Amy Bradley Radford (00:06.69)
Welcome to the Massage Business Success Podcast. I'm Amy Bradley Radford, Massage Therapist, Educator, and the creator of Pain Patterns and Solutions Bodywork. On this podcast, we talk about sustainable business, how to successfully work for yourself and pain management, what works, what doesn't, and why. Let's get started.
Amy Bradley Radford (00:37.998)
Hello everyone and welcome back to the Massage Business Success Podcast. I'm Amy Bradley Bradford, and today we're starting something a little different. So as I was planning out the next year of this podcast, all 52 weeks, I realized that there was one conversation I wanted to have with you all before we started talking about more business stuff or pain management or leadership or communication or all the other topics that I have planned out. I actually wanted to tell you why I teach the way I do.
You know, over the years I've owned massage schools and I've taught hundreds of students and I've coached massage therapists. I've developed continuing education classes, I've built a hands-on technique, and now here I am recording a podcast every week. You know, if somebody looked at all those things separately, they might wonder if I have ADHD, which I do. They might wonder what they have in common because on the surface they all seem very different. But to me, they've always been connected.
They have all grown out of the same question I have been asking myself since I started into this field. And that is, how do we become the therapists we dreamed of becoming when we first graduated from massage school? When I first entered this profession, I honestly thought that becoming a better massage therapist meant learning more techniques. Every continuing education class was exciting to me because I believed each new class would make me a better therapist, which they do, and I love learning, and I still love learning.
And I plan to never stop learning. But somewhere along the way, my understanding of this profession began to change. And it wasn't because of one particular class or one mentor or even one life-changing moment. It happened little by little as I worked with people, listening to their stories, celebrated their successes, struggled through different cases, and slowly realized that massage was much more than I thought it was when I graduated.
Massage isn't simply a job or a sequence of strokes that we memorize and repeat from one client to the next. For me, massage became something much, much deeper right from the start. You know, every person who walked into my treatment room trusted me with something incredibly personal. Sometimes it was physical pain, sometimes it was fear, sometimes it was frustration because they had already tried everything they knew to try, and nothing had worked for them yet. And they weren't looking for someone to simply rub a sore muscle.
Amy Bradley Radford (02:58.52)
They were looking for hope. And I as I look back over my career, I realized that almost everything I've created has come from those experiences. The business classes came from watching great therapists just struggle. My pain management classes came from wanting better answers for people who were still hurting. And coaching came from seeing therapists who had so much potential but needed someone to help them connect the dots of their business. And this podcast really comes from the exact same place.
I want to see more massage therapists succeed. I want to make a difference, and I want to give you hope. So after owning massage schools and watching students graduate year after year, I realized something that I don't I don't think gets talked about very often, or maybe we don't want to talk about it very often as massage school owners. But the reality of it is massage school gives us an incredible foundation, but there simply isn't enough time. There isn't enough time to develop
confidence or to build clinical reasoning or to learn business in the way that we need to. And there isn't enough time to have the experience that you only gain from working with hundreds of different clients so that you can begin to recognize patterns and expectations. And this isn't a criticism of massage schools. It is simply the reality of trying to prepare someone for a profession that honestly takes years to understand. And so what happens after graduation? Well that's where the real learning begins.
And it's where you begin asking yourself if you're good enough. It's where you start realizing that building a massage practice is very different from practicing massage in the student clinic. And it's where you discover that caring deeply for people is both one of the greatest gifts of this profession and one of its greatest challenges. And that's the gap I have spent my career trying to fill. Not because I have all the answers, but because I have walked through that gap myself.
I have struggled with the same questions. I have made the same mistakes. I have searched for better answers. I quit massage three times out of sheer frustration of not understanding the path in front of me and then went back because it called to my soul. And if I can help shorten that journey for another therapist, then every lesson I've ever learned becomes something bigger than my own career. And that's what I hope this podcast becomes.
