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MUM BROUGHT ME JUST DEADPAN
I HATE THE IDEA OF BEING HERE
THIS IS NOT ANYTHING I WANNA DO
FLASH FORWARD FOR YEARS SHE LOVES IT
SHE IS HERE ON A WEEKLY BASIS. SHE IS SMILING
SHE IS ENGAGING
THE WAY THAT WE HAVE BEEN ABLE TO TAILOR
BOTH THE EXERCISE
BUT ALSO THE LANGUAGE AROUND THE EXERCISE
SO THAT GIVES HER MORE AND MORE AUTONOMY
Hello and welcome everybody
to the Healthy Business Lab podcast
where we interview awesome
allied health business owners to share knowledge
learning insights for others in the same space
and today I’m super excited to have with us today
Sara Woodroffe from Simply Stronger
So, Welcome to the podcast Sara
Hi Craig!
thanks for having me it’s so good to have you on again
we’ve had a little chat before recording this
and I’m excited around your background
and what you’ve managed to do in your business
and the like and so
love for you to fill in a little bit more
to share with the audience
what is your business and what is your
your background there yeah absolutely
I’m an exercise physiologist
for nearly about 20 years now
and back in 2016
I started simply stronger Exercise Physiology
here in Melbourne, Glen Iris
so we are in Caulfield
and have been in and around this area
Melbourneese Glenaris
those kinds of areas
when we first started out in
just me in with some my
personal trainers in a local gym and then
about 4 years ago we moved into our own space here at
Caulfield North and
yeah
have our own gym space
and another little private studio
and it’s brilliant
yeah and look
how many EPs have you got working with you
at the moment I got 3 full time
so I myself don’t work in the business anymore
and promoted myself to full time business owner
manager and all other hats
we’ve got three full time staff
I’m working as EP’s, all Ep’s,
yeah love that
and thank you for sharing our background
and we’ll jump into all those business owner hats
in a moment as well but again
I loved it
touch upon going into the expertise background again
your background personal training
exercise physiology you’ve done
a bunch of different things in the space as well
and now you’re full time business owner
often we find
business owners don’t look after themselves
given some of
your experience of being the business owner
but then also the expertise in doing
and helping people with things
where they can look after themselves
which probably helps them
do what they do in their business better
I’d love for you to give some insights on things that
you found work well with that expertise
to take it into
and being conscious of it as a business owner
yeah yeah
absolutely certainly in the many years that I was
both a business owner and an EP in the business
that was at times really straining
you’re being pulled in both directions
you’re switching hats constantly
but from the time that I had left uni
we were told there were no jobs
you need to create your job
in the EP world so until I ran Simply stronger in 2016
I always worked multiple jobs
it was not a new thing to kinda
switch and change between the two
and for a long time
actually found that quite refreshing because you
using your brain in different way
as I got further into the business ownership
and particularly in
bringing on employees
that’s when it start to get a little bit harder so
it was important for me to start to figure out
how to balance that
and it started with things like
making sure I had a specific day
or a specific time that was my admin time
I was locking that in
rather than switching and changing throughout the day
but in the last couple of years
that got tougher and tougher
I was only saying about 10 hours worth of clients
but I felt that my brain was in the business space
and just wasn’t able but it wasn’t 100% with my client
and with the level of experience that you got
that’s okay you can still perform to a reasonable level
it’s I felt it wasn’t fair
but that’s not the opinion that my clients would give
particularly
when I told them that I wasn’t gonna see them anymore
now oh no that’s not okay
but some of the things that I do
we are really lucky that we’re opposite Caulfield Park
I live 2 and a half km away
and I walk to and from work
and that for me
is a great way that I can switch between home life
and work life I’m diligent
at getting the vast majority of my work done
at work I may still do stuff on weekends
I am a small business owner
but when I got home at night
I don’t do that stuff anymore
where when I was seeing clients
I absolutely I’d walk in the door
my partner be cooking dinner for me and I’d be so
I just need 20 minutes
I just have to go and finish this thing
and it was a nightmare
when I managed to bridge that gap and recognise that
what the list is still there tomorrow
let’s wait for that tomorrow
love it I love that he’s chilled out
even that the simple act of separation between
work and play
so to speak and having that break
and the aspect of the moving your body part of it
obviously
all of what you do at the core of
is getting people moving
and making sure they’re moving well
as a business owner
how important is that to be mindful of
and to make sure that
they’re doing things like that in their day
yeah absolutely and the same for our staff again
being near Caulfield Park is really wonderful
in our industry
is quite common that you work split shifts right
so you might be arriving in winter in the dark
