Hello radical massage therapist and welcome to another episode of the radical massage therapist podcast. My name is Krista. I'm a registered massage therapist in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and I'm also a clinic owner. I am not the radical massage therapist but you are thank you so much for listening and wanting to learn more about the incredible benefits that this career provides such as the freedom to work wherever you want the flexibility to work whenever you want the financial success Yes, massage therapists do make great money and also just the ability to have fun because of all the benefits we have in our careers. Today's guest is radical massage therapist Connor Collins Connors massage therapy and sports injury therapy background has earned him a growing reputation and helping those suffering from concussion like symptoms. Connor has been lucky enough to consult alongside athletes in the NHL, NCAA and I h f and participated as a therapist at the 2015 Pan Am Games in Toronto. When he's not in clinical practice. Connor teaches his course understanding the complexity of concussion internationally to massage therapists. Connor is also an instructor of massage therapy at the college level and has written for a variety of magazine and news outlets. as host of the Comcast podcast, he discusses topics and manual therapy, health and injuries and attempts to provide value for his listener. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Connor.
Welcome Connor to the radical massage therapist podcast. Thanks so much for joining me.
Thanks, Krista. I'm really looking forward to it. I was thinking the other day, I haven't really been a guest on a podcast in a really long time. I'm usually on the other side. And I was thinking that I need to get a few reps in as a guest on some podcasts and then you reached out. So I'm looking forward to today's conversation and excited to see where it goes and, and just have a good chat about the career and and all of the things that massage therapy can offer us as clinicians as as well as people. So happy to be here.
Awesome. Thank you. What do you love most about being a massage therapist? And how long have you been a massage therapist now,
I'm going into your 18th. I started practice in 2000, late 2007. I would say for for me when I was looking at starting my practice I was pursuing initially like the physiotherapy as grout chiropractic route. And one of the things that really drew me to the massage therapy aspect was the manual therapy component on that time. Like at that time, in the field of manual therapy, things were a little bit more parsed out right chiropractors manipulated but didn't do a lot of exercise and soft tissue work. physios did a lot of exercise, but didn't necessarily do a lot of manual therapy. And massage therapists did a lot of manual therapy, but they didn't necessarily do exercise. And I was really drawn to the the manual therapy aspect of it. And then was able to take a programme that was at the same time a sports injury diploma in conjunction with my massage. So I got the exercise component in the manual therapy component. And that's what really drew me to the massage aspect initially was that manual therapy aspect. Now as you know, things are a lot different where basically any discipline could treat a patient and you wouldn't necessarily even know what their designation was, there's a lot more kind of melding of, of exercise and assessment and, and manual therapy. But originally I was I was drawn to the manual therapy component. And then from that point, just had a lot of great mentors in school and different individuals that allowed me to see the massage therapy career in a different light. You know, when I talk to people and I was just speaking to a student yesterday, the fourth year kinesiology student about the career, my philosophy is, you know, once you get your licence, you very much build the career that you want, based on whatever you want to do with it. And those are the mentors that I had whether it's you want to build a more sports based career, you want to build a palliative career, you want to build a stress reduction, career, perinatal career, there's all these avenues that exist within the profession that aren't necessarily either front of mind for people or having a really bright light shined on them. And so, you know, I think that's one of the primary reasons why I got into manual therapy and then seeing the mentorship that I had when I was in school and saying, Oh, this isn't necessarily just done this way. There's a little bit of that flexibility within the career that that I was able to see. And then furthermore, I did like the entrepreneurial self employment aspect, which I know, a lot of people can struggle with self employment and entrepreneurship. But I've also said this before, where growing up, one of the pivotal conversations that I had with my dad was, he always wanted and sort of pushed me, not pushed me. But I remember a very pivotal conversation about entrepreneurship. And if you can work a job where you can control your hours, be responsible for some of the income that you make, that can be a benefit to you, because he didn't necessarily have that opportunity. And maybe that's something that he wanted. So those, you know, two, kind of pivotal points along with a few others. During the course of my career development is what pushed me into the field. And I guess I've been here ever since.
Yeah, I mean, your career development is really interesting to follow once when we learn about you. And if you're able to kind of give like an overview you're you teach, and you are you own a multidisciplinary practice, correct,
I would say that my, my career is split into maybe quarters or thirds, I was fortunate enough to be able to buy into a practice out of school, the practice was quite a bit smaller than it is, now it's scaled, or the clinic rather scale quite a bit or last, you know, decade and a half. So I have the, my personal practice, and then I've got the kind of managerial operational component of running the business aspect of the clinic. I teach at the college level. And then I also do teach my own stuff outside of the college level as well. Yeah. And I've just always liked the diversification of those different not only income streams, because it makes it a little bit more resilient to burnout, which I'm sure we'll get into. But for me, it also, it just keeps things. I like it, I don't want to go to a clinic five days a week and do clinical work, I do clinical work, two and a half, two and three quarter days a week. Now, they're long clinical days. But I like you know, today I'm working from home, I'm doing different stuff. It just keeps it it keeps it busy. therapy can be very repetitive, right, there's only so many ways a sore neck will present itself. And I was speaking with a an MD yesterday. And he made a really good point. And he said, you know, a lot of the time we we can get bored and complacent in our career, because we're looking for, you know, I need to see something new and exciting, right? I need to see a shoulder that's complicated or something. And he said, it's, it's not about the things the pathologies or the injuries that you see. It's about the interesting conversations that you have with people. And I think that's a really, really interesting viewpoint, and one that's really, really beneficial to kind of lead yourself through.
Yeah, I agree. And on that, like topic, that's, I want to say listening to your podcast, you you sort of not specialise, but your niche and your kind of passion is now around concussion therapy. And you describe how you try to transition from that, because you're right, it is repetitive. And I think when we get into this career, and we start getting like bored or because we keep seeing the same thing over and over again. But But you certainly decided to go in a direction that re stimulated you and got you more of a passion in that concussion therapy. Can you describe a little bit more about that journey?
