Happy, Healthy, & Wealthy Therapists | Ep 11: Is This an Investment or an Expense?

Released: 01/30/2026

Show Notes:

In this episode, Amanda discusses the critical distinction between investments and expenses, particularly in the context of therapy and coaching. She emphasizes the importance of recognizing when to invest in support, the cost of remaining stuck, and how coaching can help diagnose the right problems. Amanda also addresses when support can become an expense and encourages listeners to invest with clarity and purpose rather than fear.

3 Key Takeaways:

1. An investment builds long-term capacity, clarity, and better decision-making, while an expense temporarily relieves discomfort without changing how you operate.
2. It’s time to invest in support when you’re circling the same problems, losing self-trust, or when staying stuck is costing you more than coaching would.
3. High-touch support like one-on-one or mastermind coaching helps you solve the right problem—not just work harder—by providing context, discernment, and nervous system regulation as you scale.

Connect with Amanda:

• Follow on Instagram: @amandakbcoaching
• Check out the Amanda KB Coaching website

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Sponsors:

• This episode is sponsored by Alma – learn more here
• This episode is sponsored by Jane – use code: AMANDA2MO for a 2-month grace period

Resources & Links:

SEO for Therapists Membership

Therapy Intensives Academy

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Free Guide: 3 Steps to Double Your Income

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Just a quick heads up, everything I share in this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. It’s not legal advice, financial advice, or tax advice. Every practice and every state has its own rules. So if you’re wondering how something applies to your situation, make sure to check in with an attorney, accountant, or another qualified professional who can give you guidance based on your specific circumstances.

Transcript:

Amanda (00:01)
Hello, hello, welcome back to an episode of Happy Healthy and Wealthy Therapists. I have been having a sunny streak in the middle of January in Seattle. So my mood and my energy has just been so good lately. I know currently there’s a lot of storms hitting people in the north and northeast. So hopefully everyone is staying okay and staying safe.

When it comes to the content for today’s podcast, I want to start with a question that I hear all the time. And it’s one that I’ve had to work through and ask myself a lot in order to hit consistent 20,000 to $50,000 months. And that question is, how do I know if this is actually an investment or if I’m just spending money again?

If you’ve ever hesitated before buying a low ticket course, joining a high ticket program, hiring a coach or getting support, especially after being burned before, this episode is for you. Because here is the truth. Not every purchase is an investment and not every investment actually pays off, but avoiding support altogether.

That usually costs more in the long run. So today we’re gonna talk about the real difference between an investment and an expense, how to know when it’s actually time to invest in support, why coaching isn’t about trying harder, but about solving the right problem, and why one-on-one and mastermind level support matters so much when you’re scaling.

So let’s dive in. I am so excited to talk about this because it’s related to money. And you all know, I’m very much about having the taboo money talks because I don’t think we talk about it enough. Even if you do see a lot of content creators, for example, it’s probably, you you are biased with the content you are shown. There are still so many of us, so many therapists who don’t talk about money enough. So when it comes to an investment versus an expense,

Let’s get really clear on definitions because this is where people get tripped up. So an expense is something that gets used once, doesn’t change how you think or operate, doesn’t create long-term return, and mostly solves discomfort temporarily. Whereas an investment changes your decision-making, builds capacity, skill, or clarity,

creates return over time. So if that’s money, time, ease, confidence, whatever that return is, and it helps you operate differently after the container ends. So here is the uncomfortable part. Something can be marketed as an investment and still function like an expense. So here are some examples.

You buying another course when you already have information overload. You joining a program hoping motivation is going to magically appear. You investing to bypass any discomfort instead of address it. Now, this doesn’t inherently make you bad with money. I mean, a lot of us have our own financial trauma. I know I grew up with a ton of it and I’m still doing my own.

therapy work and honestly some business coaching work on overcoming some of that financial trauma. So that we’re bad with money, it means that no one really taught therapists how to evaluate investments strategically, right? We all know even like business coaching for therapists as a relatively newly popular kind of piece of a career that someone can go after. And so that’s already new, but.

conversations around investments and strategic investments. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard a single one of those. And it took me even a little bit of while into getting my own coaching for me to really think about where am I spending money and again, why? So when is it time to invest in support? I’ve shared before a little bit of my story of I started my private practice and I officially launched it in April, 2022.

