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00:00:11.657In today's episode, we have our guest, justin Sirotin.
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00:00:18.829He is the CEO and founder of a company called Octo O-C-T-O and he is a problem solving master.
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00:00:27.349People go to his company to help solve big, overarching problems, so we're going to be talking today in depth about this thing called problem mapping.
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00:00:41.847This is a solution, maybe the solution to helping you resolve any and all problems in your business, as well as helping teach your team to buy into those solutions that you're not like creating a solution and then selling it to them.
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00:00:44.201This episode is short but powerful.
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00:00:48.652If you're having any sort of struggle that you're stuck in, this is the episode for you.
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00:00:51.484Enjoy the show, all right.
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00:00:59.231So, justin, problem solving is a real issue in any business owner's path, whether it's entrepreneurial for physical therapy, either healthcare or any business owner.
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00:01:03.427So let's talk about your expertise in problem solving.
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00:01:04.850You have a unique approach to that.
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00:01:05.933Tell us a little bit about that.
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00:01:10.528We do so just to set a little bit of a foundation.
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00:01:12.591The business that we're in is a visual business.
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00:01:20.034The world that I come from is a visual world.
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00:01:41.010I come out of the design field and the vast majority of the team here is coming out of the design field, and one of the things that we've started to recognize at least probably 10 years ago, is when we really started to understand this more is that people who don't come out of the visual space have this impression that they can't visualize things.
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00:01:49.442And when you visualize things, it emerges patterns that then you can use to your benefit to solve problems.
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00:01:56.045So one of the very first exercises- Visualization of patterns patterns that you use to solve problems.
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00:01:56.787Got it Exactly right.
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00:02:06.213So one of the techniques that we use with our customers is a customer comes in and says we have problem A and we will map problem A.
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00:02:10.350We will just say this is what that problem looks like, if I just break it all apart.
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00:02:12.508So I'll give you a really specific example, love.
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00:02:21.014That Customer comes in the door and says we're trying to tell a story about a very complicated idea that we have.
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00:02:22.787So think of this like a pitch deck.
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00:02:35.747We look at the pitch deck and what we do is, instead of looking at the pitch deck one slide at a time, we take the pitch deck, we put the entire pitch deck now we're using digital tools.
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00:02:41.143We use to print them and put them on the wall but you look at the entire pitch deck all at once.
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00:02:50.153You look at the whole thing and then you move the parts of the pitch deck around to try to build the story arc that you think you have told.
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00:02:57.383So you think you're telling a customer here's my problem, here's my solution, here's why I'm unique, here's what I'm asking for, here's the next steps.
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00:02:59.087That's my story that I'm trying to tell.
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00:03:04.341So you take that deck, you put it on the wall and then you move the parts around and you very quickly see.
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00:03:08.862You put it on the wall and then you move the parts around and you very quickly see hey, you never told them X and you can see it right away.
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00:03:17.725because they look at that and they go, oh, there's no slides in the problem area, and then they just go OK, so now we need to tell that.
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00:03:30.431We need to tell that otherwise or opens up problems that you otherwise can't see because they're hidden.
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00:03:50.618Usually we look at these problems in forms that don't show all of the areas where we have gaps and we apply it effectively to every problem we confront, whether that's a software technology problem or it's a spatial problem or it's a storytelling problem.
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00:03:59.639Interesting.
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00:04:01.532So mapping it out gives the entrepreneur an idea of helping break down the overwhelming components of the problem into its elements.
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00:04:02.264And then you map that to help create solutions.
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00:04:05.531And this is something you do with your clients, but you've done this in your own business world as well, yeah.
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00:04:07.193Yeah, we're actually doing it right now.
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00:04:12.171So one of the things that we're working on is our business is a pretty complicated business to tell.
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00:04:14.044Our story is hard to tell.
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00:04:16.490We're an unusual business in the world that we live in.
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00:04:18.403Yeah, we live in two modes.
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00:04:24.949We live with our feet planted to the ground, where we have to generate revenue for our clients through products and services that we build.
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00:04:25.630Yeah.
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00:04:37.079And then we have to have our head sort of up in the clouds for how we tell a story to a relatively broad audience, and we have to do those at the same time, oftentimes, sure, so telling that story becomes really challenging.
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00:04:38.867So what we did is we mapped.
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00:04:41.769We just made a giant map of who are we talking to.
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00:04:44.047Where do they consume their information?
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00:04:47.704What's the story that they're currently being told by others?
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00:05:00.425What's our story and how do we break our story up so that those people that we're trying to find find it where they are already looking, and they find it in bites that they can then consume and share.
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00:05:06.601And so, once you draw that out, it becomes very evident that being on a podcast like this is valuable.
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00:05:16.841Yeah, because now there's a way that I can get to an audience with a long form that we can cut up and we can place it right in their lap where they're trying to find, where they're looking.
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00:05:28.656And that mapping exercise does wonders to align a whole team of people who work here around what we're trying to accomplish, why and for whom.
