WILL: [00:00:00] Right. So, we want to help people go from being fragile to feeling resilient. So, that’s one example. So, there’s a few. Like, for example, in our philosophy, a big part of it is effective communication, and an attentiveness to your language that you use. Right? So, for us, as physios, that’s very important because depending on what I say, and how I say it, I could really influence someone’s behavior, I could really influence their mindset.
[Intro Music]
Intro: [00:00:45] This episode of the Smart Athlete Podcast is brought to you by Solpri. If you’re active at all, whether you’re running or simply out walking for the day, you’ve probably experienced one of the number one problems that active people have, and that’s chafing. Solpri’s all-new, all-natural anti-chafe balm solves that problem while feeding your skin the vital nutrients it needs to be healthy. If you’d like to stop chafing once and for all and treat your body right, go to Solpri.com to check out the anti-chafe balm today. And that’s S-O-L-P-R-I.com.
JESSE: [00:01:22] Welcome to the Smart Athlete Podcast. I’m your host, Jesse Funk. My guests today have a lot in common. So, as they said they’re basically married so I’m going to introduce them together. It’s a new thing for me here on the podcast. I don’t know that I’ve ever had a not married married couple. But they’ll explain that here in a minute. They’re co-founders of The Movement PTs, co-hosts of The PT Coffeecast. They both have their master’s degrees in physical therapy. Welcome to the show, Dalton Laino and Will Nicholson.
DALTON: [00:01:52] Jesse, thanks for having us. Yeah, we’re definitely the married but not married couple. There’s one more to the married. We’re a trio, actually. We have another founder of the clinic, Don. So, he’s not on the podcast today, but there’s three of us. So, it’s a wacky relationship, to say the least. But thanks for having us.
JESSE: [00:02:11] Yeah. No. That’s what I saw as I was doing my — as another guest affectionately referred to it “my stalking” to get ready to talk to you guys, I did see that there was the third. And I was going to ask is he the third wheel or is he like the muppet master? What dynamic does he take on?
DALTON: [00:02:33] He’s the puppet master. He makes the ship run and he’s just behind the scenes crushing it. Now, we’ll probably get into our story a little bit, so we could explain where Don kind of came into our marriage. Me and Will were married first, and then we married Don into the picture.
WILL: [00:02:52] In like, super, super short, it’s like face of the podcast is Dalton, beard of the podcast is Will, and then occasional side person on the podcast is Don.
JESSE: [00:03:08] It keeps everything interesting. One thing I always wonder about is with this show, and then with your guys’s other podcast, that’s kind of, as you mentioned, before we get going more local to kind of what’s going on with you guys. You know, I’ve got new guests every week. So, just by virtue of the format, I’ve got new topics. So, if it’s the three of you getting together every week, are you brainstorming topics? Like, how are you just like sitting in a room staring at each other? And then people are going what’s happening right now? Like, there’s no audio?
DALTON: [00:03:47] Yeah. I mean, I think we just want to talk to — From the podcasts that we started within our local community is like, we just want to talk to people that were doing cool stuff like, in the area that we are. We’re in Dundas, Ontario, which is a smaller town within Hamilton that’s outside of Toronto. So, we’re kind of in that general area there. And it’s a really cool place with a lot of cool businesses, very like local feel to it, and there’s a lot of people doing some cool stuff. So, we just wanted to talk to those people and see how it’s going. So, it’s honestly not much planning because it’s like, hey, there’s a cool person. Let’s see if they want to come and chat about what they’re doing.
WILL: [00:04:29] Yeah, I mean, and then also, me and Dalton started our first podcast when we were at university a few years back. So, we’ve sort of just by nature of going through that. We’ve come up with a bit of a system for how we go about that. Like, Dalton does the podcast planning, but we also understand what our podcast is about at this point, and it’s easy for us to decide who should come on for guests because we’ve gotten so frequently. So, I’d say that’s helped, you know.
JESSE: [00:05:07] I always figure like, and I have things to talk about. But as a divergence here, if I run out of things to talk about, I can always just — if you’re not watching the YouTube version and you’re listening, you’re missing out on this detail. But I’ll go poke at what’s going on in the scene. You guys have a board in the background with some kind of thing on it? Or Will, I would ask you about why you’ve got flamingos on your shirt or accuse you of being the party guy, something like that.
