Latest / The Uplift- with Luke Pollock / #22- Solo Pod - Q&A - Peptides, Poor Confidence and Enjoyment over Discpline
Transcript
- Luke Pollock: Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Uplift. You're with me today again on another solo pod. We're gonna do a Q &A today. And yeah, I am actually excited to answer some of these questions which my Instagram followers have asked me. If you don't follow me on Instagram, you should do that. I look public online. That's where I will post when I'm doing Q &As, et cetera. But yeah. Don't have much of an update for you this week in terms of life and business, because I just updated you last week, but I'm just off a business mentorship call with Alex Morrell. I finished up his mentorship and yeah, I was like a client case study for him. So we've just chatted for over an hour about what my, how my business has changed, where I am now, where I want to go, et cetera. And it is challenging to think about the future, but it's really good to think about where you've come from. I know I've talked about before living in the gap and the gain. And so often we live in the gap thinking about where we want to go all the time and why we're not there yet. And social media is a ⁓ a big proponent of that of continually reminding us to live in the gap and continually reminding us of those who are ahead and what we are not. But by living in the game, when you look back and reflect on what you said you wanted to do and where you said you wanted to be and realizing more than often you're actually there. You can just enjoy it without having to stress about what's next, what's next, how am I growing and how am I building? ⁓ And actually just trying to learn to enjoy it makes a huge difference. And I think that's something I'm struggling with a little bit lately. There's a saying in business, if you're not growing, you're dying. And I think that is true for many points. Like if I stopped taking on clients, for example, for a few months, um, the business will die going forward. So you kind of need to be constantly moving forward, but having the balance of enjoying that as well. And, try not to push it, try and know when the push there's, uh, those levers. also think that growth doesn't just equate to numbers and business. Um, but actually like, are you growing as a person as a content creator? Well, I can't believe I just said content creator, but as you grow in Are you growing like with your, your skillsets outside of just the business? So, ⁓ are you nurturing your creativity? Are you, ⁓ honing in your skills of getting your message across, whether that be through content or through spoken word, ⁓ in person, are you, yeah. On the pursuit to maybe getting a better job or making more connections in the industry. And I think that is growth. Ultimately, if you're pulling any of those levers, it's just really hard to pull them all at the same time. I'm going to take my AirPods out. as I don't actually need them and they are hurting my ears. So yeah, I think that's what I've tried to remind myself more lately that growth is not just business growth. Growth is ourselves as a person, if you are the business. Now, obviously, and Alex says to me in the call, which I might upload on my own podcast as well, because people will find it interesting. But he said like, you don't have a name for your business and... Ultimately, you want a name for your business. Otherwise people won't be happy seeing an employee of your business. And I think that is the case, but I purposely haven't got a name for my business, like Uplift Physiotherapy or anything like that, which might be the case in the future. But right now I'm happy for it to be a one person business. I don't want to take anyone else on right now. And I don't want to do that for about the next year I've decided, because I want to leave myself open to travel as well. So ⁓ yeah, I want to. to sort of work for periods and then maybe rest for periods as well. Like that Naval Ravica quote, it's better to eat like a lion than a cow. So it's better to hunt for a while and then rest, ⁓ whether that's in business or ⁓ in learning. So you can really go down a rabbit hole. And that's been me in business since January, really, like down a rabbit hole of how do I get better? How do I grow the business? How do I make more money? And then I will have a period of rest, which is coming up in July, where I can sit back and on after we get married and I can go on honeymoon and really chill out and relax. And I'm preparing for that period now. And then I'm excited for the period of growth that I can go through in August through to Christmas again, sort of that last quarter or. Yeah. Going into the last quarter of the year, really pushing and seeing what that person is. And it might be still business. just want to keep growing that whether that's revenue or. profile size or it might be something different. might want to really hone in on the podcast, for example. So yeah, try and treat your, your pursuit of something like that. It's, think it's way better to have short bursts of progress than long. It's really, everything's conflicting, right? Because people will say, ⁓ just check in each day, come in each day to the gym. And it's better to be consistent in whatever