Today on the Book More Show, we're talking with Michael Nula, CEO of Elite Physical Therapy, with 13 locations across Rhode Island. More recently, founder of Nula Training Systems (NTS), a physical therapy business coaching & professional development.

Michael started his physical therapy career in school following a personal experience of treatment following a sports injury. Over the past 20 years, he's built a very successful practice across Rhode Island, with multiple locations and thousands of clients. He brought together his knowledge and passion for helping people into his book, 'The First Step,' in 2015.

More recently, he's taken this wealth of experience to help other physiotherapy practices build their business by launching NTS. Understanding he's now looking to attract a slightly different type of client, he took the opportunity to update his book to not only provide value to potential patients but also demonstrate the NTS approach to business development clients.

This is a great call to look at some of the lessons Michael learned from building his company and see how a book can pivot to support the new goals of an entrepreneur.

Links:
Michael Nula
Nula Training Systems

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TRANSCRIPT
(AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors)

Stuart:  Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Book More Show. It's Stuart Bell and here we've got Great Guest. I'm really looking forward to talking. We've had a couple of guests recently who have finished their books recently, so I'm more familiar with what they've done with it. Michael, who we're about to speak to, actually finished a couple of years ago and then has developed a bit since then. So this is going to be really in conversation to see how that book's developed over time. So, Michael Nula welcome to the show.

Michael: Thank you, Stuart, good to be here.

 Stuart: Great to have you. So you're a physiotherapist up in Rhode Island. Why don't we start by just sharing with everyone a bit of the Michael Nuller story? Talk about their practice, where you're based and what you specialize in.

Michael: Yeah, I fell into therapy really by accident. On my last year of high school. I had suffered a really bad knee injury that was misdiagnosed, and I learned later that I had torn my patella tendon, and so at that time I was playing basketball at my school. I had to forfeit the season and spent the entire year in physical therapy. But as they say, one door closes and another opens. I fell into this profession absolutely, just adored it, and everything after that was really a becoming a therapist and owning my own one day, and then, interestingly in the middle, I became a high school teacher and so but then continued the path to become a therapist.

 Stuart: So. So in school there wasn't kind of you weren't going in with a physiotherapy type. That wasn't the end goal. It was really based on the personal experience that you changed.

Michael: That's right. Yeah, had I not gotten hurt and required therapy, I don't know that I would have fallen in love with it, and sort of came to that conclusion, but someday this is what I want to do and have my own practice. Yeah, yeah.

Stuart: I mean it really establishes such a strong connection. If you've had an experience that really kind of anchors everything you're doing because you almost come to it from the patient's perspective, not from an academic or theoretical perspective or kind of like the outcome of being in that industry your introduction is the exact same introduction that all of the subsequent patients are likely to have.

 Michael: That's right and that's why, at the core, I you know I care deeply about the patient experience, you know, and I went to me when I went through my experience. It wasn't like I was enamored with the experience itself. I fell in love with the profession and so my way was OK. This is a really cool profession. It helps people. I love helping people, I love science, I love being active and seeing others be active. This is something I want to do, but when I do it I want to especially make sure the energy I put into is building that patient experience.

And so so I, you know, fast forward. I started my practice 20 years ago and then now last year I just turned over my to my longtime business partner and we brought in a big partner, ivy Rehab Network, which is a world-class network partner. And now that's created this for me to get into physical therapy, coaching and professional development and also start a therapy program here in Rhode Island that in two years will be opening it up so that we can start to take doctoral students and kind of need a place with the new generation of physical therapists.

Stuart: And that's the trajectory of a career, from the beginnings, of just deciding to be in this industry through to specialising and building your practice, into selling into part of a bigger organisation and now sharing your knowledge, both from the coaching perspective and the education perspective. I mean that's really quite the life cycle and there must be a lot of lessons that you bring into the coaching because you've had such a strong personal experience of being in the business for an extended period of time, through bicycles and multiple changes in the expectations and getting a wish of age. So we both started pre-internet really I mean my first job. I think I was saying to someone a couple of weeks ago I didn't have emails for the first couple of regular jobs that I had. So you must have experienced the same that customer expectation or their understanding has changed quite a lot over that period.