DALTON: [00:05:40] Yeah, there’s always ways you can keep conversations.
WILL: [00:05:44] Those are some interesting questions.
DALTON: [00:05:46] Yeah.
JESSE: [00:05:48] But we’re going to leave it there unanswered, apparently. We’re just — the flamingo beard got — So, I mean, I guess that leads me to the question of Will, are you going to split off and do like a styling podcast where you’re just talking about like, this is how to dress and groom your beard and like, split off and do a whole new thing?
WILL: [00:06:07] I think it’s more of a branding. There’s a tactic to what I’m wearing. So, basically, I’ll give you the short, here. So, we make these posts, where I hold like — you ever seen that sign guy? Right? So, we do something similar for our stuff. And whenever I do it, I wear a crazy shirt like this. And I wear a hat with sunglasses, and I’ve obviously got a pretty big beard. So, it stands out. It’s funny and it just makes the content, which is sometimes a little provocative, it makes it a little more fun, light-hearted, rather than like an attack.
JESSE: [00:06:57] So, I mean, are you fat-shaming people? What are these posts if they’re so provocative?
WILL: [00:07:04] No, they’re aligned with what we’re striving for. Right? Which is like our business on a high level, we’re trying to change the way that people think about health. We’re trying to change the way that people think about health care. And so it’ll be things like running is not bad for your knees. The reason that [crosstalk] it’s provocative is because a lot of people think it’s bad for your knees. But, yeah, we’re not trying to shame people.
DALTON: [00:07:32] Just getting some good, good conversation going around topics that tend to have some misunderstanding, I think.
JESSE: [00:07:40] I always have trouble with, where is just the right line between grabbing people’s attention, and being too inflammatory. So, I often just steer away from that entirely. Because I’m like, let’s just not get myself in too much trouble. But I mean, that’s the name of the game, right, is like, eyeballs, attention, having conversations and sharing the message.
DALTON: [00:08:06] Yeah. And I feel like we’ve been doing the content stuff for a while now. When we first started putting out content, like Will was saying, was back when we’re in physio school, and we never really pushed things that were super provocative in any way. But we learned along the way how to be more intentional with the content that we put out, how to be a little bit more strategic. Especially with the way that we go about talking about healthcare and physio, is there’s a lot of nuance to the conversation, and Instagram and social media doesn’t have any of that.
So, we’ve started to kind of try to post content that can be informative, but leave the fact that there’s going to be nuance within that. And I mean, we often do that in the caption of the post, but we’ve just been a lot more strategic and intentional with how we post things to avoid situations like that, because that’s not kind of what we’re about.
WILL: [00:09:04] Yeah. I think it’s fair to like, capture someone’s attention in a way but without just purely being provocative. They can be like, we strive for challenging ideas, right? Because ultimately, our goal is to transform how people are thinking, right? We’re not just trying to speak to people that already believe what we believe. But it’s to challenge them on those thoughts, while still being like, hey, we’re here. We’re writing this for you. Right? Like, it’s not to just provoke you and make you mad. Right? There’s a purpose behind it.
JESSE: [00:09:44] Well, I mean, I want to, I guess, give you a small round of applause. I’m right there with you. But I also know it’s a pretty big hill to climb because it’s much easier, so for you listening if you’re not into marketing at all, it’s much easier just to like, yell out and be like. So, let’s go back to fat shaming. And I don’t believe either of these statements. But just for this example, just being like, fat people are evil, or fat people are the best people on the planet. Neither statements are true. There’s nuance which we’re talking about, but like, when you yell one or the other, it’s easier for everybody that agrees with that statement, like magnetize and attract to you. Versus having a conversation about I guess my actual opinion would be there’s nothing inherently wrong with a person who’s fat.
But there are health risks associated with being fat, and both of those things are worthwhile conversations. But it’s hard to have it when, as you said, Instagram is all about this post or whatever, just like I said, shooting out those signals. And I don’t know, do you guys do? I mean, you do the podcasts, obviously. Do you do any video content, like I talked about running specifically on the YouTube channel.
