Surviving the Unthinkable: How Brad’s Business Defied Destruction—Twice – with Brad Williams – The Entrepreneurial Clinician Podcast

Many factors can contribute to burnout in allied health professionals that are outside our control, including changes by Government or insurance companies. In this episode, Jo is joined by Brad Williams, an Occupational Therapist who has experienced this twice. Brad shares his experience about how his practice has defied the odds and thrived through two difficult periods and protective measures he has put in place to protect his relationships and his health.

In this episode, Jo and Brad discuss:

• Brad’s experience with burnout
• The importance of being able to adapt quickly when decisions are made by others that impact your business
• The Impact of a policy change that has had a massive impact on his industry and his business
• The personal costs he has experienced as a practice owner
• The extra-circular activities and other measures Brad has put in place to protect his health, energy and relationships 
• The power of creating an organisation chart and detailing all the hats and roles that you wear as the owner of an allied health practice
• How Brad turned Covid into an opportunity for refinement in his business, and 
• How he helps his team members adopt a similar positive, proactive and forward thinking mindset.

About Brad: Brad Williams is a CEO and wearer of many hats. He is the founder and CEO of Williams OT. He moved around a lot as a kid and didn’t grow up soon enough during school (maybe he still hasn’t). After ten years as a baker and pastry chef, he jumped into Uni and completed a bachelor’s degree in OT. Here, he was introduced to driving and has not looked back. After several years of working in a public hospital, he broke the shackles and started Williams OT in 2011. He developed an award-winning service, Williams Occupational Therapy, that has the clients at the heart of everything. A proud family man, Brad is a qualified OT Driver Assessor and Rehab practitioner with additional qualifications in Heavy Vehicle and Motorbike assessments and is a qualified Motor Driving Instructor. Along with continuing to help clients and run Williams OT, Brad is a creator of the Drive-Able Podcast, a board member of the road safety initiative, The Get Home Safe Foundation, and he is an invited representative on the National OT Australia Driver Task Force.

You can connect with Brad via his website at https://www.williamsot.com. 

Thanks to our podcast sponsor, Practice Conquest! 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Future Proofing Health Professional Facebook group 

 If you know you need more support, please visit my website at https://jomuirhead.com

Finally, if you loved this episode, please make sure you subscribe and leave us a review.

Transcript

Jo:

So, welcome back to season four of the Entrepreneurial Clinician Podcast with another, what I am guessing is going to be timely, informative, insightful, and possibly a little scary podcast episode today. But before I introduce my guest, I would like to acknowledge the country of which I find myself today. This is the land of the Darug people, and I wanna pay my respects to their elders past, present, and emerging, and say thank you for allowing people like me to be able to live on your sacred land. 

Today, I am interviewing occupational therapist extraordinaire, and he’ll hate that. I have said that. His name is Brad Williams, and he has one of the most unique businesses of a health professional that I have ever met. And it has been my privilege and my honour to be on the business building journey with Brad. But I’m gonna get Brad to explain who he serves, and what he does, because he will do it more succinctly than I will. So, over to you, Brad. Welcome to the podcast.

Brad:

Hey, Jo, thanks very much for inviting me on. That was a very interesting journey listening to how you introduced me, because it’s probably not how I see myself, but I think that’s how a lot of business owners feel. They don’t put themselves up there on a pedestal. So thanks for that introduction. Like I said, it’s a little bit difficult to hear sometimes, but before I get started, I’ll just acknowledge the land that I’m on, which is the traditional lands of the Kaurna people. And I pay respect to the spiritual relationship with their country and acknowledge that the Kaurna people are the custodians of the Adelaide region, which is where I’m coming to you from. And the cultural and heritage beliefs that are still important to the living Kaurna people today and I pay all respects to them and allowing me to be on their land.

Brad:

Who am I? Well, I am an occupational therapist. To start off with, I wasn’t always an occupational therapist. I come from a family of small business owners, and I think that’s where I got the itch from. And it’s been a very interesting journey to get to where I am now. But we are a company that works around a very small niche area, but we kind of are very well known for it, especially here in the Adelaide area for helping people with disabilities to drive and be able to be safe on the road. So, this is what I do. How’s that for an intro?

Jo:

That’s great. So, here in Australia, Brad teaches not only assesses people to be able to drive and be safe on the roads, he then actually goes a step further and helps organise equipment modifications. And if you wanna jump on to Brad’s Instagram, it’s WilliamsOT. There are always images of engineering that is outta this world. So if you don’t think that people with physical disabilities or cognitive disabilities or learning disorders can or should be able to drive <laugh>, Brad’s gonna change your opinion on that. And for those of you thinking, why can’t they just use public transport? Because Australia’s huge <laugh>.