And I reached out to work with my first one-on-one business coach in, I think we had our discovery call in April, 2023, and then started to work together either in May or June of that year. So I waited about a year, but I knew pretty early on that that was gonna be something I wanted because I knew I wanted more for myself. And so how do you actually know when it is your time? So here are a few signals that I see and that I have felt over and over again.

Number one, you are circling the same problem. So whatever that problem is, if that’s you haven’t gotten enough clients, you are working too much, you are not making the income that you want or need to be making. So maybe you’ve tried tweaking your website, your pricing, your offers, your content, but nothing is actually sticking. Nothing is actually creating that change that you really, really need to see happen. And that’s not usually an

It’s not because you didn’t do anything, but it’s a clarity issue. Again, did I actually work on the right problem? Was the problem your design of your website? Okay, then fixing the design. Yeah, did that actually help? Was the problem your pricing? Was it that you didn’t take someone’s insurance? Or is it actually the copy didn’t resonate enough? We need clarity.

So if you do feel like I’m circling the same problem over and over again, that is a time to look into what are the various supports that are out there to work on it. And honestly, to get some one-to-one feedback on it, because just buying a little done with you, done for you kind of template, that is not going to give you feedback on here’s exactly what needs tweaking, right? That’s where we need a little bit more of that live support. Number two.

You don’t trust your own decisions anymore. I see this and again, I have felt this so many times of second guessing everything. Is this the right offer? Is this the right niche? Should I pivot to something? Am I missing something? Is there something about me that just isn’t resonating with my ideal clients? Is it the pricing, right? All these different questions that we have. But getting that support, right? Whether it’s

buying a course, joining a program, hiring a one-to-one coach, this isn’t about outsourcing responsibility, right? Like, well, if this course doesn’t fix it, if this coach doesn’t fix it, then like, they didn’t do their job. This isn’t about just now we had someone to blame, because we tried something else and that didn’t work. This is actually about when you look for support, and again, when you have that one-on-one or even…

other peers that are in the same place as you, when we have more people who get to know us and are able to give us personalized feedback, this really becomes about rebuilding self-trust with that feedback and with that context. That is so important because it is so easy when we are isolated to just blame ourselves, whether that is

you know, something about our self-worth, something about what we have to offer people, something about our lack of skills that we don’t have. And so we don’t trust ourselves. And so again, we’re throwing spaghetti at the wall, really trying to figure out the answers to the problem when really what we need to do is be able to look at some data, make some strategic decisions and know that we know what is best for us and our business, right? It’s not what someone else blanket statement says it is.

So trusting ourself, honestly, can go so much further than many of us even think. And honestly, even I think, like I know I’ve been victim to shiny object syndrome of, well, I could do this, I could add this diverse stream of income, I could do this other thing, what if I expand it into a group? But I know me, I know what’s best for me, and I can’t just do everything under the sun because I just don’t have capacity for that, I don’t have time for that.

There are things I want to be different about my life. So we have to be able to know what we want, what works for us, what feels good for us. Number three, you know that more isn’t the answer, right? This isn’t actually about you need more information, right? Even people who work with me as they are scaling to add on coaching or create courses. Yes, it’s helpful to know what are the various platforms where you can host a course and how do you…

collect signatures and payments and stuff like that. But it’s not actually about needing more information. This is more about needing discernment, right? Should I start by diversifying my revenue with a course or should I start with one-to-one coaching or should I start with launching my own group program, right? Like how you make those decisions and therefore how you spend your time in whatever path it is that you chose to create.

that’s what’s going to be more valuable than any of the information around, here’s this resource and here’s this guide and here’s this template, because those are going to be the skills, again, that last longer term, right? That’s what I said is the difference between an investment and an expense is what tiny little quick wins do you get versus what is the long-term gain. So this is often the moment when DIY stuff stops being cost effective.

because yes, I trust we are all smart, we are all capable, a lot of us love solving problems and knowing the answers. We can get the information if we need to get the information. That’s not what most people need. A lot of people choose those DIY options though because they’re cost effective as opposed to something that is more DWI done with you, i.e. some kind of group or one-to-one coaching, but.

