Dr Rob Conenello has always had the mantra, ‘Do Great Things’, and after overcoming Stage 4 Throat Cancer, where he was only given a 20% survival rate, he chose not to let statistics get in the way of his ambitions to live a full life with his young family and to pursue his podiatry career and goals. He has gone on to ‘Do Great Things’ himself and encourages others to do the same.
Dr Rob Conenello is a sports podiatrist and owner of Orangetown Podiatry, New York.
He is the Global Clinical Advisor at Special Olympics International and is a Past President of the American Academy of Podiatric Sports Medicine. He is also an Honorary Surgeon for the New York Police Department.
In this episode, we discuss:
- What he has learnt from other podiatrists (Doug Ritchie, Richard Blake, Ivan Bristow, Simon Bartold, Mike Donato, and others).
- Starting as a volunteer and working his way through the state, national and internal levels of sports medicine.
- Getting nervous before speaking (even on podcasts).
- Orthotics is not sports podiatry.
- Learning from retailers (shoe stores), physical therapists, and athletic events.
- You can’t do everything in podiatry, so instead, focus on what brings you joy and happiness.
- It’s okay to say NO to certain things; one of the first things he said NO to was surgery.
- Helping athletes reach their goals.
- There’s Riches in Niches.
- Aim to be the best, and don’t set your goal to be average.
- DO GREAT THINGS.
- Associating with positive podiatrists and avoiding time with negative ones.
- Building Relationships = Communication & Trust.
- Book by Arnold Schwarzenegger – BE USEFUL
“There should be a war on average.” – Dr Rob Conenello.
If you have any questions about this episode, you can contact me at tyson@podiatrylegends.com
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Full Transcript
[00:00:00] Hi, I’m Tyson Franklin and welcome to this week’s episode of the Podiatry Legends Podcast. With me today is another legend. I have Rob Conenello. He is a sports podiatrist and owner of Orangetown Podiatry in New York. So Dr. Rob, how are you doing today? Hey Tyson, great to be here. Thank you for having me.
[00:00:19] And you’re also past president of the American Academy of Podiatric Sports Medicine, and you were mentioning how many past presidents I’ve actually had on the podcast. Yeah, I’ve been really lucky to have mentors like that come before me, and then we’ve had a few that came after me.
[00:00:33] So, we’re this little club, we kind of get to talk to each other and lean on each other all the time, which is really cool. It’s really nice that you were able to put us on there, so. After we finish our presidency where we still feel somewhat important. So what’s the term? Is it only 12 months or is it two years?
[00:00:50] A 12 month term as president, but you’re part of the board and you’re on the board for a few years, about five years, so you work your way up and by the time you’re president, and then you become past president, immediate [00:01:00] past president, you really don’t have much to do, everyone else before you is doing all the work, you just get going.
[00:01:05] And then you send it out to pasture? Pasture. Yeah. It’s good luck.
[00:01:10] Well, it’s a good way though of keeping it fresh and turning over. I’m part of this group in Cairns called the Business Liaison Association. I’m on the board and we pretty much bring industry and students together and we try and link them whether it’s in healthcare, trades and all these different areas.
[00:01:27] We run a pile of different events through Cairns, throughout the whole year. But the person that started it has been the president for the past 30 years. You want it to become something that you learn from each other.
[00:01:38] You get some new blood come in, teach you some new things. If you don’t like it, you’re on your way out, which is okay. Yeah. Well, the thing is that the president started the whole thing and she’s just been there for the last 30 years, but it’s only now that people are saying there needs to be some form of succession plan where you come in, you work your way through to that position, and a certain point you’ve got to step down, [00:02:00] let the next person come in and I think it brings fresh ideas all the time too. It does. One good thing that’s kind of fun is that you do get to meet the people that came before you, but you’re also really a big part of who comes after you.
[00:02:12] So you can start finding talent. I was lucky enough to be picked by Dr. Doug Ritchie. who I guess met casually at a meeting, a few meetings over the years. And he just saw that I had this passion and he mentioned me to be part of it. And we’re good friends ever since. Hopefully I could touch someone else’s life and bring someone else in over time.
[00:02:33] Yeah. Well, Mike, the most recent past president, Mike Donato I caught up with him in Chicago in October last year. That was great. He’s full of energy. He sure is. He’s got that cool accent from Boston too. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It’s sort of, I always found the Boston accent intimidating. Yeah. They got great slang too, like wicked cool and things like that.
[00:02:58] I have the nasally New [00:03:00] Jersey accent, so there’s nothing cool about that. Well, it’s almost like their accent is very much, it’s like a no nonsense accent. When they talk to you, it’s like they mean business. That’s true. It’s quite funny. So let’s step back a bit. Always interested. What got you into podiatry in the first place?
[00:03:18] What directed you into this profession?
[00:03:21] Yeah. So growing up, I always knew I had this tendency of wanting to do something in, in medicine and had an older cousin who was a dentist and I thought he was cool. And I said, maybe I’ll be a dentist. And I remember going to visit. When I got into college, a few dentists and visited him, I’m like, holy man, I don’t want to do that at all.