Brad:

I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to catch the bus in Adelaide for starters or be able to catch any public transport in Adelaide, you could miss it. It might never come. And it never goes on the journey that you want it to do. Because we’re so spread out. Everyone lives on quarter acre blocks. So every house is a long way away. No one’s in really in high rises, although that’s changing in Adelaide as the population grows. But yeah, no bus buses and public transports doesn’t get you to where you want to go unless you want to go to the city center and back home from the Sunny City Center. So, no it doesn’t work.

Jo:

No public transport is not always the option. And let’s just be real and honest in Australia, you, it’s a safety condition, a safety concern to be able to drive. But it’s also your quality of life. You wanna be able to go and watch a footy match, especially if you live in Red Dirt Australia. <Laugh>.

Brad:

100%. I mean, one of my best stories is that we got a client hand controls in their car. We were debating, how are you gonna do this without a wheelchair hoist to get your wheelchair in and out of his convertible Mercedes <laugh>? He said, I don’t care. I don’t care about that. Once I’m in my car, I’m driving. I’m not getting out. I don’t want to get out until I get back home again. And one of the biggest highlights for him was to actually go through the McDonald’s drive-through. That was his highlight. And and it makes a difference.

Jo:

It does make a difference. And I’ve always been incredibly passionate about you doing this work ’cause not only do you help clients individually, you’ve now built team. You are in o one of our leading universities, teaching them how to do this work. You’ve a part of a foundation about road safety, and you’re also a dad and a husband.

Brad:

Absolutely. Yeah. <Laugh>. I read something just this week, and it was very, very interesting about being a business owner. There’s been a study done that if you show a picture of your kids certain parts of your brain light up. If they show the same picture to a business owner of their business logo, the same part of their brain lights up. And probably very, very true for how I am. It’s like a fourth kid that competes with my kids. Unfortunately for them, they understand that as well. But yeah, it’s very interesting reading that today this week. And I thought it was very timely that I’m being interviewed about this.

Jo:

Yes, I think so, too. So, when I reached out to you, I wanted you to specifically talk into how organisations or large government organisations here in Australia or regulators but large insurance companies, when they make a decision, the impact that it can have on our business, because it happened significantly for you during Covid years in lockdown, and you navigated that. But it’s potentially happening to you again with proposed changes to our NDIS scheme. And so we like to think that we can be immune to this, but we can’t be immune as business owners to the economic and political climates in which we operate. So this is gonna be a different discussion today, but I really hope that you stick around because you’re going to help understand the soup that we swim in as health professionals in terms of where referrals come from. You like that? The soup that we swim in.

Brad:

<Laugh>. I like that.

Jo:

So, Brad, can you start with maybe a bit of a personal story about burnout for you, <laugh>? Like, have you ever thought that it’s been something that’s been in your life?

Brad:

Very timely right now, <laugh>? It’s a struggle at this current point in time, but I’m an optimist. And that’s what a lot of successful business owners are. They’re doers, they’re shakers. They’re looking for the positives in the world. I think people that are not optimistic about the future do tend to call it quits a lot earlier than optimistic people. I’m definitely not a perfectionist either. That’s another trait that I think is something that is very important to understand. Doesn’t need to be absolutely 100% perfect before you roll it out. And we need to test it and try it and figure it out as we go. As hard as that is for the employees that I’ve got ’cause they want to know exactly what they’re doing. They want to know exactly what they’re doing when they come to work each day.

But when people change policies and procedures on you that are out of your control you’ve gotta adapt. You’ve gotta change, you’ve gotta figure it out. And you’ve gotta roll with the punches or swim through the soup as you said, you’ve got to roll from left to right, you gotta go up and down to try and figure out what the path through is to the other side. And it constantly changes. It’s like there’s the light, but you just can’t ever get to the light because you’re getting really close and then a policy changes and then that light gets a little bit more distant again. But I don’t think we’ll ever get to that light. I think if you’re trying to get to the point of excellence once you get there, I think your journey’s over.

And that’s the end. I don’t think you can ever get there, because we’re always in the pursuit of excellence. So yeah, it just makes it very hard when we have big policy changes. And that’s happened just very, very recently for us here, especially in the driving world in Australia who are helping people with disabilities. The NDIS have rushed through a new reform bill, which has going to have massive implications to lots of people in the NDIS world. Whether you’re a business owner, a provider or a participant there’s gonna be a lot of change and adaption to how the insurance company works and from the government. And it’s going to be like a snow globe for a while. It’s gonna be really shaken up and there’s gonna be lots of things floating in the air until it all settles down again.

