Read the conversation below
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Welcome to the True Sports Physical Therapy podcast. As always, this is your host Yoni. I have an awesome guest today, Dr. Timothy Michael Stone, who has so much to teach us. We're really gonna get into Tim's ability to grow as a leader in a sports PT clinic. So Tim, to get us rolling, how the hell did you get here?
Dr. Timothy Stone: So it's a long and convoluted story but pretty clear and concise in terms of what my goals and things were from a pretty young age. I grew up playing every sport under the sun, I just loved being outside. Growing up in Australia, nine or 10 months of good sun. So we spent a ton of time doing outside stuff. Fell in love with lacrosse and had a bunch of injuries doing that, but while I was going through my early childhood playing, I fell in love with the training aspect of that. I actually even remember going to the supermarket with my mom when I was a kid and...
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: With your?
Dr. Timothy Stone: Mom.
Dr. Timothy Stone: And we would go to the health nutrition section, and I was obsessed with the fitness magazines and all that kind of stuff. So I don't think at the time I really understood that that was kind of like a passion of mine, but in hindsight, you look back at those things that you did when you were a little kid, and I think that really shaped what I wanted to do. As I kinda grew up and got old, I realized from the people around me and professionals that I saw working in the fitness industry, I kind of figured that it might be pretty tough to be a personal trainer or be in the fitness industry and also have financial success. And so there's a lot of people that have broken that stigma, but I think it is quite tough to do that, and so... I had a neighbour that was a PT, a high level PT. And yeah, I sort of clung on to that, had a couple of injuries as a kid and fell in love with that, so I really wanted to do this when I was 13 or 14.
Dr. Timothy Stone: So I think that's unusual for having a goal set when you're that young. I went through high school and got placed in a college in Australia and did about a year, a year and a half of physio or physiotherapy, which is pretty synonymous with PT school here, but obviously it's a Bachelors, so you could start right away. At the same time, I was looking to come and play lacrosse and still continue my career there, and so I had an opportunity to come play lacrosse in the US, and so I just kinda dropped everything, cut the PT route out, went back to exercise science and came to the US to play lacrosse, and took the more traditional route through PT school. So undergrad at Salisbury and then University of Maryland for my grad school.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: So you did a full year of PT studies in Australia?
Dr. Timothy Stone: Yeah.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Okay. You drop that, you come here, it's important to mention your success on the field at Salisbury. So lay that out for us.
Dr. Timothy Stone: That might be an embellishment a little bit.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: I haven't said anything yet, that I could embellish, but go ahead.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Yeah, I came... I was a freshman and walked out in the spring season to a team that eventually, for the two years, lost one game and was voted best team of the decade, so I think I was the last guy to make the cut in my freshman year. I probably wasn't far away in my sophomore year, and then we had a huge clean out in terms of talent, I think we had more all-Americans, like my sophomore year than we had players on the field at one time, so it was a pretty crazy transition and then...
Dr. Timothy Stone: And I think this speaks to some of the things we're gonna talk about. Now, even though I wasn't a big player on the field at the time, I always strived to be a leader off the field, and so when I came back my junior I was elected a captain, and then, sort of got a little bit more playing time. And yes, I finished out my school there, and really my decision around going to PT school here is like any great expat, go to college, meet a foreign girl, fall in love, and it changes your whole trajectory. And so that's really why I stayed in the States and went to PT school here.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: You thought you would have gone back to Perth?
Dr. Timothy Stone: 100%, yeah.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Okay. The plan was to do that?
Dr. Timothy Stone: Yeah.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: I don't often pull guests' personal lives in to the pod, I think it's interesting, in this instance, or I wanna highlight that in this instance, because you've done an awesome job from what I've seen from the outside, juggling both career and family. So just tell us about what you got going on at home.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Yeah. That has been an absolute massive portion, I think it is of everyone's lives in terms of choosing their career path. I think every PT that's interested in sports wants to go work in the NFL or NHL or MLB or something like that. But if you talk to anybody that's been through that process, they all say that's a short portion of maybe your career, and once they move on from that, it's always because of the travel, the time commitment doing that. I had the same passions, wanted to go to grad school, do my residency and go into that professional route, life has the different idea about how things are gonna go, and so in my senior or my final year of grad school, right before I was gonna go on clinicals, my wife and I got pregnant, and sort of changed our trajectory. And so I really had to look at shuffling things around and see how I'm gonna make my career work and really like the thing that came to mind was like, "It's not possible to do this sports thing, not in the pro setting and have financial success as well."
Dr. Timothy Stone: And so I really kinda initially gave up on that idea of being able to be in private practice, seeing athletes and being able to grow financially and support my family, so it was like, do you put your family's goals and financial stability above your own aspirations and things like that. And so that's really what the decision I made initially before having the opportunity to come here, obviously.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Okay. So get a little more specific about that. You get your doctorate from UMB University of Maryland, Baltimore. Your first job is what?
Dr. Timothy Stone: Yeah, so I took my first job at my last internship, which is an outpatient place in Sarasota, Florida. It was nice, really nice clinic, and it was interesting, I learned some portion of the business side there because it was a small clinic, the owner of it was at the grassroots or ground level of turning the business into a franchise that ended up getting purchased by a huge venture capitalist group that now has 350 clinics. The clinic I was working was clinic number one. And so I got to see a little bit of that transition, it was just in such a different feel to what I was interested in, and so it wasn't stimulating from a professional clinical perspective.
Dr. Timothy Stone: But I really did see the opportunity to grow in that facility. Like we talked about before, I just knew that it wasn't gonna be something I was passionate about doing. And if you're working 60-70 hours a week doing something that sucks and the only thing that you have to look forward to, or look at that's positive, is your bank account and maybe the stability for your family. It's hard to do it in that time, in the hours that you're staying late or in the hours that you're coming early. If you're not passionate about doing it, I think that's hard to really make that commitment. It's not not doable. I think people do it every day, and I'm just fortunate enough to end up marrying those two things together, I think.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Okay. So you move on from Florida and you come back to Baltimore. Walk me through where you started at True Sports? What brought you up to True Sports and where you are today, and what that role is?
