92. Thriving in Times of Stress With Your Health, Fitness, Career, and Relationships | Dan Pope, DPT, CSCS

Hello everyone, I'm Dr. Darsha, and I'm Dr. Altamash Raja, and welcome to Medicine Redefined. A podcast where we will explore the often overlooked but necessary components of health, what we consider to be the fundamentals. We will investigate topics and practices that can give you and your patients the best chance to optimize a healthy lifestyle. It's time to move the needle forward and put the health back in healthcare. Our guest today is Dan Pope, physical therapist and certified strength and conditioning coach. Now this is Dan's second time coming onto the show. His first episode with us was episode 10, where we really dealt into how to build resiliency through the rehab process after an injury specifically. Now we touch on a little bit about that in this episode, bridging the gap between physicians and physical therapists, but the bulk of our time talking is going to be about navigating through identity shifts, figuring out how we can best set ourselves up from a fitness perspective, but also just from a life perspective when it comes to our health, our fitness or career relationships, parenthood. The world today is so crazy, so many of us are so busy, and especially when you hit that age, where you have more and more responsibility, it can get tough to really view life and compartmentalize everything that we do, and so Dan has been doing a lot of that, and he has really great advice, which we really sift through in this episode. Some other things that we're also going to talk about are the roles of different providers. We talk about what worth is and really what determines your worth. We also pivot into training and understanding readiness scores, and then of course, into the end of the episode, Dan has recommendations for how to navigate those identity shifts for busy people. All right, enjoy the episode. All right. Welcome back, everyone. We are live here with Dan Poe. Dan, it's an honor to have you back on the show again, actually. I think you are the first recurrent guest that we've had so far. That's happened. Have we had someone? I made that mistake with Megan Landrys, but then I realized, that's right, sorry, we got to take that away. Dr. Nicole Parking has also come on before so. Oh, that's right. Well, but third, lucky number three though. You guys should have just lied to me. I was excited. And now I'm just sad. Yeah, he's leaving now. Nope. Taken that away from you. Anyways, Dan, thank you so much for being here, though. Yeah, of course. Yeah, excited to be here. I had a good time the first time. So, yeah, of course. Awesome. Awesome. Well, thanks for the compliment there. My memory is not so valuable, I guess. So, awesome. So, you know, the first episode, we talked a lot about bridging the gap. And especially between physicians, healthcare practitioners, and then, you know, kind of going downstream too, as far as where the patient goes, right? So if they're in the hospital and they get discharged, maybe coming to see somebody like you, right, in PT or OT, for the listeners who haven't gone a chance to listen to your first episode, kind of want to revisit that topic again, just a kind of quick overview here. When you think about bridging the gap, how do you want to find it and then to kind of think about it when you explain to people how to make it the most efficient and effective? Yeah, for sure. I think kind of my niche is working in mostly strength and fitness, a lot of barbell athletes. And there is a bit of trouble. This is maybe not the same bridge you're talking about, but it's kind of the bridge that I try to gap, essentially that someone gets hurt, and maybe they go to a healthcare provider and they get a diagnosis, they usually don't have great solutions for not just getting out of pain. I think oftentimes our system's decent for getting folks out of pain, but really getting back to the activities that people enjoy, and I think one of the big things that's important for, I would say all healthcare providers, just to think about is that insurance companies I think are kind of the villain in this, right, if we have to put the blame anywhere. But essentially, I don't think we value health and fitness and strength, although there's an absolute myriad of health benefits, and it makes sense that if you're going to try to return some back to their hobby, which is basically staying fit, they're going to be less expensive from a healthcare dollar perspective, eventually. So what I do is I help people get back to their given kind of strength and fitness activities. Because what tends to happen is, and we're getting better at this, I think the profession is definitely getting better. I think what you all are, right? So not just physical therapists, but physicians, et cetera, folks like yourself, essentially there was kind of a lack of knowledge and maybe a poo pooing of patients that want to get back to higher level activities, we're like, well, you're not dying, so you're fine. You know, just get on with your life, oh, you want to get back to deadlifting or crossfit, like who cares? I don't care. You're not that hurt. Just stop doing it, right? That's not what patients want to hear, they want to try to get back to activity at a higher level. I try to help folks get back to that. So I just kind of have the tools that allow folks that want to get back to a higher level function after an injury get there, right? And that's kind of where I feel like I bridge the gap. So Dan, I appreciate you mentioning that. And again, this is something that we've connected on before, you know, Dave Tilly, like all of us kind of share this passion for this concept. And you recently posted on Instagram talking about, I think, just how physical therapists can generate more revenue, right? By bridging the gap, by learning strength and conditioning principles 101 and helping program after a quote unquote discharge from physical therapy, when they don't have necessarily pathology or they're kind of getting back towards performance, how that can be an opportunity to increase or improve upon the business model, right? I have a two part for you here. I'm wondering if you think a similar concept can apply to physicians, particularly folks like us who are musculoskeletal, oriented sports medicine. And then the second one, which can be a little controversial, there are some people out there who are of the mindset that everybody in the different discipline of healthcare should stay in their lane. Let me say what I mean by that. So, you know, I've been listening to some of these healthcare experts, people that are respect a lot and there are different podcasts talking about how it's not really the role of a doctor or necessary a healthcare provider, like a physician to be talking about nutrition advice or even performance or strength, because that's not what we're trained to do and that's not what we should be doing. We're not going to be the best ones to coach that person to get back to those goals. And vice versa, like the personal trainer is in those kinds of people should not be talking about medical diagnoses, you know what I mean? And so that's an interesting thing that I've been thinking a lot about and I'd love to get your thoughts on that. Yeah. A lot there and a lot of things I feel pretty strongly about, so a good question there. I guess to go back to your initial question and the post about making more money as a physical therapist, one of the challenge that physical therapists have right now is that, so the APTA was initially pushing for a doctorate of physical therapy, which I think there's a lot of good positives to that. What kind of happened with that is it made the price of education go up by quite a bit, right? And it's more time you're in school, right? So you're losing money because you're not making more money, right? You're accumulating more debt. And then when you graduate, you don't make any more money, right? The price of education is going up, up, up, up, up to the point where it's like fairly ridiculous. And I creep around in a lot of forums, like one of which being like the physical therapy forum on Reddit, right, you go on Facebook groups, you're physical therapy, all people do is complain about things being too expensive, loans being too high, right, and just being super burdened by loans, right? And it's, you know, healthcare is so interesting and I'm not going to claim I have an answer to this, but for most like services in this world, there's going to be a market for it and a free market for it, right? So like the market is going to determine how much toilet paper costs, right? When you go into the store, there's going to be several options, right? You can get Charmin, you can get like the, I