Welcome to the Rehab With Roni Podcast

I was Working for a corporate physical therapy company, but then seeing people up here in this guest room, and I don't think I would have thought that a year later, just a mere 365 days, that I would have my own cash based PT practice, have quit my job, that I would have started making content online. more regularly and then also transitioned over into a podcast and then had that podcast be recorded in this very same room. It's just, wow, full circle. So kind of exciting.

It makes you think like, where, where will things be next year? I don't know but I wanted to start this first episode as sort of just a Q& A. I've told some people that I'm starting a podcast and maybe some will transfer over from Instagram or other social media places, but a lot of people might not know kind of what my story is, what my vibe is. And so I put up a story. Instagram saying, Hey guys, send me your questions. This is going to be my episode one of the podcast.

So I feel like we should probably just get right into it. There were a ton of questions and I'm not going to be able to get to all of them. Maybe I'll do a part two, but I figured I would click the ones that were the most relevant to what a first episode supposed to be like so you guys can kind of sort of get to know me. Yeah, I think it'll just be sort of fun. So let's start. First one. Why did you start your own business and any advice for those wanting to?

In short, I just wanted more ownership over my time. I Enjoyed the job that I was working for the corporate physical therapy company but I just felt like I didn't have enough time in the day and I also felt that I wasn't able to care for patients to the best of my ability. I understand why the insurance based model exists and why you have to sort of double or triple yourself as a PT in an outpatient clinic. But I wanted to do more and spend more quality time with my patients.

And so So over a, a long period of thinking about how this would work and working out the kinks, I started my own business. So I'll leave it at that because I do think it would be better served to just do a whole episode about, start to finish how this happened. What was your journey like education wise? Where did you go for undergrad, PT school, et cetera? Okay. I went to undergrad at Georgia State University in downtown Atlanta. Go Panthers. That was so much fun.

I remember being in high school and my best, best friend was like, I want to go to Georgia State. And I kind of didn't have a school that I cared to go to, particularly. I was like, all right, whatever Hannah, let's go. I would rather just room with you. And it was such a fun experience going and living in a big city for four years. Was just iconic. It was so much fun. So I did my undergrad there.

I studied exercise science, and then I took a year gap and worked at PT Solutions, I was a patient services coordinator there. And I did insurance reimbursement. I did insurance verification. And then I applied early to physical therapy school at the university of North Georgia. And I started there in 2019. So here I am six years later. Wow. What gave you confidence to be on your own? As a student, that sounds terrifying. Yes, it is.

And also as a student, I never foresaw this situation happening for me. The confidence what gave you confidence? I'm not entirely sure. That there was just one thing that gave me the confidence. I think having a couple of years of experience under my belt before starting my own thing was crucial. I'll get questions sometimes from people saying, Hey, I'm graduating next year and I want to start my own practice. What do you suggest? And I say, I suggest that you don't start right away.

Like, please go work in a high volume clinic where you can see a lot of cases and see a lot of different things. So yeah, the experience that I had prior was. It's definitely a confidence boost on top of the fact that I think I'm just an outgoing person naturally and positive naturally. So that definitely helps when it comes to starting a business venture because I'm just like, Oh, it's going to go great. It's going to be, it's going to be perfect. Okay. Why did you decide to become a PT?

You know, I think a lot of people have very concrete answers when it comes to this question. Growing up, I never went to physical therapy. I feel like the common answer is, Oh, you know, I tore my ACL or I, I hurt my elbow playing tennis and my PT was awesome and it made me want to do it. No, I literally had no idea what physical therapy was like, had no idea what it entailed. I signed up, went to college, I'm going to be on the pre PT track and let's just see what this is about.

And it wasn't until I was living in Atlanta and I did some shadowing hours. I think it was an outpatient clinic with Emory Hospital. And I just remember walking in, and it was on the 17th floor of this big high rise building in downtown Atlanta. And they've got an amazing view of the city, which has nothing to do with PT, but the physical therapists were amazing. The vibe in the clinic was awesome. Everybody's having a good time.