Amy Bradley Radford (05:22.858)
It's not another place where you just collect information, but a place where you learn to think. Somewhere you can go to learn to observe and grow your confidence. It's a place where you get to hear about how to build a business that reflects who you are and where you continue the education that only experience can teach you. So today I'd like to tell you the story of how that journey began for me. When I first graduated from massage school,
I had no idea of where this profession would actually take me or eventually take me. I was only 19 years old when I started out in massage therapy, and I really don't think I had an idea of what I was doing in life. But you know, like most new graduates, I was just excited to finally get started. I had my little two-year business plan in hand and I was ready to start earning money. And I couldn't wait to begin working with real clients, my own clients instead of my classmates or in the student clinic.
And I started my career renting a room from a chiropractor. It was a great place to begin because I was surrounded by people who were looking for massage for a reason, which fit who I was as a therapist. They weren't coming in because they wanted to relax or enjoy a day at the spa. They were dealing with injuries and chronic pain and problems that were affecting their daily lives. And you know, I was only there for about three months before my own life took a pretty unexpected turn. And I was in a serious car accident.
And that car accident changed a lot more than I realized at the time. I spent well over a year in physical therapy recovering from multiple injuries. And there was a period in the beginning where I couldn't work as a massage therapist because I had to focus on healing my body. I literally couldn't use my arms that way to massage people. And the physical therapist I went to was my uncle. And during the time that he was working with me, he ended up hiring me to work at the front desk in his clinic.
And as I slowly recovered and was able to return to massage, he had an extra treatment room that he rented to me. So I essentially began my career inside of physical therapy practice. And looking back now, I realized what an incredible opportunity that was, although I'm sure I didn't fully appreciate it at the time. Most new massage therapists spend those first few years seeing a little bit of everything. And I had a variety of clients, but because I was practicing inside a physical therapy office.
Amy Bradley Radford (07:38.774)
Many of the people who found their way to my treatment room were patients of the physical therapist. So what ended up on my table was some had completed their prescribed physical therapy, but still weren't feeling better. Or some had run out of insurance visits before they had reached the outcome they were hoping for. Or others had pain in areas that weren't covered under their prescription. So they were trying to figure out where to turn next. And then there was me. I wasn't just treating people who were still hurting.
I was one of them. So even after months of physical therapy, I still had pain from my own injuries. I understood what it felt like to wonder if this was simply how life was going to be. I was 20 years old wondering if I was going to be in this much pain for the rest of my life. And I understood the frustration of wanting your body back and not knowing how to get there. And one of the hardest parts for me personally was receiving body work. Instead of feeling better afterward, I often felt worse.
I would hurt for days after a massage. I would have migraines. And there were times I honestly wondered if I even wanted people working on my body anymore because I didn't know if it was helping or making things worse. And that was a hard place to be where you're giving a service and you're convincing people they need the service, but you don't know that you can have the service yourself. That was that was kind of a hard, that was a hard place for me to be in. And you know, those experiences changed.
The way I looked at the people lying on my massage table. You know, when someone came in to see me after trying everything they knew to try, I understood that feeling. And when someone was discouraged because they still weren't getting better, holy cow, I understood that too. I wasn't looking for a new technique. I simply wanted better answers. I wanted better answers for my clients because I genuinely cared about what they were going through. But if I'm completely honest, I had some pretty selfish motives.
Of I wanted better answers for myself too. And you know, that desire became the driving force behind almost everything I have done since. At the time, I couldn't have explained it that way. I was just a young massage therapist trying to help people who walked through my door. But when I look back now, I can see that those early years planted the seeds for everything that would come about later. You know, as I spent more time working with people in though in that first year, something else began to happen that I I wasn't expecting. And that was that I cared.
Amy Bradley Radford (10:02.242)
And I don't mean that that I was kind to my clients or that I enjoyed seeing them. I think most massage therapists care about the people they work with. That's one of the reasons why we chose this profession. What surprised me is how deeply I cared. When someone came into my treatment room in pain, I wanted them to leave feeling better. When someone had been struggling for months or even years, I wanted to I wanted to be that person who finally helped them turn the corner.
