 Hi, this is George cow. I'm excited today to be here with one of my clients dr. Trevor aren't he's a licensed Clinical psychologist. I just want to say hi to you first Trevor before I read out your bio. Hey Trevor Yeah, great having you here. Thank you for taking the time of doing this So let me well Trevor's gonna share some of the lessons. He's learning in building his business He's already built actually a successful Psychotherapy practice and at the same time. He's also building a side project that we'll talk about as well, so There's lots to discuss here, and he'll be sharing the lessons and kind of the experiences. He's learning from from both sides Let me first read to you to you all his bio and then we'll get into some of the business lessons So dr. Trevor aren't is a licensed clinical psychologist who sees adults for long term psychotherapy and also runs interpersonal process groups to help others develop effective and Intimate relationships with others usually by helping others become more comfortable with difficult conversations He's also the author and this is a side project here of the book called how to breathe underwater the four-week plan to relieve debt stress Finally, he's passionate about sharing the art and science of psychotherapy and helping others Understand how psychotherapy can offer deep and lasting transformation in people's lives, and he's been doing these consistent videos on his new Facebook business page for for psychotherapy. It's kind of sharing insights about personal and spiritual growth and Relationships etc. So I'm excited for you all to check that out because he's basically kind of yeah, he's one of the more consistent folks that I see out there and I Love it and he's getting starting to get some results already. So Trevor great. Have you here? Thank you. It's great to be here. Yeah So you've got a lot to share in terms of what you've been learning in business and one of the things Which I believe a lot as well is how business Can be seen as a journey of personal and spiritual Growth or I don't know how you want to say it but talk us through that a bit there Yeah, sure. That was certainly one of the things that surprised me because I think when I contacted you I was feeling stressed about my business and I knew where I thought I wanted to get to or what I thought would be a Really fulfilling, you know, sort of plateau to rest at but the climb I was like, oh jeez I don't want to do this. This sounds terrible. So it was a good Shift working with you and starting to approach it much much in a much healthier way I think to look at the journey. I mean, we all know the saying like it's a journey not the destination But actually once you're on the journey, you're like, that's hot the roads bumpy. This is dumb So yeah, for me, it was a big shift to start to see The things that I could do that would both build my business but also be rewarding or useful in and of themselves And so that yeah, that was a very very helpful shift to try to undertake and get started with like producing the content For example, which at first I thought oh, this is a chore. I felt like oh, this is really gonna feel like a chore I'm gonna have to be consistent about it. What am I gonna say, etc? But finding that that was actually immediately beneficial to my business now I really feel like it actually has helped me be a better therapist in the room with people But then it's also been useful in terms of building my business. So yeah, that has been that's been a real That's probably the biggest shift. I think I've experienced since starting this That's awesome. And I we hadn't planned for me to to kind of dive into this particular topic, but I'm interested in your Thoughts about fear and about well actually we wanted to talk about sort of perfectionism a little bit there but but for all of us who are Starting with creating content who haven't yet gotten into a rhythm yet. I think one of the Yeah, one of the biggest blocks is fear. So talk about talk about that a little bit Kind of personal My own personal fear, how long do we got Yeah, I mean I think there were a ton of things I was afraid of When I started when I thought about producing content So I think probably the biggest one was I was afraid that it would be just useless to people and annoying or narcissistic Like who is this schmuck with a camera? You know, I still feel I think in one of my videos I talked about feeling I got a little like stabilizer from my iPhone because I didn't want to run it through YouTube every time Because I just didn't have time to wait for it So I and I used to mock people with selfie sticks endlessly and so karma of course is now I'm walking around with a Extremely advanced selfie stick. That's like stabilizing my iPhone as I talked to the camera So yeah, that was probably my biggest fear was that I would just look really narcissistic and obnoxious Like who does this person think he is why is he doing this and people would just see it and roll their eyes I Think the thing that helped me the most with that and talking to you or what I think it was actually I don't even know if we talked about it directly or it was just some of your content It was like, you know, it's not really up to you to decide What's good and what's