Episode 10: Intuition Belongs In the Room with Business
How to Operate from Intuition in Business (Instead of Disillusionment)
Are you feeling disillusioned? Overwhelmed by the endless hoops of certifications, shifting standards, or the constant pressure to achieve? If that yardstick keeps getting longer, maybe it’s time to pause and gain a new perspective.
What if you approached your work differently, leading from intuition instead of burnout? What if you reset your boundaries, reframed your partnerships, and focused on balance and flow?
This article will walk you through practical ways to reset your mindset, lean into intuition, and create a more harmonious business culture.
Step Back and Seek a Fresh Perspective
When you’re stuck in disillusionment, the first step is to seek an outside perspective.
Tunnel vision is common in business; small issues can feel like disasters, and big concerns can be minimized. That’s why it’s invaluable to turn to:
A trusted friend
A colleague outside your industry
A business coach
These outside voices offer new insights, ask better questions, and help you realign your priorities and processes. Once you gain clarity, you’ll be ready to take action.
Tackle One Challenge at a Time
Trying to solve every problem at once only deepens the overwhelm. Instead, break things into manageable steps:
Prioritize issues by urgency and impact
Create a step-by-step plan for each challenge
Focus on solving one problem per month
Use honest, open communication with your team to co-create solutions
This rhythm gives each issue the attention it deserves while helping you and your business build sustainable momentum.
Define What Success Really Means
Disillusion often comes from measuring yourself against someone else’s standards. To reconnect with your intuition, define your own success points:
Recognize small wins as achievements
Celebrate the act of taking action itself
Tie milestones back to your mission and values
Filter out others’ definitions of success and failure
Above all, measure success through self-compassion, not self-criticism.
Set Your Own Pace (and Ditch Hustle Culture)
Operating from intuition means working at a pace that matches your lifestyle.
Hustle culture is fading, and with good reason. More entrepreneurs are choosing harmony, balance, and steady progress over burnout.
As a leader, you set not only your pace but also the tone of your clinic or business culture. Hiring and partnering with people aligned to your values, goals, and rhythm prevents dissonance and supports a workplace built on flow rather than frenzy.
Embrace Honest Communication and Collaboration
Moving past disillusionment also means embracing honest, vulnerable conversations with yourself, your team, and your clients.
The community-collaborative business model works especially well in the health and wellness sector because it’s built on advocacy, partnership, and shared values.
Phrases that invite trust and harmony:
“Let’s be vulnerable.”
“Let’s stay grounded.”
“Let’s be practical.”
“Let’s stay chill.”
“Let’s make sound decisions.”
“Let’s be personable.”
“Let’s involve the team.”
These reminders keep you and your business connected to values like trust, collaboration, and compassion.
Reconnect with Intuition Through Self-Care
At the core of operating from intuition is taking care of yourself. Burnout leads to disengagement, but self-care keeps you grounded.
Practical steps:
Eat regularly and consistently
Rest and take breaks (more than you think you “should”)
Add moments of joy to your day
Protect non-work hours to recharge
Remember: intuition comes from knowing yourself deeply. While financials, strategies, and forecasts are important, your gut instincts, emotions, and values are uniquely yours, and they deserve just as much weight in your business decisions.
Disillusionment happens when we let outside expectations and hustle culture pull us off course. By slowing down, seeking perspective, defining your own success, and practicing self-care, you’ll reconnect with your intuition as a leader.
At the end of the day, numbers help guide decisions, but your vision, emotions, and instincts are what shape a sustainable, fulfilling business.
Episode Transcript
00:00 - 05:48
Erika: In today's episode, Robyn and I talk about using intuition to make business decisions, which I know so many business textbooks don't really talk about. As someone who went through business school and as someone who has been in leadership positions in corporate businesses, making business decisions with your intuition is not always something that is accepted.
I talk about the joy of using your intuition, trusting your gut, and following what feels right with Robyn. Robyn has many great points of how she's done that over the years and how making decisions with numbers just isn't for her, which is okay. So I hope you enjoy today's episode and feel free to check this out on signal ember.com.
