop being awesome. I'll take it. If you were less awesome, we could finish.
Camille: I'm just so grateful that you reached out and that you found us and that we found you and that you were here, and we will definitely have to have you back on.
Camille: I still have so many more things I would love to talk to you about, and I know George does too. So we hope that you will come back and talk to us some more.
Camille: I'm gonna have a bunch of links in the show notes, everybody. Yeah. So all the stuff that Shula talked about, we will link to. We will also link to her website and to her newsletter. And she's what? You're on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Do I have that right?
Shulamit: Yes. But I prefer Instagram. What I like about Instagram is the opportunity for direct messages.
Camille: Ah, got it.
Shulamit: Yes.
George: Two things. First of all, I should have pointed out earlier, most beautiful QR code I have ever seen. Oh, thank you. Oh my goodness. It's gorgeous .
Camille: That is very cool.
George: And my last thing, Shulamit was really nice to meet you. Really, truly a pleasure. Thank you so much.
Shulamit: I love this and I'm so grateful you said yes. Thank you so much.
Camille: Oh, thank you so much. This was fantastic. See everybody next week.
George: Bye everybody. See you.
