Ever wondered what life as a nomadic therapist really looks like? In this candid episode, I pull back the curtain on the not-so-glamorous side of nomadic life struggles and share a deeply personal update. From navigating hurricanes and caregiving for my father with early Alzheimer’s to moderating a Facebook group of 20,000 members (amid election drama), it’s been a wild ride.
I also talk about balancing multiple income streams, managing a portable practice, and handling the unexpected curveballs that come with a digital nomad lifestyle. This is an unfiltered look at the challenges and lessons I’ve faced recently as a Traveling Therapist.
What You’ll Hear in This Episode:
Connect with me:
Instagram: @thetravelingtherapist_kym
The Traveling Therapist Membership: www.kymtolson.kartra.com/page/travelingtherapistmembership
Revolutionize Your Private Practice with AI Course: www.kymtolson.kartra.com/page/ai
Signup to learn more about life as Traveling Therapist: https://www.portablepracticemethod.com/free-training
The Traveling Therapist Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/onlineandtraveling/
Bill Like A Boss Insurance Billing Community: www.kymtolson.kartra.com/page/blab
Subscribe to the Podcast:
Apple iTunes | Spotify | Google Podcast | Stitcher | Amazon | Castbox
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Sponsored by Berries: Say goodbye to the burden of mental health notes with automated note and treatment plan creation! www.berries.icu/therapists
Sponsored by Alma: Managing a private practice can be challenging. There are obstacles at every turn — from navigating the credentialing process, to managing finances, to finding new clients. That’s where Alma can help. Alma is on a mission to simplify access to mental health care by focusing first and foremost on supporting clinicians. https://helloalma.com/kym
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Transcript:
[01:15:07] Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Traveling Therapist podcast. I'm here today by myself. I was supposed to have a guest and they're not here. So I thought I would just take this opportunity to do a little Traveling Therapist update, let you guys know what's been going on. I used to do these every fifth episode.
[01:16:43] And really time just got away from me and you know, I just got away from it really. So I thought maybe I'd just do a little update, tell you guys where I am. I feel like I haven't really updated since, Probably June. And that's right around the time when we got news that my father had been diagnosed with dementia slash early Alzheimer's.
[01:17:03] So, To be honest, it's been quite the whirlwind trying to manage that, manage my schedule and we've just been all over the place with no clear direction. It's getting colder now. This is, I'm recording this on November 13th, 2024. It's getting colder and of course we hate cold weather. So we're just kind of been like moving around Florida some.
[01:17:23] I'm trying to think everywhere we've been. I mean, we've been to Jacksonville, we've been to St. Augustine, we've been to Melbourne where my stepdaughter lives. We visited her for a while. We stayed on Satellite Beach, which was kind of a bust. I don't know if you've ever been to Satellite Beach, Florida, but there's like rocks in the water, which isn't typical of Florida, We were there for a month. I don't know. I don't think I'd go back there. And then, you know, we were kind of like, where are we going to go? So we went over to the other side and we stayed at Indian Shores kind of near Tampa Bay. And then Hurricane Helene came through, which was kind of a nightmare. So we were in basically Indian Shores and the alert came, you know, out of nowhere.
[01:18:02] I don't know if any of you guys know, I know a lot of people were, but I don't know if the listeners of you were really affected by Helene. I know Asheville was devastated. We all know that's just been a nightmare for them. But we were on the, coast in this like barrier island, Reddington Shores, and Or North Reddington Beach really is what it was.
[01:18:20] And you know, about three days out, all of a sudden the storm off the coast is developing into this terrible hurricane. We were like, Oh my gosh. So as you know, I live in Airbnb, so luckily we didn't have any property to worry about, but you know, we were booked up in this Airbnb for a couple of weeks. And we messaged the owner and we said, do you think we need to be worried?
[01:18:38] We can't decide if we should leave or not. And he was like, we've never had any trouble. I really wouldn't worry about it too much. You know, we're like, okay, but we're calling for like a six to eight foot storm surge and we are, under sea level essentially where this house was. basically, I mean, it's a little strip of land.
