Brandon Seigel and Mary Kostka: "Scaling Your Practice: How to Flip from Working IN to Working ON"

Word on this comp. All right. Hello. Hello. Welcome. We have with us today the amazing Brandon Seagull. And, and I'm Mary Koska and we'll give a quick introduction. And what we're going to be talking about today is a pretty hot topic. We are going to be talking about basically how we go from working in our business to on our business. How do we flip from being employee to managing our workforce because we're growing and we want to have a greater impact. Would you say that was what we were just deciding?

I 100 and I say it this way of like, how are we prioritizing a vision that creates change not just in our own life, but the life of our team, the life of our family, the life of our community? And I think, you know, private practice is such a special, special environment because it really is a blank canvas and it looks different to everyone. And so I think the idea today is talking about how can it look for you, what does it look like for others, etc.

Exactly. And before we jump in, a lot of people don't know who you are. So let's have you give a quick, a quick little background. And, and I have to say, I didn't know who, who you were until one of my business besties, Kim, told me all about you. And I'm like, how did I not know? So let's. And, and I'm grateful to know you now, so go ahead.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, first off, thank you for tuning in. I love this and I love connecting with everyone that watches this video. My name is Brandon Siegel. I am a serial entrepreneur, but I specialize in the healthcare sector and I do a ton in the occupational physical speech therapy sector because for those who don't know, my wife's an ot, my brother in law's an ot, my mother in law's an ot, my daughter says she's going to be an ot. So it's in that blood gene and we just keep giving it and creating it and out creating it. And everything for us is about function. And so when people say, what do you do, Brandon? It's all about optimizing the function of your business. That's my whole thing. So I've created a company called WellnessWorks Management Partners. We are what's called a deconstructed MSO management services, operation, whatever you want to call it. But MSO has been around for years and basically what we do is we help troubleshoot where things are maybe not going optimal for you and we actually plug and play our solutions. So we can do your medical billing, we can do your human resources, we can do your marketing, we can coach you, we can consult you, or we can take it over. And so we, we've even had therapists who own practices go away for 18 months and never touch their business and sell it for seven figures after we got involved. And I'm not trying to sell you on that, but I'm saying anything's possible. And so I know this is cheesy, but my goal is to tap into your purpose, your intention, and to transform the way it functions from a business operating basis. So that's me. A couple things I'll just kind of plug real quick. I've got a book called the Private Practice Survival Guide. I have a podcast that went through 2022 called the Private Practice Survival Guide podcast. I have WellnessWorks management partners, Wellness Works, Medical Billing, Fly High, Business Builders, and a company called Every Child Achieves. So those are my companies. And then I have the Growth Code Conference, which is an annual conference bringing together pediatric, occupational physical speech therapists to transform their business, connect with each other, and really create change in our world. So that's what it's at. And Mary, over to you.

Yes. And that conference was amazing. I met so many, so many people there that are still like, I'm in contact with all the time. So I'm so glad that you put that together. Okay, so I'm Mary Koska. For those that don't know me, I am. I'm an OT of this is my 35th year. I'm very passionate about OT. I feel very grateful that my mom guided me in that direction because I've been completely happy in this profession the entire time. So I feel pretty lucky. Most of my time's been specialized in pediatrics. My passion is our, our sensory kids and families. And so after 17 some years working as a school therapist, I wanted to do it right. And so I formed my own company, a private practice, which I've had Ohana Occupational Therapy, which I have had for 14 years now. And, and in the process of, of having a company, I've just developed a lot of systems so that I can serve more kids and, and not spend a lot of time doing things I don't like to do. Like, documentation would be one example. So I've created a. A course, a program to basically teach people how I do it, how I do everything from intake to discharge, and how I do everything really efficiently. So I also have a workshop coming up in June 1st in Clearwater, Florida, called oh My gosh. I Just drew a blank on the name of my. Oh, it's called OT Freedom Live. And it's all about really a lot of what we were just saying we're going to talk about. It's a lot about how to get some freedom from, from being so deep into your business that it's eating up your entire life that you are not able to take a vacation, you're not able to spend time with your family or doing the things that you love. And because the, the path that most of us end up taking is that we're so passionate about the therapy and then we're like, we want to do it right and then we want to have a practice so we can do it right. And then all we do is add on careers on top of doing the therapy and then next thing you know, we're burning out and we're not staying in our practice. So we have to learn how to empower our workforce, how to delegate and elevate and how to, how to learn these other, other jobs. And it's the hard part is that we love to treat. So just figuring all that out is a challenge. But so that's pretty much what I have figured out how to do. Like I just got back weeks in Florida with my husband. My company run ran beautifully without me and I'm leaving for three weeks in, in June, so.

