Michael 

Hi everyone and welcome to the show that explores with allied health business owners and managers. What’s important about being in the allied health business today? I’ve got my special guest today. I’ve got Matt Paluzzi. He’s a physio and a business owner. He’s welcome to the first episode of the business of allied health.

Matt 

Thanks for having me. Yeah. It’s interesting to get away from clinical discussions. I think we often get caught up in the clinical discussion. So nice to talk shop and talk business.

Michael 

Yeah. Well, that’s the aim of it. You know, to tell people what it’s like to be in business today in the health industry and what’s important, what’s not important and what the real challenges are. So let’s start a little bit about your physio journey. I mean, we’ve met a little while ago when you were a student and, um, did a placement with the clinic as well, but it’s been a bit of a journey since then. So tell us a bit more about what’s happened in the last few years.

Matt

Yeah. So, as you said, we first met 10 years ago, almost to the day. Now I do feel old. 10 years ago, almost to the day, it was my final clinical placement as a student. And I got a lot out of that placement. And I think that reinforced for me why Pilates is a really fundamental part of what we do here and why it’s a fundamental part of why, what any physio should include as part of their clinical practice. I’d already had a little bit of experience with it from a patient point of view. I had osteitis pubis when I was 18, 19 and tried everything under the sun to get it, to get it better I should say. And then it was only clinical pilates and sticking with clinical pilates for 12, 18 months. That was actually the panacea that was the thing that got me back to playing footy, which I’m really grateful for. And again, all of those experiences just led to make sure that I was gonna include it in whatever work I did in the long run as well. So yeah, that was 10 years ago I was with you.

Then I got a hospital job. I thought I wanted to get a nice cruisy introduction into the workforce. And so I got a job working in the Eastern suburbs of Melbourne throughout their hospital network. Did that for a couple of years. And then opportunities all about timing. And a friend of mine called me. I’d just been unsuccessful for a more senior role. They’d given it to a friend of mine actually. She was far more suitable for the job, but I was disgruntled at the time because I didn’t get the job. But.

Michael 

Those things are such a blessing, Scott. So if you look back at it and you think, actually it’s right that it happened.

Matt

It was the right thing to happen to me. It was the right thing to happen to her and led me to then go and starting working in a clinic. So a good friend of mine worked with him in a clinic that he subsequently bought into. Um, but you worked with him for a couple of years.

Then the opportunity came about with my then boss to buy into an existing clinic, either with him or on my own. Yep. We negotiated on that, uh, with the previous owner – that fell through, uh, ultimately at the 11th hour, um, through no fault of our own, the allied just wanted to go to with someone else for some various reasons and that was okay, but it sparked in me that energy to run my own clinic and do my own thing. Yep.

So in about May of 2017 I started to look around and see what sort of properties were around take out a commercial lease which I did and signed the papers in about August and then opened on the 13th of November 2017 instinct health at Toorak Road in Camberwell.

Michael

Wow, okay. I mean, it’s scary to put your name on that first commercial lease and you’re guarantour.

Matt

Yeah, that was, there was a lot that I learned about commercial leases and options meant nothing to me at the time. And, um, rent free periods. I thought this was just like a, some sales tactic that they were talking about, but it’s all part of the cut and thrust of the commercial real estate world. So I learned a lot out of that. Um, and then we’ve subsequently moved since then, literally just one door next door where we are today. And, um,

Yeah, went through the whole process again. My partner now is a property lawyer. So I’ve got someone in my corner who I can bounce commercial leases off. So she’s a great resource for me to have. But yeah, it was a huge learning experience. And then that’s just one aspect of what you learn early days as well. The leasing world is something that’s a small part of what we do, but it’s a significant expense to the business. But yeah, I learned a lot about that process as well.

Michael 

Yeah, I mean, that’s an important one. One, it’s gonna be where you’re gonna be for a while. And second of all is that, you know, you need to make sure that small thing, you don’t use it options, you don’t know what that means. But then when you come up the option in three or five years, depending on the term of your lease, and then I want to continue on and I’ve got to renegotiate a new lease. This is scary, my business is dependent. I don’t have a place to run. I don’t have a business. This is a pretty scary thing.

Matt 

Yeah, in terms of valuing your business, if you’ve got nowhere to operate from, well, it doesn’t matter how you value your business, it’s worth nothing if you’re gonna get kicked out tomorrow or in three months time, whatever it is. So yeah, there are really big rocks that you got to sort out in the business for sure.

