You’re Losing Ground Because of the Hard Conversations You Aren’t Having with Jenna Gourlay, PT, DPT

What kind of owner would you be if you could address every issue that needed to be addressed with every team member in a timely manner? How would that change your clinic? How would that change the culture? Holding hard conversations doesn’t come naturally and takes some work, but it is possible. In this episode, Nathan Shields is with  Jenna Gourlay, PT, DPT  of  Professional Rebellion  to discuss what it takes to make those conversations easier and more productive. A focus on transparency, numbers versus emotions, and maintaining curiosity are critical aspects of having productive conversations in spite of their severity. Hopefully, this episode provides the tools to help you be successful in your future conversations.

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I have Dr. Jenna Gourlay. She’s a Physical Therapist and Cofounder of Professional Rebellion with a prior podcast interviewee that I had, Phil Plisky . She’s a Team Physical Therapist for the University of Evansville Women’s Basketball and Volleyball teams, as well as a staff physical therapist at ProRehab Orthopedic Physical Therapy .

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Jenna , thanks for joining me.

Thanks for having me.

I was intrigued and interested to talk to you because you did an article in Impact Magazine about having difficult conversations. I don’t know if I’ve touched on it that much in the number of episodes that we’ve done in the show. We talk about many different business matters, but we don’t talk about, how to have some of those difficult conversations or what the mindset should be and how to prepare for them? This could be a valuable episode, so I’m looking forward to having the conversation with you. Before jumping into that, tell us where you’re coming from. What’s your professional path and got you to this point?

I initially started out as a PE teacher. I went back to school for physical therapy. I did a sports residency and then after I finished that, I am still in the sports residency. I am now a clinical mentor working with our residents in the clinic and PT as well. I work with the women’s basketball and women’s volleyball team. A big part of my passion is in sports physical therapy. A few years ago, Phil and I founded and started the Professional Rebellion , which is where most of my passion is right now, especially for physical therapy. I’m trying to help others create the career that they want in the profession because there are so many awesome things we can do in PT. There are no limits to what it can be unless we put limits on ourselves. Our whole goal is to help people figure out their own path and ideal career within the profession.

People should read Phil’s episode that I did with him. It’s maybe 2 or 3 episodes behind this one where we talked about burnout in the profession and what leads to that. It’s usually related to physical therapists not acting out into their purpose, essentially. That’s essentially what Professional Rebellion is doing. I’m assuming it’s helping physical therapists figure that out. What was the inspiration to write up the article and throw it out there for Impact Magazine?

A big part of our profession is communication, whether it’s with patients, coworkers or other employees that we work with. I don’t know that we talk enough about it because there are so many hard issues in day to day things. Over the course of the career, I feel like people are constantly trying to avoid these conversations. They don’t want to have them. I know I have done the exact same thing in the past because we see it at this point of, it’s either going to go or it’s going to go bad. If it goes bad, it’s going to ruin the relationship and you start making up all these worst-case scenarios in your head that a lot of times you don’t even have the conversation, to begin with. I want to change that narrative because these conversations are ways to improve relationships, even if they’re hard conversations as long as we approach them in certain ways.

Hard conversations are ways to improve relationships.
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I think it’s necessary for physical therapy owners because one of the things I believe that holds us back is we were in a way maybe as a profession, people pleasers and so we want to maintain that friendship. We wanted to maintain the alliance and the camaraderie and we know that’s relatively vital as a team and as an organization. If we’re not getting to the heart of certain matters, if we’re not willing to confront, if we’re not willing to hold accountable, then our businesses are going to suffer. There’s going to be turnover. The hard part is we don’t have training per se on how to have these conversations. We could bring that up in a way that comes to us naturally, but maybe it comes across too harsh. Maybe it’s not hard enough maybe. We don’t have a lot of training on these crucial conversations. You call them crossroad conversations. It can be difficult for us to even do anything. Maybe we get stuck in paralysis. Maybe it all blows over and everyone stays happy, but that’s probably the worst thing to do is to not say anything.