And very cool. So Mary's, you gotta hit that conference just for those who don't know. Some of you know me. And so I'll say it this way. Greg Todd is brilliant. I love the guy. He's put on an incredible event annually. Mary is a featured speaker at the conference as well as her pre conference. And I say it this way of like anyone can tap into the knowledge. You could say, oh, I've heard that from Brandon, I've heard that from this. But at the end of the day, putting it into action is everything. And I was telling Mary before, I was saying, you know, knowledge is very cerebral and it's really easy to identify with knowledge, but putting it into a functional capacity happens through people. And I think that you have to physically be at these conferences where you're connecting with people, that you're getting real life examples, that you're getting tangible assets, handouts, principles and things. And my viewpoint is, is every single conference you go to, all it takes is one strategy to get an ROI and one strategy implemented. I want to be clear. And so I wanted to come on here with Mary. I wanted to start to, to kind of help that conversation. 1. So that you can see how we collaborate together, but also so that you can really get witness to, you know, how just being around the right people is everything. And, you know, Mary, actually, even though I've known Greg Todd for years, Mary was the catalyst who got me reconnected with. With Greg. And so I think there's a lot that you can learn from Mary, from Greg, and. And you got to come to sunny Clearwater Beach, Florida. Like, what's not to love? Beach, sand, and fun. So let's get our show, our episode on the road. Mary, I'm excited to talk about this.

Yeah. So it's kind of a big topic, so I'm trying to think how we're going to niche it down. So what. What would you say?

You. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna interview you.

Okay. I was gonna interview you. Okay, go ahead.

Okay, we're gonna do this. Are you ready? So I want to start by this.

Okay.

Mary, at what point in your entrepreneurial career did you decide that you wanted to create a workforce approach to your private practice?

When you say workforce approach, like hiring.

Employees, bringing on people, like, what was the tipping point where you decided? Because one of the things I often say is, I say either you're going to create a job for yourself, you're going to create a business. And I mean no disrespect.

Yeah.

But a job is a job. A business works for you. So you've created a business that works for you. And one of the things that you're working on is teaching others on how to create a business that works for them.

Exactly.

What was that tipping point when you decided, I'm going to create a business that works for me versus just a job.

Right. So when it started, it was just me having such a big wait list. Now I need to hire more people. And it just kept growing that way. But at the. At the point that I decided I really have to make this, basically I had to move from what I call the bleeding heart broken business model. So I'm hiring people, I'm adding people, but I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how to manage people. I don't know how to free myself up so I can learn how to do the other aspects of business. I would say that the tipping point for me getting really serious about it and saying, you know what? I have to move away from treating and I've got to run this business and really know how to do it was. Was almost losing it. Almost losing my house, almost losing the Business because I wasn't doing it well. And just everybody that I've talked to that's been in it for a long time seems to go through a crash and burn at some point. And then you kind of are like, wow, I'm either going to lose everything or I'm going to lose my house. I'm going to lose, I'm not going to be able to have this business anymore or I have to learn how to do this. And, and so that was, that was about a year before COVID hit. So then the year before COVID we were moving along. I was doing much better. I had really started to work on my business instead of in my business so much. And, and then, and then Covid hit and then, you know, that was a little bit of a tank. But ever since then, the last three years, it's, we've tripled, we've tripled our impact. So we went from like 300 visits a month to almost 900. And I've done almost none of the treatment. So. So it was going to pack this.

With you for a moment. Yeah. So one of the things I'm hearing is you were able to scale, as I call it, grow three times your size. Now, one question I want to ask you because this is a trap for a lot of people. A lot of people focus on scale, but they don't focus on their bottom line, what's left over. And they don't focus on the efficiency of delivery. And I think that's critical that we look at because a lot of people, I saw practice, I'm not exaggerating, they're doing $2 million a year. They've got 25 people and they're losing money. And why one is they hired inefficiently, they have inefficient employees and they're what I call business recipe, business algorithm is wrong. How did you ensure in growing your company three times that you were able to keep the appropriate margins and that you were able to empower a workforce to really deliver at the level that you're used to with in the most efficient way. What was strategies you used?

