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Hey folks, welcome back to the podcast.
[00:01:00] Today, I am talking about one of the most rewarding professional experiences I have undertaken, and that is hosting the annual Crafted Practice retreat.Many of you know, I think in the summer of 2023, I hosted the first annual Crafted Practice retreat. This was meant to be an anti-conference for testing psychologists. It was an incredible experience for me as the host and by all indications for the attendees as well. Today, I’m reflecting on the 2nd annual event that occurred here in the summer of 2024. I learned a lot between the first and second events and learned even more this time around that will help in planning the third annual crafted practice event in the summer of 2025.
Speaking of the summer of 2025, if you’re interested in signing up for the event, you can check out the show notes and click the link to get on the Crafted Practice interest list. Being on the interest list means that you will get the first [00:02:00] round of email announcements to sign up for Crafted Practice, and you’ll be the first to hear about the event and get first dibs on the spots. So check that out if you want to join us in Colorado in the summer of 2025.
If that is not an appropriate fit for you right now, if you just can’t make it for whatever reason, I’m also launching new cohorts of mastermind groups in January of 2025. There’s a beginner, an intermediate, and an advanced group, depending on where you’re at in your practice stage. Check that out at thetestingpsychologist.com/consulting, and see if it could be a good fit for you.
All right, let’s jump to this conversation about my experience leading Crafted Practice in 2024.
[00:03:00] All right, everyone, like I said, I’m going to do a little bit of reflection about the experience of hosting the Crafted Practice event this year. Now, this is a little bit of a, I would say self-indulgent episode, but I have learned over the years that processing and sharing some of the stuff on the podcast can certainly be cathartic and helpful for me and sometimes even helpful for others.Hosting this retreat was an incredibly meaningful moment last year. I’d had the idea to host retreats for years and could not take the leap because I was worried about it working and people signing up. Would it make any money? Would it be interesting? Would it be engaging? All those things. It felt like a big mountain to climb. But after going to conferences that were, honestly, overwhelming and [00:04:00] jam-packed with sessions, not helpful for those of us in private practice, there were just no business sessions, and honestly, just too theoretical to be applied, I wanted something different. I decided to go down that route and see what could happen.
Thankfully, I had the support and encouragement of a lot of important folks in my life, of course, including my wife, my small group of psychologists, and our Slack chat. I’m glad that they pushed me to do that. It turned out to be incredibly fulfilling.
After having a successful first go around, I committed to doing the event every year, which is how I do it. It takes me a long time to warm up to something, but once it happens and I get some affirmation that it was a good idea, it’s all in. A little bit of an all-or-nothing person.
That brings us to the second annual Crafted Practice event which took place here in Fort Collins, Colorado in [00:05:00] late summer, 2024. Now, I made a few changes this year that improved the experience based on feedback from participants. But before I talk all about that, I’ll give just a little bit of an overview of this event.
I called it the anti-conference. What I mean by that is this was meant to be an event that had plenty of space and spaciousness for individuals to connect with one another, and to apply the knowledge that they were gaining. So we had plenty of time. I called it co-working time or open work time where you could collaborate with others, put some of the ideas into practice, and do things at the event versus learning a lot of theoretical knowledge and then taking it home and forgetting about it. That’s typically what happened to me. So there’s a lot of spaciousness. There’s a lot of applied knowledge and lots of connections. We had a lot of small group experiences, small group coaching that is, and [00:06:00] then informal small group experiences.
It was a relatively small intimate event. It’s only 20 people and that proved to be a pretty good number for folks to connect. It’s enough to create small groups, but also not so big that everyone felt like they were lost in the crowd. That’s what I was hoping to create.
There was also plenty of time for recreation. We did happy hours at the end of every day. We didn’t start until 9 a.m. So you had time in the morning to get outside or just have a leisurely breakfast or whatever it might be. The food was mostly all catered. So breakfast and lunch were catered at the hotel. It was just meant to be an all-inclusive, accessible, convenient experience where folks were able to connect with one another, do some learning, and implement some [00:07:00] ideas in their businesses. So that was the framework.
The first year, like I said, it went relatively well. This year, I got some feedback from folks and made some changes, like I said. We had fewer didactic sessions this year. The first year we started with six, it was six hour and a half sessions. This year, I dialed it back to four and what that allowed was more time for small-group mastermind experiences. So almost to a person. Everyone said that they loved connecting in these small groups. So I created more time to do that this year.
We also had a little more structure this year. Last year, we had lots of open time to work and relax and so forth. This year I think we had just as much open time, but I employed a lot more guidance around how to use the time. And I think it went over a lot better. [00:08:00] I recognize now, of course, that I think folks wanted a little bit more structure and we’re a little lost as to what to do with the open time because most of us struggle with that. I just provided a little more structure on how to use the time. We had some themes for co-working. We broke into small groups during the open time based on whether folks wanted to work on finances, billing, scheduling, revising the report templates, marketing, or whatever it may be. I think that went over pretty well.
