135 - The Art of Showing Up: Building a Practice Through Service and Perseverance

[00:00:00] Like you never start where you want to finish. I had always had the dream of looking after elite athletes in competition and I just at my own expense and my own time put myself there time and time again until it was me being asked to do those kind of things, not me asking for opportunities.

[00:00:27] Hello and welcome to Build Your Remarkable Practice podcast. This podcast is dedicated to chiropractors who are in the seasons of launching and building their practice. Join myself, Dr. Lona and my co-host Dr. Bobby as we have conversations each week as it relates to building the practice of your dreams. And remember, you can have a remarkable practice as part of a remarkable life, not instead of one. We are here to lead you on the way.

[00:00:58] All right, welcome back to the Build Your Remarkable Practice podcast and we are back this week and we are talking about the art form of showing up. And so when I said, hey, let's talk about how much grit it takes in showing up, building a practice, building a community. And Andrew's like, well, you're talking about perseverance. Yeah, that's what we're talking about. Welcome in. Good to see you, Andrew.

[00:01:21] Yeah, this is a good topic. It's good to see you too. And yeah, this is probably one of the most important topics, I think, for like a young doc to hear because, you know, you often look at people at the longer end of the profession who may have what you mark as a measure of success. And, you know, I use that phrase because success looks like, looks different for every person.

[00:01:46] But they didn't, they didn't get there overnight. Do you know what I mean? Just like it's super common for younger generation people to see that their parents have their dream house and, you know, and they think, yep, cool. I want my dream house just like my parents, not realizing that it's maybe their parents' fourth or fifth house. Right. Yeah. So, yeah, I think perseverance and just grinding is definitely one of my big core values.

[00:02:16] And it's, actually, I remember when I was about 13, Dad put up this quote on the board. No, not on the board, sorry. On my bedroom wall. I just walked in one day and there it was. Is it just my parents that did that? Or let me, let me see if I can pull it up real quick. What did your parents do for work?

[00:02:41] My dad was a sales manager for a maintenance company, specifically in painting. And mum was a teacher. She specialized in, like, teaching kids with autism. And, yeah, I just walked in and bam, on the wall is this quote from Calvin Coolidge, right? So you can pop this thing into Goodreads, but, you know, he uses the word persistence instead, but it's essentially the same thing. Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence.

[00:03:11] Talent will not. Nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not. Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not. The world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan, press on, has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. That's good. So, you know, as a teenager, I had no idea what that meant.

[00:03:39] Why is dad putting this on my wall? That's awesome. But, you know, I think I have experienced this many times in my career. I remember being asked to travel to not far from you, Madison, Wisconsin, which used to be the home of the CrossFit Games. And I actually had this very unique and wonderful opportunity to look after some of Australia's most elite CrossFitters at the CrossFit Games.

[00:04:08] I was flown over by, you know, Reebok to look after their sponsored athletes. That's awesome. And I remember I got two messages that really stood out to me. And one was like, wow, you're so lucky. And I was like, yeah, you know, the harder I've worked, the luckier I've become. And the other one was from a young chiropractor. They'd just graduated. They loved CrossFit.

[00:04:36] And they were like, you know, how did you get this opportunity? And so I told them how I got this opportunity and started by me looking after a local gym owner who was good enough to make like the national competition or regionals. And so I paid out of my own pocket to go with him to regionals and look after him there so that he could compete at his best. So I think it came 30th or whatever, you know.

[00:05:04] But he and I have wonderful friendship. And, you know, that was showing up for a friend was like that was my goal. And then same thing happened the next year. He qualified. And then I was on the like the volunteer team to look after the athletes. And the person just happened to randomly land on my table was one of the one of the guys who eventually went on to qualify to make the CrossFit games that year.

[00:05:33] And and again, like it was just totally random. He landed on my table. He had this chronic niggling back issue that no one had been able to solve. I was there as a volunteer looking after everyone that ended up on my table at my own expense. And then and this is the non glamorous side of how I got to do glamorous things. Right.

[00:05:56] And then he qualified for the CrossFit Games and his sponsor said, well, would you know, would you consider coming to the CrossFit Games to look after him? And I said, that sounds pretty cool. I've never been to America before. So, again, at my own expense, flew myself to L.A., lugged a portable table. No idea what was going on. This is back when I was in L.A. And yeah, looked after him and another Aussie athlete.