Dr. Timothy Stone: I think we'd dive into a little bit of like our history in regards to that, so as I'm going through PT school, you had a good connection with some of the students at University of Maryland, and I wanted to get into the sports route. You were really the only person giving students opportunities to come in and treat with you, sit with you, talk with you, and then also go out and treat with you in the real world.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: That's 'cause I didn't have many patients, I just had plenty of time.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Plenty of time and not enough money to hire enough staff, to go and help in the community.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: There you go. Yeah, thats exactly right.
Dr. Timothy Stone: The first event I did with you was the Mac, the Mid-atlanitc Cross Fit Challenge. I'd probably screwing that name.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Close enough.
Dr. Timothy Stone: So me and a couple of other classmates came out and helped you with that and... Just get... That was like the bug that solidified back then, that this is what I wanna do, work with people who are high performers and elite level athletes, and so I think when I was working in Florida, you texted me and said, do you have any classmates who would be interested in becoming a sports PT with us, we're hiring. I think I suggested a few names, and then you said, What about you? So that's how we kinda got started.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: And then you came up here, started as a staff PT. What are the next steps?
Dr. Timothy Stone: Yeah, so I think there was 25 conversations before we managed to make that happen. And just talking about the family side of things, I think, which is important too, that's really what had to work for us to make that decision. And so I don't think I made that decision on my own, I had to make sure that worked for our family, and so we had the option and to do that and negotiate that contract, and did you put things in there that made you comfortable, but really, I think it's... In hindsight it was kind of crazy.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Hold on, you also put things in there to make you comfortable.
Dr. Timothy Stone: I did. I did.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Okay. Just to be clear. Okay.
Dr. Timothy Stone: I did. I think that the line said that you just don't say no to more work right, I think that you put that on there.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: I put that on there.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Something like that. And so, yeah, so I think in hindsight it was a wild decision to go down not really knowing my clinical proficiency to start with.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: I think it speaks to... By the way, you were an athlete, I worked with you a couple of times, you and I had enough of a relationship for me to understand that you're a worker. You're a grinder. The clinical side, I could teach anyone. You could teach anyone that can be taught, I cannot make you a worker, cannot make you a grinder, so it's easy to have those conversations once you've already proven you can do those things, I'm not worried about your clinical proficiency.
Dr. Timothy Stone: I think you used to say that, but I think the second thing you've also said to me when I walked in, was, Are you even a good PT?
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: But a distant second. Okay.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Yes, distant second.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: But it is important and you're passionate enough, and when you're passionate about this field, the information is everywhere, it's easy to find, so you'll make yourself a good clinician, and that's really what you did. So how long did you spend at staff PT before we said, alright, let's grow this then.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Yeah, I think we decided that in bringing me up here, the goal was always to expand quickly, you were at that point in time when you were ready to make that leap and had just signed your first additional clinic up in Timonium. So straight away, really. But we opened our first clinic officially, I think three or four months after I started in Howard County, and I sort of started trickling out that way. Obviously there were no patients, we had no market share out there, not many connections other than the ones that we produced from Baltimore, and so I was working four days a week in Fell's Point, one day in Woodbine, and then two days and three days, and three and two, and then four and one, and then kinda built it slowly from that sense, but that was a nice transition, it allowed me to have enough volume as a new grad still to get reps and get better, but then also have the benefit to grow something beyond just being a staff PT as well. So it was a nice transition and much nicer, I think, than other situations that I've heard of, or encountered where people would just go off on their own as a new grad even and set up their own clinic in a CrossFit it facility or in a gym and expect to be able to grow something because of the connections within a community.
Dr. Timothy Stone: You may have those connections, but you need mentors, like I needed to learn from Mary, Chelsea and yourself, I needed to do that and have a volume and a consistency to do that, to be able to apply that to a new location. So that was super helpful. Having that transition.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: And so just to clarify, so we started at Fell's Point in Baltimore City, that new clinic, that Woodbine clinic was about 40 minutes outside the city. So you would commute up there, it was a totally different market that we were able to lean on from our connections from Baltimore, but there was a tremendous amount of grassroots efforts on your behalf on the company's behalf to just try to grow that thing, solidify that thing. And also you make mention of the reps clinically. I also wanna highlight, you got the opportunity, and it's important that the audience understands to get reps on the business side, get reps marketing, get reps closing, and get reps selling, all those things that create this volume that can support a high level functioning clinic. I saw you grow through those. What do you remember from that time period?
Dr. Timothy Stone: I actually remember texting you when I was in Florida, I think this was like just before you asked me. So it's maybe in the spark of the conversation, where you're asking, do we have it? Do I know any PTs that wanna come up here, 'cause I think we had been disconnected for a little while. I remember asking you because I was bored in my clinic and I wanted to see athletes and I knew there was a couple of high schools in my area, I wanted to get those athletes and so I know you do workshops. You do outreach and things like that. The questions I had was like, what do you do in a workshop that actually gets someone to come into the clinic instead of just providing the freebie that people say, "Great, and then walk away."
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: What's the answer to that?
Dr. Timothy Stone: Yeah.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: What is the hook that you're providing your audience at that workshop that leads to patient visits that Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday that trails it?
Dr. Timothy Stone: I don't think it's one thing. There's a couple of things, so I can mention those. I think initially, the connection is there, I always also operate under that idea of that, like give, give, give, give, give and then ask. And so I think that's important. So that's what you're doing in the workshop, that's what you're doing 10 minutes after the workshop when you ask people for questions and they come up. That's what you do when you bring a table with you and do a real treatment with someone on the table right there so you're giving, giving, giving, giving. Your ask is then, "hey, look, we've identified these three or four things that are issues here, and I've also given you a couple of things to work on at home. But you need this expertise to take it all the way back onto the field or take it all the way back into the wait room, it's not possible to achieve those things or it's highly improbable to achieve those things unless you do seek a professional." So outlining that, giving people that trajectory, I think it is important, and so that follows that marketing piece or that sales piece of that give, give, give, give, ask, and then beyond that, really, the next piece is just getting a physical contact number. I think that's where we see people fall short when they do these interactions, is they're not able to gain that next level, which is getting someone's cellphone number or getting their email or whatever it is.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: You gotta breakdown those barriers to staying in touch to allow them to schedule whatever it is. So, great point, you gotta get their number so that you can be in touch. You gotta give them information so that they can be in touch. Make it a two-way street, but take your laptop that has your schedule on it.