Erika: Tell me a little bit about you, your business, how it got started, things I couldn't necessarily read on your website or Instagram page or something like that.
Robyn: My business kind of started by accident. [Laughs] And so those that know me well, kind of know the whole story, but I was actually going to leave physiotherapy practice in 2020, and um, it was a little devastating for me because I had done so much schooling to become a physiotherapist. Like to become, um, a licensed physio is not an easy process in terms of our licensing, um, and the rigour of training in Ontario in Canada. So I, I was a little perplexed that I was at the stage of my life where I'm like, I am putting this down. And the reason was that I was feeling really disillusioned with what I was seeing all around me in terms of outpatient physiotherapy practice.
Um, I am not a hospital physio. The hospital physios are amazing, magical people, but it's just not who I am. I'm a, I am someone that guides people post-injury in the community, and I was just going to go back to be a personal trainer. That felt like the right direction for me. And actually one of my mentors, Renee Quiring, who I owe my career to, called me at five months postpartum with my son and said, Hey, what are you doing after you come back from MAT leave?
And I said, well, Renee, unfortunately I think I might be done with physiotherapy. And she gasped and said, what? Like, you're leading the profession. I actually learned later that Renee left the profession for 10 years. So she said, why are you leaving? And I said, outpatient is not family-friendly. I'm not a hospital physio. A lot of mothers go into hospital work because the hours are more predictable. You get sick days, you get benefits. It's ironic. We don't get any of those things in the outpatient world. We just don't. And she said, Robyn, you're far too gifted to pack this in, come work for me. And I said, I'll think about it.
And I really did think about it for my whole MAT leave and said, I don't know, like I kind of made this decision. And I remember I said to her, I was like, I'm going to come in and talk shop with you. And I was all protected and like, can't get to me. And I said, look, if I'm coming to work for you, I want a 60/40 split. I want to see as many clients as I want to see a day. I want to eat my lunch. I do not want a guilt trip if my kids are sick because I'm the primary caregiver of my children. My husband is a, a director of a company. He's the bread winner in our family. She laughed and she said, done a hundred percent. And then she said, I'll, I left the profession for 10 years for the reasons you're talking about.
And her main admin, Helen, who is an angel, I hope she listens to this, also was a stay at home mom. So I begrudgingly was like, okay, I think I can trust these women. And it was such a joyous experience, truly. And I started to love my work again. Then my midwife reached out to me and she had just opened a clinic and said, Robyn, would you mind offering like a day to help our clients out with, because I'm a pelvic health physiotherapist, with postpartum care and pregnancy care?
I said, well, let me talk to Renee about it because in the physiotherapy world, there's like, at the time, which was about five years ago, was like, no, you work for this clinic and you do not work for anybody else.
Erika: Yeah.
Robyn: Like that was the assumed model, which is evolving quickly. And I said to Renee, Hey, I have this opportunity.
And I remember I was so nervous and I said, what do you think? And she said, it sounds like a wonderful opportunity. Can I support you in any way? Because. Renee is Renee, and it landed in such a really beautiful spot for me that I was like, whoa, what a badass. Like this woman is who I want to be for other clinicians.
So I started my little business. I had no idea what I was doing. No idea what I was doing. Renee helped me a ton. She is like, Robyn, do you have this and this? And I'm like, no. So I started, it was called Birthing Body Wellness. It was me and then I got very busy, very quickly. And, um, my business model is unique, and I, I really have built the village, which is now The Village Physiotherapy on my heart and looking after women and women clinicians, with what I was feeling was a fundamental issue in outpatient physiotherapy care. So that is how it started. It was a hundred percent circumstantial.
05:49-11:21
Erika: So many business owners that I talked to, even myself, is, it's really a circumstantial, accidental, somewhat. There's planning, obviously that can go on, but it really comes down to we want to make some type of change in our worlds, and now we've got to where we are. How long ago did The Village Physio start?
Robyn: So, I opened my doors in March of 2021.