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Let’s get back to the podcast.
Another small change that made a big difference was bringing lunch on-site. The first year, I set it up where folks could go out in the downtown and get their lunch. The intent, of course, was to be as flexible as possible and allow folks to eat whatever they wanted. But this year I had lunch catered every day and the feedback was pretty positive. It just meant that people were able to stay on-site and didn’t have to make one more decision. I think it just cut back on the hassle and made things a lot easier, which is super cool.
[00:11:00] Now, thoughts for next year. I’ve already gotten some great feedback from participants and look forward to making some changes for next year. So if you are thinking about signing up and coming to hang with us in Colorado in 2025, this is what you might look forward to.I’ll probably put in even more structure, which sounds wild, but I think it could be helpful. People asked for more structured themes or tracks in the event; small groups or workshops that are based around specific topics like finances or marketing or report writing, that kind of thing. So creating a little bit more structure around that.
I don’t think I’m going to do any clinical content next year, which seems also crazy. In the past two years, we’ve had half of the CES available were clinical, and half of the sessions were business-oriented. But [00:12:00] I know, even though it’s tough to find clinical CES for testing, most folks noted that they’re just there for the business development and there’s no need to mix in clinical content. So I think we’re just going to go all in on business development next year.
We’re also going to do more hands-on content. People love the applied sections and the ability to put those things in place while bouncing ideas off of other clinicians. So I’m going to lean into that and go give more time for people to do that. I think one of the benefits is that there is time to implement these ideas. So we’re going to try to do more of that.
Probably, I’m going to do a little more structured time for our sponsors to share their expertise. We had some awesome sponsors this year, and I’ll spotlight their services if possible. I think that’s helpful.
We’re going to be keeping the happy hours next year. Just to be clear, this is not about drinking at all. We had several [00:13:00] non-drinkers this year or alcohol drinkers anyway. So it’s not really about that. There’s just something about the ritual of marking the end of the day and getting together in a less formal atmosphere. I think folks look forward to that and it was a nice bonding experience for a lot of people over the course of the week. So definitely going to keep that.
What else. I’m thinking about adding in some chair massages or a spa gift card, so if people want to sneak off and head to the spa they can do that and take the relaxation to another level.
What else? Let’s see. This is funny. In 2024, 3 individuals got tattoos at the event. And so, we joke around and say next year the goal is five. We’re going to try to keep integrating [00:14:00] tattoos as part of this event. That’s just how we roll with Crafted Practice. So if that’s appealing to you, sign up and come get a tattoo here in Colorado while we work on your business.
I will stop there and close with a little bit of gratitude to the sponsors. Productive Therapist was back, the VA company that came back this year. RevKey is also a returning sponsor. RevKey does Google ads for psychologists and has a stellar reputation in our community. My software company, Reverb, an AI-powered software to help with report writing was a sponsor, and TextExpander was a sponsor as well. I think you all know TextExpander if you’ve listened to the podcast for a while. Huge thanks to all of them. The event couldn’t have taken place without them.
Also, of course, very grateful for all of our fabulous speakers. A lot of gratitude to my wife and [00:15:00] my small group for the ongoing support, my accountability group, and all the folks who keep encouraging this whole process. Of course, a ton of gratitude for all of the attendees. We had someone return from Australia this year again. That was amazing. And then, of course, folks coming from all across the country. It was such a cool event. Amazing people doing good work and connecting with one another.
Like I said, if you’re hearing all of this and you think, Hey, I might want to be a part of the next event, you can check out the link in the show notes, get on the interest list, and you’ll be the first one to know when registration opens up for 2025.
Thanks for listening as always. Happy testing.
All right, y’all. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode. Always grateful to have you here. I hope that you take away some information that you can implement in your practice and your life. [00:16:00] Any resources that we mentioned during the episode will be listed in the show notes. So make sure to check those out.
If you like what you hear on the podcast, I would be so grateful if you left a review on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcast.
If you’re a practice owner or aspiring practice owner, I’d invite you to check out The Testing Psychologist mastermind groups. I have mastermind groups at every stage of practice development, beginner, intermediate, and advanced. We have homework, we have accountability, we have support, we have resources. These groups are amazing. We do a lot of work and a lot of connecting. If that sounds interesting to you, you can check out the details at thetestingpsychologist.com/consulting. You can sign up for a pre-group phone call and we will chat and figure out if a group could be a good fit for you.
Thanks so much.
[00:17:00] The information contained in this podcast and on The Testing Psychologist website are intended for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing in this podcast or on the website is intended to be a substitute for professional psychological, psychiatric, or medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.Please note that no doctor-patient relationship is formed here, and similarly, no supervisory or consultative relationship is formed between the host or guests of this podcast and the listeners of this podcast. If you need the qualified advice of any mental health practitioner or medical provider, please seek one in your area. Similarly, if you need [00:18:00] supervision on clinical matters, please find a supervisor with expertise that fits your needs.