Melissa: Hey there, rebel women. How are you? I am super excited to introduce you to Brittany Young Sanchez, owner of Velocity Physical Therapy. In this episode, we get to hear the story of Velocity Physical Therapy, how it came to be, and the journey of Brittany, finding her purpose and passion along the way while creating a community of clients that are her most favorite people.

Melissa: Velocity Physical Therapy is part of the fourth edition of Healthy in the Valley. Healthy in the Valley is a free digital resource for the entire Saint Croix Valley. In each publication, you're going to find the area's best and leading business owners who are passionate about health and wellness, helping and serving you as you live your best life in mind, body, and soul. So if you are local to the Saint Croix Valley in Hudson, Wisconsin, I invite you to grab your free copy of Health in the Valley by going to healthyinthevalley.com. And of course, the link is in the bio. Now let's get real with Brittany Young Sanchez.

Mellisa: Hey There, studio owner! You've put your blood, sweat, and tears into creating a Brick and Mortar business that serves your clients and impacts the community you love. You are my hero! And I'm pretty sure we could sit down and talk like besties do because I get it. I've had my studio business for over twelve years, a handful of kids, and a few passion projects that I love, like this one. Hey there, I'm Melissa Rose, your visibility coach for the studio owner who wants more stellar clients coming through their doors, more bank in their bank account, and more time to hang out and be completely present with those they love most. In this podcast, we're going to share the nitty-gritty of running a successful studio business, sharing stories, talking strategy, and learning practical tips that leave you inspired, empowered, and equipped to create your epic life every single day. So, if you're a dance studio, yoga studio, pilates studio, or a fitness boutique studio, you are in the right place. Add some kiddos into the mix and maybe a life partner and I call you a rebel woman, ready to dive in? Let's get real!

Melissa: Brittany Young Sanchez, welcome to the Brick and Mortar Visibility podcast. How are you?

Brittany: Great, thank you.

Melissa: Awesome!

Brittany: Appreciate it.

Melissa: Yes. I'm so glad you're here. I am so glad for our audience to get to know you and what you do. So before we dive into the funness of all the business, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Brittany: A veterinarian

Melissa: And I could totally see you doing that, too.

Brittany: Yeah! I grew up on a farm, loved animals, and still do. That's my second passion.

Melissa: Yes. Yes. What kind of farm did you grow up on? I didn't know this information.

Brittany: Yeah, I'm definitely a farm girl. I grew up on a dairy farm. Our barn burned when I was three, and then dad rebuilt, and he farmed until I was about six. And then he owned his own auction real estate company. But we still had dairy. And so I rode horse four wheelers, helped with the cows till I was probably about 14. And we moved to a new house in the woods. And then I worked on my cousin's, my aunt's dairy farm a mile down the road. So I worked on a farm my entire...

Melissa: Brittany!!! I didn't know... Why did I not know this? Because I grew up on a dairy farm, too.

Brittany: Yeah. Yeah. I was... I'm a country girl through and through. I'm home for Thanksgiving, and I'm, like, holding a deer heart in my hands in the middle of a field. Like I am home.

Melissa: Oh, my goodness. Where is home then? So where did you grow up? What area?

Brittany: So I went to school in Barron. Our address was... right on the corner of those three little towns is where our last house was.

Melissa: Oh, my gosh. We're going to have to talk later. Okay. Very fun. I love it. Okay. Now I love you even more.
Okay, you guys, Brittany's just lovely. Okay, So now, Brittany, what do you do now in the world? You have your own business. So what do you do? Who do you serve?

Brittany: I do. So I am now not a veterinarian. I am a physical therapist. So still in the health and wellness. Velocity Physical Therapy. I'm in Hudson, Wisconsin, and we serve the Hudson community more of an orthopedic setting, outpatient, neurological issues, and things like that. So I am now a physical therapist.

Melissa: And how long have you been doing this?

Brittany: I have been doing this as a career since 2009. I've had my own business for the last six years, so we just had our six-year anniversary.