[00:06:27] And then from there, I started to just by looking after these people again at my own expense, I started to meet people who began to appreciate what I could do. And it ended up that they then moved to a different sponsor that was Reebok Australia. The head of Reebok Australia was very impressed with like my, I guess, my level of commitment to look after these athletes.

[00:06:51] And then that ended up blossoming into if you follow CrossFit closely, I ended up looking after Tia Claire Toomey when she was sponsored by Reebok. Eight time CrossFit Games champion. And now this was on her second, her first title defense, so her second title. And you never start where you want to finish. That's a quote right there. Yeah. Write that down, guys. Like you never start where you want to finish.

[00:07:17] I had always had the dream of looking after elite athletes in competition. And I just, at my own expense and my own time, put myself there time and time again until it was, you know, me being asked to do those kind of things. Not me asking for opportunities. Right. And in practice, I remember going to a gym screening when I just started at 5am because, you know, 5am the gyms are busy, right?

[00:07:44] And I learned a very valuable lesson that the people who are going to the gym at 5am are there because they have got to get to work and they are not interested in talking to you. So I checked zero spines, but the gym manager who was there saw my dedication and started to refer me anyone, basically anyone that came to her saying like, oh, I've got a problem.

[00:08:10] Um, because I showed up and I was there when it wasn't glamorous and that built a really successful associate practice when I was an associate to around 250 patients a week. So the, the moral of the story is that, like I said, you don't start where you intend to finish and the glad you do the glamorous stuff by doing the unglamorous stuff beforehand. Great stories, Andrew. Really good.

[00:08:39] And I like what you said there too, of like, I checked zero spines at 5am, but I was committed to showing up and then it opened a door. Right. Yeah. Um, and I think a lot of people give up after a few weeks of something not being productive or to your point. Yeah. You don't generally start with where your end wants to be.

[00:09:05] You start somewhere to build your, build your capacity to that for, for me. And I just spoke on this at mile high, this like art form of learning to show up before you feel ready, before you have it all figured out, staying committed and recognizing that also in the people around you. You know, now not being brand new.

[00:09:26] When I see whether it's a CA or one of my associates or another chiropractor or whatever, that just is willing to be just really gritty about showing up, looking for opportunity, doing what needs to be done just because it needs to be done. And I'm always like, I see you. I see you. Let's just see how far this keeps going. Like, this is amazing to see that in someone else. So I reflect back on our opportunity with the schools and the whole first year.

[00:09:55] First of all, there was a very slow entrance into the schools. You know, there's a lot of conversations, a lot of sitting in rooms where I don't agree with necessarily everything that we're talking about in healthcare and just learning to like sit in the room and keep showing up without also losing my mind over flu shots or something like that. And then the next part of it was the opportunity to come in with a portable table and start serving the teachers.

[00:10:24] You know, I was doing that on top of still having a busy full-time practice. So there were certainly moments where I was like, what am I doing? I would be better off to just stay at the office, getting the things done in the office. I'm much busier in the office than I am when I come for the hour or two at the school. But it planted seeds.

[00:10:43] And I think the diligence and the discipline to keep showing up, to keep building trust, continued to open doors for us, which at the time I had no idea it would build into having, you know, a movement start to happen where a lot more kids are getting access to chiropractic. I didn't even know the door to the kids would open at that point. I just felt like I was supposed to be there. And I had said I would be there. And so I kept going.

[00:11:08] And then the right people ended up opening the door for me to go into the schools to see the kids. And then, you know, here we are many steps later now adjusting kids in school. So and hoping it becomes a nationwide, if not international movement where there's just a lot more access to chiropractic. But it's disguised as these moments sometimes where you're like, gosh, it's not fun to show up right now.

[00:11:35] You know, like I could be sleeping in. I could be somewhere else where I feel more productive. And it's just the discipline to see it through. Right. Yeah. I think you there's one word that I kind of want to pick on that you said, and that was like being of service to the teachers. And and I think that we often forget that, like at its core, chiropractic is, you know, we're here to serve.

