Identity speaks to individuality, something many lose whilst chasing physio success.
Individuality stems from your minds interpretations.
How you interpret the world.
How you interpret the actions of others and account for your own.
Do you decide the course?
Or has your identity already made those decisions?
Atomic Fatalism
The cornerstone of philosophy – free will vs fate.
The concept of free-will (choice) is going to be challenged here – in view of some lighter ideas.
Including those embedded within James Clear’s Atomic Habits.
Our brains are wired for simplicity, for efficiency.
The preference is very much towards pre-decision.
Towards habit.
Habit occurs without a lot of higher consciousness.
It’s embedded within our brains.
Automated.
You wake up in the morning and you put the kettle on.
Before you can think about it you’re sipping a fresh coffee.
My Outback Identity
In September 2018 I bought a car – a Subaru Outback (2016), for about 30K.
It has a diesel engine – it was a car completely unsuited to the inner city lifestyle I had from 2018 to the middle of 2022.
I bought this car because I had agreed to a business partnership.
This would see me driving from Brunswick to Point Cook daily (45 mins).
I was about to start my first physiotherapy clinic.
At this point in time I was very much a physiotherapist.
A bicycle riding, latte sipping, inner city left winger.
I had returned from London a year prior.
I had spent most of my free weekends riding my bike around Hackney.
Drinking coffee.
And of course, reading The Guardian.
I was a skilled physiotherapist and very much ready for a bigger challenge.
My journey in business was just beginning and I needed a car.
My Subaru Outback: aka Jason Wu (named after the man who sold it to me)
Jason and I drove out to Point Cook, 6 days per week for the next 18 months.
He came with me everywhere I went.
He was onboard for just about every business call I did in that time.
Every challenge.
Every conflict.
Sometimes for privacy reasons I had to go out to the carpark and sit with Jason.
Especially when having stressful conversations with my HR support.
Jason
Jason was integral in my education too.
In fact I spent so much time with Jason that the two of us became inseparable.
And when it came time to move away from the city – the decision had already been made.
When I bought my Subaru Outback with it’s diesel engine, I one day dreamed of moving to the country.
I knew I needed a more robust vehicle for this lifestyle.
One that was conditioned to the dirt roads.
One that could do the long distances.
The decision to sell my business was also made – long before I had even started it.
It took me a longer time than I thought to get back to that place.
But looking back, there was a sense of inevitability about this project.
It was a Beta project.
Sleeping like a baby
They say a business is like a baby.
It very much feels that way.
Until you have a baby.
Then your life changes forever.
And things that were once important aren’t always as clear.
They don’t make as much sense.
Like attaching your ego to a bricks and mortar lease with a sign over.
One day when I was driving out to Point Cook last year, I really wondered.
How can a place that is only 84sqm in size cause me so much turmoil?
How can this tiny piece of space be the beginning, middle and end of my daily thoughts.
Consume most of my mental and emotional energy.
It makes no sense.
But that perspective is very hard to see, until you start driving 90 mins to your clinic.
Across 140kms of land, to get to your 84sqm, inside a shopping centre, 3 rooms and a gym clinic.
To visit my ‘baby’.
The 4 private physio success personas
Coming back to identity.
I wanted to introduce this concept based on 4 different personas.
- Employee (technician)
- Self-employed (technician)
- Business owner (manager)
- Entrepreneur
I find this is best illustrated within the risk / reward curve.
At the left side of the spectrum we have more technically minded people.
Classically this plays out as more conformist, more risk averse.
At the right side of the spectrum we see bigger picture thinkers.
This plays out with riskier behaviours, like opening businesses.
Employee Mindset
My first job was working for Gary, on his new house.
The year was 2003, and it was the beginning of a housing boom.
Gary was an entrepreneur.
He ran a business down the road from my house selling Jaguars.
My job, was a cash-based position, essentially I was a 16 year old labourer.
I worked for $10 per hour, 8 hours every Sunday.
Helping him renovate a house he had bought in Glen Waverley.
I reckon this was the hardest job I’ve ever done (physically).
It was also likely mentally one of the hardest, but that was self-inflicted.
I had usually been out partying the night before.
It made for a pretty taxing day.