Melissa: Wow. Congrats. Awesome. Awesome. Can you tell us a little bit about your story or what... I'm sure there was a story that said you know what this is what I want to do. So what was that?

Brittany: Yeah. So, you know, I've been asked this question, and you kind of like dig through everything that led up to it, 'cause there are so many little things. But what I really knew is when I was in Madison, I was getting my undergrad in Kinesiology because I knew I could springboard into anything, I could springboard to the Vet School, I could springboard to medical school, I could really do whatever with that.

Brittany: And it was one of my last classes. And my last year, it was adaptive kinesiology. And so we were paired with students and we had a person from the community come in that we worked with that entire semester our gentleman and I don't remember his name, but he had a stroke. And so the first half of our class was just analyzing the person, and then the second half was adapting a canoe to ultimately take them out on Lake Mendota and canoe on our last day.

Brittany: And that process, which took a semester, it was just so amazing. And so we had to adapt the canoe, put foam on the side, and teach that person with their disability how to get in and out of the canoe. Like we took them to the local pool with the canoe in the pool and dumped them out. We had to try and get them back in. So that experience and just seeing a human overcome and trust you and be able to do something fun and big in spite of maybe what happened. That experience in itself was my turning point. I truly... Yeah!

Melissa: Oh, I love that. That's a beautiful story. I love that because as you go through it, you kind of go through that journey and you're kind of waiting.
You genuinely are kind of waiting sometimes, you know, if you don't have it dialed in, and then there it is. Okay, so you went into physical therapy and tell us a little bit about the journey of becoming your own business owner.

Brittany: Sure. So my mentor when I was 16... So I went to physical therapy clinic when I was 16, and I shadowed somebody who was a wound care physical therapist.
And so he was kind of my mentor through this whole thing. And I watched him.

Melissa: Freeze. 16?

Brittany: Yes!

Melissa: So how did that happen?

Brittany: My mom was a nurse and she was called to the physical therapy department. And she just loved the people. She loved the people and the atmosphere. And so she kind of got me in, to mentor and just see the atmosphere. So wound care was my first experience with physical therapy. Yeah!

Melissa: Okay.

Brittany: And I watched him start his own business. My dad had his own business. I just have it in my blood. And so I knew someday I just wanted my own business. And then I had some experience is in the work world where I was pregnant with my second kiddo. And after I told them I was pregnant, my hours got cut, and I lost my insurance. The stress that went with it. And then after I had my kiddo, they offered me my job back. And that experience of the stress and the uncertainty, like I felt like, 'I want to create an environment that I look forward to going to work every day and my employees look forward to going to work.'

Brittany: I wanted control over my environment, that it was a place of positivity, and of warmth, and of healing and kindness. And so I think that was a big moment too, for me. I want to create my atmosphere cause the person that I go to work as is also the person I come home and am to my children. So that was a big piece too. Kind of decided to be an entre preneur.

Melissa: Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So you opened your doors in 2016 you said?

Brittany: End of 2016. Yep, December 1st. Yep!

Melissa: Okay, awesome. All right. So tell us a little bit about who you serve.

Brittany: We serve the Hudson community. And so we are an orthopedic-based physical therapy department. I work a lot with hockey. I work with concussion and neurology. Ben my other therapist, he works with the older population. It's really cute to see him work with them, but he's also a semi-pro volleyball player, so he is really great at stepping in with the athletes as well. Kathleen was... she skied in college, so she competed as well and so she's really good at like low back pain and that so she does a lot with the spine and she's also an athlete.

Brittany: So between the three of us, we kind of have our little pocket of interest in who we like to serve, but essentially it's people who believe in the ability to change themselves and they have a desire for living a life fuller than what they have, really, and orthopedically being able to help them with that. So I know that's a little touchy-feely like, you know, the feelings behind it, but really that's the passion and that's the ideal person. And that even feeds into our athletes, which I work a lot with now as well.

