December 28, 2024 • 47 mins
Corey Rivera and Cal Cates explore the existence of rubbing robots and how (unsurprisingly?) they prompt a critical examination of what defines massage therapy. This episode dives into what the robots can and cannot do, why they're happening now, and how you need a human to do massage therapy.
Unreal Rubbing Robot Images
Michael and Aubrey's Podcast
Aescape
Alex: Massage Robotics
Phill the Nightstand
2023 ISPA U.S. Spa Industry Study
2024 ISPA U.S. Spa Industry Study
Massage Cost Optimization Article
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to the Rub, a podcast about massage therapy.
I'm your host, kori Rivera,licensed massage therapist, and
information magpie, and today,healwell Executive Director Cal
Cates and I are going to talkabout massage robots.
So here we are talking aboutrobots.
(00:33):
Here we are talking aboutrobots officially.
Um, I have calcates with metoday to help me talk about the
robots.
Uh, calcates, what?
What do you know?
What do you know about theserobots?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Well, so you know, I don't know a whole lot about
them.
I think that I know that theyare developing.
I know that there's adisconnect.
That's not true, to say no.
My sense is that there's adisconnect between what I've
seen and what's actually beingcreated.
(01:06):
Actually being created Because Isee, like these pictures from
companies that are making thesemassage robots, where it's like
a person, a robot, looking likethat looks like a person with
arms and legs and whatever youknow, sitting next to a person
who is ostensibly about toreceive a massage, and but what
I've read is that it's like anarm like, and not even like a
human looking arm, but sort oflike a, almost like a, an
assembly line arm that like willpush on people, um, and
(01:32):
manipulate their tissues.
Uh, and one thing I do feellike I can say I know is that
massage therapists are kind offreaking out about the robots,
um, with probably about as muchknowledge as I have about them.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
So it's a little like how do we slow the roll here?
Sure, I'm going to send you, orshare with you a picture and
you tell me describe thispicture for me this picture for
(02:12):
me.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Oh, okay, uh.
So, wow, I feel like I'm notsure which of us is aubrey and
which of us is michael, but, um,feels very maintenance phase.
So there is a woman in a whatappears to be possibly like a
spandex onesie situation, with amatching headband thing, and
this person is lying face downwith their arms sort of, I think
(02:36):
, on a platform.
So they're prone on whatappears to be basically a
massage table-esque situationmassage table-esque situation.
And then there are these twolike white enamel, definitely
robotic looking arm-like thingsand at the ends of them, rather
than like anything, that lookslike sort of a hand.
It almost looks like the end ofwhen runners who've lost part
(03:01):
of a limb have like a prosthetic.
That's sort of like that scoop.
It sort of looks like a shortversion of that, and so at this
moment this woman is havingthese, these arm things are
pushing around like sort of thepsis low back sort of area.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Um, yeah, so it does not look like a person, this
robot no, it looks very muchlike a robot.
Um, so the thing that you haveprobably seen, and some of our
listeners have probably alsoseen, is, um, their ai generated
images and they I'm not reallysure who made them or what they
(03:42):
were used for in the first place, but they tend to be.
They look like Sunny, kind offrom iRobot, yeah, and they
they're like holding the hand ofan old person or like patting
them a little maybe, and like.
This is the imagery that hasstarted to go around and that is
(04:03):
absolutely not what is going onat all.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Um, we are not we are not there.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Uh, we have, like maybe pieces of that being there
, but that's not.
That's not what's going on.
So, the robot, the picture thatI've showed you, this is the
escape robot.
This is um the one that isrolling out currently in New
York in very select locations,so they're sort of in their
active beta testing, I would say.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
So and I want to say and this might be an age thing,
but when you say this doesn'tlook like a person, definitely I
agree with that and you say itlooks like a robot, and I'm like
I think it looks like roboticarms, because when I think of a
robot, I think of a like youknow, like Westworld, like it's
a person, but it's a machine,you know.
(04:48):
So, um, yeah, I mean it is.
It is these arms that areanchored to the floor, that have
nothing human about them.
Um, for whatever that's worth.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Yes, so this is the escape robot.
There are a couple other robotsthat I want to mention, so
there's a lot of like innovationgoing on.
Right now.
There is a market availabilitything happening, which we will
talk about momentarily, butthere's two other robots that I
sort of wanted to mention, threeother robots, I suppose.
(05:18):
So the first one's called Alex,which has a single arm, as
opposed to escape, which has twoarms, which has a single arm,
as opposed to escape, which hastwo arms.
The Alex robot comes from amassage robotics website that
says things like join us and therobots will win.
They've altered their marketinga little bit and unfortunately,
now they say things likeessentially they're saying that
(05:39):
the robot's not going to assaultyou.
That is, that's the marketingchoice that has happened for the
Alexlex robot um, wow, it's not, it's not not fabulous, which
we will also discuss.
Uh, the phil robot, which wasan indiegogo project, um, is one
(06:00):
of my favorites because it um,it's just, it's a single arm and
it like sits next to yourbedside and extends, so it's
like a home based thing, but italso the advertisement says that
it doubles as a nightstand,because the robot arm collapses
into the little frame that'sholding it, which I think is
very funny, because I don't knowabout your nightstand, but my
nightstand has a ton of stuff onit all of the time.
Yeah, yeah, all of the time,like where do the books go?
(06:24):
I see what the books and likeand I have a like friendship
bracelets and a lamp and lotionwater like the water probably
shouldn't go there, so no thatwas an interesting um selling
choice.
Um, I haven't seen much aboutphil.
Uh, I think the um both thealex and the escape robot just
like powered far ahead of them.
(06:45):
So there's a robot that claimsit also does laser hair removal,
which seems nerve wracking, ifanything really.
So that was also a single armone.
And then Times Magazine claimedthat the escape robot is one of
(07:07):
the best inventions of 2024.
They did put it in the umrobotics category.
As opposed to, like beauty orhealth or medical or anything,
there's just like sort of ageneral robot category, um, and
that's where they have placed it.
So first I want to talk abouthow these robots could be really
cool and then I want to talkabout what I am worried about
with these robots, so thingsthat could be really cool.
(07:30):
Um, there are people like me,um, who do not like being
touched, um, and I don't thinkwe're necessarily few in number.
So the ability for a robot towork on a person without having
another person involved can beattractive, especially for
(07:50):
people who have traumaassociated with touch.
So there's certainly someoptions there.
I had somebody mention andpoint out that if it is a robot
doing the massage, it is verydefinitely not massage therapy.
It is just a massage and I cancertainly agree with that.
As we like to discuss thedefinition of massage on this
(08:13):
show, which I will repeat foryou now, in case you have
forgotten, the definition ofmassage therapy by Dr Anne Blair
Kennedy.
She wrote it in herdissertation and then in a
follow-up article.
It's based off of conversationswith 32 experts from the field.
So massage therapy consists ofrubbing, but it also includes
(08:34):
health promotion and educationalmessaging.
It is for both self-care andhealth maintenance.
The results of massage therapydepend on therapeutic
relationships and communication.
The results also depend on thetraining, skill and experience
of the therapist, and thesetting of the treatment, such
as a spa, hospital or shoppingmall, may have an influence on
the results.
So you kind of need a humanwith that definition.
(08:56):
You just, you just do so.
The robot can do rubbing, itcan do basic massage.
It cannot do massage therapy,but for people who just need
some rubbing, maybe a shoulderor something possibility.
The other cool possibility withthe robots is for research.
There's a big problem inmassage therapy research where
(09:18):
it's very dependent on reportingfrom the person doing the
massage therapy or the personreceiving massage therapy, and
any time you get a humaninvolved in reporting, it's
going to be variable, it's goingto be hard to replicate.
The most precise way to reportthings about massage is blood
chemistry, but that's notnecessarily what we're really
(09:39):
interested in in the first place.
It's just that it's aconsistent way to report.
So a robot could potentially beused for two very cool things.
One, it could be equipped withsensors that would give us
precise reporting on what'shappening either with bodies or
with the massage that is goingon.
And what I'm most interested inis that you could take the
person out of the massage andsee what's happening, because
(10:02):
massage research has tried veryhard to eliminate the effect of
the therapeutic relationshipwhen doing research.
But you really can't.
It's just people makeconnections, humans make
connections, and so to try andtake that out involves doing
research that uses protocols,which is not really what a lot
of massage looks like.
So now you're sort of testingsomething that's not accurate to
(10:25):
the reality of it, and I don'teven know how you would control
for a therapeutic relationshipother than choosing strangers.
But even then, you know, overthe course of a massage people
tend to make connections,whether they're talking or not.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Well, and I would say that and unless and you can
obviously cut this this doesn'tfit, but I feel like the way you
just characterized it is thatwe've been trying to control for
therapeutic relationship, andthat's true.
But the underlying thing ofthat is because we haven't
believed, as a community ofresearchers and scientists, that
(11:01):
that is key to the effect,scientists, that that is key to
the effect.
So we want to tease that out sothat we really can say what's
happening here is rubbing andthe rubbing is what's important.
And what you're suggesting nowis that, yeah, so what if we
actually had a thing that couldonly rub and we could in fact
compare them, but I don't thinkit's been an accident or like we
haven't.