bad? You're just throwing something out there and whatever happens with it happens and I think that was really helpful for me to think think through that in that way and actually realize, you know It's actually more narcissistic for me to imagine that I know how everybody else is going to think about me That's actually the definition of narcissism to some degree that and trying to control it So that really freed me up to just say, I don't know what's going to happen with this. I'm just going to put it out There I think it's at least somewhat interesting Hopefully and some people will resonate with it and some people will not so that was a big fear And then of course the other I think the other biggest fear was the commitment to a schedule and thinking Okay, like if I set it up this way, not only am I going to disappoint myself But say I luck out and I get a few audience members They're going to be disappointed because I'm not producing content in the rhythm that I promised I would and I'm going to look like I'm out of ideas and you know, etc. etc. So that was certainly a fear of mine And I think that was a so far knock would that's been a pleasant surprise in that It's one of those things that the more you put in the more energy you put in the more that comes out of it So the more that I commit to doing content and follow through with it The more ideas I actually wind up having if I get out of the rhythm of doing content Those are the weeks that I don't have as many ideas So it's a it's it's almost a perfect one-to-one ratio of the amount of energy that I put towards it versus the amount That's coming back at me creatively So that was a big is that one's still hard to rest in that because it's like that's got to have a Ceiling at some point like I'm gonna definitely run out at some point But I don't actually think that I that's true like it's not like ideas are limited or ways of saying things are limited So, yeah, brilliant. I love I loved you mentioned this. So One thing at a time here. So the one about well, what if people don't like it or what do they what do they think of me? Mm-hmm. You now that you've been you put out there. I don't know dozens now I think yeah something like I haven't counted but yeah, I think it's probably I think it's been it's been yeah, and how many a week two a week two to two a week on my Therapist page and then one a week on my debt book page and then sometimes I throw in a bonus video So I think it's probably yeah, it's at least several dozen now so so now you've got several dozen and Not all of them have gone viral huge disappointment How how shattering? Yes, that's true through talks through that that experience the inner experience of once you have put something out there and You're not and of course, we're also doing you know Facebook ads on your yes videos We're getting smart about that and making sure it's going to certain audiences that are more likely to benefit from it So you are we are making sure that is reaching people, right? But some videos of course have better reactions and comments than others sure how do you? How do you work through the the ones that don't have the reactions and the comments that you expected? Yeah, I think it was one of those things where And you see this in therapy all the time working with patients, right? Where the fear of the thing is so much worse than the actual thing itself, right? So, you know the thought oh man, it's not gonna catch on or people aren't gonna blah blah blah Like it actually happens and it's such a non-event It's just like oh, you know, I mean and actually more than anything as I've put out enough content and some of them have gotten some Interest it's actually been interesting and compelling to find out the ones that don't hook anybody It's not it doesn't feel like a personal attack or something. It's just like oh, that's kind of interesting I was really jazzed about that. I Well, I don't know doesn't doesn't hook people. Okay nice reaction What about the person who says Well, this must mean I'm not very smart This must mean I need to get you know another three years of training or this must mean I'm not very interesting to look at or to hear or whatever whether it's writing or something How about the person who's saying it's about me? It's about my worth as a person the value that I can actually contribute to the world Yeah Totally yeah, and I I've certainly felt that way before so it's not far from my own experience and I think that the way that I Would work with that working with somebody and also the way I try to practice what I preach and working with it is So a couple of things. So one is producing more content So just producing more so that you get a varied Sense of reaction. So then you can start to notice. Oh some work some don't so you don't Catastrophize or just like fixate on one piece of data That backs up every bad thing you've always thought was true and you I knew it there it is right So that's one thing so to do more of it take more risks. But then the other way is Is to relate to that rather than think oh, I'm I'm noticing something true about myself As I'm making this observation I tend to try to relate to it more as like One part of myself speaking to the rest of me or another part of myself And