E580 | What Fuel Are You Using To Drive You?

Today, I am exploring the idea of fuel being used to power success in business and how work is not much different from the fuel used to power nutrition. When you examine yourself and the motivations behind your ambition, you have to be able to find some sort of motivating factor that is driving you. I encourage you to think about the fuel that is driving you and consider the implications it may have on your life. Enjoy!

• Exploring the Impact of Unhealthy Motivation on Success
• "The Impact of Mission-Driven Business: Helping 30,000 Patients and Generating $50 Million in Revenue"
• Reflection on Proving Others Wrong: A Discussion on Healthy Fuel Sources

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Podcast Transcript

Danny: Hey, real quick before we start the podcast episode, I want you guys to check out our new YouTube channel for PT Biz. We are putting out a weekly video on the most common questions that we get, and we are breaking those down in a way that's more engaging. Where you can learn better and really focus on one thing at a time.

So if you're interested in really learning more skills to upgrade your cash and hybrid practice, head over to YouTube. Subscribe to the PT Biz Channel and check out the weekly videos that we're coming out with to help you win in the cash-based practice game. 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? Zach, Danny here with the PT Entrepreneur Podcast, and today I wanted to share a little light bulb moment with you that I had while I was reading last night. So actually I was reading the I guess pre-sale copy of Built To Move, which is the new book that Kelly and Juliet Tourette wrote.

It comes out. April 4th, so you can go get on the pre-order list on Amazon. It's actually awesome. It's such a good book and it's something that I feel like if you can just own these concepts that they talk about, a lot of this you guys hopefully already know but in a more simplified manner, if you can take these concepts and teach it.

To your to your patients, like you'll have patience for life, you'll have lifelong patience, and you'll really help them make true long-term health changes. Instead of just, instead of just helping them, maybe just with the pain they're dealing with in their back or whatever.

And that might be why they're there to see you, but you, if you have this depth of knowledge, it can really help them in other areas. They're deficient, manage a game changer. So anyway. Back to the book. I was reading it last night. I was reading the chapter on nutrition. Basically, it's their approach to that, a simplified sort of basic nutrition approach.

And they tell a story in the book about Kelly having a a camping stove that could run on a whole bunch of different types of fuel, right? So it could be. Kerosene. Propane. Propane. It could be gasoline. And they were telling a story about how they tried to use gasoline to use the camping stove to heat something up.

And it worked for a minute or so. And then the the valve or line to the stove got clogged up by the gasoline. So they cleaned it out. They tried again. Same thing happened. So the point of the story was just because you can burn Any type of fuel. It doesn't mean that you should, it doesn't mean that and their point was just cuz you can eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for every meal doesn't mean that you should.

Because it's creating other problems and some fuels burn cleaner than others. Which makes sense from a neuro from a nutrition standpoint. What I took away from that this morning, I woke up, I was working out and I was like, oh shit. There's no difference. There in terms of the fuel that you use for nutrition then, in comparison to the fuel you use to drive you in business, in the work that you're doing the difficult work of starting, growing, and building, building a practice, building any type of business, honestly.

And, it made me think and it's something that for the last, really probably the last year, I've really been taking a a deeper look. At myself and what drives me and most of what had and still to some degree, drives me to this day, does, is not clean fuel. Let me put it that way.

It's. It's fuel that was primarily, driven by trying to prove people wrong. Trying to make myself feel like I was, a worthy individual via accomplishments versus, just understanding that those things aren't what other people view as whether, I'm worth being around or not.

Deep shit that is stuff that, that really starts early on with family dynamics and interactions you have just growing up and you make these sort of assumptions for yourself that in some cases can be very detrimental. And in other cases, for me, like I've used the sort of competitive rage that I would say that I've had for a very long time to put myself in a place where I've been able to succeed in a lot of ways.

But what I want you to think about, if you are like me and you have this drive that comes from really fuel that doesn't burn, that clean it, it leaves other problems along the way. It blocks up the line in other ways, right? It creates other problems that if unresolved you know, that it creates other issues you have to deal with.

In your life, right? And when I think of the different types of fuels that you can use to really do something challenging, build a business, I think you can look at things from a positive lens. Or you can look at things from a negative lens. And what I mean by that is if I look at things from a negative lens, which is what I've done now for a long time, it's well, said I couldn't do this, and it doubted me, or this person dismissed me, or This person's not paying enough attention to me, or, my brother did this, or I gotta do.