And we’re in that immediate shape straight after you shake the snow globe point. And we’ve gotta ride. We’ve gotta ride through that until it all settles down and we all know what we’re doing. And of course, in those shaky periods that’s when you go, what am I doing this for? Why am I doing this? And then you remind yourself of those whys. It’s not the job that you’re doing, it’s why you’re doing it. Like being able to drive through a drive through for the first time since having an accident. Those little things are what keep you going. And now I’ve got a team of it. We get more of those hits of dopamine every day, which is really, really good. Even though it’s not me personally doing it. I get to enjoy my clinician’s joy. And seeing the joy on their face gives me joy, which is great.

Jo:

It is great. So at the moment, what you’re talking about is, here in Australia, our National Disability Insurance Service has decided that it wants to significantly reduce eligibility and funding for people with disabilities to be able to safely drive in Australia without cut costs. Because nobody thought about the funding of this thing. Thanks Julia [Gillard], for getting it through. That was awesome. But nobody thought about funding this thing anyhow. But here in Australia, we don’t have any other private or public mechanism. Without extremely long waiting lists, stupidly long waiting, like you won’t be eligible for a license ’cause of your age type waiting list. So there’s actually no other mechanism to pay that helps fund people get this service in Australia. It’s not the cheapest service as you can imagine getting a car modified.

It’s not like just sticking a sticker on a mirror. And the assessments, they’re probably beyond quite a lot of people with disabilities ’cause we also know that people living with disability have lower rates of employment. They have higher cost of living. They have other secondary things as well. So how this is gonna relate to the rest of the world listening ’cause If you’re going, this is only an Australian experience, can I please remind you, particularly those of you who live in the USA, of what happens every time one of your major insurance companies stops sending you money or decides that they’re using a whole new code, or the next time the people try to hack your Medicaid (in the UK this happens to you with your NHS)? So we are not immune to the changes that government make when they ask us to do this work. So, Brad, coming back to you. So you, in Covid times and now just more recently. So that’s a big hit in like four years to have to go through this twice. Right? Have there been personal costs to you that you are happy to share with us?

Brad:

Oh, personal costs. It just depends on how you actually measure that. If you’re talking about me personally I have less hair <laugh>, that’s much greyer <laugh>, I have a bigger belly ’cause I don’t have as much time to get to the gym as what I used to. So their personal costs. I’ve gotta start really thinking about my health again and making sure that I stay on top of that so I don’t end up having an early stroke or heart attack or something like that. Just because you can let things slip. You get home exhausted and you reach for the packet of chips or crisps depending on where you’re li listening to this. Or reach for the bottle of alcohol of some sort to just help you relax at the end of the night and try to drift off to sleep.

You gotta look after yourself. And that’s a personal thing that I have to stay on top of all the time. I try to set real good boundaries, J I have made it a thing that I will never work on a weekend. And I have tried my absolute best to do that. I also make sure that I am there for my kids in different ways. I put my hand up to be a coach, so I have to get out of the business at night and go and do coaching. So I coach two different basketball teams and make sure that I go out and do scoring for my daughter’s netball whenever I can and not at basketball those type of things.

So I make sure I sign myself up and put my hand up for those things. So I’m forced to get outta the business and move away and switch off and make sure I’m invested in my kids’ life. So that’s one way that I try to look after myself to make sure that I don’t fall into a trap of working stupid hours all the time. And I have to make it fit within, I’ve got inverted commas here, “reasonable business hours”. They’re not nine to five, that’s for sure. They’re not eight hours a day. I certainly do more than that. And I certainly are doing bits and pieces once the kids have gone to bed, I’m flicking and checking and making sure and you know, doing the Instagram posts that referred to earlier. But yeah, the personal costs are more mental health. It can be tricky at times. But II’m an optimist, so I’m always looking for the silver lining and what might be and I think that just keeps me healthy as much as I possibly can.

Jo:

Yeah, absolutely. So it sounds like you’re fairly aware of your own needs, so how do you engage your kids or family in periods of extra stress in the business for you? Do you shut them out? I know that’s not the answer  <laugh>, but I’m just really curious to know, because we know that connection helps protect against mental health and protective against burnout. So how do you do that? How do you navigate that?

Brad:

My wife keeps me pretty honest. She tells me when I’m too distracted and will tell me to go for a run or a walk or something like that and get my head in the game of being back around the family nice and stop thinking about work. So that certainly helps. I do come home and I am distracted thinking about work when I shouldn’t be. And that’s why those extracurricular activities are really good ’cause I have to engage with those and I have to switch off from work. It’s very easy to not be engaged around the dinner table or flick through your phone. I’ve gotta have that distraction to keep my mind away from things. So yeah, it’s very easy to get distracted and let myself sink back into that type of overthinking about work and not switching off.

