E217 | Do You Want To Go Fast Or Slow?
Aug 22, 2019
If you're stubborn like me and think you can figure everything out on your own, then today's episode is for you. Owning your own business can be extremely stressful and sometimes you will question why you're even doing it.
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Episode Transcription:
Danny: Hey, what's going on, guys? Doc Danny here with the PT Entrepreneur Podcast, and it's Thursday morning. Maybe it's Thursday morning for me. Or I'm sorry, Thursday morning, when this is coming out, it's Wednesday morning for me. It means I got a chance to walk my kiddos to school today. Make breakfast with them, get up early, and workout.
So it's, it's, it's a, it's the start of a great day. It got some cool stuff coming up today, with some business coaching work that I have going on. And, and I had some time to record a podcast, and I was sitting here, actually after having done a call, for somebody who's in our mastermind.
And, it got me thinking about some of the things that I'd gone through and that I talked to him about. In particular, was this idea of speed. How quickly do you want to learn and the most natural ways in the hardest habits to do that? So that's what I want to get in with, for you guys today, are you listening to me on a Thursday morning.
Go ahead and, give yourself a few minutes to sit down and, and maybe write some stuff down and think about this and ask yourself some questions that, you know, I'm going to probably, I'm hoping to challenge you on a little bit because of many of you, may. Be like me in many ways. In terms of being stubborn, I'm kind of, well, I'm very stubborn.
My wife would probably tell you that I'm incredibly stubborn. I do not like to admit when I need help. On things. And, and I usually try to figure things out on my own until I get so frustrated. I finally have to figure out who can help me solve this. And then, and then, and then I do. And I think that is a severe flaw and something that I, I've had to work on a significant amount over the last few years.
And if that sounds like you, if you look like somebody that is just willing to figure it out on their own, that's great, but it's not necessarily the best way to go about or not. I'll explain what I'm talking about. So when I first got, out of the army, I had a mentor of mine, and he said, he told me, he's like, Hey, you should, you should look at getting involved in a business group or find a coach because this is just different than what you're, you've ever done.
You in the army, you're good clinician, but like, know nothing about how to run, start, grow a business, none of that. Right. And I just ignored him because of a couple of things. Number one, I didn't feel like I needed it. I felt like I could figure it out. I didn't think I, as they were worth it in terms of like, paying for it.
And, and also I had this mentality of like, well, I don't even really know what I need to know yet. So like, why would I seek help if I'm not sure what I need help with? Right. And, and I think that's where a lot of people are at. They're just like, well, I don't even are ignorant. They're like, I don't even know what I need help with.
I just know that I'm trying to figure some shit out. And for me, You know, I've had a lot of scars from the business. I've got a lot of them. And when I talked to people, the thing that I like to bring up is to think of the hardest thing you've ever done in your life. And if you, if you haven't started a business yet and you're doing that, or maybe you just started that.
It, it just really doesn't get easier. Let me put it that way. Like you're entering into something that is inherently going to be challenging for the rest of your life. Now you can look at it two different ways. I could scare the shit out of you and will make you not want to do it, or it could excite you.
And for me, I like that. I love continually having to grow and learn and challenge myself. And sometimes it's sketchy too. It's like, you know, just putting yourself in a situation where you're continually being tested, it, that can get it, that can get. Difficult to handle at times, and there's a lot of stress involved with that because there's inherent risk.
Also, owning a business. If you're an employee, there's minimal risk. If you own a business, there's a lot of risks because you're on the hook for things that happen negatively in there. You're employing other people. You have a lot of responsibilities that other people just take for granted and assume it's, it's, you know.
Always going to be there, but it's inherently not. And every day is not guaranteed in terms of your business. You know, being there, making the revenue, you need to have it, you be healthy and, and, continue along. So for me, you know, the scars that I have come in into a couple of different ways. Number one, my health, I talk about this and the book that I wrote, and I've talked about this before, and it's something that's.
Early on, I would say the first two years whenever I was in business, and I've never been more unhealthy in my life. And at all outward appearances, I was still like training somewhat hard, doing a lot of CrossFit at the time. And, I didn't look unhealthy, but internally I was a mess, you know, stress off the charts.
I started tracking my blood panel work whenever I was in the army, just proactively. And I had these numbers of like, where I was at with mine. Testosterone numbers, you know, with my C reactive protein numbers. There's a couple of big ones that I would track. And, they were just terrible when I retested them after some time of being out and starting my business, you know, I looked like an 85-year-old man on the inside, and you know, I was a 30-year-old man on the outside.
And it just took a period to where I hit the wall, and then I'd like. I had to make a change. Because I couldn't just work, I couldn't just work my way out of the problem anymore. You know, I never had a problem with like trying to, putting in, a lot of work, putting in an excellent job for extended periods, you know, over a year, two years, whatever it was at the time.