[00:03:40] That’s not for me. For some people it wasn’t for me. Yeah. So that went along working in the medical clinic at the college, and I was a medical technician. I know that was kind of fun. Still didn’t know what I wanted to do yet, but clowning around with a few of my friends on the. Residence hall and we were wrestling and wound up breaking my [00:04:00] foot and my ankle.
[00:04:00] Pretty bad that I needed to get a surgery. And and I thought it was really neat and I said, well, the foot and ankle complex is pretty cool and I’ve always been an athlete myself. And I thought that was good. So I started looking more into that and then I was exposed to. Dr. John McNerney in the tri state area in New Jersey, and he was the team doctor for, at the time, the New York Giants, and the New Jersey Nets, and the New Jersey Devils, and he was really kind of the first guy I came across and, That talked to me about, like, not just what it was, but why it was. This is why you get shin splints. This is why you get Achilles tendonitis. Not just what it is and how you treat it. So, I really like that idea to try to be in, like, a super sleuth to try to figure things out and try to give people strategies to figure out how to get themselves better and get to their goals.
[00:04:46] So that was the sort of entry into , podiatry itself. Then what directed you more towards the sports side of things? Yeah. Like what I, I graduated podiatry school in 1990. [00:05:00] We, we were exposed to everything. Right. And and we were taught that pretty much at the time that, if you want to be the elite, you want to get really good, you have to be a surgical resident.
[00:05:11] So everyone’s striving to be a surgical resident. So I got my surgical residency and. I got trained really well and and that’s what I was doing and I did it for so many years, but always had this in my background that I wanted to do more. I wanted to inform biomechanics a little bit more too.
[00:05:28] So I kept seeking out people like Doug Ritchie and Rich Blake and others like them who understood mechanics a little bit more. I was also, , always been an athlete myself, ran marathons, triathlons. But I really, I was drawn at one point in time to work with Special Olympics and Special Olympics, I started off as just a volunteer and over time I kept getting asked to do more because I was willing to do more and they said, Hey, you’d be really good at the state level.
[00:05:57] You want to do that? I’m like, all right, sure. Hey, you’d be [00:06:00] really good at the national level. You want to do that? I’m like, all right. The next thing I know, I was the global clinical advisor for Special Olympics International. I’m And I was going across the world meeting sports medicine practitioners in every country.
[00:06:14] And what a great opportunity, and what a great opportunity to work with the most pure athletes around. They were just doing it for the love of the sport. And willing to share their issues with us. And that was so cool. I’m still involved with Special Olympics to this day in our state level.
[00:06:29] But yeah, that was a great opportunity. And, along the way I got to meet people like Simon Bartold in Australia and Ivan Bristow in in England and just the people you meet are, it’s been so extraordinary. So I just kept moving forward and then I became the got asked by Doug to be on the sports medicine board and, I remember the first time, you’re on that board, you have to make, one of the things you have to do is that you have to give a lecture, like if you give a lecture to the student or wherever you went, and I was so nervous. [00:07:00] And I look back at that now and I still get nervous. I get nervous when I come on even these podcasts sometimes, but I’ve now given thousands of lectures and and it’s fun.
[00:07:11] It’s fun. It’s who cares if you make a mistake. That’s true. It’s not so bad. I think, the other thing I also learned about too is that once you get in front of that podium, you’re the expert, people look to you, and I can remember like that first lecture. I mean, I gave it to a bunch of students.
[00:07:29] I was so nervous after I finished. I said, I have to run to the men’s room. And some guys follow me to the urinal, they ask me a question, and I’m like I guess I’m the expert now. So, I, along the way too, I had the opportunity to go to the Sahara desert and do the racing the planet races in the Sahara.
[00:07:47] And I had never been camping a day in my life. And here I was camping in the middle of the Sahara, working with experts in sports medicine from many different countries. And learning from them, and [00:08:00] so it’s just give me such a great opportunity to, take risks and challenges and do more than expected.
[00:08:06] So it’s been really a fun ride for the last 33 years.
[00:08:09] What I think is amazing is all the names that you mentioned. Well, what I like about that, they’ve all been on the podcast. Oh, that’s cool. So to me, it means I’m actually getting all the cool podiatrists on here, which is great. And it’s quite funny, there’s this small group of podiatrists that sort of bag the podcast a little bit, who say, we would never go on the Podiatry Legends Podcast.
[00:08:30] It’s no good. And I’m like, yeah, no, but all the good podiatrists do come on. So that is fantastic. Hey, I just want to step back a bit.
[00:08:39] When you were at university, there was a big surgical aspect to it with your residency . Was there much talk about sports podiatry at the university level, or is it really something that once you finish, you take on that interest yourself?
[00:08:55] Great question. There was really not much of anything, maybe like [00:09:00] a couple of days, talking about what it is. And back then sports podiatry was orthotics. And people would put it on their card. I’m a sports podiatrist, basically because they gave out orthotics. And I was like, that’s not sports podiatry.
[00:09:15] I mean, sports podiatry is so much more, right? But so a lot of it you really had to get on your own. So, as a young doc, I said, all right, I want to learn more. So I said, I’m not going to learn just from podiatrists.