don't know, Costco, toilet paper, whatever you want. If you buy the Charmin, if you take it from the shelf and go to the cashier, when you're about to check out, right, you will pay more for the Charmin over another toilet paper roll just because you deem there's more value there, right? In the world of physical therapy, it's kind of like insurance dictates exactly what your worth is, right? And you might be better, you might be worse, you might be worse, but you still have the same value in the eyes of the insurer, right? And physical therapy from the insurance perspective is, you know, it's weird because they tell you what you can't do and if you're a consumer and you want the Charmin toilet paper, you can buy it, right? Because you perceive there's value there. Physical therapy is kind of like taking the Charmin to the checkout and then the cashier is like, no, no, no, no, don't buy this, you have to buy this one, right? We don't allow you to purchase Charmin here, right? It's weird. And I think that the issue is that people do want more. There's a big market for folks that want to optimize their health, right? And I think it's very evident because I'm in a cash-based clinic, right? And per session generally, depending on the insurance you have, we're going to be more expensive than people using their insurance, right? And we're busy and people are coming in to see us, right? So clearly there's a need there. And the other pieces that we're able to cover all sorts of services are kind of above and beyond what a typical insurance model will, right? So to answer your question, yes. And I think a lot of physicians are already doing that, especially in your field with orthobiologics and the like, you know, there's a lot of services and insurances are not covering. And then physicians are kind of setting themselves apart. I think you see this a lot in Med Spa, right? There's folks that want those services and these are all, you know, they're people want them, right? They're busy and they're making a ton of money, right? So yes, I definitely think there is going to be a place for physicians to do this. And I think there's all sorts of niches, right? And I think that insurance, and a lot, it's interesting, right? Because insurance is kind of dictated what we can and can't do. But it's also created a big market for people that are willing to go outside of this insurance model because there's a need for it and people want it, right? So yes, I guess answer your question there. And then the second part of your question was kind of about staying in your lane, right? I guess I think that at the end of the day, when I started, I'm sorry, it's just like a long, you want to like stop me at any point, I'm just, I'm just going to go. When I started as a physical therapist, released a physical therapy school, I was a personal trainer and I love nutrition. And my big thing was like, I want to try to combine all this stuff under one umbrella, you know, in fitness and be able to train people, do their nutrition, do physical therapy, optimize or lifestyle, all of that stuff, you know? And I do that. I've kind of done that with my career. But the other thing is you can't be great at everything and I definitely realize that. So as I've kind of progressed in my physical therapy career, I am still holistic and I try to tackle people's pain problems from a variety of different angles. I also know that there's people that are way better than me in these particular niches, right? So if someone has nutrition problem, I can't handle easily and they want that next step, I'm going to throw out, right? I worked a lot of very high level athletes, powerlifting, Olympic weightlifting, CrossFit. And if someone needs the services of a really good coach, I'm not going to try to coach them, right? A, I think it's hard for me. It's challenging because it's not what I do every single day anymore. I do coach some people. Be, I'm clearly not the best person, right? I'm not going to sit there and try to tell someone who's world class that I am the coach that they need when I know there's going to be a bunch of coaches that are way better, right? So I've actually started to refer out more and try to be more powerful in my own particular niche, I guess. Dan, so can I ask, where do you draw that line in regards to what you know and what you don't know? Is it dependent based off the questions that your clients are asking you or is it something that you've kind of just, just sort of over the years in terms of, hey, I'm really good with the maybe this basic stuff, but once we get past this, I'm going to refer out. Yeah, it's both of those things for the most part, good example, two different patients I've worked with recently, one's like elite level, one's several national championships and powerlifting. We get her out of pain, right? It's a disservice to that person, for me not to send them back to their coach or, you know, send them to a new coach, it's much better than I am, right? I don't work with elite level powders all day, I don't have a whole bunch of athletes, you know, I've worked with over the course of years and all this lineage, it's silly for me to even think that I would be the best coach for that person, but I work with some novice Olympic way lifters and I think I have a ton to add for them, right? So I will coach them for a bit and oftentimes, I'll get to the point where I'm like, you need the next level, you're doing phenomenal, but I'm not the person for you anymore, right? So it depends a lot on the individual, what level they're at and where they are kind of on their journey, you know, when it comes to other, let's say, if someone's having nutrition issues, I tend to kick that off pretty quickly just because I don't think I have the best nutrition advice. The type of patient that I think I can be helpful with is the folks that aren't aware that let's say nutrition or lifestyle is linked to pain and I can give them some basic things to think about and just start working towards. And if I feel like they ever have a more severe problem that needs a better expert, I'll refer out. But yeah, I'm a little quicker to refer out in some of the areas I don't feel like I have the expertise because I don't want to waste a person's time because they can find another practitioner that's way better than me way more efficient. I want to give that opportunity to the patient, right? Yeah, I think about this all the time, especially from my point of view, you know, I definitely want to do a fee for service model at this point, what I'm thinking and a lot of it's how do you market yourself, right? There's a lot of physicians, like you said, who are going down this route of widening their scope of practice from a nutrition, health coach, MSK, hormone optimization standpoint. And it's hard to learn all of that. I mean, there's so much information, right? With so many papers coming out on social media, you get the Huberman podcast, I got a TS podcast, trying to take notes on all this and it's really difficult. But at the same time in my head, I'm thinking, well, how do I keep my clients, right? Like do you ever, I mean, I guess you get to the point where you're really good at what you do that your clients will trust you and they'll come back to you for that. But I feel like there's also an issue in the medicine world where a lot of patients have to see different providers when hopefully they can just see maybe one for two or three different things that they're good at. And I think that's where my head goes to a little bit in terms of solving that issue for people is, hey, how can I maybe be an all-encompassing position? But you're right. I mean, you got to at some point acknowledge what you don't know, put a limit. And if it's so many events and you got to send them out because that other person just might do a better job. Yeah, for sure. And I guess a point for the first thing you kind of said that, I agree, wholeheartedly, just do an awesome job and then you'll be busy. But I think that's that's not the best advice because there is sales and there is marketing. And I think it's a kind of a dirty thing for healthcare providers because we just operate in this very strange world. It's very different. I shouldn't say it's strange because it's very familiar if you're inside of it, right? But if you look at other industries, they don't operate the same way. In the sense that if you are very good, you're probably going to return more, right? And you're probably going to be worth more. But the healthcare system doesn't necessarily see that. You're still going to be reabursed the same exact rate, right? Nothing kind of changes from that perspective. And if you're good, you'll get more folks through the door. But the other part is that marketing is an extremely important