Designing Your Therapy Office with Alison Pidgeon

Creating a calm, relaxing environment is good for business.

Have you heard of the research around healthcare design? There are different aspects of design that have been found to promote feelings of tranquility and ease.

Reducing the presence of anxiety-inducing features in favor of ones that are more mentally appeasing from your office space is good for you AND for your clients—even when you’re working with them remotely.

Come find out the best design choices to make (and which ones to avoid) in the latest podcast episode. Tune in here

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Show Notes:

Hey, Risers. Welcome to Episode 152 of Empathy Rising. Today I'm chatting with a good friend of mine, Alison Pidgeon, who has been around the therapy space for a long time. You may have seen her as a consultant with Practice of the Practice, and you may have heard her talk about this ginormous group practice that she has built, which is over multimillion dollars in revenue, as well as some of the other awesome side-hustles that she has. 

Today we're going to catch up because she is one of the very first people that I connected with when I switched over to serving therapists four or five years ago now. Moving from mom coaching into the therapist space, my first pivot, (which you guys know I've had a lot of pivots) so it was lovely to catch up with her, hear about the things that she is doing, what she's built, as well as her brand new offerings. 

I can't wait for you guys to hear her talk, not only about TheraSuite but also what it's like to have multiple income streams and to be playing at the big company level. So here we go. Here's my chat with Alison.

Marissa: Hey Risers. Welcome back. I am here with Alison Pidgeon, who has been a good friend of mine in this space for a long time. She's one of the very first people that I connected with way back in 2017 when I first started offering services to therapists. 

Back then, I was writing blog posts and writing websites, and grew into programming, and grew into now what is Side Hustle today. It's fun to be able to touch base every so often and just see both of our progress, which is what we were chit-chatting about before we hit record. 

So Alison, if you could just introduce yourself to the audience, let us know what you do clinically, but you also have some other fires that you're involved in that not just your clinical practice, but some coaching over here and some of this and some of that, so multiple streams of income. 

Alison: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm Alison Pidgeon. I am a clinician by training. I actually no longer do clinical work. I have a large group practice, we have about 35 employees here, where I live in Lancaster, Pennsylvania called Move Forward Counseling. 

I also started a virtual assistant company of the same name back in 2018. I have been working with Practice of the Practice doing business consulting for the past five years or so, and got into real estate investing and now started a website called TheraSuite, which helps private practice owners decorate and furnish their office spaces. 

M: What I love about that, is not only do you have multiple streams of income, but you have multiple interests that you're feeding, this one's really strategic and uses your thinking brain, and then this one's designed and probably uses your creativity and things like that. Do you feel like each stream meets a different need for you?

A: Yeah, definitely. I think that the TheraSuite business is definitely something that's just purely fun for me. I always loved design and designing my own house, and because I'm obviously not depending on it to, like, pay my bills it just feels like a fun project. 

M: Oh, we'll get into all of that. How did you first start your practice, and then what was your first income stream after that? Was that Practice of the Practice stuff? Then the VA and now TheraSuite. 

A: Yes. 

M: When you say that you're not working clinically anymore, are you just spending your time managing the clinicians that are under you, the 35 clinicians at your practice? Or where are you spending time at your practice?

A: Yeah. So I'm definitely functioning as the CEO, looking at the big picture. I deal with the finances, I deal with expansion-related things, but really the day-to-day running of the practice is now done by my chief operations officer, and that works out really well because then I get to do CEO stuff, which is what I like to do. 

M: Yeah. Which is the visionary stuff and just the growth planning and things like that? 

A: Yeah.

M: How has that transition been to step away from seeing the clients on a daily basis? Almost like handing the brains over. Do you miss therapy at all? 

A: I don't, and I realized that that may not be for everybody, but I'm one of those people who really wants to have a new challenge. Once I get really good at something, then I'm like, "okay, this, I can do this in my sleep. I want a new challenge". 

For me, shifting gears into being the business owner and the CEO was definitely a big new challenge for me, and I just loved it and it felt like a natural time to stop seeing clients because I actually had my third child back in 2019, and so when I went on maternity leave, I was like, "okay, I'm going to retire and keep my license active, and if I ever want to come back, I will". He's almost three years old now and I'm like, "nope, I have no desire". 

M: Yeah. I kept my license. I renewed it twice, and then this last time, it was 2021, I didn't renew. I just was like, "Hey, you know, I could get it back. There's an inactive status or whatever". 

