Advancing you OT Career
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If you're an occupational therapist looking to develop your skills in hand therapy. This podcast is for you, your host, Tron, occupational therapists, and certified hand therapists turned serial entrepreneur with her own therapy clinic in Miami. Hoang is an author and successful coach helping occupational therapists get jobs, develop their skills and become certified hand therapists so they can become experts in their.
Hoang worked with occupational therapists from across the United States and around the world. She talks about everything from hand therapy, skills, career development, leadership skills, money, mindset, and business. You two can become an expert certified hand therapist, business owner, and have more choices in your career.
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Guys. Hello? I'm gonna share with you some, some of my perspective, essentially, on how to advance your career as an occupational therapist.
If you're joining me now, welcome, my name is Hoang with the hand therapy [00:01:00] secrets. I'm an occupational therapist and certified hand therapist. And today what we're gonna do is we're gonna really just talk about how to advance your career as an occupational therapist.
I did some polls the other day. in terms of, you know, what kind of help people need and were looking for. And I got a lot of people who were talking about like, how do I, how do I advance my career as a, as a therapist, as an occupational therapist, as somebody who wants to go into hands as a new grad, you know, all those type of questions.
And I really wanna just share a little bit of my perspective on, you know, kind of what I'm seeing, what I'm hearing. Not just in my own. Community, not just in my own community here of you know, in Miami, I'm currently at my clinic in Miami. But I hear it all around the world. I hear it in various different communities in various groups and stuff like that.
And then people are, [00:02:00] who are open and willing to share with me, tell me some of their hardships or things that they're struggling with. People who are in my mentorship programs, they have shared with me to some of their struggles and, you know, essentially why they're in that type of program. To get help and to get the support that they're needing.
But yeah, so I'm, I'm kind of late because I've been sitting and talking career wise. so just took a little bit longer. So, but I'm here and I wanna be able to answer any of your questions. So if you have questions, please feel free to post them. If you're here and you wanna say hello, say hello, tell me your name.
Tell me where you're watching from. I'd love to hear. and if you're watching this on, if you're watching this on replay, please consider playing along. Tell me your name. Tell me where you're. You're joining me from. I love meeting a therapist occupational therapist from all around the world. Right?
I was teaching in the hand therapy exam yesterday. So I might, I might [00:03:00] erase it and use it, but you know, one of the things that happens as occupational therapists is we have been in school for a really, really long time. You really think about it. A lot of us go, you know, to undergrad school. and then we have to go to graduate school and then we have to study and take the boards in to pass.
Some of us have been COTA's so they, you went to school. Got your associate's degree. Passed, worked, gone back to OT school. Now you're talking about like, getting your undergrad to graduate and all that stuff. So OTs in general, PTs, you know, we've all been in school for such a long time. and when you're in school, when you're the, you know, high school, college graduate level, everyone tells you what to do.
Everyone tells you what class you're supposed to take [00:04:00] when to turn your assignments in, when to take the exam and everything is so laid out for you that when we go out on our. when you graduate, you get your degree, then all of a sudden you have absolutely no support. You have no structure to anything anymore.
The only structure you have is like your nine to five job, let's say, or for me it was a seven to three 30 job and then I would always pick up these per diem jobs, you know? So when I first came outta school, I was just struggling to get a job. I was struggling to get I was struggling to get a full-time job and I just couldn't get a full-time job.
So I just pieced together my hours during per diem nowadays, it seems so popular to just work per diem and not like. Stick to any one place, but it's just whatever your lifestyle is. I'm not here to pass judgment. Not one is not better than the other. But all it all goes to point that that sometimes you come out and you don't [00:05:00] have any.
any idea of what to do and how you can think about advancing your career as an occupational therapist. When you first come outta school, you're thinking, holy crap, I got loans to pay. I want to be able to do X, Y, and Z, and I need some money. So it's really easy for therapists to just go honestly, where the money takes them.
Right. And. Sometimes that works out and sometimes it doesn't. Right. And that's okay. You know, I think that it's great, regardless of whatever you decide to pick. Right. I always knew I wanted to work. With adults and working with children was really not an option for me. I would rather work in a school nursing facility.
I worked in several of them. I was willing to drive. I was willing to work in a hospital setting doing. Essentially what they call like a transitional care unit there too is [00:06:00] very similar to a skilled nurse facility, but acute care in the hospital. So, you know, I always thought about where I wanted to go and where I wanted to go was to become a certified hand therapist.
