Episode 166: The Truth About "Doubt Yourself Do It Anyway™"

Show Notes

In this episode, I share my transformative journey of creating and growing multiple businesses and income streams while embracing the idea of "Doubt Yourself Do It Anyway™." From battling imposter syndrome to hosting international summits, creating multiple podcasts, writing a book, and more, my entrepreneurial path has been filled with twists and turns.

Here are three key takeaways:

1. Embrace the Unknown: Taking risks, despite the feelings of uncertainty, allows us to grow, learn, and prepare for even bigger leaps in the future. Use these decisions to help build confidence and experience.
2. Acknowledge and Navigate Self-Doubt: Perfectionism, imposter syndrome, and self-doubt are normal and often persistent. Instead of letting them hold you back, acknowledge their presence, find your purpose, and keep moving forward.
3. Celebrate Small Wins and Plan for the Future: Reflect on past accomplishments to fuel future ambitions. Planning and adjusting your goals based on what energizes you and honors your sensory needs can lead to sustained success with less burnout.

If you're navigating your own entrepreneurial journey, I encourage you to consider the resources and experiences that I and other experts in the mental health entrepreneurial space have created for individuals like you.

• All Things Private Practice Retreats: allthingspractice.com/private-practice-retreats 
• Empowered Escapes Retreats: empoweredescapes.com 
• Join us in Edinburgh next July for the "Doubt Yourself Do It Anyway" Summit: empoweredescapes.com/scotland-july-2025-summit 
• Greece Leadership Retreat: empoweredescapes.com/greece-retreat-2025 
• Divergent Conversations Podcast: divergentpod.com

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A Thanks to Our Sponsors: The Receptionist for iPad, Alma, & All Things Private Practice + Empowered Escapes 2025 Retreats & Summits!

✨ The Receptionist for iPad:

I want to thank The Receptionist for iPad for sponsoring this episode.

From new patients faced with an empty lobby and no idea where to find their therapist to clinicians with a session running over time and the doorbell ringing, some of the most anxiety-ridden moments of a therapy appointment happen before a session even starts. The Receptionist for iPad, helps you tackle some of that pre-appointment apprehension and anxiety.

The Receptionist for iPad is an easy-to-use digital client check-in system that helps your visitors check in securely to their appointments and notify their practitioners of their arrival via SMS, email, or your preferred channel.

No more confusion and less lobby checking or having clients sign in on paper logbooks. It can even help you upgrade and update your demographic information for your clients as well and even validate parking.

Start a 14-day free trial of the Receptionist for iPad by going to thereceptionist.com/privatepractice. Make sure to start your trial with that link and you'll also get your first month free if you decide to sign up.

✨Alma

I want to thank Alma for sponsoring this episode.

Building and managing the practice you want can be challenging. That’s why Alma offers tools and resources to help you build not just any practice, but your private practice. They’ll help you navigate insurance, access referrals who are the right fit for you, and efficiently manage administrative tasks — so you can spend less time on the details, and more time delivering great care. You support your clients. Alma supports you.

Visit helloalma.com/ATPP to learn more.

✨All Things Private Practice + Empowered Escapes 2025 Retreats & Summits:

The 2025 retreats and summits are live! Find more information at allthingspractice.com and empoweredescapes.com. Travel the world with us, connect, build your businesses, expand, and step out of your comfort zone. Doubt yourself, do it anyway. We hope to see you in 2025.

✨✨ Hurricane Relief for WNC communities:

This money will go to nonprofits who are boots on the ground. It will go to struggling individuals who do not have enough money for gas to get out, or who do not have enough money to provide their basic needs right now. Donate to Patrick's GoFundMe to help provide urgent aid for WNC communities affected by Hurricane Helene. Visit: atppod.com/wnc

Transcript

PATRICK CASALE: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the All Things Private Practice podcast. I'm your host, Patrick Casale. I am doing a solo episode today for the first time in a long time, basically, wanting to talk about the Doubt Yourself, Do it Anyway experience that I just went through in Italy. I haven't gotten to record this episode yet because very soon after Italy happened Hurricane Helene happened.

