Watch the video version of this episode on YouTube - https://youtu.be/eao_evPGeLU

Dr. Dan Ginader, aka "Dr. Dan," is a physical therapy expert and social media sensation with over 1 million followers. From clinic director to TikTok star, Dan shares his journey into the world of digital health, and how he’s turned his creativity into entrepreneurial success. Get ready for an inspiring conversation!
 
Instagram: @Dr.DanDpt
TikTok: @Dr.DanDpt
X: @Dr.DanDpt
YouTube: @Dr.DanDPT

Transcript

Voiceover: So you're a PT or PTA grad who's feeling the spark of something more. Maybe you dream of building your own business, one that's constructed around your vision, one that empowers you to make a real difference on your terms. This feeling, it's the entrepreneurial itch. And you're not alone. Countless PTs and PTAs are taking the leap to entrepreneurship, crafting careers that are as unique as they are. 

Welcome to the Innovate and Rehabilitate the Entrepreneurial PT podcast. In each episode, we'll dive deep into the world of PT-preneurship with Inspiring physical therapists and physical therapist assistants just like you, who are crushing it on their terms. We'll uncover their secrets, their struggles, and the incredible impact they're making. From building your PT boss dreams to navigating the business side of things, will equip you with the knowledge and inspiration to turn your vision into reality.

So, whether you're just curious about starting your own business, or you're already out there making your dreams a reality, this podcast is for you. Get ready to unleash your inner entrepreneur. Let's do this!

Scott Giles (SG): Hello and welcome. I'm Scott Giles, founder of Scorebuilders, and I'll be your host for this podcast. Today's guest is the one and only Dan Ginader, better known as Dr. Dan, a physical therapy powerhouse and social media sensation with over 1 million followers. Known for his engaging, creative, and informative short form videos, Dan has become a go-to source for both clinicians and patients sharing practical tips in an entertaining way.

Dan earned both his undergraduate and graduate degrees in physical therapy from SUNY University at Buffalo, where he also played Division I baseball for four years. After graduation, he moved to Indianapolis, where he took on a role at a corporate outpatient orthopedic clinic, eventually becoming the clinic director. Then the pandemic hit, and so did Dan's newfound passion for TikTok. Dan's ability to adapt and reinvent himself has opened doors to incredible opportunities.

Today he's part of a dynamic clinical practice in New York City, specializing in dance medicine, sports rehab, and pelvic floor help. His social media success has led to a variety of entrepreneurial ventures, including brand partnerships, content creation for top businesses, and most recently, signing a book deal. Get ready to dive into an inspiring conversation as we explore Dan's incredible journey from clinical director to digital influencer and beyond. 

Dan, thanks so much for joining us today. I know you're a very busy guy, but it's wonderful that you could join us.

Dan Ginader (DG): Yeah, I'm thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me.

SG: Yeah. Well, I didn't even know what a sensation you were, to be honest with you, until I said, boy, I want to get a few influences here, some content creators from social media. And I think I went to three different sites and your name was either number one or number two in every one of these pieces. And then I started watching your videos. I actually watched one this morning, you’ve got some pretty good dance moves, by the way. I wasn't anticipating that, but it's a great mix of entertainment and educational content with some real practical guidance. So congratulations on what a presence you built.

DG: Yeah, thank you so much. It's been a slow build to get to where I am, but it has completely changed the way that I practice and the job that I have and all the above.

SG: Yeah, and your story is amazing. So we're going to get right into it. All right, so after you graduated from SUNY Buffalo, take us through your early PT career and how we ended up getting to where you are today.

DG: So my last clinical internship at Buffalo, I made sure it was in Indianapolis because that's where my girlfriend was where she was finishing up dental school. So I knew that's where I wanted to work. And I set up my last clinical internship at an ATI physical therapy just because I knew that they were a good outpatient facility. I knew that there were a lot of locations, and I knew that had a pretty good chance of hopefully securing a job inside of that last internship. And then about two weeks into that internship, I secured a job. I was hired, which made the last 10 weeks of the internship working for free even tougher knowing that the second I was graduated I was finally be able to get to be paid. But I started at that ATI in I guess it would have been May of 2017.

SG: Okay, so I mean, did you immediately then love clinical practice? You loved seeing four patients an hour and this was your dream and you wanted to live it the rest of your life or how did things go?

