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Private Practice Startup Podcast
Episode 195: Up Close and Personal with Jo Muirhead
00:43:23
Jo Muirhead
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- [00:02]
Podcast Host Intro
Welcome to the Private Practice Startup podcast where we help ambitious private practitioners across the globe to brand themselves and grow their dream practices. We chat with successful private practitioners, business coaches and marketing experts, bringing you tons of practice building Ninja tips. Visit privatepracticestartup.com for awesome resources, attorney approved private practice paperwork and our signature marketing E course. Here are your co hosts, Dr. Kate Campbell and Katie Lemieux.
- [00:31]
Katie Lemieux
Hey there startup. Welcome back to our Up Close and Personal miniseries. We are so excited that you guys are here and if you're brand new to us, what a fun time to join and discover our podcast. And we hope that you continue to stay and become a lifelong listener. And of course, if you're a loyal listener, welcome back. We really hope that you guys are enjoying this mini series and Up Close and Personal mini series is all about you guys choosing the practice builders and coaches that you want us to to interview. So we had a great time doing this last time and this is our second round. So today you guys chose to have us interview Jo Muirhead. So I don't feel like Jo needs an introduction, but you guys might because you might not exactly know her just yet. So Jo Muirhead is all about connecting people to purpose through inspiration and innovation. She's the author of the Entrepreneurial Commission and creator of the Book of Evidence. She's also the founder and CEO of Purple Co, a team of specialists, allied health consultants dedicated to helping people who experience injury, illness and trauma reclaim their lives through work. Joe graduated from the University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Health Science, Rehabilitation Counseling. That's a tongue twister in 94. Joe is passionate about the health benefits of work and truly believes that everyone has the right to meaningful and rewarding employment. Purple Core grew out of this belief as a truncated form of purpose for people. So before we start to get up close and personal with Joe, where we put aside the business talk, although we can't always do that, I'm sure we'll talk about business. I just wanted to say if you're brand new to us, we have a gift for you. We would love for you to head over to private practices startup.com and whether you like it or not, if you're a US based therapist, you definitely need paperwork. We have a free paperwork course for you that goes over everything that you guys need to have in the consents and it comes with our attorney approved customizable HIPAA form for free as well. So head over to PrivatePracticesStart.com and head on over to the resources tab and there you'll see the free paperwork. Hey, Joe.
- [02:35]
Jo Muirhead
Wow, That's a lot of words. I'm sitting. That is so profound. I don't think you guys were that polished when we first did an interview together. Wow.
- [02:48]
Katie Lemieux
Probably not, because we've evolved over the four years. Actually, Kate, we missed our anniversary 6 June. Today's 10 June that we're recording, actually the 11th for Jo, which is interesting because she's an Australian and 14 hours ahead of us at this point. So, yeah, we're in two different. Like, I think about that as, like, time travel.
- [03:08]
Jo Muirhead
Well, as you can see from my people listening, we have this massive light coming through the window, the natural light. So it's a beautiful day tomorrow. Just in case you're all interested.
- [03:20]
Dr. Kate Campbell
Awesome. It's so good to have you on for this series and we'd love to be able to just have you start. Tell us a little bit about your upbringing, your childhood. Tell us a little bit about who you are.
- [03:30]
Jo Muirhead
Oh, okay. So my name's Jo, which is actually the shortened form of Joanne. Don't call me that. I won't respond. My parents decided to name me after a Michael Nesbitt song. And Michael Nesbitt was a songwriter for this band called the Monkees.
- [03:50]
Dr. Kate Campbell
Does anyone remember the Monkeys or something?
- [03:56]
Jo Muirhead
Yeah. Which is really. That's a bit of a fun, Fun story for me. So I grew up in suburbia. I'm the eldest of three. I have two younger sister. I was a crafty, arty, musical kid. I played a lot of sport. I was a fairly intense kid. Did a lot of things intensely. And when I was about 17, I had this real sense that I wanted to make an incredible difference in the world. Didn't know what that looked like. Didn't know what that meant. I had, you know, you have stuff and baggage that you bring with you from your family of origin. I've got the same. I've got stuff and baggage because, you know, I think it's a part of the human experience. Not trying to minimize it, just not going there. Yeah. So then I discovered a love. I just love. People have been fascinated by work and what work brings us. I've been working since I was 14. It was an important part of my family. My parents had a business. They didn't do that very well. So I basically adopted the philosophy of doing the opposite of what my father did and my business should succeed. That served me well. And he and I did have that conversation before he died. So I don't feel like I'm being Disrespectful to him. I love to travel. I've always been interested in travel. I was an exchange student when I was 16, so I got to go to New Zealand. And Australia and New Zealand are not the same country. We don't even speak the same language.