(11:21):
Sort of there's really beenthis understanding, even within
the massage profession, thatwhat we do is rub.
End of story.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
I do.
I do wonder if it's if likecart and horse, like is it that
we've decided that we just rubbecause we don't know how to
research something that's asmalleable as a therapeutic
relationship, or so, like it wasjust easier to go that
direction and then that sort ofskewed how we thought about
ourselves, or did we reallythink that, like, it's just
(11:51):
rubbing and it's not therelationship and we don't need
to worry about it at all andit's honestly, it's probably a
little bit of low column?
Yeah, yeah, that's probablytrue.
So the third thing that has meexcited about massage robots and
possibility possibility, but areally cool one, if it does
happen which is the idea ofpassive income for massage
therapists.
(12:11):
Passive income as a massagetherapist is difficult to get
without having a sauna orpossibly being part of a
multilevel marketing scheme orselling some products.
Mostly, when we make money, wemake it with our hands for a set
amount of time and that meansthat it is only for that set
amount of time that you arecreating income and that limits
(12:34):
us a lot financially.
So I talk a lot with massagetherapists whose real passion is
to work with people whoabsolutely cannot afford massage
For whatever reason.
It's just.
It's just, it's just not anoption, and the massage
therapist themselves can'tafford to charge less and still
have a career and a life and payfor anything really, um.
(12:55):
So then now we're at thisimpasse where the massage
therapist has to charge acertain amount of money, um, for
their services, and that putsthe people that they really want
to treat sort of out of theirreach.
So what if the massagetherapist could lease one of
these escape robots, which isabout $7,000 a month, and the
robot could do the basic rubbingpart for people who just want
(13:18):
some basic rubbing, while thetherapist did some paperwork or
marketing or billing, and thetherapist could do the intake,
the therapist could do theouttake.
The therapist did somepaperwork or marketing or
billing and the therapist coulddo the intake.
The therapist could do theouttake, the therapist could do
treatment planning, thetherapist could tell the robot,
maybe, what to do.
Passive income could be a reallyhuge deal.
And the escape robot haslimitations for the work that it
(13:39):
can do, so it can only do workposteriorly and it works from
neck to calves.
So no arms, no feet, no hands,no neck, no front of the body at
all, and I think for massagetherapists who are aging out of
the profession because theysimply cannot do the physical
stuff.
(13:59):
It's really the posteriormuscles that are causing the
like physical strain.
So if the robot could work onthe posterior things and the
bigger things and then themassage therapist could do neck,
feet, hands, therapeuticrelationship, all of those
(14:20):
things, it could be a greatassistant, which, really, when
you think about the purpose ofrobots like that's the purpose
that I gravitate toward is theone that helps a human do the
thing that they're great at butmaybe can't do so much anymore,
or couldn't do in the firstplace but could be great at the
other thing.
So, like there are therapistswho are awesome at the.
So those are the big threepossibilities that I see.
(14:48):
Do you have any thoughts aboutthose possibilities?
Calcates, I've talked a lot.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Yeah, I mean I appreciate being able to see the
collaborative possibilities.
I think the price point againis going to reinforce sort of
the capitalist stratification.
Capitalist stratification, youknow, the therapist who is
working in a private practice,who is understandably tired
(15:15):
after a 15 or 20 year career,isn't going to be able to
purchase a robot to help themstay in business.
So I see that being helpful andprobably most helpful for
franchises, spas, places thathave the income to purchase one
or more of these said robots.
So yeah, I mean I think maybewe see over time that the price
(15:38):
comes down, but again there willalready be a head start in
certain sectors of theprofession.
So, speaking, of spas.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
let's talk about what I actually think is going to
happen, as opposed to what Iwish would happen.
So part of the question of thisrobot thing is like why now?
Like why is this happening now?
In particular, Things like this, things that cost this much
money to create, don't happenwithout a market available.
(16:11):
You just don't spend a lot ofmoney on something that you're
just not going to be able tosell or use later and, like in
robot, research is extremelyexpensive.
So the answer that I have towhy now?
Is actually on the escapewebsite.
So they have posted the 2023international spa association us
(16:31):
spa industry study and I haveread it.
Um, and you might want to too.
It's actually quite pretty andvery easy to read.
Um, it's not full of, um, thickstatistical language.
It's mostly, um, it's apresentation piece.
So, um, I'm going to list yousome statistics and I would like
your reaction to some of them.
So the big statistic is thatthere are about 21,000 spas in
(16:55):
this report and there are about21,000 job openings for massage
therapists at those spas.
So 60 percent of unfilled staffpositions at spas are massage
therapists.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Interesting.
I mean, I think you know myfirst reaction, of course, is
that this is I'm not sure howeffective, but it on some if
we're't have enough humans to dothese jobs and so we could get
(17:31):
these robots.
But I think that you know whenI think about it.
I mean, the thing about massageis that I mean, unless you have
a robot that can providemultiple massages simultaneously
, we're still in the samesituation of one massage at a
time is what can happen, and somaybe you're solving that you
don't have a live person to hirefor this job, but you still
(17:54):
can't sort of offer moremassages if you have a robot.
So I'm curious how spas wouldsort of do that math in terms of
is it worth making theinvestment?
Speaker 1 (18:04):
I'm not sure.
I do know that, like as far aspros of robot over human goes,
the robot doesn't get tired, therobot doesn't call in sick, the
robot is always available.
The robot theoretically doesn'tmake anybody mad for customer
service reasons.
I mean, you never know.
(18:25):
The seven thousand dollar amonth lease price tag comes with
maintenance and some marketingstuff, so you don't have to
necessarily worry about itbreaking down or at least not
being able to fix it.
If it does, um, it does havesome safety features on it.
Um, it only applies about 50pounds of pressure, which is
(18:47):
less than a lot of massagetherapists apply.
All right, like human massagetherapists who, especially
people who just go for it.
Yeah, so I can.
I agree that this is aworkforce shortage problem.
The question is, what problemare we actually solving with a
robot?
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Well and and I mean you know part of when I think
about what you could, the kindof workforce support and
training you could provide with$7,000 a month, and the sort of
sustainability that we couldbuild into the profession if
we're willing to invest thatmuch in a machine.
And again, this is where,philosophically, I'm possibly
(19:24):
not a good conversation partnerfor this, because I, you know,
people aren't going to go awayand so if we replace people, you
know, which I think is it's avery simplistic way to describe
it but if we have robots doingjobs that people could do and
possibly that people are betterat doing, those people have to
(19:46):
figure out how they will make aliving.
And you know, we know very wellthat massage therapists are not
well supported, particularly inenvironments where they're
seeing six or seven clients aday, five days a week, and
they're not getting the kind oftraining and support they need.
So of course, they're burningout in five or six years for
emotional reasons, for physicalreasons, and $7,000 a month
(20:09):
could do a lot to address someof the issues that lead to
burnout and people leaving thecareer.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
So there's definitely a money thing.
I would like to give you acouple of statistics for what
massage therapists makeaccording to this report.
So massage therapists workingin spas make generally less than
$50,000.
That includes tips and half ofthem work between 33 and 39
hours a week.
There is no description on thestatistic of whether that is
(20:37):
hands-on hours, but fromexperience when people talk
about massage therapy hours theyusually mean hands-on and they
don't actually like.
They won't necessarily tell youthat that's what they mean, but
that's usually what people areclocking.
It does appear that for mostspas 31 hours is considered full
time, so benefits are attachedto most of those jobs.
(20:57):
Which awesome, well doneeverybody.
But 33 to 39 hours a week for50k, including tips so not
necessarily 50k including tips,so not necessarily 50k.
Um isn't a lot and doesn't getyou very far.
And 88 of massage therapistsare women um, I don't know the
percentage of that percentagewho have children, but I would
(21:19):
think it's safe to say that someof them do, probably many of
them.
Um, and 50k is not.
It's not going to get you veryfar with a family or really with
just you.
So the report talks about thebiggest problems for spas to
hire massage therapists, and thebiggest problem is finding
(21:41):
qualified candidates.
So, yes, it is absolutely aworkforce issue.
We just don't have enough, andthat's not news for us.
We do know that we don't haveenough people for lots of
reasons.
Part of it's the pay.
Part of it's the treatment.
Part of it's this job is reallyhard.
(22:03):
Part of it's that we don'tunderstand the job.
There are so many reasons wedon't have enough people.
Part of it's COVID and peoplejust leaving the profession and
we're not like we're notreplacing them with our
graduates.
We'll talk about a lot of thosethings in later episodes, but
the thing that I really want totalk about today is why robots
(22:24):
are attractive for reallyanything in America, and that is
because we are a nation basedin manufacturing and
manufacturing has certainprinciples, and when you apply
manufacturing principles tohumans, it doesn't always work
out.
So let's discuss howmanufacturing principles got
(22:46):
into things like health care andhuman service, everything.
There's a style of managementthat's called lean management.
It's very, very popular.
Lean management originally camefrom japan, so in the 1950s,
japan was producing three timesthe amount of cars that america
was producing, and they tendedto be more reliable, and the
(23:09):
entire world was like what, how,and Japan had come up with a
system called the Toyotaproduction system, which now is
known as lean management style.
So there's three parts to theToyota production system.
