Irene Hammerich [00:00:00]:
I think one of the big things, and it's how we started Liquid Gym as well, or anything else. It was the passion, but it was also looking for innovation, what makes it different. And that's how we built Liquid Gym. That's how we started the innovation with Interaction, which was the multimedia company. It's what is out there that's new, that's different, that's trending. And I am a voracious reader. I love reading. And so what's in the news, what's trending? What's the latest thing? What's the bleeding edge? What's the leading edge? So how is that going to take us to the next place? So I give me something to search and I'll go find the answer, or I'll find out that there's no answer, which then tells me something else.
Irene Hammerich [00:00:48]:
This is Secrets for Success.
Greg Todd [00:00:52]:
Welcome to the Secrets for Success podcast. I'm your host, Greg Todd. Thank you as always for joining me. I have two amazing people here today, and they truly are amazing because you both have really amazing stories. These two amazing people are not from the usa. They are from. I'm going to call it Canadian. That's what I call my Canadian friends.
Greg Todd [00:01:14]:
I'm just joking. I'm just joking. Anyways, Karen Stydar, Irene Hammerich, thank you so much for being here.
Irene Hammerich [00:01:20]:
Thank you. Thanks for the info.
Greg Todd [00:01:21]:
Okay, why don't you tell the audience a little bit about your background. And I think there's something really unique about your background when it comes to being in practice and all the other stuff. So go ahead. The floor is yours.
Karen Stydar [00:01:35]:
So we've both been entrepreneurs for the past number of years. The reason we met Greg is we wanted to look at. We have a clinic up in Ottawa that is a hydrotherapy clinic. And. And we wanted to expand what we're doing with it as entrepreneurs. It was opened, actually, because I. In 19. Sorry, in 2000.
Karen Stydar [00:01:59]:
Yeah.
Irene Hammerich [00:02:01]:
When did you break your leg?
Karen Stydar [00:02:02]:
I know. Have a blank year. But 15 years ago I broke my leg and I was playing hockey and 15 seconds changed my life because all of a sudden I couldn't do what I wound up doing, which was working as an entrepreneur. And I ended up. We ended up coming down to the States looking alternatives because my therapy, physiotherapy wasn't going so well, as you called it. Physical therapy wasn't going so well. So we ended up coming down and just looking at alternatives. And we looked at underwater treadmills, underwater bikes.
Karen Stydar [00:02:30]:
And at that point we thought, this is something we have to Bring back to Canada. And we did. We came back at that point. Irene was working full time, I was doing other work as an entrepreneur. And we came back with the idea. I wrote a business plan I thought we need to open. And we called the. The clinic that is now called Liquid Gym.
Karen Stydar [00:02:46]:
We opened it. Actually. I broke my leg in 2008, just after we ran the Disney marathon. Yeah.
Greg Todd [00:02:54]:
By the way, it's so funny. We actually found out that we were at the same place and we ran. That was my first marathon ever ran. That is. That's amazing. Yeah.
Karen Stydar [00:03:03]:
So it was just that last year I came home from that February 27, ended up breaking my leg. And that summer, because therapy wasn't quite so well, it was a difficult break, ended up in states. We looked at options, came back, said, we're going to do this. We're going to open up a clinic that is a hydrotherapy clinic. So started running vispcants, started raising the funds to do this. And it's funny because I called the manufacturers and I said, well, can you give names of other places that are similar to what we want to do? And there was a pause at the end of the phone. He said, well, I said, I thought, well, what happened? What did I ask? And there's no other clinic that had done.
Greg Todd [00:03:36]:
There's Zortica in Canada. That's.
Karen Stydar [00:03:38]:
No, in the States.
Irene Hammerich [00:03:39]:
Oh, in the States because of compensation of gym. And also there are some massive.
Karen Stydar [00:03:45]:
Well, not massive gym, but it was a gym component plus therapy side of it. So we ended up from scratch. We decided we would have four pools. So we completely redesigned how we were going to be doing this. And we opened in was November 7, 2013. So.
Irene Hammerich [00:04:04]:
But to add into the story the reason for the aquatic side, we saw the value of it because of our own aquatic backgrounds. We were pool rats growing up. And so we were teaching swimming. We were lifeguards. Karen also started in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, the adapted aquatics programs. And so that is part of the original history. We knew the value of water and as soon as that happened, the wheels just started. Started to spin.
Greg Todd [00:04:30]:
So when. When you came to the States?
Karen Stydar [00:04:32]:
Yep.
Greg Todd [00:04:33]:
So you break your leg in February?
