Pursuing Happiness as a Therapist: An interview with Stevon Lewis, LMFT
Curt and Katie interview Stevon Lewis, LMFT, about how he makes his career more sustainable. We look at his current philosophies around low effort, alignment, and fun. We also explore how he was able to initially able temper his expectations, work through misaligned paths, and pivot when needed. Finally, we talk about what it looks like behind the scenes to pursue a number of different revenue and marketing streams.
Click here to scroll to the podcast transcript.Transcript
An Interview with Stevon Lewis, LMFT
Stevon is a speaker, author, executive advisor, and the host of the podcast, “How to Talk to High Achievers About Anything,” proudly produced by LWC Studios. With a unique background as a licensed psychotherapist, Stevon is a trusted expert in his field, dedicated to empowering high achievers to overcome Impostor Syndrome and cultivate a transformative shift in their mindset, allowing them to foster a deeper connection with their achievements and a broader definition of success.
He is the author of the journal, “Silencing Your Inner Bully: An Acknowledgment Journal for Impostor Syndrome.” This journal serves as a tool for individuals seeking to confront and conquer their impostorism by guiding them through exercises that lead to an acknowledgment of their skills and ability and growth to accept that they are a work in progress and are doing amazing things nonetheless.
His abilities as a speaker have garnered him recognition on prestigious television and media platforms, such as the illustrious Oprah Winfrey Network, the dynamic KevOnStage Studios, and the esteemed Boston Globe. His commitment to mental health and personal development is evident through his workshops on Impostor Syndrome and related topics, conducted for a diverse array of organizations, such as Tory Burch, Scotch Porter, The Creative Collective NYC, Deluxe Media Entertainment, Augusta University, CSU Long Beach, Pepperdine University, Chan-Zuckerberg Institute, Power Digital Marketing, BLK Dating App (a subsidiary of Match.com), and A New Direction, a London-based nonprofit dedicated to supporting and nurturing individuals from underrepresented communities within the creative and digital industries.
In this podcast episode, we talk about how to make a sustainable therapy career
We invited Stevon Lewis back to talk about creating a sustainable career, even if it means pivoting and rebuilding your career or your brand.
How can you build a positive and sustainable career as a therapist?
“Is it me, and I need rest? Or is it that the work I’m doing is no longer fulfilling me in the way that I am?” – Stevon Lewis, LMFT Author of “Silencing Your Inner Bully: An Acknowledgement Journal for Impostor Syndrome”
- It’s important to assess your performance, your level of happiness, etc.
- Don’t be afraid to pivot
- Assess if you are working too hard or are misaligned with the work
- Determine whether your unease is due to lack of skill or misalignment
- Frame assessment based on practical evaluation versus moving to “I’m a failure”
When can you actually make choices that serve you better as a therapist?
“When I started out, I recognized that we sometimes have to do things that aren’t ideal for us.” – Stevon Lewis, LMFT Author of “Silencing Your Inner Bully: An Acknowledgement Journal for Impostor Syndrome”
- Initial career choices may not be as ideal as one would like
- It is important to temper your expectations to your current situation
- Many therapists start in community mental health and may not be able to choose who we see and what we do
- Be flexible and open to working with less than ideal clients, identify the learning opportunities
- There is a ramp up and a building up of a caseload and career that takes time
- Understand that pivoting is part of the journey because we don’t know what we’re good at or what we’re going to like
How do therapist influencers work effectively?
“I do things in a way to where I choose me…I run my own race…I need to do what works for me, and what’s going to be the least amount of effort to get the maximum amount of results.” – Stevon Lewis, LMFT Author of “Silencing Your Inner Bully: An Acknowledgement Journal for Impostor Syndrome”
- There can be a lot of effort behind the scenes
- Delegating and contracting out elements of the work can be helpful
- Efficiency is important to be able to do a bunch of different things to be successful
- Stevon talks about how he does his “low effort” version of social media posting and interaction
- Looking at the minimum effort for maximum result
- Accept doing what you need to do to get the results you would like (not comparing to all others)
Resources for Modern Therapists mentioned in this Podcast Episode:
We’ve pulled together resources mentioned in this episode and put together some handy-dandy links. Please note that some of the links below may be affiliate links, so if you purchase after clicking below, we may get a little bit of cash in our pockets. We thank you in advance!
