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Welcome to the True Sports Physical Therapy Podcast with your host, Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt. In this inspiring episode, we sit down with Dr. Danny Willey, Clinic Director at True Sports, to discuss creating culture and loving your profession. Dr. Willey shares his approach to building a positive clinic culture, fostering team spirits, and finding daily fulfillment in the PT profession.This conversation is a must listen for any clinician or healthcare professional looking to elevate their work environment and reconnect with their passion for patient care. Tune in to hear how impactful culture can be in creating a thriving, motivated team. Let's jump right in. Thank you guys so much for listening to the True Sports Physical Therapy Podcast.Today's guest is Dr. Danny Willey. Danny played college hockey at Lebanon Valley College. Uh, he was an outstanding player through his time there. He was a defenseman. Um, he graduated with his doctorate of physical therapy from LVC. In 2017, he is a COMT and he has coached elite level hockey for eight years now.He's also run true sports York clinic. For two and a half, three years. And he has done an unbelievable job of bringing his coaching techniques, mindset, philosophy to his professional life. And that's what we really dig into here is how much sports and coaching sports taught Danny and how he allows that culture that he has envisioned to be, to trickle down to his entire staff.And now he's grown the clinic to almost four full time physical therapists. So we're really excited for him. There's a great job of really distilling this information for everyone's benefit. So I can't wait to hear what you guys think about this conversation. Danny came highly recommended as a guest from all you guys.So please let us know who you want to hear from true sports PT on Instagram. Just shoot me a DM say, Hey, I got this awesome PT. We'd love to hear him on the pod or want to know more about what he says about XYZ. And we would love to have him. We will make it happen for you. As always, if you want to become a better sports physical therapist, you can either join the team here.At true sports. And that also you can shoot me a DM, or you can take one of our courses. We have a new course coming out for the overhead athlete that's taught by a former professional baseball player and a doctor of physical therapy, Dr. Brian Hunter. Um, you can find that on our website. We can't wait to teach you.We can't wait to learn from you. Thank you so much for listening. Enjoy. Welcome back to the true sports physical therapy podcast. This one's been a long time in the making. Really excited to have Dr. Danny Willie with us today. Welcome aboard. Thanks for having me. Really excited to be here. Um, absolutely.Thanks for finally making time. You've been treating your ass off. You've been growing an unbelievable clinic up here in York, Pennsylvania. And that's what I want to get into because I didn't realize this when we hired you, shame on me, you're an unbelievable coach. You've created an outstanding culture.You have a burgeoning clinic that is ready to bring on their fourth full time physical therapist and the culture, the work ethic, the product that you're putting together at True Sports York is unparalleled. It's really amazing. So I want to get into how the hell you do that and how do you get to this point?So let's start there. How'd you get to this point in your career? Um, so I graduated from Lebanon Valley College, went through the six year DPT program. Uh, that was in 2017. So I'm getting old now. So it's hard to believe it's been that long. And if you're old, I'm way older. Go ahead. Uh, but I still think I'm getting old, but, uh, once I graduated in 2017, um, my first job was up in the Schuylkill County area.The, the first job I took was a general outpatient orthopedic practice. Um, you know, part of me looked at it as this is a great open door for me. At that point, I'd done a clinical there. Um, it was really good starting point for me. Did you look elsewhere? I, I did. I looked at a couple of places. Um, I knew I always wanted to be in sports, but I think I had this fear that like I wasn't ready for it right away.Like I, I. Why? If anyone was ready for it, it was you high level athlete growing up. You didn't touch on that, right? Um, A sports geek, well schooled, why do you start in a gen pup? By the way, I made the same mistake, but why do you start at a gen pup? It's a, that's a really good question. I kind of ask myself that all the time.I think everybody uses the term imposter syndrome now, right? I was so afraid of making mistakes, that I was willing to take that first job and just run with it. And I think I was scared that if I got that sports opportunity, I wasn't ready for it, that I was going to look like an idiot not knowing what to do.And hindsight, um, honestly, part of me is happy that I got those experiences when I did, that I went through kind of cutting my teeth in that gen pop realm a to know that that's not what I want to do full time, but also so that I could make some of my new grad mistakes at that level, as opposed to doing it when I'm working with the athletes, I so badly wanted to be with and what mistakes were those?Oh, man, do I have to list them all? There were a lot of all of everyone. Um, weight, weight bearing progression, something as simple as that, um, I've been actually really transparent with, with my students about this. Um, I remember a doc getting really angry with me, they were supposed to be full weight bearing.They wanted them out of this boot. I've never taken somebody out of a boot before. I don't know what the heck I'm supposed to do. So they show up the first visit after that. And I remember the doc made it very clear they weren't happy with me. So I just took them out of the boot and saw what happened and it didn't go well.They didn't have good balance. Uh, it was an ugly, ugly walk and I let them keep walking like that. I didn't have any plan for on day one, you're spending an hour outside the boot and then you're going back in the boot for an hour. There was no plan. It was just, okay, doc doesn't want you in the boots. The boots gone.Um, in hindsight, I wish, like those are the things I'm glad I learned then. Yeah. So I, so I guess it. I guess it's better, although it's, you know, it's at the expense of the gen pop, like the patient was in front of you, but I guess it's better to cut your teeth there, as you said, then go into a high level sports clinic where you're treating athletes and you really don't want to screw them up.Right. Why you're a smart dude. It's not rocket science to take someone out of a boot. They're not going to be as good on day one as they, as they are on day two, they're not going to be good an hour one as they are an hour or two. So, so why not plan that out? What was missing there? Uh, I think a lot of it was just experience, um, coming through school.It's not like they really teach you, Hey, this is how you come out of a cam Walker. Um, honestly, it's not like the licensure exam either. I said, what are you doing with this person? I think that was probably one of my first keys into like academia is so great for learning how to pass this exam and learning how to be a functional PT.But there's so many gaps to that, right? Like they're teaching to be able to get you to pass that licensure exam and they're teaching to a broad range. You can be anywhere between inpatient acute care and, and sports. Um, and frankly, I didn't get a ton of sports experience, so that was kind of having to learn that on my own.Yeah. And that, but, but the truth is that's not even sports experience. That's like not being a moron. Yeah. So, so that's where I'm going with that. Um, but clearly. I did the exact same things and far worse. Um, I distinctly remember my boss's best friend coming in to see me early in my career and leaving crying because I did stupid things with his neck.So you're not alone. Um, but I guess, well, let me ask you a question. What, what pace were you treating at there? Uh, it was, it was really, really busy. So I think it's that I don't think you're a moron. I just think you're set up to be a moron. Yep. By being in a really busy clinic because if you had time to think about it beforehand or even in the moment, like, Hey, this isn't going well, let me pivot or what is my plan for this patient.But if that patient is number 11 of 20, you're dead, you're dead. And if you're running 30 minutes behind, like I always am, you're in big trouble. So I think that's a big piece of it. So shame on them. Um, for not giving you time to treat your patient, everyone listening at home, make sure you're working at a place that gives you time to succeed.That sets you up for success. So I think that's, um, that, that, that's a good lesson to kind of learn there. Okay. So you take that job because you're scared to go into a clinic, into a, into a sports clinic, sports clinic. Yeah. Yeah. And you, how much did you make there? Oh man. Do I say it on air? Yeah. Say it on air.No one's listening. Uh, I remember being told. Uh, anywhere between 60 and 65. Okay. And I was explicitly told, don't ask for 65. So I asked for 64. Okay. And I remember them saying, this will make you the highest paid new grad PT we've ever had. And I remember going, okay, then I guess I'm the highest. Not like that.I wish I was that confident. It was more of like, Hey, this is, this is what I want. This is what I feel that, you know, our services are worth. I'm coming into a spot where there was an established condition that was treating the spot that cost a heck of a lot more than I did. And I'm going to treat for a fraction of whatever they did.I'm going to have the same caseload. Um, you know, this is what I feel like I deserve. And I remember. Getting a lot of flack for asking for 64, but I made 64 at that first job. No bonuses, not incentivized. Didn't