E502 | Becoming An Author With Natty Bandasak

Today, I am excited to be joined by Dr. Natty Bandasak, owner of MYOKINETIX Physical Therapy and Performance! Dr. Natty is an alumnus of our Mastermind  group and we are very proud of the progress he made during his time with us and what he continues to do after! Check out his recent book on ACL rehab, The Complete Guide To ACL Rehab, on Amazon!

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Podcast Transcript

Danny: [00:00:00] Hey, I've got a question for you. Do you know if you're tracking the right data, the right metrics, the right key performance indicators in your practice? This is something that's huge for us and really helps us make solid decisions within our business, but the prior software that we're using to run our practice made it really challenging.

To actually get that data out and use it in reports. Since we've switched to PPG everywhere, this has actually become way, way easier for us to be able to have the right data. We have a dashboard of all the things that we actually want to see, the metrics that we want to pull, and it makes our life a lot easier to pull the information that we need to make the right decisions within our business.

So if you're running blind, you're not tracking the right things or you're. Hard time actually pulling everything together. I highly recommend you check out our friends at PT Everywhere and see what they've got going on with their software platform. It's what we use for our practice. It's been a game changer for us.

You can check 'em [email protected]. I think you really like it.[00:01:00]

What's going on guys? Doc Danny here with the PT Entrepreneur podcast, and I got my buddy, Dr. Natty Bansak on owner of Myo Kinetics in Hanover, New Jersey, and another office in a town I can't pronounce. I'm hoping you can tell me how you pronounce your second office

Natty: location. I actually don't know how to pronounce it, so I just keep referring to Randolph because it's bigger Dude.

What?

Danny: What's up with that? Why name? Why name? A city something? Yeah. That literally nobody can pronounce correctly

Natty: and it's only. A one mile radius town. I dunno if Google doesn't recognize it, neither do I, but we just call it Randolph. Yeah. All right.

Danny: Two successful offices, he practices a More of a hybrid, out of [00:02:00] network model which is really cool.

A lot of performance based work. Somebody we actually, fortunately, had a chance to work with and is an alumni of our mastermind proud of what he's done during, and especially after just like watching you. Grow like a weed and just, bring other practitioners on and your branding is great and your messaging is great.

And it's just everything I see you doing, I'm like, man, he is, he's doing all the right things, at least visibly from the outside. I know it's, it's bumping into a wall a bunch of times along the way when we're building these things. But really have done an amazing job and recently a new author, which I know that's such a, albatros of an undertaking.

It's a challenging thing to do and it's it's an awesome thing to do as well. It's the complete guide to a c l rehab that recently came out and on Amazon. Go check it out. If you wanna learn how to. Rehab and a c l or up upgrade your a c l rehab techniques that you're doing.

And I'm excited to chat with you today about how things are going, not just with the book, but the practice and really also dive into the path of becoming an author. Cause I think many people could benefit from doing that. And yeah. And anyway, [00:03:00] I'm looking forward digging that into that with you today.

Natty: Awesome, man. Thank you for having me. Obviously I love catching up with you. Again, you. Great to be part of the alumni PG entrepreneur when I was in there. There weren't that many of us. Maybe like under 50 50, maybe under a hundred for

Danny: sure. Definitely in Atlanta.

So the last event we had before everything got shut down, was what was that, October, 2019? I think we had 50 people there. Yeah. And I remember actually. I got to experience your first waffle house, yes. Experience with you, and I taught you how to get an All-star special and eat it the right way.

Yeah. And I felt terrible the next morning, just so you know I actually drank far too much that night, and then I ate an a full All-star special and the next day, I was barely making it. Yeah, barely making

Natty: it. No, that was a fun time, man. I had a great time. That was a great night. Yeah, no, happy to be back here again, just to talk to you.

Always a good time to catch up and Yeah I can dive right in regarding writing my book. I have it next to me here. Little. Yeah. Let's show us. There you

Danny: go. How's it feel to hold that in your hands? I feel like that's a big accomplishment. It's a hard thing to do. Yeah. And also, does your family look at you differently now?

[00:04:00] Do they think you're. Cooler than they used to think you are.

Natty: No, I don't think so. I think it's the same way. I think my sisters just gimme, shout out more on on Instagram. But to me the whole goal of writing a book is really. I think it's more like self actualization for me. Obviously English is not my first language, my second language.

So to be able to put something down and actually deliver handheld product to the world, I think is, is a great feeling. But the whole process, I was on Shante podcast talking about this, the week it came out, but I tried to just, A really complex task as simple as possible.

So just what we learned in PT school, right? You break down con complex movement, you make it into a little parts and then you just do it repetitively and then you put it all together, right? So part to whole, I broke it down into more of if I were to write a book, I wanna break it down to different blogs.

So it's all started with writing one individual blog and then just stitch them.[00:05:00] So I think that made it a lot digestible for me. Yeah. To write a book just for me to sit there and oh, I wanna write about this whole thing cuz I can speak on a c l rehab. Just like when you're a specialist or something, you can speak on it for so long.

That's like me asking you to write a book on business now, it's gonna be completely different than what you would write two, three years ago because you're learning so much. So for me, I'm like, all right, let's take what I know. And break it down to the most simplest form as possible. And the book itself is really not for a clinician at all.

It's for parents, athlete, and coaches. So I'm taking my day-to-day interaction and say, Hey, based on the people that I speak to on a daily basis, whether they're parents, they're athlete themselves or their coaches, what information do I want them to know? If I can give. A book, like by the time they read through it, what do I want them to walk away?[00:06:00]

So I just started off with that and then just slowly worked my way backwards to say, okay, let's talk about the mechanism of injury. Let's talk about what do you do right after you tear it? Let's talk about different kind of graft, how to pick out a good surgeon. And then let's talk phase one.

