137 - Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing: Putting the Adjustment Back at the Center

[00:00:00] I love seeing mechanics as patients because I can just go, like imagine this is a car and the brain is an onboard computer and this is the electrical, you know, wiring right throughout the dash. And they're like, oh yeah, that makes, that makes a whole lot of sense. I love working with electricians because the nervous system is, you know, you speak on their terms and people get excited about chiropractic. The problem isn't that chiropractic isn't sexy. The problem is that we suck at conveying what chiropractic is.

[00:00:30] What chiropractic actually does. 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.

[00:00:58] 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. All right. Welcome back to the Build Your Remarkable Practice podcast. I'm Dr. Lona. I'm here with Dr. Andrew and we're going to have a fun episode. Well, we always have a fun episode, but we think we've got a fun one coming. I think this one's pretty fun. Yeah. And what did you title it? You just came up with it.

[00:01:26] We're going to put some red hats on and we're going to call it Make Adjusting Great Again. Yes. That's right. Make Adjusting Great Again. Yeah. What do we mean by that? Well, the concept that we were discussing with this was that, you know, we talk a lot about scale at the Remarkable Practice and, you know, the seasons of practice, launch, build, scale, exit.

[00:01:49] And a lot of the focus around scale is on, like, getting your hands off people and just running the business. But one of the things that I had to wrap my head around with that is I actually, and, you know, if you've watched our episodes, I love adjusting people.

[00:02:10] And so I guess today is really about, like, really appreciating the opportunity to adjust people and talking about how a scale practice doesn't mean that you're not adjusting people and what that looks like and how to get there and how to just see more people. And just a lot of our build docs following along, like you said, they need to get a busier practice and they need to see more people.

[00:02:36] So, and seeing people is sexy, like not in a weird way. Let's get excited about being chiropractors again, not just being business owners. That's what I want people to, like, get off this potty today and go, yeah, you know what? I'm going to go and, like, adjust some spines and I get to own a business. How good. Yes.

[00:03:02] And it came off just realizing, you know, we were at a couple different seminars and I remember having a CA. This was years ago. This was like 10, maybe 12 years ago. And I had taken her to a non-principled seminar. It was, you know, there was a little bit of everything going on at the seminar. And she walked to the vendor hall and she was like, why is that stuff there? And I was like, that is a good question. That is a good question.

[00:03:29] And it's not to throw shade on whatever these extras are that some practices choose to add in. But if we really know that the main thing a chiropractor can offer someone is the good fortune to lay on a chiropractic table and actually receive an adjustment. Because there's only worldwide, like under 100,000 of us. So just the ability to have a chiropractor in your area and have the choice to lay on a chiropractic table still is like somewhat uncommon. Right?

[00:03:59] So. It's actually so uncommon. Like, and not just in like remote areas of the world, but in developed countries. Like, I don't know about you, but on our like Australian Facebook groups will be like, does anyone know a chiropractor in, you know, pick any European city? Outside of Spain where the century of you guys are, you know, changing lives. It's not that easy to find a chiropractor in certain developed parts of the world.

[00:04:26] And we just take that so far for granted. It's crazy. And I think, you know, if you go back and re-listen to a lot of the episodes that Dr. Andrew and I have done, you know, we're obviously trying to help you like fall back in love or fall further in love with chiropractic.

[00:04:44] Because that is such a foundational piece of building your practice is that the bread and butter of what you do is rooted solidly in chiropractic, which then, of course, is when you know that you realize like, I should be wanting to see more people likely. Because I'm one of the few people who can actually adjust a spine and influence the nervous system and the life of that person.

[00:05:07] So it begs the question that a lot of us in our build season and our skill season are learning how the center point of everything that we do in this business and this practice is see people and adjust them and educate them about chiropractic and innate intelligence and the subluxation and all of that. And I can remember earlier on, I think I was at, and maybe I've shared this before, but at like around 200 visits a week in a solo practice.

[00:05:36] And I remember talking to my mentor at the time and saying, what do I do? What do I need to do to grow to the next level, which would have been like 250 or 300? And he's like, you got to shut up. As simple as that. You need to learn to stop talking so much, you know, like how long does it take you to adjust a loved one or, you know, whatever. And he was so right. There was first that desire.