I kind of knew I wanted to become a certified hand therapist and I kind of knew at some point in my life, I might be interested in opening a. Right. Who knew it would take me so long. That's okay. Everyone does things on their own time and you do what you need to do, right. So, but how you advance your career is, you know, always have that certain kind of goal that you're working towards.
So for me, My goal was to become a certified hand therapist. At that time, it took a minimum of five years to become a certified hand therapist. Now you have a minimum of three years. And so I feel like a lot of people are putting a lot of pressure on themselves to do within a certain amount of time. I know I [00:07:00] put that kind of pressure on myself to get it done in five years, even though I didn't even see how that was at all possible because I just didn't have the job.
Right. So, What's happening now, I feel is like, people are, there's a sense of I feel lost in my career. Like, I don't know what to do. I don't know how to, to go about reaching my goals. Feeling that sometimes you're plateaued at somewhere like, great, you got that job. Maybe you are working in a hand clinic.
Maybe you're working in. Hospital setting. But you're feeling if you're feeling lost and you're feeling kind of like plateaued and you're not sure what to do. How do you keep the momentum going? Right? How do you keep the momentum going? And also the other one is if you've got that job, but you're feeling burnt out already am a new grad.
Here are. some things that would cheer, oh, the light just kind of [00:08:00] set. And I was like, oh, I can see again. So a lot of times, one of the things that I see as a new grad. Is that you've now overcome one mountain and you're at the base of another mountain. And you're like, but wait, how it's supposed to take a break?
Well, there really isn't of a break, right? You're down one end of the mountain. You're now ready to climb this other mountain, which is, which is your career, which, and, and it could take multiple sets. But I think part of the frustration really is the gap in your, in the perspective. And, and anyone can come on, you know, correct me if I'm wrong.
But do you have a perspective of like, if I, when I go out of school, this is where I'll be, because I have a degree now, right? Because I have a degree I should enjoy. I don't know, X, Y, and Z, maybe a full time job, maybe a great job that you know, that I really love. This is your expect. [00:09:00] This is your expectation.
The reality of it is more down here, because if you just came out of school, you kind of, you kind of don't know what you're doing, right. I cannot be the only one who is telling you, but in your heart of hearts, you kind of know I'm really not that great. Right. And I think really that's where the frustrations can be is that, you know, we're here and we thought we would be over here.
And so what happens is what happens with that gap? You know, what do you, what do you need to do with that gap? So a lot of times people start to think, well, there's this, you know what I really want and where I'm at you know, doesn't match. So now we're not aligned. So maybe this area isn't for me, maybe being an occupational therapist, isn't for me, maybe I need to switch jobs.
Maybe I need to go into different areas when in [00:10:00] reality, maybe it's just, cuz you're not that good yet. And maybe if you gave it a little bit of effort, and I'm gonna share that plan with you, or I'm gonna share, I'm gonna tell you, you know, some step by step, what you potentially could do, you know, if you wanted to.
And you could take, you know, from this conversation, you can take what you want and leave what you don't want and that's it. Right. Take what you want and leave what you don't want. But I would just ask you if you're feeling lost in plateaued already, could you one be bored with what you currently do or two?
Not really good at what you're doing is so you're doing the same crap and you're bored with it. Right, right. So I can only say, I didn't know anything when. Came outta school. Like I got a job at a skilled nursing facility and just copied what I knew I did at in my internship. And I also copied kind of what other people were doing and they weren't all that, you know, [00:11:00] experienced necessarily either at the time.
except for some people were, and I would copy what people were doing, but I really didn't understand what I was doing. Was it good? Was it bad? Like, I didn't have any comprehension. You just started just doing stuff, but that's okay too. Right? Because it's in doing stuff that you, one discover what you are really good at and what you do like and what you don't like.
So I. Good at my job as a skilled nursing facility, like I could do transfers like nobody's business or a small girl. Right. I could do max lifts. I could, and I didn't have an issue with it. I could do ADLs. I didn't have an issue with it. But I did quickly get bored because it wasn't as technical as I, I wanted it to be.
I didn't have those words. Back then, but I knew I wanted more and more was hand therapy. And I really like [00:12:00] the technical aspect of hand therapy. Right. So how do you, you know, keep the momentum going, if you feel like you've plateaued somewhere and where I would encourage you is to really. , you know, look and think about what you're really good at.
