Activate Your Practice Podcast
The Activate Your Practice Podcast is hosted by the Chairman & Founder of Activator Methods, Dr. Arlan Fuhr. This podcast will cover a variety of subjects. Dr. Fuhr will interview guests from different backgrounds and professions, as well as talk about his 50+ years in chiropractic care.
Activate Your Practice Podcast
Redefining Success and Balance with Dr. Troy Amdahl
Ever wondered how a skeptic becomes a trailblazer in the world of chiropractic care? Join us as we sit down with Dr. Troy Amdahl, who transformed from a doubter to a passionate advocate after witnessing the life-changing impact of chiropractic treatment on his girlfriend's migraines. Dr. Amdahl shares his extraordinary journey from building a successful practice in his Minnesota hometown to pioneering chiropractic care in the Middle East, including a groundbreaking collaboration with the Mayo Clinic. His story is not only one of professional triumph but also a testament to challenging the status quo and expanding the horizons of natural healthcare globally.
Beyond professional achievements, we explore the transformative power of setting holistic life goals. Through personal stories filled with gratitude and humility, discover how Dr. Amdahl and a close friend turned a simple tradition of goal-setting into life-altering changes. Inspired by their journey and endorsed by NFL star Kurt Warner, they penned a book that provides a framework for achieving balance and redefining success in life. This segment promises insights into overcoming obstacles and dreaming bigger, sharing an impactful narrative that encourages a shift from mere financial pursuits to embracing personal growth and well-being.
Finally, the episode takes a heartfelt turn as we discuss the ULA movement's philosophy on living a balanced and joyful life. By prioritizing relationships, mental and physical health, and daily joy, we reveal the immense potential for personal and community transformation. From collaborations with leaders in the nutrition industry to collecting dreams along the Pacific Coast Highway, this episode champions the notion that by fostering meaningful connections and embracing expansive thinking, we can inspire lasting positive change. Join us on this enlightening journey and continue the conversation on social media to amplify this empowering message.
Welcome to Activate your Practice. I'm Dr Arlen Foer, the chairman and founder of Activator Methods International, and today I have not only a very special person, a friend of mine and he's a chiropractor Dr Troy Omdahl from Minnesota. So that's how I know Troy and I've known him for years, but he's got an interesting story and I just wanted to share it with all of you out there, because you know there's young people out there that are looking for challenges and they want to have a goal in life that's above and beyond, and Troy is the perfect person to show them that, because he has done things that people just dream about. And I guess you'd be happy if you were 42 years old and you could retire debt-free and you could live the rest of your life without working. But that just was the beginning of his story. So, troy, welcome.
Speaker 2:I'm so glad to be here. This is like fun. Yes, I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 1:Tell me a little bit about you. Started in a pretty heavy medical community called Rochester, minnesota, as the head of the Mayo Clinic, so tell me a little bit about your chiropractic story.
Speaker 2:And my chiropractic story was, like many people that I was going to school University of Wisconsin-Madison, born and raised in Rochester, minnesota School. I kind of like school. I like taking classes, like taking tests. It was pretty good at it, but neutral on the topic of chiropractic, meaning that back in it feels like a long time ago. This is like 80s, late 80s. The world was pretty divided. There was those people who said chiropractic, there were huge advocates for chiropractic and there were a lot of people that back in those days looked at it like voodoo. So I looked at it from a left side of my brain. My now wife, then girlfriend, was seeing a chiropractor for migraines and I got interested because my personal philosophies of taking medication like I don't like taking medication, I like natural solutions to things I was intrigued that you could get help from a chiropractor for migraines and I spent some time with the chiropractor and I was hooked. So I ended up going to school and settling in my hometown and starting practice and it started this whole crazy adventure called life.
Speaker 1:Well, and while you were at Mayo Clinic, I guess you worked with Mayo somewhat and you had tell them a little bit about how you started going international.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it's really especially for young listeners. If you're listening to this, just take great care of people. People will come to my office. And again, this was a time it was a different time where, even if someone went to the Mayo Clinic a patient went to the Mayo Clinic and they said I want to see a chiropractor the default answer was don't go see a chiropractor. They just didn't refer. But there was outside pressure to see chiropractors. So they finally got to the point where they said, well, if you're going to go see a chiropractor, go see Troy. And I was grateful for that and over time built relationships with the sports medicine team, pm&r and I would speak at grand rounds about what is this thing called chiropractic and where do we fit into the whole medical system. And that opened up a wider referral network where over time, I would not just see routine patients but Mayo Clinic has a global reach and I would see influential people from around the world, which opened up avenues for experiences to spread chiropractic elsewhere.