And I just knew, I was like, this is exactly what I'm supposed to do. On top of the fact that I knew I never wanted a desk job. I just didn't think that that was in the cards for me. I couldn't see myself just sitting at a desk somewhere working for somebody and having all these. I wanted to have an interaction with a patient on a daily basis for more than five minutes, which meant that I probably wasn't going to go to med school. So I hope that answers that question.

What advice would you have given yourself the first year of PT school? Probably, Keep doing what you're doing. I'm going to toot my own horn. I think I did a really good job having a good work life balance throughout PT school. And, and even now like I said, I went to the university of North Georgia, which is in Dahlonega, Georgia, and there were so many beautiful mountains and waterfalls and things to go see and do.

And I just take the time to do it, you know, study hard, take the hard tests, do well, and then make sure that you're doing things outside of school to make you feel Like you have some semblance of a life. Yeah, think I did pretty well. Top three things you love since switching to your own business from a franchise company. Oh gosh. Top three. I would say ownership of my time. Obviously, definitely number one. I think I already mentioned that.

Number two, having more one on one time with patients and feeling like I can better critically think through cases. if I see four or five patients in a day, and then I go home and kind of do some back end research to best serve them for the next time they come in. That's, that's just really nice. And I would say number three is, number three is just the journey of all of it.

When you're working for a franchise company, You sort of know exactly what your day is going to look like and you could plan out for a year or two years and work your way up and, and still sort of visualize what the future is going to look like and for me it's, it's been a whirlwind in a great way.

So every day being different, not quite knowing what's going to happen, not knowing that I'm going to start a podcast or do something else crazy in the future, who knows, the uncertainty is, is definitely a highlight, which probably could sound crazy, but no, I really like it. Favorite quote to live by and why? I don't know if I live by any quotes. I like quotes. The first one that comes to mind is the Just Keep Swimming in Finding Nemo, Dory. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.

So probably that one. I mean, that applies to life, right? Just keep, keep swimming. Let's see. Any tips on how to be confident with patient care as a PT student? Also, I love your page. Thank you. I would say confident with patient care as a PT student. That's the whole purpose of the clinical rotations as a PT student is to help you build that confidence, right? Because when you go in, especially in clinical rotation number one, you're just Trying not to vomit. I remember being so nervous.

I remember being so nervous even as a new grad. My first evaluation being on the schedule and me praying to God that he wasn't going to show up because I was just like, I can't do it. So, I will say, it takes time. That's a hard one. My version of confident might be different than your version of confident. But, Practicing on other people. This sounds so silly, but,, I remember making my husband pretend like he was a patient.

If I had a difficult case that day, if I knew I had an evaluation the next day and sort of going through the motions and doing it again and again and again, just that exposure is going to help you feel like you know what you're doing. when you're carrying out the actions, if they can be more second nature to you and then you can, then you have the ability to let your personality shine and get to know them and you don't have to think so much about what you're doing step by step.

But I mean, as a student, that's so hard to do. I mean, that's something that just comes with more, the more years of experience you have under your belt, the better. That's a tip and a trick, just exposure. And Hopefully you have a great clinical instructor who can stay after with you if needed and kind of walk through things with you and it will come with time. That's for sure. Any NPTE study tips? Also, I was the one who thought it was Ronni.

Okay. Yeah. Recently found out that a lot of people think that my name is Roni. So they think it's rehab with Roni, which initially I thought was insane, but It makes sense. If your name is Tony, it's T O N I. I'm Ronnie. It's R O N I. So I get it. Ronnie, you'd think would actually be spelled R O N N I or R O N N Y or R O N N I E. But it's, it's Ronnie, guys. Thank you so much for listening and, and, and it's Veronica and Ronnie's just right there in the middle and, and I go by Ronnie.

Anyways, any NPTE study tips he wants to know. For those of you that don't know, that is the boards exam that you take to become a licensed physical therapist. And once again, I'm going to save this for another episode because I feel like I I had a really good study plan. Don't worry. This will be forthcoming. This is coming soon. I, I crushed the boards. I went in there, I felt confident. I left feeling confident. I was pretty pumped about it.

