[Transcript starts at 1:13]
Hello friends, Maestro here and welcome back to another episode of my favorite podcast. So if you're watching the video, check it out, check it out. Got a new haircut today, not a new haircut. Got a haircut today. It's always my favorite, my most favorite day. Hopefully it doesn't get too crazy while I'm talking, but either way makes me feel like a million bucks.
So today's episode, we are talking about why I left physical therapy. I was on a podcast yesterday with my girl, AZ, and she had some phenomenal questions. And she's a firefighter and we were talking about kind of career transitions, transitions and things like that. Kind of got my brain going and I was like, I don't think I've actually done an episode that's dedicated to why I left physical therapy.
Um, and if I have, no harm in doing one again, because well once is never, and yeah. So I figured I'd use today to talk about that. Um, another, just as I should say, a quick, there's like a lot of tongue twister there. A quick update. This morning I went back and played volleyball. I don't wanna say I played volleyball for the first time again.
Uh, but I did a semiprivate lesson with Diana and I got a long way to go, but there's nothing bad happened, and I get it. Pain is a lagging indicator. So you don't wanna really use that to be like, how, how good did things go? Um, or how well did things go? But I went and had the session and I'm excited, like it went well.
I record these episodes, obviously before they go out. And so in one of the prior episodes I was talking about, you know, that I should have had the lesson today. I had the lesson and I got two more lined up after this. I'm definitely not ready to go back into playing because I'm very much focused on my legs and my, and my knee when I'm playing and I'm not focusing anything else, which is not so good for the sport.
Um, a lot of business lessons I think to be applied here. I know this is a bit of a tangent, but just stick with me. When we're learning things, especially like reading about business, reading about anything in general, but when we're reading things, in theory, it can be so simple. You're like, oh, of course you just do that and you do that and there's no problem.
But then you get in the arena and maybe you get hit in the face and you're like, oh, it's different. That was today where like, I can watch volleyball. I can play my driveway when it's just me. I did a, a private lesson with Steven, my coach, not too long ago and, you know, building confidence and things like that.
But as soon as I stepped on today and we introduced a variable, which was another player in this case, Diana, everything changed. And I was like, oh my God, can I do this? Like, I'm focus my, the output is bad, I'm not doing well. And that's what it's like when you actually choose to do something as, as opposed to just read about it. So we're not going backwards or anything like that.
It was just like, hey we're actually going forward and here's a new challenge and uh, just for those you keeping, keeping up with the knee, it is improving, it's doing well and onward and upward. So that does tie in today's, into today's episode because I will always be a physical therapist. I titled the episode Why I Left Physical Therapy, just cuz it's punchier, it makes sense.
But I will always be a physical therapist and I'll die in that hill it is the best first career. I do wanna speak about why I decided to stop treating and decided to step away from it. Cause I will always have that skillset and I've utilized that skillset to help rehab my knee. And I think that it's, you know, for me that for that, amongst many other reasons, is why physical therapy is the bir- best first career.
So a little bit of background. For those of you don't know, I am still a physical therapist. I'm still licensed. Uh, but I graduated in 2010 and went to NYU and I basically went to physical therapy school because I decided not to go to medical school. I think a lot of us kind of went that route and I was seeing my friends not get accepted to medical school, and I was a little bit nervous about things and I was like, do I actually want this?
Do I wanna have to struggle, perhaps for the rest of forever in the, you know, the white boys clubs because I wanted to go into orthopedic medicine and I was like, do I wanna struggle and do I want that to be the only thing that I can do time-wise? And I was just like, I don't think so. My advisor at the time was like, how about physical therapy?
I had had had exposure to physical therapy because I had torn my ACL when I was 15 . And while I knew my orthopedic surgeon, I knew him because he happened to be my basketball coach. Um, but that was like the most interaction I had with him was because he was my coach, not because he was my surgeon.
Whereas with physical therapy, I got to hang out with these physical therapists. They largely, they got me back to sports. It was a big thing like, and I was a big athlete in the town and we had like were in the paper and it was all this stuff and I was like, you know, this is pretty cool. So I had that exposure to it and my, uh, advisor,
my advisor from college was just like, how about physical therapy? Cuz I was like kind of going back and forth with things and I was like, okay. So I went to physical therapy school, didn't really enjoy it. Thought that it was too easy. And I say that because I was used to having to work very, very hard to do well.
And instead of being like, oh, this like comes naturally, maybe you're really good at it, I was like, it's not hard enough and didn't love it. Graduated in 2010, didn't love treating, and was almost immediately disenchanted by the model. And was asking myself, am I actually helping people? I wasn't sure. Like people would just like, come in there for six weeks, not doing the thing that they loved, and then we put 'em back out into the world and then they're like, oh, it hurts again.