That period where you’re not saying anything, yes, you’re not having the hard conversation, but a lot of times you’re ruining a relationship even more because sometimes things that are left unsaid. One, things aren’t changing if you want change. Two, if you’re feeling a certain way, you’re not doing anything to resolve those feelings. It’s almost like you’re letting them almost control how you feel and how you’re moving forward.

I see this in clients who are willing to have the hard conversation and get it over with it and say their piece and move on compared to those who don’t have the conversation, the progress of those that have the conversations is significantly greater than those that don’t. It’s simply because they address the matter and they move on. By having that, what needs to be said gets said, what needs to be addressed gets addressed and both parties seem to be on the same page where they at least know where both of them are coming from. How can you help us? Tell us a little bit about maybe mindsets or thoughts we should have and before we go into these conversations. How should we prepare ourselves?

The biggest way that we can prepare ourselves and we can get ready for these conversations is to recognize that there are different perspectives. The way that we’re looking at whatever the situation is and the way that the other person is looking at the situation, very rarely do those two things line up because if they did, we wouldn’t have to necessarily have that conversation in the first place. One of the things that they talk about a lot, if you’ve ever heard of the book The Hard Thing About Hard Things , it’s a great book, if you haven’t read it.

One of the things that they talk about is how we often create stories that aren’t necessarily based on facts. One of the best examples that I can think of right now for this is we often all eat together at work. It’s a way that we can get to know each other as individuals, as people when we’re not worried about patients. We’re not thinking about what we’re doing next, but we can be ourselves. It’s a nice time. A lot of people stay and it’s how we build that relationship. We had somebody new come on that never stayed for lunch. You can tell that their relationship wasn’t forming and that they weren’t feeling comfortable. She didn’t feel like she was fitting in.

I sat down to talk to her about it. I have this whole story in my head like she doesn’t like us for some reason and she doesn’t feel comfortable in the place that she’s at. Maybe this wasn’t the right fit for her. I have this entire narrative and I sat down with her and confront her about it. She says, “I feel like no one likes me.” We’re having very similar thoughts, but my perspective is she doesn’t like me. Her perspective is, “No one likes me here.” For that reason, she’s leaving at lunch. It’s the same behavior either way, but it’s much different. It’s like a lot of times you both have a thought. It’s not necessarily right or wrong, but it’s based on a story that you’ve created yourself rather than the facts that are there.

My wife alluded to this, not that we were having any issue, but we were talking about a concept. I think Brené Brown brings it up in that. She’ll start a conversation with the story that I’m telling myself right now is blank. That’s how she’ll start the conversation. Not that the conversation needs to start that way, but understanding that we have a story going on that might not be the reality.

That is a huge thing. It is recognizing that there are different perspectives and that where you’re coming from might not be where that other person is coming from. The response to that is then when you go into these conversations and when you have these hard talks is to be more curious than anything else. To ask questions, to try and see where that other person is coming from because if that’s the case, then you have a completely different story in your head. You can start to reshape and change that.

I learned a lot about simply being curious and the mantra, “First seek to understand before being understood,” or something like that. Anyways, seek for understanding might be a Stephen R. Covey thing, but first seek for understanding. Be curious and what I’ve been instructed to do is avoid the why questions. That immediately puts the other person into a defensive posture to explain themselves and support their opinions. Even in trenching, maybe even more, but rather help me understand what’s happening or what’s going on when I see this. What are you thinking about different ways to approach the same question and get some understanding and help both parties be on the same page? Is that something that you’ve also talked about or trained?

A huge part is not asking why, because like you said, that is automatically, it’s like something is ingrained in us for or if they’re asking why I did something wrong. Reframing that question and trying to get to the true reason is huge in that.

