WP 15 | How to Create your Own CE Courses with Lisa Mustard
Introduction
On the latest episode of the Last Practice Podcast, host Whitney Owens interviews Lisa Mustard. Lisa is a licensed marriage and family therapist in South Carolina who has a passion for health, wellness, fitness, and personal development. She started the therapy show podcast with the goal of providing convenient, fun, interesting, and easily accessible education for talk therapists.
Background on Lisa Mustard
Lisa has been in the therapy field for over a decade and has worked for a military branch in South Carolina as a contractor and now a full-time employee. While she has never owned her own private practice, she considers herself a business owner and a "practice owner" in the sense that she creates continuing education courses.
The Origin of the Podcast
The podcast was born out of Lisa's frustration with the traditional models of continuing education and professional development. She wanted to provide a more engaging and accessible option for therapists looking to improve their skills and knowledge. The podcast focuses on clinical information skills, introduces listeners to inspiring professionals in the field, and teaches professional development.
The Focus on Continuing Education (CE) Creation
The latest episode of the podcast focuses on how therapists can create their own CE courses. Lisa shares her insights and experiences on how she has been successful in creating courses that are convenient, fun, interesting, and easily accessible. She encourages therapists to think outside the box and find creative ways to make their education engaging and beneficial to their clients.
PodCourses
Through her podcast and CE course creations, Lisa Mustard is helping to revolutionize the traditional models of continuing education and professional development. Listeners are sure to find inspiration and valuable insights on how they can take their education to the next level.
Links and Resources
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How to Create your Own CE Courses with Lisa Mustard | WP 15
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Whitney Owens: Today on the Last Practice Podcast, I am honored to be interviewing Lisa Mustard. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist in South Carolina, so not too far away from me. She's married to Billy, the mother of two daughters, a puppy wrangler and lover of health, a wellness, fitness, and a personal development junkie.
Love it. When she was 40 years old, she had the wake up call, tired of the motions of life and career as a therapist, so she pivoted her. To do new things. She didn't know that those what those things actually would be. So she began testing out new ideas and business opportunities, births of life while others were successful.
the therapy show with Lisa Mustard helps talk therapists learn clinical information skills. Introduces them to others who are doing incredible work in the field and teaches us professional development and so much more. She started the podcast cuz she was bored with traditional models of continuing education and professional development.
She yearned for convenient education. That was fun, interesting, inspiring, helpful, and easily accessible anywhere. Anytime. Welcome Lisa
Lisa Mustard: to the podcast. Ah, thanks for having me, Whitney. I'm so excited to be here with you.
Whitney Owens: Yeah, and so I'm looking forward to talking about your podcast Course Creations, c e u events, and I always really love interviewing other people from the south.
Yeah. So you're not too far away from me, so I always feel like a kindred spirit in that.
Lisa Mustard: Me too. I love it. I know. You're, you're just, you know, I went to Savannah for the first time two years ago, um, and I can't wait to come back. I think I'm gonna make my way to your conference. I'm hoping I will be there next year.
Oh, I would
Whitney Owens: just be so honored and love that. Yeah. Yay. Well, before we kind of get into c e U creation, and I loved your, uh, bio there. I love the creativity with it, but can you tell us a little bit about kind of your experience as a practice owner seeing clients? So we kind of know a little bit about.
Lisa Mustard: Sure. Yeah. Well, honestly, um, I was a practice owner for maybe six months, way back in the day. when, mm-hmm. , um, when I first got outta grad school and quickly realized I, it wasn't for me, mainly because I needed to make. Money and I didn't have the time to, uh, I say that now, looking back, um, maybe I just didn't know any better, but I needed to get a job.
So I actually, um, have worked for many years. First I worked in a counseling center at the University of South Carolina. I worked there for a little bit. Then I worked in addiction recovery. I was a family therapist at a, um, addiction recovery program. And then, Gosh, it's been over 10 years since I have started working for a military branch here in South Carolina, and that is really where I have found, I would say my calling is to work with the military.
Um, and yeah, so I've been, I've been a, I've been a contractor with the military, a bunch of different types of contractor , and now I am, I'm a full-time employee of a branch here in South Carolina. So that's, I've never really been a practice owner. I am a business owner. Um, and I would say that I. Yeah, I mean, I guess I'm a practice owner.