I was like, am i actually helping people or, or what's the deal here? So I switched locations trying to, I don't know, combat that feeling I was having. And that actually is what got me into pelvic floor physical therapy. Those of you who don't know, I was a pelvic floor physical therapist for, starting in 2013, so, you know, 2013 on, uh, that's what I did.
And, uh, I, I stepped away from it kind of in 2016 when I stopped treating formally, uh, in New York City. Um, but I, I did that for a few years and I started my cash based side hustle in 2015. So, disenchanted by the model, trying to figure out something to keep me in the model, keep me in, interested in physical therapy, moved locations, started doing pelvic floor physical therapy, which totally opened my eyes to a completely different way of treating.
Just so much. Opened my eyes to so many things. Uh, and then in 2015, started The Movement Maestro, started my cash based side hustle. That would eventually become my main time, my main time, my full-time quote unquote full-time gig. And I officially stopped treating in 2018. So I moved to California, had a place to treat and was treating sporadically and
quite frankly, the reason that I was still treating from 2015 to 2018 was that I wanted to stay relevant cuz I was teaching for RockTape. That was my passion. Teaching, traveling, meeting new people. I loved it, but I knew that I needed to stay relevant with what I was teaching and not just teach from theory, which was what I was speaking about earlier in the episode.
Because when you get in the arena, sudden you're like, oh, that plan doesn't work. I, I need help here. So I was staying in the arena treating, getting clients from the online space, um, that would come see me in, in person and I officially stopped treating, the last day that I treated, I don't remember the specific day,
uh, was 2018. For me, physical therapy has always been and was always designed to be a safety net. I knew that if all else failed, I could go get a job at a hospital, I might hate it, but I would always have a way to pay my bills and provide for myself and have a roof over my head. That was always a big, big thing for me.
You folks that, you know, listened to the podcast for a bit and you know, safety is one of my biggest values and is something that I greatly value. If I was ever forced to look at the future with that terrible question of like, where do you see yourself in five years, then yeah, I would go along with being a physical therapist or I would go along with the answer of being a physical therapist, but it was never my true passion.
I actually have an episode, I don't think it's actually on Apple because it only does a hundred, you know, the last 300 episodes. But episode 119, we'll link it in the show notes. Thank you, Courtney. Uh, was actually titled, I Don't Like Treating. And that episode did very well. People, it really resonated with a lot of people, largely cuz other folks felt the same, but they just were scared to say it, felt bad saying it.
And I never really liked treating. I love assessment. I love figuring out the puzzle, but then I'm like, okay, you're an adult. Go do the thing now. We'll check in in a little bit. Uh, and I had written an article, I think it was probably in 2015. I'm not a hundred percent certain. I went and Googled it before I did this episode.
Doing some recon, uh, for the episode. And it was, I wrote the article for the company at the time was called New Grad Physical Therapy, NGPT. I think they got sold cuz when I Googled the article it came up, but it was, I'm looking on the computer now, it was through Core Medical Group. So I don't know, I guess they got sold to them.
They got bought. Um, but I wrote that article and it was called The Road Less Traveled. And it was just talking about career options after, uh, graduating from physical therapy school. So I believe that was around 2015. I met my girl Sara Suddes through there, Dr. Sara Suddes, through that article. Um, that was like really the first, one of the first forays I had into, one of the earliest forays I had into meeting people from the online space that had reached out to me that were impacted by my work.
And I was like, wow. And we've we're still friends to this day, just, if you're listening to this, Sara, you know, I got big love for you. Um, but, but all of that to say treatment has never been my passion. I knew that from the get-go. And yes, I would go along if people were like, where do you see yourself in the future?
Okay, cool. A physical therapist, because that's what I was doing. But I hate that question. I hate that, where do you see yourself in five years? For me, the question that I would prefer be asked is, could you see yourself doing this in five years? And then from there, if not, what would change? And that's largely how I've lived my life,
it's been a, a journey of exclusion where it's like, I don't like this, let me cross that off. I don't know necessarily what I want to do. But we as humans, we are very good at knowing what we don't like and what we've already done. So I said, let me, I said to myself, let me cross these things off that I don't like
and then create space for new things to fill in. New things that I definitely like and new things that I don't know I like yet, but could learn to like or could realize that I like because I've now experienced them. So if I was to ask myself this question now, could I see myself doing what I'm doing right now in five years? For the most part,
absolutely. I could live here in five years. I will definitely be living in this area, uh, in five years. I do have a feeling as to what would change if things change five years from now, and maybe another episode I'll talk about that. Just gonna leave you hanging. Uh, but yeah. To me, the better question is could you see yourself doing what you're doing now in five years?