Speaker 1:You have to tell them the story about going to the Middle East and how you ended up over there. Just tell them a little bit about the story. It's fascinating.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I've always been a person that in my core I just want to do big things. I don't want to do average things. I don't settle, I like to challenge what's possible. And in treating these people, from time to time I'd get these crazy requests or ask, because at this time in the 80s, chiropractic didn't exist in the Middle East at all. So when a group from the Middle East would come in, it was like showing them light.
Speaker 2:Chiropractic was just this beautiful option because you have to think about this that if they had neuromusculoskeletal pain, they had an option to live with it, to medicate it or have surgery. That's it. So I remember you know it was one particular patient she had 31 injections in her L5 disc in over a period of three months, like that's almost like every third day a corticosteroid injection in her disc and it that was her only option because she was in debilitating pain, and then adjusting her and the pain went away and this opened the eye. Could you imagine if you didn't even know it was an option. And now you're, you're seeing this as an option.
Speaker 2:So there were people, influential people, very eager to get this option available in the Middle East as an option, not the only option, but now you know, if you had, you had choices now. So, in typical style, I picked up three small little kids a very successful practice and I hopped on a plane to Dubai, which back then couldn't find it on a map, no one knew what it was, and I was offered the chance to introduce chiropractic to a whole new country, a whole new region. It wasn't licensed, it wasn't regulated. We had to set up all of the things to establish chiropractic in the UAE and we did that, and we did that in 2000. And again, what a great experience. To this day, that first clinic is still open.
Speaker 1:And I believe you were treating the royal family. Am I correct?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, patient confidentiality, a lot of very influential people from multiple countries and super gracious people, super generous people, super kind people, grateful to introduce this and, coming from a point of altruism, they really wanted this as an option for the people in their country, which was it speaks my love language Like, if we can go have an impact on this is what's cool about chiropractic If you go in a room with a patient, you have an impact on one life, maybe five or six, because if that mom goes home and she's in less pain, she's better with her kids and husband, or her husband is better with her wife and kids, whatever that is.
Speaker 2:But my brain works in a way like how can I have the most impact? And it's just, it's cool to work with people who think big. And to this again, to this day, I still go back and I still have friends there and I see chiropractic clinics all over the place and I smile. I smile knowing that the people in this region now have an option which is my preferred option to take care of your health and your wellness, and that's chiropractic.
Speaker 1:One of the big reasons that Activator has supported the World Federation is just because of what you're talking about. I remember going to conferences where there were five chiropractors in the country and we would do a seminar there and after the seminar the interest was so great that all of a sudden they had a full blown profession going that's what you call worldwide and looking to influence people. Now you called here about how was that about two months ago and said tell about what your favorite sport is, well, I'm hooked.
Speaker 2:Don't start, because if you what your favorite sport is, Well I'm hooked. Don't start, because if you start you can't stop. But I'm hooked on this thing called pickleball, and not like your grandpa's pickleball, this is competitive level, tournament level pickleball. I play all the time. But man, you can get injured, arlen, that's why I'm here. I owe him one, that's why he'm here. I owe him one right, because I've been.
Speaker 2:I went back to Mayo, um, to to the executive medicine department which is top of the top of Mayo. I've been to the doctors here. I've been to a bunch of chiropractors. I had a year of of messing around with every you name it, um, everything from acupuncture, you know, chiropractic my first choice, obviously, but you, you could name the modality um, I was almost desperate enough to try some things to see on TikTok, you know like that's how desperate I was. But then I'm like I have a buddy literally a few miles away from me who's a legend. So I called Arlen, I said, hey, I mean, do your thing. And he put me on the path and I played today, for instance.
Speaker 1:I played all out this morning and I'm super grateful and it was really funny. I have to interject this for our activator audience.
Speaker 1:He had a right short leg and I took it up to position number two and he went about three inches short and I went oh my gosh, what does that tell all of you out there? He had a fourth lumbar to the left. I made one thrust on him and he's such good physical shape, his leg balanced, and there wasn't another subluxation in his body, and he kind of looked at me like, is that all you're going to do? And I said it's back in place and so let's give you a few days. And so I let him go a few days and he came back. He didn't need anything. He said aren't you going to do something? And I said no, we're not going to knock it out. And I'm teaching you here because there's the. Remember my three things you have to know where to adjust, when to adjust, and then what, when to quit. Now, that's been what a month or two now that you've been doing fine and having no problems at all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm doing great now. I've actually been playing pickleball every day. I'm actually limiting it to two hours a day, which was six hours a day, yeah, and I'm scheduled. I had a buddy reached out for a tournament in California at Newport Beach. We're going to do that and I'm going to play in Nashville next month, so we have some good stuff planned. I'm super grateful. I love this community. It's so interesting. I've been out of it. You mentioned in the opener that I retired at 42, debt-free, Not because I didn't love chiropractic. I love chiropractic, I love helping people. I didn't love paperwork. I didn't love managing people. This part of interacting with a patient and watching what natural health care can do to a human being is one of the most rewarding things on this planet. But I didn't I mean I didn't exit because I didn't love that. I just I remember one day sitting in a pile of paperwork and going. I've spent more time in this day on paperwork than with the patient and that's broken Like. That isn't right. So that was my exit strategy at that time.
