Peter Flynn: How to show up in business, importance of mentorship, and more
GYC Podcast E265
[Transcript]
00:13 Ben Lynch
Welcome to the Grow Your Clinic podcast. My name is Ben Lynch. In this episode, I'm speaking with a partner at Clinic Mastery and my colleague, Peter Flynn. Pete shares his story about starting his physiotherapy clinic in the back streets of this industrial complex in Adelaide, South Australia, and then making the progression towards a massive building here in Adelaide too big for what they could fill on day one. And the commitment, the challenges, the adversity that they faced in filling those rooms as a startup clinic. He also shares some of the lessons that he's learnt of scaling his clinic to multi-site locations and also figuring out where his genius is in business. This is a really great story and one that I bet you'll probably relate to at moments where Pete shares how hard it is to actually be a business owner and make the transition from seeing patients as a practitioner to being a business owner. Let's pick up the conversation where Pete shares what that first version of his business looked like. So, I saw an Instagram story recently of your very first clinic and you'd told me about this clinic before. You know, I had low expectations, but this was even lower than my expectations. A very humble beginning. Do you want to share your first clinic? What did it look like and how did it come to be?
01:47 Guest: Peter Flynn
It was something I decided to share in the story recently because a lot of people see where we are now and they have no idea where you came from. So this clinic, if I paint a picture for you, I'd messaged every gym that I could because I was leaving a clinic that I wasn't particularly happy with and I wanted to go and start my own thing. But I had one problem. I had a few problems, but one big problem. I only had $4,800. That was all the money I had to my name. And so I couldn't exactly go big or go home. I really just had to go home. And I messaged all of these gyms and two gyms got back to me. One of them offered a ridiculous rent. I was like, oof, can't do that. And then the other one, they got back to me and said, yeah, absolutely. We can do this for a couple hundred bucks a week. Give it a shot for 12 months, which sounded pretty reasonable. The catch, however, was that it was in a CrossFit gym on an industrial street. And if you can imagine the industrial street next to us, we had a power plant. And on the other side, we had a scrap metal yard. But not only that, it was set back from the road. So it wasn't even the front warehouse is the second warehouse. So you couldn't actually see it. And there were no lights as you went down. So during summer, it was fine. But during winter, you couldn't actually see there was no lights for the entrance or anything like that. It was very scary. I guess you could say I sometimes didn't feel safe walking out at night with no light. You know, jeez, where am I parked in this scrap metal everywhere? So it was it was an interesting place to start from.
03:18 Ben Lynch
So it was good to reflect on. And you started out solo by yourself or did you start with Andrew? What was the series of events for you?
03:24 Guest: Peter Flynn
Yeah, I started I started solo. Andrew and I had been chatting. We knew each other vaguely through the UniSA gym. So we'd been talking about what he was doing. He was doing a similar sort of thing from a slightly nice across gym in the city owned by a friend of ours, James Newbury. And it was me by myself for five months. I started on the 1st of July and then mid-November is about the 20th or the 21st of November. Andrew and I had been doing a lot of work together. We've been presenting at workshops together and we sort of sat down over a parmi, the old Cooper's Owl House in town. And we decided right then and there that, hey, we've got similar values here. We're looking to achieve the same thing. What if we did this together? And so with our extreme business acumen back then on a word document, we actually wrote up our own contracts and entered into a partnership.
04:17 Ben Lynch
Fantastic. And what was the catalyst for you starting your own clinic? Did you work previously for someone and did your experience shape that or you'd always known you wanted to be a business owner?
04:30 Guest: Peter Flynn
I don't. I don't think only a clinic had crossed my mind to begin with. I think the thing that I really wanted to do was to be a really good physio and get really good results. So that was the key thing that I wanted to achieve. But then after six long weeks of experience as a physiotherapist in a clinic that really didn't align with my values, I decided, ah, this is a bit shit. And either I'm going to quit physio and go do something else right now because this is too much about numbers and it's not enough around helping people. Or I'm going to go start this myself. And I thought, well, how hard could it be? It was actually a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. But it's one of those things where it was also one of the most rewarding things I ever did. And so going out on my own and starting that so early in my journey had so many things that could have gone wrong. But there were so many things that went right. And, you know, very fortunate with the people I surrounded myself with the knowledge that those people had, both from a physio perspective, from a business perspective as well in CM. So, yeah, a lot of the dominoes fell into the right places.
