There's a Better Way to Separate: Why Early Support Changes Everything

Caitlin: Hello, hello. Welcome to the place for offbeat health professionals who have bravely swapped their healthcare hats for non clinical creative cats. I'm Caitlyn, a psychologist turned copywriter, and this is Healers with Hustles.

Tiffany Rochester is a psychologist and co parenting coach dedicated to nurturing families and providing unwavering support to parents, ensuring that children can thrive in warm relationships with both parents. Well, welcome to the podcast, Tiffany. I'm so happy you're here. Thanks so much, Caitlin. I'm really, really pleased to be here.

Is it all right if we start off maybe just by you telling us a little bit about your journey and maybe what led you to diversify your practice as a psychologist?

Tiffany: Yeah, so I, oh gosh, when I think about how long I've been a psychologist for Caitlin, it's a bit embarrassing, more than two decades ago and I felt in good company then, and it was actually something that I knew that I had wanted to be since I was 13, one of those lucky people that just knew where, where I will thought that I knew where I was headed and definitely was really passionate about wanting to serve teenagers.

That was what I went into this for. And then. Early in my career realized that if I was serious about serving teenagers, I needed to work with families and more specifically parents. And so developed a, a systemic lens very early on in a multisystemic therapy program. And then later moved into the contextual behavioral science world, which was a very, uh, A very beautiful home for me in terms of looking at the science of how we understand and predict and influence human behavior to reduce human suffering and looking at problems being housed in context, rather than being housed inside people, which makes far more sense to me.

Caitlin: And

Tiffany: then.

Throughout my career, so I started out working with the families of repeat juvenile offenders, and then I moved into perinatal mental health for a while, and then I was working with families raising children with complex needs, and moved into private practice, and from there fell into working with separated parents who were locked in the family court system.

And I feel like all of my career kind of prepared me for.

Caitlin: Yeah,

Tiffany: into the lion's den that is mandated court therapy. And as the lion's den not just for the therapist but for the poor families who have been going far too long. And, and when they were coming into my room they were coming in kind of like as a, As the last thing that a magistrate knew they could possibly throw at a family in distress rather than as your first line thing.

And so there were several things that, that I became really aware of there. So one was families were doing a way too tough or way too long that they weren't getting resources at that early part. So I wanted to, to pivot, to do that.

And then the other thing that I saw was that these, these, these Families in transition, families learning how to be one family across two homes don't, don't need therapy.

They need coaching. They, they, they need very practical, pragmatic skills orienting because it's a different lens when you are co-parents rather than in a, in a romantic relationship together. And the way that you wanna step through communication tools is different. And the way that you want to orient your behaviors towards each other is different.

So it's not a therapy approach, it's a coaching approach. So there was that present along with when families are separating the finances us. Scary. And the process is lonely. And so if we want to really serve these families, well, we need to do several things.

We need to get in early. We need to get in affordably we need to connect them to a community of people who are doing the hard yards that they are and doing it with that framework of stepping through with collaboration and kindness and really centered around the best interestss of the children and the family, which is really counter counterculture to the, unfortunately, the dominant narrative about what looks like.

Caitlin: Tell me what that was like, then, if you were doing something that was so different or so, like, counter to what is usually done.

Tiffany: It's been an interestsing journey in terms of, you know, so for, for any of our therapist colleagues who are listening along, there's nothing that revolutionary, I think, in the way that, that I would talk about approaching things with families.

It's using compassion and care and kindness and communicating clearly and holding assertive boundaries. This is our native language.

Caitlin: Yeah.

Tiffany: But it's not the native language of. Many of the, of the lawyers and many of the, um, other parts of the system that these families come into contact with.

So obviously in working within that court space in those years, I had to learn a lot about the different language that gets spoken over in legal land and how to talk with lawyers in a way that they could actually understand what I was trying to communicate.

And then also for me to learn. How things were working in, in their world and what it was that they were trying to do for and with their clients. Through that, I did meet the most beautiful, amazing heart centered, values aligned lawyers that, you know, that you could ever hope to find. They all sit within the collaborative practice model and lawyers get a really bad rap.

