Bridging Mastering Telehealth Dr. Lisa Lovelace on Revolutionizing Online Therapy and Suicide Prevention Ep.84

Episode Overview

• Episode Topic:
  In this episode of Mastering Counseling  host Becky Coplen dive into the pioneering world of telehealth with Dr. Lisa Lovelace, clinical psychologist and founder of Synergy eTherapy. As one of the early adopters of online therapy, Dr. Lovelace shares her journey of establishing a fully online mental health practice long before the COVID-19 pandemic made virtual therapy the norm. We explore how she successfully built Synergy eTherapy from the ground up and scaled it to offer services across 40+ states, highlighting her innovative approach to elemental health services. The episode also delves into her co-founding of Shout Out Loud, a Minnesota-based charity dedicated to suicide prevention and mental health awareness. With her extensive background in mental health care and her passion for increasing access to therapy, Dr. Lovelace discusses the evolution of online therapy, the challenges she faced, and how the landscape has changed for clinicians and clients alike. The conversation also touches on the importance of suicide prevention and the impact of community involvement through her charity work. This episode offers a comprehensive look at the future of mental health care in the digital age.
• Lessons You’ll Learn:
  Listeners will learn about the early stages of telehealth and how Dr. Lisa Lovelace managed to establish a successful online therapy practice when virtual services were not yet common. She shares valuable insights on creating and managing a remote mental health business, offering tips for therapists looking to transition into teletherapy. Dr. Lovelace explains the advantages of telehealth, including increased access to care for clients in multiple states and the flexibility it provides for both clinicians and patients. The episode also delves into the logistical and legal aspects of running an online therapy practice, such as navigating licensing across multiple states, utilizing the Psi PACT compact, and overcoming obstacles posed by insurance regulations. Additionally, you will hear about the importance of community-based mental health initiatives, with Dr. Lovelace discussing her suicide prevention charity Shout Out Loud and the innovative ways she engages children and families in mental health awareness.
  About Our Guest:
  Dr. Lisa Lovelace is a clinical psychologist and the founder of Synergy eTherapy, a fully online mental health practice that provides therapy across 40+ states. A pioneer in the field of teletherapy, Dr. Lovelace began offering virtual therapy services years before it became mainstream. With a background in treating teenagers and substance use disorders, Dr. Lovelace has extensive experience in a range of mental health areas. She holds licenses in several states and actively contributes to the growing field of telehealth through her leadership in Psi PACT, an interstate compact for licensed psychologists. In addition to her work with Synergy eTherapy, Dr. Lovelace is the co-founder of Shout Out Loud, a nonprofit organization dedicated to suicide prevention and mental health awareness in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Through her community outreach, she is committed to reducing the stigma around mental health and providing resources for children and families. Her work has been recognized by Forbes and Very well Mind for her contributions to mental health care and online therapy.
• Topics Covered:
  The evolution of telehealth: how Dr. Lisa Lovelace established Synergy e Therapy long before virtual therapy became a necessity during the pandemic. Key challenges in running an online mental health practice, including licensing, insurance billing, and managing a team of therapists across multiple states. An introduction to Psi PACT, the interstate compact for licensed psychologists, and its impact on expanding access to mental health services. The story behind Shout Out Loud, Dr. Lovelace’s nonprofit dedicated to suicide prevention, and how it engages the community through mental health awareness events and activities for children and families. Practical advice for clinicians looking to transition to or grow an online therapy practice, including tips for marketing, client management, and maintaining work-life balance in a telehealth setting.

Episode Transcript

Becky Coplen : On mastering counseling. Today, we are so privileged to have Doctor Lisa Lovelace with us today. Welcome, Lisa. Thank you. It’s so nice to meet you and good to be here. We are thrilled to learn all the things we’re going to learn today from her. She is a clinical psychologist and the founder of Synergy Therapy, which is a a telemental,  health group. And she also has a newer initiative where she is the co-founder of Shout Out Loud, which is a charity dedicated to suicide prevention. So she has a lot of work that she’s doing. And thank you for giving us your time today. Why don’t you just kind of tell us about your synergy therapy practice and what that looks like.