After surgery, what happened? And then what does the end of phase one look? So that way, like I have to define it like the n f phase one for me is hey, you get your range of motion back, right? You can fully ambulate, you can fully walk, you can do squad, you can do squatting, pattern, hip pinch pattern.

Great. Now let's go to phase two. And it would just go two, then to three. Three then to four. And four is pretty much returned to play. And my clinic, we specialize in that purgatory zone where athletes. Done with rehab, but they're not quite ready for performance. So we live in that gray area and the gray area is where I love, because my background is strength conditioning, personal training, and fitness.[00:07:00]

And I just combined what I learned with pt. So if I know what the end goals look like, what the demands are on the field that the athletes need to be able to do based on their sports, I should be able to outline the tasks that they need to be able to do in order to get them there.

So I use like the standard a c L HOP test, that's my warmup because. You're not gonna look at the NFL combine and say, oh, look at this guy. They have, he has a great hop test. Nobody gives a shit about that. Like his three hop tests is so legit. Yeah. But if anything we like, Hey, you see this thing that we've been doing for like the past six months to get you warmup, it's your dynamic warmup.

Oh yeah. We're just gonna test you a little bit more now. So there is it takes the biopsychosocial component from it. But not to get off topic. So yeah, the book, it's just there just to help. Those parents, those coaches, and the athlete themselves. That way they have a guide. That's why I call it a guide.

It's something, it's almost like a map. Like, all right, if I'm here, oh, I need to get here. I just have to make a [00:08:00] left turn. Cool. Yeah. I don't feel so anxious. And with me, like I'm terrible with direction. If I don't have my G P s, I'm super anxious. I don't know how to get anywhere.

So I can only imagine if I. Was an athlete who my season just got ripped away. Or if I have a son or a daughter who's is now crying and is on the sideline, I would wanna have some sort of resources to help them guide 'em through Hey, in six months you'll be able to do this.

Why don't we work on that? So that's how the concept of book started. The writing itself, You know how it is. It's just all about having the habits, just blocking time to do it.

Danny: Yeah. And it takes a long time, but I think that for you, the intent of a book some people will say that, you should write a book if you have a creative idea.

And that's your creative outlet. And I think there's a lot to be said for that, for people just to write, fiction. And I think I actually find that would, I've not written a fiction book, but I feel like that would be harder. I can't imagine like writing dialogue and stringing together.

[00:09:00] Storyline and backgrounds of people and all kinds of things versus the type of book that I wrote and that you've just written. They're tactical and they're designed to empower people with information to help them with a, a problem that they have. And for your book, what's, I think what's interesting about this is when you write a book, it makes you the subject matter expert of a topic, regardless.

If you have a big publishing company that gives you an advance or not. People don't know that. I'll give you a perfect example of why I think you're gonna kill it with this book. There's a guy here in Atlanta. He it's two. There's two podiatrists in this practice, and this guy wrote a book from, I think it was in the mid eighties.

He wrote this book on running injuries. The information not even relevant anymore. It literally is very outdated. The pictures are outdated. Everything looks like from the eighties. The guy kills it because he gives out a copy of his. To everybody. I think anybody he meets. My father-in-law has three copies of his book and [00:10:00] he is been there one time.

I'm like, how he got three copies? I don't know. But I, this guy's book is all over the city, and if you were to ask runners in Atlanta who they would go to see for a foot problem of some sort, this guy's gonna be top one or two, I guarantee you. Just because of his book and the, and I look at it and I.

This isn't even great information anymore, but people don't know that. All I know is you are smart enough to write a book. You must know what you're talking about. And so I think for you to be able to get this in the hands of as many people as possible is great because, it's not like you can necessarily tell when somebody's gonna have an ACL L surgery.

You can't, or an ACL tear. You can't say Hey, Johnny's gonna have an ACL L tear in two months. No. So you should read this book, right? But it's something that people either have already had it and it hasn't gone well, the rehab process hasn't. Or you can get it in front of people that are a captive audience Parents who have daughters that play soccer and they have a significant increased risk of ACL tears versus their male counterparts.

So how are you using this? Cause it took you a hell of a long time. It costs money to print. You're selling it on Amazon, but that's [00:11:00] that's nothing compared to what you can generate locally. With this driving people your way, like what's your plan? Leveraging this and marketing this as part of your local strategy?

Natty: You hit the nail around the head. It's an authority move, right? Sure. It is. Is to make me a subject matter in, in a c l rehab. And and you know what I'm doing now is obviously I sent it to people that surgeon, that I know that I've been in contact with athletic trainers, personal trainers and any referral sources.

And if anything we give it to new patient that come into. Yeah. And just, obviously being out network our price point is a little bit higher, so we have people who obviously are price shopping and do all this stuff, but it is pretty cool to be able to call them like, Hey, would you like a copy of this book?

Yeah. That you know that we have. I, and from there, obviously my job is to. Make sure that when people wants to work with us here at my clinics, they're making an informed decision, and if I can send them testimonials, send them. [00:12:00] For them to read through oh, you know what? The way this guy and his team is approaching this rehab, I understand it.

And they were able to communicate to me. They were able to get me from point A to point B by just reading this thing. It seemed like we're gonna work well together and that's what we want. And I also use it as a almost like a litmus test. If I keep this book to someone and the parents read it and say, It's say my kids can return from 10 to 12 months, but I want 'em to be there at six, and I can openly say no, we don't believe in that, and then we're no longer a right fit right then and there.