That's what I did.  I can go through the process of getting it back if I ever want to, but I held onto it for a little bit, and then I was just like, "no, I'm just, don't see it". 

One thing that you mentioned that I want to point out too, is you said "shifted gears”, and you've certainly made a pivot, but it's not really a 180-degree pivot. You're still within your wheelhouse. You're still within the skillset that you've been trained for and have tons and tons of experience, and you're just in a different role in that arena. 

I think that that's really worth pointing out because sometimes some people think, "oh, I'm leaving my practice". They think it's got to be this huge pivot into something they've never done before. 

The VA business solves problems for therapists. TheraSuite solves problems for therapists. It's still gets to keep you in that wheelhouse but allows you to branch out, try new things, the new challenges, as you explained, test out different skill sets. 

A: Yeah. That's a great way of describing it. Yeah. 

M: Out of all your income streams, which one would you say is your favourite right now? 

A: You know, what's interesting? I still feel like the counselling practice is like my baby. It's probably the most successful, it's the largest, but it also is just, you have that sentimentality maybe about it because it was your first business and it's grown into such a beautiful place for people to work, but also, just an awesome place for clients to get services. 

I run into the people in the community who I have no idea are clients, and they just randomly share with me that they are a client and how great it's been for them and what great services they received. That is so gratifying. 

M: It's really cool because, with that business, you're making an impact on both sides. You're making an impact with the clients that you're serving. Employing 35 clinicians who you're serving a good chunk of your community with quality care, but also these employees of yours, you're paying people's salaries. You're feeding people's families and that's really cool to have that impact on both sides.

A: Yeah, and that's actually the one thing I always tell my staff and any potential candidates who are interviewing is that my number one priority is the therapist, because I know if I take care of the therapist, they're going to take care of the client. I'm always thinking of the therapist first. 

M: A hundred percent. I love that. So let's quickly dive into the VA and then I want to talk mostly about TheraSuite because that's what's so new and exciting and really innovative, solving a problem for therapists, but in an innovative way. I'd just like to touch on the VA stuff, just so people can hear different options and how you've introduced different incomes at different stages. 

Can you explain what your VA business does, what problems it solves, and what it was like to kind of get that one off the ground?

A: Yeah, so it's a very specific niche of helping therapy practice owners with their scheduling, with some insurance-based tasks. That started because my assistant at the time back in 2018, wanted to work more hours than I had available for her. I was like, "well, let's hire you out to some of these practices" because everybody was always asking me, "Where do I find a VA?" and I was like, "I don't know what to tell you". 

People are worried about hiring somebody overseas because of the language barrier, not being sure that they are going to follow HIPA and confidentiality laws, and all of that kind of stuff. I thought that was a really important piece to make sure all the VA's were based in the United States. 

We just started with that one person and then it seemed to work out really well and then once it seemed like it could sort of stand on its own, then we formed a separate LLC and then started hiring people and learned a lot about setting up systems. It's one thing to have one VA. It's another thing to have 15 or 20 of them. 

M: That's what I'm picking up from you is, you run companies. You have multiple employees, not just a couple. I don't know if they're W2's or if they're 1099's and stuff like that but even if they're contractors or full-time or whatever, there's a lot of people that you're managing and you're really building bigger firms. 

Is there anything that was nerve-wracking about having that big of a business or did you know you were always kind of going in that direction?

A: I think for me, it always hinges on finding somebody who can run the day-to-day. I have an operations person in that business as well, and so if I can find somebody who really looks at it as their own, and is invested, and I know I can trust to do a good job and make good decisions, then it makes my life that much easier. 

That's really what enables me to do what I do because I can't be in the weeds running four different businesses. 

M: Yeah. And so you've hired yourself, not out of a job, but you've hired yourself into the position in the company that you most like to occupy. 

A: Right. 

M: Which is really cool. Tell me what your day-to-day looks like if you're this visionary and the CEO of three different companies, where is your time going? Do you block off certain schedules? Are you a time batch or a blocker? Does it all kind of flow together? How does that work for you? 

A: Yeah, so I realized that this probably sounds a little chaotic to a lot of people, but I really just can switch back and forth between different businesses and even my own personal stuff. Before you and I started talking, I had my own appointment and now I'm talking to you, and the next hour I'm going to be talking to the consulting community, doing a webinar. 

