Greg Todd [00:00:00]:
We have a student right now who's making about $9,000 a month from their platform. They're not there. This is no, no digital course note, just them showing up daily for a group of people. They're making $9,000 per month.
Kyle Rice [00:00:20]:
That's incredible.
Greg Todd [00:00:21]:
Like, 94 years out of school. Like, what?
Kyle Rice [00:00:25]:
Wow.
Greg Todd [00:00:25]:
$9,000 a month. Right. Through sponsors, through, like, just because their audience can count on them, it was able to increase the count of them. Right, right. And the reason why they continue to come is because those people are like, hey, I can count on you to show up and bring value and help me in a way that only him as a physical therapist could help the people.
Kyle Rice [00:00:50]:
Right.
Greg Todd [00:00:51]:
In this particular area, it happened to be like, you know, skiing.
Kyle Rice [00:00:54]:
Right, right.
Greg Todd [00:00:55]:
It's crazy.
Kyle Rice [00:01:01]:
This is secrets for success.
Greg Todd [00:01:05]:
Welcome to the Secrets for Success podcast. I'm your host, Gray Todd. Thank you, as always, for joining me. It is the second time I've had you on.
Kyle Rice [00:01:11]:
Yeah.
Greg Todd [00:01:12]:
And I gotta tell you something, that first time, that was a doozy. People loved it. I loved it.
Kyle Rice [00:01:18]:
I loved it. Yeah, it was beautiful.
Greg Todd [00:01:19]:
Yeah. So, anyways, for those of you that are listening, I have Kyle Rice on. Kyle Rice is the founder of the PT hustle. Kyle is a great friend of mine. He has been in my life since 2017, I think 2017. And I think we can both say that our lives are infinitely better with each other in it. So, welcome to the podcast again.
Kyle Rice [00:01:45]:
I appreciate you. It's a pleasure.
Greg Todd [00:01:47]:
Awesome. Awesome. All right, so we decided to do this podcast because of some discussions that we've had right off camera, off studio, and we were being a little reflective. Why don't you tell the people a little bit? Just for those that don't know, you just tell them a little bit about who you are, what you do, and how long you've been in healthcare.
Kyle Rice [00:02:10]:
Yeah. So I'm a physical therapist by trade. You know, I went through PT school as a lot of the listeners here. And, you know, one of the things that I've struggled with for a long time has been standardized test taking. I was able to go from the bottom 10% of testers in the United States and the nation for standardized testing and then was able to get a perfect score on my board exam. So, pretty much ever since then, what? That was 2013. So that was about, what, eleven years ago. Now I'm getting closer.
Kyle Rice [00:02:42]:
I started a company where I helped students, physical therapy students, and new grads who struggle with standardized tests, who have a lot of test anxiety, who have issues with picking the right one and getting down to the final two, you know, that sort of thing. Helping them to now overcome the NPTE so that they can get their dream job. Right.
Greg Todd [00:03:03]:
That's amazing.
Kyle Rice [00:03:03]:
Yeah.
Greg Todd [00:03:04]:
Let's talk about when you started that company, how many people you have helped since then. Because whenever I hear this, it gives me chills.
Kyle Rice [00:03:12]:
Yeah.
Greg Todd [00:03:13]:
So go ahead and tell them. Yeah.
Kyle Rice [00:03:14]:
So today, you know, looking at all the customers that we've had, this is over 20,000 physical therapists today that we've helped overcome this NPTE. And there's a lot of these people who were on their third attempt, their fourth attempt, even their 6th attempt on this NPTE that have been able to pass.
Greg Todd [00:03:36]:
Wow. And I know the last time, I think the 6th after that, it's kind of like if you don't pass, that's.
Kyle Rice [00:03:45]:
That'S it for a lot of the states. I mean, there are some states that allow you to take it more. There's a select few of those. But for the vast majority of the states, once you don't pass it, that 6th attempt, you can't work in that state ever.
Greg Todd [00:03:59]:
Wow. So here's my question to you, and then I want to talk about what I'm going to title this podcast.
Kyle Rice [00:04:05]:
Yeah.
Greg Todd [00:04:07]:
Eleven years ago, did you ever think that there was a way that you were going to earn a living and help more people than you could have ever helped in your traditional physical therapy job by something that was such a thorn in your side? Did you ever think that was possible? That you were going to one day be basically someone that transforms people's lives by helping them overcome this massive obstacle, this hurdle that is keeping them from achieving basically the trajectory for the rest of their life. Did you ever think that was gonna happen?
Kyle Rice [00:04:45]:
No, that was never a possibility in my mind. You know, my goal was to be an incredible physical therapist. Right? I'd be able to put my hands on people and change their lives. And, you know, from what I knew, it's like, hey, on a good day, you're helping anywhere from twelve to maybe 26 patients a day. Something along the lines of that, right. But that was really what I thought life was going to be every day.
Greg Todd [00:05:10]:
Okay, well, it's not for you anymore.
Kyle Rice [00:05:13]:
Right?
