E616 | 6 Traits Of A Successful PT Entrepreneur

In this episode, Doc Danny and Yves Gege delve into the six essential traits that are crucial for cash-based practice owners to achieve success in their entrepreneurial journey. They emphasize the significance of having experience as a personal trainer, coach, or in a specific niche, as it establishes credibility within the industry.

The duo also stresses the importance of cultivating grit, which encompasses patience, optimism, and persistence in the face of adversity. They highlight the need for risk tolerance, but not being overly risky, in order to make calculated and informed decisions.

Being mission-driven is another trait that proves to be instrumental in attracting new clients, retaining them, and gaining valuable referrals. Additionally, they underscore the importance of patience, comfort with sales, and organizational skills for running a prosperous cash-based practice.

Further in the episode, the hosts explore the impact of having a mission-driven company and the power of kindness in building a strong organizational culture. They draw examples from renowned companies like TOMS Shoes and Patagonia, underscoring how a sense of purpose and doing the right thing generate trust between a business and its customers.

The hosts also emphasize that success in entrepreneurship encompasses both financial and time freedom, as well as mental and physical health. They encourage listeners to measure their progress by setting goals, being grateful for accomplishments, and maintaining a well-rounded focus on various aspects of life beyond just business.

In the final segment, Danny expresses contentment and intentionality in their entrepreneurial journey. They acknowledge that clinicians often excel in clinical skills but lack business understanding. The speaker summarizes the key traits of successful clinicians as being gritty, risk tolerant, mission driven, kind, and competitive.

The episode concludes with gratitude for the listeners and their feedback, expressing appreciation for the support and engagement with their conversations.

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Podcast Transcript

Danny: [00:00:00] Hey, real quick before we get started, head over to Facebook and join the PT Entrepreneurs Facebook group. If you haven't done so yet, we have monthly live trainings going on there. There's an opportunity for you to join in the conversation instead of just listening to what I have to say on this podcast, as well as the people that I bring on, and it's a really cool place to join about 6,000 other clinicians that are.

Honestly trying to change the landscape of our profession through these cash and hybrid practices. One other thing that's really cool is we have a guide in there that's a quick start guide. When you join, you can go and check this out. There's about seven videos that we've curated that are the most common questions we get, and the best case studies that we've found to really help you start, grow, and scale your practice up to seven figures.

So if you haven't done so yet, head to Facebook request to join the PT Entrepreneurs Facebook group. You have to be a clinician. We're gonna check you out. We don't just let anybody in. But if you are head there, go ahead and get signed up. We'd love to have the conversation with you in that group.

So here's the question. How do physical therapists like us who don't wanna see 30 patients a day, [00:01:00] who don't wanna work home health and have real student loans create a career and life for ourselves that we've always dreamed about? This is the question and this podcast is the answer. My name's Danny Mate and welcome to the PT Entrepreneur Podcast.

What's going on guys? Dr. Danny here with the PT Entrepreneur Podcast, and I'm here today with Mr. Yves , Gigi the one and only the ninja of operations and cash-based practices, and we're talking about. The six traits that we've found now working with directly hundreds of cash-based practice owners the traits that we found that really lend to them becoming successful in starting and running their own their own practice.

[00:02:00] And as I thought about this and as we, we talked about the traits before the podcast, it's interesting to look at some of these traits cuz some of them you might not actually think are. Typical traits of really good entrepreneurs. I think we look at entrepreneurs in many ways as like these.

Cutthroat, do whatever they can to, get the deal done or make that whatever profit. You hear a lot about that with, big corporations and they're doing all these things to, cut jobs and create profitability. And, there's probably some truth to that and there's probably some over-exaggeration to that.

But when we look at these types of businesses these are smaller businesses and people coming outta the clinical world to do them, there's really some interesting traits that we see. And if. You see these in yourself, the likelihood that you'll be successful I think is pretty high. Eve, anything you want to add to that before we dive into these

Yves: traits?

Yeah, what you said was interesting. I do think I. If you look at like the nineties and big business, like we're watching the Birdie Madoff thing and like the Wall Street and that's used to be what was extolled in like [00:03:00] culture. It's like work hard, smash it and like you're gonna crush it.

And this big like gorilla move. I do see, which is cool, almost a transition happening of more of like lifestyle, business and mission driven and like people who care about the customer relationships. Like we're seeing that a lot in some of the, higher level coaching programs and some of the, these other like really, in, in different spaces like, high level entrepreneurs that's becoming the focus right.

Customer journey and doing what's best for the customer. So it's cool, which is, which. I guess we're gonna talk about today, which is like lends to the skillset of a healthcare, clinician healthcare professional.

Danny: Yeah. Yeah. Especially just in, in the experience we have, right?

Which is, in, in healthcare businesses I don't really know how this works in software companies or if you're an industrial space or you're a contractor. There's probably some carryover, but the very first one, and this is a check the box we get, people ask us this a lot, we're like, Hey, do I have to be.