you're doing than short bursts of things, but I think with creative acts and when you're trying to get something off the ground, obsession is sort of key. And that's something that I've been more fascinated with recently. Can I actually go through periods of being a little bit obsessed with that, trying to get it done, trying to learn a lot and then parking it for a bit and moving on to the next thing. And that's just the way my personality type works The way my personality lends itself to things. So rather than try and fight that all the time and think, Oh no, I need to be balanced. Can I actually just lean into that at times and use it to my advantage? So I grew my business from 200 pounds a month to five K a month within three months. And then I'm like, okay, now that I've done that, did that make me happier? No. Did that give me a little bit more freedom? Yes. Can I build systems around that to make sure it happens in future again? Yes. And then can I get lost in a different pursuit while keeping that? on the back burner, rather than slowly just ticking away each day and not actually making substantial progress at any one point. And that's how I feel like you really burn yourself out when you're just doing the same thing day on day. You're not seeing any change of progress, but you feel like you have to do it. And for me, that would be just seeing people session by session in person, because if I didn't see them in person that day, then I wouldn't make money. But it's a very low leverage activity because Yeah, I can only see one person at one time, if that makes sense. So I'm going a bit of a ramble, but that is, ⁓ I'm just talking how I, as the thoughts are coming to my head, which is often the best way to speak. Also, I hope you have been doing your morning pages. If you listened to that episode a few, a few episodes ago, I admittedly had about five days or six days where I hadn't done the pages and now I'm back into doing it it's so much harder, but, ⁓ yeah, really enjoy. really enjoy doing it still. And I think it comes to light what you're actually finding is more tricky in your life and what's taking up more mental space than, than it should. So like I had a pretty much an argument with myself on the morning pages this morning about something which seems quite trivial and like, ⁓ you're running a business. It was probably about that, but it's not, it's about something that seems quite trivial, but it was weighing quite heavy on my mind. And by the end of the morning pages, I pretty much had a decision made on what I was going to do. And then I can just start my day without that lingering on in the background and address it. And sometimes I wouldn't like before the pages, I wouldn't have even known that that was the thing that was lingering in the background that was making me slightly grumpy or more unhappy. But when you pick up the pen and you let that stream of consciousness just flow onto the page, I'm becoming more and more wooey wooey. I swear. ⁓ I wouldn't have believed I'd be saying this stuff like two years ago, but anyway, I kind of love it. So if you just let that stream of consciousness flow onto the page, then you will find out what ⁓ you really care about and what really is taking up that mental space. I'm just going to pull up my phone now and get into the questions because I'm already nearly 10 minutes in and I've just been nattering away. let's go. ⁓ Some of these questions overlap. I remember when I actually, for my first one, I think I had three questions and I've got quite a lot, which is pretty cool. So. Let's start with an ACL question. Hamstring or patellar tendinograft? Now, I've answered this so many times, I need to make a new video about it. But hamstring or patellar tendinograft? I always say, and I will continue to say, go with whatever the surgeon is most comfortable with doing and get multiple opinions. It doesn't matter as much about what the graft type actually is. It matters more that the surgeon's comfortable providing you with that graft type because they'll have done the surgery thousands of times before and they'll be most confident with that graft type. And that will give you the best results provided you have good rehab to go along with it. So I'll say it again, it doesn't matter as much if it's a patella, a hamstring, or even a quad tendon graft. Don't get too caught up in it. But I would always say seek two opinions and go with whatever surgeon you're most comfortable with and whatever graft type they're most comfortable with. Now there's some evidence to say that more fast twitch athletes shouldn't go with the hamstring grafts because you want to preserve their hamstring if they're like force producing sprinters or wingers in rugby. You want to preserve their hamstrings as much as possible to avoid them having future hammy problems. But to be honest, I've seen loads of like fast people with hamstring grafts and they're fine. So Yeah, don't overthink it. Go with whatever the surgeon's happy with. The patella grafts are a bit more painful in the early stage. The hamstring grafts, obviously you have to do a hamstring rehab alongside it pretty much. So yeah, it's much of a muchness. I probably see more patella grafts recently with the LAT just because