It’s helpful to carry on the conversation once you know exactly their thinking process. Usually, it’s not as horrible as you think that it is. Maybe you have to ask a few more questions to get to the heart of it, but it’s still a learned thing. It’s not something that comes naturally. Is there any further preparation that you recommend people go through?

One of the things you also want to think about before you go into these conversations is how you can be transparent about what you’re talking about. Let’s say that you are having a conversation and a tough one to have is if an employee isn’t performing to what you need them to do. Maybe they’re not seeing a high enough capacity and that’s a hard conversation to have, especially if you’re talking to an employee that feels like they’re working hard. How can you be transparent? A way that you wouldn’t necessarily be transparent is to sit down and say, “You need to get your numbers up. You need to do X, Y and Z. Do you think you can do that?” That might help the problem in the short-term, but long-term, that’s not necessarily going to incite change.

A way to be transparent might be to discuss where that person is in comparison to the rest of the team and frame it more from like a teamwork perspective or to show what the billing is and how it’s reimbursed and how certain things affect their capacity and things like that. Telling what to do and trying to come up with solutions is great. If you’re not giving all the information and you’re not getting it all out there, sometimes it can feel almost like you don’t care as much or you’re hiding something. Even though you’re probably not hiding anything, you think you want to tell them what they need to know and they need to know that they need to get their numbers up. That person on the other end of it may be receiving something completely different.

It goes back to being transparent, especially about the numbers. Not to say that you have to show them exactly how much money you’re making as an owner. I remember specifically, I had a conversation with a therapist who had been out quite some time. She is been with me maybe 1 or 2 years and it was going into our summer season, which is typically slower in Arizona. I was worried about the numbers. I said, “We might be down to this number of total visits this next week.” She had no emotion. She didn’t know if she was supposed to be excited about that or if she was supposed to be worried about that.

I recognize that I’m the only one that holds those numbers in. I’m not sharing them. I’m not saying this is what minimum expectations are. This is our breakeven point. This is where we need to be or else the business will fall that I’m not having those conversations as a young business owner. The light bulb went off like, “I need to share this information with the others so they know when we talk about numbers, exactly what that means for our business.” Do you find that if you talk more about the data, that it helps the conversation go along a little bit more smoothly and more objective versus subjective?

Yes. We could go back to that story. Without that concrete data that employee that’s sitting in front of you is starting to formulate some story based on what you’re asking. The story, you might be the best business owner ever, but if that employee doesn’t have a concrete example, they’re thinking abstract and that’s hard to grasp sometimes. They may be thinking, “I’m figuring out what I make and probably what we get reimbursed. It seems like enough. They must be trying to take advantage of me.” When in actuality you have the front desk staff and you got to buy all this other stuff for the clinic and you have all these other things, but that person doesn’t have the context for that. The less information you give, the more opportunity you give that other person to fill in the details to how they’re perceiving it.

That was one of the first examples you shared in the article about an owner who’s struggling financially, how transparent the owner needs to be about the finances in general and what will keep their business afloat and versus what might sink them. I guess those were hard conversations that a lot of owners could have had during the pandemic to help employees know what’s happening and not leave them in the dark because they’re simply going to work out of uncertainty. That leads to fear and that leads to rumors. That could be bad in general for the morale of the clinics. Whereas an owner that said, “This is what it’s done to us thus far. This is where we need to hit to breakeven. We’re looking at going forward is we’re going to apply for these loans.” That’s what you’re talking about, transparency in that regard.

You don’t need to show every little thing, but you need to give enough that your employees and that the people that you’re working with understand where you’re coming from.

What if it’s something more like an employee that’s acting maybe not inappropriately, but bad behavior or something like that in the clinic. How would you recommend you approach something like that? That’s not necessarily data-related and it’s not necessarily related to their performance per se as a therapist, if that’s what they were, but their interactions with the other team members.