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00:05:35.067And so we use it for ourselves, we use it for our customers and I actually use it for my kids.
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00:05:42.944That's an interesting application, you know, because as you're talking, I'm hearing everything from you know, outpatient medical perspective, and this is you know.
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00:05:50.531It's funny because I also coach a lot on recruiting and I never considered it a mapping term, but it is mapping.
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00:05:53.524When I take a client I'll say, okay, who do you want to hire?
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00:05:55.348Let's say recruiting is the problem.
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00:06:05.588It's like let's define who you want to hire and then determine from that where they go online, real life, and then what's our message to them, what's our value proposition?
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00:06:06.129Exactly?
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00:06:15.240And most of our owners, most of the owners that are listening to this, are so busy they don't even know that they can do this mapping activity.
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00:06:17.928And it is applicable to all stages of business.
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00:06:19.502But tell me about how that looks with your kids.
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00:06:25.930So one of the things that I did with my kids was we were trying to explain this was years ago.
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00:06:30.899We were trying to explain to them how money works in the house oh, wow.
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00:06:41.310So instead of talking in abstract dollars, we just made piles of stuff and we just said, ok, here's the pile, here's how much stuff, here's the money that lands at the beginning of the month.
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00:06:42.012Yeah.
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00:06:44.067This is how much of that pile goes to this.
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00:06:45.206This is how much of that pile goes to this.
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00:06:46.091This is how much of that pile goes to this.
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00:06:48.583This is how much of that pile goes to that, and this is what's left at the end.
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00:06:49.264Right.
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00:06:57.422So you asking me for whatever and me telling you no isn't me telling you no because I don't like you.
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00:07:09.064It's me telling you no because there's a set of rules that we have to run our home by, and in order for you to understand that our home needs to run by some rules like I, need to tell you no.
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00:07:14.733And so it's very easy for a kid to understand hey, this started as a block of 10.
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00:07:16.225And when I'm done, there's only one left.
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00:07:19.970They don't have to know how many dollars are in the block.
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00:07:22.925They can just see that the block's small and then they go.
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00:07:23.228Oh OK, I get it.
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00:07:26.442They can just see that the block's small and then they go oh, okay, I get it In the educational terms.
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00:07:33.194they call that providing mass, giving someone a visual or tactile input to teach a concept.
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00:07:42.615And it's so powerful because what I'm learning is mapping as a solving problem methodology could also be an educational tool to help people understand.
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00:07:46.382Educational tool to help people understand.
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00:07:50.959So you know, mapping, mapping at its core, feels like it's about understanding any situation at its, at its root cause, or its or its root level.
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00:07:51.821Absolutely.
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00:07:56.031And and there's a theory out there that you can kind of dig into the weeds on.
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00:07:57.041That's a, the, the.
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00:08:02.622The theory was built in the I think it's the 1920s by a bunch of academics and they call it systems thinking.
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00:08:08.987And so systems thinking is this idea that there's no independent action happening anywhere.
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00:08:15.132All actions are connected to another action, they're all related, they're all connected.
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00:08:32.714So if you map the interconnected actions, the interconnected attributes of whatever solution you're looking at or problem you're trying to solve, it identifies where, if you make change A, you have a consequence in area B.
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00:08:36.750So use a physical therapy space as a great example.
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00:08:39.645You were talking to me before this call you were a patient.
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00:08:42.926I was a patient Disc in your neck, so you saw this in real life.
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00:08:43.681I saw it in real life.
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00:09:01.779So I was asked as a part of my physical therapy, I had to pick up I can't remember the amount of weight, but I had to pick up two dumbbells and I had to carry them around the space for a period of time, like I don't remember it was 20 seconds or something like that.
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00:09:04.702So it was a big clock on the wall and the clock.
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00:09:05.504There was two problems.
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00:09:07.812One, the clock on the wall was in one wall.
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00:09:23.349There's only one clock, so as you're walking and now I have a neck problem, so as I'm walking I can't turn my head to see the clock If you just had three clocks, one on three walls and they're all synced, you can always see it, then you're never doing that to that patient.
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00:09:30.556But the bigger problem was the path that I was walking by definition meant I walked through other people's therapy space.
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00:09:32.576What are you doing?
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00:09:49.948And so if you map that, if you just drew that out and you said, okay, we need to provide this therapy, this therapy, this therapy and that therapy, how do we make them so that they're both good for the patient and good for the caregiver, so that the caregiver is not having to avoid other caregivers acts in the way that they deliver their care?
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00:09:54.044And I can see you know there's no way around it.
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00:10:16.991You're sitting in this space and you're just looking around and you can literally watch people walk into the same zone and then have to do something to avoid one another, simply because nobody charted this in a way that you could say, okay, well, let's have the walking path, just be a walking path, and then let's have a care path, be just a care path or care location, and let's not intersect those two things.
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00:10:18.581And that would have they had plenty.
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00:10:18.903It wasn't.
