04 Mar A little about myself…
A little about myself…
I was speaking with a friend of mine who is a chiropractor.
We’ve known each other for quite a few years before both of us went to university and opened practices.
We got to talking about how we got to where we are and how certain things we did or didn’t carve our paths.
One question he asked me really stood out.
“What’s one thing you’ve done consistently over the years that you attribute to success.”
It’s a great question and on ruminating I can think of one critical step I’ve done consistently my entire career.
Simply put it’s “an individualized approach.”
I first began down this path by working in a PT mill where rarely did patients actually get better and a large amount of blame was always placed on everyone else while no one took responsibility for their own treatments or plans of care.
As I started to look at patient results I knew there was something major missing because to me this couldn’t be how therapy really works, and quite frankly was depressing. I began to study deeply into conditions that patients had and looking outside of just one modality and eventually outside the industry blending personal training, functional medicine, and more.
What I started to find was I needed to develop my own strategy for assessments/intake and treatments. Taking what was useful and leaving what wasn’t at the time. I had and still have today, a relentless pursuit to get the best results at all costs and I feel as therapists it’s our fundamental obligation to do our best to help the patient.
Sometimes, it’s not a specific modality but rather a softer skill such as active listening, connecting their goals with your treatment plan and not just telling them generic information.
Other times, the smallest details can make a massive difference. I had worked with quite a few NFL players and found that my treatments needed to combine a multitude of modalities to fill in the gaps and get results that often were missed because of big egos in the industry.
Individualization truly means adapting to each specific scenario, at a specific time, is absolutely crucial for the best results possible. I take this individualize approach to not only patients, but staff, my heath practice clients and I really feel it has helped me do what most others either can’t or don’t want to because it takes more investment on your part to think, strategist and implement.
Too many therapists take a modality (I’ve done and taught a lot of them FST, ART, etc) and get caught up in memorizing a specific sequence instead of actually thinking through if they should even be doing what they are doing.
The same goes for business. There is so much information out there and the reality is, what works for someone might not for you because the information is contextual.
If you swipe my marketing strategy and don’t have the other components for conversion, retention, etc. chances are you will have some success but be missing out on so much more and in some instances might even break something!
Individualization and providing context is king whether your treating patients or growing your practice.
Let me know if you use an individualized approach in your practice, love to hear more stories.
