How to Scale from 2 to 120+ Employees with Brian McQuilkin

Hey Rockstars. Today's episode is pure gold for anyone who wants to become indispensable to their team. And that can be a team at work or at home. You're about to learn how high performing leaders actually think about teams, what they look for in their best people, and how you can stand out from the day to day, even if the company you join has zero systems or training in place. This conversation was with Brian McQuilkin, a guy who helped grow his organization from two people to over 120. You'll learn first how to plug into any team fast, even if you're brand new, nervous or unsure where to start. Number two, the secret traits leaders value most in their top team members, including VAs. And why being curious can make you more valuable than someone who's got more experience than you. Number three, how to build trust quickly with US clients through communication, self awareness and understanding different personalities, as well as how great companies create culture and belonging. So this is a mindset to help you as a new team member, not burn out and determine what it is you want to leave in terms of a mark on the world. So if you want to level up, stand out or support your clients at the highest level, you're going to understand exactly how leaders think. This episode is your roadmap. Let's jump in Rockstar. Today we're going to talk to Brian McQuilkin about teams. Teams are a big part of life. You know, we have teams that are in our business. We have teams at sports and we have teams at home. Teams are just a part of our existence. And Brian, you're, you have had lots of experience building different teams. Could you set the table a little bit of your background and the different types of teams that you've experienced over the years?

Sure. You know, I think and all of us have been a part of like good teams and bad teams. And I think like everybody can relate to like whether it's a team or a business, the ones that went well and the ones that didn't go well. And so like I'd say as part of being a leader on a team, like it probably started in high school. I was a captain of a rugby team in Minnesota. I was a part of a church youth group. Leadership. And you kind of start to see like what works and what doesn't. And then, you know, I had really well modeled leadership from, you know, a mom. And like we talked about before, like we called her Moses because like she wanted to be a nurse. She got promoted, then she got promoted again against her will, because she had a big heart.

Say that because we. I would love for you to punch that. Describe your mom.

Yeah, so my mom is the person who will see your needs. She will feed you, she will love you, she will care for you. And like, not just like our kids or my dad or just our family, like the town. I feel like if somebody had something, like, my mom would be volunteering in it, serving in it. And that was definitely modeled that leadership style. I mean, I think servant leadership is a bit redundant. Cause you can't lead without serving. The more you serve, the more you're supporting others. And so that was definitely modeled in our family. And then when you start to see, like, okay, if you want to have a good team, you know, if you're running alone, you know, you've heard the quote, you can run fast, but if you want to go far, you got to go with the team. And like, rugby's a really good example of that. Like, in the sport of rugby, if you're not familiar with it, when you get tackled, you have to set the ball down. And if the other team is there, they can pick it up and run it the other direction. You know, unlike football, you get an 80 yard run, you're celebrated. If you get an 80 yard run in rugby and you're all alone, you set that ball down, that's a turnover. And they're taking it the other direction. If you have somebody with you and you set it down, that team member can take it and carry it forward, you know, to get a try. So, like, that sports a really good demonstration of like, run fast and far and you set that ball down and it's a turnover, nobody's with you. Like, it was fruitless. If you have somebody with you that you can pass back with, or they can pick up the ball when you set it down, that try and that bell can be advanced. And I think that's a very good example of what we see in leadership is that, like, you know, if you want to see 50 visits or 75 visits, or even 100 visits, let's just say, like, you're some superhuman. And you can see 150 visits a week. Like, your impact is, you know, 150 visits. But like, in our world, if we want to have impact in multiple communities across, you know, Minnesota, impacting more and more lives, we have to be able to build a strong team. And when you start to see, like, gosh, there's so much that goes into leading and building teams from mentorship, from recruiting, from, you know, assessing Talent or assessing people, what's trainable, what's innate. And, you know, we do a lot with personalities. So can you start to see in building your team what personalities work, which personalities don't work, which skills are something that we need to be really specific on, and which ones do we have some leeway on or guide rails on? And to make a long short story, I just think the dynamics of team are just a lot of fun to build and analyze and have some strategy around to chase some cool goals.

Yeah, it's amazing how basically you're saying the teamwork is what makes the dream work and that such an important part of life is learning how to interact as a team member. We have these different domains of life, and we are active members of different teams. Even if a church group is together, that's a team. You know, every team has a different purpose and different goals. And we were talking before we hit record, you were talking about how passionate you are about, like, being a part of a team and leading some of those teams and hitting their goals. So just to give reference to the audience, um, describe your current team. You have an amazing team. What does that. What does it feel like to go to work with that team?

