Podcast

Episode 300

Jun 12, 2020

Welcome to our attempt to learn more about the two biggest issues we're facing right now.

Listen to "MBB Podcast - E300 - Celebration #300 + Our Favorite Covid Resources + Our Favorite Racial Issues Resources - FINAL" on Spreaker.
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EPISODE 300

Weekly Roundup

  • 30-day course from Rachael Cargle: "Do the Work"

Discussion Topic

Quick Tips

  • Get some sun

Sponsors

Transcript:

Sponsor message This episode is sponsored by The Jojoba Company. I believe that massage therapists should only be using the highest quality products because our clients deserve it and our own bodies deserve it. I've been using jojoba for years and here's why: Jojoba is nonallergenic; I can use it on any client and every client safely without a fear of allergic reaction. It won't clog pores, so I can use it on all my clients who are prone to acne breakouts. Jojoba does not go rancid. It makes jojoba a great carrier for essential oils, and it won't stain your 100% cotton sheets. The Jojoba Company is the only company in the world that carries 100% pure, first-pressed quality jojoba. And you, our listeners, can get 10% off orders of $35 or more when you shop through our link massagebusinessblueprint.com/jojoba. That's J-O-J-O-B-A, massagebusinessblueprint.com/jojoba.

Michael Reynolds Hey, everyone, and welcome to the Massage Business Blueprint podcast, where we are celebrating our 300th episode with supermarket sushi and deep-dish pizzas for everyone. I'm Michael Reynolds.

Allissa Haines I'm Allissa Haines.

MR And we’re your hosts.

AH We are.

MR Welcome to our 300th episode.

AH Yeah. Welcome, everybody. Welcome, Michael.

MR Welcome, Allissa.

AH Given the choice, would you choose the sushi or the pizza?

MR Because it's supermarket sushi, I would choose deep-dish pizza.

AH All right. Dude, remember when we used to go out whenever there was a conference somewhere, and we'd go first to a burger place, and we'd split a burger. And then we'd go to a sushi place, and we'd split a sushi plate?

MR I remember it vividly. I can picture it in my mind, those restaurants on the -- with the outdoor seating and the railing, and the burger place was like two restaurants down from the sushi place.

AH Yeah. Oh, my gosh. I think we did dessert that night too.

MR Oh, I'm sure we did. Yeah. It was that chocolate place. Yeah.

AH Yeah. I feel like we've done this in at least two different cities. [Laughing]

MR Yeah, at least. One was in Boston. I know that.

AH Anyhow, I miss you. [Laughing]

MR I miss you too. I can't wait until we can travel again.

AH So this is our 300th episode.

Is there anything that you want to note about that, Michael? Any -- we're not really big, arbitrary milestone people, in general.

MR Yeah. We're not going make a special anniversary logo or anything. Nothing crazy like that, like a lot of people like to do. But I just want to note that we have never missed an episode. We have never missed a week. I'm super -- I know it's really weird to be fixated on that, but I'm really proud of that, that from the day we launched this podcast, we have never missed a week ever in 300 episodes. I just think that's cool.

AH Isn't that crazy? And there have been times we record it -- well, we used to record a couple of weeks ahead of time because we were super prepared, and also, current events weren't so volatile, I'll say. And yeah, now it's a little wackier so that we've been recording like day before, which has been really fun. But I'm glad that, I think, next week we're going to go back to recording ahead of time, a little further ahead of time. And of course, we'll adapt that as needed and stuff.

But I have to say I'm really proud that we are, what, four weeks into the new platform that we're using? We've moved our community out of a Facebook discussion group. We've moved our premium resources out of a weirdo website and moved it all into a network called Mighty Networks that kind of combines a community and the premium content. And I am so delighted that we're over 200 members already. And many people were migrated -- chose to migrate from the old platform. But we've got a lot of fresh, new members just completely new to us. And I'm so proud of that. I really thought that we would lose like three quarters of our network.

MR I know. You were super pessimistic about it too.

