AASP Newsletter - November 2018

Lauren Tashman

A few months ago, I decided to take the leap and transition out of academia into full-time applied practice. For seven and a half years, I was a university professor who taught both undergraduate and graduate courses, provided supervision to the graduate applied students, worked with the athletic department, did some research and scholarly activities, and was a chair and committee member on several thesis projects. Besides doing all my other academia-related duties, I also operated a part-time private practice. While there is no other way I would have wanted to start my career, it felt like it was time to pursue without distraction my true passion: applied practice

Yet, as we continuously discuss in this field, leaping into full-time applied practice isn't easy and there is no real blueprint. I’m not wealthy; I’m single, so I don’t have a second income to assist me with this process; I don’t have investors and haven’t pursued getting any loans; and I’m not switching from one full-time job to another (think about all the extra concerns and expenses I now have to take care of like health insurance and estimated quarterly taxes).

I still remember my first day of class in grad school when I was told that full-time applied practice wasn’t a “real” career option. So, thinking about this decision I have made now, against that memory, makes me feel proud, but still a bit crazy! The field has progressed so much since I entered it (I started my masters in 2002 and finished my PhD in 2010) and yet, it still hasn’t reached a place where doing full-time applied practice, at least the solely mental performance consulting version, is commonplace or easy to make happen. But I knew this was what I wanted, for both personal and professional reasons (FYI, this was not just a career move but also a physical move from South Florida to New York City – during winter!). So, I decided to go for it, knowing it was either 100% full steam ahead, or fail miserably after uprooting my life.

Transitions have been explored quite a bit in our field, but mostly relative to the clients we work with. Little to no focus has been placed on our own experiences with transitions.  In case it helps others, who are or want to make a leap into private practice at some point in their careers, I’ll share some key thoughts, themes, and strategies that have come up for me in this process.

Theme #1 - Timing Really Is Everything

As I mentioned earlier, though I loved starting my career teaching, especially at a university that enabled me to also do applied practice, I always know that at some point I wanted to go into full-time consulting. I know now that I really wasn’t ready until this point. I didn’t have the years of experience, resume, understanding of my strengths and unique approach, or confidence to be able to make this move in my career (I still struggle with this one – read up on imposter syndrome!). And though I believe that we have a lot to do with creating our own circumstances and opportunities, I also believe that the world lets us know when the time is right and, if we are willing to keep our eyes open, helps us to see the opportunities available to us when we are ready. I have worked my butt off and have chosen to sacrifice many things (for years!) to put myself in a position for potentially achieving success in this endeavor. But I also have had a lot of “luck” in terms of the opportunities that have come my way since the minute I decided that I was ready for this move. I looked into this idea of when to take the leap (check out Mike Lewis’ new book “When to Jump: If the Job You Have Isn't the Life You Want” on this; haven’t read it so can’t advocate for it, but wish it had come out before I decided to make this move); some people say that you should keep a full-time job until you’re in a good enough position to be self-employed without needing that job, and others say you will never have the time you need to devote to building your business if it can’t be your first priority.

I can definitely say the latter has been true for me. While teaching full-time I had to say “no” to a lot of opportunities and de-prioritize things that would have grown myself and my business. Now, I get to prioritize these things and devote more time to stuff I love like writing, coming up with creative ideas in general and for sessions, and going out and meeting people to build relationships. Part of this process has also been a transition of my mindset and perspective: Sometimes, I still find myself in my “academic” mindset and have to realize that my priorities and what I focus my time on needs to shift a bit. I’m never reminded of this more than when one of my corporate clients looks at me like I’m the strangest human being ever when I tell them I’m working on a conference abstract or peer-reviewed journal article.