Yeah. So some background is like, Joan. Joan and I started the practice in 2008, and Joan's the founder of Active PT. And she reached out to me in 2007 and she said, like, hey, what do you think about opening up a practice in Rochester, Minnesota? And I just graduated in 2007 from Mayo. You know, we were the first doctorate of PT program. Mayo is amazing, you know, in a lot of different areas known around the world for the amazing care that they provide. And so when she said, do you want to open up a PT practice, you and I, in Rochester, Minnesota? I said, like, that's a. That's a bad idea. I think that's a dumb idea. And you know, Joan's passion to say, like, you know, what if you could just treat what you love treating? And I love treating jaw and headaches and neck and back and figuring out how nerves play in the body. And I said, that sounds awesome. I don't know if we're going to succeed or not, but I'm in. And through her vision of it, of even as simple things as paperless practice, we talked about before, we used to have to document on charts, paper charts, and now we have digital, and now we're going AI and all these different evolution of our. Of our industry. But, like, so it started with just Joan. Joan recruited me and that was in 2008. To like, if you fast forward to today when you say, what does our team look like? Well, we have 120 team members and we have 12 different communities that we're fortunate enough to serve. We have 17 different locations, around 70 clinicians. We have an RCM team, a marketing team. We have an HR lead. So there's like when you start and you get to wear all the hats, you know, sometimes well, sometimes not. Well, and now you get to have like people that are on our team that are doing an amazing job, that are like a core value fit, a mission fit, and also incredibly knowledgeable and skilled. Like the impact that we can make, you know, Joan and I, seeing as many people as we can do While we're juggling 10 hats of roles, responsibilities and titles to now 120 people doing a way better job than we ever did, making an incredible impact. I mean that's a pretty cool team to be a part of.

Yeah, it's amazing. I hate that word synergy because it's such a corporate trigger. It's like everyone says synergy, but there really is this thing about one plus one equals five. When you get all these great people together, the impact is a multiple exponential of the individual potential. And it's so cool to hear this end in mind because people who are listening, who don't know you, Brian, are like, okay, so we've got an expert on, on my hands here. Let's take an example of someone who's a virtual assistant who's going to be joining a company or anyone who's joining a new company, maybe it's a new PT who's joining any new team member who's listening to this? What advice would you give them to help them be a powerful contributor and member of a well oiled team like yours?

So we're fortunate to have a lot of students that come through and we do a talk to kind of say like when you're picking a team or joining a team, what should you be looking for? But also like what should you be contributing? How do you go about starting that new team? And we talk about like, you know, from the PT world, you know, saying like, okay, what are their core values? Do you align with their mission? Like if I'm joining something and this isn't just like, hey, I believe that like, you know, their mission's good. Does their mission on the wall match the way that they're speaking with you, the things that they're doing? So like know their mission, do a little bit of Looking to say, like, hey, it matches. Look at their core values. Do they have core values? Can they speak their core values?

You know, sorry to interrupt, but can you define for some people who are listening? They don't. May not even. They may have heard those things. But why do you think a mission, a company's mission and values are so important? Like, what is, what's the value of that as an owner for you?

So I can speak from our standpoint, it's our filter, so it's how we make decisions, you know, and our core values are kind of like, if you've read Ideal Team Player, you know, how do the different components of our six core values come together? You know, and who do we hire? Who do we fire? Do. Who do we review, recognize, reward? You know, it's based on those core values. Our interviews around our core values, we draw out those six core values, saying, hey, is there. Are they a fit or not? At 30 days, 60 days, 90 days annually, we look at those core values again and say, like, hey, is that person a fit based on those things that we say are our core values? You know, so if you're looking at a business and they say that they're this. Do they live it? You know, do they. Do they live it? Do they breathe it? Do you feel it when you're in their practice or when you're talking to that team? Because you get to choose. I mean, I'm going to guess whether you're, you know, a virtual assistant or your physical therapist or you're in the admin team. Like, people are needed, you know, especially good people, and you get a choice. So make sure that you take some time to understand who you're joining so that you don't waste that time on a team that's. It's not a fit.

