Lead from the Front

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Aaron Lebauer show.

[00:00:07] This is the number one show for passionate physical therapy and healthcare entrepreneurs

[00:00:11] looking to level up their income and impact on the world.

[00:00:15] If that's you, then you're in the right place.

[00:00:18] So sit back, chill out, and let's get into the show.

[00:00:23] Hey, welcome back to the Aaron LeBauer show, because when I started, I've, this kind of podcast has been through a couple iterations. And early on, it was answering common questions. And then it was interviewing other people in our industry about cash based PT and then other people about, you know, like, you know, I don't know,

[00:01:41] other things, social media, what they're doing real estate. And it's the Tony Steffen show because, you know what it does? It aligns with the website I have, erinlevower.com, and it allows me to talk about whatever's on my mind. And majority of this is still focused on, you know, my career and the people I help who are mostly physical therapists who own a cash practice.

[00:03:02] Although just, so you know, I've got people,

[00:03:04] I've been a massage therapist, bike messenger,

[00:03:06] I've got people in our will do it again if I have to. And I'm sure that's what the generals would do. If I'm wrong, let me know. And that's leadership. So how do we level up our leadership? How do we grow?

[00:04:22] Well, some of the growth that I've had leadership is being around other people who are leaders against the government, not really. No, not in that sense. But there are things that laws and policies that on the face of them aren't really helping me as a business owner. So I have to like fight to figure out where's that information that's gonna give me the leverage.

[00:05:43] Like I'm talking about on the leverage episode,

[00:05:45] which might be the one before this one or might be next. dozens. I read in 2020, 2021, I read probably 10 books by Navy Seals, maybe not 10, but I read pretty slowly, because I've got dyslexia. So it takes a bit. But if it's engaging, I can get into it. And it's about the story. But the two books that I

[00:07:02] read that I would recommend if you want to level up your

[00:07:04] leadership is transformed by Remy Adelecki and the Trident by well known ones that have been made into movies. Get those two, they're great. Be around leaders, like that's my next bullet point. I think be around other good leaders. Success leaves clues. So it just like it leaves clues, like that's where you wanna be around people that are more successful in yourself. I talked about on the leverage podcast that I joined a cigar lounge.

[00:08:21] You know, not because I've been smoking cigars

[00:08:23] for 20 years, but because. And that's it, make decisions for your family. Make decisions for your business. Hey, this is where we're going to dinner. Or hey, we're going out to dinner tonight. Do you wanna eat, you know, Chinese?

[00:09:44] Or go get hamburgers or wings. months with Alan learning about business when I was in PT school, it was my final clinical rotation. You know what? Alan was, I mean, this is a few months before I showed up back in 2008. He was four wheeled. Not four, was it four wheeling? He's on a not a three, like the little like, not a four wheeler, like a Jeep Cherokee, but like little four wheelers that you

[00:11:00] ride like motorcycles, but four wheels. He was doing that with

[00:11:03] some friends and he fell and broke his wrist. Well, guess

[00:11:06] what? One of his friends was the orthopedic surgeon.

[00:12:02] when they just want to go in vacation with their kids or they're just feeling a little rundown.

[00:12:04] Well, you show up when you're sick.

[00:12:06] You know, these days since COVID,

[00:12:08] we don't always show up when we're sick, but you know what?

[00:12:10] Pre-COVID, like if I was sick, had some sniffles, man,

[00:12:13] you know, I didn't feel good.

[00:12:16] I showed up or I didn't show up with the flu.

[00:12:18] But guess who didn't miss a lot of sick days at work

[00:12:21] in four and a half, almost five years.

[00:12:23] Caitlin, Caitlin came to work

[00:12:25] when she didn't want to align with yours. So how does it align with yours? You have to actually share it with them.

[00:13:41] You have to share it with them.

[00:13:43] You have to share your why with them

[00:13:45] because your why may not resonate with theirs.

[00:13:48] And maybe that's a deal breaker, delegate the responsibilities, you cannot be a micromanager. The worst people I've ever worked for were micromanagers. I mean, I was a temp and this lady taught me how to spell the alphabet. And I'm like, you do know I graduated college, right? I mean, you don't teach me the alphabet. Like I got physical therapists. I don't really have to teach them how to do physical therapy. There's some things that I'm going to teach them because like Chris is

[00:15:03] coming on and he's been a few years out of doing manual therapy because he's Okay, when, so when I'm giving Chris an opportunity or I'm giving him playing opportunity, here's kind of some of the boundaries. I say, when you encounter, I say, if you encounter an issue and you know how to solve it, just make the decision to solve the problem.