Theme #2 - Preparation, Plans, and Dominoes

I will fully admit here that I did not put a business plan together as per many recommendations from business books and otherwise (and I have to further admit I only sort of did this back in 2009 when I first started my private practice. In my defense, it was only a part-time business for me then and there wasn’t the information in our field there is now, albeit this is still limited, about the business side of applied practice). Rather, I tried to focus on what things I thought I needed to put into place (dominoes if you will) to get the ball rolling, to try to build a name for myself, and a business in a new city. First things first, I reached out to colleagues to get some support and advice. I’m not very good at asking for help, so this was a challenge for me (it’s a work in progress) but proved essential for making sure I was strategically and emotionally prepared for this transition. I can’t express my gratitude enough for the few people who helped me through this process! I also started saving money and sold things I wasn’t going to need, so that I could have enough to move and have a few months cushion as I tried to get things going. One thing I did long before moving was start applying to jobs on LinkedIn, in part to see what direction life took me in and also to start building connections. One of the probably 50 jobs I applied to turned into a phone call, which turned into an in-person meeting, which turned into nothing for a while, which then turned into an email from the CEO to set up a meeting to discuss how I could get involved with the company. I also applied for some adjunct teaching jobs so that I could have some part-time money coming in pretty much right away when I moved.

Those are a couple things I think I did right. One thing I did wrong was to not really think about some of the more important logistics. For example, I didn’t look into the process of moving a business from one state to another (fail!). In case you didn’t know, Limited Liability Companies (LLCs) are state-bound. While you may be able to file to operate as a foreign entity in a new state (each state has different requirements and rules), at least in my situation this turned out to be more expensive than just starting over with a new company. Unfortunately, I realized this after I filed to become a foreign entity, but fortunately New York is still old school in many ways (I’ve had to spend just over $1,000 on a publication notice in newspapers).  My paperwork was rejected because I made a mistake, so I did not have to pay too dearly for not prioritizing and figuring all of this out in the first place. And, I was grateful for it because I was able to re-brand, which I had wanted to do for a while anyway. If I’m honest, I think I was originally giving myself a safety net (i.e., if this move doesn’t work out I’ll just move back to Florida where my parents are and figure things out there).

Theme #3 - Riding the Rollercoaster of Emotions

To put it simply, my emotions vacillate between intense excitement and sheer terror. Some days I am able to focus on how grateful I am for the opportunity to do what I am most passionate about in a city that I love, and how proud I am of myself for taking this leap (as the CEO of one company I’m working with tells me, “You’re here because you had the balls to make this move.”). Yet, other times I’m consumed with worry about whether this is going to work out, what will happen if I fail, how I’m going to pay the bills without going into debt, whether going into debt is the right choice for me (side note: I recently watched an interview with the founders of the Skimm who decided to go into debt in order to get their business off the ground. I’m not advocating this, rather sharing what I’m learning and who I’m trying to learn it from). Again, social support has been huge here: as my mom keeps telling me during the times when the anxiety runs away with me a bit before I can get back on track, “Well, the worst that can happen is you lose all your money and have to come back and live with us.” This isn’t exactly a great thought at my age and place in my career, but she has a point about the “real” risk associated with this. As many in our field have mentioned, this job can be quite isolating, so it’s important to have at least a few people in your corner who can be there when you really need it (she sometimes gives me a proverbial kick in the butt too, which is equally helpful!)

As you may imagine, I also frequently experience the feeling of being overwhelmed. While I was always very busy and had multiple “jobs,” there is nothing like the fear of not being able to pay the bills to make the term “overwhelming” have quite a different connotation and impact. Further, the many things I had to do before were all somewhat consistent and related so I felt like I had a lot on my plate but it was easier to feel in control. Now, I have so many different things going on that I sometimes feel like my brain is going to explode, and I face some irrational concerns of completely forgetting the most important things.