Karen Stydar [00:04:35]:
Yep.
Greg Todd [00:04:35]:
Of 2008.
Karen Stydar [00:04:37]:
Yep.
Greg Todd [00:04:37]:
You can't find what you're looking for in Canada. You come to the States. Did you do rehab in the States? Aquatic rehab?
Karen Stydar [00:04:45]:
No. What we ended up doing is going to two manufacturers and we just tested the product there.
Greg Todd [00:04:49]:
Right.
Irene Hammerich [00:04:49]:
And so this airplane is actually in the local pool. Her sister, every day for three months, took her to the Local pool, deep water running with all the. All the folks in the pool. Just.
Karen Stydar [00:04:59]:
Well, this was an auto kind of thing. Yeah. You know, as.
Irene Hammerich [00:05:02]:
As soon as, within two weeks, Karen's rehab completely changed of being in the water. And that was the big.
Karen Stydar [00:05:08]:
Now, I should have known this because a long time ago when I was 21, so it'd be about 40 some years ago, I started the, as Irene said, the adapted aquatics program for the Canadian Red Cross in New Brunswick. So I drove around seven cities and started the programs. I actually initiated, developed the program, started the programs, trained the instructors. And so adapted aquatics was with individuals. So multiple. Multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, Parkinson's stroke, heart attacks. These were the individuals I was working with. So I was training the trainers to do the programs.
Karen Stydar [00:05:41]:
Gotcha. So I had a pretty good idea of what I was doing. But then, you know, life changes. I do other things. So I kind of left that behind. When I broke my leg, I don't know what happened. It was like a. Like, why am I not in the water? So by the time I could get into the water, I could take the cast off.
Karen Stydar [00:05:58]:
It was a walking cast. At that point, I ended up going into the pool. And. And it was, as Irene said, it was just like night and day. Within two weeks, like, holy moly, what am I doing? So that's why we said, we got to go find what's available. We did the research, and we found these cool underwater treadmills and underwater bikes. So we ended up going down and testing them. From there, we came back.
Karen Stydar [00:06:18]:
That's when we wrote the plan. By the time we had everything in Place was 1.5 million setup. Our facility, which has 3,000 square foot of pool, so four pools, eight treadmills, a dozen bikes, plus a whole. A number of other pieces of equipment.
Irene Hammerich [00:06:33]:
That we use in your pools.
Greg Todd [00:06:35]:
So there's a lot here to unpack. And I want to talk about your journey, both of your journeys as entrepreneurs. So you've been an entrepreneur for how many years?
Karen Stydar [00:06:45]:
45.
Greg Todd [00:06:47]:
And you've been an entrepreneur?
Irene Hammerich [00:06:49]:
I've been on and off, on and off. And one of the things as far as. And I learned about my life and the. In the business world by saying I didn't want to go into an organization where I had to maintain something. I was brought into organizations to either start something or fix it.
Greg Todd [00:07:07]:
Gotcha.
Irene Hammerich [00:07:07]:
The middle phase was not where I wanted to be because there was no energy in it. So it's like I actually started an athletic complex at a university in The Maritimes. I started a national organization funded by the federal government. And so everything was a startup to say, hey, this is what it is when careers changed. And I went to Georgia Tech and brought it back. It was a multimedia company. And so it was a software development company for interactive multimedia, the web. At the time, there was a whole series of things that started to happen and explode.
Irene Hammerich [00:07:44]:
And then we turned around and we actually closed the business after we created a major product for the federal government language training program in Canada and ended up selling. We sold that and then we turned around and said, okay, well what's next? And I went off in one direction. I was actually headhunted to go into multimedia and technical writing component for the. For a life sciences company. So that's where I really was immersed into that corporate world and systems and processes and all that crazy stuff. And so from that it was okay, I'm coming back to Ottawa. And as a result of coming back to Ottawa, I ended up being working with another organization that said, we need somebody in education design. So education design started a whole other world, even though I'm a teacher by training.
Irene Hammerich [00:08:38]:
And so that's the other side of life. So teacher by training, education design, new technologies, that was where I was coming from. And then again, you know, different changes happen in life. And in the meantime, I was working on the way, way back end of liquigym. And as a result of that, I would just go in, work with clients at the end of the day. Karen would run the business during the daytime. I was in my corporate world. And then it was okay.
Irene Hammerich [00:09:07]:
Life changed again. Now I'm back into what Liquid Gym is. And so I work the back end as well. Don't have any clients right now. So I had about 20 at the time. I was working with faithfully day in, day out. So yeah, there's the world.