So, if you’re listening, if you’re not on the YouTube channel, YouTube.com/Solpri if you want to know more about running. But in the video format, it’s much easier for me to be like, I can make a weird thumbnail or something to get people to click and then be like, okay, let’s talk about all the little scenarios in here. Even if it’s just, it’s not an ethical question, it’s a matter of like, what’s the best way to run a fast 5K? It depends.
DALTON: [00:11:38] Yeah, and I mean, that’s the tough part with the way that we operate is that we do want to make sure we’re thinking of all those things, right, and how to express those. So, I mean, I feel like Will can really speak to that because he’s spent a lot of time creating the content that we put out. So, I’m going to let him take that one.
WILL: [00:12:02] Yeah. I think what you have to think about is like, people are all like, oh, what am I going to post that’s going to give me more subscribers or more followers, right? But here’s the thing, in our circumstance, at least, it’s not really about that, right? Because it’s more like that our, what we’re saying and what we’re putting out aligns with what we actually do and our true philosophies. Because we don’t want to just get like, if we put a really provocative post, that’s like, not really who we are, and then we get more followers because of that, it’s like where are they going to go next? Right?
It’s not a long term strategy that actually helps build you more business, right? Whereas like, being true, even if you’re reaching a few people, or the people that you’re bringing in are then going to your social, and they’re seeing that everything’s aligning, right? That’s where you’re actually going to create impact, and it’s actually going to improve your business. Instead of just driving followers, where those followers don’t really mean that much, because they’re not the people that you want to be talking to.
JESSE: [00:13:17] Right. So, I guess it’s a good way to lead into like, is there a succinct way to sum up like, what your philosophy is? Or like, the mission that you’re trying to accomplish? Or the mindset you’re trying to change?
WILL: [00:13:36] I don’t know if there’s a super succinct way, but there’s things that we want to transform. Right? So, we want to help people go from being fragile to feeling resilient. So, that’s one example. So, there’s a few. Like, for example, in our philosophy, a big part of it is effective communication, and an attentiveness to your language that you use. Right? So, for us, as physios, that’s very important because depending on what I say, and how I say it, I could really influence someone’s behavior, I could really influence their mindset. But I want it to be resilient, right? I want them to think I can get better. I can work on this.
My pain is under my control. Right? So, that’s kind of like the underpinning of our philosophy is a lot about that. And then we’re talking about sports and exercise and whatnot, right? We’re extremely active-focused, right? We don’t want people to come and get fixed. We want them to be able to fix themselves essentially, right, through active means. Which are ultimately, going to actually improve their function and their quality of life. So, that’s a couple things.
One last thing that I think is really important that I missed is just considering the whole picture. Because a lot of times in health care, people will zone in on one thing, whether that’s like an image finding, or just like one like a movement fault, let’s call it, something like that, and they just zone in. But a really good way to think about this is like, if you’re looking at a painting, and you’re just looking at one portion of the painting, you’re missing the whole picture. So, our philosophy is like, look at broadly at all the components of health, and at the psychological components of health from a social level. How did those things come together to influence this person and where they need to go? Does that make sense?
JESSE: [00:15:58] Yeah.
WILL: [00:16:00] That was a lot.
JESSE: [00:16:01] No, no. There’s a lot there. I’m trying to — Gosh. No, no. I’m confusing my terms. So, you’re reminding me of like, number one, I was going to ask if you guys read Marcus Aurelius’s meditations because some of the things you’re reminding me of was like stoicism, I mean, which is a big part of just being a sports person in general is like delayed gratification, and all these kinds of things. But also, the first thing that came to my head was the Gnostics, which is not what I was thinking about. I was thinking about Gestalt, which is a psychological discipline, thinking about the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
So, as you’re starting about, thinking about the entire picture, sort of zoning in on a particular piece, it’s like, sometimes you miss the greater meaning by focusing on — even if you’re seeing each individual piece at a time, you’re not necessarily getting the collection of that idea. So, just anyway, it made me curious whether you guys, in school or whatever, or just growing up had kind of been exposed to those kinds of things, or whether that’s simply an extrapolation on my part.