that's what seems to be really popular at the minute. And I think that is the growing graft type, but yeah, try not to, try not to get too caught up in it. I think people... People put this as a mental excuse or a block just to put the surgery off sometimes. And actually, like, you just need, the more important thing is that you get good rehab. So go with what the surgeon's comfortable with and make sure you've locked in some good rehab for after. I'm gonna just, I'm not gonna keep it physio or personal development or business. I'm gonna make some match. So I hope you don't mind that. Another question, is confidence innate or is it a skill? is confidence innate or is it a skill? Confidence is not innate. So you'll get some people who are more confident than other people, but that is because they have been brought up in an environment which bridge confidence, which allows confidence to be, yeah, to be shared and which pretty much tells that child, for example, the story that they should be confident because they're in a good position to be confident. They've been exposed to more. So I often use the example of like growing up in a country school. ⁓ cause I grew up in the countryside, growing up in a country school. And then when I went to like Ulster rugby ⁓ events, comparing my confidence levels to that of, with the city boys who were much more confident, they knew more about what was going on. I felt like I came from a very small school that wasn't as good at rugby. So my confidence levels weren't as good. They knew everyone there. They were in the city. Obviously. I'm talking quite generally now, but that was and often is the case with like smaller schools, people who come from the countryside, et cetera. And I'm not 100 % sure why that is. I think people who live in cities and are maybe a little bit more well-off just get exposed to more when they're younger. They are more confident because of that. They also have attached to them a brand which they can be proud of. So if you go to Harvard, Part of me, if you go to Harvard, you have Harvard backing you up all the time when you walk into a room. If I go to Dowry out of school, which I did back home, no one really knows where that is. So it doesn't really, it doesn't command attention when I say that. So that is more of like the nurture or the, yeah, the surrounding side of things and confidence. But I think you can become confident in anything. I think the first step to become confident in something, and this is just me going off the top of my head, is to become competent at it. So you first become competent at it. So if I'm playing the piano, which I can't do, but I would first become competent at playing the piano for myself, and then I would keep playing, keep playing. And then I would, once I'd built up enough confidence playing for myself, I would try and bring in my family members, my fiancee, I'd play in front of her. And then as I become confident playing in front of them, then I would play in front of bigger groups of people. The key thing is that, like, couldn't be confident to play in front of bigger groups of people right from the off, and that might sound obvious, but often people think that's the case. They think, ⁓ Tiger Woods can obviously hit that shot in front of millions of people because he's Tiger Woods. But he wasn't Tiger Woods to hit that shot in front of millions of people before he did the reps to become confident. And there's that Alex Ormozhi quote, like, do the thing so many times. so that you have a stack of undeniable evidence that you are who you say you are, pretty much. That you have so much confidence in yourself because you've repeatedly done the thing well and you've put yourself in that situation multiple times. It's the same reason that coaches will like an older player to be in the environment because they will react less to the external surroundings. They will be more calm because they've been in those situations before. And the best thing about that is you can't prepare for it. You just have to go and do it. And then the more you do it, the more confident you get. So I think confidence is a skill. I think it matters about your surroundings as well. But when you work and you put yourself in the right environments, everyone will be going off a level playing field. like outside of university, for example, when you go into jobs, everyone will be going off in a level playing field because you'll be humbled. You'll go in at the same stage. And then it's about what you do extra to that. So can you expose yourself to more things? Can you ⁓ get more practice in than anyone else? Can you become confident because you've done more reps pretty much? Another physio question, predisposed to lumbar problems, back issues. And I've got another question on this as well. Like how do I manage repetitive lower back strain or load getting ready for pre-season? Now this is something that I have personally as well. So I get a lot of lower back like pain almost when I go back to my first running session of the pre-season. So how I tend to manage this is run in the off season. ⁓ firstly, and then also introduce lower back exercises to your gym routine. So we treat the lower back differently because we think of it as a spinal cord, not muscles, but