The Grass Is Always Greener? Only If You Make It That Way

Lessons Learned from Pro Sports, PT Clinics, Writing Books, and Health Tech

Jeremy Hall is a physical therapist and author working in digital health. His work spans clinical, operational, sales, and product domains to bridge the gap between clients/patients/athletes and practitioners in the health, wellness, and fitness space. He’s made several leaps in his career — pro sports training, authorship, startups, entrepreneurship, and more, and is passionate about simplifying the way practitioners engage and empower their patients/clients/athletes to pursue a healthy lifestyle. Below, he outlines more about his journey and challenges along the way, and the importance of perspective along an incredible career journey.

I took the circuitous path in my career — and it’s been amazing.

I’ve taken a pretty circuitous path in my career. Actually, I’ve taken a few circuitous paths. While I had a passion for learning about the human body and sharing that knowledge, I never had a master plan in mind other than finding opportunities to help people understand their bodies.

Following my passion landed me a job in professional baseball, led me to become a physical therapist, and enabled me to co-write two books about health and performance. It absolutely powered me throughout my career, but I learned that passion is something that can ebb and flow. It’s always there to draw from, but sometimes you look around at your job, or your environment, and that passion can be in short supply.

The thing is, at some point, every job becomes a job.

I did everything I could to work in pro sports, and then found myself spending a few years on 8-hour bus rides, eating Waffle House dinners, and working 7 days a week. I wanted to become a physical therapist, so I could keep working with athletes AND sleep in my own bed, and found that a seemingly endless schedule of treating and writing notes wasn’t much better. I transitioned into the health technology world and found I enjoyed sitting down to eat lunch and having some autonomy over my schedule, but it certainly has its own brand of stress and annoyance and work.

So while I’ve stayed true to my passion, and now feel like I’m doing work that can have a much broader impact, I realize that at least part of my career has been driven by thinking that “the grass is always greener” in some other job or career. Luckily it’s provided me with a wide range of skills and experience, but if I had it to do all over again, I’d tell myself that the grass isn’t necessarily greener…and it’s only as green as you make it.

What do I mean by this?

Let’s dive in.

Question 1 — What do I mean “grass is as green as you make it?”
Question 2 — Why is clinical training a great foundation without having to be your ultimate ending point?
Question 3 — What are some misconceptions I’ve learned to overcome along my journey?
Question 4 — What are some resources I’ve found that have helped me along my journey?

Question 1 — What do I mean “grass is as green as you make it?”

Opportunity may present itself, but 90% of the time you have to go create opportunity.

Your current job may not be where you want to spend the rest of your working life, but it can almost always serve to grow your skills and prepare you for the next phase of your career. It will require additional time and energy, but it’s about making an investment in yourself.

• There is always an opportunity to take on a project — identify an area of need, interest, or something you’re good at and determine how you can turn it into a project. If you can measure the impact of your efforts (quantify what changed) then you’ve got a resume bullet and an interview story to tell.
• There is always an opportunity to network — if you come in contact with other humans, you can make connections that serve you later in life. I volunteered to help train high school athletes after my clinic hours. I met another volunteer who just happened to be a Hall of Fame strength coach. He let me help co-write a book. It’s unlocked opportunities and connections I never could have gained on my own.
• There is always someone to learn from — if someone is doing the kind of work that you would like to do, or if someone seems genuinely happy doing something that you’re interested in, go learn from them. You can either pester them or you can offer your time, energy, and service (honestly you’ll probably need to do both), but trading those things for a practical learning experience is rarely a waste of time.

Question 2 — Why is clinical training a great foundation without having to be your ultimate ending point?

You may not ultimately become or stay a treating clinician, but don’t discount the value of the skills you learn from being in the trenches of clinical care.

Particularly if you want to work in health technology, being able to bring a clinical perspective into sales or working with customers and software engineers is invaluable to companies.

• Decision-Making — The clinical decision-making process that you hone in the clinic can easily translate into non-clinical roles. Evaluating and treating injuries and pathologies isn’t so different from diagnosing problems and planning processes and feedback loops (test — intervene — retest is pretty universal).
• Customer Service — A lot of people have customer service experience from their high school or college jobs. Not a lot of people have customer service experience with the range of people and situations that clinicians face. The active listening, mirroring, and educational skills that every good clinician should have work even better on people who aren’t ill or actively in pain.
• Keeping it Real — When you gain time in the clinical world, you gain perspective on the real-life struggles and challenges that clinicians and patients face. More technology companies are hiring clinicians to help solve those problems, but there are still way more people working in those companies who don’t have first-hand experience around those problems. Your experience is valuable, but your ability to articulate your perspective is what will set you apart.

Question 3 — What are some misconceptions I’ve learned to overcome along my journey?

There are two big misconceptions that I had to overcome that I find are pretty consistent when I talk with other clinicians who changed their career path.

You are not your job — you get to decide how you define yourself. My recommendation — don’t define yourself by your job title, but by what it is you do.

I’ve had a bit of an identity crisis at each transition point in my career because I didn’t know how to define what I was. Once I wrapped my head around defining myself by the kind of problems I’m trying to solve (helping practitioners and patients achieve the best outcomes), all of my past work and experiences just became things that supported that mission.

Don’t let anyone convince you that choosing to take your career in a new direction means you’re throwing anything away.

A lot of people are threatened by change, and seeing someone going against the grain can bring up fears or inadequacies that they are personally dealing with — it’s rarely about YOU, so don’t take it personally.

And don’t get caught in the sunk cost fallacy — just because you’ve invested time, energy, and money in something doesn’t mean you should suffer if its no longer serving you. Past decisions should inform the next action you take, not dictate them.

No matter what direction you want to take your career, you can always leverage the opportunities that are around you to get your compass calibrated towards where you want to go. Define what you want to do, instead of what you want to be, and figure out how you can start doing some part of that where you are, with what you have available to you. Taking that approach alone will make the most of less than ideal work situations and accelerate the growth and development of your career. And in my experience, more often than not, it can open doors and reveal paths to follow that you never even knew existed.

Question 4 — What are some resources I’ve found that have helped me along my journey?

There’s a quote that goes “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” It helps to go find a tribe if you are going on a career journey.

• I’ve found The Non-Clinical PT and The Clinician Transition to be two really helpful networks/resources

LinkedIn is a criminally under-utilized platform for clinicians. It’s not just an online resume, its an opportunity to show your career highlights and engage with other professionals. It’s how I got my last two jobs and I’m always amazed at the openness of strangers to connect on there

Some other resources:

• Psychological + Communication Skills for Coaches and Clinicians — communicating effectively and connecting with others is a skill, and an important one if you’re trying to break into a new industry. I’ve always found Brett Bartholomew to be a great resource for practical advice on how to navigate challenges and change with patients/clients, coworkers, and yourself
• Datacamp — if you want to work in the health technology space, data literacy and basic data skills are becoming essential. You don’t need to know how to code, but if you can’t work spreadsheets or understand good vs. bad data, it’s going to be a struggle. Datacamp is a really affordable learning platform to get a foundation, plus its learning by doing which is also a huge help.

So yes, the grass can be greener — if you want it to be. The world is constantly changing, but you’re in control of your goals, perspective, and outlook. One final note — you’re never alone. Reach out if there’s anything else I can do to help you.

So, that dream job in your head? It may change. But whatever it changes to (and that’s ok) — you got this.

Interested in meeting other clinicians (and scientists!) who share your same interests, as well as learning more about startups in the healthcare space? Check out the “Careers in clinic (and beyond)” group as well as Next Degree — the next-gen healthcare job search designed to help you build a career you love, whether that’s in clinic — or beyond.