Michael: It has. Yeah, thankfully, I mean, I did come in the new side of things with websites and email and so forth, but it wasn't what it is now, you know. And yeah, I've really lived through every phase of therapy private practice, you know. We started. I started with, you know, one clinic and then grew to 13 clinics and 125 ease and did that with a partner who's also a therapist and just amazing experience. But always, at the core of it, I'm a teacher at heart, I'm a coach at heart and I love people and seeing them enjoy a great experience, and so now I'm just so passionate about helping, you know, the entire profession that are, you know, trying to continue to grow and develop and refine their businesses in this really complex landscape that we're in, right, I mean it's an issue to evolve right.

Stuart: And at a faster and faster pace. It's very difficult to sit back and just relax on something that has worked and not always be thinking, okay, what's the next thing? What's the next thing? And I'm guessing that's a lot of the experience that you bring to people in the side of things, just because, again, you've seen so many iterations and moving from one practice to 13 is a significant growth. I imagine there's similarity in the delivery of service is going to be there, but running the business is going to be completely different from an individual location to elections. So that experience that you're bringing it's really going to help them shorten that learning curve from not trial by error, trial by someone else's experience.

Michael: That's right. Yeah, you know and I, you know, respect that a lot of times the majority of the attention of the practice owner is just on what's in front of them, right, Trying to get through the day, get through the week, what's sort of like the immediate things on fire and creating pain, right, and so just sort of managing present time. But you know, one thing I've learned through the years is the importance of being able to look ahead and project ahead and, you know, keep the vision strong for the entire team.

Yeah, and so bringing external eyes like me, with my background, you know, I get excited to kind of meet them where they're at and kind of try to figure out where you're going and then how can we work together to get there.

Stuart: It's interesting, the breakthrough bleeper events that we do down in Orlando, the entrepreneur events that we do down there.

One of the benefits I say to people is being in union with eight other business owners.

They're going to talk about their problems but you've got the benefit of not having their baggage. So it's very difficult to step out of your own of the fires that are going on and just look dispassionately at the issues to try and come up with us, because consciously or subconsciously, all of the fires are still burning and your kind of view is tainted by that, by the reality of the day today. So, just as other business owners who are at those events, it's easy for them to offer advice because they're not constrained by the practicalities and for their own business they can think about that situation for themselves and sometimes it sparks things there which they wouldn't necessarily think, having almost exactly the same conversation. But if it was about them individually. So I'm guessing that's what you see a lot of. You're able to go in there and talk to people things that they really should know or would know if they were given someone else advice. It's just difficult for them to get to that point themselves.

 Michael: Right. And then the advantage I have is having that kind of separation where I'm not inside their practice day to day like they are. I'm able to review things with them objectively. And I think that's where we're able to be most productive and effective is by looking at all the facts and what's objective and kind of take a step back from some of the emotion that also goes into running a business. Today we get frustrated, sometimes we get clouded, we want things a certain way yesterday, so being able to kind of just slow things down enough to take a look at where again, where are you and where are you trying to go, and then just objectively let's map out some steps and strategies and etc.

Stuart: It kind of reminds me of so if we talk about the book, so the book was written. Was it 2015 originally? I think it was that far.

 Michael: That sounds about right.

Stuart: I was looking back at some of the files before we were just jumping on the call and it was interesting to have that initial thought of, oh, that makes sense, and then two seconds later to have the thought of well, actually doesn't make sense, because that's now seven or eight years ago and that seems like a long time where just seeing 2015 doesn't feel like a long time.

But one of the things that stood out about what you're talking about now in terms of the coaching and the book is it was originally in, so I'll just grab the cover of it and put on screen for people who are along with the video. So the first step, one of the chapters in the first version was talking about patients having experience in the pain but then leaving it until it's critical. And then they're in a very different situation of having to deal with the problem when perhaps there's fewer options or there's more urgency or the time frames are more constrained. Just as you were talking about the business coaching, it's actually there's some polls that quite often the business decisions or the decisions to grow or to stop a problem are sometimes left until they become critical as well. So it's just funny that you were talking in that context, yeah, from the book as well.