Yeah, I think you raise a really good point about like, niching down or having a special interest. When I first started my practice, the practice that I bought was, it was special interest, or the special interest was endurance sports, Marathon, half marathon, Ironman, and injuries were focused a lot to the ankle and foot. And that's how I started my practice. And I enjoyed it. I mean, the foot and ankle can be pretty complex and I enjoyed the individuals that I was treating, you know, endurance sport, you know, the athletes are really passionate about what they do. And there's a lot to be learned from there. And I, I still do treat in that space a little bit because I do enjoy it. But about halfway through my career. Again, you can only see so many foot and ankle injuries and I was getting a little bit bored of it. And I was starting to see a group of hockey players that were playing I at that level, or at that time, they were about to go pro, and they were playing in various, you know, they're playing in Europe, they were playing in North America. And I started, you know, the odd time someone would come in, and they would have, you know, they'd say they're either diagnosed with a concussion, or they were complaining of symptoms. This was maybe 10 years, 12 years ago now. And I just didn't know what to do. I wasn't, I was pretty lost, I would, I didn't really know how to assess them. I'd often treat their neck pretty blindly. And people would just struggle continue to struggle with symptoms, and in the vast majority people, they would eventually get better, but I didn't really feel that responsible for anything that had happened to them. And at that time, the concussion research was kind of taking off, there were a lot of prominent injury like Sidney Crosby being one in hockey was a really prominent injury was out for so long that University of Pittsburgh was emerging as a research research centre at that time, and has continued to really, you know, become a prominent Research Centre. But the research was taking off. And so I was just there at that time and started exploring courses from different individuals, different disciplines, whether it be physios Cairo's sports, med dogs, conferences, and then just started reading papers and and then eventually got to a point where I'd taken enough information from all these disciplines, that I was able to develop, just kind of my own picture as to how I help manage people. And you know, I really do love that space. It's been really, really valuable for me to be in that space, I've learned a lot. And so that's where I'm more niche to now I'd say about 50% of my practice at any given time is is focused on that. And then the other 50% would be the people that I've been seeing over the years, some again, in that endurance sport market. And just then a general population practice, which I think is always regardless if you're going to have special interest in something or not, I think maintaining a general practice, to some degree is, is important as well. Yeah,
again, just so you don't get stuck in that repetitive loop, potentially, yeah, that's really, I really like how you were humble enough to not only like, instead of like saying, I don't know how to treat this, so I'm just not gonna learn or I'm just gonna keep kind of fumbling my way or the other side of it, where there's can be ego involved in therapy, and you just think you're gonna do what you're gonna do. And it's the right thing. I love how you leaned into learning more about it, because you felt lost and unable to, to help one of the the key pieces of advice that I have learned as well was that like, if you don't know something, then like, if you don't know how to treat something, or you're a little bit scared of it, like if you're, if you'd kind of don't really remember the the anatomy or the the assessments from a certain joint, maybe you need to like that's the one that you need to lean in a little bit more like, if you start to shy away from it, then that could be a good indicator that that's something that you really should, especially when we're looking at courses to take, maybe that's the next one that you should, you should explore so that you do feel more comfortable with it. And you're not saying oh, that's not, that's not me. And then now based on what you've accumulated and your knowledge, this is, I guess, where you've taken that knowledge and be creating your courses as well.
Yeah. So just to piggyback off what you said there, Chris. I couldn't agree more. I think so often, we get intimidated by the complex presentation. But there's so much to be learned there, especially as a new therapist. I mean, I do tell this story all the time. But one of my first days or my first day in practice, the first person that I saw professionally had a bilateral combinated patella fracture and basically a both kneecaps removed. Right. And so it's like, what textbook is that injury and right so I've got this gentleman with knee pain on both sides of his knees, and he doesn't have kneecaps and, and then you're forced to kind of navigate that. And when you go to look in textbooks, it's not really there. So leaning into that using treatment and feedback from the people that you see about how things are going. There's information now is so readily available that you Back in the day, you'd have to go to a textbook now there's so many different people online teaching things, and then just just reach out to to mentors. Yeah, one of the reasons why I started my courses was I thought that it would be, I got to a point where I thought I was providing pretty good value to the people that I saw. And the conversations that I was having with the sort of interdisciplinary care teams, the physios, the massage therapists, chiropractors and medical doctors, it was they were refreshed by my ability to contribute to the conversation. And I really thought that massage therapists were perfectly positioned to lean into the concussion space a little bit more. And I also knew that there were a lot of massage therapists that were in a similar position to the position that I was in where concussions were coming into the clinic. And they were not feeling comfortable in playing a large role, and relying on maybe the the information that's being passed down from the other therapists. And I don't necessarily think that that's a bad thing, because I think that interdisciplinary care is really important. But I do think that looking at somebody that you're treating through your own lens, can be equally as valuable to the conversation, in that the more people that are looking at somebody through their own lens, the more you can then have your own conversations amongst each other about your own findings, which someone may have not assessed in that way, they may not have, you know, be everybody's got their own blind spots in their assessment, everyone's got their own personal biases. And, and so I wanted to allow massage therapists that were interested in gaining some confidence in that space to really be able to lean in and regardless of what they took from the course, whether they morph their practice into something like I'm doing, or they just were able to now understand that, you know, based on this information, I'm able to now refer to these appropriate people and get these individuals involved based on where this person is at along their care trajectory, I think is one of the most important things that we can do. Just being able to refer to people, or recognise even that there's something that needs to be investigated a little bit more, I think, is one of the most important things that we can do. And in those circumstances, a lot of the time it's not as though it's managing it. But now more so than ever, people are coming into paramedical clinics as the first point of contact, often they're not going to the ER Urgent Care or family doctors, they're coming in to people like you and I and saying, My shoulder hurts. And a lot of the time it says Kate related, but sometimes it's not MSK related. And having that ability to recognise and refer is is something that I'm really passionate about discussing. Amazing.
And what does the course look like? If people are interested? Is it in person or virtual?
