If you run a membership program or community and have ever brought in a guest speaker, you know how much easier it is when they already understand who they're talking to. In this episode, I share the simple "community overview" document I created to send to presenters before they join a Bloom and Grow workshop, and why I hope it will make for a better experience for everyone in the room.
In this episode, we cover:
- Why a brief "about our community" document can set guest speakers up for success
- How to communicate your group's values and clinical philosophy without making presenters feel like they're walking on eggshells.
- The specific things I include in my presenter brief: training level, clinical approach, weight-inclusive and trauma-informed framing, and CEU guidelines.
If you'd like to view the document to see the current draft, you can take a look at the community guidelines here.
Submit a Question
Have a clinical or business question you'd like me to answer on a future episode? Click on the "Submit a Question to Camille" button at intheclinic.com.
Join the Practitioner Notes Newsletter
Want more clinical tips and practice-building resources? Join my practitioner email list, sent out every Thursday with short essays, resources, and three specific recommendations to make running your practice a little easier. You can sign up at intheclinic.com or camillefreeman.com.
Thanks for listening.
I'd love to hear from you. Leave me a voicemail with feedback or submit a question (click the pink "Send Camille a Message" button on the side of the page) 💚
Camille's Helpful Links for Practitioners
WEBVTT
00:00:00.017 --> 00:00:03.137
Hi there. Welcome to In the Clinic with Camille. My name is Camille Freeman.
00:00:03.357 --> 00:00:04.757
I'm an herbalist and nutritionist.
00:00:05.037 --> 00:00:08.917
And in this podcast, I share little tips and tidbits that might be helpful for other practitioners.
00:00:09.677 --> 00:00:13.357
Today, I want to talk to you about a kind of peek behind the curtain as to something
00:00:13.357 --> 00:00:16.217
that I've been thinking about a lot in my own practice,
00:00:16.597 --> 00:00:21.277
in my own business, and share with you what I've come up with here as a solution
00:00:21.277 --> 00:00:23.977
to this, not dilemma, but just something that's been on my mind.
00:00:24.157 --> 00:00:25.237
Okay, so here's the deal.
00:00:26.497 --> 00:00:31.717
As I have expanded my Monday mentoring program and continue to offer my deep
00:00:31.717 --> 00:00:36.577
dive programs, I'm finding that I'm having more and more guest speakers coming
00:00:36.577 --> 00:00:39.897
in to speak to people in my community and in my programs.
00:00:40.357 --> 00:00:43.597
And in the beginning, a lot of these folks were people who had either,
00:00:43.797 --> 00:00:46.937
either I knew them personally, or they had already been part of my programs,
00:00:47.037 --> 00:00:47.757
and that's how I knew them.
00:00:47.857 --> 00:00:51.157
So they were very familiar with the culture and the community and just who's
00:00:51.157 --> 00:00:53.637
present in the spheres that I.
00:00:54.628 --> 00:00:58.968
Posting. However, as we get a little bit bigger and as I have other,
00:00:59.228 --> 00:01:02.728
you know, I'm realizing I don't, I want people to come in and talk to us about
00:01:02.728 --> 00:01:04.948
things like business and accounting and whatnot.
00:01:05.188 --> 00:01:08.988
And some of those folks may not really be familiar with my work or my community
00:01:08.988 --> 00:01:11.908
or people in the herb world or the nutrition world at all.
00:01:12.248 --> 00:01:18.228
And so I've been thinking a lot about how do I let folks know when they're coming
00:01:18.228 --> 00:01:21.608
in to present or do, you know, offer a workshop or something like that as part
00:01:21.608 --> 00:01:26.068
of one of my programs, I want to, well, it's a dilemma.
00:01:26.288 --> 00:01:34.028
Do I want to provide some kind of orientation or overview of who's present and
00:01:34.028 --> 00:01:37.108
just some of the philosophy and the culture that they're stepping into?
00:01:37.548 --> 00:01:41.988
Or would that be kind of intrusive or feel like people are going to have to
00:01:41.988 --> 00:01:44.968
walk on eggshells and tiptoe around?
