Aug 15, 2024
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Welcome to the True Sports Physical Therapy Podcast with your host, Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt. Today, we explore the art of creating meaningful patient and employee engagement with Dr. Jimmy McKay. In this episode, we dive into the strategies for building a positive and dynamic environment in healthcare settings.
Join us as Dr. McKay shows his expertise on fostering strong connections between patients and healthcare providers, as well as cultivating a motivated and engaged team of employees. Learn about the importance of communication, trust, and culture in driving engagement, and how these elements contribute to better patient outcomes and a thriving workplace.
Whether you're a clinic owner, healthcare professional, or someone interested in improved organizational culture, this episode offers valuable insights into the key components of effective engagement. Let's jump right in.
What's up guys, thanks for listening to the True Sports Physical Therapy Podcast. I'm scared to say this, but this was my favorite interview. With Dr. Jimmy McKay. Jimmy is the director of communications for Mount Sinai Hospital in the division of rehab and human performance and the Abilities Research Center. What made this podcast and conversation awesome was Jimmy was teaching for about an hour straight as to how to engage with your fellow coworkers, how to interview potential employees, how to interact and interview Patience, how to get an outstanding subjective.
And he has a million tangents. Jimmy's background is fascinating. He was a rock radio DJ for 15 years and was most recently the program director of the afternoon drive on 97 nine X. He is a New York native and it definitely comes through in his communication style. He's concise. He is clear. More importantly, he teaches you how to be both of those things.
I really hope you guys enjoy this interview as much as I did. Without further ado, Jimmy McKay from the PT Pint Cast.
So I think the biggest lesson is this. I was accused of almost cheating by a classmate in PT school. And here's why. Because I had a paper to write in Neuro, and everybody was given the same assignment.
Pick an area that you're interested in, go research it and come back. And I sat there for a few minutes. And I had started the podcast. Like maybe a couple months before that. And then instead of reading a book or reading a bunch of papers, I think I DM'd three people. And the first was Becky Bliss, who was a concussion expert and just a terribly nice person.
And we had a conversation and 45 minutes later. Becky Bliss wrote my whole paper for me. I mean, I still had to put the ideas together. And she was like, here's a bunch of papers I would read. Here's what I would suggest. So I was done with the research phase in 45 minutes. And my classmate was like, you can't do that.
That's cheating. Is it though? It's not, but she was 10 years younger than me. I was 10 years older than most of my classmates in PT school. And so the thing I learned was like, Oh, this isn't as obvious to everybody. This isn't commonplace. This is not common knowledge. That people are actually the best sorts of information.
Back then it was, I was saying it's people are better than a Google search. Now I'm saying people are better than a Google search and still better than AI. Now, the person using AI or the person using a skilled Google search is going to beat you. That's like the guy who rides the bike is going to, is going to beat me in a running race.
It's just a tool. So what I did was this was art imitates life. So my podcast started because I was an insecure PT student coming 10 years older than all my classmates. Cause it was my second career. My first was radio, the radio career in 10 seconds or less is, uh, did the morning announcements in sixth grade in middle school, loved it, went to college for journalism, communications, loved it, did internships at some of the biggest radio stations in the country, did internships at some small radio stations near my house.
So I got to do some really, really high level stuff at the small stations, some small little level stuff at the high stations. One of those. Uh, I got to intern at WXRK, it doesn't exist anymore, it was, it was K Rock New York and the morning show hosts at the time I was there was, was, uh, named Howard Sterns.
That was a really cool place to be if you wanted to be in radio. Went on to, uh, come back to my hometown in upstate New York, run the radio station that I grew up listening to and be on the radio at the, with the people that I grew up with. When I was 12 years old, I heard, you know, Smells Like Teen Spirit on that station.
And I remember thinking. Oh, not everything is pop. It just has to be pop music because I didn't have an older brother to be like, this is what rock music is. That was the first place I did it. And then I got a chance to leave New York, go to Pennsylvania and run my own radio. I was 25 years old, running a 50, 000 watt radio station that grows 3.
5 million. It's 25 years old. I had no, I had my own radio station to essentially walk in and play with. I had no business running a radio station. I, I didn't know anything, but I was really excited to do it. So did that for about eight or nine years. Uh, and that's my radio. That was my radio career. So I got to play out the sort of dream job.
And then 2008, I'm holding an iPhone right now. This thing was invented. And I realized, even though I was, you know, young at the time, it's like time and space, aren't going to matter anymore. And that's why you and I are able to talk on a random Tuesday, but who the hell knows when someone's going to hear or watch this time and space aren't going to matter anymore.
And that mattered a lot when you were a local radio DJ in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in the afternoon drive. So those are several things. And now I couldn't be the third coolest guy on the afternoon radio and Scranton and make a living. That's, that's at least where I was. I was doing the math and I'll make something should change.
So I did what all like middle aged dudes do. I went to, I went to go to law school, hated that, went to business school, lasted a year, hated it, was not inspired. And then I was training for my first Ironman triathlon. And the guy who was in charge with like local bike rides and stuff was a PT. And I was like, that seems cool.
Let's do that. And then I went to PT school.
Wow. Okay. That, that's a crazy story. You are way too smart. Don't take this the wrong way. You're way too smart to be a PT. So now, you're pretty smart, but keep going. You are pretty smart. No, no. PTs are smart. PTs are really some, some, I totally, I totally agree with you.
I think too often. Um, at least when I went to school 15 years ago, it was the guys who couldn't get into med school. That's who became PTs. And I think that's come a long way. Um, I don't think we have figured out the financial world necessarily, um, of like how to pay for it. It doesn't make any sense, but that's neither here nor there.
Dude, that's a fascinating story, Jimmy. So now you've interviewed 1500 physical therapists, by the way, usually I do like a welcome to true sports, PT podcast, crap like that. We're just jumping right in. That's how I know you're a pro. You have an awesome experience interviewing billions of PTs, like you said, right?
So tell me your most. Fascinating interview that you've done. And then tell me the, the interview skills that you've acquired, that we can share with our audience, because we're constantly interviewing people, whether it be patients or, um, employees, correct. So I,
so people I've been asked this before, what's your favorite episode or whatever, and I get nervous, right?
Cause you don't want to single someone out. And then I thought about it for another second. I was like, Oh, I got it. So I was a few months away from graduating and I was deciding and I was like, I don't fit in physical therapy. I liked everything I touched, but I didn't love any one thing. I liked outpatient orthopedics.
I liked in neuro. I liked, I liked everything. I liked learning stuff. And now it was like, Hey, um, you gotta go get a job now. And I was like, Oh, started to get sweaty. I was like, Oh no, I don't love any of this. So I went to my advisor and I was like, I don't know. I, I think I should, like, I don't fit. Maybe I'll bail out.
And she's from Jersey. I'm from New York. And she was like, here's the deal. She just give it to you straight. That's why I appreciate people who like just city people just give it to you straight. Right. Cut people who are in the country. It's too nice. Just give it to me straight. Yep. Here's the, you're still going to owe the money.
So you might as well get the degree. You're a few months away and you're probably don't fit. In the traditional role, and I have, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I can see what that's going to be, but you'll, you'll figure it out. You'll find it. So I stayed, and there's a, we had, I went to Marymount University.
Where'd you go to school? Maryland. Okay, so not far. Um, Marymount, Northern Virginia. And we have a service learning trip, uh, in our third year. So essentially, they fly us to Costa Rica. Now, I think it's Nicaragua, but they fly us to Costa Rica. We live in a convent with nuns. They cook for you. It's actually they're really good cooks and they're terribly nice.