And if there's some area that you might like, could you go and learn a lot more about it versus jumping from topic to topic? Right. So for example, In a skilled nursing facility, I worked with strokes, right. And strokes can be really challenging because you know that this is a deficit forever for these people.
But I'm like, shoot, I'm really not good at them. And I would love. To be better. So I can actually help somebody, like at the end of the day, I don't know about you, but I just wanted to be a really good therapist. I really wanted to. I came in here because I wanted to help people. [00:13:00] And I really did. I wanted to help somebody.
And I wanted someone to say like, man long was like really good. And she helped me the X, Y, and Z. So if you're feeling like you're feeling that burnt out already I, you know, and you're feeling that plateau already. could you learn and develop a particular skill, right? Could you learn and pick up a particular skill that you currently don't have because when your brand spanking new, you're just not that great.
I cannot be the first one to tell you, and I'm sure you it's in the back of your head. Right. And. When you're a new grad, this is the other thing I would say, because you're not really that good, you know, nothing feels great. I did not love being a therapist honestly until like a good two, three years into it.
And I was in I was in acute care by that time. And I, you know, I felt like. You know, I [00:14:00] felt like I was pretty decent with some of the things I was doing. It was pretty good with, you know, certain things I was doing in acute care. And I got a lot of fulfillment out of some of the cases. Not all of the cases.
That's another gap too. Is, are they supposed to be so good all the time? Right? Can we live with a certain amount? That's enough. Good. But you know, here's, here is something that I wrote down. And I was thinking about as I was thinking about not just in your case as a new grad, not just in your case as someone who's been a therapist for a while and transitioning into a new area.
Right. So if you're, if you've been working for a while and you're transitioning into a new area, it's still new to you, you're not completely new. concepts of occupational therapy with ADLs, with biomechanics, with anatomy, you're not completely new, but to trans transition into hands [00:15:00] or transition into a new setting that requires more technical skill on your part is still new.
So you're not that great. Right. But who told you? That this was going to be easy. Who told you this? Because they're lies. who told you this was going to be easy. Who told you that? Building a long lasting, fulfilling, happy career where you can earn a living was going to be easy. And sometimes I ask myself that question, who told you that opening a business, then opening another business.
was going to be easy. Right. Cause at no point, did anyone ever lay the framework out for me, lay out, like what was gonna take you kind of know, but you don't know , you know, you kind of know, but you don't know [00:16:00] to be in hand therapy. I kind of, you know, I'm like, yeah, people told me it's gonna be hard. Yeah.
Kinda. But you know what? I've got the goods, like I'm. I I'm somewhat smart, you know, when I can figure it out and then you get, and you're like, holy crap, this is so hard. Right. But who said it was going to be easy because nobody said it, but somehow we all want it. Right. But with everything that is worth having and everything that is valuable, those things don't come easy.
And will, they're just a little bit hard. we have a tendency to value it more. right. It's just the way the brain works. Right. It's just the way just about everything works when everyone can have it, then nobody wants it. And if it was easy, everyone would do it and then nobody would want to do it. Right.
That's just the way the world works. So if we keep in mind, That things [00:17:00] are supposed to be a little, like it's supposed to be challenging. It's supposed to take effort. It's supposed to take patience then maybe our frustration levels will be a little bit less. Let me know. what did you think about that?
You know, did that resonate at all with you? Did you agree at all with me? Did you disagree with me? Like feel free to Leave me a comment to say what you need to say. I wanna hear. But honestly everything that we want is on the other side of the effort that we're willing to put in. And it requires not just a little bit of effort, it requires consistent effort over a period of time.
Right. Everything we want is on the other side of that needs, you know? Right, right. Page. Thank you. And I heard this phrase and take it or leave it. I heard this phrase and everything you want is [00:18:00] on is essentially requires you to be, to have, requires you to have aggressive patients, not just patients, but aggressive.
Right. If I had given up, if I had, you know, given up in, you know, getting that job in hand therapy, right. Cause sometimes you can give up a little too early and you just don't know. Right. If I had given up on. Becoming a hand therapist and just stayed in acute. That would've been a different hard for me.
So, which hard do you want to own? Do you want to own the hard of putting the effort in to being whatever it is that you want, or do you want the hard of being in a place where you don't want to be. but are willing to settle because you don't want to put the work in that that takes a different type of hard [00:19:00] will not lie to you.