Sometimes it feels a little overwhelming, but I'm just a very go-with-the-flow flexible kind of person. I just sort of set my work hours and then however things get scheduled in there is what happens. I probably spend like 10 to 15 hours on each, on each business. 

M: Yeah. 30 to 45 hours a week, but it's the way that you want to work. Its spread across the read different companies, which are bringing in millions of dollars of revenue all combined. 

Sometimes if everyone's really concerned with "oh, I only want to work a certain number of hours", they're really concerned with getting that number down, whereas you definitely have a full-time week, but the flow of it and the energy that you're bringing to it really suits you. 

It's not so much about the number of hours and getting that time down, it's about utilizing time and energy in a way that feels good. 

A: That's a good way of saying it.

M: I like it. I like that. I feel like personally because I'm bringing on a second business right now, I divide my time. I know with Side Hustle I spent about 12 hours a week there with the way that I support the students. 

Then my other two programs, Mastermind is about five hours a month, and then Space Holder is about two hours a month. So what is that? 48, 55 hours a month between that. I need to say, "okay, Tuesdays and Thursdays are for my Rooted business, and Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or for Side Hustle". 

I'd love to get to the point where it kind of just flowed, and I was like, "all right, well it's 8:00 AM, then I'm going to do this now".

A: Yeah. I'm extremely go-with-the-flow. I realize not everybody's like that. Probably a lot of people would get bent out of shape about that, but it doesn't bother me. 

M: Yeah. I think the key is finding what works for you. I think that's what is the beauty of entrepreneurship and I think that's what the beauty of adding a side hustle can do for you is give you choices and options and autonomy, and being able to set things up the way that you prefer instead of the way that's been kind of dictated or sold to you. 

So let's talk about TheraSuite because I know that is what's super-duper exciting. You guys can't see her background, but it's beautifully designed. You mentioned that design has always been something that you've been interested in.

Did you notice a need in the market? Like, "oh, therapist's offices are kind of ugly" or how did you switch into this? How did you recognize that “I want this to be my third income stream or fourth or fifth income stream”.

A: Yeah. What I noticed is that in Facebook groups of Therapists, there's always common questions that come up over and over again. One of those common questions was "I need to decorate my office, but I don't even know where to start", or "I need a new therapy chair, but I don't know what would be comfortable and I'm not sure I want to order one online", and "what do y'all think about this one?" 

There's just all these questions that came up over and over again about decorating office space. I think there is more awareness now among therapists that your office needs to look nice. It can't just be a bunch of furniture you found at a yard sale, that you sort of threw together in a room. Clients are expecting it to be a nice environment. That's really where it came from. 

M: Yeah, and are you noticing any kind of difference post-pandemic or current pandemic of the switch to being at home? Has there been a rise in people wanting to have their home office or their home space more conducive?  

A: Yeah. That's the other piece too, is that we have a whole section on the website about home offices because obviously you probably would set that up a little bit differently if you're not physically having clients come into that space. 

In my home office, my desk is in the middle of the room, which I would never do if I actually had clients coming in. That's the other piece of it too. 

People realize that maybe they made the choice to do tele-health permanently now and they need to set up a really nice functional, pretty space in their house, and they're wondering how to do that, which is actually what I did. I did that pre-pandemic because I was working from home before the pandemic started, but my dining room is my office. I don’t have a dining room anymore. 

M: Same. That is what I noticed, pre or when the pandemic hit, was I've been working from home for years, but the kids were either in daycare, and then they went into full-time school. 

My office is the dining room, which is a perfect space. We don't use a formal dining room, but there are no doors, it's just open to the living room and open to the kitchen. When everybody was home, it made it so much harder and I ended up just working from my bed and shutting my door, and then I'm not doing my best work. There's the aesthetic piece, and then there's the functionality piece.

A: Yeah. So the same, we had one big opening on the one side of our dining room and I had French doors put up, so it can be totally closed off. 

M: Well, and I think that's important to comment on is that you can change and adjust. Even if you're renting, you can bring in screens or you can bring in things, temporary fixtures or whatever, even if you don't own your house, or if you're leasing the office space and you don't own the building, there are still things that you can do to not only make the space more functional but make it more conducive for therapy and the experience of your clients.

A: Yes, I totally agree. I think too, one thing I realized just from designing my own office spaces and also putting together TheraSuite is that it doesn't have to be expensive to look really nice and to be a nice calming space for your clients. You can spend less than $2,000 and put together a whole office that looks great. 