Lisa Lovelace: Yeah, well. Thank you. It’s funny, the term e-therapy. Right. Because now it’s just not something that’s used as much. But way back in the day, way before Covid,  I moved back from New York, which is where I got my I did my,  internship. I did a two year fellowship. I worked for several years on a SAMHSa funded grant for teenagers and substance use. So I was there forever after my doctorate degree and got my license there when I moved back home to Minnesota. This is my hometown and I grew up in, I was like, well, why do I want to keep my license in New York and pay that money? If now I have to be licensed here, and I decided on my own to just keep it, and I was going to see some of my clients at that time, this was, you know, 2012, 2013 through like Skype.

Becky Coplen : Oh, awesome.

Lisa Lovelace: And that’s all we had back then. Yeah. Phone calls. So I created this little website called Doctor Lisa Therapy, and I just started dabbling in it. I had not a clue what I was doing. I had no mentors there. There was no, you know, now you would find a a rock and throw it on telehealth and you can find a, you know, telehealth hub or a practice or a business. Yeah. Back then there was no real model for it. So I just kind of thought I would do that and see how it worked. And several years later, I was doing some research at the University of Minnesota here, and I had some colleagues that also wanted to do what I was doing. So we went to Panera and Andrea bought it. To this day is still with me in synergy. And she’s like, teach me how to do it. I said, well, why don’t we work together since we already work well together? And I rebranded, I came up with this concept of like a group that’s fully online, and we grew pretty quickly because nobody was really doing that. A lot of people working in clinics or research, they didn’t want their own brick and mortar practice, and they found out about me and I basically it’s kind of like a co-op in a way. Like I take them in and I, they contract me to get them all the apps and to teach them and coach them. And then I contract them to take some of the overflow and different things that we’re in now and just kind of the marketing. So it was a really new concept and it was just really fun. And that’s where Synergy Therapy was born. And for whatever reason, to this day, everybody calls us synergy, I think because of eHarmony.

Becky Coplen : Okay.

Lisa Lovelace: I don’t know, I should have branded differently, clearly, but it’s so funny. Now, I probably would have a different name, but we’ve gotten, you know, to be known and recognized nationally. Forbes picked us up in 2023 and 2024 just organically. We didn’t even know about it until I had a Google alert. Let me know. Somebody had written about Synergy Therapy and I thought it was spam because. Because like, why would Forbes pick us up? We’re just a mom and pop shop. So it’s been a really fun ride.

Becky Coplen : Yeah. No,  when I was, you know, reading about you and the work,  it’s definitely very big. A lot of time when we talk to clinicians, you know, they may be licensed in 1 or 2 states. Some people are branching out, but this is really big. And I just clicked on, you know, teenagers and what they needed. And it’s like nearly every state I think popped up. Like you have people everywhere it seems.

Lisa Lovelace: We do we have people licensed. I think we’re at like over 40 plus states. We have three of us now that are in Sci pact.  and so that obviously helps a lot to see clients that are residing in different states. And then I know that the counseling compact should happen maybe in 2025.  for all the counselors. So we’ll see. And so hopefully it you know, the national thing and needing to be licensed in every state gets to be a little easier for everybody. It really helps to make access easier for people. It’s confusing.

Becky Coplen : Yeah, absolutely. And all the different rules. Yeah. Well, congratulations to you guys on all of the success. I wouldn’t mind if you talked about Psi Pact a little bit, because I don’t know that we’ve talked about it on here. It just explaining where that process is. And then with what could be happening in 2025.

Lisa Lovelace: Yeah. So the psi pact is a compact for psychologists. So you do need to be a licensed psychologist. And you need to be a licensed psychologist that’s licensed not necessarily physically, but licensed in a state that has enacted this compact. And you can look it up at PSI pact. See pact. Org I believe it is. And it shows a map of the states, and it shows which states are actually in it. Their legislature said, yes, we like this. You can be in this compact in Minnesota in, you know, Texas in wherever. And then there’s states that are actively applying to join, and then there’s still a good amount that are nowhere even wanting to touch it for whatever reason.  maybe they will, maybe they won’t. And so then what happens is they have this website, you go and you apply, you give them all your money and you, you know, fill out the forms and then you can see clients from your home state. So you do have to choose a home state if you’re licensed in more than one. I’m, uh, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New York. And then I have the registry in Florida. So I’m truly licensed in three and a half, four states. And I think the registry counts just fine.

