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...

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...

Whether you're a new graduate or have been working in PT for awhile, there are often questions that arise about what's next. In this video, Jenna and Phil discuss what they believe the "secret sauce" is in achieving career success.

Jenna:  Hey Phil. I think a lot of students struggle with what setting they want to go into.  So would you tell students that don't know what setting they want to go into or maybe like new grads that don't know exactly what they want out of their career or even other people that don't know what's next in their career.  What advice would you give them?

Phil:  That's a great question.  I heard this commencement speech that just really articulated it really well.  It was everybody tells you to pursue your passion, but frequently,

A. you don't may not know what your passion is or

B. you can't because you're in a certain setting, a certain place, certain time of your life, or you don't have the money to do it or the...