and leaving in the dark
and not seeing so much daylight
or if you are
it’s because you’re going out on home visits or things
so getting out
and just doing a couple of laps around the park
and just moving
seeing the green spaces getting light in your eyes
all of that stuff and because I do it
my staff feel really comfortable going out
and doing it as well
whereas if I just
locked myself in my little office the entire time
there’s that expectation that everyone needs to
work as hard
whereas we have conversations everyday
about making sure that they keep balance in their lives
as well nice
I love that and outside of
I guess just doing general moving
and I want to bring some of the expertise in here
of people being conscious of
their bodies and what you do
and what you recommend to clients
but if you have business owner
who is your client in there
what would you be telling them about
being very conscious of with a body
and as I’ve even done this
I’ve got myself a little bit more upright in my chair and
different things like that
that I sit there conscious of
see my Osteo the other day and he’s like
oh yeah no
the back needs to tilt
the pelvics needs to tilt and things like that
any little tips that you’ve got evening
being mindful of
even the quick little winds that people can think of
while they’re working whether they’re
somebody that does do a bit of the office time
or even actually
working with clients
and they are up and without moving
it being conscious so
yeah absolutely
for what we’re often saying to our clients
particularly when they’re working from home
it became such a big thing that we all work from home
and so
there wasn’t as much getting up
and moving around the office
and talking to other people
and having actual conversations
for some of our clients
they set timers
I’ve got a client years ago who would just
they had a little orange sticker on their watch
and it reminded them that when they looked
at their watch they needed
to get up and move around or for others
it might be doing pelvic floor exercises
or the homework they’ve been given
but you have those little reminders
I had one client who used to have a gong on his phone
that
reminded him to just be mindful
it would go off at whatever intervals and again
he was a business owner as well
that would go off in meetings and he was like
that’s time for mindfulness
everyone stop and they would all do it
cause he was the boss
cool but yeah
it’s finding the ways that work for you
and that’s one of the things
that is exercise physiologist
that’s our role
like obviously it’s about exercise prescription
but in particular helping
people to build that positive relationship
with exercise and movement
for a lot of people
when movement hasn’t felt like a positive thing
or it always feels there’s guilt associated with it
because what we all should be moving shouldn’t we
everyone tells us everyday that we
should be doing these things
but getting comfortable with alright
I’m gonna walk from here out to the kitchen
and while I’m at the kettle
I’m gonna do a few little calf raises
I’m gonna do this little exercise
whatever it is and feeling good about that
that it’s movement
and acknowledge how your body feels when we move
cause we’re built to do that yeah
I love that and a couple little points there
that idea of a habit stacking hey
we got the habit of going to get
the cup of tea or whatever
what can we build on to that
that’s great idea and it’s even again
those different other little triggers
what other triggers that can make us just be conscious
love that idea of the watch or the gong
two little things that might resonate with people
finding your own version of that to be mindful of
I get whatever the thing is
gonna have the nice little bang for buck
that you might have
thank you for sharing those and yeah
got my brain ticking over
I’ve used the Promodora technique in the past
as far as the gone one
I like the idea of throwing that into the mix
so thank you thank you for that
but now I love to move tap in again
touching one day those business hats that
you referred to earlier
and we’re all about business experiments
and again
8 odd years in business and
plenty of learning plenty of evolution
you’ve already touched upon some of those here
what experiments have you
done in your business
and sort of
what are the learnings that you’ve found from those
yeah
so many craig then I to give a bit of context
when I first started out as a business owner
it was literally I feel like I can do this myself
I’m gonna give it a go and then we’re a bit busy
I should employ someone through the first
probably seven years of the business
it was really reactionary
which meant that if someone proposed
opportunity for me I gave it a go which can be great
but it can also
end up in areas that just don’t quite fit
so at one point I was given the opportunity to
go out to a medical practice
and run a clinic within that medical practice
and it felt like it would be a good idea
I was just doing it for half a day a week
I still had four and a half days
actually where I normally worked out of the gym and
it didn’t work
it just they what they wanted
and what I could provide did not align and
years later reflecting on it
our values just didn’t align
but I didn’t know that at the time
and I probably couldn’t have articulated what
our values spent at the time either
but you learn from those experiences