Lisa Lovelace: And so I chose Minnesota because that’s just where I’m physically located. So if I were to like, go somewhere else, I’m really not supposed to see clients inside packed. If you’re on vacation in Florida or something. Do people. That’s up to them if there’s a crisis. But according to the compact rules, you need to physically be in your state to see clients. In fact, and you can’t supervise under a pact either, which would be nice, but we can’t,  you have to still supervise. In the States, you’re licensed fully, so. But then you can see clients. They come to us all the time from all over the country. And the way our website is, is we filter it first by state. So child, adults, couple, family. Yes. And then by state because we had to just rehash it as we got bigger because people were like, I don’t know who I’m supposed to choose. And then we’re like, oh, you’re not in the right state. And so we realized, like as we grew, we needed to change our workflow. So they have to choose the state first and then the therapist that they can be seen in that state pops up for them. Yeah.

Becky Coplen : Great explanation. Thank you for that. And  yeah, I wanted to mention too, you know so many people shifted in during Covid, but we have had a few people who were doing the online and group therapy. I can’t even think of the word right now, but way ahead of time. And I love that you guys were doing that, having no idea what was to come. I, I’m wondering if in 2020, did you have a lot of people reaching out for you to help them? Like, wait, you’re the one doing this? So now teach us all.

Lisa Lovelace: Holy cow. Yes. And I was so happy to. Obviously, we were all in just a conundrum. So we had to do nothing. We were already doing everything. We had our workflows. We didn’t have to shift a thing. Ironically, in 2019 for about two years,  I have a couple, like, online friends and colleagues, and we’re always talking on Voxer and we’re helping each other. Amber light is one, and she was doing online therapy work to like when I was, but we didn’t know each other too much back then. But we were kind of like these online therapists, pioneers, psychologists and kind of, you know, worked in the same space. And, you know, people were like, you need to create a Facebook group for online group practice owners. And I’m like, oh, you know, like I don’t have time. I, you know, the kids and the work. I’m still working at a clinic two days a week, and then I end my practice. I’m like, this just I can’t. And I just was like, okay, let me try it. I opened up how to build an online therapy group, practice Facebook group, and people were just coming in and they’re like, this is cool, how do I do this? And then Covid hits and everybody had found out about it, and I was already starting to do consultations for therapists wanting to expand online, but it just was bananas. I was I wasn’t even just helping the solopreneur. I was helping like big group practices that were in person that were like, what, a year? What if somebody calls, how do we sign up for this We give them our information. How do we not do that? It was just really helping executives. I’d be on zoom with like 3 to 7 execs, just kind of like, okay, this is how you can think about it.

Lisa Lovelace: This is the steps you’re going to need. What if somebody is here? What if the therapist can’t log in? Like people just weren’t used to it. Yeah. And it was always kind of interesting for me because a lot of people balked at it. They were like, what are you doing? This is a good therapy. It doesn’t work. Like you can’t connect with people and do CBT online. I’m like, like I’m like, but it does work. And I am seeing clients and they are getting better. And like I don’t physically touch my patients. So I’m not sure what the deal is with the energy like I don’t. So yeah, I know I was like, okay, I don’t know. I don’t get what you see, but thanks for your opinion. And it’s just really crazy how all of a sudden everybody needed to be online And clearly today, years later, it it’s what happened to allow telehealth to have a name. And for all of us to recognize that it’s really a preference, perhaps, of going somewhere so that the clients, maybe not in their house or the therapist, doesn’t like working on screens like it’s a preference, but there’s nothing unethical about it. As long as you’re not, you’re following your state laws and things. But, you know, I think that it was just a huge turning point for telehealth and for in-person practices. Now, most of them are at least hybrid. You know, they have to offer it whether someone’s sick or there’s snow or whatever the case, the accessibility is just, yeah, he we need people to be able to access it when they can, wherever they are.

Becky Coplen : That’s amazing. I love the journey of that and everyone running, and especially some that maybe were a little harsher on what you were doing and that they all of a sudden needed you. So that’s how it goes.

Lisa Lovelace: Sometimes it’s like yeah, I hate you, I love you. Help me go to the bathroom. Right.

Becky Coplen : Oh, that’s so funny. Let’s just talk about your, you know, obviously it grew. It’s very big. You have people offering services in every state. Are you still seeing clients yourself or are you, you know, managing all the people that are working for the company? Are you calling it a company? The practice. How does your day to day look now as opposed to when you first started taking just all clients?

