← Abundant Practice Podcast
Abundant Practice Podcast
Episode #723: Confidence, Clothing, And The Leap Of Faith In Entrepreneurship, feat. Marisol Colette
00:28:48
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Foreign.
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Hi, welcome to the Abundant Practice Podcast. I'm Alison from Abundance Practice Building. I have a nearly diagnosable obsession with helping therapists build sustainable, joy filled private practices. Just like I've done for tens of thousands of therapists across the world. I'm excited to help you too. If you want to fill your practice with ideal clients, we have loads of free resources and paid support. Go to abundance practice building.com Links all right, onto the show. So I've talked about therapy notes on here for years. I could talk about the features and the benefits in my sleep. But there are a couple things I want you to know about therapy notes that doesn't typically make it into an ad script. First is that they actually care if you like their platform. They don't only make themselves available on the phone to troubleshoot so you don't pull your hair out when you get stuck. They also take member suggestions and implement those that there's client demand for, like Therapy Search, an included listing service that helps clients find you internal and external secure messaging, clinical outcome measures to keep an eye on how your clients are progressing. A super smooth, super bill process, real time eligibility to check on your client's insurance. In my conversations with the employees there at all levels, they all really believe in their product and they want you to love it too. Second, they are proudly independently owned. Why should you care about that? Because as soon as venture capital becomes involved, the focus shifts from making customers happy to making investors happy. Prices go way up. Innovation plateaus. Making more money with as little output as possible becomes the number one focus. With over 100,000 therapists using their platform, they've been able to stay incredibly successful and they don't have to sacrifice your experience to stay there. You can try two months free@therapynotes.com with the coupon code Abundant. Welcome back to the Abundant Practice Podcast. I'm your host, Alison Perior, the founder of Abundance Practice Building. I'm here with Mari Solk, who is like somebody. You were in one of my first, or maybe my very first group ever.
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Yeah.
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And we've known each other for over a decade. I then got to hire you to help me do some of the things that we're going to talk about today. So we're going to be talking a little bit outside of what we usually talk about in here. Initially it's going to feel like it, but y' all will see how it is so aligned with exactly what you're all trying to build. So we're going to be talking about confidence, clothing and the Leap of faith in entrepreneurship. Marisol is a trained therapist and an image consultant and helps people show up as themselves in life and photos, all of these things. So thanks for being here with us today, Marisol.
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Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm super excited to talk with your folks. Yeah.
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Okay, so I think about the average therapist and they're like, yeah, I don't really, like, I don't have time or energy to put into what I'm going to wear to session. I'm just going to throw on something comfortable but professional and go from there. How would you start a conversation with them about what they're choosing to put on their body and show up with?
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You know, you're working with folks who are looking to differentiate themselves from their agency work, which then puts them in the position position to just be their own business and be their own brand, which is both liberating, but it's also a huge responsibility. So first thing to remember is that what you were taught to wear, what you felt like you had to wear in your agency job is actually not the same. You know, again, you make the rules. This is your business. You, Allison, are leading people to make really important decisions that fit into their life, that are aligned with their values, et cetera. So if we think about clothing the same, same way. So how do what we wear, how does what we wear fit into our life, fit into our values, demonstrate some element of our business and our, our authentic expression. So the clients that we are wanting to magnetize to our business, the, the values that you hold in your business. Yeah.
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So, like, there's an intentionality that I always want people to bring to every aspect of their business. And this is a piece of it that I don't address of how are you physically showing up? You know, I'll say, don't wear a suit in your headshots unless you're wearing a suit in session. You know, like wear maybe a slightly up leveled version of what you would wear in session. But a lot of people are like, well, I just wear jeans and a T shirt in sessions. So how do you then differentiate yourself from every other therapist who's wearing jeans and T shirt in your headshots or in your sessions? Because there is a vibe and we can't deny that there is a vibe in how what you wear and how you show up and what you wear impacts the work and your marketability.
