42 | You're Not Risk Averse, You're Strategic: with Orli Paling

42 | You're Not Risk Averse, You're Strategic: with Orli Paling

Orli Paling built a group practice out of pandemic-era demand, walked away from an associate who no longer fit her vision, and expanded to in-person services without ever making a decision that felt risky. She called herself risk-averse. She was wrong, and the reframe that replaced that label is one every scaling practice owner needs to hear: good strategy doesn't feel risky. It feels safe. Orli Paling is the founder and clinical director of OP Counselling Services, a group practice in East Vancouver specializing in addictions and substance use, ADHD, concurrent disorders, and trauma. In practice since 2013, she began her career redesigning an intensive day treatment program for youth before building a team whose clinicians all train in residential addictions treatment. She is also a member of The Practice CEO Circle, where much of the leadership evolution in this episode took shape. She shares: * Why her supposed risk aversion was actually a strategy, and how testing a sublease before signing a lease proved it * How her practice grew from solo to group organically, and why that transition takes years, not one tactic * Why clients won't book with your associates, and what it really takes to build their reputations * The shift from acting like a friend to leading like a boss, including the associate she let go * Why boundaries and expectations are a loving directive, not a risk to your team culture * The identity shift of claiming the CEO seat: business owner first, clinician by choice * How planning her calendar a year out changed what time off actually feels like * The K-shaped market coming for Canadian therapy, and who will thrive in it (00:00) Intro (01:42) From Solo to Group Practice: How It Actually Happened (06:16) Why Clients Won't Book with Your Associates (09:07) Removing Yourself as the Practice's Entry Point (11:26) Downloading 13 Years of Knowledge to Your Team (14:52) Orli's Leadership Evolution: Leading by Example (18:11) How Her Team Reacted to New Expectations (20:52) The Identity Shift: Claiming the CEO Seat (24:31) Your Group Practice Is a Ship, and You're the Captain (27:13) Owning Your Calendar and Planning Real Time Off (37:36) Risk Averse or Strategic? The Reframe (40:46) Proof of Concept: Testing In-Person Before Leasing (42:32) The K-Shaped Market Coming for Canadian Therapy (45:29) The Referral Relationships New Grads Are Missing (55:03) Where to Find Orli Follow Orli: Website - https://www.opcounseling.com [https://www.opcounseling.com] LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/orli-paling/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/orli-paling/] Purpose & Profit: The Sustainable Therapy Practice Podcast: * Work with Cecilia (1:1 business coaching and The Practice CEO Circle) - https://www.ceciliamannella.com [https://www.ceciliamannella.com] * Connect with Cecilia on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/cecilia-mannella/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/cecilia-mannella/] * Join other therapy practice owners at the first leadership summit, Together in Practice - https://www.togetherinpractice.ca/ [https://www.togetherinpractice.ca/] Cecilia Mannella is a registered clinical counsellor, group practice owner, and business coach for Canadian therapy practice owners. With 25 years in practice and a seven-figure group practice of her own, she created the Sustainable Practice Framework™ to help practice leaders scale with purpose, profit, people, and process intact.

41 | What to Do When Things Slow Down: Five Audits for Therapy Practice Owners

When things slow down in your therapy practice, the summer slowdown, the cancellations, the no-shows, the ebb and flow every group practice owner feels this time of year, the instinct is to panic and hustle for more clients. In this episode of Purpose & Profit, Cecilia Mannella challenges that narrative and reframes the slow season as your single best opportunity to do the deeper work of leadership. Drawing on 18 years of building and scaling a group practice in Canada, Cecilia walks through the five audits she runs every slow season to come into the fall feeling powerful, grounded, and refreshed, rather than fearful and reactive. This isn't about marketing harder. It's about using the breathing room to build the structures that make your next growth phase possible. When things slow down in your therapy practice, the slow season is your invitation to lead, and the five audits in this episode (systems, structures, visibility, finances, and mindset) are how you turn the quiet months into the foundation for your next phase of growth. In this episode, you'll learn: * Why the summer slowdown is a predictable pattern, not a crisis, and how to forecast and prepare for it * How to audit your systems before you rush to fix them (and why "questions coming at you over and over" is your biggest tell) * The right order for creating structures and policies, and why so many therapists jump to solutions before they understand the problem * How to audit your visibility using an incognito window and AI search, by having a conversation as your own ideal client to see whether you show up at all * How to audit your finances over a 6 to 12 month window so you can detach from the emotion and read the actual story the numbers are telling * Why auditing your mindset is the hardest and most fruitful work, and the journaling prompts that move you through the fear barrier The journaling prompts (your mindset audit): Cecilia promised these in the episode, so here they are to take with you somewhere peaceful and beautiful: 1. What is the mindset I actually hold as a leader of my business? 2. In what ways does this mindset (likely part of your unregulated system, your beliefs and your thoughts) try to stop you, ask you to slow down, or ask you to turn around on your next step? 3. What do you need to be thinking and believing to regulate yourself through that fear barrier? What is the story you need to believe to move through it? 4. What am I trying to make easy that simply isn't easy? 5. What would be different if you were willing to go all in on the hard, with the intention of getting stronger through it? Here's the reframe underneath all of it: we keep trying to make something easy that isn't easy for anybody. Business is hard. The breakthrough doesn't live on the other side of figuring out how to make it easy. It lives on the other side of the fear barrier, where you stop asking why it isn't easier and start asking how you get stronger going through it. Resources + Links Mentioned: * 🌐 Website: ceciliamannella.com [https://www.ceciliamannella.com/] * 💼 LinkedIn: Connect with Cecilia [https://www.linkedin.com/in/cecilia-mannella/]

