Show Notes

Kayla: Welcome back to the Designer Practice Podcast. I’m your host, Kayla Das.

In today’s episode, Denielle Rigoglioso, Licensed Professional Counselor and Coach, will discuss how to give yourself permission to break through the narrative and thrive in your private practice.

Hi, Denielle. Welcome to the show. I’m so glad to have you here today.

Denielle: Yeah, thank you for having me. I’m super, super excited to dive in to all the things today and I appreciate you having me here on the show.

Kayla: Please introduce yourself, where you’re from and tell us a little bit about your own practice journey as well as your journey as a coach.

Denielle: Yeah, absolutely. Well, for everyone listening in, I’m Denielle Rigoglioso. I’m a licensed professional counselor, certified substance abuse counselor, and I’m a business coach for therapists. And my journey I’m going to try and shorten it for you, started really in community based mental health.

And I worked in the field doing community-based work for a very long time, I journeyed into leadership positions and supervisor, director, had the opportunity to build two private practices, or two locations for an agency here in Virginia. I’m based out of Virginia. And it was truly a wonderful experience to be able to do that for someone else and I had 150 employees underneath of me.

But if you know anything about community mental health is that it is taxing and I found myself in a space where I needed more time for me and I needed more time for my family. And I was very burnt out, overworked, underpaid. And needed to shift gears into taking better care of myself. The same thing I think that we preach to all of our clients.

And so just taking a bit of my own advice. And since I had that experience of building a practice for someone else, I decided to take that experience and build my own. And so I started my solo private practice, which very quickly grew into a group private practice. And somewhere along that journey, I also found a passion for helping therapists do the same thing, is to break through, gain that freedom. Have that work life balance, build their private practice, have that financial freedom. And that is what has led me here today. And so, I still own and operate my private practice, Saltwater Counseling and Wellness. And now I have a coaching business, Saltwater Coaching and Consulting. And now I help other therapists have the same journey, hopefully a little smoother.

Kayla: Well, isn’t that the goal, hey? That we help therapists, not go through the same mistakes we made.

Denielle: Exactly. Exactly.

Kayla: It sounds like that you were experiencing some level of burnout and you’re just like, you know what I need to go into private practice. Is that accurate?

Denielle: Yeah, Kayla. So, actually what happened that summer is I cracked a tooth. And yes, I cracked a tooth. So, I was under so much stress and strain in my position that I was clenching my teeth during the day so hard that I cracked a tooth. And so, I like to say that I was literally falling apart. Maybe emotionally and physically falling apart.

So, something had to change and I use that story just, I don’t want people to get to that space. I want therapists to know that they can take care of themselves before they’re falling apart. I wish that I had done that myself.

Kayla: Wow. You know, my own journey was, I was experiencing workplace burnout as well. I was managing organizations before I went into private practice and I just couldn’t do it anymore. And I’ve heard from therapists over and over. That’s usually the number one reason they go into private practice. Not that they weren’t thinking about it beforehand, but usually they’re like, you know, in 5, 10, 15 years until that crisis hits and they’re like, “I just can’t do it anymore. I need something.” And me, I did private practice for probably about two months part time. And then I was like, I can’t do it anymore. I just literally put in my resignation and like jump ship. And, hoped that private practice would work and it did, fortunately.

But like yourself, there’s some mistakes I made along the way and hoping that through the podcast and through other initiatives that we can help therapists get that support so they don’t have to experience that first.

Denielle: Right, and I think for me in the work that I do is really helping therapists not get to a space where then they’ve started their private practice, and then they’re so frustrated, right? And you’re landing in the same space that you were in before, where you feel overwhelmed or burn out because you’ve missed a step or you don’t know where to go, you don’t have the knowledge, right?

And I want to also say this too, is that you don’t have to be in a space of burnout and discontent with your job to build your private practice. I want to just give everybody permission that it’s okay to do this journey without getting to that space. I just think that, like you said, typically we all get to that space and we’re like, we’re done, oh my gosh, I have to do this. And, I would like to see people do it before they get there.