And I don't think that's a bad thing. I think people ask that question, they're almost like, you should be changing and doing new things. And I'm like, why? If you're happy, if it ain't broke, my friends don't fix it. So that's exactly why I left PT, right to answer the question of the title, or there was no question the title, to speak to the title of this episode, Why I Left PT,
it was that. It was exactly for that. I couldn't see myself doing it in five more years. I didn't want to be doing what I was doing in five years, so I started to strip things away. I wasn't sure if it was the location, being in New York City. I wasn't sure if it was the hours. I wasn't sure if it was the demographic.
Uh, but I knew, I, I hesitated there because part of me knew it was the demographic. That's why I switched to pelvic floor physical therapy. And then I was like, dude, I can't keep doing this for sure. Maybe I could do ortho, maybe I could do more home stuff. I don't know. But I knew that I couldn't do exactly that, and I did not want to be doing exactly that in five years.
So, I worked to strip away the things that I didn't wanna be doing one thing at a time. I started with changing my hours. I asked for four 10 hour days, which was terrible. That was terrible. Do not recommend that if you are in, uh, kind of the traditional model where you see a lot of patients, because then you see like 24 patients in a day, and then Friday was just a, a catastrophe.
A disaster. Um, but that was a start. I was like, let me try to cross these things off. Let me see, let me change some stuff and see what I actually do like. And in doing so, eventually PT got stripped away completely. So perhaps the episode should be called Why I Stopped Treating. Um, cuz like I said earlier, I will always be a physical therapist.
I will always have this skillset and this is, like I said earlier, one of the reasons I will die on the hill that physical therapy is one of, if not the best first careers. Cause they cannot take away your skills. I felt like the guy from, um, what is it, not Gladiator when he has the paint on his face and like, you'll never take my freedom, you'll never take my skillset.
Never. There was no abrupt walking away from physical therapy. I didn't like flip a table like something out of housewives. It was just something that happened gradually over time, doing less of what I didn't like and creating space for things that I did like or would come to like to be able to fill in.
So, like I was saying, so many great things about physical therapy. But so many not so great things. And these are the things I looked to cross off the list and why I eventually left and how I left. I didn't like babysitting people. I didn't like counting reps. I think a lot of trainers feel the same way, but I just like, I didn't like doing that and holding people's hands through things.
I was like, you're an adult. I love helping you figure out what's going on, but now go and do this yourself. And that was the model that I adopted, right? So when I started treating and having my side hustle, that's what I did. I didn't see people all the time. They came, you know, I don't wanna say spontaneously, but sporadically, they were, their sessions were more spread out.
And it was a model that I did like, but again, could I see myself doing that forever? Definitely not. Could I see myself doing that for five more years? No. So I worked to gradually cross those things off. Uh, a big thing, and I think that, I think a lot of people can understand this, and this extends to more than just physical therapy, but I didn't like taking people's shit on. Working with people who are in pain,
physical pain, is incredibly difficult. And it can be incredibly rewarding, and it's, you know, a super valuable career for those of you that are still doing it. But it, it can be incredibly draining. And yes, you need to be able to separate the things and protect yourself and put up barriers, but sometimes I didn't want to, and you wanna help the people.
And you do take it on. And I was like, I would just rather not be in this environment as opposed to, um, how do I wanna say this? I would rather just not walk into the fire as opposed to trying to make myself fire proof. So I worked to across that off, and I was like, I don't, obviously, I, I stopped, I, I started by not working with folks who were dealing with chronic pain and making things, you know, working people who are in with more acute things and things like that.
But still, I was like, I, I don't love this. This is not what I wanna do. So cross, looked to cross that off. I didn't wanna go and work in an office. I love being home. I know that Covid for a lot of people, showed them that they did like being home and other people did not like being home. They like being with other people.
They like being able to go to an office and separate things. I love being home. I love working from home. I can go out and be social, but I love that my office is here. I love what I've done to my office. I love that I keep get, to keep, you know, iterating and improving this space. I love it. I never want to have an office.
I dunno if I should knock on with something like that, but like, I, I don't, I could, yes, yes, I could see myself five years from now still doing this exactly like this, but probably bigger. Like I have more lights and stuff in here. I don't know. But either way, I didn't want that. I didn't wanna have to go into that office.
I didn't, I didn't like that model. I didn't like doing that. I didn't like being a physical therapist. I will always be one, but I didn't like being a practicing physical therapist, so I worked to cross that off. Now I will say that I had both inherent and earned privilege that allowed me to make this switch.
And I'm thinking I'm, I'm tying this in cause I'm thinking of the episode that I just recorded for AZ's podcast and you know, I brought this up on that episode in that I didn't, I don't have kids. I never want kids. I never wanted kids. And so decisions are obviously much easier to make when they largely only affect you.
