The Power of Vulnerability in Business Partnerships

On this episode of the Healthy, Wealthy and Smart Podcast, Jenna Kantor guests hosts and interviews Keaton Ray and Scott McAfee on how to develop a successful business partnership.  Keaton and Scott are MovementX business partners.  MovementX is on a mission to heal the world through movement.  We believe that if you can move your best, you can live your best.  We are doctor-founded and patient-focused to help bring more convenient, transparent, and personalized physical therapy care to the world.

In this episode, we discuss:

-What is MovementX and how is it revolutionizing physical therapy practice?

-The importance of identifying the strengths and weaknesses of your team

-Why you need different channels of communication in a partnership

-The key elements of a successful business partnership

-And so much more!

 

Resources:

Movement X Website

Movement X Instagram

Keaton Ray Twitter  

Scott McAfee Twitter

Email: info@movement-x.com

 

A big thank you to Net Health for sponsoring this episode! 

Check out Optima’s Top Trends For Outpatient Therapy In 2020!

                                                                    

For more information on Keaton:

I am a passionate physical therapist and wellness/fitness specialist in Portland, OR specializing in reducing pain, increasing strength, restoring mobility and balance, and optimizing performance. I've worked with clients across the lifespan from those who have never exercised a day in their lives, to those who are afraid to exercise because of pain, to advanced athletes looking to take their performance to the next level.

For more information on Scott:

Dr. Scott believes in a world where anyone can move & live their best. The problem is that with today's healthcare system, finding the best care, avoiding crowded clinics, and dealing with insurance can be frustrating. That's why he chose to do things differently. Dr. Scott's practice is 100% mobile–he provides care in the comfort of your home, gym, or office. He brings a mobile treatment table and helps you decrease pain, increase strength/mobility, prevent injury, restore function, and coordinate your care plan. Wherever & whenever you need care, he can be there. It's convenient, valuable, & personalized to whatever you need. Dr. Scott works with a wide range of people, from youth athletes & avid runners to active grandparents & busy businesspeople. Call or text the number above to get directly in touch with him, and you can have a free phone consultation about what health goals you want to accomplish!

 

For more information on Jenna:

Jenna Kantor (co-founder) is a bubbly and energetic girl who was born and raised in Petaluma, California. Growing up, she trained and performed ballet throughout the United States. After earning a BA in Dance and Drama at the University of California, Irvine, she worked professionally in musical theatre for 15+ years with tours, regional theatres, & overseas (www.jennakantor.com) until she found herself ready to move onto a new chapter in her life – a career in Physical Therapy. Jenna is currently in her 3rd year at Columbia University’s Physical Therapy Program. She is also a co-founder of the podcast, “Physiotherapy Performance Perspectives,” has an evidence-based monthly youtube series titled “Injury Prevention for Dancers,” is a NY SSIG Co-Founder, NYPTA Student Conclave 2017 Development Team, works with the NYPTA Greater New York Legislative Task Force and is the NYPTA Public Policy Committee Student Liaison. Jenna aspires to be a physical therapist for amateur and professional performers to help ensure long, healthy careers. To learn more, please check out her website: www.jennafkantor.wixsite.com/jkpt

 

Read the full transcript below:

Jenna Kantor (00:00):

Hello, this is Jenna Kantor here with Healthy, Wealthy and Smart. I'm here with Scott McAfee and Keaton Ray and I am tired. We are at Graham sessions 2020 and I am so lucky to be interviewing the two of you on your partnership with movement X. So first of all, thank you so much for coming on. It's an honor to be speaking with both of you. So first, would you mind explaining what movement X is and then dive into how your partnership began?

 

Keaton Ray:

Sure. So movement X is a group of United providers across the country who are providing care in an inspired way. So we refer to it as the 11 star experience. We're going above and beyond the five star experience and providing care where people need it most, when people need it most, whether that's at their home, at their gym, at their workplace, on the track and field at their doctor's office. We're showing up and providing care that makes a difference. So improving lives on both sides of the treatment table for the provider and for the patient.

Jenna Kantor (00:58):

All right, and now your partnership.

 

Keaton Ray:

Sure. So where to begin? So Scott and I first connected on movement X in 2016 or early 2017. Started with a phone call. I knew that Josh D’Angelo and myself couldn't do this on our own, so we called up some trusted partners that we had known closely through the APTA. Scott was one of the very first people we talked to and immediately had a connection over the mission, which is you know, help people move their best so they can live their best. And I'll hand it over to Scott who can explain the transition from that first talk about movement X to him, actually quitting his job, moving across the country, dropping everything to help us with our vision.

