At my kids’ school, The Passing of the Baton occurs at the end-of-year celebration night, when the ‘Baton of Leadership’ is passed on from the current School Captains to the new School Captions, as a symbol that they are now taking over the leadership for the following school year…

And, today, this ceremony happened at my practice…

If ever you’ve attended any of my in-person workshops or listened to certain of my live blogs and or online trainings, you would have heard me speak about the amazing, the fabulous, the lovely and the oh-so competent Franki – my Principal Psychologist.

Franki joined my practice a few years back, after only 1 year post-registration.

At first, she declined (!) my offer to join the practice, as she was scared to make the move from a full-time permanent position to the perceived insecurity of private practice.

Now, you will not know this…

but I never –

like never –

‘fight’ for someone to join the practice, but for some reason, I just knew I had to have her as a part of the team!

So I twisted her arm to say yes to a 2nd meeting, I addressed her mental blocks around working in private practice and the rest as they say is history. She became one of my hardest working clinicians, completed her Clinical Endorsement & Registrar process at the practice, and then took on the very demanding role of running my private practice, as the Principal Psychologist.

Believe it or not, but Franki was a mere 27 years old when she took over the reigns of my Capalaba Practice and within 6 months she was running both practices.

You would think her a force-of-nature with that rise within the practice, but in fact she is the most caring and supportive human being you will ever meet and someone whom I trust 100%. We are two very different people, yet so similar and THAT is a big part of what makes us such a dynamic team. No-one can get me to make a decision as quickly as Franki – and I’ve read her the riot act about sharing her infinite wisdom on how to do this with anyone else! I very often wondered… ‘who’s managing who’ but that being said, I never really managed her – we were a team – and a great one!

However, when you are a person of this calibre, word tends to spread and about 2 months ago she was made an offer she just could not refuse by a large allied health related organisation. A position that she would be crazy not to accept – a position that will see her supporting provisional psychologists in an amazing way (but that is all I can say about that) and which is something she is very passionate about.

Now, you might be having visions of me curled up in the foetal position rocking from side to side in anticipation of losing Franki….. and I’m very pleased to say that did not occur (thank goodness even if just for the sake of my dignity). I did of course, feel a great sense of grief in losing her – her, being the person that Franki is – as I always knew that the role would be ok, as I have an inherent belief that things always work out exactly how they are meant to be.

My initial reaction was ‘how dare they headhunt my Franki!!!’ But I quickly started thinking, ‘how dare they not!’

Having Franki headhunted is probably the biggest compliment I got this year. A compliment that I would have preferred to go without, but still a compliment. Franki has been single-handedly running not one, but two group private practices. She has attended my one-day Private Practice Success Introductory Level Workshop, she has attended my two-day MASTER CLASS Weekend Workshop twice as an attendee and once as a CO-FACILITATOR and she has been in my INNER CIRCLE Mastermind for the last 9 months.

She KNOWS her stuff.
She is HIGHLY COMPETENT.
She is highly KNOWLEDGEABLE.
She is highly SKILLED.
And they are BLOODY lucky to now have her and I am eternally GRATEFUL to have had her on my team for the time I did.

And the best of all…… she now moves into my ‘friend zone’ and I have listened to how she treats her friends – I’m in for one hell of a ride 🙂

For many people, losing such an integral position within their practice would result in visions of the whole practice going down the tubes, or just grovelling in your own pity party of feeing sorry for yourself and all the work you now have to put into the next person to take over this role.

But that people, is just how business works. If you don’t like it, you should not be in it. You must be prepared for transition needing to occur, because nobody will stay with you forever and if they do – awesome!

But instead of seeing this as THE END….

Instead of seeing this as the biggest threat to hit my practice over the last couple of years, I (as always) asked myself….

“How do I turn this into an opportunity?”

“How do I make this a good thing?”

“How do I turn the worst thing to have happened this year to the best thing to have happened this year?”

And I believe that Franki & I have done just that 🙂

As a result of her impending departure from the practice, we were able to critically reflect on the role, on what worked, on what didn’t work and how to better structure the role. This exercise has now resulted in no less than 3 internal promotions within my practice.

One, for the Principal Psychologist role.

Two, for our very first Clinical Team Leader role.

Three, for our very first Admin Team Leader Role.

And I for one am very excited to see these team members embrace their new roles and take our practice to beyond amazing. To building a happiness-centred practice where people work together in a shared passion and vision of helping more people in better ways.

Today, I was witness to the official Passing of the Baton as both Franki (as outgoing Principal Psychologist) and my new Principal Psychologist, Stacey Hansen, met with me here at PPS HQ to discuss the how of making this a great transition and period of growth within the practice.

Yes, I was sad in knowing that Franki is moving on (though we already have our first catch-up booked for the end of September) but I am also immensely excited to be starting this next chapter in the history of The Psych Professionals and sharing my learnings, wins, mistakes, and celebrations of this process with all of you as this journey unfolds.

Yours in Private Practice Success,

☞ PS: Want to meet Stacey in the flesh, and whilst you are at it, also get to meet my Accounts Person Extraordinaire, Tracey?
And (best of all) get to spend time with moi?

Well, this is your chance❣ I am getting together a handful of other like-minded private practice owners from around the country at my next ‘Get-It-Done Residential Retreat’ that is happening in October.

➜  This is where we tick those things that you have been itching to get done – as you KNOW this is what will ELEVATE your practice and your growth as a practice owner – off your list once and for all!

➜  THIS is the time-out you need to work ON your practice.

➜  THIS is the time-out you need to up level so you can hit the round running come January 2018.

For all the details CLICK HERE