[00:05:59] I had the desire to want to get busier and serve more people, which the cool thing is when you know that adjustments don't take that long. And if I adjust my family in two or three minutes, I probably should be adjusting everybody else in about that same time. Otherwise, what am I doing? And the alignment piece was there for me of like, this is what it's really about. It's about the adjustment and about turning back on a nervous system and helping how that person's life transforms in the process. And so then I had to train in order.

[00:06:29] And training was not only my hands, but it was learning like what to say, what not to say, when to ask a question, when to shut up, when to stop talking about the weather. You know, all of those things so that the practice could really grow. Right. And I love getting to train on some of that with my younger docs, too, because we all go through this evolution of learning how to see like what is our capacity. Right. How can we see more and how can I fall back in love with the ability to have more people lay on my table?

[00:06:59] Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's interesting thinking about like the old, you know, know when to hold them, know when to fold them. Like every chiropractor has had that moment where you're like, oh, I could say something. And then you're like, just. Maybe not. Just let that one go. You know, and I'll admit our shift got a little bit casual with the table talk this afternoon because the AFL grand finals coming up this week. Like the local team that's never won.

[00:07:26] They've been in the competition, I think, 32 years there. The city that it's there in is 10 minutes from the practice. They're in the grand final. This is their chance to win, you know, their first ever premiership. So every. We've got so many patients that are going across the country to this grand final to, you know, support their team. Everyone's going nuts on it. And we're big footy fans in our office. So it's very easy to get distracted. And then all of a sudden you're like.

[00:07:56] They're there for the adjustment, right? They're there for us to keep the main thing, not for the footy chat. But same as you, my high school report cards were Andrew would do great if he would stop talking. And OK, how do we see more people? Stop talking and just, you know, let the hands do the talking. It's.

[00:08:19] They are there for your energy, but that energy comes across from not just what you say, but what you don't say. And I think. Yeah. And talking about the build docs who are kind of struggling right now. We often have this perception that the problem is chiropractic and that there's a lack of desire for chiropractic. And we've talked in previous podcasts how I've looked after elite athletes.

[00:08:50] In fact, one of the guys who's playing in the grand final is a patient of mine. That's cool. And yeah. And he's had incredible results. Now he has access to. Just about anything he wants at a professional football club, except for in Australia, a chiropractor. He can get.

[00:09:07] And all the athletes that I've looked after in competition have got a never ending supply of massage therapists, physiotherapists, people who give them nutrition, people who will give them like rehab exercises, dry needle, whatever you want.

[00:09:25] The one thing that I have consistently been involved with, with athletes and people who are aspiring to be athletes is they don't have access to a chiropractor and what they're missing is a chiropractor and a chiropractic adjustment. So I don't play those other roles with these athletes because they've got them. I play specifically a chiropractor and I adjust them and they sit up and they go, wow, thank God. All right.

[00:09:52] And I won't, you know, name him because of doctor patient confidentiality, but this elite athlete, the first time he walked into our practice, he'd never had a season in competition where he had missed or he had played more games than he'd missed because of injury. Never ending supply of soft tissue injuries, poor recovery, all that sort of stuff.

[00:10:17] The first season he started getting adjusted was the first season that flipped around and he played more games than he missed. The next season was the first season he never missed a game. And since getting adjusted, his mindset and like recovery and sleep and soft tissue injuries, all of that's gone way down. And the only thing that he's really changed is adding an adjustment into the mix.

[00:10:48] So we have this perception in our profession that people aren't in love with chiropractic. That's not true at all. The problem is that people don't know what chiropractic actually represents and actually what it stands for. And if we don't stand for something, we'll fall for everything. You know, that old phrase, if we don't go, this is our job, we adjust and everything else we do.

[00:11:12] And I say this, knowing that my practice has a decompression table, it offers shockwave supplements, all that kind of stuff is all framed in the context of this will help you hold your adjustment better. And the adjustment is the superstar. And we keep the main thing, which is the chiropractic adjustment, the main thing. And, you know, we've had people go, well, I just want to come in for shockwave. I go, that's cool.

[00:11:41] It costs exactly the same for you to have a shockwave session as it does for you to have an adjustment and a shockwave session. And we actually don't do just shockwave sessions. So you're going to go through the chiropractic process. And when people come and they want to have a chat about supplements, it's always, I don't know if we've discussed this. I have, I guess, a specialized focus in reducing that chemical stress element on people.

