Retreats, Rest & Revenue: The Dual Life of a Clinician-Entrepreneur

Sep 23

Feeling fried, curious about therapist retreats, or secretly dreaming of side hustles for therapists that will actually restore you? We get it - and we made this episode for clinicians who want rest and revenue without the shame spiral.

We sit with Amy Johnston, founder of The Exhale Collective, to unpack how a practicing clinician builds therapist retreats into a life-saving creative business. We get candid about therapist burnout, the logistics of running international retreats, and how to launch side hustles for therapists alongside your clinical work.

This episode balances the hard numbers (deposits, payment plans, marketing) with the softer, lifesaving stuff - how a well-designed wellness trips for women rekindles joy, reduces overwhelm, and gives clinicians permission to exhale.

Here’s what you’ll hear:

How Amy turned weekend cabin experiments into full-scale therapist retreats - and the exact planning step that stopped her from losing money on a trip (yes, there was an “oh-shit” moment)…

The real anatomy of therapist burnout for mid-career clinicians - why time off alone isn’t enough and what ritualized presence looks like in practice…
Practical ways to fund side hustles for therapists without quitting your day job
How to design therapist retreats experiences that heal versus just “vacation”

Ready to hear the messy, honest roadmap - the wins, the disasters, and the exact next steps Amy used to get from idea to an alternate stream of income? Press play and listen to the full episode now.

WATCH THE FULL VIDEO EPISODE HERE!

[00:00:11] Erika Bugaj: Hello. We're here today with Amy Johnston and she is the founder of the Exhale Collective. Amy is a licensed clinical social worker and also a perinatal mental health specialist. She is a clinical director at Urban Wellness in Chicago.

[00:00:29] Erika Bugaj: Amy has deep experience with mental health trauma and burnout, and she has a history of building corporate wellness and workplace wellbeing programs. We're here today though to talk about the Exhale Collective, which was founded by Amy and is located in Chicago, Illinois. Its mission is to create retreats for women to disconnect, slow down, recharge, and rediscover joy.

[00:00:58] Erika Bugaj: She offers immersive travel experiences with upcoming trips to Ireland, Provence. Havana and other places. she also has a fund called the Exhale Fund to help subsidize travel for women who need financial support with the idea of increasing accessibility to travel. Welcome, Amy. We're so glad to have you here today.

[00:01:22] Amy Johnston: Thank you. It's always funny to hear someone give your bio like, oh, those are so many things about me.

[00:01:31] Erika Bugaj: Yeah. Well, you have certainly a lot of, uh, looks, sounds like you wear a lot of different hats and have a lot going on professionally.

[00:01:40] Amy Johnston: I do, I do, I am, I'm always kind of juggling five or 10 things at once, but, um, yeah, I get bored doing one thing by itself for too long. So I'm always kinda adding new things to the mix. But my, my husband always says, as soon as things calm down, I have to make him chaotic again. So,

[00:01:56] Jennifer Politis: I think we can all relate to that.

[00:01:59] Amy Johnston: yeah, he's not wrong.

[00:02:01] Colleen Long: Amy, do you, are you into the Enneagram stuff at all? Do you know what number you are on the Enneagram?

[00:02:07] Amy Johnston: So I, I did, I did at one point know what number I was and I can't remember anymore. I have to redo it because it was a while ago. But I am a manifesting generator if anybody knows. Human design.

[00:02:18] Colleen Long: I read that in your bio and I was like, what is that?

[00:02:22] Amy Johnston: yeah, human design. So I, it's kind of, um. It's kinda like astrology, I guess, like you put in like your day and time and place of birth and it, depending on the, the moon and the stars at the time you were born, I guess you have different, um, like design and mine is a manifesting generator, but it really means I do lots of things at once.

[00:02:43] Amy Johnston: I pivot, I'm a quick start. I have lots of ideas and lots of things going on. And to other people it might look kind of chaotic, but it all makes sense for me. So, um, yeah, it's, it's, once I started reading more about it, I was like, oh yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense. And that is how I operate.

[00:02:58] Jennifer Politis: I love human design. I'm actually a generator myself, but my husband and my younger son are manifesting generators.

[00:03:04] Amy Johnston: oh wow. So you have a busy house.

[00:03:06] Jennifer Politis: Yes, yes, definitely. Okay.

[00:03:09] Amy Johnston: Always going. I don't know what my husband is. I should do his probably something very slow, like he always thinks I'm crazy.

[00:03:18] Colleen Long: Well, Amy, I know that you work as clinical director at Urban Wellness, correct.

[00:03:24] Amy Johnston: Yes.

[00:03:25] Colleen Long: Okay. And that's with our good friend Maureen, who I have used as a mentor for so many years. She's just been fantastic for just all things group practice and with a group practice exchange. And so tell me a little bit, I'm curious about what that evolution looked like for you when you, I'm assuming you're kind of functioning as a therapist day to day.

[00:03:48] Colleen Long: You're seeing clients and there's this manifesting generator in you that's like, okay, I gotta mix this up somehow. How does it get to exhale collective? And tell us a little bit about that.

[00:04:00] Amy Johnston: Yeah. Yeah. So I'm so lucky to work at Urban Wellness with Maureen., She's fantastic. So, um, you know, when I, before I came to Urban Wellness, I was working at Larry Children's in the ICU. Um, and so I had a whole kind of burnout story there that maybe we'll get to at some point. But I moved to Urban Wellness initially because I thought I just need.

[00:04:22] Amy Johnston: A nice, quiet, slow paced role where I'm not running around all day long. I had two little kids. I wanted to have a, you know, a chill job as a therapist. And you know, my office at Urban Wellness is like three minutes from my house, and my kids' school is partway between my house and my office. And so everything was so calm and simple.

[00:04:43] Amy Johnston: And about a year into being a therapist here and seeing my clients and doing my day to day, I went to Maureen and I. Okay, well what can we do about that? And she's great and she's always like, open to new ideas and, and trying new things as well. We're really similar in our personalities. And so at that point we started talking about building some education programs, like diversifying from seeing clients full time to building some training programs.

[00:05:11] Amy Johnston: We, um, applied to get our, um, accreditation to give CEUs so we can train therapists. We started creating community trainings, um, and then we started our Wellbeing at work program where I was out in like nonprofits, schools, law firms, all kinds of organizations teaching and training around mental health in the workplace.

[00:05:30] Amy Johnston: So she's incredible. She's like, you wanna do something else? We'll build something else. So we built all of these cool education programs. Um, and then probably another year after that, uh, a vacancy opened up here in the clinical director role. And so then I ended up in that position. So now I supervise. About eight people directly. They supervise the rest of our team. We have about 40 or so therapists here. Um, I still run all of our education and training programs and I see a handful of clients on the side, just a few that I just really can't let go of because they're so great. and so that was all going super well.