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00:10:21.490This wasn't about how much space they had.
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00:10:26.370This was about how they mapped the space Right and the care was great.
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00:10:49.231Let me just be clear Like they did a wonderful job of getting my whole neck and arm operational without surgery, but it could have been more efficient and it's one of those where, like, it's so funny because this is like a literal and metaphorical analogy of how we operate our business, because you have, like, in that world where you're crossing paths with other people, there's like that moment of hesitation.
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00:10:52.690You're pivoting, you're having to, like, do the dance before you move around each other.
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00:10:54.985That causes inefficiency.
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00:10:57.960You could have walked further in that amount of time, you could have gone.
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00:11:00.984So you know, this is true for any system.
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00:11:08.673You know, I love this analogy of a physical therapy clinic mapping out a problem because, again, you're using visual information to help create flow.
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00:11:12.725It reminds me of McDonald's and the movie the founder.
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00:11:13.628Have you seen that movie?
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00:11:14.510I have seen that movie.
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00:11:21.523Yeah, sure, there's that scene where the McDonald's brothers their biggest like invention was the easy flow.
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00:11:31.312The easy flow system that created, where they would literally, on chalk, draw out the kitchen and that's how they created fast food is like, okay, they mapped it out, just like you're talking about.
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00:11:48.860They mapped out the kitchen in terms of all its elements and then they would like pretend like they were cooking burgers and fries and as they were looking at the elements, they would constantly reorganize the different elements, variables, the different elements of the kitchen to where they maximized its efficiency, and that is what McDonald's is successful at.
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00:11:58.188The burgers taste like they taste, but it's the speed that they created that revolutionized the food industry and it sounds like that's what you were.
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00:12:00.221You know, kind of in a similar way, the PT clinics.
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00:12:09.924If they would just take a time and map out their gyms and map out how patient flows work, but then go to their billing systems, they could go to recruiting systems, all those different systems.
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00:12:16.070Yeah, and I mean we, you know we do this a lot with channel mapping, where you're mapping the.
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00:12:20.304So again, let's come back to the physical therapy, and I'm not an expert in that space.
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00:12:29.679So so, if I, if I, miss, I'll be correct me, but if you, if you think about the channel, so how do you get your message out to an audience?
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00:12:38.370How do you sell things, services, products, whatever other components you're trying to sell as a part of your practice?
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00:12:48.182If you map a business in that way where you say, okay, our revenue comes from here, here, here and here, what are the overlapping channels?
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00:12:48.225that we can play in.
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00:12:48.937Yeah, for revenue from here, here, here and here.
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00:12:50.259What are the overlapping channels that we can play in for revenue from here, here, here and here?
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00:12:58.283How do we maximize the amount of money and time that we spend in order to get the most volume out of the least amount of work?
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00:13:02.005Because we have channels that are overlapped.
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00:13:14.533If you never map those, you're going to spend time and money voicing an idea to the same audience through two different campaigns, through two different strategies.
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00:13:16.619You're doubling your effort with half the impact.
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00:13:17.019That's right.
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00:13:23.721And so every business I don't care if you're a one person business or you're 10,000 people.
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00:13:39.365This act of mapping what you're doing and forcing everyone involved to confront where there's gaps, where there are opportunities for improvement, by definition means you're going to be more efficient and you're going to do it better.
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00:13:43.000And it happens literally every single time.
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00:13:49.682I can't, we're not and we're not magicians, like we didn't make this up, it's just you just apply it.
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00:14:08.417Well, this is what you've adapted to your business that we're sharing with the world is this idea of like mapping as an educational tool, mapping as a problem solving skillset, and I don't think people even realize it can be used to even be some to upgrade performance of anything that's even working well and it's you know, for example, one.
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00:14:14.640A real analogy of this is that when we we did something similar a couple of different ways in my PT business.
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00:14:32.278The first that comes to mind is that we had we were getting busier, we had more patients than we have therapists, which is a real common problem in our space, because recruiting is what it is Very few PTs relative to the industry, and so what we did was we started looking at a patient care visit and we mapped out the different components.
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00:14:35.355There was a time spent talking to the patient about connecting and reviewing.
00:14:35.355 -->
00:14:45.144There was a warmup session, usually on a bike of some sort or treadmill that would get their heart rate going, get their tissues warmed up, and then there'd be stretching, exercising.
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00:15:06.602There'd be a hands-on component, and what we found was is that if we warmed people up and went straight to the manual portion of their visit and then spent the remainder of their time doing exercise, that we were able to free the therapists up front-loading their visits with the hands-on so that they could spend time adjusting the plan and doing their note, which was a real bottleneck for any part of our industry.
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00:15:14.846And so this dramatically improved the amount of efficiency in our business, to the point where PTs were starting to go home with less notes because they broke them down.
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00:15:18.062And what was really smart of me was that I didn't do it myself.
00:15:18.062 -->
00:15:19.546I had better.