 Michael: Yeah, you know, this book also was kind of a labor of love in terms of, you know, philosophical approach to taking care of oneself and well-being, and it was this idea of let's get, let me get a you should, with my business partner, jason, out there to just educate society on physical therapy. What is it to you know, because it's come such a long way right, what is this beautiful option that's in front of us? What are some things I could think about with how I manage pain today that I can approach naturally, conservatively, effectively, but then learn things along the way that I can do to maybe minimize or reduce the likelihood of that problem coming back, maybe get learned the core of the root cause, so that you know that contribution that's what inspired this work, you know, whatever that was back in 2015. But then now, you know, kind of doing a revision was just to kind of renew this commitment to this approach and wanting to educate society.

But then, as I'm working with this around the country, you know, inviting them to reflect on their philosophy and their approach but, more importantly, their outreach and what doing with teaching initiatives in their communities, because the reality is we still have a lot of people walking around this country, and the world for that matter, that have painful problems, not really know what to do to manage them, have a desire to feel better, do don't really know what to do. What's the next step? And we're in this, like we mentioned earlier, really complex world. A lot of information's moving now talking about internet. It's at our fingertips and it's coming at such a rapid pace that it's creating this cognitive flooding among people, where they get numb and paralyzed and they don't know what to do.

Right, Should I, should I, shouldn't I? And they're stuck in this paralysis. So you know. So trying to celebrate the you know the therapy communities in where you know we're here to help at the largest level. We're a resource, we're a terminal for society and, you know, working with CIS to help elevate them more so they're loud and proud and available to their communities as a resource to then collaborate with other healthcare professionals, right and so that's the difference.

Stuart: Like you say, it's no longer the case the information and the answers is restricted to the professionals. So it's not the case that you can only get a referral from a GP, a family doctor, and you get one choice and that's the choice. It's no longer that all of the options aren't available for the people who want to go and look for it, but the opportunity to build a relationship with the community so that you're a trusted source of information, of adding value, improving the quality of life, and then, somewhere down the track, there's some business transaction. That means that it's also profitable to do that. It's such a game changer now and, I think, for the next foreseeable future, particularly when you think about things like I was just watching a catching up on a YouTube video before we jumped on the call talking about chat DPP for, like the latest iteration, there we use some of the AI stuff or the podcast transcripts and in the pulling out some of the book, as we're creating some of the books and some AI stuff in there. Yeah, so this idea that there's information in data has been.

The first problem was that people didn't know about it. Then everything was made available. So now, like you're saying there's a filtering problem. That filtering problem is just going to get worse, where now the creation job gets 100 times easier because it can be done at scale. So to be the organization that's making a connection, that's almost getting back to front gate type approach of a person talking to another person, this is going to be technological ways of helping that, but sharing your vision either you yourself or you, as in one of the companies that you're helping sharing that vision. Why physiotherapies important, what difference it can make, what the easy way of getting started is, what things to watch out for. That connection is really going to be the thing that changed.

Michael: It's powerful and now more than ever private is around the globe, need to make sure they're continuing to develop and grow their organization so that they're present and they're organized Right. So you know, with all this because people the society's reaching and searching for solutions to take care of their bodies there's a lot of energy in longevity, medicine, right and recovery. And you know, with this energy and attention we're going to see life spans go even further, we're going to see people being more active longer. So, like any fine machine you own and with enough miles on it, it needs tune ups, it needs repair, it needs enhancement and TLC. And so what better than you know physical therapy to be well positioned to make sure that again they're loud and proud and well known and thought of within their communities?

but have to be organized and you know in the ready. So so, being able to spot where there might be some hidden dangers or some stops in how some workflows are organized and the absence of systems or outdated systems and processes right, not necessarily technology, but a systematic approach of doing things that provide the great patient experience right, and that's a great point because it does become the line for what's required moves over time and gets higher and tougher over time.

Stuart: The technology is making some things easier, but the kind of just making sure that the fundamentals are taken care of. Any problems at that level really become barriers to moving on and they'll impact the organizations, I think, in an exponential way compared to the past, with fewer clients, a longer turnaround time, less demand, less immediate, the expectation of immediate responsiveness With all of those not so much there. So when you think family doctor back in the 50s would have a handful of clients. They get around to them. They got around to them. Maybe someone could go to a neighbor and use a phone to call three, but it might be two days later. Now you're expecting to log into a portal and have an immediate to everything. So not having those systems in place, I imagine, is going to be even more detrimental than it would have been in the past.