Erika: Amazing. And like, just thinking back to where the industry was in 2021, I know based on my clients in the industry that it was quite a time. How did you not explode in those first few months or years, I guess, of running your business with such a tumultuous time in the industry where we're all trying to figure out how to best help someone while maintaining the health standards that were required of us at the time?
Robyn: Um, I almost packed up shop again in November of 2021 because my, both kids were in daycare at the time. My kids are 22 months apart, and I think I worked three days, and I paid for a whole month of daycare for two kids.
And like, just from a numbers perspective, this makes zero sense. So my husband and I had a lot of really hard conversations. Um, I did a lot of crying. I did a lot of journaling. I was in psychotherapy at the time, unpacking various things, including becoming a business owner. Um, and my husband and I made an agreement that we were going to take my business and how the household was operating in three-month chunks.
Fortunate for me, I have a husband that is in a manager position because we can, as a household, say, okay, let's look at the numbers practically and have our feelings and have our fears, but let's take it three months at a time. And actually, at this point in my business, I take it six months at a time. If not, I take it a year at a time.
So what I've learned is everything is always temporary. Things that feel like they're a really big deal in the grand scheme of things are not. And to lean into support of other people, either if it's, “I'm emotionally not doing well, like I deserve to have someone else hold space for everything I'm holding”. Um. Chat GPT has been helpful as well, now that AI is a thing, but not keeping it inside.
My team knows, like if Robyn has an idea, it's probably gonna happen a year from now. I really move slowly and that seems to work really well for me.
Erika: I think it's very important, this is something that I talk about with my team, my clients, like we can get rid of the hustle culture.
Robyn: Yes.
Erika: It doesn't have to be done in a day. I am an eldest daughter. I like to get things done very fast, very quickly, but through therapy and a lot of self-work, it's like, it's okay that this takes longer than a day. It's okay that it takes two weeks. It's okay that it's delayed by four months. Therapy has been such a game changer, personally, professionally, and it's okay to give space for that.
Robyn: Yeah, and I was fortunate to do a thesis-based master's before my physiotherapy degree. My mental health was probably the worst during it because I wasn't getting that dopamine hit that I was used to from undergrad, where it's like, ew, A plus, ew A plus. So I was really, even though I came out of my thesis-based master's saying, I feel that was a monumental waste of time as an almost 40-year-old woman looking back at my younger, eager self, I actually think I learned more in my master's, both as a physiotherapist because it was on behavior change psychology, but also writing a thesis and having someone rip it apart, rip it apart, rip it apart, rip it apart. That persistence towards a goal, even if the goal doesn't work out, kind of keeps us out of trouble. Right? And I've had lots of, like, within my business, I've launched lots of different projects within the business under our mission statement of what we want to do in the community that have not gone according to plan.
That, depending on how you define success, someone might say was not a success. But for me, my definition of success in the work I'm doing is am I moving towards my mission statement, which is helping improve the health of women and mothers, their children, and by extension, their family unit and the community at large. That's my mission statement.
Erika: I love that.
Robyn: Yeah. And I look through a lens of if it's not changing, then I'm not attuning to the needs of the client and the community.
Erika: Mm-hmm.
Robyn: So my business looks so much different now because Guelph, where I practice, has changed so much in the last five years that it can't not change because Guelph is dynamic and there's a lot of really high vibe people doing high vibe stuff.
11:22-17:44
Erika: How do you figure out that there's a transitionary period with your clients or new clients, or even just for yourself and your team? How do you identify that? How do you work through it?
Robyn: Um, it kind of just comes for you, right? Like I am a very self-reflective person. Um, after every clinic day, I say, how did that go? How do I feel in my body? How can I improve? And I used to beat myself up when I felt I wasn't doing a good job. But I really try to look through a lens of self-compassion now rather than self-criticism to say, I am trying the best with the best information I have for now. That is how I move through that is resourcing self-compassion, not self-criticism.