00:01:45.608 --> 00:01:48.988
You know, I want people to feel comfortable and so forth. So I've been going
00:01:48.988 --> 00:01:53.308
kind of back and forth about, how do I want to navigate this?
00:01:53.388 --> 00:01:57.048
Do I just want to invite people in and hope for the best and be like, yes, here we are.
00:01:57.188 --> 00:02:00.408
You know, we're nutritionists, we're herbalists. Tell us what you think we need to know.
00:02:00.808 --> 00:02:05.048
Or do I want to provide a little bit more context and information and so forth?
00:02:05.748 --> 00:02:09.908
So recently, I have decided to do a little, I don't know if it's an experiment,
00:02:10.148 --> 00:02:11.908
but just to try something a little bit new.
00:02:12.508 --> 00:02:16.048
So in the past, I would, you know, give people kind of a brief overview of like,
00:02:16.108 --> 00:02:19.708
here's, we're mostly you know clinicians who are practicing nutritionists
00:02:19.708 --> 00:02:24.368
and herbalists and we have most people have advanced training here's what we're
00:02:24.368 --> 00:02:30.048
interested in so i've decided now to do kind of a general write-up on a page
00:02:30.048 --> 00:02:33.508
it's like a document that i'm going to send people the link to the document
00:02:33.508 --> 00:02:36.968
and be like hey if you want to know more about us in our community here you
00:02:36.968 --> 00:02:39.388
go you can find out more about who you're going to be speaking to you.
00:02:40.405 --> 00:02:44.425
So my intention with this is that people have some background information.
00:02:44.425 --> 00:02:48.765
I know for me as a teacher, it can be really nice to know who's present because
00:02:48.765 --> 00:02:53.205
I want to do a good job and I want to tailor my information and my presentation
00:02:53.205 --> 00:02:57.505
to what's useful. I don't want to be too high level. I don't want to be too basic.
00:02:57.845 --> 00:03:04.085
I want to be talking to who's there and having it be a collaborative and useful time together.
00:03:04.085 --> 00:03:11.245
So my hope is that by sharing this document, I'm going to let people have a
00:03:11.245 --> 00:03:14.465
little bit of background about our community and see how it goes.
00:03:14.725 --> 00:03:17.825
I'm also thinking that because it's a document where I'm sort of presenting
00:03:17.825 --> 00:03:20.825
it as an option for people to peruse,
00:03:21.145 --> 00:03:25.165
browse through, if they like, that it won't feel like I'm targeting anybody
00:03:25.165 --> 00:03:28.145
specifically and being like, oh, I don't want you to mess up in these ways,
00:03:28.265 --> 00:03:32.765
so please be aware that, you know, here's who we are and here's what we care about.
00:03:33.145 --> 00:03:36.885
So my intention, hopefully, will be that people can come in and feel like they
00:03:36.885 --> 00:03:41.445
kind of know who's here and that they can ask questions if they have them in advance.
00:03:42.205 --> 00:03:45.325
So anyway, I just wanted to share that with you. If you're interested,
00:03:45.545 --> 00:03:50.665
I will put the link to the page that I'm going to send out to presenters in
00:03:50.665 --> 00:03:52.605
the show notes. You can have a look if you'd like to.
00:03:52.745 --> 00:03:55.125
I'm certainly open to any feedback. I thought I would read it.
00:03:55.245 --> 00:03:57.005
It's a short page here at the end
00:03:57.005 --> 00:03:59.505
of this podcast, just in case you're interested. but if you want the copy,
00:04:00.237 --> 00:04:04.297
look in the show notes. I'm curious about your feedback. Please do reach out.
00:04:04.537 --> 00:04:07.297
But here's what I've come up with. It is a work in progress.
00:04:07.297 --> 00:04:08.497
It'll probably change as we go.
00:04:08.657 --> 00:04:13.437
But this is my note to presenters. It is on a document, like I said,
00:04:13.597 --> 00:04:15.977
and it says about our community.
00:04:16.397 --> 00:04:20.237
Hi there. Thanks so much for agreeing to speak as part of a Bloom and Grow workshop.