[00:09:27] I wanted to learn from physical therapists. I spent time with them. I wanted to learn from retailers. I spent time in shoe stores and volunteered my time in shoe stores. I understand what people wanted. I went to athletic training events and I sat to sideline of sporting events. I would give free screenings whenever I could give free screenings of anything I did know.
[00:09:47] And over time you start learning by doing and learning from others. It’s been terrific, especially in the world of, say, physiotherapy, that I can talk to talk now with them. I understand [00:10:00] what they want, because that’s kind of what, like, a lot of physiotherapists want. They want to understand that you understand and appreciate them as well, and then you form this great team together.
[00:10:09] So that’s been terrific as well.
[00:10:12] Yeah, that was just the feeling I got when I spoke to Mike as well, that at university level it’s not a lot of emphasis is put on that. Whereas in Australia, when we go through, there’s a lot of emphasis is on biomechanics and the sporting side of it. So if you have a real interest in that area, it’s something you actually come out knowing that’s what I want to sort of pursue those interests a little bit more, but we don’t put much emphasis on the surgery side of things.
[00:10:39] Yeah, it’s very interesting too, like when young students come to my practice, they’re like, What is this stuff that you’re doing? They have no idea what I’m doing, it’s kind of interesting that, they could screw any bone around, but they don’t know how to do certain things that seem quite simple in a day to day practice.
[00:10:59] So you’re [00:11:00] saying at college level, you were an athlete. What’s your sport of choice now? Because I noticed in the background, I can see an American football helmet and the Super Bowl. Super Bowl was only on the other day and I see a basketball. So what’s your sport? What’s your favorite sport at the moment?
[00:11:16] My favorite sport at the moment right now is probably cycling. Yeah, I like cycling. I do like running. I don’t do any of it all that well, but I’m a proud back of the packer. Like 60 years old or soon to be 60 years old. It’s trying to do the best you can but younger I played lacrosse.
[00:11:30] I don’t know if you know what lacrosse is. Yeah. So I played that, I played soccer, and I wrestled today, I’m just trying to stay in the game and do little things to keep me going. So I did my little workout on Peloton before I got on this, which was fun. Oh, no, but it’s good to get the blood pumping before you come on here.
[00:11:47] Out of curiosity, because the Super Bowl was on just the other day. So I was going for Kansas City, not because I’m a Swifty. But What’s a Swifty? [00:12:00] Oh, Taylor Swift. Cause Taylor Swift is the girl from Oh, okay. Yeah. Sorry. Went over my head. It was kind of funny, I was thinking about it. It’s kind of sad, in fact, that we’ve become this like World or country of spectators watching this sport.
[00:12:15] And then we became spectators watching a spectator because as spectators were watching Taylor Swift to watch the game. Yeah. And that was the whole, and like
[00:12:27] I know I saw, I was watching, a different sport, but they were talking about the Super Bowl and they were saying, so what you are thinking when every now and then when something great was happening with Kansas City, it kept going over to Taylor Swift and one of the other guys was going, I know that’s just how we live these days.
[00:12:47] But I didn’t watch the Super Bowl. To watch Taylor Swift and they were getting really frustrated with it. Yeah, I think a lot of people were rooting against Kansas City because of that. Because of Taylor [00:13:00] Swift. It was good for NFL because it brought a lot of chatter and probably a lot of money.
[00:13:05] 123 million I think it was televised. The poor guy that dropped the ball, when they did the punt from the 49ers, one job to do, catch the ball. And then he’s probably practiced it a thousand times, and they’ve said to him, pretend it’s the Super Bowl, the ball’s been kicked, all you gotta do is step it, catch that ball, run it back, get us in good position, we’ll take it from there.
[00:13:28] And he dropped the ball. And that’s what he’s going to be remembered for, unfortunately, but And then they scored straight after that too, they got a touchdown straight from that kick. And I thought, well, you know what, if the 49ers end up winning, which it looked like they were going to at one stage, then everyone would have gone, hey, don’t worry about it, the coach would have put his arm around and said, don’t worry about it, things like that happen, but we’re still on the Super Bowl, you’ve got to ring.
[00:13:52] It’s great. I feel so sorry for the poor guy.
[00:13:57] It was terrible. Anyway, let’s get back [00:14:00] onto your story, not the Superbowl. One of the other things you had in your bio, which I thought was interesting, is Honorary Surgeon for the New York Police Department. Now, There must be some perks on it. Do you get off of parking tickets and all that.
[00:14:13] You can just do what you want. So how’s that? How’s that all work? It’s not as bad that, they make you an inspector so you have rank, which is kind of interesting. Yeah. And you have a shield and the whole thing. But I try not to use it too much. Although I take care of a lot of the fellows on and ladies on the force.
[00:14:31] They’re like, you should use that. And I’m like, nah, that’s okay. But I did use it one time when kids were younger. I wanted to go to the Macy’s Day Parade. I got to get up a little closer with them. So I looked like a hero to my kids at the time. But I don’t use it all that much. So you actually have a badge.