But my wife keeps me pretty honest and tells me she can see when I’m overthinking stuff or distracted by things that are happening at work. But I actually don’t work from home, which is I think really good. I used to work from home. IWhen you first met me, Jo, I was working out of a shed. The shed wasn’t even lined. And it was either hot or like freezing cold and I’d be wearing an overcoat or <laugh> sweating it up in some shorts and a single it type of thing. And then I insulated it, and then it was much better. It’s kind of full circle. This is actually very similar. Now I’m actually in a little extra pod and I feel like I’ve done full circle.

But I think being separated from work and actually having the journey to travel to and from work is excellent for me. I use that time to listen to work podcasts or workbooks. I never listen to the radio, but it lets me think about work in a different way. Not in the chaos of the day. Not thinking about the doom and gloom or the things that I have to fix or the things that have to be addressed tomorrow. When I’m on the way to or from work, I listen to these books for inspiration about what’s positive for tomorrow and what can I look to look forward to tomorrow rather than what not to look forward to tomorrow. And hhow can we build and how can we be the best that we can possibly be in this area? So the journey, whether it’s traffic or not traffic, it can vary from 20 minutes to 45 minutes is really good for me.

Jo:

I appreciate you saying that because it’s actually really good for me too. And when we were looking for what is now our home, one of the criteria was I needed an office space, which I now refer to as my studio, away from the living parts of the house. And there’s no internal entry into my house from here. I actually have to physically lock the doors, leave the house, walk up the stairs to get into the house. That’s been a gift for me being able to have that physical shutoff. I really appreciate that. Do your kids notice when you are less with them? Or less present? Do they let you know, Hey, dad, can you come back to the room? <Laugh>?

Brad:

My daughter does. She’s very into it. I think the 18-year-old son he is separate anyway. We’re trying to get him engaged with us, let alone <Laugh> me being engaged with the family. It’s the 15-year-old daughter that certainly keeps me honest. Yeah, she definitely questions. The 11-year-old is where I dedicate all of my basketball time and coaching and things like that. So he gets the best end of the deal because I’m spending a lot of time with him, traveling all over the place and coaching, engaging and talking about basketball nonstop with him. I’s my 15-year-old daughter that lets me know when I’m a little bit off colour or things like that. But she’s she also questions me about life and politics and philosophy and things like that as well. So it’s good to have that. She keeps me honest. That’s for sure!

Jo:

It sounds like you might have done this accidentally, but it actually sounds like you’ve helped your family. You’ve empowered your family members to help you navigate these stressful times. ’cause you are the primary income earner, right?

Brad:

Yeah. And my wife works part-time as well, but yeah, she does it part-time so she can manage the family around my business because I’m engaged here more often.

Jo:

That’s right. But it sounds like you have like really empowered your family members to go, Hey, Brad, not okay. Hey dad, can you turn up and be in the room again?

Brad:

I don’t think I empowered them <laugh>. I don’t think I empowered them. They empowered themselves to say come back to family and get outta work. They empowered themself and I welcomed it.

Jo:

Yeah. And that’s what I mean, like, you’ve welcomed it and made it safe for them to say that, right? Yeah. It’s not like you’re gonna fly off the handle or make them feel guilty because they exist and you’ve got work to do. But you’ve created that environment. So you’ve actually helped this protective mechanism, your community, your family, your support people, you’ve actually empowered them to go, this is how I need you to help me stay protected. That’s pretty cool.

Brad:

It’s a balancing act. This year has been one of the toughest other than, other than Covid. And we can unpack Covid, that was just chaos. This year, I saw a picture on Facebook and I shared it in February, but it’s still true. In it, there’s a kid that on one of these playground things, and he keeps getting whacked in the back of the head every time he stands up, with this thing rotating around and around, and it just keeps knocking the kid over. And it said my 2024 I feel like that’s still happening this year. You know, we’ve had a practice manager be extremely sick. And then after, after close to eight months, then resign because she wasn’t able to continue doing her work, which is very unfortunate. But I’ve basically been doing two roles now for close to eight months. And not knowing, not knowing, not knowing. So you couldn’t move forward. That’s been extremely difficult. We’ve had massive changes in policies and procedures around the place. And the goalposts keep moving. So you don’t know what you’re aiming for. It’s been a very, very difficult year this year. So I’ve probably pushed those boundaries with my family the most this year. And I think I probably have taken advantage of them getting a little bit older and a little bit more independent. And therefore allowing myself to slip into taking an extra hour at work rather than having an extra hour at home, which has probably been to the detriment this year, but always hopeful and just employed a brand new practice manager that starts next week. So, Yahoo.

Jo:

Congratulations.

Brad:

One of these things where we always look for the positive and I set my goals on the times where I can be more engaged and back with the family as quick as possible for that extra hour a day.

Jo:

Yeah. So you kind of knew that it wasn’t gonna be a forever thing, but you didn’t really know when it was gonna end.