And one, my heart is definitely with all of my community in Asheville and Western North Carolina and all the other areas impacted. And I got into the devastation and destruction on Divergent Conversations and talked about the neurodivergent experience of surviving the hurricane, and what that's looked like since then. So, I'm not going to touch on that right now too much. But forever on my thoughts, mind, heart. And yeah, it's been a lot. It's been heavy, for sure.

So, switching gears to Italy. So, a lot of you who are listening probably know that I just hosted my first international summit in a medieval village in the middle of Italy called Petritoli. Petritoli, Italy, fun to say, and confused constantly. And we had 14 speakers, rented an entire medieval Italian village, bust almost 100 mental health entrepreneurs four hours away from Rome airport. And it was a hell of a time. It was a build-off of almost two years of planning, and stressing, and logistics, and getting it all figured out. And it was a really awesome experience.

There were definitely some bumps in the road, especially, with a location like that. And that was to be expected. It was a little hotter than we wanted it to be, which couldn't do anything about, obviously. However, it really was a lot of fun.

And it made me reflect on, like I did this timeline exercise during my talk, thinking about my life, and experiences, and up till now, and what led me on this journey. Because back in 2011, I moved out of upstate New York and moved to Asheville, North Carolina. I was kind of running for my life. So, if you've heard me talk about this before, about bad gambling addiction, a bad failed relationship, and I just needed a change.

I ended up moving to Asheville because I loved the vibe, the people, the mountains, the arts, the funky, weird energy. And it was just the place that I needed to be, which makes thinking about everything much more challenging that's happened over the last month. But I ended up moving to Asheville. I ended up kind of fighting through my gambling addiction. And I haven't gambled since June of 2012.

And fast forwarding to, like, getting my master's, going to get a degree in mental health counseling in 2015. I've talked about this a lot, but this is not something I foresaw. Like, I assume I get my master's degree, I join a community mental health job, that's the end all be all, that's the finish line. I'll securely finish out my career, financially and emotionally in said setting.

At the time undiagnosed autistic and undiagnosed ADHD, so a lot of sensory stuff, a lot of masking, a lot of burnout, a lot of not understanding who I am, or why I am, or how I'm experiencing things, and just kind of chaos, if I'm being honest with you.

And community mental health was certainly not for me. A 9:00 to 5:00 is certainly not for me. It really never has been. I've always been very entrepreneurial all my life, like because I think I've unconsciously or subconsciously realized, like, my values for autonomy, freedom, flexibility they're really, really high. That's kind of my anchor points.

And when you're working for someone else, or you're working in that setting that kind of dictates your day, doesn't work for my sensory system, for my neurotype, for the way that I like to be creative. And it felt really stifling.

I'm glad I had the experience, to some degree. I think it helped me put things in perspective. It also led to taking a risk of starting a private practice back in 2016. And I was petrified, major impostor syndrome, major self-doubt, major perfectionism. And it's a risk financially, emotionally. People are telling you it's not going to work, people aren't going to find you. They're not going to call you.

And grad school did not do us any favors, right? Like, never talked to us about money unless it was like, "You don't get into this field to make money." And all of the things. And didn't talk to us about establishing a business plan, or forming a business entity, or paying your taxes. Like, it's really wild how little conversation we have about this stuff as mental health professionals. But again, very happy I did it.

And I still remember my interview lunch where my program manager was like, "You're going to be back here in 30 days because nobody makes it on their own." I've always kind of used that as fuel to the fire a little bit, if I'm being honest.

And you know, I'm so happy that I made that decision because that decision, that risk then led to other risks. I stayed in my private practice from 2016 up until 2020 where I started getting bored and I started experiencing probably some unknown to me at the time, like ADHD burnout. And ultimately, I ended up creating the coaching business, All Things Private Practice. That was another risk because then I was taking an established caseload and stepping away from it to move more into a coaching capacity, to do coaching courses, individual coaching, coaching programs, etc.