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00:15:23.303People smarter than me, like my clinical directors, work together to go.
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00:15:25.009How can we maximize a visit?
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00:15:31.616And you know this was a touchy subject because you know, justin, people in our space, especially PTs, they don't want to be told how to treat.
00:15:31.616 -->
00:15:37.917But when we worked with them to help them see that like, hey, listen, the order of things, we're not asking you to change what you do.
00:15:37.917 -->
00:15:40.519What we're saying is can you do it in this order?
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00:15:44.783Because for you it's going to free you up, right, and then they would buy into that.
00:15:44.783 -->
00:15:46.846And that's when we started to see some maximum gains.
00:15:46.846 -->
00:15:52.698And so, yeah, I mean that was something like in our world, that like we were doing really well at, but then when we changed that.
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00:15:54.183It freed up all this time.
00:15:54.183 -->
00:15:54.895It was a.
00:15:54.895 -->
00:15:57.224Really it's a powerful thing in that regard.
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00:16:09.970You're touching on another point that you and I didn't talk about beforehand, which is the act of mapping, is an actual cross-functional team exercise.
00:16:09.970 -->
00:16:10.931I see.
00:16:10.931 -->
00:16:12.594It's not a pretend one.
00:16:12.594 -->
00:16:22.307It's not one where you bring team members into a room and you give them the ability to quote-unquote buy in to an idea.
00:16:22.654 -->
00:16:26.498Yeah, it's an activity to get them to buy into it, because you already know where you want to land.
00:16:26.518 -->
00:16:32.576Right, it's not that it is an activity that by default, you can't map the whole thing.
00:16:32.576 -->
00:16:42.378No one person can map any business's entire solution, set or ecosystem or flow of patients or flow of customers.
00:16:42.378 -->
00:16:46.183So by default, you need the input from the entire team.
00:16:46.183 -->
00:16:56.379As soon as you get the input from the entire team, they now own the solution that they come up with and that is a default.
00:16:56.419 -->
00:16:59.543Yeah, by virtue of default is that because they help contribute, they buy in.
00:16:59.744 -->
00:17:00.205They own it.
00:17:00.205 -->
00:17:05.030They own it and by owning it they are much more equipped.
00:17:05.030 -->
00:17:24.001They're better equipped to solve the problem, whereas typically in larger organizations even larger, even in my small company organizations someone comes up with a, with a policy, a plan, an idea, and then they drive it through the business and half the people think it's dumb.
00:17:24.824 -->
00:17:26.728Yeah, they don't understand how he got there.
00:17:26.728 -->
00:17:28.919They're just like why are we doing this?
00:17:28.939 -->
00:17:29.602Why am I doing this?
00:17:29.602 -->
00:17:30.424This is stupid.
00:17:30.424 -->
00:17:32.402You clearly don't know what I do all day.
00:17:32.402 -->
00:17:38.282But if you flip that over and you say, okay, I don't know what you do all day, Right.
00:17:39.424 -->
00:17:39.967Write it down.
00:17:39.967 -->
00:17:50.088And then they write it down and then everybody gets to look at it and say, OK, see, that looks to me like that thing that you do for this amount of time could happen over here.
00:17:50.088 -->
00:17:52.443And they say, oh yeah, it could.
00:17:52.443 -->
00:18:00.545And then you're not the one telling somebody you're doing it wrong, they're telling themselves I could do it differently and then it would be better.
00:18:00.545 -->
00:18:21.490That act is as powerful as any other part of this, because you get contributions from people who know the details really, really well, and that act of mapping is a forcing mechanism to evaluate those details in a totally different way in the context of things going on around them.
00:18:21.490 -->
00:18:30.010And then you end up with these completely different results and it changes and it it changes the way people think about any, any problem that you're trying to solve.
00:18:30.010 -->
00:18:35.414You just, you just immediately see it differently when you put it up in front of everybody and they all have to look at it all at once.
00:18:36.037 -->
00:18:39.224Well, and I think there's something to be said about this offloading.
00:18:39.224 -->
00:18:43.321You know, one of the main themes of my show is to free you.
00:18:43.321 -->
00:18:53.559I want people who are listening to learn tips and tricks that are going to take the burden of owning their business off their shoulders and put it onto a team where it's many hands is light lifting.
00:18:53.559 -->
00:19:05.203And this is something that I'm just now realizing as we're talking that when I've solved things in my business correctly, I was mapping it and didn't know it, and I think there's something so powerful about trusting the team.
00:19:05.203 -->
00:19:05.826I think it's weird.
00:19:05.826 -->
00:19:07.397And I think there's something so powerful about trusting the team.
00:19:07.397 -->
00:19:07.778I think it's weird.
00:19:07.778 -->
00:19:21.035It's almost counterintuitive, justin, because people who are constantly worried about overburdening their team feel like if they're taking big problems in their company and asking them to help solve them is like they're asking for help and it's extra work, but it's actually the opposite.
00:19:21.035 -->
00:19:21.395Opposite.