AH I was just nervous that -- sometimes, I get nervous about learning curves myself, and I think I impose that on everyone else as if as everyone else would be averse to having to learn a new network. But it's a pretty slick network, so it's gone pretty well. And everyone has been -- our core membership is just so patient with us. They so are gracious when we try new things and stumble a little bit. And we really only had like a tiny bit of stumbling with this. So anyhow, that's the thing I'm really proud of in addition to getting at least one podcast out every week on a Friday. We've done lots of other ones too, and I've got a couple of special Tuesday podcast episodes in the hopper right now. By that, I mean in my brain. And those are going to come out in, I'm going to say, July, which I am pretty excited about. So that's that.

Let's get into the real business, Michael.

MR Real business, all right. What are we reading? So I have taken your advice, and I have signed up for Rachel Cargle's 30-day Do the Work course. And I really like it. I think it's a really good course, and it's short and to the point and doesn't take more than a few minutes a day. Some are a little bit longer. But you kind of work through it every day, and there's either a video to watch or some things to read or a combination of the things, as well as just kind of a summarized, thought-provoking narrative by Rachel.

And there's also a social media graphic that she gives you every day, and you can post that. And what I've been doing is I've been posting that on my Facebook feed every day with the link to her course just to kind of -- and I put a Bitly link in there so I could track it as well so I can see -- and so far, like 30 people have clicked on it, so I'm hoping some of them have signed up because I just think it's worth sharing. It worth sharing with people and say, hey, if you would like to learn more about racial issues, then this is a good resource from an actual person of color. I think that's probably the best way to learn is to learn from an actual person of color who took the time to build this course for us. So I've really been enjoying it.

AH So what -- and I know the answer to this question, but I want everyone else to hear it too. Has there been any actions in your personal life that any of the course materials have encouraged you to take?

MR Yes. And yeah, I did discuss this briefly earlier. So it's kind of opened my eyes to -- as many of our listeners know, I have a five-year-old, and it's opened my eyes to how little racial diversity is in his world in terms of the books he reads and the toys he plays with. So it has really prompted me to make a better effort to acquire things in his life and things he plays with and reads and is exposed to that introduces more racial diversity. So that's been a real, real eye-opener for me.

AH Hey, have you watched -- did you watch the Sesame Street's special town hall on race that was on CNN last week?

MR I did not.

AH You guys should watch it together. I think he'd probably get into it.

MR Okay.

AH And you know, he's obviously not going to understand a lot of the bigger concepts, but it's remarkable how much younger kids do understand. It was really cool. Anyhow -- and I think I've seen a couple of children's book lists to get some more diversity, but specifically, black characters, into your kid's life. I'll pass that on.

MR Yeah.

AH But yeah, I've been doing the Do the Work course as well. Today was Day 7, and I just did -- I just did Day 7, which is very specifically about white women coming to terms with our own complicity and participation in the oppression of black people and black women. And it was really uncomfortable, so uncomfortable, which is really good because I'm trying so hard. When I am presented with something that makes me uncomfortable, a headline that makes me feel squidgy or weird or immediately defensive and oppositional, I have been forcing myself to really lean into that.

And today's bit linked out to an article from two years ago titled The Most Dangerous Person in America is the White Woman. It was so good, and it was so uncomfortable, and it really talked about how many of us use our white lady privilege in ways that are oppressive to other people around us. And it also talks about how we can do better and how we can be a great ally if we get out of our own way. There was a lot of discomfort, and it was also very helpful, and I know that I'm going have to go back and read it again. And if me saying that title out loud, The Most Dangerous Person in America is a White Woman, made you uncomfortable, I would strongly encourage you to do this course and do the work.

So this kind of ties into our topic, but we will get -- topics -- it's kind of a double topic day, which is going to be all about giving you resources to deal with this COVID-19 situation in your massage practice and also resources to become more fluent and literate and a better ally in light of the current situation regarding police violence and race and a better health care provider. So we're going to dive into a whole list of resources about that and those things, the two big topics of our time right now. First, we're going have a chat about a sponsor.

And who is that first sponsor?

MR That would be our friends at Yomassage.