part of this. And so is sales. And then we're constantly trying to, we get into this field because you want to help people, right? And you do it for an altruistic reason. And it only seems dirty to sell it to people, right? I think oftentimes folks, especially me, maybe yourself, maybe other folks within this, you know, career path, we don't value ourselves, right? So it's like, we'll go, you know, above and beyond for our patients, right? And then we won't charge for it. We won't have expectations for that. But that's really not how other industries work. You know, I think we need to value ourselves and we need to be okay with marking ourselves and also selling. And I don't think that at least in my education, I had no absolutely no education on marketing. And I actually love marketing. That's probably the biggest thing that I study. I'd say about 70% of my learning time goes into learning how to market better and sell better. And I obviously, I do a lot of routine education for physical therapy too, but I think you need to learn how to run a business and operate and market and do all the like, you know, it's not as easy as just be awesome, right? That's part of it, but there's a lot more to it. Yeah, I love that. And I think this kind of also comes back to what you talked about earlier with the value-based care, right? With this insurance reimbursement model, the challenge becomes is that when you are trying to give the patient the time and give the patient the value and, you know, like, again, I had a consultation with you. I mean, you created stuff for me. I was able to text you, again, giving your number out, following up on email, continuing going above and beyond, providing care, but then you still have to continue checking the boxes to make sure that you're getting reimbursed, which really doesn't add value to the physician-patient therapist-patient relationship, right? That's not that therapeutic and lines that you're talking about. You're not building that at all. And so, and then ultimately that ends up taking away. And so I think this is actually a good place of transition because one of the main things I want to talk to you about is balance. If there's even such a thing in life. And, you know, for the listeners, you don't know, when I had, you know, when I had my daughter way back when, and you were the one of the first people I call, I remember talking to get advice from you because, you know, you had just recently become a father. And, and, you know, I think we have a similar mindset in how driven you are, how driven I am. And we're trying to wear a lot of different hats, right? We're trying to do a lot of the similar things and provide care for people. And I kind of wanted to get a sense from you is like, you know, how has your identity shifted? What are things that we can do? What are some strategies and tactics that that that we can do? And I think this is a really important thing to talk about for people in our profession and really all health care professions because as you alluded to earlier, you know, we are on this crazy amount of debt, right? So you have that financial burden coming in. And we spend years and years and years in training to even get to a point where you still might not feel good enough, right? So you have that psychological and emotional pressure. Most people have this innate hunger to want to learn, right? This scientific personality that we have. And so we're inquisitive and, and, and trying to get better the research. And if you're doing procedures, maybe the skill-based aspect as well. And then there's the personal life, right? This work-life balance concept. And it's like, okay, well, what point? Where's the time to be able to insert that? And so I'm curious, you've been in a high-level athlete going to a coach trainer to a clinician academic. Maybe I've got the order wrong. And then to a father, talk a little bit about the transitions, you know, how do we weave in and out? And how do those identity shifts happen? How do they happen for you if you feel comfortable? And how do people become comfortable with that aspect? Yeah, that's a great question. I still struggle with it. It's hard. I don't know if there is a right answer. Probably right answer for for you or for me, right? So a lot of things kind of shift in this. It's, it's really happened over the course of, I'll say my career. I like going hard and I think that one of the things that's really helped me in life so far is I've found a few things I'm super passionate about and I really enjoy doing almost all the time, right? And that's kind of fitness, physical therapy. I started off my career thinking that competing was the most important thing. So I thought that if I wanted to have authority to this world, value to this world, I have to be a world champion, national champion, best athlete of all time. I had to be elite if I wanted to, you know, I wanted to have that authority. So I just went buck wild on that and I devoted all my time to that. And then over the course of time as education became more important. And then eventually becoming a clinician, I realized that if I wanted to be really good, I have to be, you know, the smartest or the best educated and spend the most time trying to acquire the highest value patients and push that, push that, push that. And then over the course of time, you know, I had a child. And then at that point, it's like, okay, I got married. And I think what happens over at least of the course of my life span is that just the priority switches, you know, it's interesting to think because in the beginning, my athletics were so important. Expectations were so high from an athletic standpoint. And now they're so low, it's kind of ridiculous. I still train a lot. We'll say that. But I'm like, if I never compete again and I'm like, yeah, maybe I'll try it. Like I did like a 5K of the day, you know, I was like, all right, that's good. Like, my times aren't great, but that's okay, right? It's complete shift, right? And I've also shifted a little bit in a sense of learning, which has been cool. So maybe the first decade or so of being a trainer as well as a physical therapist, learning was at the very top and it's still pretty dang close. I shouldn't say that hasn't shifted. But I was a maniac in terms of reading research, going to courses, consuming as much as I can, right? And then eventually, my mindset shifted a little bit because A, it was just getting in the way of the other things in life I wanted to try to, you know, improve upon like my business and my family, right? So I kind of shifted from a standpoint of learning and consuming to more building with fitness pain free and also let's say my local community with my patients and everything else and my priority shifted a bit. And in terms of learning, I'm just not as obsessive about learning anymore. Although I still do a lot of it and it's integral to my business and I would say that I'm still spending multiple days per week every week looking at research papers, learning courses, all that stuff. I spend much more time now growing my business. And then the other piece and this is like a major wrench in the system, right? Is family, you know? And when I got married, this was this was probably the first shift, right? And I've been with my wife, Steph, for, I know, 15, 16 years now for a long time. But what was interesting about a relationship is that she's a physician and she was almost always as busy if not more busy than me. So I was always granted all of this extra time to do whatever, right? And that I just basically dumped that and learning from my business and everything else, you know? And a lot of this kind of changed once we had our son because it's like, we're so busy. Who's going to take care of this little guy, you know? So I think it was like an expectation shift again, but this time it was very, very hard. And I think it's mostly because a child just kind of demands way more attention than other things. And I knew that if I wanted to, I don't know, pursue the best path for me in the future, it would mean backing off the other things in my life that I loved so much that were so important to me. And I would say the first year that was extremely difficult because I'd be spending time with my son, which is supposed to be quality time, right? But all I could think about is like, my gosh, I'm not getting this done. I can't push into my business. I wish I could do this at this point. And I still struggle with that. But I think a lot of it is trying to think about what's most important for you in your life and prioritizing that. And I think there's a period of time of getting used to that. And then valuing just I it's like giving yourself credit for doing something that's important to you, right? That's not work. And that was