I practice creating continuing education courses, versus private practice, like one-on-one therapy. Um, but yeah, so kinda sorta practice owner maybe at times. Yeah. .
Whitney Owens: Well, and you kind of had this in your bio, but this idea that. I mean, way too many therapists try to like mold themselves to meet Ooh, the private practice owner, cuz that's like the cool thing that we talk about in grad school.
And it's just not for everybody and it's not always ideal. And so I love that you found what worked for you and you didn't just force yourself to do the thing that wasn't working.
Lisa Mustard: Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I am definitely know when something isn't working, um, but I see it as a learning opportunity and not so much as a, you know, a failure.
It's more about like, okay, well that doesn't fit for me, so what else can I try? And that's how I got to where I am today.
Whitney Owens: Yeah. So tell us a little about your podcast. Tell us the history of it and kind of, it's kind of morphed over time it seems like, so we'd love to hear that story a little bit before we jump into the continuing education
Lisa Mustard: part.
Sure. Yeah. So, gosh, I mean, huh, I could, I can come at this from a bunch of different angles, but really the podcast was born out of just tired of having my, you know, what, in a chair for seven, eight hours and watching or listening to a continuing education. Event, speaker, webinar, you name it. I was just tired of being in the chair all the time and I thought, gosh, what, what if we could take all these incredible presenters and speakers that I'm sitting here watching and put 'em in my earbuds and I could be out on a walk or I could listen while I'm, you know, folding laundry or making dinner or at the gym.
And that's really how the podcast got started. And I sat on it for a couple of months and just sat on it and sat on it. And then one day I was, All right. I just, I gotta do something with this because it's, it's just like drilling, you know, like, I felt like, um, if I didn't do something with it, I would regret it for the rest of my life.
And, and I just started and I knew that when I first got it going, that I also wanted to help therapists learn new things, professional development, um, social media, private practice stuff. And since I didn't have a whole lot of experience in those things, I wanted to bring on experts and guests that could, that could share with my audience, um, about those things.
And in the beginning, you. You actually were on my show when I first got it started. I can't remember which episode it was. Um, but once I got going I decided that, okay, I'm gonna learn how to create continuing education. I call 'em pod courses and how do I start that? How do I get approved for that? , what's the logistics behind doing all this and really dove into how to make it work via audio.
Whitney Owens: Yeah. Well, this is a question I think a lot of practice owners, business owners have is. I guess the first question really is, should I pursue becoming an approved person? Sure. For continuing education, and then there's all these different options, right? There's a lot of platforms that can authorize you and then kind of picking how you go through that process.
So can you kind of walk us through that?
Lisa Mustard: Sure. So I started with my. Because it's, if you look to your state board, they're gonna tell you how to become a continuing education provider, and I felt like if I can do that here in South Carolina and I have to go through the motions of putting it all together, then if I decided to go for the N B C C, which is what I init, you know, which is the one I wanted, I would have like a feather in my cap, like, I've, I've accomplished one thing over here in South Carolina, so, all right, I got some, I've got proof in the pudding that this can work.
So then I felt like, okay, now I can go for N B C C. And the reason I picked N B C C is because I'm an L M F T and L M F T here in South Carolina, our board will pretty much say if, if it's an N B C C approved course, we'll take it for continuing education. And I started to see that across other states too.
If you're L P C or L M F T, even some social workers, they will, you know, take the N B C. Even for some psychologists. So it really just depends on your field. Um, if you are a social worker, then you might wanna go for the N A S W, you know, if you are a psychologist, of course you would wanna go for a p a.
Um, but what I find is that if it's good, if it's good, Uh, content and it's done right. Most boards will accept it if you can prove to them that it helps you with your license. I can't speak for everybody, but here in South Carolina, um, you know, BCCs approved the, um, addiction counselors, you know, their, their, um, licensure will take it, you know, so it's, um, I just went with N B C C because that was the most national, broadest, a approved provider out there.
