Empowered to Lead

Alison Maratos, a longtime group practice owner and returning guest, joins Lisa to unpack the compensation model she built after years of resenting the financial gaps that come with contractors taking time off. Together they walk through her "Practice Infrastructure Rate" (PIR), a base fee layered under a percentage split, and the mindset work it took to charge it with confidence. What You’ll Hear...

Fresh back from Group Practice Network's annual retreat in Muskoka, Lisa shares why retreats have been part of her vision from the very beginning, the pivotal moments she's witnessed when owners step away from their everyday lives, and what shifts when you finally slow down long enough to see yourself and your business differently. What You’ll Hear: Why retreating with other therapists who own bus...

Continuing the hire slow conversation from the last two episodes, Lisa unpacks the other half of the saying, "fire fast," drawing on Priya Parker's The Art of Gathering to reframe exclusion as protection, and walks through what it actually looks like to notice a poor fit, have the conversation, and follow through with clarity and kindness. What You’ll Hear: Why "fire fast" isn't about being harsh,...

Picking up where last week's episode left off, Lisa walks listeners through the free Hire Slow Checklist step by step, turning "hire slow" from a mindset into seven concrete moves any group practice owner can use for their next hire, whether that's a therapist, an intake coordinator, or a clinical director. What You’ll Hear: Why slowing down your hiring process isn't hesitation, insecurity, or ove...

After a summer of guest interviews, Lisa is back solo to unpack a phrase she uses often: hire slow. She breaks down what it doesn't mean (hesitating, second-guessing, overthinking) and what it does (screening on purpose, knowing your ideal therapist, and building checkpoints that protect your team and your clients), using her own hiring wins and misses as the proof. What You’ll Hear: The differenc...

Whitney Owens runs a 15-person, private-pay group practice in Savannah, Georgia (just closed on their second commercial building) and Wise Practice Consulting, a faith-based consulting business for practice owners. In this conversation she and Lisa dig into what it actually means to lead authentically, why she stopped letting her therapists dictate her decisions, and why bringing in an integrator...

What happens when the need in your community outgrows what a private practice can offer? Aditi Jasra, who leads a Tri-Cities group practice and co-founded the New Wellness North Foundation, shares why she built a nonprofit alongside her business, what the first year of that learning curve actually demands, and how knowing your why carries you through when grants get tight and the work gets hard. W...

Haley Moore built Therapy Uninterrupted as a virtual group practice from the ground up, and she has thought carefully about every single step of how she brings people on. In this episode, she walks through the full arc of her hiring and onboarding process and makes the case for why intentionality before the job posting goes up is the most important part of the whole thing. What You’ll Hear: Why co...

If hiring has ever felt like a gamble, this episode will change how you think about it entirely. Heather Bach, founder of Bach Counselling Group, shares the rigorous, client-first hiring system she has refined over 25 years of running a group practice in North and West Vancouver. What You’ll Hear: Why hiring slow is one of the most protective things you can do for your clients, your team, and your...

What does it look like to launch a group practice from scratch in a small bilingual city of 30,000 people, while pregnant, with no local peer network and a regulated province making recruitment even harder? In this conversation, Lisa sits down with Kaitlin Carroll Kane, founder of New Tide Counseling and Consulting in Miramichi, New Brunswick, to talk about the realities of building in a rural mar...

Dana Corr runs a thriving group practice in a Manitoba town of fewer than 700 people, and her journey has been full of honest lessons about hiring, expansion, boundaries, and what servant leadership actually looks like when you're the one carrying the business. If you're navigating growth in a smaller community or wondering whether your needs matter as much as everyone else's, this conversation is...

Not every growth story ends with growing. Darbey Carlson of Fika Mental Health shares how her practice expanded to seventeen people almost entirely by accident, the moment she paused to ask how it all actually felt, and why choosing to slow down can be the most values-aligned decision a group practice owner makes. What You’ll Hear: How a practice can grow to 17 people almost by accident, and the m...