I love that advice of, like, before you even join the team, research their mission, which is why they exist, the values, which is their filter, so that you can understand how people think. I'm guessing that really helps someone feel a little bit more comfortable integrating into a team. And, you know, Brian, I also haven't worked for you, but I have talked to people who have, and there's this feeling of belonging that exists within a team. Talk to me about both sides of that. How do you create an environment where people feel like they belong? And then how. How do you help? What would. What advice would you give to someone who's new, a new member of a team, to feel how to integrate and get comfortable quickly? Like, let's start with, like, how you create that environment and then give advice to people who are like, maybe listening to this before they start a new job or you know, that kind of thing to help them feel comfortable.

Yeah, so we really want to get to know our team members. And this may make me sound a little crazy, but like, we love personality tests. I mean, if I could take every person that I got to speak with and give them the eight personality tests that I love to discuss. Yeah, we do Myers Briggs. We do working genius, Enneagram, Colby Crystallizer, communication style. What else have we done? Did you do all of that temperament? So there's seven, seven, maybe eight that we do. And we try not to like, fully like overwhelm people. So we do Myers Briggs. Love language and a neogram first. And kind of what that allows us to do is we kind of get to see, how do you work? How do you think? How do you like to be appreciated? You know, when I ask a male that joins our team, what's your love language? You know, they might look at me like I'm kind of crazy and maybe not be comfortable with that. But it's really looking at how do they want to be appreciated? And you know, are we, are we seeing them for. Okay, they'd like to quality time. Well, let's maybe grab a coffee. You know, that same coffee, maybe it shows up on their desk if they're gifts or if they're words of affirmation. Like maybe even knowing that, like if I give you feedback, Will, and your words of affirmation like that may hit different if affirmations how you feel like appreciated or it might hit harder in a negative way if that's how you view yourself through is that feedback or that affirmation. So we want to know them and maybe even help them have a self awareness. Like if we're working at the front desk, let's just say a PSU joins our team and we have an introvert and an extrovert. And to have success on our team, we think awareness of, okay, I'm extroverted, they're introverted, I want to talk all the time. And you know, the person that I'm standing next to, they may not so in between patients, they may recharge by being quiet. And I'm just, you know, peppering them with, you know, hey, how are you doing? You know, all of the conversation. And I might take offense to them. Well, you know, Will's mad at me. I've said a whole lot of things to him and he said nothing. And then you can have the like, oh, maybe they didn't like the way interacted. Oh, should I should have collected payment there. Maybe they should, should have thought I answered the call, that last call. But if I know I'm an extrovert, if I know they're an introvert and they're recharging, I can say like, no, they're recharging. That's healthy. It's not me, my internal head game that says like they're angry at me. It's probably the wrong filter. But if you don't have that awareness of who you are and awareness of they are and the value that both of those people and personalities have, you could have a conflict that wasn't necessary.

Interesting. It's, it's very powerful how, how much effort you guys put into creating that environment of belonging. It sounds like all of these tests are key for understanding. Like if there's a word that comes from all these tests that you guys do, it's for me it's understanding. It's because what you said there at the end in particular is conflict can arise when there's this miscommunication around how people give and receive affection or how they extrovert or introvert. And so rockstars, when Brian's talking about this, I want you to pay close attention because you're, you know, as a leader of a company or a new member of a company, you can bring these tools into the environment to help create clarity. And I'm a believer in all of these and I'm curious to see in a second which, which ones you would recommend for a couple of circumstances. But these tools that I am familiar with all of them, I've never met anyone use them all, but he's using all of them in a way to really create this environment, belonging, something you can take back, it's something you can use on yourself before you even go work somewhere is like where do you show up as. Understanding yourself, I'm guessing is a probably an important step in this process. Maybe these people who are listening should take these tests first. I don't know. What do you think, Brian?

So, so I mean I think by nature we're kind of a research based or like fact finding group. If you look at my Kobe, I'm for sure high on fact finder. But the research will say your self awareness is related to success in communication, in leadership and in your interactions on a team. And so we feel like if that might help them in the clinic or on our team or even outside with friends and family and other Relationships, if they know how they think and how they work, and maybe a filter to maybe perceive others is, you know, incredibly helpful for. For our team.

Interesting. So you guys do that first. The first thing you'll do is you'll create understanding through these different tests and assessments. And then how do you build on that to help create that environment of belonging and camaraderie that you guys have?

