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If Money Fixed Clinics, We’d All Be Fine · No Appointment Necessary

• 0:00
  Michael: So, welcome to No Appointment Necessary.
• 0:03
  Michael: Today we have Joe Turner, someone I've known for a long time, I think probably four or five years now.
• 0:08
  Michael: And um I'll get Joe to introduce herself.
• 0:10
  Michael: But one thing I I find really interesting about Joe is that there are many, many experts in the industry.
• 0:17
  Michael: Um, and about 99% of them talk about growth and making more money and success and and and building your clinic.
• 0:25
  Michael: And I think Joe is possibly the only person that doesn't do that, that does something that actually I think is just as valuable.
• 0:32
  Michael: Um, so uh talk to us, Joe.
• 0:35
  Michael: What do you do?
• 0:35
  Michael: Who are you?
• 0:36
  Michael: Give us a bit of background.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, thanks for inviting me on the podcast, Michael.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Joe Turner.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um I appreciate some of you may have heard this story before, so I will uh make it succinct.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm a physiotherapist of 30 years now, it's 30 years this year, makes it easier to remember.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I own a couple of clinics in Gloucestershire and in Wiltshire.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: And just before COVID, which was significant in its timing, I trained as a life coach.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um it sort of that marked the end of a little bit of a wilderness journey for me.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'd been a physio of 25 years then and was just, I think I was seeking something non-clinical to invest in myself.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Not knowing what I was going to do with this coaching qualification, COVID hit.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, of course, during that time, there were numerous clinicians and needing support.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, my practice clients when I was training were all doctors or physios.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: And uh you're always being told when you're training you've got a niche and nobody knows what they want to niche in and gets really worried about it.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Mine was just blindingly obvious.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, here was a world that I still loved, um, still loved the people in it, really wanted to support people at the time during COVID, found that they really appreciated that I knew their world.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't have to explain to me what it was like to work in healthcare, particularly during COVID times.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so there was this lovely marriage of my past life as a clinician and continuing life as a clinician, but uh this kind of new hat, if you like, of coach.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um the other thing I realized was that I'd always pretty much had a coaching style, both as a physio and as a clinic owner, trying to support the people that worked for me.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: So at that point I formed Mihab, which is um essentially a coaching organization.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: I provide one-to-one coaching and sometimes group coaching and courses.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: But the the premise behind Mihab is that it's trying to support the well-being of clinicians.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and yes, interesting observation um you make there, Michael, because I knew in my gut that I was never going to be someone uh who particularly wanted to be up there talking about business metrics and KPIs.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why, I just knew in my heart that wasn't me.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I suppose as I would try and coach other people, I knew that for whatever reason I was pretty good at helping people feel safe to a point where I could then challenge them a little bit from the uh edges of their comfort zone.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: And in my experience, um the metrics often improve uh anyway, as a byproduct.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's you know it's the stuff we often don't get asked questions about that unlocks something which then allows us to do the stuff which ultimately will improve your your data and your metrics.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I suppose it wasn't a particularly calculated decision.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: I just followed my gut and the things that I knew that I was interested in and good at, and that's how I ended up in this field.
• 3:48
  Michael: Well, it's interesting because I think um money, good metrics, all of those things we all know don't necessarily make you happy.
• 3:57
  Michael: They may make your business a little bit easier to run, but it doesn't mean that it makes you a happy business owner.
• 4:02
  Michael: Um, and and I think people miss that.
• 4:05
  Michael: They I think everyone, everybody I speak to believes if only my clinic had a bit more money, if only I will I I spent a little bit more time out of the clinic, my life would be perfect.
• 4:15
  Michael: And I know the people that have done that and their life still isn't perfect.
• 4:19
  Michael: Um, so I think that's an interesting kind of thing to to point out.
• 4:23
  Michael: I wonder whether you one of the reasons you went into it was because of your experience as a clinic owner and knowing what you struggled with, um, which wasn't necessarily again metrics and all of that stuff, it was the emotion of it, the you know, the the way it made you feel and so on.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, and this was pre-COVID.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um part of it was for want of a better word, clinical fatigue.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I had been a clinician for 25 years.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and in my head there was this phrase, I reckon I've got another 20 years left.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Do I want the next 20 years to look and feel exactly the same as the last?
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: So a bit of fatigue, a bit of boredom, if I'm honest, of you know, working in the same way for that period of time.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm someone that likes novelty.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um and yeah, as a clinic owner, uh I wasn't exhausted by that or overwhelmed by that, but I am constantly someone who's looking for things to be better.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think there was a bit of frustration that um, you know, I'd been working in this profession, this industry for 25 years and it still felt very similar.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: The frustration still felt quite similar.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: The a lot of the practices that were, you know, perhaps a bit outdated still felt like they were being challenged but not changing.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't know where I'm I'm going with this answer, but I was, I suppose I was generally fatigued.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I I couldn't, I didn't feel like I could just keep doing things the same way and see change.
• 6:06
  Michael: And I think lots of people we see that we've discussed this before with with people leaving the industry, um, people wanting to get out.
• 6:12
  Michael: I I don't think that's that that uncommon.
• 6:14
  Michael: Um so I make admission.
• 6:16
  Michael: Um you know, I think people know me as a pretty hard-nosed bastard who's maybe not emotionless, but you know, I'm the sort of person that six, seven years ago would have laughed at life coaching.
• 6:27
  Michael: It just sounds sounds a bit bullshitty to be honest.
• 6:30
  Michael: Uh life coaching, people need you.
• 6:32
  Michael: It just sounds like the sort of thing silly weak people do.
• 6:36
  Michael: And uh it's interesting that last week I sent out a newsletter which you read, and one of the things that um I did in that newsletter was to point out, because I have changed my mind by the way, um, was to point out that being a clinic owner is I think one of the hardest things you can be.
• 6:54
  Michael: It's one of the hardest jobs to go into.
• 6:56
  Michael: And and some of those reasons are um very simple.
• 6:59
  Michael: Uh, you are fighting against a free NHS, you're trying to make a business, a commercial business, you're fighting against a free NHS, you're fighting against a horrible um private healthcare system, um, which isn't paying you enough, uh, which automatically brings down prices and makes life quite difficult.
• 7:16
  Michael: Um, there's very little commercial training.
• 7:18
  Michael: Um, you don't have the margins like uh, you know, really a business like ours or other businesses, you can say, oh, let's just hire three or four people and take a bit of the stress out.
• 7:27
  Michael: You can't do that in this industry until you really scale to the top level, and often that involves a lot of money.
• 7:32
  Michael: And I think there's so many pressures and stresses in this industry, and I I see it every single day.