So yeah, just stay tuned for that episode because I could go on for probably 30 minutes about how to prep yourself for that god awful exam. Next question. What has been your best marketing strategy so far for your business? Ooh. So I think because I have an Instagram following somewhat, people assume Oh no, I'm, I need to have more followers because that's what's going to equal more in person visits. And I would just like to set the record straight and say that it's not the case.

So yes, my Instagram following has been really helpful for other business ventures, but when it comes to the physical brick and mortar business that I love so much and that I'm at every day. Totally not relevant. So just want to put that out there first, but I think the best marketing strategy is twofold. I would say first off word of mouth.

So if somebody has a good experience with me, I foster that relationship and I let them know maybe at the end of their plan of care, I've loved working with you. if you can think of anybody else, friend or family, that would benefit from working with me, I would love to see them. I would love to meet them.

That goes a really long way and Where I live Chattanooga, it's a, it's a small town, so word travels fast and that's been really helpful for me on top of just going face to face and meeting with different providers, different gym owners. I got started in a gym setting, so that was definitely my sort of target clientele, my avatar patient, if you will. I think just going face to face, which is nerve wracking at first, but gosh, it's really kind of fun now.

So yeah, showing your face, letting people know what you do. That's been really helpful as well. Let's see any advice for new grad PTs. I got probably 10 of these questions. It depends. People are going to love that one. Kind of depends on which field you're going into, but I would say. My dad's going to kill me for this one, but fake it until you make it. He doesn't like when I say that, but it's true.

I mean, I talked earlier about how I was so nervous for my first initial evaluation and how I was praying that they wouldn't show up. And I think every new grad is going to go through that. to some capacity. I mean, clinical rotations prepare you as much as they can. And so do three years of school. But at some point you, realize, okay, there's nobody watching my back. I have to carry this out. I have to be the medical professional and, and that's just it.

So, when I say fake it till you make it, what I mean is Put on an air of confidence, smile, be outgoing. People are going to come to you and they want to, they want to get better, but they also want to have a relationship with their physical therapist. Maybe they don't even realize that, maybe you don't know what you're doing at all, but if you go in there and you have a great time with them and they laugh and they're like, wow, I think I learned something today.

Even if you just teach them one thing and then. You write up the eval while you're home and you think on it and you think on it and you finally think maybe you know what's going on. Perfect. But they're going to leave with the impression wow, she was such a cool girl and, I feel better just having hung out with her for a little bit. That goes a long way.

I think the experience, like I've mentioned, will help sort of fine tune those, those clinical skills, but in the meantime, Remember everything that you've learned, know that you are capable of, where you're going, know that you're capable of what you're trying to do, and the rest will come. I'm sure that sounds sort of vague, but I think it's true. Where do you see the physical therapy field in 10 years? What will be different?

Honestly, I've been thinking about this a little bit more recently, maybe it's just the fact that I'm a little biased because I'm exposed to this side of the internet more, but it seems like a lot more physical therapists are starting their own. Cash based gigs similar to myself and I definitely think there's a trend in that direction. I mean over the past six eight years those Commercial insurance companies are reimbursing less and less.

They're requiring more authorization for PT visits and I don't know. I think a lot of employees are just getting tired of it or maybe just seeking some more autonomy in their lives. So I bet in 10 years, maybe it's not going to, I mean, it's not going to surpass the insurance based model, but I think a lot more people will be going that route based off of what I've seen in my DMs and stuff like that. If you could choose any guest in the world, living or diseased, I think they meant deceased.

Who would it be and why? Oh, that is such a tough one. Hmm, living or deceased, who would it be and why? Okay, I think I have my answer. I'm going to go with Benjamin Franklin. My husband recently has read his entire autobiography and I'm going to read it next. And he just sounds like the most interesting dude. I mean, the amount of things that he concocted out of his brain, he's so smart and he was there during a pivotal moment in American history. I would love to just hear about it.