40 | Together in Practice: Stepping from Therapist to CEO

In this special announcement episode, Cecilia Mannella and Steph Davis share the exciting story behind their upcoming virtual summit: Together in Practice. They dive into the distinct shift from being a stellar clinical therapist to embracing the seat of a business leader and CEO. If you are a private practice owner—or are simply "group curious"—this episode is your sneak peek behind the curtain of the conversations, community, and strategy waiting for you this fall. EPISODE BREAKDOWN * The Spark Story: How a 20-minute virtual coffee chat turned into a 90-minute alignment of minds, a previous podcast episode, and ultimately, a shared vision for a virtual summit. * The Missing Piece in Therapy: Why clinical training isn't enough to run a business, lead a team, or coach yourself through tough leadership moments. * Collaboration Over Competition: Building a panel of women who share foundational values but bring diverse expertise to the business side of practice. * Active vs. Passive Learning: Why this summit won't be another boring 8-hour virtual lecture, and how the custom workbook will hold you accountable to actual implementation. MEET YOUR SUMMIT SPEAKERS The summit features a powerhouse lineup of five speakers bringing different pillars of expertise: 1. Steph Davis & Laura Bull: (Shoreline Counselling [https://www.shorelinecounselling.ca/]) Sharing their deep expertise on culture building, partnership longevity, leadership authenticity, and making choices aligned with your values. 2. Lindsay Bonham: (Money Skills for Group Practice Owners [https://moneyskillsfortherapists.com/msgpo-guide-o/]) Tackling financial leadership, numbers literacy, and stepping out of emotional decision-making to build a stable, profitable business. 3. Elana Sures: (Open Spaces Counselling & Group Practice Performance [https://www.grouppracticeperformance.com/]) Focusing on clinical excellence, sustainability, and retention strategies to help reduce therapist burnout. 4. Cecilia Mannella [https://www.ceciliamannella.com/]: Diving deep into strategic visibility, long-term sustainability, thought leadership, succession planning, and visionary CEO thinking. SUMMIT DETAILS & STRUCTURE To prevent virtual fatigue, the summit is intentionally split across two half-day Saturday sessions: * Day 1: Saturday, October 17th | The Business Foundation – Transitioning from therapist to CEO, establishing values, financial literacy, and sustainability. * Day 2: Saturday, October 24th | Scaling & Team Leadership – Deep dives into culture, partnerships, long-term future forecasting, and scaling for group practices (or the group curious). TICKET TIERS AVAILABLE: * Day 1 Pass: For those starting out who want to master the foundational business concepts. * Full Summit Pass: Access to both days for the full structural and scaling experience. * The Inner Room (VIP) Pass: Strictly limited to 20 seats. Includes access to exclusive communities, a post-session roundtable with the speakers for direct Q&A, and dedicated coaching sessions. LINKS & RESOURCES MENTIONED * Save Your Seat & Read Speaker Bios: togetherinpractice.ca [https://www.togetherinpractice.ca/] * Steph's Podcast: A Not-So-Private Practice