That is honestly where you are going to get the bigger bang for your buck. When it’s not a matter of you just need more information. When it is a matter of you need more strategy, you need more support, you need more discernment. Number four, the cost of staying stuck is higher than the cost of support. And this one really, really matters. And I have honestly done the math on this myself in my business so many times.

So ask yourself, how much money am I losing by underpricing? How much time am I losing by overworking? How much energy am I losing by staying confused? Sometimes the most expensive choice is doing nothing. Whether that’s making a change in your therapy practice, whether that’s…

creating alternative streams of income in addition to your therapy practice. So many people feel stuck and even frozen and paralyzed in, have too many choices, there’s too many options, I don’t know what to do, I’m trying to do it all myself. And that’s where really, again, like it’s costing us not just the money I could be earning, but it’s also costing us more energy. It’s costing us more.

Honestly, like it just brings out more imposter syndrome. Like, well, I knew I couldn’t do it and I definitely can’t do it I’m never gonna be able to make this happen. And so doing nothing and staying stuck or trying to figure it out all ourselves, this becomes the most expensive thing that we are doing because there is huge opportunity costs and again, legitimate costs to that. And so the whole goal of coaching is to help you solve the right

problem, right? It’s similar in therapy too. We want to know is this an anxiety problem or is it a trauma thing and therefore we should be treating the trauma. So again, it’s very similar to the skill set we already have. And this is the part that I care about the most to be quite honest because most therapists think that their problem is well, I just need better marketing or I just need a new offer. I need to post more. I need more confidence.

But often that’s not the actual problem. There are so many tiny things, both on the business side, as well as the personal side of why something isn’t working in a private practice, or is it creating the ideal work-life balance in private practice? And so coaching helps you really identify, because it’s again, just like therapy, this third party, more objective person who can

take that lens viewed out approach of let’s see what’s really going on here. And a trained coach can help you identify is this a messaging issue? Is this a pricing issue? A product or offer issue? Is it a conversion issue? Or quite honestly, the thing that my own coach has to hold up the mirror for me the most on is, is this a capacity issue?

Right? Because if we solve the wrong problem, we are going to work twice as hard for half the result. If I think my issue, I just had this for like most of this month of January 2026. I was talking with my coach about, know, it feels like I’m scattered all over the place. That must mean our systems are wrong and my team needs more hours or better training. But then I’m worried about

overspending on team support where I don’t need to be spending on team support. I love my team and I don’t want to spend money for the sake of spending money, right? So I’m going back and forth with her on here are these things I’m worried about and I’m feeling so scattered. But then we both took that lens viewed out approach and remembered, okay, it’s also tax time. It’s also time for me to renew two of my state licenses. I’m also prepping for a two week international trip. I also just moved last month.

No wonder I have a capacity issue this month, right? It wasn’t that I didn’t message. This month, I’ve been marketing my Happy Healthy Wealthy mastermind for therapists. And so it wasn’t I had a messaging issue if I didn’t know how to say what the group was about or who’s it for. It wasn’t that there was a pricing issue and a bunch of people were just saying, it’s just too expensive. It wasn’t that nobody wanted the mastermind support.

and a ton of people reach out for it, my feeling of anxiety this month has been a capacity issue of there’s so many different tabs open in my brain that knowing what it is, knowing that it’s a capacity issue has helped me not to, my God, we need to revamp everything and everything’s broken and I need to create a problem just to fix a problem that doesn’t exist. So for example, for other examples,

you might not need more leads for therapy, you might just need clearer positioning. You might not need a new offer like launching therapy intensives or diversifying your revenue. You might just need to price the existing one correctly. You might not actually need more confidence, you just might need more containment and support. And this is why coaching is not about tactics, it’s about diagnosis.