Brad:

Yeah. I set up a business org chart, and it’s very important for me to recognise when I’m wearing too many hats right. And that I have to employ somebody to put that hat on. I still wear too many hats. I understand that. But it’s one of these things where I have to delegate that hat to somebody else. I have to have somebody help me with that, and I cannot wear that burden. And having that visual organisation chart is vital for that.

Jo:

Beautiful. Well, that’s a great tip there. Everybody have your own personal organisational chart, and if you saw how many hat you are wearing.

Brad:

It doesn’t how small your business is.

Jo:

Yeah, that’s actually very cool.

Brad:

One of the things that I did that changed how I view my business and help growth is actually do an organisation chart that highlights every facet of the business. So finance manager, that’s me. Marketing manager, that’s me. Operations manager. That’s not gonna be me, which is great. CEO clinical lead. They’re all of these, all of these positions that should or could be replaced by somebody else. You can’t wear all those hats. And if you put your name in every single box you try, you can quickly see why you’re swimming through soup. You’re going in every direction all the time. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done.

Jo:

Yeah, that’s a really, really cool tip. So, Brad, talk us through Covid. Talk us through what it was like for you and I’m doing this retrospective on purpose, everybody. So so talk us through it. What was it like for you?

Brad:

Well I’m an optimist, thank goodness I wasn’t in Victoria. Still it was extremely difficult. Just at the start of 2020, somebody came to me and said, Brad, I really wanna work for you. And they were in Victoria, in Geelong, and I said, yeah, oh, awesome. Excellent. Fantastic. We can start branching out and see if we can take this around Australia. We’ll use this as our test ground. So that was in January, 2020.

Jo:

Oh, no!

Brad:

Of course, in April. The world really changed in 2020 that we tried and tried and tried to keep that afloat, but we just couldn’t. We had extended, really big long term lockdowns in Melbourne. We just couldn’t keep her going unfortunately. The government here was amazing in the first periods of COVID. It was very unknown, but then they had payouts for small businesses, which were amazing. And Williams OT probably wouldn’t be here without those to help compensate for wages. That was amazing. But everyone went into scare mode. And we were in 2020 at the same time, just after I took on that contractor in Victoria, my senior OT said Brad, I’m packing up and retiring and gonna travel around Australia.

Oh, <laugh>. Alright, no worries. I’m good on you. Fantastic. That’s awesome. But that was in January when we came back from Christmas leave. I’m finishing up in March, which was really good timing. And then also in January and February, my two other OTs, at that time, both told me they were pregnant. And they were gonna take leave for raising their kids. And they were casual and contract at that point, so there was no long term. So only had four OTs at that time, part-timers. And that was all at the start of 2020.

Jo:

Oh my goodness. We hadn’t even had masks come out of the cupboard yet.

Brad:

<Laugh>, That was before Covid was really a problem. And then Covid hit which sped up the ladies going on pregnancy leave. It wasn’t safe anymore to do that. So off they went. So it was just me and basically someone newly trained in the driving world. And her life was extremely uncertain. At that point. I had too many admin staff, not enough OTs to pay for them. And the big kicker was, at that point of time, it was almost impossible to find staff who wants to leave the position that they’re actually in a world of flux and turmoil and so forth. So yeah, 2020, I try not to think about it.

It was a very, very difficult six months, extremely difficult. Just not knowing what was going on. We employed somebody new who came over from Victoriand was able to come out of Victoria and go through some isolation and so forth. And he got us through a period of paying some wages and so forth. But yeah, that didn’t last long because through the turmoil of all that period, and he wanted a very stable job, even though we were offering a stable job, he thought that a hospital would be a more stable position through that period of time and decided to move over into the hospital world.

So again, another few months down the track, we were back to me and my fairly new driver trained OT. But then in October you know, we started to lift all of the restrictions. The world started to open up again. People started to move around, even though we’re in masks and social distancing was a big thing. We started to come back and people started to relax and were able to bounce back. And since that period, I actually look at it as a positive because we are stronger than we were before Covid. I think we would’ve been moving too fast. I was able to reassess. I was able to figure out the what ifs. If it does all go bad, what if I had a exit plan, I had a strategy, I had a worse case scenario strand, which gave me the confidence to go forth and prosper, I guess is a way that you could say it, go forth and really be the clinic that I wanted it to be from that point on, rather than chasing my tail.

Jo:

Your optimism is almost contagious, Brad. So Williams OT as a business is actually been able to reframe the Covid and lockdown experiences as as a time of refinement.

Brad:

Yeah. Well, it ended up being that way. I didn’t always see it that way, Jo. I remember breaking down in front of my practice manager going, what the hell are we gonna do? How do we get through this? This is terrible. And do we just shut it down and do we just figure it out once Covid finishes and and do we restart then? And she just said, well, whatever you do, Brad, I’ve got your back. And that was great. We we’re able to move forward from there.