00:04:20.557 --> 00:04:23.717
We aim to make our gatherings welcoming and useful for everyone involved,
00:04:23.857 --> 00:04:24.617
including our speakers.
00:04:24.977 --> 00:04:26.837
With that in mind, here's a bit about the group.
00:04:27.297 --> 00:04:30.177
We're a warm, curious community of nutritionists and herbalists,
00:04:30.597 --> 00:04:33.337
mostly solo clinicians with advanced or graduate-level training.
00:04:33.697 --> 00:04:37.937
We especially appreciate practical, clinically useful content and or real-world
00:04:37.937 --> 00:04:41.977
tips for running a small practice, what you've learned from experience or what you do day to day.
00:04:42.277 --> 00:04:47.057
Our group includes trans and non-binary members and others in the LGBTQIA plus
00:04:47.057 --> 00:04:50.957
community, and we tend to be socially progressive and values-driven in our work.
00:04:51.577 --> 00:04:54.777
Clinically and philosophically, we're generally weight-inclusive and try to
00:04:54.777 --> 00:04:56.577
avoid framing weight as a proxy for health.
00:04:56.857 --> 00:05:00.517
We also move away from good and bad food language, and many of us practice in
00:05:00.517 --> 00:05:02.517
ways that are trauma-informed and culturally aware.
00:05:02.957 --> 00:05:06.617
Our approach is evidence-informed with evidence understood broadly to include
00:05:06.617 --> 00:05:09.477
contemporary research and traditional or historical practices.
00:05:09.957 --> 00:05:13.697
We're often cautious about supplement overuse and appreciate thoughtful discussion
00:05:13.697 --> 00:05:16.037
about when interventions are and aren't necessary.
00:05:16.417 --> 00:05:19.437
If you're teaching a class on marketing and sales, it might be helpful to know
00:05:19.437 --> 00:05:22.697
that this group isn't especially interested in tactics that feel manipulative
00:05:22.697 --> 00:05:26.797
and content focused on heavy-handed promotion tends to not land well.
00:05:27.157 --> 00:05:31.377
For CEU-eligible classes, we ask speakers not to discuss or promote specific
00:05:31.377 --> 00:05:34.717
supplements or similar products, although it's fine to mention categories of
00:05:34.717 --> 00:05:38.137
products or ingredients to show specific products with branding obscured.
00:05:38.637 --> 00:05:42.297
All that said, this isn't a group that expects perfection. We're a friendly
00:05:42.297 --> 00:05:43.717
lot, and we're excited to learn from you.
00:05:43.857 --> 00:05:46.637
If you have questions about your presentation or how to best work with this
00:05:46.637 --> 00:05:47.957
group, please reach out.
00:05:48.705 --> 00:05:52.885
All right, so that's it. Like I said, this is an experiment.
00:05:53.505 --> 00:05:57.165
I'm hoping that it feels helpful for people and not, I don't know,
00:05:57.445 --> 00:06:02.025
restrictive or like people have to be watching every word out of their mouth around us.
00:06:02.345 --> 00:06:06.305
So I'm going to just try this out for the rest of the year, and maybe I'll report
00:06:06.305 --> 00:06:07.905
back later on how it feels.
00:06:08.285 --> 00:06:12.665
And maybe I'll check in with some of my speakers also to see how it lands with them.
00:06:12.965 --> 00:06:17.505
Because, you know, it's always a balancing act of how to communicate clearly
00:06:17.505 --> 00:06:22.445
without making people feel anxious or on edge or whatnot.
00:06:22.745 --> 00:06:25.365
So as multiple people have said to me, they're like, Camille,
00:06:25.565 --> 00:06:28.685
you know, if people read this and they don't, you know, they don't align with
00:06:28.685 --> 00:06:31.165
these values, it's probably not a good fit to speak with a group anyway.
00:06:31.825 --> 00:06:35.785
So there you go. It's a little experiment. I hope this helps.
00:06:35.785 --> 00:06:39.745
And if you have thoughts or feedback, please let me know. All right, take care.