• 7:39
  Michael: And I mentioned to you that a lot of my time is not spent um talking about metrics and KPIs and pushing people to into into business strategies, it's actually talking people to people uh about the fact that they're not alone, they're not the only person experiencing the stress and the the struggles that they have.
• 7:58
  Michael: And I I I I've said it in Jess before, but it's true.
• 8:02
  Michael: I do more cuddles and counselling than I do business advice.
• 8:06
  Michael: Um, because much of it is people just wanting to know that they're not the only ones that are struggling, they're not the only ones who aren't aren't making lots of money.
• 8:14
  Michael: I think there's this belief that there's all these other clinic owners and they're really rich and they're you know they're millionaires, and and and the fact is that isn't the case.
• 8:22
  Michael: Um there are very few clinics that that are running in that kind of way.
• 8:27
  Michael: And so over the over the over the last few years, I've I've kind of changed my mind massively on all of this because I think it's mm- it's absolutely needed, particularly given the evidence that I see.
• 8:37
  Michael: I think I think support, quite honestly, it's very much like patience.
• 8:41
  Michael: A lot of what you do is about education and making people feel better and reassurance rather than purely I'm gonna press you and make you better.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: How funny that we all regress back to humanity, even Michael Schumacher.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I I loved that newsletter and I loved that section in your newsletter.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um as I was reading it, I felt my own nervous system calm down and regulate.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I love the fact that I know lots of other, not just business owners, lots of clinicians in general, reading that.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, well, if you haven't read it, go and read it or read it again and notice what happens as you read it, as you get that subtext of this is tough, that's why it feels tough, you're normal, you're okay, of course you're struggling.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Who wouldn't be in this situation?
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost um it's a process of encouraging you to accept.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's accepting that yes, this is hard, and I think it's accepting that you can't polish it and make it perfect, however much you want to, however much your internal programming has told you from I don't know, when you were brilliant at school that you're different, you can you can just work harder, just try harder.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: If it's not perfect yet, it's because you haven't worked harder.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: It it's you know, we're just talking about a paragraph in a newsletter, and maybe I'm taking this too far, but it's it's a process of going, yes, I accept that I work in an industry that is challenging, and more crucially, I accept that I'm a human being who on many days is brilliant and on most days is perfectly human and flawed, and I can be okay with that.
• 10:26
  Michael: Um, Joe, I think um I think this is it this is this happens in all areas of life.
• 10:33
  Michael: So we think back to, for those of us old enough, the 90s, where magazines were covered with pictures of Cindy Crawford and Kate Moss, and it just made everyone feel crap because they didn't look like that.
• 10:45
  Michael: And now it's actually turned the other way.
• 10:47
  Michael: It's now men that are being, you know, you've got to have washboard abs and so on.
• 10:50
  Michael: And it's it's interesting because when you realize that those are sort of outliers, right?
• 10:56
  Michael: That that most people are a little bit fat or plumper, but most people don't have XYZ.
• 11:02
  Michael: You know, uh I see now I I call this money dysmorphia.
• 11:05
  Michael: I think there's a huge money dysmorphia amongst the young now.
• 11:07
  Michael: They they believe Instagram and TikTok and they believe that all of these girls are earning millions of pounds.
• 11:13
  Michael: And actually, you know, the average wage is is incredibly low for most people.
• 11:17
  Michael: It's not it was something on HM HMRC and said there are only something like 17,000 people in the whole country that earn more than 250,000 pounds.
• 11:27
  Michael: And I I think if you asked the youth, they'd think that was about five million or something.
• 11:31
  Michael: And and so the reason for that newsletter or that section of the newsletter was exactly that.
• 11:37
  Michael: It was to make people realize that they're not the only ones experiencing it, that everybody does, even some of the people that have incredibly decent clinics.
• 11:45
  Michael: And another part of that newsletter that always do is a market update, which is this is what's happening in the market, it's slow or it's fast or whatever the case may be.
• 11:53
  Michael: And the reason I put that in was we would get daily calls on numbers aren't as good as they were last month.
• 12:00
  Michael: And I realized that the moment I put that in, everyone felt better because if they knew that everyone had was having a slow November, then they said, ah, okay.
• 12:11
  Michael: And I think that leads to another interesting point, which is that for whatever reason in this industry, people don't talk.
• 12:19
  Michael: Clinic owners are like little islands.
• 12:21
  Michael: There's very little community other than a Facebook forum where people ask whether Clinica is the best tool.
• 12:28
  Michael: Um, they're not discussing things about their businesses, they're not sharing.
• 12:32
  Michael: I think there's this belief that they're so competitive with everybody else.
• 12:35
  Michael: You know, I'm in Southampton, that clinic's in Glasgow, I don't want them to know that I'm about to implement whatever technology.
• 12:42
  Michael: And so they rarely talk and they really, rarely understand that everyone else is in that position.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think that's necessarily from a purely competitive point of perspective.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think it in a lot of cases, with the people I work with, it comes down from this, again, this dogged belief that I need to do everything by myself, not ask for help, not worry anybody that I'm finding this difficult.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's a there's a phrase I often quote from Brene Brown, a social scientist, and she says, Do it all, do it perfectly, and don't let anyone see you trying.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that last bit is what kills us.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm fine.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's great.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, business is good.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, we we just my husband laughs sometimes.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: He occasionally um glances at the WhatsApp conversations I'm having with um colleagues, and uh he says, Oh my god, he said, You you guys are spending your lives putting so much energy into being the nice one on the chat, not saying the wrong thing, not putting on anybody else, not asking for anything else.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I'm sure it's not exclusive to our industry, but we're we do have this tick that we're supposed to look entirely capable, and woe betide we should ever impose on anybody else that uh you know to express the fact that we might need a bit of help and we might be struggling.
• 14:06
  Michael: And I wonder whether that's this is a bit of a uh tangent, but I wonder whether that's why the industry is sometimes quite toxic in some ways, because people absolutely must know best.
• 14:18
  Michael: They they know the right way to do things, whether that's in business or whether that's often clinically, actually.
• 14:22
  Michael: Um, there is no black, it's all black and white.
• 14:26
  Michael: This is right, this is wrong.
• 14:27
  Michael: And I think that's quite a lot of toxicity.
• 14:29
  Michael: And beyond that, I find it really interesting that irrespective of people not communicating very well and clinic owners all having nice support groups, is that there's very little support out there for clinic owners with each other.
• 14:46
  Michael: Um, in many industries, um, women will band together, bane groups will band together, um, and create um support for each other.
• 14:55
  Michael: And this industry is a bit doggy dog, which is strange given that the majority of people are really lovely people that haven't gone into this to make money, they're not capitalist pigs, they're doing things to help people, but they forget about helping each other, they're more interested in helping the patient often.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Apart from my Mehabmasters WhatsApp group, which has been very active this morning.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, you're right.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, in that space, me included, we go on there and we go, God, I really cocked this thing up today.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: I said this really stupid thing.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, I've had this experience.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Can you help me?