very hard for me and it still is hard for me. But I'm getting to the point now, my son's two and a half. So he's not, you know, 13 or anything like that. But spending time with him is obviously awesome, right? And I don't have a feeling of guilt and shame spending time with my son, right? Feeling that I should be working or training or something else. So that's been my kind of psychological shift. I think I'm trying to change your expectations and then trying to be happy with your actions, right? So if you feel that being a good father is important, then you should give yourself credit for spending the time with your kids, right? And not being so concerned or not accomplishing business stuff. But that being said, I still work like a maniac and I love it. So some people call work all is I think there's an element of that for sure. But nighttime when I'm kind of so basically when I come home from work, it's it's all family time, right? So we make dinner together, you know, it's hanging out playing, it's, you know, bad time, bad time and all that. But once I go once to Luke goes to sleep, I go back to work. And it's partly because I love it. And partly because I set this crazy standard for myself that I want to grow, but the end of day, that is working for me. I think I have a bit of a tolerance. I'm too in my own horn here, but I have a tolerance for just sticking with things, you know, without burning out. I think I have a pretty high threshold for that. So I can work, work, work, work, work, work, put my head down to work, work, work, work, work. And I don't feel like I'm burning out. It actually feels like it's reasonable to me where maybe someone else it, it doesn't. But the other part is like, if I spend some time to do something like watch a TV show or, or, you know, a movie sometimes I'm not even paying attention to TV show. I'm thinking about a program, I'm thinking about like updating something with my business. And oftentimes I just stop watching TV and I go back to that because that's what I want to do. So for me, having a, I guess, trying to push a lot of different things in my life has worked because I really love all of those aspects. So all the downtime I have kind of goes into that. In my off time, if I have any, I'm feeling with those things, but those are my passions. So it, it kind of recharges me. It makes me feel good. It doesn't take more way, you know. So yeah, I love that. I mean, the word that comes to mind is grit, you know, being able to stick with hard things for a long, long time. And I think that's what separates a lot of people in these professions because you can just put your head down and just get through years and years of grind. Again, you know, school undergrad, graduate school, doctorate, residency, fellowship, all the kind of stuff, you keep adding on training. A couple of things that you said really stand out to me, right? I think this concept of, you know, the kids or the child demanding so much attention. And then you're struggling with thinking about something else. Again, again, full disclosure, I'm 13, you know, my child is 13 months and still happens to me every single day yesterday was one of these days. I came in. I had a couple of really tough patients and I would just kept thinking about, did I make the right decision? Did I communicate the right way about the diagnosis that, hey, we don't really know, but it's okay. We're going to work on the functional outcomes, you know, was a patient satisfied. And I came home and I remember my daughter just hugged me. I would just sit because she didn't care. She doesn't care. She also doesn't care if I'm up to date on the literature. She doesn't care at all. That's not right. And I'm also more and more aware of the fact that every single day, all these things are just fleeting, right? And we're like, your parents always tell you like, oh, it goes by so fast, it goes by so fast. But interestingly, in the moment, it feels like it'll never pass, right? Those sleep nice, all that kind of stuff. And that hunger that we have to continue wanting to up to date that almost addiction to learning, right? The dopamine response, which just kind of a little bit of what I think I get and you get to as we're studying and we're learning more and feeding our curiosity. I really like this concept that people talk about. There are seasons in life, right? Where there are seasons in life, we're supposed to work really, really hard. And there are seasons in life where you take back and you enjoy other things and you kind of maybe get the foods of your labor. What's interesting as I think about this is we know this movement of wellness, right? Work life balance. And I think the new age, physical therapists, new age healthcare provider, new age physician, maybe our generation, maybe the next generation, we're very much into, I'm not interested in working that hard. I'd rather have this quote-unquote work life balance or take care of my wellness, optimize my sleep, also be able to do two mindfulness or meditation sessions a day, and then also take my walks and do all that kind of stuff. But at the same time, be able to hustle. It's just like, well, how? I'd also have a family. I heard Lex Friedman talk about this on a podcast once is all these people who are preaching these things that you have to take care of yourself. They're usually doing it when they've already gotten to that pinnacle, like 50s and 60s. And I thought it was really interesting that he said, these people forget that when they're in the 20s and 30s, they were not doing the mindfulness and stuff. They were not. And it had they been doing that, they wouldn't get to be in the place where they're in three to four books and done all this stuff and be on this platform to have it communicate. And I thought, wow, that was that's really interesting. And you know, I've been listening to these people for about five years, I struggle. I'm like, how can I be a fantastic clinician, increase my skill, also learn about the literature, also know all these things, but then get eight hours of sleep, get my nutritional doubt then train six, seven hours a week, which sometimes still feed not enough right for longevity. I don't understand like, how do I how do I do it? And then when I heard that and I was like, well, you know, David, this is not the season for that. Maybe this is not the season for optimal wellness. Maybe this is season two to grind a little bit harder. And maybe the next season will be. So I'm curious to get your thoughts on that and that aspect, the wellness movement and just different seasons, or even darshan, if you want to chime in here, I wholeheartedly agree. I can think of several people where this has happened. A lot of my own mentors, my boss, my grind old, good example. So you know, Dave Tilly, right? Yeah, yeah. She had moved clients. David's been on the podcast. Like one of the hardest, most motivated people I've ever met my entire life. And the amount of heat work, work he does is like astronomical, you know, within like given week or like write a textbook, write like 13 blog posts, you know, he'll treat like a crazy amount of patience, consult with national level, like gymnastic coaches all over the world. You know, it's just like a crazy, crazy amount of work at all times. And it's kind of funny because I, you know, Mike Reinhold, who's very accomplished in the physical therapy world, was talking to Dave. He's like, you know, Dave, you got to slow down a little bit. I'm afraid of you burning out, right? And Dave's response to Mike was like, well, do you remember in you were 20 something and you were basically working full time for the Red Sox and you were writing textbooks at the same time. You were writing research articles and every weekend, you were flying, you know, from place to place to place to present, do all this crazy stuff. And Mike's like, yeah, I do, right? And it's funny because that's very true for a lot of folks. And I think once you make it, you can kind of step back a little bit or you just realize that you don't want that anymore and you back off, right? I don't know if you guys follow Gary Vee. But Gary Vee is, is so hilarious to me to watch his kind of trajectory because when I first started watching Gary Vee and this is like a decade ago or more, he's like, work, work harder, work even harder. You're not working, you need a work harder. What are you doing? You're not working, you need to work. And that was literally his entire message. And now it's like happiness, balance, do what you want to do. And I think a lot of that is like based on his own career where he's at right now. And I remember when he started to change his message a little bit, I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, is anyone else seeing this? Like this guy needs to