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Alan Fredendall // #LeadershipThursday // www.ptonice.com In today's episode of the PT on ICE Daily Show, ICE Chief Operating Officer Alan Fredendall discusses the concept of poise, poise gone wrong, and poise gone right. Take a listen to the podcast episode or check out the full show notes on our blog at www.ptonice.com/blog. If you're looking to learn more about courses designed to start your own practice, check out our Brick by Brick practice management course or our online physical therapy courses, check out our entire list of continuing education courses for physical therapy including our physical therapy certifications by checking out our website. Don't forget about all of our FREE eBooks, prebuilt workshops, free CEUs, and other physical therapy continuing education on our Resources tab. EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION INTRODUCTIONHey everybody, Alan here, Chief Operating Officer at ICE. Thanks for listening to the P-10 ICE Daily Show. Before we jump into today's episode, let's give a big shout out to our show sponsor, Jane. in online clinic management software and EMR. The Jane team understands that getting started with new software can be overwhelming, but they want you to know that you're not alone. To ensure the onboarding process goes smoothly, Jane offers free data imports, personalized calls to set up your account, and unlimited phone, email, and chat support. With a transparent monthly subscription, you'll never be locked into a contract with Jane. If you're interested in learning more about Jane or you want to book a personalized demo, head on over to jane.app.switch. And if you do decide to make the switch, don't forget to use our code ICEPT1MO at sign up to receive a one month free grace period on your new Jane account. ALAN FREDENDALLAll right, good morning, PT on ICE Daily Show. Happy Thursday morning, hope your day is off to a great start. My name is Alan, I'm happy to be your host today. Currently have the pleasure of serving as our Chief Operating Officer here at Ice, and the lead faculty in our fitness, athlete, and practice management divisions. Leadership Thursday, we talk all things business ownership, practice management. Leadership Thursday also means it is Gut Check Thursday. So this week's Gut Check Thursday, we have a partner workout. We're working our way with a partner through five rounds, 20 or 15 calories on that rower. Ideally, that's together, side by side, two different rowers. Coming off the rower, moving through 15 synchro toes-to-bar, and then finishing with a little you-go, I-go, working our way through 10 total sandbag cleans. I do one, you do one, until we've done 10. and then resting a minute after each round. That's gonna feel a little bit like anaerobic intervals, a little bit like maybe doing 400 meter repeats on the old cardiovascular system. Our goal there is two to three minutes per round, a minute per rest, get done with all of that work right around the 20 minute mark. I tested that yesterday in the garage, was able to hang with about 230 to 245 per round. My toes to bar are not the best, but a really nice workout, very simple, very easy to warm up. So that is Gut Check Thursday. Speaking of working out, May is Mental Health Awareness Month. We're happy to be partnered with Forging Youth Resilience. You may have seen at the Ice Sampler a couple weeks ago, we did the Ignite workout, a fundraising workout designed to support FIRE and support Mental Health Awareness Month. So all throughout the month of May, you still have time to donate to our campaign, which is for Forging Youth Resilience. We're trying to raise $10,000 to help some of those kids go to camp this summer in July up outside of Boulder, Colorado. So you can find more information about that on our link tree on Instagram. Find all about Forging Youth Resilience. Find all about the Ignite Workout and our fundraising campaign for FIRE. EMOTION CAN SPREAD LIKE A DISEASE Today we're talking about the concept of poise, the definition of poise, of staying in balance or staying in equilibrium. And in the context of today, we're really talking about staying balanced, staying composed, representing poise as it relates both to leadership within the clinic, you and your colleagues and your teammates, but also poise in front of our patients. So the idea of this topic came upon me actually several years ago. Two years ago in June, I had the pleasure of watching Dustin Jones and Jeff Musgrave teach Older Adult Live. down in Kingman, Arizona, and then we took a trip up to the Grand Canyon to do a rim-to-rim hike. So if you have never heard about that, you've never done it, rim-to-rim is half of the hardest thing you can do there, the other being rim-to-rim-to-rim. So starting at the top of the Grand Canyon, hiking down to the base of the Colorado River, and then hiking back up. Some individuals hiking south rim to north rim and then coming back. So many, many miles of hiking, very rough terrain, And this time of the year, spring, summer, very, very, very hot. So stepping off around 4 a.m., hiking down to the Colorado River. If you don't know anything about the Grand Canyon, it's