matter if I saw five people a day or 35 people that day. And how many, how long were you there?How many patients did you see on like how they schedule patients? Um, usually three to four patients an hour. And I was there for, I think I spent about 16, 17 months there at that first job before I was like, I need to make a change. Okay. And that's when you came to us? No. So I made another stop there after that.Um, I luckily I was getting a lot of hands on experience with manual therapy. Um, and I had chosen a small private practice. I think they had about eight clinics. I moved on to their next outside of Harrisburg P. A. Um, and I was able to get my C. O. M. T. It was an in house C. O. M. T. Through that organization or through that company.It was great. Um, it was great. Treating there was awesome. It was As much as it was fast paced still, I had a whole team. I oversaw a PTA, I saw an aid, um, I realized that's not the PT that I want to offer. I, I mean, nothing wrong with PTAs and aids, but it just wasn't, it wasn't really what I wanted for myself.And I was convinced for some reason I was going to carve out this niche of athletes still, in that realm. And. I think I, again, about two years into that, I realized like, I'm still not seeing the athletes. I want to say I'm not making the impacts that I want to make. Why? Um, I think some of its facilities, uh, we were armed with, we had a bike, a treadmill, a tell me you had an arm bike.No, it wasn't an arm. Thank God. Arm bike was in the first place. I was like, no, it stopped number one. Um, no, but we had weights up to an 10, 15 pound dumbbells. I think we had the usual ankle cuffs, a big roll of TheraBand in the corner. Okay. So super standard. Yeah. Gen pop. Yep. Is that why you couldn't get athletes?What else did you do to try to get athletes? That's a good question. I'm sorry to interrupt you. So. We, we actually learned a lot about marketing while I was there too. We hold, held workshops, a rotating list of workshops, and that was a great experience for me getting used to talking about PT and talking like a PT and telling kind of the general population what they need to know about PT because I think that communication pieces is really hard and coming from our education and bring that back down to most of the people that we see, um, nothing against people we see.It's just that our, our education is a little bit on a different level. Sometimes. Um, I think that within that marketing piece, we were so set in stone on what that marketing was. That I, it was harder for me to go out and say, I want to market to, I like golfers. I like play, you know, um, treating golfers.How do I go find those people? Well, we have a rotator cuff model that we can go, you know, do this, this rotator cuff workshop. We have a specific workshop that we're showing, uh, that might apply to some of my golfers, but I don't get to talk about rotational components. I don't get to talk about plyos. I don't have a med ball at my disposal.Um, and, and I'll tell you what, that's been an awesome piece of us being here. Okay. So now like played again, if you were there. Knowing what you know now, knowing how to rehab athletes like you do now. Yeah. Could you have attracted, uh, athletes there? That's a good question to know. Because if I was an athlete, I walk into that clinic and I see that there's a bike and 15 pound dumbbells.And I'm like, unless this guy's really, really good and I'm just, or unless there's a curtain, they're gonna pull back and there's a full suite of weights. Is that really where I want to be as an athlete? I mean, and frankly, like that company's target market was not. Athletes, you know, a lot of them were older adults.Um, and some of them were active. Don't get me wrong. You know, you walk in and if you're a 25 year old college or professional athlete. You walk in, you're seeing 70 year old people around you with a variety of problems from, uh, strokes and, and maybe some balance difficulties all the way up to the total knee replacement.So I think you're right, obviously, because we're constructed so differently from that Gen pop model, but I want to, I want to push you a little harder if I said to you, um, I'm going to give you a bonus for every single. Athlete that you attract in here or your bonus is going to be, you get to treat athletes, Danny.I know this is your passion. I also know we have dumbbells up to 15 pounds, but if you want to make it happen, I got your back. Could you do it now? Could I do it now? Yes. With, with what I'm armed with right now. Absolutely. Okay. So, okay. So, so great lesson, lesson to those listening who are in gen pop, you have weights to 15, you have a full caseload of total knees.They're 70 years old. Don't use it as an excuse or a crutch that, Hey, my facility blows. You can say, I don't have time to treat athletes because I do feel strongly that you need more time to treat these, this population. But don't use the facility as a crutch because now, you know, you could have done it.I definitely, I did it in a gen pop and it came with a slew of excuses when they walked in, but they were getting decent care. They felt like they were being rehabbed by someone who was super passionate about getting them back to their sport. I think it can be done. You also, It's a great point you're making of the positives of these seemingly poor situations.You came to true sports by the time you came to us, were we your third stop? Yeah, this is stop three. Okay. And you're last. So, you know, to get to your, getting to your third stop, you had A COMT. You had so many reps. I mean, we, we did a little catch up on how you treat athletes. We did zero catch up on how to treat a patient.Um, and so there's so many positives that you can get just by being out on the field. It's very easy to crawl into your shell and be like, this blows. I'm not getting the patients. I'm not getting the sport. I don't have time to treat, like, think about flip that, reframe that. You have a million reps, right?You, you got the chance to make the mistakes of taking the person out of the boot and having them run day one or whatever you did. Um, and, and so there's so much you can learn and the marketing, like I'm envious of the fact that they had a workshop and you had workshops in house of here's how we market.You don't get that in a lot of places. Um, so I think there's, there are a lot of positives there. So walk me all the way through. Then you're there for two years, just about two years. Yep. Okay. And then what do you do? So, uh, luckily I'd known Andrew Livingston, who's already a podcast. Um, I'd known him through school.Our most popular podcast guest to date. Yep. He's the man until this drops, but go ahead. He's the man. Um, so I knew Liv, I knew Liv was involved in, in the sports PT world. I, I saw his post on Instagram. I saw all this stuff you guys were doing. And frankly, like that's the stuff I'd go home. Like, man, that's, that's where I need to be.Right. So I reached out to Andrew. Um, and I said, Hey, can I come shadow sometime? Like I want to see what kind of stuff you guys are up to. Like, I want to know about this. And it started very, very innocently. It was like, I've got an ACL and I'm realizing I don't even know what I'm doing with this ACL. I'm in a gen pop situation.I haven't seen a ton of ACLs. But I want to do the best for this person and I want to find out what this, what this is all about. Yeah. Um, so I came and shouted them and it's kind of like the rest is history. It became an ongoing conversation. And, um, we had a couple of opportunities. I shouted them multiple times at that point.And it was like, I'm ready. You take this for granted because you are who you are. What an amazing. Um, outlook that you had, like, I'm not going to get paid for this. This is going to be on top of my 40 hours. I'm going to go in and make myself available. And those are the people that time. And again, we see rise to the top, whether it be in our own company or in the general business world, it's people that are supplementing.What is handed to them. Um, so you coming in just like that just shows us. That you're totally interested. It'll show any employer. So again, those who are listening, you got to do that. You got to take those extra steps. Um, when I was coming out of grad school, I was obsessed with manual therapy. I thought it was a panacea.I thought I would just cure people with my hands and that's what made me different, blah, blah, blah. Um, but. I got crap in grad school. Um, I got out of school and worked in a gen pop, a mill three, four an hour, not really learning how to use my hands. And I went and shadowed today who are some of our competitors because I just wanted to learn how do I use my hands?How am I supposed to do that? Continuing education now it's so easy, but then I traveled to. Berrien Springs, Michigan, a big spot in my heart for Berrien Springs, Michigan, because it's the only place in the country that had manual therapy courses. Not on Saturdays. It's at a seventh day Adventist school in the middle of nowhere.And so I convinced my boss to let me go there for a week, Monday to Friday, and started working my way towards manual therapy. I did not complete that and no one likes a quitter, but I kind of fell out of love with manual therapy. Um, but, but you, you got to take those extra steps, right? Okay, so you take those extra steps.You meet live live vouch for you like crazy said, I got this guy, Willie. Um, I think we should build a clinic around him in York, Pennsylvania. Um, and so that's what happened. Was he already up here? Yeah. So at that point, York was just getting started. I think he's here a couple days a week. Um, and I think yeah.By himself. This is as I remember, I walked in the first day and these glorious Instagram videos, right? Like I'm like, I can't wait to see what it's all going to look like. And I walk into this, this clinic that's still being kind of renovated and there's a