M: Yeah. Especially if you're in 500 square feet or whatever, even that. Can you talk a little bit about what's the outcome of designing the office space and how does it benefit the clinician, and how does it benefit the client? Because we've danced around both of those, but I'd love to know, what have you found is the benefit?

A: Yeah, so there's a whole area of research now around healthcare design. There are different things that have been found to promote people to feel calmer in a space rather than anxious. 

A lot of people when they're entering any kind of healthcare space tend to feel quite anxious. You don't exactly know what's going to happen, or if you're seeking out physical healthcare, you might be worried that it could be painful or something like that. How do you set up the environment in a way that's going to maximize somebody feeling calm rather than anxious? 

Some of those things are using blues and greens and using pictures that have landscapes in them and not having anything like pointy or spiky or with sharp edges in the space. I have everything kind of rounded and soft. So there are just all these little things. Again, they seem small, but when you incorporate them, it does make a big difference. 

I know in my own office, we get a lot of compliments from people, about how nice the space is and how calm they feel and just really keeping clutter to a minimum too I feel like a huge thing that helps people feel calm - and actually, I have a funny story to tell you. 

Many years ago, when we first started decorating office spaces, we bought this painting that was kind of an abstract painting. The edges were uneven and they were kind of spiky, and it was all these sorts of splotchy squares or rectangles all over this painting, and we hung it up and literally six or seven clients within the first week were like, "that painting makes me anxious". 

M: Yeah.

A: They told the therapist that, and I was like, oh my gosh, like, this is a thing, you know, that really is really affecting people to the point where they're saying I'm going to do the therapist about it, so we took it down. 

M: I love that. I love that there was feedback on it, and I love that it was such concrete feedback. They're not just like; "Hmm. There's something about this room that makes me uncomfortable". 

They're literally able to say "don't like that painting. It creeps me out or it makes me anxious" or whatever. What about from the clinician's side?  I remember when I was practicing I always took Fridays to do notes, and one of the things that I used to love to do is just shut my office door, crank my music and just get through my notes. 

I was working in an agency and it was not cute. I'm wondering about how it also impacts the clinician to have an aesthetically pleasing and functional office.

A: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I think we can all remember times when we worked in agencies where they didn't probably pay much attention to what the environment looked like. 

I remember the one office I worked in community mental health, the carpet always seemed like it was dirty. Although I know they did clean the carpet, it just always seemed like it was stained and kind of gross, and that has an effect on you, you don't necessarily feel very good when you walk into a space like that, or, you have a bunch of old furniture that's falling apart, which was another office that I had when I worked in community mental health. 

I had a giant pink mauve color recliner, for some reason that was for the clients. I don't know why somebody picked that out, but I inherited that. When you are in a space that's nicely designed and that's clean and functional, and you just feel like you're at the top of your game, it feels good to you just as much as it feels good to the clients.

M: Yeah. Most of my listeners are definitely in private practice and probably can make these changes more easily, but for anybody who's listening, who maybe does work at a group practice, or does maybe still work in community mental health, do you have any suggestions of what they can do? When they don't necessarily own the building or they don't own the practice?

A: Yeah. I think if you're limited in what you can do if you can't paint the walls, for instance, there's always peel and stick wallpaper that you can remove that won't leave a mark when you take it down. 

I think you can do a lot by just making sure the furniture is cohesive and the colors go together. I'm one of those people who love color, so I would stick like seven colors in a room, and like the woman who I worked with who helped me design some of my offices was like, "okay, we need to have two, maybe three colors". 

You don't want it to look like it's a huge kaleidoscope of a bunch of different things that don't necessarily all work together. Even making sure, like, there are pillows that sort of match the rug that sort of match some of the art on the walls. I think that can go a long way. 

M: Now what's cool about TheraSuite is it's not just you're coming in as an interior designer, interior decorator, and just pointing things out. There is a really innovative solution on the website. 

Can you explain how it works and how, if somebody is like, okay, I want to spruce up my office, what would be the process that they would go through? 

A: You have two options on the website, and so we have collections of furniture and decor that we call "boards" and we have them design by style and also by room type. We have a really fun quiz that you can take that will help you figure out if you have no clue what your design style is, you can take the quiz and it will tell you. 