Stevon’s website: https://www.stevonlewis.com
Stevon’s Instagram: @stevonlewismft
Stevon’s LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevonlewis
Stevon’s book: Silencing Your Inner Bully: An Acknowledgment Journal for Impostor Syndrome
Stevon’s podcast: How to Talk to [High Achievers] about Anything
Relevant Episodes of MTSG Podcast:
Understanding Impostor Syndrome in High Achievers: An Interview with Stevon Lewis, LMFT
Let’s Talk About Race: An Interview with Stevon Lewis, LMFT
Does Your Social Media Make You Look Like a Bad Therapist?
Navigating the Social Media Self-Diagnosis Trend
The Return of Why Therapists Quit
Who we are:
Curt Widhalm, LMFT
Curt Widhalm is in private practice in the Los Angeles area. He is the cofounder of the Therapy Reimagined conference, an Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University and CSUN, a former Subject Matter Expert for the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, former CFO of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, and a loving husband and father. He is 1/2 great person, 1/2 provocateur, and 1/2 geek, in that order. He dabbles in the dark art of making “dad jokes” and usually has a half-empty cup of coffee somewhere nearby. Learn more at: http://www.curtwidhalm.com
Katie Vernoy, LMFT
Katie Vernoy is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, coach, and consultant supporting leaders, visionaries, executives, and helping professionals to create sustainable careers. Katie, with Curt, has developed workshops and a conference, Therapy Reimagined, to support therapists navigating through the modern challenges of this profession. Katie is also a former President of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. In her spare time, Katie is secretly siphoning off Curt’s youthful energy, so that she can take over the world. Learn more at: http://www.katievernoy.com
A Quick Note:
Our opinions are our own. We are only speaking for ourselves – except when we speak for each other, or over each other. We’re working on it.
Our guests are also only speaking for themselves and have their own opinions. We aren’t trying to take their voice, and no one speaks for us either. Mostly because they don’t want to, but hey.
Stay in Touch with Curt, Katie, and the whole Therapy Reimagined #TherapyMovement:
Consultation services with Curt Widhalm or Katie Vernoy:
Connect with the Modern Therapist Community:
Our Facebook Group – The Modern Therapists Group
Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide Creative Credits:
Voice Over by DW McCann https://www.facebook.com/McCannDW/
Music by Crystal Grooms Mangano https://groomsymusic.com/
Transcript for this episode of the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide podcast (Autogenerated):
Transcripts do not include advertisements just a reference to the advertising break (as such timing does not account for advertisements).
… 0:00
(Opening Advertisement)
Announcer 0:00
You’re listening to the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide, where therapists live, breathe, and practice as human beings. to support you as a whole person and a therapist. Here are your hosts, Curt Widhalm, and Katie Vernoy.
Curt Widhalm 0:15
Welcome back modern therapists, this is the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide. I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy. And this is the podcast for therapists about the things that go on in our profession, the things that we do, the trends that we see going on. And I have been an educator, a supervisor for a large portion of my career. I’ve worked with a lot of people at various points in their career. And one of the things that I’ve seen is people who want to become therapists and then realize that it’s a lot more than just sitting down and talking with people. There’s a lot of personal aspects that come into things, there’s a lot of just extra work that goes along with things. And then you add in the whole entrepreneurial side of stuff, that just doesn’t seem to be something that gets added in. And so at various points, people have conversations with me, whether it’s as students, whether it’s, once they’ve finished their degree, and they’re just saying, I don’t know how to sustain this. I don’t know how to remain in this. And we are welcoming back our good friend Stevon Lewis LMFT, to help us kind of navigate this conversation, be able to kind of take it from maybe some of the grizzled veterans are here on the podcast today, as far as like, what does it take to sustain being in the field? So thank you so much for joining us once again, Stevon.
Stevon Lewis 1:44
Ah, thanks for having me you two. Grizzled veterans. I love it.
Katie Vernoy 1:50
So we’ll ask you again, the question that we ask everyone, who are you and what are you putting out into the world?
Stevon Lewis 1:55
I am Stevon Lewis, I’m a licensed psychotherapist, I have a podcast called “How to Talk to [High Achievers] about Anything.” I’ve written a book on impostor syndrome. That’s where I live, in all things impostor syndrome and silencing our inner bullies. And what I’m putting out into the world now is the idea of radical acceptance of self. So, I really want people to get to a place of where they can be really proud of themselves, while they are still working towards being better versions of who they are.