Greg Todd [00:05:13]:
And I think there are a lot of things. You started this seven years ago, and I think there's a lot of things that you have learned over the last seven years. Things that I have learned over the last 19 years of being entrepreneur, but 23 years of being a clinician. Which leads me to why we decided to do this podcast episode is because we said we were gonna call this if I had to do it all over again. And basically, one of the big things that Kyle and I wanted to do is we wanted to do this episode for people that just graduated and have now entered into the new realm. The thing that you've been working, really, the last maybe six and a half, seven years or maybe even more to get. And it's an amazing accomplishment, and it's a fantastic, fantastic feat to be able to sacrifice as much as you've sacrificed to get to the moment that you're at right now. But with that moment creates new problems.
Kyle Rice [00:06:19]:
Right.
Greg Todd [00:06:20]:
Talk about some of those problems that people have.
Kyle Rice [00:06:22]:
Yeah. So when you come out of school, the thing is, and the way I think about it now is these four dynamics, right? And so one of those dynamics is going to be debt dynamics, student loan debt. A lot of us are thinking about that. Relationship dynamics is the other one. Right? So, you know, am I getting married? Do I have enough money to even buy a ring? You know, all these different things. Right. But then you also have, like, home dynamics. I mean, in the world right now, you're thinking about, like, how much money does it even take to buy a house, right? So we're thinking about buying a house.
Kyle Rice [00:06:59]:
And then the other one is we're looking at family dynamics. Like, are we going to have enough money to actually be able to build a family, have a child, put them in a Montessori, whatever it is, right? So it's these four dynamics. And I feel that as you come out of school, you're just bombarded with now all these financial responsibilities that it's like, wow, did I pick the right career? Is this career even gonna set me up to where I don't. I'm not feeling like I'm in prison for the rest of my life.
Greg Todd [00:07:29]:
Right? Yeah. I think, you know, when I go back and I think of myself in 2000, so I graduated in 2000, I was engaged, so I knew that relationship dynamic part was coming, and I was going to obviously be doing life with somebody else, right. And there was gonna be more responsibilities that came with that. But I never really. I never pieced the whole debt dynamics part. Now, I didn't have a lot of debt coming out of school, but what's yours is mine. What's mine is yours. Right? So my partner did, and I wasn't even thinking, like, wow, that's an additional expense that I'm going to have that I need to consider when I'm getting my job.
Greg Todd [00:08:11]:
You know, and, I mean, I knew that I wanted a family one day, but one of the things that I struggled with is that when I started to have the family, I wanted to have more time with the family. It wasn't just about providing, it was about being present. Like being present.
Kyle Rice [00:08:33]:
Right.
Greg Todd [00:08:34]:
So it was providing and presenting, you know, and so, and so that becomes a tricky dynamic.
Kyle Rice [00:08:40]:
Right.
Greg Todd [00:08:40]:
You know, and then you want the home and you want this, you want that. And I think, you know, maybe back in the eighties, like, maybe this wasn't as big of a deal, but I know that today it is a big deal, and it's trickier. It kind of leads me to another point for us to talk about, which is purchasing power. So you've been a therapist for. Eleven years.
Kyle Rice [00:09:05]:
Eleven years, yeah.
Greg Todd [00:09:06]:
All right.
Kyle Rice [00:09:06]:
Yeah.
Greg Todd [00:09:07]:
So I'm old head. All right. 23 years I've been doing this. My first job. I want you all that. Listen to the podcast. I want you to hear this. My first job coming out of school, I was an outpatient therapist at health south.
Greg Todd [00:09:22]:
I made 39,500 a year. So, Kyle, I was making $19 an hour. Wow.
Kyle Rice [00:09:29]:
Okay.
Greg Todd [00:09:30]:
But here's deal. What people don't understand is that that's better back in 2000 than making ninety k a year. So 39,500 a year. I was making $19 an hour. That's. That's not after taxes. Okay. That's.
Greg Todd [00:09:46]:
That's $19 and then the taxes. Maybe. I'm making about 1550. Jeez. Okay, but here's the deal. I had a one bedroom apartment. It's a fairly new complex. I was paying $742 a month.
Greg Todd [00:10:02]:
So I was paying 742. My wife had. My car was paid off for, right. I had a Toyota Corolla. My wife had a Honda Civic, and her Honda civic payment was 189 a month. So 742 for. For our apartment, 189 for the Honda Civic. Think our insurance was maybe like, combined, maybe just over.
Greg Todd [00:10:29]:
I think like 180 for both of us. Monthly groceries for us were probably about $75 to $100. Like 75. $100 every two weeks is what we would do. So $75, 100 every two weeks. We would have our bag, lunch. We would be able. We had enough money to be able to go to the movies usually once or twice a month.
Greg Todd [00:10:53]:
And we would usually, like, go to Carrabba's, like once or twice a month. So we were saving up a little bit of money. Wasn't much, right? Maybe $100 or whatnot. But that's what we're able to do on a $19 an hour salary.
Kyle Rice [00:11:09]:
Cow wow.
Greg Todd [00:11:10]:
So I think a lot of people don't understand the dynamics are a huge thing. But if I had to do it over again, you guys, like, I would be thinking of what is the purchasing power with whatever it is that you're making? So 39,500 for me is the equivalent of like 90 to 95 today. Okay. And if. And most jobs don't pay that, would you say that? Right. Most jobs don't pay that out of school.