I say we should, we should treat the lower back sort of similarly. Obviously caveat on that with that. don't have any extreme lower back issues. And this is just like sort of low level grumble and pain part of me again. So I've just had to pull it for lunch. ⁓ so yeah. If you haven't got like a serious lower back pathology and it's just lower, lower level pain that's crumbling away in the background, then I would first treat it like another muscle group. So expose it to load over varying intensities over a timeline. And I would do that via like a good morning or even like different, like people say core exercises aren't good, but I actually really liked like a good side plank to work on your, your core. and your back muscles as well. A side plank, zurchers, good mornings, a zurcher good mornings as well are really good. Like get on a GHD machine, do some ISO holds. I don't do this by the way. I'm saying this and I really don't do this. What I do is make sure that I have some hip flexor core work in my program. And normally I find that I get a lot more lower back tension when my hip flexors and my core is knackered because all the tension just flies onto the lower back when I'm running. So I try and strengthen up my hip flexors, try and make sure my hips are nice and loose. ⁓ so I'm moving properly on the pitch. ⁓ just cause I have a big like lumber tilt, ⁓ yeah. Lumbopelvic tilt, suppose anterior tilt. So it looks like my bum sticking out all the time. So I try and make sure that my, yeah, my hip flexors are feeling good and I'm running well. And then if I'm running well, then I won't feel anything. When I run lots under fatigue, then that's when I start to feel stuff. And that's when you might need to think, okay, can I slowly increase this load rather than just dramatically increase it? So to answer your question about the off season, I would keep running in the off season, make sure your hip flexors are strong as well as your core muscles. They sort of all work into one. And then don't avoid lower back loading. So don't avoid things like back squatting or RDLs or Zurcher Good Mornings, et cetera. Hope that helps. Load the lower back. It's made to be loaded. Like if you think of like rowers or power lifters, like they use their lower back a lot in their sports. Is discipline the most important attribute to success? What a great question. And this is too big a question for me to give my finite answer on, but I'm going to share my initial thoughts. No, I don't think so, because you can be disciplined in doing something and be like never feel like you're successful at it. So let me give an example of this. I can be disciplined to do something that I don't enjoy at all and get up and do it anyway. Unlike, knuckle my white knock on my way through it. Is that what they say? When you're gripping on, you're really not enjoying it, but you do it anyway. And that is discipline. Like, but I will never be successful at that thing because I believe to be successful at something you have to sort of let yourself. free and let yourself enjoy it a little bit. And that's when the best version of you will come on. So if we're talking about like a sporting context, if I was just disciplined in terms of hitting my gym sessions and then hitting my pitch sessions at rugby coming into the preseason, but I was very tense on the ball, then I'm not going to be successful when I'm performing because I'm tense. I'm not acting how I was designed to act. not acting how I naturally would act when I'm a child. If you think about what you're successful as when you're a child, you don't have to be disciplined at that age. You just do it because you enjoy it. And when you're enjoying it most, that's when you are performing your best. So I think that discipline, especially in this like hustle culture, is probably a little bit overstated to its importance. And if you need to be really disciplined in doing things, then you're probably not enjoying it that much. Like obviously discipline will play a role in success. So for example, I am disciplined with my eating and with going to the gym, but that's because I enjoy those things as well because I enjoy how they make me feel. And I know that I'm paying my future self as well. And I suppose that's ultimately what discipline is, but you have to hold onto that element of freedom and enjoyment. And as soon as you lose that, that's when it will become extremely unenjoyable. And yeah, you will feel like you just need to keep grit in your teeth and go harder and go harder and why is it not working up in all the work? And then there's the guy in the corner who never gyms, who never does the extras, is loving life and getting picked every week just because he's enjoying himself and he's having a good time and he's willing to learn. So yeah, I don't think it is the most important attribute to success. I would say the ability to learn is the most important attribute to success and to continue learning each day. So a discipline to learning would be, ⁓ yeah. would be how I would summarize that. If it's discipline just for the sake of being disciplined, then you're chasing an empty, yeah, you're down an empty path pretty much. You're down the wrong path. Okay, moving back over to the physio side of