Kayla: And I love that. I think that goes back to today’s episode is give yourself permission. I mean, I know I was thinking about running a business, but it wasn’t until I had that crisis that I’m like, “okay, now I need to go into private practice.” Sometimes we’re always saying, “Oh, I’ll do this in five years. I’ll do this in 10 years.” We can do it today if we want to, right, you know, giving ourselves a permission to start now so that we don’t have to jump ship when everything is going awry.

Denielle: Or when your teeth are cracking. Yeah,

Kayla: Right. So, first of all, let’s discuss what typically brings therapists into the profession. Like, I know we just talked about burnout being one of them. But from your experience why do most therapists decide to even launch a private practice? Why is it something that they want to do?

Denielle: Sure, so I think a lot of reasons, right? Like you said, it could be because they’re burnt out, but it also could be that they just want to be able to have that freedom to flex their schedule, to make their own rules. If anybody’s worked community mental health, we know that there are changes and rules and everything coming down the pipeline nonstop. And it’s really hard to keep up with. There’s a lot of paperwork demands, you know, politics. And so, I think those are some of the things that drive us to go into private practice.

Certainly, financial freedom. I mean, that’s a huge one. To really be able to get paid more, right? I mean, I think we all want that. We all want that. And so, I think everybody has their own reasons, more time with their family, more time for their kids, more time to travel. And I’ll tell you that I think there’s a silver lining to the C word is that it really expanded that time during the pandemic expanded us into a space where telehealth it had no other way to go but up.

And we think as therapists that private practice is so far out of reach, right? I got to save 50k to get there because I got to get a building and a furniture and all of these things that I’ve got to invest in and that was at least my mindset, right? I’m like, I have to have like $50, 000 saved to start my private practice. And that was just, Oh, we’re therapists. We’re working in community health. How are we going to save $50, 000? That’s just seems so unattainable. And so, having this ability to do things via telehealth really changed the landscape.

Kayla: I agree. And I think for clients too, because many clients couldn’t access therapy because they just don’t have the time in their day to be able to leave. And since I’ve had my daughter in January, I love her dearly, but you’re unable to do the things you could before. You don’t have the ability to just go somewhere. You don’t have a whole lot of extra time to be traveling or having people babysit and things like this. So being able to be accessible to a therapist makes all the difference that didn’t exist before.

Denielle: Absolutely. Absolutely. So, Kayla, let’s tap into that narrative, right? That you and I’ve been chatting about, and I want to really highlight just what we, as therapists, experience. You know, we’re in high school, we’re trying to decide what we want to do for a living. We tell our family that we want to be therapists somewhere in that like undergrad, high school timeframe.

And at least for me, and I know many of my colleagues, the messaging there has been, that’s great. That’s such an admirable profession to go into. It’s not going to make you any money. You’re not a doctor, you’re not a lawyer, it’s a helping profession. You’re passionate about helping other people. And I think we get stuck there, that that is the narrative that we run. And so, then we become okay with making very little and seeing so many clients because we’re helping and we want to help people and I think that narrative gets in our way sometimes. And that’s what leads us to burnout. It’s one of the things that leads us to burnout.

Kayla: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. There’s this unwritten rule And I think you said it before, like the C word, being a capitalist. It’s like the worst word.

Denielle: Actually, the word was C for COVID.

Kayla: Oh, okay. I didn’t catch that. I always say the C word, but I say capitalist.

So yeah, like, when we think of making money. We often think of, I’m going to use the C word that I use, capitalist, right? As social workers, I hear it all the time. It’s, oh, you’re a capitalist for going into private practice. Not many people here are making billions of dollars that they’re the fortune 500 businesses.

But in saying that, it’s okay to make a living. It’s okay to be able to support yourself financially. It’s okay to still help people, but make money doing it. And we would never assume that we would never get paid as an employee. So why would we expect someone say in the private sector and private practice to not get paid or to get paid less or to change their pay rate?

I can tell you if I was an employee and someone decreased my pay rate, it wouldn’t be long before I would leave that organization because we need that money to support our family. Yes, we love to help, but you can love to help and also make money doing it. It doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive.