You see people who live in that world of, I didn't go for what I wanted to, so I will sit and suffer in. The world that I've created for myself, or I can go to the hard where it requires a certain amount of effort. So Taylor, I started hand therapy clinic this month. Very good things to keep in mind.
Thank you. Thank you for listening. Keep that in mind, please. I hope that helps you. Paige says three years in, just switch from home health to outpatient rehab in the VA. Love it. That's so great. It is challenging. But you can do it, you know, there's a lot of resources and stuff like. Feel straight out grad school again.
Absolutely. So, you know, it's awesome. Thanks for listening and, and, you know, watching and hopefully that I can provide like more helpful, you know, useful content for you as well. And so much about my message, really so much of it is like, please don't give up. Please don't give up. There's so much that you could do.
And I know so many people who didn't give up and kept working for it. [00:20:00] Imagine if I. Gave up being, you know, being a hand therapist, imagine if I gave up being in business, like cuz I certainly, I just was not sure if I could do it. You know, I just, I, you know, once I became a CHT and I had a really CU job was working in a very nice, comfortable position, but sometimes too much comfort leads to a different type of discomfort.
And jumping into something completely brand new is, is a different type of discomfort as well. So, you know, again, pick your hard, do you wanna be bored and unfulfilled, or do you wanna do this other thing that maybe is gonna be challenging? That's gonna be completely UN you're unsure about what's gonna happen.
But which hard do you wanna have? I decided the hard that I wanted was I needed to leave the comfort. Of my position in order to be in a different position that, that I needed, not everyone needs, but I needed to make the leap into private [00:21:00] practice. Right. And it was, you know, it was it was a challenge but challenges are what builds our strength.
It builds our character and it forces us to maybe think about doing more than we ever thought we could have. Right. So, so, if you are again, you know, if you are transitioning new grad, I always think of new grads as zero to three years, intermediate is like three and beyond, and then specialize. You know, to be specialized, really, isn't so much based on the years of experience, but it's based on how fast you want to accumulate, accumulate your knowledge.
Right? So a lot of times people can accumulate knowledge and experience fast because they're willing to go all in all the time. Right. And that you just have to decide. Your behavior, if that's part of your personality. I certainly didn't do [00:22:00] it as much when I was new. Like as a new grad, it was kind of hard.
Like, I didn't have any guidance, you know, like you guys have so much more guidance nowadays, but to the other extreme, in a way that you have so much of it, you don't know who to believe. Right. Who to believe who to ask that kind of stuff. Whereas, you know, Back in my day, there was nobody to ask or like barely anyone to ask.
So you had one kind of hard where you had no information. Now you have a different kind of heart where you have weigh so much information. You just don't know who to believe and who to trust and how to weed in the. It really how to make the decisions. Right. But specialist, you know, being specialized really isn't based on the years, it's based on how fast or, you know, you're willing to accrue that information now, as someone who specializes, I'm willing to go all in like, well, it helps going into business.
Right. All in, like, I am not failing. That is not in my vocabulary. Every [00:23:00] time I fail, it's not a fail, it's a learning experience. And I learn from it and learn from it and like make sure every other thing becomes successful and actually just have that conversation with my own team of like, you're not failing, you know, you're learning.
and if you can learn from that, you know, what can you, the failure is if you don't want to learn anything or not willing to have a certain amount of awareness to learn. Right. So how do you know if you're feeling lost and you're feeling plateau or you're feeling kind burn at, how do you know, let me just move on.
Right? How do I know? It's time to just move on, give up those whole shenanigans. And really, I would ask you you know,
I essentially would ask, you know, what else would you want instead? Right. What else would you want instead? Because if being a great therapist, you know, being really good at what you do [00:24:00] and, you know, specializing somehow or another, you know, obviously we talk more, a lot about being a certified hand therapist, but there's other specialties too.
But if you. Know that you want to work with a certain population. If you know, you want to work in a way that requires your technical skills as a therapist, if you know, you want to work in a very particular setting with a very particular way of helping people, why would you give up on your dreams? And if you gave up on your dreams, what's your other dream, right?
I would ask you that what's your other dream? Because if I was working in a skilled nursing facility, And I gave up doing what I needed to do to get into a acute care setting, to get into an outpatient, you know, setting, to get into whatever setting that was gonna bring my experience to the next level.