More than that. My dad did this, I gotta do more than that. And that's not a good place to be honest with you. Trying to prove people wrong, being mad and using that as a fuel to push yourself. That's one way to get there. And honestly, I see a lot of people that I've got a chance to meet that are entrepreneurs in particular.

I see the same thing in the world of, athletics and a lot of the professional athletes that we've had a chance to work with, high achieving, military personnel that I've had a chance to work with. And a lot of it, it's negative. It comes from a negative place and it will drive you like it's a fuel that burns real fucking hot.

No doubt about that. But the challenge is eventually you can't just be mad at everybody. You can't. You and even if you do accomplish something like here's what I want to think about. Like I had somebody that basically told me there's no way with the business model that we had that would ever be a seven figure business.

And I thought about that a lot. Un more than I probably should have as we were building a business that we grew well past seven figures. And after we did. The fuel that pushed me there was that this person basically dismissed me and said that this wasn't possible with the type of business that we had.

And when it happened, all I could think of was just how wrong that person was. How I, felt validated that I proved that person wrong. And what a terrible view to hit such a. What, and most people consider a very challenging goal, an important thing to, to be able to say in business that you've been able to do.

Very few people consider they've done that, and yet for me it was just, ah, I knew he was wrong. Like that is exactly what I thought. It wasn't. Think about how many people we helped along the way, how many people we employed. What kind of positive mission we had, where we were legitimately helping people, like we're in the business of helping people get over musculoskeletal pain and back to the activities that they love.

And the only thing I can think of was how this asshole had told me that I was, I wouldn't be able to do, it was wrong. And I wanted him to know, like that is, that's what pushed me. And that leaves other issues that you have to deal with. And, I struggle with this somewhat because I know for my.

My path, right? Came from a lot of just negative fuel that pushed me to do things. And some of you that might be where you're at. And that might be what's driving you so hard. And I think you, we can be fearful of the fact that if we let go of that a little bit, that our desire to push really hard will go away.

And maybe it does to some degree. I feel like. I feel like it's something that you can push yourself just as hard with the positive fuel, like a positive reason. For instance, if we go back to that same example, if you really think about how many people are in your community, That are dealing with chronic musculoskeletal problems, that's stopping them from doing activities that they love to do, which is causing other, health, stress related issues in their life because of a lack of fulfillment and a lack of being able to use their vehicle in life, a lack of health and how much they wish they, they could, and yet you know how to do it.

You know how to help them. You just gotta get them in your door. You gotta get them to trust you. That should be your mission. That should be what pushes you. Not proving somebody wrong, not, one upping your brother, not whatever. Proving to your family that you're important because of X, Y, and Z.

Not trying to compete with your friends because they make more money than you. That's just the worst type of fuel. And if that's you I know what that feels like and it doesn't feel good, and it makes you feel, it makes you an angry person, it makes you dr. Push and drive and have this res, relentless desire to succeed, but at the expense of internally just being angry to some degree all the time and being propelled by that.

And eventually having to deal with that because that will only get you so far. And then, then what do you do? Cause if everything that's driving you is based off of proving other people wrong and it's based off of something negative that you're using You end up becoming a pretty negative, difficult person to be around.

So this is, I think, one of the reasons why we see so many entrepreneurs that struggle with balance, with being able to stay in relationships with being able to have relationships with their friends and family with being able to, take care of themself. It's like they need something to push them and the only thing that they find is competition in a negative way.

And I really encourage you to make the shift to something more positive, like mission driven fuel. It's the way that I look at it. Like our company, with PT Biz, we help, cash and hybrid practices start and grow scale those practices, Multiple, six, seven figure even practices all around the country, big markets, small markets, even internationally.

Like it's awesome. It's so cool what we get to do and the people we get to work with. And the compounding effect of all the people that they get to help. Like my mission is to help them, help as many people as they can. Because when we started our practice, that was the thing that I eventually moved towards that made me feel really good about all the things that we were doing when I got away from just being angry and driving to put to basically, prove people wrong.

And when I moved more to. Like just how many people we were helping and how much that was helping their lives. And I realized that when I would meet these people outside of the office, I would see it in the office. And it's like, all right, but this is just my job. I would see these people at a restaurant, at a music festival, at a something.

And they'd come up to me and they'd gimme a hug and they'd be like, oh my God, dude, thank you so much. Like they would introduce me to their the people they were with there for their family and it was like they were so thankful to have been able to work with me and I looked at it as a business transaction.