so that’s okay
l want to jump in on that in as much as
the opportunity arose
you jump in and
gave it a go
and then you did the reflections in learning
what were the I guess the reflections on
what do you do differently now
in that sort of same scenario
what’s the steps that you work through to go
you get an opportunity that we do actually
take on board
I will I mean
for starters I think before I jump
I think it’s a good idea so what is that
what is that thinking then
what is thinking for an opportunity like that
what does that involve for you
I can think out the logistics of the situation
it’s very easy particularly when you’re a
sole trader
but even as a small business owner
that you don’t value your own time
so for me it was working
just go try this thing and if it doesn’t work out
what have I lost just my time
and that that wasn’t a cost to me
and shifting that mindset to think about
you know
that my time is valuable and if I’m not doing that
if I’m doing that then I’m not doing something else
so what else has to give
if we want to try something different or
cause we’ve tried lots of different
ways of marketing the business
and things like that and it’s that
what is it gonna cost me
is it something we can afford
both from a financial perspective
but a time perspective as well
at one point we had a
recommendation of someone who would run all out
social media and emails
seem like a great idea at the time
but what it turned out to be
was that I still had to create everything
and they just did some tweaking and posting
it really wasn’t good value cause for me
I needed to ship that out of my head
and just hand it off and we weren’t
at a point where we could afford
the kind of company that would do all of that
100% I think a couple things I just noted down here
which is and what I love again
that idea of either dollars or time
there is that trade off and that
the opportunity cost
the touch upon
super key and the fact that
you’ve got that awareness of it
and it actually sounds like it is
now ingrained into that thinking
for any of these
types of experiments that you’re doing
what’s the opportunity cost at the end of the day
yeah and then it gets factored into that decision
making process
that’s great and a lot of that Craig
comes from conversations with other business owners
it’s one of the things that once I
stopped saying clients
and was full time business owner
I tried really hard to get out there
and meet with a bunch of other business owners
and one of them that I spoke to
just talked openly about how
what she defines is a really big part of her skill set
is her ability to say no
and I said okay
it’s good to be able to say no
but the conversation evolved and it was
she was really clear on their direction
and if something didn’t fit
it was a no
alright
but she knew how to consider the different elements
and I think that’s
both
listening to these other people
and hearing what they’re we’ve all had our journeys
we’ve got so much information to share
a bunch of the things that we managed to initiate
in Simply Stronger last year
all because I’d
had the time to actually talk to other business owners
and hear their perspectives on how that worked yeah
I love that and exactly why
we’re having these chats with these
like yourself right now
is to get more of those stories and messages out
I guess
thinking of the network income at the social media
when you very first started to put yourself out there
more on the networking side of things and the like
did you put any sort of timelines frameworks around hey
I’m going to do this for a certain amount of time
see what it is and then assess it
so is that
an approach you take with this
or it is a I feel it as you go kind of hey
I’m going to do this I’ll leave it a bit open ended
and then I can pivot or change
or how do you approach
yeah it was much more open ended
it was again
more about opportunities that arose at the time
I’d started with networking with a bunch of more local
EPS
and where that started from was for two reasons
one I wanted to see other practices
I wanted to say like I like how else is set up
but if I can see how other people do things
and why they think that’s a good idea
you can see what elements might be a good fit for you
but then the other purpose behind it was
I wanted to build
a network for professional development
that we have a group of people that come together
and we all quarterly
do some networking and some professional development
as teams
which I can go to in another chat
that could be a whole episode because it’s
it’s a big thing
when we can have those conversations
face to face with people it has so much more meaning
and that’s how everyone came on board with this idea
and that
was great and then I found myself
returning from a holiday with a few days in Brisbane
so I had a couple of people that I’d met at conferences
or
had done a course at theirs
and so can I come down to your clinic and see how you
and so it was just those invitations
but at one point last year
I went to New South Wales
and I literally just emailed people
or sent the messages on LinkedIn or Instagram
whatever felt appropriate
and said I listen to your podcast or
I’ve seen you on social media
and I just love to come and visit your clinic
and most of the time the response was
it was that of course
come on down or so what how can I help
like clearly you’re looking for help
