E210 | Taking A Non-Traditional Path After Graduation With Michael Lau Of The Prehab Guys

On today's episode, I am glad to be joined by Michael Lau of The Prehab Guys.

Michael was born and raised in Northern California but now currently resides in SoCal ever since attending the University of California, Los Angeles as an undergraduate majoring in physiology. After his undergraduate studies, he received his Doctorate in Physical Therapy from cross-town rival the University of Southern California.

Michael recently worked in Beijing, China as part of a team from USC training the first generation of physiotherapists in China, working at the Olympic Bird’s Nest and Water Cube. Michael is a huge proponent of movement education, pain science, and strength and conditioning. He believes that through education alone, a large majority of societies’ aches and pains can be alleviated.

He currently sees patients at Evolution Physical Therapy in Santa Monica with a special interest in ACL rehab and the lower extremity return to sport athlete.

Episode Transcription:

Danny: [00:00:00] What's going on, guys. Doc Danny here with the PT Entrepreneur Podcast and, we've got my buddy Michael Lau here from the Prehab Guys. He's in town, teaching a blood flow restriction course for smart tools. And, so we had him over for dinner. My wife just baked some cookies, Ashley, for the hookup. Yeah, seriously.

So bake some cookies for the podcast. We have some tacos, and he's going to teach tomorrow at our facility. So, you know, we were hosting him, and we wanted to get a chance to. You know, do a podcast, chat with him a little bit. Come to find out, he's listened to podcasts for a while, so this is fun. This would be cool.

And, and then the most significant thing, you know, what I've taken away just in the time that we had a chance to chat is, you know, like, it's interesting how many opportunities there are out for. Physical therapy, you know, students, new grads, like just in general, the entire profession, But in particular, you know, people like yourself that have kind of taken a nontraditional path out of school from what we traditionally are told.

And that's kind of the big thing you want to get into because I know a lot of pillars in this podcast are students. And I'd love for you to hear a different perspective than maybe what your professors are telling you, what your senior clinicians are telling you, where they're saying like, hold your horses, like, wait ten years, then do something on your own.

It's like, I don't think I'd do that anymore. So anyway, man, first of all, thank you so much for coming over for dinner and, and for, you know, deciding to pick our clinic to do the course. We're excited to have you. Thanks for having me over for dinner. Yeah, for sure. And even brought a bottle of wine. This guy's, this guy's on another level, dude.

He went to a wine shop. Uber dare picked it up and then came over to the house. Like, that's a baller move. So here, here, here's what we do. Just let's start with this man. Let's give everybody your background, sort of, you know, from, from PT schools where you guys are now, and let, provide an idea of what you guys have been working on.

Michael: [00:03:39] Awesome. Yeah. So, my name is Michael. I'm from Los Angeles, originally from Sacramento, California, which is Northern California. Been in LA since undergrad and went to UCLA for grad undergrad, went to SC for grad school, and that's where I met my business partners are Arash and

Craig

 we started the Prehab guys, which is an online educational platform.

I think in our second year of

DPT school. Yeah.

And then from there, it's just kind of grown. And I was kind of telling Danny earlier that I would say it was, it's always been, it will always be an enjoyable thing for us, but it was all just on the fun side of a hobby. I would say probably about a year ago.

And then we made the switch.

Danny: [00:04:15] To

Michael: [00:04:15] devote time to it and put energy into it. Probably about a year ago on making that transition into a new business owner. You can say it all for newer,

Danny: [00:04:22] feel comfortable 

Michael: [00:04:23] saying that now as it's gone away over the last year.

Danny: [00:04:26] That's cool, man.

It's been fun. Well, you know, it's, if you think about it, right, like our grandparents, you know. For them to start a business is way different than for you and I, I mean, we walk around with a computer in our pocket, which you can sort of activity on and for them back in the early 19 hundreds, you know, that's like the great depression.

You had a farm, maybe you have like a local store, and you're like, it's just been, it's a different time. So the ability to be an entrepreneur and go out on your own is, is probably more comfortable than it's ever been. And there's, there's all these, like—opportunities with technology to be able to capitalize on that.

And you guys have done something interesting where it seems like you started by documenting the journey of what you were learning in PT school and some of the things that you were mixing in with your train conditioning background. Does that sound about right there about what you guys did?

Yeah, but then from there you, you are consistent. And that like. Talk about that for a second. Cause I think that's where people drop off, and they try to do anything digitally related and content. Like what was that like? How many days in a row? How many posts do you guys do? Like is there a consecutive streak that you've

Michael: [00:05:31] never missed?

A single day since we started. Wow. Not one bit.

Danny: [00:05:34] Damn. We post

Michael: [00:05:35] every single day. We've gone through many iterations of how we say accountable for it. Like we have it calendar now on the calendar even has reminders. Cause I'm the, I'm usually the one that forgets on that day. But now we even have set days.

I post every Monday and Tuesday. Raj versus, so everyone has their days, and now we know precisely when we're going to post, but we never missed a day. And you have to be consistent. And the reason you can be consistent early on and cause it's, or even now, it's fun. It's just something that we know that we're going to do.

And we just told ourselves that we want to post, not for us, but other people. There are other people out there that that may need that education and want that education. And beforehand we used to have this thing cause it's been. Three and a half, four years, like, Oh, I already posted on that like months ago, but there's probably a couple, there are millions of people out there that can still benefit from the same information.

Even the same person that's already heard, that information can benefit by hearing it again. So you don't have to feel like there's never enough. There's always enough. There's still something to share.

Danny: [00:06:24] I think it's always a challenge, though, right? It's like people think, Oh, wow. I already talked about squat mechanics, but how about, you know, somebody like, Aaron, Heart, is it Harnish's? Why the university of Andrew's? Yeah. That guy has almost a million followers on Instagram, and only does it talk about the damn squat. Yeah. Like one movement. So if you, if you think that you know, you're going to run out of topics, I think this is a common, you know, fear of people that are like, what am I going to say?

Do you know? And it's not just. Other people may be joining in and listening. We have said you are watching, you have to say, but also sometimes you hear things, you hear the same word, but you're ready to receive it differently at different times, you know? And I think that that's the thing that likes for you guys, like the content you're putting out consistency and being okay with like-kind of recycling stuff.

Like that's just part of it. Do you know? And speaking of this a little bit about. Early on and consistently, I think, is where people drop off. They're usually suitable for about a month. They're super excited. And then after the same month two, three, it starts to get kind of like draining, and then they quit. Yeah.

Michael: [00:07:22] So I would say for us, the goal, and we were in a unique situation because we were students.

That's the priority one. We were students first like that. That was always going to be priority one. This was something that we built on the side, so it was for us to educate others to be to have fun. And it was just for us really to have a good time and knowing that we would be helping people at the same time, so we didn't feel the need.

To have to make money or the need to have to put food on the table or the need to have to, we didn't feel like we had to do anything. We did it because we wanted to do it, and we knew that you know, that was a mindset that we wanted to have within us. We've tended to do with it today, and things have changed how we may do something.

But it's always cause we want to do them and me, as long as you want to do it, I feel like you'll never feel like you're, you're forced to do anything. You never contact like you have to drop off or not post anything or whatever that the daily task is or find better ways to do that. Everyday tasks that maybe you can have some of that.