00:06:40.625 --> 00:06:43.185
Hey, thanks so much for listening. If you would like to stay in touch,
00:06:43.345 --> 00:06:47.425
you can go to my website, camillefreeman.com and join my mailing list for practitioners.
00:06:47.505 --> 00:06:51.225
I send out a practitioner note every Thursday in the morning.
00:06:51.385 --> 00:06:55.985
They'll have a short message from me as well as three recommendations from the
00:06:55.985 --> 00:06:58.885
week, things that might be interesting to you as a practitioner,
00:06:58.885 --> 00:07:02.645
as well as information about any courses or programs that I have upcoming.
00:07:02.985 --> 00:07:04.185
All right, hopefully I'll see you there.
00:00:00.017 --> 00:00:03.137
Hi there. Welcome to In the Clinic with Camille. My name is Camille Freeman.
00:00:03.357 --> 00:00:04.757
I'm an herbalist and nutritionist.
00:00:05.037 --> 00:00:08.917
And in this podcast, I share little tips and tidbits that might be helpful for other practitioners.
00:00:09.677 --> 00:00:13.357
Today, I want to talk to you about a kind of peek behind the curtain as to something
00:00:13.357 --> 00:00:16.217
that I've been thinking about a lot in my own practice,
00:00:16.597 --> 00:00:21.277
in my own business, and share with you what I've come up with here as a solution
00:00:21.277 --> 00:00:23.977
to this, not dilemma, but just something that's been on my mind.
00:00:24.157 --> 00:00:25.237
Okay, so here's the deal.
00:00:26.497 --> 00:00:31.717
As I have expanded my Monday mentoring program and continue to offer my deep
00:00:31.717 --> 00:00:36.577
dive programs, I'm finding that I'm having more and more guest speakers coming
00:00:36.577 --> 00:00:39.897
in to speak to people in my community and in my programs.
00:00:40.357 --> 00:00:43.597
And in the beginning, a lot of these folks were people who had either,
00:00:43.797 --> 00:00:46.937
either I knew them personally, or they had already been part of my programs,
00:00:47.037 --> 00:00:47.757
and that's how I knew them.
00:00:47.857 --> 00:00:51.157
So they were very familiar with the culture and the community and just who's
00:00:51.157 --> 00:00:53.637
present in the spheres that I.
00:00:54.628 --> 00:00:58.968
Posting. However, as we get a little bit bigger and as I have other,
00:00:59.228 --> 00:01:02.728
you know, I'm realizing I don't, I want people to come in and talk to us about
00:01:02.728 --> 00:01:04.948
things like business and accounting and whatnot.
00:01:05.188 --> 00:01:08.988
And some of those folks may not really be familiar with my work or my community
00:01:08.988 --> 00:01:11.908
or people in the herb world or the nutrition world at all.
00:01:12.248 --> 00:01:18.228
And so I've been thinking a lot about how do I let folks know when they're coming
00:01:18.228 --> 00:01:21.608
in to present or do, you know, offer a workshop or something like that as part
00:01:21.608 --> 00:01:26.068
of one of my programs, I want to, well, it's a dilemma.
00:01:26.288 --> 00:01:34.028
Do I want to provide some kind of orientation or overview of who's present and
00:01:34.028 --> 00:01:37.108
just some of the philosophy and the culture that they're stepping into?
00:01:37.548 --> 00:01:41.988
Or would that be kind of intrusive or feel like people are going to have to
00:01:41.988 --> 00:01:44.968
walk on eggshells and tiptoe around?
00:01:45.608 --> 00:01:48.988
You know, I want people to feel comfortable and so forth. So I've been going
00:01:48.988 --> 00:01:53.308
kind of back and forth about, how do I want to navigate this?
00:01:53.388 --> 00:01:57.048
Do I just want to invite people in and hope for the best and be like, yes, here we are.
00:01:57.188 --> 00:02:00.408
You know, we're nutritionists, we're herbalists. Tell us what you think we need to know.
00:02:00.808 --> 00:02:05.048
Or do I want to provide a little bit more context and information and so forth?