- [05:39]
Katie Lemieux
What do people from New Zealand speak?
- [05:43]
Jo Muirhead
They speak English with a very different accent and it just takes a while for you to. And we often joke about that. So they will say things like fish and chips. Let's go to number six. I'm probably bastardizing their accent right now, but yeah, we often joke about our kiwi neighbors a lot. And we need subtitles.
- [06:05]
Katie Lemieux
You're Kiwi neighbors, explain that.
- [06:08]
Jo Muirhead
So a kiwi. Ah, that's a good question. Kiwis are an animal or a little bird native to New Zealand. They have ground dwelling birds with a really long beak and yeah, that's kind of a national symbol of New Zealand along with the silver fern, which is obviously a plant indigenous to New Zealand. There you go. So it's a little bit of social anthropology and culture for us this morning.
- [06:33]
Katie Lemieux
Kiwi in the States for us is a fruit.
- [06:36]
Jo Muirhead
Oh, oh, the kiwi fruit.
- [06:39]
Katie Lemieux
Yeah, it's kind of fuzzy on the outside, brown and green on the inside.
- [06:42]
Jo Muirhead
And if you don't get them ripe enough, they're very tart.
- [06:46]
Dr. Kate Campbell
You mentioned a few minutes ago, Jo, about that you first started working when you were 14. What was your first job?
- [06:54]
Jo Muirhead
Oh, I've done a few things. So I worked in a 1960s replica hamburger joint where I became very proficient with deep frying and cleaning. Cleaning, a lot of cleaning. I was a receptionist for a solo operator, chiropractor. I did that for a lot of years. That was a really good job. I really enjoyed that. I did a lot of work in bookstores. I love to read. So I funded myself through most of my university working part time in retail bookstores. Yeah, that would be my first time. You asked for one. There you go. You've got three.
- [07:34]
Dr. Kate Campbell
Yeah, it's interesting and you know, I have to comment on you because I often see your post on Facebook for books, book recommendations. And I think I've read two or three of the books that you've recommended and I've loved them. So thank you for those random posts letting us know what you're reading. And I'm like, ah, Joe likes it. I'll probably like it too.
- [07:53]
Katie Lemieux
So what are you currently reading?
- [07:57]
Jo Muirhead
Right. Oh golly. So. Oh man wore it for me. So for some reason the last 12 months I have developed this absolute fascination with how European people got through the Second World War. And I don't want to read history books because boring. So reading it in terms of historical context has been really fascinating. So I'm reading a book at the moment called we need to Be Brave, and it's a fiction story based on when children were shipped out of London to the country in England to keep them safe and what that did for their upbringing and just the amount of poverty and displacement that went on. Because we all hear about the bombing and the devastation of what happened in Great Britain. This has been a really unique way. So I'll post about it because chances are you'll like that one because it's a very different way of looking at that part of history. And the heroine or the main character, she's a really strong, independent woman. Yeah, she's very cool.
- [09:07]
Katie Lemieux
Before we move on, I just want to take a quick moment to thank our sponsor.
- [09:12]
Dr. Kate Campbell
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- [09:54]
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- [10:28]
Katie Lemieux
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- [10:30]
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- [10:40]
Katie Lemieux
So, speaking of books, what about your favorite business book of all time, if that's possible?