the way that that sticks with me is if I imagine sitting with someone And they tell me hey, I you know, I'm trying to start a business I'm taking some risks one of the things I've done is I've made a few videos and you know I just made this one that I just felt was really good I it was really meaningful to me and I put it out there and there wasn't really much of a reaction to me Oops, sorry. I turned that off. There wasn't really much of a reaction I was really disappointing and then I try to imagine myself. Would I respond to that person by saying? It's obvious because you don't have any intrinsic worth You're kind of a piece of crap and you should probably quit frankly I don't even know why we're having this conversation because it was stupid for you to even begin this in the first place Like if I'm saying that stuff to myself and it feels okay And I imagine saying it to another person and it feels weird I try to work backwards there and say, you know what? I bet this is one of those circumstances where For whatever reason we have this human quirk that we feel so much more comfortable A lot of us do at least feel so much more comfortable being brutal to ourselves and the privacy of our own heads And saying things to ourselves that we would never say to another person And you know if one of our friends came to us and said oh somebody said this to me We'd be like screw that person. They're a schmuck. Like why are you listening to them? So anyway, that's the two ways that I try to work through it for myself is produce more so that I get some Resurance that some of my ideas are at least somewhat interesting to people But then also if I wouldn't say it to someone else I try to be careful about Stopping myself from going too far down that road. And so why do I think I deserve that? Yes, that's great. Great. I love it. Thank you Sure So another lesson You've been working on learning the businesses You had some initial blocks or reservations about how businesses down or how marketing. Yeah Maybe you could talk a bit about that and yeah Yes. All right. Well now at great risk of what we all worked out. I'm going to praise you to your face here So sorry brace yourself. But this was one of the really really this was a really helpful thing that you Said to me when I was talking about it because I when I came to you I said, yeah You know, I wrote this book and I've been trying to advertise and I just feel so Awkward about it because like I don't like promoting myself in this way and you know all this stuff that I just felt uncomfortable And I was like, I'm really dragging my feet on like You know developing like I didn't have the words for this then but like I you know, I feel weird about a lead magnet You know, um and and it must be because I have some inhibitions about Pursuing my dreams or being ambitious or something like that So I kind of expected us to work through some of that or talk about that But it was really really helpful for me when I you know, I said something like, you know A lot of the things I just have this block thinking that a lot of business practices are sort of unethical And it was such a relief for me when you just were like, yeah, well they are That's probably actually a good intuition That is uh, that's okay That you have that intuition and a lot of the way the business has been taught or approached traditionally There might be a reason it feels kind of icky because a lot of it's about creating a sense of Failure and inadequacy and a potential client and then pouncing on it with a sense of with an artificial sense of urgency So it was a huge relief to know that um Well, it was just nice to hear that some of my intuitions weren't totally wrong there And that also there were alternative ways of approaching business that could be really well aligned with some of those ethical intuitions that I felt were important And third and maybe even just as importantly that there was another way to do it and that it would actually work So it wasn't just going to make you sort of a A hapless Feel-gooder out there in the world that wasn't making any sales or actually producing anything Like that was giving people any value or help but but you felt really good about yourself because you were doing it in an ethical way Um, it was nice to hear that all three of those things were true. So totally that was really really useful Yeah, and you know, I think what's particularly good about um Those of us who feel some inhibition towards the way marketing has traditionally been done Is that it's becoming more and more mainstream that that that feeling? Yeah, so when we Do marketing or business from a more generous Uh ethical caring way We are like the unicorn now. It's like You know, like that's what and that's what people have been saying to me whenever they find me like you're like this Wow, like yeah, I've never seen anybody do this kind of thing and I see all I mean I hear this all the time like hey, I saw a facebook ad from you But it wasn't trying to sell me anything. It was just trying to help me right idea of some content Yeah, it's kind of weird and kind of cool. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah You know, so it's like said when we when we care people like wow, you can care Right and then of course they stick they stay with us and those are the people who end up buying etc totally Yeah, thank you for sharing that. So what I like now is to kind of transition into having you share some of your Your work with us. We will talk about the work as well as the relief and debt work I think both things personal growth and then, you know, kind of debt stress and money I think that'll that'll relate to a lot of the folks watching this and you know, sure as well So so one of the ideas in your psychotherapy is you look at growth Well, of course, you know from a very individualized perspective What does that what does that mean? Yeah, it's a thanks and this was one of the things that's actually, um, you know One of the things you also helped me with was, um, instead of waiting for everything to be Perfectly in terms of this is my idea I'm going to bring that into the world and it's going to go like this To start being generous right away and start getting an active relationship With your audience potential audience to get coaching from them about what is it that people are hungry for and what is it that I can offer And let's line that up. So, um, it's been helpful doing some of the content to help refine this message Which I had somewhere, but it really wasn't clear to me or I couldn't put it succinctly. So I think what One of the ways that I like to think about growth and this is born out by a lot of the research on psychotherapy That I'm a part of and also the way that I've seen therapy work for people and it's been a part of my practice Is that there really isn't a one size fits all approach to any problem in life And what I see in a lot of personal growth teaching Is somebody has, um, discovered something that's worked really well for them And then they found a lot of resources that back up that idea And then they want to offer it to people and say well, this is a truth capital T Right, um, but from my perspective and my experience is there's lots of contradicting messages in those Like in other words, should you be really generous and selfless you can find tons of Back up for that and lots of people living very generously and selflessly and you think wow, that's really beautiful I want that Or should you be a strong advocate for yourself and know your value and know your worth and really not Short sell yourself on that sort of thing, right? So it's like Well, those each seem pretty good. They seem pretty valuable So which one is true? And so my My thought about and my belief about is that they're both True and useful, but only in the context of knowing yourself And so one way that somebody put this to me that always remembered that I always remembered was, you know If we're trying to get to here some people point north and some people point south We're trying to get to the same point, but to say north is right north is the perfect direction Why would anybody go south? That could really mislead somebody or somebody who could be reading it being like, oh man I'm not enough of this. I'm not enough of that. You know, that was some of my initial feelings coming to you Which helped get kind of knocked into place based on our back and forth. So so I like to encourage people to think very To think very carefully about the types of messages that they're taking in from the personal growth stuff that they're consuming But use it rather as instead of saying like oh, I found the truth to say oh, well, this is Some direction that I'm getting that's encouraging me at this point in my life towards a certain direction And then can I work backwards to understand what set of beliefs I'm challenging or undoing? But then to not continue to carry that longer than necessary So it's been an interesting thing trying to refine this because it's a bit of a complex message And so how does that turn into a product? You know, I'm still working on that But I still think it's For the kind of the most popular videos I've made have been ones that have pointed towards that So I still think that's a it's a useful thing to know or think about It's just hard to know exactly how that winds up becoming a product Although that's certainly something that got integrated a lot into the way that I wrote my book about debt. So You know, it's I think it's important, but I'm still working on it. Totally I love what you said in that example of we're coming to here and then some of us are here Sometimes right there. Yes. And then tearing that piece of advice or that framework for longer than it needs to serve serve our journey, you know, exactly So I it's brilliant. I think especially like a lot of um Yeah, a lot of us we get to a certain stage in our success or a certain stage of development And the those skills may not be the same skills that take us to the next stage of development That's a I totally think that's right. You know, because it's like, oh, I'm trying to get you know, trying to get here North is good. North is good. North is good. Keep going north. Oh, no Do you turn now? Yeah, so it's very helpful. I think to stay flexible about that sort of thing Um, what kinds of what kinds of issues do you work with in your in your therapy practice? I I have a very generalist practice. So I work with Uh pretty much. I mean anything that might