Meet Vikash Sharma

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Vikash Sharma a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, so we’re so thrilled to have Vikash with us today – welcome and maybe we can jump right into it with a question about one of your qualities that we most admire. How did you develop your work ethic? Where do you think you get it from?

I can say without a doubt that I get my work ethic from my father. We came to the United States with very little, just what was in our suitcases, and knowing barely anyone. I saw my father get right to work upon arriving. He worked at an Indian restaurant 7 day a week for about 10-11 hours a day for as long as I can remember. Eventually he was able to save up enough to open his own restaurants. From a very young age I was in the restaurants with my dad doing whatever I could to help. I would clean dishes, pour water, clear tables, hand out menus and fetch items for my dad. I found great joy in knowing that I could help somehow. As I grew older I was able to help more and also better understand the sacrifice my parents made for my brothers and myself. It is this sacrifice that fuels my work ethic. I know that I can’t let the sacrifices that my parents made go to waste. So, whenever things get tough, I think about how hard my father worked for our family and that thought gives me all of the motivation that I need to keep working towards whatever it might be.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

Perfect Stride Physical Therapy of NYC has been a long time in the making. From a young age I fell in love with sports and the human body. I played enough sports to the point where I inevitably ended up in physical therapy recovering from injuries. It was from the exceptional experiences that I had with my physical therapist that I had always had the idea of becoming a physical therapist in the back of my head.

Fast forward to 2012 and I had graduated physical therapy school and started working in New York City at what is known as a high volume practice. I was seeing 3, 4 sometimes 5 patients at one time. This situation was not good for anyone. The patients weren’t getting the individualized care that they deserved and I was not getting to use my clinical reasoning to help them, I was just becoming skilled at multitasking and getting stressed out. This is not what I had signed up for, I had only been practicing for a few months and was already getting burnt out and thinking about a career change.

I had come to the realization that our healthcare model was broken. We prioritized sick care and not preventative care, insurance companies would only reimburse medical providers for treatment that was provided to treat conditions that had become symptomatic and they stopped reimbursing us as soon they thought the patient was recovered “enough”. This meant that in most instances our patients pain levels were low and perhaps they could perform their daily tasks well “enough” according to the insurance company standards, however, they were not ready to return to their sport or physical activity. This created a broke system that would set up patients for failure, as they would just get injured again when they would try to get back to their sport.

It was out of this frustration and need that Perfect Stride Physical Therapy was born, with a vision to provide one-on-one care for a full hour to all of our patients. We wanted to get back to the basics, doing what was best for each and every unique human that came through our doors and not what the insurance companies wanted us to do. In 2012 the cash pay and out of network practice was a novel idea and only a few physical therapy clinics were operating this way. However, it was very clear from the beginning that people valued this model and were willing to pay to receive the attention and quality care that they deserved. People valued being listened to and having a customized treatment approach based on their needs and goals, not what the insurance company wanted.

We began to niche into working with runners early. This really helped us establish ourselves in the NYC running community and become a go to provider for all things running rehab and performance related (run coaching, strength training, gait analysis). It has now been 13+ years since we opened our doors and New York City has embraced and supported what we have created.

We have recently even created a continuing education course called, “Running For Life”. This course takes everything that we have learned about getting runners back to running at their best and put it into a weekend seminar to better help educate healthcare providers on how to provide the best care to runners. This journey has truly been amazing. Every single day, I receive so much joy being able to walk into Perfect Stride and know that we are set up to provide the highest level of care for our clients and get them back to crushing their goals.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Risk Taking – Being able to venture out and start Perfect Stride not knowing what would happened and without having the security of salaried job was tough. However, without taking that risk I would not be who I am today and Perfect Stride would not have helped thousands of athletes and runners achieve their high performance goals.

Being Human – Regardless of what you are doing if you can not empathize with others and realize that there is more to life than business, you will never be as successful as you can be. Each and every client that comes to Perfect Stride is unique, we take the time to listen and get to know them and foster a relationship with them. The more human/genuine our interactions, the better trust we develop with our clients and better our outcomes become.

Running Specialty – Being a expert at one thing (running rehab and performance) versus trying to do everything to a lesser extent has been a huge leg up for Perfect Stride. We are trusted by the runners of NYC and beyond to help them with the running related issues. I think that this is an important consideration for others, find something that you are passionate about and double down on it, become the go to expert.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

We are always looking for others to collaborate with. As a small business we understand that there is truly strength in numbers. If your brand specializes in working with runners or active individuals, we would love to work with you to better help each other’s clients and also promote physical activity/running to the world. Interested in collaborating with Perfect Stride, send us an email at [email protected].

Contact Info:

• Website: https://perfectstridept.com
• Instagram: @perfectstridept