Shownotes
In this episode, Larry Lawson shares his unconventional journey to becoming a Regional Director at Greater Therapy Centers. From earning a Master’s in English to teaching, landscaping, pool work, and managing massage clinics, Larry spent years exploring before discovering his passion for physical therapy at age 39. That pivot became a launchpad for a meaningful and fast-rising career. Today, Larry leads with empathy, mentors new graduates, and creates environments where both patients and team members thrive—showing how purpose and impact can come from embracing every chapter.
Chapters:
- 00:00 Introduction
- 06:01 Philosophy and Physical Therapy
- 10:11 Above and Beyond
- 13:22 An Educator at Heart
- 16:14 Proudest Accomplishments
Listen to our podcasts at:
https://www.shorecp.university/podcasts
There you will also find our other Everyday Heroes episodes, alongside our series Microcap Moments and Bigger. Stronger. Faster., highlighting the people and stories that make the microcap space unique.
Other ways to connect:
Blog: https://www.shorecp.university/blog
Shore Capital University: https://www.shorecp.university/
Shore Capital Partners: https://www.shorecp.com/
Blog: https://www.shorecp.university/blog
This podcast is the property of Shore Capital Partners LLC. None of the content herein is investment advice, an offer of investment advisory services, nor a recommendation or offer relating to any security. See the “Terms of Use” page on the Shore Capital website for other important information.
Transcripts
I am a very relationship driven person and whether we had somebody call and they hadn't been in in three years or something, but they only wanted to see me, it's a very small thing, but that's so gratifying to me that I was able to make that kind of difference.
Larry Lawson:You know, if I've written a letter that helps get somebody into PT school.
Larry Lawson:If I've made that little change that made somebody's job that they weren't liking easier, so that now they're having a better time, we don't know what's going on behind the scenes in people's lives.
Larry Lawson:If we can help them overcome them, give them the tools to continue to do it, to me there's nothing better than that.
Larry Lawson:I like people and I want the best outta it, and I want the best for them.
Anderson Williams:Welcome to Everyday Heroes, a podcast from Shore Capital Partners that highlights the people who are building our companies from the inside every day, often out of the spotlight.
Anderson Williams:With this series, we wanna pull those heroes out of the shadows.
Anderson Williams:We want to hear their stories, we wanna share their stories.
Anderson Williams:We wanna understand what drives them, why they do what they do, how they might inspire and support others to become everyday heroes too.
Anderson Williams:In this episode I talk with Larry Lawson, a Regional Director with Greater Therapy Centers, a partner in Therapy Partners Group.
Anderson Williams:Larry came to physical therapy later than most after a fascinating and exploratory life and career that he describes as quote all over the place.
Anderson Williams:From a Master's in English to teaching in academia to doing landscaping, to working on pools, to managing a multi-site massage therapy business.
Anderson Williams:His experiences are honestly too broad and too fascinating for a single podcast, but Larry's sense of clarity and purpose in his work as a physical therapist are proof of the old adage all who wander are not lost.
Larry Lawson:My name's Larry Lawson, live in the Dallas area.
Larry Lawson:I'm married.
Larry Lawson:Got three kids that I'm convinced are conspiring against me on a moment by moment basis, you know, you know, I love spending time with them.
Larry Lawson:They're actually kind of the center of my life.
Larry Lawson:If they're ever gone, I don't know what to do with myself.
Larry Lawson:But outside of that, I love sports.
Larry Lawson:I don't get to watch much of it, but enjoy it.
Larry Lawson:I love being outside, so like hiking, going to the beach around here.
Larry Lawson:I ride a bike a lot.
Larry Lawson:It's something that I found later that's a lot of fun.
Larry Lawson:I spent a lot of my life being kind of a meathead, like to be in the gym, lifting weights, and then probably about 40, I started hurting all the time.
Larry Lawson:You know, you're like, you're supposed to exercise to feel good, and I wasn't feeling good.
Larry Lawson:So, I bought a, a bike at Walmart.
Larry Lawson:It was like 90 bucks.
Larry Lawson:And probably weighed 150 pounds.