[01:18:55] If you guys have ever seen these barrier islands in Florida and the Gulf coast of Florida, it's just these little barrier islands. So there's no way out, right? If the water comes. So we finally at the last minute decided we're just Not going to stay here. So we just got in the car and we drove the day before the storm hit.
[01:19:09] And it was kind of a nightmare. Gas stations had long lines. There were tons of people on the interstate. The traffic was at a crawl, but we did get out and we went to the middle of Florida, someplace called Lakeland, Florida, which is a super cute town in the middle of Florida. But there's like tons of lakes.
[01:19:24] And anyway, we got there. It was fine. The hurricane came and Literally destroyed the entire town and the Airbnb that we're staying in. I think they were under like eight feet of water. All the houses got destroyed. We were watching the news and we were like, Oh my gosh, we just ate dinner there yesterday.
[01:19:41] Or that's the beach we were sitting on two days ago. Everything was destroyed. I'm sure you guys probably saw the news footage around all of that. So we got out of there. Thank goodness. And then I was set to leave for Greece, a trip in Greece for like two and a half weeks with my mom. Right after that.
[01:19:57] So we got to Lakeland. I had to leave. Ken was still in Lakeland and then he decided to go to the other side of Florida after I left and then got hit again by Milton over there where tornadoes were touching down and he just, he couldn't even find a hotel room. So he basically drove all night North until he finally found an Airbnb that would let him come in in the middle of the night, really, which was super nice of them.
[01:20:18] no mad life, right? And then living in Florida and then these storms, it's just, it was, And I know you guys have seen Asheville, which my heart really goes out to them because they've lost everything there. Fortunately, we're able to just kind of pick up and go. We don't have property. We don't have to worry about it.
[01:20:33] So I guess that is a perk of being a digital nobap. And, you know, so I ended up going to Greece with my mom. I took her and, You guys have probably heard me. I think the last episode, actually, this podcast was about travel hacking and how to use credit card reward points and all that stuff with the founder of Hack My Honeymoon.
[01:20:51] I met with him and we talked about credit card rewards, but. I have tons of rewards. I love doing that. I love like trying to save money and that sort of thing. So I was able to get two premium business class tickets for my mom and I to fly to Greece and fly back from Greece. And I've got to say, you guys, I'm just like spoiled at this point.
[01:21:10] I don't know, like, how do I ever fly coach again after doing that? I know that sounds like Really spoiled or whatever, but it really increases my need to accumulate points so I can get free plates and talking to Elliot from hack my honeymoon last week, I was like, this is totally doable. And he actually has a company that helps you do it.
[01:21:29] So super cool. we did that. We went to Greece, my friend, Megan Gunnell, you guys probably know her. She's one of my best friends. She hosted a culinary retreat there. She does it with her husband. I took my mom, I'm gluten free. They were able to do the whole thing gluten free for me. Which just was incredible for me.
[01:21:46] It's like, these are things you can't really do as a celiac. Because of gluten and just not being able to trust the people, but they were super careful. I didn't get sick once. My mom had an awesome time. It was wonderful. After the tour was over, Mom and I hopped a ferry and we went over to Santorini for three days.
[01:22:03] And Santorini's gorgeous if you've never been there. We did that really fun and then came back to the States to Florida where I met up with Ken again and we hung out for a little bit down in Marco Island. But you know, I don't know. I was really excited to go to Marco Island, but I wasn't that thrilled with it actually.
[01:22:20] I don't know if anybody's been, but I was like, Oh, it's okay. we stayed there for a couple of weeks. And then my dad who has early. Alzheimer's really early. It's he's not bad at all, but we got like an appointment with the Rockefeller center in. WVU, West Virginia University Rockefeller Center for Neurology.