Jo:

Yeah. And I didn’t offer that reframe for the people listening as a way of being toxic in my positivity. For me, it was just really interesting ’cause I think we are still living through the consequences of the lockdowns and of the experience of Covid. And that was just a really interesting perspective for me, Brad ’cause It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t fun, and we had reasons to be scared. We had this thing in our communities that we didn’t understand that could kill us.

Brad:

Yeah. I’ll give you another point of how we’re still living through it. The amount of people that cancel their appointments now because they’re sick compared to pre Covid. The amount of cancellations we have now compared to pre Covid is chalk and cheese. It is significantly different. It’s quadrupled, I think, more than pre-Covid for the amount of staff that we’ve got. That’s a real kicker.

Jo:

Well, it’s because that has a direct effect on your income, on your revenue.

Brad:

Absolutely. And nothing against the physios or the dentists or the things like that out there. We’re not a little half hour, 45 minute window of appointment. We are talking about an initial assessment being a two hour appointment with a client, and we’re talking about four hours of report writing thereafter. So we’re talking about a six to seven hour window that if it gets canceled late, a whole day worth of income is not being charged. So it has massive consequences in our area.

Jo:

Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s a great statistic to be able to share, because I know we often talk about no-shows or cancellations, but understanding the financial impact of your no-shows and your cancellations is huge. And I’ve heard of businesses increasing their revenue by 25% just by adding a re-engagement text before an appointment. Like that’s phenomenal. But we’ve now lived through this environment that says, if you’re coughing, if you’re sneezing, if you’re feeling unwell, don’t go outside, stay home until you are well.

Brad:

So when they get that 45 a 48 hour reminder, they’re going, I won’t be able to make it now because I’m got a bit of a sniffle today. In two days time, I might be more sick, so I’m gonna cancel.

Jo:

Yeah. So we’ve actually got quite a different approach. In some ways. It’s good. Like, we don’t want really sick people sitting in a car next to us, I’m assuming. I don’t really want that, but on the same token, like people have now got been empowered and have permission to go, I’m not well enough to come. But us as business owners have gone, Ooh, there’s implications for this over here.

Brad:

Huge. Yeah, 100%. And that’s a tricky thing. And it’s the same with staff as well. You know, no one wants to come to work with a sniffle either, because they don’t want to infect somebody else. So there’s a whole mindset now a whole, as a business owner, it’s a mindset that I respect. But boy, it has an impact on turnover. And if we cancel an appointment on a client, then I’ve gotta pay for the staff member and miss out on the income coming in. So it’s a double whammy.

Jo:

It is a double whammy. And thank you for that really, really specific concrete example. Pick the OT in the room people. So with what your business is experiencing now with these new legislative changes that we’re rushed through. And yes, I am saying that on purpose because these consequences of political change are happening all the time. We don’t have to wait for an election cycle for us to have consequences. We’re experiencing that right now. Nobody does. The government has the power to do the things that it does. So, is there a feeling or a sense now like, oh my God, here we go again. I mean, I know you’re a really positive guy, Brad, but has there been any of that resurgence around why bother? This is so hard, I don’t wanna do this anymore.

Brad:

Absolutely, Jo, absolutely. When I kind of go, oh, I think I’ve had enough today. And then you realise that you’ve been ithe only person in the office for two to three hours, and you’re still going, and you wonder why you’re fatigued at the end of the day, and geez, I really need to go home and spend at least a little bit of quality time with my kids before they go off to bed at night. Absolutely. You know, I could get a job with somebody else and work nine to five, no worries. Yeah. So why push myself to keep doing this, but being the optimist that I am, Jo. I look for the positives as hard as it is for my family. I’m looking for the positives in what we do.

And we do amazing stuff. We really do. I think what’s also really beneficial is we’re not your typical service. We have to be very careful here because we’re a very focused service. We’re not allowed to use the word ‘specialised’. One of our governing bodies is saying that we’re not allowed to be experts or specialists. So I’m not allowed to say that. So we’re a very focused, a niche area of OY. And there’s not many people doing this. So we we have long wait lists, and if we’re not doing it, who’s gonna do it? It’s one of these things that creates joy in what we do and why we come to work. And those hits of dopamine are really important and keep you going

Jo:

Absolutely. And I was just about to remind you of what you said earlier. So it’s great that you feel so grounded and well integrated in life. This horrible stuff can keep happening. I’m gonna question why I am keeping doing it. I’m allowed to have those feelings. I’m allowed to have those thoughts. But you’ve got a real sense of mission around, if I’m not doing this, if I’m not teaching people how to drive, if I’m not helping people be safe on the road, then who’s gonna do it? And that there really isn’t very many of you.

Brad:

It’s not only that it is the mission and the vision, it’s not just that there’s no one else doing it. It’s the vision and mission to make other people’s lives better that, that keep you going.