Um, There are a lot of things to know about applying for the N B C C credential and I went for the self-study credential, not the live in-person one. I honestly think getting the live in-person one is probably a bit easier than going for the self-study credential. Um, So, and the reasons behind that are with a self-study course, you have to have everything lined up before you go to them and ask them, you know, uh, will you approve my
Will you approve my business to be an approved provider? And so I had to have everything. I had to have the, the course created, I had to have the marketing created, I had to have the certificate created, everything. Was already created versus a live event. You just kind of show 'em on paper what you plan to do and how you plan to, you know, make sure everybody's in there and usually you're good to go.
It's, it's now you have to show them like the learning objectives and what you're gonna teach 'em makes sense for them to approve that it is qualify for continuing education. And that's on both sides, the self-study credential and the live event. Um, but it, it definitely took a lot. Creativity. It took a lot of logistics.
It took a lot of getting help with the tech, um, you know, behind the scenes, how to set it all up. But it's been, it's been worth it. Like I, I just love it. It's so much fun to create these courses, to interview the guests, to create the self-study quiz, um, to get the feedback. It's just, I don't know, I just, it's kind of my jam.
I'm really enjoy.
Whitney Owens: Oh, I love that. And when did you get the approval?
Lisa Mustard: I got it in CO during covid, so 2020, um, October of 2020. So two years ago. I've had it for two years. Mm-hmm. .
Whitney Owens: That's great. Yeah. I was sitting here thinking about. The opportunity during Covid to be able to get something like that. Cause so many therapists couldn't do live events.
Lisa Mustard: Yes. Right. And then that, that was kind of a blessing, um, of Covid was that here in South Carolina, and I'm pretty sure in other states too, they said You don't have to do live events for this, you know, renewal period. You can do all self-study and, and you know, I need to check with our. But I'm not sure they've, I think you can still do it all self study if you want.
They may have gone back. I need to double check, but I can't remember. We were just talking about this in one of our groups and I don't remember what the verdict was. Um, but a lot of states have actually, you know, kind of stayed with, if you can't do live, that's okay. Cuz so many webinars are now like, you know, three hours long or you know mm-hmm.
a couple days long, you're still gonna get the information. You're still gonna, still gonna. Quite a bit.
Whitney Owens: Yeah. In the state of Georgia, they made the distinction between synchronous and asynchronous when it comes to the webinar. So even though you're technically not live, you're live on the webinar and that counts as being live, which has been really great for us.
But yeah, they made that change for this renewal we just went
Lisa Mustard: through. That's smart. I like that. How they, how they phrase that.
Whitney Owens: Yeah. So if somebody's listening to the podcast thinking, oh, I've always thought that would be cool to be a provider. Do you have any recommendations for them? Like maybe what phase of life they're in or should they pursue this?
What are some questions they should be considering?
Lisa Mustard: Yes, so I would, so I guess where I would start is what? What do you wanna do? Do you want to present the information yourself? Are you the expert or do you want to find the experts and ask them to? , um, because I think that's gonna direct like which direction you go.
So if you are the expert and you wanna put together a training and you'd like to create maybe a two hour continuing education course, um, you're gonna have to, I would suggest starting with writing down your objectives, like what do you want to teach people? Because that's gonna really dictate, you know, what you present in your course is write those objectives and ac actually, if you go to N B C C and you just look up, um, if you go there and you look on like, Resources or CE providers, they pretty much can tell you how you should write your objectives, and I kind of hold N B C C to be like the gold standard.
So I would start there and look at what they're asking you to do, because your state's probably more than likely gonna approve what an N B C C is gonna approve. So you wanna learn how to write objectives first, and then that's really your outline. Um, and then you, you kind of like off to the races, like, how do you wanna do it?
Do you wanna do it in audio? Do you wanna do a video? Do you wanna do it live? Um, because then that's gonna dictate, you know, your next step. So I would think about what, what medium you really are called to. To do it in, um, because if you decide to do it live, you don't have to do the test for knowledge.
You just, people show up. You, you mark that they've attended, you give them a certificate, you've, you know, you're done. Versus self-study, you're then gonna have to create this test for knowledge. Um, which isn't difficult, you know, that's not a hard thing to do. Um, but you will have to figure out a way. Tech technically do that, I guess is the word.
I'm trying to, technically, you're gonna have to figure out a way to logistically set that up. Mm-hmm. . And, um, that can be kind of time consuming for people. You can definitely do it on a learning management platform. Um, I don't know about all of them because I haven't looked at all of them, but, um, there are ways to maybe if you already have car Kartra, I think, or Cajabi or whatever, whatever you're using, um, you wanna see, you wanna make sure that they can you.