Same surgeon, right? If surgeon's coming to me like, Hey, I need this kid to be clear in six months. I was like what are you doing biologically? Can you help them heal that graft sooner? Yeah, probably not. So we're not a good. So to me it does so many different things. Obviously bill, author bill authority when it comes to the subject, but also being able to set expectation.

That's what I'm looking for with the [00:13:00] potential patient or referral. That this is our standards, this is how we do things. I have conversation in past where parents would say on, on. My daughter's team toward the same day. Now she's back to playing. I'd say, I that's awesome.

But that's not how we do things here. Based on what I've seen, your daughter, she needs a little bit more, and two months later, that same girl that got clear earlier toward again, worst. Yeah, it is. So to me it, it keeps accountability to us obviously stay true to the to the evidence that's going on, but also to, to let people know that we have a standard, if you wanna get.

Just to get clear, there's a PD clinic down the road. I'll walk you over there. They'll clear you in two seconds right now, but just not with us.

Danny: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that the Trump card is we wrote the book on this. For you, have you seen already even the short period of time that the book has been out have you had examples of people that are called in or that have thought about working with you guys?

You [00:14:00] give 'em the book and it's like the thing that gets 'em over the. Absolutely.

Natty: Yeah. I have international player who was just on defense of working with us, and I was like, listen man, I don't know what you've been through. I can't speak on that experience, but I know this is the kind of work that we do.

Like I'm super passionate about this. I wrote a book about it and, yeah. And it's not to, I'm not saying it in like, where I'm like puffing up my chest. Like I wrote a book about I'm like, no, like I, this is something I really live and breathe. This is what I.

And this is why if you invest in us, if you invest in you kind of thing, right? If you come in here, I can tell you get the best care. Just because that's how much I care about the subject. And I think it gives me a talking point to show, to display my patient to my patient, my passion for a c r rehab.

And it's also create like great sense of morale for my. To have something that they're proud of to stand by. Before I publishes my PTs, read it, and they agree, like we obviously went back and [00:15:00] forth when it comes to Hey, maybe we need to add this in as far as like criteria for testing.

So this is a product that they all can be proud of as well. Yeah. So it does a lot of things.

Danny: Yeah. I think that it's such a advantage. A couple things, right? So the only thing worse than turning ACL is tearing it again. I think that right there for people, just that one phrase, we'll get some people over the line with you that are really wanting to get back to something that's a full-on, sport.

Not just limit themself forever. And then, Having the credibility and knowledge base to be able to write a book, it, the perception of expertise is just so compelling, right? Even if it's, Hey, lemme send you this. Take a look at it after you read the book, if you don't think we're the right fit.

Great. It's but you can at least get a better idea of my approach and see if anybody else in this area has a book they can give you to explain theirs, which there's basically nobody. Like you instantly have some amount of a competitive advantage. It's definitely something that I think that if you specialize in a niche, a [00:16:00] book locally can make a lot of sense.

Let's talk a little bit about the process of. Not just writing it, but also getting it published and how you go about doing that. So how long would you say it took you to write the book? From start to finish, so I'd say a year. So a year and you chipped away at it through blog posts and then you recycled that, which I think is very smart.

To leverage content you've already created and then weave it together in a more sort, cohesive manner for a book. With the self-publishing route. How, what does a copy of the book cost you? If you're giving it out? If you're buying it bulk, can you give it out to people locally?

What's a dollar amount that it costs your practice per book?

Natty: So it costs me so I do sell publishing through K D P, which is Amazon Kindle. $2 and 70 cents per book for like the paperback Yeah. Cover. So yeah, obviously I just as a published author, you get to order unlimited amount, so I order like 500 copies Yeah.

For it. But the writing. Was probably the easiest part. The coolest thing about this book is that there's an [00:17:00] online exercise library component to it using Cajabi. So that actually took more time. So to me, the book is great. It's a guy, but the, it's the exercise you get to do to follow it.

Danny: So that generates Names and emails. Yep.

Natty: Content information for you. Yeah. Yeah. So lead capture, like we have a QR code inside a book where people have obviously every single chat there's there's an exercise library with this book, please go check it out. And we lay it out into phase one, phase 2, 3, 4, and we'd spend a lot of time create those content so people have the ability to, obviously, I wouldn't recommend using this book to do your own rehab, but I'd recommend it to use as a guide Hey, you should be doing this.

Or if you're not doing this, have a conversation with your PT about it. Exactly. I love that.

Danny: It's like a litmus test. You're basically giving them, Hey, here's the here is the example of what you should be doing at these stages. And if you're not, You need to ha talk to your provider about why not, and maybe [00:18:00] it they, there's other reasons why you're not doing it, but maybe they're, it just isn't what they focus on.

And they're more of a generalist, like if they're, if they primarily work with a geriatric population that has had hip replacements and you just fall in their schedule as an a c l. Patient that's trying to get back to football, that, that's a very different type of person you're working with very specific goals at, and a very high level hybrid training, conditioning, rehab skillset that doesn't exist in the general population.

And we need both. Like one really is better often with another person and helping them find that, I think just gets better

Natty: outcomes. Yeah. Even for to the clinician out there that are listening to this, if someone come up with, present you with information like, Hey, based on this, I feel like I should be doing this.

Obviously they can get pissed at me, but I would challenge it use it as a talking point. Now you're having a conversation, right? It's almost like having a PT student, like under your care where they're gonna challenge you, like why you're doing these things. Sometime as a clinician, we're in this authority figure.[00:19:00]

Obviously the patient doesn't know as much as we do Clearly that's why they're there. But if they start challenging you on your way of thinking a little bit, wouldn't that make you a better clinician?

