The Healthy Enterprise

In this episode, Jeffrey Petersen shares lessons from nearly four decades in physical therapy, exploring the physical, emotional, and neurological dimensions of pain and advocating for whole-person care. He discusses growing a high-touch healthcare business, the importance of empathy and process in patient outcomes, and insights from his work on an upcoming book focused on understanding pain and purpose in healing.

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction to Whole Person Care
03:02 The Evolution of Physical Therapy
05:47 Understanding Pain and Patient Care
08:46 The Emotional Experience of Pain
12:04 Pain as Information: A Neurological Perspective
15:03 The Role of Awareness in Pain Management
17:59 The Connection Between Emotional and Physical Pain
20:52 The Journey of Writing a Book on Pain
28:43 Finding Purpose in Suffering
31:05 The Role of Pain in Personal Growth
33:17 Expanding a Business: Challenges and Lessons
36:23 The Importance of Process in Business
40:10 Navigating Complexities in Patient Care
46:03 Marketing Strategies for Growth


Guest Information:
  • Guest's Name: Jeffrey Petersen
  • Guest's Title/Position:  Founder and CEO
  • Guest's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffrey-petersen-pt-9b467558/
  • Company / Affiliation: Petersen Physical Therapy https://petersenpt.com/
  • Guest's Bio: Jeffrey Petersen is the CEO and Founder of Petersen Physical Therapy, launched with a mission to help as many people as possible move better and live healthier lives. With nearly four decades of experience, Jeff is deeply committed to clinical excellence and to building a welcoming, patient-centered environment that meets people exactly where they are and helps them move forward. He brings a rare blend of hands-on clinical insight, long-term leadership, and a genuine passion for helping patients recover, rehabilitate, and thrive.

Takeaways:
  • Physical therapy has evolved significantly over the decades.
  • Pain is often the primary reason people seek therapy.
  • The emotional experience of pain is crucial to understanding it.
  • Intensity of pain does not always correlate with severity of injury.
  • Pain serves as information rather than just a warning signal.
  • Awareness of one's body can aid in pain management.
  • Shame can hinder the learning process in pain management.
  • The connection between emotional and physical pain is profound.
  • The journey of writing a book can help consolidate knowledge.
  • Understanding pain can lead to better patient outcomes. 
  • Finding purpose in suffering can help endure pain.
  • Pain provides contrast that enhances appreciation for well-being.
  • Building a supportive culture is essential for business growth.
  • Engaging in the process is more important than focusing solely on outcomes.
  • Effective marketing stems from treating patients well and fostering referrals.
  • Navigating patient care requires balancing multiple stakeholders' needs.
  • Empathy is crucial in patient relationships and care.
  • The importance of documenting processes for business efficiency.
  • AI can assist in organizing business processes and enhancing patient care.
  • Long-term relationships with patients are built on trust and effective communication.

The Healthy Enterprise Podcast is produced by Bullzeye Global Growth Partners  https://bullzeyeglobal.com/

Creators and Guests

Host
Heath Fletcher
With over 30 years in creative marketing and visual storytelling, I’ve built a career on turning ideas into impact. From brand transformation to media production, podcast development, and outreach strategies, I craft compelling narratives that don’t just capture attention—they accelerate growth and drive measurable results.
Guest
Jeffrey Petersen
Jeffrey Petersen is the CEO and founder of Petersen Physical Therapy, launched with a mission to help as many people as possible move better and live healthier lives. With nearly four decades of experience, Jeff is deeply committed to clinical excellence and to building a welcoming, patient-centered environment that meets people exactly where they are and helps them move forward. He brings a rare blend of hands-on clinical insight, long-term leadership, and a genuine passion for helping patients recover, rehabilitate, and thrive.
Producer
Meghna Deshraj
Meghna Deshraj is the CEO and Founder of Bullzeye Growth Partners, a strategic consultancy that helps businesses scale sustainably and profitably. With a background spanning corporate strategy, IT, finance, and process optimization, she combines analytical rigor with creative execution to drive measurable results. Under her leadership, Bullzeye has generated over $580M in annual growth and more than $1B in client revenue, guiding organizations through large-scale integrations, business transformations, and organizational change initiatives. A Certified Six Sigma Black Belt, Meghna’s superpower lies in strategic marketing and growth consulting, helping businesses grow through innovation, efficiency, and strong, trusted partnerships.

What is The Healthy Enterprise?

Join host Heath Fletcher on The Healthy Enterprise as he explores how healthcare leaders and innovators are transforming the industry from the inside out. Whether you’re a provider, tech entrepreneur, marketing strategist, or industry executive, these conversations deliver actionable strategies, innovative solutions, and human-centered insights to help you grow, lead, and make a lasting impact.

Created and Produced by Bullzeye Global Growth Partners — Let’s build it together!

Heath Fletcher:

Hello, and thank you for joining me for the Healthy Enterprise Podcast. If you've been here before, thanks for coming back. And if it's your first visit, I hope you enjoy this episode. I'm gonna be talking to Jeff Peterson. He's a seasoned physical therapist with nearly forty years of experience with a deep commitment to a whole person care.

Heath Fletcher:

He founded his practice in '92 with a mission to help as many people as possible and has since grown it into a thriving clinic based business with multiple locations across Arizona. He continues to treat patients and brings a unique perspective on blending clinical excellence with sustainable practical growth. Please welcome Jeff Peterson. So, Jeff, welcome to this episode. Thank you for joining me today.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yep. Thanks for having me.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah. Curious to learn more about what you've been doing. So why don't you start with that? Start with doing an introduction of yourself and and your company.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Okay. Yeah. So I'm a physical therapist. I've been a physical therapist since 1984. Opened my own practice in 1981 Exclusively, although I've done some how some hospital and some nursing homework, it's exclusively outpatient orthopedics.

Jeffrey Petersen:

And so 1984, that's what? Forty years ago. So medicine has changed a lot

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Since I started practicing. Matter fact, I I in 2020, I listened to the American Physical Therapy Association, the president give a keynote address at a conference I was at. And I was thinking, wow. I've worked through, like, three quarters of the the profession as a physical therapist because physical therapist you know, physical therapy wasn't really recognized in 1968, 7075. So starting in the mid seventies, it started to emerge as a as a licensed profession.

Jeffrey Petersen:

So I've done that. I practice exclusively manual therapy. I studied with a manual therapy is like joint manipulation stretching. I studied with a Norwegian physical therapist in the nineties, Oleg Grimsby. He was a was a big name in the profession at the time.

