The Therapy Business Podcast
We know how challenging growing a therapy practice can be, and don’t think it should require an accounting degree just to run your business. If you own a solo or a group practice, we’re here to help you build a business that creates more time, makes more money and serves more people.
The Therapy Business Podcast
Breaking Free from the Burnout Trap with Rob Tracz
Join us for an illuminating conversation with Rob Tracz, an international speaker and personal growth strategist, who opens up about his journey from relentless workaholic to a more balanced entrepreneur.
Rob shares the easily overlooked signs of burnout, such as feeling isolated and emotionally unstable, and how they can silently sabotage your success. He challenges the all-too-common belief that another client is the key to happiness and success, sharing how this mindset can cost you precious moments with loved ones and deteriorate your mental and physical health.
Get in touch with Rob:
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/rob-tracz-ms-cscs-55a4b3146
Instagram: www.Instagram.com/robtracz
Podcast: www.SurvivingtheSideHustle.com
Free Call: www.SurvivingtheSideHustle.com/freecall
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We specialize in helping therapy practices like yours achieve financial clarity, so you can focus on what you do best—helping your clients and managing your team- while we help handle all the businessy stuff they didn’t teach you in grad school.
To see if your practice might be a good fit, schedule a free consultation at therapybusinesspod.com.
Meet with one of our coaches
*Intro/outro song credit:
King Around Here by Alex Grohl
Burnout is a incredibly common problem in business owners. It is something that I think we all struggle with at one point or another, and sometimes it can be cyclical. We can deal with it now and then it might go away and then we might start to struggle with it again. I know I personally have dealt with it on numerous occasions and when I have one, not only was it hard for me to identify what was going on, but two I didn't really know how to push through and get out to the other side. Well, today we have international speaker and personal growth strategist, rob Tracy, joining us, and he's going to be talking all about how to overcome burnout as a business owner, to just feel more balanced and feel more in control of your life.
Speaker 1:My name is Craig and I'm the CEO of Desi Financial Coaching. Our goal is simple to help you run a therapy practice that is permanently profitable. If you own a solo or group practice, we're here to help you build a business that creates more time, makes more money and serves more people. This is the Therapy Business Podcast. All right, I got Rob here. Thanks, rob, for joining and sharing your wealth of knowledge with us.
Speaker 2:Hey man, Thank you for having me on today. I'm excited to kind of dive in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, awesome. Well, I'm pumped too, because just when you reached out, what you're talking about with just burnout as an entrepreneur is man, it's something I cycle through, to be honest. I mean, there's times where I'm feeling amazing, there's times where I'm feeling like burnout is approaching. So whenever you sent that, I'm going okay, I know I can benefit from hearing this, so I'm sure a lot of our listeners can, but I would love to just learn more about you before we dig into the nitty gritty. Tell us about who you are, what your company is and all that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, sure. So yeah, I'm Rob Tracy. I'm a personal growth strategist. I'm a recovering workaholic however you kind of want to go about saying it but what I really do is I help driven individuals more so entrepreneurs, but just generally people who are feeling stuck and kind of experiencing different stages of burnout are feeling stuck and kind of experiencing different stages of burnout overcome that and kind of get themselves back on track so that they're looking good, feeling good and doing great things.
Speaker 1:Man, yeah, I know there's a need and I know sometimes it's hard for us to even admit it or recognize it, I would guess, and so I mean that might even be a good question to ask is is what are some of the signs that maybe you're hitting burnout? Cause you know, there's for me a lot of times what I would probably say is burnout. Maybe there's just certain symptoms, things that are kind of leaking into my personal life, into my work life, my productivity, all those things, and maybe that's just burnout speaking. So, what are some of the things that you typically see or that people usually struggle with?
Speaker 2:Yeah, for I know, for me specifically, um, there was, there was a bunch of signs that I was kind of continuing to ignore because at first it was, yeah, let me continue working more hours, more clients, and it was. It was like that. That idea of what I had, of what true success was, was always like one more client away or one more session away. Uh, back when I was a strength and conditioning coach, I was like first taste of entrepreneurship. I'm like, okay, cool, I get to build my schedule, work with as many people as I want, and that was great because I started making money.
Speaker 2:But at the same time it was really bad because I built my book up to the point where I was working 12 to 15 hour days, seven days a week for about three years straight and I missed out a lot of fun things like relationships, parties, events. And most importantly to me was my dad's final moments. He got really sick and ended up passing away and I chose to continue working over being by his side, and it didn't hit me until about a year later when I was totally wrapped into a work mode. It just kind of stuck there that, hey, this isn't, this isn't who I am, this isn't who I want to be and that's when it really opened up like things like physical, mental and emotional instability, like anything that would go disarray would throw me like crazy, like a whole crazy curve ball.