foldout table and it's Andrew. He's like, what's up, man?I'm like, this is it. What is it? This is way different than I expected. And so what did you see the rest of that session? The rest of the session, I saw. Best care that I've ever seen of anybody, because I think we have this picture in mind. You see this fold out table, like, I know how this is going to go. I know I'm armed with 15 pound dumbbells, but it's going to get, you know, at least I have 15.He takes him out on the turf. It was, first of all, I think he needled that person on day one too. As far as school was concerned, PA was like a non needling state. You weren't allowed to needle. So it's like, I'm not saying anything. I was gonna talk to him later, but I'd be like, are we allowed to do this?What's going on? Um, but he, sure enough, yeah. Takes it out, treats this, this low back. I remember as a low back that we knew as a female athletic female as a soccer player and the best treatment session I've ever seen. And I was like, I am the worst PT in the world. I just watched a master at work and I am so bad at what I do every day.So, uh, yeah. Live has a has an unbelievable ability to make you feel like you're not a great PT because he is one of the best PT's I've ever met So but what did you do with that feeling because I think that's a very common feeling to our audience Yeah, first of all, I I kind of I thought it was overwhelming for a second So I was like man, I thought I was doing a good job with PT and now I'm recognizing there's so much more to it I think it was a perfect example of like just when you think you know something you realize how much you don't know You know, I said that i'm I'm I see, we're on the same page Yes You know, pretty much like me Yes, very similar Same hair Yeah, go ahead Um, but uh, but yeah So I, I kind of realized I wasn't doing the PT that I wanted to be doing And it made me hungry to be better Cause I think it, I looked at it and I was like, alright I'm ashamed that I haven't been doing that so far.But how do I make myself closer to that? And like, what is my role model? You know what I mean? Like I look at that and I'm like, man, I want to chase exactly whatever Andrew Livingston is doing. I want to get better at that. And he's so good clinically. He's also one of the best I've seen interpersonally.He really meets his patients where they are. Um, and I think that that goes a long way. That's probably more important than his clinical acumen. So how long after that until. Um, you're hired and then walk me through the life of your, Oh, man, let's see. I think it was probably about six months after that, that like we really actually started discussing, you know, like me joining the team.Um, and, and I officially made the move. It was September, I guess it was September one of what? 2022. Okay. Yeah, September 1 of 2022 was my, uh, was my start here. Um, at that time, Andrew had been treating here. Some Jared McCabe who's in Humboldt town with us, of course, had been treating here as well, and they did an awesome job at getting this place off the ground.And then I, it was me. I'm the clinic director, named clinic director, and everybody else kind of starts branching off to do their stuff. So I was like, Oh man, all right, it's just me now. Yep. Um, and, and really from there, it's just been a whirlwind. Uh, we've been, we've been blessed. We've had awesome patients.We've had awesome. Advocates for us in this area, which I think has, has been a huge part of our success from the start. We've talked about, you know, if we treat people really, really well, that, that rate, there's internal marketing for me, that, that should solve a lot of problems for us. Because even though I'd done these workshops, these experiences in the past with marketing, I also didn't know how to.Like go out and find new routes, you know, do I go knock on a doctor's door and Hey, I'm, I'm Danny. I'm new to the area. Um, I'm a PT, you know, nobody tells you how to do that. Right. Um, so my first approach, my easiest, lowest hanging fruit was if I take really good care of the patients that we have.Everything else will solve itself. Yeah. And I walked into the clinic today. You're working with a 16 year old, um, patient who had undergone ACL reconstruction, and I asked the mom how she found out about us. And she said, Danny treated one of her teammates, right? And so that's a perfect example of exactly what you're talking about.How do you turn the patient that's in front of you into your mouthpiece, into your marketing efforts? Um, and you're really good at that. True sports. Physiotherapy is growing like wildfire. We have 14 locations soon to be more. We are throughout the state of Maryland. We're in Pennsylvania, in Lebanon, in York, Pennsylvania, as well as in Delaware, in Newark and Wilmington, Delaware.Like I said, so many more practices to come and we always need. Outstanding sports, physical therapists, our treatment style is unique. We are one on one with your athlete for 45 minutes, every single session, you do the entire treatment, you do the entire evaluation, and they are in state of the art facilities where you have room to run, throw, and jump, and really get your athlete all the way back to on the field and better and stronger than they were.We also have outstanding salaries. Comp structures, bonus abilities, 401ks, as well as a very strong continuing education offering, including in house continuing education. And we're looking for you now is the time as we are growing like crazy. Just shoot your resume over to Yoni Y O N I at TrueSportsPT or shoot us a DM and we will hit you back.We will get you in for our unique tried and true interview process and really make a determination that this is the right place for you to grow your career and get your athletes better than ever. We can't wait to hear from you. So how long until you hire? So Lauren became a student with me in, oh geez, you're gonna test my memory now, it would have been December of 2022.No, January of 2022. I'm sorry. So I had my first student start with me in January of that first year that I was here. Okay. She did an awesome job. Uh, at that point it lined up well that we were about at the, my full one year mark here when she was finishing up her, her clinical and she became a full time staff PT with us at that point.Okay. So how, first of all, how do you know she's someone you wanted to bring onto your team? Yeah. Um, From the start, we established some really good guidelines on like, this is how you're going to treat our people. This is what we want to do it. We also had a really good conversation about what do you already know?What is the stuff that you feel is strong through school that you feel you're confident in and then worked on, okay, where do we need to really get some more experience? A lot of it for Lauren. I don't think Lauren would mind me mentioning this in the pod. A lot of it was post surgical. And school gives you these protocols and nobody knows where to go from there.Um, she was so warm with our patients right off the bat. She worked her butt off. She never once batted an eye about like, man, we're staying a little bit later tonight. Never once. Um, not to mention she kind of like, I guess I did with Andrew in hindsight, she pursued it. Like, how do I go about like, how would I join the team at true sports?It was never assumed, which was, I think, really, really important as a student. It's not that it's my final clinical. It means I've got a job locked up. That was never. Anything that I assumed from her. So, um, that's awesome. You were able to pick up on, on those traits. It's always easiest when they're a student with you.Right. Um, because you have just so long with them. Um, Talk to me about, so, so you, you brought up kind of your professional development, talk to me about your sports world, because I think I want to see how, how you use some of those traits in your day to day. Sure. Yeah. So as far as the sports world, I grew up playing ice hockey and baseball.Um, I think I started skating when I was like three and a half, four years old, the first time I was on skates. Um, it's funny that I found my way to hockey because my parents were not hockey people. It's not like I came from a hockey family. I grew up in Delaware, which is not exactly a hockey hotbed. I think there's been one.Uh, NHL player ever from the state of Delaware, not named Willie, not named Willie. No. Um, so I, I played hockey and baseball growing up, um, about midway through high school. Uh, I was, I was playing competitive travel hockey. Um, and I was playing competitive travel baseball as well. And it was the first time I was encountered with like, you're going to have to make a choice between the two.Um, I remember I missed a couple of days of tryouts for our high school team. It was a good high school. I went to an all guys Catholic high school in Delaware, in Wilmington, Delaware, called Slazy Anim, shameless plug. Yes. Great school. We love them. Uh, but when this coach, when they posted the teams, I remember they had the whole list of everybody who made the teams.And then my name was below all these names. If you didn't make the teams, your name wasn't on the list at all. So I was like, I don't know what that means. Yeah. And sure enough, it meant a meeting with him and with the athletic director. And they're like, Hey, you get away with it this time. But now you have to make a decision on, on what you want to do going forward.Um, and I love baseball. It's really hard for me to do, but something about hockey, I just, I stuck with it and I kept running. So that was my junior year of high school. Okay. So, so then, and then what happens? So I kept playing hockey through, um, I had the opportunity to, to, to Play 16 triple a hockey, which is, which is a great level.And those are great experience played for a great coach and great team. Um, I made a juniors team. So juniors hockey for the listeners who don't know it would have been from