We recently connected with Andrea Polk and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Andrea, you’ve got such an interesting story, but before we jump into that, let’s first talk about a topic near and dear to us – generosity. We think success, happiness and wellbeing depends on authentic generosity and empathy and so we’d love to hear about how you become such a generous person – where do you think your generosity comes from?
I’ll start with a little story. When I was little I would watched my mom get held up in the grocery store for an hour talking to an elderly person.
She saw my impatience one day and in the car she told me;
“Baby, if you have the time and someone needs to talk like that.. give them a little of your time. A lot of older people live alone and you might be the only social interaction they’ve had in months.”
My dad would do projects and odd jobs for people and not expect a penny in return.
These are only a couple examples. There are many more. Needless to say they showed me generosity in many ways.
They taught me if you can help someone you should and if you can’t help them, at the very least don’t hurt them.
In our business at Clearwater Sports Massage, these values run through the core of our clinic. If we have the extra time and one of our clients needs a few more minutes of massage or they can benefit from us sitting down and showing them stretches. We will do it every single time.
If we can teach you how to work on something at home and save you a few sessions in the office with us, we do it.
If we can pinpoint something in your life that is causing your pain to reoccur. We will give you the awareness and the tools to prevent injury and pain in the future.
Our business isn’t dependent on you being dependent on us. We are here to help educate you and make you self sufficient in your own injury prevention and pain relief.
And just like my Mama always said “If you do good you get good.”
We have a successful and thriving clinic without being stingy with our knowledge or snaking people into expensive treatment plans they don’t need.
This is because people trust us and know we have their well-being at heart. And word of mouth is by far the best advertisement.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I own and operate Clearwater Sports Massage in beautiful Clearwater Florida with my wife Breanna May.
I have been practicing medical massage for pain relief, athletic performance and post surgical rehab since 2010.
In our office we mostly treat soft tissue pain and injuries through Trigger Point Therapy techniques.
Breanna and Marco graduated from the best medical massage school in the United States. The Center for Neurosomatic Studies. Located here in Clearwater.
Our office is very clean, bright and welcoming with large windows looking into palm trees and the Pinellas trail.
If you’re looking for a great massage place it doesn’t get any better than us.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
To start a business and be successful you need three things.
Tenacity, Courage and Perseverance.
You need to clearly define what you want and have the courage to put in the work to get it there. That means sacrificing your wants for your needs and persevering when things don’t go the way you expected.
We have had so many obstacles along the way. We’ve lost several family members and been through mourning while working towards our goals, we’ve had a house fire and lost our home, our office was sold and we were kicked out to find another within a short period of time…
But if you have a firm grip on your goal, you’re brave enough to say I’ll get there no matter what and you don’t quit in the face of adversity… Let’s just say luck really does favored the prepared, the bold and the strong.
Who is your ideal client or what sort of characteristics would make someone an ideal client for you?
Our ideal client is someone who knows the bodies ability to heal itself. Someone who knows or at least hopes there are more options than shots, pills and surgery for pain relief.
We also prefer people who are willing to play an active role in their recovery, maintenance and injury prevention.
Obviously we will help the folks who aren’t interested in being self sufficient just as much as anyone else, but it’s not as rewarding to know you’re dependent on us.
We believe in empowering our clients as much as possible. Client education is at the center of our practice.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ClearwaterSportsMassage.com
- Instagram: @ClearwaterSportsMassage
- Facebook: Clearwater Sports Massage
- Linkedin: Clearwater Sports Massage
- Youtube: @stretchandroll3300