DG: I think I was first hit with the same imposter syndrome that most new grads get, feeling like that I was never going to get anybody better. I can't believe I'm allowed to do this knowing as little as I know, but

After a few months of taking continuing education courses and just seeing that volume of patients and finally having some that did get better, I kind of started to establish that confidence. And then it was about a year when the clinic director that I was hired under left and then I was promoted to clinic director. And it was about the time that I was promoted to clinic director where I was not only treating, like you said, three to four patients an hour, about 20 patients a day, but also then having six employees under me and then also not really having any true sway as a clinic director because the company was so large. I was reporting to not just a regional manager, but also a state manager and a vice president. And I was very much a glorified middleman doing a lot of extra work with no extra responsibility and little extra pay. 

And it was, I had that job for close to a year and I finally just felt burnt out. I felt like it wasn't a sustainable way for me to practice. It felt like it wasn't a sustainable way to get patients better. And I just felt like I needed something different. So, I was actually applying to jobs outside of the physical therapy space. I was looking at medical sales jobs and things like that. When luckily, I was recruited to another local business called TX Team who is known for establishing physical therapy practices inside of office buildings and all of their treatments are one-on-one and I would have a lot more autonomy. And so, I took a job with them because they were opening up a new physical therapy clinic inside the state government center of Indiana where they have 8,000 daily employees coming in and out of the building. They wanted a medical facility specifically for their employees, everything in network. When I started, they had already hired a PA and a nurse practitioner for more general care, I was going to be the physical therapist. And then after a time, they were also going to bring in a dentist and a psychologist and a nutritionist and have this whole kind of ecosystem all treating the people there. And my first two weeks there, I was booked out. I was booked for the whole month, excuse me, and all the appointments were one-on-one. Everybody's in network, everybody's getting better, and I felt it was sustainable, and it kind of rejuvenated my love for the physical therapy profession.

SG:  Yeah, what a change I mean, when you think about it, going from three to four patients an hour, having six employees under you that you're responsible for. And remember, I know you know this, but just to our audience, I mean, you're pretty much a new grad at that point. mean, I know you've been there a year plus, but it's not a lot of time in the grand scheme of things to be in a management position and having all that responsibility and still having to maintain a significant caseload. So, you must have felt pretty good about this transition in terms of, you know, from the style that you like to practice.

DG: It was, yeah, I mean, I don't know if I would still be a physical therapist today if it wasn't for the proper timing, getting me in a better scenario because I was so burnt out at my first position. That being said, I do feel like I learned a lot and seeing that, like seeing that many patients in an orthopedic setting, you just have to get really good with time management. You have to get really good at thinking on your feet. You're exposed to all kinds of different diagnoses every single day. And also, because they were a very large company, they were able to give me a lot of money to put towards continuing education. And so I do credit them with a lot of the skills that I have today, but certainly a year and change was all I could tolerate in the end. 

SG: Yeah, a little trial by fire perhaps. All right, so this sounds like all, you know, milk and honey, but what happens?

DG: So I was convinced that my new position at the State Government Center of Indiana was the future of physical therapy. We're going to go to the people, we're going to find a way to be in network, we're going to treat one-on-one for a full hour. Everybody's going to get better. Everybody's going to love it. And then that was all. 

I started in December of 2019. And so a little over two months later, the world ended and having a job inside a large office building went from being the best job in the world to quite literally no job at all. I had months where I had no patience because obviously if they're not coming to work, can't, have nobody to treat.

SG: Yeah, yeah. So, what did you do with your free time?

DG: Well, my free time, I developed a crippling TikTok addiction and there was…

SG: How did this happen? Take us through that. I mean, was TikTok completely foreign to you or now you just finally had the time to, well, to be honest with you, I don't remember exactly when TikTok burst upon the scene, but was this something that was kind of there and you had dabbled in, but now that for the first time in a long time, you actually had some time where you're looking to just explore some different things and you just discovered it in Eureka? How did that go?

DG: So I would say early 2020 is when I would start to see some TikToks reposted on Instagram, because I was on Instagram, I was familiar with Instagram. And so, I was aware of the idea of TikTok, which is being busy and having other things to do. You know, you're not maybe as likely to download a new app and do all that. But when given all the free time in the world, you say, oh, I'll give this TikTok thing a try and see what it's all about. And sure enough, hours would pass by and I'd be there scrolling. Nothing better to do. 

And then there was one week where the Screen Time app on my iPhone told me that I had spent 42 hours in one week just consuming TikTok. A full work week, a full work week, just consuming TikTok. And I had a little bit of a come to Jesus talk with myself. And I said, listen, you neither need to delete this app and seek professional help, or you, you need to start finding a way to make this time productive. And so I chose the latter and I started posting physical therapy related TikToks.