If I gave that up, where would I be stuck? I'd be stuck doing a job that I don't want [00:25:00] to do. Not only is it a disservice to me, it is a disservice to the people that I'm actually working. right. I say that all the time for people who like don't wanna work in peds and they're working in peds, stop taking the damn peds job.
Right. Stop taking it because it's not taking you where you want to go. Right. It's just not taking you to where you want to go stop taking the job. It's not taking you to where you want to go. Sometimes we have to take jobs that one don't pay as well. Two, you might have to drive a little bit further. You might have to work hours that you didn't necessarily think was your ideal hours, right?
Something's got to give for you to get the experience that you want. That's gonna take you to the next level. So decision making at every level will project to like, you know, where you are, where you are currently, lemme say that differently, [00:26:00] where you are currently is a result of decision. You've made in the past.
We might not wanna face it, but it's on us. and it's so great. That is on you, right? Because you get to be the effective change that you're hoping for. Definitely drew bin German an hour to that job I was telling you about, but totally worth it. Absolutely totally worth it. Right. Totally worth it. So my first job, I drove 50 miles to, to that 50 miles one way, just so I can get that job.
And I told myself if I really liked it, I would, I will move, but it didn't happen. Got another job. Right. But, you know, keep that in mind. What medical billing services? No, I don't do medical billing. So, and I don't need medical billing. Thank you. But yeah, I, I would, I would challenge you on that.
If I wanted to move along, move over, move on to something else. What would that look like? What would you want to do? [00:27:00] Because you either go all in. And develop your skills as a therapist, or you go all out and develop your skills in something else, but you're still developing some form of skills, right? So that people who leave the field of occupational therapy leave to go do something else.
Well, to make the kind of salary that you want to make, you gotta develop some other skills, right? I know some therapists leave to go into real estate. That's a whole nother skill level. Girl, young people need to know some sales skills to sell some houses, right? I mean, some houses sell themselves, but for the most part, you wanna, you want earn, you wanna become top notch in your, you still develop skills.
They're just in real estate. If you wanna be top notch, occupational therapists, certified hand therapists, you build those skills right there. So what do you need to do? Right. What do you need to, to, to be able to build those skills so that, you know, one of [00:28:00] the questions, how do you, how do you market yourself into a setting that you don't have experience in?
Well, you, you have to embody and own what you do know. You know, as a therapist coming out, where are your experiences? How can you tie your experiences that you currently are working in, into the new place that you're having, that, that you are, are looking to be in? So sometimes it can be really challenging to go from like one extreme to the next.
So one of the things that are, you know, that I always kind of look at, it's like, if you're impedes, how do you get into adults? And then how do you get into. And sometimes it can be really challenging to get from pediatrics into hands completely. Now, some people can do it because you know, I I'll share with you what I look for.
You know, I'm looking for someone who says what they I'm looking for, someone who does what they say that they [00:29:00] want to do. Right. So if you say that you want to develop yourself in. What courses are you taking? What programs are you a part of? You know, what are you doing on your, on your time to develop the skills that you are moving into?
Because you have to have some of those skills to move into those positions. You can't go in there, bear nothing and be like, please give me money, but I don't know how to do the job, but please still pay me and then teach me so I can learn how to do. Listen to that again, listen to that again. Right? So what are you doing currently that proves to the people that you're looking to get hired by?
you know, to believe that you are doing the thing that you say that you're gonna do. Right. I it's one of the biggest things [00:30:00] that I look at, you know, where's your, where's your effort, where's your intention? That's important. Wouldn't you want me to be honest with you in terms of the kind of position, you know, I know tons of OTs, I've gotten jobs with places.
Maybe they were given false you know, promises or whatever. Wouldn't you want someone to be more honest with you? Like, I don't know. I want people to be honest with me, I want to be honest with them. So, so yeah, just think about, you know, just think about it comes back to aggressively. Right.
Aggressively patient along with consistent effort to get you to where you wanna go. So here's the plan, whether you're new or you're transitioning the plan that you want. To have is really to get the job. And again, to think beyond the money, think beyond the, the driving, [00:31:00] think beyond the setting and think more about the experience that you're looking to to have, where do you want to go with it?
And, you know, can you stay there for a little while to gather that experience? So, so yeah. How you loved working under CHT as a student? I felt that the wear on my own hands was intense, just in a short course rotation. how do you take care of your own hands? And do you feel sore from your work? I don't feel sore from my work unless I'm working with really, really stiff hands con continuously, but there's ways around that as.