Jeffrey Petersen:

And then I've just been working with, with patients throughout the years and and basically got interested in, you know, people come to see me for because they have pain. So trying to figure out, okay, how can we Right. How do you help more people? And like I said, the profession has changed a lot. The, the principles and the fundamentals of practicing physical therapy, have been tweaked a little bit, but interacting with individuals that are in pain has has not changed a lot.

Jeffrey Petersen:

It's changed for me because I've gotten better at it, but the principles have remained the same.

Heath Fletcher:

Right.

Jeffrey Petersen:

So that's me. We've got a company of, what, four offices, nine clinicians, and they all do an excellent job. We're in Tempe, Arizona, Maricopa, Arizona, and two in Mesa, Arizona.

Heath Fletcher:

I mean, but leading up to that, you were primarily an independent. Right? Like most most physical therapists just run their own clinic and they look after their own set of patients.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yes. Although it's interesting, when I started practicing, that was not the case.

Heath Fletcher:

Oh, really?

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yeah. Most therapists worked in hospitals.

Heath Fletcher:

Oh, is that right?

Jeffrey Petersen:

GT came

Heath Fletcher:

That's where that started.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Okay. Came about basically through the military, restorative nurses after World War one and two.

Heath Fletcher:

And

Jeffrey Petersen:

during the the polio pandemic, the restorative nurses started doing more and more, and then finally, they started getting certified and peeling them off and said, okay. You're gonna strictly deal with physical therapy. So when I became a a private practitioner, there weren't that many. And now it's mostly private practice or hospitals or skilled nursing facilities.

Heath Fletcher:

Mhmm.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Some home health. And

Heath Fletcher:

and so how many locations again?

Jeffrey Petersen:

We have four. Yep.

Heath Fletcher:

Four. What what so what made you think to to expand like that? Like, that not everybody does that either, where you have multiple locations and multiple Yeah. Practitioners. So what what inspired you to do that?

Jeffrey Petersen:

Well, I I think what ex it didn't inspire me, but it explains it. There's a book called the e myth revisited.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah.

Jeffrey Petersen:

It talks about the entrepreneurial spasm. And I think just a young man's arrogance, you know, I could do this. I can do this better than anybody. You know? So a lot of it was just just sheer.

Jeffrey Petersen:

And where I come from, they use the term chutzpah. Just trying to get out there and and think that I could do it. And so it nothing more than that.

Heath Fletcher:

Well, you said earlier a little bit about how how many people can I help?

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yeah.

Heath Fletcher:

Right? So you are limited as an individual. We, you know, you can only you can only you personally can only help so many people. But if you have multiple locations and multiple practitioners, then

Jeffrey Petersen:

you're So that does

Heath Fletcher:

conceivably, you're you're replicating yourself to a certain extent.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yes. And and and that's the idea. It's and that's that's one of the biggest challenges, honestly. But you're right. We can only help, you know, a certain number of people in a day.

Jeffrey Petersen:

One of the things that we talk about at our company is the the number of people you can help in a day, really, one of the limiting factors is the skill of the therapist. To be able to get in, understand what's going on, connect with the patient, not rush the process, but get to the salient point, to be able to help that person as efficiently as you can.

Heath Fletcher:

Mhmm.

Jeffrey Petersen:

And sometimes that takes more time than others, but being able to triage people and know, k, where am I most necessary? So that's really what I'm doing now as a as an older therapist is trying to help therapists do that. Because, you know, reimbursements are down and costs are up and, you know, health care is in demand. I think the number was only twenty percent of the people who could benefit from physical therapy actually seek out care. Mhmm.

Jeffrey Petersen:

And we still haven't quite hit the the the bump, you know, the peak of the baby boomer generation. You know, my Yeah. I'm the tail end of it, maybe, maybe a couple years below me. So Mhmm. You know, we're in our sixties and seventies when when that's when a lot of care is necessary.

Jeffrey Petersen:

So so we

Heath Fletcher:

And who When people seek out a therapist, I mean, how do they is it is it usually some sort of typical, is some sort of injury or some sort of trauma that really triggers that sort of connection and you get a referral from

Jeffrey Petersen:

your doctor or either something like an injury. So we see a lot of people with acute injuries, we see a lot of people with chronic pain, we see a lot of people that have pain, that haven't had pain before. Pain is really, probably the primary factor that drives people to go Mhmm. Care. Like, I've ever you know, the facet joints in your spine can get stiff.

Jeffrey Petersen:

One of them might get stiff and cause pain on the other side, but no one's ever come in and said, you know, I have a c five facet joint that's stuck. I can't quite turn my head or I can't rotate my spine to get a full drive when I golf. Can you help me?

Heath Fletcher:

Right.

Jeffrey Petersen:

You know, occasionally we get that, but most most of what drives people and not just into our office, but into health care is Right. The existence of pain.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah. Or the absence of mobility too. Right? Like you said, like, can't swing I can't swing like I can't

Jeffrey Petersen:

do Yeah. But that's that's that's still rare. The absence of mobility when people get to the point where they start falling, that's when people will come in to the office.

Heath Fletcher:

Oh, it's almost too far. They've already they've already kinda moved past it.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Absolutely. I for the vast majority of cases. There are some people Yeah. That have a higher level of awareness.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah.

Jeffrey Petersen:

But, sports performance is not usually or any performance is not usually what drives people into medical care. It's usually because they have pain in an area.

Heath Fletcher:

Right.

Jeffrey Petersen:

So we wanna try to change that, and And that's why I shared with you last time I'm I'm actually in the process of writing a book on pain. So that Yeah.

Heath Fletcher:

That's right. So tell yeah.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Tell me about that that whole Yeah. Concept. Well, you know, so as a young therapist, you get in and you're helping people and they have pain and they come to you, and we want to help them get rid of their pain. And what I noticed over the years is that people who didn't get better in the profession, this is decades ago, the tendency was to blame the patient. You see that with surgeons.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Do the surgery, it doesn't go out well, well, patient must have screwed up or the therapist must have messed up the surgery. And so and there was and people who are in pain, chronic pain particularly is kind of the unspoken, untalked about kind of tragedy that's out there. Nobody wants to really hear about your pain and people don't know how to talk about the pain or frame the pain or sometimes people will over focus on pain. Right. And so it got me doing research and studying and, you know, I was searching for the magic bullet.