Dr. Timothy Stone: 100%.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Book them today.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Yeah, yeah, so take your laptop, book them, if you have mobile booking. If you don't, another great way to do it is if you're an in-network business is to ask them what insurance carrier do they have. Let me see if I can take that to our front office and run your benefits and let you know if we take your insurance and things like that. Okay, sure. How do I get you that information? Here is my cell phone number. Let's take a picture of the front and the back of your card, give me your birthday, and I'll pass that along to our front office. That's a great way to start a text chain because there's gonna be a conversation about what your benefits are in that text chain. From that you can just lay it into the booking. You have 30 visits this year, your copay is $30, how does Friday look?
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: I love it. It also allows you to show that patient that you give a damn about how they feel. "I know I taught you those pelvic tilts, those dead bugs, that hip mobility exercise. How did it feel? Did it help? Did it hurt? Are you better? Are you worse? Are you free Friday, 'cause we can build on that." But at least it opens that line of communication. Back to your career path and how you got to where you were, those little principles that you just highlighted in the marketing, you started doing... My God, you were infatiguable. Well, you did that all over the place, started building a following in that one clinic in Woodbine. That was an interesting turning point for the company because at that point, I think onlookers from the outside started to see what the value we could bring. We started getting inbound calls to say, "Hey, can you open up a clinic here? We got this gym. We got this facility." And so that's really spurred the growth of True Sports. You did it a number of times. You opened three, four clinics before you and I started talking about your next role. So first, when you open those three and four clinics, you're Regional Director, then what happens from there?
Dr. Timothy Stone: Yeah, so this is about probably a year ago, we started talking about this. We're growing at a really rapid rate through and beyond that COVID pandemic aera that expanded and really pushed us into a severe upward trajectory. I think...
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Which is why everyone listening to this pod should send their resumes and cover letter to us at pod@truesportspt.com. Go ahead.
Dr. Timothy Stone: 100%, we're always looking for great sports brains.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Always looking for great ones.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Yeah, so we're growing at a rapid rate. You were comfortable in opening clinics because when you had given out that task to do it, it had gone well, right? And part of that was my ability to have tons of touch-points with you, right? And so I'm able to learn how to do that with a mentor, the way that you wanna do it, the way that you described, True Sports on a piece of paper, or in your notebook in 2015. As we grow faster and faster, we have other people doing that. And so as we're doing that, you are unable to have as many touch points, and you're unable to have that oversight into those things. And so in that scenario, you start to get some inconsistencies between clinics and things like that, so this idea was born out of that. How can we add touch-points for people who understand the brand the most? And so that's really where this idea came of, instead of me running four clinics, I would help manage the people that run four clinics each, because we'd successfully done that together and I kinda understand the blueprint of doing that. And so that is really what launched into this new role, is how can I support the people that grow the business from a brick and mortar or from like an expansion perspective.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: And so that's our chief of operations role. And so you're in charge of now, all those regional directors. We have 13 clinics total today. The overseers of those regions report up to you. And so you're this leader in this sports clinic. I think it's worthwhile to highlight, it is awesome to have this career ladder. For clowns like me and you who are so motivated to continue to get better and grow, very often when you're in this privately owned outpatient world, there are ceilings, there are not ladders, there are not different trajectories in which you can go. We're trying constantly to try to create that and iterate that so that we can keep a guy like Tim Stone motivated, incentivized and just growing and continue to get better. And you are a big piece of creating that ladder and those different structures. Why do you think you're so good at your current position?
Dr. Timothy Stone: Why do you think I'm good at my position?
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: I'm sorry, my mic cut out. What was that?
Dr. Timothy Stone: I said why do you think I'm good at that position?
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: I don't think... Who said you're good at...
[laughter]
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Tell us why you think you're great at being a COO.
Dr. Timothy Stone: I think the main thing that springs to mind is that I'm really easily able to figure out what the narrative or what the main goals are of the business. I think I'm really good at being able to make that my primary goal. And whatever situation comes my way, I'm able to redirect and figure out how this situation will benefit the business and the brand, rather than myself, or rather than how the staff PT is gonna feel about this interaction so much, or how... What the trickle-down effect is of this particular decision on the business. Having that clarity of what the main objective is and what the main goal is, I think is what makes me good at what I do. Executing that is difficult, because...
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: If it was easy, everyone would do it.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Right. When one of the main goals of the business... The main goal of the business is to treat high-level athletes the best in our areas. When you have to have a conversation with a new grad or someone who's onboarding about what that means, about the time commitment that means, and that might eat into your outside life a little bit. Or you may have to text a patient or a physician, or you might have to go to an appointment with someone, you might have to do these little extra things. It's easy to have that conversation when you understand that the end result meets the goal of the business.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: It's easy to have that conversation when you're doing it yourself, and I think that's another piece that makes you outstanding. At your role... I don't disagree with everything you just said. You have an unbelievable ability to be very clear-eyed as to where you wanna go, where the business wants to go. Those two things at this point are lock-in step. Also, you're doing the work that goes around that, you're not simply delegating, and I think that goes a long way to those who report up to you. That and your accent.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Which I don't have much of left anymore. [laughter] That's an inverse relationship between time and success around other Americans and maintaining your voice.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: That's fair. What is your secret? Speaking of other Americans that you surround yourself with, what is your secret to balancing your family life and your work life?
Dr. Timothy Stone: That question, in its sense, it's just so hard to answer, I think. I hate that notion, I hate the notion of work-life balance because there isn't... That notion suggest that when you're doing one thing, you're taking it away from something else, instead of, "I'm doing this thing to support this thing, and I'm doing the other thing to help support the other thing." And so I think that work-life balance is like something that has gotten so far away from what that originally was intended to. It's like a balances and checks thing. If I give you three extra hours of my time, when are you gonna give that back to me? Or the reverse is, if you don't see three patients in the clinic today because you haven't filled or are they cancel on you, when do you add the three hours on the weekend to do marketing for me? And so that's just this... I hate that, that's grimy. So I think that the best way to look at this is, for me, it was to just... Especially early on in your career, dive into this.
