Ep. 185: Summer Reset: Leadership Lessons from the Road (and the Air)

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What up Walk-Ins? Welcome fam back with you, Nick and Michael. And this is going to be a lighter episode. We just wanted to maybe not go knee deep into urgent care marketing and just talk about life a little bit. Yeah. So it's one of those we've entered summer. Yeah. Y'all received some of our rewind episodes because we've been busy and then we've done quite a few interviews. So we needed to break things up and become normal for a second. Yeah. I we've been going all in. had, we had that great panel webinar.

with some of the best in the industry and the marketing industry. All talk well in the urgent care industry all talking about AI. We've had an ocmed interview. We've had we have made just so much advocacy advocacy talking talking advocacy with Kristen. But we're like as you go into your summer, we're going into ours as well. So it's funny, I was listening to my pastor the other day, and

He was talking about on his own podcast. Hey, I've come, I've just come to accept the fact that things slow down in the summer. Yeah. And ⁓ he is this is the time for me to rejuvenate a time for me to relax and to take care of the people who are there and a chance to like grow that experience or dive into the relationship or whatever. ⁓ And so I've come to accept the fact that

during the summer things slow down and and and now I can lean more into my team or I can lean more in a time with my family and you've done that on a camping trip recently. Yeah, the camping trip and then also to like you just just finished your IFR training bro and we're actually flying up somewhere next week. You say hey, I don't have to be too worried about things now because I can fly and all sorts of weather. I'm just going to file and go baby. Yeah.

So you're you're fully IFR now, which is fantastic because for the uninitiated that just simply means that I can fly in clouds and weather where I can't see the ground and I fly solely with relationship to the instruments in my plane. Yeah, so so from our standpoint, we can now fly down my flight to Miami and think less about it. That's right, which is good. But no, I'd to New Orleans for the Seruka Conference, which we'll both be speaking at, but we're I think taking a train.

Yeah, we're going to shoot for the morning. Come on that. Yeah. We'll let you train rides. So Birmingham actually has a direct train to New Orleans. That's right. And you and I, think you and I are families. We've always wanted to try it because we even care if it's like five times longer. Yeah. Like we looked at the other day and it's only $35 a ticket and we're like, okay, why not? I was more on gas. Do I spend the more on the, on the, and get the room like the box car? don't know.

Yeah, I don't even care. Super fascinating. But yeah, so we're in summer. I I went camping and so forth. So I took on the adventure. I say adventure because I took my wife and my five year old daughter, who my daughter has only been camping two times, maybe on an eight day camping trip from Birmingham to Bar Harbor, Maine, which is the Acadia National Park. You're not giving them good context that they don't know. How many miles did you text me? Yeah, so.

It's 1500 miles one way. in eight days, I did 3100 miles or 3088 miles, whatever it was. It was a lot of driving. like a five year old. With a five year old. She did amazing too. I say she did amazing until day four. And I think we broke her and she didn't even realize it. But it was one of those. And just to kind of give you some context for the campers out there.

I am not in a RV. I am not in a pull behind camper. I am in a rooftop tent that's strapped to the back of my Tacoma, my double cab Tacoma 2005. that too? Yeah, it doesn't have all the creature comforts. Yeah. 250,000 mile Toyota, the way of the Toyota. 253 now. It was almost due for no, it had a brand new oil in it when I started and now it's almost due an oil change. got back.

But anyway, so it's a rooftop tent, it holds three people comfortably. But it does, it's it's got a memory foam mattress, all the things inside of it. Anyway, so that's the context, right? And then we did this the week before Memorial Day weekend. And so we hit the, we didn't hit the crowds. So we missed all the crowds going up to Acadia. But the weather was cold. So our nights, this is the part where like from Birmingham, like, what in the world?

So we were leaving Birmingham in like 85 90 degree high humidity weather in Birmingham, Alabama. And then we were going into 40 degree nights and 60 degree days ⁓ with rain. And so like it was a lot we even drove through the northeastern. But you don't even know what that was until we drove until we drove through it. Because I looked at my radar. I was like, wow, it's like a hurricanes on top of us. Just keep driving. Don't have a choice. So yeah.

