How to Scale from 2 to 120+ Employees with Brian McQuilkin

What does it take to grow a team from just two people to over 120 across 17 locations? According to Brian McQuilkin, it isn't just about technical skill—it’s about curiosity, self-awareness, and a "servant-first" mindset.

In this episode of the Will Power Project, Brian breaks down his roadmap for building high-performing teams. Whether you are a new hire looking to stand out or a leader trying to scale your culture, Brian’s "Grandma’s Soup" analogy for business processes and his deep 
dive into personality testing offers a blueprint for long-term success.

Key Takeaways

• The Curiosity Quotient (CQ): Why asking "How would you start this?" is the most powerful question a new team member can ask.
• Servant Leadership is Redundant: Brian explains why you can’t truly lead without serving others first.
• The Personality Toolkit: How using tests like the Enneagram, Myers-Briggs, and Working Genius prevents "passive-aggressive" office cultures.
• Avoiding Burnout through AMP: The three pillars of Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose that keep team members engaged and fulfilled.
• Writing the "Recipe": Why documenting your core values is essential to ensuring your culture doesn't get "diluted" as you grow.

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👇 Drop a comment below with your suggestions for future episodes!

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Transcript

Why Teams Make You Indispensable

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey Rockstars, today's episode is pure gold for anyone who wants to become indispensable to their team. And that can be a team at work or at home. You're about to learn how high-performing leaders actually think about teams, what they look for in their best people, and how you can stand out from the day to day, even if the company you join has zero systems or training in place. This conversation was with Brian McQuilkin, a guy who helped grow his organization from two people to over 120. You'll learn, first, how to plug into any team fast, even if you're brand new, nervous, or unsure where to start. Number two, the secret traits leaders value most in their top team members, including VAs. And why being curious can make you more valuable than someone who's got more experience than you. Number three, how to build trust quickly with US clients through communication, self-awareness, and understanding different personalities, as well as how great companies create culture and belonging. So this is a mindset to help you as a new team member not burn out and determine what it is you want to leave in terms of a mark on the world. So if you want to level up, stand out, or support your clients at the highest level, you're gonna understand exactly how leaders think. This episode is your roadmap. Let's jump in. Rockstar, today we're gonna talk to Brian McWilkin about teams. Teams are a big part of life. You know, we have teams at our in our business, we have teams at sports, and we have teams at home. Teams are just a part of our existence. Uh and Brian, you're you have had lots of experience building different teams. Could you set the table a little bit of your background and the different types of teams that you've experienced over the years?

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Sure, you know, I think and all of us have been a part of like good teams and bad teams, and and uh I think like everybody can relate to like whether it's a team or a business, um, the ones that went well and the ones that didn't go well. And so like I'd say as part of being a leader on a team, like it probably started in high school. Uh, I was a captain of a rugby team uh in Minnesota, I was a part of a church uh youth group leadership. Um, and you kind of start to see like what works and what doesn't. And then you know, I had really well-modeled leadership from you know a mom, and like we talked about before, like we called her Moses because like she wanted to be a nurse, she got promoted, then she got promoted again against her will.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

She had a big heart. Say that because we I would I would love for you to punch that. So describe your mom.

Rugby As A Model For Teamwork

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Yeah, so my mom is the person who will see your needs, she will feed you, she will love you, she will care for you. Um, and like not just like our kids or my dad or our just our family, like the town. I feel like if somebody had something like my mom would be volunteering in it, serving in it, and that was you know, definitely modeled that leadership style. Um, I mean, I think servant leadership is a bit redundant because you can't lead without serving. Um, the more you serve, the more you're supporting others. Um, and so that that was definitely modeled uh in our family. Um then when you start to see, like, okay, if you want to have a good team, you know, if you're if you're running alone, you know, you you've heard the quote you can run fast, but if you want to go far, you gotta go with the team. And like rugby is a really good example of that. Like in the sport of rugby, if you're not familiar with it, um when you get tackled, you have to set the ball down. And if the other team is there, they can pick it up and run it the other direction. You know, unlike football, you get an 80-yard run, you're celebrated. If you get an 80-yard run in rugby and you're all alone, you set that ball down, that's a turnover and they're taking it the other direction. If you have somebody with you and you set it down, that team member can take it and carry it forward, you know, to get a try. So, like that sport's a really good demonstration of like run fast and far, and you set that ball down and it's a turnover. Nobody's with you, like it was fruitless. If you have somebody with you that you can pass back with or they can pick up the ball when you set it down, that try and that bell can be advanced. And I think that's a very good example of what we see in leadership is that like, you know, if you want to see 50 visits or 75 visits or even 100 visits, let's just say like you're some superhuman and you can see 150 visits a week, like your impact is, you know, 150 visits. But like in our world, if we want to have impacts in multiple communities across, you know, Minnesota, impacting more and more lives, we have to be able to build a strong team. And when you start to see, like, gosh, there's so much that goes into leading and building teams from mentorship, from recruiting, from you know, assessing talent or assessing people, what's trainable, what's innate. And, you know, we do a lot with personalities. So can you start to see in building your team what personalities work, which personalities don't work, which skills are something that like, you know, we need to be really specific on, and which ones, you know, do we have some leeway on or guide rails on? Um, and to make a long story short, I just think the dynamics of team uh are just a lot of fun to build and analyze and have some strategy around to you know chase some cool goals.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