like what just connection
looking for connection and from that
I’ve ended up having conversations that really helps
but and in particular in Melbourne during Covid
we became so disconnected
this just felt natural
to go out and connect with other business owners
my network of people initially
we’re all Ep’s and they’re all people who had
come through at the same time as me
we will
believe the same things
act in the same way to a certain degree
is I wanted to stretch that boundary
and broaden the way that I think
and the only way you can do that is by meeting with
new people
and part of that is how you and I met was
I was in person I met with Jordan
she mentioned you me to you and
here we are yeah
here we are yeah
exactly right I get it
I think
the power of network is phenomenal and again
that ripple effect of
starting conversation with an intention again
I guess when I come to the idea of experimenting
this podcast
he’s an experiment 100% to start conversations
see where it can lead what learnings
what knowledge what insights
what impact
and that actually have as a bit of a ripple effect
it’s a quite an example of when we started talking
as to what that can do alike
and I guess you’re talking a lot about
the EP side of things as far as some of the networking
how much cross modality
networking are you starting to do
however you found that
I’ve always done a bit of that
because it’s really useful
from a cross referral standpoint
if you can get to know that my therapist down the road
then you know
which clients are actually gonna be a good fit
for them
or the physio or the podiatrist or anyone else
so the business owners that I meet with
tend to be more local when it’s that
but there’s definitely
enough businesses that are multi practice now as well
so you get to meet with a bunch of different people
who have lots of different employees
under the one roof
which is fantastic
and we’re seeing more and more of those that are
EP based that then bring in OT’s or speech or physio
and knowing because for us
we know who we are and we know how these businesses
and other allied health can compliment us
where it seems to be a little bit more confusing
for the rest of the world to
they know who they are
but they don’t know how we can compliment them
they think often it’s that where we all do exercise so
so that
you’re all gonna come in and not step on our toes or
yeah which part of the puzzle is that
which can only happen by learning and understanding
awareness at the end of the day
so that’s great
or I guess moving forward on that idea of
what you do
the outcomes that you get for clients from the
EP side of these
I’d love to love for you to share sort of
an example of yourself
or your team
set a case that stands out in your mind of
where people have come to you and then
you’ve been able to basically
what they’re able to do off the back of
however long they’ve worked with you for yeah
absolutely
there’s a couple of clients that spring to mine
straight away the first one is an NDIS client
when she first came to us
she worked with one of my colleagues
I worked with her for a little while as well
but initially she was with one of my colleagues
and when she first sat down in that initial assessment
often a question is
so what brings you here mum brought me
just deadpan nothing
I don’t wanna be here I hate the idea of being here
this is not anything I wanna do
fast forward four years she loves it
she is here on a weekly basis
she is smiling she is engaging
the way that we have been able to tailor
both the exercise
but also the language around the exercise
that gives her more and more autonomy
now it’s not that we’re standing there saying
what would you like to do today
it’s something like okay
so last week we did this rolling exercise
and you did this many repetitions on this weight
and I’m thinking that
we could possibly do a little bit heavier
but it’s up to you if we did do it heavier
we could do less repetitions
how do you feel about that
but if you feel like we’re ready for
sticking with the same weight today
then that’s cool too
and because of the way that you framed it straight away
she’s like no
I wanna challenge myself can I have the heavy weight
please please
making these decision and that use of language
for someone who didn’t exercise
beyond walking to the bus stop
it is she loves exercise
she goes to a gym several days a week
she thinks about what she eats because she’s more aware
of her body
there’s just been this whole flow on effect for it
that is ground breaking
like it’s absolutely a massive game changer for it
I love asking those questions
cause I like getting goosebumps and stuff like that
even though idea of being able to
get somebody to consistently do something
and be happy about it
regardless of all the other things that
you’ve highlighted yeah
that’s massive in itself but then to then like I say
it’s just the incremental build up and approach
and again that the power of language
it’s phenomenal isn’t it
yeah absolutely
and that’s
the second client that I
thought of as well the power of language was massive
he had
lot of issues in his lumber spine
so some discs doing things he didn’t want them to do
and I had him
there were two moments when we were working together
that really stuck out
and that helped him to shift from
being in pain constantly to being very
very capable
so the first was when he got pain watching me move