And when someone had tried everything else and and still wasn't finding relief, I genuinely wanted to give them hope. And when they left my office without the results I was hoping for, I took it personally. And I don't think I understood that at the time. Looking back, I can see that I was carrying more of my responsibility. I believe that if I cared enough or worked hard enough or learned enough, somehow I should be able to figure it out. And that became the driving force behind everything I studied. Not because I wanted another certificate on my wall.
I just simply wanted better answers. I wanted better answers because I knew what it felt like to still be hurting. And I wanted better answers because I saw people who had done everything they were told to do and yet they still weren't where they wanted to be and they weren't out of pain. And I wanted better answers because once in a while someone would come back into my office and tell me that their life had changed. Like they could sleep again or they could pick up their grandchild.
Or they had gone back to gardening, something they loved, or could actually take a walk with their spouse again. And those moments reminded me why I loved this profession so much. And over time, though, I began to realize there was another lesson I needed to learn. And this is a lesson we all need to learn. Learning to care without carrying everyone else's burdens is one of the hardest lessons in this profession. And I have some thoughts about this, some ameisms.
Massage school teaches us about professional boundaries. We have an incredible responsibility to protect the therapeutic relationship and to practice ethically. Those lessons are foundational to becoming a good massage therapist. But somewhere along the way, I realized that understanding professional boundaries wasn't the whole story. I think we also have to learn how to care professionally. To me, those are two completely different skills. Professional boundaries teach us how to protect the relationship.
Amy Bradley Radford (12:20.312)
Professional caring teaches us how to strengthen it. I've never believed you have to choose between being professional and caring deeply. And I think the challenge is learning how to do both and staying balanced all the time. For me, that meant learning how to be fully present with a person in front of me, to give them everything I had during the time we were together, and then trusting that what I had done was enough when they walked out the door. And that last part, my friend, wasn't easy. And I I know you know what I'm saying.
It took years for me to trust that I had done enough. It took watching hundreds and eventually thousands of people improve. It took developing my skills and my confidence. It took watching people's lives change slowly but consistently. And eventually I came to realize that I didn't have to have every answer. I simply needed to make a meaningful difference. Somewhere along the way, my purpose changed.
I stopped trying to help people and instead I started focusing on making a meaningful difference in their lives. You know, sometimes healing happened quickly, sometimes it happened one small step at a time. Sometimes my role was much larger than I even realized. And sometimes, sometimes it was just simply spending an hour with someone and making sure they knew and really felt that someone cared about them.
As I watched people's lives slowly change, I began to understand something that brought me a tremendous amount of peace. And that was it was enough. What I was doing was enough. And inside of that, I was enough. Not because I had fixed everything, and definitely not because I had all the answers, because I didn't. It was enough because I had shown up fully, I had cared well, and I had made a meaningful difference in another person's life.
And that realization changed me. It changed who I was at the table or as a teacher in the classroom. And I showed up differently in a very positive way. It also left me with another question that I'm sure many of you have. And that is, how do you know what enough is when you don't have all the answers? How do you know when you've given everything you can give? And how do you care deeply without giving so much of yourself that you eventually burn out?
Amy Bradley Radford (14:41.142)
I don't know that there's a perfect answer to any of those. I think it's something we spend our entire career learning, overstepping boundaries and backing up and figuring out where that place is where we can give without overgiving. But I do know this much. Professionalism doesn't require us to stop caring. It just asks us to care well. As I look back now, I don't
Think the biggest challenge I faced after graduating from massage school was learning another technique. It was learning how to become confident in myself. And there's something interesting that happens after graduation. You know, we spend hundreds of hours in massage school learning anatomy and physiology and pathology and ethics and contraindications and hands-on skills, and we practice on our classmates and we work in student clinic and we take our exams and we become licensed and then.