Greg Todd [00:09:22]:
So this is interesting because you've, you've had many businesses. Yeah. Right. Here's my question to kind of both of you. So liquigem, it's was started out of a need for you. You broke your leg. You're like, wait a minute, what I need is not here. And you're like, all right, it wasn't yet.
Greg Todd [00:09:43]:
This is not good enough. You saw a solution.
Irene Hammerich [00:09:45]:
Yeah.
Greg Todd [00:09:46]:
You said, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to create this. Right. How many businesses have you created that? It was actually created from a problem that you had.
Karen Stydar [00:09:59]:
Problem that I had. Well, Wise Kids, which was a daycare supply company out of Toronto. I saw what we saw. Is the cost to bring basketballs into gyms and basketballs into like just small phys Ed equipment was horrendous. So we started before we started wise kids. We actually started. We would go and buy auctions, go to auctions, buy equipment and then we would sell it off. So we buy lot sales.
Karen Stydar [00:10:33]:
So we bought lot sales of a number of different things. You were always sports money because that's where we were focused and we just. Because I at the time I ran a ymca. I was a phys ed director at the Y and I just, I was surprised by how much it was costing us to buy basketballs. So I thought we got. There's a need there. So that's why we. That one company was, was formulated.
Karen Stydar [00:10:52]:
Then it happened that I was picked up because I was working at the Y and I started to. I can't really work. This is one of my very small stints of working. It was 18 months. I seem to have a lifespan of 18 months of working for somebody. It was always 18 months, 18 months anymore. So they said I have to resign. So what are you going to do? Well, I'm going to start a daycare supply and they had at the time was a mentor, mentorship program for entrepreneurs.
Karen Stydar [00:11:17]:
So that was the YMCA and they coached you on how to run a business. So I worked with that for a while and then due to interesting circumstance that happened we ended up seeing a very traumatic accident and I just couldn't handle being in Toronto money. So we decided to move to Ottawa. So moved up there and thought okay, what am I going to do now I'm up here, I think I want to. I actually realized, I thought you know what, in order to run a business I have to get an accounting degree. I thought oh I don't. That's what I'm marking. Right.
Karen Stydar [00:11:46]:
I had run two businesses now. So I enrolled in school, an accounting school and I lasted exactly six, six weeks. I said this is not.
Greg Todd [00:11:54]:
That's a little bit less than you're 18.
Karen Stydar [00:11:57]:
It just wasn't the right. I thought I don't be. I don't need accounting to run a business. I don't need to go to school to do this. So then there's an opportunity that opened up that again the YMCA were looking for someone who was going to run the entrepreneurship center. And so I ended up going there again other 18 months and I was like I have to move on. I was actually headhunted to start up in Ottawa. There was an entrepreneurship center that was through the city of Ottawa and They were looking for a consultant that was going to run it.
Karen Stydar [00:12:27]:
So after leaving the ymca, they hired me to set up this entrepreneurship center, which was unbelievable. There was three of us. We saw 3,000 clients a month. 3,000 clients that we met with every month, and we helped them start businesses. And it's funny, now I look back, there's actually a physio clinic that I helped start, like 25 years ago, 40 years from how long it was. Yeah. So all kinds of different businesses.
Greg Todd [00:12:54]:
Okay.
Karen Stydar [00:12:55]:
So I was there 18 months. And, you know, the reason I left is I felt guilty getting a paycheck. I loved it.
Greg Todd [00:13:02]:
Because you love it so much.
Karen Stydar [00:13:03]:
Yeah, yeah, I loved it. But I thought, this is wrong. I can't. How can I consult? How can I coach businesses when I have a cushy job and I don't have to worry about bringing money in? And, you know, it sounds kind of crazy, but that was just what I felt. So then left that and started a business called Business in a Box, which was to teach entrepreneurs how to. And I had, like, the day in the life of an Entrepreneur. So I set up a program and we actually set it up so we'd come for the day and I would have all kinds of props set up. So we would basic.
Karen Stydar [00:13:32]:
What's it teaching you? This is what it's like to be an entrepreneur. So throwing things at you. Oh, we just found out. The phones went out. So what are you going to do? Or just found out you got to pay this bill and you've got no money in the bank. How are you going to do it? So it was a day in the life of an entrepreneur.
Greg Todd [00:13:44]:
Wow.
Karen Stydar [00:13:45]:
So that was Business in a Box.