Scott McAfee (01:50):

So it was a very exciting time for me. I was just finishing up my residency program in Southern California. And I loved the people that I was working with. I loved my coworkers. I love my patients. And it was really an amazing residency experience at this hospital. However, I was somewhat displeased with the with the environment of dealing with insurance companies and being somewhat limited in my ability to truly and deeply care for people that I knew I had the potential to as a physical therapist. And after my conversation with Keaton, I got really, really inspired of what the opportunity looked like for physical therapists in this more mobile cash pay model. And it was I think about a week after I had passed my residency when I knew, wow, there's some real opportunity here.

Scott McAfee (02:52):

And Josh D’Angelo one of the cofounders along with Keaton he had been in the Washington DC area for seven years, was very well connected out there. And at the time right when I was finishing up my residency, I was very comfortable down in Southern California. I had a very strong network. My life was just going straight according to plan per se. And I've never quite learned at any point in my life from a point of comfort and I wanted to flip that on its head. So I decided to move all the way to the East coast to join forces with Josh D’Angelo in Washington DC in addition with Fred Gilbert who moved from Alabama to Washington DC and that's how the partnership began and we began expanding from there and it's just been an absolute wild ride since

Jenna Kantor (03:49):

I love it. And I love how you two interact with each other. You're both good friends as well as definitely business partners. How the heck did you get to that point? Cause I would love for you to first go into your struggles and then what you did to implement something that would work between the two of you.

Keaton Ray (04:08):

That is a good question. So all of us, everyone who started the company actually started as friends way before we ever started at business partners. And that is both one of our deepest strengths as well as probably one of our greatest challenges as well. But from day one, it was intentional on our part to learn each other's strengths and be open to each other's weaknesses and communicate if not over communicate about each one of those. So there is times when Scott and I probably are just at each other's necks, including other people. I get frustrated on a daily basis with everyone and they get frustrated with me. And that is okay, that is normal. But what we've done is we've gone through intentional work where we set aside hours at a time, both on the phone and in person to be open about those strengths and be open about those weaknesses. And each and every one of us over the past two, three years has just grown because of that intention that we've put into growing each other. So it is not easy. It definitely changes the relationship, but it's worth the intention.

Scott McAfee (05:12):

And Keaton and I, we both go back to the student assembly board of directors, although we never served together. I learned so much about how I function on a team in that environment. And I would imagine that you learned the same. And I think once you truly understand yourself and then also once you truly understand and appreciate and realize the mission of what your team is trying to accomplish, that how you get to the end goal of accomplishing that task is irrelevant. You just have to get there. And yes, you are going to agree on certain things you're going to disagree on probably even more things if your team is actually functional. But at the end of the day, as long as you are on a team, it can get to the end goal. That's what matters most. And from there you walk out of the room, no matter what discussion happened inside of that room, all with the same mindset of, Hey, this is our goal. We may have disagreed on how we got here, but now we're all in agreements. Hey this is what matters most. And, you have a clear sight of where you're going.

Keaton Ray (06:27):

One thing I'll add to that, the other two areas of strength. You said it perfectly, Scott. I think one is putting infrastructure into being able to build a communication pathway. So we have a lot of various company languages that we use that help us recognize when we're falling into several habits that may affect the growth. So one example is the six thinking hats. So six thinking hats. You know, the red hat is the emotional hat, the white hat is the fact hat. The green hat is the innovation hat. The yellow hat is the optimism hat. The black hat is the devil's advocate hat. Josh D'Angelo would be so proud. I just remembered that. And so sometimes when we're in a heated conversation or we don't see things eye to eye, we need to recognize, Hey, I'm wearing my red hat right now and you're wearing your white hat. No wonder we're not seeing each other. And various communication pathways like this have helped us to recognize where we're falling short and where we need to improve. And so without those types of things, it would be a lot harder to grow as a team.

Scott McAfee (07:25):

I love how you brought that up as an example because not only does that help us make decisions in the board room per se with business it's also helped me make personal decisions, look at problems that I'm facing in my own life from many different angles, right? Hey, if I had a green hat optimist view of this versus a devil's advocate, why would I talk myself out of this? I think I've been able to look at things from somewhat of a stoic and very objective point of view rather than getting to red hat emotional about certain things. And it's also helped in personal relationships as well. So as much as you can grow together in the boardroom, I think you take away so many different things on a personal aspect as well. And yeah, I love that analogy. That was something that Josh D’Angelo initially introduced and has just been so helpful.