Live in a convent for two weeks and 80 percent of us went to live and work in an or sorry, work in an orphanage every day. The other 20 percent lived and sorry, worked in an older adult facility. Um, and that's what you did for two weeks. You sort of treated. in, uh, in Costa Rica. And I was like, all right, you're already gonna owe the money.
You might as, I mean, there's a trip to Costa Rica that you already paid for. You might as well go on it, right? And then our spring, our spring break butted up against it. So the last day of our trip was our first day. Like when we fly back was your first day of, so you might as well, we changed our flight to stay, rented a house in Costa Rica on Airbnb, had monkeys.
It was just, You're dumb if you've flew who are. So anyway, I was like, do the trip, figure out your life later. So I get there and I'm working in an orphanage. Most of the kids had CP. So there was a wide variety, a lot of neuro disorders. And I was like, this is really impactful. But a lot of them, they were cognitively impaired, right?
So you're going to help them physically, but. But you're not going to change the CP, right? But that's the cool part about PT is like, get it out of your mind. If you're fixing something and you're helping something, you're not really going to, I was paired with this, uh, with this young man, 18 years old and he had muscular dystrophy.
So if you know anything about muscular dystrophy, neurodegenerative, you're not going to do anything to stop it. Muscular dystrophy. Try whatever you want. It's not gonna do it. And this kid was the happiest kid I'd ever met. I mean, lives in Costa Rica. I gotta be honest. It's, the weather is fantastic, right?
And you start to look at what this kid did every day. He was always around his friends. He had lived in the orphanage most of his life because his family just couldn't take care of him. The nuns treated him great. The kids, you know, his friends, it was, I mean, he lived in a dorm room. You know what I mean?
Like his buddies were all around and every day we just hang out and do stuff. So. Me looking at it like a privileged American. I was like, wow, this poor kid is this, and they don't have access. They don't have this. They don't have this. They don't have this. And all he kept looking at of what he did have.
So this ridiculous cliche of when you go on a service trip is you learn, you take more than you give. And that's such a cliche and it is 100 percent true. I had never been on a trip like that before. Would love to go on another one again. And it was true. So just learned, really put life into perspective for me with this kid.
And on the last day, I got really emotional. And here's why. With muscular dystrophy, I'm not fixing everything. Because here I am, this third year PT student. I can't wait to show you everything I know. And I'm gonna do this and this. But I was, the thing that kept coming back to me was I was leaving him no better than I found him.
And that. Pisses, piss me off. I remember I went back to him, you know, we all said our goodbyes and I'm wearing sunglasses so nobody can see like I'm about to lose it and I'm, I can still feel that moment right now. And I went back to him three times. Once when all my classmates were there and then I sort of hung out when they left so I could go back to him again.
And then the third time I was like, Hey, can I send you something? And he was like, sure. In my mind, he was a big soccer fan. I was going to call the DC United and get a Jersey, like just some sort of thing. Again, the kid didn't want anything, but here I am just trying to like, Hey, this would be cool. It's a signed Jersey.
He wouldn't think, wouldn't have cared. Right. But he was just, that's cool. Whatever you want, man. Like, that's great. And. Now we're in, we get on the bus. I cry my eyes out, don't want to talk to anybody. And now it's spring break. So now it's the first night of spring break. We got a pool in the house. There's monkeys.
We're in the jungle of Costa Rica. We got a sound system. There's a bunch of PT students and we're letting loose first night. I'm like, you know, 11 drinks deep. And I'm at my computer, like I am, my classmates are doing backflips off the balcony and I'm at the computer and I am pissed because we left him no better than we found him.
And before we had left, I talked to one of my professors, Kelly, who was a, she was an NCS, Neurospecialist in Seating Immobility. And I was like, Kelly, like, If he were in America and had like decent insurance, what kind of wheelchair would he have? Because he had wrist function and a little bit of neck function, but he was in an orphanage in Costa Rica.
It was a tilt and space chair. Like he wasn't moving himself anywhere. He sat all day where he was put. I didn't like that. No, none of us. PT's hate that. Right? So I was like, if he was in America, what would he have? And she was like, let's spec it out. Like, let's, such a teacher thing to do. Like, let's go through the thing.
And we did. And she was like, well, what kind of leg things do you have? What kind of seating? And she's clicking, clicking, clicking. And then she goes, ballpark it, what do you think that costs? And I was, I don't know, 15 grand. And she's like, 35. And I was like, where are we in the world in time and history that, you know, I was giving them the good stuff.
But I was like, all right, well, then take this, take this, take this. What does that get us to? And she was like, 32. And I was like, you know, it's still so far out of reach. It might as well be, might as well be trying to buy a BMW, right? So I had started this podcast a few months before. And we can get into why I started this.
Because again, I was an insecure PT student. Uh, trying to figure out what the hell is going to do with my life, but I'd started the podcast and I was like, I don't know what's going to happen, but here I am drunk in Costa Rica in the jungle on my computer when everybody else is like getting crazy and I started to go fund me and I was like, we need 30, 000.
And I graduated in 66 days from that day. And I was like, by the time I walk across the stage, I have no idea if I'm going to be a PT or what I'm going to do. By the time I walk across the stage, I want to know I at least accomplished one good thing. I want to do one good thing. This is my thing. And when you, when you set your sights on things, suddenly that goal post comes into focus.
And then I just started a podcast. Hey, I would, I reached out to my professor. Let's do that. Let's do that wheelchair and seating analysis. On video, on audio. We weren't even recording video, that was just audio. And she was like, okay, okay, so the lesson is like, okay, if I teach someone, if I can get you to zoom in on me, right?
Listen to me, learn about seating mobility, and by the way, while you're here, I'm gonna tell you about Hainer. And here's him, and he deserves it. Hey, listen, I gotta go, can you give me five bucks? Like, I was being I was putting in perspective, five bucks, five bucks, five bucks. Nobody gave five bucks in the end.
We're dropping fifties, a hundreds. People were matching each other after a while. The moral of the story is I was telling his story ad nauseum, and this is before shorts and reels. I would love to have the power of short form video back then, but I was just like hell or high water, dude. I got 66 days. We are getting this done.
We're getting this done. And I was calling like per mobile shout out again to per mobile nine years later because they found out about it. And then they were like, well, if you get this chair, They didn't give me any money, but what they did is they took money off the chair, which I was like, good as money.
Like, great goalposts. Let's kick a little bit closer. And it now, it wasn't just my thing. It was mine and my classmates thing. And now it was our thing. And now if you go, you know, a company came in and I think like an APTA chapter was like, will match every, you know, it became, it went from a me thing to a we thing.
And there's a power in storytelling. Save us all the time. But like, you have to. Tell a story where storytelling has power for people to understand it. So with about, I think it was like 32 days left before I graduated, my professor who had now been part, she was the, uh, my professor, Dr. Venskis was the one who originally put the trip together years before I'd gone on and she was the one responsible for it.
Now she's like, yeah, okay. Like I'm part of this too. Uh, I'm in class one day and she like kind of, you know, nods or whatever gets me to the front of the room and she tells me the news. We hit our goal. So do you want to tell the classmates? And I was like, okay. So I had that moment because they all knew they were all on the trip when we were back in school.
So now it was like we did it. And it was like, I mean, I'm getting emotional now, like thinking about them. I was like, wow, like choked up, man. Like we did that thing. But now you have a logistical issue because we have a power wheelchair, which is now being delivered to school. And I have a kid in Costa Rica.
And I'm in for Northern Virginia. Marymount University wound up being like It was our professors, but they went to the school and were like, this kid did a thing. Let's send him and the professor. 'cause I don't also, I don't speak a word of Spanish. I speak a few words. Aah. That's about it. They sent Dr.