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Yeah, it impacts how people see you. So one thing I will say is, yeah, branding photo shoots are a really important time to elevate whether it Is the elevation of jeans and a T shirt or I think about you hosted a photo shoot a while back, and so we had one of. I had styled one of those folks to. In a couple different looks, but she also wanted to wear jeans and a T shirt because that was one, like, archetype of her business. And it was a rainbow, y'. All. So it's like Southern representation. You know, y' all means all queer, supporting ally, etc. And her genes were also about relatability. So I also show up, you know, in a way that is relatable, and I can get down on the floor and we can talk about things. So. Yes, and Right. So. And the rest of her outfits were much more elevated. That has been incredible marketing material. She has since gone on to do things that she had no idea, had never imagined she would do. And those headshots in particular are really valuable for that work. It was like we were seeing into the future potential, not always knowing where she was going. She had set goals, so we were kind of leaning into those goals. But now those images are just so perfectly aligned with the work that she's doing. I don't know how long ago that was. Five years later.
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Yeah. Yeah. I remember it's 2021, because we were, like, only one person in the room and wear a mask and, you know, like, it was very 2021. Mm.
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Yeah. And so representation, but also an authority. So it is something that can support your clients in building trust in you. So, oh, this person shows up in a way that is professional and thoughtful, intentional, and with a sense of authority. Because, you know, we want a therapist that we know can hold all of the parts of us as a client. We want somebody that we can trust, that we believe has expertise in holding space. So what kinds of things would we wear that would demonstrate expertise while also being in alignment with our authentic sense of self, our values, and our business in general.
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Absolutely. So, okay, I'm thinking about the therapist who's like, all right, would I, like. I don't know what my values looks like in clothes? How do you help kind of guide them there?
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Yeah. So for one, is just being really in touch with themselves. So I was on a podcast the other day, and the woman who was interviewing me, she said she was at a big speaking engagement, and she said, I had this thought to wear a red suit. And she was like, not only was I not necessarily considering wearing a suit to begin with, she was like, I never wear red. And I got up there, and it was. It was a compelling Suit. People commented on it. The photographer was like, this is amazing. You are like a bright, shining star. And you should definitely wear this in a photo shoot. You should take photos with it, because this is registering really well. What we talked about, because what I heard her say, because she talks about mindfulness and entrepreneurship also, is that. But she got this instinct, this intuitive thought, to wear this red suit. She did not question it because she has done enough of her own work to know, like, this is a. This is a thought that is not based in anything that anybody has ever suggested to me. This is my own thought. And then she did it. She didn't have the noise of like, oh, I don't know, should I? Or what are people going to think? Or is that too bold? Et cetera. And she just went for it. So my first thing is to say just to start practicing paying attention to how you want to show up. So you get your closet in the morning, and what is the thing that you are drawn to and start building that trust with yourself around intentional dressing. And that is going to translate, period, end of story. Right? It's just about authenticity. It's just about representation of self authentically.
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So. Another thing that I hear from friends, from therapists I've definitely been in this is like, yeah, I need some new clothes, but I'm in this weird perimenopausal body change situation. And what I buy this month might not fit me six months or a year from now. So I'm just gonna wait till everything stabilizes or steadies. And being an eating disorder therapist for the last 20 years, that's kind of my interpretation. Other people's are like, when I lose weight, I will. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. How do you navigate that? Because it's such a tender thing, body image and spending money on yourself. Like, there are all these tendrils in what you do that your background as a therapist makes you so perfect for. How would you speak to those therapists as they're considering finding clothes that feel like them or that express where they're wanting to go?
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Yeah. So, you know, it is so tender, but it's also. It is also true that people who are leaving or considering leaving agency, like the quote, unquote, stability of an agency job into private practice, are also in transition. They're also in a tender place. And it might be like a slow titration of letting go of the clothes that they wore when they were in their agency. I've worked with people I just met with a client the other day, and it's been years since she worked in an agency. And we were going through her clothes and she was able to recognize as we were pulling out each individual piece from her closet, she's like, this is something that I. This is tied to what I thought I had to wear. This is tied to a different part of my life and identity. This is the, you know, like the old me. So all of these things. Right. And so, in addition, when we are navigating changes in our body, the reality is. The morbid reality is, is we don't know if we're going to have tomorrow. We also have to get dressed every day, so why not enjoy it? So paying attention to just the sensitivity around my body's changing either bigger, smaller, you know, however we're changing and what that means for them, how to hold space for folks as they are, you know, it's just so vulnerable in general. The transition into private practice, the leaps of faith, the transition into being a parent, and the body changing, the transition into the crone part of our life, that season of our life. And so it's like, well, what does it mean for us that we're changing? And what are the identifying pieces about this person that we're becoming? So, you know, if our bodies are changing into, you know, I'm. I'm getting to hear. Because I'm at that perimenopause phase, my phase myself. And I'm getting to hear girlfriends who are rewriting this narrative are like, oh, you just, like, gain a bunch of weight, you dry up and you're invisible all of a sudden. It's like, all downhill from here. That is just not the case.