Greg Todd [00:13:47]:
So as you all can hear, we have a lot of business acumen, a lot of systems acumen, someone that only wants to start projects and fix projects, someone that is willing to basically create a business in many different sectors. Can I. I know I'm the business coach, but can I start to ask you all questions about business?
Karen Stydar [00:14:14]:
Absolutely.
Greg Todd [00:14:15]:
You were. Okay, so I'm going to start with you, Karen. So you've at your. The place that you're working at where you had 3,000 clients that come in in like a month, and you've seen a lot of people start businesses. I'm sure you've also seen a lot of people fail and you've seen, you know, quite a few succeed. Can you give me one or two constants that you see in the ones that fail and maybe one or two concepts in the ones that succeed?
Karen Stydar [00:14:50]:
I think well, not knowing cash flow is one big one, is not understanding how important your cash flow was. So we used to teach you would have a positive cash flow, negative cash flow, conservative cash flow. And it's like, let's just work on that. I mean, you can do all the marketing you want, but if you have no money in the bank, you're not going to succeed.
Greg Todd [00:15:11]:
Right.
Karen Stydar [00:15:11]:
And if you have no idea where the money is going to come from, you're not going to succeed. So I think the biggest thing that we really focused on is where's your money going to come from? But where's it going? You know, you work so hard to get it, but where is it going? So I think one of the things I used to say is you're going to make mistakes. Everybody makes a mistake. Just don't make the same mistake twice, Right? And so as you don't do that, most of the times you're going to be. You're going to, you're. You're going to be successful. Get you to learn. If you learn from every mistake and you do it differently, but, like, you are going to be successful a lot of the time.
Karen Stydar [00:15:43]:
So when I started, we were dealing with a lot of federal employees because there was a lot of layoffs at the time. And they, I mean, I thought somebody was actually joking with me, and they said, yep, I've been walking through that door for the past 40 years. And I thought, what are you talking about? So that's what I've done for the past 40 years. I walked through the same door, going to work, and now this person wanted to start a business, Right? Because there was a lot of money available for federal employees to start business. And I just thought that's when I looked at starting a day in the life of an entrepreneur. Because you really have to feel it, you have to understand it, you have to know what you're getting into and you have to be passionate about. The people that didn't succeed didn't have the passion. They were doing it for the money or they were doing it for.
Karen Stydar [00:16:23]:
Somebody said you'd be great at that, but it was their actual passion. Because if you have passion, you're going to stay awake at night, you're going to make sure that that last sale goes out, or that last thing that has to be done is going to be done if you've got the passion behind you.
Greg Todd [00:16:36]:
So passion and just understanding money and cash flow coming in, coming out, what are you doing with the money? How are we allocating it? Okay, Irene, do you have Any other answers? You've seen a lot of businesses as well. Do you have any things of what you feel are just constants on what you've seen? Why people succeed versus those that are failing?
Irene Hammerich [00:16:59]:
I think one of the big things, and it's how we started Liquid Gym as well, or anything else, it was the passion, but it was also looking for innovation, what makes it different? And that's how we built Liquid Gym. That's how we started the innovation with Interaction, which was the multimedia company. It's what is out there that's new, that's different, that's trending. And I am a voracious reader, I love reading. And so what's in the news, what's trending, what's the latest thing? What's the bleeding edge, what's the leading edge? So how is that going to take us to the next place? So give me something to search and I'll go find the answer or I'll find out that there's no answer, which then tells me something else. And if you aren't comfortable in that world or picking up the telephone or picking up the newspaper or seeing something that's different and going, what can I do with that? How can I do something with it? A hobby was or is actually photography. So when I look at something it's how can I do that differently? How can I get a better view of it? How can I think of it differently? So there's a creative bent to it. The ones that get stuck in those places get really stuck.
Irene Hammerich [00:18:14]:
And sometimes we get stuck ourselves. So that's why we come here. You know, we need to become unstuck. We, you know, not that you lose energy, it's just you lose it internally. And so you're looking for something. And so, and it was interesting. Being in the corporate world is the ones who, that's where they just want to be. They want the paycheck, they want the steadiness, the stability.
Irene Hammerich [00:18:35]:
And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But that's not the way we are. You know, we like the energy that comes from trying something new. Does it work? Does it not work? Does it fail? Does it succeed? And that's where we come from.
Greg Todd [00:18:48]:
Okay, this, so let me kind of tell you this. So my, my background's a little bit different on how I got into this. I am a clinician at heart and I truly thought that because I was a good clinician or so I thought that was a skilled clinician, I was working with some top level people that that justified why I was going to be able to have a practice and do well. I mean, obviously, I'm no different today, right?