Jeffrey Petersen:

I studied manual therapy thinking, okay, if we could do some manipulation of the spine, that's going to be the magic bullet for back pain. And it wasn't. And then came to realize I was doing some research on pain and and stumbled upon the definition of pain put out by the International Association for the Study of Pain. So these are the guys who do nothing but study pain. You know, the PhD's

Heath Fletcher:

pain all day.

Jeffrey Petersen:

That's their gig. You know? That that's what they're into. And they define pain as a as an unpleasant sensory or emotional experience. Oh.

Jeffrey Petersen:

So that was the first part that caught me. And then it goes on to say, associated with the sensory changes or active or or potential tissue damage. So the takeaway for me was one that that it is is largely an emotional experience. An emotional response. It's it's like laughing.

Jeffrey Petersen:

You know? You and your your significant other go see a movie. I suspect one of you is gonna laugh might laugh at it. The other one is confused by it. You know?

Jeffrey Petersen:

When you're with a buddy or with my wife, I'll laugh at something. So that same stimulus evokes a different response.

Heath Fletcher:

Right.

Jeffrey Petersen:

And so it really is is it's an emotional response much like laughing. It it depends on kind of where how well rested you are. You know, if I sprained my ankle or if I I mean, I did it. I did I went fishing and I caught a hook in my finger and I had just a little bit of a cup, but then it got infected. You know, I was on vacation, didn't bother me.

Jeffrey Petersen:

I'm like, yeah, it's a little bit of a nick.

Heath Fletcher:

Inconvenience. Then

Jeffrey Petersen:

I come back to work, and every time I wash my hands, it's like it's you know, so different scenario, different setup. Now my response to the same stimulus is different.

Heath Fletcher:

Right.

Jeffrey Petersen:

So it really is an emotional response that can be influenced by your nutrition, your rest, your fitness level, your mindset around pain. An example that I like to give patients is, if you and I are talking, and I'm a physician and you come in and you asked me for a vitamin b twelve injection, and I take that needle, and it's a beveled needle with a sharp edge, and I penetrate your tissue, damage your skin and your thigh, and inject the vitamin b twelve, pull it out, little bit of spot of blood, and you go on your way, you'll have a little bit of soreness. Now if we're sitting there talking and as a practical joke, I take out the same exact needle and penetrate you in the same exact spot in the thigh, creating the same exact damage. And then I start laughing and mocking it mocking you because I've now created this cruel practical joke and I've victimized you.

Heath Fletcher:

Right.

Jeffrey Petersen:

The tissue is gonna react completely differently. Even though the local damage is exactly the same, the emotional experience is completely different. And so being able to at least have some measure of appreciation for that is really important to be able to reframe what I'm experiencing. The other thing that I've learned over the years is that the intensity of the pain is not always correlated with the severity of the problem. You know, you would think as humans, and we want to survive, that things that threaten our lives are the most severe problems, and things that threaten our comfort are, you know, they're problems, but they're not as severe as things that are going to kill you.

Jeffrey Petersen:

When I treat a patient that has a herniated disc in their lumbar or cervical spine, and it's irritating a nerve root, that is the most miserable pain one can experience. And people want to die, but it won't kill you. You could live for decades with a herniated disc, compressing a nerve root, irritating that nerve root, and causing sharp pain down your leg. Pancreatic cancer and brain cancer rarely hurt, but those things will kill you.

Heath Fletcher:

Right.

Jeffrey Petersen:

So it's like, you know, the severity of the problem is is not necessarily correlated with the intensity of the pain. And so being able to help people appreciate that and say, appreciate the experience. Pain is an experience that we have. It's it's and the experience is is influenced by so many factors in our life.

Heath Fletcher:

And what you know, when when pain happens, is it what is it? Is it the body trying to tell us that, oh, we've done something wrong? Oh, take a look at your ankle or stop walking on your ankle. What is the what is the noise per what is it doing? Is this just a signal?

Heath Fletcher:

It's just information. Right?

Jeffrey Petersen:

Well, kind of completely morally neutral. It's simply information being transmitted by a specific set of receptors by step on a nail, you know, we have what's called mechanoreceptors in our body. So if you if you close your eyes, you could tell how many degrees of elbow flexion you're in. You can feel your elbow flex to about 90 or a 100 degrees without looking at it.

Heath Fletcher:

Right. Right.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Pain work not as specifically wired, but there are what's called nociceptive mechanoreceptors, and they're designed to respond to pressure, changes, tissue damage. So if I damage my tissue in my foot, it's going to send a signal up those peripheral nerves which are outside the nerve outside the spinal cord and outside the, the brain. Those nociceptive mechanoreceptors immediately send a message up to your up to your spinal cord, which sometimes may create a reflex. So you step on a nail and immediately without thinking about it, your foot retracts.

Heath Fletcher:

Pull it off.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yeah. Because that's because the message goes to your spinal cord, across your spinal cord, to your motor system, and then it immediately fires and you lift your foot. Then it goes up to acrosses the spinal cord, goes up to your brain, and then your brain has to perceive what what's going on.

Heath Fletcher:

Right.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Did I get stung? Did I step on something? Is there blood? Can I move it? And that's when, you know, the highest

Heath Fletcher:

Is my life in danger?

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yes. Totally.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah. But It's like survival. Yeah. Survival mode. Right?

Jeffrey Petersen:

Well, you've heard of phantom pain. Yeah. Phantom limb pain. So what happens is those pathways are so efficient, even in the absence of a limb, your brain is still processing that same pathway as well. It must be that gangrene I had in my foot.

Jeffrey Petersen:

And you have to kind of override that.

Heath Fletcher:

Right.

Jeffrey Petersen:

So it is it's more of a teaching tool than it is a warning system. You know, people

Heath Fletcher:

And then neurologically too, the the you know, my understanding is that neurologically, our our brains will actually restore that information attached to the emotional experience so that if we encounter that scenario again, we have enough information to avoid stepping on that nail or walking past that grizzly cave or

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yeah.

Heath Fletcher:

Whatever it is. It's like we

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yeah. That's the ideal scene. So in the ideal scene, it becomes a learning tool.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah.

Jeffrey Petersen:

But you'd be surprised at how many people miss the message. Seriously.

Heath Fletcher:

Actually, I don't think I'd be surprised.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Seriously. And and Go ahead. And that's and that's part of what I do is try to create a higher level of what I call kinesthetic or awareness of your body and awareness of your person without going too far where there are some people that are hyper focused on self. But the Right. You wanna have a certain amount of awareness so that when you have that experience because the other thing that can happen is if you repeatedly have that experience, those pathways become so efficient, they begin to reinforce themselves.