really mentally defeating. It can be because as you come down in elevation, the heat actually goes up, which is not something our bodies are used to happening. So as you get closer to the river, it actually gets very, very hot, sometimes approaching 120 degrees. And then at the hottest point of the hike, at the hottest part of the day, you turn around and hike back up the Grand Canyon. So very, very tough, both physically and mentally. And as Jeff and Dustin and I were making our way back up the Bright Angel Trail, very wide trail, very exposed trail, sandy, not a lot of shade, very hot, very dry. And again, you're already halfway through the hike, so you are already pretty fatigued. And overall, I think it's fair to say that coming back up to the rim to finish the hike, most people are just trying to finish. They're looking forward to being done. And along the Bright Angel Trail, as you come back up, what you encounter along the trail are these things called rest houses. These are just little brick houses for shade that have a well pump nearby so that you can top your water off. And so, Jeff and Dustin and I, coming back up from the base of the river, making our way back out of the canyon, about halfway up, passed by one of these rest houses, decided to stop, take a break, top off our water. And we walked in this rest house, It was packed full every every inch of space had somebody sitting and hiding in the shade. And as we looked around, we realized a lot of these people probably had no business doing that hike. If you've never done the Grand Canyon hike, what you experience when you start the hike is signs everywhere. telling you, asking you, begging you not to do that hike, warning you that usually somebody dies every day hiking the Grand Canyon. It's very tough. It's very hot. And so as we're sitting in this rest house, we were sitting among some folks who maybe should not have been out on that trail. who were in a really tough spot physically and mentally. And unfortunately, on that hike, you're not really in a position where you can give much help to people. You certainly could not throw somebody on your back and carry them out. You're really not in a place where you could afford to give somebody any of your water or your food. Those folks, unfortunately, are just gonna have to wait until the sun goes down, until their body has recovered enough to hike back out of the canyon. And so my first experience with poise and with negative emotions was in that rest house, watching all those people really, really suffering and the three of us kind of sitting down, not as deep in our tank as some of those folks. But really, the longer we sat there, the more we realized kind of how quiet, how defeated those people were, and how that negative emotion, those feelings of maybe hopelessness, of extreme physical and mental fatigue, were actually starting to get into us. The longer we sat there, the longer we rested, the more we kind of let the whole vibe bring us down, even though when we walked into that rest house, we were definitely not in the same mood. And I'll never forget Dustin standing up and saying, okay, let's go. We have to get out of here. It smells like death in here. And what he was saying was, hey, we're actually not as bad off as these people, but if we sit among them for too long, we will convince ourselves that we are. So let's get going. Let's keep making our way Kback out of the canyon. We don't need to sit and rest here and feel bad about ourselves and how tired we are and how much we just want to be done. we can't let those negative emotions affect us. So, realizing that our poise, our balance, our equilibrium, our confidence can rub off on other people near us, and especially the larger group of people that is around, the more people feel a certain way, we can almost palpate those emotions, right? We've all felt that at a concert, or maybe you felt that at church during worship or something, you can feel kind of positive and negative emotions start to infect you almost like a disease. And so recognizing that is a concept that can happen and that we ourselves are in charge of not only how we pick up on other people's poise, but how we demonstrate our poise to someone else. KEEP YOUR POISE: GRIPES GO UP THE CHAIN OF COMMAND And so my second point today is learning a little bit about leadership in the military, going to non-commissioned officer academy, and really learning a foundational leadership concept that when you are frustrated, when you are upset, when you have suggestions, when you don't like the way things are going, your suggestions, your feedback, your complaints, your gripes, call them whatever you want. should always move up the chain of command, they should never move down the chain of command. And very similar to the Grand Canyon story, the idea behind that in the military is poise, is confidence, of we don't want to mislead people, we don't want to lie to them about the current situation, but at the same time, complaining to people beneath us about how tough our job is, or how bad things are going, especially if they think things are going well, and otherwise putting a damper on the situation again, can really bring in those negative