Right. So we will sit down day one, and we'll go through, like, the history of actope, you know, Joan, the founder, what were the founding principles? And kind of give them a little bit of who we are. And then by that, I'm also, like, going through, like, the core values with each person, each person that joins. I get some time with them to sit down with them and go through, like, our mission and our core values. And those core values are then explained and they're livable. And, you know, then we talk about, like, okay, it might be something like, hey, we're open and honest and you're in your first 90 days and this is going to be uncomfortable. This is what we do. We live in passive aggressive Minnesota, you know, but on our team, even in your first 90 days, you need to tell us what's not good. And if you're getting, you know, if Amanda, as our PSC director is, you know, onboarding somebody and let's just say our process isn't as good as it should be, maybe we could tweak. How do we, you know, teach this or coach this or mentor this or explain this. Like, it's your job to say, like, hey, this isn't great. This should be better. And if you don't, like, you're selfishly avoiding that conversation that we need for the next person that joins our team. So we'll say, like, in your first 30, 60, 90 days, when you feel like you shouldn't have much of a voice or you may feel that way. Nope. You're expected to make the next person who joins our team experience better by saying, like, hey, this isn't great. Be better.

It's such a powerful impact. I could imagine as an employee hearing this to be making using your values, by the way, in its real application of a filter to help people set the stage and the expectation that it's safe to have conflict, that that has to be so powerful and must serve you in countless ways. I think about cultures I've experienced and created in my own world that didn't have that safety where people don't feel like they can complain or vocalize concerns or talk about what's not working? Well, because there's this, like, facade of, of everything's going great, and then all of a sudden an employer gets a resume of. Or a resume, excuse me, a resignation letter because they didn't even. And they didn't even know it was coming. Or the employee quits because they didn't ever vocalize or feel safe to vocalize their concerns. And so they end up just taking another job. So everyone gets surprised, everyone leaves. So to create that feeling of belonging, it sounds like one of your values, open and honest. Is that what it is? Yep.

Yep. Open and honest mindset probably hit the most in that conversation.

Okay, so huge. I can see now that culture. And I love how you start with the company background story because I believe that that story allows your, your team members to, to buy in themselves into this narrative. And so for those of you who are listening, who are joining a new team, how cool would it be if they don't tell you the story for you to ask for what that story is and ask for these things if they don't have them? So, okay, so then tell me, how does it build from there? So you integrate them well, you test them, you understand who they are. They understand each other from the tests. Then you build in the culture and the values. Let's take someone who's a year in, someone who's been in the company for a while. What do you do to continue to foster that culture of belonging? Assuming, of course, this point when you have enough A players, they're all kind of fostering it together. But what do you guys do on your end to help facilitate that?

Yeah. So back up just a little bit. So, like, after we go through and we do like maybe the. Tell them who we are, you know, this isn't just something on the wall. This. We're going to, you know, live this. We also are pretty intentional with the mentorship and an onboarding. And no matter what position, you're going to have a mentor, you're going to have a partner that you're going through that onboarding with. And then for our physical therapists, they're going to have a mentorship for a year. And I always tell the students that Jake, one of the other leaders on our team, he and I give this talk to the students before they go out on one of their last rotations and go out and choose who they're going to work with and work for and what team they're going to be on. We say like, okay, when they say, and everybody says, we have a Mentorship, do they have a plan? Can you look at it? Can they prove it? Or is it just like we have a mentorship and somebody's going to be in a room on your hallway that you can ask questions? And at activity we'll say, like, do you want to see the mentorship? You know, how many times are you meeting a week? You know, what sort of competencies are you going through? What sort of CEUs are you going to do? You know, what sort of skill training will you receive? Can I see it? You know, and I think especially in the job market that is right now, people have choices and we ask and then you can say anything. Just like a person applying can tell you a lot of things, like an employer or a new team can as well. I think it's fair to say, like, prove it. If you have a process, if you have a plan, you know, we write down a lot of processes, but we'll call them recipes. If you have a recipe and you've reproduced this a number of times, you have to have a process or recipe. Show me it. You know, how are you going to onboard me? Who is going to be delivering my, you know, manipulations training? Who is going to be delivering a. How do I do a wow call the first time with a patient? You know, what is this first 90 days to a year going to look like to make sure that I have success on this team? Because, like, being good at your job, knowing who you are, self awareness, being good at your job, you know, skills, and then being able to deliver something that matters. Purpose, you know, we'll call that amp, you know, autonomy, mastery of skill, you know, delivering a purpose. We know that that prevents burnout. If you can be good at what you do and deliver it to a community of people, that, that helps them. We know you're going to be less likely to burn out if you come to, if you come to active PT. Let's just say you're a therapist and you see 10 people a day and none of them get better, you're going to burn out. If you suck at your job, you're going to have more burnout.