I used to operate on shame and worthiness, proving most of my existence, like the village has allowed me to truly resource self-compassion because if I didn't resource self-compassion, I wouldn't be as privileged as I am to have the clients we have. And the clinicians that I have working with me and the support team, because they are really industry leaders, and if I was operating from a vibration of, you are my employees, I need to hustle, volume, these people wouldn't be attracted to what I'm trying to build. So it's really about that inner work. Even I had a, at this morning, my ego flared up with one of my team members asking me a question, and it flared up for valid reasons. I was like, this is very on trend for a Friday. And I said, I just need a minute because I can feel my ego egoing.
And she said, take your time. And I said, I have to be honest with you right now. I'm feeling like my feelings are a little hurt, which traditional business would say you are a leader, leaders don't have feelings. And that's what my brain was saying. And I said, my feelings are very hurt. And I said, but my feelings are mine to manage. But in honesty of the relationship and and what we're doing together, I have to be honest, and this is why. And then we were able to work out that stickiness. With me taking responsibility for my feelings and it actually ended up being a really lovely exchange.
Erika: Mm-hmm.
Robyn: That self-reflection that like, oh, I'm having a feeling this doesn't feel good. Why? And giving myself self-compassion and grace, and part of that self-compassion is, my feelings matter as a leader. I am not self-sacrificial here.
Erika: Mm-hmm.
Robyn: For me to do this a long time, as a mother, as a women's health physio, I need to be able to resource this within myself to be the leader that my team deserves, my clients deserve, and my family deserves.
Erika: I really love that. I think giving grace, having that energy and vibration with our clients, our family, our friends, and giving space for that vulnerability that isn't really talked about.
Robyn: Mm-hmm.
Erika: At least in my circle as much of like, it's okay to be vulnerable with your clients or with your team. And one of my very first clients, I still am working with them. They're actually a physio clinic out in Victoria. And I'm like, I want to hire someone, but I don't know if I can like afford this long term yet, but I need it. I need to start somewhere. And my client's like, just be honest with them. Just say, Hey, this is what I can do right now. I want to grow with you. Can you grow with me?
Robyn: Yeah. And you have to be willing to hear no. And the reason we're not vulnerable is unless our real fears are mirrored back. So if I say my real fear, my real fears is I'm not good enough, that I'm actually not a leader, I'm just pretending to be one that people don't actually like me, that I am too much, and if I go deep enough into that vulnerability, that I really should just sit down. So I know those internal vulnerabilities very well, that shadow part of myself, and I've done years and years of work to do that. That doesn't make me weak. If anything, being able to face that helps me guide other people to achieving their goals. And I see the people that work with me as I am a stepping stone; if you stay here long term, there's a really valid reason for that. What can I provide for you in your working life within my vision? And if, is it a hell yes, and I've interviewed lots of physios that are like, this is not a hell yes. And there's valid reasons for that. Is this a hell yes, a hell no, or a gray zone?
And if it's a gray zone, why is it a gray zone? Right? And while I interview, I ask those questions, I'm like, it's either a hell yes or a hell no. And if it's somewhere in between, don't join. Right? But I'm very fortunate because I've built my business as a community collaborative model. So I rent from people I like.
So, I work with my friend Lindsay at Guelph Prenatal Massage, who is an industry leader in, which is backwards land from physiotherapy. Most physios own a clinic and hire people. I support people I like in the community, and I like what they stand for, and I like how they move, and we do home care, and we're a very flex model. We're like, um, a traveling nomad group of women.
So the downside of that is like the last time the village was all in the same room was February of 2025. We don't see each other a lot. Right?
17:45-22:19
Erika: That's really interesting. And something that even my team and I have been talking about lately is we all work remotely. I am fortunate enough that I am in the same city as one of my team members, of course, but that's just happy circumstance. It won't be like that forever. How do you work through having such a like remote-ish team where you're not seeing each other as much?
Robyn: Well, my ethos as a business owner is you are grown ass women, and I am not here to micromanage you.
One of my assistants has like a day job at Purolator, and she was like, I just want to tell you how grateful I am for you 'cause I'm in the corporate world all day long. She's talking about KPIs, I'm like, what is a KPI even, and that's where my business can feel shaky for people. When my team says, you really just go by vibes, I kind of do.