Sponsor message Hey, you, my friend, can become an expert in all things restorative stretch, mindfulness meditation, and therapeutic touch in a comprehensive, three-week virtual Yomassage therapist certification. In the training, you learn practices that you can offer your clients virtually and an innovative modality that enables you to serve clients in a group or in a one-on-one setting. You will build community with the other therapists in the training. You'll have assignments due each week -- so lots of accountability -- weekly discussion posts, live Q&As, quizzes, and tons of one-to-one feedback from your instructor. Payment plans are available, and you can -- let's see what we got. I had to scroll down because I got all excited and I lost my space. The training offers 10.5 NCBTMB-approved CE hours, and our Blueprint listeners can get $50 off courses through July, using the code BLUEPRINT -- all caps, one word. And you can learn more and get registered at massagebusinessblueprint.com/yomassage.

MR Yay.

AH Yay. Now I got to flip pages back. All right. So what we're giving you today is not so much a discussion topic as it is a list of resources. If you would like to access all of these quick links to all of these resources so you don't have to write them down to look them up, you can go to massagebusinessblueprint.com, click on the little podcast button in the menu, and you're going to see Episode 300. And it's going to have -- you click on it. You're going to see all the resources listed out for you with all of the hot links, so you don't have to remember any of this. You don't have to write it down. I just want people to get an idea of what's available to learn from. And I have broken -- this first part we're going to talk about is resources for your massage business during this pandemic, specifically what we need to know as healthcare providers who are going to be touching bodies, and the inherent harm and also helpfulness of that, as well as protective stuff we need to know about -- how to keep us and our clients safe -- and some business resources and such.

So I am going to start by talking a little bit about all of the resources from my top resource, which is ABMP. ABMP has super stepped up. They were the first people to come out and say, hey, y'all got to back off from massage. That would be wise right now. And when stuff got really bad, and we all had to start pausing our practice, and even before we were forced by lots of laws and stuff, they really have stepped up and done their best to support us in every way throughout this weird time. They have -- they created the Back to Practice resource, which is best practices for all of the things: all of the safety and personal protective gear and cleaning and all of that that we need to know about. They immediately popped out a special digital addition of the magazine that covers the pathology of this and the business stuff of this. Michael and I did a bit for it about how to kind of get your business through this really wacky hard time.

They have been prolific in blog posts about all kinds of things. Again, the pathology aspect of it, the ethical aspect of it, and all kinds of stuff. They have a state-by-state resource where they are -- that they're keeping super updated as far as what shutdown orders are happening in what states, and as states start to reopen, what are the guidelines massage therapist needs to practice under. And they also have their podcast. They literally launched a podcast about this called Conversations in Quarantine, and it's phenomenal.

So the bulk of these resources you can find under abmp.com/covid-updates. But if you go to the homepage, abmp.com, you'll see the link to all their COVID materials. And I'm going to put hotlinks to everything in the resources, the podcast notes, as I said before. You can find their podcast through the website, or you can find it in any of the major podcast apps. Just search on ABMP. I tried it in my Apple Podcast, and it worked super easy. And I'll put a link to the state-by-state resource, but that's available through their main COVID update page as well.

Okay. My second favorite resource is Healwell. Healwell has been amazing. Founder Cal Cates has put out a ton of blog posts. They've been really thoughtful and mindful about the ethics and the practice and how we should be thinking through a return to care and all of the factors that go into that, and it's been really a guiding light for me to think through the ups and downs and the yeses and noes about what to do with my business and what to say to my clients. Yeah. There's that. I don't want to go on too long.

Healwell also created the Back to Practice Guidelines, and there's a Part 1 and a Part 2. Part 1 was created really fast, I think middle of April maybe, now. I don't know. Time doesn't mean anything to me anymore. But it was a really great guide to say, okay, listen. This is what you have start thinking about. We're not going to return to business for a bit, but you're going to have to start thinking about stripping down your massage room and how to deal with protective equipment because we have never -- I, in my massage training, was never trained in any kind of PPE. And there's just a whole lot of factors, a whole lot of things we didn't know about.

