Why Education is The Best Investment with Danny Matta

Hi, welcome to the Pelby Biz Podcast. Are you a pelvic health PT or ot struggling to start your own practice? This podcast helps pelvic health PTs and OTs get out of debt, gain the income they desire, be able to treat patients without insurance restraints, and learn how to create time freedom for yourself and your family. I'm your host, Dr. Kelly Alhui, founder of Ortho Pelvic Physical Therapy, Pelvic Health Business Grower and Pelvi Biz. Over the last two years, I went from a solo entrepreneur to a seven person team in counting. I'm here to help provide a clear path to grow your pelvic health business as fast as possible so that you can gain the time freedom, decrease debt, increase income and live the life that you desire. Before we get started today, make sure you click the link in our bio to grab your ticket for Pelvi Biz. Now let's get into today's episode. Welcome to Pelley Biz Podcast. I'm your host Kelly Alhui. I'm here with Dani Matei from Athletes.

Potential and PT Biz. Welcome Dani, what is the best investment that you ever made?

I'm glad you gave me a little time to think about this and brought this up, you know, before we, before we chatted and you know, I think most people think of investing in a number. I mean it could be equities, it could be real estate, it could be physical things, it could be crypto, it could be many things. But honestly, I feel like the best investment that I ever made was actually in education in myself when I joined a mastermind group that was a digital specific mastermind group. So not to say that I haven't got a lot of benefit out of many other things. I've been in many different business groups, I've done a lot of business education, but I actually spent a year, man, I remember what year it was. This was years ago, right, whenever I started to get a lot of people asking me about cash practices and helping them and I thought, okay, I can maybe do a little consulting on the side. That's what I was going to start with and that is what I started with. And as I started getting busier, I realized I didn't know anything about digital business. I didn't know what was going on and I thought, all right, well this is where I need to learn. But it's the wild, wild west in a lot of ways. It changes very quickly. There's a lot of different things you have to learn. It's a completely different Animal. And So I spent $18,000 to join Russell Brunson's, one of his Mastermind groups through ClickFunnels. And this was, mind you, I didn't know this. It's not like I know this guy. I was at a ClickFunnels conference down in Orlando is where they had it. And I was getting so, like excited from hearing all these presenters and talking to these people. And I'm like, you're doing what you know, and they're, you know, it's just like crazy stuff that people were doing online. I remember there was one lady, her name is Natalie Hodson, and she. This would actually be pretty relevant for your community. She did this, she was like a fitness influencer. And she had this video where she had like stress incontinence, really bad on video. And she basically finished the video and talked about the problems she had with it and she posted it. And she had so many people reach out to her about having similar problem. And she ended up teaming up with some sort of clinician. I don't remember who they were. And they just created this little ebook that was, I want to say it was like 50 or 60 bucks. And they ended up selling so many of these. I want to say it was. They made like $3 million in ebook sales the first year they did it. And I remember sitting there thinking, like, holy crap, this lady's solving people's problems with an ebook. I don't know anything about this stuff. I don't know how to build a list, whatever. So I joined this mastermind group. It was the first year they actually did this one. It was not well run. They say the first pancake is always shit. And I think it was. They learned a lot from the year that I was in it. I think they accepted too many people and they didn't have some of the coaching stuff figured out. The content was really good. I went to a few live events. I got a chance to meet some people, make some really good connections that helped with building infrastructure in the business. And it frankly created the infrastructure for PT biz today, which the ROI on the money I spent on that is just like there's nothing that I've ever done that's even close to that. Now. Granted, there's a lot of work I had to put into that and there's a lot of time and it's not like I just bought something and sat on it and then it just appreciated. It was definitely a lot of work. But it's also something no one can ever take away from Me, I think that's what we neglect to think about when we really look at education as an investment. I'm not fearful at all of losing money or something negative happened to me financially because I know I have the skillset to be able to start grow and scale businesses anywhere, any country, any niche, really. It doesn't really matter. It's a repeatable skill. And I think that's just an amazing investment because it's something that's going to pay dividends for a very long time.