[00:14:45] You have an official badge that you can just flash and walk into places. How did that come about? What was the story behind actually working your way into that? It’s an interesting story and it’s made me [00:15:00] think about today because it was a day where I was in clinic. And it was a blizzard that day, just became, it started to snow so bad, we had snow here today, so I thought of it, and I decided, like I said, my staff home, I didn’t want them to, be in danger, so go home, don’t worry about it, I’ll be here, I’ll close up and take care of things, and then out of nowhere, this guy walks limping in and he’s like, Hey, are you open?
[00:15:24] And I’m like I guess so. What’s going on? He goes, I got a problem. So he came on in and showed me his foot and a lot of discomfort and we fixed him up and he was so appreciative. And he goes, what do I owe you? I said, honestly, I don’t even know how to do this stuff. I don’t know how to run the front of the office.
[00:15:41] I said, just come back another time and talk to the staff. It is what it is. Don’t worry about it. You’re sure? I’m like, yeah, I, I trust you, whatever it is. I’m glad to get up. So, he comes back like, like three days later and he goes, Hey, so until I doc, thank you so much. One of this guy was one of the chiefs of police of NY, of the NYPD.[00:16:00]
[00:16:00] He goes, I want to put him up to Dr. B. Police Surgeon for the NYPD. I’m like, really? And he goes, yeah, so went down there and they had to be interviewed and fingerprinted and the whole thing and I became it, which is pretty interesting. How many years ago was that? That was probably about 14 years ago.
[00:16:24] So I’ve got a question then about the, because we watch all these TV shows about New York Police Department and they look like this really close knit, tight, almost like family. Is that actually the truth? What it’s like? Behind closed doors. Yeah, it’s it can be a bit gritty to be quite honest too, it’s a tough place.
[00:16:41] It’s multi. It’s very diverse, yeah group. But they do have this brotherhood and they do like, look out for each other and they have to, because it’s a big place with a lot of bad people out there too. So, wanna keep them going. That was kind of funny, like, not funny, but interesting, like when Covid went, was happening and everything was shut down.[00:17:00]
[00:17:00] I was busy because I was still seeing lots of policemen and firemen and people who had to keep going and help others. So I kept busy doing that. So are you actually doing this for the fire department as well? Not for the fire department, but they’re all buddies.
[00:17:15] So they kind of, say, Hey, go see this guy. He’s not half bad. Now, I remember reading an article written by a psychologist and they were talking about post traumatic stress disorder. Yeah. With people returning back from military service and they were trying to do all these studies and they mentioned something about in this study, the closest they could come to studying people who hadn’t gone overseas to do it yet was the New York Police Department.
[00:17:43] Oh yeah, there you go. They said them going every day when they go out on the street, they don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s not like, it’s not like being a police officer here in Cairns where I live. Yeah, shit can happen, but it’s unlikely. Right, absolutely. Yeah, it’s a big place and [00:18:00] there’s some places that are more dangerous than others, but They do a great job trying to keep it together.
[00:18:04] I give them a lot of credit. I wouldn’t want the job. No, I wouldn’t want it either.
[00:18:09] So one of the things prior to jumping on here, I’ll ask you if there was anything in particular you wanted to talk about. And I like what you wrote down where you said that practitioners, especially young ones, need to learn that you don’t need to do it all.
[00:18:24] What did you mean by that?
[00:18:25] Yeah. And I think, when we are young doctors, we’re taught to do it all and we should know how to do it all right. You have to be able to understand all the different things, but as you continue to go on in your career and your practice, you start realising that if you spread yourself out too much, you spread yourself too thin and you’re never going to be.
[00:18:46] Great at anything. You’re gonna be a jack of all trades and a master of none, so you really wanna be the person who wants to figure out what those one, those couple things are. That one thing. There’s a book out called The One Thing [00:19:00] by a Gary Keller, great book, and he talks about, figuring out your one thing, go right here.
[00:19:06] There we go. The one thing I did a book review on it on the podcast with my friend Carly O’Donoghue and fantastic book. That’s really funny. But I love that, but that book kind of struck to me and I didn’t really kind of realise this until maybe about five years ago, because I was trying to do it all.
[00:19:25] I was doing surgeries and I was taking care of seniors and wound care and babies and sports medicine and everything in between. And you can’t be good at everything. You just can’t. And I was starting to realise that, and I became very empowered when I realised that it’s okay to say no, it’s okay to say no to certain things.
[00:19:52] At first, I was a little intimidated by that because the first thing I said no to, and that was probably about three years ago now, is that I [00:20:00] was no longer going to do surgery, even though I was well trained and I thought I did a pretty good job at it. I wasn’t going to do it anymore because, I wanted to focus on the things that really brought me joy and made me happy.
[00:20:13] And I really enjoyed doing more of the non surgical things, to be quite honest. I remember that too. Like I used to ride a motorcycle and and then. I wound up cracking it up a couple of times and I wasn’t riding it. I was only riding it on the weekends or every other weekend. And I started saying, you know what, I’m not getting good at it.
[00:20:32] If I don’t do it all the time, I’m not going to be good at it. I stopped riding the motorcycle. So you started realising you gotta focus and really find the things that you want to do and you have passion for, and that’s okay. I think, and I wrote it down in that book. He writes, what is the one thing I can do such that by doing it, everything else will become easier or unnecessary?