00:02:05.748 --> 00:02:09.908
So recently, I have decided to do a little, I don't know if it's an experiment,
00:02:10.148 --> 00:02:11.908
but just to try something a little bit new.
00:02:12.508 --> 00:02:16.048
So in the past, I would, you know, give people kind of a brief overview of like,
00:02:16.108 --> 00:02:19.708
here's, we're mostly you know clinicians who are practicing nutritionists
00:02:19.708 --> 00:02:24.368
and herbalists and we have most people have advanced training here's what we're
00:02:24.368 --> 00:02:30.048
interested in so i've decided now to do kind of a general write-up on a page
00:02:30.048 --> 00:02:33.508
it's like a document that i'm going to send people the link to the document
00:02:33.508 --> 00:02:36.968
and be like hey if you want to know more about us in our community here you
00:02:36.968 --> 00:02:39.388
go you can find out more about who you're going to be speaking to you.
00:02:40.405 --> 00:02:44.425
So my intention with this is that people have some background information.
00:02:44.425 --> 00:02:48.765
I know for me as a teacher, it can be really nice to know who's present because
00:02:48.765 --> 00:02:53.205
I want to do a good job and I want to tailor my information and my presentation
00:02:53.205 --> 00:02:57.505
to what's useful. I don't want to be too high level. I don't want to be too basic.
00:02:57.845 --> 00:03:04.085
I want to be talking to who's there and having it be a collaborative and useful time together.
00:03:04.085 --> 00:03:11.245
So my hope is that by sharing this document, I'm going to let people have a
00:03:11.245 --> 00:03:14.465
little bit of background about our community and see how it goes.
00:03:14.725 --> 00:03:17.825
I'm also thinking that because it's a document where I'm sort of presenting
00:03:17.825 --> 00:03:20.825
it as an option for people to peruse,
00:03:21.145 --> 00:03:25.165
browse through, if they like, that it won't feel like I'm targeting anybody
00:03:25.165 --> 00:03:28.145
specifically and being like, oh, I don't want you to mess up in these ways,
00:03:28.265 --> 00:03:32.765
so please be aware that, you know, here's who we are and here's what we care about.
00:03:33.145 --> 00:03:36.885
So my intention, hopefully, will be that people can come in and feel like they
00:03:36.885 --> 00:03:41.445
kind of know who's here and that they can ask questions if they have them in advance.
00:03:42.205 --> 00:03:45.325
So anyway, I just wanted to share that with you. If you're interested,
00:03:45.545 --> 00:03:50.665
I will put the link to the page that I'm going to send out to presenters in
00:03:50.665 --> 00:03:52.605
the show notes. You can have a look if you'd like to.
00:03:52.745 --> 00:03:55.125
I'm certainly open to any feedback. I thought I would read it.
00:03:55.245 --> 00:03:57.005
It's a short page here at the end
00:03:57.005 --> 00:03:59.505
of this podcast, just in case you're interested. but if you want the copy,
00:04:00.237 --> 00:04:04.297
look in the show notes. I'm curious about your feedback. Please do reach out.
00:04:04.537 --> 00:04:07.297
But here's what I've come up with. It is a work in progress.
00:04:07.297 --> 00:04:08.497
It'll probably change as we go.
00:04:08.657 --> 00:04:13.437
But this is my note to presenters. It is on a document, like I said,
00:04:13.597 --> 00:04:15.977
and it says about our community.
00:04:16.397 --> 00:04:20.237
Hi there. Thanks so much for agreeing to speak as part of a Bloom and Grow workshop.
00:04:20.557 --> 00:04:23.717
We aim to make our gatherings welcoming and useful for everyone involved,
00:04:23.857 --> 00:04:24.617
including our speakers.
00:04:24.977 --> 00:04:26.837
With that in mind, here's a bit about the group.
00:04:27.297 --> 00:04:30.177
We're a warm, curious community of nutritionists and herbalists,
00:04:30.597 --> 00:04:33.337
mostly solo clinicians with advanced or graduate-level training.