39 | How Do You Make the Jump From Solo to Group Practice with Laura Boyko

If you are a Canadian therapy practice owner who has spent years leading teams and still feels surprised by how different it is to lead your own group practice, this episode is for you. Cecilia sits down with Laura Boyko, MSW, RSW, [https://bewelltherapy.ca/registered-social-worker-laura-boyko-msw-rsw/] founder of BeWell Therapy [https://bewelltherapy.ca/] in Whitby, Ontario, to talk about the emotional reality of going from solo to group, why a decade of leadership experience doesn't fully prepare you for putting your own name on the door, and how to lead people well without letting every decision become an emotional one. This is the People pillar — and it is the piece most established practice owners assume they've already mastered. In This Episode: Why your leadership credentials and years running teams still won't fully prepare you for the emotional weight of a practice with your own name on the door. How to notice when a business decision is being driven by emotion, and what it takes to strip that out without becoming cold or detached. The "I should already know this" trap that hits hardest for owners with the most experience, and why private practice leadership is a genuinely different skill set. Why the post-pandemic drop in people showing up to in-person community events may run on a roughly seven-year cycle, and what that means for how you plan your practice between now and 2028. The leadership and finance gap many women in business carry, and why getting honest with your numbers and hiring for your blind spots matters more than doing it all yourself. Resources + Links Mentioned: * 🌐 Website: ceciliamannella.com [https://www.ceciliamannella.com/] * 💼 LinkedIn: Connect with Cecilia [https://www.linkedin.com/in/cecilia-mannella/] * Laura Boyko / BeWell Therapy — Instagram @bewell.therapy [https://www.instagram.com/bewell.therapy/], website bewelltherapy.ca [https://bewelltherapy.ca/] Ready to Stop Leading in Isolation? Join The Practice CEO Circle You've built something real. A full caseload, a respected reputation, a team that's growing. And if you're honest, you're carrying most of it alone, because there's no one at your level to think it through with. The Practice CEO Circle is the executive-level peer space for established Canadian therapy practice owners who are done figuring it out in isolation. A curated room of leaders operating at the CEO level, where the conversation already assumes competence and goes somewhere you haven't been. For those who are looking for something beyond another FB group. → Join The Practice CEO Circle [https://www.ceciliamannella.com/the-practice-ceo-circle]

38 | Leading a Group Practice with Haley Moore: Why Therapists Who Built a Team Are Still Acting Like a Friend Instead of a Leader

If you are a Canadian therapy practice owner looking to grow a virtual group therapy practice and have noticed that you're leading more like a friend than a boss, this episode is for you. Cecilia sits down with Haley Moore, RSW, founder of the virtual group practice Therapy Uninterrupted, to unpack how she transitioned from a solo and lonely practice to a team of six in just two years, and the leadership identity shift that growth necessitated. This is the People pillar in action, and it's the piece most established practice owners quietly skip. In This Episode: Why Haley deliberately hired a student before an established therapist, and how lower stakes plus a clean slate let her build her processes around someone still learning. Why a team of six in two years isn't slow growth at all, when business benchmarks treat 40% year-over-year as accelerated and she's far exceeded it. How standing optional weekly meetings plus twice-yearly in-person gatherings solved the team-connection problem without making the owner coordinate everyone's calendar. Why no encounter is a chance encounter in a virtual practice, so team connection and clinician comparison have to be engineered on purpose. How running short, low-cost experiments like walk-and-talk therapy and one-off workshops opens new revenue streams without committing to a lease. Resources + Links Mentioned: * 🌐 Website: ceciliamannella.com [https://www.ceciliamannella.com/] * 💼 LinkedIn: Connect with Cecilia [https://www.linkedin.com/in/cecilia-mannella/] * 🌐 Haley Moore — Therapy Uninterrupted: therapyuninterrupted.ca [https://www.therapyuninterrupted.ca/] * 📸 Therapy Uninterrupted on Instagram: LINK [https://www.instagram.com/therapyuninterrupted/] Work With Cecilia — The Practice CEO Circle™ You've built something real. A full caseload, a respected reputation, a practice that runs — mostly — on your own steam. And if you're honest, you're carrying it alone. The payroll math, the profit questions, the leadership decisions you can't talk through with your own team. The Practice CEO Circle™ is the executive-level peer room for established Canadian therapy practice owners who are done being the most advanced person in every space they're in. A curated mastermind where the baseline assumption is competence — and where you finally get to think out loud with people who actually understand what it's like to lead a practice and stay a clinician. → Join The Practice CEO Circle [https://www.ceciliamannella.com/the-practice-ceo-circle]