DALTON: [00:17:27] I mean, what you said makes sense. It’s kind of what we’re talking about. I’ve never read that book. But a big part of what we’ve started to do and learn about is just, in a small sense, like a biopsychosocial model of how we view an individual where it’s not just, and especially when it comes to the context of injury, a lot of times people are just solely focused on the physiological side of things [inaudible 00:17:52] side of things, which are important, but of course, they’re very important. But there’s also a human being in front of you that, again, like Will had mentioned, will have different beliefs around their injury, will have a different way that they see the world, they’ll have some stress in their life, they’ll have a lack of sleep, maybe their nutrition is off.
Like, all of those things we know now can influence someone’s pain experience. And when someone’s coming to us, not all the time, but most of the time they’re coming because they have some form of injury or pain that’s keeping them from doing something that they love. So, what we’ve realized is all those things influence it. And if we don’t take the time to address all of those things, we’re probably not doing our best job in terms of serving that individual. And that’s why I think it’s a big part of what we do.
WILL: [00:18:40] It’s really interesting because it’s like, I like what you said about even if you’re looking multifactorial, let’s say, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to help that person better. Right? Like, if you’re just, oh, there’s this factor, there’s this factor, that’s not really the goal, right? I think a lot of it actually comes from like, for me why, and just to be straight up, we didn’t necessarily learn this kind of stuff. Like, we didn’t and we didn’t in school.
I think actually, personally, my athletic background, and being a leader in my sporting environment really just helped me view things through this lens because a lot of this is leadership. Right? It’s like you are tackling things as they emerge, but you’re paying attention to all these things. You’re not just checking little boxes. You’re seeing how is it relevant here? How can I use this to create some type of change or some type of mindset shift in the person that I’m working with at that moment?
JESSE: [00:19:52] Yeah, yeah. This is something that when — I don’t always have guests that are actively working with clients. So, it’s such an open-ended question that you may not have an answer. But hopefully, you do. I always like to ask about, can you think about big client transformations, if I can speak, and any stories of like those kinds of people that you can share. I just find sometimes it’s easier for people to relate when they can hear an actual story of somebody’s transformation. And if you can’t share, that’s also fine. You know, I don’t know what kind of client-confidentiality you have, and I don’t want to try to poke into that. But just if you have any stories, I always find it’s nice to hear them and kind of the things that your actual clients have gone through.
DALTON: [00:20:45] Yeah. I mean, something that comes to mind, I think is just to almost lay like a picture of how we would approach someone, right? We want to find out why someone’s coming to see us. And it’s not because their knee hurts. It is, but it’s not. It’s usually deeper than that. Right? So, one thing that we try to do is figure out okay, well, what is someone’s why, why are they actually here? So, most people are like, well, I have knee pain.
Well, why is that something that is influencing your life? Well, it doesn’t allow me to go and hike with my wife two times a week. Well, why is hiking with your wife two times a week important? Well, it’s something that allows me to continue to be healthy, and I want to make sure that I’m healthy throughout the rest of my life so that I could see my grandchildren. So, that’s why they’re there. Right?
So, now we have a why, which then we can use to influence the program that we take them through, right? And it’s almost like we’re trying to help them, we’re facilitating their story. And almost they’re the hero in the story. And we’re just kind of guiding them from where they are to where they want to be.
So, once we figure out the why, we then want to figure out, okay, well, where do they want to go? Okay. So, they want to be able to get to the point where they’re hiking pain free, if possible, pain free, three times a week with their wife, okay, cool. We know where we want want to go? Now, how do we get you there? And that’s where like, comes in the skills where we’re using education, communication exercise to get them to those areas.
But I think the biggest thing that I always like to see, and this actually happened with a client actually, that I just had a conversation, is the shift in their mindset around themselves. And this particular individual, they had come to me with an injury and hadn’t been active for a long period of time. And just session to session seen it changing from like, oh, maybe I’ll get a little bit better to, oh, I’m feeling better to then like being super pumped about the things that he’s accomplished.
And actually going out of his way to tell me about the things that he’s done, that I didn’t even prompt out of him. So, you can really see a shift in clients along the way, when you take that kind of perspective of finding their why and getting them to where they want to go. And a really cool thing that we do with clients at the end of their time with us is we have them fill out this card. And on the card it says I got back to, with a blank. And we leave it up to the client to fill out a word or what they got back to on that card. And this, in particular, person, instead of saying, I got back to hiking, it’s like they put, I got back to action.