- [10:47]
Jo Muirhead
My favorite business book of all time? Okay, all time. So the One that I've been coming back to time and time again. It's called Grit by Angela Duckworth. It's not how to do business per se. I guess the how to do the business bit. There's so many other people who speak into that, and there's only. There's only kind of so many tactics that we can get our head around in terms of do this, experience growth, do that, experience growth, do that, experience growth, or. My fascination has always been around who do we need to be as people, who do we need to be? And how do we tap into our innate strengths and what we're good at and turn that into a way of earning an income? My fascination with that is too many of us got stuck in jobs where there was such a conflict of values. We go to work, we churn through the people, we churn through the work. We felt like we were doing nothing right. We felt like we were doing nothing properly. We wondered why we were getting sick or depressed. I remember driving to work for months, hoping that that would be the day I got hit by a bus because it was just so demoralizing, and it just felt better to have to go. If I had a car accident today, I wouldn't have to go and deal with all that stuff. So my business book reading tends to be more about who do we need to be as people. We all have the capacity for great good. We can see that we've got the capacity for not so great good. Am I going again? No. Okay. So I just. I want to be reflective and thinking about that. So Angela Duckworth's book on Grit, I often refer to it. It's on my desk all the time. And there'll often be things in that that I see.
- [12:33]
Katie Lemieux
Did she also do a TED Talk on that? Because I've seen it. Okay, very cool. And so as you're reading these books and really just kind of, like, fascinated about who do we have to be? How does that resonate with you and who you have to be as a leader in this community?
- [12:48]
Jo Muirhead
Huh? Well, there's a question that's a very thoughtful question. I take my influence really quite seriously. I probably didn't realize how much influence I had until this year. And I know that I could be opinionated. I know that I can offer people a lot of certainty. So I take my responsibility to make sure that my opinions are well thought out, based in facts as much as we can, or based in my own lived experience. And I think that's the key message from the reading that I've been doing over the last couple of years is the importance of, of incorporating lived experience into what we do as a health professional and now as somebody who wants to empower other health professionals. If we don't look after ourselves and learn how to be who we need to be, we're not going to be able to last the distance to do the work. And it continues to terrify me at how quickly we burn out and the limited amount of support there is in employment, especially for newly graduated clinicians. Three years is just not long enough to call yourself an experienced clinician. And people are just leaving the industries, completely leaving. So we're losing all of this knowledge and we're not adding to the body of knowledge. And that's possibly why it feels like we're not actually making gains or advances and why we're still talking about things like we need to eat well, we need to sleep and we need to drink water like it's. And I'm not trying to be patronizing, what I'm trying to say is we've got to take this message really seriously because if you don't know who you are, then how on earth can you maintain yourself to last the distance and just go hand to mouth with the next session, the next session, the next session and not thinking about this. You're not doing yourself any favors. And actually you're making us all look bad because you're chances are you're not going to be able to last the distance. I don't want that for you. I feel really strongly about it, as you can tell.
- [15:01]
Katie Lemieux
And so what are some of your best suggestions about that and how clinicians really need to care for themselves besides the basic stuff that you're saying, like what makes you get on your soapbox about it?
- [15:16]
Jo Muirhead
So running after the. So we go. People freak out when they haven't got enough business. Like I haven't got enough referrals, have enough referrals. So I'm going to spend all my money on learning this next marketing plan and this next tactic. And this I'm just using this an example now, understanding that what they've done is actually gone right to the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs and going, I don't feel safe. So when we don't have enough money to pay our bills, we don't feel safe. So then we start engaging in other behaviors that try and make us feel safe but actually don't feel that void. So then what we start to see happen is all of these health professionals and it's not just Mental health professionals, I see it with social speech pathologist, basically. You name it, I've seen it. Gps. Nobody's immune to this. So we go into this place of being really fearful and I've got to take every client that comes through my door and then we start seeing sliding scales of ridiculous $20, come see me, because that'll put food on my table for a day or whatever it is. So we get wound up in all of this fear and scarcity. And then once you're in that cycle, it's really hard to get out of it, because if you have taken all these people on really low fees and you don't interrupt that pattern for yourself, you're just going to keep perpetuating that problem again and again. So if you're going to get really clear about what you want from your business. I want to make 100 grand a year. Great. Why? And is that actually enough for you to live on? Because I would argue it's not. If you want to fund retirement, I would argue it's not if you were the sole income earner for your family. And I'm not saying this to be judgmental, I'm just using it as a very practical example. We all need income to live and we have chosen to serve people in a very unique way to receive income in exchange for our knowledge and skills and expertise. So it's not about charging a heap of money, it's not about who can charge the most for per session. It's about what do you need, what do you need this business for you.
- [17:19]
Katie Lemieux
To do right now?
