Money, Happiness, and the Race You're Actually Running as a Clinic Owner Episode Overview

In this episode, Danny shares his favorite book of the year — The Art of Spending Money by Morgan Housel — and why it hit so hard as a cash-based business owner. He breaks down how money, attention, and expectations shape your happiness, why comparison quietly wrecks clinic owners, and how to use your business as a vehicle for the life you actually want instead of letting it become your whole identity.

Key Topics Covered

• Why money mindset is such a big problem in the PT profession
• Why Danny recommends Morgan Housel's books to clinic owners
• "May I Have Your Attention Please?" – how attention drives happiness
• The danger of comparing your clinic to someone else's revenue
• Context you never see behind other people's success
• "The Happiest People I Know" – business as vehicle vs. business as life
• Trading time for money vs. protecting what matters most
• Lifestyle creep and constantly moving the goalposts
• Defining the race you're running and saying no on purpose
• Why "no thank you" money is real wealth

Book Recommendation: The Art of Spending Money

Danny highlights The Art of Spending Money by Morgan Housel as his favorite book of the year and a perfect follow-up to Housel's earlier book, The Psychology of Money. While the title sounds like a pure finance book, Danny and his wife both felt it's really about:

• How you make decisions around money
• How those decisions impact your happiness and contentment
• How self-awareness around money affects your quality of life

For clinic owners, it's especially relevant because you're:

• Charging for your own services
• Paying staff and managing payroll
• Using money as a tool for growth, security, and freedom

Attention, Comparison, and Feeling Miserable

Danny breaks down a section from the book called "May I Have Your Attention Please?", which focuses on how your attention influences your happiness.

Example:

• Your clinic is doing ~$500k a year.
• You're profitable, love your niche, and like your team and culture.
• Then you meet another owner doing $2M a year.

If you put all your attention on that comparison, you go from proud to deflated in seconds:

• "I'm behind."
• "I must be doing something wrong."

But you have no idea:

• What advantages they had going in (investors, family help, safety nets)
• What trade-offs they made (health, marriage, time with kids)
• Whether they'd actually trade lives with you

If they're at $2M but wrecked their health and relationships, while you're at $500k with strong health and a solid home life, who's really winning? It depends on your values. The point: if you want to stay miserable, keep comparing yourself to everyone else.

Business as Vehicle vs. Business as Your Whole Life

Danny then shifts to another section: "The Happiest People I Know." The big idea:

• Your business should be the vehicle that supports the life you want.
• Most owners accidentally let the business become their life.

He gives a simple comparison:

• Owner A: Works 60 hours/week, makes $300k.
• Owner B: Works 30 hours/week, makes $200k.

Neither is right or wrong. It depends on your season of life and what you value more: extra money or extra time.

Questions to ask:

• Do I want the extra $100k badly enough to trade 30 more hours a week?
• What am I saying "no" to when I say "yes" to more growth?
• Is this growth actually changing my life in a meaningful way?

Lifestyle Creep and Moving the Goalposts

Danny explains how success usually comes with two hidden traps:

1. Lifestyle creep: As you earn more, your spending grows to match.
2. Constantly moving the goalposts: Every time you hit one target, you immediately raise the bar.

Result: you feel like you always have to keep saying yes to more growth, more risk, and more time in the business just to sustain a lifestyle you drifted into.

Instead, he challenges clinic owners to:

• Define a clear income and lifestyle goal on purpose.
• Live below that level even as income grows.
• Build "no thank you" money – enough margin to say no to opportunities that don't fit.

Run Your Own Race

Danny uses a running analogy he often shares with PT Biz clients:

• If you're running a 10K and someone else is running a marathon, your paces and training look different.
• You can't compare your numbers and expect them to match.

In business:

• Some owners just want one great clinic that they keep for decades.
• Others want a multi-location platform they eventually sell.

Neither is better. But if you don't know which race you're running, you'll:

• Say yes to things that pull you away from what matters most.
• End up living a life you never intentionally chose.

Big Takeaways

• Money is a tool, not a scoreboard.
• Your attention determines how happy or miserable you feel about your progress.
• Success without alignment can feel like a trap.
• Define your race, your goals, and your trade-offs on purpose.
• Real wealth is the ability to say "no" and still be fine.

Free Resources from PT Biz

• PT Biz Part-Time to Full-Time 5-Day Challenge: Get crystal clear on how much you need to replace, how many patients you need to see, and what to charge so you can go full time in your practice. physicaltherapybiz.com/challenge
• Book a Free Discovery Call: Talk with a PT Biz advisor about your clinic, your goals, and the race you actually want to run. Book your discovery call
• Try Clair, the AI Scribe for PTs: Offload documentation so you can focus on patients and protect your time. meetclair.ai

Connect with PT Biz

• Official Website
• Podcast: PT Entrepreneur Podcast