An experienced clinician to open a cash based practice, and [00:04:00] the answer is no, but it does help. We've seen students, graduate and go straight into their own their own cash based practices, and you gotta be a pretty unique student for, to make that work. Meaning you probably either have to have some sort of some sort of background specifically in another.

Sport or a niche that lends you credibility that where your clinical skill set probably is lacking a bit. Most people we see that are able to have success with these types of practices. They're usually at a minimum two years out of school. And if they're two years outta school, they've really been getting after a lot of Con Ed and mentorship.

I think the sweet spot is probably between three and five years out for most people where they really are like pretty solid. They're. They're up to date on like newest evidence and pretty progressive, but they also have enough reps under their belt to where they can make it work.

And those people that are really solid clinicians that, let's say they're, 10, 15, even 20 years out like for them it's really the clinical side is just far easier. They just more than anything have to learn the business side to go along with that. [00:05:00]

Yves: Yeah, for sure. I think.

There's a learning curve we're both pretty far removed from initial, outta school and you forget that developing confidence and having conversations and seeing patterns, if you've gotta do that and learn that at this, at the same time that you're learning how to sell market and run a business, it's just overwhelming.

So you're right. The people that we see that are successful usually have a lot of experience, as a personal trainer or as a coach, or have. A very specific niche. They'd have inherent credibility. And so they're not learning as much of the clinical or conversational side. They're really just learning more of like, all right, how do I actually build

Danny: a business here?

Yeah. And sometimes if you're a really great clinician in spite of your terrible business acumen, you can still be pretty successful. And what I mean by pretty successful is probably build your caseload to where you don't have to work for anybody ever again in the rest of your, for the rest of your life.

But, Probably not past that. And honestly, probably you're probably gonna be working a lot of hours, more hours just managing all the stuff that you shouldn't be doing.[00:06:00] Cause you don't really know how to hand that off correctly. How to train somebody else and what systems you need within your business to be able to, to give that over to someone else.

I think it's a huge feather in their cap though. It's definitely something we see that and we get like experienced clinicians come in, we get somebody that we know teaches for a con ed company. I. It's just if I'm betting on those people, I definitely, I feel very confident putting some money down that they're gonna, they're gonna do okay with their cash-based practice.

Clinical skills are definitely a big upgrade for a trait that you might have when you go to start your own practice. The the second one is being gritty. And I'm not talking about doing the gritty, I'm not talking about the dance, but I'm talking about being gritty. There you go.

That's pretty good actually. The, and what I mean by gritty is. Not giving up. Being okay with getting rejected, which sucks for everybody. And staying optimistic and and driven towards the thing that you're trying to do, even though everything isn't going your way.

And this is a hard thing to do. I think it's, I think there's a bit of nature and nurture with this. I think you can learn this in many different ways, but I. [00:07:00] It's a tough thing to, to develop, especially in the business sense when your, your livelihood is depending on how your business does in a lot of ways.

You have a family to support, right? So the development of some grit is something that can a lot of times come from sport. It can come from having to do challenging things at a high level. It can, I see it more in people that kind of struggle a bit with school to get into school and they've had to work harder to get through school and they develop that sort of competitive desire to continue to progress and not give up.

I think you can develop it in many different ways, but having that in some capacity before going into business for yourself, like I. Is very helpful. And I see it with people, different backgrounds that, for instance, a couple of people that we've worked with, they applied to 10 PT schools and they barely got in and they, they had to work an extra year to get the hours they needed to do whatever.

And that was, I think just a great sign. I, for me, I see that and I'm like, I know they're not gonna get frustrated if somebody [00:08:00] turns 'em down. Like they've already been turned down many times.

Yves: Yeah, you're right. In dealing with, I. Like you said, hundreds of people, it's early on that's probably the most common question that we get, right?

It's man, I ran in this roadblock, like what should I do? And most of the time the advice is just to Go out and go do it again until you figure it out. We had somebody specifically in the mastermind who was just like, sales conversation's not going well, but he did such a good job of just keeping, tweaking the script, having those conversations over and over.

And then one day he just sent me a message and said, Man, that was easy. Like I'm, I sold five packages and it felt easy. And I just told him, I was like, because, you're gritty. And you just kept having those conversations over and over again until it got to the point that it felt streamlined, it felt authentic.

You did it with confidence, and now here you are. Yeah.

Danny: Yeah, totally. The next one, number three is risk tolerant, but not risky. And when I think about this, I see people that make. Very risky decisions in business, and [00:09:00] oftentimes they don't work out very well. We've seen this with people that take on a huge space, a bunch of loans just getting started.

They have no defined niche. They're just like, man, I'm gonna pull the trigger and ride the bullet. That's their philosophy and the challenge with that. Is if it doesn't work, then you basically go bankrupt. Or you're in a significant amount of debt with personal guarantees that you owe back.

