What is emotional fitness, and why is it more important than ever for therapists, helpers, and quiet leaders?

In this episode of Selling the Couch, I’m joined by psychologist and author Dr. Emily Anhalt to explore how we can strengthen our emotional muscles to prevent burnout, set boundaries, and lead with compassion (without losing ourselves in the process).

We break down:

The difference between emotional intelligence and emotional fitness

The 7 traits of emotionally fit people

The early warning signs of burnout—and how to prevent it

Why boundaries are the blueprint for sustainability

How playfulness improves therapy outcomes (and leadership!)

A powerful "emotional push-up" you can try today

Whether you're in private practice, leadership, or building something new, this episode will help you stay grounded and grow with intention.

Resources:

Want to launch your online course?

Check out our new membership site that's starting in January! Find out more and join us in Haven here.

Mentioned in this episode:

Try Alma!

Building and managing the practice you truly want can feel overwhelming. That’s why Alma is here—to help you create not just any practice, but your private practice.

Melvin kicks off Season 11 of Selling the Couch with a powerful and timely conversation on how therapists and online educators can AI-proof their online courses in 2026 and beyond.

If you’re worried that AI tools might replace the need for your course, this episode will help you rethink that fear, and give you a framework to build something deeply human, emotionally intelligent, and resilient.

Learn the 3 keys to future-proofing your course:

Sustainable Community – Build connection that lasts beyond the launch

Blue Ocean Positioning – Create a course that stands alone in your niche

Meaningful Gamification – Design experiences that transform, not just inform

You’ll also get a behind-the-scenes look at how Melvin made the difficult decision to retire his previous programs, and what led to the creation of Haven, a calm, supportive community for therapists moving into online income.

Resources:

Want to launch your online course?

Check out our new membership site that’s launching in January! Find out more and join us in Haven here.

Mentioned in this episode:

Try Alma!

Building and managing the practice you truly want can feel overwhelming. That’s why Alma is here—to help you create not just any practice, but your private practice.

Today’s show is a coaching call about online courses and the imposter syndrome that sneaks in with fear and doubt. Join us to learn more!

Our Featured Guest for today’s coaching call:

Nikki Sewell, LCSW

Nikki was ready to get her pilot students into her course, but she has encountered a lot of fear around charging her worth for her grief course for therapists. Nikki built a successful private practice focusing on the niche of grief counseling, motivated by losing her father to suicide during her grad school years and suddenly losing her husband at age 41 back in 2013. Join the coaching call with Nikki and Melvin!

Nikki Sewell

You’ll Learn:

● How Nikki found her niche in grief counseling with widows, suicide survivors, and orphaned adults

● Why Nikki views her grief counseling work as something beautiful that empowers people to see “what’s lost, what’s left, and what’s possible”

● How Nikki decided to create her online course to help other grief and trauma therapists

● Why the best online courses combine clinical training with personal experience–like Nikki is doing

● How money blocks, shame, and internal voices get in the way to create imposter syndrome for Nikki

● The new perspective: Nikki’s course is helping clinicians to become better clinicians, help their clients more fully, and become better business owners (who make more money)

● Why we struggle with shame in charging what we are worth because we are a “helping profession”

● How Nikki can implement the same steps in charging for her online course that she employed in establishing her private practice

● How to take a “ladder view” of our expertise and experience, realizing that there are always people on lower rungs who need your help

● Why it’s better to take the tortoise approach and pace yourself in launching a course

Resources:

Want to launch your online course?

Check out our new membership site that’s launching in January! Find out more and join us in Haven here.

Mentioned in this episode:

Try Alma!

Building and managing the practice you truly want can feel overwhelming. That’s why Alma is here—to help you create not just any practice, but your private practice.

Many clinicians are left wondering if their best work lies in the clinical field or the coaching/consulting arena. I’ve felt this dilemma myself, pondering how to balance my interests, endeavors, and the evolution of family life. I realized that I couldn’t sustain multiple paths, and I made the hard decision to give up my clinical work.

If you are struggling along those same lines, I hope today’s show gives you insights, clarity, and encouragement. Join us to learn more!