Um, you can do the self-study quiz, the evaluation of the course, and then a certificate of completion. Um, yeah, so I would just, like I said, start with your objectives. You know, that's gonna be your outline, and then you wanna have your resources and your references, you know, to back up what it is that you're presenting.
Um, and usually being a master's level therapist, you will meet the requirements as the present. Now I now, I think there's a difference between, I was just having this conversation with a friend. There's a difference between like being therapists, we are. Ethically, we can do things, but are we competent in doing them?
So just make sure that you are competent in whatever it is that you were going to be speaking about.
Whitney Owens: Mm-hmm. , all such good points. I think the other thing I'm thinking about is your phase of life. Like it is a lot of upfront work and you were talking about that, but once you get it going, you have your systems down.
Mm-hmm. , but you know, just not taking on too many projects at one time and considering when is the right time to do
Lisa Mustard: it. Yeah. And I think that really comes down to, you know, I, I feel like we all kind of get to this point in our careers where we're like, I want to, uh, impact more people, or I wanna help more people.
I've been doing this one-on-one for so long, and while I love it and don't wanna give it up, it would be really nice to kind of pivot a little bit and take my skills and, you know, help more people. And I think that as therapists, that's such a wonderful, you know, Gift that we, that we can give to, whether it be the new therapist coming out or maybe the the Gen Z therapist out there, or, or whoever it is that you wanna, you wanna help and make an impact.
Um, so yeah, I definitely think about like, what, what. Phase of life you're in, the energy you have for it. Cuz that's important, um, as well as the means to do it because you're gonna be spending time probably out of the chair, you know, putting this all together. But I do think it's, it, it doesn't take, you know, I can't, I don't know how many hours of work it could take, but I don't, you know, you could probably put it all together in eight to 10 hours, depending on how much information you already have ready to go.
Mm-hmm. .
Whitney Owens: Yeah. And I love, and I just kind of wanna come back to this, and you said this. Mm-hmm. is kind of the different ways that you can do c E U events. Mm-hmm. , you know, like you were talking about the self-study and kind of walking through that. Yeah. And then there's the option to do, um, What a live event.
Mm-hmm. , like a one single live event and get that approved. And then there's the level of being a full provider. Right. You know? Mm-hmm. , am I missing anything there? I feel like I might have just missed something.
Lisa Mustard: Um, no, I think, I think you've, that's pretty much it. Either you do it live in person or you have to do it, um, you know, a self-study, so, It's, and you can do both.
You could also, I mean if, let's say you don't necessarily want to, um, become, like, you don't wanna go through and get the N B C C because it's kind of expensive and you're not sure how much of energy and time you wanna do, you can always partner with a university, um, or with another clinician who may already have the credential so you can work with them.
Um, I know a lot of the times like universities will. , like here, I could partner with the University of South Carolina. Maybe if I wanted to present something, if, if, if that made sense for them. Um, university, I know you're in Savannah, but like University of Georgia, you know, they've got a counseling program, couple different types I'm sure.
So you can always look to your, uh, local universities that have the counseling programs as well to see if there's a fit for you in there to. Yeah,
Whitney Owens: well, curious what you think about this. I've kind of heard that N B C C, and maybe this is wrong. I don't know. Doesn't love when you partner with somebody?
Lisa Mustard: Oh, I don't, you know.
I don't know. You mean like if you Oh, they want, well, I don't know. I don't, I don't know the answer to that. Um, I don't know why they would feel that way, but I've never run into anything. But then I've never tried to partner with anybody and mine are all self-study, so I don't know if that's a live event maybe.
Whitney Owens: And those are the ones I've looked into would be a live event that they want. The N B C C provider, whoever that is, that you're partnering with, would be the one. Overseeing the event. Mm-hmm. , or at least like a 50 50 partnership. They couldn't just come in. Like they have to be more involved, I think. Yeah.
Um, because I have looked into that. So, you know, this is an interesting conversation for me because of the process I'm in and we've kind of talked a little bit about this and you know, Lisa was very helpful in my first stages of figuring out, do I wanna do this? What does this look like? Yeah. Um, so, and it's been a journey.
