E203 | 2019 PT New Grad Advice

I wanted today's episode to serve as a commencement speech to new PT graduates.  If you are thinking that you have no idea what you will be doing in your job, this is normal. 

I understand the sense of the unknown that you may be experiencing.  Before we get into this, I also wanted to take a moment to congratulate you on your accomplishment.

Up for a Challenge? Try our 5-Day Challenge Here! https://www.physicaltherapybiz.com/challenge 

Episode Transcription:

Hey, what's going on, everybody? Doc Danny here with the PT Entrepreneur Podcast, and I am very excited to get into this podcast today because it's an idea that I had got from a fellow podcast.  I get a lot of students that email me an Instagram message, and I know they call our office a lot of students, which is fantastic. And I've had a chance to talk to quite a few PT students, via zoom, in particular, doing digital, kind of video chats about our profession and business in particular.

And what I wanted to do was be able to talk directly to those of you that. I just graduated and gave you some advice that I wish that somebody would've given me on the day that I graduated, and I remember the day I graduated well. I was in San Antonio, Texas, at the med center, the army medical center.

And it was the US Army, Baylor, you know, class graduation. All my classmates were there. We all had our dress uniforms on, which, if you don't know what those look like, it's basically like a suit you wear, in the military and you have, you have some, some of your awards on there, which, which. For most of us in the class, we were somewhat reasonably new.

We hadn't been in the military very long, so we didn't have much of anything. We had it very simple looking uniform, but my entire family was there. They all came down to, to, to see us. My brother had recently gotten back from F from Baghdad, and he was there as well, as well as my, my grandfather, who.

Was a world war II and Korean war vet. And, he came, he came as well—so special moment for us. My whole family was there. And I remember thinking to myself when I got my diploma. I remember thinking, man, I just accomplished probably the most challenging thing I ever set out to do, and now I have no fucking idea what I am going to do in my job.

Like this is this is probably what many of you are thinking. And, if you believe that, that's okay, that's normal. You have a lot of. Desire probably to want to go and use the skills that you've learned and set the the the PT world on fire changed things, disrupt things. All of these crucial things, you know, for us to have a new perspective on things and to have people come into the profession and help drive it forward in a positive way.

But also there's this feeling of the unknown of uncertainty. Of note, not being sure of what your path is, right? Like not knowing what the next few years look like. Is it going to be a residency? Are you going to go into a fellowship? Are you going to specialize in some sort of, sub-niche, whether it might be neuro or pediatrics or sport, ortho?

You know, if you want to. Go down the realm in the realm of entrepreneurship and start your own thing. Do you want to work for somebody for a while? How long do you need to work for somebody before you feel like you can go into your own thing? What type of contracts do you need to be aware of in terms of non-competes and sign-on bonuses, and all this stuff is just going to be home health.

Do you want to travel? All of these things are going through your mind, but take a step back and realize what you just accomplished is special. You must understand that what you just performed is special enough to have your family come in from who knows how far away to come and watch you get a piece of paper and walk across the stage.

That is a rare thing. Incredibly unique and too often in particular, when when we first graduated from school, we're very, very future biased, and I'm very. Guilty of this to this day, I buy as much more towards future potential possibilities. The things that are, you know, a capable for us to, to, to be, to accomplish.

And. I don't celebrate the moment enough. So if you're listening to this and you graduated, congratulations. It's amazing. You know, you should be very proud of that. You have a degree that will help you in so many ways. This gives you credibility in so many unique styles and allows you to take the next step to help a lot of people.

So take a moment and reflect on what you've gone through because of it, it's, it's a marathon. It's a, and it's not a sprint. You've completed this marathon. It's an academic marathon. That didn't just start in PT school. It began when you were in high school working on getting into a college in college, working on getting into graduate school to get your doctorate.

And then, from there, being able to prove that you were able to, you know, understand the curriculum and apply the curriculum to be able to get your degree. So congratulations and celebrate that moment. Now from there, you have to ask yourself, what is it that you want to do. Who is it that you want to work with, and what do you want your life to look like?

And I think that this is the one thing that it's hard to get perspective on when you're younger is what do you want your life to look like? That's a difficult question to answer. And sitting down and thinking about it. Where do I want to live? Who do I want to have relationships with? What do I want my job to look like?

What kind of people am I the happiest working with? What kind of people that when I work with them, I get a lot of energy from them versus what kind of people do I. hate working with where I feel, you know, like they've, they're an energy vampire, and they just suck the energy out of my entire day.

And how do I work with less and less of those people and more and more of the people that give me a lot of energy and fulfillment because matching up your career with something that gives you, you know, personal satisfaction and enjoyment are very rare. Very rare. Too many people go to work every single day.

And they don't want to be there. They are frustrated on the drive to work. They sit there every day and can't wait until their lunch hour to get out of that office to go and do something else for an hour before they have to come back and get back to the same crappy thing that they wish they didn't have to do anymore.

And then look forward to the end of the day and get super excited on Thursday. Cause I know Friday is the last. Say the week, and then they get Saturday, Sunday off, and then they get depressed on Sunday night before they go back into work again on Monday. And in our profession, we have a good fortune and have positioned ourselves in a way where we get to help people and helping people.