Well, that's a I haven't I haven't taught in the last year, I've been taking some time to just, you know, think about what I want to do next with it. It was originally in person. And then when COVID Had I moved it online. So the last three or four times I've taught it it's been taught virtually, I am thinking about bringing it back in person. I know that there are positives and negatives to both, right, and that with a virtual delivery, we usually do a playback. So it's open for people to kind of retake the course as much as they need to. And, you know, pause and make notes and reflect and, and so I think that's one of the really great things about virtual course offerings. But one of the things I think is that's still missing out of the virtual course stuff is the that in person, collaborative case study stuff. I think one of the fascinating things for me when I teach is if somebody says something, a lot of the time is just about confidence, right? Like a newer therapist might not be sure of what they're doing. And they would like to know that what they're doing is the quote unquote right thing, even though there's not necessarily a right thing. And so a lot of times in courses when I'm teaching the response from The people that are taking the courses, oh, you're just doing that. As if it's like, it's not magic, right? It's just I'm just manipulating the body in this way. And I think that when they say that, and they get that recognition, I feel like that's what I want. That's what I want to have happen for you, I want you to realise that, Oh, you are doing the right thing already. And you got some, some reinforcement there. And those were really big learning moments for me when I was taking courses and individuals. Were doing things that I was already doing in the clinic. And I was able to build my confidence in in that way. So kind of a long winded answer, but virtual and in person. And maybe I'll bring bring back a hybrid of that. Depending upon you know, when I when I rerelease, which I haven't necessarily decided I've been taking the last year just kind of take a an easier year. And what
was your decision for taking that that easier? Year? What What prompted you to to reevaluate
just a few things I needed to I think one of the things that we were talking about discussing was burnout. And I've, I've done that a number of times, so I've been through probably on season five of burnout, maybe. So I do talk about it a lot. And the reason that I talk about it is, I feel like I'm pretty well ingrained into the burnout scene. And, and as a result of that, I just decided that I would like to just take for me, at this point in my career, I want to understand why I'm doing the things that I'm doing, which I think a lot of people want to do. But one of the things that I've done throughout my whole career is I've worked really, really hard. And I've worked, in my opinion, too hard, sometimes, really, you know, building, building my career and building my business, which is great. But as a result of that, I think that I've sacrificed things that are important to me. And so now I'm trying to focus on understanding what's important to me from a career standpoint. And furthermore, I'm trying to understand what or why I'm doing the things that I'm doing. And so with this course, that's what I want to try and do, I don't just want to do things to make money anymore, necessarily. Because I've done that for a long time. And it's been beneficial for me, but you do get to a certain point where when you've been in that space for a really long time, you start to understand that it's not really giving you that much other than, you know, financial success. And, and so that's why I've taken the year to just kind of reflect on that and understand or try to understand, okay, is it is it this course that I want to continue developing? I've got some other ideas that I think might offer some value. So I've been thinking about those, or am I just kind of happy, where, where am I, I've really started to like, really enjoy clinical work again. And I'm, I'm, I'm enjoying, I would say I'm enjoying clinical work more than I've ever enjoyed clinical work to be honest. And I've always enjoyed it. So the fact that I'm enjoying clinical work a lot, and then I'm teaching, I feel as though like I'm, I'm in a pretty good place there and I don't necessarily need need more teaching, but we'll see, we'll see what the next few months bring. And if that changes a little bit, which I'm open to
do you think your course could be just created as like an accessible online course without you being adding an like add you teaching live component?
Yeah, that's one of the things I'm seriously considering something like a Kajabi or a think if ik platform where I've got the luxury of my brother is in film and TV so I can always I always have the ability to create really high quality content through through having him from a production standpoint. And we have considered certainly just doing that and booking spots to film and then and then being able to create the course that way. And I do think that is a a highly probable thing at some point. Just due to again, flexibility the ability for people to consume the content and then maybe doing you know, a skills day for one day of the year for those people that are want the hands on stuff can all you know come into it where I'm at, or I can do it somewhere central Toronto or something like that. And I think that's kind of where I'm leaning. So I'm not. I mean, one of the things that and I'm sure you're very well versed in this as well as the whole, the whole marketing and social media aspect of what we do, particularly if you're in the online course space, you can really get on a content treadmill, where you're just always you feel like you're never ahead, you're always creating content, you've got to sit down and create content. And the batch content creation is kind of where it's at, right? Being able to set aside say, two weeks of the year, create all your content for the year and then drip it out. It allows you to be less stressed about it. And so I'm trying to, I'm trying to lean into that a little bit more. And we'll probably pursue something like that, where I'm not as it as in it all of the time.
Can we talk about the season five of burnout, I really appreciate you being honest about that. I mean, how I originally started, you know, with your podcast was episode six about therapists burnout. And I was one of your most popular episodes. As of right now, I believe. Like your top three or five, I think.
Yeah, I forgot to look before the episode. But I think there's I think it's up there. I think I've done a part two as well. And I think that's up there. Yeah, yeah, burnout is burnout is running rampant through health care, whether that is massage therapy, physio, Cairo, paramedicine. We know it's nursing medicine, it is just one of these things that we are in a career, largely because we care about other people, and we want to help them get better. And that's why I got into this space. But I will be the first to admit that I am not or was not very good at taking care of myself. Right. And, and in and around. My early 30s was the first time that I understood what burnout was, I was probably working 75 hours a week between different jobs. And I would never, I just wouldn't stop I would, I was at the clinic. And then I was teaching and I was always working. And, and that just caught up to me in the form of physical symptoms, exhaustion, you know, cognitive symptoms. And, you know, you quickly realise once you go through yourself that it's pretty common, and a lot of people are going through it. Not a lot of people in my world at that time were really discussing it, but it causes you to. The other thing is we know in massage therapy, the attrition rate from a career standpoint is very, very large. I mean, I don't know what the the initial statistics are. But I know the, like the five year attrition rate is massive. I know, tonnes of people that I started the career with that were veteran other disciplines that have left it, and the primary reason they've left it is they're just exhausted. And it's not, it's not typically a complaint of physical exhaustion, it's, I almost can't, you know, the conversation that you often have is, I'm just tired, I can't even necessarily explain it. And, and I think one of those things, is that when you're in a field where you're caring for other people, you're going to hear difficult things, regardless of what profession you're in. And some of those things are personal things individuals are going through. Maybe individuals are, you know, going through diseases, and you're sort of there as a point of care or a point of contact. And that can be really, really difficult. And then you get to a point where, you know, everything just stops for you and you feel as though you are having a really difficult time in your career. And so I mean, the positive the