Theme #4 - Practice What You Preach, Don’t Just Say You Do

This brings me to the importance of really putting into practice all those mental training strategies we teach our clients. I know we always tout the “practice what you preach” philosophy, but I am living proof that it is a NEED to follow this advice, NOT simply nice to do. I couldn’t get through this transition and the crazy emotional rollercoaster without using some of my go-to’s like reframing self-talk, daily mindfulness moments and meditation goals (goal systems rather than goals – sorry I’m one of those in our field who don’t believe that SMART goals are the answer to everything; definitely encourage people to read up on this theory by looking up Kruglanski’s work), visual focus cues (I have a lot of words and images in many different places to help me remember what’s important and what I have going on), and practicing self-care (see the new peer-reviewed article by Quartiroli and colleagues in the Journal of Applied Sport Psychology for a good read on this; Quartiroli et al., 2018).

This last one has probably been the hardest for me. There are so many messages out there about high performers and successful CEOs who work harder and longer than anyone else; one article I came across called it their “insane work ethic,” highlighting how little they sleep, how they don’t take vacations, read a book a week…you get the idea. So, it can be really hard to take the time needed to recharge. I’ve always been a bit of a perfectionist but used to be able to more easily take my much needed “me” time. Now, I find myself de-prioritizing scheduling those types of activities because I feel like I don’t have time for them or, if I do allow myself a break, I have this annoying and pervasive feeling that I “should” be doing something and this is going to “cost” me in some way. Even more reason to practice what I preach! I have learned the hard way, in years past, about the physical and mental challenges that come with overworking, and that I’m no good for myself or others if I don’t take at least a little bit of time to recharge. This brings me to a final strategy I have incorporated: clarifying “my why” and connecting with it often. I know exactly why I moved here, I got very clear on that before I made the decision to actually go through with it. And I am very clear on who I am (my values) and what kind of life I want to lead (the pain of regretting something you didn’t do, especially as a result of fear or uncertainty, is far worse to me than going after what you want and it not working out). So, I make sure I remind myself of these things often and even use mantras to keep that as prime real estate in my mind.

Theme #5 - Relationships, Patience, and Trust

As I said, my initial approach was to try to build relationships and create domino effects. This has always been my approach. I really believe that what we do is about relationships, and have recently had this validated by a few well-known and respected business consultants. Especially in today’s information age where our clients can get all the sport psych strategies on their own with much less effort and commitment and for zero money (not to mention the fact that there are many people doing what we do out there), we have to give potential and established clients something more valuable. I’ve heard some people in and out of our field say that you shouldn’t do too much without getting paid because it devalues you and your work. But in my experience, investing myself and my time in building relationships without asking for anything or too much upfront, as well as job crafting over time, has been a huge part of how I’ve gotten many opportunities over the years. I can admit this was a much easier approach to take when I had the safety of a full-time job behind me (i.e., moola!), but it has been a key to my success, so I try to remind myself of this often. Trust me, I know I need to make money, but I’m also trying to build a brand for myself, which requires a long-term rather than short-term focus. I’d rather have something build slowly and last for many years, rather than just focus on a short-term or one-time sale now. Okay, maybe I need both at this point in time, but I’m trying to focus more on the former than the latter. So clearly, I’m having to really exercise that patience muscle along with constant reminders of needing to trust myself, my background, and my process. This is so much easier said than done… and again where practicing mindfulness and connecting often with “my why” and my values has been a necessity for me.

Theme #6 - Practicing the Art of Rejection and Learning from Failure

Building relationships isn’t easy and it is true that more successful people fail a lot more often because they pursue a far greater number of potential opportunities. A huge challenge for me has been putting myself out there more, which means getting rejected and failing more. I already mentioned my tendency towards imposter syndrome and I’m a huge introvert who’s had to learn how to become more of an ambivert. Rejection feels awful and can come in the form of just not hearing back from people (like ever… nothing, no word at all!), hearing the word “no”, or many other varieties (watch Jia Jiang’s TedTalk on his 100 days of rejection…it’s life changing!). Finding a way to practice resilience and focus on what I can learn from these failures to get better and modify my approach has been essential. For example, I had the opportunity to meet with the HR Director of a tech startup. She and many of the people who work there come from Google and Facebook and have adopted many of their practices. They’ve brought in many other executive coaches and leadership development specialists already. I’ll be honest that I wasn’t exactly clear going in on how to pitch myself. I did, however, get the opportunity to submit a proposal and meet with the CEO and another VP. While those meetings went well, nothing has come from this and I’m not surprised. This certainly brought up some negative emotions and self-defeating thoughts, but I eventually shifted to learning value from this experience. Something the CEO mentioned to me during our meeting, in terms of how I can pitch what I am able to do in the business environment, didn’t click at the time, but really has now. So, lesson learned, and hopefully I will have an opportunity to apply it in the future.