00:19:21.395 -->
00:19:37.028We're building trust in our people because they see and hear us, first of all, transparently, as human beings who don't know all the answers, and then what's really weird is that when the thing is finished, they actually seem to give us more credit for being smart enough to involve them.
00:19:37.028 -->
00:19:38.069So perfect example.
00:19:40.217 -->
00:19:47.990One situation came to mind as we were talking about this value of like leveraging more minds to solve one bigger problem.
00:19:47.990 -->
00:19:54.662I had the courage to ask my, my team, when I had about 50 employees I had four locations in the physical therapy world.
00:19:54.662 -->
00:19:55.084I asked them.
00:19:55.084 -->
00:19:56.838I said what's the worst part of working here?
00:19:56.838 -->
00:19:59.384Yeah, what do you hate about it?
00:19:59.384 -->
00:20:00.768What's what's the worst thing?
00:20:00.768 -->
00:20:08.980And overwhelmingly for my, from my providers, my PTs or my OTs, they would say we can't take time off.
00:20:08.980 -->
00:20:10.662I was very generous.
00:20:10.662 -->
00:20:13.484We gave four weeks plus, you know, halt paid days.
00:20:13.484 -->
00:20:15.768So it turned out to be five, six weeks of vacation.
00:20:15.768 -->
00:20:17.249They would have every year, but it didn't matter.
00:20:17.249 -->
00:20:21.201They couldn't take it off because we had such limited team members.
00:20:21.201 -->
00:20:23.377If one person left, people would drown.
00:20:23.890 -->
00:20:27.721So I remember like not knowing what to do and feeling super overwhelmed.
00:20:27.721 -->
00:20:30.171And this is where normally we just get stuck right, justin.
00:20:30.171 -->
00:20:32.018We're like, hey, we don't know how to solve this problem.
00:20:32.018 -->
00:20:35.380So I accidentally landed on this mapping idea.
00:20:35.380 -->
00:20:49.027What I did was I pulled everyone together on a Tuesday night and I provided dinner and I said, hey, guys, we're going to solve the biggest problem in our company together and I'll never forget standing there, just being like super vulnerable, being like guys I don't know what to do.
00:20:49.027 -->
00:20:54.657I want you guys to all have six weeks off, but if you can't take it, then you're going to burn out.
00:20:54.657 -->
00:21:05.734I mean, this was scary for me because I'm acknowledging that, like my fear that I don't want them to leave the company, which, if I hadn't said this ironically, that's probably what would have happened.
00:21:06.738 -->
00:21:15.393But what was so amazing is that I started facilitating their ideas and it was a technician that said well, what if we went to four tens?
00:21:15.393 -->
00:21:21.935That would give all of us an extra day off, and if you're willing to pay time and a half, that might incentivize us to start covering each other's vacations.
00:21:21.935 -->
00:21:35.501And then it bled into this idea of like yeah, and it was really tricky, justin, because we were seasonal in Arizona, right, we had two thirds like 60% of our business was done in the first four months of the year, right.
00:21:35.602 -->
00:21:35.903Of course.
00:21:36.270 -->
00:21:39.682And so we needed a whole extra one or two full-time equivalent.
00:21:39.682 -->
00:21:43.440Yeah, didn't need the rest of the year or two full-time equivalent.
00:21:43.440 -->
00:21:45.105Yeah, Didn't need the rest of the year, Right, right.
00:21:45.105 -->
00:21:51.236And so someone suggested why can't we go try to find a part-time therapist that would be full-time for the first four months and then the rest of their year?
00:21:51.236 -->
00:21:53.910Their whole job was to cover vacations, that's a great idea.
00:21:54.672 -->
00:22:06.262This took about two hours, yeah, and at the end of the two hours we had this plan, I went out and recruited and found this therapist and I will never forget, a year later, having that meeting going all right.
00:22:06.262 -->
00:22:06.624So how's it going?
00:22:06.624 -->
00:22:10.635And they were all like, man will, that was so smart of you to come up with this idea.
00:22:10.635 -->
00:22:11.137It was.
00:22:11.137 -->
00:22:17.830They always gave me more credit and I just said, guys, no, no, like I'm not trying to be humble here, I literally have no idea how we were going to solve that.
00:22:17.830 -->
00:22:19.453You guys solve the problem.
00:22:20.175 -->
00:22:20.797But here's the the thing.
00:22:20.797 -->
00:22:32.530If I had come to them, justin, and said, hey, I've got the solution Right, we're going to do four 10s and you're going to cover, they were like no, but because they were doing it for each other, they were like no, I'll cover one, I don't mind covering.
00:22:32.530 -->
00:22:38.797You know, if they had a day off, if they were doing four 10s, they had one day off every week, covering that Tuesday.
00:22:38.797 -->
00:22:42.099You know, as long as I'm not feeling burned out and that's exactly what they did.
00:22:42.099 -->
00:22:44.402And they got paid time and a half, which gave them more revenue.