[00:06:05] Amy Johnston: And every time I come up with a new idea or plan or program, Maureen's always like, yes, let's do it. So we built a program around, um, like growing and developing new grads because so many new grads wanna join private practice now, but they don't have any real experience in this setting. So we created a program called UW Grows and we give them a lot of mentorship and support.

[00:06:26] Amy Johnston: And the next idea that I had my next brainchild sort of, was that I really wanted to start running retreats, travel local kind of a. A mix of different opportunities for women to really get away and reset. And so I went to Maureen and I was like, I, I really wanna start something doing travel retreats, taking women away, like getting out of the grind, disconnecting to reconnect.

[00:06:49] Amy Johnston: Um, is that something that you think you would wanna do at Urban Wellness? And she's like, honestly, we have so many programs here right now. Travel's not really on my radar, but if that's something you really wanna do, like you should definitely do it. And I'm a hundred percent behind it. Um, so that was kind of how I started.

[00:07:05] Amy Johnston: Um, she was like, I think that's a great idea. I I have a lot of friends that run retreats. It's hard work, but I think you'd be great at it. And basically like you have my blessing to start this as a side project, if you want to. So it's just a really cool opportunity because in a lot of jobs I feel like a, a, a boss or an owner might be like, no, you don't get to start a side business while you're also working here.

[00:07:26] Amy Johnston: Um, but she was super supportive. So that, that's kind of how it came to be.

[00:07:30] Colleen Long: When I was researching you this weekend, which sounds creepier than what it is, but I was trying to find, you know, your, your content. I don't, I don't want people to have to repeat themselves, right? Like, I want something new and fresh. And so I was listening to, I think it was a conversation with you and Maureen on one of her podcasts.

[00:07:49] Colleen Long: It was a couple years ago, and she was saying how you came to her with this idea and she was just like, okay, go do it. I think that speaks so highly of you as a person, because she had the intuition to say like, if she wants to do something, she has the hundred percent, you know, capability to be able to see that through.

[00:08:13] Colleen Long: Versus, I mean, I have some employees that if they were like, I wanna do this travel program, I'd be like, okay. You know, like I don't know that I would be like, awesome, you, you know, go for it. And I could really feel that relationship that you and Maureen have in terms of her trust for you and the way she sees you as this, like totally just like balls to the wall, entrepreneur.

[00:08:38] Amy Johnston: yeah, I mean, she's so supportive and I feel like watching her over the past, you know, five or six years has really been a, like an education for me because she's always like building things, trying things. If it doesn't work, we start again. And so that's been a really cool experience for me to watch her doing that and being like, okay, so I can start an LLC and build a website and, you know, create a business from scratch.

[00:09:00] Amy Johnston: Why not if she can do it, right. So it's been a really, yeah, it's like an inspirational, that sounds cheesy, but it's kind of a really inspirational experience working with Maureen.

[00:09:09] Jennifer Politis: And Amy, for our listeners, can you just explain a little bit about the exhale collective?

[00:09:14] Amy Johnston: Absolutely. So, um, the Exhale Collective is a community for women who want to travel, want to get away, wanna connect with other women. Um, it was sort of born a couple of years ago for my 40th birthday. My husband gave me a trip to Cuba, so he is like, happy birthday, you're 40, you're gonna go to Cuba. And he's from Ireland and I'm from Chicago.

[00:09:36] Amy Johnston: And so we've always kind of had this inside joke about going to Cuba and that's where he would run away if I, you know, so I couldn't catch him there because Americans can't go to Cuba. Um, and so I was like, wait, Cuba, like I. Am I even allowed to go to Cuba? I, I had no idea. And he's like, yeah, I did the research.

[00:09:55] Amy Johnston: You can go, there's travel categories. It's a little complicated, but like, no better woman to figure out a complicated trip than you. Um, he's like, tell your friends, see who's going with you, but like you're going. And I was like, okay, challenge accepted. I'm going to Cuba. So I started researching, figuring out like, what are the rules?

[00:10:12] Amy Johnston: How do you have to travel? What are the, you know, the different ins and outs and details of the state department, kind of, uh, challenges. And I started telling people about it. And next thing you know, everyone's like, well, I, I wanna go to Cuba. Can I come too? Can my sister come? Can my friend from work com?

[00:10:28] Amy Johnston: And before we knew it, we had 12 women that were like, let's go to Cuba. So I planned an eight day trip, half in Havana, half in the mountains in es. You have to, you know, stay in private hotels or accommodation. You have to eat in private restaurants. You have to have a full cultural itinerary every day of activities in order to be kind of within our guidelines.

[00:10:50] Amy Johnston: Um, because you can't go for tourism, it has to be under a category called support for the Cuban people. So it was really nerve wracking because a bunch of women were coming, some that I didn't even know, and they're all counting on me to keep them like safe, legal, um, you know, having a good time. And it was incredible.

[00:11:07] Amy Johnston: We had the best eight days. We learned so much. The experience was really special. There was so much laughing, the kind of laugh till you cry moments. and people that didn't know each other at all, like really bonded and connected. And so it was a beautiful week. It was amazing. And I got home from that trip.

[00:11:24] Amy Johnston: Three years ago now ago. And I thought, I would love to do that all the time. Like I work with a lot of women in therapy from sort of perinatal through perimenopause and it kind of hit me in that moment of like, that's what we need, right? Like therapy is incredibly important and we absolutely need it, and it's a really important part of mental health.

[00:11:44] Amy Johnston: But that connection and that like disconnect from being a mom and being at work and being in the grind and having the mental load and just like immersing in a place with other women and having that sense of joy and connection was so healing and supportive. And I thought, oh, if I could bottle that, like that is really, um, what's gonna help all of us.

[00:12:06] Amy Johnston: And then that whole idea just went to bed for a while because I have two kids and I have a full-time job and life. Right. So it just kind of sat in the back of my head for a while. And then, uh, right around this time last year, it was Labor Day weekend. Last year I was in Wisconsin with my husband and my kids, and we were sitting on a patio having a drink, and I said, I, I can't stop thinking about this idea of building this like travel retreat business.

[00:12:30] Amy Johnston: And he's like, tell me more. And I was like, I, I have this idea about taking women away on trips to do nothing. And he's like to do nothing. I'm like, yeah, like just going away to like not have any responsibility. You can just do nothing like your, you can put your phone away. And again, like he's from Ireland and he's like, you think women are gonna pay to go on a trip to.

[00:12:54] Amy Johnston: Not do anything. And I was like, I think they might. He's like, that's the most American thing I've ever heard. And I was like, he's like, but I think you might be onto something, right? So I'm like, well, it's not actually about doing nothing. It's actually about the permission to do nothing right? To, to not have the obligation.

[00:13:11] Amy Johnston: So that was the, the seed. And he was like, okay, do it. Like you should do that, I think. Why not? Um, so I filed for an LLC like a few days later, started building a website by myself 'cause I figured I could figure it out. Um, open my bank account, all the things you have to do at the beginning of a business.