SCUs and I, uh, back to Costa Rica now to do, uh, seating and, uh, seating and wheelchair fitting and make sure they understand how to use the equipment to make sure this thing you just spent together a month fundraising for, um, do the thing that it did and I got to go down there. Hold a microphone and and sort of like live record the whole trip on the plane while we're there.
Funny aside. If you travel internationally and you're doing a project, when we flew down the first time we brought equipment, crutches, you know, walkers, things like that. If you do that sometimes internationally, sometimes paperwork gets lost and you have to fill out the right paperwork. Yeah, pay a bribe.
And we couldn't afford that because we, we might've had to file some paperwork the first time down, but we were there for two weeks. Here we were gonna be in and out in 72 hours. I couldn't have them confiscate the chair. So I got in the chair at Dulles International Airport. Come on. And rode the chair until I got to, into the orphanage.
I would not get out of the chair. It actually didn't even have the seat on it yet. The seat was, was shipped to Costa Rica, so I was riding on it. That's so nasty. Piece of metal, but I would knock it on the chair. And there's a picture of me. Like I wrote it onto the plane early boarding. Yes. I lied and said I needed that because I was like, this isn't leaving my site.
This is not leaving me. I'm not getting off the plane unless I'm in the chair, because this will got into a wheelchair. Uh, enabled a taxi to go from the airport to the orphanage. Did not get out of the chair until I was told the doors locked at the orphanage. I was like, okay, now I'm out. Now we can now get out.
So that's crazy. So that, that's what,
that's your, that's your favorite interview. That's the favorite. Cause I, cause as, so I'm now walking next to the chair with the joystick. I'm not in it now. Cause now we're at the orphanage and I'm walking next to it and I'm cresting the hill and everybody involved except for Hayner knows this.
He does no idea this is happening. He doesn't know that a bunch of idiot Americans are doing this. He doesn't care. Like, I'm, and he's had new chairs before because he's grown, but they've, they've never been like this. And I remember I said, this is for you. And he said, thank you. Like, through the translate, it's like, thank you.
Like, cool. Like, and I was like, I was waiting for like a, oh my God, you know, I was probably looking and he was like, cool. And then it was time to move him into the chair. And I forgot to disable the joystick. So the joystick was still locked. Oh my God. Yeah. So I put him in the chair. We're putting, we, we, we assisted, we, we, we, um, we positioned him in the chair and his, his arm moved to the side and it tapped the joystick and the whole chair lurched.
And now is the moment he was like, Oh, I don't move this chair. P I, I move this chair and this chair moves me. And that was the moment he was like, Oh shit. Like. Oh, this is different. Like, what is this happening? Like the first 10 minutes, he looked like he was drunk, like slamming into almost slamming into walls is like, please do not break the 30, 000 on where you're 15 minutes later, it looked like he was buzzed.
He was sort of, you know, figured it out. And a half hour, 40 minutes later, he went down a path around a corner through a door and sat himself at a chair for lunch. And I was like, that's the wins who figured it out.
So that was the moment,
the favorite episode,
dude, that's That's incredible. I got to go back and listen to that.
So
preparing for this, I said, where is that? I should reshare that because that was, I mean, it's rare. We know one of the coolest moments of our life, but like that made me proud of me and my classmates, my mom was like, Oh my gosh, like this, you know, but it meant something when you truly don't really care about, uh, if it's going to be good for you or whatever.
That's, you know, that's a moment everybody in that If that was selfless.
Yeah, that, that is amazing. And it speaks to the power of what we can do with this profession. My God, we get so bogged down with insurance and units and just crap and patients who don't want to be there and whatever that is so powerful.
And I think it's worth taking a step back to say like, man, we can affect lives unbelievably in this profession. Yeah, no, it's really cool. True sports physical therapy 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 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. Um, okay, so you've been doing, so how long you've been doing the pod? I started it, it'll be 10
years.
Uh, I started in 2015. So we're coming up on year, I'm bad at math, year nine. So we're almost, next year will be 10.
That's, that's incredible. Are you doing anything big for 10?
Uh, yeah, we sort of talked about, I want to have, I want to look back and forward, you know, the whole thing. Right. And I want to call it, I mean, I think of the name first, cause I want it to be clever.
So we're going to call it a decade under the influence.
I love that. You're a genius. You're a marketing genius. Um, what do you, what do you do with this thing? How do you monetize it?
You monetize it with ads, right? So someone said like, you know, a Patreon, I don't want to ask my, I don't want to, all right, so you have to understand what, understand, there's a good lesson for PTs, understand what business you're actually in.
If you are in an exchange time for money business, you will forever be running on the treadmill of exchanging time for money. If you sell an experience, the ceiling on what someone will, will love, love to give you money for, and then still feel like they got an exchange of abundance, they got more than they gave.
If you sell an experience, You can do a lot more than that. And I'm not saying you don't work with insurance companies. I'm saying, if you understand what business that you're in, the roof gets a little higher, right? And it might even come off and you might be able to do whatever you want. So I'm not in the, I want five people to listen and give me 5 business.
I understand that my audience is actually my product in a nice way. It's the same as social media platforms. You listen to me for free, but not for free because my average episode length is like 35, 40 minutes. You're giving me the one, the most valuable thing you have, which is your time. I just take it a step further to get as many of those 45 minute blocks as I can, right?
Get as much of that, well, first you have to give as much as you can and you'll get time, most valuable thing. Then I can turn to companies who go, I would love to give you money to have a physical therapist's attention. And I go, great. That's an ad. And the audience goes, Well, I could, I guess, pay for this, but I don't want to.
I just want to access it when I want. And I go, Great. Then listen to support these sponsors because I've vetted them. They're good. Don't you use them? Don't use them. That's up to you. You're a smart person. So you do that. It's also been the world's greatest Trojan horse in terms of getting me jobs. Like, I've never had to, like, go out and knock on a door or send a resume to this point.
Every job I've gotten has been because like I know a person knows a part and this was not I'd love to say it was strategic and I'm a strategy genius was not. But it has happened that way. But it's also that happens to a lot of us to may not be with the podcast, but it's people. It's not what you know.
It's who you know. I think that's right. I think it's also it's not what you know. It's who you know. It's What do they know about you? Just because somebody knows me doesn't mean they're gonna wanna hang out with me at all. But a podcast or a a, you know, a a a relationship is what you're building. Um, your reputation walks in the room 10 minutes before you do.
Yeah. It's that dude that, that, that's, that's a powerful lesson. So walk, walk me through what has changed in your interview style and how you prepare for these things.
Yeah, I think. It resonated with me when you're like, Hey, I usually start out with this big radio interview. And I did that because that's what I thought I had to do.
And then I looked and I, so in radio, it's called an air check in radio. Uh, you would walk into your boss's office once a week with a cassette tape. Kids cassette tapes are these that we'll talk about it. Um, you'd walk in with a cassette tape of just your voice. So you'd go in the studio. I was, I worked at a rock radio stations and the cassette would only record when the microphone was on.
So it was only, it was the. anti mix tape. It was only recording what the DJ was saying. So it was, that was what you did. And you just walked in, dropped the tape in, hit forward, fast forward for a random amount of time and listened. And it's the most uncomfortable 30 minutes of your, of your week. It's just, you have to listen to you in front of your boss, you know, even though you're live in front of tens of thousands of people.
It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because now I'm being critiqued. And my boss, Chris Loy, to his credit, was always a great, critiquer. He was always, he was, I never felt bad, even though I was hard on my, you know, I still got sweaty. Um, but you do that. So I started doing that and I realized I didn't have to do that.