I was tracking my numbers last year to make some business decisions really closely, and it was making me sad, so I just stopped and said, if it's not viable when my accountant gets it, then we'll have a group discussion. And when I met with my accountant, he's like, How's it going? I'm like, oh, 2024 was a hard year, man. Like, I don't think we did well this year.
And he's like, Robyn, you had a 30% growth this year, and your expenses went down. And I was like, cool, cool. Awesome. So I just waited for my accountant to give me a thumbs up or a thumbs down before making my business decision because it was stressing me out and like, who has time for that? So I just trusted that my team was doing good work. I was doing good work, and I was making sound business decisions. And then my accountant said, yes, you can make the business decision you wanted to make. And then I'm just again, riding vibes until my end of year again
Erika: As a numbers person, like Signal Operations started as a bookkeeping firm. It's primarily a bookkeeping firm. And then we do coaching, podcasting, marketing, and people ops on the side. I say, but those will, of course, become larger over time. Someone once asked me like, how'd you make this business decision? I was like, honestly, it was kind of a gut choice.
Robyn: Yeah. And I wish more people would, like, our intuition belongs in the room with business.
Erika: Mm-hmm.
Robyn: Um, I trust. Myself enough to not get myself into hot water. And to be completely honest, if anyone's listening to this, I was an anxious mess the first three years. Like, I-
Erika: Aren't we all?
Robyn: Right? Like, I remember the first end of yea,r literally sobbing at my desk and calling my dad and being like, if I go to jail, will you bail me out? Because like I just don't understand it. Right? I'm like, what is an incorporation? Like, how does it work? But I have a very good accountant who has been in my dad's family business for years, so I trust this guy.
It wasn't like, I try to be like, let's stay chill, right? Let's make sound decisions. Let's make not make decisions quickly. Let's involve my team. Let's stay personable, let's stay vulnerable. And with everybody being remote, we have like lots of group chats going. I would say we all start missing each other, and then we get together. And it's interesting every time I do the business thing, it doesn't work. So I was like, we should do a summer barbecue because that's something a business does. So I tried to organize this summer barbecue, and everyone's like, Robyn, I'm too busy. And then I was like sad about it, and I'm like, this isn't how The Village has ever run. You were just doing the business thing because you thought you had to, and it wasn't based on gut.
If I would've sat with my gut, I would've been like, yeah, we'll probably get together in October like we always do. So I just kind of let it roll the way like, 'cause everybody that works at The Village are, we're very in sync group of women.
Erika: I mean. I think that a semi-annual business get together is totally reasonable when you're a remote company.
Robyn: Yeah.
Erika: Um, speaking as a remote company that gets together, not at all. Um, now that could change. So I know that you said that like doing the business thing doesn't always work out, but. Do you ever have KPIs, goals that you're working towards?
Robyn: Oh yes. Lots of goals. Lots of goals.
Erika: Okay, so when it comes down to the goals, this is something I talk about in the Business Flow Formula, which is the program that I have for clinics. How do you establish your goals? How do you make sure that you're gonna hit the goals? And I know that you said like, sometimes you don't get them, and that's okay. Um. Especially as business owners, it's very easy for us to move that goalpost, “Oh yeah, I did a thing. Cool. Next.”, rather than stopping and celebrating. But how do you know what you want to work towards? Or again, is it just a gut instinct of where you wanna go?
22:20-29:39
Robyn: Yeah, so for me, um, I always go back to my mission statement. What is my mission statement? I will say. Again, it, it is a lot of intuition, and this is a hard thing to explain. I just know where our service community is, where the gaps are and what is the next best step. I, and I do this with my clients, I say, what is the next best step here? And again, I work in six-month chunks, so I kind of have my eyes on the referrals coming in every once in a while. Like now, I have a booking admin who does all this work for me, and I hired her in January.