This isn't a monopoly game. This isn't something that, you just get to get outta jail free card. You have to actually think about the things you're doing and the real life consequences of, the money that you may owe or the obligations that you're signing. Over let's say you have a lease that you're signing for five years you're on the hook for that for five years, or you have to buy outta that for a substantial chunk of the lease because legally you've gone into an agreement to do so being risk tolerant. Is being okay with some level of risk, but understanding that there's a big difference between calculated risk [00:10:00] and just being super cavalier. And more than anything weighing all their options and then being decisive once they figure out, okay, I know I need to do this.

I know this is uncomfortable. I have to take on this extra overhead, or I'm hiring this person. But all the numbers that I would look at all the data tracks and aligns with the fact that this is the right. Decision. So being able to be okay with some risk, but also not being risky is a really key trait that I've seen over and over again with people that seem to do really well.

Yves: Totally agree. I think a big skill of mine that I needed to nurture and I've heard a bunch of times, is being able to make decisions and take an action without all of the information. So us as clinicians as whole typically want as much information as possible and make a diagnosis and slowly, right?

But I had to be able to be like, all right. I realize I'm gonna make an incomplete decision. I'm gonna take action anyway. I still gather all the information, I still prepare, but I take the action anyway. And if I was able to do that over and over again, then I was able to get, that [00:11:00] combined, just like you said, with the grittiness, I was able to get and move forward, I think much quicker and have success in

Danny: business.

Yeah. Yeah. And I, I think about the only times that we've seen people really have some big failures In these businesses, which they're, they're fairly hard, I wouldn't say they're hard to screw up. But they're fairly simple businesses. These are not ultra complex businesses with a bunch of moving parts.

You're, you gotta get patients, you gotta fulfill those patient visits. You gotta get space and more people to fulfill more visits, that's it. And some administrative help. That's the business model, right? And doing that correctly. Is the hard part. But there, there's not, we're not leveraging, whatever money to buy stuff.

Like in e-commerce business, for instance, like I have a friend that runs one, and it's like he's got a, he takes loans out to buy product that he then has to be pretty sure he's gonna resell. And if he doesn't, then he's stuck. With that product. I have another friend that runs a really pretty big juice company here in [00:12:00] Atlanta.

And, if she doesn't sell some of these products to these big suppliers like a Publix or a Whole Foods, if that doesn't sell on their shelves, she has to buy it back in certain circumstances or fruit goes bad, or there's like other regulations that pop up and they have to buy some piece of equipment that's like a few hundred thousand dollars.

We don't have any of that. That doesn't happen. So the only time I see people really screw up is when they take a big swing with no there's there's no reason why they should be taking such a big swing. They just are way, way too overconfident in what they think they can do and they actually haven't developed the business to get to a point where they can at least point to success in some way.

And early on they just take on far too much risk. That's the only time that I've seen that these are really tanked. Other than that, you'd have to try really hard to screw a business up like this.

Yves: Yeah. It's the people that are like, I want a gym, I want a recovery center, I want pt, and it's gonna be this massive thing.

And like people are just gonna, I'm gonna [00:13:00] build it and they're gonna walk in my door. Yeah. And just not the way that these businesses work. Like it takes a lot of time to build No. And trust in a community. And it's the model we found successful and taking a big swim like that is typically not the the way.

Danny: And if you're gonna take a big swing like that prove some success first, right? Agree, prove that you can grow your practice to a couple hundred thousand dollars a year, and then, It is like, all right, cool. At least you have this proof of concept. And then from there, boom, go to whatever it is that you wanna do, make the facility look like, whatever it is that you wanna do, and maybe, make it even less risky.

Borrow somebody else's money. And if you lose it, it's their money, right? You get an investor and that's it. As, as weird as that sounds, it's very common in many other types of businesses for people to do that and take on take on funding. So there's lots of ways you can do that and decrease risk and mitigate that, I should say.

But you gotta be risk tolerant without being risky. So the fourth one is being mission driven. And [00:14:00] this is something that I. Yeah, I would as just have assumed that people are like this, but I don't think that everyone is, in fact, I think very few people are very mission driven about what they're trying to do.

There's a book that the the founder of Whole Foods wrote called Conscious Capitalism. I forget his name, but the intent of the book is about, creating a business that is both a solid business, but also serves a purpose to make the world better. And, that was like a big part of his company.

There's many companies that you could point at that are similar to this and they have very strong missions, and it doesn't always relate to just bottom line profitability. And when we look at these entrepreneurs that we get a chance to work with, many of 'em are very mission driven with the specific niche that they really want to help.

If, let's say you're, a runner and you just feel like runners are the most important, niche to work with on the planet, you love runners, you're all about it, and you feel very strongly that runners are missing some sort of variable that helps [00:15:00] them be able to either, be more resilient running or run faster or further or whatever it might be.

