Today we’d like to introduce you to Annalise DuSell.

Hi Annalise, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?

Wow! Where to start? My journey into the world of physical therapy started when I was fairly young. I grew up playing a lot of sports and played hard. I started going to physical therapy when I was about 8 years old after having a few ankle sprains and then I continued going on and off as maintenance to keep my shoulder health as I was a softball pitcher for many years. As I was going through therapy, I always thought it would be fun. Mostly because I wouldn’t have to sit at a desk all day and I didn’t have to be with the same people all day long.
My first therapist was and still is my mentor. I am so incredibly thankful for this event of her becoming my therapist. I’m not sure I would have ended up where I am today or even in the same career.
Once I decided I wanted to pursue this career, it was just making sure I kept moving in that direction. There were definitely some turns in my path where I wasn’t sure I was going to make it through and at the same time always knew it was what I wanted to do so I had to figure out how to make it happen.
I started working after grad school and never had a thought to open my own place. Was never something I wanted to do. After practicing for almost 15 years, I decided it was now or never. Life circumstances kept putting it in my head of owning my own place and some people in my circle kept asking when I was going out on my own. I finally decided to switch gears and go for it. If it wasn’t last year, it wasn’t going to happen.
March 2024 was the beginning. It is still a work in progress and I am still working another job as I hustle on the side to build this up while maintaining financial stability. It has been amazing, chaotic, stressful, beautiful, exciting, terrifying, hard, easy, fun, not so fun, and all the feelings in between so far and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?

Hahaha. It has definitely not been a smooth road. I’m not sure it would be worth it if it was all easy. There have been amazing moments and really hard moments where I ask myself what am I doing.
There are so many decisions to make initially and some are ongoing. Decision fatigue is a real thing with opening up shop and I’m sure there will be moments of this throughout the rest of this.
Choosing what I was willing to pay for up front knowing I am not built to do this on my own was challenging. I knew certain things were not my forte and hiring them out would be more beneficial to me than me getting frustrated trying to figure it out on my own. A great example of this for me is my website. I am not a technology person and it is definitely not my strong suit. I did not have a lot of money to start and was able to work with the company I ended up going with on a payment plan so I was able to afford what I had no desire doing. There were probably other things I could have started with paying for but knew that this would be a great start for me and knew that if I was left to my own devices I probably still wouldn’t have a website.
There continues to be struggles of making time to put into building and networking with my limited time, figuring out which direction to continue building, how do I want this look down the road, what are my current goals for this year, 5 years, and more, as well as making sure I still take the best care of myself I can so I can show up the best I can.
I know throughout this continued process there will be more struggles and keeping my people of support around me helps immensely.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?

E3 Physio is an out of network physical therapy clinic located in VC Fitness in NW Portland. E3 stands for elevate, execute, and evolve which is what I want each of our clients to feel. I want them to feel like we are always helping them grow and function better in this world.
We at E3 specialize in treating shoulders, which goes back to my years as a softball pitcher and currently is really helpful when treating CrossFit athletes.
Being out of network allows us to work on whatever the client wants to work on/has difficulty completing and allows us to treat the whole body when needed. If a client wants to work on a specific movement/lift we can as well as the traditional PT that brings people in because of pain/injury.
We look at the whole person and treat them as a whole human. So many other things outside of the physical can impact our pain and we at E3 like to take advantage of working on the low hanging fruit as well as the specific issue.
We are proud of branding ourselves as a healing space for all individuals and try to show up being the best versions of ourselves every day. Leading by example is extremely important to us and we try to do this every day. We are constantly working on this and constantly trying to learn more and become better practitioners.

Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?

Oh man. The most important lesson. I’d have to say it would be to always surround yourself with people who are willing to help you on your journey and always make the decisions for yourself with taking into account people’s input who you trust. By surrounding yourself with these people, you allow more space for you to do what you are really good at. If I had to bog myself down with technology stuff there wouldn’t be any brain space left for me to be the best physical therapist I could be. Collect people along the way. Some are there for a page, some a chapter, some a book, some the whole library. You get to decide all of it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.e3physiopdx.com
• Instagram: @e3physiopdx
• Facebook: E3 Physio
• LinkedIn: E3 Physio

Image Credits

GMS Media and Advertising