SG: Were there, I mean, what kind of content were you seeing at that point in time? Were there many, you know, people in healthcare providing educational content? And then more specifically, did physical therapy have much of a presence at all on TikTok at that point?

DG: At the time, TikTok was very much still pranks, memes, jokes, dances, a lot of music, things like that. Instagram had already seen an influx of physical therapy influencers. I remember when I was in physical therapy school, and again, I graduated in 2017, the, the prehab guys who are still pretty big on social media today were around squat university, who is still very big today was around. And so Instagram had already seen that kind of physical therapy side of things, but because TikTok was mostly just younger people by nature of just people our age not having the app, wasn't a lot there. But among the dances and memes and jokes, I saw one post at the time from a chiropractor in Seattle, and he made a post about how neck pain can come from your levator scapulae. And the way that he described it, was like, I feel like I could do that. And the post itself had over two and a half million views. And I was like, well, you know, there might be, there might be something here. And I was, so I ended up being very early on the scene. I don't remember seeing another physical therapist post to TikTok before me. I'm sure there would have been a couple, but I was among the first generation of PTs posting to TikTok for sure.

SG: Was this kind of natural for you when you started recording these? You definitely, you're a very funny guy and you definitely have a, I don't want to say a flair for the dramatic, it, because it's a, that's a compliment, but it's so engaging. But was this, how naturally did this come to you? And was it cringe worthy watching yourself? Like what was that process like? I could see that being very awkward for me for a variety of reasons. But you pulled it off. Did you always pull it off?

DG: No, absolutely not. And it was very cringeworthy to watch myself at the start. But the beauty about TikTok is that while there also weren't a lot of other physical therapists in the space, I didn't know anybody in real life that also had a TikTok.

Because at the time I was a millennial, my friends hadn't started downloading TikTok yet. The only people in the world that I knew in real life with a TikTok were myself and my girlfriend. And so, I felt totally comfortable just taking a shot at this and posting videos and knowing that nobody, I wouldn't have to confront anybody in my regular normal life that was watching these, these kind of like tough to watch videos as I first got started. And then it was about five or six weeks of me posting where I went truly viral for the first time. had a post go off for, it was close to 3 million views, and it took me, I had grown over the course of like the first month and a half to maybe like 1500 followers or so. And this one viral video took me from 1500 followers to close to 20,000. And then…

SG: What was the video on?

DG: so at the time there was a trending song going around TikTok about twerking. I don't know if you're familiar with twerking. 

SG: A little bit from the MTV Music Awards

DG: It's a style of dance. Yeah, we'll call it a glute-centric style of dance. And the song was about that. And I made a post where I went through my seven favorite glute exercises to this twerking sound. And it was a big hit. People seemed to really like it. That's when I finally started telling people in my real life that I had a TikTok presence because by then I had enough followers where it was really cool. So I definitely, I really slow played it. 

SG: Yeah, what was the reaction of people? No, I think you did exactly right kind of anonymity and then you were able to like burst upon the scene when you were already legit.

DG: Yeah, they were shocked because I never really posted to social media on any kind of regular basis. My Instagram was, I might've posted a picture once every couple of months or so. And so, to the people that I knew, I was not a social media guy. Like I didn't really post a lot. So, for me to be the one that was going viral and having this presence I think was very funny to a lot of people.

SG: I mean, that's amazing. mean, clearly, you know, it spoke to you and you answered the call. Okay, so now we're still in the middle of the pandemic. So let's go back into the work life and you're starting to get known, you know, for the TikTok stuff, but we still have the pandemic raging. You're probably still not seeing patients. How did that kind of transition?

DG: So luckily enough, my company qualified for the very first round of PPP loans. So even though we didn't have a lot of business because again, we're established inside of office buildings. We were able to feel comfortable, at least mostly to the end of 2020. And that provided me with financial security and also a lot of time to continue to make videos. 

Then as we slowly, Indiana kind of got out of the pandemic, maybe a little sooner than other states. And so, I started treating some patients again here and there. Not only did we have presences in office buildings, we also had presences in like local warehouses. There was a big food delivery service where we had a space and so I was able to go there and we would do screens for people returning from work comp cases or new hires to make sure that they were safe getting at in and out of trucks. And I also split time in another clinic. So, I had like three different things that I could kind of bounce around and do and stay busy, but also kind of grow this social media presence.

SG: Okay, so then how did you end up in New York and I wanna get into the Mims Method Physical Therapy where you're employed now.