bring anyone to therapy. I see in my caseload I don't specialize in anything like depression or anxiety Um, I see depression. I see anxiety. I work with sexual trauma. I work with work conflicts. I work with family dynamic difficulties I work with money stress. I work with uh, you know, I work with people who self harm suicidal stuff All of it. I work with a very very general approach And why would you say your clients choose you? Or stay with you versus Yeah, going to another source or yeah, how would you yeah? Yeah, it's a yeah, this is one of those times where I'm like, oh geez. How do I talk about myself in this way? What I what I suspect is the case is that I Don't work with people in therapy. Um as if they're a diagnosis So in other words, I don't treat anxiety the same every single person I see Because I'm constantly trying to work out What set of beliefs is someone eager to let go of? And um, you could have three people who all have a same Belief like I'm not worthwhile or something. Let's just take that for one person that might manifest as depression for one person It manifests as anxiety for another person that it manifests as drinking too much Or let's say even you know, let's say manifest somebody is working extremely hard and they're very successful But underneath that is the sense of I'm not worthwhile So a lot of what I'm doing in therapy is trying to focus on. Well, what is the core underlying belief? That's driving whatever behavior it is and a lot less focused on the behavior Um unless because of the person's belief I really should be focused on the behavior So I I think that people stick around because I'm working with them in a very very flexible way And I often change with them. I often change my approach with them So, you know my sense is everybody's trying to get to here, right? And so we might be pointing north for a while, but then I try to be alert to win. Oh, wait a minute. We've gone too far We need to point south now You know, like you've done a great job learning to be assertive. That's fantastic You never felt entitled to say no to somebody now you do amazing But now you're starting fights with everybody. So it's gone a little too far You know, how do you how do you really claim that part of yourself? Now you need to learn to be a little bit now we might need to work on being more generous or having You know, you're not trying to get out of the woods anymore. You're out. So what would we do next? Sort of like becoming more precise with a new skill that they've learned. Yes, absolutely. Yes So, um, awesome. Well, we've got a couple minutes left and I wanted to make sure we talked about the other project You're working on you wrote a book that helped people get relief from the stress of debt money Etc. So talk about that or any any part of it that you you think is important here Yeah, I you know when I graduated from my doctoral program. I had 230,000 dollars worth of debt at six and a half percent interest. I which is 1500 a month And I just you know, I buried my head in the sand about it when I was in graduate school because I knew I had this dream of being a Psychologist, I knew I wanted to be a therapist. I want to be the best one I possibly can be so I just went to the school that I thought would give me that chance and I thought well I will cross the money bridge when I come to it and you know Certainly the people who offer you financial aid are not in the business of saying well, let's really think carefully about this They're like, yeah, follow your dream, right? Which sounds like beautiful coaching but depending on the direction you're going maybe it's terrible advice You know, maybe that's pointing exactly the wrong direction So I think it was it was very much worth it for me because I love I love my work But um, it really freaked me out afterwards and I got totally paralyzed. I did all the wrong things about it I avoided it. I just pretended it would get better. I anyway, so I did all the wrong things for a long time until I kind of Faced up to it and uh, so the book came from I wrote myself a treatment plan Basically as if I was a patient coming to me and saying oh, I'm stressed about this and I was like You know for a long time. I thought well, this is finances I suck at finances and then eventually it finally clicked wait These are feelings underneath this and actually I know how to work with those and these are beliefs that are getting in my way so so the book was my attempt to help myself with This problem, um, and then I turned it into a book and now I'm offering it to people who are similarly stressed out about their debt So it's a good book for people when you've tried to get a lot of financial advice, but you're having a hard time putting it into place Um This is trying to attack some of the underlying stuff And it kind of captures some of my core approach to working with people which is too full I'll try to do this as quickly as possible because I know our time is limited But um, so the first thing you try to do is look at how has this problem come into your life by Things outside of your control That's not just complaining about the world But it's legitimately looking at the difficult circumstances you found yourself in So, you know from my case that was you