Dr. Timothy Stone: If you can give 70 hours... I wasn't fortunate enough to maybe not have a relationship, or not have kids to come home to and do that, but if you're in that situation as a new grad, you're never gonna have a better time to do 70 hours of work. You're also never gonna be able to go out maybe on the weekend and come in the next day and then do 12 hours of work. 30 plus, I can't do that anymore. I need my eight hours. I need to be fresh, and I also need to be at home to help my family when I can. So even if you have that opportunity, my advice on that is to just have a really shitty work balance. Have a really crappy work balance. Just work a lot, because when you do have those things, you're really gonna want your work balance a little bit more, and so you can't do those unless you're in a position to do that. On a year-to-year schedule, or like a week-to-week or a month-to-month schedule, I try to plan out what it's gonna look like. So I know my main niche is with college athletes, and that's where I'm really truly passionate about treating that stuff.
Dr. Timothy Stone: So those are only really available during the summer and those winter break periods. And so I treat a lot during those times, and so that means that I need to be at work a little bit later at night. During semester when school's in period, then I have a little bit more flexibility. I drop some more patients off my schedule, and I do a little bit more work in the office. I can come home a little bit early and be with my family a little bit. So, I think that's important to have like a yearly schedule, or a quarterly schedule, like what's it gonna look like and maybe have that conversation with your partner or your spouse.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: It is interesting. I think that's something that you and I have learned is trying to read the seasonality of this profession and the rhythms that transpire, and to say, "We know this is our downtime." That's when you can ease up a bit, whether it's...
Dr. Timothy Stone: Take a vacation.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Take a vacation. Because otherwise you're sitting in the clinic on your thumb, right? You're not doing anything, so you might as well take it then rejuvenate. But being able to come up with some projections around that, I think is sage advice.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Yeah, I think the communication piece, which I know is a part of this in terms of communicating with your spouse or whomever has your time or attention outside of the clinic is important, it's something that I stink at, something that I need to get better at. You're sure you're in the same...
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: What?
Dr. Timothy Stone: Boat.
[laughter]
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: I don't know why you would say that.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Yeah, so I think that helps. I think that allows or would adjust for 90% of the disagreements that I have at home. It's that like they just don't know where I am, what I'm doing.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: And it can be tough when you're in front of a patient, you just can't get to that phone. You can't have the meaningful conversation. So foresight planning and trying to communicate is awesome advice. Let me just write that down.
[laughter]
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: That's really important. Tell everyone, how many kids you got, how many dogs you got.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Two dogs.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Two dogs.
Dr. Timothy Stone: They are at our house 50% of the time. The other 50%, they seem to run away, so they don't take a lot of managing. And then I have a six-year-old daughter, three-and-a-half year-old daughter, and a 20-month old son.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: And then over the next few months, any plans?
Dr. Timothy Stone: Yeah, so we're expecting twins in a couple of months, so will be a family of 7, 9 if you include the dogs as well.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Super impressive to hear. Here's why. I didn't think someone with that type of family could do what you do for a living and treat high level athletes. To your original point, those used to be mutually exclusive, or at least damn near impossible to do both of them well. I'm thrilled and proud that we have created something that can support a family life like that, and you're treating the world's best athletes.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Yeah, I am very fortunate to be able to be in this position, and my family is fortunate as well to be able to do this. And we talked about this before, like marrying the sports, private sports PT thing with financial growth and success and like a good outlook and a high ceiling and all those kinds of things. I'm really fortunate to be in that position to be able to do that. I'm probably more fortunate to have a wife that...
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Gets it?
Dr. Timothy Stone: Yeah, she understands it and is pretty resilient, and is an all-time mom. There are hours that she has with our kids, the patience that she has with our kids, and the things that she can do to help them grow up is...
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Is she listening to this?
Dr. Timothy Stone: Absolutely not. I hope not. [laughter] But that's division of labor. For eight hours with my kids, I'm not a huge... I'm not super productive in their life. Her eight hours given there, it's more productive for them in their life. She's better at that than I am. She also would vomit at the idea of going to work for eight hours a day. That's not what she wants to do.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Or 12.
Dr. Timothy Stone: What's that?
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Or 12.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Or 12, yeah.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: It's just amazing that you have figured that out. I thank you for kind of bringing that outlook into the company. The ability to do that and to support both is awesome. Now, as you've grown, you've reached this COO level, and so you're managing other leaders within the company. What do you look for in an outstanding leader that you're gonna help along?
Dr. Timothy Stone: Pretty much all of the lame cliche things that you think about. I think the first thing is like a grinder mentality or hard work. There's just no way around that. If you wanna work 40 hours a week, you're not making six figures plus. It's very hard to do that. Nobody in this world does that. You have to be able to have the ability to work more when you need to work more, and then when you don't have to work more, you don't have to work more.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Forget six figures, because I've learned that that's not always what motivates people. It motivates a lot of people, but it's not always what motivates people. I don't even know if you're treating the athletes you wanna treat.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Sure, sure, and that is the other thing. So you have to be able to create the niche or create the referrals. You're never gonna be part of a company that's going out specifically looking for you to treat the best of the best in that world. That's unachievable. Sure, they're gonna get you volume, sure they might get your age demographic, sure they're gonna get your outpatient, sure they're gonna get you maybe on the higher level of living status. But you can't treat a college football player unless you create a relationship with college football players, and that takes time outside of the clinic. And when we're looking for leaders, that's the first thing because it's the first example. I think you shared this about me earlier in the conversation. You just could tell when we spoke that, and you had some references for me that told you that I worked hard and had a particular niche, and so that's maybe the first thing. Can you work hard and do you have a particular niche, and then can you grow that that niche? So there's no substitution for that, you hear that a million times. Like you will not progress as a leader unless you cannot work hard.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: You talk about developing relationships with that college football player in that example. I think it's also important to highlight, you gotta develop relationships with those who are helping you try to grow, with your mentors. I'll give you an example. A leader that directly reports to you, who you've done an unbelievable job, Tim, of bringing along, I needed his help. And so I had a professional football player who I needed to get in at a certain time. And I was booked, I was working with another athlete and I said to the therapist, "Can you treat... " It was almost before I finished the text. He was like, "Yes, yes, yes. I can stick around and treat." And so that's the grind, but it's also... He's top of mind to me, because I have a... He developed relationship not just with the football players, but with me. And so how well can you solidify your relationships with your mentors, with your mentees, it goes both ways, so that they can support your growth? What else are you doing, Tim, to support the growth of your team?
