Episode Details

Many of us are wondering what our careers are going to look like in 2021 and beyond. We know the therapy model of 2019 as we knew it is not coming back. How do we pivot and move forward? We are answering this question in today’s show.

Our Featured Guest

Brant Thomsen

Brant Thomsen is a therapist in private practice in the twin cities area of MN. He has an interesting life and career because he became a social worker after training at a music school in high-level piano performance. He is now making the move into less therapy and more coaching. Through interesting and unexpected circumstances, Brant was forced to make a quick transition to telehealth during the early days of the 2020 pandemic. He’s here to share what he considered and what he encountered, along with three lessons learned during the transition.

Connect with Brant: Online Practice Builder  

You’ll Learn:

●     How 2020 played out for Brant when he was abruptly quarantined because of a client’s positive exposure

●     How Brant transitioned smoothly to telehealth in 48 hours’ time

●     What it was like to quarantine in his room for two weeks, and why Brant calls it a focused, peaceful, almost monastic experience that brought increased connection with clients and colleagues

●     How Brant’s diverse range of careers helped prepare him mentally for his transition

●     How Brant navigated the struggle to be authentic in his online presence and realize what he can give to others

●     Three life lessons learned in Brant’s transition to online therapy:

●   “I realized how much passion, focus, and readiness I have in supporting other therapists in a coaching role.”

●   “I realized the importance of staying connected to the natural environment around me.”

●    “I realized the lack of permanence in our lives and that what we give each other is temporary.”

●     How Brant is handling the day-to-day stress of the pandemic

PODCAST SPONSOR

Hushmail: Hushmail is a secure, HIPAA-compliant way to communicate with clients via email and to fill out clinical forms like intake packets securely.

Please visit sellingthecouch.com/hushmail and let them know that Mel sent you =).

Transcript:

Melvin:

Hello, welcome to

session 265 of Selling the Couch, I hope that you are having a wonderful day

I'm actually recording this at the very tail end of December; December 30. I

know how difficult Well, I don't know, the individual stories, but on the collective

whole, I know how hard of a year 2020 has been for so many of us. And I know

that many of us are ready to make this transition into 2021. So I hope that

when this session airs that you are doing well, that you are making this

transition and we have more clarity with regard to vaccines and all of those

different things.

Today’s conversation

is with Brant Thomsen from onlinepracticebuilder.com. Brant is actually a

therapist in private practice in the Twin Cities in Minnesota. And Brant has a

pretty interesting life career. So he's a social worker, but his original major

in college was high level like piano performance, and so he actually went to a

music school and was going to become a professional musician and then decided

to make this transition into social work and has done some pretty amazing stuff

throughout his career.

But I wanted to

have Brant on the podcast, we've been friends for a number of years and Bran