Yeah, it's amazing how you basically you're you're saying the teamwork is what makes the dream work, and that's such an important part of life is learning how to interact as a team member. We have these different domains of life, and we are active members of different teams. Even if a church group is together, that's a team. You know, and they every team has a different purpose and different goals. And when we were talking before we hit record, you were talking about how passionate you are about like being a part of a team and leading some of those teams and hitting their goals. So just to give a reference to the audience, um, describe your current team. I you have an amazing team. What does that what does it feel like to go to work with that team?

SPEAKER_01 6:05

Yeah, so so some background is like Joan, Joan and I started the practice um in 2008. And Joan's the founder of ActivePT, and she reached out to me in 2007, uh, and she said, like, hey, what do you think about opening up a practice in Rochester, Minnesota? And I just graduated in 2007 from Mail. You know, we were the first doctorate of PT program. Uh, Mail is amazing, you know, in a lot of different areas, uh, known around the world for the amazing care that they provide. And so when she said, Do you want to open up a PT practice? You and I in Rochester, Minnesota, I said, like, that's a that's a bad idea. I think that's a dumb idea. Um and you know, Joan's passion to say, like, you know, what if you could just treat what you love treating? And I love treating jaw and headaches and neck and back and figuring out how nerves you know play in the body. And I said, that sounds awesome. I don't know if we're gonna succeed or not, but I'm in. Uh, and you know, through her vision of it, uh, of you know, even as simple things as uh uh you know, paperless practice we talked about before, like we used to have to document on charts, paper charts, and now we have you know digital, and now we're going AI and all these different uh evolution of our of our industry. But like, so it started with just Joan. Joan recruited me, and that was in 2008. To like if you fast forward to today, when you say, What does our team look like? Well, we have 120 team members, and we have 12 different communities that we're fortunate enough to serve. We have 17 different locations, um around 70 clinicians, we have an RCM team, a marketing team, we have an HR lead. Uh, so there's like when you start and you get to wear all the hats, you know, sometimes well, sometimes not well. Um, and now you get to have like people that are on our team that are doing an amazing job, uh, that are like a core value fit, a mission fit, and also incredibly knowledgeable and skilled. Like the impact that we can make, you know, Joan and I seeing as many people as we can do while we're juggling 10 hats of you know, roles, responsibilities, and titles to like now 120 people doing a way better job than we ever did, making an incredible impact. I mean, that's a pretty cool team to be a part of.

How New Hires Should Choose Teams

SPEAKER_00 8:33

Yeah, it's amazing. I hate that word synergy because it's such a corporate like you know, trigger. It's like ah, everyone says synergy, but there really is this thing about one plus one equals five. When you get all these great people together, the impact is a multiple exponential of the individual potential. And it's so cool to hear this end in mind because people who are listening who don't know you, Brian, are like, okay, so we've got an expert on on my hands here. Let's take an example of someone who's a virtual assistant who's going to be joining a company, or anyone who's joining a new company, maybe it's a new PT who's joining, like any new team member who's listening to this, what advice would you give them to help them be a powerful contributor and member of a of a well-oiled team like yours?

SPEAKER_01 9:22

So I we're fortunate to have a lot of students that come through and we do a talk to kind of say, like, when you're picking a team or joining a team, what should you be looking for? But also like what should you be contributing? You know, how do you go about starting that new team? And we talk about like, you know, from the PT world, um, say, you know, saying, like, okay, what are their core values? Do you align with their mission? Like, if I'm joining something, and this isn't just like, hey, I believe that like, you know, their mission's good. Does their mission on the wall match the way that they're speaking with you, the things that they're doing? So like know their mission. Do a little bit of looking to say, like, hey, it matches. Look at their core values. Do they have core values? Can they speak their core values? Um, you know, are you higher?

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Sorry to interrupt, but can you just find for some people who are listening? They don't may not even, they may have heard those things, but why do you think a mission, a company's mission and values are so important? Like, what is why what's the value of that as an owner for you?