But you are a runner, deep down and people know it, they can see it. You walk the walk and it's what you're obsessed with, like your mission to help these runners be able to do whatever it is that you think they need to do. That's your mission, and you have to wake up every day and live that and the decisions that you make and how you build your business and what you say yes and no to within your business.

So being really clear on the, on your mission. Is a fairly rare thing and it's something that takes a lot of time and intentional sort of thought to really get clear on it's a hard thing to do, but the people that we see that are very mission driven, a few things happen. They attract new clients much easier.

They retain those people much easier. They get way more virality with referrals, and they tend to have a far easier time. Hiring because they attract people that wanna work with somebody like that. So when somebody's very mission driven, it's, it is incredibly attractive to [00:16:00] other people that want to be a part of that mission.

That is literally what builds massive businesses are these people that are just, in some ways maybe obsessive over the things they're trying to do. And not a lot of people are like that. So people gravitate towards them and they want to be a part of that.

Yves: Yeah. And human beings are smart, I'm sure people could think of certain businesses that they've seen where you can just tell that they're not mission driven, that they're really just trying to pull a profit or trying to sell something that they don't believe in.

And. This is the best part about working with clinicians. Like most of them are mission driven. They just need a little bit more of maybe a realignment or say, Hey, remember this is why you did this. Like you're doing this because you care about the community cuz you want people to live healthy lives and you're so right about that.

You said that it's man, when you got a runner or a gymnast who was a gymnast and dealt with stuff and that's why I became a pt. And then they build a business around that. Those. Businesses usually do so much better and scale so much faster because you can just tell they're so [00:17:00] excited about that.

That becomes contagious. And especially with a community driven business, it absolutely goes we'll call it goes viral in their local community and they're getting word of mouth referrals and it's an absolute superpower.

Danny: What's an example of a mission driven company? Any industry that you're like, man, I really, I.

Appreciate that this company is, really obsessed with the mission of whatever it is that they're doing.

Yves: The one example that I remember, it's the first time I heard about something mission driven and this idea of conscious capitalism. And some people may not remember this company, but you remember Tom's shoes?

Yeah. We're where they basically, it blew my mind. Every pair of shoes you bought, they basically gave a pair of shoes. Choose somebody else. And that was like so mind blowing. I didn't understand how they could be profitable. I didn't understand like how that all worked or why anybody cared. And this is way, this is I think 10 years ago or whatever.

And they absolutely crushed it. And people just really resonated with that. And it's I just thought that was super powerful. And ever since then, I've always thought about man, how can you. [00:18:00] Do something very similar where you can feed into people's need to, do something good for the world at the same time as buying something.

That's impressive.

Danny: Oh, super impressive. The one company that I think of is Patagonia and how, if you go to a Patagonia store, like they will tell you like, we want you to buy less clothes because we wanna make clothes that are gonna last a long time. It's better for the environment if we do that.

And if you have, let's say you like your jacket got ripped, like they'll just bring it in and they'll fix it for you. Like they want you to wear that for a long period of time. And it's really interesting the way that they position that because, Obviously the more clothes you buy, the better it is.

Versus they want you to buy something that's gonna last a long time because they feel like it's better for the environment. And they do a lot of con con conservation work as well. There's a really cool podcast about the guy he died that founded, I forget his name. I'm sorry. It's a good documentary.

It's called 180 degrees south and it's a guy that basically re recreates [00:19:00] the trip that the guy that founded North Face and the guy that founded Patagonia went on down to Patagonia in South America from I believe California and like on a boat and in a van driving down and kinda surfing all over the place.

It's a pretty cool documentary, but they do talk to the founders of both those companies and they. At the time they were living like part of their time down there on some of the land that they had purchased for conservation purposes. And it was really interesting, talking to hearing them talk to this founder that was so mission driven, but really had built this company based off the back of not having equipment that he wanted to be able to have for climbing.

That's really where it started was just like they were just making stuff for themself and then selling it to their friends, but they had the business savvy to be able to say, Hey, I think other people would want this, and. Let's you know, we'll start selling it to them. So pretty interesting.

I always think mission driven with companies like that, and I always appreciate that's something that they keep on the forefront and I think more and more people are looking for that. Even if you look at companies like certified B Corps where it's like they're actually. [00:20:00] Certified that they are mission driven, like trying to do something good with the company besides just make money.

I always really appreciate that and I think I see that in people and it definitely lends itself to a likelihood of success that's quite higher than if they're just like out there for a cash grab trying to make some money. Yeah. We're not

Yves: selling widgets. We're not selling something that may or may not be useful.

We're selling transformation in people's lives and I think the more that we put that at the forefront, the more that we tell people about that. The more we try to show and imbibe that, like not try to hide it, sometimes I think the better the businesses will do and it is what we see.

It's such a commonality in the successful businesses. The more that they do that, just like you said, the more people rally around them, the easier it is for them to hire, the easier it is for them to grow because it's contagious.

Danny: Yeah. Number five kindness. That's not something that gets highlighted in.