Keaton Ray (08:19):

One more. The last thing I'll say too is if you ever want an ego check, join a group of six. We started with six incredibly innovative, intelligent, outspoken leaders. Sit yourself in a group of six outspoken leaders and have them debate your mission and your vision and your processes and everything in the background there. There is no space for ego when you are working with this large and this capable of a team. So you cannot be a solopreneur and accomplish what we're trying to accomplish. So we've all really worked hard in our egos and it's not always easy, but every single person on this team has done a great job.

 

Jenna Kantor:

Would you mind sharing your own personal things you've learned about exploring how you work? I think that'd be interesting for people to hear. You're like, I am actually a person who's like this, I would love for you to share that. So then people could even learn how you are so different.

Scott McAfee (09:16):

So I might take a second to think about that. And that's something that I have learned about myself is that it often times helps me to take a second and think of getting my thoughts together on how to approach a certain question or an issue or how to solve a problem. Rather than to just speak my mind immediately. But I will say that right off the bat that going into this team, I'm in just awe of everybody who I get to work with on a daily basis. And people often ask me, Hey, why did you move to Washington DC? It wasn't only for this like larger mission and this larger purpose. It was to have conversations late at night with people who inspired me who I just looked up to in so many different ways. And that was a goal of mine when I was actually looking for different colleges to apply to. I was like, who could I surround myself with and have just really deep and insightful talks late at night with and I just feel so fortunate to be able to do that as part of this team and as our youngest member on the exact team that we have, I oftentimes do try to just be a sponge and take in as much information and inspiration from my team as possible.

Keaton Ray (10:41):

I was laughing through Scott's excellent explanation because sometimes I think we can explain each other's work habits at this point better than we can explain our own. And so I am the opposite of Scott, although it's gotten, I have the team probably operate the most similarly. But you know, there's differences between everyone. So I am very blend and I should take more time to stop and think first. But if something's on my head, it is right out in the open. And so one of the things that we've really worked on as a team between Scott and I, but also between all the team members is managing conflict. So some of us on the team are much more comfortable with conflict. Me being one of them, while others have a little bit more of a reservation around conflict. Now compared to other people, everyone is excellent at managing conflict, but it's a personal comfort as to how you actually deal with that.

Keaton Ray (11:31):

So I would say while Scott says he's much more, you know, maybe has to think about it in, in the background a little bit. I am much more of that writing your face. Oh, I don't agree with that. Or Oh, I totally love that. You know, kind of person. So a lot more forward facing. But what Scott and I have as an extreme similarity is that we are the doers. We're like, let's do it tomorrow. We have idea. Great. Okay, I'm going to stay up all night. We're going to crank this out. We're going to have a product tomorrow. We're going to launch it, we're going to test it a little bit and we're going to redo it. Whereas Fred and Josh tend to be much more of those visionary. Like, let's stop. Let's look longterm. Let's think of how this affects this. And, it is a wonderful combination because all of us compliment each other so well. You can't have one leadership style without the compliment of the other, but it can lead to frustration. You're moving too fast, you're not moving fast enough. You know, back and forth. So the communication puts us all in alignment and we're stronger because of it.

Scott McAfee (12:30):

Yeah. Actually one of the core values in our company is passion times purpose. And you can't have one without the other. And the way that I think about that is you cannot have action without strategy as well. And that's one thing that Josh and Fred are so instrumental in teaching us and teaching me and even keep me, is inspired me in so many different ways to behind everything that I do. Always have a strategy and don't skip steps in the action that you want to take. So I think that's very important.

Jenna Kantor (13:03):

I love that. I love that very much. What made you decide to hire out to figure out how to work better together? How did that, I'm sure alone cause you hadn't figured it had something in play like you do now. How did you get to that agreeing point to go, okay this is who we're going to invest in to improve our communication, to improve our partnership? How'd you get there?

 

Keaton Ray:

Yeah. So I think what you're referring to is the consulting work that we did for a team development. So we actually got incredibly lucky. We got chosen by a graduate program working on human resources and team development as their trial team to take a deep dive look into each one of our personalities and our work habits and then do basically a report. So we each had a one-on-one like hour long talk with this consulting firm and they went deep into our work styles.

Keaton Ray (13:53):

We'll look it up, we'll look it up. And so then they came back at us and basically gave us a very honest report about how our team is functioning and then gave us assignments on how to dive deep and improve the report essentially. So it was a really hard activity and emotionally draining, but it was so bonding and we're so much stronger because of that consulting work we did. You have to recognize your weaknesses. We knew we're not perfect, nobody's perfect. And so we're willing to invest in the team to improve because without this team, the mission of this company doesn't go anywhere.