Would that be in any relation to rehab with Ronnie? No. But gosh, if I could get him on the podcast, people would be stoked. So yeah, Ben Franklin. Next question. How did you deal with imposter syndrome? In PT school slash into new grad. Ah, this is a good one. Hey, for the person that sent this one out, I wrote a whole article on imposter syndrome because I felt like it was really weighing me down about a year ago. That's on my newsletter, on my blog, on my website, if you're interested.

But, without getting too repetitive, I'll talk about not the imposter syndrome, right out of PT school because I think I sort of already touched on that. But when it comes to owning your own business, that's a whole different wave of imposter syndrome because I was only two years out when I opened my own practice. And so not only was that little devil on my shoulder going, who do you think you are? Like you definitely can't do this. Like you can't open your own business. That's insane.

I also didn't feel fully experienced enough in terms of patient care. Now I feel differently., a year later, I definitely don't have any of those negative thoughts, but dealing with it was, I don't know, it was a process.

Recognizing the fact that I am capable just like you are if you've graduated physical therapy school, you've done all the hard work, you have the knowledge, it's just a matter of how you act it out in life so getting over it as a new business owner was just a Mental shift that I had to make because I was thinking, on the flip side, sure, maybe it's nuts to open your own business this young, but also I'm getting 60, 70 minutes with the patient one on one, the likelihood of me getting them better

is much higher than being tripled and yelling from across the room like, Hey, Mr. Bobby Joe, make sure you do your straight leg raise, I mean, just the capability that I have now to spend quality time with people and Educate them and make a tangible difference is much, much greater. So, that has helped with the imposter syndrome with being a business owner, which hopefully will resonate with some people who are sort of in the same boat as me. So, let's see.

Was there any point in your college years where you thought you couldn't make it? Yes! Oh, yes. Look, getting into physical therapy school is competitive, and I think it's even more competitive nowadays. So yes, I remember telling my parents when I got home one weekend from college, and my dad was like, Ronnie, what are you going to do with an exercise science degree if you can't get into PT school? I mean, I don't think he had any doubts, but.

But, it still raises the question, what do you do with this degree? And I told him, don't worry, I've already thought it out. I'm going to go get my master's in public health, blah, blah, blah, be an epidemiologist. Had no idea what that even meant. I just needed a backup plan. Luckily, I didn't need the backup plan and I ended up getting into school. But I mean, my grades were fine.

There's just that absolute deep seated fear that you're not going to get in and you're going to spend years trying to get into PT school. So. Yeah, I feel that. Are there things you miss about not being a business owner? No, I don't think there are. I think some people might argue, Oh, you know, your work never ends. It stays with you forever. Yada, yada, yada.

But I genuinely think that if you like what you're doing, or if you know that you're getting a direct return on whatever investments you're making in your business, for example, me going out and marketing. After hours, me on Instagram, creating content, responding to messages, taking virtual calls on the weekends.

All of those things you could say are extra work, quote unquote, but me and my family, we all are going to benefit from that versus some shareholder in a company in the corporate world. So yeah, I don't think there's anything that I miss. You know what? I do miss working with a colleague. I had a clinic director we got along great, and I do miss having like another PT in the clinic with me, but we'll see. Maybe, maybe that'll be a thing in the future.

What do you love that you didn't learn in school slash what has stood out in real world? Hmm. I love weightlifting. Yeah. I don't know if that's what they meant by that question, I didn't do the CSCS certification in college. And I wish I had because I love weightlifting. I love treating weightlifters, crossfitters. It is one of my favorite things, which is kind of funny because my background is dance. I danced from age 12 all the way through college on different dance teams.

I was on the field at the football and basketball games at Georgia state, but. Truly weightlifting is a, is a love of mine. So you don't go over a ton of that in physical therapy school, but gosh, darn, do I love it. Let's see. My hips, groin, and psoas muscles are always tight from my job. Please help. So I got a lot of injury specific questions and I think I'll get into them on separate episodes, but when someone just. sends a message out of the blue saying like, help my back hurts.

What do I do? Anybody that's a PT or just in healthcare in general knows that it's a lot more complex than that. I can't just give a blanket statement diagnosis and be like, do this. It'll be perfect. maybe I'll get into more of the injury specific things and, I could respond back to this patient and. Ask some, good follow up questions and do a little, deep dive and then we can make an episode out of it, i, I got another one. what's your go to stretch for tight hips?