And I have to say, that first Back to Practice Guideline scared the bejeezus out of me, but in a good way. It made me really mindful about thinking through different aspects of my office and my practice moving forward. And then I found the Part 2 that just came out -- I don't know, a week or two ago -- to be really comforting. It really talked about -- it dove more into culture and communication, how to deal with client questions and client compliance or noncompliance with whatever your new standards are. And it really helps me think through, even more deeply, the deeper aspects of client communication and different protocols I need to have in place.

Like, here's something I haven't thought about. No one should be reopening until they have a clear and written plan for what's going to happen if a client calls a day or two after their massage and says, I just tested positive for COVID, or five days after their massage and just tested positive for COVID. Healwell really emphasized the importance of knowing who you call at your local health department and if they're even going to talk to you -- maybe developing a relationship with them beforehand -- and knowing what you're going to say to any clients you've seen in that interim that you could have exposed. Having all of that protocol and your scripts ready so that if something does happen, you can handle it in the most professional and ethical and thoughtful and humane way. That's all I have to say about that.

So that Healwell Back to Practice Guideline is phenomenal, and I do want to note it's free. If you want to get the CE credit for it, I think each of these classes is $5 each, but there's a free version if that appeals to you. It certainly appeals to me.

Also, the -- I always get this wrong -- Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards, FSMTB, put together a Guidelines for Practice with COVID-19 Considerations. And again, it was one their earlier resources that came out, and it's got -- it's really comprehensive, which is wonderful. I mean, it goes through everything you need to think about as far as your facility cleanliness and disinfection and disease prevention, and then client informed consent forms and policies and procedures and practitioner hygiene, and it has -- got a section for guidance for massage schools.

But it really breaks it down to be like, here's what you need to think about in your office common areas and in your treatment room and in a retail area and your restroom and even the hallways and the laundry. It was really great. It's got a great PPE section. It defines for us all the different kinds of masks and respirators, which is guidance that I desperately needed in verbiage I could understand. And it's super, super helpful and definitely provides a solid foundation of best practices, which is important, especially because state-by-state, everything's different -- some states are having minimal guidelines, and some have maximum guidelines -- and this helped me to put it all into perspective and know where, within my state guidelines, which ones I may want to exceed, and if my state has or hasn't required certain things, maybe I want to do them anyway.

I also want to note -- I just realized I didn't when I was talking about the ABMP resources -- they also have really helpful templates for waivers and intake forms and the kind of intake forms you -- the kind of intake questions you need to ask every patient before every single appointment now to ask about their potential for infection or any side effects they may have from a previous COVID infection or any systemic issues they might have if they had an infection and didn't know about it, and I'm talking about the clotting risks stuff that's going on for people who may not have had any other symptoms of infection. So ABMP has some really great waivers. Ruth Werner wrote a really great blog post about three questions you need to ask incoming patients at this point. It's just really, really helpful.

One other resource that I want to note -- or two actually -- is sometimes, Facebook can be really helpful even though I find it horrifying sometimes in general. Facebook can be useful because it brings us together to share information, right? So one of the groups I've found most useful is called Massage, Health Practitioners, and COVID-19 group, and it's really well curated by Julie Tudor and Rhonda Henry and some other people who I just don't know their names off the top of my head. I'm sorry. It's got to be a full-time job for them curating and moderating this group right now.

But it's got lots of really well-organized information from various practitioners in various states with various specialties and levels of knowledge and specific stuff -- it's really, really helpful -- and particularly, a thread on air purifiers and cleaners, including the UV lamps people are using for sanitization and stuff or cleaning or disinfecting. I'm not sure which of those phrases is right for them. There's a really great thread on that and information about that as well. And I will have the link to this Facebook group and also that particular thread, if you decide to join the group, on air purifiers and cleaners and such.