Speaker 1:Well then you went to another thing here and it was quite by accident. So there's a company called ULA. Troy is a co-founder of ULA, and I'd like to have him just tell you the story, because it's just a great story about how ULA got started.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think many times we push life in a direction and rather than just pausing and letting the opportunities come to us, the beautiful thing from a young age I was super financially responsible. I was all about not having debt. I was about living under my means and that's how I was able to retire young. But I retired at 42, and I was just enjoying life. I had kids. We moved to Arizona to get out of the Minnesota winters and we were enjoying our life here. We moved to Arizona to get out of the Minnesota winters and we were enjoying our life here.
Speaker 2:And about two years into that retirement, a buddy of mine he was an intern in my office. I can share that. He was a chiropractic intern that called me and we always kept in touch because we had a good relationship and he said he was super successful. So the last pictures I saw were of a multimillion dollar home. He had a racquetball court in it, the cool cars, five kids, beautiful life. Everything was awesome as far as I was concerned. And he called me one night really late and he said you're not going to believe where I am, but I'm in the bad part of town in a motel and I've lost everything. And I mean I said what do you mean? You lost everything. He said I'm. They repossessed my cars, I'm going through a divorce, shutting down my business and I don't know where to turn.
Speaker 2:So what, what, what we did? There was always a group of guys all chiropractors, by the way that every year, when we were younger, we would fly to Vegas in December always the first weekend of December and we would map out our life for the next year, our goals for the next year, and not the traditional sense of the goals of just how much money do I want to make? And you know, what do I want to. My practice needs to grow this much, but what do I want my marriage to look like? What do I want my ring of friends to look like? What do I want to do with my faith walk? What about joy in the day of having some fun? And what about these other things in life that really give life, really redefining success? So we did this more to keep ourselves on track, because me personally, I'm driven. I'm driven in business, I'm driven in money. It's just how God created me. I see opportunity, I see ways to do things. I have to do that because I know that all the money in the world, without a beautiful person at home to share it with and a connection with my kids and my own health, it means nothing. So we would set these goals every year. We'd go, live our life, come back, we'd keep in touch a little bit and reset goals every year.
Speaker 2:Well, when I went to UAE, we drifted from connecting. So that's why it was such. I kept doing these setting goals every year and I drifted from my buddy and that's when he called me. I said I can't, you know, first of all. First of all, the thing I told him I said where you are in this moment is simply where you are. It's not who you are, because I know, as your friend, that who you are is an incredible human being designed by God for greatness and for a purpose. So this is just where you are. So I want you to get back about the business of getting some vision and moving forward through this. You can't stay stuck in this, you have to work through this. So he went you can't get. You can't stay stuck in this, you have to work through this. So he went. You all excited.
Speaker 2:Now, when we got off the phone, he went to the mountains and set goals, like we did back in the day, came down and said man, I have a clear vision. I have a clear vision and I remember seeing his goals and I said you know what? I'm going to tear these up and I want you to dream bigger, cause, he said, I just want to open up a practice again and get a car and get a condo. I said, no, you're capable of more than that. So he tore up his dreams and he started dreaming big and he went about every day about doing the work to stay focused on those goals, not just in money and career, but in the seven key areas of life.
Speaker 2:Fast forward a year or two later, his life's on track. He's not back in the high life, but he's on track. And he said he's all excited, he's a super fun guy, he's like Troy. We need to tell people about this, this thing we do. And I'm like what do you mean? He said we need to do a podcast or we need to do a blog or we need to do. So. We just started writing it out and in 48 hours, at my cabin in Northern Minnesota, we wrote out what we do, we wrote out how we set goals. We brought out what gets in the way, like fear and guilt and anger and laziness. We brought out what will get us there faster, like gratitude and love and humility, and we just mapped out what we do to move our lives forward and we had 95% of an outline book. We threw the book out in the world in a noisy world of books, and in 90 days we sold about 46 books. But then our book was endorsed by Kurt Warner NFL guy. He's the quarterback for the Phoenix Cardinals.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he didn't just endorse, he wrote a forward and our book started getting in the NFL, our book started getting in CEO hands and it just went from zero to a million. It was crazy Like we were the first three months or so we were selling 46 books and you could look at the list and it was all relatives, right, all family. And then something happened and it just went.