Michael: That's right. Trying to solve that problem, that's right. And then rising their certain professional competencies too that we need to manage today's complex patient and to effectively collaborate with other health carepers. So you know, what are we doing to train our teams? What are we doing to elevate and develop our teams? What are we doing to make sure that we're always developing our mindset and progressing, that we're not still thinking with old ways of thinking and old ideas. But raising this world is evolving at a very rapid pace, so we have to remain adaptively meet and, quite frankly, exceed the needs of today's society.

Stuart: So that's right, exactly, yeah, there's so much opportunity there. It's really particularly a few and a few passionate about, because then all of this opportunity is just a light that you're drawn towards. It's not a light and it's a train about to run you over. It's kind of exciting. The book has a way of starting that conversation with clients and setting a set of values and delivering something that's kind of all giving. We talk about that quite a lot. It's a way of starting that conversation with adding value. The book itself was originally written more for patients to get that message out, and now it's changed a little bit in the latest iteration. Can you talk for a moment about what those early thoughts were, the idea of going from no book to a book? What was that transition? Why pick that as the way of getting in front of people, and what was it you really wanted to share with them in that first version?

Michael: Yeah, I wanted something that would help the conversation, like you mentioned earlier, with the general public and also referring providers. You know, the reality is we've got not just doctors referring, but there's nurse practitioners, physician assistants, there's nurse case managers, there's discharge nurses, then there's different administration professionals. Right, you have a coordinator in some of these offices and healthcare systems. So it was trying to find a way how can we help the conversation, how can we also put some stable information out there that you know here's where physical therapy is now. Not sure where you're at with your know-how on physical therapy or if you or even know what we're doing these days or how to get our help or when it's indicated. But so it was trying to create something that could kind of organize it and also share our philosophy, you know, to well-being that.

You know pain doesn't have to be a way of life. You know it's interesting, right, every machine we own. It's our responsibility to figure out how does it work, right, and so the body is like that too. So when you have these warning lights on, like pain, you know you need to know how to address those things. And then, above now, as I'm working with privates around the country, it's you know what are you doing to address the pain points in your business, so that you can serve the patients who are coming to you with pain and then you can effectively manage your team, who have their challenges, their issues right. They're difficult conversations, they're, you know, obstacles. They're trying to.

Stuart: Yeah, it's interesting that there's a parallel between the patient experience and the business owner experience. I mean, the. The details are different, but there's definitely a similarity in that journey of kind of some of the acceptance not the deming cycle and not the 12 step program, but why would that framework is that accept it first and then address it and then kind of revisit it afterwards. Yeah, one of the groups you were talking about which is a fan. I'm going to try and remember this one as an example when I'm talking about it in the future. It's this idea of complimentary, non-competing businesses. So when I'm talking on calls with people about how to use the book further down the path, then there's obviously new clients that they're using it as a lead generation tool. There's existing clients and there's rules.

There's also this idea of complimentary non-competing businesses and the whole nurse practitioners, the case managers, whole three of people who are crossing over with your clients, who are perfect that you can serve the best. So taking a moment to stop and identify who those are and what information that they might find valuable. This is a great example, as I'm going to try and remember this one, for they're doing their day-to-day job. They're not physiotherapists. They've got some awareness, but it might be outdated. So using this as a tool of saying, hey, if you have clients who are experiencing this and they're not getting the benefits from what they're trying, this might be a great path to help them. Did that? Was there much, much acceptance of that? Did that with groups of people? This complimentary, non-competing group is one that I feel is always because people don't think about it. So I'm always looking for examples of where people have gone down that route and it's really kind of resonating.

 Michael: Yeah, we got a ton of feedback, not just from the community as we put this book in hands of patients, but again referring healthcare. There's a fun part about collaborating with you folks is that it's a short read, it's not a long read, and recognizing that today's professional, especially healthcare professionals, they're on the fly, they're on the move, they don't want some novel. So this provided a really concise, condensed kind of read and it got great feedback on it. As they said, it was tight, it was easy to follow.

Stuart: They realized some things.

 Michael: It provided some value in how they're routing and triaging patients.

