Will Power Podcast by Will Humphreys
Freedom isn’t just possible… it’s kind of the point.
If you’re a healthcare leader or entrepreneur drowning in to-do lists, juggling team drama, and wondering if success has to come with burnout...this podcast is your lifeline.
Hosted by Will Humphreys, a former physical therapy practice owner turned serial entrepreneur, The WillPower Podcast is your go-to resource for building a business that actually serves your life.
Each week, we tackle the big stuff: leading with vision, scaling with systems, and figuring out whether AI, virtual assistants, or a clone of yourself is the best path to freedom.
You’ll get unfiltered solo episodes, candid interviews with leaders in healthcare and beyond, and just enough humor to cancel one meeting and feel good about it.
So if you want more income, more impact, and way fewer 10 p.m. emails… this is your new weekly habit.
Will Power Podcast by Will Humphreys
The Freedom Journey of Two Powerhouse Physical Therapy Leaders - Norene Christensen and Orit Hickman
Are you a physical therapist feeling the weight of daily operations and burnout? In this inspiring episode, host Will Humphreys sits down with two powerhouse leaders in physical therapy: Norene Christensen and Orit Hickman. They are a testament to the idea that you can swap burnout for boat rides and self-doubt for a CEO hat.
Join us as Norene, who owns clinics across three Wyoming counties, and Orit, who runs Pain Science Physical Therapy near Seattle, share their incredible journeys from dedicated clinicians to visionary CEOs. They discuss the unique challenges women face in leadership within the industry, the mindset shifts that unlocked their freedom, and the pivotal moments that changed everything for their businesses.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- The Freedom Mindset: Discover the critical shift from "working in the business" to "working on the business" and how this change allowed both guests to achieve unprecedented growth.
- Overcoming Challenges: Hear how Norene and Orit navigated the early days of their practices, from feeling unsupported as female owners to leveraging adversity like the economic crash and the COVID-19 pandemic to fuel growth.
- The Power of Delegation: Learn how both Norene and Orit built strong leadership teams, including their virtual assistants (VAs), who manage daily operations and allow them to step away and enjoy their lives.
- Game-Changing Technology: Explore the tools that have saved them countless hours, including project management platforms like Asana, communication apps like Slack, and the use of AI tools like ChatGPT and Prediction Health's Sidekick for everything from note-taking to drafting policies.
- Finding Your “Why”: Norene and Orit share what they do with their newfound freedom, from hiking and skiing to boating and painting, proving that a thriving business can support a fulfilling life.
This episode is a must-listen for any private practice owner looking to build a business that can run with or without them. Norene and Orit’s stories are a powerful reminder that your physical therapy license is not just a livelihood—it’s an opportunity.
Don't forget to connect with our guests:
- Orit Hickman: Pain Science Physical Therapy
Norene Christensen: Four Pines Physical Therapy
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Welcome back to the podcast, guys. Today's episode started the way all of them should 20 minutes of laughter before we even hit record. But once we hit record, the brilliance just flowed. We have Dr Orit Hickman and Dr Noreen Christensen, two good friends of mine who are powerhouse leaders in physical therapy. They own clinics and they like to do things differently. They have swapped their burnout for boat rides, spreadsheets for scaling and self-doubt for CEO hats. How did you like that? Orit runs pain science physical therapy near Seattle. She blends neuroscience and heart to help her patients in chronic pain. And Noreen she owns clinics across three Wyoming counties. She builds leadership teams like a boss and occasionally breaks trail and bones on mountain hikes. So together these women are redefining freedom in private practice. They like to mix AI, vas and sheer grit to build these clinics that can run with or without them.
Speaker 1:So buckle up. This one's got leadership, gems, plot twists and probably a few dogs barking in the background, so let's get in it. All right. So I finally hit record. Ladies, thank you for being up. It's about 20 minutes into this podcast episode that we haven't hit record because we can't be serious for long enough. So welcome to Willpower Podcast. Doreen Christensen, arit Hickman, thank you for being on the show. Let's have you introduce yourselves, you wonderful leaders. Start with Orit.
Speaker 3:Just stop laughing long enough to do this, right, if she can stop giggling.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, you get three rock stars in a room. What happens?
Speaker 3:Light bulbs won't be getting changed.
Speaker 2:No, that's why we need our VAs. That's right. Keep us on track. That's right. Where are they right now?
Speaker 1:If hiring employees feels like dating apps, full of ghosting and disappointment, you need to be at the Rockstar Summit, march 6th through 8th, right here in sunny Arizona. This event is laser focused on one thing helping you recruit, train and retain top tier talent, so your practice runs like a dream instead of a dumpster fire. You'll get proven systems, real world strategies and a community that gets it, plus just enough fun to make it feel like a reward, not a retreat. So visit wwwvirtualrockstarcom backslash events to secure your spot before we sell out and we will sell out. See you in March, rockstar.
Speaker 2:Thanks, will. I'm excited to be here. This is a lot of fun, of course, you course, to hang out with two of my most favorite humans for an hour on a Friday morning. So I have a clinic in Burien, washington, which is just outside of Seattle. I've been a private practice owner for 15, going on 16 years this coming October and I've been a practitioner. I was a practitioner almost for 25 years in May and I've been moving away from practitioner into being a CEO and it's been an interesting transition. I've had my clinic.
Speaker 2:I started private practice 15 years ago in order to basically, I was a I was a female private practice, you know clinician and was feeling fairly under supported by all the people that I had worked with up until that point and was getting kind of frustrated and finally decided, okay, I need to just do this thing and I had absolutely no plans other than I'm just going to. You know, if you build it, they will come, and so that's exactly what I did is I started. I opened my clinic. I had no referral sources. I had a front desk person. I did have that. I had a billing company that I was working with at the time and no idea what I needed to do other than I was going to treat one-on-one for one-hour sessions, and that was my only plan. And within about a year and a half well, within six months I needed to hire a full-time PT, but didn't actually do that until about a year and a half. In had some contractors in there for a while.