Yeah.

If you come to work and you get 10 people better and they say you're amazing, like, I haven't been able to lift my granddaughter. I haven't been able to throw a baseball. I haven't been able to run a marathon. And because of your knowledge and care and skill, I can now reach my goals. It's going to be harder to burn out if 10 people tell you're Amazing. Every day.

Yeah.

If you get told you're not very good at what you do every day, I think I'd probably want to quit that job, too. And I think some of that's on active PT as a team to, like, give people a platform that they can have autonomy, be skilled at what they do, and serve our purpose of making people better.

So powerful. You know, you said so many things, Brian, and I heard defining success. You know, really like that whole concept. So there's mentoring, there's training, but then there's, like, this support group where you have the mentor and the team there to help make sure that you know what success is, but they also teach people how to take the steps to get there. Was that hard for you guys to figure out? I mean, from my experience, that wasn't easy for me. How did you guys end up? What were some of the resources? Let me ask a better question. What were some of the resources or key learnings that helped you determine how to create that experience?

Yeah, I always joke that I have a poor man's MBA made of, like, reading a lot of books, podcasts, you know, having beers, lunches, coffees with people that have more wisdom and knowledge than I do, and then just making mistakes, you know? Cause I'll tell people as they join our team, like, unfortunately, you have imperfect leadership, imperfect mentors, and imperfect teammates. So, like, we're gonna screw stuff up. And so I think, you know, over the years, you know, we've had the ability to have different people pour into us. You know, I remember sitting at a PPS conference and somebody, you know, Mary Du Long, saying, you know, all of these things for compliance. And I nudge the guy next to me, and I say, like, hey, do you do these things? He's like, absolutely. Do you? And I was like, we have a book that I bet probably says that in the back. And, like, he goes, do you realize the liabilities you have if you don't follow, you know, all of these processes? And I was like, kind of, you know, that fear of, like, oh, crap, we're not doing that. We're just seeing as many patients as we can and trying to do the best job we can. And we must be some size where people think that we should have it together. So we invite Mary out. She goes into our kitchen, and I say, hey, do you want a coffee? She goes, let me see your cupboard. And the coffee cups were down, facing down. She goes, absolutely not. And so I learned that day that your coffee cup should be facing up. And we needed a Dishwasher because the dish, you know, the, you know, sponge that we had there probably wasn't sanitary anymore. And so, like, it's people like Mary who said, like, okay, compliance should look like this. And we called her out and she came from Texas and just, just shredded us on, like, all these different things and did an audit. And we got to learn and we got to grow, you know, or you, you get, you know, different people where you sit down and we said, like, oh, we're going to buy this practice. And somebody says, like, you know, I remember one of our mentors are saying, hey, we're going to buy this practice. And he looked at me and said, this is amateur hour. You guys have no clue what you're about to do. And so, you know, you get to, like, the feedback from that. Or the first time somebody joined our team.

Yeah.

And said, what's your onboarding process? I was like, whoa. Like, you mean, like, there's a computer. We use this ehr and like, care for as many people as you can each day. And like, hopefully we make payroll. Like, you know, like, at some point somebody said like, hey, we have higher expectations than the, like, early days where Joan and I's main goal was to just care for people.

Right.

And now we had to have those recipes and really be intentional and saying, like, how do we greet somebody? What might be innate to, like, you know, Jake and, you know, he was one of our early pts, now is in our leadership and ownership group. And Joan and I, like, what was innate in caring? How do you write down that recipe? We'll call it Grandma's recipe for soup. If it goes down each generation and nobody ever writes it down, it's not going to be the same. And then if you said, like, hey, why is it different? Well, the translation was different. So we had to write processes and recipes on how do we do it. From how do we greet somebody when they come in to how do we onboard a new clinician to how do we, like, teach somebody to answer a call or take a payment? And you start to evolve into these processes and recipes of how do you want to, like, deliver your mission when it's two people and you're bumping shoulders all the time and it's obvious and those conversations happen innately to, like, 120. You have to have a process and a plan. But that wasn't the initial intent. We didn't say we would love to write down all the recipes of how to move about a team. That came off of like, well, that's not very good. Well, why is it not good? Well, nobody told me, okay? We got to start telling people somehow.

There was one person whose whole job was to go around, tell business owners, hey, here's what you wish you would know. I mean, I guess they're called business coaches. I guess they do exist.