Speaker 2:Um, my diet was all screwed up, so like nutrition wise, is eating a bunch of garbage, drinking most nights of the week. And then I was digital nutrition as well as something I was not. I wasn't consuming anything educational or motivational, it was just like endless zoom scrolling when I had the time or bingeing Netflix, and then a lot of other things like lack of clarity, confusion, wasn't really clear on what I was trying to do. I was just only thing I was chasing was just that number, that extra session, and then other things like inefficiency in my day, chaotic schedules, people changing, moving around. It was driving me insane and I had really isolated myself. So I guess a long way to answer your question. Some things that pop up to me were isolation by myself, very chaotic, inefficient schedule and rules to live my life by emotional and physical instability and poor diet.
Speaker 1:Man, yeah, and that that speaks to me completely. You're saying those things. I'm like, oh yeah, I've felt, felt all those things. Um, you know, I, I've personally seen a huge correlation with, uh, my, my relationship with my phone and, uh, where I am in in all areas of life, and I think that's that digital nutrition is a great way of putting it.
Speaker 1:It's man, if I could get that locked down and there's, I go through these waves of all right, I'm not touching my phone ever again, like I never want to see it again. And then it slowly just somehow creeps back in one app at a time. I don't know how it does it, but as you're talking about starting man with that one trying to get session, it's almost like that hustle and grind culture and you know you and having to miss time with your dad and I'm sure at the time it's one of those things that you're getting praised for. It, in a sense, of man, you're just working hard and you're busting it and you're building this thing. Is that kind of like what you were seeing? Like it's almost like you're giving yourself and outside people are giving you permission to go all in, almost too much into your work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I think what it was is I was wearing it like a badge of honor. I was like, yeah, I'm building this thing, it's great. I'm too busy to hang out with friends. I'm too busy to go home for the holidays, working on holidays busy to go home for the holidays, working on holidays.
Speaker 2:And I think I think to me it was giving me a sense of attention from everybody, because everyone's like asking me to hang out and spend time with me and almost like, oh no, I'm too busy. That would give me some false like excitement. And I think it really stems back to when I was, when I was younger. My parents got divorced at a super young age and I was like traveling all over different school districts, had trouble making friends, and the friends that I did make, I couldn't maintain the friendships because I'm moving to a different school. So, fast forward. Now I feel like I'm getting this attention from everybody and I'm making money, I'm doing financially well. So I feel like my parents are proud of me and this, and I can't do that because I'm busy working, making more money. And what I was really seeking for was just that attention and that praise and just acceptance, just like acceptance.
Speaker 2:But while I was chasing this, this false or shadow success, I lost a lot of what I really were like seeking, like the attention from others and that quality time with my parents. And while I was chasing that, I I lost this and I'll never be able to get that back. Um, and that's really now. It's now. I now I try to try my best to always stay as aware as I can. Checking in. You mentioned that you go through a lot of different cycles with certain things, and that's cool. I go through those too and I try to. I try to put some boundaries and use them as, like certain seasons, like, okay, this is going to be a serious sprint season for work. I'm going to take on a couple more clients to in order to make some money so I can fund this. For work. I'm going to take on a couple more clients in order to make some money so I can fund this next project that I'm going to launch.
Speaker 1:But once that's done.
Speaker 2:it's going to be break time. I'm going to try to enjoy some downtime and relax a bit, and I think that awareness of those seasons really helped me a lot.
Speaker 1:Man, that's so true. And we speak because we talk a lot about profit and cash and how our relationship with money, but we speak to being proactive instead of reactive, because that's our national natural state is to just react. And it sounds like that's kind of in a nutshell, what you're saying is by being proactive, and it's okay to have those times where you're like all right, we are in all in mode we're launching a new program, we're we're doing X, y and Z, and so that means, yeah, I'm probably going to be working a lot more or really mentally focused on that, but we're being proactive about it, we're going in and with intentionality, knowing it's just for a short time. And I think probably where a lot of people get stuck is they just find themselves stuck in this mode of I'm working all the time.