05:38 Ben Lynch
And when you reflect on the experience that you had that wasn't ideal. Now, with some hindsight, what were some of the key messages or principles you took out of that experience that you thought, you know, I'm going to do it differently. And that shaped the way you approach business or definitely the growth and bringing on team members.
05:55 Guest: Peter Flynn
There are a few things that really frustrated me. One of them was double booking patients. So you'd have two patients booked in the same slot continuously. So treating more than one patient at one time, I was like, is never, ever going to happen in my clinic. Referring to people by the dollar amount of consult was something that would happen frequently. And I found that dehumanized the person that was coming in. Yeah. There was no real emphasis on mentoring, even though it was kind of promised, but there was no emphasis on it. So that was one thing for me that I wanted to make sure that when I had a clinic, people there felt supported. Yeah. And I think just the the overall brand in the community, I felt like the clinic I was at was creating a debt of brand, you could say. And they were they were sort of drawing on it, but giving nothing back. And so how can you be a clinic that gives back, that actually adds value to the community and over the long term, see that pay dividends?
06:53 Ben Lynch
You are probably one of the more self-aware people that I know and work at this in particular. And so I think you have a great insight as to even just the acknowledgement of there are plenty of things that happen to work out in my favor. Some maybe you had designed or intended for others that you hadn't. As you look back on the early stages of kind of going from zero to one and getting the clinic up and running, perhaps even with joining forces with Andrew. What were some of the things that you felt contributed to your ability to get some momentum and create some growth? What are some of the important things you believe you did, decisions or actions that you took to get it off the ground?
07:35 Guest: Peter Flynn
Initially, there are a few things. I picked a gym that was close to where I grew up. So it was an area that I already had a lot of connections with. And I was a reasonably high level athlete. And that linked pretty well with physiotherapy to begin with. So I had a tennis was your sport. Tennis, soccer, you know, anything I could get my hands on really. Besides footy, I was terrible at footy and even worse at golf, unfortunately. And badminton, very dangerous sport, by the way. Not good for Achilles. Not good for Achilles, apparently. So I think picking somewhere where I already had some longstanding connections. So I already had a referral network that could come into me, which was really good. I picked something which had a, like it was a gym essentially. So I had a client base there. So I didn't try and start from nothing in a small boutique place. I already had a potential list of clients. I got involved in the classes in the community there as a community based gym. And I think whenever there's a community, if you can immerse yourself in that community, you're going to build some great connections and people are going to want to support you at being. Being a good human is a really good strategy in business. It's a really, really good long-term strategy. I think those, those things worked really well. I also went and volunteered my time at sports clubs. A lot of people don't want to do free work, but I think early on you're going to have more time as a resource and less money as a resource. And so using what you do have eventually got me to positions where I was getting paid really well to do sports work, but I had to get the experience first. And so I think early on I was, I was working very, very long hours, but it gave me the opportunities later down the track to actually turn that into paid work that built the clinic further and each one of those sports clubs. Again, it's a community. The more you get involved in that community and you be a good human, you show up day in, day out, uh, the more, but they'll support you as well.
09:35 Ben Lynch
That's a really good point around the allocation of resources where you've got a bit more time in the earlier stages than you did money and being able to channel that into the community presence that you have. Give us a snapshot. Yesterday, I heard you talk just in snippets around what your day or your week looked like in terms of the working hours and what you're doing to have to sustain that, including a couple of liters worth of monster, I believe. Not much.