Jeffrey Petersen:

And so it takes less, and we see this with emotional pain. So emotional pain and physical pain, I kind of use those terms interchangeably.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah.

Jeffrey Petersen:

But what happens is you you reinforce those painful, scenarios with a a less of a trigger, because those pain pathways have become so efficient. And there are ways to make them less efficient by overriding them with motor pathways or other sensory stimulus to make to to compensate for the efficiency of a continually painful pain pathway.

Heath Fletcher:

It's interesting that you can make this connection because it you know, we're we're probably just as adverse to emotional pain as we are to physical pain. And maybe in some cases, it's even we're more adverse to avoiding emotional pain.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yeah. It can be. Right? Yeah.

Heath Fletcher:

We'd almost rather have physical pain than than emotional pain.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yeah. And and that's an interesting that's an interesting observation. I don't know, like, the the numbers. I know that we see people that I mean, you've had a conversation with someone who you know is just ready to argue with you.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah.

Jeffrey Petersen:

You know, they just whatever it is, it's because you have a goatee and they, you know, they're they're triggered by something and they're ready.

Heath Fletcher:

You voted the wrong thing.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yeah. So they're emotionally they're emotionally defensive. Like, there are people

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Who are tactilely defensive.

Heath Fletcher:

For sure.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yeah. And I see that all the time when I go in and I move in, I try to touch someone and they're like, okay, don't be Yeah. To me. And some of that is neurolog there there are these receptors called mu receptors that some people that that help transmit pain. There are some people that have a higher number of of those receptors in their body.

Jeffrey Petersen:

So there are people that physiologically are more sensitive, And I suspect it's true of the emotional side. There are some people that emotionally are that's how their brains are wired or it's how their brains grew.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah. I've I've I've learned a few from a few books I've read about that, really, the the human body has we have five senses. We have touch, smell, sight, sound, taste. And those are the that's the only way we receive information. And then the information is then computed by our brain and stored and made made made sense of

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yeah. Absolutely.

Heath Fletcher:

What's a what's a threat, what's not a threat. I mean, it's all about survival.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yes.

Heath Fletcher:

What is going to endanger us from reproducing as a as an organism? And how are we gonna get get to that point, to that end line? And so, yeah, that that is the only way that our our actual our our bodies can can determine where we're at and what environments are suitable for us to thrive in as opposed to Yeah.

Jeffrey Petersen:

I've often said our our bodies are basically transport systems for our brain.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah.

Jeffrey Petersen:

You know, so we're moving throughout the system. And what's interesting is it's incredibly complex, but in it's just unbelievably simple. The nerves are classified into two different categories, the nerves that bring sensation to the brain or the nerves that bring messages to target organs and muscles.

Heath Fletcher:

Mhmm.

Jeffrey Petersen:

And that's it. And then all the other stuff happens in the brain with the interpretation of it. And so you're right. The idea is we bring our brains throughout the system and and to experience the world, and and we're gonna just interpret what happens. And the idea is to try to keep ourselves safe so that we can reproduce them.

Jeffrey Petersen:

And I think at a higher level, because we're not just animals at a higher levels to is to not only live and survive, but also to participate and to produce and to be somehow be creative to contribute to the world.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And share our knowledge, share our experiences so

Jeffrey Petersen:

that Absolutely.

Heath Fletcher:

For the good of the entire species. Yes. Right? It's like we we share that information so that we as as a as a as a species can actually grow and evolve and how we got to where we are today.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Absolutely. Yeah. Life with your team's core. Information.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So this book, you're in the middle of the book now. Are you close to the end?

Heath Fletcher:

Where are you where are you at?

Jeffrey Petersen:

Probably January. You know, I'm in the middle of creative phase and getting stuff down on paper. And and, basically, I'm trying to take the conversation that I've had with tens of thousands of individuals in the last forty years. And so, okay, what is it that I would want? What is it that I want a patient to understand?

Jeffrey Petersen:

And and even in the midst of having that conversation, I appreciate that. It's it can be overwhelming when you're in the midst of experiencing a painful a painful condition. It it becomes everything.

Heath Fletcher:

All consuming.

Jeffrey Petersen:

No matter what your day no matter what you have planned for your day, if you herniated a disc and it compresses a nerve going down the leg and irritates it or it makes it numb so your foot drops, full stop, that's what you're focused on.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah.

Jeffrey Petersen:

So that's where the quality of life issue is to be able to help people kind of anticipate stuff if we can get sensitive before the injury happens. So a lot of the injuries happen because of decisions that we make. Mhmm. You know? And activities that were involved.

Jeffrey Petersen:

You know, like said, fishing. I'm not a very good fly fisherman. I spend more time fumbling with the line, trying not to fall in the water, you know, catching the the fly in my hand and hooking my hand. Know, were I a better fly fisherman when I have cut my finger? Absolutely not.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Absolutely.

Heath Fletcher:

Right.

Jeffrey Petersen:

But in that case, I say, you know, cost benefit analysis. This is worth it. It'll get better.

Heath Fletcher:

Or, you know, had I not been distracted in my mind on thinking about something else while I was trying to do something like, you know, you know, using a table saw or, you know, or walking on a on a on a even pathway, but I'm so distracted because I'm not really in the moment paying attention. I twist my ankle and and now I'm mad at myself because now I twist my ankle. Now I can't actually do the run I was supposed to do on Saturday. Now I'm pissed off. Like, it's just a it's just a it's just a a rabbit hole.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. So and what happens is sometimes people what you just said was really important is that you get pissed off at yourself. Yeah.

Jeffrey Petersen:

So now you're heaping shame and guilt on yourself.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah.

Jeffrey Petersen:

So it's the fine line between taking responsibility without shaming yourself.

Heath Fletcher:

Mhmm.

Jeffrey Petersen:

And that is a really difficult place for most people to get to. Yeah. It's easy to beat yourself. I'm like, dang, was so stupid. Why did I do that?

Jeffrey Petersen:

Well, that's the second time I've done that. You know, if it's the second or third time, then you really can eat.

Heath Fletcher:

When will I learn?

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yes. Well, and that shame prevents learning.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Shame always prevents learning because it's it becomes it it feeds into the pain. So you don't want to shame yourself. So you start to go into denial and you don't want to look at it. And the first step is to is to know yourself and do it without shame.