Michael

Well, let’s go back to why you opened up six years ago. So what, what did you want from Instinct Health? What was your vision for this business?

Matt

Yeah. I think at the time I was probably, uh, really naive to be perfectly honest. I think I, I liked what I was doing. I liked where I was working. I liked who I was working for. Um, but the, um, the ego in me wanted to work for myself and I’d seen others do it before yourself included. And I wanted that for myself.

And I liked where I was working. You know, it was part of a big franchise group, international franchise group. Yep. I can say that now, international based franchise group. And there was things that I liked, but there was things that I didn’t like about the business again, not my, not my boss at the time. I have a really good relationship with him still. But just in the way that things were run and the processes that we have to follow. So basically I, I picked and chose the things that I liked out of that. And the things that I didn’t like of that out of that.

And then, created a business that was going to be everything that I wanted to do, which was in rooms physio, hands on massage, clinical pilates, strength and conditioning. Initially we started with yoga so I thought that was going to be a nice complimentary service for our type of clientele. In the end that was learning for me and that wasn’t really what our clients were telling me that they wanted so we drew that service. But that in itself was fine and then psychology was always going to be a really big part of what we do. So that’s now the service offering that we’ve got.

And I think for me at the foundation of it, it was just about, um, breaking down a lot of stigma for our clients, particularly around the mental health side of things, but even clinical Pilates. There’s this perception out there from the population that clinical Pilates is for women and people who are pregnant, women who are pregnant and you know, the yummy mummies of, of the world and this sort of thing. And I saw it from a personal point of view that no, I was an 18, 19 year old athlete, amateur athlete, albeit, but I didn’t 19 year old athlete and I got great benefit out of it. So.

It was, I wanted to create a space that was going to be safe, that was going to be able to break down a lot of those barriers and offer everything in a one-stop shop. So if you’re sitting at reception, it doesn’t matter. If you see someone walking past the front door, a friend, a colleague, a neighbor, whatever, you could be, I’m just waiting for a physio appointment. Even if you’re waiting for a psychology or a clinical bladies class or whatever. Is it for whatever reason, physio has a nice safe picture around it, but the same stigma is still there for psychology, for clinical polities to a lesser extent.

So yeah, I just wanted to create a space that was gonna be safe and have not so much a one-stop shop, but more service offerings around it that could take people all the way through from acute injury to preventative medicine and everything in between.

Michael 

I mean, it’s interesting when you say that why you open up your own business as well, because the perception, if you look like a shark tank and so forth, the perception is, oh, I wanna open up my own business because I’m gonna make a lot of money and often the most successful businesses aren’t the ones that say, oh, I’m gonna do this because I wanna make this X amount of dollar a figure. It’s usually, I have a dream that I wanna do this with people’s lives and the commercial reality comes around that too and it does.

You do have to make it commercially viable not finding that product market fit but it’s interesting that you said that you wanted to go into business because, you know, you really love what you were doing. You thought there was a, that was a space, a good space to make, you know, clinical polities, a comfortable space where people are different, um, you know, demographics and the typical ones and making a safe space for people to talk about their mental health, talk about, um, preventative medicine as well in a, in a safe space for your target market, getting away from that, uh, you know, the, the yummy mummy feel as well too.

Um, how has that journey gone? How have you found that your idea of versus the reality being, how’s it, how’s that been in the last few years?

Matt

Yeah, I think, um, pretty close to be honest. Yeah. Pretty close, which is great. Um, there’s been some small ovulations and like I said, yoga was a hit and a miss. Yep. Um, we had a crack at it. It didn’t work and that’s okay. So I learned from that. It was a fairly low value appointment type, a dead in that the designated yoga studio will have 15 classes running a day. We didn’t have capacity to that because if you’re gonna run a yoga class, you gotta basically shut the whole place down. And so it’s either you gotta book end the day and you gotta have a 6 a.m. or a 9 p.m. service offering, or you do it in the middle of the day and the whole place shuts down because you wanna create an environment that’s very serene, very quiet, very inviting, and just didn’t really work. So that in itself was a learning.

I think now, and particularly with the team that we’ve got now as well, we can actually take people right the way through. So we get acute low back pain and someone who will come in for a physio appointment and that’s the reason why they present to us. By the same token, we still get that person who presents just for clinical pilates or just for strength and conditioning classes because that’s what they wanna do and that’s how they feel they can achieve their preventative medicine goals. So I think not through lack of trying, but the six years of skin in the game and six years of experience with clients has taught us that we can go after that type of person. Yes. And organically they’ve started to find us as well, which is really nice.