Mission And Core Values As Filters

SPEAKER_01 10:24

So I can speak from our standpoint, is it's our filter. So it's how we make decisions, you know, and our core values are kind of like if you've read ideal team player, you know, how do the different components of our six core values come together, you know, and who do we hire? Who do we fire? Do who do we review, recognize, reward? You know, it's based on those core values. Our interviews around our core values, we draw out those six core values saying, hey, is they are they a fit or not? At 30 days, 60 days, 90 days annually, we look at those core values again and say, like, hey, is that person a fit based on those things that we say are our core values? You know, so so if you're looking at a business and and they say that they're this, do they live it? Um you know, do they do they live it? Do they breathe it? Do you feel it when you're in their practice or when you're talking to that team? Um because you get to choose. I mean, I'm I'm gonna guess whether you're you know, a virtual assistant or your physical therapist or you're in the admin team, like people are needed, you know, especially good people, and you get a choice. So make sure that you take some time to understand who you're joining so that you don't waste that time on a team that's does that's not a fit.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

I love that advice of like before you even join the team, research their mission, which is why they exist, the values, which is their filter, so that you can understand how people think. I'm guessing that really helps someone feel a little bit more comfortable integrating into a team. And I I'm I you know, Brian, I I also I haven't worked for you, but I have talked to people who have. And there's this feeling of belonging that exists within a team. Talk to me about both sides of that. How do you create an environment where people feel like they belong? And then how do you help what would what advice would you give to someone who's new, a new member of a team to feel how to integrate and get comfortable quickly? Like let's start with like how you create that environment and then give advice to people who are like maybe listening to this before they start a new job or you know that kind of thing to help them feel comfortable.

Creating Belonging With Personality Tools

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Yeah, so we really want to get to know our team members, and uh this may make me sound a little crazy, but like we love personality tests. I mean, if I could take every person that I got to speak with and give them the eight personality tests that I love to discuss, yeah. We do uh Myers Briggs, we do uh Working Genius, Aneagram, Colby, Crystallizer, Communication Style. Um what else have we done? Dude, you do all of them. Temperament. So there's seven, seven, maybe eight that we do, and we don't, we don't, we try not to like fully like overwhelm people. So we do Myers Briggs, Love Language, um, and a Neogram first. And kind of what that allows us to do is we kind of get to see how do you work, how do you think, um, how do you like to be appreciated. You know, when I ask a male that joins our team, um, what's what's your love language? You know, they might look at me like I'm kind of crazy and and maybe um not be comfortable with that, but it's really looking at how do they uh want to be appreciated, uh, and you know, are we are we seeing them for okay, they'd like to quality time. Well, let's maybe grab a coffee. You know, that same coffee maybe it shows up on their desk if they're gifts, or if they're words of affirmation, like maybe even knowing that like if I give you feedback, will and your words of affirmation, like that may hit different if affirmation is how you feel, like appreciated, or you know, it might hit harder in a negative way if that's how you view yourself through is that that uh that feedback or that affirmation. So we want to know them and maybe even help them have a self-awareness. Um, like if we're working at the front desk, you know, let's just say a PSC joins our team and we have an introvert and an extrovert. And to have success on our team, we think awareness of, okay, I'm extroverted, they're introverted. I want to talk all the time. And you know, the person that I'm standing next to, they may not, so in between patience, they may recharge by being quiet. And I'm just, you know, peppering them with, you know, hey, how are you doing? You know, all of the conversation. And I might take offense to them. Well, you know, Will's mad at me. I've said a whole lot of things to him, and he said nothing. And then you can have the like, oh, maybe they didn't like the way interacted. Oh, should I should have collected payment there? Maybe they should have thought I just answered the call, that last call. But if I know I'm an extrovert, if I know they're an introvert and they're recharging, I can say, like, no, they're recharging. That's healthy. Um, it's not me, my internal head game that says like they're angry at me is probably the wrong filter. But if you don't have that awareness of who you are and awareness of they are, and the value that both of those people and personalities have, you could have a conflict that wasn't necessary. Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

It's it's very powerful how how much effort you guys put into creating that environment of belonging. It sounds like all of these tests are key for understanding. Like if there's a word that comes from all these tests that you guys do, it's for me, it's understanding. It's because what you said there at the end in particular is conflict can arise when there's just miscommunication around how people give and receive affection or how they extrovert or introvert. And so Rockstar is when Brian's talking about this, I want you to pay close attention because you're what you know, as a leader of a company or a new member of a company, you can bring these tools into the environment to help create clarity. And I'm a believer in all of these, and I'm curious to see in a second which which ones you would recommend for a couple of circumstances. But these tools that I am familiar with all of them, I've never met anyone use them all, but he's using all of them in a way to really create this environment of belonging that's something you can take back. It's something you can use on yourself before you even go work somewhere. Is like, where do you show up? As understanding yourself, I'm guessing, is a probably an important uh step in this process. Maybe these people who are listening should take these tests first. I don't know. What do you think, Brian?