And that was scary as hell because I was like, I just quit my job to start this practice. It's established, it's running, it's well known, it's constantly getting referrals, but I don't want to do it anymore. I don't think I was really meant to be a therapist in a lot of ways because of my energy levels and the way that my sensory system is impacted really easily. Working for myself, having autonomy, having freedom, I just knew, like, looking at 60-minute increments of time all the time really didn't feel like it was fulfilling or that it was energizing. I really wanted to have more free time to get more big ideas out there and to be more creative. That's really hard when you're bouncing from session to session to session as so many of you are and how I was as well.

So, I started all things private practice back in 2020 but that was horrifying. I was like, "Who's going to pay me to teach them how to run their businesses when I have no business training and I don't know what I'm doing half of the time?"

But I think my authenticity and transparency around my shortcomings and struggles has always been attractive to people. So, I did not have a problem getting coaching clients at all. Like, I filled my first couple of coaching cohorts, my Take the Leap cohorts, is what I was calling them back then. And I had no problem filling them for the first two years.

And you know, it's just amazing how taking a risk, building on itself is kind of like it allows you to take another risk with a little bit less fear. I don't think the fear ever goes away. I don't think the impostor syndrome, the self-doubt, the perfectionism ever truly goes away. Yeah, it just doesn't really ever go away unless you have a really big, big, big ego and are really confident, sure of yourself, which I am, typically, not that person. I question every single fucking decision that I've ever made.

And ultimately, what ends up happening, right? Is you take that risk, you do it, and you learn some things along the way. There's some stumbling blocks, there's some issues, there's some things you would do differently, but ultimately, it gives you a little more confidence to take the next risk.

The next step was to create a Facebook group and a podcast. And I never thought people would be listening to my voice all over the world. Nor did I ever think that I would secure podcast sponsorship people, who want to pay me to talk about things. Like, mind-blowing, really. So, that risk happens, right?

And then, I take another risk of if I had a retreat in Ireland who would come? And I got like 60 people DMing me like, "I would come, tell me where? Tell me when? How to sign up?" That's great. That's really exhilarating. That really makes my ADHD parts, like, excited. However, that also means, like, excitement level from wanting to sign up versus signing up are two different things, right?

So, ultimately, my autistic side takes over, and I deep dive retreat venues in Ireland. And I, obviously, don't want them to be super touristy because that's just not my vibe. And I find this place, like an hour and a half from Dublin. And I talk to the venue host, and she's lovely. And the tour guide. And I'm supposed to go out there in 2022 to like, explore it, and see it, and take photos, and do the marketing. And of course, we're still going through COVID, and the world shuts back down a little bit, including Ireland. And I pivot, and I don't go visit at all, but I continue to move towards hosting my first retreat in March of 2022 in Ireland.

Fast forward till now, I've now hosted 18 different retreats all over the world, including the Italy summit. And this March will be my fourth consecutive year hosting the Ireland retreat. And the last year for the Ireland event just because I think it's run its course. And I think that my interests are shifting and changing too. I love that area, the relationships I've built with the woman who owns the venue. The tour guide is someone I would consider a good friend. The musicians who come and play for us. I love it all. But being in Ireland in March during St. Patrick's Day takes a lot of energy out of me. And maybe I'll circle back to it in a warmer month in Ireland, which is kind of who knows when that would actually be.

But that's the beauty of entrepreneurialship is being able to pivot. I'm not saying I'm going to stop doing this forever in Ireland, but I'm definitely going to press pause on that after 2025 and I may circle back in '26 or '27, I have no idea. But ultimately, all of these decisions have led to this event in Italy, right? And ultimately, building confidence along the way, building reputation, building a following, ensuring that it's a little easier to sell things out than it typically would be. So, like, there has been a lot has happened in that time.