Danny: You would think. You're right. But that's also somebody that's self-aware enough to check their ego and be like, oh, okay, cool. I can learn something here and we can get better at this together and it's gonna help me with, the next person to have that comes through. Most likely though, it's probably gonna be somebody that's gonna. Yeah. Get the fuck outta here. That's online, I'm here right now and I do think that's really common for our just medical professional in general to have pissing contest with each other and their egos get involved. But I think as a general consumer, like if the consumer just ha went through an a c L tear and they have relevant information from somebody that has subject matter expertise in that, like you should be the most informed person possible.

At least I would. I would be learning everything I possibly could about the type of graphs, the process to go through what type of. Management of fluid can I do from day one, like any little thing to try to get the best outcome, the least likelihood that I'm gonna retail and get back to things that I like.

So I think [00:20:00] direct to consumer and direct referral sources, like what you're talking about is just genius, man. Like just getting that book in the hands of those people that you don't know when these are gonna happen, but when they do, it's sitting there, it's a physical thing. That's the other thing.

It's oh yeah, this book right here, and then boom, they can give it to somebody and that can just. Carry on and on because it's not like it expires,

Natty: yeah. And just to go, go back on the publishing side of things. So once everything is done I hired a book coach who literally walked me through step-by-step, creating like the, whatever the is BN number Yeah.

To It's so crazy cuz you can get your book cover design, but Amazon has all this criteria, it has to be this inch, this and that. Yep. So I invest the money up upfront to hire someone who's like well known at doing this. Because what I don't want to do is make mistaken then figure it out. And if you miss the deadline for pre-order to upload everything, then Amazon ban [00:21:00] you from ever doing pre-order again.

So I'm like, So I just know what I know and I knew I had to go out and get someone that a, an expert at publishing book to help me. So that was a big part, a huge find for me.

Danny: I, the editing side of it is something that I was unfamiliar with the the cover art, one thing that we didn't think about when I named, my book has essentially the granddaddy of all curse words on the front end.

Yeah. Yep. And even my kids they can't say it, but they'll spell it. They'll be like, oh yeah, my dad wrote a book called F U C K insurance. And they'll say that to their friend and I'm like, oh, whatcha you doing? Yeah. Their parents aren't gonna wanna know where that came from. And, but you can't market that with ads, by the way.

Oh. Because a profanity didn't know that when I named it the way that I did, but like the editing process of like how they put things together, I didn't know anything about that. And it's also, they help you, right? Like I remember the editor I had. She was like, what if we put like a, parental advisory tag on there, like a CD you weren't supposed to buy back in the day.

Oh, that's cool. Yeah. I [00:22:00] was like, yes, that's what I want on there. Yeah. And like they, this is what they do for a living, and they know all this stuff and they know how to get it in there. So it's definitely worth doing it. And it's a couple thousand dollars is what it cost us to get everything packaged up.

And ready to go. And that's a one-time, investment. Just making sure that you have it put together and it doesn't have terrible like errors all over it. That's not our thing. These people love grammar and let them do their thing. So you know, for you, once you have it though, it's not again, like this guy that I'm telling you that's podiatrist decades, he's had the same book.

Yeah. You do you think that 10 years from now, this is still gonna be paying dividends for your.

Natty: I think so I, I look at it as a, as an evergreen, investment. Yeah. And it's cuz now that I got one out of the way like now if I were to write a second one, it was like, oh, I already did one.

It's easier, it's, yeah, it's easier for me. Yeah I foresee that we're using. Forever until there's like a new research coming out that completely changed the way we view a c l, I'll probably update it. And that's, I'm totally cool with that. Yeah, and I [00:23:00] think like it's, another thing that I'm really proud of, and I was talking to Shante about this was before I wrote this book, I went on Amazon and I just type in a c l rehab book and there.

Many a c L rehab books. Most of them are written by, some sort of surgeon or personal trainer. And to me, I'm like, dude, I just spend so much money to go to PT school, get my doctorate to become an expert at rehabbing people. And then when I go on Amazon and I don't see any PT on there writing about a c l rehab, like how can we hang out hat and say this is what we do as a profession.

So to me it's a pride thing for like our field as a physical therapist. So the fact that like my book was the number one new release in that category, which is sport medicine, and it was. Probably one, the first one with that was written by a pt. I take great pride in that. It's almost like I planted an American flag on the moon.

But [00:24:00] what, when an A P T A flag, right? And a

Danny: BJ man, just your the Myo Flag. Flag. Yeah. Boom. No, I think that's, I think that's a great point because you're right. The vast majority of books like this are, they're surgical books that are, the vast majority are written for other medical professionals.

There's not a lot of, I guess more simplified books for people that are a completely different avatar. Cause your avatar is parents, athletes, and the coaches and trainers that work with them, that is just making this a very e easy to digest information.

Book, right? That's like a roadmap, like you said, and I think that's actually really hard to do. I almost feel like you, you referencing a bunch of randomized control trials and all this, data that's gonna make you sound really smart. Most people do that versus what are your frameworks that you use?

What are your benchmarks in practice? Not just what some article says that you're seeing with the athlete work you're doing from a day basis, which we know research is always years behind where we're at in, in the [00:25:00] actual clinic in doing the work. And it's sharing that and sharing a simplified way of doing.

Shows depth of knowledge that many people just don't have because to simplify a complex topic is very difficult to do. Yeah.