Jo:

Yeah. Absolutely. And I still love the idea of one guy’s absolute joy in his heart being that he could independently go through a McDonald’s drive-through. It’s the simple things that you and I take for granted that he hasn’t even got an option about. Like, we get frustrated because McDonald’s is two traffic lights out of the way. And he’s like, just let me go in my car by myself. Like, that’s really cool.

Brad:

There’s another lady that sticks with me from very early on and she missed driving to the beach to watch a sunset. And that’s all she wanted to do. It wasn’t about getting to work, it wasn’t about picking up kids, it wasn’t about any of those other things. It’s the little things that you and I can choose to do on a weekend that she just wanted to be able to do. It’s not the main things that people think about what they use their car for. The main journeys that people use their car for. People forget about the little things that you use your car for, whether it’s going to see a cousin for their birthday or on a weekend, or being able to pick up somebody from a night out and just drive them home and be that designated driver, you use your car for so many things. And hearing those little stories are amazing. And that’s why I don’t know if I’m allowed to plug it. I do my own little podcast. 

Jo:

Yes, of course, please. <Laugh>

Brad:

Doing the Drive Able podcast. It’s called Drive Able Podcast. If you go and search for it on all your favourite podcast channels, Joe you’ll find the drive Able podcast. And we interview clients and we understand what journey they’ve been through and what impact it actually has once they go through that journey. And yeah, it’s fantastic.

Jo:

Isn’t it interesting for those of you listening, how Brad has been able to direct this conversation back to his values around and mission around, I wanna really serve people really well. It’s and I’m sorry to do this reflection in front of you, Brad, ’cause it’s gonna make you feel awkward.

Brad:

It’s not about money, Jo. It’s not about money and it’s not about those type. If you are doing it for the money, then you’re in it for the wrong reason. Even though it’s called Williams OT, that’s just because that’s the first name that came into my head when it was just me as a sole practitioner. Like, what else am I gonna call it when I’m a sole practitioner? I’ll just call it Williams OT and let’s get this ball ball rolling. But it’s not about the money. It’s not about my name on the door. It’s not about notoriety or anything else like that. Those things come if you’re doing a good job and you’re living by your mission, and really understanding how you help people is what makes the difference.

Jo:

Yeah. It really is. But you continue throughout this whole conversation, which we’ve been going for 45 minutes now, you continue to come back to these themes for yourself. So I think that’s really, really powerful and important because as health professionals, we hear horrible stories day in, day out, week in, week out, year in, year out. We are attuned to the horrible story. You meet a person that’s had a motor vehicle accident, they kind of tell you their story. You meet a person who’s now quadriplegic, they’re gonna tell you their story for the first time they’re gonna tell you. So we’re hearing these horrible stories, but you have cultivated a way that your intrinsic mindset now is, I’m gonna put the positive stuff in as well. I wanna learn, I wanna be inspired, I wanna be encouraged, I wanna be affirmed. And it’s almost like it’s not a balancing out, but it’s also allowing the positive voices to have some extra sound to be amplified rather than just all this negativity all the time. That is striking for me in this conversation with you today.

Brad:

It’s an OT thing or whether it’s a personality thing, but we are trained as OTs to enhance people’s lives. And I think that’s I have a lot of the same traits in my own personal life. We’re always looking to try and enhance and looking for the positives and trying to enhance the positives rather than concentrate on the negatives and trying to get the most out of what we can do, rather than worrying about what we can’t do

Jo:

And worrying about all of those things that are outta your control. I think that’s been really eye-opening for me ’cause I’ve been doing this season and my own reflection and my own learning in preparation for a book that I’m going to write, I’m looking for these protections that people are using, not the ones that are prescribed because they’re actually not working. But, so it’s not about one negative conversation, therefore I need a positive conversation to counteract that. It’s almost like you’re, I don’t listen to the radio. I don’t wanna waste my time on that. I’m not a big fiction reader. I don’t think you do fiction at all. It’s like you’re really intentional about the stuff going into your head, really intentional. Yeah. Would that be accurate?

Brad:

I can’t remember the last news bulletin that I ever watched or listened to. I just do not have time for that type of media. I really don’t. I don’t learn about horrific things that are happening in the world until my family tell me, basically. I don’t have time for that type of media. And as ignorant as it is, I kind of learn about the NDIS reform that we’ve been referencing about three or four days later than everybody else, because I just don’t engage in that type of media. I really don’t, if it’s important, it’ll get to me. I’m sure it’ll get to me in the long run if it’s important. 

Jo:

That’s really cool.

Brad:

So yeah, I just don’t have time for that kind of negative storylines. I really don’t. I’m always looking to try and build on what we’ve got.