Curt Widhalm 2:29
So let’s talk about sustainability. Like what it is that keeps us around? What are some of the practices that we end up doing? How do we just deal with all of it in a way that allows for us to continue to show up for our clients and continue to show up doing what it is that we do?
Stevon Lewis 2:48
That’s a great question. I think that in order to stay in this field, you have to find what you like about it. And that can shift and you have to be open to pivoting. As an example, for myself, when I was in school studying to become a therapist, I thought that I wanted to work with couples. And so I did, and I branded myself, as you know, a couples therapist and deciphering relationships was kind of the theme. I had a blog. And I worked with couples for years. And I realized that that no longer was the population that really fed me and got me excited about waking up to do the work I do. And so I made a pivot. I think when we talk about sustainability, if you stay in a space or stay doing work that isn’t inspiring or fulfilling or fun, even because I think that’s part of it, like we’re helping people, but we want to enjoy doing that help, then you won’t be able to last long, long term.
Katie Vernoy 3:52
Well, you’ve pivoted a number of times, right? I mean, you started working in the, you know, kind of educational college student space and then you were doing couples and now you’re doing high achievers, imposter syndrome, radical self acceptance. How did you come to the decision to make those shifts when you did?
Stevon Lewis 4:13
You guys have great questions, really great questions. I did do a few different things. Some of it was out of necessity. I don’t want to, you know, pretend like oh, this was all intentional. Sometimes it was: I don’t like where I’m working currently and I want to get somewhere else. And this seems new and fun and exciting. So I think that’s how I ended up at the college, working with college students and being director of counseling services there. I think the changes come for me when I recognize, and I think I’m really good about doing this because I stay kind of connected to, to my own feelings. I like to be happy, really, really happy. So, I’m constantly kind of curating my life so that I am getting to a place of happiness. And what I was finding is that I was not as happy as I would like to be doing the work I was doing. And so when I get to a place of where, you know, I am having to have sessions, and I’m not looking forward to that. That that’s a sign for me that I need to kind of take an evaluation of what’s going on; Is it me, and I need rest? Or is it that the work I’m doing is no longer fulfilling me in the way that I am? And I’m okay with acknowledging the truth of that, because people deserve to have a therapist that is motivated and excited, and really encouraged to work with them. And if that’s not me then that, that needs to change. And so when I made the pivot from working with couples to high achievers, the high achievers were the ones that that were kind of getting me excited about, I was just fascinated by them. And I could have a practice full of these folks. And I’d be excited to get on a call or meet with them at any chance I got, it’s fun for me.
Curt Widhalm 6:00
What is your process? Or what has been your process in looking at yourself? Because underneath this, and having known you over the years, there’s an ongoing process that I think that the people who are able to sustain and to be able to tend to themselves ends up being kind of a necessity. And some of the people that I’ve worked with, or was referring to, at the top of the episode, not to say that they’re not necessarily doing that, but there’s kind of an acceptance in the constant need to go back and attend to this. Can you describe a little bit more of like, how you come back to this over and over again?
Stevon Lewis 6:42
You’re correct that, oftentimes, I think what we do when we become therapists is we tell ourselves a narrative about how that’s going to look. And we say, Okay, I’m going to do these things. And this is how I’m going to help people. And this is how I’ll make money and my business structured as such. I think I get to a place of where I’m constantly thinking about, this is probably gonna sound bad, am I working too hard? I am, I am a person who likes ease. I told you, I like happiness. I like simple, I like flowers nice and soft. I don’t like to force things to happen. So I’m really big on alignment. And I think if I felt like I am having to work too hard, meaning that to get myself kind of energized to do the work, or that the progression of the work I’m doing with people isn’t really happening. I am not trying to blame other people and say like, oh, well, they’re just being resistant or, you know, it’s the clients fault, I really look at myself. I might not be the person to be doing this. And I’m okay with that. I’ve accepted the fact that I’m not going to be, you know, everybody’s favorite therapist, or the perfect therapist for everybody, even though we might start out down that path, hoping that that’s what the relationship will blossom into. But I’m okay with saying like, I am not doing a really good job at this, I should probably pivot and do something and you deserve better. And I’m okay doing that more frequently, maybe than the average person might be.