Speaker 2:Year and a half in had some contractors in there for a while and we grew from a 2,000 square foot clinic to a 4,300 square foot clinic and then about two we're about two and a half years now we purchased a building and moved into that space and we're going to open our first satellite. I'm going to open my first satellite here in about two months in Seattle. Yeah, so this has been, and it's been quite a journey. Like we started with, just okay, I'm going to be an outpatient orthopedic clinician. I was doing primarily, you know, manual therapy and exercise and movement-based treatment, and then shifted to working with patients with persistent pain because I had been really kind of scratching my head about what I was seeing and I was feeling kind of frustrated because I had patients on my caseload that I was like I know that PT is what they need and yet I couldn't get past certain barriers and those barriers were the central nervous system and I just had no idea. Barriers were the central nervous system and I just had no idea. And so started doing pain science, work with patients and taking a very strong biopsychosocial approach, and we rebranded in 2021.
Speaker 2:And you know, I think I've worked with you Will since 2000,. Maybe that time, about 2021, I think, we started working together to do recruitment and I now have another fabulous coach that I'm working with as well and just yeah, it's been a whirlwind. It's been a whirlwind. I know we're going to talk all about VAs and talk about how that's kind of changed my life also, but yeah, it's been really fun. It's been fun to be a practitioner and an owner and meet amazing other business owners and women who are inspiring to me, who weren't around 15 years ago when I started so at least not to my knowledge. So it's been kind of incredible.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. I love your journey. It's so fun to watch you. Just like we were talking earlier this week, you are CEO. It's so cool because your brain operates in this place of like frustration when you're not in that CEO hat, and it's not because you resent any of the other things. It's because you've evolved and you're in a position now where you know the best way to help your team and your patients is to be in that CEO role all the time. You couldn't have gotten there without being freed up. So, no, it's been awesome. I definitely learned more from you, and you are the first ever rockstar coach in the rockstar consulting world.
Speaker 2:So that's pretty awesome.
Speaker 1:She's leading out on calls for rockstar recruiter, and so, man, you're just multifaceted and very talented, and so, yeah, noreen, let's get into you.
Speaker 3:Young lady, let's give an introduction to this wonderful audience. I just have to say in the last two or three years that I've known Orit. I've watched her go from clinician owner to CEO and it's been really fun to watch.
Speaker 1:It's powerful. Congratulations. Some people slowly go through that. There was like a shift one day and it was like, oh, there was no going back for a read.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, I'm Noreen Christensen. I graduated back in the dark ages in 87. Took my licensure exam on paper.
Speaker 1:My goal Did you really yeah. Oh, I didn't know. That's cool. We had to fill in those little circles with the number two pencil Nice.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we had to fill in those little circles with the number two pencil Nice. My goal on graduating PT school was I thought I'd have a private practice in Vermont that had a simulation ski machine, a simulated climbing thing, and instead I kind of practiced from Maryland to Utah, to Alaska before I settled in Wyoming 30 years ago, which is crazy, that's half my life now in Wyoming and I worked in a hospital base and private practice and sports medicine and really saw a lot of things I liked and a lot of things I didn't like.
Speaker 3:And the biggest thing I didn't like was how professionals were treated, especially within a hospital system and how patients were in the dark.
Speaker 3:Nobody educated them on anything on their insurance, what the process is, even what the expected outcomes of their rehab and what that's going to look like. And so I talked my way into working at a hospital in Jackson. I was a little cocky. They weren't hiring and I told them that I'd be their busiest therapist in three months and just being in private practice, I went to the ortho group, introduced myself and the one ortho was like you know, if you're any good, you'd be in private practice.
Speaker 3:And I said let me prove it to you. You don't know me from Adam. I just walked into town. Let me prove it to you. So he was my biggest referrer, I was the only one allowed to see his patients, and so that gave me the confidence to just leave the hospital and the subordination that you know. They just treated their professionals horribly and I wanted to open up a clinic that just had different values. I've worked with lazy therapists in the past and I've worked with lifelong learners. I wanted to surround myself with lifelong learners, from front desk to professional staff, to support staff, to billing staff, and they're not staff members.
Speaker 1:They're team members that are not. Thank you very much, because staff, they're team members they're not infections.
Speaker 3:um. So I I've been able to attract those kind of people and now I definitely made bad hires in the past and um, some I got rid of within four months and some I held onto for a couple of years. Um, but after four years of having my practice, I bought on I? Um, I opened my practice in 98. Um in about 2002, 2003,. I brought on a business consulting firm and boy did I start learning what operation measures I should be going through because I was running my business into the ground. I felt like, oh, pt needs to be affordable. Well then, you have your overhead expenses and your value.
Speaker 1:We all do that. I think it's interesting because what you're saying is healthcare providers of any industry when they go to private practice. It's like you know what I'm going to do to be different. I'm going to make it easier and cheaper. It's like wait a minute. Easier, sure, cheaper is when we start shooting ourselves in the foot, but that's every one of us right. I think that's a big part. Freedom journey is the mindset of money that Steve Allred talks about all the time.
Speaker 3:Oh, definitely, and even our new grads. You know we, our profession, I think, is the peace core of the health profession, you know, because they feel bad coding for their time because it might be too expensive and it's like you know that's we can work with the patient. You need to bill for your value code for what you did, but anyway. So they really helped me on that and understanding operations and KPIs.
Speaker 3:And the economy crash came and I had one clinic at the time and I went from four therapists to one other therapist and I really should have let him go and really held on to my business by a string and then all of a sudden we exploded and went to two locations and three locations nine years ago and then COVID shut that down and all of a sudden, in 1600 square feet I was shoving five therapists, six therapists and that just wasn't working. But we came out of COVID and that's. I met you three years ago going through the Rockstar recruiting program, which was super helpful. Our biggest funnel has been for recruiting has been our interns and our technicians who go on to PT school, who want to come back and work with us. Three of my leadership clinic directors have been all interns, and we call them my daughter, my granddaughter and my great grandson because they all like mentored each other as interns and clinic instructors, and so that really helped.