10:03 Guest: Peter Flynn
Well, well, I mean, we might skip ahead maybe four to six months because call the first three months, there weren't that many clients, right? No, I was fortunate enough to have, I think, 11 clients my first week, which was unreal and that was just leveraged off of the community and the gym owner there, Raoul, fantastic bloke who was actually quite good at marketing. And so it really helped me early on in my marketing journey. Shout out to you Raoul, if you're listening to this one. But what a day would look like is I worked at the uni gym and so I worked at the uni SA gym and so I would get up at 4.30 and I'd be working from basically sort of 5.30 until 10 or 11 a.m. Luckily it was a very laid back kind of job, you could say. Then I would work out typically from sort of 10 or 11 until midday, grab some lunch, which was nearly always subway in the car on the way to the clinic slash gym, and then I would be working, seeing patients until, you know, 10 at night. And that's Monday to Friday. That looked the same. On Saturday, I would see patients in the clinic from about 8 until 11, and then I go work at a footy club from 11.30 until 6. And on Sunday, I would work from 12 to 5 at a soccer club. And that was during, during the winter, during the summer, I had the weekends off because I didn't do summer sport, but that's kind of what it looked like for the first two years, I'd say.
11:21 Ben Lynch
Quite a work ethic that you still have today. It's, it's different. It's channeled differently in different roles, but what was it like and when did it start to change for you that it went from you just seeing as many clients as you possibly could in a week to starting to build and grow a team. Can you take us back to your experience? Some of the lessons that you learned in starting to build a team around you.
11:46 Guest: Peter Flynn
Andrew and I joined Clinic Mastery February, 2016, I believe. And December, 2016 was when we moved into our, our big large clinic, our first big large clinic. So we moved from the two small CrossFit gyms essentially into a 310 square meter place, which for two people was a pretty, pretty big undertaking. We had eight or nine consult rooms and we were just thinking like, wow, we are never going to fill these, this is going to take forever. And so December 5th, 2016, we made our first official hire, which was Sammy, who's now a business owner, she was our first receptionist. And within the next 12 months, we managed to fill all the rooms with therapists. So that was a pretty big undertaking. And I think the probably leading up until we made those first hires, we started to cut back slightly on the client days. And we were working with Shane Davis and he said, you guys need to cut back at least one day. So we cut back a Tuesday, but all that happened was the other days got longer. So we're seeing the same amount of clients just in, you know, less days essentially. And so then we cut back a Thursday as well. And then it got unrealistic. So that's when the actual clients started dropping back when we started blocking out time in the diary so that you literally physically couldn't put clients anywhere. And so now we were actually having to hand these clients over to our teammates.
13:07 Ben Lynch
And during the time that was non-client facing, how did you direct your time? Because so often we hear clinic owners uncertain as to what to do in that time. So used to having a set schedule of seeing clients back to back. When you have that availability, maybe the temptation is to dive into emails and sit there for a couple of hours or just react to team members. How did you go about using that time and maybe even some lessons of how you would do it differently now with the experience you have?
13:36 Guest: Peter Flynn
Yeah, really poorly, I'd say. To begin with, it was a really hard transition because you went from being a clinician and doing something that is so specific. So, you know, when you're seeing patients back to back, it's easy to get a fantastic result and to actually be really productive because when you're seeing a patient face to face, you can't do anything but see that patient. You wouldn't pull out Instagram and scroll through. You wouldn't go make a coffee. Maybe you would. I wouldn't go make a coffee, right? I wouldn't go do anything else. I'm there present with that person. The problem that I found early on when I first changed that up is suddenly I wasn't accountable to a person sitting in front of me. And so I found myself to feel really busy, but to really struggle with being productive and also feeling like I wasn't doing enough. And maybe my time was better spent seeing clients because I feel like I've had eight hours today and I've done nothing, basically. May as well have spent eight hours seeing clients. And so, you know, the shift for me was reframing and time blocking. And it was looking at what are the specific tasks that I need to do? What from a plan is actually going to move us towards the big goal and not just keep me busy and sorting out spot fires. What are the important things to achieve the 12 month goal? And if you think about it, it's where do we want to be in 12 months? Where do we need to be in three months? What are the actions we need to do this week in order to be where we want to be in three months? And also spoiler alert, if your actions don't look very similar each week, then you're probably not planning well, because typically it's going to be quite repetitive. And then I would book those as appointments with myself. And so in my calendar, it'd have a 30 minute block or a 25 minute block. And during that time I treated it like I was there with the patient. So I had 100% focus for that short amount of time. And then I could have a break and then I could do my next appointment with myself. And so it was a really hard transition for me.