a diagnosis like we know in therapy requires that perspective you can’t have when you’re inside the jar, right? When all you know is exactly what you see in front of you and you’ve tried looking above and below it and from this side and from this side and you try doing that all by yourself, you are missing more context. You are missing, actually you’re doing amazingly. You’re missing, well, it’s only the…

Right now I’m recording this on the 25th of the month. It’s only the 25th of the month. You have 11 more months of the year to get to where you want to be. Right? So yes, coaching can help teach you some strategies, some skills, some tactics, stuff like that, but that’s not ultimately what it is. It is about figuring out why does exactly this problem exist and what do we do to help the problem.

What do we do to alleviate the problem? And so this is why one-on-one and mastermind support truly matters. When you get a higher touch support, that’s really what’s going to help you get to the place where you want to be. Courses are absolutely great for learning. For when you’re like, I just need to know how do even launch a website or how do I even think about copywriting? All of that stuff is great.

but scaling when you are ready to scale outside of the therapy room, even when you are scaling inside the therapy room, right? Some people start with therapy intensives in that sense to make more money in less time, but scaling isn’t just about learning. It is about decision-making. You have to decide I’m doing this and not that. You have to decide I’m doing it this way and not that way. I have had to make so many

big and small decisions on what to focus on and what not to focus on in order to have the therapy practice I want and the coaching business that I want. And it’s been sometimes challenging to make those decisions, but I needed to have made them and I needed to make them with someone who has known me long term and knows how my brain thinks in life and in business. So one-on-one and mastermind support give you

context specific guidance. They give you feedback on your business, not some hypothetical one. They help you navigate trade-offs, right? Of like, well, there’s pros to this and cons to this. So how do we make a decision knowing that all of those exist? And they give you that accountability without shame and nervous system regulation while making big moves because that is ultimately what we all need when we’re doing something different.

whether you are in a group practice and you’re trying to decide whether you want to move into private practice, whether you have recently started private practice and you’re trying to grow it, whether you are thinking about expanding outside the therapy room, it is terrifying to make change. Our brains and our bodies love predictability. We know that as therapists. And so when we’re making big moves, it is so easy to just get into our heads and say,

I can’t do this, I’m not capable of it, it’s not the right time, I just need to get this training first and then I’ll be ready for that. So we need nervous system regulation support, right? And that is most gonna come from the people who truly get it. If you have friends, if you have a partner, if you have a family member that you talk to about these things, unless they know this world, they can’t really ever.

get it so much, right? That’s the power of group therapy is we’re in a room with people who get it. They don’t know our specific flavor of what we’re going through, but they get the foundational way that we think and that we do things. And it’s the same thing within business. So in other words, one-on-one and mastermind support, you’re not just paying for information, you’re paying for thinking partnership. And that’s critical when

the decisions are higher stakes, right? Do I stay on insurance? Do I get off of insurance? Do I raise my rate? Do I add on an alternative stream of income? And it’s critical when the margins matter more, right? I’m literally not taking home enough money even though I raised my rates or I’m still working more even if I’m making more money and that’s not worth it to me. And it’s critical when the cost of misalignment is higher.

I was taught, I’ve shared this story a couple of times, I was taught to run a coaching business in a very specific way. And I learned a few months into it, this is not the way I wanna run a coaching business. I did it because I thought that’s what you were supposed to do. And I thought that’s what success looked like. But I was so irritated all the time because I built something that I didn’t want. I didn’t want to have all of these different

like teams and different types of support and these different expectations and different processes. I didn’t want it to look that way. I wanted it to be simple. I have a team of virtual assistants and they’re fantastic and I love them, but I didn’t want all the other things that I was taught to do around hiring setters and closers and all these different things that it’s just, that’s a topic for whole other episode. But the point is I was very misaligned.

in my business and it was costing me a lot because I was trying to sell something that I wasn’t fully standing behind. And so I had to pause and actually stop my program altogether. And now I’m in the process of kind of revamping it and making it work for me while still giving really quality support to the therapist inside of it. But that pause, while it was intentional, while it was overall helpful, yeah, it was costing me money transparently.