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's quite unusual, you're right.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, without exception, obviously, people come in and go, yeah, been there, done that, or yeah, totally see why you're thinking like that.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Objectively, look at it this way.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: But you're right.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we do function like islands and and say again, not from any nastiness.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: I it's just, yeah, we we we seem to have swallowed this pill that we're we're supposed to just get on with it, put up with it, and shut up.
• 15:59
  Michael: I guess part of that is going back to the uh very first point I made about you as a clinic owner, you can't afford to bring in support staff and organizational staff.
• 16:10
  Michael: So in many businesses, as a business owner, you actually have other people to lean on.
• 16:15
  Michael: Um, whether that's your finance director, your HR director, your CMO, CXO, whatever it might be, in this industry, you have a practice manager and that's about it.
• 16:25
  Michael: And I do find it really um interesting and encouraging that there are quite a few clinics where the practice manager is almost like your your other half who is always um you poor things.
• 16:39
  Michael: They're bouncing ball, right?
• 16:40
  Michael: It's it's like they're the person that you you rely on, but often they don't have the um I don't want to say no, I don't want to uh they're not as experienced in many things as maybe a a a high-end CMO would be.
• 16:54
  Michael: Um and so but even so, like that is really good to have.
• 16:59
  Michael: There are, I don't know, if I had to guess, maybe at best 50% of clinics that have that relationship with the practice manager.
• 17:05
  Michael: Um the rest of doing it on their own.
• 17:07
  Michael: And it's very difficult, you know, going back to my own experience, um, and I know you had a business partner, and so have a business partner, but my own experience was that doing it with your other half actually helps massively because you can both understand that you've had a shitty day.
• 17:22
  Michael: You can both you understand you've got that shared experience.
• 17:25
  Michael: Who thought I'd ever use the word shared experience?
• 17:28
  Michael: Um lived experience.
• 17:31
  Michael: Um, but you do, you have that shared experience, and and and so you can really understand each other.
• 17:35
  Michael: And often clinic owners, they do do it on their own.
• 17:37
  Michael: There are half do something completely different, and they just those people don't understand it.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, you're absolutely right.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, I mean, Matt, if he's listening to this, he won't mind me saying we're not married actually, but our business relationship has been like a marriage in that it's had it's massively dysfunctional years, um, and we've had to work through all sorts of stuff.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: We've had to accept that we are polar opposite personalities, but ultimately we want the same things and we're incredibly loyal, which probably is a good um recipe for a good marriage if it was a marriage.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but you're right, the thing that Matt and I have is that we're the only ones that understand the dance we constantly have to perform between still being clinicians, um, in Matt's case, still treating a lot of patients, and this other space, which until you've occupied it, feels entirely different.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: I naively thought when I went from clinician to business owner that um it would be easy.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, people would be fine with it.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: I I actually owned the clinic that I had worked in for five, ten years by that point.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, these people knew me as a contemporary colleague, friend, and I just thought it'll be fine.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um now in my mind nothing particularly changed, but I realized almost overnight other people's view of me changed, and there was a whole new space which I didn't actually feel ready to occupy, but I was being asked to, and it's taken a long time to be comfortable in that clinic owner space.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I agree with you, if you're doing that on your own, and if you're lucky you've got a practice manager who you can shut the door and you know go and have a rant or a cry or whatever it is you need, or thresh out um more business-related ideas, that's a help.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: But um, yeah, I'm I'm really glad that I've had Matt along my side because it's it's it's a really it's a different game you have to play with yourself.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there are similarities with being a clinician in that you know most of us are perfectionists, we want to do a good job, and with our patients, we always want to get it right and you know, be a nice person and get the result.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: And you want the same as a clinic owner, but your almost your chances of success and certainly your chances of being liked by everybody are much, much less as a clinic owner, and that's a huge challenge for the typical personality that goes into a caring profession.
• 20:02
  Michael: Um that's a really good point because I think, and this is a bit of a guess on my part, but I think if you took um created a profile of your average small business owner and then compared it to your average clinic owner, they're very different types of people.
• 20:20
  Michael: Um both from an education standpoint, in terms of um, I say this all the time, you're a this happened to you, I guess, you're a clinician, you spent all your life being a clinician, you're not exposed to very much of uh anything business at all.
• 20:33
  Michael: Um, you go into being a business owner, and at no point have you worked in a number of corporates where you learn different things in HR, in finance, and and so you it it for me, I I start a company, I still don't do it very well, but you start a company, but you at least have a grounding in some of the basics, even things like processes, project management, structure.
• 20:56
  Michael: As a clinician, you know, every one of them goes from being a clinician into being a business owner and thinking that that's all they need, and and that is just not true.
• 21:05
  Michael: And and some of them are very sharp in terms of understanding that they need extra skills and recognizing that, and they read their books and they their podcasts and so on.
• 21:17
  Michael: But many people don't see that because they're still their personalities are so patient focused and out focused, not business focused.
• 21:25
  Michael: And I think there's often a disconnect that people don't understand.
• 21:28
  Michael: You've heard this a million times.
• 21:30
  Michael: Oh, this isn't about making money.
• 21:31
  Michael: I don't want to make money.
• 21:32
  Michael: It's not they're almost scared of making money.
• 21:34
  Michael: But where the disconnect comes is they don't realize that actually by making more money, by being more commercial, the patient outcomes will improve, their lives will improve, their physios' lives will improve.
• 21:45
  Michael: And I think that's a really interesting thing that I see people getting wrong all the time.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I know, sorry to preempt you, but I know you wanted to talk about the happiness curve in terms of size of business, and um, I know that your metrics.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: From your survey have shown that uh there are kind of two sweet spots with a dip in the middle of you people reasonably happy when they start out.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's all very exciting, probably working on your own or maybe with just one other person, there's a lot of novelty and you see a lot of success and you start to make some money, and then you go through that middle, um, your business grows.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think from your survey, that kind of you know, 500k turnover is is deemed a middle ground.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's a less happy place for reasons we can talk about.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then if you continue to increase your revenue up beyond the million mark, then according to your survey, um, happiness improves.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of people are stuck in that middle section.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe the question is to ask, you know, what does it take or who does it take to move out of that middle section?
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I would maybe ask, what is it, you know, if it was a coaching question, what is it you are not prepared to do that will allow you to to start heading up that happiness curve again?
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: And for a lot of people in my experience, what what they maybe they're not able to articulate it, but what they're not prepared to do is go through accepting some of the things which are non-acceptable for you as a clinician.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: So are you willing to accept not everybody liking you all the time?