I think we're going to name this episode, Plains Trains and Automobiles. Yeah, right. Exactly. I was going to say at some point I'm going to have to get, I want to hear about your trip. Even though I know a lot about it. think everyone is here about your trip. I think after the New Orleans trip, we got to figure out like, what is Michael Ray's favorite way to travel? You know, the train is fascinating to me because well, I thought about it. So I didn't the vast majority of driving Courtney drove a little bit, but that truck is a little mint. Like it takes effort.

It is not big. And it's it's doesn't have all the creature comforts like you have to drive it right. And that reminds me, do you want to put your tent on top of the telluride for the next? Oh, no. You know, thought people do that. I know. And you got a bad to the bone telluride with all the creature. Yeah. So we thought about like there was a thought for a second. But, you know, when it comes to camping, if I dent my truck, I don't care. Yeah. different world. But there was like this beautiful Volvo SUV that sat

aside or across from us at a campground that was people from New York. felt like I took a picture because it looked like an actual ad. Right. It was perfectly clean, but it was in the woods. What's going on here? Yeah. You know, I see the reason why people like this. It's not a forerunner. It's the Lexus version of it. yeah. But it's got like all the Lexus. Yeah. But it does everything a forerunner will do. Exactly. It's not better. So, yeah, the trip, though, I'd never been northeast.

before other than maybe like flying into New York to fly somewhere else, but I've never like gone anywhere Northeast. And so, you know, driving through that many states over a couple of days, I think I drove 44 hours in a week, right? So it was like a full time job of driving for a week. I don't know how truckers do it. That's painful. but ⁓ now we get to see a bunch of cool stuff on the way through. New York is a beautiful state.

beautiful state. was trippy because there were parts of New York's like this looks like Alabama just a little different. And one of Courtney's friends said, Yeah, the problem the challenges with ⁓ interstates in New York is that they don't really have ways to get off. Like there's just a little tiny skinny piece that you could pull off on and good luck. ⁓ But but yeah, it was really because like this is very familiar. But this is New York is so strange. And then once we got past

you know, toward the Connecticut, New Hampshire area, it started breaking into Maine. The grass became beautiful. It's the most beautiful grass I've ever seen in my life. ⁓ don't know. just was amazing. long grass or something? No, it's just like the perfect lawn. OK, I get you. everyone's So my neighbor, because I could never reach that level of awesomeness. But like the green it had was like the deepest green you've ever seen. It was so trippy to look at. Everybody had the perfect grass.

What I didn't realize like, man, everybody is mowing their grass today. This is because two days later it became a monsoon. Yeah. was going to say the weather is all over the place. It is all over the place. was wild. it's just hot. Yeah, here it's hot and it rains randomly for like an hour. And over there it's like a monsoon and it's 40 degrees at night and then 60 today or 50 today in June.

But no, so we did all that. had a great time. We had friends actually in Bar Harbor. So just to kind of give some context, Bar Harbor, Maine, it's a Cade National Park, but it's one of only national parks I've ever been to where the city and the national park are intertwined. So like very traditionally, if you go to like a Yellowstone or a glacier where I've been, it's very obvious that you're in a national park. There's an obvious entrance in and out. know, once you're in, it's like a different world. In this scenario,

There were moments like, I'm in the city right now. no, I'm still in the park. You know, you don't know. It's very different. But it was beautiful, wonderful weather the day that we did all this stuff in Acadia. Did the Cadillac mountainside of things, which was super cool. I got my new hat. I get a hat at every national park I go to just to kind of check off my boxes. that. And then, of course, I get a decal for my truck. So now have bunch of badges on the back of my truck of everywhere I've been.

And then we even stopped in Scranton, Pennsylvania for the office. So any office fans out It's so funny because y'all make fun of me for the office. I don't make fun of you. But y'all recognize that I had a huge problem with the office. Yeah, now it's your favorite thing. Now I enjoy it and I'm almost done with the entire show. My wife's seen it multiple times at this point. Almost done. It's glorious. And so, but on our way, Scranton was an option to go through. So we stopped in Scranton. We went to the

I can't remember the name of the seafood restaurant. They went to a seafood restaurant that had the souvenir shop for the office. So we bought, I have a bumper sticker that says how the turntables and stuff like that. the turntables, how the turns have tabled. And, and then we ate the chilies. And so there was a chilies and it's yet to recognize. They talked about it being like a retro chili. It's not true. It's a brand spanking new chilies with new design, but all the decoration is from the show.