So first when I said I had the bleeding heart broken business model I was scaling, I mean we were having more kids, more staff, more everything. But we weren't profitable because I wasn't, I just wasn't paying close enough attention to all of those details. I wasn't tracking my stats, I wasn't setting clear goals. I wasn't as efficient. And so we, I think a big, a big part of it for me, like, as you know, our clinic has probably got one of the highest productivity levels that I've ever heard of for my staff. They're just for pediatrics where we average 88%, which everybody I talk to, they're just like, that's insane. But it's only like that because we're so efficient.

Can I ask one question, though? And I want to clarify this for the audience because I've been seeing a trend lately that people are calling productivity wrong. And so when you say 88%, what I want to find with you, to make sure we're clear, is that if they're getting paid for 40 hours a week, just as a simple standpoint, that would mean that 40 hours times 88%, they would be delivering 35.2 hours of their time is spent with patient care or billable time. Is that accurate?

Absolutely.

Because why do I bring this up? I bring this up because there's this trend going on right now where people are talking productivity, but they're actually talking, they're using it wrong and they're saying arrival rate. They're like, oh, they deliver 88% of their scheduled visits. That's not productivity. Productivity is the percentage of time that you're spent doing billable time with the patience of the total time you're getting paid. Now when someone says to me, I pay fee for service, that means that they're getting a hundred percent productivity pay.

Right.

That's all they're getting 100 of the time. So what we're talking about with 88% productivity is of all the hours they get paid, 88% of the time is being spent doing revenue generating activity is what I call it.

Yep.

Which is amazing because I want to say industry standard. I work with over 280 private practices throughout the United States and I will say it is less than 5% are at an 88% productivity standard for their employees. So I think this is a major, major thing in pediatrics, I would say that the minimum bar is 75%. And I think clients, therapists have trouble with that event. So I would say 75 to 85 is usually the range. So when you're at 88%, you've tapped into what I call as a secret antidote. It is not a traditional component. And so then I want to ask you a couple questions on this. You've got this secret antidote. You're able to tap in and get 88% productivity. What's your burnout rate?

Our retention is 94% for the past 94% retention.

What's the average retention of your employees when they leave? No, approximately, roughly. Like most your employers. Are they with you for over two years, three years, four years, five years?

Well, like I said, this whole, like, shift in how I do things has been in the past four years. So basically all the therapists that I've hired since then have stayed. So.

So you've implemented 88% productivity and your retention has not suffered at all.

But I would say the other thing, it's not just having this like super efficient documentation. They don't. And by the way, they don't take any work home. I mean, if they're working at home, it's. They're thinking of something creative for their kid. But I mean, they don't take any paperwork home or anything like that. But I know I've heard you talk about, you know, having lower support staff percentage and all of that. Mine's a little on the high end because I have aids. So what happens is they want a social story made. They want activity prep. They want, you know, stuff that takes time. The therapists are having that lower productivity because they need time to do that stuff. So we have aids that, that they can just say, hey, I need this, this set up in this room. They'll clean up. So they do setup, cleanup, prep of activities, just everything. But my aides also do revenate new revenating, generating activities that are wellness services. So, so when we did our numbers before, everything works out great. So it just, I think it's just, there's just a balance. You know, you have to look at the overall. At the end of the day, you have to look at is it penciling out or not?

Yeah. And what I think you did, and I'm going to bring this in for a moment for people to understand what you've done is you've said, I'm going to remove things off of my therapist that I don't feel they need to do.

Right.

I'm going to create a different ecosystem of staff to do that. But this is what's brilliant about what you did. What you did is you took that ecosystem of what I'm going to call support staff and you said, I'm going to make them revenue generate so they cover their cost. So now the margin can support. Because normally what I would say to you if you didn't say that, said, hey, that's fine, Mary, but every dollar you're paying your administrative assistant or your clinical staff assistant or whatever, that's a dollar I can't Pay your therapist. But no, that's not the case here because you're like, no, no, no. They're not a loss leader. They cover their role. So I still have maximum revenue to offer my therapists. So I think it's brilliant. I don't know if you take it as brilliant, but I think it's a brilliant model. That algorithm, that recipe of what you're doing is allowing your therapist to do what they love to do, which is treat children. When I truly interview therapists around the world, I say, what is your number one thing you want to do? Work with children. What? What? In pediatrics, what is the number one thing you hate to do? Hate?