positive thing for me is that it causes you to reevaluate pretty quickly. And and from that point on, like I always say that there's a point prior to that, and then there's a point after that, and the point after that is, look, if I'm want to care for other people, I have to take care of myself first. It makes No sense that I'm trying to get people to be as healthy as they can. And as injury free as they can, when I'm working myself into the ground, I'm not taking time for physical activity, I'm not taking time to, you know, choose your, your mental health intervention of choice, meditation, journaling, mindfulness, therapy, whatever works for you, not taking time out to have fun, you know, all these things that you're sort of working for, and you're encouraging other people to do. You know, I sometimes felt like a bit of a hypocrite because, you know, people are coming to me for all this advice, and I'm not, I'm not necessarily doing it myself. So, you know, that's, that's where burnout one came into play. And, and it's just been a bit of a process. I mean, I my natural inclination is just to work. You know, and so understanding that that is my natural inclination. I mean, that's all so back to your previous question. One of the reasons why I'm taking your off off the teaching thing. Yeah, is because my natural inclination is just to create more and more and more content. Yeah. And, and so being able to recognise, okay, what are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? Is your strength actually a strength, like, I don't necessarily think working all of the time, and working really, really hard all the time, is always a strength, I think that there are points in in your career that you're going to have to do that. If you're entrepreneurial, particularly at the start, you have to put in time. But having work life balance, early in your career, to some degree, I think allows you to have some longevity there. And I actually do think that younger therapists are doing, you know, the people that I talked to anyway, are doing a pretty good job of it. Yeah. I don't know if that's, that's just because I'm on the other side of it now, or it was unique to, but I have heard other people as well say that the sort of upcoming generations in the workforce are very much about work life balance, and, and so I think that's great, I think that you still will have to work hard early in your career, especially if you're self employed, and you do want to build that base. But one of the things that I like to say to people is try to build your career on day one the way that you want it to be in year 10. And take those sacrifices early. So you can benefit from them later. Yeah, because if you, let's say you want to open a clinic, or what have you, and you say, I'm going to do this 10 years from now, and I'm going to start working at another clinic or, you know, chances are that, that the likelihood that that happens is going to going to be significantly less because you're going to adopt a lifestyle based on the income that you have. And maybe you have a family during that time or, you know, maybe you you buy a house or you buy a car and and then the the risk is substantially higher later in your career. And it's just more difficult to do, it doesn't mean that you're not going to do it. But if you can start to build your career from day one the way that you want it in year 10. And make sacrifices, whether that be I'm a server now and I'm going to continue to serve part time while I build my practice, and then eventually pull away. You will definitely thank yourself at year 10
I'm cheating because I listened to your episode, but you certainly is one of my favourite points that you you say and then also your use did set set up your practice the same way that you're speaking of now is that you treated three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And initially, it might have been hard, especially 18 years ago, I think as a clinic owner and I'd love to get into this as well. But like I think the after you build that reputation, like like a new therapist coming into your clinic is like busy day one what we had to take that time to build. So you set up three days a week, and then you you obviously like supplement now by creating courses teaching so that it's offsetting your hands on time and you're you're still getting the income benefit as well.
Yeah, I think I always I the three days a week. I can't take all the credit for the three a week thing because the therapists that I was purchasing from was also three days a week, but he gave me great advice and he just said the Tuesday Thursday lot allow you to recover. Yeah, and you know, that seems seem like pretty good advice at the time and it just was. And I do think speaking of the sort of burnout and the attrition rate in the profession, like I know, I know a lot of therapists that are treating five days a week, and I have no idea how they're doing it, I just couldn't. And they're busy. Like, it's not like they're doing three treatments a week. I know, therapists that are doing five and six, one our full massages every week, and I've been doing that for a really, really long time. And when you talk to them, and you maybe pry about where they're at, they're exhausted. Yeah, and I think diversifying is key to longevity. And I think that everyone has something that they can offer the profession, whether that's, you're able to teach continuing education and develop your own courses, you are able to teach the general public and offer courses to the general public, you're able to start a membership site, you're able to offer whatever it is everyone's got some skill set that they can bring to the table that allows them to diversify and have an income stream. You know, you can do that in the traditional sense, where you do build a clinic and you have subcontractors and you start to gain some profit that way, you could, if you're in a clinical practice, you could move your practice into your home, if that's something that's, you know, I'm, I'm like the biggest fan of the single person home practice. Okay, and this is coming from somebody that's run a, a multidisciplinary clinic for a really long time. And yeah, and has, I think we've got like 14 practitioners now. But the single practitioner home practice, is the most profitable thing that you can operate from a net profit perspective. And so if you think about it in that respect, and you're paying a split, and you're able to move into a home practice, well, you could, you know, let's just say arbitrarily, you're on a 6040 split, you could reduce your, you could reduce your treatment load by 40%, and still make the same money, essentially, and then build back up. So just being able to, you know, look at the scenario that you're in with a little bit of flexibility and say, what is it that I'm maybe missing here? Or are there some decisions that I can make in trying to diversify? You know, is there is there another career that I also want to dip my toes into, you know, that I've been thinking about for a really long time, and I haven't done that. And can I reduce practice by day a week and start, you know, pursuing that, I don't know a lot of therapists are going back to school and stuff like that. So not being able to not being afraid to look at it and, and allow it to continue to evolve, allow the niche to continue to evolve and allow your career to continue to evolve. It allows you to be in it for a little bit longer. You know, I heard a stat somewhere last week, where 70% of people are considering leaving their career, this wasn't just a massage therapy stat it was 70% of people are considering leaving their career. And that includes C level executives. So like, that's a crazy stat. Right? And so it doesn't necessarily speak to Okay, well, I'm making a lot of money. And I'm in a high level position. Because we know that C level executives typically work at a company maximum for three to five years. And they're allotted into that 70% of people that are considering leaving, so there are plenty of people that continue to question their career and, and there are plenty of people that would like to do something else, or diversify a bit. And, you know, I try to encourage people to explore that. I also like the line play the game, it doesn't mean that you have to, you know, it doesn't mean that you have to do it, but play the game. Go through the steps and the processes to say, you know, what, what does this look like if I do this? It's almost like going to buy a house and it doesn't become tangible until you submit an offer. You can go you can look at the house online, you can get your realtor, you can go and tour the house, you can do that three or four or five times you can walk through the neighbourhood. You can knock on the doors and speak to the neighbours. You can look at how far the commute is. You can play the game and you don't have to buy the house. But sometimes you buy the house. Yeah.