Natty: I think, people now feel loves making simple concept more complicated. Sure. Yeah. Cuz you feel like you can justify why you charge and why you're important that way.

And I think for me it's like going back to the basic Hey, can we, it's, it's like in business, right? In in business and also in, in clinical practices. If you know everything, but you can speak to a person in front of you and make them understand what you're trying to tell them, you're not gonna be able to convince them why you can help them, or why your service is the best fit for.

So I just took a extremely simple approach and the fact that, I was able to write a book and then get it on that list under a PT obviously is I think it's super cool. And I'm hoping whoever listening to this and they wanna write a book and they're [00:26:00] obviously are a PT as well like we need more of this in our profession, we need more.

Us to really dictate and tell people what we do. I just came back from a dry kneeling course and the instructor was there. He was fired up. I loved it. He was ready. I was ready to jump through a wall and he was like, you know what, as a pt what are we trying to hang our hat on?

Are we trying to be like really good exercise specialist? And he was like, all right, if we go that route, then who are we competing with? We're competing with trainer. Right then trainer charges less. They also don't have student loans, so they can make probably better decision than us cuz we have way too much.

And then that can be taken away from us too. I think my favorite line with him was we need to be the greatest hit up all evidence-based practice. Like we need to be able to, like when people come in, we need to be able to treat. In when it comes to like orthopedic stop ailments, we should be able to deliver all those care.

And to me that's important because, why did we lose [00:27:00] some of our ability? Like for example, in New Jersey we just gained our dry needling back, but we lost it for five years. Why did we lose it? Because we weren't able to leverage and say with confident Hey, we're just as skills at acupuncture when it comes to the.

We, we are, but we just didn't have the balls to say so. So I think it is there's a lack of confidence in the field as a whole to put something down and to put our foot down and say, Hey, we're great at this. And which is why when an, when I go on like a Facebook group, I hear kids and like PTs complain how they don't get paid as much.

They're unhappy, this and that. But then, If you want to get paid what you deserve, you need to walk the walk. You need to show the confident. Then do something to elevate the field as a whole, not just yourself individually. Yeah. So to me it, I obviously didn't think of it this deep, but as I release it and I have more time to, reflect [00:28:00] back on it, I'm like, oh wow.

This is pretty good. It is created like a really good ripple effect for me. And I think. As a PT myself who love what I do on a day-to-day basis. Like I still treat, but I, cause I love the clinical side of it. All of us need to be able to say man, like this is what we do. This is our jam.

A c l this is my like u c l, this is us. Like all of that stuff. I think we need to have a more collective front and we need to go back to obviously being good clinician first, rather than try to do so many things at the same time. Cuz I'm sure you, you can speak on this more since the pandemic, there's way more people who are looking to start that own practice now than ever, which rightfully because the company they were working for, obviously furloughed them.

So there's no trust. So how can you work for that people? But at the end of the day, it's all going back to You need to keep pursuing your craft as being a good clinician. And then once you get to a certain point, you then transfer that passion of being a good clinician to now being a good business owner because it goes hand in [00:29:00] hand.

How can you hire a good clinician if you don't know what a good clinician look like? If you're not, if yourself is not a good clinician, how can you

Danny: spot a good one? Yeah, that's a great point. And I think I, we were talking about this a little bit earlier, before the podcast as well in regards to just you.

Some of it's clinical experience, some of it's life experience. If you're 25 years old and you've been outta school for two years and you're, you, you just, you don't have as much just like reps under your belt to maybe know those things you're talking about in terms of quality or decision making and things like that. Now, that being said, there's definitely many young clinicians that we've had a chance to work with that do great. But it takes a certain kind of person that's self-aware enough, humble enough to where they can say, okay, these are things I need to improve.

This is where you need to know when to lead and when to follow and be able to develop yourself just as much as your personal, just as much as your clinical skillset. Which definitely is something that is just a prerequisite. I [00:30:00] think most people that go into business for themselves, at least that we work with the clinical side, they're confident in, otherwise they probably wouldn't start a practice anyway.

Yeah. And you are, you're also right that. I agree. I think PT is undervalued, we can yell about it and it doesn't change anything. You can get mad about it, but you're just, know, it's just an argument. You're, you can't win because that's just what the marketplace says we're worth.

That's what primarily insurance says we're worth. That's also what you say you're willing to take. So this is how pay happens. And, for people to say, all I can potentially double what I'm making do by doing my own thing and learning a new skill. This is why we're seeing so many people do that because there's not a lot of G great options. I don't know many other options besides that. For somebody that's carrying a hundred grand in debt to offset that and be able to increase their earning potential with minimal risk, I think is why we're seeing so, so much of it. And you've done it as well, right?

You've seen it and and that's why I did it.

Natty: Yeah. Yeah. That's why I did it. I went to business for myself. Obviously I was getting burned out the system, yeah. Just [00:31:00] seeing three, four patients now, it clearly doesn't work. I can deliver the best care to my ability and.

Plus obviously the upside of that is, is tough. You have a big ceiling on how much you can earn, right? And that's why people embark into this kind of journey. And like running a business is also a challenge by itself. You'll make more. But then as you have a family becoming more time poor too, because your net word is directly tied into your clinical hours, right?

And the only way to scale out of those clinical hours to hire. And to hire someone, you need to have some sort of expertise. Like I, I can't the PT that we have now, they're great because they're l, lifelong learner, right? I can teach them something clinically and something related to lifewise and they can teach me something clinically, and that's why it works so well.

I think that at the end of the day for us to increase our value as a profession. All going back to like just becoming really good clinician. I think you need to be able to do both, right? So when I got up, so like when I joined [00:32:00] PT Entrepreneur, I never stopped taking my my, my clinical course, right?