15:26 Ben Lynch
It's great to reflect in here that it was a hard transition because it is. And I think part of it in my own reflection on the, almost the feedback loop that you have, when you see a patient, you know, that time was valuable because one, I've helped a human being in their health. Two, they've paid for the service so I can directly account for the time. I know that's been useful and it's a very quick feedback loop. You know, after 30 minutes, that was useful piece of allocated time. Whereas if now you're working on maybe some systems or marketing, you're not getting the satisfaction of the feedback loop that that was useful. You know, maybe you've made a little bit of progress, but there isn't that almost dopamine hit of, yeah, that was worthwhile. When getting into more of the business side of things, did you early on identify where you felt your genius or your strengths were, did that become obvious to you straight away or did you have to try a lot of hats on, how did you go about sort of figuring out where you felt capable or energized in business?
16:35 Guest: Peter Flynn
It's an interesting question. I think, I think it's hard to put myself back in those shoes and be able to reflect honestly, because I think reflecting back, I'm like, yeah, you know, referrers, marketing, external stuff was probably, probably the thing that I enjoyed doing the most. But if I look back then and try and objectively look at it, I probably didn't enjoy it at the time. It was probably something I had to learn to be good at in order to enjoy it. So I think I'm looking back in rose colored glasses going, yeah, absolutely. I love the marketing side of things. But I think if I'm honest, I hated jumping on videos. I was shit scared. I hated how I sound. I hated how I looked. I hated the negative comments we got on things. Those things really got me down sometimes. Yeah. Looking, looking back, there were a lot of struggles that I probably push back now that I don't mind it so much. I think it wasn't easy to find the things that we were really good at early on, because we had to do so many different things. I think it was a good opportunity to just do one or two things. And even the things that I do think I really enjoy now, I don't think they came naturally either. There were things that had to be learned over time. And maybe that's a good thing to actually have to work hard for those, to also let other people know that it's not meant to be easy. Like no one's just born good at these things. Like you might have some things that you're better at, probably because you've learned to be better at them, but you can learn any skill, I believe. And if you're good at something, you tend to enjoy it.
18:06 Ben Lynch
It's a great point. I think one thing I get to see is how you operate. And I've learned so much around your application to go and figure something out and learn about it and have that sort of novice mindset of, I'm just going to approach it and absorb as much as I can. How did you and Andrew as a business partnership divide up where your responsibilities would be?
18:29 Guest: Peter Flynn
To begin with, we actually didn't divide specific things. We actually divided everything equally until we figured out that that wasn't a great way to do it. But I think it made the most sense to start with was we'll do everything as equal as possible and we'll find out who prefers what, who is particularly good at one thing, who's the person who's going to have maybe like the very challenging conversations with team, who's the person who's going to do the marketing, the systems, the structures. All of those things are going to have someone who's maybe more adept at doing those, who's going to run the PDs. I think reasonably quickly, we sort of found out what are the things that we enjoy doing and how can we do more of those and how can we do less of the things we don't enjoy doing. And then what are the things that are left over that still need to be done, but neither of us really want to do. And that's where recruiting for our weaknesses was fantastic. And I think the glaringly obvious one for Andrew and I is we're probably quite big picture people and we really needed someone to come in to be able to organise for us. And that's where Sammy moving into that practice manager and business ops role for us was, was huge.
19:37 Ben Lynch
I think that's such a great point around hiring for weaknesses and also having key people join the team at certain points of your growth. When did you feel like perhaps you had a breakthrough moment in your journey? A moment that was reasonably significant in the trajectory of, of the business and that you look back and say, yeah, things changed after that point.
20:00 Guest: Peter Flynn
I think there were a few, a few moments, but I don't think we realised them at the time it's with hindsight, we can look back and go, that was probably what a pivotal moment. I'd say the first one was probably joining clinic mastery. That was a really pivotal moment, although we wouldn't have seen it at the time. We had a hint, but we, uh, we couldn't have seen it at the time, but that was definitely pivotal because that, that changed our trajectory towards thinking a lot bigger and also just understanding what was possible and a bit of a path to get there. The next one would have been getting the large clinic because that gave us the opportunity to expand and the growth was quite rapid, uh, from that point. And then the next big one was coming off the tools. You know, I especially was like, wow, like you almost feel like a loss of control when you're not seeing clients. Cause you're no longer, you're no longer directly generating revenue for the business. And that's a, that's something that gives a lot of comfort to business owners is that they feel like even if this person leaves, I'm still generating $5,000 a week. That's still paying the bills, that's still paying the rent, et cetera. But if you're not doing that, you almost felt you're going to have to jump back into that and it's going to be a big change in your life. So I think the, the ability to come off of the tools effectively was a, was a big win.