And then finally, my last resource for COVID-related stuff is our premium member Meg Donnelly. She has done an amazing job of curating all kinds of resources for small business owners and massage business owners, including -- I don't know -- she just managed to wrangle an epidemiologist and did a huge, over one-hour interview with this epidemiologist. Meg curated a whole bunch of questions from massage therapists and posed them to this epidemiologist in this beautiful discussion that was so helpful, just so incredibly helpful, and then shared it with the world. So I will put a link, specifically, to that interview. you can listen to it via a podcast app or on YouTube. I suggest you go to YouTube because in the YouTube, she's got minute markers covering all the different topics through the video as well as additional resources and such. So I will put the link to that there. And also, a special thanks to Dr. Recinda Sherman who did that -- did that interview. The epidemiologist, she was just so gracious with her time and so beautifully made an effort to make the information applicable to what we do, and that was so deeply helpful. And extra shout out to Meg for being just so extra and doing this and helping all of us.

So Michael, anything to add or note or say about all those COVID resources? I just need you to vamp for like ten seconds so I can take some water.

MR [Laughing] Well, thanks for the transparency. I appreciate it. No, I don't think so. That list is awesome. All the things you mentioned on that list I would agree with. So hopefully, you are now refreshed and ready to move on.

AH I am refreshed. And I actually thought of something I wanted to add, which is these changes are hard. My own state last week came out with the guidelines for when we go back to work, and they haven't given us a date on that yet. And I just -- my soul shrivels when I read them because it's masks, which is awesome, and eye protection and gloves and gowns and all of these protocols, and it's so hard. So if you're feeling overwhelmed by all of these resources, if you're feeling overwhelmed, if you even want to go back and touch people in this environment because it's scary and also because you feel like all of the gear and all of the protocols and -- you know, I can rub somebody, but I can't shake their hand when they come in the office. Seriously, I can touch someone's body and share the air with them for an hour, but I can't hug my client who's a widow and no one else in her world hugs her, and that's just part of what we do when she comes in, it really -- it was a gut punch for me reading through my state guidelines.

I read through them, and then the very next thing out of my agenda was to do the Healwell Back to Practice too, the guidelines, the communications and stuff, and that really helped me. The stuff from Healwell has helped me the most getting over that hump of like, how am I going to deliver this therapeutic relationship with all of this gear on and all of these barriers -- physical and psychological -- in place? And the Healwell resources really reminded me -- they said like, you can give a good massage with gloves on; they've been doing it in hospitals for years. And it kind of brought me back to the center that people are coming for a safe experience of nonsexual touch, and we can still provide that even with all of these new rules and barriers. And once I got to the end of that Healwell, it kind of -- I don't know -- my soul unshriveled a little bit, I guess. And I recognize that this is sad, about how we might have to return to work, and scary in a lot of ways, but the work we do is really important, and I think -- and I hope that the bulk of us find ways to nurture these therapeutic relationships even with all these barriers in place. Sorry, that was not in my notes. I just kind of went off. So we've covered the COVID.

The next thing happening in the news is police violence, police violence against black people, and all other kinds of social justice situations and topics related to violence and discrimination towards black people, systemic and otherwise. And I also want to approach this topic by saying I know I'm not going to get this right, a middle-aged white lady in suburbia. I spent some time in the last week trying to cull a lot of resources and then almost cut this part from the podcast because I was so worried that I was going to say or phrase something wrong or say something flippantly that shouldn't be done as is my usual faux pas. So I go into this knowing that I'm probably going to say something wrong or inappropriate and that I do hope you call me out on it so it can be a -- what do they call it? -- a growth edge, a teaching moment. I hope that you all can be patient with us as we try to help us all learn more and inevitably stick our foot in our mouth and have to be retaught things in ourselves.

So I have pulled together some resources with the help of many of you and many of our premium members who have been so gracious with sharing their favorite resources in our group and with each other and interesting conversations we've been having, and I've tried to separate them in ways where they might be more accessible to you. Some of us need to listen to things. Some of us learn with a podcast series, or some of us learn from reading books. Some of us learn better from fiction than we do from nonfiction. We can put ourselves in someone else's shoes, somebody very different from us, better in a fiction book than we can in nonfiction. And some of us need to see it. That's actually the only thing I didn't put in here was films. I'm sorry. I'll have to do that next time. So I'm going to start with some listening things, some podcast and audio things.