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No. There's so much not giving a shit about things that don't matter. That free.
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Yeah, there's liberation, you know, letting go of the, you know, the mood dips and swings of cycles and things like that. So it actually a really freeing time. So it's a conversation about that. It's like, what are the freedoms that we're going to experience on the other side? What does it actually look like to not give a shit what other people think? And how do we lean into that part and kind of do this therapeutic, benign neglect towards the part that's the noise about how do I look? How do I look from the perspective of, like, the kind of patriarchal supremacist structures that are out there?
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Right, right. As we kind of divest from the male gaze further, it's like structures already have us, like, divested on one end. We need to just unhook ourselves Too.
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Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
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Okay. Okay. So I'm thinking about the whole dress for the job you want, and what does that look like for dress for the practice you want. How do you show up, and how does that impact the way you feel as a business owner, the way that somebody might feel providing therapy in a new way in their own practice?
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Yeah. I mean, again, with the vulnerability and the leap of faith, it's. You know, there's a level of fearlessness. So if I show up as myself, there's a courage and bravery behind that. I am choosing to go out on my own. I am choosing to build the life that I want to live, and how do I step into that fully? And the felt sense. So, like, we can talk about, like, proprioceptor work, et cetera. So the felt sense of putting clothes on our body that not only look good and fit well, but they feel really good. The. The confidence that. That breeds the self assurance, the fact that I'm not thinking about my clothes. I don't feel uncomfortable or distracted by them. I just feel very much like myself. So, you know, to differentiate ourselves from the agency work or the working under somebody and their perspective, their brand and business into, like, how do I just show up as myself, knowing that we will magnetize the clients that are intended for us, not operating from that place of, like. Well, I'm. I'm in this desperate place to build my business. I just have to attract whomever will come my way. And if I have a neutral look, that'll bring that, you know, it could bring anybody but you. You specifically talk about, you know, niches. Niches and really honing in on who do you want to serve and how do you want to serve them.
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Yeah. And I think there's something you touched on there that I really want to underscore, that just because something is stylish or looks good does not mean it's uncomfortable. Because I think that that's a thing we tell ourselves. Partly because that might have been true in the past in the way we were dressing. That was a choice. But it's something that we tell ourselves. It keeps us from trying new things and doing new things. Like I am at this point in life, absolutely not wearing anything uncomfortable for more than, like, I might for a photo shoot, maybe. But I'm not gonna walk around all day in uncomfortable shoes. I'm not gonna, like, sit down in a chair wearing pants that are cutting into me in a way that's gonna distract me from my more important work.
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Yeah, exactly. There is the dismantling of the structure.
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Right.
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Like the way that fashion had been delivered to us for a long time. Right. So I can really appreciate people who have said, I'm not going to worry about. I'm not even going to think about what I'm wearing. Right. Because they're saying, I'm not interested in participating in the way that things have been delivered to me. And what is reclamation look like again? We have to get dressed every day. So what does it actually look like to really enjoy getting dressed, to really feel good in our clothes? And that is a focus on personal style as representation of self, not as how other people are going to perceive me.
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Yes.
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And, yeah, there should be nothing. You said it too. You were like, I have more important work to do. And that is another thing that I say is, like, you have more important things to do than worry about what to wear. So what would it look and feel like to have a closet that fully represents you, that has let go of all these other past parts of yourself that are going to send the wrong, like. Like ping on the neurotransmitters that are the wrong ones? Like, you know, you're sitting in your new office, you're sitting in with your new clients, you're a business owner, and then you're wearing this outfit that you wore when you weren't a business owner, some other part of your life, and you're like, the old parts of you start to show up again when really you're trying to step into this new version of yourself.
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Right. And I think most of us have clothes that we have in our closet or our drawers. Just because we bought it at some point, it doesn't make us feel good. Like, I wore a shirt the other day that I was like, I feel like crap in this shirt. It's too big. It's too. Like, there's nothing about it that makes me feel good, but it's clean and easy. And I've got to move on because I didn't bring any intentionality to it that day. And did that impact my day?