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: Are you willing to accept that your identity is not 100% clinician?
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: That isn't how you introduce yourself at parties anymore.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, are you able to accept that you have to make some tougher decisions?
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I think I I would definitely not class myself as a natural person to pass through that gate.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, many would argue I haven't.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the people that really end up at the top of that curve probably already, you know, personality trait-wise, maybe they weren't an ideal clinician.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, maybe they are actually better suited to being in that management CEO role.
• 24:08
  Michael: Yeah, I think so.
• 24:10
  Michael: Just to explain the happy happiness curve, we're gonna release the barometer, the product practice barometer soon.
• 24:15
  Michael: And we we we've asked so many questions, we've got so many data points.
• 24:18
  Michael: And one of the uh interesting things that we did was to look at um how happy people were, and then put that and plot that against the size of their business and where they were in terms of the stages of their business.
• 24:30
  Michael: And what we found was that people are very, very happy at the start, and as they scale and grow, um, they become incredibly unhappy and for obvious reasons, um, and we call it the messy middle.
• 24:43
  Michael: And then you scale up, you become happier again.
• 24:48
  Michael: And the majority of clinics are in that messy middle, then the ones that are struggling, very few break out of that.
• 24:57
  Michael: Um, it's very easy to start a physioclinic, right?
• 25:01
  Michael: We all know this.
• 25:02
  Michael: We I we say every day someone says, I'm gonna start a physioclinic, and whether it's even part-time, you know, you want to just do it on the side of your own HS job.
• 25:11
  Michael: But taking it to that next level, that's where it becomes difficult.
• 25:15
  Michael: And yes, I think there is a little bit to what you said there, but I think um I think more of it is about the knowledge and the drive, uh, which does go back to personality, but the knowledge that you have to take you to that next level and sometimes also money um and sometimes risk profile.
• 25:34
  Michael: Um, I was chatting to someone last night at dinner, and uh there are physios that and clinic owners that really worry about borrowing 100,000 so they get investment and give away bits of their business instead of just borrowing the money.
• 25:46
  Michael: When actually just borrow the money, it's only£100,000.
• 25:49
  Michael: It it's it seems crazy to some of us that you would even think about giving away anything for£100,000, but it's that risk profile.
• 25:57
  Michael: It's that Christ, that's that's really worrying.
• 26:00
  Michael: Much, much this, I guess, part of the reason why people at clinic owners tend to move towards that contractor model where you're only paying for the work done, you're not thinking big picture, and actually, this is a really terrible way of running a business.
• 26:13
  Michael: And I'll say it, if you're running a business with contractors in general, it's a terrible way of running your business.
• 26:18
  Michael: You're gonna, you know, there are so many str extra stresses to that, um, particularly financially.
• 26:24
  Michael: But I understand why people do it, and I I think many people should do it because um it's hard to employ people full-time.
• 26:31
  Michael: So um, I I do think that people are sucking that messy meal because they don't know how to get out, because they don't have the money to get out, and yes, they don't have the personality to get out, but I don't mean that in a negative way.
• 26:44
  Michael: Um, I I think sometimes it's just you have to have a certain drive, um, which is not necessarily actually a good thing.
• 26:52
  Michael: Um I don't think it makes you a better person because you're willing to um not see your kids, work 24 hours a day, um, lose all of your friends, have no fun, put yeah, all of those things.
• 27:04
  Michael: I don't think that makes you good or better as a person.
• 27:08
  Michael: It's just a different type of person.
• 27:09
  Michael: And often getting out of it requires some of that.
• 27:13
  Michael: Um, and then beyond that, of course, if you're going to really scale, you need to know how to bring in organizational structure.
• 27:20
  Michael: You need to be able to um have the funds to do that.
• 27:23
  Michael: And and that for your average clinic owner is just not something they can do.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: Or or want to if they're honest.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's really worth, you know, that's where good coaching can come in, just asking the right questions to, as you say, challenge the the wisdom that bigger is always better and more money will make you happier.
• 27:43
  Michael: But that's so let's let's look at that.
• 27:45
  Michael: You've got we know people at the start are happy, probably uh, and I don't have the figures in front of me, I shouldn't bloody have, but let's say up to two, three hundred thousand pounds-ish, you're happy you've got one staff member, maybe two, and you're pretty happy.
• 27:57
  Michael: Then you you scale and you've got a vast majority of people in that sort of uh area where they're they're unhappy and they're trying to grow, and then you have the people at the top.
• 28:05
  Michael: People at the top will forget about.
• 28:07
  Michael: Um given that there's such a vast majority in the middle, my view is, and this is always the advice I give to people, is do you think you can get to the top level?
• 28:18
  Michael: Do you know what that top level actually means in practice?
• 28:23
  Michael: And would you not be happier to get smaller?
• 28:27
  Michael: I I've I I can't tell you how many clinic owners have hired people and then they say to me, I wish I was just back where I was two or three years ago.
• 28:35
  Michael: And then they do do that and they become incredibly happy.
• 28:38
  Michael: They tend also.
• 28:39
  Michael: Another interesting thing about the happiness curve is that um money follows it too.
• 28:44
  Michael: So you make more money at the start, you make less money in the middle, and then at the end you make the the super money.
• 28:51
  Michael: And another interesting thing, because not only are you more unhappy and you have more stress, you are also much poorer for it because you're trying to pay for things.
• 29:03
  Michael: And I think the uh average, what do you think the average um number, including dividends and so on, what do you think the average clinic owner earns across the country, including London, as a complete average?
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um 45k.
• 29:19
  Michael: So it's mid-50s.
• 29:21
  Michael: Mid-50s, and that's what they they they they pay themselves.
• 29:25
  Michael: But when you think about that, for those people that are in the middle, they're earning£57,000.
• 29:30
  Michael: They have all the stress of recruiting people, employing people, running a business, paying the bills, all the I mean, it's awful.
• 29:39
  Michael: It's an awful place to be in for people, and yet they're earning£57,000.
• 29:44
  Michael: They could go and get a job themselves and earn more than£50,000 without all of that stress.
• 29:50
  Michael: And I say that to people a lot.
• 29:51
  Michael: I don't want to, you know, sit here and go, oh my god, you should all quit your jobs and and become practitioners again.
• 29:57
  Michael: But I think there's definitely a case of think about where you are.
• 30:01
  Michael: And if you want to get to that next level, that's amazing.
• 30:04
  Michael: I think more people should try and and have the confidence to do so.
• 30:08
  Michael: But I think there are a large number of people who are in that middle and should just really scale back a little bit.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's a slightly different perspective, I would add, to that.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, in that you could say to people, okay, you've got at this point in your life, you've got the potential to earn 55K.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: Would you be happier earning that 55k treating patients?