[00:12:08] I've done, you know, further study through applied kinesiology on, you know, what they call clinical biochemistry. It's actually more along the lines of biophysics, but that's a philosophical conversation for another day. But what I learned was those people, I've been doing these appointments for a decade and had some like crazy results.

[00:12:30] But I realized that the people who were just doing the supplementation were getting half the results that the people were getting adjusted and doing the supplementation. So now when people come in, I get people, I'll only take one person a week for this kind of appointment because I don't want it to dilute my chiropractic practice. So I got a long waiting list of people being like, you know, I want to get in.

[00:12:52] If they're not a patient already, I just, I tell them straight up, you're going to have to do the chiropractic side of things as well because it's not, we're not going to get the results that you're hoping for unless you're getting adjusted as well as the supplementation. And guess what happens? Zero pushback on that. They go, yep, cool. That makes sense because of course my nervous system runs my gut or my reproduction or whatever the problem that they're trying to solve is.

[00:13:22] When I explain what chiropractic actually is, they go, you know what? That makes perfect sense. And this is what I've been looking for the whole time. Andrew, are you convicted around this? Am I, am I what? Sorry. Convicted around this. Convicted around that chiropractic is the focal point and that's why everyone must have this part. You might say a little bit, right?

[00:13:46] And I think, you know, that's what's missing many times is that we've started to add things. We're unsure of ourself and our ability to grow the chiropractic end of the practice. So we think the solution is in these other things that might seem easier to explain because people are more apt to ask about nutrition than they are like, how's my nervous system doing? And how's my spine look?

[00:14:08] And I just want to put a plug in for you is that for somebody that wants to have these things in their practice, like having someone like Andrew who has learned how to set up his model so that it's still chiropractic is what you're doing. And you happen to have these other things that support the patient's journey to well, well-being, but don't necessarily capsize what the really the main thing that your business is built around, which is chiropractic. Right. Yeah.

[00:14:36] And, you know, we had a conversation about how we can implement things, you know, on the decompression side of things with my associates today. And I loved it. One of my associates is like, how do we make sure that we keep the main thing, the main thing? Right. Exactly. And for me, I don't think I'm smart enough to like pick my head up and do some of that. And so we just stay. All we do is exams and adjusting. However, our model is complex in like a way of bringing it into the school districts. Right.

[00:15:06] And, you know, how you were explaining the athlete and the athlete having all the access to all these other things that other people beyond a chiropractor can actually provide. You know, same thing is happening at the schools for us. We had a child yesterday that has been getting adjusted now. School's only been in session for like four weeks. And his teacher, Ampera, said he has run out of his classroom multiple times a day since the beginning of school.

[00:15:32] And as of his adjustment last week, he has not been running out of the classroom. And that they think that chiropractic is helping him stay calmer and more engaged in the classroom. Right. And it's like he has access. He's getting care with all a lot of other things. But no one is checking his spine for subluxation and influences nervous system in this way. So just a plug of like before you can run, we need to have the basics in place.

[00:15:58] We need to like I would imagine like you didn't add shockwave before you already had built a sizable chiropractic practice. Absolutely not. And, you know, it's actually kind of like a bit of a joke with patients. I've got a bit of tendonitis. I'm like, oh, OK. Well, we need to make sure the nerve flow to that area is. Mm hmm. Yeah. And the only reason why I thought, OK, well, maybe we'll have shockwave was number one, I hurt my own knee and I wanted to buy a shockwave to use on my own knee. I tore my patella tendon. Right.

[00:16:26] But number two, the principle is in improving the way the body heals itself. Right. And I was like, OK, well, that is at least in alignment with chiropractic care because so. And in that regard, it's super easy to frame it as keeping the main thing, the main thing, because we're, you know, this is to help your body heal itself. And we need to make sure that the nerve flow is happening there. But I don't want people to think that I'm in love with.

[00:16:53] It's just the tiniest portion of our practice, but it's another service that we can offer to patients to help them hold their adjustment. And I think that that's really the key that people are missing when you, a lot of practices got supplementation or, you know, to it. Sure. Look, from a business perspective, it can increase your profitability by adding all of these things on. If you're not framing it right, then people will start to get confused. Well, can I just take that then? Right.

[00:17:21] Like I've got a, I've got a herbal, uh, like it's called NeuroCalm. Can I just take that to relax my nervous system? No, you can't. The adjustment is to do that. This is to help support the chemical stress around your subluxations. And, uh, even if you're prescribing exercises, foam rolling stuff, stretches, patients need to understand. And this is the importance of actually having the conversation around subluxation and nerve irritation. You can't roll out, um, a subluxation.