Speaker 1:But there's another thing here. I remember you telling me that you went to these different publishing houses, yes, and they wanted you to take the chapter out on Christianity and how you were a Christian and so forth. And you said we're not taking it out, we're looking for a new publisher. Am I correct?
Speaker 2:That's exactly right. So I don't know if anybody's been down this book road, and we were new to it. We wrote this outline for a book. This was our first book and we knew some people, so we had the opportunity to pitch this book to some big publishing houses. One was in New York and the guy goes. I'm giving you two suggestions. I think you got a good book here. I think it's going to work. Suggestion number one is take out the word ULA. It makes no sense which ULA now is tattooed on people's bodies. It's on shirts. We sell tens of thousands of dollars in ULA gear. It comes from the word ULALA, by the way, which means what your life feels like when it's balanced and growing in those seven key areas.
Speaker 2:But a second point was you got to remove faith because it's going to rub people the wrong way. We couldn't walk out of there fast enough. Faith is what got Dave through his rough spot. Faith has helped me in my life. I'm grounded in it and for me to tell a story otherwise is a lie. So I'm like I would rather stick to the truth. We actually thought at that moment we killed the book. We actually thought that because even in the Christian community. Kurt Warner's a very strong Christian. Some of the feedback we'd get with that first book was it's not Christian enough. And then the feedback in the mainstream community was it's? You mentioned Christianity? We just told our truth and threw it out there and see what happened and thankfully it worked out. Really, I think now between the three books it's over 800,000 books.
Speaker 1:Now, that's O-O-L-A. For some of you that don't know about ULA, it's O-O-L-A, u-l-a-l-a. I didn't even know, that's how it got started.
Speaker 2:That's what it feels like. I mean, if you can pay your bills, you're connected with the people you love, you feel purposeful in your work, you're having joy in the day. That's ULA. Tell me about the ULA bus. So in our first book we just tell our story. It's really Dave and Dave's my buddy, the co-founder. We just tell our story about ULA and we mentioned going to Vegas, like we were talking about and setting goals with our buddies every year.
Speaker 2:Well, on social media, people will start who are reading the book or saying do you guys still go to Vegas and do that Like we're like? Of course we do. We do it every the first weekend of every of December every year and plan our next year. And the very first our book came out like right away. And then that right away the next year, people are asking us about it and we said why don't you join us? So we rented a little room at the hard rock, um, and we invited people to come with us and in that moment we, prior to that, we had a one hour keynote. So we get asked to speak all over the place and we, uh, had a one hour keynote. That's as long as either of us had ever spoke about anything. And we had a two-day event and I remember Dave and I being up all night, literally all night. We're like, how are we going to have two days of content? And we're used to one hour. And we just went for it and we just helped people and in two days they went through this process and we sold more tickets to the second event than there were people in the room because people were changed by it. They finally had a blueprint for their life on how to move forward and that's how it started. But what happened is people then couldn't get to the event because many times people who need ULA can afford it the least. So when we had the success of the book and we had the success of the events, we're like what can we do to have a bigger impact?
Speaker 2:Again, going back to impact, let's get an Icon of Freedom which is a 1970s surf bus, and if you don't know what that is, you can Google it. It looks like what they used to sell weed out of in the 70s. Right, it's just this VW surf bus and we had these little stickers color-coded for the seven key years of life, and we went with Sharpie markers and we drove that to parks and to coffee shops and we just started meeting people and they said what's your bus all about? We said we believe you're designed by God for greatness and a purpose and we settle for ordinary when extraordinary is within you. What's an extraordinary goal or dream you have for your life? And we'd be honored to carry that dream on our bus, that bus today.
Speaker 2:It started out as a blue bus in Coronado, california. That bus today has 43 layers of dream, handwritten dreams on it and 43 layers of handwritten dreams on it and 43 layers of handwritten dreams Like right now that bus is in getting ready for F1 in Vegas. It's at an event and people are putting without us being there. They're contemplating their life, asking what they want and putting dreams on a bus.