Speaker 1:When I started this business, my goal was to get clients, like that's what I was supposed to, that's what you're supposed to do is get more clients, get more clients. And now it's like, all of a sudden, it's really hard to break that habit. So, yeah, just being proactive, I think, is the key right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I call it robot mode. So like, robot mode is great, like robots are super efficient, they get work done, they're motionless, they're just go, go, go, go go, and that's good for when you're in those sprint seasons. But if you don't have that deadline or that like end zone or the ending of whatever you're working on, or at least have an idea of it, you can get stuck in robot mode and like, like how they're efficient and productive and they get stuff done. They also lack the awareness. That's the human component. So when you're stay over there too long, you lose out on the relationships, you lose out on the awareness, you lose out on the friends, the family, that stuff. It keeps us alive and human. And that's where I was. I was stuck for too long.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's man, that's a spot. I like that robot mode because it felt that way for me and I was with you on that. You know, I was a solo business owner and I was trying to fill my calendar and I got to a point where I couldn't squeeze anything in and I was just Zoom call to Zoom, call, back to back every single day. It felt like, and it wasn't until I had to intentionally start offloading that and, you know, bringing on a team of people to to add in some support. But we speak to therapists. I mean, that's usually the trajectory is they start solo, build up their caseload to a point where, like I need help, and they start building this group practice and it's just such a delicate balance. So when you're working with somebody and they're feeling this burnout, what do you recommend they do? What are some? I guess what's the first step or what is something that somebody could do to get out of that trap?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, it's good, it's like. This is probably not the answer you're looking for, but it's so individualized per person, so it's it's really kind of like all right, let's sit down and let's pay attention. So what is leading to the burnout? Is it too many work hours? Is it the schedule, is it your habits, or is it something more like your diet? Are you not motivated? Are you kind of drained, lacking energy, or maybe it's focus, or maybe just a little like lacking the stability and the strength, the resilience, to kind of handle a lot of things.
Speaker 2:For example, one individual I've been working with recently just kind of loses it Anytime something doesn't go according to plan. It's just like boom, crash, hit, hit and zero, starting fresh in two weeks. I got to take two weeks to totally recover and get back on track with my routine and such, and for him it's it's. We're working on building resilience so that when things don't go to plan, what are our tools? How do we stay cool and level-headed and how do we bounce back, how do we roll with these punches and make sure that we continue to be productive? Because if every time one little pebble gets in your shoe and you got to take three weeks off to recover. You're not going to get anywhere, you're not going to get the things done that you want to get done, and it's going to be a long uphill battle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, that makes a lot of sense. And and I and I don't think it's a cop out to say that everyone's different I mean, we say the same thing is it's there's so many different factors that come into play and I, even hearing you talk about this, I'm thinking okay, there's probably a lot of ways that even burnout shows itself. You know, from people who probably isolate themselves from the outside world to go all in on their work, to the people who which is a lot of times my tendency just to tend to disconnect completely, because it's like if I'm not looking at my email, then I'm not going to be, or if I'm not looking at my email, then I'm not going to be. Or if I'm not looking at my financial statements, whatever it is, then it doesn't exist and it's not a problem anymore.
Speaker 2:Do you?
Speaker 1:see a spectrum of people and like just kind of guess their struggles.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean for that exactly. I'm the same way sometimes. If I don't bring myself back into it, I'm not constantly doing some kind of reflection or looking at statements or or journaling or paying attention. I get lost and then it doesn't. It doesn't sound on my radar, so then it does must not exist, right. So what I try to do is I'm always constantly trying to do some sort of reflection. Gratitude is super simple and or seems to be super simple. It can be a lot harder when you're not used to it, but once you get the ball rolling it becomes such a great practice, one to kind of shift a little more into like a positive, like light, but then also it's like easy to start to reflect on the things on the day-to-day. Then you can get into a little more journaling, goal setting, kind of figuring things out and um, with that awareness, paying attention to what works for you and identifying what it is that's going to help move that needle forward. So, like you said, burnout comes out in a lot of different ways.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, and I hear you talk about gratitude and that sounds simple, but I think you're right, it's it's not. It's something I've heard and I've tried to start doing, and I don't always stick to it. But even just as business owners, I think it's for some reason we struggle with just acknowledging how far we've come or where we are. It's always just like that next milestone, next milestone that we forget that. You know, at one point we were dreaming of being where we are. Um, you know, when I started this, I was dreaming of just being able to go run errands at 10 30 in the morning on a tuesday. I was that's to me, was like oh, that's the dream, I'm not tied down to anything, and I forget that sometimes, that I I get to go run errands on a tuesday at 10 30 if I want to oh, dude, it's brutal when you have to like go grocery shopping, when normal people go grocery shopping, right, oh man, I went to Costco on a Sunday and it was the worst.