Yeah. No, I think, I think we. That's what I say. I have a poor man's mba, have a lot of mistakes, a lot of conversations with people that had wisdom or books to just learn and grow and staying humble to what you don't know because you're never going to have made it. There's always something that's, you know, work in progress.

You know, one thing that comes to mind, Brian, is this authentically real for me right now is I know what it's like for someone to join your company now. Because I've seen companies and I've even had companies that have those elements in place. They're defined and we learn by doing. But let's go back in time when you didn't have those things. And the onboarding was like, there's the computer, there's the emr. See as many patients as you can. Hopefully we'll make payroll. What advice would you give those employees? Because right now, listening. There are people, I think of virtual assistants in particular who are going to be joining companies who don't have those elements, but they have great leaders in development. So if someone who's coming in doesn't have those things, how can they come in as a new team member to support that growth? And I'm thinking you probably have some examples of previous employees, amazing people who joined you early on, who helped you, how did they help you?

So I think about, you know, people that join small teams and they grow. You end up knowing how to do everything, you know, and, and like most of what I do today was because, like, oh, we're dropping a ball there, I'll carry it. Oh, I'll drop a ball there, I'll carry it. And then like the people that owner or the leader.

Yeah, yeah.

The people that have really thrived are the people that are like servant minded. You know, think about like Emily, who's now one of our owners. She was an intern. You know, her mom said, hey, active PT is awesome. Go have an internship. Well, then she became a patient services coordinator. Then she became our office manager. Then she learned the finances of it. So then she became our director of finance, and now she's like the director of business operations on our leadership and on our ownership team. And it came from that servant mindset of, like, what does activity the team need? And I'm going to learn that, grow that, own that. And so I think if you're joining a new team, whatever your skill set is, are you willing to, like, ask the question or see a need like, Will, if I joined your team? And I see, like, okay, Will's great when he gets into the podcast, but he needs a Kim to, like, organize it, email it, keep pursuing Brian until he finally responds to the email. You know, let me structure this. Let me give them all the information that they need before they come onto the podcast so that they look good, so that I don't have to have a waste of a podcast. Because, like, they weren't prepped well. They didn't have a microphone, a light, the content. So I think if you're joining a small team, see the needs of the people that are leading it, see the needs of the patients or the customers, the clients that you're serving, and just start supporting it with whatever skill set you have. And if you don't have the skill set, I mean, they're probably strapped for people. So try to learn whatever you need to fill that gap.

Oh, Rockstars, that was gold as anyone is entering a new team. And I would say this is great for leaders who are trying to develop a team like Brian's. Is that servant leadership? I love what you said, Brian. And Rockstars, I want you to, like, tattoo this in your mind. The idea that, like, being of service trumps all being willing, like, being curious and looking for things to do to support the person that you're working for or the team that you're working for trumps anything that you don't know or the company doesn't know how to onboard you with. And as you're saying that, you know, there's power. Brian, when I was working with one of my employees that I hired for my team, now, at the end of the day, the person said, hey, is there anything else I can do for you? Which sounds like a pretty, like, low ask, but it blew my mind. Like, it blew my mind. You know, that's something that you would hear, like a customer service call when you're calling to complain about your broken oven. But when it comes to, like, an employee asking me, is there anything else that I can do for you Today, it, like, almost made me emotional. I remember thinking, oh, my gosh, yeah, actually. And what did that do to that person? For me, it made them more valuable. Like, immediately I'm like, oh, what else? Can I work with someone's who's willing and wanting and searching for ways to help me? Like in your company? It sounds like this was the path for a lot of people's success.

Yeah. And this the follow up question to that. I think of Lex. She's now like operations support. She can do anything from marketing to facilities and just generally supportive. When she asked, can I help you? Kind of like you had her, can I support you? Sometimes people struggle with the word help, so we'll say support, can I support you? I said yes. And I gave her a task and it was kind of like one of those, like, I don't have time for this. I don't even have time to explain to you how to do this. I'm going to just answer your question. She asked me, hey, how do I support you? I gave her something. I saw the blank look on like, I don't know how I'm going to do that. And like her follow up question, I'll never forget. She said like, I have no clue how to do that for you, but how would you start it if you were going to do it? And that was the best question because like I got to say, like, I don't know, I would probably Google it. We didn't have chatgpt then. So I say like I'd start with googling it and understanding the problem better and then I might reach out to somebody who's done it before and talk to them. And I walked away.