So I, here's a trick, or here's a thing to do with a patient. A lot of presentations at CSM or anything, or panels or webinars, they start with the moderator introducing and reading essentially the freaking resume of every, that just does this, that puts distance between you and the audience, it's like, got it.
They're not listening, dude. As soon as they understand, human beings like pattern interruptions. This is why jump cuts are so powerful, right? Like in the, in the reels and the shorts that go viral, it's like the two and a half second rule. And that's for like moving stuff. Like talking, you can be a little bit slower.
You don't have to be two and a half seconds. But the point is, if you start off traditionally, people understand a pattern and I'm just, it's, it turns into noise. So I just pulled out a trick, which was if I'm going to be talking, if I'm going to be talking to you, I wouldn't start with, Hey, here's this person, his resume, went to school.
People sort of don't, they don't care because they don't know who the hell you are yet. So what I'll say is load the information you want to give into the question. So, so you started off with the degree in broadcasting, then physical therapy. How do those two things cross? I tip the audience. I showed him my card.
Hey, he's got instead of saying he's got an interesting background and then going into it. You put the little bit, you put the, you put the piece of cheese next to the, to the question. And then people will be, Oh, okay. Some context and question, context, question, context, question. So by doing that. You're allowing people to have to cognitively lift a little bit less.
Oh, got it. Cool. He's got a weird background. Got it. Oh yeah. Now the question. Great. Oh, okay. I want to see the answer. So I've changed that. So listening to yourself and maybe the parallel cause PT is out there. Like you don't have a podcast. Why is this guy giving me the interviewing questions? You interview a ton of people every day.
It's called the suggestions. Yep, that's it man. So instead of saying like in the beginning, so how's your payment? Like instead of hitting them with the same seven questions that I did as well, you might want to be You might want to start it differently, and there's no set way of being different. That's kind of how different works, which is like, what's been up, man?
What's going on? Open ended. And then I, on purpose, like, don't make eye contact, or I record most of my interviews over beers. I interview, if I'm interviewing you, and I think I want to get more, or if I'm, if I'm going to have an open ended question, I'm like, I want you to take the wheel. What's, what's been going on?
Take a drink. I'm drinking because it's a visual cue that tells you I am, this is, humans hate silence. Even introverted people are like, Oh, they actually hate it more. But yeah, these cues because whose, whose hour is that? Is that your hour or their hour? Whose interview is this? Is it yours? I'm the host, which means you're my guest.
I'm here to make you my job is to make you comfortable. You wouldn't be there unless I thought you had some things to offer. My job is to make you comfortable and then act like the best batting practice pitcher you've ever seen. I want you to hit dingers. So I have to set you up. Right? So that is. I just saw that in the first semester of orthopedics in PT school, when all my classmates were like, we have to memorize these 25 questions to ask in the subjective.
And I was like, how do you know what second question you're going to ask until the person has answered the first, you go in prepared. And then they answer like, well, my leg fell off. Uh, throw out the next 24, what? We got to deal with this. And I, so I think a lot of people get really regimented because we want to be good.
We want to make sure the person looking at us thinks we're right. When the answer is actually you're, you need to be flexible first.
Yeah. Well, and I think that's. First of all, that, that, that's, that's a great tee up. You're setting me up to hit dingers. So I appreciate that. There you go. All day long. Um, I think that's part of the problem with our current education construct where it's, it's like, we are so goddamn rote and we just live in this box.
It's nuts. And I'll tell you where this really hit me as they love saying. The number one university in orthopedics and physical therapy, we get their students and dude, they just live in this freaking box and they don't understand, well, what happens if the knee hurts? What happens if I get it? Cannot think.
And so, you know, I think, I think the law does a better job of this of preparing you to think appropriately. Law. Yeah. Law. Yeah. Right. Cause, cause you're learning a way to be analytical and that's what our profession is. That's what it should be. At least. So, The other thing is, the
other thing is, like, you have to be okay with sucking.
Like, people are like, how'd you get so good? I was like, I, I was, I was really bad. They're like, what do you mean? You're natural at this. I was like, no, I really, I wanted it more than the next guy. Yeah. I, I was willing to get my ass kicked, and then be like, suck it up, you're back on. That was the thing about, like, the show must go on, it's like in radio, have like a bad shift, it's like, guess what happens tomorrow?
Tough shit, bro. Do it again. So I think, I think some of our caring gets in the way of that, like in a good way, it's like, but I need to be great. And I'm like, I know, but to be great, you have to understand greats three years from now. I know that sucks, dude. But like, it doesn't mean you're going to be terrible until you're great.
It means you have to understand that to be great. You have to, you have to fail. I'm really sorry. There's still hack. There's no YouTube video for that.
It's a great lesson. I just had this conversation with one of our clinic directors because we brought on a hire and the hire isn't where we wanted them to be clinically.
Well, so you have to understand what is developmentally appropriate. This new hire has never, has not seen the millions of ACLs you've seen. Correct. So, so they don't know yet, but do they have the ability? To
learn it. Correct. That's the question. You hire personality. I can teach you a skill. The, the, the tricky part of that is I went from a radio DJ to a program director.
I went from radio DJ to running the station. And those are not, that is not a, that is not a continuum of a job. That is a different job. Totally different. I know that you, you might be the best PT at the clinic, does not mean that you have any of the skillset to be a manager or a teacher. You might, but it's not like, oh, I progressed and now I get promoted.
The, the, I think the job of that is not necessarily to just teach the skills. It's also be, Hey man, you met, you messed up yesterday. That's over. I think you can get it. So let's go, like, it sounds like I'm being all snowflakey, but it's like, create a safe environment. Like I need you to fuck up. Here's the thing, six months from now, I need you to screw up less.
Do you think you can screw up less in six months? Yeah, I can do that. Are you going to be perfect in six months? No, because I've been doing this for 15 years. I'm not perfect. That's okay. I need you to screw up less. And when you screw up, I need you to get back to being okay faster. And you will.
Yeah, that's a great lesson, dude.
That's, that's a great lesson. Um, it's also,
I said, I dropped the F bomb. So I forgot to bleep that out. There you go. Appreciate
that. Yes. Cause our audiences would be serious with you, serious. Um, so, so we, I, I gotta say, like, I learned that the hard way. So I would take, um, I would take our best clinician, And all these patients want to come in and see you, you should be clinic director, right?
Uh, it kind of does, unless you've done it once and then a million times. And you realize that it's a different job. It's a different skillset. Um, and so, so we have a different handbook for it and we look for different qualities for that. I don't care if you want to be a clinic director, if you don't want to do this job, you're not, you're not a great clinic director.
And by the way, that job is different. Then your staff, it's totally different. It's totally different. I wish they, I wish they kind of prepped you for this. Why or where did you get all this business intellect? Cause there's no way in hell you learned it at Marymount.
Yeah, no, no, no. Uh, so people will look.
So here's like a, as soon as I explain this to you, it's gonna be really obvious. So when you run a radio station, you're in charge of like picking, you know, music and branding and the, you know, the funny, like, you know, the cool little, like sound effecty things that like go between like all the songs and stuff like that.
Like you're responsible for everything you see in here. Right? That's what you, that's what you do. Like, here we are at the radio station. It's like, yeah.
Love the P. T. Pinecast? Yes. Yes. Support the show by telling a friend or by leaving a review on iTunes or Google Play. So you
do that all day long, right?
Except that's not all you do, right? So you talk a little bit, you do contests, you give away beer and concert tickets. That's what people see. What they don't see is, when I'm off the air, someone comes in and goes, Hey man, Coors Light has 250, 000 to spend this quarter, and we have to put up a proposal to marry our audiences.
