Rather than me saying, here's an answer. It's like, what if you discovered it when you figure something out for yourself? Do you ever forget it? Good morning. Happy Monday. I have no coffee in hand and it is perfect. All right. Looking forward to a great week. It's going to be a busy Monday, so we're going to dig straight into today's Q&A. Q&A today is with Vic, and Vic is a member of IFESTU, and so I've talked to him on several occasions, but he had a really, really good series of questions in regards to mentorship, and if you've followed anything that I've done in the past, you know that I'm a big fan of the mentorship apprenticeship model. In fact, I would consider it essential in the physical therapy, rehab, fitness industries. A lot of people are trying to get by on just explicit information, the stuff that you can write down or the stuff that you can talk about when the reality is this is an experiential profession that relies heavily on the tacit side of knowledge. And so again, the mentorship model becomes essential. So we talked about the value of mentors, when mentors are valuable and when they are not, the interference associated with your own biases, answering your own questions, embracing the struggle as we would say, developing your filters as to how you're going to process information and think critically. So again, really, really good questions from Vic. So I enjoyed this call a great deal. It's probably one of my favorites so far. And I think you'll find it valuable as well. If you would like to participate in a 15-minute consultation, go to askbillhartmanedgmail.com. Don't forget to go to the YouTube channel today and subscribe so you get those videos first and get notified on those as well. Have a great Monday and I will see you tomorrow.

We are recording and the clock has started, Vic. What is your question?

So this was born after I watch your video on the evolution of your own model. And so I know you've spoken about the value of mentorship in the past. So do you think that mentorship could provide interference in the natural evolution of one's model? And do you think that there's more value, or possibly more value, in the struggle of answering your own questions as opposed to maybe a mentor nudging you in one way or the other? And I know you do a really good job of this where you try to facilitate with questions, sometimes frustrating, but it really helps with the learning. Yeah, because normally, you know, normally you ask a question and then your answer is usually with a question, but there's so much value in that.

Well, yeah. So there's no doubt. There's no doubt. But you also have to recognize that when you're seeking out information, there are people that have better experience or more volume experience than you have. And that's where the value lies is that you can benefit from someone else's experience. And so I'm trying to think of the quote: knowledge is what you gain from your own experience, but wisdom is what you gain from someone else's experience. And so that's why you would seek out mentors. And you don't have to have one. In fact, nobody really has one. There are certain times in your personal or professional evolution where you're going to benefit from someone else's guidance. And then later on, it's going to be someone else that has this greater influence. And then there's that point where, yeah, it is just you and it is you trying to figure these things out. And then that's why you might go back to someone and you say, hey, what do you think about this? Give me your thoughts on this based on your experience. What do you think about this? And it doesn't mean that you immediately grab onto that advice like unfortunately many people do and they say, oh, this is the truth. It's like you really need to take it through your own filtering system. And so what the mentor is, is that filter for you because you're going to filter information through someone's experience and then you're going to filter it through someone else's experience. And then you're going to see what these outcomes are and you're going to say, well, based on what I'm doing, this might be the better path, or this might be the best way for me to understand this at this point, knowing full well that you should expect to change over time. Changing your mind is perfectly reasonable based on the information that you have available to you, based on the experiences that you've had. Case in point, I think I might have talked about this before. A while back, there was a Twitter argument that I was unfortunately exposed to. Somebody sent me a link and I followed it. And what it was was a strength and conditioning coach and a physical therapist having an argument on Twitter about return to play protocols. The strength coach had a very valid point and the physical therapist had a very valid point. They were both correct because they were looking at it from two totally different perspectives at two totally different times. And so that's one of those things that we have to recognize is like, everybody has a lens that they look through, filters that they process information through. And so, again, it's like, where are we in this time scale? There are multiple correct answers in complex situations. And so as the learner or the mentee, you can latch on to somebody.

But you have to recognize the fact that they are biased just like everyone else is, assuming they're human. Right, because we're all biased, whether you like it or not. It's one of those things that I constantly had to battle because I have a very, very strong perspective on certain things that can be interference with myself. I can slow myself down because I'm not willing to give up something because I get emotionally attached to ideas just like everybody else does. But at least I have the recognition that I get emotionally attached like everybody else does. And so always having that awareness as you go through this process. And so again, so there's going to be a point in time where somebody that's providing you some sort of value is going to be so important to you. And then they're not. And that's okay. It doesn't mean you're a bad person. It doesn't mean that you're allowed to disagree as well, because if you gain some measure of experience that person doesn't have, guess what? You now have another filter that they don't have available to them. And so maybe they, maybe at that point, they're holding you back.

One of the most valuable things is that you've talked about as kind of the principles as the filtering system. And so I work with someone who has a lot more experience than me a couple of days a week and they have a totally different perspective. But using that filtering system, I'm able to see the value and even how it fits within my model and how, oh yeah, they're saying essentially the same thing, they may be saying it a little bit differently, but the principle is the same. And so that's been really valuable to be able to kind of facilitate my thinking, my thought process and clinical judgment.