What was this? So reemphasize that follow up question. What was that? She said again the follow up question

was like, I don't know how to do that, but how would, if you were doing it, how would you start? And I said, I asked how I would process.

She guided you in finding better direction and delegation.

Yep. So. So she wasn't trying to give the issue back to me. She fully took the issue and she was going to solve it. But I didn't know how to do it. She didn't know how to do it. And she said like, how would you start it? I was like, oh, you've owned the issue. It's not coming back to me. And you're asking me like, how would I start it? To give yourself a little bit of an edge in completing it. And she's just, that's the way she thinks all the time. Jake, one of our other leaders, he always talks about curiosity quotient. You have EQ iq, social quotient, but curiosity quotient. Who are the people on your team? They're going to ask the questions and always curious how to do it better or how to get to a solve, reach a goal. That curiosity quotient is who probably makes the best team members and makes you invaluable to any leader or team you join.

Yeah, Rockstars. Did you hear that? You know the simplest way I can boil down what he said is be curious, be curious, be servant based curious. Where it's like be a servant and be curious. Those two taglines not only thread through good advice to give the best advice you could give someone who's starting out, but it also threads into how you guys operate now. Your whole company now that's emerged from when you didn't know how to onboard to now these very in depth systems that you've learned over time and it's multiplied and multiplied into this wonderful company that you now get to be a leader of and you get to see the fruits of that. What are some of the most, what are some of your favorite examples of how your company has blessed the lives of your employees? Call that's yourself or the employees. I'll throw you in there as well.

So I would go back to like our mission and our mission is like we make people better, you know, our team members and the patients that we get to serve. And we emphasize the fact that like our goal is to like make our team and our team members better first. We unapologetically say like it's not the patient comes first or the client comes first. It's like our team comes first. So if we think a healthy team and healthy team members will always out serve and care for people. So when we get to like treat people well on our team, we get to make sure that they're skilled at what they do, that they have awareness of who they are. They get to deliver a mission. You know, I sit down and I feel very fortunate to be able to sit down with many of our team members on a quarterly basis and find out like, okay, what's going on in your personal goals, professional goals, what are your passions that you're pursuing? Do you have them in your life? You know, I'm probably, my kids know this too. I think work life balance is a swear word. I'm probably going to offend somebody because I just don't think that's how life works. I think you can have like five to eight passions and things that make you you in your life. And I don't think that they're balanced ever. I don't think that they're perfectly ever going to be put in your life. But if those passions are in it to some extent, I think you'll be good. But if will, if you said, hey, my faith is important to me, fitness is important, my family is important and work is important. And you said, nope, I don't go to church anymore. I don't have time. I haven't done fitness in a month. I'd say you're out of passion. Life balance. Yeah, man, you need to figure out a spot for it. It may not be perfectly balanced, but can you get 15 minutes in there? Can you get a half an hour in there so that you can be you with the passions that you say you care about? So, like having those quarterly connections and then the last question that I was asking those is like, what do you want to be known for in life? And if you ask like a 20 year old that just joined our team, what do you want to be known for in life? You know, they look at me kind of like when I ask a guy, their love language is. But like, if you can think at 20, let's just say I want to be known for a disciplined, fit person. I say, okay, is that aspirational or is that you? And they say, like, well, I don't work out well, I think you're probably not going to be known as a fit person then, or a disciplined person. If you say, I want to be known for being an amazing baker, I want to be known for how I always put my family first or I'm known to be a servant in the community, you kind of say like, is it aspirational or is it you? And sometimes it is aspirational. But if you know what you want out of life, whether it's your passions or you know, your end, you all, you know your end conversation of who you were, is it in your life now or do you know how you're going to get it in your life? And I think by knowing that about our team and the team members and who we get to serve and be in the community with, like, they're known, their purpose is like maybe focused in life. And active PT may be like, you might be here your hold your whole life, you might be here for a portion of your life, but hopefully like going forward, you leave with like the ability to know who you were, that your purpose mattered, that your skill set mattered, and that like, at the end of the day, you know where you're headed in life. I think that's a pretty cool thing that we can give back to our team is a purpose and A knowledge of who they are and maybe teaching them a couple of skills along the way about, you know, being curious and helping patients and, you know, interacting in a team. I hope that we can deliver a lot of those things.

Yeah, I. I feel like submitting my application to come work for you guys. That was.

We don't have any podcasters.