Speaker 3:And then bought on an executive coach. After listening to the PT Owners Club podcast and I'm like, oh my gosh. The great Ethan Shieldman, abin Robin gotta love those guys.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I'm like where were you 10, 15 years ago? I could have totally had a different business. Instead of now I'm managing this hockey stick growth curve, which has been really exciting. But I also now have three solid locations. Everything is growing. I'm at facility maximum in our 3,400 square foot facility, facility maximum in our 3,400 square foot facility In our 1,600 facility. We're at maximum there and I'm currently now with the right support looking. I've partnered with a large partnership in March and now I have the support to look at other clinics and there are a couple of clinics I like to acquire and tuck in to our brand and improve the value of our brand. That's amazing.
Speaker 3:And it's so cool, you're doing a border collie. What is that? That's the tennis ball for the border collie, the border collie.
Speaker 1:Was that? Who was breeding earlier?
Speaker 2:I didn't know that was.
Speaker 1:I heard this like this yeah, that it was. I heard just like a bee yeah, that's awesome. Oh sorry, I don't care. Everyone at home is like oh, I wonder what dog that is. Or does Noreen have a breathing issue? I don't know.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it's so cool this whole journey that you've been on and you know I caught you guys at a later stage of business in this but both of you have really overcome the day-to-day and you know those pivotal points of like overwhelm. You've gone through those off and on for years. I, you know Orit said something I wanted to kind of dive into a little bit. It's a little bit off a plan, but what do you? You know freedom is like the main focus of our show. What do do women in leadership face different challenges in creating freedom than men in our industry? Um, yes, different challenges in creating freedom than men in our industry? Um, yes, okay, what was that? Even though I believe, even though I was between two sisters growing up and even though I feel like I'm I'm one of the clan, I don't probably know. So tell me a little bit about what that's like.
Speaker 2:So the societal pressure first right is as a female. When I, at least in terms of sort of my evolution, what I experienced was the expectation is you're going to be, you're going to be a mom, You're going to. If you're going to be a clinician, you'll be a clinician, you'll be a great clinician, which is a very I mean, our field is very maternal, like even when I was going through PT school, those who were coming in, like I in private practice, my only experience with business owners were all male.
Speaker 2:I didn't know any female private practice owners and the one that was in my county, who I had never met they used the B word to describe her You're kidding, right. So it's like, okay, you've got this expectation, as I'm going to be a mom, I'm going to be a great clinician, but how do I become a business owner and not be a bee?
Speaker 1:So I get that there's a layer of pressure there in terms of like, if you're trying to fit the expectation, the societal expectation of like.
Speaker 2:Well, I want to be a leader, but I don't want to be a bee the societal expectation of like well, I want to be a leader, but I don't want to be a being.
Speaker 3:The sad truth is, if you're a man driven to build a business and drive a business you have, you just have this drive and that's applauded and people are like good for you. Yeah for you, and if you're a woman that knows what they want and are also driven by goals and success, you're difficult. Or be, I mean I'll admit to that, but you just have to be firm.
Speaker 1:Hey guys, thanks for swearing. I don't know how it's going to go today, so I'm only grateful for both of you.
Speaker 2:I mean, the biggest challenge was figuring out this balance because as a clinician I had honed that skill of being maternal and I also could be direct and very clear with my patients in the role of clinician, so I could direct their care. I could be obnoxious and rude and say okay, you're not doing your things, I need you to do your things when I needed to. But it was an established therapeutic alliance and it was very clear that I had a certain role to play as the clinician. The transition to business owner, I mean at the time again, I had no female owners who I could look up to. That's why I'm like where was Noreen when?
Speaker 2:I was starting all this Because I look at Noreen and I'm like, I'm always like this is where, like I look at Noreen and I'm like I'm always like this is. Like I look at Noreen, I'm like okay, this is where I'm going, this is where I'm going.
Speaker 1:We're all trying to chase Noreen man.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Up a mountain, sometimes with grizzly.
Speaker 2:With air spray.
Speaker 1:Where she's doing next week audience, just to be clear. Yeah, Keep going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, that's the real reality is that it was. And I remember I went to my first PPS conference and it was my last PPS conference I had been, I'd been an owner for a year and I went because I said, hey, I should probably go and get all the resources and learn all the things. And I went and introduced myself to a local business owner that had at the time business owner that had at the time I think he had four or five clinics in the same town as where I'm at in Burien, and I introduced myself and he looks at me and he goes I know who you are and I was seen as competition and there wasn't any. There wasn't any. Hey, this is great, let me bring you into this group and let me, let me, let me have you go ahead and any. Hey, this is great, let me bring you into this group and let me let me, let me have you go ahead and learn what this is all about.
Speaker 2:Um, and so it was. It felt very much like I was, I was a silo, and what I have seen shift and change through the real, like benefit of social media, of even covid right, because everything went online, the benefit of all of this access and interconnectedness is that I now know people like Noreen. I know people like other female providers and owners that we were talking about before we came on today that inspire me and I can talk to and we can share, and it is really okay for me to actually drive this bus in a very specific manner where I can still provide an incredible environment for people to work in and I can still be mindful of how much money we should be making and the finances and all those pieces, and my team doesn't look at me and say, well, I don't want to work for her.
Speaker 2:In fact, they look at me and they go wow, she's a leader. That's really cool and I go oh how did I get?
Speaker 1:here, yeah, well, yeah, and I think there's something you said. It's an interesting balance, right, because you want to be inspired by people that are like you. You know what I mean. Like people look and want to feel connected to people who are in the same place world that they are. It could be religious, it could be gender, it could be race, it could be really just any kind of like country, it could be culture, it could all these different things. But we also want to have enough of a diversity element to it so that we can be exposed to what is different.