And honestly, a lot of them probably deserve it, but there is a larger growing community of lawyers who are making that transition across too. To our native language around how to support and resource families. But what sat with me though, Caitlin, was whilst it's our native language, nobody was I'm not doing it.

There wasn't somewhere else for these families to go. And amongst our colleagues, Separated parents is one of those, you know, populations that a lot of our colleagues tend to avoid. And so they closed down availability for these families where these families that are in high crisis, hugely vulnerable, and there just wasn't anywhere for them to go.

So it felt like I wasn't doing something outrageously outside of the norm. And

Caitlin: yet it was. Yes. It seems like it should have already been there because it seems intuitive or logical that there will be a program or something like that, but there wasn't.

Tell me about how you went about like setting up the, because it's a program, isn't it?

Or do you do coaching as well?

Tiffany: Yes, yes. So I do coaching with parents who want to work together to work on either a parenting plan or to get their co parenting communication and relationship established and on track. And I really love that work. I only work with hell yeses. So I meet with people to see if I think that I have the skills and resources to be able to help them get through to a really good outcome.

But I also want them to have that full faith in me as well. What that means is that every name in my diary lights me up, Caitlin. Like it is just, I work with the most beautiful people. I just get to sit with them and think far out. Like, how do I get this privilege to sit with these amazing humans? So that's in that coaching space there.

Not everybody has a dream co parent. Sometimes we have parents who are really desiring to be collaborative, values aligned, do the best thing by their kids. And for whatever. Whatever sits in their co parent's learning history, they're not there yet. And so we have somebody who's trying to do the best that they can, but with a really, really tricky co parent.

Now those people definitely need a truckload of resourcing, because they can't wait around waiting for their co parent to wake up and decide to do things differently. So they don't need to step into their power. They need to look at, What do I do to be able to have my time and my freedom in this new life and to be able to do the best I can with a co parent that I've got?

They definitely can't do that on their own. They need to be in a village. They need to absolutely be resourced by a whole bunch of cheerleaders who are standing shoulder to shoulder with them and lifting them up as they go along. So we also have our co parenting intensive reset, which is where we, over a five week period, Put in all of the foundational skills that are needed to care for yourself in a really tricky dynamic, care for your kids, and then step through to shape and influence behavior for the greater good across the whole, whole system.

And then for those that really want to. Step into that support further and get more resourcing along the road. We have a membership to be able to have coaching calls together and a truckload of resources in our online portal for anything and everything, everything that I think I've ever come across for co parenting across all of these, I've been working in this space.

That's all jam packed into that portal. Two o'clock in the morning when I'm most definitely tucked up in bed, not available to them. They can jump in. There'll be a video of me talking it through an article, a summary.

Caitlin: How nice even just to have that there. Like even just that, like containing awareness that, yeah, there's something there for me.

If I do freak out and have a question and I can go and look that up. I think that would be so beneficial.

Tiffany: And they get pulled in so many different, Directions. There's such a lot of different and inappropriate advice out there, I think. So that's certainly my hope and vision is that it is a wellspring where people can feel replenished and restored and sure footed about what they're going to do for the next path.

Caitlin: So great that you've done this, but tell me about the, like the process of setting it up because It's quite different from what we're trained in, in terms of the business side of things.

Tiffany: It is. It has been the biggest learning curve of my career. I always said that I never wanted to run a business and now I run two.

I never wanted to employ people. And now we have people on our team, a small team, Caitlin, but you know, we're getting there. Look, it started out very simple and ineffective. So I could see that there was a need for the family that I was serving to just have someone share the cognitive load with them. So the first iteration of this was when I was working purely in the clinical capacity and I invited people into a free membership where they would get.

An email from me once a week that would say, Hey, this is the coparenting stuff that you should be across. And the parents who were receiving that told me about the value that was in it for them and that they were getting a lot out of it. But it's an email and you know what our inboxes are like, right?