And what I found really cool about that was one thing that was really holding him back from reaching some of his goals was that he wasn’t taking action in his own life, around his health and around all these things. And the fact that that was his takeaway from his experience here, verse, I got back to hiking because my knee pain has improved, or I got back to being pain free, I think is pretty powerful. And it’s something that we try to pull out of people when they come through here.
JESSE: [00:23:56] I have a haunting suspicion. Are you guys trying to produce good humans and not just heal physical injuries?
WILL: [00:24:04] Yeah.
DALTON: [00:24:05] Yeah. I would say yeah. I mean, yeah, we’re definitely trying to influence — have a positive influence on people’s people’s life, right? And I think that there’s a lot of things that goes into that outside of just helping them with their pain, like we view them as a human not as a knee injury, right?
WILL: [00:24:26] It’s something as simple as transitioning someone from an external locus of control to an internal one. And in our case, it be something like, when somebody first comes in, they’re very much like, oh, my back hurts. I have no idea what to do. You know, I’m scared. I think this is going to be here for a long time. Maybe I’ve really hurt myself. Versus like, two months later, they’re coming in and they’re like, I tweaked my back a little bit last week.
But you know what I did? I did all these things, and I knew exactly what to do, and it was better in a day. And now actually, what I want to do is I want to make my back even more healthy. You know, and I want to do this, this and this. And they’re coming up with things that they want to try that are harder than what they ever thought they could do. So, that’s a shift that’s super, super rewarding when it happens.
JESSE: [00:25:21] So, for the listener, just a small clarification, in case you don’t already know. So, Will had mentioned moving from an external to an internal locus of control. It’s basically the difference between, we might view it as like the victim mentality versus the I can do it mentality. External locus of control is things like happen to me. And I don’t have any control over these things, which is true to some degree, things do happen to all of us. But your internal locus of control is I have the ability to influence things and take charge and make things happen.
And when you stay stuck in that external locus of control, things happen to me, you’re simply, in some ways, I like to liken it to you’re floating down a river. You’re in a canoe and the river’s taking you and there’s nothing you can do about it, you’re just subject to the river’s whims.
But when you’re in an internal locus of control, you realize, oh, there is an oar right next to me. And I actually do have some influence over the things that are pushing me around in this river. Maybe I can’t change the flow of the river itself, but I can paddle over to the bank, or I can, you know, you do have some kind of ability to influence the things that are going on in your life.
WILL: [00:26:39] Hope you don’t mind, I’m just going to take that.
JESSE: [00:26:41] No, go for it.
WILL: [00:26:42] Just going to put it in my back pocket.
JESSE: [00:26:45] I mean, I come back to the river so much. And I think it was from — I studied a whole bunch of different kinds of religions, when I was in college. And I think it was from like a — I’ll call it a Buddhist sermon, I think they’re dharma talks, but just talking about the journey of I like it, because it’s just this imagery is like, the journey of our life is like, being in this canoe, and we’re on this river. And there’s a certain amount of current.
Like, you didn’t decide where to start the river, like the river is what it is. And you’re kind of being taken along by some things, but you do have control over, hey, the river splitting here, which direction am I going to go? Or am I just going to let it decide for me. Inaction is also a choice too. And just knowing that it’s an interplay of the things that happen to us via the river and the flow of life, and then as well as our actions within that context. So, just the imagery of it kind of helps blend it all together for me pretty well. So, I’m sure I brought that up on the podcast before, because it’s one of my favorite kind of metaphors for how I view life and our place in it, I guess.
DALTON: [00:28:08] Yeah. That’s a good way to think about it. And I mean, even to tie that external internal locus control thing back to like, our bigger mission, our vision, sorry, as a company is like to change the way people view health care. Like, health care is always not, has quite frankly, been a lot of like, external locus of control on the client. We go and do something to you to help you feel better and then they become reliant on you doing these things to the individual.
And I think there’s a time and a place where we’re here to help you with our skills, right? That you need me to be able to, to help you with that. But the ultimate goal is going to be to give you that internal locus of control so you can have control of your own life, and your own health, and go out and do that. Right? And that’s something that we’re seeing more of it in health care now. But it’s something that we really value and want to continue to push is like how do we continue to just guide people to take control of their own health
JESSE: [00:29:12] One thing I wanted to ask you guys about is I know you kind of look at, as we’ve been talking about looking at people holistically, you know, you have on the Movement PT website, kind of like a nutrition section, and I can’t remember the actual verbiage, something along the lines of like, you don’t believe in any particular diet. And I want to give you a little bit of a hard time and say how can we make any progress if we don’t follow an arbitrary set of rules to the letter that doesn’t necessarily have any evidence?