Katie Vernoy 8:16
It seems like when people aren’t able to do that, it’s, it’s from this place of overwhelm. From kind of the grind, I gotta keep grinding it out. I gotta keep trying. And it feels like there’s also, it might be hard to identify is this hard because I haven’t learned how to do it yet? Or is this hard because it’s misaligned? Where do you go with trying to sort through those things?
Stevon Lewis 8:40
That is the the conundrum, right? It’s the idea that: am I giving up? And that’s the thing, I don’t want to feel like, Oh, I’m quitting because it was difficult. I’m trying to be as objective as possible and saying, Am I helping this person? And if I’m not helping this person, why is that? I think the thing that makes it a little bit easier for me is that I didn’t or, at times when you know, I kind of have shifted, I’ve not had all the same client. So it’s a little bit easier to kind of see like, okay, if I’m working with couples this way, and I’m working with individuals, and I’m working with some older people or younger people, men then women like what have you across the spectrum, I can look at that diversity to say, Okay, I’m doing really well here. And I’m not doing so well here. Why is that? So it’s not like I get caught up in the fact that I’m now characterizing or seeing myself as not good or bad or giving up. It’s no, I’m trying to provide a good service and I’m doing what I think will work and it’s not getting the results here. And it is getting the results over here. The way I like to work or kind of think about sustainability, is I want to kind of do things that are good and feel good and are also getting good outcomes. Right? So that the places where I am helping people is the stuff I want to do. And that doesn’t mean that they’re all easy clients or it’s easy work, it means that we are aligned. And we are both getting what we want from the relationship. They are getting the help they need, and they are progressing and overcoming the issues that they came up with. And I am helping them be or get to a place where they will be independent of me. And that’s the goal. And I’m putting myself out of the job.
Katie Vernoy 10:22
Well, I’m actually thinking more even with the pivot and the branding. I mean, like, that is a huge undertaking to go from couples to high achievers. And I don’t remember if you did kind of couples, high achieving couples, high achievers like I don’t know, if you did a whole like strategic thing. But like thinking about I have a whole caseload that’s this, or even a mixed caseload that’s primarily this, like, it’s a lot of work to create almost a new brand. And it can feel really overwhelming at first. And so it’s, I can see people giving up there too.
Stevon Lewis 10:57
Yeah, yeah. It’s funny, I never thought about it like that. Like, the way you explained it would have probably been a better process to do, is to kind of titrate one and gradually shift to another. I didn’t do that. It was kind of a hard stop. It was like, okay, yeah, I’m not doing this anymore. Pause on that, I’m gonna go do this other thing. And the way I did it, I guess was I stopped taking on couples and found a bunch of colleagues who were, you know, happy to work with couples and started referring couples out there. Yeah, I did have to put it, I changed kind of language on my website, and wherever I kind of, you know, can be found on social media, and work to kind of close out or terminate with the couples that I did have. And I never thought about it of like a thing where that can be scary. And that can be difficult, because I know that, again, the work we do our money is attached to who we work with, you know, by default, and that means I’m probably going to make less money. Because I’m not going to be seeing as many people, but then I also kind of operate with a belief that I was going to attract the the folks that I wanted. And if I did that really well with attracting couples when I wanted to work with couples, and then I would do the same kind of with high achievers. But I could see why somebody might want to stay stay kind of what was what they had, like, I built a brand around couples. And I was on podcasts talking about couples and doing that. And I was just like, yeah, that’s not it anymore.
Katie Vernoy 12:30
You even were on a TV show doing stuff about couples.
Stevon Lewis 12:33
Yeah. Well…
Katie Vernoy 12:34
You were, you had lots of visibility around this.
Stevon Lewis 12:36
I did, I did. Well, if anything, I take that as a compliment. That once I’m dedicated to that space, I’m gonna I’m gonna push really, really hard and be very intentional about the stuff I’m doing.
… 12:50
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Curt Widhalm 12:52
I want to talk about the role of privilege in this as well, because I think there’s…
Katie Vernoy 12:57
Stevon is laughing so hard.
Curt Widhalm 13:01
You know, if I’m somebody who’s early on in my career listening to this conversation, we’re all talking about this from the place of like, we have done this, there is the ability for some people to get into this. But what you’ve described so far is you have the agency to kind of shift your private practice, the self agency, not, you know, a mental health agency, but like, you have the agency to be able to make these shifts, you have the privilege of being able to step back, take a dip in pay, yeah, to be able to do this. What’s our advice to people earlier in their career who may not have these opportunities yet, when facing like, I don’t have a choice of being able to just highly select really easy clients, I don’t have the ability to pick like, you know, you started the episode with like, you know, don’t do the parts of the job that don’t fulfill you did take notes doesn’t fulfill a lot of people like so, you know, for the people who don’t have as much agency, what is your advice to them?