Lisa Lovelace: Yeah. Well, yes and yes, I am still seeing clients. I probably don’t really have the time to, to be honest with you.

Becky Coplen : That’s what I was thinking.

Lisa Lovelace: Oh yeah. I mean, I have some that are at a point where some of them are monthly, I have some that are every other week, and then I do have probably a handful that are weekly. So I still see on average about 6 to 9 clients a week, which might not sound like a lot for most therapists, but for my life in the what I’m running with the practice, it’s it’s a lot because you have to switch your brain, you have to do your notes, you have to attend to your clients, which I love to do. If they’re my clients, they get that concierge in between sessions. We do texting if they need to question about something or they need help with something.  I don’t do text based therapy, but, you know, I’m there for them, and I haven’t taken new clients in a little while. So it is about kind of like, okay, like, where are we at in our journey? And, you know, helping them to realize their strengths and what they’ve learned and to be able to kind of reduce the session. So at some point in the next year to two, maybe we’ll see if I can start to kind of, you know, dwindle that even more. I, I would like to be at a point where I don’t see clients, or maybe I just have 1 or 2 if needed.  to keep my clinical skills sharp.

Lisa Lovelace: But running the practice day to day, it’s a 24 over seven job. I do have three amazing support staff.  nobody that’s like full time. I have somebody that helps with, like, financials and social media. Another one kind of the emails and some of the day to day stuff. Financials kind of random things. Another one that helps with website tees up some of my emails and stuff like my side hustles, two therapists or to the community, but nobody that is like kind of with me. 40 hours and clones, everything that I need done. So I still feel like I work a lot all the time, but I also get to pick and choose my own schedule. When do I schedule things? When do I see clients and I do work a lot? I have two kids. They’re eight years apart, so one is a little older and the other one is still kind of a toddler. So it’s busy. No school and daycare or whatever the case might be. So it’s a constant juggling, but I do tend to work at night quite a bit. You’ll find me working if I am not zoning out on some show on Netflix. If I can’t take it anymore, I need a mommy moment, right? I will be working a lot like answering emails. My therapists laugh at me because they’ll get it at like 11 or 12 at night.

Becky Coplen : Yeah, yeah. No. Sometimes there’s that spark at 10 p.m. when you feel like the day’s settled and then lots of fun ideas happen or. Yeah, yeah, I get that. Yeah, it does sound very busy. Can I ask,  how many do you know? How many therapists do you have that are part of this program?

Lisa Lovelace: Yeah. So I know that we have about 22 licensed therapists. I think. And then we’ve got like a handful of trainees. We work a lot with schools and internships. There have been really great, especially since Covid, of allowing the learning to happen online. There’s two of us that are supervisors, and between the two of us, I’m pretty sure we have at least ten states that were licensed in. And as interns, the schools allow them to see clients under whatever states we’re fully licensed. And so these interns can get a lot of clients, because now it’s like they can take from ten states instead of just one. And, you know, we don’t have too many insurances. We can bill trainees under Blue Cross and Minnesota. But I know that most states don’t always allow supervisory billing. So you really have to be careful with that stuff. But  and always getting things in writing and I know Cigna is an easier one for associate level, but not always for interns. So, you know, understanding your laws around insurance. If you’re doing state funded Medicare, Medicaid, or if you’re doing commercial insurance. So it’s always like constant learning as we like grow and expand and we try to get new ideas in order to have partnerships. You know, we have three colleges in Iowa that we work with as an like we’re kind of their external provider. And, you know, we work with schools in Illinois through a partnership with Zebra Digital Health. So I’m constantly like, here’s your smorgasbord of eaps to all the licensed therapists of like, you can kind of join anything that fits or works for your schedule or has the right age for the clients that you want to see. So I am kind of like a conduit of like helping them to create their own online practice. But it’s within this like comfort and group type setting. But everyone’s very independent, which is really nice.

Becky Coplen : Yeah, I love it. Very cool. Kind of a safe space to land, but then get to make it your own with some structures around it. Are you the main HR person? Like, do you personally interview all the therapists that want to join?