We started hiring virtual assistants. Cool. To do a lot of the day to day or copy-paste. We do so much copy-paste stuff on the video editing side. So like having people help you with those tests to let you do the things that are more, Mine, mine tasking is, you say

Danny: [00:08:26] low dollar stuff and, I mean, that's a whole other topic in its own right, in terms of like, building a team and, and leveraging your time and working on the things that are, you know, the most beneficial for you guys.

But, you know, even before you got to that point, it seems like, you know, you took this path that wasn't necessarily a, what most people do as they go through PT school. What kind of response, what kind of, Positive and or negative could you get from like professors and other people within the profession?

Michael: [00:08:55] So it was kind of funny. I would say maybe a month in, and this is a story that we laugh about.

Danny: [00:09:01] we took our, our main pictures, so

Michael: [00:09:02] everyone, you have to design a picture for your

Danny: [00:09:04] social media

Michael: [00:09:04] pros right now. How old are they going to do? Well, we were students at the time, so let's get a picture in front of our school.

Yeah, it was the USC two

Danny: [00:09:12] vision about kinesiology and physical therapy.

Michael: [00:09:14] The three of us are in the basement. If anyone knows the school, and we were out there taking a picture, and we got a message from SC like a month in, same day, you know, remove that photo. Or before that, they asked what is, what is this prehab guys thing?

Is it a school-sponsored project? Like for, something that we're doing in class? We were like, no, this is something we're doing. We're trying to educate the public on what we do, what the profession is all about. It's not anything to do with, you know, anything school-sponsored, but we will say that if you guys are more comfortable with it and they wanted us to remove the picture, you move the map entirely.

They didn't want any affiliation with us. And then different professors have all been positive for the most part that we reached out to. Cause at the end of the day, we're just trying to get more eyes on the field. Like it doesn't matter where they're coming from. We just need more eyes on it. I think everyone can agree that we need more eyes in the field.

We will always need more eyes in the field. It doesn't matter what specialty we're talking

Danny: [00:10:01] about. But what about clinicians?

Michael: [00:10:04] I would say not too much. I would say there's always social media trolls, for lack of better words. In-person. No. probably online. Yes. And the way we segmented thing, or Rosh would probably know more as Arash handles.

Instagram DMS. Yeah. He's the one that's going to see that, I think more so than me on, on. I run the emails and the website stuff. But there's definitely. Pushback initially,

Danny: [00:10:28] for sure.

Michael: [00:10:28] And I remember early on, and we always felt compelled, and it's so stupid to put us to site something always,

Danny: [00:10:36] I had to prove this at the site.

Michael: [00:10:38] I haven't thought we've signed anything in so long because this is what we felt compelled that we had to do that because we were students, and we just felt like we needed to defend ourselves without anyone even attacking me in the first place. I felt like I had to put that out there. And now that's just so prevalent.

And I. Social media has gone a different way. Yeah. Now, in our opinion, we're, we're on the outskirts of that. We try not to get involved. A lot of

Danny: [00:11:00] it's funny, man. I feel like I'm, I did the same thing as a student too. Anytime I felt challenged a little bit, you know, clinically, whether it be from a mentor or.

A patient or colleague and I would be quick to cite an article that was at any like an even average amount of perceived validity. And I think that's normal because you get beat into your head. This whole idea of consistent, evidence-based practice, and you know. What's the RCT that did actually like backs what you're doing and, and you know, it's interesting, I don't know how long that takes to wear off, but it does.

And you sort of realize like, okay, hold on. I'm dealing with a human being that has some severe stressors going on in their life. And. I need to take a step back and be able to like to connect with this person and communicate with them. And that's not something, and I think it may be, they're doing a better job of that in school now.

But like, dude, I went to school in the Army's program. You have to understand like they weren't talking about, you know, make sure you have a, you know, a positive connection with your patients. Cause they don't, they frankly don't have a choice to go anywhere else. It's a socialized medical system, right? Like we're just hammered on all the technical skills we possibly could.

But I think that's just the evolution of being a clinician. And it's funny because I believe the clinical, the clinical growth that's constant over and over again, you just can't become stagnant. It's the same thing from a business standpoint. You know, and like where you're at now, you probably look back two years ago when you guys were going, you're probably like, damn, we're idiots.

And if you, if you don't, that means that there was any growth that happened. Is there anything you look back on, and you're like, man. That was done.

Michael: [00:12:46] there's probably a lot of stuff, so we used to get personal, just going off of what we were just talking about, we used to get so pissed. When someone would not even challenge, just someone would just say something negative and not pissed to the point where you know, more pissed at the end where you're just going to respond pissed, or it's affecting my real life,

Danny: [00:13:07], which should not happen.

This is just some

Michael: [00:13:09] X, Y, Z, 2009 I don't even know who they are, and I would be pissed. You know, in real life and then take it out. Not take it out, but you know, it affects my relationship. Yeah. Whoever I'm around and my girlfriend, and maybe even the next morning, I'd be pissed. And I'm like, well, what is going on?

Why is this upsetting me? That took a, took a long time, probably a year and a year and a half to just almost laugh at those things and just be like, well, this is my life, and this is something else. Like I'm going to separate the two not to take it home with me, and I can understand what people want to say and, but it's, cause I, I'm also saying something, so they're entitled to their opinion, but it doesn't have to.

Affect me in real life. Just stay there.

Danny: [00:13:47] Dude. That's so funny, man. I think that that's super common though, because, any, I mean, everybody's 10 feet tall on social media, right? Like what you said is like, well, haven't gotten much in-person negative feedback. Well, that's because. You can physically touch another human being when they're right, and the way you react is different than whenever you know you're on, online, and you can just be as bold as you want.

Right. But, I, I went through some, you know, something very similar until, and I'll tell you, the turning point for me was watching my brother in law who is just a, and he, he does the audio for this podcast is we funny for when he hears this, but he is like a world-class... He is on another level, man.

I mean, he's been kicked off of CrossFits platform twice. Yes. Somehow I got it back on, and they kicked off again. One time he put up something about like, rich Froning had retired, and he said like something to the effect of like, it's common for people to do this when you know they're

 Going to do a cycle of, steroids or something like that, and then come back. I was sitting on his couch while he was just like having the best time in the world as all these comments are coming in, they're like, Brandon if I ever find you, you're in trouble. And he's just like, yeah, good luck.

Do you know? And just like, and he's laughing

Michael: [00:14:58] the whole time and I'm thinking,

Danny: [00:15:00] damn, this is what happens to me. If somebody says something and the person on the other end is just having the best time in the world, and I don't want them to be able to enjoy it. So Brandon taught me a lesson of like. How to deal with that stuff, and that was helpful.

How, how did it work out for you guys? Like, like when did that turning point

Michael: [00:15:17] happen? I would say so. It was interesting. We talked to Zach and mom, probably physio, I don't remember his exact words, but he said he learned from a person. Yeah. I remember just having a conversation, and there's this, you just have to put it away.

Like it's, it's almost what you're saying. It's going to give them benefits. It's not going to provide you with any interest. It's just going to make you cynical. And so we still respond to them but react in a way where. It's, it's a neutral response. It's like, okay, that's fine, but I'm not going to let it affect me.