Denielle: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And the other piece to that, too, is that when you work for somebody in doing outpatient work, most likely in order to make ends meet or even hit that higher salary goal, you’re seeing 30 plus clients a week. Or at least to maintain benefits and get your PTO and have health insurance, you have to meet this required number, which typically is around 25, 30, 35. That’s a lot of clients. That’s a lot. 30 is a lot.

When you get to run your own private practice and you are bringing in all of that revenue, it allows you to see less people, right? So you could see 15 or 20 clients a week. Think about the time and the mental space that that opens for you. So you can do whatever you want with that free time.

And I’ll give you a little example. So, I do Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I see four clients in the morning and four clients in the afternoon. I’m done at five. And then I have a four-day weekend every weekend, every single weekend. I work 12 days a month. That to me is absolutely mind blowing. And the income that that generates is mind blowing, you know? That is what just really spun me into coaching was that I was like, everybody needs to be doing this and they need to be doing it now. What are we doing? Why haven’t we done this sooner? Why doesn’t everybody know?

But if your passion is to help, then what does that do, right? Having an extra 20 hours a week, free, that’s not consumed with work, you can do whatever you want. You can travel, spend time with your family, you can volunteer. And having that income allows you to do pro bono work if you want to do pro bono work. The possibilities are endless and so you’re not completely taxed and stretched.

And so, you have this ability to be able to do that and you being financially set and stable then can say to your long term client who lost their insurance that you’re willing to do a sliding scale. Because it’s not hurting you and you have the capacity to do it. So, I believe that it actually allows us to be better therapists.

Kayla: I couldn’t agree more. Yeah. I have an example of myself. This year, in 2024, I was on maternity leave until May, I took a week off in July. Two weeks off in August. And a week to go to a wedding in October. And now we’re in November and I’m probably going to take off a week in December for Christmas too. I was able to do that because of the way I structured my business.

And I know this is a whole separate episode, but there’s also the ability of putting passive income streams into your business. So, you can do one to one sessions, but also have passive income streams into your business too, so that you can spend more time doing the things with your family. And I think that that’s the key here. You might not see it right away, but it starts building and growing to that so you can have that flexibility, that you can have that freedom, that you can take maternity leave and like four weeks off in addition to that one year. It’s amazing.

Denielle: Yeah. Last year we did a week in Hawaii. I did a week in Costa Rica. I did a week in Italy. I did a week in Barbados, and then a week in Florida. I took five weeks off. I still generated the same income. I did not work on those vacations. I think sometimes there’s a misconception that like. “Oh, well, how did you work and see all the sites in Italy?” I didn’t work. I didn’t see clients.

But when you structure your schedule to work 12 days a month, just like you were saying, Kayla, you can still take that time off and shift your schedule around to take a week off. And maybe I saw clients Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. And I went Wednesday to Wednesday. And was still able to do that as long as I hit my 12 days seeing clients that month. The freedom is amazing. Absolutely incredible.

Kayla: So, from your experience, what blocks show up for therapists preventing them from moving towards private practice or moving beyond that initial stage as a private practice so that they can start gaining the flexibility and the freedom?

Denielle: Yeah. So, I think there’s a couple things. What I find with most of my coaching members is that mindset. Mindset is stuck. I don’t have business experience. No one taught me how to run a business. They didn’t teach me this in school. I’m afraid of sustainability. And I heard so and so did it, and they weren’t successful.

And so, there’s fear. There’s imposter syndrome. There’s lack of knowledge. So those are the most common barriers. Typically, I find that we have to really do a lot of mindset work in the very beginning because you are really good at what you do. You’re a great therapist. The only tools that you need are how to run a business and how to run it successfully. And so those tools are out there.

Kayla: I agree. Yeah and, something that I think also prevents therapists, in addition to mindset – well, mindset and knowing how to run a business – is this idea that we need to know every therapeutic modality, or we need to be in our profession for 20 plus years. I don’t know about you, but it wouldn’t have mattered If I was a social worker for five years or if I was a social worker for 25 years, private practice is a whole new ballgame. So, until you’re in private practice, you’re not going to learn how to be in private practice. So all the experience in the world isn’t going to help you be in private practice.