One day someone walks through our treatment room door, lays down on the table, and trusts us with hope and desperation sometimes to help them. And that's a very different feeling. And they're not going to give you feedback like your classmate did. And you're not going to have an instructor nearby to check your work or answer questions you have. It's just you. And that person lying on your table has spent their hard-earned money because they're hoping you can make a meaningful difference in their life.
That's a lot of responsibility for a brand new therapist. And we don't talk about that enough. Most of us graduate with just enough education to begin our career safely and professionally, but we do not graduate with enough experience to be confident. And there is no shortcut for experience, my friends. Experience comes from repetition. And inside that repetition, you're going to have mistakes. And if we're honest, you're going to have lots of them.
But it also comes from trying something that doesn't work and asking yourself why. Or trying to understand why something worked beautifully for one person but doesn't seem to help the next one at all. And it's the exact same problem. Sometimes you have absolutely no idea why. And that can be incredibly frustrating. And it also comes from celebrating those little victories that remind you you're growing even when it doesn't feel like it. And looking back, and this is something I really try and bring about in this podcast in the classes I teach.
Amy Bradley Radford (16:58.25)
I realized I was trying to build two things at the same time. I was trying to become a better massage therapist while at the same time trying to build a business and learning about both. That's a difficult combination. That's the massage business success combination because massages, unlike so many other professions, our work, like I've talked about, our work produces an invisible result. If you're a carpenter, people can see the house you built.
If you're a mechanic, they can see the car is running again. But what we do is different. Our clients leave feeling different. They move differently or sleep better. They hurt less. Maybe they breathe a little easier. Maybe they walk out with hope that they didn't have when they walked in. Those are all incredible outcomes, but they're invisible. And we don't know the difference we made because we can't necessarily see it. And when you're a new therapist trying to practice your skill and run a business, it is
Really easy to question yourself because you can't always see the difference you're making or not making. You're depending on your skills to produce results that can't always be measured with your eyes. And you're also depending on those same skills to build your income, support your family, and create a future for yourself. And all of that is incredibly heavy and if I'm honest, just flat overwhelming.
I also think that's why so many massage therapists spend the first several years wondering if they're doing enough, or if they're good enough, or if they should take another class, or wondering why everyone else seems to be more confident than they are. And I could tell you story after story about therapists who attended my hands-on classes hoping this next class would finally have all the answers. And this would finally be the class that made them be successful. And I've seen that hope in their eyes so many times.
And I recognize that look because I had it too. I know what it feels like to walk into a classroom hoping that this is finally going to be the class that makes everything click. But you know, I don't think they're really looking for another technique. I think they're all looking for what's going to make them confident and what's going to make their business grow. They're also looking for reassurance that they're going to be okay and that they're good enough and that they're doing a good job and that someday this profession is going to feel as natural as they hoped it would.
Amy Bradley Radford (19:19.81)
And the truth is confidence does not come from collecting certificates. Confidence comes from experience. And it comes from learning how to think through challenges that every therapist eventually faces. That's why I have spent so much of my career teaching after massage school. Not because massage school is missing something, but because there simply isn't enough time to feel truly confident before graduating and stepping out into the world as a massage therapist.
There isn't enough time to teach what it feels like when your first chronic pain client doesn't get better. There isn't enough time to teach how to build a thriving business while you're still learning how to do massage. And there isn't enough time to teach how to care deeply without carrying the weight of every client home with you. Those lessons, my friend, are going to belong to experience. And my hope is that through this podcast and my classes and my coaching and everything else I teach.
That I can help shorten that journey just a little. And it's not by giving you the answers, but it's by helping you think differently about the questions. You know, looking back now, I think one of the biggest shifts in my career was learning to think differently. As a student, I had a binder that had all of my favorite techniques I learned from each teacher. And it's what I called my book of massage magic.