Kyle Rice [00:11:35]:
Right.
Greg Todd [00:11:35]:
So you need to start thinking of, okay, well, where am I living? What's the purchasing power of what it is that I make? And what do I need to do to start to make things work in my favor? Like, would you agree with that?
Kyle Rice [00:11:49]:
100%?
Greg Todd [00:11:50]:
I mean, now you've been a therapist for eleven years.
Kyle Rice [00:11:52]:
Yeah.
Greg Todd [00:11:52]:
I mean, think about what you're paying today when you go out for dinner, when you take your son out.
Kyle Rice [00:11:59]:
Like, is it different just listening to it? It's just so wild. It just reminds me of when you see memes online or whatever it is. And the gas prices are dollar $0.89. Right. Or whatever it is. Right. And you know, it's so interesting because nowadays, I mean, I just had a friend who got into a one bedroom apartment and he's paying $2,700 a month.
Greg Todd [00:12:25]:
Right, bro? I paid. My first house was a three bedroom, three bath, 2500 square foot brand new home that we built. Hold on. It had an upstairs bonus room. I had a full. It was a game room at a pool table. Um, like, it was like, it was like my man cave. It was 550 sqft up there.
Greg Todd [00:12:50]:
The house was 2500 sqft. Wow. I paid twelve hundred dollars a month.
Kyle Rice [00:12:58]:
Oh, my gosh. See that? There you go. That, that goes to show you how crazy things are today. It's really insane.
Greg Todd [00:13:07]:
You guys must understand purchasing power. You have to understand that we live in different times and the reality is that none of you are gonna get paid. 39,500 coming out of school as a pt today. But it doesn't go as far. So I personally feel like everybody's got to know what is the purchasing power of whatever it is that you're making. And what I think the majority of people, if I had to do it all over again, I would understand that.
Kyle Rice [00:13:39]:
Right.
Greg Todd [00:13:40]:
And then I would, would understand the power of building an asset from the minute I got out of PT school, like, at least starting the process of building an asset.
Kyle Rice [00:13:52]:
Right?
Greg Todd [00:13:53]:
What would you say with regard to that?
Kyle Rice [00:13:54]:
Yeah, I mean, when I came out, you come out and again, you just want to be a great physical therapist. You want to help a lot of people, and that's all great, right? But you also have a life to live, and you have bills to pay and all these different things, right? I. Now, when I look back at it, that just wasn't enough. Let me hit the debt dynamics piece for a second. I come out of school, I was very much aware now that, hey, the Uncle Sam is coming, Sallie Mae's coming, Navient's coming. They want their money back. Right? And so the interesting thing, and I didn't learn this until later, is that there's this amortization. I have a problem saying that name amortization schedule, right? And what it really means is that you are paying back interest first and not really touching the principal.
Kyle Rice [00:14:47]:
So what was happening is that I was paying $1,000 a month, literally $1,000 a month, to Navient. However, my principal wasn't going anywhere, so it made me feel like I was in prison. And we're not even now talking about groceries and all these other different things, right? So now that I look back at it, I'm like, the only way you really dig yourself out of a hole like that and have a life of financial freedom is if you build some type of asset that can make you money around the clock.
Greg Todd [00:15:21]:
Right? Right. Yeah. I think a lot of you might not know what an asset is, so let me kind of break it down for you, because I didn't know this as well when I came out of school. So an asset is. Is a vehicle, or it is something that allows you to make money whether you are operating it or not. Okay? So just think about, like yourself as a PT, right? You make money by you going into work and you having patience on your schedule. So you know you're gonna get paid, whatever, 40, 50, $55 an hour. You have patience on your schedule.
Greg Todd [00:16:05]:
The place that has employed you is assuming that you're gonna have patience on your schedule, whether it's every hour, it's every 45 minutes, etcetera, etcetera. Okay? And so that's how you make money with an asset. An asset is something that you build, and it makes money whether you are in front of the asset or not. If you don't go to the clinic, you don't make money unless you have PTO, right? If you run out of PTO and you no longer go to the clinic to go see patients, well, you're of no value to the clinic. So they can't pay you once you run out of your PTO, right?
Kyle Rice [00:16:37]:
Right.
Greg Todd [00:16:38]:
But with an asset, an asset, you can make money whether you're there or not. So I'll give you guys some examples of assets that I have today that I didn't have this when I came out of PT school, okay. But, like, today I have, you know, a few rental properties, right? Actually, me and you are partnered with a commercial property together. Right. Okay. So it's not. It doesn't pay us, like, a gajillion dollars, but every quarter we get money because we are investors in this asset. It's doctor's offices in the Orlando area, right.
Greg Todd [00:17:12]:
I have a vacation rental property. And so, like, a couple weekends ago, I had renters, and then weekends before that I had renters. And. And I make some money having that property when they are renting it. When nobody's renting out, I'll make any money, but when people are renting it, I make money from it. That's an asset right? Now, that sounds cool. But most, like, it took me 20 plus years of making really good money in my businesses in order for me to be able to build assets like that. What I didn't know coming out of school that I know today is that you can build other assets that don't cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to make a couple hundred dollars or a month.