I love that I did an episode on working abroad because I was able to work abroad for two years in massage therapy. And you know that that was part of it. It was It wasn't just picking up and moving it it was going to the location where I was going to be working meeting the people I was gonna be working with seeing what The island life was like, and if it had what I wanted, you know, some of the creature comforts that I might have at home. But then what else did it have to offer? Could I see myself living there? I completely agree. And I love that line, play the game. Because so many people just think like, it's not going to happen. I can't do it. But if you just go through the stops, you actually see that it's, it is possible, or you get to the engineer like, oh, no, that's not for me. But at least you tried. And you like, you know, you just at least now, you know, and you can move in a different direction. I think I've also heard you say, and I loved it was like, there's the right decision is like the decision you make, and I think I'm mixed. I'm messing that up a little bit.
No, I was literally, I was literally just gonna say that line again. So you read my mind, the decision, the decision that you make is the right decision. So many people get so caught up in decision fatigue. And, and ultimately, you have to make a decision and people get focused on did I make the right or the wrong decision? And I always say you made the right decision, because it's the one you made.
Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Where
did you Where did you work abroad?
I worked in Turks and Caicos.
And so for you what, what initially drew you to to that opportunity? And then where did you like, find out and and learn about it?
It was a really awesome story. But essentially, I was February in Ottawa, and prior to us hitting record, you said it's kind of kind of cold up there. I grew up in Perth. It's kind of cold up there in the wintertime now. And it was a February that I was sitting in a coffee shop with one of my girlfriends, we'd just been out at, I think a networking event. But we went in for coffee, and you know, so cold and then she's just like, let's just move to a beach and sell like coconuts. I was like, oh, no, I said that. Sorry. I said that. And then she was like, she's kind of laugh, but then she's like, hold on a second. And she pulls up her Facebook, and somebody in her Facebook friends had recently said, like, hey, like, I'm a clinic owner in Turks and Caicos, I'm looking for a registered massage therapist to work with me. She's like, I literally just saw this, she showed it to me. And I kind of like laughed it off. I was like, wow, like, that would be such a great opportunity for somebody like, that's amazing. Haha, February of that year, I think it was 2013. Fast forward to April of that same year, the partner that I was with at the time was going through some really just mentally just challenging times. He didn't like his job, government, you know, felt like he was really just banging his head against the wall. It's, it's April, but it also snowed. So, like, it was just a miserable winter, and it just kind of all caved in at once. And as a supportive partner, you know, I just said listen, like what's what's one thing, one thing that we can tackle together to see if this is just to help, like, what can we do to help? And he said, I just need to be somewhere warm. I was like, Okay, I don't know if this opportunity still exists. But I will go back and find that Facebook post and see if, if that's still open. And it still was. And so it was just a little bit of back and forth with this clinic owner went back at by that time was maybe like July so like the weirdest time to go to a Caribbean island. But we went and felt it out, you know, met the clinic owner, where would I be working? How would I get there? Where would I potentially be living just kind of figuring everything out? And, you know, got on the plane? And we're like, yeah, like, let's, let's do this. So then we set into motion, how he was going to leave his government job, how I was going to leave the I was working as an independent contractor. So just how and when I was going to be leaving that location. Just we had a house that we just bought, you know, so all of these little things. It took a couple months for us to get there. But we eventually moved. And it was, it was great, but it didn't just just happen. It was yeah, a really a really neat process of how we eventually got there.
Yeah, I love that. And I think so many people are doing that too, whether it's abroad or within, you know, we're both located in Canada, whether it's within different provinces and their ability to dip their toes into practice in different parts of the world and use the career as a as a means of travel. Yeah, I think what I just think whatever you want to do with the career is what you should do. I think sometimes again, people think that you know, like sometimes relaxation massage gets up At wrap, you know, it's not for me, but some, some people say, Ah, I don't want to just be a relaxation therapist, whatever that line is just to be a relaxation therapist. So well then don't do that. But if you also want to do that, then do that. And if you want to explore working abroad, then explore that. And And again, if it's something that you want to do, just explore it, and I know that it's, it's often it is often easier said than done. But you can explore it. And it doesn't mean that you'll do it. But whatever decision you make is the right decision. So if you decide not to do it, it's the right decision. If you decide to do it, it's the right decision.
Yeah, with your with the attrition rate being five years, I love how you're being honest, I'm also 18 years in practice. But you know, you've you've had burnout, potentially, like five, five times by now in your career, whereas I think some people in the profession, they just they're like, Oh, this isn't for me, and then they, they exit, whereas you've, you know, you've given the the advice that like, No, you got to step back and reevaluate. It doesn't mean you have to quit. And it doesn't mean you have to move to a Caribbean island. And it doesn't mean like, but it just means you have to reevaluate.
Yeah, I don't know what book it was. I feel like it might be the book Essentialism by somebody McEwen, Rob McEwen, maybe as the name it might be that book, but they discuss how you see your career in terms of a subjective measure. So you know, on a simple scale of one to 10, right, what do you rate your career? And sometimes I'll do this with students when they're in school, I'll say, on a scale of one to 10, how excited are you about massage therapy? And the most dangerous place to be as a seven? Because you like it, but you don't like it that much. Right? When we talk about pain scales, we talked about seven being painful, yet tolerable. And so that seven is like I like it. But I don't love it. Yeah. And so when people are considering exiting, some to evaluate where they're at. And then my follow up question to that is, can you get yourself to an eight? What does an eight look like? What does a nine look like? You know, I'm working five days a week, I'm completely burnt out. Okay, well, you're working for a 6040 split, and you do have a garage? So can you make the same money by trading three days a week? You know, you've been talking about, you know, maybe doing that course, can you? Can you explore that a little bit? Do you have a good exit opportunity? Do you have another? You know, do you have a job as a case manager for an insurance company, and you're willing to explore that, then by all means, you know, go for it. But yeah, I think if, if you are close to an exit, I would encourage the, again, the process of just taken a chance to evaluate, because we have very high billable hours, right? Massage Therapists billable hours very high, it's hard to match the billable hours that we are able to accrue as a business owner, for sure. I mean, if you're, if you're on a half hour appointment, and you're charging, and you're at a home practice, and you're charging 70 bucks, your billable hours, 140 bucks minus your HSTS your billable hours in the high 120s. I mean, there's not very many jobs with a billable hour that that that's at high. So if you're looking at like the average, you know, average rate of pay, like a decent paying job being in the $30 per hour, well, you're like four times that on your billable hour, right. So when people are considering exiting for something else, and they're not sure necessarily, I do encourage them to take a moment to reflect on the financial leverage that they have as a therapist. And that if they're maybe able to scale back a bit and diversify through other income streams, or another career that's gonna run in parallel along therapy for maybe forever until you retire, but maybe you're gonna get five more years out of the career. And maybe some other opportunities will come along in that time. But I do think, you know, that billable hour is is something super valuable.