I don't know where it came. I think it just came from getting them enough of them in only the time of seeing it, and it helps. We're in a unique situation that there's a, I know your latest podcasts and the partnerships needed to listen to it. Yet. We have three of us. There was no way we would ever be where we are without three of us.

I'm pissed. Or if I'm happy that I can share with other people in it and it can diffuse situations on the negative side or can spread it around and on the decisive hand and it helps so much. If I was on my own and I was that pissed I would have, I would have destroyed, you know, of that stuff would have happened because I can diffuse it amongst three people or, or let it out.

And they'd be okay with it. That I let it out and someone heard me and listened, and then it goes away.

Danny: [00:16:26] Partnerships can be a really, a good thing. And, you know what I, what I see is a lot of people partner with somebody that's mostly in their skillset precisely like them. And. It's probably one of the worst person people to partner with because there are no offsetting skills there.

And, and when you can align people that have like at least slightly different skills or interests, and then you can take different areas of a business, then all of a sudden you can gain a lot of traction, you know? And it sounds like for you guys, that's sort of the way it is. So like what, what, what roles do each of you sort of like gravitate towards that you enjoy doing?

Michael: [00:17:02] So I'm definitely on the website. Website, anything related to website or external outreach, so all the any like business inquiries, things like that. They come in, I kind of handle the external stuff and then making sure the website's running and now we're, we're getting an AZ and figuring out that stuff.

Or OSH is very good with the social media stuff in the direct, not directly as, I guess it's through social media, but the candid conversations with people give a DM keeping on top of it. He does all of our finances. He's a finance guy. Craig is also excellent in the external stuff. Craig eventually takes over all the external relationships.

Danny: [00:17:37] So the relationship,

Michael: [00:17:38] the continuation of relationships with external things once we built them, and he's in charge of running those. Craig's also very meticulous. So there are things like, we just launched a new shoulder program, and it was our first time doing an app, and yet there's so much you had to learn.

You have to be a meticulous person. To be able to see the whole loopholes and errors and things and how you design ideas. But Craig's good at that, and we've only learned that by working together for so long, and then now we've segmented who does what, and it's continuously kind of changing. Still, it's gotten better and better as we've, as we've learned, everyone kind of knows their responsibilities.

And before we used to like it. I would ask if, say something came in, I would ask them, Hey, what do you guys think or should do? Or this is what I'm going to do. Is that okay? And that would just waste time. Now we all know how we're going to think and we each individually do, and then we come back when we meet once a week or twice a week and say, this is what I did, and then we share it that way.

Danny: [00:18:28] What I'm, you know, what have you noticed? We're the platform that you built coming out of school in terms of opportunities that may be presented to you. Versus other people in maybe even the same program that you're in and, and how has that been a significant advantage for you to be able to leverage, Hey, I have this platform that has.

A decent, you know, reach like a significant reach for you to be able to say, other people are interested in hiring you that maybe are not other students or, like the physical product stuff that you're teaching for and all that. Like what kind of partnerships have come or, op opportunities have come from building this platform?

Michael: [00:19:06] Is it teaching? Like, while we're here today, so we're teaching for smart tools, which is, we show blood flow restriction for lemon. I think that. I started that. I began as a student. We took one of their tooling classes as students. We, somehow, we just kept the relationship going.

And then it was maybe a year ago, and they approached us about teaching. They were interested in our teaching tools. At first, we said, no, that's not something that we feel comfortable with, but we know exercise, and we know the research. We can read the study, and we start, we felt comfortable teaching that and kind of like I mentioned before, the first couple of times you show.

They're all over the place. And then now, after doing it more, it's allowed us to feel more comfortable in front of crowds. Even I'm 28 turnings 29, and there are people in the courses that are, you know, much is way more experienced than me. But maybe when it comes to saying, a subsidy of BFR, I've been using it for over a year and a half or knowing what the literature is, as long as we.

It can help disseminate the information. It doesn't matter, you know, the whole relationship. I guess I'm kind of going way off your question.

Danny: [00:20:02] No, no, no. You're dead on, man. Like there's a whole thing with smart tools, right? Like if you had gone to a course, did your tooling stuff, some random student like cool man, thanks for the course.

Yeah. Probably the end of it. You know, like, one of my mentor Kelly always says, you know, game recognize game. Like, and if there's somebody, it's funny, man, it's like, you can almost like see in certain people, there's this sort of inner confidence. Yeah. That is, it is very diff. It's hard to build, And some of it may be genetic, some of it sort of just trained in that person, whatever it might be. But like you take that, and then you stack on a distribution channel, which you guys have developed, which is a very, a powerful thing. You can like to influence quite a few people with different ideas for another business.

I mean, that's incredibly valuable. So like you guys may want to leverage, it just makes sense to me.

Michael: [00:20:57] Yeah. Yeah. We've got a lot of opportunities. We're very grateful for it. And you know, or. W w we just, we discussed it amongst ourselves where we want to go. Cause there's someone, there's so many, so many things that just get thrown out in a lot of them are very.

They're bad. You know, like there were not just bad business business business decisions, but only bad actual companies, you know, that we wouldn't want to do something with. So it's all about who you're letting yourself was. And we understand that there is a responsibility too. Cause it is, like I said, it's like almost like a distribution channel.

If we are going to show something, want to make sure that we're showing it, even if we're talking about it for different reasons, I don't want that product. To be a wrong product or a company to be a lousy company. Cause then that's becomes something that you're aligning your company with. And that's super important.

We learned that very early on. Like we don't do ads anymore. We used to, very early on, we would, we would do commercials for companies. And that was just

Danny: [00:21:46] like, like, like

Michael: [00:21:47] random stuff like a showcase. Yeah, like a microphone here. But there was this, and there's this posture one that was the first one we ever did, and it was horrible.

And we were students at the time, we were second years and didn't know much, and we just got so much flack for that. And now in hindsight, I'm like, yeah, that I would have given myself flack for that too. Yeah. But

Danny: [00:22:06] look, if you're a student and somebody is like, Hey man, I'll give you a couple of hundred bucks to like.

Yeah, talk about this thing. So we said yes,

Michael: [00:22:14] and at the time we were in school, and we're learning how important it is, how important posture is, and that's all we know. So, of course, it aligned with what we knew at the time. Now when we look about it or like, okay, yeah, we want to do that, but it's a big learning curve.

And, and for the amount of, yeah. Then, a big learning decision for sure.

Danny: [00:22:30] How are you guys, Are you guys actively and are, you know, in, in a, in a efficient way, able to move people from the channel of Instagram over to any other avenue to where, like for instance, building an email list, another distribution channel that you just use own, right?

Because we all know what happened with Facebook, a few years back, where they all of a sudden just turned everybody's organic reach off, and it's already happening on Instagram.

Michael: [00:22:59] So, you know,

Danny: [00:23:00] how, how's that strategy look for you guys? And like, have you already started making those steps towards, I guess insulating the audience that you've built?

Michael: [00:23:07] So we understand that Instagram. And all social media. It's there, and then it's gone. The only quote-unquote social media lasts forever is that YouTube. I think in podcasts, they're the only things that are there and that are like continually there and easy to find. You post an Instagram, it disappears.