Dr. Timothy Stone: I think there's a number of things. One of the big key points of what my goals are as COO for us is to support the internal growth of True Sports. And we haven't had as much of a focus on that, 'cause we've had so much outward growth. And so that focus is really allowing us to help support people grow within our company. So things like face-to-face mentorship with you or I, if they're in leadership positions, those things are super important. Adding positions to our company that aren't just management. So it used to be that if you are good and your work hard, we just talked about that, your only logical progression is to become a clinic director. Well, that's not everyone's traits, it's not everyone's strong point. We have some PTs who are amazing on the research side or the clinical side, who are just so passionate about finding the nuances of the latest and greatest. That stuff's important to us because our product is very important to us. And so creating a position where someone who is elite at that can grow into that role has been something that we have really worked on.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: What's that role? Define that role.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Yeah, so we have two roles that we've opened that do that. One is our head of continuing education, and so that role described is someone who's creating content and courses for the public. And so we're in the process of doing things like that, whether it be post-op rehab for a specific joint or a rehab for specific type of athlete, or concepts of strength and conditioning apply to PT. Different ideas there.
Dr. Timothy Stone: There's a number of things that we're working on doing that, or just creating relationships with other companies that already have that going. So, can we create a relationship where all 50 of our PTs get continuing education from a particular company that we see eye to eye with. So that's kind of that role in a nutshell. The other one is Clinical Education or Head Clinical Education, and that one is basically like... The goal is to create as many relationships that we have with other colleges and institutions, and create a pipeline or a network of students. So we can give new grads, or we can give third-year students an idea about what this is and what it looks like to be a sports PT so that they're better prepared when they do graduate if they want to go into that role or route, that they understand what it entails. But to bring in more opportunities for us, it's like an onboarding experience for us. There's no better onboarding experience for us than having someone under one of our already established PTs waiting for, or guidance for 12 weeks before we then go ahead and hire them.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Your ideas around that have been eye-opening for me. We've also done Director of Lacrosse Operations. We've done Director Of Basketball Operations, and seeing these clinicians grow into those roles that isn't necessarily management but it's diving into a sport they love, it's also opened the door to have our team of PTs which is 40 strong come to leadership and say, "I wanna do X."
Dr. Timothy Stone: Yeah.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: How do we create this? You and I were on a phone call this morning in which I refer to our company as super-nimble in that we can create those ladders. So, if you're looking to work for True Sports and you have a specific interest, I'm very interested in hearing about it. If you're working somewhere else and just geographically you can't work for us, I think it's a great idea to take this model and go to your supervisor, go to your leaders and say, "I wanna hone in on... " fill in the blank, "I wanna be a Clin-Ed person, I wanna be a Con-Ed person. I wanna be the overhead athlete guy. How can I bring value to the company?" And then in turn, the value the company brings is, maybe it's monetary, but also maybe it's... You're gonna be in charge of that.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Yeah.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: You're gonna own that. That's your own business inside of this.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Yeah, or maybe a portion of it too that's more meaningful to you is that you're able to go out during business hours and work on that stuff, and you're gonna bring that information back to company, maybe you don't have to treat the full productivity that you're expecting in your clinic and you have some time to do some other things and work on other things, but you only get that opportunity if you show the ability to bring value as you do that.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: I'll tell you what, that makes me think of is when I have sit-downs with co-workers and they say to me, "You know, I want another five grand." My question is, "Why?" And their answer is, "I feel like I am worth X." Number one, that earning potential is not what you as a person is worth, it's what your work product is worth, and if you can bring me more value, whether it be in terms of one of these roles that you and I mentioned or something else, great, that's worth another dollar figure. It's not you, it's what you produce.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Yeah, I think... And here's an interesting perspective on that too because I've been in the position asking for that from you, many times.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Many, many times.
[laughter]
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: But also, I haven't been doing this long enough to forget that I too was always asking.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Sure, for sure. Yeah, so I think having the mindset that understanding what you need out of this, that interaction to give me the $5000 extra is more important than what I need in asking for it. Because if you come from an angle where you understand what that means from the business to give you $5000, everybody understands that if a business is giving $5000, they can't receive zero, one, two, three or four or $5000 back, they have to be able to produce on top of that to make things work, or else you're just a single person running your own business, where whatever five grand you pull in, you put out, and things like that. We're not in that position unless it's you. That's your role, that's your position. You can make that decision for your own salary and things like that, but when you work for somebody else, whatever you're asking for has to come back and some. And so if you can go into that conversation understanding that if I'm asking for five grand, how can I add 10 grand to the business? From a really simple math perspective, your boss is gonna say, "Yeah, sure." [chuckle]
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Yeah, "Can you do double that?"
Dr. Timothy Stone: Right. If you're asking for five grand, and you're gonna lose the business five grand because for what you do, and change your role, you're gonna take time out of your workday, and you want more money, it doesn't excite a business owner to do that, or a boss to do that. I think you then walk away from that conversation, both people are kinda upset about the conversation. On the COO, your boss' will see... CEO, sorry, position. Like the boss is upset because they know that you walked away from that conversation not fulfilled in a sense. And they wanna make you and keep you happy and they've just told you no. And then from the staff PT perspective too, or the leadership position PT perspective too, you didn't get what you want. And so, bringing that conversation or interaction in a way that there's 90% chance that it's gonna happen from just like a dollar and cents perspective, just opens up so much more options or avenues and the relationship building, rather than separating or any sort of adverse feelings.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: How do you learn that?