Stevon Lewis 14:07
Well, I still do notes. I mean I don’t get out of that part. That’s a that’s a requirement. That’s like the law. But no, I follow like, I guess the thing is this, is that when I started out, I recognized that we sometimes have to do things that aren’t ideal for us. You know, I started out I was in community mental health, working with families I was…
Curt Widhalm 14:33
So that’s the part that I want to get across to our audience is how do you build the sustainability at the point where it’s like, I might not be signing up for all of this. I, This is, I know I hear from a lot of people who are considering leaving like in the midst of grad school. Like I did not have a realistic expectation of what coming into this field even was. That, I think is something where it’s like, okay, on the other side, once you get licensed and you have this practice where you get to handpick all these nice places, then you can do all these things. But like, for people who are starting to face some of these realities earlier on, you know, I’m all three of us worked in community mental health for periods at one point or another, like, we didn’t get to pick who was coming into us. And sometimes that was less than fun. How did you get through that part of your career?
Stevon Lewis 15:31
Mm mmh. I like it. One, I’ll say: temper your expectations. So, the reality is that unless you are working for yourself, you won’t have full autonomy on what you want to do and who you want to work with and how that looks. So, when I was in community mental health, I knew that it was kind of an education. And I was, again this is like after obviously finishing school and stuff like that, but still, it’s a learning of the field in that I’m going to have to take on work that is not who I would choose, or what I would choose to do. Because I worked for an agency or a company. When I worked at the university, you know, it’s, I work with college students, they can come in for a variety of reasons, I don’t get to decide what they, you know, which students I get to work with, it’s who needs help. And I think if you temper your expectations around that, that, you know, once you’re in private practice, that’s when you get to really curate and design, you know, your kind of niche or bespoke practice. Until then you got to be flexible and open to working with other people or clients that, you know, may not be your ideal client. Also, there’s something to learn from that. There is a benefit to, you know, working outside of your comfort zone. It stretches and I think shapes some skills that maybe I wouldn’t have developed if I just worked with folks that I liked and enjoyed all the time. And it helps you kind of be better at who you are, and what you want to do. Like you understand yourself more of like, you know, two year olds or five year olds are not going to be my clients. And that’s okay, because there’s a therapist out there, that’s going to be phenomenal with that population. And that’s who we should get them to. And that’s okay. And I think that’s the hard part is recognizing that your expectation of what this is going to look like, in that it’s always going to be good is not, it’s not accurate or not based in reality. I mean, even when I started my private practice, and you know, look at me being all vulnerable and transparent, I kind of contracted with the thing was Torrance Police Department, and I was getting, you know, referrals for youth kind of connected to the juvenile justice system. And this is in my private practice. But this is, you know, I opened a private practice, I now had office space, I now needed to make some money to pay for that space. I need to be able to work with some people that I think I have some, I guess, experience with because I was doing that at the agency I was working at. And then I translated that into private practice. So, my private practice had clients that mirrored what I was doing at Community Mental Health, in the in the beginning. But that was to get going. And I think that that’s kind of it. You know, I didn’t get to my, my dream car is my first car. But that doesn’t mean you know, I didn’t learn how to how to drive well.
Katie Vernoy 18:19
It’s so interesting, because I think that there’s a lot of folks who are impatient. I mean, I’m sure we all were impatient. But I think there’s a lot of folks who are impatient and see whether it’s working for an agency or taking clients that pay less or have a kind of the run up before you can really create this solid foundation. They see that as settling or not doing well or not doing what’s there. And I think we you know, this conversation is a little bit different, because we’re talking about like, everyone has that that story of how they ramped up. I mean, people don’t start in private practice, and immediately have a full caseload of high fee clients. I don’t know that maybe maybe somebody with a huge social media following or something could do that. But I’ve not heard it. Have you heard that, Stevon? Because you you’re out there in influencer land. Like, have you heard of people being able to just like get right out of school, have a private practice and have a full caseload of full fee high paying clients?