anywhere between 18 and 20 years old is the juniors hockey program. Uh, the idea is that some of these kids don't go to college right away.They actually spend time out of high school. They're not post grad years. They're not in prep school or anything like that. And they just focus on hockey. Um, I made a juniors team and I had this competing interest in my mind that I knew I wanted to do PT. So I was like, all right, do I play juniors and wait till I'm 20 and then go to PT school, which is six years.And then I'm 26 when I'm graduating. That was really intimidating for me. Yeah. So I decided instead, I kept playing hockey at 18. I decided I'd go to college. I'd be a true freshman. Um, had a wonderful opportunity at Lebanon Valley to have PT as the primary thing and hockey was a bonus. Um, so I got to play hockey and in college for four years.Okay. Oh, so that's amazing. I did not know that about you. Okay. So you play hockey all the way through college. And then when you're done with college, you're done with your four years, you stay in the game at all. Yeah. So I would still play like men's league, that kind of stuff. You got to stay involved somehow.But my entire fifth year of that six year program, I was not involved with hockey as far as like, I wasn't on a coaching staff. I wasn't, I wasn't playing formally. It was, it was a really tough year. It was a good year because it's a tough academic year in that curriculum, but it, it. Killed me inside to not have hockey.Um, so, and it kind of led up to like my sixth year out of the blue, uh, the head coach who I had played for had asked me, Hey, would you want to be a grad assistant with us during that sixth year of school? And I was like, man, this is, this is great. This is my intro back in. Um, and little did I know, I had no idea what I was getting into.So, and because why, what was it like? Um, it was, it was great at the time we had some 6am practices. So I had like 6am practice. Uh, we'd be in Hershey PA at this beautiful arena, Hershey park arena. I love that place. I'd finish up practice. I'd head over to class. It started at 8 a. m. And it's like, my day is just a whirlwind from there.So it was, uh, it was pretty busy. And then, um, and then, so you coach six year. Yep. I coached my entire sixth year. And then you graduate with your doctorate PT school. And so give me, give me some lessons because I see you as such an outstanding coach. I knew you were a great athlete, but I see you as a great coach and what you're building in York.So now you have two full time PTs plus yourself. We're looking for a fourth. Right. Um, Give me some lessons that you take from the rink into the staff you're building here. I think what I learned as a coach is you've really got to individualize the way that you treat people. First of all, there's a, there's a blanket statement.You treat it very well. Okay. I think that's the important piece, but understanding that everybody's a little bit different. Um, we have certain players, for example, in hockey that like to be pushed. They like old school style coaching. I messed up. I made a turnover. I want you to yell at me and i'm going to learn from it and that's fine.And i'm going to sit on this bench and be angry at myself. I'm going to get over it and we're going to be fine. There's other players that Do not respond well to that. You got to take them aside. You got to explain to them the mistake they made. You got to remind them what they could have done a little bit differently.And they thrive in that environment. And unfortunately, if you plug in place, you know, that, that hard nosed approach to that one player that likes to be yelled at. If I did that to that softer player, I'm going to lose him. Um, I think similarly with, with our employees, like I look at that is everybody's a little bit different.Um, one PTs happens to be my younger brother, Josh. Um, I'd never introduce him as my brother. I introduced him as a staff. Except you guys look like twins. Yeah, people figure it out. People figure it out. But um, Josh is one that he would kind of be that hard nosed kid. He's somebody that he kind of wants to be yelled at.He's gonna be angry at me that he made that mistake that I had to point this mistake out to him. He's gonna be better for it. And if I go in really softly to tell him that he made this mistake, he's gonna be like, what are you trying to tell me? Just, just give it to me straight. Like, let me know what the heck is going on.I've known him for my whole life. So it's, uh, yeah. So, so maybe, so maybe it's easier, but obviously wrought with trials, the fact that you guys have been together so much and I know you guys are family. Um, you've also, you've also had a number of students since you've been here and I've watched you kind of coach.Bring them along appropriately. Some of them have stayed on as full time hires, um, which is exciting. So. Walk me through what you do, because when you describe Josh, Willie, you talk about Lauren, all stars of your current squad. They're great. So very lucky. Um, I know you've had students that haven't necessarily been as good.How do you handle that situation where maybe They're not open to either of those two styles. They're not coachable. They don't want, maybe they don't want to be here. Maybe they don't want to do sports. Yeah. How do you handle that? Um, those are the toughest ones I think for us, especially in a problem that is so sports oriented, um, when they come in and they're, they're kind of starting to show some signs of maybe something that doesn't align with our culture, I let them.Maybe I give them a couple of tries of, of not doing things quite the right way. And I'm like, Oh, I'll give him a one off. I'll give him a second mistake. Okay. The third time it happens. Now we've got to sit down. Let's talk about it. Hey, notice that, uh, today you were kind of lounging against the med ball as you're, as your patients going through exercises, you know, did you notice that you were doing that?Okay. You did notice you were doing that realize from a body language perspective, what that can kind of paint for that patient, uh, you know, If you look at our staff, I'm really big on, I want them involved in that treatment. Never do they look like they're texting. If they're on their phone, they're doing something productive.They're taking a video. There may be saying that person, a reminder about appointments. They might be having to put out a fire for another patient is texting about something else, but it's very, very quick. You're focused on that person in front of you. If ever it looks like we're starting to lose our focus on that.And then that's not, that's not us. That's not what we are in York. Um, and I pretty much tell them like, Hey, here's how it is. Let's make sure we're different on it next time. If I see it again, unfortunately, we're gonna have to revisit this. We're going to make sure this doesn't keep happening. Where, where did you get that ethos?Oh, geez. I think I'm going to attribute it to my parents. My parents were pretty strict growing up. Um, and it's funny as I talk about Josh, maybe not loving feedback sometimes then realizing like, ah, he was right. My parents is, is that way to get great feedback to my parents. And, and, uh, there were times where it was a little bit painful growing up to be like, man, I should have known that way better, but I think it, I think it made me have a really strong sense of like, Who we need to be, who we should be, who we want the people around us to be.Yeah. Yeah. And carrying that through. Now, when you came on in 22, um, I don't think we really had a robust onboarding program. I don't think we had a handbook to say, here's our culture. Here's what we do here. Examples one way or another. Um, here are the intervals at which we're going to meet. Here's how we're going to work through clinical issues.Here's how we approach the shoulder, the hip, et cetera. Now we have that. Um, but you were. Before that, how did you deal with that? Um, what is so much better now? And what do you want to add to that? Yeah. So really, when we started with that, like you had said, there wasn't really a structure to your meeting every three weeks, you meeting once a month, something like that.So first of all, I went to the people that I consider mentors for me, I went to Andrew, like Andrew, I've never, it's always, it's always just been me. I was just treating for a long time. Now I have somebody that I have to oversee and I want to make sure they're doing things right. And I want to make sure I'm being the best boss I can for them.How often do you meet with your PTs? And Andrew is instrumental in setting that up. Like, Hey, once a month, I want you to block off a spot for both of you. This is what you're going to do. Sit down and talk about tough cases are going through. Um, talk about progressions are having difficulties with like that.Cause I, I didn't even know where to start with. Yeah. I think that's a big piece of it. What's also great about that conversation. And it's something that we've, um, tried to implement company wide is it's not just that you're getting the 45 minutes. That's a great start. How do you script those 45 minutes to work with them?You're saying like to block off a session, to get the most out of that time. So it's what's going well, what's not, what, what is the pathology we're talking about or scripting it prior? We're going to talk about a shoulder. So don't just block time for the sake of blocking time, make sure that it's entirely constructive.What do, what can we get better at? What do you hope you see in our next version of our handbook or onboarding processes? That's a really good question. I think this rookie of the year program we have right now is, is awesome. Like that's something that frankly, I never had mentoring like that when I was in my first job or my second job like that.That's, that's something we need for, for people who are onboarding right now. So