Speaker 1:I was like, oh, rookie mistake man it is the worst no, you are not wrong. And uh, rush hour traffic. I forgot how bad all that is. Uh. So, even as we're saying that like these are wonderful things to probably write down in a gratitude journal, right, I get to go to Costco when it's not busy.
Speaker 2:That is a small thing to be grateful for, yeah that's the goal, for everyone's goal is new to me if, if they're not, they don't have any kind of reflection practice, or if they're, they're not really aware of different things that they've got going on. Um, like, I use this acronym all the time when I'm teaching um, I'm a big fan of the pirates of the caribbean, so I tell everyone to fly your own flag. So flag is the acronym. Um, it's pretty cool, I like it. It's at the first letter, f is foundational values. So just this is getting started, that little bit of awareness kind of thing. So what really means a lot to you, like you as an individual, because it took me a while to really dive into this, because I've always heard about values and how important they are, but I never really kind of sat down to identify what my values are. And then when I did things kind of alignment and things start to kind of come back together and piece itself together. So really figuring out those foundational values first for F.
Speaker 2:Then we moved to L, which is lifestyle traits. This one's a little bit more fun because the values is a little more serious. Lifestyle traits is like okay, well, what's your favorite color? What kind of car do you drive? What kind of car do you drive? What kind of food do you like? Like silly questions like that. But then it's like, okay, well, why, why is it cool for you to? Why do you like driving a Jeep Wrangler? Or why do you like the color red? Or what about sushi? Is it so like, what's cool about about it? And then that makes it a little more playful, because then you identify a little bit more about yourself and then that becomes like interesting and cool, because diving in a little bit more internal reflection helps. Um, and then moving from l on to a is aspirations. So what are your goals? Starting far out, I'm sure you've gone through the exercise, like the 15, 10, five-year goal, or the one-year goal, three years, six months and so on, and so on.
Speaker 2:It can be crazy, it can be fun, but you just want to kind of like, put the barriers up so that you can narrow things down, and that will eventually become the actions and the focuses for you in the different seasons that you're working towards, the actions and the focuses for you in the different seasons that you're working towards.
Speaker 2:And then, finally, the last letter G is growth opportunities. So this is basically like a SWOT analysis for yourself, identifying the different strengths that you have and then maybe some of the weaknesses or improvement areas, like, for example, for myself it was the podcasting world, is technology, and and I try to be as like into all the new software and stuff like that, but I'm still struggling. So for me to get to the speed that I wanted to, I needed to hire a couple of people to help me get through that, so then I can focus on the things that at least I think that I'm good at, um, so I can continue to do those and then help with the other areas. So I'm not sure if that's helpful or not, but that's a little thing that I like to remember.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's super, super helpful and a great way to break it down into bite-sized steps, because the foundational values, I think, is we'll go through that with some of our clients too around their money, because we want their money to reflect who they are and what they value. And again, our reactive nature is to just spend money when we have money. And if I look at your bank statement, I won't have any idea what you value because it's it's it's just what we've been spending. So knowing that, I feel like, can probably creep into a lot of areas of life, is knowing who are we, what do we believe in certain certain parts of my life and in our life and in our business and everywhere. Man, I think that's so important to have all those connections.
Speaker 1:And then I like that SWOT analysis on yourself. I might need to do that too, and that's kind of an area I've been focused on recently is, again, as I've been hiring this team is what do I like to do? What am I good at? What should I be outsourcing? What should I be doing with my time? All these different areas. So this whole flag thing I feel like really connects to where I am in life right now too.
Speaker 2:Cool.
Speaker 1:Cool, yeah. So I know you also speak a lot onto the physical side, so our physical self and physical health and how that's connected to running a business. So talk to me a little bit about that too. So, yeah, what do you suggest there? What do you usually see or recommend or anything? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So so my background is actually in strength and conditioning. I got, uh, my undergrad degree in kinesiology, which is the study of human movement for some people who don't know that because it's kind of kind of a weird word sometimes Um, and I got my master's in exercise science with, um, concentration, performance enhancement and injury prevention. So working with a lot of high level athletes and I've always found myself in like a leadership type role and different sports growing up and, uh, in college and even after college I'm still playing competitive rugby, uh, which is, which is fun. Unfortunately, we just lost this past weekend in playoffs. Uh, so this season's officially over, but sports and athletics and just movement in general has just been a cornerstone for my entire life and that really was kind of like the gateway to my personal development journey. So I hold that in the forefront of my coaching program making sure that there's a little bit of movement, a little bit of pushing the comfort zone. Movement, a little bit of pushing the comfort zone, because, like I was saying earlier, you need a certain level of resiliency to get through life, especially in entrepreneurship. So I like to make sure that I'm expanding my comfort zone as often as I can, in a safe manner though. So like sometimes it's like you can do a lot of crazy stuff but you can get hurt too, but if you're in a safe environment, surrounded with good people, it helps build that. So then you can progressively kind of chip away and move forward on it.