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because to earn that as a clinician, you're going to be working pretty much full-time.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: So that's, you know, a full patient caseload every day.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: Or do you want to try and earn that?
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, are you someone that wants variety?
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: So do you want to earn it running a business, which means that sometimes you will be recruiting and interviewing new staff, sometimes you'll be teaching, um, sometimes you'll be, I don't know, um redesigning the room day call, whatever.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I say that because I definitely fall into the latter category.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, if you told me I could earn 55k those two ways at this point in my life, 100%, I'd choose option two, um, accepting that it's still a moderate salary, but I'm working in a way that I choose.
• 31:13
  Michael: Well, I would agree with you if, and I do think you're a bit of an outlier with your clinics.
• 31:17
  Michael: Um, I I really do, because if that were the case, that um it was a uh you can earn as a clinician or earn as a clinic owner, and all else being equal, you're happy, whatever, and you just get extra experience and you do a varied number of things, that would be great.
• 31:36
  Michael: But that varied number of things increases your stress levels, it increases the problems.
• 31:42
  Michael: And we know from the survey that there are very few people in that messy middle, if any, who are actually enjoying the the very nature of the role brings too much stress for them.
• 31:52
  Michael: So I think in an ideal world, yes, you want the variety, of course.
• 31:57
  Michael: Um, you don't just want to see back pain patients, you want to see, you know, if you're just a practice and physio.
• 32:02
  Michael: But I I think it's very difficult to have the variety without all of the stress, without all of that strain and all the problems that come with it, um, and to to remain happy doing so.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, let's keep batting this ball back and forth.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I would say yes.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and oops, definitely from my experience and a lot of the people I coach, um it I what you choose doesn't matter.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: But I think what destroys, overwhelms, and leads people towards burnout more than anything, more than whatever the World Health Organization of Burnout will tell you is a loss of sense of yourself.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and when you early on in your clinical career, if you are a classic overgiving clinician, that will start to erode your sense of who you are.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: You become this person that cares for other people.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: And for some people, you know, that that is enough identity and it is their true identity, but for a lot of us, we start in small increments giving away our knowledge of who we are.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: And as long as one of the things I love so much about coaching people is helping them remind themselves who who were you before even a clinician?
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: Who went into this profession?
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: Where are they now?
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: Do you still like them?
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to find them again?
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: And how do we design your career now to make sure they get a look in?
• 33:28
  Michael: I I I'm smiling because I remember this was bloody years ago, and we were having a chat about something random.
• 33:35
  Michael: And you said we're talking about some of the subjects, and you said, you know, you you end up being the the business owner, the clinician who not only sees the patient, you write up the doctor's notes and you take them to the bloody consulting appointment.
• 33:47
  Michael: Um and you're not getting paid for that, but you're you're working so hard and you feel like you you should do these things because you give away too much of yourself, and that in itself is just so problematic.
• 33:58
  Michael: Um, you've got to limit just how much of it to give.
• 34:02
  Michael: Um, and since you said that all those years ago, I see it all the time where people are going above and beyond.
• 34:07
  Michael: And I think above and beyond is good, it can be good, but within a a reasonable structure, you've got to you've got to make sure you do put yourself first and your family first.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: And um yeah, well, just keep a sense of yourself and and you know, you can do that inside or outside your job, or both.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, some people will have so many outside interests that you know it's it's fine.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'll I'll give everything at work because I've got so many hobbies and interests, I know who I am outside work.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: Other people, um, so Anna Mazzieri comes to mind.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Anna pushes against um criticism of workaholism because she says, I, you know, I am my work.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's where actually where the chaos in my head subsides when I'm working, that's where I find myself.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: And both are absolutely fine, but I think the danger is when you you have lost who you are.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's when you become really unhappy.
• 34:57
  Michael: Well, Italians are a different breed as well.
• 34:59
  Michael: That's that's this is true.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: We all want to be Anna Mazieri, really.
• 35:03
  Michael: And I love I I should get Anna on the podcast, actually.
• 35:06
  Michael: Um yeah, no, Anna's great.
• 35:08
  Michael: I I think what's I saw a really interesting podcast with Sam Altman and something he said really resonated with me.
• 35:15
  Michael: He said um he doesn't believe in burnout.
• 35:18
  Michael: He says that you don't burn out when everything is going really well, when you're working with people you love, the business is going fantastically well, um, numbers are great, and you're enjoying yourself.
• 35:31
  Michael: Never been burnt out in that situation.
• 35:33
  Michael: And I thought to myself, absolutely bloody right, because one day I'm having the time in my life, and the next day a customer complains and suddenly burnout ensues.
• 35:42
  Michael: And I think there's a lot to that.
• 35:43
  Michael: And if you are running, not running, if if you have a business that is working perfectly, that has really well old cogs, you're much less likely to burn out because you really enjoy doing it.
• 35:54
  Michael: And I think that's sort of what Anna was touching on a bit, which is if you love your job and it is part of your identity and you you you you don't have things that come in and cause you stress, then actually burnout is not a thing you need to be worried about too much at all.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: There was a, I don't know if you get James Clear's newsletter.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, James Clear is the author of Atomic Habits, and um he has this great newsletter.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: He has three tips and or quotes, and one of them, I won't quote it correctly, but it was along the lines of um successful people are the ones that can absorb losses without, can take losses without absorbing the identity of a loser.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um so it is, you know, accepting it that's true resilience, isn't it?
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: Accepting that life is full of slings and arrows and that's normal, and you roll with them, and that doesn't make you a loser.
• 36:48
  Michael: Um but I just think just to touch on that, I think, and I think that's incredibly important.
• 36:56
  Michael: I was chatting to a clinic owner a a week or so ago, and he was very down about all sorts of things.
• 37:03
  Michael: Um I won't go into details, but he's very down about all sorts of things.
• 37:08
  Michael: And I said, with the money that you're taking out of the business, you're in the top 5% of people in the country.
• 37:13
  Michael: You are in the top 5% of businesses in this industry.
• 37:18
  Michael: Imagine if you're in the top 5% of businesses in any other industry, in finance, in in autumn.
• 37:25
  Michael: You have to be incredibly proud of what you have achieved.
• 37:29
  Michael: It may not be what some other person in another industry who just happened to choose to make cask beers or whatever they're called.
• 37:37
  Michael: Like, yes, they they have made themselves 100 million pounds, but that is that has nothing to do with anything.
• 37:42
  Michael: It's all relative.
• 37:43
  Michael: It's all relative.
• 37:44
  Michael: You you have a really happy family, you see them as much as you like, you can afford things that most people would gaup at, quite honestly.