Entrepreneurship a whole lot. Although I heard an interview with a teacher that was talking about the education system and sh one of the things that she [00:21:00] said was that she felt that kindness in the her students was one of the most important traits, yet not testable. It's, you can't look at your annual test and it's a, this is a really kind person, this is gonna be a good citizen.

It doesn't exist. Like they, they take a test that's based off of math and breeding basically. The trait of someone that's a kind person though within these types of businesses is, I think, It's incredibly important. And a lot of people don't view like there's a big difference between kindness and weakness.

And I think that people confuse the two terms when you know someone that is just a kind person is looking to do the best for the people around them that are associated with them, their friends, family, whatever it might be. And when you're in a profession where you help people get over musculoskeletal problems and back to activities that you like, You have to be able to empathize with them.

You have to [00:22:00] be, honestly, most people in our profession are incredibly kind people in general because this, the career field that they chose was just frankly helping other people with these types of problems. But, be able to also apply that to the other people around them. And, doing what's best for your team, for your employees is such an important trait at scale because of trust that you develop and.

Long-term retention with people in your business. And these are byproducts of them feeling like you're doing what's right for them and that they trust your decision making. They trust that you're doing things based on what's best for everyone, not necessarily just yourself. And in my experience, that seems to be a huge driver of culture in your companies and culture is one of the main reasons why people stay or go.

Everyone's pretty much a free agent these days. It's very, Uncommon for people to stay at a job for more than three years. They're constantly moving to what's next? And if you can retain people and build a really cohesive team by doing [00:23:00] what's best for them, and really making your decisions based off of that, then your business is gonna be better off for it as well.

So this trait of kindness, I think is just something that people overlook. But is just such a powerful way of developing. A really strong culture that people are gonna wanna stay at and attract more people that will help you in the hiring process quite a bit as well.

Yves: Yeah. If you look at business in general, I think we are now, you're developing a relationship with a brand or with a company, and the more that you trust them, the more you're likely, more likely you are to buy from them.

And. If you are kind and you do the right thing, then a hundred percent the likelihood that they're gonna buy. And like you said, stick around long term is so much higher. And there's so many good examples of this. Like I went to the dentist office and every time I go there they use my first name. It's hello.

And I don't really know this person. She's hello Eve, how are you? Have a seat and we'll be with you in a minute. And that just like little thing is huge. [00:24:00] And I think that comes naturally to a lot of. The health professionals. It's just stuff that we do on a regular basis and it's so great for customer experience.

It's such a thing that, again, I keep using the same word, but I believe it. These are just like superpowers that we, a lot of us innately have, right? It's just the kindness, doing the right thing. The fact that we probably would give away our services for free, that's how much we care about what we're doing, and people

Danny: can tell.

Totally. And I think there's a few areas too. Obviously this is good for business, but. If you look at giving back is just, it can mean something, different to everybody, right? It could be financially, that could be with your time, that, that could be with, other resources.

But when we have an opportunity to build a business that is able to grow to a place where there, there is quite a bit of financial freedom associated with it. It's very interesting to see. What people that are just really kind natured to people end up doing with that [00:25:00] profit, with that revenue, with that money.

And it all, it does, in my opinion, from what I've seen, is money will make you more of what you already are, right? So if you're an asshole and you get a lot of money, You just become a bigger asshole. If you are a really, just a really kind person and you like to help people well, and you get, if you get a bunch of money, you're probably gonna help more people in other ways.

Whether that be support nonprofits that, that are meaningful to you, your, maybe it's your, your church or religious organization. Maybe it is. Schools that you really appreciate and think are doing, meaningful work. Maybe it's pro bono work with people at your facility that just can't afford your services and having different scholarship options.

It's education and helping pay for education for other people. There's all kinds of things you can do. And when you look at, who do I hope ends up with a lot of money? I hope it's people that are gonna do the right thing with it, and not people that are just going to just be,[00:26:00] more of what they are in a bad way versus be able to really take that and do something very meaningful with it aside from just whatever selfish things that they wanna do.

Which is fine too. Hey, if you wanna buy a boat, go buy a boat. That's awesome. You earned it, go buy a boat. And there's nothing wrong with that. But I see people that we work with, it's just so interesting to see. It's just man, as soon as they have. Profit especially they have more money.

They're just like getting so involved in helping their communities in so many positive ways. And it's great to see. It's just, it's an amazing byproduct of what we see with the success that these practices do have.

Yves: Yeah, and it's almost, if anything, I feel as you say, all that, We can be almost too kind, right?

Because we get sometimes, in the beginning we got a lot of pushback. It's is this even ethical? Can we charge this amount? What am I, what am I doing for the community? And should I do more pro bono stuff? And just think about that. That's all most of our people are thinking about.