So I actually. Start with the full credential, cuz that's my personality. I gotta go all the way . Yeah. Take on
Lisa Mustard: too many projects. No, I totally get you. Yeah. That's how I am too. I'm like, I'm going for it. I'm gonna get the whole thing. And I, I think he, I think he shouldn't have a problem getting it with the way that.
You're having set up the, the, the things that people run into, I think is what they think will count for credit and what doesn't count for credit. So you have to be very mindful of like the different presenter topics, um, and where, where you fall in. But I, I think there's a way to make it work. You just have to be, you know, you just have to follow what they, what they want you to do.
Whitney Owens: Yeah, that makes sense. Do you have any common mistakes that you could share that you notice? Or is it just the verbiage? Is it right on the objectives?
Lisa Mustard: Yeah, so when I was applying for, uh, my credential, they're very, very much, uh, consistent. They want like a consistent message. Um, if you say, if you call it one thing over here on your marketing material, then you need to call it the same thing over here on your self-study.
Quiz. So they're very much about being consistent. They don't want you because they're really all about the customer having a good experience and the customer getting the education. So I think they're thinking about the, the therapist's experience of taking your course, and they want it to be very cut and dry.
They don't, they don't, the less room for error for, for. The customer to get confused the better, which I think is just great customer service. Um, but I, you know, in terms of you just wanna make sure that you have your references, you know, you wanna make sure that you can back up what it is that you're presenting.
I think that's really important. You wanna make sure that you're presenters are qualified to be, be presenting on the topic. Um, what else would be I. Not making the quiz too easy. , they're, they're kind of sticklers for that. Um, if you're doing self-study or you know, at home study, um, and their certificate of completion needs to be consistent with whatever you're calling the program.
It needs to be that. You know, the title needs to be correct. Mm-hmm. . But besides that, I can't think of anything else. You know, once you, once you kind of get it down, you get it down, like there's a system and the first one was the hardest, you know, the first one for me was the hardest cuz I had to learn the lingo and I had to learn what it is I needed to see and I had to fix a bunch of stuff.
And, um, but looking back over it, it's, it makes sense that they are asking for what they're asking for.
Whitney Owens: Yeah, well I actually for the, for the full one, you know, they make you for a live presenter, you have to do two presentations and then submit those right As if they were continuing education. Um, so I'm in that process.
I just did my first one last week for my practice cuz Uhhuh , if I'm gonna try it, I'm gonna try it on people that are gonna attend. Right. Um, And I taught on the power of the therapeutic relationship. Ooh, cool. It was a lot of fun. I, yeah, I think that that is such an important topic that we don't talk about enough in private practice.
Mm-hmm. , but if you ever want me to talk about that for you. Yeah. Um, but really, but it was a lot of fun to do. Um, and yes, the logistics got kind of crazy and I ended up at the very end being like, okay, forget all this electronic CEU certificates. I'm just gonna hand write 'em and load 'em up. You know, like, yeah, just get it done.
But, um, yeah. So I need to do one more and then I. I could submit, but I will say this, I've been talking to multiple people about the approval process and how behind the N B C C is on the full approval for in person. And so someone had suggested to me, go back and just do a one, and I think you might have said this too, Lisa, just do the one event.
Mm-hmm. , get it done so that you have it. And then you can always go for the full one later. And so now I'm like, backtracking, yeah,
Lisa Mustard: I'm gonna do that. But yeah, I think that's smart because. Uh, you know, the way I see it and, and my experiences with them has been, they might be behind, but they don't wanna lose out on, you know, making some money
So, because they're a bit, you know, that's just kind of, I mean, I think you can always rush it. You know, you can put that rush fee on there and they'll do what, what they need to do to, to let you know. Um, but I've always found them to be very, um, you know, helpful and supportive. Um, they want you to succeed, you know, if they see value in what you're doing, then they're, they're gonna s that's always been my experience with them.
They're very, very pleasant, um, to work with. And, um, but yeah, I think, I think you'll, that's a good way to do it for.
Whitney Owens: Yeah. Well, I had something else I wanted to pick your brain on . Okay. Um, do you feel like getting the approval has made a big difference for you as far as like your podcast? And then also with that?