it's, it's been great. I think some of it has probably been our struggles and human resources type stuff. Um, some of the things behind the scenes that, that sometimes I don't have the answers to, somebody is like, well, you know what, how do I get invested in the company for one K?Yeah. Uh, let me send an email and let's find out. Let's get you in contact with the right people. Um, I think some of those things are handled very well on the front end, but then, you know, somebody brings up, well, I had a vacation that was planned before I ever signed on, how do I go about that? Great.Let's talk to somebody about that. Um, I think maybe clauses for that would help us to continue. And I think it's. Like those two examples are prime examples where maybe we didn't have that laid out beautifully. We went through it once now we have a laid out and I'm sure there are millions of other scenarios that will pop up like crap.I don't know. Let's figure it out. But then once you figure it out, how do we put it in play to be regular and make sure that we always come back to it as we look to hire, as we look to onboard or whatever, um, define for me the word culture. Um, and culture. I think it is a, a communal set of values that a group or a, uh, an establishment runs by.That's when we consider culture. And what would you say your culture is here at True Sports York? I think that we create a warm and welcoming environment. But that we're also and maybe this is me inserting myself into this, but we are really competitive. I want to make sure that somebody gets the best care around.I want to make sure that if they've been somewhere else, I'm going to prove to you that P. T. Is not a bad field. You just had a bad experience, um, and that you're gonna see it's way different here. And so if that's if that's your culture, how do you get that to trickle down to, you know, you're managing?Let's say you're managing. Eventually this place is going to have five, six, seven PTs. How do you get everyone on board with that? I think we're really selective in our hiring process. I think that's the big piece of it to begin with. If somebody is not super warm or can't communicate with patients the way we want them to, can we coach them up to do that?Or is this something they inherently are can't do? I think what I would foresee is there's, I'm going to run into some situation myself where some people aren't as personable as the people we've had so far, and it doesn't make them a bad PT, It's just, how do we find some other ways to work on, I would say to highlight their strengths and to kind of mitigate the weaknesses or the deficits that they're showing us in an interview process, you, you don't have them as a student, they show up, you get an hour, maybe they stick around in shadow for a few.How do you tease those qualities out? Some of it I'd like to see, are they going to interact with this patient that I have here in front of me right now? Are they going to stand there and kind of be a stick in the mud and not be in the way? Can I tell that if they're not talking to that patient, it's because they feel like they are, uh, overstepping if they're getting in the way or they want to make sure they're not overstepping or are they?Overly social. Is it a fake social? Are they, do they feel like this is a tryout or a rehearsal and they're just throwing a bunch of stuff at them. That's like, all right, this isn't even on task. This is, this is too much. Now you're distracting that person. Are you throwing questions at them? I'm trying to think like if I were to come in an interview, how are you making sure that I have the ability?To interact appropriately. Um, I think I find good opportunities to walk away from the patient that I currently have. Hey, I'm going to go, you know, pick up some dumbbells on the other side of the room. You just hang out for a second and see if that PT is going to talk to them. See if that student's going to talk to them.See if they go out of their way to at least look warm. And even if it's not a conversation, are they staring at the wall and, and so very scared of any kind of interaction? Or is it just like a natural, like, Oh, we're just not talking right now. That's fine. What I've found is most of our patients. They're pretty warm.They'll ask that, that student or that observer, like, where are you from? Uh, you know, what do you want to do? Uh, I, I love that. And I think that's big that like, we've been really, really lucky that our patients are as cool as they are. Everybody's really social here. Everybody's really warm. I think part of that culture too, is that every one of our PTs knows every other patient that are our other PTs.How do you make that happen? I told them that from the start, I want you to know everybody that walks in this door. I need to know everybody that walks in this door, but I want somebody to walk in and I want it to feel like cheers. I want them to feel like, Oh, I know this whole crew. I don't work with Josh, but I know who Josh is.Because if Lauren, for some reason is not in, or if Danny's not in, and that person has to see Josh, I want them to have just an established relationship. Not this weird, cold, like, so you're Josh. Right. Okay. I guess we'll give this a try today. Yeah. Yeah. And, and maybe you don't know much about them. So I think that that's a great way to go about it.I love your idea of walking away during the interview. Um, I think it's important. I think you can also watch. How much do they value people? And you see that with their interaction with front desk when they come in. Like how much do they value front desk? What's that interaction? Like, or are they only focused on the guy doing the interview?Um, I think that can be a telltale. How do you know whether they're going to be able to take. Coaching. Cause you mentioned, listen, it's okay. If you are more of an introvert, as long as you're coachable, how do you know if they're coachable? Yeah. So this is, that's a great question too. So actually this just happened.We had a student in yesterday. Uh, they're going to be beginning with us. It's a, it's a future student and I don't think it's even my student necessarily, but I did part of the interview process. We talked through a couple of cases. I just started throwing some questions to them about some ACL stuff. What have you seen from ACL so far?Tell me about the different graph choices, you know, just trying to get an idea of a, do they know their stuff? B, do they, uh, truly believe that they're confident in the knowledge that they have so far? Um, but then I also started throwing at them like, all right, so shoot. Ask me the question again. Sorry.That's fine. Um, how do you know that they're coachable? Uh, so when we go through that interview process, we actually kind of give them prompts, Hey, here's an ACL that's in front of you. How do you decide which graph choice they're going to have? Um, on top of that, what would you throw at them as an exercise?Okay. So you chose to do a flexion. You were more, more worried about the flexion off the bat. So typically we like extension more. I'll throw that at them and see what they, how receptive they are to that. Are they going to fight me on that? Well, school told me flexion. I get the school told you that, or are they like, I've never heard that before.Thank you. Tell me more about it. Why is extension so important? Yeah. I want to know if they're going to be receptive and looking for constructive feedback as opposed to like really closed off to that. Yeah. Yeah. I think their response to that coaching, like you have to set up a piece where you're coaching them to see their response.Um, do they take it in? Are they. Are they, do they shut down because of that? Like, crap, I screwed this up. My, my interview is going to be over. I'm not going to get this gig. Um, or are they combative with, with that? And I see that a lot, unfortunately, where it's, where it's like, like, exactly like you said, well, yeah, but school said flexion.Yeah. But we do extension. Okay. But school, school said flexion. Um, or, you know, we do a mock case as part of our interview. Right. So when we go over, when I'm done with that interview, I will say to them, what would you have done differently? Maybe they don't hit on what they, what I saw that they should, I will tell them what they should have done differently.And then what is that initial response? Is it, well, the reason I didn't do that is, or is it, yeah, that makes sense. I could do that. I could do more of that, et cetera. I think all of those just give you insight into who you're dealing with. Um, and you, you see that even with patients, right? Like you might get pushback from patients and then you have to kind of regroup or reconstruct to say, this is the way I want to give you some of that information.So I think that's. That's a great way to look at it. Um, give me a time when you struggled as a new clinical director. Geez. Again, this is a long list, you know, so I gotta, I gotta really think through plenty of time. Um, I think that we talked about marketing a little bit earlier and even not even knowing where to start.I remember one of my first marketing outings, I was able to grab lunch with a doc. And I remember sitting down and I'm like, great, I've got this lunch set up. It's fine. It's going to go great. And luckily I had some mutual patience with that doc. So, you know, that's all good. But I sit down, I realized I have zero script for what I'm going to talk about with you today.I can talk about those one or two patients we've shared so far. And beyond that, I don't know what the heck to do. Um, and it, luckily it became a very natural, organic conversation. And, and, and I found those actually very helpful that we just get to know each other as people. Um, because yes, we know each other as professionals.I'm convinced that not everybody wants to talk about work all the time. Yeah. So honestly, in a, in a lunch setting like that, yes, let's