[00:13:29] Amy Johnston: I googled a lot to try to figure out how in the world does one open a business in Chicago? There's a lot of steps. Um, and then I started planning. So our very first trip was a, like a cabin retreat in Galena, Illinois, which is about two, three hours outside of Chicago. And I rented this stunning mansion cabin, really.

[00:13:49] Amy Johnston: And 12 women signed up and we did a weekend, we called it like a Hugo weekend, that, Danish coziness vibe idea. So we had a giant two story fireplace. My best friend came with me to do all the food. We had a restorative yoga teacher. We did sound bath, we did vision boarding. There was a hot tub, there was a pool table.

[00:14:08] Amy Johnston: There was like giant couches and big TVs and everyone could do whatever they wanted. It was like, I'm gonna create the itinerary for the weekend. And then you choose what works for you, um, and the permission to do or not do. So if you wanna stay in bed and read a book all day, you should. If you wanna go for a walk.

[00:14:27] Amy Johnston: If you wanna sit in the hot tub and have a glass of wine, also amazing. Um, I brought art supplies and knitting stuff. One of the women hadn't done any knitting since she learned how to do it in school when she was a teenager. And she was just like, I haven't done this in 20 years. Like, this feels great.

[00:14:41] Amy Johnston: So that was our first little mini kind of tester. Um, and that same feeling of like, oh, this is what we need. Like I remember at one point everybody was hanging out, there was music on. There was sort of like this collective buzz of everybody being in whatever they needed to be. And I was sort of like walking around, cleaning stuff up and I was like, oh, it's happening.

[00:15:02] Amy Johnston: Like, that's it right now. Everyone's exactly getting what they need. so I just felt like this is the right thing. I'm onto something here. So, um, and then in April we did another trip to Cuba, so an official trip to Cuba for the exhale collective and, you know, same experience again. So I'm just sort of building my momentum here, figuring like, this is what women need and it's just about getting the word out and getting people kind of on board with this concept that being with women in an amazing place with no real sense of responsibility, um, is really healing.

[00:15:34] Erika Bugaj: That sort of, um, yeah, that, that reminds me of something you said at another interview that stuck with me, which is we need spaces where women don't just rest. They remember who they are. And I'm wondering how all of these activities that you describe and these options, these amazing options that you offer to your participants, how do they factor into that?

[00:15:59] Amy Johnston: Yeah, when I'm trying to plan an itinerary, I really try to think about number one, like giving enough options that a variety of really different women with really different interests can all engage in something that feels connecting for them. Um, but also I do try to think back to like, who am I underneath being a mom?

[00:16:19] Amy Johnston: Who am I underneath being a clinical director? Who am I underneath being a daughter? Like, all the roles that we take on. And I've stopped thinking about like, who was I before those things, because I'm not her either, right? I'm not. 25-year-old me, thank God, because she was kind of a, a rack in a lot, in a lot of ways.

[00:16:35] Amy Johnston: But who are you underneath the sort of layers that we get stuck under. And so for the the HOA weekend, it was really about like creativity and coziness and warmth and comfort, and that was really the theme. So all the activities kind of centered around that as a theme. Um, in Cuba, it was a little bit more about like adventure and getting outside of your comfort zone and pushing yourself to do things that maybe you're a little bit afraid of.

[00:16:59] Amy Johnston: So we went on a, a sunrise hike up the side of a mountain in the pitch black to watch the sunrise over the valley. Do we hike up mountains? Not usually have I ever hiked up a mountain in the dark only once when I did it in Cuba before. So I knew it was safe to bring a, a fresh group of people. Um, we went horseback riding in the valley, like out, out of our comfort zone as city girls that are not usually on horses.

[00:17:24] Amy Johnston: Um, we took salsa dancing lessons from a professional dance company in Havana. So far out of our comfort zone, right? So we, um, we pushed ourselves in ways in Cuba that wouldn't be kind of in our comfort zone, but actually really helped us to grow. And so that was sort of a theme around the trip, but all the activities sort of had a little bit of a, an echo of that.

[00:17:47] Amy Johnston: And that's another way of like reconnecting with ourselves because we are adventurous underneath all the shoulds and the have tos, and they're like, oh, I wish I could. And so finding ways to reconnect with that sense of adventure I think is something that we, we lose a lot along the way because we have to be cautious and we have to be on time and we have a schedule to keep and we have the calendar either in our phone or on our wall or in our brains.

[00:18:11] Amy Johnston: So that was sort of a, a, a theme there. Um, and then we're coming up on a trip to Ireland next April, and that one is really about like nature food, like farm to table culture, connecting with like the outdoors and the. The transformation of like nature to table and culture and all those things. So the theme is all around that.

[00:18:32] Amy Johnston: But, so we'll be doing like a big walk around the countryside in Galway, but we're also gonna be visiting places where they grow the food and going to these amazing little cafes and um, like eating these like organic six course farm to table meals. So there's sort of a foodie element to this one. And you know, most of us as women, like I eat, I ate a Pop-Tart and a coffee this morning for breakfast and I'll probably, I'll probably have like an instant mac and cheese for lunch because I'm running, right?

[00:19:01] Amy Johnston: So it's, Ireland is really about slowing down, um, slowing down and connecting with, like reconnecting to that earth nature, being outside and when you're a kid and when you're not running all the time, like you played outside. The grass under your feet and you'd go running around for hours because you could.

[00:19:20] Amy Johnston: So, um, trying to reconnect with some of that. And also in Ireland, there's so much music and art and creativity and so we're gonna incorporate a lot of that as well. So it's just trying to give people options to remember that like you are a person underneath all those other roles that you're carrying.

[00:19:35] Jennifer Politis: I actually had a mini aha moment as you were speaking because I love travel and used to travel before I had kids. But then I realized why in something you just said, it made me realize. The reason I love travel so much is I am fully present. I'm getting rid of all of my roles.

[00:19:55] Jennifer Politis: Um, I am discovering the, this new person I am outside of being a mom and a business owner and a therapist. So just wanted to mention, I had literally a, a mini aha moment when you were just speaking, so thank you for

[00:20:07] Amy Johnston: Yeah. And I love traveling with my kids and with my family, and they're great little travelers. Like they've been back and forth to Ireland half a dozen or more times at this point. Like they're very good at traveling, but it's a very different experience when you get to travel with your friends or by yourself or with a group of women versus momming in a different place.

[00:20:27] Amy Johnston: Right. So

[00:20:28] Colleen Long: Yeah,

[00:20:29] Amy Johnston: there's benefits of both, but

[00:20:31] Colleen Long: aren't really vacations when your parents, you're just parenting in a less convenient location. Right.

[00:20:36] Amy Johnston: sometimes Yeah. Yeah. My sister's in Disney World right now and she is parenting hard.

[00:20:41] Colleen Long: Whew. You need a vacation from that vacation.