So now you have to think, how do I put together a creative plan to make CoorsLight want to spend all or some of that money with me? I have to, I have to put myself in CoorsLight's shoes and go, what's important to you? What do you want to do? And then tomorrow, the local Toyota dealership is coming in same thing.
And on Wednesday, it's the local hardware store. So you de facto become the marketing person, or you're at least trying to be a partner with all these ridiculous, ridiculously different. organizations that you're trying to partner with. So you learn real quick how to put, know your audience, put yourself in their shoes, identify what's important.
Is this sounding a little bit like PT as well? It should, right? Same. So the parallels to me when I got into PT school, I was like, Oh my God, this is the similar. I've already done this. Mem, remember the, remember the fit principle in PT school, right? Frequency, intensity, time, type, and then they added frequency, intensity, time, type, volume, progression.
Those are communication principles. How often, how intense, what kind, these are media principles. So the business stuff came from when I wasn't on the year, I had to travel around with salespeople and be like. Hey, this is Jimmy. You might know him. I went by my last name is McKay. He's the afternoon guy. He does the five o'clock block and he does the, you know, uh, ass backwards song of the day and all these, Oh yeah, I know him.
Here's how we're going to take my show and the audience. It has, here's how we're going to make sure that they love you and they understand what value you provide. So you're selling there, which what you want to make sure you do is think of them first. Like this is where Gary Vee will throw out 51 49.
He's like, I'd rat, I want to give them 51%. I don't, I want to give more than I get. And when you do that, you build relationships. And this again should sound like clinical care, which is I want to make sure you're getting or feel like you're getting more from me than I am from you. Cause that's the way we serve.
Right? It wouldn't, wouldn't have you come to my house and then be like, you know, and then, and then you hoard half of the stuff from, you know, what do we do? We give, what would you like? And that is the, that is the building of a relationship. So that's where I got a lot of the, that's, I mean, if you can't understand the two sides of programming, which is what you hear, right?
Like, you know, this stuff.
This is the PT Pinecast. You know, the
programming and the music and everything, if you can't understand the marrying of that. And the sales and marketing, you don't, you haven't met a really cool radio station, but you can't pay rent when you understand that you do. And now look at clinical care as programming and marketing and sales as the way you pay rent.
If the only way you're doing that is based on what someone else decides your worth as an insurance company, I'd get real nervous. You imagine that my ratings in radio went up triple, but the FCC decides what I get paid. Are you kidding me? When I say that people are like, that's ridiculous. I'm like, that's what you do.
That is how you're doing it. And, um, I think now hopefully the trend is I want to take more of a control of my business because I'm an autonomous practitioner and you should, if you don't have those skills, hire podcast, something, but it will, it will raise the roof or the ceiling of what. your clinical skills can bring you and what impact you can have in your community.
It's not just about money. You can decide you made a made 100, 000 more than you did last year. Buy a wheelchair, ship it to Costa Rica. I love you deeply. So if you don't think it, I asked people all the time in pts, are you in tell business or show business? And like, what's the difference? I tell people how to do exercises.
You never show them. If you don't show me, I can't see it. You just tell me, I'll nod at you and then I'll walk away. But both of those are businesses. So you're not in healthcare, you're in the healthcare business, because if you're not, it means you don't provide a value. Yeah,
freaking love that. Okay, so if, how do you prepare?
I would ask it twofold. How do you prepare for a podcast conversation and then counsel me on how I should be preparing to interview
staff? Are you telling? Alright, so a podcast interview. Are you telling me something? I don't know. So if you're gonna interview someone and you're like, okay, well you went to Duke and um, that's cool.
That's nice. It's Nugget Not cool. Not cool.
Duke is not cool. Jimmy. Oh, are you
like a are is like
a Yes.
turp? Yes, yes. Sorry, sorry. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry. I forget. Alright, you're right. So the question I always ask is, is the next question outta my mouth gonna allow the person I'm talking to? To tell me something I don't know or the audience really something I don't know.
So there's this concept that you should understand and so should clinicians. Again, the parallels are it's called the curse of knowledge. And unfortunately, when you go through PT school, you have a lot of knowledge, and then you, you also have the curse of knowledge. Once you know how to read, if I put words in front of you, you can't not read them.
You just start reading them. That's how the brain works. So the problem is you can't forget what it's like to not be able to read. You can't, it's difficult, I shouldn't say you can't, it's difficult, it's a mindset to put yourself in the patient's shoes and go, they don't understand any of this. So you're on level 49 and they're like, Uh huh, they're being nice, they're being cordial, but they don't understand any of it.
So I try to un I actively try to say, if the audience doesn't have any idea who this person is, because I've been reading this person's posts for six years, and I got it, and the person's in front of me, and I don't want to look like I don't know them. I set them up before the interview. I'm like, I might ask you some things that tee you up because I'm a batting practice pitcher.
My job is to make you hit dingers. So it might sound like I don't know what I'm doing. I'll give you an example. Uh, Christy Wellington is a former, I think, seven time Ironman champion. And I was a triathlete. So she started partnering with this thing called Parkrun in the UK. It's like a non profit. Go out and run 5Ks.
So I had an opportunity to reach out to Parkrun and be like, I'd love to, I'd love to tell people about Parkrun. And they go, sure. And I go, could I interview Christy Wellington? She's your celebrity. And they said, absolutely. Christy would love to do that. So now I'm like geeking out because I'm going to talk to Christy Wellington.
She never ran an Ironman race. She didn't win. She was undefeated at Ironman. So I'm a little, I'm, you know, I'm a little. It's a big deal. It's a big deal. So we're prepping the interview and I don't want to, I want to make sure that she, you know, she, she doesn't know that I'm geeking out. I'm trying to play it cool.
And I'm sort of like setting it up before I hit record. And we're getting to the poor, the part where she actually is like, do you know my background? Cause she was like, I was like sort of not. I was setting it up. I didn't want to tip my hand yet. And then the first question I asked was, um, Christy, I don't know if you remember this, but you actually beat me in in my first 70 mile Ironman race and you beat me by so long that you had time to go home, shower, put clean clothes on, come back to the race and put a medal on my neck when I passed the finish line.
How'd that feel? And the minute I said that, she was like, Oh, you understand everything. You're These are set up questions. My God, Right. Because my job is not my job is the host is not to look smart. Job is to set you up to get information out of you. And here's a lesson. Do you know, Chris Voss never split?
Sure. Legend. Every conversation is a negotiation for information. Not a lot of, not a lot of conversations, not some conversations. Every conversation is a negotiation for information, either trying to get someone to understand your information or you're trying to get them, uh, information from them. When you look at an interview or a conversation like that, you get, you instantly get better.
Oh, the goal here is to either get you to understand something, now I'm holding up a finger up for the podcast audience. If you move the goalposts as a physical therapist, and this was hard for me because we tie ourselves, I tied myself emotionally to the outcome. I need you to do something. I make suggestions, you make decisions.
My goal is to make sure you understand if you do A, there's a good chance B will happen and you want B, so A is what we're going with. Instead of saying, well the patient's not compliant, or this or that. Were you clear? Because that's the only thing you can control. Are you clear? Because you're going to leave and you're going to spend 167 hours out there before you come back next week.
Only weapon is actually communicating to attempt to get you to understand. And it's like inception. I need to make it your idea, right? Deviously, I need, DiCaprio was like, I need to make it your idea. The way to do that was to understand, try to understand the person deeply enough that you could plant the seed to say, if you want this, do that.
