In conversation with Mississauga’s Wesley Garrard, owner and founder of Ascend Rehabilitation Collective.

1. What does your company provide/do?

Ascend Rehabilitation Collective is a multidisciplinary physical therapy and rehabilitation company, offering a variety of healthcare and fitness services, with an emphasis on fitness practices and lifestyle improvement. As a business, we partner with gyms and fitness settings to inject healthcare and clinical provisions into their spaces, to add value to their business, their community, and leverage their space! As a team of clinicians – Physiotherapists, Chiropractors, Massage Therapists, Athletic Therapists, and others – operating as a collective, we use our skillsets in therapeutic treatment provision and fitness administration to change the lives of the people we encounter – giving them relief from their pain, and encouraging them to adopt an understanding and love for fitness and health that will improve their quality of life throughout their future! 

2.  What inspired you to start your company?

Ascend has a long and somewhat complex past that has brought it to where it is today. A personal injury that reoriented passions, an educational pathway that included business and health-sciences, and experience in clinical environments that felt limiting, and limited.

After finishing Kinesiology and working in private practice and strength and conditioning settings to start my career, I felt limited in my ability to prescribe and oversee robust corrective health protocols that would impact people on a long-term basis. I also wanted to approach physical therapy in a new and exciting way, that would engage both clinicians, and patients. There is always an opportunity to administer healthcare in a more effective way, and I found the concept of being able to integrate physical therapy and rehabilitative techniques in gym settings, with the opportunity to prescribe and oversee a breadth of fitness-based interventions, and add value to pre-existing businesses, particularly intriguing. The idea and concept was to create something effective and transferrable – a model that would impact patients in more meaningful ways, and also be applicable and scalable just about anywhere. It’s working!

3.  What's been the most impactful lesson you've learned being an entrepreneur?

Entrepreneurship has taught me to prioritize 3 things: humility, persistence, and relationship. From countless mentors have I heard these 3 words used, referenced, or alluded to. Humility is required insofar as it allows you to recognize your inability, and as such, leads you toward involving others who will benevolently teach and guide you in the trajectory of growth. Persistence is the boldness and resolute determination to keep going, even when you are tested in your ability, patience, and resolve, and requires that you, being guided by a desire and purpose – something that is meaningful to you – continue on towards that goal. Relationship refers to the need to involve others, whether vertically or horizontally within your endeavor. As the saying goes, “it’s all about who you know”. Knowing good people is one thing, but seeking out good people, working with good people, relying on good people – the list goes on. Life, let alone business, is not meant to be done in isolation. Our community and relationships guide and grow us, so that we become something greater than ourselves.

4.  How do you unwind?

‘Unwinding’ is usually a matter of sitting down with a coffee in the morning, or watching a TV show at the end of the day. Outside of that, the mind stays busy.

5.  What succinct advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs?

My advice would be simple:

Be purposeful and intentional in what you choose to do. A venture without purpose, while materially successful will feel void of meaning or fulfillment. 

Be humble in ambition. It is good to seek growth and development, but never assume you cannot learn and garner wisdom and knowledge from those around you.

Be resilient and persistent. If you have a vision and a goal, don’t give up on it. Keep pressing on towards it. Perhaps the reward in the endeavor is the pursuit, not the outcome.

6.  What are your goals for 2024?

For myself, and for my company, the goal for 2024 is to refine and expand. We believe in the collective and collaborative model. We’re off to a great start, with great experiences, a wealth of positive patient outcomes, and an ongoing belief that the way the clinic and business operates is sustainable and beneficial. We want to grow. We want the number of clinicians we can hire and give engaging and exciting jobs to, to grow! We want the number of gyms and fitness spaces we can come alongside and work with, to grow! We want the number of brands and organizations we partner with, to grow! We want the number of people we help through healthcare and fitness provision, to grow! Company growth means growth and impact for people – those working with us, and those coming to see us. This keeps us moving forward!

ascendrehabilitation.ca