- [17:20]
Jo Muirhead
And then what do you need it to do in five years time? So one of the questions I ask every new coaching client is, how old will you be in five years? And what did you expect your life to look like by then? So this gorgeous woman, do a consult with me. I worked with her for a couple of months. She was 72 when she came to me. And she had no retirement savings, no plan, and she was completely. She's spending 20 clients a week, she's doing tough work. And I asked her that, that's where she got unstuck. And I said, where do you want to be in five years time? Because she just went, I haven't got five years in me, I haven't got it in me. And I just, I don't want that for anyone else.
- [18:09]
Dr. Kate Campbell
I love how you're talking about this, Jo. And I want to ask you, just in terms of your own relationship with your business, what is your why and what you want to see from your business now in terms of how you want it to look now and then where you want it to be in five years.
- [18:26]
Jo Muirhead
Okay. So Purple Company. So there's kind of. I've got a few income streams. So Purple Company is my multi clinician practice. That business is currently funding my lifestyle, allowing my husband and I to put other wealth creation strategies in place, which for us is real estate at the moment. Okay. But in time, five years time, probably I would like Purple Co well on the way to being a business that can operate without me, that continues to fund our retirement. Okay. Now, I say that because my husband is 17 years older than me, so by the time he is 70, we would like to not have to work full time. The coaching, consulting, authoritative stuff that Jo Muihead does, actually, I do that because I love it. It's not the thing I have to do. It's certainly not the thing that makes me the most money, but it gives me an incredible sense of purpose in being able to help other clinicians be able to last the distance and do the work, do it well, do it with incredible satisfaction, knowing that they've then gone and helped a whole heap of people who have helped a whole heap of families, helped a whole heap of communities. So this is the way I wanted to be able to change the world when I was 17. This is the mechanism by which I can do that. So that's what gets me up and going and doing the things. Even when I just want to go back to bed and pull the. Do not all the duvet over my head and say.
- [19:59]
Dr. Kate Campbell
Because up close and personal, I wanted to shift over to your relationship with your husband, tell us how you met your husband and a little bit about him.
- [20:08]
Jo Muirhead
Cool. So this is my second marriage. Well, it's the second marriage for both of us. We actually met in church, which was fun for both of us and unique. But yes. So we've been married almost. Oh, golly, no. 10 years next year. Phew. I'm like, whoa. Did we not celebrate that? You know, bushfires, Covid cancer diagnosis. So, yeah, that's been an interesting learning for both of us. He has his first family. He has adult children, has seven grandchildren. I have one adult child. He's awesome. I didn't need to go back and have any more. He's so cool. Yeah. So it's been a lovely relationship, I think for both of us. We didn't actually leave our first marriages going. That's it. I'll go find someone better. It was kind of like, oh, well, this could work. Oh, this is nice. Then you get together and then you're like, oh, crap, there's so much stuff I gotta unlearn. Now.
- [21:11]
Katie Lemieux
Before we dive into more questions about your husband, your relationship, I just want to take a break for our second sponsor.
- [21:17]
Dr. Kate Campbell
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- [22:01]
Katie Lemieux
What is your husband's name? I don't think I know his name.
- [22:05]
Jo Muirhead
My husband's name is John Drury, so we don't share the same surname, which confuses his family a lot. But I'd already changed my surname a couple of times and I'm not doing that again. That's hard work for women. Jo, you.
- [22:21]
Katie Lemieux
I know, right? With all the. Yeah.
- [22:24]
Dr. Kate Campbell
You alluded to some of the big events that have been happening over the past year that have been really stressful. The bushfires, Covid cancer diagnosis. Tell us a little bit about how life has been going with the heavy, very stressful situations that you guys have had to navigate.