But I mean, what does that actually mean? Like, how do you help people with nutrition if we’re not saying you can only eat fruits on Friday, like these these kind of strict rules, how do you help — I think you work with a dietitian as well, which is good. But just like, how does that kind of come together to help people make better choices or healthier choices or wherever that means to you?
DALTON: [00:30:11] Yeah. I mean, we do have a dietician on staff, and she’s the one that helps everyone who comes through here that needs help from a diet standpoint or nutrition standpoint, she’s going to be there to guide them. So, that’s definitely her area of expertise. Like, I can speak from my personal experience with nutrition and diet. And I think what we were trying to get at with that particular language is just again, that it’s very individual to the person and that there’s not going to be one diet that fits all people. And I think we could agree upon that.
Of course, there’s principles that we need to follow, whether it be nutrition, or whether it be from a physical therapy standpoint, there’s principles that need to be followed in order to help people get to their goals. But each individual is going to have a little bit of tweaks here and there. So, instead of being like, labeling it okay, like everyone needs to do a keto diet. Well, that’s probably not the right way to think about it. It’s like, there’s probably key principles of maybe the keto diet that could be effective or impactful for that individual that’s in front of me, but maybe it’s only parts of it, it’s not going to be the whole thing, right? And I think it’s kind of more that’s kind of more the idea of that statement when it comes to the nutrition stuff.
WILL: [00:31:34] It’s like what — I think her approach too is like, what’s going to be the most sustainable for you over the long term, too, right? Because let’s just say a particular diet like intermittent fasting. Maybe for one person just based off of their kind of habits and goals, that works. But another person, if they don’t eat breakfast, their whole day is just ruined, right? So, for their lifestyle, it doesn’t fit, you know? So, it’s like understanding what’s the person’s lifestyle like, what have they tried before, what are their current habits, and what do they want to achieve and putting those things together, and then coming up with a plan that’s flexible, that utilizes all those principles, but packages it in a way that makes sense for the individual.
JESSE: [00:32:39] I think maybe that’s even on the website that mentioned something that’s sustainable. I think that’s part of the, again, going back to the beginning of our conversation, the lack of nuance. It’s so much easier to be like, the Keto diet’s the miracle cure, or the Paleo diet’s the miracle — just because I think, and I don’t mean this in a mean or negative way, but it’s a weak mindset to think I can take this silver bullet, magic pill, and all of my problems will be cured. And I think many of us have probably been susceptible to that at some point in our lives. Because we get to a moment of weakness, hence the weak mind mindset where it’s like, I just don’t know if I can deal with the struggle. Please just solve my problem. Which is where sneaky marketers come in sometimes and then sell you things you don’t need.
Not to say all marketers are sneaky because I market things and I try to do my best to be ethical. But it’s tough to have that nuanced conversation about diet, especially because it’s a hot topic. You know, you look at the diet industry, and you’re like keto is real bait right now. Who knows what’s going to be next, but they’ll be a next thing. I mean, I would bet any amount of money on that, there will be a next thing and keto will fall by the wayside. And it’ll be the new, maybe it’s we go back to eggs or something, eggs become the holy grail again, and it’s just eat eggs diet or whatever. Like, there’s always something new because any of these fads don’t seem to be sustainable for anybody.
And they end up on this yo-yo diet. Any time people try to work on that, I always wonder how you approach it, just because, again, you gotta grab people’s attention and then get them into this tough conversation about like, it’s going to be individualized. It’s going to take some trial and error. We’re going to make our best guesses. It’s a lot of work involved. It’s the complete opposite of, for only $19.95 a month, I can solve all their problems.
DALTON: [00:34:58] Yeah. It is a fine balance, right? And I think coming back to just like even the post that we talked about with Will, where he’s holding the sign, and it’s kind of a little bit provocative, in terms of like getting attention, but then the idea with that is to share — I mean, we try our best to share as much nuance as we could within the caption. And I also think there’s some like, honestly, self-responsibility for the individual that’s consuming content to actually look into these things too, right? It’s like, you can’t just look at — You have to look at something in its entirety and do some digging, and some in some learning about these topics, and try to make the best decision for yourself as you can, instead of just reading one thing and jumping to it.