The first suggestion is something called 1619, which is an audio series on how slavery has transformed America, connecting past and present through the oldest form of storytelling, verbal. And this was a New York Times production that came out in January of this year -- timely -- and it is not only an audio series now but there's also a whole bunch of resources, like written resources and stuff, that go along with it because much of this information is now being taught in classrooms, which is so deeply important. So 1619, that's my first to listen to.

My second to listen to is a podcast that I really like and haven't listened to regularly enough. I'm subscribed to it, but I don't get every episode. I don't listen to every episode, and that's going to change. It's called Code Switch, and it's a podcast that kind of contextualizes modern media coverage and race and culture. So it's young people, journalists, really putting into context what's going on and why it matters to black people and why it should matter to everyone. And it's really, really helpful for me to learn more about what's going on.

There's another one that I haven't listened to but has been suggested to me, Justice in America with Duffy Rice and Clint Smith. They encourage their following to understand the ways in which the US criminal system -- the US criminal justice system, pardon me, is linked to a deeply rooted history of slavery and Jim Crow laws. I got to say, as someone who was a poli-sci major for 25 minutes for so, this really interest me. I have subscribed, and I'm really excited to start listening to that.

And finally, one called Intersectionality Matters with Kimberlé Crenshaw. Her work simultaneously sheds light on and rejects America's tendency to isolate issues of racial oppression. And Kimberlé Crenshaw is the creator of the term intersectionality, which is more or less my very pedestrian, uninformed definition -- is intersectionality is where other things -- where multiple identities meet. So I'm not just a woman. I am a white woman. And it's not just rights about women. We need to know where rights meet for black women and where race and sex and gender and socioeconomic status meet. All of these concepts are intersectional, and we need to examine these identities and the issues that everyone faces with a view and a lens that sees all of these parts working together, kind of grinding and gearing together. That was a terrible definition, and I'm sorry. I should have put the real one up there.

Anyhow, those are the to-listen-tos, the to-reads, the shorter pieces. One was shared, I think probably by Meg and her resource lists, How Well-meaning Therapists Commit Racism. And it's an article in Psychology Today, so it's specifically for psychologists and talk therapists, but that -- oftentimes those resources are really relevant to us. Totally a short, readable article. Also, Healwell, again, Cal Cates, they put out a wonderful, wonderful piece called We are Not Exempt. And it really talks about why racial issues and understanding are super important to us as caregivers and massage therapists. So if you think it's not relevant to the work you do, it is.

Books -- and I will encourage everyone to, if you're going to purchase these books, please purchase them from black-owned bookstores. And if you don't offhand know a black-owned bookstore, we have a link to a list, actually a map, of 60 black-owned and operated bookstores across North America. We have nonfiction. [Indiscernible] Coates, which is phenomenal and in the form of a letter to his adolescent son, Ta-Nehisi Coates talks about his own awakening of the truth to history and race through all these series of events in his own life. Ta-Nehisi Coates has written a whole bunch of stuff. This one is -- it's a little shorter, maybe a little more easily digestible if it's your first entry in.

Also -- and I chose this one specifically because it's speaks to bodies and young girls. It's called Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools by Monique Morris. And it talks the unique and daunting challenges black girls face in schools where they're singled out and they're belittled. And you remember that stuff in the news like a year or two where both black boys and black girls were getting booted out of school for hair and stuff, but specifically with girls. They're hypersexualized. They're pushed into juvenile justice systems. They are called out for ethnic hair and getting kicked out of their private schools where they pay tuition because they have braids in their hair. It's just insane. And part of the reason why I chose this book was because it was about girls, it's much related to sexualization of bodies, and it's written by a black woman, Monique Morris.

And then the last nonfiction book I have is called They Can't Kill Us by Wesley Lowery, who is a Washington Post reporter. And he specifically dives into the police shootings that have sparked the Black Lives Matter movement, I believe, starting in Ferguson, maybe an instant or two before then, and it has great reviews. I haven't read it yet myself.