[00:20:45] Amy Johnston: Yeah, no, she does. And we are, we're going to cartia in two weeks, my sister and my two best friends. And I is like a little checking it out before I decide if I'm gonna run a retreat there. So we're, we're heading to Columbia in two weeks.

[00:20:58] Colleen Long: What about for people who find it difficult to shut off? I'm just asking for a friend. Um, you know, like you get someone that's a little neurotic type A, they're their happy place is in the doing, not the human being, but the human doing. How do you help them reset right, and get what they need, which is probably the opposite action of what their intuition is.

[00:21:29] Amy Johnston: What their intuition is. Yeah. I think if they're booking a trip or, or an experience with me, they already know that it's not really working that well for them. Right. If someone really wants to keep doing, they're not gonna book a trip to Cuba where your phone literally doesn't work. Um, or to a cabin where I'm gonna make sure the signal's got not great, or I'm gonna encourage everyone to put their phones away and there'll be a little peer pressure if you're, you know, checking.

[00:21:55] Amy Johnston: Um, so I think that just by natural selection, women that are joining the kind of things I'm working on, at least there's a part of them that wants to put that down. So trying to tap into that and being really compassionate about it, I, it's hard, like I can't shut down either. Right. I'm also a, a, a human doing a lot of the time, so I think naming it, acknowledging it, and.

[00:22:19] Amy Johnston: Helping people kind of ease into it at their, their pace. So if it's only a weekend trip, it's like, okay, let's, you know, do what you need to do right now. Yeah. And like set, put your away message on, make sure everybody knows that you're out of, you know, availability. And then let's like, take it 24 hours at a time, or 12 hours at a time, or two hours at a time, right?

[00:22:41] Amy Johnston: Like, do you wanna put your phone away for two hours and then in two hours see how you feel? You might feel great and actually like, don't need to check it. Or you might have something really important and essential that you actually can't walk away from, but you're gonna put handles on it and say, okay, I'm gonna give myself 20 minutes to go handle the situation.

[00:22:58] Amy Johnston: Go, and then I'm gonna put myself back into the, experience. So I think you have to be like, kind people have been for decades doing, doing, doing. It's not easy to switch off right away, but once you do. It's fantastic. Like when we went to Cuba the first time, I don't think we realized how little connection we would have.

[00:23:18] Amy Johnston: We thought that there would be like a way to connect to the wifi or something. I don't know. We thought we, we weren't sure. There wasn't. So for eight days we could call home, but it cost like $4 a minute or something. So it was not a, you know, a cheap thing to do. Um, so I called home once a day to check on the kids, and that was it.

[00:23:37] Amy Johnston: Like we were disconnected and the first few days people were like picking up their phones and forgetting that you couldn't find, you know, any internet connection. And then after a couple days we just all stopped and by the end of it we were like, ah, this is so nice. So getting over the hump and. Being really sympathetic and compassionate that it's not easy to disconnect, but there sort of, there's a promise that on the other side of it, you're really gonna feel the benefit, you know, and it's temporary.

[00:24:05] Amy Johnston: We're all gonna go back to work at the end of this trip. We're not gonna disconnect you forever. Um, but the reason you're coming is really to help let some of that go and be really present. So I think one of the main priorities of these trips are mindful presence and being where you are. And so, kind of wanna honor that and you're, you're paying a lot of money and taking a lot of time to leave your kids, leave the country, leave your work.

[00:24:29] Amy Johnston: Like you really wanna enjoy all the benefits of that.

[00:24:32] Colleen Long: I just feel like. The moment. First off, the moment I saw your website, I was just like, oh my God, that's beautiful. Like it's absolutely gorgeous. You just get the call to action right there. When you open it up, it's amazing. But then my next thought is, Ooh, therapists are a frugal bunch, right? And we have to be right, because we're working with insurance a lot of the time.

[00:24:56] Colleen Long: So when I was in the chair, if I was contemplating taking a vacation or going on a retreat, I was calculating how much lost income that was gonna be, right? So if that's, if that's five days and I can't see 30 patients and that's 200 an hour, I've lost $6,000 that week, right? That's where, right where my head goes, and I imagine that's where a lot of therapists heads go.

[00:25:23] Colleen Long: So how do you get around that piece for people that maybe are still in that chair full time?

[00:25:30] Amy Johnston: One of the, um, travelers on our Ireland trip is a full-time private practice therapist, and for her, one of the best. Kind of pushes was that I, I open booking for my trips a year plus out. So you have so much time to plan and save, right? So if you, because it's the reality, like that's it's dollars for hours and if you're taking a week off work, you are going to be out that much money, right?

[00:25:59] Amy Johnston: But I don't know any private practice therapists that work 52 weeks a year, right? Like people do take time off, but they might take a day off here and a day off there. So it's sort of condensing it into one place, which can be hard on the budget, right? So you have to plan ahead. So she has a year from the time that she decided to come to set aside a little bit of extra money every week to cover that week's income that she'll be missing.

[00:26:23] Amy Johnston: Um, I set up payment plans so people can pay for the trip. A little bit at a time. You don't have to pay it all at once. And once you're on a trip with me, almost everything is covered. So once you're there, you have no expenses that week. So you're not paying for your meals or your accommodation or your transportation or anything once you're on the trip.

[00:26:42] Amy Johnston: So you've paid up front for all of it, but you don't have any extra expenses that week while you're also not earning. So it just takes a lot of sort of planning and logistics in advance, but

[00:26:53] Colleen Long: how much I would save from Amazon with no wifi connection alone. That would pay for the trip.

[00:26:58] Amy Johnston: Right. So it absolutely takes a little bit of, uh, figuring. But I know for her, that was what she said is like, the fact that I'm booking this now and the trips a year from now means I have 12 months to figure this out. And when you break up that one week of income that you're losing over 12 months, that's not that bad.

[00:27:16] Amy Johnston: Right. If you're saying you're losing, you know, $6,000 in income or whatever, that's $500 a month, which is not insubstantial. But you can kind of plan for that as opposed to getting to that week and being like, how am I gonna pay my bills without this, this income?

[00:27:30] Colleen Long: therapist really works 52 weeks a year. So you're, you're eventually going to lose that money at some point

[00:27:36] Amy Johnston: Right. People do take a week off, they just don't necessarily take a week off and go to Ireland or

[00:27:41] Colleen Long: For themselves, right?

[00:27:42] Amy Johnston: Sure. But you know, if you're not taking at least a week off every year, I'm worried about, you know, your own burnout and mental health as a therapist. So we should be planning to take weeks off.

[00:27:53] Colleen Long: I am so excited to talk to you, but I know, wanna give everybody else a chance, but I have one more question. So, how do you take care of yourself after these retreats? Because I imagine the therapist in you feels a need. Like you're hosting this, you wanna curate it for everyone. Youre seeing people's needs.