Greg Todd [00:17:57]:
There are digital assets. It's digital piece of property, right, that you can actually own and you can invest in and you can work on a little bit, like, not crazy. And it has the ability to give you really sizable returns. Like. Like, right now, this. This podcast that we're doing, this is hosted on a digital piece of land, right? That. That piece of land. So we have it on, like, three different piece of property.
Greg Todd [00:18:24]:
Like, we got it on Spotify. We got a little piece over there, right? And we have it on. On iTunes. Got a little piece there. Okay, right? And. And then. And then we have it, like, on our website. Okay.
Greg Todd [00:18:33]:
We got a little piece there. Okay, so that's the property, right? Doing a podcast is like the home, okay? So you can. You're coming into, like, our house right now. It's the Colin GT house, right? Okay. You're coming in, and I. And either you like the home or you don't, right? You might like what we're saying. You might not like we're saying, okay, you have a digital piece of property in your podcast, right? Lots of people come to the home to come listen to you speak once a week, right? Okay, right. You have it through your programs, right? Did it cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars to start that? No.
Kyle Rice [00:19:07]:
No, definitely not.
Greg Todd [00:19:09]:
So, guys, building an asset is, like, really important. It doesn't take off, like, right away usually, but if you build it and you learned a skill set to build it, which is probably the next point I want to tell these people as well. This has the potential to make you money whether you are there or not. Right. You know, and so I think of you, and I think of this journey that you've had over the last, really, 15 years of struggling with standardized testing, you know, when you started with the whole MCAT stuff, and then I'm struggling with this thing now. You're like, yo, I've got to figure this out at some point in order for me to be able to take myself to where I want to get to. And you basically took the person that you were five years prior when you started this helping people, and then said, I'm gonna help people with that particular thing, and I'm gonna do it by building a digital piece of property.
Kyle Rice [00:20:15]:
Right.
Greg Todd [00:20:15]:
And then building a digital home and providing value to people that were in a similar situation as you, that you're just on the other side, and you've been about 20,000 people, bro.
Kyle Rice [00:20:29]:
Right, right. And that. That's what the whole digital space does. And I'm so glad that you brought that up. It's like we hear a. About, oh, you know, invest in this real estate property, do all this real estate. That's all great and everything. Real estate is something that is a slow build as far as financial.
Kyle Rice [00:20:47]:
And a lot of times, in order for you to make a significant amount of money there, you actually have to have significant amount of money, real estate money. Right? However, digital is so interesting because you can start off very, very low cost and make wide amounts of impact. Why? Because we're an Internet society, an Internet world now, and messages can spread virally across massive amounts of people. Right? And so you can build a podcast like this, a meaningful podcast that gets people coming in just like you were talking about digital real estate almost, right? They're coming in to listen. And then what happens is you even have some people that are like, you know what? I really like what you've built. I want to sponsor you.
Greg Todd [00:21:35]:
Yeah.
Kyle Rice [00:21:36]:
I want to come in and I want to pay you money so that you can help bring more people over to my area as well and expose more people to me. So then you have people paying you to show up and do these podcast.
Greg Todd [00:21:48]:
Episodes and do the thing, bro. It is crazy. We have a student right now who's making about $9,000 a month from their platform. They're not there. This is no, no digital course note just them showing up daily for a group of people. They're making $9,000 per month.
Kyle Rice [00:22:11]:
That's incredible.
Greg Todd [00:22:12]:
Like 94 years out of school. Like, what?
Kyle Rice [00:22:16]:
Wow.
Greg Todd [00:22:16]:
$9,000 a month. Right. Through sponsors, through, like, just because their audience can count on them, it was able to increase the count and of them. Right, right. And the reason why they continue to come is because those people are like, hey, I can count on you to show up and bring value and help me in a way that only him as a physical therapist could help the people.
Kyle Rice [00:22:41]:
Right.
Greg Todd [00:22:42]:
In this particular area. And having to be like, you know, skinny ski. Right. It's crazy. It's crazy. I'm like, oh, my gosh, this is the world that exists. I don't make $9,000 a month in any of my properties, right. And I'm like, this dude is doing it.
Greg Todd [00:22:55]:
Just starting an account. Like, what? So I just think it's so wild. And I really like, if I had to do it all over again, I would have focused on building an asset, a digital asset coming out of school. And I would have learned what is the process to actually doing that? Which, in a way, leads me to number four. The fourth thing that I think is really important is, is if you have different skills than everybody else, you get paid more as an employee than everybody else.
Kyle Rice [00:23:30]:
Right.
Greg Todd [00:23:32]:
You know, when I came out of school and I got that job for $19 an hour at health self, you know, I didn't have any leverage, right. Because back then, just to kind of get you guys caught up on what was going on back then. So this is 2000. So I graduated December 2020, December 26, 2000 is when I got my first job. Okay. So I graduated in 2000 of that year, right. And what was going on in the PT market at that time is Bill Clinton had just came out of power, and Bush was not. Was now in power, okay? But Bill Clinton, he was the one that implemented a balanced budget act.