[01:22:40] They were on CBS in 60 Minutes and they've got this breakthrough treatment that they do for people with Alzheimer's that is supposed to be like the cure for Alzheimer's. So, you know, he was like, will you take me for an appointment? And I was like, of course I will. So I had to drive from Marco Island up to Virginia to get him.
[01:22:56] And then from Virginia, I had to take him up to WVU. We had to stay for a couple of days because you guys know I've got clients. So I'm glad. You know, appointments for all these other income streams that I do. And we had a couple of days early, so I had to kind of manage him being out of his routine, which probably wasn't the best idea on my part, but anyway, we got the appointment.
[01:23:14] We went in and saw them and he really wasn't eligible for what they have there. So it was kind of disappointing, but I also kind of knew it, on the other hand, he really wanted to go anyway. So I felt like. I need to be a good daughter and take him regardless. So I did that and then brought him back here to Virginia.
[01:23:31] And there's lots of stuff around that. It's really cool. If you've got anybody in your family that is suffering, like I would definitely say, reach out to them. They take Medicare. They were super thorough. I thought it was a great experience, even though they couldn't really help them. They did, this is like total side note. They did say that like, there's a really high comorbidity with hearing aids or people that can't hear and developing dementia or Alzheimer's symptoms sooner. And I don't know if you know anybody that has hearing aids, but he has been terrible with these forever.
[01:23:59] And finally we kind of figured out that, you know, you've got to like clean these hearing aids if you want to be able to use them and hear with them. So we did that finally. And he's. actually able to hear the first time in like 10 to 20 years, which sounds insane. I know, but it's the truth. So anyway, I brought him back and we've got the hearing aid straight and at least he's on medication for the Alzheimer's and we're going to continue to monitor and all that stuff.
[01:24:21] So that, you know, that's kind of been my crazy life aside from the business and everything I've been doing with my income streams. in the midst of all this, And we all know the election happened. You also know I run the Traveling Therapist Facebook group. Probably if you're listening to this, if you're not, come join us.
[01:24:38] There's like 20, 000 members in there. What you may not know from the back end perspective is that I'm the moderator of a Facebook group with 20, 000 people in that group. and I was dealing with my dad the day after the election, I was actually literally driving my dad with Alzheimer's to an appointment six and a half hours away from where we were.
[01:24:57] But of course, In my Facebook group, people are like blowing it up with political commentary and yelling at each other and fighting in this group. And as a moderator of a Facebook group, I'm actually a moderator of seven or an admin of seven Facebook groups. It's really hard to manage all that stuff.
[01:25:16] You try to get moderators, but they work for free, you know, so they're not like, getting paid to help me. So I'm trying to manage all that and my dad, I put a post. In the Facebook group and I say we're not gonna talk about politics in this group because I couldn't handle it It was like too much.
[01:25:29] I didn't have anyone to help me. I was dealing with my dad. I was driving And I didn't want people being mean to each other in my group I feel responsible for the safety and well being of people in that group, honestly I put that post in there and I just started deleting Political comments.
[01:25:42] I wasn't gonna have it because I was exhausted and I couldn't do it. And I just About 10 minutes after that, I started getting messages from people telling me I was silencing, people's voices. I was a racist. I was oh, my God, you just wouldn't believe all the stuff people were saying. Just terrible, terrible things that I wasn't allowing people to talk politics in this group.
[01:26:06] And really the truth was I wasn't able to handle moderating it, so I just shut it down and that's my right to do as person that owns a community and offers it for free and devotes 20 hours a week to running this group and answering questions and trying to help people. And I just really couldn't believe it.
[01:26:24] And then. On top of that, people are taking screenshots in my group and putting it in these other therapists, Facebook groups and talking about me. And it's just, it was really terrible for me. It's days like that where, sometimes you question, like, is it even worth it to do all this, to try to help people, to offer all these free resources, to manage these communities for free?
[01:26:42] Yeah. And on top of that, and I'll just say we had about maybe 1500 members join in about three days to that group. So I'm letting people in. There's new people getting acquainted. It was just like a shit show, honestly. And every other post was, how do I leave the country? How do I leave the country?