Irene Hammerich [00:19:19]:
Yeah.
Karen Stydar [00:19:19]:
Yeah.
Greg Todd [00:19:20]:
And I'm listening to everything that two of you just said. I'm like, yeah, that's it. And a lot of people don't understand that, you know, even though you might not have. I'm talking to Irene now, like, you might not have been a entrepreneur at heart from the get go. The behaviors that you exude are very entrepreneurial. You're looking for problems in the marketplace, whether it's a problem that you have had or it's a problem that you see other people having. And you're looking for these gaps. And from the gaps, you're like, wait a minute, there's something here.
Greg Todd [00:19:56]:
And I think a lot of us as clinicians, that's not why we got to business. We truly thought that we are so good that we could make it in spite of our ineptitude with business. Okay, so now with that said, you all are running a healthcare practice and you are not healthcare professionals. So I feel like there is something you're going to be able to answer for us that I can't answer. What do you see is the limiting factors in clinicians that are running practices?
Karen Stydar [00:20:29]:
They are focused on their patient, and which is great, but that's what they're focused on. They're not focused on what's going to make. What's the next thing that's going to help them treat their patient. Like, you know, we had 20 staff. When I go and they get nervous when we go away, they're petrified. When we come back, they're like, holy moly, what are you guys gonna come back with? Because they know we're gonna come back with something, and we've already told them what we're doing, but they are. Because they're so set in their ways. This is not their nature.
Karen Stydar [00:21:05]:
And when we have a clinic director, we have a clinic manager, and they are both. They want to learn. They are definitely. They're just itching to understand the business. But their mindset is so different.
Greg Todd [00:21:17]:
Right.
Karen Stydar [00:21:17]:
Of what business is they. So, I mean, that's. That's a challenge. Your. Your mindset. I mean, you're. You are not normal. You are not.
Greg Todd [00:21:27]:
If I've changed, Karen, I've changed, obviously, a lot. But, you know, I. I do remember how I was, and I think because of that, I'm able to connect with so many people that are there. That.
Irene Hammerich [00:21:39]:
Yeah.
Greg Todd [00:21:40]:
Not. Not when they're there. Okay. It's when they thought that, wait a minute, I can do this. Like, everybody wants me. Everybody wants to work with me. And then you go and do it, and this is what happens. They go do it.
Greg Todd [00:21:52]:
They're like, oh, crap, like, I don't have any money or this and that or whatever. And you realize that I am so. I am so inept in these other areas. And then you kind of hit a breaking point. And I believe I'm just there when people hit that breaking point. Like, what the hell's going on? I'm like, oh, yeah, trust me. Like, I know.
Irene Hammerich [00:22:13]:
And I think the other thing too is people. People don't recognize. They're. First of all, in school, you're not trained to be a business person. You're trained to be a clinician. So here's part one. But I think then it's because of that. And I'm not going to call it an ego, but it is an ego.
Irene Hammerich [00:22:29]:
That's. It is, I'm good in this place, so that means I can open a clinic. Oh, and then Monday morning hits and you didn't sleep Sunday night because you didn't know what to expect from all of a sudden running a business. And I think that's part of what happens to a lot of people. And they. And it's not. Dreams are really good. Dreams are fabulous.
Irene Hammerich [00:22:50]:
And they want to open a second location, a third location. But then we're pulling people back and saying, but how are you going to get there? Money is one thing. All of a sudden you've got hr. All of a sudden you have to look at facility. You have to look at different systems. So that's where we play off the systems and processes piece. And also it's. How do you manage people? Right.
Karen Stydar [00:23:13]:
So we.
Irene Hammerich [00:23:14]:
Part of the way we look at hiring is we say attitude comes first because it's culture. We can teach you anything beyond that.
Greg Todd [00:23:22]:
Yeah.
Irene Hammerich [00:23:22]:
And it's always been like that, no matter what venture we've done. And so if we can teach somebody, they can go and take a course on MSK on something, but if they haven't got the right attitude to come in and be a good person, build those relationships in a clinic, it's not going to happen. It's not going to happen.
Greg Todd [00:23:41]:
You know how many people hire based off of clinical skill set and not of attitude, and it ends up being a total disaster? Yeah, yeah.
Karen Stydar [00:23:51]:
Well, attitude's everything.
Greg Todd [00:23:52]:
Yeah.
Irene Hammerich [00:23:53]:
The culture is everything.
Greg Todd [00:23:54]:
Yeah.