Heath Fletcher:

This is interesting. This is cool. This can be so you call you're calling the book pain?

Jeffrey Petersen:

You know, the tentative title right now is in the shadow of pain.

Heath Fletcher:

In the shadow of pain. Yes. I like that too. Yeah. That's good.

Heath Fletcher:

So has this been brewing for a while, this book?

Jeffrey Petersen:

You know, I I think the ideas have been for forty years.

Heath Fletcher:

Mhmm.

Jeffrey Petersen:

For forty years, you kinda develop it I've developed a narrative of how I learned early on when I was practicing physical therapy, someone said get grounded in a philosophy, then you have a foundation from which you can spring and learn other things. But gets grounded in a foundational philosophy. So the foundational philosophy I was grounded in is Norwegian manual therapy school. And and they do a lot of manipulation, joint manipulation, muscle stretching, and exercise in Norway because of how they are reimbursed or they used to forty years ago. And so they were kind of pioneers in the manual therapy field, and and, so I was grounded in that.

Jeffrey Petersen:

But that's where I started to learn about pain and the physiology of pain and the emotion of pain. And then from there to be able to say, okay, there are other techniques and there are more things. So that was kind of the beginning, and it always came back to people come to see me when I'm at a a party or I meet someone new. They oh, you're a physical therapist, you know, and they always apologize, but I love talking about it. The challenge is I have sometimes they want the quick answer, not the full answer.

Jeffrey Petersen:

So that's where the book came out. So I I wanna be able to give the full answer from what the foundational science to what my perception is. You know, it's not an academic treatise, but it it it does involve some some references for the science behind what I'm talking about.

Heath Fletcher:

Mhmm.

Jeffrey Petersen:

And then I just add

Heath Fletcher:

There's a lot of science in there.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yeah. And to the the end of it is, you know, the truth is if you think about it, science, medicine, religion, and magic were all kind of the same things three hundred, four hundred years ago. You know? Yeah. The medicine man was the the magi, and Yeah.

Jeffrey Petersen:

The priest was the healer. And Yeah. You know, it was all kind of the same things. You know, we read a book, Stiff, talking about the, the beginning of the study of anatomy and how they used to rob graves and pay guys to go in and dig up fresh graves and hang out the executions just so that they could you know, and these guys were considered really freaky. Yet they were the beginning of studying anatomy.

Heath Fletcher:

Good to have.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yeah. Been talked a lot. You know, Socrates, who was, you know, the father of modern medicine, the Hippocratic oath, you know, he thought the brain was just a a an an organ that secreted hormones, and that's how it influenced, you know, and the whole discussion of where does the soul lie? Is it in the brain? Is it in the heart?

Heath Fletcher:

Heart. Yeah.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Exactly. There were times they thought it was in the liver for many years just because you'd look at the liver and it kinda looks like this cool spaceship. Yeah. And they thought, man, anything shaped like that has to be the center of our soul because just look how cool it is.

Heath Fletcher:

And some think the amygdala?

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yes.

Heath Fletcher:

Yes. Because it looks like the eye of Fatima

Jeffrey Petersen:

you or

Heath Fletcher:

know? Like, it I the Egyptians came up with that one because they used to entomb, do the mummification process.

Jeffrey Petersen:

And they pulled the organs out except for that one.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah. It's

Jeffrey Petersen:

crazy. You know, so all that stuff's been blended. Yeah. And then at some point, we decided, well, it's all very separate. But the truth is, you know, we are we are we're not 57 Chevys.

Jeffrey Petersen:

We're Yeah. Humans that and the brain is an amazing thing. It doesn't secrete hormones necessarily, but it it is an incredible, it's an incredible organ that that

Heath Fletcher:

It tells it tells which which organ to secrete, which hormone.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Absolutely. It kinda

Heath Fletcher:

Right. Like, part of the yeah.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yeah. Direct it directs the show. And so then you start dealing with pain. And like I said, there's a lot of things that can influence not necessarily the physical damage or the physiological damage, but our response to it. You know, that's really the crux of the book is get to the point was how are you responding to the pain that you're experiencing?

Jeffrey Petersen:

And are there responses that can at least optimize your environment so that you're not suffering?

Heath Fletcher:

Right.

Jeffrey Petersen:

And then the bottom the other the other bottom line of it is, even if you can't eliminate the suffering, can one find purpose in the suffering? You know, you look at I watched my wife deliver both of our babies, and, my goodness, I was so impressed. She was just tough as nails, man. And I know it must have hurt, but there was a purpose in that. You know, that was not needless suffering.

Jeffrey Petersen:

No. So that's that's the part that I'm wrestling with in terms of how to articulate that without without getting preachy and without dismissing one's experience. But I have found even in my own life, if there is if you can find some measure of purpose, it helps the endurance of pain. It it just helps helps.

Heath Fletcher:

Well, mean, with oh, pain is the, you know, it's the contrast that provides us, I don't know, the baseline of when we're not in pain.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yeah. Absolutely.

Heath Fletcher:

If we don't know what actually pain feels like, if we don't feel sad when someone dies, when we don't feel something when we, you know, slam our hand in the door, you know, then we don't actually we can't actually appreciate when we're not in pain.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Absolutely.

Heath Fletcher:

And so I a lot of that has to do with just so knowing and and being in you know, when you are in a moment where you are pain free is under is a recognized

Jeffrey Petersen:

You have appreciation for it.

Heath Fletcher:

Like, look at me right now. This is awesome. Well,

Jeffrey Petersen:

one of the books I'm I just got through reading was a story of a guy who worked with leprosy patients. And one of the characteristics of that disease is they lack the the nociceptive mechanoreceptors. So they don't feel pain. So he describes a story of working with a little girl who destroys her ankle because she just kept walking on it. Was and when she was a little kid would bite the tips of her fingers off and she just didn't feel any pain.

Jeffrey Petersen:

And and it's hard to correct a child like that because there there are no real there are no real physical consequences. So you have to appeal to a little three year old's sense of morality, which do you do you have children?

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yeah. And when they were three Yeah.

Heath Fletcher:

Two.

Jeffrey Petersen:

When they were three, their sense of morality is questionable.

Heath Fletcher:

Oh, yeah.

Jeffrey Petersen:

They're pretty self centered little beings. You know? So you try to appeal to that because she does she wasn't feeling any pain. So that was that was a big issue in treating leprosy patients. Wow.

Jeffrey Petersen:

And what they Very you know, they could repair a joint that had been damaged. So only certain cells, certain areas of the body were susceptible, they noticed.