It's no, I wanna do more. And I don't wanna just reach people who have disposable income. And so it's like immediately we're just pouring back in, which is like, It was always very important to me, and I know to you, like we always did [00:27:00] a version of pro bono or scholarship programs, free workshops, and there's there's just so much that we can do for the community and we're all like, we seem to always be thinking about it, but at the same time, we've gotta be, and maybe this is a segue to what's next, but like at the same time, we need to have a little bit more of an edge.

We can't be too kind because we also need to focus on growth and sometimes we have to reel people back into that. It's no, like you got, remember that you gotta make money and pay yourself. Don't forget about all that

Danny: too. That's a good point, man. I think that's actually really common in our profession where it's the ability to make a sound business decision and a decision based off your, mission and your willingness and desire to want to help other people.

There's a balance there for sure between between the two and we still obviously we still deal with that ourself with many things within the businesses that we have and. To segue to this sort of last trait, and really it's probably the most telling trait of whether somebody's gonna be a successful or not.

And that is if they're competitive or if they're not. [00:28:00] If, and it's hard to say sometimes that this can either come from a really positive place or a really negative place, and either way, It needs to be there. You have to be a competitor in business. You have to be willing to put a lot of work in to continue to learn and grow and change and.

Track what you're doing, and improve over time and have a work ethic that is far bigger or, more output than what the average person is gonna do over a very long period of time. And, The competitive side that we tend to see with people. A lot of it, it gets developed in sport.

So almost everybody that we work with has some sort of experience in sports, whether it be at just like a recreational level or a very high level. Some people Either way, that's something that they develop. We also see this in academia. [00:29:00] So we see people get really competitive with their grades and their scores and what place in the class they're in or whatever.

And as significant or insignificant as that might be, it develops a level of competitiveness that I do think helps in the profession, as you go into business for yourself. And the driver of that is typically one of two things. It's either pulling them towards something that's really important to them for.

These positive reasons we're talking about being mission driven and helping people, and that's a far better place to be. Or it's something that's not all that healthy, that they're trying to like, prove something to somebody, to themself, to a family member, to whatever. And they take any little negative thing that somebody might say as, as just An excessive amount of fuel to be able to drive to whatever they're trying to do.

And, so I'm not sure where you get it from or where some, whoever's listening to this, you'll get that competitiveness from. I think that you need it one way or the other. The more healthy one is to be mission driven and [00:30:00] pull yourself towards it. The other one you're probably gonna have to deal with one day at some point and try to figure out why you're wired that way.

But it'll still get you to the same place. You just might have some other shit you have to figure out when you get there.

Yves: Yeah. It's like most of these things, I feel like what we're highlighting is that, they can all be, let's use the parlance of her times. They can be toxic traits as well.

So there's a degree of competitive edge that I think is super useful and can drive you to be better. And it can drive you to look across the street and be like, Hey. I think I can do it better. Let me go do it. And then there's the destructive one where it's if I don't do this and I fail, I'm not a worthy human being.

And there's probably a little bit of all of that in all of us. And what I always think about is, how can I make this useful? Obviously I'm very mission driven and I think a lot of us are, it's okay, can I be competitive? With myself ultimately first. I think that's a great way to do it.

And then will, cuz we actually see this a lot too. It's like when comparison to is the thief of joy. You say that all the time and I see it, most of the people, they look at the people around them and it fuels them [00:31:00] and oh man, you. You cracked the glass ceiling.

I can go do this. And there's other people that see how well other people are doing and they shrivel up and say I can't do this. I'm not as good as them. And it's you definitely have to be the first one. It has to be a fuel because you've got to create action, you've got to move forward.

We talk about that grittiness and it, and it's gotta hopefully spur you to do more. Not typically to do

Danny: less. Yeah. And it's. It is a slippery slope, I think too, for a lot of people because when, if you are competitive and you're paying attention to what other people are doing, it's very easy to make yourself feel like shit.

I see this with a many things. I was having a conversation with a friend the other day about kids and social media and, he has a high school, two high school aged kids. I had one, one daughter that's my son's age. So fifth grade. And you know what he said I thought was interesting cuz he basically was like, [00:32:00] man, we all went to school with people that were just like good looking, had money, like we're doing cool shit with their family.

And most people are not, don't have all that stuff, right? They're not just this, they're not this 10. And. He's like there, there's not a lot of people like that in most schools, right? You might have a couple and people peak in high school or whatever, and that's where they're at.

He's but you get on social media and you see every school's person that's like that and it gets highlighted and it's this fabricated sort of world that is unattainable for most people and just makes them feel so bad, right? So this idea that comparison is a thief of joy, I think is so accurate.

And in the business sense, if you are sitting on your phone all day looking at what other clinics in your area are doing, the type of marketing they're doing, the type, the way their space looks, the workshops they're running, the ads, they're running the [00:33:00] whatever, it doesn't matter. You are wasting time focusing on what other people are doing and in many ways trying to copy what they're doing and.

Instead of using your own creativity, your own unique sort of approach to just build the thing the way that you want it to be built. And be competitive with yourself, right? And be competitive with your peers, but in a positive way. It's Hey, we want to all get there together, but I still want to beat you.

