If you want success as a physical therapist, watch this video

Show Notes

In this episode, Dr. JJ discusses the importance of the concept that the way you do one thing is the way you do everything. She emphasizes that maintaining high standards in all aspects of life is crucial as a physical therapist and a successful cash-based practice. Raising your standards will not only impact you but also influence how patients perceive you and the outcomes of your work, which will lead you to success in both your personal and professional life.

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What is The Dr. JJ Thomas Podcast?

Welcome to The Dr. JJ Thomas Podcast! Here I'll be talking all things physical therapy, raw and unplugged, giving you the unfiltered insights you've been searching for in your cash-based physical therapy business. If you're caught in the grind of the traditional model, swamped with paperwork, or feeling like you're not reaching your full potential as a physical therapist, this podcast was created just for you.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 00:00

Standards are a habit. Right? We make habits out of life. If you let your standards come down for anything in your own life, you're going to give that across, give that perception across to your patients, and you're not gonna be successful. Welcome to the doctor JJ Thomas podcast.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 00:23

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the doctor JJ Thomas podcast. I'm doctor JJ Thomas. Happy to be here with you again today. And today's episode, we're going to talk about something very important to me.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 00:35

And it should be important to you if you wanna be successful in your cash based practice. And what that something is is the concept that the way you do one thing is the way you do everything. And so think about that phrase for a minute. I know that phrase is often thrown thrown around in motivational, talks and in on social media. And I want to spend the next little bit of time with you guys just really analyzing what that concept, though, means for your business and the success of your business.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 01:05

Let's put a framework around it. Let's talk about what we're here for. Right? We're here. You're listening to this, likely because you want advice.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 01:13

You want direction on how to make your cash based practice a success. And what I'm here to tell you in this episode is that the way you're gonna make your cash based practice a success is by making sure that the way you do everything is with intention, with purpose, with a specific standard. Right? And the good news is that if you signed up to listen to this episode, if you're logged in and you're hearing me right now, you already are someone who has who has standards. You are someone who is an achiever Because chances are, if you are attracted to this message of the way you do one thing is the way you do everything, you already know this to be true in your life.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 01:55

Right? And so I'm here to just amplify that for you and to maybe help you up your game from 85 to 90% to a 110% to give you the results that your practice deserves and your patients deserve. So congratulations. You're here. You already are somebody who cares about standards.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 02:13

You're already somebody who's an achiever in life. Hopefully, in the next 15 minutes or so, what I'm gonna convince you of is that if you take that to a 110%, it's gonna show in your practice and your business. So let's bring it to exactly the framework of the business. Let's think about why people choose to come to Cash Based practice. Right?

Dr. JJ Thomas: 02:32

They come here. They come to you. They come to me because they want someone who's above average. They want someone who's going to exceed the standards that other people have met. Okay?

Dr. JJ Thomas: 02:44

So what does that mean for you as a practitioner? What it means is everything you do better show them that. I'm talking about, yes, in the practice itself. I've talked before on the episodes how I have this real pet peeve about therapists not putting pillowcases on the pillows. And I I mean, you probably think I'm exaggerating it, but I'm really not.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 03:06

I it's a peeve of mine. Because if you can't take 8 seconds while you're asking a patient how they are to put a pillowcase on, what other corners are you gonna take in their treatment? And what does that show your patients about how you're gonna expect your own standards of care when you're working with them? So the little things matter. I've talked before in episodes about when they walk in the door, make sure you make eye contact with them.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 03:29

All of those little things really, really matter. So take the time to do the things that you think may not be clinically important, because what they are important is gaining that patient's buy in and belief and, understanding that you are a 110% worth paying cash for. Ask yourself this too. So beyond the clinical setting. Right?

