Phil:  Alright, Jenna, I want to tackle an unpopular topic, a topic that's hard to discuss.  I know I have a hard time discussing it, but being happy at a job you hate. Okay?  And let me give you a little context here.  It's one of those things like maybe you need to move jobs. Maybe you're thinking about moving careers, or maybe you can't even. But whatever the situation, sometimes the advice we give, or quite frequently the advice we give is you need to be happy in those circumstances That's like bad medicine.

Jenna:  I mean . . . I'm like kind of annoyed at you right now. How do you tell people to be happy in a job where they're unhappy? That's terrible.

Phil:  Right? Because it's kind of like giving someone the middle finger while you're smiling. It's like, yeah, be happy. So talk to me about the importance of that and then how do you do that? What does that look like?

Jenna:  Okay, so I don't know. I'm going to change one word. So instead...

Jenna:  All right, Phil, I want to hear about a moment in your physical therapy career where you're like, oh, my gosh, why did I choose this profession? That moment when you started doubting whether or not you should have pursued physical therapy in general.  And what I mean by that is, we know that you love what you do right now.  We know that you do a lot of things.  But I think it would be wrong for people to assume that you never had that moment that a lot of people are having right now, where they're like, why did I go into this field instead of PA that makes more money or instead of finance, where you can call out on a nice Wednesday afternoon and play golf? So for you, is there any memory that you had where you were kind of starting to wonder if maybe you made the right choice or not?

Phil:  There is one very distinct memory, and it is burned in my brain. And I'm going to get to that. But I think what I want to say, though, is I think it started my...

Phil:  All right, Jenna. I know a lot of people are really dissatisfied in their career.  It's hard, it's frustrating, and it's an awful feeling, quite frankly.  But we've had discussions before about how you've been at that place in physical therapy. But not only have you been at that as a physical therapist, you had a previous career that you kind of had the same feelings.  Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Jenna:  Yeah, so before I was a physical therapist, I was a PE teacher, health and PE for middle school students. And it was a great job, and I loved the people that I was working with, and I even loved what I was doing for the most part. But when I took a step back from it, I distinctly remember this because it was at the time where I was like, "Am I going to go to PT school?  Am I going to apply or not?"  And when I took a step back and I looked at it, I'm like, yeah, this is good.  But I can't see myself just doing this day in...

Jenna:  Phil there's a lot of new grad PTs out there right now. So give me if you can think back, give me a big win you remember from early on in your career and give me a big learning item that's from the beginning of your career.

Phil:  Wow! That might take a minute to think about. I'll tell you a story on my first patient, though. I bring back my first patient. I literally call back my first patient as a new grad, and he walks up and he's like "So how long have you been doing this?" And I'm like, let's see here. It took you about 10 seconds to walk from the chair to here, so that's about how long. But I played it off as, "Well, if you consider all the training and things like that, it's been about three years, but it's my first day on today's job."
But gosh, big win?

Jenna:  And not necessarily like you changed a life, the first one, but where you either felt, okay, this is right.

Phil:  I think I need to ask you this question.

Jenna: I'm sorry. I don't know...

Jenna:  Okay Phil, so a lot of physical therapists are about to start their very first job as a physical therapist.  And I want you to tell them one thing you wish you had known starting your very first job.

Phil:  The one thing I wish I would have known is that you you aren't going to feel confident, and that's okay.  And you will be able to help a lot of people. But even though you may not feel like you have the ability or skills or anything, you know so much to be able to help people, and you will get better. So use both that lack of confidence to drive yourself to be better, but don't disparage yourself, don't get down on yourself, and don't think that other people can do it better than you. Because actually what we find is that new graduates can impact people's lives more than seasoned clinicians because they care so much, they're so much more detailed, they don't go on previous biases nearly as much. How about you?

Jenna:  I would say that it's going...

Phil: One of the big problems that new grads and actually people who are seasoned clinicians have is that they struggle because they can't get everybody better or they just aren't sure of themselves.  Is there a time in your career where it kind of shifted for you, where you kind of went, maybe I don't have to be perfect?

Jenna:  Yes! I have an answer for this. And I have an answer for this because it's something that even when I get stuck today, I still think about. It still comes to mind.  This was really early in my career, actually, and I was still trying to kind of figure out what I need to do and how I should treat patients.  And I was still nervous every single day that I went into the clinic.  And I remember getting a referral from a doctor, and it said, "Request to see Jenna Gourlay."  And it was a patient with ankle pain, a young dancer.  And one of the doctors had referred her specifically to me.  And I was so excited because I was...

Phil:  All right, Jenna, I have one of the questions that came up in our MedBridge career burnout and getting your ideal career webinar.  "Do you have any suggestions if you're on the employer side of the issue, where an employee is saying that there is something that they really want for job satisfaction, which just can't happen?  Practically all of our employees say that they don't want to work weekends, but as a rehab unit, weekend therapy is necessary.  If we allow one employee to work only Monday through Friday, then all the employees would want this, and inpatient rehab doesn't work that way."  Man, that's a great question.

Jenna:  It is a good question because I think it gets to something that we don't want to draw attention to all the time.  But certain things can't happen.  There are certain things, if you're in a rehab unit and you need coverage on the weekend and part of the role is that therapists cover that, then can you...

Jenna:  "How do you stay positive with a heavy caseload and be as passionate as possible to give your best to your patient?"

Phil:  We've got to recognize that healthcare in general is burnout prone and that feeling is real.  There's nothing you can do to just magically get that to go away.  I think the key things are, first, make sure you have your purpose, your overall big purpose in mind -- what that exactly looks like for you, and remind yourself of that, going back to that on a daily basis.  

But, that only goes so far, though, I will say.  You need to also make sure that your physical activity is where it needs to be.  I find that for me personally, the busier you get, the harder days are, it's harder to get physical activity in. It's harder to eat well.  So you need to make sure that's dialed in because that will fuel what you need to do. 

The other thing I would say is to make sure you're getting around and meeting with...

Jenna:  "What are tips I can utilize to increase motivation and improve professional values in the workplace?" 

Phil:  You might as well ask this question about how do you maintain your diet?  How do you keep exercising?  How do we do the hard things in life?  Right. Because it's hard.  I wish to say it's just easy to wake up every day and be doing all the things you need to do, the way you need to do them.  From a professional perspective, I think the key things are have something that you're going after that is bigger. 

Know what that is, and then surround yourself with the people who will help you get there.  It's good to have people who will hold you accountable.  But I think also if you can get people who are trying to do the same thing, that really goes a long way.  One of the rebellion groups that I love formed around people who have started their own private practice and where they just meet up once a month...

Phil:   What do you do if you feel like you're stuck in your job and have no room for advancement, but you still love your job and would like to stay there? 

Jenna:  That's a good question.  One, I love that the person loves their job and wants to stay where they're at.  That's always a good thing.  It can be frustrating, though, if you want more, but it doesn't seem like there is more.  Maybe there's no leadership position, or maybe you just don't even really want that leadership position.  I think this is where we need to get creative either in our role or what we're doing on a daily basis.  So I think you can either maybe expand your role or maybe expand your skills and do so in terms of either what you're interested in or what your strengths are. 

For example, if I want to expand my role, like, let's say I am a staff physical therapist, but I do love teaching.  Well, maybe then there's an opportunity where you create a...