Um, You know, there's a thousand emails and I often don't even open the emails from my favorite people, friends and family. Of course, I read your emails, but you know, all the mailing lists of people that I really admire and sit on it. So I knew that it wasn't getting the traction. That I wanted for it to have the impact that these families needed and I had no freaking idea like how to switch that, what platform to put it on.

I thought I, I need to have some videos. Videos would be helpful because if people can see me talking about it, that that'll be easier. I don't know anything about tech platforms, dunno, anything about marketing. There's a, as you would know, significant lack of marketing in our degree. Yeah. And so. So I flopped about, I worked on it for, um, around, uh, 18 months on my own.

And what I discovered in that time was the people who signed up. And by that point I had introduced a subscription fee. So it was bringing in a small amount of money, nothing compared to the amount of time I was putting into it. And the people that I had were sticking around and staying, but I wasn't growing at all because I had no idea how to scale.

So I went on the lookout for a business coach and interviewed a couple to see who was the right fit for me, because as you'll hear in anything I talk about it, hell yes, it's really important. I want to have a belief that if I'm going to put my money somewhere, that they're going to take me where I want to go and I want them to be invested in my success as well.

So I found the right coach for me. And. Thankfully, she is amazing at bringing together a collective in the same way that I want my co parents to be able to stand shoulder to shoulder. It's so much easier to do this in the company of other entrepreneurs who are heart centered and values driven. And I've been on an incredible journey of learning all things, uh, marketing, landing pages, opt ins, Instagram, Facebook.

I spent a year arguing with my coach that I did not need to be on Instagram or Facebook. And, She won that argument and I'm glad that she did. I'm glad that she did because one of the things that that sits with me, I was very anti marketing, very anti heavy push for sales and I still am. But what I am passionate about is I, I was gonna say I think, I know that what I'm offering to families is valuable and useful and saves them freaking thousands of dollars and so much time in angst and stress as they go through a separation.

I know the value of it. I want it to be in the water supply. I want this to be the mainstream narrative. And if that's what I care to do, I have to tell people that I'm there. I have to let them Find me, they have to be breadcrumbs everywhere. And the thing that I love about it, I still don't love marketing, but the thing that I do love about social media or podcast guesting or writing to my mailing list is I love being able to just get some little gems of hope, some little free tidbits.

So there might be people that will never actually spend a dollar within our business, but they're still going to have a different co parenting experience because of. This piece or that piece that they picked up listening to a conversation like this.

Caitlin: That's such a great. Mindshift or a great way to look at it in terms of, yeah, that you're providing like an amazing service.

And if we don't talk about it, then no one can benefit from our amazing service. So, but you seem like you're incredibly passionate about what you do. And I'm sure that translates on Instagram, which makes things a little bit easier. I think if you love what you're doing, it makes it easier to. Yeah. Create content that you quite like as well.

Tiffany: That's really true. And one of the most useful tips that now I know that my coach talked to us about this a lot, but I heard it through various other places as well. I like to cite my sources, but I'm not always brilliant at it, which was to just speak to the people that you want to serve. And for me that was, that took so much pressure off because I had all the voices that certainly I think you'd hear this a lot amongst our therapist colleagues around, what if I upset people or what if I offend people or what if my colleagues see what I'm writing and they think I'm writing the wrong thing.

And when I realized that, I'm actually not trying to reach any of them, then I can just show up and be me. And because that hell yes is really important to me, that's exactly what I want. I want people to hear me and either go, holy crap, that's exactly who I want. Or Jeepers nuts, she's wrong for me. I want those people to never come anywhere near me because I don't want them to waste their time and their money with me.

If I can't serve them, I want them to know that already. So having that clarity around who I want to serve and knowing I only have to speak to them, that was incredibly

Caitlin: useful for me. Absolutely. That's the thing with marketing, isn't it? It's almost just as much about like, yeah, getting people to say, no, I don't want that than it is to say, yes, I want that.

But you're right. But it is such a, uh, Icky, not an icky thing, but an uncomfy thing, particularly at the beginning thinking like, Oh, what about my colleagues? And what about my like first year teacher? Like, what are they going to say? Or what are they going to think? But things like that you found, yeah. Like business coach or someone to help you step through that.