21:14 Ben Lynch
And when you say effectively, what do you, what do you mean specifically there?
21:18 Guest: Peter Flynn
I think you can come off the tools really poorly and it can very detrimentally affect the team and the clients, or you can do it in a way where there's a transfer of trust where you don't lose a client, where all of your clients feel supported and happy. It helps to fill your team's books and you're able to replace your hours that you're seeing clients with growing the business. And I think we did that really well. Actually. That's one thing that I would acknowledge us for is over a nine month period, we went from basically full time on the tools to completely off the tools. We managed to grow extensively through that time, both from an overall revenue, a profitability perspective, the team perspective, all the numbers moved in the right direction. So that was a, a really interesting period. And if you asked me at the start of that, would we see growth? I would have said, absolutely not. I thought we were going to have a very stagnant 12 months.
22:08 Ben Lynch
Yeah. How did you go about navigating the, yeah, stepping into that or stepping outside of your comfort zone, creating the vacuum, there's you and Andrew, and then nine clinic rooms. You're going, we're going to have to fill these clinic rooms. You talked about, you know, surrounding yourself with various supports and people along the way, as you look back, what enabled you to confront that? Cause for a lot of people that is very scary. I'm sure it was scary for you as well to go, now we've got to fill the space. When you look back, what, what do you feel are a couple of things that helped
22:45 Guest: Peter Flynn
you actually bring that vision to life? A few things for sure. The first one would be blind optimism. We were very optimistic. And when we looked at the numbers, we were in Adelaide, so the, the rent was relatively lower compared to the rents I see in other states. Andrew and I are very much numbers people. That was when we created this spreadsheet. We now call the rolling break, even to work out if we could do that or not, essentially, and we worked out that just us working there, seeing clients ourselves could pay for everything. And so we said, there's really not much chance we lose money by taking this step. Yeah. So like, that was the big thing. We, we always let the numbers make the decision. We did have a lot of optimism, but the optimism always go then to the numbers. If the numbers made sense, then we would make the decision moving forwards. I think the plan as well. So we were working with, like I said, Shane Davis at the time, and he was someone who was where we wanted to be. And we thought, well, rather than just trying to pave our own way here, let's learn from someone who's done it before. Let's try and avoid the mistakes they've made. Let's try and double down on the things that they did that worked really well. And essentially, like, can we accelerate that journey learning from this person?
23:59 Ben Lynch
I've heard you and Andrew talk about that before in that, in both of you very pragmatic, uh, you know, success was always on the horizon. It's just shortening the timeframe. It's like, it's likely going to happen. There might be a more direct course from A to B, uh, with that extra support. We know that's going to happen, but perhaps in less time with less headaches.
24:23 Guest: Peter Flynn
So I think it also looks different. Like, I don't know if we would've come off the talks if we weren't, uh, or didn't have a mentor who had gone through that process. Some things you just don't know are possible until you understand how someone did it. The specific scripts that they used, exactly how that could look and the value that you can bring as a business owner in healthcare, who's not actually seeing clients. It wasn't something that we had really considered prior.
24:51 Ben Lynch
So much of why we get into healthcare is because we care about people. We love making a difference in their, in their health. And there's such a shift in identity as well. You go from, you know, I can see the impact I'm making. I'm helping this person. They're walking out the door, hopefully marginally better. Each time they see you through to now I'm consulting a team of people who do that. And then potentially adding layers of leadership or management, uh, into the clinic. Fast forward a few years down the line and you filled those rooms. Give a snapshot of where the clinic ended up in and how your progression out of the clinic played out for you in terms of some of the decision-making to move on from your shareholding.