Larry Lawson:It was like the worst bike ever but, I loved it getting out on it.
Larry Lawson:And so since then, you know, when I have time, that's what I like to do.
Larry Lawson:That kind of transitioned into doing sprint triathlons, which are little short triathlons, you know, it's about a 300 meter swim and a 12 or 15 mile bike, and then a 5K.
Larry Lawson:I normally come in much closer to last than first, but yeah, I like to think of myself as a inspiration to guys with dad bods everywhere.
Larry Lawson:You know, it's, it's fun.
Anderson Williams:Well consider me inspired Larry.
Larry Lawson:Well, good, good.
Larry Lawson:Yeah, we can, we can get out sometime.
Larry Lawson:I'll, uh, I'll show you how to do it very slowly.
Anderson Williams:Well, it's not everybody who starts with saying that their body starts hurting at 40 and the end of that statement ends in sprint triathlon.
Anderson Williams:So I am curious.
Anderson Williams:About that evolution, but it sounds like that heavy Walmart bike was the pathway into that experience.
Larry Lawson:Yeah, it was.
Larry Lawson:It was a lot of fun.
Larry Lawson:And it's a good excuse to get together with friends.
Larry Lawson:You know, our, our motto is we're earning our wings and beer, you know, when we get out.
Larry Lawson:So yeah, burn enough calories to say, we deserve that.
Anderson Williams:That's awesome.
Anderson Williams:So will you just describe what you do and where you do it, just from a professional standpoint?
Larry Lawson:Yeah, absolutely.
Larry Lawson:So the bigger company that I work for is Therapy Partners Group, but within them, it's kind of a bigger company that has taken charge of a lot of smaller companies, but they allow us to keep our branding in the specific areas.
Larry Lawson:So the company that I kind of fall under is called Greater Therapy Centers.
Larry Lawson:We're in the Dallas area and there's 32 clinics here.
Larry Lawson:They've been around for 27 years or something like that.
Larry Lawson:And then it split up into regions and overall, the whole company has kind of regional directors.
Larry Lawson:The role is a little bit different where I am, but here, I'm a Regional Director.
Larry Lawson:Right now there's five clinics that I'm kind of directly over.
Larry Lawson:There's a couple of others that I kind of help out with.
Anderson Williams:What got you into physical therapy in the first place, as a career choice?
Larry Lawson:I got into physical therapy when I was older.
Larry Lawson:It was around the time I talked about my body breaking down.
Larry Lawson:I didn't graduate school until I was 39, started working at 39 or 40 in this field.
Larry Lawson:So, for me it was a, you know, a young person thinking, Hey, I'll probably like to do this.
Larry Lawson:I was older, I needed a direction to go into, and I really kind of had the world ahead of me and I wanted to do something where I really felt like I was making a difference in affecting people's lives.
Larry Lawson:And so made that decision at that point.
Larry Lawson:And really, you know, it's made all the difference.
Larry Lawson:You never know, you know, you say you're older and so you think you're wiser, but you're still taking a risk and hoping at the end of the day you made the right decision.
Larry Lawson:But I really feel like I did.
Larry Lawson:I feel like, you know, on a daily basis, I really get to make a difference in people's lives and it's a powerful thing.
Anderson Williams:Yeah.
Anderson Williams:And do you mind sharing what you did before?
Larry Lawson:I was all over the place.
Larry Lawson:I actually, I have a Master's in English, so that goes back a long time ago, and degrees in English and philosophy.
Larry Lawson:So there was some teaching, but to be honest, once I got done with that, I kind of wanted to be outside of academia.
Larry Lawson:So I was doing landscaping and working on pools.
Larry Lawson:Had different jobs like that, managing sites.
Larry Lawson:There's a lot of art and framing shops.
Larry Lawson:There's a lot of different things that I did.
Larry Lawson:Had management roles in a lot of them, but I fell in, it's a longer story, but to doing massage.
Larry Lawson:It was kind of, my mom and sister were going down this direction.
Larry Lawson:I wanted to be involved in it a little bit.
Larry Lawson:Ended up managing a lot of clinics there.