DG: So, I ended up in New York because my girlfriend who I was still with, whole reason I was in Indiana in the first place, once she graduated dental school, she got into an orthodontic residency in the same school and then graduated after I had been in Indiana about five years. And being a small-town Indiana girl, she had always had big city dreams. And I grew up in Poughkeepsie, New York, which is about 60 miles north of New York City. And so, when we first started dating and she would come and visit me, New York City was the city that we became the big city that we became most familiar with. And so, when it came time for her to find a job, she only found she only applied to jobs in New York City. And then once she secured a position, we made the we made the move to the to the Big Apple.

SG: And then so how were you introduced to your present practice? Because that's, I remember we talked earlier, it was kind of a neat story how just kind of at some level randomly this kind of occurred. And actually, it was your presence on TikTok is my understanding that kind of put you on your future employer's radar.

DG: It was. So luckily, I had done a fairly big contract before leaving Indiana. I was recruited by a company called Sword who provides telehealth physical therapy visits to very large businesses. So I was like an in-person PT to smaller businesses. They're a telehealth presence to large businesses, businesses like Pepsi and Adidas and corporations like that. And they decided that they wanted to start a video education series that people could search up different issues and watch videos and learn and try to do some things to help themselves out without necessarily needing to have a telehealth visit with a physical therapist. And I was brought on as their first guest speaker and I agreed to do a series on posture, and I agreed to do a series on pain science. All the videos were about 90 seconds long. So in a, in the similar style that I was already making, and I think I agreed to 20 total videos, 10 in each series and the contract that I signed to agree to do that was worth just shy of what I made as my first year as a physical therapist. So just that one contract to do 20 videos made me more financially stable than I had ever been in my entire life.

SG: And again, they found you because of your presence online, correct?

DG: Correct, the first communication I had them was just a cold email from their head of marketing saying that he really liked what I was putting out there. He really liked my presence and he was wondering if I'd be interested in working with them in some capacity and it just went from there. 

So that one contract allowed me to be more financially stable than I had ever been in my entire life. When first moving to New York, I didn't need to find a job. I was feeling good. I'll figure it out when I get there. My girlfriend's stable. She had a job lined up. So like, let's just go. We'll figure it out. And when we initially moved. I was in talks with another large exercise company. I don't know if I'm allowed to say the name because it never quite came together, but they are in like the Peloton space of they have an exercise piece of equipment and then they have a screen component where you can watch personal trainers and the like take you through a workout. And I was being recruited to be their very first physical therapist because their exercise equipment in particular, they were getting a lot of feedback from the people purchasing it that they were getting this to either get back into the gym or recover from an injury. They weren't 100% comfortable to go back to something like a commercial gym. They wanted to work out at home, but the style of exercises that were currently available to them, they felt like were too hard and they wanted something a little bit both rehabilitative and something that is a little bit more easy access. And so, they were recruiting me to be their first ever physical therapist where I was going to establish rehab style exercises and also be the physical therapy guy. So on their screen app, you could click on my name and I would take you through the exercises.

SG: Yeah, yeah.

DG: I was supposed to have my final screen test in July of, this would have been July of 2022, my final screen test at one of their studios in New York City. And I hadn't really heard from them in a while. And I thought that was weird. So I had reached out and said, Hey, you know, what's going on? And that email came back as a not in service. I was like, well, that's weird. This is big company. I've been talking to them for months and I'm just one step away and this is going to be my first big thing that I do in the city. And so I Googled the company only to find out that two days before I had sent that email, they laid off about a third of their company. And then a couple of days after that, I hear from one of the higher ups of my connection point saying that you may have seen that we've laid off a third of our company, including the person that was running your program. And I was like, yeah, I kind of did see that. So my first big New York City whatever had kind of gone up in flames. And it was a few days after that where I received a DM from a woman named Brittany. And I had never heard of her before, seen her before, but she in the DM had said that she had been following me for a while and saw that I had moved to New York City. And she asked me if I was ever interested in treating backstage on Broadway. And that's kind of all she said. I was like, well, that's a…

SG: Yeah, that's quite an opening.

DG: That's an interesting statement. Yeah, and I've got nothing but free time. I'll take a meeting. And so I set up a meeting with her the following week and her practice at the time, Mims Method Physical Therapy, the clinic where I now work, her practice was being run out of what was basically a We Work for healthcare practitioners. So it was a really nice looking space. They had a bunch of private treatment rooms. They had a pilates area. They had a gym area, but everything was available for rent by the hour.