Post an Instagram story disappears. Facebook, all those things go. So we realize that and we know the one thing that also stays as your website is yours, we don't have a brick and mortar. We don't have a business. So we realized that our website is our brick and mortar. Yeah. That's by far where we devoted.

Almost every money we made has gone towards the website. We've redesigned it three times in the last year and a half, but this last one being by far the best before

Danny: [00:23:47] it was the most significant expense

Michael: [00:23:49] by far, the biggest ones we've had at the time. We were like, and I don't know if that's something we could do, and now we're like, I don't know what we were doing for the last two years without putting that money towards it cause that is our business.

Danny: [00:23:59] Have you noticed. Tangible return on investment, substantial tournament investment, because

Michael: [00:24:03] that's the website is where people are going to be searching for things on Google. We're getting all this organic Google search. That's where you're going to collect emails. You're not going to click emails through Instagram.

You're not going to collect the emails. Your social media and email marketing are. Also, we're, we've, we've started maybe the last six months we've always collected just cause we knew we should have last years but never did anything with emails. Now we're doing things with emails when we see huge spikes and jumps or sales with email marketing, which is something that's been.

Crazy. Never really thought anything of it until maybe we started having programs cause it's, for the most part, we weren't selling anything until about six months ago. Yeah. It was just collect, collect, gather, grow, grow, grow. So now we're like I said, we're phasing into that business side, and it's been enjoyable to learn all this stuff.

Everything has people have said or that we've heard. We're now seeing, Oh yeah, you're right. Emails.

Danny: [00:24:49] Work. Yeah. And all day. And to some degree, what's, what's nice about them too is that you can then take those emails. And S and you can segment them and be able to have like, you know, conversation with people based on topics that they've expressed interest in, but also take that audience and then use it to build lookalike audiences in, in social media platforms.

So then find more people like that. And it's, it's one of those things that's very accurate. Like shockingly, and almost like. You know, invasion of your privacy. Accurate. And I told my brother, we saw, we saw them in a, at a family reunion, New Jersey, like last month. And I was talking to him about advertising, and I said, look, I know where you live.

I know you're interested. I know your age. And, I bet I could put a picture in front of you on Facebook of me flicking you off saying, I told you so like, tomorrow if I wanted to. And I haven't done it. I do want to, though. Just so, Sam can see that it's possible. And that's what, that's what you can do.

But. If you don't know who your target audience is like you don't know who it is that you like, you know, I have as somebody that will buy something from you. And that's important. The difference between somebody that's sort of like interested in your stuff and it's sort of a lurker and somebody that's going to be able to allow you to make what you're doing business, you know?

And, and. You, you know, you have a lifeline, a livelihood based on that. That's a different thing. So what you guys had done, I think is interesting is you've built a ton of pressure. Like you have years of content, you know, publication building this email list, and then all of a sudden, boom, like six months ago, you have something to release.

And it wouldn't, you know, it wouldn't surprise me at all. A ton of people bought it because they just know you and them, they've gotten to like you and trust you guys and then all of a sudden you have something for them to like. Reciprocate on that. Yeah, and there, there it is. Now what I will say, and this is ministering to see like over the next year.

How Goshi guys usually that first pressure build-up. As soon as you've released it and you have this initial thing, then you'll see this dip. And that's when like you start scratching your heads, and people start like wondering, what the hell is this? Like a one time thing? And that's when things like, you know, digital advertising that it can be, automated but also tracked and you understand what your return on investment is to drive that that business that's where it comes from.

So suddenly you guys are sort of at that stage we're

Michael: [00:26:59] at right now, we're just getting in. Lucky for me, my. A good friend of mine and my roommate, who's above me, is in digital advertising, so he's helping us. We started about three months ago. We're running it on our first products, so the ones that we released six, eight months ago, and as you publish new ones, we're still, we still want to play with the organic.

Reach and see how it goes, and then what we learned from that. We make it the launch better, and then we're running ads, Zillow stuff. Eventually though, running ads to things as we launch is the next step, which should happen soon,

Danny: [00:27:28] but it's so crazy like to see what you can target

Michael: [00:27:30] on Facebook and see what face Facebook knows about.

All of us.

Danny: [00:27:34] Probably listening to us right now, honestly,

Michael: [00:27:37] trust.

Danny: [00:27:37] I liked

Michael: [00:27:38] it. Yeah. I've got a Sonos system with Alexa. Two days ago for Amazon prime. It wasn't working cause it was skipping out. So I was searching on Google, you know, so on a system skipping, I never, I know for a fact I never searched wifi, and I was at work and lunched the honors Spanish cumin, and she asked me like, you know, how's my day is?

And all of a sudden a system skipping, I think it's the wifi. And we talked about it right on bleach report, all these wifi connectivity things. It's like, all right.

Danny: [00:28:02] Oh, it's happened. Yeah, it's happening. We play this game where we'll just. Like, say like somebody's name that's maybe like, you know, in a sales and marketing or whatever.

Like I'll say a Grant Cardone. And then on Instagram, I'll just see like all these Reagan sponsorship ads from award Cardone or on Facebook or, or anywhere we go. And, yeah, I mean, it's creepy, but you know, I guess you can take it one of two ways. You neither get like angry about it. And you can throw your phone in the, you know, in the, in the, in the, in the water, and then put like a tinfoil hat on and just like, hope nobody, you know, here's I, anything you have to say or.

If you're in a business like us, you say, all right, well, cool. It's happening. What are the rules of the game? They're changing like how we can utilize this and an advantage? And not only that but like we sell things that help people. I have no problem with that. Yeah. You know, and you guys probably get all this feedback.

From people, you've never actually touched. They're like, Holy crap, my shoulder feels better. And that's amazing. That's amazing.

Michael: [00:28:58] It's fantastic knowing that someone in India, I'm never probably going to meet, says his shoulder. It feels way better, or his hips feeling way or after doing the stretch for the last two days posted, but no intention of, you know, targeting someone in India.

Just posting it to post it because it's something that I told my patient that day. I was like, Oh, that was a perfect cue. I should go and make a video on that. That could help someone. What do you know? It helps a ton of people, and people are appreciative, and, amazingly, you can. Touch that many people, through social media.

I mean, I'm pretty fortunate. I'm, I see two patients an hour, but I can double book. So I'm seeing, on average, maybe 13 to 15 patients a day. And I'm very fortunate for that. I love working with people. I love being there in the clinic, and you know, it's going to sound cliche, changing lives in the clinic.

But with social media, I can touch an unlimited amount of people cause a different way of reaching them for sure. But I know it can help people.

Danny: [00:29:47] non-creepy way. You're touching on a lot, especially a lot of, there's a lot of people, but you know, the thing is, man, I think that's a, there's something to be said for a digital element, but also that I see a lot of people that want to just 100% move away from.

The clinic and not usually like right out of school. Often it's, you know, a little bit further along, and they get a little bit burned out. Part of it is, some of it is all they're doing is just super high volume stuff. Yeah. But. When you get a chance to do a little bit of both, it just makes it more, and it makes it more entertaining.

It makes it better. You're not, you know, it's not as monotonous and, and, and that, that one on one interaction, like there's no, no need for me to be in the clinic anymore, like with our, with our staff and everything. Like they're better clinicians than me, you know? There. Their schedules are based on really like the volume that they see and the way that they're paid.