- [22:49]
Jo Muirhead
So we're in June 2020 right now. So November 2019, my husband was diagnosed with a bladder cancer. And then we navigate and he's fine. He's recovered really well from that. We just got to do the six monthly monitoring on all of that. In December of 19, we had massive bushfire crisis here. It was terrifying. Communities were completely decimated. We just smelt smoke for weeks. Still makes me feel queasy. Then we actually had massive flooding here, which was not great for people that were living in tents. So the fires definitely got put out. But then we've had all these people that have displaced in tents and other in rural and remote. So 80% of Australia's population live on the coast. But where a lot of the affected people were is like two hours inland. So there's not a lot of resources. It's not easy to just click your fingers and go, let's put the electricity on or let's get Internet up and running. This is a huge country. But we're all just squished into the places that we like. Then Covid hit. And what was interesting for us with COVID is my husband was at the end of his chemotherapy. So we had just. We'd been self isolating before COVID hit. And the week my husband went in for surgery, I was actually diagnosed with breast cancer as well. So that was just kind of another slap on the other side of the cheek for me. And that happened. That diagnosis happened in February, had some surgery in April, and we're still working out what the best treatment plans are for me, which I hope is not this stupid drug that I'm on at the moment because it makes me feel sick. But anyway, so how have we coped through all of that? I guess we have faith. So I don't know how people get through this without faith in something bigger. I know for me, if this whole experience doesn't end up having some sort of bigger purpose, I could fall over in a minute and go, what's the point? I have found it incredibly difficult with my own health being so My wellness is limited. So I don't have full time work in me. I haven't had full time work in me since April. I've had to learn how to do the tasks that only I can do and learn how to delegate effectively. Delegating is not just dumping a task on someone. I've had to give up time frames. I don't do smart goals anymore. Actually think in this current climate, smart goals are a bit redundant. So I don't manage time anymore. I manage milestones. So when a specific project is finished, then we move on to the next project. And I've taken all the pressure and sense of failure off. I don't know about if you ladies do this, but if I don't meet a goal in the timeframe, I kind of feel a bit of a failure and a bit of shame. Yeah, so I got rid of that because that was not helping me. So now it's like, I will set things into the future because I think we need to have some future focus. But I'm very much about, no. Well, I can't commit to that. And if people try and impose timeframes on me, I'm like, I just won't commit. It's like I said to you girls, I said, I'm really happy to do this, but if I have to cancel the morning of please don't hate me and you were like, we would never hate you. That's awesome. But it's just what my life is at the moment. Yeah. Does that answer some of that question for you?
- [26:27]
Katie Lemieux
Well, it's interesting because I was gonna ask like, you know, how have you prioritized life through this and like, what has it brought in perspective? And you answered that perfectly. And it's interesting like the mindset shift between the deadlines to the projects. And as you say that, I think like for me and Kate too, I mean, we've had a very interesting nine months.
- [26:48]
Jo Muirhead
Here.
- [26:49]
Katie Lemieux
And that kind of started with a hurricane threat that thank God never hit us. It was supposed to be a Category 5. So we were in the middle of launching and we had to reorganize all of that. We're getting prepared for Kate's maternity leave. My spouse had medical issues, Covid and now all of the riots and the protesting and everything going on here. And so it's been very interesting time and so kind of that Bobby and weaving. And I know Kate and I have really over time really have committed to the focus or the follow one thing. And that seems to really streamline those things and really is helpful for sure. And yeah, like the time deadlines and constraints, they're still there on certain things, but you just gotta bob and weave and you're going in different directions and it's all very strange and weird and a lot of stuff is going on for sure. So I love that message that you give of maybe kind of like loosening the reins and around the deadlines and just like focus on the project and celebrate that when it's done. You know what I mean? Like, okay, awesome. Now we can focus over here. So I love that.
- [27:55]
Jo Muirhead
Thank you. That was a huge challenge for me because I'm a big planner. I often over commit and then getting to the point where I have a whole 16 hours that I know I'm going to be good this week. What are the most important things to get done and what are the things that only I can do? It totally shifts your perspective. And then when you've got all these other circumstances that are beyond your control. Nobody put manage COVID 19 and manage racial unrest in their business plan for this year. So it's not. But yet here we are. And it's teaching us to duck and weave and pivot. It's teaching us that we can get through all of this. It's teaching us how to be community minded and good social citizens. And it's teaching us where we fall short. So I'm Starting to get curious about what this looks like from a historical perspective. Like what change is going to have occurred because of this, because of COVID and because of the attention that's been given to racial divide or any divide. Basically, you're not the same as me, I'm not the same as you. How did we end up in a space where we're all so scared of each other? We could talk about that for a really long time.
- [29:16]
Katie Lemieux
So I'm curious because you are such a big proponent of therapists and their own self care and their well being. What is one of your favorite self care things or your how do you spend your me time?
