IAM1837 – Clinical Psychology Practitioner, Author and Podcaster Helps Busy Women Thrive in Beautiful Chaos

Transcription:

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Dr. Zoe Shaw Teaser 00:00

Our training as therapists, the type of work we do on the internet is very anti, the type of training we get in the academic institutions, which are changing, it's changing now, but it's hard for therapists to make that shift to being a public figure when we are so used to being in an office closed door private.

So, yeah, I think in order to succeed, you do have to be able to make that shift and many therapists aren't able to do that.

Intro 00:27

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of.

This is the I AM CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:50

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I appreciate you listening to this episode. If you've been listening this year, you know that we've hit 1600 episodes at the beginning of this year. We're doing something a little bit different where we're repurposing our favorite episodes around certain categories, topics, or as I like to call them, business pillars that we think are going to be extremely impactful for CEOs, entrepreneurs, and business owners, just like you, what I like to call the CB nation architects who are looking to level up their organizations.

This month we are focusing on CEO Hacks and CEO Nuggets. This is by far one of my favorite questions I asked on the show. In other words, I asked, what are the apps, books, and habits that make you more effective and efficient. Those were the CEO hacks. Then I asked for a word of wisdom or a piece of advice or something that you might tell your younger business self if you were to hop into a time machine. Those were the CEO nuggets. That's what we'll focus on this month and some of this top ones that can instantly impact your business.

I love all the questions, but with every episode I felt I would walk away with something I could look at and implement, right there to save the precious resources, time and money.Or I would also learn about the advice, tips and tidbits or tools of the trade on how to level up our organization. So you'll hear some of these this month. So sit back and enjoy this special episode of the I AM CEO podcast.

Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Dr. Zoe Shaw of the Dr. Zoe show. Dr. Zoe is awesome to have you on the show.

Dr. Zoe Shaw 02:25

Awesome. I'm so excited to be here.

Gresham Harkless 02:28

I'm so excited to have you on and what I want to do is just read a little bit more about Dr. Zoe so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing.

Dr. Zoe is a passionate practitioner in the field of Clinical Psychology. She is licensed as a Psychotherapist and divides her time between her family life, clinical practice, virtual life, and relationship coaching, speaking, writing, and hosting her podcast, The Dr. Zoe Show.

Dr. Zoe enjoys writing about women's issues and is a contributing writer to Your Tango and the Grit and Grace Project. She recently launched her Ask Dr. Zoe column at the Grit and Grace Project an online women's magazine.

Dr. Zoe, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Dr. Zoe Shaw 03:08

I am so ready.

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Gresham Harkless 03:09

Awesome. Let's do it. So the first question I had was to hear a little bit more about your CEO story and what led you to start your business.

Dr. Zoe Shaw 03:16

I think I have been an entrepreneur since birth, but I was never really willing to accept it. I never really saw myself as an entrepreneur. I never really saw myself as a business owner, but everything I did, probably from the minute I graduated from college was entrepreneurial much more than my colleagues, who are going and working at hospitals or traditional psychology practices.

So my journey was really probably more about being willing to accept that's who and what I am. So I started out in private practice. I was pretty young when I first started and I had to learn all about marketing. I had to learn about networking. My journey really started creating my own private practice then I went to creating a group practice where I was hiring other therapists to work with me. And yeah, it just took a couple of years before I was like, okay, I guess I really am a business owner. This is really what I want to do and I don't ever want to be employed.

Gresham Harkless 04:21

There you go. Now that makes perfect sense. So I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper and hear how exactly you are helping the clients that you work with here a little bit more about your practice and of course your podcast.

Dr. Zoe Shaw 04:30

As you mentioned, I work very hard on balancing mom work life. And so, I've got four kids at home, five altogether. I also homeschool and so my journey has really been about focusing on that balance. So over the years, I have started practices and I have stopped practices because the things that were going on in my life. When I came back about six years ago, I discovered the internet as a vehicle for my business because before that, I started 20 years ago in business, I stepped onto the internet as a platform for my business, which is amazing. So as a therapist, I am no longer just constrained to a brick-and-mortar building. Although I do have a brick-and-mortar practice. I really only work in the practice about once a week. The rest of my practice is online.