[01:26:59] Right? So I'm like, Oh my gosh. Okay. Dad's asleep. I've got all of this content in other places. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to put it together in a mini course. Okay. on how to leave the country, if that's what you want to do. So I put together this mini course. I had my VA, Leslie, work extra hours to put this thing together.
[01:27:17] Cause I was like, this is going to be super helpful. This is going to give the step by step guide on how you can leave the country, relocate, become an expat, live somewhere else. If you're not happy in this country and you want to go. So I was like, this is the answer. It's going to help so many people.
[01:27:32] Yay. Put it in my Facebook group. And I'm immediately met again with. Okay, you disingenuous bitch. You say we can't talk politics, and then you put this course in, in the Facebook group, like you're trying to profit off our pain, was what people were saying about me. So, I thought about going in and explaining myself, and I actually didn't even know I would be explaining it right here like I am, but it's just been, Terrible, and it's like the truth is no, that's not what happened.
[01:27:59] I have a life and personal things that I go through too. And even producing this podcast takes a lot of time and energy and money to do this. needless to say, I'm feeling pretty salty about it still. And, and these people that think they know everything about me and have all the answers and all of that.
[01:28:14] So I just kind of wanted to Say that I guess, I guess I needed to, I guess this worked out exactly how it was supposed to with this guest not showing up for the podcast today to give me time to just kind of vet and share. all that to say, I did create a mini course and I'm offering it and I'm going to put the links down here.
[01:28:29] So if you're one of those people that. entered the group and wanted to leave, or if you're listening to this and you're like, how do I become an expat? I put a, I put together a really cool mini course for you to help walk you through that. And I'll put the link down here for you. And you know, don't send me your emails.
[01:28:43] Don't send me your messages about it. I don't care. You know, I'm doing all of this from an authentic place and you know, I've got a lot going on too. So anyway. Just wanted to say that and, you know, talk about maybe now what's in the future. What's coming up. We have no plans for where we're going to be. Of course, we did have a big plan and I'll talk about it on here about to go to the southern islands in Europe, like, start over in Turkey at some of the islands down there and kind of work our way over to the Canary islands through.
[01:29:11] You know, the Greek islands and the Italian islands and, and France and all of that through those islands, all the way over to the Canaries. That's sort of one of my dreams. It got halted this year because Ken's dad has got health issues. My dad's got health issues. So, we put that on pause, but I still got that dream for sure.
[01:29:29] And we literally have no plan where we're going to be right now. All we know is that we still want to be nomads. We can't even think of a place where we'd like to just settle down and live for a while. Ken is like not working right now. He's, he finished a contract a while back and he works on contract basis with different companies as an IT professional, a data architect actually.
[01:29:51] And he took a little break. He's like. doing stock market stuff and sort of early semi retirement, which is super cool for him. But we got our elderly aging parents. And I know some of you guys can relate to that. So we're staying kind of close to the East coast for right now. And who knows where we'll be later, starting maybe April and May when it starts to warm up in other parts of the country, still want to hit you know, Banff and Glacier National Park and all that up there.
[01:30:15] We still haven't been all the way North up there. So we might find ourselves up there. Yeah, so that's, that's really what's been going on. Not too exciting, but just, you know, a lot of interesting things I've developed in my life with, managing these Facebook groups. A lot of people message me and they want to know about my passive income streams, the 15 income streams, and how do I manage all that?
[01:30:35] And the truth is it's. Really not easy all the time to manage this. I ended up hiring a new online business manager. Her name's Christina. She's amazing. She's helping me kind of like take a lot of stuff off my plate that I was trying to manage on my own. So I'm really grateful for her. I have two virtual assistants.
[01:30:53] Now I have a podcast editor. So I have a lot of people in the background helping me run this stuff. And I'm actually at my sister's right now. And I was talking to her about that and just saying like, gosh, you just got, I just, I never thought I'd be in a place where one, I'd have all these income streams and two, I'd like have employees like working for me and trying to help me with this.
