Jo Muirhead

14/10/2026

How do you keep a practice running while you go through treatment for a serious illness?

It's a question I get asked more often than you'd think - by allied health business owners, therapists, coaches, people who've built something and are now facing a health crisis of their own and don't know what happens to the business while they're otherwise occupied.

I've written about what actually happened when I ran Purple Co through two years of bilateral breast cancer treatment: the difference between protecting your income and protecting your business, the client conversation I dreaded and didn't need to, and the trusted-advisor relationship I'd tell any health business owner to set up before a crisis, not during one.

This isn't a formula. It's what worked, and what didn't, in mine. Read it here - link in the comments - and if you want to work through what this looks like in your own practice, that's exactly what a coaching session is for.

09/10/2026

Pressure doesn't change who we are. It amplifies it.

For me, it showed up in my emails. A warm, helpful reply on Monday. A one-line answer on Tuesday. To me it was efficiency. To my team it read as "what have I done wrong?"

The result? People stopped asking questions, and work stopped moving.

Many practices are under real pressure right now. If you lead a team, your pressure pattern is already being felt, whether or not you've named it.

This week on the blog: what a behavioural profile showed me about my own pattern, and what changed once I could name it.

Read it here:

For years I thought fast, decisive and always moving forward was simply what good leadership looked like. Then a behavioural profile showed me what that same style did under pressure, starting with my emails. This is what changed once I could name my pattern, and why it matters for practices feeling...

24/09/2026

Recruitment and retention pressure is pushing private practice owners toward new-grad programs, training academies, mentoring pathways, fast. Good ideas. Values-aligned ideas.

But "is this a good idea" is the wrong question. The one that matters is: what return am I actually expecting, and would I recognise it if it showed up?

Return doesn't have to mean money in the door next quarter. It can be retention eighteen months out, or a reputation good clinicians want to work inside. It just has to be defined before you start, not discovered by accident once you're exhausted.

Good ideas aren't the problem. Ideas we never priced properly are.

If you've caught yourself doing this in your own business, it's exactly the kind of pattern I work through with practice owners in coaching.

And if you want to read more on this, see the link to my blog in the comments

23/09/2026

Most of my work capacity went to medical appointments this week. The work still got done, because I've built AI into my workflows with care and intention.

This week it helped with:
• Email triage and reply drafts
• Content across 9 channels
• Budget scenarios
• Planning next week around my actual capacity, not what I think I should be able to do

What I don't hand over:
• Any client identifying data
• Access to bank or financial accounts
• Content without my own review
• Email replies I haven't read first

It's delegation, not abdication.

For health professionals with limited time and energy, AI used well can be the difference between staying engaged and quietly burning out. Used badly, it's a risk to clients and to trust.

If you're working out where AI fits in your own practice, and where it shouldn't, that's something I help with. Send me a message.

What's one thing AI has been surprisingly helpful with for you?

17/09/2026

Here's something I've learned after years of testing planning systems: most of them are built to get you excited, not to hold up against your actual life.


The turning point for me wasn't a bigger goal. It was a sorting question I now ask myself every time an idea shows up — and they show up constantly: is this a today issue? A three-months issue? A twelve-months issue? Or does it belong in the parking lot?


That's the whole discipline. Not "should I do this" — "when, if ever, does this actually belong."


Most plans don't fail because the ideas in them are bad. They fail because every idea is trying to happen at once, with nothing deciding what waits.


If your planning system has never asked you that question, it might be worth finding one that does.

14/07/2026

There's a stage in business that no one really prepares you for.

Your calendar is full. Your clients get results. Your income is steady.
From the outside, it looks like success.

And yet — every complex decision still comes back to you. Every high-stakes moment still lands on your shoulders.

If the business only works because you're carrying it, that isn't scale.
It's centralisation.

I know this one from the inside. In my own private practice, I had a large, genuinely capable team — people I trusted completely. And still, everything ran through me.

It wasn't a hiring problem. It wasn't a trust problem. The structure had quietly centralised around me, and I hadn't questioned it, because the business was working.

I only saw it clearly when I had to step back for cancer treatment and physically couldn't be there to hold it together anymore.

Not a skill issue. Not a visibility issue.

A structural one — and structure can be redesigned.

Here's the question worth sitting with: if you took yourself out of the business for a month, what would still work — and what would simply stop?

If the honest answer is "not much," that isn't a personal failing. That's a signal.

08/06/2026

After a season of conversations with clinicians, entrepreneurs, educators, researchers, and innovators, I found myself reflecting on a simple question:

What does the future belong to?

For years, many of us were taught that success in healthcare came from becoming more qualified.

More courses.
More certifications.
More experience.
More expertise.

And while those things absolutely matter, I'm no longer convinced they're enough on their own.

What I noticed throughout Season 5 of The Entrepreneurial Clinician was that the people creating meaningful, sustainable, and often unconventional careers weren't necessarily the most qualified.

They were the people who:
✔ Protected their capacity
✔ Stayed curious
✔ Learned skills beyond their clinical expertise
✔ Valued lived experience
✔ Remained open to opportunities they couldn't see when they first graduated

Healthcare is changing.
Work is changing.
Technology is changing.

The question isn't whether change is happening.
It's already here.

The question is whether we're willing to change with it.
The final episode of Season 5 is now live, and I'd love for you to listen.
🎙️ What do you think health professionals need to pay more attention to over the next 5–10 years?

Link to the episode is in the comments

01/06/2026

As health professionals, we're taught to look after our tools.
We calibrate equipment.
We maintain systems.
We replace things when they're no longer fit for purpose.

But what about the tool we rely on more than any other?
Our brain.
Every clinical decision.
Every difficult conversation.
Every assessment.
Every report.
Every moment of critical thinking.
Every act of empathy.
It all depends on our brain.

Yet many of us have spent years treating our brain as if it has unlimited capacity.
Push through.
Work harder.
Stay later.
Carry more.
Think faster.
Remember everything.

No wonder so many clinicians feel exhausted.

This week's episode of The Entrepreneurial Clinician with Nic Lucas challenged me to think differently about the brain—not as something we simply use, but as something we need to understand, protect, and optimise.

Because mindset, determination, and resilience are important.
But they aren't the whole story.

If your brain is one of the primary tools of your trade, how much attention are you giving to keeping it in good working order?
🎧 The Brain, Identity and Permission to Think Differently with Nic Lucas
Link in the comments.

25/05/2026

I used to think the answer to my exhaustion was creating something that would eventually become “set and forget.”

A course.
A digital product.
An online income stream.
Something that would finally make life feel easier.

And honestly?
I think I got that wrong for a long time.
Not because online income is a bad idea.

I actually think many clinicians need more flexibility, diversified income and less dependence on systems that keep changing around us.

But because I misunderstood what sustainable e-commerce actually requires.

I thought:
“If nobody is buying it anymore, maybe nobody wants it.”
Instead, what I’m learning is:
people may still absolutely want the help…
they just want it delivered differently.
Buyer behaviour changes.
Attention changes.
People are more overwhelmed now.

Big complicated offers can feel exhausting before someone even clicks purchase.
This week on The Entrepreneurial Clinician, psychologist Mealisa McCaffrey from QQA Prepand I had such an honest conversation about:

adapting offers
reviewing what’s actually working
changing buyer behaviour after COVID

and why “set and forget” is rarely the answer in business
What struck me most was realising that my desire for simplicity wasn’t laziness.

It was a nervous system trying to find safety.
And I suspect a lot of clinicians are quietly trying to solve that same problem right now.