Larry Lawson:And then as I got older kids come along and you're like, Hey, I'm need to be a grownup at some point.
Larry Lawson:You know, I can't just run around being a hippie my whole life.
Larry Lawson:And that's why it mattered to me when I was making the decision, okay, this is the decision that I'm gonna use to hopefully raise my kids and all the financial concerns.
Larry Lawson:But I want to feel like in doing that, I'm getting into an area where I can be happy with what I'm doing and proud of it.
Larry Lawson:And kind of that's what led me here.
Anderson Williams:Well, I'm interested.
Anderson Williams:My background, I have an English degree and a fine arts degree, and a Master's in Fine Arts.
Anderson Williams:Yeah.
Anderson Williams:So you're talking to a kindred spirit.
Anderson Williams:If I were smarter, could have done a philosophy degree as well.
Anderson Williams:What was it that drew you to English and philosophy that connects with where you are today?
Anderson Williams:I mean, you mentioned you couldn't just be a hippie or whatever, but you didn't just turn, you took something that at, you know, 39 years old and found a career that has obviously profound meaning to you as well.
Anderson Williams:And how do you connect the dots between those two?
Larry Lawson:To me, I think they're very connected and um, but this resonates with you as well.
Larry Lawson:You'll hear people when they hear that you have those degrees and they're like, oh, well there was money wasted.
Larry Lawson:But to me, it made me the person that I am in a lot of ways.
Larry Lawson:I needed those things.
Larry Lawson:I needed to grow and to look at the world differently, to think differently.
Larry Lawson:People talk about education in general and they're like.
Larry Lawson:Well, we should just, if somebody wants to go into business, they should just go into business.
Larry Lawson:But those people have to vote, they have to raise children, they have to, there are all these different factors that, that go into it.
Larry Lawson:And how are you gonna approach that?
Larry Lawson:And you know, hoping to be a thoughtful person when it comes to that, I think is what that gave me at the time.
Larry Lawson:It's something that I needed, you know, there's some thing, and I'm not saying everybody has to be a huge nerd like me, you know, or you, I don't wanna throw you under the bus, but you know,
Anderson Williams:I'm happy you, I'm happy to join that party.
Larry Lawson:Yeah, exactly.
Larry Lawson:So not everybody has to go down that road.
Larry Lawson:But, you know, I think being a thought.
Larry Lawson:Person and approaching the world in a thoughtful type of way where things do have meaning to you, people have meaning, and you have meaning in that way that like, who do I want to be?
Larry Lawson:How do I want to present myself or address the world, or how do I want to view the world?
Larry Lawson:And for me, that made all the difference.
Larry Lawson:And so right now I'm a physical therapist and I deal with spreadsheets and numbers and stuff too in the director role in all of that.
Larry Lawson:But at the heart of it, I still have the decision of how I want to approach that, how I wanna approach the people I work with, or the people that work here, all of those things.
Larry Lawson:And so I think it's still a major vein of who I am and a big part of, I think at least, you know, what makes me decent at my job, you know, comes directly from that.
Anderson Williams:Yeah, no, I tell people because I get the same sort of response.
Anderson Williams:Oh, you got a Master's in Fine Arts, bet you'd like to have that money back, or what did you ever do with that?
Anderson Williams:And I think I'm doing every day with that.
Anderson Williams:It defines how I approach literally everything I do in my life as a parent, as a business person, as a coach, or a trainer or anything else.
Anderson Williams:How do you think that those studies have made you different as a physical therapist or even broader as your career has evolved, as someone who's able to go into and lead multi-site physical therapy clinics, how does it make you different?
Larry Lawson:You know, it kind of goes back to a lot of the things that we thought before, but how I think about the people around me in a lot of ways and how invested I am in them, but not only that, you know.
Larry Lawson:With anything.
Larry Lawson:If we're gonna be actually motivated to do something, we all, a lot of the time, we need a core understanding of why we're doing it.
Larry Lawson:So if we're approaching people and it's in this kind of more haphazard way or whatever else, the interactions can be inconsistent.
Larry Lawson:You can have difficulties with that.
