Surviving Emergencies: 3 Vital Tips for OTPreneurs

Do you know what to do if faced with an emergency as a business owner?

When crisis strikes, having a solid plan in place can be the difference between sinking or swimming as an entrepreneur. In this episode Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L dives into the crucial topic of navigating emergencies as an entrepreneur. She explores three essential strategies that can help entrepreneurs not only weather the storm, but also emerge stronger on the other side.

Tune into this episode as we provide practical insights and actionable tips to not just survive, but thrive in the face of an emergency.

What You’ll Learn

• The importance of establishing robust systems within your business.
  
  
• The significance of being open, honest, and transparent with the people you work with to maintain clear communication, foster trust and allow for collaborative problem-solving.
  
  
• Using OTPreneurship as a flex, to not have to worry about PTO or boss expectations and have flexibility to focus on emergency personal matters when they arise. 
  
  

Resources
 
     👉 Episode with Mindfulness in Motion

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Thanks for tuning in! We'll see you next time

Transcript

Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L [00:00:00]:
Have you ever wondered what you would do if you were faced with an emergency situation as an OTpreneur? Well, guess what? I just went through that. And I wanted to take some time today to share a few things that I realized and a few things that I learned because of this experience. I'm gonna kinda share a little briefly about what happened, but then also share 3 takeaways that I had as a result of this emergency. Are you thinking about starting an occupational therapy business, but don't even know where to begin? Whether you're starting something on the side or going full time in your business, the OTpreneur podcast is what you need. This show will help you get in the right mindset and give you actionable tips to go from Putt an idea to OTpreneur. I'm Sarah Putt. And today, I do not have my witty, fun, intelligent, amazing cohost, Jason Davies with me. It is just gonna be me.

Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L [00:00:57]:
Today is going to be the Otepreneur Podcast first monologue episode. Feels good to say. I well, you know, Jason and I, we've been talking about doing monologues for a while. And, you know, we've just been having a lot of stuff we wanted to talk about together. And then we did our 1st guest episode, a few episodes back. So if you happen to miss that one, check out episode 14. And that's titled From Practitioners to OTpreneurs, Overcoming Obstacles to Start Your Business. And on that episode, we had doctor Danielle DiLorenzo and me, Bui Lewis, from Mindfulness in Motion.

Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L [00:01:31]:
And they were on the show, and it was absolutely amazing. And that was our 1st guest episode. And today, I get to kick it off and do our 1st monologue episode on the podcast. So yeah. I mean, today, you are just getting me. There is no Jason. Sorry. Everybody loves Jason out there.

Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L [00:01:50]:
It's just Sarah today. And really, the reason why that it's going to be just me today is because I wanna talk about something that just happened in my life. Very a very kind of personal thing that Putt happened. And it's not that I want to share it's not that I just wanna share what happened and how that impacted OTPreneur, but I also wanted to share how it relates to OTpreneurship in general. So first off, the biggest thing that I really wanted to to mention here is that if if you were one of the people that had signed up for the webinar, the original webinar that was supposed to take place towards the beginning of January of 2024, and you've ultimately got the message, the email that we had to cancel within just a few hours of it starting. The reason why is because of this emergency that I was going through with my family. And so if you were one of the people that were with us for that 1st webinar OT should have been with us for the 1st webinar, I do wanna apologize for that and really explain. Use this episode to kind of explain what happened and ultimately why we had to cancel and then reschedule.

Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L [00:02:51]:
So we did ultimately have OT, I think, like a week week or 2 later after that. But we did have it, and we were all excited about having it. And then we did have to cancel and reschedule very quickly because, this this emergency popped up, and it was not something that I was expecting to have to deal with. And, yeah, here we are. So really Putt ultimately happened is that my that that week of the webinar, my daughter had been sick and she had had a fever and, you know, just really hadn't seemed like herself. But I honestly just kinda thought that it was just just a cold, you know, and it it's flu season and all that kind of stuff. Like, I just kinda thought it was a cold. I then took her to the pediatrician, actually, the morning of the the same day as as the original webinar that we were gonna have and, like, pretty much walked in.

Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L [00:03:39]:
And the pediatrician told me to go straight to the children's hospital emergency room. And I got checked in. They'd already sent over all the paperwork from the pediatrician's office and like didn't even sit down in the waiting room. They literally took straight into the emergency room. And shortly after that, she was diagnosed with RSV and got admitted to the hospital in which we were there for, gosh, it was 2 nights and like two and a half, three ish days. Yeah. All of that happened very, very quickly. And the whole time I just kind of thought like, you know, I didn't think she was that bad.

Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L [00:04:12]:
And I honestly thought the pediatrician was just gonna send us home. And, you know, I'd be home in time to do the webinar and and whatnot. Putt, no, I found myself in a hospital room with my daughter who was put on oxygen and, you know, nurses and doctors coming in all the time and and just making sure that she was okay. And, yeah, all of a sudden, I found myself kind of knee deep in this emergency with all these other things that I had planned. And I had to focus on my family, first and foremost. So then, meanwhile, at home, my husband was with my son, and we knew that, you know, the doctors are kind of they've kind of prompted us that RSV is very contagious. And so we're like, you know, there's a very good chance that my son was gonna have it. And so my husband was was watching my son.

Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L [00:04:55]:
I was with my daughter. And for the most part, he seemed to be doing fine. My daughter got discharged. So she got admitted on Thursday, got discharged on a Saturday, like, around noon ish. And, you know, we got home, and we were kind of excited to to be back as a family and the 4 of us together again. And a few hours later, we realized that we had to take my son in. That we were pretty sure that he was gonna get diagnosed with RSV and he was struggling to breathe, you know, kind of the same things that we had been going through with my daughter. And so yeah.

Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L [00:05:28]:
Literally, like, my daughter got discharged. And a few hours later, my son was admitted to the same the same children's hospital and then spent a few nights with my husband at the hospital there. And then just a few days later, we realized that my we we noticed that my daughter was struggling to breathe again and called the pediatrician. And they said, yep, take her back in. And she actually got readmitted to the hospital. And that time, she was diagnosed with rhinovirus, which really wasn't a big deal OT shouldn't have been a big deal. It's kind of like the common cold OT, you know, the most common common cause of the common cold. But because she was already compromised because of the RSV and everything that her body had been going through, it hit her pretty hard.

Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L [00:06:10]:
So she had to be admitted again. And here we are with my daughter back in the hospital. And I it was just such a weird just such a weird, weird week. You know, nothing could have this is nothing that we could have planned for, or, like, known that it was gonna happen. It was really Putt 1 morning, I was taking my daughter to the pediatrician thinking they were gonna tell me, and it's a it's a cold and go home and monitor. And the next, I was sitting in a hospital room with my daughter on oxygen and not being able to really think about anything else besides making sure that she was okay. So, yeah, what does this all mean? What does this mean for OT preneurship? And really, like, what did I learn from this experience? Well, I mean, I guess, experiences because it was multiple things that had all happened during that. Mean, I guess, all in, it was 2 2 to 3 weeks by the time of, like, you know, the first cold symptoms happening and the hospitalizations and then the the 2nd hospitalization, and really until my kids started to kind of come back around and and be their normal selves again.

Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L [00:07:10]:
And so I wanted to just take a few minutes to share 3 takeaways that as I kind of reflected on these experiences and and really what was going on, kind of everything that I was going through. So the the first takeaway that I wanted to talk about was the importance of having systems within your OT business. And really, why it's so important to have these systems is that that way, you do not have to be in your business every single second of every single day. Now, when you're first starting off, yeah, it's a lot of that. You are constantly working on your business, potentially working in your business too. Right? Like, for me, when I was starting my private practice, it was seeing clients, but then also, you know, working on the business, trying to get everything set up and and really getting it set up to the best of my ability. But once you've got through that kind of initial setup phase, it is having systems in place that your business can still continue to run even if you are not there, you know, staring at your emails, waiting for emails to come in OT, you know, having your phone right next to you, being able to take phone calls or anything like that. I think really another importance of having these systems is that it gives you peace of mind.

Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L [00:08:26]:
It gives you peace of mind when you need to step away. And this could be whether it's something that is planned, like a vacation OT a day off or a mental health day or something like that, like, where you actually plan to have that vacation or have that time off. But it also gives you mind it it also gives you peace of mind for something that is not planned or when something happens that is not planned, like an emergency, like something that I just went through. And knowing that I had some systems in place and that my business could carry on without me being in it and working on it, you know, every single second, that that was just amazing. That was so important for me to be able to step away, to be able to have that flexibility, to be able to step away and know that my business is going to continue and be okay for a day, for a couple days, for as long as it needs to. I think also having systems too are is important because if you are planning on hiring people or bringing on people to potentially help you, I admit that I am not the best when it comes to systems OT maybe I should say that I definitely have some room to grow in this department. But OT least I know that I do have some systems in place to make sure that my business can continue without me for, you know, a certain amount of time. I feel like one of my goals for 2024 is to really work on these systems and improve them, continue to improve them so that they are even better, way better, I should say, than they are right now.

Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L [00:10:02]:
So, yeah, 1st and foremost, one of the takeaways that really kind of stood out to me was this importance of systems and, and having things in place to help your business continue to run regardless if you are there or if you are not there. Secondly, my next takeaway that I kind of I think I always knew, but I just kind of put words to it or I just kind of had a a deeper recognition and a deep deeper appreciation for was being open, honest, and transparent. And this is being open, honest, and transparent with, first off, my self and, really, what I was able to handle and what I was able to have the capacity to be able to do during this time, which, I'll tell you wasn't very much. I had very limited capacity because I wasn't sleeping. I had a lot of, kind of, emotional stress. I had a lot of just things that I was trying to process and and and go through and really show up to be the best parent that I could be for both of my kids. And, really, I was not able to take time for myself at all during that point because it really well it really all was just investing everything that I had and giving all that I had to my kids during the this whole illness period. But, also, I think being being honest and open and transparent is important for the people that we work closely with.

Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L [00:11:28]:
So employees, if you have employees OT other staff that you work with, for me, service coordinators or any other practitioners or specialists or anybody else that you might come in contact with, with within your business. And, and really thinking about the people that you are dealing with on a daily basis, on a weekly basis, anything like that. And I think in order to be honest and kind of transparent, it is OT, it's actually being open about sharing as much as you want about what is actually going on. And so, you know, I I think that that initial Thursday of that of that webinar, I remember texting Jason. I I didn't even mention business partners, but there you go. There's another person to be open and honest about. But I remember texting Jason very early on. I think it was right when I got to the emergency room and I was like, hey, I'm at the emergency room right now.

Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L [00:12:28]:
I don't know what is gonna happen. I don't know if I'm going home with my daughter. I don't know if I'm gonna be if she's gonna get admitted and I'm gonna be in the hospital. But I wanted to give you a heads up because we have this webinar planned. And I really wanted to make sure he knew what was going on. And if he had any insight to say like, hey, let's just cancel it right now or like, let's wait a little bit. And so we ultimately ended up waiting just a little of an hour or 2 Putt until I had a little bit more information. And once I knew that my daughter was getting admitted, I'm like, I'm not even gonna be home.

Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L [00:12:58]:
I don't have my computer. Like, there's no way I'm doing this webinar while I'm sitting in the hospital with my daughter. But again, I wanted to be open with him, from the moment that I really knew that this was something serious. And also with my private practice, I know that I was like starting to get some emails that were popping through and some phone calls that were coming through that I couldn't attend to that day. I don't even think I attended to them the next day. But when I finally got a chance to respond to these emails, I shared what what I had been going through, you know, and I said that I was in the hospital with my kid and that, you know, I'm not checking my emails as much as I usually do, and I'm not checking my emails as much as I usually am. Typically, I would say in my private practice, email is really how the service coordinators and my employees and I talk more often than not. Text, yes, it does happen.

Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L [00:13:50]:
But I would say, especially with the service coordinators, it's usually just email. And so I would, when I had a chance to respond to an email here and an email there, I was actually responding and just saying like, hey, this is what I'm going through right now. If you need me, if you need anything urgently right now, please call me or text me. And I actually, like, left my phone number even though they have OT, but I actually put it in the email just like, hey. It's here if you need me. Because I wanted them to understand that, like, I'm not just brushing this aside. I haven't forgotten about OT, But that I had other pressing things that were going on with me personally and with and with my family. And so it was just a way of being open and honest and transparent and and sharing with the people that I work closely with what is going on.

Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L [00:14:33]:
The same thing with my employees. I texted them very early on, and I just said, hey, here I am. If you do need me, like, let me know. Right? If if it's something urgent that I need to attend to, I will definitely take priority of that. Putt if it's something that can wait, I'll get to that when when I have the time. And it is just being open. It's being honest. It's being vulnerable.

Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L [00:14:55]:
Right? And and you can share as much or as little information that you want. I chose to share that we were in the hospital, that my kids I can't remember if I said, like, specifically they had RSV or if that they were sick. I I couldn't remember exactly what it was. Illness, maybe. But I did share that we were in the hospital, and that and that what that is what was going on. The other thing too, and I didn't do this this time, but if you felt like you weren't able to get to anything, you know, within a reasonable amount of time, the the other thing that you can do is set up an away message either for your email or your voice mail system or something like that. So when somebody emails you, you can have this automatic reply and you don't even have to think about it. And I think I I I kind of thought about that probably when it was a little too late to to start that.

Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L [00:15:42]:
But moving forward, you know, if I'm ever faced with another emergency, I can definitely see myself doing that right from the beginning to kind of ease my own my own capacity and my own and and my own, like, the pressure that I put on myself to make sure that I'm getting the stuff done that I need to get done. And that that's totally just me, but that's just another option too. So, you know, that's just kind of another way to navigate that. I think too when we're talking about being open and honest and transparent is recognizing the importance of owning your mistakes. And, you know, nobody's perfect. In business and life, nobody is perfect and we all make mistakes. But specifically, when you're faced with a very challenging time where you are not sleeping and you're not thinking as clearly as you usually do, mistakes can be made. And I know that I made mistakes during these these few weeks.

Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L [00:16:35]:
You know, there were some emails or phone calls that might have fallen through the cracks, that I might have forgotten to attend to OT respond to, or they were just late. Right? And we all have these timelines that we need to abide by. And there were some things that were just kind of late on my end. And I apologized for it. You know? I I I took full responsibility. I knew that it was my fault. Going through this emergency was not an excuse by any means, but it was the explanation of why that actually happened and why I wasn't able to do the things that I typically do. Because I'd like to think that I'm pretty good at attending to things when they need to be attended to.

Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L [00:17:13]:
But sometimes, life happens. Right? Emergencies happen OT somehow you you miss an email, you miss a text, you miss a phone call, something like that. And the other the other really, I wanna say big, maybe it wasn't really big, but the other mistake that I did make was actually with my team. And again, this was OT an excuse, but it was largely in part due to this lack of sleep and diminished mental capacity stage that I was in during that time. And, you know, I made the decision to not disclose some information before we had a team meeting, and I was planning on talking about it at a later date. But before this 1 meeting, I decided I wasn't going to share this this piece of information. And after that meeting, I it you know, it just it didn't sit well with me. And I felt I felt bad.

Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L [00:18:05]:
I felt like I had been dishonest to my team. And, you know, I I slept on it that night because I was still kind of emotional and and still in this, like, just really rough period that I was going through. And so I slept on it that night. And when I woke up the morning, I was like, you know what? I just need to email my team and just apologize for not informing them of this information. Even though I was going to, I just didn't do it. I I I don't feel like I did it soon enough. And so, you know, I really did realize that I had made a mistake with that and wanted to email them to apologize and make sure that they knew that I had been thinking about it and realized, like, that probably wasn't the best course of action that I did, and that I was sorry. You know, mistakes happen.

Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L [00:18:50]:
We can all potentially be wrong at some time. And even if you think it was the right thing to do at the time that you made the decision, it's okay to come back and say, hey, that was a mistake. And again, own it. Be open, honest, and transparent about it. The last takeaway that I kind of realized during this whole experience was that OT preneurship, it's an asset. It is a flex. It gave me the ability to basically drop everything for my family. I didn't have to worry about using PTO time.

Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L [00:19:26]:
I didn't have to worry about productivity or lack thereof. And I didn't have to worry about begging my boss for more time off or for understanding for, you know, anything that why I was missing days, hours, and days of work. And honestly, it would've been weeks of work, Putt, in my case, if I didn't run my own business. I feel like having having my own business and being an OT preneur, it gave me the space to do what I needed to do when I needed to do it. And I didn't have to worry about my job. I didn't have to worry about my business. I didn't have to worry about anything besides my family and my kids. And, honestly, I didn't feel guilty about it.

Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L [00:20:14]:
Right? Like, I'd set things up. I have made this the decisions in my professional life to start a business, and that has all afforded me to be able to not feel guilty when I take time off or when things like this happen. I think too, I'll just point out, like, I am currently not seeing clients at the moment. I am basically just running and doing admin for my company and mentorship and support billing and, you know, all kind of the behind the scenes work. But I'm not actively treating clients as we speak, but play a little kind of mind exercise here that if I happen to be seeing clients as well as running my business during this time and this happened, again, I'd go back to that honesty piece. I'd go back and I would reach out to my clients right away and share with them why I'm canceling or why I'm rescheduling or why I'm trying to potentially get somebody else on my team to go see them because I can't. And I think having those really solid relationships with your clients where they get it, you know, they understand it when things like this happen, It's important, and you you work on those relationship you work on those relationships, and you build those relationships from the very first day, you know, from the very first time that you are contacting a client. If you happen to have a Jira client care business.

Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L [00:21:36]:
Right? That's really what I'm kinda speaking towards, that that lens that I'm using right now. But you you foster those relationships on the very 1st day. So if, hopefully, it never does, but if something like this happens, they're not mad that you're coming. They're gonna say, you know what? Go take care of your family. We'll see you back when when it's time you know, when the time is right. And same thing goes when they have an emergency. Right? And they're canceling on you as a practitioner, which is frustrating, but it OT happens. Right? So I think even though despite I'm kind of coming from the lens of a client care practice, but this would also apply to your audience or your clients if your business is set up using a different business model.

Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L [00:22:20]:
And we've talked about some in in past episodes, and we're diving into them into, in the course right now that we're going through. But if you are not a client care practice Putt you have other clients within your business. Again, it goes back to that honesty piece, and I've already said a lot about that. So, I mean, bottom line, I think OT preneurship gave me options. It gave me opportunity. It gave me flexibility, which is huge. So big. And I mean, all of this is priceless, especially when it comes to times that are kind of unknown, when it comes to times that are challenging, or it comes to times that are an emergency.

Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L [00:23:02]:
I think there are a lot of things in business that we really can plan for, but there are also things that we can't. But by being an OT preneur, it gives you flexibility and it gives you the autonomy to ride the waves during a challenging time. I have never gone through anything quite like this before. And while it was challenging in so many ways, knowing that my business was okay, and then also trusting my employees to continue to being the rock stars that they always are, That was everything to me. I can honestly say that I never thought that I would do an episode like this. Like, this this was not on our episode list. Putt Jason and I, we allude to it in in podcast episodes all the time, like, add it to the list. We've got a lot of things to talk about.

Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L [00:23:48]:
This was not something that was on that list. It just happened. And I was like, you know what? I want to share. I want to share some of these realizations that I had because it's important. Right? And it's another it's another added benefit of why. Why why you should become an OTpreneur and and take, you know, take your professional life, your professional role, take it by the reins and do do it the way that you want to be doing it because it provides a lot more, especially in times like what I just went through. So I hope you found this episode helpful, insightful, something, or you just listened to me ramble for the last 25 ish so minutes. But as always, thanks for tuning in.

Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L [00:24:37]:
And I wanted to to give right before we close out, I really wanted to give a big shout out to the OTpreneurs that are in the OTpreneur startup course right now. You know who you are and you all are doing amazing work. I really can't wait to see. And I really can't wait to see how this all transforms over the next couple weeks. And remember, wherever you are on your OTpreneur journey, we are here to support you. So if you have a question, a comment, a thought, anything, leave us a voicemail OT you can shoot us an email over OT OTpreneur.com. All of our contact information is listed there. So and thanks again.

Sarah Putt, MA, OTR/L [00:25:17]:
Catch you next time, OTP crew. Thanks for listening to this episode of the OTpreneur podcast. For links or resources mentioned in the show, head on over to OTPreneur OT com. It's OTpreneur, where occupational therapy means business.