do some productive stuff to it. And then let's just chat. I want to know about you. Where are you from? You're from New York. Nice. Okay. And you played basketball growing up.Awesome. How many kids do you have? Great. And I think that's kind of disarming for people. I think it's really helpful. It makes you seem more approachable and sociable. I think that can kind of go across the spectrum for anybody that would come across. But that was a big shortcoming of mine that I was like, I was completely unprepared for that first meeting.Yeah, but you didn't fail. So now give me a An example of when you failed. Um, I hopped on a call with the doc. Uh, this is, this is probably about three months into hiring our first, no, it was when she was still student with us actually. Um, and I remember I hadn't been treating this person a lot, this patient specifically, but I was like, I'm going to handle the call with the doc.That did not go well because I don't know where they're at. I don't know where they're at in their progression. I got some info from this student and great. I can share that with this doc doc starts grilling me with questions. And I realized like, I should never have fielded this call. This is, this is a failure because I should have had either the student do it.It would have been a good growing experience for them, or I should have had everything laid out that they could possibly ask. Yeah. So that, that did not go well. Yeah. That, I mean, it's a, it's a great learning experience. It's just a great learning experience, right? Um, you gotta do, sometimes you gotta do more homework and you're right.Sometimes you're not the right person to do it. And how much would that other person gain? I think it's, it's such a judgment call. There's so many of those gray areas in leadership, whereas like, does the doc want to be talking to a student? Maybe not, but they want to know that their patient's being cared for.So you got to make the call. Is it, am I responsible for this care? You kind of are. So you got to dive in and make sure that you know all this stuff or, Maybe both of you take the call, something like that, where the doc really feels that their patient is being cared for, um, could kind of help in the future.Um, so I think that that goes a long way. Hey guys, quick pause and a quick shout out to this new masterclass that we just launched here at True Sports Physical Therapy. Myself and Dr. Tim Stone put together a masterclass of ACL rehab, and we call it To turf. And the reason we call it that is because it's going to teach you exactly how to get your athlete all the way from post op day one with the nitty gritty of regaining all of that range of motion with the tips and the tricks that we use here at true sports physical therapy that gets our athletes.Better, faster and stronger. And that's early. And then how do you progress that athlete all the way onto the field with a ball in their foot or stick in their hand or whatever their sport is and teach them how to accelerate, how to de cell, how to change direction, all the mechanics that go in there, what drills do we use to.To get our athletes exactly where they need to be back on the field and even better than before injury. And I want you to sign up for that class. Now you can find it on our website. You can shoot us a direct message and just say, Hey, send me the course. It's right now on sale. So make sure you sign up now it is fully accredited to get you all of your continuing education hours.Sign up for the true sports masterclass ACL from table to turf. Give me some, you know, you, you've had such an interesting career to date between playing elite level hockey, um, six year program, which probably comes with, with challenges in and of itself, um, coming out gen pop, um, migrating into sports.Give me, give me some advice for the therapists that are in graduate school. Now, I think, you know, learn from my experience and that I was so afraid to pursue those opportunities right off the bat that I ended up in some other places. And, and again, you know, there were plenty of positives to take out of those situations, but don't be so afraid to be that new grad pursuing the sports realm.I think, especially with offerings like what we have right now with this onboarding program, like you're never. Stuck. You're never, you're never out on your own. And I think that was my biggest concern. I didn't have a ton of sports mentors. So when it comes to chasing down some of that sports, sports experience, I didn't even know where to start.Find yourself really good mentors is the biggest thing. And I think mentorship should be the number one reason that somebody choose the job. I had plenty of classmates that took that job that paid six figures right off the bat or whatever out of school and didn't make them better PTs. And really in the long run, I think it sounds kind of cliche to like, don't chase the money, all that kind of stuff.But, but really you don't have to take the highest paying job. And actually, if it's the highest paying job, make sure it's the right fit for you. It actually throws up a couple alarm bells, right? Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. I talk about it a lot. Like the first job I took was the highest paying job and that's why I took it.And immediately, like immediately I regretted it. And there's so many, this ties into the Andrew Livingston podcast on financial acumen. Um, But, you know, when you come out and you're making six figures, you're making a bunch of money and your lifestyle starts to look like that and, and reflect that now, all of a sudden you're stuck.Like you can't take a step back to go to a sports clinic. You might want to, because you have to make that amount of money. Right. So, so I think you gotta be, you gotta be really careful or you gotta have the humility to say. You know, I goofed here. I need to cut back and I need to take a step back. If, if it is what you want, if sports is what you want, um, you also make a great point about the mentors.So, because I would say there are a lot of clinics you can come out of. I mean, if you, if you look at true sports, I'll use that as an example. There was a time when it was. One of us, two of us, five of us, we're really small. We don't have mentorship and I give you a clinic in wherever it might be an awesome opportunity, but you're by yourself.So what do you do then? The answer is you gotta have mentors outside, right? You gotta have, or you gotta be doing your own legwork, but you still need to have mentors, but there's so much information available now, like podcasts like this, where you can learn a ton. Um, you gotta carve that out. How do you carve that out now?So you're, you've been a clinic director for two, let's say two and a half years, three years, right? Um, you're teaching others, correct? Outside of true sports. Who's teaching you? Um, geez, outside of true sports, a lot of it's chasing down some of the research. I mean, at this point, race holding our journal club, it's kind of a cop out.Cause I know he's technically doing the journal club for our company, but he's a great resource outside of here. And I know race is such a great human being that if I was to shoot race of texts with a question about something, he would be a great mentor and a good Good person to ask those questions too.I think, you know, Instagram and all these other things are great resources for us to do some, some digging on our own too. I find that with our new grads, they have a really hard time finding good resources there. I I'm really selective in the stuff that I like to follow. I love Reinald stuff. I love Mike Reinald stuff.Um, I love Lenny who's with them. Of course. Uh, I think those tend to be my, my, some of my strongest resources I would say. Sometimes I'm wary of like the younger. Flashy videos, like to me, it kind of turns me off right away. Um, coach Q that's down at UNC. I love his stuff too. Um, I think those videos are awesome.And I, I really like reading into that stuff, but just as much. Good stuff that I just mentioned is out there. I see 10 other resources that come through my explore feed. Then I'm like, Oh, that's awful. I don't like that. I don't like that. And it's got 15, 000 likes on it that I'm going, Oh, who are they teaching?That's not good. What about, what about diving into the research you, when you go to pub med, how do you figure out what you want to, what you want to learn about? So I, I guess for me, I look at the things I'm struggling most with, you know, I love treating hockey players. So many hockey players have hip impingement and I think I have this idea in my mind of how I want to treat hip impingement I'm going I'm looking for evidence based practice or clinical practice rules on treating that I know the manual therapy side of this and you probably had seen this too There was a ton of CPRs for who's best for a lumbar roll mobilization, you know, I think those are good algorithms But really looking at the research on, okay, within hockey players, 80%, 60 percent of them have labral tears in the hips, you know, okay, that's good to know.We see a ton of direct access people here. I've got to know if I can identify a labral tear versus a sports hernia, sorry, core muscle injury. They're referring to them as all these different things that that's what I'm looking at a pod, but I'm looking at the things that I struggle most with. Okay. So, and that's, that's guiding you to, Hey, this is what I need to look at.This is what I need to research and learn. Um, I think it's really valuable. What, when do you do that? Oh, geez. Yeah. Um, I stay up way too late. I'm kind of a night owl. So it's, it's probably, probably somewhere in that range. Uh, it's at the end of the day, or if you're kind of sitting still on the weekend, if I get stuck on a bus with, uh, with the, with the team, sometimes I'll try to do that if I'm, if I'm not trying to catch some Z's during that.When would you recommend a staff PT