Lisa Lovelace: It is me.  yes. I’m very picky. Yeah, I’ve had some hiring fails. Not that they were necessarily like a bad person or something, but just like what I offered, what they were needing maybe wasn’t a good fit. And I, you know, learned a lot along the way over the years.  so now I’ve honed in on exactly, especially with the change of Covid and the rise of all the tech companies. It’s like, how do people do that now with like, I’m working at a clinic and then I’m on this platform, that platform, and then I have this and that. You know, it’s trying to figure out how to make it work for them.  and for me so that they’re getting their needs met. And so am I. Right? Yeah. So I really do. I spend a lot of time. I’ll like video interview, I’ll phone interview. I get references like, I’m very picky to make sure it’s a good fit.

Becky Coplen : Yeah, doing the work in the beginning so you don’t have as much work later. That could be negative. Exactly, exactly. Yeah. Very cool. And you know, you mentioned Forbes a couple of years ago. Did that involve a lot of interviews? How did that look? Just for the excitement of the practice. Did it cause an influx of clients or what changed after that?

Lisa Lovelace: Yeah. So we before Forbes, we were picked up by Verywell mind and they have really great SEO. So if you type in anything mental health verywell mind probably pops up towards the top. If not, they’re sponsored. Everything that we have been noticed or recognized for has been 100% organic. We are not necessarily interviewed as like you’re a contender for whatnot. Yeah.  Sometimes there are people just maybe pose as a client, or they fill out forms or they ask questions and I don’t know who they are. So I’m answering. So I don’t. I don’t really know how they do it on their end and how they vet places. But when we, you know, saw where we were like not competing with because it wasn’t like a competition in a way, but it’s like who were standing with,  they are all huge, big money box corporations,  tons of billions of dollars of venture capital. And, you know, they’re companies like.

Becky Coplen : Yeah.

Lisa Lovelace: We I’ve never had a penny from a venture capital. Not that I wouldn’t, but I don’t know where I don’t know. Yeah. Like I don’t know how that whole thing works, but I’m just saying like we’re it was just my own blood and sweat and tears that went into it with my thousand dollars in 2016. I’m like, okay, here’s a website. Let’s go for it. And I, um Created a business model that worked for us at the time, and I have a very high payout system, so it’s not like we’re really making the same amount of money at all, like some of these bigger box places that were in line with. But I think that because we’ve been here for so long online and we are national, not in every state but nearing it, that the verywell mind and the choosing therapy and some of these other places that found us, you know, a little earlier, when you research it, it kind of keeps bumping synergy therapy up. And hopefully we have good SEO on our website. And we I’ve done lots of different things to, you know, talk about it and promote it. And then, you know, this place has a backlink for it and then that place has, you know, so it kind of Google’s like, oh, they’re reputable. So then when these bigger places start looking, they think that we’re the same and we’re not. We’re totally like a mom and pop like one person’s show. Yeah. And, you know, we’re I’m not making, you know, billions of dollars. Like, that’s not at all how it goes. I’m like, it’s a good job, but we’re not like, yeah, you know, like these companies and and it’s really funny how we are picked up and named in some of these things with some of the other big players.

Lisa Lovelace: I’m sure you can name them at some point. I don’t want to say their name right, but we all know who they are, their bodies that take up when you search anything. They’re the sponsored ones at the top of Google because they have all those zillions of dollars. So it’s been a fun ride. You know, we’ve not paid for anything. We don’t have the money to even do. So why I and I wouldn’t want to. And so it’s all been organic. And, you know, they might ask follow up questions later of like you were on the 2023. What states are you in now? Do you see kids with autism? Do you know, they might ask follow up questions since we’ve already been recognized. Yeah.  and then we were 20, 23 and then now 2024 for like kids and teens and things like that. So yeah they have different best of categories. So it’s been super fun. So I’m sure that we get traffic when people Google and they go to the Forbes, or they went to the Verywell mind a couple of years ago and then it links to us. You can kind of see where the links come from. And Verywell mind was a big one. Years ago, we got an influx of kid kids, parents calling for their kids and it was just crazy. It was just a lot.

Becky Coplen : Yeah, yeah. Oh, that’s very exciting I love that. Yeah. So I know you have a whole lot going on, but let’s talk a little bit about how you co-founded Shout Out Loud and who you’re working with on that, and what type of work is happening in the day to day.