know, most americans are in debt There's an entire Billion dollar industry designed to outsmart individuals to make you to help you take on more debt because that's how they make all their money I was relatively young anyway blah blah blah on and on all this stuff that you know I really didn't have control over and then trying to look at the personal responsibility part of it What did I screw up here? What was the problem? Where did I get misled or where was I naive and how can I get Smarter about that. So I think that in most problems that people have Looking at both sides of that is really useful And I think it's a mistake to go completely on one side or the other because I oh, I'm just a helpless victim of circumstance There's nothing I can do There might be some release and relief in that but it's incredibly disempowering And then the other side is say, oh, I'm responsible for everything that happens to me in my life all the time There might be a sense of empowerment that comes with that but that's too much responsibility And it's just probably objectively not true. You know, you just can't control everything in the world That's that's so trying to balance those two things is important And then within the part of it that's personal responsibility Uh, I like to encourage people to when they look at like well, I was naive or I was foolish or whatever Instead of just going down that as a purely self-critical thing um, I really believe that Every character flaw or struggle that we have is paired probably with some gift I don't think that's just polyan-ish thinking. I I've really seen that be true So, you know people who are very angry and say, oh, I'm bad person because I'm angry. I yell at people They're also probably really passionate and the first one to speak up when there's a problem And so if you try to get rid of both of those things or you try to get rid of one You'd get rid of the other and that would be a pretty big problem So whatever the personal responsibility pieces when you look at the you know The challenge that you faced or the shortcoming that you're whatever you're looking at as a shortcoming in the moment try to break that apart into the Thing that can be a liability, but also all the wonderful things that it brings into your life And then try to use that to go forward to say, yo, I don't want to lose this But how do I protect myself against this one? And so so there's lots of other stuff in the book, but that's kind of a big generalized approach to it and you work with This also in your therapy practice that right? Yes, absolutely. Yeah, that's a that's a big part of the way that I That's it's kind of a touchstone of the way that I'm thinking through what's going on with people or talk to them about And last of course that would be a big mistake given that individualized person Yeah, like if they were you know really worried like oh, I can never take up space in the room Somebody's always got to be smarter than me. The worst thing in the world for me to just say Well, here are all my theories about the mind, you know my job is to shut the hell up But for somebody else who doesn't have that sensitivity, it can feel like a good rapport for us to be back and forth and me thinking through things with them Do you see patients virtually like online? I have just started to do that because my electronic health record integrated in a HIPAA compliant video chat session. So if somebody's in california, that's certainly doable The out-of-state stuff I have to do more research on the legal implications of it But it's I would be totally open to it if we can if the ethical aspects of it are a go or if you Package of this coaching instead of therapy or something like that, you know, that might be the way to that might be the way to do it I have to look into I have to look into it some of the some of the rules around being a psychologist are quite strict And oh, yeah, I have I have heard the arguments like well once you have that license you can never Not be that oh, wow public's mind and thus your I see you know subject all the regulations. Yeah, I'll look into that Yeah, but I'd look in I'd be happy to look I should look into it. It would be worthwhile to know that for sure Cool, but uh for sure Obviously those who you know a lot of folks actually watching this are in california. So they could oh great. Well, there you go They wish to um But anyway, you've got a book the website for the book relief and debt dot com Relief at dot com. I'll be sure to link that and also to your Facebook pages where you do the videos for the personal growth as well as for for the debt. So thank you Dr Arendt. Thank you so much for being part of this conversation Thanks for having me George and I've really really appreciated working with you It's been a huge huge help to me and just one more revelation around this is that You know when I hired you I was really thinking okay This is going to be a business coach, but I've really been shocked by the amount of personal growth and psychological Health that's come along with focusing on aspects of my business, which was such a that was such an exciting thing to discover So I'm really grateful for that Great. Thank you. Thanks, Trevor. All right, George. Take care. See you soon