[00:17:51] You can't exercise out of subluxation. You can't stretch it out. Those things will help you hold your adjustment. Absolutely. And that's part of the three-legged stool that we always talk about in TRP. That's the, the corrective exercises, but you're missing the whole other leg of the stool, which is adjustments in rhythm in support of that. Yes. And for most chiropractors, you know, you think about, let's say you're a doc with one doc, right?

[00:18:15] And it's like, I can have this conversation about nutrition and supplementation, or I can adjust to more people in that time. Right? Like, so we really also have to look at like, how much time do I really have to allocate to some of these things? Or should I have a model that's more efficient or refer out for it? Maybe there's someone else in my area who is a nutritionist that has great supplements as well. And they could actually do the deep dive because that's not my model right now.

[00:18:41] And so that's also where finding those external partnerships so that you can be supporting if that isn't going to be part of your business. Right? A hundred percent. I've got a great OT that we refer to regularly. I've got massage therapists that I refer to. I've even got physiotherapists and I'm like, that's not a chiropractic problem. That's a physio problem. Go and see Paul, go and see Jack, whatever. We've got a great pelvic floor physio around, you know, around the corner from the practice. I don't want to be a physiotherapist. Otherwise I would have been a physiotherapist. That's great.

[00:19:12] So, but when I get a question, sometimes I get a question from a patient, oh, do you do dry niggling? I go, no. And they go, oh, why is that? And I said, well, because in our practice, anyone can do dry niggling. It's a weekend course. Once you have a qualification, a massage therapist can do dry niggling. You know, physiotherapists can do dry niggling. I've got nothing against it. Right? But the only person who can adjust your spine is a chiropractor.

[00:19:42] And in our practice, we focus on being the best at that. And if we think you need that, we'll refer you to it. Yeah. And that's how we handle it too. And people just go, yeah, that makes sense. Because people want a master, not a jack of all trades, master of none. Right? They want the master in the thing that they need help with. So we've forgotten that chiropractic is really cool. And right now, chiropractic is super sexy because people just don't realize it's chiropractic.

[00:20:11] You scroll on your Instagram. Every second wellness and health influencer is talking about, oh, nervous system regulation. And I'm like, it was our 131st birthday last week. Like we've been talking about this for 131 years. You guys are only just catching up. But I think that in the profession, we have a problem, a conception problem where we think that like people aren't interested in nervous system regulation.

[00:20:38] Meanwhile, all the background chatter is actually about how do you lower your cortisol? Well, guess what? There was a study that tracked people who got adjusted for 12 weeks. And guess what happened to their cortisol? It went down. You know, like how do we regulate our nervous system? In that same study, the brain-derived neurotrophic factor went up. Like all of the wellness influencers are talking about nervous system regulation. And we need chiropractors to step into our role as the nervous system masters and go,

[00:21:07] guys, over here, that's actually what we do. Yes. So good. So true too. It's like the conversation is at where we want it to be. Now we just get to go and build that bridge so they understand how chiropractic is influencing the nervous system. That's a piece that's still missing. And also the piece that might be missing in the practice if we're struggling to communicate what we do and thinking that people just don't get it. It's like go back to yourself and think about, am I just, am I conversing?

[00:21:34] Like we said last week or two weeks ago when we were talking about, you had said like, oh, I had to learn how to like communicate chiropractic to a grade schooler, right? Like how do we just keep working on our communication around the adjustment with understanding, paralleling chiropractic sometimes to other things that people already understand? Chiropractic is a process. Chiropractic is something that is set in motion through the adjustment where the body is able to rewire itself.

[00:22:01] And, you know, it's not the length of time of an adjustment that determines its value. It's that it's set a process in motion, which allows that nervous system to essentially establish more coherence. Like explaining what coherence means. It's like the state of energy that your body is communicating everything through. Like figure out ways that you can explain chiropractic to somebody who is a blue collar worker, somebody who works with their hands, somebody who's a teacher, somebody who's 12 years old, someone who's five years old.