So it's, I mean, it's probably better for me not to, but I like it so much. I still have a day and a half where I go in, and I work with patients because. I love the people. And when you're doing digital business, the thing that people don't understand, they hear this sexy shit about like laptop lifestyle.

But no, it's not a laptop lifestyle. It's like sitting at your coffee table lifestyle by yourself, looking outside, wishing that you could walk your dog another time because you're just like grinding away at this only time-consuming task, and you're tied to this computer or your phone or whatever it might be.

And. And yeah, you can do it from anywhere, but still, there's something to be said about that in in-person connection, you know? And I think it's also like you grow as a clinician there much faster

Michael: [00:31:20] and digitally,

Danny: [00:31:21] much, much quicker.

Michael: [00:31:22] You see the things right away. You see the mistakes that you're making, where you see the positive influence that you're making, the decisions that you're making, your language.

There's no backspace. I said that. Oh, I said that, how do I then work and think right on the spot? Yeah. Maybe change that cause I can't backspace something or delete something on social media where I said something wrong. I said something wrong. Have to be able to change it right then and

Danny: [00:31:41] there. Yeah.

Well, not only that, but like, no one's ever hugged you and broadened a cake for you on Instagram. As cool as they'd be like, Hey, my shoulder feels better. That would be amazing. Like if they say, send you like a cake a, but, but that happens, man. Like, you know, it's happened recently to us. One of our patients is a, she's a pastry chef, and she's fantastic.

She's like, my favorite. Favorite patient. Every time she comes in, she brings something amazing and like that. But also like you get looped into the community, and you get to meet people and then like, I can't go to a festival in Atlanta without running to somebody. And I've worked with over the last five years, so like, at least for me, I don't know about you, but like I grew up in the military, we moved every two years.

I don't have deep roots anywhere. So like this is the place where I know more people than anywhere else in the world. I'm not even from here. And so I guess sort of that's unique to me. And that doesn't happen necessarily, like you know, remotely. But that'd be an incentive. You guys notice that, like these connections, you can build digitally.

It's interesting when you do get in person with somebody. It's kind of weird in, in a, in a fresh way. Like, have you had any strange like fanboy fangirl moments where they're like, Oh shit guy this Tuesday?

Michael: [00:32:45] we had, so I work in a gym, so it's an eating setting where our clinic is. It's two-person clinic wool, multiple chain clinic, but my location is the one, two therapists, three therapists.

Now we just brought someone on. I'm a small room, but the whole gym is available to us, so I'm mainly out in the gym with my patients. I'm out there, and I see this guy doing all these shoulder exercises against the wall, which not many people that gym does, and I'm like, huh, that's interesting. He's doing them for a long time.

I call it for 1520 minutes. I'm like, wow, it's a long time of doing ISOs. He must be really in pain, or like I don't, I'm not sure what's going on. And then, later on, he comes up to me. He said, Hey man, I just bought your program. I'm on phase one week one, day one, step one, you know, I didn't realize you work here like, can I get an evaluation?

I said, Oh yeah, sure. It was like. He's telling me all of these zoomings that based on what you're doing, you know, you can start much higher. But of course, you want to have that information on all nine products on week one, day one. And it's meant to work with people on pain. So starting with a long duration and shoulder ISOs as we thought it was funny.

But yeah, he'd had literally, he's like, I bought your program, that's a phone. And he was there at the gym doing them. And it was, I just thought it was so weird cause I, I saw him if we see doing

Danny: [00:33:48] man, what about students? Like what does students, when you get to, you know. Meet or interact with our student's conference, whatever it might be like is there a weird sort of like, they feel like they know you moment at all?

Michael: [00:34:02] Definitely. Definitely. Definitely. Definitely. I remember being at CSM last year. Yeah. Rosh night season last year. And it was almost like a. Yeah, it takes you back. It took me back really, cause I, we don't go, go out in public, in that community where people would know. I was like, and I don't, I don't want random, you just get stopped when I'm at a bar or like Ralph's or something like that.

So that was my first time really in the PT space where people were like giving double-takes. And that was very interesting. And. Yeah, I guess very humbling almost. People have taken notice, you know, for whatever reason, for whatever. However, it's helped them or not help them or for what other people have taken notice.

And, I guess meant a lot. Yeah.

Danny: [00:34:44] What about taking a picture with you? When's, when's the first time that's happened?

Michael: [00:34:47] I think it happened at CSM.

Danny: [00:34:50] I was just super, I

Michael: [00:34:51] was like, Oh, let's go in on

Danny: [00:34:52] super weird.

Michael: [00:34:53] I don't know you, but. Cool also, but yeah, it was just weird. Weirder.

Danny: [00:34:59] Yeah. It's like it's, it's when I was talking to this, I was talking about this with Shawntay Caufield, AKA the movie Maestro, who's my best friend, by the way, if anybody knows that it's a, it's an odd-couple relationship, but man, we're best friends, and you know, for her, like people just.

Don't like, and they don't even call her by her name. They don't even know. That's all it is. Do you know? Like, they just, that's what they say. And it's a, it's, it's interesting, like just saying like, people were like yelling at her like in new Orleans, like, Hey, Maria, my, yeah, exactly. Like, like in the French quarter.

And, you know, it's, it's, it's just exciting, but she does such an excellent job of, like you talk about social media, like she has a sizable following, so much more than you guys, but. Very rabid. Like I've never, I don't know many people that have a social media following that is as engaged as hers. I mean, she just does such an excellent job of engaging with people in a very non-automated way, which is very time-consuming.

Somehow she fits it all in, and she's just, I mean, it's paying off for her in a lot of ways with career development, but also. We don't build a business and move away from, you know, some of the teachings she's been teaching a ton and all that is just because of this platform that she's developed. And it's, it's kind of crazy if you think about it, that you can do that now, but, but there, there tends to need to be some sort of like strategy of we're going to go next and like, what's the, what's the goal that you're moving towards for you guys?

What, what's, what's yours like? What's your goal with the Rehab Guys? Like what do you want to do? Is it just digital product stuff? Like what? What do you think wants seem to be a goal is that

Michael: [00:36:31] anytime someone's hurt or anytime someone's searching something about their musculoskeletal health, we are the thing that pops up on Google.

That is going to be the ultimate goal. Like if someone types in something about their needs, sometimes there's somebody on the shoulder. We want the information that we're putting on, especially on the blogs, to be the first thing that people get because we want to know people, and we'll let people know that they're secure.

B, they don't have cancer. And see, here are some things that you can do right now before you see the beauty before you know a car before you see anyone. At least try these things for two weeks. Okay. If it's not getting better than, definitely see someone and know that you do. You do need to see a healthcare provider, and that's the reason why we go to school for so long to see us, but for, I leave for the 80% 70% of the things that I see in the clinic, not the post off stuff.

Of course, that people are just in pain that they can, if they only had some education, it'd be so much better off and they went to the, go down the slippery slope in this spiral to now I'm seeing them six months later in the clinic because they've been reading nasty stuff online. Oh, tons of us.

We want to clean up the internet, and I guess you can say.

Danny: [00:37:31] Well, wrong information, they get it lots of ways, especially if you go online if you have shoulder pain, it's just a matter of time before you get on a web MD and you think you have like lung cancer and you're like, Oh shit. Now I've got lung cancer.