SPEAKER_01 16:50

So, so I mean, you know, I think it by nature we're kind of a research-based or like fact-finding group. You know, if you look at my Cobia, I'm for sure high on fact finder, but like uh the research will say you your self-awareness is related to like success in communication, in leadership, and in you know, your interactions on a team. Uh, and so like we feel like if that might help them in you know the clinic or or on our team or even outside with friends and family and other relationships, if they know how they think and how they work, and maybe a filter uh to maybe perceive others uh is you know incredibly helpful for for our team.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

Interesting. So you guys do that first. The first thing you'll do is you'll create understanding through these different tests and assessments, and then how do you build on that to help create that environment of belonging and camaraderie that you guys have?

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Right. So we we'll sit down day one and we'll go through like the history of act of PT, you know, Joan the founder, what were the founding principles, and kind of give them a little bit of who we are. Uh and then by that I'm also like going through like the core values with each person, each person that joins, I get some time with them to sit down with them and go through like our mission and our core values. And those core values are then explained and they're livable. And and you know, then we talk about like, okay, it might be something like, hey, we're open and honest. And you're in your first 90 days, and this is gonna be uncomfortable, but this is what we do. We live in passive aggressive Minnesota, you know, but on our team, even in your first 90 days, you need to tell us what's not good. And if you're getting, you know, if Amanda, as our PSC director, is you know, onboarding somebody, and let's just say our process isn't as good as it should be, yeah, maybe we could tweak how do we, you know, teach this or coach this or mentor this or explain this. Like it's your job to say, like, hey, this isn't great, this should be better. And and if you don't, like you're selfishly avoiding that conversation that we need for the next person that joins our team. So we'll say, like, in your first 30, 60, 90 days, when you feel like you shouldn't have much of a voice or you may feel that way. Nope, you're expected to make the next person who joins our team experience better by saying, like, hey, this isn't great. Be better.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

It's such a powerful impact, I could imagine, as an employee hearing this, to be making using your values, by the way, in its real application of a filter to help people uh set the stage and the expectation that it's safe to have conflict. That that has to be so powerful and must serve you in countless ways. I think about cultures I've experienced and created in my own world that didn't have that safety where people don't feel like they can complain or uh or vocalize um concerns or talk about what's not working well because there's this like facade of everything's going great. And then all of a sudden an employer gets a resume of or resume, excuse me, a a res resignation letter because they didn't even and they didn't even know it was coming. Or the employee quits because they didn't ever vocalize or feel safe to vocalize their concerns, and so they end up just taking another job. So everyone gets surprised, everyone leaves. So to create that feeling of belonging, it sounds like one of your values, uh open and honest. Is that what it is?

SPEAKER_01 20:17

Yep, yep, yeah. Open and honest, role of mindset probably hit the most in that conversation.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

Okay, so huge. I can see now that culture, and I love how you start with the company background story because I believe that that story allows your team members to buy in themselves into this narrative. And so for those of you who are listening who are joining a new team, how how how cool would it be if they don't tell you the story for you to ask for what that story is and ask for these things if they don't have them? So, okay, so then tell me how does it build from there? So you you integrate them well, you test them, you understand who they are, they understand each other from the tests, then you build in the culture and the values. Let's take someone who's a year in, someone who's been in the company for a while. What do you do to continue to foster that culture of belonging? Assuming, of course, at this point when you have enough A-players, they're all kind of fostering it together. But what do you guys do on your end to help facilitate that?

Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose To Prevent Burnout

SPEAKER_01 21:12

Yeah, so I'll back up just a little bit. So, like after we go through and we do like maybe the tell them who we are, you know, this isn't just something on the wall that's we're gonna, you know, live this. We also are pretty intentional with the mentorship and an onboarding, you know, and and no matter what position, you know, you're gonna have a mentor, you're gonna have a partner that you're going through that onboarding with. And then for our physical therapists, you know, they're going to have a mentorship for a year. And I always tell the students that that uh Jake, one of the other leaders on our team, he and I give this talk to the students before they go out, you know, on their one of their last rotations and go out and choose who they're going to work with and work for and what team they're going to be on. We say, like, okay, when they say and everybody says we have a mentorship, do they have a plan? Can you look at it? Can they prove it? Or is it just like we have a mentorship and somebody's going to be in a room on your hallway that you can ask questions? And at ActivePT, we'll say, like, do you want to see the mentorship? You know, how many times are you meeting a week? You know, what sort of competencies are you going through? What sort of CEUs are you going to do? You know, what sort of you know skill training will you receive? Can I see it? You know, and I think uh especially in the job market that is right now, people have choices and we ask, and then you can say anything, just like an a person applying can tell you a lot of things, like an employer or a new team can as well. I think it's fair to say, like, prove it. If you have a process, if you have a plan, you know, we write down a lot of processes, but we'll call them recipes. If you have a recipe and you've reproduced this a number of times, you have to have a process or recipe. Show me it. You know, how are you going to onboard me? Who is going to be delivering my, you know, manipulations training? Who is going to be delivering a how do I do a wow call the first time with a patient? You know, what is this first 90 days to a year going to look like to make sure that I have success on this team? Because, like being good at your job, knowing who you are, self-awareness, being good at your job, you know, skills, and then being able to deliver something that matters, purpose, you know, we'll call that AMP, you know, autonomy, mastery of skill, you know, delivering a purpose, we know that that prevents burnout. If you can be good at what you do and deliver it to a community of people that that helps them, we know you're going to be less likely to burn out. If you come to if you come to Active PT, let's just say you're a therapist and you see 10 people a day and none of them get better, you're gonna burn out. If you suck at your job, you're going to have more burnout. Yeah. If you come to work and you get 10 people better and you they say you're amazing, like I haven't been able to lift my granddaughter, I haven't been able to throw a baseball, I haven't been able to run a marathon, and because of your knowledge and care and skill, I can now reach my goals. It's gonna be harder to burn out if 10 people tell you you're amazing every day. Yeah. If you get told you're not very good at what you do every day, I think I'd probably want to quit that job too. And I think some of that's on Active PT as a team to like give people a platform that they can have autonomy, be skilled at what they do, and serve our purpose of making people better.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