[00:20:53] What is the most important thing, right? And it’s, and for me, it was helping athletes reach their [00:21:00] goals. And however it is and sometimes the goals might be surgery, and I decided I’m gonna find someone else who’s better at surgery than me and bring that patient there. And I gotta tell you, patients are so appreciative of that if you can be their quarterback and get them to where they need to be they really appreciate that.
[00:21:19] And it gives you returns in the long run which is great. And I also realised I never wanna sacrifice my personal life for my work life, and I was starting to do that too much because I was trying to do everything for everyone, so, I don’t know if you read about my past, but I had some bad medical issues, and I realised that, that’s the most important thing in life is being there for your family, so,
[00:21:41] yeah. You’d know Doc Dockery, of course. Yeah, doc. Yeah. And he’s been on the podcast as well. And he had a quote that I usually open up a lot of my talks whenever I’m doing a presentation. And he always says, yeah, learn like you’re gonna live forever, but live like you’re gonna die tomorrow.
[00:21:59] [00:22:00] Absolutely, and it’s just so important that you’ve got to live, you’ve got to live your life, but learn like you’re going to be around for a long time. Yeah. I was talking to a sports psychologist the other day, Dr. Rob Gilbert. He has a podcast that’s on every day called Success Hotline.
[00:22:17] And he was saying that in the niches is the riches. Yeah. So if you find those little things that you’re, you like and you’re good at, you’ll get riches in more ways than one. And I say that all the time. I’m always talking about, I have these five stages that you go through. Once again, it’s one of my talks and I’ve got a webinar at the moment.
[00:22:38] And I sort of mentioned this as well, that. When we’re all, like students at one stage, and then we’re graduates, but then at a certain point, step number three, we become what I call a frustrated clinician. And , it could happen in the first week, or it could happen in your fifth year, but at some stage you become a frustrated clinician.
[00:22:56] Step five is having a thriving podiatry career, whether it’s your [00:23:00] business, employee, doesn’t matter what it is, but you will never go from three to five until you become a happy podiatrist. And the only way you become a happy podiatrist is to do more of what you love and less of what you don’t like. And finding your niche is part of that love is finding what, like, if you really like sports medicine, and you can put 80 percent of your time into that, maybe 20 percent into other areas, you’re going to be a happy camper.
[00:23:26] That the Pareto philosophy, right? Yes! I totally believe that, and that’s, what’s so good about like you doing something like this podcast because first of all, I think it’s funny. I look over your shoulder. I see Podiatry Legends and I’m like, I’m hardly a legend. I’ve never, the smartest guy in the room.
[00:23:42] But I think I’m a guy who’s learned from time, but you’re offering all docs and especially the young docs mentors people or who could be coaches, people made mistakes, and learn from those mistakes and Kind of giving you like in that shortcut that [00:24:00] highway to get there instead of having to go and I’d cut the country road all the time to get there so I think that’s a big part of it too, is that I think the people who know the most, who have the most to offer are the ones who are the ones who give it the most.
[00:24:15] Yeah. Guys like Doug Richie, he didn’t owe me anything, but I asked him questions. He would always answer his phone, he would always be willing to teach me new things and I’ve come along so many different people like that in my life and the ones who definitely are the, have the most to give, to give it back.
[00:24:34] So, yeah, so thank you for what you do and offering us an easy way for people to see it. No, thanks. It’s really funny. Only yesterday I got five emails or messages in one day. It’s most I’ve ever had in one day. I’ll be just random podiatrists thanking me about the podcast. And some days you have times where you go, Oh, does anyone really care about this podcast? Right? No [00:25:00] no, it’s good. I mean, it was, I forget what your podcast was on at one time.
[00:25:03] I was listening to it and I’m like, I got to tell this guy. Thanks, man. Cause that’s good. I’m glad he’s putting it out there. I can’t tell you, like, I, I have some great friends who I think the world of, but sometimes all they want to do is complain. They want to complain about, uh, this is bad about the job.
[00:25:20] And this is bad about the profession. And this is going nowhere. I’m like, figure out what you love, man. And we’ll get out, stop complaining, and make yourself happy. I think when it’s all said and done and I finally. Either decide to retire or whatever. I’m going to be really sad when it’s over.
[00:25:36] I’m not gonna be glad when it’s over. Yeah, that’s how it should be. It’s like a good movie. Right. And I feel like it’s been a movie for me and all the different things that’s happened in my life, the ups and downs it’s, I want it to keep going, I want it to be, season eight, season 10.
[00:25:53] Well, I’m reading Arnold Schwarzenegger’s latest book. I can’t remember the title. When I do the outro on this [00:26:00] podcast episode, when I do my final take at the end, I’ll tell around the title of Arnie’s book. And, but he’s saying everything you just said is the part I only read yesterday and he’s just talking about if you’re going to do something, just give it your all. Don’t give it this half assed attempt. Oh, I’m going to be a podiatrist and just wallow your way through your career. He said, get in there and set the goal that you want to be the greatest podiatrist you possibly can be.
[00:26:33] And you give it absolutely everything. So at the end of the day, You can look back and just go, I couldn’t have given anything more. Yeah. If you know me you know that I have a mantra. My mantra is Do Great Things.