[01:31:10] And she said a really smart thing. She's like, that's the only way you scale up in your business is to, to Keep bringing on people to help you so you can do more, put more content out there, help more people make more money, have more freedom, all of that. So that's where I am right now. I'm really in this place of trying to one, get comfortable with, letting go of.
[01:31:30] The need to control everything because it's really hard when you own your own business and y'all probably know this if you're like Group practice owners or even if you have multiple income streams, it's hard not to have my hand in everything i'm really trying to learn a lesson around that just like to trust these people that i've hired to do a good job To make sure i'm training them really well and let them let them do their jobs without me feeling that need to be a micromanager in there all the time So I'm trying to, trying to work on that.
[01:31:54] It's really hard to step out of it and let people do things. And there's mistakes that are made and trying to just realize I don't have to be perfect in all of this. And I can continue to help people and make mistakes. Like, you know, I sent out an email recently that the, it was a nightmare kind of, and I'll just share the story with you cause this stuff happens and I want y'all to know it too.
[01:32:14] If you're going to do multiple income streams. I. Recorded a video for berries and I'll talk about berries too. I want to tell you guys about them. That's one of my partners I recorded a video for them, a training video, and I was like, perfect. And I put it up on YouTube and then I was rushing to an appointment or somewhere, probably with my dad doing something.
[01:32:32] And I put up the unedited version on YouTube. So it was a lot of me just like saying um, and. Staring at myself and trying to find where I was and what I wanted to say and looking around in the video It was just terrible It was a huge mess and I put that on YouTube instead of the edited version that I did And I think I sent out an email and I think like a hundred and fifty people Actually went and watched that video before I even realized it was the wrong one Super embarrassing.
[01:32:58] And I was freaking out to my boyfriend and he's like, what is wrong with you? Like, who cares? I mean, nobody cares. I'm like, yeah, you're right. You're right. Nobody cares. So I went and took that one down, put up the right one, sent out another email and said, sorry, embarrassing. That was the wrong link. But yeah, so those things happen and I'm really, really trying to embrace that stuff and be authentic about it and even share it with you all in case you're kind of going down this, this journey of multiple income streams and trying to create products and content and all that, it's okay.
[01:33:26] So that's been my lesson too recently. So berries, I want to tell you guys about berries.
[01:33:30] Berries is an AI. Progress note platform that I am their clinical consultant. They hired me to help them build this out for therapists. So it's like perfect every couple of weeks. They're coming out with new features that I'm able to consult on, which is so cool for me. I just love that aspect of it.
[01:33:47] Cause I'm so creative with ideas and I love having this like tech company that can just take my idea and like, Put it into a platform. I love it. And that's buries. That's b e r r i e s dot. It's the website. If you want to go, we'll put it down below and his show notes too. But anyway, here's the cool thing.
[01:34:07] So back in. Like 2018, right? I decided I've got to make my progress note better. So it's evolved over the years. I've added things to my progress note, being an insurance based provider. I have access to, you know, each of the insurance companies, they have these documentation standards. So over the years, since probably like, I think 2020 was the last time I really updated my note.
[01:34:29] I added all these components in that I knew met medical necessity that I knew would pass an audit. And I actually did get audited with this note and I passed it. It was. It was fine. I didn't have any problems. They said, great. And I just kept on going, but berries, this is so cool. And if you go to my YouTube channel, you'll see like a video where I show the walkthrough, the real video, the one that I edited about how to initiate my notes, if you go into berries, if you're using it, if you're familiar, you go in under my formats.
[01:34:59] And you click new, and if you type in Kim Tolson, K Y M T O L S O N confetti will fall all over the screen and it will say, you've unlocked this note. So it unlocks my progress note that is passed an audit. And then if you see a client and you record the session with AI and you just hit end at the end of the session and make sure my format is enabled and it'll turn the note into my, Format.