Melissa: Yeah, you really do. Talk to me about the psychology of working with an athlete

Brittany: That is huge and it is super underserved. I'm super passionate about it right now. So you can look at an athlete and you can look at, 'Okay, yep you sprained your ankle, Great!' Really anybody can treat that, right? But you have to look at how motivated are they to play, When do they play? Why are they playing? Is it just for fun? When are the games? So there's all this going through their head. And the more elite of an athlete you get, the more you function on a subconscious level.
And so when you get injured, everything that you do in your own time is at that subconscious level, now becomes conscious and they almost don't know what to do with it. Okay. So you can send a completely healthy athlete back onto the ice or the field if their psychology and their subconscious and their conscience don't go back to where they were confident, they no longer have the same reaction time, they no longer have the same 'dig in' perse to do these certain movements and it exponentially increases their risk for re-injury.

Brittany: So even though they're orthopedically okay, if you don't do the psychology behind it, you're just sending an athlete back in with a higher risk of re-injury. So you have to work with the athlete, coach, and player to make sure all pieces are matching. Like that athlete should have already tried the things they are unsure of with you. When you're standing there, I will say you can do X, Y, and Z. Now let's do it. And if there's uncertainty, we just circle back and redo it again. Or we try different techniques until they know 'I can do it'. So it now becomes subconscious and their reaction times back in the Green Zone where they're not going to get reinjured. There's no fear behind what they're doing. So fear avoidance, return to sport The psychology of an athlete is a whole field, all of itself. And so incorporating that into return-to-sport is huge in my opinion.

Melissa: Totally agree, totally agree. And I like kind of tearing up because it's so true, you know, I'm just thinking of my dancers. You know, they're used to doing certain things really well, and then all of a sudden their hip flexors or hips are big, knees, ankles, whatever it is, and then they're told to rest. And then, you know, they do the rest or whatever. And we've talked about this where rest isn't necessarily the right thing. And then they jump back in and yes, you're hesitant. And I always tell my dancers, when you are remotely hesitant, that's when the injuries happen because you're second guessing yourself and there's hesitation, there's gripping, there's the delay, there's all of it. And I love that you pay attention to that because, yeah, you can sign off and you can move your ankle this way. You can go there and 'Okay, you're good to go'. And, but mentally, they're not ready yet or there needs to be some affirmation there for them.

Brittany: You know, just making sure that your mind is where your body is and your body is where your mind is. You know to know that, and to do that in a safe environment and to know that something you were unsure about, you're sure, now you translate it back to the environment that you perform and you compete in. That transformation is paramount, I believe.

Melissa: Yeah, so good, so good! Talk to us a little bit about the process of how you work. Just I assume you'll probably get referrals from MDs or, you know, people post-surgery or post-injury that way. But people come to you, like the hockey players. They come to you directly right?

Brittany: Yep, and really anybody can. I think that's the thing to remember. Sometimes when you get into a bigger healthcare system, like they kind of have their own people that they use just to keep everything in the same circles. Well, just to know as a person utilizing like you can choose what you want. So as a standalone physical therapy clinic, that's something we want people to understand is, If you trust us and you get to know us, you can always choose us or choose who you trust. You don't have to stay within a conglomerate. So we... Yeah, we take referrals, and we take direct access, which is huge.

Brittany: So... what's 13 years ago now? I was second generation where we transitioned our degree to our doctoral and so, therefore, we are able to differentially diagnose, you know, so if you come in and we're the first point of contact, we're the first access point to your health care, we can analyze, 'Are you orthopedically appropriate for my care, or do I think you need to go elsewhere?' And if I think you need to go elsewhere, I know these people whom I'm sending you and I trust them. And so it's not just a handoff. It's a 'This person's in my circle of trust. This is what I see. Can you help us and me?' Because the healthcare system can get really overwhelming. And I find myself doing that a lot more, helping people navigate the health care system.
And if ever I can make the phone call, I can get the records, I can request the x-ray, we do that because I feel it just takes the burden off of people that they don't necessarily need, especially when they're in pain or hurting.