Stuart: And helps it to stay front of mind as well. I guess because I was on a call yesterday with a financial advisor and they were talking about an older traditional book that they've written and the uptake on it wasn't quite what they were hoping for and it was big and like all of the problems of traditional books. So I was saying to him because he was feeling a little bit dejected, the fact that hadn't a build in they will come type thing, it hadn't quite worked out that way. So you just got to remember that people are busy. I'm sure that if you interviewed each and each person that received a copy of it, they would absolutely tell you that they would love to read the book. So future future Michael really wants to read the book. Past Michael really wants to have it, have had it read. It's just current Michael doesn't have time to do it. So I can, they really want to do it, they really want it to be done, but, yeah, just don't have time. So that concise message that just takes the conversation one step further.

Michael: It's just the beginning of a relationship that you got and I'm so passionate about this profession and seeing it do well and, at the very least, what I'm hoping is that this just creates this sort of like link.

As people think of pain, they think could physical therapy help it right. And so if that facilitates a conversation with their doctor, or if we're talking about a doctor or other health care provider that's thinking about, okay, I have a patient in pain somewhere, they're starting to signal their brain like, let me just keep this in the choice bank therapy as indicated. And then you know, if we're all working hard in our communities to position ourselves as experts in therapy, experts in science, that we're taking time to educate our communities. All those nice health care providers they'll think you know front of mind, like you know what we know this group or we know this guy or this gal that they're geez, they always seem to be talking about therapy and their therapist out there, just sharing and educating. Why don't I reach out and see if they might be able to help? I've got this tough case. I think might need physical therapy, not sure. And then we talk through it and now we've got a relation.

Might not have otherwise happened if that if something like this isn't circulating out there, and it's like you said.

 Stuart: It's that starting point. The job of work of the book is done when it makes that first connection. It's not that the book is designed to sell someone and a client walks through the door. It's the start and you can imagine a situation where what would be an example, the Boston Marathon and trying to think about where you are, the Boston Marathon I'm sure that doctors get an increase in people with leg related issues as people who are suddenly training for the marathon. So sending something reminding them of the book that they've already received as a talking point, but then a very timely reminder of something that they might see. The relationship's always been established because of the book in the first place. Now there's a reminder. Oh yeah, I did have a connection there and this might be relevant. Join the dots and start the conversation.

Michael: You got it. My greatest desire would be, quite frankly, that elevating everyone's awareness about physical therapy will push them, in their communities, to reach out to their local therapy place that they have some confidence in and want to learn more about how it can help them. Because we need to help society stay moving to stay healthy, and so to do that therapy is just so important. We can figure out why aren't you moving, why aren't you being as active as you normally are, and let's see what we can do about that.

Stuart: I remember in the UK there was so much across in 2018. So this is a bit of an old ad, but there were some stroke ads in the UK. The health service was paying for some stroke related ads and, of course, now I'm going to prove that it didn't necessarily work entirely, because I can't remember exactly what the acronym was, but I think there was like five steps and it was an acronym for each of the five steps and their ad campaign was helping people recognize the early stages. So it was something about people's. You might not recognize that someone might be having a stroke, but you might not recognize it here at the five warning sites like face dropping slightly, speech slurred mine sounds a bit slurred, but it's because I've got a cold still and then they gate. So just the fact that it's raising awareness of some preventative steps. Rather than letting it get to a critical stage, there's the opportunity to do something early which might mean that the outcome is fast, shorter, less painful, keeps mobility longer. Really, just keeping that conversation going.

 Michael: And the cool part is it's saving people time and money. You know when they're thinking of first step. Should it be therapy? Could it be therapy? It's just amazing integrating that in early in the intervention plan what that's doing to help people save time and money, you know, in the long run.

Stuart: So the book itself has gone through a couple of iterations. So this is something I wanted to drill into a little bit because, as I say, a lot of the people that we've talked with recently, they've just recently released the book, so I haven't had time to kind of let it season and then get some feedback and pivot in a position in a slightly different direction For you guys. The one was fast to get out there. It did the job of work. It was doing that great engagement. More recently you mentioned moving the practice into the bigger group, taking more time to develop the business coaching side of things and then in the book to support that goal a little bit more and very keen.