Michael

Well, it’s interesting that you say that too, because you know, uh, I mean, I’ve got a very biased view of this world too, but I think this is where, you know, our, our profession is going. You know, we’re not alone. It’s not, you know, there’s more of that mix between… you don’t have to wait for someone to hurt themselves before you do something about their lives, you know, preventative health and preventative medicine, you know, there is it’s, it’s sticking his head in something that was talked about 15, 20 years ago, and now you’re starting to see it emerge a little bit more, you know, COVID’s been a very big push for a lot of people to say, you know what, I don’t want to just have an okay life. I want to have a better life. And I’m going to do those preventative things. I want to go, I want to go down fighting the whole way through.

And, you know, the last, you know, the older generation is not, they, they don’t want to, you know, they don’t want to retire. They want to have a great life all the way through and including athletes as well. And I think it’s, it’s becoming okay to do things because I want to feel better and have a better life, not just I have an injury and let’s stop there. And I think that’s always been the, the strength and the weakness of physios. Yeah. We’re really good at getting people out of pain.

But what’s next? What’s next? How can we stop that pathology from coming back? How can we address it in the here and now, put a plan in place for three months, six months, 12 months? That means that they’re actually going to get positive, lifelong outcomes.

Matt 

Yeah. One of the key mantras of the organization that I used to work for was all around lifelong health. And I think there’s real credit in that. And there’s really something in that you should be mindful of. Because who doesn’t want to be healthy for their life? The lifetime. Like it seems, it seems like an absolute no brainer. Well, it seems like a no brainer now, but it wasn’t. And it’s become okay to say, I want to have good lifelong health. I’m going to do things to feel better in 10 years and 15 years. I want to have the most active life we can possibly have till, you know, past my nineties and I’ve, I’ve seen that myself where you’ve, I’ve seen people into the nineties having a great life. And that wasn’t even on the radar, probably about 15, 20 years ago.

I just want to be out of pain and you know, when I retired, well, who worries about, what about that then? But no, all the way through, it’s okay to have a great life. It’s okay. And it’s a good thing to actually do things about your health in the long term. Yep. Now I completely agree. Yep.

Michael

Let’s talk about the balance of your life a little bit too, because you do elite level sport as well. So you are a physio for the Collingwood AFLW team. How does elite level sport life and running a business, how do you marry that too?

Yeah, sometimes it’s a little bit, this is probably a grandiose example, but it’s a little bit Clark Kent, you know, you go into the telephone box and you change from one outfit into another. But it’s, it is almost leading a double life. And the world of women’s football is growing and players are getting closer to full-time athletes, which is great. The support staff haven’t quite caught up yet, just in terms of funding and the clubs can’t afford to pay staff full time, but there are almost full time expectations. So it is a real challenge, trying to run a business, you know, trying to run a medical team and trying to run a program at Collingwood as well. It’s a real challenge. But I also can’t sit still. I like doing things a lot. I like keeping busy. So I really find the balance great.

And I think what I learn in elite sport is what I’m able to bring back to the clinic. The reality is in elite sport we get access to the players two, three, four times a week. So if you want to carry out treatment with someone, well you’ve got three times a week where you’ve got an opportunity to do that. And you can implement their rehab plans, you can monitor their progress, you can progress them in the gym, you can treat something else that’s maybe an underlying cause for whatever their primary injury is at the same time because you’ve got access to them.

And I now take that philosophy back to here and I think every client, whether they be an athlete or a retired man or woman, whatever it is. The Camp Wills accountant. Yeah, there you go, the retired Camp Wills accountant. I think everyone should have access to the same level of care and so what I basically do, and we start to do it here in the clinic, is we bring the elite standards back into the clinic.

So we use things like force plates that we use here in the clinic, but I’ve stolen that from the footy club. That’s a lot of the methodology that I’ve taken from high performance managers, strength and addiction coaches, other physios that I’ve worked with at the club, and just apply it here. If I’ve got a client who’s coming back from an ACL, why shouldn’t they have access to elite level testing? Let’s objectify their data, let’s give them something real that they can quantify, and allow them to progress through their rehab journey.

Michael 

And with that too, the cost of their technology has just plummeted down. I mean, that stuff used to be extraordinarily expensive, and now it’s not.

Matt

Yeah. It’s so accessible now too. Yeah. And there are still costs associated with it, but that’s, that’s a cost of running a business and that’s the reality. Um, so yeah, I think it’s a worthwhile investment.