Larry Lawson:And I think that, especially when you're managing larger groups of people, inconsistencies can be a very big problem.
Larry Lawson:But to me, a lot of my studies are a lot of what I looked at, it came down to me to valuing an individual, and that can be somebody that I work with.
Larry Lawson:And I think it helps me because a lot of times what people want to do is stratify the people that they're working with.
Larry Lawson:This guy's a manager, so he's more important than this person that's way down the totem pole.
Larry Lawson:Where to me, if you're approaching them just as a person, as a person, they may have different goals and different roles, but you want them to fulfill those.
Larry Lawson:Goals and you wanna be a part of that, of bringing them along.
Larry Lawson:It's really changed the way that hopefully I approach the people around me.
Larry Lawson:And then it's a hard road.
Larry Lawson:It takes a lot of work to get from point A to point B, and you know, if we're talking about the English and philosophy and all that, I'm not even at point B. You know, it's this big journey and you're trying to get there.
Larry Lawson:And so realizing that if I have something that may help somebody else along that journey or you know, open their eyes or whatever else, that helps.
Larry Lawson:But also being a person that's willing to learn from the other people around me, I wanna take wisdom wherever I can get it.
Larry Lawson:And you know, sometimes that's.
Larry Lawson:From a philosophy book, but sometimes it's from some 19-year-old that saw something on TikTok.
Larry Lawson:And I wanna be open to that a hundred percent anyway.
Larry Lawson:I always tell people I'm not that smart.
Larry Lawson:I'm just smart enough to steal from people that are smart, you know?
Larry Lawson:And so wherever I can get wisdom, that's where I want to get it.
Larry Lawson:And I think that approach is healthy, and I think it resonates with people when you're not approaching them as this superior being that you know, you're one of them, you're on the ground floor with them, and we're all trying to pull this thing together.
Anderson Williams:At this point, I kind of just wanted to listen to Larry talk, his complex but thoughtful journey from a self-described hippie to becoming a dad to a physical therapist, keeps bringing him back to one thing people, it's about people.
Anderson Williams:So I wanted to ask someone who knows Larry at TPG about what this people focus really looks like through his work.
Anderson Williams:Here is Dena Aitken, the Chief Operating Officer at Greater Therapy Centers.
Dena Aitken:You know, Larry just has a fantastic personality, as I'm sure you guys noticed when you interviewed him.
Dena Aitken:He really goes, I would say, above and beyond for his patients and especially his team members.
Dena Aitken:He sends like weekly emails, giving his team members kudos, really pointing out all the things they did during their week to really make the clinics run smoothly and do what's best for the patient.
Dena Aitken:We always have that as our ultimate goal to provide the best patient care.
Dena Aitken:And to do that we need fantastic team members.
Dena Aitken:And Larry's just a great leader in that aspect.
Dena Aitken:Like I said, he really communicates well.
Dena Aitken:He lets upper leadership myself and our other leaders know, you know, who are the top performers and gives him kudos.
Dena Aitken:When they deserve it.
Dena Aitken:So I think sometimes that's lacking in leadership, but Larry really highlights all of that.
Dena Aitken:He's a great teacher, so he's really done a lot of taking our less experienced therapists and meeting with them one-on-one and really cultivating clinical skills.
Dena Aitken:Sometimes you get outta school and they kind of get thrown to the fire a little bit as far as, you know, you're now seeing a pretty full patient load.
Dena Aitken:And so he really takes the time to advance their clinical skills, which, you know, ultimately helps the patient, but also just helps them with their career and keeping them on track for, uh, future professional growth.
Dena Aitken:He does a lot of fun things.
Dena Aitken:I mean, he's just a fun guy to be around, so, you know, he visits all of his clinics on a regular basis.
Dena Aitken:He treats alongside of them on a regular basis.
Dena Aitken:You know, in all the clinics, he kind of goes around and does a little bit of treatment, all five of his locations, and I think that's huge because they get to see kind of him in action and he knows what they're going through on a daily basis.
Dena Aitken:So he can relate a little bit better.
Anderson Williams:From his managers to his patients, to his team, to a new generation of physical therapists entering the field.
