My name is Shane Gunaratnam. I am a physiotherapist with over 15 years industry experience.
My physiotherapy journey started a long time ago.
In fact, I’d say it began in year 10 of high school choosing subjects to coincide with university courses.
This was over 20 years ago. I liked the idea of never having to wear a suit and tie, so I chose a practical profession.
I liked the human body, but I was also good with numbers.
This latter skill was seriously underutilised until I finally arrived in the business world, some 16 years later.
It took me nearly 6 years to find my ideal role.
Rejection from countless job opportunities early in my career had left me in the physiotherapy wilderness.
In spite of meeting some wonderful people and having some great mentors along the way, things just never felt quite right for me.
I left my first private practice role after only 9 months and left Australia entirely.
My aim was to travel and to experience work overseas, but in truth, I was looking for greener pastures and thinking of moving on.
The best 4 years of my career
Through a sheer twist of fate, I found a brilliant opportunity thanks to a family connection that landed me in front of the clinical director of the top sports medicine practice in London.
It was 2013 and the city was slowly recovering from the depths of the financial crisis, only 5 years earlier.
I worked harder than I’d ever worked to get both my post-graduate training done and to build a strong caseload.
I worked tirelessly to earn the respect of my colleagues, highly trained physios and top academics themselves.
Looking back, it is clear that that interview changed the course of my career.
My time at Pure Sports Medicine had skilled me not only as a practitioner, but I had also learnt valuable business skills including networking and relationship marketing.
Sitting down for dinner with some of the best Orthopaedics in London and having them keen to know my story was a welcome change from feeling locked out in Australia.
When I returned in 2018, I thought I was on top of the physio world, only for it to come crashing down again.
In spite of nearly 10 years experience I again faced rejection from my first 3 private practice interviews.
I decided to stop searching after I rejected a contract that was well below the award. Something really needed to change here.
My first business
In late 2018 I started a physiotherapy business in Melbourne’s West with a company named Life Ready.
I had finally found some like minded people who wanted to really make a difference to the profession.
I was totally underprepared for the rollercoaster of business ownership and it was an enormous relief to get through my first year in business relatively unscathed.
Our second year (2020) began with great optimism, but Covid was lurking just around the corner.
By the end of March I was facing financial ruin and it was clear that the hardest part of my journey had begun.
The period from March 2020 to the sale of my business in December 2022 has been an absolute whirlwind.
We had managed to turn around our clinics fortunes in a matter of months.
Benefitting greatly from some strong hires and fantastic people who were willing to sacrifice throughout the journey.
In exchange, I was able to ingrain a strong culture of people first and in the process throw out the business operating playbook.
Autonomy over work hours was now the norm.
People could take holidays when they wanted and most importantly, people were not just paid fair, they were paid well.
My goal was to have every therapist earning 6 figures and this was achieved by the end of 2021.
In this hectic few years I had also had my first child. I had endured countless sleepless nights and what feels like entire weeks worth of walking with prams.
We had also been through 6 lockdown periods in Melbourne.
It was inevitable that burnout would come and this crash occurred in late 2021.
What this meant was that my journey had to diverge.
The people who had stood up through those difficult periods deserved their rewards and it was time for me to pass the baton.
Thanks to this wonderful group of people, I was able to slowly slip into the background, and eventually facilitate an exit thanks entirely to my business partner, Ben and our CFO, Mark.
Since this time, my perspective on work and on life has changed forever.
With the sale of my business I was able to achieve a life long dream – that of financial freedom.
I am truly humbled by the enormous amount of help I have had, from people much smarter than me.
Ben and his team provided me great flexibility and support.
He was there for me during the good times and the bad.
Having a mentor who is also a friend is a truly amazing thing and I will be forever grateful for the opportunity I was given by Life Ready.
The next chapter – Gun Physio Academy
The Academy is the sum of the lessons I have learnt through this journey.
My aim is to continue to build the physiotherapy leaders of tomorrow, and enable others to achieve the career satisfaction that I have felt.
Through my blogs, I will share these stories and aim to both entertain and provide some insight for people both actively working in and looking to start their own businesses.
“Working hard for something you don’t care about is called stress. Working hard for something you love is called passion.”
Simon Sinek