So I would then fly to Atlanta one weekend. And then two weekends later, I'll go somewhere else, take my course. Because I know there's the direct correlation of me running a successful business and me getting good outcomes. Yeah. It's always, the outcomes will dictate how well you do, are you are doing in your business.

And you can't lose sight of that because at the end of the day, we are in service base and we need to deliver great outcome that we promised to people. And nothing ruined our business faster. Unfulfilled promise.

Danny: True. And I think the only thing that will is a poor experience.

Yeah. Like we've seen this now we've had a number of staff, that we've had that have come and gone and that are currently with us. And so what's interesting to see is we have certain people that I would say are not as good clinically. But they connect with people so well.

They just are like so good at just connecting with people [00:33:00] and those people feeling like they've been heard and relating to them on different levels and they will give people so much more grace and leeway. On. And be patient as far as outcomes are concerned versus somebody. And we have people that are great, like just great clinicians, just somebody that I would go to over anybody else, and you take that same person and yet they do not connect with people the same way. The experience is not quite the same and they're not as popular, they're not as requested by people that come in. So it's interesting to see, this, the hard skills and the soft skills, and this is one of those things that.

Some people have the hard skills. And I think that the soft skills are harder to train. Yes. The people that have the soft skills and you can train the clinical skills takes a little bit more time, but they tend to do better if they have the combination of both. But, it's just, it's been interesting to watch because you wouldn't think it would matter that much, but when you really think about chronic pain in part.

There's a lot to be said for somebody, having trust and believing they're in the right place. And a lot of that fear, anxiety, stress that [00:34:00] they've had for a long time, it starts to melt away, little by little as they, they start to make the right adjustments.

Natty: Yeah. And you need both, right?

When I, yeah. When I look when I'm looking to hire a PT or any staff here is we're big into the soft skill. Can you communicate with the person in front of you? Can you, if you can communicate, great. Are you humble? Great. Are you an active learner? Great. Awesome. Because I can teach the hard skill. I can send you to a nice course.

I can get you mentorship and do all that. You'll learn the hard skill, but it's the soft skill that make you more human. Yeah. We have experience in the past where, Would have someone who have really good hard skill, but not the best of soft skill. And then, it, it would hurt the business just because people would not wanna come see that individual.

And then and then, again, you can be the smartest person in the room, but if you don't know how to make the other person in front of you, trust you, then it doesn't matter. And I think another thing that I would say, like we do really good here is that we're able to, [00:35:00] Build rapport with people and say, Hey, listen, I know what you need and I know where you want to go.

Here's how we're gonna get there. Here's why you need to do this X, Y, and z. In order to do this thing that you want. Yeah, if you can paint that picture, I think that's huge because most people, when you come in, obviously if you are a little more inflated in your ego and you did all this certification, you wanna be like, Hey, I know what I'm doing.

Great. But make sure they understand that you know what you're doing and why it's important to them. I think people are missing out that, oh, I

Danny: had a great a good friend that was a great physician, like just grape is super smart and he used to have this coffee cup that said, Your Google search doesn't equal my doctor, doesn't equal my md, right?

Like he would drink out of it every day. And he was terrible bedside man. He was not good, but incredibly smart. If I needed to know what I was dying from, I would go see this guy. Yeah, he was phenomenal, but awful on the other side. Now in the. [00:36:00] You can get away with that cuz people don't really have a choice.

It's socialized medicine. So they can't like, not choose you or choose you really, they just, you just go wherever there's something like Yeah. It's not gonna really fly in a civilian world because people have choice. And they don't want to be treated like that. And they, I guarantee you they have searched many things and probably have many questions and probably have poor information or maybe great information or a combination of both.

Then need somebody to. Be able to listen to them and help them figure out what is right. And I think what you're talking about more than anything is getting buy-in from people via clarity of what they're gonna do, the next logical steps. That's actually incredibly valuable if someone can come and work with you and they have clarity on, number one, their problem, what the next steps are, and then a plan going forward of how to achieve.

It's better than 95% of medical visits that anybody's ever gonna have. And that is going to also just lead to remarkable outcomes and word of mouth that you're gonna get from people that really drives the business in a healthy way without having to be quite as dependent on some of the other channels that [00:37:00] can drop off.

Because this is constantly happening as great outcomes. So I think you're dead on with it, man. And I, it's just one of those things that the mixture of it for people happens at different times. And also, everybody hits the phase if they're gonna do something on their own.

Of deciding when they're gonna do it at different time. It could be a moment in a click maybe you had or I had, it could be a life event that's shit, how am I gonna make more money? I have this little baby I have to buy food for. They're expensive. So like I, there can be many different catalysts, but.

Regardless, those core skills of soft skills and helping people with clarity and being an active listener, hard skills of being a great clinician, diagnosing effectively and picking the right outcomes, those that's it. Like you need those, and if you can do that, you can at least replace your job like that.

That's a baseline for you to get there. Yeah.

Natty: Yeah. No absolutely. You can't, you, you need to be able to walk the line, right? Or like counter. Just counterbalance in some way. And then, and that's just really how it is. What, whatever principle I learn, to become a [00:38:00] good pt, I apply to the same thing in business and vice versa.

Whatever I learn in business, I apply on being pt and now it's more like whatever I learn in life, I apply to both. Because at the end of the day, whatever you do is, it's a directly, it's, it is a reflection of who you are. And how you doing anything, how you do everything.

Danny: For look for you now you have what, five, four, or five providers I believe within the practice is.