So like one of the big signs is I can feel God tonight in this Chili's, you know, like that type stuff. And then they have a booth that is designed just like the show, but fake awesome blossom on there and the margarita and it allows you to take photos. Like they block it off so you can take photos with it and stuff. So that was really cool. And we didn't realize that Scranton was a ski town either. Didn't realize that till we got there. But they're empty or packed. Yeah. And there were lots of stores that see you next season. Like a lot of stores had that put up.

sure. How do we go about business owners, clinic owners, how do we go about doing this? Yeah, I we make a ton of money in one season and take the rest of the like our life off for the other part of the season. You know, I think that's a real thing in the Northeast because the further North East we went, the more obvious it became because there were tons and tons of bed and breakfast hotels and they all said no vacancies because nobody was actually there.

And then you go to Mexico and they have siestas. Yeah. I need this American culture is rotten man. How do we get to this? Yeah, exactly. Like, can we take the summer off in Alabama because it's 95 degrees plus what I think we may be looking at y'all summer slough all wrong. We're looking at all wrong. You know, speaking of urgent cares, though, because like my mind is like, I want to see these urgent cares of a drive up CLA change. It's all happening, sir. And so when I was going through Maine,

There weren't that many urgent cares. Now I know you could pull up a map and find them per se, but there were a lot of hospital system based urgent cares, but there weren't like tons of like independent urgent care. we, uh, that's weird to have more tax LLCs than anywhere else on the planet. Oh yeah. Why is there no urgent care? Exactly. Well, and so when we went up there, we didn't take any toll roads up. Cause I wanted to one, not deal with toll roads. And then two, I just wanted to, if I can go through a random downtown, let's go to a random downtown.

Good for you. So that was kind of fun to drive through some of that. We stopped in Salem, which was super cool. really recommend that, except during October, every single person there will tell you, not come during October. It is terrifying. And they say like 1.5 million people show up in Salem for that month. And it's just not fun. But yeah, we were in Salem, and it was perfect weather. And we were the only people that were on the air trolley.

So the tour guide came back and just sat with us and chatted through the whole thing and stuff. So that was fun to see. Side note, Parker Brothers Monopoly is born out of Salem. People don't know that, but it's kind of cool to know. And that's just a cool town. Because once you reach that site, that's the part I had to remind myself. Once you reach the Northeast part of the country, that's where all things started. So everything's like in the 1600s, 1700s, and a lot of cool history you come across.

Uh, but no, it was really cool just to go through all that. Uh, on the way back, we came back and I drove through, well, when we drove to the north nor'easter on the way back, we were supposed to stay at a campground. It was underwater. It was like, yes, we could have stayed there because the tents on top of the truck, it would have been fine. But, um, for us to get to a bathroom on the campground, you had to like walk through like a stream at that point. We're not going to. So I don't want to take a boat to the.

So we got a hotel, we were in Mystic, Connecticut, which is a cool town, had the Mystic Aquarium stuff and just a cool little setup. I really wouldn't mind going back. As a side note for the Taylor Swift fans, that's where Taylor Swift's mansion is, by the way. Did you see it? No, because the weather was so bad. Courtney didn't make you go? No, we joked about it because this is the mansion where they found the severed body part.

nearby. And so we just we were going to but because the weather was so horrific, we're like whatever we just because it would have taken us an extra hour to make it happen. And anyway, and then we drove to Bronx, New York, which is super cool. I mean, yeah, I don't think that's where they have the brownstone. Yeah, yeah. And it felt like a movie because I know they record movies there, but it felt surreal. Did you ever watch the show? No. ⁓

It was in the Bronx. It had the brownstones and it had the old lady that leaned out the window and just like yelled at people. Yeah. Yeah. I it's it's right because everything's right up against the highway. ⁓ It was wild. Side note, I wish Alabama had this. So I noticed in New York, maybe New York, a slew of states had this. They had service centers. You ever seen a service center? I don't know what you mean. So to me, that's like either a gas station or somebody.