[00:22:30] And then make that the main thing that you're communicating around in the adjustatorium and your practice will grow. And then eliminate some of the talk that's about the weather or about the football. Or the footy grand final. Yeah, whatever. Yes. Yeah. But, you know, and like I've mentioned before, I really pride myself on the ability to connect with patients from a communication perspective. And, you know, I actually, I'm still in my practice polo because I just finished a body

[00:22:59] signals workshop. And again, little sort of side note on the scale. Like I've got three fantastic associates going to add a fourth at the end of the year. Why am I doing the body signals workshops? Because I love doing them. And I love talking about this stuff. And my patient had brought her boyfriend in and he's got no idea about health or anything like that. And she goes, talk to him like you're talking about a car. And I'm like, right.

[00:23:27] So a symptom is like the check engine light coming on. And he's like, oh, okay. And then we're talking about the, you know, the wellness prevention, like paradigm. And I'm like, well, when do you get your car service? If your car's broken down and we're talking about, you know, because his mom's on maintenance care with another chiropractor, but she's got a whole lot of body signals saying I need more help. I'm like, yeah, your mom's broken down maintenance, you know, maintenance servicing for your car is reserved for cars that are running smoothly.

[00:23:56] And we're just keeping them running smoothly. If your car's broken down, you're not waiting till your next service to get it in. You're getting it in yesterday. And he's like, that makes sense. I love seeing mechanics as patients because I can just go, okay, this has got to do with like, imagine this is a car and the brain is an onboard computer. And this is the electrical, you know, wiring right throughout the dash. And they're like, oh yeah, that makes, that makes a whole lot of sense.

[00:24:23] I love working with electricians because the nervous system is, you know, you speak on their terms and people get excited about chiropractic. Yes. The problem isn't that chiropractic isn't sexy. The problem is that we suck at conveying what chiropractic actually does. And first, we've got to get rooted in that, right? Like we've been saying. Organic plug.

[00:24:46] If you're not coming to the Remarkable Practice immersions, where's yours? Arizona? No, this next one is actually right outside of DC in a week and a half. Yeah. If you're not going and you're not coming to Adelaide in Australia, then, and you're thinking, I don't know how to communicate what chiropractic does, get your butt to the immersion because it's just two full days on that.

[00:25:13] It's two full days on how you can run a successful practice, like practice, not business, but practice in terms of communication, in terms of patient retention. And here's the reality we often talk about at these seminars, the hourglass model of when we're marketing and we've got leads filtering down to prospects and then they become a patient and then they go through their initial intensive care, corrective care.

[00:25:41] The model of it is if you want build docs, if you want a busier practice, the way to do a busier practice is to move as many people down to wellness and maintenance as possible. That's where the foundation of your practice is. It's not in churn and burn new patients. It's progressing them through the process and getting them to wellness and maintenance. And that only comes by number one, adjusting really well. And number two, actually communicating why people need to stay under care and what chiropractic

[00:26:10] is actually all about. Yes. So in rounding this out, make adjusting great again. Make adjusting great again. Yeah. Be excited to see more people, right? It's okay to work hard and to be like, whoa, I am gassed a little bit. I saw more people today than I've ever seen before. What if I develop the capacity and stamina to do that three or four days a week? That'd be pretty cool. That's why I work out.

[00:26:38] I say to patients, I go to the gym four or five times a week so that I can adjust people and it not be fatiguing on my body. But be excited about being busy because we're running a hiring process right now. And we did a group interview and I sat them all down and I said, this is how many people we see. It's not about how many people we see. It's about this is a measurement of how much we're helping our community and we want to help our community more. So we need to see more people. Simple, right?

[00:27:06] So let's get excited about adjusting. Let's just remember that the busier we are, the more people we're helping. Great side effect is that you're financially more set by seeing more people. But the main thing is that we're helping more people. Silver Ashworth is driving around going door to door during the Spanish flu epidemic because she wanted to help more people, not cash in. That's the second time I've heard her name this week.

[00:27:36] That's pretty cool. Yeah, I think if you guys don't know who she is, go look up the grand old lady of chiropractic and read her personal history and the history of her kids. If you want to get excited about chiropractic, this woman's story is the most chiropractic story that you will come across. And it is just, it's the classic. She had great results with chiropractic. So she was inspired to study chiropractic and then she just changed lives until she ran out of life.

[00:28:07] Amazing. That's awesome. I think we can hang it up there. Until next time, Andrew. All right, team. See you then. See you next episode. 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.

[00:28:35] And if you'd like to connect with us personally, please click the links in the show notes to schedule a call.