You know what I mean? That's okay too. Like you don't have to. Give up that bit of an edge you might have from a competitive standpoint, but you gotta not just constantly pay attention to what other people are doing and fixate on that because you'll end up just feeling terrible about what you're doing.

Even though if you really think about where you're at and where you thought you might have been, you're probably far ahead of where you're at. Here's a good example, right? If 10 years ago Eve you, you could go back and go talk to a younger, Eve and tell him today, what he's up to.

Do you think that person would be [00:34:00] like stoked about it or would they be like, that sucks. Thought I'd been doing a little more,

Yves: I don't even think, I couldn't even imagine 10 years ago of where I am right now. I just thought I'd be a pediatric physical therapist. Maybe own a little small clinic.

And it's astronomically. More. It is absolutely astronomically more and I'm very grateful for it. And what drives me is to be a little better every day. I wanna look at myself and be like, last year, am I a better version of myself than I was? Am I better now than I was last year?

Bottom line. And I think it gives people, like you said, a

Danny: huge edge. I think it's not even, maybe even like 10 years maybe is a Is one way to look at it. And then you could also say Hey, if you went and talked to, 10 year old Danny, or 10 year old Eve, and you're like, Hey, come here little dude.

Don't freak out. I'm not a snatcher. I gotta talk to you for a second. Hey I'm 38, check this out. This is what our life looks like. Just wanna let you know. I would be so excited. I'd be like, are you serious? That's what my life looks like. [00:35:00] That's awesome.

Versus I think for so many of us, we get so fixated in the things that we haven't accomplished. Even if we set a goal or Right. Whatever. If somebody that we know that is slightly ahead of where we are, maybe we start at the same time and we just forget about all the progress that we've made, right?

Like it's this slippery slope we talk about with being competitive, but also being like, okay with where you're at this. Chasing what you want while being okay with what you have is very hard to do. Because that type of personality lends itself to really focus more on what they don't have and constantly feeling like they need more versus being grateful for what they do have and how much they've actually accomplished.

And take a minute to appreciate that and be okay with it. And it's not just business by the way, cuz you said a better person. Am I a better. Human being than I was last year in all these other variables, right? Is it spouse, parent friend, in, in business, in health, in physical, mental health, all [00:36:00] these other variables that we can progress in.

Where are you at now versus where you were a year ago, like thinking about that. It's just such a good way to put yourself back into perspective in a positive way and then get back to what you need to do without feeling like, you're having a pity party for yourself, which most of us, that's where we end up

Yves: a hundred percent.

I think. Tim Ferris does stuff like this. We see a lot of different coaches. We obviously do this. One of my favorite things to do is when I get a lot of our clients to look at their previous trailing 12 or to look at what they accomplished here. They don't even look at that, like that number, right?

And they look at that number and they're like, oh my God. I was working for somebody else and now I'm generating 10 to $20,000 a month in my standalone space. I've got an admin and a pt. Of course they're like, I want more. I wanna be. A gold name tag, whatever, I'll take it to the next level. But at the same time, you do need to take inventory of your life and say, wow. I never, one of the most powerful moments was like, they're like struggling. I was like I was like, ask yourself this. Are you ever gonna have to work for [00:37:00] anybody ever again? And she was like, no.

And she was like, thank you. Like she just never. Stop to think about it. I think at our natural tendency, typically, as a entrepreneur or somebody starts their own thing, like we're very driven by that kind of next thing. It's difficult for us to take inventory of what we've actually accomplished.

Danny: Dude, I just got a, I had a message the other day from one of our mastermind members and he basically asked me, he's Hey, I think I'm gonna be at this level of business. In the next six months. And we have we highlight where people are at in their businesses with awards basically.

We've, we realize these, everyone we work was very similar to us. Like we are achievement driven people. Alright, cool. Let's give you some stages along the way to Shoe Fork because it breaks up the journey a little bit and and it gives you something to focus on.

And when he basically asked me, he was like, you know what? We need we need another award after the seven figure mark award. He's we need like a 2,000,001 or a 5,000,001. And I messaged him back and I was like, [00:38:00] maybe, but I think if you get to that point, it's more about getting to, like building the skillset and becoming the person that, that can actually start, grow, and run a seven figure business is more of the.

That's the reward. That's it. It's not whatever the actual reward is. And anything after that is really understanding, like, how do you take what you've learned take what you've built and continue to just improve yourself and all these other variables that we just talked about.

Like how happy are you? Like I think there's so many people I know that are entrepreneurs that. Are unhappy people that have a ton of money and have success in business, and they have failure almost everywhere else. They're very much substance abuse, issues associated with that profession.

Lots of turnover in marriages, second, third marriages, poor relationships with family and friends.[00:39:00] I. How about we apply that same lens to these other areas and really focus on living a really well-rounded life. And not necessarily just how do I get more and more.