Heath Fletcher:

Right.

Jeffrey Petersen:

And so then they thought, okay, well, once the disease works its course, and it's stable, we could repair the joint and and do tendon transfers so that we can restore some function. Mhmm. And then the challenge was they still didn't have the awareness to be able to protect the area. So it isn't it's it became a challenge. It really was necessary for our own self protection to teach us what are the guardrails in which we can live safely.

Heath Fletcher:

That's right. Yeah. That makes sense.

Jeffrey Petersen:

How spread do them out? You know, you wanna you don't wanna live in a cocoon. So that's really the challenge is how do you spread out those guardrails, but you still keep them within the boundaries of safety and you're not gonna damage yourself?

Heath Fletcher:

Or kill myself. Yeah. How much how much damage can I do without killing myself?

Jeffrey Petersen:

And we know I you know, I have a buddy who's like that Bull riding.

Heath Fletcher:

For example.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yes. Who their their sense of personal risk is just way higher than me. Yeah. Yeah. I grew up I I was raised with, five brothers, and there were four of us about the same age.

Jeffrey Petersen:

And and I was always the sensitive one. So I was always the one who ended up crying, which by one Right. You know, there was a sense of, you know, the big strong athletic guy who has no sense of personal safety is ready to go out there and do it. Yeah. Yeah.

Heath Fletcher:

Fight or whatever, you know, whatever varying degree of of of extremity they decide to go

Jeffrey Petersen:

for. Absolutely.

Heath Fletcher:

Well, that's exciting. That's I'll be looking for that book. Okay. So you'll keep me posted when

Jeffrey Petersen:

I post it. Right? Absolutely.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah. For sure. Yeah. We'll have to make sure we share it too. Let's change lanes for a minute.

Heath Fletcher:

I wanna come back to, you know, when the day you or the time when you decided to expand your business and grow it from not just Jeff working on his clients, but adding multiple people in multiple locations.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Okay.

Heath Fletcher:

And and can maybe some of the like, you said earlier that the biggest challenge for you was replicating yourself or replicating your systems is, tell me, you know, where where did you where how did you start that, and what did you find were the were the biggest challenges? And and Yeah.

Jeffrey Petersen:

That's a good question.

Heath Fletcher:

What you

Jeffrey Petersen:

So the start happened where I just had that entrepreneurial spasm. Well, if we can do it here, we can open an office here. So I've opened and closed 12 different offices.

Heath Fletcher:

Oh, wow.

Jeffrey Petersen:

So I tend to I tend to learn from the school of hard knocks. Sure. You know? And then It's

Heath Fletcher:

the best school there is.

Jeffrey Petersen:

So the the greatest challenge was if I were to place a therapist in another office, I just thought, well, they're gonna work. They're gonna do like I would do. And, you know, the idea of off-site management and connecting and building a culture where they're getting the support they need was just not even on my radar.

Heath Fletcher:

Right.

Jeffrey Petersen:

And then then just realizing, okay. Life is a team sport. I need a coach. So I've I've hired different coaches throughout the years. Okay.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Cool. Had four major coaches where

Heath Fletcher:

Mhmm.

Jeffrey Petersen:

I've invested time and money and listened to them. Yeah. Realized that what was missing is, you can't just play what was missing in the short version is I did not know how to build a culture around what was important around what I thought were important values for our company.

Heath Fletcher:

Right.

Jeffrey Petersen:

And so that's the short answer, but it took a long time to kind of crystallize that and realize

Heath Fletcher:

Make that connection.

Jeffrey Petersen:

A, it really is about selecting people that have a connection. That, okay, we have some affinity in terms of what we're thinking in terms of how to interact with people, how to be productive, how how to take responsibility, how to communicate, and then giving them what they need to be able to to see more patients.

Heath Fletcher:

Mhmm.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Because we get busier. And so how do you most young therapists have a challenge. They they start to feel bad because they don't think they're helping people.

Heath Fletcher:

Right.

Jeffrey Petersen:

And so and nobody wants that if you you know? So if they don't it's a lot easier to say, well, I'm too busy as opposed to, okay, let's sit back and can we organize our day a little bit better? Can we organize our patient load a little bit better? And we organize our thinking when we're interacting with people so that we're more efficient at listening, identifying what their goals are, helping them appreciate if they're appropriate and gently educating, and then helping them do the work so that they can get better. And so getting to that point took several failed attempts.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Mhmm. And then lastly, to be able to say, okay. How do you tie that to the financial side?

Heath Fletcher:

Right.

Jeffrey Petersen:

You know, we're really our business is high touch, labor intensive. I've been interested to see how AI might help us, and I feel like I'm in we're in the beta version, literally the Betamax versus VCR. Tom, are you old enough to remember that? Yes. And if you were unfortunate enough to buy Betamax and Beta tapes, of a sudden, one year you looked up and said, oh, man.

Jeffrey Petersen:

I can't get anymore. I can't even rent them. And my sense with AI is that's where we're at, that it's still kinda early stages, but it's exciting. But it it'll still be very high touch. So getting to the point where focusing on that culture and then including part of that culture is we don't do it.

Jeffrey Petersen:

I whenever I've made a decision based upon purely financial reasons in my business, it's always bitten me in the rear end with Yeah. Without exception. Without exception.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah.

Jeffrey Petersen:

And so to be able to say, okay. But we do you know, if we have this machine, this Peterson physical therapy machine, it's like a really nice car, and the finances are the fuel in the car. So we need the fuel to be able to drive the car and have our lives. So being able to make that connection, I think I've made better in the last ten years than I had early in my career. Because I can also be driven by numbers to say, okay.

Jeffrey Petersen:

We need to get the outcome. Need to get the outcome. Let's get the outcome. Let's get and really push for the outcome. And I've learned, well, it really is about engaging in the process that will give us the outcome.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Don't worry so much about the outcome. Worry about engaging the process, whether that's the finances of the company, whether that's helping someone get strong, whether that's helping someone get out of pain. It really my my focus has been it it drives my wife crazy. She's like, enough with the process. As a matter of fact, my daughter once said that to me, which she was about nine.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Dad, enough with the process. Enough. I'm tired of hearing about the process. You know, because early on, I learned there is there's a difference between content and process. Yeah.

Jeffrey Petersen:

And and I've tried to live by the philosophy that it's the process that fails, not the individual. So if we don't get the outcome we want, let's review the game films. What process did we engage in? How well do we execute each step? Did we miss a step?