So for instance, if she wanted a room to treat a patient, a private treatment room, she would pay this, this place $50 an hour to rent that room. She could see her patient and then everything over $50 that that patient gives her is then hers to, you know, to run her, her practice. And it was a really great idea because this place was full of young PTs, young chiropractors, young massage therapists, young personal trainers that were getting their business off the ground in a way where they didn't have to spend any capital or invest in a brick and mortar and also invite patients into a really nice looking place.

SG: Yeah, and you could imagine as well, right? mean, it's difficult for anyone in order to rent space or do whatever, but I mean, we're talking New York City, right? So I mean, you can't, the barrier to entry there is significantly greater, which makes this concept even more ideal to me. It makes a ton of sense at a lot of levels.

DG: Yeah, it's a brilliant concept. The tough part about the concept is it works really well for just one person and maybe one other person. And she already had a PTA that was working under her and she had another PT that worked under her umbrella about 10 hours a week. And the bigger you got, because every time you had a patient, you would then have to go book a room and hope that there's a room available. It became really hard to grow inside of that.

But after I met her, we talked for three hours the first time we met. And we really hit it off. We clicked immediately. And I rarely have that experience. And the reason that she had contacted me in the first place, going back to working on Broadway, is that she had two physical therapy Broadway contracts. And a lot of people don't know that every show on Broadway is required to provide by order of the Actors Union physical therapy on a weekly basis in a place that is convenient for members of the cast. And she had two of these contracts. She was working under a woman, part of a bigger practice who had recently retired and more or less handed those contracts down to her. And that's the only reason Brittany had gone into business for herself in the first place was just to hold onto these two contracts so they didn't go anywhere else.

SG: Wow.

DG: Those two contracts were Chicago on Broadway, still running the longest of running American musical of all time, and Beetlejuice. And she was going backstage, treating backstage on these shows. Chicago was on Mondays and Saturdays, and Beetlejuice was on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. So Saturdays A, there's only one of her and she needs two people. That's hard to fill. And also it's hard to find people to work consistent Saturdays. And so she always tries to have a nice Rolodex of people that she could have fill in on the occasional Saturday, occasional weekend here and there. And by the end of our three hours of talking, I said, Brittany, know, the funny thing about working the occasional weekend is that I would love to work 40 hours a week.

And of course she was like, well, you know, in my current spot, it's really hard to grow and this and that. And it's not like she's sitting on a backlog of patients. And so I ended up taking another couple of interviews with established practices in New York City and of course didn't find that same spark or magic or whatever you want to call it. And a week after my last interview, I got a text from Brittany and it said, Hey, I don't know what this is going to look like. I don't know how it's going to work, but you should stop going on interviews. Let's just try to figure this out. I was like, perfect. I still have, again, I still had some financial security. I was able to start slow. We had figured that since I had an established social media presence, once I showed my following that I was in a specific place, we thought that I could generate a caseload of my own. And so we just kind of gave it a go. 

And it was only about four or five months after my first week with her that we took the leap to establish our current brick and mortar. It was about five months after that where I became her first ever solidified, salaried full-time employee. A few months after that, we hired three new physical therapists because we were growing at such a rate. And now I am currently the clinic director of Mims Method Physical Therapy in New York City. We just hired a month ago, another physical therapist. So now we currently have nine physical therapists at the clinic. One, two, three, four of which are full-time. Another of which is mostly full-time, and we are busting at the seams and we're probably going to need a second location maybe as early as the end of this year.

SG: That's incredible. What do you attribute that growth to specifically? I am, I obviously have to believe that a big part of that, mean, obviously the company's done some fantastic work and I know you've grown your Broadway presence as well at Mims, but I mean, how much of that growth do you think is attributed to you being so well known in the physical therapy community?

DG: It's tough to put an actual number on it, but there are times where if I have a few posts go very viral, where about half of the leads that we're getting as a clinic are because they found me on social media. Whereas the other half may be from doctor referrals or Broadway referrals or word of mouth. I would say, yeah, I'd say about at any given time, half to maybe a little bit more than half are finding us via social media.

SG: Tell us more about that, Broadway piece. I mean, I'm kind of a theater, a little bit of a theater guy and I love Broadway or actually headed to New York in a couple of weeks, gonna see a show. But what's that like? I mean, that's a little bit intimidating. I've been a physical therapist for a long time, but treating a Broadway actor backstage prior, hours before a show, I mean, what's that environment like? Because I mean, at one level, I think it's, it would be thrilling, right? To have these, the body awareness these folks have, how in tune they are with their body, etcetera. But like, like you, you can't have casual skills and be doing that. Like, like these people have expectations and it's like being with a major league ball team, right? Or, you know, an NBA team. I mean, you, you've, you've got to these people better and you've got to be exceptional in a short period of time. Talk about that a little bit. It sounds super stressful to me.