So once a month, she asks all the physios, how are you doing? Do you have room for clients? And then she lets me know and that all I care about is this community of service that my physios are happy and my assistants are happy. Right? So is everybody happy and thriving? And with a group of 10 of us, I also have to make sure I'm happy and thriving.
So unfortunately, at the expense of potentially some people in the business, I have to put myself first and say I'm not happy and thriving. I have to put chips in my bucket, and then I will return to who needs my attention right now.u
Um, I'm very fortunate that I have two physiotherapists who are very big names in this area. I don't really have to do anything for them. The work just comes 'cause they're just very good at what they do. They're heavy hitters. I am very grateful. I pay them an 80/20 split, so I pay them, everyone in my business makes an 80/20 unless they're in clinic and there's slight overhead differences. So there's different models.
So say, this person in the village needs my attention, and I might not always be communicating that directly to them. It's just always on my radar. I will advertise to help support their caseload and I'll buy advertising, and sometimes I'll run an ad and generally I have like an advertising budget for the year and I want to stay within that. It's very fluid. It is very based on intuition. So my overall goal is everybody's happy and thriving, and then I build the company around that goal. I'm not saying how many are you seeing? I'm saying, are you happy with your caseload?
For example, one of my amazing physios, she left a really big clinic where she was seeing like 12 people a day. And I said, I don't care how many you see, all I care about is you are happy. And after about a year, she's like, Robyn, I've realized that the issue is me. And I was like, what do you mean? And she's like, I don't know how to say no. And I was like, are you scared you're disappointing me? And she's like, yeah.
I'm like, I don't care. Like I always look at how much we made this month as a collective, right? Did we bring in $20,000 this month as a collective? I'm never breaking it down to the individual. I see it as a team effort, not who's pulling their weight here. I'm like, no, we're in this together, guys. It's not just you.
So she's like, the problem is me. And I'm like, well, are you burnt out? And she's like, yeah, I'm kind of burnt out. I'm like, take a month off. She's like, isn't that gonna affect the business? I'm like, nah, we'll see you at the end of the year. And like just book, block, like look after yourself. If we're gonna do this till we're 65, we can't burn out.
Erika: Yeah.
Robyn: Right!
Erika: And I think it's so important. I have this conversation all the time, like, it's okay to go and take three weeks off. It's okay, and go and do these things. You've got to have those moments where you're just disconnected from work, whether that is as an employee, a contractor, business owner, whatever.
Robyn: Yeah.
Erika: You have to disconnect, which is really hard. I mean, even you and me organizing this, this took us a few weeks to get on the call together and I'm just like, go do your thing. This will wait. And I think as business owners, it's easy for us to be like, it's not gonna wait. My clients need me. My team needs me. I'll be available offline, I'll still have my phone, you can still message me, blah, blah, blah. And it's like anyone that you say, Hey, I'm gonna take two weeks to just disconnect and go spend it with my spouse or my kids or my family, like whatever that looks like, or just take two weeks. Most people are like, yeah, you should.
Robyn: Yeah. And I think with sustainable leadership, this is the issue. And I learned from leaders that I saw, um, and what I, I didn't look at the success of their business when I was learning. I looked at how happy they were. I looked at how well they were at the end of the game, and one of the women I worked with, excellent businesswoman, she wasn't super happy at the end of the game.
I never want to open, I thought I wanted to open a business and that this is before I left, I was going to leave physio. I'm like, I feel like I'm a leader, but if that's what leadership looks like in this industry, I want nothing to do with it. And that's what I was seeing all around me, where these women that were sacrificing everything for monetary growth and I ask myself often when I'm 90 and looking back, what do I want to remember about The Village? Do I want to remember that I was able to go to Costa Rica or I was able to have a cottage or a Mercedes or all of these finite things? Or do I want to look back at 90 and say, yeah, you did good, Robyn, you did good work, right?
And that's how I run my business. That's not for everybody. And I'm not saying that my way of running my business is better than another way. It's just what works for me, and that's what I would say to anybody. You need to know yourself so well as a business owner. That that's the work. What do you value? What is important to you? And don't stop and know that there is a self-sacrifice that comes with being a business owner. For me, my whole goal was to get to a point, I built something really cool that was supportive of me, my life, and a group of women that I really liked that was doing good work and were doing it.