Speaker 1:I think the problem is that when we get too homogenized in any direction, we start to lose the spice of life, we start to lose perspective. And it's interesting because, you know, the more that we travel, the more we work with people who are similar or different than us, the more we realize we're all the same. And I think that's the problem. If we get too into one group of people, whatever it is, they start collating and start seeing others as different. But I'm kind of going on a rant. Here's the thing Going back to the freedom mindset and having a different challenge coming in it as young women, leaders who don't have examples or role models. Freedom is so much about a mindset shift. What shifted for you, guys, and when? I want to know, like, what shifted for you Maybe it's not even around that element of it, but in your journey of becoming CBOs and freeing yourselves up, what shifted for you and when did that shift?
Speaker 3:I'd have to say that shift happened 19 years into my practice, when that was the first hockey stick growth before COVID, and I realized I'm in the clinic, I am working in the business, I am not working on the business, I need to pull myself out so I can work on the business. And at that time we bought billing in-house and so there are suddenly all these new policies and procedures and I had basically three clinics doing different things and I'm like, no, we are one brand, one company and we need consistent policies and procedures. And I was just winging it and I realized I'm not going to go anywhere with all this entropy. And I actually had a whole company meeting and I tasked my employees. I said, look, we need consistent policies and procedures. I want billing working with front desk, I want PTs working with techs, I want front desk working with PTs, I want billing working with PTs. And in six months I want a policy and procedure manual on everything that we do. That's going to be consistent.
Speaker 3:And boom, they made me cry At our next meeting. They we didn't have chat GPT then, which I could have just plugged it in and like here are my parameters. They went above and beyond anything I could have put together, because I don't know what billing does, I don't know what front desk does, I don't, I don't know all their procedures and the things they need to do and it's a constantly, it's a living document and I used to think that I had to control all that. And I realized I don't, I don't have to control all that, that, my team can do that. And then I got to I was like getting super anxious because I was we were coming out of COVID, so I'm like diving back in again, rebuilding my team, managing another big curve. But I'm in the clinic and I was like I have to do something. I don't know what it is, but I have to do something. And that's when I started with an executive coach and he helped me just gain clarity of what are you doing. I'm like I don't know what I'm doing.
Speaker 3:He's like write it down. Who is it I work with? Practice Freedom U and Steve Allred.
Speaker 1:He is amazing.
Speaker 3:He's amazing. He is really like I'm mishamped and he's Mr Calm and it really felt like Steve, if you're listening.
Speaker 1:we want you to be more self-promoting, steve, already because he's such a powerful coach, but he's so like hey, just so easygoing. You wouldn't. You wouldn't know it from pools. He won't promote himself, he's very, very humble.
Speaker 3:He's amazing and so, like I have this three page document of everything I was doing, he's like why are you doing that? Where is your value? Is your value at something that, well, our lowest paid employee is $22.50. But is that a $22.50 an hour job or is that an executive job? And so he really made me pull things out, use the Eisenhower matrix of what I need to do, what I need to let go, and that has been very freeing and extremely helpful in my growth.
Speaker 1:So your pivot occurred during COVID, when you realized you were clear of how much you were in your business and you leveraged a coach to get into a mindset of like, building systems and process these and Rockstars as you're listening to, to this. That's a big mindset shift is that we start looking at the things that we're doing and we put dollar amounts to those things and we say, is this worth my time? And it's not that like the ceo is above changing the light bulb, but the ceo who changes the light bulb because it has to be done, turns around and hold someone accountable or hire someone to do that work, for it's like that kind of mentality. So, thank you, arit, what about you? Or thank you, noreen, arit, how about you? You're all one person to me. You're so wonderful. So, arit, what about you? What's your give it moment where you're like I got to start getting free. This is too crazy.
Speaker 2:So, 10 years into my practice, which was 2019, um, I read a book and it was traction. I don't know who recommended the book to me at the time, but I that yep, oh, it's right there for those who are watching.
Speaker 1:the rain pulled it off the top of her computer, awesome.
Speaker 2:And so I read that and realized, huh, I could really use a leadership team and I had sort of these like grand ideas that I wanted to. I wanted to have like five clinical practices. I wanted to have five. I wanted to have five clinics all over the Puget Sound. And I realized that if, in order to do that, I didn't know what I didn't know, but I kind of had an inkling, there was a lot that was missing. And so I created a leadership team. We came up with core values. We had four at the time, we now have six and we it was interesting because that was the first shift in my practice because we had there were three people besides me on the leadership team and, as a result of it, one of those people actually left the clinic because they didn't like the direction we suddenly were figuring out.
Speaker 2:We needed to go in, so I brought in, I brought in a coach. It was the first time I'd ever had a coach. He was not. He was in in the field of healthcare, but not a PT. His background was in lean management systems and, john Sackett, if you're watching this, you absolutely changed my life because in that moment I knew that and I brought him in and I basically told him. I said, look, he is the type of guy who comes into a healthcare facility and he would clean up the healthcare facility and fix all the systems. And I said I don't want to have to hire you in 10 years when my systems are falling apart, so I need you now to help me figure out what I need to do going forward. So in working with John, we implemented some lean strategies in the clinic, which was dramatic for us. We had a daily management system, we had a 5S system.
Speaker 2:And then John said to me you know, you really need to rebrand. And he had me, he pushed me, he's like you need to have your name needs to be pain science. And I was like PTs don't put pain in their, in their company name. That's not. And I fought it for a while and then I then I fully realized I was fighting an uphill battle. It didn't make sense. So we rebranded fully as pain science. All it didn't make sense. So we rebranded fully as pain science. Physical therapy, trademarked, did all of that and it like it. As soon as we did that, things became very clear. Covid hit. It gave us an opportunity to really step back as a company and kind of like Noreen, we just it was like starting over Right and after COVID, enough things changed in our policies and procedures and our processes that people left who needed to leave, who weren't aligned.
Speaker 2:And then we met Will because one of my colleagues was like we were struggling to hire, just like everybody else, and I had not let go of any of my team members. Through COVID I had kept everybody fully employed, even when we were in lockdown, and so I kind of had this sense that it was going to be, there was going to be these challenges after COVID to bring on new people. So I was afraid to let go of my people and they left naturally because it was the right time. And they left naturally because it was the right time. So then we met and Will, you kind of gave me some insight into that.