[00:28:13] Colleen Long: You're like, oh, are you getting that Laura? Take time. You know, Laura, we talked about that and so like you are on for eight days.

[00:28:22] Amy Johnston: Yeah,

[00:28:23] Colleen Long: Uh, so I guess I'm curious how one do you take it from? It's not just like, I'm like facilitating a girls trip and it really is this sort of like higher elevated experience because you do have the expertise to back it up and then how do you balance also like not completely burning out yourself after doing that.

[00:28:44] Amy Johnston: that's a great question. I remember, I, I got home from Cuba and it was an amazing a week this the, the first Excel collective Cuba trip. And my husband had just been home with the kids by himself for the week. And I walk in the door and I'm like, I'm so tired. And he is like, oh, no, no, no.

[00:29:00] Colleen Long: Right. He's like, you're on.

[00:29:02] Amy Johnston: you have, you have parenting to do.

[00:29:04] Amy Johnston: Um, so it is, it's this really amazing and sort of contradictory mix of like replenishing and exhausting because. I'm also on the trip and I'm also experiencing like the hikes and the horseback rides and the nature and all of these really nourishing experiences. And also I'm trying to curate this for everyone else's joy and connection and, you know, managing any hiccups along the way and anticipating any potential, um, challenges.

[00:29:34] Amy Johnston: So it's both. So one part of it is when I'm on the trip or on the weekend, I try to steal small moments for myself. Um, you know, not every hour of the trip is planned and curated. I always make sure to bake in like alone time or optional time and, you know, an afternoon where people can go have a wander around the town or have a nap or go to the spa or whatever that is for you.

[00:29:59] Amy Johnston: And so then I also have a little bit of a break. Um, so that's important, right? You can't be on for eight days in a row without a break. So just making sure I've got my own little bits of time is important. Um, something else that's just worked out so far is that on all of my trips and experiences so far, like a really good friend of mine has joined the trip, so my best friend came with me on the cabin retreat to help like cook and clean and organize.

[00:30:24] Amy Johnston: So just having like a partner that you can kind of hand things off to logistically is really helpful. Um, in Cuba, one of my really good friends joined the trip as well, and so like when we were hiking, one of the women on the trip was having a harder time and so like I was able to stay behind and kind of take care of her a little bit.

[00:30:43] Amy Johnston: Um, the friend could like make sure that everybody else was moving along okay. So having somebody with that can be like your your wing woman I think is a really also a really helpful part of that. Just you never know if something's gonna get a little crazy. So having someone that you trust that's there to have the experience but also like can be pulled in for assistance is a big part of it, is.

[00:31:04] Amy Johnston: And then for me, like just the day after I get back, I can't come right back to work. I know I can't be like in the chair seeing a therapist or teaching a class the next day, so I have to give myself just that little bit of buffer. And it honestly is just like sleeping and unpacking and getting the laundry in and sort of getting that reset because whenever you come home from a, a week away, I feel like you get a little bit of that vacation hangover anyway.

[00:31:29] Amy Johnston: And so for me, I feel like it's just a little more intense because like you said, I've not just been away, but I've also been on, so it's just trying to give myself that buffer. But so far that's been working and I love the trips and the travel and experiences so much that it is still really nourishing for me.

[00:31:44] Amy Johnston: And I love that feeling of like seeing everybody getting it. So there's, there's a lot for me in it.

[00:31:50] Erika Bugaj: Well, if you had some advice for a clinician that might be listening, and they are feeling very stuck in the grind, do you have advice for how to make a micro shift maybe in their every day, like day to day if they can't, you know, join one of your retreats or chips right now.

[00:32:10] Amy Johnston: Yeah, I think, you know, micro, micro shifts are really important because when we can do tiny things consistently, it really does make a difference. So something that I think about a lot. So I lived in Ireland for five years before I came back here and became a therapist. And I loved living there. Loved the pace, I loved the nature, I loved just like how life felt there and it just, it feels different.

[00:32:38] Amy Johnston: And when we moved back to Chicago, we were excited to come back and also like it was fast and busy and we were living in the city and it felt kind of overwhelming and very lots of concrete. And so. There was always a part of me that's like, oh, I just wanna move back to Ireland again. And that wasn't gonna happen right then.

[00:32:55] Amy Johnston: So I started thinking about how are ways I can start incorporating the feelings of that into my day to day. So if you can't come with us to Ireland or France or Cuba or whenever, you know, we're, we're going, it's like what parts of that experience would feel really nourishing? And a lot of it is like sensory stuff.

[00:33:15] Amy Johnston: So giving yourself a ritual of sitting in a cozy part of your house with a really nice coffee or tea in the morning for 15 or 20 minutes before you get into the, the buzz of everything, right? Like that feels. Being away to me because it's the kind of thing you do when you're away. You sit and you have a cozy, hot drink in the morning.

[00:33:35] Amy Johnston: Maybe you journal or listen to the radio and just give yourself 15 minutes of that to start your day. Um, other things that I really love about being away are like wandering around neighborhoods and finding new places. So, you know, if you can set aside a couple of hours on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, like, you know, check out a new neighborhood near you, find a, a cafe, find a, a deli, like, you know, wander around your space for a few hours.

[00:34:03] Amy Johnston: So no, you may not be able to take eight days away, but can you take two hours? Yeah, probably. Right? Pick a spot. Go have lunch on your own. The types of things, you know, people watch, the kind of things that you would do in, you're away, um, or you know. You can't hike up a mountain in Cuba, but can you go for, you know, a walk in the forest preserve by your house and like, pay attention to the trees, leave your phone in the car.

[00:34:26] Amy Johnston: So it's like finding the parts of those experiences that fill us up and trying to find like a local, I'm not sure, equivalent, you know, it's not gonna be exactly the same, but a local option that that gives you that same sense. If that makes sense.

[00:34:40] Erika Bugaj: Definitely it makes me think of when I was training as a nature informed therapist and they encouraged us to have lunch with a tree and just take our lunch and go sit near a tree. And I think, you know, you could do that anywhere, anywhere there's a tree. Um, but also I try to do that sometimes here where, where I live in, in DC and just try out a new cafe for lunch or a coffee shop.

[00:35:07] Erika Bugaj: And, you know, maybe that's also kind of building your skills for when you get to go on one of your trips, you know?

[00:35:14] Amy Johnston: Yeah. Yeah, and I think making it a habit is important because if you don't keep it up, then it kind of fizzles out. So if you know, like you finish early on Fridays before you pick up your kids or before you get to whatever else you're doing, like take an hour and build a habit of one of these sort of nourishing activities, whatever that looks like for you.

[00:35:34] Colleen Long: Yeah, that was, um, how Francine Shapiro had discovered EMDR was. She was just out in nature and she was walking and processing her trauma and she, she noticed her eyes were darting back and forth as she was walking, but she noticed that she felt better every single time she went out for that walk. And so there's something for sure, I think.

