E435 | Why Fear Is Killing You

Today's episode is a quick story about fear and how it can lead to the pain of inaction. We have all been in the position of dragging our feet, avoiding doing something we probably have the ability to do, but the fear creeps in. This is a bad place to be, but I wanted to talk about how to overcome this fear. Enjoy!

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Podcast Transcript

Danny: Hey, quick question. Raise your hand if you love documentation. My guess is basically nobody raised their hand except for that one weirdo that does like it. But most of us dislike it. It's part of the job though, and anything we can do to make that more efficient is always a win. We switched over to PT everywhere recently from my local practice, and one feature they have that I think has been a game changer is the voice of text note documentation feature they have where I can literally just dictate my notes and it will.

Populate within the actual note platform. I was shocked. I thought it would be incredibly inaccurate and I would've to fix everything, but it's really, really accurate and easy to do. I even just do it on my phone and I actually talk in what I wanted to do in between patients so that I can quickly do that while it's fresh in my mind and it doesn't pile up on me later in the day.

Save me a ton of time, save my staff a ton of. So if you're looking for a solid practice management solution, I would highly recommend checking out PT everywhere In particular, if you wanna save some time on notes, it's been a game changer for us. Head to PT everywhere.com. Check out their platform and see how it can save you some time in your office.

So here's the question. How do physical therapists like us who don't wanna see 30 patients a day, who don't want to 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 Matte, and welcome to the PT Entrepreneur Podcast.

What's going on guys? Doc Danny here with the PT Entrepreneur Podcast, and today we're talking about. In action. Primarily we're talking about fear, we're talking about dragging your feet and holding off on doing something because, uh, but you're, you're scared cuz you're not sure, uh, what's gonna happen, uh, what the outcome might be.

And I wanted to tell you a little story about me seeing this, you know, firsthand, uh, recently. So I have, I have a son who's nine. Uh, he's awesome. And, uh, I've been trying to get him to dive into a pool for three years, three summers, right. Uh, and every summer I think we're almost there and it doesn't happen.

And I know he can do it, I'm sure of it. It's just physically, it's, it's, he's there, uh, and every summer he just doesn't, and it's, it's a mental thing. Right. Until. Now this summer, and even, even last summer. Last summer, at the very last day that, that we, the pool was open. I told him I'd give him $50, which to a, to a nine year old.

Right. Eight year old at the time, it, you know, it would be like me giving you $10,000. Right? Uh, and he got all excited and even that wasn't enough to get him to dive into water into the pool. Right. And he's not scared of water. He's scared of diving. Um, but this summer something interesting happened. He saw some other kids, some of his buddies, uh, diving into the pool and kind of inherently he just decided, okay, now's the time.

And he dove in. Uh, he, he also tried to get his $50 from me retroactively, which he didn't get cuz the terms of our agreement were on the day of, uh, last summer. So, nice try Jack, but he didn't get his money. Uh, now for, for you guys, like, I want you to think about this like, It, it's easy for us to say, oh, well it's just diving into the water.

Right? But like when you're, you know, I guess when he first started he was like six, like when you're six and, and you think to yourself, you know, every time I hit my head on something, it really hurts. And also, I'm not too sure about this water stuff. Like what's it gonna feel like if I'm inverted and I go into this?

Um, there's a lot. Unknown. Uh, it's a strange thing like when in life do you do that into anything else. Like you just, you just don't, uh, so it's, it's a very unnatural new thing for, for somebody to do. And you know, I saw him via seeing success of other people, get the confidence to do something himself.

And I see this a lot outside of obviously children. People are fearful of something new. You know, I, I mean, we stop ourself from learning a new sport, uh, you know, a, a new skill of some sort. It's scary to think about putting yourself out there and failing. And the fear of that typically for most people is about, you know, looking like, you know, you, you couldn't accomplish it, or, uh, what other people might think of you.

These things that really are pretty somewhat insignificant. And I, you know, I think. FDR said in his first inauguration speech, something that really resonates with me and something that I keep this quote, um, on my, uh, on my computer. And it's, uh, so first of all, let me, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Nameless unreasoning, unjustified terror, which paralyzes needed efforts to convert, retreat into advance. Now let that sink in for a second because. Fear is nameless. Unreasoning and unjustified. And it paralyzes people. Paralyzes them because they're afraid of what might happen because there is uncertainty and unknown, and that leads to.

Inaction. So the root of inaction is fear. And for us to realize that like that is the thing that's holding you back from potentially something amazing, right? So in Jack's case, it's diving into water. Now he's diving off diving boards and flipping, and he's, it's awesome. And he's like, oh my God, I wish I had done this before.

But in my, I guess circumstance, I see this so much with clinicians. Are fearful of doing their own thing of, you know, taking a new job, of learning a new specialty, of growing a practice. Right. And, and, and ultimately the most that I see is people starting and growing practices, whether they're cash-based practices or hybrid practices, or it could be any business though.