You can also just look at the boards and see what appeals to you, but we'll have all of the furniture and decor to design a mid-century modern office, and then you buy the board, we send you a document with all the links to buy all the things and everything is from Amazon, Target, Wayfair, common places that you can just buy and have things shipped to you. 

You buy whatever you want off the board, and then you have them shipped to you and you DIY set up the office how you want it. 

If you want a more custom option, we do have interior designers listed on the website that are familiar with healthcare design and therapy offices, and you can contact them directly and set up your own custom design package with them and they can do a variety of things for you in terms of helping you do the layout of your office or whatever you want.

M: That's super cool. How does TheraSuite then bring in revenue? When you sell the boards, are the links from on the boards, are those affiliate links for you as well?

A: Yeah, that is the future plan. It's kind of a little bit of a catch 22 because they want you to have an established business in order to set up affiliate accounts. We didn't set it up that way originally, but we're going to go back and set them up as affiliate links. 

We make money obviously from selling the boards themselves, and then we also do affiliate fees with the designers.

M: Awesome. The website is doing the bulk of the work for you, especially for those who choose the already curated option, and then with the designers, you're basically having a listing or a directory of people that are qualified and experienced to know what they're doing in the therapy space. 

You just continue to make new boards and do the fun stuff and upload them, but you're not having to do direct hours with people or exchange time for the money, which is a huge aspect of getting out of the therapy room. 

A: Yeah. And what's nice is that we can sell one board over and over again.

M: Yeah. Let's say there are two independent clinicians and they are renting an office in the same building. Even if they buy the same board, it's still going to look different in their space. They can still put their own flair on it. 

What comes to mind for me is when we used to buy our dresses for prom, the store would mark down if it had been bought before that way two people didn't wear the same dress to the same school, but it's not like that. You can take the board and you could apply it with your own flare, which I think is neat. 

A: Exactly. 

M: Two Things - is there anything else that listeners should be thinking about when they're thinking about their space? 

Also, do you have any advice for my listeners who are starting to branch out because you have so many different income streams in different arenas, and in different places? So we can take those as two separate things. 

A: Okay. Yeah. I think some things that I've learned about setting up a therapy office because we have set up so many of them now over the years is that we always usually get a loveseat for the client's chair just because it helps to accommodate people with larger bodies if need be or if you have a couple that you see, it's just good to have a love seat. 

We usually spend a lot of money on the therapist's chair, because they're going to be sitting in it all day. There are certain places where you want to spend money and save money, and that's one of those things that you definitely don't want to skimp on. 

The places where I would maybe choose a cheaper option would be buying an end table, buying a coffee table, things like that. Even if an office has wall-to-wall carpeting in it, we'll still get an area rug because it will help ground the space between the therapist's chair and where the client's sitting. Then if their office is big enough, we'll also always try to put in a desk and a desk chair so then when the therapist is doing their notes or whatever, they can sit over there and do that. 

I think there's a lot you can do with pillows, you want to bring in sort of that softness, and the more soft stuff you have in the room, the more it's going to absorb sound as well. Having a blanket on the loveseat for the client, pillows, curtains, the extra rug, all those soft things help to absorb the sound as well. 

M: This is a totally curiosity-based question, but have you ever done any creative things in a therapist's office? Maybe a standing desk or a treadmill desk or do you kind of have a formula that you think works?

A: Yeah, I haven't done that yet only because I haven't really gotten any requests from my staff to do that, but I guess I would be open to doing that. I guess it depends too, how big the space is.

M: I just think about that even though I'm not sitting with clients face-to-face every day anymore. I'm still sitting so much because my students are on zoom and things like that. 

That's something in the back of my mind, that I'm intentionally taking a walk in the middle of my day just so I get moving and get up, but I'm also thinking about "how can I do more of my work not sitting?"

A: I actually just got a treadmill. It's right next to me under the desk, I haven't figured out how to set up the laptop so that it's tall enough because I'm already tall. Still figuring out that piece of it. 

I definitely am thinking along the same lines, like, "oh wow I sit a lot", and even just walking slowly would be better than sitting.

M: Especially in Pennsylvania because you guys probably have a good chunk of the year where getting outside is harder. For me, it's the opposite because the summer is so humid that I don't want to be outside at all. 

It's incorporating ways into your “inside days” that still meet some of those other needs besides just sitting. I think that's kind of fascinating. 

Do you have advice for people who are starting their first side hustle or who are thinking about branching out? Just because you've done it in so many different ways with working on teams for other people and then these different income streams that meet your creative spark and this and that. 