work more. Right? But obviously he's done really well, but I totally agree with you. You know, it happens all the time. I read the four hour work week and the first thing I thought, which in Ferris, I was like, dude, you just work like a maniac for like a decade of your life. And then when you like run away, the reason why you can still make a lot of money and work two to four hours a week is because you just put in a decade worth of work and you're smart and you made it happen. You built that. If you just worked two hours a week, you wouldn't be able to build that. Would be my argument, right? So there needs to be at least a season somewhere to build that. Unless you get lucky or extremely smart, you find like an underserved population or whatever it is. I think for the average person, they're going to go through that season. Yeah. To go along with the four hour work week, Erica Colbert, you know, Ultima, and I listened to her podcast. Dan, I'm sure you know, Erica taught me this. She had Pat Flynn on, right? And they talk about passive income. And you know, one of the myths is that passive income isn't truly passive, right? It's very active in the beginning. Is that how much of that investment of time, money, relationships, everything else that you have to put in in order to get that ROI back? So I agree with both you. And I think a lot of the times we mature as we age. So I think a huge factor in terms of our perspective is just aging. And thinking about it, I mean, even being a 20 year old premed to 25, 26, the halfway through medical school and just, you know, if I was 20 in medical school, man, I'd be working my butt off. And then I came to 25, 26 and realized, hey, there's actually a smarter way to go about this. I don't need to. Technically, sees get degrees and no residents, you really cares about looking at your final grade. But what they do care about is kind of like who you are as an overall well balanced person. And what can you offer aside from the typical 4.0 or something? And so yeah, I agree. I think a lot of these people come to the realizations. And when you start looking at life in itself and how many weeks are taken by, you start to change that perspective, right? Like Dan, like you said, you start to think about what's important to you. And I think the important shifts, when you get married, there's a huge shift, you know, light changes within seconds. You find out you're going to have a kid. It's, boom, things are just changing every second, right? With life. So yeah, that's kind of what I have there in terms of that. Yeah, I think that's that's super, I don't know, insightful, you know, what's important to you changes across, of course, your life. And I've heard this piece of advice given by a lot of folks, but it's a guy, if you're like 90 something, your deathbed, you know, how would you have liked to see your life go or unravel? But I also think that's not fair, because 20 year old Dan doesn't care about what 90 year old Dan cares about. And then 40 year old Dan's different. I'm sure 60 and 89 years can be different. So I think ultimately, it's a good idea to sit down and figure out what's important for you, right? But also give yourself a little grace. We're like, oh, 10 years ago, this was actually really important to me. It's not now. And that's fine. That's okay. You know what I mean? So yeah, just kind of shifting with the times, what you like and being okay with the past, if it didn't go the way you wanted to. And you wanted to change, then you make the change, you know? Yeah, I mean, just the after 10 years, you have so much more data, the experiences in life to figure out what is and what is an important, right? I love that you got both of highlighted this about this concept of enshrining your core priorities, this book that I read by decisive by Chip and Dan Heath. I really like this book. And I think maybe he was one of the last chapters to talk about enshrining your core priorities, like literally put it like on the mantle about the fireplace, like what is the most important thing to you? I think, you know, at baseline, most people have some values in life that really matter to them. And, you know, I think about we were talking with Nikhil Verma and he's talking about family. Family is really important. And not, I don't think he has children, but like his parents. And it's like one of the core reasons he had to move back to Ohio, where he's written you from is, you know, because he wanted to spend more summers with his parents and how much you have left. And that can apply to your children, of course, all that kind of stuff. And don't get me wrong. There are some people, we go back to that learning and the research thing who spending quality time with their family and their children, that's not the most important. Nothing wrong with that. If that's you and putting up publications and research and being an academic, academic admission is the most important thing by all means, right? But I think enshrining them and then every decision that comes and you come at a crossroad and being say, does this align with my core priorities? Not everything will. But most things will should, as you get older and older and you become maybe more time poor because you have more things going on. Similar concept, James Clearer talks about it. I think in one of his newsletter, he, I really like this quote, he said that, again, identify the things that are most important to you or how you want your life to be moving forward. And then make as few decisions as you can that violate the answer to that, like how you want to spend your time. I'd love that. And so I've started looking at things like that when some opportunity does come up when somebody says, hey, can you, should we do this research? Should we publish this and this and stuff? I'm like, is this how I want to spend my time doing this? Right? Because I last time my daughter went to bed and stuff like that, I'm up there at 1130 looking at some procedures that that might happen today, which patient no showed, of course, so that was just like an hour and a half wasted. But no, it's okay, I learned. And you have to ask yourself, is like, am I making decisions that are violating the answer? Because I've already identified how. But in order to be able to truly identify how you want to spend your time, you've got to have a lot of data. It's hard to do that when you're 20 and you haven't really experienced life and all that kind of stuff, which is why experiences are big. But on that note, I feel okay, we're talking about times of high stress, feeling time poor, that kind of stuff, which is what you're talking about how you felt. But I think it applies to people and residency, it applies to people and just when they're hustling, trying to create their business building, becoming a producer of knowledge from just a consumer of knowledge, kind of what you talked about. How does one, are there tactics that you find found where we're helpful for you to dial in your training, nutrition, and I'd love for you to talk about the readiness score, which you told me about you. I think you have a YouTube video on this, so we'll link that to, talk a little bit about that. Yeah, for sure. And I'm the type of guy that is obsessive about his training, right? I know I just downplayed that I don't care about it as much as I used to, but it's very rare for me to miss a workout. If I miss a workout, it's usually because I planned it. So even if I'm traveling, I know that when I'm going into and I have an idea of what I'm going to be doing, and I get myself some flexibility, but I almost always schedule the time and plan ahead for all of my exercise from most part. I actually get pretty dang upset if I can't do that, right? To the point where I make plans on top of plans. So if this doesn't work out, I'll do that kind of thing, right? So for me, I think it's just a matter of making some time for things that are most important to you. And exercise has always been something that kind of keeps me sane, you know? And more recently, I kind of felt like I was losing some of that. So I decided to try something a little bit new. I started doing some Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, which has been a lot of fun. And it's something I've been wanting to do more for a long time. And I just kind of scheduled the time to do it. I know I actually don't do it very much. It's like one of two times a week. You know, I miss it more than I make it. But I think if you're losing track of your life, right? If things are kind of spinning out of control, you probably want to go back to what kind of grounds you a little bit. And at least for me, that is fitness. And I think I'm fortunate because that's how I think if you're exercising well, that's one piece that's going to make