I'm only sore if I don't like, so I don't treat as much anymore. I still treat, but I don't treat as much. And when I because of that, and then I go into like, tons of treatment, then I can feel a little sore, but the way I, the way I protect my hands is is I protect my whole. I take care of my whole body.
So, but that, you know, we can dive into that another day, but , but that's how I do it. [00:32:00] Body mechanics is really huge for me. How comfortable I am. You know, positioning is really important to me when I'm, you know, when I'm working and I, this is something that is embedded and weaved in throughout all of my programs.
Which is really to help you become critical thinkers and problem solvers and essentially decision makers. Making it easier, faster to make key decisions. And then two, like how do I protect? How do I grow myself? How do I, how do you as a therapist grow yourself and how do you protect yourself for longevity for, you know, like, I wanna have fun.
I'm, I'm, I'm young, I'm only in my forties. You know, I want to go into my fifties, into my sixties, myself being in the best shape. I plan to work for a long time. So, you know, I. You know, I just have to, you know, protect myself. Right. I just have to do certain things that will keep me strong and, and be mindful intentional about stuff like that.
[00:33:00] So, so yeah, that's, that's what I do for the most part. So yeah, so the first thing is really get that job that you want. You don't have it, and you're not able to get the job. It might be, cuz your resume is not really as good as you think it is. so one of the things I do in my hand therapy mentorship program and the mentorship program that we have is I.
Resume reviews and I give some feedback and, and I really, I help, you know, the therapists are in my program. I help them develop their career and help them move in the path and in the directions they wanna take it. So our mentorship program, it really isn't just about like tendons and stuff like that.
It is really built to give you the support that you need as the therapist to grow the kind of career that you want to have. Right. So the plan for you if you're looking to advance your career as an occupational therapist is really to get the job that, that you want, right? And sometimes you might need to change jobs, [00:34:00] or you might need to do certain things in your jobs to make them even better so that you can get the experience that you want.
Right. So get the job. And then two the plan is to really further my experiences through learning. So how do you do your learning? You can do online. Courses, you can do online program. You can work in person courses. You can work with a particular person or you can work in a particular place. But furthering your experience through learning really can help you avoid that burnout.
It could help you avoid feeling like you're plateaued. And it's because you're probably doing the same things over and over, and maybe not understanding why you're doing what you're doing and that can lead to a lot of that. You know, sometimes I always talk about burnout as like you're either, you know, a lot of times you're, you're too bored.
Like you're bored, you don't see progress in yourself. [00:35:00] And that leads to even more boredom. So, I think I did this video. I'm gonna put it up at some point. I, I kind of draw like a bell curve and I talk about burnout versus Overwhelmed. And where we wanna be is like kind of that middle where we're always continually learning when you're in school, you're continuously, you're constantly learning from one semester to the next to the next year.
You're learning something new when you come out of school somehow or another. First of all your, your style of learning and how you learn changes. But sometimes for a lot of people, it stops. So ask yourself, are you learning in the best way possible so that you can avoid that burnout and so that you can continuously feel like you're making progress and not plateaued, maybe you're lost because you don't know where you're.
Right. You need [00:36:00] someone to help you create a plan and to kind of light that path for you. So yeah, I would say, you know, further your experience and you can do it through a mix of things. You can do online stuff, you can do live stuff. You can, you know, there's a multiple different ways, right? And then number three is really, you can find a mentor, right?
So you can find a mentor. In books you can find a mentor in books and you can find a mentor in courses and you can find a mentor in programs. Right? So I, in my hand therapy mentorship program I help the people in my program. Like I'm helping you guys, but I help people in some, our program even more provide even more customized service, even more hands on support.
Whether it be, we're talking about tendons we're talking about their cases. We're showing them how they could progress, but also from a career standpoint and the support so that [00:37:00] you can, you know, sort of like, you can see your way out. Right. You can see your way out of like, like how do I keep advancing my career?
What are the steps that I need to do? I get questions on positions, like I'm considering taking this position, you know, what do I need to think about you know, with these very specific other questions that don't necessarily have to do with cases, but they're very. Specific to them taking new jobs, getting another job, applying for different jobs.