Documentation.

What do you think that is?

It's documentation.

Documentation. And I'll be honest with you, like, I know I kind of sound like a little bit of a QVC salesman today, and I don't mean that, but I normally am not someone that like, just buys into. I have this way to document. I'm going to be honest. I'm like, good luck. Like, yeah, whatever. It's just, you know, EMRs say they, they simplify this or that. But just being honest, Mary, the reason why I really endorse this component, not that I've used it, but one of my clients who I've worked with for a very long time, coaching wise, utilized your service. And literally she was even hesitant. That's what you don't know. She brought to me. She's like, what do you think about Mary's program? Like, I don't know. I'm like, I love Mary, but I don't know. And she's like, yeah, I don't know if this really will apply. We're different. We're, you know, we're natural environment, we're community based. I don't know. Brandon. And literally, like three weeks ago, she's like, brandon blew my mind. Like, transformation. So I say it that way of like, how are we investing in resources that unlock the revenue and retention. Retention and revenue are necessary because no one works for free. And so that's the thing that's really hard is as we look at being able to transform our business from being an employee to creating a business that works for us, we have to change the mindset of our employees. I have to. The mindset's important. And anyone that comes in and says, I don't want to worry about money, I don't want to focus on money, I don't want to this. I'm being honest with you, Mary. I'm going to say that's a red flag to me because they want to make money. So if you want to make money, you have to understand the recipe and your role. So when I tell your therapist your role is to eliminate unneeded time on documentation and prioritize your time with patients. That's how you unleash optimum revenue. That should fill your bucket. That is what's key in your hiring, your empowerment, your engagement, your retention. And so talk to me like, what other strategies have you implemented to be able to get this buy in from your therapist and to execute results? Because I think a lot of people will take a course but they don't apply the data. How have you been able to apply these changes in your practice?

Well, two thoughts were coming and I want to come back to. Because I don't want to forget this other one because I want to come back to the issue about, about money. I had a lot of money blocks. It's like my mind did not feel, I couldn't even say the word profit. It made me say, feel sick to my stomach. So there's a whole like for therapist owned companies there's a whole thing. I want to talk about that because that's huge. But with the therapist, the buy in because I, I know what you're saying. They just think, you know, but we always did it this way or blah blah, blah. So I, in my docufast the whole first section is psychological. It's all, it's all understanding. It's mostly fears. It's. And so it's like fear of, fear of being audited. Fear of this is a big one. Fear of not. We like proving ourselves and our worth sots. So we like articulating everything we know about this child because we want people to know how amazing we are. Like we're always like trying to like help people understand how we think and, and what we do. So we tend to want to just like put everything in there. We want to teach in our documentation. We want to, we're trying to document in a professional way so we're respected but we're trying to document in a, a layman's terms way so the parent understands. So all this stuff adds words and, and so simple things like helping people understand. You don't need to teach in your evaluation. You can teach with handouts. You know, it's just simple things. So there's just like, and you add one simple thing to another simple thing to another simple thing like you, you can have more of a bullet point summary type report. That's okay. Like I didn't believe that. And I had a mentor that really helped me help me. He just, he pushed me. He was just like James Co. He was just like, you were documenting way too much. You're not going to stay in business. And he just would, he's like, I'm getting paid by the same people as a p. Outpatient pt. And you know, he just kept telling me like helping me like bring it down. But I just didn't want to do it. So I had it. This process took me over a decade to get to where I'm at now. Letting go layers and figuring out like you know, what's okay, what's not okay. So a simple thing, a simple sentence that helped me was I put in there. This is a summary report. If you need more detailed information, just let me know. In two years not a single person asked for more. And I forgot I had that in the sentence in, in the report. And then one time a mom said, oh, is there more? And then I'm like, time to take that sentence out because in two years nobody asked. And then I had one of our, our doctors who's the main one who.

Who.