It's all about reducingwastefulness and like sort of
tightening up your manufacturingchains and making sure that
(23:30):
everything is working togetherproperly, because when you have
a production line, anything thatslows down your production line
slows down production at all,and mistakes cost money, and
that's just how manufacturingworks.
So three pieces and rememberthis is Japan.
So the first piece is calledMuda, which is has to do with
wastefulness andnon-value-adding activities.
(23:52):
So the idea is that anythingthat doesn't contribute is
probably not something that youshould be doing.
So if you're having too manymeetings, which seems to be a
problem for everybody right now,perhaps some of them are
wasteful and maybe you shouldcut down.
Muda does give space for thingsthat are not directly
value-adding, like inspections,but are an extremely important
(24:16):
part of the manufacturing andlike producing something process
.
So inspections are included asuseful, just not necessarily
directly value adding.
The second piece is called Mura,which is uneven or irregular
work.
So this addresses things likebottlenecks and wait times.
So for things like customerservice, you go to the doctor,
(24:36):
you have your appointment time.
Doctor's behind you wait threeextra hours to your doctor for
15 minutes.
This is a more of a problemWith factory work.
There's ways around this tomake sure that maybe, like one
piece of the production is notoverproducing which then creates
a bottleneck in a later pieceof production.
So the idea is to sort of evenout your production.
(25:00):
It might be a transit problem,maybe you can't get the pieces
to the place that they need togo, but there's ways to work
with uneven amounts of work.
And the third one is called MURI, which is overburdening your
people and equipment.
And there's a piece of theToyota production system that
America tends to forget, and Ibet you can guess which one it
is.
So we, when you read thingsthat are sort of westernized
(25:21):
about the Toyota productionsystem, the overburdening of
your people and equipment tendsto get left out.
And wow, does it get left outwith service things that are
trying to establish leanmanagement principles.
So I found this incrediblearticle that spelled it all out
for me, which is awesome becauseI didn't have to make any
guesses.
This article is called MassageCost Optimization Lean
(25:43):
Operations in the Spa Industry AGuide to Reducing Massage
Expenses.
So there's this disconnect thathappens between people who do
massage therapy and people whoown massage therapist business
when they are not the sameperson or not a person who has
experienced it.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
So I know in the editing you could just play this
twice, but I want you to readthe title of that article again.
It has two colons Because it'sso loaded Yep.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
So here's the title again for everybody Massage Cost
Optimization Lean Operations inthe Spa Industry a Guide to
Reducing Massage Expenses.
The website it's from is calledFaster Capital, by the way,
which you know, just be honest.
So that's good, because so muchof it is without regard for
massage therapists.
And I want to say right nowthat this is not every spa at
(26:39):
all, because if it was so,21,000 job openings for 21,000
spas does not mean there's a oneto one ratio of employment gap,
right.
It means that some spas treattheir people really well and
have great jobs and do awonderful job managing people
and customers and time and allof those things, and some of
them clearly do not, are not notso good with that.
(27:02):
And I think this philosophy isthe reason these robots are
happening right now and it isthe reason that those spas have
so many openings, because thisis the way that they think about
their massage therapist.
They think about them as robotsalready, and if you already
think about your workforce asrobots, then what's the
difference replacing them withan actual robot?
(27:22):
So I figured to the bigquestion that people would have
about these robots is is my jobin danger of being taken over by
a robot, and I think the answeris possibly, and the possibly
happens when people are alreadytreating you like a robot, and
that sort of includes you ifyou're treating yourself like
one.
So please don't do that either.
So we're going to go through abunch of this.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Yeah, go ahead this first block of text and nowhere
in it does it mention the personwho will be providing the
massage.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
So it's about the bottom line and about the
customer experience so that themost of the article on the only
place that the article reallysays anything about massage
therapists directly that is totheir benefit has to do with
educating them, particularly incross-educating them into other
um like into estheticianAesthetics, yep, and I guess
laser hair removal, I'm not surewhich I guess is aesthetics but
(28:20):
but cross-training them intoand that's not about right.
That's not really about makingyour massage therapist better.
That is about you being able tomake the most of their time,
getting more out of them.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Yeah, so it's about increasing the usefulness of a
human a human who could be amassage therapist or not or not.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Yes, yeah, so I I took some choice.
Highlights um, I'll link thearticle in the show notes.
I highly recommend you read it,even if it's just so that
you're aware of how a person whomight hire you might be
thinking about you.
But here are my very favorites.
So, cal, would you read thefirst heading and the first
(29:02):
selection.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Time management.
Streamlining appointments,implementing a dynamic
scheduling system that adjustsfor the varying lengths of
different massage types cansignificantly reduce downtime.
For example, sandwichingshorter sessions between longer
ones can optimize the use oftime slots.
Synchronized breaks,coordinating break times among
(29:25):
staff to ensure continuousclient service can prevent
potential revenue loss fromunavailability.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Potential revenue loss from unavailability.
Yeah, so one of the things thatI think worry employers about
massage therapists is their needfor breaks.
It seems to be a constantdislike for hiring a human and
(29:53):
massage therapy.
For those of you who listen,who don't actually practice, it
is exhausting.
Concentrating on one human foran hour takes a lot.
I don't know if you've evertried it before, but it's pretty
intense.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Well, and I think that's important, because when
people ask me all the time, oh,aren't you so tired?
And what they think is like myelbows and my wrists and my
hands are tired, and it's likeonce you've been doing massage
for a little while, you actuallyyour body sort of figures out
that this is what you're goingto do with it.
And I mean, I think there arecertainly unsafe ways to
practice, et cetera.
But the exhaustion ispsychosocial, emotional,
(30:30):
energetic, sort of like.
Yes, exactly as you said, corey, to focus on a single person
for one hour is tiring, yes,yeah, and the peeing and eating
huge buzzkill for productivityright and massage like.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Breaks between massages are not necessarily for
the peeing or eating.
It might be for changing thesheets right and for doing
whatever notes that you do, oreven cashing somebody out,
depending on what kind of staffyou have working with you.
So it's not really downtime,really no synchronized breaks.
So coordinating break time toensure continuing continuous
(31:13):
client service does indeedprevent potential revenue loss,
but it also prevents yourmassage therapist from making
connections with each other,which, if you're sort of into
this lean management style,especially if you're hardcore
about it, might be to youradvantage.
Because they don't talk to eachother and they don't rise up.
Yeah, they don't organize Right, but they also don't find
(31:36):
support among each other.
And since massage therapistretention is clearly an issue,
clearly a problem, then part ofthe problem is going to be
making sure that your therapistshave a support system and they
themselves are part of thesupport system.
Management can do a fantasticjob and if you don't feel like
(31:57):
you are working with yourcoworkers and a massage, that's
pretty hard because we work in aroom alone with a client, so
making connections is difficultanyway and ensuring that you
never see another human that youwork with is a very good way to
not make connections and a verygood way to stress out your
therapists.
So that's the my timemanagement selections.
(32:18):
There were so many more, butthose were the uh, the top two.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Um for skill enhancement.
Like I said, this is really theonly area where they discuss
massage therapists directly, andit is um discuss massage
therapists directly and it is umto make them more useful and
cost efficient.
As people per hour, essentiallyso um equipping them with a
diverse set of skills, um toincrease billable hours and um
(32:45):
to keep therapists trained ontechniques and trends.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
This is so.
So the cross training I could Icould riff on that for a long
time, because you didn't becomea massage therapist necessarily
to then also become anesthetician or whatever else.
But ongoing education, it says,regular workshops on new
techniques and trends, keeptherapists at the forefront of
the industry, making theirservices more marketable
(33:15):
forefront of the industry,making their services more
marketable and I feel like thisis a thing that we continue to
see massage therapists do to andfor themselves, that they think
that they need a monetizable,trademarked technique or sort of
that.
They have to play into this ideathat clients have, which is I
did this thing to myself or,because I'm engaging in this
(33:36):
type of exercise, I need thiskind of massage that I saw on TV
and that the idea like as if wedig into burnout and the things
that lead to therapists leavingthe profession, a piece of that
, a big piece of that, I think,is not being prepared to be in
the space of other humans on theregular, professionally
speaking, and so when I think ofthat, I think is not being
prepared to be in the space ofother humans on the regular,
professionally speaking.
And so when I think, of course,of ongoing education I'm
(33:59):
thinking about.
How do I prepare my therapistto be in the energetic and
emotional space of strangers allday long, and that techniques,
sure, but that's not I mean.
Again, it just reallyhighlights, it makes very
transparent that these quotemassage therapists could be
anybody and that the thinkingabout this really is these are
(34:21):
units of production and how dowe make them more productive?
It's really not about theirwell-being, their sustainability
, their engagement with even thepeople receiving the service.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Yes, and that brings us to process standardization.
So would you read processstandardization for me?
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Establishing uniform treatment protocols ensures
consistency in service qualitywhile minimizing training costs
and errors.
For example, a spa couldstandardize the sequence of
massage techniques used acrossall services to ensure every
client receives the same levelof care.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Woof, all right, so let's talk about equality versus
equity.
Truly yes.
So equality means everybodygets the same thing, and equity
means everybody gets what theyneed, which is not necessarily
the same thing, it's just not so.