In most cases, it gives everybody. A lot of personal satisfaction. It makes us feel good helping people, seeing the transformation. It's one of the reasons why we like it, why we decided to go this path or take this path and become a practitioner. But when you start to get in a place, and for many of you, sadly, many of the jobs that are out there.

Are going to be high volume practices that want nothing more than just to have you see a ton of people burn you out and then hire the next new grad that comes out so they can pay them very little and then have high turnover and make a bunch a bunch of money off of productivity from you. Just getting burned out over about a year to two years is typically from what I have seen now.

What does that mean for you? Go into this profession with your eyes wide open. Understand that those jobs are out there, and there's a lot of. Of, corporate-owned practices, hospital-owned practices that would like nothing more than to plug you into that and burn you out and utilize you and, in turn, in it from the standpoint of revenue production until you feel like it's just not the right profession for you anymore.

So if you understand that you know what to look for and what you have to try to find is a career or a job. That allows you to work with the people that you enjoy working with and not put you in a place where it sacrifices your health or mentally fatigued you to a point where it's not enjoyable anymore.

And that means for many of you, and you may not be able to find that job. And if you can't find that job, you have to create that job for yourself, whether that be through another company, as an entrepreneur, and being able to say like, this is what I think I can do to add value to this company. This is the context in which I'd prefer to work.

Can we make that work if we can? And it works on both sides. Awesome. You don't have to go through all the stress that comes along with starting your own thing or, you know, going the route of becoming an entrepreneur. And that's not always the case. Now, if it's not the case and you decide, I just have to create my own thing, well, congratulations.

You've now stepped into the realm of an entrepreneur, a whole different world of things that you have to learn, but an exciting world at that. And one that you get to explore different things within our profession. Ways to solve problems means to be creative and add value to people in ways that rev or insurance doesn't necessarily always reimburse for.

That could be. A physical product. That could be a digital business, and it could be digital products, it could be programming, it could be, you know, any, any variation of online business, of consulting, telehealth, all kinds of things that you can do. You can niche down with the specific people that you want to work with.

But what you also need to be aware of is that this route. Has some bumps in it. This road is bumpy. You know, the employment road is very smooth. Typically the entrepreneur road is rough, but if that's the direction that you know in your heart, you have to go then go into that knowing full well that you're ready for it, that it's going to be difficult.

But guess what? So with the school. So was the last seven years that you just spent an undergrad and graduate school taking tests, learning things, studying, staying up all night, trying not to fail. That, at least, was my case. You were trying to just get through school, knowing that there are people in here that are way smarter than you and that you're just trying to keep up and that that was difficult as well.

And if you can accomplish that. You can achieve whatever it is that you want in your career. When you get out and go whichever direction it is that you want to go, but you not knowing right currently, not knowing where you want to be in the next three to five years is 100% normal. And it's okay.

It's the way that it is for everyone. And I can tell you when I got out of the military, when I got out of school and went into the military, I should say, and was—sent off to my first duty station. I intended to be in the army for a career I was going to be in for at least 20 years. My goal was to change the way that the military looked at injury prevention, straighten conditioning, this hybrid approach that I was able to practice.

And you know what? That's not what happened. And that's okay because what I've been able to do at this point is the path that is the right path for me. And at the time. That's not what I thought was going to happen. I had no intentions whatsoever of getting out of the military, opening practice, and starting a podcast and starting to teach people all about business all around the world that had nothing to do with it.

So some of you might be sitting here right now thinking yourself. All I want to do is go through residency good clinically, go work with an influential mentor for really, really well-known practice. And then, you know, just try to become as good as I can at this thing. Well, in five years, that might not be the path that you know you need to take, but for now, choose the way that looks like it's the right one for you and keep your eyes open for opportunities because of too often opportunities.

Present themselves. But people are too scared or stubborn to go after those opportunities. And I think everybody gets a few excellent opportunities throughout their life. And many people ignore them. They ignore them either out of ignorance or fear or a combination of both. In many cases, just being scared of what may potentially happen, happen, and leaving that comfort that you develop for yourself, but keep your eyes open because the opportunity will present itself and when it does, if you are ready.

Take that opportunity, and you commit to, whatever that is. If you're successful enough to get through PT school, you're smart enough, and you're, you know, you have enough grit to be able to get through that. You have enough to be able to accomplish whatever it is that comes your way, whatever the opportunity might be.

And hopefully, it's something that changes our profession for the positive going forward. Because I can tell you this much, all students I talked to, there's not a single student that I spoke to, but I thought to myself, damn, I was a shitload smarter than them when I was in school. That has never been the case.

I'm always shocked at house smart, motivated, savvy. The students are there, reach out to me and it, it is something that, gives me a lot of hope and, and, and, and it's, it's very, I think, a very positive thing for our profession. You know, to see the caliber of people that are coming through our, our business and getting added to our job is just so astounding.

So you're one of them. I appreciate you. Thank you for everything you've done in school. Thank you for your hard work. Now it's time to get out there and try to figure out what you want to do. And if you don't know what it is just yet, don't worry about it. Just start and don't figure it out as you go.

Do you want more cash, PT, biz help? If so, get a copy of my book. Fuck Insurance. It's your playbook—so 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.