Dr. Timothy Stone: I don't know, I think that's just having the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Where did you learn the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes?
Dr. Timothy Stone: I have no idea.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Book, life experience, past mentors?
Dr. Timothy Stone: I don't have an answer for you. If I was to guess, it's just upbringing, right? It's just your experiences, like as a kid, how you made people feel when you're a kid, or as you're growing up through high school, through college. If I do something to you and it makes you feel bad, if you can feel that, then you can understand [chuckle] that maybe in the next interaction that I have with you, I don't wanna make you feel like that. And so, how would the thing that I'm gonna do to you make you feel? I think that's what that is. I don't necessarily purposefully learnt that, I don't think.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Do you think that's what makes you a good sports PT?
Dr. Timothy Stone: I don't know the answer to that.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Let me rephrase that question. What do you think makes you a great sports PT?
[laughter]
Dr. Timothy Stone: The ability to understand what someone else is going through and how what you do to them is gonna make them feel. No, I'm not just kidding, that the same thing paraphrase. [chuckle] No, what I really think about that question is, first trust. I think that's... If I would have given myself an A-plus on something, it's trust, and so everybody that comes to see me knows that they have... They're gonna get and build a lot of trust in the relationship. And so, that comes from doing more than just seeing them for the 45 minutes that we see them during the time that they're in the clinic. We say this a lot, like with post-up people like, "You're making me lose sleep at night." Like those types of things, and you have to be genuine about it, like does it? Or do you walk out of the clinic and you don't remember them until the next day? Those things, taking it personal... Their success is my success, and if they're successful, there's so many avenues of business growth from that sense, but also like personal growth and network growth and things like that. Like I care if you make it back to the level that you wanna get to. I care if you get an offer to play in college because that's what you told me you wanted to do. If you don't do that, I take that as a failure on my part. If you do rehab with me and you have another injury, that keeps me up at night. Like that sucks, I don't like that.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: That's a really high level of empathy, which I think is what you're describing. I think that does absolutely make you a great sports PT, the way you show that empathetic side. I'll give you an example. This past week, I got to work with a major league baseball player. I've worked with him for a couple of years now. We finished our session an hour on the clock. I looked down at my phone and I just made sure that we did all the exercises that I had put in my phone previously the night before. He looked down on my phone, saw that that's what I was doing, and just give me a fist bump and said, "Good prep today. Thanks." I've been doing this job long enough that I could mail that session in. I think it mattered more to him than it did to me, and even the session that I gave a damn the night before to put together a routine that I thought would help him succeed at his stated goals. Now, his stated goals are hitting 30 bombs a year, and hopefully signing a big contract that's no different than the kid who would just dying to get back on the field one last time. So it's that level of empathy, and there's so many ways to show it.
Dr. Timothy Stone: For sure. That's just like giving a crap, right? There's a number of ways to show that you give a crap, one of them is planning for the session.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Yeah.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Two of them is like making the sessions progressively more difficult. That shows that you've remember what you did last time, and you wanna make a change to it this time. Three is building trust, like texting your patient, possibly, like having an interaction out or at whatever form of manner that you do that in, like having a way to communicate outside the clinic. Communicating with their physician, their coach, all of those things are...
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Or your colleague, their PT, right?
Dr. Timothy Stone: Yeah.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Show them, "Hey, I just spoke to Tim. He said you did this. We're gonna make sure you can do that." Totally resonates with the patient. That's definitely the feedback we've gotten. If you take a step back, think about yourself at University of Maryland, Baltimore. You're in class. What's the year?
Dr. Timothy Stone: Graduate 2017.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: So you graduated in 2017. So let's say 2016, you're sitting in class, you just had your hip scoped, you're thinking about what your career is gonna be.
Dr. Timothy Stone: I knew this conversation would come up about the hip scope. I was gonna ask you about it.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: What? That's not where I was going though.
Dr. Timothy Stone: I think we should go down that route.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: You wanna jump in about hip scope?
Dr. Timothy Stone: This was more about the trajectory of how I got to where I was and our interaction of how we met.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Wait, wait, wait, we're going into hip scopes now, or you want me to finish that question?
Dr. Timothy Stone: No, you're gonna describe your first interactions with me...
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Not the plan, but I'm happy to.
Dr. Timothy Stone: And... We'll flip the script here, and why you still took a chance on me when I didn't take a chance on you.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Freaking piss me off that you didn't take a chance on me.
[laughter]
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: You really wanna bring that up?
Dr. Timothy Stone: Yeah.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Okay.
Dr. Timothy Stone: People wanna know.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Okay. Well, I'm not gonna share your past medical history outside of that one liner about your hip scope. So you share your past medical history and then I'll chime in.
Dr. Timothy Stone: I had a hip scope and was looking for a place to rehab.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Did you call me?
Dr. Timothy Stone: No.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Should you have called me?
Dr. Timothy Stone: Yes.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: So what do you choose to do instead?
Dr. Timothy Stone: I chose another place to go to.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: In Baltimore. It's not like you went back to Australia, you're in Baltimore.
Dr. Timothy Stone: No, no no. Further. Further than Fell's Point.
[laughter]
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Further than right next to your school? And you chose to rehab your hip there. Why?
Dr. Timothy Stone: Because they had turf.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: They had green turf.
Dr. Timothy Stone: They had green turf.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Was that a good decision?
Dr. Timothy Stone: It was not a great decision.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Not a great decision. Okay, is that all you wanted to cover?
Dr. Timothy Stone: What did you learn from that experience?
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: I need turf.
Dr. Timothy Stone: You need turf.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: I need turf. Okay. [chuckle] So we got some clinics with turf in them. Okay. 98.9% of our clinics have turf, soon to be 100%. What else did you learn from that? Anything?
Dr. Timothy Stone: That experience?
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Yeah.