and we had talked about pain science and how
it was triggered by
different things
it’s there to help you to protect yourself
but your dials turned up
it is telling you that you’re in pain
to warn you of something
regardless of whether there’s damage going on
and he saw me move he felt pain
and he started to recognise that
his body was just warning him
pain wasn’t always a signal of damage for him
interesting
got my brain ticking over it really bad idea now yeah
cause there was nothing wrong
he was standing still he had no reason to be in pain
there was no pain before I moved
but there was pain after I moved
the second moment that really hit home for him
he was lying on the reformer just doing some footwork
so just fully supported feeling good
we’ve done this hundred times before he’s comfortable
but we were talking about his pain
for something had come up
and I said to him okay
let’s
draw me a word picture of what your back looks like
to you what your spine looks like
and he thinks for a moment and he says
I can only picture the broken bit okay alright
he said they show me the MRI
they show me where it’s all stuffed and I don’t
that’s all I can picture is that great
that’s your lumber spine right
when you move your head no pain yeah
that’s true alright
you play golf
you love golf
golf makes your back feel better doesn’t it
that’s a lot of rotation through thoracic spine
oh yep
and the cogs just kept ticking over
to know that he wasn’t broken
but until I asked that question in his head
it was the broken bit in his back yeah
the power of the brain to be able to control
anything around the body whether it’s pain
whether it’s emotions feelings
all those things are getting the power of
if we can settle the brain and help it or what
be aware
I know it’s what we do in our business is
we talk about financial brain care
at the end of the day
if we can just lower the brain’s stress levels
or way of thinking about it
then actually you can free yourself up
as you can example that right there
that’s cool thank you for sharing those
they’ve got me taking over you too lost for words
I’m not usually lost for words
that’s the example
you’re seeing how animate you are
how excited you are for those watching on
the video come
check out the YouTube version of these
where you can see again
the excitement of
seeing these transformations in people
is usually the the lightbulb moments
and that’s what we’re all about here
and why we’ve shared many of the learnings that
Sara’s been out of share with us today
thank you for those is
how can we all get light bulb moments for our clients
for ourselves as business owners
and basically have great
sustainable practices where we can do more of this
at the end of the day create more of these
transformations and get these outcomes
again really appreciate
you sharing what you’ve shared here today
Sara
and what I would love to round off here as well as for
I know you love to network connect with people
and where’s the best way for people to find you
and connect with you
we’re gonna put all these in the show notes
and we won’t get bogged down on the dot coms
and all the rest of it but yeah awesome
I’m working on the best working on networks again
as Sara’s mentioned we will put all
the links in the show notes
so that you can stay connected
and follow what Sara’s doing
and do the same for us here
hit a like there we go there’s my bottled words going
hit the likes hit the subscribe buttons
and this is all the unscripted stuff that I have
at the end once again
thank you and again
we will actually and Sara alluded to it before
we’ve had a chat as well
kinded will probably dive deeper on
the networking side of things as well
in a future episode so keep an eye out for that one
that will probably be happening in the future as well
thank you for your time today Sara and as always
build sustainable businesses that just
have these impacts
on live and I’d show you my words there
cause I’m super excited and really look forward to you
continue to follow these episodes in the future
talk soon bye
yeah absolutely
you can find me on LinkedIn
just searching my name on Instagram
it is Sara Woodroffe
there’s some underscores and an EP
I’m sure Craig will put in the show notes for you
yeah so you can definitely reach out in both of those ways
or you could email me sara@simplystronger.com.au
and I will definitely reply, yep
we’re gonna put all these in the show notes
and we won’t get bogged down on the dot coms
and all the rest of it but yeah awesome
I’m working on the best working on networks again
as series legend we will put all
the links in the show notes
so that you can stay connected
and follow what Sara’s doing
and do the same for us here
hit a like there we go there’s my bottled words going
hit the likes hit the subscribe buttons
and this is all the unscripted stuff that I have
at the end once again
thank you and again
we will actually and Sarah alluded to it before
we’ve had a chat as well
kinded will probably dive deeper on
the networking side of things as well
in a future episode so keep an eye out for that one
that will probably be happening in the future as well
thank you for your time today Sara and as always
build sustainable businesses that just
have these impacts
on live and I’d show you my words there
cause I’m super excited and really look forward to you
continue to follow these episodes in the future
talk soon bye