you more efficient, you know, healthier. It's going to line a lot of things up for the positive. What's even nicer for me is that it's also something that grounds me to make me feel like I'm taking care of myself, right? And not just taking care of others all the time. But I guess to answer your question, it's trying to figure out, right? If you are exercising enough, we're doing what's most important to you. And if you're not, you just make time for it and try to schedule around it, you know. My wife's kind of the opposite. Like she gets mad at me for exercising because we're busy. You got tons of stuff going on. And if I'm exercising, I'm not doing the dishes or, you know, taking Luke to X-Wire D or making more money for the family. And at least for me, it's so important. I realize for me, and for us, I, you know, I would argue that everyone should exercise as my whole thing, but I plan it. And I kind of push it. And I make sure that I have that time for myself, right? And I maybe sacrifice other folks' time. So for me, selfish. Let me jump in there right there because something you said stuck out to me is that you get pretty mad or pretty upset when you don't get a session and you have like backup, you know, feel safe mechanisms, though, how you can get another session in or some modification. I'm the same way actually. And then there's some people who'll talk about, oh, you know, you shouldn't feel like you have to exercise. You get too exercise, right? Like reframe the way that you think about it. I'm just like, I can say that, but the fact is that I have to exercise. Because if I don't, I'm pretty pissed off. Like, you know, especially if I go two or three days, like, I'm not like having a legit withdrawal symptoms, but I'm not in a good mood. You know, and it's so much so that there are a times where I feel like you just need to go to the gym. Like, you need to go. You need to get your dose of whatever it is that you're getting, you know, endorphins. What are your thoughts about that? I'm sure you've heard that when people are like, oh, you should, you get too exercise. You know what I mean? Like, I just want to get... Yeah, I don't know. I think it's a perspective thing, right? You know, people are okay with sacrificing their health, right? For what they want to do in life. And that comes down to sleep, exercise, all sorts of things. I'm just less willing to do it. And it's a basic philosophical thing. It's like, I think everyone should be doing some sort of exercise. And you're probably the best variation or version of yourself. If you are, you know, and you're going to be less costly, the healthcare system, better father, you know, better wife, whatever, if you do it. So I just feel very strongly that people should be doing this. So when you say that, you get to versus you have to, it's kind of like, I feel responsible as a human being to exercise because I'm going to be better at two society if I do, you know, so that's a really strong kind of philosophical belief for me. You know, I love that though. So I think there's a get, right? There's you get to. And maybe there's a dose that you have to do, right? Because I think that if you stop, then you start becoming a burden to other people in your life and the rest of society. So I think a lot of ways people should exercise, right? That's, that's really, really important. But maybe there is a little element of like, okay, you hit your baseline, you know, maybe you can't get 10 hours worth of exercise in this week, you know, you got your three to five, whatever it is. And you can be okay with that because there is that whole addiction, right? Because I have it for sure. I feel addicted to it if I need to do it. And if I don't, you know, I, from a rational standpoint, I don't behave well, you know, a temper tantrum. Like I shouldn't be temper tantrum. I mean, it's like almost 40-year-old man, right? That doesn't make any sense. Like, I'll be able to work out in two days. Like, it's cool. Just chill. But that's how I feel, you know? Yeah. I will say so all three of us are on the same page here, right? I mean, we're all to the point of where we necessarily, we need that dose of exercise. But you're also to the point where you have this, you know, fail safe plan. For me, right? I think we all have specific goals, which is why we're so regimented in terms of what we do. If I want to work out program and I have to skip a day, I like, how do you think about what you have to do next? Because a lot of people out there are like, no, I have to stick to this workout program. And if I can't do my five sets of squats because I don't have a gym accessible, I'm going to have to skip. So how do you think about that? How do you, you know, in terms of people saying you get to exercise, sure, you have other options. But when it comes to people like us, a lot of people kind of fail in that regard. Well, a lot of things, right? So I work at a gym. I've access to a gym next to my house and have a gym in my basement. So I'm kind of like covered from a magical standpoint. What about when you're traveling, though, Dan? Yeah. And then, you know, oftentimes if we do travel somewhere, if there's, because I like camping out the words and like, there's not going to be a lot of access. And then I often won't bring equipment, but maybe I'll have a plan about the things I want to try to do. Or I'll just kind of plan a deload. I'll just train a lot harder the week prior so that like I'll take an advantage of it or whatever it is, you know. So I think that's that's a big part of it. You can use things like blood flow restriction training, which is nice because it's portable. You'd use much lighter loads. So I'll kind of travel with those. You can use bands. I think there's there's really a lot of ways to do it. You know, I also plan my training in a way that makes it more flexible. So when I have a training plan, right now I have just three total body days per week. And it makes it super simple because let's say I miss a day, then I just pick up the next following day with the next day of that program. And I don't screw anything up, right? But if I miss, let's say leg day on Monday, and my following day is supposed to be like a bench day. And then I just start like pushing the workouts further off. I get to the point where you're not working the movements you want. You're not consistent. That type of thing. So I tend to write programs that have flexibility in it, right? So maybe it is like a six day program, but I have important days and not as important days. So if I miss this day, that's okay, right? Or I build it so that if I do miss a day, if I just delay that, it doesn't change anything, right? It ends up being just fine. So when I write the programs, I write some flexibility in the mix, right? But if I was elite level athlete, I'd probably be a little bit more obsessive about it. Like I really wouldn't want to miss these things. But I do plan that flexibility in there. So yeah, I like that. You know, I was talking to Ultima Shona some some months ago about this concept of how we tend to compartmentalize a lot of our life. And I think rather than that, it also most makes sense to just have this one bucket called life, right? And within that, things are going to change. And that tends to, it helps me at least gravitate towards being okay about letting the pendulum swing. Then that, hey, if there's going to be two days where I cannot work out, that's cool. I can take those two days and go and learn, spend time with family, go see my parents, whatever it might be. Because you start to realize that all these things are connected. And I know I'm bringing it back a little bit to what we just talked about. But that's the way I see it, right? When we kind of look at the workouts and everything that everything we do is connected, right? If you want to put down the fireplace in terms of what's the most important thing, in order to get that, your health is important. And the money is going to be important so that you could enjoy the experiences. And then those experiences itself are going to be important, and what a lot of people are chasing. So my thoughts kind of just went there. So I wanted to kind of share that concept. I know we want some other things to touch on here too. So all go for it. Before we do that, Dan, you said you program for yourself. Do you ever give, like, you're programming to another coach, one of your colleagues or anything like that? I have a little bit. What's that? I was saying, okay, us. Is that what I was trying to say? Send that over. Do you want me to do a free? No, I'd be fine with it. That'd be fun. I'd like programming. So part of it is that I enjoy writing it, you know? I always have. There's definitely parts of I've taken programs from other coaches and kind of