- [29:28]
Jo Muirhead
I read, I'm in the garden a lot, so I really. And we've got a beautiful garden here. I live in a national park, so it's lovely being outside with the birds. And we live in a lovely temperate climate. So that my me time since. Since I've become so unwell, I've been doing a lot of crafting and art again, which I haven't done for years. And it's just one of those things I've been able to do that I enjoy purely for the joy of doing it. Which is an unusual thing for me to say because if something doesn't have a purpose or a plan or an outcome attached to it, they might bother. Now it's like, that's pretty, let's do another one. I'm like, who is this?
- [30:11]
Katie Lemieux
What have you been crafting?
- [30:14]
Jo Muirhead
So I have a cross stitch that I started. I think Anthony might have been so probably 15 years ago, they ornaments that you hang on your Christmas tree. So I'm working on getting those done. Lots of coloring in different books and using different medium for coloring. So I've got pastel wools and I've got oil crayons and then I've got your normal everyday coloring in pencils. And a client of mine posted a free pattern for this beautiful crocheted blanket yesterday. And I'm like, oh, that's my next project. So I'm now now got a. Gonna get my crochet. My mom's crochet hooks out. So that's gonna be fun.
- [30:54]
Dr. Kate Campbell
I'm seeing this beautiful tree behind you and it reminds me of a few years ago you had sent me, I think it was right after we had initially connected on the podcast, this beautiful colored drawing that you had drawn in with colored pencils of a tree for a surprise birthday card. And I remember it, it came in the mail and it looks so different because it came all the way from Australia. And whenever I see the tree behind you, it reminds me of that. It's just such a creative and very thoughtful thing to do.
- [31:22]
Jo Muirhead
Thank you. So the tree symbolizes my word for the year, which is about blooming. So the tree, like I've had this spoken over me for many, many years. I'm like that solid tree and people come and find safety and creativity and then we've got. You can't see them there, but there's little birds flying off that have been, you know, leaving the nest and doing their thing. But it serves to remind me that it's not just about me. What I do is never just about me. Yes, I'm important because what. And if I'm not solid and the tree trunk and not rooted and grounded, then the branches will wither and not as many people get served. And I don't say that to be arrogant. I say that to go. This is where I've been positioned and this is how I can serve this community. Because I can't see all the clients. I can't see them all.
- [32:14]
Katie Lemieux
Yeah, it is, it's really cool to understand when you're in like a leadership or supervisory role of being able to touch a few, to touch many. Like that extends out and really how powerful that is overall. And just even when we touch our own clients lives, the impact and the trickle down effect it has on so many. And that's a really cool, beautiful thing. Jo, I'm curious. People have some very specific questions for you. And one of them is, how many of your grandmother's teacups do you own? So why don't you tell us about the teacups first and how many do you own?
- [32:45]
Jo Muirhead
Okay. I don't know. I haven't actually counted them. So the tea cup teacups. Oh, wow. So my mum, who passed away 11 years ago, she was collecting these beautiful old bone china teacups. We have no idea why, but somehow they ended up in my storeroom. So yay me. So finally started to unpack them and start looking through them and I was probably having a cup of coffee out of each of them going, I don't know if any of these have ever been used. I was dating them. I was finding out all this history stuff about them that was a lot of fun. And then I was posting about it on Facebook and my cousin, who's a little older than me, said, hey, I've got Nan. So she's actually my great grandmother. She's got. I've got boxes of Nana Lil's Crockery. Do you want to come and see if there's anything there that you would like? So I ended up with more coffee cups or sets. They're not. Usually there's one or two of each. And then I remembered that that particular great grandmother Lillian, when I was little, she gave us all a cup, saucer and plate and it was just a thing that she passed down from the generations. So I went and found the one that she gave me and learnt the heritage of it and went, it's actually created before the Second World War. And how it got to Australia, because it Scottish, I don't know, but it's mine. So I'm going to start that tradition now for the young ladies in my family moving forward. So I've been pulling them out, washing them up, working out who's going to go where and then, yeah, I also have a plan to have a bit of a celebration for my mum using them as well. But how many do I have? Probably 40.
- [34:39]
Dr. Kate Campbell
Wow.