What was that like a little bit? Tell me about that.

Tiffany: Look, if you had asked me beforehand about stepping into a group process for business coaching or for anything, I would have been quite skeptical. Um, and what stood out for me was how much value there was in. Being in the company of other people and learning together and supporting each other. And out of that has come, I didn't go into the process to find new friends.

I felt my network was quite full and it was, I know the most beautiful people. And yet the friendships that have developed there and the way that these women cheerlead and support me and each other to be in a space where we celebrate each other's visions and dreams. And. There's no competitive edge has been truly beautiful, breathtakingly beautiful.

I really look forward to any time that I get to be with those people. It's been fantastic. And our coach, she's, we call her the fluffy search hammer. She's very loving and kind, but my goodness me, she tells you exactly what you need to hear, whether you really want to hear it just then or not. And for me, I'm a straight up, what you see is what you get person.

I like things to be quite blunt and direct. So that was definitely the right fit for me.

Caitlin: Right. Yeah. But I like how you said about that you interviewed a few people beforehand to find that hell yes. Or how'd you say hell yes, or heck yes, or hell yes, yes, I like it for work. I like hell yes. Yeah, that's beautiful.

Before we hit record, we were talking a little bit about like showing up online and talking a little bit about like our brand voice and values and things like that.

So tell me about that process of you working out your brand voice.

Tiffany: Yeah, look, that has been, that has been quite an interestsing process for me.

So for many years, I wrote a blog, you know, casually, not religiously. And prior to that, I've always loved writing. And so I've always had a writing style that, that I quite like, and other people seem to respond to and resonate with. And that was what I, how I was writing to my members as well. But then as I transitioned into this world of sales funnels and marketing writing language and captions, there's something that shifted where I thought.

Oh, I can't do that. Or I don't know how to do that. And I became a lot more frozen and restricted. I stopped trusting my voice in that and somewhere in that process. ChatGPT came out and I was like, this is amazing because I can ask this AI to write things and I write things for me. And I knew when I was reading through them that they didn't light me up the same way that my own stuff does, but I'm like, maybe I'm just a bit self centered about my writing.

And this language model knows better than me. And so for a little while, there was a lot of, you know, edited and polished, but ChatGPT coming out. And there is a difference in how you put together a sales funnel compared to how you write a blog or how you write something to your mailing list. So there was a shift that I needed to make, but the shift wasn't to AI.

And we had an excellent workshop with somebody whose name I cannot remember, which is terrible on really finding our, our thought leadership. I'll find it for you, Caitlin, so you can put it in the show notes. And so there's a lot of work around looking at our values and looking at who we wanted to work with, et cetera, et cetera.

And through all of that, we found. What was my brand voice? And it took me by surprise, which was that it was girl next door. And my first reaction to that was, I want to be the girl next door. Like, you know, and then somebody was saying to me, but the girl next door is like, that is you. Like it's. You know, it's relatable, it's human, it's, it's peer to peer, it's not hierarchical.

And it's like, Oh, well, no, that actually, that does completely resonate with me. And it reminded me of something that, that the very first time I was asked to be a keynote speaker at a conference, the, the person who. invited me. I said to him, look, of course, give me a microphone. I love to talk. You can tell, but, but, but why, why me?

Because he said he was going to build me as an inspirational speaker. And why would you do this? I said something along the lines of, because I'm, I'm just ordinary and I am paraphrasing, but, but what he said back to me is, yeah, you're right. That's exactly right. You are ordinary. You're, you're not special at all.

And that's why I want you to come and speak because you're doing extraordinary things and you're not waiting to be special. And so then coming back to that, like that girl next door really resonates for me. And then the freedom in that is that I don't need a language model to write my words for me.

I've got a voice. I'm great. I don't need chat GPT before I come into a podcast interview. Um, I don't need it if I'm going to write to my mailing list, which is full of people that I really, really care about. I wouldn't use it to write to my mother. I'm not going to use it to write to my mailing list. And then if I'm going to show up in a caption for an Instagram thing or what have you, I can just.