Speaker 1:So tell me a story about the ULA tour bus. Just tell me something that sticks out in your mind. You've been all over the United States.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're really endless because we've been to the 48 lower states and it's not a marketing thing when Dave and I just want to get out on the road. A lot of times our kids are with us and we just go out and just meet people and collect dreams. That's one of our favorite things to do is just get out in the world, look eye to eye to people and collect dreams. One of my most impactful stories that comes to mind right now is when we started this tour because we didn't know what to expect. At that time we had our teenage sons, so Dave brought his son, I brought my son and we thought an iconic trip would be up the PCH Pacific Coast Highway. If you've never done it, it's one of the most up by Big Sur. It's beautiful. But we started in Coronado, which is by San Diego, and we took our bus up the coast with our teenage sons. We had the music cranking, we had a couple of TVs in the bus, like we thought this was going to be a party, like let's collect people's dreams, let's just do this, and we were having a great time and we would stop random places and collect a few dreams. But I remember getting south of Santa Barbara and at this time it was about sunset and our teenage sons could see the sunset over the Pacific and they're like, can we do that? Like we've been in the bus all day, can we go, just play in the surf? So we pulled out at a state park and the boys, before we could turn the bus off, they ran to the surf so we would look over and watch them. We got out of the bus and I looked up the coast and in the distance was this beautiful family. It was, they were dressed up, it was at sunset, right on the beach, where the beach meets the water, a professional photographer and they were taking these family photos husband, wife, two kids. It's just, it was a cool moment. Our kids are playing over here. We're seeing this family. The family comes up to the bus and they're like our bus. You have to imagine right now it's not 43 layers, it's covered. It's like it has chicken pox, you know. It just has a few dreams, from Coronado up to Santa Barbara. And they're like what are you guys doing? We're like we're just collecting dreams. We're like we're on a mission to collect 1 million dreams. It's one bus, two guys collecting a million dreams. That's our thing. And like this is Like of course you can. So the mom grabbed an orange sticker, which means family.
Speaker 2:So the seven Fs are fitness, finance, family field, which is your career, faith, friends and fun. Those are the seven key areas of life. Let's go over those again, slowly, okay Fitness, finance, family field, which is your career, faith, friends and fun. So those are the seven areas. If you balance those seven areas, you're going to have a full, rich and fun. So those are the seven areas. If you balance those seven areas, you're going to have a full, rich, deep life.
Speaker 2:So she looked at those and she chose the family one, the orange one, and she grabbed a marker, went around the back of the bus and she comes back and she has a big smile on her face. She goes you guys, this is so cool, keep doing what you're doing. Thank you so much for this. And they drove off. Well, because we're so fresh on this tour we don't know what to expect. What do we do when they leave?
Speaker 2:Well, we run around the back and see what she wrote. And we looked at her sticker and it said I want to be strong enough through my stage four cancer to see my daughters become women. And I, I cry in this moment, I like, I like here's someone who's going through one of life's biggest challenges with courage and with dignity, and had incredible clarity of what's important to her. And I, I told Dave, we called the boys up, we turned the music off and we just rolled North and we said we have something here Like. We have something that holds the ability to have an impact, and that bus hasn't stopped moving since. Well.
Speaker 1:And that bus hasn't stopped moving since. Well, you've got the seven things, and many people feel lost out there and they're overwhelmed and they just I really noticed it here because of the big thing going on politically in the United States here in the last month. And we have some people that when they were not winners, you know, they went into depression and so forth, and we called them and said, hey, this too shall pass, and you know we didn't cry in 2020 when our candidate lost. And so I think you're right, the balance is the key to this thing, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think when people feel overwhelmed, they feel out of control. And the whole point of this is do what's in your control, Like there are things out of your control, but do what's in your control and you are in control of the actions you take and the intentional efforts you make every day. So, if you have, this is why this is so important. We're in a very also overwhelmed world, a very also overwhelmed world. We're in a very distracted world, so we lose sight of our goals and dreams. What's also startling on that bus is when you hand. It's just such a cool experience. But when you hand someone a Sharpie and sticker and say, what do you want for your life, I can't tell you how many times people just tear up and they have no idea. They have no idea what they want anymore. When they were young, they did. They had goals and dreams and you know, if you're a young listener and you want to grow your practice and get married and do this and pay off your student loan debts, those are goals. But something happens between you know when you want to be a transformer, when you're in fourth grade, you know to whatever, and you just get into this mundane grind of day to day and you lose sight of your dreams, but you are in control of your actions. That's why setting goals is so important. That's why we spend to this day. I'm getting prepared for now.
Speaker 2:Now, Lilliput is in a three. You haven't even seen this Arlen. It's in a three-story venue. We outgrew Vegas. It's a three-story venue in Nashville full of people who spend two days setting goals, stepping outside of the chaos of their life and getting a clear roadmap of what's important and, more importantly, more importantly, what are the actions I can take. These aren't someone else's goals. I'm not wishing that my son is better, or wishing that happens, or what can I do in my life to move toward things that truly matter. And that's exactly how it happens. You feel you go from a position of feeling powerless and overwhelmed to feeling empowered, Like these are the actions I could. Every day, I wake up with a note card that tells me three or more action steps I'm going to do towards towards my top seven goals, and I've done that since I've been, you know, in high school.