Because when you start to do that you're naturally gonna end up doing better because you're gonna have more time to focus on the things that really matter. You're gonna really make the decisions that are best based off of, what your mission is and not necessarily just revenue. And you're gonna have a lot more meaningful relationships in your life, which I don't know what the.

I don't know what that's worth, but like it's worth a lot more than what people probably think that it is or even friend systems or family relationships and all these other things that people wish they had more of. I don't think anybody dies and is just I wish I worked more. I wish I made a few more bucks.

Versus all these other things that we can work on. So I think the competitive nature, like I said, I think it's the number one thing that leads to success or failure. It's also the number one thing that I see that leads to an unhappy entrepreneur. To a really mentally, like poor mental health place for a lot of these folks, whenever they get to a point where they realize [00:40:00] is this like all this work, all this that I've tied my identity to, is it really that important?

And then it's hard for them, I think to really get over that and realize that there's so many other things that they have to just get better at.

Yves: It's redefining, in my opinion, What entrepreneurial an entrepreneur is and what success is because I don't believe any anyway, that success is how much money is my bank account.

For me, it's a combination of three things. And it's funny, as I've redone some of the onboarding process and coaching the coaches. It's like there's three areas that I think we can help an entrepreneur and maybe what is an entrepreneur? One is obviously like financial freedom. Getting a bigger number, more new patients.

The other one is time freedom. Being able to do the things that you enjoy the most within your business is what you need to strive for. If it's seeing patients, if it's marketing, if it's running the business, or maybe it's doing other things that are not in the business all possible through entrepreneurship and business.

And the third one is, Mental health, physical health, [00:41:00] fulfillment in your life. And all three of those things are so important. And if I got all three of those things, like I think that's a successful entrepreneur. When I have time freedom, I have financial freedom and I feel fulfilled as a human being.

Like I have made it, and I'm, sometimes I try to like, I think I'm being I need to be more humble, but at the same time, I feel like I am exactly there. I'm doing all those three things, and people tell me it enough that if finally I can actually say that they're like, how are you going on these trips?

I was like, I just do it because like I've worked so hard to get a point where I can do that and I'm not worried about more money. Yes, I'm trying to provide more value and increase my value and increase my net worth of doing all those things, but I'm also not doing expense of not living my life.

Literally right now. And that has never been more possible, in my opinion, than in today's world. There's a lot of things going a little weird nowadays, but that's a huge

Danny: bonus right now. I totally agree, man. I totally agree. It's just a completely different conversation too to think about like the idea of enough, [00:42:00] and some people view that as like a bad word.

That was the safe word that Tiger Woods's dad used with him whenever he was being like, super intense with him, with training. When he was, he would just yell the worst things at him while he was swinging or putting, and the safe word was enough, like it's a bad thing yet, the ability to say, I'm good, I have enough, I've gotten to where I feel very, good about where I'm at and I am okay.

I am content and not necessarily complacent. That's a difficult thing. I feel like a lot of people struggle with that, that are entrepreneurs and probably everyone that listens to this is gonna struggle with that and some capacity and. I think what you're talking about and being okay with whatever it is that you want to do and the life that you want to live, which is unique to you, like whatever that looks like you build these businesses that give you the vehicle to time and financial freedom around what it is that you want your life to look like.

That is an intentional life, not a not a life that is just. You, you [00:43:00] hope that things end up happening the way that you want. You make those things happen by being intentional and then putting the work in, and then they, when they do, you get to enjoy it.

Yves: Exactly. Said. Nothing to add.

Danny: I think that's the end of the podcast. I'm gonna leave it at that. So let me summarize these real quick. So number one trait is typically. Clinicians are great clinicians. They have a great clinical skillset. They just need to learn the business side. Second, they're gritty, so they don't give up and they stick to things.

Three, they're risk tolerant without being risky. So they're okay with taking risk, but doing so in a really calculated way. Four, they're mission driven, so they have something bigger than them that's important to them, that's pushing them to really succeed and to really do the hard work that's necessary.

Five, they're kind people. They're people that are doing the right thing for the people in their organization and the people around them. And deserve success, in my opinion. These types of people, I really hope do have success, but sometimes they're too kind and, they don't [00:44:00] look at the business side to be able to support the things they wanna do outside of it.

The last thing is that they're competitive. So competitive. They have desire to compete and win. And and that can be again, a slippery soap like we talked about. But probably the number one trait that I've seen that leads to success in these types of businesses. That's it, man. As always, guys, we appreciate you you listening.

Eve, I appreciate your feedback. You're a very wise. Very wise man, and I always appreciate what you have to say.

Yves: I love it. Thanks man. I appreciate the conversations too. These are always way too fun.

Danny: Yeah. Yeah. It's, they're, they are fun. I'm glad people actually listen to 'em cause we'll probably be having them anyway anyway, guys, thank you so much for listening and we'll catch you next week.

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