Lisa Lovelace: Yeah. So shout out loud is local here to Minnesota?  truly where I live, which is in the Minneapolis Twin Cities area. My husband and I needed some headshots years ago and he knew of a of a lady. Her name was Laura Dixon. At the time. She owned a little photography, you know, business. And she came to our house, took our headshots, and we just started talking about my work as a psychologist, and she told me she lost her brother to suicide. And at that time, it was only like four years prior. So it was still very fresh. And this was maybe in October or November. And we just got along well and we just said, you know what, let’s do something about this. Let’s combine forces. I’ve got the clinical experience. She has the personal experience. And together we founded Shout Out Loud. Shout out loud MN as in minnesota.com. And it’s 100% volunteer. You know we don’t earn personal money from the nonprofit. It all goes back into the nonprofit paying for events or the things that we do. But our purpose is to really start to get curriculum into the local school system here. Kind of like the Dare program used to like don’t do drugs, you know, and whatever. But we’re just kind of like that idea, but not that idea of like having mini shout out loud events in different school districts. And our shout out loud event is once a year. It’s coming up September 28th this year locally, and we have food trucks. We have vendors that are businesses, mental health physicians, accountants, everybody.

Lisa Lovelace: It’s like, doesn’t matter who you are,  nonprofits as well that come in. We all get together and we all do activities at our booth that are coping skill based, tons of art projects, tons of breathing. We had people planting plants, and it’s really geared towards kids and families, and it’s free for everybody to go. We have music that kids from local schools come and do, so it’s very kid friendly.  it’s covered, so if it’s rainy or windy, we can still have it, but it’s still outside. It’s like a community that’s called Saint Louis Park. So it’s kind of central to like Saint Paul and Minneapolis. It’s kind of in that middle. Yeah. And,  yeah, we just go from 11 to 3 and just we’re usually on the local news and promoting it the day of or a few weeks before. And we’re I’d say that we’re well known now. We’ve been doing it for, you know, about five years here in the Twin Cities. Yeah. It’s really about suicide prevention and awareness. And shout out loud is is, you know, the name. But it’s kind of that tagline is we want people to shout out loud, you know, with people, you know, that need help, people you know yourself if you need help of, like, where do we go? What do we do? So we’ve got boxing. We’ve got. So it might not be therapy. Not therapy is not for everybody as we know. So yeah giving them skills, places to go, resources in the community, letting people know we’re all here to support you as you grow. Yeah.

Becky Coplen :  That sounds awesome. I love the hands on approach. Instead of handing people another business card or pamphlet, it’s like here. No, actually, do this and if you like it, you can do it again when you’re having a bad day or whatever it is, that’s 100%.

Lisa Lovelace: We’ve got so many things that have to do with body work. We’ve got yoga people there on the ground. We’re like doing yoga with the kids and we’re teaching them. We’ve got Hope speaks and they talk all about like racial inequalities and like learning to love the skin you’re in so that we have a huge mural and they have people choose the hand paint that they feel matches their skin. And then all the kids put paint and it goes on the mural. So it’s just like a really wonderful, warm, welcoming event and fun for the kids. They can leave with lots of food and candy and prizes. Yeah.

Becky Coplen : That’s how it feels. Yeah. Around here I’ve gotten to go once to a two day training. We have something similar called Kevin’s Song And, you know, based off of a terrible experience in someone’s family. And then and now their approach is more pulling a lot of educators in for like a two day conference that they do, usually late winter for just, I think, teaching all the approaches and whatever and helping families for prevention. So I think it’s getting bigger every year. But yeah, it’s good to I love hearing about the homegrown things, even though they come out of tragedy, but they do hopefully leading to prevention. So.

Lisa Lovelace: Exactly. That’s our hope. Yeah.

Becky Coplen : Yeah for sure. So you said that has a community event every year for several hours. And then do you guys go into the schools throughout the year or are you meeting with principals. How does that look with trying to get that curriculum in there.

Lisa Lovelace: So that’s kind of where we’re at now. Is that beginning stages of creating the curriculum going to the schools to say that this is something we’d like to do. You know, really at the beginning of like taking the funds that we’ve raised over the years and now we can kind of bring it to the schools in the early stages. We weren’t yet a 500 and 1C3, so we would connect with another 500 and 1C3 and have them be the recipients. And we would do all the work. So we were kind of like charity fairies, where we’re like, this is a great organization. We did it for Nami, you know, the first year, and we did it for some other bigger nonprofits where they had the infrastructure to deal with the finances. And then we finally got our 500 and 13C status approved. So now we can take the funds in. And so we’re kind of at the beginning, this is just our second year as a 500 1C3. So we’re kind of like gearing up to be able to talk. Now Laura and I both work full time. So this is kind of like a full time job without getting paid. But it’s a passion project. So we Yeah and more so her right now we used to be kind of in lockstep. But I had a baby and the whole thing. So with the business and everything, it takes a lot of time to kind of figure out how to manage it. So Laura’s been stepping up a lot this last year and two. And so we’re really, you know, finding the time between our day jobs to really focus on the event we’ve been at all summer. There’s we go at the state Fair. We go to several other places where we have a booth, but this is really the main area. And so in the winter and kind of the rest of the time throughout the year, is when we’re creating the curriculum and trying to connect with different schools. Mhm.