Dr. JJ Thomas: 03:51

Like, obviously, you're going to wanna have an amazing standard of care for your patients in terms of your evaluation, the treatment you give them, all of those things. That goes without saying. I just gave you another piece of advice on, like, how how the little things within the clinic matter. Right? Like, making sure the table is super clean when you when you bring them back.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 04:11

All of those little, little things that are not little things, they add up. But, additionally, I want you to ask yourself, what behaviors in your life outside of your clinic, outside of your treatment with your patients, what behaviors are you doing, and how is your standard of how is your standard for those behaviors? Things like honoring yourself when you say you're gonna get up at a certain time. When you go to bed and you're tired, but you set that alarm because you know what? I'm gonna get up and work out because when I work out in the morning, I I'm in a better mood.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 04:44

My head is clear. I do better for my patients. I do better for my family. So when you set that alarm the night before, you better damn well get up that next day. You better listen to that alarm and actually get up.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 04:55

If you don't, you're doing 2 things. You're telling yourself, number 1, you're okay with sub with with substandard. You're okay with adequate. And when you keep telling yourself you're okay with adequate, you're not gonna feel very confident, and you're you're gonna exude that to your patients. So just by getting up in the morning when you tell yourself you're gonna get up, you're building your own confidence.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 05:14

You're building your own brand. You're showing your patients that you have your own buy in, And not only are you showing them that, you're exuding it. You believe it. You're like, you know what? I have the right to ask you to do this exercise for 3 minutes after work today because I know it's hard.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 05:30

Because I got my ass up at quarter to 5 today because I only had 15 minutes to do my exercise. Like, trust me. You're not gonna, like, rub that in their face, but the point is in your heart, you know that if you do these things, then you've earned the right to ask your patient to do those things. So Eric, you guys have heard and maybe met Eric through previous podcast. But the other day, just this week, I went to CrossFit.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 05:51

I go twice a week religiously. And, I got out of CrossFit, and I had some missed messages. And I and I saw a notification that Eric posted a reel. And I was like, ah, let me look at this before I hop in the car. So I so I look at it.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 06:05

It's fire. It is like it's such a fire reel. It's freaking it's a message that was so on point that other therapists needed to hear. It was a great representation of it was basically he had a post op patient who I actually don't know the history. He was he was all immobilized in the distal leg.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 06:23

Like, think it might have been a Kelly's tendon repair, but totally immobilized in the lower leg. And Eric's reel was, hey, guys. Just because you're immobilized in the distal extremity doesn't mean that you can't do shit with your patients. Like, you owe it to them to have especially athletes. So he had him doing all of these things to keep his limb active and, and recruiting.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 06:45

So he was doing side planks. He was doing everything that was well within the restrictions of the immobilization for the distal low extremity, but he was he was really getting after it with this athlete so that he was making use of the time he could with other areas of the body. It was fire. He had, like, 5 awesome exercises. The music was the best.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 07:04

It was like trendsetter. I don't know if I'm allowed to say that, but I did. It was like that song trendsetter. Great vibes. Anyway, I looked at this, and I was like, Eric freaking hit it this morning.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 07:14

And my second thought was, guarantee, sometimes well, recently, he's been in this pattern of getting up and going to one of his buddies' gyms down the road. He goes at, like, 4:30 in the morning when he has to meet his friend, and I knew it. I saw this reel, and I'm like, guaranteed Eric frickin' went to Tom's Gym today before he did this reel because this this reel's fire. And when Eric goes and works out at 4:30 in the morning, he's fire. So I got to work.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 07:39

I'm like, Eric, that reel was fire. He's like, you like it? I said, yes. I like it. I'm like, did you go to Tom's today?

Dr. JJ Thomas: 07:44

He's like, damn right I did. I knew it. I mean, I am telling you it will exude from how you're treating your patients to the reels you're making to how you're living your life because you can't fake awesomeness. Like, you can't you can't not do the work and then all of a sudden try to tell people you're doing the work. It just doesn't it doesn't work.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 08:03

If you have any semblance of honor in your body, you can't not do the things that you told yourself you're gonna do and then all of a sudden expect people to believe you when you say I do these things. Uh-uh. It shows. And without even knowing that Eric went to the gym that day, I knew he went to the gym. And I happened to see a video that his friend posted later of him working out.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 08:22

And he was firing the workout. Like, it shows. He was firing the workout. He left there all pumped up. Like, yes, I I kicked ass today, and it showed in all aspects of life.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 08:32