And there's still the fear, there's still the unknown, there's still, like, the concern that, is this going to be good enough? Are people going to get value out of it? Are people going to sign up? I remember when we found the venue in Italy, it was like, "We're going to try to sell 100 spots. This is probably going to take a year." It ended up taking about two weeks because people were so excited about the idea, which was a bit overwhelming. Then you're kind of in that waiting period of like, "What do I do until September of 2024?"

And ultimately, there was a lot to do in between that time. So, it wasn't as if there was not stuff to do to get prepared for that. And it just made me realize, like, all of these risks, all of these things, pursuing things that we are truly passionate about, doubting yourself, but doing it anyway, really moving into that mentality of like, I am going to be scared and I'm going to do it anyway. I'm going to acknowledge that. I'm going to have self-doubt and perfectionistic tendencies come up, and impostor syndrome, and I'm going to acknowledge them. I'm going to understand that they exist for a reason, and it's okay that they exist. But I'm going to pursue my dream, my goal anyway.

My goal has always been to help people step out of their comfort zones and to really understand their greatness, and their unique qualities, and personalities, and to really allow themselves to pursue the things that they're passionate about opposed to doing the things that you're supposed to do or that you're told you're supposed to do. And I think for me, it's always been about getting that message into the world. So, these events have really allowed me to do that.

And while I was on stage, I had this, like, really emotional experience because my dad came to the event in Italy, which was wild, and I could see him in the crowd, and my wife was there, and close friends and colleagues, and everyone was crying during my talk, which I found like fascinating as I was speaking. I definitely was talking about a lot of emotional, heavy stuff.

But that's kind of the entrepreneurial journey, right? Being able to give some of yourself to your audience and share your world, talk about the struggles, normalize them even. That's always been a goal of mine, for you all that are listening is like, let's normalize fear of failure, impostor syndrome, self-doubt, perfectionism, instead of like always looking at them through a negative lens. It's much more about let's acknowledge that they exist. Let's thank them for protecting us in certain situations. Let's also tell them to, like, get in the back seat or hit the fucking road because I would rather acknowledge them, experience them, and continue moving forward or towards my goals opposed to allowing them to dictate how we move forward, and convincing ourselves that we're not good enough, or that we don't have enough to offer, or that people aren't going to like what you have to say.

And that doesn't mean that everybody is, right? Like, there's going to be trolls, there's going to be "haters." There's going to be negative feedback. But that's okay. We can learn from that too. And we don't have to just look at those as, like, negative experiences.

So, while on stage, I do this timeline exercise. And I encourage all of you to do it, zoom out, put some dates in. Think about how far you've come to this point today. Maybe you're not exactly where you want to go yet. Let's emphasize yet. Maybe you haven't gotten to that destination that you are working towards, but you know there's a goal, there's an endpoint, there's a next step for you or you're pursuing something.

For me, it was like leaving grad school, get the mental health job that felt like a finish line. Starting my private practice felt like a finish line. Started my coaching business, my podcast, my group practice, everything that I haven't known how to do, hosting retreats and summits. A lot of these things, I've kind of gone into having some understanding of, like, what I wanted out of them, but not necessarily clear understanding of the how this was going to happen.

So, for me that's really important is to build the plane as you fly it, and to kind of pivot, and adapt, and evolve, and constantly grow from it. And sometimes you're going to try things that feel really exciting, that you're like, "That doesn't do it for me anymore."

So, do that exercise. I encourage you to do it either visually, write it down, create something that you can reference, or if it's just in your mind, think about a couple of dates. Let's anchor into like, if you went to graduate school, let's use that as an experience. You were probably nervous, you were probably overwhelmed, you're probably stressed out working a job at the same time, trying to figure out how to survive. You probably didn't think you were going to get through research methods, like I didn't because that class was the worst for me. You probably didn't think you were going to pass the licensing exams. Like, all of this doubt, all this insecurity, all this struggle, and then you do. You're like, "Okay, I can do hard things." Until the next hard thing, or the next unknown, or the next thing that puts us out of our comfort zone comes up, and immediately you're like, "I don't know how to do anything."