I had surgery to repair torn ACL MCL meniscus years ago. Lately office chair hurts it. Suggestions? These are just Yeah, that would almost be like trying to do an initial evaluation off of one question. We can't do that guys. We can't do that. But I get where people are coming from. They've got questions about their injuries and they want some answers. I wish it was that simple, but we need to do a deep dive. So I guess we'll just sort of see how those episodes will form in the future.

Favorite exercise right now? I have been loving the incline squats. So. Quad focused. Put your heels up. I'm on a slant board. Toes are down. Heels are up. I got 45s in each hand. That's what I did this afternoon and I'm getting as low as I can. I'm doing like three to four sets of eight reps, just pushing it out and man, does that burn the quads? I love a leg day. I have a hard time going to the gym and not doing legs. I have to force myself to do upper body. It's just my favorite.

Did you always know you were going to open your own practice? No, I did not. I remember taking a business class in physical therapy school and they were like, you have to come up with your own business plan and it has to be innovative and X, Y, and Z. And I just remember thinking, this is so not applicable to me. I just want to graduate. I want to work for so and so. I want to have a nice predictable job. And so it's kind of funny.

I wish I had paid a little bit more attention or tried a little bit harder in that class, but I did not think that this is where I was going to be. It wasn't until I was out working in the world as a professional girly pop that I was like, wait a second, I don't know if this is entirely what I saw for myself. And I also don't know if I can do this forever. So. No plans can change for sure. Shoes. You recommend lifting in examples. I'll just go based off of what I personally do.

So if I'm lifting heavy weight, so much heavy weight, I'm such a heavy lifter. No, but I if I'm dead lifting, squatting, whatever, I'll either be barefoot or I'll wear my zero barefoot shoes, which is spelled X E R O zero. I've tried the Vivo barefoots. I haven't thought that they were very comfortable. Maybe I need to try a different kind.

I don't know, but yeah, I think having a flatter shoe where your feet can make better contact with the ground and sort of absorb those ground reaction forces and stabilize is best now, obviously that's going to depend a little bit on anatomy, right? Like if I'm doing a back squat and I've got a totally different body. Or much stiffer hips. I might need a little bit of a heel lift to get a little bit lower. So that it depends on your anatomy.

That's pretty much for any weight training I'm doing in the gym. I'll just be wearing my, my zero shoes. Sometimes I'll wear my Brooks if I'm just doing upper body and it doesn't really matter what's going on on my feet. And then if I'm running, I love ultras and I love Brooks. I think they're great. The Brooks glycerin, I want to say, and the ultra, Solstice. And then there's another one. I can't remember what it's called, but yeah, honestly though, I've got a really wide foot.

Everyone's feet are different and your preferences are going to differ probably a lot more than mine. So it's hard to just give a generalized recommendation because yeah, it totally, totally depends on you and your foot shape and your body shape. How you got into working with brands? Okay. I, I have so many things, so many thoughts on this concept. I first of all, never thought that I'd be working with brands. A year ago I had 500 followers on Instagram. Now I have, I think 80, 000. or more.

So that's been a huge shift on the online side of the business for sure. With that, I realized that I could probably make some extra income with this following and with good engagement and with people being interested in just sort of the journey that I'm on. And so I've got great mentors, I'll say that. My oldest brother, I've got three brothers, my oldest brother and his wife, my sister in law, They do social media full time. That's their full time job. And it, that wasn't always the case.

They both had other full time jobs prior to switching completely to making content for a living. But watching them create their lifestyle and learn how to earn online has definitely helped guide the way for me. So. I actually want to have them on at some point because I think that there's just so much that I can learn from them and you can learn from them. So how I got into it though was just pitching myself to brands that I love. I'll give an example, the Jane app.

You probably have maybe heard me talk about it if you follow me online. It's my EMR system, my documentation system I use at my clinic and I just loved them so much and I was getting a lot of questions about what EMR system I use and I reached out and I said, look. I love you guys. I get a lot of questions about this. Like how can we work out a deal to work together? Because I want to talk more about it and I believe in what you guys are doing.