Speaker 2:I had more control over what was happening than I really understood. And once I kind of got that recruitment and, like Noreen, a lot of who we hire are past techs and students or friends of students, so people who've had experience within our clinic and then go off and tell their colleagues and their friends. So with working with you it kind of started that process of me starting to think more along the lines of I need to be stepping back. And then, of course, through Noreen, I met Steve Um, and it that has been because I'd been. I I kind of knew I'd been struggling with this concept of moving away from a clinician to something else.
Speaker 2:And right and he, he just kind of just made that road a lot smoother for me and he said it is okay for you to do less and be able to oversee and run the business, because he imparted kind of this wisdom that our decisions now are harder decisions and they cost more. Right, if I make a decision to change things, that has a greater impact than it did when I was a clinician, just working with one patient at a time. Now I impact the business on a much, much larger level and it's been, it's given me the confidence to say that I am, I am shifting into this role. That is, it's been great, definitely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so cool how Steve has been a big part of the show and he doesn't even know it. We were talking about Steve. That's one before the show.
Speaker 1:Let's call him up and have him join. I almost want to call it it's so funny because it's like this thing where he's so great and but the mindset is the thing that we were both talking about. There's a ship there and I really appreciate the extra layers of challenge that you both had to go through in an industry that didn't have a lot of women. Examples for leadership, um, because that's what you guys are. You guys are those examples of leadership and I wish you know anyway, uh, seth, call, cut all this piece of it out, because what I want to say because it's not part of this conversation is I really that's one of the things I've thought about taking the show and doing. I'm thinking about pivoting the show, obviously, and just taking it all about, like for students and presenting like leaders like you to them and then having them like I don't know I just there's something about the industry needing more examples.
Speaker 1:Seth, you can cut back in now. So, now that you guys have all this freedom and I know it's not like every second of every day, you're like I'm so free, but you have comparatively way more flexibility and freedom what do you do for fun? What do you do for yourself, like in your spare time. I'm going to start with Noreen on this one, because she's a great example of like. I'll text her and she's like yeah, I'm on the slopes. You know, like, what do you love to do with that freedom that you've created? That's just for you.
Speaker 3:Well, it's getting back into the things that I enjoy instead of constantly working on the business. Working on my weekends, maybe getting a quick mountain bike ride in, maybe not. Maybe just sitting on my butt all day. Saturday, sunday.
Speaker 1:You are so active, there's no way you sit on your butt. I think of you.
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm a pro, I can sit on my butt with the best of them.
Speaker 1:I'm ultimately very lazy. I've never texted you and you were like, hey, I'm just sitting here doing nothing. It's always like, hey, I'm fighting a bear.
Speaker 3:No, but I do. I'm skiing more. Sometimes I'll ski in the morning and then get to whatever I'm doing by noon or one o'clock. The year I turned 60, I spent a week climbing trip in one area of Wyoming. I went up to British Columbia and did a ski mountaineering trip on a glacier and then I got home. I think I was home three days and took off to Hawaii for a week and a half and then I think I was home a day and then went down to Phoenix where I finally got to meet you in person and Steve in person and you know my clinic did fine.
Speaker 3:My, my leadership has really made it easy on me. Right now I'm in the clinic a lot. I have a new therapist starting in August, but this one clinic is blown up so I'm seeing a lot of patients and I just had a therapist break his leg trail running and so I'm covering in that clinic and my leadership. They're doing things I don't even know about and when I do find out I'm like why didn't you tell me? Like we don't need to bother you, and I'm like good, as long as you make your decisions on the values and mission.
Speaker 1:Listen to that like little micro master class on leadership, delegation and freedom. She has people that she trusts. They know their job is to free her up and they receive Doreen's trust because, as long as it's based on so, there's a standard, it's not just loose. There's the values and then once the values are in place, then they can freely act within that lane. And there's a small part of you that feels like maybe I should know more. But you realize at the end of the day they're doing their job. It's awesome.
Speaker 3:So it's nice to be able to leave, like next week I'll be on a backpack trip, no cell service and I have nothing to worry about. And I'm leaving again for two weeks in August to go back to British Columbia backpacking and there'll be no cell service and you know, I know I'm going to come back to like a thousand emails but you know I can unabashedly delete and if it's important they'll email me again. Yeah, and you've got. I know the business is fine.
Speaker 1:That's great. What about you, ari? What do you like to do for with your spare time that you're starting to earn when you're not treating? You're no longer treating 60 hours a week. Like what do you do?
Speaker 2:So exercise finally came back into my life. No Right, it's like you're a PT, do you exercise? Nope, I have no time. Yep, now I have time. So exercise, I paint, which? I have a studio out in the backyard that my husband built for me, a few years ago, and so I try to get out there. Not enough, but the big love for us is boating.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:So we sailed for about 10 years and then we moved to a powerboat an older powerboat that we've been bringing back to life, and we're actually leaving next week on a three-week long trip. Love it.
Speaker 1:So, rockstars, the proof is in the pudding. So, now that we know that you guys are pros at this stuff and, I would say, master recruiters, which I don't throw that out lightly people who know how to recruit PTs well, it's not that they don't face challenges, but these are two leaders who never gave up and, man, they are really able to recruit and it's a powerful thing. So let me ask you this We'll go back to Uri what tools or tech do you use that have been game changers for changing your time?
Speaker 3:We talked about coaching.
Speaker 1:We talked about mindset. What are some tools or tech that you use that are really big for you?
Speaker 2:So we're actually a pretty tech heavy clinic in general because we have, you know, a few years back I bugged you fairly heavily to start to hire some VAs because you had had the experience of hiring internationally and I couldn't crack that nut and it was. We were at a. We were at a breaking point where we needed better, better systems with our managing our phones and managing some of the processes in the background. And so as soon as we we brought on two VAs, it was okay, we're going to use Slack to communicate. We use Asana pretty heavily in the leadership team now, primarily.