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I mean, I think it did.
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I really do think it did. As I, like, saw my arms as I was typing or just being like, oh, this shirt. You know, and it doesn't mean it needs to be some brand new magical thing that cost a bunch of money. It could look, you know, most of my clothes are thrifted at this point. Like, that's just something that feels better for me ecologically and economically. But there are a lot of things that I need to be saying no to in my hunt for the yeses.
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Yeah. And you talk about that all the time in the work that you do is like, what are the majority of things that you have to say no to to get to the minority of stuff that really hones in on what you actually want. And the same thing goes for the clothes in your closet. I just keep coming back to the courage to show up as your authentic self. And what does it look like to put yourself out there and be the face of your business and say, I am here and I am available to do this work and you can trust me.
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Yeah.
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And, you know, when people are have changing bodies, I wonder. There's a couple ways to look at it. So, yes, you can do clothing swaps, you can do poshmark upcycling, resale shops, all of those things. Consignment, thrifting, et cetera is really, really great. And if you start to have an eye for it or if you have support from a stylist, you can start to see where those pieces are that can support you temporarily. It is also possible to just narrow down your wardrobe to fewer pieces, but that are quality because, you know, just because you're in transition, just because you're doing something different or your body is changing, it just doesn't mean that you have to feel bad in your body. It's actually not even going to support the changes that you're experiencing. Like that feeling of you're writing the new narrative about menopause. Right. It's like, do you have to to not like how you look in your clothes? Because you're going through this thing that has historically been known as a negative process. It's like, it's just a reinforcement. This is all about retraining the brain. It's just reinforcing from a. From a, you know, neural pathways perspective. It's like, yeah, I'm in this slow decline. It's like, not true. It's not true. And you don't have to.
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Yeah. And I think, like, in this economy, that's tough. I'm thinking about people starting private practices. It's taking more time these days than at bad did back in the day when you were starting. When I was starting. Money can be tight. And one of the tricks I love the most is if you're in private practice and you see your clients once a week, you can wear one outfit all week. You know, like, you can find something you love and you feel amazing in, and you can wear it during your sessions each week, and then new outfit next week and Then you don't need a million things in your closet that make you feel amazing as you're. You're building the funds to be able to do that. It's a good hack to be able to access what you're talking about without spending a ton of money or feeling like you're not doing it right.
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When I got started, I was working for fun and for free. I was working at the VA hospital, and I was working. I was doing personal styling and fashion consulting for fun and for free with my girlfriends in their closet. They'd feed me dinner. I would go to their house. You know, this has always been a love of mine. So fun. I didn't even know that I would create my own business as the fashion therapist. That hadn't occurred to me at that time. And it was actually some of those friends of mine at the VA That I was playing with in their closet that. Who were like, this is actually an incredibly therapeutic process. So without buying anything new, I was going through their closets and helping them rethink the pieces that they already have. And one of the clients that I have is a very busy, very successful entrepreneur, and. And she opens up her digital closet every morning, literally just looks at what I have created and puts it on and moves on. Like, she doesn't even have to think for five minutes about it, where's what I've told her, and all of that. We have purchased new things, but all of that is just things that she has in her closet reworked different ways.
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I love that. Yeah. It feels very clueless to me also.
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Like, I almost said that and I used to reference that, but I feel like it's becoming. It's like, so. It's like. Like so far away now that I don't know either it's coming back and people know it, or it's just, like, gonna be an outdated reference. But I was gonna say that.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. My kids are obsessed with it, so I think the new gen is coming out.
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It's here. Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Has it been redone? There's some definite.
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It's, like, old school. Okay. Silverstone. Yeah.
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But we have to. We have to remind our. Our kids that think that not everything they said is okay.
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Yes. We have lots of conversations.
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Yeah. The trope.
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Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Okay. So, I mean, I think there are so many vulnerable moments in starting a practice or in growing a practice that this feels like a great way to kind of bolster confidence. Like a very intentional step to bolster confidence.
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Absolutely.
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Whether it's a branding photo shoot, that your partner is doing for you because you can't afford a professional yet, or showing up in session and. Or showing up at networking events or. Or even just a networking coffee that you're not throwing on your athleisure and running out the door feeling frazzled and harried. That there's thought, even if it's the thought of athleisure, there's intention of, like, this is what I'm choosing because this represents how I show up and how I want to show up.