things. How do you build relationship with sport and exercise medicine consultants to build a caseload? So this is like a big thing in private care in London, especially. building a case load around support and exercise medicine consultants. So if anyone who is a junior physio listening to this or senior physio and they're joining a private firm, this was my experience, the firm will likely want you to have connections with consultants, that being surgeons ⁓ mainly because they will provide you with patients, which is a bit weird. And it's strange coming from the NHS because the consultants were like the untouchable people who made all the decisions and we just had to like agree or get on with it pretty much as a junior member staff in NHS. So yeah, you're sort of urged to go out and meet these consultants and have coffee with them and stuff. Now, my opinion of this is it's not bad to do this if it's natural. I think it's really old fashioned and kind of, no, I'd be pretty stern on this is a waste of time to do this if it's completely manufactured. Okay. And what I mean by completely manufactured, I've done this before. Hi eggs. My name is Luke. I've just joined this company. I have a specialist interest in ACLs. I see you're one of the best ACL surgeons in the country. Can I come and meet you for a coffee? So this guy is receiving this email being like, well, I've had this email about 4 million times. ⁓ but yeah, I often need I have physios to refer me patients. So this seems quite normal. Or this seems like quite like something I should probably do. You meet them for a coffee. You travel across London. It sounds like I'm speaking from experience because I am. You travel across London. They're like, Hi, man, how's it going? Yeah, what do you do? Dad conversation. You ask them like some questions so that you feel like they should be impressed with your knowledge. And then you come away being like, well, that was a waste of time. He was It might be like, yeah, I'll send you some patients and you send them some back. Great. Okay. It looks great on paper because you've got this consultant connection, but what works a lot better than that. Okay. And a lot more natural, less uncomfortable is I have something wrong with one of my patients. I then get in contact with the consultant and say, this is what I think is going on with my passion. If I, if you haven't met them before, say my name's Luke, I've just moved to London or I've just joined this company. I've got a passion for you. So initially you're giving them something without anything in return. And this is just like the basic laws of humans. You give them something without expecting anything in return. Don't say it'd be great to meet up for coffee. Just say, here's a passion. Okay. Here's a free passion, which for them is money. Okay. Cause they're going to claim off their patience insurance or the patient is going to pay them. And then they will reply being like, Hey, this is what I think was wrong with that passion. And then it might, might be nice for you to send them a voice note or a loom video back being like, Thanks for getting back to me on the passion. This is what I'm planning to do with them next. It'd be great to hear if you think this plan's good. That's a natural way to build a consultant relationship. And this takes time. Like I got rushed into it a little bit much, which I didn't really enjoy. And it felt very forced, but ultimately building natural connections takes time. It's the same with building connections with those people who create content, who are physios or otherwise online. Like I want it at the start, when I started my page to message everyone with like 5,000 followers being like, how did you make this content? Or how did you get your first thousand followers? And it doesn't work because it's just needy. And it doesn't, it's not how people work in real life. You don't walk up to someone random and say, can I, like I've just moved to the area. Can I take you for coffee? No, you have a normal conversation with them first. You might give them something. You might offer them something. You might say, ⁓ I find this helpful. If you tried this and not expect anything in return. And then the coffees and the text messages and the Relationships will come after that, but I think if you are coming from a place of need, it's almost looking like you're putting them in a bit of pedestal and it's not the best place to come from. And I think it's a waste of time and old fashioned. And I think we're past that. So anyway, sorry, that was, I got carried away. Yeah, we're nearly getting to the end. Thoughts on peptides? Big talking point of the minute. I just like this question, thoughts on peptides. ⁓ I will give you my thoughts. don't know enough about them to say whether I would recommend them or not. I know they're getting more more legalized in America. The big ones BP 157, I believe. What I will be able to tell you however is they're not regulated in the UK at the minute. So if you're ordering online, you're pretty much just hoping that it's good stuff. But you actually have no idea because there's no UK regulations. They're banned in sports at the minute. So you're protecting peptides. You can't get popped for it. Um, yeah, that'll be pretty