And, and we just so happen to deal with those, those types of people, but, Of the hundreds of people that I've had a chance to work with directly, right. And, and thousands that, that we've worked with in, you know, indirectly, whether it's through this podcast book, uh, you know, courses that we have. But just, just like face-to-face, hundreds of clinicians at this point that I've had a chance to work with, either start or scale cash or hybrid practices.

I can tell you the most common response when I asked them if they regret. Is it they regret not starting sooner or they regret not building and growing their business sooner? Every single one of 'em they regret, they wish they would've started sooner. It's like my friends that are in real estate, you know, they say the best time to buy real estate was yesterday.

It's always, it was always yesterday. And inaction kills you. Inaction will put you in a, a terrible spot where you just end up with regret. So you gotta ask yourself like, are you thinking about? Doing something, you know, are you thinking about starting? Cause if you're in that camp, how many of these podcasts have you listened to?

How many of other podcasts have you listened to? How many blogs have you read? How many books have you read? You know, how, how many times have you calculated startup costs, potential revenue, taxes, all these things, and yet you haven't done anything. You haven't taken action on anything and it makes you feel like you are because you're busy doing things that you know, prep and get you ready, but nothing will get you ready for what it actually feels like to do something.

Like there's nothing that's gonna get you ready for actually diving into that pool besides. Diving into the damn pool, like you have to jump headfirst into the abyss of the unknown of entrepreneurship if that's what you decide you want to do. And the longer you wait, the more you know it people come into the marketplace.

The more, um, competition there is, the more difficulty there is to find space, to find referral partners to develop marketing channel. To develop your niche, the harder it gets. And if you have a practice and you're still by yourself, and I've seen this with people for years and years and years, like, you know, we've worked with people that have had standalone practices.

J just, just themself, five to 10 years. Five, five to 10 years of them, just single provider doing everything by this way, not even an admin. And they are burned out. Burned out. But what stopped them from bringing anybody else into the mix? Fear. Fear, fear of unknown inaction driven by the fear of, well, what if it doesn't work out?

What if I'm not a good leader? What if I'm not a good boss? You know, what, what if, what if I hire this PT and they just steal all my business and open a practice down the road? What if this admin, you know, steals my identity or is a, does a terrible job and ruins reputation of my business? All these things are what hold them back.

They're fearful of the outcome and it drives them to have inaction. Really, it drives them to retreat, which is exactly what FDR is saying. The nameless unreasoning unjustified terror, which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat, which is what people are doing. They're hunkering down. They're retreating, when in actuality they need to advance.

They need to grow pass themself. You, you, you really need to think about why you would not do that. And there may be some circumstances where it wouldn't be the right fit, but in most cases it is safer. It's better for your business, it's better for other people cuz you're helping more of them instead of the limited number of people you can help by yourself.

And the inaction from fear is what drives that. What I want you to think about is what stage are you in right now? Are you planning? Are you just getting started? Have you taken, have you, have you taken the the leap yet? Have you jumped into the abyss? Have you, you know, are you diving headfirst into the pool right now or are you gonna wait for a couple years?

Because of the fear of the unknown, of not knowing what to do and, and continue to gather more information and crunch more numbers, and develop a 15th business plan and scout out more market, you know, places and, and, and do more math and talk to more people and listen to more podcasts. Are you going to just drag your feet until frankly you do you really do nothing ever?

Or are you actually gonna do it? Or are you gonna stay small because you're scared that this one thing that you actually did do well, I don't wanna ruin it. By growing past myself. And I'm not saying that you should try to scale up like Amazon, but I'm saying are you scared to even hire somebody? Are you scared that if you pay somebody else and you have to give up some of the control that it might not work out?

Cuz if so, you're retreating, you're staying small and you're letting the nameless unreasoning unjustified terror, that fear brings. Control you, keep you small. So I want you to think about that today. What stage are you in? And what do you need to do to get to the next stage? Whether it's starting, whether it's at first hire, pulling the trigger on something and just do it.

Decide to do it. Stop gathering information. Stop letting fear control what you decide to do or not do with the decisions of your business. And just dive in a dam pool.

Hey, real quick before you go, I just wanna say thank you so much for listening to this podcast, and I would love it if you got involved in the conversation. So this is a one way channel. I'd love to hear back from you. I'd love to get you into the group that we have formed on Facebook. Our PT Entrepreneurs Facebook group has about 4,000 clinicians in there.

That are literally changing the face of our profession. I'd love for you to join the conversation, get connected with other clinicians all over the country. I do live trainings in there with Eve Gigi every single week. And we share resources that we don't share anywhere else outside of that group.

So if you're serious about being a PT entrepreneur, a clinical rainmaker, head to that group. Get signed up. Go to facebook.com/groups/ptentrepreneur, or go to Facebook and just search for PT Entrepreneur. And we're gonna be the only group that pops up under that.