- [34:41]
Jo Muirhead
There's a lot. John goes, are we going to display all of those? What do we need to build to display all of those? I'm like, no, it's okay, we don't need to do that. That was a really fun way to connect back with my mum and my grandmother and my great grandma and just my sense of who I am in my family and it's allowed me to have a way of talking to other family members about a thing. Because my mum died. She was killed in a car accident and that's been still quite. It makes it hard for people to talk about her and celebrate her. But I now think we've got a mechanism of being able to celebrate her. So that's pretty cool.
- [35:19]
Katie Lemieux
And you said that's mom or Grandma.
- [35:21]
Jo Muirhead
That's Mom.
- [35:23]
Dr. Kate Campbell
How long ago was that? That happened 11 years ago. 11 years ago. Wow.
- [35:29]
Jo Muirhead
Fun fact about Jo. So my mum was killed in a car accident, which we have no. We don't know why or how. It just is. And that's hard. Then my father was killed, I think, three years ago. In a word, workplace accident, which we have no knowledge about or we don't know why it happened or how it happened. It was just he ended up with this massive brain injury that. So it's like, how does one. One person end up losing both parents in such tragic circumstances 10 years apart? It was just like, wow, wow. And given the work that I do, it was like, that was mean. That's mean. We can talk about it. We're doing okay. I am just really. I'm just going to give Jill Johnson Young a plug because she has been the person that has helped me manage, learn and accept my grief and my loss. So plug for Jill.
- [36:23]
Katie Lemieux
She's been an amazing, awesome, awesome. So Jill, I think it's time for us to move into our lightning round where we're going to ask you kind of rapid fire questions. Whatever comes to mind.
- [36:35]
Jo Muirhead
Oh, let me have a mouthful of water.
- [36:40]
Katie Lemieux
We're surprised it's not your second cup of coffee.
- [36:42]
Jo Muirhead
Yeah, it's coming. It's like 14 minutes away.
- [36:47]
Katie Lemieux
So that's a perfect rapid fire question. How do you take your coffee?
- [36:51]
Jo Muirhead
I drink double Macchiatos. Starbucks is not coffee. I'm just gonna say that again. Starbucks is not coffee. I'm so sorry you have to drink that stuff. You really don't. So double macchiato is two shots of espresso with a splash of milk. Wow.
- [37:07]
Katie Lemieux
What is coffee then?
- [37:09]
Jo Muirhead
What's your favorite coffee? It's very difficult. That's a really good question. I can't quite go into that right now. I just know every time I come to the US and I'm stuck and the only thing I've got is Starbucks, I am that really annoying person who goes, now I want you to use that bean in that machine and I need the water at this temperature. Everyone else is going, I want a grande latte caramel type of thing that's not really coffee. And I'm like, no, no, no, go back and grind my beans again.
- [37:40]
Dr. Kate Campbell
It's funny because someone had listed the question, is Starbucks really coffee? But you already asked that. So I've got another question for you. What's your biggest pet peeve?
- [37:53]
Jo Muirhead
Uh, oh, wow.
- [38:03]
Katie Lemieux
How about we'll move on to the next one and then if that pops up, just we'll come back.
- [38:07]
Jo Muirhead
No, no. People who listen to respond, not people who are listening for understanding. So I hate and I catch and I guess that's because it's a self reflection. I'm good at that. I'm always like, let's do this, let's do that. I know the answer. I know the answer. I know the answer. And now I think with everything that we've got happening all over the world, it's like, no, no, no, I need to hear you out first and then I'll respond. And certainly my health experience here in Australia, my biggest issue, my biggest thing to deal with is feeling like health professionals just don't care. They're great. We're so good in the room when we're doing our clinical thing, but as soon as we leave, the room falls to shit. And I'm really pissed off about that because we can't afford to make people feel crap once they leave the room. Anywho, here we go. Soapbox for Jo.
- [39:05]
Katie Lemieux
How about your favorite dessert?
- [39:08]
Jo Muirhead
Tiramisu.
- [39:10]
Katie Lemieux
And I know that you love Bark Thins, too. I know that's not a big one.
- [39:14]
Jo Muirhead
Actually, I received a box of Bark Thins. I don't know who from. I think I do, but I get this box. But it's come from Kuwait.
- [39:24]
Katie Lemieux
Well, we.
- [39:25]
Jo Muirhead
Oh, really?
- [39:25]
Katie Lemieux
Recently, yes.
- [39:27]
Jo Muirhead
Wow.