I looked at it as someone that I was working with because it's what my job was. And that really helped me shift the, to the fact that man, we are helping people in a tremendous way and driving more towards mission driven versus proving people wrong. Made a huge change for me. And now with PT Biz, like that's all I think about.

I think about the, just in our mastermind we have 200 ish businesses, just between 200 and 215 businesses that we work with every single month on a very closely. And helping them grow their businesses and quite a few more that we're helping start in a smaller program or a program for smaller businesses called the Clinical Rainmaker Program.

But just in the Mastermind, these are people that we have more of an ongoing cadence with and check in on and actually meet and see a couple times a year and and to hear them talk about their businesses and the people that they're helping and the compounding effect of that, like last year between all those businesses, I think there was something like 20,000 new patients that that, that were seen.

No, it was more than that 30,000 new patients that were seen, and that's 30,000 new patients around the country that were seen by quality performance-based providers and. They got results. They got things that they were hoping to get. They got back to things that they loved to do. They learned how to take care of their body more.

They found someone that could help them navigate the choppy waters of the healthcare system. That's a lot of people. If I put that many people into one room, it would fill up a basketball stadium. It would f it would be so many people. And that's the stuff that I think about now in terms of what's driving us.

And the net effect of that, by the way, was, our group, that group of businesses generated just under 50 million in combined revenue last year. So yes, they're helping a lot of people. And yes, the business model is great as well. And the net effect of them being able to provide value to people is that they provide them back with value, which is in the form of dollars.

That's how we exchange value with one another. Being mission driven and thinking of okay, we need to help more businesses or we need to help the businesses that we are working with, hire more providers because that's one provider that we get a chance to save from the existence of seeing 20 plus people a day and all work comp Medicare people, and then them questioning whether they should have gone to PT school in the first place and thinking about nonclinical jobs and leaving the career.

That is so personally rewarding when all they really want to do is be able to work with people in a more pure manner. See fewer people have a better work-life balance and see more of the right people. People they really enjoy working with. What's wrong with that? That's great.

That's exactly what I wanna do. When I started my practice and now with these clinic owners that we work with, it's like, all right, we're gonna grow, not just so you can make more money. We're gonna grow so that you can save that person that's over there in that PT mill that, doesn't want to be there, but would make an awesome staff clinician or, senior clinician within your practice.

And then they help more people. It's all about the positive. Who are you helping? What does that mean and what's the mission? Mission driven fuel is so much better than driving yourself with these goals of just proving other people wrong. And I see it sometimes in people that we work with, and even if I it's such a difficult thing to bring up.

It's such a difficult thing to say, dude, you've gotta change. What you're doing you need to pick a different fuel. The fuel that you're, that you have, it will work. But man, it's, it could burn you down in the process because it's not a positive place to start. It's a very negative place to start. And I see it in people very similar to myself.

I see the competition, I see the negative fuel that, that, that is driving them. And even if I bring it up, it's like you have to be careful in how you say these things because. In one way, they may need to hear it, but another way they might take what I'm saying to them as just another person.

They're adding to fuel, their drive in a negative way. They say, oh, Danny told me that. I need to change this, and this. He's wrong. Or Danny said this. I think he's just telling me I can't do it, and they'll manipulate things in a way that helps drive them.

I did the same thing. I, sometimes I look back and I'm like, did so and so really doubt me? Or did I fucking make that up? Was I so caught up in being successful that I literally skewed a conversation in my own mind to make it more negative so that it would drive me more? That's very possible. I think I question that quite a bit at this point.

I definitely know there's plenty of people that told me there were certain things were a bad idea and that I shouldn't do it, but probably not in the context that I held onto it for so long and just wanting to like, prove it to somebody, show it to somebody, dude, look what I did. You were wrong.

Look at me. You were wrong. What a dickhead thing to do. Just think about that for a second. If that's you and that's, you just wanna prove somebody wrong and then you do prove them wrong, how do you feel after that? Not great. How do you think they feel? Not great. They're gonna feel indifferent either way.

If they really don't care about you or what you do, they don't care. You think they're gonna be like, Hey, look at me. You were wrong. All right. Whatever, dude, I don't care. I don't even remember that conversation. That's how it would go. And in our minds, we ha we think that they're like paying attention to what you're, you're doing all the time.

And they're not these fabricated things that drive us. It is just not a healthy place to be. And I'm telling you this, and this hit me this morning while I was working out and it had nothing to do with this chapter at all. This was about nutrition. This was about getting 800 grams of fruits and vegetables and enough protein.

