Diversify Beyond the Chair™: The Podcast

What happens when a therapist’s dream of travel, nature, and experiential work outgrows the therapy hour? In this episode, I sit down with my friend and colleague Melissa Rosinski, our very first guest! Melissa is a group practice owner in Tucson, Arizona, and the founder of Wild Haven, where she hosts international retreats for helpers and healers.

Melissa shares her road from community mental health to group practice ownership to building a second business hosting retreats in Costa Rica and Portugal. We get real about what’s hard: juggling two businesses, letting go of a retreat idea after months of research, and the grief that can come with it. We also talk about the gas and the brakes in our systems, what Melissa would do differently with her first retreat, why asking for help is empowering, and why finding your people matters so much on this road.

In this episode, you’ll hear how a retreat about hosting retreats sparked Melissa’s road beyond the chair, what it’s really like to build two businesses at the same time, why walking away from an idea that isn’t working is part of the process and not a failure, how self-doubt can take the lead and how to zoom out when it does, and Melissa’s one tip for taking your next step down the road.

Connect with Melissa on Instagram at @wildhavennature, where you’ll also find her free guide, Nature as Co-Therapist. You can also visit wildhavennature.com or email [email protected].

Melissa’s upcoming retreats are Elemental Alchemy in Arrábida, Portugal, May 17 to 23, 2027 (I’ll be speaking there!), and Nature, Ritual & Renewal in Costa Rica, July 11 to 16, 2027, with an optional beach weekend add-on.

Learn more about The Road Beyond the Chair™ and access free resources at nextlevelprivatepractice.com/podcast.

Diversify Beyond the Chair™ is a program of Next Level Private Practice. Diversify Beyond the Chair™ and The Road Beyond the Chair™ are trademarks of Rachel Bentley Consulting, LLC d/b/a Next Level Private Practice.

This podcast is for education and inspiration. It isn’t therapy, and it isn’t clinical, legal, financial or tax advice.

Welcome to the very first episode of Diversify Beyond the Chair™: The Podcast! In this solo episode, I share why I started this show, what it really means to diversify beyond the chair, and a little bit of my own road from group practice owner to consultant to retreat host.

We talk about how isolated we can be as therapists and practice owners, and how even dreaming about a new idea can bring up self-doubt and judgment, with a lot of our parts taking the lead. I walk through the seven ceilings I see therapists hit again and again: income, capacity, freedom, creativity, connection, impact and growth. I also get honest about the shifts happening in our industry, from venture capital and insurance payers buying into it to cuts in reimbursement, and why diversifying may become a need for some of us and not just a want.

In this episode, you’ll hear what diversifying beyond the chair means and some of the many ways therapists are doing it, what The Road Beyond the Chair™ is and how it takes you from an idea to a launch, how Next Level Private Practice grew out of a longing for community and a lot of “can I pick your brain?” requests, why just because someone asks us to do something doesn’t mean we have to, and how the first Diversify Beyond the Chair™ retreat in Las Vegas sparked this whole podcast.

Your next mile: find out which ceilings you’re hitting right now. The free Find Your Ceiling Calculator takes about three to five minutes and gives you a big-picture view of where you are, which can bring clarity to what you might want to do next.

Find your income ceiling and your next step at nextlevelprivatepractice.com/podcast.

Diversify Beyond the Chair™ is a program of Next Level Private Practice. Diversify Beyond the Chair™ and The Road Beyond the Chair™ are trademarks of Rachel Bentley Consulting, LLC d/b/a Next Level Private Practice.

This podcast is for education and inspiration. It isn’t therapy, and it isn’t clinical, legal, financial or tax advice.