And I still work a lot, but I work less than I did whenever I was, just starting. But it takes a severe toll personally on you, and for me, you know, I've been able to dig myself out of that hole, but it's still something that. You know, the amount of work that I put in and, and things that I enjoy.
It's, I have to intentionally, you know, eat well, manage sleep and train, and I can't train it the capacity that I used to in terms of super high-intensity training, I just don't recover the same way. And, and I'm more aware of that, which is helpful because now I can train a little more intelligent manner and not just kind of like beat myself up.
So I'm not, you know, I'm a much healthier position than I was years ago, but that's something that I went through that was tough. The other thing is relationships. You know, as you're going through something stressful, it can be challenging where you know, you, you feel almost like a little bit helpless cause you don't know if it's going to work or not.
You don't know how to make it work. You don't know what you're not good at. You don't know where to get help and resources, and guidance. And you're trying to do this thing that is so difficult that very few people can accomplish a successful business that lasts more than five years.
That is very rare. I think it's only like 10 to 20% of businesses are still around five years later. That's it. Most of them fail. You've got a better chance of getting through fucking buds and becoming a Navy seal than having your business survive for five years. And that's nuts. If you think about it, that we're willing to put our family's financial time, our financial resources, time freedom, economic position all at stake for this business that you're trying to create for yourself, and, and build this vision that nobody else can see.
That's kind of a crazy thing if you think about it. And for me, the relationships around me were some of the first ones that I would take time away from because I would have to find time to put in all this work that I was doing. So, for instance, I would wake up early. I still do. I'm usually up around four 30, but I don't stay up as late as I used to anymore because I've cut that part out.
But I'll wake up at four 30 for me, I, I'm either going to the clinic, I have 6:00 AM patients or. I'll work out in the morning. I'm on days like this, where I don't have patients. And, and then I'll, I'll, I'll get going today when walking the kids to school or whatever, and I have things I'm working on with the business on days like this.
But, previously, I would just wake up. I would see patients all day. I would come home, I would spend some time with the kids and Ashley, and as soon as the kids would go to bed around probably like seven 30, I would go straight back to work. In many cases, I would just like to sit next to Ashley on the couch.
Like maybe she was watching something, and I would work on my computer. Like I was following up on things, writing emails, programming for people, doing marketing things online, building out the website, and all these other things that I had to do. And then she would go to bed. And I would continue to do that until probably around like midnight.
And then I would go to bed, and I would wake up at four 30, and I would do it all over again. And then, at the time, I was traveling two, three times a week, to teach for MobilityWOD. So I'd be gone, you know, for extended periods. Sometimes her time zone changes in there, it's international.
And then I'd come back and get right back into it. And I did that, like I said, for a solid two years before finally hit the wall. And along with that time. All of that neglect, you know, with mine. My, you know, with, with our family in particular, in particular, Ashley, you know, I put our, I put us in a position where it was a very, very stressful relationship for some time.
And we've never, ever had problems in our, in our marriage the way that we did. While I was going through the early stages of our business, and I didn't have anybody to talk to about it. I didn't know that I was turning into like a one-dimensional jackass. And, It sure would have been nice to know that at the time.
And then you hear that from your spouse, and you're, you put yourself in a position where you're almost ruined. This thing that, that means so much to you in particular with our, with our kids as well, and short of being there, but not being there, kind of being there but not being very present because I was so stressed and so my mind was always somewhere else.
They can tell as well. And, and the, the relationships that we have now are way more reliable than they were then. But at the time. No, I have, I've got a scar from, you know, breaking down relationships around me and, and having to build those back then up. Even friends of mine for a long time. Like they just, they didn't want to be around me, you know, because I was just so stressed and I was just, didn't know what to do about it.
And then our business suffers too. Like we were kind of cruising for the first year probably, and we were doing well, and we were growing quickly. And I think we hit the market at the right time. And we had a service that people were interested in, and we fulfilled on it well. And, we had a desire to like over-deliver.
And, and that came across in a way where a lot of people wanted to work with us. And, and then we hit a stage where it was like, okay, I'm busy, and now what? And we decided we were going to scale past ourselves and this is where. You know, I almost ruined our business because I went, and I opened a standalone facility.
I did it all wrong. I didn't know anything about zoning or licensing, and I hired people at the wrong time, and I paid them too much for what we were making without even having them. Have you worked to fulfill on, and, And and really like, put ourselves in a position where, you know, we depleted all the cash reserves that we had throughout about a six-month timeframe, and set our business back dramatically.