So powerful. You know, you said so many things, Brian. And um I heard defining success, you know, really like that whole concept. So there's mentoring, there's training, but then there's like this support group where you have the mentor and the team there to help make sure that you want you know what success is, but you also teach people how to take the steps to get there. Um, was that hard for you guys to figure out? I mean, from my experience, it wasn't easy for me. How did you guys end up what were some of the resources? Let's uh let me ask a better question. What were some of the resources or key learnings that helped you determine how to create that experience?

Building Recipes And Processes

SPEAKER_01 25:25

Yeah, I always I always joke that I have a poor man's MBA made of like reading a lot of books, podcasts, uh, you know, having beers, lunches, coffees with people that have more wisdom and knowledge that than I do, uh then just making mistakes. Uh, you know, because I'll tell people as they join our team, like, unfortunately, uh you have imperfect leadership, imperfect mentors, and imperfect teammates. So like we're gonna screw stuff up. And and so I think uh, you know, over the years, you know, we we've we've had the ability to have different people pour into us. You know, I remember sitting at a PPS conference and somebody's you know, Mary Duolong saying uh, you know, all of these things for compliance. And I nudge the guy next to me and I say, like, hey, do you do these things? He's like, Absolutely. Do you? And I was like, we have a book that I bet probably says that in the back. And like he goes, Do you realize the liabilities you have if you don't follow, you know, all of these processes? And I was like, kind of. Um, you know, that fear of like, oh crap, we we're not doing that. We're just seeing as many patients as we can and trying to do the best job we can. And we must be some size where people think that we should have it together. So we invite Mary out. She goes into our kitchen and I say, Hey, do you want a coffee? She goes, Let me see your cupboard. And the coffee cups were down, facing down. She goes, Absolutely not. And so I learned that day that your coffee cup should be facing up. And we needed a dishwasher because the dish, you know, the the uh, you know, sponge that we had there probably wasn't sanitary anymore. And so, like, it's people like Mary who said, like, okay, compliance should look like this, and we called her out and she came from Texas and just just shredded us on like all these different things and did an audit, and we got to learn and we got to grow, you know. Or you you you get you know, different people where you sit down and we said, like, oh, we're gonna buy this practice. And somebody says, like, you know, I remember one of our mentors are saying, Hey, we're gonna buy this practice, and he looked at me and said, This is amateur hour. You guys have no clue what you're about to do. Uh, and so, you know, you get to like the feedback from that, or the first time somebody joined our team and said, What's your onboarding process? I was like, Whoa, like, you mean like there's a computer, we use this EHR and like care for as many people as you can each day, and uh like hopefully we make payroll. Like, you know, like at some point, somebody said, like, hey, we have higher expectations than the like early days where Joan and I's main goal was to just care for people, right? And now we had to have those recipes and really be intentional in saying, like, how do we greet somebody? What might be innate to like you know, Jake, and you know, he was one of our early PTs, and now is in our leadership and ownership group, and Joan and I, like, what was innate in caring? How do you write down that recipe? What we'll call it grandma's recipe for soup. If it goes down each generation and nobody ever writes it down, yeah, like it's not gonna be the same. And then if you said, like, hey, why is it different? Well, the translation was different. So we had to write processes and recipes on how do we do it, from how do we greet somebody when they come in to how do we onboard a new clinician to how do we like teach somebody to answer a call or take a payment, and you start to evolve into these processes and recipes of how do you want to like deliver your mission when it's two people and you're bumping shoulders all the time and it's obvious, and those conversations happen innately to like 120. Wow, you have to have a process and a plan, but that wasn't the initial intent. We didn't say we would love to write down all the recipes of how to move about a team. That came off of like, well, that's not very good. Well, why is it not good? Well, nobody told me.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

Okay, we gotta start telling people somehow. I do wish there was one person whose whole job was to go around and tell business owners, hey, here's what you wish you would know. I mean, I guess they're called business coaches, I guess they do exist.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

