"I thought I knew everything about being a boss. I'd been my own boss for ten years."

But I wasn't a business owner who happened to be a therapist — I was a therapist who happened to have a business. And there's a world of difference. In this episode I get honest about the ten years of mountains nobody warns you about: the messy books, the thirteen offices, the taxes and insurance and S-corp nuances grad school never mentioned, and the quiet fear and avoidance underneath all of it.

Then I go where most business content won't — the emotional cost of constantly stretching, failing, and getting back up. And I introduce the protector who ran the show for me: the Dimmer. The part that learned, a long time ago, that shining too bright either hurt the people I loved or made me a target. So when a supervisee I believed in handed me one of the biggest compliments of my life — you could lead a group practice — the Dimmer's first move was to shut it down. Who am I to do that?

This is the story of sitting down with that part instead of overriding her — and what happened when I finally said yes and started Root & Rise Collective.

In this episode:
• Therapist-who-owns-a-business vs. business-owner-who's-a-therapist — and why the difference matters
• The stuff grad school never taught you (and why you need business classes as much as clinical ones)
• Meet the Dimmer: the protector that keeps you small right when you're about to grow
• How a compliment can trigger a protector harder than criticism
• Sitting with a part somatically — and what happens when a second protector shows up
• Why "when it's aligned, the hard stuff doesn't feel as hard"

The business nitty-gritty lives on my Substack, The Regulated CEO. This show is the nervous-system half — because for an owner, those were never two different things.

If you're building or scaling and trying to expand your capacity without abandoning yourself, you're in the right place. Follow along. 🤍

🌱 Root & Rise Collective — my group practice
📖 The Regulated CEO on Substack
📍 Which part is running your show? Take the quiz — link in bio