Scott McAfee (14:33):

So it was a graduate program at Georgetown university.

Jenna Kantor (14:42):

Yeah, that's very cool. I love that you guys said that is still looking it up to see if she could get more information. And I want to find this information for the listeners in case there is somebody starting a business who might want to look this up and see if this program might help them as well. Because seeing how you two interact, like I said, there really is some magic, dare I say Disney magic happening between the partnership and I think that is absolutely spectacular. Did you find the name?

 

Keaton Ray:

So it was Georgetown's graduate program. Robin Goodstein graduated from that program and started her consulting firm called Balcony consulting. So anyone looking for team-based collaboration and consulting, she's incredible.

 

Jenna Kantor:

Now what are your biggest challenges that you have and the easiest things for you guys overall? Cause you guys have grown together, but what are just the constant things that you expect to be like, okay this is a little challenging and this is like easy.

Keaton Ray (15:58):

So this is a hard question. That's a great question. But I think that the easiest thing that we have now is a baseline understanding of how each other operate. The first few months in definitely year plus was just learning each other's habits, learning each other's needs and learning each other's emotions. And now I think we have such an intricate understanding of how we each operate that it's much easier to move the company with speed. Knowing that, I think the hard part is, is we're now in a place with the company that we're really truly starting to grow and we're going to run into barriers that are unlike anything we've ever had. And so, so far we've been able as a team to come together and hustle and make this thing work and create an amazing movement. But we're going to max out of our own knowledge. And so we're going to have to find new team members who come into our company who do not have the same intricate knowledge of one another. So now it's not just managing each other, it's managing other people and having them fit into the culture as strongly as we do.

Scott McAfee (17:00):

I think that's perfectly said because we agreed too much. No. because it's going to be so special and like I said, such a wild ride ahead as we do grow and with as many things that are going to change and as many new obstacles that we're going to face, I truly do believe that we do have a very strong foundation and like you said, baseline understanding and respect for each other and how we both operate. And that goes for everybody in our team and in our community. The more that we can better understand how we operate and all speak the same language they all have the same core beliefs and core values and share so much of the same culture. If you know from a deep level that binds you together, I definitely believe that no matter what obstacle may come your way, you can adapt your team in a very nimble way, in a very strategic way, in order to accomplish that. We're with as many problems as we face and with as much as we have accomplished you know, the sky's the limit. And, I think there's so much growth waiting to be had that it's just so important to have that foundation before you have anything else.

Jenna Kantor (18:21):

I love it. Thank you so much. You too, for coming on here at this crazy, magnificent time here at Graham sessions, you two really set a great bar that is possible for anybody to achieve at their business partnerships. So thank you.

Scott McAfee (18:36):

Appreciate those words, Jenna and I couldn't echo the same thing about you and Karen. You guys are great. This podcast has inspired me when I was a student. So I just feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to speak to your audience and hope that we've spread something valuable worth listening to. So I appreciate you

Keaton Ray (18:58):

Agreed all around. Thank you so much for this opportunity. The one thing I'll leave the listeners with is if you want to build a team and you want to grow a mission, you have to be vulnerable. You have to put yourself out there and let people see what you do know, what you don't know, your hesitations, your fears and your vulnerabilities. Because without that, there's no way you can connect with people enough to build something as meaningful as we're trying to do. So be vulnerable. Put yourself out there, let go of your ego and you're going to create an amazing company culture.

Jenna Kantor (19:37):

Thank you so much. I was wondering where can people find you online if they want to try to reach out to you?

Scott McAfee (19:44):

So we are on Instagram @movementXinc and we are a online also www.movement-x.com.

Keaton Ray (19:55):

Note, our company name is movement X. No space, no dash, but our website is movement-x.com.

 

Jenna Kantor:

Wonderful. Thank you so much. So thank you listeners for chiming in to this great discussion. This will also be in the bio as well. If you want to just check that out too, if you're having a hard time remembering what was just said on how to reach out to these fantastic individuals. Thank you so much.

 

Keaton Ray:

You can also reach us at info@movement-x.com. We want to hear from you. We're always willing to hop on a phone call.

 

 

Thanks for listening and subscribing to the podcast! Make sure to connect with me on twitter, instagram  and facebook to stay updated on all of the latest!  Show your support for the show by leaving a rating and review on iTunes!