[00:35:57] Colleen Long: neurobiologically about nature that resets us from Eastern philosophy. It's like it resets your qi, right? And then there's definitely something about what's happening with our eyes as we're out in nature moving around that I think we don't get from a screen. And so much of our just creativity and everything has been flattened by being on a screen for so long, I think for the last couple years.

[00:36:21] Amy Johnston: Yeah, and I think that's part of why travel is so good for us, is because we are constantly like looking, absorbing, like seeing new things. You know, when I'm walking around downtown in Chicago, I'm like either focused on my phone or like the street in front of me. When I'm in another city or another place, I'm looking up, like I'm constantly looking up.

[00:36:40] Amy Johnston: I'm looking at like the architecture and the, um, you know, the signs and the, yeah. So just like that experience of being engaged visually in the world around you is something that when you're in your day to day, I think we, we miss out on a lot.

[00:36:55] Colleen Long: I think when we talk about therapist burnout, which is a common buzz term these days, there's a unique piece to therapist burnout especially. So when we first thought about the idea of this podcast, we were thinking, well, let's just do, you know, like four clinicians? Because all clinicians trade their time for money when they start, right?

[00:37:15] Colleen Long: Doctors, chiropractors, physical therapists. But there's a unique piece in our field that I think we, you know, like if you're a medical doctor, you can hang the stethoscope up at the end of the day, or if you're, um, um, whatever, like a, a speech therapist, you've got your tools that you can close that laptop if you're a graphic designer, right?

[00:37:39] Colleen Long: If you're a contractor, you can take off your boots and your tool belt. But when you're a therapist, you're using this instrument that you've sort of cultivated. Throughout the years. And this instrument is your body that you have to go to bed with that night and you have to deal with your family and your own life issues.

[00:37:57] Colleen Long: And so I think it's especially hard for therapists in terms of burnout because there is no like, I'm just gonna hang this instrument up until I come back tomorrow morning. It's all there and it's exhausted. So how do you go from a vacation to escape to a retreat, to exhale? know, how do you elevate that experience?

[00:38:23] Colleen Long: Because if I go on vacation and I plan it myself, I'm just gonna go somewhere, we're gonna sit by the beach and have a bunch of Coronas and like buzz out, right? You're not really even there. You're not, you're like, I don't know, we went somewhere. There's an ocean. But like with you, you're present, right?

[00:38:38] Colleen Long: It's an elevated experience and you're actively relaxing. So tell me about that. Like how do you. Take it to that next level.

[00:38:47] Amy Johnston: Yeah. And I mean, there's definitely a place for the Corona's on the beach and the, you know, the, the escapism of it. I think it comes down to something that I actually talk about a lot in our, my trainings is that, like, that sense of numbing versus nourishing. And so you have to be honest with yourself.

[00:39:04] Amy Johnston: Like, what are you doing that's numbing you out and what are you doing that's actually filling you back up again? And there's not, it's not a judgment, right? Sometimes we need to numb out a little bit. I will scroll Instagram, like the best of them, but if you do it for 20 minutes, that's a nice brain break.

[00:39:20] Amy Johnston: If you do it for three hours, you feel bad about yourself afterwards. Right? And so for me, that elevating it from the, the vacation to the experience is thinking about how do we incorporate really nourishing. Pieces that fill us back up again, and that's gonna look a little bit different for everyone. Um, but some of those aspects are, um, we have sort of a, a daily word, a daily theme.

[00:39:46] Amy Johnston: It's, we don't, this, this is not a therapy trip. Somebody that was joining the trip is like, do I have to do group therapy on this trip? And it's like, no. She's like, do I have to cry? And I was like, not unless you want to.

[00:39:56] Colleen Long: need to be on your meds, Laura.

[00:39:58] Amy Johnston: we hope you'll laugh till you cry. And that does usually happen.

[00:40:01] Amy Johnston: But, um, but so it's, it's not a, a therapy experience, but we do have kind of a morning circle. So like just over breakfast, we have a theme of the day. I have a couple of sort of reflection questions to get people in that mindset of like, what's, you know. Thinking about when we were in Cuba, we were talking about resilience.

[00:40:21] Amy Johnston: We were talking about, you know, boundaries. We were talking about letting things go, um, and expectations and, and it kind of matched up with the activities of the day. So the day that we hiked up this mountain, it was not easy. It was a little scary. And when we got back down again and had our breakfast, like we just talked about that a little bit, right?

[00:40:39] Amy Johnston: Like what was that like, and how does that sort of connect with some of the things that we're struggling with? So just like some gentle prompting to get people into that space of, making some connections, right? Because the idea is too that you're not just like here for eight days and then you go home and go back to the.

[00:40:59] Amy Johnston: Same madness that you left. It's like trying to pull lessons and experiences from this trip that you can then bring home with you and apply to your everyday life that's actually gonna help make your life feel better. So I say sometimes in some of my posts, like we, we are all about escaping the grind on these trips, but we also wanna build lives that you don't need to escape from.

[00:41:20] Amy Johnston: So it's not just about the escape, it's about building some skills and building some insights about yourself that you can then transfer to your new routine when you get home and hopefully make some changes and have some mindset shifts and insight shifts that make your life better every day. 'cause I want everyone to come on all these trips and also we can't travel 52 weeks a year either.

[00:41:44] Amy Johnston: So we, uh, we have to live life in between. So I think that is a big part of it, is trying to make those connections. And then the daily experiences are all sort of curated to be nourishing. So. Laying on the beach and drinking Coronas is super fun. And like hiking through nature is gonna give you a different experience.

[00:42:03] Amy Johnston: And like, we're gonna go out at night and listen to music and have, you know, a Guinness maybe. But also we're going to, um, do a sauna and sea plunge where you're doing like hot cold therapy and who has ever jumped into the Atlantic Ocean before? Not many of us right in, in the, in the icy cold. So trying to con balance that like sense of reset with also like building our skills, our coping, our, our capacity.

[00:42:29] Colleen Long: Sounds

[00:42:30] Jennifer Politis: everything you say is very intentional and I love that 'cause it really carries over probably in all aspects of your life.

[00:42:36] Amy Johnston: I hope you. Yeah, it really does. Um, thank you for reminding us that joy and travel and even just breath and being in the present moment is not a luxury. Um, and it's really a lifeline to how we need to be in our life.

[00:42:51] Amy Johnston: Yeah. Yeah. I think for me. As a mom, as a daughter with, you know, a therapist, like there's a lot of emotional labor all the time that so many of us are, are putting out. And when I started traveling with my friends more intentionally, um, every time I was away I just felt like, ah, this is like, this is how I can take a deep breath.

[00:43:13] Amy Johnston: This is how I can get a little bit of space. And that sort of over the years accumulated into the exhale. And that's why it's called the Exhale Collective, because we spend a lot of time not being able to just take that deep breath. And the idea of having space for that is what makes me feel like Whew, grounded and safe and, and that I have like the, the capacity to do more then.