A: I think one important thing to think about is: what is your goal with starting the side hustle? I know for some people, maybe their goal is to make a lot of money or whatever it might be. 

For me, I get most excited about starting new things, but I also know that my time is very limited. I have a zillion business ideas, I actually write them down in a book and the reason I decided to start TheraSuite is because I figured it was one of the ideas that would probably take the least amount of my time. That was really that decision-making process. 

I think too, you have to be really clear about what you're good at, what you're not good at and don't be afraid to hire out for the things you're not good at because a couple of months ago, I go on to Pinterest and like start a business account. I'm like "this can't be that hard, to start up a Pinterest page for TheraSuite" and it has gotten so complicated, I feel like in the past few years, just social media in general. 

I was 20 minutes into watching a YouTube video, and they were using these words, I had no idea what they were talking about. I was just like, "oh no, I got to hire somebody to do this".

M: Yeah, I agree, social media - I've never really used it. When I started using it is when I hired it out. I would say, since 2020, it's changed a ton in just two years.

A: It's gotten so technical and all of these new programs you can use to self-schedule things and it made much more sense to hire somebody than have me try to figure it out, which is not a good use of my time.

M: As for the boards, are you the one designing those, or have you hired that out? 

A: The designers that we have featured on the website have designed some of the boards and then I have designed some of the boards. 

M: I think that would be the fun part just to get in there and like make one a month or something like that. Like, "oh, this is fun" or "what's new at Wayfair? Oh, I love that couch. How can I use that in a board or something like that?" That would be really fun.

A: It's like shopping without spending any money. 

M: Yes. Oh, I love it. I love it. Awesome. Well, tell us a little bit about where we can go to follow up with TheraSuite, if we want to spruce our space up, or if we want to just start thinking more consciously about how our environment is not only affecting us but also affecting our clients.

A: Yeah, the website is thera-suite.com, so it's like a hotel "suite". Like I said before, we have a quiz on there. If you don't have any idea what kind of style you like, there's obviously lots of inspiration. 

You can see all of the boards, you can see how things are put together. You can see my formula for "I think these are all the things that need to be in a therapy space". We also have a blog. It has other people's practices featured on there. There's a blog post about my home office, how I set it up, and before and after pictures. So lots of fun things to look at.

M: It's like your own therapist-oriented Pinterest. If you like Pinterest, but you want to make sure that it actually is going to work for your industry, TheraSuite can just replace your Pinterest

A: We do have Pinterest and Facebook and Instagram too. We post—not me because I hired somebody to do it, but she does an excellent job.

M: Awesome. Well, Alison, thank you so much for your time. We will put all the links that you mentioned in the show notes, and be able to have people head over to TheraSuite and check it out. I bet these boards could even work for like… we're talking home office, you could even find some inspiration for your bedroom or for other rooms through this quiz now that you know your style, you could carry that into other places that you spend a lot of time in. I think it's a really cool solution. 

A: Thank you. Yeah, it was really fun talking to you about it today. 

M: Thanks for catching up. We need to go like schedule these more often, so we're talking every couple of months. Alright. Well, thank you again for your time, and I know I'll talk with you soon, and hopefully, my listeners will really enjoy TheraSuite.

A: Thanks, Marissa.

M: Alright. Something that I think is fascinating about Alison is that she runs companies. She's not even really a small business owner. Well, I guess technically by definition, they're small businesses, but they are companies, whereas I'm more the person who would prefer to be a solo business owner. 

I have a team for Side Hustle and you can go back and listen to episodes where I talk about hiring my team. One of them was the beginning of 2021 called, something about my burnout, which was a direct result of hiring the wrong people. Hiring is something that has always been a little difficult for me and to hear the way that Alison is just like, "yeah, hire for this and hire for that". 

I love hearing different perspectives like that. Regardless, one of the biggest takeaways that I want you to take from this episode is it can look however you want it to look. Alison's talking about her time being more flowy and I'm talking about my time being more structured. 

What's best about a side hustle is, like I mentioned in the episode, it gives you choices and it gives you options and it gives you autonomy, and the ability to shape and refine and define your day however you want it to be. That's what I love about adding on a side hustle. 

You've heard two different perspectives and two different types of business owners here today, and I hope it's brought just some value to hear the way different people operate.

I hope this has been helpful for you guys and I will be back next week until then, keep on rising. 

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