How Cash PT Owners Can Handle Pressure and Uncertainty

Financial Management & Pricing, Leadership & Mindset, Practice Growth & Expansion, Success Stories & Case Studies

How to Handle Pressure as a Cash PT Owner (Without Burning Out or Backing Down)

Pressure Doesn’t Mean You’re Failing

If you’ve felt like the pressure has been cranked up lately in your practice and your life…you’re not imagining it.

Leads feel a little tighter. People seem more cautious. You’re trying to hit your goals for this year and next, and somewhere in the back of your mind is that nagging question:

“Do I actually have what it takes?”

Here’s the reframe:
Pressure isn’t proof that you’re failing. It’s proof that you’re in the arena.

Whether you’re under $10k/month and trying to get fully booked or you’re pushing toward multiple six figures per month, the pressure never disappears. It just changes shape.

The Obstacle Is the Path

Most of us secretly wish success would be a straight line: set goal → work hard → win.

In reality, it’s more like:
win → stall → get punched in the face → doubt yourself → adjust → win bigger.

The hard thing you’re avoiding right now is probably the doorway to the next version of your business:

Avoiding sales conversations
Avoiding a price increase
Avoiding a difficult conversation with an underperformer
Avoiding looking honestly at your numbers

We usually dodge those things by staying busy with “safer” tasks. It feels productive, but it’s really just controlled avoidance.

A better way to think about it:

The thing you least want to tackle is usually the thing most likely to change your life.

Not because it’s fun, but because you’ll come out the other side as a different person—more capable, more resilient, and more confident.

Be the Buffalo, Not the Cow

There’s a simple picture that explains why some owners stay stuck in stress longer than they need to.

When a storm rolls in:

Cows run away from it. Because the storm is moving in the same direction, they get stuck in it longer.
Buffalo run toward the storm. They move straight through and get out of it sooner.

Most of us default to “cow mode”: we see the hard thing coming and drift toward easier decisions—tweaking the website again, buying another course, waiting “one more month” to hire or fire or raise prices.

Buffalo mode looks different. It’s making the call, setting the boundary, changing the prices, fixing the process—even when your stomach flips.

You still feel fear in buffalo mode. You just decide to walk into the storm anyway so you can get through it faster.

You’re Probably Harder on Yourself Than Reality Is

Pressure gets heavier when your brain tells you the stakes are bigger than they really are:

“If this launch doesn’t work, everything is over.”
“If I lose this PT, the whole business collapses.”
“If we have one bad month, I’m not cut out for this.”

But if you zoom out, the picture changes.

Worst case if your practice shut down tomorrow? You’re still a licensed physical therapist in a world that desperately needs PTs. You’ll work, you’ll rebuild, and you’ll be okay.

Worst case if a key team member leaves? It hurts—but it often creates space to bring in someone who’s a much better fit and raises the bar for everyone.

That doesn’t mean it’s fun or that emotions don’t matter. It just means the reality is usually less catastrophic than your nervous system is telling you.

When the emotional story quiets down, it’s easier to make strong, calm decisions instead of panicked ones.

Your Identity Might Be Making It Feel Heavier

If your inner narrative is:

“I am my business.”

…then every dip in leads, every staff issue, every slow month feels like a personal attack.

A healthier identity sounds more like:

“My business is something I’m building.”
“I’m the kind of person who figures things out.”

Then the business can have ups and downs without dragging your self-worth with it. You can treat problems as problems—not proof that something is wrong with you.

That identity is what patients and staff feel when you walk into a room. It’s less about bravado and more about a quiet confidence: “Whatever happens, I’ll handle it.”

Discipline Starts Where Comfort Ends

Many PTs look disciplined from the outside. They work out, eat well, show up on time. But often, those are things they enjoy.

Real discipline shows up in the stuff you don’t enjoy doing:

Reviewing financials when you’d rather just treat
Calling leads when you’d rather tweak your logo
Having hard conversations instead of hoping things magically improve

Every time you do something you’d rather avoid—but you do it anyway—you’re building a track record with yourself.

That’s how you create the inner voice that says, “I can handle this,” instead of, “I hope this magically goes away.”

What If Everything Is Actually Working For You?

One last shift that can change how pressure feels:

Act as if the game is rigged in your favor.

Not in a delusional “everything is perfect” way, but in a grounded way:

This tough season might be what forces you to upgrade your systems.
Losing a staff member might be what opens the door for someone 10x better.
A scary financial squeeze might be what pushes you to finally fix your sales and follow-up.

You don’t always see it in the moment. But if you look back, there are probably chapters in your life that felt awful then—and now you can clearly see how they shaped you into someone stronger.

The more you train yourself to look at pressure that way while you’re in it, the less you’ll flail and the more you’ll move forward.

Final Thought

You can’t remove pressure from entrepreneurship. And you wouldn’t actually want to—because it’s the very thing that forges you into who you’re trying to become.

But you can change your relationship to it:

Stop seeing it as a verdict.
Start seeing it as training.
Stop running from the storm.
Start moving through it on purpose.

You might not control what happens next month.
But you absolutely control who you’re becoming in the middle of it.

Watch and Listen to the Full Video

For a deeper dive into a cash physical therapists’ journeys, make sure to listen to the full video: Running Into The Storm: How to Turn Pressure Into Your Competitive Edge in Business and Life.

About Author:

Jordan Mather got started in the entrepreneurship game at 18 with a medical software startup that revolutionized the physical therapy patient experience. As CEO for 5 years, Jordan participated in top Startup Accelerator Programs, collaborated with a major Wisconsin hospital, raised over $250K in funding, and earned a spot on Wisconsin’s ‘Top 25 Entrepreneurs Under 25’ list.

Although the company eventually failed, it provided Jordan with invaluable learning experiences. He became passionate about designing world-class patient experiences and building efficient marketing & sales funnels for cash physical therapists. Utilizing this expertise, Jordan became the CMO of a well-known physical therapy media company, and consulted for and built marketing funnels for some of the top physical therapy business coaches.

Eventually growing tired of the typical agency and consulting grind, Jordan, alongside Max Zirbel, founded Clinical Marketer. They infused it with the hands-on support and mentorship that they benefited from in their initial venture. The company was a success from the start, aiding clinics in scaling to 6 and 7 figures in revenue. During its first launch, Jordan and his team met Dr. Ben Bagge, whom they later partnered with after helping him grow his business from $200K/year to over $1M/year in three years.

Now, Jordan is focused on empowering clients in the cash physical therapy space, sharing his accumulated skills, processes, and hiring strategies to help them increase their revenue and impact without proportionally increasing their workload.