That's what the chapter's about. But the story is what hit me about what fuel you use in the stove and how you can use many, but it doesn't mean that you should or that they all are equivalent in terms of how beneficial they are. And how they last. I think the other thing too, if you really look at being mission driven and coming from a place of wanting to help as many people wanting to lift up as many people within your own company as possible, is that it burns a lot longer.

It burns a heck of a lot longer versus just trying to prove everybody wrong. Now, let's say you hit that goal now. Now what? Now, what do you have left to drive you? You gotta find somebody else that says you can't do something. You gotta find some other, pushback from somebody. You gotta go look for a fight because you can't.

Fuel yourself. You don't have it in you because you're, everything that you're using to push your yourself is coming from a negative place. It's coming from negative interactions versus that mission-driven internal fuel. That fuel that is all about helping other people and abundance and being being a positive element.

To so many other people in your community and your community within your business. Your staff, your team. Th that burns hot for a long time. That's it. And you see these little wins and the little wins aren't, oh, I proved so-and-so wrong cause I was able to do this. The win is, oh my gosh, I, my staff member.

One of my staff clients, they bought a house because of the income that they're able to earn in this business that I started by helping other people. How awesome is that? They didn't earn it by scamming people. They didn't earn it with, predatory techniques and doing all this negative stuff.

They earn it by helping people, get over chronic pain and to running again, or whatever it is that you do. What a positive way to go. What a great fuel to have to fuel you for as long as you want to be in that profession. But it's gonna burn a heck of a lot longer than you just trying to use negative influences to push you.

And sometimes I wonder if I would have learned this earlier, would I be in the same place? Honestly, I think that I would, I think I'd be in the same place, but I think that I would've gotten here with a hell of a lot less turbulence along the way with a heck of a lot less pain, honestly, just.

Discomfort. And I think that looking at this in terms of if I lose this negative fuel, I won't be able to drive and push the way that, that I do. I just don't think that's accurate. I think you're going to feel so much better if you're focused on, driving forward for positive reasons instead of propelling yourself away from negative things and.

Even if you can't go maybe as fast, it doesn't force you to work quite as hard and as quite as intensely. This is a long game. This isn't a sprint, this is a marathon. And if you sprint there and you ruin everything else along the way, man, it's not worth it. The pace at which you go, it doesn't matter that much.

You're, this is a long game. So use of fuel that's gonna help you get there and help burn super clean and not just have business success but not burn everything else down in the process. Because that's what ends up happening with most people is they push himself super hard. They. End up achieving what they want, and then they look back at all the things that they've burned down along the way, and they have so much regret.

So I hope this helps you. This is something that I just wanted to share something that I've been working on for quite a while and I hope that you can learn something from this and you don't have to learn it the hard way like I did. And back to my buddies.

Go get built to move by the Tourettes. Not only do I think it's a great book, but I think that they are genuinely some of the nicest people that I've ever met that are really mission driven u using the right fuel to really try to make a huge health impact on the population as a whole. And I think that's what this book is really for to help people, take simple steps to really improve their health and wellness. So I think you'll really enjoy it. Go check it out April 4th, it comes out. Get on the presale list on Amazon and ship it to you, that's how it works.

So guys, as always, thank you so much for listening. I'll catch you next week.

Hey, Pete, entrepreneurs. We have big, exciting news, a new program that we just came out with That is our PT Biz part-time to full-time, five day challenge. Over the course of five days, we get you crystal clear on exactly how much money you need to replace by getting you. Ultra clear on how much you're actually spending.

We get you crystal clear on the number of people you're getting to see, and the average visit rate you're going to need to have in order to replace your income to be able to go full-time. We go through three different strategies that you can take to go from part-time to full-time, and you can pick the one that's the best for you based on your current situation.

Then we share with you the sales and marketing systems that we use within our mastermind that you need to have as well. If you wanna go full-time in your own practice. And then finally we help you create a one. Page business plan. That's right. Not these 15 day business plans. You wanna take the Small Business Association, a one day business plan that's gonna help you get very clear on exactly what you need to do and when you're gonna do it.

To take action if you're interested and sign up for this challenge is totally free. Head to physical therapy biz.com/challenge. Get signed up there. Please enjoy. We put a lot of energy into this. It's totally free. It's something I think is gonna help you tremendously, as long as you're willing to do the work.

If you're doing the work and you're getting. Information put down and getting yourself ready to take action in a very organized way, you will have success, which is what we want. So head to physical therapy biz.com/challenge and get signed up today. 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 Yves Gege 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.