00:22:44.402 -->
00:22:46.223Yeah, like it was so cool.
00:22:46.223 -->
00:22:46.663I mean it was.
00:22:46.663 -->
00:22:54.529It was almost like there was no way one of us even if I had been smart enough to come up with that idea there was no way I could have gotten their buy-in yeah.
00:22:54.990 -->
00:22:57.553If I had just like rolled it out and taught.
00:22:57.712 -->
00:23:21.240That that's a great representation of that technique and I think some of the things that you know we come across in our business, which is obviously we are fundamentally a problem-solving company, that's our job is we solve problems for a living of using you know we say this internally.
00:23:22.040 -->
00:23:47.113I'm comfortable saying it publicly that when our clients come up with the solution and it comes out of their mouth, and all we've done is built the foundation, planted all of the seeds, so that our client says the thing that is the idea, says the thing that is the idea.
00:23:47.113 -->
00:23:50.078Those are the projects that go absolutely swimmingly, because it's not us doing what you said.
00:23:50.078 -->
00:23:51.621Here's the four tens is the plan.
00:23:51.621 -->
00:23:54.553It's not this group coming in from the outside telling you what to do.
00:23:54.553 -->
00:24:04.980You've laid the groundwork and you've just all you've done is created the conditions for the answer to the question to be very obvious.
00:24:04.980 -->
00:24:07.325But you don't have to answer it yourself.
00:24:07.325 -->
00:24:12.221You let someone else answer that question and then immediately it gets implemented.
00:24:14.551 -->
00:24:58.946And there's an art to that and there's a humbleness to that, where you are willing to not always get credit for the thing for the good idea and I think that's where really good leaders that I've come across especially in large corporations, ceos that sit back and wait, put the groundwork in place and then have their team come up with the brilliant idea and then have their team come up with the brilliant idea and then they give them credit for that brilliant idea are wildly more successful than those that sit in a meeting and say, okay, everybody, here's what we're going to do, yeah, and it retains better talent because the employees feel seen and heard, they're being developed as leaders, they're given a chance to have a voice.
00:24:58.987 -->
00:25:01.734I remember people telling me about like I was like what do you like about here?
00:25:01.734 -->
00:25:04.020And they're like, oh, you give us, we have a voice.
00:25:04.020 -->
00:25:05.272And I'm like well, what does that look like?
00:25:05.272 -->
00:25:10.673And they're like well, do you remember when you helped us solve our problem on taking time off?
00:25:10.673 -->
00:25:12.934It was so like, wait a minute.
00:25:12.934 -->
00:25:17.519I gave you guys a problem that I had no idea how to solve.
00:25:17.519 -->
00:25:18.900You guys figured it out.
00:25:18.900 -->
00:25:26.547And now you give me more credit than I deserve and you're saying that's one of the reasons you like it here is because I gave you my problem to solve.
00:25:26.547 -->
00:25:27.931Like it was so bizarre to me.
00:25:28.672 -->
00:25:29.571But it happens all the time.
00:25:29.571 -->
00:25:30.373It happens all the time.
00:25:30.373 -->
00:25:48.567It's very common, it happens all the time and you know, what you experienced is not out of the ordinary and it's just about, I mean, I think, the thing that you described and the way that we operate as a company, it's cultural and it's process driven.
00:25:48.567 -->
00:25:50.652It's not an accident?
00:25:50.672 -->
00:25:54.300You don't stumble into this and you can practice this.
00:25:54.300 -->
00:25:56.297You can start with small things.
00:25:56.297 -->
00:25:57.931So you got.
00:25:57.931 -->
00:26:05.423I don't know all the context behind the story you told, but you got a little bit lucky because you took a big thing the first time.
00:26:06.244 -->
00:26:06.464Yes.
00:26:06.750 -->
00:26:07.875And you went for it.
00:26:07.875 -->
00:26:14.420The best way to act on this is start with something relatively benign.
00:26:14.941 -->
00:26:15.342Got it.
00:26:15.782 -->
00:26:17.914Right Like start with something that is so.
00:26:17.914 -->
00:26:20.442I'll give you an example of something we're doing in our company.
00:26:20.442 -->
00:26:25.962Starting last year in December, we sort of periodically get together as a team.
00:26:25.962 -->
00:26:28.077We sort of talk about where we're headed, what we're doing.
00:26:28.077 -->
00:26:30.838We're a pretty open company.
00:26:30.838 -->
00:26:35.539In December we ran a workshop an internal workshop about designing our service.
00:26:35.539 -->
00:26:36.442What's our service?
00:26:36.442 -->
00:26:40.381What's the service that our customers should get when they work with us?
00:26:40.381 -->
00:26:42.836How can we design our service so that our service is better?
00:26:43.579 -->
00:26:43.961Interesting.
00:26:44.309 -->
00:26:46.097And we bucketed it into a bunch of places.
00:26:46.097 -->
00:26:51.803So pre-project, project, discovery, project execution, post-project, I can't remember.