Speaker 2:I remember in high school, 11th grade, writing down being bored in school, writing down a goal to be debt-free and retired by the time I was 40. This is in 11th grade and the only reason I set that goal is because I saw the stress of money on my family and my dad and I didn't see my dad. He worked two and three jobs to provide for four kids. So I'm like I remember 11th grade going. Whatever this money thing is, I want to have it under control because I want to be there for my kids and even when I was working I was working three days a week. Toward the end of my, when I retired at 42, the last three years I was working two days a month.
Speaker 2:Because this balancing isn't just something we write about, this was something I was living my whole life. I wanted to make sure my wife felt loved and listened to and safe and connected. I wanted to make sure I knew my kids. We'd go to the Minnesota Lake all summer because if there's something going on with my kids, you pull them out of their friend circle for a summer. They have summer friends up at the lake and you hang with them 24, seven for three months. You know what's going on in their life and that's to me as important as the millions of dollars or the cool things, the cool experiences in life.
Speaker 1:Now you also are involved with a company that produces supplements. I happen to know because my wife takes rest. That's the sleeping thing Super popular, yeah, super popular. My wife's one of those people who can get by on four hours of sleep a night and be a CEO during the daytime, but she sometimes has trouble because she takes all of her thoughts to bed, and so she started Rest. I think you gave her some here about a year or two ago, and so whenever we go someplace, she wants to make sure that the bottle of Rest is in the suitcase. Tell us a little bit about this company.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So this whole journey, this is why I think sometimes you have to submit to life and just follow it. You know, rather than I would have never pictured me writing a book, I would have never pictured me speaking on a stage, I never pictured me having a nutrition line. So what happened was is at this event, ula Palooza, which is that two-day goal-setting event. At this event, ulapalooza, which is that two-day goal-setting event, we get people from all walks of life professional athletes, ceos, to people who earn scholarships to go because they can't afford a ticket. So it's all walks of life.
Speaker 2:And there was a guy in the audience, ceo of a couple of big companies. He took two companies to over a billion dollars a year. That's a big company One from 189 million to over 2 billion and was recruited to another company. He took from 800 million to 1.1 billion. And we just became friends. He came to the events and he hired us to speak at some of his companies he's worked for.
Speaker 2:And he reached out one day because he just loved the mission of ULA, what Dave and I were doing out there, and he said hey, we have a hashtag we use, called hashtag 1B7. What that means is to have a positive impact on one of every seven people. There's seven billion people, so one of every seven people in the next seven years. So that is, we're going to have an impact on a billion people over seven years with ULA. So they hear the word. So what that means to us, we're goal setters. So if we go to Dubai and we go to a shisha tea shop, coffee shop, we go who's heard of ULA? One in seven people raise their hand. You go to Sydney, australia, one in seven people raise their hand. Like we have enough awareness that people know this is available. Back, kind of like the chiropractic thing. This is available If you're not happy with how your life is. Here's a roadmap where you can take it elsewhere.
Speaker 2:He said if you guys are serious, if that's just not a hashtag like a marketing thing and you're serious about this, you have to drop this into a bigger company. And so he dropped it into an omni-channel nutrition company. Usana is a company. They're world authorities in cellular nutrition. They have more nutrition with any Olympians than any other company, the highest standards. They've been doing this for 30 years. They do a billion dollars a year in cellular nutrition. And he said, hey, let's, they love what we're about ULA, and they said let's partner and let's make a nutrition line. You guys have the lifestyle and the programs to help people live a balanced life. Why don't we create some products that you guys agree with would help them live that life, and good night's sleep is one of them, right, self-care. So they they were their science. They have 137 scientists um, it's a global company and they formulated products that are totally proprietary specifically for ula.
Speaker 2:In places we see problems like dave and I on the road, like not getting enough rest. Just micronutrition, nootropics and adaptogens is a big one. Um, right now they're branching into women's health with hormone management. We have a new product that just launched, going crazy, called Balance for Her. It's a liposomal gel. So to have again. How did? How did I get in Dubai? How did I get? You know, how do we write a book and how do we end up with a nutrition company? That's why that faith thing matters is like if you've just pursued I even tell my wife, like that thing, you're in here, just kind of keep pulling that string and see where it leads and that partnership has been incredible.
Speaker 1:Well, you mentioned just in passing the other night we were talking and you said that you're going to a conference and everybody in this conference refresh my memory has to be making over $100 million a year. Is that correct? I think it's one, 20.
Speaker 2:So this is. This is totally unrelated to anything we're talking about. Yes, but we were invited to come. It's actually in less than two weeks. I'm down.