Becky Coplen : I love the community involvement. That’s great. And all the other things you have going on. So maybe just a little advice or wisdom for people who maybe early on in this career you have a lot of things happening. Your practice probably grew bigger than you had dreamed it might have. I kind of gather. So how are you managing that with having a personal life and children and husband.

Lisa Lovelace: A very messy house. It’s a lot of acceptance. It’s asking for help oftentimes to and, and kind of just knowing when you’re starting to maybe get burnt out a little bit and then to pull back. And then for me, I’m somebody that needs to kind of have a lot of things happening at once. Clearly I’ve learned that about myself. I get kind of bored or stagnant. If it’s just like one thing, yeah, I need fresh novelty. I need ideas whether it’s, hey, let’s go have a baby after eight years or let’s, you know, start a charity. I wrote a book as well. When my brother in law passed away from cancer, I wrote a children’s book.  kind of in his honor. My son and my brother in law are the main characters. About, like, building a fort and frustration tolerance and deep breathing. Okay.  is that the.

Becky Coplen : Book I thought I saw? Oh, yeah. It looked terrible. Yeah, but that was like my school.

Lisa Lovelace: Oh. I would love that. I would love that. And yeah, I mean it’s it’s it’s so fun and it’s what I teach kids to is how to breathe with bubbles. And it’s a, it’s a good little story. And you never see a story with an uncle and a boy. So. Yeah.  that was my grief process. We were super close to him. He was very young, only 51. So. Wow. Wow. So, yeah. So it’s like. It’s like finding what you need at the times you need it. So yeah, really, really kind of paying attention to your mind and your body,  and just trusting yourself of, like, let me just try this or let me find a coach or mentor to help me walk through this or, you know, let me research this a little more, or, heck, I’m just going to dive in and see what happens because what’s the worst case scenario? So I think some advice is like, don’t don’t get that paralysis by analysis. Like you’re swimming in peanut butter, you’re just not going anywhere. You feel stuck. It’s like really trust yourself if you’ve gotten this far and you’ve gone through your schooling. You’ve got gotten a bachelor’s degree, probably gotten a master’s degree, or maybe even more. Maybe you’ve even written a book. Or maybe you’ve started a nonprofit. Or maybe you’ve done other volunteer activities like, you know, you can do this kind of work. And if it’s interesting for you and you like to learn outside of 1 to 1 therapy, you want to learn about business and marketing, advertising. You want to learn about whatever. Like just don’t stop yourself and really just go for it and see what happens. Learn along the way and then kind of adjust as you go. I think that I feel like a lot of people get stuck really early on of just, I don’t know what to do, so I’m not going to do anything.

Becky Coplen : Yeah, I really want to like.

Lisa Lovelace: Push gently people to like, trust themselves to do it and get a get a support, you know, if you want to do it with somebody else that can help you through it.

Becky Coplen : Yeah. Good. Thanks. Well, you have so many awesome things happening. I’m really glad you were able to share on this podcast. Your perspective and,  just advice and,  we’ll check out. I’m definitely going to check out that book for sure. But thank you so much for your time today, Doctor Lisa.

Lisa Lovelace: Thank you so much. It was so lovely to talk to you. And I you know, I hope this helps. If anybody wants to reach out about any of the things, feel free to just send me an email. It’s just Doctor Lisa. Doctor Lisa at Synergy e therapy. Com website Facebook, Instagram. You know, all the 20 million things of how you can reach somebody these days?

Becky Coplen : Yes, she’s easy to find for sure.  yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much to our listeners. Uh, please leave us post reviews questions. We look forward to future episodes and you tuning in again. I’m signing off for today. Bye bye. Thank you.