A good example of this could be like if you have someone that maybe isn’t quite happy at work. We all go through periods of times and one negative person can take down the entire culture of where you’re at. To speak an example, say you have that person and you want to talk to them about how negative they are and the things that they’re saying that are affecting everyone around them. The biggest thing you want to do is first figure out if that person even necessarily recognizes it. If there is negative behavior and things like that, sometimes it’s more of a by-product than it is the actual problem. For example, if you have someone that is constantly being negative and you can’t do anything to please them and getting to the bottom of where that’s coming from might be an important thing.

It might have to do with something that you can help with. It might have to do with something work-related or might have something completely that doesn’t have anything to do with work. It’s coming out there. None of us are perfect. None of us are super energetic and happy and loving every minute of every day. I don’t think we always know the way that we affect others and the way that we come off. This individual might think, “I’m being sarcastic and funny.” It’s like, “No one’s perceiving you that way.” It could be a lot of different things, but figuring out, one, if the person realizes that’s what they’re doing in terms of that behavior if they realize they’re doing it, and two, maybe figuring out exactly what is underlying that.

It’s hard for people to separate work from home. If you can do that, let me know how that happens because we’re the same person and carrying it from one place to the other means it’s going to get brought up in either place. How to bring up the conversation then as a manager and owner, how do you get it to the point where maybe this is a topic or the issue is something that we could essentially set on a table and observe both from a separate perspective? I’m imagining it might go along the lines of, “So-and-so mentioned that it hurts when you say these kinds of things to them. I don’t assume that’s your intention to make her feel that way.” How would you approach something like that?

You speak to the behavior and not the intention. Maybe they’re saying something and they don’t mean to be mean. If that’s the case, then you’re going to make them feel even worse by being like you’re being rude versus, “I think some of the things you’re saying might be misinterpreted by your coworkers.” Where are these things coming from versus, “You’re making people uncomfortable or you’re saying hurtful things?” That’s different than speaking to a pattern of behavior over speaking to why they might be doing. Don’t speak to their intention, speak to what they’re doing.

Don't speak to other people's intentions; speak to what they're doing.
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You don’t want to assume their intention, in other words. You want to simply say, “Here’s the behavior and it’s making others feel this way,” without going so far as to say, “You meant to do blank, you meant to hurt them. You meant to be mean.” Keeping it as still as objective as possible without labeling, I assume. What about other situations? In the article, you talked about unjustified requests and maybe asking for time off that’s not allowed. What insight could you give us there?

One of the biggest things is also trying not to take things personally. It’s one of the best lessons that I learned when I was teaching middle school before I went back to PT school. If you teach middle school, you can’t take anything personally. A lot of times when you get a request and you’re like, “That’s not justified at all. Where are they coming from?” The thing is they’re coming from somewhere. You got to figure out where they’re coming from because nobody goes and ask for things that they don’t think they deserve. It’s having that conversation. If it’s a request and you’re like, “That’s not something that can happen,” you need to support why that can’t or what needs to happen in order for that to be a thing. If somebody is requesting a raise or requesting an excessive amount of time off and things like that, then again, they think on some level that it’s a possibility. You need to either discuss why it isn’t a possibility or discuss how to make it one.

I have a couple of clients who are now doing annual reviews of some of their employees and providers and the providers are asking for raises. It’s a hard time to authorize a raise in early 2021, as we’re still lingering in the pandemic and considering what owners have gone through 2020. It’s been imperative to talk to the owners about helping the employees understand what’s happened at this past year that they might not have seen, like how much money you may have lost. You don’t have to spit out numbers but, “I didn’t make a profit this year. There were times I didn’t take a salary. It’s been hard, not just for a lot of individuals, but for companies as well.” Simply brushing it off and saying, “It’s not going to happen,” isn’t going to cut it.