Yeah, I think that's. That last part you just said is huge, because it's really interesting. I know when I first got into trying to run a business, it was like, crap, how am I going to pay my bills? Right? And now, as you continue on this business journey and you start to gain confidence and you start to see, you know what, Money actually really isn't my problem anymore. And, you know, I can make big risks because I feel that I can recover if I needed to and. Or have some cash flow happening. Right. You start to be like, yeah, money isn't my problem. Now what is my problem? Right? And you start to analyze that and be like, okay, mine's my health. Like, that's what mine is. Mine is, if I can stay healthy, then I know I can do anything. Money used to be my problem. Money now is not my problem. You know, and it's just interesting how that. How that flows. And it's just. It's a great point. Invest in yourself because you know that you can pretty much do what you want, you know?

Yeah. I mean, I think the caveat to that, and you and I both have people that we work with that they just think I sign up for this thing and then magically everything is going to work out. And I think there's some unknown to what happens. I don't know why this works, but if I commit to doing something, things start to sort of fall in line for me. But I have to put a lot of work into the thing that I'm trying to learn and get better at. And it's hard. It's very challenging. It's no different than learning how to be a clinician. And I mean, I remember learning about, you know, the hip was the first region that we had when I was in school. And I'm like, I'm never gonna be able to treat a hip. This is so complex, right? And it's like you just don't know anything. You haven't. You don't have any reps. And the.

Hip is the pelvic floor, Danny, you know that.

Well, I don't know shit about that. So I, I obviously still got some learning to do. But you know, I think that it's, it's just a matter of, of being able to actually put the work in to get an roi. And I actually look at it almost like I get, I don't like to waste money. So for me, if I spend money on something, for instance, if I'm going to drop $18,000 and let me put it in perspective, it's not like I was making hundreds of thousands of dollars or whatever at that time in take home income. That year our take home income was probably about 120 to $140,000, which a lot for a clinician. But I had owned my own business for a few years at that point and, and so, you know, you're talking about 15% of my pre tax income I put into a program for some guy I didn't even know. You know, like, I'm definitely not squandering that opportunity because that is hard for me to do financially. I can do a lot for my family, I can do a lot of things outside of that. So I wasn't going to waste the financial resources I worked so hard to acquire, you know, by frivolously throwing that into something that I wasn't going to bust my ass for. So in a lot of ways now, like, I think for people, they can look at things as costs. And another way to look at it is with an investment at least is if you truly, you know, if it is important to you, and that is a stretch for you, you're going to bust your ass to get the ROI on that. And it's actually a good thing for you to really kind of stretch yourself to try to learn and grow and get yourself around other people that are doing shit that you're not doing right now. Like there's a lot of value to that.

Yeah, it's commitment. Just like with our patients, they pay cash for these, for coming to see us. Guess what? They're going to be more committed, they're going to be premium clients. Same thing with us if we put in more cash. I think I probably spent 75k this year just in coaching. So just that alone, it's just like, okay, well that's a crap ton of investments right there in myself and you know, it's just now I can help other people grow and scale their practices.

And if people hear that, I guarantee you people are like 75,000. What the fuck, you know, like to put it in perspective, I think that like I've had years, I've done the same thing, but if you could lay it out, a risk like I've been thinking a lot about this with risk adjusted returns. So, you know, this is what they look at with investing. It's how much risk are you taking on to get a certain return on investment, you know, and some have very low risk, higher upside, some are much riskier with higher upside. But what people really want is the lowest risk possible with the math, the most amount of return possible. That is the best investment, you know, that you can, that you can look at. So what if, you know, you drop $75,000 on learning skills, acquiring relationships and connections and things that expedite your ability to go from a business that, let's say you spent all the money you made from your business, which was $75,000, and the following year you're at $750,000. So that $75,000 investment, you've 10x that into a return. So like the risk adjusted return on that is insanely good. The only variable, this is, the only thing that scares people off is there is a commitment level that somebody has to have in order to implement to get a return. And not everybody's willing to do that and, or do the things that they need to do to create improvements and be successful. But when you have a big number tied to it, you know, when you pay, you pay attention, you're right. Our clients are super compliant. Our coaching clients are super compliant. And it's because it's enough financial hurt for them to really want to push to go do the next thing. So it just changes different levels. So for you, maybe two years ago that number was $7,500. So now it's 75,000. So it just depends on where your business is at and what skillset you're trying to grow to.