As long as I'm not in the red year after year, If my accountant says, Robyn, this was a bad year, I'd say, what is your suggestion? He gives me suggestion. I sit down with my husband and say, okay, what is the next step here? But again, I'm not really building my business in a way. We have a lot of overhead. Everybody that works for me is an independent contractor. My major business expense is them. It almost kind of works like a co-op in a way.
Erika: Well, I think like the beautiful thing about the industry is that it is very teamwork enabling. Because when your team wins, you win. When you win, your team wins. And I think also what I'm hearing a little bit is like you're lifting up women in your industry and women are lifting up other women, like rather than trying to tear each other down and be catty about it, we're all just lifting each other up, which is so good. How do you make sure that anyone that comes into The Village is going to buy into those values?
29:40-34:51
Robyn: Uh, not everybody does. It's interesting 'cause Kathy, who is my COA and COA, stands for Chief of Awesome. I said she needed a better title than just “assistan”t. Kathy is like my husband and how she thinks. So she's like, Robyn, you need a policy and procedure. I hate this stuff, man. I'm the visionary. Like, what do I? So when we started to add more people, Kathy's like, please let me come up with a policy and procedure of onboarding people.
I was like, I will pay you for that, thank you. She's amazing. She came up with a really beautiful policy and procedure of how I can make sure that the people that are coming in are the right people. But Kathy knows I kind of listen half of the time, so I go on vibes and intuition. It's really important for me to make sure that I'm not doing stuff outta fear and ego, and I'm doing stuff out of alignment, which is a continued growth edge.
I actually just put this out. We could really use a physiotherapist to service like Elmira, Mount Forest. We get a lot of referrals from the midwives there and it's just too far for all of us 'cause I live out near Orangeville and the rest of them live in Guelph, so it's like a 50-minute drive out there.
So if a unicorn comes for that area, I have work for them. So the first thing I do is like I'll put out a call to action on my social media. I don't do paid advertisements because like it's just not what I'm about. I'm a word-of-mouth queen. I'll talk to the industry and be like, if you guys hear of anybody that would like The Village model that would be able to roll with a leader like me in all-night eccentric ways, send them my way because I'll pay them 80/20 and I will be the mama bear around their practice.
So if they get on camera with me, which it's usually virtual 'cause I live in the middle of nowhere, I'll just say like, what are you thinking? And then I'll explain the village. I'll say, it's not for everybody. I pay 80/20. But I expect you to almost be like an independent person within The Village.
I will advertise for you. You get your charting software, you get your exercise software, you get all your billing support, all your booking support. Mentorship with myself and two other physiotherapists. Like we have a running clinical chat and we, between the three of us, we've seen everything. That's valuable for people.
So I'll say what I have to offer and then I'll say what I don't have to offer is a common meeting place. We don't see each other often. I care, but I am not helicoptering you. If you aren't coming to me, letting me know you're unhappy, I'm just assuming you're happy, but I will check in. For some personalities, it just feels too vulnerable and like there isn't someone there making sure that they're doing their job.
Because I sit in the energy of you're a clinician, you're an independent contractor, this is what I can pay you, come to The Village, we're cool here. And then I get to know them and if they're like, let, and I say sit on it for a week or two. I want you to sit with it, and if this feels like a hell yes, you do a second interview with my COA, Kathy, and Kathy's just like me, but more left-brained. And if the client can get through my personality and Kathy's personality and still be high vibe, they're a good fit. We're kind of high-octane women. We're very heart open, and if that feels like a hell yes, then it's a hell yes. What I do say to people like, I can't guarantee you a caseload, you're an IC.
Erika: Exactly.
Robyn: Yeah. Because that is actually, if you look at our college guidelines, that's what an independent contractor is. I can't guarantee you a caseload. For some people, it takes a lot longer to build, but that's that sovereignty. Like if you are speaking your truth as a clinician and you know your purpose as a clinician, it shouldn't be hard to fill you.