From that standpoint, it is understandable once you sit down and you hear that from you or from whoever you’re speaking to like, “I get that.” At the same time, you want to give them some validation for what they’re asking. Maybe they are a great employee and you’re not in a place to give a raise right now. Maybe they’re an okay employee. If they do something else, then they would be justified. Giving a concrete like, “It’s not a good time now. I do value you. Let’s follow up in 3 or 4 months. Let’s set a meeting and let’s see where we’re at financially then. Let’s see how everything’s going then.” It’s like what you’re saying, it’s not a good time right now. It’s not in terms of where a lot of places are at, but that doesn’t mean that it’s never going to happen or things are never going to be better. If you say, “No, now’s not a good time,” it leaves you like, “What now?” If you can at least validate that concern or that request and sometimes you will have to push it off until some other time. If you make an intention to discuss it at a later date, that goes a long way with at least fostering that relationship.

Not brushing it off, but say, “Now’s not a good time. Can we come back around in the middle of the year or in 3 to 4 months?” I also love what you said about, “Maybe a request for a raise isn’t appropriate this time. Let me show you some of the things that you could do here in the next little bit to justify an increase in salary,” so that they’re not left wondering, “I don’t know what to do next. My salary request got rejected. Now what do I do?” You don’t want to leave them hanging like that. You want to give them some concrete insight. Correct me if I’m wrong, but people want that feedback. They want the scorecard. They want the report card. Where am I doing well? Where am I doing poorly?

You figure PTs go to school like forever. There are so many practical and everything has a rubric and you need to do X, Y and Z. You get an A, and we thrive off of that and we get so used to that. You get out into your career and you’re like, “I have no idea how I’m doing. That patient told me they’re worse. The other patient told me they’re better. I have no idea how I’m doing.” Those are things that ground you a little bit are very important and they give you something to work towards.

Something you brought up in the article is you call it consistent openness. Tell me about that.

It goes to the transparency a little bit, but then it also goes to trying to have a well-rounded relationship in general. You want to focus on your people that you have and then everything else should fall into place. If you’re keeping it strictly business and strictly one-sided, it’s very hard to develop that trust between different people. Being open means sharing vulnerable things or explaining your motives behind things. Constantly giving feedback and constantly getting feedback helps everybody figure out where they are and how the relationship’s going.

You’re completely unable to do that unless you’re having some structured meetings. From where you’re at, do you have regular meetings scheduled?

We have a bi-weekly meeting every other week. We also have one-on-one meetings that happen monthly. Those are more informal, more of like a check-in between those big reviews and things like that. If you sit down once a year, it’s like nobody knows what’s going on in life. Nobody knows what’s going on. I’m at least in a very large clinic. There’s a lot of us, it might be easier in a smaller one, but constant check-ins with each other is pretty big to know what’s going on in all aspects.

A lot of owners might shy away from meetings because they are seen as “unproductive” or they hear the book Death by Meeting and think that meetings altogether are wrong or something like that. This is exactly the time where a leader can stand up and say, “These are the numbers that we’re seeing. This is what’s happening in the clinic. This is what’s happening during the pandemic and how we’re addressing it.” Team members want to hear that stuff on a regular basis. We can’t do that unless you have some structured meetings.

As you said, it’s being open about things. If you’re not having meetings or you’re not having those points where you can communicate, people are going to communicate whether they have the correct information or not. You want them to have the information to talk about. They’ll find some. That’s what happens, but the more open you are and the more forward you are with what’s going on, the more that people feel secure and the less that they start to create their own ideas.

You said your one-on-one meetings are somewhat free-flowing, but what’s the general undertone or what are you guys trying to get at in those one-on-one meetings?