DG: When I first started, it was very stressful. It was especially because for the most part, we're either treating right before a show is about to start or we're treating between the matinee and the late show. And the way it's set up is we're only there for a couple hours at a time. And in order to get in a lot of people, they only sign up for 20 minute slots. And so you have 20 minutes with a person to try and figure out what is their most, what is their biggest physical limitation at this time? What manual skills do I have to get them feeling good enough to then go on stage and how can I also then set them up for success in the future? Well, I, by either making either like a small tweak to their warmup or their cool down or their exercise routine or this or that. And I kind of go back to my first job at that orthopedic outpatient where I was treating three to four people an hour, literally only having 15 to 20 minutes in person with somebody to try and figure out what's wrong, figure out what I can do in that moment before then sending them out to, you know, either work with the, the aid that we had, or, just kind of no longer under my purve. 

So I do feel like, again, while it was a completely unsustainable way to have a career, that still set me up for success doing something like this. And I remember the moment where I felt like I could really do this was, so we have, we go to the theaters and we treat in those 20 minute slots. If we're working with a show that has a lead actor that is on stage the entire time and has a much more of a physical demand than the other people. A lot of times the shows will then pay for them to come into the clinic once or twice for an hour one-on-one treat just specifically for them. And one of the shows that we were working on in my first few months of being there, was a show that was about to close and there was one main actor who was the main draw. He is a big name on Broadway and he was the kind of principal lead where if he was missing a show, people could ask for a refund because a lot of people buy the tickets specifically to see him. And I don't remember if this was like a Thursday or whatever, but he came to me in the clinic before show and he said the first thing he said to me was if the show was right now, it would not be able to do it. He was having voice restrictions, neck restrictions. He was just very tight anywhere you can imagine all in the cervical region. And over the course of an hour, I just threw everything I had at him. I mean, I sometimes I call it like the cervical car wash. Like I just whatever I can do, I did. And then…

SG: That could be called the show must go on method as well.

DG: The show must go on method. Exactly. So I just threw it all at him. And afterwards he sat up and kind of went through a little bit of a vocal thing and he turned his head, and he could turn it and he says, I'm going on tonight and it's because of you. And that's when I was like, okay, I think I might be able to hang in this scenario.

SG: Wow. Well, that's incredible how well your clinic has done and how, and I could also see, you know, like this gentleman who's an actor, actress, whatever, um, you know, obviously a big star, but also these, these people go from show to show to show. So I could also see that, you know, where it gets out of the kind of services you folks are providing and all of a sudden, you know, this actor is now in this other show and now, you know, well, I'd kind of like to see Dan or I'd like to see Brittany or I don't know. There must be a lot of that I would imagine, right?

DG: The biggest compliment that we get as a clinic is currently, we have the contract for four shows on Broadway. We have, we still have Chicago, still running, still going strong. We have Gypsy. We have a brand new show called Real Women Have Curves. And two months ago, we secured the contract for Wicked. And that is our biggest contract. That was a huge compliment. So there's another big compliment. I'll get back to the other compliment I was about to start talking about. But Wicked, 20 years running. I believe Wicked is the most profitable thing that is under the NBC Universal umbrella. 

So NBC, a massive company, a massive media distributor. Wicked is the most profitable thing that is under their umbrella. So it's a massive, a big massive thing, especially after the second movie comes out later this year. It's only going to get bigger. And after 20 years, they decided that they wanted to change over their medical team and their physical therapy team. And as far as I know, we were the only physical therapy team that they reached out to, or at the very least, like the first physical therapy team that they reached out to because they had heard about us in the Broadway kind of stratosphere.

Having a show like that reach out to us and want to work with us. And now that we've been working with them for a couple of months, it's a totally collaborative effort. They're so happy to have us. We're so happy to be there is really cool. But another big compliment that we get as a clinic is even though we're only currently working on four Broadway shows, actually going backstage to four Broadway shows, at any given time, we have patients from maybe eight to 10 different shows. Because like you said, not only do shows close and then they go other places, but also people talk in the Broadway community, and they find us through that. And so at any given time we have probably eight to ten shows represented in total on Broadway in our clinic.