So the point is you owe it to yourself to hold stay hold yourself to this standard. So like I said earlier in the episode, if you're someone that's listening to this, you already are someone with standards. Because you're listening to this looking for self growth, You're listening to this looking for ways to make yourself be better. So I'm here to tell you, you know what you need to do. All you need to do is be honest with yourself in terms of honoring your own promises to yourself.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 08:58

You have to keep your game at a 110% every time with your patients when they come in the door, and that goes for all the clinical but also nonclinical things that you're doing. And you have to do those things with your family as well. Like, every single aspect of your life, think about how you can keep your standards so that you're practicing what you preach. I wanna tell a story about, one of the first times this concept became important to me. And you guys have heard me talk about my mentor, Paul, before.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 09:28

I started with Paul when I was 14 as a tech. Like, I was a high school student. I came across Paul's, clinic when I was a softball player, and we would walk through the the PT area to go work out. And every time I walk by, I'm like, that's pretty what? They've done something pretty cool over there.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 09:44

What is and I so I thought, maybe I wanna do that. So I thought, how could I know what I wanna do? I was actually 14. How could I know what I wanna do at 14? So I I started volunteering, and and that's how I got linked in with these guys.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 09:56

But the point is, at a very young age, at 14, I started working with Paul, and I had that work ethic. Like, I had that I mentioned before. Like, I literally if there wasn't an opportunity to to learn and be helpful to them in terms of getting ice packs or doing, you know, helping them get equipment for exercises or whatever it was, I would literally do the things that no one would think of doing. Like, I remember at one point, we have all these carts. You know?

Dr. JJ Thomas: 10:23

I remember, like, cleaning the crevices to the cart, and I didn't know if anybody was watching. I didn't care if anyone was watching because I needed to do a 110%. And if you do a 110%, you're gonna people are gonna notice. But even if they don't notice, it's gonna show on you Because you walk I walked out of that clinic every day being, like, I did a 110%, and whether or not it made an immediate difference, it's gonna make a difference because it's building my own self esteem in a way that I can exude that and and carry that on to other patients. So that's what I did.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 10:54

I found ways that were out of the box to make sure that I was taking stress off the PTs that were working their ass off there because they love their job. That's what I did. And as you've heard the story goes, Paul hired me. And so few years later actually, many years later, I remember having this conversation with him because at this point, I was a PT now. So I was 14.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 11:14

I was with Paul all that time. I went to school. I went to college. I went to PT school. Now I'm a PT, and I was his right hand guy for the longest time.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 11:22

And I remember him telling me this story about when he interviews, PTs for positions. He purposefully will have an interview, like a standard interview. He's at the desk. They're at the opposite side of the desk, and they'll do a typical interview. And he said he said, I'll deliberately when we finish the interview, I'll walk them out.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 11:44

And as I'm walking them out, I'll talk casually with them. And he says, and I might lean against the wall while I'm doing it. And he says, and if they take that opportunity to let their guard down and lean against the wall or lean and, like, let their posture go and lean, he's like, I'm definitely gonna think twice about hiring them. And I remember, like, woah. I remember him saying that, and I remember thinking, woah.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 12:08

I better be careful. Like, I better not I better not and and he and I were really close at this point. I have so much respect for him. But I just remember thinking, you know what? He's a 100% right.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 12:17

That's an interview. Whether you're walking out of the interview or not, every minute you're with that person matters. And if you're so casual and your standards are not up here to a point where you're willing to, like, let it all go, you know, 30 minutes after meeting this guy, that's not the kind of person he wants to hire. He wants somebody who's ramped up all the time, excited despite that he's earned the right to lean against that wall. But if you're interviewing for a position, you better keep keep your standards up, keep your posture up, keep your presentation up.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 12:50

And that was one of the first times I was like, man, every little detail matters. Every little detail matters. I'm I'm gonna tell you another interview story that came to mind when I was thinking about this episode, and I've heard, I don't know. I mentioned the book Man Up before, Baydros Coullian. Amazing, amazing entrepreneur and coach.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 13:06