This, this process,standardization, is a concept
(35:23):
that I think.
The idea that if you giveeverybody the same massage,
they're getting the best servicepossible is sort of part of
that thought, and it's callous,callous, speechless.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
I mean this thing about the same level of care.
No, they'll get the same stepsof service.
That's not value.
That's like on a basic level,CYA, Like you really want to
make it so that, like, if Trentis available today, great, and I
want to see Trent because I sawhim last week.
(36:06):
But if you know Twyla isavailable this week, it's fine,
I'll see that person because Iknow that at this spa it's
really not even about thetherapist.
They will rub my feet for fiveminutes and then they'll rub my
lower legs for five minutes andthen all of these.
I can expect these sort of 12ways that I will be touched and
(36:26):
it's not about again justpulling out the therapeutic
relationship and a huge part, Iwould argue, of the value of
massage therapy.
And this is you know, how muchof our energy do we spend on
helping consumers?
Franchise owners, spa ownersunderstand that rubbing is good
and I never want to be confusedas a person who is saying
(36:49):
rubbing is bad, Rubbing is great.
We all know that, likepredictable, firm rubbing of the
nervous system is generallycalming for people and anyone
can rub when we add thetherapeutic piece.
I mean, they're not inventingsocial work robots, right?
So I feel like this is thedisconnect that we have to
(37:12):
continue to really bring outinto the open.
It's so easy to fall into this.
Well, yeah, this is how ourculture works.
It's about monetization andit's about, if I own the spa, I
should be able to make as muchmoney as possible, and the
people who make that money forme are actually tertiary at best
(37:32):
.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
They're?
I mean, they're an asset, right, they're like they're a labor
asset, yep, and I want to talk alittle about how the appearance
of these robots means that therobots are in a space to define
what massage therapy is in thepublic eye, and that is the
thing that really worries me.
So I think the robots could bereally helpful for some things.
(37:58):
I think it's cool the techperson in me thinks it's cool
but these robots so this processstandardization thing these
robots do not create massagesthe way chat GPT creates
sentences.
That is not what's happening,and if you've seen any of the
(38:18):
commercials or heard anythingabout it, you would absolutely
understandably think that'swhat's going on, because the
advertising doesn't stop youfrom thinking that it doesn't
say that.
Because the advertising doesn'tstop you from thinking that it
doesn't say that, but because ofthe way people think about AI.
Now, when you say something hasAI attached to it, then that is
sort of the picture everybodygets.
So what the robot does isfollow a protocol.
(38:40):
It has standardizations, it hasa lot of them because it's a
robot and it can keep track ofmany things.
So the people who are using therobots can choose protocols.
They can also direct the robot,like if you have that specific
spot, like by your shoulderblade that, like you just can't
get to, and the robot can get to, you can directly ask it to
work on that area, but itdoesn't do an intake and it
(39:04):
doesn't ask questions and itdoesn't figure out that it
doesn't ask questions and itdoesn't figure out that.
You know, you spent too manyhours yesterday playing with the
grandkids and maybe pickingthem up wasn't such a great idea
.
It just doesn't.
It can't do that, and beingable to do that would take an
immense amount of data, which Ican absolutely guarantee that
(39:24):
they are tracking.
So if anybody was going to getthat data, it would be the
people who own the robots.
So if you do use one, pleaseread the agreement, which is
quite long.
But, as in everything now, theyare definitely keeping track of
your metrics for sure.
Privacy is not a thing.
It's not a thing, not really.
(39:48):
So robots are attractive foremployers and the big worry is
that is this going to definewhat massage therapy is?
And if it does, and if it is,that is so sad for everybody.
It's so terribly, terribly sadfor all of us, for massage
therapists and for clients andfor patients and for just
everybody Humans, humans ingeneral because massage therapy
(40:12):
is so so much more than rubbingand can do so much more for you
than just push on muscles.
The public already has thisidea that that's what massage
therapy is.
Most massage therapists haveexperienced this.
Most, I think, clients haveexperienced it as well, when
they go to somebody who's reallygood at massage therapy and
they come out of the appointmentand they're like wow, I feel
(40:33):
totally different and amazing ina way that I didn't expect.
I just thought you were goingto like rub my neck and then we
were going to be good and that's.
That's not what happened.
There was like I can't evenexplain it, which is part of the
problem, right, and so we, wehave a hard time explaining it.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
Yes, well, and we have a hard time sitting still
with the ineffable, like we'remad, we can't explain it and we
just, it just makes usuncomfortable.
So, if we can, if we can, youknow, take a reductionist lens
and really, you know, zero in.
We know this thing is, is partof what's happening, and so
we're going to really focus onthis and and you can't, you
(41:13):
can't bring the, the productionmindset to human connection,
which again makes it, you know,fall way off the radar of
anybody who's trying to makemoney.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Yes, yeah, and like you can't even bring it to like
the conversational part, right?
If you have a script formassage therapists to talk to
the people that they aretreating, then there is no space
to really find out what kind oftreatment that client needs.
And now you're doing adisservice to your client,
although they may not know it.
But you could be doing so muchmore and your therapist could be
(41:42):
doing so much more.
And those clients I mean Idon't know if you've ever
experienced having a massagetherapist like move away or stop
working, but it is extremelyupsetting for people.
So if you can keep your massagetherapist particularly if
they're really good, they areworth so much.
(42:02):
And if you're in a spasituation where you have lots of
offerings and lots of thingsfor your clients to do, having a
massage therapist those peoplecome back to all of the time
means getting them in your door.
So whether or not your massagetherapy piece of your business
is making a ton of money, peopleare coming back for that and
(42:23):
then you can find other ways tomonetize their stay.
I mean, whether it's, you know,it could be food, it could be
products, it could be all kindsof things.
But getting them in the doorand getting them in your door is
one of the biggest challenges.
But, man, if you have thatmassage therapist that they're
coming back to they're, they'renever leaving ever.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Yeah, and of course I want to say, and then you're
changing the world.
But I then, like the cynicalpart of me is like, oh, but
that's not actually appealing.
If your goal is actually toturn every human encounter into
a monetary unit, you arehonestly not thinking beyond
your, your brick and mortarspace, to what happens when that
person goes out and doesn'thonk at someone on their way
(43:06):
home or doesn't, you know,respond to that text that you
know was going to set off, youknow, some flame throwing, like
it's just that this is thepotential of massage therapy and
making space for thoseexperiences to happen for people
, and you know I look forward tothe day when that is considered
valuable in a way that isimportant, and you know, I don't
(43:29):
know how far away that day is,but I still hope that it's a day
that I'll get to see Me too.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
So if you're a massage therapist, know that you
are in great value right now,because there is not a lot of us
.
And if you are a good massagetherapist, know that you're in
incredible value and please donot underestimate your worth,
whether that's in the money youmake or the people that you're
in incredible value and pleasedo not underestimate your worth.
Whether that's in the money youmake or the people that you see
(43:59):
you are, you are spectacularlyvaluable.
If you're a business owner, tryand think beyond the numbers.
It's very hard to quantify anexperience for people.
You can try, but even peoplewho do it professionally and
write surveys will tell you thatit's a difficult thing to break
something down in the numbers.
So a better thing to keep trackof is what people say as
(44:20):
opposed to like the numbers.
They might circle on a feedbackform.
You need to know what theirexperience was like and once you
do, that's the thing that youcan also use for your
advertising and that's foreverybody who owns business.
Whether you are a massagetherapist or not.
Client quotes are, as we say atHealWell, worth their weight in
gold.
They are how people notice you.
(44:42):
They are how people come backto see you being rated a 10 out
of 10 is great, but a 10 out of10 on today is different from
tomorrow's 10, or maybe equal toan eight yesterday.
Numbers are extremely,extremely variable.
So when you're in a serviceprofession, make sure that you
are trying to track the servicepart of it and not just the
(45:03):
numbers.
And believe me, those robotsare only concerned with the
numbers.
They are not going to track anexperience because they don't
understand experience.
They're robots.
Final thoughts Kyle Cates.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Yeah, I think the only thing I would add to what
you shared is really aninvitation to the massage
therapy profession and tomassage therapists to think and
feel long and hard about what itis you do and what it is that
makes you unique from a robot.
And notice, just start noticinghow you talk about what you do,
(45:36):
what you let slide when clientsor employers characterize your
work and and how often you sortof just shrug off the things
people say that are uninformed,that you know are incorrect and
and sort of reductive, and tojust work on again.
Here we are back to soft skills, as they often call them, but
work on how you can communicatethe missing pieces and and
(46:00):
really we.
This is.
This is first and foremostabout I can't even say taking
back the narrative about massagetherapy, because I don't know
that we've ever owned it, butthere are plenty of people who
will happily run with it, and weare sort of whinging on
Facebook rather than sort oflooking inside and saying, okay,
(46:20):
how do we really decide whatthis is and how it's different
and that it's not a cage matchwith robots?
Robots aren't going away.
We won't stop them.
We have to differentiateourselves and that's really our
work to do.
No one else is going to beinvested in doing that for us.
Yes, I hope I contributedanything to this conversation.