Speaker 2:F one is in Vegas this year that's why the bus is there right now and there's a organization of professionals and they're all under 40. There's 250 flying in from around the world and they have certain criteria. They have to be, to be in this organization, and I think their company has to do huge numbers. I can't remember. They have to have a certain number of employees, a certain number of millions, and it was tens, if not a hundred million. And they want us to come to encourage these people to dream, write it down, tear it up and dream bigger. That's the part of our story. Now you think of that like we're going to go see the Zuckerberg car, this autonomous, we're going to do some, the tunnel they're building from Vegas to LA, because these are big thinkers.
Speaker 2:And this is where chiropractic if I can push back and challenge my fellow colleagues is. We think small, we think way too small and it's like oh, I want to see 100 patients a week or I want to collect X. I talk to so many people because I've got into the coaching piece of this too. I get some high-level clients and people dream too small, way too small and to expand what's possible. These are just human beings. Chiropractors are smart and chiropractors are entrepreneurial and chiropractors are resourceful, but they're way too limited this is a generalization but way too limited in their beliefs and their scope and their reach. And most people go into chiropractic because they want to help people. There's multiple ways to help people, but I'm excited to go speak to this group.
Speaker 2:Last week, we got to speak to the NFL Hall of Famers. That was a good group too, because it was just those are my legends. John Randall was there. I played golf with John Randall. So, like these, you know the NFL community we're in too. But I'm super excited about this group because these people are way younger than me and they have huge vision and huge ambition.
Speaker 2:That's why, arlen, I love hanging with you. No, this is I'm not even joking Like, I am so sincere to this. I talk to my wife about it all the time. I love hanging with you and Judy because you're not 25, and you could be doing anything you want to be doing Right now. It is Thursday afternoon. You could be playing pickleball, you could be playing golf, you could be doing anything you want to do, and you're here pouring into people. That's purpose, that's meaning, that's a reason to wake up. And if you're out there listening and you're not feeling that, you're either doing it wrong or in the wrong thing, or you need to spice it up, because there should be something that pulls you out of bed and keeps you up at night, like Judy, because that is how we make impact, and I've always thought that this field is underperforming in our ability to come together as a community and have a major impact.
Speaker 1:Well, there's one word that chiropractors don't know, or they don't know how to use, and that is collaboration. They don't know that word, and somebody asked me one time how come you've been so successful in knowing people? I said because I collaborate with them. I give them credit for what they know and what they do. And knowing people, I said because I collaborate with them, I give them credit for what they know and what they do.
Speaker 1:I interviewed a college president today that's way far ahead of a bunch of other college presidents, because I wanted the other ones to hear it. And so you're spot on. And that is finding out what people's you know, what their true goals are, what makes them happy. Yeah, probably buying a ULA book would be a good start. And, by the way, I remember back in Las Vegas it was a Parker seminar. You had a booth next to ours and this was brand new. You just started and you couldn't give them away. And today it's a multi-million dollar business and a multi-million dollar company. So sometimes, like you said, you may be in the wrong profession or the wrong place for your dream. So look around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's interesting and things happen for a reason. I remember you go to what you know. So I remember when we wrote our book. That was like literally a week or two after that book came out. We were so excited and we thought, okay, how do we get this book in people's hands? And we're like, oh, let's go to a chiropractic. Because we're chiropractors. We literally I felt like the person trying to sell AT&T at Costco, you know, like they're not making eye contact. I'm like, no, I couldn't. I literally couldn't hand books to people. And and actually the beautiful thing about that moment is it forced us to think bigger. It forced us to look outside.
Speaker 2:This is a 70,000-person community in a 7, 8 billion population world. Amen, and that's why it is the best, even for me, like this whole group we're speaking to. Next Group is not the NFL Hall of Fame, it's a totally different group. I'm always about just throwing things out there. So, as a chiropractor, as this community, it's good. We're entrepreneurial. I think that's great. But there's that old African proverb that says, if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together. Like if we can come together at any level and just even on commonalities, and start reaching outside this little tiny circle we call our chiropractic community. There's huge opportunity for personal growth and for ability to have impact on other people.
Speaker 1:You know you said you can get there fast going alone, but if you're going to go long-term, you go with a good group. We just dedicated the Four Science Center at Logan University here just in September and I looked out in the crowd. There were about 170 people there and I saw my old Activator team members and that's when I got up to speak and I said you know this is named for but it really should be called all of the people sitting in the rows out there, because each one of them had a part to play. I just happened to have the name on it. But it's all dedicated to those people because they were the ones that put 40 years of work into something they really believed in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's incredible legacy. And I to this day, even today, I still get messages on social media of, hey, I lost a hundred pounds, thank you. Hey, my husband and I, we put together our marriage, thank you. I met you at a gas station in Kentucky, at one in the morning two years ago and now I've paid off my college loans. Like, the funny thing is, I've done nothing, I have done zero. They did all the work.