Who diagnosis for autism. She was visiting my clinic, showing her ma the clinic and she is one of those like, she goes home and writes all night long. She, she writes like books on her kids. So I'm like, if they're so I'm like, I'm just going to ask her. I'm like, I'm doing this course and you see my reports all the time. Is there anything you'd like me to change about them? I said they're, they're pretty short, you know, they're pretty, some, you know, they're kind of summary reports. Would you have me change anything? And she thought about it and she's like, nope, I love your reports, I love your clinic. I love you guys. The only thing is I wish you were in REMR so we didn't have to upload your report. That's only thing I was just like, that's amazing. So we have in our mind we have a lot of false beliefs is what I'm getting too. We have a lot of false beliefs. The other reason we over document is that we're trying to remember everything for ourselves. And there's other ways to remember stuff. So you can have an activity log that has everything that you did it and you can have a coding system you can upload that you can get, you can have six months worth on one sheet, two sided sheet and just scan it into the report. So we've gotten completely away from. Paper is a, is a profession and that is like one of the biggest problems. Paper is actually pretty efficient. So when I can look at a data, I can look at a sheet and at a glance I have a complete picture of this kid and what I need to do. And we, we, it's like we threw away all of our tools. So I have a hybrid. Some of it's paper, some of it's not. I mean some of this stuff we scan in, you know, have, have your support staff scan it in, make it fast and easy for us. So EMRs have made things extremely inefficient because I, I go in, I've seen so many and I, and I help them apply these principles to it. And it's insane to me like just to write a soap note how many clicks there can be. I mean it's, it's just insane. But, but that's, there's just a lot of, it's just we have a lot of false beliefs and we have to kind of sort through each one of them. I had one person who in docufast you do a calculation of how much time you're spending. And this gal was spending 17 weeks of her life at home, of her own home, time documenting. It was the most I had ever seen. And what she figured out was it was because she had an owner that went to jail for fraud and the owner had, he was chiropractor and he had billed for her services when she wasn't there. But she took that trauma and overco overcompensated in a way that didn't make any sense like by over documenting. And then she realized like I'm literally ruining my life over this and it doesn't make any sense. So people have different, like they have to figure out why they're doing it or they just think that's what I was taught in school, you know.

Yeah. So I want to go back real quick because I want to make sure we touch on it about money, profit and some of the barriers that, that you've had as a practice owner and what you've had to do from a mindset standpoint to change this.

So one of my favorite all time books is Profit First. It's such a good book. It shifted my whole thinking like that you have to carve out the profit first because if you don't, you'll just spend it. So there you have to decide up front what your percentage is that you're going to pull out. And so but the reason why I'm like, I just. It's cultural indoctrination that business is bad and money is bad and you know, in the movies, from the time you're little, it's the rich people that are bad. We just have so much fed to us that, you know, corporations that are profitable are bad. We just have a lot of crap. We have to work through profit. The number one rule of business is to stay in business. If you do not have a profit, you will not stay in business. So until you're about to lose everything, you don't really sometimes get it. But once you get it, you get it.

But here's the other thing. The more profit you can create, the more you get to play with it, to give back to this world. Whether you donate, whether you create other things, whether you bonus you. So this idea that we don't focus on profit, we focus on people, I think is a backwards thought process. The more profit we make, the more that we can give back to the people. Now if someone doesn't want to give back to the people, that's a problem with their own condition, their own values, their own. But if we go to the right businesses with the right value system, you know.

Right.

As you know, and I'm not going religious here, but as you know, I'm a Jewish guy and I say it only because I'm envious of the Mormon faith, because they know how to fundraise, because they're creating a culture in which they give back to their belief, their value, whatnot. I'm not here to talk about that, but I'm saying that they've created. Some of the greatest business minds in the planet are Mormons, and they're fundamentally taking this profit and giving back to their church. I'm bringing it up more from how are you creating enterprise and profit to fuel your purpose, your value, whatever you believe in, whether it be churches and temples and whatever that is, or non profits or community or underserved or education or whatever. When you have profit, you have power to make change.

Exactly. You have the power to, to be who you are, to give. Like I can remember a GoFundMe would pop up, some tragic thing that happened or whatever, and I would eke out $20, you know, and it would feel like too much to give. I now I have a charity fund. There's always at least a grand in it. You know, there was, we had Snowmageddon and this family like completely lost their house. Like it got smashed and, and I just looked in my account I'm like, oh, I can give him a thousand dollars. You know, that's an amazing thing to be able to do. My husband and my son have. Have been diagnosed with muscular dystrophy. Fshd. Very little research has been done on it. Is starting to happen more. They're starting to do clinical trials and stuff. A secondary passion of mine became like, being able to. They're part of the research is helping fund this cure this thing. It's. It's. It's a monster. It's devastating. I was able to. I think I donated last year probably ten grand to the research. I mean, that's empowering. You know, I could not have done that. You just. It's profit isn't bad. Profit allows you to be you, allows you to give, allows you to serve more kids. It allows you to grow you. If you don't have profit, you can't hire more therapists and see more kids. I mean, you have to. You have to have some money to do that.