Now I know it’s hard not to get, I mean, I’ve been there. I’ve been marketed to and fell into that trap, of course. But I think the beautiful thing about the internet when used appropriately is it allows for people like us who are trying to put out content that’s a little bit more nuanced or have this other approach to put things out there so that people can explore them to be like, hey, this doesn’t make — Well, I read this here and I bought this little plan and it did nothing for me. I don’t understand.
What are these guys saying? You know? So, I think there’s a combination of like, our responsibility as the people providing the service to be as upfront as we can and put it out there, doing the right thing, essentially. And then I think there’s some responsibility on the consumer, and I’m a consumer as well of other products to actually look into these things, and maybe take in a couple of different thoughts, so that you can then make a critical decision as to what’s going to be best for you.
WILL: [00:36:41] I also think the thing that we’re trying to do is like, make this kind of stuff sexier, right? Because [crosstalk] those quick fixes are super sexy. But the other side of it usually isn’t. But our business is, our brand is. Like, you see our space like it’s friggin’ beautiful and it’s super appealing. Like, you look at it, you’re like, oh, that looks awesome. Like, we got really good branding. It looks good. We try to make things engaging and fun. And so hopefully, to try to draw more people in, right. But then they’re coming into a space that has all this nuance. So, that’s what people have to do. That’s how we get this out there. Because we’re competing against people who do that. And have those really easy methods, right, or really like, singular, uni-dimensional thinking messages, right?
JESSE: [00:37:57] Yeah. Well, I’m glad you guys do it that way. Because it’s like, sometimes not always, you get people that say they agree with you guys. There’s all this nuance and stuff, and then they’ll just rail about people should just see it and all this. But you have to meet people where they are, [crosstalk] instead of just being like, you should already be where I am to have this conversation. It’s like no, let me meet you where you are and I’ll show you the door to this world of possibilities that maybe you haven’t seen before.
WILL: [00:38:37] Yeah. I mean, it comes back to that internal versus external thing, right? And like, oh there’s things we can do about this, to make it more appealing and to make it more accessible for the average person, right? Versus like what you were saying, which is like, oh these people are out. There’s nothing I can do about it. I wish people just thought this way. Like, well, they’re not exposed to it.
JESSE: [00:39:07] Yeah. Guys, before we run out of time, especially because there’s two of you, I want to give you plenty of time. One thing I do a little bit differently on my show that I don’t know, that I’ve seen anybody else do is I ask everybody the same question for an entire season. So, I’m at three seasons and my third question. And my question this year is how do you stay motivated after failing to reach a goal?
DALTON: [00:39:37] That’s a good question.
WILL: [00:39:32] I always reach them. I’m just kidding. They’re simple.
JESSE: [00:39:48] Never had to approach it. I mean, that’s a good way to go, I guess.
WILL: [00:39:53] Can I try, take a stab?
DALTON: [00:39:54] Go for it, bro. Yeah.
WLL: [00:39:55] I think for me, the goal doesn’t matter as much as the process does. And so I try to focus more on what’s the process that’s getting me. So, for example, my goal is to run 100 kilometers in a month, but I only get 80. But I learned something about that process and about, maybe how I need to structure my weeks. It’s like, I don’t care that I didn’t get 100 kilometers. It’s like, I care more about the fact that I’m going to be better at achieving that goal the next time that I go.
DALTON: [00:40:39] Yeah, I think I would agree in a sense. I definitely view it that way. One thing I think that shifted for me just over the last couple years is just this idea of motivation itself. And I’ve come to realize that motivation is very up and down. It’s going to ebb and flow throughout my life and throughout my physical endeavors, or whatever it may be. So, I try my best to not rely on motivation to be the sole driver for myself. So, more about the process and setting up the plan and what I want to accomplish. And just being consistent with that is usually what I used to like, work towards my goals.