So having a genuine love for the brand definitely helps. So yeah. Next question. So excited to learn from you. What made you want to expand your platform to podcasting? Oh, thank you. First of all, secondly, I wanted to expand it. I've been wanting to expand it. I was on a podcast as a guest last summer and I was just on cloud nine. I had so much fun doing it and I really enjoyed it the few times that I was on podcasts afterwards and then I just kind of got the wheels turning.

I was like, wait a second. I really enjoy making content on instagram. I like talking to my stories, connecting with people that way, creating fun, weird reels, but sort of educational reels, take talks, whatever. But I've also always loved podcasts. I think when it comes to continuing education and having a resource of ways to learn podcasts are my go to before books even because they're just so easily digestible.

So I kind of had the wheels turning last fall thinking this would be a really cool thing to add to my little repertoire of things that I do and I want to be a resource for people. That's, that's how Rehab with Ronnie got started in the first place, creating content, trying to be resourceful, but this way it can be in much longer form content.

I can have meaningful discussions and it's not just a 15 second clip of an exercise that I use on a regular basis, which I also think definitely has its place, but podcasts you can go back to and refer to, and it's much more easily found, I think. So I just think it's a really great way to connect with people, like minded people and learn things. On top of that, because this whole past year has been so I don't want to say tumultuous that would be negative. It's been so, it's been a wild ride.

That's the word that I'll use to describe it. I want to document it and I want people, if they're interested, to learn from the journey and I want to be able to go back one day and Hear what I was talking about and hear what I was doing and how I got to where I am now. Having a way to document it, having a way to connect with people and give them a longer form piece of content that is resourceful for them or entertaining or fun just sounds like fun.

And on top of that, I also have this I thought one day hopefully I'll have kids and a family and I won't be in the clinic five days a week and how cool would it be if one day a week I can set aside my time and record podcasts and be home and not have to spend eight hours at the clinic and I don't know. It's just another way. To diversify myself and so far, so good. This is episode number one, so we'll see. Who is your favorite sibling and why?

Okay, definitely a sibling wrote this one in and I don't pick favorites, but I do love all my siblings. I've got three brothers and one sister. I'm the middle of five kids and They're awesome. Maybe I'll have all of them on the podcast one day. That would be really fun. Yeah, I mean, obviously having a sister is so iconic, especially if you just have one, but having three brothers is also an incredible experience. They're all so different.

We all look very similar, but we all Ended up doing very different things in life. So it's so fun getting to go home and just hang out with them and have our conversations and our little debates and laugh together. And yeah, man, I have being part of a big family is so freaking cool. I love it. What is your biggest goal? Parentheses. Personal and work. And I'll make this the last question of today. You know, this is an ongoing developing thing.

My biggest goal will start personal is to remain in the state that I am, very happy and content and working hard. That's where I like to be. To stay in this, positive mental state that I have been in for a while and just keep being thankful for where I'm at. I mean, that's, that's a personal goal. And professional, totally subject to change. I've never been somebody that Once to have a bunch of employees and a bunch of different locations and be all over the map.

That just defeats the purpose of the PT business for me. I want it to probably just be me, maybe one other person, but I don't know, that could change a year from now I can be like, guys, I just hired my 10th employee. I don't know, but I want to build this podcast because I like doing it, 30 minutes in.

I want to continue making educational content, connecting with people around the world, and keep providing good patient care and getting people better, because that's why I got onto it in the first place. So, that concludes this little first episode Q& A. Like I said, the questions were sort of all over the map. I apologize to anybody whose questions I didn't get to. There were lots of injury specific ones that I will for sure save for a later date. I think that this podcast is going to be fun.

I think people will learn from it. I'm going to learn from it because I'm going to have guests on that I'm eager to learn from. And we're going to, we're going to have a lot of fun while we're doing it. So there's a lot of fun, exciting little things that I have planned for the near future. And I really appreciate everybody for tuning in and I shall see you next time.