SG: I mean, and how fun for you as well to, you obviously, you're treating people, you know the shows they're on. And I mean, it's like, you know, it's like going to a game when you really follow a team versus not, or going to one of your children's games or, you know, whatever it is. I mean, I must be thrilling to see these people perform in this way and they're, you know, they're like Joe Smith or Nancy Jones in your clinic. And all of a sudden you see them elevate to these levels. Like, you, I mean, I don't know. Broadway's one of those places when you're there sometimes and you see the right show, you hear the right song, you see the right performance. I mean, it just gives you chills. to know people like that and to have a role in allowing them to do what they do so effectively, I gotta believe there's a lot of satisfaction that you derive from that.

DG: 100%. And we have as a clinic, or at least I have as a physical therapist working at this clinic, we've originated two different shows, meaning that we've started with a show in the very early stages of rehearsal, all the way up until the point to where they slowly open. We did that with Back to the Future and we did that with Gypsy. And since we start with the cast at the very early stages of rehearsal, I'm meeting and working with these people and talking with these people for a good eight to 10 weeks before I ever see them on stage.

And so for two and a half months, I just get to know a person and then I sit down in the house and I watch them perform and they open their mouth and I'm like, oh my goodness. It's like, can do that. mean, of course, like I understand that that is what they do, but to just talk with somebody and just to know them as a person and then to see them in their environment, never gets old and it's mind blowing.

SG: Right, right that would never get all you ever seen is believing. I'm sure there's a different level of, you know, respect when that goes down. 

Dan, let's just touch a little bit more on the influencer part of it, because I do think a lot of, I do think that's very interesting. and it's also, very nebulous, I think in terms of, you know, what have you learned by being an influencer? And I certainly don't want to get into money or anything like that. I wouldn't ask that of course, but, but how, how, what kind of recommendations do you have for physical therapists or physical therapist assistant who wants to gain some type of following, regardless of what that's for, to promote their own business, to get brand endorsements? Can you take us through just the basics of that and what you've learned? Because obviously you've been tremendously successful. You've been in this for a long time. And I'm sure there have been some easy and some hard lessons learned along the way. But any advice?

DG: The advice to me is, or the advice from me for other people is that you truly do have to enjoy the process of making a video. I've had a lot of people come to me and they say, listen, I hate social media. I hate making videos, but I know that it can be helpful. What do I do? And I have to tell them that like you're already, you've already failed. You really do need to enjoy it because like you said, it is nebulous. There are no rules. Nobody's going to sit down and make you make a video. Nobody's going to sit down and make you study what makes a good video and study what makes a bad video and, and, and work to get better at it. So step number one is you either have to enjoy it already or you have to find a way to enjoy it.

And then number two is I have found that there is no such thing as too simple of an idea or too simple of a piece of advice. When I first started posting, I wanted it to be applicable to everybody that watched it. I didn't want to post specifically for elite athletes or specifically for other physical therapists. I wanted somebody sitting on their phone to be able to understand what I was saying and be able to apply either a simple piece of advice or a simple stretch. And there were a lot of videos that I posted where I was like as it working as a physical therapist, I was, I was thinking, this is just so simple. Who, who's going to resonate with this? Everybody already knows this. And then I would put it out there and then sure enough, I would get comments saying, I never thought of this or I never knew that or, or wow, like this simple, I just tried this simple stretch and like, wow, like it really, it really helps. And so the bare bones, the bare basics are find a way to enjoy it, find a way to, to care about getting better at it. And then don't be afraid to just put something out there that even you think is too simple because it ultimately will help at least, at least somebody.

SG: Now that's great advice. Yeah, I think oftentimes we make things too complicated or just make some assumptions that are not the case. And it must be tricky for you because you are, your target audience is very broad. So you can't get too scientific, but yet you, but I think you also, well, not you, but everyone, I think as a good therapist should, I think sometimes we don't get patients enough credit in terms of how much they want to understand what's actually going on. And that includes whether it be anatomy or you know, um, you know, some therapeutic principle. Um, but I find your videos do a nice job of when I'm watching it, I'm not, I mean, I'm kind of watching as a physical therapist, but I'm also taking it in as a consumer and somehow I feel like it provides something for both audiences. But do you feel like, do you feel that's a skill for you that's evolved over time? Or do you think you always could just kind of meet that middle ground even early? You kind of had a good understanding for what makes that generically effective for both.