Anderson Williams:Larry is taking care of his people and it's in part because of the people who have had a profound impact on him.
Anderson Williams:And as he suggests, it doesn't have to be complicated or deeply thought out to make someone's day or even their career.
Anderson Williams:I can't help but think, Larry, that there is a philosopher that you studied many moons ago that talked about this very thing.
Anderson Williams:That's all I can think about.
Anderson Williams:I, I don't know who they are, but this is deeply rooted in philosophy, right?
Larry Lawson:Yeah, I think so.
Larry Lawson:And I think it's a lot of people.
Larry Lawson:As I said, I, and I mean it.
Larry Lawson:I'm not the smartest guy in the world.
Larry Lawson:I just steal from people that are, and there's a lot of philosophers.
Larry Lawson:A lot of the people that have made the biggest impact in my life were just that, were the people that actually invested in you or saw something in you, and it doesn't even have to be on a big level.
Larry Lawson:You know, I tell people all the time, you can change a, a cashier's day at Walmart if they're having a bad day and they look down and you're just nice to them, all of a sudden you see a smile pop out on their face.
Larry Lawson:It doesn't have to be a huge philosopher or, you know, Buddha or whoever else it is.
Larry Lawson:You know, I'm not a Buddha.
Larry Lawson:I just mean that, you know, in general, like some this great mind.
Larry Lawson:I think that you can get rewarded on a daily basis by following a lot of these tenants, and it's important.
Anderson Williams:It makes sense now, having heard your background that your Everyday Hero nomination spoke specifically about a project you're working on related to the student program.
Anderson Williams:Will you just describe what that is and give us a sense about what you're doing there?
Larry Lawson:Yeah, absolutely.
Larry Lawson:So I'm really interested in teaching or training.
Larry Lawson:I don't know necessarily if it's going back to be a professor.
Larry Lawson:As I get older, you know, right now I'm 48 and my kids are still young, so I'm probably gonna work until I'm like 97 years old.
Larry Lawson:So as a backup plan, I'm getting a degree, it's a doctorate of science, which is a terminal degree, kinda like a PhD, but it's aimed more at teaching.
Larry Lawson:And so within that, I had to come up with a project at the end and you, you teach and you run all this background information on it and I was doing something else that's specific to pt that's really interesting.
Larry Lawson:But the more I've gone along and the more I look at some of the great training programs that Therapy Partners Group has, I started thinking about me coming out of school and how I told you that I didn't feel like I had a bunch of information, but I didn't really feel like I knew how to treat a patient and what a awful feeling that is and you know, the insecurity that comes with it.
Larry Lawson:And I wonder if there are programs that we could instill that would help either universities or larger companies like therapy partner groups better prepare people for when they hit the ground to feel better about it.
Larry Lawson:And Therapy Partners Group has a great training program that goes along with new graduates that helps them out through the first year and kind of gives them information.
Larry Lawson:And so I looked at some of that and for me, for my project, I really wanted to hone in, okay, well where are the areas that people feel most inadequate or most difficulty with.
Larry Lawson:So I set up a questionnaire and I sent it out to some student groups and then through Greater Therapy, my company, but then Therapy Partners Group was nice enough to let me send it out there.
Larry Lawson:And so it asked general things that could be about, you know, body parts, whether neck or low back and shoulder.
Larry Lawson:How good do you feel diagnosing this?
Larry Lawson:And then how good do you feel about treating it?
Larry Lawson:Some of the other parts that I thought were very important, were talking about documentation.
Larry Lawson:In the medical field documentation is very hard, and when you see as many patients as we do, it can become a burden if you're not skilled at it and if you don't work at it.
Larry Lawson:There was a study done and I think under 35 years old, I'm probably gonna butcher this exact number, but it was over 60% of physical therapists were looking to change jobs because of burnout.
Larry Lawson:But a lot of the reasons that were given for the burnout, it wasn't the people, it was more documentation, some of these side things that go along with it.
Larry Lawson:So are there ways that we can help on that front and got a lot of good information back kind of percentage wise?
Larry Lawson:And a lot of it, if you're in this world, you would expect is the back, you know, problems, neck problems that eats up so much money just in the healthcare system anyway and can be very hard to treat.