And that's a really common experience, so use that timeline and think about the things along the way that could be professional accomplishments, personal, they could be really memorable experiences, but really anchoring into that. And then, I anchor into that, right? I'm standing on that stage and I'm thinking already like, "Damn, this is powerful." I never in a million years thought I could say that I am an autistic ADHD human who just rented an entire medieval village in Italy and co-hosted a very successful mental health entrepreneurial summit.

Then I started thinking about next year, right? Because I want to look ahead a little bit. I don't want to live in the future because I tend to do that and trying to be better about it. But what I do want to do is acknowledge, like, future planning. And I think about 2025, and I think about "Damn, I just landed a fucking TED Talk in February in Colorado, talking about late-in-life autism discovery and diagnosis." And never in a million years do I think that that's going to happen, that I can say I am a TEDx speaker.

I'm also working on a book deal with an agent that I've procured about a book about the autistic ADHD experience. And I've never thought a million years that that would be something I would be doing in 2025. I've got retreats lined up.

And for those of you who have been following my journey, I did agree and say publicly many times that I'm only going to host events or say yes to opportunities in odd-numbered months. And I have stuck to that. I'm very proud of myself because, usually, ADHD takes over, I say yes to all the opportunities that I think I should say yes to. Some of it's people pleasing as well. And that also is a quick recipe for autistic burnout, which I've been in for probably years now.

And in reality, saying yes to things in odd number months has allowed me to really restructure my year. So, I know next year that I'm hosting a retreat in Belize in January with Gabrielle Juliano-Villani for neurodivergent entrepreneurs. In March, I'm doing Ireland. In May, I'm doing Spain, Creating Alternative Streams of Income. In July, I'm doing Scotland, which is the second Doubt Yourself, Do it Anyway summit. In September, I'm doing Spain and Greece simultaneously. And that's going to be it for me. My TED Talk as well. And I'm going to stick to that.

And I encourage all of you to find your energy in terms of what makes sense for you, in projecting, in scheduling, in future planning. Take that deep dive and zoom out a bit so that you don't say yes to everything, and put yourself in a position like I was this year where I did six retreats in six months in six different countries. Never again. I will never allow myself to do that again.

It's always fascinating when you do stuff like that to yourself and you're like, "I am the one who creates my schedule." Fuck. I used to do that in private practice too, right? You can probably relate where you schedule people back to back to back. I have eight people today, eight people tomorrow, and then you're like, "This is terrible. This does not work for me." But I'm the one who's doing it to myself. So, I just encourage you to get more clarity about that.

Now, with the doubt yourself, do it anywhere mentality, again, it is all about acknowledging the doubt, acknowledging the self-doubt, welcoming it, appreciating it, thanking it for being there, for existing. And then, telling it to hit the road. I can continuously doubt myself. I'm going to doubt myself the entire way to my TED Talk until it's over. The talk is on February 22nd. Until that talk comes to a conclusion, there is going to be massive self-doubt. However, I know that I am really passionate about what I'm talking about. And I know that even if it is absolutely terrible, at the end of the day the world is still going to keep spinning. So, I have to keep that in mind. So, I'm going to doubt myself the entire time to that experience, and I'm going to do it anyway.

And I want to encourage you all to embrace that mentality. I never thought I'd be talking about TED Talks, keynote speaking engagements. I just did my first one last year in Alaska, a book, sold-out retreats, sold-out summits, podcast sponsorships, group practice. Like, I didn't think I would ever talk about this stuff, especially, not during gambling addiction days, especially, not during the build-up to getting masters, and all the struggle, and stress, and overwhelm, and burnout, and all the shit in between. But it starts with one action. It starts with one decision to take that one risk.