Melissa: Awesome. So good, so good. This is why you are so good at what you do. You're a mama, right?

Brittany: I am, Yeah.

Melissa: Tell us about your kiddos.

Brittany: Oh, man. So this is where you might need to edit. So I am a boy mom, which I don't think, that happened by accident. So I have two boys and they are 8 and 11. They're amazing. When you talk about your why and why you do things like everything I do is for them. And I'm in the ages now where they're 18, 11, where I'm reclaiming my identity as a person. You know how that goes. But they play hockey. They're in the hockey system. So between my boys and the big boys, the Havoc boys. I am in the rink all the time. And so they love playing hockey, They play baseball. My oldest one is a pitcher and my little one just started baseball. They play soccer. They love that and they're just overall active, fun kids, total opposites though. But I love it. My little one is so much like me, like I don't know if I should be mad or laugh. He's a sparkplug and witty and I'm just like, 'I can't be mad at you. You're just like me, but that wasn't very nice.'

Melissa: I love that. I love that they also are athletes, mini athletes. And they get to see these guys that you're working with. So I love that when it works out that way and they get to see Mom do her thing working with these athletes and then they get to participate and see that leadership in those kids, too. So. All right. So I want you to tell our audience you have some fun things coming up in the new year that you're doing. And I was super excited to see this. So share with everybody that.

Brittany: Yeah, So I just launched yesterday and one of my favorite quotes has been, 'Perfectionism is going to get you to PT school, Perfectionism is going to get you through PT school. But being a perfectionist is the very first thing that's going to kill your business.' So it's like you have to be so on point all the way through. And then when you have your own business, you have to be okay with things not being perfect. So cycle that back to this class that I just dropped, you know, I feel like I have to have everything laid out before I can present it.
And the time is ticking and I'm like, 'Okay, no, we just need to like, get this out here because I'm so excited to start it. So anyway, it's a women-supporting women class. It's all about strengthening. I've had women ask me for this for quite some time and I just haven't put it together.

Brittany: So it's a class of stations. We meet Monday and Thursday nights from 5:45 to 6:30, and the whole point of the class is you don't have to be a certain level. You can be a beginner, you can be intermediate and you can be more seasoned, which actually I think is great because the point of the class is to get stronger and to support one another. So the class itself is 45 minutes. For the first 15 minutes, we will be journaling and talking about nutrition, we'll be having special guests. 'How was your day? How did you feel this week?' Like you're showing up for someone and someone's showing up for you. Okay.

Brittany: And then the last 30 minutes are all going to be stationed. And so I will set the stations each night and it will be based on who my women are, where they're at in their progress. And I'll make it harder as the classes go on. But you can always modify it and you go through the stations in pairs. So you can encourage, you can uplift, you can learn how to spot technique. Just so much empowerment. Because, number one, when my head ever goes down, guess where my butt goes. If I can just lift a few weights or I can see what my body can do and like how amazing it is, it goes straight to my mind and my outlook. And I want to show women how to have that and how to feel that and where to go and just be stronger because we're pretty amazing and I want us to know that and feel that. So I'm excited. Super excited.

Melissa: Yes, you are. I love it. I love it. Very cool. So I'm super excited. Please share that in all the groups, Healthy in the Valley. And then, of course, the Rebel Women Tribe too, please drop it in that group too, okay? But super exciting! And I actually kind of went like this when I saw it online. I was like, 'Oh, what's this! This is great! So, proud of you for doing that. And everybody grab Healthy In The Valley at healthyinthevalley.com and you will also get Velocity's special offers that are in there.

Melissa: Is there anything else that you would like to share with our audience?

Brittany: Oh, well, you are a visibility podcast.

Melissa: Yes!