00:26:51.803 -->
00:27:02.861We sort of had a bunch of buckets, we had a general one and then we just the whole team just layered in okay, here's all the things that we can do, here's all the touch points that we have with the customer.
00:27:02.861 -->
00:27:08.799Then we just pulled out each one of those and we said, okay, this is one we can affect, this one we can affect, this one we can affect.
00:27:08.799 -->
00:27:18.439And then what we started a week ago was the second follow-up to the workshop was we picked three, and we picked three that we all agreed were easy.
00:27:19.181 -->
00:27:19.382Yeah.
00:27:23.490 -->
00:27:25.441And we just said, okay, let's just get those dealt with, let's get the easy ones started.
00:27:25.441 -->
00:27:32.751So we build a little bit of a, we build a little practice to this and then we're going to layer on the harder and the harder, and the harder and then our rhythm will get better and better.
00:27:32.751 -->
00:27:37.382And so often what I see in companies is it's the hard.
00:27:37.382 -->
00:27:57.538Problems are hard for a reason and if you haven't got, if you don't have a mechanism and a process and a practice to solve them and you tackle those first, you are predestined to make your lives miserable and you will just stop because they're hard.
00:27:57.538 -->
00:27:58.461It's the idea.
00:27:58.630 -->
00:28:08.296If you think of a sports analogy and you say, okay, if I want to be a good basketball player, I'm not going to start shooting from the circle, I'm going to shoot layups.
00:28:08.296 -->
00:28:19.640First, I'm going to learn to shoot a layup, then I'm going to shoot from the free throw line, then I'm going to step out to the three-point line, then I'm going to stand back at the circle and I'm going to hit shots from the circle, you would never in your right mind go the other way.
00:28:19.640 -->
00:28:26.412In your right mind, go the other way.
00:28:26.412 -->
00:28:29.700But in business we oftentimes start in the circle and we say this is the thing that's going to move the needle for our business.
00:28:29.700 -->
00:28:30.742Let's go fix it.
00:28:30.742 -->
00:28:41.317And you haven't gotten the muscle memory of what it's like to solve on the regular, everyday things that are going to move.
00:28:41.317 -->
00:28:48.357They're going to move the bar a little bit at a time and then, once you've done that a few times, then you drop the big one in the middle and you say, okay, this is really what's going to change the business.
00:28:49.349 -->
00:28:52.896I love that idea that it's something you practice, it's a skill that you develop.
00:28:52.896 -->
00:28:59.499So, as my listeners, rock stars, as you're listening, I want you to think of something really small that you can use to practice.
00:28:59.499 -->
00:29:02.636Benign was the word that Justin used.
00:29:02.636 -->
00:29:03.853Something small that you can use, a practice.
00:29:03.853 -->
00:29:08.512You know, benign was the word that Justin used, something that might be big enough to be important to people, but not such a big deal that you're worried about getting it wrong.
00:29:08.512 -->
00:29:15.458Right, well, that could be something as simple as vacation coverage or well, in my case, that was a really big one.
00:29:15.458 -->
00:29:20.817But you know, something small in your world might be just how do we max or take something you're already maybe doing good?
00:29:20.817 -->
00:29:26.612Can say how can we do it better, because that way it doesn't come across as anything other than just the process of mapping.
00:29:26.953 -->
00:29:32.874Yeah, rock stars, as you're listening, maybe it's like, let's say, your percentage arrival is doing really well and you're like 90.
00:29:32.874 -->
00:29:37.250Hey guys, I have this vision that you know we're doing so good on this.
00:29:37.250 -->
00:29:38.373Let's build on our strength.
00:29:38.373 -->
00:29:43.282Let's figure out together what we could do to go from 90 to 95%.
00:29:43.282 -->
00:29:45.935If we do, I'll celebrate with some sort of reward.
00:29:46.396 -->
00:29:52.882But let's break down the components, together with the front desk and the providers in the back office and the billers let's look at.
00:29:52.882 -->
00:29:54.534Can we look at this from every angle?
00:29:54.534 -->
00:29:59.493Because I believe two heads are better than one and five heads are better than two, so you get to get it.
00:29:59.493 -->
00:30:03.001It's just like it just walk through the components of it and like to make this better.
00:30:03.001 -->
00:30:17.190I love that, justin, because building momentum around the skill in an area where maybe it's benign or somewhere they're already doing well teaches them that muscles that later they can come in and go all right, here's a rock in our business.
00:30:17.190 -->
00:30:21.075We have to move and everyone's already trained to get their side of the rock and they already know how to lift.
00:30:21.134 -->
00:30:30.506Yeah, because once you've built that practice and you understand that because the process to solve a really big problem, the process to solve a really small problem, they're actually really similar.
00:30:30.506 -->
00:30:42.563The difference is how long it takes, how complex the organization needs to be to support the solution, sure, and sometimes how much money it costs.