[00:12:02] You know, the the you think about, you know, I love the story of Silver Ashworth, who was, you know, one of the early chiropractors. And she was just like she'd ring people up. You know, you can you can look this up in the like on Cairo dot org. She'd ring people up if she heard that they had cancer. And even if they were long distance, you know, and she'd be like, listen, come stay at my house. We'll adjust you.

[00:12:29] And and we'll adjust you, you know, two, three times a day. And you can take your time paying me back, whatever. And her primary sort of motivation was, you know, being of service. And again, when I first started looking after athletes, it was being of service. When you first started working in the schools, it was being of service.

[00:12:51] And, you know, the universe will bless you with the opportunities that you want if you first show up, serve and connect. Yes. So true. And that piece of your heart that you're like, I'm here for the right reasons. I'm going to show up and do my best, even if it's just one person. Right. Yeah. Is then how you are entrusted with more.

[00:13:19] For every every chiropractor that's been sitting on it, like that's been like flat out. There's been hours sitting on a table going. How do I do this? You know what I mean? I think and I think when you first start out, like me, I had a good idea that and good certainty the chiropractic worked. I wasn't sure that my chiropractic worked.

[00:13:41] But the only way I got that certainty was by putting myself out there, being of service and, you know, taking the opportunities, even if it meant sitting on a table doing nothing. I was actually just having this conversation with one of the doctors I practiced with yesterday. And I said, she's I don't know if she's 15 years younger than me, but she's been in practice a couple of years. I've been in practice 16 years.

[00:14:07] And I just said, like, what do you think most of your aged chiropractors? So someone who's been out a year or two or three somewhere in that neck of the woods or maybe still in school. Like, what do you think is your head space as a you know, if you're thinking about this like age range of chiropractor? And she said, well, I think first you're just so consumed with can I move a bone? Can I adjust?

[00:14:33] And once you start to figure out, like, I can adjust, then she's like, then I think it becomes like, can I learn to communicate about how I adjust and what I'm doing? And and even just like, can I gain perspective, depending especially on who your mentors have been on why I'm adjusting? Right. Because depending on the school you went to, your understanding of even why you're adjusting really radically changes.

[00:15:02] So I thought I thought that was a really good response of just like first. It's like, can I do this thing? And then it's like, then how do I communicate it? It'd be nice if we learn those at the same time. But I'm sure that that was an accurate description of what happens. And I think with that confidence then comes then, OK, where can I go and be of service?

[00:15:26] Right. If it whether you're an associate and you're being of service in a practice that's already established or, you know, you get the opportunity to go out in the community and just talk more about what you do or show up and honestly just show up to help your community might not even be for chiropractic. It may just be you're just showing up to help at a school district and or teach a group of class about the nervous system. Or those are ways that you show up and people start to learn who you are, feel your energy.

[00:15:52] And all of a sudden they become curious about, oh, yeah, maybe I would come in and you could be my chiropractor. Right. So I do think, you know, we were chatting down that. Well, there's kind of two parts of showing up we wanted to talk about. One part is showing up in your community, right? Like how do you show up and form networks and start to establish trust and where people learn who you are? And that's showing up not only in the four walls of your practice and the way you want to show up, but also outside in your community at different events and different ways that you can get established.

[00:16:20] And then there's also showing up in the profession. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I, again, this is another story. I just thought of it and I was like, oh yeah, I remember doing that. And I was on the, I was on the state association board, which again is, is showing up in the profession. It's, it's, we're not getting paid for it. We're giving up our time for board meetings where we're sitting on a board of directors. So we're, you know, exposing ourselves to potential liability, all that kind of stuff for the sake of the profession.

[00:16:48] Um, but one of my roles on the board was public relations, media, you know, and all that kind of stuff. And the, this program over here in Western Australia called, oh gosh, I can't remember. I think it was safe schools or something along those lines, contacted the chiropractic association saying like, well, you know, will you send somebody to, we're doing like a little outreach at a school.

[00:17:12] Um, we send somebody to talk about spinal health and, uh, I didn't realize it when I, as I was driving out to the school, but the class level I was trying to teach about chiropractic, um, was pre-primary kids, which is like four to five years old.