• 37:54
  Michael: You have a top-level business.
• 37:56
  Michael: Yes, there are problems within the business, and yes, you get hit over the head every now and again with some silly problem, but you should be really proud of yourself.
• 38:04
  Michael: And I see I find in this industry it's very rare that people are proud of themselves, they always over the head too much.
• 38:12
  Michael: And I I was on a podcast uh about a year or so ago, and um nice, really nice little podcast, and someone said to me, You know, you are incredible.
• 38:20
  Michael: Look what you have achieved.
• 38:22
  Michael: It is insane, it's amazing.
• 38:24
  Michael: Like, tell us the secret.
• 38:25
  Michael: I was like, luck.
• 38:27
  Michael: I I think you can get too wrapped up in um praising yourself too much and saying, Look at me, I'm brilliant, look at what I've done.
• 38:35
  Michael: Uh-uh.
• 38:36
  Michael: It's 90% luck.
• 38:38
  Michael: Yeah, there's hard work to it.
• 38:40
  Michael: Genius is not if I could do it 10 times out of 10, call me a genius.
• 38:43
  Michael: But no one does.
• 38:44
  Michael: They have a great idea at the right time, meet the right people, you know, all of these things.
• 38:50
  Michael: And by doing that, you realize that when something goes wrong, you can't spag you out over the over it as because you don't want to be in a position where you are praising yourself one day and then blaming yourself for everything else.
• 39:02
  Michael: Everything is somewhere in the middle.
• 39:04
  Michael: Chill out.
• 39:06
  Michael: When something goes wrong, it is often not your fault.
• 39:10
  Michael: Um, and you take responsibility too far.
• 39:12
  Michael: It's almost like seven degrees, it's like this happened.
• 39:15
  Michael: And if I if I make some tenuous link to myself as a clinic owner, then it was my fault.
• 39:20
  Michael: Come on.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's not and this from people who are the most generous to other people in their assessment of other people.
• 39:27
  Michael: Exactly.
• 39:27
  Michael: It's like there's nothing you could have done to know that the phone line was going to go down to that.
• 39:31
  Michael: Yeah, but if I'd have chosen the right phone provider and I'd have done this and built shut up, stop it, enough.
• 39:37
  Michael: And and and and again, I do this so much, and I yeah, I I'm really glad that that you do what you do, and I think more people should be doing it and helping people, even if I think life coaching sounds a little bit wishy-washy.
• 39:51
  Michael: Um uh I've changed my mind as I say, but I do think that that there's such a place for that.
• 39:56
  Michael: Um and and our team does it all the time.
• 39:59
  Michael: Even the the younger members of the team, a lot of what they say is you're okay, like this is normal.
• 40:04
  Michael: Yeah, you yes, you've a really classic example is um this is a a constant theme.
• 40:10
  Michael: Um, our numbers are down.
• 40:13
  Michael: Okay, why?
• 40:15
  Michael: I don't know, but it's terrible.
• 40:17
  Michael: It's profitability is nosedive.
• 40:20
  Michael: How many physics do you have?
• 40:21
  Michael: Four.
• 40:22
  Michael: How many are currently working this month?
• 40:24
  Michael: Two.
• 40:26
  Michael: Okay, so where are the others?
• 40:28
  Michael: They're on holiday.
• 40:29
  Michael: So how would you expect the numbers to stay where they are?
• 40:33
  Michael: And they're like, oh Christ, thank God, yeah, you're right.
• 40:35
  Michael: And when you put these simple things into their heads, they suddenly realize, like, actually, it's not so bad.
• 40:41
  Michael: Okay, and and I think that's where business metrics do come in.
• 40:44
  Michael: They were sort of told a little bit strong more strongly that look at numbers over a period of time, not just two days, then then it would make a difference.
• 40:52
  Michael: But I do think um that that there needs to be a lot more help within this industry for mental health.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's um I I know from our first conversation what your view was, um, however much you tried it about life coaching, and I appreciate that you've changed your mind.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's often you know it's described as you know, soft stuff and soft skills.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, for the type of people that are in our profession, the hardest thing in the world is to do this acceptance and objective thinking about themselves.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's challenging.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, in in life coaching, you're getting someone to look very squarely at their, you know, what goes on in their head and challenge them to change it.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: And you can't just go, that stupid thinking, think something different.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this is a person who has been programmed either genetically or environmentally or probably both for a long period of time.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: And it's actually, it takes bravery to to, you know, for a perfectionist, which I would guess well over 80% of us are, to accept mediocrity a lot of the time, which is normal, that is more challenging than something that other people would consider, you know, incredibly brave.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: We are people for whom not being perfect is almost the worst thing that could happen.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, this coaching is not soft, lovely stuff.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: They it sounds like nice subjects, but it's a tough call to do the work.
• 42:22
  Michael: A difference between females and males within the industry as clinic owners, specifically as clinic owners.
• 42:28
  Michael: Um, from the survey we saw that uh generally uh female clinic owners are happier, they tend to earn more money, they run smaller boutique businesses, and if you were to look from the outside, you would want to be them as a business owner.
• 42:45
  Michael: And I don't want to make too many assumptions on it.
• 42:48
  Michael: I I I I do think some of that is down to um the the the kinds of people women are compared to men.
• 42:56
  Michael: Um maybe there's a bit of testosterone involved there, but I think that just societally and structurally, there's some differences.
• 43:02
  Michael: I was talking to Helen Preston about this, and she was saying, well, you know, I would be in a very different place if I didn't have children.
• 43:08
  Michael: And so I think there's that I think there's there's something to be said there.
• 43:12
  Michael: But it do you see?
• 43:14
  Michael: Um I'm interested because I don't know the answer, I can guess.
• 43:17
  Michael: With all the people that you've seen, is there a slant towards women or men, or is it pretty equal?
• 43:25
  Michael: Um and for the men you have seen, do you find they have the same issues as women, or or is there is there something that's very different?
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, good question.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: So when I started, I assumed it would be almost exclusively women, and it definitely is very much biased that way.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um but then I percentage terms?
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'd say it's about 80 20.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um but interestingly, the group of men that approach me most and I would say I have most success with are quite young.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Male clinicians and sort of late 20s, early 30s.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_00: And if they are business owners by that point, the issues will be very similar.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: But often they are at a point in a career where I would call you you're coming down off your first curve.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_00: And this is more from a clinician than a clinician owner point of view.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_00: You're at that lovely rookie stage where you don't know what you don't know, and everything you learn is a bonus, and more people get better than not.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then I don't know, probably within the first five years of qualifying, that starts to flatten off maybe sooner for some people.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: Reality kicks in that not everything you were taught at uni works or is true, and not everybody gets better.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I think probably a lot of clinicians in general, but a lot of the men that approach me are just on that downward curve.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, that's I wonder if you're talking about sort of male and female, uh, and obviously we're going to stereotype, which is unfair, but um maybe there's slightly more black and white thinking in the male brain.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm thinking more.