Speaker 1:Who's Slack is. Most people might know Slack, but describe that and then describe Asana.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Slack is our communication, our HIPAA compliant communication platform, which is basically real-time chatting, and that's been fantastic because as a team, everybody is communicating on Slack and we're communicating with our VAs, and my front desk manager is also off-site. She went off-site back in COVID and that's been huge as well, because it's allowed her to be incredibly productive. So when we talk about that whole letting go thing, I don't even see half my team because they don't work under the same roof, so we use Slack for communication.
Speaker 2:Asana is a tool for managing projects. I used to have sticky notes everywhere, lists everywhere, and now everything goes into Asana. In Asana I can keep track of all the projects, I can keep track of my recruitment, I can keep track of hiring, I can keep track of, I can schedule out any project and I can connect with other. Right now, my leadership team, we're all in Asana, so we're all. We're onboarding two new therapists and we're doing that all through Asana and that's been, that's been really huge. I do use I use ChatGPT. I don't use it as often now because I'll typically reach out to my coaches right, I'll reach out to you, will, or I'll reach out to Steve to ask questions. But if I need to kind of work through something or if I need to clean something up that you know I'm not, as you can hear, when I speak off the cuff, it's very stream of consciousness and so if I'm putting together a nice you know blog post, I'll write it all out and then I'll stick it in chat GPT and say clean this up for me so that it sounds better when I'm putting that out for patients and also, when I'm even communicating through email with prospective hires, I try to clean those emails up because, again, my verbiage is very off the cuff, so that's been helpful.
Speaker 2:I've already mentioned the VAs. They've been a game changer for us. I'm actually starting to realize that I need to bring on another VA that is going to be an executive assistant to just me. I haven't done it yet because I'm trying to really dial in what are all the things, but I have a feeling that once I do, that person's like going to get busy really fast because I've taken on, I've got too much in terms of managing marketing. So I'm trying to do that we use.
Speaker 2:We also use in our documentation system. We're connected to Prediction Health, which is managing our compliance, and Prediction Health has a AI platform called Sidekick and Sidekick basically is our scribe while we're doing documentation. And so while I am not treating that much, I am still in the clinic a day and a half and I was the worst offender because I would leave and then I would not write notes for like a week and it was driving my clinic manager batty and I said I'm going to be better. And so utilizing Sidekick has been huge because it's allowed me to very quickly write up the notes, get the goals in, get the assessment, check it, make sure it's right and then close the note out quickly, and so that piece has been pretty significant for us as well, yeah, and.
Speaker 1:I have to give massive credit to Orit listeners, rock stars, their whole reason my virtual assistant company even exists is because of Orit. I told her no and then she said, please, like I said. I said no, nicely, I sent you all the forms, like just go help themselves, go hire VAs using these forms and stuff, and then you just research, like no, it's not going to work. And then you said, come on, just pilot. And I was like all right, so let's pilot it.
Speaker 1:And then Robert jumped on your train and it was exactly we're filming this episode on July 11th. It was exactly July 10th, two years ago yesterday at 1.30 PM when I got off the call with Orit Hickman and I said, oh my gosh, this is huge, because Orit was so intelligently, like informative. It wasn't just like yeah, I like my VAs, it was like, well, this is why you need to do it. And she listed out like six reasons, one of them being changing the industry. So, orit, publicly, thank you. You are the reason I am now with 186 virtual assistants, with 150 some odd partners across the country. We just got off the phone with a large national company today, a publicly traded company, that wants to start working with us, and that is a good segue to Noreen, because it was because of Noreen's connection that I got that introduction. Noreen, what tools and tech do you like to use to free yourself?
Speaker 3:up. It's funny, I am the spreadsheet queen.
Speaker 1:I didn't know that about you, you love spreadsheets.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I'm such a numbers person, kind of like a Forrest Gump in a way, but I can use ChatGPT and put in the parameters of what I want in a spreadsheet and work with it, and it will produce one with what I'm looking for, with the formulas and everything. It's taken me a while to learn that Steve has really put a boot in my butt. I think it was pretty pointy actually to start doing things like that to free up my time. It's like if you know what you want sorry, the the dog is um, then what?
Speaker 1:is our wonderful podcast editor, so, steph, let's keep that in. That was a fun for those to see her through a ball for her dog while we're talking um that, if you know what you want.
Speaker 3:But I'm like Uri, just a flow of consciousness and my speaking language and my writing language are fairly similar.
Speaker 3:That chat GPT will clean that up. We've been using for prediction health for quite a while for the compliance and reporting that you get on all your therapists. What time are they signing off? Are there coaching moments for you know, to help them to be more effective during the day or to help them with appropriate coding or diversity of coding? And we are also using Sidekick. I am typically the early adopter on everything and I am definitely the laggard on Sidekick. I am typically the early adopter on everything and I am definitely the laggard on Sidekick. I think I'm the less therapist, but it's my heels in the sand saying I am not going to be in the clinic much longer. So why should I learn this? But the therapists love it. It has really cut down on evaluation times. You know it used to take 15-20 minutes to finish out your evaluation, everything that you want to write, but now psychic is in the background and it figures out what's important, what's not. You review it and move on With our virtual assistants.
Speaker 3:That has really made us improve our tech. Before we got them, we started to use Weave as our internal communication, but it's also HIPAA-compliant external communication. So our phones are VoIP phones and we can text patients and they can text back to the desktop of our front desk which, when they're working the cancellation list. They have been so much more effective in filling those openings by texting people than calling, because people don't answer their phones Right. If they text, you know, you see them looking at their phones all the time and they text right back while they're talking to you. It's been a game changer on keeping the schedules open or full and have minimal openings Getting people in who are waiting. We have a huge wait list and so they just go down that wait list. They can do bulk texting and say, hey, first come, first serve, this is open and it's typically filled. So with the VAs, they're integrated in our weave, they're integrated in our EMR and our billing, so it's easy to message. And then we use Teams.
Speaker 3:So we first started with a VA to help free up our front desk, um, because I really didn't physically have space for another person. But also it was so hard to hire somebody that would come to work, wasn't hung over, didn't call in sick all the time, or they came to work and it was just drama and doing one of these while they're supposed to be working. So she quickly became forward-facing with our patients and we had to figure out a way to do that and we started looking at some of these virtual kiosk companies. Now that I'm with a large partner, we have to vet everything and I'm on the wait list, so we just embrace Microsoft Teams and we keep a laptop open.