Larry Lawson:But other things that you saw were things like that, like documentation.
Larry Lawson:So to me, trying to come up now, you know, we've got that information and a lot of it was kind of in line with what I thought it would be.
Larry Lawson:And the hope is creating that next step of, well, what are the ways we go about this?
Larry Lawson:And as I said, uh, the company that I worked for already has a great setup, but how can we possibly hone that?
Larry Lawson:So I'm sharing this information, obviously with them.
Larry Lawson:How can we hone that even more?
Larry Lawson:And hopefully helping those people that come outta school and changing that dynamic of so many people, maybe leaving PT because of the stress of it.
Anderson Williams:With all he's done and for all the ways he has grown and invested in other people's growth.
Anderson Williams:I wanted to know what Larry had accomplished that he's most proud of.
Anderson Williams:When you look at your career, and we can use that broadly, and with air quotes, the way I use career in my life, what are you most proud of?
Larry Lawson:Ooh, that's a really good question.
Larry Lawson:To be honest with you, I think sitting here, being a part of this company, I got very lucky to be part of a company that a lot of these things I'm saying jive completely with them.
Larry Lawson:But seeing an area, and so this isn't one of the things that we talked about as far as the region goes where I am, but it can be a difficult region.
Larry Lawson:Some of the areas that lie outside of Dallas are a little bit more difficult to keep staff, difficult patients, all of that stuff.
Larry Lawson:And it, they are jobs I think where people could get burnt out or at least be that person that can't wait till five o'clock and it's just cashing a paycheck.
Larry Lawson:I think one of the things I'm most proud of, one is bringing in great people.
Larry Lawson:I think they're, I have great people from top to bottom, but keeping them all, pulling in the same direction.
Larry Lawson:I think when things get hard, I think they pay people in management positions for when things are very difficult, when things are going good, anybody could manage, and we all have that moment where in the middle of it, and you just want to throw your hands up.
Larry Lawson:You know, and the fact that you've been there means that these other people are too.
Larry Lawson:I think the thing that I'm most proud of is keeping all of those people, having good people there, and then being able to have them continue to believe in me for whatever reason.
Larry Lawson:You know, sometimes may be smoke and mirrors, I don't know, but pulling them all along this route to where we're working together and to where even during those tough times, I have people that are very willing to dig in and do the right thing.
Larry Lawson:You know?
Larry Lawson:To be part of a group like that is very special, and I'm proud of them, and I'm proud to be a part of it.
Anderson Williams:Larry Lawson is an Everyday Hero whose superpower is his philosophy.
Anderson Williams:Whether it was learned from a philosopher he studied, or his own personal experience, insights developed or "stolen" as he says.
Anderson Williams:Larry's people first approach to work and life is clearly core to who he is and how he relates to the world.
Anderson Williams:Finding a career at 39 years old in physical therapy has only magnified Larry's philosophy and put it into practice and created impact that I suspect a younger version of Larry could have never even imagined.
Anderson Williams:If you enjoyed this episode, check out our other Everyday Heroes at www.shorecp.university/podcasts or anywhere you get your podcasts.
Anderson Williams:There you will also find episodes from our Microcap Moments as well as Bigger.
Anderson Williams:Stronger.
Anderson Williams:Faster.
Anderson Williams:series each highlighting the people and stories that make the lower middle market space unique.
Anderson Williams:This podcast was produced by Shore Capital Partners and recorded in the Andrew Malone Podcast Studio with story and narration by Anderson Williams, recording and editing by Austin Johnson.
Anderson Williams:Editing by Reel Audiobooks.
Anderson Williams:Sound design, mixing, and mastering by Mark Galup of Reel Audiobooks.
Anderson Williams:Special thanks to Larry Lawson and Dena Aitken.
Anderson Williams:This podcast is a property of Shore Capital Partners, LLC.
Anderson Williams:None of the content herein is investment advice, an offer of investment advisory services, nor a recommendation or offer relating to any security.
Anderson Williams:See the terms of use page on the Shore Capital website for other important information.