In his book I I think it was Man Up. I've heard him talk a lot, so I'm not exactly sure where I heard this, but I'm pretty sure it was in Man Up where he, he said that I definitely heard him say it in a in a live speaking event. He says that what he does when he's, interviewing someone as well is he almost tries to scare them into not taking the job. Like, he he will scare them to the point where he's like, you're you're gonna have to do this. You're gonna have to this is what I expect, and this is what I expect, and this is what I expect, and boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 13:38

To the point where if they're afraid of that, they're not right for him. If their standards aren't here, they're not right for him, and that's great. Weed those people out. So I want you to think about that right now in terms of your patients. Right?

Dr. JJ Thomas: 13:52

If your patients don't see by your actions, by your posture, by the little things that you do, by the way you treat your own life and your own habits, how are they gonna know that you're gonna put those same standards to themselves? Standards are a habit. Right? We make habits out of life. If you let your standards come down for anything in your own life, you're going to give that across, give that perception across to your patients, and you're not gonna be successful.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 14:21

Covering all those avenues of your own life and making sure that you're holding yourself to a high standard, and the standard that, honestly, that you're gonna expect from your patients anyway is what's gonna give your brand what it needs to show people that you're worth coming to. I wanna share with you another social media interaction I came across, just this week, actually. Jen Gottlieb. She's a real great personality. Follower if you don't already.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 14:43

She's, she's very well followed and with good reason. I saw an Instagram piece of hers that basically was her giving a presentation on the way you do things. It's the same. The way you do one thing is the way you do everything. She didn't necessarily say it that way.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 14:58

But what she said is the way you're giving attention to social media, for instance, is how your audience is going to perceive you. And so her example was, look. If you're the person that, you know, maybe social media isn't your thing, and you're posting on social media, and you'll post 3 times 1 week, and then you disappear, and then you don't post for another week. And then all of a sudden, you come back, and you post twice, and then you disappear again. And to her point, what does that show your audience?

Dr. JJ Thomas: 15:25

What does that show your patients, for example? It shows them that they can't count on you. It shows them that you're inconsistent. So when she said that, I was like, yes. You know, when I was earlier on in my marketing piece for primal physical therapy and primal university, I think I was I was a little hesitant to post a lot on social media because what if somebody doesn't wanna hear what I have to say?

Dr. JJ Thomas: 15:47

What if what if they're like, oh my god. She's posting so much. So what? Right? I owe it to the people that wanna hear what I have to say to continue to put out the content.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 15:56

And that's what Jen Gottlieb was saying. She was like, look. If the people that are following you can't count on you to be there for them, why should they be there in the first place? And so that same thing hit me with this episode because I'm like, the the way you do one thing is the way you do everything. So even if you're not comfortable posting on social media, you owe it to people.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 16:14

You owe it to your practice. You owe it to those patients to get the content out there and show them how you can help them. That's why we're here today. That's why I'm here to tell you, work on yourself. Get your ass up in the morning.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 16:26

Get your workouts in. Meal prep if you have to to eat right. Follow your own code. Make sure that code puts you at a standard that's up here that will exude from yourself, that will exude to your patients, and then that's all gonna show in your clinical outcomes with your patients. And your patients are gonna have a 110% buy in because they're like, well, shit.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 16:46

Jay just got it all figured out. This person's got it all figured out. They're getting up and doing the work, and look how it's paying out for them, and it will pay out. So the way you do one thing is the way you do everything. Please take it from way more than just a phrase that you pass and scroll through on social media.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 17:02

Really analyze your life and ask yourself, what aspects of your life could you be doing better to make it? If if this one aspect was gonna define your success, how can you do it at a 110% so it'll show through in your own successful life? Thanks for joining me today. I hope this was helpful. If you have any questions or any other ways that I can help you be a success in your cash based practice or as a clinician, always feel free to reach out.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 17:26

Love hearing from you. And just be sure to subscribe to our channel so that you don't miss any of the clinical content or the, content content on what we're doing here with CASH based practices. Take care.