[00:43:35] Colleen Long: When you think about our listener, which our listener is usually someone that's been practicing for a while and they're like, where you were, they're just sort of itching to, they wanna do something different.

[00:43:51] Amy Johnston: Mm-hmm.

[00:43:52] Colleen Long: What's the first micro shift you might recommend for them in that first month where they're like, I want to to mix this up a little bit, and I love that you did this radical thing of resetting.

[00:44:07] Colleen Long: You didn't just build a bigger practice or like get more patients, or hire more clinicians. You went the opposite way, which is radical in our field. So how do you, like, what would be your advice to our listener who's like, God, how did she make that leap? How did she do that and have such conviction in herself?

[00:44:27] Amy Johnston: Yeah, I mean, to be honest, a big part of it is that I, I didn't leave my day job. I added this on as a side project. So I had the security of, and the support of my boss at Urban Wellness saying like, I trust you to continue to do your job here and also build this other thing for yourself as well. So that was a huge part of it.

[00:44:47] Amy Johnston: So if you, if you're working for yourself, you are, you can give yourself that permission, right? Like if you're in private practice, you can decide how much of your time and energy you're still gonna put into your day-to-day because you need the paycheck and how much you're gonna be able to put into building something a little bit different.

[00:45:06] Amy Johnston: And just knowing that, like in the beginning, it's exhausting, right? Trying to. To do a job and build something at the same time takes a lot. So you have to be realistic that it's gonna be a heavy lift up front. Um, but if you're doing something that you're really excited about, for me, it really doesn't feel like work.

[00:45:23] Amy Johnston: That sounds cheesy, but like. Building the trips and creating the itineraries and, and making the website and doing the, like the conversa, having all the conversations about it is so energizing for me that it's a lot of fun. So I would say my advice would be if you're trying to diversify from one-on-one therapy, you have to pick something that you're really excited about.

[00:45:44] Amy Johnston: So whether that's writing a book, whether that's creating trainings and workshops, whether that's, um, you know, organizing groups or community, um, events, like whatever it is, it has to be something that energizes you instead of drains you, especially while you're trying to still see clients and build that.

[00:46:02] Amy Johnston: So like really thinking through like, what do you love most about your job? What's the most fun part? Or what's something that you did in the past that was really exciting and how do you start thinking about how to build that out? And for me, it's always been one step at a time, and it doesn't happen all at once, and you have to go slow and you have to sort of build the momentum, but as long as you're excited about it, you keep going.

[00:46:24] Colleen Long: Mm.

[00:46:25] Erika Bugaj: such great advice. You know, find that thing that gives you joy and gives you new life.

[00:46:33] Amy Johnston: Yeah, I mean, when I started with, when I, when I went to Maureen and said I wanted to create something else, and we started doing these trainings, like I love creating workshops. I love being on a stage in front of people. I started speaking at conferences to kind of get our name out there a little bit, and it was so much fun.

[00:46:47] Amy Johnston: I got to travel a little bit, I got to get up on stage. I did a lot of HR conferences at first getting in front of, because I always say HR people are like the therapists of the, the business world, but they're just like unwilling therapists because people don't all their, their drama on them. So, you know, finding that thing that makes you feel excited and that spark and then you go from there and there's always something you can build on that.

[00:47:09] Amy Johnston: It's just you have to be creative and sometimes you have to, spend some time brainstorming with other people who can see some perspectives that maybe you can't. So get a bunch of your therapist friends together and tell 'em what you're interested in and let them. Let them help you build it.

[00:47:23] Erika Bugaj: I think there's so many positive things about what you've built and you know, here we often talk about our challenges with, you know, the businesses we've built, and I'm curious if you have, you know, a lesson to share or you know, something you overcame, a logistical disaster, a money mistake, an emotional gut punch.

[00:47:47] Erika Bugaj: You know, just that like realization that you would do. Do it differently next time.

[00:47:51] Amy Johnston: Mm-hmm.

[00:47:53] Colleen Long: I think what Eric is trying to say is, what was your, oh shit moment.

[00:47:56] Erika Bugaj: Yep. There you go.

[00:48:00] Colleen Long: There we go.

[00:48:01] Amy Johnston: So for the exhale. My oh shit moment. Um, so Cuba in April was my first big international for, for this business. And the cabin retreat had gone really well. So I was feeling confident. But cuba's a different kettle of fish. And when you're building a retreat, you have to pay a lot of things upfront, right?

[00:48:22] Amy Johnston: Like you have to pay big deposits on your accommodation to get the group rate. You have to, you know, book your tours and your transportation. And these days, like everybody wants deposits and lots of things are non-refundable. And so you have to pay out in front of like, ahead of time for all these things.

[00:48:37] Amy Johnston: And then you cross your fingers and hope enough people are gonna sign up to cover your cost and then maybe you'll make some money if you, you know, if you're really lucky. So I had prepaid for a whole lot of things and I had a pretty good group of women signed up and ready to go. And, you know, I had a policy around non-refundable deposits and all these things.

[00:48:57] Amy Johnston: And then within the few months before the trip. One person called me and said, I can't come anymore. My mom got diagnosed with cancer. I really can't be like away without communication. I'm gonna have to pull out. Okay. Got it. Totally understand. Like, we'll, we'll

[00:49:16] Colleen Long: And at that point you're not like, well, that'll be a 75% fee I'm gonna need to take. Right?

[00:49:23] Amy Johnston: And so that was rough. And then another woman called and said, um, she tore her retina and her doctor told her that she can't fly and definitely not to Cuba, where there's no reliable medical care. Um, and she, she can't come anymore either. And then another woman let me know that she was in the emergency room with blood clots and so therefore she also can't go.

[00:49:51] Amy Johnston: And now financially it wasn't. A hundred percent devastating. Like someone had travel insurance and there was some, you know, there was some, some things I could do, but this meant my trip was down to just two people and me. And that was not a group trip anymore. Right. So that was my oh shit moment of like, I just advertised a women's group retreat and there's two guests plus me and that is not a retreat.

[00:50:17] Amy Johnston: Right. It was already gonna be small with the five plus me, but that felt like a good like number and now it was two. And I for sure panicked at that point. I was like, this is, I'm, this is not even what I told them. This was gonna be like, what are we gonna do? This is just a girls trip now. Right. And so that was a panic moment for me for sure.

[00:50:35] Amy Johnston: Um, but fortunately. A few more people. Like, I kind of had to pull it together and go back into like, talking about the trip mode again with only kind of a, a month or so out. And more people ended up joining the trip at the last minute that were, you know, excited and had sort of been waiting and weren't sure, but then with a little more of a invitation they came.

[00:50:57] Amy Johnston: And so it ended up being, uh, six of us again in the end, which was perfect. But yeah, that, that moment of like, I have no control over this and I'm, I'm offering and promising something that I can't actually control the delivery of always because it, yeah, that was scary. So was lesson learned may, I mean, I'm not even sure what I could have done differently in that other than these things happen and you have to always be ready to constantly roll and evolve with it.