Dr. Timothy Stone: I think in hindsight, those things we just talked about. The experience I had in that place was I show up and they treat me when I show up. There was no additional care outside of. So you might go to a clinic that has turf, you might go to a clinic that has racks and weights and things like that, or you might go to a clinic that has none of that. And I think that's why Fell's Point was such a great starting point, because there's 135 pounds worth of weight in there, like maybe. Now there is. When I went there, you didn't get under a barbell really, right? We didn't do that, but you found a way to make it really hard, and found a way to make it like progressive, and then we outsourced the strength and conditioning for those things. But you do text your patients, like you do give a crap about them outside of when they're in front of you. And I think that is the single biggest difference in the rehab experience that I had, and I've learned from that too.
Dr. Timothy Stone: If someone says to you they don't feel like this treatment is working or they don't feel like it's helping you, and then you can continue to deliver it because of the continuing education course that you took or your own personal interest wants you to get reps at it, then you're missing the point. Even if the most recent randomized control trial says it, that's one portion of how we treat somebody. So if your patient is says something to you, then I think you need to listen to them. And so that was my experience. And the complete opposite in coming to True Sports and watching you treat from an early point, and then learning how to do it from then. And so I think, yeah, that's the biggest difference in how we do things in general.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: From that experience, I learned that you never know when your paths are going to cross again. I think it would have... I hope it would have been out of character for me to be like, "Screw that guy Tim Stone, like he should have come to me." And by the way, at that point, I was dying for patients, so I could have used your insurance money. No question. But Christ, however many years down the road, two, three, like you're the most important employee or... Yeah, you're the most important team member that we've had, right? So coming in and doing that, I think is a tremendous lesson to me.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Well, I think to your credit, you still text me three months later saying like, "Do you know any sports PT?" and I text you saying like, "Can you help me with this?" and you didn't say...
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Go to hell.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Yeah, go to hell.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Yeah. Definitely a learning experience for both of us. Can I get back to my question?
Dr. Timothy Stone: Yes, its alright.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: We're good. 2016, you're in graduate school. You just had your hip scoped, made a poor decision on a PT, but you're thinking about your future career. How different is your career today than it was that then?
Dr. Timothy Stone: For starters, right before graduation, almost gave this away and went in a completely different direction into Meds House. So I had this epiphany, staring at a three-month-old kid and a wife that didn't want to be a career professional and wanted to be a full-time mom...
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: To work outside the home, that's what I've learned. She didn't wanna work outside the home, she wanted to work inside the home.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Exactly, exactly. And so I couldn't see that trajectory at all, in private practice or in pro-football, or pro-sport. I just could not see that. And I think maybe this is a problem, because the more I am in this industry now, the more I do see that, the more I do see people who are able to have like that lifestyle or that goal to have that. I do see it, but maybe that's a fault of our profession, is that we're not highlighting those people well enough or bringing those people out to the forefront, to meet PTs in school to say, "You don't have to just give your whole life to treating patients, you can also build some... You build a family or build some financial growth or stability. So I never thought I was gonna get into what I do now, I think I honestly, I have no idea what it was gonna look like moving forward. I think maybe deep down, I would open a business because that was the... That's the only example I had of having some sort of like ceiling breaker.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: That's the mold that you've broken. That's the mold that we've broken. You can support a family, you can earn a bunch of money, you can treat the best athletes, and you can do it in a private practice setting. I do wish schools highlighted that way more. We had a business class in my graduate school, which was the same graduate school as you went to, and I submitted... I don't know anything about business, but I submitted a proposal. My business proposal was basically True Sports, almost to a T. It didn't include the church we started in, but outside of the church we started in, it was the exact same model. I gotta B-minus on that. And they told me, this ain't gonna work because of XYZ. That's a problem, because they couldn't see ways to kick down that door.
Dr. Timothy Stone: A larger problem is we didn't even have that class five years later or six years later. [chuckle] So maybe we're in two different positions if I have that class, and...
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Exactly.
Dr. Timothy Stone: I also get a B minus.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: You're exactly right. So maybe... Right. So maybe we're lucky. But to your point, that's one of the reasons I wanted to start the pod. That's one of the reasons you kicked me in the ass to start the pod, because this story is worth sharing to let everyone know that's in our field or even around our field that you can achieve the highest levels clinically and professionally, and you can do that in the outpatient setting.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Yeah. And number of things have to go right in your favor for those things to happen. I think the first thing is you need to have a CEO or an owner of the business who shares that growth mentality or that ability to support somebody else besides their own family or theirselves within the business.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Yes. But if you... I agree. But in my role, looking at what you've been able to accomplish, and also incentivizing growth with the rest of our team and trying to open the door, I still win. The business owner wins, the business wins when you incentivize accordingly, when you task your team with growth opportunities. There's a risk. The company, my signature is on the bottom line, so we have to be comfortable with that risk, but there are a million ways to mitigate that risk. So I wish business owners knew more about that.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Yeah. I think the most common thing that happens is, I work for you, you, back then, pay me $68,000 a year, and I... You invest $2000-$3000 in me and con ed, I get really good in two years, and then I had people knocking at my door, saying, either come and do this thing for us, or I say, Look, I have a network now. Even if I treat a pretty crappy clip, I'm still gonna make 70 grand. So I'm gonna make my own... I'm just gonna go do my own business. For me, I didn't see it that way, just because of the... I think the financial position that I was in and the family position that I was in. You come out of school with 150k plus a debt, which is, I'm happy sharing, that's very normal for most PTs now. And a little one too. And I think it wasn't a good risk for me to go and take that step, because maybe you can share your experience in your first two years of running True Sports, but we've had this conversation before, you don't know if you're gonna bring home any money.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: A lot of pasta. You eat a lot of pasta.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Yeah. You might bring home... You might be going... You might be negative. You might not take a salary for two years. I couldn't afford to do that. And so my next best option was to, I guess, pretend or take on the role that that was like... That's how I treated my job here, is that like, This is my entrepreneurial opportunity with zero risk, zero risk, which, I love that. I can just go to work, do a good job, and at the end of the day, if I still suck, I might be out in a year, I might be out in two years, you're not gonna keep me forever doing that, but I know I'm able to keep... Bring home a paycheck, keep paying my loans, keep paying my bills and things like that. You don't have that stability.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: So what is your case to the leaders underneath you that report up to you? What's your case to them to stay in the company and not go out and start their own?