Theme #7 - Getting Creative and Out of My Box

I’ve always been an advocate of professional development, but over the years - and because of the multifaceted education and experience I was fortunate to get along my journey, I’ve come to value pursuing knowledge and skills outside of the sport psychology world. Don’t get me wrong, I still keep up with the latest research and information that comes out of our field, I have attended the AASP conference every year since the start of my master’s degree, and I also try to get some insight from people in our field whose voices are less commonly heard or sought out, or who do work outside the realm of sport (since that was a part of my rationale on the professional side for moving to New York City).

However, I also know there’s a lot I don’t know that I could benefit from in terms of my business operations and how I do my client work.  So, another thing I think I have done right was to start pursuing opportunities to learn new things about business, marketing, consulting, different industries, etc. that I didn’t know and that aren’t typical or mainstream. I look for inspiration everywhere! In my experience, we are not (and don’t have to be) a traditional business and there are so many other industries or new “side hustles” as is the term lately that we could learn from. I already read a ton…total book nerd, but I also started signing up for any opportunity for a free webinar or whatever from non-sport psych experts, thought leaders, or people who have started their own non-traditional businesses. There was one online summit I signed up for which took place over almost two weeks that you could only get free access to in a 24-hour period. So I stayed up every night after long days of work to watch the video interviews before they disappeared (see discussion above about self-care; I don’t view this one as a fail in that department though. I thought it was an important opportunity to pursue and since there was a free option I was going to take it).

Once you sign up for one of these webinars and get on their mailing list, they start sending things out about similar opportunities from some of their colleagues or what they term ‘joint venture partners’. Of course, you have to be mindful of the fact that they are using these opportunities to try to get you to buy whatever they are selling, but you can often get a lot of good information from some of their free offerings and then decide which, if any, of their paid offerings might be useful to and feasible for you. Some of the topics I took interest in related to getting better at the art of persuasion and sales (e.g., Matthew Kimberley), using media strategically and with a bottom up approach to develop an identity as an expert (e.g., Selena Soo), learning from someone who started a multimillion dollar business from nothing with no experience (e.g., Mary Forleo), and other views and approaches similar to the work we do but from different fields or industries (e.g., Adam Grant, Ron Friedman, Heidi Grant Halvorson). The aim of this was in part to learn new things about business, but also to get creative about my consulting practice. In my experience, real-world private mental consulting practice does not look like what it did in graduate school or when I was doing it at a university. And maybe it shouldn’t. Maybe we pigeonhole ourselves too much if we just focus on the traditional one-on-one mental coaching and teambuilding. So I’ve tried to get some inspiration from some of those individuals I just mentioned and many others to be able to get creative with what I’m doing and how I’m doing it, what services I’m offering, how I’m pitching myself, and how I’m getting my name out there (hard to build a business in a new city if people don’t know you exist!).

The jury is still out, in my opinion, about whether I will end up being successful or not, or what the rest of my journey will be like. It’s too early to tell and right now I’m still focusing on building relationships and my brand, as well asand trying to effectively manage my money. Some days I think things are going great and I feel confident, and on other days,s not so much. And I’m really trying to balance taking control of things (putting myself in a position to be successful) and just letting things happen. I do know one thing for sure though: my success or failure will not be a result of me not going after this with everything I’ve got.