Yeah, yeah, I agree. And it does give us the the freedom Like he said, If you can scale back and still be comfortable with the income that you're earning, then you can pursue either another career or even just something that you enjoy. Because like you said, like, just having fun I get I enjoy the work that I do. I enjoy the behind the scenes, I enjoy the creation con, like creating content I enjoy like the creation process. So I will dump my free time that I'm people asked me what I do for fun on the weekend. I'm like, ooh, like seven to 9pm on a Saturday night, I've got two hours to tap on my laptop. That sounds sweet. Like that's pretty lame. But that is my, my like enjoyment of you know, where I just get get that extra time to to put in more more work. So yeah, if you can take the income and joy like that, that we do have that potential for higher income, but scale back, but then just pursue something that you enjoy without the need for the income. I think that reflects on your practice as well.
Yes. And I think I do think there's an interesting space in the marketplace of not only massage therapy, but therapists that no one is really tapping into, which is like taking those things that will I guess you are which is great. But you can take it even a step further, where you take those things that you enjoy, and you make them an income stream. I have, you know, for the longest time, and here's a free idea. But I've wanted to make a cookbook for therapists and do like meal prep and stuff like that I've wanted, you know, even just lifestyle stuff. I mean, you see all of this stuff on social media about, you know, different lifestyle stuff. How to organise your day, how to organise your career tools, tricks to take off some of the administrative burden, how to digitise your career, how to, you know, shoot batch, you content, how to meal prep for your week. You know how to make a good play less like, I think that there's so much that's there that a lot of people are doing that they could probably just monetize and start to build. And you don't, you don't have to do that. But I do like your point about the fun thing, which is the number one thing that I struggle with, and that I think sometimes we look for too much fun in our career. I mean, this might be a kind of a controversial opinion. But
I think that it's fair, yeah. But
you know, I enjoy my career. Don't get me wrong, but I think in the past, I've put too much stock and looking for let's call it happiness in my career. And I think that is the source of my burnout. And the realisation that you may have sacrificed, you know, friendships, social life, just having a good time. Missed vacations, because you were, you know, quote, unquote, grinding in your business can be a sobering one. So just as you said, looking outside of your career for fun, yeah, can make your career more fun. Yeah, I
almost I'm not envious, but like, and I had this conversation actually with Mark and Amanda from to RMTS and a microphone as well. But you know, Mark's inactive right now and Amanda is still in the practice but they very much are more active in the massage profession in the education component. Mark is like in and he and I kind of like I'm we're almost jealous of those massage therapists that at least on social media, they present themselves as like loving the work that they do and going into the end feeling energised at the end of the day, or like this is my happy place. And I agree with you that I don't think we should, especially because we work with people, human beings that can't always give us maybe the energy that that we we want you know, we can't expect that from them. That yeah, it's not it's a career and I enjoy it and I enjoy the people. But I yeah, if you're not finding the happiness from it, I don't think that's a bad thing at all. I don't think that it's fair to put that pressure on your career either. I think that's a missed I think that's it I definitely think it's a myth that they're they're trying to bust as well and just even the the corporate world that you're you're not going to always find passion in your your career. And like never work a day in your life.
Yeah. 100% agree with that. And I think you know, we haven't necessarily talked too much about this, but just, you know, did this episode Hold on, being an introvert. And, you know, really looking at that, and understanding what that means. And just understanding that the biggest struggle that I have with the career is having conversations all day, it's as simple as that. I mean, I like often say, I'm an introvert working in an extrovert kind of career, you know, I speak to people for a living, I have a podcast I teach, I can present myself in that manner. But that is by no means, what my true nature is. And, and if you if you relate to what I've just said, and you're able to, like, reflect on that a little bit and how interactions occur in a with respect to communication in a clinical setting, and, and or workplace setting, right, introverts get projected on to typically, and a lot of the time, it's someone's projecting their frustrations on to you. Which isn't always true. And a lot of time, we can, and I don't think that's necessarily true for introverts only, but we can internalise those as some type of truth. And so just being able to, you know, I just think there's so much value in some of the soft skills stuff, reflection, meditation, philosophy, reading, I'm a big advocate of that, and I've been doing it for, you know, ever since burnout one. And just the understanding that, you know, I've an episode coming up on, it'll release before this, but I'm going through a pretty significant bout of low back pain right now. And I have been for two weeks, and it's, it's something I've never dealt with, and it's pretty unrelenting, and it's pretty, it's pretty uncomfortable. And one of the things I say in that episode is just the understanding that just everybody's going through something. And, and just having that understanding and understanding the type of person that you are and how that might relate to your career. And then going back to all the other things that we've talked about, you know, exploring, you know, what might be valuable to you, because ultimately, you're the person that you spend all your time with, you're the only person that you spend all your time with. And so, so often, we put, you know, so many other people before taking care of ourselves. And I think just going through those, it is a journey, and you go through it over and over and over. And I think that there's there's some value to doing that, even if you arrive at the same conclusion, all of the time, as
as a clinic owner as well, I'm only I'm almost two years in as a clinic owner. And on the topic of like burnout, are you able to recognise maybe when your colleagues are on the verge? Or if there are you? Are you stepping in to sort of say, like, would you control not control? I mean, would you try to steer them away from from if you saw them approaching burnout? Do you give them a little sit down conversation about that? It's