[00:26:47] It’s on the bottom of everything I write. I wear bracelets that say do great things. Oh, I like that. Yeah, something I’ve taught my kids and and I think, and my kids said to me when they were little, like, what does that mean? Do great [00:27:00] things. Whatever you do in life, do it with all your heart, with all your soul.
[00:27:02] Let people remember who you were. Remember that you were there, I think that’s so, so important. So, part of my story is I’m a stage four cancer survivor. And I remember, like, when I had to come home and tell my kids, and I get a little choked up when I tell this story. Yeah. We came home and told the kids, hey, listen, dad’s got something bad.
[00:27:24] I didn’t want to tell them at the time, but they told me I had 20 percent survival rate. How old were they at the time? They, it was nine years ago, so they were like 13 and 10 and 8. Oh yeah, okay. And we’re sitting on the floor, and I tell him like, look, dad’s going to try to get through this, he’s a little sick, we’re going to figure it out and we didn’t want to scare him too much, but at one point in time, one of my sons just stood up and he put his hand on my shoulder and he said, it’s time to do great things.
[00:27:53] I was like, holy cow, you’ve been listening. So, that’s cool. It was really cool. It’s to me, like I say things, [00:28:00] it’s like a movie. It reminds me of like when when, and Rocky, , when Adrian says win, when he wakes up and when she was sick and I was like, yeah, win. So I knew at that time it was my time to do great things and and learn about like life is about others and gratitude and to keep on going, and no matter what it takes. So you’re right. Instead of complaining about things. Learn from it, embrace it enjoy it and go from there, so. No and so, and you’re totally clear now, everything’s good ? Yeah, I’m totally good, I have nothing to complain about, life is good, so we’re going to keep on moving forward.
[00:28:32] I don’t even think about it anymore. Anyway, sometimes I wonder if it was even me, yeah. Seems like it was like a, almost someone else that it happened to. But I just think it’s such a positive way to look at things, do great things. Because like you said, I know a lot of podiatrists that are good podiatrists, and some of them are negative.
[00:28:50] They just, when they open their mouth, it’s just, nothing, you don’t feel good. After hanging around them. And it’s funny that podiatry [00:29:00] in different countries have a different sort of attitude as well. Like, I always find podiatrists in America really uplifting. I don’t know if it’s just the ones that I’ve associated with, but I always find them extremely uplifting.
[00:29:15] Yeah, I mean, well, you gotta hang out with some of the ones I know, because they’re not all like that, but, oh, don’t hang around them. They could bring you down, but I actually told some of them, I said, listen, if we’re gonna do this every day, we’re not gonna be able to be friends anymore, for a while, we can’t talk.
[00:29:30] Yeah. negativity out of my life now too, because I want to move forward and find the things that gave you joy and passion and go from there. Yeah. I think it’s really put like when I was in the States last year, I caught up with Patrick McEneany. And he’s been on the podcast a number of times in Remy Statkus and Pete Lovato. . So I caught up with them all in Chicago and we went to the Chicago Bears game. And these guys are just so good to be around. [00:30:00] You spend just a couple of hours with them and you walk away just going, Oh, the profession needs to, everyone needs to be like that.
[00:30:09] Just have this really positive attitude towards what they’re doing. Yeah, absolutely. And that’s kind of like you, you mentioned before about the American Academy of Sports Medicine. That’s kind of like a lot of the people in that are real positive. And that’s. And that’s why I enjoy being part of that as well. And you got here, you said that when we’re talking about younger podiatrists, you know, they don’t need to do everything and you said focus on three things that brings you satisfaction. What, any three things, or do you have three suggestions that you reckon they should focus on, or they’re just going to find their niche and then three things within that niche that they really want to do more, learn more about.
[00:30:47] Yeah, it’s kind of like that 80 20 rule, right? 80 20, 20 percent of the stuff is what brings you the joy, and then you can zone back into a little bit more. What’s 20 percent of the 20%? So for me I like doing [00:31:00] regenerative medicine. We do a lot with shockwave therapy.
[00:31:03] I find it to be great with my athletes because it winds up not being therapy, but a cure. That’s been terrific. I also, started work utilizing microwave energy to take care of HPV lesions and I was like fortunate enough to write the first U. S. paper on that. That’s been a lot of fun.
[00:31:23] And I like working with the, with special populations. So with the Special Olympics and all. So, those things together have been really great for me. That’s, those are my three things. It’s just been a good ride. It’s been a great ride. And if find those things that bring you joy, it’s going to make you have a happier day.
[00:31:40] And listen, I have some bad days too, but you know, I want to focus on the positive. I know, but I used to say that to Podiatrists as well, like, My clinic was focused on sports, biomechanics and orthotics. And I’d say, I used to say about 80 percent of our time was all spent on that and 20 percent was just routine foot care.[00:32:00]
[00:32:01] And then when I looked at the figures deeper and I found out it was actually 70 30. But another clinic that we’d set up in Mackay, about 500 miles away, 800 kilometers, it was just 100 percent sports, biomechanics, orthotics.
[00:32:15] We didn’t even have any instruments, so therefore we couldn’t do any routine foot care. Yes. And that was a great place to work, but it still didn’t mean you didn’t have patients that tested your attitude sometimes.