right, to work on letting go of team members and to literally turn away therapists that could be joining this high ticket program. And so at a certain level, support stops becoming this luxury, right? I’ve heard so many therapists say, don’t have the budget for a virtual assistant yet, or I’ll add coaching in the future when things are a little bit more financially stable. But when you are at this level,

where you are feeling like, again, I’m beyond just needing more information. The stakes are pretty high for, you know, what I’m going to do in business next, and I’m really not having the life and the business I want to have. At this point, support becomes your infrastructure. So it really becomes the foundation of how successful you are going to be in your practice and in any other business ventures that you add on to your practice.

So now let’s talk about the other side of this coin of when support is an expense. Because again, I also wanna be clear that sometimes support isn’t an investment. It is probably an expense if you are buying out of panic, you’re hoping someone will fix things for you, you don’t have capacity to engage, and you’re ignoring any red flags because of urgency.

Good quality support should feel grounding, not frantic. You should feel very clear about what you’re investing in, honest about what’s required and empowered, not pressured. So there are so many things I have seen on social media. There are so many discovery calls I have been on where it really does feel like what’s being pushed is do this now or else or

This is the lowest price it’ll ever be. Like all of these tactics that, let’s be honest, they work, but there are these tactics that again, lead to us doubting ourselves because well, this $147 story template I bought didn’t get me any clients or course sales. So I guess I just suck, but you bought it at 11.39 PM when you should have been sleeping.

And then you bought all the upsells that came in the emails after it. Like, this is not a you fault. It’s not a you problem. It’s not your fault. A lot of this is kind of shady marketing sometimes. Right. Like if you do not have all the information, don’t enroll in something. If you are doing something because you feel like, maybe this is the answer. That’s an expense. Right. It is not that investment.

and it is important to know the difference. So again, I’m going to bring us back to the beginning of where I defined what the difference is, just to kind of start to wrap up today’s episode. So an expense gets used once, doesn’t change how you think or operate, and doesn’t create long-term return, but it mostly solves discomfort temporarily. Right? It’s like that little dopamine hit of like, woo-hoo, now I bought these Canva templates and that’s totally going to change my business.

whereas an investment changes your decision making, builds capacity, skill, or clarity, creates return over time, and helps you operate differently during and after a container ends.

So here’s what I want you to take with you. Investing in yourself isn’t about proving you’re serious. It’s about choosing support that helps you operate differently long term. Coaching isn’t about doing more. It’s about solving the right problem at the right time with the right level of support.

And that’s why I offer both one-on-one and mastermind containers and my mastermind containers even have one-to-one options. Whereas a lot of coaches really don’t offer that because again, the messaging that you all have probably seen too is stop one-to-one work, stop trading dollars for hours, all that kind of stuff that basically tells you why everything you should do should be in a group context, which I totally disagree with. I offer both one-to-one and hybrid.

one-to-one and mastermind containers because scaling requires context, capacity awareness, and partnership. And if you’re at a point where you know staying where you are is costing you and you want support that respects your nervous system, your values, and your life, that is the work that I do. So I will share more details in the show notes about my happy, healthy, and wealthy mastermind, the February cohort.

is going to sell out, but I am starting a waitlist for the next cohort opening. So if you want to get on that waitlist, you can reach out. I will share the details again in the show notes.

And wherever you’re at, I hope this episode helps you invest from clarity and not fear. It is very likely you do not need another $37 to $49 resource, right? If you are beyond needing information, it’s time for you to start looking for a quality coach that you can build a partnership with.

If you want some guidance on what you should be looking for in a coach, I did an episode on that. So go back and listen to that episode. But truly, thank you for being here. This is such an important conversation as we are all mindful these days around where our money is going. And I think it is so important to know truly what is an investment versus an expense. This isn’t about just reframing every expenses and investment. That’s not what this is about.

But this is about really knowing the difference, knowing how to spot it, and then knowing how you create your decisions on what you invest in.