Greg Todd [00:24:12]:
So the good news is that our debt as a country went down. The bad news is that Medicare got cut, which is how the debt was able to go down. And they cut it from physical therapy, of course, occupational therapy and speech therapy. But physical therapy, of course, got the biggest hit right before that. Before that, you could see Medicare patients, like, for a gazillion times. Okay, all right. There's no problem. But now that's on the 1550, captain and get, get, get.
Greg Todd [00:24:45]:
Okay, so, so pts when I was in my second year of school, pts were losing their jobs left and right. They were just, they were just cutting people off from these nursing homes because there was no more money. Right, right. So when I came out of school, I had no leverage. I was lucky just to get the job. I was. I was screaming from the raptors, oh, my God, I got a job. I got a job, right? I had no leverage.
Greg Todd [00:25:09]:
But knowing what I know today, I'm like, if I had a skillset that no other experienced therapists have, then I understand supply and demand. I understand that if something's of short supply, there's massive demand for it, right? And so if I was to start over again and I was a brand new grad coming out of school, would learn the skills, forget about even building the asset, that the asset making you money right now, it's probably not gonna happen. I'm just letting you guys know it's not gonna happen. Like, right out the gate, there's a few people it's happened for over the years of me serving you guys or whatnot, but most people, it doesn't happen, like within a month, two months, you know, three months. But if I learn the skills of how to build an asset, and I was going for an interview somewhere, bro, if I let them know, listen, I've taken this program, this program, this program that have nothing to do with PT school. I've taken this to learn how to build an asset because I want to come in for your company and actually build this for you because I realize that you guys don't have this. Like, you guys, you guys don't have this. And I know that if we build this for your company, you guys already have that audience.
Greg Todd [00:26:29]:
You already have the patience. I don't have the patience, but I have the skills to build a product for your patients that you don't have the time to do.
Kyle Rice [00:26:38]:
Right.
Greg Todd [00:26:38]:
So I would love to be able to do this for you. And if we could charge people this, this, this is what I was thinking. This is what I've heard from the mentors, coaches that have taught me this that I paid my own money for. And with if you're seeing this and this and this amount of patients, and if 20% to 40% of your patients actually do it, this could bring you in an additional 34567, 810 thousand dollars a month. And I would be willing to head that. Just like that. I'm getting more money, right?
Kyle Rice [00:27:09]:
Right.
Greg Todd [00:27:09]:
I'm getting money of a 30 year therapist and I'm wet behind the ears.
Kyle Rice [00:27:14]:
Coming right out of school, you just separated yourself.
Greg Todd [00:27:16]:
I just separated myself.
Kyle Rice [00:27:17]:
You know, it's so I want to hit on that. That is such an interesting thing. You know, if I think back and I'm like, what would I have done different? You know, back to your point about how you were getting paid lower amounts. Right. Previously, compared to today, a lot of us coming out of PT school, we feel, hey, we're a new grad. We don't have a lot to offer because we don't have experience in all these different things. Right. But there is a lot that now, the way that the world works with Internet, with coaches, with programs like, we can consume a lot of information, build up these skills, and now walk into the clinic.
Kyle Rice [00:27:59]:
Although it's like, I don't have experience as a licensed PT, I do have experience building these assets that I can build for you.
Greg Todd [00:28:08]:
Right.
Kyle Rice [00:28:09]:
And before that might not have been as easy in your time where it's like the Internet was just kind of getting started. There wasn't all of these programs that were out there. It wasn't as common today, you can really build these assets. 100%.
Greg Todd [00:28:23]:
You can build these assets and you can build it for people that already have the people, right. But they don't have the time. And you have the time.
Kyle Rice [00:28:31]:
The time.
Greg Todd [00:28:32]:
Oh, my gosh, guys, if you're listening, please, please, please, like, use that as leverage when you are applying for jobs, use that as leverage in your interviews. You should be able to get yourself an additional 1020, $30,000 just by letting them know, I have something that's in demand. I have something that could actually bring more money into your practice. Understand that there was once upon a time where your years of experience is the only way that it could not guarantee, but give them a higher probability that you're going to basically pay off for them.
Kyle Rice [00:29:14]:
Mm hmm.
Greg Todd [00:29:14]:
Right. So, so the whole idea is that if you're a brand new grad, you're not going to be as skillful when it comes to dealing with the patients. Right. But back then, the only way to make money is by having patients come in. But we live in a different world. Patients could consume other things, especially digitally, or consume things in a different way that can make them money. And so, so you having that skill set, knowing that hardly anybody else has that skillset, you really have all the leverage.
Kyle Rice [00:29:46]:
You separate yourself, you separate yourself. You separate yourself. And then it doesn't matter if they have a veteran PT that's been there for however many years. You separate yourself because you are now able to bring more value to the clinic beyond, just, I see a patient an hour or a patient every 30 minutes, 100%.