Yeah, it's so, so true. I mean, the more basically the more you want to scale, the more you need to educate yourself and level up yourself. And it's not even level up from a business perspective. And it's even I found even my energy, I even hired like a coach just for personal training because I knew if I invested in that, that coach was actually going to keep me accountable. The energy that I have to have to run two businesses and to do the things that I do is astronomical. I mean, it's like on a completely different level. And luckily I have energy. But I don't think people realize that when you have to have the Energy and you have to have your health to actually have a successful businesses or a business or whatever else. And if you don't take care of your health and get that energy, then even if you are committed, you can be committed, but you're not going to be going that many places because you're going to be struggling with your health 100%.

And look, I, I mean I know enough about your background and like you're, you're a hustler, right? You just get, you get after it. You just, you're not waiting for things to happen, you just go and make them happen, which does require a lot of energy and time and effort. And those things are mentally and physically expensive. And I can tell you from personal experience, I've run into the wall multiple times with my own physical and mental health. I don't know a single entrepreneur that really hasn't gone through some pretty significant either mental or physical challenges along the way. Because we will burn ourself out in the process of chasing success because of fear of failure in many cases. And that's a strong motivator. Fear is a super strong motivator. But like I've made myself super sick. I've had shingles from stress. Like I thought I had autoimmune disease issues from different things and frankly it was lack of sleep, lots of stress, a lot of travel when I was teaching and that. Just like honestly, I mean I had the testosterone levels of like a 90 year old man, you know, like at age like 29. And at a certain point we realized like the vehicle in which we use to get there and we should all know this as clinicians, but yet we're probably worse than anybody to really put it off. It's so funny. Our vehicle is really important. So I totally agree with you. Like, you know, investing in your health, tracking things proactively, working with people that can help you maintain your physical mental health. Like what's the point of success if you're, if you're, you know, decrepit and you're sick all the time and you can't enjoy the people around you or you're just an asshole. I know a lot of people that have terrible mental mind frames and their mental health is awful because they're constantly stressed out from all the work they're doing and they have no emotional control with their family or their kids or whatever. And what game are we playing? I think that's the thing we have to keep in mind is the game. It's based on what a win looks like for you, which is different for a lot of people. But for sure it's not a win for me to end up super wealthy and all by myself because everybody hates me and I have awful health. I think that's a complete loss. So I think it's something you have to keep in mind. But I think most people get to that point where they're, they view it as, this is an investment in you as the entrepreneur that's going to try to do these things that require a lot of time and energy and it's just a matter of time till we get there and everybody gets there, maybe in a different way and hopefully it doesn't take too much pain to realize that.

Yeah, exactly. And again, hopefully you're not, you know, dead by then. You know, I mean, it does, it's 100% true in the entrepreneurial world. Yeah. I just think the energy is just, is so, is so massive and just the more energy you can have, the more that you can do and progress and be more self aware and actually take action on things that you need to progress yourself forward while your business is also progressing forward at the same time.

Yeah, well, on the energy topic, I think, and we kind of spoke earlier about a lot of things you're doing now. And I've been through a similar growth stage where you're at, where you have your physical practice, this consultancy you got going, It's a lot of efforts, a lot of time. You want things to be perfect and done the way that you want them to be done. So oftentimes you're the one doing it. And what we find is we spend our time on tasks that are very energy draining for us out of necessity in some of these scenarios. And I think one of the other hacks that I found is being able to really focus on those tasks that you're just uniquely, really good at that give you energy. Like, I could do podcast stuff all day. I like having these conversations, I like learning from you. And I don't feel tired after this, but if you asked me to like detail out a system for, you know, email list, whatever growth, I'd be like, I'm going to, I need a cup of coffee and a nap before. And then I'm going to put it off all day because I don't want to do it and it hurts me to do it. So other people do things like that within our company because they know other people are better at it. They get energy from those things and we don't. So finding that is really important too, so that we can really focus on the things that we like that we're really good at. We put our best effort into that and we have more energy from it. And that sometimes, often is just trial and error too as we figure out what we're good at and what we're not good at and then delegating those to the correct people and training them is huge.