They're telling my wife, you know, and, and they always ended something catastrophic or terrible. And yet we know. That's if you look at the pain science of what's happening, these negative sort of like spiraling thoughts. All it does is just make. It's even worse, you know? And there's the perception of what the pain feels like becomes even that much more painful because they're, they're just stressing over and over again about like, what's going on.

They didn't like, Oh, I need surgery, or whatever it might be. And there's a, and there's a lot of wrong information out there. I also think we're starting to see this shift in healthcare. It's been going on for a while, but very prevalent now where it's moving, to where it's easier for people to have teleconstructs.

Right. And, and, and a lot of ways. I mean, some cases, sure. Hands-on stuff is essential, but often, as you said, you just move back. Do you know? Like I can tell people, I only teach how to hinge correctly, and their back doesn't hurt as much. Yeah. I can do that over zoom easily. Yeah. So you know, for you guys like moving that direction, do you feel like.

You know, the digital side that you're working on, do you see a brick and mortar kind of combination in conjunction with this? Like, you know, is it just who's we digitally? Like what, what other things you guys thinking about potentially getting involved in?

Michael: [00:38:56] If we ever were to do brick and mortar, the purpose of the brick and mortar would be to be part of the community and to have fun for us to have a brick and mortar.

To have that be the primary source of the business. Yeah. Because we know for what we're talking about touching, we know we have more touchpoints online, and we can impact, we get, we think we could have a more significant impact through doing things online. So that's going to be always going to be our focus on the online sphere.

Yeah. And it can be to what you said before, just teaching someone how to move a little better. Giving them a little bit of information can go a long way, especially if you're helping slash teaching the student and our coach, who has other touchpoints, their patients, and their clients. And you're having any regret or impact on society at large.

Danny: [00:39:37] Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, what about Education. So you know, for you guys, in particular, that's what you do now, but it's the general public, you know? Is there interest in doing this also with. students and coach asinine,

Michael: [00:39:50] definitely down the road. That's where we want to go. We want to hit that.

I mean, we're hitting that now through BFR for sure, but education for students. We're trying to get, and we want their acts education for student curriculum to be a lot better. I know it wasn't something that we got time school. That's something that most of the students will complain about, and having a problem is just exposure.

It's, you just need to be exposed yourself training, and then you need to be presented in the clinic. And. And seeing, Oh, that didn't work. And you are suddenly thinking on the spot. And I think you can, and people can get more of that if they were exposed to movements via online, via social media, just people on social media now.

I mean, I follow so many accounts. I'm like, Oh, that's cool. I haven't thought of that. I may not have the same rationale for whatever the post was, but like, that's good, I like that. And now I can apply that X, Y, and Z ways. I'm in the clinic. So definitely education down the road for sure.

Danny: [00:40:37] That's cool.

I, I got tiny, I guess we have in school. I'm interested to see with you guys at USC how this was, but I, I can't say that we, no one ever took us to the gym. No one ever really took us outside of the confines of the, of the, you know, school. And, You know, they said like, all right, let's get under some load.

I mean, this was just stuff that we were doing anyway, the people that were interested in it or learning about running mechanics on our own. And I see a shift in that. It was starting to happen more. It seems like students are being invited back. One of our students, RA, or one of our PTs, Robbie, he teaches a similar training conditioning course for Georgia State now.

So he goes back with another student, David Joe, and they teach, ah. They show this course and, and it's a couple of hours. It's just like, it's just like a little, you know, elective kind of thing. And, it's, the students love it, and it's like, yeah, man. Like it's important. And we know that the research also shows that if you're loading a human being, they're more resilient.

You know, they're more durable, they live longer, they have more satisfaction because they're able to be more independent. So I, it's essential, but I wonder why the gap is there. Cause like, maybe it's just the professors don't know it, you know, and they're not repressing themselves. I think

Michael: [00:41:43] that can maybe hold in some, I know for at least.

Oh, I'm thinking about my education. SC, it's, there's too much to cover when you have to think about their culture. They have to start on the basics first, and they have to start on the table. What's a bridge look like? They're not going in all the details. Oh, you can do one leg, where, where's the way?

If it's on the heel or the toe, what's the difference? If my knee goes out front, they may be not covering the last stuff, which they should because those same biomechanical principles apply to when you get into higher-level things to where they have to teach the necessary steps. Because at the end of the day, it's the schools are preparing for the boards.

That's why we still have to learn ultrasound for the board. And it's unfortunate, but I think students. It is leading the education cause that's happening now. Students are coming to their professors and their school, saying, I want to learn about BFR. I want to learn about straighten conditioning. And even if it's only elective, that's still better than what I had.

Not any of that at all. You know, even if it is a three-hour course, that's still three hours more than zero. And it's fantastic that students can push. For that, you know, for those things. Yeah. And I think students should continue to do that.

Danny: [00:42:41] I think it started with them too. Like for instance, three hours might just pique your interest, and then it's like, Oh, cool, check this stuff out.

Or maybe she'd train at this gym. Like, I feel like one of the best ways to learn this stuff. Is actively do it yourself. You know, like, I mean, how you teach somebody to move under load if they've never if you've never been under pressure or have you, somebody had to, you know, train kettlebells.

If you've never trained kettlebells, like, you know, all these things that you have to get involved in it, and also, you know, and I, I get on my soapbox about this a little bit, and I'm not going to the CrossFit games. Still, in our profession, I feel like there's a lot of hypocrites in terms of all we do is tell people.

To make better health and wellness decisions, move more, get stronger, be more flexible if needed, whatever it is. And yet we have a lot of people that do not practice that themselves, you know? And, and that's very transparent people. It would be like a hundred personal trainers overweight. That would be hard for you to take that person seriously.

Right? Yeah. And I think that you obviously can't make that mandatory on the profession, but a, as a standard, we should be. On the tip of the spear, you know, leading by example. And, and something that also, in my opinion, should be addressed with students in a way to where I would want to alienate anybody and plug people, have plenty of, you know, issues of why they may or may not be able to, you know.

Look a certain way, but for fuck sake, like you can't be eating little Debbies all day telling somebody to stop

Michael: [00:44:09] to clean it up

Danny: [00:44:11] cause they've got type two diabetes. You're like, you're well on your way, man, and it's, you're doing yourself no favors. So, you know, I think there's a lot of that in the profession still to this day because you and I are in this.

What's considered a sort of like an outlier, performance-based approach. A tiny sliver of our profession. When I go to physical therapy conferences, I do not feel like I fit in. I feel out of place. I feel like my mom would fit in better there. You know, she's a retired occupational therapist. All her best friends are probably there.

My friends are not there. My friends are hanging out at CrossFit gyms. We're, you know, strength conditioning conferences. And so I, I wonder though, I think it's just a matter of time before we start to see that. Sort of subset get bigger and bigger and get represented more. And then people seeking out, they want to, you know, drive that direction.

And I, you know, for you being newer to the profession, I'm interested in your thoughts on like what have you seen, what are the trends that you've seen kind of change with that? So

Michael: [00:45:06] we, so as Danny mentioned, I was over here for dinner, and we were talking about a little bit of this before, but unless you know that something's a possibility as it doesn't matter where you're at, right.