Well, if you can get to foundational principles or first principles, however you want to state that, then that is the answer. That's how you figure things out because we are behaving and interacting in an uncertain situation, especially like humans are complex, everybody while similar has their differences. And so we have to apply a principle and then that's how we make the next decision because we are dealing with uncertainty and we're playing probabilities at all times. All the time. Cause you don't know what the outcome is going to be because every outcome is possible at any time. Okay? All of them are possible. Different percentages are in play. Your job as you evolve as a professional or as a practitioner is to learn how to narrow the probabilities in your favor. But let's just say you've got an 82% chance of being successful with what you have decided is the appropriate action. And then there's an 18% probability against you. And guess what? It didn't work. So it fell into the 18. That's not your fault. And that doesn't mean that you made a bad decision because you made a principle based decision. It's just that something else that you can control or didn't account for interfered and shifted you into the low end of the probability scale. That's all. And that's a tough one to take because we emotionally invest in everything that we do. We want to help someone or we want to be successful too. Let's not take that off the table. It's like we have emotions too that we invest in these things and we want to be right. Everybody likes to be right because it feels good. But you have to understand that every time I interact with somebody, there are things that you don't account for. And we call that luck. And so luck really does exist. There was a long period of time where I said, where I was in denial about that, right? It's like, ah, ah, there can't be, there is luck, there is luck, but luck is just those things that either we can't see, we can't account for or just totally ignore that does interfere with the interaction.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So how do you, just to follow up on that, how do you like, what was your evolution of, I guess, your first principles? Is that kind of the, is it the same way? And like, when do you, is it continually evolving? Your first principles or do those not, those don't change?

By definition, first principles are non-contextual. They are absolute. So real simple: when you talk about my model and I say compression and expansion are absolute, it's like that is across the board universal. Then it's just a matter of like, okay, how does that principle apply in this context? So when I'm talking about humans and movement, it's like based on our structure, how do I follow that rule? And then it's just a matter of identifying things. And so then it becomes kind of interesting and then we can go after little bits and pieces of research that say, oh, when you do this, this is what happens based on our best understanding of how segments interact or structure or fluid mechanics or whatever it might be. But the principle is absolute. And so again, by definition, there is no next. Now, here's where you can run into trouble: it's like you can misidentify a principle.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Like, how do you know that there's not a pre-regression?

Right, in the end. So again, that's one of those situations where you go, oh, I have new information or I have better information. And now I need to rethink what I thought was the absolute. But that, again, over time, investment of experience, you're going to get closer and closer and closer to that concept. And the thing that you want to recognize is there shouldn't be that many. That was the thing that frustrated me because, you know, I'm 30 years in, you know, as far as, you know, professional level stuff. And it's like, everybody had all these different rules. And it's just, and then they were vague. And then there were like, like these nebulous concepts that didn't weren't well-defined. And it's just started to frustrate me. And it's like, okay, hang on. So let's take a big step back. And let's just say, what is the absolute? and then start there, then start to look back and say, okay, if this is the absolute principle, how does this apply in this situation? Because anytime you get frustrated or anytime you get lost, you fall back on those absolutes. It's like, how are they achieving this? What is the limiting factor? And then that's why you have to have some specialized knowledge. And you say, okay, I need to understand the respiratory system to a certain degree. I need to understand how we evolved embryologically. So I understand how the structure changes over time and influences what this is. And then we can start to take that specialized knowledge, apply it in a principled manner. And that's how we arrive at solutions. That's how you figure stuff out on the fly. That's how you become creative.

Right?

There are certain times when you're trying to figure something out and you literally make up an exercise on the spot. So those are the moments, and then it works. And then it's like, way to go me, right? You know, it's like, one of those, but, but see that, but that is the reason that you have to approach this from a principle based perspective.

Yeah. Yeah. What's that? That's how you figure this stuff out.

That's huge. I know.

What's that?

That's how you figure this stuff out.

Yeah because I know over the summer I had to ask you about the evolution of your model and how you stay prolific in terms of the content that you create, and you had indicated that you were always just creative. And part of that was that was where my questioning came from—where do you feel like you're in that struggle? That's the part of being in that struggle that helps facilitate that struggling with the failure, and I know you've talked about that. That is what, you know, creates or fosters that creativity.

Absolutely. Absolutely. The emotional investment is what consolidates the memory and the learning. And that's why it's important to struggle. Why do I answer people with questions?

To make them struggle to answer.

Absolutely. I don't do it to make people angry, but I need them to feel the frustration just a little bit, so they have to dig just a little bit deeper rather than me saying, here's an answer. It's like, what if you discovered it?

Yeah.

Just a little bit, so they have to dig just a little bit deeper rather than me saying, 'Here's an answer.' It's like, 'What if you discovered it?' When you figure something out for yourself, do you ever forget it? No, because there's this wave of whatever you wanna call it—it's a reward. It's like, you do something great for somebody, somebody says something nice about you, you always feel good about it, right? But it's that wave of emotion that locks it in. It's like, 'Oh, I nailed it.' And then again, it's a memory forever.

Yeah.

Right? It's like being in a car accident. You ever been in a car accident?

Yeah.

Yeah. You remember it?

Yeah.