We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Allan Phillips. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Allan below.
Allan , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’re complete cheeseballs and so we love asking folks to share the most heartwarming moment from their career – do you have a touching moment you can share with us?
When I leaving active duty in the Army, the process was taking much longer than it should have. But during that time I had applied to and was accepted into physical therapy school but there was no way my discharge would occur before the start of classes. One day I was having a conversation with someone in my leadership and mentioned that I was probably going to need to decline this school acceptance due to the conflict in dates. Fortunately, without me even asking, she said don’t worry, go ahead and enroll in school and we’ll make it work. Had we not had that conversation, I honestly don’t know what direction my life would have taken, but that simple gesture changed my entire trajectory.
Allan , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I’ve been preparing for this role for my whole life. Everything from my experience as an athlete for over thirty years, to my formal training in law and economics to my experiences in the military all shape who I am as a provider and what I am able to offer to the people who come to me for help. When an athlete is struggling with the loss of identity from having an injury, I know exactly what they are going through because I’ve been there many times over. I know what it’s like to have an entire year’s worth of preparation be threatened by an injury. Along with understanding sport, there’s a level of empathy I can provide from dealing with my own setbacks. From law and economics, I appreciate the importance of resource management, since that is really what economics is all about. And that understanding is what helps us to translate interventions into practical realities. From the military, we learn to view things objectively, not getting lost in whether something is good or bad, but instead just taking the situation that’s in front of us and focusing on the achieving the best result. “Good” or “bad” are simply value judgments based on opinion and can only distract us from pouring all our resources into solving the problem.
Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?
The most influential book in my life has been Quiet, by Susan Cain. This book explains the science of introversion and how the defining quality of introversion is gaining energy from quiet reflection and how overstimulating social environments can be energy draining. Understanding this literally gave me permission to be myself in all aspects of life and not have to apologize for avoiding excess social interaction. How this plays into business is that I know the situations and contexts where I thrive and channel my energies into excelling in those areas while avoiding the situations where I feel totally out of place. For example, I do well presenting in front of an audience, in structured 1-on-1 meetings and really any context that involves exercise and movement. I know to place myself in those settings while avoiding unstructured mingling types of settings. Those are my kryptonite so I avoid them at all cost lol!
Have you ever had to pivot?
I’ve made several pivots in the course of my life. After finishing undergrad, I went to law school and then spent several years practicing law as a criminal prosecutor. Although I enjoyed the colleagues I worked with, I knew a few years into the job that I could not possibly stay in the legal field for the rest of my life. During this time, I started personal training on the side and got so deep into the field of health and wellness that I decided to make a big pivot and go “all in” and purse of a medical degree of some type. I would go to these conferences on the weekends around the country and would get jealous on Sundays when the other people in class would be going home to their gyms or clinics while I would be returning to the courthouse and putting on my lawyer costume! Eventually I settled on physical therapy as the best option for me and made that major pivot. As part of that process, I joined the military which allowed me to attend school at no cost. (I’m actually typing this while stationed in Central America, which has taken me away from my practice at home for a few months).
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ventanapt.physio
- Instagram: @thekettlebelldoc