DG: The reason that I thought that I would be good at this is because I, even though I do have a lot of manual skills and I've got a pretty good collection of exercises in my, in my toolbox, I do think my best skill as a physical therapist is just being able to relay information to patients and helping them understand why something hurts and what they can do about it. And so I had always worked on my explanations of things to people before ever even posting. And then I kind of just took those explanations that I had been working on and just started putting them on video. And there is a talk that I give to students where the overall idea is your primary role as a physical therapist is as an educator and you're already working with people and speaking with people and you already have these canned explanations for various diagnoses. And the easiest place to start is what is one of those canned diagnoses or like how you describe the rotator cuff for instance. You've already gotten pretty good at that and you can just put that on video and then it applies to a bunch of people instead of just the person in front of you. So I did always think that I had the ability to do that, then of course over the course of five years and I think I've made upwards of over 1000 different videos. I've definitely honed, definitely honed those skills and have become a lot more efficient with my words and getting a point across in, you know, 90 seconds or less.

SG: How effective are you, do you think, in determining when you end up producing a video, I mean, can you pick out like, this is good. This has a chance to go viral. I mean, I'm thinking of it as like a producer of music, right? When you listen to that, yeah, okay, what do we wanna release as a single? You know what I mean? But can you tell? I mean, do you have some sense of when you're like, this is gold or like, ee.

DG: I would say the first three years I had no idea. I was just putting stuff out there and whatever came back came back. But now I'm at the point to where the second I'm done editing a video, I'll know if I'm on to something. And now I'm mostly right. Or alternatively, I'll edit a video and I'll be like, this thing is gonna tank. It's just not going to do anything. And sure enough, I'm right. And I've also done this long enough now to know that if I am having a day where I'm just like feeling a little burnt out or I'm not quite feeling it, there is no possible way that I can push through that and make an effective video. Even if I and looking at the video thinking that I did a good job, there is some element of the people can tell that I just was not feeling it that day and the energy doesn't come across and it doesn't resonate. So I do very much have a good feel for what will work and what won't work. The only downside is that I have to think of an idea, film it, and edit it before getting that feeling. So maybe in another couple years, I could be more proactive about it, and before I even start filming, I'll know if I'm onto something or not.

SG: Okay, yeah. That's incredible. Yeah, that's such a gift, you are so, your interpersonal skills are fantastic and I think you're just so relatable and obviously your numbers translate to that. 

So last question. I look, I think this journey has been incredible and what's amazing to me too is the timeframe of this journey, you know, is not even that long. I mean, it may seem like it and you've done an amazing amount in that time, but I mean, it's incredible what you've accomplished at that point. And I think with your growing popularity,

You know, you have all kinds of opportunities in front of you all the time, I'm sure. Can you give us any information on what's next or what would be even something you'd like to do in the future that you haven't done yet?

DG: The biggest thing that is next is for the past about seven months, I've been working on a book. Towards the end of last year, I signed a book deal with Victory Belt Publishing, who has, if you look up their publishing house, they have published almost every big book in the physical therapy fitness space at least that I have heard of. I brought up Squat University. Aaron, his book is through Victory Belt. The Victory Belt did The Supple Leopard by Kelly Sturrett, which at least when I was in physical therapy school, like The Supple Leopard was like that big book. And so I am honored to be able to have a book under their publishing house and I am coming to the very end of finishing the manuscript by the end of this month. I should be totally done with the manuscript. And then right now the target release date for the book is on December 9th. And so December 9th of this year, 2025. And so I haven't been able to take on a lot of other opportunities other than that, because it's really been taken up all the limited free time that I do have access to.

SG: That's a massive project.

DG: But I am very excited for that to kind of finally come to fruition and sell it to the public. 

SG: Do you sleep?

DG: So I do take my sleep very seriously. If I get less than eight hours, I'm upset with myself. But the amount of hours in a day that are fully mine are very limited.

SG: Yeah. Well, you must be very efficient to still sleep eight hours and accomplish all that you've done. And it was funny when we, when we talked a little bit before recording this, we kind of go way back and you know, you had a Scorebuilders connection with SUNY Buffalo using our stuff and being our review course. And so funny that, you know, you're, you're student in that setting and now you're, now you're Dr. Dan and you're a monster. 

But anyways, Hey, look, I really appreciate you joining us today. I have lot of respect for what you do. enjoy watching your information and we'll put the book information in when that's available in the show notes. And so we certainly want to promote that for you because I'm sure it's done as well as everything else you do, which is fantastic. So Dan, thanks so much for joining us today and I sincerely appreciate it.

DG: Yeah, thanks so much for having me. This was a blast.

SG:  You're welcome. And thanks to all our listeners and we'll be back next month with another profile.

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