does that? Yeah, I, I think I'm, I'm best surrounding my work hours, I do think. So if you come in 30 minutes early. You know, you have some notes that you're gonna have to get done. Compartmentalize. I've arrived at work, now I'm in work mode. Because I think that's one of the biggest concerns I see for some of our newer PTs is I feel like I'm doing notes all night at home and I'm doing notes the next morning when I wake up.My advice was like, hey, give yourself 30 extra minutes. Arrive to work a little bit early. I know it sucks to get here a little bit earlier than you otherwise would. But at least now you know you have work here and you have home there. It's not this blend of the two. And that's what I would say. Start your day, 30 minutes, bring your coffee with you.Sit down spend 10 to 15 minutes at least looking up a couple different articles that maybe you want to dive into even further later On yeah, yeah, and then it becomes a part of your work life correct. I think there's there's a lot of value there Okay, so I really wanted to hammer culture and coaching and understand how you're building a team any other Last tidbits that I didn't cover with that or any other pearls.No, I think I liked that. You said earlier, like when I pursued stuff with live, like it didn't even cross my mind, I'm not getting paid to be here. Like, I don't know. And I didn't care. I wanted to come and see, I want to be better. There's so many opportunities that we have within our day, within our week that we are not going to get paid for to do certain things.Not, not a true sports necessarily, but. Go and research, go be the best dorm PT. You're going to be, I get the, you're not getting paid overtime to go do research. I'll tell you what, your patient's going to get better. You're going to feel a heck of a lot better about the treatment that you're offering people.I think on the coaching side of it, I promise you, coaching does not pay very good money at all. Like it covers enough for my gas for the year. Pretty much. I do it cause I love it. And, and I'm blessed with a wife that supports me and is all for it because I don't see her often during hockey season.Pursue those opportunities that even if it takes a little bit more time, that's, that fills my cup and you know what, at the end of the day, I'm, I'm really happy that I get to do that. I'm happy that I get to have these two different lives of PT and I get to have coaching, you know, pursue the stuff that, that isn't always financially based.Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm always amazed that the stuff I do that I'm not being compensated for makes the things that I do that I am compensated for. So much better. I mean, so much more fulfilling. It makes me excited about the profession. Like if I read a good article and I know I'm better equipped, I'm far more excited to do it than spit balling and being somewhat unprepared for a given session.Um, there, there's a lot of wisdom in that. Um, okay. Our lightning round, because you told me to talk about more than just work. Wait, if you take out your answers to the lightning round, Danny, it's not much of a lightning round. Don't let the audience know that I send you the questions beforehand. This isn't that, I'm looking at something else.If you could have a beer with any sports figure, who would it be? Oh, man. Just 'cause I have it written down already. Chase Utley. It'd be Chase Utley. Why? Because my favorite Philadelphia time. 'cause his FAI Hardnosed, like just, he's the man. Didn't he have F-A-I-F-A-I? Yeah. Fro impingement? Yeah. Oh yeah.Sorry. I'm like free. What the heck? No, that is not a box score. Um, I think, I think he had major hip issues. Chase Utley. Why best hitting second baseman of all time? Uh, I don't know if we could I, I would like to say that I think that's a little bit of a reach. Who else do you put on that list best? Roberto Alamar.Um. Robinson Canoe. Canoe. You like that one? Yeah, but Canoe played like four different positions. Okay. Fun. That's like, that's played a lot of second base. He did play a lot of second base. Um, anyone else you would put on that list? I'm sure Wait. Wasn't Kinsler wasn't in Kinsler. Uh, my boy, Ian Kinsler, he is also a center fielder.Yeah. But, okay. So another one played multiple positions, but yes, he w he was, he was a great second baseman. Um, and a great dude. A great dude. And he founded a great company called Wart Stick, which makes baseball bats no idea wart stick. I didn't know that. And. Lacrosse sticks. Unreal. So I start like he's brand new to the lacrosse world.So we were talking a lot about the lacrosse world. Um, he is a great representation of everything that's great about Israel baseball. So he's a great human. So I've got a soft spot in my heart for that guy. Okay. Who do you think are the top three hockey focused physical therapists in the country? Are there more than three?Man? No, that's such a, that's such a, give me one realm. All right. Actually, I'm going a strength conditioning coach that I like to follow a heck of a lot. Yeah. Kevin Neal. He's with the Boston Bruins. I gotta get that guy on the pod. Get Kevin Neald on the pod. Neald. Neald. N E E L D. He's unreal because, uh, all, all of the information he puts out there, first of all, really, really evidence based and it covers a broad range of stuff.He's kind of that holistic wellness within the, within sports, within pro sports. I feel like somebody, sometimes we see everybody stay in their lane too much. That it's like they don't look at the man. This player has been traveling for four days straight. I can't believe he's burnt out right now. Well, let's find a way to give him a good recovery workout instead of giving him something crushes him just to say I did it.Yeah. Um, looking at the entire human. I think that's that is gold. By the way, I was going to say for strength coaches. Everywhere should be doing that, but we don't do that enough either. PT is right. You're right. Um, you know, we see them two times a week, three times a week, and we expect whatever output, and sometimes they come in and maybe they test terribly or maybe, and I just went through this with, um, Zach Adams down in bear Hills, and we're talking about this unbelievable athlete who sucks at his 10 deck scores, right?His, his LSI is a mess. And I said, Zach, like, why is it a mess? And we're talking about training. We're talking about who he's working with and we're talking about all this stuff. And it's like, I think I'm missing. Uh, a missing piece of that conversation is how's the guy recovering? What's the guy's nutrition?Like what, um, how's his sleep? How much has he traveled? How there's so much that goes into our power output to, to like narrow it. Um, I think that's lost. And, and now, now it's so much easier to track those things. It used to be a black box. So I think, I think we could do a lot better job of that. Okay. Neil, anyone else?Um, so his assistant up there, this is a performance coaches is Tim LaVossier. Uh, if you get those two on the pot, oh my God, dude, that'd be crazy. That'd be crazy. That's a duo. I'm a little bit biased because I love hockey, but well, I take your recommendation seriously because you're the one who told me about Lavecchio or someone did.And that guy was a goddamn pleasure. So, um, like great conversation. Great, just tremendous amount of brains. I'm fascinated by the sport because I can't stand up on a pair of skates, let alone do what they do. But trying to work through those biomechanics is really, really interesting to me. Um, so, okay, I'll reach out to them.What hockey player would you want to rehab? Oh man. So first answer right off the bat that I'd want to say would be Gabriel Landeskog, just because he's, he's the captain of the, he's the captain of the Colorado avalanche. Uh, he's coming back from, I think it's an odes procedure. He had some kind of crazy minute.Now the selfish part of me looks at it and goes, that's a really tough recovery, especially coming back to a professional hockey realm of that. Like that's, that's really hard. Um, he'd be an awesome person to work with. Would love that. Um, you think it's easier or harder to come back to hockey than basketball?Like I like my chances with a hockey guy. No. Yeah. I would like my chances better. Cause you get more of a gliding, you don't have quite as much friction. The problem is the turning, the impact scares me in the hockey side of things, because not only are you running into the people you're running into walls, you're running into the ice, like.post sometimes he's a, he's a forward. So here's my counterpoint to that is when you're doing that, I'm always thinking about vectors of force and they're not going north south when you're running into a wall, right? They're going east, west. Well, I like that better. My, I guess my concern is like, if you're not under control, imagine you are sliding at 20 miles an hour into a wall.The things you don't, you're taught to not have impact for your hands and your neck. You don't want any, anything upper body to really be hitting first. So usually it's your legs. My concerns that he's going to hit the wall with that significant posterior force, all the compressive force of his hidden feet first going to the wall.Like it's, it's, it's just, that's the stuff that scares me. So, um, and why do you want to rehab that guy? He seems cool. He's the man. First of all, he's the man. Um, but I think just. That'd be a really cool, complicated case to see somebody come back to their full self. Yeah. Like, and I think as much as we want to see our patients succeed, like we enjoy those challenges too.Right. Yeah. Like we, we enjoy those cases. It's like, no, don't get competitive, Danny. Well, I'm a little, I see you getting competitive, but I'm interested. I know you're not asking, but I'm interested in. What, what the hell is show? Hey, doing okay. The guy tears his labrum, right? Sublux is a shoulder. Got it repaired.So