[00:16:22] Just solve it, like, you know, and I say, if you encounter a problem

[00:16:24] or with a client or a customer in the business

[00:16:27] and you don't want to, I don't want a problem solver, I just want to choose solutions. So they'll come and I'll either choose to do A or B or maybe you know what?

[00:17:42] I know C is the better option.

[00:17:44] All right.

[00:17:46] Give them rope.

[00:17:47] I learned this from Bader's. about this in prior episode. I shouldn't have let that last for so long, but I had other things going on that that wasn't the choice I was willing to, that wasn't the path I was going to go down because I had bigger fish to fry at that time. But I knew when that didn't happen, it was a sign of the end. She asked, like, I want to do more, you know, like we had doing pre-COVID logistics while you're running while you're delegating and deciding the plays. I think this is not just with team and employees but people in your life. Listen to them and believe what they say.

[00:20:22] Not just believe what they say, you know, made new policy decisions without letting everyone I didn't find that some of those out until she left. I knew I probably should have let her go use a version of the level 10 meeting like that outline just for our regular meetings because the leadership meeting is the meeting I have when I go hang out by myself.

[00:23:05] Um, but when I met with Kate and Chris and we had Amber, you know, like we would do is when you go to ConEd, you come back and you lead an in-service slash meeting

[00:24:21] and you teach us about it

[00:24:22] and you teach us some techniques.

[00:24:24] And they, a lot of times I would cringe,

[00:24:27] like, oh, I wouldn't teach it that way.

[00:24:28] I wouldn't do that, but Laura comes to the three mastermind retreats, Jake, who's been working with me for I think seven years now, he'll come to one, one or maybe two mastermind retreats a year, or we'll be somewhere else together at some other event.

[00:25:42] So we kind of have that pace. And then there's your personal development,

[00:25:43] your business development, your personal development.

[00:25:46] What are you doing for yourself?

[00:26:42] and trying to actually improve. You may not make much improvement

[00:26:44] because some patterns are really hard to shake,

[00:26:47] some thoughts are really hard to shake,

[00:26:49] but it's being aware of them and growing and going,

[00:26:53] hmm, for example, an employee complains about something,

[00:26:55] you're like, hmm, it sounds like there's a bigger issue

[00:26:59] than just payroll or just the bonus,

[00:27:03] or there's a bigger issue than just like

[00:27:05] who's not cleaning the bathroom.

[00:27:08] So let's talk about the bigger issue. You've heard some of this lessons, but Barry Baptiste wrote, he's got two books. One is Journey into Power, which is more of a yoga practice, but it's got his like 12 laws of transformation, which is really great. And then Being of Power, which isn't a how-to book for yoga. It's more of his philosophy and personal development side because in Baptiste Yoga, there's a lot

[00:28:21] of self discovery and personal development that goes along with it.

[00:28:25] What else are you going to do when you meditate? and ask all an idiot, whatever, I don't care. You might listen to him be like, holy cow, he's speaking the truth, right to me. And that was one of those things where when I was listening, he first came across, I was like, who's this guy? Fold himself. But I actually started listening and I was like, dude, he's speaking right to me.

[00:29:41] Speaking right to me.

[00:29:42] He's not speaking right to me right now,

[00:29:44] but he was speaking right to me back in like 2019. to grow. But if I'm asking other people to grow into something and change and be a better version of themselves and I'm not willing to do that myself, well I'm a hypocrite. I'm a hypocrite if I do that. You're a hypocrite if you do that. If you ask someone to do something you're unwilling to do, you're a hypocrite and people aren't going to want to do it. They're just not going to want it. They're not going to want to follow you into battle if you would never do it yourself.

[00:32:05] like if you're a leader like like I can lead and I can follow I can follow really easy and being a good follower is being a leader, you know Navy Seals you've got what a platoon of 30 people or whatever they're all badass leaders

[00:32:12] But only one person can make decisions on the battlefield

[00:32:16] So for example if I go on a bike ride with a bunch of other people like it's a Saturday morning ride

[00:32:21] And we're gonna go out and ride and I get dropped halfway through

[00:32:24] I don't know how to get home because I'm not paying attention because I'm trusting that everyone else knows where we're going