Jeffrey Petersen:

We'll be wrong on what a step was. I just look at the process. And since we've been doing that, we have, you know, I I have teammates that have been working with me twenty years, eighteen years, 15 people.

Heath Fletcher:

Really? Wow.

Jeffrey Petersen:

And you get that kind of stability and trust. Yeah. And it just makes it just makes it fun.

Heath Fletcher:

So that that would be your kind of number one thing. If someone was thinking about right now, I I'd like to I'd like to open another location or add add more team members, and that would be your number one advice is get your process in

Jeffrey Petersen:

line. Get the processes down. If you can get them documented, get them documented, making sure that they appreciate the need for culture.

Heath Fletcher:

That's probably where your AI could fit in.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yes. To organize the processes. Yeah. Yeah. Someone's you know, part of writing a book is you do a mind map and you get all the ideas you wanna put in the book.

Jeffrey Petersen:

And and then I wrote up my table of contents. And just last week, someone said, you know, you can plug that into AI. It will give you the I'm like, okay. Well, I just spent seven hours doing it.

Heath Fletcher:

Well, now you can put it in there, it'll tell you if you did

Jeffrey Petersen:

it. Yeah. At least you can correct the spelling. But, yeah, making sure you have the processes down. And in physical therapy, it's pretty the processes are not vast, you know, now the challenges are we have multiple customers.

Jeffrey Petersen:

So having business coaches, one of the things I've learned is I've had coaches that are in other traditional businesses. So they have a product, they have a client, they have a The challenge we have is our supplier or a referral source doesn't experience the service or pay for it.

Heath Fletcher:

Right.

Jeffrey Petersen:

The person only pays for a portion of the service, but we have to listen to the insurance company because they're paying for it. So they're influencing the service. So we really have to be responsive to the referral source, the patient, the insurance company. Right. Balance those oftentimes competing priorities

Heath Fletcher:

Mhmm.

Jeffrey Petersen:

So that we can do a good service and get paid for it. But that's the most complex part of it. They but the processes of doing all that, it's people calling to make an appointment. Are they received efficiently? Do they do they do we collect the information we need efficiently without having it be laborious to the patient?

Jeffrey Petersen:

Are we friendly? They get in. They get seen. Do they reach their goals? Do we document everything so it's appropriate so that we can bill it out and get paid?

Jeffrey Petersen:

Of course, those rules tend to change over time, and that's an area where AI has been helpful.

Heath Fletcher:

Mhmm.

Jeffrey Petersen:

And then do we follow-up and make sure we've what we call a paid up completion. Someone's got the service and they've completely paid their bill and they're happy with their service, and they would refer someone else to us. And so we do get a lot of we've been around long enough to you know, I see patients that off and on that I've seen for thirty years. You know?

Heath Fletcher:

Really? Wow. Amazing. And that's not I mean, physical theory out, you know, you wouldn't think that's a ongoing return client system. You know?

Heath Fletcher:

It's almost like

Jeffrey Petersen:

It certainly can be. Because I

Heath Fletcher:

Pain begun. Yeah. You know? Pain begun, so am I.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yeah. Know? Interesting.

Heath Fletcher:

So then so then then I guess you can how you know, building that sort of ongoing, is that kind of a is that sort of helping someone understand the the the benefits of having

Jeffrey Petersen:

a

Heath Fletcher:

proactive health plan, like, if they have ongoing or chronic pain or things like that? Is that kind of what you try to do too?

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yeah. I think what what creates the return clients more so is they appreciate the value of do I not to move around too much? Appreciate the value of having a coach, a support system.

Heath Fletcher:

Right. Right.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Who is empathetic. And when they get through it and you know, because anyone could look up online what exercises to do for shoulder pain and some people do that and do well. Yeah.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah.

Jeffrey Petersen:

But many people need because of

Heath Fletcher:

That connection.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Because pain is an emotional and sensory experience. What it

Heath Fletcher:

comes back to. Yeah.

Jeffrey Petersen:

They need people

Heath Fletcher:

They need the emotional support

Jeffrey Petersen:

as well as they They need to be heard and listened to and seen

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah. Yeah.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Do you understand? Do you understand? And and I've heard the descriptions of

Heath Fletcher:

because the spouse is going, yeah, I know. I hear you complain about

Jeffrey Petersen:

it all

Heath Fletcher:

the time. Go do something about it.

Jeffrey Petersen:

I always coach I always coach patients, you know, you should find someone to talk to about your pain, but don't include your spouse.

Heath Fletcher:

Yes. Anybody.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yes. And you have to also be careful. Know, my wife my wife experiences hip pain off and on. She's indepicable. And you share with your girlfriends.

Jeffrey Petersen:

And, of course, they all say, well, you need a hip replacement. So it's always good to have an someone who has

Heath Fletcher:

Oh, yeah. That's super popular right now. Everyone's

Jeffrey Petersen:

getting Yeah. Just get yeah. Get one. I got one. I you know?

Jeffrey Petersen:

And and and they're

Heath Fletcher:

They'll outlive you.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yeah. They're great surgeries, but, you know, whether it's dental work, heart surgery, orthopedic surgery, replacement parts are never as good as the original health part.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yeah. Now once a part becomes so unhealthy that it needs to be replaced, then I'm all for it and people do well. Sure. But that's that's where you need a level of expertise to say, but what hap what what many of the physicians respond to is, well, she keeps coming in complaining of hip pain. Okay.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Well, you know, doctors do not want you to be complaining of pain. You can I could find somebody to do surgery on my elbow today if I complain to enough doctors that my elbow hurts? Yeah. And they say, okay, let's go in and see what we can do. And I think they're very helpful.

Jeffrey Petersen:

The really good surgeons know how to select their patients so that they get really good outcomes. Right. And so that's something that we've been doing more and more as I've gotten older and I've got gray hair, people will come in and say, what do you think? And so with my wife, we got her on an exercise program, did some dry needling and, you know, it still hurts if she has some helping her see, okay. Well, what did you do yesterday?

Jeffrey Petersen:

Well, you know, I really I hadn't hiked in about two months, and I went for a hike. Okay. Can you see that this is a short term pain, you're gonna get through it, get back on your exercise, we'll see how you feel in three days, and sure enough, she feels better. So being able help people make those health decisions is something that I have kind of found myself falling into over the year because we do have people coming back and say, well, what do you think of this? What do you think of that?