Our Featured Guest

Angela Williams, LCSW

Angela Williams is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in Orlando, Florida. She has made the transition from clinician to coach, and she now works with other therapists who are making the same change in their lives. Angela shares her thoughts about why so many clinicians are leaving for the world of coaching, along with the biggest roadblocks that may come up on this path. She gives her best tips for overcoming those big roadblocks and recommends several books as helpful resources. 

Website

You’ll Learn:

• Why so many therapists are becoming coaches
• How the therapy field, with its inherent regulations, contains many barriers to providing services to clients—and coaching is different
• The biggest mental roadblock for Angela in moving from clinician to coach
• Why each clinician feels like the “insecure expert” and has to intentionally build up their confidence
• Why it’s challenging to become an online, visible brand rather than a care provider
• What holds clinicians back the most and presents the biggest roadblocks
• How a mindset coach can help us rewrite our roadblocks into our success story
• How perfectionism, fear of failure, and standards of success can prevent us from taking action
• Why money blocks and financial literacy play into our beliefs about money
• Why the fear of success can be just as crippling as the fear of failure
• Books recommended by Angela:  The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks, Get Rich, Lucky Bitch by Denise Duffield-Thomas, and You Are a Badass at Making Money by Jen Sincero

Resources:

Want to launch your online course?

Check out our new membership site that’s launching in January! Find out more and join us in Haven here.

Mentioned in this episode:

Try Alma!

Building and managing the practice you truly want can feel overwhelming. That’s why Alma is here—to help you create not just any practice, but your private practice.

Today’s topic is a fascinating one for me. As therapists, we are wired for stories, but telling an effective story online is a struggle for many of us. Fortunately for us, my guest has wisdom and tips to share to help us become awesome storytellers. Join us to learn more!

Our Featured Guest

Kieran Drew

Kieran Drew lives in Leeds, England, and is my writing coach for Twitter. In an interesting career twist, he was a dentist who left behind his stressful, work-filled life to become a copywriter/storyteller. My first connection to Kieran came through the viral story he wrote about his unique medical experiences as a teenager. He is a talented storyteller who has helped my writing immensely, and I know his insights will be helpful to anyone looking to improve their writing. 

Website

You’ll Learn:

• Why Kieran made the unconventional transition from dentist to copywriter/storyteller
• An overview of Kieran’s spinal issues involving a tumor, surgeries, and titanium rods—this is the experience that helped him discover storytelling and a new love for life
• 3 tips to become a better storyteller:
• Make a story bank by writing down everything that happens to you with specific details.
• Cut through the noise to impart a lesson. 
• Even in sales, start every point with a story. 
• How specific details make your stories more impactful
• How to draw a “lesson” from each story
• How storytelling breaks down skepticism and improves your selling ability
• How storytelling can be your differentiator in the online world
• A storytelling template: what happened/the lesson, why people should care, and a call to action
• How Kieran reviews his story bank to choose his next story

Resources:

Want to launch your online course?

Join our Free 90-Minute Workshop happening on December 10th: Will AI Make My Course Irrelevant? Save your spot at sellingthecouch.com/aiwebinar

Check out our new membership site that’s launching in January! Find out more and join the interest list for Haven. 

I’ve been focused on building a life around my family and self-care rather than fitting those things around a career. I’ve learned that there is much wisdom in slowing down and not keeping up a crazy pace. One thing that has helped me accomplish these goals is creating an online course. Even though I’m super grateful and blown away by the success, I made a lot of mistakes along the way. Join me as I share my insights and lessons learned. 

You’ll Learn:

• The 10 biggest mistakes I made as an online course creator:
• 1–I didn’t understand how my childhood trauma affected my course pricing. 
• Check out these resources: “The Psychological Price of Entrepreneurship” (Inc Magazine), We Should All Be Millionaires by Rachel Rodgers, and courses by Tiffany McLain.
• 2–I gave my students lifetime access to coaching and community.
• This caused me to feel resentment for not charging more for that kind of access to me.
• 3–I focused too much on gear instead of creating a steady marketing system. 
• I have learned that marketing, which is not my strength, is all about authenticity and connection.
• 4–I focused on being in the “middle of the pack” on pricing instead of in the upper tier.
• Ask yourself, “Do you want to be the Apple or the Walmart in your niche?”
• 5–I didn’t realize that I could invite students into other experiences beyond my course.
• Options include a mastermind, cohort-based course, and other recurring income buckets.
• 6–I realized that looking at my bank account doesn’t drive sales as testimonials do.
• 7–I thought I’d be stuck on one business model, so I built a “strip mall model.”
• 8–I thought having a mentor with a similar course meant that I couldn’t create one.
• When someone else has a similar course, you can niche down into a more specific message.
• 9–I was too concerned about the sale over the relationship.
• This came from a poverty mindset instead of the abundance mindset to which I aspire. 
• 10–I didn’t think about the one-off sale on the front end and the recurring invitation on the back. 
• A certain number of students will want a more in-depth experience with us. 

Resources:

Want to launch your online course?

Join our Free 90-Minute Workshop happening on December 10th: Will AI Make My Course Irrelevant? Save your spot at sellingthecouch.com/aiwebinar

Check out our new membership site that’s launching in January! Find out more and join the interest list for Haven. 

Our Featured Guest for today’s call: Heather McKenzie, LCMHCS

Heather McKenzie came through Online Course School as a beta student back in the fall of 2021. Online Course School is a live, eight-week experience that takes your online course from a simple idea all the way through the development stages so that you are ready to record. Heather created a course specifically focused on anxiety that can be found at Dial Down Anxiety. Like most of us who create an online course, she faced a common struggle about how to handle marketing time and costs to promote her course. Join us to hear the coaching call!

McKenzie Counseling 

You’ll Learn:

• How to handle logistical challenges in the online presentation of your course
• Why Heather’s course is an eight-week course to help people understand anxiety and DBT emotion regulation skills
• How marketing options for an online course can be overwhelming for most people 
• How to pinpoint your own superpowers in teaching and the style that works best for you
• How to structure the content levels for promoting your course in six-month blocks:
• Start with webinars, both free and paid.
• Offer a downloadable guide or cheat sheet.
• Use a core blog post as a stand-alone feature that blows people away.
• Tips from Melvin about content levels:
• Offering too many things can confuse people, so stick with one core webinar.
• Less is more!
• Be thoughtful about using the words “webinar” and “workshop” so as not to intimidate people.
• Link your blog post videos to YouTube to drive more traffic back to your webinar.
• Consider that high-quality offerings through webinars, guides, and blog posts help to establish your authority as an expert and give people value that keeps them returning.
• How podcasting can help with future promotion by giving a call-to-action to your webinar
• Why you need to take notes during the first offering of your course with beta students to know what content resonates the most; that content can be used for future free webinars
• In summary, five tools to market an online course that have evergreen potential:
• Webinar (start with live ones and then transition to evergreen ones)
• Downloadable guides or cheat sheets
• Core blog post
• Select podcast episodes
• Mini-podcast 

Resources:

Want to launch your online course?

Join our Free 90-Minute Workshop happening on December 10th: Will AI Make My Course Irrelevant? Save your spot at sellingthecouch.com/aiwebinar

Check out our new membership site that’s launching in January! Find out more and join the interest list for Haven. 

Today’s episode takes a closer look at a major passion of mine: online courses. Let’s talk about the important questions to ask–and answer–before launching an online course. Join me!

You’ll Learn:

• How online courses can help fill in the gap for those who need mental health services
• 7 Questions to Ask Before Launching an Online Course:
• Have people paid me one-on-one for this course idea?
• Can I see myself being in this space for 10+ years?
• Is this course idea confronting a “massive pain” vs. an “annoying inconvenience” for my audience?
• Can this population afford the course I’m selling? Do they have purchasing power?
• Is this a population that is easy to target and find online?
• Is my course idea a growing concern/need for my audience?
• Are there others out there creating information products for this niche?

Resources:

Want to launch your online course?

Please check out our free 7-Day Course Creator Starter Kit for Therapists at https://sellingthecouch.com/coursekit.

Check out our new membership site that’s launching in January! Find out more and join the interest list for Haven. 

Mentioned in this episode:

Try Alma!