So I do video therapy with people all over the world and I have really honed my brand down now. So I focus more on working with women who are what I call in the thick of it, who are busy mamas, usually maybe they have their own kind of side hustle or they are entrepreneurs themselves, or, they're working, they have husbands or partners, and they're in that time of life where things are super busy and they're trying to balance it off.

My goal, really, my passion is to help women find that balance in their lives and what I call harness their superpower and share it with the world. That's my niche right now. I do therapy in the office and virtually. I also am a speaker, so I'm a motivational speaker. I do that as well. And I write and have my podcast. So my podcast was really just birthed out of the work that I do.

Gresham Harkless 06:14

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. As you mentioned with the evolution of the internet and just industries in general, a lot of times your practice and whatever you're doing will pivot along with the trends of that industry.

Dr. Zoe Shaw 06:25

Without a doubt. And I think the problem, especially for people in my arena is that it hasn't pivoted. They're still really trying to do things the old way. I speak to so many therapists and I know that it's twofold because in our training as therapists, the type of work we do on the internet is very anti, the type of training we get in the academic institutions, which are changing.

It's changing now, but it's hard for therapists to make that shift to being a public figure when we are so used to being in an office closed-door private. So yeah, I think in order to succeed, you do have to be able to make that shift and many therapists aren't able to do that.

Gresham Harkless 07:05

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce and some people have called it their superpower, but what do you feel sets you apart and distinguishes you.

Dr. Zoe Shaw 07:12

I think one of the things that really does set me apart is the fact that I do focus so much on balance and I feel that I've been able to attain it really well. Now, what I do know is that I probably have a larger capacity for stress than maybe most people do, but I think because I do, I can also help teach other people how to deal with theirs, manage it, and in some ways really harness it. So I'd say that's one of the superpowers.

In terms of my business as a person individually, I think my superpower is really empathy and my belief that all behavior makes sense in its context. Because of that, I don't have a sense of judgment when it comes to people and people feel that when they interact with me that I'm not judging. I'd say that's my superpower and allows me to really help people and get into where they are in their present, accept themselves.

When you accept yourself, then you're able to actually show yourself to the world and everybody has their superpower, but a lot of people cover it. A lot of people don't have any confidence in it and are fearful of really expressing it. So, when you're in a place of non-judgment, it helps you to be able to harness that.

Gresham Harkless 08:24

Yeah and from what you were talking about, how you felt that you've always been an entrepreneur, but you just started to accept it. Often they have something that they might've been doing since they were a kid or since they were born, and then they're not necessarily stepping into that because like you said, they might be nervous or scared or some reason why they're not stepping into that.

Dr. Zoe Shaw 08:40

Yeah, without a doubt. I think that on a professional level is certainly a strength that I have, or I should say a journey that I have walked. And then on a personal level, too, I am writing a memoir right now. I know that my process of writing my memoir has also made me a better therapist because I have my own life history and issues.

With shame behind them and so many people do and so many people have difficulty really being authentic because they don't believe that who they are as a person is valuable and worthy. So my process of writing the memoir has also taken me on an additional journey and I can therefore of course help others on their journey as well.

Gresham Harkless 09:22

Awesome. Awesome. What I wanted to do was switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack, and this might be an app, a book or a habit that you have, but it's something that you feel makes you more effective and efficient as an entrepreneur business owner.

Dr. Zoe Shaw 09:34

Absolutely. As a CEO, we have so many functions and we are doing our business, right? There are things that we have to do to actually sell. So for instance, for my work, I am a therapist and so I have to be doing therapy in order for the money to come in and the business to work. But sometimes we don't put a lot of time in the running aspect of our business and we don't schedule that. So for me, I set aside Fridays as my day that I do no therapy. All I do is focus on the running of my actual business. That has been a game changer because before I was doing it here and there and when I had time and stuffing it in, and now I really have set aside a whole day to dedicate.

When I first started doing it, I felt Oh, it feels like a waste of time because I'm taking a whole day and I'm not making money on that day. But what I realized is when we talk about that shift, there's that shift almost, like this catapult that when you start to really invest in that way, in your business, the money comes in other places. The other simple thing is Planoly so for any of you guys who are on Instagram, I just love Planoly. It's an app that plans out all of my posts. The cool thing about Planoly is that you could schedule out posts for the whole month and it automates your whole Instagram and you can not just schedule the post or the pictures or the videos, but also the text that goes along and the hashtags.