Greg Todd [00:30:03]:
All right. What else would I tell you guys coming out of school? I'd make sure you understood the 80 20 rule. So what we just talked about was building an asset, right? Learning new stuff. And I know there's a lot probably coming at every single one of you. I mean, even for myself, like, life was a little bit less complicated, but I still felt like there was a lot coming at me coming out of school. So how do you. How do you do this? How do you build an asset? How do you learn the skills of building an asset? And at the same time, like, you want to be a really good pt, right? I think it's important for you all to understand the 80 20 rule. So I think of myself, and I didn't just come out of school and say, okay, I'm going to become, like, an entrepreneur.
Greg Todd [00:30:59]:
That wasn't my focus. My focus is I wanted to be a really good therapist, right? And what I didn't understand back then was that if I was going to build an asset, I can't spend 100% of my time doing that, because you got to put food on the table, right? We got the dynamics. We got the debt dynamics we got to deal with. We got the family dynamics, we got the house dynamics, we got. We got the relationship, you know, dynamics. Okay? We got all that. So, like, you gotta go do life, okay? So you're gonna make some money. But 80 20 is understanding that 80% of your time should be focused on making money for the current dynamics that you're dealing with.
Greg Todd [00:31:40]:
20% of the time, you should be focusing on making money for your future. Okay. For the future dynamics that you are going to deal with.
Kyle Rice [00:31:48]:
Right.
Greg Todd [00:31:49]:
So, for me, coming out of school, and I would love to hear your story, but for me, coming out of school, I really did not want. Like, I knew I could have made more money if I went into home health, but I really wanted to work with sports and with athletes. The problem is, working with sports at, like, health south paid the least, right? Working in, like, Alabama or Arkansas. Shout out to all of you there. But, like, it's not the most popular place to want to know to go work. But I know that I've got buddies that went there for home health, and they're making, like, nearly double what I was making. I think, today, as a home health therapist, if you're working in very rural areas, you can make close to six figures or more.
Kyle Rice [00:32:33]:
Or more. Yeah.
Greg Todd [00:32:33]:
Okay.
Kyle Rice [00:32:33]:
Yeah.
Greg Todd [00:32:34]:
Just coming right out of school for sure, but that wasn't for me. So I think you guys have to really think about what's a direction you want to take. Do you want to kind of eat, poop a little bit, go work somewhere, be a home health therapist? You're probably not going to grow a lot because you don't have mentors around you, but you're going to make a lot of money. And are you going to basically do that and then say, hey, I'm going to make more money than what my expenses are. I'm going to start to pound down on my debt, and I'm going to use whatever extra time I have to start to work on building this asset, or I, are you gonna be like me? The way that I did it is I worked for an outpatient place. I made 40k. But what I was able to do is, and I didn't do this, like, right away, what I did is I used my 20%. Back then, I actually worked at an alf.
Greg Todd [00:33:35]:
So I've always done the 80 20, but I worked 80% at the outpatient place, 20%. I did weekend work at an alf. Okay. What I would recommend today is you use your 20% of time to go and build a digital asset. Right, right. I would have done at alf. Right. So.
Greg Todd [00:33:55]:
So you guys got to figure out, like, what's going to be your way. Okay. You know, is it going to be, is it going to be, I'm going to work, at the least, the not as desirable place, but make desired money, or am I going to work at the more desired place and not, and make non desirable income? What was your situation?
Kyle Rice [00:34:16]:
You know, it's so interesting how, it's so interesting how sometimes insecurities can send you down the wrong path. Same thing is fear. Okay, so listen to this. I came up through PT school, and I had a lot of insecurity, a lot of imposter syndrome. And with that came this desire to want to be the best possible physical therapist, meaning that I come out and I get every type of certification to mask that imposter syndrome.
Greg Todd [00:34:50]:
I feel like the r word is coming up. Oh, boy, it is.
Kyle Rice [00:34:55]:
So I came out of school, and although debt, Sallie Mae, Navient, all of that was knocking at my door, I was like, I don't care. Because the imposter syndrome is so high right now, I am willing to take a low paying job, and I'm also willing to go into something like residency in order to mask that insecurity. Now, looking at it, I took, again, a very low paying job. Obviously, you go into residency, you got these mentors and all of this stuff. So you take a low paying, you know, position. And so for the first two or three years of my career, I wasn't really making much money. I was drowning. And now, looking back at it, that really was a struggle period for me and all of my time.
Kyle Rice [00:35:43]:
Back to this 80 20 rule, right? There wasn't no 20. It was all 100. Me working as an outpatient ortho, seeing a ton of patients, and I didn't have anything that I was building on the side of. So guess what? I was drowning, and my future was drowning 100. So that's one of the things. Now, looking back at it, I've been like, okay, hold on. Let me rethink this thing. Am I going down this road truly, because I want to grow as a clinician and there's intentional work that I'm trying to do here, or is this based upon, like, insecurities and fear and all of that? Because I really feel that your 80 20 rule is key, that, yeah, you want to set your future up.
Kyle Rice [00:36:27]:
All those dynamics that we were talking about, you want to set those things up. Up. And the way that you do that is having that core position. Right. But then having something that you have on the side that's not necessarily overwhelming. I think that that's an important piece. It's like, okay, I'm not saying work 168 hours a week, right? We only got 168. I'm not talking about working 24/7 but you're putting some of your time away into something that's going to start generating you money for the future, right?