a good question. I haven't. I'm always, I'm always like, if people want to come and have a chat, I try to be open to that. I, but I don't my my philosophy there. From a from a kind of clinical practice organisation standpoint, as you know, I want people to be able to make as many decisions as they can, on their own in, in their career. And, and so certain, certain people will arrive at that conclusion on their own and other people it might take, it might take getting to that point to arrive at that conclusion, and maybe they'll arrive at that conclusion and continue on towards burnout. Right. I think it's always a difficult topic to approach because everyone's working in their career for different reason. And everybody's got whether it be financial needs or personal needs that they need to meet. And they're working really hard to do that. And I don't know the nature of your clinic, but we in our clinic, we do have practitioners that are or newer to the field. And they're working very hard. And I always, you know, like, I can appreciate that because I was there. And I don't know where the balance is because you can go to work life balance, right? You can go too far that way where if you really want to build a career that's fruitful for you in long term, there is a bit of Front Loaded equity that you need to invest either monetarily through sweat equity, or both. But it's I don't, you know, I'd even love to get your thoughts on it yourself. I don't, I've never really been been one to, to sort of goal set and review, if you will, or act of mentorship. Oddly enough, I would mentor more people reach out outside of the clinic than in the clinic about you know, just having chats. I'm getting, you know, I'm getting tired of the career or I've got this new opportunity. I'd love to bounce it off you. But But yeah, I've never I've never really necessarily done that. Right. Yeah,
I haven't done it internally, either, like a part of me wants to offer and I always say like, I am an open, I'm an open door, you know, and and thankfully, with any concerns within the clinic, certainly people do come to me with those concerns, and things don't fester too long, thankfully. But I and although I might say like, yeah, like, you can come to me with anything. I'm just thinking now, as you said that maybe because it's so close, they don't necessarily want that mentorship. You know, as well as like the, the ownership like and the bonding that the boss but like, so maybe encouraging that coaching or mentorship outside can really can really help because you're, you're close, and they might just think you like you also have ulterior motives for wanting the best for their career because it benefits you. And so maybe just because it's such a close relationship, that might be why I mean, I've, I've said I'm an open, you know, open door, but they just nobody's really come to me for it. And I know, you've also said in your episodes, you know, you this clinic could be like a stepping stone for for other opportunities. And I also want my therapist to know that I understand that this might not be the be all and end all for you and I support support any decisions that you make, you know, from this point forward. So I try to keep that in mind, too. But nobody's come to me for further further guidance, either.
And, I mean, I think I think that I approach it very similar to you. And so I don't think that there's necessarily anything wrong with that. I agree with you that I think it's close. Like it's close being being the owner and then offering mentorship. But I think that's all you can do, I think that all you can do is say, you know, this is how this is how I like to operate as an individual. I appreciate whatever style of communication I appreciate, say direct communication, please let me know if you have any concerns. And then it's it's a two way street with respect to that. So if no concerns are being brought to you, and then something is sort of festered out of control. Yeah. Then it's kind of like okay, well, you know, I did say this. And, and I think that ultimately they're, you know, you're two years in so there will be circumstances where they are coming to you probably informally, about an opportunity, a thought. And I personally just like to operate in that way. I've always found it a little bit interesting with clinics and organisations, you'll typically see it in maybe a larger clinical entity, like a franchise or something like that. They consistently have these like goal setting and review and mentorship meetings. And yeah, and that does seem to be a little bit grounded in, in what you alluded to, maybe the benefit that it serves the larger business as well. Yeah. And some people gravitate and love that. Yeah, and other people don't. And the more people that you have in the clinic, the more individuals you have with different you know, needs wants communication styles, and, and it just becomes more difficult as the owner to, you know, I don't know what the wording would be, I guess satisfy all of those. For sure. And and You're right, if you if you implement something that is really firm, it may not have the intended outcome that you want it to have. Yeah. I don't know if that necessarily answers your question that much. But I think from what you're saying it's a similar philosophy to what I have,
I don't feel like goal setting, at least in my clinic environment, I don't think it would work if we created an income goal, or a certain amount of clients per month goal. I don't think that would be motivating or supportive in any way. Because, yeah, like, how, how can we, I work for chiropractic offices who have these, you know,
they have those models.
But that I just don't, I couldn't see that working. Everybody's independently contracted. We only have so many treatment rooms and so many hours that we can put into the days. So that would just be completely demotivating. If I was if I was going to come down on somebody as well for not hitting their their goals. So far, everybody, because everybody's so autonomous, you know, everything just kind of you they have that you do you do as many as you like, you need some time off, you take your time off that kind of thing. It's just seems to work.
Yeah, I think that the model, the chiropractic model, and there are probably other you know, I know that it's exist in chiropractic, but there are other clinical models out there regarding you know, specific requirements for treatment. Yeah, yeah, I think it can become, it can become pretty demotivating for the therapist, and that, they almost feel like they can never win, you know, they've always got to, they can't, you know, they'll be told that they can take as much vacation as they want, but they really can't, because if they take that vacation, they're not going to hit their metrics, and they're not going to get paid. And, you know, maybe they, again, going back to lifestyle, they need that money to be able to just live and, and so it's, it can put them in a difficult spot. I think, again, like people are always going to want to build the career that works for them. And some people are going to lean on you at different times, formally or informally. If you've been into two years, people are going to leave your clinic at some point. And, and that's great. I think that, you know, whether they move on from the profession, they open their own clinic, they move away, they leave the profession, they, they are going to make the right decision for themselves, they're going to choose to make that decision, and it's going to be the right decision. And, and that's, you know, especially when people go to to open other clinics. I mean, I don't know how I can be mad for someone wanting to go and open another clinic. I mean, I have a clinic. Yeah, so I can't be mad at that. And I also can't be mad at the therapist that wants to go and operate a home practice. Because it is literally the thing that I talk about the most I tell people go and operate your own home practice, it's the most profitably overhead thing that you can do. It offers you the most autonomy, the most flexibility. Are there downsides to it? Yes. But there are a lot of upsides as well. So if if you've been considering that and you don't mind being literally so close to home with it. Right, then and then they choose to go and do that. Well, how can I be mad at that? That's, you know, that's something that I've been preaching forever. So it's, it's just how, how people are going to make decisions. And, and I haven't always been like that, but I'm just okay with it. You know, I'm just okay with it. There will be you know, there will be plenty of difficult decisions to make. And that's just, that's just the nature of it.