[00:32:29] Like, we don’t do as much routine foot care anymore here in the practice. And this woman came in the other day and she was like this tough lady from the Bronx.
[00:32:38] And she’s like, Hey, cut my toenails. You know when to accent. Yeah, Yeah. I’m like, I don’t do that, ma’am. I’m sorry. She goes, well, what do you do? And I was like, wow. I say, well, if you have to ask that, you shouldn’t be here. You’re in the wrong place. But I wound up cutting her toenails.
[00:32:56] She’s scared to doing it. [00:33:00] But I said, listen, we don’t do this anymore. I could recommend someone else who could do a better job than I can do. But anyway, the funny thing was, is that she goes, well, tell me what you do. He was like kind of tough. I told her what I do. And I say, we do a lot of this regenerative medicine to take care of overuse injuries.
[00:33:14] And she goes, I play pickleball. And she goes, my Achilles is killing me. Will you do that shockwave therapy for me? I’m like, absolutely. So I cut her toenails, but she’s now a shockwave patient. So sometimes just explaining what you do to people and, next thing you know, you got a patient, that’s what, I’ve noticed in 33 years, it’s all about building relationships, right?
[00:33:36] Definitely. Relationships are built on communication and trust, so once you explain to them the things that you do, and why you do them, and why you’re passionate about them, they’ll trust you, I think patients care less about what you know, but how much you care about them. And if you show that you really care about getting them to where they want to be they’ll sign in for you.
[00:33:56] No, I agree. I agree 100%. And [00:34:00] that’s something that I tell people who may have a clinic that where they might be working somewhere and it’s predominantly routine foot care. It’s just the job they’ve taken and they may not be enjoying it. But I said, all you do is ask every routine patient that sits in front of you out of curiosity, what do your feet like when you get out of bed in the morning?
[00:34:18] Yeah. Yeah. Just that one simple question will open up the conversation of, you’ll be surprised how many of them tell you, Oh, my feet can kill me in the morning. And then that’s a conversation where you go, Oh, did you know, and you can start educating them once you educate them. I said, you’ll be booking them back in for other types of treatment, not just routine foot care.
[00:34:38] It’s such a simple question. Yeah. And that, that, that’s a great question. And how I start every patient that comes and see me, I always tell them, tell me your story. Because everyone’s got a story and everyone wants to tell you a story. And once you start and don’t interrupt them. Don’t interrupt them until they stop talking.
[00:34:56] Sometimes, you go a little bit too long, but, once they stop, that’s [00:35:00] when you find your place. And I noticed that with, like, a lot of the young practitioners and clinicians they’re too quick to get to where they want to be, they’ll read on the form, reason for visit, oh plantar fasciitis, how long have you had plantar fasciitis, how do you know she has plantar fasciitis, because she figured it out from WebMD, talk to her, maybe she has a stress fracture, maybe she has something different, don’t just assume, so let them tell their story so you could, Develop that relationship.
[00:35:24] Yeah that’s really good advice. I remember the head of the podiatry department at QUT in Brisbane Alan Crawford, we should just call him Crackers. And he, I don’t think he listens to the show and, but I remember him saying. If you ask the patient enough questions, they will tell you everything you need to know.
[00:35:47] He says, do not dive in with your assumptions too early, or you’re going to, you’re going to miss so much and you’ll make a bad diagnosis. And that was something that just stuck in my head. Probably he had probably slapped [00:36:00] me a few times, telling me, reminding me, but that was one thing that stuck in my head when I graduated that ask really good questions.
[00:36:07] Just keep asking really good questions and let them talk and you get all the answers. Yeah. I mean, I, at a personal level, I can tell you how it had affected me. Before I had my throat cancer, my stage four throat cancer, I was diagnosed with something called glossopharyngeal neuralgia, which was an issue with the ninth cranial nerve.
[00:36:29] And I went to my, the neuro neurosurgeon and he, you need surgery. So we did, they did brain surgery on me a year and a half beforehand. And And I never really got much better. I got a little better, but not great. And I kept going back to him and telling him, Hey, I don’t feel right. He wasn’t, he kept saying, I think everything’s fine.
[00:36:49] Maybe you got to go somewhere else. So I kept going to different docs and the long and short of it was that He missed the diagnosis. Yeah. And as a matter of fact, there’s a book [00:37:00] right here that I keep back there called Cognitive Dominance. He wrote that book and he came to me and he said, Hey, I want to write a book and it became a New York Times bestseller and I put your story in it.
[00:37:10] And He goes, but I want to ask you one other thing. I go, what? He goes, I want to ask you for your forgiveness because I did unneeded brain surgery on you. At the time we were having dinner and I said, well, that’s kind of heavy over appetizers. I said, what did you? What did you learn from it? And he learned that he said, don’t let the patient lead you to where it have to be, and think of the 10 other things that could be, look for the zebras, right?
[00:37:36] When you hear the hoofs and it’s such an important piece that I’ll never forget that. And and you know what? Even though it was a crappy thing to have to go through, it was probably one of the most important things that happened in my life, because it made me see things in a different way as well.