Greg Todd [00:36:57]:
Yeah, 100%. You know? So I'll tell you guys this in full transparency. My first. My 80 20. I did have a 20, and my 20 was at that, alf. And I was probably pulling in about 15 additional hours per week. I'd see. I don't recommend that for you guys.
Greg Todd [00:37:23]:
Okay. What I recommend is that your 20 shouldn't take you more than five to 10 hours a week. Okay? Five to 10 hours. Like, you, you don't want to burn yourself out.
Kyle Rice [00:37:32]:
Right?
Greg Todd [00:37:32]:
Okay, so if you're working a 40, right, your. Your 80% is in a 40 hours a week job, like doing 1520, 25 hours. I mean, you can do it. Maybe y'all, because you young, maybe you can do it. But, man, you get to be an old head like me. I couldn't do that today. Okay. And a lot of you are older, like, in terms of physical therapy, is your second career.
Greg Todd [00:37:58]:
Right? And so that starts to wear on you. And that's a reason why I highly advise you guys to. So we just said a 40 hours a week job. I highly advise you to take your 20, your 20% of time and spend about five, max, 10 hours a week to build a 168.
Kyle Rice [00:38:19]:
Whoa, talk to me about 160.
Greg Todd [00:38:21]:
Yeah, bro, because, like, what? We have our 168 today, so today we have. We have things that make us money a week. Oh, yeah, like, like, people coming to your programs, do they just cook? Can they only purchase it from 09:00 a.m. to 04:00 p.m. no, no, they can purchase it whenever they want.
Kyle Rice [00:38:42]:
Right.
Greg Todd [00:38:42]:
Is your podcast only open from. From 08:00 a.m. to 05:00 p.m. no, you can listen to it whenever you want.
Kyle Rice [00:38:49]:
Right?
Greg Todd [00:38:49]:
So the way it works, you guys, is you get paid based on the amount of value you're giving to the world. So everything that we have, like this podcast, this podcast, you might be listening to it at 02:00 in the afternoon. You might be listening this podcast at 02:00 in the morning.
Kyle Rice [00:39:03]:
Right?
Greg Todd [00:39:03]:
You might be listening this podcast at 05:00 a.m. on your way to your JLB. We are open 168 hours a week. You want to have products and services that are available for people to buy. 168 hours a week, that's an asset.
Kyle Rice [00:39:19]:
Oh, man, that's an asset. That was deep.
Greg Todd [00:39:22]:
Yeah. So. So that's what you're looking for. You want to build that. I don't recommend doing more than five to 10 hours a week with it, though. I don't. Because then, I mean, maybe you could do 25, 30 hours, but how long is that going to be able to last? And then what ends up happening is you burn yourself out, and then you start thinking that physical therapy is terrible, right? And you're like, oh, my God. Oh, my God.
Greg Todd [00:39:45]:
Like, you gotta pace yourself with this. You gotta. You gotta treat your career like a marathon, for sure. You know? You gotta treat it like a marathon. You're here for. You're here for 26 plus years, okay? Like, you. Marathon, you run 26 miles. You cannot run the marathon like you're running 100 meters at the Paris Olympics.
Greg Todd [00:40:04]:
Like, you can't do that. You're gonna, you're, you're, you're gonna, you're gonna tap out. So, man, I just like looking back at what's available today versus what was available back then. Yeah, things are trickier for you guys. You know, I'm not gonna act like, oh, it's the same no, it's definitely trickier, you know, for you. But, man, there's so many opportunities today that there wasn't back then. Any closing thoughts?
Kyle Rice [00:40:32]:
Yeah. You know, I really feel 100% everything that you said, that there's a lot more stress now, at least, you know, from a subjective standpoint, I may be biased to it. There's a lot of financial stress right now. There's a lot of things that I feel are significantly different than what it was years ago. Tuition being one of the things. Right. That's something that weighs on me heavy. You know, my wife and I having $200,000 worth of debt between us, and there's some people listening to this right now.
Kyle Rice [00:41:05]:
You and your significant other, or maybe just you alone, have 300,000, like, MD level of student loan debt right now, and that's weighing on you. And it's like, well, how can you get out of this. This hole that you're in? I feel now with the Internet, with the ability to learn these skills, that you can come out as a new grad getting paid and you're 80% getting paid significantly more money, and then having something that you're building out on the side in that five to 10 hours that you were talking about that is actually going to help you start compounding money, you know, as you move into your future. Here's the other piece that you had said that I think is so valuable. Took me a while to learn this, that just because you have time available to work, so you have your weekends and you could work those 25 hours or whatever it is, just because you have time, that doesn't necessarily mean that you should use it to work.
Greg Todd [00:42:02]:
Right? Yeah, 100%.
Kyle Rice [00:42:04]:
What I found is that if I have less time to actually act on, I'm more intentional with that time, and I get more done in that time. Right. And so it's like, what's the best thing to do? Continue to just work 25 hours on your weekends and do all of this burning out or find a way that you can spend 5 hours that's going to actually start producing you money around the clock, and that's where the asset comes into play. Yeah.