Denielle: Yeah, and you bring up a really great point because if I could go back, of course I wouldn’t change anything. I am where I am because of where I’ve been, right? But if I could guide anybody in the right direction, I hear a lot of newly licensed clinicians say, well, I’ve got to have more experience or like you said, I have to have a certificate. I’m not an expert.

You are an expert. You’ve spent how many hours under supervision in your residency, in your internship, in your grad program, in your undergrad program, you are an expert in your field. And so honing in on what you’re good at and what you like to do is key there. Hold on to that. You don’t have to have a certificate. You don’t have to have some special training. Just honing in on what you’re good at and what you like to do. Again, if I could go back and do it, I would do it fresh out of getting licensed. It just makes sense.

Kayla: No, it does. And I think we’d be remiss to also acknowledge that, like, if you go into private practice, it’s still important to have a clinical supervisor and to have some oversight, whether you go in it fresh from university or you’ve been in practice for 25 years. Private practice is still its own thing, and it’s still important to have some support with navigating that both from a clinical perspective.

And then also having a business coach to help you with the business aspect is what we’re talking about the resources. If you don’t know how to run a business, those resources exist. You don’t have to just wing it, although you can. I mean, people do it and they do succeed, but it can take a lot more time, and make a lot more mistakes than if you paid a couple of hundred to maybe even a couple thousand dollars, and then you save that much time and that much money in the long run with everything that you do.

Denielle: Yeah, absolutely. So certainly, like to cover that as always practice within your scope. But you don’t have to have a specific scope to do private practice. And yes, when you invest in yourself and you invest in your business, it’s a one-time investment. So, I’ll hear some of my coaching members go, I’m going to try and credential myself and save myself some money. And I’m like, well, how much are you saving? Right. And they’re like, well, you know, about $500 roughly. And I’m like, okay, how long do you plan to run your business? And they’re like, well, into retirement. I’m like, okay, so take that $500 one-time investment and now spread it over the life of your business. It is a drop in the bucket to set you up for success. So, I encourage everybody that’s listening to think about it in that capacity. That’s the business mindset that you need to have going into this. And you might say, I don’t have a business mindset, Denielle. And that’s why I’m listening to this podcast.

But you can gain a business mindset. You can gain this knowledge. There are tools, right? You can invest in coaching. You can invest in learning how to run a business. All of those things are doable. And like Kayla said you can try it on your own, you can do it yourself, no doubt, right? But to be successful and have all the tools and strategies up front, that’s a game changer, for sure.

Kayla: 100%. And actually, something that I look at too is if we invest in ourselves, we’re being role models for our clients because we expect our clients to come to us and pay us money. But we aren’t as willing to invest in ourselves or our business as well. So, you’re really being a role model because you’re investing in yourself and you’re seeing the value.

Denielle: Yeah. I’ll share. I invest in coaching myself. So, I’m never asking my coaching members to do anything different than what I do, and I fully believe in always gaining knowledge and utilizing individuals who have more tools than I have. And learning from that. And then I’m just adding to my toolbox, right? And continue to grow.

Kayla: 100%. And as therapists, we take therapy trainings to improve our skills. So as private practitioners, we could also be enhancing our skills with our businesses as well.

Denielle: Absolutely.

Kayla: So, speaking of that, I know you have a free resource that you’d like to share. Can you tell us a little bit about what it is and how it can help listeners?

Yeah, absolutely. So, I’m going to share with you guys a free five step guide. To launch your successful private practice. And so, this guide is just for you to break down some of the things that we just talked about and also lists out all of the steps that you need to take to build a thriving private practice.

And once you get that five-step guide, if you want to learn more, if you want to expand on that, I have free trainings and other guides to help you along your way.

 Kayla: So, to sign up for Denielle’s 5 Step Guide to Launch Your Private Practice, check out kayladas.com/deniellerigogliosofreebie.

That’s kayladas.com/deniellerigogliosofreebie

Or simply scroll down to the show notes and click on the link.

Denielle, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. It was so great to have you.

Denielle: Thank you so much for having me. It’s been an absolute pleasure.

Kayla: Thank you everyone for tuning in to today’s episode and I hope you join me again soon on the Designer Practice Podcast.

Until next time, bye for now.

Credits & Disclaimers

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