Building an OT Business Rooted in Purpose

With the support from the amazing OT entrepreneurs in the ACTivate Vitality program, I learned to take brave steps towards building a business. DYK that a business really is as simple as offering a valuable service and getting paid for it?! I always used to think it was a building with lots of busy people running a big company!

Pathways Neuro Rehabilitation & Education came to be in Spring of 2022, and I started seeing my first private client in her home - a young Stroke survivor.  I saw her for over a year because we did not have insurance dictating our visits, which was awesome. She got to decide how often she wanted OT support and for how long. This is one benefit of being a cash-based mobile outpatient clinic. 

💚She eventually met her goal of taking a trip to Chicago with her beloved hubby…and I was so stinkin’ proud of her. 💚

I dream of all OTs being able to focus fully on our patients for as long as they benefit from our services and care, because OTs are really good at assessing people’s dynamic needs and helping them live life meaningfully. And the other part of my dream is for us OTs to be able to eat, pee, and document unhurriedly between sessions! In my dreams I call this #healthyhealthcare

Next, we opened the doors to New to Neuro OT Mentoring and continued those 1:1 chats with other OTs that I love so much. And through those 1:1 sessions, I quickly realized the potential for our collective power. I wanted to get these brilliant, compassionate, my-kind-of-fun, understandably overwhelmed OTs together in community. 

I also dreamed about evolving continuing education for OTs in the neuro world to be super practical, collaborative education based in evidence AND experience. 

This is how the Collective came to be.

It’s been a deliciously wild ride. 🎢 One that started with exhaustion and hopelessness and turned into a meaningful and international (🤯) OT business that I could never have imagined. I also continue to work 2 days a week in an outpatient brain injury clinic, because I love being part of a team, and it helps me put less financial expectation on my gently growing business. 

I’ll end this origin story with a pic of the bracelet my daughter made me. She designed it to represent how happy she sees me since starting my business. 🥲 It stays on my altar - it reminds me of my whys: 

🧠 My mental health

💚 My family

✌🏽Helping OTs support their neuro patients live meaningful lives 

Have you ever dreamed of starting an OT business…or somehow changing your OT role?? Tell us about it! Saying it out loud to other OTs is really powerful…