00:30:42.563 -->
00:30:43.509Yeah, I would add one how much money it costs.
00:30:43.528 -->
00:30:46.098Yeah, I would add one more the emotional connection.
00:30:46.098 -->
00:30:50.519Like you know, the bigger the problem, the more emotional like at risk there is.
00:30:50.519 -->
00:30:56.478So I get that like wanting to practice in a less emotionally viable area becomes a great way to build that muscle.
00:30:56.829 -->
00:31:01.538Yeah, and most people humans are naturally resistant to change.
00:31:01.538 -->
00:31:13.133They're naturally uncomfortable with the next thing, even if the next thing is wildly better than the thing that they have they're uncomfortable in just taking that step to the next thing.
00:31:13.794 -->
00:31:24.459So if the next thing is a relatively low risk thing, you're much more likely to get people to step into it.
00:31:24.459 -->
00:31:29.230Then if the next thing is a big risk, like I might lose my bonus, I might lose my like.
00:31:29.230 -->
00:31:44.064If we get this wrong, what happens Right, and too often you know, as I said, business owners, chief executives, chief operations officers they look and they can see this is what's totally screwing us up.
00:31:44.064 -->
00:31:46.798Let's go do, let's go make that better.
00:31:46.798 -->
00:31:56.753And they're ignoring the fact that that change, the act of that change, is part of the reason why it won't be successful, not the change itself.
00:31:56.753 -->
00:32:16.503And you know there's techniques that there's a lot of publications out there in this sort of space around how mapping ideas, using a systems approach to solving a problem, gives you better visibility so that you don't create unintended consequences with your decisions.
00:32:16.503 -->
00:32:23.826You create a framework that allows people to really see what the solutions could be before you act on them.
00:32:23.826 -->
00:32:32.201And getting buy-in I actually really dislike that term Getting ownership of the solution.
00:32:39.076 -->
00:32:45.233Because the people who came up with the idea will, by default, own it and have patience if it's not the right solution.
00:32:45.233 -->
00:32:47.240When we bring these things to the team, it automatically is inherently taught to them.
00:32:47.240 -->
00:32:54.813We're piloting this idea because when it's our idea and it fails, we've let them down, but when it's our idea and it fails, that's a learning step.
00:32:54.873 -->
00:32:58.742So, Justin, this has been truly a phenomenal episode.
00:32:58.762 -->
00:33:11.538I think it was so great that we were able to have some time to talk about how to solve problems from a macro level, because I think, as we drove in, we've been able to share various examples of how it applies to medical practice owners.
00:33:11.599 -->
00:33:24.942But, beyond that, how we can do that to educate how we're able to use this in our homes, how we can do this in our own lives, like if it's a dietary thing, let's break down the components, let's get other people's input, like anyone who touches that with us, like our family.
00:33:24.942 -->
00:33:36.261I just think there's so much to be said about this that this is exactly the type of episode I want to teach my audience, because I want people to walk away with some clarity and tools that they can immediately apply.
00:33:36.261 -->
00:33:41.018And I know this is one of those episodes where it's like oh yeah, I know everyone's done this by accident from time to time.
00:33:41.018 -->
00:33:41.659Of course you have.
00:33:41.659 -->
00:33:44.604Yeah, so if people wanted to get a hold of you, justin, how can they do that?
00:33:44.604 -->
00:33:47.259If they have questions for you, if they want to learn more about your company?
00:33:48.191 -->
00:33:49.678The best way to find me is just on LinkedIn.
00:33:49.678 -->
00:33:52.920Justin Sirotin is my name.
00:33:52.920 -->
00:33:54.909I guess you just search mine.
00:33:54.909 -->
00:34:00.482I am literally one of the very few with that name combination in the entire United States.
00:34:00.482 -->
00:34:13.597That's cool so so that's probably the best way is you find me on LinkedIn and connect, and I talked to a lot of people about problem solving every day, all the time, so happy to happy to connect.
00:34:14.199 -->
00:34:16.052Justin, thank you again for being a guest on this show.
00:34:16.052 -->
00:34:17.036This was truly phenomenal.
00:34:17.056 -->
00:34:17.639Yeah, I appreciate it.
00:34:17.639 -->
00:34:18.221This was really.
00:34:18.221 -->
00:34:19.432This was really fun, Thanks.
00:34:20.916 -->
00:34:23.623Guys, thank you for taking time to listen to today's episode.
00:34:23.623 -->
00:34:27.400If you found today's information to be useful, could you take a minute and help me?
00:34:27.400 -->
00:34:33.577I would love it if you could leave a podcast review in your app so that other people who are looking for this information can find it.
00:34:33.577 -->
00:34:42.181Plus, my dream is to have the largest network of medical entrepreneurs and leaders in the world so that together, we can change healthcare to make it better for all.
00:34:42.181 -->
00:34:50.922So, in addition, if you can think of anyone that you can send this to, not only would that mean a lot to me personally, but it would build this network so that we can make healthcare the way that we want it.