Be me and the other permission that it gave me is I do love to get loads of videos out there because I think it's really useful to be able to hear voice, see expressions. And I don't, because I care about accessibility, I don't have some big. Production budget where everything can be polished and beautiful.

And so I need people to accept that my videos are rough around the edges and definitely rough around the edges. But I think the girl next door is rough around the edges. I think she doesn't spend a lot of time polishing things up. So it was really, really liberating to be able to, yeah, let go of all of the extra work that wasn't serving me anyway and just be me.

Caitlin: And that's so glad that you say that because that's exactly what I say to, yeah, my brand voice clients is that it's basically a permission slip. When we identify what your brand voice is and we find it, it's basically a permission slip to be able to, yeah, turn up like that and really lean into it with a voice that feels right.

Right to you. And we've, yeah, girl next door. I call that like friends at the bar or friends at the cafe, which is like a voice of accessibility. So like what you were saying about being equals, you're still like an authority, but tell me about being the key keynote speaker.

Tiffany: Look, it was excellent actually.

And I, and I've had the opportunity to speak at a, a few conferences since then. And I mean, honestly, I love any chance to reach people. And. Tell them about a different narrative that, about how the world can be. I think there is so much about, particularly right now, I think the new cycle is so dire and distressing, and there's a lot of angst.

And I think I'm not a creator of science. I did briefly go back into academia with Telethon Kids Institute as a Associate Research Fellow for a bit because I care so much about the science. I thought I wanted to go and contribute back to it, and I don't. Like, I really care about science, but I am not a generator of it.

I'm a disseminator. And that part I think, you know, there's loads of people who are great at creating science, but they're not great at disseminating it. And if they can't disseminate it, then their amazing work dies. So, yeah, I love any opportunity to go and talk about compassion and how that is a powerful shift of both for ourselves and for others, or to talk about how we can bring Predict and influence behavior to reduce suffering and how that's not about being manipulative.

It's about actually showing up for our best selves or about the fact that we don't have to take our thoughts as seriously as our thoughts tells them that they should be taken. I mean, every part of it, I just, yeah, I really love the opportunities to, to talk around and share that stuff.

Caitlin: It's something that can gives me the heebie jeebies like having to speak.

So, which is wild that I'm doing a podcast, but you know, we've got to start somewhere. Tell me more about your.

Like the program and the co parenting companion.

Tiffany: So we have kind of two different pathways that people come into our, um, services. So one is when they want to work with their co parent together.

And that starts out with the, how do we tell the kids consult and people can jump in later. If they kind of miss that boat, that doesn't mean they're out. They can, they can come back at any time, but it's my favorite. It's my favorite time to start working with people in transition, because my experience with parents is everybody, almost everybody comes into my world once.

To do the best thing by the kids and they want their children to be okay on the other side of becoming a two home family. However, in the context of separating often, you know, heartbreak doesn't happen evenly. And so we can have very different emotional experiences for both people. There's generally a huge amount of the emotions they would rather not have, grief, anger, betrayal, frustration, sadness, guilt, shame.

And we've got a relationship that was Not intended to break down that has broken down and there'll be all the reasons why that has happened. So to ask those people by themselves to automatically know what is in the best interests and agree on the best interests and step forward in the best interests is like, it's just asking way too much.

It's just so terribly unfair for them to try and do that. By themselves. What I find is that if we're having that conversation at that point, when it's looking at how to tell the kids how to go through this next part, then they are so, both people are generally so open to hearing why each other. is thinking that, you know, a pathway X or Y or Z is in the children's best interests.

And then taking the advice from someone like me, who sits back as a neutral, um, expert in child development to be able to go, yeah, I can see, I can see what you want, but that's not the pathway that's going to Get you there. Like, you know, your baby's six months old. If you want 50 50 shared, um, custody, that's fantastic.

It's really awesome. You can't get there by going week about on day one. And I find that, that at that point, people are very flexible and able to say, yeah, okay, all right, let's, let's really, you know, work this out together and step things through well. Whereas if we get. If we, if we get in, you know, three or four or five years later, and there hasn't been that process.