00:04:33.697 --> 00:04:37.937
We especially appreciate practical, clinically useful content and or real-world
00:04:37.937 --> 00:04:41.977
tips for running a small practice, what you've learned from experience or what you do day to day.
00:04:42.277 --> 00:04:47.057
Our group includes trans and non-binary members and others in the LGBTQIA plus
00:04:47.057 --> 00:04:50.957
community, and we tend to be socially progressive and values-driven in our work.
00:04:51.577 --> 00:04:54.777
Clinically and philosophically, we're generally weight-inclusive and try to
00:04:54.777 --> 00:04:56.577
avoid framing weight as a proxy for health.
00:04:56.857 --> 00:05:00.517
We also move away from good and bad food language, and many of us practice in
00:05:00.517 --> 00:05:02.517
ways that are trauma-informed and culturally aware.
00:05:02.957 --> 00:05:06.617
Our approach is evidence-informed with evidence understood broadly to include
00:05:06.617 --> 00:05:09.477
contemporary research and traditional or historical practices.
00:05:09.957 --> 00:05:13.697
We're often cautious about supplement overuse and appreciate thoughtful discussion
00:05:13.697 --> 00:05:16.037
about when interventions are and aren't necessary.
00:05:16.417 --> 00:05:19.437
If you're teaching a class on marketing and sales, it might be helpful to know
00:05:19.437 --> 00:05:22.697
that this group isn't especially interested in tactics that feel manipulative
00:05:22.697 --> 00:05:26.797
and content focused on heavy-handed promotion tends to not land well.
00:05:27.157 --> 00:05:31.377
For CEU-eligible classes, we ask speakers not to discuss or promote specific
00:05:31.377 --> 00:05:34.717
supplements or similar products, although it's fine to mention categories of
00:05:34.717 --> 00:05:38.137
products or ingredients to show specific products with branding obscured.
00:05:38.637 --> 00:05:42.297
All that said, this isn't a group that expects perfection. We're a friendly
00:05:42.297 --> 00:05:43.717
lot, and we're excited to learn from you.
00:05:43.857 --> 00:05:46.637
If you have questions about your presentation or how to best work with this
00:05:46.637 --> 00:05:47.957
group, please reach out.
00:05:48.705 --> 00:05:52.885
All right, so that's it. Like I said, this is an experiment.
00:05:53.505 --> 00:05:57.165
I'm hoping that it feels helpful for people and not, I don't know,
00:05:57.445 --> 00:06:02.025
restrictive or like people have to be watching every word out of their mouth around us.
00:06:02.345 --> 00:06:06.305
So I'm going to just try this out for the rest of the year, and maybe I'll report
00:06:06.305 --> 00:06:07.905
back later on how it feels.
00:06:08.285 --> 00:06:12.665
And maybe I'll check in with some of my speakers also to see how it lands with them.
00:06:12.965 --> 00:06:17.505
Because, you know, it's always a balancing act of how to communicate clearly
00:06:17.505 --> 00:06:22.445
without making people feel anxious or on edge or whatnot.
00:06:22.745 --> 00:06:25.365
So as multiple people have said to me, they're like, Camille,
00:06:25.565 --> 00:06:28.685
you know, if people read this and they don't, you know, they don't align with
00:06:28.685 --> 00:06:31.165
these values, it's probably not a good fit to speak with a group anyway.
00:06:31.825 --> 00:06:35.785
So there you go. It's a little experiment. I hope this helps.
00:06:35.785 --> 00:06:39.745
And if you have thoughts or feedback, please let me know. All right, take care.
00:06:40.625 --> 00:06:43.185
Hey, thanks so much for listening. If you would like to stay in touch,
00:06:43.345 --> 00:06:47.425
you can go to my website, camillefreeman.com and join my mailing list for practitioners.
00:06:47.505 --> 00:06:51.225
I send out a practitioner note every Thursday in the morning.
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They'll have a short message from me as well as three recommendations from the
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week, things that might be interesting to you as a practitioner,
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as well as information about any courses or programs that I have upcoming.
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All right, hopefully I'll see you there.