Michael

Absolutely. But what about your time? I mean, you know, you still have to run this place. You know, it has all the running things that you have to do. Staff, uh, manage the, uh, the major clients that you possibly have a certain amount of workload yourself in the client load, then there’s the marketing and sales, then there’s all the HR management as well. And then you’re not here as well doing your role as a, as a, as a physio for Collingwood, how do you, how do you balance that in your life?

Matt 

Yeah. Um, it is busy and particularly during the season, it’s really busy. Um, I’ve never actually sat down and looked at how many hours a week I would work. Yeah. Um, but I’m also not someone who like hangs my hat up on that. I’m like, Oh, great. I worked 80 hours this week. Look at me. I’m really proud of that. It’s just.

To me, that’s just my life and I’m okay with that. In terms of running the business, I genuinely have a really great team. We’ve started to develop what I would call now kind of second tier leadership. So physios who are taking on leadership roles in terms of mentoring the others. I’ve got a practice manager who genuinely runs the day to day. So when I hired her, the remit was basically to run the day to day and she’s been with me for just over a year and now she does run the day to day, which is great, you know, without really keep people in the clinic, I couldn’t do what I can do. The reality is for me now, I can run this place and I still carry a clinical load as well. So I still treat clients here. I run one Pilates class a week and then I’ve got all of my in-room clients that I see as well. Don’t really see new clients. Crudely, I don’t want to, I don’t need to.

Michael 

Well, how much time do you have in the day?

Matt 

Yeah, exactly, I can’t review them. The reality is I have a wait list, so if I see someone today, I’m not gonna be able to review them when I want to, and like I was talking about before, if I’m talking about seeing an elite athlete two or three times a week, well, I can’t do that. So I’ll see them once, and then I’ll have to refer them onto one of my team, and that’s the unfortunate reality. So it’s not fair on the clients for me to see new clients. So yeah, I still do that, but I’ve mastered delegating, or not, I have mastered delegating, that’s probably putting in too far, but I’ve gotten a whole lot better at delegating.

And I’ve got people in the team now who wanna take on that responsibility. I’ve got people now who wanna drive culture, who wanna drive standards. And so for me, I can actually sit back and come in and out when I need to and put out the fires, hire, manage team, work through HR issues, have my say in terms of marketing and systems, but the people on the ground are the ones that are executing it. And so for them, I’m eternally grateful because without them, I couldn’t do what I do. Yeah. They’re the biggest part of the business.

Michael 

So it’s interesting that you say that to your hat as you evolve through the business as well, changes as well, because of you, Matt, who was everything when you first started, has to say, okay, well, what am I gonna be today? Because today I can’t be everything. I’m gonna be this person. So I’m gonna reduce my caseload because I’m gonna only see repeat clients, new ones, because I can’t do a good, I can’t do a good customer service job with them as well. And that’s okay. Or, you know, I can’t be there for the day, day they’re running. I’m going to hire someone for that job. It takes a bit of letting go in order to let go of your ego. Like, okay, here’s my objective reality. I want to achieve this, but if I’ve got to do that, I’ve got to emotionally let this go and it’s not an easy step.

Matt 

Yeah, you’re right. And it’s something that, and she’s been great. My practice manager is brilliant. And she really drove me to let go and actively let go. And it was kind of challenging in the early days because I’d want to step in and I want to in my mind help. But she saw it as micro managing. Yeah, were you disempowering him you do that? Yeah, and so it’s something that I’ve had to really come to terms with in terms of being able to let go, but that takes a certain type of personality to teach me that as well. And so, yeah, I said, I’m really grateful for her to be able to teach me those skills to be able to sit back and say, okay, it’s not exactly how I would do something, but I trust you to do it in a way that’s going to achieve a similar outcome. And I mean, our skills are going to be different to yours too. Sorry.

You know, it’s amazing because you think you need to do the world this way and someone with a certain set of skills set that has that, you know, I was able to drive operational issues as well. May say, see things differently in like, Oh wait, they’re ways better than mine. I should stick to my corner and actually do my job and let them do it. And it’s happened. Yeah. There, there are processes that she’s put in place now and I’m sitting there going, that’s better. That’s more efficient. I love efficiency in life. Yeah. And that’s, you know, I think that’s why I’m able to, to carry out the jobs that I do and she’s found efficiencies in the business and I’m like, great. You’re doing what you’re doing. Yeah.

Michael 

What, um, I guess a couple of questions as well. What biggest challenges in the last six years that you can, you know, there were six years, a long time. So, and you can really stand on your mind. Like, you know, I really learned a lot from that. We should do better, but I’ve still learned a lot from that.