And instead there's been lawyers letters fighting for positions. Then that perspective is gone on this person over there caring about the best interests of the kid. And that willingness to flex up is much harder to find. So that's why it's my favorite place to start. And for some people, that's all we do is we just do a simple, okay, let's, let's look at how do you tell the kids?

And how do you get through the next eight weeks? And sometimes they're good to go. They just wanted to make sure that they were short footed for other people. And they want that next part, which is to look at how do we get a parenting plan in place and how do we get through a financial separation? Now I'm great with my own money.

I'm not good with anybody else's. That's not my training. And so I can coach people through to a parenting separation and I can help connect them in with a financial neutral. So it's like. Tiff, if I'm your cup of tea, this will be your financial cup of tea. So I can connect them in with a financial advisor or an accountant who can do that part.

And if it's more complex, and sometimes it is for all kinds of reasons, whether it's a kid with different needs or, or just additional complexities with other blended families, whatever it is, if it gets more complicated, we can also bring in lawyers. But when we bring in lawyers, we bring them in as part of a collaboration.

Not as part of a litigation and so in a collaborative process, the lawyers, they represent their clients, but they're part of a brainstorming team with a financial mutual and myself as coach that wrap around the family to help them transition through to a smooth, smooth separation.

Caitlin: Yeah, that seems like such a lovely approach, but.

Like you were saying before that it's not necessarily the norm to have that collaborative approach, or is that, yeah, is that something? Yeah.

Tiffany: It's not

Caitlin: the norm. Yeah.

Tiffany: It's not the norm. It's not mainstream. Indeed, unfortunately, there's still many family lawyers and mediators who don't actually even know that that's an option.

And that approach. Whilst it makes so much sense to you and I for our lawyers, as I mentioned earlier, it is a big mind shift. It is, they have to unlearn what we can't unlearn. They have to step away from so much of their learning. They've had all of the university degree has been about how to argue a position, not how to collaborate with the other side.

So the ones that have made the shift across, I mean, they would have made beautiful psychologists if they'd chosen a pathway. They are awesome, but it is a big Big shift for them to make. And it's not funded by Legal Aid. And this, I think, is absolutely appalling and unacceptable that the most supportive, helpful pathway through a separation is not eligible for Legal Aid funding.

So it means this makes it one more thing that is only available To those wealthy enough to be able to afford it. This is why it's important that services matter. Look, I don't know that's legal land. I don't know the ins and outs of it. I just know that there are people agitating for that change. And the change that I'm agitating for is to get this out into the mainstream narrative that there is an alternative and to make sure that we have accessible and affordable services for families that need it.

That can't afford that pathway. So then, then within our group programs, within our intensive reset, which is the best intro, I think, into our group programs, because you get that really good fast foundation as well as connection with your community. In those we look at how do you. How do you resolve conflict?

How do you get your co parent to a yes on shared values for the best interests of the kid? How do you care for yourself when you get a whole heap of rubbish coming at you from the other side if they're not on the same page as you yet? So that they don't need to go to mediation. So they don't Don't need to go to lawyer's letters.

And we have that data now, as we track people who go through the program or who go through our membership, we have that data of them cancelling mediation of them getting agreements that they thought was going to have to go to lawyer's letters of being able to sit down and have conversations with a co parent, even though the co parent has never come near our stuff, that the person who has is a lawyer.

Is doing enough to keep their co parents offenses down and bring them back to the table to get those kinds of changes happening. And I would far rather see systemic change where people don't need lawyers, even the very lovely ones. I mean, really, I want them to get to the point where they don't need any of us.

Let's make ourselves redundant, but that's where I want to put my energy.

Caitlin: Yeah. It's such a good point, isn't it? And like what beautiful data for you to have that. Yeah. They don't need the mediation. They don't need that because I've got the skills to be able to.

Is there anything that you wish I would have asked you or is there anything that you'd feel like you need to say?

I mean, that's a dangerous question,

Tiffany: Caitlin, because you might've noticed. I really like to talk.

