A businessman was taking a walk on the beach to de-stress from his work day.
He noticed a fisherman relaxing on the beach with his pole in the water.
He went up to the fisherman and asked him how many fish he’s caught today.
The fisherman replied, “I’ve caught 3 big ones in the last 20 minutes. I’m the best fisherman on the coast. I only need to relax on the beach and fish for about 30 minutes each day. Then I get to spend the rest of my day playing with my kids, reading good books, spending time with my wife, and playing guitar with my friends.”
“Wow!” said the businessman. “You have a huge business opportunity here. You should spend more time fishing, so you can make more money and buy a boat and bigger nets.”
The fisherman smirked, “Oh yeah? And what would be my reward?”
This level of ineptitude was confusing to the businessman who had such a high business acumen. “Well, then you could go out and catch even more fish to make even more money.”
The fisherman persisted, “And what would be my reward?”
“Man, this guy just doesn’t get it” the businessman thought. He pointed to the ocean and said, “Well, then you could buy more boats to put out there, hire a bunch of employees, and build a big business while you let them do all the fishing for you!”
“And what would be my reward?”
Now the businessman was angry. He’d made it so clear! “Well, then you could make a ton of money. So much money that you’d eventually be able to retire, buy a house wherever you want to, spend all day sitting on the beach, spending time with your family, hanging out with friends, and not have a care in the world!”
The fisherman simply smiled and said, “And what do you think I’m doing right now?”
What’s your success look like?
I bought into the traditional entrepreneurial journey.
Start a business and work really hard to make enough money to hire an employee.
Then work really hard to make enough money to hire a bigger team and offload all of the training and rehab to the staff, so I can focus on marketing, sales, and managing the team.
Then maximize that facility, take all of the processes that work there, standardize them, and open a second facility. Then a third, fourth, fifth, etc…
Then eventually I’ll make enough money that I can spend every day doing what I want.
That didn’t work for me.
I love training, rehabbing, and building relationships with athletes. I didn’t like offloading that.
I like marketing (which is essentially just storytelling), but I don’t love constantly chasing leads and doing sales stuff.
I love working with people, but I’m not a fan of managing a large team of full-time employees and all of the baggage that comes along with that.
So, I veered off the path of tradition.
I love my work. I get to blend sports performance training and physical therapy in a unique way that doesn’t really exist elsewhere.
I get to serve a tight community of hard-working athletes who really want to be there.
I get to nerd out on the details of training and rehab.
I use that nerding out to provide the highest quality service and results possible for our tight-knit community of athletes.
I get to make more money than I’d make as a staff physical therapist elsewhere, while providing a service that is usually significantly cheaper for our athletes than traditional physical therapy.
I get to educate and assist in the development of the next generation of physical therapists and sports performance coaches.
I spend most of my time with my wife and daughter.
I get to exercise regularly.
I get to read and write.
I’m already spending my days doing what I want to do.
I’m not saying that I’ll never pursue elements of the traditional path of more. I’m competitive by nature and I’m addicted to progress.
But, I’ve changed my definition of what success looks like and I encourage you to evaluate what success actually looks like to you.
Best,
Zach
Dr. Zach Guiser, PT, DPT, CSCS