How do you apply for jobs that people haven't even yet posted? Right. Things like that, that, like, I love that stuff. I mean, I run my business and I know how other business owners. Think and what they're looking for and I'm, as I essentially get to pass along some of those secrets to you guys in terms of, you know, what would make you really marketable what would help you to stand out above the crowd?
And then of course we do the fun hand. Therapy stuff, which is to [00:38:00] go over cases last month we talked about oh, today's the last day of August. We talked all about like flex tendons. And September is gonna be all about Accenture tendons. And then the month after that October, we're gonna. Tie 'em all together and go over like complex cases.
And really how, how do you critically think through them? And that's how one way of getting experiences, even though you don't necessarily have them yourself, but you can gain them by being in a room with other people that have the experiences you're looking to get, because that's just gonna help you show up a certain way that could put you at the top.
Of being considered for the position, even though you don't yet have all of the experience. Right. So get yourself a mentor. You know, if you're interested, you can go to hand therapy, seeks.com. It's a hand therapy mentorship program. I can include it. If you're on Instagram, you can see in the link in the bio, if you're on Facebook [00:39:00] or YouTube, I'll go back in and, and share that link with you guys.
So your in interest. If you're interested in joining the program, we have a live call this coming Thursday. So we do live calls the first and the third Thursdays of the month. I'm happy to give you some, some details on that, but, but I'll share that with you. So when, when it comes to finding a mentor, getting a mentor, there's different ways to go about it, but you can mix it up.
So you don't have to just do one thing or the other thing. It could be really just, you know, and it could be inside our industry and it also can be outside of industry. Right. So it can be inside or outside. So it's, you know, depending on what you might be looking for at the phase in which you're looking for stuff that can help you along your career path.
Right. So, keep this also in. It is not just about asking the question, but it is in who you are asking that question [00:40:00] to, that would determine the kind of answer that you get. So it is not just about the question that you're asking, but rather who you're asking that question too, that will determine what kind of answer you get.
Right. So pick careful. Who you ask your questions to because ultimately at the end of the day, it will only be you that makes decisions. And you are the ruler of your career. So, you know, however you wanna play it, however you wanna go about it. I would just teasing my therapist that a lot of times in my clinic, people who have gotten jobs have applied multiple times.
Right. So I'm currently looking for a therapist. I know other clinics are looking for a therapist. Sometimes you need to apply multiple times before you get the call back and doing your due diligence to [00:41:00] researching the company that you're looking for, making tweets in your resume, things like that are really key and really important for you to take.
Number one step of your plan, which is to kind of get into the position that you wanna get into. And then, because you get into those positions, you can increase your learning. Once you get into those positions, it does make it faster, easier to make decisions to, to go into the course, to buy into a program, to hire or mentor that can really actually help you fast pace, you know, or fast track your experience and your growth opportunity.
right. But getting that is really key. And sometimes, you know, I, in our program, I know for sure, 100%, some people come into our program and through the help that they get the support and the tweaking, they get the callbacks and then they get the job. And then they're like, holy shit, wrong. How do I, these [00:42:00] patients I'm like, okay, send them in, send them in.
And we'll help you make sure you feel successful in your role so that you can keep your job, gotta get your job. And then you gotta keep your job. Right. That's what makes us happy. so, I hope this really, I hope this talk really helped you. I love doing these kind of talks because it is not always fingers and tendons.
Sometimes it's about, you know, what decisions you need to make and the steps, the strategies that you can take. In order to get to work with fingers and tendons, that that eventually will give you a long lasting and fun career. All right. So thank you so much for joining me. If you're watching this on replay, please, please play along and tell me what you liked.
And again, you can pick up what you want. And leave what you don't need. [00:43:00] All right. Until next time. Thank you so much for tuning in and I look forward to seeing you on the inside. All right guys, have a great night. Bye.
Hey, thanks for listening to Hoang's world podcast. If you are brand new to the hand therapy world, head over to my website, www dot hand therapy, secrets.com, where you can get started with some of our free guides and paid programs for both OTs and PTs diving into the world of hand therapy. Or if you've been listening for a while watching on our YouTube channel and you think you could benefit from developing and moving your career further along in hand therapy, reach out to me and my team at info hand therapy, seekers.com and tell us exactly what you're looking for, by the way, if you know someone who could benefit today, by the way, if you know someone who could benefit today, Damn it, by the way, if you know someone who could benefit from [00:44:00] today's show, please share.
Thanks. See you on the next episode.