But here's the other thing. I look at every employee's wages as their profit. So as they want to be able to create their own profit, they must understand the way that they can be positive over the profit they want to make. So I use this word intrapreneur. I believe the problem with healthcare is that we don't focus on intrapreneurs changing health. If we all took an intrapreneur, and by intrapreneur, it's not about money, it's about create. It's about ownership, it's about intelligence, it's about innovation, it's about all these different things. We're so stuck in a rote system that we're not creating the change we want to see. We're not. And I think the more that we utilize our people to create real solutions, the more that we get to the next level. And one of the things that I know, because of the work that we do, Mary, is that you've created entrepreneurs in your practice.

Absolutely.

So I'll ask you, what is your best strategy that you've implemented to unleash the mindset of intrapreneur with your people?

I think you're gonna like this answer. I hire the right people.

Say that again.

Hire the right people.

Yeah, you hire the right people. So what's your best question that you ask when you're hiring to identify if they have what I'm calling as like the Mary Koska co create mindset?

I'm not sure I have a specific question, but I'm listening. For their problem solving, and they're creating, you know, when they're telling me about what they've done and, you know, how they've handled different situations. And I'm always looking to see if they're. If they use blaming type language or empowering type language. Like, I had this situation, but here's what I did, you know? But I know you have a really good question about that. What? I can't remember it, though.

No worries. I mean, I always change it up. But I think for me, I use analogies to paint pictures. And so a lot of the time, I will use the paintbrush and I'll say it somewhere like this. I'll say, let's go back in time and let's look at the worst employment experience you've ever had. What would you do to repaint that picture? What would it look like? What would you have done? What would other people have done? Let's repaint history and see how it could. And what would be that outcome? Because suddenly we start through that kind of. I'm. If you haven't figured out, I was born as a theater lover, performing arts. I was a directing major in college and everything. So I'm a visual person. So when I communicate, when I talk, it's all about pictures. I want to see it go from gray to purple, you know, like, how do we make this purple? So it's like, what paintbrush color would you use? And how would you bring pop to it? What is your. What is your secret sauce? And when we're looking at people, we're programmed to wrap ourselves up and put a bow on ourselves. And my goal when I interview is to unwrap that and see the gift that you represent authentically. Because wrapping paper is not the present. It's what's inside.

I love that analogy. I love it. And, yeah, and it's. It's a. It's. You really definitely want to attract and repel what's inside that package. And that's the trick.

Yeah.

For sure. Yeah. I was just thinking. Oh, go ahead.

No, no, you go.

I was just thinking of a picture that I. I'm jumping back to the. The profit thing and, like, getting over it. In my head, this is the analogy that I've used for people that. That don't get it is like, if I. If I bought this for a dollar and I sell it to you for a dollar, what do I have? Nothing, right? Nothing. I can't go buy another one to help, you know, to give you another drink.

So you're ready for my analogy, similar, but I use an actual book for this and I give this book out to my employees. What book do you think is a book that I would give my employees? Relevant? That's a children's book. And I'll give you three seconds, I'll name it if you don't know, I don't know. The Giving Tree. Have you ever read the Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein?

I'd have to read it again. I mean, don't worry.

The whole idea, my homework is there's two books that everyone listening to this must use in their practice. One is the Giving Tree. Because the whole idea is the tree gives and gives and gives and no one is feeding the roots in the soil of the tree. So eventually it dies as a stump. It's given too much. If we're not creating roots and nurturing the soil that is below our practice, there will be nothing left to give. That is the kind of the homage of the Giving Tree. So I love that book. It's one of my favorites from childhood and so I always reference it. The other book I'll leave you with, that I think everyone should be reading is a newer book, I have no Skin in the Game, but the author's brilliant and it's called Don't Feed the Elephants by Sarah Noel Wilson. And I think this book is just brilliant. And I think with everything going on in today's people problems, because we have people problems, this book anchors us. And so as we look at how do we unite, change our mindset and kind of unleash this game changing focus towards purpose, profit and potential. We need to get into that mindset. Purpose, profit, potential. We're afraid of those three Ps and I'm being honest.