Speaker 3:Somebody walks through the door, the VA pops up. How are you doing? They're starting to create relationships with patients, starting to have back and forth conversations like they would with our live people. We've hired two more VAs, one for our billing team, and we have a big screen on the wall and we keep teams up all day. So she is in the office with my other billers and conversations and education and support is constantly going around. And it's just.
Speaker 1:You know, 10 years ago I didn't know who would have thought that you'd walk into an office and see a screen, and by the end of this decade, everyone's going to walk into every medical office and see a screen and it'll either be a VA or an AI bot that you can't tell isn't a human being. But yeah, Noreen, that was a great description of virtual assistants and tech that you use. I love how both of your discussions really talk about the integration of these two fastest growing trends, which is the whole season VA or AI and it's so cool. One thing I do want to say to both of you and the listeners who are tuning in is that I am obsessed with chat.
Speaker 1:GPT work and with the VO or, excuse me, the Gemini from Microsoft. So I'm like you two stream of consciousness. I like to talk it out. What I've been doing with chat, gpt that has changed the game. There's two things I want to share with you two in the audience. Maybe you're doing this, but the first one is I use the talk function more than anything else. I will go for a walk, a long walk. I'll create a private, paid version. So I have a project. So all of the different discussion topics will feed into one. It will remember better the other topics. It will pull it back.
Speaker 1:There's a main focus of the project but, like I was, noreen has been, excuse me, or reach has been helping me dramatically with rockstar recruiter lately repurposing it right. So I've met with or reach. She's coached me. And then I was at my cabin a couple weeks ago and I went on a long walk and I just talked back and forth and I just said you know, I don't really even know what I want to create here. Can you help me? And it and it was like she started asking me questions and then it was like, okay, can you come up with more questions like those? And then we found something. We started diving in deep and what I found was, since I'm a stream of consciousness producer, I was able to do that higher level analysis with my chat GPT like a coach, and it's getting smarter.
Speaker 1:Here's the other tip I want to share with you too, and the audience is that you can do a corporate account with ChatGPT, and this is huge. You can set a corporate account where everyone in your team is using ChatGPT and you can do a couple things. First of all, when everyone's sharing that corporate account, whatever anyone does, everyone else has access to. So you wouldn't want to do anything personal and just be work related. But, for example, in my marketing world, we're creating a whole new like strategy around marketing. So we've got my marketer, but we've got the salesperson, we've got me, and so, as I'm thinking of things in my domain from a high level, I'll be working with chat GPT and like asking it questions and having it create, you know, pictures or whatever they're doing their stuff and it remembers it, so it informs the work that they're doing, so that it all stays streamlined and it is unreal.
Speaker 1:And you can even create specific chat GPT bots within your corporate account so we can have. We have a marketing assistant, and so that marketing assistant, we inform it. You've got 50 years of marketing experience in healthcare. You're going to be doing here's your here's your main function, and then we all work within that one bot, and so it's. You know, as we start to leverage AI and this is a big part of the reason I wanted to do that show is to communicate to others what I've been fortunate enough to be exposed to, which is how to leverage these things for grow. Okay, so, ladies, this has been a phenomenal episode. I've got some rapid fire questions for both of you.
Speaker 1:Worst mistake you've ever made in your life. I'm just kidding. Let's go ahead and let's move.
Speaker 3:Oh, I have one, I have actually a few.
Speaker 1:I should be careful when I joke with you two on the line, because you'll answer the question we won't care. We won't care, right, this one's going to take a little bit of thought. Then the rest of them are going to go faster. What is the best business purchase under $100 that has saved you time?
Speaker 2:Well, that's easy. I paid for Jeff GPT. Boo, that's absolutely the easy the.
Speaker 1:if I had to think under 100 bucks, I'm like yes, I was like thinking books and then I'm like no, I'm like no, chat gpt and like minimally to free up in terms of like, editing your, your messaging on a minimal level, like you just use that for stream of consciousness editing well, I also.
Speaker 2:I. We were talking about need of. You know I'm going to need a VA here soon. Part of the need is marketing, because I am the person who does all the marketing. I have the full-blown marketing strategy. Although I have met with the company that Noreen is working with and I'm looking to, they're going to audit me and help me kind of come up with some stuff. But when I met with when I so I basically like I needed topics, I needed. I said and and it remembers right, cause I've been using it for a while so I said I need 20, any topics for newsletters on pain science. And it just gave me 20 different topics and then I was able to write you know, I'm able to write the newsletters based on those topics and it was. I was like, oh yeah, I forgot, it remembers, it knows me, it knows my company, all that. So, yes, chat.
Speaker 3:Gpt, love that one. What about you, noreen? You know I unfortunately would have to say the same thing when I was updating policies and procedures. It was so painful just sitting there looking at my computer, and so I finally just put in to JetPT like I need a policy and procedure for physical therapy technician, and it already has a bunch of stuff. And then, okay, well, I want to add this, I want to delete this, and in less than five minutes I had a full document that I barely had to edit. And did that for every boom, every position.
Speaker 1:I've never said that before, but this episode. I've said that like 20 times and, by the way, here's one of my favorite topics or things to do with chat GBT as well. I hate reading contracts Like it's the worst. I. If a lawyer sends me a contract, I literally want to stick a needle in my eye. Not to be dramatic, I'm like, oh, so what I do is I copy the whole contract, throw it in the chat GPT and go advise me on the liabilities and the best parts of this contract and advise me on how should I approach this.
Speaker 3:That's good to know. Oh my God, that's good to know, oh my.
Speaker 1:God, like that to me has to be like. It's not the biggest thing that makes a difference in my world, but it's my favorite because I love that I never have to. Well, some lawyers are like you still read your contract. I'm like, yeah, but I wasn't really doing it before at all, so this is way better than that. All right, guys, rapid fire, let's get into the fun ones. We'll go. Orit, noreen, noreen, orit, ready Orit. What's a book that has blown your mind?