Building and managing the practice you truly want can feel overwhelming. That’s why Alma is here—to help you create not just any practice, but your private practice.

The perfect recipe for burnout is to work in a caring profession, be a slave to perfectionism, and neglect your needs. As clinicians, we realize that we work in a flawed healthcare system in the US, but how do we exist in this environment to do good work and sustain ourselves from a holistic perspective that goes way beyond basic self-care? We are diving into this topic with today’s guest. Join us!

Our Featured Guest

Dr. Jessi Gold

Dr. Jessi Gold is the first Chief Wellness Officer for the University of Tennessee System, which comprises five campuses and more than 60,000 students. Also serving as an associate professor of psychiatry, Dr. Gold is a speaker, media advocate, author, and mental health consultant. She recently wrote How Do You Feel? One Doctor's Search for the Humanity in Medicine.  In today’s session, Jessi shares her experience in teetering on the edge of burnout and what she learned about herself. 

Dr. Jessi Gold

You’ll Learn:

• The basics of Dr. Jessi’s role with the University of Tennessee and what it means to be a Chief Wellness Officer
• The differences and barriers from campus to campus in a university system
• “Silo-breaking” as it relates to mental health
• The difficulty in caring for ourselves while caring for others
• Perfectionism, burnout, and why “it’s OK not to be OK”
• The pandemic’s part in training us to wear a “badge of honor” for not caring for ourselves and our mental health
• We are human—and we forget that very often.
• The event that was the impetus for Dr. Jessi’s book—and why it left her feeling horrible
• Signs of early burnout that Dr. Jessi only noticed in hindsight
• Making the shift to navigate perfectionist tendencies to prevent burnout
• The importance of having self-compassion and reframing the mean things we say to ourselves
• The value of timeout for ME

Resources:

Learn more at sellingthecouch.com/alma and get 2 months FREE–an exclusive offer for STC listeners. 

Want to launch your online course?

Please check out our free 7-Day Course Creator Starter Kit for Therapists at https://sellingthecouch.com/coursekit.

Check out our new membership site that’s launching in January! Find out more and join the interest list for Haven. 

Mentioned in this episode:

Try Alma!

Building and managing the practice you truly want can feel overwhelming. That’s why Alma is here—to help you create not just any practice, but your private practice.

Here we are at the last episode of 2025, our 10th year of the podcast. For the last episode of the year, I usually try to focus on reflections about lessons learned, tough decisions, and pivots that are happening. My intent today is to be transparent and share in a “fireside chat” format. Take a pause with me, sit back, and think about your business as we approach the end of 2025.

You’ll Learn:

• The underlying question to ask: “How do I build something that lasts without losing myself in the process?”
• Announcement about closing STC Elite, our mastermind that has lasted for 4 years
• Closing the mastermind, all related to my stress level, focus, and mental clarity
• “Sometimes, the highest ROI decision we can make in our businesses is subtraction.”
• Feedback about concerns over the $9K investment
• Highlights of a new membership site, Haven, launching in January 2026 (A much more affordable option!) Find out more and join the interest list. 
• The Quiet Builder Newsletter: How this movement resonates with so many people
• What’s coming up for me in the form of courses, books, and new platforms to create space for my clinical skills
• My tip: Create your first course to support your enduring identity.
• Factors in life that go beyond business
• Choosing clarity over complexity
• Legacy, stewardship, and charitable giving
• My passion to help those who’ve been rescued from sex trades
• Thank you for your support over these past 10 years!

Resources:

Learn more at sellingthecouch.com/alma and get 2 months FREE–an exclusive offer for STC listeners. 

Want to launch your online course?

Please check out our free 7-Day Course Creator Starter Kit for Therapists at https://sellingthecouch.com/coursekit.

If you are a seasoned therapist looking to transition from clinical to online course income, we have a specialized mastermind for you. We meet together to build, grow, and scale our online courses. You can learn more at https://sellingthecouch.com/mastermind.

Check out our new membership site that’s launching in January! Find out more and join the interest list for Haven. 

Mentioned in this episode:

Try Alma!

Building and managing the practice you truly want can feel overwhelming. That’s why Alma is here—to help you create not just any practice, but your private practice.