My skill set as a therapist has waned. I will tell you. It's been over a decade since I've treated. But, no, I love. I love what you're saying. It speaks to me very powerfully, Brian. And this has been such a powerful discussion on not just teams, but understanding what the end in mind is of a great team. Seeing how a great team when comes together, it creates goals, but more importantly, it creates this purpose, this, like, greater cause in the world. What we're going to be known for, as you say. And by defining that and working on it together, we don't have to go alone. It takes time. Like you said, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. Um, so thank you. This has been such a phenomenal episode. I'm ready to do some rapid fire questions for you with you right now. You ready to do some rapid fire?

Sounds good.

Okay. This is really fun. Okay, first, what's one of your favorite books on teams? If someone's like, I want to read a book on how to create a team or be a better team member, like, what's one of your favorite books in that topic?

5 dysfunctions of a Team is probably our foundational book.

I was so hoping you're gonna say that. You've got the pyramid above you, and that book changed my life forever. So I created that question hoping you would give me that answer. My next rapid fire question has to relate to this a little bit. You mentioned a ton of these tests that you guys use. If you had to bolt gun to your head, Brian, you have to pick one test. What's the test that you recommend to people?

A neogram.

Oh, my gosh. Okay. Where does six, the six working geniuses, fall into that for you?

That would have been number two.

Okay. Because that's Patrick Lencioni's system. I'm obsessed with that. But I barely know the enneagram. I've never taken mine, actually. So I'll get.

And we'll talk on working genius, because you're familiar with it. But I think the part that I like about the working genius, I mean, that came out of COVID I'm pretty sure when he started popping that Book out on it kind of developed in his podcast. I feel like we were a part of that brainstorm, if you were listening to them talk on that podcast. But, like, there's phases and there's strengths and, like, with all the personalities, it's a caricature. You're not all of any one of these things. It kind of just gives you some. Maybe some insights. But it's not to be used to, like, stereotype you. It's almost to be used to, like, we need all of those on our team. Each one has value potentially in different situations or different parts of the process. So in, like, working genius. I mean, I'm not a wi. My guess is that you've got some at least wri in you.

I'm ig.

Yeah. Because of your content, you're pushing out, like, and the fact that you get followers, which is probably where your G comes in, like.

All right, so back to the rapid fire questions. This is going to be a totally left, left field. What was one of your favorite NES games growing up? Nintendo games.

Ooh. I mean, I just go with classic Super Mario. But, I mean, you could also talk about, like, you know, punch out. You could talk about Mike Tyson. You could talk about, like, a whole lot of Tecmo bowl would be awesome.

Bo Jackson.

Yeah, love. Bo Jackson was a stud. So we'll go with those.

Okay, very good. And then lastly, and this is where we're going to get right to the heart of it. Your kids. You know, all that we do in this world is eventually to develop these. These descendants into leaders. What would you want to say to your kids as they're listening to this? What do you and your grandkids like, this is a recording that's going to be out in the ether.

What do you.

What do you want your descendants to know about this topic that we talked about today?

Yeah, you know, I think we'll just, you know, frame it out as, like, leading, parenting, coaching, you know, all have a lot of overlap and similarities, you know, and, you know, as a parent, you want to give your kids a platform that they can be their best that they could be. So, like, I hope that, you know, we have a son and two daughters. I hope that they are always going to feel, like, supported. And we also get to teach them, like, you know, faith, and we get to help them, support them, like, what are they good at? Do they know what they're good at? Do they know maybe things that they're strong at, things that they're weak at? Are we able to, like, keep them accountable and show them discipline so that there's, you know, ability to give back and support, you know, whether it's their own families, their own communities, their own passions. There's just. There's like, that angst or pressure for any parent. Did I do enough? And we have, you know, a son that's now 19. He's off at college, and you have that, like, you know, kind of panic mode of, like, shoot, did I teach him this skill set? Did we have this conversation? Did we go through this book or this lesson or this, you know, learning component? I think there's a lot of parenting that would have, should have, could haves, but you cared enough to, like, keep trying and do better the next day.

Oh, powerful stuff. Brian, thank you for being on this show. It means a lot that you spend some time with me today.

Yeah, well, thank you for having me on. I'm really glad you and Jamie, Amanda had a connection. And then some food together, and this happened.

Me too. Man, that was. That Raintree conference was transformative, and it just keeps. Keeps rolling. It's all because of people. So, rockstars, thank you for tuning in and joining this conversation with me and Brian. This is Will Humphreys reminding you, as always, to live with purpose, lead with love, and most importantly, never give up until next time.