Speaker 2:10X is better than 2X.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's what I was going to say. You guys didn't have the same answer. Well, no, I'm looking at my books right now. Gap in the Gain.
Speaker 1:Gap in the Gain. Same authors, dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy, I think Very powerful books Changed my life a year ago. Two years ago. I read those books the month after Noreen said you should do this and I committed to doing it. Those were the next two books I read. Love that let's go into your top time saver hack for Noreen. Ignore it, the power of those two words. We should do a whole episode and ignore it. So great Ori.
Speaker 2:I created an unsubscribed folder in my email and basically everything that is junk. It takes too much time to delete it. Everything that's junk goes into the unsubscribe and then once a week I go through and I block. I don't even bother with unsubscribe, I just block and I've just been blocking and because I end up with more than a hundred emails in an hour, yeah, so I'm just like it's all going in there. It's been a game changer for me to do that oh man, I always want a whole discussion on that.
Speaker 1:Um, okay, back to oh, did I? I haven't gone to Noreen? Yeah, I did, so it was ignore it, it's her, it's her and then yeah, so now it's her Ignore it. What's the one thing you wish you'd stopped doing way sooner in your business?
Speaker 2:Stop doing.
Speaker 1:Stop doing way sooner in your business.
Speaker 2:I wish I had stopped listening to the negative in my brain.
Speaker 1:Seriously. Well, it doesn't help when people are calling you the b word because you're you're trying to start a business. You know what I'm saying? Like that kind of thing. I get it. Uh, norine, what about you?
Speaker 3:um, stop feeling like I had to keep a pulse on everything and start trusting that it's gonna get done and it's gonna be done right. And however it's done, I'm going to accept it okay, here's a fun flip question.
Speaker 1:Back to Noreen. What's? The most time-consuming task that you secretly enjoy.
Speaker 3:Oh, I secretly enjoy getting all my KPIs together and filling in my spreadsheets.
Speaker 1:That's really cute. What about you, Noreen? I want to steal that one that is the most common answer. This is episode one that I'm filming or something like that? What about you? I want to steal that one. That is the most common answer. This is episode that I'm filming, or something like that is the most common answer.
Speaker 2:People really nerd out on their stats and they don't want someone else to touch it. I don't think it's anything different. I think that's kind of my I think you know what I also really like to do.
Speaker 2:This is so dumb. You know what I also really like to do? This is so dumb Because most of our checks come in via EFT, but we still get stacks of checks. I actually really like stamping each individual check and running it through the check machine and then putting it in the bank and seeing that number go in there.
Speaker 1:That's a very sadist, but I get in there, so that's a very sad. I get it. Though there's a very tactile. It's almost like you're getting to touch the results of your work. You're stamping it and you're rolling in or something almost like audio auditory about that and tactile. And then you see it and it's visual and then you know it's like a pro survival activity because you see the money adding, Because what the stress of business owner space? More than anything, it's probably money.
Speaker 2:It's the bank account.
Speaker 1:I love that. That was one of my favorite answers. All right, guys. What's the latest thing that you delegated, Ori?
Speaker 2:Because I'm going away for three weeks. My clinic manager is going to do payroll while I'm gone.
Speaker 1:Nice. What about you, Noreen?
Speaker 3:Well, I inadvertently delegated learning and running all the new little processes from my new partner. I've been so busy. One of my directors just stepped up and started doing things'm like, oh, I'm just gonna let her keep doing that.
Speaker 1:This is perfect all right, guys, and here's the final question of the episode. Everyone's been wanting to know, from your perspective, what is it? Is it ai or is it ba? Oh, b a okay, or eat oh via, okay.
Speaker 3:Hurry, because I'm looking at hiring more because we're partnered in the va space.
Speaker 1:What do you really believe, ai or va?
Speaker 2:I know like I'm gonna get a lot of hate on this personally right now, for me it's ai just what it's how it's impacting me personally from a business standpoint va, all the way okay love those answers, ladies.
Speaker 1:Seth, please put the magic number above us. We don't know where the score is because we're filming these episodes out of order, so seth knows the actual tally. Every episode is going to count. We're going to see at the end of the season what wins VAs or AI. So yes. Noreen and Arit. Final thoughts. Let's start with Noreen.
Speaker 3:Oh gosh, it's been a journey. I honestly can't imagine doing anything else that I'm doing now. I think I've been a therapist 38 years. I love the profession. I love that I'm in a position now, like the age in my profession, that I can start giving back, that I can start supporting others. I've learned a lot from my mistakes, I'm meeting excellent mentors and coaches and it's just a super exciting time, I think in my professional life.
Speaker 1:What a wonderful way to close that out for you, ari. Final thoughts.
Speaker 2:It's actually very, very similar. I was literally saying the other day how much I love what I do and I'm so fortunate to get to do it. I have always maintained that I have loved physical therapy and I loved being a physical therapist. I never enjoyed who I worked for until I opened my own practice and now I feel so excited about being able to, you know, advance the field in a manner that you know, by doing what I'm doing, I'm employing people where I'm impacting many more patients than I could ever impact on just a one-on-one caseload, and that's really. It's really inspiring and it's exciting, and I'm thankful that my degree has allowed me to come to this place in my career.
Speaker 1:Love that. And you're not just helping employ people, you're changing lives across the globe, both of you as you work in the world that you do, helping employ people. You're changing lives across the globe, both of you as you work in the world that you do and I think I'll say this as my little two-second soapbox moment is that you know what Orit said at the end rock stars is that our license is our opportunity, not our livelihood. That livelihood comment seemed like if you screw this up, you're going to screw your life over. No, it's your opportunity. We have to be aware of the liabilities, but we never break free until we realize what we're capable of. So, orit and Orin, thank you so much for being on the show. Thanks for tuning into the Willpower Podcast. As always, this is Will Humphries, reminding you to lead with love, live on purpose and never give up your freedom. Until next time.