[01:35:24] It'll fill in all the blanks and everything from the session you just have with your client. It's like magic. You never have to write a note again. And, if you don't like my format, you can totally edit it make your own format or just make your own anyway. You don't even have to use mine, but the AI will write your note exactly for the format that you want it to.
[01:35:41] Soap note, dap note, burp note whatever you want it to be, it'll write it for you. As long as you set it up inside of Berry. So that was a cool thing for me. Kind of like a weird. business milestone, I guess. It's like, you never think that your progress note is going to be available for, mass use or whatever, that it's going to help so many people through a platform like Barry's.
[01:35:58] It's so cool. And it's integrating two things I love, right. It's like helping therapists. And then also AI, you guys probably heard me talk about AI. I have a whole nother podcast called run your private practice with AI that I just talk all AI stuff the whole time. I'm obsessed with it, which is.
[01:36:14] kind of wild. I'm learning something new every day, and I'd love to share that with you guys in a real mouth podcast. But anyway, I love that I'm able to integrate these two things together and do that, and Barry's has got some really cool stuff coming out. And not only does it do progress notes, it also does treatment plans.
[01:36:29] All AI generated, so literally you have to do nothing. You just see your client, you click two buttons for a progress note and a treatment plan, and you've got it right there, and it's done. and you copy and paste it into your EHR if you want to, or leave it in berries if you want to. They've just changed it that you can store all your client information if you want to.
[01:36:47] That should be available in the next week or so. I don't think it's live yet, but it's going to be soon. So very cool. Very, very cool stuff. And you know, having a lot of fun amidst all this crazy therapist Facebook world. If you're anything like me and you've been in any of those therapists group this week after the election, you've probably seen that just.
[01:37:07] people are really seriously losing their minds in a lot of ways. I think that's all I've got for the update right now. I'd love to hear from you guys. If you listened to this session, you have any thoughts or want to give me any feedback. If you want a quick little mini session on how to leave the country, there is one.
[01:37:22] I created it. It's available to you. It'll be down in the show notes if you want to click through. And sign up. I'm also still working on the portable practice method that should be out. I think we're shooting for like the second week in January. It's the full blown portable practice method. It's starts out with travel and live legally wherever you are.
[01:37:40] . We talk about liability insurance. We talk about if you can or can't work from certain places, how do you figure that out? We talk about taxes, everything over there. And then the second module is building multiple income streams, building ways to bring passive income into your business.
[01:37:55] So you don't have to like rely on this one to one model. I've got tons of content in there around how to build courses, group practices, intensives, anything that you could think of that would give you more time and freedom and more money to be able to live your life as a traveling therapist.
[01:38:10] It's in this module. And then the last module is, how to live successfully as a traveling therapist and not totally burn out. So it's things like wifi and, health insurance visas, money management, all of that is in that lifestyle piece of it so you don't burn out.
[01:38:27] Exercise, like little tips and tricks like I do, like class pass. I'm a member of class pass, so I can go to any yoga class anywhere in the world pretty much if I want to through my class pass. I belong to Planet Fitness, which is all over the country and other countries.
[01:38:41] So there's little things in there that I've learned along the way that have been super helpful. the Wi Fi tips and tricks, medications, like how do you get medications if you're in another country, all of that is over there. Socialization, just, Tons of ways to just live like a healthy lifestyle.
[01:38:56] If you're trying to manage that, dichotomy between like, I'm seeing clients, I'm also traveling, how do I manage all that without burning out? tons of great information in there for you all. I'm excited. It's almost finished. I just keep adding things to it, but I, I, I'm going to release it as a beta release, and that's going to also give anybody that buys it the opportunity to give me feedback and let me know, like, what am I missing?
[01:39:16] Cause I want this to be super comprehensive and literally help You have a portable practice wherever you go that runs totally smoothly for you, but also lets you live this lifestyle. I guess that's it. That's my update. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. If you have questions, thoughts, concerns, whatever, email me at info at kim tolson.
[01:39:36] com and I'll see you next time. Bye bye.