Yeah. No, I think I think we that's what I say. I have a poor man's MBA of a lot of mistakes, a lot of conversations with people that had wisdom or books to just learn and grow and staying humble to what you don't know because you're never going to have made it. There's always something that's you know a work in progress.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

You know, one thing that comes to mind, Brian, and this is authentically real for me right now, is I know what it's like for someone to join your company now. Because I've seen companies and I've even had companies that have those elements in place. They're defined. And we learn by doing. But let's go back in time when you didn't have those things and the onboarding was like, there's the computer, there's the EMR, see as many patients as you can. Hopefully, we'll make payroll. What advice would you give those employees? Because right now, listening, there are people, I think of virtual assistants in particular, um, who are going to be joining companies who don't have those elements, but they have great leaders in development. So if someone who's coming in doesn't have those things, how can they come in as a new team member to support that growth? And I'm thinking you probably have some examples of previous employees, amazing people who joined you early on who helped you. How did they help you?

How New Members Add Value In Scrappy Teams

SPEAKER_01 31:08

So I think about uh you know, people that join small teams and they grow, you end up knowing how to do everything, you know, and and like most of what I do today was because like, oh, we're dropping a ball there, I'll carry it. Oh, I'll drop a ball there, I'll carry it. And then like the people that's owner or a leader, yeah. Yeah, the people that have really thrived are the people that are like servant-minded. You know, think about like Emily, who's now one of our owners. She was an intern. You know, her mom said, Hey, ActivePT is awesome, go have an internship. Well, then she became a patient services coordinator, then she became our office manager, then she learned the finances of it, so then she became our director of finance, and now she's like the director of business operations on our leadership and on our ownership team. And it came from that servant mindset of like, what does ActivePT, the team, need? And I'm gonna learn that, grow that, own that. And so I think if you're joining a new team, whatever your skill set is, are you willing to like ask the question or see a need? You know, like Will, if I joined your team and I see, like, okay, Will's great when he gets into the podcast, but he needs a Kim to like organize it, email it, keep pursuing Brian until he finally responds to the email. You know, let me structure this, let me give them all the information that they need before they come onto the podcast so that they look good, so that I don't have to have a waste of a podcast because like they weren't prepped well, they didn't have a microphone, a light, the content. So I think if you're joining a small team, see the needs of the people that are leading it, see the needs of the patients or the customers or the clients that you're serving, and just start supporting it with whatever skill set you have. And if you don't have the skill set, I mean they're probably strapped for people. So try to learn whatever you need to you know fill that gap.

SPEAKER_00 33:13

Oh, Rockstars. That was gold. As anyone is entering a new team, and I would say this is great for leaders who are trying to develop a team like Brian's, is that servant leadership. I love what you said, Brian, and and Rockstars, I want you to like tattoo this in your mind. The idea that like being of service trumps, being willing, like being curious and looking for things to do to support uh the person that you're working for or the team that you're working for trumps anything that you don't know or the company doesn't know how to onboard you with. And as you're saying that, you know, there's power, Brian, when I was working with one of my employees that I I hired for my team now. At the end of the day, the person said, Hey, is there anything else I can do for you? Which sounds like a pretty like low ask. But it blew my mind. Like it blew my mind. You know, I uh that's something that you would hear like a customer service call when you're calling to complain about your broken oven. But when it comes to like an employee asking me, is there anything else that I can do for you today? It like almost made me emotional. I remember thinking, oh my gosh, yeah, actually, and and what did that do to that person for me? It made them more valuable. Like immediately, I'm like, oh, what else can I work with? Someone who's willing and wanting and searching for ways to help me. Like in your company, it sounds like this was the path for a lot of people's success.

SPEAKER_01 34:40

Yeah, and this the follow-up question to that, I think of Lex, she's now like operation support, she can do anything from marketing to facilities and just to generally supportive. When she asked, can I help you? kind of like you add, or can I support you? Sometimes people struggle with the word help, so we'll say support. You know, can I support you? Uh I said yes, and I gave her a task. And it was kind of like one of those, like, I don't have time for this. I don't even have time to explain to you how to do this. I'm gonna just answer your question. So she asked me, Hey, how do I support you? I gave her something. I saw the blank look on, like, I don't know how I'm gonna do that. And like her follow-up question, I'll never forget, she said, like, I have no clue how to do that for you, but how would you start it if you were gonna do it? And that was the best question because, like, I got to say, like, I don't know. I would probably Google it. We didn't have Chat GPT then, so I I say, like, I'd start with Googling it and understanding the problem better, and then I might reach out to somebody who's done it before and talk to them. And I walked away.

SPEAKER_00 35:47

What was the so sp so reemphasize that follow-up question? What was that she said again again?

SPEAKER_01 35:51

The follow-up question was like, I don't know how to do that, but how would if you were doing it, how would you start?