Yeah, it is huge. I mean for PT biz and athletes potential. Danny, did you start out writing your emails and then did you, you know, start hiring people that were like, hey, I'll take this on. I mean, how did that work?

Yeah, so I actually still, I don't do all of our emails for athletes potential. I did for years and I actually don't mind writing it. I actually don't like any of the technical stuff. Like I don't want to build. I don't want to build. I actually really like content. So actually I wrote like four emails this morning. They're going to be part of a marketing campaign. Like that's my, that like content creation is a thing actually. Really, really like now if you ask me to create a funnel that has, you know, like different automations built in and it tags things and other things, I'll literally have a headache and I'll just, I'll run away. I'll be like, nope, not doing this. Like I quit. So. But I have business partners, one in particular that loves that shit. He's like a human robot and he understands all this stuff works and he loves like all the interactions of that. It's a very hard sort of thing to find somebody that is good at that and that likes it. Right. So it's a great compliment because it allows me to do things like this or to write emails and like I like to teach. Some people hate that. And so for me, like I typically will just focus on content and forward facing things like relationship key relationships with the businesses and then everything else other people pretty much do. You know, sales is something I did for a long time, which it falls in line with what we're talking about. You know, it's forward facing, it's, it's communicating. I like it a lot. It's, it's like verbal jiu jitsu with somebody else, you know, and helping them try to make the right decision. But even with that, eventually I, you know, phase myself out to where now it's more leading that and being a educator of people so that they can do it and expand and scale and grow and give opportunities to other people to have really, you know, great jobs. And not necessarily just do it all by myself. So I think there's levels to which you sort of grow out of it, but really still finding those unique sort of areas. Dan Sullivan is a, is a really well known business coach. He calls it your unique genius, your zone of genius and figuring out what that is and how you can stay in that as long as possible. I think that's actually the key of, to efficiency and fulfillment with work. Because if we're just working on the things that we really like and we get a lot of energy from doing it, we feel great the rest of the day. I'm not falling asleep at 3 o', clock, you know, we're just burnt out.

Yeah, that's so true. So where do you see Danny? Like I don't know, in 10 years, 15 years, like where do you see yourself? Where do you see your businesses? Like is there, you know, do you have a plan at the end of this? Hey, you know, this is my, this is my exit strategy. Like do you have anything like that? Or you're just going with the flow?

You know, I, this is a good question because I don't really have a plan for anything. Not to say that I don't have short term plans. Like I know where I want to be in a year, three years, you know, timeframe as far as the business goes. But I didn't think I wanted to do business consulting for sure. If you'd asked me five years ago or something like that when I was knee deep in our cash practice, I just want to do that. And in fact I wanted to scale the shit out of that. And what happened was I saw opportunity. I felt like there was a bigger impact with some of the things that I was doing outside of just athletes potential. I mean the way that I look at it is like I, you know, I just like our profession. I think that it's underserved. I think that there's great people that are in it that just don't necessarily understand how to create a world that works for them. And so, you know, they, they end.

Up, we haven't been taught, that's why no one's been taught.

Totally. So, and a lot of people in our profession are burnt out and they're disgruntled by having high, you know, huge student loans. And I get it, like there's problems for sure. So for me, when I started getting people reaching out like what are you doing? And I was teaching for mobility wod. Whenever I started doing this and that's how it all started, I was Teaching. And people would ask me over breaks about cash practices. I'd sit down. I'd literally have whiteboarded out entire business plans over lunch with people at random CrossFit gyms around the US where I was teaching. And those have turned into clients of ours. Just not purposefully, just trying to be helpful. So I think for me, I'll just be doing something that helps people in some capacity. You know, it might be this. It might be. You know, it might be something that's slightly different. I think that financial intelligence is a real problem in our profession, really, just the US in general. But I think our profession is just not very savvy when it comes to utilization of money. The way that we view money, I think, is a massive problem that we work on, even within our coaching groups. And I think there's a lot that can be done there. But I don't know, I just. I just want to keep doing things where, you know, people end up in a better place because of it.