And as a news therapist, I approached every continuing education class, hoping someone would finally teach me all the answers that would go into that book. And, you know, because I wanted to know exactly where to work. I wanted to know exactly what technique to use. I wanted to know exactly what made each muscle relax or get rid of those pain points or what protocol would help the client on my table. But after working with client after client, especially inside the physical therapy office, I started noticing something, and this is when I put my book down.
Two people could come in with the exact same problem, two shoulder surgeries, exact same surgery, and respond completely differently. One person would improve and the next person wouldn't. In fact, sometimes they would get worse. One technique worked beautifully for one client and then seemed to do very little for the other. This happened enough that I could see the pattern. And at first, I was just frustrated with myself. I kept thinking I simply hadn't learned enough yet, and that it was my fault. I wasn't trying hard enough. Or
Amy Bradley Radford (21:40.386)
Maybe I just needed another class or another certification or someone else had to have had that missing piece. Someone else, some other class had the real massage magic book. But over time, I realized that the answer wasn't another technique. The answer was learning how to observe and pay attention. Instead of taking something personally, when I quit taking it personally, when a treatment didn't help as much as I wanted it to, I learned to start asking myself why something worked.
Or why it didn't? Why did that person's body compensate differently than the last one? Why did certain patterns repeat themselves over and over again, regardless of the treatment? That list can go on and on, but that's when my own education really began. Not because I stopped taking classes, because I didn't. I simply stopped expecting someone else to hand me every answer in the form of a technique. So instead, what happened?
is I started to become a student of the people on my table. Every client, everybody, literally everybody became my teacher. Every success taught me something. Every failure taught me something. Every unexpected outcome forced me to think just a little bit deeper. And I started looking outside the box and eventually realized something that completely changed my perspective. And that is everything has an answer.
The answer exists. I simply had to learn how to find it.
If you've ever listened to this podcast and thought, okay, but what would Amy tell me to do about my situation? That's exactly what coaching is for. We take everything you're learning here and apply it directly to your business. I love to help therapists who are ready to take what we talk about and put it to work and find their own massage business success. If that sounds like you, I have a coaching request form linked in the show notes.
Amy Bradley Radford (23:42.188)
And without even realizing it, that way of thinking began showing up everywhere else in my life. When you believe that the answer exists, then you seek to find it. But when you believe there is no answer, there's no path towards it. And you know, it also changed the way I looked at business. I stopped seeing business as an ongoing struggle because when in the beginning it is. It just you're always learning something new, or you forgot to pay your taxes or
You know, just some there's always something. There's this ongoing struggle. There's no relief for a while until it starts to find its pattern. And when I started to look at business this way, I began looking at each challenge as a problem that already had a solution. I just had to find it. I just needed to learn how to think differently in order to find those answers. And it changed the way I taught students. Instead of asking them to memorize another sequence or another protocol or another muscle.
I challenged them to ask questions. I asked them why. Why do you think this didn't work? Why did it work? What are you seeing in this client's body? What is the body trying to tell you? And it also changed the way I coached massage therapists. Instead of telling them exactly what business they should build, I started helping them think about what they really wanted and used that as a guidepost for creating a business that reflected who they were.
And a roadmap to get there. And you know, eventually it changed the way I developed pain patterns and solutions. I wasn't looking for techniques anymore. And I think that's the biggest thing about this particular style of body work that I want to bring forward is it's not necessarily about the techniques. It's about how you think. And inside this program, I I personally was looking for the principles. I call them universal principles, the things that remained true.
regardless of the person or the problem sitting in front of me. And and because there are principles, they help you think. And when you learn how to think, you can solve problems you've never seen before. To me, that's a completely different kind of education. And I honestly believe that's the education that carries us through years and years of loving what we do and staying in our careers, like I have done. You know, as I was putting this episode together,
Amy Bradley Radford (26:04.032)
I think I've discovered something about myself that I don't know if I ever really put into words before. You know, for a long time I tried to separate Amy the business owner from Amy the massage therapist. I thought I needed to be more business minded. There needed to be a different hat that I wore for that side of me. I needed to be less emotional, less connected, more more about the doing, like somehow those two parts of me were supposed to be different. But the truth is they're not. They're the same person.