Matt 

Yeah. Um, there are a lot, um, people are always the biggest challenge. People are always the biggest challenge and that can be a disgruntled client, which I can count on one hand the number of times that’s happened, but we work in a people business and people are in pain, so they’re gonna be emotional and they’re gonna be emotive. So trying to deescalate those situations has been something that I’ve learned a lot from. As I said, I could literally count them on one hand, but that’s been something that’s been really challenging. But then also just managing my team, that’s probably the, if there was one single biggest challenge.

And it’s just that again, they’re people, they’re always gonna be moving parts that sit within that. Someone wants to shift their days or shift their hours or I can’t work Saturdays anymore because of this or I can’t work Monday nights anymore because of this or Monday mornings because of that. Trying to negotiate and navigate all of those things is a real challenge. But I’ve always just had the hat on that, if it’s going to be best for them, it’s going to be best for their clients. And if their clients are happy, then the business is going to be happy. And if the business happy, then I’m happy.

So I always have that staff first mentality. There are times when I have to make a hard decision and it’s sorry. No, that’s not going to be feasible for these reasons, but I will always outline the reasons I had a performance review with like a regular routine performance review with one of my guys this week.

And when we’re talking about it, the feedback that came back to me was the fact that they felt really valued in terms of the decisions that were made about the clinic. Because I always go back to the team and say, this is what I’m thinking, what do you think? Sometimes I’ll be able to take those thoughts, theories, ideas on board. Sometimes I won’t, but as they said, this person that I was talking to the other day, they felt really valued just by being included in that conversation.

So I think that’s the way that I’ve overcome a lot of these challenges with, with my team, um, in including them in that wherever possible.

Michael 

Very good. I mean, that’s, that’s the balancing out between operational needs and there’s humans you’re dealing with. And you can’t please everyone, but if I can, the 80-20 rule, if I can keep 80% of the people happy 80% of the time, well, then there’s only 20% left that I don’t have to worry about. So, you know, 20% of the problems are gonna come from 20% of the people. But again, if you can cater to the majority, the majority of clients are gonna be happy, the majority of the business is gonna be happy.

Any really tough decisions you have to make? Like what is, you know, sounds, I mean, we’ve all had to make some really tough calls. Anyone that stands out in your mind? You can share as much as you’re comfortable with.

Matt 

Yeah, I mean, probably exiting staff. Yeah. I wouldn’t say I’ve had bad hires, but I’ve had people who weren’t the right fit, either for us or for them. And again, I’ve never had someone leave and we’ve left on bad terms, but leading into those conversations, like there’s still that impending feeling of dread and fear that sits within me and a sleepless night that comes knowing that conversation’s gonna happen. So that’s always been the single hardest thing that I’ve had to do and the hardest decision I’ve had to make is exiting staff.

Michael 

I mean, that’s a really tough thing when you’re exiting stuff because there’s, there’s so many things that emotionally you go through because you’ve tried so hard to attract people to your business and then you’re doing the opposite, letting them go. It’s, you know, your brain is telling you why are you doing the opposite of your, what you’ve been trying to do to get them in the first place? And, um, I mean, you know, the, the wrong fit, um, again, it’s easy logically to say they’re the wrong fit, they’re the wrong people, but emotionally saying, I’m going to hurt someone’s feelings, they’re not gonna like me for this as well. And that’s an emotional journey you have to go through. All of us business owners have to do that. Especially in service-based businesses.

Matt 

Yeah, absolutely. And it is really tough, but I think my personal ethos is that I wanna help people become the best version of themselves that they possibly can. Whether that’s a client, whether that’s a team member, whether that’s the person delivering the mail. I just wanna have a positive impact on someone’s life. And if that’s them exiting the business because that’s the best thing for them, then that sits really, really well with me.

And yes, I’ve exited people from the business, but I still to this day genuinely believe that everyone who’s come in here has left as a better version of themself. And I’ve never had anyone go without my blessing, whether that be a voluntary resignation or someone that I’ve decided to steer them in that direction. I’ve never had to fire anyone. There’s never been, you know, performance related firing and that really aggressive Donald Trump term, but, um, I, I’ve always had a really good relationship with people on the way out. And I think that’s the support doesn’t stop when the door closes. When you leave, I’ll stay in touch. I’ll continue to provide mentoring. I’ll, I genuinely believe in that and I genuinely want to support people in that.