Caitlin: I mean, you're a great speaker. You speak, yeah, you're very engaging. So it's a great.

Tiffany: Yeah. I'd like to ask it back to you. Is there. Any part that still leaves you kind of curious or thinking about, you know, with, with the people that you serve that it could be useful for us to talk about.

Caitlin: Yeah, I'm trying to think. So you've covered like the starting off like a business coaching. Uh, is there, I guess maybe a little bit about like transferable skills. What did you find like that skills that were transferable in your line of work? Yeah.

Tiffany: Yeah. So I think so many of our skills are transferable, particularly because we are excellent communicators.

In theory, we know how to have difficult conversations. We are great analyzers of data. And I think that that all of those are really, really important because if we are diversifying our practice or we're stepping into a coaching space, there are plenty of people in the market. There's loads. It's just that a lot of it is not evidence.

Space. A lot of it is not actually going to deliver what people are handing over their hard earned money for. Do know how to read the science and then we do know how to communicate it. Our incredibly transferable skills. I think we are not good at marketing at all. And that is definitely for anyone who, if that's putting them off, I'd say like, yeah, get some help and guidance around that.

It's, we're not supposed to intuitively know how to do it all. And that is a growth curve for most of us. I love some of the stuff that you do in terms of copywriting. I think that's, that's the next higher on my list is to be able to bring in copywriting because whilst I do love writing in my own voice, I can't do everything.

My VA is amazing. Our tech support person is incredible. So, I really would love to have somebody be able to do some of my writing for me some of the time, because that means that there's more time that I can spend directly with the people that I want to serve. So I think the other thing, it's not transferable skill, it's a skill that I think we often need to develop is who to hire, when to hire, what to outsource, and Then within that, I think you said something really important just a few moments ago, where you commented about a discomfort with public speaking, but doing a podcast.

And if I look at everything that I do, that where there is worth, where there is value, where there is service in what I'm doing, It's worth stretching into the spaces where we're terribly uncomfortable. And so I'd hazard a guess that that's why you're doing this podcast, even though it's not.

Caitlin: Yeah, exactly.

I'm like, I'm nodding along, definitely.

Tiffany: Yeah, absolutely. And so the same thing, if there are people listening to this, who might look at someone like me, who's a couple of steps further along on their journey and go, well, you know, she's, she's great at tech. Well, I wasn't. I do know how to put videos up now.

I didn't. I do have an Instagram following now. I had zero. So people going and thinking like, Oh, I can't get there. It's just, you know, same rubbish that we've always told ourselves. If it's worth doing, step into the learning of it. Resource you ask for help.

Caitlin: Yeah, I think that's an incredible, like such a good point.

If it's important to you, it'll be a no brainer to step into. You'd be like, well, no, that's just what I'll do. And that was similar with the podcast. I was like, I'm terrified of public speaking. I'm a bit of, I can't really speak very well, but I'm a psychologist and I, you know, talk to people one on one all day, so surely it'll be okay to do it.

And yeah, it's a bit scary, but here we are.

Tiffany: Exactly right. And here we are talking one to one. Like this is our genius zone. That's it.

Caitlin: So true. Oh, thank you so much, Tiffany. It's been a pleasure to talk to you today. And yeah, I'd be keeping a close eye on what you do. Cause it's incredible, incredible work.

And I don't work with children and families anymore, but you know, I work with adults and we were all children once and it has such, you know, separation has such a, you know, impact. And so you're doing. Beautiful work now that'll serve, you know, my future patients, I'm sure.

Tiffany: Thank you. And I've loved this opportunity.

And likewise, I've loved watching what you're doing in this space. And I think helping other people in our profession to be able to step out, diversify to, I think with the current mental health crisis, we need to, we can't, none of us can survive if we bulk bill and Medicare is not coming to the party on the rebates.

So if we are serious about service to families and still putting. Food on the table for our own family. We need to diversify. And for that, we need people like you showing the way highlighting where there's help and just really resourcing the community. I think it's incredibly important. I'm so, so grateful.

Caitlin: Oh, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.

Tiffany: Thank you.

Caitlin: All right.

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