That's been a lifesaver because I don't have to spend my life on my social media. I can take a block of time, do it, and know that it's gonna be automated. Then I'd say maybe a third one, a lot of small business entrepreneurs have a difficult time with delegating and putting money and other people helping you because, it's our baby and we've grown it ourselves. There's a sense, at least for me, as a recovering control freak of, I got it. If I don't do it, it's not going to be done right. So when I hired my personal assistant. It was two things, investing money and somebody else helping me, which was difficult. Then also letting go of my process and how things had to be done.

That was another shift and the catapult in my business was hiring other people to help me do things.

Gresham Harkless 11:49

I love those. I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. This is a word of wisdom or piece of advice, or if you could hop into a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Dr. Zoe Shaw 11:57

I think I would tell my younger business self to not be afraid. And to allow my creativity to be a part of my business and the times that I have tried different things and not been afraid to try different things, I've had crazy successes, but I've also had some flops and a game changer for me and my business and really in my personal life as well. It happened when I read this book called Rejection Proof by Jia Jiang, if I'm pronouncing it correctly, and I think any business owner, any entrepreneur needs to read that book because as much as we are go-getters and we are hustlers and we have some fierceness about us.

I think probably all of us have that fear of failure, which sometimes drives us as entrepreneurs and rejection and that book changed my life, which is actually why I have my column at the Grit and Grace because he really talked about his journey to entrepreneurship and his need to fight against that fear of rejection and really by not being afraid to put yourself out there and have the asks. After I read that book, there were a number of things that I was just like, okay, I'm just going to do it. I'm just going to go for it. Even though I'm scared, it's the whole field of fear and do it anyway, right?

That's how I got my column at the Grit and Grace Project is because I contacted the owner and I'd been writing for them for a while. We had a relationship, I'd been on their podcast and I said, Hey, listen, I have this idea of doing this column, which I think could be a win for both of us. And we got into negotiations and it happened and I never probably would have taken that step to do that. That's just a small one, which has actually just had great dividends in my practice.

But yeah, so I'd say if we were talking about a hack that book being willing to step out in fear is probably one of the biggest little nuggets as an entrepreneur.

Gresham Harkless 13:51

Yeah, I definitely agree with that. Now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of being a CEO. We're hoping to have different quote and quote CEOs on the show and redefine exactly like what it means to be a CEO?

Dr. Zoe Shaw 14:04

Being a CEO for me, it really means freedom. It means that I get to choose my life and I get to choose how my talents are expressed in the world. It's about freedom, but also it's about creating something that's larger than yourself and knowing clearly what your mark is on the world.

Gresham Harkless 14:26

Yeah, it makes perfect sense. Because if you're clear with, I think your purpose and your goal and why you put here on this earth to a deeper degree, then you can start to make decisions in alignment with that.

Dr. Zoe Shaw 14:36

Absolutely. And I love that you just talked about the whole failure aspect, because on my podcast, every episode I started out with my personal failure and my personal win of the week. I do that specifically for the same reason that you just talked about, because I want other women to recognize that our failures are important and we have to honor them because we learn from them and nobody is perfect. And that whole concept of superwoman, my podcast is about redefining what that means because there is no superwoman.

So I love that Sarah Blakely, you said that she talked about her father doing that and that's exactly what I do on my podcast and I encourage other people to do that instead of trying to ignore and push away those failures. Let's look at them, take them out. What have we learned from them. Let's honor them as well as our successes too, we've got to do that too.

Gresham Harkless 15:25

Absolutely. That makes perfect sense. Dr. Zoe, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out of your schedule. What I wanted to do was pass you the mic just to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know, and then also how best people can get ahold of you. And of course, subscribe to your podcast.

Dr. Zoe Shaw 15:39

So people can get ahold of me. All of my social media is Dr. Zoe Shaw. My website is drzoeshaw.com and check out my podcast, which is the Dr. Zoe Show, Redefining Your Superwoman. Instagram is the best place to connect with me.

All my stuff is on there too. Little word of wisdom. Consistency, too many people give up, and that poem. Never quit, I believe is the type of name that talks about how the fact that too many people give up right before they were really getting ready to reap all the benefits of their work.

Gresham Harkless 16:12

I love it. I appreciate you, Dr. Zoe. I appreciate everything that you're doing and I appreciate your time, obviously today, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Dr. Zoe Shaw 16:19

Thank you so much.

Outro 16:20

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community.

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Grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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