But I, but to quote my favorite Peloton instructor, Dennis Morton, I make suggestions. Do that guys. Okay. I like him. Why? So I like him and I like Matt and I can't remember Matt's last name, but they're like the Wilbur's Wilbur's like Wilbur's a lot. I don't know. Every once in a while, I just let it see, he's a palate cleanser.
Some of them, the other ones, the dudes are a little, they're over the top. He's a little hippie dippy over the top. I get it. He, he's
hippy dippy over the top. He, I can't deal with his mannerisms. I
know I get what you're, I see where you're cringing on him. And I just, I'm just like, you know what? Just distract me with your, maybe I laugh when you can have Wilpers.
Why would you ever go with, because I do ride a lot. So I will, I don't like to ride the same ride twice. So I will go to, I will go to Dennis or some of the other endurance PTs on there.
Yeah, are you an FTP guy? Of course you are. I don't even want to know
what your freaking numbers are. I have retests. I couldn't tell you.
I, with a number, I can't remember numbers 30 seconds at, no, that's probably why I stayed in radio and, and things with, that's the things that made me nervous in PT is like, Holding onto a number for me is like holding onto sand. The harder I hold, like, the more it goes away.
Yeah, but, but what, what you, that makes you, I bet, a better clinician.
Because like we just said, the ones who get obsessed over numbers, they live in the box. And I, I think there's, there's a lot there. 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 from table.
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 hands or whatever their sport is and teach them. How to accelerate, how to decel, how to change direction, all the mechanics that go in there, what drills do we use 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.
Thanks guys. Um, okay. So let's not focus too much on Peloton. So you've, you've taught me how to freeze questions. So thank you for that. I think that's gold. Um, you, I don't know, get, get a little bit more into preparing. So I, I have an applicant let's talk just for like an interview for like, okay. Business, right?
Uh, yeah.
Uh, in my clinic, I have an applicant. What do I do? Okay, so I'm going to steal a question from another smart guy, uh, Jamie Schreier, helps practice owners make more money and live, whatever. Great guy. Manly guy, I think. Yeah, you're right. He taught me a question that's so great and I think you can copy the question exactly from Jamie or just understand the magic is understanding what it does.
Asking a direct question gets a direct answer. I call them the better question is a ricochet question because when you have to look when I'm gonna bounce a ball off the wall, you have to sort of stop, think, calculate where it's going to come and then it requires you to think. I don't want you to just answer.
I want you to, I want you to think, right? So I also tell people when I'm doing a formal interview, I want you to take time and think I'm not judging you on how fast you answer. Now it doesn't mean take 20 minutes, right? But like, think about this, right? Okay. And his, Jamie's brilliant question, and I use it a lot now in this situation, is, Hey listen, if I If we hired you, you came on board and in five years you were to leave, what do you think that reason for leaving would be?
So number one, I've given you a story scenario. So you're different part of your brain lights up. Someone in neuroscience knows what part, I don't know what part, but a different part of the brain, because now you're pitching a scenario. I'm here it's five years. I bet it's been good enough. I'm staying for five years.
What would cause you to leave? To leave the next words out of their mouth are most likely the thing they value the most. Now, a lazy question would be, what do you value the most? That is a direct question. I'm thinking about values. This puts them in a story that they need to picture the next step. I would leave because there's no room for advancement, or I would leave because I wouldn't made enough money.
You're showing them what they value and what they fear. Now we are talking about emotions and not logic. And as smart as we are, we are big, dumb animals. And we like, we make decisions on emotion and then we backfill logic to make us make sure I'm, I'm buying these tires because they're safe, right? No, because they look cool, right?
And they might also be safe, but safety is also an emotion. So this is someone else. I forget. I'm good at the quote, but not good at the person giving the credit is we are dumb animals that are emotionally driven. We actually make decisions on emotion. Then we, then we construct the bridge to logic to satisfy ourselves.
And we'll tell everybody, Hey, women do this a lot. Hey, that's a really nice shirt. It's 12 at Marshall. They can't just accept the compliment, right? It's 12. I made a logical decision. Don't worry about it. That's 12, 12. So I like those kinds of questions, which is, uh, help me understand is a good one. Um, because again, that was Chris Voss talking with bank robbers.
And again, Chris Voss for people who don't, he was a former FBI hostage negotiator and then wrote a book about. Negotiating, but really it's a book about communication. It's about getting an understanding the bank robber on the other side of with hostages and understanding, like, how do I help me understand?
How, how does this end, man? Like, help me understand this. So I like ricochet questions in those situations.
That's really awesome. How much prep do you do, or should I be doing when interviewing the potential employee? I guess it
depends. I get to be that guy who says it depends, but I get to cop out. I don't know.
I think a little bit. I think you got to put some time into it. I don't think you need to be re I think you should prepare, not research, right? So here's what I would do. Here's what I typically do if I'm talking to someone is look and then circle, like, Circle threads that you want to pull. Hey man, you played rugby for three years.
That's cool. What'd you learn from that? Or like, what was a, what's a relatable skill or, you know, something like that. Or tell me a story is great, right? They always do like, tell me a story of your greatest, like this is where, this is where we are, tell me a story of your greatest weakness or tell me a situation where you faced a toxic manager and you got out of it, it's like, okay, I have that one in the holster, I'm trying to, this is a, an interview is a, an awkward situation.
It's a prepared, impromptu encounter. It's can either be, it can't be both, but it's supposed to be like today we were going to meet at two o'clock and we're going to talk about it. And so we needed to be fun on demand. It's like, dude, that's hard to be natural demand. Right? So, um, I would say, like, look for threads to pull and then be flexible, right?
Have a couple of, um, have a couple of breadcrumbs you want to hit along the way. What are you looking for? Like, you're looking for a fit here. Like, I tell this to interview, uh, E's, people being interviewed. Your job is not to win the interview. You should be interviewed. This is an interview. It's a conversation.
It's a conversation. It's a conversation. It's a negotiation for information. It's your job to get the job. Or to find out if you should work there. I think it's the second one. Right. So, but we're ingrained. My parents too. We're like, get the job. Can't wait for you to crush this interview. Go get up, go kill it.
It's like, no, no, no, man, be inquisitive. Right. And then you find out like, dude, you can waste a lot of your time at the wrong place. Or you can waste a lot of time, effort, and money hiring the wrong person. So I look for threads to pull. So I don't know if you're looking for like an objective amount of time, 20 minutes.
Have someone else look at the same thing. I'm like, what's the, what are we asking about this person? Tell me something I don't know. Look, I got a lot about you, but tell me something I don't know about you. That's a fun, you know. Like I, I got an argument with someone who is in HR. Not an argument, but like a disagreement.
At the bottom of my resume, I used to have like, three time Ironman, kids, kids, swim coach, um, you know, uh, raised money for a wheelchair. Like I was begging them to be like, tell me a story about that. Right, because I want to show you me. That's supposed to be what I'm doing. So I was giving them threads and if they didn't pull those threads, I was kind of thinking, I don't know, either you're bad at interviewing or I shouldn't work here because you seem a little bit not like the, but if you're square, if you're, I don't want to come square, but if you're a, if you are punch list, then that would be a good place for you to work.
So it's about a fit, not a win or a loss.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, cause you're the freaking expert here. I don't know. You are. I would give the same advice to the applicant.
Oh, yes, I do. Yes. 100%. 100%. This is not a thing to win.
Yeah, that, that kills me when I'm, I'm trying to pull threads and they're like, the, uh, here's the canned answer.