depressing. And the other thing I would say is that there is no substitute for good rehab. Okay. No matter what the injury is, there is no substitute for good rehab. So the, the, the key thing is that your rehab is really good. Obviously I'm going to say this because I'm a physio, but I genuinely do believe that I genuinely believe that people are just looking for a bit of a short-term fix with the peptide. And they're like, ⁓ can just take this thing. It's the same with people turning up for like manual therapy. They just want to sit and do nothing and let their body work out. But actually you have to go work out. This is a brain injury as well as a physical injury. And you have to work through that with your body. can't just say, I'm too lazy. I don't really care about my body enough. So I'm just going to take a pill. don't really know what's in it, but I hope it helps. It seems like an easy way out. My brain has, doesn't have to work hard at all. I don't have to go through any of the struggle of rehab, of what good rehab feels like. I don't have to go through any of that learning process. You're missing out on so much good stuff just by taking it like a shortcut pretty much. So that's my opinion on peptides. I didn't think I had much opinion until I started talking, but I realized I do. So you're missing out on like not only the physical, like even if it, even if it promotes healing a little bit, what I'm trying to say is there's so much added benefit to good rehab. other than just the physical benefit that you'll be missing out on because you've taken the easy way out. It's like a lot of things in life. If you want to take the easy way out, you won't be able to ⁓ take on the learnings that you would have if you ⁓ the proper and the hard way the first time. So yes, okay, you might get some results, but those results are likely to not be as long lasting and you won't have developed any of the skills that will serve you in the future. And even if you're just like an everyday athlete, like this person is who's messes me, because I know who this person is who's asked this question. Even if you're not wanting to get back to competitive sport and it's just casual five-a-side football or running. You will still really benefit from the skills that rehab, good rehab teaches you because you will understand how your body works. You'll understand how to train better in future and you'll understand how to look after yourself better. If you just take a peptide, all you will ever know is I took a peptide and that helped me recover, but I don't know what it actually did or how I got to where I am now. All I can attribute to it is this one peptide. And to be honest, I don't think it will solve your issue. at all. ⁓ So yeah, that's my thoughts. My honest thoughts are they probably will become legalized in the UK within five years, because it is quite fast moving. And I think we will start seeing them prescribed a lot more to aid recovery. But I think it will start in sport like most things. So it'll start in professional sport, and you'll start to see sports people come back a little bit quicker. they'll still be doing the rehab. They're still going to be doing their sets of static quad squeezes after ICL surgery. Like they're still going to do the work. It's just going to help them along while doing the work. And I have to look at the time because I'm going for travel vaccine because we're going to Kenya in July. So ⁓ yes, that leads me onto what my plans are. So this month is really focused on, I'm going to take on max two more athletes this month just because I'm away for three weeks in July. So I don't want to take on loads more work ⁓ in July. And I'm just prepping for that July period where I won't be there as much. So prepping programs for clients, prepping podcasts as well. So I'm going to try and get at least two podcasts up when I'm gone. Obviously I won't record them when I'm there. Don't worry. ⁓ I will pre-record them and schedule them for when I'm gone. But yeah, I hope you've enjoyed this little solo pod. I hope you're doing well. Please let me know what you we think about the podcast, leave five stars if you're enjoying it and follow me on Instagram at lookpoliconline. If you need rehab and you want good rehab and that's something you're interested in, like I said, I've got two more spaces for this month. So get in touch. Otherwise I'll be taking on more athletes in August time. So yeah, it's two more, two more clients for June, July, and then in August time I will be taking on more clients as well. So if you're interested in that, me know. If not, That's absolutely fine. If you are interested in a bit of a mentorship, I am going to open one up in August as well. Everything's happening this last quarter of the year, which I'm really excited for. So I'm planning to do a bit of a business and physio mentorship for those people just coming out of uni, because I've had loads of messages from those type of people and from those wanting to take their services online. And it's just going to be a zero to one mentorship on that. So that's something I'm excited about, something I've got going on in the background. But yeah, I think that's everything. Have a really good week and thanks for listening as always. Cheers.