Not every group practice owner wants to scale to seven figures, and Bianca Stefina is here to say that is more than okay. In this honest, refreshing conversation, Bianca shares how she built Mindfully Me Psychotherapy Clinic in Ontario from a cold coffee pitch to a steady team of practitioners she genuinely trusts, all while navigating burnout, multiple roles, and the question of who she is outsid...

What does it really mean to be a group practice owner when your practice is small, or when you intentionally choose not to grow? In this episode, Lisa sits down with Michelle Waters of Pacific Waters Counselling to talk honestly about the realities of owning a small group practice, navigating contractors coming and going, and making grounded leadership decisions that align with your energy, values...

If you have ever wondered whether you are ready to grow, this conversation is for you. Frances of Moose Jaw Psychology shares how a solo practice she opened the month before the pandemic grew, almost accidentally, into a team of around sixteen clinicians, and the grounded, numbers-based thinking she used to decide when to take more space before she was ever fully ready. What You’ll Hear: Why you a...

What does it look like to expand your group practice three times without a blueprint, before you feel financially ready, and driven entirely by vision? In this conversation, Lisa sits down with Rachel Frankford, owner of New Pathways Therapy in Toronto, to talk about organic growth, the guardianship model of leadership, and what it really takes to keep saying yes when everything in you says it is...

This solo episode is a permission slip for any leader who has been white-knuckling a promise that no longer serves them. Lisa unpacks the real difference between being authentic and being vulnerable with your team, and why honouring your own capacity is one of the most caring things you can do as a group practice owner. What You’ll Hear: Why pausing a commitment is an act of leadership, not a fail...

Summer can feel like a season you either coast through or panic through. In this solo episode, Lisa offers a different invitation: to use the slower pace deliberately. Drawing on the burnout conversation from the previous episode and the image of a plant quietly wilting from giving without being watered, Lisa walks group practice owners through three grounding questions to help them arrive at the...

What does burnout actually feel like from the inside — and how do you know you're in it before it's too late? In this conversation, Lisa sits down with Katarina McCurdy, a therapist, clinical supervisor, workshop facilitator, and podcast host, to talk about the hidden emotional cost of keeping all the plates spinning, and what it really takes to slow down before your body does it for you. What You...

Last week we named the cost of leading alone. This week, we hand you the map. In this solo episode, Lisa walks group practice owners through the Connection Map — a tool for seeing who is actually in your circle, where the gaps are, and what kind of support you are missing without realizing it. You will learn the six roles every group practice owner needs in her circle, three questions to ask about...

What does it actually cost a group practice owner to lead alone? Not the obvious cost — the loneliness everyone talks about — but the hidden one. The one that shows up as decisions that take longer than they should, doubts that grow louder than they need to, boundaries that quietly slide, and a sense of normal that has drifted further from actual normal than you realize. In this solo episode, Lisa...

You know you need to delegate. You've read the books, hired the help, and still find yourself answering emails at 9 p.m. and quietly taking tasks back. In this solo episode, Lisa picks up where the last one left off and walks through three layered frameworks that turn delegation from a tactic into a practice — so you can finally lead the business you built. What You’ll Hear: ✓ Why delegation is a...

Uriah Guilford built a group practice by accident, a virtual assistant company out of necessity, and an AI-powered intake platform because a problem needed solving. In this conversation, he and Lisa talk honestly about why group practice owners wait too long to let go, what great delegation actually looks like, and how the right intake system changes everything. What You’ll Hear: - Why waiting too...

If you are still answering intake calls, reviewing invoices, and making scheduling decisions for your team, this episode is going to name something you already know but haven't acted on yet. We are talking about what it actually looks like to step out of the work that doesn't belong to you anymore, so you can lead the way your practice needs you to. What You’ll Hear: - Why being capable of somethi...

In this episode, Lisa sits down with Krista Helman , founder and Executive Director of the Trauma and Grief Institute in Ottawa, to talk about the real behind-the-scenes work of growing a group practice — and what it looks like to lead with intention while carrying *a lot* of hats. Krista shares her journey from solo practice to running a 15-clinician practice, the misconception she had about how...