And I'll be honest with you, as I put this podcast together, there were quite a few moments where I I cried. I I it this was a very emotional podcast for me because it it really dug deep inside of me and brought out bits and pieces of who I really am that I want you to get to know. And, you know, I am the therapist who cried because clients didn't get better. I'm the therapist who kept searching because I wanted better answers. I'm the teacher who doesn't want another massage therapist to leave this profession.
Simply because no one helped them bridge the gap between their graduation and gaining their confidence. And I'm the coach who sees potential in people sometimes before they see it in themselves. And I am still that person who gets so excited when a student suddenly has that aha moment and everything starts to make sense. And those aren't different versions of me. They're all expressions of the same heart. And that's a hard word to use in a world of business.
But somewhere along the way, I realized I needed to stop apologizing for that because I don't think caring deeply is a weakness. I think it's one of the greatest strengths we bring to this profession. And like I said before, the biggest challenge isn't learning how to care less. It's learning how to care well. So maybe that's what these little Amy's Corner episodes are really about. They're simply a place for me to share the things I've been thinking about over the last 30 plus years and maybe give my family a break.
of hearing all the things I have to talk about and g because I have a lot to say. And the lessons that have shaped me, challenged me, humbled me, ultimately made me the therapist, teacher, coach, maybe the person I am today. All of those things. Because I think I have a lot to offer. I think I can offer a lot of hope to people who are growing inside this profession. You know, a few weeks ago I came across something I had written in 1999.
Amy Bradley Radford (28:28.088)
For the graduation speech of my first graduating class for a massage school I had opened up at the ripe old age of 26. And boy, that was a learning experience. I'm just gonna tell you that. I had been a massage therapist for about six years, and I was young and still trying to figure out this profession out, and I had a lot of myself invested into my new massage school business. And you know, I had already experienced some incredible successes, but I had also experienced
A lot of disappointments and frustration and moments where I wondered if I was really making the difference that I hoped I was making. But every time I read this, I have one of those nostalgic moments. I can see myself sitting in my little teeny tiny office with one of my first huge computers writing this. And it makes me smile because I can always hear my younger self in those words, and because I've learned so much since then. Today I understand many, many things differently. The body.
Pain, how to teach, how businesses run, how to read people in a room, but maybe more than anything else, I think differently. Thirty years of working with clients and students and businesses has changed me in so many ways. But I realized that the most important part hadn't changed at all, and that is my heart. That piece is still exactly the same. And back then, I believed massage was so much more than muscles. I believed people deserve to be seen. They deserve to be treated with kindness.
and respect and compassion and genuine care. I believe that every person who walked through our door deserved our very best. I still believe that. In fact, I think I believe it even more today. So I'd like to share what I wrote with you. It isn't something I polished up for the podcast. It's simply the thoughts of a twenty six year old massage therapist who loved this profession enough to put her heart down on paper. And after reading it again, you know, I realized I wasn't just writing about massage. I was writing about
The therapists, my students, and myself could become. So the title of this is called What is Massage? Massage is an art. It is something you create to become uniquely your own. It is an expression of yourself and your growth in life. Massage is also an ultimate gift of giving. You circulate and interact with the energy of the person you work on, share the energy of yourself, and between and around the two of you is the universal energy that feeds us all.
Amy Bradley Radford (30:52.588)
The interaction of all these energies creates what we feel as massage. Massage encompasses more than the physical body. It is a triad of healing, physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. As the therapist, we facilitate or allow the healing process to take place in this vessel we call a human being, something concrete in a constant state of change by creating a space for them where there is peace, calmness, healing, and love.
We must remember that it is the individual that does the healing. We only create and support that healing. We do not control it, neither can we make it work or bend it to our will. We merely dance with this being and allow them to be. You as a massage therapist have a responsibility to not stand in the way of the process of healing. Yet without you, different depths of healing do not occur. We must always be present when these beings entrust us with their care.