• 45:10
  Michael: I'm thinking more about um it's not about stereotyping, it's about the kinds of issues and questions that people have.
• 45:19
  Michael: So inherently with women, I think, especially women who have had children, there will be very different types of problems, whether that is spending time with the children, whatever it might be.
• 45:30
  Michael: With men, it it may be different.
• 45:31
  Michael: So I'm wondering if there is a difference in um maybe their attitudes, their thinking, the way that the the issues that they're faced with, um, or is it pretty standard?
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um well, Helen's point about having children is probably a good one in that you know it would be similar if those young men are fathers.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of I'm not spending as much time with my kids as I want to.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um it doesn't come up when I think about it, that doesn't come up hugely.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's more often than not, it's I'm not good enough.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um and maybe for who?
• 46:11
  Michael: I'm interested in that.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I was going to expand on that.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe there's a commonality in that uh often that will be on a clinical basis.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm not a good enough clinician, not good enough at my job, but probably more so with men than uh with the female clients than men, and um that makes me because I'm so busy, I'm not a good enough wife, friend, mother.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um interesting though that you say that the female clinic owners are happier, and the cynical part of me wonders whether women are used to accepting um I think because of where their businesses are on the happiness curve.
• 46:55
  Michael: I don't think it's that it's because they're early women curve.
• 46:59
  Michael: I think that they run more boutique businesses, they tend to have less associates, they're more f uh, let's say friendly, family-run business, not family-run business, but just a friendlier atmosphere environment.
• 47:12
  Michael: Um uh I think that it's to do with where they are on the happiness curve because they for whatever reason, and I don't it's obviously not ability, but for whatever reason, they're not a a vast number of them aren't getting themselves into the messy middle.
• 47:27
  Michael: They're staying off before that, and it could be because they do have children.
• 47:30
  Michael: Um and Helen said to as I say, she said specifically, I I didn't get into that at that point because I couldn't, I didn't have the time.
• 47:37
  Michael: Um, so I don't think that there may be a an inherent reason that women generally are happy as business owners, but I don't think that's not specifically what I'm talking about.
• 47:47
  Michael: I think it's more that they they just don't run businesses that make them unhappy.
• 47:51
  Michael: Um I mean I don't know the stats um right now, but I do wonder if you looked at the top 30 clinics in the country by revenue and profit, let's say, how many of those are owned by women?
• 48:04
  Michael: And I'm I would hazard a guess that it's zero.
• 48:09
  Michael: And again, I don't think I uh I it's a little bit like this thing of uh how many FTSE 250 companies uh uh have whip female CEOs.
• 48:17
  Michael: I think it's about three.
• 48:19
  Michael: Is it because um they're not good enough to be female CEOs?
• 48:23
  Michael: Absolutely not.
• 48:24
  Michael: Is it that they're not willing to give up the things that they need to give up to achieve that?
• 48:30
  Michael: That's the issue, which I think makes them far more intelligent than the people who are like, I am willing to give up my health, my life, my family, my friends to pursue this one goal, which actually doesn't end up making me any happier anyway.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's more intelligent, but I think that's what we did did you ask in your survey, maybe it would be deemed too intrusive, but did you ask whether they clinicrona was a primary breadwinner in the house or not?
• 48:55
  Michael: I don't believe we did.
• 48:56
  Michael: We we wanted to just be it may it may be in there, but I I don't think so.
• 49:01
  Michael: Um I think we could we're gonna be doing the survey um uh uh many more times because I think having that consolidated data would be really interesting and that can having it continually updated.
• 49:11
  Michael: It's maybe a question we can put in.
• 49:13
  Michael: We had to be really careful about what we asked, um, because we for for all manner of reasons, um, particularly if it could lead to conclusions that maybe you were accurate from a data perspective, but not necessarily accurate from an actual perspective of that.
• 49:34
  Michael: Like you can make the statistics of the data say very things.
• 49:37
  Michael: Um you've got to be careful about saying, for example, you could say women are not as intelligent as men because they don't own big clinics.
• 49:43
  Michael: Now, obviously that wouldn't touch.
• 49:45
  Michael: But um, yeah, so we just want to be careful about that.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_00: But um I wonder, I wonder with um men, and obviously you would need to be a male clinician to answer this question, but I wonder whether they feel a pressure that, you know, I I'm in this profession, which is I'm vastly outnumbered um women to men in this profession.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and if I'm gonna be in it, I've either got to be the best clinician that ever lived or I've got to absolutely kill it business wise, um, for respect.
• 50:11
  Michael: I don't know.
• 50:12
  Michael: Um, from the tens of thousands of conversations I've had, the one word that keeps cropping up is competitive.
• 50:24
  Michael: That a lot.
• 50:24
  Michael: Uh I need to be more competitive, I need to be more like that clinic, I want to do better than that person.
• 50:29
  Michael: Um I I I uh I hear that all the time, and I think um I don't know if that's the same with women, I don't know, but certainly from the male clinicians I know and have spoken to, it's often about being better than somebody else.
• 50:43
  Michael: And I think of male kind of it just happens though all areas of life.
• 50:49
  Michael: You need to be the best footballer, you need to be, you know.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, which is less of a narrative from females often, isn't it?
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's just I need to be the best I can.
• 50:58
  Michael: Yeah, I don't know if there are many females running around and creating their entire self-identity around whether their football team is um winning football games or not.
• 51:08
  Michael: Maybe more so these days.
• 51:09
  Michael: There are some, I do know there are some, but uh um it's kind of like I don't I can't remember the name of the film, the Colin Perth film where he was an Arsenal fan.
• 51:17
  Michael: I I I don't think there are many women who are quite like that, where their entire life single team and um and whether they win or lose is it changes the whole trajectory of um it's always quite amusing.
• 51:31
  Michael: I'm that person, by the way.
• 51:33
  Michael: Um really no, I know I d I know I don't I I don't like it when we lose, but it's yeah, not so bad.
• 51:41
  Michael: Um so let's uh sort of finish up with having a little chat around what advice you would give to people.
• 51:50
  Michael: Are there some really simple pointers?
• 51:53
  Michael: If you give maybe five pointers to to people that would maybe help them, um whatever situation they're in.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, some of them I've covered already, but let me think of the things that I end up repeatedly working on um with people.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um challenge the voice that keeps coming into your head.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um first of all, note what it keeps saying to you.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there'll be some variation, but for most people there's a common narrative.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and if it's not pleasant or supportive, then start having conversations with it.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_00: Ask it when it decided that was true.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, could it believe anything different?