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Another client was talking about, she used to be a personal trainer, and she would actually just put on her nicest athleisure pieces for networking events. She was like, I didn't. It didn't make sense for me to show up in a dress or a suit. It actually only made sense for me to represent myself as I truly am. But I did wear my more elevated pieces in these settings, so it was completely authentic and incredible. I just really want to encourage folks who are listening to think about the potential for transformation through what we wear and how we think about how much we sleep, we think about the media we consume, we think about our food, we think about our exercise, we're thinking about our office spaces and our interiors, our design, all these things that impact us. And we also have to get dressed every day. So why don't we think about what we're putting on our body as part of this holistic process? And, you know, the fact that I'm a therapist creates the opportunity for transformation beyond our wildest imagination. And that's something that can be really challenging. I know the people who are listening can understand. Right. Because, you know, we're so accustomed to recognizing the types of things that can bring up emotion, like, you know, the stress and things like that. So I know that the folks listening here are going to understand, but it is something that has been hard at times to get across on the front end, but that every one of my clients says on the tail end of our work together is, I never could have imagined the person that I would become through this process. And that is in part because I'm coming from it, from the therapeutic lens. You know, one other thing I will say is, somebody came to me through you recently, and she is actually already an incredibly successful practitioner, but she wanted to step into, like, being authentic and open about her own queerness and being able to. She's, like, turning the dial on her practice just a hair to supporting queer families like the parents. That's who she wants to serve, period. And so she was Like, I want to be like a clear magnet and be really authentic in my own queerness. And I want that to be represented through clothes that are slightly more androgynous or slightly more non binary. And so she's already really successful, but in order to turn the dial for her on who she's magnetizing into her business so she can start seeing more of the clients she wants to see, she's also turning the dial on her attire.
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I love that. Yeah. And it makes logical sense. Anybody can understand the through line there. Like attracts like. And the more out there we are about who we are, the easier it is for our people to find us.
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Yeah, exactly. And the more out there. Period.
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Period.
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Yes, yes. Because so many of us want to hide because we don't know. You know, we're afraid to show up. A lot of people in the day of. So in the age of social media and wanting to create YouTube videos and, you know, we have so much important work to do. Therap therapists are some of the most important people. You were saving lives. What was it? You had recommended a book years ago that how to be a Wealthy therapist. And one of the lines in there is like, you are helping people walk away from the potential of taking their own lives. Yeah. You know how valuable that is. And we need therapists to be speaking their truth, to be sharing information, to be delivering wisdom, to be showing up holding space. And if we're hiding, we can. Can't do that. And we're also asking people to live out loud, to be comfortably themselves. So if they see us wearing oversized black clothes because, you know, our body is bigger than the societal expectation standard, not than the average, because that's. Those two are two very different things. If you didn't, you know, for anybody listening who thought the average was size two, it's definitely not the median size. So they're like, you're telling me to show up boldly, but I can see your discomfort as you pull on your clothes and things like that. So no shame if that's where you are today. I just wonder what it would look like for you to also step boldly into your own authentic self.
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I love that. Thanks so much, Marisol.
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Thanks for having me.
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And where can people find you? What's the best way to get in touch?
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You can reach out to me on my website, which is www.soulreflection. so my last, last part of my first name is Sol S O L. So it's soulreflection.com. you can send me an email. Marisol at Soul Reflection. I'm on Instagram and Facebook at Soul Reflection and I have a free 20 minute consultation call. So I would love anybody who is in this big transition period to turning the dial on their current practice getting into private practice, body changing and still, you know, and needing to change how they look in private practice. I have a free 20 minute consultation that you can put in the show notes for folks to just get on the horn and tell me what's up and I'll tell them what's up. Love that.
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We'll do it.
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Awesome.
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Thank you so much for your time.
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Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
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I'll see you soon.
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Yeah. Bye. Bye.
- [28:18]
B
If you're ready for a much easier practice, TherapyNotes is the way to go. Go to therapynotes.com and use the promo code abundant for two months. Free. If you're listening, you probably need some support building practice. If you're a super newbie, grab our free checklist using the link in the show notes. I'd love for you to follow rate and review, but I really want you to share this episode with a therapist friend. Let's help all our colleagues build what they want.