Karen Stydar [00:23:54]:
I mean, our patients come back to us because the first thing, I mean, we joke about it, but if I go around And I said, what is that? What is that patient's name? And they don't know. It's a joke. They'll be fired on the spawn. They have to know every patient, and we have hundreds of patients come in every day. But they have to know because that patient coming through the door, it's not just coming for the physical therapy. It's coming for the emotional therapy. It's coming because this is a very warm environment. I mean, pre Covid, we used to have a puzzle table, and it was a huge boardroom table in our front lobby area.
Karen Stydar [00:24:27]:
And patients would come, and they would come early for their patients leave late, and they would do the puzzle. And we had a lending library that they would take books. So it's not just we truly believe. Yes, when you get in the water, or yes, when you're doing the physical therapy out in the back with the equipment, the land equipment. Yes, it's important. But we do believe if you're healing here and you're healing here, the physical will come.
Greg Todd [00:24:50]:
It's going to come. It's going to come. Wow. You created an experience with your client base. Okay, yeah. This is really important. I truly believe, by the way, that's part of the reason why I wanted you all in my world. Okay.
Greg Todd [00:25:05]:
That's my agenda. You know, Gwen Clausen. Do you honor her?
Karen Stydar [00:25:09]:
No.
Greg Todd [00:25:09]:
Okay, so, Gwen, this is in 20. So listen to this story. In 2022, in my inner circle, I only allow 10 people at a time to be in that group. Right. The platinum. I can. I can, you know, grow it. Inner circle.
Greg Todd [00:25:25]:
I have to meet with them, like, every three months. So it's, you know, you want a small group, and I want to be able to really kind of work on their issue. Da da da da da. Anyways, we had one person drop out of the inner circle. So we had. And by the way, that person was in Canada. Okay, all right. Canada.
Greg Todd [00:25:41]:
Yeah.
Karen Stydar [00:25:42]:
Okay.
Greg Todd [00:25:42]:
And she was amazing. But it was during the COVID time, and you guys are still under so much lockdown and couldn't leave and whatnot. And we were free to do what we wanted to do. And it was just like, it didn't make sense for her to. To stay anymore because she couldn't, like, attend the event. I totally get it. Anyways, so I had one spot open, and really it was Brittany that said, hey, do you want to, like, open that spot to anyone? I was like, well, I said, you know what? There's only one person. I don't really know her very well, but I want to hear a little bit more, because I think she's a non clinician that has a clinical practice.
Greg Todd [00:26:25]:
So I talked to her the next day and said, all right, I want to offer you the ability to come to my inner circle strictly for this reason and this reason only. You are the only non clinician that has a clinical practice. And I believe that I want to break people's false beliefs that they need to be a clinician in order to be. To have a successful practice. And I actually, I think my hypothesis is that non clinicians actually create much better clinical businesses. Anyways, she joined that day.
Karen Stydar [00:26:59]:
Okay.
Greg Todd [00:26:59]:
Oh, she is entrepreneur of the year this year. So she's had the biggest rise since being in our programs. And, you know, so, so, so I say all that for this reason.
Karen Stydar [00:27:12]:
Wow.
Greg Todd [00:27:13]:
It has been so easy to work with her.
Karen Stydar [00:27:17]:
Oh, interesting.
Greg Todd [00:27:18]:
Versus everybody else that has businesses. And I find that with you all, too.
Karen Stydar [00:27:23]:
Yes.
Greg Todd [00:27:23]:
Yeah, I think it's. I personally think this is what it is. And then you can correct me if I'm wrong. I believe you don't have a choice. Like, you don't have a choice to go into the clinic. You don't have that choice. So you have to flex your entrepreneurial muscles. You have to flex your leadership muscles.
Greg Todd [00:27:42]:
You have to flex your visionary muscles. Like, people can't follow you and admire you because of your clinical prowess. Like, they can't. Right. But there's so much more to it. And actually, that's like the worst thing you could have. Right. And so.
Greg Todd [00:27:59]:
And so I just feel like that's what it is. Tell me, am I right or am I wrong?
Karen Stydar [00:28:03]:
You know, it's interesting because with the shortage of physios we are now going to in Canada, in one sense, a lot of other clinic owners I know, they're like, well, they'll step in and we can't.
Greg Todd [00:28:15]:
Can't, right?
Karen Stydar [00:28:16]:
Yep, we can't. We. Yes, we are trainers. Yes, we could do that. And that. That is a part. An aspect of our business. But as far as physios, so we really can't step in and work that extra, you know, five hours or 12 hours to make sure that we can be service.