SPEAKER_00 35:57

And I said, I don't know how I would process she guided you in finding better direction and delegation.

Curiosity Quotient And Ownership

SPEAKER_01 36:03

Yep. So so she wasn't trying to give the issue back to me. She fully took the issue and she was gonna solve it, but I didn't know how to do it, she didn't know how to do it, and she said, like, how would you start it? And I was like, Oh, you've owned the issue, it's not coming back to me. And you're asking me, like, how would I start it to give yourself a little bit of an edge in in completing it? And she's just that's the way she thinks all the time. Jake, one of our other leaders, he always talks about curiosity quotient. You have EQ, IQ, social quotient, but curiosity quotient, who are the people on your team? They're gonna ask the questions and always curious how to do it better or or how to get to a solve, reach a goal. That curiosity quotient is who probably makes the best team members and makes you invaluable to any leader or team you join.

SPEAKER_00 36:59

Yeah, Rockstar, as you hear that, you know, the simplest way I can boil down what he said is be curious. Be curious, be servant-based, curious, where it's like be a servant and be curious. Those two taglines not only thread through um good advice to give, the best advice you could give someone who's starting out, but it also threads into how you guys operate now. Your whole company now that's emerged from when you didn't know how to onboard to now these these very in-depth systems that you learned over time and it's multiplied and multiplied into this wonderful company that you now get to be a leader of and you get to see the the the fruits of that. What are some of the most what are your some of the your favorite uh examples of how your company has blessed the lives of your employees? Yourself or the employees. I'll throw you in there as well.

Putting Team First To Serve Better

SPEAKER_01 37:53

So I I I would go back to like our mission, and our mission is like we make people better, you know, our team members and the patients that we get to serve. And we all emphasize the fact that like our goal is to like make our team and our team members better first. We unapologetically say like it's not the patient comes first or the client comes first, it's like our team comes first. So if we think a healthy team and healthy team members will always out-serve and care for people. So when we get to like treat people well on our team, we get to make sure that they're skilled at what they do, that they have awareness of who they are, uh, they get to deliver a mission. You know, I sit down on a I feel very fortunate to be able to sit down with many of our team members on a quarterly basis and find out like, okay, what's going on in your personal goals, professional goals? What are your passions that you're pursuing? Do you have them in your life? You know, I'm I'm probably, my kids know this too. I think work-life balance is a swear word. I'm probably gonna offend somebody because I just don't think that's how life works. I think you can have like five to eight passions and things that make you you in your life. And I don't think that they're balanced ever, I don't think that they're perfectly ever gonna be put in your life. But if those passions are in it to some extent, I think you'll be good. But if Will, if you said, hey, my faith is important to me, fitness is important, my family is important, and work is important, and you said, Nope, I don't go to church anymore, I don't have time, I haven't done fitness in a month. I'd say you're you're out of passion life balance. Yeah, man. You need to figure out a spot for it. It may not be perfectly balanced, but can you get 15 minutes in there? Can you get a half an hour in there so that you can be you with the passions that you say you care about? So, like having those quarterly connections. And then the last question that I always ask in those is like, what do you want to be known for in life? And if you ask like a 20-year-old that just joined our team, what do you want to be known for in life? You know, they look at me kind of like the when I ask a guy their love languages. But like if you can think at 20, let's just say I want to be known for a disciplined, fit person. And I say, okay, is that aspirational or is that you? And they say, like, well, I don't work out. Well, I think you're probably not going to be known as a fit person then or a disciplined person. If you say, I want to be known for being an amazing baker, I want to be known for how I always put my family first, or I'm known to be a servant in the community, you kind of say, like, is it aspirational or is it you? And sometimes it is aspirational, but if you know what you want out of life, whether it's your passions or you know, your end you all, you know, your your end conversation of who you were, is it in your life now, or do you know how you're going to get it in your life? And I think by knowing that about our team and the team members and who we get to serve and be in the community with, uh, like they're known, their purpose is like maybe focused in life. And Active PT may be like, you might be here your whole your whole life, you might be here for a portion of your life, but hopefully, like going forward, you could you leave with like the ability to know who you were, that your purpose mattered, that your skill set mattered, and that like at the end of the day, you know, where you're headed in life. I think that's a pretty cool thing that we can give back to our team is a purpose and a knowledge of who they are, and maybe teaching them a couple of skills along the way about you know, being curious and helping patients and you know, interacting in a team.

SPEAKER_00 41:34

I hope that we can deliver a lot of those things. Yeah, I um I I feel like submitting my application to come work for you guys.

SPEAKER_01 41:42

That was we don't have any podcasters.