And by the way, this, this hurts me a lot with patients also. How is it possible that an applicant doesn't have or a patient doesn't have questions? So when I say any questions or what are you
thinking about? And feel comfortable enough, or maybe you hit him with a fire hose. If I'm sitting with it, I put myself in similar situations.
situations that are similar. If I'm sitting with an accountant and they're like, for like 20 minutes and then I'm like, I don't know what the hell you just said. So no, I don't have any questions. You didn't give me anything to pull on. So what I, my suggestion there is, um, treat. And then, uh, with someone who's uncomfortable or unfamiliar with where you are, treat them like a seven year old walking in New York City every at the end of every block, we're gonna stop and I'm gonna be like, you good?
Because we're gonna wait for this. You good? Let's move on. Let's move on. I wanted to be shorter sprints because my job is to achieve understanding, not to get you to do something. I'm trying to get information and I'm trying to give you information, but I have to understand it. How much you can digest. I, I, I shared a short form piece of content that got the most views ever.
This is when you know you, not when you went viral, when you said something that resonated.
It
was 15 seconds long. And I said, people understand what you just said while you're not talking. Maybe pause every once in a while. It's like eating. I want you to eat this whole bag of chips, but I'm not gonna pour the entire bag at once.
But we do that when we hit people with a fire hose full of information and then we expect them, well, you should be, your thirst should be quenched. I just gave you enough water. It's like, I didn't get any of it. So I look at it like that. We know that people have cognitive loads and there's cognitive overload.
This is, this is a good move. Anybody listening or yourself who's going to present at a conference. This is how I used to train people in the C suite, VPs and CEOs. I would use a very expensive piece of equipment, the flashlight on my cell phone. So I'd say, you're going to do your presentation in front of me.
And they'd go, Oh, okay. They hired me to tell them what to help them be a better presenter. And then they didn't want to do any exercise, like give me your presentation. It would just give me their slide deck. And I would say. That's not the presentation. You're the presentation. Slide deck is like the batting gloves, but you're the hitter, baby.
So I would do this. They'd put up their first slide, and every time they'd change slides, so I'd point the flashlight at the speaker until they changed slides. Then I'd move the flashlight to the slide, and I would look, I would move my body like comically towards the slide again, and they're still talking, and then I wouldn't come back to them until I was done reading every word, and then I'd come back, and I'm like, by the way, everything you just said while I was over here, I didn't hear any of it, because I cannot read and listen at the same time, if you can do that, you're a better person than me, but most of us, you can't read and listen, uh, uh, to the best of your ability, you can't, you're losing some of your cognitive ability, but we have to understand that people have cognitive loads, Patients are in an, this is where you work, dude.
You're used to this environment. I am taking in a ton of information. Where am I sitting? Who's here? Is this the PT? And where am I parked? And is my meter running out? And is my cell phone vibrating? Dude, they are taking in a ton of information and you're hitting with anatomy and physiology. You cannot wait to show them how smart you are.
I get it, but they're getting none of it. Yeah, that's the best way to do
it. Yeah. I mean, I think that makes a lot of sense. I think that that's probably why the TED Talks world. Caught fire, right? It's one dude in a circle. How long is a TED Talk? What's the maximum length?
Yes. I don't know. Uh, I'll go with,
I'll go with 16 minutes.
You are one minute off my 17 minutes. Yeah. Who's listening, right? You're telling me and it takes them like six, nine months to prepare to talk. Oh, yeah. And that's a lot. Except when you're Simon Sinek and you put nine months into a 17 minute talk and now it's got a billion views or whatever. Guess it was worth it.
Now, I'm not saying nine months, but maybe you should be honing your craft in communication because 60 minute session with them. Are you talking more than 17? You mean you're more skilled than the most skilled TED talk? It's more point because Don't put 10 pounds of, hold on, wait, I'll do it live. I'll make sure the editor doesn't have to do.
Don't put 10 pounds of a five pound bag. Don't do it. You're just going to have shit coming out of it. No, I forgot the button. You're just going to have shit pouring out. So you're hitting me with 500 gallons of water and I barely got a sip. That is the same in communication. They have to, you have to swish it around their mouth and digest.
If I'm eating, I got to chew and then digest. Communication is the same way.
It is a parallel. Yeah. I love it. So I recently read somewhere, I don't remember, uh, the book. There were, I think it was actually out of Duke, uh, university med school where they put, um, they put their med students through improv class.
Yes,
really an idea. And it was insane how much better their outcomes were. Right. So, so how crazy is that? So my question is, I mean, if Duke has figured this out, anyone can figure it out, just because puke, so how do we. How do we get everything you just said in the last 56 minutes? How do we put it in universities?
Um, you have to make it valuable to them. Explain why it's valuable because they're gonna make a decision. Because if I said, because I'm doing this right now, I'll say it in public. I have not said it publicly. I am creating a communications for clinicians class and I'm going to pitch it to professors, but I don't have to put myself in their shoes.
Now I have to act like their course late. Or Toyota, I have to say you have limited ability or your limited space in your syllabus. You have to throw something out to get this in. I have to explain why it's so valuable. I have to explain what's more valuable than that thing.
Okay, here's what I think is going to be a massive hurdle for you.
You ready? Huge, yes. It's not going to help these kids pass the
boards and they only care about that. Well, then maybe it's not in PT school. Maybe it's a, I mean, unfortunately, maybe it's an online thing, but I think
it's when you do it in person fair. Listen, I think there's, there's room in and continuing ed.
I want this in PT schools
should be, I mean, should be. So I don't know. I mean, this stuff is simple. Doesn't mean it's easy. But it is simple, right? And I think it's powerful, right? Because everybody wants to add everything to PT school. We should have business. We should have this. I have thoughts on that.
I'm like, I understand why we should, and I understand why we couldn't. Because that's an entire degree. Where's the communications? It's like, hey man, it's an entire degree. But do I think people could take a one semester or half a semester course and really improve? I really do. I think there should be a psychology in physical.
We're talking to humans all day. Humans are a mess. Have you met humans? They're insane. So we have to figure those things out. These are, these are skills. Um, so where I'm not an education, I'm smart enough to know, I'm not going to come into education and be like, I got the silver bullet for you. But if I meet with enough, uh, program directors, I can say, Hey, do you think this is an issue?
Do you think you see students fall short or Hey, CIs, is this a thing that you do tell your, tell your program director, and then let's solve it. Cause I'm not saying it has to be me. But it should be somebody. Cause I think that's the, that's the lowest hanging fruit. This is the easiest way to improve.
I think it should be you.
First of all. Second of all, you were right about the piece you said in the middle, which is the CIs see it. Oh, they see it better. But yeah, but the professors don't because they're only learning
one thing. Yeah, you might see it in lab, but that's so fake, right? Use a, it's like John Taffer on bar rescue.
You want to figure out where the problems are? Do a stress test. Like you want, you're a plumber. Where's the, where's the leak? Put some pressure behind that water. It'll show itself real quick. So I love that. Again, PT school is a, is a safety test. I get it. I get it.
Yeah. It's just a frustrating one. Okay. Um, tell me, tell me about your clinical life.
Are you treating? No. So I started an outpatient orthopedics. I was working in the clinic in Alexandria. It was like cash. I was working with like CrossFitters and Marines and Ironman and stuff like that. And that's, cause I was like, I'm a triathlete. I want to work with, you know, people who wear spandex and he didn't a hundred percent resonate with me.
I was like, just because you're the patient doesn't mean that that's who you want to be just because you're the audience doesn't mean that that's who you want to be talking to. And then I switched it up a little bit. I went to peds for a year and a half. Are you out of your mind? Yeah, I, but that's what my professor, my, my closest professor, she hates when I say my professor, she's my friend now.