So think about this. So when you're on an interstate in Alabama, you know, our interstates are long and boring. And then if you need to get to a gas station, you take an exit, you go up the exit ramp, you go left or right across the bridge, and then you drive, it's either right there or didn't you have to drive like a mile to whatever, right? In New York, Jersey,

Massachusetts, Connecticut, they have service centers. Now they call them different. They call them service plazas, service centers. It's directly on the interstate. There is like, when I say directly, I'm on the interstate. I am 50 yards from a gas station. it's the most beautiful thing ever to me because, oh crap, I need gas slash I maybe I need to eat something or I needed to be entertained for a minute. So you pull off for 10 seconds and you're in front of a gas pump.

And it's designed to flow that way. I don't really go to gas pump. Cool. Go to the right and there's a full food court. Everything. Okay, it's time to go. Yeah, it sounds like my jam. And so it's a food like once a food court like it lists. When I was reading off like the restaurants like is this a mall food court and out when I would drive by it was just a gas station right there you can get on get off in 10 seconds. And right behind it is a giant food court with a parking lot. And you walk right in.

And I'm like, why don't we have this out here? Because you haven't started it yet. know. And I was thinking through it. was like, because it is closer to the interstate than our residence areas are. Kind of give you a perspective how close they are. It's closer than that in terms of pretty close. I mean, it's right there. It's almost like its own lane. Anyway, so I was super fascinated. I wish we had that down here. I don't know why. But anyway, that was super cool to go to that. Lots and lots of toll roads. Easy We get Buc-E's.

Yeah, we do get Buc-E's and Buc-E's wouldn't fit up there. I was going to say Buc-E's is an enormous ridiculous Walmart mess. So we saw Buc-E's being built in Virginia and that was the last Buc-E's we saw till we got back. So yeah, it was a fun trip though. Really enjoyed it. There's, Addy has fully recovered from camping because on day four of the camp trip, she said, if you can imagine sleeping in a tent, it's my wife, Addy in the middle, and then myself.

On day or night for she's like, I want to be by myself. So she sat up, scoot down to our feet and then laid back down and just stayed there. Okay. Next morning said, we like, Addy, did know you did that? She said, I have no idea. She didn't remember any. drowned last night. I'm done with you. Yeah, exactly. So, and then the hotel stay that we had to do for the Northeaster stuff actually helped rejuvenate everybody. but

When we got back, was like, Addie, want to go, how'd you like camp? She says, no, no eight day camping. She kept saying no eight days. I was like, okay, I get it. And then yesterday she was building a camp thing with her toys. I said, you want to go camping? says, yeah. I'm like, okay. you've recovered. Took about two weeks, you were just healed. It did heal. So, but it was fine. We'll do some more camping stuff. We just have a blast with it. And just, I think our next, I want to go back up to the Shenandoah Valley. This looks pretty.

Cause we drove through some of it and it was just, I was like, okay, I want to come back here. I want to come back to Harper's Ferry. Super cool area. ⁓ So yeah, that was our ⁓ eight day camping trip. Well, I will be taking notes from you because next year we've already booked the Airbnb out in Sedona, Arizona, but we're going to, instead of fly, we're going to rent one of those ⁓ like the Mercedes Sprinter deck that's got a theater in it, that kind of thing.

But we're gonna apparently we're gonna drive it. I'm like, I've got a perfectly good airplane, but okay, we're gonna drive it. Yeah, so I mean, we see Arizona. Yeah, because I've driven to Hall. I've driven the glacier, which is probably just as far by my by I say with some friends, but that was me driving my vehicle by myself. Right. And that was 2500 miles one way. So it's like 5000 round trip. I was the

Because somebody else asked me, how do you prepare for a trip like this? My number one answer, flexible. a lot. Be very, very flexible. Because when the GPS or Google Maps says, ⁓ you're 11 hours away from your next stop, that really means you're 14 hours away. Because you have to ⁓ take breaks. Right. Your body hurts. so what I would do, because once you get in the groove,

Five hours doesn't feel very long in a car anymore. You just don't fill it. Right. And so what I would do in the truck, I would only stop for gas. And so I would consider on some of our days we would I would fill up twice in one day. I would go full to empty, full to empty. And we're probably there. That's as far as we're going. That's 600 miles I'm done. Yeah, exactly. Because about 300 miles like I need fuel because I don't know where the next gas station may be. Because when go out west.

It is 50 75 miles to gas stations. And you have to like think through that. You can always pull over to the side of the road and take care of yourself. Yeah, not a problem. All right. Travel lessons from Michael on this episode. If you got camping questions, let me know. It's a blast. I love it. But I think the bigger underlying theme here is like take advantage a little bit of this lower season. Yeah. And go enjoy yourself with your family. Yeah. Yeah. Even last weekend, I got to play pickleball for the first time in.