[00:51:25] Amy Johnston: And if it would've just been the three of us, we still would've had an amazing trip. It just would've been a different kind of trip. That was a rough one.

[00:51:31] Colleen Long: Really quick, how do you market yourself? Like where do you find your target audience?

[00:51:37] Amy Johnston: Great question. Um, I am learning as I go. So, you know, it's funny, like coming up as a social worker and a therapist, we don't learn marketing skills. And I think this is the same for lots of people in private practice and group practice. Like nobody taught you how to do that. So a lot of us are like learning as we go, trying to figure out the business side of our clinical work.

[00:52:00] Amy Johnston: So for me at the moment, a lot of my, um, my guests have come through LinkedIn. I, I was really afraid of LinkedIn a few years ago, but when I started doing the, the workshops and the trainings, I figured I had to get onto LinkedIn to start building something and it turned into a space that. I grew a lot of followers and I ended up making a lot of connections.

[00:52:20] Amy Johnston: And so a lot of my travel guests have come through people that have been following me on LinkedIn for years that I didn't even know were following me. And now they're like, Hey, I've been watching your stuff for years. I really would like to come on this trip. So that's been really cool. Um, I use Instagram and Facebook, you know, other socials.

[00:52:38] Amy Johnston: Um, so that's been part of it. And friends of Friends like word of mouth has been really helpful because getting people to commit to something like an international trip is a big ask, especially for a stranger. So for me, asking friends or asking colleagues, asking people who know me and trust me to spread the word has been hugely helpful because, you know, if I just say, Hey, do you wanna go to Ireland with me?

[00:53:00] Amy Johnston: They're like, um, who are you? And why would I do that? But if one of you guys is like, oh my gosh. Amy's great, and I know her, and she's totally a real person and reliable and, you know, not gonna scam you. And you should definitely go on this trip with her. There might be like, oh, okay, maybe like, that's, that's a possibility.

[00:53:18] Amy Johnston: So it's been a mix of things, um, but I'm still trying to figure that out. So if anybody has like the secret of marketing our, our services, let me know. I'm, I'm building as I go.

[00:53:29] Colleen Long: Yeah.

[00:53:31] Erika Bugaj: So can you remind us what your upcoming trips are? You said you have a couple, and also where can people find you aside from maybe LinkedIn?

[00:53:41] Amy Johnston: Yeah. So, um, we're going to Ireland in April, April 25th to May 1st. And so we're gonna spend three nights in Galway City on the West coast, and then three nights in the Wicklow Mountains. So first part of the trip is gonna be music culture. More action. Um, the second part of the trip is in this stunning resort thermal spa in the mountains.

[00:54:05] Amy Johnston: It's gonna be like a very, uh, low key reset. So we're gonna start big and then end gentle. So that's April and I'm just so excited to, to take everyone there especially 'cause Ireland is like my second home, so it's like bringing everyone home for me. Um, and then next September, so about a year from now we're going to the south of France.

[00:54:24] Amy Johnston: So we'll be spending three, no four nights in a town called arl, which is like a really cool Roman esque village. And then we're gonna be spending three nights in a resort in the countryside, which again, it's gonna be like culture action the first half, and then poolside spa side reset in the middle of the countryside by the Mediterranean in the second part.

[00:54:46] Amy Johnston: So both are gonna be really amazing. Um, I'm so excited. I was telling my

[00:54:51] Colleen Long: I'm just, I need to, uh, remind you guys, we need to do a quarterly retreat. We need to schedule that. I wonder if anybody could facilitate that.

[00:54:58] Jennifer Politis: I know,

[00:54:59] Amy Johnston: I,

[00:55:00] Jennifer Politis: I think we have our person.

[00:55:02] Erika Bugaj: You may find us on those trips.

[00:55:04] Amy Johnston: well you Yep. You can absolutely join. Or the other thing I'm actually gonna be starting to offer is creating bespoke retreats for groups that don't wanna join a trip with the public, um, but wanna create their own spaces too. So, um, that's sort of may, maybe my 20 26, 20 27 goal. Um, but yeah, so I've got those two booked.

[00:55:25] Amy Johnston: And then I'm hoping to do another Havana trip in 2026. Probably not a whole week in Cuba again, but maybe like a long weekend. Um, I'm just trying to figure out timing wise where I can squeeze that in. Cuba's a little challenging because of hurricane season, so it has to be certain times of year, and I have to kinda navigate that.

[00:55:45] Amy Johnston: So that one's, that one's still up in the air as far as timing. Um, and then I'll definitely do another cabin retreat this winter just for the kind of local folks that can't get away away, but they still need that break. Um, so, and you can find me on Instagram, so I'm just at the exhale collective on Instagram.

[00:56:03] Amy Johnston: Um, the website is the dash exhale dash collective. Um, the dashes throw people off a little bit, but

[00:56:10] Colleen Long: It is one of the most stunning therapist websites I've ever seen.

[00:56:15] Amy Johnston: Thank you. Um, that makes me so happy 'cause I did it myself. So,

[00:56:18] Colleen Long: it's amazing.

[00:56:19] Amy Johnston: I love, I love playing with the website. It's been a lot of fun. A lot of hours, but a lot of fun. So yeah, website, Instagram, those are probably the best places to find me. Um, and then you can always email me, it's just hello at the dash, exhale dash collective com.

[00:56:33] Amy Johnston: You have questions or you can also on the website, sign up for the newsletter or just sign. Just like send me a message. And you know, there, I've had lots of folks that are just like, I just wanna talk more about what you're doing. I wanna learn more about like how you built it. So, um, I'm all about collaboration and not competition.

[00:56:51] Amy Johnston: So if there are therapists out there listening that would like to start their own retreat business or trying to figure out how to do this, feel free to contact me. I'm happy to like have a coffee and talk you through how I did it. I know the rules of setting these up in different states are different, but I can tell you how it works in Illinois, what I did and what's been working well so far.

[00:57:07] Amy Johnston: So, um, yeah, I'm always happy to share whatever I know.

[00:57:11] Colleen Long: Nice.

[00:57:12] Erika Bugaj: Thank you so much Amy, for again, for joining us today. And you know, just a question for our listeners. When was the last time you exhaled fully? Maybe today's your moment. Until next

[00:57:25] Amy Johnston: Ooh.

[00:57:26] Erika Bugaj: keep walking off the chair with us.

Off the Chair Podcast

Retreats, Rest & Revenue: The Dual Life of a Clinician-Entrepreneur

Here’s what you’ll hear:

Connect with us!

Colleen Long, Psy.D.

Jennifer Politis, PhD, LPC

Erika Bugaj, MA, MSW, LICSW

Amy Johnston

Episode Transcript:

Delegation Disasters & Hiring Heartbreaks