Yeah.

And so I think that profit is.

Profit is just growth. And that's what I've been telling, you know, helping my staff understand profit is. Profit is growth. Profit is how we get to get another, you know, get more cans of seltzer so we can help, you know, help more people. If I have less than that, which was my bleeding heart broken business model. Like you can't do anything. So.

So I want you to plug one more time so everyone here knows. I want you to plug your two things. One is the conference that's coming up. It is May 19th. When we're recording this, tell us when it's coming. In Florida, it's June. Do you know the dates off the top?

First it's Thursday, June 1st. And. And then Greg's SSHC Life. My ticket Includes Greg's conference as well, and the VIP where you get to go out on the sunset cruise and everything. I mean, it's like the whole package, and it's not too late to sign up. And so. So.

So you got to go. Where do they go to buy tickets?

Oh, my goodness.

Include a link in your social media.

I will put the link with this because I don't have it in the top of my head, which I should.

So Mary's gonna put a link for this, and she's gonna. For how to get in touch with her regarding your documentation.

Yes. And then. And then how about you? You're gonna give me what.

So I'll say it this way. If you can look up Brandon Siegel and you can Facebook me, we've got private practice groups. WellnessWorksMP.com is one way to do it. And if you know me and you're coming to Mary's event, for those who don't know, I live minutes away, so I am happy. I live in St. Petersburg, Florida, which is very close. So I will make an effort. If my tribe is coming out to support Mary, I will find a way to connect with you all. So I wish that I could have spoken. I had conflicts in my schedule. But I know Mary is truly a gift to all of us, and I know that her workshop is going to blow your mind. So come out to Florida in two weeks. Enjoy the sun, the weather, the beach, and Mary and Greg Todd as they just unleash havoc on changing the way that your practice can function tomorrow.

And. And also I can. I can be reached on Facebook, Facebook messenger. And like I said, I will include the. The link for the conference in this. And I appreciate you coming on, and I've learned so much from you. I've been doing Brandon's. What do we call this quarterly thing? Growth code.

Yeah. So I. I don't call them masterminds, Mary. And we make fun of Brandon because Brandon doesn't like masterminds. But Brandon basically has this mastermind. But I don't call it a mastermind. I call it a growth group. And it's really uniting 12 practice owners and pushing them through a consultation approach as a unit of entrepreneurs.

Yeah. And it's. It's really been wonderful. I really appreciate your depth of knowledge. And, you know, one thing that really hit me was when you told me, like, how many places you've. You've. How many. How many places you've been a speaker and, like, how many times you've done it. I. I just was, like, blown away. It's like no wonder you, you're. Because I've really been struck with your network like, like the people that you brought to the Growth Code conference, I'm just like. And the people that you're bringing to the next one, I was just like, how do you know all these people but throw those numbers out there? Because that was mind blowing to me.

I have to, I mean now I've lost count, but I know it's over. I mean I want to say I've probably spoken over 500 different events in that sense. I've spoken regionally and I think 35 states. I've spoken at a AOTAs, AAP, ashes, all the way into regional conferences, into medical group management associations, into universities, guest lectures at usc, physical therapy program in New York and all over the country. And really I just wanted to get my voice out there. And so I just literally was on the road for probably about seven years over 200 days out of the year. And Covid actually is what kind of shut it down and it was a blessing. I have two young children and both children don't remember what it was like they literally don't remember that I was on the road. They just, Daddy wasn't part of the life. Like I'm being honest with you. I missed a good three years of my daughter's life and I can never get that back. So I won't do it again. So that's why I bring people to me and I, I, I, I hand pick. I'm going to be speaking at a couple conferences this year and excited about all of that. But by and far I try to bring people out to, I reside in Florida and, but I've resided all over many of you know, I've, I've, we lived in five states, I think four or five states, something like that. So. But nonetheless we are here to create change together. I'm all about co creating, Mary's all about co creating. Follow us both. Let's connect and let's create the change we want to see through private practice.

Absolutely. Thank you so much for coming on and it's always fun learning from you and I'm excited for the next year.

Absolutely.