Stevon Lewis 19:22
I have not heard that in all these years. I’ve not heard that in all these years. And this is you know, going on, sheesh, what is that? Like 15 years of doing this or more? Yeah, no, I’ve not come across that individual that started private practice and it was completely exactly how they wanted it and designed to perfection. And they started charging a high fee immediately and just kind of you know, running with that, or full fee or whatever. Yeah, that’s that’s never happened. There is a build up, there is work that’s done. And it’s not a I guess I don’t see it as like a settling. Again, I think all of that stuff helps shape you into being a better therapist, being a better clinician, you know, just being kind of better at this craft. And also understanding yourself like, just to say, I don’t want to do that, and you’ve not done it before. How do you know? Why? What’s the reason? Can you explain or elaborate on that? You know, again, I, in school, I knew I was gonna work with couples. I worked with couples for years. And then I realized, you know, what? One, I’m probably not as good as I thought I was gonna be. Like, you know, I had inflated sense of self, I was like, Oh, I’m gonna be kickass I’d like to go, I’m gonna be amazing. I did help some people, some people, I did not. Yeah, and I just wasn’t as good as I thought I was gonna be. And I was like, Oh, that’s not really fair to them. And it’s also not really serving me, because I don’t feel great about the work I’m doing. So yeah, I should probably back out of this. And that’s okay.
… 20:50
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Curt Widhalm 20:50
I had mentioned earlier about, you know, kind of the expectations of coming into the field and with the hundreds of influencers and content creators who happen to be therapists. I’m sitting here listening to you. And I’m like, Are there many people who are like, this is actually the realities of getting into this field, that is setting up the the generation of therapists who are coming in to be like, No, this is, this is the day to day, this is what we have to do. Like, you know, it’s not just like, I’m Stevon and I go and see my awesome high achieving clients, and then I, you know, just float into the next room. And it’s just like, I continue to be awesome for the rest of the day. Like, what is…
Stevon Lewis 21:36
That’s exactly how it works.
Curt Widhalm 21:38
Yeah, okay, I’m all ears. Because I’m just going to ask, like, what, what is the struggles that you go on with that you have to tend to, to maintain what you’ve got going on?
Stevon Lewis 21:50
Oh, man. So the behind the scenes right?
Katie Vernoy 21:54
Behind the scenes.
Stevon Lewis 21:55
Yeah. Okay, let’s peel back the curtain everybody. Yeah, so it might look nice and shiny, I am a operational of one. It’s me, and I kind of contract with places to get support. So you’ll hear me do all these things. And it’s me managing that stuff. So like, you know, I have a podcast, but the, the way that’s worked is, I work with a production company, they found me, and I’m kind of like the talent. So I’ve found a way to where they can they do all the stuff, and they will provide me a fee, and I show up and kind of do my part and that’s how we work as a team. I probably wouldn’t have a podcast if that weren’t the case, because it is a ton of work to produce something of quality. You know, anybody can kind of record on their phone, or what have you. But if you really wanted to kind of monetize it at some point, or for it to feel and sound, you know, professional, that takes a lot of time and effort. And I told you about kind of me and efficiency, that that wouldn’t really sit well with how my character or personality is set up. And so yeah, like, I’ll see clients, and then I will do speaking engagements, and I do all this other stuff, but I have to like manage all that.There’s a lot of back and forth and emails, you know, I have to get contracts read and signed. And, you know, I’ve got to be on top of that, follow up. Yeah, it’s, it’s not easy, but it’s also something that I factored in to what I thought private practice was going to be for me. That I was going to do a bunch of different things to to make money, and to be kind of successful in this. And it’s not, you know, always glamorous that, you know, sometimes you it takes two months to secure a speaking fee, and there’s a lot of back and forth and they want to see your deck first. And then they want to have a call with you and different people and then they got to go back and talk to their team. And then you don’t get paid that same day. It’s, you know, so you like, Oh, I did this thing, and we negotiated on this fee and now it’s, you know, they have like a net 60. And it’s like 60 days before you will get your check. And you’re like, huh, I needed that money when when I did it, like not 60 days later. But again, you get yourself set up so that that’s sustainable, so that you have clients you see individually, your weekly, that you know, float you until you get the the bigger hits, and it’s it’s all something that you have to develop or when I do my social media, I don’t have some boss, it’s me responding. Sometimes I do that in pockets, and you have to find ways to set that up so that it’s sustainable. So kind of the way I operate is first thing in the morning, and I’m not recommend this for anybody. I kind of get up and have my coffee and that’s when I do my social media posts. And then throughout the day, I’ll comment because you got to be active on the apps to continue the engagement and, you know, I do all that stuff. That’s me, kind of in between time. But I found ways to do it’s where it’s not taking away from it’s kind of okay, I’m, I’m on here purposefully.