One of the greatest words and actions for a massage therapist to fully understand is allowing. We allow the body to change. We allow the being to trust. We allow the being to experience. We allow them to process. We allow them to cry. We allow their emotions and spirit to come forward. We hold the space for them so that the mind, body, and spirit can come together. And as it is truth in all things, we must first be allowing to ourselves.
We also have an incredible responsibility with these beings. Never break their trust, never hurt them, never betray them or their bodies. Approach the body with reverence, head bowed with grace in your touch. It is amazing what will happen to your being and their being. And that, my friend, is massage. You know, reading this reminds me that while my education has continued to grow for many years, the reason I chose this profession has never really changed.
I still believe massage is about helping people. I believe we have the privilege of walking beside people during some of the hardest seasons of their lives. And I still believe that one of the greatest gifts we can offer another human being is to make them feel genuinely cared for. Not rescued or fixed, heaven forbid, not the word fixed, just simply cared for. Because that's what our hands do. And that's a gift our world needs more of. Maybe that's what this podcast was really about.
Amy Bradley Radford (33:22.766)
For me, was helping all of us become the kind of massage therapists who are both deeply compassionate and professionally grounded. I don't think those two things compete with each other. I think they belong together. As I was thinking about what I wanted this episode to be, I realized it really wasn't about just my story. It's also about your story. Because if you're listening today, there's a good chance you became a massage therapist for the same reason I did. You wanted to make a difference. You wanted to help people.
You wanted a career that mattered. And maybe, most likely, somewhere along the way, you've questioned yourself. Maybe you've wondered if you're good enough. Or maybe you've wondered if that next class you're going to take is what's going to finally make you feel confident. Maybe you've gone home after a difficult client wondering if you did enough. Or maybe you thought you were in the wrong profession. Or maybe you found yourself trying so hard to care for everyone else that you have forgotten how to care for yourself.
You know, if any of those sound familiar, I want you to know something. You are walking the same road that generations of massage therapists have walked before you, and you are not behind, you're growing. Experience takes time. Experience creates confidence. Confidence takes time. And learning to think differently takes time. Learning how to become both deeply compassionate and professionally grounded takes time.
And it's my hope that over the next year through this podcast, I can help shorten that journey for you. I can help bridge that gap. And it's not because I have all the answers, because truly I don't. I still learn all the time from my students and my clients. I still ask questions, lots of questions, but I can share the lessons that 30 plus years have taught me. I can share the mistakes. I can share the victories. I can share my failures. And especially the moments that changed the way I think.
If only one of those lessons helps you become the therapist you dreamed of becoming, then everything I do, from teaching to coaching to this fun little podcast, is helping me become the person I still hope to become. And you know what? That makes me incredibly happy. So before we finish today, I'd like to leave you with one question. It's some homework from your teacher. I want you to ask yourself, what am I trying to solve with another class that might actually require a different way of thinking?
Amy Bradley Radford (35:45.558)
I want you to just sit with that question this week and don't rush an answer. Just notice what comes up. Because sometimes the biggest transformation in our career doesn't begin with learning something new. Sometimes it begins with seeing something familiar through a completely different lens. So thank you for spending this time with me today. I'm truly grateful you're here. and before you go, I have one more piece of exciting news. Beginning next week.
This podcast is becoming a weekly podcast. A new episode will be released every Monday morning. To the best of my ability. And I'm just putting that little clause in there. I will be here each week sharing what I've learned in hopes that it will help shorten your journey just a little bit. And I hope you'll join me. Until then, take good care of yourselves, take good care of your clients, and never stop learning.
Amy Bradley Radford (36:42.318)
Thanks for spending this time with me. If this episode was helpful, subscribing or leaving a review helps other therapists find the show. For classes, resources, and ongoing education, you can visit amibradleyradford.com or join my email list if you'd like to stay connected. Take care of your body, your clients, and your business. I'll see you next time.