tweaked it from home liking. And then I've also had coaches write programming for me. And to your point, I don't know if you're trying to make this point, but it would be something that saves a bunch of time and thought, you know? But I like the idea of writing my own program and always having it's kind of fun to me to tweak and make the changes I want to because my goals are constantly changing. I've exercised ADD and I kind of enjoy just always tweaking and changing. I probably make a coach insane between probably not communicating well enough and then wanting too many different things that I don't know. I feel like I'd be a burden as a client. But yeah, it's a it's a good way to save money and I recommend it or not save money to save your time, right? To trade your time for money and just have a little bit more peace of mind and probably outsource to someone who's better than me. But I just I just enjoyed doing it. So I still do it myself, you know? Yeah, I agree with you. I got really lucky that I again, the way she's my coach, she has been for what almost five years coming up now. And you know, again, we do primarily online and to touch base through through text and all the kind of stuff. So, you know, it's not super expensive. And I've learned so much from that, like philosophies wise. And so it's also an opportunity for me to learn to see and then I'm always asking like, hey, why are you programming this way? Like I thought this is a principle and again, going back to full circle to I'm no longer so I at background and performance coaching and stuff, but that's no longer I don't keep up with the literature and the science evolves over time. And he'll be like, yeah, we don't really actually believe that anymore. And the science has changed and you know, you still can get hypertrophy even in this rep range as long as you're doing this. I'm like, how interesting. Okay. And so I do love that aspect of it as well. The reason I asked is I remember a long time ago, Dan John, you're familiar with Dan John? It's funny. I'm actually supposed to, this is kind of a crazy story, but I'm supposed to be speaking with him later this year. And I go ahead. I have another story. Can you finish? No, no, it's just that the reason I sorry to cut you off is I read a quote from him once, and he might have tweeted it or something, I forget her. And it was like the coach who programs for himself has an idiot for a client. And I was like, oh, man, it's a strong tick. And so I was like, okay. And you know, and for those who don't know Dan John, very highly respected coach, old-school mentality, but go ahead, share your story. Yeah, great guy. I emailed him 20 years ago asking for advice. I was like in college and I was training for Pobl and I had like some weight lifting question. And I don't even know how I learned about Dan's probably from teenation or testosterone on that or TMAG, whatever used to be called back in the day. I think he wrote for them. And I ended up sending an email and I don't even know how I got his email, right? But I emailed him. And he got back to me and we had like a few emails back and forth. And that was cool because I emailed a lot of folks back then because I was in the case about learning. And I just I just reached out to everybody. And he was one of the few people actually did respond, which I try to do with people. Now I'd respond to anyone emails me. But yeah, it's kind of a cool full circle thing. I'm sure he has no idea who I am, but I was recently asked to go speak in an event and he's supposed to be there too. So I'm pretty excited about that. But yeah, he's got a ton of great insight. Um, yeah. And to his point, I, yeah, maybe I should, well, in some ways, I outsourced because I'll go to a class and someone will teach me how to do like 2G and 2. If I was like in my basement watching like instructional videos and trying to choke out my dog or something, because I didn't have some of the train with that be bad. But yeah, it is it is wise to get someone to help you with the program. So man, a lot of what we're talking about is, you know, we've got some takes on how to survive during times of stress. And I think we started bridging into maybe a little bit thriving too. But as you mentioned, you, you've really taken, um, spent some time and you've been building up fitness pain free. Since we last spoke, you now have your own podcast that fitness free and free show. Highly recommend because you do an awesome job and unlike our episode here or our podcast, they're much more digestible. So that's why I'm a huge fan. Um, and, uh, you know, so you've really expanded your certification to the website. And so I think it's fair to say that you've been thriving, right? Not just surviving. So what have been some of your systems, if you don't mind us sharing that have allowed you to do that, uh, despite everything that's on your plate? Well, it's interesting. Um, yeah, the company is starting to grow. It's really cool. It's extremely exciting. It's one of the reasons why I feel like I can still do this because I'm just so excited by it, right? I'll just do my show before this. I'm going to soon finish up and do it again afterwards. Um, and that's tough because I started this company like 10 years ago and it's, it's funny because you always hear this, I think it's popular right now. Pat Flynn talks about it. It's like these overnight successes, right? And I hate these stories. They're like the freaking worst, you know? People ask this person like, Oh, how did you end up doing well in this? And someone's like, Oh, well, I just started writing these articles and millions of people started following me and then I started getting millions of dollars. I'm like, Oh, my God. I hate this, right? Because literally it's taking me so long and it's been very arduous to get to where I am right now. And I think a lot of these overnight successes are just like years and years and years of someone doing the right things. And what's been kind of interesting for me is that I had more recently, I had kind of a period of time where things just start to click and all kind of came together. And I think it was just because if you want to have a system that works well, you need all the pieces, right? And I think I was just missing a few key pieces and more recently I was able to put those in, right, to make that work. And I think it for me, it's always been a matter of trying things, seeing what works, and then what's working, I do more of and things that are doing less, I are doing worse, I do less of, I do a ton of market research to see what people love, you know, what their what their troubles are, what keeps them up tonight, trying to be as helpful as possible, and just keep on plugging away. And then also more recently, partially because I'm just so busy, you know, if I had the son out for two and a half years is I stopped doing as much patient care and I systematically done less over the last few years. And it's partially because now I make money obviously with my online business. So I mean, my business wouldn't grow if I kept on seeing the same amount of patients I used to, I just wouldn't have time to do it. So back to our early point, it's like, what is important to you, you know, what's driving your income, what's driving your happiness, let's dial back on some of the things that are no longer quite as important and start to push the things that are more. And that's happened over the course of my entire career because early on, I tried to do everything, I tried to be an athlete, I tried to start a business, I tried to be a great a great clinician, I tried to be a mentor, right, and there's like no room for sleep in there, right, what happens is that I sucked at all those things, like I wasn't very good. And then when I moved the champion, I was like, all right, I have to stop coaching because, you know, it's taken up too much time, right, and over the course of time, I had to stop seeing less patients because I was sucking at the other things and I was groaning in the other areas and I was being limited by other things in my life. So these roles have just kind of changed and adapted and shifted over the course of time. And then just being conscious of, I guess, what you need to change in order to progress and not afraid to make that change because it's scary, right, and every time I'm like, oh God, I'm dropping a day of work, how am I going to make up that income? But the other part is like there's a huge opportunity cost of me, right, that I'm losing if I don't push my business. And you kind of have to trust it and make that leap. So it is kind of risk tolerance, right, it can be stupid too. You don't want to make dumb decisions and stop seeing all your patients and have this pie in the sky idea of a business and take out a