- [39:28]
Katie Lemieux
How fun is that? I know we sent you Bark Thins and Sour Patch Kids when you were in Hawaii because you never had Sour Patch Kids.
- [39:35]
Jo Muirhead
That was an experience.
- [39:38]
Katie Lemieux
How fun, though, to get some bark fins from Kuwait. That's awesome.
- [39:41]
Dr. Kate Campbell
So, tiramisu, I'm gonna ask. We'll ask this last one and then Katie will ask one last one. What's one thing that you absolutely don't like that other people love?
- [39:56]
Jo Muirhead
Double macchiatos. Oh, beetroot.
- [40:01]
Katie Lemieux
What's beetroot?
- [40:03]
Jo Muirhead
Oh, beets. You call them beets? Oh, beets. Beetroot.
- [40:06]
Katie Lemieux
Gotcha.
- [40:07]
Jo Muirhead
Yeah, so we call it beetroot. You know that red vegetable, horrible beetroot.
- [40:13]
Dr. Kate Campbell
Yeah, I'm with you on that.
- [40:15]
Jo Muirhead
Everybody loves beets except Joe.
- [40:18]
Dr. Kate Campbell
Except for me, too. Yeah. They taste like dirt to me.
- [40:22]
Jo Muirhead
Yep. I agree. Not nice. Tastes like dirt.
- [40:25]
Katie Lemieux
The pickled ones are not that bad. I will say.
- [40:27]
Jo Muirhead
But anyway.
- [40:30]
Katie Lemieux
Do you have a birthday tradition?
- [40:34]
Jo Muirhead
Yes. Yeah.
- [40:36]
Katie Lemieux
Do tell.
- [40:37]
Jo Muirhead
It's a devil's food cake.
- [40:41]
Dr. Kate Campbell
Yum.
- [40:42]
Jo Muirhead
Yeah. So that's a birthday tradition that we've held for a very. My mom started that. So that's.
- [40:49]
Dr. Kate Campbell
Do you make it or someone makes it for you?
- [40:52]
Jo Muirhead
Well, for my birthday, someone will make it for me. For others birthdays, I will make it.
- [40:58]
Katie Lemieux
Oh, nice. I know Kate said one more question, but I just have one more. You're going on holiday. What's the first item that you pack?
- [41:08]
Jo Muirhead
Power board.
- [41:10]
Katie Lemieux
Your what?
- [41:12]
Jo Muirhead
The power board. You know, where you plug in all the different plugs.
- [41:20]
Katie Lemieux
Gotta make sure the electronics work.
- [41:22]
Jo Muirhead
Yeah. So I've learned now that that's the first thing that gets packed.
- [41:27]
Dr. Kate Campbell
That's so funny. I thought you were gonna say your own, like, favorite coffee or something like that, that you would bring it with you.
- [41:33]
Jo Muirhead
Okay. Yeah. So Matilda comes with. My coffee machine. Has her own name. Her name is Matilda. She does come in, but she's probably not the first thing that gets packed to be the power board. That's really funny.
- [41:45]
Katie Lemieux
That's great.
- [41:46]
Jo Muirhead
The first thing that gets packed when I come to the States is Matilda.
- [41:51]
Katie Lemieux
We're so utilizing that in the like social media posts as a little teaser or something like that. Who's Matilda and where does she get packed in the suitcase. So Joe, thanks so much for being such a great support despite everything that's going on. And I know that our fans, your fans, really wanted to to hear from you. So it was great to get up close and personal with you and learn a little bit more about you and just kind of what makes Joe tick and things that we hadn't known already. So we appreciate you for being here.
- [42:23]
Jo Muirhead
And thank you both for making this happen because it's not necessarily convenient for any of us. Thank you. Time zone changes.
- [42:29]
Katie Lemieux
No problem. No problem. Startup Nation. We hope you have an awesome and inspired day. And don't forget to check out the rest of Veer fan favorites, the ones that you guys chose in the Up Close and Personal podcast series. Stay inspired. Take care everybody.
- [42:43]
Dr. Kate Campbell
See you next time. Thanks for joining us on the Private practice startup. Visit theprivatepracticestartup.com for awesome resources, free trainings, attorney approved private practice paperwork, and so much more.
- [43:03]
Jo Muirhead
SA.