That's not necessarily on like as an athletic trainer, DPT

Danny: [00:45:25] or they college. I

Michael: [00:45:26] didn't know that there was that subset. I know I can work, you know, with, with weightlifters, with just the healthy population.

Because I wasn't exposed to that my whole first year of PT school. And it wasn't till I listened to this guy over here at Danny on which we'd now discovered,

Danny: [00:45:39] yeah, boy podcasts to listen

Michael: [00:45:42] to it. you know, telling him. Talking about how you're going, all these are CrossFit gyms after work of you're already working your patient care.

you know, getting information on getting within the community that I was like, Oh wow, there's

Danny: [00:45:52] actually something

Michael: [00:45:52] available. And I think now through social media that people have seen, even though it's a select population, they've seen that people are doing this and not just doing it, but doing it well and that it's working.

Yeah. It opens the doors to saying, okay, just because I might not get that exposure in school or within the, especially the small classes, I was very fortunate. 100 people. S is a big school, but there are a lot of problems. You know, it could be 20 people. You may not get that. I mean and understand that exposure at the hundred people.

Good point, but not social media. You can get that exposure and say, okay, it's possible now through online, there are so many resources. Know, like a self that people can reach out to you and say, Hey, what are the next steps? Or at least point me in the right direction of where I can educate myself further to keep me motivated.

Cause it's hard when you're in school, just stay motivated if you don't have, if not surrounded by that and that's what you know you want to do.

Danny: [00:46:34] It's, it's sort of, you know, I talked about a concept of like the first person to break the four-minute mile. Like they thought this was impossible. And then the year that that happened, I believe there is another two or three people broke the record as well that broke the form into a mile, which they thought was impossible with this, it's this whole idea of like.

Oh, it can be done, right—kind of thing. I just, you know, we was talking, I told you the first place I ever saw that was, was in San Francisco at Kelly's. Jim, whenever they were in the parking lot, and he had this, he had a Conex box that like, dude, it was probably barely maybe a foot wider on each side, on the end of the table, and perhaps like two feet.

More full on the sides, and he's a significant human being. And to watch him like have to like shimmy around the bottom of it while somebody was lying down as he got out of the room as soon as he could, but it had like a little air conditioner on it. So if it was, you know, it was pretty hot when I was there. So the air conditioner running and this person's like sitting there while he's sore on this tiny stool, talking to him and taking an intake and a, I was like, Holy crap.

This is chronic, crazy. It's like somebody is paying you to sit in this little box and in a parking lot at that, and he had a waitlist for like three weeks, and that's, that's the first time that I thought I had no intentions of getting out of the military at all at that time. And I was just there because I want to learn some stuff and take it back to my, my brigade and you know, things just changed a little bit over the next few years.

I got some opportunities, but. I remember thinking like, this is amazing. And, and not only that, but like, man, this is so like he is, he has said over who he gets a chance to work with who doesn't work with, and he doesn't have to fight with insurance companies. And it's super transparent, and it's like there's just this agreement between you and this person.

And not any other third party. And it just makes it very streamlined. And you know, for me, that was like my four-minute mile. Seeing that was was huge. And now I think, you know, people like yourself. Putting content out and people understanding what like a student can do in a nontraditional kind of evolution afterward without saying, okay, I'm going to go work for this high net worth or high volume clinic for a couple of years.

Maybe I do a residency. I'm tied to a contract with them for like three, four years. Perhaps I'd do a fellowship. You know, maybe I become a clinic director. I get paid marginally more. I hate my job significantly more. And then from there, I decided like, you know, what do I want to do after that? And for a lot of people, sadly.

They decide, maybe I'm not, perhaps I don't want to do this anymore. And it's because maybe they haven't seen these other things. Cause like, do you have fun doing what you do? Oh yeah. Well, you, you told me you were thinking about initially orthopedic surgery. Are you super glad you didn't do that? I'm super excited it's super, super bad, dude.

Those guys are miserable, man. Like I'm not all of them, but a lot of the surgeons that I know, like they have crazy hours, they don't see their family a whole lot and the amount of money that they make good money, but relative to the flexibility of having their life is not worth the trade.

Michael: [00:49:25] They're never going to be, it's so hard to be on being an entrepreneur in the orthopedic surgeon, right?

Have to be in these collects at these conglomerates. Are they part of these health healthcare systems at that point? Like I know for one of them, I won't mention the name in LA. You sign a paper, they can see if you can create an invention, like a surgical technique. You don't own that surgical technique.

They employ you. Right. So if you ever want, you know, if you ever wanted to do something, you've got to go out on her own and do it, even though you can't be a part of the hospital. Wow. And it's so hard to get patients

Danny: [00:49:52] when you're on your own

Michael: [00:49:53] part of a big system like that.

Danny: [00:49:54] It's true. It's true. You know, I've seen a trend here, even with a couple of nonsurgical sports med docs that have just gone straight, cash and.

I sent a lot of people to get to see those guys because our population, obviously that's something that they, I mean that that's the direction they prefer. And they also prefer the speed at which they get to see them. The answer that they get the nonsurgical approach, the more concierge level of service, and then a communication back and forth between me and this, this other doctor where it's very symbiotic so that, I mean, they, they're getting like.

High-level care when it usually was, we'll get lost in this big system of, of these university systems were big, big hospitals and I think it's going to go that direction more and more and more, especially as people get more and more time-sensitive like just think about all the technological advancements that have happened recently.

Everything is about convenience, economy

Michael: [00:50:45] and how fast you can get

Danny: [00:50:45] it. How quick can? Can I get Uber to eat to get here? Right? Like recently even exist a couple of years ago and now any restaurant in Atlanta, pretty much. If I want to get food delivered to me, I don't even have to go anywhere. It's just convenient.

Right? So the more convenient you can be is why I think the digital stuff is just; it's going to explode even more over the next few years is. It's the place to be now. That being said, I would love to hear some of the struggles of the digital kind of world, because this is the other. The other thing, I get a lot of students reaching out, and there's like, dude, I want to create an ebook and make $1 million.

It's going to be awesome. Like, how do I do it? Right? Yeah. Yeah, that'd be great. Why wouldn't everybody do that if that was the case? So tell me, like what have been some of the lessons you have learned the hard way about digital business?

Michael: [00:51:28] I would say the first thing, digital businesses, and even maybe the business side, is the infrastructure.

Yeah. If you don't have the infrastructure on the backend, your business will fail. Every time we've launched our product, a product besides maybe this last one, we've had a colossal failure that costs lots and lots of money. So the first one we launched our membership, it was auto canceling memberships after a month.

Oh wow. Last couple of hundred memberships. And that's, and that's recurring revenue. The second launch we had, we, it w we had specific trial lanes set up, but with the code that people were using, the trial ended up being a year. So every time we, you know, you launched digital things, it's not even, we're not even talking about the product itself.

We're just talking about like stuff that we as healthcare practitioners, practitioners may not have the best knowledge. And it goes to your point like monitoring the people that know that stuff to help you with that stuff while you focus on the things that, you know, the healthcare side, making the actual product.

Yeah. And then when it comes to the product, there's so much useful information out there nowadays. What's going to cost me to put down their credit card to buy your thing when there's so much else out there unless they like you or they believe you or you know you've done something to make them want to do that.