The one of the big differences that I try and share with people on the 90 minute book approach rather than the traditional publishing approach is that these books are to be living things. It's not like you've signed a deal on a line that started and it was knocked into a stone tablet and then you can never change it without either paying thousands of more dollars or much time and effort to do it. Fast thing that can pivot. I always like that saying no plan survives contact with the enemy, or like it's started approach Once it's out there. You get that. So can you talk a little bit about this latest iteration and what the thought was behind tweaking it a little bit and how much change you made and what now is the purpose of it?

 Michael: Yeah, so the idea now was, as I'm out there working with more privates around the country, helping them forward their goals and continue to grow and develop their practices confidently, it's still staying at the core, some of my passion At the core.

I'm a teacher, but I'm also a healer, I'm a physical therapist and I'm staying current and that's important to me, that I'm still making decisions out into society with information that's helpful and then also for all these other privates out there, inspiring them to pick up the book.

Feel good about that. I'm out there as an ally here to also. Maybe this helps them reflect on what their educational initiatives are in their communities, helps them with their conversations that maybe they're thinking about developing or even starting that they haven't already and challenge them to kind of take a look at their active following and can they engage them further. Because the fun part is when you've helped one patient at a time to do really well and improve their health and have an exceptional experience. They're an ambassador in their community, in their home, their work, their neighborhood, and it just inspires people to help each other more. Look to see what we can do to help each other in this crazy fast world that we're in, and I'm thinking even about you can't go anywhere now where you don't see people looking down at their device.

Stuart: So how do we?

Michael: help people, remind them to get your eyes up, look around, someone kind of crouched or posturally twisted, moving a differently, nursing and compensating in some way. Then lend a hand and just reach and say, hey, are you okay? What do you? I noticed you're limping or moving a little bit difficulty. What's going on? And that take an interest, be curious and then ask my favorite question have you tried therapy yet? You know, talk to your doctor, see if it could help.

Stuart: Yeah, particularly as you say, with an aging population, it's easy for people to mask injuries and brush them off and again growing up in kind of the UK healthcare system, which might not be the fastest around, but it's. There's no direct charging for things, so people aren't reluctant to seek therapy because of costs, which obviously is a big deal over in the over here in the US. So, sharing with people that there might be a it's not necessarily going to be an expensive fix, particularly if they catch it early. There might be some things that really really allow them to preventative steps that keeps things moving for longer.

I think that's one of the big takeaways that I've taken from this. Is that reminder that it is. There is so much opportunity in the preventative care stage of things and thinking of the bodies and machine, just like you get your car service. It makes sense to kind of keep on top of things rather than I don't know if it's the curse of youth like you always imagine that you're full out of a tree when you're 10 years old and you bounce back up and carry on. You kind of miss a step at 40. And it's a little different.

Michael: You kind of have to think about it a little bit more.

Right, but you know it's appreciating and respecting that the body's changing. You know, over time, and you know any machine that we hold for a longer time, you know we're managing it differently through the years. I mean, the first time you get your car, your brand new car, you can be rough, you can get out there and just go. Then, as the years go on, you know you're letting it warm up in the driveway before you go for it. You're mapping out the trip. How many miles is there? You know, should I, is this really the car I should take for that? Right? And so, as we were evaluating, is this city that I should really be engaging in or should I be modifying? You know, because we'd never tell people just stop moving or stop being active. We're just saying every seven to 10 years, are you just reviewing what you're doing for activity and being honest about you know kind of modifying some things? I mean that's why professional athletes aren't staying in professional sports until they croak right there.

They have a life cycle, you know and we have certain life cycles for certain things, but it doesn't mean you can't do it, it just means you do it a little differently right and so the fun parallel for me now is helping private businesses also realize that's the mindset in their business as well.

Be proactive in what you're doing to take really good care of your machine, your company, your business, so you can really deliver great care, great service, which is the reason why we get into this field in the first place. And then what are you doing to evolve and modify it over time? You know you just can't run the business the same way you did on day one With each few years at Gisby. We need to keep developing, we need to be modifying, adjusting, because we're adapting to the changing needs and also the changing landscape around us. Right, that's so funny, right we? It's like I had this conversation with someone not long ago about change versus variety, you know, and it's like change is tough for some of us, even though we know the only thing that's changed. But something about variety we're cool with.