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_00: What would change if it believed something different?
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um obviously this this inner voice is part of you, but it you can sort of separate it and have a conversation.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um I would you know, on this idea of comparison and competitiveness, um what if you were to switch some of that reverence round?
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, like you were saying, it took you to be on a podcast to have your own success reflected.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we we tend to revere clinical guru gurus, people that we think run better businesses than us.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_00: What if you just were to switch that mirror?
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what I find they end up working on a lot is trying to switch from what I call an external, a process of external validation to some kind of inner self-worth.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of us go around the world, this is not just clinicians, this is human beings, um, looking for basically what other people think of us and what feedback they get.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_00: So it's great to get good feedback and it's a good idea to seek it at work, but a lot of us exclusively, our self-worth is exclusively fed by that external process.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, can you find ways to start to nurture the little part of you that at some point in your life might have actually thought you were pretty cool, pretty okay, pretty capable?
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's an easy thing to say on a podcast.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this this is a coaching process that would take a lot of time for a lot of people, but maybe just something to start thinking about.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um 100% if you think you might have lost a sense of who you are, then go looking for it through hobbies, pastimes.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_00: Stop if you need to by spending an hour by yourself.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_00: It has to be by yourself, doing first of all, absolutely nothing, which will many people will be the biggest challenge ever.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then something that perhaps you used to enjoy when you were a kid.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_00: I've got a client at the moment absolutely loving colouring in um by herself.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_00: Try to and you know, then extend that.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_00: Who am I really?
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_00: What do I really think?
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_00: What do I really want to say rather than what does all of that nice clinician say?
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_00: Try and try and find your way home a little bit to an identity that is outside clinician.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think I've done four.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_00: What could the last one be?
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, if you're if you're particularly if you're still working as a clinician, but also if you're a clinician owner, do less things.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um a lot of the people that I coach that are still clinicians will tell me that they're overrunning all their appointments by at least 20 minutes and then they're sending out four emails afterwards because unless they've given every possible nuance to the diagnosis and every useful resource on every clinic appointment they're failing.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_00: No one needs me to tell them this, but it's a useful reminder.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_00: Patients will remember about 10% of that stuff.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, probably won't do any of it because you've overloaded them, you've overwhelmed yourself.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_00: Do less and trust in the fact that a lot happens when you're not with that person.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_00: Land something powerful and let it grow between the time you see them and now and when you see them next.
• 56:07
  Michael: All good, all very good advice.
• 56:09
  Michael: I have one I'd like to add, and I have that your third point about um looking back to when you were happy or cool, whatever.
• 56:18
  Michael: Um, something I have always done, I always think to myself, go back to when you were 16 or 15, choose an age.
• 56:26
  Michael: And if you could tell your 16-year-old self that you were in this position, how cool would you think you'd be?
• 56:32
  Michael: Like, how amazing.
• 56:34
  Michael: How could you ever imagine that you would have got to where you are today?
• 56:38
  Michael: And when when you when you frame it like that, you you you realize that actually you you have achieved your dreams and probably and probably some on top.
• 56:48
  Michael: And so what someone else has done, who gives a fuck?
• 56:51
  Michael: Like this is you you have done so well compared to what you ever could have imagined.
• 56:55
  Michael: I think that's a simple one.
• 56:57
  Michael: And another one that I live by is always does it make you happy?
• 57:00
  Michael: It's so simple.
• 57:01
  Michael: It's such a simple question to ask.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_00: Say that one again.
• 57:04
  Michael: Does it make you happy?
• 57:05
  Michael: Yeah, it's such a simple question to ask, but people rarely act on it.
• 57:09
  Michael: Is this employee?
• 57:11
  Michael: Don't care how good they are, don't care how much money they make you, do they make you happier as a business owner?
• 57:17
  Michael: Get rid of not.
• 57:18
  Michael: And this is extends your personal life.
• 57:20
  Michael: People spend way too long with partners.
• 57:23
  Michael: Everyone's good at this, I'm not saying like this, but people people spend way too long with partners when they're not happy.
• 57:29
  Michael: Um, if they just ask themselves a little bit more, am I really happy?
• 57:32
  Michael: Does this make it make me happy?
• 57:33
  Michael: And I think that any problems that you think are big problems can be solved by answering that simple question and getting rid of whatever is making you unhappy.
• 57:42
  Michael: Um that's always been a big one for me.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lovely, there's lots of physios out there will love a sporting analogy.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_00: Quite often I end up quoting um, apparently this was a mantra of the I can't remember what year, but the year when um British rowers won everything, and certainly the men's eight won everything.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um apparently in the years building up to that Olympics, they developed the mantra, Does it make the boat go faster?
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_00: And it was um, you know, they were always being approached with new equipment, new kits, new ideas for training, and everything had to go through the filter, does it make the boat go faster?
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, obviously, your version of what makes the boat go faster, you know, may just be does it make me happy?
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_00: But decide first what the boat going faster means to you.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then, as you say, you know, you'll get faced with opportunities and decisions all the time.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you can have a bit of a filter to pass them through, then it it helps you separate the wheat from the chaff a little bit.
• 58:39
  Michael: Yeah, I think that's important.
• 58:40
  Michael: I always have one which is does it move the needle?
• 58:42
  Michael: Um, I because you can spend all this time looking at all sorts of new systems or busying yourself with all sorts of different things.
• 58:49
  Michael: Does it move the needle?
• 58:50
  Michael: Does it improve the business at a uh at some point?
• 58:52
  Michael: Because if not, just leave it alone.
• 58:54
  Michael: You're making yourself far too busy, go have a glass of wine and spend some time with your kids.
• 58:58
  Michael: Um so yeah, that's a that's another really important one.
• 59:01
  Michael: But listen, thank you so much for coming on.
• 59:02
  Michael: It's been a pleasure.
• 59:03
  Michael: Um, I would love to get to or let you tell people how to get in touch, where to get resources, what should they do?
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, so uh I'm only really active on LinkedIn um to any great extent.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_00: So that's just Joe Turner on LinkedIn.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_00: My company is Mihab.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, mihab.co.uk is the website, and you can find details on there of how to get in touch with me if you're interested in coaching or um any of the courses that I run.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, those are the two main ways.
• 59:34
  Michael: Perfect.
• 59:35
  Michael: I hope it if you're a stressed out business owner like me, um, like I used to be.
• 59:41
  Michael: Um we didn't touch on one topic actually.
• 59:43
  Michael: We'll we'll cover that another time because I'm sure people won't be back on.
• 59:46
  Michael: So, but again, thank you very much.
• 59:47
  Michael: Get in touch with Joe and uh yeah, raid podcast.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Michael.