So for me, that made it easier to kind of step away from things. Do I still think you should make changes if you are just miserable? Absolutely. They just probably have to be a bit slower, especially when they're gonna involve other people. But I, I bring this in here to say I was able to make this change, quote, unquote, faster.
It was not, not fast in my opinion by any, by any means. But I was able to make it faster because I didn't have other people depending on me that I had to pay for or be responsible for. So I do want to make note of that, for those of you that are listening and being like, how can I apply this to my life?
How, you know, what lessons can be drawn from here? Always listening around the edges. So, a few minutes ago I talked about, you know, taking a, a big leap or things going fast. That's what I spoke about, things going fast. One, they did not go fast, but from the outside it may look like that and uh, similarly from the outside it could look like I took a big leap and went from being a physical therapist on the East coast to being an entrepreneur and like an influencer, whatever you wanna call it, an online business coach now on the West Coast.
And this happened over the span of many years. So I moved in 2016, but I started putting things in place late 2014. That's when I actually started the Instagram account, started doing these kind of side hustle things and really kind of, um, took took on some life in 2015 and then I didn't move till 2016 and I didn't step away from movement on, from the digital side till 2020.
That was just two years ago, almost three now. But Covid really allowed me to be like, no, I'm done. I'm not doing any anymore posts about movement. I don't wanna talk about it anymore. Like online business is where my heart is at. That's the vehicle that I wanna use to help people create their best lives.
So from the outside, it may have looked like a big leap, but from the inside, me doing these things, it was actually a series of very conscious decisions and small steps. And I always had a safety net in place. That safety net for a long time was RockTape, that I was earning an income from them and I could, you know, make these changes.
And then it became my own business as the safety net when I was like, I'm gonna move away from the movement side of things in 2020, it was fine cause I was earning a living, a very sustainable living, with just the online business side of things. So from the outside, looks like a big leap. Looks like it happened fast. From the inside,
like we always talk about 10 years for an overnight success. From the inside it was actually a series of very small calculated steps, conscious decisions, and there was always a safety net in place. The takeaway that I think if you, if I'm gonna give you one kind and summarize the episode is, it is okay to change directions.
I think we really kind of get caught up with that sunk cost fallacy, especially when we have a degree associated with it. Cuz that is an expensive piece of paper. I got it hanging on the wall behind me. If you're watching the video, you can see one of them. Uh, I think the Georgetown one is above, it's out of frame.
You can't see it. But it is okay to change directions and understand that you will take the skillset from that first thing into the next things. It's not like, oh, the skills are gone. You can always pull things from there. And yes, physical therapy is the best first career. This change, if you're thinking about doing it, does not have to happen overnight and typically will not happen overnight.
Last part here, and maybe this ties into that first part, is that, and I'm thinking about the episode with AZ cuz she works with firefighters and they have a pension and you know, there's some, there's kind of a, an end line and finish line in sight there. And it's not a sunk cost fallacy I don't think in that case,
but it's like I'm really close to this finish line and getting this next thing and it just makes the most sense to finish this out, and I am proud of all the things that I've done. If that's the case, stick with. If it makes sense to stick with the thing for the time being, by all means do that. I support every change and every, you know, decision that you folks make as you pursue your own happiness.
Uh, and sometimes that decision is to stay exactly where you are doing the exact same thing, but maybe sprinkling in some new things and taking those small steps, taking those small calculated steps that will 100% add up over time. And before you know it, you get that overnight success. It's 10 years later and you've taken out the things that you don't want to be doing, which has created space for things to fill in that you do wanna be doing,
and you are able to be in a place where you're like, yeah, I could absolutely see myself doing this for the next five years. I could absolutely see myself doing this for the rest of my life. So, I want to tie in one more thing from AZ's episode before I wrap this up, because she had asked a question. She does like a, she does like a, it's not a, it's like a rapid fire questions in the beginning and it, one of the questions was, how are you changing the world?
And I was like, oh, that is like a really big question. Uh, wow. But if forced to answer, I think that the way that I'm changing the world is just by showing up and living my life. And so that's really what prompted me to record this episode so that I could show up, live my life, and share my life with you, for any of you that are thinking about perhaps making a change, or maybe you're in that place where you're like, I definitely could not see myself doing this for the next five years.
Cool, let's take some of those baby steps, put some of those little things in place. Do a little bit of addition by subtraction. Create space for the new things to fill in, and let's see where you're at in, in five years. All right, we're gonna wrap this one up. As always, endlessly appreciative for every single one of you.
Until next time, friends, Maestro out.
NEW! Watch this episode on YouTube!
Checkout AZ on Instagram: @firerescuewellness
Check out Dr. Sara Suddes on Instagram: @sarasuddes
Read my article – Careers After PT School: The Road Less Traveled
Listen to MOTM #119: I Don't Like Treating
Check out the transcript for this episode!
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