She was like, I don't know about, okay, but she's always super supportive and I did it. But I was doing communication stuff with on my own or being, you know, contracted by organizations. And I always felt like, um, I could have a big impact. I think you can have a huge, you can impact someone's life one on one.
You can also impact it one on many. And it take, it took a lot of, um, soul searching to be like, okay with it. Cause the question is, well, then are you a real PT? So when I do my show live at PT schools, I do like live studio audience, Jimmy Fallon style, like, you know, radio sound effects, yada, yada. And I start before I hit record.
I asked the students, I haven't treated a patient in four years. I'm not an education and I don't do research. I have the degree, but is Jimmy a real PT? Don't answer answering your mind. And then I say, I'm about to do a trick. I'm going to do this for 60 minutes, four people, 15 minute interviews. And then in the end, I'm gonna ask you the same thing.
And then in the end I go, all right, all I want to know is did your answers change or stay the same? And then I don't want to know what your answer was, but it did change or stay the same. And then because the trick is if I'm able to get information from you in a way that someone else can digest, even if you wrote it a hundred times on blogs and books and yada yada, but it's the 50th time, cause it's a different way.
So I did a whole lot of spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down. I did the same thing just different and you were to hear that because I recorded it and it went to if I give you information from you in a way that a thousand people can use on a thousand patients, can I touch a patient without ever touching a patient?
We know you can because that's what teachers do. Like it's easy with teachers. It's a little weirder with a podcast. So,
I mean, Jimmy, I guess the question I have with their or in that instance is what do they think a PT
is? That's a great, that is a great, that's, that's why I tried it. That's why I tell my little backstory of like being a radio and coming to PT and they're doing the pockets.
I'm like, that's a cool story, bro, but I'm not going to start a podcast. Good. All I did was took something else and added it to PT. What did you say about improv? Yes. And are the, is the only rule in improv? Yes. And Hey, it's a blizzard outside. You don't say, no, it's not. It's Florida. Hey, it's a blizzard outside.
Oh my gosh. The snow is three feet deep, but I don't have my snowshoe. Yes, and yes, and so what can you? Yes. And at this profession, because if we keep just PT, we're going to keep checking boxes and staying in boxes and then complaining about not escaping the silo, you need to bring in people who worked in the circus or on cruise ships or who are a mortuary sign.
I don't understand. You don't. Looking forward, a radio DJ PT doesn't make any sense. Looking backward, it makes a little sense, but it's still a little weird. It's,
listen, it's weird. It makes total sense. Because if I were, if you were to ask me that question, which you didn't, which is what makes a PT, the answer, the answer in my head, in my little freaking brain is.
The world's best communicator gotta be. So, so that makes a ton of sense,
right person. You make a ton of sense. Need needs, you need to be what that person needs in front of you. So you are armed with anatomy, physiology, all of this information. That's awesome. That's a how you do what you do. I look at worlds and questions, right?
There's who, what, where, when, why, how. Six questions. How you help people is, is anatomy, physiology, neuro, all those things. But what you do depends on the person sitting in front of you. I like to help throwing athletes get better, better to throw you better without pain. Good. That's what you do. How do I do that?
I'm a physical therapist, but if you leave with physical therapist, I don't know what the fuck that means. It doesn't mean anything to me. No one does. No one does. Why? I want to know a what? No, I want to know a what and a why. Stop telling me about how, where, when, how. So I look at who, what and why are power questions.
How, where and when is execution questions. You gotta figure it out. But if you said I help people, I help people find their dream house every single day. I know. How do you, how do you do that? I'm a realtor. But if you said I'm a realtor, cool story. That's cool. Moving on. It's an end. Yep. Right. Open ended, not closed ended.
Yeah. I love it. Um, Okay. Here's my canned question for you.
It's okay. I like canned questions.
Outside of PT Pinecast, what should sports PTs, ortho PTs, what should we be listening to?
Oh, uh, Oh, okay. Experts in your field. So listen to the, you know, uh, Mike Reinholds of the world, right? And, and love them or hate them.
Right? Just taste, taste, taste, listen so much that you can disagree respectfully. Listen to so much that you can go, wait, this person said this, this person said this, but I, I researched and it's actually somewhere in the middle. Listen so much that you can disagree respectfully and then go listen to stuff that's not in our profession.
That, that's where I thought you were gonna go, and I think they're, they're So I'm not saying
don't be good clinically, but then listen to the Chris Vosses of the world, and go, Oh god, listen to the Gary V's. Or don't like them, but listen to something that isn't produced by our profession, because that's how new ideas leak in.
There's only two types of ideas. There's old ideas delivered in new ways and new ideas delivered in old ways. And once you simplify that, you're like, Oh, I could probably. I could think of a new idea, but when you think it's a blank dry erase board with infinite possibilities, there's a book called where do good ideas come from from Steven Johnson, and he has this idea.
He has this scenario of what he calls the adjacent possible. So he's essentially trying to, like, teach you how to innovate. Like, it's this. Can I make the subjective objective? And he said, You're on. You're standing on the middle square of an infinite chess board. But you can really only go one step in it.
You're moving like the king in chess. You can go diagonal in four directions or straight in four directions. And he's like, you learn based on what you already know. So now I have anatomy and physiology. I can take a step. But you're armed with everything you already learned from English and math. So everything's just one step away.
And when you fail, you go back to square one. That's a bad thing. Except, You're smarter than you were when you were at square one last time. So he talks about this. It's only one step possible. The guy who invented the internet just had so many more adjacent, it was Al Gore, I think, so many adjacent possibles based on what someone else learned.
But it was a, it was an obvious step because he was only one step. He was one, one block of an adjacent possible away. So I think we need more people to bring stuff that is not straightforward to get to the adjacent possible. Yeah, that's where rock DJs come into our field. Doesn't make any sense until it makes sense.
Because here's what rock DJs do. I was, I was beaten on that. I had to think of something witty, clear. I needed to tell you that, uh, Coors Light was three bucks tonight at, uh, the Lobster House or whatever. I needed to do that. I need to do it 10 times today. So it's gotta be different every single time, or it should be, or you're a lazy radio DJ and I got to do it over the intro of the next Foo Fighters song.
And that's 13 seconds. So it, it beats you to be clear and concise frequency, intensity, time, type, volume, and progression. I just had reps on people. That's why that's that I'm I'm using our quotes. I'm better than the next person because I just did it and I did it more because I liked it. That's it.
That's awesome.
Um, dude, awesome lessons, Jimmy, not where I thought this interview was going to go, not what I scripted good. Most I've learned. Okay. And I think we'll see the market will judge as the market will. There you go. Don't date yourself. Don't date yourself with that sound clip. Wow. I can do this one. This is a little more modern.
A little bit of those kids. Um, Jimmy, thank you for your time. Just tell everyone where we can
find you. At PT Pinecast. And again, I launched the podcast. The reason it's called Pinecast is I was at a conference as a student. Watch someone on stage. Talk hit me with a firehose. They were using words that were over my head and their tie was tight and tight.
And then a half hour later, I'm at the networking hour, having a beer and I marched up and was like, I'm Jimmy. I'm a student. I saw your presentation. I didn't really understand all of it. And one beer and 11 minutes later, I understood everything. And I realized conversation beats presentation. So can you make, and it was just around the time when you still needed to explain to people what a podcast was.
So it was a real lucky accident. That's why it's called pint cast. So PT for physical therapy pint. Cause I interviewed, I mock interviewed the first guy over a pint of beer and cast because a podcast. Awesome. Freaking genius. Well, thank you very much. Thanks for teaching
me a ton, Jimmy. Yeah, my pleasure.
We'll be in touch.
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