Um, because my superpower is pumping people up. I mentored a physiotherapist for, I'm going to say about six months, and she was thinking about joining The Village. After we had the conversation, she decided I wasn't for her and she actually went with a good friend of mine who is Katie at the traveling physio. And that was the right direction for her, what she said, which made me feel sad, um, because in my heart, I don't feel this. She's like, I feel like I can't live up to your expectations. I'm really a nice person, I promise. But that was a really honest thing and I said thank you, I can assure you that like I think you're brilliant and I think that you’re hundred percent valuable and can do this. We wouldn't be having this conversation. But she just didn't feel she could run with a leader with my eccentric nature.
Erika: Right.
Robyn: Which is, which is fair, right?. Which is-
Erika: Yeah, very fair. I, I wanna work with people who are all in, it's a heck yes. Hell yeah. Yeah.
Robyn: Yeah. And I'm so proud of her, and I refer to her all the time because she's excellent, but I wasn't her person. And that isn't personal. If anything, that's, that's a good thing that she could identify that.
34:52-38:22
Yeah, I think that's really powerful.
Robyn: Mm-hmm.
Erika: Uh, listen, as we start kind of wrapping up our conversation, which has flown by for me, one of the things that we're trying to ask our guests is what is your self-care routine right now?
Robyn: Ooh.
Erika: And what is in for you when it comes to that kind of thing?
Robyn: Uh, so my self-care is as fluid as this conversation. So I ask myself every single day, what do you need? So if I ask myself, what do I need right now? A snack that brings me joy to sit on the couch with my kids and watch a show after they get home. Um, some water. And, um, probably after we get office, I'll do some yoga. Like I ask myself every day, I have like my non-negotiables, like I strength train twice a week, once or twice a week. Um, but daily, like sometimes it's a bath, sometimes it's a conversation with my husband. Sometimes it's rolling around on the floor on my yoga mat. Um. Really depends on how I feel I can support myself. Sometimes it's a hot, what I call a hot mom walk, where I'll go for a walk at night. Sometimes it's a glass of wine, right? Um. It really depends on the day.
Erika: That's amazing. I love that. And then lastly, what, um, the logo for the podcast is a candle. Uh, what's stoking the fire for you right now? Like what is, what is igniting your passion and your business?
Robyn: Uh, you know, the gratitude I have for the women in my life, as corny, but truthful, as that is, um, I. Never would've imagined 10 years ago that I would be as blessed and abundant as I am in my relationships and my work. I could talk to you all day about where I was in my practice at the beginning and how disillusioned I was.
I didn't think that this life was possible. It's the clients and the people that I have the privilege of interacting with professionally. Not only in the village, but in the wellness community as a whole, including the midwives, all of them. I'm here for it. Like how cool.
Erika: I love that. Well, Robyn, thank you so much.
Robyn: You're welcome.
Erika: I appreciate you coming on to have this conversation about like trusting your intuition, your gut. Having heck yes. Hell yes moments in your business.
Robyn: And what is A KPI? I still don't know.
Erika: Yeah. What is a KPI? I struggled with that for many years. I actually like finally wrote down a KPI for the first time in seven and a half years on Tuesday morning. I said, I'm going to do this with this exact number.
Robyn: I feel like I have to [Indiscernable] now because I'm so interested.
Erika: Well, I'd love to have another convo with you. Thank you so much. I appreciate this.
Robyn: Thank you for the work that you're doing. This was delightful.
Erika: Thanks again, Robyn, for coming onto the Business Flow Formula podcast. I really enjoyed our discussion on intuition, making gut decisions, and not always following what the profit and loss says. As long as things are on the up, everything's good. So I quite enjoyed learning more about your intuition, how you found that work-life balance, and where you're gonna be going from here. Thanks again!
Erika [Outro]: Are you ready to turn your chaos into calm? Subscribe and follow the business flow formula. Let's create more profit, efficiency and flow together.