Yeah.

So, you know, that could be many, many different areas. Cause that's what I like. And to be completely honest, I don't actually have to do shit anymore, which is cool. Like, you know, we're at a place and we've. We've just, like, you know, we've put ourself in a place financially over decades of making the right decisions to where it's not like I have to do these things. So I just like to pick the things that I want to work on because I like to work on them. And that's fun. That's awesome. It's like, such an interesting, rare place to be. And genuinely, when I say I want to help somebody, it's not because I'm just trying to, like, grow a big business. It's because it's what I like to do. And if I provide value in the marketplace, it just returns money in return. That's how it works. So I don't know. That's a good question. I don't know. What are you going to do in 10, 15 years? There's no way you've thought that out, have you?

No, but I am going to probably be at Laguna Beach.

You like it there? You're a Cali person.

I just love it, Danny. I love it. The vibe, the beach. The beach. Just the whole mentality, like, it's just healthy. It's just. You can go outside in the winter. You're not stuck in the snow, you.

Know, eventually in the most stressful city. How do you dc? It just doesn't Fit you at all.

It's so hype here. It's, like, so uptight. I'm like, okay, we all need to relax our pelvic floors, because all you guys have crazy pelvic floors around here. Yeah, yeah. It's too uptight for me here. Yeah.

You know, I think you're onto something, though. You know, we got the chance to live in Hawaii for three years when I was in the army. And, you know, I think back on that almost feels. Not like it was like a real, like, so it was like a dream for us because it's such a unique environment. And I'm sure, you know, Laguna is, like, Southern California area, is very similar in terms of weather and lifestyle. And just, you know, I remember, like, I had a neighbor with a. With a avocado tree. We had a lime tree, and I've just, like, walked down to the yard. I would grab a lime avocado, make guacamole. Just like, we wanted that for dinner. With dinner one night, it just like, what the hell? We live in some sort of weird utopia where there's just literally fruit and vegetables growing on trees all over the place and people are super happy and spend a lot of time outside. So I think there's a lot to be said for that, like, location and all of that. And, you know, we have young kids, and Hawaii is not really in the cards for us right now. But maybe at a certain point, I'll be. I'll be near the beach again. I do think it's like, it's just such a relaxing sort of environment.

It is. It's my jam. I love it. So. Yeah. Well, thanks, Danny, so much for coming on. I really appreciate it. Can you tell everyone on here, like, where to find you?

Yeah, sure. So I'm, you know, pretty easy to find. The best place to kind of learn about what we're doing now is physical therapy Biz with a z dot com. There's the podcast that I have. We've done two episodes a week for, like, I don't know, five years or something at this point, which is the PT Entrepreneur Podcast. One other area that's actually pretty cool, I think, is really interactive, is we have a Facebook group, the PT Entrepreneurs Facebook group. And that's. There's, like, 5,000 people in it, and there's just people in there helping each other. It's awesome. It's so cool. It's totally free, you know, and you can talk to other people that are doing the same thing. We're very, very strict about vetting who gets into it. And we kick people out all the time. They're just being assholes. So it's a safe place, you know, it's a spot where you can ask questions and not feel like they're going to give you a hard time. So that's probably the best place to, you know, to, you know, find me. And I would say if anybody's interested in just kind of learning the philosophy that, that we teach, especially as it comes to like performance based cash practices if you like to help people move better. I mean, that's kind of what we do. I wrote a book, it's called Fuck Insurance. Sorry for the language. In retrospect, my mom didn't think that was a great idea. But hey, that's the title of the book. But it's on Amazon. You can grab a copy of that. It's like a very minimal investment and I didn't hold anything back. I mean it's basically everything that we would teach anybody is in that book. I think it's pretty helpful.

That's awesome. Thank you so much again for coming on and sharing your knowledge. We loved it.

Thanks for having me. This is, it's fun. It's just cool to see the success you're having. So I hope it continues and that, you know, you deserve it. You work your butt off and you really help people. So thanks again for the opportunity. This was a lot of fun.

Yeah. Thank you.

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