Greg Todd [00:42:36]:
You guys, it's so huge. It's so huge. And you here, I'll leave you all with this. Make decisions with three to five years in mind. Don't make decisions with tomorrow in mind, you know, because you make different decisions now, if you're just thinking of, all right, I want to get some money for next week, then you're going to go and work the 2020 5 hours at the ALF like I did.
Kyle Rice [00:43:00]:
Right.
Greg Todd [00:43:00]:
Okay. But when you're like, hey, wait, wait, wait. I'm going to do this and build on this skill set that is going to help me when I get my next job, or maybe even with this job, you know, I can restructure my contract, but I know that it's going to help me three years down the road, and it's going to allow me to make 500 a month without me hardly even doing anything.
Kyle Rice [00:43:28]:
Right.
Greg Todd [00:43:29]:
That's what. So you want to make decisions with three to five years of mind? Not with three, 5 hours in mind. You know, you nailed it. Yeah. So why don't we do this? Because I hope this has been valuable for you all as you're listening to this. What I would love to do is I would love to gift you guys with a few different things that I have gifted my audience with over the years. Me and you kind of, you know, talked about, you know, some of these things. And I feel like you guys could use help with a few different things that could help you to make some income pretty soon.
Greg Todd [00:44:03]:
Okay. Beyond just your traditional job. So you can help address the dynamics that are dealing with you out there. So, number one is, I wish I had a template or a structure to be able to negotiate on an interview because that's probably the fastest way that you guys can make more money right now, is just positioning yourself a little bit better on your interview. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna put a resource below for them to get help so me and you could talk about it. And let's give them a good resource for that. I think that'd be good side hustles that you can do that are gonna make you twenty, twenty five k a year, building you up to about maybe 2000 a month. That's something that doesn't happen right out the gate, but learning those skill sets.
Greg Todd [00:44:52]:
And I'm hoping if you learn those skill sets, you can use those skill sets in your interview. Right. And let's see, what else can we give them? Why don't we give you guys a financial freedom calculator? Okay, so look, I'll put some of those resources below. We can link it in the show notes for sure.
Kyle Rice [00:45:13]:
Yeah.
Greg Todd [00:45:13]:
And let's give them a few things so that you guys can kind of understand. All right, this is where I'm at to, this is my situation. All right? But how am I gonna start to work my way out of it and not kill myself in the process? Is that cool? All right. You got any parting thoughts? Talk to yourself. 8910 eleven years ago, what would you say to Kyle rice?
Kyle Rice [00:45:36]:
You know, I would say this, that your situation's not permanent. It always can change. If you feel right now that you're stuck, if you feel like, buried in debt. You know, one thing that my grandmother always used to tell me is, if it's not good, God's not done right. And so it's like if you want to get out of your situation, there is a way. If I'm talking back to myself right now, I would say gain the skills that are necessary for you to build this asset that is not going to necessarily make you money tomorrow morning. That's not the goal. The goal is to set yourself up 3510 years down the road where now you can afford to pay off all your student loans, you can afford that beautiful house, and you don't have to sit there and sacrifice specific things that are going to bring you happiness and fulfillment, that you can get married and buy the ring that you want.
Kyle Rice [00:46:37]:
But most of all, you can have the family that you're dreaming of having without having to sacrifice. Let's just have one kid because we can't afford two, right? So I would say to you, work on building that asset, work on serving as many people as possible in this world with as much value and you will be fulfilled.
Greg Todd [00:46:59]:
Wow, what am I going to leave them with? You know what? Understand the difference between external economy and internal economy. So, you know, you, I'm sure you guys probably heard while you're in school, oh, either PT is doing great or oh my gosh, it's terrible out there. You know, we have an external economy, so like, we have our american economy, right? American economy is doing terrible. American economy is doing great, right? There's sometimes the american economy is doing great, but the global economy is doing terrible. Sometimes the global economy is doing terrible, but the american continents doing great. Again, I don't have any control over those things. But you know what I do have control over? I have control of my internal economy. So understand that.
Greg Todd [00:47:49]:
The external economy, what's going on with PT, what's going on with ot, what's going on in America, what's going on in your state, what's going on with Medicare in your state? That's all external economy stuff. Internal economy is understanding that the more value I can bring to the world, the more potential income I can make. And what I can tell you guys as an old head I get, and I'm an old head, is that there have been times where the american economy or the PT economy has been terrible, and I've made lots and lots of money. There are times that the economy was great and my internal economy wasn't so good, and I didn't make a lot of money. So what I can tell you is focus every day on building a better internal economy for yourself. Just focus on that. And it doesn't matter what type of economy is going on out there, because there's a lot of people right now in PT that are struggling.
Kyle Rice [00:48:53]:
Right.
Greg Todd [00:48:54]:
But there's a lot of people I know that are winning, winning. They're winning big, and they have a really good internal economy. So. All right, guys, here's the deal. Look in the show notes below, you'll see some different spots in whatever our messages where you can download those things that Kyle and I will create for you. Love you guys. Till next time.