But I didn’t care.
I was there for the cash at the end, nothing more.
The employee mindset.
Self employed physio success
In July 2012 I was self-employed, technically.
I had an ABN and I was officially a contractor, starting out in private practice.
In the current world, this would likely be considered sham contracting.
Even though I was self employed I very much worked for Lifecare.
I was their bitch – working for 40% commission, no entitlements.
It sounds awful today, but I don’t regret this decision one bit.
The seeds for joining this company were sewn a few years earlier.
My final private practice placement was at Lifecare Bundoora in 2008.
I wanted to be the best clinician I could be, and I knew that this was a great place to build my foundations.
I worked with a man named Luke who was integral in my development as a clinician.
And the majority of the seeds for physio success were planted during this early phase.
You are your own business.
Business Owner
In October 2018 I became a small business owner for the first time.
A few weeks beforehand I had met Jason Wu.
I ran a startup clinic for around 18 months, then Covid hit.
This forced me to work harder, faster and more effectively than I ever had before.
I had to become a proper leader now.
My people were relying on me.
But the most interesting moment came a year later.
My Entrepreneur Identity
In February 2021, I changed my identity, again.
My son, Sidney had just been born, and I no longer wanted just the physio success.
I wanted to be the best dad I could be.
My goals sat in conflict, and I had to make a decision.
Would the path I was on lead me to the lifestyle that I wanted.
Or would I be perpetually stuck in the middle.
The identity I adopted was of an entrepreneur.
I still struggle with this identity, but it has changed my entire life.
The case for the entrepreneur life
The first thing I realised with my new entrepreneur identity was…
The simple mathematics.
As a physio/owner I was spending 80% of my time on activities that weren’t moving the needle.
I had it backwards.
A physiotherapist can at best make around $300 per hour (when fully booked).
The majority of the time I was billing closer to $150 per hour.
As an entrepreneur I could work on $500 per hour tasks.
Tasks that no one else could do.
Tasks that move the needle.
Like recruiting physio’s.
Ensuring they are adequately skilled to do the job.
And then retaining them as they grew.
That new hire would eventually replace the revenue I would contribute to the business.
And a rinse and repeat strategy would see me double this and essentially replace the profits.
Grow the pie.
This lead me to the next phase, which was to automate my managerial activities.
This process took a further 12 to 18 months, but again the seeds from this decision opened up my pathway to an exit.
And then I waited.
Having peace vs physio success
I’m not suggesting that everyone needs to change their identity tomorrow.
I’m quite jealous of those who are truly content.
Happily running their own small businesses.
I think this is as close to the highest purpose one can have in life.
To do a job that involves so much sacrifice.
So much giving.
Giving to your patients.
Giving to your staff.
Providing your local community with something invaluable.
People who happily live in this space on a daily basis are my idols.
This is the most joyful space.
But also the hardest place.
I think the job we do is phenomenally good.
But I was never truly satisfied.
I wanted more and I eventually found physio success.
Yet the dissatisfaction returned.
The daily challenges.
Someone always wanted a piece of me. It was rare to just close my door and have a moment.
In the latter months I was weaning off treating, I worked out of one of our satellite clinics.
This showed me what I value more than anything – peace.
Mental peace.
Not being bothered by others.
I need space to think.
To breathe.
I hear stories of famous entrepreneurs who don’t use email.
This is one of my goals – to be completely detachable.
You meet people all the time who have it all
– the fancy house, the cars, the kids in elite private schools.
But do they have peace?
Or are they prisoners to their lifestyles.
To their businesses.
Their devices.
Their identities.
You decide
Employee life can be amazing, and one can detach at any time.
There is no real risk in this world.
A self-employed person is responsible for their entire world and everything in it.
But they have far more control; the risks remain lower but so to do the rewards.
The business owner life is well defined, but difficult.
It can quickly become a prison if you let it.
The entrepreneur life, on the other hand, offers freedom: undefined.
The freedom to decide what is truly important to you.
You can place all of your energy into making that dream a reality.
But you have to let go of one thing.
Your ideas around choice.
Are you ready to surrender to the possibilities that this life brings?
Only then can you truly chase physio success.