(46:45):
Okay, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (46:55):
I didn't know what you had in mind, but you know, I
mean obviously, because you andI talk about this so much, I'm
like, well, we know this, but weknow this, but a lot of other
people don't.
That's been the biggestchallenge by far is figuring out
what I know and what otherpeople don't, and getting
information out there that'simportant.
Information out there, that'simportant.
Thank you for listening.
Welcome to the Rub, a podcast about massage therapy.
I'm your host, kori Rivera,licensed massage therapist, and
information magpie, and today,healwell Executive Director Cal
Cates and I are going to talkabout massage robots.
So here we are talking aboutrobots.
(00:33):
Here we are talking aboutrobots officially.
Um, I have calcates with metoday to help me talk about the
robots.
Uh, calcates, what?
What do you know?
What do you know about theserobots?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Well, so you know, I don't know a whole lot about
them.
I think that I know that theyare developing.
I know that there's adisconnect.
That's not true, to say no.
My sense is that there's adisconnect between what I've
seen and what's actually beingcreated.
(01:06):
Actually being created Because Isee, like these pictures from
companies that are making thesemassage robots, where it's like
a person, a robot, looking likethat looks like a person with
arms and legs and whatever youknow, sitting next to a person
who is ostensibly about toreceive a massage, and but what
I've read is that it's like anarm like, and not even like a
human looking arm, but sort oflike a, almost like a, an
assembly line arm that like willpush on people, um, and
(01:32):
manipulate their tissues.
Uh, and one thing I do feellike I can say I know is that
massage therapists are kind offreaking out about the robots,
um, with probably about as muchknowledge as I have about them.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
So it's a little like how do we slow the roll here?
Sure, I'm going to send you, orshare with you a picture and
you tell me describe thispicture for me this picture for
(02:12):
me.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Oh, okay, uh.
So, wow, I feel like I'm notsure which of us is aubrey and
which of us is michael, but, um,feels very maintenance phase.
So there is a woman in a whatappears to be possibly like a
spandex onesie situation, with amatching headband thing, and
this person is lying face downwith their arms sort of, I think
(02:36):
, on a platform.
So they're prone on whatappears to be basically a
massage table-esque situationmassage table-esque situation.
And then there are these twolike white enamel, definitely
robotic looking arm-like thingsand at the ends of them, rather
than like anything, that lookslike sort of a hand.
It almost looks like the end ofwhen runners who've lost part
(03:01):
of a limb have like a prosthetic.
That's sort of like that scoop.
It sort of looks like a shortversion of that, and so at this
moment this woman is havingthese, these arm things are
pushing around like sort of thepsis low back sort of area.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Um, yeah, so it does not look like a person, this
robot no, it looks very muchlike a robot.
Um, so the thing that you haveprobably seen, and some of our
listeners have probably alsoseen, is, um, their ai generated
images and they I'm not reallysure who made them or what they
(03:42):
were used for in the first place, but they tend to be.
They look like Sunny, kind offrom iRobot, yeah, and they
they're like holding the hand ofan old person or like patting
them a little maybe, and like.
This is the imagery that hasstarted to go around and that is
(04:03):
absolutely not what is going onat all.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Um, we are not we are not there.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Uh, we have, like maybe pieces of that being there
, but that's not.
That's not what's going on.
So, the robot, the picture thatI've showed you, this is the
escape robot.
This is um the one that isrolling out currently in New
York in very select locations,so they're sort of in their
active beta testing, I would say.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
So and I want to say and this might be an age thing,
but when you say this doesn'tlook like a person, definitely I
agree with that and you say itlooks like a robot, and I'm like
I think it looks like roboticarms, because when I think of a
robot, I think of a like youknow, like Westworld, like it's
a person, but it's a machine,you know.
(04:48):
So, um, yeah, I mean it is.
It is these arms that areanchored to the floor, that have
nothing human about them.
Um, for whatever that's worth.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Yes, so this is the escape robot.
There are a couple other robotsthat I want to mention, so
there's a lot of like innovationgoing on.
Right now.
There is a market availabilitything happening, which we will
talk about momentarily, butthere's two other robots that I
sort of wanted to mention, threeother robots, I suppose.
(05:18):
So the first one's called Alex,which has a single arm, as
opposed to escape, which has twoarms, which has a single arm,
as opposed to escape, which hastwo arms.
The Alex robot comes from amassage robotics website that
says things like join us and therobots will win.
They've altered their marketinga little bit and unfortunately,
now they say things likeessentially they're saying that
(05:39):
the robot's not going to assaultyou.
That is, that's the marketingchoice that has happened for the
Alexlex robot um, wow, it's not, it's not not fabulous, which
we will also discuss.
Uh, the phil robot, which wasan indiegogo project, um, is one
(06:00):
of my favorites because it um,it's just, it's a single arm and
it like sits next to yourbedside and extends, so it's
like a home based thing, but italso the advertisement says that
it doubles as a nightstand,because the robot arm collapses
into the little frame that'sholding it, which I think is
very funny, because I don't knowabout your nightstand, but my
nightstand has a ton of stuff onit all of the time.
Yeah, yeah, all of the time,like where do the books go?
(06:24):
I see what the books and likeand I have a like friendship
bracelets and a lamp and lotionwater like the water probably
shouldn't go there, so no thatwas an interesting um selling
choice.
Um, I haven't seen much aboutphil.
Uh, I think the um both thealex and the escape robot just
like powered far ahead of them.
(06:45):
So there's a robot that claimsit also does laser hair removal,
which seems nerve wracking, ifanything really.
So that was also a single armone.
And then Times Magazine claimedthat the escape robot is one of
(07:07):
the best inventions of 2024.
They did put it in the umrobotics category.
As opposed to, like beauty orhealth or medical or anything,
there's just like sort of ageneral robot category, um, and
that's where they have placed it.
So first I want to talk abouthow these robots could be really
cool and then I want to talkabout what I am worried about
with these robots, so thingsthat could be really cool.
(07:30):
Um, there are people like me,um, who do not like being
touched, um, and I don't thinkwe're necessarily few in number.
So the ability for a robot towork on a person without having
another person involved can beattractive, especially for
(07:50):
people who have traumaassociated with touch.
So there's certainly someoptions there.
I had somebody mention andpoint out that if it is a robot
doing the massage, it is verydefinitely not massage therapy.
It is just a massage and I cancertainly agree with that.
As we like to discuss thedefinition of massage on this
(08:13):
show, which I will repeat foryou now, in case you have
forgotten, the definition ofmassage therapy by Dr Anne Blair
Kennedy.
She wrote it in herdissertation and then in a
follow-up article.
It's based off of conversationswith 32 experts from the field.
So massage therapy consists ofrubbing, but it also includes
(08:34):
health promotion and educationalmessaging.
It is for both self-care andhealth maintenance.
The results of massage therapydepend on therapeutic
relationships and communication.
The results also depend on thetraining, skill and experience
of the therapist, and thesetting of the treatment, such
as a spa, hospital or shoppingmall, may have an influence on
the results.
So you kind of need a humanwith that definition.
(08:56):
You just, you just do so.
The robot can do rubbing, itcan do basic massage.
It cannot do massage therapy,but for people who just need
some rubbing, maybe a shoulderor something possibility.
The other cool possibility withthe robots is for research.
There's a big problem inmassage therapy research where
(09:18):
it's very dependent on reportingfrom the person doing the
massage therapy or the personreceiving massage therapy, and
any time you get a humaninvolved in reporting, it's
going to be variable, it's goingto be hard to replicate.
The most precise way to reportthings about massage is blood
chemistry, but that's notnecessarily what we're really
(09:39):
interested in in the first place.
It's just that it's aconsistent way to report.
So a robot could potentially beused for two very cool things.
One, it could be equipped withsensors that would give us
precise reporting on what'shappening either with bodies or
with the massage that is goingon.
And what I'm most interested inis that you could take the
person out of the massage andsee what's happening, because
(10:02):
massage research has tried veryhard to eliminate the effect of
the therapeutic relationshipwhen doing research.
But you really can't.
It's just people makeconnections, humans make
connections, and so to try andtake that out involves doing
research that uses protocols,which is not really what a lot
of massage looks like.
So now you're sort of testingsomething that's not accurate to
(10:25):
the reality of it, and I don'teven know how you would control
for a therapeutic relationshipother than choosing strangers.
But even then, you know, overthe course of a massage people
tend to make connections,whether they're talking or not.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Well, and I would say that and unless and you can
obviously cut this this doesn'tfit, but I feel like the way you
just characterized it is thatwe've been trying to control for
therapeutic relationship, andthat's true.
But the underlying thing ofthat is because we haven't
believed, as a community ofresearchers and scientists, that
(11:01):
that is key to the effect,scientists, that that is key to
the effect.
So we want to tease that out sothat we really can say what's
happening here is rubbing andthe rubbing is what's important.
And what you're suggesting nowis that, yeah, so what if we
actually had a thing that couldonly rub and we could in fact
compare them, but I don't thinkit's been an accident or like we
haven't.
(11:21):
Sort of there's really beenthis understanding, even within
the massage profession, thatwhat we do is rub.
End of story.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
I do.