Michael 

So what’s your proudest win in the business in the last six years?

Matt 

Um, it’s kind of the flip side of that. And it’s saying people achieve the things either within or outside of the clinic, uh, that really light them up. One of my stuff bought a house this year. Right. And that was, you know, that was a really big goal for them. We do an annual goal setting process every year. It’s about to kick off for 2024. Yeah. Um, that was a goal that they had set for themselves. And I’m like, great, that’s awesome. And we celebrated it.

And I love seeing that. I love being able to provide an environment where they can do that sort of thing. Yeah. Someone else had said, go all around wanting to get into the master’s program. They’ve done that. They’re now enrolled. They’re going to start that next year as well. Yeah. They’re those type of things. Actually, no, the single biggest, the single biggest proudest moment was with my second employee. Yeah. So she and I were friends for a long period of time. And then she was quite disgruntled where she was. And I said, here’s the job.

And she had her own health challenges and she, we worked through that and we would, we changed, we tried to do everything that we possibly could. We changed hours, we changed days, we did mornings, evenings, afternoons, half days, full days. We literally tried everything under the sun and she was an excellent clinician and her clients loved her. But her passion was around adolescent female health. Yep. In all facets, nutrition, exercise, sleep, hormonal health, mental health, everything.

And so she’s now developed a program where she goes out and delivers this education program to high school students all around the country. Her business is thriving and it is so good for me to see, and we still talk, we still talk every couple of months, we’ll catch up and we’ll talk through how she’s going. And so vindicating for me to see all of that unfold for her, cause that’s her passion. And I know, and I remember the conversation sitting in one of our consult rooms about this program. And we thought about trying to roll it out within the clinic, but the reality was it wasn’t what the clinic was designed for and it wasn’t how she wanted to execute it, so it was never going to work out.

But I saw that thing from day one to now see it where she’s literally touring the country on this thing. That’s awesome. So yeah, if there’s one single proudest moment, I’m really proud of her, but I’m really proud of myself that I was able to be part of that journey as well.

Michael 

Fantastic. So final thoughts where, where are you, where’s your next direction? Or is it the same thing that you got looking? What’s your, what’s your next passion going forward from here?

Matt 

Yeah, I think it’s a bit like footy and I can’t sit still. So I can’t just do footy. I can’t just do the clinic work. I’ve always got to be looking at what’s next and I remember my first hospital job, they did an onboarding process and as part of this onboarding process, you had a brunch with the then CEO. And he was a nurse, he was a nurse by trade before he built his way up and got to that stage. And he said he was always looking at two jobs ahead. And I’ve always kind of had that philosophy, what’s two steps ahead, not one step ahead, what’s two steps ahead? And I’ve always had that philosophy.

So I think now it’s what we do here is really good. And I think what we do is really successful. So now it’s replicating and go again. It’s got to take the right people. It’s going to take time. Um, but yeah, if we can replicate and go again, then we have access. I have access to more clinicians who I can then help to become the best versions of themselves.

Michael 

Any last thoughts you want to tell all listeners?

Matt 

Jeez, I feel like I’ve waffled on about myself a lot.

Michael 

Really good lessons about why you went into the business. They’re passionate about developing both people first forces clients and now to really develop passion about developing staff and developing their whatever journey they go if it’s with Instinct Health or outside; and then you know your restlessness and do multiple things at one time and then where you going forward. There’s a lot of great learnings and where your toughest challenges have been. It’s been really good.

Matt

Yeah, there’s been challenges. But someone said to me recently, you know, would you change anything and yes and no there will be things I would change along the way, but it also wouldn’t have led me to this same point that I am now. And so when I consider that, no, I wouldn’t change it for the world.

Michael

No, it’s very interesting about that too. Cause I look back at my things I’ve done as well. Would I regret that changes? I mean, I regret like there was some heartbreaking moments, but I, I can’t, I don’t think I could have made different decisions at the time. And so yes, looking back, I could make better decisions, but at the time you made the best decision you could with the information you had. So it’s very, very hard to regret those decisions that are going forward as well.

Matt 

Yeah, all you can do is learn off hindsight. And as you say, I think that’s the perfect way to put it. I would do things differently knowing what I know now, but I didn’t know what I know now back then when I had to make that decision at that time. So yeah, it all sits really comfortably with me.

Michael 

Matt, thank you very much for your time. There’s been some great learnings for everyone as well. Thanks listeners. Next time we’ll talk to another great business owner about what they’ve done in this space. Hope to see you next time. Thank you.