I was like, oh crap, I really like this. Cause I played tennis in high school. And then as you get older, tennis becomes really painful on your joints and just your whole body. call it tennis elbow for a reason. Well, and then like, you're just destroying your knees if you're not careful. And then pickle balls like the, oh, you're older now. Just you like tennis pickle ball be fine. So I played racquetball. You played tennis. And right. I'll wreck you too. Yeah. Racquetball is very similar. It's just different. Yeah.

But in pickleball, it's just really chill. So I played this weekend and enjoyed it. Actually, a friend I'm playing with tomorrow, I'm going try to re-embrace it because it's something that's just fun. But no, focus on some things that just relieve you a little bit, right? Kind of get you out of that constant churn because you poor urgent care. It's like you guys are just being bombarded with things. You need a break. What will happen is you'll come back refreshed. Yeah, and just like a different perspective.

And just maybe a different passion because now you don't have to think about the same thing over and over again Like there was a lady I was texting that were trying to get to talk to us and she's like well I work seven days a week and like I already said well, please take a break Your body's not meant to do that no and and it is one of the best times to be able to just unplug a little bit and Enjoy what you've worked so hard for yeah exactly And you do come back like I'm looking forward to leaving at some point going somewhere and doing something so that I can come back

And be like, ah, I did miss this. And it's also, hey, I also decide, no, vacations are the best way to figure out, do they really need you or not at work in terms of like, where are my holes? Like, where do I need to hire out that obviously was unattended to when I was gone? So like for the owners, like this is your opportunity. Take more than a week. Because if things are going to break, it takes two weeks. I'll also say this, identify when you come back.

what was going to happen whether you were there or not. Yeah, like that doesn't count. There's been there's been times where I've come back and go, I can't leave because when I do this happens, I'm like, man, that was probably going to happen whether you were here or not. Yeah, all I did. It may have nothing to do with you being present. Yeah, I think. Well, when I was at Dallas, you see a we had a site go down. Yeah. And, know, you have to call me and within five minutes you were on the right path to get it.

corrected. Yeah, sometimes you got to be steered in the right direction. Yeah, and then it got corrected. Yeah. And there you go. Was that going to happen when God I was gone? No, it's just gonna happen. Nothing to with you being on. And she's gonna happen. Did let us know that we don't have that person in house ⁓ without you being here. But now we do like we had we had to figure that problem out. There'll be a different problem later. Yeah, exactly. So well, I hope you take time over the summer during the slump.

We're gonna work hard to make sure that you still have patients coming through the door We're gonna work hard to make sure that we're still educating over the summer I've been giving you good content because here's another thing that I've noticed man. Even the podcasters out there check out ⁓ the content We're sending you good replays, but we're not doing it instead of creating content. We're doing it in addition to creating content Yeah, yeah, we're because I mean reality it is our schedules get just disjointed during the summer and so our traditional

By the way, it's Thursday, not Wednesday for us when we record this. And so our traditional Thursdays get kind of wonky sometimes. So we got to do what we got to do. either way, like you're saying, take that time. Take a step back. We recognize and we've said in other episodes that you've just heard, is project time for summer for most urgent, summer is project time for most urgent cares. But if you don't have a project involved, take some time. Because your family needs you.

your family needs you beyond just the job that you're providing or the what you're bringing no matter what tick tock tells you dads. Yeah. I'm just kidding. That's so funny. But no, like they need you. Mom, dad, whatever. Like, there's a need there. And you're if you have kids, you know, this are not going to be that age next year. Right. And they're going to keep growing up like I have almost a six year old now. And it's mind blowing because now Mike, I don't have like

tiny kid conversation. I like real conversations with her. And she's giving like real feedback on things. I'm like, Oh, my little six year old is about to be a singer in high school. Yeah, exactly. Because because like I remember being five and six. Like there are some core memories mixed in there and things off man, she's gonna actually remember some of this when she's in her 20s and 30s and plus. Yeah. And it's just wild to me. Yeah. We'll mess up plenty. All right, get out. Go visit.

hit a plane train or an automobile, go on an adventure and we'll catch you on the next episode. Thanks for listening. See you.