I do wonder if it's if likecart and horse, like is it that
we've decided that we just rubbecause we don't know how to
research something that's asmalleable as a therapeutic
relationship, or so, like it wasjust easier to go that
direction and then that sort ofskewed how we thought about
ourselves, or did we reallythink that, like, it's just
(11:51):
rubbing and it's not therelationship and we don't need
to worry about it at all andit's honestly, it's probably a
little bit of low column?
Yeah, yeah, that's probablytrue.
So the third thing that has meexcited about massage robots and
possibility possibility, but areally cool one, if it does
happen which is the idea ofpassive income for massage
therapists.
(12:11):
Passive income as a massagetherapist is difficult to get
without having a sauna orpossibly being part of a
multilevel marketing scheme orselling some products.
Mostly, when we make money, wemake it with our hands for a set
amount of time and that meansthat it is only for that set
amount of time that you arecreating income and that limits
(12:34):
us a lot financially.
So I talk a lot with massagetherapists whose real passion is
to work with people whoabsolutely cannot afford massage
For whatever reason.
It's just.
It's just, it's just not anoption, and the massage
therapist themselves can'tafford to charge less and still
have a career and a life and payfor anything really, um.
(12:55):
So then now we're at thisimpasse where the massage
therapist has to charge acertain amount of money, um, for
their services, and that putsthe people that they really want
to treat sort of out of theirreach.
So what if the massagetherapist could lease one of
these escape robots, which isabout $7,000 a month, and the
robot could do the basic rubbingpart for people who just want
(13:18):
some basic rubbing, while thetherapist did some paperwork or
marketing or billing, and thetherapist could do the intake,
the therapist could do theouttake.
The therapist did somepaperwork or marketing or
billing and the therapist coulddo the intake.
The therapist could do theouttake, the therapist could do
treatment planning, thetherapist could tell the robot,
maybe, what to do.
Passive income could be a reallyhuge deal.
And the escape robot haslimitations for the work that it
(13:39):
can do, so it can only do workposteriorly and it works from
neck to calves.
So no arms, no feet, no hands,no neck, no front of the body at
all, and I think for massagetherapists who are aging out of
the profession because theysimply cannot do the physical
stuff.
(13:59):
It's really the posteriormuscles that are causing the
like physical strain.
So if the robot could work onthe posterior things and the
bigger things and then themassage therapist could do neck,
feet, hands, therapeuticrelationship, all of those
(14:20):
things, it could be a greatassistant, which, really, when
you think about the purpose ofrobots like that's the purpose
that I gravitate toward is theone that helps a human do the
thing that they're great at butmaybe can't do so much anymore,
or couldn't do in the firstplace but could be great at the
other thing.
So, like there are therapistswho are awesome at the.
So those are the big threepossibilities that I see.
(14:48):
Do you have any thoughts aboutthose possibilities?
Calcates, I've talked a lot.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Yeah, I mean I appreciate being able to see the
collaborative possibilities.
I think the price point againis going to reinforce sort of
the capitalist stratification.
Capitalist stratification, youknow, the therapist who is
working in a private practice,who is understandably tired
(15:15):
after a 15 or 20 year career,isn't going to be able to
purchase a robot to help themstay in business.
So I see that being helpful andprobably most helpful for
franchises, spas, places thathave the income to purchase one
or more of these said robots.
So yeah, I mean I think maybewe see over time that the price
(15:38):
comes down, but again there willalready be a head start in
certain sectors of theprofession.
So, speaking, of spas.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
let's talk about what I actually think is going to
happen, as opposed to what Iwish would happen.
So part of the question of thisrobot thing is like why now?
Like why is this happening now?
In particular, Things like this, things that cost this much
money to create, don't happenwithout a market available.
(16:11):
You just don't spend a lot ofmoney on something that you're
just not going to be able tosell or use later and, like in
robot, research is extremelyexpensive.
So the answer that I have towhy now?
Is actually on the escapewebsite.
So they have posted the 2023international spa association us
(16:31):
spa industry study and I haveread it.
Um, and you might want to too.
It's actually quite pretty andvery easy to read.
Um, it's not full of, um, thickstatistical language.
It's mostly, um, it's apresentation piece.
So, um, I'm going to list yousome statistics and I would like
your reaction to some of them.
So the big statistic is thatthere are about 21,000 spas in
(16:55):
this report and there are about21,000 job openings for massage
therapists at those spas.
So 60 percent of unfilled staffpositions at spas are massage
therapists.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Interesting.
I mean, I think you know myfirst reaction, of course, is
that this is I'm not sure howeffective, but it on some if
we're't have enough humans to dothese jobs and so we could get
(17:31):
these robots.
But I think that you know whenI think about it.
I mean, the thing about massageis that I mean, unless you have
a robot that can providemultiple massages simultaneously
, we're still in the samesituation of one massage at a
time is what can happen, and somaybe you're solving that you
don't have a live person to hirefor this job, but you still
(17:54):
can't sort of offer moremassages if you have a robot.
So I'm curious how spas wouldsort of do that math in terms of
is it worth making theinvestment?
Speaker 1 (18:04):
I'm not sure.
I do know that, like as far aspros of robot over human goes,
the robot doesn't get tired, therobot doesn't call in sick, the
robot is always available.
The robot theoretically doesn'tmake anybody mad for customer
service reasons.
I mean, you never know.
(18:25):
The seven thousand dollar amonth lease price tag comes with
maintenance and some marketingstuff, so you don't have to
necessarily worry about itbreaking down or at least not
being able to fix it.
If it does, um, it does havesome safety features on it.
Um, it only applies about 50pounds of pressure, which is
(18:47):
less than a lot of massagetherapists apply.
All right, like human massagetherapists who, especially
people who just go for it.
Yeah, so I can.
I agree that this is aworkforce shortage problem.
The question is, what problemare we actually solving with a
robot?
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Well and and I mean you know part of when I think
about what you could, the kindof workforce support and
training you could provide with$7,000 a month, and the sort of
sustainability that we couldbuild into the profession if
we're willing to invest thatmuch in a machine.
And again, this is where,philosophically, I'm possibly
(19:24):
not a good conversation partnerfor this, because I, you know,
people aren't going to go awayand so if we replace people, you
know, which I think is it's avery simplistic way to describe
it but if we have robots doingjobs that people could do and
possibly that people are betterat doing, those people have to
(19:46):
figure out how they will make aliving.
And you know, we know very wellthat massage therapists are not
well supported, particularly inenvironments where they're
seeing six or seven clients aday, five days a week, and
they're not getting the kind oftraining and support they need.
So of course, they're burningout in five or six years for
emotional reasons, for physicalreasons, and $7,000 a month
(20:09):
could do a lot to address someof the issues that lead to
burnout and people leaving thecareer.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
So there's definitely a money thing.
I would like to give you acouple of statistics for what
massage therapists makeaccording to this report.
So massage therapists workingin spas make generally less than
$50,000.
That includes tips and half ofthem work between 33 and 39
hours a week.
There is no description on thestatistic of whether that is
(20:37):
hands-on hours, but fromexperience when people talk
about massage therapy hours theyusually mean hands-on and they
don't actually like.
They won't necessarily tell youthat that's what they mean, but
that's usually what people areclocking.
It does appear that for mostspas 31 hours is considered full
time, so benefits are attachedto most of those jobs.
(20:57):
Which awesome, well doneeverybody.
But 33 to 39 hours a week for50k, including tips so not
necessarily 50k including tips,so not necessarily 50k.
Um isn't a lot and doesn't getyou very far.
And 88 of massage therapistsare women um, I don't know the
percentage of that percentagewho have children, but I would
(21:19):
think it's safe to say that someof them do, probably many of
them.
Um, and 50k is not.
It's not going to get you veryfar with a family or really with
just you.
So the report talks about thebiggest problems for spas to
hire massage therapists, and thebiggest problem is finding
(21:41):
qualified candidates.
So, yes, it is absolutely aworkforce issue.
We just don't have enough, andthat's not news for us.
We do know that we don't haveenough people for lots of
reasons.
Part of it's the pay.
Part of it's the treatment.
Part of it's this job is reallyhard.
(22:03):
Part of it's that we don'tunderstand the job.
There are so many reasons wedon't have enough people.
Part of it's COVID and peoplejust leaving the profession and
we're not like we're notreplacing them with our
graduates.
We'll talk about a lot of thosethings in later episodes, but
the thing that I really want totalk about today is why robots
(22:24):
are attractive for reallyanything in America, and that is
because we are a nation basedin manufacturing and
manufacturing has certainprinciples, and when you apply
manufacturing principles tohumans, it doesn't always work
out.
So let's discuss howmanufacturing principles got
(22:46):
into things like health care andhuman service, everything.
There's a style of managementthat's called lean management.
It's very, very popular.
Lean management originally camefrom japan, so in the 1950s,
japan was producing three timesthe amount of cars that america
was producing, and they tendedto be more reliable, and the
(23:09):
entire world was like what, how,and Japan had come up with a
system called the Toyotaproduction system, which now is
known as lean management style.
So there's three parts to theToyota production system.
It's all about reducingwastefulness and like sort of
tightening up your manufacturingchains and making sure that
(23:30):
everything is working togetherproperly, because when you have
a production line, anything thatslows down your production line
slows down production at all,and mistakes cost money, and
that's just how manufacturingworks.