And that is when I finally decided that I needed to get some help. And this is, this is kind of my whole point of, of this, is to give you an idea of the things that I've had to learn the hard way and that you don't have to do those things as well. Like it's silly for you too. Put yourself in a position where you ruin your health, almost ruin your marriage and your relationship with your kids, and nearly ruin your business in the process because you don't need to do that.
There are resources out there. They're there, and there's help. And I ask people all the time like, look, do you want to go fast or do you want to go slow? I went plodding. I learned everything the hard way. I was stubborn. I thought I could figure it all out. I thought I was smart enough to do it all by myself.
I didn't want to admit that I needed help with things because I just felt like, okay, I'm an excellent clinician. If I only show people like, Hey, I'm like. I can help you. I can solve your problem with you. Like I care about you getting this result that I would just fit. Everything else would fall into place. And the reality is all that does is puts you in a position where you're time-poor.
You know, you probably make marginally more money than what you make working for somebody else. Still, hourly, you might as well get a job working at Chick-fil-A because you'll get better benefits and more hourly pay than you will work for yourself in this capacity. So as you look at managing your time.
Effectively worked on the right things. You are learning how to market, learning how to sell, learning how to multiply yourself essentially by hiring the right people, and building processes and systems into your business. That is not something you're learning in school, you know? But thinking about how many of us have had coaches our entire life, and this made so much sense to me.
As soon as I finally decided to get a business coach. Now, this at this point, I've had quite a few. I've been in a handful of mastermind groups. I've had business coaches and mentors. I'm in local groups, I'm in digital groups, and I reinvest a lot of money into learning about how to build myself personally and my business as well.
And it's been a significant return on investment for me because as a kid, I played a lot of sports, and I always had a coach, and I was still very interested in learning what the coach had to say because. I just assumed they knew more than I did about the thing that, that we were doing whatever the sport was.
So like if I, if I couldn't, hit a curveball very well, I would talk to our hitting coach about, Hey, what strategies are there to get better at like seeing a curveball when it comes out of somebody's hand? I would just practice hitting curveballs over and over and over again, hitting, hitting them to the opposite field, pulling them, you know, like looking at the path of the ball, like practicing these details that a coach would help me.
I figured out where I was missing something, and I always would make a quick change. I, you know, in, in, in the performance I had in the sport after a coach would help me, dial those things in, and I would always try to figure it out myself. It never fricking worked, and I would get frustrated. So I was quick to try and go to coaches.
Early on, whenever I was trying to get better at something from a physical standpoint, and many of us are right, like many of us have. Coaches, people that program for us, people that watch us while we're, moving while we're lifting, structuring things with accountability, and teaching us the right way to do something.
And we're excellent to do that. But when we look at our business, it's like, it's almost this opposite, the world of this different entity. You have something that it's like, no, I'm just going to figure it out. All myself, and this is the fallacy that I hear over and over again. When people, in particular, are scared to reinvest in themselves and let's.
The most probably significant investment and safest investment you could make it in yourself in the information that you can then leverage to dramatically accelerate your income and your, your ability to provide for your family, but also to create some freedom around your, around your work, and insulate yourself from economic, you know, significant economic swings.
And that is a very safe investment versus investing in Apple. Who knows, man, they might. They might just like plumb it as a company because some random shit happens with their phone or something like that. It starts blowing up in people's faces, and I don't know. And next thing you know, you know, you've lost a lot of money in this thing that you thought was a safe investment because you have no control over that, but you have complete control over yourself and what you do with that information.
And that is where I see people make a huge mistake is, in particular, the number of people I talk to you. It's a few hundred people per year, clinic owners, people that are starting practices. And the number one. Objection. I hear it. Anybody interested in like working with us and reinvesting in themselves is this.
They say, Hey, let me, let me see if I can figure it out over like the next six months and build my revenue up. So I have like some surplus cash flow, and then I'm going to reinvest in learning about how to build a profitable business. So that's a silly thing to say if you think about how illogical is that, that would be like somebody saying, Hey, let me jump in the deep end.
Real quick. And, I'll see if I can figure out how to swim. And if I can't, then I'm, I'll, I'll start drowning. You saved me, and then we'll get to the other side. Then I'll do some swim lessons like that's essentially what you're saying with your business. If you do not know how to say, to sell, how to get people in the door and how to retain people in, create recurring revenue within your business, that stabilizes it longterm, you're shit out of luck when it comes to marketing and somebody else in your area will figure it out. They'll take everything that you have.
Straight up. That's the way that it works. The economy is for those that are smarter, those that can figure out a problem faster, make more money, and they capitalize on those before other people can. And I don't know about you, but one of the reasons I invest in myself so much is I'm continually trying to learn and grow and progress because I do not want to be caught in the stage.