Natty: Yeah. So right now we have

Danny: five. Five, okay. So we have five, five providers. You guys have grown significantly, multiple locations. What's the most difficult thing for you as a business owner right now at this stage that you're at?

What's the hardest thing for you as far as, a skill that you need to get better at a problem that you see that keeps pop popping up around this size? What is the more challenging thing that you deal with when you have a sizable practice like,

Natty: I think from I think the most common one is, me taking some time away to do the clinical stuff, to do the business stuff, and then people constantly asking for me to be seen.

So we're at a transition point where, [00:39:00] yes, my name's on everything. People still refer to me now, I'm almost like a the transition guy where, yeah, if someone requests for me, great. I'll do the eval, but then I'll make sure I was like, Here's how we do it. We're, we have a team approach, team dynamic.

You're gonna see, all of our clinician and because we want you to have the best outcome that we can based on, I, I always say listen, I only see what I know. So I don't want my bias to limit your potential. So I want you to work with, these are the doctors that I have, and my role now is just like to pretty much level up the people that I have and to continuously invest in them.

And it's literally go, it's always going great. Like when you hire someone, right? This is like the first, this is always. A main question you're about to hire someone like, Hey, if I hire someone, how much should I pay them? How much should I give them in Conan? How much should I invest in them?

What if they leave? It's always what if they leave? Yeah. We have staff come and go now it's, it is part of the business, but, [00:40:00] To me is, you have to always invest in people and you obviously you hire based on your core values, which is a huge thing for me now.

So my job is to always pick up my, my, my team. Yeah. Because they are they hear because I see something in them. And they're a reflection of their core value that we have in the company. So I wanna make sure that they're being invested at all time and that they feel hurt. So the challenge for me, it's superficial.

One is obviously getting people to not ask for me anymore, but the fact that if you don't ask for me, gimme an opportunity to have a conversation to then transition them to other clinician. The second one is I just need to. Manage my time to keep spending more time with my staff. Yeah. And I think in the past I was really naive where if I hired someone I could just take a step back and go do these other things and then everything would be okay.

It would be okay for probably four to six months until it's not okay anymore.[00:41:00] I think people always need recognition. People always need. That's like you getting married to your wife and then after the honeymoon period you're like, all right, we're good for a year right now. I'm just gonna go do my own thing and I'll see you at dinner.

That wouldn't work. You still have to go on date tonight. You still gotta do that. And to me, like when it comes to people, there's time where I lost sight into that, but now I'm slowly coming back into it. I make sure, like I spend one-on-one time with my staff. I wanna make sure what's going on, in, in their life.

Not in a way like where I'm nosy, right? In a way where hey, Let's see how we can be successful together. Like how the thing time for

Danny: you is the hard part, right? Like you've said this now multiple times, I guess it's always so hard. So like the thing that it sounds like not in all cases, but in, in many cases, the thing that ends up having to be dropped is the thing that we like so much which is working with patients. Which is frustrating in one way, but it's almost like to, to you, for you to have the time to grow your people as you have more. You need to remove certain tasks that [00:42:00] allow you to spend more of that time with them. So do you feel like clinical care is something that you're going to have to drop down or potentially remove, all exclusively to where you're just running the practice, you're just mentoring your people?

Or do you feel like you can have balance with that as well?

Natty: I think I'll eventually, the goal is I'm not gonna be doing clinical care and I'll do the I'll. Because I have to fill in or something like that. Sure. Or, I would do it as a choice, not as a. And that's a different, and now I'm at the point where, I love the team that I have and I love seeing them grow.

And now there's nothing cooler than, getting someone who's like a new grad, who's who's just been out of school. You train them, you get them into your culture and then you see them treat the patient get better without you directly being involved. I think that's pretty good, cuz now I create a.

Ripple effects, right? Cause I only have two hands. I only do so much. I, if I have five clinician, now we have 10, five pair of hands. So now we can help more people [00:43:00] and to see people get better without me having interaction with it. But I help them indirectly by mentoring. My team that's me.

It's fulfilling. I get to help the patient indirectly. I get to help my PT and my staff directly. And at the end of the day, the outcome is good for all parties.

Danny: And I think to your point as well, like the mentorship of the people that are on your staff it's an area that. I see people make a mistake constantly with not spending enough time with their staff.

I was at a business like small local conference about two months ago, and they referenced a study where it was a Google study where they looked at one-on-one mentorship and retention durations with employees. And what they saw was consistent one-on-one mentorship with their direct superior.

Led to a retention of three times longer than not doing it. And what they found [00:44:00] was the cost to turn somebody over in one of their jobs was anywhere between 50 and a hundred thousand dollars. So they're saving themself a massive amount of money just by. Continuing to have one-on-one mentorship and conversations with the people that are underneath them.

And I think, I don't know what the number is per person that equates to and that scales to you before you then have to have other people involved. They're doing the same thing. But I see it in every major organization in the Army, same thing. They call it counseling. It actually usually wasn't a good thing.

It was usually for them to tell you about all the things that, like they would shit sandwich you, they'd be like, Hey, you're doing great. You really suck here. You need to work on this. And oh, by the way, great work on this. And then there. But it was still your direct mentor.

And so I think that's huge. And I think for you, I know you have big goals and you have a big vision for my Connects and. The people I think are the most important asset. The, not in a transactional way, but like they're the most important part to carry forward your culture because at a certain point you can't, you're not gonna be able to mentor everybody one-on-one.

Yeah. And it's exciting to watch [00:45:00] as you do that with your folks, cuz it's rubbing off on them and then they get to go into that same role and you're building a business that allows opportunities for all these other people. And it's frankly is really cool and exciting to watch, man. And it's been a lot of.