Katie Vernoy 24:53
I want you to talk a little bit more about that because I think one of the things that has been the hardest for me is the social media element because I find myself on there. And you know, for a while I was doing posting and that kind of stuff. I actually am barely posting at all. So I’m not doing well at all, Stevon. But, but the challenge is going in and responding and being present without it kind of having that mental health suck that dissociative suck of being on social media. How do you do that? Because I know you’re barely on social media except for your actual posts. So how do you do that?
Stevon Lewis 25:31
Oh, very strategically. So, so the way I even I think it’s my mindset, I tried to tell people with social media, it is you’re on there for a purpose. And don’t overthink it. So, the way I do it is like I kind of do a low, this is probably gonna sound terrible, but it’s who I am. This is a safe space, right everyone. I do this in a way that is really low effort. I, you will see that most of my posts are kind of recycled from something somebody else did. And I will write a caption that is unique. But you know, I tag the people that I borrow stuff from, because that’s the appropriate etiquette on social media to do. So I’m fair there. But yeah, I’m not making a bunch of original content, of shooting videos, because that’s a heavy lift, it’s a high investment, and the ROI on that I’ve not seen to where it’s super beneficial, in that way where it’s worth, you know, the amount of time it will take me to do that, and edit stuff and make it look all nice. You know, it’s not worth it for me. But yeah, like, I’ll post and then what I’ll do is I’ll kind of come back mid day and look at the comments. And then I’ll just kind of go through and comment, either some emojis or something that I think is, you know, kind of my personality, funny digg way of saying things, and then get out of there again, and go see some clients or, you know, send some emails and you know, pop back in. But the goal is saying, like I am on here to kind of engage people, it’s part of my brand, it’s part of my, the work I do. So, it’s no different from if I’m responding to a client email or something, I’m not upset about that, like, oh, why is this client emailing me, you know, they had a question about the homework or what we talked about, and that’s appropriate. And so if I did a post and somebody had a concern about it, then you know, we talk about it, or somebody commented, it resonated with them, I encourage that stuff. That doesn’t feel like a heavy lift for me. So I think like, if you are posting in a way to where you aren’t kind of overthinking the caption or you aren’t kind of having to create a ton of original content, then it’s sustainable. But if I had to like shoot a video every day to post, I would not post either. I wouldn’t post either, I wouldn’t. And I think also another thing that is because I think I’ve been so I get kind of myopic in the way that I operate. And so I just do that thing. And I just drill down on it. And so everything is [uninteligible]. People will start to send you videos or clips or you know, social media posts that sound like something you might post. And oftentimes it’s like, oh, so thank you in my DMs for sending me this thing. Now I don’t even have to go search for that, they sent me the thing I add it to the Save folder, and then I just go pick from that like the day before I just kind of you know, the night before I here’s my process: the night before, I’ll look in that save folder. Oh, I think I want to talk about this picture. So then when I wake up in the morning, then I just kind of grab that picture and, you know, post it and then write my caption. That’s the cheat code.
Katie Vernoy 28:39
Thank you, Stevon.
Curt Widhalm 28:42
Did you always do it that way?