Speaker 2:So the reality is, you know, you've led this, but it takes a community of people to create a movement and you've done that. I'm most in awe of your ambition and in your dedication to this, because missions, when people are in business and it appears transactional, it's a big read, it's a big turnoff to me, right? But when people, I see you when the mics aren't on, I see you at your house, I see how you interact with your wife and your team and just good human and good human who really wants to make a difference in the world. And that's when you get older you start thinking about legacy and you start thinking about when you're young you're like I've got to make some money to pay my loans and do this, but when you've done it, I always think of it like I spent the first half of my life trying to make a living and now I'm spending the second half trying to make a difference.
Speaker 1:Well, and the other thing is I told somebody during that dedication to that building and they said why are you so happy? And I said well, you know, most buildings are named after dead people. And so here I am. I'm able to be here and try. I've had more fun giving money away than I did making money.
Speaker 2:It's the best thing you can do with it. Honestly, it's the best. This is what's so ironic and I don't know this podcast is going sideways, but I went through the whole materialistic thing right In my own evolution as a human being. My last house at one time I had eight houses and the one I lived in mostly had an eight-car garage. You haven't been to my new house yet. I could barely get my wife's car and my car in the garage without dinging her door and it's 1700 square feet and we got rid of everything. Talk about giving things. We had. Four of those garage were just full of stuff like old Christmas or stuff you just did talk about distractions and busyness.
Speaker 2:We've taken this minimalist view and I'm not even calling it minimalist because we have nice things, but I'm going to call it an intentionalist view. I'm super intentional with what I have around me materially and if it has a function, if it brings joy, I'll go all Marie Kondo on it and say, okay, and that's been freeing, because it's just, it really doesn't matter at some, at some level, you start managing your stuff and that that is where I am in my evolution Like giving it away. It feels amazing and it's not just benefit If I have something in my garage that hasn't seen the light of day for three years and there's some other human being out there that could get benefit from it in their own life, because they need, whatever it is tools or a vacuum or whatever an old backyard thing and they're grateful for it. And that's how we can again thinking as a community of people. That's how we all win.
Speaker 1:Somebody asked Judy one day how do you keep people? You know, you saw Gertrude today when we walked by. He said how long have you worked here? And she said 12 years. And we went through people that have been over 10 years in this operation. And the reason is today we brought in a bunch of purses that she hadn't used for years and gave them to the ladies in here. They were thrilled because they thought, man, this is really cool, but she takes care of her people.
Speaker 2:Well, and I will go the next step, because I got a tour of this great facility and they may like the purse, but I guarantee you like the person, they like the people, because you make eye contact with every single person here and I don't know, I don't know. As I went around here I met a bunch of people. I don't know who's running it and who's at the most entry-level job, because you treated everyone exactly the same. And that may be a mid—we're both from Minnesota. That may be a Minnesota nice Midwest value from the 70s. I'm just telling you that that is why companies succeed is they have a sincere I can feel it, you can feel it. They can feel it when you sincerely care about someone or you see them as a commodity that can be replaced and that's just. Loyalty is becoming rare.
Speaker 1:We could go on all day with this. What's the future for ULA? What's your big plan right now?
Speaker 2:That's kind of like the saying that when man plans, God laughs. Yes, Because if I would have guessed any of the things we talked about today as I sat in chiropractic college in 1988 and contemplated where I would be, I wouldn't have any idea. My journey is just going to be pour into people. I want to redefine success. I want us to exit the cultural narrative of money and career is everything. It's important, but it's not everything. A full rich life is a balanced life, full of rich relationships. Personal health meaning not just physical health but mental health, Having joy, boldly speaking about faith, where people understand that that's important because it's getting pushed to the side.
Speaker 1:Amen.
Speaker 2:Having joy in every day, not wait till you're 65 and buy a watch and take a cruise. I mean having joy in every moment, really encouraging people and challenge people to become better humans. Because, as each human I meet, if I challenge them to tear it up and dream bigger, not only do they become better, but they become better. Their family picks up on that and they are inspired to become better in their community and the world. And on our bus it says change the world with a word. I truly believe that. I truly believe if one in seven people on this planet understand what the word ULA is and there is a way to live differently, that we will have an impact. And that's my goal.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us today. Troy, you know, not only being a neighbor but a friend, I really appreciate it and go out and buy an ULA book O-O-L-A if you haven't got one. It's where you start and you start with a book and then the rest of it you can play by ear, but start there.
Speaker 2:Yeah and Jay, I would love to connect with you on social media. My personal social media is at Oolaguru and that's kind of tongue-in-cheek, but it's O-O-L-A-G-U-R-U. Or you can go to oolalifecom and let's connect.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