Because you know, in this day and age, there's so much information out there. Yes. We're trying to say. That we want to be like the go-to resource, whether it's free, whether it's paid so that people know, and they trust that they're getting useful information. But how do you get to that point? That takes a lot of time.

You know, a lot of

Danny: [00:52:48] times, it takes a ton. You know you're dead on about the digital infrastructure, though. I mean, I feel like you can test and retest everything and you're always going to miss something. It's super frustrating, and it sometimes is the difference between a successful. You know, launch or campaign.

And to put it in context, like imagine working on something for literally months. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, because something isn't connected the right way, you're, you're shit out a lot. Yep. That's incredibly frustrating. And, and, and not something that can necessarily happen in a brick and mortar business.

And this is, and you know, I, I honestly feel like a brick and mortar business is more accessible to get started and insulate yourself from significant changes than a, than a digital company. Now digital marketing, you can scale much faster, and the reach is much, much bigger. But things can change very quickly, and you can be out of business with that.

So, you know, there's pros and cons to both. I, I just, I think it just depends on what you're trying to do and the best, the best fit. Fit for you, you know? And so what have you guys found with the digital business side of things? Like, have you partnered with people? Are you just learning as much as you possibly can about it?

And more of delving into that? Like how are you, I guess, insulating yourself from the business side of digital business?

Michael: [00:53:59] Yeah, so we started, cause there were three of us, and we had Caldwell had three times as much time as maybe a single person entrepreneur. So we used to try to do everything ourselves as in like we've launched.

Everything ourselves. We created the website or stuff. We did all the code, like all this, all the things that we should never have done. We did, but we wanted to learn, and I think that's important actually, to start with it. You are doing yourself. Sure. That way, you know what goes into it. You know what you don't know.

You know what you do know, and you make reasonable mistakes, but then when you do scale up to something bigger, where those mistakes are much more amplified, it pays to pay someone. Way more money than you think you should pay for them. Yeah. Cause you're used to not paying anything for it. But to then for all those fears to be alleviated.

Like right now, we have two dedicated website teams, and then I have like a virtual system that also helps with website stuff. And it's so lovely now knowing that when something's not working, I have to do this slight bit of research to know who to send it to. And I'm going to send it to them, and I don't care how much it costs because I know that they're much better at it than me spending five hours going on Google forums trying to figure out how to fix a bug

Danny: [00:55:02] and just being

Michael: [00:55:03] so frustrated.

I'm so outsourcing or paying people that Excel in something to help you. I just like people pay us in the clinic. We Excel in telling them what's wrong, maybe what's wrong with their shoulder, and giving them the right path to get back to CrossFit. The same way we should go pace for someone else who will help us with those things that we're not experts in, and we have to set that up.

It's hard as an entrepreneur because you want to do all those things hard to let go. That's my, my, for sure of the three of us, that's my problem. Letting go of responsibilities and being comfortable with someone else doing it, knowing that. I'm not in control. Yeah. But it's so important to be able to learn how to give someone else control.

Danny: [00:55:38] It's these same perfectionist tendencies. Yeah. You know, a good friend of mine has gone through the same struggle, man, and you know, he's tapped out in terms of his ability to leverage his time, so he doesn't have any time left. And it's been tough for him to let go of control. I think that's really what it comes down to.

It's like you have these high standards, and you know, to some degree, it's not going to be done precisely as good as you could do it if you are the one doing everything, but it may be way faster, and 95% is good. Yep. And you don't have to do it. That's a that's, I'll take that. Like, that's a good trade, you know?

And I think that's a difficult thing to come to. Not man, I, I, here's, here's what I want to leave this with, I think has been a super cool conversation. I'm excited for, but to hear this, but I think your message, in particular, resonates with probably a lot of students that are in school and they're just like, man, I, I know I want to do something on my own.

Like they're sort of in a slow process where they've got to graduate, and they've got to get their degree, and you know, and pass boards and all these new, these things. Then they can kind of get into everything that they want to do. And what advice do you have for like students or even new PTs in terms of?

You know, being able to forge your own, their path, and do the thing that they feel like they're called to do instead of what the status quo of the profession tells everybody to do.

Michael: [00:56:53] I say 100% know it's possible, even if it hasn't been done or you haven't seen someone else do it. You know, started on her own.

And what's cool about the clinic that I work at is they have these things called passion projects. So if you're doing something that you enjoy and they give people time if someone wants to work with amputees, someone wants, and everyone has their little niche, follow whatever your passion is, you can still work.

Say you have to work that job because you need the money to pay off loans. That's fine. But all the other times your day, that's only eight hours every day. Say you're doing documentation: nine, nine and a half. You still have, like Gary V would say a shit ton of time to do other stuff and follow your passions and find those things on your own.

Seek out people that are going to help you do those things because the world is the world's their oyster. All that stuff's possible just because it hasn't been done before. It is, I mean, it's not, yeah. It gives you a roadmap of that has been done, but don't take no for an answer for anyone and don't. Don't let that be.

Don't let yourself fall into this hole of just wake up, go to sleep, wake up, go to sleep. Doing the same thing without hope, unless waking up and going to sleep, doing the job you enjoy. And that's fine too. Yeah, totally. Fine.

Danny: [00:57:57] Yeah. Not everybody's like  as weird man. Like I think we have some sort of strange disease.

It's like some sort of strange genetic mutation of some sort that's just like, and it's not reasonable to want to, Put yourself at risk too. I mean, honestly, like your, your family's financial future at risk. In some cases, we're very just like dumb to that. You know, like I, I definitely am, and I'm more aware of it now, but early on, it's just like, yeah, sure, that's a good idea.

Let's do that. But it's not healthy. It's not what everybody's like. So, but whoever's listening to this podcast probably is like us. And that's also important to know too, and it is like. You're not, and you're not the only person that sees the world this way, that that sees an opportunity and gets frustrated by people that can't see the same thing that you do.

Yeah. That's, that's okay. You just have this sort of unique. The skillset that maybe you haven't had a chance to utilize yet and, and being frustrated as usual. But there are options, especially when you get out of school. I mean, you know, you and I have different paths, but yet here we are talking about entrepreneurship in various roles in some capacity, but there's still so much overlap in terms of what you still need to be able to do or not to.

And, and as a student, like, it's easy to get frustrated and just. Man gives up and then just, just like take that crappy job, but you know, you don't want, and I think it's happening less and less now. People aren't scared to kind of do some, and these other things are cool. So I appreciate the message that you have for everybody's in school or, or, or a new grad.

It's refreshing to hear what you're doing, man. It's finally got a chance to catch up. So here's what we'll do. You know, Mike, I'm super excited to, you know, to get your information. So is it right? Tomorrow we got three cookies to eat. So we'll, we'll, we'll do that and then we'll, we'll, we'll call it a night.

So. Guys. I hope you hope you like this one. Thank you so much for your time, man. Come over for dinner and enjoy tacos with us and guys, if you like this one, let me know. Take a screenshot of this, throw it up on your Instagram stories, tag us, tag Prehab Guys, and let us know that you like it. We'll repost it, and you guys will hopefully get a little bump in your followers as well so people know what you're listening to.

So as always, guys, thanks so much for listening. We'll catch you next time.

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.

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