Okay. Fiction -- and seriously, I'm one of those people who learns better in fiction than I do in nonfiction sometimes. And the book [indiscernible] Angie Thomas is wonderful entry into understanding a world that looks different from yours. And it's about a 16-year-old girl who lives in a very poor neighborhood, but she goes to a suburban prep school, which creates her own cultural divide among her peers. And she witnesses the shooting, the fatal shooting, of her best friend, a young black man, who was unarmed and shot by police, and what happens being the witness to that moving forward. It's really quite beautiful. I think it's made into a movie now. I tend to not watch the movies from books, but it's a young adult novel. You will move through it fairly quickly and probably cry more than once if this kind of story and information is new to you.

Another one, This Side of Home by Renée Watson. It is, again, a young adult novel. I love young adult literature, people. And it's set in Portland where gentrification is erasing a primarily black neighborhood's history, and it is a great story. And then also -- and you'll notice that all three of these are written by women because I really did try to go black woman heavy on a lot of these resources. Sorry. And the last is Tayari Jones. She has written An American Marriage, which is a really interesting story of newlyweds. And very early on, the husband is wrongly imprisoned -- and what happens with their love story and all the other things happening in their lives while he's imprisoned and when he comes out when it's shown that he is in fact not guilty, which we all knew all along. It is really -- it was eye-opening. Let's call it that.

So that's the to-read stuff. And now, if you're still even listening -- I know -- it's the to-dos. And you don't have to do all of these. If you listen to this whole list of stuff, and you listen to one podcast episode or read one book or do one short course, that's a win because I think it's going to encourage you to move forward and learn more. So the to-dos, courses you can take, the course that Michael and I mentioned we're doing, Do the Work, a 30-day course from Rachel Cargle. It's one thing every day, an eye-opener, to be an ally to black women. It's free, and we have the link for it.

Also, Healwell -- shocker -- has a wonderful course. They have for a while, called Unconscious Bias: Interrupting the Stories That Prevent Us from Delivering Optimal Care. It's $30. I took it this weekend. All through June, half of that tuition goes to a wonderful social justice cause in D.C. that I cannot remember the name of, but it's really looks at how our unconscious bias and the ways that we create these stories about illness and health and race and gender and us and them prevent us from being of the greatest service possible. And it was really great. It was -- I took that course on Sunday morning, and it was a good couple hours. It was like an hour and a half, and I thought a lot, and I came out of it feeling aware of things I have done and said that were indicative of my own biases and also feeling a little more capable about recognizing that and working through that in various work situations.

Next is a resource -- it's actually like 10 or 12 years old but still very good -- from the College of Massage Therapy of Ontario. They've got a diversity toolkit, and it's free, so we'll have the link to that. There is also a course that is being offered for free by the Cultural Somatic Training and -- pardon me, I did that wrong -- Cultural Somatics Training and Institute. It is a free, radicalized trauma course that notes that we cannot help ourselves even begin to heal racialized trauma if we don't acknowledge it even exists. So there's also a paid version where you get the book that goes along with it, but they're offering it for free right now.

And then there is a free town hall -- I think it's maybe an hour and half of two hours --offered by a company called Hello Seven, which is a woman, Rachel Rodgers, who's a business coach and an intellectual property attorney and a black woman. And she has led this panel, a town hall, to listen, learn, and commit to building more equitable and anti-racist organizations. Yeah. It's great. It's free. It's neat. I've listened to about 30 minutes of it, and I loved it. I can't wait to listen to the rest.

And then the last resource is a little pricier. It is a course. It is a longer course called Wellness Beyond Whiteness. And it's an online immersion. It is $240, so I have not jumped into it yet. But it has been recommended by a premium member. I put this as the last resource and kind of put an asterisk because it's, of course, by a white woman for white women, which I think could probably go either way. But it really tackles, as wellness providers and in the wellness industry, what is the impact of whiteness on our community, how might we be perpetuating a culture of exclusion in our wellness and in our business, and how do we change that, how do we create a culture of radical inclusion and equity. And I loved this part of it, which is "this training is designed for well-meaning white women who are committed to unpacking white supremacy and its impact on the wellbeing of our communities" because we all know that these issues are definitely weighing more heavily and physically on our friends of color, and we need to do better at serving those communities.