[00:17:31] Um, and I had to talk to, I think five classes of these four to five year olds that are really just at school for babysitting. Yeah. And, you know, but I learned a very valuable skill from that. And I often give this to my, cause it just ended up being like, okay, who wants to line up and touch the model of the spine? And they'd all line up and, you know, have a little play. Yeah. I was going there thinking, I'm going to talk to 12 year olds.

[00:18:01] We can talk about their backpack and, you know, all this kind of stuff. And then there's four or five year olds that like, you know, when you say like them, well, I guess they don't have uniforms in America, do they? But in, in Australia, you know, all the schools have uniforms and the uniforms are all too big for them. Cause they're trying to make sure that they last a couple of years. It was the funniest experience.

[00:18:23] But what I learned to do from that experience was be able to explain chiropractic so simply that a five year old could understand. And so I actually do this with my associate mastermind groups is I'll say to them, like, listen, right? I want you to write down an explanation of chiropractic as you would explain it to an adult.

[00:18:48] Once you've done that, I want you to write it down as if you would explain it to a five year old and then go back and look at your adult explanation and see if you would change anything. I love that. It's an Einstein quote that if you can't explain it to a kid, like you don't understand it. That's so good. That's such a good action step from this for the record.

[00:19:09] So, you know, I really, I don't, none of those kids really got much out of me being there because they just. I don't know if that's true. Well. You'd be the perfect guy to talk to four and five year olds and make them excited about anything probably. I've got 15 nieces and nephews. So I've been an uncle since I was 12. So I can, I can have fun talking to kids.

[00:19:33] But I think that I got way more out of it than they did because that taught me an incredibly amazing lesson in terms of communication and honed my communication skills. There's, there's, when you're representing chiropractic, there's never actually a wasted moment. Right. You either reach somebody or you improve your skills. That's, that's how it works. Well, and what you just said there, like, I got more out of it, I think, than they did. Right.

[00:20:02] Like, I actually think that's always what happens. Right. What, when you show up, like, whether that, like what you said, like going to the state association and showing up on the board and learning more. Or I'm guessing if I said, Andrew, like lay out five things you learned being involved politically and how it grew you as a leader, you'd be like, I got them. Even though there are probably things that were tense and not great to deal with. And as someone that has been politically active here too, I think the same thing.

[00:20:29] It is interesting how so many times in just showing up, the ripple effect back to you is tenfold. And you realize, gosh, I got more out of this than I gave, which is how you, I think, you know, as long as you're showing up to be of service, like the return is coming. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, yeah, the blessings come to the people that, you know, show up. But you're right. I got, I learned a lot out of it.

[00:20:59] And I, you know, it was interesting in reflection, the people that would always bark the loudest, you know, about wanting their association to do something, whenever the people that put their hand up to, you know, you know, what's it take to be on the board is you put your hand up and people vote and go, yeah, cool. Let's have you on the board. And the opportunities were there and the people that complained the most were never the people that put their hand up.

[00:21:23] If you want to change the profession, the people that you look at who have changed the profession did it by showing up. End of story. They did it by unashamedly being a chiropractor, adjusting out of service as well and boldly declaring the chiropractic principles, not being afraid to use the word subluxation because they don't want to upset anyone.

[00:21:51] The people that have changed the profession for the better showed up for the profession. Yep. Yep. So in wrapping this up, I think our plug is A, learn to explain and communicate to a five or six year old just in case this happens to you as well because everyone's going to benefit from you being able to explain things simply. Absolutely. And where can you show up for your community and for chiropractic to the next level, even when you don't know what the outcome is going to be or how it's going to return to you? It will.

[00:22:21] Yeah. And I, you know, we would love to hear from some docs that take this on board and go, all right. And we'd love to hear some stories of you showing up in the, in the profession in different ways and being of service and, you know, what you learned and what blessings flowed on the back end of it. That'd be great. Totally. That would be great. Yeah. Let us know you're listening. Yeah. Let's hear it. Yeah. All right, Andrew. Well, always a pleasure. I will see you next week. Next week.

[00:22:51] Thanks for listening to this episode of Build Your Remarkable Practice podcast. Remember, what the world needs now is chiropractic and what chiropractic needs now is more successful chiropractors. If you like the podcast, please subscribe, share with your friends and leave us a review. And if you'd like to connect with us personally, please click the links in the show notes to schedule a call.