Speaker 2:I like to think of like diamonds Diamonds are created under immense amount of heat and pressure and I like to do a little awareness of like the resilience matrix I've kind of been working on of like the resilience matrix I kind of been like working on.
Speaker 2:If you were to think of like like a graph, like the you've got the Y axis running vertically and you've got the X axis going horizontally on this matrix you want to think of like the X axis horizontally as like your pressure gauge for the diamonds, so the more physical challenge that you choose to take on in life, the more pressure that you're applying to your body, and then on that Y axis, I like to think of that as like the heat access or the heat challenges or the cognitive or mental challenges that you're taking on with yourself, so like new skills, new language, new habits, new practices, those types of things, and then doing a little bit of reflection on that and seeing where you fall.
Speaker 2:Because if you have too much stress in life and too much cognitive overload, you're going to be cooked and you're going to be overheated, whereas if you don't have enough, you're going to be underwhelmed and you're just going to kind of flow through things and then, on that X-axis, too much of that physical pressure is going to leave you crushed, not enough. Just going to kind of flow through things and then, on that X axis, too much of that physical pressure is going to leave you crushed, not enough is going to keep you a little flabby. So, finding that sweet spot and then, with the challenges of cognitive and physical boom that leaves you shining like a diamond, you're looking good, feeling good and doing great things.
Speaker 1:Man, that's so cool, and the two sides of the spectrum, and I felt them, uh, that underwhelmed and then overwhelmed, um, you know, uh, back, I used to be a teacher and so those days, uh, teaching was fine, uh, I enjoyed, enjoyed some of it, but it was, um, it wasn't a lot of like, the heat wasn't on, it wasn't.
Speaker 1:You know, there wasn't a lot I was striving to do, there wasn't anything, and so I just kind of found myself just kind of wandering through through life, just underwhelmed with what I was doing, not excited. So, um, I love that I've been on my own personal, uh fitness journey the past couple years and just the the difference it makes in all areas, um, how I show up to my work and how I show up in life and everything, um, it's crazy, uh took me, you know, 37 years to figure it out, but I did, slowly but surely, so I can speak to it, I can attest to what you're saying to some extent, so that's fantastic. I mean, rob, I could talk to you forever about this stuff, but I want to make sure that people who are listening can get in touch with you. So I know one I want to hear about how you work with people, or how they can work with you if what you're saying resonates. And then two I know you also have a podcast that we probably want to shout out as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so working with me, it's I mean, I think it's fun. I like checking calls, either weekly or monthly. We go over homework, assignments, what we're working on, different projects, what I can do to kind of help elevate and move people, move you forward with whatever kind of assignment or type of project you're working on. All the time. Typically it's individuals who, like I said earlier, kind of feeling stuck, maybe starting to feel some burnout, or are currently pretty burnt out, Really doing a lot of different things and not really seeing the needle move forward. So we sit down, we kind of figure out okay, well, what can help us move this needle forward and what do we need to do together as a team to get that forward.
Speaker 2:My clients I try to be kind of like one of the best buddies who kind of holds you accountable, pushes you and knows when to pull you forward or push you forward and working together as a team, because that's what I've been looking for since I was younger. I got into sports. That became my new family, the team, the attention, all that stuff and just working together towards that common goal. But, yeah, so people, easiest way to get in contact and touch base with me is just social media Instagram's where I typically hang out the most just that, Rob Tracy, just T-R-A-C-Z, and LinkedIn, too, is a spot where I'm spending a lot more time nowadays than I used to in the past. Just reach it out, shoot me a message and then check out the podcast. It's called Surviving the Side Hustle and we highlight different entrepreneurs on different stages of their journey. Each episode we go through their story, their struggles and some of their secrets that they can share to show up and perform at a high level.
Speaker 1:Man love that. We'll link everything in the show notes so people can find it. Get in touch with you and go subscribe and leave you a glowing review on all podcasting platforms. For sure Love that. Thanks for joining us on the Therapy Business Podcast. Be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with a practice owner that you may know If your practice needs help getting organized with its finances or just growing your practice, head to therapybusinesspodcom to learn how we can help.
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