Do you think people are really concerned about getting CEU when they go to events or do you feel like that's not as important as it used to be?
Lisa Mustard: So let me answer your first question about has that made a difference for me? Yes, it has made a difference for me and it's made a difference for me, mainly because people are now reaching out and asking me to help them get their N B C C credential.
So it was, it's kind of been like this extra, uh, coaching or consulting business that popped up kind of outta nowhere. I, I really wasn't expecting that. Um, so I. And I also think that it's, um, social proof. Like, you know, I can, I can get this credential and I can help other people get it cuz I know how to, how to do it.
Um, and I also think it's helped with my, um, my sales and my POD courses because, you know, I could just be licensed here in South Carolina for continuing education, but since I have the N B C C credential, that opens up, you know, across the country, people feel confident. in buying my pod course knowing that their state board is gonna approve an N B C C, you know, credit in the past it would've been like, well, I'm in Missouri.
Is, is Missouri gonna accept the South Carolina, you know, um, credential? Is that gonna be okay? So I think it's just kind of one of those things that has helped, um, consistency. And then it's, it is, it's helped me kind of like create this, uh, other stream of revenue, which I wasn't expecting. Now, do I think that people require CEUs going to a conference?
Oh gosh. I think it just depends on what the intention of the conference is. So, for example, if I'm gonna go and learn a new, if I wanna go learn if Fs and you. I don't know, at a, at a three day conference, I want, I want CEUs for that, right? Because that would just make sense. Um, if I'm going to learn about, I don't know how to grow my practice, marketing, you know, through like different ways to market, do I necessarily need CEUs?
Um, I don't know, because that's just gonna help me grow my practice. Do I? So I'm not sure I necessarily need, cus now if you can swing it and you can get 'em, I mean, that's always helpful. , but you have to be mindful of, um, sometimes the N B C C, you know, I don't know if they're going to approve that. Like they will approve business building, practice building activities, but it's within a certain, um, a certain topic.
So you have to be mindful of, of that. I'm not sure it makes a difference. It just, I think depends on what you're going to be receiving, you know? Um mm-hmm. . So, I don't know. That's a good question. Yeah, definitely.
Whitney Owens: What do you think? Yeah. Well, it's something I've been thinking about. I personally don't really care.
Yeah. Like, I'm gonna get my CEUs, however, I'm gonna get my CEUs right. Um, I go to a conference more for the content and for the presenters and the people that are gonna be there. And, uh, kind of the location. It's fun to be able to go somewhere new, but for me it's more about the connections than the education most of the time.
Yeah. Um, but I do hear other people say that they find it important, and then personally, if I can also swing giving somebody CEUs when they're already taking their time out to come to an event, I would love to give them those if I
Lisa Mustard: can. So Oh yeah, definitely. If you, if you can give 'em, then I would say why not give 'em Yeah.
You know, that, that's always a bonus. . Definitely. For sure.
Whitney Owens: Well, Lisa, you've been so knowledgeable and helpful, and. For other people that are interested in getting their N B C C or any other continuing education, it sounds like you'd be a great coach resource for them. Um, and so if y'all wanna get in touch with Lisa, you ha can you give us your website or
Lisa Mustard: your email?
Yes. So it's lisa mustard.com and hopefully by the time you air this, it will be back up and running. It's been down for a couple weeks, which is crazy. But you can always reach out to me. Um, Instagram is fine. Or you can email me at hello lisa mustard dot. Awesome.
Whitney Owens: And we'll have all that in the show notes.
And then you do have a free M B C C C continuing education course for
Lisa Mustard: the audience. Yes, I do. So if you, well go to my website, but , like I said, it should be back up and running. And if not, um, I can, I'll give you the link for where my learning management system is and you can sign up for a free pod course that way.
So you can always just go and see what I have. Uh, I have, gosh, 11 or 12 up there now. I have two more coming out before the end of the year, so you can decide which one you want and you can go ahead and give me your email and I'll email you a code and you can pick one that you want for, for no cost to you.
Whitney Owens: Well, gosh, well thank you so much for that gift and just honestly, the gift of your presence today and teaching us so much, and we look forward to connecting with
Lisa Mustard: you in the future. Oh, well thanks for having me, Whitney. It's been, it's been really fun.
Show Notes and Podcast Production by James Marland