Karen Stydar [00:28:30]:
So we have to figure out how are we going to do this. And that has brought the uniqueness, the innovation, and that's why we bring equipment into the complex, so that we make the therapist's job easier because we're. And that was a model that came from the States, like underwater treadmills and the Alter G antigravity treadmill. Part of this is. We brought it because we looked at the model that is in the States. The faster you rehab, the better equipment you have. The faster you rehab, the faster patients could be in and they're going to be out. And as we want, we want in, we want them out, rehab properly.
Karen Stydar [00:29:04]:
But if you have the right equipment now, there's a cost to that. There's a capital cost of doing that. But that was from the very beginning that we looked at. How are we going to get these patients in? We're gonna treat them well and provide our staff also a culture that they feel proud of. They're unique because we are a unique place in Ottawa, we're a unique place.
Irene Hammerich [00:29:25]:
In Canada, and we're taking a trend. There's a trend shift that's going on for staffing too. And that's the other thing. And it's only just starting to happen. When we first opened the doors, physios wanted to come and work with us, which was fantastic. And it was because it was different. And they had the toys, they had the gadgets, they had the machinery. But also what happened is then, okay, they got tired and that's fair ball.
Irene Hammerich [00:29:51]:
And then in between things, Covid hit and now we've pivoted again and we've changed our entire staffing model and how we actually have structured the business, which was an important piece, because then how do you still maintain what your belief and your vision is, but your staffing has to change to that. Then on top of that, now for whatever is going on in the marketplace, we're getting, again, different people wanting to come and work with us, not necessarily physios, because many of them have left the field.
Karen Stydar [00:30:23]:
Right.
Irene Hammerich [00:30:23]:
But what we're finding is now we're getting the kinesiologists, the human kinetics folks who are coming in and saying, I see that, because when I graduate from, when I've now graduated from school, I'm going to be able to take my gap year, do whatever I need. I'm applying to physio school. I'm going to actually be a better physio when I go to school simply because I've got solid experience because of the mentorship that goes on. And mentorship in our program is our senior physios mentorship. If you can't mentor somebody, we have a real problem.
Greg Todd [00:30:57]:
Right.
Irene Hammerich [00:30:58]:
So that's part of our model and it's our business model, too.
Greg Todd [00:31:02]:
Yeah. I think for those of you listening, you need to understand, number one, what makes you unique, what makes you different in a marketplace. But not just unique to your customer base. What makes you unique to people that you want to actually serve your customer base. Right. And that's going to change. The market is going to create contributing factors constantly. Right.
Greg Todd [00:31:28]:
Whether it's physiotherapy. School is way too much money now, so not as many people are coming in. So we don't have as much of a pipeline of people coming in. Right. Or this is going on. This new legislation just hit in Canada. This new legislation just hit in America. You got a new prime minister, you have a new president, you have this, you have that, you guys, all these things are contributing factors.
Greg Todd [00:31:46]:
That's part of dealing with business. You have to be willing to look at the trends, look at what's going on, adapt. Understanding that you are in concept recruiting mode for new people coming in. And sometimes it's going to be a surplus of people, sometimes it's not, and then it. But it really doesn't matter. You're always in service mode of figuring out how it is that you're going to serve your clients. And so you have to find new opportunities, new ways to be able to make sure that our clients are serviced regardless of what's going on in a marketplace. You all do that really well.
Greg Todd [00:32:22]:
And I want to do a second episode with you all. Okay. About some of the things that you're planning on doing. But before I finish this out, if there is one piece of advice, just one that you could give someone that's considering entrepreneurship or maybe they're a newbie, what would you give them?
Irene Hammerich [00:32:50]:
Don't be afraid.
Greg Todd [00:32:51]:
Okay.
Irene Hammerich [00:32:51]:
Don't be afraid. There will be challenges every day. There will be things you have to look out for. There will be days or night you don't sleep, but don't be afraid of the next day. Learn normal, learn, normal. Learn, learn, learn. And it can be clinical learning, it can be mental, it can be emotional learning, it can be business learning. But never stop because there's always something new and different.
Irene Hammerich [00:33:17]:
Always. Or someone who will be able to support you. And you have to keep going with that all the time.
Greg Todd [00:33:22]:
Love it. Love it. Kara, you got anything?
Karen Stydar [00:33:24]:
Passion.
Greg Todd [00:33:25]:
Passion.
Karen Stydar [00:33:26]:
If you don't have passion, you won't succeed. Because in those dark days, it's dark.
Greg Todd [00:33:33]:
Yeah.