As a teacher on the front lines of new massage therapists coming in, to the profession, how we're how, how do you feel about where we're at, with incoming therapists, and as a clinic owner as well, with
respect to what element of the career as in, like,
definitely, like numbers and quality.
So in terms of like, the number of therapists that are out there,
yeah. That are like yeah, that would be coming. Coming in.
I don't think I mean, From my experience down this way, there aren't a lot of therapists available. I think it's quite difficult to find therapists because there's a huge bottleneck where the demand for Paramedicine is skyrocketed through COVID. Yeah. And the number of therapists that are graduating from programmes is probably reduced a bit. I mean, yeah, I don't know. I don't know, actually shouldn't say that. Because I don't know the numbers, it seems that way. But the the use of Paramedicine seems to be way up, the availability of practitioners seems to be either the same or reduced. I would be curious to know what the back end attrition rate of massage therapy or Paramedicine was during, during the last say, three to five years? Because I, you know, there was a lot of discussion online and stuff about people just retiring, you know, whether they're at the end of the career a bunch of people retired. Yeah, so I don't know, whether there's just less available out there. The, you know, I think that the quality of the therapists coming in, I don't think is necessarily changed that much. I think it's like everything, there are some really, really great ones, there are some that just have a little bit more to learn. And I think that one of the things has become quite apparent over the last three to five years is there is the younger generation of students that are coming into school are learning in a kind of a different way. Yeah, you know, and it's, it is very technologically driven. And there is a little bit more emphasis on leaning towards technology, using technology as a means of communication, particularly written through, say, email versus coming to ask a question in person, you know, people seem to lean a little bit more on leaving class and sending the email question rather than staying after class and sort of chatting about it. Which can sometimes be difficult, especially if it's a kind of a practical skill. So I don't necessarily think that it's better or worse, I think it's just different. I do think that the younger therapists have quite a an entrepreneurial spirit to them. And I think a lot of that has come through things like social media and technology. Like I said earlier, I think work life balance is a really big topic that has been focused on. And a lot of people are, a lot of the newer therapists are very much interested in that they want that work life balance as a priority for their career. They're not as, as willing to put in, you know, I want to start at four days or five days. And, you know, personally, again, I think that they're, they should build whatever career they want. So I don't necessarily think that's good or bad. It's just the decision that they're making. And I can certainly respect it, if that's what they want to do. And I don't know if this is true, but I get the sense that they do want to diversify a little bit more. They want to continue their education, a lot of them are quite interested in like niching early, and I think that's valuable, I also think is valuable that when they're looking to niche early, they're willing to let that go. Because a lot of people want a niche early, but then they're worried about what they should niche towards. Right. And I don't, again, it's just one of those things, if you like, sometimes you'll talk to a student and they'll say I came into this programme, really wanting to work with athletes and now I want to work with you know, prenatal postnatal. Yeah, yeah, it's, there's nothing that's just the way that it's going right. So go and lean into that interest and see where it takes you. But I think those are a few things that come to mind. I don't know if you've if you have anything differently from your experience in hiring a new therapist or know
the new newer therapists I agree with you on work life balance and sort of that older person in me kind of got a bit bristled at the initial you know, mention of like work life balance and I'm only going to work days so that I can have my evenings free and I'm not going to work weekends and I am only gonna work four days a week and you know, initially when they're giving these you know, this criteria for exactly like you're saying the practice that they want to build so that they can have a work life balance. It was an initial just like a bristle for me because like, Well, when I was your, your age, like I worked five days a week and at multiple clinics and I worked evenings and weekends because that was where the clients and the money were and So but but it works for them because the clinics are busy during the day, and they are building a clientele during the day, they can have a sustainable income, that gives them a great lifestyle. They're not just twiddling their thumbs during the day, and complaining that they're not making any money. Yeah,
the marketplace is certainly much different than it was 20 years ago. So it allows the newer therapist much more negotiating power in terms of leveraging their their schedule, and how they want to build out their career. And, and so for the new therapists that might be listening, I mean, that's a great, that's great for you, it's great to be able to leverage those things and say, you know, I only want to work this and I have five other opportunities, you know, that I that I can pursue with respect to this. And so as the clinic owner, yes, it is, it is more difficult in that your ability to negotiate, has been reduced by what the marketplace is dictating. But, I mean, that's just the nature of the game. And, and that's just what the marketplace is saying. And, and personally, I think that it will continue to trend even more that way. Because as the population is generally getting older, particularly baby boomers, the the lien on Paramedicine is going to be more and more and more. And it will create a further bottleneck in terms of supply and demand for the available therapists that are there, versus the people that are looking for therapy, you know, it might be I mean, this isn't necessarily advice for the clinic owner, but further advice for maybe someone that's looking to, to maybe start a practice, it may be worth looking in the smaller, you know, 30,000 population community with two or three clinics there versus the you know, I don't know how many clinics are on the street, my clinics app, but it has to be above 10. Now, and, and just being able to recognise those opportunities, but I think it's all I've kind of arrived at the fact that it's all good. It's all, you know, the people that want to be with you for a long period of time will be and the people that decide to leave to pursue opportunities will do that. And it's, it's, it's all good when I think about you know, I was discussing this with someone the other day, I think we've had over the close to 20 years that I've been at the clinic we've had over probably are close to like 30 administrative staff. You know, people come and go, they, they're, they're doing a university degree. I know that that's coming to an end, but I want them to be able to enjoy their job and, and learn a bit and we've had a lot of people that have come in and done, you know, different, you know, aspects of medicine over the years because they got ingrained into a clinic early when they were in high school and were able to seize those opportunities. So yeah, it's it's all good and, and I just can't fault people for trying to build something they want to build for themselves, because, you know, that's what I chose to do. Awesome.
Well, on that note, I think we can end it now that I've my questions out of the way. Sure. Awesome. Thank you so much for your time, Connor. I really appreciate it. Enjoy the rest of your your day.
No problem. Appreciate. Appreciate you having me on Chris. It was great conversation and hope hopefully your listeners found some value