Jeffrey Petersen:

And I'm always happy to do that because

Heath Fletcher:

There's some trust there then.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yeah.

Heath Fletcher:

They trust your judgment

Jeffrey Petersen:

and And I've got forty years of ex you know, of experience working with people. So you can see, you you know, there are a couple times I've looked at someone and say, yeah. Yeah. You really need a hip replacement.

Heath Fletcher:

You should You're like a sage now.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yeah. Yeah. Say again.

Heath Fletcher:

You're like a sage.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Like a sage. Yeah. I think my wife dealer. When I come home from where she might might wanna burn some sage because it's really hot here in Arizona. But

Heath Fletcher:

So I had another question for you, and I had to go back to the spot. So you you have ongoing clients. And so some of therapists, they hone in on a certain type of therapy, like sports therapy or performance therapy or something like that. You kind of sound like you stayed fairly general as to an area as not and didn't go into a specific area. But how did you find clients?

Heath Fletcher:

So how do clients find you? I mean, in '84, we were using the Yellow Pages. But Now what are you doing?

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. Because we did we used to have a yellow page ad.

Heath Fletcher:

That's all we needed in those days.

Jeffrey Petersen:

And one of the big things were

Heath Fletcher:

You need triple a physiotherapy.

Jeffrey Petersen:

I was just gonna say one of things was you gotta get those a's in there. You have to have

Heath Fletcher:

a good name. A m a or triple a, a a.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Totally. And those were not those were not inexpensive back in the day. In '92, like, $1,200 a month for, like, a little quarter page ad.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's it.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yeah. So, I mean, we I started out, honestly, by just picking up the phone and calling doctors and saying, you know what? I'm sitting here, and I am a physical therapist. And why don't you send me your worst patients, the ones that you I actually called physicians that had their own physical

Heath Fletcher:

Is that right? Cold calling physicians?

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yeah. I just said, listen. Will you send me your patients that you don't wanna deal with because they're just a pain? And so and so then

Heath Fletcher:

Well, you're also relieving their pain.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yes. Absolutely. Say, give me your challenging patient.

Heath Fletcher:

That's hilarious.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yeah. And that and ultimately, I developed the the philosophy or the promise with unconditional positive regard. We meet our patients where they are. We don't judge anyone for being in pain. I I I don't accept when people come and say, I'm sorry.

Jeffrey Petersen:

I'm sorry because I don't be sorry. You know, we're we're not judging you. And we meet them where they are and help them move forward because what I've learned is if you can move one step forward, then you can take two, then you might take three. So we developed that philosophy. And and, of course, nowadays, it's stuff like this, you know, doing YouTube videos on exercises.

Jeffrey Petersen:

We still do visits to physicians' offices, sending out an email to each of our patients to say, here is a if you have shoulder pain, here are some exercises. You know, so trying to contribute some information to them.

Heath Fletcher:

Educationally. Yeah.

Jeffrey Petersen:

And let them know that we're still here if you have more questions. Mhmm. So a lot of online marketing, a lot of YouTube marketing, and then we still do we still have someone who goes up and visits physicians to say, hey. We're still

Heath Fletcher:

here. Yep. On the beating the path. Yes. On foot.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yeah. And we know, our we our practice has gotten to a point where you build up a certain momentum, and then it's a matter of keeping it going as opposed to starting. Mhmm. I was talking to one therapist, and she was struggling a little bit, private practitioner, and and I I've been there where she was where you just feel so discouraged because you're doing you're engaging the process, but you're not getting the outcome. Right.

Jeffrey Petersen:

And then just step back and remember, you know, we it's a lot easier to increase or improve my production five or 6% at the place I'm at than it was to get started.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah.

Jeffrey Petersen:

You know, we've the process doesn't change. It's just a matter of saying, okay. What steps have I neglected, and what do I need to get back to? Mhmm.

Heath Fletcher:

Back to the process.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yes. Back to the process. And the best thing we can do for our our marketing is just to really treat our patients well so that when they leave, they will refer other patients to us.

Heath Fletcher:

That's the gold. Yeah. For sure. And you're definitely in that category where people are telling other people, oh, I have pain, and now it's gone. And that guy did it.

Heath Fletcher:

Jeff did it. Jeff fixed me. You know? Yeah. It's a great

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yeah. Or the team. I I try to emphasize the team too.

Heath Fletcher:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So The Jeff team. Yeah.

Heath Fletcher:

Cool. That's awesome. This has been great, Jeff. Really appreciate you sharing me sharing with me your experience and your journey, and I'm like, I I think your book's gonna be great. Awesome.

Heath Fletcher:

I'm looking forward to it.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yeah. I'll let do.

Heath Fletcher:

If people wanna reach out to you, what's the best place to get more information about your clinics?

Jeffrey Petersen:

Peterson, maybe Peterson, alle's,pt.com.

Heath Fletcher:

K. And anyone wants to connect with you? LinkedIn?

Jeffrey Petersen:

You can go right there. Yep. LinkedIn or even our Facebook.

Heath Fletcher:

Through the website.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Yep.

Heath Fletcher:

Awesome. Anything we didn't cover you wanna mention?

Jeffrey Petersen:

No. We could

Heath Fletcher:

Before we say goodbye?

Jeffrey Petersen:

Talk about I could tell you stories forever. You know, I'm an old guy. No. Not many people We

Heath Fletcher:

could do.

Jeffrey Petersen:

Us old guys. So when you get a captive audience, it's like, yeah. Let's keep going on and on. I appreciate your time.

Heath Fletcher:

I can relate.

Jeffrey Petersen:

I appreciate your time. Yeah. Doing a good job with your podcast too. Keep it up.

Heath Fletcher:

Right right now, man. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Alright. Take care.

Heath Fletcher:

Well, that's a wrap for another episode and my conversation with Jeff Peterson. One thing is clear. Healing is not just physical. It's emotional. It's personal, and it takes a whole person approach.

Heath Fletcher:

Jeff's passion for patient care and the way he's built his clinic led practice grounded in empathy and growth is truly inspiring. I'm definitely gonna be keeping an eye out for Jeff's upcoming book in the shadow of pain set to release early next year. Please reach out to Jeff if you would like to connect with him, and you can visit his website. The link is below. And if you're in pain, please get the support you need, and I truly hope you find a path, to healing that works for you.

Heath Fletcher:

Thank you for tuning in to the Healthy Enterprise podcast. We'll be back soon with more stories and insights. So please subscribe and share. And until next time, take care and stay healthy.