Brittany: And so one of the biggest nuggets that I just want to share with anybody who is... who we are as an entrepreneur, we got into the small business because we love small business. So somebody recently said, 'You also can't hate when it's not going perfectly because that's a small business, so you got to love it, right?'
And the beauty of it is that we can pivot and look at everything like energy like it's okay to be uncomfortable and it's okay to wait for the answer until you have peace. Like there's a difference between peace and being uncomfortable, right? Be uncomfortable. Do the uncomfortable things.

Brittany: Ask people for help like I had so many amazing people step up to mentor and to help. This is just been a really awesome time in a very tough time. So don't be afraid to ask. People want to help you and mentor you and help you through whatever peak or valley you're going through and look at everything like energy. If you're spending so much energy on what maybe isn't going right, that's energy that you can't put towards honing your craft and finding your people, and trust your base! The people that love you are always going to love you. Like our base is so incredibly loyal. Like, that's what I lean on and that's what will always be there. So put your energy into that.

Brittany: You can look and you can see what's going on to analyze it as long it's going to help you to go in the right direction. Put your energy into what you are really, really good at. So just dig in and just keep going forward.

Brittany: And then the other thing, when you're going into unknown territory, you're trying to figure out new things. The answer is always 'NO' if you don't ask. And I have to credit that to my friend that said that and then one of my other friends, he said, 'You have to walk in the room and know that you're there to help people and you're the best option.' Like if you don't walk in knowing that you just took yourself off the table right there. So if you walk in knowing that you have something amazing to offer, don't be afraid to present it. Don't be afraid to ask people for help. Don't be afraid to, 'Hey, can you... Do you mind mentioning our name when you do this?'

Brittany: Like, people want to be there for you, but they don't know if you don't ask. So for me right now and what I'm navigating, that's been huge and it's just been so fun to see that come back tenfold. Like your people are out there and they want to help you. Find them and you're not going to find them by being quiet in your office.
You're going to find them by going out and doing things that are uncomfortable. And in doing things that are uncomfortable, you're going to find the answers that you have peace with for your business. Sometimes it's scaling back, sometimes it's pushing forward and you have to have peace with those answers. We have to get uncomfortable to find those answers if that makes sense. And I bet everybody that's watching if you're an entrepreneur, you totally get what I'm saying.

Melissa: Yeah, yeah. Totally, totally. And yeah, sometimes the answer is scaling back. But you can't... You don't figure it out until you're uncomfortable. And it's so, so true. So wise. Don't you guys just love her? This is why I love Brittany. Oh, my gosh. I love sitting next to you whenever I see you. All right, everybody. Brittany, where can people best find you? What's the one place where they should find you? If they're looking for classes or if they're looking for one-on-one help.

Brittany: Very good. Yes. So we do have a website velocitytherapy.org, but it also is under construction right now. So just kind of bear with us. You also can email us at velocitytherapy@outlook.com, or you can call us at 7157165191. And if you want to come to see us, we are right next to Keys Bakery up on Carmichael and Vine. So we have some awesome neighbors up here. You'll see us right to the left of Keys Bakery.

Melissa: Awesome. Thank you so much, Britney. This was lovely. Everybody go check her out. I have the links in the show notes, of course, but anybody local, go and check out Healthy in the Valley. And if you want to go visit Britney in person, check her out at Hudson, and Richmond, right?

Brittany: We are. There's some changes coming to New Richmond, so that's a big thing that's happening too. So, yeah!

Melissa: Awesome, it's so good. So good. Thank you so much, Britney, for being on the Brick and Mortar Visibility podcast. Everybody else, have a great week! We'll see you here same time, same place next week. Peace, Bye-bye.

Melissa: Oh, my gosh, you're still here. You are such a rebel woman. I have to meet you. Come on over to the Rebel Women Tribe on Facebook created for Brick and Mortar Business owners just like you. In this group, we empower, encourage, and support each other. And every week I come in and share with you a tip, tool, or strategy that I'm learning in my Brick and Mortar Business to help you and yours. And you guys, this is the real stuff, the nitty-gritty in real-time of what's going on. So come on over to the Rebel Women Tribe on Facebook. I can't wait to meet you.