bunch of debt. Like that's not what I'm saying, but you do have to be smart and calculated and then probably just shift and adapt what you're doing on a regular basis to grow, you know. Dan, I do want to ask, we're talking about risk tolerance and a lot of people as we were, we just mentioned, lose their fitness maybe in times of stress, being a father, being attending, wherever it might be, they just don't have the time to work out as much. I just listened to the Andrew Huberman podcast with Andy Galpin and he kind of goes over the nine different, you know, core principles like speed, power, hypertrophy, strength, anaerobic, aerobic, out of all of those. So, you know, if somebody knows that, hey, this is just for a season of phase of life and then I'm going to get back into it, which of those, if any, or multiple, do you think are the most, most important to hold on to and to keep training on those days that people can train? Yeah, that's a good question, right? So, my bias would probably strengthen training. You could probably do some strength training that kind of mask of raids as endurance training too, right? So, I think you just get a lot of bang for your buck with strength training. So, it's good for your cardiovascular health, it's good for longevity. If you do it in circuit fashion, you're kind of doing cardio, right? So, we talk about the zone two being super powerful. You kind of stay in zone two and do strength training, right? So, if you're really kind of crunched for time, I'd probably do some sort of strength training and then combine that with some sort of aerobic, right? I do think that we undervalue, especially at the age, power, just moving things quickly. I think that's a huge one. If you think about the reason why people have a fall, probably because they can't move quickly, right? There's a big element there. I think you probably get some of that, you know, you probably get some balance and power with some of the strength training. So, I'd say that's probably it, but the other part is that what do you like to do, right? What's kind of reasonable to fit into your schedule? I kind of operate in this pie in the sky setting where all of my patients love exercise and they're trying to optimize their help, right? Well, the large majority of people don't live there. They just don't like to exercise and they're sedentary. So, I think a really big element is just to focus on something that works for you that you like, you know, for a lot of my patients that let's say they're dealing with an orthopedic injury, having a hard time fitting in some sort of exercise, rehabilitation, fitness. We just do what they want to do, you know, we just kind of push the things they like to do and maybe tweak it and optimize it a little bit. So, it works for them. So, I think my answer if we were able to kind of pick the most powerful intervention, probably some sort of strength training with a little bit of cardiovascular work in the mix. If you have some extra time, some basic power work, you would try to move through a full range of motion with your exercises, so you're kind of working on mobility. But really, I think it comes down to the individual, what they like to do, what they will do, right? Well, Dan, thank you so much, man. I think that this last hour, this conversation has been deeply enjoyable for me. I know we touched on various different topics. A lot of philosophy, a lot of self-reflection. And I want to thank you for kind of sharing your story, your time, and you're doing a lot of great things. I've been a huge fan. I will tell you, I mean, I think one of the things that we don't talk about, you know, as folks like us who have a variety of interests, right? Again, exercise, physiology, medicine, like all these kinds of things in nutrition. Another important thing, which is maybe a cheat code, maybe a hack, is surrounding yourself with a network or identifying some mentors in a way who can curate the information for you, right? Who can fast track and catch you up to speed rather than having to sift through that literature. And you are one of those people for me, of course, right? And so your plug is like, when I have some questions about return to rehab or return to running protocol, whatever might be, I just quickly get on your website, kind of look at, you know, how do people modify stuff. You know, I've given a lecture to the residents when I was in training during my final year, and I remember this. I used a lot of your slides from modifications of squatting, modifications of deadlifts, that kind of stuff. So thank you for everything, man. I feel lucky to be able to call you a friend and a resource to lean upon. You mentioned your business that's growing. It's getting better. Tell people about where they can find that, how can they connect with you, and also what's next for you in the business? Yeah, for sure. Likewise, I just want to say that I've learned a lot from you as well. I appreciate when I have a question, orthobialotics, whatever it is, I shoot you an email, and then you give me some great information. So likewise, really appreciate it guys. And thank you for, you know, the platform today. Yeah, people want to learn more about me. FitnessPainfree.com is the place to go. Very active on all the social media. So mostly Instagram, I go crazy on YouTube. I'm producing like a ridiculous amount of content. So I would say Instagram, YouTube are the biggest ones for me, but I'm also on TikTok, Facebook, little bit on Twitter, so all those are great. In terms of next things, I'm just trying to make my educational courses better. I'm trying to make the best possible course out there for, let's say, the strength and fitness-minded physical therapist that just wants a deep dive. I agree with you wholeheartedly. There's a lot of folks out there that are doing really cool things. If you want to do what they're doing, the best way to do that is to figure out how you can learn more from them, right? So you can call them up, talk to them, you know, whatever it is. I'm trying to provide that same service at fitnesspainfree.com. If you want to be in my shoes, taking my certification is the fastest way to do that, right? And that's going to fast track your career, just like you said. Love it. I also want to say thank you, Dan. You know, anytime I can talk about fitness, self-reflection, hold my nose. Don't get me going. So I truly, truly enjoyed this conversation. Last question for you. We asked it to you a while back in that first episode. You might have a different answer this time after all these years, even though it has been much time. How do we add the health back and health care? God, man, that's a good question. I don't know. I don't even remember what I said the first time. I want to go back and see it. I think we need to put it just have clinicians. I am constantly pushing this on social media, right? Because one of the big debates in physical therapy are like, what are the best treatment options for people? What provides the best outcome? And I tend to think that the best treatments are the ones that are just going to push health and wellness, right? So if we can get people in the gym, moving a little bit more, lifting weights, doing yoga, Pilates, you know, running, whatever activity they want to do, right? As a form of treatment, I think we should be pushing that, right? I think that's going to be huge. And that's kind of the whole goal of just being free is to push those fitness and strength based treatments, right? So I guess that'd be my answer. I don't know what tech I said before. I have to go back and watch, but there we go. Don't worry. We'll link that one as well. Thanks, Dan. Yeah. All right. Thank you very much, guys. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. We can ask for one big favor. It would be to rate and review this episode and this podcast on your favorite platform, whether it may be Apple, Spotify. And if you want to see short clips of the actual interview and Dan answering or leaving some recommendations for you, be sure to check us out on social media. We post short clips on our Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and even YouTube shorts. So you can at least see the faces of our guests and kind of see how we ask those questions. I just want to thank our team, Imam Bashiri, Harita Yapuri, and Ethan Zhu for the production of this podcast. And of course the disclaimer, everything in this podcast is for educational purposes only. It does not constitute the price of medicine and we are not providing medical advice. No physician, patient relationships formed that anything discussed in this podcast does not represent the views of our employers. We recommend that you seek the guidance of your personal physician regarding any specific health related issues.