The one-on-one meetings are designed to check in with the numbers and things like that. Not from a, “This is what you need to do, but this is where you are. I hope you’re aware of where you are right now.” Also, to see where you’re at more from like a headspace standpoint. Is it a point where you’re rocking and rolling and patients are coming in, you’re feeling good or is it one of those times where you feel like you’re struggling? A lot can come out in those meetings. Sometimes you might have somebody that their numbers aren’t as good. When you start getting to it, you recognize that it’s coming from a lack of confidence or they’re at a point where they’ve had a lot of tough patients and that starts weighing on you. You can get those feelings out in the open. One of the things you’ll recognize, everybody feels that way at some point. Nobody feels 100% of the time in the clinic. That’d be amazing. You will have some of those days, but you also have some of those days where you’re like, “I don’t know if I’m good.”

As a team member, does it give you some confidence knowing that you have that monthly scheduled meeting? I’m assuming that maybe things come up during the month that you feel like you want to address. Does it give you some confidence knowing that, this is something that I’m wanting to address at my next one-on-one?

It prevents you from letting those things go on. It’s almost like a point where I have my opportunity to talk about the things that I want to talk about I can versus not having it scheduled or having one here and having one there. You don’t necessarily have a place where you can talk and where you can voice concerns. A month goes by so quick. There are some months where you’re like, “Didn’t we just do this?” There are other months where a lot happened in between, but that’s the cool part of it too.

To make those successful, I know we might be getting into the weeds a little bit, but do you have your meetings scheduled like the third Thursday of every month? Is it routine or like that?

It’s usually the similar time and similar day, unless obviously things come up and things like that. For the most part, it’s the same weekday of the month.

That gives you some comfort, some confidence and knowing that your voice will be heard.

It goes a long way. If there is something that bothers you, you’re like, “I’ll bring it up at my meeting.” You can almost let it go a little bit, rather than thinking like nothing’s going to get solved. It does help. Sometimes you have things to talk about and sometimes you don’t.

I love those meetings as well in terms of accountability, because I’m sure you’re a great team player, but in my past, there are instances where this great team player all of a sudden starts falling off a little bit. We have to scramble to get a meeting together with them and usually find out there was something outside of work that’s severely affecting their ability to perform. It’s easy to have those conversations when you say, “Help us understand what’s going on. You were seeing these kinds of numbers before and now you’re here. How can we help you? What’s going on?” Having those conversations can help a lot, but I wish we had been a little bit more diligent about having the structured routine one-on-one meetings to have those conversations.

You get a good appreciation for what other people have going on. Especially in 2020, people had a lot going on.

It’s cool that you highlight the five areas in which you can have these conversations. They include discussions about finances, performance, behavior, requests and logistics. Anything more you have to say about either one of those topics specifically?

It’s not necessarily anyone specifically, but also recognizing that sometimes who you are in the conversation, sometimes you have to be a little bit different part of yourself. A big thing is you’ll have some people that are more serious that talk to you. You have some people that joke around more. You’ll have some people that love to share their feelings and you’ll have other people that, that is the most painful thing for them to do. We can find different parts of ourselves to connect with people in that way. If you have somebody that absolutely you can they don’t like talking about their feelings, you don’t want to start the meeting with one of the hardest questions about how they feel and things like that, but there are different ways to do it. Being able to know your team and know who you’re talking to can go a long way with all of these conversations.

I remember Steve Anderson gave a presentation about this at one of the PPS webinars. He had some bricks on his table with different colors because those different colors related to certain personality types. He knew which type of personality type was the person that was going to come in to see him next. If it was someone who was a low tone and didn’t want to talk about their emotions that much, then he would look at the brick and like, “That’s right. They’re going to be like this. I should have these kinds of questions ready or I should address him in this certain way,” versus, “This person who’s going to come in super energetic. All they want is the data. They don’t want to talk about emotions. They want data. How am I doing and what do I need to do to improve and get out?” When you know their personality types that helps the conversation go along so much better, have you used personality tests in the past?