Stevon Lewis 28:44
Yeah. So this is Oh, wow. People are really learning a lot about Stevon Lewis today. Sheesh this is like, again. It’s become a therapy session, right? So yeah, I do things in a way to where I choose me. I do things, I run my own race. That’s someone I’ve been for a very, very long time, like since elementary school. And so I do things that are done in a way to where maybe it’s not how everybody else would do it. I’m not really concerned with how other people get stuff done. I need to do what works for me, and what’s going to be the least amount of effort to get the maximum amount of results. So, I like to have good outcomes, I to have good results. I like stuff to be at a certain level. I don’t want to just you know, half ass it. But also I don’t want to give so much that like I didn’t you know athletes understand this, like I don’t, you don’t want to go into the red, right? Like I don’t want to go into sacrificing so much to get that to happen, because I can’t do that. And so I’m a turtle. So, I’ve got to find the turtle way to get stuff out there. That’s going to be a good quality. So when you asked like, how’s that, you know, is that the way I’ve always done it? Yeah, I didn’t do social media until I found a way to where I could do it and it wasn’t a heavy lift. So I was probably late to getting on Instagram and Facebook. Even when I do social media, like, I’m not on every platform, I don’t use every app. And I think people have to be okay with that, like, Oh, I’ve got to post to Twitter. And then I’ve got to post to LinkedIn, I’ve got to post to, you know, Instagram. And now I’ve got to do TikTok, because they’ve opened this thing up, and now they’re talking about bringing Vine back. And now I’ve got to… No, you don’t, you don’t have to do that. I post on Instagram. And I will take that Instagram post, and I just started putting that on LinkedIn. That’s all I do. I copy and paste from what I wrote on Instagram, and I post it on LinkedIn. So, the LinkedIn post is just a repeat of what I did on Instagram. That’s like the lowest lift you can can give. And I’m not concerned if people like, Oh, this is redundant, or, you know, you have low engagement on YouTube. You know, what it would take for me to have a robust YouTube is more effort than I’d be willing to put in. And I think people need to get to a place where they can accept and be okay with doing what they need to do to get the results they want for themselves, and not trying to mirror or be what they see everyone else doing.
Katie Vernoy 31:14
As you’re building this, there is places where it feels like you’ve been very successful, places where I’m sure you’ve sloughed off things that that didn’t work. What are the things that you’re kind of striving for now? Because you’re you’re constantly shifting, right? You’re constantly growing? I mean, I think you you’re pretty solidly in the impostor syndrome space. So, that’s definitely very clear. But, but where what are the changes that you’re seeing as you go forward.
Stevon Lewis 31:43
Oof, more behind the scenes. I love it. So so the new shift you will see is, I kind of talked about at the top of this episode is the radical acceptance of self. And so I’m strategically starting to pivot my conversation when I talk about impostor syndrome, to infuse it with the concept of radical acceptance of self. Because I think that that is really the antidote to impostor syndrome. And so having this conversation of how are you being proud of yourself? How are you being okay with yourself as you are continuing to work to be a better version of that. And that because you haven’t reached your goal doesn’t mean you aren’t fantastic or amazing, or doing phenomenal job. And that’s kind of the pivot I’m making. And I’m trying to do that more through speaking, and less through kind of one to one work. So this is, you know, when I talk about kind of copying and pasting to LinkedIn, that’s my low effort way of trying to engage a different kind of community. And so I think the LinkedIn community will lend itself to having me I guess, engage in that conversation through speaking as opposed to one on one work. And so that’s why I’m kind of starting to explore that platform.
Curt Widhalm 33:01
Where can people find out more about you and your practice and all of the wonderful ventures that you’re doing?
Stevon Lewis 33:09
Well, if they listened to this podcast, you all will put it in the show notes and they you know, connect it to the website. So come come to, you know, this podcast first. Also, you know, website is kind of a hub for me, and I’ve made it again, branding, attach yourself to your brand, attach yourself to the work that you do. It’s stevonlewis.com. You don’t have to figure out some fancy language or remember, some moniker that I came up with. If you Google my name, you’re like, I can’t remember I remember that dude Stevon said something… it’ll come up. It will come up, you’ll find my website, it’ll be it, you’ll see a picture of my face. And I attach yourself to what it is that you do like you want to be connected to. And I know that there’s this thing of where, I don’t even know if it’s like taught in school anymore, but like, there’s the idea of like, you don’t want to be the kind of star, it’s not about you. It’s about the work you do and everybody else and I guess I’m like well, how do people find me if they want to work with me, then if I’m not attaching myself to it, and so you know, use your government name. I think that’s the easiest. You know, make sure you have pictures of you doing the work you do or speaking or just picture headshots. You people got to go to your website, they need to be able to see you and find you because people make connections before they reach out. And I think that’s important for you to understand that if you have you know, only a picture of a flower and you know a name. I don’t know that people don’t think you’re a bot or something. Because I think you got to find a way that you’re real like this is the world we live in. You attach it to yourself, attach it to who you are, I am my brand. They are working with Stevon they aren’t working with, you know, the fashionable therapist or something like that.
Curt Widhalm 35:01
We’ll include links to Stevon stuff in our show notes over at mtsgpodcast.com. Follow us on our social media, join our Facebook group, the Modern Therapist Group to continue on with these discussions. And until next time, I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy and Stevon Lewis.
… 35:17
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