[00:37:51] But it is, it’s one of those things, they always say, well, it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger. But sometimes there can be some real adversity in people’s lives and you can [00:38:00] either choose to use it as a positive. Yeah, totally. Or you can use it and go poor me, life is unfair, and I just accepted really early, my mum told me this, life is unfair, suck it up, and just move on, just get on with it, it’s just the way it is, she told me this when I was about 10, life is unfair, the earlier you work that out, then you’ll just move through it, don’t wallow in your misery.
[00:38:24] Yes. What’s Tom Hopkins, his quote is, I’m not judged by the number of times I fail, but by the number of times I succeed. And then a number of times I succeed is in direct proportion to the number of times I fail and keep on trying. So you gotta make mistakes. But you’re not judged by them.
[00:38:45] You’re judged by how you learn from those mistakes. Yeah, and that’s from the Rocky movie too, is it doesn’t matter how many times you get hit, it’s how many times you get back up. Yeah, that’s right. But you got to do it with the Sylvester Stallone accent. I mean. Yeah, I can’t do that. I have seen that.
[00:38:56] I have seen the Sylvester. I’ve got, I went to Philadelphia. I ran up the [00:39:00] steps, did the usual thing. Yeah. And the music going in your head. But it’s funny how you said, like on the bracelet, you got do great things. And it was the same as like the necklace that I have around my neck. All the time. I had it for, I can’t remember how long I’ve had it for, but one of the things I was always going to get engraved on it was just the number one.
[00:39:20] Okay. It was always something I was going to do. So now, after this, I’m going to go and make sure I do it. And the reason I wanted number one there was because every time I look at this thing, because I keep imaging, I, Visualizing that there is a one on there, is every time I did anything, or no matter what I did, I always wanted to be number one.
[00:39:40] Ah, there you go. And I wanted to get it engraved backwards, so when I see it in the mirror, I actually see the one. It wasn’t for everybody else, it was for me. But everything I’ve ever done, didn’t matter whether I played, whether I was playing rugby league, or rugby union, or doing athletics, volleyball, it didn’t matter what my goal was to be number one.
[00:39:59] What [00:40:00] did mean always was. But that was always my goal to just push myself to be the best that I can doesn’t mean you always will be but if you don’t push for it, you’re not gonna get there. Yeah, I think there should be like a war against average. Oh, yeah Everyone wants to be just average, I don’t want to be average.
[00:40:19] I want to do more than expected I want to be remembered. I want to be an innovator, I think about like who’s the most innovative athlete of all time? And you might say, I don’t know, it’s Michael Jordan, or it’s, name whoever you want to name. Yeah. To me, it’s Nick Fosbury. Do you know who Dick Fosbury was?
[00:40:38] No. Dick Fosbury was the guy who came up with the Fosbury Flop. Okay, yeah, yep. And before his time, he was an engineering student. He decided, let me go backwards, change my center of gravity, and I could go higher and change it. Since he won the Olympics in 1968, No one’s ever done it any other way but that.
[00:40:58] So he was an innovator. He made a [00:41:00] difference. He left his mark. He did great things, I want to do great things, whatever it’s going to be. I don’t know what it is yet, but I keep trying. I’ve really enjoyed this conversation today. It’s got me all pumped up and anyone who’s listening to this, if you are not fired up right now after getting to this point in the podcast, you need to, give yourself an uppercut, go and take two Panadol and a lie down and then come back and listen to it again because you’ve obviously missed something. Yeah. I mean, there’s a, there’s so much good out there. We just got to go find it, and we have to find it in others.
[00:41:34] And that’s the key. And I think that’s what you’re doing. You bring it out in others and you want you. You help us tell stories, right? I think everyone I’ve listened to on your podcast, it’s about storytelling. And stories are told in the present about the past and hopefully remember in the future. So, I thank you for what you do.
[00:41:52] It’s been great. No, Rob, this has been absolutely fantastic. And I always say sometimes I feel really selfish when I do the podcast because I [00:42:00] get to do the interview live with you. Then I get to go back and I get to listen to it a second time when I’m doing the edit. . And then a lot of times I’ll listen to it again in the car, just after I’ve done the editing and I’ve released it just to make sure I haven’t stuffed something up, which I have done in the past.
[00:42:15] And so I feel really selfish that I get so much out of it myself. And we just said before, but yeah, you don’t want to be average. I think there’s an, there’s enough average podiatrists here that we don’t need anymore. Yeah. Everyone is just be a better, just be better than what they are. Do great things.
[00:42:32] And I say when you come to the States next time you come to New York, we’re going to get tattoos. You’re going to get a number one and I’m going to get the great things. I have no tattoos. However, I always said one day I’m going to get one. I just can’t find out what to get.
[00:42:45] So maybe the thing we’re actually, we’re going to be in New York City. December 2025. That’s the plan. All right. Excellent. We’ll work our way over there and then and then back to Philly for Christmas. So it should [00:43:00] be fun. Okay, Rob, I want to thank you for coming on the podcast, sharing your wisdom, your inspiration, sharing the whole do great things.
[00:43:09] This has been absolutely fantastic. So thank you very much. Thank you very much. It’s been a pleasure.