25:36 Guest: Peter Flynn
Absolutely. So we, we managed to fill the clinic reasonably quickly in 2019 in January, we opened our second clinic and I think that was more challenging than we thought it was going to be. Um, combine that with, you know, not too long after opening a clinic COVID hits, uh, and you have a few challenges that come with being able to sort of get out in the community, build brand, sporting, you know, all the things that we'd done to build the first clinic, we suddenly couldn't really do for the second clinic because we had a lot of restrictions. So that was, that was a challenge. It was a very, very challenging time to grow that clinic. COVID was a challenging time in general. Uh, and then just even things like managing, you know, two teams, you know, one team that really enjoyed spending time together, but then needing to keep the two clinics separate from a business survivor point. It was a, it was a really, really interesting time. And I think just a really exhausting time for our whole team, for us as well. Early on in the piece, we made a small business sale to one of our team members as part of his pathway. He wanted to become an owner in the business. And so I think that would have been 2021, uh, he bought into the business and became a director, which was super exciting. And then in 2022, I made the decision. Yeah, it was June last year to actually exit the business completely. You know, at this time we had, I move you, you know, education, comedy for physios, clinic mastery, of course. And I'd really realized by that time that I enjoyed working with clinic owners and helping clinic owners to achieve their goals and their dreams. And when I was waking up each morning, I journal and I was writing down, what am I really excited to do? And it kept coming up with the working with clinic owners. And the thing that I was not excited to do was the clinic stuff. And that was the point where I realized that, all right, something has to change here. Like either I've got to reignite this passion for running the clinic, or I have to recognize when it's time to move on and understand that in any relationship, there is going to be a healthy point. Not any relationship, but in any business relationship, there's often going to be a point where it's healthy to move on as you grow, because you're not the same person you were when you entered the business. If you asked me in 2015, when I started, would I ever sell my business? The answer was a very hard no, but it was quite a milestone to achieve, to sell a clinic and to be able to move on. And also now to be able to help other clinic owners who are wanting to go through that. There's a lot of people who want to build their clinic to be able to sell, even if they don't sell it. So that they have a strong exit plan, or they're actually looking to sell in the next two to three years. And so having gone through that process, I think is really, really valuable to be able to actually speak from experience. I think I've helped maybe five clinic owners now go through that.
28:29 Ben Lynch
That exit process as you're speaking to. What is it that gets you excited about working with clinic owners when you were doing that journaling and perhaps it's evolved since then? But give us an insight into Peter Flynn's excitement.
28:43 Guest: Peter Flynn
Peter Flynn's excitement. Well, I mean, the thing that excites me the most is Marvel movies, as you can see all the Marvel stuff in the background here. But a close second is the working with clinic owners. I think for me, working with clinic owners is it's a huge impact. I think when we talk about impact a lot and when you're working with a client one-on-one, you have an impact in that person's life. When you have a clinic, you might have three, four, five hundred impacts a week happening. But when you're working with a… I think I'm working with 33 or 34 clinic owners at the moment, and each of them might be making 300 impacts a week. The impact you're having is it's expanding. And I think that's really, really exciting to be able to make a difference on that level. Each small change we make in that business is making a really large trickle effect downstream. And not only that, but I think the level of the challenges increases. I think when you're working with a clinic owner, there are some big, big challenges you're facing at different times. There can be some really high stress situations. There can be some things that go really wrong and are really challenging. And I like to be able to support those people and help those people through that process or through that time, but then to get out the other side and to hit a goal for them that is extremely meaningful for them and their family. I was working with a podiatrist recently and we were able to successfully sell one of his clinics and just hearing the impact that that was able to have on him and his family, I mean, that's bloody amazing to be able to just play a small part in that and for that person be essentially their business partner through the whole process. So I think for me, that's, that's what gets me excited.
30:27 Ben Lynch
It's a wonderful privilege that we have to play alongside some really purpose-driven clinic owners who are making a wonderful impact in their local communities. And of course that impact on them personally as well is, yeah, it gives us the warm and fuzzies to be able to see. And like you said, it's not all rainbows and butterflies. There's certainly a lot of adversity and challenges that everyone faces as they navigate life, you know, let alone business. So I'd love to know what, what are a couple of key principles that you keep front of mind and believe are integral to who you are and how you go about approaching business, approaching life. What are those? Pete?