Dr. Timothy Stone: I think history has shown us, at True Sports, that those things will keep growing. I've been in every single position that our leaders have been in. I was a staff PT and then I was a clinic director and then I was a regional director and now I'm in the executive team. That same trajectory is able to be met by the rest of the people within our company who are on that path. And so what was hard for me to see in a future with you, because we're kinda... I'm forging my own position, I just put Regional Manager on my business card. That wasn't really a position that we had. They don't have to do that. And there's a blueprint. It took me this long to do that, but we have people opening three clinics in 12 months, and that took me four years to... Four years to open four clinics. And so I thought that was quick. We thought that was quick. And now we have people who are able to do that faster because we have the blueprint. You have support. You aren't out there trying to figure out what works well and what doesn't work well. So the ease of doing it is...
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Is a reason to stay.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Yeah.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: So the ease of doing it. The earning power I've been excited to see. Your ability to earn compared to how much risk there is, like you just highlighted, is exponentially better when you stay within the fold. I know you hate this term, but work-life balance, your ability... And that's really a risk then, your ability to get home and be home for whatever amount of time it is, but know that you're supporting for your family, you're earning appropriately. Tomorrow, the whole whole thing ain't going under. You don't have that on your shoulders. But even if we take away that risk thing, your ability to earn in a setting like this is as good, if not better, than what you could do on your own, without killing yourself.
Dr. Timothy Stone: I totally agree with that. I try to think of at the time point in my career where I would be if I had started a business instead of doing this. And that's why I'm here. I wouldn't... I don't think I would stay here if I feel like I can just go and do this on my own better or... As good is not enough, because as good is adding the risk. But I think I need to know that I would completely blow this out of the water for that to make it appropriate. And the trajectory that I've been on and that our other leaders can come in behind and do, I still think meets that same trajectory. You don't have to go out and do this on your own to have a ceiling that's here. There's no cap to what you're doing if you're continuing to grow what we do. We don't have a bubble that we're like, Oh no, we're not gonna investigate that opportunity, we're not gonna go outside of Maryland, we're not gonna go into a different state, or we're not gonna explore the continue ed model, or we're not gonna explore strength and conditioning. We have all those avenues that are here, and some money in the bank to be able to fund that for the people that wanna do it. And so I think that's, again, a faster trajectory to the success that you want if you're uncomfortable taking the risk.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Really well said. Let's wrap it up on a lightning round. Ready? I didn't give you these questions prior, so let's see how you do. The number one mistake you see young PTs make is... By lightning, I mean quick. It's an American term for quick.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Oh, sorry. [chuckle] Communication issue. Not diving 100% into it.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: The number one mistake you see a seasoned PT make.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Laziness. Being comfortable, not pushing the boundaries.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: How does a PT ingratiate themselves to a referral source?
Dr. Timothy Stone: Do a great job with every single person that walks through the door. That's number one. That's the easiest way to grow relationships. Communicate, well, not too much, but on a frequent and as-needed schedule, and then appropriately, to find the medium that's appropriate. Don't call a physician three times a day. They don't... They're not gonna pick that up. An email is probably better in that scenario.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Best lacrosse player you've ever played against.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Played against? It's a great question. I did have the opportunity to play this summer in Alabama. So I would say in our bracket was some of the guys on the US team. Tough to pick a winner, I think.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Give me one.
Dr. Timothy Stone: I think probably the best player would have to be Tom Schreiber.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Woah. Best player you've played with, including on the True Sports...
Dr. Timothy Stone: From the True Sports team. Yeah.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: You can include that, unless it's Bogen from the LZ team.
Dr. Timothy Stone: As much as I would like to say, yes, it was a Bogen from the LZ team. We were super fortunate playing with guys like Marcus Holman or Matt Dunn.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Who's the best, Tim Stone? Three, two, one.
Dr. Timothy Stone: I'm a defensive guy, so I gotta go with Matt Dunn right there.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: Best book you've ever read.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Oh, this as a good one. Book that you recommended that I find myself recommending more often than not to our leaders is Radical Candor, I think written by Kim Scott. It's a really... It takes a really interesting perspective on how to give feedback in a sincere but critical way. And I think that's something that I'm constantly thinking about. And I think in a world where we're getting information from media that says like, Every interaction that you have to have has to be positive for it to have an impact. If there's any sort of challenge or critical nature to what you're saying, the generation of today is just gonna back off and crumble I think is wrong. I think it's clickbait. I think that gets people interested in what you're saying, because it's different from being a tough leader. And I think that book... Kim's book does an awesome job of giving you the ability to call somebody out or hold somebody accountable but show them that you're doing that from a place of caring. So I don't always get that right, but it's empowered me to feel like it's okay to tell someone if their work was not good enough.
Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt: And I don't think anyone always gets it right. I think that's another thing that I've learned through this pod, it's so important to share mistakes so that other people can learn. I think you're really good about that. I think Kim talks about that a lot also, is transparency and vulnerability, and the ability to relay that to whoever is sitting across the table from you and you're trying to be constructive with. So that's really good advice. Actually, one of our other leaders, Austin, on the last pod, mentioned that that's been an impactful book as well, and that you recommended it. So I love to hear that. Hearing your story for me has, even though I lived it with you, has been awesome to kinda re-live. I think there's so much more there that we can dive into. But this is just a great snippet of what makes great leaders in the PT world, which you are, without a doubt, one of the best. So I wanna thank you for your time. I know you're so busy. Thanks for your time. I wanna encourage everyone who's listening to reach out, shoot us a DM, truesportspt on Instagram, and just let us know what you thought about today's conversation, what guests you wanna hear from moving forward and any topics that you want covered. We're here for you, just like True Sports is. We are here for the athlete in front of us. We're here for the sports PTs that we are supporting. Thank you for your time always, Tim Stone. Look forward to the next one.
Dr. Timothy Stone: Thanks for having me.
Get appointment updates, practical and actionable health + fitness tips, blog news, and True Sports announcements delivered straight to your inbox. No spam.
%20(1).png)
%20(1).png)
%20(1).png)