So three pieces and rememberthis is Japan.
So the first piece is calledMuda, which is has to do with
wastefulness andnon-value-adding activities.
(23:52):
So the idea is that anythingthat doesn't contribute is
probably not something that youshould be doing.
So if you're having too manymeetings, which seems to be a
problem for everybody right now,perhaps some of them are
wasteful and maybe you shouldcut down.
Muda does give space for thingsthat are not directly
value-adding, like inspections,but are an extremely important
(24:16):
part of the manufacturing andlike producing something process
.
So inspections are included asuseful, just not necessarily
directly value adding.
The second piece is called Mura,which is uneven or irregular
work.
So this addresses things likebottlenecks and wait times.
So for things like customerservice, you go to the doctor,
(24:36):
you have your appointment time.
Doctor's behind you wait threeextra hours to your doctor for
15 minutes.
This is a more of a problemWith factory work.
There's ways around this tomake sure that maybe, like one
piece of the production is notoverproducing which then creates
a bottleneck in a later pieceof production.
So the idea is to sort of evenout your production.
(25:00):
It might be a transit problem,maybe you can't get the pieces
to the place that they need togo, but there's ways to work
with uneven amounts of work.
And the third one is called MURI, which is overburdening your
people and equipment.
And there's a piece of theToyota production system that
America tends to forget, and Ibet you can guess which one it
is.
So we, when you read thingsthat are sort of westernized
(25:21):
about the Toyota productionsystem, the overburdening of
your people and equipment tendsto get left out.
And wow, does it get left outwith service things that are
trying to establish leanmanagement principles.
So I found this incrediblearticle that spelled it all out
for me, which is awesome becauseI didn't have to make any
guesses.
This article is called MassageCost Optimization Lean
(25:43):
Operations in the Spa Industry AGuide to Reducing Massage
Expenses.
So there's this disconnect thathappens between people who do
massage therapy and people whoown massage therapist business
when they are not the sameperson or not a person who has
experienced it.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
So I know in the editing you could just play this
twice, but I want you to readthe title of that article again.
It has two colons Because it'sso loaded Yep.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
So here's the title again for everybody Massage Cost
Optimization Lean Operations inthe Spa Industry a Guide to
Reducing Massage Expenses.
The website it's from is calledFaster Capital, by the way,
which you know, just be honest.
So that's good, because so muchof it is without regard for
massage therapists.
And I want to say right nowthat this is not every spa at
(26:39):
all, because if it was so,21,000 job openings for 21,000
spas does not mean there's a oneto one ratio of employment gap,
right.
It means that some spas treattheir people really well and
have great jobs and do awonderful job managing people
and customers and time and allof those things, and some of
them clearly do not, are not notso good with that.
(27:02):
And I think this philosophy isthe reason these robots are
happening right now and it isthe reason that those spas have
so many openings, because thisis the way that they think about
their massage therapist.
They think about them as robotsalready, and if you already
think about your workforce asrobots, then what's the
difference replacing them withan actual robot?
(27:22):
So I figured to the bigquestion that people would have
about these robots is is my jobin danger of being taken over by
a robot, and I think the answeris possibly, and the possibly
happens when people are alreadytreating you like a robot, and
that sort of includes you ifyou're treating yourself like
one.
So please don't do that either.
So we're going to go through abunch of this.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Yeah, go ahead this first block of text and nowhere
in it does it mention the personwho will be providing the
massage.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
So it's about the bottom line and about the
customer experience so that themost of the article on the only
place that the article reallysays anything about massage
therapists directly that is totheir benefit has to do with
educating them, particularly incross-educating them into other
um like into estheticianAesthetics, yep, and I guess
laser hair removal, I'm not surewhich I guess is aesthetics but
(28:20):
but cross-training them intoand that's not about right.
That's not really about makingyour massage therapist better.
That is about you being able tomake the most of their time,
getting more out of them.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Yeah, so it's about increasing the usefulness of a
human a human who could be amassage therapist or not or not.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Yes, yeah, so I I took some choice.
Highlights um, I'll link thearticle in the show notes.
I highly recommend you read it,even if it's just so that
you're aware of how a person whomight hire you might be
thinking about you.
But here are my very favorites.
So, cal, would you read thefirst heading and the first
(29:02):
selection.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Time management.
Streamlining appointments,implementing a dynamic
scheduling system that adjustsfor the varying lengths of
different massage types cansignificantly reduce downtime.
For example, sandwichingshorter sessions between longer
ones can optimize the use oftime slots.
Synchronized breaks,coordinating break times among
(29:25):
staff to ensure continuousclient service can prevent
potential revenue loss fromunavailability.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Potential revenue loss from unavailability.
Yeah, so one of the things thatI think worry employers about
massage therapists is their needfor breaks.
It seems to be a constantdislike for hiring a human and
(29:53):
massage therapy.
For those of you who listen,who don't actually practice, it
is exhausting.
Concentrating on one human foran hour takes a lot.
I don't know if you've evertried it before, but it's pretty
intense.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Well, and I think that's important, because when
people ask me all the time, oh,aren't you so tired?
And what they think is like myelbows and my wrists and my
hands are tired, and it's likeonce you've been doing massage
for a little while, you actuallyyour body sort of figures out
that this is what you're goingto do with it.
And I mean, I think there arecertainly unsafe ways to
practice, et cetera.
But the exhaustion ispsychosocial, emotional,
(30:30):
energetic, sort of like.
Yes, exactly as you said, corey, to focus on a single person
for one hour is tiring, yes,yeah, and the peeing and eating
huge buzzkill for productivityright and massage like.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Breaks between massages are not necessarily for
the peeing or eating.
It might be for changing thesheets right and for doing
whatever notes that you do, oreven cashing somebody out,
depending on what kind of staffyou have working with you.
So it's not really downtime,really no synchronized breaks.
So coordinating break time toensure continuing continuous
(31:13):
client service does indeedprevent potential revenue loss,
but it also prevents yourmassage therapist from making
connections with each other,which, if you're sort of into
this lean management style,especially if you're hardcore
about it, might be to youradvantage.
Because they don't talk to eachother and they don't rise up.
Yeah, they don't organize Right, but they also don't find
(31:36):
support among each other.
And since massage therapistretention is clearly an issue,
clearly a problem, then part ofthe problem is going to be
making sure that your therapistshave a support system and they
themselves are part of thesupport system.
Management can do a fantasticjob and if you don't feel like
(31:57):
you are working with yourcoworkers and a massage, that's
pretty hard because we work in aroom alone with a client, so
making connections is difficultanyway and ensuring that you
never see another human that youwork with is a very good way to
not make connections and a verygood way to stress out your
therapists.
So that's the my timemanagement selections.
(32:18):
There were so many more, butthose were the uh, the top two.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Um for skill enhancement.
Like I said, this is really theonly area where they discuss
massage therapists directly, andit is um discuss massage
therapists directly and it is umto make them more useful and
cost efficient.
As people per hour, essentiallyso um equipping them with a
diverse set of skills, um toincrease billable hours and um
(32:45):
to keep therapists trained ontechniques and trends.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
This is so.
So the cross training I could Icould riff on that for a long
time, because you didn't becomea massage therapist necessarily
to then also become anesthetician or whatever else.
But ongoing education, it says,regular workshops on new
techniques and trends, keeptherapists at the forefront of
the industry, making theirservices more marketable
(33:15):
forefront of the industry,making their services more
marketable and I feel like thisis a thing that we continue to
see massage therapists do to andfor themselves, that they think
that they need a monetizable,trademarked technique or sort of
that.
They have to play into this ideathat clients have, which is I
did this thing to myself or,because I'm engaging in this
(33:36):
type of exercise, I need thiskind of massage that I saw on TV
and that the idea like as if wedig into burnout and the things
that lead to therapists leavingthe profession, a piece of that
, a big piece of that, I think,is not being prepared to be in
the space of other humans on theregular, professionally
speaking, and so when I think ofthat, I think is not being
prepared to be in the space ofother humans on the regular,
professionally speaking.
And so when I think, of course,of ongoing education I'm
(33:59):
thinking about.
How do I prepare my therapistto be in the energetic and
emotional space of strangers allday long, and that techniques,
sure, but that's not I mean.
Again, it just reallyhighlights, it makes very
transparent that these quotemassage therapists could be
anybody and that the thinkingabout this really is these are
(34:21):
units of production and how dowe make them more productive?
It's really not about theirwell-being, their sustainability
, their engagement with even thepeople receiving the service.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Yes, and that brings us to process standardization.
So would you read processstandardization for me?
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Establishing uniform treatment protocols ensures
consistency in service qualitywhile minimizing training costs
and errors.
For example, a spa couldstandardize the sequence of
massage techniques used acrossall services to ensure every
client receives the same levelof care.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Woof, all right, so let's talk about equality versus
equity.
Truly yes.
So equality means everybodygets the same thing, and equity
means everybody gets what theyneed, which is not necessarily
the same thing, it's just not so.
This, this process,standardization, is a concept
(35:23):
that I think.
The idea that if you giveeverybody the same massage,
they're getting the best servicepossible is sort of part of
that thought, and it's callous,callous, speechless.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
I mean this thing about the same level of care.
No, they'll get the same stepsof service.