So, let’s say if I don’t meet that goal, I do my best to try to look at it in an objective way as to, okay, what didn’t happen, what did happen, and then learn from those to implement into my next goal moving forward. I’m also a pretty internally motivated person, I think we both are. So, it’s a little bit easier for me at this point in the game to stay motivated with that stuff. But I think trying to set the plan, fulfill through the plan, go through the process. And then just try to objectively learn from the good things and the losses, and then implement those as you move forward.
JESSE: [00:42:08] In the last couple minutes, you’ve made me think about this. So, I’d like your guys’s opinion. So, I have this kind of philosophical approach to motivation, where people talk about what’s your why, and they come at it from that position. And for the longest time, I mean, we’re going back at least a decade to when I was in college, I’ve always told people they need a bag of whys.
Meaning, they need multiple lies, because I believe that on any given day, maybe that singular why is just not enough today. So, when you’ve got multiple ones, and often, I find when I talk to Olympians and pro-athletes and amateur athletes alike, it’s often underpinned by simply I enjoy this. But there’s all these things that surround it. So, I’d like your guy’s opinion on my kind of approach of needing a series or a set of wise versus like, that one holy grail of this is why I do that.
DALTON: [00:43:13] Yeah, I’m on board. I like that way of like a bag of whys. I think for myself, personally, I definitely have a couple, right, that are kind of set in the different settings that I live my life in. Like, a personal why for myself, a why for our business, a why for my physical endeavors, a why for my relationships. Like, I have those, a couple of things that I’ve never thought of it as like a bag of whys. It’s just something that I’ve always kind of done.
And just to maybe even add onto that is I’ve always viewed it as like your why can always evolve and develop. I know it’s always developed for me throughout the different periods of time in my life. So, I think there should be some ability to grow within those whys as well. So, yeah, I like that.
WILL: [00:44:01] Yeah, I like your approach. You know, I was actually going to say something similar when you were talking — [crosstalk]
JESSE: [00:44:08] I’m sure it’s not an original thought I just —
WILL: [00:44:12] But I think you need multiples because it’s like, things are going to come up where sometimes you need to set those goals aside. If you’re so focused on that goal, because it’s your why, it’s like this and that, something comes up that needs your attention and it’s like yeah, for me, like for example, if something was going on with my wife or whatever, I’m dropping — I don’t give a fuck… Can I swear on this? I don’t give a fuck about my other goals. You know what I mean? It’s like I’m dropping them because like, that’s what — So, for me, it’s like, I think it’s really good to have goals and be motivated, but that process and the multiple whys are so important because sometimes, you know, they become less important.
DALTON: [00:45:02] No, I think it’s a good thing that you brought it up though, because I don’t think that it’s as widely thought of as you think. Like, I even know for myself like I got really caught up a lot back, let’s say a couple years ago, before I’ve kind of grown let’s say my development of trying to find this one why. And always almost kind of being overwhelmed and stressed around the fact that maybe I didn’t have it, or I didn’t know what it was. And I’ve read this stuff about people that have this one overarching why that just leads them throughout their life, which is probably something that was effective for them. But I do think that it’s something that should be talked about a little bit more. I like it.
WILL: [00:45:38] I’m kind of laughing because I’m picturing Dalton on the street, like, “What’s my why? What is it?”
JESSE: [00:45:46] See. And now I’m thinking about social media posts. I’m like, now I need like a giant bag full of like, big block letter whys and like…
DALTON: [00:45:56] That’s perfect, right? And then you just got to go into the nuance in the caption, man. See, we can draw attention and then spit the wisdom, you know?
JESSE: [00:46:04] Yeah, yeah. Nice, man. Guys, if people want to check you guys out, the podcast, all that kind of stuff, where can they find you guys?
DALTON: [00:46:14] Yeah. So, the best place to find us would be @theMVMTPTS on Instagram. We put out a lot of free content there. We’ve been doing that for a while. So, we got a lot of content there. In terms of podcast, you can check out our physio-based podcast. It’s called The PT Coffeecast. You can find that on all podcast platforms. And then if you guys want to check out our website, that’s another place where we put a lot of our content. We have some ebooks, we have some different things on there, a blog you guys can check out. That would be TheMovementPhysio.ca.
JESSE: [00:46:48] Guys, thank you so much for hanging out with me today.
DALTON: [00:46:51] Yeah, appreciate it, Jesse. This was fun. Thanks for having us.