That's so many of our peers are that have in-network practices that are necessarily dinosaurs now that are getting less and less money. Every single person that they see then. They take young practitioners, and they make them see more and more people because they have to get their business to see X number of visits to get their revenue so they can pay everybody and pay themselves and not go out of business.
And that is a downward spiral that I don't want to ever, ever be on. So I'm quick to adjust and make changes and reinvest in myself. Learn information, learn what's working in different. Areas of business, and then apply that to what we have going on, within our company and the group, in the mastermind group that we work with and help develop their businesses.
That's it. It's the speed of implementation. So if you want to go fast, surround yourself with people that have already done what you're doing or trying to do, trying to accomplish. They can share information and resources in real-time and accelerate your changes. If you want to go slow, read books, make mistakes the hard way, ruin your health, almost ruin your marriage, almost ruin your business.
Then come to an epiphany moment where it's like, Holy crap, I am good at this clinical side, but I'm terrible at business, and because of that, I'm putting myself. And my family and a sketchy position. And now all of a sudden, you reinvest in yourself. So why don't you skip the two years that I had to go through where, you know, I, I, I almost ruined a lot of things are very important to me and invest in yourself from the get-go in the one place.
That's probably the safest place to put your money. It's not in the stock market. It's not in real estate. It's in you. Because the more you can accelerate yourself and use and implement that information, the more stocks. And the more in real estate you inherently can buy because you accelerate your ability to generate revenue.
Not only that, but you put yourself in a position where you insulate yourself from stupidity, from almost going out of business the way that I did and not having learned that mistake. The hard way is excellent. So whether it's with us, whether it's with somebody else, it doesn't matter to me. All it matters is that you invest in yourself.
And you invest in yourself and look at it that way and not a cost because if you are applying the information that you're gaining, it is a return on investment that you're inherently getting straight from that. And if you're not, you're wasting your time and your money, which is one of the reasons why it's so important to have paid mentorship, because when you pay, you pay attention.
Now, a huge believer in that, and for those of you that are struggling right now, and you're thinking to yourself, man, I don't have the money to reinvest in, you know, a coach or a business development group or whatever. Well, if you don't have the money, you have to invest in yourself in some way.
You'll find it, you'll find it. Because if you don't have it, you don't know what you're doing. You don't know how to run a business. You don't know how to manage your business. Probably at that. Maybe you're making money, and it's just bleeding out like a, like a bucket with a hole in it, and you don't even realize that because you don't know what to look at or what, what's, you know, going the wrong direction, what you're spending money on that you shouldn't.
Maybe you're not allocating your income correctly. So many things that can be. Off in your business, that can dramatically change what you bring home. And that is why it's helpful to have other people, nonbias opinions from business owners that know what the hell they're talking about, helping you solve your problems in real-time so that you don't end up taking the slow track.
So if you think, Hey, I'm is going to spend a couple of months, maybe a year. I figure it out. Then I'll have a surplus of cash. Little castle saves up, and then I'll reinvest in myself. That's a silly backward ass way of looking at it. Would you take your kids and throw them in the deep end, and before you got them a coach?
Some of you might actually, that's probably not the best question to ask. I didn't do that. I would get them a coach to teach them how to swim, and then they could swim across the pool. All they want as long as they wish. They understand that skill is a much, much better way, faster way to go about it and to get the result that you want.
Which many of us is just a successful business so that we can create the life we want for ourselves and our family and don't ruin yourself in the process. So long story short, do you want to go fast? If so, surround yourself by people that know what they're doing in business. Get a coach. Plugging my mastermind group, I think, is probably the coolest most.
A unique business group out there in the practitioner realm that I've ever seen are people who are freaking amazing. They're doing cool things. They are just overall good people. And we, I'm sh, I'm just shocked that I get a chance to lead this group. Like, it's incredible to me. And, you know, if that's something that interests you and you want to try to become a part of that.
Head to physicaltherapybiz.com/call. You can set up a time to talk to me. We don't have many of these spots available. If you look on there and I don't have anything for three weeks, or nothing is available, it means like all my spots are taken up. Sorry. If you find one, you know, move some shit around, and let's have a conversation.
You know, if not. Look out there, see what else is around, what's the right fit for you. Find some coaching, find some mentoring, and accelerate your business cause you want to go fast. Get yourself a coach, somebody that's already done what you're trying to do, and that will get you to where you're trying to go much, much faster with a hell of a lot fewer bumps along the way.
Do you want more cash, PT, biz help? If so, get a copy of my book. Fuck insurance. It's your playbook to a successful performance, PT practice, and never having to deal with insurance again. You can get a free copy at Finsurancebook.com. Inside this book, you'll learn the direct techniques that we've used to become one of the fastest 100% cash PT practices in the country.