We like shaking it up a little bit every now and then, so, but how do we get the little best of both worlds and just keep evolving and keep trying to get better. That's really the fun and the goal.

 Stuart: How do I get a little better Right that nuance of logic as well? It's such an interesting observation. Change versus variety the two what's happening, could be described in either way, but understanding the language, which I guess comes back to the book in a certain way. It's the way that things within the book are going to be either more or less so, taking some time to think about that and then, in the practice as well, understanding that not everyone's going to be thinking the same way that the physiotherapists might, because they're in it all the time.

Again, with creating the books, we sometimes talk to people who've been in business for a number of years but they're struggling to think about what should be included, and it's often a case that they're thinking too complex. Their equivalent when they're thinking about books in their industry is academic pieces or big traditional books written at a high level, because that's the kind of peer level that they're on, having been in the business for 10 years, but understanding that this is starting a conversation with Dave or Mary who's looking at this subject for the very first time, bringing it back down to that kind of 101 friendly introduction level that is meeting them, where their conversation is going on, and it's easy for people to underestimate how valuable what they see as the basic information is, because for other people that basic information is pretty advanced thinking.

Michael: You got it, yeah, and there's the art right of what we're doing. We have art and science right and there's that art, that's that receptivity, like just being able to sense and perceive and sort of feel what the people are that you're trying to help serve, support, do really great by. It's like getting a vibe and being able to meet their needs and I always like to say, exceed their needs. Knock their socks off right.

 Stuart: Yeah, yeah, exactly. If you've got that opportunity, you've got the passion. It would be unfortunate if there were just some systemic things that stopped that from happening. Delivering the best service but then having email not going out or billing thing fail or an appointment get missed the fundamentals of the business. Cracking that code means that your passion for exceeding can really kind of shine in the best way. That's right, super appreciated of your time. It's really exciting to have this conversation with someone who wrote a book a number of years ago and then see how it developed. Just as we're wrapping up, let's talk a little bit about the coaching that you're doing for other organization and who is the best helping and I'm guessing that it's not just local in Rhode Island, it's anywhere.

Michael: That's right. I'm working with this around the country. My company's called Nula Training Systems. It's a therapy, business and professional development firm. We're doing professional executive business coaching but also have some workshops for some courses for team trainings, coming on site and spending a day with a business owner to work on their business and outline strategies and action plans so that they're achieving exceeding their goals and doing really any support that they're really needing. A lot of times business owners are they're facing difficult decisions. They perceive they have some hidden dangers or unachieved opportunities in their practice.

They're trying to have a level of prediction trying to gauge ahead, trying to make big decisions that also impact the future. Some are also trying to manage a growing and changing workforce and trying to figure out how do I just get everybody getting along working together, supporting each other, so we can support our communities. So you know, my services help with that and always available for discovery. Call for people to learn more.

Stuart: And the like we just talked about for the last 30 minutes or so, that breadth of experience and the opportunity to go into an organization as an outsider, as a kind of knowledgeable outsider, and just be able to give an opinion or give an opinion without the baggage that has to be, I imagine, so for people. Thank you, we'll make sure that there's links to the website in the show notes, so if people are interested, then definitely check out that. We'll make it as easy as possible to get through the practice itself. What's the website for the practice? If people are in the NulaTrainingSystemscom.

Michael: Invite them to reach out and you can go to the contact page and sign up for a discovery call and a chance to get to know each other and, if anything, make a friend, but also to have some information, learn more about what we're doing.

Stuart: Fantastic. Well, thanks again, michael, it's been a real pleasure. It'd be interesting to catch up in another six or seven months, now that the latest version of the book has just come through an update on that one. So it'll be interesting to check back in and see how the practice, the development, practices developing and see what's happened over this year. So, yeah, looking forward to checking back in.

Michael: Thank you, stuart, appreciate it.

 Stuart: Thanks everyone. Thanks for listening. As I say, check out the show notes for links to Michael's stuff and the cover is one of. I actually really like this cover. There was a early version of it that was on the version one, but the latest version has been updated to. It really shines, so really suggest jumping over to the Bookmall Show website and looking at the cover. That's just over my shoulder. Okay with that, thank you. We'll catch everyone in the next one.