Catch up with you about how the business has gone and your book and all that. And it's also obvious to see why you're having success and how well deserved it is. Because I think that you're somebody that is doing a lot of the right things in the profession that, I wish more people would do.

And I hope it's a really good example that people

Natty: follow. No, I appreciate it, man. And yeah, going back, it's, it is all about people. If I don't have my people, I can't write my book. So it wouldn't true allow me it wouldn't free my time to do this. And also going back to just to touch on the mentorship standpoint, it's also accountability.

I'm not just mentoring them, just oh, what's going on? I, you need to have a hard conversation when people are not pulling through and you need to figure out why. And, I think that's, The most challenging thing, especially when you're like, when you're nice, right? When you're a nice person, you want the best intention, you're first hire, you're like, oh, this is gonna be good.

[00:46:00] We'll be best friend forever. And that's not how it works usually. And you usually run a business as like a family style restaurant at first. That's my background. My parents own restaurant and it was all like, everyone's family works together, but. With family style restaurants, there's lack accountability.

You can't call people out on it. So we, transition out from that. And we have if you read the book Traction, like you talk about score scorecards meeting, we do that every week. I'm sorry, every two weeks to make sure that, they are being heard that I'm not putting so much on them.

The whole point of having that is more to gauge me if I'm doing. If I'm asking too much of them or is also gimme an opportunity like, Hey, you told me you're gonna do this. Why didn't you do it? What's going on? What's what? What's happening? And you can have a really good adult to adult conversation rather than being all like petty and stuff.

The mentorship has to come with accountability and is not always a feel good stuff. And we. I talk about this in the past before where, when you first read like business [00:47:00] books in the beginning, everything's all about feel good, create good culture go out for happy hour, having toggles Tuesday, this and that.

But, good culture is way more than that. It's can you get good outcomes? Can you deliver what you. So I'm transitioning away from all the feel good tech culture cuz everything is all tech-based, right? This is not Google, like we don't have Google budget.

You're not gonna have nap pods and all of that stuff. Yeah, exactly. And at the end of the day, it's a business so you need profit and for people to grow into your business, the business needs to make more money. At the end of the day when I'm having like a yearly review with my employee, I would tell 'em like, Hey, the business grow this much.

It's allow us to bring in more people and therefore, how is, I can't just give you a director position because I like you. You gotta direct something. Yeah.

Danny: They might be the complete wrong fit for it too. Exactly. Just cuz you've been here longer doesn't mean that you're the right manager of other people, and that is tough. And I think it's challenging to know that. And [00:48:00] it takes time and it takes understanding people and realizing what their strength and weaknesses are. And obviously. You've done a good job of it, man. And it's there's many things we learn, we know through good and bad experiences, and it's part of the it's part of entrepreneurship, which is just a huge personal development opportunity in so many ways.

And if you're willing to accept that and almost have to if you wanna be successful in a business. But dude where can. Where can people find out more if they wanna reach out? If they wanna get a, if they wanna get a copy of your book, number one. But if they're interested in, myo, kinetic, maybe they're in your area and they're like, this guy sounds like you'd be a super cool guy to work for or work with.

Lemme put it that way. Where do they find out more about, what you got going on?

Natty: Yeah, I'm on social media, so you can go on Instagram is doctor, d o, CT o r dot naty. And then, or you can go to my business page, which is Myo Kinetics, M Y O K I N E T I X. The book you can find on Amazon the Complete Guide to a c l Rehab.

I can probably send the link over to you, you can put on the show note. Sure. I think that would be great. And for their entrepreneur listening out there. [00:49:00] Listen, if you wanna support my book, I would appreciate it. Gimme a five star review. I think we need that. I'm on a mission to take over that guy, Ben, that knee over to guys he's on number one right now, so I'm trying to, friendly competition, but also if you are looking to write a book, you can clearly get my book and then see what I did and download, the exercise program that I have.

Cause we use Kajabi, right? You guys use Kajabi. So you can know how to leverage, online platform to, to capture more more information. And I think it's genius.

Danny: I think that's actually the smartest thing you did in your book that we didn't do in ours. It just, it's yeah.

Natty: Thank you, man. I took it from you. I didn't know about Kajabi's until

Danny: you guys no, I like the, yeah tagging that on with the book I think is just really like a great way to, to leverage the book and as well as lead gen because Amazon does not give you their list of people that buy your products.

So you have to, they have to find, they have to do it some other way if they're gonna, join your email list or whatever. Baking that in, I think Is super, super smart. Yeah. So go get the book, check out what he's got going on. If you're interested [00:50:00] in writing a book yourself.

I, it's. Many positive things for for our business. It's sounds like it's going really well for you right now, and I think it's going to be a really good asset for the business in a, for a long period of time. And it's something that a lot of people are unwilling to do.

So if you're willing to put. The amount of discomfort in to write a book, it really puts you in a slightly different place locally that, that makes you look really very credible.

Natty: Yeah. And then you can reach out to me with some questions, like I can connect you with the right resources if you're looking to do a book.

And, or any question, I'm just looking to connect with good people

Danny: Awesome. Natie man, thanks so much for your time. I know you got a lot going on. You're a busy guy. We appreciate the hour you gave us. And dude, it's super cool to catch up and see how you're doing. It's just awesome to hear your success you're having and very well deserved.

And not a surprise by any means, you're definitely somebody we thought was gonna be a rockstar. Dude, thanks again for jumping on the podcast and as always guys, thanks for listening and we'll catch you guys next week.