Jo:

So question now, a little bit left of center and certainly not in the suggestive questions I sent to you. How do you help your team members adopt a similar mindset?

Brad:

Oh, great question. It’s tricky. Because not everybody, even if they’re OTs not everybody has the same mindset for sure. And the biggest turnover we have in staff though, are our admin staff who are not trained OT’s. So I think there actually is something in it. We don’t employ any other health professional. We don’t employ speechies or physios or anything else like that, but the highest turnover of staff and that struggle with the changes the other admin staff. So I think there’s actually something in that. And it is very hard for some people to ignore the negatives and concentrate on the positives. But I try to lead by example in our business, I’ve made it a very conscious effort to make sure that I am checking in [with them] all the time. So I don’t know if you want me to go into how I do that or not, but I’ve got a formal way of actually of making sure that I’m there for my staff and not being distracted by stuff. It’s very, very important for me that I do that.

Jo:

Yeah. Great. Wow. This has been such a powerful and insightful conversation today. Is there anything about this topic of burnout or being overwhelmed at work that you wanna add to this conversation? Maybe think about it this way. If you had a new graduate OT come to you and say, Brad, how do you stop from being burnt out? What are you gonna say to them?

Brad:

Reflective practice is really important. So the reflecting, not on the negatives, but try to reflect on the positives. Acknowledge the negatives, acknowledge the hard days, acknowledge that they’re there. Try to try to figure out why it might have started, but making sure that you don’t ignore the positive days and the positive things. And that’s a reason why we do the podcast, is that we want to talk to people about what the end result actually meant to them. And we’re checking in with clients, and I’ve never really thought about this before, but having the vehicle modifications part of the business and the licensing, and we’re not just doing the assessments and prescribing. We actually get to see the end part of the journey as well. We actually get to not just prescribe what’s gonna go out there as an OT, which is what happens a lot of the time, especially in the driving world.

We actually get to see it all the way through and we get to wave goodbye to them as they drive away with their car and see them drive home for the first time in their new car with their new license and get to get to enjoy that feeling. Really, really raw feelings of how successful that was. And it makes you feel really good. So making sure that you take time to dwell on the positive. And actually sit and think about the positives and enjoy those immensely. Make time for it.

Jo:

Nice. And I was just wondering what type of change we could experience in our workplaces, therefore this industry, if we ruminated on the good stuff, I think that would be powerful.

Brad:

Absolutely. I try to do it as as a practice for myself, but I make sure that I do that with my team. So every month we have a monthly meeting and every quarter I take each one of my staff members out for an individual lunch and we reflect on the quarter.

Jo:

Nice. Nice. I think that’s a really good place to end this interview today. But I do have two important questions. So the first one, how do people find out about you? Where do they go on the worldwide web to find Brad Williams of Williams OT?

Brad:

Just search for Williams OT. Williams Occupational Therapy. We’re probably on too many platforms but we’re out there. Just search for it. We’re on YouTube, we’re on Instagram, we’re on Facebook, we’re not on Snapchat, just, just go looking for Williams OT or the Drive Able podcast, which is the podcast platform where we interview these people. We’re easy to find.

Jo:

Yeah. And if you really wanna learn how to create content that is relevant to your niche, you just need to be watching Bradc ’cause he really has nailed the whole, is this relevant for my audience? Is this helpful for my audience? And he even has a Friday funny, which is actually really funny. So that’s the first question answered. The second question, when we finally get to meet each other in real life again. <Laugh>, what’s your coffee order and has it changed <laugh> from when I first met you? What’s your coffee order, Brad?

Brad:

It has changed Jo. For people that don’t know, I was a baker as my first job and I was working ridiculous hours overnight. I became addicted to coffee trying to keep myself stimulated to get through a shift and then get through the next day and then fall asleep at late at night. But so yeah, I’ve always had coffee. When I was a baker it was nonstop. Ice coffee afte ice coffee after ice coffee after ice coffee. I was also very fairly large at that point as well. And then once I got into this world, it was still iced coffees in uni time and things like that. But then I started, I wanted to lose the weight, so I cut the milk out and I went to long blacks and I was definitely a long black man for a very long time. As I’m getting older, I get heartburn, Jo, and I hate it. <Laugh>. I hate heartburn. And so I’ve started adding milk back in again to make it a bit less bitter.

Jo:

Truth be told, that’s the reason why I drink macchiatos rather than espressos. I actually need the milk to stop heartburn too. Brad, thank you so much for your time.

Brad:

I’m getting old.

Jo:

<Laugh>, thank you so much for your time and your energy, your insights today. This has been a great conversation. I invite you to search out Brad, just watch what he’s doing ’cause you’ll actually learn a lot about how to be a health professional, human being, and father in this business that we call health. So this has been The Entrepreneurial Clinician Podcast. Until next time, go be your flawsome self.