emotions, can really start to fester, and really start to spread and infect almost like a disease. That if we're not careful, that if we complain too much about our business, about our clinic, about our patient caseload, about financials, about taxes, about any of the different things that we can have suggestions to improve, that we can have wishes that they were better, that we can have complaints about why they're not better. All of those things When we voice those things, especially to people in leadership positions beneath us, we need to recognize that we're just fostering that environment of negative emotion. And my final point is, why does this really matter? Even if you don't consider yourself in a leadership position, even if you're not in a leadership position in your business, in your clinic, you are in a leadership position with your patients. And just like complaining downstream can really have a lot of negative effects on a whole organization, having that same mindset individually with a patient about your business, about your clinic, about how busy you are, all of those things are concepts, are thoughts, are emotions that our patients are very easily able to pick up on. POISE WITH PATIENTS So my third point is, your poise matters probably the most with the patient in front of you. I truly believe it's our job to make that person feel welcome, to make them feel like their concerns are valid, and that we do have a way to help them, and probably most importantly, our poise is that we are excited about helping them. Not every patient that walks in is a high-level athlete and it's really fun to help them improve their snatch or their clean and jerk or something like that. Some folks come in and we know those patients. They are very deconditioned. Their therapy protocol can look very low-level to us, but it is our poise. It is how much We make it seem exciting to do things like sets of sit-to-stands, and one-pound dumbbell bent-over rows, and really partial range of motion burpees, and that we clap it up the first time that person's able to transfer on and off a bike for the first time, for an example. and that our poise, our balance, is always, if not neutral, erring on the side of positive. And when we really step back and question what are the benefits to having negative poise, to letting this person know how busy we are, how many patients we have on our schedule, how far away we think they are from the finish line, that really does not do anything to meaningfully move that person closer to their goals. If anything, it might keep them or slow them down from their goals if they pick up on the idea that they are not doing well, that their function is not great, that they are maybe making slower progress than we'd like to see. If they're able to perceive that, then we know those emotions can spread and those emotions can become reality. So being very careful with our own poise, making sure that when we have complaints about what's going on in the clinic, what's going on with our schedule, whatever is happening in our life, that those complaints go up the chain of command, that our patients don't hear them, that folks who work with us in leadership positions beneath or to the side of us don't hear about them, that those gripes, those complaints, those suggestions, those feedback things go up the chain of command so that the poise of the organization at least again stays neutral, ideally trending towards positive. Knowing the effect that those negative emotions can have. Despair, bad mood can really spread like wildfire if we're not careful to control it. And so recognizing when you show up for that patient your poise really, really matters. How steady you seem, how confident you seem, even how confident you seem and maybe not knowing something plays a big role into your poise. Hey, you know what? I don't know the answer to that question at all, but I'm going to look into that and as soon as I find out the answer or I find out somebody who maybe has the answer, I'm going to put you into contact with that person. So just trust me, that even if I don't know, it's okay that I don't know, and I'm going to help you find a solution. Just that poise, that level of confidence that we display, can go a really long way in patient buy-in. That if they leave the clinic and they feel like, man, my therapist knows what's going on, they know what I need to work on, they're happy, they're excited, they're stoked, they're measuring my progress, they're letting me know how I'm doing towards working towards my goals, and that overall it feels like a really positive environment, It's no surprise that those patients tend to show up for more therapy, they tend to do better in their plan of care, and even when their plan of care is done, they tend to be the folks that recommend new patients for us. And so, in those cases, having a really strong, confident, positive poise rewards everybody. SUMMARY So think about that the next time you're getting ready to stand up from your desk, you're getting ready to start your day, you're getting ready to restart your day after lunch break or something like that. Check your poise…
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