So my final note here is to look at your life, like Michael noted earlier, and see where the holes are. Are the books that you read and the shows and the movies that you watch at all diverse, or do they all center white people? Really think about that, and consider changing that. Consider changing, adjusting -- if you're into romcoms, or if you're into sitcoms, or if you're -- whatever kind of show you're into, is the cast mostly white? Is there never a lead character who's not white? Maybe do a little more exploring on Netflix, who has a Black Lives Matter watchlist, right now. Literally, it put together all kinds of films and documentaries and shows that center black characters and black history as we need to be learning it. So if you have found that all of the media you consume is white, it is time to change that, one book at a time, one show at a time, one little bit of understanding at a time. This was a lot of information. Thank you for sticking with me this far if you actually did.

Michael, who is our next sponsor?

MR That is a great question. Our next sponsor, it's our friends at Acuity.

Sponsor message Acuity is the scheduling assistant that makes it easier for traditional businesses to become virtual, if that's what you're looking to do, and also just to fill your schedule at 24/7 so you don't have to work so hard at that, and you have more time to go through the resources that we just talked about in this podcast. You can take your business virtual with a lot less work and stress. And you never have to play phone tag or email tag with clients saying, what time works for you? Is 3 o'clock okay? No, [indiscernible] sorry, I already gave 3 o'clock away because it's been three days since I set that email. So you can get hip with Acuity by going to massagebusinessblueprint.com/acuity. And you will get a special 45-day free offer when you sign up at that link.

MR And I'd like to also add something about Acuity. I love the way they integrate with websites so easily. I've been -- as many of you know, we build websites for our members now. We have a website design service for people who want a massage therapy practice website. And I've been working with quite a few members to build those sites. And those who were using Acuity, it is so easy. You drop in the code. It works perfectly. And other systems out there do not work as well with website integration. I just want to say I really appreciate that about Acuity. It's a nice feature.

AH Sweet.

MR Yeah.

AH I appreciate that about Acuity too. I appreciate a lot about Acuity. And it's mostly the fact that they've been such a long-time sponsor, so thank you.

MR Absolutely.

AH Michael, what's a quick tip or hack or app that you want to share this week?

MR Oh, I got nothing for real. I'm just going to say my quick tip is get some sun. Before we started recording, I shared with you I am feeling super unproductive today. And I want to say this out loud because I'm often reminded that -- I'll just say this. People often say, hey, Michael, how are you so productive? You get so much done, and blah, blah. And I realize I sometimes give this false impression that I'm always all put together and super productive and get everything done, and that's not true. So today, I want to say out loud I got nothing done today. This podcast recording is the most I'm going to accomplish today because I am just so feeling unproductive. I don't want to do anything, so I just decided I'm going to get outside. I'm going to take like a 45-minute walk in the sunshine, listening to a podcast, giving myself permission not to get anything real done today. And it was extremely helpful. So if you're feeling pressured to be productive, if you just can't do it, get out. Get some sunshine. Get some fresh air. It does wonders. That's my useless tip for today.

AH That's actually really useful.

MR [Laughing]

AH I found that on days like that, if I just shut it all down, lower my expectations, and take a break, then I can actually come back and do a little something, which is more than I would have gotten done if I had just tried to put my head down and plow through. So rock on, everybody. It's pouring rain here where I am, but the rest of you should all get some sun.

MR [Laughing]

AH That's all I got, Michael. Happy 300th episode.

MR Right on. All right. Happy 300th episode. All right. With that, we'll wrap it up there. I was trying to think of something cool to say, but we said it all. 300 episodes, 301 will be next week, so we'll be back.

Thanks for joining us today. You can find us online, as always, on our website, which is massagebusinessblueprint.com. If you are not part of our new community yet, please consider checking it out and joining. You get 30 days free. Click on the Community option on the Home page or in the menu option in the menu bar, and you can read all about it. You can join for a free, 30-day trial, and it's $5 a month after that, actually $4.99 after that, a penny cheaper than I said. And like I said, we already have -- like Allissa mentioned, we have over 200 members already in there and growing every day. So we'd love to see you there. Have a great day. We'll see you next time.

AH Bye.