31:08 Guest: Peter Flynn
There's a few that stand out. I think one is be the person who gives the most value. I think in anything that you do, if you're focused on adding value, you're going to be successful if you do that continually over a long period of time. You're going to build brand. You're going to build that reputation. And I think people, people notice and reward consistency. And I think, you know, an example of that is the emails that we send out with Clinic Mastery week in week out. You know, each one of those emails, we sit down and we write and we put a lot of time, effort and thought into that. And I, it's almost, you can almost turn that into a bloody book. I think some of the value that's come of that, but just to reflect on, you know, when I first started sending the emails last October, no one would absolute crickets, no responses. And now sometimes I get as many as 120 to 130 responses to an email sometimes. So it's nice to, it feels really good to add a lot of value. So I think that's definitely one of them. I think another one for me would be, you know, stay true to who you are. Sounds very, very cheesy, but I think integrity is a, is a big thing. And if you're, if you're not showing up as you and you're trying to show up as someone else, it's going to be really hard to do that consistently for a long period of time, because you're going to feel like a fake, like a fraud, you're going to have imposter syndrome. I've definitely done that before myself. I've tried to be someone I'm not essentially, and it's not, it's just not going to work. You're not going to be doing it sustainably. So I think that's one thing to keep in mind as well. And probably the other one, this is from Shane Davis is celebrate the wins. We don't do it enough. I definitely don't do it enough still. I'll achieve a goal. And then the next day I'm already putting on the vision board, the next goal, and something that I worked a lot with a guy called Jem Fuller. And he helped me to understand the power and just gratitude and just appreciating what we have now and just having those small little meditations throughout the day where, or mindfulness, where you can actually take time to just stop, slow down and appreciate the amazing life that you do have, the amazing things that you have, the amazing people that you have in your life.
33:16 Ben Lynch
Yeah. They are wonderful principles to live by core values. I want to ask you about, to, before we wrap, a key message that you have for the clinic owners that are listening and watching might just help them in their journey now or in the future. But I love the add more value than anybody else be of great value and do that consistently. I think that's, that's one of the challenging things I know personally, and also from the folks that I get to see and work with as well, it's anyone can do something pretty well for a period of time, but can you do it over a long period of time consistently? The integrity is staying true to who you are, which is really brand. You build that reputation over time and then celebrating even the small things along the way. I love that as you're sort of closing remarks here, Pete, and really appreciate you sharing your story and you know, the hardships and the adversities. It hasn't been a, you know, A to B straight line along the way. What's the message that you would hope that clinic owners hear and listen, hopefully use in their journey?
34:21 Guest: Peter Flynn
I think a message that I would, I don't know if this is for clinic owners, but maybe this is for an earlier version of me, but to remember why you started and to write down and constantly look at why was it that I started this clinic and why is it that I'm building this? Because there's going to be really tough things that happen. There are going to be things that make you feel burnt out. There are going to be team members that you feel like do wrong by you. There'll be suppliers and clients that are unhappy. There's going to be lots of things that don't go exactly how you want them to go. But if you remember why you start, I think that that's a really key message to keep pushing forwards and to remember why you're doing it and who you're doing it for. Because it makes it a whole lot easier when a team member doesn't say thank you after you've put a whole lot of time and effort into creating a new work schedule for them or getting them their ideal clients or whatever it may be. But you didn't start this business to get a thank you from a team member. You started this business because you wanted to make a difference in health care, because you want to help families, because you want to help people. And I think just remembering that is going to help it to be a whole lot easier when those little things come up to be more grateful for what you do have.
35:36 Ben Lynch
Terrific. Terrific message about remembering your why. Of course, part of our why is to help build clinics for goods so that you can amplify your impact. And if you want to learn more, immerse yourself in some of the great content that in particular you are producing, Peter Flynn, please subscribe to the YouTube channel. We're posting content every single week. If you're listening into the podcast, get across to YouTube. If you want to follow along to the show notes, everything's available at Clinicmastery.com. Pete, thank you so much for sharing with us today. We will see you on another episode of the Grow Your Clinic podcast very soon.