That's not value.
That's like on a basic level,CYA, Like you really want to
make it so that, like, if Trentis available today, great, and I
want to see Trent because I sawhim last week.
(36:06):
But if you know Twyla isavailable this week, it's fine,
I'll see that person because Iknow that at this spa it's
really not even about thetherapist.
They will rub my feet for fiveminutes and then they'll rub my
lower legs for five minutes andthen all of these.
I can expect these sort of 12ways that I will be touched and
(36:26):
it's not about again justpulling out the therapeutic
relationship and a huge part, Iwould argue, of the value of
massage therapy.
And this is you know, how muchof our energy do we spend on
helping consumers?
Franchise owners, spa ownersunderstand that rubbing is good
and I never want to be confusedas a person who is saying
(36:49):
rubbing is bad, Rubbing is great.
We all know that, likepredictable, firm rubbing of the
nervous system is generallycalming for people and anyone
can rub when we add thetherapeutic piece.
I mean, they're not inventingsocial work robots, right?
So I feel like this is thedisconnect that we have to
(37:12):
continue to really bring outinto the open.
It's so easy to fall into this.
Well, yeah, this is how ourculture works.
It's about monetization andit's about, if I own the spa, I
should be able to make as muchmoney as possible, and the
people who make that money forme are actually tertiary at best
(37:32):
.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
They're?
I mean, they're an asset, right, they're like they're a labor
asset, yep, and I want to talk alittle about how the appearance
of these robots means that therobots are in a space to define
what massage therapy is in thepublic eye, and that is the
thing that really worries me.
So I think the robots could bereally helpful for some things.
(37:58):
I think it's cool the techperson in me thinks it's cool
but these robots so this processstandardization thing these
robots do not create massagesthe way chat GPT creates
sentences.
That is not what's happening,and if you've seen any of the
(38:18):
commercials or heard anythingabout it, you would absolutely
understandably think that'swhat's going on, because the
advertising doesn't stop youfrom thinking that it doesn't
say that.
Because the advertising doesn'tstop you from thinking that it
doesn't say that, but because ofthe way people think about AI.
Now, when you say something hasAI attached to it, then that is
sort of the picture everybodygets.
So what the robot does isfollow a protocol.
(38:40):
It has standardizations, it hasa lot of them because it's a
robot and it can keep track ofmany things.
So the people who are using therobots can choose protocols.
They can also direct the robot,like if you have that specific
spot, like by your shoulderblade that, like you just can't
get to, and the robot can get to, you can directly ask it to
work on that area, but itdoesn't do an intake and it
(39:04):
doesn't ask questions and itdoesn't figure out that it
doesn't ask questions and itdoesn't figure out that.
You know, you spent too manyhours yesterday playing with the
grandkids and maybe pickingthem up wasn't such a great idea
.
It just doesn't.
It can't do that, and beingable to do that would take an
immense amount of data, which Ican absolutely guarantee that
(39:24):
they are tracking.
So if anybody was going to getthat data, it would be the
people who own the robots.
So if you do use one, pleaseread the agreement, which is
quite long.
But, as in everything now, theyare definitely keeping track of
your metrics for sure.
Privacy is not a thing.
It's not a thing, not really.
(39:48):
So robots are attractive foremployers and the big worry is
that is this going to definewhat massage therapy is?
And if it does, and if it is,that is so sad for everybody.
It's so terribly, terribly sadfor all of us, for massage
therapists and for clients andfor patients and for just
everybody Humans, humans ingeneral because massage therapy
(40:12):
is so so much more than rubbingand can do so much more for you
than just push on muscles.
The public already has thisidea that that's what massage
therapy is.
Most massage therapists haveexperienced this.
Most, I think, clients haveexperienced it as well, when
they go to somebody who's reallygood at massage therapy and
they come out of the appointmentand they're like wow, I feel
(40:33):
totally different and amazing ina way that I didn't expect.
I just thought you were goingto like rub my neck and then we
were going to be good and that's.
That's not what happened.
There was like I can't evenexplain it, which is part of the
problem, right, and so we, wehave a hard time explaining it.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
Yes, well, and we have a hard time sitting still
with the ineffable, like we'remad, we can't explain it and we
just, it just makes usuncomfortable.
So, if we can, if we can, youknow, take a reductionist lens
and really, you know, zero in.
We know this thing is, is partof what's happening, and so
we're going to really focus onthis and and you can't, you
(41:13):
can't bring the, the productionmindset to human connection,
which again makes it, you know,fall way off the radar of
anybody who's trying to makemoney.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Yes, yeah, and like you can't even bring it to like
the conversational part, right?
If you have a script formassage therapists to talk to
the people that they aretreating, then there is no space
to really find out what kind oftreatment that client needs.
And now you're doing adisservice to your client,
although they may not know it.
But you could be doing so muchmore and your therapist could be
(41:42):
doing so much more.
And those clients I mean Idon't know if you've ever
experienced having a massagetherapist like move away or stop
working, but it is extremelyupsetting for people.
So if you can keep your massagetherapist particularly if
they're really good, they areworth so much.
(42:02):
And if you're in a spasituation where you have lots of
offerings and lots of thingsfor your clients to do, having a
massage therapist those peoplecome back to all of the time
means getting them in your door.
So whether or not your massagetherapy piece of your business
is making a ton of money, peopleare coming back for that and
(42:23):
then you can find other ways tomonetize their stay.
I mean, whether it's, you know,it could be food, it could be
products, it could be all kindsof things.
But getting them in the doorand getting them in your door is
one of the biggest challenges.
But, man, if you have thatmassage therapist that they're
coming back to they're, they'renever leaving ever.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Yeah, and of course I want to say, and then you're
changing the world.
But I then, like the cynicalpart of me is like, oh, but
that's not actually appealing.
If your goal is actually toturn every human encounter into
a monetary unit, you arehonestly not thinking beyond
your, your brick and mortarspace, to what happens when that
person goes out and doesn'thonk at someone on their way
(43:06):
home or doesn't, you know,respond to that text that you
know was going to set off, youknow, some flame throwing, like
it's just that this is thepotential of massage therapy and
making space for thoseexperiences to happen for people
, and you know I look forward tothe day when that is considered
valuable in a way that isimportant, and you know, I don't
(43:29):
know how far away that day is,but I still hope that it's a day
that I'll get to see Me too.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
So if you're a massage therapist, know that you
are in great value right now,because there is not a lot of us
.
And if you are a good massagetherapist, know that you're in
incredible value and please donot underestimate your worth,
whether that's in the money youmake or the people that you're
in incredible value and pleasedo not underestimate your worth.
Whether that's in the money youmake or the people that you see
(43:59):
you are, you are spectacularlyvaluable.
If you're a business owner, tryand think beyond the numbers.
It's very hard to quantify anexperience for people.
You can try, but even peoplewho do it professionally and
write surveys will tell you thatit's a difficult thing to break
something down in the numbers.
So a better thing to keep trackof is what people say as
(44:20):
opposed to like the numbers.
They might circle on a feedbackform.
You need to know what theirexperience was like and once you
do, that's the thing that youcan also use for your
advertising and that's foreverybody who owns business.
Whether you are a massagetherapist or not.
Client quotes are, as we say atHealWell, worth their weight in
gold.
They are how people notice you.
(44:42):
They are how people come backto see you being rated a 10 out
of 10 is great, but a 10 out of10 on today is different from
tomorrow's 10, or maybe equal toan eight yesterday.
Numbers are extremely,extremely variable.
So when you're in a serviceprofession, make sure that you
are trying to track the servicepart of it and not just the
(45:03):
numbers.
And believe me, those robotsare only concerned with the
numbers.
They are not going to track anexperience because they don't
understand experience.
They're robots.
Final thoughts Kyle Cates.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Yeah, I think the only thing I would add to what
you shared is really aninvitation to the massage
therapy profession and tomassage therapists to think and
feel long and hard about what itis you do and what it is that
makes you unique from a robot.
And notice, just start noticinghow you talk about what you do,
(45:36):
what you let slide when clientsor employers characterize your
work and and how often you sortof just shrug off the things
people say that are uninformed,that you know are incorrect and
and sort of reductive, and tojust work on again.
Here we are back to soft skills, as they often call them, but
work on how you can communicatethe missing pieces and and
(46:00):
really we.
This is.
This is first and foremostabout I can't even say taking
back the narrative about massagetherapy, because I don't know
that we've ever owned it, butthere are plenty of people who
will happily run with it, and weare sort of whinging on
Facebook rather than sort oflooking inside and saying, okay,
(46:20):
how do we really decide whatthis is and how it's different
and that it's not a cage matchwith robots?
Robots aren't going away.
We won't stop them.
We have to differentiateourselves and that's really our
work to do.
No one else is going to beinvested in doing that for us.
Yes, I hope I contributedanything to this conversation.
(46:45):
Okay, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (46:55):
I didn't know what you had in mind, but you know, I
mean obviously, because you andI talk about this so much, I'm
like, well, we know this, but weknow this, but a lot of other
people don't.
That's been the biggestchallenge by far is figuring out
what I know and what otherpeople don't, and getting
information out there that'simportant.
Information out there, that'simportant.
Thank you for listening.
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