So, if you're thinking, "Wow, that sounds like a lot of stuff. I'd love to get there one day, but I don't think I can." I was definitely in that position of, "I don't think I can." I didn't want to start All Things Private Practice because other people were coaches who helped people start their practices, right? Like, it's almost as if this idea is better suited for everybody else but me or somebody else will do it better.

The reality is, like, a lot of these ideas are not that unique. Not many of us are creating, like, these unique, profound statements or ideas. We're adding our voice, our perspective, our experiences, our takes. That's really the stuff that people gravitate towards and separates you from the other person who's doing the same thing, or the other 100,000 people doing the same thing. So, I just want you all to really try to embrace that.

And as you go through these careers and entrepreneurial paths, I think it's really important to do that timeline exercise, to check in with yourself. Are these things still really things that I value? Are these things still suited for my life and my lifestyle that I want to live? Is this still serving its purpose? You are allowed to edit, adapt, pivot, grow, fall on your face, get back up, and do it again. So, this stuff is not binary. It's not linear by any means.

People ask me, like, "Do you think you'll do retreats for the rest of your life?" And I'm like, "Hell, no. I don't even know if I'll do it in 2026." I have six planned for 2025. Who knows what happens after that? I can't think that way because that's just not how my brain works. And it's not comfortable to live like that, where I feel beholden to the next four or five years of my life.

If you ask me what my five-year goal is, I would just laugh and walk away. Like, that's the worst interview question of all time, "Where do you see yourself from five years from now?" I don't know, not fucking here. But if you are a planner and you do need that, then that's also okay.

And that's kind of a part of this too, right? Is our journeys are kind of the same, but also, they are unique and they are individualized. So, give yourself some permission to make your story your own, give yourself permission to make your journey your own. And I think that's really important as well.

I really want you all to check in with me about these timeline exercises, tag me on a social media post, and let me know if you've done it. Let me know about where you've started to where you've been, and everything in between because I find it super fascinating. And it's also collectively powerful to see more and more of us talk about all of these experiences, all of the struggle, all of the self-doubt, but all of the risk, all of the reward, all of the good stuff that's come with it, too.

And I wouldn't change this entrepreneurial journey for the world. I can never sit in a desk job or a salaried position in one location doing the same thing over and over and over again. The monotony is just not good for my mental health. So, acknowledging that our brains are all different, our preferences are all different, our needs are all different, and that's okay. So, I really encourage you to do this timeline exercise to think about some of this stuff.

Western North Carolina, Asheville, I love you all. I'm coming back home next week after being gone for a few weeks, and we're just going to continue to rebuild and recover together as a community. So, I just wanted to say that and name that too.

And if everything I've talked about today resonates, if you're feeling really inspired, or you're feeling excited, or you're feeling like I need to know how just make sure that you are at Scotland next year in July. We still have spots for the Doubt Yourself, Do it Anyway summit in Edinburgh, July 14th to the 18th. I really want you to think about coming. It's only $1,500. It's MBCC-approved for 12 MBCC CEs. We have 13 incredible speakers, myself being one of them.

And Edinburgh is just a majestic, beautiful medieval city in the middle of Scotland. It's freaking beautiful. The accents are amazing. And you can get out into the highlands. You can bop around Europe from there. So, really consider checking that out. And my links are in the show notes, as well as all my social media, and my website.

My website again, allthingspractice.com. And you can check out that opportunity. We also have opportunities for the Greece Leadership retreat in Hania on the island of Creek, September 6th to the 11th, 2025. So, there are still opportunities for that as well. And those are all in the show notes, on my website, and my social media.

To everyone listening to the All Things Private Practice podcast, new episodes are out on Saturdays on all major platforms and YouTube. Make sure to like, download, subscribe, and share.

If you don't listen to Divergent Conversations, my other podcast that I co-host with Dr. Megan Neff, make sure to check that out as well. New episodes are out on Fridays on all major platforms. I'm starting to stumble over my words, which means I can no longer continue talking. And I will see you all next week. Doubt yourself, do it anyway.