StrengthsFinder is a big one and Enneagram. It’s so enlightening when you figure out what somebody is and you’re like, “That’s why they’re so different than I am. I am very futuristic and like thinking ideals,” and then there are other people that are like, “No, I’m analytical. Give me the steps and I will go. Tell me where I need to be and I’ll figure out how to get there on my own.” Knowing that difference is important because if you meet step by step, I’m going to be like, “Okay.” If I gave, “You have to accomplish B,” somebody else will be like, “Now I have no idea what to do.” Recognizing who you’re speaking with is definitely a big part of the conversation.

Recognizing who you're speaking with is definitely a big part of the conversation.
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Is StrengthsFinder an Enneagram platform?

StrengthsFinder is a book. It’s pretty comprehensive thing and it gives you five strengths. There are like probably like 50 or 60 strengths within it.

A lot of people will rely on the Myers-Briggs. That’s been an old standby as well. It’s imperative that leaders, wherever they are, whether they’re clinic directors or the owners themselves, have some of those in their files to help them understand the people that they’re talking to and who they’re working with.

I definitely think that helps a lot.

Anything else you want to share that we haven’t discussed thus far as in terms of having these crossroad conversations and what therapists and owners can do to improve the team dynamic?

My biggest message with the entire thing is that these conversations are not a burden. They’re an opportunity. They’re an opportunity to make the relationship better and start looking at it that way because eventually they get a little bit easier. They never get easy, but they get a little bit easier and you’ll be surprised how well you can come out of the conversations and move forward. A big point in nearly every communication book you read is to do it more and to do it often.

Hard conversations are not a burden. They're an opportunity.
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It’s like a muscle that hasn’t been worked before. As a physical therapist, that should be an easy analogy to understand. The more we can work that muscle, the stronger work that’s going to be. The more confident we’re going to be in it, like when we were a newly graduated physical therapist. The confidence level wasn’t there until we performed 1,000 initial evaluations on a shoulder and we can feel much more confident at that point moving forward. The same thing is with these crucial conversations that we can have with our employees and that as we do them, we can start understanding. We can start seeing cues. We can start gaining some buy-in from teammates the more we hold these. If anyone wants to get in touch with you, Jenna, and what you guys are doing at Professional Rebellion, how do we do that?

The best would be the email me it’s JennaGourlay@Gmail.com. You can find Professional Rebellion at PhysioRebellion.com. That’s where I feel I do a lot there.

Do you have some webinars or some videos to share?

We have some webinars. We have a set of a blog that you can look at, but different quizzes and things that you can take to help you figure out exactly what your ideal career is in physical therapy. We get so much in school, we know exactly what we want to do on an eval, but then when it comes to our career 5, 10, 20 years down the road, we might have absolutely no idea what we want that to look like. You can go through the motions or you can create something that is so exciting and you look forward to going to work every day.

That sounds like it’s such a great resource for physical therapists out there because I know burnout is an issue when you simply see the lack of people aged 60, 70, that are still treating full-time. It’s a young person’s sport. It’s important to recognize what that purpose is early on so you can start moving that direction and accelerating the path to it. Thanks for your time. I appreciate it. Thanks for your work in Professional Rebellion and the article itself. It’s a ton of great information and hopefully, people reach out and lean on you more.

I appreciate it.

It was then that I (very slowly) began to recognize that while PT school taught me to get  a job  in physical therapy, it did not prepare me to create  a fulfilling career . The ideal career I envisioned could not be satisfied by following the well-traveled path that laid in front of me. And that’s why I believe that our career journey must be carved, not followed.

That journey for me started in physical education and continued with the change to physical therapy shortly after. I graduated from Rutgers Physical Therapy Program and pursued a sports residency with ProRehab and The University of Evansville. I’ve since become involved with Functional Movement Systems, started a blog, served as an adjunct professor, remained loyal the the New York Giants, and continued an addiction to peanut M&Ms.

I believe that by determining our purpose, defining our own path, and using the help of those around us, we can all have our ideal career.

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The post You’re Losing Ground Because of the Hard Conversations You Aren’t Having with Jenna Gourlay, PT, DPT appeared first on Physical Therapy Owners Club.