Karen Stydar [00:33:34]:
And you have to reason, why are you doing this? If you're doing it for the money, don't do it, because that will wear out.
Greg Todd [00:33:41]:
Yeah.
Karen Stydar [00:33:42]:
You know, money. Yeah. Yeah. No. If it's your passion, you'll go to the end of the world.
Greg Todd [00:33:47]:
Yeah.
Karen Stydar [00:33:48]:
To make sure it's going to work.
Greg Todd [00:33:49]:
Right.
Karen Stydar [00:33:49]:
Because it's your passion. It has to come from your heart.
Greg Todd [00:33:52]:
Yeah. Yeah. I feel like my entire journey as an entrepreneur has been led with my heart. I mean, I try to lead with my mind, but I can tell you that my communication is through my heart. Me being able to show up for my people, it's just through passion and just being obsessed. Obsessed. Like, I know last night you all woke up, like, really early in the morning, and apparently it's a routine thing. Right? But it's just passion.
Greg Todd [00:34:21]:
Yeah. Loved it so much. I gotta figure this out. So much.
Karen Stydar [00:34:24]:
So fun.
Greg Todd [00:34:24]:
It's so much fun.
Karen Stydar [00:34:25]:
Yeah. It's always. If it's not fun, stop doing it. Yeah, I think that's. You always have to. I mean, I get excited. I get excited because I just thrive on new stuff. I thrive on seeing other people.
Karen Stydar [00:34:39]:
I thrive when patients walk through, they go into our pool and they're hurting, and, oh, my goodness, they're so sore, and they come out and they're like. The joy on their face, like, you know. You know, people have been told you never walk again. People have been told that, oh, you're. You're never going to do this, or X, Y, Z. And they come out and they have a life.
Greg Todd [00:35:00]:
Right.
Karen Stydar [00:35:01]:
You know, that's.
Greg Todd [00:35:02]:
It's amazing.
Karen Stydar [00:35:02]:
Now, that's our passion.
Greg Todd [00:35:03]:
Yeah.
Karen Stydar [00:35:03]:
And that's why we do what we do.
Greg Todd [00:35:06]:
Yeah. Okay, so can I just say one thing before we end the podcast? By the way? I do want to honor you, and now I'm going to honor you based on something that happened yesterday. Okay. Sorry, I. This is what I do, Okay? I work with people. I do this all the time. And I think a lot of people are attracted to my energy because I don't just teach a concept. There is energy that comes from it.
Greg Todd [00:35:38]:
And if there's not a story that I can give, I can't teach it. Okay? So I know I'm pushing energy out to people, all right? Sometimes energy is being given back to me. Not all the time. Yesterday, you brought me energy.
Karen Stydar [00:35:53]:
Oh, thank you.
Greg Todd [00:35:54]:
Yesterday, you brought me energy. It's not anything you particularly said, but I can feel when I'm getting energy back from people. It doesn't happen very often, but I can feel. It's the excitement, it's the aha. I can look at you. This is why I need you here, because I can look at you. I can see when something just clicked. I saw, like, three or four times, Irene, where something's like.
Greg Todd [00:36:17]:
And you respond different than Karen, you lean forward.
Karen Stydar [00:36:25]:
No, that's a poker player.
Irene Hammerich [00:36:28]:
Either.
Karen Stydar [00:36:30]:
You would.
Greg Todd [00:36:31]:
But there's. But there's a certain energy that I get, and I can feel it. And. And it's almost like filling. It's like filling my tank. It's like, ooh, I even have more now. And so I just want to say thank you.
Karen Stydar [00:36:42]:
Wow.
Greg Todd [00:36:43]:
So. So, you know, I hope you've. I've blessed you, but you've also blessed me as well. So anyways, thank you all for being on a podcast where. Where can people find a little bit more about you and your. Your Liquid Gym Ca. Okay.
Karen Stydar [00:36:57]:
Gym Ca. Go to our website, send us a Karen at Liquid Gym, Irene at Liquid Gym.
Greg Todd [00:37:03]:
Okay.
Karen Stydar [00:37:04]:
We're all. Or, you know, go on to our website if you want to give us a call.
Greg Todd [00:37:08]:
Okay, cool.
Irene Hammerich [00:37:09]:
Yeah.
Greg Todd [00:37:09]:
Awesome.
Karen Stydar [00:37:10]:
Awesome.
Greg Todd [00:37:10]:
Okay.
Irene Hammerich [00:37:11]:
Yeah.
Greg Todd [00:37:11]:
Love it. All right. Thank you all so much. Appreciate you. Yeah.