was it a repair? They said the reading that I, I saw the post that I saw was there was a repair, successful repair of that area. Now we know how X and the MLB app, we know how, you know, what part of the labrum, it looks like it would be posterior based upon the way he did it. I was thinking inferior, actually planted.And I thought he either went. Anterior or inferior because of the way he planted that back arm when he slid in dude if it was anterior I I think what is stayed out right like if it went anterior. Well, maybe maybe But I mean, I'm thinking more like a posterior force because it was like a foosh where he's landing on the hand.Got it. But, but I don't know which is better for his pitching career. Neither are good. No. Oh man. You know what they said about his return? What'd they say? Spring training. Get out. That's, if it's a repair. That's what I'm saying. That's why when I saw he had shoulder surgery, I'm like, there's no way they repaired it because Cause you don't repair labrums in pitchers or you try like hell not to, but that's not his throwing arm.It wasn't. No, it was left. Oh, and it's, if you think about it, he's a, it's actually a pretty good situation for him cause he left the hitter too. So it's his back arm, right? I'm so much happier about that. I think, Oh my God. I mean, no, you're right. You're right. It was definitely his left. You're right. You're right.And he throws right. You're right. I'm so scared. No, no, no, no, you're dead. Right. And no one's listening anyway. But, um, okay. So listen, if you repaired it and it's spring training and it's I'm totally comfortable with that. I don't care if it's anterior or posterior, I think it'll be fine. Now, uh, a cautionary tale is a guy who I had on the pod a while ago named John Mascot, who another Israel baseball legend, um, who came down with a frozen shoulder, I don't remember the original injury on his non dominant arm, and it led to faulty mechanics.And he tours UCL pretty quickly thereafter. So, so there is interplay. Um, what I am excited about is, I don't know if it was Shohei, it might've been Mookie, someone who went to the Dodgers from a big organization from big league organization said when they got to the Dodgers, now I feel like I'm in the big leagues.So it sounds like they have stuff buttoned up, which I can say for almost. No other professional organizations, but sounds like the Dodgers rehab world is buttoned up. I don't know any of the guys over there, but, um, that makes me feel a lot better. It's his non dominant arm. Um, okay. Favorite coaching or sports book that impacted your approach.Austin Kulish loves this question. Like, what are you reading now? Yeah. What's changed your life from a book perspective, man. I really liked the hard hat by John Gordon. What the hell is that? I gotta read that. That's it's about George Boyardee. He was at Cornell lacrosse player. Actually, you'll love that.Um, He's, yeah, really good book just about heart being hardworking, being a great teammate. He unfortunately passed away, but you talk about like leaving a legacy and I think it's what all of us want to be able to do in this world. Right. They, it really, the book starts out that they're at one of the dinners, the 21 dinners that they host for him and remembrance of him every year.And, uh, you talk about leaving your mark, like I said, he was a great person and I loved it. He also, he wasn't the best player on the field. He didn't have to be the best player on the field, but he's going to work out, work everybody and he's going to love everybody. So much. Yeah. And like that shines through.Um, that's awesome. I got to put that on my list. Um, and everyone should put it on their list. Leaving a legacy you think is a given. I'm pretty sure you just said, I mean, that's basically what everyone wants to do is leave a legacy. That's clearly what the way you approach your career, the way you're growing a team.Um, why is that so important to you? How do you get other people to want to leave a legacy? I think. Again, maybe it's kind of cliche, but everybody kind of says it like you want to leave that place better than you found it in the first place, you know, and I think it can apply to so many different things.I can look at it as this clinic, you know, and when I came in here, I, heck, I was just starting. So I hope I leave it there. Yeah, yeah. Low bar. Yeah, but I mean, the PT field, what can we do for the PT field is to make that place better than, you know, we found it. What I think even when we look into, you know, A specific patient's day, man, they're having a rough day.How can I turn their day around? How, what can I do? Can we laugh about something, make something a little bit light when we also get something out of this workout? Uh, we had a patient a couple of weeks ago that, that unfortunately like was going through some stuff at home. I could tell you just super down and luckily we were able to like laugh about it and, and to the point that I was like, man, I hope I didn't overstep that we could laugh about some stuff.And he said, no, I honestly, I left here and I was like, I needed that. I needed to go to PT and, and sure we can throw off some exercise and everything else, but like. It comes out of the human component within that session too, right? Like we, it's not one exercise is going to turn them around and make them happier, but maybe I can say something, maybe I can make them laugh about something that makes it better.Danny, you take it for granted that people want to leave a given place better than they found it. Um, I think it's an awesome attribute of yours. It's something I'd like to do more of. I don't know that I've really thought about that. Um, but I should, I don't think the average new grad is thinking about that.I don't think the young professional. Is thinking about that. Um, I wish they would. Um, I wish I would. Um, why do you think like that? I, maybe it's that competitive instinct, you know, that I want to make sure that I had my stamp on that, you know, that I did something that, that, you know, especially if somebody else had been there first, no, I'm going to be better than it was before if it wasn't a good situation, you know, luckily hockey's hockey's good.How do you transfer it from, it's very different. Those two things are very different. How do you transfer it from. I want to make the product better. I want to make the company better. I want to make the place better. Because I think it's, I think I see unfortunately more of, I want to make myself better now.Maybe that makes the place around me better. Maybe not. You want to make the place better. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and maybe this is part of our culture. I, I think when we all win the, the, the company's going to win, the company's going to win no matter what. I mean, I think that's anywhere except when it loses, except for if it's losing, but, um, but I think if we can help the company to win, we're all going to win underneath that.You know, we have PTs that are incentivized. If I can make sure that their caseload stay full and they get to make bonus, I don't really care if I make bonus or not. Guess what? They're making bonus. They're going to work harder. They're We're all going to be happier together because I know on the flip side of that, if for some reason I wanted to try and keep that my money and myself, they're not going to be happy.And all of a sudden it's going to, everything rolls downhill. Uh, that's the colloquial way of saying that. Right? Like, yeah, yeah. I like that. Yeah. And it's going to smack you in the face and you don't feel that PT or they're not happy or whatever. God forbid they leave. Guess whose life just got a lot harder.So, um, I think it's a, that's a great way of looking at it, dude. That's a great culture that dude, we should have open with that. Where, where were we on that? Okay. Last one. Um, if you could add one dream piece of equipment to this clinic, what are you dying to have? I like those Kaiser functional machines.Like we don't have, what do you think I'm made out of? Okay. You want to cut? Why? Yeah. Uh, I just think they're so helpful for our rotational athletes. I, I, of course I love treating hockey, but I, we have a ton of pitchers here too. I find that the rotational piece for these pitchers is missing so many times, man, I can use a Kaiser machine for that.Golfers. I have a ton of, I've not a ton of golfers. I want more golfers, but of the golfers we have super relevant for those folks. I, I, I think too, like it gets busy in here sometimes when there's, uh, classes going on and everything else, it's a super easy piece to use in one area of the turf. People aren't going to be running into you.You don't have to really go get a bunch of different dumbbells and everything else. Yeah. I also love that you can adjust the resistance like on the fly, right? Like, They don't have to put anything down. They don't, you can just adjust it while it's moving. Maybe that's why they cost a fortune. Um, we do have them in a couple of clinics.Maybe we can get you a Kaiser. Oh man. Put that on my list. All right. Um, Danny, thank you. Thank you for all, all you do here. You. You're doing an unbelievable job. Keep it up, keep leaving your legacy. Um, and we got to have you on more often. That was great, dude. How does everyone get in touch with you? How do they follow you?Sure. So I'm not super, super active on Instagram. I've already caught flack for it. Uh, my Instagram handle is Danny dot Willie W I L U I. Underscore DPT double L double L double L. Okay. Um, that's on Instagram. Uh, if you have any questions, you can shoot me an email, Danny at true sports, PT. com. Hell yeah.Guys, thank you so much for listening. Make sure you hit up Danny. Um, obviously a great PT and an unbelievable mentor. I think he clearly showed that today. Um, really appreciate you guys. Bye bye. Bye bye.

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