SPEAKER_00 41:46

Uh my skill set as a therapist has waned. I will tell you, it's been over a decade since I've treated, but no, I I love I love what you're saying. It speaks to me very powerfully, Brian. And this has been such a powerful discussion on not just teams, but understanding what the end in mind is of a great team, seeing how a great team when comes together on and it create it creates goals, but more importantly, it creates this purpose, this like greater cause in the world, what we're gonna be known for, as you say. And by defining that and working on it together, we we don't have to go alone. It takes time, like you said. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. Um, so um, thank you. This has been such a phenomenal episode. I'm ready to do some uh rapid fire questions for you with you right now. You ready to do some rapid fire? Sounds good. Okay, this is really fun. Um okay, first, what's one of your favorite books on teams? If if someone's like, I want to read a book on how to create a team or be a better team member, like we're what what's one of your favorite books in that topic?

SPEAKER_01 42:49

Five Dysfunctions of a Team is probably our foundational book.

SPEAKER_00 42:52

I was still hoping you're gonna say that. You've got the The Pyramid Above You, and that book changed my life forever. So I was kind of I created that question hoping you would give me that answer. My next rapid-fire question has to relate to this a little bit. You mentioned a ton of these tests that you guys use. If you had to bolt gun to your head, Brian, you have to pick one test. What's the test that you recommend to people?

SPEAKER_01 43:16

Enneagram.

SPEAKER_00 43:18

Oh my gosh. Okay, where does six just the six working geniuses fall into that for you?

SPEAKER_01 43:23

That would have been number two.

SPEAKER_00 43:25

Okay, because that's Patrick Lincioni's system. I'm obsessed with that, but I've I've I barely know the Enneagram. I've never taken mine actually. So I'll get that.

Quarterly Check-Ins And Life Passions

SPEAKER_01 43:32

Uh and we'll talk on Working Genius because you're familiar with it. But I think the part that I like about the Working Genius, I mean, that came out of COVID, I'm pretty sure, when he started popping that book out on it, kind of developed in his podcast. Um I feel like we were a part of that brainstorm if you were listening to him talk on that podcast. Um but like there's phases and there's strengths, and like with all the personalities, it's a caricature. You're not all of any one of these things, it's kind of just gives you some maybe some insight. Insights, but it's not to be used to like stereotype you. It's almost to be used to like we need all of those on our team. Each one has value potentially in different situations or different parts of the process. So in like working genius, I mean, I'm not a WI. My guess is that you've got some at least WRI in you. I'm a good content. I'm I'm IG. Yeah, because of your content you're pushing out, like, and the fact that you get followers, which is probably where your G comes in.

SPEAKER_00 44:28

Like all right, so back to the rapid fire questions. This is gonna be a totally left left field. What was one of your favorite NES games growing up? Nintendo games.

SPEAKER_01 44:38

Ooh, I mean, I just go with classic Super Mario, but I mean you could also talk about like, you know, Punch Out, you could talk about Mike Tyson, you could talk about like a whole lot of Tech Mobile would be awesome.

SPEAKER_00 44:49

Tech Mobile Bowl. Bo Jackson.

SPEAKER_01 44:51

Yeah, Bo Jackson was a stud, so we'll go with those.

SPEAKER_00 44:54

Okay, very good. And then lastly, and this is where we're gonna get right to the heart of it, your kids. You know, all that we do in this world is eventually to develop these descendants into leaders. What would you want to say to your kids as they're listening to this? What do you and your grandkids? Like this is a recording that's going to be out in the ether. What do you want your descendants to know about this topic that we talked about today?

SPEAKER_01 45:16

Yeah, you know, I think uh we'll just you know frame it out as like leading, parenting, coaching, you know, all have a lot of overlap and similarities. You know, and and you know, as a parent, you want to give your kids a platform that they can be their best that they could be. So like I hope that, you know, we have we have a son and two daughters. I hope that they are always gonna feel like supported. And we also get to teach them like you know, faith and we get to help them support and like what are what are they good at? Do they know what they're good at? Do they know maybe things that they're strong at, things that they're weak at? Are we able to like keep them accountable and show them discipline so that there's you know, ability to give back and support, you know, whether it's their own families, their own communities, their own passions? Um there's just there's like that uh uh angst or pressure for any parent, did I do enough? And we have you know, a son that's now 19, he's off at college, and you have that like you know, kind of panic mode of like, shoot, did I teach him this skill set? Did we have this conversation? Did we go through this book or this lesson or this you know learning component? I think there's a lot of uh parenting that that uh would have, should have, could have, but you cared enough to like keep trying and do better the next day.

SPEAKER_00 46:45

Oh, powerful stuff. Brian, thank you for for being on the show. It means a lot that you took spent some time with me today.

SPEAKER_01 46:52

Yeah, well, thank you for having me on. I'm really glad you and Jamie Amanda had a connection and then some food together and uh this happened.

SPEAKER_00 47:00

Me too, man. That was that Rain Tree Conference was transformative and and it just keeps keeps rolling, and it's all because of people. So uh, Rockstars, thank you for tuning in and joining this conversation with me and Brian. This is Will Humphreys reminding you as always to live with purpose, lead with love, and most importantly, never give up until next time.